the secret joys of a scholar: a tribute to rudolf g. wagner egas moniz bandeira пολλῷ τὸ φρονεῖν εὐδαιμονίας πρῶτον ὑπάρχει. (“wisdom is, by far, the supreme part of happiness.” sophocles, antigone, 1348–49) when i was a bookish fourteen-year-old schoolboy writing an extracurricular essay about chinese history, i decided to go to the nearest institute of sinology to learn more about china, and so i knocked on rudolf wagner’s door asking for advice. wagner’s reaction was atypical—or at least unexpected—for a distinguished herr professor: he not only received me for a long audience, but also showed me around his beloved library, which i began to assiduously use over the next years—and, as a matter of fact, decades, up to this day. he treated me in nearly the same fashion as he would have treated any academic: he was utterly generous, but at the same time demanding, and sincere with his opinions. both then and more recently, when he became my second phd supervisor in heidelberg, he would nearly always welcome me—as all his other students—into his office for long academic conversations, out of which one would always come with many new ideas and pages full of annotations. his office, crammed with books and papers, and his ardour when speaking about his research, conformed in the most positive way to the hoary image of the scholar who thrives through, and lives for, the acquisition of knowledge. one of the most characteristic of the many reminiscences i have of rudolf wagner is of my undergraduate years, when i was waiting, together with some classmates, for an undergraduate class that should have taken place in the room where rudolf wagner was teaching a seminar. fifteen minutes after the scheduled end of his class, wagner came out, was surprised to see us waiting there, and asked us what time it was—he simply had forgotten the time over his teaching the history of the chinese language. even when his health was declining, he insisted on delivering an hour-long lecture on the one-hundredth anniversary of the may fourth movement in the midst of a heatwave—temperatures of about 39° c were close to the hottest ever recorded in heidelberg—in a packed room without air-conditioning, and he did so with a well-nigh child-like enthusiasm for the object of his study. 8 the secret joys of a scholar: a tribute to rudolf g. wagner as a matter of fact, rudolf wagner oozed a rarefied form of classical gelehrtentum (scholarliness). he remained an academic generalist throughout his life, contributing to the study of early taoism and buddhism as well as to modern and even contemporary china. more than by a limited interest for a specific topic, he was driven by passion for understanding as such. as he used to say, he could as well have become a graecist or a sanskritist, but it was with chinese studies that he found the most challenging and promising field of studies for himself. his breadth of interests might seem like a curious “intellectual eclecticism” in today’s age of specialisation, but the accompanying wide range of knowledge meant that he could enrich any academic debate related to the study of east asia and beyond. such debates he enriched with uncompromising and unapologetic sincerity, which certainly earned him a fair amount of grudges, especially when he raised the question “does this make sense?” about others’ work and answered it in the negative. living in a world of learning, professor wagner expected from his students the same level of devotion to it as he had himself. if a student sat tacitly in an academic reading or discussion group, he would approach them after the session and encourage them to partake in it: “and you, young man [or young woman], should speak more next time.” his zeal, as was natural for a restless professor, never diminished even after his retirement: he would still come to his office, work energetically, care about his students by sending them e-mails containing information with things he deemed useful for them, and share his excitement about his new findings in the corridors or the kitchen of the institute. it is not empty lip-service when i write that rudolf wagner was one of the most inspiring intellectuals whom i have ever had the pleasure to know. in 2017, i had pre-circulated a paper for a workshop in hong kong. i had not cited wagner in the paper, and although i sent it to him when it was finished, i had not discussed it with him beforehand. nonetheless, one of the participants of the workshop, a scholar from peking university, approached me and asked me whether i was a student of wagner’s, for my paper “felt so wagnerian.” i reckon that on that occasion, even more than his direct influence, my paper had soaked up a general wagnerian geist present among sinologists in heidelberg. at any rate, rudolf wagner will continue to live on, both in his works and in the spirit of his many academic descendants. 1 transcultural studies 2011. 1 2011. 1 editor’s note monica juneja .02 articles rudolf g. wagner china “asleep” and “awakening.” a study in conceptualizing asymmetry and coping with it. .04 series on multi-centred modernisms: hiroyuki suzuki the buddha of kamakura and the “modernization” of buddhist statuary in the meiji period .140 translation: atsushi shibasaki tomonaga sanjuro’s epistemology of international relations: the “self-state-international relations” proto-paradigm in modern japan. translated by gaynor sekimori .159 themed section: byzantium beyond its eastern borders christine stephan-kaissis byzantium beyond its eastern borders. an introduction. .188 stefan faller the world according to cosmas indicopleustes – concepts and illustrations of an alexandrian merchant and monk. .193 zsuzsanna gulácsi searching for mani’s picture-book in textual and pictorial sources. .233 claudia wenzel the image of the buddha: buddha icons and aniconic traditions in india and china. .263 307 transcultural studies 2011.1 transcultural studies, no 1, 2011, issn: 2191-6411 editor: rudolf g. wagner, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg managing editor: andrea hacker editorial board: christiane brosius, harald fuess, madeleine herren, monica juneja, birgit kellner, joachim kurtz, axel michaels, and roland wenzlhuemer. transcultural studies is an open-access e-journal published bi-annually by the cluster of excellence, “asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows“ at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. for more information see: www.transculturalstudies.org contributors to this issue: rudolf g. wagner is co-director of the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows” at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. he is a sinologist whose research focuses on chinese intellectual history with a strong focus on transcultural conceptual interaction. hiroyuki suzuki is professor of art history at tokyo gakugei university. his research interests in the history of japanese art span medieval ink painting, the history of art institutions, nineteenth century exhibition strategies, and art historiography and theories. atushi shibasaki is lecturer of international relations in the at tokyo’s komazawa university. his research focuses on issues of international relations and international cultural relations. gaynor sekimori is a research associate in the centre for the study of japanese religions at the school of oriental and african studies, university of london, and concurrently visiting professor at kokugakuin university, tokyo. her research focuses on japanese religious history. christine stephan-kaissis is lecturer at the department of byzantine archaeology and art history at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. she specializes in byzantine visual theory and art history with a focus on byzantine transcultural interaction. stefan alfred faller is lecturer in the department of classical philology at the albertludwigs-universität freiburg. his research interests include tragedies in the roman republic, quintus ennius, and the comedies of plautus. zsuzsanna gulácsi is professor of art history and religious studies in the asian studies program at northern arizona university, flagstaff. she specializes in asian art history, buddhist and islamic art, and illuminated manuscripts. claudia wenzel is research associate at the research project “buddhist rock scriptures in northern china” in heidelberg academy of sciences. she researches visual practices, image theory and image cult in chinese buddhism. editor’s note | transcultural studies editor’s note transcultural exchanges are a constituent element of any culture. while such exchanges have dramatically increased in volume, speed, and diversity over the last two hundred years, cultures have, from the earliest times, continuously enriched themselves and others through these exchanges. the transcultural perspective is therefore not tied to the present or the recent past. an overemphasis on nation-state borders and media differentiation has marginalized these exchanges in the humanities and social sciences everywhere. an increasing number of scholars, however, have come to realize that the nation-state ”default mode” and its retroactive imposition on earlier history has little support in the sources, processes, relations and objects they study. transcultural studies has been set up by the university of heidelberg cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows” to provide a platform for contributions from such scholars. as an e-journal, transcultural studies allows contributors to make full use of the internet’s publishing options by offering the possibility of supplementing their work with images, video, sound, and links. we invite you to peruse the journal, join the conversation, and contribute your research, critiques, and suggestions. our first issue opens with arjun appadurai’s essay on “the circulation of forms and the forms of circulation,” which is based on a talk he gave at the official opening of the cluster. in it, he explores the uneasy interaction between the different facets of globalization–from currency markets to drug smuggling rings, from the spread of the notion of human rights to the empowerment of marginal groups to impose their will on majorities. he calls for a methodology that facilitates the study and conceptualization of the dynamic tensions and interactions between the different sectors (“scapes”), as well as the forces and locations (“local” or “global”) involved, instead of burying them in diffuse categories such as “hybridity.” in his meticulous study of a concept’s transcultural development, douglas howland traces the way in which the concept of neutrality in international law gradually gelled into a generally accepted legal norm during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. this process, he argues, was driven by actual conflicts in europe (german-french war) and east asia (french and japanese wars with china), and the resulting term “neutrality” came to circumscribe a state’s attitude towards an inter-state conflict in which it was not directly involved. diplomats and jurists had to define their understanding of “neutrality”, while new players such as japan and china needed to be heard and have their stance respected by other powers. while we have some studies on the migration of concepts to other languages and cultures, this article is a pioneering effort to study the formation of a global legal category in a wider transcultural process. gennifer weisenfeld’s contribution is the first in a series called “multi-centred modernisms—reconfiguring asian art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,” introduced by monica juneja, the cluster’s professor of global art history. weisenfeld joins the conversation with appadurai from a different angle by exploring the artistic and political tensions between the projections of a japanese modernity anchored in the “tradition” of edo urban entertainment as an essentialized marker and one that emphasizes a break from tradition and diversity. these differences can be observed globally in the presentations of japanese art at the venice biennales and other contemporary art exhibitions, where institutional actors come into prominence–the curators, whose problematic role in setting international standards have been highlighted by john clark. in the second contribution to the series on multi-centered modernisms james elkins tests the plausibility of clark’s efforts to overcome the college-book master-narrative, which firmly situates the coming of “modernity” in painting in europe (including russia) and north america. while remaining sympathetic to the motive of overcoming the evident eurocentrism of most studies following this narrative, elkins questions whether it is possible and meaningful to write a history of modernity in painting (or, one might add, in fiction) that would include  twentieth century painters in, for example, panama, australia, czechoslovakia, slovenia, austria and japan. he explores the viability of different analytical frames such as “ethnic,” “national,” or “authentication” versus “origination,” in view of the overwhelming evidence for the exposure of artists from the “periphery” of the master narrative to works by artists inhabiting its “center.” the title of his last section, “just give up”, warns the reader that no easy solution is in sight and that perhaps the initial question of how a proper “master narrative” might look had been wrong. this issue is a good beginning. we hope that you find reading it useful and that you will join the endeavor by subscribing, by recommending it to other scholars, and by contributing your own research. for the editorial board, rudolf g. wagner editor's note | transcultural studies editor's note the good news is that transcultural studies is doing well, finding its readers, authors, and critics. the other news is: it is hard work. issue 2/2011 features studies on the ambivalent role that plaster casts of oriental monuments played in western museums to document imperial control, highlight the respect for other cultures, inform the foreign public, and provide scholars with hands-on objects to study and even to experiment with (falser); on the process and agents through which speakers of tibetan and korean developed their knowledge of each other in the contact zone that was the chinese capital in pre-modern times (tikhonov), and a new contribution to the series on “multi-centred modernisms” that investigates the process, agents, and institutions that devised “modern chinese art” as a globally recognized frame for a relatively consistent group of artists (koch). this issue also features the first of two themed sections with studies on the dynamics of “trends”. the contributions to this section show that trends spread with a high formal similarity while being inserted into often utterly different cultural, political, or scholarly environments that substantially changed their meaning. themes range from the ways in which anime films deal with their own transculturality (annett) to the adoption of maoist policies, slogans, and imagery among west german leftists (gehrig), to the ways in which young urbanites in nanjing reenacted the romantic encounter depicted in a taiwanese on-line novel in locations and through the consumption that mirrored that of the novel’s protagonists (henningsen). themed sections, such as the current one, allow scholars who have previously collaborated to publish their results in a manner retaining their cohesion. at the same time, we start to see the linkages between seemingly widely divergent topics. the german avant-garde artists with their "maoist" sympathies in gehrig's paper take up features of cultural revolution art, which eventually turn the ironical treatment of this art by chinese artists after 1977–as treated in koch's paper–into an internationally recognizable language. we are pleased that many of the articles are by junior scholars. for some it is their first publication. a transcultural approach will only be able to show its merits and test its mettle if young scholars take it up. we are also pleased that ts is gradually establishing itself as a publication venue that attracts interest from all over the world. but we also realize what is still ahead of us. we would like to draw in more contributions from asian scholars; more contributions dealing with the dynamics of transcultural interaction particularly in the pre-modern and ancient world as well as in the time before writing was developed; and contributions on topics like law, economy, and society that are approaching their subject with a transculturally informed social science methodology. the vast field of the particular methodologies required for transcultural studies needs to be further explored. these methodologies have to be able to confront the messiness and often shoddy documentation of transcultural interactions while focusing on the problems and issues involved rather than defining them along medial, language, national, or disciplinary borders. at the same time they have to live up to rigorous scholarly scrutiny. how does one prove the impact of a taiwanese on-line novel (as in the study by lena henningsen) on the life-style of young urbanites in the people’s republic of china? how does one document the formation of the notion of a “modern chinese art” as a viable pedestal for exhibitions, museums, commercial galleries, and scholarly work (as in franziska koch’s article)? how can a single young scholar produce an integrated study about the international perceptions of the chinese cultural revolution; how they are linked with local political articulations outside china in environments as diverse as yugoslavia, the us, france, and germany; the constant interactions between these localized perceptions to form international trends on the level of form rather than of substance, and the involvement on both the local and international level of artists, writers, students, military men and strategists, dissidents, and journalists (as in the case of  sebastian gehrig’s study)? at the center of these questions lies the burden of proof. for the study of transcultural interactions it will not do to simply add up established burdens of proof as they are practiced in, say, media-, language-, or territorially fixed disciplines. this would only result in some “hyper-burden of proof” that would be disconnected from the problem under consideration and lead to the double impasse of unfeasibility of the research and easy dismissal of the results. at the same time, the danger of connecting anecdotal tidbits into some grand proposition that does not aim at falsifiability is very real, as is the danger of superimposing some grand theoretical proposition over a specific set of data without allowing the results of the study to respond to this imposition. we have to explore the potential of an on-line publication for transcultural studies and encourage our contributors to make the best use of it. transcultural interaction does not abide by an orderly confinement to nicely circumscribed channels. it is systematically underreported in nearly all texts and archives, as well as classification and tagging schemes for texts, sounds, and images. consequently, the importance of indirect evidence is heightened. the mutually supportive weight of pieces of evidence in different media that are too weak on their own to sustain an argument but together make it plausible enough to open the path to more systematic searches calls for a type of research and documentation that makes fullest possible use of the digital presentation of the evidence. this is what an e-journal can and should do. a glance through this issue shows that making use of this option is a learning process, and that both our authors and the team that is in charge of the journal have still some way to go. rudolf g. wagner erinnerungen an einen, der auszog, das große zu wagen: nachruf auf rudolf wagner (3. november 1941 –25. oktober 2019) axel michaels am 25. oktober 2019 verstarb rudolf wagner, der mitherausgeber dieses journals, nach langer, schwerer krankheit. das von ihm mitbegründete und in diesem jahr eröffnete centrum für asienwissenschaften und transkulturelle studien (cats) der universität heidelberg trauert um einen seiner profiliertesten vertreter. ich kannte rudolf vor allem aus den gründerzeiten des vorgängerprojektes, des exzellenzclusters „asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows“. die universität heidelberg, vornehmlich die philosophische fakultät, war 2006 in der ersten antragsrunde der exzellenzinitiative mit einem anders ausgerichteten vorantrag gescheitert. als dies in einer sitzung des faakultätsrats verkündet wurde, waren alle wie in schockstarre. wenig später traf ich rudolf zufällig auf der hauptstraße in heidelberg und sagte: „herr wagner (damals siezten wir uns noch), es kann doch nicht sein, dass die universität heidelberg bei einem wettbewerb, in dem es um exzellenz der wissenschaft geht, nicht mehr mitmacht.“ rudolf teilte diese ansicht, und in den nächsten tagen trafen wir uns zu einem vorgespräch, er brachte die historikerin madeleine herren-oesch ins spiel – und so war eine kerngruppe geboren, die sich an die arbeit machte, mit vielen anderen einen zweiten, dann erfolgreichen antrag zu schreiben, teilweise mit telefonaten, bei denen rudolf in boston, madeleine in zürich und ich in delhi saßen. das „cluster“, wie es fortan nur noch hieß, wobei man bis zum schluss nicht einig war, ob es den männlichen oder sächlichen artikel verdiente, war geschaffen. es prägte und belebte fortan die kulturwissenschaftlichen diskussionen in heidelberg in einer einmaligen weise, vor allem aber dadurch, dass die asienwissenschaften aus ihrer im 19. jahrhundert geschaffenen nische heraus und in die arena der kulturund sozialwissenschaftlichen debatten trat. hierbei war rudolf unvergesslich, oft der spiritus rector, der in seiner eigenen art gespräche und diskussionen zuspitzte. er brachte die später 5the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) verworfene, aber dennoch einflussreiche und – wie ich meine – für den erfolg des clusters letztlich entscheidende idee der asymmetrie ein. denn er war bei aller liebe für das schöne und gute und köstliche letztlich ein politischer denker, der in großen räumen dachte und wusste, dass die vielen wirtschaftlichen ungleichheiten in vergangenheit und gegenwart zu kulturellen und sozialen bewegungen geführt haben, die uns nach wie vor beschäftigen und vor große aufgaben stellen. jeder, der rudolf kannte, weiß, wie scharfsinnig er bei diesen intellektuellen auseinandersetzungen war. er suchte den gegner, dem er in schneller redeweise und in perfektem englisch argumente zuwerfen konnte, oft in ironischer oder humorvoller form. das ging wie bei squash, das er bis zuletzt liebte und spielte, zack-zack und „as a matter of fact“ – eine von ihm häufig verwendete redewendung, die er mehrere mal in einem satz unterbringen konnte. mit seiner frau catherine yeh hatte er eine ebenbürtige partnerin gefunden, die ihn wie das cluster beständig stimulierte. unvergesslich auch seine bullet points zu bestimmten themen, die er gerne in der nacht vor einem treffen verschickte. gewiss, er konnte dabei auch manchmal übers ziel schießen und verletzend sein. wenn er so über den einen kollegen oder die andere kollegin herzog, dachte ich unweigerlich, ob er das wohl auch mit mir machte. er tat es, aber es ging ihm dabei nicht um die person, sondern um das intellektuelle ringen, bis alle ermüdet waren. und doch war er nicht dogmatisch. wenn man seinen gewandten redefluss höflich unterbrach, hörte er ruckartig mitten im satz auf und hörte mit offenen ohren und wachen augen zu. denn jeden zunächst ernst zu nehmen und respektvoll zu behandeln, war ihm wichtig. wie oft saß er mit studierenden oder doktoranden in der cafeteria des karl jasper centrums, der heimat des clusters, und hörte sich an, was diese zu sagen hatten. fast immer erhielten sie danach eine e-mail mit zusätzlichen kommentaren oder literaturhinweisen. einmal, noch ganz am anfang unser zusammenarbeit, schrieb er in einer e-mail an madeleine und mich „rules of engangement“ auf, auch hier in einem von ihm favorisierten dreischritt: 1. argumente konkret und sachlich belegen; 2. einigkeit herstellen, was als argument gelten kann (hierbei ging es ihm darum, dass er allein wissenschaftliche argumente, nicht aber taktische überlegungen gelten lassen wollte: „ich bin mir völlig bewusst, dass menschliche faktoren eine rolle bei erfolg oder nichterfolg spielen, meine jedoch, dass wir an der fiktion festhalten müssen, dass dem nicht so sei.“); 3. procedere des abschlusses fixieren: „um die einheitlichkeit eines solchen antrags zu gewährleisten, wird man nicht umhinkönnen, nachdem alle ihre sache getan und ihre texte 6 obituary for rudolf wagner (november 3, 1941–october 25, 2019) abgeliefert haben, jemanden mit diktatorischen vollmachten auszustatten, um das ganze zu überarbeiten und zu homogenisieren.“ es versteht sich, dass er diese diktatorischen vollmachten beanspruchte (wenn auch nicht bekam). trotz aller kritik blieb rudolf immer optimistisch. am vorabend der verkündigung des ergebnisses der exzellenzinitiative saßen madeleine, catherine, rudolf und ich in seinem haus in ziegelhausen und bereiteten mit einem schönen abendlichen blick auf den neckar eine presseerklärung für den nächsten tag vor. während ich fest überzeugt war, dass wir nicht erfolgreich sein würden, waren rudolf und madeleine zuversichtlich. am ende schrieben wir zwei versionen. seine intellektuelle rigorosität und unbestechlichkeit setzte rudolf auch in dem peer-reviewed open-access the journal of transcultural studies um. es wurde zu seinem lieblingskind im cluster, in dem er höchste theoretische und philologische qualitätsmaßstäbe mit der seinerzeit noch relativen neuen idee eines online-journals verband und alle beiträge selbst kritisch las. dabei ging es ihm vor allem darum, kulturen nicht mehr als abgegrenzte entitäten zu sehen, sondern sie immer – gewissermaßen als default mode – als porös, beeinflusst und instabil, eben als transkulturell, zu betrachten. der erfolg dieses journals gab ihm recht. so also war er, der rudolf, jedenfalls meiner erinnerung nach. er hat groß gedacht, großes gewagt und alle in seinen bann gezogen. wir verdanken ihm diese weitsicht. wir werden ihn sehr vermissen. wir werden ihn erinnern und von seiner größe in zukünftigen herausforderungen getragen wissen. t h e j o u r n a l o f 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) heidelberg university publishing transcultural s t u d i e s 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) t h e j o u r n a l o f transcultural s t u d i e s editorial note monica juneja vi how we work together: ethics, histories, and epistemologies of artistic collaboration franziska koch transculturation and contemporary artistic collaboration: pushing the boundaries of histories, epistemologies, and ethics 1 katia olalde stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs 19 haema sivanesan “unsettling” the picturing of the canadian old-growth forest: consent, consultation, and (re)conciliation in leila sujir’s forest! 46 theresa deichert contested sites, contested bodies: post-3.11 collaborations, agency, and metabolic ecologies in japanese art 77 shao-lan hertel deterritorializing chinese calligraphy: wang dongling and martin wehmer’s visual dialogue (2010) 113 paul gladston roci china and the prospects of “post-west” contemporaneity 150 iiithe journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) guest editor franziska koch, global art history editors monica juneja, global art history joachim kurtz, intellectual history diamantis panagiotopoulos, classical archaeology michael radich, buddhist studies rudolf g. wagner†, chinese studies managing editor sophie florence editorial board christiane brosius, antje fluechter, madeleine herren, birgit kellner, axel michaels, barbara mittler, vladimir tikhonov, and roland wenzlhuemer editorial assistants kush depala, hajra haider, anja lind, mhairi montgomery, and alexandra valdez the journal of transcultural studies is edited at the heidelberg centre for transcultural studies (hcts) and published by heidelberg university publishing. the journal is freely available at http://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/ (open access). issn: 2191-6411 iv contributors contributors to this issue franziska koch is assistant professor of global art history at heidelberg university. she is currently working on her habilitation project “the artist works (trans-)culturally: nam june paik and other fluxus artists negotiating collaborative authorship.” she is co-editor of negotiating difference: contemporary chinese art in the global context (weimar: vdg, 2012) and author of die “chinesische avantgarde” und das dispositiv der ausstellung: konstruktionen chinesischer gegenwartskunst im spannungsfeld der globalisierung (bielefeld: transcript, 2016). she jointly leads the heidelberg branch of the transatlantic platform project “worlding public cultures: the arts and social innovation” (2019–2022). her research interests include art histories and historiographies in transcultural perspective, contemporary artistic entanglements, exhibition studies, authorship and collaboration in the field of art, and transfer and translational processes between east asia, europe, and north america. katia olalde holds a ph.d. in art history and works as associate professor at the art history department of the universidad nacional autónoma de méxico, unam campus morelia. her research focuses on the role that artistic practices and forms of cultural activism play within actions of resistance, grieving processes, and shaping of dissident memories conducted by civil society groups in contexts of violence and impunity. her areas of interest include the sensorial and affective dimensions of political struggles, the interdependence between the exercise of citizenship and the public space, and the debates surrounding the transnational public sphere and global critical citizenship. haema sivanesan is a curator at the art gallery of greater victoria, british columbia. her curatorial work focuses on art from south and southeast asia and its diasporas, with an interest in non-western, post-colonial, and transnational histories, world views, and practices. recent exhibitions include imagining fusang: exploring chinese and indigenous encounters (2019), fiona tan: ascent (2019), and supernatural: art, technology and the forest (2018). in 2018, she was a recipient of a curatorial research fellowship (2018–2019) from the andy warhol foundation for the visual arts, new york; and in 2016, she was a recipient of a multi-year research and exhibition development grant from the robert h. n. ho family foundation, hong kong, for the project “in the present moment: buddhism, contemporary art and social practice” (forthcoming, 2023). theresa deichert is a ph.d. candidate in the graduate programme for transcultural studies at heidelberg university. her research investigates the vthe journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) collaborative strategies and practices of japanese artists who critically engage with the ecologies of the fukushima nuclear disaster. she holds a b.a. in cultural studies from jacobs university bremen and an m.a. in history of art from university college london, where she specialized in contemporary art and globalization. she has gained work experience at museums in the uk and germany. she recently concluded a two-year curatorial traineeship at the institut mathildenhöhe in darmstadt. shao-lan hertel received her doctorate in east asian art history from freie universität berlin (fub, 2017), and previously worked as assistant professor at the fub art history institute (2012–18). hertel’s research fields include chinese calligraphy and ink art, with a historical focus on the late imperial, modern, and contemporary periods, and a thematic interest in transcultural encounters. she completed a postdoctoral degree program at the academy of arts and design, tsinghua university, and was appointed postdoctoral assistant researcher at tsinghua university art museum (2018–20). she is a recipent of the j. s. lee memorial fellowship of the bei shan tang foundation, which she was awarded to realize an exhibition project. she is visiting professor of east asian art history at fub during the summer semester 2021. forthcoming publications include chapters in the volumes lost and found in translation: citation and early modern architecture, ed. andrew hopkins (cambridge: cambridge university press) and xianxiang [phenomena], ed. han bi (beijing: commercial press). paul gladston is the inaugural judith neilson professor of contemporary art, university of new south wales, sydney. he was previously professor of contemporary visual cultures and critical theory, university of nottingham, and inaugural head of the school of international communications and director of the institute of comparative cultural studies, university of nottingham ningbo. his recent publications include contemporary chinese art, aesthetic modernity and zhang peili: towards a critical contemporaneity (london: bloomsbury publishing, 2019), and contemporary chinese art: a critical history (london: reaktion books, 2014). gladston was an academic adviser to the exhibition “art of change: new directions from china,” hayward gallery-southbank centre, london (2012), and has co-curated several exhibitions. he is currently an inaugural co-editor of the book series contemporary east asian visual cultures, societies and politics (palgrave macmillan), and was inaugural principal editor of the journal of contemporary chinese art (2013–2017). gladston is a regular correspondent for the visual arts, culture, and politics journal, brooklyn rail. transcultural field notes sophie florence, ruprecht-karls universität, heidelberg during march of this year in aotearoa/new zealand, a white supremacist entered two places of peaceful worship and took the lives of fifty-one people. those in the mosques that day included both those who had recently chosen aotearoa as home, and those for whom it always had been.1 the terrorist left behind a manifesto, “the great replacement,” which listed a perceived global “invasion” of muslims and non-white immigrants among his motivations, thus revealing a deeply skewed misunderstanding of history and migration. aotearoa is, of course, a colonised country, and any “replacement” in aotearoa’s history would certainly not be a replacement of pākehā (non-māori new zealanders) by muslims. in fact, according to the federation of islamic associations of new zealand, the country’s national muslim organisation, muslim families began to settle in the country as early as 1769, and have thus been a valued part of the fabric of aotearoa for almost as long as the earliest british missionaries.2 while aotearoa was the chosen site for this attack and must claim responsibility for allowing such a vicious undercurrent of islamophobia to build unchecked, the inspiration behind this attack as well as the multitude of problems that it has revealed are global and need to be addressed as such. for instance, in his manifesto, the terrorist describes his radicalisation during his travels in europe, via engagement with identitarian movements in germany, austria, and france. one of the aims of this attack was to join the pantheon of alt-right “heroes,” and inspire others to commit similar acts of violence.3 indeed, the content of this manifesto is almost identical to those of others who have committed similar yet geographically distant racially based mass killings, such as that of the recent el paso shooter, and is expressed through a shared sceptical and cynical code of memes. the attack 1 megan specia, “the new zealand shooting victims spanned generations and nationalities,” new york times, march 19, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/world/asia/new-zealandshooting-victims-names.html. 2 eva nisa and faried f. saenong, “new zealand has been home to muslims for centuries and will remain so,” march 18, 2019, accessed june 12, 2019, https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/ new-zealand-has-been-home-muslims-centuries-and-will-remain-so. for the early history of aotearoa and its religious make-up, see geoff troughton, “missionaries, historians and the peace tradition in new zealand,” in te rongopai 1814, “takoto te pai!”: bicentenary reflections on christian beginnings and developments in aotearoa new zealand, ed. allan k. davidson, stuart lange, peter lineham, and adrienne puckey (auckland: general synod of the anglican church in aotearoa new zealand and polynesia, 2014), 228–245. 3 for this reason, he is not named in this piece, nor will i provide a link to the manifesto. 156 transcultural field notes 156 in aotearoa is, therefore, part of a disturbing and de-centred digital community of fascistically inspired violence. these extremist communities and their violent acts do not occur in a vacuum, in many ways they are reflective of the mainstream debate and the ways in which people speak about immigration and race. the discourse of replacement and invasion has clear reference to samuel huntington’s infamous and poorly researched clash of civilisations, which has recently been granted renewed support by the popular-culture philosopher slavoj žižek.4 through the reach of these works and the publication of misguided articles in popular newspapers, it becomes clear that even those who would not actively wish harm on immigrants or unfamiliar peoples engage in the same misreadings and misrememberings that inspire violent offenders, and thus allow such ideologies to thrive.5 this problem is particularly apparent in the marked global increase in populist governments, which are in many cases founded on a shared discourse of invasion and pitch to a public that is primed to believe it.6 we in transcultural studies have the power to change this discourse. those of us who have the great privilege of exploring the multiple worlds and unlikely connections that our reality has and continues to contain must accept the responsibility that comes with education, and shed the illusion that the change that we need is going to come of its own accord. undoubtedly, to change this discourse is a monumental task. however, as scholars we are able to see alternatives to what we have now, to other ways of being. those of us who work with historical material know the ways in which life and complex societies can prosper without the damaging consumption that is slowly burning our planet alive; we know that as difficult as it is to imagine life without outbursts of fascist violence, it was also once difficult to imagine life outside of the divine right of kings. we in transcultural studies are particularly well positioned to create meaningful change, as the complexities of human migration as revealed by transcultural studies directly impact and assist those whose lot places them at the mercy of 4 samuel p. huntington, the clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order (new york: simon and schuster, 1996); slavoj žižek refugees, terror and other troubles with the neighbors: against the double blackmail (new york: melville house, 2016), 107. according to žižek, “refugees come from a culture that is incompatible with western european notions of human rights.” 5 the trend of banal support for vicious ideology is of course well supported historically. for one instance, see hannah arendt, the origins of totalitarianism (boston: houghton mifflin harcourt, 1973). 6 sontag has demonstrated the ways in which members of the public interpret images of suffering according to the political positions of which they are part. susan sontag, “regarding the pain of others,” diogène 1 (2003): 127–139. 157the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 violence, aggressive diatribes, and hostile governments. the view of culture as unconfined to nationalist borders, art as collaboration, and knowledge as produced via a series of asymmetrical encounters, are all powerful antidotes to the misguided views pushed by the populist discourse. whereas the approaches characteristic of transcultural studies have been founded to question disciplinary boundaries within academia,7 we must also consider how we can effectively share this information with the public. as an initial step in this direction, we have formed a new student group: heidelberg talks. the main goal of heidelberg talks is to apply the theories and methods of transcultural studies in order to reduce the ignorance, fear, and racism caused by the resurgence of xenophobic misinformation and propaganda. thanks to generous funding from the studierendenrat der universität heidelberg (student council of the university of heidelberg), and support from the ma in transcultural studies fachschaft (mats student council), over the coming semester we will host a series of public talks in heidelberg. these monthly events will entail a guest lecture, followed by an informal and multilingual discussion session, facilitated by student volunteers, between members of the public and members of the groups under discussion. in these informal discussion sessions, we aim to shed classist expectations of politically correct language, and encourage participants to express and address their unaired fears before they can be exploited by hate-fuelled groups. we believe that this lecture series will simultaneously reduce the disconnect between the public and the university, and improve our own understanding of the concerns to which our discipline relates. in july, we hosted the first of these events, entitled “mediaevalismus und kultur: eine genealogie von thomas jefferson bis zur game of thrones generation” (medievalism and culture: a genealogy from thomas jefferson to the game of thrones generation). the myth of a historically white europe is one of the factors that has led to the wide-spread fear that current trends of migration will have a negative impact on so-called “european culture”; and versions of this fabricated history are re-produced and utilised by the extremist groups discussed above. in order to draw attention to this problem, we sought to capitalise on the cultural moment generated by the end of the popular television series game of thrones. our speaker, russell ó ríagáin, demonstrated the ways in which the image of a white middle ages has been created and supported through works of fantasy and their ideological contexts. the informal discussion that followed focused on the ways that these fantasies echo throughout our current political 7 monica juneja and christian kravagna, “understanding transculturalism,” in transcultural modernisms, ed. fahim amir et.al. (berlin: sternberg press, 2013): 25–26. 158 transcultural field notes discourse, and how this problem might be addressed through the broadening of our literary canons. we concluded with a discussion on how to repackage such information for popular culture. it is our intention to form a broad network of organisations with similar aims, and we are currently building associations with both discriminated groups and the organisations which aim to support them. for instance, we are collaborating with the dokumentationsund kulturzentrum deutscher sinti fig. 1: poster for the event “mediaevalismus und kultur,” july 19, 2019. design by wang fengyu, phd student east asian art history (copyright wang fengyu). 159the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 und roma (documentation and cultural centre of german sinti and roma) in heidelberg, and negotiating support from the deutscher akademischer austauschdienst (german academic exchange service, daad). ideally, we hope to establish a lasting structure for such outreach. our organisation also aims to support other student initiatives. for example, during october in heidelberg, one of our members, sharon chi, will host a panel on stereotypes and international students. using her own experience as an international student, sharon aims here to nurture a truthful dialogue between local and foreign students, in order for us all to examine our own internalised assumptions. we hope that these initiatives are just the beginning of outreach from transcultural studies, and that our predecessors and teachers will lend their authority to our attempts. out of respect to the families of those whose lives were lost in linwood and al noor mosques, we wish to seize the possibility to transition aroha (compassion) into committed action for a different future. our group is in its earliest stages, and we are still in need of volunteers. if you have ideas for topics or events, or wish to offer your time and expertise, please do not hesitate to contact us at heidelbergtalks@gmail.com. t h e j o u r n a l o f heidelberg university publishing transcultural s t u d i e s 12, supplement (2021) 12, supplement (2021) t h e j o u r n a l o f transcultural s t u d i e s assessing the scholarship of rudolf g. wagner catherine yeh introduction 1 rudolf g. wagner† reconstructing the may fourth movement: the role of communication, propaganda, and international actors 6 marianne bastid-bruguière rudolf wagner as historian 45 edward l. shaughnessy rudolf wagner and wang bi 77 leo ou-fan lee bringing a global perspective to chinese studies: a tribute to rudolf wagner’s scholarship 90 mareike ohlberg rudolf wagner’s work on the politics of modern chinese literature 101 william sax transculturalism beyond dualism: in memory of rudolf wagner 110 sabina brady and catherine yeh an imagined interview with rudolf g. wagner: his thoughts on the lifeworld in the anthropocene age, the trees/forest metaphor, and the culture of nature in transcultural studies 119 rudolf g. wagner: list of publications 135 iiithe journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) guest editor: catherine yeh, chinese and comparative literature editors: monica juneja, global art history joachim kurtz, intellectual history diamantis panagiotopoulos, classical archaeology michael radich, buddhist studies managing editor: sophie florence editorial board: christiane brosius, antje fluechter, madeleine herren, birgit kellner, axel michaels, barbara mittler, vladimir tikhonov, and roland wenzlhuemer editorial assistants: gundė daukšytė, kush depala, anja lind, and judhajit sarkar the journal of transcultural studies is edited at the heidelberg centre for transcultural studies (hcts) and published by heidelberg university publishing. the journal is freely available at http://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/ (open access). issn: 2191-6411 iv contributors contributors to this issue rudolf g. wagner† was senior professor in chinese studies at ruprechtkarls-universität heidelberg and an associate at the fairbank center, harvard university. he was an intellectual historian with a strong interest in the transcultural connections of ideas, concepts, institutions, and actions. his published work covers a wide range of topics, from studies of early medieval philosophical commentaries to chinese newspapers since the 1870s, from religious movements to the adaption of foreign concepts in china, and from the “new historical drama” to prose literature of the people’s republic of china. marianne bastid-bruguière is a member of the académie des sciences morales et politiques (academy of moral and political sciences) of the institut de france, a member of academia europaea, and emeritus research professor at the national center for scientific research (cnrs) in paris, where she worked since 1966 in the modern and contemporary history section. she also taught in the postgraduate program in chinese history at paris diderot university and at the école des hautes études en sciences sociales, 1972–2008. she was deputy director of the higher normal school, 1988–1993, and president of the european association of chinese studies, 1992–1996. she holds honorary degrees and professorships from british, russian, and chinese institutions. she has been a visiting research scholar or professor in china, japan, the united states, russia, and various european countries. her publications are on chinese political, social, and cultural history from the early nineteenth century until today. edward l. shaughnessy is the lorraine j. and herrlee g. creel distinguished service professor of early chinese studies in the department of east asian languages and civilizations of the university of chicago. his career has been devoted to the cultural and literary history of china’s zhou dynasty (c. 1045–249 bce), the period that has served all subsequent chinese intellectuals as the golden age of chinese civilization. much of his work has focused on archaeologically recovered textual materials from this period, from inscriptions on ritual bronze vessels cast during the first centuries of the first millennium bce through manuscripts written on bamboo and silk during the last centuries of the millennium. at the same time, he remains fascinated with the received literary tradition of the period, especially the three classics: zhou yi or zhou changes (better known in the west as the i ching or classic of changes), shang shu or exalted scriptures (also known as the shu jing or classic of history) and shi jing or classic of poetry. leo ou-fan lee is professor emeritus at the chinese university of hong kong, where he has taught for the last sixteen years. before that, he taught at a vthe journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) number of universities in the united states, including harvard university, the university of chicago, the university of california, los angeles (ucla), and indiana university. his english language publications include the romantic generation of modern chinese writers (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1973), voices from the iron house: a study of lu xun (bloomington: indiana university press, 1987), shanghai modern: the flowering of a new urban culture in china, 1930–1945 (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1999), and city between worlds: my hong kong (cambridge, ma: the belknap press of harvard university press, 2008). mareike ohlberg is a senior fellow in the asia program at the german marshall fund (gmf) and leads the stockholm china forum. she is based at the gmf’s berlin office. before joining the gmf, ohlberg worked as an analyst at the mercator institute for china studies (merics), where she focused on china’s media and digital policies as well as the chinese communist party’s influence campaigns in europe. prior to that, she was an an wang postdoctoral fellow at harvard university’s fairbank center for chinese studies and a postdoctoral fellow at shih-hsin university in taipei. she spent several years living and working in china, hong kong, and taiwan. she is co-author of the book hidden hand: how the communist party of china is reshaping the world (london: hardie grant books, 2020). ohlberg has a doctoral degree in chinese studies from heidelberg university and a master’s degree in east asian regional studies from columbia university. william s. (“bo”) sax studied at banaras hindu university, the university of wisconsin, the university of washington (seattle), and the university of chicago, where he earned a phd in anthropology in 1987. he has taught in christchurch, new zealand, and paris, france, and at harvard university, and at heidelberg university, where he is chair of cultural anthropology at the south asia institute. his major works include mountain goddess: gender and politics in a central himalayan pilgrimage (new york: oup, 1991); the gods at play: lila in south asia (new york: oup, 1995); dancing the self: personhood and performance in the pandav lila of garhwal (new york: oup, 2002); god of justice: ritual healing and social justice in the central himalayas (new york: oup, 2008); the problem of ritual efficacy (new york: oup, 2010) (edited with johannes quack and jan weinhold); asymmetrical conversations: contestations, circumventions and the blurring of therapeutic boundaries (new york: berghahn, 2014) (edited with harish naraindas and johannes quack); and the law of possession: healing possession, and the secular state (new york: oup, 2015) (edited with heléne basu). vi contributors sabina brady has lived and worked in china in senior level positions in both the corporate and nonprofit sectors for four decades, including fifteen years in multi-national corporate executive positions and over twenty-five years in executive management, senior consultancy, and board governance roles in the civil sector. her work in the education sector includes co-founding the western academy of beijing (one of china’s first private, nursery-g12 international schools), and consulting and board director positions at educational service entities, special education, and vocational schools. her public health sector work included leading the clinton foundation hiv/aids china initiative to support the establishment of a nationwide care and treatment infrastructure within the existing public health system in china. in clean energy, she coled the design, establishment, and operation of a us-china bilateral, publicprivate initiative to advance clean energy commercial solutions, including securing formal presidential endorsement from both countries. she continues to provide chinese entities in the chinese civil sector with capacity building, governance and strategic planning, and related guidance and services. brady graduated with an honors program degree from swarthmore college. catherine v. yeh is professor of chinese literature and transcultural studies in the department of world languages and literatures of boston university. her research is in global cultural interaction and flow in the fields of literature, media, and visual culture during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. her most recent books and projects include the chinese political novel: migration of a world genre (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 2015) and asia at the world’s fairs: an online exhibition of cultural exchange (project editor and co-author, boston university, 2018). her current project is improbable stars: female impersonators, peking opera and the birth of modern star culture in 1910s china. imaging byzantium and asia | stephan-kaissis | transcultural studies imaging byzantium and asia—an introduction christine stephan-kaissis, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg the participation of the byzantine empire in transcultural exchanges with central asia, china, and india has, until recently, not received sufficient attention. past research mainly focused on byzantium´s cultural relations with the latin west, the medieval states of russia, the balkans, and, during pre-islamic and islamic times, the persian empire and the arabs. today’s global exchange processes that link even remote corners of the world have prompted questions about whether we witness a qualitative change, or an increase and acceleration of cultural interactions, which are deeply rooted in history. taking up this challenge, we explore cultural flows that connect byzantium with the eastern regions of asia. only very little is known about the ways these far-flung regions interacted during the middle ages. given the enormous distances that medieval travelers crossing the asian continent had to cover, it seems at first sight a rather far-fetched idea to postulate continuous flows between byzantium, central asia, china and india. can one really expect to find substantial cultural exchanges linking byzantium and these regions? and if so, at what pace did these happen? how intense could the interaction have been, and how could relations be maintained in an age of slow mobility?  which artistic techniques and media were used to record, distribute and save knowledge about the distant cultures? what precisely was it that people across asia and the byzantine empire shared? byzantium, heir to the ancient greco-roman world, which grew out of the roman empire as its eastern branch in the fourth century ce, could rely on older written information about asia, produced by greek historians and geographers. likewise, it could draw upon old communication routes to the east, which had been established since antiquity. emperor constantine the great deliberately moved his capital east, founding the city of constantinople or “new rome” at the very juncture of europe and asia. by doing so, he emphasized the importance of the asian continent. until it fell in 1453 ce, constantinople remained the cultural metropolis of the byzantine empire attracting numerous foreigners from the east and the west. trade was one of its primary allures. by way of the “silk road” and the southeastern shipping routes, precious goods were constantly exchanged between byzantium and asia. trade goods and luxury items, such as spices, minerals, silk, glass, and pottery, were, however, not the only objects travelling between the byzantine empire and the east. visual artifacts, along with oral and written information, reflecting a variety of cultural concepts, also travelled along these routes. by taking a close look at these concepts and material objects we hope to gain a better understanding of the forces and the agents driving the process of transculturality. images, in particular, helped convey, for example, spiritual concepts and made them easier to understand and adapt, even across multiple language boundaries. visual artifacts were therefore used as principal conduits of cultural meaning connecting byzantium and asia in the middle ages. in the course of the winter term of 2009/10, the institute of byzantine archeology and art history at the ruprecht-karls-university heidelberg, germany, generously supported by the university´s research cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context – shifting asymmetries in cultural flows”, organized the lecture-series byzantium beyond its eastern frontiers.[1] the aim was to explore the mechanisms of transcultural visual communication between byzantium and the asian continent. the five lectures demonstrated the rich harvest that could be gathered by using an interdisciplinary approach to cultural entanglement in late antiquity and in the early middle ages. scholars specializing in classical and medieval philology, byzantine studies, east asian art history, or comparative cultural studies, were invited to present relevant case studies from their own field of expertise. they were stephan faller (albert-ludwigs-university, freiburg, germany), zsuzsanna gulácsi (northern arizona university, flagstaff, u.s.a.), claudia wenzel (heidelberg academy of sciences and humanities, heidelberg, germany), robert volk (bavarian academy of sciences and humanities, munich, germany) and tsai sueyling (heidelberg academy of sciences and humanities, heidelberg, germany). in their talks they highlighted the patterns of transcultural artistic interaction that reached across asia and the byzantine empire. three of the five papers from this lecture-series are included in the current issue of transcultural studies.[2] reflecting on the variety of the contributor´s approaches to their individual topics, it seems appropriate to introduce the authors and their articles by highlighting some of their key ideas. in his essay on the so-called christian topography, a work written by the monk and merchant cosmas indicopleustes, stefan faller addresses the problem of “transculturality” by asking whether this modern notion can be applied to the past. systematically scrutinizing the available sources, faller explores the cultural identity and background of cosmas, who, as his name indicopleustes readily suggests, was a byzantine sailor to india. illustrated byzantine manuscripts reveal a man who was well informed about china, india and the island of taprobane (modern sri lanka), indicating that cosmas had actually travelled there. business seems to have been his main, but certainly not his only, concern in the east. faller clearly demonstrates that cosmas’ cosmological views strikingly resemble specific features of hindu, buddhist and jain cosmology. examining the religious attitude of cosmas as well as his worldly endeavors, faller argues for the hybrid or “mixed” nature of ideas and concepts exhibited in the illustrated christian topography. shedding new light on this byzantine author and his indian connections, stefan faller arrives at important conclusions about cosmas and his underestimated treatise particularly in terms of transculturality and agency. we may never be able to answer the question of how cosmas gathered his detailed information on asia. but faller rightly highlights cosmas´ close spiritual ties with fellow nestorian christians living and operating in mesopotamia, the eastern borderland of the byzantine empire. were they his sources? it is a well-known fact that nestorian christians from mesopotamia and persia moved across the asian continent for centuries, spreading their religion as far as india and china. mesopotamia, home to many religious communities, including zoroastrians, jews, gnostics, manicheans and nestorian christians, always played a crucial role in the history of transcultural processes across asia and europe. this becomes apparent also in zsuzsanna gulácsi´s article on mani´s picture-book, which was created in mid-third-century mesopotamia. concentrating on the set of didactic images called the eikon, gulácsi explores the impact of visual media in transcultural flows across asia. her article highlights the surprising ability of manichean artists to adapt mani´s original body of paintings, produced initially for a west asian public, to artistic traditions of the east. gulácsi shows how the manichean visual language gradually merged with non-manichean picture conventions of rival religious groups. manichean artifacts exhibit hybrid cultural features as a consequence of their adaptation to different cultural norms. while in this article zsuzsanna gulácsi explores mainly medieval manichean image-making in a primarily buddhist setting in central asia and china, she also points to  possible links between mid-third-century manichean, jewish, and early christian art. focusing on the physical remains of dura-europos in the roman part of mesopotamia, she shows that other groups in this region worked with similar methods of visual instruction. in dura-europos we discern a full-fledged transcultural process not so much in specific content than in the use of methods and media to cross political, ethnic and religious boundaries. future research will have to explore how the peculiar greco-manichean term eikon denoting the western asian visual body of paintings may be linked to the particular byzantine cultural feature called the “icon” or eikona. used in eastern christian rites of religious devotion since late antiquity and until today, byzantine icons fulfill a human need that differ substantially from visual artifacts that were designed to instruct their spectators. using the term “icons” in her essay´s title, claudia wenzel deliberately inserts this term from genuinely byzantine cultural and art history into the field of east asian art history. her detailed analysis of “iconic” and “non-iconic” visual modes in indian and chinese buddha-images, connects byzantine iconoclasm to recurring waves of iconophobia in india and china. featuring similar theoretical attitudes to artistic problems, byzantine doctrine—itself resulting from late antique and early medieval christian debates about the appropriateness and function of images—can easily be compared to indian and chinese buddhist spiritual teachings. wenzel´s essay highlights close similarities and possibly connections between image-discourses in eastern visual communities and in byzantium at roughly the same time period. her article is probably the first to trace parallel debates in asia and byzantium concerning the truthfulness of images and on the question whether superhuman spiritual beings could be presented in images in a ritual context or were beyond presentability.  wenzel shows how artists in asia solved the problem of representing the “invisible” by means of delicate visual strategies. the case of the so-called “non-image” of the buddha provides an inspired solution to this problem. one can conclude from her essay that common spiritual ideas, independent of their original cultural environment, were, in fact, communicated and shared across byzantium and asia. the evidence that can be drawn from the papers assembled in this themed section of transcultural studies speaks strongly in favor of byzantium and medieval societies across asia interacting artistically and culturally to a much greater degree than has been hitherto assumed. by exploring visual flows across the asian continent from a “byzantine” perspective, we can conclude that for a very long period of time the eastern roman empire played an important role in the production, processing and mediation of ideas and images connecting the east and the west. byzantines not only continually embraced foreign artistic ideas and cultural concepts and adapted them to their own culture, they also seem to have been involved in a process of long-distance cultural communication, sharing genuine byzantine concepts with other visual communities and thus contributing to their cultural enrichment as much as byzantium benefitted from the rich cultural input from asia. [1] i would like to thank the editorial board of transcultural studies for offering a platform for the articles, dr. andrea hacker for her guidance through the editing process, and fedor schlimbach, m.a., scientific assistant at the heidelberg institute of byzantine archeology and art history, for providing technical support. i also want to express my gratitude to the many participants actively involved and present at the sessions. [2] not included here are the papers by tsai sueyling, who traced early east asiatic illustrations of the life of the buddha and their impact on byzantine and western visual culture, and by robert volk, who traced the textual and visual transmission of the story of “barlaam and josaphat” (which is the byzantine christianized version of the life of gautama buddha) from the east to byzantium, and from byzantium to the latin west. i am most grateful to all contributors for their stimulating talks and delivering their manuscripts so soon after the workshop. adding value: recent trends in museum exhibitions of asian-pacific artifacts guest editor’s introduction jens sejrup focusing empirically on transcultural phenomena in-and-out of china, south korea, and indonesia, the three papers in this special section of the journal of transcultural studies interrogate important aspects of transcultural circulations and exhibitions of objects between euro-america and the asia-pacific, both historically and currently. the three papers are a selection of contributions to the conference changing global hierarchies of value? museums, artifacts, frames, and flows, which i co-hosted at the university of copenhagen and the national museum of denmark in the summer of 2018 as part of the research project “global europe: constituting europe from the outside in through artifacts.” the conference provided an opportunity for museum experts and researchers across social/science and humanities disciplines to discuss hierarchies and processes of valuation and categorization in art, museums, and material culture. we asked: how does such a global hierarchy express itself spatially and materially in the world of museums, exhibitions, ethnographic and art categories, and in collecting and curatorial principles? and, more acutely, we asked if recent socio-economic changes and developments around the world in fact challenge or solidify the erstwhile euro-american hierarchical domination. in the first paper in this selection, susan eberhard traces the recent emergence and valuation of nineteenth-century chinese export silverware as an object of large-scale exhibition and collection in mainland china and hong kong. eberhard places the surging domestic interest in chinese-manufactured western-style silver objects within the socio-political framework of a current post-socialist paradigm in china. she argues that export silver has undergone a symbolic transformation from being seen as a token of western domination and humiliation to a feat of native craftsmanship and entrepreneurial design. then follows park ji young’s paper on two displays of korean sarangbang architecture in the british museum and the national museum of denmark. through a semiotic reading of the two state-sponsored museum spaces, 122 adding value: recent trends in museum exhibitions of asian-pacific artifacts park problematizes efforts by the south korean government to promote a certain image of korean culture overseas by closely connecting traditional artifacts and confucian culture in museum displays. at the same time, park argues, the sarangbang displays effectively integrate knowledge of korea within the extant eurocentric value system of the universal museum. finally, in the third paper, roberto costa presents an ethnographic inquiry into the contemporary conditions of traditional asmat woodcarvers. based on fieldwork in asmat communities in southern new guinea and in a jakarta edutainment park featuring displays of asmat objects, costa describes the challenges and dilemmas facing asmat wowipitsj as the traditional ethos underlying their woodcarving practice is confronted with increasing commodification and global-market adaptation of asmat material culture. all three papers bring to the fore global structures and hierarchical categories that herzfeld identified with his famous concept of the “global hierarchy of value.”1 in his 2004 monograph the body impolitic, herzfeld analyzes the effects of a ubiquitous yet vaguely articulated set of cultural and ethical norms dominating the local and professional practices of artisans in crete, norms which reflect a globally operating hierarchy of the proper and appropriate. herzfeld explains “the increasingly homogenous language of culture and ethics constitutes a global hierarchy of value. this hierarchy, which clearly succeeds to the values promulgated worldwide by the erstwhile colonial powers of europe […] represents the most comprehensive and globally ramified form of common sense – the ultimate expression of cultural authority.”2 the global value hierarchy thus echoes the geopolitical structures of domination instituted around the world in the age of imperialism. herzfeld’s point is that everywhere a similar hierarchical indexing of cultural practices takes place (albeit with local characteristics), and that initially euro-american values now operate globally, intertwined to the point of misrecognition and inseparability with locally embodied ideas and traditional practices. in transcultural flows and circulations, local characteristics emerge through shifting translations and interpretations accompanying the material object, idea, image, or technology being produced and circulated.3 two of the studies in this section are thematically related to herzfeld’s study of cretan artisans. 1 michael herzfeld, the body impolitic: artisans and artifice in the global hierarchy of value (chicago: university of chicago press, 2004). 2 herzfeld, the body impolitic, 2–3. emphasis in original. 3 dilip parameshwar gaonkar and elizabeth a. povinelli, “technologies of public forms: circulation, transfiguration, recognition,” public culture 15, no. 3 (fall 2003): 385–397; benjamin lee and edward lipuma, “cultures of circulation: the imaginations of modernity,” public culture 14, no. 1 (winter 2002): 191–213; nicholas thomas, entangled objects: exchange, material culture, and colonialism in the pacific (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1991). 123the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) costa’s paper investigates the ways in which asmat woodcarvers seek to adapt their traditional practices to better meet current market demands and accelerate the outbound flow of objects. similarly, as eberhard explains in her contribution, a nineteenth-century silver retailer in guangzhou would stamp a western-style teapot with a mark resembling that of a famous american maker, leading to centuries of misunderstood and mislabeled provenance of such objects in us museums. symbolic meanings and value ascriptions change and fluctuate over time. images and objects on display relate to shifting ideological and state-sponsored notions of the self or to previously dominant identity narratives. objects mean, and are made to express and represent, many different things in museums and exhibitions.4 objects can lose previous meaning and sever relations to formerly powerful narratives, undergoing reinterpretation to emerge as signifiers of new notions of the national character, past and present. such powerful notions find dissemination in museums across the asia-pacific, but also in rearranged ethnographic exhibitions of the region in western museums, increasingly on the basis of financial and practical backing from asian agents. it is mechanisms such as these that allow asmat woodcarvings to illustrate new developments in indonesian state ideology, as costa argues in his analysis of the taman mini indonesia indah edutainment park. today, the park presents asmat carvings as paragons of creative fusion in a postmodern setting celebrating commodification and innovation. it is also precisely these mechanisms that give rise to new museum interpretations of chinese export silverware. as eberhard tells us, chinese exhibitions today have reimagined what used to be understood ideologically as an era of national humiliation as a period of technical and aesthetic flowering of traditional chinese handicraft. such local or national reinterpretations of historical and cultural artifacts invite a wider reconsideration of the ideals and notions of universalism which historically underlie the euro-american museum institution.5 not only do museums in the asia-pacific region reconfigure and recontextualize their objects and collections in tandem with domestic ideological developments on the state level, but economically powerful states and corporate actors have now also taken various steps to intervene directly in the way their 4 neil g. w. curtis, “universal museums, museum objects and repatriation: the tangled stories of things,” museum management and curatorship 21, no. 2 (2006): 117–27. 5 carol duncan, civilizing rituals: inside public art museums (london: routledge, 1995); susan pearce, on collecting: an investigation into collecting in the european tradition (london: routledge, 1995); jens sejrup, “unrealizations: the making and unmaking of two japanesedesigned extensions to european museums,” international journal of cultural studies 22, no. 6 (november 2019): 823–43, https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877919857390. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877919857390 124 adding value: recent trends in museum exhibitions of asian-pacific artifacts respective cultures are represented in prominent museums in euro-america. especially in recent decades, newly powerful economies in the international system of culture, art, and exhibitions have affected the claims and narrative logic of exhibitions across europe.6 but how do such interventions by asian-pacific agents impact a global value hierarchy and the european enlightenment tradition of the universal museum? in park’s paper, precisely such issues take center stage as she unravels the south korean government’s motivation for facilitating and financing the establishment of sarangbang architectural structures and museum displays overseas. park underlines the central role of such government activities for state efforts to engage in value-adding “nation-branding” and the cultural promotion of (south) korea through objects meant to signify the confucian tradition as state ideology. in that process, park argues, korean state agents effectively affirm the universal values and institutional dispositions enacted in museum practice. a preoccupation with issues of authenticity and appropriation of objects as acts of value addition and accumulation runs across the contributions to this special section. as costa’s paper reveals, a logic of hyperreality and simulacra permeates the production and exhibition of asmat woodcarvings in indonesia today. what happens to authenticity and object valuation when personalized trinkets and souvenirs in a theme-park gift store sell for higher prices than the exhibited traditional archetypes to which they refer? the label “asmat” is increasingly commoditized, costa argues, generating objects made with traditional techniques but catering to global demands. this process effectively bends customary practice to churn out valueadded commodities referring to traditional objects rather than representing social life and local functions in increasingly disadvantaged asmat communities. similarly, as eberhard explains, demand for export silver has surged among wealthy chinese collectors eager to “repatriate” abducted tokens of chinese material culture. and so, at auctions today, chinese-produced silver items may fetch much higher prices than the western models to which they refer precisely because they resemble them so well. under the current post-socialist paradigm in china, the very fact that locally produced silver objects were able to confuse western museums and collectors about their true provenance validates them as specimens of chinese technical ingenuity and sophistication. the chinese silver artifact accumulates exchange value as a chinese object because it looks so european that even the europeans for long did not realize it was made in china. again, as in the jakarta edutainment park, 6 jens sejrup, “japanese dreams: kurokawa kishō’s annex to the van gogh museum and its later re-appropriation,” museum history journal 11, no. 1 (2018): 76–93, https://doi.org/10.1080/19369 816.2018.1427344. https://doi.org/10.1080/19369816.2018.1427344 https://doi.org/10.1080/19369816.2018.1427344 125the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) the price and value of a derivative object can be seen to overtake those of its referent objects. relatedly, in park’s paper, the exhibited korean architectural structures are not exact copies of any particular historical building. rather, they are replicated forms referring to an abstract generative principle (traditional korean palatial architecture), objects appropriated and divorced from their historical and social context to convey a certain desirable image of korean cultural tradition. these papers collectively sketch out implications for museums and artifacts of an economic development over the past few decades that has empowered and capacitated state and corporate actors across the region far beyond their previous scope. now asian agents acquire or repatriate objects of heritage or sentimental value to their own societies, heavily influence auction prices and exchange values of art and ethnographica, actively and strongly engage western collectors and collections, and directly influence the presentation and public dissemination of their indigenous cultures at top-level ethnographic and art museums across euro-america. recent economic and political developments in the asia-pacific have magnified the role of euro-america as validator and value-adding matrix for local objects, artifacts, art, and traditions. despite undeniable ruptures on its surface due to new accumulations of capital and capacities elsewhere, the global hierarchy of value with euro-america at its apex remains largely in place. as these papers evidence, the cultural “far” and “near” are relative notions in a complex transcultural relationship. in terms of value accumulation and significance, local cultural artifacts still tend to benefit from an association with europe and north america; they add value and prestige to their site of production and return from the west improved, valuated, and symbolically uplifted. editorial note this issue of our journal, which was prepared from start to finish during the pandemic crisis, comes with a rather predictable delay, yet once again includes papers that provide fresh insights into diverse fields of transcultural theory and action. the reader will have the opportunity to follow the stunning trajectory of a medieval clothing item through space and time, as it underwent several creative processes of appropriation and acquired various symbolic meanings; to track the transcultural encounters of the legendary tradition of glass making in renaissance venice through the itineraries of its materials and artefacts; to embark on a delightful and thought-provoking culinary journey on the pathways of diasporic cuisine through a remarkable piece of memoir literature; and finally, to acknowledge that transculturality is not only a theoretical tool, but also has stunning potential for educational strategy. in a contribution that investigates a case study going back to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, during a time pre-dating the advent of global capital and modern communication technologies, vladimir aleksić and mariachiara gasparini underline the importance of analyzing historical forms of transculturation. their article takes as its starting point two portraits of the fourteenth-century nobleman john oliver preserved in the monastery of lesnovo in present-day serbia, both of which depicting him wearing a cloud collar. drawing on visual sources, the authors trace the early history and meanings of this vestimentary accessory to central asia and china as far back as the first millennium ce, where it featured in representations of the buddha as cakravartin (universal ruler, literally “he who turns the wheel”). faced with a fragmentary corpus of written sources, the authors draw primarily on material objects, remnants of textiles, and of course, images to chart the pathways of the cloud collar across the eurasian expanse since the ninth century. they use this biography of a single object/image to reconstruct processes of transculturation that revitalized insignia of power and ritual practice, as well as propelled the production and consumption of luxury objects, all plausibly facilitated by trade routes and the mongol conquest of territories across asia and europe. this richly detailed, carefully reconstructed investigation throws fresh light on the seminal role of objects and their visual replication, their re-historicization and re-signification within a transcultural constitution of politics and its symbols across vast distances. this study further sensitizes us to the theoretical importance of attending to the ambivalences or contradictions built into long-term processes of transculturation, by highlighting how warfare and conquest, as in the case of the mongol occupation of vast expanses of eurasia, brought with them innumerable acts of violence, forceful appropriation, and a rhetoric of enmity. at the same time, this history of the cloud collar also demonstrates that what viithe journal of transcultural studies 12, no. 1 (summer 2021) is now referred to as turko-mongol civilization was constituted, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, through myriad processes of cosmopolitan exchange and a transcultured language of rulership and consumption that encompassed large parts of europe and asia. emily hyatt’s contribution to this issue problematizes a key trope of art history: the labels attached to objects. such labels are simultaneously ascriptions of identities and myths of origins, and end up suppressing the transcultural lives of things. her account of the history of glass making in the workshops of the venetian island of murano draws our attention to processes of “venetianization” of these coveted objects: a conflation of matter and meaning cemented the prestige of glass objects produced there, as the fabled material qualities of finished glass came to be equated with a single locality, venice, perceived as self-contained. hyatt instead takes us through a fine-tuned investigation of the multi-scalar and transtemporal journeys that reveals glass production as a practice distributed across places and times, a story of materials in motion. raw materials— pebbles, plant ashes, silica, and sodium carbonate—became in the words of the author “a conduit for transculturation” as the course of their journeys resulted in encounters between collectors, buyers, traders across the italian peninsula, the mediterranean and north africa. her search for a more precise vocabulary to render the processes of transculturation underway leads her to reject often-used metaphors such as “object biographies,” which suggest a linear lifespan, or that of “travelling things,” which imply that movement is uninterrupted and universal. instead, she privileges the notion of an itinerary that attends to shifts and contingencies. hyatt tells a story of glass making and its valorization in renaissance venice, when objects were singled out and appreciated for the artfulness of the final product, wherein the humble origins of its raw materials, of glass before it was glass, as well as the agency of several actors involved as co-producers, were subsumed within the totality of a single aesthetic work. the story is not a univocal one, however. the account recuperates voices—artisanal treatises for example, but also the accounts of merchants and clerical elites—registering a clear awareness of the transcultural transactions that negated the dominant narrative of cultural belonging ascribed to early modern muranese glass. hyatt’s analysis points towards the potential instability that a transcultural object introduces to the ordered world of museum labels, which conventionally seek to allow a visitor to read “culture” from a thing in a glass case. such research is valuable for the pathways it proposes for art historical scholarship and curation to tackle the question of how matter shapes culture. emilio amideo presents a sensitive, careful, and multi-faceted exploration of the way barbadian diasporic food culture is reflected in the “culinary memoir” of austin clarke. as amideo reminds us, we are heirs viii editorial note to a rich body of scholarship and thought that makes us aware that food is not merely a biological necessity, but also sustains the soul and its worlds of meaning, collectively, culturally, and historically. in the perspective of such work, the diasporic foodways clarke portrays emerge as a complex site for the (re)construction and maintenance of individual and collective memory, community and belonging, nostalgia and identity, and the negotiation of migrant experience. the case treated by amideo vividly reminds us that food is a key domain of transculturation. this dynamic is perhaps especially obvious in the foodways of diasporas, but also in domains like the adoption, adaption, and conspicuous consumption of “exotic” cuisines. reflection on these salient instances, which lie so ready at hand, might also prompt us to think about the ways transculturation gatecrashes the most sacrosanct domains of cultural essentialization, and the illusions they so sedulously maintain—illustrated, for example, by accounts of the “original” emergence and construction of “national” dishes. amideo’s close reading offers several springboards from which we might launch more general lines of thought. diasporas are not just subjects or vectors of transculturation, but might also be considered as transcultural systems in their own right, with their own particular dynamics, generating new “cultures” as their products—often, in a telling “irony of the transcultural,” precisely in the name of nostalgic fidelity to an imagined “authentic” culture of the remote, imagined homeland. food and foodways themselves, despite their obvious potential, represent a barely tapped, complex domain for theorizing transculturation. as for other domains or facets of culture, a key task for transcultural theory is to ask whether foodways support or facilitate particular species of transculturation, distinct from those that obtain or prevail in other domains (politics, literature, technology... the list is long). amideo also emphasizes the role played by taste, touch, and visceral experience in the production, consumption, and perceived meaning of food. this points us to broader questions about whether transculturation processes and effects might also differ by sensory domain (is there a domain-specific “transculturation of/by taste,” for example?), and prompts us to question the ways that our theories of transculturation— like other domains—might be subject to a kind of hegemony of sight or hearing, and could be enriched by considered extension to the domains of other senses. furthermore, amideo’s evocation of eve kosofsky sedgwick’s touching feeling, apropos the close connection of physical touch and the emotions, prompts the reflection that we have barely scratched the surface of the problem of the transculturation of emotions. amideo also attends to the importance, in the history of barbadian foodways, of the experiences of subjugation (clarke writes pointedly of slave cuisines) and “privilege” (a word that emerges with a delightful double meaning in clarke’s work—but no spoilers!). this is yet another domain in which transcultural theory still largely ixthe journal of transcultural studies 12, no. 1 (summer 2021) awaits considered extension: the ways that class, privilege (or denial of it), and other dimensions of social position might also impact transculturation— facilitating certain transcultural processes, while perhaps dampening or repressing others. in short (and succumbing to the obvious pun), in our larger project of constructing general understandings of transculturation, amideo offers us ample “food for thought.” in the concluding essay of this issue, the conventional model of national cultures, with its deep impact on cross-cultural studies, becomes the object of thoughtful criticism that revolves not only around its theoretical core but also around its applicability beyond academia. thor-andré skrefsrud’s compelling attempt to problematize previous research—and action—in this field begins with an evaluation of geert hofstede’s premise that each member of a community carries a distinctive mindset heavily determined by its national culture. hofstede’s idea of a “cultural programming” that dictates thinking, feeling, and acting was implemented in a six-dimensional model (power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, masculinity, long/ short-term orientation, and indulgence/restraint), which became a widely accepted analytical framework for examining—and coping with—cultural difference on the basis of nations and national affiliation. the author exposes the weaknesses of this monolithic concept, with its overemphasis on national borders and its pigeonholing of individuals within fixed schemata of cultural beliefs and practices. a serious consequence of this line of thought is that cultural diversity has been regarded as an obstacle that prevents the progression of cooperation and partnerships in different societal fields. the alternative to this static and stereotypical understanding of individuals and societies, the author argues, is a transcultural approach that highlights the transversal and transformative character of cultures as constantly developing, restructuring, and changing entities. drawing on the work of wolfgang welsch, who revived the notion of transculturality, skrefsrud calls for the necessity to disentangle cultural traditions from their national straitjackets, and reminds us that in our increasingly globalized world, individuals and groups can retain multiple forms of affiliations and/or identities. therefore, it is not the fixation on the alleged “essence” of a national culture, but rather the plural and dynamic understanding of cross-border relationships and experiences that facilitates the most appropriate tool for cross-cultural research in the twenty-first century. in the final and very intriguing part of his paper, the author suggests that these theoretical insights may be beneficial in an educational context, as a framework that more effectively copes with the problems that many young migrant people face with regard to issues of identity, origin, and belonging. the transcultural model encourages teachers to recognize each student’s wide range of cultural and linguistic expertise rather than to impose restrictions on their identities. hence, it treats those who differ from the mainstream not as x editorial note a problem, but as a challenge, fostering pedagogical practices and discourses that welcome cultural complexity. as always, we hope you will enjoy reading this issue, and look forward to your comments, critiques, and further submissions. monica juneja and diamantis panagiotopoulos editorial note towards the end of a year of difficult and unprecedented challenges for our modern society, the editorial team of our periodical is happy to present the first 2020 issue. beyond the pandemic crisis, the severe impact of which did not spare academic workflows and deadlines, this significant delay in publication resulted from a substantial restructuring within our journal. this will enable the editors and a devoted team of research assistants to maintain more direct contact with all potential contributors, and to monitor more effectively all stages of the editorial and peer-reviewing process. we are confident that these changes will simplify submission procedures and—more important still— increase our commitment to the principles of scholarly excellence, publication ethics, and transparency. the present issue appears with one individual article, and a themed section of three papers dedicated to “fluid mediterranean memories.” anne ring petersen’s thought-provoking article is a powerful plea against hegemonic, monocultural notions of community, exploring the active role that public art and culture can play in the collective reimagining of cultural citizenship, home-place, and belonging. the starting point of her analysis is a set of public art projects, among them the fourth berlin autumn salon de-heimatize it (2019), the documentary art project 100 % fremmed? by photographer and curator maja nydal erikson (2017–2019), and the public park project superkilen in nørrebro in copenhagen, curated and designed by the danish artist group superflex. in assessing the wider significance of these projects, the author employs an elaborate theoretical analysis based on an insightful discussion of transcultural, diasporic, and postmigrant perspectives on cultural citizenship, community-building, and belonging. she vividly demonstrates how these concepts challenge monocultural understandings of identity and overcome notions of bounded cultures, both national and diasporic. aiming to fruitfully combine these projects in order to exploit their hermeneutical potential, petersen introduces the concept of the “postmigrant imaginary,” which refers to a postmigrant and transcultural sense of belonging and collective identity. this imaginary is not only imagined but also real, since it relates not to a “there,” i.e. a distant homeland, but to a “here,” the reality of a new life or a new form of community. moving from theory to reality, the author seeks in the last part of her article to demonstrate how art can intervene in public and societal debates. by using public spaces for their interventions, artists are able to engage a broad range of citizens, and thus become genuine agents in the reformulation of collective identities. the themed section revolves around the triangle of the mediterranean, memory, and transculture. these articles were first presented at a conference entitled “transcultural memories of mediterranean port cities: 1850 to the present,” which took place in may 2017 in london. the region in focus comprises a distinct geographical entity that in the last couple of decades has been the subject of intense scholarly, political, ethnic, and social discourses. in a vast and still-growing body of literature on the topic, the mediterranean has evolved from a mere subject of scholarly enquiry into an analytical frame for studying cultural phenomena of global interest. this is more than evident in the case of memory and transculture. on the one hand, the mediterranean is a region that sinks under the ponderous weight of its history—or rather histories—and produces innumerable mnemonic layers that have shaped and still shape collective identities. on the other hand, the transcultural element, which has for millennia been a crucial dimension of mediterranean life and history, makes the engagement with the notion of memory even more intriguing. the authors confront not one coherent and uniform way of engaging with the past, but rather multiple memories, which can be mutually complementary, divergent, or even contrasting, but nonetheless fluid and dynamic across space and time. focusing on mediterranean port cities, the three papers seek to explore how transnational/transcultural memory is constructed and negotiated through visual and textual representations. they discuss different places or media of memory, including monuments, literature, and film. all three case studies refer to the recent past (twentieth and early twenty-first century), and are geographically widely distributed across the middle and eastern mediterranean, thus enabling varied perspectives on individual and collective responses to shared remembrance. katia pizzi’s contribution focuses on trieste, a mediterranean port city that due to its geographical position and history has been both peripheral and cosmopolitan, serving in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a melting pot of languages and cultures. in the recent past and present, trieste’s multiple identities have been repeatedly reconfigured in response to new local, national, and global challenges. the author’s main concern is how these hybrid transcultural memories were mediated in the urban and non-urban landscape, in fiction, and in cinema. the dominant theme is the ambivalence and fragility of trieste’s identity, which is nurtured by the city’s position at the juncture between east and west, and between communism and western democracies. this ambivalence is reflected in diverging or even conflicting memories among different ethnic and social groups, which cannot easily be combined into a single shared remembrance. these “fractured memories” continue to reproduce old ethnic and cultural divides. their heterogeneity is enhanced by the variety of mnemonic media at play, which not only unfold their communicative potential in different milieus, but are also targeted at different audiences in trieste and abroad. the author explains in a clear and lucid manner how in recent years, the traditional “granular” memory has transformed itself vii viii editorial note into a genuine transcultural memory that negates or overcomes old binaries. credit for these developments goes mainly to contemporary novelists, to whom we owe a fresh, truly transcultural contribution to the negotiation of the city’s collective memory. they create a new dialogical frame, in which the long-standing divisions, ruptures, and fragmentations of collective memory can be re-negotiated. gianmarco mancosu’s paper deals with the process of modernization of sardinia’s capital cagliari, as documented in twenty-five newsreels produced between 1947 and 1964. following the transcultural memories paradigm, the author strives to demonstrate the fluid status of cagliari, fluctuating between isolation or archaism and the modernization driven by the nation-state. one further concern of his approach is to expose the mechanisms of the cinematographic reconfiguration of the city, which was determined by contrasting forces: local traditions vs. hegemonic national discourses. to accomplish these goals, the author addresses the liminal position of the city at a level both diachronic (time) and synchronic (space). his main analytical tool, at both levels, is the three-stage passage of séparation, marge, and agrégation. the critical analysis of the newsreels starts with the historical background and the tension between the traditional (or in several aspects even “archaic”) local society, and the national aspirations towards modernity and the capitalist economy. beyond these forces, a further decisive factor for non-fiction film production in this period has been ideology, since the short films were politically and socially biased. the author succeeds in explaining the ambivalent character of the newsreels, which praised the governing christian-democratic party, and celebrated a modern, consumerist lifestyle, whilst at the same time keeping an emphasis on local traditions and religious values. mancosu’s convincing analysis demonstrates how tradition and modernity were articulated in brief yet succinct film sequences in the newsreels, thus documenting the gradual dissolution of the island’s traditional character in favor of national unity and western-style modernization. by thoughtfully deploying theoretical notions such as liminality and dispotif, the author highlights the agency of the medium: the strategic function of short films was not only to innocently reflect cagliari’s transcultural memory at the crossroads of sardinianness, italianness, mediterraneanness, and the western world, but mainly to filter and redefine it. in joseph mcgonagle’s paper, we see one of the major mediterranean port cities, algiers, through the eyes of one of algeria’s most prominent contemporary filmmakers, merzak allouache. based on a thorough assessment of his filmography, which spans almost four decades, the author asks to what extent this individual gaze on the algerian capital evolved over time, and how the city was configured on screen for both domestic and international audiences. the captivating discussion of allouache’s films elucidates the symbolism ixthe journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) of crucial film sequences with acute references to the historical and social setting. we learn about the recent history of algiers through allouache’s eyes and, equally, through the forces determining that history (political and social conflicts, a clash of generations, postcolonial attitudes, and gender issues). in the treatment of the later period of his career, after allouache had moved from algiers to france and started to make films attracting french viewers rather than the algerian viewership targeted by his earlier works, the paper acquires a more pronounced transcultural dimension. the author demonstrates how allouache’s impressive transformation—or, better, adaptation—was accomplished through a change of the films’ subject, genre, and language. mcgonagle’s apposite critique of a filmmaker who moves from an authentic and confident vision of algerian identity to a western perspective sprinkled with transcolonial stereotypes is fully justified. beyond this primarily filmographic approach, the paper explores notions of transcultural memories rooted in the city’s post-independence history and geography. in this context, the films function as a kind of transparent documentation of how the cityscape is lived by algerians and non-algerians alike. implicitly or explicitly, all four papers return at various points to several common themes or issues of broader interest for transcultural theory at large. these include the possibility or even imperative for transculturation and transculturality in collective memory—the explicit theme of our themed section; the question of how transculturality relates to the movement of people(s), for instance, in migration or resulting diasporas; the roles that the arts can or even should play in the negotiation or construction of transculturation; political, ideological, and ethnic dimensions of transculturality and, no less, of its denials; the shadowy question of whether transculturation or transculturality, or particular modes thereof, are distinguishing features of modern or colonial and postcolonial scenarios; the relations and tensions between transculturation and historical traumas; the relation between the conditions, limits, and histories of various media, and the potential of these media to achieve diverse transculturation effects; and the relations between geographic positionality and different webs or configurations of transcultural forces. in these respects, we hope that beyond their particular cases and empirical foci, the articles presented in this issue can contribute to the ongoing project of enriching the toolkit of approaches and conceptual frames in the field of transcultural studies, and making it more adequate to the complex range of objects we confront in pursuing it. diamantis panagiotopoulos and michael radich rudolf wagner’s work on the politics of modern chinese literature marieke ohlberg what links the barber and the doctor? readers of rudolf wagner’s work on the politics of modern chinese fiction will know the answer: both professions come into contact with the highest and lowest levels of society, thereby gaining a full picture of it. as such, both figures were employed by chinese writers to reflect upon their own role in society. wagner’s work on modern chinese literature may be less well known than his three-volume study of wang bi’s reading of the daodejing 道德经 (2000, 2003, 2003),1 or his research on the origins of the chinese press,2 but this work invites us into a fascinating world of political battles fought through literature during the first three decades of the people’s republic of china (prc). it also provides an impressive methodological toolkit for how to decode literature, which can be broadly applied and remains relevant to the present day. rather than focus on periods that have commanded much of the attention of chinese literary studies, such as the apogee of the hundred flowers campaign (百花齐放) in 1956−1957, wagner chose more ambiguous timeperiods when the power balance in china was unclear and no one faction was able to force its ideological interpretations onto everyone else. such ambiguity resulted in the opening of space for contention, which meant that these times produced some of the most interesting works of chinese literature. wagner’s field of inquiry focused mainly on three such periods: the early days of the hundred flowers (1956); the great leap years (1958−1961) and the power struggle in the first half of the 1960s that lead into the cultural revolution; and the early post-mao period when the outcome of the rivalry between deng xiaoping 邓小平 and hua guofeng 华国锋 was not quite as clear as it now appears in hindsight (1979). a deliberate focus on the fringe informs all of wagner’s work. he chose to study the literary reportage (texie 特写)—the chinese translation of the 1 rudolf g. wagner, the craft of a chinese commentator: wang bi on the laozi (albany, ny: state university of new york press, 2000); wagner, language, ontology, and political philosophy: wang bi’s scholarly exploration of the dark (xuanxue) (albany, ny: suny press, 2003; wagner, a chinese reading of the daodejing: wang bi’s commentary on the laozi with critical text and translation (albany, ny: state university of new york press, 2003). 2 rudolf g. wagner, ed., joining the global public: word, image, and city in early chinese newspapers, 1870−1910 (albany, ny: state university of new york press, 2007). 102 rudolf wagner’s work on the politics of modern chinese literature russian ocherk, “a bastard genre in a neatly ordered literary universe”3— to see what this fringe genre might tell us about broader literary struggles.4 similarly, he chose to avoid the most famous historical drama, wu han’s 吴晗 hai rui baguan 海瑞罢官 (hai rui is dismissed from office) (1961), in favor of less well-known texts. while the latter choice made his analysis more manageable, it also helped limit the “misinformation, falsification, and suppression of information”5 that tend to collect around works at the center of particularly heated debates. wagner’s analysis of this literature is mainly contained in two books: the contemporary chinese historical drama: four studies (1990) and inside a service trade: studies in contemporary chinese prose (1992). both are hermeneutic exercises in the tradition of the german philosopher hansgeorg gadamer, meant to enable readers who are removed from a literary text “in terms of both time and cultural location” to approach it as informed contemporaries of the work would have done, by restoring the context in which it was produced and reconstructing the “horizon of understanding” the latter would have possessed.6 under wagner’s analysis, this hermeneutic exercise meant reading each statement of the literary work against another. for example, wagner highlighted minute details that a present-day reader would most likely miss, but that would have been obvious to any contemporaneous reader familiar with the general rules governing literature in the broader socialist camp or the rules of the respective genres. wagner’s approach also used any “entrance into the subtext” that might help reconstruct hidden meanings;7 this could be a change made to an original text, the breaking of a literary convention, or even the use of uncommon sources such as agricultural statistics or cartoons published decades earlier.8 in both abovementioned books, wagner challenged the established national and disciplinary categories for academic inquiry, decades before such a transcultural and transdisciplinary approach became more common. “scholars,” he wrote, “have been constrained by a tradition of nineteenth3 rudolf g. wagner, inside a service trade: studies in contemporary chinese prose (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1992), 274. 4 rudolf g. wagner, “liu binyan and the texie,” modern chinese literature 2, no. 1 (spring 1986): 63–98; 63. 5 rudolf g. wagner, the contemporary chinese historical drama: four studies (berkeley: university of california press, 1990), x. 6 wagner, the contemporary chinese historical drama, ix. 7 wagner, the contemporary chinese historical drama, ix. 8 wagner, the contemporary chinese historical drama, 5; wagner, inside a service trade, 498−504. 103the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) century scholarship which read literature as co-determinate with national boundaries.”9 while these boundaries were already unhelpful and distorting in the nineteenth century, they completely failed to account for the realities of the twentieth. wagner also rejected what he called the “academic division of labor,” which, he claims, has prevented scholars from exploring connections between topics that are clearly related but separated by disciplinary boundaries.10 the prose texts of the early hundred flowers and the soviet link a contemporaneous chinese reader would have brought expectations shaped by the chinese literary conventions of socialist realism, which had “radicalized the most extreme soviet positions into a general line for literature” fundamentally requiring that literature serve politics.11 this meant that in china the then established literary genres offered little space to explore alternative ideas or values. for instance, it would have been inconceivable for an intelligentsia-hero to appear in a literary work. however, by leveraging the authority of post-stalinist thaw literature in the soviet union, chinese authors under the protective umbrella of the communist youth league under hu yaobang’s 胡耀邦 leadership managed to do just that. in the first two parts of inside a service trade, wagner reconstructs how— by appealing to soviet authority and introducing a new genre that lived in between strictly defined established categories—chinese authors were able to make a case against “bureaucratism” and briefly establish a more daring and innovative type of party member as a new kind of hero—all at a time when the chinese communist party (ccp) was tracking down “hidden counterrevolutionaries” and the political climate in china was anything but favorable for people sticking their heads out.12 as explored by wagner, the history of texie in china is an early example of transcultural studies. it explicitly treats soviet texts as chinese, in the sense that they formed an important part of literary debates at the time and were used for specific purposes within china itself.13 the texie genre was first introduced in the midst of the campaign against hu feng for his views opposing official literary policy, which was followed by a purge of other supposed counterrevolutionaries during the sufan campaign (肃反运动, lit. campaign to eradicate [hidden] counterrevolutionaries). in 1954, valentin 9 wagner, inside a service trade, 388. 10 wagner, inside a service trade, 18. 11 wagner, inside a service trade, 14. 12 wagner, inside a service trade, 34. 13 wagner, inside a service trade, 259. 104 rudolf wagner’s work on the politics of modern chinese literature ovechkin, the most famous ocherkist in the soviet union, visited china to speak about his genre of choice. his talk was translated into chinese by the journalist and author liu binyan 刘宾雁, who was a friend of ovechkin’s and would soon become china’s foremost author-cum-advocate of texie. a translation of ovechkin’s raionnye budni (days in the rayon) followed,14 but at the time, no chinese author was yet in a position to produce a similar work: “the only way to publish broader views on literature that were in line with the emerging thaw in the socialist camp after stalin’s death was to stay under big brother’s umbrella.”15 texie by chinese authors only became possible once the climate in the literary scene warmed again, this time in late 1955.16 under the “protective umbrella” of the youth league and with the explicit encouragement of the editor of the literary journal people’s literature (人民文学), liu binyan began to publish a series of texie that challenged established conventions about the principal problems facing chinese society and the proper personality type required to solve them: his heroes were young intellectuals who dared to make decisions and take responsibility, while his villains were cautious bureaucrats. it is also the villains who were made to repeat charges commonly heard in the ongoing sufan campaign (e.g., claims about counterrevolutionaries lacking discipline or being anti-party), instantly marking such accusations as false. as liu binyan’s work followed the youth league’s ongoing campaign to promote these new heroic figures, he was not alone in populating stories with this new type of party personality. but his texie went further than most in pushing back against established norms, if one takes comparable novels by galina nikolayeva in the soviet union and wang meng in china as a measure. mirroring ovechkin, liu broke another important convention by ending his reportages either on a pessimistic note or leaving issues unresolved—a risky move in 1950s china when literature was supposed to serve, not criticize, politics, and the press did not report until a problem had been officially solved and victory declared. by contrast, in liu’s zai qiaoliang gongdi shang 在桥 梁工地上 (at the building site) (1956), the cautious bureaucrat manages to demote the younger, more daring hero,17 and in benbao neibu xiaoxi 本报内 部消息 (inside news of our paper) (1956), changes are discussed, but none are made.18 14 hualunding aoweiqijin (valentin ovechkin) 华伦丁·奥维奇金, “quli de richang shenghuo” 区里的日常生活 [days in the rayon], yiwen 5 (1954): 1−38. 15 wagner, “liu binyan and the texie,” 71. 16 wagner, “liu binyan and the texie,” 71. 17 wagner, inside a service trade, 161. 18 wagner, inside a service trade, 190. 105the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) wagner carefully shows that while mirroring the soviet union could indeed “mean the imposition of stalinist rule,” it could also “open the option for a thaw where all local conditions are against it.”19 as such, the history of ocherk in china is also a tale of agency in the face of adversity. re-reading the hundred flowers campaign through the lens of texie suggests that authors did not wait until they were given permission to speak out by zhou enlai 周恩来 and mao zedong 毛泽东. rather, they took substantial risks—made possible, if not safe, by appealing to the authority of the soviet union—to create the conditions that were necessary to advance their new heroes. as we know, they paid a heavy price for doing this. power struggles on stage: reading the years between the great leap and the cultural revolution through historical drama between 1958 and 1963, friction inside the fragmented leadership of the prc was heating up. following the anti-rightist campaign (反右运动) of 1957– 1958, authors of the hundred flowers period were silenced and banished to china’s countryside and frontier regions, and more obscure textual forms were required to convey political messages. this was a time when criticism became more difficult, but, unlike a few years later, the hammer had not yet been brought down, and remonstrance was not wholly impossible. it was in this time that the historical drama turned into one of the few outlets through which political altercations could still be fought out. this genre gained renown when three such plays were attacked (most famously hai rui baguan), an attack that became what many consider the opening shot of the cultural revolution.20 however, the turn to historical themes was not an attempt to escape the attention of the country’s leadership by hiding behind the obscure. to the contrary, party leaders up to the highest levels of power, including zhou enlai and mao zedong, followed these plays closely and on occasion even became involved in the creative process. many of the individuals who wrote these plays were reasonably powerful in their own right, including the deputy mayor of beijing, wu han, and the playwright tian han 田汉, who was both the head and party secretary of the dramatists’ association. historical dramas were intended to send political messages, and they were received as such by china’s leadership. wagner chose two texts for in-depth analysis: the spoken drama guan hanqing 关汉卿 (1958) and the peking opera xie yaohuan 谢瑶环 (1961), both written by tian han. in addition, he picked a play that, while not a historical drama per se, lent itself to analysis because it presented the opposite 19 wagner, inside a service trade, 317. 20 wagner, the contemporary chinese historical drama, 236. 106 rudolf wagner’s work on the politics of modern chinese literature side of the debate—that is to say, a defense of the maoist line—through its various versions as well as literary and filmic formats: sun wukong sanda baigujing 孙悟空三打白骨精 (sun wukong three times subdues the white-bone demon). to this list one might also add the in-depth study of zhou xinfang’s 周信芳 hai rui shangshu 海瑞上疏 (hai rui submits his memorial) (1959), discussed in detail in a separate article.21 all of these texts (with the exception of sun wukong sanda baigujing) were attacked by name during the cultural revolution, but none attracted the same attention as hai rui baguan. hence, the record on the genesis and theatrical life of these “fringe” plays is less likely to have been distorted. in addition to his meticulous decoding of messages, wagner’s study proceeds from the assumption that the most effective way to read a text is to understand the counter-text it argues against or alters. sometimes, this counter-text was a literary convention, and sometimes it was a change in the historical record, such as when the censor xu yougong 徐有功 in tian han’s xie yaohuan “had to be compressed into zhou enlai’s shape” by making his character less principled than the version found in the historical record.22 and sometimes, the counter-text was a “silent dialogue” between plays or sets of plays. for instance, the political pitch might rise between plays, including more and more direct attacks on the person of the emperor, who, per socialist literary convention, had to be read as referring to the highest leader of the country, that is, mao zedong. whereas in guan hanqing the emperor remained entirely off-stage,23 in xie yaohuan the leader appears in the form of empress wu zetian 武则天, albeit still as a relatively benign character who is, ultimately, interested in learning the truth. in hai rui shangshu, by contrast, hai rui brings a coffin on stage when confronting the emperor—signaling to the audience that the leader does not accept criticism and has all critics killed24—and when hai rui is imprisoned, he can only be saved after the emperor’s death.25 a year later, in sun an dongben 孙安动本 (sun an pushes memorials) (1960), the hero brings three coffins (one for himself and two for his wife and son), while the emperor is now chased around the stage with a hammer.26 21 rudolf g. wagner, “‘in guise of a congratulation’: political symbolism in zhou xinfang’s play hai rui submits his memorial,” australian journal of chinese affairs, no. 26 (1991): 99−142. 22 wagner, the contemporary chinese historical drama, 120. 23 wagner, the contemporary chinese historical drama, 55. 24 a detail that leading actor zhou xinfang decided to omit, as he considered it “too provocative” when the play was performed in front of mao zedong. wagner, “‘in guise of a congratulation,’” 139. 25 wagner, the contemporary chinese historical drama, 272. 26 wagner, the contemporary chinese historical drama, 278−280. 107the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) sun wukong sanda baigujing, by contrast, is a forceful rejection of the line taken in plays that criticized great leap policies and chairman mao zedong. here, mao appears on stage as sun wukong, loyally defending the party (personified by tang seng 唐僧) against the vicious attacks of the white-bone demon, which symbolizes the true dangers of “soviet revisionism.”27 sun wukong / mao zedong may attack others, but he is always right and only does so to protect tang (the party) against the new deadly enemy (khrushchev) and those trying to take his side in china. elsewhere, the author guo moruo 郭 沫若 emerges as one of the main defenders of the paramount leader against the increasingly high-pitched attacks mounted through the historical dramas featuring hai rui, with his play wu zetian 武则天 (1960) forming the countertext to tian han’s xie yaohuan, both set in the same period.28 this interaction between different factions through different plays is skillfully reconstructed in wagner’s analysis. as wagner shows us, these texts can aid our understanding of a period in the history of the prc about which information is still not easily obtained, namely the great leap and the years preceding the cultural revolution. or, to put it in wagner’s own words: “my intention in this study is to make the voice of the play and its author better heard, and to introduce an additional voice into the few that tell us about this cataclysmic time.”29 although more is known about both periods now than when the contemporary chinese historical drama was first published in 1990, these plays still constitute a unique source that can help us to assess how the politics of the great leap forward, the sino-soviet split, and the divisions inside the chinese communist party leadership were understood within elite circles years before these conflicts spilled out into the open. again, this is a story of agency. even though the focus is explicitly on the works themselves and on correctly decoding them through the restoration of contemporaneous understandings, the authors of these works occasionally slip into view. these authors were not obscure intellectuals, but people close to the center of power with powerful political patrons (such as the mayor of beijing, peng zhen 彭真, even people as high up as premier zhou enlai), who offered them a certain level of protection. just like the younger hundred flowers authors, or arguably more so, these authors were aware of the political significance of what they were doing, even if they could not anticipate the full consequences of their actions. in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the practice of reading precise political analogies into these plays was condemned as a dirty tactic of the cultural 27 wagner, the contemporary chinese historical drama, 152. 28 wagner, the contemporary chinese historical drama, 282−289. 29 wagner, the contemporary chinese historical drama, 138. 108 rudolf wagner’s work on the politics of modern chinese literature revolution. since then, the tendency has also been to leave literature and literary motives to writers, and politics and political motives to party leadership. consequently, political readings of these historical dramas—and ascribing political intent to the playwrights in particular—has caused some discomfort in the academic community,30 not least because such readings might be seen to confirm the accusations launched at playwrights during the cultural revolution. in the words of one reviewer, “much of wagner’s interpretation and evaluation, although made with much sympathy for those playwrights who suffered because of their writing during the cultural revolution (1966−1976), ironically confirms and justifies the false accusations against these playwrights by the government at the time.”31 however, it is important to note that accurately decoding the plays does not in any way justify the attacks made during the cultural revolution. rather, it returns agency to the authors who were forced to disavow them under extreme duress as the political temperature rose. the post-mao legacy in late 1978, once hu yaobang was rehabilitated and took over the central propaganda department, the writers who had been purged in 1957 reemerged and brought back with them their old heroes and bureaucrat villains. in the third and final part of inside a service trade, wagner looks at some of the literature that was produced during the early post-mao years, which carried on the hundred flowers legacy. in addition to showing how themes from the hundred flowers period were picked up again when once exiled-authors had been rehabilitated, wagner’s exploration of early post-maoist literature also lends itself to writing a multilayered exploration of today’s ccp ideology—one that could explain such things as science optimism, elitism, and other phenomena that showed up in these texts and are still reflected in the party’s outlook on the world today. during these early post-mao years, the “manager novel”—an inversion of the worker novel long established in the shared literature of the socialist camp—entered the chinese literary scene. as with texie, the emergence of this genre in china had a soviet influence. some soviet texts of the manager novel genre were translated and circulated as negative teaching materials (fanmian jiaocai 反面教材) during the late years of the cultural revolution, and “there is some oral testimony that many people read these … as a truthful depiction of their industrial manager-heroes, and read the leftist analyses … as the true 30 see, for example, constantine tung, review of the contemporary chinese historical drama: four studies, by rudolf g. wagner, asian theatre journal 9, no. 1 (spring 1992): 129−133; 132. 31 haiping yan, review of the contemporary chinese historical drama: four studies, by rudolf g. wagner, theatre journal 44, no. 4 (1992): 550−552; 551. 109the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) fanmian jiaocai.”32 the manager-hero derives his legitimacy from enacting the “objective laws of the economy” as he battles incompetent workers and villainous bureaucrats.33 consequently, the manager novel analyzed in inside a service trade, jiang zilong’s 蒋子龙 qiao changzhang shangren ji 乔 厂长上任记 (director qiao takes over) (1979), does not cast the cultural revolution as the greatest obstacle to progress, but bestows this position to the new bureaucrats who gained power under hua guofeng. the entrenched bureaucrat villain and the new type of hero are what link jiang’s text to the remaining two pieces that wagner analyzed—gao xiaosheng’s 高晓声 li shunda zaowu 李顺大造屋 (li shunda builds a house) (1979) and wang meng’s 王蒙 youyou cuncaoxin 悠悠寸草心 (the loyal heart) (1979). of the two, gao’s work is more radical. here he introduces a rural peddler (the “black core of the ‘capitalist sprouts’”)34 as his hero, and measures the progress of prc history by a single criterion: whether his hero can fulfill the modest yet seemingly impossible goal of building a house.35 by contrast, wang’s hero, a barber, is a literary self-insertion, building on the trope introduced in the hundred flowers era of the barber as a well-informed critic who helps the party stay in shape by trimming away its problems or occasionally masking them.36 still, wagner’s verdict on wang meng’s story, which coined the titular “service trade” of his book, is harsh: “true to the traditional self-perception of the chinese writer in this century, ‘loyal heart’ shows an overpowering selfrighteousness in the barber’s voice … there is little wisdom in this text.”37 much more could be said, and anyone familiar with this subset of wagner’s body of work will know that what has been presented here is merely a snippet of a much more complex and detailed enterprise of decoding prc literature to uncover its many layers of meaning and connections. nonetheless, i hope that this brief article might inspire some to (re)read these texts and perhaps experiment with parts of the expansive methodological toolkit they offer. 32 wagner, inside a service trade, 390. 33 wagner, inside a service trade, 388. 34 wagner, inside a service trade, 450. 35 wagner, inside a service trade, 460. 36 wagner, inside a service trade, 497−505. 37 wagner, inside a service trade, 531. how histories make geographies | appadurai | transcultural studies how histories make geographies: circulation and context in a global perspective arjun appadurai, new york university 1. global cultural flows cultural objects including images, languages, and hairstyles now move ever more swiftly across regional and national boundaries. this acceleration is a consequence of the speed and spread of the internet and the simultaneous, comparative growth in travel, cross-cultural media and global advertisement. the power of global corporations to outsource various aspects of their activities, ranging from manufacture and distribution to advertising and commerce, has meant that the force of global capital is now multiplied by the opportunistic combination of cultural idioms, symbols, labor pools and attitudes to profit and risk. additionally, this volatile and exploding traffic in commodities, styles, and information has been matched by the growth of both flows of cultural politics, visible most powerfully in the discourse of human rights, but also in the new languages of radical christianity and islam, and the discourse of civil society activists, who wish to promote their own versions of global equity, entitlement, and citizenship. the dynamics of modernization remain an essential feature of global cultural flows. global corporations now compete for markets, such as bio-technology, digital media, drinking water, energy credits, financial derivatives (as we now know) and other commodity markets, which barely existed before 1970. at the same time, illegal or unofficial markets have emerged everywhere, linking societies and states in different parts of the world. these lateral markets which involve traffic in human organs, armaments, precious metals, and sex work, to name but four examples, make extensive use of the power of the internet, of satellites using cell phones and other sophisticated communications technologies. they also take full advantage of the differential policing of national boundaries, of the destruction of many rural economies, and the corruption of state that characterizes many parts of the world. such illegal commodity circuits, for example in africa, also bring apparently desolate economies to major ports and commercial hubs, such as rotterdam, through the global movement of everyday commodities like refrigerators, air-conditioners, cars and other consumer durables. the diamond market consists of sophisticated networks linking mines and armies, cutting and marketing middlemen in india, as well as major dealers and showrooms in london, antwerp, and new york; it is now also deeply connected to instances of extreme social violence in such places as sierra leone, zaire, and angola.(de boeck 2001; nordstrom 2007). it is important to appreciate that these varied commodity circuits are themselves mutually connected. thus the capacity of global financial players to electronically move large sums across national boundaries, and to create and exploit new financial markets across the world, has also produced new inequalities in some of the world’s mega-cities and significantly fuelled the recent precipitous global financial melt-down. these inequalities–i think of cities such as mumbai, hong kong or são paulo–fuel the growth of large urban under-classes, which are potential fodder for the work of global crime-syndicates, engaged in traditional forms of smuggling, cross-border trade and the relatively new politics of urban terror. the latter kind of politicized crime is perpetrated by the criminal networks, which grew out of mumbai, and are now located in karachi, dubai, kathmandu, bangkok, and beyond. they create a new geography relating the persian gulf to different parts of south and south-east asia; they are directly involved in the politics of violence, which exists in kashmir and elsewhere in south asia and, in conjunction with the abovementioned types of commodity links, they underpin the financial infrastructure of networks such as al qaida, which was originally built through the globalized construction enterprises of the bin laden family. from inspecting these multiple commodity networks and chains we can conclude that the newer forms of circulation exemplified by global financial markets, instruments and regulations also affect the overall capitalization of older commodity chains, both illegal and legal, such as those involved in the flows of labor, drugs, arms, and precious metals. without making too big a case out of this: these new things ride on older things, transform and reinvigorate them. globalization creates a more volatile and blurred relationship between finance capital and other forms of capital, and a more dangerous relationship between global commodity flows and the politics of warfare, security, and peace in many societies. the other major factor in all global commodity chains, ranging from the simplest to the most sophisticated, is the explosive growth in highly advanced tools for storing, sharing, and tracking information electronically both by the state and its opponents. for the world, the complexity of global cultural flows has had deep effects on what i once called the “production of locality” and the production of local subjectivity (appadurai 1996). these flows and networks confound older models of acculturation, culture contact, and mixture, since they also brought new materials for the construction of subjectivity. the traffic of images of global suffering, for example, creates new communities of sentiment, which introduce empathy, identification, and anger across large cultural distances. for example, in europe, wearing a veil, itself highly varied in different parts of the islamic world, has become a flashpoint for education, fashion, and state authority in countries such as france, which was historically quite comfortable with sumptuous markers of religious identity. a powerful example of a global discursive flow is the spread of the discourse of human rights into the center of the vocabulary of politics, since the birth of the united nations. in the half century since that time, virtually every known society has generated individuals and groups who have a new consciousness of their political status within the framework of human rights. minorities of every kind, including women, children, immigrants, refugees, political prisoners, and other weak citizens, now have the capacity to exercise pressure on the state to respect their human rights. this process is of special interest in the history of anthropology, since it brings the social fact of cultural difference square into the realm of politics and links cultural diversity to the most essential and universal human rights. this process is not altogether benign: in many cases the capacity of what i call “small numbers” (appadurai 006) to press large political claims in the name of cultural difference can produce ethno-national mobilization and contribute to the conditions for genocide. europe has seen a variety of reactions since the violence in former yugoslavia in the early 1990s, including the rise of the openly anti-immigrant right in france, austria, sweden, germany and italy. gingrich and banks (2006) have recently succeeded in assembling something of an answer to this problem from an anthropological view. the global spread of human rights values is also a sign of the complex new forms of law and legality, which now effect the relation between order and disorder in many societies undergoing rapid transformation. in short, global cultural flows have lost the selective and cumbersome qualities that they have had for much of human history, during which most societies found ways to accommodate external systems of meaning within their own cosmological frameworks, hence producing change by dialectical accident and structural combination (sahlins 1987). today, global cultural flows, whether religious, political or market produced, have entered into the manufacture of local subjectivities, thus changing both the machineries for the manufacture of local meaning and the materials that are processed by these machineries. consequently, western citizens, law-makers, and many liberals debate ideas about refugee rights in terms of multi-culturalism, dual patriotism, diasporic dignity, and cultural rights–all of which are as new as the debates they seek to mediate. likewise, this current period–approximately from the nineteen seventies to the present–is characterized by the flows not just of cultural substances, but also of cultural forms, such as the novel, the ballet, the political constitution, and divorce, to pick just a few examples. the flow of these forms has affected major world historical processes such as nationalism (anderson 1983; 1998). today, however, the flow of forms also affects the very nature of knowledge, as whole disciplines, techniques, and ways of thinking move and transform in the process. examples of global flows of such knowledge forms include the spread, say, of internet gaming in china; the growth of day-trading stocks in places like tokyo, shanghai, and beyond; the writing of constitutions in post-monarchic societies such as nepal and the popularity throughout the world of such visual forms as japanese manga. crucial to an understanding of these cultural flows is the relationship between the forms of circulation and the circulation of forms. forms such as novels, films, and newspapers meet well-established circulatory paths and circuits of religion, migration, and trade. but other cultural forms, uch as ballet, animation, fashion photography, and grassroots political activism create circuits of circulation, which did not exist before. thus the twenty-first century is witnessing new tensions between the actually circulating, cultural forms, and emerging, partially culturally formed circuits or networks that shape and cover the multiple paths of circulation. this dual structure of global cultural forms also generates what we may call the “bumps” or obstacles in regard to many cultural flows. the chinese state, for example, is very keen to curb the internet, based on its right to regulate information and enforce social morality, just as members of the falun gong movement use global techniques of protest and communication to undermine the legitimacy of the chinese state. housing activists use the full force of their global allies and circuits to impede the capacity of local and city governments to displace slum-populations. proponents of women’s rights are in a daily race against those who use global cultural circuits to argue and legitimize their own views on gender politics in the name of the value of cultural difference. thus, these global cultural flows have a curious inner contradiction since they create some of the obstacles to their own freedom of movement and strangely self-regulate the ease with which they cross cultural boundaries. to summarize: knowing that there has always been flow, exchange, and mixture across social boundaries in human history, i take the longue durée very seriously. the fact that the same dynamics produce various cultural flows and the very obstacles, bumps, and potholes that impede their free movement, constitutes a highly significant, new development in our understanding of cultural flows in the era of globalization; it also ought to comfort those who worry that global flows will result in a simple and homogeneous cultural regime that covers the earth. 2. some dilemmas of method for some time now, social scientists and area studies scholars, including scholars of built forms, have been wondering about a basic problem: how can we compare social objects in a world where most such objects, whether nations, ideas, technologies and economies, seem deeply interconnected. the classic idea of comparison in fields as diverse as comparative literature, linguistics, and anthropology, relies on the notion that the objects to be compared are distinct and that comparison, therefore, remains unsullied by connectivity. even in fields like anthropology and evolutionary biology, with their interest in the historical, evolutionary parentage of forms, such as kinship or language, the strategy of comparison treated objects for the purpose of comparison, as if they were formally quite separate. indeed, comparison was a guide to the study of history and ancestry, rather than vice versa. i want to suggest that we need to distinguish the problem of circulation from the problem of connectivity and look at various periods as being characterized by different levels of circulation. for example, there can be periods or contexts marked by a high level of connectivity without a high level of circulation, as in the case of the movement of buddhism from india to much of asia in the first millennium of the christian era. today, we find ourselves at the other end of the spectrum: we live in a world where both are at very high levels. many low-tech and geographically isolated societies are limited in regard to both connectivity and circulation. yet the societies of contemporary turkey and germany, with their high-level of circulation of turkish guest workers to and from germany, do not show a significant increase in connectivity. in thinking about area studies, we need to recognize that histories produce geographies and not vice versa. we must get away from the notion that there is some kind of spatial landscape against which time writes its story. instead, it is historical agents, institutions, actors, powers that make the geography. of course, there are commercial geographies, geographies of nations, geographies of religion, ecological geographies, any number of geographies, but each one of them is historically produced. they did not pre-exist so that people could act in or with them. perceiving histories as producing geographies offers a better grasp of the knowledge produced in the humanities, the social sciences, and even the natural sciences about the way in which regions, areas, and even civilizations emerge from the work of human beings. this emergence includes what i previously called the “work of the imagination” (appadurai 1996), which humans do as they strive to extend their chances of survival, improve their horizons of possibility, and increase their wealth and security. throughout human history, these activities, which are by no means solely the product of modernity, have characterized what i call the “production of locality”: while human beings exercise their social, technical, and imaginative capacities, including the capacity for violence, warfare, and ecological selfishness, they literally produce the environments within which they function, including the biological and physical nature of these environments. the idea that histories produce geographies, which of course then in turn shape what happens to historical agents, holds at all scales including the city scale. in a variety of fields the relationship between circulation, comparison, and connectivity features an inner tension between structural approaches stressing comparison, and what may be labeled “historical approaches,” which stress connectivity. the question, therefore, is whether we can develop a method that does not require a choice between the stress on comparison and the stress on connectivity. for an answer we have to return to the relationship between “the circulation of forms and the forms of circulation.” 3. the circulation of forms by “forms” i mean to indicate a family of phenomena, including styles, techniques, or genres, which can be inhabited by specific voices, contents, messages, and materials. unfortunately, the philosophical conundrum of separating form from content cannot be unraveled in this essay. in using the word “form” i simply wish to temporarily place the issue of global circulation on a slightly more abstract level. the most recent forms to be discussed in this way are the “nation form” and the “novel form,” whose relationship was forcefully argued by benedict anderson (anderson 1983), when he redefined nationalism by linking it to print capitalism, nation and narration, reading and citizenship, imagined and affected communities. there have been some additional inquiries into how the novel form has circulated and how it has been transformed in the process, along with other literary forms and genres. the circulation of the nation form has been the subject of less intense discussion, but homi bhabha (bhabha 1990), benjamin lee (lee 1997), and a few others have shown that it, too, moves and inhabits local sites in complex ways. the idea of nation also circulates partly due to the production of new reading publics and new forms of writing and publication. the great american constitutional formula “we the people” is not only a performative, as bonnie honig (honig 1991) and jay fliegelman (fliegelman 1993), among others have shown, but also a circulating performative that produces different local imaginaries about collective identity and democratic projects. the examples of nation and narration are a useful reminder that different forms circulate through different trajectories, generate diverse interpretations, and yield different and uneven geographies. there are novels without nations and nations without novels, so globalization is never a total project capturing all geographies with equal force. indeed, the circulation of forms produces new and distinct genre experiments, many of which are forced to coexist in uneven nd uneasy combinations. one lesson here is that we need to move decisively beyond existing models of creolization, hybridity, fusion, syncretism, and the like, which have largely been about mixture at the level of content. instead, we need to probe the cohabitation of forms, such as the novel and the nation, because they actually produce new contexts through their peculiar inflection of each other. a first step to escape the conundrum of the local and the global that many scholars are facing may be to accept that the global is not merely the accidental site of the fusion or confusion of circulating global elements. it is the site of the mutual transformation of circulating forms, such as the nation and the novel. such transformations always occur through what i called earlier the “work of the imagination,” which produces locality. in my 1996 work modernity at large, i stressed that the local was not just an inverted canvas on which the global was written, but that the local itself was a product of incessant effort.  today, that argument is relatively easy to accept, or to agree with, or even take for granted, but i want to add that this labor and this appropriation is first of all a matter of forms, styles, idioms, and techniques, rather than substantive stories, theories, bodies, or books. thus the nation form represents a more vital circulating ingredient than any specific ideology of nationalism. the novel form is more important than any author or variation of the genre.  the idea of “the people” is more important than any specific populist ideology. the idea of a foundational legal document for a national polity outweighs this or that particular constitution. finally, the “work of the imagination” and the circulation of forms produce localities not by the hybridization of contents, art, ideology, or technology, but by the negotiation and mutual tensions between each other. it is this negotiation which creates the complex containers which further shape the actual contents of local practice. 4. the forms of circulation in closing, let me look at the forms of circulation. they are closely tied to the circuits through which they occur, the speed with which they occur, and the scale on which they occur. not everything moves through the same circuits: humans move in boats, ships, trains, and cars; pictures, words, and ideas move through a variety of other circuits, which now include cyberpaths of various kinds; blood circulates through certain circuits, money through others, arms, drugs, and diseases through yet others. speed is a property that shapes the circulation of different forms; at the same time, it is an element of the forms of circulation. the 2002 invasion of iraq, for example, clearly shows the uneven speeds of a host of messages, materials, and man-power, as well as media reports. spatial scope is another formal key feature of circulatory processes. linguistically, mediated forms tend to have certain genres and produce effects over certain terrains. therefore, recognizing that circulation itself has some formal properties, mainly in terms of time, space, and scale, i would modify my earlier argument that the uneven relationships between a variety of scapes–i used the term “ethnoscapes”–produced these junctures and differences in the global cultural economy. today, i would make that suggestion more dynamic by arguing that the bumps and blocks, disjunctures and differences are produced by the variety of circuits, scales and speeds which characterize the circulation of cultural elements. some examples and questions from asia will illustrate this point: why is there not greater interaction between the film industries of hong kong and mumbai in regard to plots, characters, narratives, finances, production, or distribution? it is true that in the last few decades mumbai film makers include hong kong, singapore, and a few other monumental locations in their films, partly to offset the high costs of exotic locales such as london and new york, but also because some indian filmmakers, especially from the madras based tamil movie industry, are fascinated by the special consumer cultures of east asia. however, the reverse is not true: chinese, japanese, or other major asian movie industries do not head south towards india to enrich their own fantasies about the modern. the question is, why not? how many mainland chinese have seen an indian soap opera? how many indians have seen and enjoyed a popular film from the mainland? how many indian intellectuals can discuss india’s relationship with north korea with any authority? have india’s secular intellectuals wondered why communist china has been remarkably harsh with its own religious minorities? these are all questions about blockages, bumps, and interference in what is otherwise seen as a festival of interaction and celebration between india and china. in general, it is fair to say that any fast and heavy traffic is due to the force of the market of commodities and services, of capital and its flows, and the energies of entrepreneurship. where the traffic is weak, it is generally a matter of cultural prejudices and of various state-policies. all modernities emerge in the tension between heavy traffic and the opposite, slow traffic. in other words, while it is true that histories produce geographies, the shape, form, and durability of these geographies is also a matter of obstacles, roadblocks, and traffic jams. in order to comprehend how alterity is produced in a globalizing world, we need to consider both the circulation of forms, which i have stressed, and the forms of circulation. in fact, what we need, i believe, is a theory that relates the forms of circulation to the circulation of forms. such a theory can tell us something useful about the reason why universities move less swiftly than, say, ak47s and why, globally, democracy is held in higher esteem than the american presidency. to really meet the challenge of comparison in a context characterized by high degrees of connectivity and circulation, which i believe defines our era of globalization, we need to understand more about the ways in which the forms of circulation and the circulation of forms create the conditions for the production of locality. i stress locality because, in the end, this is where our vitally important archives reside. localities–in this world and in this argument–are temporary negotiations between various globally circulating forms. they are not subordinate instances of the global, but in fact the main evidence of its reality. note: this text is based on a lecture the author held at the opening ceremony of the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context” at heidelberg university on october 20, 2008. references anderson, benedict. 1983. imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. london: verso. ———. 1998. the spectre of comparisons: nationalism, southeast asia, and the world. new york: verso. appadurai, arjun. 1996. modernity at large. minnesota: university of minnesota press. ———. 2006. fear of small numbers: an essay on the geography of anger. durham: duke university press. bhabha, homi, ed. 1990. nation and narration. london: routledge. de boeck, filip. 2001. “garimpeiro worlds: digging, dying and hunting for diamonds in angola.” review of african political economy 90: 549–562. fliegelman, jay. 1993. declaring independence: jefferson, natural language, and the culture of performance. stanford: stanford university press. gingrich, andre, and marcus banks, eds. 2006. neo-nationalism in europe and beyond: perspectives from social anthropology. london: bergahn books. honig, bonnie. 1991. “declarations of independence: arendt and derrida on the problem of founding a republic.” american political science review, march 1991. lee, benjamin. 1998. “peoples and publics.” public culture 10, 2: 371–394. nordstrom, carolyn. 2007. global outlaws: crime, money, and power in the contemporary world. berkeley: university of california press. sahlins, marshall. 1987. islands of history. chicago: university of chicago press. editor’s note | transcultural studies editor’s note since we launched our first issue in december 2010, transcultural studies has received a large number of visits, new submissions, and not least invaluable feed-back from readers, reviewers and authors. this positive echo has greatly inspired the editors to include new features and expand and strengthen the existing ones. one of the most immediately visible changes is our new logo. based on the international sign of the meeting point, it visually expresses what the journal is trying to do. the collection of essays that we are able to present in this second issue carries out this intention. transcultural studies 1/2011 opens with a contribution by rudolf g. wagner. his study on the transcultural and translingual migration of the metaphor of “china asleep and awakening” is a bold attempt to investigate the constitutive role of metaphors and images in the formation of globalized concepts. it demonstrates that this process, generated by asymmetries at different levels, can be fully and meaningfully grasped only when the enquiry is no longer framed by the nation state as unit of investigation, but is defined according to the dynamics of travelling individuals, concepts and images. by introducing a number of key notions the article offers a useful methodological apparatus for research on transculturality. because the electronic medium allows for flexible publication scheduling, the article has been available online for some time. this practice of uploading articles as and when they are ready will be continued to avoid the delays that paper-print most often brings with it. our second contribution by hiroyuki suzuki continues the series “multi-centred modernisms.” it charts japanese society’s changing perceptions of the colossal statue buddha of kamakura in order to trace the emergence of the modern, rapidly globalizing concept of art. this shift from religious icon to work of art, perceived as a source of aesthetic value, began with the meiji restoration and was in no small measure shaped by the aesthetic assessments of european scholars, diplomats, antiquarians and collectors who travelled to japan during the 19th century. our third contribution has also been authored by a japanese scholar. in his article atsushi shibasaki situates the scholar tomonaga sanjūrō, a historian of western philosophy, in the context of international political and cultural relations, but also in the field of modern japanese intellectual history. this article was originally published in japanese in 2009 and is the first that transcultural studies introduces under the new rubric “translations” to an english speaking audience. with this rubric, transcultural studies intends to offer an english-language platform for studies with a transcultural focus, which were originally penned in an asian language. the final part of the journal comprises the themed section byzantium beyond its eastern borders, guest-edited by christine stephan-kaissis. it offers three essays—by stefan faller, zsuszanna gulácsi, and claudia wenzel—that investigate cases of byzantium’s transcultural relations with central asia, china, and india. based on a workshop that was held at the institute of byzantine archaeology and art history at the ruprecht-karls-university heidelberg, these contributions explore the mechanisms of visual communication between byzantium and the asian continent. stefan faller probes the applicability of transculturality to ancient cultures by investigating a broad array of sources on the byzantine monk and merchant cosmas indicopleustes. faller shows cosmas to be a well-informed and well-travelled man, whose notions of the universe and man’s place in it suggest—his unwavering christian faith notwithstanding—a braiding of ideas with hindu, buddhist and jain cosmology. in her essay on mani’s picture-book and the visual language that informs it, zsuszanna gulácsi demonstrates visual media’s flexibility not only in content, but also in genre (here in the context of religious instruction), and its readiness to merge with pictorial conventions of other cultural contexts. her investigation of medieval manichaean image-creation resounds strongly with the processes that rudolf g. wagner so carefully traces in the modern context of political cartoons. the closing essay by claudia wenzel moves the discussion of flows between asia and europe towards parallel image-discourses that took place in eastern cultures—mainly china and india—and byzantium. the question whether the divine and its personification can be depicted concerned both cultural spheres and resulted in similar actions and reactions. any attempt to depict “superhuman spiritual beings”—to borrow a phrase from stephan-kaissis’ introduction—was strictly codified, while the invisible quality of these beings was sought to be incorporated by using sophisticated visual strategies.  the question whether buddha or christ could be at all presented visually remained hotly debated, sometimes met with violent iconoclasms, and given human imperfection could ultimately not be answered in the affirmative. we hope this issue will offer you valuable information and fresh insights. for the editorial board, monica juneja rudolf wagner and wang bi edward l. shaughnessy i first met rudolf wagner in the spring of 1985. if i recall correctly, it was at the suggestion of david keightley that rudolf and i had coffee together late one afternoon at the student union on the berkeley campus. i know that i recall correctly that i was immediately met with a torrent of conversation topics, bouncing from hong xiuquan 洪秀全 and the heavenly kingdom of great peace (taiping tianguo 太平天國), to chinese science fiction in the 1950s, to the british navy steaming up the yangzi, to the correspondence between huiyuan 慧遠 and kumārajīva 鳩摩羅什, before it finally settled on the work of wang bi 王弼, especially his commentary on the laozi 老子, something about which i finally knew at least a little bit. but what little bit i knew didn’t prepare me for rudolf’s two major arguments about wang bi. first, he insisted that the laozi text that has circulated for about 1500 years over the top of wang bi’s commentary is not the text that was known to wang bi himself, but was rather a substitute text—probably in the lineage of heshang gong 河上公—put there sometime before the tang dynasty. second, he also suggested that wang bi read the laozi itself as a commentary on the lunyu 論語, and that whenever wang bi referred to the term “sage” (shengren 聖人) it can only be understood as a direct reference to confucius. i am not someone who is easily impressed, but i do not mind confessing that i was totally dazzled by rudolf. i recognized at once that if these two arguments about wang bi’s laozi commentary could be substantiated, they would have far-reaching consequences for both textual criticism in general and for our understanding of chinese intellectual history more specifically. during the next year, i began teaching at the university of chicago, where i was able to renew my acquaintance with rudolf—an interesting item missing from his curriculum vitae and probably known to very few colleagues. it so happened that in that year we had a position open for traditional chinese intellectual history. i encouraged rudolf to apply, which he did—and did so successfully. indeed, he was appointed to our faculty as a non-tenured associate professor beginning in the autumn term of 1986, which he readily accepted. however, he asked to take the first term off to put his affairs in order, and chicago was happy to grant this leave. unfortunately for chicago, but probably fortunately for the world of sinology, and especially for that of german sinology, before that first term ended rudolf was offered the chair in sinology at heidelberg. chicago was history, and rudolf went on to make history. shortly thereafter, i took over as editor of the journal early china. one of the first things i did was to encourage rudolf to submit his work on the textual 78 rudolf wagner and wang bi history of the wang bi laozi, one of the topics related to wang bi that he had told me about that fateful first afternoon in berkeley. his article—“the wang bi recension of the laozi”—was published in the first issue that i edited.1 the article is a technical study of textual transmission involving several different early recensions of the laozi, not to mention occasional quotations in other sources. comparison of these different texts shows beyond any doubt the point that rudolf had made to me at berkeley: that the laozi text written over the top of the wang bi commentary in all received editions is not the text that wang bi himself had used. in an appendix to the article, rudolf listed seventynine differences between the readings of the received text and the wang bi commentary, and another thirty-seven differences between the received text and the “old manuscript” (guben 古本) of fan yingyuan 范應元 (fl. 1246), which rudolf argued either was, or was similar to, wang bi’s original text. true, most of these differences are minor, usually just the addition or omission of a particle here or there, or occasionally a different character, or the transposition of a character or two. however, the significance does not lie in the individual differences, but rather in what this says for the textual history of the laozi and especially of wang bi’s commentary. for too long, sinologists—and especially western sinologists—had been content to accept whatever text they found in a modern edition as the text of the author, and did not undertake the hard work of traditional textual criticism to establish the original reading of that text. this was even more true of commentaries, when they bothered to take the commentaries seriously at all. what is more, it is not the case that all of the variants are philosophically uninteresting. rudolf ended his analysis with one very important variant, which is worth reviewing both for his methodology and for the significance it might have for wang bi’s philosophy. it comes in chapter fifty-seven of the laozi, and involves comparison between the received text and ten other textual exemplars. his presentation deserves to be quoted in full. one doxographically important passage may be discussed last to show some of the problems in reconstructing the wang bi laozi urtext. wang bi laozi receptus: 人多伎巧奇物滋起法令滋彰 heshang gong: ” ” ” ” ” ” ” ” ” 物 ” ” huainanzi: ’’ 令 ’’ ’’ shiji: ’’ ’’ ’’ ’’ wenzi: ” ” ” ” ” ’’ ’’ ’’ ’’ 1 rudolf g. wagner, “the wang bi recension of the laozi,” early china 14 (1989): 27–54. 79the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) yan zun: ” ” ” ” ” ” ” ” ” ” ” ” old mss. (fu and fan): 民 ’’ 智慧而衷事 ’’ ’’ ’’ ’’ 章 mawangdui a: 人 ’’ ’’ ’’ 何物 ’’ ’’ 物 ’’ ’’ mawangdui b: 民 ’’ ’’ ’’ ’’ 邪事 ” ” ” ” ” wang bi comm. ad loc: ” ” ” ” 則巧偽生巧偽生則邪事起 wang bi in laozi zhilüe: 息淫在乎去華不在滋章 the reading fa ling 法令, shared by the versions given in the huainanzi, shiji, and wenzi, directly attacks the legalists. the mawangdui manuscripts come from a legalist milieu and thus do not transmit this version. wang bi, however, attacked the legalism of the wei court. thus, even though we have no explicit statement by wang bi himself, the reading of the two “old manuscripts” must be that of his urtext, which would have read 民多智慧而邪事滋起法令滋章.2 this is an argument the significance of which should be readily apparent, and would serve as powerful testimony to another argument concerning textual transmission. however, it is less compelling than rudolf’s other cases since it is based only on indirect evidence, or even on no evidence at all, since the reading that he proposes is not that of the “old manuscripts,” despite what he claims about it. besides, i do not see any difference—certainly no doxographic difference—between the wang bi laozi receptus and the reading that he suggests for the urtext. more important, i think the major claim that wang bi “attacked the legalism of the wei court” is open to question. this claim goes hand in hand with the second argument that rudolf made to me that first day we met: that when wang bi referred to the “sage” (shengren 聖人), he intended specifically confucius. i suspect that most readers will find this claim to be of more interest than the replacement of the laozi text transmitted over the top of wang bi’s commentary, and so i will consider it in rather greater detail. the discussion will involve close readings of a few texts that rudolf claimed were central to wang bi’s political philosophy, and will almost unavoidably turn on matters of translation. i beg the reader’s forbearance in this, but i hope it will be the 2 wagner, “the wang bi recension of the laozi,” 47. the exemplars illustrated in this chart are the laozi text transmitted over the top of the wang bi commentary (laozi receptus); the laozi text transmitted over the top of the heshang gong 河上公 commentary; a quotation in the huainanzi 淮南子; a quotation in the shiji 史記; a quotation in the wenzi 文子; a quotation of the laozi zhu 老子注 by yan zun 嚴遵; the “old manuscripts” cited in fu yi 傅奕, daodejing guben 道德經古本 and fan yingyuan 范應元, laozi daodejing jizhu 老子道德經集注; the two manuscripts discovered at mawangdui 馬王 堆, changsha 長沙, hunan in 1974; wang bi’s own commentary in chapter fifty-seven; and a reading given in laozi weizhi lüeli 老子微指略例 (laozi zhilüe), which is attributed to wang bi. 80 rudolf wagner and wang bi type of discussion that rudolf himself cherished, even if my argument will be critical at places. the claim that when wang bi referred to the shengren he intended specifically confucius, and that wang bi regarded confucius to be the highest sage, one grade higher than laozi, is found, at least implicitly, in the first volume of rudolf’s trilogy on wang bi’s commentary on the laozi: the craft of a chinese commentator: wang bi on the laozi,3 and rudolf made a reasonable philosophical argument there in support of it. this is consistent with the story about wang bi in the shi shuo xin yu 世說新語 and in the biography of wang bi by he shao 何劭.4 however, in rudolf’s most mature statement concerning wang bi’s laozi commentary, the 2003 book language, ontology, and political philosophy in china: wang bi’s exploration of the dark (xuanxue), he seems to have changed his understanding at least of the referent for wang bi’s shengren, from confucius to the ruler,5 though this seems not to have entailed any radical change in his understanding of wang bi’s philosophy. the final chapter of this book is entitled “wang bi’s political philosophy.” it is a lengthy and very dense argument, which i am not at all confident that i understand in its entirety. it is only in the last three pages of the chapter that rudolf considers the actual political situation at the time wang bi was writing, but then he dismisses this, saying, “little is explained by the reference to the particular historic circumstances of wang bi’s philosophy.”6 unfortunately, if my understanding—both of rudolf’s presentation and also wang bi’s commentaries not only on the laozi but also on the zhou yi 周易— is right, i have to think those “particular historic circumstances” ought not to be so lightly dismissed, and that rudolf did not get wang’s political philosophy entirely right. a full consideration of this question would require more space than the editors of the journal of transcultural studies could possibly give to me, so i will move directly to rudolf’s conclusion. toward the end of his chapter, rudolf wrote: eventually, wang bi claimed that the laozi’s entire teaching could be “summed up in one phrase” in the manner that kongzi had claimed for the shijing. but as opposed to kongzi’s summary, which most commentators 3 rudolf g. wagner, the craft of a chinese commentator: wang bi on the laozi (albany, ny: state university of new york press, 2000), 120–139. 4 see yu jiaxi 余嘉錫, shi shuo xin yu jianshu 世說新語箋疏 [new account of tales of the world, with commentary and notes] (shanghai: shanghai guji chubanshe, 1993), vol. 4, 199; chen shou 陳 壽, sanguo zhi 三國志 [records of the three kingdoms], quoted in the commentary by pei songzhi 裴松之 (372–451) (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1959), 795. 5 rudolf g. wagner, language, ontology, and political philosophy in china: wang bi’s exploration of the dark (xuanxue) (albany, ny: state university of new york press, 2003). 6 wagner, “wang bi’s political philosophy,” 215. 81the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) read as straight moral advice (“do not have any heterodox thoughts”), wang bi’s summary of the laozi comes as the highly condensed paradox of the law of the negative opposite: 崇本息末而已矣. emulating the root [by way] of bringing to rest the stem and branches [growing from it]—that is all! this tersest of possible summaries makes quite clear the ultimate political purpose of the laozi’s philosophy in wang bi’s reading, namely, xi mo 息 末, “to bring to rest the root’s outgrowth.” the term mo 末 describes all that grows out of the root, such as the stem and branches of a tree. they receive their origin and continuous support from this root but are in fact the visible world whose regulation is the purpose of government. the entire analytic and philosophic enterprise of wang bi, and his reading of laozi, remains tied to the ultimate purpose of bringing rest and order to the world, and his main discovery in this respect is the law of the negative opposite, which encapsulates and theorizes observations on the dynamics of the body politic that can be found to this day in sources ranging from proverbial lore about cunning political strategies, such as the chinese 36 stratagems, to structuralist analyses of political power.7 this is a big claim, and i am not at all sure that rudolf’s translation of the key phrase gets the nuance right.8 the discussion turns on points of etymology and 7 wagner, “wang bi’s political philosophy,” 211–212. 8 in a review of wagner’s book, language, ontology, and political philosophy in china: wang bi’s exploration of the dark (xuanxue), willard j. peterson quotes the main sentence of this passage, and then adds (enigmatically, i might add): “as wagner acknowledges, that statement by wang bi is enigmatic, and so may be wagner’s framing of it,” willard j. peterson, review of language, ontology, and political philosophy in china: wang bi’s scholarly exploration of the dark (xuanxue), by rudolf g. wagner, harvard journal of asiatic studies 66, no. 1 (2006): 279–289; 281, 282. peterson goes on to note that richard john lynn has also translated this sentence, giving “it does nothing more than encourage growth at the branch tips by enhancing the roots,” and then adds: i cite lynn’s translation not because they (sic) make more sense than wagner’s—they do not—but to remind us that the meanings of wang bi’s sentences are not transparent. neither translators’ renderings, particularly when taken out of context, provide readers as much help as they deserve, but here i am leaving aside translation issues. my point is that we must bear in mind in evaluating rudolf wagner’s language, ontology, and political philosophy that we are dealing with three co-existing layers: selections of chinese text, with variants, ascribed to wang bi; disputable english translations of those selected pieces; and wagner’s inferences based on and applied to his reading and translating those pieces. while peterson left aside translation issues, i will not. 82 rudolf wagner and wang bi grammar, as much as on philosophical consistency. rudolf cited the sentence as found in the text laozi weizhi lilüe 老子微旨例略 (the structure of the laozi’s pointers), an otherwise unattributed text which he accepts—reasonably enough—as being by wang bi, though, as we will see below, more or less the same wording is found in wang bi’s commentaries to laozi chapters 38 and 57.9 earlier he had offered at least two other translations of the same sentence or at least its main clause: to venerate the root in order to soothe the branches;10 ah, exalting the root to soothe the branches, that is all!11 in his comments on the sentence in the quotation above, he explained only the term “branches” (mo 末). the metaphor of the “root” (ben 本) and “branches” is probably unproblematic for most readers, though it is worth pointing out in the context of wang bi’s political philosophy that the “root” corresponds to the “one” (yi 一), which is to say the “king” or “emperor,” and the “branches” to the “many” (duo 多), which is either his ministers or the people in general. i would have welcomed comment on the two main verbs: chong 崇, which he translated variously as “to venerate,” “to exalt,” and finally as “to emulate,” and xi 息, for which he offered either “to soothe” or “to bring to rest,” or even, earlier in the same chapter of language, ontology, and political philosophy, “to calm down.”12 i can certainly understand how in the course of a long engagement with a text, differences such as this could creep into one’s translations. however, i have no idea how he settled on “to emulate” for chong 崇, which basically means “high” or “to raise on high.” rudolf would have been far better served with either of his earlier choices: “to venerate” or especially “to exalt,” the latter of which would be my choice. “to emulate” is simply wrong, both etymologically and philosophically; after all, the ruler is literally unique, not someone that the many can emulate. rudolf’s choices for xi 息 are also problematic. xi 息 is often a problem in chinese philosophical texts because it has two almost contradictory senses: 9 fragments of this work are included in the daozang 道藏, assigned number #1255 in kristofer schipper and franciscus verellen, ed., the daoist canon: a historical companion to the daozang (chicago: the university of chicago press, 2004), 78–79. the attribution to wang bi was first demonstrated by wang weicheng 王維誠, “wei wang bi zhuan laozi zhi lüe yiwen zhi faxian” 魏王 弼撰《老子指略》佚文之發現 [the discovery that wang bi of the wei wrote the unattributed text laozi’s pointers], guoxue jikan 國學季刊 7, no. 3 (1951): 367–376. wagner first wrote about it as “wang bi: ‘the structure of the laozi’s pointers’ (‘laozi weizhi lilüe’): a philological translation and study,” t’oung pao 72, no. 1/3 (1986): 92–129. 10 wagner, “the structure of the laozi’s pointers,” 111. 11 wagner, “the structure of the laozi’s pointers,” 124. 12 wagner, “wang bi’s political philosophy,” 163. 83the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) first, “to stop” or “to extirpate,” as seen in the laozi weizhi lilüe quotation of laozi chapter 57 analyzed in the first part of this essay: 息淫在乎去華不在 滋章 “stopping licentiousness lies in getting rid of ornamentation; it does not lie in multiplying versions”; and second, “to grow” or “to increase” (as, for instance, the opposite of “to decrease, to erase”: xiao 消). rudolf’s various offerings—“to bring to rest,” “to soothe,” “to calm down”—all strike me as ambiguous at best; both “to soothe” and “to calm down” can certainly mean to bring about peace (which he said was the “ultimate purpose” of wang bi’s philosophical enterprise), but they might also suggest suppression. the standard meaning “to stop” is often extended to mean “to rest,” but i do not know that it can be used transitively in the sense “to bring others to rest.” finally, rudolf’s understanding of the relationship between the two verbobject constructions was also inconsistent and perhaps ambiguous. although the sentence quoted above simply lists these constructions consecutively, chong ben xi mo 崇本息末, wang bi elsewhere inserted an yi 以, sometimes “by way of,” sometimes “in order to,” between them, and rudolf relied on that in all of his translations of the sentence. in 2003, he settled on translating it as “[by way] of,” whereas in 1986 he had given “in order to” or just “to.” i suppose either one of these readings is possible (though my own preference would be for either of the 1986 readings), but they completely reverse the ultimate purpose: is the purpose to “exalt the root” (chong ben 崇本) or to xi mo 息末, whatever that may mean? the difficulty in understanding xi mo 息末 may well be that, despite what rudolf always argued, wang bi was not the most consistent writer that we might wish for. elsewhere in the laozi weizhi lilüe, the same clause is paralleled by another that seems to show at least that the sense of “stop” is not pertinent. the line reads, together with rudolf’s 2003 translation: 崇本以息末，守母以存子。 to emulate the root by way of bringing to rest its [the root’s] outgrowth; to keep to the mother by way of maintaining [her] offspring.13 “maintaining [her] offspring” (cun zi 存子) is certainly something positive, and so it stands to reason that xi mo 息末 should also be positive, whence rudolf’s “bringing to rest its outgrowth” would seem to be entirely appropriate. on the other hand, in his commentary to chapter thirty-eight of the laozi, wang bi employed the same parallel, though in a negative sense. this seems to show an antagonistic relationship between the ben 本 and mo 末.14 13 rudolf g. wagner, a chinese reading of the daodejing: wang bi’s commentary on the laozi with critical text and translation (albany, ny: state university of new york press, 2003), 90. 14 in his review of wagner’s language, ontology, and political philosophy in china, jean lévi notes a deliberate intention (volonté délibérée) in wagner’s work to close his eyes to the contradictions 84 rudolf wagner and wang bi i again cite rudolf’s translation (employing also his spacing and italics, but adding the original chinese).15 here it is clear that exalting the root, the opposite of “discarding the root” (qi ben 棄本), is the ultimate purpose, and that “going along with the branches” (shi mo 適末, which might also be rendered as “adapting to the branches”) is a less desirable strategy. i apologize again for this extended consideration of etymology and grammar. however, the reason it matters is because if rudolf was right that “wang bi claimed that the laozi’s entire teaching could be ‘summed up in [this] one phrase,’” then its interpretation is crucial. rudolf has argued that wang bi was a critic of the wei court’s legalism, proposing in its stead what might best be described as a confucian humanism, which took “bringing to rest” the branches, i.e., “bringing rest and order to the world,” as its purpose. i suspect that at least nominally most political philosophies would maintain that “bringing rest and order to the world” is their purpose. i have argued, on the other hand, that wang bi positively advocated for the cao court’s huanglao 黃老 (i.e., legalist) policies, such that the focus of his philosophy was within wang bi’s writings; jean lévi, review of language, ontology, and political philosophy in china: wang bi’s scholarly exploration of the dark (xuanxue), by rudolf g. wagner, bulletin de l’école française d’extrême-orient 90/91 (2003–2004): 560–567; 566. 15 wagner, a chinese reading of the daodejing, 244. 16 wagner, a chinese reading of the daodejing, 244. 本在無為, the root lies in non-interference. by 棄本而適其末， discarding the root but going along with the branches [growing out of the root]– 功雖大焉，必有不濟。 there will by necessity, even if the achievements be great, some [things] remain unachieved. 母在無名。 the mother lies in the nameless 舍母而用其子， rejecting the mother but making use of the offspring of [the mother]– 名雖美焉，偽亦必生。 there will by necessity, beautiful though the name may be, falsehood be also born.16 85the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) resolutely on “exalting the root”; i.e., supporting the emperor.17 elsewhere in his final chapter “wang bi’s political philosophy,” rudolf attempted to synthesize this distinction between confucian and legalist approaches: as liu zehua has pointed out in his fine paper on wang bi’s political philosophy, wang bi does not accept the rigid separation, present for example in the zhuangzi as well as in many texts associated with the ru and “legalists,” between the innate nature of entities and external social regulations and controls. quite the contrary, he deduces the mechanism of social regulation normally associated with the han dynasty mingjiao 名教 school directly from the notion of ziran, from the notion of the entities’ that-which-is-of-itself-what-it-is.18 the seemingly unavoidable bifurcation between the two realms of “root,” ben 本, and “outgrowth,” mo 末, with the ensuing bifurcation between the daojia 道家, which is focusing on the “root,” and the mingjiao 名教, which is focusing on the “outgrowth,” is thus overcome in favor of a system of philosophy that establishes ontology and politology on the very same fundaments.19 there is no doubt that wang bi was concerned with both “ontology and politology,” but how the bifurcation between them can be overcome seems to have been even more the concern of rudolf.20 17 for a full discussion of this point, see edward l. shaughnessy, “commentary, philosophy, and translation: reading wang bi’s commentary to the yi jing in a new way,” early china 22 (1997): 229–241. this came in a review article concerning richard john lynn, the classic of changes: a new translation of the i ching as interpreted by wang bi (new york: columbia university press, 1994). although lynn’s translation appears in the bibliographies of both a chinese reading of the daodejing and language, ontology, and political philosophy in china, i am sorry to say that my review article does not, even though it was available six years before these two books were published. 18 original note: “liu zehua, ‘wang bi mingjiao chu yu ziran de zhengzhi zhexue he wenhe de junzhu zhuanzhi sixiang’ (wang bi’s political philosophy of social regulations emerging out of that-which-is-of-itself-what-it-is and his thinking of a moderate autocracy), nankai xuebao 4:24 (1993).” i agree that this paper by liu zehua 劉澤華 was a fine study of wang bi’s political philosophy, but here too i have a different interpretation of it than that of rudolf. liu explicitly argued that wang bi’s philosophy should be seen as supportive of the mingjiao 名教 of his time, which he termed a “dictatorship of the ruler” (junzhu zhuanzhi 君主專制), which is a very different notion from an “autocracy,” benign though it may have been. 19 wagner, “wang bi’s political philosophy,” 198. 20 in this regard, in his review of wagner’s language, ontology, and political philosophy in china, lévi has made the following observation: mais peut-être le véritable intérêt de l’ouvrage est-il ailleurs. il tient, à mon sens, à la sympathie—au sens étymologique du terme—que r. g. wagner éprouve à l’égard de l’auteur qu’il étudie. wagner embrasse le mouvement de la pensée de wang bi, il suit pas à pas ses développements et comprend 86 rudolf wagner and wang bi i was asked by the editors of the journal of transcultural studies to consider the influence of rudolf’s scholarship on the understanding of wang bi in sinology. rudolf used to joke that his study of wang bi had taken twenty-three years, as long as wang bi had lived.21 it is now almost another twenty-three years (give or take a few years) since the last of his books were published. i regret to say that it is my impression that they have not exerted the influence that they should have on the understanding of wang bi in sinology. it is perhaps paradoxical that about the time that rudolf was undertaking his study,22 there was something of a boom in wang bi studies. first, in the late 1970s, there was a pair of translations of wang bi’s laozi commentary.23 then in 1985, howard goodman completed his doctoral dissertation “exegetes and exegeses of the book of changes in the third century ad: historical and scholastic contexts for wang pi.”24 the next year brought ina-marie bergeron’s wang bi: philosophe du non-avoir,25 and de l’intérieur sa démarche. cette adhésion, ou mieux cette adhérence, nous vaut des analyses d’une grande pertinence où les mécanismes mis en œuvre sont d’autant mieux compris qu’ils ont été repris à leur compte par celui qui les étudie. rudolf g. wagner ne nous montre pas des notions sorties tout armées de la tête de wang bi, mais s’attache, par une critique linguistique rigoureuse, à découvrir le processus de leur élaboration. toutefois ce respect du texte, cet amour même pour l’objet d’études a un coût. i would agree, as lévi’s last line states, that wagner’s love for the object of his study has a cost; lévi, review of language, ontology, and political philosophy in china, 564. 21 for a published statement of this joke, see wagner, language, ontology, and political philosophy, vii. in fact, based on the narrative provided there, wagner’s study of wang bi actually extended over the course of more than thirty years; according to the narrative published in language, ontology, and political philosophy, rudolf finished his first translation in 1971, and in a 2014 interview reflecting on his life and work, he says the work actually began in 1969; “comparative epistemologies for thinking china,” the research & educational center for china studies and cross-taiwan strait relations, department of political science, national taiwan university,” oral history of chinese studies interview with prof. rudolf g. wagner, interviewed and transcribed by marina rudyak, july 7, 2014; august 25, 2014; december 15, 2014; 23, accessed august 9, 2022, http://www.chinastudies.taipei/comm2/rudolf%20g.%20wagner.pdf. 22 rudolf g. wagner, “philologie, philosophie und politik in der zhengshi-ära (240–249): die laozi-schriften des philosophen wang bi [philology, philosophy and politics in the zhengshi era (240–249): the laozi writings of the philosopher wang bi]” (habilitation thesis: freie universität berlin, 1980). 23 paul j. lin, a translation of lao tzu’s tao te ching and wang pi’s commentary (ann arbor: university of michigan press, 1977); and ariane rump and wing-tsit chan, tr., commentary on the lao tzu by wang pi (honolulu: university of hawaiʻi press, 1979). 24 howard lazar goodman, “exegetes and exegeses of the book of changes in the third century ad: historical and scholastic contexts for wang pi” (phd diss., princeton university, 1985). 25 ina-marie bergeron, wang bi: philosophe du non-avoir (taipei: institut ricci, 1986). http://www.china-studies.taipei/comm2/rudolf%20g.%20wagner.pdf http://www.china-studies.taipei/comm2/rudolf%20g.%20wagner.pdf 87the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) five years later alan k. l. chan published a monographic study entitled two visions of the way: a study of the wang bi and ho-shang kung commentaries on the lao-tzu.26 over the next several years, richard john lynn published first a translation of wang bi’s commentary on the zhou yi,27 and then one on that of the laozi.28 rudolf’s three books appeared too late to have influenced most of these studies. the bibliography of lynn’s translation of the laozi did dutifully include the three journal articles rudolf published in the 1980s,29 but his text cited only the early china article discussed at the beginning of this essay, and only to dismiss it as either irrelevant or simply wrong. if jstor is a reliable guide (though i am prepared to believe that it is not such a reliable guide), the three books the craft of chinese commentator: a chinese reading of the daodejing, and language, ontology, and political philosophy in china received only five reviews in total, four of them more or less suggesting points of disagreement.30 a review by willard peterson in the harvard journal of asiatic studies concludes with several telling criticisms, but it also includes an appreciation for what rudolf did accomplish. in language, ontology, and political philosophy wagner is more interested in ahistorical ideas than intellectual history. he concentrates on wang bi’s work with the laozi and marginalizes wang bi’s equally influential work on the zhou yi. wagner gives scant attention to other thinkers and the rich, complex textual heritage that was fundamental to the third-century intellectual scene. wagner stretches our understanding of how language “ordinarily” worked in third-century chinese and, in some cases, twenty-first century english. all of these complaints are 26 alan k. l. chan, two visions of the way: a study of the wang bi and ho-shang kung commentaries on the lao-tzu (albany, ny: state university of new york press, 1991). 27 lynn, the classic of changes. 28 richard john lynn, the classic of the way and virtue: a new translation of the tao-te-ching of laozi as interpreted by wang bi (new york: columbia university press, 1999). 29 rudolf g. wagner, “interlocking parallel style: laozi and wang bi,” asiatische studien / études asiatiques 34, no. 1 (1980): 18–58; “the structure of the laozi’s pointers”; and “the wang bi recension of the laozi.” 30 these reviews are lévi, review of language, ontology, and political philosophy in china, 560– 567; tze-ki hon, review of language, ontology, and political philosophy in china: wang bi’s scholarly exploration of the dark (xuanxue), by rudolf g. wagner, the journal of asian studies 63, no. 4 (2004): 1114–1116; peterson, review of language, ontology, and political philosophy in china, 279–289; yuet keung lo, review of a chinese reading of the daodejing: wang bi’s commentary on the laozi with critical text and translation, by rudolf g. wagner, monumenta serica 54 (2006): 524–530; and jay goulding, review of the craft of a chinese commentator: wang bi on the laozi, and: a chinese reading of the daodejing: wang bi’s commentary on the laozi with critical text and translation; and language, ontology, and political philosophy in china: wang bi’s scholarly exploration of the dark (xuanxue), by rudolf g. wagner, china review international 14, no. 1 (2007): 61–67. 88 rudolf wagner and wang bi consequences of choices wagner made in writing the book that he wanted to present to his readers. readers can recognize those choices without wholly condoning them. i am wholly sympathetic to wagner’s stance that the meaning in wang bi’s writings is not simply revealed in what the words appear to say. wagner seeks to go behind the words. although i am not persuaded at many stages in the course of wagner’s reading of wang bi, i am persuaded that he has significantly raised the level of discussion about wang bi’s philosophy.31 as i have argued above, i too think the criticism is warranted. however, i also think that the appreciation is entirely appropriate. what jstor cannot capture is the unpublished influence. i for one have insisted that my students read a chinese reading of the daodejing, not so much for what they will learn of wang bi’s philosophy itself, but more importantly for the seriousness with which rudolf took wang bi’s commentary as a medium for expressing philosophy. more recently, in the context of my writing these remarks, jean lévi has shared with me the observation that rudolf’s work opened to him perspectives for understanding wang bi, but perhaps even more so for understanding the laozi, and that this understanding very much informs his recent médaille stanislas julien-winning book les deux arbres de la voie: le livre de lao-tseu, les entretiens de confucius.32 the foregoing discussion of rudolf wagner’s studies of wang bi may well strike readers of this volume of the journal of transcultural studies, the journal that rudolf founded, as inappropriately critical. however, in my experience, rudolf enjoyed spirited debate. he would have wanted nothing less. in a wide-ranging interview done in taiwan in 2014, rudolf recalled an occasion when he had been invited to a conference to discuss the achievements of guo moruo 郭沫若 (1892–1978) and gave a talk that was critical of guo’s scholarship. he was pleased that his hosts welcomed his comments. reflecting on this, he said: i think it also comes with the responsibility not to play the opportunistic game of avoiding to say things that might grate the ears of the authorities, but show that intellectuals can take a stand and say what they think clearly and politely, but also without compromises.33 31 peterson, review of language, ontology, and political philosophy in china, 289. 32 jean lévi, personal communication, february 29, 2020, referring to jean lévi, les deux arbres de la voie: le livre de lao-tseu, les entretiens de confucius [the two trees of the way: the book of laozi, the talks of confucius] (paris: les belles lettres, 2018). i am very grateful to professor lévi for a stimulating discussion of rudolf wagner’s work in this communication. 33 wagner, interviewed and transcribed by marina rudyak, 62. 89the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) i hope i have been clear and polite. rudolf’s work on wang bi is challenging in the very best senses of that word, and does not require any validation from me; it will surely take its place beside wang bi’s own writings as a topic of scholarship for much more than twenty-three years to come. memories of a man who dared to attempt great things: obituary for rudolf wagner (november 3, 1941 –october 25, 2019) axel michaels rudolf wagner, co-editor of this journal, passed away on october 25, 2019, after a long and serious illness. the centre for asian studies and transcultural studies (cats) at the university of heidelberg, which he co-founded and which was launched this year, mourns the loss of one of its most prominent representatives. i knew rudolf from the founding years of the project preceding the centre, the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows.” in 2006, the university of heidelberg (mainly the faculty of philosophy) applied to the excellence initiative with a different proposal, but failed in the first round. when this was announced at faculty council, all were in shock. shortly thereafter, i bumped into rudolf on the high street in heidelberg, and said: “mr. wagner” (we were still on quite formal terms at the time), “it is simply unacceptable that the university of heidelberg should be out of the running in any competition for scientific excellence.” rudolf shared this view. a few days later we met for a preliminary talk. he also brought the historian madeleine herren-oesch into play, and so a core group was born. we set to work (with many others) to write a second proposal, partly by telephone, with rudolf sitting in boston, madeleine in zurich, and me in delhi. this proposal eventually succeeded, leading to the creation of the “cluster,” as it was called from then on—though right to the end, we never could agree whether the word should take the masculine or neuter article in german. the cluster shaped and enriched discussions about cultural studies in heidelberg in a unique way, above all because asian studies stepped out of the niche created for it in the nineteenth century and entered the arena of debates about cultural and social studies in general. the role played here by rudolf was unforgettable. he was often our guiding light and driving force, and, in his own unique way, sharpened 2 obituary for rudolf wagner all our conversations. for instance, he brought in the idea of asymmetry. this notion was eventually to be rejected, but nevertheless, it was influential, and in my opinion, ultimately decisive for the success of the cluster. here, rudolf showed that, for all his love for the beautiful, the good, and the delicious, he was a political thinker, and thought big. he knew that numerous economic inequalities, past and present, had led to cultural and social dynamics that continue to occupy us and to pose immense challenges. anyone who knew rudolf knows how astute he was in these intellectual disputes. he was forever on the lookout for an opponent at whom he could lob his arguments, in rapid-fire, perfect english, often in ironic or humorous form. the to-and-fro with him was just like squash, which he loved and played to the end: fast, furious, and matter of fact (“as a matter of fact” was a phrase forever on his lips, sometimes several times in a single sentence). in his wife, catherine yeh, he found an equal partner who constantly stimulated him, just as the cluster did. equally unforgettable were his bullet points on various topics, which he loved to send out the night before a meeting. of course, he could also sometimes overshoot his target, and even be hurtful. on occasion, as he ran down this colleague or that, i inevitably wondered whether he would one day do the same to me. he did—but it was never personal. the point for him, rather, was the struggle over ideas: ceaseless struggle, till all were exhausted. and yet, neither was he dogmatic. should anyone politely interrupt one of his torrents of eloquence, he would abruptly halt mid-sentence, and listen sharply, all eyes and ears. his paramount concern was to take people seriously, and treat them with respect. he devoted much time to sitting with students of all levels in the cafeteria of the karl jaspers centre, the home of the cluster, listening to what they had to say. they almost always received a follow-up e-mail with additional comments or references. once, at the very beginning of our work together, rudolf wrote up some “rules of engagement” in an e-mail to madeleine and me, in a three-step process he always favored: 1. substantiate arguments concretely and objectively; 2. establish agreement as to what can be considered an argument (his concern here was that he only wanted to accept scholarly arguments, not tactical considerations: “i am completely aware that human factors play a role in success or failure, but i think that we have to adhere to the fiction that this is not the case”); 3. fix a procedure for arriving at a conclusion (“to guarantee the uniformity of such a proposal, it will be unavoidable, after all have done their thing and delivered their texts, to equip 3the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) someone with dictatorial powers to revise and homogenize the whole thing”). needless to say, he claimed those dictatorial powers for himself (though he did not get them). despite all criticisms, rudolf always remained optimistic. on the evening before the announcement of the results of the excellence initiative, madeleine and i met rudolf and catherine at their house in ziegelhausen to prepare a press release for the next day, enjoying a beautiful evening view of the neckar river as we worked. i was firmly convinced that we would fail, but rudolf and madeleine were confident. in the end, we drafted two versions of the release— and optimism won the day. rudolf also brought his intellectual rigor and incorruptibility to bear for the peer-reviewed, open-access the journal of transcultural studies. this journal became his favorite child in the cluster, combining the highest theoretical and philological standards with the then still relatively new idea of an online journal. rudolf’s main concern was to get past seeing cultures as delimited entities, and instead to regard them by default as porous, influenced, and unstable, i.e. transcultural. the success of this journal proved him right. so that’s what rudolf was like, at least in my memory. he thought big, dared to attempt great things, and cast his intellectual spell over all alike. for his capacious vision we are greatly indebted to him. we will miss him very much. we will remember him in the knowledge that his greatness carries us though the challenges to come. an imagined interview with rudolf g. wagner: his thoughts on the lifeworld in the anthropocene age, the trees/ forest metaphor, and the culture of nature in transcultural studies sabina brady and catherine yeh in what follows, we present an imagined dialogue with rudolf wagner on possible future directions for transcultural studies, and its connection to the idea of the culture of nature in the framework of what he terms the “lifeworld in the anthropocene age.” our piece takes the form of an imagined question and answer session with rudolf, where we devise a narrative representation conveying some of his provocative and imaginative thoughts on transcultural studies, with a view to stimulating scholars to engage further with these ideas. the source materials used are taken from rudolf’s unpublished notes, drafts, and outlines written in preparation for talks that he gave between 2014 and 2018.1 we adhered as closely as possible to rudolf’s original texts, editing for minor errors, syntax, flow, and clarity. q1: transculturality has been a central theme in your conception of the “lifeworld in the anthropocene age.” can you tell us: “what is transculturality?” culture is not a “thing,” but a process. it has no intrinsic sustainability, but it gains this through the continuous agency of successive generations— including new arrivals—to enrich, select, transform, forget, or reject elements. like human nature, human culture partakes in a continuous flow across the human world, where transcultural interaction is the lifeline of culture, and every cultural item is transcultural. the transcultural interaction, by means of the appropriation, adaptation, or rejection of cultures, is the process of transculturality. in short, transculturality is the primordial fact, culture a temporal construct. 1 the format of this imagined interview with rudolf wagner was inspired by tim ingold, lucas introna, donncha kavanagh, séamas kelly, wanda orlikowski, and susan scott, “thoughts on movement, growth and an anthropologically-sensitive is/organization studies: an imagined correspondence with tim ingold,” in working conference on information systems and organizations (cham, springer international publishing, 2016), 17–32. 120 an imagined interview with rudolf g. wagner the term “transculturality” engages with the human constructs of “culture” by tracing the actual flows between human groups. in nature, it is easy to document this scientifically via dna tracing, rhesus factors, and blood groups. for the objective side of culture, the same is true, whether we are dealing with language, plant and animal domestication, tools, forms, and institutions of social organization (from the state to the monastery), practices, fairy tales, technical inventions, forms of dress, forms of depiction, images, or metaphors. from cultures of antiquity to the present, transculturality systematically investigates these processes of connection. it examines the nature of the shifts that circulatory practices of the past undergo in the present, and the variety of ways in which people, in specific contexts, experience and respond to these changes, as well as the media they use to represent them. built into the methodological framework of transculturality is a questioning of the intellectual roots and institutional bases of existing disciplines that challenges the boundaries that have, since their inception, sealed them off as hermetic units. as a system, or more aptly, a web of interaction, transculturality has a triple existence: first, it exists as a pervasive historical process, most easily visible in material goods that appear in environments classified as belonging to a different culture, such as roman glass appearing in fourth-century chinese tombs, or chinese silk in reports about courtesan’s clothing in pompeii. second, it exists as a perception by historical actors, characterized either by claims to authenticity and fundamental difference from “others,” or by a positive engagement that might go so far as to acknowledge the superiority of certain features in other cultures. the former is evident in the efforts of the ancient greeks to separate themselves from the barbaroi, and early chinese attempts to establish a fundamental distinction between the orderly and ritualized behavior of the chinese (hua 華), and that of various populations to the northwest, west, south, and east—some of whom were graced with the use of the “dog” radical in their name, such as the di 狄. in this context, the binary perception becomes a historical force that might release important historical energies. the latter is evident in writings such as those of the early cosmopolitan herodotus, when he depicted the grooming of an ideal prince based on the first achaemenid (“persian”) ruler kyros (cyrus the great), or xuanzang’s 玄奘 journey to the land of the buddha. in this context, the binary perception might come with a critical potential. in both cases, the binary perception is a historical fact and has to be treated as such. its (present-day) neglect or dismissal as a “wrong” perception on the part of historical actors misses out on an important driving force of historical action. 121the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) finally, transculturality exists as a theorized, modern scholarly concept. however, the concept itself has a history dating well before fernando ortiz coined the term “transcultural” in 1940.2 nineteenth-century world histories are a case in point. these historians acknowledged the importance of transcultural interactions but also tended to essentialize cultures (and their borders). however, even in the pre-history of the concept there were different strands, such as studies on the transcultural migration of myth. initially these studies followed max müller’s linguistic framing as migration within language families (e.g. greek theos, latin deus)—especially in what then were called “aryan” languages—but by 1900, the focus had shifted from tracing names to tracing structures of the mythical narrative. transculturality focuses here on the essential diffuseness of constituent elements as they are transformed through inclusion into the hybrid new. according to lamberto tassinari (one of the founding directors of the transcultural magazine viceversa): “transculturalism [can be envisioned as] a new form of humanism, based on the idea of relinquishing the strong traditional identities and cultures which in many cases were products of imperialistic empires, interspersed with dogmatic religious values. contrary to multiculturalism, which most experiences have shown re-enforces boundaries based on past cultural heritages, transculturalism is based on the breaking down of boundaries. transculturalism, by proposing a new humanism of the recognition of the other … is in opposition to the singular traditional cultures that have evolved from the nation-state.”3 q2: why is the traditional approach to comparative cultural studies in fundamental contradiction with your understanding of the purpose and approach of transcultural studies? cultural studies examines the difference from the other while transcultural studies examines interaction with the other. the traditional approach to cultural/ comparative cultural studies is straitjacketed by binarity—an approach that is generally ideologically derived, and as such, limits and distorts both the process and the resulting outcomes. this binary construct is clearly not factbased, but derives from an irritation with asymmetry. it is focused on tracing the history of specific, identifiable processes such as terms, institutions, or 2 “the real history of cuba is the history of its intermeshed transculturations [where] … the result of every union of cultures is similar to that of the reproductive process between individuals: the offspring always has something of both parents but is always different from each of them.” fernando ortiz, cuban counterpoint: tobacco and sugar (durham, nc: duke university press, 1995 [1940]), 98–103. 3 donald cuccioletta, “multiculturalism or transculturism: towards a cosmopolitan citizenship,” london journal of canadian studies 17 (2001/2002): 1–11; 7. 122 an imagined interview with rudolf g. wagner practices. it often comes with the flaw of focusing on the origin rather than the agency involved in selecting, adapting, or matching the new and foreign with the unquestionably (but utterly invented) authentic local. q3: from your description, the study of transculturality appears to run up against the problem of cultural essentialism along national borders, across academic disciplines, where the dominant default lines align with nation, language, territory, and culture. within this context, what then are the major challenges facing transcultural studies? bounded by nation-state-centric cultural essentialism, transcultural studies (ts) faces two crises: the first is a crisis of binarity. ts remains trapped within cultural studies’ traditional prison-house of binary relations between an essentialized self and an essentialized other, where the agency driving relational exchanges, processes, and asymmetries is distorted and projected onto the dominant power. this means that agency is assigned to the stronger power without empirical foundation. the bestiary and imagery of modern terms used to define the process of transcultural interaction exemplify this binary prison-house (see further below). the second crisis is one of disconnection from the whole. ts is isolated; it isolates itself from and rejects the need to systematically acknowledge or study the interactive transformations between cultures and the wider natural environment, especially when this involves non-social science disciplines. this all-encompassing environment, in which everything, including our own culture, is a constituent interactive part, i call our great lifeworld. it is this interaction of “humans with their cultural (in the widest sense) and natural environment” that highlights the crucial role human agency has assumed. for this reason, the study of human culture necessarily belongs to our study of the lifeworld. q4: can you further elaborate on the crisis of binarity in ts? currently, ts largely remains trapped within cultural studies’ tradition-bound binary framework, with all its resulting distortions and limitations. both share the same prison cell of binarity. critiques of the uses of the modern concept of transculturality have focused on: • the fact that as a rule more than two cultures are involved; • the notion that defining the “origin” of a feature leads to defining its adaptation elsewhere as a “copy,” and; • that assigning all agency to the stronger power unwittingly and without empirical foundation reproduces the orientalist narrative it set out to critique. 123the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) while efforts to define a more “circular” process of transcultural transfer exist, these critiques demonstrate that ts remains trapped within an enlarged binary model that deals with particular cultures and not with culture as a conceptual framework. specific examples include the sites where historical actors are imagined as operating within constructs such as “china and the west” or “europe and the orient.” these essentializations were used to radicalize the modern nation-state and mobilize it for colonial occupation and war—while also opening the door to the large-scale emulation of features from various other cultures, where agency was in the hands of the government or local elites (e.g., eighteenth-century germany, peter the great, the meiji reforms, the chinese communists). examples beyond this “china and the west” construct include studies of the cultural interaction between france and the german states, or china and korea. the postcolonial treatment of the processes of transculturality has reduced the asymmetry prevailing in such processes to a dependent variable of power asymmetry, and has therefore consistently located the driving agency in the dominant power. the bestiary and imagery of modern terms used to define the process of transcultural interaction are indicative of this prison-house of the binary. some examples include: métissage, verflechtung, bricolage, interaction, enjeux interculturels, braided, trans culture, connected histories, asymmetry in transcultural flows, globalization, translingual, transnational, fusion, amalgamation, comparative, verwobene moderne, international, intercultural, creolization, cultural translation, transferts: les relations interculturelles dans l’espace franco-allemand,4 and transkulturalität nationaler räume in europa.5 q5: in your exploration of ts, you coined a new metaphor, using the forest and the trees to describe the relationship between culture and cultures. can you describe this for us? most of the terms for binary transcultural interaction listed above—and there are many more—use metaphor, be it from botany (hybridity or ecotype), metallurgy (fusion or amalgamation), craftsmanship (bricolage), language (creolization or cultural translation), hair styling (braided), or race studies (métissage). the same is true for many of the fields successfully overcoming binarity (language family, hyperphylum). these terms are used consciously and are then abandoned when the parallels become forced. 4 michel espagne and michael werner, transferts: les relations interculturelles dans l’espace franco-allemand (xviiie et xixe siecle) (paris: éditions recherche sur les civilisations, 1988). 5 christophe charle, hans-jürgen lüsebrink, and york-gothart mix, ed., transkulturalität nationaler räume in europa (bonn, bonn university press, 2017). 124 an imagined interview with rudolf g. wagner my exploration of the relationship between culture and cultures uses the metaphor of the relationship between a forest (which stands for culture) and its trees (which stand for cultures), as vividly depicted by peter wohlleben in his book the hidden life of trees. the viability of this trees/forest metaphor is further substantiated and strengthened by the empirical findings of scholars and researchers in the fields of genetics, linguistics, and climatology.6 wohlleben is a forester in a small village in the eifel mountains, which straddle the border between southwestern germany and belgium. his training concentrated on the economic use of trees by the forest industry. despite his development of alternative methods of profitable and sustainable forest management, wohlleben’s focus remained on the trees rather than the forest. simultaneously retaining yet also arguing against a “nation-state” single-tree focus, his broader analysis of the interaction among trees does, in fact, deal with the complex process of culture in the interplay between trees and multiple other organisms that we call “forest.” wohlleben is not writing on virgin soil. his counter-text is the nation-state perception of trees. he does not write about culture, and the thought that he might actually have described its process might not have occurred to him. his main interest is in what might be called the sociability of trees. he often uses anthropomorphic language to describe this sociability, for example, calling the exchange of information among trees “wood wide web,” or the mutual support of trees their “friendship.” reviewers had a field day in pointing out this flaw, but were unable to overcome their own fascination with his observations. wohlleben’s main points are: • trees are not stand-alone units, but rather, the main constituent elements in a forest network. their lifeline is their integration into and interaction with an encompassing process of forest culture, which comes with constant renewal. this renewal in turn drives the interaction. trees that stand alone have low survival rates and life expectancy. the resulting web (so aptly 6 suzanne simard is a canadian forest ecologist, conservationist, professor, designer, and leader of the “mother tree project.” in her 1995 phd thesis, simard coined the term “wood wide web” (now recognized and used throughout the field and beyond) to describe the vast underground symbiotic networks of fungi, bacteria, and other organisms that connect trees in a complex, adaptive forest ecosystem. through this web, trees share resources, communicate, provide mutual protection, and process and respond to local conditions (e.g., temperature, precipitation, soil chemistry, and topography). peter wohlleben’s book, the hidden life of trees, uses simard’s considerable empirical findings and analyses (in over 200 published papers) to support his thesis. rudolf wagner passed away before simard’s seminal book, finding the mother tree: discovering the wisdom of the forest, was published in may 2021. see: suzanne simard, “interspecific carbon transfer in ectomycorrhizal tree species mixtures” (phd diss., oregon state university, 1995); peter wohlleben, the hidden life of trees: what they feel, how they communicate—discoveries from a secret world (london, william collins, 2016); suzanne simard, finding the mother tree: discovering the wisdom of the forest (new york: alfred a. knopf, 2021). 125the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) termed the “wood wide web”) is held together by: a common origin, a continuous interaction across all domains, the need to find responses to challenges, and the common destiny of mortality. • this interactive process is largely invisible, comes in many different forms and languages, and is characterized by a huge excess (well over ninety-nine percent) of constituent elements (for the forest: seeds, bacteria, viruses, pests, nutrients/goods; for culture: migrants, words, information, practices, institutions). these surpluses are needed to secure successful interaction (on average a tree only succeeds in producing one other tree), with most of the ingredients falling by the wayside. it means that the overwhelming majority of these interactive constituents never achieve their immediate purpose, while unwittingly, however, contributing to the sustenance of other agents active in the forest, which in turn contributes to the sustenance of the entire process. • arguing from the bottom up—the interactions of trees are structured. trees directly interact with other trees of the same species, in parental or friendship roles; with trees of different species nearby, in cooperation and competition; with trees further away, in decreasing intensity with increased distance; and with animate and inanimate agents in the same process. the connections consist of links among roots for exchange of nutrition, underground fungi that transmit information, chemical signals carried by the wind warning other trees about attacks from insects or large herbivores, competition for light (for photosynthesis) and nutrition, and protection of offspring. through these means, trees jointly generate the environment (forest/culture) necessary for their common survival. • arguing from the top down—forests depend on (and in part contribute to) larger frames (e.g., climate, sunlight, fires, migration, soil, plants and animals, bacteria, landmass, omnivorous digestion) for their survival and sustenance, including: the exchange of pollinating agents via wind or bees; mutual protection against strong winds (trees prefer standing in close proximity, because even though thinning them out might give the survivors more light for photosynthesis and help make them grow faster, it weakens their capacity to resist pests, winds, etc., and thus reduces their chances of survival); and joint formation of a temperature and moisture level in the forest to provide an optimal living environment. industrial monocultural tree plantations do much less well than forests with diverse tree species, where conifer and deciduous trees are mixed. under these latter conditions, the variety of agents sustaining the forest (birds, insects, quadrupeds) can all thrive with some resulting balance. 126 an imagined interview with rudolf g. wagner fig. 1. unknown. angel oak on john’s island, south carolina. photo. source: needpix.7 fig. 2. rob hille. mycelium rh, agaricus bisporus. photo. source: wikimediacommons. 7 “live oak ancient angel oak free photo,” needpix.com, accessed august 9, 2022, www. needpix.com/photo/1775118/live-oak-ancient-angel-oak-south-carolina-tree-nature. http://www.needpix.com/photo/1775118/live-oak-ancient-angel-oak-south-carolina-tree-nature http://www.needpix.com/photo/1775118/live-oak-ancient-angel-oak-south-carolina-tree-nature 127the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) • the forest, not the trees, is a potentially self-regulatory system. this system interacts with other systems of a higher order, such as climate, moving geotectonic plates, genetics, cosmological factors such as radiation, and commercial market exploitation. • forests have a history that involves historical change. its historicity is evident in the ontogenesis of a tree within a given (i.e., historical) environment and the memory of successful solutions to earlier challenges that can again arise in the genotype or phenotype at any time. this might be caused by mutations, disasters, changes in the macro-system under which they operate, or subsumption of forest management under the logic of industrial production. apart from disasters, the interaction within a forest, as well as its change over time, operates on a slow-motion scale. q6: what is the harvest from your trees/forest metaphor, and how should we understand its impact on the relationship between culture and cultures? when reading wohlleben’s book, my first thought was to use the relationship between the forest and trees as a model and metaphor to conceptualize, on a concrete level, what in human culture is the more diffuse process of an interaction of cultures within the framework of culture. however, stimulated by papers by claire farago and donald preziosi, and especially those by timothy ingold and gisli palsson, it dawned on me that, in fact, we might not be talking about metaphor or just a conceptual model when drawing on wohlleben’s work, but about one and the same thing. instead of offering the forest and the trees as a simile for the relationship between culture and cultures, and highlighting the functional parallels, i now believe that the trees and the forest should be understood as a unified story of the culture of nature. or, to use the term i spoke of earlier, the culture of an all-encompassing lifeworld. it is important to note here that a metaphor is useful only to the point of its being able to clarify connections. once this point is reached, the analysis has to move on without being forced into a straightjacket. following this story as long as it makes sense, i propose this forest/culture dynamic (both metaphorically and concretely) as the framework for ts, in which culture is the overarching system and all cultures are its constituents. the interactive processes comprising this dynamic operate on all levels from the global climate to the forest to the individual tree, in manners visible and invisible, mediated and direct, competitive and cooperative. as far as culture is concerned, this would be culture understood as a subsystem of nature, a constituent part of the lifeworld. the culture of nature would be the frame for all cultures, down to the visible and invisible linkages between them; all of them constantly impacted by interactions at higher levels. 128 an imagined interview with rudolf g. wagner who has culture? in a forest, everything and everybody. the culture of the tree is a subset of the vast web of culture that permeates the forest and is sustained by this overarching process of culture we call “forest.” trees have their rituals—forms of communication, and complex forms of managing their interaction with other organisms. the love-play of the birds; the aesthetic and olfactory attraction of the tree blossoms; the multifarious language forms, from warning cries to bee dances; the sexual hierarchy and complex cooperation within a pack; and the integration of statics and aesthetics in the engineering of the approximation of tree shapes to symmetry—these are all just some of the visible forms. these rituals in fact bear little resemblance to the blind unfolding of a genetic code, just as the development of a particular human culture is in fact hardly determined by the unfolding of some (now scientifically disproven) genetic racial coding. in a complex process of ontogenesis, the individual tree grows into its particular shape and sociability by switching on or off certain genetic features as it adjusts to and interacts with its wider environment. the birds, fungi, insects, and mammals (including humans) all form and decay in the same ontogenetic manner. methodologically, to break free from its trap of binarity, ts must study both the tree and the forest, top-down and bottom-up, and across the full range of interactions with all other diverse factors driving the process. the culture/forest must be studied empirically, and as a totality where each of the cultures/trees constituting a part of the whole relates to and interacts with other constituent parts as well as to and with the whole. within this paradigm, the culture of forests is a subset of the same culture of nature as the culture of humans. q7: in what way does the trees/forest paradigm advance ts and liberate it from the prison-house of binarity? the trees/forest metaphor offers the model of a process driven by an internal dynamic rather than the exercise of “power.” of course, within this dynamic, disbalancing asymmetries constantly occur (for the forest: fires, human forestry, pests without natural enemies; for culture: epidemics, occupation of lands, monopoly, concentration of innovation, etc.) and for a while they may give individual actors an inordinately large influence. however, the internal dynamic’s self-regulatory mechanism is usually able to generate responses that flatten these asymmetries, as can be seen in the california fires of 2018 and 2019. the understanding that all cultures are subsets of a worldwide process of culture moves transcultural interaction from an awkward footnote to the center of research, and from a binary model to one of multi-layered global interaction. in the case of forests, this has led to a research focus on the interaction between the constituent members within a forest. the results of such research 129the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) have fundamentally changed the understanding of the tree. the dynamics of the process of transcultural interaction is a comparably vast, demanding, and stimulating field of research, but also, one that is still largely unexplored. the forest metaphor takes up the horizontal communication within the forest, as well as communication with external factors such as climate, fire, or radiation; and it comes with a historical dimension. however, research has not yet shown an active engagement with the past. for human culture this is clearly an important dimension. so, applying this metaphor to transcultural studies would free the burden of proof in such work from nation-state constraints, and create a triangular, interactive process with three axes: the first axis being that of other cultures; the second, that of the past as another culture; and the third, that of the natural environment. binarity and the accompanying uni-directional assignment of power and agency would now be replaced by a multi-directional and multi-dimensional process, where the constituent parts would be interconnected with the whole and interact with it, and all resulting explanations would be fact-based and empirical. q8: could this holistic paradigm you are describing be the solution to the crisis of disconnection between culture and the wider natural environment that you raised earlier? exactly! the study of human culture necessarily belongs to the study of our lifeworld and its all-encompassing networks. because of the reality of the trees/forest metaphor, this study must be inclusive and interact with all disciplines and fields—including the natural sciences. transcultural interaction can be conceptualized as a “world wide web” throughout human history. this web is the norm, the constant, and the lifeline of culture involving all societies and groups. it is held together by a common origin, a continuous interaction across all domains, and the need to find responses to natural challenges. culture retains or regains vitality through “cross-pollination” within the sphere of this web. it does not result from a foreign implant, but necessarily lives by the merger of external and local genome. like the “wood wide web” (the self-regulating, dynamic, interactive forest network so vividly depicted by wohlleben), this world wide web of cultural interaction operates through its own coded language and system of communication; visible or palpable signals make up only a minute part of its communicative system. the structure of this web consists of travelers and migrants. cultural signals are transmitted and transported through human agency, both intentionally and unintentionally. the migration of humans, including merchants, conquering armies, and religious institutions, consists of stories told, reports from faroff lands, translations, etc. the transmission mechanism is triggered by the 130 an imagined interview with rudolf g. wagner built-in “program” or “instincts” within cultures, which are self-regenerative. this process can only be successfully achieved through interacting with others, setting into motion the flowering of new cultural features that, in turn, generate their own abundance of stimuli traveling the transcultural web. as they migrate, these young cultural features bear fruit that is dependent on their compatibility with the environment of the new site, and their acceptance as something new or amazing. fig. 3. dave hansford, networking opportunities, source: new zealand geographic, © kowhai media.8 8 dave hansford, “the wood wide web: forests have their own information superhighway, and it works much like ours, carrying information, trade—and cybercrime,” new zealand geographic 184 (nov–dec 2017), accessed december 5, 2021, https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/the-wood-wide-web/. https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/the-wood-wide-web/ 131the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) q9: if ts is an examination of cultures and cultural phenomena within a world wide web of cultural interactions, how does humankind and our anthropocentrically-limiting narrative fit within this whole? if this narrative is to be rejected or recast, how and what should replace it? the anthropocentric narrative comes with three propositions of asymmetry that have all been disproven: • it refers only to humans of so-called higher, dominant cultures, who have typically relegated all other humans to the realm of nature. this relegation is historical and regional in nature, with prominent examples being euroamerican and chinese perceptions of others. it has been disproven by rich evidence for “culture” (language, art, ritual, etc.) among humans of other cultures (as well as non-human organisms). • it claims human exceptionalism (e.g., language, art, memory, critical thinking, play, social organization, science). this claim is metaphysical as well as historical and regional in nature, and it has been discredited, as anchored in the authority of local scriptural traditions rather than rationality. • it assumes neo-darwinist genetic determinism for all other organisms (including the naturvölker). while higher humans do what they will to do, other organisms cannot help doing what they do. this third proposition supports the first two through a “scientific” argument, but that argument has been disproven by evidence that inheritance is not a closed genetic package that blindly and uni-directionally unfolds from parent to offspring; rather, inheritance occurs through a vast bandwidth of options that are actuated in a process of “ontogenesis” according to individual circumstances and needs, including but not limited to genetics. given that the evidence against all three propositions has been increasingly accepted—perhaps helped by a decreasing faith in the collective rationality of mankind including humans from the “higher cultures,” and by the visibly stronger agency of “nature” in reaction to human interventions—why does this anthropocentric narrative remain so strongly and deeply embedded? because it is encoded into, and justifies, a whole array of practices concerning “nature” and mankind, which are in turn fortified by real-life economic and political interests. overcoming this narrative is not just a question of seeing its weaknesses, but of creating enough of a groundswell (argumentative, social movements) to actually force its rejection and change. abandoning this anthropocentric narrative entails that we: • redefine the notion of “agency” by delinking it from origins in a conscious, rational, “higher human.” instead, agency will be defined by the resulting impact(s) of the interactive process(es) between all actors. the past, the 132 an imagined interview with rudolf g. wagner wind, the fungi, the wolves, the leaves of the trees, humans, the camera, bees, and meteors all have agency. • redefine “actors” and their “actions.” actors are all cultivated in complex interactive ways. none of them acts randomly. science, scholarship, and art are part of the complex process of nature’s culture. • acknowledge ontogenesis, which takes place in a lifeworld that involves various ever-widening networks from the immediately local to the cosmic. • explore the underlying dynamics of interactions, where the burden of proof for interaction within nature’s culture is no longer required for each instance, and only required for unexpected processes of interaction. q10: what comes next for ts? ts should critically examine the interaction of humans with their cultural and natural environments, with the focus on the crucial role of human agency upon the whole lifeworld. human identity is anchored in the assumption of physical supremacy in the natural world and authenticity and identity in culture. the tension between the dependency on interaction and the need for ego-strength has led to a broad range of cultural activities that deny this dependency or make it seem irrelevant, as well as an equally wide range of practical activities that actually reduce this dependency and invert existing asymmetries. the tension between the two conflicting aspects has been exponentially increased by, first, the dramatic development of the human impact on the environment and the equally dramatic rise in the released agency of the environment and its impact on humans, and, second, the exponential increase in the means of communication and material exchange beginning at the dawn of the nineteenth century, with a resultant exponential increase in cultural interaction across all domains. both developments increase the perceived fragility of interaction within the lifeworld and the need to enhance the stability of the perception of self, as they are a threat to maintaining the story of physical supremacy over the environment and ultimate authenticity and identity. consequently, vast energies have been released in the attempt to cope with these threats, ranging from denials of an environmental challenge and fundamentalist religious, economic, and political tendencies on the one hand, to efforts on the other to develop ways and means for sustainable relationships with the natural environment and frameworks to secure and facilitate cultural interaction. these developments are not taking place as a self-sustaining natural process. they are taking place: • on a material level and on the level of articulation. the study of this material level is the object of a range of scholarly fields in the sciences 133the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) as well as connected fields such as demography, scientific archaeology, economics, and law. • by being articulated on different levels—this articulation is essential for them to gain standing and develop from an individual to a collective level of human agency. this is where a wide range of cultural professionals come into play, such as scholars in the humanities, social sciences, hard sciences, journalists, religious advocates, schoolteachers, and legal specialists who operate in the vast space of public articulation between state and society. transcultural studies should explore the interface of the real-life tensions between unstable, fragile, enriching, and threatening interactions within this lifeworld and the unending human efforts to mentally construct and practically secure and act out individual, group, and national stability in this anthropocene age. to address this constituent tension of human existence, which has reached a critical point through human action and threatens to move towards a cataclysmic destruction of both nature and culture on earth, requires the courage and wherewithal to take on a huge scholarly challenge that is beyond the capacities of our inherited instruments, but must be embraced, because humans are not only a crucial part of the problem, their thoughts and deeds are a crucial part of the solution. exploring the transcultural domain within this whole—including the complexity and historicity of the tensions within the general focus—ts should compel us to go beyond the inherited scholarly fields and their methods in three domains: • first, we will have to go beyond the nation-state borders delimiting scholarly fields in the humanities and social sciences. we must further develop the appropriate framework for this research, which has already begun in places like heidelberg university’s cluster asia and europe in a global context. • second, we will have to go beyond the methodologies developed in these inherited fields, because they are derived from and remain substantially specific to these particular environments, even when they claim universal validity by positing anthropological constants, or using instruments borrowed from mathematics. this will also require that we further refine the methodologies for studying the dynamics of transcultural interaction that have already been conceptualized and even preliminarily tested. • third, we will have to go beyond the traditional boundaries of scholarly investigation that construct a human/human world that disregards the critical interaction with the natural environment, and we will do so by absorbing, engaging with, and stimulating scientific research relevant to the humannature interaction within our anthropocene age. 134 an imagined interview with rudolf g. wagner by breaking through and going beyond the boundaries of our inherited fields of study, we should finally be able to begin bringing together the best the human mind can offer, in order to provide the empirical and analytical bases for informed action by the public, state authorities, and international bodies. q11: do you have any questions you would like us to keep in mind as we set off on this ts journey into the lifeworld? well, i do have a few (very kantian) questions about the culture of nature—of which human culture is a constituent part—that might serve to open up this exploration: • is there an underlying aesthetics of beauty linking the different articulations of nature’s culture (e.g., visual, olfactory, mobile, from a giacometti sculpture to the outer shape of organisms, from flower smells and tree shapes to cloud performances)? if so, how do these links operate? • is there an underlying logic of interaction driving the agency of the different actors (once the notion of genetic determinism is abandoned)? • is there an underlying grammar of language linking the different forms of communication from verbal to olfactory to electrical to movement and color? • is there an underlying measure of time guiding the different agents of nature’s culture? how does it manifest itself and how do the different actors interact? • is there an implied notion of space in the interaction of the different agents of nature’s culture? how is this manifest, and how do the different scales (i.e., the different positioning and relationships) of these different agents interact both within their constituent cultures and across this space? • is there an underlying notion of identity informing the agency of the different agents and their perception of and interaction with others? • is there an underlying memory trove of past experiences on which agents draw to respond to present challenges? what are its forms of preservation, access, selection, and sharing? what is history after the end of the dictum that “all history properly so called is the history of human affairs?”9 • is there an underlying notion of ritual regulating the interplay between actors? finally, i would like to sum up with these thoughts: the lifeworld in the anthropocene age points to the interaction of humans with their cultural (in the widest sense) and natural environments; with the prefix “anthropo-,” it highlights the crucial role human agency has assumed. relations in both domains are vital as well as unstable. in the domain of culture, transcultural interaction is the lifeline. in human relations with nature and its agents, constant interaction is the lifeline. 9 robin george collingwood, the idea of history (oxford: clarendon press, 1946), 212. ak2_titel.indd 2010. 1 editor's note rudolf g. wagner .02 articles arjun appadurai how histories make geographies .04 douglas howland japanese neutrality in the 19th century .14 series on multi-centred modernisms—reconfiguring asian art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries monica juneja and franziska koch introduction .38 james elkins writing about modernist painting .42 gennifer weisenfeld reinscribing tradition in a transnational art world .78 transcultural studies 2010. 1 transcultural studies, vol. 1, 2010, issn: pending. editor: rudolf g. wagner, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg managing editor: andrea hacker editorial board: christiane brosius, harald fuess, madeleine herren, monica juneja, birgit kellner, joachim kurtz, axel michaels, and roland wenzlhuemer. transcultural studies is an open-access e-journal published bi-annually by the cluster of excellence, “asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows“ at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. for more information see: www.transculturalstudies.org contributors to this issue: arjun appadurai is goddard professor of media, culture, and communication at new york university. he is a socio-cultural anthropologist and specializes in globalization, public culture, and urban studies. douglas howland is david d. buck professor of chinese history at the university of wisconsin, milwaukee. his main research interests include east asian westernization, international law and state sovereignty in china and japan, and liberalism and popular sovereignty in the nineteenth century. monica juneja is professor of global art history at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg’s cluster of excellence „asia and europe in a global context.“ her research focuses on european and south asian visual representation, issues of comparative and transnational histories, religious conversion, gender, and political iconography. franziska koch is a phd candidate at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg and assistant to monica juneja. her dissertation is titled „china(’s) images and the tensions of postcolonial art discourse and practices. contemporary chinese art and its western reception in the medium of exhibition.“ james elkins is e.c. chadbourne chair of the department of art history, theory, and criticism at the school of the art institute of chicago. his research focuses on the history and theory of images in art, science, and nature. gennifer weisenfeld is associate professor of art history at duke university, north carolina. her main field of research is nineteenthand twentieth century japanese visual culture. 1 transcultural studies 2011.2 2011. 2 editors note rudolf g. wagner .04 articles michael s. falser krishna and the plaster cast. translating the cambodian temple of angkor wat in the french colonial period .06 vladimir tikhonov the korean images of tibet and sirhak scholars: the plurality of truths? in relation to the issue of the epistemological shift in eighteenth-century korea. .51 series on multi-centred modernisms: franziska koch “china” on display for european audiences? the making of an early travelling exhibition of contemporary chinese art–china avantgarde (berlin/1993) .66 themed section: the transcultural travels of trends introduction laila abu-er-rub, jennifer altehenger, sebastian gehrig the transcultural travels of trends. an introductory essay .140 sandra annett imagining transcultural fandom: animation and global media communities .164 sebastian gehrig (re-)configuring mao: trajectories of a culturo-political trend in west germany .189 lena henningsen coffee, fast food and the desire for romantic love in contemporary china: branding and marketing trends in popular chinese-language literature .232 2 contributors to this issue transcultrual studies, no 2, 2011, issn: 2191-6411 editor: rudolf g. wagner, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg managing editor: andrea hacker editorial board: christiane brosius, harald fuess, madeleine herren, monica juneja, birgit kellner, joachim kurtz, axel michaels, and roland wenzlhuemer. transcultural studies is an open-access e-journal published bi-annually by the cluster of excellence, “asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows“ at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. for more information see: www.transculturalstudies.org contributors to this issue: vladimir tikhonov is professor of east asian studies at the university of oslo. he researches and teaches korean history, contemporary korean language, society, and politics, and modernity and nationalism in east asia. michael falser is an architect, art historian, and research fellow at the cluster of excellence „asia and europe in a global context“ at the ruprecht-karlsuniversität heidelberg. his research interests include modern architectural history, cultural heritage studies, and the theory and practice of conservation and preservation. franziska koch is assistant to the chair of global art history at the cluster of excellence „asia and europe in a global context“of ruprechtkarls-universität heidelberg. her research interests include transfer and translational processes of art between east asia and europe. laila abu-er rub is a graduate student at the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context” of ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. she is working on her phd-thesis about the representation of western women in indian media. jennifer althenger is a graduate student at the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context” of ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. her research interests include chinese and east asian legal history. 3 transcultural studies 2011.2 sebastian gehrig is a research associate at the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context” of ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. his research interests include modern european history; social and cultural history of law; interactions of subcultures and social movements, and political trends. sandra annett is assistant professor at the wilfrid laurier university, canada. her research interests are digital and new media, east asian popular cultures (japanese and s. korean), and globalization and postcolonial theory. lena henningsen is a post-doctoral researcher at the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context” of ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. her research interests include modern chinese literature and culture; creativity, imitation, and plagiarism in china; intellectual property, and chinese music. 03_titel_02_11.pdf 03_contrinbutors_02_11 the granular texture of memory: trieste between mitteleuropa and the mediterranean katia pizzi loving greece as much as istria, united as one great land.1 “cities,” contends andreas huyssen, “are palimpsests of history, incarnations of time in stone, sites of memory extending both in time and space.”2 for huyssen, the palimpsest—the porous support in which accrete presents that constantly overwrite the past and pasts leave indelible, overwritten, and ghostly traces on the present—posits a cogent epistemological framework. periodically de-signified and re-signified, connected and conflictual, transcultural cities productively lend themselves to the modular and stratified palimpsestic approach. the hybrid city of trieste is a compelling case in point. an eccentric port city located in a cul-de-sac within the wider mediterranean basin, trieste is both peripheral and transcultural: an insular city and palimpsest typified by periodic cultural collision, breaking, and reconstitution into new forms of syncretic and (a)synchronous memories. although a small fishing village existed here since ancient roman times, trieste arose ex novo in modernity as a product of strategic market expansion, providing the austro-hungarian empire with a much-needed coastal outlet in pursuit of trade interests in the upper adriatic. this essay will focus on the city in modernity, with particular attention paid to the interwar era. the establishment of a free port and the rapid growth fueled by european capital allowed the city to progressively attract diverse cultural, linguistic, and religious communities and to rely on composite demographics at the intersection of national and ethnic borders. in the late nineteenth century, trieste became one of the major ports in the world. it was second only to marseilles in the mediterranean region, and more substantial and capacious 1 “amare la grecia come l’istria, sentendole entrambe come un’unica, grande terra.” my translation. in diego zandel, verso est (udine: campanotto, 2006), 16. 2 andreas huyssen, present pasts: urban palimpsests and the politics of memory (stanford: stanford university press, 2003), 101. see also max silverman, palimpsestic memory: the holocaust and colonialism in french and francophone fiction and film (new york: berghahn, 2013). 35 than barcelona and genoa.3 in 1918, however, following the acquisition of trieste by italy after the first world war, the port was just as rapidly wound down due to pressure from neighboring italian ports: venice, especially, but also genoa, bari, and naples. historically and culturally, trieste was construed as a crossroads between east and west, a bridge symbolizing what todorova called the “transitionary status” of the balkans, and an echo of the balkan’s ottoman legacy.4 overlapping languages and cultures coexisted in a jarring cacophony, miring the city in internal ethnic, ideological, and national strife. both peripheral and cosmopolitan, trieste was indeed a veritable crucible of languages and cultures until the national wars of 1848 but has since become a crucible manqué as the city welcomed modernism in its most radical and extreme forms.5 in the 1910s–1920s, the city came to be perceived as a remote multicultural shore exotic enough to attract experimental living and writing, from james joyce to the italian futurists. a paradigm of modernity itself, trieste was the cradle of the avant-garde, notwithstanding the resounding local welcome given to the nationalist and anti-semitic policies of fascismo in the late 1930s. not surprisingly, perhaps, during these years trieste topped every other city in italy for the number of card-carrying members of the national fascist party. trieste and its hinterland carried a legacy of divisive and “fractured” memories, underpinned by some of the most momentous and traumatic vicissitudes in modern history.6 this legacy, both glorious and uncomfortable, continues to play a significant part in today’s cultural and political discourse, both locally and 3 “attorno al 1870 trieste è uno dei sette maggiori porti al mondo, per l’esattezza il secondo sul mediterraneo (subito dopo marsiglia), più importante di genova e di barcellona.” my translation. marija mitrovic, sul mare brillavano vasti silenzi: immagini di trieste nella letteratura serba (trieste: il ramo d’oro, 2004), 28. 4 “what practically all descriptions of the balkans offered as a central characteristic was their transitionary status. . . . the balkans . . . have always evoked the image of a bridge or a crossroads. the bridge as a metaphor for the region has been so closely linked to the literary oeuvre of ivo andric, that one tends to forget that its use . . . borders on the banal.” maria todorova, imagining the balkans (oxford: oxford university press, 2009), 15–16. see also 162: “it would not be exaggerated to say that the balkans are the ottoman legacy.” 5 “trieste was frequently a crucible manqué. the city . . . was characterized by absolute control over the circulation of ideas, not only on the more general political level, but, especially, the level of the disparate cultures and subcultures comprising . . . the heterogeneous social fabric.” my translation. elio apih, il ritorno di giani stuparich (florence: vallecchi, 1988), 75. 6 in the english translation, the italian adjective fratturate (“fractured”) was replaced with the more generic “divided.” in my opinion, “divided” is a misnomer that fails to capture the tectonic shifts of memory that typify modern trieste. john foot, italy’s divided memory (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2009); john foot, fratture d’italia (turin: rizzoli, 2009), passim. 36 the granular texture of memory abroad.7 haptic, granular, and ossified monuments and memorials pockmark the cityscape and the surrounding mountainous region, fueling debate and fomenting divisive politics. new structural directions of capitalism, shifting coordinates of globalization, and new migrations are currently reformulating trieste’s multiple identities, re-encoding and re-signifying the palimpsests of its memories. this truly is a city in search of a specific identity: a city in search of an author.8 taking trieste’s specifically mediterranean identity as a point of departure, my aim here is to revisit several memorial sites, both material and symbolic, where the hybrid transcultural memories of the city are mediated and most visibly and productively coalesce. these sites comprise narrative fiction and film as well as physical markers in the built environment, such as the detention camp risiera di san sabba. further, i will discuss foibe—that is, geological formations such as sinkholes, crevasses, and pits, located in rural spots. foibe were used as execution sites and mass graves at the end of the second world war and in subsequent years. the status acquired by foibe in literary fiction in trieste and well beyond the city renders them an apposite topic for discussion in this context. together with textual and visual cultural production, these sites act as containers of compelling communicative memories. in jan assmann’s terms,9 these sites not only bear witness to an uneven modernity, in which the competing nationalisms of indigenous and immigrant communities lay claim to the political arena, they also cast enduring shadows over the transcultural discourses of a globalized present in the manner of the palimpsest—that is, as new writing laid over ghostly traces of the old, on parchment or paper. transcultural memories in the built environment: risiera di san sabba my point of departure is pierre nora’s lieux de mémoire, that is to say, national loci beholden to exclusive, partisan memories in reciprocal 7 appiah takes trieste as a case study of the fragmented status of modern literary culture. kwame anthony appiah, “creed–kwame anthony appiah: mistaken identities.” the reith lectures, bbc. podcast audio, 56:33, october 18, 2016, accessed november 29, 2020, http://www.bbc.co.uk/ programmes/b07z43ds. the myth of trieste grew largely out of angelo ara and claudio magris’s seminal volume, first published in 1982: angelo ara and claudio magris, trieste: un’identità di frontiera (turin: einaudi, [1982] 1989). 8 katia pizzi, a city in search of an author: the literary identity of trieste (london: sheffield academic press-continuum, 2001). 9 jan assmann, “communicative and cultural memory,” in cultural memory studies: an international interdisciplinary handbook, ed. astrid erll and ansgar nünning (berlin: de gruyter, 2008), 109–118. 37the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) tension.10 trieste’s lieux de mémoire were cemented after the first world war when, upon the collapse of the austro-hungarian empire, the italian middle-class elite supported the italian cause to the detriment of the rising national consciousness of substantial autochthonous slovenian and croatian communities. monumental war cemeteries and commemorative sites to the “unknown soldier” are a compelling case in point.11 mario isnenghi advocates an extension of the reach of memory to the “realm of social history,”12 and jay winter revisits sites of memory in a transnational key with a special emphasis on the language and protocols of mourning and commemoration,13 each thus contributing to this debate. further, alon confino contends that the power to make memories significant lies in the relations and processes that cause different mnemonic communities to clash over their respective understandings of the past, a point that is particularly fitting with regards to the memorial landscape of post-first world war trieste.14 more recent work, notably astrid erll’s and ann rigney’s edited volume and michael rothberg’s monograph, broadens the scope of nora’s univocal approach and calls for transcultural inflections in the historical construction of memory, and memory flows and transfers in mutual contrast.15 the drift of memory, as huyssen suggestively implies, is underpinned by traceable flows. huyssen’s interpretation of the palimpsest can be productively compared to the framework devised by the warburg historian michael baxandall, whereby the 10 pierre nora, “between memory and history: les lieux de mémoire,” representations 26 (1989): 7–24. 11 foot, fratture d’italia; gaetano dato, “lineamenti storiografici, memorie pubbliche e miti all’origine del sacrario di redipuglia: la fondazione di un ‘tempio della nazione,’” acta histriae 22, no. 3 (2014): passim; hannah malone, “fascist italy’s ossuaries of the first world war: objects or symbols?,” riha journal 0166 (2017), http://www.rihajournal.org/articles/2017/0150-0176special-issue-war-graves/0166-malone. 12 “regno della storia sociale,” my translation. mario isnenghi, i luoghi della memoria. simboli e miti dell’italia unita (rome: laterza, 1998), ix. 13 jay winter, sites of memory, sites of mourning: the great war in european cultural history (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1998), 10. 14 alon confino, “collective memory and cultural history: problems of method,” the american historical review 102, no. 5 (1997): 1386–1403. see also the rise of trauma studies in works such as cathy caruth, trauma: explorations in memory (baltimore: johns hopkins university press, 1995); cathy caruth, unclaimed experience: trauma, narrative and history (baltimore: johns hopkins university press, 1996); dominic lacapra, writing history, writing trauma (baltimore: johns hopkins university press, 2001); roger luckhurst, the trauma question (london: routledge, 2008); stef craps, postcolonial witnessing: trauma out of bounds (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2013). 15 astrid erll and ann rigney, eds., mediation, remediation and the dynamics of cultural memory (berlin: de gruyter, 2012); michael rothberg, multidirectional memory: remembering the holocaust in the age of decolonization (stanford: stanford university press, 2009). 38 the granular texture of memory brittle tectonics and plastic “lamination,” to use baxandall’s term, of the sand dune and its perpetual slippage underlie memorial dynamics and processes.16 the emphasis that both baxandall and huyssen place on the ambiguities, fragilities, overlaps, and constant metamorphoses of memorial processes are particularly apposite to trieste’s holocaust camp risiera di san sabba. risiera became operative in 1943. it was modeled on the genocide industry of treblinka. after scrupulously fulfilling the remit for which camps were established for two years, risiera was burned down in the night between 28 and 29 april 1945, and its contents, furnishings, and documents, as well as the truck whose exhaust supplied noxious fumes to the underground chamber, were reduced to ashes. however, the structure and walls of this sturdy repurposed nineteenth-century industrial building survived the fire. indeed, a ghostly outline of the crematorium remains discernible on the main wall today. the destruction of this material went hand in hand with a progressive erosion of signification, turning risiera into a perpetually unfinished and in-progress memorial work. risiera’s memorialization began in earnest in 1976 alongside a trial to establish responsibility and bring perpetrators to justice. the initial indictment of august dietrich allers, gottlieb hering, josef oberhauser, franz stangl, christian wirth, and other protagonists of the triestine holocaust, however, swiftly became mired in procedural delays and controversies, including the arbitrary but clearly delineated distinction between victims, at the time termed “innocents” (e.g., depoliticized civilians), and “culpables” (e.g., politicized fighters). when the trial ended on 29 april 1976, only one sentence was passed, on oberhauser alone.17 as the trial gradually acquired a reputation as a nuremberg manqué, risiera accrued further layers of memorialization. neutered somewhat by its featureless abstraction, the site seemed poised to bypass the polemics and omissions in which the trial had become mired. architect romano boico’s creative restoration, which consisted of two concrete walls facing one another to mark the entrance, borrowed from the material void symbolically attached to the site. boico’s work is a brutalist and unadorned refitting designed to emphasize vacuity and isolation. the artwork is strategically decontextualized from its urban surroundings in a manner that the artist hoped would elicit empathy and invite respectful silence.18 16 michael baxandall, episodes: a memory book (london: frances lincoln, 2010). 17 however, oberhauser was subsequently not extradited and continued to live and work in a bierkeller (basement-level beer bar) in his native munich. see ferruccio fölkel, la risiera di san sabba [l’olocausto dimenticato: trieste e il litorale adriatico durante l’occupazione nazista] (milan: rizzoli, 2000), 47. see also adolfo scalpelli, ed., san sabba: istruttoria e processo per il lager della risiera, vol. 2 (milan: aned mondadori, 1988). 18 massimo mucci, la risiera di san sabba: un’architettura per la memoria (gorizia: goriziana, 1999). 39the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) this national monument on the site of a former nazi extermination and transit camp today stands in the heart of metropolitan trieste. when it was built at the height of the cold war, its location in the center of the city was perceived by many as a deterrent in the face of the communist east, a bulwark against the neighboring balkans. since then, risiera has acquired a ghostly sediment of public and individual memory.19 at different times, it has been variously described as a symbolic crossroads, a tectonic fault, and a bakhtinian chronotope.20 historian ferruccio fölkel first compares risiera to a “gordian knot,” and later likens it to a cauldron of competing ethnicities, ideologies, and trauma, of sectarian memories mixed in with one another.21 this inert and interstitial site follows the dynamics of erll’s “remediated” memories, while at the same time somewhat confounding rothberg’s paradigm of multidirectional memory.22 risiera’s memories are crystallized and yet displaced, erosive, nostalgic, and ruptured. its “laminations,” to borrow from baxandall, collapse and re-figure its memorial tectonics time and time again. these laminations construct a delocalized memorial archaeology erected not on material supports, but rather underpinned by heterogeneous and plastic fragments of signification, variously appropriated by diverse interest groups, and collected and deposited in the course of the fraught history of this mediterranean port city.23 the anniversary events celebrated at the risiera and foibe sites, ceremonies which commemorate the atrocities committed there, are both symbolically and materially split into competing ceremonies that take place respectively on 27 january, which is also international holocaust remembrance day, and 10 february, at the monumental foiba di basovizza. these “memory wars” point to the indeterminacy and divisiveness of the triestine memorial landscape, which endure to this day.24 trieste’s fractured memories continue to feed the imagination, both within italy and further afield. 19 katia pizzi, “cold war trieste on screen: memory, identity and mystique of a city in the shadow of the iron curtain,” in cold war cities: history, culture and memory, ed. katia pizzi and marjatta hietala (oxford: peter lang, 2016), 45–57. 20 pamela ballinger, history in exile: memory and identity at the borders of the balkans (princeton: princeton university press, 2003); glenda sluga, “the risiera di san sabba: fascism, anti-fascism and italian nationalism,” journal of modern italian studies 1, no. 3 (1996): 401–412. 21 fölkel’s book is dedicated to primo levi. fölkel, la risiera di san sabba, 8–9. 22 erll and rigney, mediation, remediation and the dynamics of cultural memory, passim; rothberg, multidirectional memory, passim. 23 francesco mazzucchelli, “ricordi innominabili: la ristrutturazione dell’ex campo di concentramento di san sabba,” chora 6 (2008): 24. 24 the notion of “memory wars” was first advanced by dan stone, “memory wars in the ‘new europe’,” in the oxford handbook of postwar european history, ed. dan stone (oxford: oxford university press, 2012), title and passim. 40 the granular texture of memory transcultural memories in literary fiction: the foibe can literary fiction open the transcultural vistas that are disavowed by these sites and by the public rituals of commemoration performed there? officially launched in the early 1910s, under the auspices of austria-hungary and at the height of the attrition of ethnicity and nationality which was shortly to coalesce in the first world war, local culture pursued a cross-cultural, albeit specific, agenda, with self and other competing in close proximity. this agenda is clearly illustrated by the mutually impermeable intellectual works of the italian writer scipio slataper (1888–1915) and the slovenian poet srečko kosovel (1904–1926).25 the cosmopolitan thrust of these authors’ literary productions, located in close proximity to the european modernism of joyce and svevo (arguably the most important authors to have worked in trieste), was notable for cultural assertion within their respective communities and has been construed historically as a conduit of commercial and cultural flows between north, east, and west—a crossroad at the edge of an “anti-civilization alter-ego,”26 where the colonial global became entangled with the transregional local, collapsing in a nebeneinander, to put it in joycean terms.27 belying multiple and contingent loyalties, literary fiction in trieste in the early and middle decades of the twentieth century sought to anchor its intertextuality in the great tradition of european modernism and a synchronous amalgam of heterogeneous models and movements imported from italy as well as middle and northern europe.28 a handful of authors attempted pluralistic approaches, mindful of trieste’s transcultural, hybridized history and the city’s liminality within the mediterranean and the balkans. the trieste conjured by the italianand croatian-speaking novelist fulvio tomizza (1935–1999), for example, articulates a culture neurotically split between east and west, torn apart by ambivalent memories, and symbolically assimilated to a primordial broth in which heterogeneous identities spin around one another, vortex-like, with no prospect of redemption or reconciliation. other authors focused on specific local sites, at times romanticizing them as legendary and folkloric legacies of the ottoman empire and the balkans. the foibe, crevasses embedded in the geological fabric of the region and now disputed sites of atrocity scarring the landscape, present a prima facie case of jarring and disavowed transcultural exchange. in a manner resonant 25 pizzi, “cold war trieste on screen,” 45–57. 26 todorova, imagining the balkans, 188. 27 james joyce, ulysses (oxford: oxford university press, 1993), 37. 28 ernestina pellegrini, le città interiori, in scrittori triestini di ieri e di oggi (bergamo: moretti & vitali, 1995). 41the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) of the legendary status of the balkans, foibe continue to generate legends, stories, opinions, and observations; they are sites that contain an immense quantity of signification and are constantly updated and accessorized with new and contradictory facts and figures. their memorial import arises from their use as sites for torture and the disposal of human remains during violent confrontations between italy and yugoslavia between 1943 and 1945. since then, foibe progressively acquired competing national meanings. memorial fault-lines and the foibe’s symbolic hollowness further accommodate irreconcilable “memory wars.”29 foibe act as implacable memory machines that pile their signification onto the material bulk of human remains, animal carcasses, and metallic scraps of war machinery that can only be measured in cubic metres.30 foibe progressively attracted tangles of conflictual commemoration evoked in realist and magical realist styles, as termini of personal and collective tragedies, theaters of suicide and personal and political vendettas, and realms of spectral and malignant encounters where geological configuration joins forces with ideological polarities and mythical resonances. a copious amount of literary fiction in both prose and verse continues to translate the ancestral fears and anxieties generated by these caves into numerous narrative memories, some of which are discussed below.31 one of the earliest and most notable examples in the category of short fiction is giani stuparich’s la grotta (the cave) in the collection nuovi racconti (new tales) (1935).32 this story centers on an expedition undertaken by three young men into the mountainous karst plateau near trieste that results in a tragic accident in which two of the men fall into the abyss. a uterine symbolism intervenes when the survivor, lucio, is helped by a teacher whose redemptive force is evoked in terms of maternal protection. a symbolic equation between the foiba and the maternal uterus is almost a cliché of this literature, as demonstrated so eloquently by the literary work cited above. 29 stone, “memory wars in the ‘new europe’,” title and passim; mazzucchelli, “ricordi innominabili,” 24. 30 the bibliography on this topic is colossal and cannot be done justice here. however, the most salient and reliable historical accounts are foot, fratture d’italia; raoul pupo and roberto spazzali, foibe (milan: bruno mondadori, 2003); claudia cernigoi, operazione foibe: tra storia e mito (udine: kappa vu, 2005); katia pizzi, trieste: italianità, triestinità e male di frontiera (bologna: gedit, 2007); gianni oliva, foibe: le stragi negate degli italiani della venezia giulia e dell’istria (milan: mondadori, 2007); joze pirjevec, foibe: una storia d’italia (turin: einaudi, 2009). 31 see also the following novels: enrico morovich, il baratro (padua: rebellato, 1964); carlo sgorlon, la foiba grande (milan: mondadori, 1992); giuseppe svalduz, una croce sulla foiba: il grido delle vittime ritrova la strada della memoria (venice: marsilio, 1996); ezio mestrovich, foiba in autunno (trieste: il ramo d’oro, 2006); giulio angioni, gabbiani sul carso (palermo: sellerio, 2010). 32 to my knowledge, the most recent collection on this theme is in verse: lina galli, nata per il mistero (empoli: ibiskos editrice risolo, 2013). 42 the granular texture of memory carlo sgorlon’s novel la foiba grande (the large foiba), another cogent example, relies on the legendary and mythical aura accrued by these caves within the balkan cultural framework, which focuses on the foibe’s unspeakable, aberrant evil. an artificial dichotomy between romanità (roman-ness) and balcanicità (balkan-ness), however, transposes the individual first-person narration to the impersonal third-person, and betrays the post-cold war chronology of this novel, in which the accompanying derogatory use of the terms “balkan” and “balkanization,” as observed by maria todorova,33 is by now a well-worn point. as will be further clarified in my discussion of cold war films in trieste, the latent demonization that underpins sgorlon’s novel seems to become code for an orientalist reading of trieste’s culture, “exempting the west from charges of racism, colonialism, eurocentrism, and christian intolerance against islam.”34 una croce sulla foiba (a cross on the foiba) prefigures an even more uncompromising caesura between east and west. the novel’s dramatization of the rift between catholic (italian) partisans and communist (yugoslav) fighters, embracing the cause of the former to the detriment of the latter, conveys an all the more explicit indictment of orientalized mediterranean neighbors at the threshold of trieste, undoing purist occidentalized values.35 common to these fictions is the palimpsest and the laminated memorial framework, itself an echo of the slippery and shifting memorial status of the foibe pits. transcultural interaction and exchange are here derailed and silenced. foibe remain enigmatic monoliths where the slippage and ruination of layered memories leads to serial, overlapping, and chaotic archaeologies of signification. rather like nora’s lieux de mémoire, foibe are durable and impregnable bastions that sustain the fragile and mutually impermeable identitarian politics of different groups.36 mediterranean transcultural memories in film after the second world war and the subsequent geo-political reconfiguration of southern europe, trieste’s linguistic and cultural borders experienced further ruptures. local intellectuals and authors continued to articulate discourses about trieste’s border identity, describing it as at once fragmented and polarized; hybrid, heterogeneous, and internally split; and centrifugal, 33 “the new wave of utilizing ‘balkan’ and ‘balkanization’ as derogatory terms came only at the end of the cold war and the eclipse of state communism in eastern europe.” todorova, imagining the balkans, 136. 34 todorova, imagining the balkans, 188. 35 pizzi, trieste, 166–174; pizzi, a city in search of an author, 91–99. 36 nora, “between memory and history,” 7–24. 43the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) yet self-referential and inward-looking. trieste now had a precarious identity erected on the stratified foundations of the city’s fractured and traumatic memories. these constitutional polarities were propagated during the early cold war period, when trieste came prominently and publicly to the fore in its capacity as the southernmost segment of the iron curtain.37 the brittle and fractious balance of powers that characterized the cold war seemed to find a suitable template in a city whose identity had been precarious and shifting from its inception. the city has continued to baffle attempts to establish national borderlines. trieste was governed by an occupying anglo-american army until a national resolution was arrived at in 1954 during the discussions leading to the london memorandum of understanding. in this volatile context, trieste came to enjoy a unique, even glamorous image, which resonated internationally and was soon picked up by hollywood. as i shall argue below, the moving image appropriated trieste as a western space constantly on the verge of becoming balkanized, a city where western democracy was inherently fragile and overlain with eastern communism. trieste had substantially invested in cinema since the late nineteenth century. entrepreneurs, business tycoons, and newspaper owners committed efforts and capital toward the development of this new art form. trieste hosted the first of a series of film screenings on 12 july 1896, one of the earliest public events of this kind in the world. between july and august, at least ten thousand viewers eagerly attended these shows.38 films produced locally in 1897 include il varo del piroscafo trieste (the launching of the steamer trieste), lo scalo legnami a trieste (the woods dockside in trieste), tratto di via che unisce il corso alla barriera (a street segment connecting corso with barriera), and tergesteo all’ora di borsa (tergesteo at stock exchange time).39 a dedicated theater named cineografo americano opened on 12 august 1905, kick-starting a network of twenty-one permanent screens established in the city between 1906 and 1909. the success of cinema was such that triestine capitalists antonio machnich, giovanni rebez, and giuseppe caris persuaded 37 in his renowned speech “sinews of peace” at westminster college (fulton, missouri, march 5, 1946), best known as the “iron curtain” speech, winston churchill emphatically warned: “from stettin [now the polish city szczecin] in the baltic to trieste in the adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” winston churchill, “sinews of peace (iron curtain speech),” levan ramishvili, uploaded april 22, 2013, youtube video, 44:36, accessed november 29, 2020, http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjxuacadv70. 38 dejan kosanovic, trieste al cinema 1896–1918 (gemona: cineteca del friuli, 1995), 24. film pioneers in trieste included angelo curiel, antonio permè, enrico pegan, max carreiter, and salvatore spina. 39 regrettably, only a few stills of these films are extant. pizzi, a city in search of an author, 61. 44 the granular texture of memory joyce to manage a brand-new screen in dublin at the end of 1909.40 the presence of highly technologically literate american troops after the second world war, eager to watch their favorite stars on screen and themselves well-equipped with super 8 cameras to capture local sights, further contributed to trieste’s material and symbolic investment in cinema. at this point in time, the city was uncomfortably perched at the interface between eastern communism and western democracy. consequently, as i shall argue below, trieste drew upon its proximity to the balkans for its cinematic themes and “a repository of negative characteristics against which a positive and self-congratulatory image of the ‘european’ and the ‘west’ has been constructed.”41 the mediated use of film, from sleek hollywood productions to slovenian propaganda pieces, testifies to this important trajectory, which seemed to resituate trieste within a mediterranean and opportunistically orientalized geographical space. a mechanical medium underpinned by layers of dissonant memories that frequently acts as an echo chamber for literary fiction, cinema seemed best placed to capture the contradictory yet alluring mystique of trieste at this most mercurial time in modern history. typified by a confluence of collective and individual memory along national lines, slovenian film also touched on trieste, largely revisiting the partisan struggle and contributing to the founding myth of socialist yugoslavia.42 since fascismo had successfully persecuted the city’s slav communities, slovenian film largely viewed trieste as a military front: a city ethnically, nationally, and ideologically antagonistic. however, trieste is not overly represented in slovenian film. when it features, for example in na svoji zemlji (on our own land) (1948) and trst (trieste) (1951), both directed by france štiglic, and hudodelci (the felons) (1987), directed by franci slak,43 trieste’s powerful hold on the national collective memory is set in contrast to slovenian national identity, cementing the desire to erect a communist yugoslavia. a memorial palimpsest is powerfully evidenced in a compelling shot of stiglic’s na svoji zemlji, where the eyes of a young partisan linger longingly, along with the camera, over the alluring shimmer of 40 the enterprise was a failure, and joyce returned to trieste a year later. this cinema was sold to the local company provincial theatre co. ltd in june 1910. kosanovic, trieste al cinema 1896–1918, 79–95, 123; carlo ventura, trieste nel cinema 1895–2006 (trieste: istituto giuliano di storia, cultura e documentazione, 2008), 13–23. 41 todorova, imagining the balkans, 188. 42 peter stanković, “constructs of slovenianness in slovenian partisan films,” društvena istraživanja 17 (2008): 38-39; vjeran pavlakovič, “twilight of the revolutionaries: ‘nasi spanci’ and the end of yugoslavia,” europe-asia studies 62, no. 7 (2010): 1175–1191. 43 na svoji zemlji, directed by france štiglic (ljubljana: triglav film, 1948); trst, directed by france štiglic (ljubljana: triglav film, 1951); hudodelci, directed by franci slak (ljubljana: viba film, 1987). slovenian film centre, database, accessed september 8, 2020, https://bsf.si/en/. 45the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) the adriatic sea from the vantage point of the gulf of trieste—a testimony of nostalgia for a city that could have been a part of communist yugoslavia but was, instead, designated to be western.44 associated with cold war realpolitik, the mystique of trieste began to circulate across the western world, accruing further suggestive and ambiguous overtones. virtually ubiquitous, and frequently grafted onto films on the flimsiest of pretexts, the city became a symbol for an edgy and insecure western identity thanks to its resonant proximity to the ottoman past. to cite just one example, the english film sleeping car to trieste (1948), directed by john paddy carstairs, was also marketed under the suggestively rephrased title sleeping car to venice.45 an even more vivid example is provided by diplomatic courier, a sleek hollywood production of 1952 directed by henry hathaway and adapted from the novel sinister errand (1945) by peter cheyney.46 the plot unfolds around a diplomatic agent who becomes embroiled in a covert operation aimed at the recovery of a top-secret document detailing stalin’s alleged plans to occupy western europe. trieste’s perceived exoticism and cosmopolitanism, as argued above, nurture myths, legends, and rhetoric that describe a multiple, divided, alienating identity. indeed, trieste is here singled out as a microcosm of the ambiguous mediterranean urban that typified the early cold war—an irreconcilable caesura between east and west. perched at the south-eastern extremity of the iron curtain, this multicultural city struggles to contain its tectonic shifts, in the manner of a sand dune seeping inexorably towards memorial desertification and ideological ruination. in a treatment reeking of orientalism, its alienated status is encapsulated in the communist threat simmering at its porous borders, as can be gleaned from a dialogue between mike kells, a western agent flying to trieste, and the officer on board the flight. this dialogue prepares the ground for mike’s visit and the cold war stereotypes coloring his perception. trieste is the ultimate shore of the cold war divide. it is a matrix of the state of the world frozen at this point in time, a palimpsest and crucible manqué. “[the] whole world is summarized in this city,” one of the opening statements of diplomatic courier intones, pointing once again to a nebeneinander. variably identified with the balkans and the eastern side of the iron curtain, trieste became, in other words, the container of “the dark side 44 pizzi, “cold war trieste on screen,” 84–85. 45 sleeping car to trieste, directed by john paddy carstairs (london: two cities films, 1948). 46 diplomatic courier, directed by henry hathaway (los angeles: twentieth century fox, 1952); peter cheyney, sinister errand: a novel (new york: harper collins, 1945). 46 the granular texture of memory within a collective europe.”47 film reflected back the stereotypically western imagery of an orientalized city,48 or at the very least its perceived hopeless balkanization. just like the mediterranean, the balkans can be described as “the cradle of human history . . . a space in which the strong traditions that have shaped european culture are oscillating.”49 popularized after the first world war, the term “balkanization” swiftly accrued disparaging connotations and became hegemonic in the west. in the early 1920s, paul scott mowrer pertinently defined balkanization as follows: the creation, in a region of hopelessly mixed races, of a medley of small states with more or less backward population, economically and financially weak, covetous, intriguing, afraid, a continual prey to the machinations of the great powers, and to the violent promptings of their own passions.50 this rhetoric vividly emerges through the medium of film, onto which the widespread perceptions of trieste and other mediterranean cities in the early cold war era are easily mapped. conclusion in present pasts, huyssen refers to italo calvino’s invisible cities as paradigmatic of the experience of the city, both as a material and imaginary space.51 trieste’s mediterranean transcultural memories demonstrate the extent to which trieste inhabits this most elusive interstitial space and to this day continues to be a powerful generator of memories, myths, and rhetoric. despite the interruptions elucidated above, however, the promise of transcultural redemption—that is to say, the encouraged meeting of traditionally competing cultures—seems to emerge within the globalized and glocalized context that trieste inhabits today. sustained migrations and contingent cultural hybridizations have in recent decades enriched the cultural and linguistic breadth of trieste’s literature, flooding the city’s cultural veins with the fresh blood of geographically distant and cosmopolitan cultures. one of the most notable agents of this shift is the contemporary novelist 47 todorova, imagining the balkans, 53. 48 james g. carrier, “occidentalism: the world turned upside‐down,” american ethnologist 19, no. 2 (1992): 195–212, cited in todorova, imagining the balkans, 10–12, 61. 49 “krlezas wilder sohn. interview mit stabodan snajder,” ost-west gegeninformationen 8, no. 1 (1996): 14, cited in todorova, imagining the balkans, 54. 50 paul scott mowrer, balkanized europe: a study in political analysis and reconstruction (new york: e. p. dutton, 1921), cited in todorova, imagining the balkans, 34. 51 huyssen, present pasts, 49–50. 47the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) lily-amber laila wadia. as the most recent and most intriguing stage of a long and on-going mnemonic process, this subject merits a full discussion that extends beyond the confines of this piece.52 born in mumbai in 1966, and a resident of trieste since 1986, wadia writes narrative fiction in italian, her second language. her exhilarating diary, come diventare italiani in 24 ore: il diario di un’aspirante italiana (how to become an italian national in 24 hours: diary of a would-be italian), is a tongue-in-cheek exposé of cultural and linguistic stereotypes, petty localisms, and newly forged identities that debunks the stale palimpsest of old trieste.53 focusing on food and language acquisition as key sites of migrant rupture, wadia re-configures trieste’s ossified post-colonial and balkan-orientalist paradigms, building upon the orientalist leverage of the city in order to destroy it.54 her best-selling literary work helps to debunk the essentialist untranslatability and broken transculturality of triestine culture.55 through the medium of irony, wadia explodes canonical notions, such as the dichotomies of center versus periphery, national versus regional, and monocultural versus transcultural, thus derailing stale local discourses and reorienting old binaries towards mutually intelligible and dialogical new frameworks. with the help of wadia’s work, the brittle sand dune may finally be on course to topple and allow for genuine and thus far overlooked transcultural exchanges and cross-overs. thanks to authors such as wadia, the granular memories of mediterranean trieste are morphing into genuine transcultural memories that implicitly negate and overcome old binaries. 52 pizzi, “cold war trieste on screen”; katia pizzi, “memorial dissonance and the city: trieste and translation interrupted,” in the routledge handbook of translation and the city, ed. tong king lee (abingdon: routledge, forthcoming). 53 wadia, laila. come diventare italiani in 24 ore: il diario di un’aspirante italiana (siena: barbera editore, 2010). 54 lily-amber laila wadia, mondo pentola (isernia: iannone, 2007); lily-amber laila wadia, amiche per la pelle (trieste: edizioni e/o, 2009). 55 pizzi, “cold war trieste on screen,” 45–57. reinscribing tradition in a transnational art world | weisenfeld | transcultural studies reinscribing tradition in a transnational art world gennifer weisenfeld, duke university introduction: a question of “tradition” there is no typical contemporary asian artist. there are no overarching trends that bind the diverse and increasingly nomadic experiences of asian artists working in the global context of the contemporary transnational art world. despite the ideological and rhetorical claims for national identity and cultural unity bounded by the nation-state that are still in currency, these claims are spurious in light of the heterogeneity of individual experience, inflected by location, class, and gender. still, artists, art historians, curators, and art critics concerned with asian culture regularly return to a notion of “tradition”—sometimes national, sometimes regional—and its ostensibly tension-filled relationship with the modern to frame their discussions of a distinctive asian modernity. i would like to revisit the critical problem of “tradition” here to hopefully complicate the discussion. close inspection of contemporary artistic production reveals a range of strategic operations in the rhetorical deployment of “tradition,” from the lucrative commodification of difference in a neo-auto-orientalization mode to the most biting and ironic forms of post-modern critique (often equally lucrative). when post-modern critique is situated within a changing political climate of neo-conservativism, counter-culture can be slyly inverted to support nationalist ideologies of cultural essentialism. nothing is as it appears. by now, everyone is well aware that tradition is not static, it is not singular, and it is not transhistorical. rather than focus on a limitless search for historical formal sources, it is clearly more illuminating to concentrate on the choices made in the present that frame and articulate particular traditions, as the past is reinscribed and given new meaning in the present through this process. my research focuses on japan, and i will concentrate here on japanese artists in the larger context of contemporary asian art as a case study, not because these same questions might not be equally relevant to thai or chinese artists, or because japan is any less heterogeneous than the rest of asia, but rather because my own limited knowledge prevents me from wandering too far beyond these parameters. i also strongly believe that the historical specificity of each asian country’s experience of modernity greatly impacts the story—it certainly does in japan, which often has an ambivalent relationship to the rest of asia (as the rest of asia has to it). by focusing on two of the most successful and widely acclaimed japanese artists exhibiting in japan and abroad today, murakami takashi and araki nobuyoshi, i will show how their invocation of traditions specifically associated with edo-period visuality and its libidinal economy fuses the material, spiritual, and erotic into a distinct and highly marketable cultural essence that still effectively positions itself as an extreme counter-culture critique championing post-modern hybridity. while i hesitate to claim that these artists represent any kind of norm in such a heterogeneous sphere of visual culture production, their immense success in a range of markets and their highly influential writings have certainly framed the reception of japanese art around the world in the past decade by constructing a critical benchmark for discussions of contemporary identity politics in art. notions of tradition are important because they are ineluctably tied to discourses of authenticity, which still impinge heavily on the writing and teaching of asian art history —not to mention feeding broader anxieties about national identity in a globalizing world. as partha mitter has succinctly noted, “neurosis about authenticity was a very nationalist preoccupation all over the world.”[1] successful international careers from okakura kakuzō to d.t. suzuki were made on the basis of separating east and west and identifying “authentic” traditions and sensibilities to reinforce this division. this was not just a preoccupation of nationalists. in the face of the cultural dilemmas prompted by the universalizing impetus of modernism, modernist artists and architects in asia were equally dogged by the problem of authenticity throughout the twentieth century. this is exemplified by the japanese bunriha (the secessionists) in the 1920s—as discussed by jonathan reynolds—who were concerned with identifying and maintaining what they termed “authentic localism.”[2] another example: after the second world war, in the climate of “artistic nationalism” encountered by japanese abstract artists like okada kenzō, described by bert winther-tamaki, a debate emerged about authenticity that implicitly questioned who had the right to speak for the nation, a debate that prefigured the ongoing discussions among chinese artists and critics described by wu hung and colleagues in chinese art at the crossroads.[3] japanese abstract expressionists successful in the american art market of the 1950s, who grounded their hybrid aesthetic in the legitimating discourse of tradition and indigenous culture, were derided by many japanese critics as producing “karayuki-san art,” catering to the postwar western taste for “japonica,” thus likening these artists to prewar japanese prostitutes who were forced to sell themselves abroad to foreigners.[4] one of the key objectives of the ground-breaking 1997 asia society exhibition, contemporary art in asia: traditions/tensions, as described by its guest curator apinan poshysnanda, was “to demonstrate that tradition should not be interpreted as the opposite of contemporaneity,” since individuals throughout the heterogeneous regions of asia were continually assimilating, adapting, and resisting a range of traditions—that is to say, they were engaged in an ongoing process of negotiation rather than experiencing a binary divide with discrete boundaries.[5] tradition (or the past) then might be conceived of as being in a continuum with the present rather than representing a relationship marked by rupture. moreover, the long-term diversified experiences of colonial encounter, the intra-asian power relations and history of imperialist hegemonic aspirations within asia by china and japan (which unfortunately were not included in the exhibition, but were present historically in the background), further complicate the simple dichotomies of east/west, tradition/modernity, spiritualism/materialism, and so forth. yet, as the exhibition also demonstrates, it would be misleading to assert that all practices of the past have continued into the present in an unbroken lineage, and that contemporary asian artists do not experience a distinct break with some of the traditions of the past, a historical distance that produces a sense of externality or exteriority. thus, the approach to these “traditions” is more about self-conscious historicist revivalism than parallel coexistence. there have been many examples of politically and ideologically motivated artistic revivals in the east asian context over the centuries, which have often been considered self-reflexive forms of archaism. in the discourse of tradition and modernity in contemporary art, we find a division between the characterization of the resulting hybridity as a self-reflexive pastiche that seamlessly sutures incongruous parts to synthesize a new whole or as marking a tension-filled relationship of incompletely sutured elements that emblematizes rupture, thus remaining in a state of conflict. as geeta kapur has forcefully argued in her essay “globalisation and culture,” postmodern hybridity often elides disjunctures and tensions and its seamless multiculturalism can sidestep problematics of responsibility and agency. she advocates a conflictual approach to postcolonial culture rather than the negotiating stand of hybridity.[6] curating japaneseness: heterogeneity and heterotopia keeping these issues in mind, i would first like to turn to a discussion of murakami takashi, not only because he is, without question, the most economically successful japanese artist on the contemporary art scene—equally popular at home and abroad—but also because he functions in the dual role of artist and curator. as is already well known, murakami curated two major exhibitions in the united states in the past five years, the “super flat” exhibition that went from a parco department store in japan to the museum of contemporary art in los angeles (and on to minneapolis and seattle) in 2001; fig. 1: flyer designed by goto takaya for murakami takahashi exhibition “superflat” at parco gallery, tokyo, 2000. printed paper: 11 11/16 x 8 5/16 in. (29.7 x 21 cm). ©2000 takashi murakami/kaikai kiki co., ltd. all rights reserved. and the exhibition “little boy: the arts of japan’s exploding subculture” at the japan society in 2005, which was named best thematic museum show in new york of 2004/2005 by the american chapter of the international association of art critics.[7] in europe he had major exhibitions at prestigious international venues like the fondation cartier paris and the serpentine gallery london in 2002, in which year he was chosen as an honorary speaker to address the british royal academy of art. most recently, he had a major solo retrospective in 2008 at the brooklyn museum—“copyright murakami.” this is, of course, in addition to regular solo and group exhibitions throughout japan and parts of asia—and a burgeoning empire of pop designer goods from soccer balls to louis vuitton bags. fig. 2: murakami takashi (japanese, born 1962). “flower ball.” artificial leather (hand-sewn), diameter 8 11/16 in. (22cm). courtesy of workaholics, inc. ©2000 takashi murakami/kaikai kiki co., ltd. all rights reserved. supremely concerned with delineating japaneseness and locating japanese originality for a world audience, murakami proclaimed his "superflat" theory in a bilingual (japanese and english) book-length manifesto that claimed a distinct aesthetic flatness in japanese culture over the past several centuries.[8] murakami’s superflat constructs a genealogy for contemporary “subcultures” of anime, manga, and video games—the inspiration for his art work—by linking them to the decorative, flat, and eccentric artistic practices of a select group of artists working in the edo period (the period from the beginning of the 17th to the mid 19th century). according to murakami, the masterful surface control of the viewer’s gaze in works by edo artists such as kanō sansetsu, sōga shōhaku, and itō jakuchū, “erased interstices and thus made the observer aware of the images’ extreme planarity,”[9]  not to mention their scopic sensuousness. fig. 3: murakami takashi, “727”, 1996. acrylic on canvas mounted on board, 9 ft. 10 1/8 in. x 14 ft. 9 3/16 in. x 2 13/16 in. (300 x 450 x 7 cm). courtesy tomio koyama gallery, tokyo/blum & poe, los angeles. ©2000 takashi murakami/kaikai kiki co., ltd. all rights reserved. extending this metaphor of planarity, murakami writes in superflat that japanese “society, customs, art, culture: all are extremely two dimensional.”[10] in other words, this planarity refers to both the pictorial surface, and also to the lack of depth in contemporary japanese culture as a whole, focusing on consumerism and play (and sex and violence) without a profound political or social consciousness. in the “little boy” exhibition project, the third phase of the superflat trilogy, he further elaborates on this theory, positing a kind of collective psychic infantilization of the japanese populace after the war under the umbrella of american regional political power—thus heroizing the emotionally crippled otaku (geeks), the subculture aficionados, as true japanese who are at the same time maverick individualists, techno-wizards, and masters of an infomatic society. murakami’s art is the synthesis of pop and the distinctly japanese otaku, which he skillfully brands “poku.”[11] is this a case of slick commercialized post-modern hybrid or a probing analysis into the stunted collective psyche of postwar japan, or perhaps both?[12] but, equally important for our purposes, why anchor this discussion in the traditions of edo? according to carol gluck and marc steinberg, the japanese edo booms of the 1980s and 90s in television, manga, literature, and critical theory identified the edo period as “the site of the lost-but-not-forgotten authentic japan, the pre-western 'outside' modernity. it was also, conversely, the precursor and reflection of japan’s consumerist, postmodern present.”[13] edo became a critical “site of the regeneration of japanese tradition.”[14] edo’s distinctness and value as a historical antecedent for murakami’s pop subculture resides in its perceived fusion of high and low, the eccentricity and individuality of some of its greatest artists, its unabashed commercialism, its abiding refined levels of cultural connoisseurship, and its brazen libidinousness (evident in the copious production of erotica). sidestepping the incongruences in murakami’s argument—and there are many, such as the willful misreading of the hierarchies of artistic production in the edo period that were key to class-based aesthetics—the counter-culture, counter western modernity, and anti-modern nation-state position taken by “edo boom-ers” like karatani kōjin, ōtsuka eiji, ōkada toshio, as articulated in the discourse of murakami and his supporters such as independent curator sawaragi noi and critic matsui midori, has morphed into a kind of “otaku nationalism” according to cultural critic azuma hiroki, who was initially an enthusiast of murakami’s superflat theory and co-author of his 2000 manifesto publication, and has increasingly become concerned with what he sees as a nationalist turn that feeds into nihonjinron ideology—that is theories of japanese distinctiveness.[15] since the 1980s, when japan’s economic surge drew unprecedented world attention to the country's contemporary art, japanese art professionals have been contending with the dilemmas of cultural essentialism. a number of influential curators have sought to counter essentialist discourses by embracing plurality and heterogeneity, first among them nanjo fumio, a veteran of the field and current director of the mori art museum. in the past decade, he has been joined by a prominent group of women curators who have risen to the forefront of the art world, including osaka eriko from the art tower mito, commissioner of the 2001 japanese pavilion at the venice biennale, hasegawa yuko of the kanazawa contemporary art museum, who previously worked at art tower mito and the setagaya art museum, and was commissioner in venice in 2003, and kasahara michiko, previously of the tokyo metropolitan museum of photography and now curator at the museum of contemporary art, tokyo, who was commissioner at the 2005 venice biennale—all of whom have dedicated themselves to showcasing diversity. in the late 1980s, nanjo worked with a binational curatorial team in japan and the united states to produce the landmark exhibition against nature: japanese art in the eighties, which was explicitly designed to counter stereotypical notions of a “pure” japanese tradition, taking on surging trends in cultural essentialism and nihonjinron theories of japanese uniqueness. the exhibition highlighted the hybrid, the eclectic and the international currents in japanese visual culture, underscoring japan’s intrinsic connection to the united states through global consumer culture and technology. the curators specifically sought to undermine the persistent binaries of east vs. west, nature vs. culture, national identity vs. private individuality, and cultural isolationism (peripheralism) vs. internationalism upon which japanese cultural essentialism was predicated.[16] in this context, osaka’s choice of nakamura masato’s glowing minimalist shrine of golden mcdonald’s arches for the 2001 venice biennale also stands out, as it focused on the globalization of food culture and the homogenizing transformation of disparate local cityscapes through corporate branding. in combination with his convenience store neon sign installations, nakamura’s work is a generalized commentary on the new icons of daily life in asia. taking an entirely different tack, kasahara’s choice in 2005 of female photographer ichiuchi miyako’s series of highly personal photographs of her mother’s possessions and her aging body, instead centered on the gendered, the subjective, and the emotional. it boldly posited individual, embodied biography rather than generalized collective psyche as history. hasegawa’s 2003 pavilion theme of heterotopias or “other spaces” (based on a concept developed by michel foucault) explicitly sought to identify “sites of resistance.” it attempted to reveal the “other space” of the periphery that “threatens the rigidity of mainstream modernism”; and illuminates the contestation of heterotopia that “transcends systems, politics and the notion of right or wrong, resulting in an ecological transformation or mutation.” in hasegawa’s concept, japan itself is posited as heterotopic because “not only is it geographically peripheral as an island that lies in the far east, it embraces a wide range of cultures with great voracity, deconstructing that [sic those] other cultures while japanizing them within its own context.” [17] yet, even in her laudable attempt to counter the cultural hegemony of western modernism, hasegawa’s japan-as-heterotopia still valorizes the amorphous cultural process often characterized as “japanization,” producing japan as a distinctive peripheral space of “intensely hybridized sub-cultures” that murakami could just as comfortably inhabit. sone yutaka, one of the two artists featured in the heterotopia pavilion, created multimedia spaces of deviance that were to be understood as “counter-sites”—his installations “double river island” and “snow leopard island” produce a physical and metaphorical journey to an “unreachable place.” his amusement-park spaces and jungles bring to mind mysterious, liminal islands like the location of the television show lost. following this trajectory of exploring modes of cultural critique through liminality, heterotopia, and resistance, curator minashima hiroshi, professor at the women’s university, joshibi university of art and design, and the former director of the contemporary art museum, kumamoto commissioned rising female star photographer and installation artist yanagi miwa to create the japanese pavilion for the 2009 biennale. under the theme “windswept women,” yanagi shrouded the modernist yoshizaka takamasa pavilion with a funereal black, membrane-like tent, transforming the space of contemporary time into a representation of the eternal temporal fluidity and spatial mobility of “death.” yanagi’s primal, mystical, shamaness-like figures of “old young women,” (young women imagined as old) who are familiar characters in her recent works, appear here as gigantic, surreal visitors from another world—life-sized images of “death” incarnate. yanagi envisions death pervading life—particularly through memory—and conceives of it as an eternal element of the human condition. each viewer picks up a “particle of death” in the viewing experience as he or she moves through the space. “the biennale effect” the institution of the venice biennale is implicated in a multinodal system of globalization that has produced an interconnected network of biennales and triennales around the world—“the biennale effect.” as john clark has astutely noted, we must think about the cultural shifts represented by the biennale effect and ask how such international exhibitions function institutionally in the context of internationalism and globalism. what kind of exhibitionary complex do they produce? how have the emerging public sphere, global capitalism, and the global art market impacted on this exhibitionary complex, and what are the implications for artistic production and collecting? clark specifically asks, what role the biennale effect plays in forging the circuits for the recognition and distribution of contemporary art around the world, consequently establishing the international canons of contemporary art, and what does it mean for center/periphery cultural relations in the world art market? that is to say, what are the geopolitics of inclusion and exclusion? like the esteemed aristocratic art patrons of old, biennales serve as arbiters of taste in the contemporary art world—they constitute a form of cultural mediation.[18] biennales have thus produced an internationally recognized set of curators who work in a range of venues, what some have now come to refer to as the “curatoriate” or the “curatorium,” demarcating this group’s elite and powerful decision-making role. they provide, in john clark’s words, a kind of cultural “consecration” into the international sphere. this constitutes a valuable form of cultural capital for those involved and can easily be converted into real capital through collateral exhibitions and sales. it bears mentioning that the curatorial selection itself is a commodity and is as much on display as the art works exhibited—it can be said that curators curate for each other as much as they curate for the art world or the general public. there are a select few among these curators who take on a semi-star status in this circuit of exchange; they can even be, as clark rather cynically notes, symbolic simulacra of curators as much as physical presences (that is simulations that even supercede representation in terms of their accuracy and power of imitation).  however, it is important to remember that these individuals are not ethically neutral, nor are they free from the imbrications of their own local cultural economies and the public/private spheres of self-interest. if anything, it is their effective ability to maneuver within the freighted ethnoscapes and mediascapes of contemporary culture that enable them to succeed. the culture of the curatoriate is mirrored by what clark calls the media “chatter” of critics, which is crucial to the dissemination, or ripple effect of the actual events. the chatter also has inherent value on the market. clark argues that biennales have the de facto effect of taking national or regional art to the “international” level, and have only just begun to function in a transnational way transcending the national/international binary. in effect, biennales designate local/national art worthy of exhibiting to international audiences. in so doing, they draw contemporary regional art into new interregional settings of comparison and circulation.  centers and peripheries discussions of contemporary asian art struggle with the question of positionality, perceptions of a center and periphery, which have been perpetuated by the geopolitical conditions of colonialism, postcolonialism, and the economic realities of global capitalism that have a cultural imperialist dimension. at the same time, however, like hasegawa’s theme of hetertopia, a distinct movement has been afoot to decenter this center-periphery model through biennales and triennales throughout the asia-pacific region, which are by now well established in places such as gwangju, guangzhou, shanghai, new delhi, queensland, and yokohama. within japan specifically, the fukuoka triennale, begun in 1999, has enacted a double decentering by not only moving away from the east-west power structure and the centrality of established venues like venice, but also by moving away from the tokyo-centered japanese art world to a sphere of purportedly greater inter-asian contact, kyushu. the twenty-one country triennale is a grand cultural gesture toward a new pan-asian-centrism, which the museum’s curators want japan to join, as clearly indicated by the museum’s chief curator ushiroshoji masahiro, who sees the founding of the museum itself and the triennale as enabling the posing of the questions, “what is asia? what is asian art?” without this opportunity, according to ushiroshoji, these questions would be left unaddressed in japan.[19] staff curator kuroda raiji takes this mandate one step further. he states that the museum is looking for an audience “not polluted by the idea [that] modernist western art [equals] contemporary.” proposing that asian artists explore their own ways of being  contemporary, kuroda says, “we decided we do not have to compare asian art with western art, but we could still find something very positive in each country.” they sought to avoid what they describe as “‘colonialist curatorial methods’ whereby guest countries are visited and works chosen that reflect the host country’s cultural standards.” to this end, ushiroshoji and kuroda collaborated with art professionals from each nation: twenty-one coordinators and twenty co-curators are listed in the catalogue as the team responsible for choosing the exhibition’s 53 artists. as one might expect, this produced a wildly diverse and divergent exhibition exposing the tremendous disparities of experience in contemporary asia. it also revealed the broad concern among all the co-curators with the “rapid erosion of homogeneous communities and indigenous culture.”[20] these pluralizing and decentering impulses, however, are in tension, and sometimes in collusion, with the dogged and interlinked problems of authenticity and identity that pervade japan’s other public sectors of politics, education, and business. sociologist yoshino kosaku’s studies of japanese cultural nationalism and nihonjinron-ism indicate the powerful resurgence of essentialist notions of national culture in japan during the latter stages of the bubble economy and through the post-bubble period of economic recession that followed in the 1990s. he notes that, “an attempt to improve intercultural communication, accompanied by an excessive emphasis on japanese peculiarities, can ironically have the unintended consequences of strengthening cultural nationalism.”[21] yoshino argues that these primarily non-state driven discourses were not only reproduced and consumed in the marketplace of high culture, but also in the general marketplace that inflects everyday behavioral culture—two markets that artists like murakami takashi and araki nobuyoshi actively seek to span. but rather than representing ethnocentrism, yoshino argues that japanese cultural nationalism is more a form of “ethnoperipherism” because of the long-standing perception in japan of its peripheral location in relation to the central civilizations of china and the west.[22] moreover, while murakami posits the otaku’s beloved pop subcultures as a grass-roots radicalism, which is historically based on an alternate model of modernity, the japanese government’s very recent recognition under prime minister koizumi junichirō of these subcultures' status as significant and unique japanese cultural exports ironically co-opts them for national purposes. this represents a major position reversal from the government’s earlier staunch aversion to pop culture forms as degraded commercial endeavors unworthy of japan’s great, traditional cultural contributions. to solidify this move, the government just recently awarded murakami the prestigious “minister of education’s art encouragement prize for new artists” for his curatorial work on the “little boy” exhibition.[23] although cultural studies scholar iwabuchi kōichi has argued convincingly that japanese multinational corporations have gone to great lengths to ethnically “de-odorize” their pop culture products like pokemon, particularly in asian markets where a “japanese whiff” might make them less palatable and marketable, murakami’s explicit claiming of the otaku and pop subcultures for japan (sidestepping the corrosive influence of americanism) can be seen as a direct effort to re-odorize these cultural forms.[24] the authenticity of edo sexuality murakami’s otaku is identified as a tsū, an aficionado or expert in the navigation of the economy of mass media, like the aficionados of the edo pleasure quarters. they are also drawn into the exaggerated fantasy world of the libidinal economy of these subcultures, although their engagement is primarily auto-erotic. these eroticized bodies—and by association the national body of japan—such as murakami’s life-size anime figure lonesome cowboy, who sprays a geyser of semen, and many of the superflat artists he promotes, ranging from the soft porn figures by bome to the young girls in takano aya’s paintings, parallel the onanistic erotic print culture (shunga) produced in edo described by tim screech.[25] these fantasies indirectly reinforce the grand narratives of orientalism, in which eroticism inheres in the “oriental other,” symbolized by the seraglios or harems and their oversexed denizens. fig. 4: murakami takashi, “my lonesome cowboy”, 1998. oil, acrylic, fiberglass, and iron. 8 ft. 4 1/8 in. x 3 ft. (254 x 117 x 91,5 cm). courtesy blum & poe, los angeles. the extended eroticization of the japanese nation through the figure of edo and the body of the courtesan is not new, and the eroticization of japan is evident in many areas of contemporary japanese art: from the naked contortionism of butoh to the techno-spiritual shamanesses of mori mariko. emblazoned on the wall of araki nobuyoshi’s recent retrospective at the barbican gallery in london, a text proclaimed, “obscenity is the spice to enjoy human life.” fig. 5: nobuyoshi araki (japanese, born 1940), “a woman named komari”, 2002. rp direct print. barbican centre exhibition poster; london, 2005–2006. this image was used for the exhibition poster. to punctuate that thought, araki splashes colored and white liquid over many of the large-scale photographs foregrounded in the front rooms of the exhibition, in a sense, ejaculating over his images. “photography isn’t just about taking a good shot: it’s about wanting to project images outwards. it’s essentially about insertion, about penetration!” declares araki, claiming his camera as a surrogate penis.[26] the artist invites the viewer to use his images like shunga—as auto-erotic stimulus. circulated extensively in book form, araki’s work has appeared in close to two-hundred-and-fifty solo publications; the artist offers a private encounter as well as the titillation of public exhibitionism in a museum context.[27] fig. 6: nobuyoshi araki, “shiki in,” 2005. acrylic on black-and-white print. courtesy of the artist and taka ishii gallery. evocation of the edo pleasure quarters intertwines the traditional with the autobiographical for araki, who grew up near yoshiwara, the old edo pleasure quarters.  writing in the publication nobuyoshi araki: sex, life, death that accompanied the barbican exhibition, yuko tanaka tries to link araki’s work with three traditional japanese aesthetic concepts: basara, kyo, and iro. basara connotes disarray, outlandishness, and willfulness (it is associated with the outlandish vitality of the kabuki theater); kyo means frenzy, an antonym of correctness, a refusal to observe social order and mores, and a spirit of parody; and iro, the sexual and erotic. araki himself uses the artist’s penname “shakyojin” (combining the term for frenzy with one of the characters used in photography). tanaka locates araki’s eccentricity and socially rebellious identity in his connection to these traditions, declaring laughter as his means of rebelling against conventional forms—a time-honored tradition in japan that she claims was lost in the modern times of westernization (presumably referring to the western scientification of the body and the related anathematization of desire). the bawdy erotic culture of edo often incorporated humor in its treatment of sex; shunga were commonly known as “laughter pictures” (warai-e). humor and parody in araki’s work is by implication liberated from the confines of a western-derived modernity.[28] araki’s work raises myriad moral conundrums with its seemingly exploitative, sometimes misogynistic, sometimes pedophilic tendencies (specifically in its lolita complex fetishization of schoolgirls). yet he has succeeded in becoming a champion of breaking public morality taboos and the status quo by assaulting viewers’ sensibilities, not to mention the fact that, like murakami, he willfully and enthusiastically transgresses the borders of high and low art, particularly in his extensive use of polaroids. fig. 7: nobuyoshi araki, installation view of “araki retrographs”, 2 august–12 october 1997, hara museum of contemporary art. courtesy of the artist and taka ishii gallery. any critique of araki’s work is complicated by its endorsement of free expression in the face of state censorship. the strong prohibitions on pornography, specifically depicting genitalia and pubic hair, make araki’s explicit photographs that much more daring and counter-culture. despite his critics’ claims of exceptionality for araki’s work, in this regard, he is clearly part of an international cohort of artists, including robert mapplethorpe, jeff koons, and nan goldin (with whom he has collaborated) among others, who are pushing the boundaries of sexual taboos and voyeurism. araki’s arrests and censures have made him a martyr for the cause of civil liberties, which, it goes without saying, was great publicity for his work and public career. by the 1990s, he was firmly ensconced as a titan in the world of japanese photography, a nationally and internationally recognized celebrity with women lining up on his doorstep to be photographed. he has also become mentor to a new generation of young women photographers like hiromix and ninagawa mika who are now celebrities in the current japanese photography scene. araki’s pornographic work is only a part of his total production, but it is without a doubt the reason for his fame—or infamy—in the art world. he defends his sado-masochistic scenes of bondage (the “kinbaku” series, which refers to edo period macabre prints of bondage by print designers like yoshitoshi, and images of bestiality, such as hokusai’s female pearl diver being ravished by an octopus, as staged collaborative works with his subjects, claiming that they are not exploitative because of their controlled and mutually constructed settings. fig. 8: nobuyoshi araki, “kinbaku”, 1979. black-and-white print. courtesy of the artist and taka ishii gallery. fig. 9: tsukioka yoshitoshi, 1839–1892, inada kyûzô shinsuke murders the kitchenmaid suspended from a rope, 1867. color woodblock; 34.9 x 24.1 cm. fine arts museum of san francisco. museum purchase, achenbach foundation for graphic arts endowment fund, 1986.1.86. in the documentary video arakimentari on view at the exhibition, numerous women subjects declare themselves as willing participants in araki’s series the eroticism of married women, which they argue enables their sexual self-realization.[29] his alluring subject komari, a fashion model, who was his “collaborator” for two publications in 2002: lamant d’août and a woman called komari (and who graces the barbican exhibition pamphlet), asserts herself as an equal in the artistic process of updating shunga, invoking a now familiar rhetoric of cultural essentialism as she describes how their collaborative rediscovery of a unique japanese sexuality has enabled the return of emotion to sex, previously repressed under the yoke of westernization. in the documentary, in a manner no different than styling her clothing on a fashion shoot, araki then reaches over and rearranges komari’s kimono to better frame her genitals and coifs her pubic hair with his fingers.[30] conclusion can the work of a handful of artists, however popular, fully capture the diverse field of artistic production in japan? no, of course not. and i do not want to leave the impression that these selected examples represent all of japan, not to mention asia. if anything, i hope to have emphasized that we need to disaggregate these categories and look at the complexities of individual situations in the specific contexts of national and international politics, as well as transnational market systems that exert intense pressures on art professionals. in this matrix, a work can be simultaneously counter-culture and hybrid, and essentializing and culturally nationalist.  it can be critical of dominant structures and reinforce those structures. clearly the work of murakami and araki remain in such tension. perhaps what is most important to take away from this discussion is that concepts of tradition continue to be compelling rhetorical devices in contemporary art because they are immediate markers of identity that can provide a foil against which to highlight tension, rupture, and conflict, or conversely offer a fabric from which to weave a genealogy of cultural continuity. in terms of artistic production, then, can non-western artists forge a distinct identity from the master narratives of the west, and, in turn, what can they contribute to the construction of a world contemporary art culture if not local flavor and exoticized difference? ironically, despite the continued exclusion of contemporary art from the canon of asian art taught in the west (and in many asian countries as well) due to its uncomfortable hybridity and, by extension inauthenticity, contemporary art is often privileged by critics over historical work as uniquely able to talk back to the colonial discourse of the past.[31] perhaps it is this very ability to talk back to history and to speak to local social and political issues, a domestic turn, that will be the beacon for contemporary asian art, but the profitability of commodifying difference in the art market and anxiety about homogenization and cultural erasure under globalization—despite the assurances of cultural critics theorizing “the glocal” that these anxieties are unfounded—will continue to make tradition a freighted issue. note: a slightly altered version of "reinscribing tradition in a transnational art world" was originally published in asian art history in the twenty-first century, ed. vishakha desai (williamstown, ma: sterling and francine clark art institute, 2007), 181–198, and is reprinted with the permission of the publisher. [1] i would like to acknowledge the invaluable support of the sainsbury institute for the study of japanese arts and cultures. i am also grateful to vishakha desai for her insightful comments. partha mitter, “reflections on modern art and national identity in colonial india: an interview,” in cosmopolitan modernisms, ed. kobena mercer (london and cambridge, ma: institute of international visual arts and mit press, 2005), 33. [2] jonathan reynolds, “the bunriha and the problem of ‘tradition’ for modernist architecture in japan, 1920–1928,” in japan’s competing modernities, ed. sharon minichiello (honolulu: university of hawaii press, 1998): 228–246. [3] bert winther-tamaki, art in the encounter of nations: japanese and american artists in the early postwar years (honolulu: university of hawai'i press, 2001); wu hung and institute of international visual arts, chinese art at the crossroads: between past and future, between east and west (hong kong and london: new art media, 2001). [4] winther-tamaki, 28. [5] apinan poshyananda and asia society galleries, contemporary art in asia: traditions/ tensions (new york: asia society galleries, 1996), 15. [6] geeta kapur, “globalisation and culture,” third text 39 (summer 1997): 25. [7] japan art monitor 2, no. 18, 15 april 2006, 2. is this the japanese scene monitor? [8] murakami takashi, supa furatto = super flat (tokyo: madora shuppan, 2000). [9] murakami takashi, “a theory of super flat japanese art,” in murakami, supa furatto = super flat, n.p. [10] murakami takashi, “the super flat manifesto,” in murakami, supa furatto = super flat, n.p. [11] murakami takashi, ed., little boy: the arts of japan's exploding subculture (new haven: yale university press, 2005). [12] in her exhibition catalogue essay, alexandra munroe carefully explores the critical debates surrounding the otaku in japanese postwar society and the wellspring of anti-western, nationalist sentiment that complicates their social status as merely nihilistic outsiders. alexandra munroe, “introducing little boy,” in little boy, ed. murakami (new haven: yale university press, 2005), 241–258. [13] marc steinberg, “otaku consumption, superflat art and the return to edo,” japan forum 16 (3) 2004: 449; carol gluck, “the invention of edo,” in mirror of modernity: invented traditions of modern japan, ed. stephen vlastos (berkeley: university of california press, 1998), 262–284. [14] steinberg, 451. [15] steinberg, 457–461; mouri yoshitaka has recently discussed the emergence of a kind of “otaku nationalism” in a lecture he delivered at the chelsea college of art and design, london, 2006. [16] against nature: japanese art in the eighties. edited by eriko osaka and kay kline. new york: grey gallery and study center, new york university, mit list visual arts center, the japan foundation, 1989. exhibition catalog. [17] “venice biennale 2003 50th international exhibition of art / national participation: japanese pavilion,” accessed november 11, 2006, http://www.jpf.go.jp/e/others/old/0212/12_01_02.html [18] john clark, “contemporary asian art at biennales and triennales: the 2005 venice biennale and fukuoka asian triennale, the sigg collection, and the yokohama and guangzhou triennales,” caa.reviews (september 7, 2006), accessed january 5, 2009, doi: 10.3202/caa.reviews.2006.88. john clark, “histories of the asian ‘new’”: biennales and contemporary asian art,” in asian art history in the twenty-first century. clark studies in the visual arts, ed. vishakha desai (williamstown, ma: the sterling and francine clark art institute, 2007), 229–249. [19] ann wilson lloyd, “reorienting: japan rediscovers asia” art in america 87, n. 10 (october 1999): 105. [20] lloyd, 105. [21] yoshino kosaku, “rethinking theories of nationalism: japan’s nationalism in a marketplace perspective,” in consuming ethnicity and nationalism: asian experiences, ed. yoshino kosaku (honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 1999), 23. [22] yoshino, 23. [23] japan art monitor 2, no. 18, 15 april 2006, 3. [24] iwabuchi koichi, toransunashonaru japan: ajia o tsunagu popyura bunka (tokyo: iwanami shoten, 2001). [25] timon screech, sex and the floating world: erotic images in japan, 1700–1820 (london: reaktion books, 1999). [26] nobuyoshi araki: self, life, death (london: phaidon press, 2005), 266. [27] in the past five years araki has had major retrospectives in japan and abroad. he was also included in the italian pavilion at the 2002 venice biennale and the “images of asia festival” in denmark 2003. [28] yuko tanaka, “japan in araki’s world” in nobuyoshi araki: self, life, death (london: phaidon press, 2005), 546–548. [29] arakimentari, director travis klose, troopers films, 2004. [30] a move reminiscent of edo period pseudo-scientific gynecological prints that were really thinly veiled pornography, often displaying a male hand or finger inserted into the female genitalia and the reproductive organs. [31] kobena mercer, “introduction,” in cosmopolitan modernisms, ed. kobena mercer, 18. the buddha of kamakura and the “modernization” of buddhist statuary in the meiji period | suzuki | transcultural studies the buddha of kamakura and the “modernization” of buddhist statuary in the meiji period hiroyuki suzuki, tokyo gakugei university introduction during japan’s revolutionary years in the latter half of the nineteenth century, in particular after the meiji restoration of 1868, people experienced a great change in the traditional values that had governed various aspects of their life during the edo period (1603-1867). in their religious life, buddhism lost its authority along with its economic basis because the meiji government, propagating shintoism, repeatedly ordered the proclamation of the separation of shintoism and buddhism after the restoration. the proclamation brought about the anti-buddhist movement haibutsu kishaku and the nationwide movement doomed buddhist statuary to a fate it had never before met.[1] however, a number of statues were fortunately rescued from destruction and became recognized as sculptural works of buddhist art in the late 1880s. this paper examines the change of viewpoints that occurred in the 1870s whereby the buddha of kamakura, a famous colossus of seated amida (amitâbha) from the mid-thirteenth century, was evaluated afresh by western viewers; it also tries to detect the thresholds that marked the path toward a general acceptance of the idea that buddhist statuary formed a genre of sculptural works in the fine arts during the meiji period (1868-1912). buddhist statuary in the 1870s it is widely known that the term bijutsu was coined in 1872, when the meiji government translated the german words kunstgewerbe (arts and crafts) and bildende kunst (fine arts) in order to foster nationwide participation in the vienna world exposition of 1873. these words originally had appeared in a document classifying exhibits for the exposition.[2] the word bijutsu became known to people as a word meaning “fine arts” by the late 1880s.[3] as more people recognized and understood the word, traditional categories of arts and crafts, such as painting, calligraphy, lacquer ware, porcelains, potteries, metal work (casting and chasing swords, arms, and armor), as well as wood and ivory carvings were redefined and gradually reorganized into the two opposing categories of fine arts and handicrafts.[4] at the same time, acceptance of the word bijutsu brought an understanding of the aesthetic quality of artworks, a viewpoint from which people had never appreciated any product that was created in a field of arts and crafts belonging to the traditional categories. the position of buddhist statuary, which had been traditionally categorized under the field of woodcarvings or metal work, was particularly unstable in the 1870s, mostly due to the anti-buddhist movement. eyewitnesses bear testimony to the fatal destiny that some statues met during this period. in his early twenties, the famous sculptor takamura kôun (1852-1934) noted the following anecdote in his memoirs: a metal broker bought dozens of wooden buddhist statues at an amazingly low price from a famous temple in edo with the intention of burning them and from the ashes recovering the gold and silver, which were used for crowns, necklaces, bracelets, and other accessories of the statues.[5] in the first volume of epochs of chinese and japanese art, ernest fenollosa (1853-1908) reproduced a photograph showing a mass of broken buddhist statues and their fragments. according to the caption of the plate, the original photograph was taken at tôshôdai-ji temple in nara in 1880.[6] in 1871 the meiji government decreed the preservation ofkoki kyûbutsu, literally meaning ancient vessels and old things, in order to prevent the destruction of ancient objects and relics in the prevailing current of bunmei kaika or civilization and enlightenment, which had driven people to abandon the old and pursue the new since 1868. following this policy, the famous antiquarian officials of the museum bureau of the ministry of education, machida hisanari (1838-1895), uchida masao (1838-1876), and ninagawa noritane (1835-1882), conducted a comprehensive study of treasures and old relics in the collection of eminent temples and shrines in the western area of japan in 1872.[7] employed by the bureau to document their research, the pioneer photographer yokoyama matsusaburô (1838-1884) took numerous pictures including images of the great buddha of nara[8] and the shaka triad from the seventh century in hôryû-ji temple’s golden hall. oddly enough, there is no evidence that they considered the principal buddhist statue, to which the temple was dedicated, as an important piece of koki kyûbutsu.[9] although the exact reason for their ambiguous attitude remains unclear, it may have been because the concept of koki kyûbutsu apparently concerned antiquities from the edo period and, seemingly, the antiquarians excluded such religious icons as buddhist statuary from their studies and collections. consequently, the meiji government’s almost simultaneous, but probably unrelated, introduction of the incompatible concepts of koki kyûbutsu and bijutsu suspended a thorough evaluation of buddhist statues until they came to be regarded as sculptural artworks in the late 1880s. it is true that the anti-buddhist movement put a disastrous end to innumerable buddhist statues but, ironically, the decline of buddhism “released” buddhist statuary from the status of religious icons and instead “elevated” it to the category of sculptural art in the modern sense of the word.[10] while notions of modern aesthetics spread from the west and “modernized” buddhist idols, western viewers visiting japan after the “opening” of the country in 1854 seem to have played an important role in instigating discussions, both positive and negative, about buddhist statuary in the late 1860s and particularly in the 1870s. this process, however, has not yet been carefully examined because most japanese did not partake in these discussions and, at times, even ignored buddhist statuary, unless they regarded it from a traditionally religious viewpoint.[11] furthermore, many scholars consider the western views that dominated during the 1870s to be a negligible “influence” on the process of accepting the newly coined word bijutsu in the late 1880s. it is not until the 1880s, when ernest fenollosa became an active mediator between the east and the west in the field of arts, that the modern aesthetic value of traditional buddhist icons was recognized by members of japan’s intellectual elite, such as fenollosa’s student okakura tenshin (1863-1913), who was an official in the ministry of education, and kuki ryûichi (1853-1931), a member of the ministry of the imperial household.[12] fig. 1: felice beato (1832-1909), the bronze statue of dai-bouts, 1863, albumen silver print, 22,9cm x 29,4 cm, courtesy of yokohama archives of history (yokohama kaikô shiryô-kan). we must ask, therefore, how the view on buddhist statuary changed. i argue that the buddha of kamakura provides a fixed point from which the change can be observed and plotted. the statue became one of the most popular tourist destinations for western visitors after kaikoku or the “opening of the country” in 1854, and many of them remarked on this curious figure in literature.[13] interestingly, the perspectives from which the icon was evaluated had changed, as can be detected in comments by tourists during the 1870s and 1880s. this change reflects a greater shift in the status of buddhist statuary during these decades. the bronze, thirty-eight foot high seated buddha statue of amida , became widely known in europe when in 1870 aimé humbert (1819-1910) reproduced a photograph taken by felice beato (1832-1909) in 1863 (figure 1) in the book le japon illustré.[14] heading a swiss mission, humbert arrived in nagasaki in april 1863, and stayed in japan for ten months. after describing the posture of the statue, he recorded his impressions: le saisissement involontaire que l’on éprouve à l’aspect de cette grande image, fait bientôt place à l’admiration. il y a un charme irrésistible dans la pose du daïboudhs, ainsi que dans l’harmonie des proportions de son corps, dans la noble simplicité de son vêtement, dans le calme et la pureté des traits de sa figure. tout ce qui l’environne est en parfait rapport avec le sentiment de sérénité que sa vue inspire. (aimé humbert, le japon illustré, 1870, tome 1, p. 240) the involuntary amazement produced by the aspect of this great image soon gives place to admiration. there is an irresistible charm in the attitude of the daïboudhs, as well as in the harmony of its proportions. the noble simplicity of its garments and the calm purity of its features are in perfect accord with the sentiment of serenity inspired by its presence. (aimé humbert, cashel hoey, tr., h. w. bates, ed., japan and the japanese: illustrated, 1874, p. 122) the author’s description is characterized by keywords such as “admiration,” “harmony,” “simplicity,” “purity,” and “serenity.” in the context of this passage, these words function in two different ways. while “admiration” and “serenity” relate to the religious nature of the statue, “harmony” and “simplicity” refer to an aesthetic value, and “purity” probably to both. humbert’s observation was keenly conscious of the work’s double nature:  le monument dédié au daïboudhs, c’est-à-dire au grand bouddha, peut être envisagé comme l’œuvre la plus accomplie du génie japonais, au double point du vue de l’art et du sentiment religieux.(humbert 1870, pp. 239 f.) this building [monument] is dedicated to daïboudhs, that is to say, to the great buddha, and may be regarded as the most finished work of japanese genius, from the double points of view of art and religious sentiment. (humbert 1874, p. 122) fig. 2: e. thérond, le daïboudhs, statue colossale du buddha à kamakoura. dessin d’après des photographies de béato, engraving from alexander hübner, promenade autour du monde, 1871, tome 1, (paris: librairie hachette, 1873), p. 281, courtesy of the japan foundation information center library, tokyo. globetrotters in the 1870s in the 1870s, the buddha of kamakura enjoyed considerable fame and attracted a number of globetrotters. for example, the austrian diplomat alexander von hübner (1811-1892) arrived in yokohama in july 1871 and stayed in japan for two months. escorted by the british diplomat and eminent japanologist ernest mason satow (1843-1929), he visited the statue in kamakura (figure 2). in the entry for august 31 of promenade autour du monde, 1871, hübner described the statue: la physionomie du dieu respire la parfaite quiétude et une douceur ineffable. on se demande comment il est possible de produire un si grand effet avec de si simples moyens. cette œuvre est encore une preuve irrécusable de la perfection que l’art du fondeur avait atteinte à une époque si reculée. (alexander von hübner, promenade autour du monde, 1871, tome 1, 1873, p. 282) the face of the god breathes perfect quiet, and an ineffable sweetness. one asks oneself how it is possible to produce so much effect by such simple means. this great work is an irresistible proof of the perfection to which the founders’ art had attained at so distant a period. (alexander von hübner, lady herbert, tr., a ramble round the world 1871, 1874, volume 1, p. 393) the pivotal words in this passage are “perfect quiet” and “ineffable sweetness,” both referring to the religious nature of the statue. yet, the statue’s aesthetic nature did not seem to catch the attention of the author. instead, he mentioned the skillful finish of the work. although he described the buddha of kamakura as “the greatest chefs-d’œuvre which japan has produced” in another part of this volume (ibid., p. 91), we can safely surmise that his evaluation was not based on an aesthetic viewpoint. hübner’s position in evaluating the artistic nature of the statue was different from that of humbert; the former being technical and the latter aesthetic. but the amazing balance between the static posture of the figure and its massive dimensions equally characterized their impressions of the statue’s religious nature. in october 1871, three months after hübner had arrived, two frenchmen, henri cernuschi (1821-1896) and théodore duret (1838-1927), disembarked at yokohama. they had left liverpool in june 1871 for new york, crossed the american continent, and sailed for yokohama from san francisco in fall. cernuschi, a wealthy banker coming from italy as a political refugee, purchased a grand, bronze, seated amida from the banryû-ji temple in meguro, a village in the southwest of tokyo. he exhibited it along with 1,500 other bronzes from his collection two years later at the exposition des beaux-arts de l’extrême-orient in paris. soon after, louis gonse (1846-1921) reproduced the image of the buddha in l’art japonais (1883), and the original is now in the collection of musée cernuschi in paris.[15] the banker’s companion, théodore duret, known as an art critic and spokesman for french impressionist art, recorded their adventure in voyage en asie, published in 1874. according to this document, they visited nara and had a chance to see the greatest buddha of nara at tôdai-ji temple in january 1872: le bouddha de kamakoura, près de yokohama, que nous connaissons, est moins haut que celui de nara, mais, par sa pose et son geste différents, il paraît surtout beaucoup moins colossal. qu’on ne s’imagine point du reste une statue n’ayant d’autre mérite que ses dimensions; tout au contraire, nous sommes en face d’une véritable œuvre d’art. ... . la tête est moins vieille que le corps même de la statue, ayant dû être refaite, il y a un siècle, à la suite d’un incendie. elle est moins heureuse de forme que celle du bouddha de kamakoura; mais on n’y retrouve pas moins, avec un grand cachet de simplicité, l’expression obligée de calme et d’abstraction que comporte le type de bouddha. ce colosse produit une grande impression quand on le découvre pour la première fois, et l’impression ne fait que grandir à mesure qu’on l’étudie et qu’on tourne autour. (théodore duret, voyage en asie: le japon, la chine, la mongolie, java, ceylan, l’inde, 1874, pp. 59-60) the buddha of kamakura, near yokohama, which is known to us, is less high than that of nara, but owing to its different pose and gesture it appears much less colossal. yet one should not imagine this to be a statue with no other merit beyond its dimensions. on the contrary, we are in front of a true work of art… the head is not as old as the body of the statue itself, having been surely remade, following a fire a century ago. it is less agreeable in form than that of the buddha of kamakura, but one finds there, with a great character of simplicity, no less than the obligatory expression of calm and abstraction that the type of buddha requires. this colossus produces a great impression when one discovers it for the first time, and this impression grows as one studies it and moves around it.[16] cernuschi and duret were among the earliest foreign travelers who visited nara, where they found an even more colossal statue than at kamakura, which they had already seen. duret compared it with that of kamakura and concluded that the form of its head was not as good as that of kamakura because it had been remade along with later reparations. another viewpoint: émile guimet accompanying the french painter félix régamey (1844-1907), wealthy businessman and orientalist émile guimet (1836-1918) arrived at yokohama in august 1876 to conduct research on buddhism in asia.[17] during his stay, he ordered a set of downsized copies of the twenty three statues composing the three-dimensional mandala in the lecture hall of tô-ji temple, kyoto, which he would display at the paris world exposition of 1878.[18] guimet and régamey, unfortunately, did not have time to visit nara, but did visit kamakura in september 1876 to see the buddha. guimet described the statue in his travel account promenades japonaises: nous ne tardons pas à voir au-dessus des arbres, semblable à une colline de bronze noir au milieu des montagnes vertes, la tête immense du daï-boutz, statue gigantesque non pas du bouddha sakia-mouni, comme on le dit toujours, mais du boutsou roshana, forme de daï-niti-nioraï. puis, en avançant nous arrivons en face du colosse, qui nous apparaît dans son calme effrayant et sa majesté divine et puissante. (émile guimet, promenades japonaises, 1878, p. 119) we soon see over the trees the immense head of daibutsu, looking like a hill of black bronze in the middle of green mountains. the gigantic statue is not the buddha shakyamuni as he is always called, but vairocana in the form of dainichi nyorai (mahavairocana). as we advance, we arrive in front of the colossus, which appears in all its frightening calm and its divine and powerful majesty. this description is exceptional in its reference to the iconography of the statue. guimet was familiar with buddhist iconography before coming to japan, having studied the chapter “das buddha-pantheon von nippon” that is included in the fifth volume of philipp franz von siebold’s (1796-1866) nippon.[19] this chapter is the german translation of the japanese text butsuzô zui (collection of buddhist iconography), a revised edition of 1783 (tenmei 3) with illustrations by tosa hidenobu (fl. 1775-1800). guimet’s impression, while facing the statue, is characterized by such words as “calm” and “divine and powerful majesty.” these words are obviously related to the religious nature of the statue. viewpoint of christopher dresser sent by the south kensington museum, known today as the victoria and albert museum in london, the english designer christopher dresser (1834-1904) arrived at yokohama in december 1876, carrying the museum’s collection of european craftworks for the meiji government.[20] he was received by the meiji government as an official visitor, which gave him the opportunity to conduct research on treasures in the collection of shôsô-in treasury of tôdai-ji temple in nara. in his record of the journey japan: its architecture, art, and art manufactures, dresser began the entry for his first day in nara with the line: “saturday the 3rd of february 1877 will always remain a great day in my history.”[21] dresser visited the buddha of kamakura on 18 january 1877. in the entry for the day, he summarized his impression of the statue in a sentence after describing details of its posture: “the figure sits in dignified repose with a most placid expression of countenance.”[22] in nara, however, he recorded a negative evaluation of the great buddha in comparison to that of kamakura: “the head of this figure i do not like nearly so well as that of the great dai-butz at kamakura; and indeed it is much inferior to that of the other parts of the figure. the new head was cast in the sixteenth century.”[23] the author’s taste for the statues reflects the aesthetic judgment of a designer. interestingly, dresser repeats here the negative evaluation of the buddha of nara, particularly of the head,[24]which théodore duret had recorded in 1872. negative evaluation of buddhist statuary the most negative evaluation of buddhist statuary was presented by georges bousquet (1846-?), who was employed by the meiji government to engage in jurisprudential education and stayed in japan for four years from march 1872 to march 1876.[25] while in japan, he started contributing to the revue des deux mondes a series of articles based on his experience in japan, and he wrote an article “l’art japonais” for the magazine after his return to france in 1877. his articles were published in the two volumes of le japon de nos jours et les échelles de l’extrême orient in the same year. in the chapter about japanese art in the second volume of the book, bousquet harshly criticized buddhist statuary from an artistic point of view and referred specifically to the buddha of kamakura: l’extrême orient ne l’a pas compris; à force de vouloir saturer ses figures d’expression, il en a fait des symboles froids et sans vie qui nous étonnent sans nous toucher, parce qu’ils nous sont étrangers. aussi a-t-il dû, pour racheter ce mépris des formes, cette insouciance de l’anatomie, sculpter dans le granit ou couler en bronze des colosses imposants par leurs dimensions. la solennelle inertie de ces géants d’airain produit en nous l’impression du sublime en arrêtant notre esprit sur des pensées de puissance éternelle et d’insondable rêverie. ramenées à des proportions naturelles, ces statues perdent leur caractère et leur sens avec leur énormité; la plus célèbre au japon, parce qu’elle est la plus grande, est le daï-buts de kamakura; les réductions qu’on en rencontre partout ne sont que d’insignifiantes idoles. (georges bousquet, le japon de nos jours et les échelles de l’extrême orient, 1877, tome 2, p. 160) the far east has not yet understood; by dint of wishing to saturate its figures with expression, it makes symbols cold and lifeless, which astonish us without touching us, because they are strange to us. moreover, it was obliged to make up for its disregard of form, or its lack of concern for anatomy, to sculpt in granite or to cast in bronze colossuses—imposing by their sheer dimensions. the solemn inertia of these giants in bronze evokes in us the impression of the sublime, while it fixes our spirit on thoughts of eternal power and of unfathomable meditation. when brought back to natural proportions, these statues lose their character and their meaning along with their enormity; the daibutsu of kamakura is the most celebrated of japan because it is the largest; the reductions which one encounters everywhere else are only insignificant idols. drawing attention to the lack of concern for anatomy, bousquet clearly criticized buddhist statuary from a viewpoint based on the criteria of western art, the tradition which was believed to originate in greek art. moreover, he appears to insist that once the viewers are able to find release from the impact of the statue’s unfamiliar appearance that comes from its religious nature and its huge dimensions, they discover the inferior quality of its aesthetic nature. indeed, his argument seems to contain an objection to aimé humbert’s “double points of view,” which ascribed to the buddha of kamakura both aesthetic and religious qualities. according to bousquet, humbert combined the two different criteria and missed the point as a result. bousquet also suggested the unreliability of a visitor’s impressions, when compared with the judgments of a resident who draws on his experience in japan. discovery of unknown buddhist statues bousquet’s arguments, pertaining to the evaluation of buddhist statuary, reflect the ambiguous attitude that western viewers had toward it, when they evaluated it from an aesthetic viewpoint. this attitude, however, becomes positive when european viewers find an unknown object that matches the standards of western art. when visiting nara on 3 february 1877, christopher dresser by chance found remarkable figures among the numerous remains of old statues at hokuen-dô, the north octagonal hall of kôfuku-ji temple: i am struck with the simplicity of treatment which these figures present, and with the crispness and beauty of their folded drapery, indeed, the treatment of the drapery reminds me by its simple excellence of the best sculptured works of our own mediæval times; and between some of these figures and those with which we are familiar in our own cathedrals there is a striking resemblance (fig. 25). (dresser 1882, p. 91) the author noted the skillful treatment of the drapery on the figures and, on the same page, offered an illustration of one of these figures from the back.[26] the image, which he probably drew himself, looks identical to the statues of two standing priests, mujaku (asanga) and seshin (vasubandhu), both created by unkei (?-1223) in the early thirteenth century and known for their naturalistic style in representing a human figure.[27] two years later, on 7 december 1879, ernest satow and his close friend william anderson (1842-1900) visited tôdai-ji and kôfuku-ji temples in nara. at the north octagonal hall they observed the same pair of figures and found another pair displaying a perfect sense of anatomy: at the back of the shaka [buddha] are two excellent statues of sei-shi and mu-jaku, full of character. amongst a crowd of miscellaneous images are an excellent pair of ni-ô [guardian kings], the anatomy of which is perfect. they are the best examples of sculpture in wood to be seen in japan. (ernst mason satow and a. g. s. hawes, a handbook for travellers in central and northern japan, second and revised edition, 1884, p. 389) william anderson, employed by the japanese navy as a medical doctor, is known as the author of the pictorial art of japan, published in 1886. it must have been anderson who suggested the outstanding quality of the second pair when he and satow evaluated them from an anatomical viewpoint. the pair is identified as two standing figures, niô or kongô rikishi; both early thirteenth century works are attributed to jôkei (?-?) and are now in the collection of the treasure house of kôfuku-ji temple.[28] ebbing popularity of the buddha of kamakura in the introduction to his 1936 the craft of the japanese sculptor, the prominent historian of asian art langdon warner (1881-1955) called his reader’s attention to the different notions of sculptural art in east and west: the statues illustrated in this small book were made by carvers and modellers after things that were seen in their minds. one look at them is enough to demonstrate that they were not copies made in wood or bronze or clay from natural models. if the modern westerner judges their beauty or success by the standard of likeness to the shapes he knows in nature, he obviously must lose their own peculiar beauty. naturalistic art (copied from nature) and derivative art (copied from other men’s products) may of course be successful and be superficially lovely; but they can never vie in perfection with the art of direct imagination of the sort that europe produced in the past and asia has nearly always produced. (langdon warner, the craft of the japanese sculptor, 1976 [1936], pp. 4 f.) the introduction begins by stating that the book is not written for specialists or students of art history but for general readers. judging from warner’s standpoint, this statement seems to allude to the fact that, for a long time, many specialists improperly evaluated buddhist statuary. according to the author, such a specialist tended to rely on the “standard of likeness to the shape he knows in nature,” or in many cases, likeness to the human figure that he supposed the work was modeled after. warner’s criticism is true in the cases of ernest satow and william anderson, who found and evaluated the two pairs of statues, mujaku and seshin and a pair of niô, at the north octagonal hall of kôfuku-ji temple in nara in 1879, and probably also christopher dresser, who had first discovered the two sculptures of priests at the same spot two years earlier and compared their artistic excellence with that of western medieval works. we can safely surmise that the discovery of naturalistic works, such as the pair of niô of kôfuku-ji temple, facilitated a new way to evaluate buddhist statues in the late 1870s. this viewpoint, which warner would criticize later in his book in 1936, seems to have enhanced an unfavorable reputation of non-naturalistic works, such as the buddha of kamakura. adolf fischer (1857-1914), the founder of the museum of east asian art in cologne, first visited japan in 1892 and briefly commented on the buddha of kamakura in his book bilder aus japan: nicht weit davon ragt in einem haine frei empor der kolossale daibutsu (große buddha) aus dem 13. jahrhundert, entschieden die künstlerisch schönste, wenn auch nicht älteste buddhastatue japans. (adolf fischer, bilder aus japan, 1897, p. 367) in a grove not far from there, a colossal thirteenth century daibutsu (great buddha) statue towers into the sky. it is definitely the most artistically beautiful, if not the oldest, buddha statue in japan. it should be noted that the author inserted a conditional clause “if not the oldest” in his comment while appreciating the artistic quality of the statue. fischer most probably had in mind the oldest works from the seventh century in hôryû-ji and yakushi-ji temples. in 1884, ernest fenollosa and okakura tenshin had discovered the standing wooden statue from the seventh century, guze kannon (avolokitesvara) at yumedono (hall of dreams) in hôryû-ji temple. the aesthetic quality of the oldest works discovered in the 1880s was appreciated in direct connection withthe greco-roman style of buddhist statues discovered in northern india. the meiji government published the first comprehensive volume of japanese art history, histoire de l’art du japon, to commemorate the paris world exposition of 1900. however, the volume did not include any image of the buddha of kamakura. the impressive colossus had lost its fame in the 1880s and thereafter sank into oblivion. conclusions is a buddhist statue an art object or a religious object? this question seems to have been and continues to be problematic. in her japanisches tagebuch, frieda bartdorff (1874-1945), the wife of adolf fischer, refers to a curious experience she had in the gallery of the nara imperial household museum (presently the nara national museum) on one summer day in 1902: daß der japaner, der aus seinem frommen sinn heraus religiöse bilder in seinem hause niemals aufhängt, nun aber solche, wenn auch nur zeitweilig, aus den geweihten stätten entfernte und ohne religiöse absicht in einem profanbau, dem museum, ausstellte, war eine einschneidende neuerung. das einfache volk hat auch wenig verständnis dafür, und oft beobachtete ich, daß männer und frauen sich den bildern und statuen im museum betend nahten mit derselben andacht wie in den tempeln. (frieda fischer, japanisches tagebuch: lehrund wanderjahre, 1938, p. 40) that the japanese, who from a sense of piety would never display religious pictures in their homes, now removed those, if temporarily, from their sacred locations and exhibit them without religious intention in a secular building, the museum, was an incisive innovation. the simple people could not appreciate this, and i have often witnessed men and women approaching the paintings and statues in the museum in prayer with the same devotion as in temples. the author’s experience gives us a clue to the question. buddhist statuary has both qualities, artistic and religious. the essential problem lies not in the aspect of religion but rather in the modern aesthetic idea that intentionally ignores the religious nature of icons. more precisely, modern aesthetics do not coincide with the religious nature of an icon in one specific figure of a buddhist statue. in this sense, georges bousquet was right when he criticized the attitude conflating the two different natures of buddhist statuary.[29] at the same time, however, his criticism exposed an ideological aspect of modern aesthetics when he tried to persuade the viewer not to be dazzled by the unfamiliar appearance of the colossal buddha. as much as the aesthetic nature of a buddhist statue was appreciated, its religious nature was increasingly ignored. historically speaking, the shift from one evaluation of buddhist statuary to the other happened not at once, but slowly and steadily in the 1870s and 1880s. in 1888 an official mission of specialists, headed by kuki ryûichi from the ministry of the imperial household, was sent to the western part of japan, including visits to nara and kyoto, in order to conduct research on art treasures in the collection of temples and shrines, and to catalogue them according to their historical and aesthetic values. while they stayed in the area for several months, the leading members of the mission kuki, okakura tenshin, and ernest fenollosa repeatedly delivered public lectures in nara and kyoto, in which they compared nara and kyoto respectively to greece and rome. they were the first to publicly offer these comparisons, which would strongly influence the formation of the narratives that directly connected the ancient european empires with japan’s,  former capitals that remained  rich in cultural heritage and old buddhist artworks, such as seventh-century statues in horyû-ji and yakushi-ji temples. in the same year, the temporary bureau of the nationwide research on treasures was founded. it designated some of the ancient buddhist statues in nara and kyoto as treasures that were to be preserved due to their historical and aesthetic values.[30] the great buddha of kamakura witnessed the change as part of the process to “modernize” buddhist statuary in the meiji period. ironically, since it was released from the burden of modern aesthetics, the statue now enjoys the position as the most popular tourist spot in the city and looks as peaceful as ever (fig. 3). since japan’s period of economic growth during the 1960s, it was no longer religious or aesthetic concerns, but rather the commercial exploitation of the colossal figure as a tourist resource, that propelled interest in the buddha of kamakura. tourism, of course, was a byproduct of modern society’s aesthetic interest in japanese statuary in the middle of the nineteenth century. fig. 3: the buddha of kamakura and visitors, 2010, photograph by the author [1] the anti-buddhist movement destroyed numerous treasuries preserved for generations in temples and shrines, in particular those located in the areas where shintoism prevailed. well known as such sites were hie sannô shrine in ômi and iwashimizu hachiman shrine in the southern area of kyoto, where shintoist provocateurs thoroughly destroyed buddhist constructions and treasures in 1868, as well as kôfuku-ji temple in nara, where all the buddhist priests were forced to renounce the cloth in the same year. see yasumaru yoshio, kami-gami no meiji ishin: shinbutsu bunri to haibutsu kishaku (tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1979). [2] see aoki shigeru and sakai tadayasu, eds., nihon kindai shisô taikei 17: bijutsu, tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1989, 403-405; and satô dôshin, nihon bijutsu tanjô: kindai nihon no “kotoba” to senryaku (the birth of bijutsu: words and strategies of modern japan), kôdansha mechie 92, (tokyo: kôdansha, 1996) 34 f. [3] basil hall chamberlain (1850-1935) pointed out the problematic nature of the word bijutsu in a nota bene of the entry for “art” in the first edition of things japanese: being notes on various subjects connected with japan (london: k. paul, trench, trübner; tokyo: hakubunsha, 1890), writing, “a curious fact, to which we have never seen attention drawn, is that the japanese language has no genuine native word for ‘art.’ to translate the european term ‘fine art,’ there has recently been invented the compound bi-jutsu, by putting together the two chinese characters bi* [followed by the chinese character bi or mei] , ‘beautiful,’ and jutsu* [followed by the chinese character jutsu or shu], ‘craft,’ ‘device,’ ‘leger-de-main.’ but this compound is only understood by the educated.” 40 f. [4] for the establishment of the newly introduced categories of arts, see satô dôshin, op. cit. (supra, n. 2), 41-66. and for the process of reorganizing objects after the introduction of the modern exhibiting system from the west in the 1870s, see my argument in suzuki hiroyuki, kôkoka tachi no 19 seiki: bakumatsu meiji ni okeru “mono” no arukeorogii (nineteenth-century antiquarians: an archaeology of object during the period of late edo and early meiji) (tokyo: yoshikawa kôbunkan, 2003), 70-117. [5] takamura kôun, bakumatsu ishin kaiko-dan, iwanami bunko ao-467-1 (tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1995), 158-165. [6] see the second plate in ernest fenollosa, epochs of chinese and japanese art, vol. 1, first edition (london: w. heinemann, 1912), 100-101. the caption reads “a mass of broken statues and interesting refuse, such as was found by professor fenollosa in the year 1880, at shodaiji.” [7] see tokyo kokuritsu hakubutsukan, ed., tokyo kokuritsu hakubutsukan hyaku nen shi (the one-hundred-years history of tokyo national museum), part 1 (tokyo: daiichi hôki, 1973), 37-40 and 73-80. [8] see plates 5 and 7 in tokyo metropolitan museum of photography, ed., image and essence: a genealogy of japanese photographers’ views of national treasures, exhibition catalogue (tokyo: tokyo metropolitan museum of photography, 2000), 13-14. [9] ninagawa noritane did not refer to the great buddha of nara or the shaka triad in the golden hall of hôryû-ji temple in the diary nara no suji michi (a path to nara), which he wrote during the research of 1872. he only mentioned numerous statues in the hall as a whole and regarded all of them as coming from india or china. see yonezaki kiyomi, ed., ninagawa noritane nara no suji michi(tokyo: chûô kôron bijutsu shuppan, 2005), 171 and 244. [10] mukasa akira has argued that the anti-buddhist movement provided a moment that realized the “modernization” of buddhist statuary. the present paper has been inspired by his argument in which he gave an example of the amida buddha by jôchô (?-1057) in the hôô-dô (phoenix hall) of byôdô-in temple in kyoto and showed the intricate process of recognizing the modern aesthetic values in buddhist statuary. see mukasa, “byôdô-in hôô-dô amida nyorai-zô no kindai,” in kinoshita naoyuki, ed., kôza nihon bijutsu-shi 6: bijutsu o sasaeru mono(tokyo: tokyo daigaku shuppan-kai, 2005), 241-274. [11] for the relationship between the pre-modern popular shows, where buddhist statues or various figures modeled after buddhist statues were often displayed, and the general reception of bijutsu in the meiji period, see kinoshita naoyuki, bijutsu to yû misemono: aburae jaya no jidai (bijutsu on display: an age of the oil painting teahouse), imêji rîdhingu sôsho (the show named after bijutsu)(tokyo: heibon-sha, 1993). [12] the author is preparing a book with the tentative title fenorosa no bôken (the adventure of ernest f. fenollosa) discussing the role that fenollosa played in forming narratives of a history of japanese art after he had first visited the country in 1878. [13] since the tokugawa shogunate and foreign countries had concluded gaikoku-jin yûho kitei or the foreigners’ boundary treaty in the 1850s, foreigners were prohibited from traveling beyond the treaty limit of 10 ri or 24.29 miles from any open port or city. one of the reasons why the buddha of kamakura was popular among foreign visitors for a long time is due to the fact that kamakura was located within the treaty limits, eleven miles away from the open city yokohama. in 1874 the terms of the treaty were relaxed, and thereafter foreigners could travel beyond the treaty limits with a passport issued by the japanese authorities. the relaxation virtually afforded foreigners a right to freely travel all over the country with their passports. see maruyama hiroshi, “kindai tsûrizumu no reimei: ‘naichi ryokô’ o megutte” (the dawn of the modern tourism: on “domestic travel”), in yoshida mitsukuni, ed., 19 seiki nihon no jôhô to shakai hendô(kyoto: kyoto daigaku jinbun kagaku kenkyûjo, 1985), 89-112. following a suggestion by alexander von siebold (1846-1911), the meiji government commissioned the famous doll maker nedzumiya denkichi (1839-1875) to make a replica of the buddha of kamakura in order to be exhibited for the vienna world exposition of 1873. the replica that he had skillfully made from paper lost the body by an accidental fire in transit but had a good reputation in vienna. its great success in vienna proves the fame of the buddha of kamakura in europe. see kinoshita naoyuki, bijutsu 27-29. [14] see the plate, captioned “le daïboudha, statue colossale du buddha à kamakura,” in aimé humbert, le japon illustré, vol. 1 (genève: slatkine reprints, 2005), 241 (originally published paris: librairie de hachette, 1870). [15] see articles in the special issue of ebisu, numéro hors série, christophe marquet, ed., henri cernuschi, 1821-1896: homme politique, financier et collectionneur d’art asiatique(tokyo: maison franco-japonaise, 1998); and les musées de la ville de paris, ed., henri cernuschi, 1821-1896: voyageur et collectionneur, exhibition catalogue (paris: musée cernuschi, 1998). [16] unless otherwise indicated, all translations are by the author. [17] see keiko omoto and francis macouin, quand le japon s’ouvrit au monde: émile guimet et les arts d’asie, découvertes gallimard 99 (paris: gallimard et réunion des musées nationaux, 2001). [18] ibid., the plate, 104, captioned “salle du mandala. musée guimet de paris, photographie, fin xixe s. coll. part., paris,“ 187. [19] see bernard frank, «l’intérêt pour les religions japonaises dans la france du xixe siècle et les collections d’émile guimet», in akiyama terukazu and haga tôru, eds., l’age du japonisme: la france et le japon dans la deuxième moitié du xixe siècle (tokyo: société franco-japonaise d’art et d’archéologie, 1983). [20] koriyama city museum of art and brain trust inc, eds., kurisutofâ doressâ to nihon (christopher dresser and japan), exhibition catalogue (koriyama: “christopher dresser and japan” catalogue committee, 2002). [21] christopher dresser, japan: its architecture, art, and art manufactures, 1882, 89. [22] ibid., 47. [23] ibid., 94. [24] on june 12, 1875, an article of the japan weekly mail, reporting the first exposition at the city of nara, referred to the unfavorable head of the buddha of nara: “it is fifty-three feet high, being three feet higher than the better known dai-butz at kamakura. … . the head also of the statue is of more modern date than the rest. the temple having been burned in the sixteenth century, the head was so injured that it required to be replaced; the present face is much coarser and sterner than that of the kamakura dai-butz, and is probably not an exact reproduction of the original.” similarly, in the first edition of a handbook for travellers in central and northern japan (yokohama: kelly & co.; shanghai and hong kong: kelly & walsh, 1881), ernest satow used frank words in his negative evaluation of the head of the buddha of nara. he wrote: “the modern head [of the buddha] is extremely ugly, owing to its black colour, and to its broad nostrils and swollen cheeks.” 390. [25] see matsuda kiyoshi, ‘gioruju busuke no bunmei kan’ (georges bousquet’s view to the civilization) in the same author’s “furansu kara mita bunmei kaika” (civilization and enlightenment as seen by the french), in hayashiya tatsusaburô, ed., bunmei kaika no kenkyû, kyoto daigaku jinbun kagaku kenkyûjo hôkoku(tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1979), 214-225. [26] see figure 25, captioned "small god, or statue, carved in wood," dresser, japan, 91. [27] for the back of the two figures, see the plates in nara roku daiji taikan kankô kai, ed., kôfuku-ji 2, nara roku daiji taikan 8 (tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1999 (1969)), 153 and 159. [28] ibid., plates, 36-39 and 168-173. [29] for discussions of the two different natures of buddhist statues, see fabio rambelli and eric reinders, “what does iconoclasm create? what does preservation destroy? reflections on iconoclasm in east asia,” in stacy boldrick and richard clay, eds., iconoclasm: contested objects, contested terms, subject/object: new studies in sculpture (aldershot: ashgate, 2007), 15-33. with thanks to professor melanie trede for informing me of this article. [30] for the mission of 1888, see takagi hiroshi, kindai tennô-sei no bunkashiteki kenkyû (cultural-historical studies on the modern emperor system)(tokyo: azekura shobô, 1997), 352-357. t h e j o u r n a l o f 12, no. 1 (summer 2021) heidelberg university publishing transcultural s t u d i e s 12, no. 1 (summer 2021) t h e j o u r n a l o f transcultural s t u d i e s editorial note monica juneja and diamantis panagiotopoulos vi articles vladimir aleksić and mariachiara gasparini the “mongol” cloud collar of the serbian despot john oliver: an historical and iconographic investigation 1 emily hyatt “sì in muran come fuora de muran”: transcultural itineraries and material counternarratives in venetian glass, c. 1450–1650 31 emilio amideo language, memory, and affect in diasporic food discourse: austin clarke’s barbadian culinary memoir 63 thor-andré skrefsrud a transcultural approach to cross-cultural studies: towards an alternative to a national culture model 81 iiithe journal of transcultural studies 12, no. 1 (summer 2021) the journal of transcultural studies 12, no. 1 (summer 2021) editors: monica juneja, global art history joachim kurtz, intellectual history diamantis panagiotopoulos, classical archaeology michael radich, buddhist studies rudolf g. wagner†, chinese studies managing editor: sophie florence editorial board: christiane brosius, antje fluechter, madeleine herren, birgit kellner, axel michaels, barbara mittler, vladimir tikhonov, and roland wenzlhuemer editorial assistants: gundė daukšytė, kush depala, anja lind, mhairi montgomery, and judhajit sarkar the journal of transcultural studies is edited at the heidelberg centre for transcultural studies (hcts) and published by heidelberg university publishing. the journal is freely available at http://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/ (open access). issn: 2191-6411 iv contributors contributors to this issue vladimir aleksić is an assistant professor in the department of history at the university of niš, serbia, where he teaches topics related to the political and economic development of southeast europe, including historical geography. he earned his phd in medieval history from the university of belgrade in 2013. his recent research has focused on digital humanities, particularly storytelling; the use of gis (geographic information systems) in the teaching of cultural heritage in higher education (minerva eu erasmus +); and the application of graph databases in social history research. he has participated in multiple exchange and educational programs, the most prominent of which were stays at the free university of berlin and the humboldt university of berlin. mariachiara gasparini is assistant professor of chinese art and architectural history at the university of oregon. she has also taught at the university of california riverside, san josé state university, san francisco state university, and santa clara university. she studied oriental languages and civilizations at the university of naples “l’orientale” and east asian art at sotheby’s institute of art in london (university of manchester). gasparini completed her phd on the transcultural histories of central asian textiles at heidelberg university in 2015. her research focuses on sino-iranian and turko-mongol interactions, studied through material culture, wall painting, and the artist’s praxis. she is the author of transcending patterns: silk road cultural and artistic interactions through central asian textiles (honolulu: university of hawaiʻi press, 2020), and is currently coediting trade and industry: global circulation of local manufacture, and the migration and consumption of textile products, both historically and contemporaneously, volume 6 of the bloomsbury encyclopedia of world textiles (forthcoming in 2023). emily hyatt is the project coordinator of “heritage as placemaking: the politics of solidarity and erasure in south asia” at the heidelberg centre for transcultural studies (hcts). she completed her ma in transcultural studies from heidelberg university within the focus area “visual, media, and material cultures.” she also holds a ba in art history and visual art from columbia university and has worked as a museum educator at a number of history and art museums in new york city. hyatt’s research interests include transcultural circulations in art and artisanal history, craft production in the sixteenth-century republic of venice, and the role of plants and animals in early modern artisanal production. vthe journal of transcultural studies 12, no. 1 (summer 2021) emilio amideo holds a phd in english and is a researcher in english language and translation at the university of naples “l’orientale.” his research interests lie at the intersection of english language and translation studies, cultural and postcolonial studies, gender studies, critical race theory, ecocriticism, and body studies. he was a visiting scholar at northwestern university (department of african american studies, 2015) and at goldsmiths, university of london (department of media, communications and cultural studies, 2016). he is a member of the editorial board of the journal of gender studies and the advisory board of jam it! (journal of american studies in italy). amideo’s most recent publications include the monographs queer tidalectics: linguistic and sexual fluidity in contemporary black diasporic literature (illinois: northwestern university press, 2021) and il corpo dell’altro: articolazioni queer della maschilità nera in diaspora [the body of the other: queer articulations of black masculinity in diaspora] (pisa: edizioni ets, 2021). in addition, he has published articles on james baldwin, isaac julien, essex hemphill, thomas glave, jackie kay, lawrence hill, keith jarrett, and dean atta. thor-andré skrefsrud holds a phd in intercultural education from the norwegian university of science and technology and works as professor of education and religion at the faculty of education at inland norway university of applied sciences. his research interests include teacher education, intercultural learning, and educational philosophy. skrefsrud is currently a researcher in the projects “non-formal faith education, the public school, and religious minorities in norway,” and “critical examination of race and racism in teacher education,” funded by the research council of norway. his latest publications include articles in intercultural education, journal of peace education, and digital culture & education. transculturation and contemporary artistic collaboration: pushing the boundaries of histories, epistemologies, and ethics franziska koch collaboration is fundamental to and characteristic of many artistic endeavors not only in our contemporary, technologically wired, and heavily mediated times, but it has also marked artistic practices throughout the ages and in many places of the world. indeed, we might argue that artworks—whatever shape they might take—more often than not come into being by many hands and more than one (master) mind. still, the notion of the singular (white, male) genius who fathers and authoritatively signs a masterpiece continues to inform art historical narratives, to serve as a strong identitarian figure in the art market, and to haunt curatorial and collecting practices. post-colonial, feminist, queer, indigenous, and network theory discourses have successfully questioned this notion in the last decades, while artists have begun to take collaboration more seriously. scholarly discussion about collaborative practices in the arts and visual culture has increased accordingly. this increased interest in collaboration is often attributed to economic factors, media technologies, and socio-political aspects of globalization, as globalization since the 1990s has re-charged and re-shaped the long-standing trend to work together across national borders and societal boundaries that— to a certain degree—already characterized modernist artist groups at the end of the nineteenth century. although historically perspectivized studies that address “alternative modernities,” “cosmopolitan modernisms,” or “multicentered modernisms” have greatly contributed to our understanding of the transnational and transcultural networks and agents who facilitated the circulation of artistic knowledge and works across increasingly interconnected art scenes far beyond europe or north america, they tend only to mention * i am deeply grateful to the dedication and persistence of every contributing author, the invaluable input of the numerous peer-reviewers, the meticulous work by the editorial team under the guidance of sophie florence, and the warm intellectual support that this themed issue received from monica juneja as editor of the journal of transcultural studies. i would also like to thank the baden-württemberg foundation’s elite-programm für postdoktorandinnen und postdoktoranden for generous and sustained funding of the panelists, and a research grant that enabled the copy-editing process. last but not least, i hope that the reader will enjoy exploring the final product. 2 transculturation and contemporary artistic collaboration collaboration, not to foreground it.1 such studies deemphasize collaborative practices in order to include individual artists or works that have been ignored or purposefully excluded by a eurocentric master narrative that privileges outstanding individuals over collaborative groups. a valuable starting point from which to address this research gap are studies that focus on contemporary collaborative artistic practices that also pay attention to transculturation as informed by art history.2 such an approach integrates our present-day awareness of the urgency of creative collaboration in the face of multiple, complex crises spanning the globe, with explorations into the longue durée of the histories, epistemologies, and ethics that govern how we (have) work(ed) together, how we know and think about collaboration, and how and why we should (continue to) do so. accordingly, the present themed issue is an attempt to bring two strands of art related discourse more closely together: collaboration and transculturation. this issue looks into thematic overlaps, methodological resonances, and the connection of both in diverse practices. it verges on the banal to observe that collaborative practices lie at the heart of transculturation—here understood as a long-term, polyphonic, and multi-sited social process and complex dynamic that has marked modern art histories. but it is worth addressing the complex question of what this means when we aim to address art historical 1 see, for example, dilip parameshwar gaonkar, ed., alternative modernities (durham, nc: duke university press, 2001); kobena mercer, ed., cosmopolitan modernisms: annotating art’s histories (cambridge, ma: mit press, 2005); monica juneja and franziska koch, “series on multicentred modernisms: introduction,” in “multi-centered modernisms: reconfiguring asian art in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,” special issue, transcultural studies 1, no. 1 (2010): 38–41, https://doi.org/10.11588/ts.2010.1.6181. 2 scholarship that engages with specific historical case studies is increasingly common. examples include in reiko tomii, ed., “collectivism in twentieth-century japanese art: a special issue,” positions: asia critique 21, no. 2 (spring 2013); and the massive open online course (mooc) zheng bo, “discovering socially engaged art in contemporary china,” future learn, accessed february 28, 2021, https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/socially-engaged-art. the aforementioned sources include transnational and transcultural perspectives, but do not make them their primary lens. on the other hand, field: a journal of socially-engaged art criticism has mapped contemporary collaborative practices across the world, although the focus of the journal is not on the cultural and art historical aspects of the longues durées that have informed the various sites under discussion. in an attempt to address specific art practices from the perspective of a globally informed art history, i co-organized the following seminar together with birgit hopfener: “how to cut and share the global pie: transcultural approaches to collaboration, participation, and activism,” co-organized by franziska koch and birgit hopfener, annual conference of the association for the study of the arts of the present, october 26–28, 2017, oakland, california. accessed february 28, 2021, http:// www.network-transcultural.net/rntp-activities/workshop-dokumenta-14/asap_9-seminar_oktober_-2017.html. the expression “how to cut and share the global pie” is from gerardo mosquera, “from,” in creolite and creolization: documenta 11_platform3, ed. okwui ewezor, carlos basualdo, ute meta bauer, susanne ghez, sarat maharaj, mark nash, and octavio zaya (ostfildern-ruit: hatje cantz, 2003): 145–148. see also renate dohmen, encounters beyond the gallery: relational aesthetics and cultural difference (london: i.b. tauris, 2016). https://doi.org/10.11588/ts.2010.1.6181 3the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) and artistic “world-making” in ways that depart from the conflicted cultural, civic, regional, or national research containers and modernist conceptual categorizations built into the discipline. this themed issue combines five ambitious case studies, all of which provide theoretical reflections and pose initial answers to the above question. three of these contributions were part of the panel “how we work together: ethics, histories, and epistemologies of artistic collaboration,”3 which i organized to further a dynamic international discussion at the first trace academy, “worlding the global: the arts in an age of decolonization” (ottawa, 2019). the regional contexts of these studies are varied and their subjects include artists working in or moving beyond the borders of mexico, the united states of america, the people’s republic of china, germany, and japan during the last decade. the practices of these artists resonate with one another and pointedly question narrow national or cultural identifications. they all use collaborative modes as a method to relate and re-shape art concepts, aesthetics, and creative practices that tend to be viewed as separate, unique, authentic, or even ahistorical traits and truth-claims of particular communities, nations, or cultures. further, all of the artists are part of an internationally informed, professionally trained, and increasingly mobile artistic community that pays attention to the social, political, and ecological urgencies of our times. artistic collaboration and transcultural perspectives issues of collaboration are particularly evident in the field of “socially engaged art,” an umbrella term that describes “art that is collaborative, often participatory and involves people as the medium or material of the work.”4 3 worlding the global: the arts in an age of decolonization was the first international academy of the transnational and transcultural art and culture exchange (trace), and was organized by carleton university’s centre for transnational cultural analysis (ctca), ottawa, november 8–10, 2019. the program for the panel can be viewed here: “how we work together: ethics, histories, and epistemologies of artistic collaboration,” centre for transnational cultural analysis (ctca), accessed february 5, 2021, https://carleton.ca/ctca/partnerships-special-projects/trace-academy/ worlding-the-global-ottawa/. the academy was the kick-off event for a series of three further academies to be organized by trace’s transatlantic platform project “worlding the global: the arts and social innovation.” on the platform see: “worlding public cultures: the arts and social innovation,” heidelberg centre for transcultural studies, accessed february 5, 2021, https://www. asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php?id=5075. i would like to thank birgit hopfener, ming tiampo, and the whole team of the ottawa academy for their conceptual and organizational bravura, and i hope that this themed issue will help to extend the academy’s innovative intellectual impulse. 4 “art term: socially engaged practice,” tate, accessed february 7, 2021, https://www.tate.org.uk/ art/art-terms/s/socially-engaged-practice. tate’s online dictionary—a practical, albeit brief introduction to the terminology—also relates the term with the partially overlapping meanings of “new genre public art,” “community art,” “activist art,” and a more general “social turn.” these terms have in common the fact that they are not only reflected by the arts, but are also practiced through them. 4 transculturation and contemporary artistic collaboration such collaborative practices have been displayed in pioneering thematic exhibitions and affiliated events such as “get together” (vienna 1999), 5 “collaborative practices in contemporary art” (london 2003), 6 “kollektive kreativität” (kassel 2005), 7 “living as form” (new york 2011), 8 or the “coop” pavilion (2018) at the bangkok biennale.9 however, the transcultural implications of a globalizing “participatory” or “collaborative” turn have only recently come under scrutiny.10 grant kester’s monograph the one and the many is an exemplary case in point. 11 kester critically built on debates that took place in the 2010s, most prominently nicolas bourriaud’s “relational aesthetics”12 and claire bishop’s 5 exhibition catalogue by kunsthalle wien, konrad becker, karin knorr-cetina, and peter lewis, ed., get together: kunst als teamwork (vienna: folio, 1999). 6 international conference titled “diffusion: collaborative practice in contemporary art,” organized by john roberts, stephen wright, and dominic willsdon and held at tate modern on saturday, october 25, 2003; the conference papers were subsequently published in the special issue “art and collaboration” in the journal third text 18, no. 6 (2004), accessed february 2, 2021, https:// www.tandfonline.com/toc/ctte20/18/6?nav=toclist. 7 exhibition catalog by kunsthalle kassel, rené block and angelika nollert, ed., kollektive kreativität (frankfurt: revolver, 2005). 8 nato thompson, ed., living as form: socially engaged art from 1991–2011 (cambridge, ma: mit press, 2012). 9 coop pavilion at the bangkok biennale 2018, curated by muriel meyer. 10 on the participatory turn: christian kravagna, “arbeit an der gemeinschaft: modelle partizipatorischer praxis,” in die kunst des öffentlichen: projekte, ideen, stadtplanungsprozesse im politischen, sozialen, öffentlichen raum, ed. marius babias and achim könneke (amsterdam: verlag der kunst, 1998), 28–47; english version published as christian kravagna, and aileen derieg, trans., “working on the community: models of participatory practice,” transversal texts 1 (1999), accessed february 1, 2021, https://transversal.at/transversal/1204/kravagna/en. on the collaborative turn: maria lind, “the collaborative turn,” in taking the matter into common hands: on contemporary art and collaborative practices, ed. johanna billing and lars nilssonszerk (london: black dog publishing, 2007), 15–31; maria lind, “complications: on collaboration, agency and contemporary art,” in new communities, ed. nina möntmann (toronto: the power plant and public books, 2009), 52–73. 11 grant h. kester, the one and the many: contemporary collaborative art in a global context (durham, nc: duke university press, 2011). the book builds on kester’s earlier monograph, which primarily explored projects tied to european and north-american contexts, and artistic practices enabling social dialogues and processes of community building rather than aesthetic objects resulting from them. grant h. kester, conversation pieces: community and communication in modern art (berkeley: university of california press, 2004). kester later founded field: a journal of sociallyengaged art criticism, launched in 2015, which has become an influential platform for the on-going discussion of socially engaged art, with a focus on contemporary case studies that are increasingly global in scope, and is deliberately cross-disciplinary in its approach. 12 nicolas bourriaud, relational aesthetics, trans. simon pleasance, fronza woods, and mathieu copeland (dijon: les presses du réel, 2002). the original was published as nicolas bourriaud, esthétique relationnelle (dijon: les presses du réel, 1998). https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ctte20/18/6%3fnav%3dtoclist https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ctte20/18/6%3fnav%3dtoclist 5the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) pointed critique of the same. bourriaud singled out “relations” as characteristic of a participatory trend in the arts during the 1990s.13 according to bishop, however, bourriaud failed to explain “how to evaluate … [such] relations as art,”14 nor did he examine “the quality of the relationships in relational aesthetics.”15 when focusing on the political implications of the “social turn” in the arts, bishop suggested a distinction between activist strategies that are not genuinely interested in art, and “aesthetic antagonism,”16 which refers to works that deliberately create dissonance, subversion, and disruption by enacting the exploitive and dehumanizing relations marking our world.17 introducing to the debate case studies from the global south, kester further unpacked and complicated the prevailing theoretical approaches.18 looking beyond the hegemony of the western or euro-american discourse and the ways in which it has (in)formed globalizing art scenes in many places around the world, kester engaged with genealogies of social, communal, or participatory artistic engagement in sites that are deemed peripheral or marginal in the perception of the global north. effectively, these case studies render visible the cultural particularities of euro-american histories, epistemologies, and ethics of collaborative artistic production. kester’s extended definition of what is to be named artistic practice therefore questions the very boundaries of the long-standing (modern) aesthetic definition of art with a capital a. further, his definition subscribes to the aforementioned epistemologically informed theoretical critique of an art historiography that has taken this history as universal or as a universally applicable methodology, and thus uncritically perpetuates the colonial, imperial, civilizational, or national (self)understandings, institutional 13 prominent artists who informed their discussion are rikrit tiravanija, félix gonzélez-torres, gabriel orozco, pierre huyghe, liam gillick, and maurizio cattelan. 14 jason miller, “activism vs. antagonism: socially engaged art from bourriaud to bishop and beyond,” in field: a journal of socially-engaged art criticism 3 (2016): 165–183; 166. 15 claire bishop, “antagonism and relational aesthetics,” october 110 (autumn 2004): 51–79; 65. 16 bishop bases her understanding of antagonism on ernesto laclau and chantal mouffe’s theory of subjectivity, which follows marxist readings; see bishop, “antagonism and relational aesthetics,” 65–70. 17 the latter is fostered by artists such as santiago sierra or thomas hirschhorn. claire bishop, “the social turn: collaboration and its discontents,” in artforum international 44, no. 6 (2006): 178–183. bishop published an anthology of foundational documents and exemplary artistic practices, which, however, primarily represent western writings, artistic examples, and critiques of the discourse: claire bishop, ed., participation: documents of contemporary art (london: whitechapel, 2006). claire bishop, artificial hells: participatory art and the politics of spectatorship (london: verso, 2012). 18 for a critical summary of the approaches that re-consider bourriaud, bishop, and kester, see jason miller, “activism vs. antagonism,” 165–184. 6 transculturation and contemporary artistic collaboration missions, and collecting frames that were built into the discipline at its inception in the nineteenth century. after an initial discussion of some already broadly acknowledged trend-setters of collaborative or collective contemporary art situated mostly in the global north, kester presents little known contemporary projects—commonly characterized by what he calls “collaborative labor”19—by artists working in myanmar, senegal, argentina, and central india. consequently, the structure of his book can be criticized as an additive approach that tries to account for the “global” by extending the canon to include examples from various peripheries. this prompts the question: are we still not able to narrate and conceive of an actually entangled globality beyond the paradigmatic dichotomies of “the west and the rest,” “colonizers versus colonized,” “north versus south” etc. that have governed art historical discourse? arguably, it could have helped to dissolve the additive approach of kester’s book if he had emphasized historical, cultural, and discursive entanglements and networks that continue to connect what are often conceived to be mutually exclusive, disconnected, or distinct cultural spheres.20 in fact, the most incisive part of kester’s monograph is his expert theoretical critique of the european universalism that underpins the paradigm of deconstructivism. he argues that this paradigm has pervaded the last decades of debate on socially engaged art practices, to the extent that we ignore the cultural and historical specificity of an originally french strand of aesthetic discourse. this discourse is increasingly taken as a universal,21 though its philosophical tenets are by no means shared everywhere, nor are they reasonably applicable to art scenes and institutional settings that are differently constituted in both historical and intellectual terms. problematizing this methodological blind spot, along with its historical causes and epistemological effects, has been the hallmark of a transcultural 19 kester defines collaborative labor as follows: “several of the collaborative projects that i’ll begin discussing … challenge this [deconstructivist] discursive system. they are … concerned with … durational interaction rather than rupture; they seek to openly problematize the authorial status of the artist, and they often rely on more conciliatory (and less custodial) strategies and relationships (both with their participants and with affiliated movements, disciplines, etc.). while they may be implicated in forms of collective action that take up an oppositional or antagonistic relationship to particular sites of power, they differentiate this antagonism from the modes of self-reflexive sociality necessary to create solidarity within a given organizational structure. in short, they challenge the conventional aesthetic autonomy of both the artist and art practice, relative to a given site, context, or constituency. it is this challenge, embodied in practice, which requires a new analytic approach.” grant kester, the one and the many, 65. 20 since he is not an art historian with an area specialization for each of the places he discusses beyond european and north-american frames, it is understandable that kester focuses on contemporary art, and misses the longue durée perspectives. 21 kester, the one and the many, 21–65. 7the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) approach to (global) art history and some—periodically more narrowly framed—transnational studies in the fields of art that became vocal only slightly later than the collaborative turn.22 these approaches have as a common feature an emphasis on art history as a modern discipline that came into being in the age of (european) nation building and in contexts that saw (earlier) art objects, practices, and agents as circulating in an increasingly connected world marked by on-going colonialism and imperialism. however, the discipline’s eurocentric master narrative did not overtly figure the fact that artworks and artists were often subjected to or subjects of significant sociopolitical and economic power struggles and epistemic violence. that narrative continued to uncritically propagate a supposedly universal significance of enlightenment, progress, and originality. consequently, as monica juneja has recently remarked, much scholarly work remains to be done: art history as a form of world-making—of grappling with the past and of glimpsing the contours of emerging possibilities as embodied in art production—is dependent on the criticality of a transcultural approach to rethink its epistemic foundations. … it needs to move beyond studying connectivity or mobility or interaction per se … to grasp the intellectual gains that are secreted from the connectedness of cultures. … [it involves] paying attention to scale, to “anachronic” temporalities, to textures of affect, and to different modes of knowledge beyond that of our scholarship—the artistic, the everyday and non-professional—that might bring with them conflicting claims to authority.23 the five contributions to this themed issue answer this call by paying attention to different scales, temporalities, and “textures of affect,” while exploring the transcultural processes that underlie various forms and levels of artistic collaboration that are marked by very different but globally entangled histories and particular epistemological challenges. these contributions 22 for example: monica juneja, “‘a very civil idea…’: art history, transculturation and worldmaking—with and beyond the nation,” zeitschrift für kunstgeschichte 81, no. 4 (2018): 461– 485; monica juneja, “alternative, peripheral or cosmopolitan? modernism as a global process,” in “global art history”: transkulturelle verortungen von kunst und kunstwissenschaft, ed. julia allerstorfer and monika leisch-kiesl (bielefeld: transcript, 2017), 79–108; birgit hopfener, nanne buurman, barbara lutz, and sarah dornhof, ed., situating global art: topologies, temporalities, trajectories (bielefeld: transcript, 2016); piotr piotrowski, “from global to alter-globalist art history,” teksty drugie (special issue—english edition) 1 (2015): 112–134; aruna d’souza, “introduction,” in art history in the wake of the global turn, ed. j. h. casid and aruna d’souza (williamstown, ma: sterling and francine clark art institute, 2014), vii–xxiii; christian kravgana, “toward a postcolonial art history of contact,” texte zur kunst 91 (2013): 110–131. 23 juneja, “‘a very civil idea…’,” 480. “anachronic temporalities” refers to alexander nagel and christopher wood, anachronic renaissance (new york: zone books, 2010), 14. 8 transculturation and contemporary artistic collaboration ultimately query not only the ethos of the collaborators they describe, but also the disciplinary ethos informing the ways art historians address them. contributions katia olalde’s contribution “stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs” addresses a collaborative visual protest designed to draw attention to the victims of the war on drugs. the project was a collaboration between amateur volunteer participants and professional artists, the latter conceiving the creative concept and guiding the participants. olalde argues that when a participant stopped in mexico city in 2011 to stitch information on a handkerchief about one of the innumerable persons violently killed by the “federal security strategy,”24 and another participant joined later to complete the stitching, a simple but fundamental notion of community and citizenship was enacted in the face of a failing state. as olalde describes, such an embodied collaboration, organized in a relay procedure, discourages singular authorship and ownership in favor of spontaneous, untrained, temporary, and equal participation, and in turn co-constitutes a commemorative and future-oriented intervention. this project is an attempt to re-claim public space and democratic discourse by literally materializing both the inconceivable and abstract number of lives lost, and modest ways that we (can) work together to “mend a social fabric” ruptured by violence, impunity, and mistrust.25 such a focus on direct participation and the clear political purpose of these embroideries resonates with kester’s extended notion of socially engaged art, and invites comparisons with other collective forms of visual protest culture around the world. olalde’s discussion demonstrates the methodological benefit of joining the notion of socially engaged art together with an (art) historical expertise that allows her to delineate the underlying longue durée, regional situatedness, and the indigenous, colonial, and gender factors that underpin her contemporary case. she dismisses the presentism that informed the activists’ counter-propagandist use of the metaphor of mending by critically exploring two “anchors of our [mexican] sense of belonging and shared responsibility” and “the way these anchors inform the struggles of the citizenry to effectively exercise their democratic rights.”26 the first of these anchors is an influential indigenous understanding of community and collaboration, which is not a closed issue of the pre-colonial past, but an active component of the indigenous modernity that also co-constitutes 24 katia olalde, “stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs,” in this issue, 19. 25 olalde, “stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs,” 27. 26 olalde, “stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs,” 27. 9the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) decolonization.27 arguably, the transcultural transmission of indigenous modernity allowed the stitching protestors to temporarily re-configure a community built on mutual trust and critical notions of citizenship resonant of both local and global understandings. however, olalde also acknowledges the ephemeral, conflict-ridden, and partial ways that the practice of the activists reflects indigenous communal polities, in that they “projected the methods of counteracting the evils of modern westernized societies … onto marginalized groups.”28 the second anchor is the issues of femininity and christian moral virtue that pervade the braided histories of hand embroidery with miscegenation (el mestizaje), a violent colonial form of transculturation. olalde argues that the protestors employed this “technology of gender,” which “had served as an instrument to exercise control over women’s bodies and defined the role of motherhood in the construction of the modern mexican mestizo nation,” to counteract “a logic of productivity, private property, and profit.”29 the project thereby transformed embroidery into a “tool” with which “participants could imagine the kind of country in which they would wish to live.”30 olalde’s contribution reveals methods of collaborative world-making by artistic means that underpin on-going struggles of decolonization and democratization, struggles that are not limited to mexico, but have a particular transcultural history in this region. haema sivanesan’s “‘unsettling’ the picturing of the canadian oldgrowth forest: consent, consultation, and (re)conciliation in leila sujir’s forest!” strongly resonates with olalde’s contribution regarding issues of indigeneity and decolonization. sivanesan shifts focus, however, from the collective activism of amateurs to the world-making of one contemporary professional artist. in 2016, leila sujir began shooting stereoscopic videos for a light-box based installation in the coastal forests of the south walbran 27 olalde follows discussions by scholars such as carlos and emiliano zolla márquez, gonzalo aguirre beltrán, gladys tzul, and rivera cusicanqui in particular, see: carlos zolla and emiliano zolla márquez, “2.¿qué se entiende por comunidad indígena?” in los pueblos indígenas de méxico, 100 preguntas (mexico city: unam, 2004), www.nacionmulticultural.unam.mx/100preguntas/ pregunta.php?num_pre=2; gonzalo aguirre beltrán, el proceso de aculturación (mexico city: unam, 1957); luca citarella, “capítulo i. méxico,” in la educación indígena en américa latina méxico-guatemala-ecuador-perú-bolivia tomo i, comp. francesco chiodi (quito: abya-yala, 1990); gladys tzul in julia riesco frías and marta lópez, “‘preservar la autonomía es algo fundamental.’ entrevista: gladyz tzul, activista,” periódico diagonal, march 14, 2015, accessed may 29, 2017, https://www.diagonalperiodico.net/movimientos/25949-preservar-la-autonomia-esalgo-fundamental.html; silvia rivera cusicanqui, ch’ixinakax utxiwa una reflexión sobre prácticas y discursos descolonizadores (buenos aires: tinta limón, 2010). 28 olalde, “stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs,” 36. 29 olalde, “stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs,” 38. 30 olalde, “stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs,” 39. 10 transculturation and contemporary artistic collaboration valley on vancouver island in canada. sivanesan, a curator-cum-scholar, was a participant-observer when sujir visited the region and discussed her project with representatives of the local indigenous community. sivanesan is thus ideally situated to carefully unravel yet another kind of collaborative ethos, one based on “friendship as a method,”31 and to reveal what this ethos can achieve in the face of conflicting epistemologies and a nationally framed art history. sivanesan argues that sujir has developed a “conciliatory” practice that creatively responds to both the contested contexts of canada’s history of immigration and the official reconciliation policy concerning indigenous people.32 the author systematically follows the artist as she seeks the consent of the pacheedaht first nation (pfn) to film on their land, and shows how this approach complicated but also condensed an artistic practice that was already mindful of transcultural processes. sivanesan outlines the subtle negotiation of indian family roots that has informed sujir’s originally autobiographical project. the artist planned the project to commemorate the recent demise of her mother, who had taken her to the south walbran forests in order to heal from a cancer-related surgery. though the pacheedaht agreed to sujir’s filming because of her personal healing experience, the artist and sivanesan were struck by the economic reality of the pfn, which meant that they could not afford to address the forest only in cultural and spiritual terms, but were forced to treat it as a key economic asset.33 consequently, the project began to reflect the immigrant/settler colonial relationships to the forest, and to address the incommensurability of colonially compromised ways of knowing and experiencing the forest from both sides. sivanesan analyzes how sujir’s technical-cum-aesthetic approaches eventually changed following the consultative process and the “sentience of the forest” as another agent of the conversation.34 she began filming with a drone, achieving “a radically different picturing … of vertigo, speed, a fractured image of the landscape, the very impossibility of a totalizing image,”35 and invited the indigenous community to contribute a text that concludes her film. sujir thereby unsettles “the nationalist imaginary” by “symbolically repatriat[ing] 31 haema sivanesan, “‘unsettling’ the picturing of the canadian old-growth forest: consent, consultation, and (re)conciliation in leila sujir’s forest!,” in this issue, 68; based on lisa m. tillmann-healy, “friendship as method,” qualitative inquiry 9, no. 5 (october 2003): 729–749. 32 sivanesan, “‘unsettling’ the picturing of the canadian old-growth forest,” 73. sivanesan’s argument here is based on david garneau, “imaginary spaces of conciliation and reconciliation,” west coast line 46, no. 2 (2012): 28–38. 33 sivanesan, “‘unsettling’ the picturing of the canadian old-growth forest,” 56. 34 sivanesan, “‘unsettling’ the picturing of the canadian old-growth forest,” 72. 35 sivanesan, “‘unsettling’ the picturing of the canadian old-growth forest,” 66. 11the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) the south walbran forest to the pfn,” rendering the work “as a gift to the pfn in reciprocity of their trust.”36 compared to olalde’s case study, sivanesan’s exploration of what she aptly calls a “relational praxis”37 based on friendship by an individual artist exploring the (colonial) “contact zone,” which sivanesan extends from marie louise pratt’s influential definition as a site of tension to “a site of difference and sharing,”38 sivanesan’s contribution may render the practical limits and political problems of collaboration more clearly. as olalde has observed in the case of the epi, the leading group disbanded, and only partially reconfigured in a new culturally engaged association when tensions and disagreement about the (creative) “how to” of social justice increased.39 reading sivanesan’s distinction between collaboration taking the form of “allyship” as opposed to “friendship” is also instructive for understanding the mexican case. as sivanesan elaborates, while allyship “conforms to a binary dialectic set up by the colonial project—of oppression/anti-oppression, injustice/ justice, wrong/right—and thus risks substituting one colonizing hegemony for another,” friendship “presumes person-to-person accountability” and “a more fluid, self-aware, open-ended process.” 40 allyship might therefore be used to describe the modus operandi of the stitching protestors, who opposed the government and drug cartels by deliberately not distinguishing whether the commemorated murder victims were civilians or criminals, thereby creating a new “we” as opposed to “them.” however, since this is still a binary distinction, it is likely to generate tensions when the political situation changes and new alliances emerge. in contrast to the collaborative project in mexico city, sujir’s project involves a much lower degree of collaboration, and her elaborate multi-media works do not demand direct participation. rather, the extent of collaboration ultimately depends on sujir’s own authorial governing of the work’s creation. the project is therefore less prone to termination because of (political) group dynamics. since sujir envisions the latest, expanded stage of forest! “as an interdisciplinary and transcultural research-creation project”41 with key partners such as concordia university, pacheedaht first nation, art gallery of 36 sivanesan, “‘unsettling’ the picturing of the canadian old-growth forest,” 71. 37 sivanesan, “‘unsettling’ the picturing of the canadian old-growth forest,” 75. 38 sivanesan, “‘unsettling’ the picturing of the canadian old-growth forest,” 73;. emphasis in original. mary louise pratt, imperial eyes: travel writing and transculturation (new york: routledge, 1992). 39 sivanesan, “‘unsettling’ the picturing of the canadian old-growth forest,” 35–36. 40 sivanesan, “‘unsettling’ the picturing of the canadian old-growth forest,” 75. 41 sivanesan, “‘unsettling’ the picturing of the canadian old-growth forest,” 75. 12 transculturation and contemporary artistic collaboration greater victoria, and the university of british columbia, it will be interesting to see how working together across social groups and institutions might then allow “friendship” to inform the political and vice versa. theresa deichert’s “contested sites, contested bodies: post-3.11 collaborations, agency, and metabolic ecologies in japanese art” takes us to japan to analyze two artworks realized in 2014: kyun-chome’s installation flow in red and united brothers’ intervention does this soup taste ambivalent? both works are co-authored team projects that use potentially radioactive foodstuffs as material. deichert’s contribution echoes the ecological concern that pervades sujir’s work and marks the horizon of sivanesan’s article, but pushes the boundaries of a transcultural approach to art history even further. building on bruno latour’s actor-network theory, jane bennett’s vital materialism, and the ecological turn in contemporary art,42 deichert asks us to recognize non-human agency as a significant part of artistic collaboration. departing from notions of socially engaged art as discussed in the west, but also from the different connotation of the concept in japan, her contribution adds to the growing scholarly critique of anthropocentrism. she thus dismisses art projects in which the social is conflated with or exclusively tied to the human, and calls for a counter-discourse that explores an “ecological approach to art.”43 clearly distinct from “ecological art”—art that takes ecological issues as subject matter—deichert’s approach is “a research methodology … [that] considers art’s fixity within cultural, natural, and technological environments and gestures towards a more inclusive object and non-human-oriented ontology.”44 by examining how the pronounced inter-personal, human collaboration in her two examples works to de-emphasize singular authorship and reveals more “laterally dispersed” agencies, deichert’s contribution amplifies the actual meaning of a transcultural approach to the collaborative turn.45 42 deichert also relates her analysis to theories by scholars such as t. j. demos, linda weintraub, yates mckee, and andrew patrizio; see t. j. demos, decolonizing nature: contemporary art and the politics of ecology (berlin: sternberg press, 2016); linda weintraub, to life! eco art in pursuit of a sustainable planet (berkeley: university of california press, 2012); yates mckee, “art and the ends of environmentalism: from biosphere to the right to survival,” in nongovernmental politics, ed. michel feher, gaelle krikorian, and yates mckee (new york: zone books, 2007); andrew patrizio, the ecological eye: assembling an ecocritical art history (manchester: manchester university press, 2019). 43 theresa deichert, “contested sites, contested bodies: post-3.11 collaborations, agency, and metabolic ecologies in japanese art,” in this issue, 80. 44 deichert, “contested sites, contested bodies,” 90. 45 deichert, “contested sites, contested bodies,” 88. 13the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) since radioactive particles forgo “any national or cultural delimitations,”46 deichert argues, the projects of kyun-chome and united brothers ask the prefix “trans-” of “transculturation” also to account for radioactive particles as actants that render present the enormous scales and scope of ecological interconnectivity. when a gallery visitor decides to step on supposedly contaminated rice from fukushima, the potential effects of the presence of the “interscalar vehicles”—particles that “move simultaneously through deep time and human time, through geological space and political space”—demonstrate the anthropocentric contingency of how we experience, know, and change the world. 47 while she is well aware of the limits of human knowledge, deichert suggests that considering agencies that operate independently from human control will allow “for new ways of writing art history, which could end up decisively impacting the creation of transcultural societal and political spaces that can be shared pari passu by humans and non-humans alike.”48 the article is thus another good example of the ethical challenges that emerge when exploring the epistemological limits of collaborative artistic practice as characterized by transculturation. shao-lan hertel’s contribution “deterritorializing chinese calligraphy: wang dongling and martin wehmer’s visual dialogue (2010)” brings the focus back to human interaction, now in the people’s republic of china. the two collaborators in hertel’s case study embody very different artistic painting traditions, brought together in an inter-cultural exchange program. the german conceptual painter martin wehmer and the chinese calligrapher wang dongling were commissioned to collaborate for an exhibition series called visual dialogue/shijue duihua at the china academy of art (caa) in hangzhou in 2010. the institutional framing and external motivation for visual dialogue clearly distinguish this project from the more personally motivated, multi-sited, and long-term collaborations of an “art unit”49 such as kyunchome or united brothers. as a close reading of a single artwork, hertel’s contribution comes closest, among all our contributions, to conventional art historical research, and thus provides something of a missing link. hertel explores the aesthetic, art historical, and political tensions that crystallize in a work of painting-cum-calligraphy situated at the intersections of a nationally 46 deichert, “contested sites, contested bodies,” 91. 47 the term “interscalar vehicles” and the definition provided here are borrowed from gabrielle hecht, “interscalar vehicles for an african anthropocene: on waste, temporality, and violence,” cultural anthropology 33, no. 1 (2018): 109–141; 135, https://journal.culanth.org/index.php/ ca/article/view/ca33.1.05/54. for deichert’s adoption of the term, see deichert, “contested sites, contested bodies,” 102. 48 deichert, “contested sites, contested bodies,” 112. 49 deichert, “contested sites, contested bodies,” 84. https://journal.culanth.org/index.php/ca/article/view/ca33.1.05/54 https://journal.culanth.org/index.php/ca/article/view/ca33.1.05/54 14 transculturation and contemporary artistic collaboration framed art historical discourse, alternative or even resistant painterly practices, and the challenges introduced when two painters work together, while not speaking each other’s languages, literal or artistic. in line with critically minded western and chinese scholars,50 hertel sees chinese calligraphy as subject to two contradictory tendencies since the advent of modernism. it either stresses its cultural uniqueness to the point of a problematic (re)orientalization; or it relativizes the particular intellectual, religious, philosophical, and cosmologic notions informing its historical transmission, at the risk of overlooking “the persistence of tradition as part of the critically resistant construction of a modern chinese cultural identity,”51 as hertel quotes paul gladston. hertel also follows gladston’s suggestion that we understand the ongoing transcultural negotiation of contemporary art in and beyond china as the use of “polylogues—that is to say, inter-textual multi-voiced discourses—as a means of opening up differing interpretative perspectives on contemporary chinese art to one another while at the same time internally dividing and questioning their individual authorities.”52 since wehmer’s and wang’s collaboration was based on a sequential compositional process, with wehmer first painting empty speech bubbles in the style of comics, which were only subsequently filled with ink and brush by wang, the frame that constitutes a polylogue is indeed the artwork itself, rather than a synchronously and jointly undertaken dynamic painting process. departing from intersemiotic observations borrowed from comic studies,53 hertel concludes that visual dialogue actually necessitates “a transsemiotic interpretation, one that transcends the notion of ‘between two.’”54 she analyses partially incommensurable differences between the ways that the chinese characters are composed and how calligraphy 50 hertel traces and builds on shared discussion fostered by western art historians, critical theorists, and china experts such as john clark, paul gladston, and frank vigneron, as well as chinese scholars, who extensively engaged as curators and critics of contemporary art and calligraphy, such as gao shiming, hou hanru, and gao minglu. 51 shao-lan hertel, “deterritorializing chinese calligraphy: wang dongling and martin wehmer’s visual dialogue (2010),” in this issue, 112. paul gladston, “somewhere (and nowhere) between modernity and tradition: towards a critique of international and indigenous perspectives on the significance of contemporary chinese art,” tate papers, 21 (spring 2014), accessed december 26, 2020, https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/21/somewhere-and-nowherebetween-modernity-and-tradition-towards-a-critique-of-international-and-indigenous-perspectiveson-the-significance-of-contemporary-chinese-art. 52 hertel, “deterritorializing chinese calligraphy,” 122. 53 hertel refers here to jonathan evans, a scholar who explores the translational dimensions of comics; see jonathan evans, “comics and translation,” in the routledge companion to comics, ed. frank bramlett, roy t. cook, and aaron meskin (new york: routledge, 2016), 319–327. 54 hertel, “deterritorializing chinese calligraphy,” 134. 15the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) privileges reading and writing, on the one hand, and the graphic forms of wehmer’s leerbilder on the other, which refer to (un-)spoken words and favor seeing and hearing. these different cultural underpinnings are further complicated in specific speech-bubbles of visual dialogue that hertel sees as denoting a metafictional moment that takes part in “a double ontology, mixing two worlds.”55 hertel’s close reading thus does not aim for nor achieve semiotic synthesis, but discerns how the institutionally commissioned inter-cultural dialogue instead yielded a polylogical work. despite a sequential collaborative compositional process, the work’s “transcultural values lies in the very disunity of signs … [that] allow one to ‘appreciate the heterogeneous,’ and to discover new forms of signs that emerge from these shifts … potentially altering perceptions of what is conventionally conceived as chinese or western art.”56 hertel’s contribution unexpectedly resonates with deichert’s, as it points to the material agency of the work—embodying and entangling different painting knowledge—as effectively transgressing the limited actual practical interaction and verbal dialogue of its two human makers and the aims of the hosting institution. paul gladston’s transcultural reflection “roci china and the prospects of ‘post-west’ contemporaneity” traces the polylogical construction of contemporary chinese art to the middle of the 1980s. gladston’s account supplements hertel’s narrow focus on the contemporary trajectory of calligraphy, as he emphasizes the “continuing culturally syncretic and therefore diffractive intersections between localized tradition, established cultural thinking/practice, and incoming discursive/practical innovations.”57 bringing us back from hertel’s fine-grained “transsemiotic” analysis of one largely overlooked artwork, gladston’s contribution broadens the perspective by drawing attention to the significantly differing receptions of robert rauschenberg’s well-publicized roci china exhibition in 1985, a milestone for the internationalization of chinese art in the post-mao era. in methodological terms, he addresses the resulting “cultural appropriationtranslation” that lead to a “parallax” in scholarly and artistic discourses— that is, “alterations in the apparent positioning of objects in relation to differing perceptual standpoints.”58 in the case of rauschenberg, we see a somewhat naive artist parachuting into eleven “third world” or non-aligned countries, driven by an 55 hertel quotes here roy t. cook, “metacomics,” in the routledge companion to comics, 257–258; 257. cook formulates his exploration of metafictional instances with reference to brian mchale, postmodernist fiction (london: routledge, 1987). 56 hertel, “deterritorializing chinese calligraphy,” 143. 57 paul gladston, “roci china and the prospects of ‘post-west’ contemporaneity,” in this issue, 170. 58 gladston, “roci china and the prospects of ‘post-west’ contemporaneity,” 175. 16 transculturation and contemporary artistic collaboration ambivalent commitment to peace and a desire to overcome post-cold war compartmentalization, armed with the claim that “artists always understand each other.”59 gladston also highlights an indirect type of collaboration that the artist realized during his stays in china, during which he engaged with socalled traditional knowledge by visiting artisans working in a paper mill. at the same time, rauschenberg apparently turned a blind eye to tense encounters with his contemporaries, whose aesthetic and intellectual concepts appeared to clash with the then current trends of american art. because a sustained, respectful dialogue or close artistic collaboration was missing from this encounter, rauschenberg too quickly dismissed the work of these artists as belated modernism.60 as a member of what has been termed the american neo-avant-garde,61 rauschenberg was surely unwilling to be associated with this position. still, the kind of aesthetic appropriation that resulted from this encounter informed, in turn, a range of groundbreaking conceptual and collage/montage-based re-appropriations by experimental chinese artists. gladston thus systematically addresses the simultaneity of mutual cultural misunderstandings and (partial) translations, as well as the differences of reception in terms of a “parallax.” the parallax delineates the epistemological boundaries, the limitations placed on “how we know” when artists and art historians are differently situated, and the boundaries that remain despite attempts to work together within artistic practices and art historical discourses. it accounts for the historically conditioned incommensurability of the ways in which we “make a world,” or rather plural “worlds.” the parallax asks us to acknowledge that we are always already subject to particular cultural and historical contingencies when addressing art. it also allows us to see that the problems underpinning an institutionally or politically demanded “inter-cultural dialogue” have not yet changed, although artists today are often well connected, globetrotting agents such as wang and wehmer. ultimately, gladston’s diagnosis of a “problematic double-bind” transcends the chinese context, as it finds 59 hertel, “deterritorializing chinese calligraphy,” 143. 60 an exemplary case in point was rauschenberg’s conflicted encounter with the chinese artist group “xingxing” (the stars) and other artists active in beijing at the time. the stars had been claiming local and international recognition with their spectacular open air exhibitions at the end of the 1980s. the highly ambivalent reception of their stylistically eclectic work within and outside of china shows the difficulties resulting from the ideological borders that had separated an originally much more densely interwoven modern art discourse between china and western societies during the cold war era. franziska koch, “strategies of mediation: considering photographs of artworks created by the ‘stars’ in 1979/80 and their changing historiographical status,” in journal of art historiography 10 (2014): 1–42. 61 hal foster, the return of the real: the avant-garde at the end of the century (cambridge, ma: mit press, 1996). 17the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) relevance in the case studies of sivanesan and olalde, who both hint at how indigenous ontologies not only conflict with coloniality, but challenge decolonization conceived as a collective process that nonethelessremains problematically embedded in modernization. gladston thus suggests that “the conspicuous factionalism of ‘post-west’ contemporaneity opens up a problematic double-bind compelling us to shuttle inconclusively on ethical-political grounds—in abjuration of western coloniality—between intersecting and yet ultimately irreconcilable non-rationalist outlooks.”62 this creates “a seemingly irresolvable impasse counterposing the arguably colonizing immanence of poststructuralist postmodernism with a resistant chinese foundationalism.”63 gladston’s insight brings us back to kester’s critique of the problematic deconstructivist paradigm, which motivated him to search for genealogies of socially engaged artistic practices outside of the west. though it may now appear as though we have come full circle, this circle is in fact not quite complete, i argue, and i hope the reader will agree after considering the creativity and new collaborative dynamics displayed in the case studies of this themed issue. taken together, all of the contributions to this themed issue make an important argument: when one examines the various modes, scopes, and scales of collaboration in contemporary artistic practices that are driven and informed by transculturation, what emerges is an acute awareness of the “inconclusive shuttling on ethical-political grounds” and the various but resonating and often historically related ways in which the “seemingly irresolvable [discursive] impasses” are constituted. the methodological appeal and actual achievement of a transcultural approach to collaborative contemporary artistic practices then lies in the ability to differentiate, unpack and critically relate complex histories, cultural epistemologies, and challenging ethics that underpin these practices, and haunt and inspire affiliated scholarly discourses. the question of how we work together during collaboration and the enmeshed, dynamic processes of transculturation have challenged the guest editor of this themed issue to cross the boundaries of her disciplinary, regional, historical, and theoretical knowledge. the coming-into-being of the publication has been a great collaborative learning experience in itself, from the international call for papers issued in spring 2019, through the panel in ottawa, to a publication process overshadowed by the outbreak of a global pandemic. the resulting themed issue attests to productive thematic, regional, and theoretical differences, driven by a common will to push methodological boundaries, and to foster an art historical conversation that acknowledges 62 gladston, “roci china and the prospects of ‘post-west’ contemporaneity,” 176. 63 gladston, “roci china and the prospects of ‘post-west’ contemporaneity,” 176–177. 18 transculturation and contemporary artistic collaboration the urgency of working together despite the aforementioned challenges. in the end, it is the sharing of different (world) views and practical takes, the collaborative endeavor in itself, whatever forms it may take, that makes artistic and scholarly world-making such an exciting, creative undertaking. vanlieu_design_13_12_2016.indd korean translations of vietnam: relocating the korean great han empire in world-historical precedent joshua van lieu, lagrange college introduction on may 5, 1909, citing the damage they had caused to the peace and order of the great han empire, then a japanese protectorate, home minister pak chesun 朴齊純 (1858–1916) banned the sale and distribution of two immensely popular korean-language translations by hyŏn ch’ae 玄采 (1856–1925) and yi sangik 李相益 (1881–?) of yuenan wangguo shi 越南亡國史 (the history of the fall of vietnam), titled wŏllam mangguk sa 월남망국사in korean.1 as soon as it had been published in shanghai in 1905, the original literary sinitic text by vietnamese independence activist phan boi chau 潘佩珠 (1867–1940) was in broad circulation in korea.2 a little more than two years before the book was banned, the book dealers chu han’yŏng 朱翰榮 (?–?) and kim sangman 金相萬 (?–?) together took out an advertisement that ran in every issue of the hwangsŏng sinmun 皇城新聞 [imperial capital news] for a month, in which they promoted the purchase of hyŏn ch’ae’s translation in particular 1 “naebu kosi che-27 ho” 內部告示第二七號 [interior ministry notification no. 27], kwanbo 官報 [official gazette] 4370 (may 7, 1909): 27. in the present article, the chinese title yuenan wangguo shi refers to the chinese-language source text while the korean title wŏllam mangguk sa refers to the korean-language translations of the chinese source text. 2 the original text was published by phan boi chau under the pen name “chaonanzi, the refugee from vietnam,” [yuenan wangming ko chaonanzi 越南亡命客巢南子], under the title of yuenan wangguo shi 越南亡國史 [the history of the fall of vietnam] (shanghai: guangzhi shuju, 1905, reprinted 1907, 1908). the chinese reformer liang qichao 梁啓超 wrote a preface and took charge of publishing the work in a series he edited in shanghai, which led to the work being included in liang’s collected works despite phan’s authorship, see xu shanfu 徐善福, “guanyu <yuannan wangguo shi> de zuozhe” 关于《越南亡国史》的作者问题 [on the author of the the history of the fall of vietnam], dong nanya zhongheng 东南亚纵横 3 (1992): 35–37. the korean translations of this period, however, include dialogue between liang and phan as well as essays by liang entitled myŏlguk sinbŏp ron 滅國新法論 [treatise on a new method of destroying nations] and ilbon ŭi chosŏn 日本의 朝鮮 [japan’s chosŏn], among others. these edited volumes may therefore be understood as co-authored. hyŏn ch’ae produced the first translation into korean, published by posŏnggwan 普成館 in 1906 and reprinted in 1907. chu sigyŏng 周時經 (1876–1914) produced the second translation, published by pangmun sŏgwan 博文書館 in 1907 and reprinted twice in 1908. yi sangik produced the third translation in 1907 but the publisher is unclear. 54 korean translations of vietnam: relocating the korean great han empire as an urgent matter of patriotism: “we only wish that patriotic young men of purpose will try at least once to read this book.”3 the tale of the vietnamese fall to the french was a warning to koreans who loved their country that the same fate awaited them should they remain indifferent to the loss of korean sovereignty under the newly established japanese protectorate. a text that inspired popular patriotic fervor would seem a boon to the korean state, but by the spring of 1909, a little more than one year before its complete annexation by the japanese empire, the home ministry was in no position to tolerate, let alone encourage, challenges to the authority of the japanese protectorate general; what had recently been a patriotic duty now became a crime against the state. most existing scholarship has identified wŏllam mangguk sa as a call to korean patriotism in the face of imminent annexation. indeed, the first korean translation of phan’s account of the vietnamese fall to french imperialism was in circulation so close to the establishment of the japanese protectorate over the great han empire in 1905 that the parallels could hardly be missed. more recent scholarship has convincingly identified wŏllam mangguk sa as part of a new international consciousness among younger korean intellectuals at the turn of the twentieth century that was coeval with the emergence of early korean nationalist ideologies.4 the circulations of the vietnam case in general and wŏllam mangguk sa in particular in the rhetorical praxes of the korean imperial court, however, speak to a more nuanced intellectual dynamic in which an existing historical consciousness of east asian states and statesmen integrated the fall of vietnam and the processes of global imperialism which it represented into a hybrid historical consciousness that removed the great han empire and its predicament from a national or regional history and relocated it in a global history that was unfolding in the early twentieth century. until relatively recently, scholarly interest in wŏllam mangguk sa was minimal. the greater portion of the research to date concerns publication 3 having first appeared in hwangsŏng sinmun 皇城新聞 (january 5, 1907): 3, the advertisement subsequently appeared the same year on p. 4 of each of the daily editions of january 7–12, january 26 and 28, february 2 and 4. all translations are my own, unless otherwise stated. 4 ko pyŏnggwŏn 고병권 and o sŏnmin 오선민, “naesyŏnŏllijŭm ijŏn ŭi int’ŏnaesyŏnŏl: wŏllam mangguk sa ŭi chosŏnŏ pŏnyŏk e taehayŏ” 내셔널리즘 이전의 인터내션얼 [the international prior to nationalism: on the korean translation of the history of the fall of vietnam] han’guk hyŏndae munhak yŏn’gu 한국현대문학연구 21 (2010): 293–323. 55the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 history and questions of translational faithfulness.5 this is especially true of some of the earlier work by kim kŭnsu6 and ch’oe kiyŏng,7 but also of more recent writings by yi chongmi,8 song yehui (song yŏphwi), and song myŏngjin.9 the most common interpretive approach to wŏllam mangguk sa is as an appeal to patriots. this is perhaps less interpretation than a recapitulation of the salient points of phan’s argument: patriots must stand guard against foreign aggression lest sovereignty and the nation are lost. according to the 1975 summary of the text by kim kŭnsu, the reasons for the fall of vietnam to the french were government corruption, social and political conservatism, an unwillingness to reform state and society through the study of various fields of western learning, and a 5 yi kimun 이기문, “haesŏl” 解說 [critical introduction] in chu sigyŏng 周時經, chu sigyŏng chŏnjip 周時經全集 [the collected works of chu sigyŏng] (seoul: asia munhwasa, 1976), 13–14; ch’oe kiyŏng 崔起榮, “kugyŏk wŏllam mangguk sa e kwanhan il koch’al” 國譯 越南亡國史에 대한 一考察 [an examination of the korean translation of the history of the fall of vietnam], tonga yŏn’gu 東亞硏究 6 (1985): 487–506; chŏng hwan’guk 鄭煥局, “kŭndae kyemong ki yŏksa chŏn’gimul pŏnyŏk e taehayŏ: wŏllam mangguk sa wa it’aeri kŏn’guk samgŏl chŏn ŭi kyŏngu” 근대계몽기 역사전기물 번역에 대하여: 越南亡國史와 伊太利建國三傑傳의 경우 [on enlightenment period translations of historical biographies: the cases of the history of the fall of vietnam and biographies of three heroes of the founding of italy], taedong munhwa yŏn’gu 大東文化硏究 48 (2004): 1–32; ch’oe pakkwang 최박광, “wŏllam mangguk sa wa tongasia ŭi chisigindŭl” 월남망국사와 동아시아의 지식인들 [the history of the fall of vietnam and east asian intellectuals], inmun kwahak 인문과학 36 (2005): 7–23; pak sangsŏk 박상석, “wŏllam mangguk sa ŭi yut’ong kwa suyong” 월남망국사의 유통과 수용 [the circulation and reception of the history of the fall of vietnam], yŏnmin hakchi 淵民學志 14 (2010): 81–104. these authors use the publication history of the text to make a case for its universal popularity. for studies on a korean catholic critique of wŏllam mangguk sa, see ch’oe kiyŏng 崔起榮, “hanmal ŭi ch’ŏnju kyohoe wa wŏllam mangguk sa” 한말의 천주교회와 越南亡國史 [the hanmal-period catholic church and the history of the fall of vietnam], asia munhwa 아시아문화 12 (1996): 393–418; pak sangsŏk, “wŏllam mangguk sa.” 6 kim kŭnsu 金根洙, “wŏllam mangguk sa e taehayŏ” 越南亡國史에 對하여 [on the history of the fall of vietnam], han’gukhak 韓國學 5 (1975): 27–35. 7 ch’oe kiyŏng, “kugyŏk wŏllam mangguk sa.” 8 yi chongmi 이종미, “wŏllam mangguk sa wa kungnae pŏnyŏkpon pigyo yŏn’gu: hyŏn ch’ae pon kwa chu sigyŏng pon ŭl chungsim ŭro” 越南亡國史와 국내번역본 비교 연구: 玄采本과 周時經 本을 중심으로 [a comparative study of korean translations of the history of the fall of vietnam: the hyŏn ch’ae and chu sigyŏng texts], chungguk inmun kwahak 中國人文科學 34 (2006): 499–521. 9 song yŏphwi 宋曄輝, “wŏllam mangguk sa pŏnyŏk kwajŏng e natanan che munje” 越南亡國 史의 飜譯에 나타난 諸問題 [problems arising in the translation of the history of the fall of vietnam], ŏmun yŏn’gu 語文硏究 34, no. 4 (2006): 183–204; song myŏngjin 송명진, “wŏllam mangguk sa ŭi pŏnyŏk, munch’e, ch’ulp’an” 월남망국사의 번역, 문체, 출판 [the translation, literary style, and publication of the history of the fall of vietnam], hyŏndae munhak ŭi yŏn’gu 현대문학의 연구 42 (2010): 171–203. for a contrasting interpretation of liang qichao’s understanding of the place of china in the world, see xiaobing tang, global space and the nationalist discourse of modernity (stanford; stanford university press, 1996). see also yang kyech’o [liang qichao], comp., yŏkchu wŏllam mangguk sa 역주 월남망국사 [an annotated translation of the history of the fall of vietnam], trans. an myŏngch’ŏl 안명철 and song yŏphwi 송엽휘 (p’aju: t’aehaksa, 2007). 56 korean translations of vietnam: relocating the korean great han empire general apathy on the part of the vietnamese people.10 korean translators intended their readers to take these critiques as equally applicable to korea in order to mobilize them to save korean sovereignty from japanese aggression and avoid the kind of national suffering and humiliation that the vietnamese were suffering. the polemical nature of wŏllam mangguk sa makes these elements hard to miss; the studies that focus on these aspects of the text are irrefutable but, like the publication studies, they are analytically limited. there is, however, another class of work on wŏllam mangguk sa, and on korean perceptions of vietnam at the turn of the twentieth century in general, that goes beyond questions of translational fidelity and the narrower concerns over the defense of national sovereignty. in one of the earlier studies of this kind, ch’oe wŏnsik notes that wŏllam mangguk sa, in both its original version and in its various korean translations, demonstrates an incipient pan-asianism, or what he called an “asian solidarity.”11 much later, yun taeyŏng catalogues references to vietnam in korean state and vernacular literatures in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. the first years of the twentieth century in particular saw the emergence of what yun calls the “vietnam wave” (wŏllyu 越流), a play on the current “korean wave” in the popularity of south korean popular culture both within and beyond east asia. while not exactly a manifestation of popular culture, the increasing frequency of references in popular and official texts in the final years of the han empire does suggest that vietnam had a distinct currency in many circles.12 among the most interesting approaches to wŏllam mangguk sa has been that of ko pyŏnggwŏn and o sŏnmin. they posit the impossibility of translating yuenan wangguo shi into korean prior to the formation of a conceptual and lexical vocabulary that encompassed the notion of nation. ko and o see the concept of nation as necessarily an intellectual import, an artifact of the international exchanges that had characterized the 10 kim kŭnsu, “wŏllam mangguk sa e taehayŏ,” 35. 11 ch’oe wŏnsik 崔元植, “asia ŭi yŏndae: wŏllam mangguk sa sogo” 아시아의 連帶: 越南亡 國史 小考 [asian solidarity: a brief study of the history of the fall of vietnam], in han’guk munhak ŭi hyŏndan’gye [the modern phase of korean literature] vol. 2, ed. paek nakchŏng and kang muung (seoul: changjak kwa pip’yŏng, 1983). 12 yun taeyŏng 尹大榮, “19-segi huban 20-segi ch’o han’guk ŭi pet’ŭnam chae insik kwajŏng kwa kŭ sŏngkyŏk” 19 세기 후반 – 20 세기초, 한국의 베트남의 재인식 과정과 그 성격 [the character and process of korean reconceptualizations of vietnam in the midto late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries], tongyang sahak yŏn’gu 東洋史學硏究 112 (2010): 191–221. see also chŏng sŏnt’ae 정선태, “kyemong ŭi tamnon: kaehwagi munhwajŏk sŏsa tamnon ŭi chŏngch’ijŏk riŏllijŭm e kwanhan yŏn’gu siron” 계몽의 담론: 개화기 문화적 서사 담론의 정치적 리얼리즘에 관한 연구 시론 [the discourse of enlightenment: an essay on the study of political realism in the discourse of enlightenment-period cultural narrative], oeguk munhak 외국문학 47 (1996): 202–224. 57the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 place of chosŏn and the great han empire in the world since the 1860s. thus, ko and o suggest an international before the national that made the widespread popularity of the korean wŏllam mangguk sa translations of yuenan wangguo shi possible and placed the various versions in a firmly transnational space.13 these dynamics in korean circulations of phan boi chau’s work suggest a process quite close to those globalizing currents in late qing historical consciousness as understood by rebecca karl. karl posits an intellectual history of chinese nationalism historiographically occluded by many historians’ focus on a binary opposition between china and japan on the one hand and the west on the other. the conceptual category of the “chinese nation” arises at the turn of the twentieth century not so much as a struggle against the modernity of the west but rather as a struggle of modernity through a global process of historical understanding, an understanding of the socio-political and geopolitical problems of the qing empire as part of global historical processes. karl shows how these interactions led a small group of qing intellectuals to reject their initial internationalist engagements and their faith in the efficacy of the qing imperial state and embrace a revolutionary ethno-racial nationalism that contributed to the collapse of the qing empire and the establishment of the republic.14 much like the globalization of historical consciousness in the late qing modern in karl’s work, the circulations of the korean vernacular translations of the wŏllam mangguk sa texts suggest a rising awareness of the global historical transformation of which the great han empire is a part and potentially a victim. there are differences, however, in the ways the mangguk sa/wangguo shi genre was consumed in the late qing empire and the great han empire. first, many readers and translators of phan’s work moved across the borders of state and public sphere in a way the intellectuals studied by karl did not. in fact, people such as an chonghwa 安鍾和 (1860–1924)15 were involved in the publication of one of the korean translations of phan as well as in policy debate at the korean imperial court. second, the presence of a global historical consciousness as represented by references to european colonialism did not necessarily 13 ko pyŏnggwŏn and o sŏnmin, “naesyŏnŏllijŭm ijŏn e int’ŏnaesyŏnŏl,” 293–323. 14 rebecca karl, staging the world: chinese internationalism at the turn of the twentieth century. durham, nc: duke university press, 2002), 3–6, 14–17, 195–198. 15 this name is alternately rendered 安種和. see an chonghwa 安種和, “wŏllam mangguk sa sŏ” 越南亡國史序 [introduction to the history of the fall of vietnam], in phan boi chau, wŏllam mangguk sa 越南亡國史, comp. liang qichao, trans. hyŏn ch’ae 玄采 (seoul: posŏnggwan 普成館, 1906), 1. 58 korean translations of vietnam: relocating the korean great han empire represent a radical break from previous understandings of history. the spatial extent of what constituted history worth knowing expanded, as karl’s work on late qing and the research of ko and o show; the turn of the twentieth century in both the qing and the great han empires is an intellectual and historiographical moment of transnationality. at the korean imperial court, however, older historical knowledge mixed quite comfortably with more recent events, so that the increasingly global understanding of history was not a process whereby old regimes of knowledge died away. instead, court officials incorporated new bodies of historical knowledge into their existing banks of case studies. history became global in its spatial remit but it also remained temporally universal as members of the korean imperial court were perfectly comfortable with analyzing current issues through the historical knowledge they already possessed, continually enhanced by new knowledge of world history as it became accessible. the result was the emergence of a hybrid sense of world historical precedent that combined received chinese and korean histories with more recent narratives of european imperialism, particularly in vietnam, to create a historical accounting for the conquest and erasure of states and peoples. this unfolding of a sense of global history as understood, in part, through the fall of vietnam is particularly apparent in the opposition voiced in the court in response to the korean signing of the japan–korea protectorate treaty in 1905. there were more than sixty memorials submitted to the throne in an effort to convince the emperor to punish the officials responsible and to reject the treaty outright as a violation of his will. it is in these texts and their connection to wŏllam mangguk sa that this synthetic world-historical perspective emerges. vietnam in korea: translations and appropriations, 1905–1908 even before the publication of any korean translations of yuenan wangguo shi, the vietnam-as-warning trope was well established in the korean press. in may 1906, one year after the first publication of yuenan wangguo shi in shanghai, the hwangsŏng sinmun in seoul published an editorial entitled, ae annam 哀安南 (sympathy for annam).16 the editors called on koreans to have sympathy for annam because, like korea, it was a country blessed with bountiful resources and favorable topography with a similar area and population but, having fallen to french aggression, annam became subject to an alien people and could no longer enjoy the blessings of their country as they wished. following yuenan wangguo shi, the editors of hwangsŏng sinmun argued that vietnam’s failure to resist the french was due to its failure to implement policies of “self-cultivation and self-strengthening” 16 “ae annam,” hwangsŏng sinmun, may 5, 1906, 1. 59the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 (chasu chagang 自修自强) while the people simply looked after their own interests and competed with one another for wealth and influence rather than defending the nation against french assault. the editors feared that korea could well meet the same fate at the hands of “others in the world” (sein 世 人) aside from the french—an oblique reference to the japanese—and urged patriotic young men to reflect upon the fall of vietnam: we sincerely hope that young men of purpose who are concerned about the nation will rightly take annam as a warning. if we plan for self-strengthening and thereby prevent others in the world from repeating annam’s sorrow [in korea], there could be no greater happiness for the people of our country. we ask you, please, take this warning and broadcast it!17 in august and september 1906, the hwangsŏng sinmun began to publish portions of hyŏn ch’ae’s translation in serial form.18 two months later, hyŏn’s completed translation went through its first printing. booksellers chu han’yŏng and kim sangman’s advertisement in hwangsŏng sinmun for hyŏn’s translation closely followed the “sympathy for annam” editorial of the previous spring and is interesting for the brief portrait it paints of vietnam. it was meant to convince a korean readership of the importance of the fate of vietnam, a country with which neither the great han empire nor the preceding kingdom of chosŏn had previously had significant interaction.19 alas, there are no people in the world more frightened and pitiable than a nation [minjok 民族] that has lost its country! vietnam is a neighboring country in our asia [o aju 吾亞洲] that is now a part of the frenchman’s map and as such it serves as a reflection and warning to our people [kungmin 國民]. this book describes the circumstances of the fall of vietnam and the situation today, illustrating the savagery 17 “ae annam,” 1. 18 “tok wŏllam mangguk sa” 讀越南亡國史 [reading the history of the fall of vietnam], hwangsŏng sinmun, august 28, september 1, 3, and 5, 1906. each installment was on the front page. while most accept that the serialized translation is by hyŏn ch’ae, kim chuhyŏn argues that sin ch’aeho was the true translator. portions of the serialized text appear in hyŏn ch’ae’s later translation suggesting he either wrote the serialized translation or he lifted passages from sin’s translation. see kim chuhyŏn 김주현, “wŏllam mangguk sa wa ŭidaeri kŏn’guk samgŏl chŏn ŭi ch’ŏt pŏnyŏkcha” 월남망국사와 의대리건국삼걸전의 첫 번역자 [the first translator of the history of the fall of vietnam and the biographies of three heroes of the founding of italy], han’guk hyŏndae munhak yŏn’gu 한국현대문학연구 29 (2009): 9–41. 19 for the growing korean interest in vietnam from the 1880s, see yun taeyŏng, “han’guk ŭi pet’ŭnam ŭi chaeinsik.” 60 korean translations of vietnam: relocating the korean great han empire of french people. it is our wish that patriotic young men of purpose try at least once to read it.20 being separated from the great han empire by the qing empire, vietnam was not especially near and yet in this passage it has become a neighboring state in the shared community of “our asia.” the history of the new neighbor is intimately tied with the advance of nineteenth-century european imperialism. vietnam serves, through its imagined familiarity and portrayal as a fellow asian state, as a conduit linking korea with global forces and flows; korean space shrinks as both the fate of its new neighbor and its own deepest fears hinge on lands that were beyond the horizon of korean geographical imaginations only a generation earlier. an chonghwa wrote an introduction to hyŏn’s translation in which he elaborated on the relationship between the world, vietnam, and the han empire. this constellation of world, asia, and the nation, in addition to the forces that brought them together constituted an emergency in which hyŏn was compelled to act through his translation. every day from the four corners of the earth we hear of the developments of the world, the advancements in human knowledge, the smoke of cannons and the rain of bullets, of the strong devouring the weak. how can those who still have a country not be afraid and plan for national self-preservation? the history of the fall of vietnam has only just recently come from the hands of the lonely exile [phan boi chau], and yet among gentlemen of high purpose both here and abroad, not one person who has opened it has failed to feel sadness and fear.21 the new world in which an finds himself is both exciting in its intellectual strides but also a place of terror, as wars rage and the strong prevail over the weak. even though the news of the world came to his ears from the far-flung corners of the globe, it is directly relevant. as in the advertisements, there is a sense that far has become near and mere distance no longer justifies disinterest in the issues of foreign lands. the words of phan, the lonely exile, may have in days past seemed irrelevant but now an concedes that they are of great relevance in the modern world, all the more so 20 as stated above, the advertisement first appeared in hwangsŏng sinmun (january 5, 1907), 3, and subsequently appeared on p. 4 of the of the daily editions of january 7–12, as well as on p. 4 of the january 26 and 28, february 2 and 4 editions of the same year. 21 an chonghwa 安種和, “wŏllam mangguk sa sŏ” 越南亡國史序 [introduction to the history of the fall of vietnam], in phan boi chau, wŏllam mangguk sa 越南亡國史 [the history of the fall of vietnam], comp. liang qichao, trans. hyŏn ch’ae 玄采 (seoul: posŏnggwan 普成館, 1906), 1. 61the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 because of phan’s direct experience of the worst-case scenario. whether global transformations are intellectual or geopolitical, an sees the world in a period of dramatic and traumatic change, while his own nation is struck by a potentially lethal apathy. in the context of this particular urgency of the now, an finds that phan and hyŏn’s work has engendered in him a three-fold melancholy: thinking of these past events my sadness grows only deeper and deeper. i am saddened to think of how the vietnamese brought ruin upon themselves, i am saddened by the depravity of the french, and moreover, i am saddened that paektangin 白堂人 [hyŏn ch’ae] has now been so moved as to undertake this translation of vietnamese history.22 the sadness over past events in distant places may have once allowed some emotional distance but the modernity of the twentieth century no longer offers an such luxury. he could not but be affected by the tale of vietnam’s failures and france’s atrocities. his final sorrow, however, is the act of the translation itself. he laments living in a world in which korean translations of vietnamese history have become urgent requirements for the preservation of the korean nation and his fellow koreans must be reminded to stand up for their country in the face of foreign aggression. the relentless violence of the global transformations of imperialism have rendered vietnam legible for koreans and the translation of the history of the fall of vietnam a pressing task of the moment. in november 1907, nearly a year after hyŏn’s translation, chu sigyŏng published another translation. hyŏn chose to write his translation in the hybrid kukhanmun (國漢文) that was only accessible to the most educated classes of korean society who could read literary sinitic. in contrast, chu wrote his translation entirely in the korean vernacular script in an effort to broadcast the call to arms among the common people, who would have had difficulty with hyŏn’s text. no ikhyŏng (盧益亨, 1884–1941), proprietor of the pangmun bookstore 박문서관, wrote an introduction to chu’s translation, in which he spelled out the situation he believed korea then faced: how sad! for the last several hundred years, the western powers have been enclosing the region like gathering clouds in the east, destroying countries and enslaving their people. as this disaster has been gradually intensifying, the french took vietnam, a country directly to the south of us, while to the north, in eastern manchuria, the russians have established a naval base. now only the 22 an chonghwa, “introduction,” 1. 62 korean translations of vietnam: relocating the korean great han empire great han [tae han 대한], qing [ch’ŏngguk 청국], and japan [ilbon 일본] maintain their independence, but if any one of these countries makes the slightest mistake it will fall within moments to the white race [paek injong 백인종].23 no ikhyŏng is more urgent than an chonghwa, placing vietnam directly on the southern border and bringing attention to the russian naval base at port arthur. unlike an, no does not see the encroachment of western powers and the fall of the weak as a natural part of a changing world order, but rather as a something of a race war in which the “white race” dominates all. of the three remaining independent countries, no castigates both the great han and the qing empires for official corruption, exploitation of the common people, for currying favor with western powers and people, and sometimes even preventing japan from pursuing its interests. no points out, however, that japan, fearing england and france to the south and russia to the north, built a modern navy, learned western military tactics, and had effectively defeated russia in the recent war of 1904–1905.24 the implication is that korea had two choices: continue on its path of corruption, weakness, and submission to westerners as the qing empire was doing, or side with japan and its proven record of stopping white aggression in asia. vietnam, no concludes, is a warning and should korea not pay heed, it too will find itself enslaved by the white race and justly the object of insults and hatred from around the world. for no, vietnam is not a case study of the inevitable and impersonal forces of imperialism, but rather the conscious result of what amounts to a global race war in which the best path is to accept japanese leadership.25 global politics and global histories were among the most salient features of the discourses circulating in the public sphere of the final years of the great han empire. there was an increasingly acute sense of moving well beyond regional spaces and regional times and becoming embroiled in global dynamics the likes of which had not been known before. that the younger intellectuals of the day would engage with such large political issues through newspaper editorials and privately published translations is not surprising because they had been at the heart of reform movements since 23 no ikhyŏng 盧益亨, “wŏllam mangguk sa sŏ” 월남망국사서 [introduction to the history of the fall of vietnam], in phan boi, wŏllam mangguk sa 월남망국사 [the history of the fall of vietnam], comp. yang kyech’o [liang qichao], trans. chu sigyŏng 周時經 (hwangsŏng: pangmun sŏgwan 박문서관, 1907), 1. 24 no ikhyŏng, “introduction,” 2. 25 no ikhyŏng, “introduction,” 2–3. 63the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 the early 1880s. what is perhaps more noteworthy is that these issues were making their way into policy debates in the imperial court, showing the power of articulations in the public sphere to impact historical consciousness in the precincts of government. hybrid history and the opposition to the protectorate treaty when hyŏn ch’ae’s translation was first published in 1906, only one year had passed since the conclusion of the protectorate treaty that for all intents and purposes reduced the great han empire—declared not even ten years previously in 1897—to an appendage of the empire of japan. a group of korean officials, who later came to be known as the five traitors of 1905 (ŭlsa ojŏk 乙巳五賊), had signed the treaty without any discussion at court or the formal approval of the throne. when news spread of the conclusion of the treaty, dozens of officials submitted memorials to the throne, from november of 1905 through february 1906, demanding that the officials responsible for the treaty be punished and that the kwangmu emperor invalidate the treaty to restore full sovereignty to the country. about a quarter of the more than sixty memorials submitted over the course of this protest used historical anecdotes and precedents in their analyses and in their predictions of the fate of the state should the emperor choose to accept the protectorate. their references ranged from the spring and autumn period (ca. 771–476 bce) of pre-imperial chinese history to more recent developments in world history including cases in other areas of east and southeast asia, the middle east, south asia, and europe. of the citations of recent historical precedent outside of east asia, the fall of vietnam to france was the most common. the memorials submitted by pak chebin 朴齊斌 (1858–1921), chŏng hongsŏk 鄭鴻錫 (1869–1918), and ch’oe ikhyŏn 崔益鉉 (1833–1906) are the most conventional in their deployment of historical precedent, in that their chosen examples are entirely chinese. pak likens the officials who concluded the treaty to qin hui 秦檜 (1090–1155), the song minister who advocated peace with the jurchen 女眞 jin 金 empire.26 qin, along with the song emperors huizong 徽宗 and qinzong 欽宗, had been abducted by the jurchens in 1127. unlike his imperial companions, however, he managed to escape and return to the song court under gaozong 高宗, where he actively resisted anti-jurchen hawks in the song military. qin’s escape from the jurchens led to some suspicion that he may have been working as their agent. these suspicions were only bolstered by his dovish stance on 26 kuksa p’yŏnch’an wiwŏnhoe 國使編纂委員會, ed., kojong sunjong sillok 高宗純 宗實錄 [veritable records of the reigns of kings kojong and sunjong] (kwach’ŏn: kuksa p’yŏnch’an wiwŏnhoe, 1970), november 25, 1905, 46:32a–b. hereafter referred to as kjsl. 64 korean translations of vietnam: relocating the korean great han empire song military operations against the jin. historiographically, qin has long served as a standard reference to treason and calumny.27 in addition to citing qin hui, chŏng hongsŏk invoked bo pi 伯嚭 (?–473 bce), a member of the aristocracy of the state of jin during the spring and autumn period who served in the wu 吳 court under king fuchai 夫差.28 during the wars between wu and yue, king guojian 句踐 of yue 越 managed to bribe bo pi to convince king fuchai to cease his assault on yue. bo pi even went so far as to urge fuchai to execute wu zixu 伍子 胥, a minister who had relentlessly warned against future yue attacks. on bo pi’s advice, fuchai ceased his campaigns against yue and instead turned his armies toward the state of qi 齊. with wu’s attention thus diverted, guojian attacked and utterly defeated wu. the yue forces captured bo pi, whereupon guojian had him executed for betraying his sovereign, fuchai, even though it was guojian himself who had bribed bo pi to do so.29 here the implication is that the great han officials who signed away korean sovereignty to the japanese had not only betrayed their country but had done so for whatever baubles the japanese had offered, just as bo pi was swayed by the “beautiful women and fine porcelain” (meinü baoqi 美女寶器) guojian had sent to him.30 moreover, they would undoubtedly be treated poorly by the japanese, regardless of the help they had rendered in bringing about the fall of the great han.31 the most powerful deployment of chinese historical example was in the memorial of ch’oe ikhyŏn.32 at the age of 72, ch’oe was a well-known and widely respected elder statesman who had played a central role in ending the regency of the taewŏn’gun 大院君 in 1872 and thereby establishing the personal rule of the kwangmu 光武 emperor, then the young king of chosŏn. by 1905, however, he had become a withering critic of the throne. ch’oe’s historical references commenced with the figure of liu chen 劉諶 (?–263), an advisor to the king of wu during the chinese three kingdoms 27 see song sa 宋史 [history of song] (seoul: kyŏngin munhwasa, 1977), 6:13743–13766. 28 kjsl, november 25, 1905, 46:32b. 29 see takigawa kametarō 瀧川龜太郞, ed., shiki kaishū kōshō 史記會注考證 [records of the grand historian with collected commentaries and annotations], (taibei: yiwen yinshuguan, n.d. [1932–1934]), vol. 5, chap. 31, pp. 34–44 and vol. 5, chap. 41, pp. 6–14. 30 shi ji 史記 [records of the grand historian] (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1997), 1741. 31 paul cohen has argued that the story of guojian is an exclusively chinese narrative that constitutes “insider cultural knowledge,” but chŏng hongsŏk’s deployment of bo pi in this context suggests that a more cosmopolitan understanding of “insider” may be appropriate. see paul cohen, speaking to history: the story of king guojian in twentieth-century china (berkeley: university of california press, 2010), xix. 32 kjsl, november 29, 1905, 46:42b–44a. 65the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 period. while the wu court was moving toward a capitulation to wei, liu chen called for steadfast resistance, regardless of the cost, as the only honorable and morally acceptable path. liu’s pleas fell on deaf ears and he eventually killed his family and himself in protest.33 ch’oe then moved on to the examples of the first two of the five hegemons of the spring and autumn period, duke huan 桓公 of qi and duke wen 文公 of jin 晉. huan and wen were the very paragons of skillful military might and diplomatic prowess, and cast the kwangmu emperor, presiding over the loss of his empire at the stroke of a pen, in a very poor light indeed. finally, ch’oe invoked yizong 毅宗, the last ming emperor. as rebels breached the palace precincts in 1644, yizong walked into one of his gardens and hung himself from a tree rather than face the humiliation of capture.34 ch’oe asked the kwangmu emperor, “have you alone not heard of the righteousness of yizong of the great ming who sacrificed his life for the altars of the state?”35 normally, the emperor would have made regular offerings at the altars of earth and grain and at the ancestral shrine of the imperial family in order to guarantee bountiful harvests and secure the dynasty. rather than offering a sacrifice of food and wine, ch’oe suggests with this example that best thing the kwangmu emperor could do was to sacrifice himself at the altars of earth and grain, thereby relieving the nation of his incompetence.36 pak, chŏng, and ch’oe’s employment of chinese historical examples was fairly conventional, even if ch’oe’s was rather extreme. there were other officials, however, that moved away from chinese history and instead placed the current dilemma within the context of korean history. yi yongt’ae 李容泰 (1854–?) interpreted the protectorate treaty not only as the end of the 500-year reign of the yi dynasty, but also as the end of the 4,000-year succession of korean states, starting with the legendary national founder tan’gun 檀君 and the sage-king kija 箕子 (c. jizi). the treaty was the ignoble end to millennia of human propriety and righteousness as manifest in the line of korean states from deep antiquity to the present.37 yi namgyu 李南珪 (?–1907) also characterized the treaty as a disaster far larger than the effective dissolution of one state and its occupation by 33 sanguo zhi 三國志 [records of the three kingdoms] (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1997), 900. 34 see frederick wakeman. the great enterprise: the manchu reconstruction of imperial order in the seventeenth century (berkeley: university of california press, 1986), 259–263. 35 kjsl, november 29, 1905, 46:43b. 36 ch’oe ikhyŏn’s age and standing did not insulate him from criticism; his suggestion that the emperor kill himself was met with some consternation from other officials. see the memorial of yi namgyu, kjsl, november 30, 1905, vol. 46: 45a–46a. 37 kjsl, november 26, 1905, 46:36b. 66 korean translations of vietnam: relocating the korean great han empire another; the kwangmu emperor was presiding over a crisis of human civilization itself: china [chungju 中州] has now entirely adopted the same customs as the rest of the world [man’guk 萬國]. now it is only our east [country] [a tong 我東], as the ancient realm of tan’gun and kija, that adheres to the precious teachings of confucius and mencius.38 the tenor of this assertion is reminiscent of the ming nostalgia that was especially prominent in the late chosŏn period in the wake the imjin wars with japan in 1592–1598 and the manchu conquest of northern ming in 1644. rather than lament the loss of the ming empire as the font of human civilization to the savagery of the manchus, yi suggested that “china” has folded before the international community, here expressed as the “myriad countries” (man’guk 萬國). yi’s conservatism—or perhaps, more accurately, his archaism—stands in resistance to a global imperialist aggression that has caused even the birthplace of human civilization to assimilate. now the great han empire, the last haven of humanity, is in danger of imminent collapse. this hybrid sense of situating national/regional history in the context of global currents and history, however, is clearest in a group of memorials that explicitly binds the treaty problem with then contemporary world history. it is in these memorials that the connection to yuenan wangguo shi, then already in circulation among korean educated classes literate in chinese, is the most apparent. kwak chongsŏk 郭鍾錫 (1846–1919) made explicit connections between ancient and contemporary histories in his two memorials in critique of the treaty. the protectorate, kwak argued, will certainly reduce the emperor to a prisoner in his own court, as kwak understood the vietnamese emperors to be confined. worse, kwak continued, was that this elimination of korean imperial authority, so clearly augured by the contemporary vietnamese suffering under french rule, would only decline into disasters akin to those at qingcheng 靑城 and wuguocheng 五國城. it was at qingcheng that the jurchens captured the song emperors huizong and qinzong in 1127, as mentioned above in connection to qin hui. huizong did not live long thereafter, but his son qinzong lived on for decades in captivity and died at wuguocheng.39 even in the best case scenario, kwak foresaw that the emperor would enjoy only an empty title, like the popes at the end of the roman empire or the contemporary 38 kjsl, november 30, 1905, 46:45b. 39 kjsl, december 5, 1905, 46: 49a–49b. wuguocheng (五國城) is also known as wuguocheng (吳國城) or wuguotucheng (吳國頭城). see song shi 宋史 (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1997), 417, 435– 436. 67the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 “king” (wang 王) of vietnam.40 among the darker memorials in protest of the protectorate treaty is that of sin kisŏn 申箕善 (1851–1909).41 sin’s earliest historical reference is the third-century bce general tian dan 田單 of the state of qi. the state of yan 燕 nearly destroyed qi but tian dan, through a variety of audacious ruses and campaigns of disinformation, was able to confuse and distract yan forces. eventually he saved qi from extinction and even restored the territory lost to yan.42 here sin was suggesting that even when there is no hope of victory, exemplar leadership, tenacity, and creativity can rout the enemy and save the country. sin’s deployment of the case of tian dan suggests a certain naïve, if not foolish, optimism in the face of disaster but he keeps himself firmly rooted in a global historical sensibility that links developments in asia to global dynamics while at the same time holding the emperor accountable for the failure of his rule as manifest in the protectorate treaty. sin wrote, the wealth and strength of the great powers of the five continents neither fell from heaven nor emerged from the earth; it is the work of the people that achieved these things. how then can we not ask, ‘what kind of people are they? and what kind of people are we?’43 in a rhetorical turn highly reminiscent of phan boi chau, sin places responsibility squarely at the feet of the throne, the government, and indeed the entirety of the korean people for having allowed the country to sink into such decrepitude. moreover, the metric by which sin measures the failure of the state is not a chinese or even a korean past but rather a global past and present. sin assesses the korean state by the standard of the great powers of the world and concludes that “we will turn out like poland or egypt, or closer, like vietnam or ryūkyū.”44 perhaps thinking that poland and egypt might be too remote to move the emperor to action, sin progressively brings the specter of national collapse closer and closer, from poland in europe, to egypt in africa, to vietnam in southeast asia, to ryūkyū, a neighboring one-time chinese tributary like the chosŏn court. with his final queries, sin takes his argument further by locating koreans in the world for comparison and judgement. it is no longer a matter of whether the present dangers are similar to other past dangers; it is 40 kjsl, december 14, 1905, 46: 53b–54b. 41 kjsl, february 12, 1906, 47:9b–10b. 42 see takigawa kametarō, ed., shiki kaishū kōshō, vol. 8, chap. 82, pp. 1–8. 43 kjsl, february 12, 1906, 47:10a. 44 kjsl, february 12, 1906, 47:10b. 68 korean translations of vietnam: relocating the korean great han empire now about the place of koreans in the world and how they measure up to those of great achievement, those who have built their own edifices of sovereignty. an chonghwa, who would in a few months’ time write the introduction to hyŏn ch’ae’s version of wŏllam mangguk sa discussed earlier, argued in his memorial that the emperor had utterly lost control of his government. the loss of sovereignty as mandated by the protectorate treaty would be a message to the world that the great han empire has ceased to be a country in any meaningful sense. koreans would not be able to expect respect on the world stage because there was no precedent in world history of a country willingly giving up its sovereignty without the slightest resistance. citing increasingly closer examples, an accused the officials who concluded the treaty of turning the han empire into egypt, into india, and finally into vietnam. an used the words “egypt,” “india,” and “vietnam” to function as verbs such that a literal translation might read, “[… they] want to egyptify us, indianize us, vietnamize us!” (yok aegŭp a indo a annam a 欲埃及我印度我安南我). colonies were as much places as they were the result of global historical processes that the great han empire, and the emperor himself, had to recognize and confront with force and purpose. an ended his memorial with a recommendation and a final historical reference located not in the turn-of-the-century global modern but in east asian classical antiquity: i bow before your highness and request an august command to execute these traitors. thereby [your highness may] beg the forgiveness of the people of [this] country. if you newly appoint officials both worthy and responsible and thereby show that this treaty has strayed from your sagely will then this so-called treaty will automatically become invalid. your highness, why are you so afraid that you do not act? if you are unable to do as i have proposed then you will present our 500-year-old altars to earth and grain, and indeed all the people of these three thousand li, to the slaves of slaves. oh, distant azure heaven! how can i bear to speak of this?45 like many of his contemporaries, an called for the emperor to execute those who had negotiated and signed the protectorate treaty and then nullify the treaty as a violation of his will. were the emperor not to do this, an argued, he would in essence deliver the entire country to the japanese, to whom he refers as “the slaves of slaves” (noye chi noye 45 kjsl, november 26, 1905, 46:36a. 69the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 奴隷之奴隷). the altars to earth and grain were physical altars where the king made offerings to the spirits of the earth to ensure good harvests. they thus served as a metaphor for the foundation of the state, for if there is no food there will be no people and if there are no people there can be no state. in the final line, an figuratively turned skyward and pleaded with heaven as he considered the horrid possibilities of the very near future. here he made reference to the fall of the western zhou capital in 771 bce, an event that marks the beginning of the spring and autumn period and heralds the long decline and ultimate collapse of the zhou state. the phrase “oh, distant azure heaven!” (yu yu ch’ang ch’ŏn 悠悠蒼天) comes from a poem from the shijing 詩經 (classic of poetry) in which an eastern zhou official is contemplating the site of the fallen western capital to mourn the past.46 shuffling through the ruins, lost in his own thoughts, he notes that the millet that would have been used for offerings on the state altar is growing to maturity but the state has been destroyed and the altars are no more so the millet remains unoffered. each stanza ends, “oh, distant azure heaven, who is responsible for this?” (you you cang tian ci he ren zai 悠悠蒼天此何人哉).47 this differs only slightly from an’s memorial text which the ends with the line, “oh, distant azure heaven, how can i bear to speak of it?” (yu yu ch’ang ch’ŏn ch’a ha in ŏn che 悠悠蒼 天此何忍言哉).48 an thus posited something of a post-apocalyptic vision in which the foundations of the chosŏn state have been dismantled and former officials, like the former western zhou courtier, shuffle about lost in their own thoughts as though they search for that which can never be regained.49 an employs the reference to the shijing to say what he cannot say himself; it will be the emperor who is ultimately responsible for making an’s vision of ultimate ruin a reality. taken as a whole, the court memorials in protest of the protectorate 46 ruan yuan 阮元, ed., “maoshi zhengyi” 毛詩正義 [orthodox interpretation of the maoshi], in shisan jing zhushu 十三經注疏 [commentaries and notes on the thirteen classics] (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1983), 330–331 (originally published in 1815); li xueqin 李學勤, ed., maoshi zhengyi 毛詩正義 [orthodox interpretation of the maoshi] (beijing: beijing daxue chubanshe, 1998), 252–253; yi kidong 이기동, ed. and trans., sigyŏng kangsŏl 시경 강설 [lectures on the shijing] (seoul: sŏnggyun’gwan taehakkyo ch’ulp’anbu, 2016), 173–175. 47 see ruan yuan, “maoshi zhengyi,” 330; li xueqin, maoshi zhengyi, 253–255; yi kidong, sigyŏng, 175. 48 kjsl, november 26, 1905, 46:36b. 49 in each stanza of the poem an referenced, there is the line, “those who do not know me ask what i am looking for” [bu zhi wo zhe wei he qiu 不知我者謂我何求]. see ruan yuan, “maoshi zhengyi,” 330–331; li xueqin, maoshi zhengyi, 253–255; yi kidong, sigyŏng, 175. 70 korean translations of vietnam: relocating the korean great han empire treaty employ historical precedent from the beginning of the spring and autumn period, the warring states period, the three kingdoms period, the song dynasty, the legendary sage-kings of old chosŏn, and finally cases from across the world in the nineteenth century. the internal workings of these deployments of precedent are largely the same: there was a case in the past, the meaning of which was largely agreed upon, that resembles a case in the present; therefore, the outcome of the present case will resemble that of the past case. in this way there is little worth remarking upon in terms of historical consciousness. there are two shifts, however, that suggest a change in historical thought. the first is that the public sphere as constituted by the lively journalism and translation projects of the period had made a significant impact on the discourse of the imperial court; in effect, the radical had become mainstream. the fact that some individuals travelled in both spheres suggests that the border between the two was permeable and ill-defined. the second is that the scale of historical consciousness had become global. history perceived as worth knowing had expanded from the canon of chinese and korean pasts to include world history, and the then currently unfolding histories of european imperialism in particular. it is worth reiterating that this expansion was inclusive. it was not a matter of understanding the present as having been fundamentally cut off from previously known pasts. indeed, histories from antiquity onward remained useful tools for the interpretation of the present. court discourse remained firmly built upon a classical knowledge that was dynamic and flexible enough to be able to absorb new historical developments and array them in relationship to the catalogue of known cases. korea, vietnam, and the global modern there is a certain analytical danger in examining these korean translations of vietnamese texts, be they in the newspapers of seoul or in the offices of the imperial court. there is a temptation to conclude that intellectuals and courtiers were not aware of a history beyond chinese and korean pasts and that their worlds were shattered by the brute realities of imperialists uninterested in the orthodoxies, histories, literatures, and literacies that formed the foundations of confucian cosmopolitanism. in the varied protest memorials we might draw a distinction between those officials employing precedents from the song or the spring and autumn period, out of touch with the currents of the dawn of the twentieth century, and officials like sin kisŏn, of sufficient intellect and awareness to understand that the past had indeed passed. the work of rebecca karl, ko p’yŏnggwŏn, and o sŏnmin suggest an east asian historiographical space violently expanding during a period 71the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 extending from the middle of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century. ko and o posit the emergence of a consciousness of the international in chosŏn from the 1860s that gave rise to nationalist ideologies, which at the turn of the century spread through texts like the various versions of wŏllam mangguk sa. karl too looks to the qing experiences of the mid-nineteenth and turn of the twentieth centuries to identify a global historical consciousness born of a new understanding of china’s position in the world and in relation to emerging world historical processes. neither ko and o nor karl show much interest in the interplay of existing regimes of historical knowledge and the onslaught of the new. karl suggests that inquiries into continuity and discontinuity are a “red herring,” since qing intellectuals were not any more or less in thrall to interpretations of their own pasts than intellectuals from anywhere else.50 we need not, however, consider extant historiographical practices as burdens. in the great han empire, the court treaty protest movement of 1905–1906 was not burdened or restricted by classical historiographical engagements; they were a resource rather than an impediment. an emergent global understanding of history did not fundamentally transform the architectonics of court historical discourse. the nature of the historiographical enterprise was still to derive precedents for present analysis and predictive models for policy choices. the memorials in protest against the protectorate treaty do not suggest the crumbling of an old paradigm in the face of an insurmountable epistemic challenge, but rather a consideration of new cases, outcomes, and the policy implications they might reveal on the basis of analyses of both ancient and contemporary precedents. these debates, as informed by both the cases of antiquity and the widely circulating korean translations of vietnam and the world at large, are thus not indicative of a clash of tradition and modernity, of the rational and the irrational. this synthesis was a relocation of the great han empire in world historical precedent that was neither a by-product of the diffusion of an alien historical consciousness nor an anti-historical stumble before the telos of a diffusionary modern. it was itself a phenomenon of the modern integration into the larger global transformations of the age. for the memorialists of 1905–1906, knowledge of the geopolitical currents of the world was not an epistemic threat. their historiographical and political practices were not an impediment but rather a dynamic resource capable of rendering legible the world of the turn of the twentieth century.51 50 rebecca karl, staging the world, 8–9. 51 i wish to thank rudolph wagner, russell ó ríagáin, anna larsson, chelsea roden, bradley davis, sung-hyun park, and hyokyoung yi for their patience, encouragement, aid, and remarkable attention to detail. any shortcomings that remain are naturally my own. rudolf wagner, the making of a scholar of his time catherine v. yeh acceptance speech on behalf of rudolf g. wagner on his award of the karl jaspers prize, november 14, 2019, reworked november 25, 2019 dear mr. president, dear mayor, dear members of the heidelberg academy and the university, the awarding of the karl jaspers prize to rudolf wagner is a great honor. he received the news of his winning this prestigious award with excitement and gratitude. today, i represent him in accepting this prize and expressing his heartfelt thanks to the three granting institutions: the city of heidelberg, the university of heidelberg, and the heidelberg academy of sciences. before rudolf wagner passed away in late october, he had already begun to write his speech for accepting this award. sadly, he was unable to complete it. based on his notes, however, i would like to highlight some of his key ideas and thoughts. the first time i met rudolf was in the early 1980s, when he gave a lecture at harvard university, the subject of which was the impact of soviet literature on the works of modern chinese writers. at that time at harvard, this was a very unpopular academic approach to take, as chinese literary studies were singularly focused on understanding chinese culture and literature through an exclusive “chinese lens,” thereby upholding the so-called “china-centered approach.” in stark contrast, rudolf’s lecture emphasized intercultural engagement as the condition underlying the flow of knowledge and literary forms. he argued that the development of literature was through a process of dialogue and its production the result of such interaction. his lecture was a revelation for me. growing up in china, familiar with its contemporary literary scene, it became immediately clear that rudolf’s analysis reflected my own immediate experiences. forty years ago, advocating a transcultural approach made rudolf wagner a relatively singular (and lone) voice in chinese studies. although quite isolated as he struggled against the cultural essentialists in the china field, he never wavered. much of his steadfastness is a reflection of the times in which rudolf came of age. looking back at his scholarly endeavors, the transcultural core is embedded throughout. this transculturalism was not only a question of perspective or the application of a particular methodology, however. rather, it expressed a world outlook, one that embodied a shared heritage 10 rudolf wagner, the making of a scholar of his time of the generation rudolf grew up with in the aftermath of the second world war. many of this generation are intensely committed to a germany that is an integral part of europe, and to understanding the country within a wider global paradigm. as many of his generation, rudolf was intensely anti-nationalistic. rudolf’s commitment to transcultural studies grew out of his interest in and study of hermeneutics, which led to his going to heidelberg university in the 1960s to study with prof. hans-georg gadamer. during the early years of our acquaintance, rudolf first introduced me to the theory of hermeneutics, which was, as he explained it, the attempt to understand phenomena—including events, texts, art, and people—by reconstructing the historical and cultural “horizon” (contexts) from which they had occurred. in other words, ensuring that one’s own time-sensitive world outlook did not come to be imposed upon the interpretation or understanding of the phenomenon being studied, but instead applying historical context and data to reveal that phenomenon’s own inner logic, contradictions, and workings. one’s criticisms and critiques—which necessarily reflect the concerns of one’s own time—had therefore to be based upon this historical context and cultural understanding. hermeneutics thus provided a whole generation of scholars with a methodological means to break out of the “prison house of nationalism,” and to become critically engaged in the study of other peoples, cultures, and pasts. it is not hard to see the link between hermeneutics and transculturalism: both require that any study or investigation have no particular set of social concerns or values imposed up-front upon them, such as the nationalism inherent in using a “chinese centered approach.” the scholarly commitment inherent in both is shaped by the set and type of questions being raised as the means to elicit answers from the past, the present, and even the future. such a commitment offers the topic under investigation channels of communication and creates space for dialogue with the object of study. as rudolf often stressed, when one imposes questions driven by one’s own ideological commitment, the subject under study will respond with silence. the link between rudolf wagner’s world outlook and transcultural scholarly tendencies and karl jasper’s philosophical contribution is clear. in rudolf’s unfinished acceptance speech, he begins by establishing this link by talking about the cluster building and the cluster’s legacy: when you come to the building of the cluster, you will see a sign at the door: the karl jaspers centre. when we founded the cluster, karl jaspers was, from the beginning, in the select choice of those scholars after whom we wanted to name the building. in this respect, my current scientific activity in heidelberg centre for transcultural studies is directly connected with the name karl jaspers. 11the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) specifically, rudolf points to jaspers’s axial age concept and identifies jaspers with the beginning of consecutive philosophy: with the concept of axial age (achsenzeit), jaspers argued in 1949 that greece, india, and china—at about the same time—were undergoing a deep spiritual transformation, the result of which was the origin of philosophy. apparently independent of each other, these three cultures each developed new conceptual apparatuses that would shape the subsequent centuries and millennia. jaspers proposed a unified history of mankind in which the three founding cultures of eurasia moved in the same rhythm without hierarchy or interdependence.1 rudolf further emphasizes the historical setting of jaspers’s theory and its significance as well as limitations: this thesis had already been presented during the war by alfred weber in his das tragische und die geschichte [the tragic and history], but it met with little response.2 neither weber nor jaspers developed a philosophical argumentation for this coincidence of cultures. the main intention of their argumentation was apparently to point to the similarity of these developments and thus to refute eurocentric notions of a european superiority. jaspers helped articulate a unified history of humanity without hierarchy, but as a product of its time, neither jaspers nor alfred weber offered any explanation or philosophical derivation. the approach pursued by jaspers is in this respect comparative. he did not pursue the possible connections between the three cultures that could have resulted in exchange processes. it may be argued that any written sources are missing so that the question could not be answered. on the other hand, the connections across eurasia are so well documented in the sixth and fifth centuries bce that this possibility cannot be ruled out and, as gadamer so beautifully said, philosophy is so exciting because it raises the questions that cannot be answered.3 1 karl jaspers, vom ursprung und ziel der geschichte (munich: piper, 1949), 18–42; karl jaspers, the origin and goal of history, trans. michael bullock (london: routledge & kegan paul, 1953), 1–21. 2 alfred weber, das tragische und die geschichte (munich: piper, 1943). 3 thomas sturm, “‘rituale sind wichtig’: hans-goerg gadamer über chancen und grenzen der philosphie,” der spiegel 2000.8 (feburary 21, 2000): 305. 12 rudolf wagner, the making of a scholar of his time putting aside the issue of possible connections between these cultures and refusing to engage with “cheap criticism of the sinological and indological sources used by jaspers,” wagner wanted to devote his talk to methodological questions. the intentionality of jaspers’s approach is well illustrated by a parallel one. at present there are extensive discussions about the question of modernity. as opposed to a triumphant narrative of a european conquest of the world through institutions, concepts, and practices, some scientists attempt to develop a theory of multiple modernities. this theory assumes that in different societies modernity originates from inner sources and that exchange factors are only secondary. here, we have a situation with overwhelming source material on transcultural exchange processes; however, due to social and political considerations and motivations, scholars deliberately treat them as secondary. the presence or absence of source material does not seem to be the deciding factor. to fully understand the reasons behind jaspers’s comparative approach, one must situate his thinking in the period within which he lived—a time when the call for looking at the world as one entity was being loudly articulated by writers, philosophers, and politicians alike: the historical context of jaspers’s book may provide a key. he wrote it in germany in the immediate post-war period and such a book would have been in itself a political statement at that time. similar to the period after world war i, when president wilson’s ideas about sovereignty, democracy, and peace spread in the midst of the carnage of the war and reached peoples and social strata that were not previously considered active participants in world affairs, we see a worldwide desire for a peaceful post-war order. a good example of this is the book one world by wendell willkie from 1943.4 willkie was the opponent of president roosevelt in his 1940 election campaign, where he pleaded for an isolationist course of the united states. his actual political attitude, however, was internationalist. after roosevelt’s election victory, the president sent his opponent on a world tour through the war zones. his book, distributed in millions, described a world 4 wendell l. willkie, one world (new york: simon and schuster, 1943). 13the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) in which peoples claim an active role in world politics whose voice had so far had little importance.5 this was also the time of the founding of the united nations, where the ideal of “one world” was institutionally put into practice, including in 1948 with the drafting and passing of the universal declaration of human rights as commissioned by the newly formed un. meanwhile, in europe, in the peace (german title: der friede), written in 1943 during the second world war by 5 rudolf wagner, “wendell willkie, competing for the us presidency with f. d. roosevelt in 1940 on an isolationist platform, switched sides after his defeat, and was sent off by fdr in a government plane to present a survey of the state of the world. in a fine example of the importance of war in transcultural interactions, he came back with the assessment that the people all over the world, including the colonies, had awoken, were ready for, and eager for a cooperation and development within ‘one world.’ his book, which was wildly popular in the us at the time because given the strict censorship it presented a very rare first hand report about many sites of war (egypt, russia, china), actually is the first to come up with the term ‘united nations’.” email to monica juneja and catherine yeh, december 16, 2014. fig. 1:  frontispiece of the sixth printing of the first editions of  wendell l. wilkie’s one world (1943). 14 rudolf wagner, the making of a scholar of his time ernst jünger and published abroad in 1947, the author pronounces the coming of a new european post-war order that will be built upon the friendship and alliance between france and germany.6 this one world idea and ideal emerged out of the short-lived historical window that briefly opened at the end of world war ii, but shut with the onset of the cold war in the 1950s, and was subsequently forgotten. the end of the cold war in the late 1980s caused its resurgence. central to this “one world” reawakening has been the role of the globalization of media. rudolf’s acceptance speech notes further reflect his critique of the weakness—due to its intrinsic arbitrariness—of the comparative studies approach used most widely in the social sciences. in response, and as heir to karl jaspers’s legacy of creating a unified history of mankind, the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context” offers a new approach. building on jaspers’s philosophical outlook, this approach examines history through the transcultural investigation of the dynamic engagements between cultures. using evidence-based research and fruitful collaboration across fields for which transculturality has long been a given (e.g. linguistics, epidemiology, studies on ancient dna of humans, plants, animals, and pests, as well as climate history, archaeology), the cluster has catalyzed and broadened the application of transcultural studies, including into newly emerging academic fields. within this context, it has helped to expand the study of culture beyond the constraints of its text/image/object focus. as outlined by rudolf, the first step the cluster took in initiating this new transcultural studies approach was to explore the theoretical framework of the dynamics of asymmetric cultural flow. of greatest relevance for the humanities in general and transcultural studies in particular, this framework is a tool for the exploration of human perception and the agency released by it. as rudolf argues elsewhere, the dynamism of asymmetric cultural flow is generated by the perceived asymmetry in the functionality (an umbrella term for suitability to the given purpose) of information available to the two sides and, thus mobilized, the agency needed on the local level to overcome it. this approach helps shed light on the very processes of the revitalization of culture through engagement. the issue asymmetric cultural flow confronts is the arbitrariness of the method of comparative cultural studies. in contrast, the transcultural method of studying the dynamics within the historical processes of cultural transformation and change, helps reveal the hidden interaction and the very dynamism brought to the processes through local agency. “the use of this concept is therefore an abstract modern formulation that still qualifies as hermeneutic because it is taking up this internal dynamics rather than being 6 ernst jünger, der friede: ein wort an die jugend europas; ein wort an die jugend der welt (n.p.: self published, 1945 × 1947). 15the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) an ex post facto imposed concept such as those used by the social sciences for comparative purposes.”7 the second step taken by the cluster was to challenge the notion of the nation-state as an analytical model within transcultural studies, where by default culture was seen and defined within the prism of national borders. using the metaphor of the “trees and the forest,” rudolf introduced a new paradigm. in a lecture he gave in november 2018 at the cluster, rudolf elaborated on the reason for using the “trees and forest” metaphor in discussing and studying cultures, “because their relationship provides a good model for analyzing the dynamic relationship between culture (the forest) and cultures (the trees) instead of focusing on the particular relationship between some given cultures and pondering the vast bestiary of concepts (métissage, entanglement, etc.) developed to somehow catch their elusive relationship.” the inspiration for rudolf came from peter wohlleben’s the hidden life of trees (2016).8 the advantage of applying this metaphor to transcultural studies is that it highlights the dependency of knowledge and its understanding on the overall framework of analysis being used. it asks in what ways do a forest’s trees and other organisms interact, and through this interaction, produce results inaccessible to the isolated examination of just one given tree. it furthermore reveals the range of interactions by, amongst, and with all the other organisms within the forest, the all-encompassing interconnective nature and mutually interactive impact of the “wood wide web” lying beneath the forest floor, and the diverse factors driving each. the potential harvest for transcultural studies includes the direct application of this forest/culture metaphor as a dynamic interactive process, where the “wood wide web” corresponds to a cultural worldwide web, web processes are self-regulatory, and interactions are largely invisible, and occur in many different forms and languages. both webs are held together by a common origin, a continuous interaction in all domains, the need to find responses to challenges, and the common destiny of mortality. the forest’s/culture’s main constituents—discrete trees/cultures—are no longer stand-alone units, but interconnected and mutually interactive. their lifeline and vitality are as part of a larger dynamic ecosystem. stand-alone trees have low survival rates and life expectancies. their ontogenesis is an ongoing process that comes with constant renewal, which in turn drives and sustains on-going interactions. 7 rudolf wagner, “asymmetry in transcultural interaction,” in engaging transculturality: concepts, key terms, case studies, edited by laila abu-er-rub et al. (abingdon: routledge, 2019) 15–38. 8 peter wohlleben, the hidden life of trees: what they feel, how they communicate: discoveries from a secret world, trans. jane billinghurst (vancouver: greystone books, 2016). 16 rudolf wagner, the making of a scholar of his time for rudolf, the benefits of this new paradigm for transcultural studies include the forest/trees metaphor as the model of processes driven by internal dynamics rather than the exercise of “power.” while disbalancing asymmetries constantly occur (e.g. fires, human forestry, pests without natural enemies/ epidemics, occupation of lands, monopoly, concentration of innovation, etc.) and may give individual actors an inordinately large influence for a short time, the self-regulatory mechanism of the wider web usually generates responses that effectively flatten these asymmetries over time. the understanding that emerges is that all cultures are subsets of a worldwide process of culture, thus moving transcultural interaction from an awkward footnote to the center of research, and from a binary comparative model to that of a multi-layered global interaction.9 finally, rudolf’s acceptance speech notes posit that the third step the proponents of transcultural studies could take would be the development of a theoretical framework for the study of “the world we live in.” in other words, our exploration of the duality of nature and culture should be founded upon the premise that we all live within one connected and shared environment. thus the need, going forward, for transcultural studies to adopt a wider, ecosystem embedded (as opposed to anthropocene biased) view of our history, culture, and totality. my last point centers on what made rudolf’s scholarship and personality so extraordinarily lively and creative—his capacity for and joy in fantasy. it was rudolf who first introduced me to the lord of the rings and star wars. rudolf’s fantastical capacity opened up myriads of pathways that provided him with different perspectives of understanding, gave him the freedom to discover alien worlds, and created alternate spaces to explore new ideas that initially might seem a bit outlandish, but over time might also yield great harvests. given his immense knowledge and learning, rudolf’s ability to imagine without constraint or fear—spanning from the wondrous to the absurd—brought to the scholarly world something unique, unparalleled, and identifiably all his own. we have deeply benefitted from rudolf wagner’s commitment to and the development of transcultural studies, including the approach and methodology that underpin it. today, rudolf’s thinking has been largely accepted by the young generation of scholars trained in different area studies and academic disciplines. the establishment of the cluster—of which he was one of the founding members—was a critically important advancement in the institutional recognition, acceptance, and spread of transcultural studies. 9 rudolf wagner’s lecture, “of trees and the wood, cultures and culture,” given at the international workshop: “recalibrating culture – reconfiguring the (trans-)cultural,” heidelberg centre for transcultural studies, university of heidelberg, november 22–23, 2018. in this lecture, wagner also discussed in great detail “the culture of nature,” which i did not include in this article. 17the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) we will all miss you my beloved friend and intellectual partner. the void you left behind cannot be filled. but we will carry on, and through our continuing efforts in the field of transcultural studies, we will strive to stay true to and advance your philosophical approach, and in doing so, stay close to you. t h e j o u r n a l o f 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) heidelberg university publishing transcultural s t u d i e s 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) t h e j o u r n a l o f transcultural s t u d i e s editorial note diamantis panagiotopoulos and michael radich vi articles anne ring petersen transculturality, postmigration, and the imagining of a new sense of belonging 1 themed section: fluid mediterranean memories katia pizzi the granular texture of memory: trieste between mitteleuropa and the mediterranean 34 gianmarco mancosu sardinian, italian, mediterranean: the significance of cagliari’s liminality in post-war documentaries and newsreels 48 joseph mcgonagle transculturality in algiers: the cinema of merzak allouache 67 iiithe journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) editors: monica juneja, global art history joachim kurtz, intellectual history diamantis panagiotopoulos, classical archaeology michael radich, buddhist studies rudolf g. wagner†, chinese studies managing editor: sophie florence editorial board: christiane brosius, antje fluechter, madeleine herren, birgit kellner, axel michaels, barbara mittler, vladimir tikhonov, and roland wenzlhuemer editorial assistants: kush depala, joshua elwer, and mhairi montgomery the journal of transcultural studies is edited at the heidelberg centre for transcultural studies (hcts) and published by heidelberg university publishing. the journal is freely available at http://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/ (open access). issn: 2191-6411 iv contributors contributors to this issue: anne ring petersen is professor at the department of arts and cultural studies at the university of copenhagen. her research focuses on installation art, transculturality in contemporary art, and the interrelations between art, migration, postmigration, and globalization. her recent publications include the co-authored book reframing migration, diversity and the arts: the postmigrant condition with moritz schramm et al. (routledge, 2019), the co-edited anthology the culture of migration: politics, aesthetics and histories with sten p. moslund and moritz schramm (i.b. tauris, 2015), as well as the monographs migration into art: transcultural identities and art-making in a globalised world (manchester university press, 2017) and installation art: between image and stage (museum tusculanum press, 2015). her current research project, togetherness in difference: reimagining identities, communities and histories through art (2019–), combines postmigrant and transcultural perspectives to explore how contemporary artists grapple with the conflictual societal dynamics that are integral to the evolving sociocultural diversity of europe. katia pizzi is the director of the italian cultural institute in london and senior lecturer in italian studies at the institute of modern languages research, school of advanced study, university of london. dr. pizzi has published extensively on the history and memory of the upper adriatic region, including the books trieste. una frontiera letteraria (vita activa, 2019), trieste: italianità, triestinità e male di frontiera (gedit, 2007), and a city in search of an author: the literary identity of trieste (sheffield academic press, 2001). dr. pizzi’s research interests also span modern and contemporary italian literature, european modernism, and technology and culture. her most recent book is italian futurism and the machine (manchester university press, 2019). gianmarco mancosu received his first doctorate in italian colonial history at the university of cagliari (2015) and has successfully defended his second doctoral thesis at the university of warwick (2020). his research interests include italian colonial history and culture, production of films about the fascist empire and decolonization, the post-colonial presence of italian communities in africa, and the cultural memories and legacies of colonialism in modern and contemporary italy. dr. mancosu has published extensively on these topics and is currently working on a monograph that explores fascist film propaganda about the ethiopian war. he was luisa selis research fellow at the centre for the study of cultural memory (school of advanced study, university of london, 2018) where he studied the history and various vthe journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) belongings of sardinian migrant communities in europe, and worked as a research assistant for the project “the dialectics of modernity: modernism, modernization, and the arts under european dictatorships” (university of manchester, 2018). he is currently cultore della materia (assistant) in modern and contemporary history at the university of cagliari. joseph mcgonagle is senior lecturer in cultural studies in the french-speaking world at the university of manchester. he is the author of representing ethnicity in contemporary french visual culture (manchester university press, 2017) and co-author, with edward welch, of contesting views: the visual economy of france and algeria (liverpool university press, 2013). he was principal investigator for the arts and humanities research council funded project, “post-colonial negotiations: visualising the franco-algerian relationship in the post-war period” (2008–11) and cocurator of the “new cartographies: algeria–france–uk” exhibition held at cornerhouse, manchester in 2011. his research has been published in multiple journals including: studies in european cinema, studies in french cinema, french cultural studies, journal of romance studies, and l’esprit créateur. transculturality in algiers: the cinema of merzak allouache joseph mcgonagle thanks to its rich and diverse history, the city of algiers is undoubtedly a privileged site of transculturality. this was certainly the case in the french colonial period when, as zeynep çelik argues, colonial algeria was the most important but most problematic of the french overseas territories and constituted “the colonial city par excellence, the terrain of many battles— cultural, political, military, urban, architectural.”1 furthermore, as martin evans and john phillips point out: “french rule in algeria lasted for 132 years, as opposed to 75 years in tunisia and 44 in morocco, a depth and duration of colonial experience unique within the arab world.”2 as a consequence, france “remains an omnipresent feature of algeria,” and the complexity of its historical legacy helps ensure that algeria is “the most francophone of france’s former territories.”3 crucially, the bay of algiers forms a major economic maritime hub. as tom trevor has asserted regarding port cities more broadly, such spaces provide “symbolic sites of cultural exchange. they are the points of entry and departure, the mouth of an imagined body of the nation-state, where the foreign gets muddled up with the familiar and land-locked certainty is blurred by maritime exchange.”4 given that algiers is bordered by the mediterranean sea, trevor’s argument pertains all the more, as the profound cultural and linguistic diversity of this geographical space “encourages a reshuffling of the usual cards of national belonging and unilateral framing.”5 as the capital city and seat of state power, algiers has played a pivotal role in the formation of algeria as a nation and the development of algerian cultural identity. accordingly, it has functioned as an important site in both maghrebi and french visual culture: the city inspired many painters throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and has drawn the attention of filmmakers 1 zeynep çelik, urban forms and colonial confrontations: algiers under french rule (berkeley: university of california press, 1997), 1. 2 martin evans and john phillips, algeria: anger of the dispossessed (new haven: yale university press, 2007), 27. 3 evans and phillips, algeria, 28. 4 tom trevor, “introduction,” in port city: on mobility and exchange, ed. tom trevor (bristol: arnolfini, 2007), 14. 5 iain chambers, “the mediterranean: a postcolonial sea,” third text 18, no. 5 (2006): 427. 68 transculturality in algiers both during french colonial rule and since independence.6 the predominance of the city in the national imagination is reflected in algerian cinema, for which the capital and its surrounding region have often provided a setting. indeed, out of all algerian cities, it is surely unrivaled in this regard, and due to the global notoriety of films such as la bataille d’alger (the battle of algiers),7 algiers may, for foreign audiences, seem synonymous with algeria as a whole. although research on the role of cities in film now covers a multitude of countries and continents, the ways in which algerian cities have been depicted on screen have been comparatively overlooked. this is all the more curious given that algeria is africa’s largest country by landmass and its strategic geopolitical importance has only increased with attempts to combat islamist terrorism in the post-9/11 era. while there have been many studies of key historical films set in algiers, these studies have focused on elements of the city’s urban geography, and analysis has often been limited to discrete individual examples rather than a detailed survey of a wider corpus of works. by interrogation of a primary corpus of films set in algiers spanning five decades, this article builds on previous scholarship and provides a longitudinal focus that allows greater consideration of how representations of algiers have evolved. furthermore, since algiers lies on the southern shore of the mediterranean, representations of the algerian capital can provide a broader insight into how spaces within the mediterranean region have been depicted. moreover, as chambers argues, works hailing from southern shores can challenge normative perceptions that emanate from the north by approaching the mediterranean as “a critical space, a site of interrogations and unsuspected maps of meaning.”8 equally, “a north viewed from the south of the world represents not a simple overturning but, rather, a revaluation of the terms employed and the distinctions that have historically constructed the contrasts and the complexities of this space.”9 close scrutiny of such works therefore has the potential to challenge dominant eurocentric assumptions about the mediterranean region. in order to explore this further, this article concentrates on a select corpus of films by one of the most important algerian directors working today: merzak allouache. described as “the most prolific filmmaker to stem from 6 nadira laggoune, alger dans la peinture (algiers: régie sud méditerranée, 2000). 7 the battle of algiers, directed by gillo pontecorvo (algiers: casbah film, 1966). 8 iain chambers, mediterranean crossings: the politics of an interrupted modernity (durham, nc: duke university press, 2008), 34. 9 chambers, mediterranean crossings, 34. 69the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) the maghreb,”10 allouache’s work has undoubtedly achieved greater global recognition than that of any other contemporary algerian director. with a career now spanning more than five decades, allouache occupies a unique position within algerian cinema. given his focus on algerian society, his oeuvre collectively provides an unparalleled portrait of life for multiple generations within post-colonial algeria. his birthplace of algiers has been a key setting throughout his films, and through analysis of five feature-length works from across his career—ranging from his debut omar gatlato (1976)11 to les terrasses (the rooftops) (2015)12—this article probes the ways in which allouache’s representation of this pivotal port city has evolved over time and seeks to gauge how he has configured the algerian capital on screen for both domestic and international audiences. in doing so, it will analyze some of allouache’s recent films that have yet to attract substantial critical attention. these recent films constitute a distinct phase in his oeuvre thanks to their acute focus on a series of pressing social and political questions facing algiers and algeria more widely. as noted above, due to its history, geographical position, and political significance, algiers has provided a forum for myriad forms of transcultural exchange. but to what extent do allouache’s films present the city on screen as a transcultural space, and what role does transculturality play in these cinematic depictions? by closely examining five of his key films set in the algerian capital, this article explores how the revered director engages with notions of the transcultural within his cinematic visions of the city. before turning to these films, however, the precise notion of “transcultural” deployed herein must be clarified. in her work on transcultural memories, astrid erll defines transcultural as “an umbrella term for what in other academic contexts might be described with concepts of the transnational, diasporic, hybrid, syncretistic, postcolonial, translocal, creolized, global, or cosmopolitan.”13 such a purposefully broad interpretation of the term is preferred here for two reasons. first, it enables as many qualifying elements as possible across allouache’s oeuvre to be identified and analyzed together— elements that may otherwise escape attention. second, it facilitates engagement with erll’s wider argument regarding travel and memory, which acknowledges that “in the production of cultural memory, people, media, mnemonic forms, 10 roy armes, african filmmaking: north and south of the sahara (edinburgh: edinburgh university press, 2006), 98. 11 omar gatlato, directed by merzak allouache (algiers: office national pour le commerce et l’industrie cinématographique, 1976). 12 les terrasses, directed by merzak allouache (algiers: baya films, 2015). 13 astrid erll, “travelling memory,” parallax 17, no. 4 (2011): 9. 70 transculturality in algiers contents, and practices are in constant, unceasing motion.”14 furthermore, as abu-er-rub et al. argue, “one of the principal assumptions of transcultural studies has been that a ‘culture’ is constituted by processes of interaction, circulation, and reconfiguration,” and therefore “culture is constantly changing, moving, adapting—and is doing this through contact and exchange beyond real or perceived borders.”15 such a perspective of transculturality is particularly suitable for cinema given the medium’s specificities of production, distribution, and circulation, all of which are characterized by transnational collaboration and the crossing of borders both physical and virtual. moreover, by means of a holistic view of this important transcultural element of allouache’s oeuvre, this article explores how his representation of algiers evolves over time as his engagement with transcultural elements shifts in line with wider political and societal imperatives. before proceeding further, a brief overview of allouache’s career to date is necessary. born in 1944 in algiers, allouache studied filmmaking at the institut national du cinéma before moving to france, where he continued his studies at the renowned institut des hautes études cinématographiques and graduated in 1967.16 he subsequently returned to algeria, where he made several short films before directing his first feature-length film, omar gatlato (1976). omar gatlato brought allouache commercial success and helped to establish his reputation as a key commentator on life in contemporary algeria. a steady output over the next two decades followed, including films made on both sides of the mediterranean. the events of the “black decade” (1992–2002), however, forced many filmmakers to cease operations as violent conflict raged in algeria.17 this period of prolonged armed warfare began after the cancellation of legislative elections in december 1991, in which the islamic salvation front (fis) party looked set to gain power by defeating the ruling national liberation front (fln). the algerian military seized control of the government, the fis was banned, and there were widespread arrests of fis members. in response, islamist fighters began a guerrilla campaign against the government and army that would endure throughout the 1990s and lead to the loss of many thousands of lives. remarkably, despite this climate of violence and terror, allouache completed his film bab el-oued city (1994) 14 erll, “travelling memory,” 12. 15 laila abu-er-rub, christiane brosius, sebastian meurer, diamantis panagiotopoulos, and susan richter, “introduction: engaging transculturality,” in engaging transculturality: concepts, key terms, case studies, ed. laila abu-er-rub, christiane brosius, sebastian meurer, diamantis panagiotopoulos, and susan richter (london: routledge, 2019), xxiii. 16 darren waldron, “from critique to compliance: images of ethnicity in salut cousin (1996) and chouchou (2003),” studies in european cinema 4, no. 1 (2007): 37. 17 guy austin, algerian national cinema (manchester: manchester university press, 2012), 29. 71the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) during the spring of 1993 in algiers.18 his achievements were duly recognized at the 1994 cannes film festival, where the film received the fipresci prize. allouache was based chiefly in paris thereafter, and the 2000s were notable due to the significant commercial success he achieved—especially in france—with his comedy chouchou (2003).19 his filmography now comprises well over a dozen feature-length films, including his latest release, enquête au paradis (investigating paradise) (2018).20 omar gatlato (1976) returning now to the beginning of allouache’s career and to his debut featurelength film set in algiers, omar gatlato (1976), is a landmark of algerian cinema. the film broke domestic records, attracting over 300,000 viewers at the box office.21 it broke with established codes in algerian cinema by depicting everyday life in the algerian capital in the mid-1970s and heralded the director’s recurrent focus on daily lived experience in the city, especially for working-class characters. the use of humor and light relief in this film would become a trademark of many of allouache’s subsequent films. furthermore, as viola shafik notes, omar gatlato’s “young protagonists speak a slang typical of the capital’s youth.”22 by embracing the local specificities of language in the city rather than deploying a “cleansed colloquial arabic, without taking local dialects and vernaculars into account,”23 the film signaled a further break from cinematic convention at a time when the state’s policy on language in education and society was one of arabization. allouache’s choice thereby illustrates how language in post-colonial algeria, particularly the choice of language, is always political. a series of early establishing shots immediately introduce the location where the film’s eponymous protagonist lives, which is high above the city center in a cluster of tenements above algiers known as bab el-oued. the use of direct address to the camera by the protagonist, omar, in this opening sequence sets the tone for the film as a whole, as he remains the sole narrator and chief point of focalization. audiences therefore discover the city via omar, although it is telling that the emphasis is immediately placed not on exterior spaces but interior ones. by means of a series of medium shots of 18 bab el-oued city, directed by merzak allouache (algiers: flash-back audiovisuel, 1994). 19 chouchou, directed by merzak allouache (paris: canal+, 2003). 20 enquête au paradis, directed by merzak allouache (paris: les asphofilms, 2018). 21 roy armes, postcolonial images: studies in north african film (bloomington: indiana university press, 2005), 105. 22 viola shafik, arab cinema: history and cultural identity (cairo: american university in cairo press, 2007), 84. 23 shafik, arab cinema, 84. 72 transculturality in algiers omar resting on his bed within a small room in his home, allouache highlights the problem of overcrowding in local housing, a problem that becomes even more evident as omar introduces the many family members with whom he lives. although there is no direct point of comparison, from the beginning of the film there is a strong sense that omar’s experiences are representative of many others within the wider city and that the film provides a realistic portrait of life for such families in the mid-1970s. this undoubtedly explains part of the film’s resonance and appeal among domestic audiences. by having omar introduce, one by one, a range of different individuals who make up his social circle—family members, friends, acquaintances, and colleagues—allouache paints a decidedly intimate portrait of daily life in algiers and emphasizes social interaction and the city as lived space. indeed, as the above-mentioned theme of overcrowding may indicate, the struggle for the inhabitants of the city to live comfortably is a leitmotif of the film, later reinforced in scenes on packed public transport. although omar’s likeable personality and humorous tone lend a playful feel to the film, allouache does not shy away from depicting social problems in algiers. for example, on more than one occasion omar warns about the prevalence of pickpockets, and in one sinister sequence he and a friend become victims of a violent street robbery when walking home one night. the recurrent use of direct camera address to break the fourth wall and several long shots showing packed auditoria accentuate the sense that allouache’s film holds a mirror up to algerian society. this theme of representation pervades the film, including such examples as omar’s penchant for listening to music on cassette tapes and recording songs while visiting the cinema, scenes featuring musicians playing chaâbi (a popular style often associated with algiers), and the theatrical and mime performances curtailed by a restless audience. an extended sequence at the cinema in which omar watches a hindi film—and surreptitiously records songs from the soundtrack on his prized cassette recorder—is notable for the amount of time the camera is trained on the projection screen. aside from providing a mise-en-abîme, thereby highlighting the filmmaking process and spectatorship itself, the sight of an auditorium packed with so many young audience members suggests their generation’s thirst for a diverse variety of cultural representations, particularly representations emanating from beyond europe and the west. given that french decolonization had only ended just over a decade earlier and that any residual enthusiasm for french culture or language is apparently absent from omar gatlato, the choice of a hindi film for this scene is even more pointed. it suggests a profound rupture with the past, as well as a youthful generation, represented by omar, that has already developed transcultural affiliations that bypass the linguistic and cultural legacies of french colonialism. as such, it provides a vivid reminder of david macdougall’s argument that “cultural 73the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) difference is at best a fragile concept, often undone by perceptions that create sudden affinities between ourselves and others apparently so different from us.”24 in terms of popular culture, allouache’s inference seems clear: it is not artists and works from the north that capture this generation’s imagination, but those from the east. regarding the depiction of different generations within algiers, the film adopts a marked tone of irreverence towards older members of society. this helps distinguish the young majority from their elder fellow citizens and implies a clear divergence of outlook and experience. a lengthy sequence at omar’s workplace shows his confrontation with a furious older man sent there to reclaim items for his jewelry business and is a strong illustration of the above-mentioned language politics. as his anger mounts at omar’s impassiveness, the man chooses to conduct his condescending diatribe in french—presumably to connote social prestige—although he eventually reverts to arabic in exasperation. a later scene evokes algiers’s history. when omar’s uncle tahar recounts his supposed military exploits during the war of independence against france, omar is quick to point out his lies. by providing such a wry look at algerian society, allouache’s iconoclastic approach suggests that younger algerians are not prepared to remain deferent to their elders and, crucially, are unafraid to challenge their authority. omar gatlato’s representation of gender in algiers is striking. given that the film’s emphasis remains largely on omar and on men more generally, the city space is constructed as male. women are only fleetingly glimpsed, and little insight is provided into their experience. this emphasis on men and masculinity is far from celebratory, however, as indicated by omar’s sudden tears while on a drunken night out with his friend mo. the rather somber tone here hints at a broader unhappiness with his situation, and his predicament indicates a masculinity in crisis due to wider societal transformations.25 the young generation of men that omar represents seem fundamentally unsure of their place and are effectively infantilized by society, hence the importance placed on his discovery of an unknown woman’s recordings on the tape cassette player he borrows from mo. the fascination he quickly develops for this woman, who becomes known as selma, signals a yearning for an emotional life and a private space beyond the family home, highlighting the lack of such personal relationships in the diegesis. that he ultimately does not show up at their appointed rendezvous at the film’s end reinforces this absence, though a subsequent voice-over assuring us that he will call her again augurs hope that omar can conquer his indecision and achieve happiness. nevertheless, a sense 24 david macdougall, transcultural cinema (princeton: princeton university press, 1998), 245. 25 andrea khalil, “the myth of masculinity in the films of merzak allouache,” journal of north african studies 12, no. 3 (2007): 329–345. 74 transculturality in algiers of ambiguity remains, as rather than projecting into the future, the film instead ends as it began. by returning to its opening setting, showing omar seated on his bed and putting on his shoes to go to work, the film suggests that he may remain trapped in the same cycle, without any change on the horizon. as allouache’s affectionate portrait of life in algiers ends, this enigma remains. by contrast, the confidence with which allouache portrays life within the algerian capital is indisputable. his early engagement with the politics of language and of representation in the decade following french decolonization reveals several key contours of transculturality in the city, while equally emphasizing their attendant effects upon city dwellers. though the portrait provided of algiers asserts distinct local specificities, the city is nevertheless characterized as inherently hybrid, multilingual, and post-colonial—perhaps even transcultural par excellence. bab el-oued city (1994) moving now to the early 1990s and a second defining film in allouache’s career, bab el-oued city (1994) captures the spirit of another era in algiers. the film is set mainly in the spring of 1989, and centers its action in the historically working-class and largely residential area of bab el-oued. the choice of time-period here is particularly significant since it allows the film to explore the tensions of the notorious repression that followed the october 1988 riots. as such, the film points forward to the black decade, which—as stated previously—would have devastating consequences in the city and across algeria. those working in the media and cultural sectors were singled out as targets of attack, so that any successful filming in the city during this period seemed improbable. bab el-oued city would consequently become one of the best-known depictions of life in algiers during this conflict. although aspects of the film’s style and approach hark back to allouache’s debut work, a series of changes enable the film to explore a greater plurality of experiences in the algerian capital, and as such provide a representative portrait of algerian society as the black decade loomed. by bookending the film with opening and closing scenes set three years after the main events—both before and after the violence and terror of the 1990s had commenced—the film serves as a warning of the violence to come as well as an expression of grief over its occurrence. as will become clear through its acute focus on algiers and algerian society, even greater space is made in this film to explore transculturality in the city via history, memory, and exile. the opening scene shows yamina, a young woman, alone inside a darkened room. as she writes a letter to her lover boualem, it is revealed that he has been absent for three years. jumping back in time to spring 1989, the film then explains the reasons for his departure. the subsequent scene immediately introduces boualem himself as he commits an act of frustration 75the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) that triggers a wave of action throughout the film. unable to sleep one morning due to the noise emanating from a loudspeaker outside his home, he rushes onto his building’s rooftop to remove it. the loudspeaker is used by the local imam to broadcast to residents and so its theft immediately attracts the ire of saïd, yamina’s overtly pious and supposedly devout brother. saïd vows to find the person responsible and reconnect the loudspeaker, and his mission forms a main thread of the film’s plot. the dramatic force of this situation is accentuated by the fact that these men represent parallel opposites: whereas boualem, who works night shifts at a local bakery, is humble and easy-going, saïd styles himself as a religious and moral authority, and his behavior gestures towards aspects of the militant islamism that would become so prevalent in the following decade. the range of the wider cast of characters represents the different backgrounds and perspectives within algerian society during this period, and the community they form can thereby stand for the nation more broadly. in terms of representations of the urban geography of algiers, there are readily apparent similarities to omar gatlato. once again, the focus remains resolutely on the local buildings and streets where residents live, and several scenes take place within the realms of work and home. the use of on-location shooting within the wider city similarly adds a documentary quality to several scenes. while there is again a general absence of key landmarks, it is noticeable that colonial french architecture can easily be glimpsed in contrast: namely, la grande poste (the main post office) and the catholic basilica of notre-dame d’afrique. moreover, allouache pointedly explores further transcultural links to this colonial past via a series of amusing scenes showing a french couple visiting algiers. while escorting his blind elderly aunt—a former piednoir (colonial settler) in french algeria—around the city, monsieur paulo describes to her how it looks today. the disjuncture between monsieur paulo’s enthusiastic descriptions and what is revealed by the camera invites humor, and his insistence that the city remains just as it once was suggests that his memories of the past actively obscure his vision in the present. the inclusion of such elements chimes with the recurrent use of blindness as a metaphor for pied-noir experience and memory,26 which in its nostalgia for the colonial era has idealized life in french algeria, thereby eliding the many legal, political, and socio-economic privileges that entrenched the division between colonial settlers, who benefited from french citizenship, and the many indigenous algerians who, as colonial subjects, did not. by pointedly including these elements in the film in such a lighthearted way, allouache deftly gestures towards the important transcultural and diasporic links that continue to unite 26 amy l. hubbell, remembering french algeria: pieds-noirs, identity, and exile (lincoln: university of nebraska press, 2015), 171. 76 transculturality in algiers people from both sides of the mediterranean. the french characters may be a source of ridicule, but their presence in post-colonial algiers is essentially unproblematic, and the welcome that locals extend to them suggests an accommodation of the colonial past that emphasizes hospitality over hostility. given the time in which the film is set, such comedic moments are duly juxtaposed with a growing sense of menace. this is implied via repeated cuts away from the main action to short, mysterious scenes where two anonymous men drive a dark bmw through algiers. the use of somewhat foreboding extra-diegetic music and a lack of explanation as to these figures’ identity and purpose imply that sinister forces are at work within the city, thereby evocatively gesturing towards the fear and uncertainty that gripped much of society during this period. the enigma of these men is further heightened by their repeated meetings with saïd, to whom they issue a gun with the message that instructions will follow, although the details of these instructions are never divulged. given that saïd and his acolytes are a source of much belligerence throughout the film, these men’s selection of him for this undisclosed mission seems particularly apt as saïd attempts to assert control over the local population. ultimately, however, saïd himself falls prey to the escalating violence: he is later found dead, his body having remained undiscovered for six months. the inclusion of this narrative thread therefore anticipates “the hazy character of the war’s events and participants,”27 which proved fertile ground for the many conspiracy theories that circulated throughout the conflict. given the prevalence of such conspiracies throughout algerian society and amongst algerian diasporas abroad, these aspects of the film may well have enjoyed a particularly strong resonance. indeed, by depicting such events, the film itself arguably becomes complicit in such conspiracy theories, a transcultural phenomenon that as a “vernacular communicative practice … traces out a transnational space of politics that allows algerians around the globe to participate in the discursive enactment (and potential resolution) of the civil war.”28 the presence of such elements in the film therefore provides, by extension, a powerful reminder of how the conflict’s repercussions stretched far beyond algeria’s borders. as the film’s end draws near, several departures from bab el-oued create a sense of exodus from the city as a widespread descent into conflict beckons. the local imam’s decision to leave the area bodes particularly ill. having become weary following his fruitless efforts to promote peace, he warns local residents that their fate lies in their own hands and that the future will be determined by their choices. eager to escape the growing climate of fear, boualem also 27 paul a. silverstein, “an excess of truth: violence, conspiracy theorizing and the algerian civil war,” anthropological quarterly 75, no. 4 (2002): 653. 28 silverstein, “an excess of truth,” 666. 77the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) departs for france by ship, thus mirroring the journey made by many algerians seeking refuge during the 1990s and underlining the important route of exile and escape that such mediterranean crossings offered during this period. the circumstances surrounding boualem’s absence, as mourned by yamina at the beginning of the film, are therefore finally revealed. accordingly, the closing scene returns the viewer’s attention to her, again shown alone inside her home waiting for boualem to return. it now becomes clear that the letters she has been writing to him remain unsent because she neither knows where he lives nor if he will ever return. with any future reunion improbable, the uncertainty and isolation connoted by yamina’s solitude become symbolic of the wider crisis within the city and country at this time, as violent conflict raged and the prospects of resolution remained distinctly dim. ultimately, the vision of transculturality offered by bab el-oued city is double-edged. on the one hand, algiers is presented as a locus of nostalgia for former colonial settlers—a group who, by fleeing during french decolonization to the continent from which so many of their ancestors hailed, became “doubly diasporic.”29 on the other hand, it is france, algeria’s former colonial ruler, that is positioned as a safe haven for algerian migrants and exiles (although, since the tales of those who travel are not heard, the precise nature of the welcome they might receive there remains unclear). this crisscrossing of the maritime space that separates and unites both countries emphasizes the continued importance of post-colonial links between them three decades after algerian independence. furthermore, “representations of the mediterranean sea regularly recur when the links between france and algeria are probed, and so much so that the mediterranean arguably functions as a supplement itself to both countries.”30 here the mediterranean, viewed from different sides of its shores, is both bridge to the past and buffer from the present. bab el web (2005) writing in the mid-2000s, roy armes argued that after allouache moved to paris he “never recovered the level of his best early work and has become, in effect, a french filmmaker.”31 this led armes to describe the next film to be discussed, allouache’s french-language comedy bab el web (2005),32 as “very much an outsider’s view of bab el-oued twenty-eight years after omar 29 andrea l. smith, “introduction: europe’s invisible migrants,” in europe’s invisible migrants, ed. andrea l. smith (amsterdam: amsterdam university press, 2003), 24. 30 edward welch and joseph mcgonagle, contesting views: the visual economy of france and algeria (liverpool: liverpool university press, 2013), 143. 31 armes, african filmmaking, 98. 32 bab el web, directed by merzak allouache (london: maïa films, 2005). 78 transculturality in algiers gatlato.”33 the inference here is that it was precisely allouache’s exilic or diasporic relationship with algeria during this period that was to blame for this difference—the geographical distance that separated allouache from algeria blurred his vision of algiers. his base in paris and his receipt of french funding raises questions about his target audience. although the film also received algerian funding, was it aimed at audiences in algeria? even though the two male leads—played by french actors of algerian heritage, samy nacéry and faudel—may well have been familiar to many algerians, the vision allouache projects of algiers in the early 2000s markedly differs from how the city appears in omar gatlato and bab el-oued city. directly relevant here is the placement of bab el web in the wider context of allouache’s filmography. the film that immediately preceded bab el web was the popular comedy chouchou (2003). this film was a huge success in france, undoubtedly won allouache new audiences, and built anticipation for his subsequent film. by again deploying the genre of popular comedy to explore ethnic and social differences between contrasting groups, bab el web clearly sought to capitalize on its predecessor’s success and reattract french audiences. elements of the plot seem actively designed to facilitate this attention, since post-colonial links between the two countries are foregrounded via interactions between different characters. the film begins by revealing the source of its title: bab el web is the name of a twenty-four-hour cyber-café in algiers where bouzid, a young man who lives in bab el-oued, chats online with other internet users. one of his contacts in france, a woman named laurence, informs him that she plans to visit algiers, and bouzid hopes romance might blossom between them. during her stay, however, it is his brother kamel to whom laurence is attracted, and they subsequently begin a relationship. laurence eventually reveals her ulterior motive for visiting algiers: she is trying to track down her estranged father. with the help of the brothers, she discovers that her father is none other than hadj-patte folle, a local crime lord. later, as her father is poised to attack kamel in retaliation for financial losses incurred after the latter refused to lose an illegal fight featuring his prized ram, japonais, kamel is only spared due to laurence’s intervention. after she departs for home, the film closes with the brothers excitedly planning a trip to france, at laurence’s invitation. as this plot summary might suggest, although humor has always been a key feature of allouache’s oeuvre, this film is notably different in tone to the two earlier works discussed above. whereas allouache’s films previously explored topical concerns within bab el-oued and algiers more broadly—resulting in portraits of the city that could also be seen as metonymic commentaries on the state of the nation—references to such concerns are here conspicuously 33 armes, african filmmaking, 98. 79the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) brief in comparison. comedy is instead the dominant mode, whether via the frequent repartee between the fraternal double act or the farcical situations into which the brothers stumble. the language of the dialogue also creates a stark difference, as the main language used is french rather than arabic. seen in light of allouache’s filmography, the film may seem driven primarily by commercial concerns. it certainly has a less obviously political tone than many of his other films. this might be attributed to his use of popular comedy, which, in spite of its subversive potential to disrupt social conventions,34 often ultimately provides a consensual vision and ensures audiences leave more reassured than unsettled. as a comparatively minor work within allouache’s oeuvre, it would be tempting to dismiss the film as an innocuous, throwaway comedy. given that the film was clearly designed to appeal to french audiences, however, the question of how allouache pictures the city for the french seems apposite, for what vision of algiers does he articulate here? while some brief references are made to manifest difficulties in the area—the destruction of several buildings due to recent flooding, regular cuts in water and power supply—the emphasis upon crime and illegality essentially presents the city as a space of delinquency, echoing the colonial stereotypes that conveniently positioned algeria as france’s other. bab el web is not alone in this presentation. as the black decade neared its end and during its aftermath, other french co-productions—such as mehdi charef’s la fille de keltoum (keltoum’s daughter) (2002)35 and rabah ameur-zaïmeche’s bled number one (back home) (2006)36—also risked conjuring up such associations. by depicting contemporary algeria as profoundly dystopic and barbaric, they cohered with dominant modes of understanding encountered in western media, which throughout the conflict and beyond positioned algeria’s population as socially regressive. allouache seems a world away from the confident and assertive vision of algerian identity that he so vividly demonstrated in omar gatlato. his comedy appears designed more to pander to transcolonial stereotypes that picture the city as a lawless and unruly space, implicitly reaffirming hierarchies of power that conveniently position europe and the west as culturally and socially superior. despite this shift in representation, the rare instances in bab el web that depart from its wider narrative are the most intriguing and insightful. one example is a brief conversation between laurence and bouzid in which bouzid confides in her, telling her how his childhood in lyon ended abruptly a decade earlier when his father announced that their family must relocate to algeria and hid their passports to prevent them returning to france. although only 34 waldron, “from critique to compliance,” 36. 35 la fille de keltoum, directed by mehdi charef (paris: cinétévé, 2002). 36 bled number one, directed by rabah ameur-zaïmeche (paris: sarrazink productions, 2006). 80 transculturality in algiers momentarily evoked, a glimpse is given here of the emotional distress caused by this sudden rupture, offering an explanation for bouzid’s desire to use the internet to connect with people in france specifically. given laurence’s use of the same technology to explore her own heritage, themes of exile and separation clearly unite them. the chance to probe this angle of her life further is not taken, however, as laurence’s father ultimately proves to be an irredeemable figure with whom no prospective reconciliation or meaningful dialogue can occur. this seems redolent of the film’s wider reluctance to penetrate the more substantive issues that it raises, which consequently limits its ability to comment further on post-colonial franco-algerian relations or how they might be transculturally mediated by the internet. the film’s acknowledgement of the various diasporas shared between contemporary france and algeria nevertheless illustrates the profound links between these countries. indeed, writing over thirty years after french decolonization and algerian independence, étienne balibar noted that the imbrication between the two spaces remained so profound that he questioned the merits of seeing them as separate.37 instead, balibar suggests they might function more as a frontière-monde: a “thick and complex contact zone that itself also functions as a frontier.”38 the subsequent proliferation of digital technologies—the advent of which is glimpsed in the film—may well have strengthened such arguments. the realities of migration, mobility, and border controls between the countries nonetheless remain, and, tellingly, it is laurence, not bouzid, who is able to return to france definitively. allouache’s subsequent return to filming in algiers as the fiftieth anniversary of algerian independence approached would, by contrast, signal a renewed emphasis on his incisive exploration of life in the algerian capital. as will become clear below, allouache’s sustained focus throughout the last decade on pressing societal problems within algiers and beyond suggests that bab el web will remain an outlier. normal! (2012) filmed in algiers during july 2009 and august 2011, the opening sequence of normal! (2012) heralds a contrasting tone and approach.39 this film opens with a series of carefully composed shots to establish the city’s urban landscape, accompanied only by ambient sound without music or dialogue, thereby immediately signaling a markedly different aesthetic than that of the previous 37 étienne balibar, droit de cité: culture et politique en démocratie (paris: l’aube, 1998), 81. 38 welch and mcgonagle, contesting views, 142. 39 normal!, directed by merzak allouache (algiers: baya films, 2012). 81the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) films. this difference is confirmed by the range of filmmaking techniques deployed in subsequent scenes. the combination of on location shooting, naturalistic lighting, and handheld camerawork evokes a documentary style that lends a raw and immersive quality to the film. these techniques generate a sense of immediacy that accords with the film’s focus upon contemporary politics. normal! is set during the time of the tunisian revolution, which would inspire a wave of protests later collectively labeled as the arab spring. a second sequence transports the audience to life inside an apartment where a young man watches online videos of street protests while a woman writes the words “algeria democratic and free” in red spray paint upon a white banner. the loud sound of a helicopter outside, a sound that repeatedly muffles and drowns out dialogue throughout the film, connotes surveillance and menace. mentions later made to roadblocks and checkpoints, as well as further demonstrations and protests, suggest that algiers now traverses a period of unrest, if not upheaval. it is eventually revealed that the young couple in the apartment are fouzi, a filmmaker, and his wife amina. amina wrote the script for a film fouzi directed two years earlier to coincide with the city’s hosting of the second pan-african festival, a festival celebrating the transcultural links that unite countries across africa. commenting on the images they see online and the climate of discontent, the couple’s initial discussion introduces a key question of the film: during such times of social protest, what should the function of cinema be? the film’s subsequent use of mise-en-abîme, alongside other references to filmmaking, will certainly provide many opportunities for reflection on this question. the central plot revolves around fouzi’s desire to shoot footage during upcoming protests, which he hopes will help complete his unfinished film. in an early scene, he breaks the fourth wall by introducing himself to the camera and explaining the context behind his film project. his premise is as follows: having learned that his friend nabil, an actor, had been refused funding by the algerian ministry of culture for his play entitled normal!, fouzi is unable to understand why the script had been rejected, given that its contents seemed neither subversive nor anti-government. fouzi resolves to make a film with nabil and his fellow actors during a fifteen-day shoot in algiers in order to dramatize their experience and explore the theme of censorship. two years later, in order to persuade the actors to reunite for further filming, fouzi invites the cast to his home to watch a rough cut of several sequences. allouache’s repeated cuts between the watching cast and various sequences from fouzi’s film provide a film within the film. such reflexivity is enhanced by several instances of intertextuality. the scenes in fouzi’s film of performers during the parade for the 2009 pan-african festival, for example, invoke the cinematic immortalization of the inaugural 1969 pan-african 82 transculturality in algiers festival four decades earlier in william klein’s festival panafricain d’alger (the pan-african festival of algiers) (1969).40 this creates further transcultural links via history and memory, even if the africanicity of algiers and algeria more widely—notably evoked in tariq teguia’s inland (2009)41—remains unexplored. drawing from his own oeuvre, allouache again casts mabrouk aït amara as mabrouk, a choice that automatically recalls the character of the same name that aït amara played in bab el-oued city. although separated by three-and-a-half decades, reminders of allouache’s debut feature-length film can also be detected, such as the shared theme of representation and the use of repeated direct address to the camera. additionally, a degree of mirroring between various persons and characters is at work here. within allouache’s plot, the playwright nabil acts in fouzi’s film as rachid, a fictionalized version of fouzi himself. the director fouzi seems at times to be a symbolic representation of allouache and provides a mouthpiece for what are likely allouache’s own viewpoints. a key example of this is when fouzi is criticized by his cast, who argue that his film should have been completed and released two years earlier, as its political and cultural relevance has now been superseded by subsequent events. fouzi defends his film by insisting that “n’importe quel film a le droit d’exister” (“any film has the right to exist”). later, fouzi tries to convince nabil to shoot new scenes with him because he wants to better capture “le rythme d’alger” (“the rhythm of algiers”) and admits that, in adding lamia’s kidnap and assassination to the plot, he strayed too far from how he should have represented the city he loves—it could well be assumed that allouache intended this scene as a note to self. by devoting so many scenes to the actors watching and discussing fouzi’s rough cut, allouache creates space within his film for a meta-commentary on the problems faced in contemporary algiers, and as the film proceeds, an increasing amount of screen time is dedicated to debates between fouzi, amina, and the rest of the cast. although the interior space in which they watch the screening gradually becomes the main point of action, the intriguing comments made by one of the actresses about the appearance of algiers on screen draws attention to how fouzi’s film also represents the city. struck by the squalor and hopelessness amongst the young people featured in the film, she pointedly queries the wisdom of spending huge sums of money to host the second panafrican festival when algerian society has other, more urgent priorities. the implication of her comment is that the celebration of transcultural links across africa should not be at the expense of the basic needs of the local population. indeed, given the hope and optimism for algeria’s future associated with the 40 festival panafrican d’alger, directed by william klein (algiers: office national pour le commerce et l’industrie cinématographique, 1969). 41 inland, directed by tariq teguia (algiers: neffa films, 2009). 83the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) inaugural festival,42 any comparisons drawn between life in the city then and now might also prove unfavorable. arguably, the disparities between the spirit of the time depicted in klein’s film and realities of life forty years later— another important example of transcultural memory—only further underline the present-day democratic deficit that inspired so many algerians to join the street protests. the use of editing to incorporate and replay scenes of the second pan-african festival is therefore highly pointed. at such a time of great social and political protest across the middle east and north africa (mena) region, this footage harks back to the “important historical moment of transnational solidarity” constituted by the inaugural festival,43 celebrating as it did the end of colonial rule across many african states. the inference here is therefore that civil society in algeria must take its lead from fellow countries in the region and push for change in order to secure political transformation. a key strength of the film is its emphasis on dialogue, and several engaging scenes both within and without fouzi’s film feature prolonged conversations. the actors’ often rapid exchange of views and interjections lend a dynamic quality to their words, with the occasional suggestion that some lines may be improvised or unscripted. a particularly compelling example is provided towards the end of the film, as the cast engages in a lengthy and heated debate about contemporary societal problems. they express various opinions on the state of democracy in algeria, the number of street protests, and the ongoing state of emergency. they are shown debating these social and political issues with infectious passion, the sincerity of which is all too patent. this scene chimes with the analysis of this period advanced by john entelis, who argued that such protests stemmed from “an increasingly animated civil society no longer willing to be placated by either rhetorical promises or short-term economic rewards as condition for political compliance.”44 released as the fiftieth anniversary of the declaration of algerian independence from france approached, the film ultimately presents algiers and algerian society at a crossroads. this is epitomized in its final scenes, where once again fouzi is shown at home watching online videos of street protests. this time, however, it becomes clear that this is an event in which he and amina have themselves participated. whereas he is content not to protest further, amina insists that she would take to the streets again. in essence, this is the kernel of the film in its entirety: when faced with such circumstances, what purpose can such protests serve? do individuals each have a responsibility to participate, and what role can cinema play in this? at the close of allouache’s 42 evans and phillips, algeria, 97–98. 43 corbin treacy, “reframing race in the maghreb,” french cultural studies 29, no. 1 (2018): 20. 44 john p. entelis, “algeria: democracy denied, and revived?,” the journal of north african studies 16, no. 4 (2011): 675–676. 84 transculturality in algiers most political film to date, the society he depicts stands poised between stasis and action. the incessant restlessness generated by the use of editing, the oscillation between metalevels, and the parallels drawn beyond the diegesis position cinema as a vital, productive force that can help instigate change by posing such questions to audiences. furthermore, the travel of ideas within the diegesis and beyond via the circulation of the film and the movement on screen provides a metaphor for transculturality itself. arguably, it is the combination of filmic form and the highly charged atmosphere depicted in algiers on screen that creates the film’s vibrancy and dynamism. les terrasses (2015) finally, this article turns to a fifth film set in contemporary algiers. les terrasses (2015), in allouache’s own idiosyncratic way, forms an ode to the city by incorporating five different areas: notre-dame d’afrique, bab eloued, the casbah, central algiers, and belcourt. as its name indicates, les terrasses centers on a series of roof terraces found throughout the city. this choice of title and setting immediately signals the continued importance of rooftop spaces within the built-up environment of algiers.45 given that such buildings were constructed in the city’s medina and social spaces under ottoman rule, the film obliquely invites the audience to consider the remnants of the ottoman era’s architectural and socio-cultural legacy. each roof terrace is individually introduced via discrete sequences offering different snapshots of life, from the banal to the highly disturbing. allouache instils an enigmatic atmosphere by not providing any initial context nor introducing the various characters when they are first glimpsed. ostensibly set during a single day, the film is split into five main segments, divided by the five daily islamic calls to prayer. although the drama largely takes place upon various roof terraces, and therefore within relatively enclosed spaces, this elevated position allows allouache to film the topography of the city from above. the film is further punctuated by numerous extra-long shots showing the surrounding urban and maritime landscape. the focus nevertheless remains upon the figures that interact within these individual spaces. given that the editing continually shuttles between these characters, it may initially be assumed that their storylines will be woven together within an overarching narrative. no such device proves forthcoming, however, and the action seen in these five different spaces remains unlinked. all that unites these stories is the city in which they are found, and each forms a distinctive part of allouache’s societal mosaic of algiers. although historic façades of buildings can frequently be glimpsed in the distance and a large 45 kahina amal dijar, “locating architecture, post-colonialism and culture: contextualisation in algiers,” the journal of architecture 14, no. 2 (2009): 178. 85the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) new development provides a setting near the notre-dame d’afrique basilica, allouache largely turns his cameras away from visuals of grandeur or wealth. instead, three of the five terraces are comprised of shacks inhabited by people living on the periphery of society, whose predicaments become clearer as the film progresses. the encouraged condemnation of the conditions these people endure is augmented by the use of decor and composition, which vividly convey the materiality of these spaces—from rough-hewn edges of broken concrete walls to rust on makeshift corrugated iron roofs. other features of the characterization and dialogue allude to a wide array of problems faced by the city’s population, including corruption, domestic abuse, drug addiction, mental health problems, and misogyny. the legacy of the war of independence and the black decade are explicitly evoked via the characters uncle larbi and aïcha, both of whom seem profoundly damaged by their experiences. uncle larbi effectively conveys this legacy with his voice alone, as he cannot leave the low hutch-like dwelling in which his relatives keep him shackled, and the camera never penetrates beyond his secured door. no explanation for his confinement is given aside from vague references to his illness. what is clear, however, is the mental anguish he suffers due to the war of independence. he repeatedly recounts tales of the war to young layla, all of which end prematurely in explosions of anger and distress. recalling mohamed chouikh’s youcef (1993),46 uncle larbi seems emotionally and mentally locked in the past and condemned to replay it compulsively in the present, and as a consequence his family insists on his concealment. it is clear from aïcha’s first appearance that she is similarly troubled. ill at ease, distant, and uncommunicative, she is equally trapped within her own world, and only later are the events that might explain her demeanor recounted. she was kidnapped by terrorists in the 1990s and raped during her captivity. although she managed to escape, her resultant pregnancy led her parents to eject her from their family home in oran, and she traveled to algiers with her son to seek shelter with her aunt. the respective fates and existential crises of uncle larbi and aïcha provide metaphorical reflections on life within post-colonial algeria itself, the weight of history and memory within these characters’ lives provoking a perpetual trauma that time cannot abate. by choosing to feature characters indelibly marked by their experiences of these conflicts, allouache traces further transcultural links between these periods of algerian history, drawing clear parallels between the enduring legacies each have bequeathed. the considerable size of the cast of les terrasses also merits comment, for the number of characters grants the film a choral quality, which furthers the impression that it forms a collective portrait of city life. no fewer than forty 46 youcef, directed by mohamed chouikh (algiers: entreprise nationale de production audiovisuelle, 1993). 86 transculturality in algiers individual roles are listed in the credits, and the attendant spectrum of lives they depict emphasizes the population’s diversity, particularly of age, social status, and religion. the range of roles played by women is most striking, however; of allouache’s wider oeuvre, this may be the film that contains the most insight into female experiences. in many ways, contemporary algiers is depicted as a repressive space for women in which a highly patriarchal society polices female bodies. in this sense, the film points to the enduring legacies of the targeted violence endured by women throughout the black decade and the culture of surveillance and restriction that the family code of 1984 wrote into law.47 whether the series of plot developments and twists— including suicide and multiple murders—are needed as the film reaches its denouement, however, remains a moot point. the use of such sensationalist elements risks creating a spectacle for foreign audiences. this “ethnographic voyeurism,”48 in darren waldron’s terms, chimes with the dystopian visions of contemporary algerian society seen in other post-2000 films such as tariq teguia’s rome plutôt que vous (rome rather than you) (2006),49 as well as the abovementioned la fille de keltoum and bled number one. the vision of the city produced by this film is certainly bleak, and the foreboding menace is only strengthened by the fact that all of this violence occurs within a single day. conclusion algiers has clearly provided a significant source of inspiration for allouache throughout his career. his filmography has played a crucial role in constructing and articulating cinematic visions of the city, and his collective oeuvre provides an important commentary on contemporary algerian society. surveying these five films set in algiers, it becomes apparent that there are continuities despite the distance in time and era that separates them. most importantly, there is a recurrent emphasis upon lived experience within the algerian capital and the exploration of the challenges of everyday life for its inhabitants. comedy also forms a hallmark that provides light relief in contrast to darker moments. bab el web is clearly the exception that proves the rule, although it coheres with films from allouache’s canon set elsewhere, and it is significant that, since the late 2000s, he has largely neglected comedy in favor of a more dramatic and serious tone. in spite of the sizeable political and economic challenges he 47 zahia smail salhi, “algerian women, citizenship, and the ‘family code’,” gender and development 11, no. 3 (2003): 32–33; ranjana khanna, algeria cuts: women and representation, 1830 to the present (stanford: stanford university press, 2008), 13. 48 darren waldron, “troubling return: femininity and algeria in la fille de keltoum,” in open roads, closed borders: the contemporary french-language road movie, ed. michael gott and thibaut schilt (bristol: intellect, 2013), 74. 49 rome plutôt que vous, directed by tariq teguia (paris: neffa films, 2006). 87the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) has faced as a filmmaker due to his overt criticism of government power and policy in algeria,50 allouache is now increasingly using the leverage acquired from his international visibility to articulate a multiplicity of narratives that explore pressing tensions and fissures throughout algerian society. as this article has demonstrated—whether via references to the ottoman and french colonial era in architecture, engagement with colonial settler memory, the importance of post-colonial diasporas, or algeria’s status within the mena region—elements of transculturality permeate these films. while allouache’s oeuvre certainly celebrates the distinctiveness and specificities of algerian culture, his incorporation of such transcultural elements ensures that his vision illustrates how “no culture is a closed container and … cultures are always internally heterogeneous, to a larger or lesser extent.”51 furthermore, by applying a broad and fluid definition of the transcultural to his oeuvre, this article has sought to demonstrate the value of such an approach for capturing many of the complexities that are offered by his composite portrait of algiers. these five iterations of the mediterranean port city cumulatively offer a powerful example of how, just as “nations and their borders are dynamically changing cultural formations,”52 so too is the city space. 50 will higbee, “merzak allouache: (self-)censorship, social critique, and the limits of political engagement in contemporary algerian cinema (algeria),” in ten arab filmmakers: political dissent and social critique, ed. josef gugler (bloomington: indiana university press, 2015), 207–208. 51 tea sindbæk andersen, barbara törnquist-plewa, and astrid erll, “introduction: on transcultural memory and reception,” in the twentieth century in european memory: transcultural mediation and reception, ed. tea sindbæk andersen and barbara törnquist-plewa (leiden: brill, 2017), 15. 52 abu-er-rub et al. “introduction,” xxvii. introductury essay | abu-er-rub, altehenger, gehrig | transcultural studies the transcultural travels of trends. an introductory essay jennifer altehenger, laila abu-er-rub, sebastian gehrig, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg in contemporary societies, trends appear to be omnipresent, conspicuous, all-pervasive, and popular. trends also seem elusive, evanescent, and in a state of perpetual flux. while adherents of trends perceive them as meaningful or even fashionable, others criticise them as being superficial and meaningless. either way, trends are some of the most visible manifestations of changes within and between different popular cultures. understanding their dynamics requires an analytical approach that deals with trends as cultural flows marked by a high visibility in societies, public media, as well as more closely confined networks.[1] a plethora of understandings regarding how trends are constituted and how they spread must therefore be taken into account. in an era in which processes of globalisation and global exchanges are accepted as the norm, cultural flows such as trends can no longer be examined solely within the confines of national boundaries or so-called national cultures.[2] instead, we must focus on aspects of transculturality and travel. such an emphasis may at first glance apply only to contemporary trends. but historical scholarship has revealed just how pervasive transcultural trends were long before they became a subject of academic inquiry.[3] this series of articles brings together case studies of trends that journeyed between east asia (china, taiwan, korea, and japan) and europe (most notably germany and england) from the late nineteenth century until the beginning of the twenty-first century. the contributions cover examples of artistic, political, sociocultural, and consumer trends. the trends discussed in this series were not short-lived fads.[4] instead, they were and are notable for their comparative longevity and endurance. each case study describes in detail the specific historical and social circumstances under which a trend succeeded, or sometimes failed, in travelling across cultures. what impact such transcultural trends had and continue to have on their recipients, society, politics, and everyday life is thus the question that guides all articles. in the last two decades, scholarship has set out to reevaluate the importance of popular culture phenomena. following these works, the present series of articles brings together case studies that challenge the arbitrary divide between popular, consumer, mass, and elite culture.[5] ranging from literature, magazines, and cinema to fan communities and political subcultures; from new, trendy gender images and children’s literature to food culture, the articles take seriously popular culture as a terrain of social and political interaction and conflict, as well as an arena of transcultural exchange. transculturality and trends: travellers beyond borders transculturality and the travel of trends are the focal points of this series of articles.[6] the authors of the upcoming articles in this and the following volumes argue that transculturality has been crucial to the formation and proliferation of a large number of trends. in fact, as is suggested throughout, transcultural trends have been the norm rather than the exception, both in the past and today. yet, connectivity between different trend agents and networks and the speed in the circulation of trends across europe and asia has always varied. thus, the transcultural trends discussed in this series travelled with varying speeds and via different routes.[7] two approaches to transculturality dominate the analyses. first, transculturality serves as a lens through which to examine trends. moving beyond the confines of national and cultural boundaries broadens our perspective and leads to new sets of research questions. when boundaries are perceived as flexible variables in the movement of cultural flows such as trends, we can trace those factors that contribute to the fortification of boundaries and those that advance the eradication of such boundaries.[8] such an approach makes it possible to probe the cultural attributes and alleged roots of trends. cultural attributes can then be treated as discursive constructs that agents employ in the proliferation of any trend. accordingly, whether a trend is perceived or treated as “chinese,” “american,” “european,” or else depends on the perspectives and intentions of individuals and institutional agents. undeniably, the digital revolution, the increase of international travel and the growing dominance of transnational conglomerates have substantially accelerated the dissemination of trends. nonetheless, directing the focus of research not only to contemporary but also to historical case studies (to times when, for example, the nation state supposedly figured more strongly than today) demonstrates that trends more often than not transcended not just one but numerous boundaries in the process of gaining popularity. second, all articles implicitly ask whether trends that successfully travel across nations and cultures possess specific transcultural qualities that other, more localised trends do not. here, transculturality is understood as a characteristic rather than being employed as an analytical approach. however, this is a much more difficult question to answer. nonetheless, some trends, like that of harry potter or “hot moms”—middle-class mothers who model their lifestyle after celebrities’ way of life—are successful across many parts of the world, while other trends fail to gain popularity outside of their original regions. the upcoming articles suggest that one vital factor of transculturality is a trend’s potential for reconfiguration. a trend’s capacity to be embedded discursively and made to fit a new culture, while potentially retaining an aura of “foreignness,” may render it transcultural. the articles do not attempt to cover a global framework. the case studies deal mostly with select areas in east asia and europe. claiming global validity for a restricted scope of research might fail to take into account regional specificities that are characteristic of transcultural trends. therefore, the authors emphasise not only similarities but also differences and changes. moreover, the global is understood as a suprastructure for a myriad of transcultural exchanges: what seems global often reveals itself as transcultural on closer examination, or will translate into transcultural forms during processes of localisation.[9] thick descriptions: the case studies since the mid-twentieth century, the term “trend” has been attributed with two different meanings, both of which are in accordance with its initial connotations of “direction,” “tendency,” and “inclination.” one definition, which has been prominently employed since the early 1960s in the wake of the consumer revolution, sees trends as “current styles, vogues or popular tastes.”[10] conversely, social scientists and economists use the term to indicate social, political and economic developments, and numerical increases that can be tracked and measured by means of statistical and quantitative analysis.[11] market researchers combine both notions, employing the term “trend” to denote changes in consumption patterns and behaviours. as such, market research often encompasses both the quantitative and the qualitative aspects of a trend. many market and trend researchers, however, attempt to predict future developments (also termed “trends”) by way of quantitative and partially qualitative analyses.[12] the latter two definitions thus emphasise any kind of development over time expressed in a measureable increase, while the former traces popular patterns of consumptive behaviour and choice. yet these researchers mostly limit trend research to economic development and consumer behaviour. aspects of temporality, context, and process are only optional variables in the making of statistics. such methods restrict the analysis of trends to a mere detection of their existence and, in part, structure.[13] they do not enable a better understanding of the forms and contents of trends, nor of their origins and trajectories. in lieu of such comparatively simplifying methods and definitions, the case studies here examine trends by providing thick descriptions of the production, dissemination, and travel of specific trends and, wherever possible, their related patterns of consumption. in aiming at thick descriptions of trends’ developments, our studies offer detailed analyses of itineraries as well as in-depth accounts of the sociocultural and historical contexts in which these trends prospered or failed to prosper. [14] this series of articles thus showcases the technological as well as social and cultural dimensions of certain trends’ transition over time. the topics covered span from the fields of historical trends in literature, cinema, and print media, to trends in politics and popular culture today. the trend of depicting sociopolitical change in popular films in china during the 1920s and 1930s is the focus of huang xuelei’s piece. huang demonstrates how victorian sentimentalism travelled from england to china via japan. chinese filmmakers of the time found the themes and tropes of victorian sentimentalism well suited to expressing chinese conditions of social modernisation. these themes spoke to a wide chinese audience in republican china, who enjoyed watching sentimentalist films just as english readers had devoured sentimentalist novels in victorian times. just as victorian sentimentalism found its pendant in china, so too did many of the european nude images which travelled to china in the early twentieth century. in her investigation of how one magazine, beiyang huabao (the pei-yang pictorial news), contributed to the trend of publishing nudity in china, sun liying illustrates how concepts and practices of nudity, at least in artistic intellectual circles, translated from europe to republican china. but china has not only received and adapted trends from abroad; china has often exported trends as well. chinoiserie, an aesthetic trend of the eighteenth century in which europeans intensively assimilated chinese cultural goods, has been well studied.[15] by contrast, little is known about the more recent influence of the people’s republic of china on european trends. sebastian gehrig’s article seeks to redress this balance by chronicling the highly politicised impact of the chinese cultural revolution ongoing in the people’s republic of china on popular political trends in the 1960s and 1970s. gehrig traces how mao zedong’s political ideology and imagery were adopted by west german intellectuals and, in a second but no less important step, advanced to being one of the most potent forces in german popular political protest at that time. maoist “red guard” shirts, mao portraits, and mao’s “little red book” became trend objects that expressed a subversive alternative to the hegemonic public culture. subcultural left-wingers embarked on their protests by using the icon mao to introduce new protest rituals.[16] the article thus demonstrates how propaganda icons can undergo curious transformations and comebacks as trendy role models in new contexts. role models also figure prominently in annika jöst’s multinational investigation of the “hot mom” trend. contemporary fashion and lifestyle magazines, as well as blogs in the united states of america, europe, and the people’s republic of china increasingly promote images of “hot moms.” although “hot moms” may seem to be a global trend, especially since they are promoted in women’s magazines run by transnational conglomerates such as vogue and elle, and are discussed in internet blogs across the globe, their appearance, qualities, and values are often distinctly local.[17] thus, jöst investigates the “hot mom” trope as a transcultural trend, and shows that its potency lies in its amenability to local adaptation. in comparison to the case studies of huang, sun, and gehrig, new trendy images of motherhood and food culture have travelled with accelerated speed since the advent of the digital revolution. in her analysis of coffee culture in contemporary china, lena henningsen detects links and bridges between popular literary trends and trends in food consumption. a taiwanese novel that became a bestseller on mainland china was a source of inspiration to chinese youngsters and young couples who frequented western coffee houses such as starbucks in search of romantic love. henningsen points to the intricacy of analysing the travels of a single trend. a trend such as drinking coffee as a marker of modernity may become visible in many different locations and media simultaneously with little evidence of clear-cut links. consumers creatively adapt and incorporate different impressions into their daily lives. they practice trends often without knowing why they have chosen one trend over another, other than as a matter of preference. petra thiel makes similar observations as she traces the travels of famous characters in children’s literature such as harry potter, pippi långstrump, and sun wukong from europe to east asia and vice versa. why one figure is more popular and trendy when it travels, rather than another, is a fascinating question that can only be answered on a case-by-case basis. the monkey king sun wukong and pippi långstrump would both seem as likely to gain popular acclaim abroad as harry potter. moreover, publishing houses that facilitate the travels of children’s books have gone to great lengths to popularise these books in foreign markets. nonetheless, for several reasons ranging from parental guidance to market concerns and, finally, young readers’ preferences, some trends succeed in travelling successfully while others fail. pippi långstrump and harry potter appear to have become truly global trends in the children’s book market, while sun wukong remains almost exclusively east asian.[18] sandra annett’s survey of japanese anime and contemporary transnational fan communities covers trends in cartooning from a broader perspective. charting several examples that span the course of the past century, annett highlights the important role that anime trends have had in reconfiguring national and cultural borders from below via new media such as the internet. in her article, annett demonstrates the importance of single agents in the dissemination of any trend. only via numerous agents, passing a trend on to other people, is a trend able to spread. as a result, annett argues that change and transformation, both at the producing and the receiving ends, are essential characteristics of any trend. in the process of being passed on, trends are changed by the needs, desires, and fears of those adopting them. cumulatively, the articles question what is often taken for granted: the presence of trends, their development and their nature. in the process of researching trends, several key elements have crystallised as constitutive and central to the emergence, proliferation, and endurance of trends: desire, the agency of trendsetters, trend followers and gatekeepers, and the existence of networks and publics which serve as multipliers for a given trend.[19] each of these elements, and the transcultural processes, practices and concepts that bind them, are examined in context in each of the articles. as a result, the authors trace some of the patterns and trajectories that have characterised the transcultural travel of trends over the past century. a desire for trends or trendy desires? all of the trends described in our case studies were propelled by desires. a multitude of individual and collective desires provides impetus, reason, and glue to the formation and success of trends. the desires described here were the result (or expression) of likes, admiration, wishes, yearnings, and hopes. in any attempt to fulfil a desire, the powers of imagination, interpretation, creativity, nostalgia, invention, improvisation, and imitation come into play.[20] for example, as sun’s study shows, the editors of the chinese pictorial beiyang huabao (which ran from the 1926 to 1937) admired new concepts of beauty, some of which had been imported from “the west.” nudity, especially western nudity, soon came to be regarded as a beauty ideal, at least in the intellectual elite circles that the magazinecatered to. in a similar vein, but from a contemporary perspective, jöst describes middle-class mothers’ admiration for the lifestyle and child-rearing philosophies of celebrity mothers. just as the readers of beiyang huabao chased a modern, fashionable beauty ideal, jöst’s middle-class mothers’ desire to turn themselves into “hot moms” capable of tackling the challenge of combining motherhood, beauty, and a career. their diverse attempts to emulate celebrity mothers’ lifestyles have resulted in popularising motherhood as stylish and hip among the urban middle class in places as diverse as the united states of america, europe, and the people’s republic of china. nowadays, celebrities such as famous “supermoms” are taken as role models or serve as points of reference for many middle-class mothers. young people, too, tend to look to role models in the course of developing their own individual self. in this process, parents initially take on a guiding function when they select specific works of children’s literature for them to read. thus, as thiel shows, parents pick children’s stories replete with likable, appealing heroes and heroines that transport their own ideals. in many cases, the consumption and publication of children’s literature is also fuelled by nostalgia: parents tend to buy the books they themselves used to love when they were young in order to relive them through their offspring. in doing so, they unconsciously propel some stories into becoming long-term bestsellers: the so-called children’s classics. these works are then often copied and partially reinvented by new authors, whose books may set new trends in national and international children’s book markets. gehrig’s study, in turn, highlights how the fervent desire of west german political activists to alter social realities prompted them to pin their revolutionary aspirations to the rather unlikely role model of the “great leader”, mao zedong, and his allegedly successful “great proletarian cultural revolution,” then underway in the people’s republic of china. just as desires may create trends, trends, once underway, also create desires; desires for something new, something revived, something fashionable, something foreign or simply something better. as henningsen argues, desires are intricately linked to experience, both past and prospective. desire may lend meaning to experience: having read a novel with a strong focus on food consumption, a reader may be tempted or induced to consume the products mentioned. henningsen contends that the consumption of coffee may allow a reader to experience (or imagine experiencing) the same kind of romance as the protagonist of a novel who drinks coffee with his girlfriend. desires, therefore, contribute to the unintentional or deliberate constitution of the self. in the process of living a trend, an adherent will eventually come into contact with other trend followers or join the ranks of those who share similar desires and interests. a trend can only be established through this process of gradually growing numbers of practitioners and proponents. for such a process to take place, the target audience or culture must be susceptible (and desirous) to adopting the trend in the first place. exploring the facets of agency proponents and practitioners play central roles in the diverse institutions, networks and publics that are instrumental to the formation and proliferation of any trend. to facilitate analysis, the case studies employ two basic categories of agency: trendsetters and trend followers. both can be found at the individual and institutional levels. it should be kept in mind, however, that these categories are methodological aids to help grapple with the complexities of each case study. they may at times suggest artificial boundaries. trend followers, for example, can be trendsetters at the same time. all of the authors in this series therefore attempt to balance the demands of producing a detailed thick description, which inevitably has to account for the intricacies of real life, with the necessity of reducing these intricacies for the purpose of discussion. in his treatment of human agency, giddens argues that “to be an agent is to have power.” “‘power’ in this highly generalized sense,” he continues, “means ‘transformative capacity,’ the capability to intervene in a given set of events so as in some way to alter them.”[21] recently, appadurai too has stressed the importance of agents and agency in the creation of cultural landscapes and spaces as well as their importance to the circulation of cultural elements.[22] trendsetters in our case studies are therefore assumed to possess agency because they command a certain degree of authority within networks and publics of trends. trendsetters are consequently in a position to propagate, popularise, and disseminate a trend. whereas giddens bases his notion of agency on a model that takes human reason as a precondition, this series of articles shows that trendsetters may also assume a guiding role without volition. an individual or an institution may be a trendsetter whether they are aware of it or not. celebrity moms (jöst), left-wing intellectuals, and prominent subcultural activists (gehrig), a popular periodical (sun), or film company (huang), novelists and playwrights (henningsen), international fan bloggers (annett), and publishing companies (thiel): they all have acted as trendsetters promoting the development of a trend. the agency of trend followers may at first seem less intricate. anyone who adopts and lives a trend may be called a trend follower. trend followers express their individual agency through their personal choices, which are expressions of their personality. they may be middle-class mothers (jöst), young couples (henningsen), grassroots subcultural activists (gehrig), high-brow intellectuals (sun), anime and manga fans (annett), or parents and their children reading children’s literature (thiel). empirical growth in the number of followers is evidence that a trend is underway. here, diachronic and synchronic analyses complement each other in detecting trend followers and their networking dynamics in both historical and contemporary case studies. but this is only one side of the coin. a trend follower can always also be or become a trendsetter. this may occur when a trend follower turns into an outspoken proponent of the trend, as in the case of thiel’s parents who promote their favourite works of juvenile literature to their children. it may be a matter of accidental and momentary authority, for instance when a trend follower practicing a trend is observed by an outsider who consequently adopts the same trend. in such a case, the initial trend follower is made into a trendsetter by anonymous association, as jöst’s study of the fire-like spread of the international “hot mom” culture shows. a chain reaction thus underlies the propulsion of any trend from the marginal to the mass. moments of gatekeeping are pivotal to the development of trends. again, both individual and institutional trendsetters may function as gatekeepers. whereas trendsetters promote a trend through practice or advocacy, gatekeepers may alter or restrict trends. gatekeeping, a term mostly employed as a methodological aid in media studies, helps to delineate the obstacles that trends can face throughout their travels. although levin and white restricted their description of gatekeeping to processes of news dissemination, their notion of the gatekeeper as a person or institution that decides whether to permit or restrict passage has informed the notion of gatekeepers applied within the case studies.[23] white argued that the gatekeepers’ own social background and presumptions about the designated audiences’ preferences influenced their choices.[24] similarly, gatekeepers are presumably guided by their own interests or by the interests they represent. even desire, as described above, can play a key role in the decision to promote or stall a trend.[25] in thiel’s piece, parents attempt to restrict their children’s access to works that they deem to be of no educational value. the west german left-wing intellectuals in gehrig’s analysis functioned as gatekeepers in two ways: through their choice of chinese works to be translated into german, and subsequently, by providing prefatory commentaries to their german translations with the intent to guide their readers’ interpretation of chinese revolutionary theory and adapt it to the german context. similarly, as huang describes, japanese and chinese authors of the early twentieth century translated and adapted themes from victorian england to suit and often guide the tastes of chinese publics that demanded popular entertainment. transcultural production in the creation of trends many of the individual and institutional gatekeepers and trendsetters discussed in the articles, including editors, authors, playwrights, film directors, cartoonists, musicians, journalists, intellectuals, publishing houses, advertising agencies and motion picture companies, were initially part of national chains of cultural production. in a globalising world, however, chains of cultural production, while perhaps national in certain respects, are in fact increasingly transnational and transcultural. producers of cultural goods, production locations, and products cannot easily be attributed to one isolated nation. instead, the very development of a cultural product is often already the result of a transcultural production process. east lynne, the novel discussed in huang’s contribution, is a prominent example. the storyline travelled from victorian england via meiji japan to republican china in the 1910s, undergoing a number of (re-)interpretations along the way. indeed, agents of cultural production may, as thiel shows, be aware of the necessity to adapt their product to differing local environments. while these adjustments are not always successful, they must nonetheless be taken into consideration when examining journeys of trends across borders. chains of production may be formal and institutionalised, as is the case with publishing houses and motion picture companies with their respective staff and contracted artists. conversely, they may be more informal, like the fan bloggers and fan communities that discuss japanese anime on the internet. the articles thus focus on well-established circulatory paths as well as newly developing networks.[26] in fact, annett’s study of transnational fan communities illustrates how the changing nature of cultural production in the internet age (i.e., new production processes and channels of dissemination) can render a trend entirely transcultural. as a result, such trends seem detached from any national boundaries or able to move flexibly between them. knowledge of transcultural production, both its national and transnational branches, is crucial to understanding trends. agents and institutions seek to profit from emerging trends or even try to create them in the first place. trend followers are potential buyers of artistic products and consumer products alike. transcultural production seeks to cater to the desires of trend followers. to this purpose, producers continuously search for emerging trends that they might take up and promote. at the same time, they also attempt to steer or at least influence the followers of trends that are already underway. in doing so, agents of transcultural production strive to gain some say over emerging and established trends. thus trends play a crucial role in initiating and regulating the terms, conditions, and processes of transcultural production. in turn, cultural producers and industries may determine a trend, bring it into being by naming it, or initiating its wider dissemination. in the case of jösts’s “hot moms,” the media can even be considered as tastemakers. over national and cultural borders, they are gatekeepers and mediators of trends in their attempt to solicit a global trend. transcultural production may thus be both a trend follower as well as a trendsetter. beiyang huabao is a case in point: as one of the most influential pictorials in 1920s republican china, the magazine successfully interpreted the trend of publishing nudity. the magazine skilfully reconfigured the “western”/german freikörperkultur (fkk, free body culture) trend, giving the chinese version a distinctly chinese look while retaining the lure of its foreign roots. the publisher’s anticipation of the zeitgeist and the demands of the cultural market was, in sun’s opinion, the reason why this trend and its trendsetter, beiyang huabao, achieved such wide popular acclaim. dissemination and consumption: networks and publics the bond between transcultural production and trend followers is not limited to the relationship between producers and consumers. instead, trend followers may form networks. such networks may be face-to-face, virtual, or a combination of both. shared common practices and interests, interconnection, and exchange make up the foundations of such networks. emerging trends may induce trend followers to create networks, but networks also create trends.[27] some participants follow trends with the deliberate goal or accidental result of joining a network. others attempt to express themselves by initiating or participating in an emerging trend. fans sharing their opinions about anime on a fan website or blog (annett), local supermoms chatting on community websites about attending events organised by the hot mom club (jöst), and left-wing political activists rallying to promote the iconic image of mao zedong as a revolutionary leader (gehrig), are three very different examples of trend networks. regardless of whether trend followers primarily seek to join networks or aim to demonstrate their individuality by adopting a trend, they all belong to greater groups of agents. groups of agents form what the authors in this series have termed “publics.”[28] the formation of publics is key to the proliferation of any trend. clusters of online anime or “hot moms” fan communities create transcultural fan publics (annett, jöst); nudity and victorian romance were themes that dominated publics formed by readers of similar backgrounds or shared interests, many of whom were not in direct contact (sun, huang); and urban youths, whose perusal of novels leads them to consume foreign lifestyle products, have formed a public of “modern-minded” young adults (henningsen). publics are therefore not understood here as fixed social fields that possess firmly demarcated borders. instead, they are heterogeneous and amorphous, bound by a common interest. yet some members of publics are either not aware of their membership or do not seek contact in networks. publics are shaped by shared desires and trend practices. aspects of gender, class, culture, lifestyle or political and religious beliefs, however, may figure strongly as well. gehrig highlights that both west german intellectuals and subcultural left-wingers sought to improve the social situation of their state by exploring maoism as a “third way” distinct from us capitalism and soviet communism. nonetheless, starting in the late 1960s, they formed different publics (all of which again split into numerous factions) based on differing philosophies and conceptions of how to further their various political agendas. publics are thus defined as shifting social realms formed by similar desires and practices that enable and encourage emotional participation and engagement. because trends’ publics are constituted by sociocultural processes, they are highly fragmented and firmly bound in their historical temporalities. moreover, just like transcultural production, publics are not confined to national borders, cultural borders, or even to the subcultural borders within which they originate. a popular victorian story, for example, triggered intense emotional response in publics well beyond england, expanding to north america, japan, and china over the course of a decade, as huang’s article shows. nude images photographed in china by heinz von perckhammer were first published in book form in berlin and zurich. they subsequently found their way into the chinese magazine beiyang huabao even before the book version was published in chinese translation in shanghai (sun). young people frequenting starbucks or drinking coca-cola form publics that can grow to be as transcultural as the brands of the products they consume (henningsen). how and why a public constitutes around a trend is therefore contingent upon its respective historical context. the dynamics of how publics form were fundamentally different in republican china during the 1920s, as opposed to germany in the 1960s, or the seemingly global internet of today. the elusive tipping point: accounting for contexts and popularity structural susceptibility thus determines the travels of trends. when a trend moves between cultures, publics, and networks, certain preconditions may facilitate, hinder, or even obstruct its movement. such preconditions may be political, social, economic, or a shifting combination of all three. historical temporalities, that is, the social, political, economic, and cultural context of a certain trend at a given time, are crucial at the moment that a trend reaches a new location. preconditions and historical temporalities are never static; they are constantly in flux and are subject to societal negotiation. networks and publics may be susceptible to trends, thus permitting a trend’s inward travel into a new context. furthermore, whenever a successful trend traverses borders, there is a “tipping point” when the trend gains momentum in the new context into which it has entered. [29] each of the case studies describes a particular instance of structural susceptibility in a particular historical temporality: once translated and adapted, east lynne, a stereotypical love story set in victorian england, which was wrought by industrial and social modernisation, answered chinese audiences’ desire for sentimentalist storylines while mirroring republican china’s social class conflicts (huang); republican china’s less strict approach to public morals created for the editors of beiyang huabao a friendly social climate to experiment and successfully introduce nude images to chinese pictorials (sun); the global revolutionary tide of the late 1960s inspired political activists in germany to explore and adapt chinese communist ideology (gehrig). china’s economic reforms of the late 1970s, rising income levels, and the gradual opening of domestic markets to foreign products were preconditions for several of the trends discussed in the case studies: a niche in the chinese market for children’s literature facilitated harry potter’s popularisation (thiel); chinese urban youth’s desire for modern and hip food franchises, induced by their reading of bestsellers, may have helped transnational corporations such as starbucks gain a foothold in china because they offered popular meeting points (henningsen); transnational media conglomerates such as vogue and elle portray celebrity “supermoms,” thus promote new notions of motherhood amongst urban middle-class mothers in search of a new identity that permits them to combine motherhood with careers and fashionable femininity (jöst). finally, the internet offers a space in which fan communities across the globe may communicate about their likes and dislikes of cartoons, anime and manga (annett). gatekeepers are important agents in determining a location’s structural susceptibility. their influence in restricting or promoting a trend is decisive the moment a trend enters a new context. a comparison of historical and contemporary gatekeepers illustrates their changing importance over time. newspaper editors in republican china had a different influence on media trends than internet bloggers do today. gatekeepers also introduce trends to a new context, either by helping an existing transcultural trend make its way into a foreign market, as in the case of starbucks in china, where a new public developed around a trend promoted by a transnational company; or, trends’ publics may cross national and cultural borders, as in annett’s study. moreover, gatekeepers often reconfigure the content or form of a trend to suit what they perceive to be the requirements of the intended context; for example, authors translating foreign works, advertising agencies promoting foreign products, and political activists reconfiguring foreign ideologies. while structural susceptibility is a necessary precondition for the success of any trend’s travel across cultures, the nature of the concept, object, or practice that becomes trendy must also be considered. as every case study in this series of articles shows, historical and contemporary trends have been successful because they lent themselves to processes of localisation. at the same time, the trends did not mutate and take on totally new forms. adaptation, incomplete transformation, enabled the trends to spread through networks and publics in their new environment.[30] consequently, a trend and its objects must also lend themselves to individualisation. for a trend to become popular, its concepts, objects, and practices must be versatile enough to transcend several boundaries. popularity, which is often taken as proof of a trend’s existence and, subsequently, success, can result when a trend has moved across different social networks and publics or given rise to a single large public. transmediality, in this context understood as a trend’s permeation of and to different media and genres, reflects the increased popularity of a trend.[31] media coverage of celebrity mothers has travelled through the internet, blogs, popular magazines, literature, television, and music (jöst). sentimental storylines were translated into novels, stage melodramas, and chinese tragic love films (huang). the release of harry potter movies prior to the appearance of the first authorised chinese translation of the books propelled the young wizard’s popularity in china (thiel). branding and brand merchandising[32] are further indicators of a trend’s popularity. consumer products without a specific brand can belong to a transnational and transcultural trend. one famous historical example of such a global consumer appliance trend is the proliferation of television and other electronic household appliances. branding, however, adds another layer to the dissemination of consumer products when the product’s innovative quality is not provided by the product itself, but by the brand attached to it. starbucks is a case in point. consumption of coffee in china—a drink not commonly considered “typically chinese”—commenced with the introduction of coffee at the end of the nineteenth century, which in turn resulted in the establishment of chinese coffee plantations. coffee was therefore available throughout much of the twentieth century in china. but the introduction of the “western-style” coffee culture in the form of cafés and, more recently, coffee shops, together with the starbucks brand, has attracted much larger groups of chinese consumers to the beverage. nowadays, the notion of coffee shop culture as something fashionable is reinforced by its (branded) appearance in novels, on television, and in advertisements (henningsen). transmediality and branding permit a better understanding of the nature and logic of a trend’s popularity as it travels across different networks. why trends matter: fields of future debate collectively, the upcoming articles represent an early attempt to contend with the complexity of trends as transcultural flows. a move away from thinking about trends within the confines of methods offered by marketing studies or the quantitative social sciences has opened up new perspectives and approaches. by describing the life cycles of trends through detailed descriptions and contextual analyses, the articles’ authors have arrived at a number of conclusions and categories, as described above, which permit us to ask new questions about trends, all of which merit further consideration: how do we, from the perspective of the humanities and cultural studies, deal with the so-called “tipping point”? does the transcultural travel of a trend already point to its rising popularity? how much agency do trend agents really command? is desire the only motivation guiding these agents?[33] are the relationships between agents purely asymmetrical, based on power relations? finally, when some borders, such as national ones, are deconstructed in the travel of trends, do other borders come to matter or even be built in their stead? this series of articles on transcultural trends offers first answers to these questions and hopes to invite further debate on the transcultural travel of trends. authors’ note: we would like to thank barbara mittler and all external advisors of research project b 12: rethinking trends. since 2008, holger rust, jefferey wasserstrom, chua beng huat, michel hockx, sigrid schmid, susan ingram, and youna kim have contributed comments and advice to the project as a whole and the case studies pursued by individual project members. literature: anderson, benedict. imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. london: verso, 1983. appadurai, arjun. modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization. minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1996. appadurai, arjun. the social life of things: commodities in cultural perspective. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1986. appadurai, arjun. “topographies of the self: praise and emotion in hindu india.” in language and the politics of emotion, edited by catherin lutz and lila abu-lughod, 92-112. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1990. appadurai, arjun. “how histories make geographies: circulation and context in a global perspective.” transcultural studies 1 (2010): 4-13. barlow, tani e. “what is wanting?.” positions: east asia cultures critique 9 (2001) 1: 267-75. bayly, christopher a. the birth of the modern world, 1780-1914: global connections and comparisons. malden: blackwell, 2004. becker, gary s. and kevin m. murphy. social economics: market behaviour in a social environment. belknap series. harvard: harvard university press, 2003. belk, russell w., güliz ger and sören askegaard. “the fire of desire: a multisited inquiry into consumer passion.” journal of consumer culture 30 (2003): 326-51. black, duncan (ed.). collins dictionary, 10th edition. glasgow: harpercollins, 2009. bourdieu, pierre. the field of cultural production. cambridge: polity press, 1993. calhoun, craig (ed.). habermas and the public sphere. cambridge ma: mit press, 1992. chua, beng huat (ed.). consumption in asia: lifestyles and identities. london: routledge, 2000. colaiacomo, paola and vittoria c. caratozzolo. “the impact of traditional indian clothing on italian fashion design from germana marucelli to gianni versace.” fashion theory 14 (2010) 2: 183-214. crane, diana. the production of culture: media and the urban arts. london: sage publications, 1992. crossley, nick and john roberts (eds). after habermas: new perspectives on the public sphere. oxford: oxford university press, 2004. dikötter, frank. things modern. material culture and everyday life in china. london: hurst & company, 2007. finnane, antonia. changing clothes in china: fashion, history, nation. new york: columbia university press, 2008. frerich, stefan. bausteine einer systematischen nachrichtentheorie. konstruktives chaos und chaotische konstruktionen. wiesbaden: verlag für sozialwissenschaften, 2000. fung, anthony y.h. global capital, local culture: transnational media cooperations in china. new york: peter lang, 2008. geertz, clifford. the interpretation of cultures. selected essays. new york: basic books, 1973. giddens, anthony. the nation state and violence. volume two of a contemporary critique of historical materialism. berkeley: university of california press, 1987. gilbert, jeremy. “signifying nothing: ‘culture,’ ‘discourse’ and the sociality of affect.” culture machine 6 (2004). gladwell, malcolm. the tipping point: how little things can make a big difference. new york: little, brown book group, 2002. gove, philip babcock and noah webster (eds.). webster’s third international dictionary of the english language. unabridged, 3 vols, vol. 3. springfield: merriam-webster, 2002. grossberg, lawrence. “is there a fan in the house? the affective sensibility of fandom.” in the adoring audience: fan culture and popular media, ed. by lisa a. lewis, 50-65. london: routledge, 1992. habermas, jürgen. strukturwandel der öffentlichkeit: untersuchungen zu einer kategorie der bürgerlichen gesellschaft. neuwied/berlin: hermann luchterhand verlag, 1962. hall, stuart and tony jefferson (ed.). resistance through rituals: youth subcultures in post-war britain. london: taylor & francis, 2006. hannerz, ulf. cultural complexities: studies in the social organization of meaning. new york: columbia university press, 1992. hecken, thomas. gegenkultur und avantgarde 1950–1970. situationisten, beatniks, 68er. tübingen: narr franke attempto, 2006. hoffmann, frank w. and william g. bailey. fashion & merchandising fads. london: routledge, 1994. horx, matthias, jeanette huber, andreas steinle and eike wenzel. zukunft machen: wie sie von trends zu business-innovationen kommen. frankfurt am main: campus verlag, 2007. horx, matthias and peter wippermann (eds.). was ist trendforschung? düsseldorf: econ verlag, 1996. howes, david (ed.). cross-cultural consumption: global markets, local realities. london: routledge, 1996. iwabuchi, koichi. re-centering globalization: popular culture and japanese transnationalism. durham: duke university press, 2002. iyer, pico. video night in kathmandu. and other reports from not-so-far east. london: bloomsbury, 1988. jenkins, henry. convergence culture: where old and new media collide. new york: new york university press, 2006. kaur, raminder and ajay j. sinha (eds.),bollyworldnew delhi: sage, 2005. kröber-riehl, werner and gundolf meyer-hentschel. werbung: steuerung des konsumverhaltens. würzburg: physika-verlag, 1982. liechty, mark. suitably modern: making middle-class culture in a new consumer society. princeton: princeton university press, 2003. mackendrick, kenneth g. discourse, desire, and fantasy in jürgen habermas’ critical theory. london: routledge, 2008. marks, joel (ed.). the ways of desire: new essays in philosophical psychology on the concept of wanting. new brunswick: transaction books, 1986. marley, david and kevin robins (eds.). spaces of identity. london: routledge, 1995. mazzarella, william, shoveling smoke. advertising and globalization in contemporary india. oxford: oxford university press, 2003. meffert, heribert. marketing: grundlagen marktorientierter unternehmensführung. wiesbaden: gabler, 2000. mirzoeff, nicholas. an introduction to visual culture. london: routledge, 1999. mukerji, chandra and michael schudson. “introduction: rethinking popular culture.” in rethinking popular culture. contemporary perspectives in cultural studies, ed. by ibid., 1-60. berkeley: university of california press, 1991. naisbitt, john. megatrends: ten new directions transforming our lives. new york: grand central publishing, 1982. nieschlag, robert, erwin dichtel and hans hörschgen (eds.). marketing. berlin: duncker und humblot, 2002. ong, aihwa. flexible citizenship: the cultural logics of transnationality. durham: duke university press, 1999. oxford university press (ed.). a dictionary of business and management. oxford: clarendon press, 2009. oxford university press (ed.). the oxford english dictionary. 20 vols, vol. 20: thro-unelucidated. oxford: clarendon press, 1989. pomeranz, kenneth and steven topic. the world trade created. society, culture, and the world economy, 1400 to the present. new york: m.e. sharpe, 2006. robertson, roland. glocalization: social theory and global culture. london: thousand oaks press, 1992. robinson, gertrude joch. “fünfundzwanzig jahre gatekeeper-forschung. eine kritische rückschau und bewertung.” in gesellschaftliche kommunikation und information. forschungsrichtungen und problemstelluugen, edited by jörg aufermann, h. bohrmann, r. sülzer, f. naschold, 344-55. frankfurt am main: athenäum verlag, 1973. rofel, lisa. desiring china: experiments in neoliberalism, sexuality, and public culture. durham: duke university press, 2007. rust, holger. zukunftsillusionen: kritik der trendforschung. wiesbaden: verlag für sozialwissenschaften, 2008. sandkühler, hans-jörg and hong-bin lim (eds.). transculturality: epistomology, ethics and politics. frankfurt am main: peter lang, 2004. schroeder, timothy. three faces of desire. oxford: oxford university press, 2004. shoemaker, pamela. gatekeeping. london: sage publications, 1991. “special issue: chinese popular culture and the state, guest-editor wang jing.” positions: east asia cultures critique 9 (2001) 1. therborn, göran (ed.). asia and europe in globlization: continents, regions and nations. london: brill, 2006. tobin, joseph g. re-made in japan: everyday life and consumer taste in a changing society. new haven: yale university press, 1994. tomlinson, john. globalization and culture. chicago: university of chicago press, 1999. vejlgaard, henrik. anatomy of a trend. new york: mcgraw-hill, 2008. watson, james l. (ed.) golden arches east: mcdonald’s in east asia. stanford: stanford university press, 2006. welsch, wolfgang. “transculturality–the puzzling form of cultures today.” in spaces of culture: city, nation, world, edited by mike featherstone and scott lash, 194-213. london: sage, 1999. wilson, rob and wimal dissanayake (eds.). global-local: cultural production and the transnational imaginary. durham: duke university press, 1996. woesler, martin. zwischen exotismus, sinozentrismus und chinoiserie, européerie. bochum: europäischer universitäts-verlag 2006. [1] arjun appadurai, modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1996) and the social life of things: commodities in cultural perspective (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1986). following appadurai’s approach to “cultural flows,” trends are conceived here as carriers of concepts, commodities, and products, as well as of lifestyles within or across different publics. [2] many authors have already elaborated on this point. see for example: koichi iwabuchi, re-centering globalization: popular culture and japanese transnationalism (durham: duke university press, 2002); chua beng huat (ed.), consumption in asia: lifestyles and identities (london: routledge, 2000); ulf hannerz, cultural complexities: studies in the social organization of meaning (new york: columbia university press, 1992); aihwa ong, flexible citizenship: the cultural logics of transnationality (durham: duke university press, 1999); john tomlinson, globalization and culture (chicago: university of chicago press, 1999); roland robertson, glocalization: social theory and global culture (london: thousand oaks press, 1992); joseph g. tobin, re-made in japan: everyday life and consumer taste in a changing society (new haven: yale university press, 1994); göran therborn (ed.), asia and europe in globlization: continents, regions and nations (london: brill, 2006); david marley and kevin robins, spaces of identity (london: routledge, 1995). [3] economic, political, and cultural exchanges between asia and europe have a long history, which also impacted on patterns of clothing and consumption, see: christopher a. bayly, the birth of the modern world, 1780-1914: global connections and comparisons (malden: blackwell, 2004); kenneth pomeranz and steven topic, the world trade created. society, culture, and the world economy, 1400 to the present (new york: m.e. sharpe, 2006). paola colaiacomo and vittoria c. caratozzolo, “the impact of traditional indian clothing on italian fashion design from germana marucelli to gianni versace,” fashion theory 14 (2010) 2: 183-214. frank dikötter has highlighted the importance of investigating the circulation of commodities between cultures and their creative appropriation by users in changing historical contexts in china, see: frank dikötter, things modern. material culture and everyday life in china (london: hurst & company, 2007), 8. the evolution of clothing and fashion in china in its international contexts is discussed in: antonia finnane, changing clothes in china: fashion, history, nation (new york: columbia university press, 2008). [4] short-lived fads characterise, for example, the fashion industry, which relies upon the short life span of fashion trends to ensure a quick turnover, maximised profit margins and a continuous demand for novelty. see for example: frank w. hoffmann and william g. bailey, fashion & merchandising fads (london: routledge, 1994); gary s. becker and kevin m. murphy, social economics: market behaviour in a social environment, belknap series (harvard: harvard university press, 2003); henrik vejlgaard, anatomy of a trend (new york: mcgraw-hill, 2008), 11f. [5] see: chandra mukerji and michael schudson, “introduction: rethinking popular culture” in: rethinking popular culture. contemporary perspectives in cultural studies, ed. by ibid. (berkeley: university of california press, 1991), 1-60; see also: “special issue: chinese popular culture and the state, guest-editor wang jing” positions: east asia cultures critique 9 (2001) 1. previous popular and academic works have shown the social, political, and cultural impact of transcultural exchanges of movie and food cultures to different localities: see for example: pico iyer, video night in kathmandu. and other reports from not-so-far east (london: bloomsbury, 1988); james l. watson (ed.), golden arches east: mcdonald’s in east asia (stanford: stanford university press, 2006); mark liechty. suitably modern: making middle-class culture in a new consumer society (princeton: princeton university press, 2003); raminder kaur and ajay j. sinha (eds.), bollyworld (new delhi: sage, 2005). [6] the notions of transculturality proposed in this volume are based on: wolfgang welsch, “transculturality–the puzzling form of cultures today” in: spaces of culture: city, nation, world, ed. mike featherstone and scott lash(london: sage, 1999), 194-213; hans-jörg sandkühler and hong-bin lim (eds.), transculturality: epistomology, ethics and politics (frankfurt am main: peter lang, 2004); nicholas mirzoeff, an introduction to visual culture (london: routledge, 1999), ch. 4. [7] for a discussion of the issue of connectivity, circulation, and speed see: arjun appadurai, “how histories make geographies: circulation and context in a global perspective,” transcultural studies 1 (2010): 4-13. [8] such an approach focuses on localities, agents and networks, and shifting borders that redefine these elements, see: ibid., 5. [9] an extensive collection of insightful articles on localisation processes can be found in: david howes (ed.), cross-cultural consumption: global markets, local realities (london: routledge, 1996); anthony y.h. fung, global capital, local culture: transnational media cooperations in china (new york, frankfurt: peter lang, 2008); rob wilson and wimal dissanayake (eds), global-local: cultural production and the transnational imaginary (durham: duke university press, 1996); william mazzarella, shoveling smoke. advertising and globalization in contemporary india (oxford: oxford university press, 2003). [10] philip babcock gove and noah webster (eds), webster’s third international dictionary of the english language. unabridged, 3 vols, vol. 3 (springfield: merriam-webster, 2002), 2438; duncan black (ed.), collins dictionary, 10th edition (glasgow: harpercollins, 2009), 1740; oxford university press (ed.), the oxford english dictionary. 20 vols, vol. 20: thro-unelucidated (oxford: clarendon press, 1989), 483. [11] see for example: werner kröber-riehl and gundolf meyer-hentschel, werbung: steuerung des konsumverhaltens (würzburg: physika-verlag, 1982); holger rust, zukunftsillusionen: kritik der trendforschung (wiesbaden: verlag für sozialwissenschaften, 2008). [12] john naisbitt, megatrends: ten new directions transforming our lives (new york: grand central publishing, 1982); robert nieschlag, erwin dichtel and hans hörschgen (eds), marketing (berlin: duncker und humblot, 2002); heribert meffert, marketing: grundlagen marktorientierter unternehmensführung (wiesbaden: gabler, 2000); matthias horx and peter wippermann (eds), was ist trendforschung? (düsseldorf: econ verlag, 1996); matthias horx et al., zukunft machen: wie sie von trends zu business-innovationen kommen (frankfurt am main: campus verlag, 2007). [13] henrik vejlgaard, anatomy of a trend (new york: mcgraw-hill, 2008). [14] this approach is inspired by geertz’ notion of thick description. see: clifford geertz, the interpretation of cultures. selected essays (new york: basic books, 1973), 3-30. appadurai has highlighted the importance of the notion that historical agents create geographies. the series thus emphasises the importance of agents and networks over spatial conceptions. yet the issue of borders and space also matter to the authors. see: appadurai, “how histories make geographies,” 9. [15] martin woesler, zwischen exotismus, sinozentrismus und chinoiserie, européerie (bochum: europäischer universitäts-verlag 2006). [16] for a discussion of political resistance through rituals see the work of stuart hall and others at the centre for contemporary cultural studies birmingham since the 1970s in: stuart hall and tony jefferson (ed.), resistance through rituals: youth subcultures in post-war britain (london: taylor & francis, 2006). see also: thomas hecken, gegenkultur und avantgarde 1950–1970. situationisten, beatniks, 68er (tübingen: narr franke attempto, 2006). [17] for a discussion of “locality” vs. “the global” in relation to the evolution of markets in the twenty-first century see: appadurai, “how histories make geographies.” [18] in form of hanuman, the figure of the monkey king also exists as a deity in india. [19] these categories may facilitate a better understanding of what appadurai has called “bumps and blocks, disjunctures and differences…(that are) produced by the variety of circuits, scales and speeds which characterize the circulation of cultural elements.” see: appadurai: “how histories make geographies,” 11. [20] the importance of the concept of desire for identity formation, consumption, fandom, tastes, and behaviour has attracted attention in many academic disciplines ranging from the humanities to cultural studies, social sciences and history. see for example: tani e. barlow, “what is wanting?,” positions: east asia cultures critique 9 (2001) 1: 267-75; russell w. belk, güliz ger and sören askegaard, “the fire of desire: a multisited inquiry into consumer passion,” journal of consumer culture 30 (2003): 326-51; lawrence grossberg, “is there a fan in the house? the affective sensibility of fandom,” in: the adoring audience: fan culture and popular media, ed. by lisa a. lewis (london: routledge, 1992), 50-65; lisa rofel, desiring china: experiments in neoliberalism, sexuality, and public culture (durham: duke university press, 2007); jeremy gilbert, “signifying nothing: ‘culture,’ ‘discourse’ and the sociality of affect,” culture machine 6 (2004). on the formation of practitioners of trends, as discussed in the following paragraph, see also kenneth mackendrick’s discussion of the importance of desire and fantasy as constitutive aspects of intersubjective relations. see: kenneth g. mackendrick, discourse, desire, and fantasy in jürgen habermas’ critical theory (london: routledge, 2008);  joel marks (ed.), the ways of desire: new essays in philosophical psychology on the concept of wanting  (new brunswick: transaction books, 1986); timothy schroeder, three faces of desire (oxford: oxford university press, 2004). how the advent of consumerism in india has impacted on consumption patterns and consumer desires was brilliantly discussed by william mazzarella in his account on the indian advertising industry and their attempt to negotiate the local and the global in their visual discourses: mazzarella, shoveling smoke. [21] anthony giddens, the nation state and violence. volume two of a contemporary critique of historical materialism (berkeley: university of california press, 1987), 7. [22] see: appadurai: “how histories make geographies,” 8f. [23] since the publication of david manning white’s study, many scholars have further developed his theory by taking the complicated social structures of society and/or working groups into consideration. see for example: stefan frerich, bausteine einer systematischen nachrichtentheorie. konstruktives chaos und chaotische konstruktionen (wiesbaden: verlag für sozialwissenschaften, 2000); gertrude joch robinson, “fünfundzwanzig jahre gatekeeper-forschung. eine kritische rückschau und bewertung,” in: gesellschaftliche kommunikation und information. forschungsrichtungen und problemstelluugen, ed. jörg aufermann, h. bohrmann, r. sülzer, f. naschold (frankfurt am main: athenäum verlag, 1973), 344-55; diana crane, the production of culture: media and the urban arts (london: sage publications, 1992). [24] see robinson: “fünfundzwanzig jahre gatekeeper-forschung,” 344-55. [25] the actions of gatekeepers are not necessarily deliberate but may instead be determined by their social and cultural backgrounds. for a detailed description of these factors, see pamela shoemaker, gatekeeping (london: sage publications, 1991). [26] see: appadurai, “how histories make geographies,” 7. [27] in context of shaping geographies and spaces, appadurai has argued a similar point. the making of local spaces is shaped by agents and networks, which change over time. thus, also the spaces they create are reconfigured, see: appadurai, “how histories make geographies,” 9. [28] the term “public(s)” has been chosen both as a derivate of jürgen habermas’ concept of the “public sphere,” but also as an alternative term that focuses less on the establishment of democratic decision making through public discourse and more on community formation without the imperative political connotation. our notion of publics borrows from pierre bourdieu’s theory of “fields,” arjun appadurai’s “communities of sentiment,” and benedict anderson’s “imagined communities.” cf. jürgen habermas, strukturwandel der öffentlichkeit: untersuchungen zu einer kategorie der bürgerlichen gesellschaft (neuwied/berlin: hermann luchterhand verlag, 1962); pierre bourdieu, the field of cultural production (cambridge: polity press, 1993); arjun appadurai, “topographies of the self: praise and emotion in hindu india,” in: language and the politics of emotion ed. by catherin lutz and lila abu-lughod (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1990), 92-112; and in arjun appadurai, modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1996); benedict anderson, imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism (london: verso, 1983). an insightful criticism of habermasian theory can be found in craig calhoun (ed.), habermas and the public sphere (cambridge ma: mit press, 1992); and nick crossley and john roberts (eds), after habermas: new perspectives on the public sphere (oxford: oxford university press, 2004). [29] in an anthology of his articles published in the new yorker, malcolm gladwell argues that“the tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.” cf. malcolm gladwell, the tipping point: how little things can make a big difference (new york: little, brown book group, 2002). [30] see appadurai’s notions of “forms of circulation and circulation of forms,” both of which also apply to transcultural trends: appadurai, “how histories make geographies,” 7ff. [31] the term “transmediality” is borrowed from henry jenkins' concept of “transmedial storytelling,” but is used more conservatively to denote the ability of a successful trend to penetrate different media and genres in its process of becoming even more popular. cf. henry jenkins, convergence culture: where old and new media collide (new york: new york university press, 2006). [32] according to the oxford dictionary of business and management a brand can be defined as “a tradename used to identify a specific product, manufacturer, or distributor.” cf. oxford university press (ed.), a dictionary of business and management (oxford: clarendon press, 2009), 71-72. [33] since thorstein veblen’s critical writings on “conspicuous consumption,” scholars have been debating how consumption impacts on consumers’ social identity. tani barlow advanced the idea of writing the history of social desire. furthermore, she questioned whether we need to distinguish between the terms “desire” and “emotion” in the investigation of popular culture or “the popular”. see: barlow, “what is wanting?,” 269ff. within cultural studies theory, the definition and importance of “affect” has also attracted wide attention. see for example:  gilbert, “signifying nothing.” v editorial note this issue of the journal of transcultural studies opens with a study of memorializing jewish salonica in the writings of cecil roth: writer, editor-in-chief of the encyclopedia judaica until his death in 1970, and a well-known collector of judaica. in his article examining roth’s publications on the significance of the holocaust for jewish history in salonica, jay prosser intervenes in ongoing discussions in memory studies that have increasingly begun to question canonical narratives, the foundations of which were laid by the copious work of pierre nora and that are premised on a nexus between memory and the nation. prosser’s account of roth’s life and work, which have surprisingly received scant attention, speaks to a transcultural perspective on memory that is non-national and—in the particular example of salonica’s jewish community studied by roth—is not reducible to zionist or even diasporic memory, as frequently encountered in narratives of jewish history. roth’s salonica writings offer prosser a field from which he extracts a “transhistorical” conception of memory, formed over a longue durée, an itinerant memory that connects places and times often not thought of together—reconquista spain, the ottoman empire, modern greek attempts at hellenization, intra-jewish differences, and not least, the catastrophic events of the holocaust. describing the fate of jews in the holocaust, roth read the destruction of lives and communities as a phenomenon that went far deeper than the present: in prosser’s reading, roth cast the holocaust as an act that obliterated a trans-temporal memory formed out of a deeper history going back in time, a long and expansive sephardic history of cultural crossings, embodied in objects and places, such as salonica’s desecrated cemetery whose tombstones went back to the sixteenth century. while the treatment of salonica in roth’s work can be read as akin to a lieu de mémoire, it refuses, according to prosser, to shore up this memory within a single national frame. in doing so, roth’s work, he argues, made it possible to read sites as transcultural, anticipating the more recent, critical directions in memory studies. and yet this narrative comes at the price of historical precision: prosser draws our attention to the multiple literary strategies resorted to by roth—such as the use of the picturesque or the introduction of recurring archetypes—in order to construct a sense of an unbroken transhistorical world extending from the formation of the sephardic community to a period of refuge within a tolerant and pluralistic ottoman empire, and to then intensify the terrible loss inflicted by the holocaust. roth’s use of an affective lens to study memory relied on an idealized model of a culturally inclusive ottoman empire—eliding any mention of the armenian genocide—posited against segregationist regimes such as the vi editorial note spanish inquisition, hellenizing movements conscripted to greek nationalism, and the nazi occupation. even as prosser reminds us of the historiographic contribution of roth’s writings to latter-day critical memory studies, he draws our attention to the polarity between culturally homogenizing forces and transculturally formed modes of remembering the past that structures roth’s narrative, implicitly suggesting that privileging normativity could become a methodological trap for transcultural studies. the normative powers of memory are not the only methodological challenge for transcultural studies addressed in this issue. the history of emotions is another area in which both the potential and limitations of the transcultural approach remain to be specified. recent contributions to this emerging field have assembled strong evidence that emotions play a more consequential role in shaping social codes, norms, and institutions than rationalist and behaviourist explanations of human activity are willing to concede. however, many studies making the case that affective experiences and their conceptualization matter tie them to stable and self-contained affective communities whose boundaries tend to coincide with larger constructs such as “nations” or “cultures.” treated in this way, emotions resemble the “culture-bound syndromes” identified by psychiatrists and medical anthropologists and, like these allegedly unique assemblages of common symptoms, risk becoming reified as markers of fixed identities. can a transcultural perspective help us gain a more adequate and at the same time less essentialist understanding of “culture-specific” emotions? this is the question hye lim nam raises in her essay on han, a powerful emotion that has been described as a “uniquely korean psychological state.” combining feelings of sadness, mournfulness, and resentment while also offering glimmers of hope to overturn the conditions from which it emerged, han is portrayed as defying both definition and translation. provoked by universal experiences, it becomes tangible only, its propagators claim, in specifically korean contexts. nam reconstructs the successive nationalization of the korean soul through an analysis of concrete historical situations in which han was enlisted to explain and overcome individual and collective suffering. her careful investigations reveal not only the undeniably transcultural origins of the vocabulary used to verbalize han but also highlights the historicity of this peculiar “emotion concept.” her study illustrates that neither emotions nor their verbal expressions can be seen as stable objects; rather, they must be interpreted as embodied indicators of, and factors in, changing realities. much like the basic concepts of any society’s political lexicon, they can be mobilized for different ideological purposes and remain inevitably contested. zooming in on discussions about the nature and possible functions of han in the context of the minjung, or “people’s,” movement viithe journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 of the 1970s and 1980s, nam traces the diverse inspirations, many of them from abroad, from which two leading voices in the academic and public discourse on han drew to portray the emotion either as the root cause of popular apathy or a latent catalyst for change. disagreeing as to whether han is to be seen as an entirely passive emotion or has the potential to rouse “the people” to decisive action, the two authors locate susceptibility to it in different strata of korean society. at the same time, both enmesh han in a story of national redemption that unfolds from korea’s bitter past through its uncertain present to a hopeful future in which the country will be unified and democratic, and thus a state where the kind of suffering that produces han has been eliminated. rather than emanating from particular features of a korean “national character,” nam demonstrates that the cultural specificity of han needs to be understood as the temporally and historically situated expression of concrete social demands whose specific gestalt is shaped by transcultural entanglements that reach well beyond the nation-state. our third contribution turns from the history of emotions to an analysis of the exhibitionary complex in contemporary art. to what extent is it feasible for a large-scale periodic exhibition such as the documenta to engage in a self-reflexive praxis effecting a disruption of continuing structures that have by virtue of the sheer logic of editionality accumulated an authority whose habits resist dissidence from beyond? in her article “learning from crisis,” barbara lutz addresses this question to documenta 14 (2017), whose artistic director adam szymczyk sought to disengage the hosting institution from its established position with the intent of introducing a new ethics of participation and co-production that would heal some of the wounds inflicted by crises of the present. cultural production in a globalized world implies, more than ever before, that the location of its actors is no longer necessarily tied to geography. thus, for the last edition of documenta, szymczyk—following the motto “learning from athens”—chose two sites, kassel and athens, in a move to dissolve existing barriers and undo the prevailing asymmetries within the contemporary art world. what does it mean, lutz asks, for an established “western” institution to abandon its exclusive role as host and to take instead the part of the guest? reversing the basis of a curatorial system conceived of as a space of “hospitality” (beatrice von bismarck) in turn meant repositioning a national logic of belonging that constitutes, among other things, the position of the “foreigner.” recent dislocations engendered by mass migration have generated debates about belonging, citizenship, and legality, making questions related to staying on and partaking more urgent than ever. can the exhibition format, as it emerges in lutz’s analysis of documenta 14, envision alternative possibilities of transcultural cohabitation? viewing szymczyk’s curatorial concept of viii editorial note distributed locations and reversed roles through a transcultural lens, lutz pertinently asks whether extending an invitation necessarily results in participation, and what struggles would be required to lay down such terms of collaboration that in the end would transform the existing social logic of inclusion within which existing institutional frameworks remain unquestioned. yet the gaps between the well-intentioned aims of documenta 14 to “learn from athens” and the details of individual events that the above account points to, go deeper than the everyday practicalities of organizing a mega-show. transcultural modes of thinking can take us beyond now-tired debates that critique “dominant western and eurocentric” power structures and might show the way to more experimental modes of engagement with the dilemmas of the contemporary art world. by undermining monocultural notions of belonging, a transcultural perspective draws our attention to altered configurations of the contemporary in which shared concerns and affinities transcend earlier cartographic divides such as “the west and the rest” or even “global north and global south.” the new connections that are being forged between dissident sites and actors centre on issues of belonging, participation, and citizenship—now being ceaselessly debated, manipulated, and injected with majoritarian values by populist regimes across the globe. only when alternative possibilities of challenging monologic understandings of culture are envisaged for the individual and communities, can a basis for transcultural co-production—be it of art or exhibition practice—be realized. transcultural co-productions are not exclusively modern or contemporary phenomena. they were also a central feature of the “itinerant academies” established by jesuit missionary societies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, whose trajectories are traced by dhruv raina, a returning contributor to our journal, in the issue’s fourth article. while it has long been argued that the jesuit order and the long-distance networks it built to sustain its proselytizing drives into latin america and asia functioned as early modern prefigurations of today’s multinational corporations, the relative significance and specific contributions of the non-european nodes linking these expansive networks are not yet sufficiently understood. this is especially true with regard to their place in the global history of knowledge. recent scholarship has acknowledged the role of jesuit and other religious scholars as active vectors in the formation modern academic disciplines, in the natural as well as the human sciences. but our picture of the geographies of knowledge production that shaped the emerging disciplinary canons and practices is still incomplete. drawing on his own previous archival work and a wealth of kindred studies that have begun to fill in many blanks, raina reconstructs the webs of connectivity that sustained the macroand micro-geographies of jesuit knowledge-making beyond europe. although recognizing that the collegio romano played ixthe journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 a pivotal part in collecting, distributing, and authorizing knowledge, he argues that it was far from the only creative centre in the sprawling network of learned institutions that the jesuits established for their missions. in order to advance their evangelical goals, or simply to survive, jesuit missionaries needed to assemble detailed and reliable knowledge about their far-flung stations. this was possible only by enlisting the cooperation of local savants and by building dense intellectual networks in which the order’s best-known european institutions, as raina shows through the example of the rise of “catholic orientalism,” filled no more than supplementary roles. even if these informal networks remained largely virtual, or “itinerant” as the author puts it, the knowledge they helped to disseminate provided crucial building blocks for the construction of the modern disciplinary matrix. raina’s contribution thus not only underscores the transcultural nature of these undervalued but indispensable ingredients. it also demonstrates the extent to which transcultural studies can benefit from focusing on “less visible” actors and institutions whose contributions are customarily ignored in whiggish accounts of the history of science and their parochial equivalents in other domains of research. our rubric reports from the field features a contribution by sophie florence, a student in the ma in transcultural studies programme at heidelberg university. the initiative taken by sophie and her team comes in the wake of rising xenophobic violence and digitally disseminated hatred that have fractured the world across national boundaries and created a climate of fear and misinformation in our everyday lives. in other words, the world today presents us with conditions that call for an engagement with the core concepts of transcultural studies that effectively undermine purist notions of culture on which dominant versions of collective belonging continue to be based. much of the racist violence, or misgivings vis-à-vis migrants and foreigners we encounter on a daily basis—sophie and her team rightly point out—follow from simple ignorance that in turn breeds insecurity, if not overt hatred. this has motivated this exemplary project of knowledge-sharing beyond the classroom and into the fabric of the city and its communities. building bridges, finding a language to communicate, to make the results of scholarly production widely accessible lies at the heart of transcultural studies that can be conceptualized as both a field of scholarship and an arena of performative citizenship. and finally, some welcome news related to our journal. on the occasion of a recent event to honour the founding editor of the jts, rudolf g. wagner, a well-wisher and admirer of the journal from taiwan (who wishes to remain unnamed) presented us with a gift of €100,000. the money was raised by enlisting two generous benefactors: they are barry lam 林百里, the founder and x editorial note chairman of quanta computer, who is a patron of the arts and a philanthropist in the area of culture and education, and tzu-hsien tung 童子賢, a taiwanese businessman and philanthropist, who is a co-founder of asus and its former vice chairman. he now serves as the chairman of pegatron. we are deeply grateful for this much-needed support and will endeavour to use this generous donation strategically for the journal. monica juneja and joachim kurtz fig. 1: presentation of a grant of €100,000 to the journal of transcultural studies at the second centre for asian and transcultural studies open forum: china and the world, the world and china, in honor of rudolf g. wagner to the honouree by barbara mittler (institute of sinology and cats). reproduced with the kind permission of dietlind wünsche. https://www.quantatw.com/quanta/english/ https://www.asus.com http://pegatroncorp.com/ xithe journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 fig. 2: presentation of a grant of €100,000 to the journal of transcultural studies at the second centre for asian and transcultural studies open forum: china and the world, the world and china, in honor of rudolf g. wagner. pictured from the left are axel michaels (cats), diamantis panagiotopoulos (jts), joachim kurtz (jts), russell ó ríagáin (jts), rudolf wagner (jts), monica juneja (jts), and barbara mittler (institute of sinology and cats). missing from photograph: michael radich. reproduced with the kind permission of susann henker. _goback introduction catherine yeh rudolf wagner belonged to the first generation of sinologists growing up right after world war ii. he came from a well-to-do industrialist family that resided in wiesbaden. his father was a scientist and held a doctoral degree in the fields of physics and chemistry. he worked for quite some years in the us, then returned to germany in the late 1930s. during the war, instead of becoming an officer, he was drafted as a foot soldier because he refused to join the nazi party. he survived the war, only to succumb to cancer and die when rudolf was six years old. rudolf did not remember his father very well, but he did remember being taken by his older sisters to the air raid shelter in the basement as the allied forces flew overhead bombing the neighboring city mainz. growing up, the biggest influence on rudolf was his mother. having become an orphan at the age of eight, rudolf’s mother encouraged the spirit of independence among her children. like many youths of his generation, he had to find his own way forward and construct an identity that would link him to the best of german cultural and philosophical traditions while rejecting the ideology that brought the nazis to power and inflicted such trauma and horror on the world. this conscious acceptance and rejection of different aspects of the german cultural past formed the basis for rudolf’s highly critical mind as well as his openness to cultures and knowledge beyond national borders. starting in middle school and throughout high school, he read voraciously, spending most of the little pocket money he had on slim paperback volumes. he read widely, and he acquired a broad knowledge base on european as well as other cultural histories. as an autodidact, his vast reading also helped nurture within him a rich fantasy life and imagination. coming to heidelberg to study hermeneutics with hans-georg gadamer, he steeped himself in the best german philosophical traditions. his interest in buddhism, in particular zen buddhism, brought him to sinology. according to rudolf, after the postwar boom years there was a shared feeling of alienation among western intellectuals. like many young people of his day, he read existentialist philosophy, went to samuel beckett plays, fell in love with alberto giacometti’s sculptures, saw bram van velde’s tachisme, and became fascinated with zen buddhism. in the end, the buddhist texts he read in translation presented, both philosophically and in the cryptic form of communication, the greatest attraction and the greatest challenges. the translations intrigued him. he wanted to be able to read the originals. by then he had developed a strong affinity with buddhism, which he maintained 2 introduction throughout his life. the combination of hermeneutics, both as a philosophical concept and a method of inquiry, and sinology, with a focus on buddhist and philosophical texts, formed rudolf’s scholarly foundation and the source of his intellectual stimulus. this background helps to explain rudolf’s propensity for seeing culture as a form of dialogue and his rejection of national borders as obstacles to intellectual exchange—buddhism does not belong to any particular country or culture. this particular intellectual constellation resulted in rudolf’s unique contribution to a wide range of scholarly fields. as his scholarship was informed by ideas that are not bound by ideological trends or national borders, the questions that fascinated him were often unfashionable, out of the way of the dominant discussions of the time. for example, at the time when scholars were formulating a history of modern chinese literature in the late 1970s and early 1980s, rudolf’s studies challenged the very concept of national literature by demonstrating the enormous impact of soviet literature on the formation of modern chinese literature, especially after 1949. with his intellectual makeup, he rejected the china-centered approach which situated the opinions of chinese scholars at the center of discussion. this position favors the so-called chinese perspective, disregarding the fact that, the chinese communist party (ccp) has a dominant role in determining it. instead, rudolf famously declared to his students “go for the margins or the marginal, but then take all leads seriously.” in doing so, he was able to make breakthrough contributions to various scholarly disciplines. this included his path-breaking study on the taiping rebellion, where, based on archival materials and employing hermeneutics methodology, he was able to recreate and bring to light the critical role religion played in forming the foundation of the taiping movement. his studies of the literature of the people’s republic of china (prc) of the 1950s and 1960s and during the cultural revolution were likewise highly innovative and daring. using archival materials, including actors’ diaries, internal ccp documents, and textual variations of a literary work, he was able to demonstrate the transcultural nature of the formation of this period of literature in the prc, as well as the political character of these works in reflecting certain party policies. his studies rejected the prevailing fashions at the time of studying prc literature as a national product without considering its relationship to international socialist literature, and the impact of soviet literature. furthermore, he challenged the mainstream reading of prc literature using established methods of literary criticism. combining social and political history, he showed that the literary works of the 1950s and 1960s were a form of political dialogue. it continuously reflected, articulated, and challenged the party’s policies. at times, this body of literature was directly subjected to interference from the party. 3the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) rudolf’s contributions to pre-modern chinese studies were equally impressive. the most important were his study of wang bi’s (226–249 ce) commentary on the laozi or tao te ching (late third century bce), his extrapolative translation of the laozi through the wang bi commentary, and his study language, ontology, and political philosophy: wang bi’s scholarly exploration of the dark (xuanxue). this three-volume study established a new direction in the study of laozi and chinese philosophy in general by offering a methodology of reading chinese philosophical work through commentaries. since ancient times, chinese philosophical texts were always read through a given commentary. going against the prevailing modern scholarly tradition of “scholar meets the raw and unmediated urtext,” rudolf went for a historically specific reading on the basis of one commentary. that of course is a hermeneutic enterprise. the young man who was fascinated by zen buddhism and hermeneutics was able to realize his earlier aspirations through his studies of wang bi’s laozi commentary, introducing hermeneutics to pre-modern chinese studies. while he was teaching at heidelberg, two research groups were formed under rudolf’s guidance, one focused on pre-modern chinese philosophical texts and commentary, and the other on the study of chinese newspapers or the creation of the chinese public sphere. many doctoral dissertations came out of these two research groups. rudolf himself drafted his study the life and times of a cultural broker: ernest major and his shenbao publishing house in shanghai (1872–1889), a work he did not have time to complete but which is now in the process of being published. he submitted his study on the films produced in the chinese cultural revolution entitled the last stand of the cultural revolution: film, society, and the politics 1972–1976 to heidelberg university publishing in 2019, the same year he passed away. in 2007, rudolf’s idea of transcultural studies finally found its institutional outlet in the creation of the heidelberg university cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context.” together with two other scholars, axel michaels and madeleine herren-oesch, rudolf became one of the founding members of the cluster. the cluster of excellence was a research facility that was funded in the framework of the german universities excellence initiative of the federal government and the german states. as one of the center’s first directors, he helped guide a new generation of graduate students in writing their m.a. and phd dissertations in the field to which he had dedicated most of his scholarly life. during this period, he completed an edited volume of studies on chinese newspapers: joining the global public: word, image, and city in early chinese newspapers, 1870–1910 (2007), and co-edited the volume chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge (1870–1930): changing ways of thought (2014). and these were only his main works. in addition, he published numerous 4 introduction journal articles and book chapters (see rudolf’s publication list at the end of this special issue of the journal of transcultural studies). in this special issue of the journal of transcultural studies commemorating rudolf’s contribution to various scholarly fields, we bring together a group of scholars to reflect on rudolf’s work in the field of pre-modern as well as modern chinese and cultural studies. the highlight of this volume, however, is an article by rudolf himself. the article “reconstructing the may fourth movement: the role of communication, propaganda, and international actors” was based on rudolf’s last lecture, which was first given at the harvard university conference “may fourth @ 100: china and the world” on april 12–13, 2019. he then gave an updated version of this lecture at heidelberg university on the occasion of the symposium “china and the world, the world and china: in honor of rudolf g. wagner,” held on june 26, 2019. here i need to thank cynthea bogel and the late john stevenson for their help in editing the paper. following his provocative article “the role of the foreign community in the chinese public sphere,”1 rudolf challenges the well-established narrative embedding the may fourth movement into the nation-state historiography of the prc. by exploring newly opened archival materials, rudolf helps shed light on the role played by international actors in the movement, and later in the struggle against japanese imperial ambition towards china. the article thus reestablished the transcultural dimension of the may fourth movement, which has so far been left out or largely marginalized. marianne bastid-bruguière’s article “rudolf wagner as historian” offers a detailed analysis of rudolf’s intellectual journey and scholarly contribution spanning many decades. it includes rudolf’s work in the modern and premodern period, from work on philosophy to prc literature, from the taiping religious movement to the chinese encyclopedia. edward l. shaughnessy’s contribution is titled “rudolf wagner and wang bi.” it is a personal remembrance of rudolf as a scholar, based on a detailed discussion and critique of rudolf’s major arguments regarding wang bi’s commentary on laozi. the discussion and arguments with rudolf’s findings continue in this article, which thus attests to the provocative nature of rudolf’s approach to scholarship. leo ou-fan lee focuses on the enormous contribution made by rudolf in “bringing a global perspective to chinese studies.” mareike ohlberg furthers this discussion in her tribute “rudolf wagner’s work on the politics of modern chinese literature.” both lee and ohlberg emphasize rudolf’s insistence on following all leads in recreating the cultural and political horizon in which events such as the taiping rebellion, or literary works such as the chinese historical drama, were created. in so doing, rudolf’s works always 1 rudolf g. wagner, “the role of the foreign community in the chinese public sphere,” the china quarterly 142 (1995): 423–443. 5the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) went beyond the national border in terms of chinese studies, and helped firmly place chinese studies in a global perspective. finally, the last two articles deal with rudolf’s contribution to the field of transcultural studies. william sax’s article “transculturalism beyond dualism: in memory of rudolf wagner,” discusses rudolf’s critique of the tendency towards binarity in transcultural studies. based on rudolf’s lectures “the trees and the forest: notes on recalibrating culture,” sax discusses the prevailing tendency toward dualism, and rudolf’s thinking on the sustaining relationship of local or regional culture versus culture in general. sax, however, points out that even in rudolf’s breakthrough thinking on the culture of nature including humans, there is still an underlying binary structure of culture versus nature. this special issue ends with a piece by sabina brady and myself entitled: “lifeworld in the anthropocene age: an imaginary interview with rudolf g. wagner, his thoughts on the trees/forest metaphor and the culture of nature in transcultural studies.” the motivation in creating this imaginary interview with rudolf was to give him a chance to articulate some of his thinking and exploration on the concept of transculturality and of the culture of nature close to the time when he passed away. the piece is based entirely on rudolf’s own writings with minor editing. it also aims to highlight rudolf’s challenge to transcultural studies, and the need to go beyond human history to understand transculturality as the lifeline of the lifeworld in the anthropocene age. rudolf, you have the last word, rightly so. catherine vance yeh editor’s note | transcultural studies editor’s note this issue of transcultural studies features four contributions, each of which investigates a problem of transcultural mobility from a specific disciplinary perspective. the essays span a time period ranging from the second millennium bce to the late twentieth century and each of them examines negotiations with difference, the agency of individuals and groups, and the pull of locations. the authors bring back center-stage materials that often fall through the gaps which individual disciplinary canons and their frameworks tend to produce. a transcultural enquiry on the other hand enables and necessitates the recuperation of such sources. the issue opens with lai yu-chih’s study of the production of texts and images at the qing court in the eighteenth century about the cassowary, an exotic bird widely represented in europe and often strongly associated with royalty. the author closely investigates the processes of selection, translation, and stylistic appropriation of accounts and images of the cassowary from a wide range of european texts—above all the french anatomical report by charles perrault dating to the late seventeenth century—and the insertion of reconfigured productions in existing local genres, to draw out the role of agency and interpretation as these played out between the qianlong emperor, his court artists (which included members of the jesuit mission to the qing court), and the sources from which they chose their objects. the emulation of mimetic, ostensibly “scientific” visual modes by chinese court artists involved redeploying their expressive potential to construct knowledge of another kind—divine endorsement of imperial rule. the intersection between visual knowledge of natural history and narratives of universal rulership continues to be a relatively neglected theme in the study of early modern court cultures. while historians have tended to read ideologies of rulership through the prism of textual sources, art historians have not paid sufficient attention to the genre of nature studies. ongoing research on empires in other regions of asia suggests that compiling and producing knowledge of natural history from an array of circulating materials as a way to realize imperial ideals might be a shared feature among early modern monarchies across a vast eurasian zone, a hypothesis that invites further, ideally collaborative, research. that transcultural interaction with migrating knowledge can never be a matter of passive reception, is one of the main insights to be gained from the article by okubo takeharu, which looks at the appropriation of dutch academic jurisprudence and political economy in japan during the later meiji period. japanese encounters with and translations of materials of european provenance up to the mid-nineteenth century were mediated through dutch sources, a circumstance that for a long time came to serve as a shorthand for the diffusion of “western” knowledge in japan. okubo’s investigation of the political thought of ono ozusa, a commentator of dutch jurisprudence who drafted a proposal of japan’s future constitution, draws out the complex dynamics of this process which was far from being a simple assimilation of some pre-formed “western” notions. ono had to negotiate between, on the one hand, the historical idiom of his dutch sources—already transcultured through their absorption of roman law studies—, and on the other the fashionable benthamite utilitarian science of the legislator. there was no single “west” to which ono azusa looked; instead he made his way through divided, often irreconcilable views as to what constituted and sustained the modernity of european societies and polities. both articles, by lai and okubo, have been translated from chinese and japanese as part of our journal’s continuing endeavor to act as a forum for bringing to an anglophone readership the fruits of scholarship in other languages. such an engagement aims at more than a simple overcoming of linguistic hurdles: the goal is the reception of scholarship at a global level. translation, as in both these cases, has been undertaken as a dialogical exercise between author and translator; it involves interaction with the concerns and framing positions of a different academic culture, which is in itself a transcultural process. okubo takehara, for instance, belongs to a younger generation of japanese scholars, who have begun to unpack the role of the dutch voc in the transmission of knowledge to japan in what still remains an “inner-japanese” discussion. the article by diamantis panagiotopoulos sets out to examine certain key terms used in descriptions of transcultural mobility—terms such as import, exotic, rare, precious, or foreign —from within the context of the meanings ascribed to them in societies of the eastern mediterranean centuries before the advent of modern globalization. using the materiality of objects as a prism, the article argues for a contextual definition of concepts drawn from local practices wherein the main factor determining the otherness of an object was the degree to which its material resisted domestication, while design, style and function could lose their distinctiveness once incorporated within new contexts. the article makes a strong argument for a more dynamic framework which negotiates the distance between local perceptions and modern disciplinary parameters. objects figure centrally also in barbara mittler’s contribution, which is part of the series offered to felicitate the journal’s editor rudolf wagner. the article takes a fresh look at narratives of china’s cultural revolution which highlight its iconoclasm or forcible confiscation of material objects, especially printed books. instead the paper argues—on the basis of evidence collected through extensive field-work—for a transformation or re-appropriation of the experience of “smashing” to constitute a new, transculturally shaped culture of consumption. we hope this issue of the journal makes for stimulating reading. we look forward to your feedback and contributions to strengthening the journal’s role as a forum for interdisciplinary conversations and innovative research. monica juneja performing the practice turn in archaeology | stockhammer | transcultural studies performing the practice turn in archaeology philipp w. stockhammer, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg are we still living in the era of postmodern archaeology?[1] the paradigmatic shift from processual to post-processual archaeology took place in the early 1980s—at least in the anglophone archaeological community. in the eyes of many archaeologists, we have been working as postmodern scholars by appropriating postmodernity’s pluralistic approaches for three decades. in my view, it is time for another paradigmatic shift in archaeology. i do not want to proclaim a post-postmodernity in the sense of a rejection of what postmodernity has been postulating, but an enforcement and extension of some already existing approaches on the basis of the rich insights that anthropology, sociology, science and technology studies, material culture studies, and workplace studies won in the last years. after elaborating on the conceptualization of such a revision of approach for archaeology, i shall illustrate the innovative potential of this approach with two archaeological case studies taken from the eastern mediterranean late bronze and early iron age of the thirteenth and twelve centuries bce.[2] 1. human-thing-relationships in archaeology so far, archaeologists have taken very different approaches to decipher the prehistoric functions and meanings of objects: in the 1960s, the new archaeology understood objects as extrasomatic means of adaptation to the environment, following lesley white’s definition of culture. this functionalist approach resulted in a very narrow understanding of things: things were considered to be just means to an end in the struggle to survive.[3] in retrospect, processual archaeology understood practices with things either in a behavioural sense or as an intentional action aimed at survival. therefore, processual archaeology arrived at explanations based on monocausal intentionality of human relationships with things, if any human action was considered to be intentional at all. in principle, it was assumed that every object had its own specific function and that this object was created by man with the intention of exactly fulfilling this function. taking the interpretation of prehistoric ceramics as an example, current processual approaches within this functionalist tradition would focus on the practical use of vessels, e.g. for cooking, storage, or consumption of food. since the 1980s, post-processual archaeologists have convincingly argued for a dialectic relationship between humans and things.[4] in their view, things were not simple tools for survival, but should be understood as media of non-verbal communication and important carriers of meaning in the living world of humans. practices with things were thus mostly understood as intentional action. such “symbols in action”—the title of ian hodder’s (1982a) paradigmatic book—could also take the shape of pottery vessels that communicated social identities of the producer and/or consumer beyond their daily use for cooking, storage, or consumption. on the basis of this approach, archaeologists began to search for a possible social meaning of styles in pottery decoration, especially by combining archaeological analysis with an ethnoarchaeological perspective.[5] one of the central issues was the question of whether the spatially distinct occurrence of a certain style could be taken as an indicator for a prehistoric community of traditions or even an ethnic group. although post-processual archaeology has always emphasised the plurality of an object’s functions, the understanding of objects by some strands of post-processual archaeology is still based on human intentionality from an epistemological perspective with humans shaping objects in order to communicate non-verbal messages. these particular strands of post-processual archaeology replace the monocausal intentionality of processual archaeology by polycausal intentionality.[6] in their view, humans do not create objects with a single function in mind, but do so with several possible functions in mind. nevertheless, the basic notion of human intentionality in the creation of, and practices with things, has remained untouched. meanwhile, more and more approaches try to improve on processual and post-processual archaeology.[7] archaeology owes important thought-provoking impulses to french sociologists pierre bourdieu and bruno latour, namely bourdieu’s concept of habitus and latour’s actor-network theory (ant). in contrast to the dominating mentalist approaches in anthropology and sociology in the 1970s, bourdieu rightly acknowledged the importance of the material in human living environments. he thereby created possible approaches for archaeologists who have only completely taken up these possibilities over the last twenty years. bourdieu’s (1987) concept of habitus is based on the notion that, to a large extent, our practices with things are governed by unconscious internalisation of collective dispositions. therefore, humans act in a way that is specific to their social background, often without being aware of this and without acknowledging the important influence of their material surroundings on them. these material surroundings shape the habitus, where things are integrated within social practices. bruno latour created his ant in opposition to the dominant patterns of thought in sociology (especially french post-structuralism), which was also of major importance for post-processual archaeology. in the sense of bruno latour (1986; 2005) and john law (1986; 1992), ant proclaims that the relationship between humans, technologies, and things can only be understood when agency is not only restricted to humans, but also applied to non-human actors. technologies and objects are not only shaped by humans, but also shape humans. in latour’s (2005, 71) understanding, objects act very actively: “after all, there is hardly any doubt that kettles ‘boil’ water, knives ‘cut’ meat, baskets ‘hold’ provisions, hammers ‘hit’ nails on the head, rails ‘keep’ kids from falling, locks ‘close’ rooms against uninvited visitors, soap ‘takes’ the dirt away, schedules ‘list’ class sessions, prize tags ‘help’ people calculating, and soon. are those verbs not designating actions?” thus, following latour, “any thing that does modify a state of affairs by making a difference is an actor—or, if it has no figuration yet, an actant” (latour 2005, 71). however, with his particular understanding of action latour ignores the differentiation between intentional action and behaviour that has been so deeply rooted, especially in german sociology, since the work of max weber (1968, esp. 471–472). in my view, this may have been one of the reasons for the resistance of german sociology against the work of latour. nevertheless, i believe this undifferentiated understanding of action is the basic reason for latour’s strong reception in current archaeological theory. whereas historians often perceive history as a sequence of intentional actions, prehistorians are unable to separate the material manifestation of past practices within the archaeological record into intentional action and behaviour. latour’s terminological imprecision perfectly meets the epistemological limitations of prehistoric archaeology. consequently, latour is of great importance to archaeology as he allows us to lower the role of intentionality in the context of practices with things from an epistemological perspective without denying the importance of intentionality. strictly speaking, latour’s actions of the things—a kettle that boils water and a knife that cuts meat—have to be termed behaviours rather than actions. max weber (1968, 471) already spoke of the “behaviour of those things” and differentiated their competence very clearly from human action. in my view, things never act intentionally on their own.[8] they only do so in the eye of a beholder who feels driven by an object to act in a certain way. i would like to distinguish between agency and intentionality on a conceptual level (cf. knappett 2005, 22–23). for archaeologists, the (non-) intentionality of past human practices remains unclear in most cases. for this reason, i will continue to speak of practices with things and of actions by things and i will term both humans and things as actors. however, i am totally aware of the epistemologically forced reduction of my terminological understanding. the integration of ant into archaeological epistemology further necessitates the detachment from a certain understanding of sociologically constructed entities like “elite” or “lower classes.” following ant, those entities must not stand at the beginning of any analysis as an explanation for individual action but only at the end, as the final result of entangled actions of a multiplicity of individual actors. latour argues against these terms without acknowledging that terms like “elite” or “lower class“ can be used in very different epistemological ways. on the one hand, they can be understood as a descriptive category for a group of actors or actants—be they objects, humans or social practices—with similar features in the sense of a descriptive type. latour does not consider the possibility of this taxonomic understanding. he criticises that the formerly constructed and abstract entities are immediately transformed into powerful agents in our explanatory models. from an archaeologist’s perspective, it follows that actions are not triggered by types of objects but only by the objects themselves. however, the misunderstanding of classificatory entities as demonstrated by latour must not lead to the rejection of terms which are aimed only at the denomination of a classificatory entity. abstract entities are indispensable as designations for a class of things, humans, or practices with identical features, because every denomination ultimately corresponds with the attribution to an abstract entity. the descriptive understanding of abstract entities (types, classes of society, patterns of practices etc.) enables us to cautiously use the terms dismissed by latour. they may describe, but must not explain. the acknowledgement of human and non-human actors in shared networks brings forth the particular meaning of ant for archaeological analysis whose focus is most often dominated by the thingness and connected characterisation of the things and thus often neglects the role of humans as actors. thus, also from an archaeological perspective, humans and things need to be seen as actors entangled within networks (maran/stockhammer 2012). latour (2005, 43–62) only cautiously speaks about the motivation of the actor to act and calls it his “second source of uncertainty.” following latour, these entangled actors and actants move each other to actions. human action can be triggered by the perception of images of goods or by breaking cooking pots. humans and things have the power to initiate action and, therefore, are actors. latour’s understanding how actors and actants are motivated to act does not sufficiently explain why different actors are acting in a structurally similar way over and over again. moreover, ant is not able to adequately explain processes of social transformation. at this point, i consider bourdieu’s concept of habitus as particularly important in determining motivators of action and i propose to address this problem by combining latour’s ant with bourdieu’s concept of the habitus. although latour polemicises against bourdieu, he also admits: “this is why bourdieu’s notion of habitus, once it is freed from its social theory, remains such an excellent concept” (latour 2005, 209 n. 280). the concept of habitus in the sense of internalised collective dispositions is able to explain why different actors act in a structurally similar way. actors with a similar habitus are moved by similar motivators of action. these actors are entangled with structurally similar actors and actants. they are, for example, surrounded by similar material objects or participate in the exertion of similar social practices. in this line of thought, terms like “elite” or “subaltern” are to be understood as denominations for groups of individuals who are motivated to act similarly by their habitus. therefore, every study needs to begin with a contextual analysis of individual social practices, whose regularities and structure may then be interpreted as the realisation of similar world views or identities (maran/stockhammer 2012). a focus on consumer decisions is most promising in order to demonstrate the power of objects that force humans to act. human choice to acquire or use a certain object, e.g. a ceramic vessel, is neither always following purely functional thoughts (in the sense of the processual archaeology), nor is it best understood as a conscious communication with the surroundings in the sense of post-processual archaeology. often, humans choose an object because they are driven by some undetermined feeling that it is the right thing, without being able to give a reason for their decision afterwards. occasionally, they articulate the feeling that the object found them and that they did not find the object. in addition to these insights from latour and bourdieu, the representatives of the material culture studies, especially daniel miller (2005; 2010) and hans peter hahn (2005; 2009; 2010; 2011; 2012; hahn/soentgen 2010), show that archaeology’s current understanding of objects cannot do justice to the potential of things. reflecting this, colin renfrew (demarrais et al. 2004; renfrew et al. 2008; malafouris/renfrew 2010a; 2010b) created his “material engagement theory” that puts its focus on the human dependence on things, especially the dependence of the human mind. ian hodder (2011a; 2011b) has also recently joined this line of argument and dissociated himself from his post-processual understanding of archaeology. he differentiates between dependence and dependency when conceptualising human-thing-entanglements. the dialectic understanding of the human-thing-relationship in post-processual archaeology often overlooked the power of the things and the mutual dependences. things disorient, things break, things need care in order to be preserved, etc. consequently, hahn speaks of the stubbornness of things. a vessel breaks into pieces, it annoys, it is mourned, it is mended, it is re-used in a different way. this is the way objects behave. objects’ behaviour triggers human action. in this way things are actors in the sense of the ant. my approach incorporates these behavioural traits, albeit in a simplified way, within my understanding of the term “action.” this agency of things can neither be sufficiently analysed with a functionalist nor a semiotic perspective. the breakage, mourning, and often accidental transformation of things cannot be adequately explained with human intentionality. at the same time, communication with things is considerably more complex than hitherto assumed. processual archaeology did not consider the communicative ability of things. post-processual archaeology saw things indeed as carriers of meaning, as semiophors. however, their message was always one that had been encoded by humans. things spoke messages that their human creator had intended them to. yet, workplace studies have demonstrated a highly complex means of communication between things and humans that takes place without either words or symbols (gatewood 1985; knoblauch/heath 2006; richardson 2009). pete richardson (2009) studied the action of workers in an idaho saw mill. using all of their senses, their coordinated action occurs almost totally without words as a result of the holistic perception of the wood. it is the seeing, feeling, and smelling of an object’s materiality that guides our practice with the object. things are mute but they are able to communicate sensually with humans. this kind of communication is very easily understood when one takes the practice of cooking as an example. the cook communicates with the vessel, the food, and the heat through smell, temperature, taste, and observation. not one word is exchanged. the cook is unaware that his/her practice of cooking can be understood as an act of communication with the material. to sum up: the entanglement between humans and things is not sufficiently characterised by a dialectical relationship. in my view, it is time to extend the practice turn of culture and social anthropology to archaeology in order to supplement processual and post-processual approaches. humans and things are connected by complex entanglements which are based on a mutual dependence. humans use things with multiple intentions, but at the same time feel that things move or force them to act. humans communicate through objects but also with objects in the context of social practices. with this epistemological basis in mind, it is now necessary to develop an archaeological methodology that is appropriate to the specific characteristics of the archaeological record. first, it is crucial to be conscious of the complex human-thing-entanglement in order to save us from premature conclusions. moreover, we must acknowledge that meaning and function of an object are not states but processes. for this reason, it is important to dismiss the normative idea of “a certain purpose” of an object and the connected notion of “misuse” in the case of a different usage. meanings and functions are created over and over again in the context of social practices with the object. there is neither a right nor a wrong way of handling of objects, but only a multitude of different usages of one and the same object. this multiplicity of meanings and functions of a single object cannot be understood simply on the basis of the archaeological record. archaeology can only yield momentary meanings and functions of an object. due to these epistemological constraints, we must focus our analyses on social practices involving the object. only if those practices were materialised in the object or its context are they accessible for archaeologists. only those materialised practices allow for the understanding of some part of the past multiplicity of meanings and functions of an object. if one wishes to operationalise these thoughts to the analysis of e.g. pottery of aegean-type, a multiperspective approach becomes necessary: analysis of a vessel’s form (including the chaîne d’opératoire of its production) and the functional advantages and disadvantages for its handling. analysis of the decoration that also regards its technique and syntax. analysis of traces of prehistoric use. soot marks can give us an idea about its placement at the hearth. chemical analysis of residues may supply us with important information about substances that the vessel contained. analysis of the context of a vessel, especially if one has the good fortune of finding it in its primary context. within this context, it is necessary to study the find position in relation to architecture, installations, and other objects inside the relevant space. analysis of the spatial distribution of vessels of a certain form and/or kind of decoration and/or other related features as well as the occurrence of certain motifs on other media. analysis of pictorial and textual sources about the functions and meanings of contemporaneous vessels. analysis of ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological data and the application of a systematic comparative perspective in the understanding of manfred k. h. eggert (1993). the agency of objects and the complexity of their interaction with humans will become most clearly visible once they move into a new environment because their potential will have to be explored in the context of the new environment. there are two areas where this can be observed: small children familiarising themselves with household objects and inserting them into new contexts, and foreign goods being appropriated in a region where they had to be translated into local social practices and world views, as is the case in this paper. 2. appropriation of things from an archaeological perspective human-thing-entanglements become very obvious in the context of processes of appropriation. when humans encounter foreign or new objects and decide to integrate them into their living world, a multitude of conscious and unconscious human decisions are triggered that are considerably co-determined by the object. of crucial importance to the analysis of processes of appropriation are studies by hans peter hahn. if an individual decides to appropriate a foreign or new object after the encounter, a complex process starts that is differentiated by hahn into four different aspects. all four aspects are entangled and occur simultaneously (hahn 2004a, 64–67; 2004b, 218–220; 2005, 102–104; 2007, 209–210): the first aspect, appropriation, refers to the transition of objects from wares to goods by becoming personal possessions. this may be connected with formal changes in the objects e.g. by decoration. second, objectivisation involves the attribution of an object to an existing category of one’s own objects. this classification goes together with the attribution of a certain meaning to the object. incorporation as the third aspect refers to acquiring the competence to deal with the object in a “right” way.[9] finally, transformation means the attribution of new meanings to objects, which very much depends on the local context where an object is used. an object can also be used for the construction of traditions. “the object is adorned with meanings and contexts, it is transformed in order to be re-invented as part of the appropriating society” (hahn 2005, 107).[10] some of hahn’s aspects refer to the perception of artefacts and, therefore, are hardly or not at all visible in the archaeological context. whereas the integration of an object into existing social practices can be identified in an archaeological context, reinterpretation and traditionalisation are more difficult to detect and re-naming cannot be traced in preliterate cultures.[11] i agree with hahn (2004b, 220; cf. 2005, 106–107) that “the ‘work of appropriation’ is in this very sense never completely finished, and its results are called into question time and again” (hahn 2004b, 220; cf. also hahn 2005, 106–107). the term “appropriation” has the advantage in that it combines a focus on social practices with a hermeneutic approach (hahn 2005, 101; 2007, 209; 2008, 197–199). following hahn (2008, 199), interpretation and action are no counterparts in this context, but mutually influence each other. archaeology will not be able to reconstruct all of hahn’s aspects in an archaeological context. in my view, the importance of hahn’s thoughts lies in demonstrating the complexity of the process and leading us to take the materialisation of those aspects into consideration.  the process, which i call “entanglement,” can be conceptualised the following way (stockhammer 2012a). the process starts with the “encounter” of at least two different entities that are etically defined and, therefore, “pure” from an epistemological perspective. we have to be aware of the etic character of these entities and of the fact that our analytical categorisations differ from past systems of classification (e. g. archaeological cultures versus past ethnic groups). these entities are mental templates only created for analytical purposes, therefore i do not mind if the two entities interacted before. historically defined cultures like “mycenaean” or “cannaanite” should not be perceived as separate, real historic entities—especially in view of the close interconnection between eastern mediterranean cultures that already existed long before the late bronze age. i focus on the interaction of certain aspects of culture, e.g. practices of cooking, drinking, and feasting. an example of the beginning of such a process of entanglement could be the transport of pottery from greece to the levant. the encounter with something new—irrespective where this encounter happens—generally forces the receiving unity to act and thus starts a process of appropriation. at the instant of encounter, humans do not trigger a change in the object, but the object changes humans. its mere material presence changes perceptions of social space and movements and forces humans to modify their social practices. therefore, the state of relational entanglement is not a state of entanglement of the object, but a state of entanglement of social practices and meanings, as these are newly created, whereas the object remains unchanged or is, at most, only manipulated. the process of appropriation primarily struggles to create a structured handling of the new or foreign by modifying the object’s context. the object does not change in its materiality, but the relationship to the object changes (hahn 2004b, 226; 2005, 101). thus, appropriation leads to a “relational entanglement” at first. as the process of appropriation never ends, relational entanglement is only a momentary state in the context of taxonomic liminal spaces in the sense of being in-between.[12] an example of this phase would be the integration of mycenaean drinking vessels into levantine feasting dishes with the dishes then consisting of local and foreign vessels used together in a performance within a social event. the mycenaean vessel still remains unchanged in its materiality in this moment, although it became part of totally different practices and world views. the process of entanglement does not have to end with the continuous emergence of new relational entanglements, but can also trigger an act of creation. only then does a basic transformation of the material object in its materiality take place and “material entanglement” comes into existence. within this entanglement, the formerly differentiated categories are blended together to shape something new that one might also possibly term a new category, if this makes sense from an epistemological perspective. this material entanglement clearly arose from the formerly separated categories, but its distinct origins cannot be distinguished any more.[13] the shape of a material entanglement is significantly determined by individual creativity and the agency of the actor. if one continues the already given example, the creation of pottery vessels which integrate mycenaean and canaanite features can be termed a material entanglement. in my view, this methodological approach offers the best opportunity for analysing relational and material entanglements in the eastern mediterranean late bronze and early iron age. in the analysis that follows, i will not rehearse all analytical steps mentioned above. i set out to gain insights into the course of selected processes of appropriation as well as identify the relevant factors guiding these processes. moreover, i will analyse momentary entanglements with regard to their materialisation, their context and their historical meaning. overall, i will illustrate the complexity of human-thing-entanglements and the manifold transformations of functions and meanings that result therefrom. 3. case studies: appropriation of aegean-type pottery in the southern levant in order to show the potential of the methodological approach outlined above, i want to analyse selected processes of appropriation of mycenaean pottery from the southern levant in the fourteenth to twelfth century bce, i.e. the late bronze and early iron age in levantine terminology. i will take examples from the southern levant, which comprises modern state israel (including the occupied territories) and lebanon. cyprus and the northern levant are only marginally considered in this paper (fig. 1). fig. 1: the levant in the late 2nd millennium bce (after fischer 2007, pl. 1). during the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries bce a large quantities of fine ware pottery, produced in workshops in the north-eastern peloponnese on the greek mainland, were brought to the southern levant. there, those vessels were continuously used in the twelfth century bce and supplemented by pottery showing aegean-type form or decoration but produced on cyprus or in the levant itself. as questions of origin and places of production will not be discussed further here, i will use the term “pottery of aegean-type” instead of “mycenaean pottery.” in my definition, aegean-type pottery comprises all vessels produced in a mycenaean or minoan (cretan) tradition of forming—irrespective where such vessels were actually produced. i will also not address the ongoing discussions about the mechanism of the distribution of goods in the late bronze and early iron age eastern mediterranean, concentrating only on the appropriation of particular vessels and transformations of function and meaning that took place during this process. in the discussion that follows, i will select just two of the multitude of aegean-type vessel forms imported to the levant, namely the amphoroid krater and a shallow, stemmed drinking bowl called a kylix by aegean archaeologists. the function and meaning of both types of vessels are beyond any doubt in late bronze age mycenaean greece where kraters were used to mix water and wine before this mixture was drunk from the kylikes that were grouped into equal pairs to be used by pairs of drinkers. thus, a mycenaean feasting ensemble comprised one krater together with several pairs of kylikes (stockhammer 2008, 135. 169. 306. 314. 295–310. 320. 325). the appearance of both shapes at the southern levant has long been taken as an indicator for the take-over of aegean drinking practices in this region. the identity of vessel shapes in mycenaean greece and at the levant was considered as proof for the identity of practices and meanings connected with the particular shapes. form, function, and meaning were virtually perceived as inseparable, transcultural constants. in the course of my study of amphoroid kraters and kylikes, i was especially focussing on in situ finds as these allow for a comprehensive analysis of the context including other finds from the same context and the architectural setting. moreover, i analysed the quantitative relationship between the two shapes in each of the settlements and the functions and meanings of vessels of levantine type with a similar shape. fortunately, for the latter ones in situ contexts, some textual and pictorial sources and residue analyses are available. fig. 2: mycenaean amphoroid kraters from megiddo, room 1817 (drawing p. w. stockhammer). fig. 3: mycenaean kylikes from tiryns (1) and lachish (2) (1: stockhammer 2008, no. 1194–1195; 2: after tufnell 1940, pl. 46b, 213. 219). 3.1 case study 1: amphoroid kraters at the southern levant despite their small number, the meaningful floor contexts with amphoroid kraters and quantitative analysis enable us to trace a levantine—maybe particularly southern levantine—appropriation of this vessel shape. the floor inventory of room 1817 in megiddo is of special importance for my questions. there, at least one such krater was found in situ without any other feasting dishes, but with a cypriot-type wall bracket of local production (fig. 2, 2). a comparable find distribution is known from room thirty-six of the temple of rhytons in ugarit, where the upper part of an amphoroid krater was found, which i assume was found in an in situ position. further fragments of the vessel were dispersed over the south-eastern part of the building (mallet 1987, 223. 239. 242 fig. 17, 79/5047; 243 fig. 18, 79/5047). in line with what was found in room 1817 in megiddo, drinking vessels are also missing in room thirty-six in ugarit,[14] whereas again cypriot-type wall brackets were associated with the amphoroid krater (mallet 1987, 239–240. 243 figs. 18, 79/5079. 79/5616. 80/5323). indeed, only ten amphoroid kraters and only five aegean-type drinking vessels were found in the settlement at megiddo. in tell es-sâfī/gath, i identified six amphoroid kraters and not a single aegean-type drinking vessel from the excavations in 1996–2005 and 2010. from aphek, nine kraters and seven other aegean-type feasting vessels are known; from hazor ten kraters and ten other feasting vessels of aegean type; and from lachish thirteen kraters, sixteen cups and a kylix (hankey et al. 2004; guzowska/yasur-landau 2009; zuckerman, pers. comm.). i do not want to exclude that at the mentioned sites drinking vessels of aegean type were never used with the respective kraters. however, the quantitative relation between the kraters and the drinking vessels differs so markedly from the one calculated for the aegean—i.e. the combination of about ten drinking vessels with one krater—that levantine practices of feasting with aegean-type pottery doubtlessly differed from those in the aegean. this might have also been valid for the northern levant, as five kraters but not a single drinking vessel of aegean-type were found under the thirty-three examples of aegean type found in the temple of rhytons in ugarit (mallet 1987; van wijngaarden 2002, 60–62). fig. 4: depiction of a drinking ruler on an ivory object from megiddo (after loud 1939, pl. 32, 160). the few depictions of drinking practices of the canaanite elite of the thirteenth and twelfth centuries bce, especially the images of drinking male rulers on ivories found in the palace of megiddo, clearly indicate the consumption of wine from metal bowls following the egyptian rulers’ iconography (fig. 4). the use of shallow metal drinking bowls by the local elites is further evidenced by their frequent occurrence as grave goods in elite burials (yasur-landau 2005). at the southern levant, however, actors with high statuses stopped using aegean-type pottery from the late fourteenth century bce onwards (stockhammer 2012b). thus, the aforementioned images cannot be used for illustrating the practices with aegean-type pottery. they only show us that actors with high status positions also used krater-like vessels and that those vessels were placed in stands. more illuminating for the practices with aegean-type kraters are the depiction of a canaanite mercenary on a stele from tell el-amarna from the fourteenth century bce (spiegelberg/erman 1898) and the great number of finds of strainer tips and also, sometimes, tube elbows for drinking straws,[15] e.g. from tell el-amarna and the shipwreck from ulu burun (fig. 5; griffith 1926; weisgerber 2005). the average people—be they possible traders or migrants in megiddo or the fishermen in ashdod south (in whose houses the aegean-type kraters were found)—obviously drank beer with straws from huge vessels that were placed in the centre of a round of drinkers. in room thirty-six of the temple of rhytons in ugarit, several individuals probably sat on the stone benches at the walls in order to drink from the krater placed inside a bronze stand. in most cases, kraters of canaanite shape were most probably used for this kind of canaanite feasting practice, as those vessels are so frequently encountered in late bronze age contexts (amiran 1970, 132-135 with pl. 41). the canaanite-type kraters were often decorated with pictorial motifs (choi 2008), but hardly any scenic depictions that are so common on aegean-type amphoroid kraters (vermeule/karageorghis 1982). fig. 5: depiction of a canaanite mercenary on a limestone stele from tell el-amarna (with kind permission of the staatliche museen preußischer kulturbesitz, © sandra steiß, ägyptisches museum und papyrussammlung, berlin). the bronze age textual and pictorial sources of the near east inform us that the consumption of beer was closely connected with the use of straws from the third millennium bce onwards.[16] however, whereas beer was consumed by the populace and persons of high status and, thus of very different statuses, the consumption of wine was restricted to the elite in the southern levant as well as in egypt and lower mesopotamia. the egyptian vineyards were all pharaonic possessions. in egypt, wine was only distributed to the general public in the context of the most important religious ceremonies (marciniak 1995, 242; poo 1995; mcgovern 2009, 182; pl. 6). further evidence for the consumption of beer with straws is given by the use of strainers that should hold back residues in the beer, whereas the consumption of wine makes straining less necessary. moreover, the greek author xenophon (anabasis, iv, 5, 26) gives us an ethnohistorical description of the custom of drinking beer with straws by farmers in the armenian mountains (spiegelberg/erman 1898, 128). even today, drinking beer with straws from huge krater-like vessels is a common habit in east africa and vietnam (fig. 6; karp 1980; homan 2004, 86; dietler/herbich 2006; haaland 2007). thus, aegean-type kraters could easily be integrated into this levantine practice of drinking.[17] thus, there is considerable evidence that indicates a very particular use of aegean-type kraters at the southern levant that differs markedly from what the greek producers had originally envisaged to be their function. even if the aegean function as a mixing vessel was known, the beautifully painted, large open vessel could have been the centrepiece of beer consumption during a feasting event. placed in the centre of the room, the pictorial decoration of the aegean-type krater certainly would have attracted the glances and attention of the drinkers. the motifs of the decoration—be they chariot scenes, bulls, or fantastic beings—might have been topics of discussions and would ultimately have had exerted some influence on narration during feasting.[18] following my own methodological approach, an intricate process of appropriation can be determined, which results in a relational entanglement: all four aspects of appropriation as defined by hahn are clearly recognisable in this case. of particular interest is the objectivisation: the vessel was not classified as a mixing vessel in the aegean system, but as a drinking vessel in the local taxonomy. this went along with the attribution of a different meaning, which resulted in the incorporation into local practices. the complex relationship between humans and things in the sense of the practice turn can already be recognised in the context of the process of appropriation and the connected transformation of meanings and functions. at the same time, ant enables us to understand the kraters as active participants of a feast. they influenced not only the practice of drinking (e.g. the handling and placing of the straws), but certainly also the narration during the feast due to their imaginative decoration. fig. 6: a party drinking beer through straws among the fipa of tanzania (photograph: bilham kimati, after haaland 2007, 166, fig. 1; reproduced here with the friendly permission of randi håland). 3.2 case study 2: kylikes at the southern levant in order to understand possible social practices with these aegean-type vessels in the southern levant, it is first of all necessary to analyse the use of stemmed bowls of the canaanite type. residue analyses on stemmed ceramic or bronze bowls of the canaanite type as well as pictorial images enable us to identify these vessels’ function beyond any doubt:[19] these stemmed bowls were used for burning incense at certain events. the depiction of the conquest of ashkelon by the troops of pharaoh merenptah on a stone relief in karnak shows a priest standing over the roofs of the city holding a stemmed bowl from which smoke is rising towards the sky (fig. 7). the form of the depicted vessel suggests a metal vessel. there is no doubt that this practice has to be interpreted as an urgent prayer, accompanied by offering incense to the gods in order to win favour in battle. wall paintings in the tomb of kenamun in thebes, which illustrate the arrival of canaanite ships in egypt, show the captains of two ships, each of them holding a stemmed, bowl-shaped incense burner with their hands towards the sky (fig. 8). the vessel’s stem was an important prerequisite for holding the vessel during the burning of the incense, as the vessel’s bowl heated up very quickly. as the carrying and raising of bowl-shaped incense burners seems to have been a crucial part of the offering practices at the southern levant, a stem was an absolute necessity for an incense burner. as the stem is the only feature that connects all the different types of canaanite bowl-shaped incense burners, this part of the vessel was probably decisive for the individual perception and classification of a vessel as an incense burner. i now turn to the appropriation of the kylix as a second example for the transformative power of transcultural entanglement. thus far, this shape has never been found with kraters of aegean production in the same context in the southern levant. already assaf yasur-landau (2005, 172. 174; 2008, 356) has pointed out to the observation that stemmed drinking vessels of aegean type were difficult to integrate into the southern levantine feasting practices as depicted on the ivories from megiddo (fig. 4) and tell el-far'ah (south). however, he did not propose an explanation for the presence of aegean-type chalices and kylikes in the southern levant? fig. 7: conquest of ashkelon under pharaoh merenptah, stone relief, karnak (after stager 1985, *57 fig. 2). fig. 8: arrival of canaanite ships in egypt, wall painting, tomb of kenamun, thebes (after davies/faulkner 1947, pl. 8). scientific analyses of residues in four stemmed ceramic bowls from the harbour site of tell nami and another forty two found during the excavations of the late bronze age stratum v of the harbour site of tell abu hawam in 2001 indicate that these vessels were also used for burning incense (yoselevich 2006). the analyses of late bronze age stemmed bowls from tell mevorakh, shiloh, and tell sera' gave corresponding results. such vessels were also found in many early iron age sanctuaries (e.g. in tell qasile, megiddo, tell rekhov, lachish, tell michal, ein hazeva, tell quiri, and tell 'amal), which demonstrates a continuous use of this shape in ritual context beyond the late bronze age. the connection between stemmed bowls as incense burners and shipping is still traceable in the first millennium bce. a comparable ceramic incense burner was found in an eighth century bce ship that sunk in the mediterranean sea near ashkelon (ballard et al. 2002, 160 fig. 9, 2; 163). therefore, stemmed bowls played an important role for mariners, as well as priests, in the context of ritual incense burning on ships and in temples of the late bronze and early iron age at the southern levant (yoselevich 2006, 27; pulak 2008, 354). latest scientific analyses on iron age ii vessels of the late ninth or early eighth century bce from tell yavneh give us an idea of the substances that were burnt in the stemmed bowls of the canaanite type. the vessels were found in a pit with several thousand objects including other ceramic cult paraphernalia such as stands (kletter et al. 2010). seventeen stemmed bowls were analysed for organic residues with the help of gas chromatography. in one group of bowls, molecular traces of dihydromethyl jasmonate, isopropyl lauricate, myristate, and myristic acid were found that point to a mixture of floral oils from several plants including probably jasmine (jasminun gradiflora) or nutmeg (myristica fragrans) (namdar et al. 2010, 169). however, nutmeg has not been considered to be present in the levantine late bronze and iron age so far. according to dvora namdar et al. (2010, 169) these essences “cause hallucination, involving light-headedness, blurred vision and distortion in time, color and space… give a sense of euphoria, detachment from reality and a loose feeling of the limbs due to the myristicine and safrole components.” therefore, the stemmed bowls were used to vaporise plant oils with an hallucinogenic effect that definitely enabled a very particular perception of the performed rituals when consumed in combination. the shallow stemmed bowls fs (furumark shape after furumark 1941) 310 from levantine sites have to be seen as aegean imitations of levantine incense burners. this suggests a similar use of this aegean-type vessel at the levant. however, no residue analyses have been carried out on these vessels so far. thus, their usage can only be deduced with a certain probability on the basis of indications. moreover, the presence or absence of soot marks is not sufficient for us to identify a certain vessel as an incense burner. it is very probable that sand was used inside the bowl and the incense then placed on the sand, as is common in incense burning practices nowadays. the use of sand would thus prevent the bowl from getting blackened or burnt. it is further noteworthy that, so far, vessels of this type have only been found in large harbour centres of the levant (ugarit and its harbour, minet el-beida, and tell abu hawam).[20] if we look at the finds of the canaanite type incense burners and the pictorial evidence, we may assume that these vessels were used frequently at those places. the obvious similarity of the shapes and the corresponding concentration at harbour sites—as far as the small number of finds will allow any conclusion—makes the use of shallow stemmed bowls fs 310 as incense burners highly probable. from the perspective of aegean archaeology, the function of kylikes as drinking vessels has never been questioned, even for the finds from the levant, because the identity of the shape has always been given more importance than the difference of the contexts when it came to the reconstruction of prehistoric usage. as there are still no scientific analyses of residues in aegean-type kylikes found at the southern levant, their functional interpretation can only be based on a contextual analysis. aegean-type kylikes are considerably rarer than other aegean-type shapes. albert leonard registers forty-five aegean-type kylikes from the levant, two thirds of which were found at a small number of sites, namely the huge harbour centres on the coast, especially tell abu hawam, minet el-beida, and ugarit, and the late bronze age temples of kāmid el-lōz and lachish in the hinterland (fig. 3, 2; leonard 1994, 106–107). since the work of leonard, the publication of further kylikes from ugarit, tell kazel, and kāmid el-lōz has underlined their particular frequency of occurrence in harbour sites and temples.[21] in accordance with the shallow stemmed bowls fs 310, the distribution of kylikes corresponds significantly with places where ceramic or bronze stemmed bowls of the canaanite type were very commonly used as incense burners. tell abu hawam alone yielded more than fifty stemmed bowls which were obviously used on the ships for incense sacrifice and then discarded into the harbour after their breakage (yoselevich 2006, 27). whereas no stemmed bowls, but only stands without corresponding bowls were found in the temple of kāmid el-lōz (penner 2006, 281), numerous stemmed bowls of canaanite type are known from the fosse temple in lachish (tufnell et al. 1940, pl. 46a-b ). all this evidence indicates that canaanite-type stemmed bowls and aegean-type stemmed bowls fs 310 and kylikes were used in the context of the same social practices—i.e. as incense burners—at the levant and especially at the southern levant. the use of aegean-type kylikes for the burning of pungent incense was definitely far from the imagination of an aegean potter with regards to the function of those vessels. the similarity of their shape to canaanite incense burners was probably crucial for the decision of canaanite mariners and temple personnel, who decided to appropriate kylikes of aegean type, and to integrate them into their incense burning practices. it is possible that the original function as drinking vessels was known to these actors. however, this possible knowledge obviously did not play a major role in the process of appropriation. in my opinion, it is highly probable that the identification of the kylikes as incense burners already took place in the context of the objectivisation of the objects. thus, it would be misleading to speak of reinterpretation, because this requires the knowledge of the aegean function as a drinking vessel as a prerequisite. this implies that kylikes were possibly never perceived as drinking vessels when first encountered, but were immediately viewed as incense burners. maybe a possible usage as a drinking vessel was never considered at all or only secondarily. following my own terminology, this process of appropriation resulted only in a relational entanglement, but not in a material entanglement, as the kylikes remained unchanged in their materiality. why in some cases consumers decided to acquire aegean-type stemmed bowls instead of canaanite-type ones has to remain open. aesthetic reasons or affection for the exotic may have been of relevance. it is conceivable that aegean-type kylikes were sometimes also used as drinking vessels at the southern levant or that one and the same vessel was first used for drinking and afterwards for incense burning. the function and meaning of a certain vessel could have easily been determined in new and very different ways. however, the majority of aegean-type kylikes were very probably used as incense burners and not as drinking bowls. similar to my first case study, the usage of kylikes in the southern levant demonstrates the transformative potential of processes of appropriation. if they were used as drinking vessels from time to time, they forced a new practice of holding the drinking vessel and, therefore, triggered a transformation of feasting practices. their use for burning incense enabled the actor to hold the hot vessel not only with its stem but also with the handles, whereas stemmed bowls of canaanite type are rarely equipped with handles. conclusions my specific aim in this article was to advise caution before quickly attributing a uniform meaning or function to a specific vessel shape. taking the practice turn seriously in our analyses means acknowledging the value of things as subjects that act or initiate action. things shape our social practices and, thus, ultimately also our word views that are generated when acting with things. things are neither stable nor static, even if this is supposed by their thingness at first sight. they change their shape, their functions, and their meanings in their biographies of usage. such processes of transformation become particularly obvious, when humans appropriate foreign or new objects and integrate them into their social practices. at first, things remain unchanged, but they change humans, their practices, their life worlds, and ultimately their world views, as those are always views on the world. (maran 2012, 63) things have the power to transform, to break, rot, or be manipulated. things have biographies and itineraries similar to humans and we can only understand small parts of their worlds if we take a close look at the small traces of life materialised in and on the things and at the context of finding, at the same time. in my view, the transformative potential of appropriated things has largely been underestimated so far, not least because it is so hard to detect with our archaeological sources. however, it is imperative to break the dominating view in archaeology that a particular thing is associated with a particular function and a particular meaning. this is especially true for objects—in my case certain types of vessels—that were distributed over wide regions and that are traditionally attributed with a supra-regionally identical function and meaning by archaeologists. focusing on the social practices and their contexts opens our eyes to the amazing creativity of humans in their handling of things: chamber pots are recognised as cooking pots, horse gear as women’s adornment, and necklaces as part of sword hangers[22]. only the readiness to give up uniform patterns of interpretation opens the mind for the multiplicity of transformations of things and also, ultimately, of humans. a supra-regional uniformity of form, function, and meaning may have existed. however, its diagnosis must not stand at the beginning, but only at the end of comprehensive, contextual analyses. bibliography amiran, ruth. 1970. ancient pottery of the holy land: from its beginnings in the neolithic period to the end of the iron age. new brunswick: rutgers university press. badre, leila. 2006. “tell kazel–simyra: a contribution to a relative chronological history in the eastern mediterranean during the late bronze age.” bulletin of the american schools of oriental research 343:65–95. ballard, robert d., lawrence e. stager, daniel master, dana yoerger, david mindell, louis l. whitcomb, hanumant singh and dennis piechota. 2002. “iron age shipwrecks in deep water off ashkelon, israel.” american journal of archaeology 106(2):151–168. bernbeck, reinhard. 1997. theorien in der archäologie. tübingen: francke. bhabha, homi k. 2007. the location of culture. london: routledge. binford, lewis r. 1962. archaeology as anthropology. american antiquity 28(2):217–225. bourdieu, pierre.  1987. die feinen unterschiede. kritik der gesellschaftlichen urteilskraft. frankfurt a. m.: suhrkamp. choi, gwanghyun d. 2008. decoding canaanite pottery paintings from the late bronze age and iron age i: the classification and analysis of decorative motifs and design structures – statistics, distribution patterns, and cultural and socio-political implications. unpublished phd thesis. jerusalem: the hebrew university. chomsky, noam. 1972. aspekte der syntax-theorie. frankfurt a. m.: suhrkamp. dabal, joanna. 2008. “an attempt to recreate the ceramic vessel selection.”  in the general carleton shipwreck, 1785, edited by waldemar ossowski, 223–234. archaeological research of the polish maritime museum 1. danzig: polish maritime museum. davies, norman de g. and raymond o. faulkner. 1947. “a syrian trading venture to egypt.” the journal of egyptian archaeology 33:40–46. demarrais, elisabeth, chris gosden and colin renfrew, eds. 2004. rethinking materiality: the engagement of mind with the material world. oxford: mcdonald institute for archaeological research. dietler, michael. 1998. “consumption, agency, and cultural entanglement: theoretical implications of a mediterranean colonial encounter.”  in studies in culture contact. interaction, culture change, and archaeology, edited by james g. cusick, 288–315. carbondale: center for archaeological investigations. dietler, michael and ingrid herbich. 2006. “liquid material culture: following the flow of beer among the luo of kenya.” in grundlegungen. beiträge zur europäischen und afrikanischen archäologie für manfred k. h. eggert, edited byhans -peter wotzka, 395–407. tübingen: francke. dobres, marcia-anne and john e. robb, eds. 2000. agency in archaeology. london: routledge. eggert, manfred k. h. 1978a. “prähistorische archäologie und ethnologie: studien zur amerikanischen new archaeology.” prähistorische zeitschrift 53:6–164. eggert, manfred k. h. 1978b. “zum kulturkonzept in der prähistorischen archäologie.” bonner jahrbücher 178:1–20. eggert, manfred k. h. 1993. “vergangenheit in der gegenwart? überlegungen zum interpretatorischen potential der ethnoarchäologie. ” ethnographisch-archäologische zeitschrift 34:144–150. feldman, marian h. 2006. diplomacy by design. luxury arts and an ‘international style’ in the ancient near east, 1400–1200 b.c.e. chicago: university of chicago press. fischer, erika. 2007. ägyptische und ägyptisierende elfenbeine aus megiddo und lachish. inschriftenfunde, flaschen, löffel. alter orient und altes testament 47. münster: ugarit verlag. furholt, martin and philipp w. stockhammer. 2008. “wenn stumme dinge sprechen sollen: gedanken zu semiotischen ansätzen in der prähistorischen archäologie.” in zeichen der zeit – interdisziplinäre perspektiven zur semiotik, edited by michael butter, regina grundmann and christina sanchez, 59–71. frankfurt a. m.: peter lang. furumark, arne. 1941. the mycenaean pottery: analysis and classification. stockholm: kungl. vitterhets historie och antikvitets akad. gatewood, john b. 1985. “actions speak louder than words.”  in directions in cognitive anthropology, edited by janet w. d. dougherty, 199–219. urbana: university of illinois press. griffith, francis l. 1926. “a drinking siphon from tell el-‘amarnah.” the journal of egyptian archaeology 12:22–23. grutz, robert. 2007. late bronze and iron age chalices in canaan and ancient israel. british archaeological reports international series 1671. oxford: british archaeological reports. güntner, wolfgang. 2000. figürlich bemalte mykenische keramik aus tiryns. tiryns 12.mainz: von zabern. haaland, randy 2007. “porridge and pot, bread and oven: food ways and symbolism in africa and the near east from the neolithic to the present.” cambridge archaeological journal 17(2):165–182. hahn, hans peter and jens soentgen. 2010. “acknowledging substances: looking at the hidden side of the material world.” philosophy technology: doi 10.1007/s13347-010-0001-8. hahn, hans peter. 2004a.“globale güter und lokales handeln in afrika. einige methodische vorbemerkungen.” sociologus 53:51–77. ———. 2004b. “global goods and the process of appropriation.” in between resistance and expansion. explorations of local vitality in africa. beiträge zur afrikaforschung 18, edited by peter probst and gerd spittler, 211–229. münster: lit. ———. 2005. materielle kultur. eine einführung. berlin: reimer. ———. 2006. “die sprache der dinge und gegenstände des alltags.” sociologia internationalis 44:1–19. ———. 2007. “zur ethnologie des konsums in afrika.” paideuma 53:199–220. ———. 2008. “diffusionism, appropriation, and globalization. some remarks on current debates in anthropology.” anthropos 103:191–202. ———. 2009. “orientierung/desorientierung durch dinge.” vortrag auf dem workshop ‘artefakttheorien’. center for metropolitan studies (cms), berlin, 27.06.2009. ———. 2010. “das leben der dinge.” neue zürcher zeitung 247 (vom 23.10.2010):65. ———. 2011. “konsumlogik und eigensinn der dinge.” in warenästhetik. neue perspektiven auf konsum, kultur und kunst, edited by heinz drügh, christian metz and björn weyand, 92–110. berlin: suhrkamp. ———. 2012. “words and things: reflections on people’s interaction with the material world.”  in materiality and social practice. transformative capacities of intercultural encounters. papers of the conference, heidelberg, 25th–27th march 2010, edited by joseph maran and philipp w. stockhammer, 4–12. oxford: oxbow. hankey, vronwy, elizabeth b. french, e. susan sherratt and pamela magrill. 2004. “the aegean pottery.” in the renewed archaeological excavations at lachish (1973–1994) iii, edited by david ussishkin, 1373–1449.  tel aviv: institute of archaeology, tel aviv university. herbich, ingrid  and michael dietler. 1991. “aspects of the ceramic system of the luo of kenya.” in töpfereiforschung – archäologisch, ethnologisch, volkskundlich. beiträge des internationalen kolloquiums 1987 schleßwig. töpfereiund keramikforschung 2, edited by hartwig lüdtke and rüdiger vossen, 105–135. bonn: habelt. herbich, ingrid. 1987. “learning patterns, potter interaction and ceramic style among the luo of kenya. papers in honour of j. desmond clarke.” african archaeological revue 5:193–204. hirschfeld, nicole e. 2000. “the catalogue.” in céramiques mycéniennes d’ougarit, ras shamra-ougarit 13,edited by marguerite yon, vassos karageorghis and nicole hirschfeld, 75–161. paris: éd. recherche sur les civilisations. hodder, ian. 1982a. symbols in action: ethnoarchaeological studies in material culture. cambridge: cambridge university press. ———. 1982b. the present past: an introduction to anthropology for archaeologists. new york: pica press. ———. 2011a. “human-thing entanglement: towards an integrated archaeological perspective.” journal of the royal anthropological institute (n. s.) 17:154–177. ———. 2011b. “wheels of time: some aspects of entanglement theory and the secondary products revolution.” journal of world prehistory 24: doi 10.1007/s10963-011-9050-x. ———. ed. 2012. archaeological theory today. cambridge and malden: blackwell. homan, michael m. and jenny r. ebeling. 2008. “baking and brewing beer in the israelite household: a study of women’s cooking technology.” in the world of women in the ancient and classical near east, edited by beth alpert nakhai, 45–62. newcastle: cambridge scholars publishing. homan, michael m. 2004. “beer and its drinkers: an ancient near eastern love story.” near eastern archaeology 67(2):84–95. johnson, matthew. 1990. archaeological theory: an introduction. malden: blackwell. jung, reinhard. 2006.“die mykenische keramik von tell kazel (syrien).” damaszener mitteilungen 15:147–218. karageorghis, vassos. 1965. nouveaux documents pour l’étude du bronze récent a chypre. recueil critique et commenté. études chypriotes 3. paris: boccard. karp, ivan 1980. “beer drinking and social experience in an african society: an essay in formal sociology.” in explorations in african systems of thought, edited by ivan karp and charles s. bird, 83–119. bloomington: indiana university press. kletter, raz, irit ziffer and wolfgang zwickel. 2010. yavneh i: the excavation of the ‘temple hill’ repository pit and the cult stands. orbis biblicus et orientalis 30. freiburg: academic press. knappett, carl. 2005. thinking through material culture: an interdisciplinary perspective. philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press. knoblauch, hubert and christian heath. 2006. “die workplace studies.” in technografie. zur mikrosoziologie der technik, edited by werner rammert and cornelius schubert, 141–161. frankfurt a. m.: campus verlag. koch, julia katharina. forthcoming. “bemerkungen zur bronzetrense aus hallstatt. rekonstruktion des gebrauchs.” in pferd und wagen in der eisenzeit. internationale arbeitstagung des arbeitskreises eisenzeit der österreichischen gesellschaft für urund frühgeschichte, edited by raimund karl, klaus löcker and jutta leskovar. wiener keltologische schriften 2. wien: keltologie der universität wien. latour, bruno. 1986. “the powers of association.” in law, ed., 264–280. ———. 2005. reassembling the social: an introduction to actor-network-theory. oxford: university press. law, john, ed. 1986. power, action and belief: a new sociology of knowledge? sociological review monograph 32. london: routledge and kegan paul. ———. 1992. “notes on the theory of the actor-network: ordering, strategy, and heterogeneity.” systems practice 5(4):379–393.  leonard, albert jr. 1994. an index to the late bronze age aegean pottery from syria-palestine. studies in mediterranean archaeology 114. jonsered: åströms. loud, gordon. 1939. the megiddo ivories. university of chicago oriental institute publications 52. chicago: university of chicago press. maeir, aren m.  and yosef garfinkel. 1992. “bone and metal straw-tip beer-strainers from the ancient near east.” levant 24:218–223. maeir, aren m. 2007. “the bone beverage strainers.”  in the middle bronze age iia cemetery at gesher: final report. the annual of the american schools of oriental research 62, edited by yosef garfinkel and susan cohen, 119–123. boston: american schools of oriental research. malafouris, lambros and colin renfrew, ed. 2010a. the cognitive life of things: recasting the boundaries of the mind. cambridge: mcdonald institute for archaeological research. ———. 2010b. “the cognitive life of things: archaeology, material engagement and the extended mind”. in malafouris and renfrew, 1–12. malinowski, bronislaw. 1949. eine wissenschaftliche theorie der kultur und andere aufsätze.internationale bibliothek für psychologie und soziologie 8. zürich: pan-verlag. mallet, joël 1987. “le temple aux rhytons. ” in le centre de la ville. 38e–44e campagnes (1978–1984). ras shamra-ougarit 3, edited by marguerite yon, 213–248. paris: ed. recherche sur les civilisations. maran, joseph and philipp w. stockhammer, eds. 2012. materiality and social practice. transformative capacities of intercultural encounters. papers of the conference, heidelberg, 25th–27th march 2010. oxford: oxbow. maran, joseph. 2011a. “lost in translation: the emergence of mycenaean culture as a phenomenon of glocalization.” in interweaving worlds. systematic interactions in eurasia, 7th to the 1st millennia bc. papers from a conference in memory of professor andrew sherratt, sheffield, 1st–4th april 2008, edited by  toby c. wilkinson, e. susan sherratt and john bennet, 282–294. oxford: oxbow. ———. 2011b. “bright as the sun: the appropriation of amber object in mycenaean greece.” paper at the international conference ‘itineraries of the material. shifting contexts of value and things in time and space.’ frankfurt a. m., 6th–8th october. ———. 2012. "one world is not enough: the transformative potential of intercultural exchange in prehistoric societies." in conceptualizing cultural hybridization: a transdisciplinary approach, edited by philipp w. stockhammer, 59–66. berlin: springer. marciniak, marek l. 1995. “filters, strainers and siphons in production and drinking of wine and beer in ancient egypt.” addiction research 2(3):241–250. mcgovern, patrick e.  2009. uncorking the past: the quest for wine, beer, and other alcoholic beverages. berkeley: university of california press. metzner-nebelsick, carola and louis d. nebelsick. 1999. “frau und pferd – ein topos am übergang von der bronzezur eisenzeit europas.” mitteilungen der anthropologischen gesellschaft in wien 129:69–106. miller, daniel, ed. 2005. materiality. durham: duke university press . ———. 2010. stuff. cambridge: polity press. monchambert, jean-yves. 2004. la céramique d’ougarit. campagnes de fouilles 1975 et 1976. ras shamra-ougarit 15. paris: ed. recherche sur les civilisations. namdar, dvory,  ronny neumann and steve wiener. “residue analysis of chalices from the repository pit.” in kletter et al., 167–173. penner, silvia. 2006. kāmid el-lōz 19. die keramik der spätbronzezeit. tempelanlagen t3 bis t1, palastanlagen p5 bis p1/2, königsgrab (‘schatzhaus’) und ‘königliche werkstatt’. saarbrücker beiträge zur altertumskunde 63. bonn: habelt. poo, mu-chou. 1995. wine and wine offering in the religion of ancient egypt. london: kegan paul international. pulak, cemal. 2008. “chalice.” in beyond babylon: art, trade, and diplomacy in the second millennium, edited by joan aruz, kim benzel and jean m. evans, 353–355. new haven: yale university press. renfrew, colin, christopher frith and lambros malafouris, eds. 2008. the sapient mind: archaeology meets neuroscience. philosophical transactions of the royal society b, 363, 1499:1933–2061. richardson, pete. 2009. “doing things with wood: builders, managers and wittgenstein in an idaho sawmill.” critique of anthropology 29(2):160–182. selz, gudrun. 1983. die bankettszene. entwicklung eines „überzeitlichen“ bildmotivs in mesopotamien von der frühdynastischen bis zur akkad-zeit. freiburger altorientalische studien 11. wiesbaden: steiner. simon, claire 1992. “râpes, siphons ou filtres pour pailles: développement égyptien d’un art de boire.” atti, sesto congresso internazionale di egittologia, turin, 1st–8th september 1991, 555–563. turin. skibo, james m., michael b. schiffer and nancy kowalski. 1989. “ceramic style analysis in archaeology and ethnoarchaeology: bridging the analytical gap.” journal of anthropological archaeology 8(4):388–409. spiegelberg, wilhelm and adolf erman. 1898. “grabstein eines syrischen söldners aus tell amarna.” zeitschrift für ägyptische sprache und altertumskunde 36:126–129. stager, laurence e. 1985. “merenptah, israel and sea peoples: new light on and old relief.” eretz-israel 18:*56–*64. stark, miriam t., ed. 1998. the archaeology of social boundaries. washington: smithsonian institution press. stockhammer, philipp w. 2008. kontinuität und wandel – die keramik der nachpalastzeit aus der unterstadt von tiryns. phd thesis heidelberg. accessed 24.03.2009. link ———. ed. 2009. keramik jenseits von chronologie. beiträge der arbeitsgemeinschaft „theorie in der archäologie“ bei der tagung des westund süddeutschen verbandes für altertumsforschung e. v., xanten, 7th–8th june 2006. internationale archäologie – arbeitsgemeinschaft, symposium, tagung, kongress (ia-astk) 14. rahden: leidorf. ———. 2011. “an aegean glance at megiddo.” in our cups are full: pottery and society in the aegean bronze age. papers presented to jeremy b. rutter on the occasion of his 65th birthday, edited by walter gauß, michael lindblom, r. angus k. smith and james c. wright, 282–296. oxford: archaeopress. ———. 2012a. “conceptualizing cultural hybridization in archaeology.”  in conceptualizing cultural hybridization: a transdisciplinary approach. papers of the conference, heidelberg, 21st–22nd september 2009. transcultural research. heidelberg studies on asia and europe in a global context, edited by philipp w. stockhammer, 43–58. berlin: springer. ———. 2012b. “entangled pottery: phenomena of appropriation in the late bronze age eastern mediterranean.”  in maran and stockhammer, 89–103. thomas, julian, ed. 2000. interpretative archaeology: a reader. london: leicester university press. tufnell, olga, charles h. inge and g. lankester harding. 1940. lachish 2 (tell ed duweir): the fosse temple. london. van wijngaarden, gert jan. 2002. use and appreciation of mycenaean pottery in the levant, cyprus and italy (1600–1200 bc). amsterdam archaeological studies 8. amsterdam: amsterdam university press. vermeule, emily and vassos karageorghis. 1982. mycenaean pictorial vase painting. cambridge/mass.: harvard university press. weber, max. 1968. gesammelte aufsätze zur wissenschaftslehre edited by j. winckelmann. 3rd ed. tübingen: mohr. weisgerber, gerd. 2005. “biertrinker an bord? ein seltener fund aus blei!” in das schiff von uluburun. welthandel vor 3000 jahren. katalog der ausstellung des deutschen bergbau-museums bochum, edited by ünsal yalçin, cemal pulak und rainer slotta, 157–165. bochum: deutsches bergbau-museum. white, leslie a. 1959. the evolution of culture: the development of civilization to the fall of rome. new york: macgraw-hill. yasur-landau, assaf. 2005. “old wine in new vessels: intercultural contact, innovation and aegean, canaanite and philistine foodways.” tel aviv. journal of the institute of archaeology of tel aviv university 32(2):168–191. ———. 2008. “hard to handle: aspects of organization in aegean and near eastern feasts.” in dais: the aegean feast. proceedings of the 12th international aegean conference university of melbourne, centre for classics and archaeology, 25th–29th march 2008, aegaeum 29, edited by louise a. hitchcock, robert laffineur and janice crowley, 353–358. liège: université de liège, histoire de l'art et archéologie de la grèce antique. yoselevich, noga. 2006. “the utilization of chalices as incense burners on boats and in coastal sites.” r.i.m.s. news (university of haifa, leon recanati institute for maritime studies) 32: 27–28. [1] this contribution is part of my postdoctoral research on “material entanglement: the appropriation of foreign pottery in the eastern mediterranean late bronze age” within the heidelberg cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context.” i would like to thank joseph maran, hans peter hahn, cornelius schubert, carol bell, and two reviewers for critical discussions and helpful comments. [2] for the potential of prehistoric ceramics beyond chronological approaches cf. stockhammer 2009. [3] white 1959, 8. 12–16; binford 1962, 218–219. for a critical analysis of processual archaeology cf. eggert 1978a, esp. 9; bernbeck 1997, esp. 37–38. an understanding of function similar to processual archaeology was already developed by bronislaw malinowski (1949), one of the key figures of british social anthropology. following malinowski, culture’s main function is to satisfy man’s basic needs and thus secure his survival. [4] hodder 1982a; 1982b. in 1978, manfred k. h. eggert already pointed out to the dialectic relationship between humans and things (eggert 1978b). however, in contrast to ian hodder’s most influential works his text remained without major influence in archaeological epistemology. [5] e.g. herbich 1987; skibo et al. 1989; conkey/hastorf 1990; herbich/dietler 1991; stark 1998. [6] i am entirely aware of the fact that this is not the place for an overview of the multitude of strands in post-processual archaeology (for such an overview cf. johnson 1990; thomas 2000; hodder 2012). many post-processual archaeologists have successfully integrated agency and practice theory into their approaches for a long time (e.g. dietler 1998; dobres/robb 2000). [7] eggert (1993) had called for integration and overcoming both research paradigms already two decades ago, however without much success.   [8] one has to take into consideration that non-human actors also include animate beings and not merely objects. however, the question of intentionality of animals’ actions shall not be further discussed here, since it is irrelevant for my approach. [9] maran 2011a calls this aspect “translation” of the foreign or other. in his view, this translation is a prerequisite to convey the meaning of foreign practices, objects, and ideas to the receiving society. following the differentiation between competence and performance in analogy to noam chomsky’s syntax theory, which defines competence as a general linguistic ability and performance as individual language use (chomsky 1972, 14–15), we can speak of the “imparting of competence.” however, “translation” is just a possible part of the process of appropriation. the imparting of foreign practices and meanings or the interest of the individual to appropriate this knowledge does not have to be part of a process of appropriation. [10] „das objekt wird mit bedeutungen und kontexten versehen, es wird transformiert, um so als bestandteil der sich etwas aneignenden gesellschaft neu erfunden zu werden.“ [11] regarding the potential of semiotic approaches in archaeology cf. furholt/stockhammer 2008. [12] the importance of “liminal spaces” and “in-between” has already been pointed out by bhabha 2007. bhabha, however, understands these spaces and states as social realities in postcolonial societies. thereby he ignores the fact that postcolonial society is also a product of scientific classification and no entity that exists in reality. [13] following the terminology of feldman 2006, 30. 62. 67. 202 n. 32, objects are “international” objects, when a “complete hybridisation” took place, because of which the object can no longer be attributed to particular local traditions. [14] only a single carinated bowl of local type with a rim diameter of 16.7 cm could have possibly been used as a drinking vessel (mallet 1987, 240. 242 fig. 17, 80/5100). [15] griffith 1926; maeir/garfinkel 1992; simon 1992; maeir 2007. there are a great number of images depicting drinking with straws in the near eastern and egyptian art of the third and second millennium bce, especially in the glyptic of the third millennium bce (selz 1983; homan/ebeling 2008; mcgovern 2009, 97–100). [16] homan 2004, 86; homan/ebeling 2008, 48. 56; mcgovern 2009, 97–100. the earliest depiction of drinking beer with straw is found on a sealing from tepe gawra ca 3850 bce (mcgovern 2009, 98 fig. 13a). [17] the detection of beer with residue analysis is much more difficult than that of wine. unfortunately, such analyses are completely missing for amphoroid kraters found at the southern levant. moreover, no strainers or elbow tubes have been found inside aegean-type kraters at the levant so far. ethnographic data from modern day eastern africa indicates that most drinking straws for beer are used without a strainer or elbow tube (dietler/herbich 2006). unfortunately, nothing is preserved from such straws in an archaeological context. another possibility for straining beer before drinking is the use of a strainer jug. such vessels are frequently known from levant and egypt in the late bronze and early iron age (homan 2004, 92; homan/ebeling 2008, 55–56). [18] for the range of motifs on amphoroid kraters cf. vermeule/karageorghis 1982; güntner 2000. [19] amiran 1970, 302–306; yoselevich 2006, 27; pulak 2008, 353; namdar et al. 2010. a minority of researchers interpreted the levantine chalices as drinking vessels or lamps (e.g. grutz 2007). with their latest scientific analyses especially, dvora namdar and her team have ruled out this hypothesis as a general explanation. [20] leonard 1994, 127. albert leonard registers seven vessels of fs 310 from the levant—three from ugarit, one from tomb v in minet el-beida, and three from tell abu hawam. a further specimen from ugarit was published by hirschfeld 2000, 157 no. 474; 241 fig. 31, 474. for stemmed bowls fs 310 on cyprus cf. karageorghis 1965, 208–213. [21] monchambert 2004, 275; badre 2006, 74; jung 2006, 70–76; penner 2006, 90 fig. 47; 92. 94. [22] metzner-nebelsick/nebelsick 1999; dabal 2008; maran 2011b; koch forthcoming. multi-centred modernisms | juneja & koch | transcultural studies multi-centred modernisms—reconfiguring asian art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries monica juneja and franziska koch, university of heidelberg this section of transcultural studies features the proceedings of a lecture series entitled “multi-centred modernisms—reconfiguring asian art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.” the programme of lectures, which was jointly organised by the chairs of global art history, visual and media anthropology, and japanese art histories at the university of heidelberg, invited international scholars of asian and western art to address an audience composed of students, faculty, and interested visitors every fortnight during the summer term of 2010. each talk was followed by a two-hour seminar session the next morning, in which graduate and advanced undergraduate students of art history and anthropology engaged in an intensive discussion with the speakers.  the talks were structured with a view to revisit the conceptual category of modernism. the papers that resulted from these lectures will be published in this and subsequent issues of transcultural studies and, once complete, be regrouped as a volume also featuring an afterword and a selection of responses from participants of the seminar. the aim is to foster fresh discussions on the subject of visual practices that have their roots in multiple european and asian locations and to develop visions of the modern by engaging local particularity with the universal—and in the process de-centre that universal. at a conceptual level, this enterprise begins by addressing a number of asymmetries that mark the historiography of modernism as a global process. today there is a booming market for works of art produced by artists from different regions of asia, including the indian subcontinent, china, japan, and southeast asia. yet the academic discourse of modernism continues, to a large extent, to see the avant-garde as an art movement that originated in europe in the late nineteenth century and animated artistic creations of the twentieth, during which period it also “spread” to the rest of the world. because modernism has been perceived as a quintessentially european movement, non-european experiments have tended to get stamped with epithets like “derivative” or “mimicry,” or “trying to be picasso” —a syndrome that dipesh chakrabarty calls “being relegated to the waiting room of history”.[1] equally, asian artists respond to the pressures of the global market and media discourses with an urge to self-orientalise. in the process they find themselves in a double bind wherein their art has to be modern and at the same time needs to bear the stamp of a national or cultural tradition, of “authenticity,” so that it is still identifiably “indian,” “chinese,” or “turkish.” the compulsive need to establish such credentials is as powerfully sustained from within by the anxiety to reaffirm national identity in relation to the colonial past as it is from the homogenising fictions of contemporary globalism. indeed, cultural essentialisms of various sorts are nurtured by forces that work in mutually constitutive ways, a subject addressed by gennifer weisenfeld in her contribution to this series. asymmetry is most visible in the museum scene where modernism becomes a glass wall that asian artists come up against. most metropolitan museums of modern art have not incorporated examples of non-european modernism in their collections. while in recent years a handful of these museums have acquired works of contemporary art from asia, modernist experiments from the period spanning the early decades of the twentieth century—identified in the master narrative of art history as the most creative phase of modernism—remain absent from canonical displays. even in the case of contemporary art, private galleries, rather than museums form the main spaces that accord visibility to works by asian artists.  as a result, the average museum visitor in the west associates asian art with traditional forms that go back many centuries and which can be easily identified as expressions of “indian” or “chinese” or “japanese” culture.  interestingly enough, certain genres, such as prints, break out of this pattern. for instance, a number of japanese ukyo-e prints from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that had made their way to european markets and influenced artists such as monet and van gogh do appear in museums today.[2]  yet, only objects that were produced before 1700 qualify as “high art” for western viewers. paradoxically, private buyers and collectors continue to invest more than ever before in asian contemporary art. in addition, the recent proliferation of bienniales and other mega-exhibitions across the globe have ensured that contemporary art from asia enjoys an unprecedented visibility and media coverage. such asymmetries have found their way into the canons of art history, which ascribe universal value to euro-american modernism. they define the chronological signposts of modernism as corresponding to developments in europe and lay down certain hierarchies of genres and canons of beauty that exclude a range of visual media such as posters, advertisement, commercial film, calendar art, wayside icons, and urban statuary. while the triumphalist discourse of modernism has undergone critical scrutiny in recent years, the question of how to locate modernist art of the global south and east beyond models of centre and periphery, or dichotomies between the original and the copy ,or tradition and modernity, calls for further exploration. while the opening lecture of the series—delivered by james elkins and published as an article in this issue—brought into focus the perspective of a western art scholar on the tangled issue of “globalising” the discourse of modernism, the following talks undertook case studies from south asia, tibet, japan, and china. each one consciously engaged with visual practices beyond the metropolitan centres of the west and posed several questions such as: how is our understanding of modernist and avant-garde art practices reconfigured if viewed as emanating from networks of multiple centres across the globe, and if new delhi, bombay, shanghai, or tokyo were added to the traditional centres of paris, berlin, and new york? to what extent can we explore transcultural fields of artistic production as emerging from a multi-polar, yet entangled modernism, which was generated in europe and beyond, and which often cut across the coloniser-colony divide to connect with critical currents that were also pan-asian? the interactions did not result in coining a host of modernisms—indian, chinese, japanese—all understood as parallel streams that never meet. instead, they can each be seen as a global happening, enmeshed with other modernisms, which allows us to question the extent to which such entanglements were constitutive for a western avant-garde. can european modernism be historically studied without situating it within the larger, complex political and cultural determinations of colonialism and global connections that made its emergence possible? in what ways did art movements of the “periphery” translate idioms that travelled from multiple centres in asia and europe so as to generate local styles and meanings that were no longer defined exclusively by the notion of tradition? on the other hand, to what extent did local styles and iconographies remain untouched by or resistant to modernist practices?  in other words, in which areas of art practice was a global modernity evaded or bypassed, and was this a shifting process? did such local practices destabilise existing certitudes about aesthetic value? what is the role of institutions that made up an expanding global public sphere for the arts—such as the art market, art criticism, art museums, national, and international exhibitions? under what conditions was there also a transfer back onto the global/international level of art flows, as the latest exhibition “the third mind” at the guggenheim in new york, suggested? furthermore, issues of artistic practice can hardly be dissociated from questions of collection, display, spectatorship, and education. how can we trace the genealogies of transnational art exhibitions today? what are the implications of globality for curatorial practice, how has it transformed spectatorship?  have modern media, the “society of spectacle,”[3] and the workings of the art market turned the spectator into a passive consumer of culture or can transcultural mobility induce a new form of spectatorial experience which is counter-hegemonic?  in what ways do institutions, practices, and the art market impinge upon the agency of the artist? a number of these and related questions were featured in the concluding event of the series, a public panel discussion titled “institutions, markets, publics—contemporary art practice in asia and europe.”  it focused on the role of institutions that make up an expanding global public sphere for the arts:  the art market, the role of collectors, transnational networks of artists, international exhibitions, and the role of art education and journalism. the panel included the following experts from various fields: nixi cura (christie’s education programme for chinese arts, london), ranjit hoskote (writer, critic, and curator, mumbai), uli sigg (collector of contemporary chinese art, sursee), and johan holten (director kunstverein, heidelberg). the event, which was moderated by the author, can be viewed online at http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/news-events/films/filmed-events/panel-discussion-institutions-markets-publics-contemporary-art-practice-in-asia-and-europe.html [1] for a discussion of these issues, see partha mitter, the triumph of modernism. india’s artists and the avant-garde 1922–1947 (london: reaktion books, 2007); partha mitter, “decentering modernism: art history and avant-garde art from the periphery,” with responses by alistair wright, rebecca m. brown, saloni mathur, and ajay sinha, the art bulletin, vol. 90 (4), 2008: 531–574. [2] we are grateful to rudolf wagner for drawing our attention to this interesting transcultural phenomenon. [3] guy debord, society of the spectacle (detroit: black & red, 1983). stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs katia olalde on december 10, 2006, just a few days after taking office, mexican president felipe calderón’s security cabinet announced the commencement of operativo conjunto michoacán (joint operation michoacán). the next day, members of the military, the navy, and the federal police were sent to the state of michoacán to fight the drug cartels in coordination with local authorities. this operation was the first step of the federal security strategy—popularly known as the mexican war on drugs—that calderón would maintain until the end of his term. ever since operativo conjunto michoacán began, the inhabitants of numerous regions across the country have been exposed or subjected to acts of violence perpetrated by both state and non-state actors. by the end of calderón’s tenure, his security strategy was responsible for an estimated 120,000 deaths and 20,000 disappearances. although the current president of mexico, andrés manuel lópez obrador, declared the war on drugs was officially over on january 30, 2019, the current situation as of january 2021 has not significantly improved. in this article, i examine the collaboration schemes that were established within the framework of the iniciativa bordando por la paz y la memoria: una víctima, un pañuelo (embroidering for peace and memory initiative: one victim, one handkerchief, hereafter epi). epi was a participatory project established during the summer of 2011 that by the end of calderón’s presidential term had connected volunteers around the world. participants were to perform an intervention in public space on december 1, 2012—the same day calderón handed over office to his successor enrique peña nieto. this intervention was conceptualized as a memorial ciudadano (citizen memorial),1 and consisted of a display of numerous embroidered handkerchiefs * i would like to thank dr. franziska koch and prof. dr. monica juneja for their thoughtful comments, and also the anonymous peer reviewers and the journal copyeditors for their careful reading and suggestions. i am also grateful to the graduate students of the art history program at the universidad nacional autónoma de méxico: vanessa santiago, yaret sánchez, daniela gutiérrez, juan michel quesada, georgina rodríguez, and edisabel marrero, with whom i discussed some of the readings and topics addressed in this article throughout this long year of home confinement caused by the covid-19 pandemic within the framework of the masters’ seminars “escribir con teoría desde el sur global” (writing with theory from the global south) and “hacia una descolonización de la escritura: la historia global del arte problematizada” (towards a decolonization of writing: global art history problematized). 1 in the context of mobilization against calderon’s security strategy, the term memorial ciudadano was used to refer to a bottom-up form of memory-making that opposed the mexican’s state discourse 20 stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs hung from clotheslines across mexico city’s main square (popularly known as the zócalo). as the epi’s subtitle indicates, each of these handkerchiefs was designed to commemorate a single person who had disappeared or been killed. all handkerchiefs followed the same design, which evoked the plaques found at the memorial sites for victims of genocide, terrorist attacks, or armed conflicts.2 the stitching consisted of written transcriptions of newspaper reports of the murder cases.3 neither the crime scenes nor the victims were visually depicted on these embroidered handkerchiefs. rather, the handkerchiefs usually reported how the person had been killed or described how the body was discovered without further commentary on surrounding events. volunteer participants stitched the majority of these handkerchiefs in temporary workshops set up in parks and public squares. the organizers of these embroidery sessions provided all necessary materials and a list of murder cases so that interested passersby could spontaneously join the project for however long they wished. the purpose of this citizen memorial was to bring an estimate of the human cost of calderón’s security strategy into tangible, physical space. the memorial that would be performed on december 1, 2012 would take time to traverse and would thereby encourage participants and passersby to realize the human cost of the war on drugs in a more concrete sense than is possible from reports alone. a significant proportion of those affected by violence in mexico are from groups or regions that have historically been subjected to structural violence and marginalized by the construction of the mexican modern state. the cultural activists who developed the epi in mexico city, the hegemonic center of the country, were aware of the connection between economic disparity and increased vulnerability. that is, to put it in judith butler’s terms, epi on the fight against organized crime. furthermore, memorial ciudadano is how epi’s developers presented this collective action in their call to the protest that took place on december 1, 2012. fuentes rojas (paremos las balas), “1 de diciembre. presentación de los pañuelos realizados por todxs, en el corazón de méxico,” facebook, last modified october 10, 2012, 07:01, accessed november 1, 2012, http://www.facebook.com/notes/fuen-tes-rojas/1%c2%bade-diciembre-presentaci%c3%b3n-de-lospa%c3%b1ue-los-realizados-por-todxs-en-el-coraz%c3%b3n-d/361873670567877. 2 the connection between these embroidered handkerchiefs and plaques is developed further in katia olalde, una víctima, un pañuelo: bordado y acción colectiva contra la violencia en méxico (mexico city: red mexicana de estudios de los movimientos sociales, 2019), 169–173. 3 when the epi was launched, the group used a list of murder cases collected from the press during a civilian body count that began in 2010 and was called menos días aquí (fewer days here). see menos días aquí (blog), http://menosdiasaqui.blogspot.com/. it is worth noting that this same list was used in another protest, which took place in april and may 2011 and was called action#2 enveloppe vide (empty envelope). here, protesters sent letters to president calderón on behalf of murder victims. see ciudadanos por la paz en méxico, “action #2 enveloppe vide,” ciudadanos por la paz en méxico, n.d., https://ciudadanosxlapaz.wordpress.com/accion-sobre-vacio/. http://www.facebook.com/notes/fuen-tes-rojas/1%25c2%25bade-diciembre-presentaci%25c3%25b3n-de-los-pa%25c3%25b1ue-los-realizados-por-todxs-en-el-coraz%25c3%25b3n-d/361873670567877 http://www.facebook.com/notes/fuen-tes-rojas/1%25c2%25bade-diciembre-presentaci%25c3%25b3n-de-los-pa%25c3%25b1ue-los-realizados-por-todxs-en-el-coraz%25c3%25b3n-d/361873670567877 http://menosdiasaqui.blogspot.com/ https://ciudadanosxlapaz.wordpress.com/accion-sobre-vacio/ 21the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) activists were aware of the “differential allocation of precarity.”4 activists therefore sought to align their support for relatives of the victims of the war on drugs with “the social forces that remain mobilized across the country defending their rights,”5 and with “all the citizens who, not belonging to any organization, fight day after day to maintain a dignified life, within a system that imposes corruption, greed, inequality, lack of democracy, and the loss of rights in every field.”6 drawing on a transcultural approach, by which i mean a focus on multisited interactions, objects, and practices,7 i argue that the epi’s developers’ expectation of promoting an ethics of nonviolence by means of hand embroidery is intertwined with the longue durée history of westernization that began in the late fifteenth century when the spanish and portuguese empires began to expand overseas.8 together, the transcultural and longue durée approaches will allow me to demonstrate that the ethico-political stance that the epi’s embroideries convey finds some of its roots in the mestizaje (miscegenation) and the subalternation of indigenous peoples that followed the arrival of the spanish colonizers. the foundations of my argument are, first, that what we do and the way we do it reflect the principles upon which we act, and, second, that the things we preserve for the future show the younger generations who we were (or who we meant to be).9 i will therefore look into a set of collectively stitched handkerchiefs that i consider to be the most eloquent and tangible manifestation of the ethico-political stance from which the epi emerged. i will suggest that this set of handkerchiefs—commemorating murder victims and worked on in a 4 judith butler, frames of war: when is life grievable? (london: verso, 2009), 3. 5 “las fuerzas sociales que permanecen movilizadas a lo largo y ancho del país, en defensa de sus derechos.” fuentes rojas (paremos las balas), “paremos las balas, pintemos las fuentes: manifiesto público,” facebook, last modified april 29, 2011, 06:51, last accessed october 15, 2013, http://www.facebook.com/notes/fuentes-rojas/paremos-las-balas-pintemos-las-fuentes-manifiestop%c3%bablico/105052549583325. one of the social forces mentioned in this manifesto is the zapatista uprising. 6 “todos los ciudadanos sin organización que luchan día a día por mantener una vida digna, en medio de un sistema que impone la corrupción, la avaricia, la desigualdad, la falta de democracia y la pérdida de derechos en todos los ámbitos.” fuentes rojas (paremos las balas), “manifiesto.” 7 monica juneja and christian kravagna, “understanding transculturalism. monica juneja and christian kravagna in conversation,” in transcultural modernisms, ed. model house research group (berlin: sternberg press, 2013), 22–33, 29. 8 serge gruzinski, what time is it there? america and islam at the dawn of modern times, trans. jean birrrell (cambridge: polity press, 2010), 16. see also serge gruzinski, las cuatro partes del mundo: historia de una mundialización (mexico city: fondo de cultura económica, 2010), 86–87. 9 jan assmann and john czaplicka, “collective memory and cultural identity,” new german critique 65 (spring–summer 1995): 125–133. http://www.facebook.com/notes/fuentes-rojas/paremos-las-balas-pintemos-las-fuentes-manifiesto-p%25c3%25bablico/105052549583325 http://www.facebook.com/notes/fuentes-rojas/paremos-las-balas-pintemos-las-fuentes-manifiesto-p%25c3%25bablico/105052549583325 22 stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs relay scheme involving members of the public—is a material consolidation of an attempt to put into practice the democratic principles of liberty and equality for all. i will also suggest that the way in which the epi’s developers conceived of collaboration was based on indigenous, communal forms of organization. this set of handkerchiefs was embroidered and displayed throughout 2011– 2013 during the activities organized by the epi’s developers, and later by the fuentes rojas collective (red fountains collective), a group that remained engaged with the epi after a breakaway section left the initiative between august and september 2011 in order to establish the plataforma de arte y cultura (the platform of art and culture) within the movimiento por la paz con justicia y diginidad (movement for peace with justice and dignity, mpjd). as i will explain in the following section, the mpjd was a social movement for victims’ relatives that emerged in early may 2011. in addition to this set of handkerchiefs, i will pay attention to a second group of primary materials: the public statements and calls for action issued by developers of the epi. i draw on these documents to argue that participation in the epi was envisioned as a means to promote the critical exercise of citizenship. these statements were at first issued exclusively in newspapers and later posted on the facebook profile page “fuentes rojas (paremos las balas).”10 as one can glean from the epi’s open call for participation,11 embroidering handkerchiefs to commemorate the victims of the war on drugs was envisioned as a means to urge needleworkers and passersby to reflect critically about the humanitarian crisis precipitated by calderón’s security strategy and to consider what they as citizens could collectively do to address the situation. as the fuentes rojas collective states: “our aim is to strengthen citizenry as a collective through co-responsibility and encounters between people.”12 in light of this assertion, and given that the december 1 protest was conceived as a memorial ciudadano, i will argue that the epi was not only envisioned as a way to raise awareness but also as a call for the critical exercise of citizenship. furthermore, i will make the case that the epi’s understanding of citizenship evolved during the course of the project. during the earliest phase of the epi, the critical exercise of citizenship meant taking part in the political struggle against the federal government’s security strategy. in other words, the epi’s idea of citizenship during this earliest phase involved fighting for 10 fuentes rojas (paremos las balas), accessed february 15, 2021, https://www.facebook.com/ fuentes.rojas.5. 11 fuentes rojas (paremos las balas), “1 de diciembre.” 12 “nuestro fin es fortalecer la ciudadanía como colectivo a través de la corresponsabilidad y el encuentro entre personas.” fuentes rojas (paremos las balas), “1 de diciembre.” unless otherwise indicated, all translations are the author’s. https://www.facebook.com/fuentes.rojas.5 https://www.facebook.com/fuentes.rojas.5 23the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) the possibility to effectively exercise the democratic rights vested in national citizenry. during subsequent phases of the epi, however, encouraging critical citizenship mostly involved raising awareness of the humanitarian crisis in mexico and fostering a sense of sympathy and compassion for the victims. here, the idea of citizenship became more diffuse and closer to the concept of global citizenship, a notion that is informed by the “cosmopolitan ideal of equal concern for all human beings” and the general principles of interconnectedness and interdependence.13 i refer to this second meaning of citizenship as more diffuse because global citizenship is not a legally binding concept but rather an aspirational ethical framework developed to face the challenges posited by cultural and religious diversity in many of the émigré societies in europe, the usa, and australia.14 i will claim that in the earliest stage of the epi, the call for the critical exercise of citizenship was informed most prominently by indigenous communities and community resistance movements against accumulation by dispossession15 in latin america. in the epi’s subsequent stages, however, this call was nurtured by the historical connection between hand embroidery and an ideal of femininity grounded in christian moral virtue. by inquiring into the meaning of the concept of community in the latin american context, i will posit that while mexico is well-known for its traditional garments and colorful textile handicrafts, the imprint of indigenous knowledge and experience does not manifest within the framework of the epi in the form of textile designs and schemas associated with cultural identities or folklore but rather emerges in the implementation of a relay collaboration scheme inspired by communal polities. furthermore, whilst the connection between embroidery, an idealized femininity, and a religious moral virtue grounded in christianity might at first sound too western to be applied to the mexican 13 cristina lafont, global governance and human rights (assen: van gorcum, 2012), 51. 14 fethi mansouri, amelia johns, and vince marotta, “critical global citizenship: contextualizing citizenship and globalisation,” journal of citizenship and globalisation studies 1, no. 1 (2017): 1–9; 2–3. 15 david harvey states that “the processes that marx, following adam smith, referred to as ‘primitive’ or ‘original’ accumulation” persist to this day. “since it seems peculiar to call an ongoing process ‘primitive’ or ‘original’ … [harvey] substitute[s] these terms by the concept of ‘accumulation by dispossession.’” the forms in which accumulation by dispossession takes place nowadays “include the commodification and privatization of land and the forceful expulsion of peasant populations; the conversion of various forms of property rights (common, collective, state, etc.) into exclusive private property rights; the suppression of rights to the commons; the commodification of labour power and the suppression of alternative (indigenous) forms of production and consumption; colonial, neo-colonial, and imperial processes of appropriation of assets (including natural resources); the monetization of exchange and taxation, particularly of land; the slave trade and usury, the national debt, and ultimately the credit system as radical means of primitive accumulation.” david harvey, the new imperialism (oxford: oxford university press, 2003), 143–145. 24 stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs context, examining the transcultural history of hand embroidery will allow me to show that needlework instruction, envisioned as a way to foster moral virtue among women, has played a role in gender differentiation in latin america since the colonial period. “we” and “they” during calderón’s presidency calderón’s security strategy shared certain components with other wars on drugs, such as a communication campaign that criminalized victims of violence while presenting the exercise of force as a legitimate state endeavor aimed at securing the wellbeing of families. one of the slogans the mexican public became accustomed to hearing during this period was “para que la droga no llegue a tus hijos” (so that drugs do not reach your children).16 fear of social stigma, together with the threat of reprisal and a lack of trust in the justice system, prevented a significant number of relatives of victims from disclosing their experiences, reporting their cases to authorities, or following up on cases even when a report had been made. although some civilian organizations and groups of relatives of victims were already advancing proposals to address the harm caused by killings and disappearances as early as 2008, it was not until april 2011 that the issue gained importance within public debates. this was prompted, in part, by the murder of the son of prominent poet and journalist javier sicilia. unlike the majority of relatives of victims, sicilia’s public status allowed him to uphold his son’s innocence and brought him the social support necessary to publicly condemn the federal government’s disregard of the harm that this so-called war inflicted on civilians. sicilia organized public protests and peaceful walks in the weeks following the discovery of his son’s body, opening a space where the voices of relatives of victims could be heard both by government officials and by mexican society at large. furthermore, these public gatherings offered relatives of victims the opportunity to meet, express their outrage, and grieve together. the gatherings encouraged participants to join forces and organize themselves; they did so under the name movimiento por la paz con justicia y dignidad (movement for peace with justice and dignity, hereafter mpjd).17 from 2007 onwards, mexico descended into a humanitarian crisis. the intensity of the resulting violence varied significantly across regions. mexico city was not among the most affected areas, and as a resident of the capital myself at the time i would say that many people in the megalopolis in 2011 16 see m. a. bastenier, “la guerra de felipe calderón,” el país, march 24, 2010, accessed february 17, 2021, https://elpais.com/diario/2010/03/24/internacional/1269385204_850215.html. 17 see kristin bricker, “mexico’s drug war victims find their voice in massive silent march,” upside down world, may 10, 2011, accessed february 15, 2021, https://upsidedownworld.org/ archives/mexico/mexicos-drug-war-victims-find-their-voice-in-massive-silent-march/. https://elpais.com/diario/2010/03/24/internacional/1269385204_850215.html https://upsidedownworld.org/archives/mexico/mexicos-drug-war-victims-find-their-voice-in-massive-silent-march/ https://upsidedownworld.org/archives/mexico/mexicos-drug-war-victims-find-their-voice-in-massive-silent-march/ 25the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) felt the war on drugs was taking place in a foreign country. it was in this context that a group of artists and civilians, though not relatives of victims themselves, decided to develop forms of creative protest to support the mpjd. the group’s first intervention saw them pour red ink in a number of fountains located in parks and public squares in mexico city as a way to symbolize blood seeping into clandestine graves. at this time, the group signed their calls for participation and public statements as iniciativa paremos las balas, pintemos las fuentes (stop the bullets, paint the fountains initiative, hereafter sbi). their second project was embroidering handkerchiefs to commemorate the victims of the war on drugs.18 although some members of the sbi began to embroider handkerchiefs and to display their work in public protests in june 2011, the establishment of periodical temporary workshops in open spaces did not begin in earnest until august of that year. the first such workshop was a weekly embroidery session in the jardín centenario (centenary garden) in coyoacán, mexico city.19 throughout 2012, calls on social media to participate in epi’s december 1 protest were highly successful. consequently, many more embroidery sessions were organized in several cities throughout mexico and abroad. ever since, dozens of handkerchiefs commemorating victims of the war on drugs in mexico have been stitched in different regions of the world, have traveled across borders to be displayed on clotheslines at public protests, and have been presented in exhibitions and at cultural events organized before and after the december 1 protest.20 alongside the mpjd, the epi’s developers aimed to attract the attention of mexican society and to encourage everyone to listen to the stories told by relatives of the victims. i would suggest that the target audience of this group of cultural producers were sections of the mexican population who believed that the war on drugs only targeted criminals and they as law-abiding citizens need not be concerned. this split between a “we,” who should be relatively safe, and a “they,” who were supposedly experiencing the consequences 18 although there is continuity from the sbi to the epi, not all of the people involved in the first initiative took part in the second. i therefore use the term “epi’s developers” to refer to the members of the sbi who took part in the epi’s early phase and the new participants who join the group when the embroidery sessions started. 19 public protests include rallies, hunger strikes, and public gatherings where the embroidered handkerchiefs are displayed, usually hanging from clotheslines. embroidery sessions refer to the ephemeral workshops where the handkerchiefs are embroidered. 20 i use the acronym epi as an umbrella term to refer to all the groups and individuals who have embroidered handkerchiefs commemorating the victims of the war on drugs in mexico throughout the last decade. when i refer to the epi’s developers, i therefore only mean the people who were involved in the epi’s first stage. as i mentioned earlier, only some of the epi’s developers were also part of the sbi. 26 stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs of their own unlawful actions, prevented the acknowledgement of murders and disappearances as matters of public interest. blurring this distinction between “we” and “they,” a distinction that could also be considered in terms of “grievable” and “ungrievable” lives,21 was one of the mpjd’s key endeavors and a goal that the epi wished to support. sicilia used the phrase “reconstructing the social fabric” to refer to this key task.22 this metaphor was a perfect fit at the time when the epi was launched, something that becomes apparent in the following excerpt of one of the epi’s calls for participation: in mexico, civil society is immersed in a state of national emergency and it is necessary to build diverse mechanisms, through actions and projects, aimed at mending the social fabric. we know that these types of actions are not enough to transform the government or the criminals. still, we are interested in sharing with citizens at large, thereby generating change, and new relations grounded on a view of collectivity. a gesture to build together with the other(s).23 press articles, blogs, and social media posts about the epi repeatedly made use of the metaphor “mending the social fabric,” though without much further elaboration. meanwhile, academic literature has assumed rather than 21 butler, frames of war, 22; katia olalde “marcos de duelo en la guerra contra el narcotráfico,” política y cultura 44 (2015): 57–78; olalde, una víctima, 267–344. 22 in his “open letter to politicians and criminals,” which he published a few days after the killing of his son, siclia wrote: “estamos hasta la madre de ustedes, políticos ..., porque en sus luchas por el poder han desgarrado el tejido de la nación.” (we are fed up with you, politicians ... because in your struggles for power you have torn the fabric of the nation.) javier sicilia, “estamos hasta la madre... (carta abierta a políticos y criminales),” proceso, april 2, 2011, accessed october 19, 2013, http://www.proceso.com.mx/?p=266990. a month later, during the walk-rally for peace with justice and dignity (caminata-marcha por la paz con justicia y dignidad) from cuernavaca, morelos, to mexico city on may 5, 2011, sicilia asserted that the mpjd was “in favor of a citizen pact to begin the reconstruction of the social fabric that has been broken by violence.” (original: estamos … por un pacto ciudadano para iniciar la reconstrucción del tejido social, que se ha roto por la violencia.) rubicela morelos and alfonso urrutia, “no queremos derribar al gobierno, sino reconstruir el tejido social: sicilia,” la jornada, may 6, 2011, accessed february 1, 2021, https://www.jornada.com. mx/2011/05/06/politica/002n1pol. 23 “en méxico la sociedad civil se encuentra inmersa en un estado de emergencia nacional y es necesario construir mecanismos diversos a través de acciones y proyectos para resarcir el tejido social. sabemos que no basta este tipo de acciones para cambiar el gobierno o la delincuencia, sin embargo, lo que nos interesa es compartir con la ciudadanía y ahí sí generar un cambio, nuevas relaciones a partir de una visión de colectividad. un gesto de construir junto con el otro(s).” fuentes rojas (paremos las balas), “bordando por la paz y la memoria. una víctima, un pañuelo,” facebook, last modified september 10, 2012, accessed february 28, 2016, http://www. facebook.com/notes/fuentes-rojas/bordando-por-la-paz-y-la-memoria-una-v%c3%adctima-unpa%c3%b1uelo/350825251672719. 27the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) questioned the idea that embroidery draws people closer.24 this suggests to me that the image of “mending the social fabric” has generally been considered an accurate description of the relationships established among embroiderers and of the expected effects these interactions may have in the context of the war on drugs. based on my research, i would say that epi developers envisioned stitching in the open air together with people that one does not necessarily know as a means to encourage participants to be friendly to one another and to develop compassion for the people most affected by the war on drugs, who in this case are often seen as distant strangers. from this perspective, the metaphor of “mending the social fabric” resonates in concrete terms with the group’s hope that embroidery would help participants counteract the selfishness and indifference many people develop in a social reality that is marked by violence and, more importantly, that it would encourage the embroiderers to rediscover a shared common ground temporarily concealed by insecurity, impunity, and mistrust. however, as the long durée approach demonstrates, the construction of the modern mexican nation state was marked by social inequalities, racialization, and classism. it would therefore be overly simplistic to suggest that calderón’s militarization was the single cause of the upsurge of violence that the country has seen over the last fourteen years. while the metaphor of “mending the social fabric” resonates with a general yearning for a lost sense of unity, i wonder: at which moment in the history of the country we might find the “social fabric” that we as mexicans would seek to restore? the downside of this metaphor is that it encourages us to overlook the historical conditions leading to calderón’s decision to prioritize the fight against drug cartels, and to disregard the longstanding process within which some groups have been celebrated as assets to mexican society and other groups construed as liabilities. according to this distinction, the former group deserve attention and care from the state and mexican society, whereas the latter are disregarded and dismissed. i therefore argue that we should move away from the metaphor “mending the social fabric” and the essentialism it invokes. to move away from this presents us with the opportunity to question the anchors of our sense of belonging and shared responsibility and, even more importantly, to examine the way these anchors inform the struggles of the citizenry to effectively exercise their democratic rights. more broadly, such a non-essentialist approach allows me to 24 see for instance francesca gargallo celentani, bordados de paz, memoria y justicia: un proceso de visibilización (guadalajara: grafisma, 2014); francesca gargallo celentani, “historia, estética y resistencia. cultura y arte de cara al terror de estado,” visualidades 12, no. 1 (2014): 9–25; 19; maureen daly, “threads of feeling: embroidering craftivism to protest the disappearances and deaths in the ‘war on drugs’ in mexico,” (14th textile society of america biennial symposium: new directions, examining the past, creating the future, los angeles, september 10–14, 2014), http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/tsaconf/937. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/tsaconf/937 28 stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs examine the role these anchors play in the fight against human rights violations on the global scale. community and communal polities in latin america while there was a culture of community in the americas that preceded the arrival of the colonizers in the late fifteenth century,25 héctor díaz-polanco notes that the term comunidad india (indian community) was created by colonizers in order to bring the plurality of subordinated groups together under a single denomination that differed from the names by which these groups identified themselves.26 in this same vein, armando bartra remarks that the category indio americano was imposed by the spanish crown for tributary, moral, and political purposes.27 as a homogenous term indicating a subordinate position, comunidad india was a useful tool of social, political, and economic control. with respect to the contemporary meaning of the term comunidad india, i would like to make three important remarks. first, at least in mexico, the word indígena (indigenous) is generally preferred over indio or india (indian). second, the word comunidad when used on its own usually refers to or implies a connection with indigenous ways of organizing social life and indigenous connections to the land and natural resources.28 finally, a number of terms are used almost interchangeably in daily life, which means that, depending on the context, one might encounter any of the following: comunidad indígena (indigenous community), pueblo indígena (indigenous people), comunidades originarias (original communities), or pueblos originarios (original peoples). according to carlos zolla and emiliano zolla márquez, debates around the definition of the word comunidad continue due to differences between the ways in which the concept has been understood by scholars, mostly from the fields of anthropology and sociology, or has been used for political purposes, or defined juridically in national as well as international contexts. in the view of zolla and zolla márquez, these different understandings and uses of the concept of comunidad explain the polysemous nature of the term and the fact 25 armando bartra, “campesindios, aproximaciones a los campesinos de un continente colonizado,” boletín de antropología americana 44 (2008): 5–24; 21. 26 héctor díaz-polanco, “autonomía, territorialidad y comunidad indígena. la nueva legislación agraria en méxico,” in pueblos indígenas ante el derecho, ed. victoria chenaut and maría teresa sierra (mexico city: cemca-ciesas, 1995), 236–237; carlos zolla and emiliano zolla márquez, “2.¿qué se entiende por comunidad indígena?” in los pueblos indígenas de méxico, 100 preguntas (mexico city: unam, 2004), www.nacionmulticultural.unam.mx/100preguntas/pregunta.php?num_pre=2. 27 bartra, “campesindios,” 21. 28 see gabriel liceaga, “el concepto de comunidad en las ciencias sociales latinoamericanas: apuntes para su comprensión,” cuadernos americanos: nueva época 3, no. 145 (2013): 57–85; 67. www.nacionmulticultural.unam.mx/100preguntas/pregunta.php%3fnum_pre%3d2 29the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) that it might be used as a synonym for “localidad” (locality), “pueblo” (town), “paraje” (place), and even “población indígena” (indigenous population).29 regarding the juridical status of indigenous communities in mexico, it is worth noting that after the constitutional reform of 2001 and the amendments made in 2006 and 2011, article two of the constitution established that “the nation has a multicultural composition.”30 furthermore, the constitution states that the nation “recognizes and guarantees the right of indigenous peoples and communities to self-determination.”31 nonetheless, to this day there are persistent and significant discrepancies between law and reality. in order to begin to understand these discrepancies, it is necessary to examine the history of mexico, in particular the modernization processes that have been ongoing since the nineteenth century. modernization was premised on the construct of a mestizo national identity that excluded groups who spoke any language other than spanish.32 in addition to this language-based exclusion, these groups organized their social life and otherwise existed in ways that were construed as hindrances to economic development and therefore as obstacles to the social mobility that economic growth was supposed to encourage.33 returning to contemporary meanings of the concept of community, silvia rivera cusicanqui has been strongly critical of using the term comunidad indígena as a synonym for a demographic-territorial unity. for example, within 29 “parte de la ambigüedad o de la polisemia de la expresión proviene también del hecho de que frecuentemente ‘comunidad’ ha sido usada como sinónimo de ‘localidad’ (como unidad demográficoterritorial), ‘pueblo,’ ‘paraje’ e incluso de ‘población indígena.’ en no pocos textos del indigenismo se habla frecuentemente de la ‘comunidad indígena’ y la ‘comunidad nacional’ mestiza.” zolla and zolla márquez, “2.¿qué se entiende por comunidad indígena?” 17. 30 “the nation has a multicultural composition stemming from its indigenous peoples, who are those descended from the populations who inhabited the current territory of the country at the beginning of colonization and who retain their own social, economic, cultural, and political institutions or part of them.” (original: la nación tiene una composición pluricultural sustentada originalmente en sus pueblos indígenas que son aquellos que descienden de poblaciones que habitaban en el territorio actual del país al iniciarse la colonización y que conservan sus propias instituciones sociales, económicas, culturales y políticas, o parte de ellas.) cámara de diputados del h. congreso de la unión, constitución política de los estados unidos mexicanos, 2020, art. ii, para. i, accessed february 17, 2021, http://www.diputados.gob.mx/leyesbiblio/pdf/1_241220.pdf, 2. 31 “esta constitución reconoce y garantiza el derecho de los pueblos y las comunidades indígenas a la libre determinación.” cámara de diputados, constitución política, art. 2, subsection a, 2. 32 on the idea of mestizaje as the anchor of the modern mexican state, see josé vasconcelos’ renowned essay: josé vasconcelos, the cosmic race / la raza cósmica, trans. didier t. jaén (maryland: johns hopkins university press, 1997 [1925]). vasconcelos wrote this during his time as head of the ministry of public education (1921–1924). 33 gonzalo aguirre beltrán, el proceso de aculturación (mexico city: unam, 1957), 22, 33; luca citarella, “capítulo i. méxico,” in la educación indígena en américa latina méxico-guatemalaecuador-perú-bolivia tomo i, comp. francesco chiodi (quito: abya-yala, 1990), 15. in order to further investigate the public policies applied to indigenous people, an inquiry into the trajectory of the indigenismo in mexico would be required. see, for instance, beltrán, el proceso de aculturación, 126–127. 30 stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs the salas etnográficas (ethnographical rooms) of the museo nacional de antropología e historia in mexico city, indigenous peoples are presented as part of the living cultural heritage of the country.34 according to cusicanqui, confining indigenous groups to their community’s lands of origin perpetuates hegemonic essentialist and orientalist views of the “marginalized other.” these views in turn become part of the multicultural adornments of neoliberalism.35 therefore, instead of picturing indigenous people as “living fossils,”36 cusicanqui argues for an indigenous modernity that not only considers decolonization but, more importantly, accomplishes it.37 with regard to communal polities, gladys tzul remarks that “in communally organized indigenous societies, there are extended networks that organize everyday life, defend the territory, and recover the concrete means of which they have been dispossessed.”38 communal polities are characterized by network collaboration and non-hierarchical decision making. in communal polities authority, work, and service are conceived of as voluntary and unpaid contributions to the community. they are driven by the ethical imperative that privileges the group over individual interests. finally, in communal polities the relation to the land and natural resources is conceived of in terms of use rather than property,39 which means that members of the community can only claim to “own” a piece of land as long as and insofar as they cultivate it.40 in sum, the features of communal polities disrupt capitalist rationality.41 34 see “sala etnografía—museo nacional de antropología,” inah tv, uploaded april 29, 2009, accessed february 16, 2021, youtube video, 1:50, https://youtu.be/2itrcvq4jjm. 35 silvia rivera cusicanqui, ch’ixinakax utxiwa una reflexión sobre prácticas y discursos descolonizadores (buenos aires: tinta limón, 2010), 59. 36 the term has been borrowed from monica juneja, who used it in the context of germanlanguage world art histories of the late nineteenth century. monica juneja, “‘a very civil idea ...’ art history, transculturation, and world-making—with and beyond the nation,” zeitschrift für kunstgeschichte 81, no. 4 (2018): 461–485; 473. 37 rivera cusicanqui, ch’ixinakax utxiwa, 55. 38 “en las sociedades indígenas organizadas comunitariamente se dan redes ampliadas que organizan la vida cotidiana, defienden el territorio y recuperan los medios concretos de los que han sido despojadas.” gladys tzul in julia riesco frías and marta lópez, “‘preservar la autonomía es algo fundamental.’ entrevista: gladyz tzul, activista,” periódico diagonal, march 14, 2015, accessed may 29, 2017, https://www.diagonalperiodico.net/movimientos/25949-preservar-la-autonomia-es-algo-fundamental.html. 39 oswaldo j. hernández, “entrevista con gladys tzul: la estrategia de poner límites al estado,” alice news, january 29, 2014, accessed may 29, 2017, https://alice.ces.uc.pt/news-old/?p=3013. 40 katia olalde, “facing the challenges of studying transdisciplinary forms of cultural activism against violence,” in nomadic inquiry: european congress of qualitative inquiry proceedings 2018, ed. karin hannes, bernadette dierckx de casterlé, ann heylighen, and frederik truyen (leuven: ku leuven, 2018), 196–208; 199. 41 an exploration of how “community” resonates within the framework of the epi was further developed in katia olalde, “bordar por la paz y la memoria en méxico: desfasar de la racionalidad https://youtu.be/2itrcvq4jjm https://www.diagonalperiodico.net/movimientos/25949-preservar-la-autonomia-es-algo-fundamental.html https://alice.ces.uc.pt/news-old/%3fp%3d3013 31the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) in latin america, the groups that abide by the principles of communal polities have been excluded from modernization processes. many of these historically subalternized groups have, however, persistently proved their capacity to endure and to resist the advancement of neoliberalism.42 this would, therefore, explain the conclusion gabriel liceaga arrives at in his essay on the concept of community in the latin american social sciences: “the territorial socio-environmental struggles (characterized as fights against accumulation by dispossession) … summon the theoretical and political awakening of the concept of community.”43 we may then ask: in which sense could embroidering for peace and remembrance in mexico be a way to put communal forms of organization into practice, thereby dislocating the logic of productivity, competitiveness, and profit? capitalista sin establecer (cabalmente) modos de organización comunitaria,” in cartografías críticas, comp. ileana diéguez (los angeles: karpa journal, california state university los angeles, 2008), https://www.calstatela.edu/al/karpa/k-olalde. see also olalde, una víctima, 179–192. 42 regarding the consequences of the advancement of neoliberalism throughout the last three decades, david harvey notes: the “displacement of peasant populations and the formation of a landless proletariat has accelerated in countries such as mexico and india in the last three decades, many formerly common property resources, such as water, have been privatized (often at world bank insistence) and brought within the capitalist logic of accumulation, alternative (indigenous and even, in the case of the united states, petty commodity) forms of production and consumption have been suppressed. nationalized industries have been privatized. family farming has been taken over by agribusiness. and slavery has not disappeared (particularly in the sex trade).” harvey, new imperialism, 145–146. 43 “las luchas territoriales socioambientales (caracterizadas como luchas contra la acumulación por desposesión) … convocan al despertar teórico y político del concepto de comunidad.” liceaga, “concepto de comunidad,” 76. fig. 1. embroideries completed by several hands (in process). fuentes rojas, 2012– 2013. photo: katia olalde. https://www.calstatela.edu/al/karpa/k-olalde 32 stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs a collaboration scheme that disrupts capitalist rationality during the embroidery sessions organized by the epi’s developers and later by a section of the initial group that identified itself as fuentes rojas,44 participants did not embroider a single handkerchief from beginning to end (see fig. 1). rather, a number of volunteers worked on many embroideries in relays. volunteers were free to pick from different tones of colored thread and use whatever stitches they liked (see fig. 2). most participants signed the handkerchiefs with only their first names, thereby displacing the emphasis from individual authorship to the collective work of a group of embroiderers (see fig. 3). one did not need to master needlework techniques to participate, and numerous handkerchiefs illustrate the efforts of amateur embroiderers (see fig. 4). furthermore, participation did not involve becoming the owner of the handkerchief.45 the members of fuentes rojas therefore rejected the notions of commodity and private property and conceived of these collectively stitched embroideries as “belonging to everyone and to no one at the same time.”46 44 although most of the original members withdrew from fuentes rojas collective after the december 1 protest, the remaining members continued to hold the weekly embroidery sessions without interruption in the centenary garderns in coyoacán until the covid-19 pandemic forced them to stop in march 2020. 45 olalde, “racionalidad capitalista,” 81; olalde, una víctima, 111. 46 “cuando decimos que pertenece al procomún todo cuanto es de todos y de nadie a mismo tiempo estamos pensando en un bien sacado del mercado y que, en consecuencia, no se rige por sus reglas.” antonio lafuente, “los cuatro entornos del procomún,” archipiélago: cuadernos de crítica de la cultura 77–78: 15–22 (2007), 1-9; 1, accessed march 1, 2021, https://digital.csic.es/ handle/10261/2746. fig. 2. embroidery completed by several hands (detail). fuentes rojas, 2012–2013. photo: katia olalde. %20https://digital.csic.es/handle/10261/2746 %20https://digital.csic.es/handle/10261/2746 33the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) fig. 4. embroidery completed by several hands. fuentes rojas, 2012–2013. photo: katia olalde.47 47 the stitched text reads: “librado acosta de la rocha, 38 años, hallado muerto con múltiples heridas de arma de fuego en un lugar conocido como el barro. chihuahua, chihuahua. 30 de enero de 2011.” translated, it reads: “librado acosta de la rocha, 38 years, found dead with multiple gunshots fig. 3. embroideries completed by several hands (details). fuentes rojas, 2012–2013. photos: katia olalde. 34 stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs as discussed above, the central feature of these handkerchiefs are texts that report how the person was killed or describe how the body was found. the use of only one color, the lack of design or depictions of the victim, and the prominence of the white background all direct attention toward the texts. with some exceptions, the profession or activities of the deceased are excluded from the handkerchiefs. the neutrality of the text is intended to highlight the importance of the loss of human life without making a distinction between innocents and criminals.48 the design remained consistent, which prevented any favoring of one style above others. i am inclined to associate the consistency of the design and the neutrality of the texts with the democratic principle of equality. moreover, i connect the ambiguity granted by the use of only the first names of embroiderers with an ethical imperative that privileges in a place known as el barro. 30 january, 2011.” below this text on the left side, it reads: “bordaron [embroidered by]: celia, oscar, cati burns new york usa, marcela reed, tatiana, claudia, jacqueline, william avalos ‘guatemala,’ javier, lanny, elia.” below this text on the right side reads 612 / 80,000, which indicates the number of this murder case among the total death toll at the time that this handkerchief was embroidered. it is worth noting that the total number increased over time. 48 this intention was formulated in a previous creative protest called enveloppe vide (empty envelope), which was one of the sources of inspiration for the developers of the epi. see olalde, una víctima, 16–17, 215. fig. 5. embroideries completed by several hands, uam-xochimilco, mexico city, september 30, 2013. fuentes rojas, 2012–2013. photo: katia olalde. 35the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) the group over individual interests, insofar as it prevents the handkerchief from being attributed to an individual author (see fig. 5). the principle of freedom seems to have materialized in the flexibility of the relay scheme, which, in addition to giving participants the opportunity to do their best regardless of their technical skills, allowed them to stitch multiple excerpts from multiple different handkerchiefs and made it possible for the kind of thread or stitch used to be changed (see fig. 1 and fig. 2).49 in sum, i conceive of the collectively stitched handkerchiefs as the material result of a relay collaboration scheme that dislocates the logic of productivity, competitiveness, and profit to put the democratic principles of liberty and equality for all into practice on the basis of indigenous communal polities. furthermore, when one reads the epi’s statements and pays attention to the meanings infused into the “communitarian character” of the initiative, what comes to the fore is the concept of community envisioned as a utopian ideal that resonates with the hope for a better future.50 throughout my research, i have noticed a tendency among participants of the epi to overlook the potential for conflict that is ever-present in social interactions.51 such a tendency persists to this day and seems to explain, at least partially, why the epi’s developers refused to speak about the 2011 reconfiguration of the stop the bullets initiative, which occurred before the fuentes rojas collective was created—a reconfiguration i referred to at the beginning of this article, when i mentioned the breakaway group that established the platform of art and culture within the mpjd. likewise, participants of the epi do not openly discuss the serious disagreements 49 a comparison between the way in which fuentes rojas and another large group called bordamos por la paz guadalajara (we embroider for peace guadalajara) sought to put the democratic principles of “liberty and equality for all” into practice is developed further in katia olalde, “bordando por la paz y la memoria en méxico: feminidad sin sumisión y aspiraciones democráticas,” debate feminista 58 (2019): 1–30. 50 fuentes rojas (paremos las balas), “1 de diciembre”; olalde, una víctima, 79–92. 51 the “radical democracy” approach advanced by ernesto laclau and chantal mouffe can be summarized as follows: 1. the political domain entails the discursive construction of a difference between a “we” and a “they”; 2. this difference is neither based on any fundamental essence nor is it definitely closed; 3. the meaning infused into the democratic principles liberty and equality for all is always subject to debate; 4. antagonism—understood as the expression of conflicts for which there is no rational solution—is a perennial possibility; 5. consensus is always the result of contingent and precarious articulation practices: “things could always be otherwise and therefore every order is predicated on the exclusion of other possibilities.” ernesto laclau and chantal mouffe, hegemony and socialist strategy: towards a radical democratic politics (london: verso, 1985); chantal mouffe, the return of the political (new york: verso, 2005); chantal mouffe, “art and democracy: art as an agonistic intervention in the public space,” open!, january 1, 2007, https://www.onlineopen. org/art-and-democracy. the way the epi’s citizen memorials embody this contingent and precarious articulation practices was further developed in olalde, “capítulo 3. mundos communes inestables y potencialmente conflictivos,” in una víctima, 193–266. https://www.onlineopen.org/art-and-democracy https://www.onlineopen.org/art-and-democracy 36 stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs that emerged before the intervention they performed in downtown mexico city on december 1, 2012. these disagreements eventually resulted in the definitive dissolution of some of the embroidery groups and the fraying of the global network that these groups had woven together.52 this tendency to disregard conflict suggests that the epi’s participants were not free from a romantic view of the communal polity. i would therefore argue that the expectation of smoothly mending (and reshaping) the social fabric in a way reminiscent of indigenous communities shows the way some activists from the centers have imagined forms of social organization by historically marginalized peripheries, and the way these activists have projected the methods of counteracting the evils of modern westernized societies—to which these activists themselves belong—onto marginalized groups. still, i would like to stress that within the framework of the epi and of the platform of art and culture communal polities were not understood as archaic social structures irremediably confined to a distant pre-modern past.53 rather, they were perceived as actual and living alternative means of conceiving relationships to one another and to the world. embroidery, femininity, and virtue roszika parker examines how the corporeality of embroidery—the stillness of the body, bent over the work with downcast eyes—together with the patience, concentration, and persistence that this corporeality fosters proved compatible with seventeenth century protestant morality. as a result, embroidery became a way to inculcate christian moral values. she further examines how, over the next two centuries, embroidery became associated with the feminine qualities expected of aristocratic women: namely chastity, modesty, self-containment, submission, obedience, love of home, and devoted care for others.54 according to parker, this connection was gradually naturalized up to the point that by the nineteenth century it was believed that “women embroidered because they were naturally feminine and were feminine because they naturally embroidered.”55 consequently, embroidered works came to be seen as proof that their crafter had what it took to be a worthy wife and mother.56 52 olalde, “feminidad sin sumisión”; olalde, una víctima, 224–262. 53 the platform of art and culture was created by some of the epi’s developers after they left the stop the bullets initiative to join the mpjd. 54 rozsika parker, the subversive stitch: embroidery and the making of the feminine (london: i.b. tauris, 2010 [1984]), 82–88. 55 parker, the subversive stitch, 12. 56 parker, the subversive stitch, 11. 37the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) in new spain, needlework was prominent in the clerical model of feminine education as imparted at schools associated with catholic convents during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.57 within the framework of this clerical model, the character traits cultivated by young women while embroidering resembled the virtues of the virgin mary.58 the masterful embroidery samplers (dechados magistrales) proudly displayed by families in their houses thus attested not only to the technical mastery of their crafters, but also to their moral virtuosity.59 these embroidery samplers included elements from mesoamerican and mediterranean textile legacies alongside design schemes originating in the islamic and jewish fabric arts,60 meaning that these embroidery samplers are the tangible result of intertwining processes of transculturation that occurred before and after the spanish invasion of mexico during the early sixteenth century. further, and as serge gruzinski has remarked, converting people to christianity was at the core of iberian globalization.61 i would therefore argue that the connections between hand embroidery, femininity, and a christian moral virtue—connections that still resonate in mexico to this day—can be understood as an expression of the westernizing project of iberian globalization. in particular, these connections can be understood as an expression of miscegenation (el mestizaje),62 conceived of in this context as a painful and complex process of transculturation marked by violence, uprooting, racialization, relations of 57 katia olalde, “stitching the social fabric against violence and impunity: the embroidering for peace initiative revisited through the lens of caring democracy,” artelogie 15 (2020): 1–18, https:// doi.org/10.4000/artelogie.4526. see also oresta lópez pérez, “currículum sexuado y poder: miradas a la educación liberal diferenciada para hombres y mujeres durante la segunda mitad del siglo xix en méxico,” relaciones 113 (winter 2008): 33–68; 38; pilar gonzalbo, “virreinato y nuevo orden,” in historia mínima de la educación en méxico, ed. dorothy tanck de estrada (mexico: el colegio de méxico, 2010), 36–66; 64. 58 see mayela flores enríquez, “dechado mexicano  mexikanisches stickmuster,” miradas 1 (2014): 146–150; 147; ana rita valero de garcía lascuráin and nora deveaux cabrera, “vizcaínas: un proyecto de conservación, desarrollo social y cultural mexicano con 280 años de historia,” corpus 3, no. 2 (2013): 1–10; 3–4; pérez, “currículum sexuado y poder,” 33–68. 59 see flores enríquez, “dechado mexicano,” 147; mayela flores enríquez, “panorama de los estudios sobre dechados en méxico,” sztuka ameryki łacińskiej 5 (2015): 127–146; 142. 60 this is revealed, for instance, by the use of the assisi stitch that emerged in the region umbria and whose history stretches back to the middle ages. for more information on the confluence of diverse textile traditions, see alejandro de ávila, “los textiles como memoria,” fundación alfredo harp helú oaxaca (fahho) (blog), april 6, 2016, accessed april 2, 2020, https://fahho.mx/ blog/2015/12/29/in-octacatl-in-machiyotl-dechados-de-virtud-y-entereza/; and flores enríquez, “dechado mexicano,” 147. 61 serge gruzinski, the mestizo mind: the intellectual dynamics of colonization and globalization, trans. deke dusinberre (london: routledge, 2002), 56–57. 62 gruzinski, the mestizo mind, 21, 33; gruzinski, las cuatro partes, 38–39. https://doi.org/10.4000/artelogie.4526 https://doi.org/10.4000/artelogie.4526 https://fahho.mx/blog/2015/12/29/in-octacatl-in-machiyotl-dechados-de-virtud-y-entereza/ https://fahho.mx/blog/2015/12/29/in-octacatl-in-machiyotl-dechados-de-virtud-y-entereza/ 38 stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs domination, and power imbalances that nevertheless resulted in the creation of new cultural phenomena.63 as one can read in the call for participation in the december 1 protest within the framework of the epi, the meticulous and time-consuming activity of hand embroidery was construed as an activity consistent with nonviolence:64 the embroideries are made in public spaces such as squares and parks where passersby can approach and take part in the stitching, thereby creating a space where the encounter with the other is vital, where not only stories, silences and tears are shared, but also reflections about the political situation of our country. a space to pose questions and where we, as citizens, can face this situation. it is a project in which the action of embroidering itself fosters the introspection, the attention and the stillness that open the necessary space to share and reflect with “the other.”65 the interconnections between hand embroidery, femininity, and moral virtue are present in all of the developments and variants of the epi. however, while the masterful embroidery samplers discussed above evoked a religiously framed moral virtuosity grounded in christianity, the poorly crafted and collectively stitched handkerchiefs manifested an ethics of nonviolence that arose through the time and dedication invested by amateur embroiderers. in light of the imprint of indigenous communal polities on the relay scheme, i am also encouraged to suggest that this ethics of nonviolence involved counteracting the logic of productivity, private property, and profit. given that the civilian and self-sponsored character of the epi was strongly defended, despite—or even precisely because of—the presence of some professional artists among the initiative’s developers, i would also argue that, in addition to remaining estranged from capitalist 63 fernando ortiz, contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y del azúcar (caracas: fundación biblioteca ayacucho, 1987), 96; bronisław malinowski, “introducción,” in ortiz, contrapunteo, 5; stefan krause, “transculturation,” universität rostock, april 25, 2016, accessed march 30, 2020, https://www.iaa.uni-rostock.de/forschung/laufende-forschungsprojekte/american-antiquities-profmackenthun/project/theories/transculturation/. 64 this idea was further developed in olalde, “feminidad sin sumisión.” 65 “los bordados se llevan a cabo en espacios públicos como plazas y parques, donde la gente de a pie pueda acercarse y participar en el bordado, logrando generar un espacio en el que el encuentro con el otro es vital, donde se comparten historias, silencios, lágrimas además de reflexiones en torno a la situación política de nuestro país. un espacio para cuestionar y donde nosotros como ciudadanos hacemos frente a esta situación. es un proyecto en donde la propia acción de bordar potencía [sic] la introspección, atención y calma que abren el espacio necesario para compartir y reflexionar con ‘el otro.’” fuentes rojas, “bordando por la paz.” https://www.iaa.uni-rostock.de/forschung/laufende-forschungsprojekte/american-antiquities-prof-mackenthun/project/theories/transculturation/ https://www.iaa.uni-rostock.de/forschung/laufende-forschungsprojekte/american-antiquities-prof-mackenthun/project/theories/transculturation/ 39the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) rationality, the ethico-political stance of the epi implied a separation from the fine arts system.66 the epi took one of the so-called artes mujeriles (womanly arts) to the streets, invited people of any gender to participate in the embroidery, and displaced the emphasis from technical skill to the time and effort devoted to the stitching. in so doing, the epi turned a “technology of gender,” something that had served as an instrument to exercise control over women’s bodies and defined the role of motherhood in the construction of the modern mexican mestizo nation,67 into a tool whereby participants could imagine the kind of country in which they would wish to live. exercising citizenship with local and global resonances on april 28, 2011, the zapatistas issued a call for civilians to mobilize and expressed their support for sicilia’s first walk-rally for peace with justice and dignity (caminata-marcha por la paz con justicia y dignidad), which departed from cuernavaca, morelos on may 5, 2011 and finished on may 8 in mexico city’s zócalo.68 the call reads as follows: the psychotic military campaign of felipe calderón hinojosa, who has converted the struggle against crime into a totalitarian argument to purposefully generalize fear throughout the country, 66 according to larry shiner, the fine arts system as we know it today developed from the 1680s to the 1830s. shiner conceives of this system as “an integrated complex of ideas, practices, [and] institutions.” larry shiner, the invention of art: a cultural history (chicago: the university of chicago press, 2001), 17. the notions of talent, artistic genius, individual creation, and originality are part of this social system. see also chris mansour, “art, a modern phenomenon: an interview with larry shiner,” the platypus review, 2014, the charnel-house, june 1, 2014, accessed february 29, 2020, https://thecharnelhouse.org/2014/06/21/art-a-modern-phenomenon-an-interview-withlarry-shiner/. the way in which the epi distanced itself from the fine art system was further developed in olalde, “facing the challenges”; olalde, una víctima, 190. 67 mayela flores enríquez, “‘artes mujeriles’ y estereotipos de género en el méxico del siglo xix: presencias en la prensa femenina,” h-art 7 (2020): 17–29; 19. one of the cornerstones of the mestizo national identity in mexico is la malinche (náhuatl: malitzin), who was the interpreter of hernán cortes. in the national narrative, this couple is construed as the origin of the mestizo lineage. stacie g. widdifield, “la nación mestiza: una unión engendrada,” in crítica feminista en la teoría e historia del arte, ed. inda sáenz and karen cordero (mexico: universidad iberoamericana, 2007), 229–248; 229. 68 “drug war victims finally made themselves heard in mexico in the most unlikely way: a nationwide silent march for peace with justice and dignity. over 100,000 mexicans took to the streets over the weekend to protest the war on drugs, impunity, corruption, and violence. the largest march lasted four days and covered nearly 100 kilometers from cuernavaca, morelos, to mexico city. on thursday, may 5, about 500 protesters began marching in cuernavaca. along the way, more contingents joined the march, while other marches set out from different states to join the protest in mexico city. by the time the marches met in mexico city’s main square on may 8, an estimated 100,000 people were gathered to protest the war.” bricker, “mexico’s drug war victims find their voice.” https://thecharnelhouse.org/2014/06/21/art-a-modern-phenomenon-an-interview-with-larry-shiner/ https://thecharnelhouse.org/2014/06/21/art-a-modern-phenomenon-an-interview-with-larry-shiner/ 40 stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs is now confronted with the dignified and organized voices of the families of the victims of this war. these voices, coming from different corners of our country, call on us to mobilize and protest the organized and unorganized madness that is taking innocent lives, lives that are taken when they are classified, in crude government discourse, as hired guns or collateral damage. in response to this call that is born with the pain of compañero poet javier sicilia, among others, the ezln states: first: ezln support bases will march in silence in the city of san cristóbal de las casas, chiapas, the 7th of may, 2011, to salute and support this dignified voice demanding justice. … second: in response to the convocation for a national march for justice and against impunity, we call upon our compañer@s in the other campaign in mexico and around the world—the individuals, groups, collectives, organizations, movements, and originary peoples who are adherents of the sixth declaration of the lacandón jungle—to, in accordance with their abilities and possibilities, join the just demand of this national march, whether that be accompanying the principal march in mexico city on the 8th of may, 2011, or carrying out in their own locations, between the 5th and 8th of may, 2011, silent marches with banners, signs, rallies, and cultural programs, with the following slogans: end calderón’s war! no more blood! we’re fed up with…!69 (where everyone finishes the phrase with their own demands).70 shortly after the may 8 national march, the sbi issued a call for a “primer encuentro organizativo” (first organizational meeting) to take place on may 18, 2011. alongside the zapatistas, the sbi encouraged people to use the phrase “‘estamos hasta la madre’ [we are fed up] as a place holder for stating [what they now called] the rages of each individual or collective.”71 in this way, the sbi sought 69 the slogan “estamos hasta la madre” (we are fed up) was taken from the letter sicilia had published on april 2. see javier sicilia, estamos hasta la madre (mexico city: temas de hoy, 2011). 70 subcomandante insurgente marcos, “communiqué from the indigenous revolutionary clandestine committee–general command of the zapatista army for national liberation,” enlace zaptista (blog), april 28, 2011, accessed january 28, 2021, http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org. mx/2011/04/28/communique-from-the-indigenous-revolutionary-clandestine-committee-generalcommand-of-the-zapatista-army-for-national-liberation/. 71 “siguiendo la propuesta zapatista de completar la frase ‘estamos hasta la madre’ con las rabias de cada individuo o colectivo, echemos a andar nuestra creatividad e imaginación para impulsar el http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2011/04/28/communique-from-the-indigenous-revolutionary-clandestine-committee-general-command-of-the-zapatista-army-for-national-liberation/ http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2011/04/28/communique-from-the-indigenous-revolutionary-clandestine-committee-general-command-of-the-zapatista-army-for-national-liberation/ http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2011/04/28/communique-from-the-indigenous-revolutionary-clandestine-committee-general-command-of-the-zapatista-army-for-national-liberation/ http:// 41the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) to encourage collectives—including social, political, and artistic organizations— and civil society at large to creatively endorse the propuesta de pacto nacional (national pact proposal) that the mpjd was advancing at the time.72 whereas an emphasis on feelings as a means to mobilize civilians was consistent throughout the epi’s trajectory, it is worth noting the shift from the rage earlier encouraged by the sbi to the nonviolence that fuentes rojas stressed thereafter. likewise, the meaning of fuentes rojas’s aim of “strengthening citizenry as a collective”73 shows significant differences, which i will now highlight. the sbi published their “manifiesto público” one month after the death of sicilia’s son. within this manifesto, the still incipient group communicated their intention to connect with other initiatives with whom they shared the objective to fight against violence and impunity. let me revisit an excerpt i quoted at the beginning of this article in order to illustrate how the sbi envisioned the emergence of a larger social actor of which they aimed to become a part: we recognize ourselves as a small initiative among all the ones that have emerged with the same objectives, and we aim to connect with each and every one of them. we also aim for the collective actor who will take shape in order to fight against violence and impunity to include the social forces that remain mobilized across the country defending their rights: those who fight against the megaprojects and defend their cultures, their territories, and their natural resources; the zapatist’s communities who build and exercise their autonomy; ... and, of course, all the citizens who, not belonging to any organization, fight day after day to maintain a dignified life, within a system that imposes corruption, greed, inequality, lack of democracy, and the loss of rights in every field.74 contenido y los alcances del pacto.” iniciativa paremos las balas pintemos las fuentes, “propuesta de día de acción por la paz rumbo al pacto nacional,” paermos las balas pintemos las fuentes (blog), may 18, 2011, accessed february 1, 2021, https://paremosbalaspintemosfuentes.wordpress. com/2011/05/18/propuesta-de-dia-de-accion-por-la-paz-rumbo-al-pacto-nacional/. 72 “on may 8 in front of about 100,000 people, olga reyes, who has lost six family members in the drug war, and patricia duarte, whose son andrés died in a fire at the abc daycare due to government negligence, read the proposal for a national pact for peace, a citizens initiative to reduce violence, corruption, and impunity in mexico. the pact has six central demands: 1. truth and justice, 2. an end to the war in favor of a focus on citizen security, 3. combat corruption, 4. combat crime’s economic roots and profits, 5. emergency attention for youths and effective actions to rebuild the social fabric, 6. participative democracy, better representative democracy, and democratization of the media. the proposal will be finalized and signed during a public event on june 10 in ciudad juarez, the deadliest city in the world.” bricker, “mexico’s drug war victims find their voice.” 73 fuentes rojas (paremos las balas), “1 de diciembre.” 74 “nos reconocemos como una pequeña iniciativa dentro de todas las que han surgido con estos mismos objetivos y aspiramos a vincularnos con todas ellas. aspiramos también a que el actor colectivo que se vaya conformando para luchar en contra de la violencia y la impunidad, incluya a las https://paremosbalaspintemosfuentes.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/propuesta-de-dia-de-accion-por-la-paz-rumbo-al-pacto-nacional/ https://paremosbalaspintemosfuentes.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/propuesta-de-dia-de-accion-por-la-paz-rumbo-al-pacto-nacional/ 42 stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs according to my research—and as i mentioned in the introductory section of this article—the members of the sbi who upheld the political ideas stated in this first “manifiesto público” left the initiative during the summer of 2011 to join the mpjd and create the plataforma de arte y cultura por la paz con justicia y dignidad (the mpjd’s platform of art and culture). this means that they became directly involved in the mpjd’s mission to create the juridical framework necessary to acknowledge the victim status of the persons who had been murdered or subjected to enforced disappearance in the context of the war on drugs and to generate the public policies required to provide relatives of victims with access to reparations. this reconfiguration saw the remaining members rename themselves the fuentes rojas collective and explains why public statements issued after september 2011 frame the epi as a nonviolent group endowed with a strong affective component, rather than as an active first step in engaging in the fight against violence and impunity in mexico. let me quote an excerpt of the sbi “manifiesto público” issued in april 2011 in order to shed light on this difference: we think that the only way to revert this situation is to generate initiatives that encourage the articulation of society from within society itself so that it [the society] can organize to exercise of its rights as an actor of change in a democratic and libertarian sense.75 at this point in time, encouraging the critical exercise of citizenship basically involved calling for people to fight for the effective exercise of the rights granted by national citizenry in order to change the mexican federal government’s course of action. this call for action contrasts with the intention that fuentes rojas and other groups that joined the epi would emphasize thereafter; namely, their intention to create a space conducive to reflection and introspection. in light of the ethics of nonviolence hand embroidery has been associated with and the connections the groups that joined the epi have established with other textile memory projects involving survivors (mostly women) of armed conflicts and authoritarian regimes,76 i would argue that fuerzas sociales que permanecen movilizadas a lo largo y ancho del país, en defensa de sus derechos: a quienes luchan contra los megaproyectos y defienden sus culturas, sus territorios y sus recursos naturales; a las comunidades zapatistas que ejercen y construyen su autonomía; ... y, por su puesto, que incluya a todos los ciudadanos sin organización que luchan día a día por mantener una vida digna, en medio de un sistema que impone la corrupción, la avaricia, la desigualdad, la falta de democracia y la pérdida de derechos en todos los ámbitos.” fuentes rojas (paremos las balas), “manifiesto.” 75 “pesamos que la única manera de revertir esta situación es generar iniciativas que propicien la articulación de la sociedad, desde la sociedad misma. que se auto organice en ejercicio de sus derechos y se constituya como actor de cambio, en sentido democrático y libertario.” fuentes rojas (paremos las balas), “manifiesto.” 76 olalde, “stitching,” 4–5. 43the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) in the subsequent stages of the epi encouraging the critical exercise of citizenship has meant above all using the practice of embroidery to settle the minds of participants and to awaken feelings of sympathy and compassion. embroidery has thus been a means to foster a sense of connectedness with a common humanity. during the epi’s earliest stage, then, bridging the gap between “we” and “they” involved blurring the boundaries that separated “us,” lawabiding citizens who had nothing to fear, from “them,” those suffering the consequences of their own unlawful actions. in its subsequent stages, bridging the gap between “us” and “them” involved developing a sense of belonging to and responsibility towards a common humanity. therefore, i would argue that when the epi’s intention of “strengthening citizenry as a collective through coresponsibility and encounters between people”77 is read from the perspective of the epi’s subsequent stages, the statement resonates with the cosmopolitan worldview of the global citizenship education (gced) approach advanced by unesco in recent years.78 as with the metaphor “mending the social fabric,” my concern with this cosmopolitan approach is that it does not address the issue of how and under which specific conditions the distinction between “grievable” and “ungrievable” lives was constructed in mexico.79 nor does the cosmopolitan approach allow us to inquire into larger questions such as what role this distinction has played in the shaping of the modern mexican state or which sectors of the population have directly or indirectly benefited from these distinctions. considering that calderón’s communication campaign suggested that those who were killed in the war on drugs were outside the citizenry that included the families his security strategy was protecting, the question as to how this distinction between “grievable” and “ungrievable” lives was shaped in the first place and how this distinction is connected to the effective exercise of citizenry proves crucial to reflect critically upon, not only in terms of what human dignity means in contemporary mexico but, moreover, regarding what it means to feel like a citizen entitled to rights in this country and what it means to be able to actually exercise those rights in specific situations. the domestic and transnational scales within which the epi’s call to critically exercise citizenship reverberates mobilize the tensions between 77 “nuestro fin es fortalecer la ciudadanía como colectivo a través de la corresponsabilidad y el encuentro entre personas” fuentes rojas (paremos las balas), “1 de diciembre.” 78 the global citizenship education (gced) approach was introduced in order to prevent the radicalization between a “we” and a “they” grounded in cultural, ethnic, and religious differences, particularly after 9/11. unesco, preparing teachers for global citizenship education: a template (paris: unesco, 2018), v; mansouri et al., “critical global citizenship,” 7. 79 butler, frames of war, 22. 44 stitching critical citizenship during mexico’s war on drugs culture and national identities. furthermore, these scales highlight the ambivalence of the demarcations established by the westphalian frame—that is, bounded territory, national economy, national media, national citizenry, a single language, and a shared social imaginary.80 the global audience of embroiderers that engaged with this project raise the issue of the political efficacy of such affiliations because they do not constitute a legitimate public, in the sense that this group is not composed of people in whom the sovereign power of one single nation resides.81 this issue is of major relevance because these transnational and transcultural affiliations stem from the participants’ twofold wish: firstly to support the fight against state violence, impunity, and human rights violations in mexico locally, and secondly to find a global resonance with every past and present fight against these forms of violence. while it is true that the westphalian frame is continuously disrupted, it is difficult to deny the determining role that national citizenry plays in the effective exercise of rights. likewise, it would be difficult to argue against the assertion that the principle of inviolable state sovereignty represents a major challenge when pursuing accountability. in light of these considerations, this article could be understood as a query into the prescient question posed by monica juneja: “how does art history negotiate the tension between national identity and such relationships that break out of national frames and inform memories and visions of so much of artistic and literary production?”82 conclusion by tracing the longue durée history of mexican society and activist movements, i have revealed the transcultural intertwinement that underlies the epi’s ethico-political stance. i have also woven together diachronic connections that allowed me to view the various meanings ascribed to the call to critically exercise citizenship on a national and global scale. i therefore hope to have presented the reader with an opportunity to inquire further into “the issue of subjectivity and self-positioning.”83 i also hope to have motivated a self-reflective exercise that involves asking oneself about the grounds of one’s sense of belonging; the driving forces behind one’s expressions of solidarity; and how this relates to the way in which each one of us conceives of principles such as liberty, equality, secularism, social justice, and human 80 nancy fraser, “transnationalizing the public sphere: on the legitimacy and efficacy of public opinion in a post-westphalian world,” in transnationalizing the public sphere, ed. nancy fraser and kate nash (cambridge: polity press, 2014), 7–30; 24–25. 81 fraser, “transnationalizing the public sphere,” 28. 82 juneja, “‘a very civil idea ...’,” 462. 83 juneja, “‘a very civil idea ...’,” 476. 45the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) dignity. i consider these questions relevant because we understand democracy, the effective exercise of citizenship, and a respect for human rights through the meanings we infuse into these principles, and we react against or remain indifferent to the state of things based on these understandings. as atreyee gupta remarks, “notions of ‘center/peripheries’ belong in part to a geography of the mind, a mental map that demarcates certain places as more distant from others.”84 if this is so, then a critical look into the romantic view held by epi’s participants towards communal polities—a view that resonates with the metaphor of “mending the social fabric”—would allow us to inquire into the way the relationships between west/non-west, dominant/ oppressed, and colonizer/acculturated have been imagined from some of the hegemonic centers of the so-called global south. moreover, a critical look into the romantic view held by epi’s participants towards communal polities encourages us to explore the ways these conceptions of power relationships shape notions of citizenship and social organization that posit alternative forms of democracy wherein relationships between people and governmental institutions would be reformulated, and the effects of human actions on other living creatures and the environment would be seriously considered and addressed. 84 atreyee gupta, “art history and the global challenge: a critical perspective,” artl@s bulletin 6, no. 1 (2017): 20–25; 24. editorial note “a mighty tree in the forest has fallen”—kua hinga te tōtara i te waonui-a-tāne. this māori proverb is often used on the demise of a great chief or authority (rangatira). as we mark the passing of our rangatira rudolf wagner (1941–2019), we would like to think that he would have appreciated this phrase, even if he probably had never heard it. first, rudolf was a scholar exceptionally open to the viewpoints of “other cultures” —so much so that, in his late work on transculturality, he came to question radically whether any culture is indeed, in the final analysis, truly “other.” in other words, he might have said: do there really exist multiple separate “cultures?” or is there, rather, a single “culture complex,” from which apparently discrete cultures bud off, or bubble up, as relatively fleeting epiphenomena? second, he expressed this idea exactly with the metaphor of the forest and the trees. drawing upon recent work in biology that has reconceived the forest as a superorganism and supersystem of information and signalling—a “wood-wide web”—he urged us to think of cultures as trees, and transculturality as the forest. and, of course, behind this witty formulation is a sharp point: we often miss the forest for the trees. rudolf wagner’s late and thus-far unpublished reflections on this perspective were memorably recalled,1 in a spirit at once appreciative and critical (which rudolf, ever feisty, would have relished), in a memorial address delivered by our colleague william sax on the occasion of a workshop on october 31, 2019. rudolf’s passing on october 25 was painfully fresh that day, and it had originally been planned that he himself would speak. but we had gathered principally to mark a second watershed—the official end of the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context.” the cluster was initiated in 2007 and sustained for twelve years with the funding of the excellence initiative of the deutsche forschungsgemeinschaft (dfg, known in english as the german research foundation). from this fertile ground sprang a host of work in transcultural studies, which has done much to shape and advance the field. the same ground also eventually yielded the heidelberg centre for transcultural studies (hcts), this journal, and the centre for asian and transcultural studies (cats), which comprises the hcts, the south asia institute, the institute for anthropology, and the centre for east asian studies, and a brand new and richly stocked library. 1 rudolf wagner’s lecture, “of trees and the wood, cultures and culture,” given at the international workshop: “recalibrating culture – reconfiguring the (trans-)cultural,” heidelberg centre for transcultural studies, university of heidelberg, november 22–23, 2018. viii editorial note our workshop was entitled new directions in transcultural studies.2 as the title shows, our focus was on the future, rather than on nostalgia for past achievements. participants saw much work still to be done in transcultural studies, and much promise. at the same time, the occasion did mark the end of an era in heidelberg—especially when combined with the loss of rudolf wagner, who played such a key role in the genesis and life of these initiatives and institutions, and was a driving force and guiding light in much of what we have done. however, even when a mighty tree falls, the forest endures, and this figure encourages us to take a larger view. to shift the metaphor slightly, all of us who work as “foresters” in the world-wide community of transcultural studies, including the editors and contributors to this journal, can best serve rudolf’s memory, and the legacy of the cluster he helped to found, by ensuring that the field continues to flourish and grow. it is what he would have wanted. as is only appropriate, this issue serves in part to mark rudolf wagner’s passing and achievements. first, another memorable occasion honouring rudolf took place in heidelberg, again, regrettably soon after his passing. on the evening of november 14, the richly panelled and symbol-laden ritual heart of the university, the alte aula, was the scene of a ceremony to bestow upon him the karl jaspers prize. this prize is given annually for “scientific work of international significance supported by philosophical spirit.” it bears the name of another heidelberg luminary, karl jaspers, whose name also graces the building housing the hcts and the editorial offices of this journal. at the prize giving, the acceptance speech—which, naturally, all had expected or hoped rudolf would deliver himself—was movingly delivered on his behalf with great spirit and courage by his widow, professor catherine v. yeh. the text of that speech, which was based upon notes rudolf had sketched, is included in these pages. the issue also includes an obituary from axel michaels, who worked closely with rudolf throughout the years on the founding of the cluster and its daughter projects and institutions; and another from egas moniz-bandeira, who completed his phd in sinology at the cluster and thus came to know rudolf through both of the disciplines dearest to his heart. even as we mourn him, rudolf wagner’s own scholarly voice still speaks loud and clear in this issue, in an article he worked hard on right up to the end. wagner sets out from a striking shift in the symbolism of chinese money. in the imperial tradition, he points out, currency typically bore only inscriptions or other sigla, and coins often had holes in the middle (a suggestively empty centre). meanwhile, in the mediterranean and european world, currency 2 http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/de/aktuelles/nachrichten/detail/m/-59eb2dbab2.html. http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/de/aktuelles/nachrichten/detail/m/-59eb2dbab2.html ixthe journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) was regularly marked by the image of the face or full body of a ruler. in the republican period, chinese currency begins similarly to feature images of eminent persons. wagner situates this development in the context of a larger construction of a new model of the leader as a publically visible icon, with sun yat-sen as the first significant case, in a lineage of ideological work that leads more or less directly to mao. wagner argues further that this new iconography, and the assemblage of signifiers and meanings that accompanied it, were formed in a complex of transcultural processes surrounding the introduction and reception of the image of george washington in china through the nineteenth century. he even suggests that the relation we might intuitively or naively assume between person and icon is reversed: rather than the icon being constructed after the fact around the living man, sun yatsen may have carefully moderated or curated his behaviour and appearance in life in anticipation of the iconographic moment, and conformity with the iconographic programme. thus, like mao’s mausoleum, which wagner studied earlier in his career, the new iconography of modern currency offers us an example of a particularly pointed application of the transcultural mode of enquiry. we might speak here of “ironies of the transcultural,” which demonstrate how deeply the transcultural mode of inquiry can strike at complacent stereotypes about the constructs usually promoted and received as “cultures.” smack at the very centre—once pregnantly empty—of a currency which itself implies national “values” per se and the state as its guarantor, it transpires that one of the most sacrosanct icons in the nationalist repertoire is the product of a long work of transculturation; but that transculturation lies hidden, as in a palimpsest, behind a surface that presents only a visual rhetoric of autonomous and distinct national identity and destiny. freya schwachenwald sheds light on some contradictory and thoughtprovoking aspects of a german historical figure, prince hermann von pückler-muskau (1785–1871), a landscape planner, cosmopolitan dandy, and sophisticated bon-vivant. in accordance with the multifaceted life of this eccentric personality, the author follows no single line of argument. rather, she provides a variegated panorama revolving around pückler’s own biography and later historiographies about him, wrestling in the process with such complex and controversial subjects as colonialism, nationalism, racism, and sexism, as well as the processes of omission and selective hyper-focus by which historical identities get constructed and re-constructed. schwachenwald tries metaphorically to bridge the seemingly disparate facets of pückler’s versatile persona: his approach to landscaping, opinions on art and aesthetics, written commentaries on foreign travels, politics, and even gourmet recipes. in the first part of the study, which is dedicated to pückler himself, the author discusses his encounter with “nature” both as landscape planner and theorist, x editorial note contesting previous interpretations which assigned both nature and landscape planning no apparent meaning. as schwachenwald lucidly demonstrates, pückler strove to unlock natural space as a place of aesthetic experience, moving from its artistic shaping to its artistic framing as “picturesque.” yet pückler’s posthumous fame is founded not only on his creative engagement with the landscape, but also on his eccentric personality and especially its reception in recent popular culture, historiographic research, and scholarship. in an attempt to reflect critically on the manifold ways pückler’s glamorously mythologized image has been instrumentalized, schwachenwald explains how the ambiguity and exotic character of his work enabled its adaptation in very different and seemingly disparate political and social contexts throughout the past 150 years. due critique is given to the selective memory of public and private institutions alike in their drive to commodify this exceptional personality. finally, special attention is devoted to the mysterious and fascinating figure of pückler’s slave companion machbuba/ajiamé/ bilillee, who is, if anything, an amalgamated character conflated from multiple enslaved women who accompanied pückler on his journeys through north africa and the middle east. the article points out some important problems encountered in the later reception of pückler’s work, and a selective and rather dissonant approach in celebrating simultaneously his germanness and his cosmopolitanism, while omitting such troubling aspects as his colonialist attitudes towards slavery, race, otherness, and gender. the remaining three articles in the issue comprise a themed section, organized by jens sejrup, representing selected contributions to the conference changing global hierarchies of value? museums, artifacts, frames, and flows, held in 2018 at the university of copenhagen and the national museum of denmark. all three papers analyse transcultural dynamics in the shifting meanings attached to the production and reception of objects circulating globally in circuits of collectorship and museum display. in his “introduction” to the special section, sejrup frames these contributions in terms of questions about possible global hierarchies of value and practices of classification. how might these cases, analysed in a transcultural perspective, disrupt claims that such hierarchies are unilaterally produced and dominated by “euro-american” actors? around a single touring exhibition in the prc, and close reading of a single object in that exhibition, susan eberhard weaves a rich investigation of a far-flung history of the transcultural expropriation, re-appropriation, and repeated reinterpretation of a class of mobile objects: silverware created for the euro-american market, by a chinese silversmithing industry closely connected with extraterritorial zones in the treaty port cities of the late qing. eberhard argues that these works are associated historically with a period and xithe journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) set of circumstances often interpreted in terms of “national humiliation” at the hands of the western powers. this would seem to make them unlikely vehicles for the articulation of new chinese nationalist self-understandings in the postsocialist era, but this is exactly the use to which they have been turned. by dint of a gymnastic set of conceptual moves that eberhard carefully dissects, the curation of the exhibition presents such silverware as trophies of new types of nationalist pride and triumph—evidence of the ingenuity and sophistication of chinese craftsmanship (perhaps with an undertone of admiration for the entrepreneurship involved!), and also of a “silk road spirit” of “openness and inclusion.” at the same time, throughout their varied career, these materials are also overwritten with a complex set of narratives and significations surrounding the category of “authenticity.” such chinese-produced silverware, as eberhard documents, was often imprinted with “pseudo-hallmarks,” which mimicked marks of quality and provenance used on silverware produced in regions under british colonial jurisdiction. part of their international market success was therefore predicated upon a kind of systematically prepared misidentification of them, as bearers of a type of “authenticity” to which they in fact had no claim. this strategy seems to have worked, inasmuch as overseas collectors and curators believed the objects to be american or english, and this understanding may in part have been responsible for the preservation of the objects until a new fad for collection, this time on the part of hong kong and chinese collectors, saw them “repatriated.” in this context, the works are overwritten with a new discourse of “authenticity,” now meaning that they are revealed in their true identity as bearers of genuinely “chinese” positive qualities—the same aforementioned technical accomplishment, aesthetic sense, and cosmopolitan openness. in both of these respects, the case studied by eberhard also exemplifies the ironies of the transcultural. first, in an echo of wagner’s coins, eberhard’s silverware shows that the symbolic vehicles privileged by nationalist claims to distinctive identity, autonomy, continuity of cultural values, and even symbolic sovereignty are often products of thoroughgoing processes of transculturation. indeed, the same might sometimes even be said of the very ideologies, discourses, and strategies constructed to shoehorn such items of “heritage” or privileged sites of memory into nationalist frames—which also often seem, in their broad brushstrokes, to be drawn from a common playbook with global or transcultural currency. this irony, of course, is only one facet of the broader irony by which the form of nationalism itself—one of the great engines constructing supposedly autonomous, distinct, self-identical, and self-determining cultures in the modern world—is a profoundly transcultural mechanism and product. an analogous irony often structures discourses of authenticity and their categories, which, as here, rely for their effect precisely xii editorial note upon a similar type of distinction and autonomy, which implies an immunity to or exemption from transculturation. in this sense, eberhard’s focus and method might exemplify an agenda of research vital to transcultural studies. arguably, we should study, just as closely as transcultural mechanisms themselves, the recuperative tactics by which the architects of nationalist or culturalist ideologies seek to efface or neutralize the signs and traces of transculturation. indeed, perhaps, by a kind of “reading against the grain,” the discursive intensity at such points of denial and strain might even serve as a kind of geiger counter, which leads us to hotspots of transculturation, where the tensions occasioned for nationalist-culturalist frames are particularly acute. at such pressure points, we might unpick the patches and veneers applied by ideologists to uncover instances of transculturation particularly freighted or consequential; and amidst the present wave of feverish work to construct and manage “cultural heritage,” such analysis is surely all the more germane, indeed, perhaps urgent. park ji young studies two museum exhibits sponsored by the south korean government, one at the british museum and one at the national museum of denmark, centering on the sarangbang (“scholar’s study”) and larger displays comprising entire houses containing the sarangbang. park explores the tensions running through the resulting conjunction of different knowledge systems, institutions, and structures of authority, and the agendas attendant upon them, and the transcultural processes that operate in their interaction. among the forces at play, the korean government seeks to espouse through the sarangbang a certain appropriation of pre-modern, ostensibly pan-asian, “confucian” civilizational and moral ideals, in the service of an “invented tradition” that constructs korea as a legitimate modern nation-state. western museums, however, tend rather to frame the same objects in the terms of discourses grounded in aesthetics, scholarly or “scientific” canons for the study of culture, and exoticizing categories of ethnicity or otherness. to these elements, we might hypothetically add others that park did not investigate, such as the understanding of shin young-hoon himself, the master artisan who constructed the houses, and those who worked with him; of museum staff other than those who determined the formally presented hermeneutics of the displays; or of the various publics who came to view them. in the uneasy and polysemantic space constituted by these various forces and discourses, the house and its sarangbang become a site on which new meanings are generated and jostle with one another, and new questions arise. among these questions are, again, the question of the nature of authenticity and the processes that produce it (which park prefers to leave open, asking simply, near the end of her essay, “are these sarangbang […] authentic objects […]?”), but also, the questions posed by sejrup about supposedly hegemonic global hierarchies of values: what values and constructs of xiiithe journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) knowledge, or whose, animate these exhibitions, or dominate their reception? the tools of transcultural query, of course, might rejoin that the question itself, posed in these terms, is most likely unhelpful or misleading. we might expect that no institution or agency could ever lock such objects into a single and harmonious set of meanings, and that even regarded as a complex and internally riven whole, the exhibits are the vehicle for the transculturated emergence of fresh constellations of meaning, outrunning the intentions of the various cultural agents that produce them. the fact that the “object” exhibited is a house—with overtones like home, hearth, and all that is most “ours” or “one’s own”—might lend this case an additional symbolic trenchancy or poignancy (and here we might think of other, perhaps even more complex cases, such as the storied wharenui rauru in hamburg).3 roberto costa studies the dynamics of response to regional and global conditions in the production of traditional woodcarvings by the asmat of west papua, amid the artification of their works on the global market. no less than eberhard’s silverware, costa’s case presents us with rich material for reflection on the transculturational formation and transformation of notions of “authenticity,” though with very different particulars and lessons. various agents outside asmat culture itself, including the indonesian government, international art dealers and curators, and scholars, have attempted to define asmat “authenticity” in various ways, often with the implication or overt conclusion that it is located primarily at some reference point in the past, and presently endangered or moribund. through costa’s fine-grained ethnographic fieldwork, however, we gain a vivid portrait of the creative energy and agile thought and practice of the carvers themselves. their voices, as costa sensitively relays and analyses them, present a dynamic range of bases and models for authenticity that are not envisaged in the relatively static criteria of the aforementioned “outsider” discourses. this authenticity—perhaps better, these authenticities, in the plural—are in this picture very much alive and present, and like anything living, grow and develop in active response to complex changes in their environs. we are surely warranted in characterizing the result of this investigation as a model of authenticity that accords better with some of the fundamental intuitions underpinning the transcultural approach. indeed, this model yields, alongside the more customary critical fruits of that approach, a more 3 rauru is a wharenui, or “great house,” created in the nineteenth century by the carver te waru of the te arawa iwi (people) of the bay of plenty in new zealand. rauru’s present “home” is markk (museum am rothenbaum kulturen und künste der welt, formerly the museum für völkerkunde hamburg). such “houses” (whare) are typically personages, not objects, with their own agency and authority, with an identity connected to or even equivalent to that of significant ancestors of the iwi. see museum am rothenbaum, “das haus rauru meisterwerk der māori,” markk, accessed december 14, 2019, https://markk-hamburg.de/ausstellungen/das-haus-rauru/. https://markk-hamburg.de/ausstellungen/das-haus-rauru/ xiv editorial note positive and creative potential. authenticity, that is to say, is here envisaged as fundamentally flexible and dynamic. moreover, authenticity is here also constructed from the ground up (i.e. from the very level of the tactically adaptive selection of the criteria on which authenticity will be determined) by local agents—authors and authorities—in adaptive reaction to the transcultural dynamics that confront them in the open engagement of their culture with the “outside.” the virtues of this approach are at least threefold: it offers sharper concepts with which we can conceptualize authenticity in transformation, against stereotypes predicated upon stasis, essence, or origins; it attends to the place of agents too often invisible or unheard in large-scale systemic analyses; and, in line with the themes of the special section identified by sejrup, it powerfully shows that purportedly global hierarchies of value are continually and transculturally reshaped in engagements with a host of such local actors and conditions. as always, we hope that you find this issue a fruitful read, and we look forward to readers’ critiques and comments. at the juncture marked by the official end of the cluster, it is especially apposite (for us in heidelberg, but perhaps also our colleagues elsewhere) not just to reflect on what has been achieved, but also to identify directions for new developments. there remains much room for further refinement, systematization, and extension of the transcultural approach, as well as further strategic application to unsettle and supplement the received narratives and frames of more conventional disciplines and area studies. at the risk of overburdening and distorting it, we borrow one last time rudolf wagner’s metaphor: if the “forest” is the field of transcultural studies, and individual studies the “trees,” we certainly need new individual trees of known species (though it is surely ecologically unhealthy merely to clone existing trees). but it is far more exciting and valuable when new species emerge. in this vein, we also hope that the contributions presented here will stimulate further work, especially work that is theoretically and methodologically innovative, and we look forward to receiving submissions for future issues. michael radich and diamantis panagiotopoulos xvthe journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) fig. 1: axel michaels and rudolf wagner, pictured at the second centre for asian and transcultural studies open forum: china and the world, the world and china, in honor of rudolf g. wagner, june 26, 2019. reproduced with the kind permission of susann henker. fig. 2: catherine v. yeh and rudolf wagner, pictured at the second centre for asian and transcultural studies open forum: china and the world, the world and china, in honor of rudolf g. wagner, june 26, 2019. reproduced with the kind permission of susann henker. transculturalism beyond dualism: in memory of rudolf wagner william sax i worked closely with rudolf wagner as we prepared for the first version of the research cluster asia and europe back in 2010 and 2011. we were both members of a group that worked to develop a research focus linking health and the environment. we had many lively discussions, and i often found myself debating this or that topic with him, each of us arguing for our particular point of view. but whether we agreed or disagreed, we always did so with mutual interest and respect. looking back, i can now see that, like dr. pangloss, we were living in the best of all possible (academic) worlds. in this essay, i should like to continue my discussion with rudolf, even though he is no longer with us. i propose to do so by carefully responding to some notes he made for one of his last public lectures, “of trees and the wood, cultures and culture,” in november 2018.1 i shall honor him by representing his ideas as fairly as i can, while continuing to disagree with him about this or that matter. i think he would appreciate that. i should like to emphasize that since most of what i write here about rudolf’s ideas is based on those lecture notes, there is a chance that i have misinterpreted some of them. should that be the case, i beg the reader’s indulgence. in his talk, rudolf railed against something he called “dualism” and/or “binarity.”2 he argued that the paradigms of both “culture” and “transculture” share the “prison cell of binarity”— the former because culture implies “difference from the other,” the latter because it deals perforce with both the origins and destinations of material objects, with the dualistic perceptions of historical actors, etc. “the root of binarity,” he wrote, “is the i/other divide, its extension in the we/ other divide, and the radicalization of the latter by the nation state.”3 the problems associated with such self-other dichotomies have long been recognized and discussed in anthropology. culture as an analytical term for understanding human life-worlds was introduced in a paradigmatically transcultural way from germany to america by franz boas in the early twentieth century.4 eventually it became so dominant that many practitioners 1 rudolf g. wagner, “of trees and the wood, cultures and culture” (lecture, international workshop “recalibrating culture—reconfiguring the (trans)cultural,” university of heidelberg, heidelberg, germany, november 23, 2018). hereafter cited as wagner, “of trees.” 2 wagner, “of trees.” 3 wagner, “of trees.” 4 see franz boas, the mind of primitive man (new york: macmillan, 1911); franz boas, 111the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) of the discipline called themselves “cultural anthropologists.” it was also appropriated by a large number of other academic disciplines, eventually becoming central to much of european anthropology as well. but culture as an analytical term came under increasing critique in the early 1980s, mostly from within anthropology, the very discipline that had popularized it. the main points of criticism were not only that this abstract term was easily reified, but also that it led to arbitrary classificatory divisions between various groups, and that these differences tended to be reified, essentialized, and ranked. not only were human groups forced into shoeboxes labeled “culture a,” “culture b,” “culture c,” and so on, but these artificial creations were often ranked as moreor-less peaceful, democratic, industrious, and so forth. theories developed regarding the “culture of poverty,”5 the “culture of violence,”6 the “culture of narcissism,”7 etc. elsewhere, the term was used to justify various forms of exclusion, and sometimes even violence, against those deemed not to belong to a particular culture. in the end, the criticisms became so widespread that these days, most anthropologists have become reluctant even to use the c-word. some of these critiques were anticipated by the cuban anthropologist, essayist, and ethnomusicologist fernando ortiz, who invented the notion of transculturalism and was cited by wagner in his talk. ortiz avoided the inflexible binary of “self” and “other” by focusing on how cultures in geographical proximity to one another were continually involved in processes of mutual exchange, influence, and adaptation.8 but ortiz did not ignore or depoliticize the power differentials involved in culture contact: on the contrary, he developed his model against the background of the spanish conquest of central and south america, and the inequalities resulting from it. in any case, his model of transculturation is clearly more adequate than one that construes cultures as hermetically sealed monads. but despite ortiz’s important, even necessary, attempts to avoid what wagner called the “binaries” inherent in the culture concept, and despite the primitive art (oslo: aschehoug, 1927); franz boas, race, language and culture (new york: macmillan, 1940). 5 oscar lewis, “the culture of poverty,” scientific american 215, no. 4 (1966): 19–25. 6 raymond d. gastil, “homicide and a regional culture of violence,” american sociological review 36, no 3 (1971): 412–427. 7 christopher lasch, the culture of narcissism: american life in an age of diminishing expectations (new york: norton, 2018). 8 john mcleod, “sounding silence: transculturality and its thresholds,” transnational literature 4, no. 1 (2011): 1–13; fernando ortiz, “‘transculturation’ and cuba,” in the cuba reader: history, culture, politics 2nd ed., ed. aviva chomsky, barry carr, alfredo prieto, and pamela maria smorkaloff (durham, nc: duke university press, 2019), 25–26; rafael rojas, “fernando ortiz: transculturation and nationalism,” in essays in cuban intellectual history, ed. rafael rojas (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2008), 43–64. 112 transculturalism beyond dualism desire of some scholars to do away altogether with culture as an analytical term, transcultural scholars both then and now cannot avoid the c-word. i believe that this is inevitable, because scholars in the humanities and social sciences always begin with some kind of human difference. if you claim, as rudolf did in his lecture, that culture always implies difference from the other, whereas transcultural studies examines “interaction with the other,”9 then in the very moment that you invoke the “other,” you have reified the idea of culture as difference, despite your intention to criticize that very idea. if you claim that you want to transcend the self-other dichotomy, but in the next breath re-inscribe it in your discourse by saying that you wish to “interact with the other,” then you are caught in a contradiction. this is the central dilemma of transcultural studies: it wants to position itself as critical of the culture concept, but it is so dependent upon that concept that it inscribes it into its very name. this is aporia pure. in my view, it would be much better for scholars of multiple periods, languages, religions, and societies to celebrate cultural difference rather than be ashamed of it. like diversity in general, cultural difference can be fascinating and beautiful, and a world without it would be dreadfully impoverished. anthropologists in particular should take this to heart, since they are often accused of focusing too much on difference, thereby “exoticizing the other.” but according to the american heritage dictionary of the english language, the word “exotic” has two meanings: the first is, “from another part of the world; not indigenous; foreign”; and the second is, “having the charm of the unfamiliar; strikingly and intriguingly unusual or beautiful.”10 anthropology’s well-deserved reputation for focusing on the exotic has to do with both of these meanings, and although each has a different implication, a basic and shared feature unites them: both are relational terms. something is spatially exotic or “foreign” only in relation to an observer, and it is “unfamiliar” or “intriguingly unusual” only from a particular point of view. transcultural studies has no monopoly on relationality, because relationality is characteristic of everything we do as scholars. no matter how you frame it, “relationality” requires at least two relata. difference remains, and difference is beautiful! in his lecture, rudolf listed a number of successful “battles against binarity,” all of which he saw in a positive light: “human migration vs. race identity (historical dna) … knowledge migration (plants, animals, techniques) vs. pride of originality … nature vectors (climate, disease agents) vs. pride of locality … languages (families, hyperphyla, conceptual migration) 9 wagner, “of trees.” 10 william morris, american heritage dictionary of the english language (boston: houghton mifflin, 1979), 461. 113the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) vs. pride of mother tongue.”11 but this lecture’s focus was a different form of dualism, namely the dualism of nature and culture, which rudolf also wanted to overcome. this dualism has received a great deal of attention since bruno latour’s influential book we have never been modern was published in 1993,12 and criticism of it increased dramatically in the first decade of the new century, especially in anthropology and related disciplines. my personal view of the current intellectual state of play with regard to this issue is as follows: the global ecological crisis has played a large part in the appearance and rapid growth of a strand of scientific literature calling itself “post-human.” this literature argues that the global ecological crisis was caused by anthropos acting in unsustainable and ultimately destructive ways; that the humanities and social sciences have obscured the problem and even contributed to it through their anthropocentrism (sometimes involving what rudolf called “human exceptionalism”);13 and that they should therefore “de-center” anthropos by finally acknowledging that s/he is, and always was, just one part of wider ecological networks, and cannot be adequately understood without reference to them.14 one strand of posthumanism wants to de-center human beings entirely, and it has strong affinities with those who believe that it would be best for the planet if homo sapiens were finally to become extinct.15 a second strand suggests that progress in the humanities can be made by shifting attention away from anthropos and focusing instead on the materials, elements, and beings with which s/he is surrounded. an example of this is stefan helmreich’s book alien ocean,16 which purports to be an ethnography of marine microbes. helmreich quotes microbiologist jo handelsman who says, “we have ten times more bacterial cells in our bodies than human cells, so we’re 90 percent bacteria.”17 microbes don’t live as individuals, and they don’t respect boundaries of organism or species. 11 wagner, “of trees.” 12 bruno latour, we have never been modern, trans. catherine porter (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1993 [1991]). 13 wagner, “of trees.” 14 karen barad, “meeting the universe halfway,” in meeting the universe halfway: quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning (durham, nc: duke university press, 2007); rosi braidotti, posthuman knowledge (cambridge, ma: polity press, 2019). 15 nick bostrom, “a history of transhumanist thought,” journal of evolution and technology 14, no. 1 (2005): 1–25; max more, “the philosophy of transhumanism,” in the transhumanist reader: classical and contemporary essays on the science, technology, and philosophy of the human future, ed. max more and natasha vita-more (chichester: wiley-blackwell, 2013), 3–17. 16 stefan helmreich, alien ocean: anthropological voyages in microbial seas (berkeley: university of california press, 2009). 17 in helmreich, alien ocean, 283. 114 transculturalism beyond dualism as such they have come to be an excellent site for thinking across these radically different scales about what it means to be human. and if humans are fundamentally linked to oceans through microbial life forms, what are the implications for our anthropocentric ethics? a third strand would consist of those who, like myself, believe that the second strand is caught in a performative contradiction, since all of our activities as scholars and intellectuals (reading, writing, speaking, teaching, all in natural languages) are profoundly and inescapably human, so that a “non-” or “post-” human ethnography is an oxymoron (helmreich’s book is, in the end, an ethnography of oceanographers and not oceans). if we are to survive the global environmental crisis, then we must reconfigure our relation to our environment; and to do that, we first have to re-think it. we must refuse the facile distinction between nature and culture, realize that our so-called culture includes many “natural” elements, and find new ways to deal with what we used to call “natural resources.” both the environmental facts and the moral and ethical imperatives of our time require that we go beyond anthropocentrism and begin seeing ourselves as part of a wider ecological system. in the end, one can indeed make the case that the dualism of nature versus culture led to our current ecological crisis, as merchant argued many decades ago.18 in short, some kind of “de-centering” of anthropos is an important and urgent task that is best accomplished by seeing him/her as partly constituted by (and constitutive of) various social, political, and especially ecological networks. another influential writer on this topic is the brazilian anthropologist eduardo viveiros de castro, who has written many books and articles about what he calls “amerindian perspectivism.”19 his writings are philosophically sophisticated and exquisitely attuned to the anthropological obsession with the exotic, as suggested by the title of his most famous book, cannibal metaphysics. viveiros de castro argues that according to the myths of those he calls “american indians,” the world’s multiple beings once shared a generic human condition and were able to communicate with each other. but over the course of time, they became differentiated into animals, vegetables, etc. nevertheless, these animals, objects, vegetables, and spirits retain an inner human form, commonly translated as their “soul” or “double.” 18 carolyn merchant, the death of nature: women, ecology, and the scientific revolution (london: wildwood house, 1980). 19 eduardo viveiros de castro, cannibal metaphysics, trans. and ed. peter skafish (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 2015). see also viveiros de castro, cosmological perspectivism in amazonia and elsewhere (manchester: hau journal of ethnographic theory, 2012); viveiros de castro, “cosmological deixis and amerindian perspectivism,” the journal of the royal anthropological institute 4, no. 3 (1998): 469–488; viveiros de castro, “perspectival anthropology and the method of controlled equivocation,” tipití: journal of the society for the anthropology of lowland south america 2, no. 1 (2004): 3–22. 115the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) externally they may look like a jaguar or a plant, but this is merely a skin that hides a human interior. we humans see them as animals, but they see themselves as humans, and they live in conditions similar to humans; that is, they have a social life similar to those who inhabit an amerindian village. viveiros de castro thus draws a contrast between multiculturalism and multinaturalism. the former corresponds to the lived experience of most modern people, who believe that there is a single reality that is apprehended differently by the multiple cultures of the world. in a sense, this is precisely the point of view that rudolf wanted so desperately to transcend. i suspect that he would have been fascinated by viveiros de castro, who claims that amerindians are not multiculturalists but rather multinaturalists who believe that all of us—humans and plants and animals—share a common culture, and are distinguished by our various natures. what would rudolf have made of this? what i make of it is a challenging and thrilling oeuvre, but one that, in the end, reifies the distinction between nature and culture. in any case, all of these highly influential ideas involve a fundamental skepticism about allegedly universal dichotomies like mind versus matter and culture vs nature. these days, many such books are being written and discussed, for example the growing sub-genre of anthropological studies focused on relationships between humans and animals. we used to think that humans had culture and animals had nature, but the more we find out about humans, the more we realize how natural they are, with many of their thoughts and feelings determined by processes over which they have no conscious control; and the more we learn about animals, the more we understand how cultural they are, since they apparently have language, kinship units, rituals, and emotions. even more interestingly, we discover the many ways in which humans and animals are linked, so that a comprehensive ethnography of most societies should include a discussion of how humans and animals relate to and, indeed, constitute each other. but just as transcultural studies cannot escape the notion of culture, so anthropologists cannot get away from writing about people, even when they try. and that is why, when the anthropologist sets out to write an ethnography of animals, or plants, or the ocean, she ends up writing an ethnography of people. and that is just as it should be: an authentic ethnography of marine microbes would be insufferably boring! in any case, anthropologists no longer speak of “nature vs. culture” but rather of “nature-culture,” and this is another example of a self-contradictory aporia that attempts to transcend a dichotomy, but nevertheless ends up re-inscribing it into its own self-description. in short, we scholars of the humanities and social sciences can’t do without culture, and we can’t do without humans. wagner was engaging with this literature when he wrote his lecture. under the subtitle “the culture of nature, very tentative first propositions,” he criticizes an “anthropocentric narrative (that has) three propositions of 116 transculturalism beyond dualism asymmetry.”20 according to wagner, the first asymmetrical proposition is that civilized human beings can be distinguished from “natural” ones like the notorious naturvölker or “nature people” of the german language: he argues that such ideas are “historical and regional,” and gives as examples euro-america and china.21 anyone who has studied the colonial encounter, the history of anthropology, or chinese representations of non-chinese, is familiar with such ideas. they are still with us, for example in the ascription of a kind of environmental sainthood to indigenous people around the world. the second asymmetrical proposition, says wagner, is that “higher” human cultures exemplify human exceptionalism: he lists “language, art, memory, critical thinking, play, social organization, [and] science” as examples, and says that this proposition is “metaphysical” as well as regional and local, by which i assume he means that the higher value ascribed to such exceptional characteristics cannot be logically derived.22 the third “proposition of asymmetry” is that the actions of all organisms other than civilized (and therefore exceptional) humans are to be understood in terms of “new-darwinist genetic determinism.” as he pithily puts it, “the higher humans will do what they do, the other organisms cannot help doing what they do.”23 wagner continues: all three propositions have been disproven, the first by rich evidence for “culture” (language, art, ritual etc.) among other human as well as non-human organisms, the second by being anchored in local scriptural rather than rational authority; the third by the evidence that the genetic code is not a closed package that blindly unfolds, but that it offers a vast bandwidth of options which are actuated in a process of “ontogenesis” according to individual circumstances and needs. the anthropocentric narrative is encoded into and justifies a whole array of practices concerning “nature” and these in turn are fortified by real-life economic and political interests. overcoming this narrative is not just a question of seeing its weakness, but of creating enough of a groundswell (argumentative, social movements) to actually force a change. the evidence against all three propositions has been increasingly accepted (perhaps helped by a decreasing faith in the collective rationality of mankind including humans from the “higher cultures” and by the visibly stronger agency of “nature” in reaction to human interventions).24 20 wagner, “of trees.” 21 wagner, “of trees.” 22 wagner, “of trees.” 23 wagner, “of trees.” 24 wagner, “of trees.” 117the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) this is a fair summary of historical and anthropological thinking about the dualism of “man” and nature, and its slow but steady erosion as a result of recent intellectual currents. evidently, at the time he wrote this lecture, rudolf’s imagination had been seized by a book that contributed to this development: the hidden life of trees by the german forester peter wohlleben.25 rudolf was far from alone; wohlleben’s book was an international bestseller and his fans included pope francis and the former german chancellor, helmut schmidt. the book itself is wildly and unashamedly anthropomorphic: “trees have friends, they feel loneliness, they scream with pain and communicate underground via the ‘woodwide web.’ some act as parents and good neighbors. others are brutal bullies to rival species. the young ones take risks with their drinking and leaf-dropping then remember the hard lessons from their mistakes.”26 rudolf’s notes here are most interesting, and after reading them, it seemed to me that many of our intellectual differences of the past were perhaps superficial. now i could see more clearly that he was trying to shift our focus away from the differences between the so-called “cultures” of the world and toward their interconnections; struggling to apprehend them as parts of a single system; warning against the “stand alone” (culturalist, naturalist, human exceptionalist) models that he labeled “pathological”; and doing his best to see culture as “an interconnected self-regulatory process with, for example genetics, history, and linguistics probing the interconnections between the constituents of this process.”27 he went on to speculate about how best to consider the relationship between “culture” as a general human phenomenon and the various “cultures” that we typically study. these are the fruits he harvested: 1. the forest/culture is a dynamic interactive process. wohlleben’s “wood-wide web” corresponds to a cultural worldwide web. 2. this process is self-regulatory. 3. this web is held together by a common origin, a continuous interaction in all domains, the need to find responses to challenges, and the common destiny of mortality. 4. it has visible and invisible intermediaries like wind, insects, birds, quadrupeds, fungi, and pests; all of whom are like cultural brokers, who feed on this system and secure the interaction among its constituents. 25 peter wohlleben, the hidden life of trees: the illustrated edition, trans. jane billinghurst (vancouver: david suzuki institute, 2018). 26 tim lusher, “the man who thinks trees talk to each other,” the guardian, september 12, 2016, accessed september 24, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/12/peterwohlleben-man-who-believes-trees-talk-to-each-other. 27 wagner, “of trees.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/12/peter-wohlleben-man-who-believes-trees-talk-to-each-other https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/12/peter-wohlleben-man-who-believes-trees-talk-to-each-other 118 transculturalism beyond dualism 5. stand-alone trees have low survival rates and life expectancy. 6. collectively however, both trees & cultures generate the environment necessary for their common survival (moisture, temperature, nutrition, procreation/social and political organization, language, ritual, leisure pursuits, war, defense, transport, trade, innovation). 7. both forests and cultures depend on and contribute [to] larger frames: for example climate, migration, soil, plants and animals, bacteria, landmass, omnivorous digestion for their own survival and sustenance. 8. the forest/culture process is historical. its historicity is evident in the ontogenesis of a tree/culture within a given (=historical) environment and the memory of successful solutions to earlier challenges that show up in the genoand phenotype at any moment.28 i began this article by noting that in one of his last public lectures, rudolf wagner was railing against something, but he was also defending something. after i read through his notes, i understood what he was trying to defend, and was indeed inspired by what his wife catherine yeh later told me was his “breakthrough moment.” he was proposing something that, although it was very difficult and challenging, might just solve the problem of duality, and even contribute to a new paradigm. the understanding that all cultures are subsets of a worldwide process of culture moves transcultural interaction from an awkward footnote to the center of research, and from a binary model to that of multi-layered global interaction. in the case of forests, this has led to a research focus on the interaction between the constituents within a forest. the results of such research have fundamentally changed the understanding of the tree. the dynamics of the process of transcultural interaction is a comparably vast, demanding, and stimulating, but also largely unexplored field of research.29 in the name of rudolf wagner, i invite you to explore the forest, rather than just looking at the trees. 28 wagner, “of trees.” 29 wagner, “of trees.” editorial note art making has been a relational activity since time immemorial, though infrequently acknowledged as such. during recent decades, dialogical art practice has received a name—collaborative, participatory or socially engaged art—and has become the subject of a burgeoning theoretical discourse. this issue of the journal of transcultural studies, devoted to the theme of artistic collaboration, positions itself in this research field. the contributions assembled by its guest editor, franziska koch, all explore the unfolding of collective art projects through extended interaction and shared labor, and seek to view this collaborative art practice through a transcultural lens. artistic collaboration builds on an expansive definition of art that extends its significance beyond the singular, discrete object, which is the work of art, to encompass a set of human relationships engendered by its production and its reception. this in turn has reconfigured the artist as participant in a process rather than an individual creator, the work as a long-term ongoing project, and the viewer as co-producer rather than consumer or contemplative spectator. the proposition that views art primarily as an activity has brought forth a host of experiments in a multitude of global locations—a project to design hand pumps for drawing water among the adivasi community in central india, a thai soup kitchen at the venice biennale, an artist-led workshop in johannesburg to teach unemployed people new fashion skills and discuss collective solidarity, a collectively designed park in hamburg, or a politically charged performance involving asylum-seekers assembled in shipping containers facing vienna’s opera house. even as the objectives and the outlook of the artists and groups involved vary enormously, they all claim to be linked by a belief in the empowering creativity of collective action and shared ideas, conceived of as a way of resisting the culture of spectacle. the available critical frameworks for interpreting collaborative art projects—discussed by koch in her introduction to this issue—have all grown out of specific contexts and respond to their exigencies.1 from a transcultural perspective it becomes necessary to ask whether our conceptual lexicon for collaborative art practices can be made to transcend the parochialism that comes from the intellectual location of existing theoretical models, and to take into account the constitutive role of mobility and engagement with cultural difference for art making. the five articles in this issue investigate 1 grant h. kester, the one and the many: contemporary collaborative art in a global context (durham, nc: duke university press, 2011), a leading contribution to the field, is positioned against the post-structuralist turn taken by critical theory in the aftermath of may 1968 in france. similarly claire bishop, artificial hells: participatory art and the politics of spectatorship (london: verso, 2012) was written following the fall of the berlin wall and the end of cold war polarities. collaborative practices at sites that do not bear the weight of concerns internal to avant-garde and contemporary art from europe and north america. instead, their authors re-engage with some of the genre’s controversial questions, and endeavor to refine its paradigmatic positions by unpacking the notion of collaboration as contingent and conditional. the different case studies, summarized by koch, all begin by investigating processes that unfold in creative relationships beyond boundaries, be these national, regional, institutional, linguistic, or ecological. staple writing on contemporary art has tended to valorize collaboration as an invariably productive, interactive relationship that deserves to be read as an important artistic gesture of resistance, but the transcultural transactions uncovered in the contributions that follow take us beyond experiences of a magnanimous togetherness or even an avant-garde understanding of art-as-subversion, and point instead to instances of friction, partial or unresolved communication, destabilizing moments, or “diffractive effects,” as paul gladston terms them. distinct institutional contexts impinge on the dialogical relationships unraveled by the case studies: for example, the study of haema sivanesan, involving a metropolitan media artist of indian origin and members of an indigenous forest community in western canada; or alternatively, the article by katia olalde, who recuperates the dynamics of memorializing mexican victims of violence in a project involving professional artists, volunteer activists, and members of the public. these differing contexts in which the various actors are embedded require us to pay attention to practices, memories, and histories in which each of the groups is already circumscribed, and brings something different to the encounter. while region and locality are central to each of the collaborative projects investigated, they are all invariably overlaid by the question of the national, which imposes as an interpretive framework a vision of culture that claims to be as homogenous as it is consensual. as shao-lan hertel’s study of artistic collaboration between a modernist calligrapher and a conceptual painter shows, chinese calligraphic art, canonized as a unique and incomparable civilizational product, is capable of being “deterritorialized” following a transcultural encounter with the seemingly incommensurable practice of a painter of comic strips, in a process where differences are domesticated, even sublimated, without being effaced from the surface of the work. the nexus between the nation and culture is also effectively destabilized when katia olalde subjects the different cultural strands making up a “mexican” modernity to a longue durée enquiry: the formative role of christianity, once a colonial imposition, transcultured and localized over centuries, or the vision of citizenship not contained within the territorial frontiers of the nation-state, call for an understanding of culture that was rarely constituted from within national borders, and therefore can no longer be credibly contained within them. the journal of transcultural studies 11, no. 2 (winter 2020) vii viii editorial note seen through a transcultural lens, the conceptualization of indigeneity as an oppositional force within a national formation serves as a corrective to a romantic vision of communities resistant to a modernity of which they are seen as victims. in this instance too, a historical longue durée approach reminds us that the domain of the “indigenous” was implicated in global movements over the past centuries and—in the case of north america—partook of transforming movements such as the black atlantic. if we are to stop writing the history of the modern as a story of a unidirectional diffusion, we must recognize that “indigenous” modernity was always already transcultured. the “collaborative turn” in contemporary art, with its focus on interaction that transcends authorship and the artwork as end-product, has confronted critical writing with the dilemma of “how to evaluate such relations as art.”2 by remaining firmly anchored within the domain of “art,” the contributions to this issue show the way to investigating the concept of art and its institutions as transcultural phenomena. the insights they furnish urge us to read art as a migrant concept, transformed by diverse and fluid understandings of agency that rest on reciprocal distribution, or alternatively, that transcend the domain of the human, as theresa deichert shows. art practice, no longer confined to canonical genres, continues to be enriched by local and regional practices of the “periphery.” while the essays take us into the realms where the “local” is embedded, each of the studies of collaborative art brought together in this issue moves between scales and signals to connections to other times, other places, and other worlds. monica juneja 2 jason miller, “activism vs. antagonism: socially engaged art from bourriaud to bishop and beyond,” field: a journal of socially-engaged art criticism (2016): 165–184, 166 (italics in the original). jesuit missionary societies as the “itinerant academies” of catholic orientalism in india in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries dhruv raina, jawaharlal nehru university1 introduction one of the leading scholars on the european jesuit sciences, steve harris, points out that the society of jesus, an order within the roman catholic church known as the jesuits, may well be considered the first transnational corporation of early modernity.2 in this paper, i argue that the european jesuits located in india and other regions of asia may be considered the founders of just such a transnational academy outside europe—and though the indian academy was not the first, it was one of many such academies. a remarkable feature was the extent and reach of this web of jesuit connectivity, which traversed continents, oceans, and linguistic regions that were culturally and religiously diverse.3 over the last three to four decades, jesuit studies have focused upon two large issues that subsequently unpacked into a number of sub-themes and interdisciplinary research concerns. the first of these relates to the role of knowledge in the missions of evangelisation, with historians of knowledge acknowledging the importance of the role of the study of languages and jesuit philology in these missions. the second has to do with the role of missions and 1 an earlier version of this paper was presented at the invitation of anita traninger and martin urmann at a workshop entitled “what is an academy?” as part of their sfb: episteme in bewegung. i am grateful to fr. victor ferrao of the rachol seminary and fr. noel d’costa in goa. thanks are also in order to the anonymous referees. any faults with the paper remain my own, of course. 2 steven j. harris, “jesuit scientific activity in the overseas missions, 1540–1773,” isis 96, no. 1 (2005): 71–79. 3 as harris writes: “at its peak around 1750, the society operated more than 500 colleges and universities in europe, a hundred more in overseas colonies (mostly in spanish america), and roughly 270 mission stations scattered around the globe. the society, in other words, presided over one of the most extensive and complex institutional networks of the ancien régime,” see harris, “jesuit scientific activity,” 72. 122 jesuit missionary societies as the “itinerant academies” of catholic orientalism missionaries in the construction of knowledge in the modern era; and herein resides the connection with histories of the sciences.4 to an earlier generation of scholars, “jesuit science” would have appeared as an oxymoron, since the standard tale of the rise of modern science or of the scientific revolution is portrayed as antagonistic to the cosmology of the catholic church.5 conversely, despite the church’s early opposition to copernican astronomy, recent historiographical writing has revealed the important role and contributions of the jesuits in particular to the rise and spread of modern science.6 in interrogating these missionary activities, the research undertaken has focused upon catholic missions distributed across the four corners of the world. clearly, then, the historiography of missions draws upon the history of the expansion of catholicism, intellectual history, and the history of empires and colonial societies.7 in the longue durée of the historiography of missions, the term “mission” has acquired different meanings. the contemporary historiography of missions combines several meanings of the mission: as a place (in goa, beijing, or poitou), as a site of circulation (a place of pilgrimage or a scientific expedition), as the practice of missionary activity (the teaching of the christian doctrine or administering sacraments), as target or public (managing relations with infidels and protestants).8 as a missionary order, the jesuits, both in europe and the new world, were stationed at seminaries and colleges to instruct fellow christians and jesuits, missionaries belonging to other orders, and their converts in the goals and objectives, litany, theology, and cosmography of the region 4 mordechai feingold, ed., jesuit science and the republic of letters (cambridge, ma: mit press, 2003); john w. o’malley, s. j., “how the first jesuits became involved in education” in the jesuit ratio studiorum: 400th anniversary project, ed. vincent j. duminico, s. j. (new york: fordham university press, 2000), 56–74; florence c. hsia, sojourners in a strange land: scientific mission in late imperial china (chicago: university of chicago press, 2009); john l. heilbron, the sun in the church: cathedrals as solar observatories (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1999). 5 john hedley brooke, “science and religion,” in companion to the history of modern science, ed. robert cecil olby, geoffrey n. cantor, john r. r. christie, and michael jonathan session hodge (london: routledge, 1996), 763–782. steven j. harris, “transposing the merton thesis: apostolic spirituality and the establishment of the jesuit scientific tradition,” science in context 3, no. 1 (spring 1989): 29–65. 6 steven j. harris, “jesuit ideology and jesuit science: scientific activity in the society of jesus 1540–1773,” (phd diss., university of wisconsin, 1988); sheila rabin, “early modern jesuit science: a historiographical essay,” journal of jesuit studies, 1 (2014), 88–101. 7 charlotte de castelnau-l’estoile et al., “introduction,” in missions, d’évangélisations et circulation des savoir xvie – xviie siècle (madrid: casa de velasquez, 2011), 1–24, on 2. 8 de castelnau-l’estoile et al., “introduction,” 2. 123the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 surrounding the mission.9 beyond the ostensible goals of the mission lay the extrinsically driven and intrinsically inspired (extra-mural) pursuit of new knowledge, essential not only to the survival and sustenance of the mission but also its expansion.10 the most important jesuit academy of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the collegio romano—more about which shortly—may have acted as a coordinating node and epicentre of the jesuit intellectual quest, policing the discourse on the sacred and profane. yet, as this essay shall argue, there were as many jesuit academies distributed around the world as there were jesuit provinces—connected though these were through complicated political, intellectual, and denominational networks.11 in other words, it is being argued that virtual jesuit academies, which could be called “itinerant academies,” proliferated into distinct epistemic spaces as jesuits in non-european regions were drawn into new cultural worlds. these academies and their ties with the collegio romano facilitated the processes of reintegration of jesuit cultural production from the tropics within the european academy. the need for this reintegration was possibly felt by members of the jesuit academy, compelled as they were by the imperatives of surviving in a hostile climate surrounded by perhaps equally hostile communities—for the many dimensions of the jesuit quest for knowledge about these worlds was that of mere survival. this world of jesuit knowledge comprised certain areas of jesuit specialisation, ranging from the study of languages to botany, medicine, philology, habits and customs, history, and jurisprudence. the areas in which they acquired scientific status were astronomy and mathematics.12 9 steven j. harris, “confession-building, long-distance networks, and the organization of jesuit science.” early science and medicine 1, no. 3 (1996): 287–318; kate teltscher, india inscribed: european and british writing on india, 1600–1800 (delhi: oxford university press, 1995). 10 charles ralph boxer, two pioneers of tropical medicine: garcia d’orta and nicolás monardes (london: hispanic & luso-brazilian councils, 1963); john m. de. figueiredo, “ayurvedic medicine in goa according to the european sources in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,” in scientific aspects of european expansion, ed. william kelleher storey (aldershot: variorum, 1996), 247–257. 11 steven j. harris, “long-distance corporations, big sciences and the geography of knowledge,” in the postcolonial science and technology studies reader, ed. sandra harding (durham, nc: duke university press, 2011), 61–83. 12 anand amaladass, ed., jesuit presence in indian history: commemorative volume on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the new madurai mission, 1838–1988 (anand: g. s. prakash, 1988); francis x. clooney, fr. bouchet’s india: an 18th century jesuit’s encounter with hinduism (chennai: satya nilayam publications, 2005); colette diény, “knowledge and appreciation of chinese astronomy and history in eighteenth century europe according to the writings of antoine gaubil s. j. (1689–1759),” in east asian science: tradition and beyond, ed. keizō hashimoto, catherine jami, and lowell skar (osaka: kansai university press, 1995), 501–505; v. n. sharma, “the impact of the eighteenth century jesuit astronomers on the astronomy of india and china,” indian journal of history of science 17, no. 2 (1982): 345–352. 124 jesuit missionary societies as the “itinerant academies” of catholic orientalism in the construction of these itinerant academies, the paper does not refer to any new archival material, but draws upon the new scholarship on the jesuit sciences and jesuit knowledge production from the 1990s onwards. with regard to jesuit writing on india, i draw on the research of anand amaladass, joan-pau rubiés, sylvia murr, michael sievernich, ines županov, and my own writings between 1999 and 2017, all of which are grounded in primary source material. this scholarship on the jesuits in south asia has been deeply informed by a larger corpus of writing on jesuits in asia and europe and the paper is indebted to the work of steven harris, florence hsia, catherine jami, and several others. these researchers are specifically mentioned because the issues raised belong to a family of nested concerns dealing with the jesuitical production of knowledge. a second clarification is in order, relating to the slippage between two terms: namely, “jesuit sciences” and “jesuit knowledge,” and the history of science and the history of knowledge. the latter would take more time to clarify than the former. the world of jesuit learning during the period concerned was capacious enough to embrace several discourses about knowledge, and jesuit knowledge stands in for the cosmography of the jesuits stationed abroad. within this cosmography coexisted domains of specialist knowledge, normally studied by historians of science, such as astronomy and mathematics. the term “jesuit knowledge” refers then to this larger envelope, wherein several orders of jesuitical récits were placed extending from mathematics to astronomy and botany, the study of languages as well as ethnography and récits on mœurs et coutumes. what was the academy and what became of it? feingold, in his scholarly volume on the jesuits and the republic of letters, suggests that the jesuits commenced with the “ideal of an itinerant ministry” in 1540, but two decades later reoriented their focus towards educating youth. this shift transformed it into the “greatest of all teaching orders,” modelled as their schools were on a humanist program.13 the institutional setting of teaching also created interstitial spaces within the colleges where scholarly jesuits could concurrently pursue their writing while undertaking their teaching functions.14 thus, from galileo to the savants of the french enlightenment, from the collegio romano to the royal college at la fleche, the influence 13 mordechai feingold, “preface,” in jesuit science and the republic of letters, ed. mordechai feingold (cambridge, ma: mit press, 2003), vii–xi, on vii. 14 feingold, “preface,” ix. 125the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 of the jesuits in the scientific revolution and after is indeed substantial.15 among their students, from the late sixteenth century until the french revolution, were not just “practitioners of the new science,” but the “learned audiences” as well as “influential patrons” of both the jesuit order and the sciences.16 focusing upon jesuit cultural production during the first two hundred years of the order’s existence, feingold argues that during this period, intellectual pursuits and scholarly activities were indistinguishable from that of their contemporaneous secular savants, irrespective of their denominational identities.17 the imaginary of the jesuit was so conflicted by negative images that it was difficult to conceive of the jesuit as a savant contributing to the sciences of the period of the scientific revolution. but this overlooks their role in propagating a culture of empiricism and research. evidently, like travellers, merchants, and entrepreneurs, they too were participants in the game of knowledge production, wherein they employed multiple investigative protocols.18 in his remarkable essay on the german jesuit joseph tieffenthaler, who was in india in the eighteenth century, sievernich points out that “[…] the jesuit missionaries from the 16th and 17th centuries maintained that the knowledge of a foreign country was part of the basic presupposition of inculturation.”19 among jesuits, tieffenthaler’s interests in the great systems of rivers was not unique.20 15 luis caruana, “the jesuits and the quiet side of the scientific revolution,” in the cambridge companion to the jesuits, ed. thomas worcester (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2008), 243–260; rivka feldhay, galileo and the church: political inquisition or critical dialogue? (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1995); james m. lattis, between copernicus and galileo: christoph clavius and the collapse of ptolemaic cosmology (chicago: the university of chicago press, 1994); heilbron, the sun in the church. 16 feingold, “preface,” ix. 17 mordechai feingold, “jesuit: savants,” in jesuit science and the republic of letters, ed. mordechai feingold (cambridge, ma: mit press, 2003), 1–45, on 2. 18 de castelnau-l’estoile et al., “introduction,” 5. 19 michael sievernich, “geographical mapping of india in the 18th century: the contribution of the german jesuit joseph tieffenthaler” in intercultural encounter and the jesuit mission in south asia, ed. anand amaladass and ines g. županov (asia trading corporation: bangalore, 2014), 290– 320. 20 joseph tieffenthaler was a brilliant astronomer-cartographer who travelled to jai singh’s court but reached there after jai singh had passed away. he maintained a register of the latitudes and longitudes of all the places he visited. his original work on river systems was communicated by anquetil duperron to the académie des sciences. in addition, he wrote in a number of languages including persian, arabic, and sanskrit, and compiled a sanskrit–persian dictionary. the large corpus of his work was translated into german as joseph tieffenthaler, historiche-geographische beschreibung von hindustan, ed. and trans. johann bernoulli, 3 vols. (berlin: johann bernoulli, 1785–1788); and into french as description historique et géographique de l’ inde, ed. and trans. johann bernoulli, 3 vols. (berlin: pierre bourdeaux, 1786–1789); see the appendix at the end of the paper from the frontispiece from vol. 2 of the french edition. 126 jesuit missionary societies as the “itinerant academies” of catholic orientalism the french jesuit jacques marquette (1635–1675) explored the mississippi, the german jesuit samuel fritz (1654–1728) the amazon, and so the list goes on.21 while serving as the vectors of modern science, their conservatism curtailed the possibility of pursuing revolutionary science.22 before the end of the eighteenth century, jesuit scientific production comprised textbooks, compendia, and assorted works. monographs and specialised treatises were rare, but nevertheless numerous given the extent of the order. feingold feels that censorship and self-censorship account for the dearth of novel publications.23 nevertheless, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the translation of vernacular jesuit accounts into latin played a very significant role in disseminating knowledge of non-european regions through the jesuit colleges. the first dictionaries jesuits produced in the regional languages of india provide evidence of european interests in the region.24 the biographies of several jesuit savants suggest that their simultaneous pursuit of several fields of specialisation, including writing poetry in south asian languages, exemplified in significant ways the renaissance imagination, though until recently they were never counted among the savants of the renaissance.25 furthermore, many of these jesuit savants—the term jesuit scientists being an invention of the last couple of decades—had deep collegial and collaborative ties beyond their denominational identity, thereby transgressing boundaries of nation and state.26 the fact remains that these jesuit scientists reckoned with their multiple identities, for at one level they were part of the european “republic of letters” as savants and natural scientists and mathematicians, while simultaneously possessing a more restricted sectarian identity. this double identity is reflected in the distribution of their publications in a variety of journals extending from the journal des scavans to several other journals 21 sievernich, “geographical mapping of india,” 195. 22 feingold, “jesuit: savants,” 4. 23 feingold, “jesuit: savants,” 16. 24 see the essays in amaladass, ed., jesuit presence in indian history. 25 ines županov, disputed mission: jesuit experiments and brahmanical knowledge in seventeenth-century india (new delhi: oxford university press, 1999); dhruv raina, “a neglected field: the historiographical frames for the jesuit sciences in india,” in intercultural encounter and the jesuit mission in south asia, ed. anand amaladass and ines g. županov (asia trading corporation: bangalore, 2014), 259–289. 26 harris, “jesuit scientific activity.” 127the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 of the existing academies.27 but by the end of the seventeenth century, as jesuit science became increasingly peripheral to the mainstream institutionalisation of the sciences, the members of the society went on to found their own journal, mémoires pour l’histoire des sciences & des beaux-arts, later known as journal de trévoux. the articles published in the journal did not merely include jesuit contributions, but those of their illustrious students, who comprised the leadership of the movement referred to as the french enlightenment—including the combative voltaire.28 in other words, jesuit participation in the republic of letters transcended their epistolary ties, and extended to members and non-members.29 the jesuit academy and the republic of letters the conceptual distance between the ancient greek academy and the renaissance academy is reflected in the confusion surrounding its meaning. though the term originally designated plato’s school, the seventeenth century academy emphasised “[…] the un-aristotelian character” of the new academic groups, most of which were devoted to advanced levels of instruction. conversely, aristotelianism was the staple fare of university philosophical instruction, and hence the term “academy” came to connote “various cultural sites outside those institutions” where aristotelian ideas were neither discussed, entertained, nor subscribed with any conviction. in other words, the academy was a “scholastic institution of higher level or a specialized nature.”30 in other words, the meaning of the term came to stabilise as it came to designate an institution that specialised around a world of learning that went beyond existing programmes of instruction.31 these academies possessed some recipe for extending durability. bernal saw the academy as the progenitor of the modern university and 27 robert r. palmer, “the french jesuits in the age of enlightenment,” the american historical review 45, no. 1 (1939): 44–58; dhruv raina, “‘becoming all things to all’: french jesuit scientists and the construction of the antiquity of the sciences of india,” l’ inde des lumières: discours, histoire, savoirs, collection purusārtha 31 (2013): 335–358. 28 palmer, “the french jesuits in the age of enlightenment.” 29 feingold, “jesuit: savants,” 24. 30 ugo baldini, “the academy of mathematics of the collegio romano from 1553 to 1612,” in jesuit science and the republic of letters, ed. mordechai feingold (cambridge, ma: mit press, 2003), 47–98, on 49. 31 baldini, “the academy of mathematics,” 49. however, aristotle too expounded his ideas to select pupils at the academy and it preserved these ideas though it did not improvise upon plato’s ideas. this academy survived for almost a thousand years and was shut down by justinian in 525 ce, see john desmond bernal, science in history, volume 1: the emergence of science, revised edition (harmondsworth: penguin, 1969 [1954]), 197. 128 jesuit missionary societies as the “itinerant academies” of catholic orientalism scientific society.32 for one it was academic inasmuch as it dealt with pure knowledge comprising mathematics, astronomy, and music through an engagement with texts rather than the study of nature. further, truth, beauty, and goodness were virtues worth pursuing for their own sake. ugo baldini and paula findlen have chronicled the success of the collegio romano as a teaching and research institution. information and trained personnel fanned out from the collegio to the distant outposts of the jesuit world.33 but both this work and feingold’s edited volume are primarily concerned with the european provenance of the jesuit sciences and their associated research activity. this paper is more concerned with what could be called the itinerant academy of jesuit oriental and scientific learning. why do we need the notion of an itinerant academy? the point is to construct an object of study of what barreto xavier has labelled “les lieux les moins visibles” (the places less visible) and to foreground them on the historiographic scene.34 her own concern was to “visibilise” (forgive the neologism) the virtual and real libraries of the franciscans in seventeenth-century india. the franciscan order was infested with discursive controversies and the circulation of their books throws light upon the intellectual genealogies that shaped their teaching practices. while it is possible to historically reconstruct the sequence of events that led to the dispersal and loss of major collections of franciscan libraries, what remains of them is scattered across several private and public collections across the world. consequently, any study of the franciscan library requires creative engagement.35 it could well be supposed that, since the jesuits were outside the networks of institutionalised science from the end of the seventeenth century, their own publications were dispersed across a range of journals and reports, and hence any reconstruction of their scholarly activities and production would be difficult to locate within the framework of the learned societies of science. furthermore, their scholarly production was distributed across a still nascent spectrum of emergent disciplines that 32 bernal, science in history, volume 1, 197. 33 paula findlen, “scientific spectacle in baroque rome: athanasius kircher and the roman college mission,” in jesuit science and the republic of letters, ed. mordechai feingold (cambridge, ma: mit press, 2003), 225–284. 34 ângela barreto xavier, “les bibliothèques virtuelles et réelles des franciscains en inde au xviie siècle,” in missions, d’évangélisations et circulation des savoir xvie – xviie siècle, ed. charlotte de castelnau-l’estoile, marie-luce copete, aliocha maldavsky, and ines g. županov (casa de velasquez, madrid, 2011) 151–169, on 152. 35 baretto xavier, “les bibliothèques virtuelles et réelles,” 152. 129the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 did not fall within the purview of the more stable learned societies. thirdly, the network of jesuit scholarship was transnational in scale and could not be encompassed within seventeenthand eighteenth-century scientific societies situated within several urban centres in europe. the idea of an itinerant academy may help us capture this corpus of scholarly production, the canvas of which extended over what we would call the natural sciences and social sciences today, within the seventeenthand eighteenth-century worlds of jesuit learning. the early jesuit institutions came to be diversely referred to as the collegio, the mission, the seminary, the order. but the term “academy” in the seventeenth century—the century of the new academies—appears with reference to the academy of mathematics of the collegio romano—a jesuit college. speaking of the academy of mathematics of the collegio romano, rather than focusing upon the scientific activities pursued at the academy, one of the predominant questions that has occupied historians of science concerns the influence of the professors and teachers of the academy on galileo.36 the jesuit system of instruction was an academic one from the very beginning. but the research functions that were routinised within the academy of mathematics clearly transgressed the limitations of collegiate teaching. with christopher clavius’s presence, the academy not only contributed to, but found a place in the history of mathematical disciplines and of scientific institutions. as a result it became an active participant in the evolution of the educational system.37 however, the academy began to lose some of its vitality after clavius’s death, though this was a slow process that began unfolding during the term of clavius’s associate greenberger. this trend was reversed sixty years later when oragzio borgondio, boscovich’s teacher, was appointed professor of mathematics.38 the direction of the argument has thus far been influenced by burke’s approach to the social history of knowledge that combines a veblenian sociology of innovation with bourdieu’s sociology of cultural production.39 at another level, the account is also framed by assuming 36 baldini, “the academy of mathematics,” 47–48. 37 baldini, “the academy of mathematics,” 50. 38 baldini, “the academy of mathematics,” 53. 39 peter burke, a social history of knowledge: from gutenberg to diderot (cambridge: polity press, 2000), 2–3; see thorstein veblen, “the place of science in modern civilization,” the american journal of sociology 11, no. 5 (march 1906): 585–809; thorstein veblen “the intellectual pre-eminence of jews in modern europe,” political science quarterly, 34, no. 1 (march 1919): 33– 42; see also pierre bourdieu, homo academicus, trans. peter collier (cambridge: polity press, 1988 [1984]). 130 jesuit missionary societies as the “itinerant academies” of catholic orientalism linkages between the microand the macro-level geographies of knowledge. there are the universities and academies located in the different metropolises of knowledge, as well as in smaller towns with local colleges, monasteries, universities and seminaries. in any case, secular intellectuals, clerisy, or clergymen were all attached to some kind of institution that would include one of those just listed. three factors more or less explain the creation of the academy. the first was a purely internal compulsion, which was to produce a cadre of technical specialists for the maintenance and expansion of the jesuit order. once that process commenced, external pressures began to build up associated with producing a pedagogical corps that would ensure the sustenance of the colleges that were mushrooming all over europe and elsewhere. in addition, this also meant recruiting and training ample numbers of qualified missionaries with scientific and other expertise to satisfy and maintain missions in remote places where they could not draw upon the technical expertise available in europe.40 as a result, the academy and jesuit institutions found it imperative to closely couple pedagogic and research functions. this combination within the institutional coordinates of the academy, however limited, enabled the more-or-less global diffusion of specialists. in that sense, as baldini points out, it was a rather unique institution in the scientific history of europe in the first half of the seventeenth century.41 the uncertainty or lack of attention paid to these institutions probably arose from the legitimate misgiving that, within the missionary world, the impulse to innovate may have been restrained, while the resistance to innovation may have been subtly overcome.42 in that sense, detailed histories of the jesuit world of learning would provide some interesting insights into how this tension was negotiated. within teaching environments, in jesuit seminaries and colleges, the impulse would not have been to innovate, but to transmit the received versions of aristotle and aquinas.43 as noted above, the academy of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was not an academy in the aristotelian sense, but took a new form that was closer to the symposium rather than the modern seminar. as burke writes: “more formal and longer lasting than a circle […] less formal than a university faculty, the academy was an ideal form in which to explore innovation.” groups of scholars, who began on a voluntary basis to congregate around these academies, transformed them into institutions 40 baldini, “the academy of mathematics,” 54. 41 baldini, “the academy of mathematics,” 54. 42 caruana, “the jesuits and the quiet side of the scientific revolution,” 256. 43 o’malley, “how the first jesuits became involved in education,” 59–60. 131the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 with a fixed membership, statutes, and schedules for their regular meetings and soirees.44 more recently, dixhoorn and sutch have emphasised the importance of several vernacular literary cultures distributed across urbanised regions and centres in the latin world of learning from the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries. however, research interest seems to have focused largely upon the “italian paradigm” and the intellectual sociablities of renaissance italy.45 as we move from the classical renaissance to the scientific renaissance, a new generation of academies can be seen to emerge, resembling in many ways the humanist academies, but now reorienting their focuses to the study of nature. in order to become a member of this new republic of letters there arose the need to define “one’s literary activities and aspirations with references to the liberal arts (artes liberales), the higher levels of true (theoretical) learning and knowledge (sciensa, scienza, scientie, wissenschaft, wetenschap), and to the bonae litterae and belle lettere (the arts and all classical fields of learning combined).”46 thus, the traditional imaginary associated with the jesuits in science was first challenged following the interrogation of the idea of the scientific revolution with a capital s and r.47 in the recognition of the failings of the whig history of the scientific revolution, scholars unpacked the complexity of the early modern world and the positive role catholic intellectuals played in the evolution of modern science.48 historians of science recognise three phases in the history of the scientific revolution. the first phase is that of the renaissance (1440–1540). the second is that of science during the first bourgeois revolution (1540–1650). and the third is that of modern science coming of age (1650–1690).49 it is during the third period that the scientific societies begin to emerge: typically, the french and the british academies of sciences. the objectives of these 44 peter burke, a social history of knowledge, 36. 45 arjan van dixhoorn and susie speakman sutch, “introduction,” in the reach of the republic of letters: literary and learned societies in late medieval europe, vol. 1, ed. arjan van dixhoorn and susie speakman sutch (leiden: brill, 2008), 1–16, on 1–4. 46 dixhoorn and sutch, “introduction,” 13. 47 rabin, “early modern jesuit science,” 90; for a recent review of the historiography of the scientific revolution see david wootton, the invention of science: a new history of the scientific revolution (new york: harper collins, 2015). 48 william ashworth writes: “there was one order, however, that stands out from all the other orders as the scientific order without rival in seventeenth-century catholicism, and that of course is the society of jesus,” quoted in rabin, “early modern jesuit science,” 91; see also john l. heilbron, electricity in the 17th and 18th centuries: a study of early modern physics, (berkeley: university of california press, 1979). 49 john desmond bernal, science in history, volume 2: the scientific and industrial revolutions, revised edition (harmondsworth: penguin, 1969 [1954]), 379–497. 132 jesuit missionary societies as the “itinerant academies” of catholic orientalism societies were to focus upon “the central technical problems of the time,” which included pumping, hydraulics, gunnery, and navigation—all this while apparently distancing themselves from philosophical discussion. gradually, the scientific societies became the emblems of the recognition of science in the public sphere. the idea had precedents in the lyceum and the museum of macedonia and the muslim and christian institutions of higher learning.50 however, by the seventeenth century there arose the recognition that something different was required—partially triggered by the ideas of bacon. john amos comenius (1592–1670) conceived of a philosophic college to impart knowledge about the new experimental philosophy. the accademia dei lincei at rome (1600–1630) and the accademia del cimento at florence (1651–67) were the earliest of the scientific societies. these societies commenced in informal gatherings of friends such as robert boyle, william petty, and christopher wren bonding around a central intellectual concern.51 the historian thomas sprat, in his history of the royal society of london, writes that: “their first purpose was no more than only the satisfaction of breathing the new air, and of conversing in quiet with one another, without being engaged in the passions, and madness of that dismal age.”52 the point worth noting is that, during the scientific renaissance, there was a surge of institutional innovations beyond the spheres of the university and academy that hosted the activity of the production of the new knowledge. this entailed the funding and managing of large projects in institutions founded for the purpose, such as the royal observatory or the paris observatory.53 beyond the domain of natural philosophy, the royal society urged its members out on expeditions to study the habits and customs of the peoples inhabiting regions they visited, in addition to studying flora and fauna. but it was the eighteenth century that has been considered the age of the academy, this time supported by rulers who paid regular salaries to savants to conduct their investigations. this meant that they had responsibilities and careers outside their teaching commitments within the university system.54 of the large number of societies in the eighteenth century, about seventy of them were concerned with natural philosophy. the academies were modelled quite diversely; while the royal society, 50 bernal, science in history, volume 2, 450. 51 bernal, science in history, volume 2, 457. 52 bernal, science in history, volume 2, 453. 53 elizabeth connor, “the cassini family and the paris observatory,” leaflets of the astronomical society of the pacific 218 (1947): 146–153. 54 burke, a social history of knowledge, 43–46. 133the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 london was founded on voluntarist lines, the parisian academy was state supported.55 during the industrial revolution in england, voluntarist associations, such as the literary and philosophical societies, played a central role in the dissemination of ideas about mechanics.56 catholic orientalism and the world of jesuit knowledge if, for a moment, we would shift our focus on the history of science and knowledge, we would recognise that the history of missions has revolved around the poles of apologetics and missionary accomplishment. the historiographic renewal among scholars studying the world of jesuit learning over the last three decades is an outcome of a resurgence of cultural and social history that has enriched the study of the world of missionary knowledge.57 this shift in historiographic focus, incorporating in its fold the history of knowledge, intellectual milieus, and cultural practices, has meant that the social and cultural history of missions now addresses how the overseas missionary projects were the laboratories of modernity. the research of historians of science has in some sense provided the resources for work on the social and cultural history of the jesuits. in 1989, a special issue of the journal science in context drew the jesuit sciences into the intellectual history of modern europe, based on the relationship between catholic science and modernity.58 since then, the jesuits have been considered important actors in an intellectual network of global dimensions, and as pointed out above, the society of jesus is considered a laboratory of modernity, much as under the influence of the british utilitarians, the officials of the east india company visualised india as a grand experiment in modernity.59 however, there is an important difference inasmuch as the jesuits did not see their missionary work as a project in modernisation. 55 lewis pyenson and susan sheets-pyenson, savants of nature: a history of scientific institutions, enterprises and sensibilities (new york: w. w. norton and company, 1999); burke, a social history of knowledge, 47. 56 ian inkster, “science and the mechanical institutes, 1820–1850: the case of sheffield,” annals of science 32, no. 5 (1975): 451–474; arnold thackray, “natural knowledge in cultural context: the manchester model,” american historical review 79, no. 3 (june 1974): 672–709. 57 de castelnau-l’estoile et al., “introduction,” 2–3. 58 rivka feldhay and yehuda elkana, eds., “after merton”: protestant and catholic science in seventeenth-century europe, special issue of science in context 3, no. 1 (spring 1989). 59 zaheer baber, the science of empire: scientific knowledge, civilization and colonial rule in india (new york: new york state university press, 1996); de castelnau-l’estoile et al., “introduction,” 4. 134 jesuit missionary societies as the “itinerant academies” of catholic orientalism in order to understand the world of jesuit cultural production on india or the orient, it is absolutely essential to recognise its transnational connectivities, as well as its relationship to the world of jesuitical knowledge in europe. in any case, whether in europe, india, or china, the organisational bedrock for the dissemination of this knowledge was the system of jesuit seminaries and the jesuit colleges, which by the middle of the seventeenth century had come to have a global reach. regulated by jesuitical collegial ties and institutions, their publications and reports—of gaubil in china, duchamp and boudier in india—circulated through these widely dispersed institutions and found one of many homes in the archives in paris, rome, lisbon, etc.60 the most effective textual weapon of jesuitical propaganda was the publication lettres edifiantes et curieuses.61 these letters became the instrument of propaganda of the french jesuits, now expressing themselves in a neoclassical rather than baroque rhetoric. thirty-three volumes were published between 1707 and 1734. rubiés notes that the title of the series was emblematic of the jesuit strategy that combined edification with curiosity, the latter being the oriflamme of the republic of letters.62 the authority and authenticity of this knowledge mattered a great deal both to the jesuits and their wider readership. framed by a well-rehearsed narratology that had evolved since the days of the founder of the order, ignatius loyola (1491–1556), this knowledge derived its authenticity in part from the first-person narratives of the jesuits’ travels, the peoples and sights they had witnessed, and, often enough, this aesthetic of the marvellous was counterbalanced by the healthy empiricism of scientific observation.63 these reports and accounts were published in scientific journals and many were republished in the letters mentioned above. in this manner, very diverse readerships in europe were alerted to 60 p. goüye (ed.), observations physiques et mathématiques pour servir à l’histoire naturelle et à la perfection de l’astronomie et de la géographie (paris: imprimerie royale, 1692); simon de la loubère, description du royaume de siam (amsterdam: david mortier, 1714 [1691]); see also florence c. hsia, “french jesuits and the mission to china: science, religion, history.” (phd diss.: university of chicago, 1999); catherine jami, “from louis xiv’s court to kangxi’s court: an institutional analysis of the french jesuit mission to china (1688–1722),” in east asian science: tradition and beyond, ed. keizō hashimoto, catherine jami, and lowell skar (osaka: kansai university press, 1995), 493–499. 61 society of jesus, lettres édifiantes et curieuses: mémoires de l’inde. tomes 11–15 (toulouse: noel-etienne sens, 1810–1811). 62 joan-pau rubiés, “reassessing ‘the discovery of hinduism’: jesuit discourse on gentile idolatry and the european republic of letters,” in intercultural encounter and the jesuit mission in south asia, ed. anand amaladass and ines g. županov (bangalore: asia trading corporation, 2014), 113–154. 63 raina, “becoming all things to all”; županov, disputed mission, 22. 135the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 the seriousness of the jesuit project that extended well beyond the evangelical ends of the order. the knowledge produced by the jesuit was conferred not just with authority but also labelled reliable through its publication in respected periodicals. the knowledge arriving in europe from india, japan, and china through extended jesuit networks, while considered exotic, was naturally subject to processes of domestication and stereotyping. various literary strategies were adopted, some exaggerating the distance between the other and the observer’s culture, while on occasion the hindu trinity was portrayed as an image of the christian holy trinity. the jesuits certainly travelled with their aristotelian categories, but their readership in europe did not uncritically accept what they read. this in turn resulted in debates on the reliability of knowledge.64 for example, in the third quarter of the eighteenth century, diderot and d’alembert were seeking knowledge of india that had not been mediated through the accounts of the jesuits.65 the institutional and structural settings of jesuit teaching and learning were indeed complex, principally because of the society’s ambivalence in relation to the new knowledge and to instructing its acolytes in that new knowledge. in order to do both, its members were compelled to resort to clever subterfuge since they were engaging with knowledge that ran against the grain of received knowledge.66 as a result, the interpretative divide in relation to the jesuit contribution to the development of the modern sciences, in a manner of speaking, reduces to the question whether the so-called stars of the jesuit sciences, clavius67 and kircher, were doing either revolutionary or normal science. in the latter case, their contributions were of an incremental nature and they played a greater role as pedagogues of the “new” sciences. these concerns cannot be separated from the related historiographic portrayal of the seventeenth-century european university as the bastion of casuistry and aristotelianism.68 the other related question is whether the motto of the order, ad majorem dei gloriam (for the greater glory of god), offers itself as a lens through which to look at the jesuit sciences, or whether, like in any other academy of the time, the pursuit of the sciences could be considered an autonomous 64 burke, a social history of knowledge, 196. 65 dhruv raina, “betwixt jesuit and enlightenment historiography: the context of jean-sylvain bailly’s history of indian astronomy,” revue d’histoire de mathématiques 9 (2003), 101–153. 66 feingold, “preface,” x. 67 clavius, as is well known, was public professor of mathematics while directing “advanced instruction and research at the academy of mathematics,” see baldini, “the academy of mathematics,” 48. 68 feingold, “jesuits: savants,” 5 136 jesuit missionary societies as the “itinerant academies” of catholic orientalism cultural activity.69 both harris and feingold are of the opinion that the zeal of jesuit scientific activity and their scholarly pursuit did not correspond to the evangelical goals of the order, though some jesuits may have evoked the latter as post-facto rationalisations of their activities.70 feingold himself inclines to the understanding that the jesuits were trained as scholars before they were jesuits. no matter which side of the argument one leans towards, it cannot be denied that “the powerful grip of secular learning (scientific or otherwise)” contributed to augmenting the prestige of the order and drew novitiates and students to the world of learning and sometimes towards joining the order.71 evidently, feingold, harris, and others are looking at some of the constants that run through the first two hundred years of jesuit history, and it could appear, though that would be far from the truth, that the order staunchly defended aristotle and thomas aquinas over the entire period.72 the attitudes of the jesuits pursuing the secular sciences, as evident from the research, began to shift from the middle of the seventeenth century, and probably earlier, and this required a great deal of scientific and theological rationalisation. luce giard also addresses the pedagogic and scientific activities of the jesuits and the contribution of christian thought to the development of modern science. in the preface to the edited volume les jesuits à la renaissance, he argues that the world of jesuit knowledge production was organised along lines similar to a mertonian intellectual community whose concern was scientific research while the teaching activity of the jesuits emerged over a period of time.73 however, the focus of the essays in the volume is jesuitical knowledge in europe, with the exception of claude marztloff’s work on 69 feingold, “jesuits: savants,” 5 70 diderot asks in his article on the jesuits in the encyclopedie article “jésuites”: “qu’est-ce qu’un jésuite ? [what is a jesuit?],” before continuing with “est-ce un prêtre séculier ? est-ce un prêtre régulier ? est-ce un laïc ? est-ce un religieux? est-ce un homme de communauté ? est-ce un moine ? c’est quelque chose de tout cela, mais ce n’est point cela [is he a secular priest? is he a regular priest? is he a layman/non-clergyman? is he a man of a community? is he a monk? he is something of all of these, but is not these].” see jacques andré nangeon, ed., œuvres de denis diderot, publiées sur les manuscrits de l’auteur, tome sixième (paris: deterville, 1800), 17–38, on 22. feingold concludes that, for diderot, the identity of the scholar trumped jesuit identity. see feingold, “jesuits: savants,” 7. see also harris, transposing the merton thesis”; harris, “jesuit scientific activity in the overseas missions.” 71 feingold, “jesuits: savants,” 9. 72 caruana, “the jesuits and the quiet side of the scientific revolution”; see the essays in part 3 of john w. o’malley, gavin a. barley, steven j. harris, and t. frank kennedy, eds., the jesuits: cultures, sciences, and the arts, 1540–1773 (toronto: university of toronto press, 2000). 73 luce giard, ed., les jésuites à la renaissance: système éducatif et production du savoir (paris: presses universitaires de france, 1995). 137the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 the strategies adopted by jesuits to adapt “connaissances occidentales” to the chinese world of learning.74 the casa da índia in lisbon and la casa de contratación in seville had become storehouses of knowledge and information about the new world by the early sixteenth century. these institutions were supported by royalty.75 the developments of the seventeenth century, and the expanding dominion of natural philosophy, also began to have an impact on church organisations. in other words, the reconfiguration of the world of knowledge was not just oriented towards the study of nature, but orders such as the benedictines and the jesuits, the former inspired by the seventeenth century maurists, now began to accord greater emphasis to collective research. the former, of course, became important actors in the world of historical learning, while the jesuits continued with their pursuit of the sciences.76 the collegio romano remained an important institution through the centuries in the jesuit imaginary and in the early seventeenth century was called upon to adjudicate on matters central to the christian faith. however, it would be safe to suggest that, with the passage of time, the jesuits in india, china, and elsewhere, even while tied to the umbilical cord of the christian church, entered into new networks of knowledge production and the social networks associated with those cultural geographies. as a result, this produced in significant measure the internationalisation of jesuitical institutions and cultural production, and as županov ably demonstrates, its indigenisation in regional contexts.77 jesuits in india and europe: jesuit specialities the first jesuit mission established in india was in old goa in the sixteenth century. the arrival of the jesuit missions in india predates their activity in china and japan, and they were active in the region until the suppression of the order in general in the eighteenth century but resurfaced in the early nineteenth. in the sixteenth century, there were more jesuits 74 jean-claude martzloff, histoire des mathématiques chinoises (paris: masson, 1987); jean-claude martzloff, “matteo ricci et la science en chine,” études 412 (may 2010): 639–649. 75 william s. maltby, the rise and fall of the spanish empire (basingstoke: palgrave macmillan, 2008). 76 burke, a social history of knowledge, 43. 77 ines g. županov, missionary tropics: the catholic frontier in india, 16th–17th centuries (ann arbor: university of michigan press, 2005). 138 jesuit missionary societies as the “itinerant academies” of catholic orientalism in india than elsewhere in asia.78 india was considered to be of great importance within the order since the founder ignatius loyola sent his greatest apostle and collaborator, meaning francis xavier, to establish a mission that would function as a stepping board for extending the mission further east—namely into indonesia, japan, and china. in addition to francis xavier, the roll call of jesuit scholars transiting through the indian mission during that century included alessandro valignano, no great lover of india or indians, roberto de nobili, the very opposite, constanzo beschi, and joao de britto.79 before xavier left goa for the east he had established a network of jesuit stations, and emerged as an exemplar for other jesuit missionaries who moved into the indian hinterland. among those was henri henriques, who arrived in 1547, and whose literary production included a number of books in the tamil language and script, as well as a compilation of a tamil grammar and dictionary that was not printed but was used by other european missionaries despite never having been published.80 but beyond the names of these stars from the first generation of jesuit savants who figure in elegant hagiographies, recent scholarship has brought to light the significant contributions of lesser-known jesuits such as boudier and coerdoux.81 francis xavier landed in india on may 6, 1542 and we can pin down the beginnings of the jesuit educational project in india to a date in and around this year. prior to his arrival, a number of missionaries and portuguese colonial officials formed the confraternity of the holy faith (confraria de santa fé) in old goa to train priests. it was this confraternity that decided to build a college in old goa dedicated to st. paul on january 25, 1542. the college was to undertake the intellectual and spiritual formation of priests, and to entrust the education of students to a religious order. the contenders were three: the dominicans, portuguese diocesan priests, and the jesuits. this was the moment when francis xavier 78 ugo baldini, “the jesuit mathematicians in india (1578–1650) as possible intermediaries between european and indian mathematical traditions,” in kerala mathematics: history and its possible transmission to europe, ed. george gheverghese joseph (delhi: b. r. publishing corporations, 2000). 277–306, on 278. 79 john correia-afonso, jesuit letters and indian history, 1542–1773, 2nd ed. (oxford: oxford university press, 1969); correia-afonso, “a history of the society of jesus in india,” in jesuit presence in indian history: commemorative volume on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the new madurai mission, 1838–1988, ed. anand amaladass (anand: g. s. prakash, 1988), 1–15, on 5. 80 stuart blackburn, “early books and new literary practices, 1556–1800,” in the history of the book in south asia, ed. francesca orsini (abingdon: ashgate, 2011), 105–158, on 111. 81 sylvia murr, l’indologie du père cœurdoux: stratégies, apologétique et scientificité (paris: école française d’extrême-orient, 1987); clooney, fr. bouchet’s india. 139the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 arrived—deus ex machina—and immediately wrote a letter to ignatius loyola stating that “some of our society [… should] instruct the pupils of the college.”82 from 1555, the ownership and administration of st. paul’s seminary and college was vested in the society of jesus—the entire institution was called colégio são paulo and it housed the seminary, a huge library, the jesuit residence and novitiate, hospital, printing press, and a school for boys. padre antonio gomes was the first rector of this, the first jesuit educational institution established in india, through whose portals valignano and ricci passed before their journeys onto the far east. under the jesuits, the college was raised to the level of a university, with a three-year curriculum that included the study of grammatica, rhetorica, philosophia, and theologia. by 1580, another college had been established in cochin offering a similar course.83 the first provincial council held in goa in 1575 decreed that doctrinal literature, congressional manuals, and the lives of saints be urgently published in the local languages. this enterprise required very close cooperation between the jesuits and the “learned men” of the region, a collaboration evidenced in jesuit correspondence.84 the location of this institution shifted several times.85 a fire destroyed the colégio são paulo in 1617, and francis xavier’s grand-nephew fr. jeronimo xavier perished in the fire. the colégio was reopened after the fire and finally closed in 1759 when the portuguese prime minister, the marquês de pombal, evacuated the jesuits and imprisoned them.86 the colégio são paulo became the backbone of the jesuit apostolic enterprise in asia, providing advanced education for the jesuit scholasticate, and elementary schooling for “portuguese, mestiço, and native boys.” it became the central institution out of about three hundred colleges in asia, and having acquired a reputation the jesuits of goa were often referred 82 quoted in j. velinkar, “jesuit education and inculturation in sixteenth century goa,” jesuit presence in indian history: commemorative volume on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the new madurai mission, 1838–1988, ed. anand amaladass (anand: g. s. prakash, 1988), 66–77. 83 baldini, “the jesuit mathematicians in india,” 278. 84 županov mentions the case of a certain padre manuel de são pedro from the collegio de saluador in culam whose name appears nowhere in the jesuit catalogues or in jesuit letters, which indicates that he was a secular christian parava, but though ignored by jesuit history was essential to the “construction of the jesuit linguistic edifice,” see županov, missionary tropics, 253–254. 85 mousinho de ataide, rachol: jesuit college, 1610–1759; diocesan seminary, 1762 (goa: rachol jesuit seminary, 2012), 5. 86 de ataide, rachol, 6. 140 jesuit missionary societies as the “itinerant academies” of catholic orientalism to as the paulistas.87 with the college under jesuit control, gomes tried to refashion the college on the lines of the university of paris. he first separated the portuguese from the indigenous and oriental students on the grounds that the wild character of the latter deterred them “from the attainment of knowledge” and “contemplation and devotion.” gradually, the college was transformed in addition into a jesuit seminary and scholasticate.88 evidently, the seminary could also be a euphemism for an academy. contemporaneous technological revolutions in the culture of the book and reading were to travel to the subcontinent in that very century. the jesuit joão nunes-bareto, the patriarch of the episcopate of ethiopia, landed in goa in 1556 and died in the collegio six years later. other than establishing missionary schools that provided instruction in the regional language, namely konkani, he went on to establish the first printing press on the sub-continent, operated by another jesuit, joão de bustamente.89 the early publications of the press included works in portuguese, latin, konkani, ethiopic, and tamil. most of the books published between 1556 and 1587 were in roman type, except for a 1577 translation into tamil of henriques’s doctrina christam, which became the first printed book in an indian script and language.90 the press functioned sporadically from 1616 to 1676, and its publications included pedagogic works for acquiring competence in the local languages and works on the christian faith, in addition to many of the manuscripts authored by jesuits who at some point had transited through rachol. these manuscripts are now distributed in libraries in goa, portugal, and beijing. i. p. newman’s compilation of fernandez’s collection racholensis provides an extensive bibliography of manuscripts published at rachol.91 evidently, the college performed many functions and hosted multiple institutions. to take one example, the colégio prepared students for priesthood, including jesuit scholastics who went on to study latin, classics, philosophy, and moral theology. it also catered for those seeking some 87 županov, missionary tropics, 125. 88 velinkar, “jesuit education and inculturation in sixteenth century goa,” 68. 89 anant kakba pirolkar, the printing press in india: the beginnings and early development (marathi samsodhana mandala: bombay, 1958), 3–9. 90 blackburn, “early books and new literary practices,” 112. 91 de ataide, rachol 2012, 28–31. 141the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 education with additional mathematical skills in particular.92 as i have argued elsewhere, sites of knowledge are places where there is not just traffic in peoples and ideas but a variety of material and living things, a site where we have a cosmopolitanism of things.93 fruits and vegetables from africa, the americas, and the east arrived at the college and were evidently consumed. soon enough, jesuit scholars located at the college began to explore the customs, cultures, and languages of the peoples in its environs.94 correia-afonso makes a larger postcolonial claim that, with the founding of st. paul’s in old goa, the jesuit vocation as “the schoolmasters of europe”’ had commenced.95 92 for the contents of the courses see velinkar, “jesuit education and inculturation in sixteenth century goa,” 64–69. 93 dhruv raina, “circulation and cosmopolitanism in 18th century jaipur: the workshop of jyotishis, nujumi and jesuit astronomers,” purusārtha 33 (2015): 307–329. 94 velinkar, “jesuit education and inculturation in sixteenth century goa,” 73. 95 velinkar, “jesuit education and inculturation in sixteenth century goa,” 76. correia-afonso, in his response to the paper by velinkar, quotes in translation a long letter from a father polanco dating back to 1535: “it seems to me that the teaching of reading and writing to children, and together with the christian doctrine, is already being done in goa […] and though it is not usual in these parts in the colleges of the society, this work is not foreign to our institute, and i believe with time it will also be taken up here (in europe); and in india it is one of the best things that can be done (di, iii, 307). the beginnings of our education policy are therefore very ignatio,” see correia-afonso, “a history of the society of jesus in india,” 76. in a transcultural aside, one wonders whether the schoolmasters of europe rehearsed their vocation on indian soils before carrying it back to europe. fig. 1: the seminary at rachol, goa (copyright by author). 142 jesuit missionary societies as the “itinerant academies” of catholic orientalism in fact, a number of colleges were established in goa in the latter half of the sixteenth century. of these, the one existing building is the rachol seminary, dating back to 1610. it started off as the jesuit college of all saints (colégio de todos os santos), later renamed the college of st. ignatius (colégio de sancto ignacio), before becoming the diocesan seminary after the expulsion of the jesuits in the second half of the eighteenth century. many seminaries were founded in in goa in this period: the seminario da santa fé, the college of st. paul (collegio de s. paulo), the college and then seminary of chorão (seminário de chorão), and the house of bom jesus.96 but in the scholarship of the history of sciences too, in some way or another, jesuit scientists are always tagged with a failing or deficit. the italian jesuit matteo ricci and the french antoine gaubil, both of whom lived in beijing, were and as very important for the unfolding of the history of modern science in china but never good enough to belong to the pantheon of heroes of modern science.97 in a similar vein, it has often been remarked that the french jesuit astronomers in india never made the same grade as the jesuit astronomers in china.98 thus, in this respect, baldini also points out that until the seventeenth century, jesuit contributions in china excelled over those in india.99 this would begin to change after the middle of the seventeenth century. the important question baldini poses is: “why did the jesuits until the mid xviith century at least consider mathematics as an essential missionary tool in china and not for india?” did matteo ricci make all the difference or is the matter far more complicated?100 baldini identifies three factors to rationalise why jesuits in china were more influential. firstly, before 1650 ce jesuits in china produced scientific works and translations of european works; jesuits in india translated theological texts instead. secondly, the science pursued in india was not particularly sophisticated when compared with that pursued by jesuits in china. thirdly, there was possibly a misapprehension among the jesuits of the socio-cultural status 96 de ataide, rachol, 4. 97 joseph needham, chinese astronomy and the jesuit mission: an encounter of cultures (london: china society, 1958). 98 s. m. razaullah ansari, “introduction of modern western astronomy in india during 18–19 centuries,” in history of astronomy in india, ed. s. n. sen and kripa shankar shukla (new delhi: indian national science academy, 1985), 363–402. 99 baldini, “the jesuit mathematicians in india,” 278. 100 baldini, “the jesuit mathematicians in india,” 279. 143the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 of mathematics in india and china.101 while baldini may be right on the third count, i think we could turn his argument around and look into the late arrival of modern science in india with the jesuits. thus, from the beginning of the eighteenth century we encounter a number of astronomers and cartographers who networked with their jesuit colleagues in china and the académie des sciences, paris. the comparison itself is a misplaced one, and unfortunately tiefenthaler’s entry into the indian subcontinent coincides with a period when the travails of the jesuit order recommence in europe and in the process the jesuits in india could never provide a fitting riposte to the comparison.102 we certainly need to differentiate between two phases of jesuit history in india, with the first phase extending from 1540 to the end of the padroado and the second phase beginning after the padroado.103 it is during this latter phase that we begin to reckon with the connections between the académie des sciences, gaubil in beijing, and the jesuit astronomers in india. by the 1720s and 1730s, the project extended beyond cartography into geology, and in and around the same time that bavarian jesuits such as strobl and gabelsberger were employed in jai singh’s court. tiefenthaler was also headed for the imperial court at jaipur, but jai singh had passed on in 1743.104 the last couple of decades of the twentieth century witnessed radical revisioning in the writing of jesuit history by jesuit historians themselves, departing from the older “historiographic vitae” and “mission chronicles,” offering instead voluminous documentation, “meticulous national histories of missions, and monographs recounting the histories of reputed jesuit institutions and missions.105 in south asia, while some of these histories were compiled by jesuit historians, the real beneficiary has been the genre of the history of education, even though these histories engage with institutions founded in the early nineteenth century. a trilemma has always confounded the study of jesuit history in india and this has invariably been the problem of language. any scholar requires a familiarity with at least three european languages and there are at least a dozen south asian languages to contend with. the trilemma is a problem 101 baldini, “the jesuit mathematicians in india,” 279. 102 sievernich, “geographical mapping of india.” 103 up until the middle of the seventeenth century, the jesuit order in europe was beholden to portuguese royal patronage and its project of overseas expansion. with the falling fortunes of the iberian empires in the second half of the seventeenth century, the french, italian, and german jesuits were dissociated from the padroado. 104 raina, “circulation and cosmopolitanism,” 319. 105 županov, missionary tropics, 2. 144 jesuit missionary societies as the “itinerant academies” of catholic orientalism of positioning or location: should one approach the archive from the perspective of european studies, missionology, or indology?106 the problem arises because none of these three modes of scholarship is pure or distinguishable from the other ones, such that the analyst can assume any one methodological identity. what is needed is a deeper attention to the embedding of these three distinct modes. županov’s important work recognises another variant of eurocentrism playing itself out, which she characterises as the “concrete line that divides jesuit history into european and non-european.” as she writes, “european mainstream historiography increasingly celebrates its own tradition and achievements, both as historiography and history. […] in this scheme of things, rome become the center of calculation, while the rest of the jesuit world was a series of peripheral laboratories.”107 we have here a very faithful analogy of the diffusionist models of the expansion of the dominion of european science, much popularised in the 1950s and 1960s by george basalla and others, that framed the knowledge produced in the colonised world as colonial knowledge and colonial science, which was in effect a lower kind of science, wherein the task of theoretical synthesis was performed in europe.108 the analogy is sustained since the jesuits i discuss traded not merely in the currency of catholicism but equally in the world of scientific ideas and inaugurated a kind of cultural discourse of wider provenance. if decentring the european jesuit missions is one of županov’s strategies of interrogating eurocentrism, the other historiographical bulwarks she runs into are european claims to early modernity as having been triggered by jesuit proto-scientific practice in south asia. rather than provincialising europe, she prefers to detail several synchronous polycentric planes where “different cultural and geographical sites gain importance and visibility.”109 in early modern europe, the organisation of intellectual labour was marked by several hierarchies. there existed a scientia superior or “higher knowledge” that incorporated liberal knowledge, including a knowledge of greek and latin and involved book learning. this high-status knowledge further included quantitative knowledge. this was contrasted with a scientia inferior or a “lower knowledge,” which referred to the “useful knowledge” possessed by 106 županov, missionary tropics, 4–5. 107 županov, missionary tropics, 3. 108 george basalla, the rise of modern science: external or internal factors? (lexington: d. c. heath, 1968). 109 županov, missionary tropics, 4. 145the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 tradesmen and craftsmen that involved a knowledge of the processes of production. this knowledge of things was a qualitative knowledge.110 the metaphor employed to designate knowledge systems was the tree of knowledge, and by the late sixteenth century this image indicated “the naturalization of the conventional or the presentation of culture as if it were nature, invention as if it were discovery.”111 now knowledge was central to the strategy of conversion as perceived by francis xavier. the imaginary was of the world as a library of dead books (already written) and living books. the jesuit scholar was instructed by the dead books but his task was not just to be an observer of the living ones but to enrich the library of the world. thus, in xavier’s eyes, the relationship between mission and knowledge was a dialectical and complementary one.112 however, there was always a tension within the mission between knowledge and belief. from the perspective of the mission, time devoted to the pursuit of knowledge was time lost out on evangelical activity. when looked at externally, knowledge that the church had judged useful for the mission acquired an autonomy and momentum that was at times edifying but sometimes threatening for the church. the cosmologies and chronologies of india and china travestied both the christian conception of time and aristotelian anthropology.113 the important point worth noting is that missionary knowledge was by definition institutional knowledge, in terms of institutional practices of knowledge production that included protocols relating to the validation, organisation, systematisation, and dissemination (of knowledge). the stabilisation of these protocols of validation and systematisation against an organisational background became a characteristic of these overseas jesuit academies. the missionary was always the emissary of either a church or secular authority—the pope, superior, king (including jai singh in india or the kangxi emperor). the finality of jesuit knowledge was that it was more often than not anonymous, subject to rewriting and censorship, and was the property of the society.114 110 burke, a social history of knowledge, 84–85. 111 burke, a social history of knowledge, 86. 112 de castelnau-l’estoile et al., “introduction,” 1. 113 sylvia murr, “les conditions d’émergence du discours sur l’inde au siècle des lumières.” puruṣārtha 7 (1983): 233–284. 114 de castelnau-l’estoile et al., “introduction,” 6. 146 jesuit missionary societies as the “itinerant academies” of catholic orientalism the jesuit order in india: french jesuits and the linkages with the académie des sciences interestingly enough, the rise of the phenomenon of jesuit sciences in europe is concurrent with the expansion of the dominion of the sciences. the flowering of the jesuit sciences in europe more or less coincides with jesuit interests in the americas, india, and china. however, distinctions arise due to the varied foci of research of distinct research communities. on the one hand, jesuit scholars who have produced histories of their order in india have tended to focus their attention on the development and evolution of the rich jesuit expertise on the languages of south asia and the elaboration of jesuit philology.115 on the other hand, secular scholars have been more concerned with their activity in the natural sciences, medicine, mathematics, and cartography.116 more recently, their contributions to the human and social sciences have also begun to attract attention. in his paper on the history of the society in india, correia-afonso recognises the appearance of the society in the modern age and its expansion to the four corners of the earth, but most importantly the role of its members as “protagonists in the cultural meeting of east and west”—since it signals the prehistory of orientalism and the role of the jesuits in that intellectual movement.117 the ties between jesuit orientalist production, a minor variant of catholic orientalism, and the latter are indeed significant.118 this significance does not merely bear upon the idea of who knew whom, who read whom, but also upon the influence of the significant problématiques and the role of the individuals who developed professional indology. for example, the influence of jesuit proto-ethnography on the indology of william jones and the histories of science associated with 115 see section iii, chapters 12 to 18 in amaladas, ed., jesuit presence in indian history, 169–297, entitled “jesuit presence in arts and sciences.” 116 amaladass, ed., jesuit presence in indian history; baldini, “the jesuit mathematicians in india”; boxer, two pioneers of tropical medicine; clooney, fr. bouchet’s india; figueiredo, “ayurvedic medicine in goa”; eric g. forbes, “the european astronomical tradition: its transmission into india, and its reception by sawai jai singh ii,” indian journal of history of science 17, no. 2 (1982): 234–243; murr, l’indologie du père cœurdoux; raina, “becoming all things to all”; sharma, “the impact of the eighteenth century jesuit astronomers on the astronomy of india and china”; sievernich, “geographical mapping of india”; velinkar, “jesuit education and inculturation in sixteenth century goa”; županov, disputed mission; županov, missionary tropics. 117 correia-afonso, “a history of the society of jesus in india,” 3. 118 jean filliozat, “l’orientalisme et les sciences humaines,” extrait du bulletin de la société des études indochinoises 26, no. 4 (1951): 561–574; jean filliozat, “la naissance et l’essor de l’indianisme,” in laghu-prabandah: choix d’articles d’indologie, ed. jean filliozat (leiden: brill, 1974), 265–295. 147the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 the french enlightenment have been pointed out elsewhere.119 the impact of jesuit ethnography of india and china and elsewhere needs to be situated as an early-modern global phenomena that bareto and županov have labelled catholic orientalism,120 defined as a set of knowledge practices geared to perpetuate political and cultural fantasies of the early modern catholic protagonists and communities is what we call catholic orientalism […] an integral part of the portuguese imperial information order [… that] refers both to the knowledge practices and the archives [… it] nourished and merged into other and later orientalisms and scholarly disciplines.121 but this indebtedness of the global academy to jesuit cultural production from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries was not restricted to the discourses of orientalism or indology but covered the sciences of the age of discovery, such as geology and cartography, and the monographs of the german jesuit tiefenthaler mark the end of this phase in the history of what could be referred to as the “itinerant jesuit orientalist academy.” the legendary french indianiste anquetil duperon and one of the members of the swiss family bernoulli were independently responsible for the publication of tiefenthaler’s work in france and germany. in either case, the works were published in the journals of learned academies and societies, such as the papers of the royal prussian academy of sciences and the journal des scavans. the itinerant jesuit academy my concern has been with reading the scientific reports and letters produced by french jesuit missionaries stationed on the indian peninsula. european jesuits from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries onwards were easily “the most mobile and literate religious specialists” around at the time. and time and time again, studies of their cultural production have had as much to focus upon their cultural cartography, which in other 119 dhruv raina, “science east and west,” in encyclopaedia of the history of science, technology, and medicine in non-western cultures, ed. helaine selin (berlin: springer, 2008), 1934–1944; dhruv raina, “the french jesuit manuscripts on indian astronomy: the narratology and mystery surrounding a late seventeenth – early eighteenth century project,” in looking at it from asia: the processes that shaped the sources of history of science, ed. florence bretelle-establet (dordrecht: springer, 2010), 115–140. 120 ângela barreto xavier and ines g. županov, catholic orientalism: portuguese empire, indian knowledge 16th–18th centuries (new delhi: oxford university press, 2015). 121 barreto xavier and županov, catholic orientalism, xxi. 148 jesuit missionary societies as the “itinerant academies” of catholic orientalism words entails detailing their cultural itineraries.122 this is a world where not just knowledge but people involved are perpetually on the move. the crux of my argument is that the jesuit savants in south asia were members of a virtual itinerant academy of orientalism, writing for each other and european audiences, cognisant of the literary technologies and narratology that would frame these accounts.123 županov constructs a space she calls the “missionary tropics,” where tropic connotes both a geographical region—india and the indian ocean—and an institutional space “in which texts about india bring home to europe a sense, sensibility, and knowledge of what lies out there.”124 in other words, this space is a deeply textual one, wherein jesuit savants are writing not just for each other in prescribed literary technologies and framing their narratives in prescribed formats—the jesuit narratology—but equally for diverse audiences in europe, informing them of what lies beyond, on the other side of europe and their world.125 thus, in this metaphorical tropic our itinerant jesuit academy is a place where ideas travel to and fro, circulating “from one part of the globe to another and back with unprecedented speed and unrecognisable consequences.”126 the simultaneous internationalisation and indigenisation of itinerant jesuit academies and the connectivities established with networks of secular knowledge production—for example, the académie des sciences in paris—brought to these networks a new cogency, little recognised in the inauguration of le discours sur l’inde, that pre-shadowed the emergence of professional indology, indianisme, or the orientalism of south asia.127 in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the itinerant academy turned to the collegio romano more for adjudication on ecclesiastical matters, such as the famous malabar rites controversy that raged wherever the jesuits implemented accommodatio.128 the process of theological accommodation produced a tropical catholicism. in the first instance, 122 županov, missionary tropics, 2. 123 raina, “the french jesuit manuscripts on indian astronomy.” 124 županov, missionary tropics, 1. 125 raina, “the french jesuit manuscripts on indian astronomy.” 126 županov, missionary tropics, 1. 127 murr, l’indologie du père cœurdoux. 128 catholic thinkers and theologians in the early seventeenth century developed a “politically loaded concept” of inculturation, whose function, according to roberto de nobili in india and ricci in china, was to clothe christian ideas in local colours. this required scholarly engagement with “local religions and literary traditions,” so as to develop a blueprint for the indigenisation of the church. see županov, missionary tropics, 23. 149the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 the climate was seen as an obstacle to conversion, for it apparently provided a fertile ground for a flourishing idolatry. secondly, the path to moderating the effects of the hot tropics was by getting to understand the natural environment and the social and cultural relations with the environment.129 the way to accommodatio was paved by the acquisition of knowledge about the tropical world. but this process in turn, as mentioned above, generated severe tensions in global and local missionary strategies.130 the question that arises then is how does the expansion of the horizons of the history of knowledge reframe older epistemological concerns around the historical phenomena of cultural encounter?131 another question that still needs posing is how did the “other” jesuit ways of knowing and doing science address the issue of the plurality of indigenous knowledge(s)?132 there were several moments in the jesuit engagement with local religions. the first goes back to the seventeenth century where they discovered something they called “hinduism.” during this phase, they consciously sought informers “to examine systematically” the esoteric “aspects of the religion of the brahmans, by reading, translating and summarizing literature in south indian languages.”133 this network of scholars included jacomé fenicio, diego gonçalves, roberto nobili, his opponent gonçalo trancoso, and antonio rubino.134 in the provinciae indiae orientalis published in 1584, fenicio is mentioned as a twenty-six-year-old capuan, having been trained in philosophy and theology and with a discerning intellect. he produced a book that he considered “the first book of the sect of oriental indianas, principally the malabars”; and since there is no strong assertion of authorship it has been inferred that it was meant to be a missionary text for “collective use, whereby novices could be introduced to non-christian local “cosmogony, theology and tradition.” similarly, diego gonçalves published a história do malabar in 1615. 129 županov, missionary tropics, 26. 130 županov, missionary tropics, 43. 131 accommodatio as practiced by ricci in china, and nobili and joao de britto in madurai, involved translating the opposition between european and indian into one between elite and the popular, see rubiés, “reassessing ‘the discovery of hinduism,’” 127. in the epilogue to her book missionary tropics, županov discusses pedro luís bramane, a malabar jesuit priest whose life and work spanned the sixteenth century, and in whom the encounter of two cultures is most evident: “the karaṇam culture of the indian elite and the elitist european culture,” see županov, missionary tropics, 259. 132 de castelnau-l’estoile et al., “introduction,” 5. 133 rubiés, “reassessing ‘the discovery of hinduism,’” 123. 134 rubiés, “reassessing ‘the discovery of hinduism,’” 123. 150 jesuit missionary societies as the “itinerant academies” of catholic orientalism the latter went beyond fenicio’s theological quest and explored the origins of political and social structure.135 the texts produced by these jesuits in the first half of the seventeenth century were internally circulated in manuscript form so as to inform polemical refutations and circumscribe the “limits of accommodation to hindu customs.” one of the works published in 1609 by jacomé fenicio, entitled livro de seite dos índios orientais, found a place in the european republic of letters.136 the work was generally condemnatory of hindu custom and ritual, but contained a summary of the two great epics taken from the malayalam versions. the second moment in the history of jesuit indology coincides with the rise of both “religious heterodoxy and free thinking in europe.” this process commenced in the middle of the seventeenth century.137 for example, athanasius kircher, author of china illustrata, published in amsterdam, was in conversation with heinrich roth, a sanskrit-speaking jesuit stationed in agra, about the languages and doctrines of the peoples of india. these exchanges and monographs established the presence of jesuits as learned orientalists in the republic of letters.138 thus, abraham rogerius’s monograph, first published in dutch in 1651 and later translated into french as la porte ouverte pour parvenir à la connaissance du paganisme caché, for the first time possibly stressed the important role of nature in the study of religious doctrines. later french travellers such as françois bernier relied heavily upon jesuits such as roth.139 jesuit translation activity from and into the vernacular was an essential prerequisite element of this strategy. the framework of conversion and translation from portuguese or italian or french into tamil and other south asian languages resulted in the creation of a contested space of “cultural transference.” the displacement that was an outcome of the metaphorical and semantic moves guiding this process of translation had an air of immense intractability.140 by the middle of the seventeenth century, one of the many outposts of lusophony in south asia slipped out of the padroado. by the end of the century, both the empire and the language had declined.141 135 all from županov, missionary tropics, 175. 136 rubiés, “reassessing ‘the discovery of hinduism,’” 123. 137 rubiés, “reassessing ‘the discovery of hinduism,’” 125. 138 rubiés, “reassessing ‘the discovery of hinduism,’” 126. 139 rubiés, “reassessing ‘the discovery of hinduism,’” 126–127. 140 županov, missionary tropics, 234. 141 županov, missionary tropics, 235. 151the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 the decline of the iberian empires in the seventeenth century was more or less concurrent with the rise of french power overseas, as it became an increasingly important player in the expansion of catholicism.142 by the end of the seventeenth century, the portuguese material and political presence in asia and india had dissolved, but the knowledge accumulated during this presence came to be integrated into other political formations. catholic orientalism was “built into knowledge practices of the early european colonial powers settled in india from the late seventeenth century,” all the way to the british.143 but in the world of secular learning, the jesuits moved closer to the humanist and science academies.144 the jesuit astronomers stationed in beijing, or those itinerant astronomers travelling between chandernagore, pondicherry, and jaipur were incorporated into networks of experimental observation coordinated from the paris observatory by cassini in the last decades of the seventeenth century to those of de lisle developing new ways to determine the velocity of light.145 the problems varied from decade to decade; the networks remained in operation until the transit of the venus expedition of 1761, headed by le gentil.146 it would be rather naive to assume that the literary technologies did not evolve or change over a period of about two hundred and twenty years or that the jesuits did not improvise given that they had been relocated in such diverse cultural contexts—but it would be safe to suggest that the cosmography of the sixteenth and seventeenth century began to dovetail with the lines of the new disciplinary specialties that were emerging and in which the jesuits were active participants. the work of historians of science on jesuit encounters with local traditions of mathematics and astronomy in china and india is not frameable in terms of the science–non-science dichotomy, but is as much about the diverse spaces of scientific discourse, of institutions devoted to the cultivation and validation of knowledge, as it is about the larger political context of knowledge production and dissemination.147 the jesuit orientalists participating in the republic of letters were initially stationed in china, 142 see sanjay subrahmanyam, the portuguese empire in asia, 1500–1700: a political and economic history (chichester: wiley blackwell, 2012). 143 barreto xavier and županov, catholic orientalism, xxii. 144 raina, “betwixt jesuit and enlightenment historiography.” 145 raina, “circulation and cosmopolitanism,” 317–319. 146 dhruv raina “le gentil’s voyage: addressing disruptions in the narrative of scientific progress,” in variantology v. neapolitan affairs: on deep time relations of arts, sciences and technologies, ed. siegfried zielinski and eckhard fürlus (cologne: walter könig, 2011), 385–397. 147 de castelnau-l’estoile et al., “introduction,” 6. 152 jesuit missionary societies as the “itinerant academies” of catholic orientalism something that retained a pride of place in the republic. but from the 1680s, following the expulsion of the french jesuits from siam and their arrival in pondicherry, the india mission also gained in importance.148 the itinerant jesuit academies, ensconced within the jesuit missions, were part of global networks of scholars held together by the pursuit of knowledge and ambitions characterising the modern era. there were rivalries between different missionary denominations, since they were supported by four different political actors—the portuguese padroado, the spanish pationato, the propaganda fide, and the french crown. despite these rivalries, they shared the same goals of propagating catholicism as the religion planétaire. at the core of this space extending to the four corners of the globe was a dense network of information—a missionary information order, sustained by these itinerant jesuit academies. the jesuit mission and academy constituted a global transcultural institution characterised by linguistic, sociological, and geographical diversity, marked as much by the several methods and litanies of evangelisation.149 as has happened in the history of sciences, the next stage in the history of the itinerant jesuit academy would involve rendering visible the jesuit converts from the first three centuries of jesuit history—padre manoe de sao pedro, maridas poule, luis bromans, etc. but that is another task. the italian and french jesuits who landed in india in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were an itinerant bunch and few of them, if any, were attached to any one college or seminary for the entirety of their careers. none of them had anything to do with the collegio romano, though as scholars all of them were most certainly aware of its existence and importance. all of them died in india and were buried in the premises of the college or seminary where they were last located for the performance of their teaching, evangelical, and research functions. but, as an itinerant network of scholars, their scholarly production was not necessarily connected with any of the colleges they were associated with, but was knowledge produced on the move, as itinerant as they were. in other words, they were members of a virtual academy and their readership was global in a limited sense of the term—meaning it extended across the globe, but in numbers it was certainly wanting for the times. as teachers at a college they belonged to an academy inasmuch as they delivered a single lecture or a set of lectures on a single topic or a very specific theme. as researchers with extra-mural and extra-denominational knowledge interests, they also belonged to a “post-university” 148 rubiés, “reassessing ‘the discovery of hinduism,’” 127. 149 de castelnau-l’estoile et al., “introduction,” 8. 153the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 extra-scholastic group dedicated to intellectual and cultural activity. their membership in a virtual academy was embedded in the recognition that they pursued subjects of study that had not yet been drawn into regular instruction within the university or college. in that sense, it entailed the pursuit, cultivation, and instruction of advanced knowledge by a group within a higher scholarly institution—in fact, this widely dispersed group of scholars themselves comprised the scholastic institution itself.150 missionary knowledge was knowledge recognised by and imparted during the modern epoch. this knowledge produced by the missionaries located overseas was incorporated into contemporaneous scientific models developed in europe, even while other kinds of knowledge were erased. 150 baldini, “the academy of mathematics,” 49. 154 jesuit missionary societies as the “itinerant academies” of catholic orientalism appendix: the cover of the work of joseph tieffenthaler. from east lynne to konggu lan | huang | transcultural studies from east lynne to konggu lan: transcultural tour, trans-medial translation xuelei huang, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg whatever our ignorance of the language and the culture of the people where it originated, a myth is still felt as a myth by any reader anywhere in the world. its substance does not lie in its style, its original music, or its syntax, but in the story which it tells. claude lévi-strauss, “the structural study of myth” in 1862, the university of oxford’s 47-year-old professor of ecclesiastical history, arthur penrhyn stanley, accompanied the 20-year-old edward, prince of wales, on a trip to egypt.[1] the professor, who showed “insatiable appetite for every detail of historical or sacred associations,” was apparently not an enjoyable companion in the young prince’s eyes. their interests differed tremendously in all but one thing: east lynne, a best-selling novel from 1861. it was such an engrossing read for them both that professor stanley even put a question relating to the novel to examine the prince and his friends: “with whom did lady isabel dine on the fatal night?”[2] the story’s transcultural travels and trans-medial translations, the focus of investigation of this essay, would bring it to an equally enthusiastic audience far from its birthplace, victorian britain. in february and march 1926, a chinese-made silent film entitled konggu lan 空谷蘭 (orchid in the empty valley) caused a sensation and showed to full houses for weeks in shanghai and other cities in china and southeast asia.[3] the film was an offspring of the novel, though from east lynne to konggu lan the story went through a profound process of global travels, rewritings, translations and transformations. why did the story manage to retain its appeal to audiences of varied cultural backgrounds? what happened on its trans-national, trans-lingual and trans-medial journey? this essay traces the trajectory of this tour and demonstrates that the story successfully took forms of different literary, theatrical and cinematic genres from specific times and places, including a fiction genre (“sensation fiction” in 1860s england), two types of drama (melodrama and the chinese family drama, jiating xi 家庭戲), and two film genres (filmic melodrama and the chinese tragic love film, aiqing dianying 哀情電影, as is indicated in the film’s ad). taken together, i contend that these genres were interlinked and reflected the popular consumption of sensation plus sentiment in different countries from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. john thompson has suggested that the origins of what we now call “globalization” can be traced at least as far as the mid-nineteenth century with “the gradual expansion of networks of communication and information flow” which has become “increasingly global in scope.”[4] the victorian story’s global journey examined in this essay took place exactly against this historical background. to a certain extent, production, translation, and consumption of sentimental stories during the period can be conceived of as a global trend, facilitated by this gradual expansion of networks. international trends in commodities, fashions, and lifestyles have customarily been considered a recent phenomenon concurrent with the invention of electronic and digital communication technologies. by examining this early example of a popular story’s transcultural flows, this essay attempts to (re)emphasise that being circulated and exchanged trans-locally, if not globally, has long been an inherent trait of what arjun appadurai terms “the social life of things,”[5] and should be taken adequately seriously as a vital lens for understanding human history and culture. under the conventional academic structure that emphasises disciplinary and national boundaries, the aspect of transculturality and its significance have often been veiled or overlooked. in this case, for example, east lynne and its stage versions in europe and the usa have been rediscovered recently and studied extensively by scholars of literature and theatre. it was regarded as, for instance, “a genuine classic of victorianism,”[6] an archetypal “woman’s novel” or maternal melodrama.[7] in contrast, its japanese and chinese translations have received much less scholarly attention. its chinese version, for example, was treated only briefly as one example of urban popular fiction prospering in the first decades of the twentieth century in china.[8] most studies of the book’s original and foreign versions only look at the story within national boundaries and focus primarily on one particular kind of medium. this essay explores the story’s transcultural and trans-medial dimensions. the first part of this essay focuses on the victorian story’s journey from europe to asia. i will demonstrate that despite its asymmetry between nations, the global development of print capitalism and the cultural industries (such as commercial theatre and film) since the mid-nineteenth century formed what appadurai calls a “mediascape,” i.e. a “distribution of the electronic capabilities to produce and disseminate information (newspapers, magazines, television stations and film studios)” as one layer of its meaning,[9] and acted as a key agent in the transcultural and transmedial travels of sentimental stories. appadurai defines the second layer of meaning of the “mediascape” as “the images of the world created by these media.”[10] in other words, mediascapes not only refer to media but also to messages, or “large and complex repertoires of images, narratives and ethnoscapes to viewers throughout the world, in which the world of commodities and the world of news and politics are profoundly mixed.”[11] in the second section of this article, i shall look at what happened to the story when it was translated into asian languages and adapted as various media products. i shall argue that sentiment plus sensation made up the key elements that were retained in nearly all variations of the story that were presented in different countries. i will also analyse how these elements were linked up to the historical contexts, spoke to the reading and viewing publics, and generated interconnected mediascapes at a global level. travelling across the global mediascapes in the last years of the nineteenth century, a young chinaman, whose name was bao tianxiao 包天笑 (1876–1973), joined together with several friends and opened a small bookstore in his hometown suzhou, a city with a long history 100 kilometres west of the treaty port city of shanghai. the bookstore mainly sold books, magazines, and maps from japan, where lots of his fellow townsmen were studying and working part-time as importers for small businesses of this kind. this bookstore also published a magazine entitled lixue yibian 勵學譯編 (journal of translated works for promoting learning), edited by bao and his friends. one of bao’s jobs was to translate popular japanese novels, which could be easily obtained at cheap prices from second-hand bookstores in shanghai or suzhou, and to publish these in instalments in their magazine. most of these novels were loose translations from the english.[12] konggu lan was one of the products from this line of cultural production.[13] in hindsight, the small bookstore can be seen as a nodal point connecting cultural products far exceeding its immediate field of vision. it encapsulated the ethos of the time when print technologies and markets developed and social mobility and transnational contacts increased. it was against this background that east lynne embarked on its travels across the continents of europe and asia. east lynne was written by ellen wood (1814–1887, better known as mrs henry wood) and initially appeared in serial form in a victorian middle-class family magazine, the new monthly magazine, from 1860 to 1861. with its mixture of sentiment and sensation, it gained widespread popularity among the newly literate novel readers in the mushrooming industrial cities of the mid-victorian period. it soon appeared in book form in three volumes in 1861, published by bentley, and had by 1900 sold over 500,000 copies. countless reprints appeared over the years that followed.[14] britain in the 1860s saw an upsurge in the trend of literary sensationalism, accompanying the wave of middle-class family magazines.[15] the emerging genre of so-called “sensation fiction,” as deborah wynne defines it, was based on “representations of the disruptive forces of crime and secrets upon genteel domestic life.”[16] east lynne, which is set in a middle-class family and centres on adultery, bigamy and mysterious double identities, epitomizes this genre. the story was soon translated into other european languages. a french translation appeared in 1862, entitled lady isabel—“east lynne”, translated by north peat and serialized in the paris journal la patrie before later being published as a monograph.[17] two german-language versions were published in 1862, one by markgraf in vienna and another by voigt u. günther in leipzig, translated respectively by a. scarneo and heinrich von hammer.[18] the popularity of the story was not only displayed in the countless reprints and translations, but also through plagiarism, or to speak neutrally, borrowing. a similar plot surrounding bigamy and double identities appeared in a woman’s error, a lesser-known love story written by charlotte mary brame (later known as bertha m. clay, 1836–1884), an english female writer of “mushy love stories for the english lower classes.”[19] though no hard evidence can prove brame’s plagiarism, the obvious similarity between the two novels’ core plots can hardly be coincidental, and brame’s work must have been written after 1863.[20] charlotte m. brame was an extremely prolific novelist who wrote nearly 130 novels during her lifetime. her stories appeared chiefly in popular weekly publications such as bow bells, the london reader, and the family herald, and were reprinted in book form, and later in romance series and libraries devoted to her, such as the bertha m. clay library.[21] after 1876, american publisher street & smith published a wealth of brame’s work in the usa and therefore her works have been always associated with the genre “dime novel,” i.e. the cheap, sensational fiction popular in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century america.[22] a woman’s error was one amid the legion of dime novels and was neither outstanding nor influential. chance picked it out for its voyage to the east when it was chosen by a japanese translator. a woman’s error never had any great impact in europe. but the appeal of east lynne continued. it was adapted to the stage shortly after the book’s publication, first by clifton w. tayleure (1831–1887) in 1863 and then by t. a. palmer in 1874.[23] the play enjoyed extraordinary success for decades on both sides of the atlantic, becoming part of the “melodramatic repertoire.”[24] ned albert, an american playwright who rewrote the play in 1941, declared it to be “the daddy of all the old-fashioned meller drammers, the most talked of play ever written.”[25] melodrama, as scholar of the english theatre michael booth put it, “did satisfy the taste of the [victorian] time,” and it “remained a dominant form of theatrical entertainment for a hundred years [of the nineteenth century].”[26] east lynne emerged as a predominant example of this theatrical trend. the turn of the twentieth century saw a new member joining the kingdom of popular entertainment: the film. the story’s attraction continued to exert its power in the new medium. it was repeatedly adapted to the screen by different film studios. from the early 1900s to the 1930s, more than a dozen film versions of east lynne were produced, most of them in the uk and the usa.[27] among them a sound-film version released by the fox film corporation was nominated for the academy award for “outstanding production” in 1931.[28] there is little doubt that melodrama as a film genre has a clear history of development from european literature and theatre. nineteenth-century literary and stage melodrama provided rich materials for the early american film industry.[29] the proliferation of east lynne’s screen adaptations illustrates this phenomenon clearly. the cultural trajectory of the story was not confined within the geographical boundary of the west. in 1900 it arrived in japan, arguably the most “westernized” asian country at the time. starting on 10 march 1900, a novel entitled no no hana 野の花 )(flowers in a wild field) was serialized in the tokyo tabloid yorozu chōhō 萬朝報.[30] its “author” was kuroiwa ruikō 黒岩涙香 (1862–1920), a prolific writer, journalist, and translator of nearly seventy-five western novels, including works by victor hugo, alexandre dumas père, and many lesser-known writers.[31] evidence such as location names clearly revealed that no no hana was translated from a foreign novel, but no original title was given, which was common at the time. many scholars have misidentified the famous novel east lynne as the original of no no hana because of the similar core plotline in the two novels.[32] however, latest research by japanese scholars, such as satoru saito, has proved that it was translated almost word for word from a woman’s error.[33] in 1909, no no hana was published in book form by the tokyo publishing house fusōdō 扶桑堂.[34] japanese literature was undergoing an intensive process of modernization during the meiji period (1868–1912), a period marked by wide-ranging and far-reaching social reforms. translations of western novels and the thriving of popular print media were striking features of the literary scene during the period.[35] in particular, sentimentalism and melodrama became so popular in fictional creation that scholar ken ito has called turn-of-the-century japan “an age of melodrama.”[36] the japanese translation of a woman’s error should be seen as a cultural product deeply rooted in these trends. brame’s most famous novel, dora thorne, for instance, was also translated into japanese by kikuchi yūho. this novel, under its japanese title chikyōdai, was later turned into a shinpa play classic.[37] such cases are abundant. the asian tour of the story continued after no no hana’s publication in japan. the increasingly intensive cultural interactions between china and japan after the 1895 sino-japanese war brought the story to china. as mentioned above, bao tianxiao introduced it to chinese fiction readers. at that time, their small bookstore in suzhou had closed and he had moved to shanghai and was working for the shibao 時報 (the eastern times), a daily newspaper founded in 1904. a typical metropolitan newspaper of the day, besides sections for news, editorials and features, the newspaper had columns for serial novels and other miscellaneous literary items. konggu lan, rendered from no no hana, initially appeared as a serial in the feuilleton of this newspaper in 1910.[38] the shanghai publishing house youzheng shuju 有正書局 published it in book form soon after.[39] a lot of reprints and rewritten versions emerged in the following decades. for instance, the shanghai library holds two versions of the novel: one a 1924 reprint by the youzheng shuju and the other a version rewritten by an author named wang nancun 王南邨 and published by the shanghai yuxin shuju 上海育新書局 in 1935. the novel was associated with two interrelated phenomena which bore much resemblance to the aforementioned victorian and meiji literary scenes. its serial form echoed a wave of instalment fiction that swept the print world in the last two decades of the qing dynasty (1644–1911), a period that also saw burgeoning reform efforts and the introduction of western knowledge as well as literature.[40] in addition, the plot of the novel konggu lan with its combination of sensation and sentiment also reflected a trend that perry link has termed “bourgeois fiction” or the “sentimental novel” which also arose in the late qing.[41] a few years later, konggu lan was adapted for the stage by the shanghai theatre troupe xinmin she 新民社 (new people society) managed by zheng zhengqiu 鄭正秋 (1889–1935). zheng zhengqiu was an active figure in the cultural field throughout the 1910s to the 1930s: a prolific theatre critic and writer, an editor of several newspapers and pictorials, a manager of theatre troupes, and later, a screenwriter and film director.[42] the xinmin society staged plays of the new drama (xinju 新劇) style, a new form of drama absorbing elements of western and japanese modern theatre and flourishing in china in the 1910s. after konggu lan’s debut in april 1914, the chinese stage version of the story became one of the most frequently performed plays of its time and a recognized classic of the “new drama” repertoire.[43] because of its concerns with the institutions of marriage and the family, the play was usually identified as a family drama (jiating xi). according to xu banmei 徐半梅 (1881–1958) and ouyang yuqian 歐陽予倩 (1889–1962), both practitioners of the new drama at the time, "the xinmin society" was the trendsetter which brought the genre family drama into full flower in 1914.[44] a decade later, as konggu lan’s stage adaptors zheng zhengqiu and others turned to the fledgling film industry and founded the mingxing 明星 (star) motion picture company in 1922, they again thought of the story and put it on screen in 1925. the film turned out to be a gigantic hit and generated the highest box-office revenues in the era of chinese silent cinema.[45] interestingly, when the aforementioned hollywood film adaptation of east lynne (1931, fox) was screened in shanghai in october 1931, its chinese title was konggu lanxin 空谷蘭馨 (scent of orchids in the empty valley), only slightly different from konggu lan.[46] this illustrates the close tie between east lynne and konggu lan in the contemporary mind. this was an interesting juncture where “different”—and related—cultural products met in the real time and space as well as in a virtual mediascape of narratives, images and linguistic symbols. in 1934, konggu lan was refilmed as a sound film by mingxing and enjoyed a spectacular forty-two-day run at the shanghai first-run theatre strand (xinguang 新光) in early 1935.[47] soon after, it was selected as one of the eight chinese films to enter the international film festival in moscow.[48] after that, it travelled “back” to europe, showing in berlin, paris and milan.[49] contemporary theatre publicists labelled konggu lan a “tragic love film” (aiqing pian 哀情片),[50] a film genre stemming from the literary genre “tragic love novel” (aiqing xiaoshuo 哀情小說), referring to the genre of sentimental love fiction that was extremely popular in china in the 1910s. this genre was transposed to the silver screen by means of extensive cinematic adaptation.[51] cinematic versions of konggu lan represented one of the most successful examples of the genre. the itinerary of the story’s transcultural journey outlined above clearly illustrates how the development of mass media and the cultural industries in different countries enabled the story’s travels and linked the ostensibly different local genres and trends. the british family magazine new monthly magazinein the 1860s, american story papers in the 1870s, the japanese tabloid yorozu chōhōin the 1900s, and the feuilleton of the shanghai newspaper shibao in the 1910s bore a mutual resemblance, for they were all the product of the modern publishing industries, all featured popular serial novels, anecdotes, and other trifles, and all targeted urban middle-class readerships. the british publisher bentley, american publisher street & smith, the fusōdō from japan, and the chinese youzheng shuju likewise all exemplified the flourishing publishing industries. these comparable features explain why the victorian story east lynne found its overseas readers. this transcultural trend of sensational fiction naturally spread to the areas of theatre and cinema because adaptations of popular novels for the stage and screen, or vice versa, are always commonplace. in china, the majority of popular plays that had been staged repeatedly over the centuries, especially in pre-modern times, were from popular fiction, legend and myths, such as fengshen yanyi 封神演義 (the investiture of the gods), one of the major vernacular chinese epic novels published in book form around the 1550s, shuihu zhuan 水滸傳 (water margin), a fourteenth century novel about 108 outlaws, to name but two. early modern japanese fiction often borrowed themes, tropes, and narrative elements from the theatre around the turn of the nineteenth century.[52] victorian stage melodrama and hollywood films always came from popular literature. the cultural traffic that had been accelerating at the global level since the nineteenth century connected the genres and sources of popular cultural products. as demonstrated earlier, the european genre of melodrama, the hollywood cinema, japanese shinpa drama, chinese new drama, and the tragic love film were all interlinked and had an overlapping territory of styles and sources. while the audience for printed matter and drama tended at that time to be contained within national boundaries, films could be more easily shown to a global audience thanks to film’s universally comprehensible visual languages and its industrial mode of distribution. the silent film was even more international because it did not require knowledge of the standard language on the part of the actors. the trajectory from east lynne, a woman’s error to no no hana and konggu lan showcases the mechanism of transcultural flows for popular cultural products within the increasingly globalised, industrialised and commercialised mediascapes. but what is important in the concept of mediascapes not only concerns the medium itself, but also the contents or, to quote appadurai, “image-centered, narrative-based accounts of strips of reality.”[53] in the next part, i will analyse the narrative elements of the story’s different versions. from a selection of nine versions which i have collected and studied,[54] my analysis will mainly focus on four key versions: the original novel east lynne, its spin-off a woman’s error, the japanese novel no no hana, and the chinese sound film konggu lan. these emerged, respectively, in victorian england, meiji japan, and republican china. unfortunately, i have not had a chance to view the hollywood movie of 1931, which is only available at the university of california, los angeles in the usa. otherwise this movie should be taken into account for comparative analyses. comparative readings of these available four versions will show how the “stories” connected, even though they were consumed separately in each of their cultural contexts and media forms. what are the points of connection? appealing to the transcultural communities of sentiment wood’s east lynne features lady isabel, a peer’s daughter, who marries a middle-class lawyer, archibald carlyle, whom the refined lady deeply loves. when she finds out that archibald has frequently been meeting their neighbour’s daughter, barbara hare, who has held a long-standing hidden affection towards archibald, she becomes jealous. in a moment of passion, she allows herself to be seduced by an aristocratic suitor, sir francis levison, and then elopes with him. but she is soon abandoned and unfortunately becomes the victim of a railway accident which leaves her maimed and disfigured. by mistake she is reported dead. archibald, meanwhile, has secured a divorce and has subsequently married barbara. when he places an advertisement for the post of governess in his house, isabel answers under an assumed name because she is sick with longing for her children. in spite of her careful nursing, her son dies without knowing who she really is. after this cruel blow she falls ill and reveals her identity to her husband. in a long deathbed scene she gains his forgiveness. brame’s a woman’s error features a similar triangle relationship, although its difference from east lynne is no less pronounced. isabel’s parallel figure in a woman’s error is violante temple, a country attorney’s daughter, whose innocent beauty and timid manner captivates vivian, lord selwyn of selwyn castle, at first sight. they soon are married and settle in castle selwyn, where violante constantly feels awkward and ill-at-ease, especially in the company of vivian’s cousin, beatrice leigh, who possesses imperial beauty and stately grace. beatrice, who had hoped to marry vivian, is bitterly jealous of violante and constantly taunts and torments her and manoeuvres to persecute her. driven almost mad, violante resolves to leave her husband and little son when she spots vivian and beatrice together in the garden—in her insane mind a sign of the loss of her husband’s love. she goes with her maid who happens to resembles her strongly. the maid is killed in a railway accident and is mistakenly identified as violante, leaving the true violante surviving and living in disguise in a small village for many years. longing to see her son, violante returns to her husband’s place in disguise and teaches in a school built by beatrice, who has been vivian’s wife for several years. violante’s son falls gravely ill, and not only does she nurse him devotedly, she also saves him from death when beatrice schemes to kill him. foiled and baffled, beatrice dies in a traffic accident. the story ends with violante’s revelation of her identity to her remorseful husband and the reunion of the happy family. ruikō’s no no hana is directly based on a woman’s error, and bao’s konggu lan is generally faithful to no no hana. developing principally along the plotline of a woman’s error, the japanese and chinese stories are not completely faithful to the original, however. both ruikō and bao took considerable liberties by adding local colour to their re-creations. for example, character names are all localized. vivian, violante, and beatrice are named respectively kiyoshi semizu 瀬水冽, sumiko suemura 陶村澄子, and shinako aoyagi 青柳品子 in no no hana, and lansun 蘭蓀, taocun renzhu 陶村紉珠, and qingliu rouyun 青柳柔雲 in konggu lan. the renaming was based either on pronunciation or on the meaning. for example, while the pronunciation of “semizu” is close to “selwyn”, violante’s japanese name “sumi” means clarity and beatrice’s japanese name “shina” means dignity, thus capturing each character’s temperament.[55] vivian’s chinese name “lansun” comes from the pronunciation of his japanese name’s kanji (chinese characters) “瀬水” (which is pronounced “laishui” in chinese) and carries cultural symbolism from the chinese tradition. “lan”, the orchid, which features both in his name and the novel’s title, is deemed an emblem of femininity, serenity and exquisite beauty in china and is fondly admired by the traditional chinese literati. the imagery of “the orchid in the empty valley” was taken from the famous poems such as “gu lan sheng you yuan 孤蘭生幽園” (lonely orchids grow in a wild garden.) and “lan sheng you gu wu ren shi 蘭生幽谷無人識” (no one knows the orchid growing in the deep valley.)[56] the “empty valley” (konggu) and the “pearl” (zhu 珠) in the heroine’s name are also reminiscent of two sentences in the poem by du fu杜甫 (712–770), jiaren 佳人 (the beauty): “jue dai you jia ren, you ju zai kong gu 绝代有佳人，幽居在空谷” (who is lovelier than she? yet she lives alone in an empty valley), “shi bi mai zhu hui 侍婢卖珠回” (her maid is back from selling pearls).[57] by contrast, the english title “a woman’s error” does not evoke profound cultural memories or symbolic meanings in chinese readers. the chinese title picks up the theme of the flower from the japanese title “flowers in a wild field” (no no hana), but the latter lacks cultural sophistication for the chinese. in japanese “no 野” means an uncultivated barren plain. the metaphor “no no hana” seems to refer to the protagonist sumiko suemura who captures the cultivated hero with her uncultivated beauty. this title expresses the modern nostalgia for an idyllic pre-modern life. but in chinese, the image of wild flowers sometimes implies licentious females. this may be the reason why the chinese author avoided a literal translation of the japanese title. minor changes in the plot, style, and characterization to cater to local tastes abound in no no hana and konggu lan. but the original story’s english settings are retained in both versions. for example, leicestershire, the place where violante and her father live, is named in konggu lan “lan shi te jia cun 蘭士特迦村”, a complete phonetic translation.[58] the illustrations that accompany each instalment of konggu lan in the shibao all feature western scenes (fig. 1). all these make for an odd—and rather fascinating—combination of british, japanese, and chinese elements in the hybrid cultural texts derived from the victorian story. fig. 1a: illustration to konggu lan (shibao 25 apr. 1910: 1) fig. 1b: illustration to konggu lan (shibao 27 apr. 1910: 1) no matter how many specific details differ between each version, my comparative readings of the nine versions show that the core of the story remains unchanged: the happy life of the couple a (archibald, vivian, kiyoshi, lansun) and b (isabel, violante, sumiko, renzhu) is ruined by the intrusion of c (barbara, beatrice, shinako, rouyun). the jealous wife b leaves her husband and child and is mistakenly reported dead. a and c then get married. several years later, b returns to her husband’s house in disguise, attends to her ill child, and finally reveals her true identity. this storyline includes ingredients such as rivalry, jealousy, scheming, misunderstanding, a fatal accident, a double identity, disguise, maternal love, deathbed, bigamy, retribution, and revelation, which cannot be described more aptly than as sensational and sentimental. in the following i will analyse how different versions treat the story’s three critical moments with the highest level of sensation and sentiment: the fatal night when isabel/violante/sumiko/renzhu leaves her family, the railway accident, and the heroine’s return in disguise. i shall argue that different media each applied their own specific devices and techniques to reinforce these dramatic elements of sensation and sentiment. that fatal night fig. 2a: 1881 poster of east lynne (source: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/var1994001797/pp/. accessed 30 oct. 2012. courtesy of library of congress, usa). fig. 2b: book cover of 1935 konggu lan (courtesy of shanghai library, china). the first apex of the story’s plotline, in all its numerous variations, is that “fatal night”, to cite the oxford professor who devoured east lynne with great interest in 1862. an 1881 poster for a stage play of east lynne features that night with a depiction of isabel in agony on finding archibald and barbara together in the moonlight (fig. 2 left). the book cover of konggu lan’s rewritten version published by the yuxin shuju in 1935 also features the night with lansun and rouyun cuddling under the full moon (fig. 2 right). this cover picture invited readers to look from the point of view of the jealous heroine and to sympathize with her feelings. in the 1935 film, the scene opens with a long take with the camera panning slowly across a moonlit garden following renzhu’s movements to a western-style pavilion where lansun and rouyun are seated in two chairs. the camera tracks back to renzhu, who hides herself in the shadow of a tree and peeps. this shot is followed by a close-up of renzhu, whose facial expression tells us of her shock. the next is a medium shot in which rouyuan, proud and radiant, and lansun, half drunk, converse intimately. cutting back to renzhu’s close-up, and back again to the medium shot, we hear that lansun repents at not having married rouyun. in the next close-up, we see renzhu weeping in despair. the last shot of the scene resembles the first long take, featuring the garden and renzhu walking hastily back while the sound of the music from the banquet hall can be heard in the background. the mise-en-scene, cutting, cinematography and sound are not artistically sophisticated, but all adhere to the principles of hollywood’s classical narrative cinema and convey the feeling from renzhu’s point of view as she peeps and lifts the secret. rouyun’s triumphant smile bathing in the bright moonlight is in stark contrast to renzhu’s desperate face in the dark tree shadow, and the gay music from the banquet hall reinforces the gloom surrounding the heartbroken wife. the next scene is set in renzhu’s boudoir, where she is writing a farewell letter to her husband and takes leave of her infant son. the scene includes a key clue for her mistaken death later, i.e. the resemblance of renzhu and her maid, cui’er. in one shot at the beginning of the scene, renzhu appears in a white dress to the left, calling cui’er, played by the same actress wearing a dark dress, who enters from the background on the right. in the next shot they stand face to face. the cinematographic technique of “double exposure” was applied here to create this effect and it is vital to the development of the plot. this technique had already been used in the silent chinese version in 1925. mingxing’s filmmakers and publicists were keenly aware of advantage of film in this respect and boasted in the ads for the silent version: “the film was shot with the latest cinematographic technique in america.”[59] spectators were thrilled by the trick effect. as one reviewer wrote, “zhang zhiyun plays two roles in this film. the two characters appear in one shot with different facial expressions. viewers can hardly detect that they are [depicted by one and] the same person.”[60] this trick had an ongoing appeal for film-goers at the time. for example zimei hua 姊妹花 (twin sisters, 1934), the most successful film at box office at the time, features a pair of twin sisters both played by hu die 胡蝶, the same actress who played renzhu and cui’er in 1935 konggu lan. cinema’s capacity to produce the sensational effect of total resemblance was unrivalled. there is no such character as the maid in the novel east lynne. but a woman’s error features such a one, theresa bowden, whose resemblance with “her lady” is introduced in beatrice’s words: “do you not see how much she is like you? her hair is of the same shade, she is of the same height, the same complexion. it is a grave mistake to have engaged such a person. only imagine what remarks people may make!” [61] in no no hana, ruikō described the maid’s chance resemblance to sumiko from the perspective of sumiko herself.[62] the 1935 chinese novel introduces cui’er by saying: “her figure and complexion has a sixty to seventy percent resemblance to renzhu.”[63] but words certainly cannot generate the sensational feeling as effectively as the technical method of double exposure did. in konggu lan’s 1914 stage play, there was no mention even of the resemblance; cui’er is only mistaken for renzhu because she had taken renzhu’s handbag.[64] a stage play does not allow one actor to play two roles simultaneously in one scene. the film medium amplified the victorian novel’s sensational elements. and the fatal night comprises the first crucial development of the story in its various versions. that fatal night is followed by a more sensational event: a train accident. a collision! public anxiety over the intensity of sensory input and stimulation was part of the modern experience in turn-of-the-century western societies. the traffic hazard was one of the sources of this modern stress and pervaded the pages of the newspapers during the period.[65] this general mental state may explain why the railway accident appears at the centre of the plot in all versions of the story under discussion. in east lynne, the accident happens in the small french town of cammère: “the train was within a short distance of the station when there came a sudden shock and crash as of the day of doom; and engine, carriages, and passengers lay in one confused mass at the foot of a steep embankment. the gathering darkness added to the awful confusion.”[66] charlotte brame had the crash take place near the italian town of sedi: “…there came a terrible shock, a terrible noise, a hissing of stream, a crashing as of broken carriages, a rushing, blinding, bewildering shock, as two trains met with deadly force, and one forced the other over the embankment into the vine-wreathed valley below! a collision!”[67] ruikō’s description is less sensational, merely saying that the crash causes people to feel that the sky is collapsing and the earth is cracking.[68] bao tianxiao followed ruikō’s text, but portrayed the scene from cui’er’s angle: “[she] suddenly heard a great crash like the collapsing of the sky and the sundering of the earth: two trains collided.”[69] while the writers were at liberty to describe such an accident as freely as they liked, the playwrights were faced with far more practical constraints. in the 1941 stage adaptation of east lynne, audiences only learn of the accident from isabel’s conversation with her maid: “(grave) i was in the accident, joyce, and they mistook another woman for me and buried her in my name.”[70] no visual representations are provided. the sequence showing the incident in the 1935 film is made up of nine shots: (close-up) ringing bell at the station. (close-up) railway signals. (close-up) rotating train wheels and rails, with a foot stepping on the signal controller in the foreground at the lower left of the frame. (medium shot) cui’er boarding the train, with back to us. (long shot) dining table in the banquet hall, lansun drunk. (extreme long shot) train a travelling through the dark night from left to right. (long shot) train b travelling to the left, with its locomotive pumping out clouds of white smoke; roars getting louder. (long shot) train a entering from the left; collision with train b; explosion. (close-up) hands typing telegraph; sound of the typing, short and quick, creating a tense atmosphere. director zhang shichuan 张石川 (1890–1953) effectively employed rhythmic editing and other filmic devices to present the deadly accident. close-ups of the bell, the railway signals, the train wheels and the foot, which spliced together in a normal pace, portray the ominous silence. this silence sets off the imminent fatal crash and serves as a psychological cue to the audience about what will shortly happen. the sound effect heightens the ominous feeling in shot 7 when the roars grow louder and louder. inserting shot 5 featuring the bright splendid banquet hall makes sharp contrast with the exterior scene of the dark night and reinforces the emotional intensity of the sequence. without the trains, shots 6 and 7 would have made an idyllic scene like a chinese traditional-style landscape painting, with a bright full moon hanging over the silhouettes of the mountains against the evening sky. the trains are portrayed as a devastating power that spoils the tranquillity of the countryside, especially in the depiction of the roars, the smoke, and the explosion. this depiction is reminiscent of two films featuring a bandit/warlord hold-up of a train in china: the 1929 soviet silent film the blue express (goluboy ekspress, dir. ilya trauberg, sovkino) and the 1932 paramount film shanghai express (dir. josef von sternberg). the train seems to have a common feature in these films, all being presented as an avatar of danger. this 1935 film relies on film techniques to represent sensation and sentiment, rather than the gruesomely realistic method adopted earlier in a film entitled zhang xinsheng (1923), which caused much controversy at the time. the film about a sensational murder case contained “realistic” scenes of a public autopsy, depicting the corpse being cut open and organs being removed. these scenes were filmed in close-up and “the realistic effect” disgusted everyone in the audience.[71] konggu lan treats the dead differently. as we can see in shot 9, the gravity of the incident is conveyed by the audio-visual depiction of a typing telegraph. following this are several shots describing lansun and renzhu’s father in the morgue mourning over the dead woman under her white cloth. there is one close-up shot of the cloth-covered body, but no direct portrayal of the mangled face, which is only mentioned in speech by a railway employee. by that time shanghai filmmaking had outgrown its obsession with morbid reality. the film-makers had found new ways to represent sensation with the medium. it is interesting to note that the 1914 stage play includes a glimpse of rouyun’s “bloody face” falling from her horse-carriage and a similar scene with cui’er showing her “true” crushed face after the collision.[72] charlotte brame likewise describes the scene in a sensational manner: “they raised the body—it was that of a woman, young and fair—but from those strong men rose a cry of dread, as they saw what once had been a fair face, crushed and mangled, all semblance of humanity marred and deadened.”[73] this accident and the misidentification are the prelude to the most dramatic development in the story. the aching heart in disguise the dramatic turn of that fatal night and the deadly crash leads to the crescendo of the story’s sentimental and sensational power, which unfolds in its second half. in a nutshell, this power lies in the dynamics of disguise and revelation. in east lynne, readers observe from a maid’s eyes the disguised appearance of lady isabel, now madame vine, the governess of her former family: “wilson was thinking she never saw such a mortal fright as the new governess. the blue spectacles capped everything, she decided; and what on earth made her tie up her throat, in that fashion, for? as well wear a man’s collar and stock, at once!”[74] in a woman’s error, violante becomes mrs rivers, the teacher of the charity school established by beatrice, with her long golden hair now closely cropped and wearing a close widow’s cap and coarse black dresses.[75] renzhu in the 1925 silent film wears dark spectacles (see fig.3 right). the sound film presents renzhu disguising herself in a more theatrical fashion. upon deciding to answer the ad for the teacher’s post, she takes out a book entitled gaizhuang bianrong shu 改妝變容術 (methods of disguise and changing appearance), which is shot in close-up. the next close-up is a clock which reads a quarter past one, and then a quarter to three. taking one and a half hours to change her appearance according to the instructions in the book, renzhu is now wearing a pair of glasses (not dark spectacles), with her hair held up by a comb, and speaking with a strong accent. when she knocks at the door of her own house and pretends to be a visitor, even the servant and her father fail to recognize her. returning to their old homes in disguise, the heroines in the various versions of the story are all thrown into a deep emotional turmoil. they feel jealous when they see their bitter rivals taking their own places beside their beloved husbands. they suffer great torment when they face their own dear children but cannot declare their true identities. most dramatic is perhaps the moment when each of them faces the photo or portrait of herself as the “deceased” wife and mother. one of the only two illustrations in the 1909 japanese book no no hana depicts this scene (fig. 3 left). in a woman’s error, when violante’s son ushers her in to look at the picture of his “deceased mother”, “[h]er heart beat, and her brain burned; but it must be done! slowly she raised her eyes. was she ever like that?—so lovely, so bright.”[76] renzhu’s reaction in bao tianxiao’s novel is: “her heart was aching and she wished to rush out of the room immediately.”[77] in the 1935 film, it is also the son who introduces the disguised teacher to his mother’s photo. it is hanging in the drawing room of the house, flanked on each side by a couplet written in nice calligraphy that read: “qiu gui lan mo ren, lu xie lei cheng zhu 秋歸蘭莫紉，露瀉淚成珠” (“the autumn approached, unbearably for the orchid. the dew gathered, like tears growing into pearls.” emphases mine.) composed ingeniously with the inclusion of renzhu’s and lansun’s names, the couplet conveys the husband’s feelings of grief, remorse, and love. standing before the photo, a reaction shot reveals renzhu’s intense emotion. the silent film features a similar scene and a still was published in a fan magazine in 1926 (see fig. 3 right). fig. 3a: illustration in 1909 no no hana (courtesy of national diet library, japan). fig. 3b: still of 1926 konggu lan (xiju dianying 1.2, 1926). a similar scenario featuring a person returning to their old home in disguise also appeared in a popular novel of the 1920s and a 1930s chinese film based on the novel. the novel, love and duty (title of the chinese version: lian’ai yu yiwu 戀愛與義務), was written originally in french by s. horose (chinese name: 華羅琛, 1883–1970), a polish woman who married a chinese engineer and lived in china.[78] the commercial press in shanghai published the chinese version in 1924 and the english version in 1926.[79] it soon became very successful and the lianhua film company in shanghai produced a silent film based on the novel in 1931, directed by bu wancang 卜萬蒼 (1903–1974). the story features an educated woman (played by ruan lingyu 阮玲玉) who runs from her arranged marriage to be with her true love and ends up suffering from her lover’s death, from poverty and from moral condemnation as a baby girl’s unmarried mother. one of the most dramatic moments in the story is a scene in which the protagonist returns as a seamstress to her own house many years later and discovers that her daughter is in love with the son she had with her first husband.[80] the novel was written after east lynne and its various spin-offs, but we have no evidence to pin down any exact influence between these works. i would suggest that the (un)coincidental similarity in the plots of love and duty and east lynne/konggu lan illustrates the powerful wave of sentiment and sensationalism in the popular mediaspheres around the globe throughout the long period under discussion. it is interesting to note that a french version of horose’s love and duty was published under the title “la symphonie des ombres chinoises: idylle” by the paris publisher editions de la madeleine in 1932.[81] the 1931 chinese film reappeared in uruguay in the 1990s after being “lost” for half a century. these facts imply that there are lots of unknown global travel stories concerning the narratives, images and plots that carry sentimental and sensational powers, as displayed in love and duty, east lynne, and their numerous fellow cultural products. no matter how specific the different versions from east lynne to konggu lan are to their respective cultures and media, the three critical moments injected with a large shot of sensation and sentiment comprise the core of the “stories” and form the key dynamic of their appeal to the local reading and viewing publics. the “stories,” seen in each of their specific cultural contexts, have their reasons to be sensational and sentimental. scandals, crimes, mysteries and accidents were the most savoured themes of both victorian sensation novels and newspaper reports.[82] victorian literary sensationalism has been regarded as a response to an “anxious” age marked by rapid industrialization and urbanization. as wynne summarizes, modern anxieties came from shifting class identities, financial insecurity, the precarious social position of single women, sexuality, failed and illegal marriages, insanity and mental debilitation, fears of criminality and the perception that modernity itself was undermining domestic life.[83] sensation fiction worked as an articulation of modernity, satisfying the contemporary reading public’s desire for an imaginative representation of their feelings. as for the related quality of sentiment, it is not at all surprising that east lynne/a woman’s error produced such a “sad maternal sob story” that drew generations of sympathetic audiences to shed bitter tears over it.[84] as is known, the “sentimental novel” was a dominant literary genre in england in the eighteenth century. the most famous works of this genre include samuel richardson’s sir charles grandison (1754), laurence sterne’s sentimental journey through france and italy (1768) and henry mackenzie’s the man of feeling (1771). sentimentalism was often viewed as “a technique for reviving the role of emotion in human conduct” in an increasingly secularised world.[85] east lynne was clearly influenced by this genre of literary creation. japanese readers of no no hana would likewise shed tears over sad stories. tears were ubiquitous in what were termed “weeping books” (nakihon), which remained a dominant form of popular fiction throughout the nineteenth century. jonathan zwicker even argues that the rise of sentimental fiction (ninjōbon) to dominance surrounding the turn of the nineteenth century marks a new “aesthetic imaginary” and “social imaginary,” and so “the history of tears is also, to a large extent, the history of nineteen-century japan.”[86] this literary trend was the cultural product of print and the growth of the domestic literary market. specifically, this took place at the intersection of several important trends in cultural consumption in japan around the time: a morphological shift within fiction away from a literature of linguistic play to a literature of plot; the emergence of lending libraries and the centrality of fiction titles in these libraries; and the rising importance of the book in everyday life.[87] it is worth noting that a significant number of vernacular chinese novels, including romantic and sentimental fiction of late imperial china such as jin ping mei 金瓶梅 (the plum in the golden vase) and honglou meng 紅樓夢 (the dream of the red chamber), made their way onto the japanese book market from the mid-eighteenth century onward.[88] the japanese literary field had been connected to the chinese literary world of sentiment in this presumably pre-modern period. the european novel’s arrival in japan in the meiji era should be viewed as part of the continuous process of importing fiction, and it was predominantly the “plot and sentiment” of this foreign literature that carried the day. works like crime and punishment were appreciated simply as detective stories.[89] seen against this cultural background, it is reasonable that a woman’s error landed in meiji japan and evoked tears in its japanese readers. the warm reception of konggu lan in china was also unsurprising. first of all, there is a long tradition of sentimental-erotic literature in china, a tradition that focuses on the articulation of qing 情, emotional yearning, through the literary creation of poetry, drama and fiction. this tradition is exemplified by some of the most distinguished chinese literary works, such as xixiang ji 西廂記 (romance of the west chamber), mudan ting 牡丹亭 (the peony pavilion), taohua shan 桃花扇 (peach blossom fan), and changsheng dian 長生殿 (the hall of everlasting life).[90] many of these works, as mentioned above, entered the japanese literary market before the mid-nineteenth century. but the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw a different direction to the cultural flow between china and japan. chinese military failure in the sino-japanese war in 1895 “awakened” chinese intellectuals and japan gradually became a model to follow and a cultural bridge between china and the west. the trend for sentimental fiction that prospered in late nineteenth-century china was a result of the profound interplay between china’s own literary tradition and western/japanese influences. according to perry link’s study, a majority of late qing novels, probably two-thirds, were translations of western stories, most of them english and french, by authors such as dumas, dickens, and haggard. most chinese translations were based on japanese versions of these novels. and “the world of sentiment” was one of the main interests of chinese translators, such as lin shu 林紓 (1852–1924).[91] sentimental novels also dominated local creations, such as the so-called “mandarin ducks and butterflies” fiction. the appeal of melodramatic sentimentalism to novel readers was naturally shared by theatre-goers and movie viewers, who might constitute overlapping groups. zhang shichuan’s wife, for example, summarized her husband’s style as such:[92] how much suffering the protagonists had to endure at the beginning of his films! soft-hearted women audiences were bound to be moved to tears, and soak a couple of handkerchiefs. … his philosophy was that a film that fails to make ladies cry can hardly please them … the emergence of konggu lan was embedded in this cultural setting. taken together, each version of this story, initially invented in east lynne, fitted perfectly into its own specific social and cultural context. victorian readers of east lynne would never have imagined the existence of the japanese novel no no hana, which tells a similar story. most chinese movie audiences weeping for renzhu’s misery in the darkness would have had no idea of the story’s british origins. they were positioned in their own local temporalities. this study of the victorian story’s transcultural tour, however, has presented a picture of which local audiences were totally unaware. in spite of their ignorance of the big picture, they actually read/viewed the same story to a certain extent. i would argue that this fact raises an interesting issue: readers and theatre/movie audiences of the different versions of the story indeed shared an emotional or psychological bond and created a virtual “community of sentiment” comparable, to a degree, to internet fan clubs of the present day.[93] sandra annett uses the term “community of sentiment” to discuss the role of global media in the formation of fan communities. global fan communities of fashions, brands or stars are prevalent today. for example, fans of japanese manga can create their communities easily via internet, say, on facebook, twitter, or blogs. in doing so, they are forming a transnational public and participants are aware of each other’s existence and maintain active interactions in the communities.[94] the early version of “community of sentiment” brought by east lynne and all its spin-offs is certainly different. it can only be called a “community” in an imaginative sense. consumption of the story/stories was asynchronous, and consumers in different countries had no actual communication with one another. by terming it “community,” i am attempting to highlight the connectivity in terms of the sentimental and sensational feelings triggered by the same core elements of the story. in this sense, this story, be it east lynne, a woman’s error, no no hana, or konggu lan, differed from its “ancestors” with similar sentimental traits, as for example the aforementioned 1754 english novel sir charles grandison, the chinese novel honglou meng (the dream of the red chamber), etc. the latter novels were only appreciated within certain geographical boundaries. the story of east lynne and its spin-offs, however, generated transcultural interactions between peoples in different countries, even if this was mostly unknown to their actual readership/spectatorship. this was the result of the globalisation process at its early stage. i would like to name the global readership/spectatorship of the story’s different versions a “community of sentiment” in this imaginative sense, and i would suggest that this “community” may be seen as the prototype of global mediascapes of the present day in terms of the circulation of stories, information, and images on the global scale. what is the significance about this virtual community of sentiment? concepts of “community” and “sentiment” have obtained much academic attention in recent decades. benedict anderson has argued, in his famous book imagined communities, that the modern origin of nation and nationalism may lie in the popular imaginary of shared communities facilitated by the development of the print industry and other things.[95] sentiment or emotion is one of the bonds that make a community a community, and has been proposed as an important lens to look at the past. haiyan lee, for example, has emphasized the centrality of sentiment in modern chinese literature and culture, and argues that discourses of sentiment are “articulatory practices that participate in (re)defining the social order and (re)producing forms of self and sociality.”[96] in her study of popular literature in republican china, the so-called “mandarin ducks and butterflies” school, she argues that “butterfly sentimentalism helped create an affective community within the literary public sphere… [and] provided the ethical and epistemological basis of self-definition for the urban middle classes.”[97] lee’s observations are insightful. but the case study examined in this article has expanded on her argument and suggested that the “affective community” built through sentimentalism was not restricted to the literary public sphere within national boundaries, but had profound interactions with foreign trends and transmedia practices. global flows of cultural products along with commodities and concepts not only gave shape to imagined communities that were called nations, but also linked people at elusive mental levels across national boundaries. through the methodological prism of transculturality, fixed categories and classical texts have gained new meanings. conclusion from lévi-strauss’s structuralist perspective, it is the story—rather than the language, style, music, etc.—that matters for a myth’s raison d’etre, as shown in the epigram to this article.[98] in a similar vein, i argue that from east lynne, a woman’s error, to no no hana and konggu lan, it is the story with its main plot evoking sensation and sentiment that mattered/matters for the historical audience around the globe and for our understanding of the big picture of its transcultural travels. neither of the different versions of the story was intended to be a myth. it is, as east lynne’s subtitle states, a “story of modern life.”[99] among the teacups of east lynne, as literary critic dinah birch accurately puts it, “socially mobile victorians, dogged by uncertainty,” recognised “a world that expressed their deepest fears.”[100] the same may hold true of the japanese and chinese who were confronting a chaotic “modern” world in their own ways. “no”/wild field in the japanese title, and “konggu”/empty valley in the chinese title, may both indicate the contemporary nostalgia for the more tranquil and uncultivated world of the past. in this sense, the story, in its manifold variations, can be understood as a modern “myth” in a secular age. the myth, in its original usage, addresses human beings’ primitive fears, and in this sense we can read the story/stories under discussion as a modern myth mirroring modern people’s mental state. and most importantly, this modern myth travelled and went through transcultural and trans-media adaptations, translations, and rewritings. in this way, the story connected people invisibly. speaking of the japanese encounter with the west in the mid-nineteenth century, jonathan zwicker raised a thought-provoking view: “for most, the west was not first encountered at the level of ideology or institution, but at the level of the potboiler.”[101] the case studied in this essay seems to illustrate this. the victorian “potboiler” introduced people across geographical boundaries to a world of sensation and sentiment, thanks to the flourishing media and entertainment industries and the burgeoning wave of urban popular culture, or, in short, the global trend of modernization since the industrial revolution. although the oxford professor of history and the 20-year-old prince of wales, the fervent readers of east lynne, would never have imagined the existence of the novel’s chinese versions and audiences, and although kuroiwa ruikō, bao tianxiao, and zheng zhengqiu would never have consciously considered themselves as agents of an international trend, all of them were in fact involved in a global phenomenon of popular cultural production, circulation and consumption. in our digital age, the speed of circulation of east lynne and its spin-offs may strike us as laughably slow, but the messages and meanings conveyed by the stories certainly merit our discussions and further reflections. references abel, richard. silent film. new brunswick, n.j.: rutgers university press, 1996. albert, ned. east lynne: mrs. henry wood’s celebrated novel made into a spirited and powerful mellow drammer in three acts. new york: samuel french, 1941. anderson, benedict. imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. london, new york: verso, 1991. appadurai, arjun. the social life of things: commodities in cultural perspectives. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1986. ———. “disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy.” public culture 2.2 (spring 1990): 1–24. ———. modernity at large. minneapolis: minnesota university press, 1996. bao, tianxiao 包天笑. konggu lan 空谷蘭 (orchid in an empty valley). shanghai: youzheng shuju, 1924. ———. chuanying lou huiyi lu 釧影樓回憶錄 (chuanying lou memoirs). hong kong: dahua chubanshe, 1971. ———. chuanying lou huiyi lu xupian釧影樓回憶錄續篇 (sequel to chuanying lou memoirs). hong kong: dahua chubanshe, 1971. birch, dinah. “fear among the teacups.” review of east lynne by ellen wood, edited by andrew maunder. london review of books, vol. 23, no. 3, february 8, 2001, 22–23 (online version http://www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n03/birc01_.html) accessed 25 oct. 2012. booth, michael r. english melodrama. london: jenkins, 1965. ———. theatre in the victorian age. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1991. brame, charlotte m. a woman’s error. london: associated newspapers, n.d. cheng, bugao 程步高. yingtan yijiu 影壇憶舊 (reminiscences of the film world). beijing: zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1983. cox, j. randolph. the dime novel companion: a source book. westport, conn: greenwood press, 2000. cvetkovich, ann. mixed feelings: feminism, mass culture and victorian sensationalism. new brunswick, nj: rutgers university press, 1992. davies, stevie. “mrs henry wood’s east lynne: introduction,” in east lynne, by mrs henry wood. everyman's library: dent, 1985, http://www.steviedavies.com/henrywood.html accessed 25 oct. 2012. des forges, alexander. “building shanghai, one page at a time: the aesthetics of installment fiction at the turn of the century.” the journal of asian studies 62.3 (aug. 2003): 781–810. ———. mediasphere shanghai: the aesthetics of cultural production. honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 2007. dong, xinyu 董新宇. kan yu bei kan zhijian: dui zhongguo wusheng dianying de wenhua yanjiu看與被看之間：對中國無聲電影的文化研究 (between seeing and being seen: a cultural study of chinese silent cinema). beijing: beijing shifan daxue chubanshe, 2000. drozdz, gregory. “brame, charlotte mary (1836–1884).” in h. c. g. matthew and brian harrison, eds. oxford dictionary of national biography. vol. 7. oxford: oxford university press, 2004, 311–312. du, fu 杜甫. “jia ren 佳人” (the beauty). in fu donghua 傅東華, ed. du fu shi 杜甫詩 (poems by du fu). taipei: taiwan shangwu yinshu guan, 1968, 90. fan, yanqiao 范煙橋. “mingxing yingpian gongsi nianbiao 明星影片公司年表” (a chronology of the mingxing motion picture company). mingxing banyuekan 7.1 (oct. 10, 1936). ———. “minguo jiupai xiaoshuo shilue 民國舊派小說史略” (history of the old-style fiction in the republican period). in wei shaochang 魏紹昌, ed. yuanyang hudie pai yanjiu ziliao 鴛鴦蝴蝶派研究資料 (research materials on the mandarin ducks and butterflies school). 2 vols. shanghai: shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1984. he, xiujun 何秀君. “zhang shichuan he mingxing yingpian gongsi 張石川和明星影片公司” (zhang shichuan and the mingxing motion picture company). in wenhua shiliao 文史資料 1 (historical and cultural materials), edited by wenshi ziliao yanjiu wenyuanhui, 110–165. beijing: wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1980. herget, winfried. “villains for pleasure? the paradox of nineteenth-century (american) melodrama.” in melodrama! the mode of excess from early america to hollywood, edited by frank kelleter et al., 19–34. heidelberg: universitaetsverlag winter, 2007. horose, s. 羅琛. lian’ai yu yiwu 戀愛與義務 (love and duty). shanghai: commercial press, 1924. ———. love and duty: the love story of a chinese girl. shanghai: commercial press, 1926. ———. la symphonie des ombres chinoises: idylle. paris: editions de la madeleine, 1932. hsia, c. t. “hsü chen-ya’s yü-li hun: an essay in literary history and criticism.” renditions 17&18 (spring and autumn 1982): 199–240. huang, xuelei. “commercializing ideologies: intellectuals and cultural production at the mingxing (star) motion picture company, 1922–1938”. dissertation, heidelberg university, 2009. iizuka, yo 飯塚容. “‘konggu lan’ o megutte: kuroiwa ruikō ‘no no hana’ no henyō 『空谷蘭』をめぐって: 黒岩涙香『野の花』の変容” (a study of “kong gu lan”: the reception of kuroiwa ruikō’s “no no hana” in china). chūōdaigaku bungakubu kiyō 81 (march 1998): 93–115. ito, ken k. an age of melodrama: family, gender, and social hierarchy in the turn-of-the-century japanese novel. stanford, calif.: stanford university press, 2008. johannsen, albert. the house of beadle & adams. norman, oklahoma: university of oklahoma press, 1950. kaplan, elizabeth ann. motherhood and representation: the mother in popular culture and melodrama. london: routledge, 1992. kampen, thomas. “die chinesische verfilmung des romans love and duty der europäischen schriftstellerin horose.” in roswitha badry, maria rohrer, karin steiner, eds. liebe, sexualität, ehe und partnerschaft—paradigmen im wandel (freiburg: fwpf, 2009), 197–204. law, graham. serializing fiction in the victorian press. basingstoke and new york: palgrave, 2000. lee, haiyan. “all the feelings that are fit to print: the community of sentiment and the literary public sphere in china, 1900–1918.” modern china 27.3 (2001): 291–327. ———. revolution of the heart: a genealogy of love in china, 1900–1950. stanford: stanford university press, 2007. lee, leo ou-fan. the romantic generation of modern chinese writers. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press, 1973. lévi-strauss, claude.  “the structural study of myth.” the journal of american folklore 68, no. 270 (oct.–dec. 1955): 428–444. li, bai 李白. “gu feng, qi san shi ba 古風 其三十八” (in the old manner, no. 38). in li bai, li taibai quanji 李太白全集 (complete works of li taibai). vol. 1. beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1977, 136. link, perry. mandarin ducks and butterflies: popular fiction in early twentieth-century chinese cities. berkeley: university of california press, 1981. lipkin, steven n. “melodrama.” in handbook of american film genres, edited by gehring, wes d. new york: greenwood press, 1988, 285–302. liu, siyuan. “the impact of shinpa on early chinese huaju.” dissertation, university of pittsburgh, 2006. maunder, andrew. introduction to east lynne by mrs henry wood. peterborough: broadview press, 2000, 9–36. mitchell, s. “sentiment and suffering: women’s recreational reading of the 1860s.” victorian studies 21 (1977): 29–45. mostow, joshua s. ed. the columbia companion to modern east asian literature. new york: columbia university press, 2003. mu zi 木子. “zheng zhengqiu shengping xinian 鄭正秋生平系年.” (a chronology of zheng zhengqiu). dangdai dianying 1 (1989): 96–103. ouyang yuqian 歐陽予倩. “tan wenming xi 談文明戲” (“on the civilized play”). in ouyang yuqian xiju lunwen ji 歐陽予倩戲劇論文集 (an anthology of ouyang yuqian's essays on theatre). shanghai: shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1984, 175–231. richetti, john, et al., eds. the columbia history of the british novel. new york: columbia university press, 1994. ruikō, kuroiwa 黒岩涙香. no no hana 野の花 (flowers in a wild field). tokyo: fusōdō, 1909. digital version: http://kindai.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/871978 (vol. 1); http://kindai.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/871979(vol. 2). accessed 25 oct. 2012. seto, hiroshi 瀨戶宏. minming she shangyan yanmu yilan民鳴社上演演目一覽 (a catalogue of the plays performed by the minming troupe). nagoya: suishobo, 2003. digital version: http://pub.idisk-just.com/fview/wlq4qsijxnyjavg__fqlzv2hoy4w1og8g_d0lboi7fvbpfnt2yu6nfx5mqum3tykka2hp1qlxqq/5rcr6bo056s-5lik5ryu5ryu55uu5lia6kan.pdf accessed 25 oct. 2012. ———. “xinmin she shangyan yanmu yilan 新民社上演演目一覽” (a catalogue of the plays performed by the xinmin troupe). setsudai jinmonkagaku 摂大人文科学, no. 9 (2001). digital version: http://pub.idisk-just.com/fview/wlq4qsijxnyjavg__fqlzv2hoy4w1og8g_d0lboi7fvbpfnt2yu6nfx5mqum3tykka2hp1qlxqq/5paw5rcr56s-5lik5ryu5ryu55uu5lia6kan.pdf. accessed 25 oct. 2012. shanghai shi chuantong jumu bianji weiyuan hui 上海市傳統劇目編輯委員會 ed. chuantong jumu huibian: tongsu huaju 傳統劇目匯編：通俗話劇 (collection of traditional plays: popular spoken drama), vol. 6. shanghai: shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1959. silver, mark. “the detective novel’s novelty: native and foreign narrative forms in kuroiwa ruikō’s kettō no hate.” japan forum 16.2 (2004): 191–205. singer, ben. melodrama and modernity: early sensational cinema and its contexts. new york: columbia university press, 2001. su, zhe 蘇轍. “zhong lan 種蘭” (growing orchids). in su zhe, su zhe ji 蘇轍集 (an anthology of su zhe), vol. 1. beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1990, 340. tarumoto, teruo 樽本照雄 ed., xinbian zengbu qingmo minchu xiaoshuo mulu 新編增補清末民初小說目錄 (new edition of the catalogue of fiction in the late qing and early republic). jinan: qilu shushe, 2002. ———. “bao tianxiao honyaku genpon o tankyū suru 包天笑翻訳原本を探求する” (exploring the origins of bao tianxiao’s translations). shinmatsu shōsetsu kara 清末小説から(通訊)45 (1 april 1997). thompson, john b. the media and modernity: a social theory of the media. cambridge: polity, 1995. tie rou 鐵柔. “xinmin xinju she zhi qianhou ben konggu lan 新民新劇社之前後本空谷蘭” (the two episodes of konggu lan staged by the xinmin new play troupe). juchang yuebao 1 (jan. 1914). wang nancun 王南邨. konggu lan 空谷蘭 (orchid in an empty valley). shanghai: yuxin shuju, 1935. wood, ellen. east lynne. peterborough: broadview press, 2000; new york: oxford university press, 2005. ———. lady isabel – “east lynne”. translated by north peat. paris: aux bureaux de “la patrie”, 1862. ———. east-lynne: ein bild aus dem englischen familienleben. translated by a. scarneo. wien: markgraf, 1862. ———. east lynne. translated by heinrich von hammer. leipzig, voigt u. günther, 1862. wynne, deborah. the sensation novel and the victorian family magazine. basingstoke and new york: palgrave, 2001. xinwen bao 新闻报 (the news daily) xu banmei 徐半梅. huaju chuangshi qi huiyi lu 話劇創時期回憶錄 (a recollection of the pioneering period of spoken drama). beijing: zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1957. yi hua 毅華. “guochan dianying qucai xiaoshuo zhi xiansheng 國產電影取材名小說之先聲” (the pioneering domestic film adapted from a famous novel). liangyou 15 feb.1926, 16. zheng peiwei 鄭培為 and liu guiqing 劉桂清, eds. zhongguo wusheng dianying juben 中國無聲電影劇本 (scripts of chinese silent films). beijing: zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1996. “zhou jianyun hu die zai su’e 周劍云胡蝶在蘇俄” (zhou jianyun and hu die in russia). mingxing banyuekan 1.4 (june 1, 1935): 10–15. zwicker, jonathan e. practices of the sentimental imagination: melodrama, the novel, and the social imaginary in nineteenth-century japan. cambridge, mass.: harvard university asia center: distributed by harvard university press, 2006. [1] i would like to thank the following scholars for their thoughtful comments: sandra annett, cheng wen-huei, monica juneja, andrea hacker, irmela hijiya-kirschnereit, barbara mittler, rudolf wagner, and two anonymous reviewers. i also wish to thank the following colleagues and friends for helping me collect various versions of the story from the uk, the us, japan and china and providing useful research materials: chen mo, joscha chung, max ko-wu huang, toby lincoln, satoru saito, sun yang, teruo tarumoto, zhiwei xiao, zhu yanhua. special thanks go to all members of the research group “rethinking trends: transcultural flows in global public(s)” within the heidelberg cluster of excellence. all errors remain my own responsibility. [2] r. e. prothero and g. g. bradley, the life and correspondence of arthur penrhyn stanley, 2 vols. (london: john murray, 1893), ii. 67–69. quoted in elisabeth jay, “introduction”, in ellen wood, east lynne (new york: oxford university press, 2005), vii. [3] “zhongyang kaiying konggu lan zhi shengkuang”, shenbao 17 feb. 1926: benbu zengkan 1; also see fan yanqiao, “mingxing yingpian gongsi nianbiao,” mingxing banyuekan 7.1 (oct. 10, 1936): n.p. [4] john b. thompson, the media and modernity: a social theory of the media (cambridge: polity, 1995), 4. [5] arjun appadurai, the social life of things: commodities in cultural perspectives (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1986). [6] stevie davies, “mrs henry wood’s east lynne,” introduction to east lynne, by henry wood, everyman’s library, dent, 1985, http://www.steviedavies.com/henrywood.html accessed 25 oct. 2012. [7] cf. elizabeth ann kaplan, “the maternal melodrama: the sacrifice paradigm: ellen wood’s east lynne and its play and film versions,” in motherhood and representation: the mother in popular culture and melodrama, ed. elizabeth ann kaplan (london: routledge, 1992), 76–106; ann cvetkovich, mixed feelings: feminism, mass culture and victorian sensationalism (new brunswick, nj: rutgers university press, 1992); and deborah wynne, the sensation novel and the victorian family magazine (basingstoke and new york: palgrave, 2001). [8] a few exceptions: perry link, mandarin ducks and butterflies: popular fiction in early twentieth-century chinese cities (berkeley: university of california press, 1981), 136–137; dong xinyu, kan yu bei kan zhijian: dui zhongguo wusheng dianying de wenhua yanjiu (beijing: beijing shifan daxue chubanshe, 2000), 78–84; iizuka yo, “‘konggu lan’ o megutte: kuroiwa ruikō ‘no no hana’ no henyō,” chūōdaigaku bungakubu kiyō 81 (march 1998): 93–115; liu siyuan, “the impact of shinpa on early chinese huaju” (dissertation, university of pittsburgh, 2006), 167–182. [9] arjun appadurai, “disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy,” public culture 2.2 (spring 1990): 9. [10] ibid. [11] ibid. [12] bao tianxiao, chuanying lou huiyi lu (hong kong: dahua chuban gongsi, 1971), 161–174. [13] bao tianxiao, chuanying lou huiyi lu xupian (hong kong: dahua chuban gongsi, 1971), 96–97. [14] for a general survey of the novel’s early publishing history, see andrew maunder, introduction to east lynne (peterborough: broadview press, 2000), 17–20. recent reprints include, to name only a few, a 1993 version by sutton press (ed. fionn o’toole), a 1994 version by everyman (eds. norman page & kamal al-solaylee), a 2000 version by broadview press (ed. andrew maunder) and a 2005 version by oxford university press. [15] wynne, the sensation novel and the victorian family magazine (basingstoke and new york: palgrave, 2001), 1; john j richetti, ed., the columbia history of the british novel (new york: columbia university press, 1994), 479–507. [16] wynne, the sensation novel and the victorian family magazine, 1. [17] ellen wood, lady isabel–“east lynne,” translated by north peat (paris: aux bureaux de “la patrie”, 1862). [18] ellen wood, east-lynne: ein bild aus dem englischen familienleben, translated by a. scarneo (wien: markgraf, 1862); ellen wood, east lynne, translated by heinrich von hammer (leipzig, voigt u. günther, 1862). [19] albert johannsen, the house of beadle & adams (norman, oklahoma: university of oklahoma press, 1950), 40. [20] the initial publication date of a woman’s error could not be identified so far. no date of publication appears in the version i have. according to brame’s biography, she was compelled to write to support her family after she married an unsuccessful businessman in 1863. since east lynne was published in 1861, it was most probable that brame wrote a woman’s error after the publication of east lynne. [21] gregory drozdz, “brame, charlotte mary (1836–1884),” in h. c. g. matthew and brian harrison, eds. oxford dictionary of national biography, vol. 7 (oxford: oxford university press, 2004), 311–312. [22] see “dime novel days: an introduction and history,” in j. randolph cox, the dime novel companion: a source book (westport, conn: greenwood press, 2000), xiii–xxv. [23] winfried herget, “villains for pleasure? the paradox of nineteenth-century (american) melodrama,” in melodrama! the mode of excess from early america to hollywood, ed. frank kelleter et al. (heidelberg: universitaetsverlag winter, 2007), 20. [24] maunder, introduction to east lynne, 9. [25] ned albert, east lynne: mrs. henry wood’s celebrated novel made into a spirited and powerful mellow drammer in three acts (new york: samuel french, 1941). [26] michael r booth, theatre in the victorian age (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1991), 150–51. [27] according to the internet movie database (imdb, http://www.imdb.com), there have been fourteen film versions of the novel under the title east lynne, released in: 1902 (dir. dicky winslow, uk); 1903 (vitagraph company of america, usa); 1908 (selig polyscope company, usa); 1910 (precision films, uk); 1912 (dir. theodore marston, thanhouser film corporation, usa); 1913 (dir. bert haldane, uk); 1913 (dir. arthur carrington, brightonia, uk); 1915 (dir. travers vale, biograph company, usa); 1916 (dir. bertram bracken, fox film corporation, usa); 1921 (dir. hugo ballin, hugo ballin productions, usa); 1922 (master films, uk); 1922 (dir. charles hardy, australia); 1925 (dir. emmett j. flynn, fox film corporation, usa); and 1931 (dir. frank lloyd, fox film corporation, usa). two versions were released under slightly different titles: east lynne in bugville (1914, dir. phillips smalley, crystal film company, usa) and east lynne with variations (1919, dir. edward f. cline, mack sennett comedies, usa). and two recent tv versions were released under the title of east lynne: in 1976 (dir. barney colehan, uk) and in 1982 (dir. david green, bbc, uk). [28] see the awards database of the academy awards: http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/basicsearchinput.jsp accessed 25 oct. 2012. a copy of the film is kept in the instructional media lab at the powell library at the university of california, los angeles. [29] steven n lipkin, “melodrama,” in handbook of american film genres, ed. gehring, wes d. (new york: greenwood press, 1988), 286; richard abel, silent film (new brunswick, n.j.: rutgers university press, 1996), 10; ben singer, melodrama and modernity: early sensational cinema and its contexts (new york: columbia university press, 2001), 189ff. [30] see yorozu chōhō 10 mar.–9 nov. 1900, quoted in iizuka, “‘konggu lan’ o megutte,” 93. [31] see mark silver, “the detective novel’s novelty: native and foreign narrative forms in kuroiwa ruikō’s kettō no hate,” japan forum 16.2 (2004): 191. [32] teruo tarumoto, “bao tianxiao honyaku genpon o tankyū suru,” shinmatsu shōsetsu kara 45 (1 april 1997); fan yanqiao, “minguo jiupai xiaoshuo shilue,” in wei shaochang, ed. yuanyang hudie pai yanjiu ziliao (shanghai: shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1984), 229; dong, kan yu bei kan zhijian, 78. [33] satoru saito provided this crucial clue in his talk “translating the nation: kuroiwa ruikō’s serialized fictions at the turn of the 20th century” presented at the aas annual conference in toronto on 15 march 2012. prior to hearing his talk, i had misidentified the origin of no no hana as east lynne following many previous studies. after reading an antiquarian version of a woman’s error, i had no doubt that it is the exact origin of all the japanese and chinese versions under discussion. [34]for the novel’s digital version see http://kindai.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/871978 and http://kindai.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/871979 .accessed 25 oct. 2012. [35] joshua s. mostow, ed., the columbia companion to modern east asian literature (new york: columbia university press, 2003), 22, 54, 59. [36] ken ito, an age of melodrama: family, gender, and social hierarchy in the turn-of-the-century japanese novel (stanford, calif.: stanford university press, 2008). [37] siyuan liu, “the impact of japanese shinpa on early chinese huaju”, 170. [38] konggu lan was serialized in the shibao starting april 11, 1910. for its popularity, see bao tianxiao, chuanying lou huiyi lu xupian, 96. [39] tarumoto, ed., xinbian zengbu qingmo minchu xiaoshuo mulu, 372. [40] alexander des forges, “building shanghai, one page at a time: the aesthetics of installment fiction at the turn of the century,” the journal of asian studies 62.3 (aug. 2003): 781, 783. also cf. alexander des forges, mediasphere shanghai: the aesthetics of cultural production (honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 2007). [41] link, mandarin ducks and butterflies, 54. [42] mu zi, “zheng zhengqiu shengping xinian,” dangdai dianying 1 (1989): 96–103. [43] hiroshi seto, xinmin she shangyan yanmu yilan http://pub.idisk-just.com/fview/wlq4qsijxnyjavg__fqlzv2hoy4w1og8g_d0lboi7fvbpfnt2yu6nfx5mqum3tykka2hp1qlxqq/5paw5rcr56s-5lik5ryu5ryu55uu5lia6kan.pdf. accessed 25 oct. 2012, 2; hiroshi seto, minming she shangyan yanmu yilan (nagoya: suishobo, 2003), 3. [44] xu banmei, huaju chuangshi qi huiyi lu (beijing: zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1957), 52; ouyang yuqian, “tan wenming xi,” in ouyang yuqian xiju lunwen ji (shanghai: shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1984), 194–5. [45] fan yanqiao, “mingxing yingpian gongsi nianbiao,” mingxing banyuekan 7.1 (oct. 10, 1936): n.p.  according to fan yanqiao, the film grossed 132,337.17 yuan. given that the average admission fee for each film was unlikely to exceed 0.5 yuan, we might safely estimate that the film reached more than 260,000 spectators throughout its showing. no copy of the film survives, unfortunately. [46] see theatre advertisement for east lynne in xinwen bao oct. 20, 1931: 20. [47] see theatre advertisements running in the leading shanghai newspaper xinwen bao from february 3 to march 16, 1935. the average run of a film at this kind of theatre was usually less than a week. [48] “zhou jianyun hu die zai su’e,” mingxing banyuekan 1.4 (june 1, 1935): 11, 14. [49] these were chiefly private showings to chinese students as well as to selected foreign audiences such as film industry employees, dramatists and so on. for the showing in berlin see mingxing banyuekan 1.2 (may 16, 1935): 19; in paris see mingxing banyuekan 1.6 (july 1, 1935): 10. [50] xinwen bao feb. 8, 1926: a1. [51] link, mandarin ducks and butterflies, 40–78; a prominent example of film adaptations of tragic love stories is yuli hun 玉梨魂 (jade pear spirit), a phenomenal bestseller of the genre in the 1910s, which was adapted into a film in 1924. cf. c.t. hsia, “hsü chen-ya’s yü-li hun: an essay in literary history and criticism,” renditions 17 & 18 (spring and autumn 1982): 199–240. [52] jonathan zwicker, practices of the sentimental imagination: melodrama, the novel, and the social imaginary in nineteenth-century japan (cambridge, mass.: harvard university press, 2006), 100. [53] arjun appadurai, “disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy,” public culture 2.2 (spring 1990): 9. [54] the nine versions are: ellen wood, east lynne (new york: oxford university press, 2005); charlotte m. brame, a woman’s error (london: associated newspapers, n.d.); albert, east lynne (new york: samuel french, 1941); kuroiwa ruikō, no no hana (tokyo: fusōdō, 1909); bao tianxiao, konggu lan (shanghai: youzheng shuju, 1924); wang nancun, konggu lan (shanghai: yuxin shuju, 1935); play script “konggu lan” in shanghai shi chuantong jumu bianji weiyuan hui, ed., chuantong jumu huibian: tongsu huaju, vol. 6 (shanghai: shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1959), 62–107; synopsis and intertitles of the silent film “konggu lan” in zheng peiwei and liu guiqing, eds. zhongguo wusheng dianying juben (beijing: zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1996), 558–580; and the incomplete 1935 sound film (with 47 minutes remaining), which i watched in china film archives in beijing in april 2012 thanks to the help of prof. chen mo and zhiwei xiao. [55] cf siyuan liu, “the impact of shinpa on early chinese huaju,” 173–174. [56] see li bai, “gu feng, qi san shi ba”, in li bai, li taibai quanji, vol. 1 (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1977), 136; su zhe, “zhong lan”, in su zhe, su zhe ji, vol. 1 (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1990), 340. [57] du fu, “jia ren”, in fu donghua, ed., du fu shi (taipei: taiwan shangwu yinshu guan, 1968), 90. [58] bao, konggu lan, 10. [59] xinwen bao 8 mar. 1926: a1. [60] yi hua, “guochan dianying qucai xiaoshuo zhi xiansheng,” liangyou 15 feb.1926, 16. [61] brame, a woman’s error, 53. [62] ruikō, no no hana, vol. 1, 175. [63] wang, konggu lan, 42. [64] play script “konggu lan”, 89. [65] cf. singer, melodrama and modernity, 59–100. [66] wood, east lynne, 320. [67] brame, a woman’s error, 129. [68] ruikō, no no hana, vol. 1, 184. [69] bao, konggu lan, vol. 1, 110. the original text: “只聽得一聲天崩地覆般響往來兩個火車頭撞了個頭拳兒.” [70] albert, east lynne, 125. [71] cheng bugao, yingtan yijiu (beijing: zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1983), 70–71. [72] tie rou, “xinmin xinju she zhi qian ben konggu lan,” juchang yuebao 1 (jan. 1914). [73] brame, a woman’s error, 130. [74] wood, east lynne, 409–410. [75] brame, a woman’s error, 145. [76] ibid., 189. [77] bao, konggu lan, vol. 2, 61. the original text is: 覺得陣陣心酸恨不逃出他書房. [78] for a detailed study of love and duty, see thomas kampen, “die chinesische verfilmung des romans love and duty der europäischen schriftstellerin horose”, in roswitha badry, maria rohrer, karin steiner, eds. liebe, sexualität, ehe und partnerschaft—paradigmen im wandel (freiburg: fwpf, 2009), 197–204. [79] s. horose (羅琛), lian’ai yu yiwu (shanghai: commercial press, 1924); s. horose, love and duty: the love story of a chinese girl (shanghai: commercial press, 1926). [80] i viewed the movie at the taiwan film archives. for an excerpt of the film see http://catalog.digitalarchives.tw/item/00/36/22/5d.html. accessed 25 oct. 2012. [81] s. horose, la symphonie des ombres chinoises: idylle (paris: editions de la madeleine, 1932). [82] graham law, serializing fiction in the victorian press (basingstoke and new york: palgrave, 2000), 7. [83] see wynne, the sensation novel and the victorian family magazine, 2–3. [84] for example, r. k. narayan, an indian novelist, wrote about his reading of east lynne in his 1975 memoir, my days: “reading and rereading it always produced a lump in my throat, and that was the most luxurious sadness you could think of.” quoted in dinah birch, “fear among the teacups” (review of east lynne by ellen wood, edited by andrew maunder), london review of books 23.3 (8 feb. 2001): 22. [85] cf. g. a. starr, “sentimental novel of the later eighteenth century,” in the columbia history of the british novel, eds. richetti, john, et al. (new york: columbia university press, 1994), 184. [86] zwicker, practices of the sentimental imagination, 90. [87] ibid, 72. [88] ibid., 128–141. [89] ibid., 165. [90] see hsia, “hsü chen-ya's yü-li hun,” 201. [91] link, mandarin ducks and butterflies, 135–138; also see leo ou-fan lee, the romantic generation of modern chinese writers (cambridge, mass.: harvard university press, 1973), 44–56. [92] he xiujun, “zhang shichuan he mingxing yingpian gongsi,” in wenhua shiliao, ed. wenshi ziliao yanjiu wenyuanhui (beijing: wenshi ziliao chubanshe, 1980), 118–9. the original text is in chinese. the english translation is mine. [93] see sandra annett, “imagining transcultural fandom: animation and global media communities”, transcultural studies 2.2 (2011): 171. for the original use of the concept, see arjun appadurai, modernity at large (minneapolis: minnesota university press, 1996), 8. [94] annett, “imagining transcultural fandom: animation and global media communities”. [95] benedict anderson, imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism (london; new york: verso, 1991). [96] haiyan lee, revolution of the heart: a genealogy of love in china, 1900–1950 (stanford university press, 2007), 8. [97] haiyan lee, “all the feelings that are fit to print: the community of sentiment and the literary public sphere in china, 1900–1918,” modern china 27.3 (2001): 321–322. [98] claude lévi-strauss, “the structural study of myth,” the journal of american folklore 68, no. 270 (oct.–dec. 1955): 430. [99] maunder, introduction to east lynne, 21. [100] birch, “fear among the teacups,” 23. [101] zwicker, practices of the sentimental imagination, 153. rudolf wagner as historian marianne bastid-bruguière rudolf wagner had a powerful mind and rich personality. his works and deeds extended to an unusual variety of fields, and always stood out as forceful and creative. his academic genius cannot be easily defined. to me, as to many others around the world, he was a trusted friend and challenging colleague. since i cannot describe the full extent of his versatility, perhaps the best way to pay tribute to him in this commemorative issue is to review his achievements as a historian in the china field, a research area familiar to me. in fact, wagner was not an average historian of china, but a historian in the twenty-firstcentury version of the great german historical tradition, thinking globally, spotting the myriad links between human thoughts and emotions across space and time. we can see the purpose and meaning of his scholarship by following his many explorations on previously unknown ground. as a child, wagner was already a voracious reader and developed a love of text-based encyclopedic knowledge. at university, he engaged in chinese studies out of an interest in zen buddhism, which required learning classical chinese in order to access the only extant original texts.1 the first stage of his research was dedicated entirely to a new reading of ancient chinese texts and their commentaries, mainly inspired by the hermeneutics of hansgeorg gadamer, aimed at uncovering and understanding chinese traditional schemes of interpreting classical texts. the second stage began in 1979 and featured further inroads into literary and textual studies of modern china using a transcultural focus. the third stage started after 1987: wagner focused his investigations on the molding of modern chinese political culture and its transcultural linkages. in the last ten years of his life, his interest crystallized around the dynamics of transcultural interaction, probing the concept of asymmetry as an analytical tool. the main scholarly contribution of his publications is twofold: first, they provide an innovative approach for the precise reading and interpretation of ancient philosophical texts, and of modern writings and imagery that contained 1 rudolf g. wagner, interviewed and transcribed by marina rudyak, july 7, 2014; august 25, 2014; december 15, 2014, karl jaspers centre for advanced transcultural studies, sponsored by the research and educational center for china studies and cross taiwan-strait relations, department of political science, national taiwan university, 6–7, accessed march 25, 2022, http://www.chinastudies.taipei/comm2/rudolf%20g.%20wagner.pdf. catherine vance yeh kindly provided me with a copy of the original english version. a chinese translation (hereafter cited as wagner interview) was published in de ao zhongguoxuejia fangtanlu 德奧中國學家訪談錄 [interviews of german and austrian sinologists] (taipei 2020), accessed march 20, 2021, http://www.china-studies.taipei/ comm2/interviewg%20rudolf%20g.%20wagner%20ch.pdf. http://www.china-studies.taipei/comm2/rudolf%20g.%20wagner.pdf http://www.china-studies.taipei/comm2/rudolf%20g.%20wagner.pdf http://www.china-studies.taipei/comm2/interviewg%20rudolf%20g.%20wagner%20ch.pdf http://www.china-studies.taipei/comm2/interviewg%20rudolf%20g.%20wagner%20ch.pdf 46 rudolf wagner as historian coded messaging; second, they show that transcultural interaction was the lifeline of chinese culture too, as of any other culture. however, beyond the rich content of his writings, he should also be remembered as a historian devoted to spotting future fields of research and preparing the resources needed for them. scrutiny of local practices of ancient textual interpretation while studying chinese in heidelberg under the guidance of wolfgang bauer, after reading wahrheit und methode (truth and method), wagner also studied with gadamer, and attended young scholars’ discussions with martin heidegger at gadamer’s home.2 this early philosophical awakening to the epistemology of the human sciences and the conditions of a true hermeneutical grounding of historical knowledge shaped his approach to research on china and, together with readings from reinhart koselleck and jürgen habermas, remained a long-lasting source of inspiration and rationale for his scholarly agenda. it underpinned his innate interest in reading original texts and oriented the development of his skills in understanding and interpreting them. in 1967, his first published article displays the accomplished skills of a well-trained, young sinologist fully at ease with ancient texts,3 while still applying gadamer’s clues in a somewhat scholastic manner. he discusses how by the end of the warring states period (475−221 bce) many thinkers had introduced new concepts related to the state—not as word-concepts but storyconcepts (geschichten-begriffe)—expressed through narratives of exemplary events that became fixed topics. in the han feizi 韩非子 (third century bce), the huainanzi 淮南子 (circa 139 bce), and in wang chong 王充 (27−97 ce), these narratives represent the very issue they are supposed to exemplify. the anthologies of the han period such as shuo yuan 說苑 and xin xu 新序, which borrowed these stories, can thus be read as “dictionaries” of state philosophy. the enthusiastic young wagner then scrutinizes one such story-concept, namely the story of kuang yu 狂矞 and hua shi 華士, who were executed by taigong wang 太公望 when they refused to serve him, as depicted in the han feizi, huainanzi, and by wang chong in han texts. he strives to show that the story undergoes a complete change of “horizon,” that is, a change of the range of vision arising from the current situation, because that situation has changed. although the story keeps the same outward form, it is infused with new content added to the earlier versions, which either sharpened or erased the latter, and could even be a return to the original meaning of the story. the 2 wagner interview, 9−10. 3 rudolf g. wagner, “die auflösung des legalistischen staatssystems gegen ende der han” [the dissolution of the legalistic state system towards the end of the han], archiv orientalni 35 (1967): 244–261. 47the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) development of story-concepts is not different from that of word-concepts, and this development can explain the cancellation in chinese thinking of the legalist view of the state by the end of the han. in his doctoral study of buddhist texts, wagner initiated a creative approach of his own within his philosophical concern for understanding the written word with the critical eye of hermeneutics. he chose the correspondence between two monks—kumārajīva 鳩摩羅什 (344−413) who lived in chang’an in the north, and huiyuan 慧遠 (334−416) who resided on mount lu 廬山 in jiangxi—whose eighteen recorded letters were themselves exercises in textual exegesis. on the basis of numerous sanskrit sources, kumārajīva had compiled a major treatise on salvation, and, after reading it, huiyuan was asking him for clarification. however, in the surviving texts of this exchange—collected in the compilation dasheng dayi zhang 大乘大義章 t1856—the questions and answers were utterly disconnected, resulting in an abstruse dialogue of which even the finest japanese buddhologists could make no sense, suggesting instead that its recondite nature simply reflected the inability of the monks to communicate across the cultural divide separating china and central asia. yet wagner doubted that the record of a failed communication between two prominent founding masters of chinese buddhism would have been so carefully kept and transmitted over centuries. thus, he moved from the center of the text—the content—to its “margin,” as he called it, to crack the central riddle.4 he scrutinized the assumption regarding the text’s material production, namely, the idea of sequential exchange of eighteen letters on each side, carried over a period of six months at a distance of 1200 km each way, by a seventy-year-old general turned monk. by checking the references in each letter to the other’s previous letter in each writer’s text, he reconstructed four letters only (two from each side), dating 406−407. these were later chopped up by editors according to subject matter that suited their own religious priorities and teaching purposes, making eighteen nonsequential, paired question and answer sets. in 1971, the main findings were published in the harvard journal of asiatic studies.5 in his doctoral research, wagner thus sought the meaning of ancient texts through formal logic and philology; however, even more sophisticated explorations would come with the work on his habilitation. as a harkness fellow at the university of california, berkeley in 1970, he began an extrapolative translation of the laozi 老子 through wang bi’s 王弼 (226−249) commentary. this was prompted by the fact that on important issues, huiyuan’s terminology and pattern of thought appeared connected to the zhuangzi 4 wagner interview, 13. 5 rudolf g. wagner, “the original structure of the correspondence between shi hui-yüan and kumārajīva,” harvard journal of asiatic studies 31 (1971): 28−48. 48 rudolf wagner as historian 莊子 or the laozi. thirdand fourth-century commentaries on these texts, which huiyuan could have read, were associated with the “learned investigation of that which is dark” (xuanxue 玄學), a term sometimes translated as “metaphysics,” yet little had been written on these commentaries. wagner thought that a full understanding of xuanxue’s impact on the formative stage of chinese buddhist conceptual language merited a special study, and that the leading author laying the foundations for xuanxue was wang bi. he then set out to reinvent the laozi as constructed by wang bi. by tying the reading of the text to a particular historical reader, namely the commentator, he could escape the vagueness of most modern translations and discover the text’s original argumentative links, which were obscured by changes in historical context. close attention to the shared stylistic feature of parallelisms used in the laozi and by wang bi opened his understanding of the laozi’s interlocking pattern of stanzas: wang bi would quote the first line of a stanza as his commentary of the third, and the second as that of the fourth. while the exact order might differ elsewhere, this was an important tool for reading the ancient text, for grasping the internal logic that wang bi read in it, and for analyzing wang bi’s own philosophy. in tandem with wagner’s more abstract library-based pursuits, his discovery of the local san francisco bay area alternative culture and his appetite for the concrete made him jump at a chance statement by he yan 何晏 (196–249, prime minister in wang bi’s time) that eating a certain powder cured all one’s ills and opened one’s mind to clarity. he published, as an excursion in crossing time and space, a finely researched article in the respected journal t’oung pao on lifestyle and drugs in medieval china.6 after passing his habilitation in 1981, and after many more years of further comprehensive critical examination of a huge body of texts and scholarly literature using his philological skills and increasingly refined hermeneutics, wagner’s ground-breaking study of the process of textual and cultural understanding in ancient china deepened and enlarged the field with a series of three volumes starting with the craft of a chinese commentator: wang bi on the laozi.7 the volumes included: a study of the development of the commentary genre, its exegetic devices, the battles for the interpretive 6 rudolf g. wagner, “lebensstil und drogen im chinesischen mittelalter” [life-style and drugs in medieval china], t’oung pao 59 (1973): 79−178. a shorter version appeared as “das han-shi pulver, eine moderne droge im mittelalterlichen china” [the han-shi powder, a modern drug in medieval china], in rausch und realität: drogen im kulturvergleich, part 1, ed. gisela völger, karin von welck, and aldo legnaro (cologne: rautenstrauch-joest museum, 1982), 320−323. 7 rudolf g. wagner, the craft of a chinese commentator: wang bi on the laozi (albany, ny: state university of new york press, 2000), ix; 361; wagner, a chinese reading of the daodejing: wang bi’s commentary on the laozi with critical text and translation (albany, ny: state university of new york press, 2003), viii; 531; wagner, language, ontology, and political philosophy in china: wang bi’s scholarly exploration of the dark (xuanxue) (albany, ny: state university of new york press, 2003), viii; 261. 49the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) control of ancient texts, and the transmission of this literature from the preqin to the later han period; a critical reconstruction of wang bi’s text of the laozi, compared with other available texts, including those discovered by recent archaeological findings; a translation of wang bi’s commentary, together with a discussion of the way in which the commentary constructed the main text; and an historical and philosophical analysis of wang bi’s work. the composing and editing of the english edition and the supervision of its chinese translation published in china8 were a wearying but rewarding task that brought worldwide recognition for him and lasting momentum to sinology. the young scholar had bemoaned the fact that the study of classics was based on a division of labor between scholars who collated, edited, commented, and translated the texts and those who mostly focused on analyzing them once made available. yet he was able, in the words of his own praise for rudolf bultman, “to span the entire breadth of the enterprise, from painstaking philological research through broad analyses of religious, social, and political currents, to hermeneutical explorations of the internal logic of philosophical texts and religious beliefs.”9 from the point of view of the philosophy of history, his achievement was an illustration of gadamer’s chapter “the elevation of the historicality of understanding to the status of hermeneutical principle.”10 wagner maintained a lifelong interest in buddhism; however, he did not engage further in writing about the historical entanglement of daoist and buddhist thinking, as previously planned. literary and textual studies of modern china with new analytical concepts and transcultural focus when wagner started teaching at the free university in berlin, in 1972, where the focus of the ostasiatisches seminar was on modern china, he began to delve into the world of modern chinese thought. he read novels and dramas and analyzed them not so much for their literary value but, using his hermeneutical lens, as texts that reflected contemporaneous local interpretations of chinese society. in other words, these texts were seen as political and social documents in literary form. he pointed out the close link between literature and politics in imperial china, when the function of literature was to praise or blame the ruler—in an era of social decay after the age of wise kings—and under 8 rudolf g. wagner 瓦格納, on wang bi’s commentary of lao zi: wang bi laozi zhu yanjiu 王 粥《老子注》研究, trans. yang lihua 楊立華. 2 vols. (nanjing: jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2008). 9 wagner, the craft of a chinese commentator, 1. 10 hans-georg gadamer, truth and method, trans. garett burdon and john cumming (new york: seabury press, 1975), 235–238. 50 rudolf wagner as historian communist rule, when literature served as regulated self-examination.11 at the time of his initial forays into the field, studies of post-1949 chinese literature had just begun and his approach inspired further scholarship. his first article, on the modern chinese social investigation-novel (untersuchungsroman), was published in 1979.12 over the next decade, more works appeared in edited volumes13 and in journals, including a pioneering study of science fiction.14 liu binyan 劉賓雁 (1925−2005) is the only author he wrote about individually, with an eye to analyzing the different types of texts he published over time, and the words and stylistic devices he used in order to keep his own discourse alive in the face of the chinese communist party’s prevailing rules and rampant power struggles. the art of digging through multi-layered texts crafted by writers in their attempt to “speak the truth”—and yet survive such audacity—is clearly displayed in wagner’s study of the contemporary chinese historical drama, especially the plays of the late 1950s and early 1960s, which were said to be attacks on the party, its chairman, and socialism.15 he documents in amazing detail the genesis and development of these dramatic texts, and minutely deciphers the subtext of every character, situation, particular, and word. he shows the potential of historical themes to critically depict contemporary realities, and provides ample evidence that in 1959—after most writers of “realistic” prose (popular during the hundred flowers period) had been silenced or sent to labor camps—the historical play, together with the essay (zawen 雜文) and the historical essay, with their esoteric communicative forms and ever-greater variety and richness of meaning, gained a relatively high literary status as a voice of critical thought. however, this form of critical thought followed the directives of a divided political leadership; authors’ critiques were responding to or challenging each other in coded dialogue. from tian han’s 田漢 (1898−1968) play guan hanqing 關漢卿, wagner extracted the rules governing the reading of historical plays. he then applied 11 rudolf g. wagner, ed., literatur und politik in der volksrepublik china [literature and politics in the people’s republic of china] (frankfurt: suhrkamp, 1983), 11−21. 12 rudolf g. wagner, “der moderne chinesische untersuchungsroman” [the modern chinese novel of social investigation], in neues handbuch der literaturwissenschaft, vol. 21, ed. j. hermand (wiesbaden: athenaeum, 1979), 361−407. 13 rudolf g. wagner and wofgang kubin, ed., essays in modern chinese literature and literary criticism (bochum: brockmeyer, 1982). see also wagner, literatur und politik. 14 rudolf g. wagner, “lobby literature: the archaeology and present functions of science fiction in the people’s republic of china,” in after mao: chinese literature and society 1978−1981, ed. jeffrey kinkley (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1985), 17−62. 15 rudolf g. wagner, the contemporary chinese historical drama: four studies (berkeley: university of california press, 1990). 51the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) those rules back onto the play itself, which thematizes the writing of another play, and thus provides a lesson in the art of reading innuendo drama. “in the play, the levels of past, present, and future become blurred as much as the difference between the stage and life itself.”16 tian han’s xie yaohuan 謝瑤環 is one of three historical plays, all published and staged in 1961, whose critical reception set the stage for the cultural revolution—yet contrary to wu han’s 吳晗 (1909−1969) hai rui baguan 海瑞罢官 (hai rui’s dismissal), it had scarcely elicited any foreign scholarly attention. wagner shows that the play went far beyond the immediate criticism of the politics of the center. he reconstructs the horizon of perception and expectation within which the play appeared, follows leads into the text’s esoteric elements, and compares it to the absent and unspoken demands made on literature by various segments of the political class at the time. further investigation found that plots taken from the popular novel xiyou ji 西遊記 (journey to the west) had been staged as dramas representing the chinese revolution and its road to socialism, with the monkey king, a hero of magical powers, embodying mao zedong, and the muddle-headed monk, tang seng, impersonating the communist party. shifting interpretations of the literary and dramatic versions of these plots (including widely consumed films and picture books) by the country’s top political and intellectual leaders point to their important role as a weapon of propaganda, easily capturing the political imagination of the common people and the youth. the narrative history of the politics of the historical drama stands in sharp contrast to the early-1950s setting of realistic prose: instead of the future, the past becomes the source of inspiration in both understanding and dealing with the present. the social realm of the text also changes: it no longer deals with “the people,” but with emperors and ministers. and the central issues no longer revolve around rationally debated topics of economic and social progress, but protagonists who are engaged in power struggles wherein opponents are routinely tortured, poisoned, or slaughtered without even a minimum of mutual respect. the heightened textual pitch is accomplished through exaggeration and crass imagery of language. the battle for the public mind has changed its public: it now addresses only the minds of a small group within the political class. the values upheld by the hero-protagonists and authors alike have also shifted—they move from rational and modern values to the values of traditional heroism, benevolence, justice, and patriotism. the use of the historical play implies that control of the public sphere had become so tight and reckless, and the internal crisis of the land so deep, that only this time-honored and relatively immune genre was left to voice one’s concern. inside a service trade: studies in contemporary chinese prose (1992) followed this line of analysis on the interplay of political struggles and 16 wagner, contemporary chinese historical drama, 79. 52 rudolf wagner as historian literature. this book explored the potential of literary analysis to illuminate the social, intellectual, and political history of the people’s republic of china.17 it did so by illustrating the connection between swings in the party line and variations in the themes and style of literary narratives and criticism. while earlier studies by other authors dealt mostly with governmental policies or literary theories, this book focused on the texts themselves. wagner’s earlier research into the worlds of modern chinese literature had made him keenly aware of the inadequacy of conceptual frameworks based on national narratives that attach the past to clearly defined culturally autonomous entities—whether using a comparative approach or that of intercultural transfer. instead, the culture of an individual or group always shares in a plurality of cultural systems; identity cannot be separated from alterity, and culture should be approached in a deconstructionist manner. in 1981, a position as fellow of the society for the humanities at cornell university gave wagner an opportunity to apply his method to research late qing history. as he soon discovered, cornell’s east asian library did not yet possess the materials needed for his planned book on china’s new postmaoist literature, but it held a wealth of original and secondary resources on the taiping rebellion. struck by the discrepancy between the original records and the master narrative, which had made of the taipings a peasant revolution against landlords and imperialists, he decided to figure out what the taipings themselves thought they were doing. this seemed to be spelled out in the 1837 vision of hong xiuquan 洪秀全 (1814-1864), the future taiping leader, in which he was brought up to heaven and ordered to wipe out the demons who had taken possession of the earth. the actual meaning and role of this vision had been discarded by historians as either the hallucinations of a madman or a ruse to gain followers. however, wagner found ample evidence in firsthand sources that the taipings were indeed trying to translate the symbolic repertoire of the vision into the real thing. in his seminal book on taiping religion,18 with its thorough exposition of protestantism and its many endeavors in china, wagner relied on the zhao shu 詔書 (book of proclamations)—a collection of religious texts printed and widely distributed 17 rudolf g. wagner, inside a service trade: studies in contemporary chinese prose (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1992). 18 rudolf g. wagner, reenacting the heavenly vision: the role of religion in the taiping rebellion (berkeley: university of california press, 1984). in a later article, he discusses contemporaneous western thought about the taiping rebellion in more detail, and stresses that it cannot be summarily subsumed under the heading of “colonial thinking.” wagner, “understanding taiping christian china: analogy, interest, and policy,” in christen und gewürze. konfrontation und interaktion kolonialer und indigener christentumsvarianten, ed. klaus koschorke (göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht, 1998), 132−157. 53the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) by the taipings—a source seldom used in previous historiography except to castigate superstitious or crude aspects of the movement, and proposed a radically new reading of the rebellion based on carefully built factual evidence: the rebellion had sprung from a chinese christian movement with close affinities, but no organizational ties, to evangelical protestantism in its revivalist form. wagner’s work presented features of events normally considered incompatible. for the taipings, as much as for western missionaries, merchants, diplomats, and journalists, the movement defied familiar conceptual categories, and all sides looked for analogies in religious history to grasp its core features and define their actions. the taipings themselves found their analogy in the book of exodus and john bunyan’s the pilgrim’s progress—they were a christian sect in china, and acting as such. western perception of the taipings and attitudes towards them were driven by debates concerning the most appropriate western analogy, sought from among the world’s great politico-religious historical events. the shift in the main thrust of the evaluation reflected less a shift in the character and fate of the taiping enterprise than a shift in the religious and political climate in the west, with the main factor being the fading of the transatlantic protestant revivalist clergy’s millennial expectation of an “outpouring of the spirit” on an international scale. by the late 1850s, they linked obedience to god with obedience to the missionary and foreign authority. hermeneutics of modern chinese political culture and knowledge after his return to germany in 1987, as a professor at heidelberg university, wagner started working on a new line of research that filled a gap between his early interest in ancient chinese textual traditions in his student days, and his later investigations of contemporary literature and politics undertaken during nearly a decade of stimulating immersion in the profusion of american libraries and academic life. this new research agenda was envisioned as a collective, to help train students and offer them various topics and approaches to explore. to accomplish this goal, one needed firsthand sources that had not yet been extensively researched. wagner reached back to his experience of research on the taipings, for which the materials from the local press had been so rich and illuminating. this material had made him aware of the special role of foreign concessions as workshops of chinese modernity, at a time when such “foreign enclaves” were neither “bridgeheads for a colonization of china,”19 nor suspected of being any such thing. nonetheless, he concluded that these: 19 rudolf g. wagner, reenacting the heavenly vision, 118. 54 rudolf wagner as historian enclaves or niches … were not subject to the homogenizing pressure that was strongly felt elsewhere in the country. they presented, on chinese soil and protected by cannon, alternative options of ideology, institutions, life-style and technology. when the taipings adopted many features from these niches into their own system, they were not submitting to foreign pressure but retaining their autonomy, much to the surprise of the foreigners. this autonomy was the social precondition for any kind of public acceptance of the taiping program.20 wagner then decided to research the late qing chinese press as the breeding ground of a modern chinese geist. with the help that his indomitable energy could galvanize around him from students and young scholars, his university and colleagues, the state of baden-württemberg, and federal institutions such as the german research foundation, he built a professional chinese studies library with one of the best microfilm and reprint collections of newspapers and periodicals published in china. every year he would travel to china in search of materials, buying them at local prices and shipping them back in bulk containers. in several articles,21 he explored a range of media including dailies, illustrated weeklies, and entertainment papers, and looked at factors that influenced their nature, such as foreign models and managers and first-generation chinese journalists, editorialists, and “newspainters” working for pictorials, whose names were unknown. thorough multi-archival research allowed him to disprove the myth—spread by chinese historians since the 1920s on the basis of dubious hearsay—that the early chinese vernacular press was a propaganda tool of foreign imperialism. he brought to light the connections between the development of a native press in china and in the wider scene of europe, 20 rudolf g. wagner, reenacting the heavenly vision, 118. this line of interpretation, in harmony with a new approach in mainland china’s post-1978 historiography, was fully advocated in his article “staatliches machtmonopol und alternative optionen: zur rolle der ‘westlichen barbaren’ im china des 19. jahrhunderts” [the discretionary monopoly of the state and alternative options: on the role of the ‘western barbarians’ in nineteenth century china], in traditionale gesellschaften und europäischer kolonialismus, ed. jan-heeren grevemeyer (frankfurt: syndikat, 1981), 105−136. 21 rudolf g. wagner, “the shenbao in crisis: the international environment and the conflict between guo songtao and the shenbao,” late imperial china 20, no. 1 (1999): 107−138; wagner, “the early chinese newspapers and the chinese public sphere,” european journal of east asian studies 1, no. 1 (2001): 1−34; wagner, “jinru quanqiu xiangxiang tujing: shanghai de dianshizhai huabao” 進入全球想像圖景：上海的 點石齋畫報 [joining the global imaginaire: the shanghai illustrated newspaper dianshizhai huabao], zhongguo xueshu 8 (4.2001): 1−96; wagner, “importing a ‘new history’ for the new nation: china 1899,” in historization − historisierung, ed. glenn w. most, (göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht, 2001), 275−292; wagner, “the philologist as messiah: kang youwei’s 1902 commentary on the confucian analects,” in disciplining classics − altertumswissenschaft als beruf, ed. glenn w. most (göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht, 2002), 143−168. 55the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) japan, and india. he gave detailed evidence of the early cultural acceptance that the british editor of shanghai’s famous daily, the shenbao 申報, was able to secure—an acceptance that would preclude the chinese political desire to ban it, even when it was known that the british foreign office would not have objected to the move. he showed how the growth of popular media led china to join the global public, and revealed how new social attitudes and values were spread through entertainment papers, such as the dianshizhai pictorial 點石齋畫報 (1884−1898), which filled the space of newly created urban leisure. in 2007, an edited volume presented the methods and findings of this first stage in the investigation.22 a complementary publication followed, namely a critical survey of the foreign press in china during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.23 a backdrop to the first stage in this comprehensive examination of the late qing chinese-language press was the academically much-discussed issue of a chinese public sphere—that is, the press offered a new space for debate in a public sphere and was seen as instrumental in china’s joining a global imagination and global community. on the structure of the chinese public sphere, wagner’s serial investigation of newspaper readership, the authorship of letters to the editor, and of published content showed how the public sphere, formerly limited to higher officialdom, soon extended to city-dwellers from all walks of life and encompassed a growing range of subjects. wagner had said that ever since he read habermas’s strukturwandel der öffentlichkeit (the structural transformation of the public sphere) in 1963, he had in the back of his mind the idea of writing such a book in relation to china.24 late in life, he expressed regret that although he had written a several hundred page manuscript on the subject, he could not finish it because he was unsure of his conclusions. however, he wrote several insightful studies on the republicanera public sphere. his analysis of the 1919 may fourth movement highlighted “the institutional maneuvering that gave rise to may fourth as a movement (i.e., an organized mass action masterminded and mobilized by a calculating leadership).”25 the student demonstration in peking was consciously crafted and called a movement before it even started—a new form of social action 22 rudolf g. wagner, ed., joining the global public: word, image, and city in early chinese newspapers, 1870−1910 (albany, ny: state university of new york press, 2007). 23 rudolf g. wagner, “don’t mind the gap! the foreign-language press in late-qing and republican china,” china heritage quarterly, no. 30/31 (2012), accessed august 14, 2022, http:// www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/features.php?searchterm=030_wagner.inc&issue=030. 24 wagner interview, 49. 25 milena doleželová-velingerová and david der-wei wang, “introduction,” in the appropriation of cultural capital: china’s may fourth project, ed. milena doleželová-velingerová and oldřich král (cambridge, ma: harvard university asia center, 2001), 1−27; 6−7. http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/features.php?searchterm=030_wagner.inc&issue=030 http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/features.php?searchterm=030_wagner.inc&issue=030 56 rudolf wagner as historian addressed to both the political elite and commoners at large, with a new type of communication, a manifesto, directed to the people on the street. as wagner writes, “it stressed independent, essentially unarmed, civic action of broad sectors of the populace enlightened as to the essential interests of the nation. it rejected other established forms of political action as ineffectual and damaging.”26 he adds, “the movement saw itself as part of an international upsurge against the big powers and their local representatives and actively copied forms of action employed by other such ‘movements,’” especially the korean independence movement that was reported about enthusiastically and in detail by the chinese-language press.27 the participants in the may fourth demonstrations arrogated for themselves, as “new youth,” the role of national vanguard and teacher. may fourth was neither populist, nor did it champion “the people” or commoners; rather, its protagonists’ subjective legitimacy derived from the internationalist logic of oppressed nations struggling to recover their supremacy, and from the chinese historical role of the educated as remonstrators. the “elitist structure embedded in the notion of the ‘movement’ gave rise to two alternative definitions of the ‘spirit of may fourth’: the first according the role of the elite to the young educated members of the political class; the other to political parties willing and able to stay tuned to, direct, and instigate such ‘movements.’”28 in his essay, wagner mapped “the struggle for hegemony over the definition of may fourth and the control of the political capital it represented” for its three main contenders: the nationalist party, the communist party, and independent, educated youth.29 a feature of the struggle was “the recurrent parallelism and contention between state-organized and citizenorganized celebrations.”30 the canonization of may fourth as a national day (beginning in 1923 for students, and later for schools and the youth) gave priority to the nationalist agenda, which reflected the imperial elite’s traditional commitment to national unity, as well as the hope of regaining china’s status as a great power. the price paid for this nationalist agenda was the hectic search, be it in literature, the economy, or revolution, for shortcuts to a world leadership …, with the result of a deep provincialism made up of cheap borrowings, 26 rudolf g. wagner, “the canonization of may fourth,” in the appropriation of cultural capital, 66−120; 82. 27 wagner, “the canonization of may fourth,” 91. 28 wagner, “the canonization of may fourth,” 67. 29 wagner, “the canonization of may fourth,” 67. 30 wagner, “the canonization of may fourth,” 68. 57the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) heightened self-righteousness, and the claim that all of china’s problems were due to imperialist evildoings.31 the very “self-righteousness encoded in the ‘spirit of may fourth’ prompted its protagonists to use a state power they were otherwise often critical of in order to effect the re-education of their benighted countrymen; in this process they did not refrain from resorting to terrorist methods.”32 inevitably, this reliance on state power severely curtailed the citizenry’s leeway within the public sphere. through the policy of cultural re-education under party rule, “the citizens were required not only to silently tolerate state action, just as they had been in the past, but also actively verbalize and express their new cultural consciousness as the progressive ‘mass.’ at the same time the integration of a large part of the intelligentsia in this re-education effort deprived the populace of articulate and legitimate spokesmen for their woes.”33 wagner adds, “the cultural desertification of china pursued by the nationalist government during the ‘destroy superstition’ movement of the late 1920s as well as by the communist government after 1949 (and not only during the cultural revolution) were well within the may fourth agenda” of a “radical break with confucianism, christianity, and popular beliefs.”34 by its fierce “attack on the moral values upheld by the various belief systems present in china,” the may fourth movement “unwittingly helped to create a moral vacuum into which the diverse governments moved with a value propaganda running directly counter to some of the core tenets of may fourth, especially the need to foster the development of a self-assertive and independent-minded individual.”35 whether spread by nationalist or communist leadership, the “new morality” preached individual subordination to a mixture of party orders and select confucian virtues. enhanced with encyclopedic references from world art and history, a thorough critical search of numerous rare chinese sources, and a great sense of humor, two of wagner’s iconoclastic articles carefully deconstructed the mausoleums built for sun yat-sen and mao zedong, as well as the ritual and ceremony surrounding them.36 the articles bring to light many intended, 31 wagner, “the canonization of may fourth,” 68. 32 wagner, “the canonization of may fourth,” 68. 33 wagner, “the canonization of may fourth,” 68. 34 wagner, “the canonization of may fourth,” 69. 35 wagner, “the canonization of may fourth,” 69. 36 rudolf g. wagner, “ritual, architecture, politics, and publicity during the republic: enshrining sun yat-sen,” in chinese architecture and the beaux-arts, ed. jeffrey w. cody, nancy s. steinhardt, and tony atkin (honululu: university of hawai‘i press, 2011), 223−278; wagner, “reading the 58 rudolf wagner as historian contested, and actual symbolic elements and meanings of these stone texts. wagner points out that both leaders were enshrined as party heads, not heads of state, and that the monuments’ structural principles were centrality and unity, directly inspired by american and soviet models. however, he stresses that mao, unlike sun, is not enshrined as a patriot or a united-front character, but as a communist. “the dominant emblem to characterize him is the international communist flag with its hammer and sickle referring to workers and peasants.”37 moreover, despite mao’s statue as a smiling teacher sitting comfortably in an armchair with a peaceful chinese landscape behind him, the chairman mao memorial hall, erected in tiananmen square, the heart of the nation, in a central position on the imperial axis, facing north, confronts and challenges the assembled south-facing party leadership on tiananmen gate, as a “remonstrative maoist sore in the center of the nation.”38 such studies of the political culture sponsored and shaped by chinese higher officialdom and its own power concerns had their limitations, lacking, for example, sufficient evidence of the real impact they had on the public. wagner preferred areas of inquiry where the dynamic engagements between cultures called for a transcultural focus, with special attention to asymmetric cultural flows and their agency. he saw transcultural interaction as the lifeline of chinese culture as of all others. beyond the late qing press as a space and tool for the newly emerging public sphere, he focused on the channels and devices of the cultural flow of modern knowledge into china. his methodical browsing of advertisements in early chinese dailies made him aware of the amazing number of encyclopedic dictionaries and comprehensive reference works on “new” or “western” knowledge published in the last imperial and early republican decades, and he strove to gather together the best possible collection of these popular, ephemeral works, now rarely kept by public or private libraries. from this huge and hitherto unexplored literature, he reconstructed a forgotten mainstay in the actual process of inflow and transfusion of foreign knowledge and ideas into the chinese world of thought. in the introduction to the edited volume published in 2014 with his friend and colleague milena doleželová-velingerová,39 he highlights a well-established traditional chinese encyclopedia culture, the role of encyclopedic works in spreading modern scientific knowledge among a wide western public, and the chairman mao memorial hall: the tribulations of the implied pilgrim,” in pilgrims and sacred sites in china, ed. susan naquin and chu yuan-fang (berkeley: university of california press, 1992), 378−423. 37 wagner, “reading the chairman mao memorial hall,” 408. 38 wagner, “reading the chairman mao memorial hall,” 417. 39 milena doleželová-velingerová and rudolf g. wagner, ed., chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge (1870−1930): changing ways of thought (heidelberg: springer, 2014). 59the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) ongoing contest between old and new styles of reference. for many centuries, chinese encyclopedic reference works came in two types. one type addressed a literati audience and was compiled “as a source of learned quotation and conversation,” with writings transmitted from the past.40 such works “drew explicitly on authority rather than first-hand evidence for the reliability of their entries. they grouped quotations under relevant headings (such as ‘dream’), which they then organized according to the triad of heaven, earth, and man. a table of contents ensured easy access via this familiar taxonomy.”41 standards of relevance and usefulness for these “books arranged by category” (leishu 類書 ), as they were called, were generally framed by the requirements of the imperial examinations and home government. finally, they “contained no substantial information about the world at large.”42 the other type of encyclopedic works— which began to appear in the thirteenth century—were a commercial business and were directed to more general consumers; these works provided “practical, useful, condensed information about a broad range of daily concerns. … they combined authoritative quotations with newly written texts, and were published in ever-updated, revised, or pirated versions.”43 the various types of western encyclopedic works, such as the cyclopaedia of abraham rees and chambers’s information for the people, were brought to china by foreign missionaries, used in their publications, and given to chinese high officials, such as lin zexu 林則徐 (1785−1850), who drew on them for their own writings as early as 1835. wagner pinpoints the many difficulties in changing the knowledge system, which involved displacing the intricate traditional chinese common knowledge system. as zhong shaohua writes in the same volume, the “inclusion of concepts and structures borrowed wholesale from the west” demonstrate how the chinese embraced this new “systematic method of expression.”44 the preliminary step of sheer “knowledge of the alphabet and of the material objects familiar to western culture” was hard to overcome. “in terms of breadth and depth, the new learning also far exceeded 40 milena doleželová-velingerová and rudolf g. wagner, “chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge (1870−1930): changing ways of thought (introduction),” in chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge, 1−28; 6. 41 doleželová-velingerová and wagner, “chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge (1870−1930),” 6. 42 doleželová-velingerová and wagner, “chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge (1870−1930),” 6. 43 doleželová-velingerová and wagner, “chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge (1870−1930),” 7. 44 zhong shaohua, “studies on the characteristics of late qing encyclopedia entries,” in chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge (1870−1930), 425−452; 430. 60 rudolf wagner as historian the scope encompassed by traditional chinese common knowledge.”45 wagner provides a chronology of the new chinese-language reference works and an analysis of their successive features. although further research may complete or qualify his interpretations, they clearly show several evolutionary stages. the first new-style chinese reference works appeared in the 1880s, a good twenty years after japan, and on a smaller scale, with less expertise and no governmental support. unlike earlier chinese-language missionary publications on common knowledge, these works were based on up-to-date, firsthand chinese observations and analysis, grouped under new taxonomic headings intended for the practical needs of chinese diplomats and their staff. for self-study and school instruction, they provided the “integrated modernization package” that fostered both national salvation and new career options. after the defeat in the sino-japanese war (1895), the number of such works thought to help overcome the asymmetry of power between east and west greatly increased. gradually, they also began to introduce “a new conceptual taxonomy” that expressed—through “newly formed chineselanguage key terms and terminologies”—western scientific knowledge and the “institutions that conveyed, managed, and translated them into practice.”46 these works included novel information about china itself drawn from writings by chinese and foreign cultural brokers familiar and conversant with both east and west. in shanghai, the new technology of lithography made the speedy publication of massive works at modest prices possible, and the nationwide book distribution network pioneered by ernst major’s shenbaoguan publishing company in the international settlement, and hence outside government control, reached a chinese readership in every province. a new surge of reference works followed the “reform of governance” (xinzheng 新政) edict of 1901: several dozen books were published every year for three consecutive years, driven by the introduction of western subjects into the imperial examinations. however, even after the 1905 abolition of the old examination system, production remained high, with several works appearing each year, until the fall of the imperial regime in 1912. the works themselves exhibited a heightened professionalism (using well-designed japanese exemplars as their main source) and developed along two tracks: “compilations of systematic and factual information on the one hand, and efforts to overcome the terminological confusion through precise definitions of the new key concepts and terminologies in the style of encyclopedic 45 zhong, “studies on the characteristics of late qing encyclopedia entries,” 430. 46 doleželová-velingerová and wagner, “chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge (1870−1930),” 12. 61the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) dictionaries.”47 wagner stresses that while in quantity and quality they were no match for their japanese counterparts, the availability of encyclopedic knowledge in china by the fall of the empire went far beyond what scholarship had hitherto acknowledged, and should be valued as an important backdrop to the new culture movement. indeed, publication of reference works dried up in the early republican era and it is only in 1919 that the commercial press launched the riyong baikequanshu 日用百科全書 (everyday encyclopedia), which dominated the market throughout the republican period. in the 1920s, the trend favored specialized encyclopedic dictionaries of new knowledge in a single field, such as social problems, education, philosophy, and the like. through the “radical modernism of their perspective, content, and organization and the multilingual competence of their editors, they resolutely joined the ‘new culture,’ and rang the death knell for the works of the first generation. the older works faded from memory as quaint efforts from the past and the last gasps of a dying dynasty.”48 only a recently growing interest in vernacular knowledge has turned some attention to this body of work. another analytical essay in the same volume looks at eight of these older works, published between 1887 and 1911, and focuses on three questions. the first relates to editing and content; the second concerns the degree of acceptance or commonality of the information and value judgments conveyed by the works; the third deals with the actual circulation and popularization of the new commonplaces crafted in them. as an example, wagner looks at the entries about the periodical press, especially the privately owned newspaper, a new agent in the late qing cultural world. the finely edited 1887 work combines fully referenced quotations of firsthand observations from chinese diaries and travelogues with a “systematic summary of the topic,” which adds “substantial new information;” this “provided a convincing framework from which later compilers felt no need to depart.”49 large-scale copying was standard practice so “the different encyclopedias do not present radically different orderings and evaluations of the new information about the west”:50 neither do they show a strong concern for keeping their data up to date. however, each work organizes the information under different categories: in the first two works, newspapers are discussed under the heading “government”; they are then moved to the 47 doleželová-velingerová and wagner, “chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge (1870−1930),” 17. 48 doleželová-velingerová and wagner, “chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge (1870−1930),” 19. 49 rudolf g. wagner, “the formation of encyclopaedic commonplaces during the late qing: entries on the newspaper,” in chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge (1870−1930), 103−136; 105, 109. 50 wagner, “the formation of encyclopaedic commonplaces during the late qing,” 109. 62 rudolf wagner as historian “postal system,” and in 1902 to “education.” but another work published that same year places them under “parliament,” as a means to communicate information and opinion publicly. the first encyclopedia published under the republic ignored newspapers altogether, although the entry re-appeared in 1925 as part of “social education”; in the 1934 edition, newspapers were given a separate, long entry that included chinese newspapers, but again placed them in connection with “schools” and “libraries.” these shifts show that the place of newspapers in the order of things remained contested, and that they were seen more as cultural instruments than a basic requirement for sound politics. yet a basic and quite sophisticated framework regarding commonly accepted information and evaluation of newspapers is provided in the first reference work published in 1887: newspapers serve communication between high and low—they are a medium for publicly addressing information and bringing critical opinions to the ruler’s attention, as was the practice in ancient china; they have a strong impact in spreading technical and political ideas, but may become instruments of upheaval and libel, thus needing regulation and control. the 1897 reference work adds the value of the press for business and all kinds of extra-governmental uses. it stresses that “the blossoming of the papers reflects the vitality of public opinion,” and deplores china’s tardiness in this regard;51 this feature receives less attention in later works. the 1911 encyclopedic dictionary introduces a sharp analytical distinction between the essays on political and social issues in journals (zazhi 雜誌) and the factual information in newspapers (xinwenzhi 新聞紙). it links the post-1901 flurry of chinese magazine publications to the earlier practice of serial collections, and situates this development in global history. seen as a whole, this dictionary emphasizes a formal and rigorous set of definitions. through these reference works, a pool of commonplaces had developed that writers of different persuasions drew upon. the investigation of contemporaneous texts shows how authors relied on the detailed information borrowed from encyclopedias to develop their own ideas—for instance in the case of sun yirang 孫詒讓 (1848−1908) on issues such as the need to relax control over private papers, and combine them with more and better official papers at every governmental level, in order to enlighten a much larger proportion of the citizenry and the translation of the best foreign papers for daily imperial use and the wide circulation of key contents through official chinese papers. in addition, compilations of model examination essays display an artful mixture of material and conceptual discourse drawn from various encyclopedias with diverging views. wagner argues perceptively that “the encyclopedias were mostly geared towards a rapidly expanding market 51 wagner, “the formation of encyclopaedic commonplaces during the late qing,” 119. 63the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) for knowledge about the west.”52 he adds that “they were part of a widely dispersed and shared body of knowledge and assumptions”; however, because they did not possess the authority enjoyed by similar works in europe or japan at the time, “they lacked the capacity to authoritatively define their terms or their order of things.”53 dynamics of transcultural interaction: probing the concept of asymmetry as an analytical tool wagner’s interest lay in mapping out the broadest possible context for the shift of knowledge that blended western ideas and paradigms with the cultural outlook of educated chinese in the late qing. he looked thoroughly at original texts,54 seeking to discover which parts of the native chinese intellectual framework accommodated the inflow of challenging new ideas and social practices, and how they did so. in several detailed articles, he pinpoints the role played by interpretations of the zhouli 周禮 (ritual of zhou) in chinese acceptance and advocacy of foreign ideas and institutions.55 he does not mock the argument that western knowledge conformed to the teachings and practices of the ancient chinese sage kings—hence making it ultimately of chinese origin—nor does he dismiss it as a ludicrous device of feeble-minded conservatives aimed at eschewing blame for giving in to the barbarians, as was the habit of many chinese and foreign critics both then and now. instead, he takes the idea seriously, and shows that beyond its use by taiping leaders ever since feng guifen 馮桂芬 in 1860, the zhouli was read by the staunchest chinese reformers as a handbook for state management. in their eyes, this old classic described what state institutions should do, and they used it as a blueprint for the reforms they advocated, thereby generating, in wagner’s words, an alternative for both the state and the understanding of the classics that had the cultural advantage of representing modernization along western 52 wagner, “the formation of encyclopaedic commonplaces during the late qing,” 132. 53 wagner, “the formation of encyclopaedic commonplaces during the late qing,” 133. 54 he highlighted many texts, especially sun yirang’s writings and commentaries on the zhouli 周禮 (ritual of zhou). 55 rudolf g. wagner, “the zhouli as the late qing path to the future,” in statecraft and classical learning: the rituals of zhou in east asian history, ed. benjamin a. elman and martin kern (leiden: brill, 2009), 359−387; wagner, “denouement: some conclusions about the zhouli,” in statecraft and classical learning, elman and kern, 388−396; wagner, “a classic paving the way to modernity: the ritual of zhou in the chinese reform debate since the taiping civil war,” in modernity’s classics, ed. sarah c. humphreys and rudolf g. wagner (heidelberg: springer,2013), 77−100, and the “introduction” to the same volume. 64 rudolf wagner as historian lines as a return to the true and forgotten dispensations of the sages of chinese antiquity. this argumentation eased anxieties about asymmetries in cultural exchanges, while keeping the way open for an emulation of foreign features considered beneficial.56 however, wagner stresses that the exclusive focus on the state’s agency in the zhouli marginalized the contribution of society, which was not conceptualized at all. this tendency may account for the fact that all modern chinese reformers were primarily “state-minded” and had little interest in an active and autonomous national role for society. going further in textual decoding of the late qing, wagner found fertile ground in deciphering the catchwords, metaphors, and iconography of china’s imagined awakening and partition.57 in two long essays, he brought to fruition the archaeology of images, which he started in his book on taiping religion and refined in his study of the first chinese pictorial, the dianshizhai huabao. he extends the study of basic political concepts as expressed in native words for “state” or “nation” into the medium of images that take their material from a reservoir of metaphors and allegories. inspired by the works of koselleck and hans blumenberg—but critical of their view concerning the incidental role of metaphor in conceptual history—he points out that in plato’s example of the city, which like a ship is doomed without a qualified navigator (quoted by blumenberg), a metaphor does not “simply illustrate existing concepts, ... they can be crucial elements of historical experience that enter into the constitution of these concepts.”58 he then compares various versions of a cartoon published in hong kong in july 1899 by tse tsan tai (xie zuantai 謝纘泰), a christian australian of chinese descent. according to its creator, the cartoon was “designed to arouse the chinese nation and to warn the people of the impending danger of the partitioning of the empire by the foreign powers.”59 its chinese title was shiju quantu 時局全圖 (complete illustration of the contemporary situation) and its english subtitle “the situation in the far east.” it showed the foreign powers, symbolized by animals, taking hold of parts of china. the animals are inscribed with english-language statements of purpose, which are summarized in a chinese text at the bottom. china itself is a blank space. on the upper left-hand side, a short chinese poem without an english counterpart 56 wagner, “a classic paving the way,” 77. 57 rudolf g. wagner, “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening’: a study in conceptualizing asymmetry and coping with it,” the journal of transcultural studies 1 (2011): 4−139; wagner, “dividing up the [chinese] melon, guafen 瓜分: the fate of a transcultural metaphor in the formation of national myth,” the journal of transcultural studies 1 (2017): 9−122. 58 wagner, “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening,’” 8. 59 wagner, “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening,’” 17. 65the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) deplores the fact that china is in deep sleep, and urges the nation to wake up now, before it is sliced up like a watermelon. wagner painstakingly documents the successive versions of the print, known as the image of “china carved up like a melon,” and their distribution in journals and newspapers, as postcards or individual prints. in his 2011 essay, he focuses on the sleep metaphor, which first appeared in 1884 in connection with the sino-french war. its use increases in reformist writings after 1896, especially those by liang qichao 梁啟超 (1873−1929); after 1900 it spreads to a variety of publications and “sleeping china” is now portrayed as a sleeping giant or lion. after china’s 1895 defeat in the war with japan, chinese authors often disparagingly referred to an english-language article published in 1887 by zeng jize 曾紀澤 (1839-1890), the chinese minister to london, paris, and st. petersburg, who claimed that china had awakened, strengthened her defenses, overcome huge rebellions, and proved able to protect her tributary states. wagner’s research shows that the sleep/awakening metaphor as applied to nations appeared in europe in the fifteenth century. it was widely used in the eighteenth century and applied to other communities as well. by the nineteenth century, it was routinely used in writings and for creating popular images, satirizing britain and germany alike. after the 1850s, the metaphor was commonplace in european writings on turkey, and the chinese reformers of 1898 reproduced it as a warning that sleep led to dismemberment by foreign powers. by the end of the 19th century, the metaphoric transition from sleep to awakening was used in japan to frame a general master narrative that described the sudden and shocking transition from traditional ways to modernity in nations that were characterized by this double distance, which they had further increased by a conscious policy of closing themselves off from the rest of the world.60 regarding india, it was used by the british historian robert mackenzie in 1880, in his authoritative book the nineteenth century, a history, translated into chinese in 1898. already in 1872, the visual metaphor of sleeping nations (including china) crops up as images in the foreign satirical journal puck, or the shanghai charivari. in fact, zeng jize’s 1887 article was met with lively discussion in both the foreign press and the english-language press in china and hong kong (from where it was translated and picked up by the chinese-language papers). the gradual spread of this translingual and transcultural debate shows no evidence of partisanship linked to ethnic, national, or linguistic affiliation. while the ensuing controversy quickly faded, it reappeared in january 1895 with the publication of an article by 60 wagner, “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening,’” 48. 66 rudolf wagner as historian lord wolseley, chief of staff of the british army, entitled “china and japan,” which fueled the debate for many years to come, both in china and abroad. the author stressed that china’s slumber was due to bad government alone, while the people had enormous potential and would soon overtake europe and america if only they found their napoleon. chinese publications and statements that mixed image and text, along with many political cartoons, showed “a clear understanding of the different and interlaced dynamics of an asymmetry of power as well as an asymmetry in cultural flows.”61 in all of these depictions, china’s weakness is self-inflicted; no foreign power is credited with bringing about the country’s present abysmal state. “the crisis was not caused by foreign powers that were intrinsically stronger than china, but by the corrosion of china’s own internal structures, which made the country easy prey for outsiders.”62 wagner adds, “this line of reasoning opens a field of meaningful action for reformers and revolutionists who may dare to take on their own enfeebled government, but shy away from taking on the [foreign] powers, especially because the latter are also the source of the ‘civilization’ towards which these rebels are trying to push their own polity.”63 only in the last years of the qing does one find some deviation from the metaphor and consensus that china’s sleep was self-inflicted, when massive foreign loans and opium—a product associated with the opium war and banned by the government in 1906—were treated as foreign tools used to keep china asleep. up to the present day, the vocabulary and imagery of china’s sleep and awakening have remained recurrent themes in literary and political writings. in this research, wagner brings to light the fact that metaphor and image focus on a critical situation, impacting the audience through the suggestion of an urgently needed practical action. as he writes, “the agenda was to awaken nationalist commitment, and the strategy was a combination of shaming the audience/onlookers into such a commitment, and showing the potential utopian result.”64 the metaphor and image form part of the material and experience on the basis of which a new abstract concept of nation is synthesized. the concrete form of presentation turns the abstract concept into a potentially powerful political engine. although the conceptual generalization succeeds the metaphorical or visual articulation, it retains traces of its origin. the translingual and transcultural flow of political concepts, metaphors, and images is mediated in the nineteenth century “by the global spread of text and image 61 wagner, “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening,’” 79−80. 62 wagner, “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening,’” 111. 63 wagner, “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening,’” 111. 64 wagner, “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening,’” 132. 67the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) media,” by cultural brokers familiar with both their own space and globalized public discourse, and by “translingual and transcultural contact in contact zones, such as ports.”65 the speed, focus, and intensity of the flows peak in crisis moments, and the harvested foreign material then completely recasts the vernacular language, rhetoric, and imagery. such massive flows presuppose an external resource that matured long enough to provide a large quantity of consistent material. nevertheless, “the dominant agency driving the flows is not in the push or imposition by an external power, but in the pull exerted by people who assume the role of cultural brokers.”66 these brokers come from different ethnic groups, nationalities, and linguistic backgrounds, and act for all kinds of personal, social, or economic reasons. however, “their agency hinges on a ‘market bet,’ namely, that their cultural products (translations, images etc.) will find buyers or followers.”67 the material carried in these flows, “if successful, will spread further inland from the brokers and the contact zones through print or other media.”68 the spread shows evidence of a highly uneven density of the public sphere, or rather “a dual public sphere with one part integrated in the global flow, while the other, the hinterland, is very much cut off and only thinly fed by the contact zones.”69 wagner continues: the metaphor of “china asleep” is an effort to conceptually grasp the instability of a complex asymmetry in agency and power vis-à-vis the powers. the perception of this asymmetry and the resulting historical energy differs depending on which side one identifies with. for the speaker/artist/onlooker identifying with the “sleeping china” in this critical environment, the scenario suggests an anxiety, which might end up mobilizing his or her energies to “wake” up and, depending on the reading, realize the potential buried in the sleeping giant, level or inverse (sic) the asymmetry in agency and power, or to avoid the issue. for the speaker/artist/onlooker identifying with the surrounding powers, the scenario presented in the metaphor and image suggests an anxiety, which might prompt efforts to keep china asleep so as to maintain the asymmetry in power and flows, to prepare for a confrontation over the spoils should china not wake up at all, or, to the contrary, follow an utopian path by actively contributing to a leveling of the prevailing asymmetries.70 65 wagner, “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening,’” 133. 66 wagner, “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening,’” 133. 67 wagner, “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening,’” 134. 68 wagner, “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening,’” 134. 69 wagner, “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening,’” 134. 70 wagner, “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening,’” 134−135. 68 rudolf wagner as historian in his second essay on political metaphor, wagner goes back to the cartoons of 1899−1900 that address the partition of china, and investigates the sources of the “cutting china up like a watermelon” (guafen 瓜分) metaphor, which has been part of mainland china’s master narrative of foreign power policy since 1949. he also endeavors to “assess the relationship between the guafen narrative and historical reality.”71 as wagner writes, “guafen 瓜分, ‘watermelon-cutting,’ has been used since chinese antiquity as an unmarked metaphorical concept for dividing up.”72 however, recorded textual uses are fairly rare. he explains, “it occurs in the warring states period as a term for neighbors dividing up the territory of a state amongst themselves. until modern times, guafen was one of the many more or less ‘dead’ metaphors that have entered all common languages.”73 evidence from available databases shows that the term gained new life in policy-related texts as a legal category used to translate the western concept of “partition” in relation to poland. “while originally its use was due to the lack of a suitable noun in chinese, its metaphorical character ended up fostering lively and emotional reactions among the broad [chinese] public.”74 exhaustive unearthing and review of every chinese-language mention of polish partition—the first appearing before 1834 in the british missionary robert morrison’s sketch of the history of foreign countries—reveals that xu jiyu’s 徐繼畬 1848 world geography, yinghuan zhilüe 瀛寰志略 (sketch of the globe), a widely read work in china and japan, “pioneered the use of guafen 瓜分 rather than just fen [cut] in its treatment of polish partition.”75 from an impressive array of primary sources, wagner documents in detail the development of related terminology and notions in the chinese historical and legal vocabulary, and shows that since the 1860s the term guafen carried a heavy value judgment against such unlawful actions, with precedents drawn from poland, turkey, and other countries. “by 1890, the potential partition of china itself became a topic of discussion and concern in china,”76 and some writers explored the possible benefits of this for both china and the foreign powers. in 1887, huang zunxian 黃遵憲 wrote in his riben guozhi 日本國誌 (chronicle of japan), published in 1895, that europe “had greatly benefitted 71 wagner, “dividing up the [chinese] melon,” 11. 72 wagner, “dividing up the [chinese] melon,” 11. 73 wagner, “dividing up the [chinese] melon,” 13. 74 wagner, “dividing up the [chinese] melon,” 15−16. 75 wagner, “dividing up the [chinese] melon,” 23. 76 wagner, “dividing up the [chinese] melon,” 33. 69the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) from the fragmentation of the roman empire into different states,”77 and that the same would be true for china. intense discussion by chinese authors of the partition as a distinct threat to china began in 1895 after the shimonoseki treaty with japan, when the prospect was widely featured in the foreign press abroad and in china. the topic was, in fact, introduced to chinese readers by westerners who published chinese-language papers committed to china’s progress, first by the wanguo gongbao 萬國公報 (a review of the times) in january 1895. while the discussion of guafen as a polemic narrative of illegitimate partition was frequent in reformist journals and books, relying on fully translated foreign-press articles, it barely appeared in commercial dailies. “the agenda that came with the guafen narrative, however, was one of urgent reform.”78 once kang youwei 康有為 (1858−1927) met the emperor in 1898, he tried to establish the guafen narrative and its agenda within the language of the political center, sending the sovereign the detailed bolan fenmie ji 波蘭分滅記 (record of poland’s partition and demise) together with his essays on successful reforms in japan and russia. after the empress dowager’s coup d’état (september 21, 1898) forced reformers into exile, their pamphlets and journals emphasized the responsibility of the court and high officialdom for the dangers of partition. the media explosion in china after 1900 “did not come with a concomitant spread of the guafen narrative and its agenda”; that narrative and agenda “did not make it into the mainstream of commercial papers and journals but remained concentrated in a substantial, but still marginal section of media directly associated with the reformers … as well as some political novels, new stage plays, and poems.”79 an international visual language had long illustrated the concept of partition, with a famous 1773 map-print of poland showing its neighbors marking out shares and captioning the country a “cake”. associating territory with a delicacy and partition with a dinner party soon became an established norm. the depiction of china as a fat pig is often documented in chinese and japanese cartoons, and sometimes even simple maps used captions or figurines to depict foreign spheres of influence. while foreign press cartoonists favored cakes and dinners, “with the beginning of the qing court’s ‘reform of governance’ (xinzheng 新政) in 1901, the main focus quickly became the threat of an ‘awakening’ china,”80 now pictured as a huge sword above the heads of hungry diners. in the chinese advocacy press, the use of the term guafen continued into the first decade of the twentieth century, 77 wagner, “dividing up the [chinese] melon,” 34. 78 wagner, “dividing up the [chinese] melon,” 57. 79 wagner, “dividing up the [chinese] melon,” 80. 80 wagner, “dividing up the [chinese] melon,” 102. 70 rudolf wagner as historian but was inflated to account for new developments familiar to its readers, such as the expansion of railroads and mining with the help of foreign investors and generous bribes. cartoons, plays, and novels turned out to be the most effective media for reaching wider audiences, especially with “the discovery of guafen as a lively metaphorical expression that would relate the danger for the country in terms of everyday experience.”81 in 1904, a new opera linking turkey and poland with a watermelon sliced on stage became hugely popular. the melon as a common icon was shared by political essays, dramas, poetry, paintings, and cartoons alike. however, wagner argues that “the guafen storyline did not get enough traction in the public sphere during these early years to become a significant tool of discursive power.”82 the late qing government, as well as sun yat-sen and republican governments, all wanted foreign capital and technology to develop china, and believed that by involving multiple, competing foreign powers, china’s territorial integrity would be protected. in 1932, the chinese communist party picked up the guafen story, and after it came to power in 1949, “the guafen narrative was elevated to become the defining feature of imperialist policies” towards china, without gaining “in factual credibility for either the late qing or any later period until now.”83 in recent years, some bold painters have revived an older meaning of the guafen metaphor, “namely the dividing of spoils among, for example, the members of a robber band.”84 wagner’s two studies on the metaphors of sleep and watermeloncutting explore similar themes. in both articles, wagner makes a substantial contribution to conceptual history (begriffsgeschichte), highlighting the decisive role of metaphor in the shifting formations of a concept. in so doing, he asks us to consider the following: the dynamics of transcultural interaction in the formation of concepts; the role of platforms other than words in articulating concepts; the impact of the systemic environment of concepts and that of the actual usage of concepts on their valuation; the agenda associated with them, and their antonyms; the reach of their application in public discourse and the efforts to expand it to gain hegemony; the benefits and costs of their metaphorical visualization; their place in a contest about an accurate reflection of historical reality; and their continued use in propaganda after historical reality had falsified their definitory claim.85 81 wagner, “dividing up the [chinese] melon,” 103. 82 wagner, “dividing up the [chinese] melon,” 108. 83 wagner, “dividing up the [chinese] melon,” 110. 84 wagner, “dividing up the [chinese] melon,” 111. 85 wagner, “dividing up the [chinese] melon,” 117. 71the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) both pieces were experimental demonstrations of methods and interpretive arguments that he had been devising, mulling over, and refining through years of work with chinese texts and representations that crossed centuries, against the background of his own deep and wide understanding of western learning and cultures. wagner’s last two published essays appear in the form of epistemological commentary and reflections on his work as a historian and the agenda for historians of china. in fact, the first essay, published in the university of chicago journal know, sounds like a manifesto.86 it discusses and documents three examples of new knowledge related to governance, in order to deny any essentialization of east and west: first, “the perception of the chinese system of governance as instrumental in securing a stable order over a vast territory over a long stretch of time in europe between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries”; second, “the perception in china after 1860 of ‘wealth and power’ resulting from a new system of government in western europe and the united states”; and third, “the effective projection of a commitment to just governance” in nearly all eurasian states between the seventh and eighteenth centuries, through a public drum or bell used to voice complaints or give advice—a device adopted from china.87 as wagner makes clear, the ways of knowing are intrinsically connected to the ways of forming, acquiring, and communicating knowing. in all three cases, knowing and its communication are connected to a crisis mode of the polity with the people who are supposed to be professionals in knowing, such as government advisors and journalists publicly conveying their understanding of the main problem of the polity to the powerholder as well as others of their own kind. … they acted as brokers of knowledge, selecting relevant knowledge from abroad and presenting it in a form suited to the presumed desires of their patrons, whether they be rulers, elites, or the public at large. they are bridging an asymmetry of relevant knowledge that often comes with asymmetric power dynamics. the neocolonial assumption that agency in asymmetric power rests with the superior party is not supported by actual processes.88 that is to say, “the agency in transcultural interaction is with the pull and not the push.”89 86 rudolf g. wagner, “can we speak of east/west ways of knowing?” know 2, no. 1 (2018): 31−46. 87 wagner, “can we speak of east/west ways of knowing?,” 32−33. 88 wagner, “can we speak of east/west ways of knowing?,” 43−45. 89 rudolf g. wagner, “asymmetry in transcultural interaction,” in engaging transculturality: 72 rudolf wagner as historian wagner goes on to stress that all the cultures involved in his three examples “made use of and benefitted from cultural imports in developing the knowledge about themselves.”90 he explains: in this sense, transcultural interaction is the lifeline of culture. without it, cultures dry up under the management of the upholders and beneficiaries of orthodoxy and lose the capacity to recognize and deal with historical change. but this is only one half of the story. culture is also the anchor of identity. this comes with a claim to authenticity. the result is that cultures constantly take from others what seems to promise a desired result, and then very often deny this ever happened. this denial of the importance of transculturality is much older than the nation-state, but the nation-state has taken on the role of the modern administrator of memory. … this has produced an entire set of tropes such as, in china, the endless repetition of you zhongguo tese, things “having something particularly chinese,” that extends across the board from marxism to food and ethics. similar propositions are heard in europe, for example, about music, philosophy, democracy, or science. these tropes have merged into a mother trope of eastern and western ways of thinking and knowing, which often is claiming the authority of specialists in the field.91 one outcome of this phenomenon, wagner adds, “is the often systematic marginalization or deletion of evidence for the importance of transcultural interaction. this dramatically reduces relevant sources for scholars working in the field.”92 wagner sounds an indignant outcry about the resulting conundrum: “the burden of proof for transcultural interaction has even been increased.”93 wagner’s last essay maps “the explanatory power of the concept of asymmetry” as an analytical tool for the study of transcultural interaction onto a case study of the development of the chinese press.94 basing the definition of asymmetry on its use in the natural sciences (especially biology and physics)—as a property of physical and abstract systems—he notes, “many processes in observable asymmetrical and chaotic reality tend towards the establishment of symmetry”; there is a dynamic relationship concepts, key terms, case studies, ed. laila abu-er-rub, christiane brosius, sebastian meurer, diamantis panagiotopoulos, and susan richter (london: routledge, 2019), 15−38; 18; wagner, “can we speak of east/west ways of knowing?,” 45. 90 wagner, “can we speak of east/west ways of knowing?,” 45. 91 wagner, “can we speak of east/west ways of knowing?,” 45−46. 92 wagner, “can we speak of east/west ways of knowing?,” 46. 93 wagner, “can we speak of east/west ways of knowing?,” 46. 94 wagner, “asymmetry in transcultural interaction,” 34. 73the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) between asymmetry and symmetry, or rather, “between high and low levels of fluctuating asymmetry,” and this dynamic tends towards accommodating more symmetry and sustainable order than chaos.95 in the field of the humanities, asymmetry describes the comparative perception of two entities regarding their functionality or adjustment to a given purpose. if that perception defines those entities as “asymmetrical in the degree of their functionality, a historical agency is released to overcome this asymmetry, because the given feature of the other is more enjoyable, powerful, beautiful, efficient, and so on.”96 if the entities involved are cultures or social bodies such as nations, this perception results in asymmetrical exchanges, where one entity draws more from the other than vice versa. wagner insists, “both the reality of asymmetry and the lofty goal of symmetry are pervasively present in history, … and even universally present in the interaction between cultures.”97 in his view, “while the terms might not be used, the language of historical protagonists suggests that there is an intrinsic dynamism in the perception of asymmetry to overcome it.”98 the abstract modern formulation of asymmetry takes up this internal dynamic and thus qualifies as a hermeneutic concept for the analysis of the perception of historical actors and their ensuing agency (much better, in fact, than the comparative ex post facto concepts imposed by the social sciences). the use of asymmetry as an explanatory concept requires that one neglects “elements and processes unknown to or disregarded by the historical protagonists” while simultaneously “highlighting their construction of an environment framed by binaries.”99 wagner sharply ascribes modern scholarship’s reluctance to use the concept of asymmetry to the stigma of political incorrectness— attaching itself as it were to value judgments such as who is more advanced or stronger, and who is less so—“even though the sources constantly operate with and act on just such judgments.”100 in his view, “modern scholarship has reduced the perceived asymmetry in the functionality of cultural or political features to an ‘objective’ asymmetry in power. this tendency has been most prominently pronounced in postcolonial scholarship in the wake of edward said’s work orientalism (1978).”101 with several examples from ancient and 95 wagner, “asymmetry in transcultural interaction,” 15. 96 wagner, “asymmetry in transcultural interaction,” 16−17. 97 wagner, “asymmetry in transcultural interaction,” 17. 98 wagner, “asymmetry in transcultural interaction,” 17. 99 wagner, “asymmetry in transcultural interaction,” 17. 100 wagner, “asymmetry in transcultural interaction,” 17. 101 wagner, “asymmetry in transcultural interaction,” 17. 74 rudolf wagner as historian modern eurasian history, wagner artfully shows that the historical record does not support the latter line of argumentation. he highlights once again that the “agency in transcultural interaction is with the pull and not the push,” and provides stunning evidence from an arsenal of chinese classics, modern cartoons, and contemporary art, that the “driving force behind the action is the perception of the degree of asymmetry. perceiving an asymmetry of power as the marker of functionality will release an intense form of agency to balance it out, or reverse it, but only a mild form of agency on the other side to counter these efforts so as to maintain or even enhance a dominant position. the actual mechanism, in other words, is the reverse of what has [commonly] been claimed.”102 we are forewarned, however, that although a hermeneutic approach is highly suitable for reconstructing the perception and motivation of actors’ actions, it also follows the logic of binary relationships with an “other,” which could represent an essentialized collective made up of many parts, such as “the west” or “the orient,” thereby covering up more complex processes. in addition, wagner comments on what he calls “massive translation”: a high “level of transcultural interaction where the ‘translated’ items are no longer absorbed within an existing system, but end up creating a new system in which they play a key or even the dominant role”;103 if this “occurs on a regional or global scale, the result will be shared core features existing under a surface of seeming diversity.”104 he defines two characteristics of the process of transcultural interaction: “the appropriation of all that seems of interest together with the simultaneous or retroactive claim to authenticity, the denial of its relevance, and the marginalization of the related evidence in heritage preservation and scholarship.”105 finally, he draws up a list of sixteen insightful key propositions to chart the study of cultural interaction with sound critical method and purpose. a summary of his research on chinese-language newspapers, organized in accord with these key propositions, ends the essay, as an illustration of the validity and richness of the concept of asymmetry. however, in conclusion, i go back to the weakness of asymmetry as a concept, which may be best summarized by wagner himself: its weakness thus is that it juxtaposes essentialized and dehistoricized features and does not cover the actual complexity of the historical process. the historical process involves multiple interactions with fluctuating asymmetries in many different fields and, most importantly, participants 102 wagner, “asymmetry in transcultural interaction,” 18. 103 wagner, “asymmetry in transcultural interaction,” 23. 104 wagner, “asymmetry in transcultural interaction,” 23. 105 wagner, “asymmetry in transcultural interaction,” 24. 75the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) with a wide range of differing assessments of the causes and proposals for solutions. a full analysis of such a historical process might even prove that the perception of the historical actors was short-sighted or wrong. such proof, however, would not invalidate the hermeneutical argument because the historical protagonists act not on an elusive objective truth and complete set of deep information, but on their own perception. a full historical analysis might have to proceed in three steps, uncovering the hidden evidence of perceptions of asymmetry and transcultural interaction through a critical perusal of the historical record, as this has generally been homogenized under the banner of internal continuity and authenticity; an exploration of the perception of the historical protagonists and the energy released by it; and a confrontation of their perceptions with relevant data unknown to them or disregarded by them.106 conclusion for me, rudolf wagner is one of the finest examples of the best german scholarship, which combines a deep and firm grounding in philology, the “mother of all sciences,” with the extensive knowledge, understanding, curiosity, and rigorous critical faculties of a great historian, and the philosophical questioning of history itself—what it is, what makes it, where its truth lies, and how to write it. he was one of the few sinologists of his generation whose learning was able to encompass the whole of chinese history with precise and insightful arguments and comments. while he never chose to write a textbook of the history of china, he contributed a great many articles to various dictionaries and encyclopedias, thereby making new and sound knowledge widely available. his specialized works on chinese texts and images old and new, on the history of the chinese press, and on the dynamics of transcultural interaction in china will remain milestones for the breadth and richness of documentary sources they mobilize and their thorough argumentation. wagner was born during the second world war and belonged to the young german generation who vowed to ensure the horrors of the nazi past never happened again. this made him fully aware of the traps and drifts of authoritarian government, and deeply suspicious of them. he was certainly more sensitive than most foreign historians to the subtle forms these phenomena could take in china. his demonstration of the fallacies of many china-centered narratives and the postcolonial narrative of china’s victimization by the west presents a far more sophisticated, well-documented, and convincing approach than the said narratives. he restored a historical reading of events. when in the late 1990s he embarked on this approach, challenging the dominant historiography 106 wagner, “asymmetry in transcultural interaction,” 35. 76 rudolf wagner as historian of imperialism focused on guilt, it required not only dedicated scholarship but also courage. he was an enlightened scholar who believed in humankind and had a true global vision, which he expressed with humor. today his views are gaining ground, and we should remain grateful to him. as wagner said, “scholars can contribute well-grounded knowledge that might be useful when framing policy decisions.”107 107 wagner interview, 66. 2018_ejournal_ednote.indd editorial note the first three papers in this double issue deal with the ways in which the legal, institutional, and political issues facing japan, china, vietnam, and korea in the decades before and after 1900 were framed in a transcultural context. these studies were originally presented at a september 2017 workshop at the university of connecticut on “nation, race, and survival: transnational discourse and activism in the construction of the east asian modern” that had been organized by peter zarrow and bradley davis in honor of the memory of professor catherine lynch (1949–2015), whose study on liang shuming, a chinese philosopher and activist in rural reconstruction with a strong interest in cultural comparison, has just appeared posthumously.1 douglas howland takes us into the arcane world of debates among legal scholars about the territorial foundations of sovereignty with a special focus on japan and china. the present controversy surrounding the south china sea and the senkaku islands gives his study a heightened actuality. it also highlights to what degree such legal battles drive, and are driven by, broad social and political movements. the article focuses not only on territorial anchors for national identity and on overcoming asymmetries encoded in power relations but also in legal concepts such as the famous terra nullius (“no-man’s land”) with its definition that only a fully developed western-style state could have claims to own a given territory. due to the conflicts even among the major powers, these legal debates have a certain critical independence, which prompts countries such as japan and china to make full use of the ensuing leeway for themselves, and they did and do so skillfully. while the states involved are represented in the legal battles through the fiction of a single voice, the social and political reality involves many players with different agendas. the fierce japanese struggle against the extraterritoriality of foreigners residing in japan did not prevent the country a few years later from establishing its own colonial empire on chinese soil while also abrogating the extraterritoriality of westerners there. the broad public support for the chinese government’s struggle against the extraterritoriality of westerners during the 1920s and 1930s did not prevent the papers that were wholeheartedly supporting this struggle from legally registering their businesses under the names of foreigners or in the united states as delaware corporations to be shielded against the very same government. howland’s study challenges us to explore the complex interplay between legal, political, and social controversies that draw on and feed into processes of transcultural interaction. 1 catherine lynch, liang shuming and the populist alternative in china (leiden: brill, 2018). 6 editorial note wynn gadkar-wilcox digs into the archives of the vietnamese state to reconstruct a moment when it tried to cope with the ever-intensifying french pressure to transform the country into a colony. a look into his footnotes shows that, ironically, many of the relevant sources are kept to this day in french archives, a colonial heritage that has recently received critical attention in relation to the french government’s discussion about the best way to deal with the african cultural heritage held in french archives and museums. his study traces the circuitous ways in which knowledge about the institutional foundations of the “west’s” dominating powers reached the vietnamese court and began to inform the way in which it redesigned its policy questions for examination candidates. perhaps the most prominent source for this effort was a chinese world geography from the 1840s that was largely based on murray’s encyclopaedia of geography that had been orally summarized for the author by an american missionary.2 but the sources also included a plethora of smaller texts published by protestant missionaries in chinese in places outside of china, such as penang, from the 1820s onward. these in turn excerpted popular and encyclopedic reading matter from the united states and england and were designed to convey “useful knowledge” to a chinese readership that was considered as remaining locked in its claustrophobic worldview and conceited in their self-assessment. reprinted in japan from early on for an elite routinely reading classical chinese in a highly complex reconfiguration into japanese words and grammar, these works mostly reached vietnam in their japanese versions. japan rather than china seemed like the model to follow at the time if sovereignty and modern development was at stake. at the same time, japanese reformers, who were often very critical of their government, were eager to meet, support, and host people from other parts of asia with similar ideas. with its focus on the vietnamese court, the study recovers a neglected record of transcultural engagement with its own particulars. it contributes an important microhistorical study to the growing body of knowledge on trans-asian ‘reform networks associated with erez manela’s wilsonian moment (2007) and pankaj mishra’s from the ruins of empire: intellectuals who remade asia (2012).3 2 hugh murray, ed., an encyclopaedia of geography: comprising a complete description of the earth, physical, statistical, civil, and political; exhibiting its relation to the heavenly bodies, its physical structure, the natural history of each country, and the industry, commerce, political institutions, and civil and social state of all nations (philadelphia: carey, lea and blanchard, 1837). 3 erez manela, the wilsonian moment: self-determination and the international origins of anticolonial nationalism (new york: oxford university press, 2007); pankaj mishra, from the ruins of empire: the intellectuals who remade asia (new york: farrar, straus, and giroux, 2012). 7the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 in a similar manner as wynn gadkar-wilcox for vietnam, joshua van lieu delves into the court archives for korea to map the discussion of the impending fate of this country as japanese pressure increased and as there were reformers within the country who felt that temporary japanese tutelage was the only hope to lift the country out of its rigid traditionalism. with the recent fate of vietnam not far away, and a moving account about the inner causes of the history of the fall of vietnam by the leading vietnamese reform advocate phan bội châu just published in chinese—or better, sinitic—which could be read by members of the korean elite, an indirect and relatively safe platform was available to discuss the dark prospects of the korean nation in newspapers and at the court by talking about vietnam. phan had written his book in the very japan that was now threatening the demise of korea. his book was published with the help of the chinese reformer liang qichao in shanghai in the midst of an extended chinese debate about the threatening fate of china being “carved up.” the sinitic version was published in korea as early as 1906, and various translations into modern korean followed in quick order. these are all signs of close transcultural links and exchanges between east asian reformers and of the ways in which discussions among reform advocates penetrated court discussions, enhanced by the new features of an independent publishing culture in shanghai, and the new media of the newspaper and periodical press. as the field of transcultural studies moves from broader bordercrossing issues to include microhistorical analyses, the three studies in this group make an important contribution to a set of agenda now also pursued by a specialized society for cultural interaction in east asia (http://www.sciea.org/en/). susanna fessler probes how two intellectuals, one from tsarist russia and one from imperial japan, who were both disturbed by their respective governments’ military mobilization against each other and the willingness of the uneducated to go along, found common ground in the belief that religion properly understood might be the panacea. in the midst of the russo–japanese war in 1904–1905 and faced with a war propaganda machine on both sides denouncing the opponent, leo tolstoy wrote his bethink yourselves at his country seat and anesaki masaharu, a young professor at tokyo’s imperial university, took this essay up and held its anti-war stance up for emulation in japan, just as it was bathing in the glory of victory. not speaking from the relatively safe haven of an established ideology such as anarchism or a religion such as buddhism or christianity, both men were fiercely critical especially of the deadening effect of organized religion on religious feeling and of the callous support religious authorities had given to warmongering. the consequence was that both 8 editorial note came under equally fierce criticism. tolstoy was excommunicated by the russian orthodox church and his essay banned in russia, and anesaki masaharu had to ask an american colleague whether there would be a job for him at a us university if he were to be fired by his own university for his stance. joining a broad and closely connected but institutionally weak international intellectual current at the time that was critical of organized religion but upheld the power of religions to move people to the good, their individualized religion accommodated elements from various backgrounds and allowed them to disregard national-state imperatives by engaging with marginalized currents in their own country and people of similar mindset in other nations. during the last hundred years, we have seen an exponential growth in such informal connections and networks across the world. many of them are religious in character, others focus on the environment or other issues. the study offers a pioneering microhistorical analysis of the type of personality involved, the disproportionate impact they had internationally and in their own countries, the way how they connected, and the agency driving this interaction. the final article in the issue, sophie roche’s essay on “knowledge production on central asia,” continues our series of articles about the contribution a transcultural approach might make to different disciplines. central asian studies is in an unusually complex situation. at present, the authorities in the newly independent central asian republics are busy inventing and imposing unified historical narratives as a way to stabilize national identity. at the same time, the heritage this field received from soviet scholarship is marked by the qualification of religion (in this case, islam) as “opium for the people,” a relic of a past that needed to be overcome with the help of the russian brethren, and by the notion that the customs of these people were the object of ethnological study and in urgent need of a reform along socialist lines. the very small pool of specialists working outside of central asia and russia today are pushed by funding agencies to focus their research on security threats from islam and the potential of exploiting the oil resources of the region. at the same time, the field remains defined as “central asia.” this lumping together is not the result of an insight into the necessity to understand the region through the benefit of a transcultural approach, but the fact that the individual countries were unable to garner enough attention to generate a bona fide “kyrgysiology” or “turkmenistanology.” the religious, linguistic, historical, social, and economic elements connecting the central asian states among each other and with broader regional and global currents together with the fact that time and again the region has shown its potential to have a huge impact far beyond its outer range indicate that 9the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 a transcultural approach would both free the discipline from its soviet heritage and its restrictions by definitions of security concerns and resource potential, and would allow it to further develop the buds of a fruitful new future that are already in evidence in small research groups in places such as berlin or cambridge (ma). rudolf g. wagner bringing a global perspective to chinese studies: a tribute to rudolf wagner’s scholarship leo ou-fan lee to write a tribute to rudolf wagner’s scholarship in an impersonal voice is impossible, especially for someone like me who, over the years, has amassed so much intellectual debt to him. in this essay, i would like to discuss rudolf’s contributions to the field of modern chinese studies by highlighting some of the memorable instances of his scholarly impact on me. therefore, i am consciously using the format of a scholarly narrative combined with analysis in order to show the immense range and depth of his ideas and findings, emanating from his massive research. rudolf was a born researcher, for whom, as for jorge luis borges, the world can be imagined as a huge library. if the phantom collection of a chinese imperial library serves as a source of inspiration for borges’s literary imagination, for rudolf the world of archives—books, articles, all kinds of print and visual sources—was his life-world, one that could be contained by his mind and controlled at his fingertips. therefore, i would like to dismiss the notion of a china specialist as an epithet for rudolf. as an undergraduate student with a philosophic bent, he wanted to study hermeneutics with hansgeorg gadamer but found chinese buddhism and daoism more challenging, which then led him to sinology. like many german sinologists of his generation, he was drawn to the study of modern and contemporary china by the forces of ideological trends. but his background in european sinology had the advantage of non-specialization. a scholar of such prodigious talent was able to move at ease between ancient and modern periods, unlike americantrained china specialists such as myself who are confined to a narrow field and discipline. i cannot remember when i first met rudolf, but can recall the gist of our conversation. in the early 1980s, i was asked to edit a series of translations of modern and contemporary chinese literature for indiana university press. one of the proposed books was a translation of liu binyan’s 劉賓雁 reportage (texie 特寫) renyao zhi jian 人妖之間 (people or monsters). upon hearing it, rudolf casually dropped the hint that the texie genre that made liu famous came from soviet russia, was called ocherk, and practiced by the soviet writer 91the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) valentin ovechkin.1 i hastily incorporated this reference in my brief introduction for the volume. rudolf’s gentle reminder alerted me to the fact that contemporary chinese literature, especially in the period from the 1950s to the early 1980s, was heavily influenced by soviet russia, yet few scholars in the field of modern chinese literature knew anything about soviet literature. rudolf was then known as a soviet expert—which to me sounded like an insult to his intelligence—not because i look down on soviet studies but because i realized even then, when he was relatively unknown in the united states, rudolf’s knowledge far exceeded anybody i knew in the field of modern and contemporary china studies. this was the time before his habilitation work on the third-century scholar wang bi 王弼 (226–249) was known. his reputation was established by a solidly researched book on the taiping rebellion in which he argues that the religious vision of the taiping leader hong xiuquan 洪秀全 (1814–1864) was genuine and based on an authentic understanding of christianity. the thesis thus challenges the typical chinese view that the taiping were native rebels with no clear knowledge of foreign religion. at the time, i was dubious and thought that rudolf gave the taiping too much credit. but i soon found out that he was correcting a widespread bias: china scholars tended to see china as a world unto its own, with its own traditions largely shaping its modern transformation. rudolf was challenging the so-called “western impact, chinese response” model promulgated by john fairbank, my own professor. yet in giving china and chinese culture a holistic shade combined with an ideological stance of anti-imperialism, we china scholars had lost sight of the world. rudolf, on the other hand, held on to a global vision of culture from the very beginning. for him the world was not divided into east and west, and china itself was never a closed world. it was rather the ghost of chauvinistic nationalism—certainly a modern product—that haunts all china scholarship, especially that of native chinese scholars who seem to have harbored a deep-seated distrust of all foreign scholarship on china. but i must hasten to point out that rudolf’s globalism was different from the current notion of globalization, which is driven by transnational capitalism and market forces. rudolf’s global vision embodied by his work was essentially cultural; the world is never flat but characterized by the asymmetries of cultural flow, which have never been equal or smooth. we as scholars must embrace them as a matter of fact (to use rudolf’s trademark phrase in its literal meaning). in her november 14, 2019 acceptance speech on behalf of rudolf for the karl jaspers prize (karljaspers-preis) at heidelberg university, catherine yeh openly states that “rudolf was intensely anti-nationalistic” and always advocated a position that emphasizes transcultural engagement as a condition underlying the flow of knowledge and literary forms, and that he refused to study chinese culture through an exclusively 1 rudolf had since published a long article on the subject, see rudolf g. wagner, “liu binyan and the texie,” modern chinese literature 2, no. 1 (spring 1986): 63–98. 92 bringing a global perspective to chinese studies “chinese lens.”2 it takes intellectual guts to challenge the self-righteous essentialists in the china field, but eventually rudolf won: the establishment of the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context” at heidelberg university is an institutional testament to his victory. scholars of china should consider themselves lucky to have rudolf in their midst, since he could have become an equally prominent sanskritist or indologist. indeed china—as culture but not necessarily nation-state— became his base of operation in order to realize his scholarly vision. most probably, i would not have been able to meet him if he had chosen to stay in germany and become a philosopher. i can still feel the “sting” from rudolf’s casual remark about the soviet prose genre. our conversations at that early meeting moved from soviet prose to french journalism. according to rudolf, around the time of the french revolution the french newspapers initiated a feature called esquisses physiologiques, a form of a detailed sociological sketch each day on a particular area of the city of paris, which was the origin of both ovechkin’s ocherk, liu binyan’s texie, and qu qiubai’s 瞿秋 白 feuilleton—a genre related to the french newspapers.3 another reminder of the impact of soviet literature was his paper on pavel and tonia, which he presented at a harvard conference “from may fourth to june fourth” (1990). the two names are from a novel that influenced a whole generation of chinese writers and intellectuals—how the steel was tempered, by another soviet writer, nikolai ostrovsky. the names of the two leading characters were, once upon a time, household names in china. rudolf treated a host of such works and explored their impact on chinese intellectuals in a book with a modest title inside a service trade, which to me is a neglected masterpiece of scholarship.4 only one other european scholar, douwe fokkema, wrote a comparable, but not similar, book on the soviet influence on china from the perspective of literary theory and doctrine in a limited period.5 rudolf’s volume is far richer and contains all kinds of revealing tidbits about the postmao scene in china, as if he were an insider. the information he gave me about the soviet origin of the texie was fully confirmed when i later asked liu himself. the question i wanted to ask rudolf but did not is: where did he find such materials? he compared himself to an archaeological explorer, but no one 2 see catherine v. yeh, “rudolf wagner, the making of a scholar of his time,” the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019): 9–17; 9–10. 3 see rudolf g. wagner, “third layer: oçerk, physiologie and the limping devil,” in inside a service trade: studies in contemporary chinese prose (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1992), 359–375. 4 wagner, inside a service trade. 5 douwe w. fokkema, china and the soviet influence, 1956–1960 (the hague: mouton, 1965). 93the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) had dug so deeply and widely in all kinds of sources in the modern chinese literary field. as we became friends, he would shower me with research leads as well as his recent discoveries. on one occasion, he informed me that one of my chinese essays about chinatown in new york had been included in a highschool textbook in china! where did he find it? from obscure newspapers to obscure scholarly journals, from textbooks to encyclopedias (more on this later), from soviet russia to revolutionary france, from the post-mao era to the early qin and later han, from china to europe—rudolf’s research map is boundless, as were the fields of his interest and knowledge. as a historian, his expertise sweeps across all periods, although he was drawn more and more to the modern period, which seemed to offer more space for his global ventures. in literature, he was never bound by the literary text per se, as all trained literary scholars and critics are wont to be, but chose rather to investigate both the texts and their materiality as well as their transmission to different parts of the world. of one area, however, he was not so enamored: literary and cultural theory. as a matter of fact, rudolf was not at all spellbound by trendy theory, especially when it was applied without close understanding to chinese texts. yet he was certainly knowledgeable of hermeneutics, and adopted jürgen habermas’s theory of the public sphere for his own study of late qing newspapers and public opinion. the title of a book he edited is revealing— joining the global public.6 i particularly treasure this book because rudolf gave it to me personally as a gift. upon rereading this volume, especially rudolf’s introduction and his study of the dianshizhai huabao 點石齋畫報 (illustrated news from the dianshizhai studio, hereafter dianshizhai huabao), i began to see the true nature and value of rudolf’s scholarly vision. his deliberations at heidelberg university with an informal research group were conducted roughly at the same time as the debate on the chinese public sphere took off in the united states. the journal modern china, edited by philip huang, published a special issue on the subject containing articles presented at a special forum at the university of california, los angeles (ucla), which i attended as a fellow faculty member there. i recall that some of the leading china scholars, adopting a china-centered approach, had reservations about the concept of the public sphere as not applicable to the chinese case. in his introduction to joining the global public, rudolf takes an opposite position, by redefining habermas’s original concept in functional terms and recasting it on a global scale. in so doing, he has succeeded in giving china a central place in the emergent wave of globalization, defined as transcultural flow of public opinion. here is what he says in the introduction: 6 rudolf g. wagner, ed., joining the global public: word, image, and city in early chinese newspapers, 1870–1910 (albany, ny: state university of new york press, 2007). 94 bringing a global perspective to chinese studies i would suggest that we formalize this concept and reduce it to its functional value in a constellation not bound by a “bourgeois society.” in this sense, the notion “public sphere” conceptualizes the space in which state and society as well as different segments of society articulate their interests and opinions within culturally and historically defined rules of rationality and propriety. … in this formalized sense, a public sphere did exist in premodern china not only in fact but also in the social imaginaire of how things could be, should be, and had been in the utopian past when sages had ruled the land.7 thus, habermas’s structural concept is opened up to include china, rather than rigidly applied or denied to china. the historical constellation is also made global with a chinese semantic resonance: globe or universe (yinghuan 瀛寰). i think all his life rudolf strived to destroy the national boundaries to restore the world as one—long before the market-oriented economists hijacked this cultural concept to describe the current phenomenon of globalization. rudolf’s concept, moreover, is also grounded on solid historical research, as he reminds us: “his [habermas’s] sociological study could draw on a wide range of empirical studies done by historians. without them, broader conceptualizations have a weak foundation.”8 with a team of capable students he has done precisely that—lay the empirical foundations for the study of the development of the late qing press as the first instance of a chinese public sphere that is linked up with the west. i had the pleasure of being invited to his seminar at heidelberg university, and witnessed the thorough and conscientious way in which he conducted it. the experience deepened my conviction in the crucial significance of the late qing period, and provided further impetus for my work on late qing fiction and translations. as noted earlier, rudolf never considered literature in isolation, but rather as a cultural product, hence his analysis is always historically grounded. i have just reread his long chapter (nearly sixty pages) on dianshizhai huabao, the centerpiece of the entire volume of joining the global public, and became immensely impressed by both the scope and the vast amount of details he was able to compress into his chapter.9 of course, chinese scholars like chen pingyuan 陳平原 and others have also published their work on the dianshizhai huabao but it is less global in scope and perspective. for rudolf’s underlying thesis is that the new public sphere was constructed by westerners, specifically english missionaries and entrepreneurs like ernest major, following the model 7 rudolf g. wagner, “introduction,” in joining the global public, 1–11; 3. 8 wagner, “introduction,” 1. 9 rudolf g. wagner, “joining the global imaginaire: the shanghai illustrated newspaper dianshizhai huabao,” in joining the global public, 105–173. 95the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) of western newspapers. yet once established, it provided a panoramic window of the world and for the world, in which china is included. “in this print world, china was a frequent object of description and depiction,” if “not [yet] a subject.”10 the last clause is a sober reminder that china was yet to regain its subjectivity (defined as national sovereignty) in this transitional period from empire to nation-state. also, the physical site of this public sphere is located in the foreign “enclave” of shanghai, a treaty port. it would be easy to see this entire phenomenon as an aspect of western imperialism but rudolf insists that no evidence exists that could implicate major and his company as imperialist agents. the historical fact of major’s contributions stands by itself for all researchers to see. yet no one bothers to reconstruct the entire historical context of major’s journalistic enterprise. rudolf had amassed enough materials to write a big book, which, alas, he was not able to finish. catherine yeh, who is now putting it together, kindly sent me the completed first chapter and the book’s table of contents, which will consist of ten chapters, including three published papers on the subject plus drafts of other papers. it is tentatively titled the life and times of a cultural broker: ernest major and his shenbao publishing house in shanghai (1872–1889). clearly, rudolf identifies with his subject and wishes to rehabilitate him to his rightful place in the history of print. in the drafted first chapter, rudolf states, not without a sense of historical irony, that the central importance of major has been written off by both chinese and western scholarly studies and handbooks. rudolf’s complaint is fully justified. as a matter of fact, none of the chinese studies i have read gives enough credit. he is often mentioned in passing only by his chinese name meicha 美查. interestingly, even western scholars have left him out of their research on western missionaries in china. in the past two decades, several compilations and source books on the dianshizhai huabao appeared in china, yet there was no coverage of major and his major contribution. most scholars in the art history field tend to treat the contents of the dianshizhai huabao as part of a pictorial evolution from traditional chinese painting to modern commercial art. chinese historians tend to regard it as a pictorial supplement to historical events (like the sinofrench war of 1884) or as chinese images of westerners. the role of major as the initiator of the whole enterprise is ignored. in contrast, rudolf’s narrative begins with major and his discovery of the potential of lithograph printing. it then follows major step by step, from his early pictorial ventures—huanying tuhua 寰瀛圖畫 (universal illustrations) and huanying huabao 寰瀛畫報 (globe illustrated)—and pictorial reproductions of the great wall and scenes of shanghai, as well as a map of east asia, to establishing the dianshizhai studio and hiring of native painters, to the publication of the dianshizhai 10 wagner, “joining the global imaginaire,” 105. 96 bringing a global perspective to chinese studies huabao, which became his crowning achievement. rudolf’s analysis of the illustrations per se is not so detailed; instead, he stresses their role in the global imaginaire. rudolf uses this french word instead of the english “imaginary,” perhaps because it came to him from french sources, just like feuilleton and esquisse physiologique. the english equivalent, imaginary or social imaginary,11 is defined by charles taylor as “that common understanding which makes possible common practices, and a widely shared sense of legitimacy.”12 i think this is what rudolf had in mind, except that he seemed to stress the concept’s creative potential and global horizon as the values and symbols that were in the making. as for me, i am particularly intrigued by the connective dynamics between the two illustrated newspapers: the dianshizhai huabao and the illustrated london news. each of the two pictorial journals not only knew about the other’s existence, but also sometimes reproduced the other’s illustrations. on the english side, to reproduce a painting from the dianshizhai huabao such as “a chinese suttee”13 may be a piece of curiosity, but for the chinese painters at the dianshizhai huabao english illustrations often served as originals. on the one side is fantasy, but on the other reality. how would this asymmetry of the flow of images affect the transcultural enterprise? to answer this question, we must begin with empirical research in tracking down all the pictorials. i once asked rudolf if some of the paintings in the dianshizhai huabao were directly copied from the illustrated london news and other journals like the graphic, and he responded with a research note: one of his students already did a thesis on the subject.14 rudolf’s cosmopolitan stance is even more pronounced in his writings on the early republican period. here his revelations are truly eye-opening, especially for scholars like me. again, personal reminiscences serve as clues to rudolf’s research directions. at a chance encounter in taipei, where we both stayed in the same hostel without prior knowledge, we had breakfast together—a long and most memorable breakfast, for rudolf gave a fascinating account of a foreigner who played a seminal role in early republican politics, an australian journalist by the name of william henry donald (1875–1946), who spent the latter part of his life in china and served, among other roles, as advisor to sun yat-sen, and later to chiang kai-shek and madame chiang kai-shek. at the end of our conversation, rudolf said to me: “read donald of china, it’s a most fascinating book.” i can understand now in hindsight why 11 for a relevant treatment of the concept, see charles taylor, modern social imaginaries (durham, nc: duke university press, 2003). 12 charles taylor, a secular age (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 2007), 172. 13 see figure 3.9 in wagner, “joining the global imaginaire,” 141. 14 julia henningsmeier, “the foreign sources of dianshizhai huabao 點石齋畫報: a nineteenth century shanghai illustrated magazine,” ming qing yanjiu 7, no. 1 (1998): 59–91. 97the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) rudolf would find donald appealing, for donald was a counterpart to ernest major as a journalist and a true friend of china, yet he was utterly ignored in most chinese histories and scholarly works. if a biography of donald had not already existed,15 rudolf would have written one, or at least a long and learned article which would have also thrown a new light on the person donald served, sun yat-sen. rudolf’s two latest articles are both related to sun yat-sen: one on sun yat-sen’s burial and commemoration, the other on how sun’s public image as “father of the nation” is based on the chinese image of george washington. the two long articles (each over fifty pages long) can be read as two parts of a monograph. as he amusingly noted about the latter article: “the present article grew out of a footnote for this study that refused to stop growing.”16 i read both articles with great interest, especially the one on george washington. who among china scholars would have thought to start with coins and bills as carriers of images of public leaders and who would care to trace the origin of this practice to julius caesar and then move on to qing dynasty coins, which did not carry any imperial image? in one stroke, rudolf demonstrated a world vision underscoring his research. in the previous article, he had already done exhaustive research on sun’s public “afterlife,” beginning with the design of his tomb by western architects. in this latest piece, he adds the visual dimension and uses the “father” of another nation for comparison. he even touches on such details about sun’s own self-fashioning as the gifting of his photograph on a postcard to an admirer—like a hollywood star! to say that i was immensely impressed is an understatement. for i was brought up in a political environment under the guomindang in taiwan where as high school students we had to go through the weekly ritual of reading the “will of the national father” (guofu yizhu 國父遺囑) aloud every monday morning in a gathering of all teachers and students. perhaps a biography of sun yat-sen from a global angle was not challenging enough for a scholar of rudolf’s caliber. there were many other important figures in china, both chinese and western, who played crucial roles in republican politics and culture. recently i listened to a taped keynote speech rudolf gave at a conference at harvard’s fairbank center to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the may fourth movement. as i listened to his fast and frenzied delivery, i found myself mesmerized—perhaps more so than most of the people in the audience—by what he managed to cover in one hour. he titled his talk “reconstructing may fourth.” for me it was nothing less than part of a new interpretation, which he had begun to formulate in an article written for a conference “the burden of the may fourth movement” 15 earl albert selle, donald of china (new york: harper, 1948). 16 rudolf g. wagner, “living up to the image of the ideal public leader: george washington’s image in china,” the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019): 18–77; 24. 98 bringing a global perspective to chinese studies held in prague in 1994.17 rudolf’s fifty-three page contribution is titled “the canonization of may fourth”; in it he raised twenty-two key points to illustrate his central thesis that the may fourth was a self-conscious movement made possible by forces both internal and external, whose canonization was prompted by the may fourth intellectual leaders themselves.18 the point that strikes me as particularly significant (the fifth point) is that the may fourth activists were quite aware of what went on elsewhere, especially in korea, where young activists protested in an open demand for independence on march 1, 1919. in other words, the may fourth demonstrators saw themselves “as a part of an international upsurge against the big powers and their local representatives and actively copied forms of action employed by other such ‘movements.’”19 this point about the international dimension was reinforced with more details about foreign individuals in rudolf’s harvard keynote speech. he talked about several prominent americans, including the harvardeducated banker thomas lamont, who came to china and actively helped the fledgling republican government under warlords to resist japan’s increasing encroachments on chinese soil, especially with the so-called twenty-one demands in 1915.20 thus, in reconstructing may fourth, rudolf has placed it fully in its historical and political context. i wish he could have delivered a third speech or written another paper on the international components of the new culture, which was often identified with the may fourth movement. here i have to make a last personal detour. rudolf visited hong kong in april 2017 and gave a series of lectures at four major universities there. i attended most of them and learned a great deal. in his talks, he shared his immense knowledge and disclosed some of his new findings and scholarly insights. what impressed me most was the novelty of his materials. in one talk he showed slides of several cartoons from obscure american newspapers (the weekly miner from butte, montana), showing that china was about to be “cut up like a melon.” since these types of caricatures had reached such remote regions in the american hinterland, rudolf seemed to imply that the crisis in china had become an international issue that drew world attention. western imperialism was certainly a historical fact, but rudolf has sharpened the focus visually across the globe. where did he find 17 published as rudolf g. wagner, “the canonization of may fourth,” in the appropriation of cultural capital: china’s may fourth project, ed. milena doleželova-velingerová and oldřich král (cambridge, ma: harvard asia center, 2001), 66–120. 18 wagner, “the canonization of may fourth,” 66–120. 19 wagner, “the canonization of may fourth,” 91. 20 as a viewer and not a participant, i could only listen to rudolf’s talk without the benefit of his slides. therefore, i missed some of the american names he mentioned, including hu shih’s long-time american friend. 99the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) such provincial political cartoons? still, he was not satisfied, so he managed to amass a special collection of late qing and early republican newspapers and other materials at heidelberg university. he gave me privileged internet access for six months but i failed to use it. to stimulate my interest further, he gave me a flash drive that contained the full text of the xin wenhua cidian 新文化 辭典 (an encyclopedic dictionary of new knowledge; hereafter xwhcd), first published by the commercial press in shanghai in 1923. he told me that he discovered this 1300-page tome in a library in china and scanned it page by page! the gift carried a clear mandate that i should study it and spread the word about its significance. so i did and wrote a paper as my contribution to the multi-volume publication, fittingly titled, china and the world—the world and china, to commemorate the collection’s reinstallation in a new building at the university of heidelberg. the xwhcd was the first of its kind, for it was both a dictionary and an encyclopedia. i think rudolf would also argue that its intellectual quality was far above any of the encyclopedias published before. while its chinese title uses the prevalent term “new culture,” the english title translates it as “new knowledge,” which if retranslated into chinese would be xinzhi 新知, the genealogy of which goes back to the late qing new learning (xinxue 新學), a body of translated practical knowledge from the west. to what extent does this new encyclopedic dictionary of new knowledge differ in content and format from all previous examples? rudolf would be in a better position than i to answer this question, for he participated in a project on chinese encyclopedias initiated by professor milena doleželova-velingerová (who was sadly unable to see its publication).21 rudolf served as co-editor for the project and contributed an article on a group of late qing encyclopedias that copied each other and developed a stock of shared information. however, the xwhcd represented something new and unprecedented, for the new knowledge contained therein is entirely foreign and not a duplication of previous chinese sources. i can understand why rudolf was so excited by this discovery because the new knowledge contained in its numerous entries is heavily intellectual, with a large dosage of philosophy and religion, particularly buddhism. the editors certainly set a high standard for its contemporary readers; at the same time, it also reveals a higher expectation of what the new culture as new knowledge should be. as rudolf would probably say, this foreign-sourced “global knowledge” has finally become an integral part of modern chinese culture—indeed forming its intellectual core. but chinese historians still refused to study this phenomenon in depth. rudolf alluded to the xwhcd as the key document of may fourth culture in his talk at harvard university. 21 see milena doleželova-velingerová and rudolf g. wagner ed., chinese encyclopedias of new global knowledge (1870–1930): changing ways of thought (heidelberg: springer, 2014). 100 bringing a global perspective to chinese studies i am sure he had also given special talks on the xwhcd elsewhere. alas, i was not able to partake of his wisdom. instead, i wrote a modest paper on its contents, using a present-day perspective, which is probably misplaced.22 rudolf would have unveiled more insight about the international arena of ideas and scholarship, as illustrated in the volume china and the world—the world and china. in his lecture given at the chinese university, he chose to talk about the historian gu jiegang 顧頡剛  and his stance of “doubting antiquity” (yigu 疑古). the question he wished to address, if i understand him correctly, is how knowledge about antiquity can be used both positively and negatively by modern scholars for different purposes. almost as a casual reference, he mentioned that german scholars were doing something similar around the same time, and that if you checked the footnotes you would find citations of works by german scholars in the chinese scholarly works of the period. once again, rudolf pitches a comparative insight against the blindness of chinese scholarship centered on china. the widening of intellectual horizons was his lifelong mission. his scholarship sets an example, and a high standard of what scholarship is and should be. as his friend and professional colleague, i am forever in his debt. 22 leo ou-fan lee, “xin wenhua cishu (an encyclopedic dictionary of new knowledge): an exploratory reading,” in china and the world—the world and china: transcultural perspectives on modern china, ed. barbara mittler, joachim gentz, natascha gentz, and catherine vance yeh (gossenberg: ostasien verlag, 2019), 41–54. coffee, fast food, and the desire for romantic love in contemporary china | henningsen | transcultural studies coffee, fast food, and the desire for romantic love in contemporary china: branding and marketing trends in popular chinese-language literature lena henningsen, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg introduction: literature, romantic love and consumption in contemporary china since the 1980s, consumption has played an increasingly important role for individuals and society on mainland china.[1] a close connection between the literary field and consumption is part of this development: firstly, literary texts are consumed. they are bought, displayed as means of distinction, and even read. secondly, the consumption of (branded) consumer items is a central characteristic of many literary texts, and especially those that narrate stories of romantic love and (aspire to) become bestsellers. among these consumer items, foods and drinks are frequently employed in the narratives to represent characters or settings. while the connection between literature and consumption is definitely not unique to china (bestseller markets and bestsellers around the globe attest to this), it can be noted that due to political and economic changes, this connection was brought about on the chinese bookmarket within a rather short period of time.[2] one prominent example for these two developments on the chinese bookmarket is the bestselling novel the first intimate touch 第一次的亲密接触 by the taiwanese author cai zhiheng (蔡智恒).[3] as one of the first chinese language online novels it had a tremendous impact on the field and prompted a first wave of online fiction in the people’s republic of china (prc).[4] from march to may 1998, it was first published in small sections on a taiwanese bulletin board system (bbs) [5] and turned into a bestseller on the chinese mainland after its publication as a book in 1999.[6] the first intimate touch was one of the first works to be written in a new literary form, which immediately became fashionable: the online novel. even the printed version of the novel retains certain characteristics of the online text, such as the employment of icons and the english language note “to be continued” that divides the chapters and subchapters: the use of smaller units allowed for easier downloading and reading on the computer screen and also reminds the reader that the text was serialized like a novel written for publication in a newspaper. the novel was subsequently turned into a tv series (produced by the mainland chinese shanghai film studio 上海电影制片厂), and its transformation into a stage play in beijing in 2011 attests to its continuing popularity in the prc. moreover, the novel itself generated a number of trends, among these a literary and lifestyle trend in which the consumption of fast food and coffee became intricately linked with notions of romantic love and the self-definition of a social class—the mainland chinese xiaozi (小资, typically translated as ‘petty bourgeoisie’). the novel may be regarded as a trendsetter among young urbanites on the chinese mainland for several reasons: 1.) it can be seen as a precursor of chinese internet literature (wangluo wenxue 网络文学).[7] 2.) allegedly, chinese youth[8] have fashioned their own experiences of romance after those of the novel’s main characters. 3.) as such, the novel may be seen as a prime example of how a mixture of taiwanese (or hongkongese) and euro-american lifestyles constitutes the quintessential fashionable lifestyle for these chinese youth. 4.) in such a lifestyle, consumption (or the desire for consumption) features prominently. 5.) the novel may be regarded as a model for the dissemination of such a culture of consumption into (popular) literature. 6.) the novel serves as a model narrative by ascribing an important role in a literary text not only to the consumption of products, but also of concrete brands (i.e., objects that may be decisive in the emergence of trends).[9] as such, the novel makes it possible to trace trends as they move between real life and literature, between real life and the realm of imagination, and also between different literary texts. 7.) the novel like many others from the realm of popular literature therefore invites readers to read it as a guidebook that introduces, explains and interprets the latest fashion and lifestyle trends as well as their proper consumption. here, “trend” is employed as a descriptive category denoting the growing presence of certain objects, or, rather, notions of objects. the two specific consumption trends that feature prominently in the first intimate touch—the “coffee trend” and the “fast food trend”—are two interrelated trends that travelled across the globe. the novel exemplifies the cultural implications and interpretations which are more important to an understanding of such a trend than the mere economic facts. while trends may refer to globally available products, the example of these two trends demonstrates that the meaning attributed to such products varies greatly in different locations and at different points in time. such trends refer to products and practices that at first glance appear to be globally uniform, but turn out to comprise diverse forms and meanings at the local level, necessitating a transcultural perspective on the phenomenon based on a “multi-meshed and inclusive, not separatist and exclusive understanding of culture”[10] (or cultural practices), as elaborated by wolfgang welsch. after all, the consumption of global brands is, on the one hand, firmly rooted in specific local (in this case: urban chinese) practices. on the other hand, they have been (slightly) modified before their introduction to the chinese market and they carry with them distinct global and international notions. at first glance, the introduction of chains like mcdonald’s and starbucks and their products onto the mainland chinese market may appear to be an issue of americanisation. modification of contents and their meaning by the respective companies and by their customers, however, exemplify that the processes may be more adequately described as transcultural. consumption, and especially the consumption of food, is connected to both the identity of the individual and the creation of a community.[11] thus, many urban citizens in contemporary china (as well as in other parts of the world) do not consume in order to satisfy their basic needs.[12] rather, consumption is a means to fulfil one’s desires,[13] especially so in the prc where in the past decade “‘desire’ is a key cultural practice in which both the government and its citizens reconfigure their relationship to a postsocialist world.”[14] parallels may be seen to similar contexts of rising consumerism like that in late 19th century america where “old inhibitions to spending—a reverence for the virtues of frugality and restraint—had to be cleared away: desire had to be created and legitimized.”[15] in the process and in their efforts to maximize profits, companies used advertisements and the presentation of their stores and products for a “virtual reconditioning”[16] of the consumer. in contemporary china, mcdonald’s and starbucks clearly accomplish this with their appealing new products, stores, services and the new kind of social space they offer. consumption may serve the purpose of social and cultural distinction as elaborated by pierre bourdieu. in particular, issues of food consumption have turned into a matter of lifestyle and distinction, especially with the growth of wealth in many strata of chinese society, as is spelled out by huang haibo (黄海波) in his description of the contemporary chinese xiaozi lifestyle: “for some time, eating [as such] is no longer the question, the question has [changed to] eating with whom, where and what.”[17] accordingly, this type of consumption promises to be highly responsive to changes in consumer behaviour, not least because the consumption of drinks and food is an everyday activity. even though mcdonald’s[18] and coffee are more expensive than their indigenous chinese counterparts, they are still affordable for many urban chinese. therefore, these two relate to regularly occurring consumption patterns and involve a larger group of consumers than is the case of items that are purchased only once, like a car. moreover, food consumption has become increasingly transcultural: in many cases meaning is attributed on the regional or local level, yet the production, distribution, marketing and consumption of foodstuffs needs to be seen within a worldwide context. while the coffee trade has been global and linked to capitalism right from the start,[19] the food industry as a whole has become an increasingly global business (though oftentimes with localized implementations) over the past decades,[20] and fast food culture forms an important part of this development. for early twentieth-century china it has been argued that “every aspect of food consumption was changed by the inclusion of the country in a global economy which hugely expanded the existing culinary repertoire.”[21] moreover, as leo lee argues, the coffee-house served as “one of the most popular leisure spots—decidedly western, to be sure—a necessary site for men and women sporting a modern lifestyle, particularly writers and artists.”[22] frequenting coffee-houses was thus a means of personal expression and distinction in the early twentieth century. the evidence presented in this paper will demonstrate that similar observations can be made (again) about contemporary china. therefore, in this paper i shall present evidence from contemporary chinese bestselling literature as well as from interviews and observations made in chinese starbucks stores in order to describe these particular literary and lifestyle trends. following an overview of the novel as well as its taiwanese and mainland chinese context, i wish to demonstrate how the foreign first appeared as something exotic and luxurious—and how through a process of appropriation it was then transformed into an element of everyday life. i argue that desire and above all the power of the imagination are central to this phenomenon. therefore cultural products—literary texts, movies, pop songs or advertisement—are crucial for understanding the meaning that is attributed to objects and lifestyle habits. literary texts (and especially successful ones), as well as other cultural products such as lifestyle magazines, guidebooks, tv programmes[23] and movies, teach people the arts of desire and consumption.[24] yan yunxiang mentions that fast food “is not indigenous to chinese society. it first appeared as an exotic phenomenon in novels and movies imported from abroad and then entered the everyday life of ordinary consumers when western fast-food chains opened restaurants in the beijing market.”[25] i further argue that through cultural texts consumers learn how to integrate new objects of consumption into their daily lives and how to give meaning to new forms of consumption and to the experience of this consumption. fictional texts in particular may function as guidebooks that help their readers find their way through the jungle of urban consumption. cultural products thus call upon consumers to fulfil their desires through consumption and imagination. thus a thorough analysis of these cultural products and of their repercussions in real life grants an understanding of contemporary chinese society and of the mechanisms that underlie such transcultural trends. the transcultural qualities of these trends allow consumers both distinct interpretations and a certain flexibility in attributing meaning to their actions. these qualities also transform consumers into transcultural subjects who are able to fulfil their desires in contemporary urban china through the consumption of transcultural objects. the model: romance at mcdonald’s and a philosophy of coffee the story of the first intimate touch evolves over the last months of 1997. it takes place on the internet, as well as in tainan and taipei. two college students—the first-person narrator pizi cai (痞子蔡, scoundrel cai) and qingwu feiyang (轻舞飞扬, literally translated “dancing lightly and flying up,”[26] both internet pseudonyms)—get to know each other and fall in love online. after exchanging emails and notes for three months they meet twice: once at mcdonald’s and once on new year’s eve to watch the movie titanic. thereafter, qingwu leaves tainan for taipei. having received the password for her internet-diary of the past months, pizi cai now reads about her deep feelings for him and learns that she suffers from a severe chronic illness. some time later, he follows her to taipei and visits her at the hospital. before long, she is dead. other than the ending of the story, their first encounter is related by pizi cai in a light tone and as a happy event, and he employs descriptions of taste as allegories for the young girl by whose looks and laughter he is clearly enchanted: … again, i heard her laughter. in old times people would often use ‘the oriole flying out of the gorge’ and ‘the newborn swallow returns to the nest’ to describe the sweetness of [such] a sound. however, as i have never heard these two birds sing, it would be unscientific to use these sayings to describe her laughter. so it would be rather appropriate to use ‘crisp but not greasy, like the french fries at mcdonald’s’ [to describe her laughter]. indeed, her laughter resembled french fries with ketchup—crisp with a sweet-sour tang. 我又听见了她的笑声。古人常用“黄莺出谷“和“乳燕归巢“来形容声音的甜美。但这两种鸟叫我都没听过，所以用来形容她的声音是不科学的。还是脆而不腻的麦当劳薯条比较贴切的。她的笑声，就像蘸了番茄酱的薯条，清脆中带点酸甜。[27] qingwu in turn, soon after explains why she is dressed entirely in coffee colours—the colour of the drink she loves. similar to pizi cai, she uses the taste (and the colours) of coffee as an allegory to describe her looks in her “philosophy of coffee” (咖啡哲学):[28] even if it is all coffee… it can vary according to the roasting technique and the fragrant, sweet, pure, bitter and sour tastes... the colour of my shoes and socks is very dark, like overly roasted coffee, charred and bitter, but not sour… the colour of my bell-bottom trousers is a bit lighter, like exceptionally aromatic mocha coffee, with a rather strong sour note… the colour of my sweater is even lighter, like gentle and exquisite [jamaican] blue mountain coffee, savoury, mellow and delicate… and the colour of my backpack is dark on the inside and light on the outside, decorated with some ornaments so that it is just like cappuccino...with fresh milk floating on it and enchanting cinnamon sprinkled on top... sweet, pure, luxurious and, at the same time, rich and strong. [omissions in the original.] 即使全是咖啡。。。也会因烘焙技巧和香、甘、醇、苦、酸的口感而有差异。。。我的鞋袜颜色很深，像是重度烘焙的炭烧咖啡。。。焦、苦不带酸。。。小喇叭裤颜色稍浅，像是风味独特的摩卡咖啡。。。酸味较强。。。毛线衣的颜色更浅，像是柔顺细腻的蓝山咖啡。。。香醇精致。。。而我背包的颜色内深外浅，并点缀着装饰品，则像是cappuccino咖啡。。。表面浮上新鲜牛奶，并撒上迷人的肉桂分。。。既甘醇甜美却又浓郁强烈。。。[29] these two fictional characters employ the looks and the taste of their favourite food and drink to describe the laughter and the looks of qingwu. these descriptions, firstly, position the characters in their respective realms: pizi cai, a student of water conservancy, is connected to fast food and its allegedly scientific approach,[30] qingwu is connected to coffee which to her is an all-embracing way of expressing herself. for both characters, however, these are related to desire and a highly sensual experience of romantic love. secondly, these portrayals serve as markers of a modern, well-off lifestyle shared by the novel’s characters. thirdly, these descriptions may conjure up the tastes and smells (and sounds) of the respective foodstuffs in the reader. in fact, even before she relates the “philosophy of coffee,” pizi cai noted that her clothes were some sort of coffee colour and concluded that “… she just resembled a cup of aromatic coffee.” (她就像是一杯香浓的咖啡。)[31] with these descriptions, not only the visual qualities, but also the fragrant qualities of the drink are bestowed upon the adored girl—in the mind of the narrator, and, possibly, also in the imagination of the readership. at the same time, a fourth effect is created by establishing such an intimate and romantic connection between the girl and different types of coffee: the drink can now be associated with beauty and romance. thus the desire for romance[32] is linked to desire for the somewhat exotic beverage: coffee. this is even more pronounced when qingwu later explains that drinking coffee makes her feel good.[33] moreover, she describes how she was prompted to buy her cappuccino coloured backpack: it reminded her of the drink she loves and made her feel like she was in love.[34] similarly, the fast food chain is also linked to romance, even though in a tongue-in-cheek-manner. the narrator of the scene reasons that mcdonald’s offers the ideal setting for his first date with the girl he previously had only met online. after all, mcdonald’s constitutes a somewhat uncommon “western” environment, albeit without the possible pitfalls of spending more money than affordable to a college student and of causing embarrassment because of lacking experience with western food and cutlery,[35] a danger echoed in some of the lifestyle guidebooks to be discussed below.[36] thus, this description of a first encounter with the beloved girl establishes a link between coffee and mcdonald’s on the one hand, and notions of romantic love on the other hand. the narrator finds that literary comparisons which are too far removed from the reality of his life as a would-be engineer are unsuitable for describing qingwu. “luckily, none of these [comparisons] resemble her. so, she is not a character from a novel. she belongs to real life.” (幸好她都不像，所以她不是小说中的人物。她属于现实的生活。)[37] time and again, he highlights that she is real, not merely a virtual or fictional character.[38] the emphasis on the part of the narrator that the girl “belongs to real life” deserves further scrutiny, as this may be seen as part of the author’s strategy of employing “fictional opportunities”, a term coined by k.k. ruthven. this term describes processes in which authors use paratexts to disguise the difference between the author and narrator of a story,[39] but the author of the first intimate touch goes even further. with sentences like the one quoted here, the first person narrator seems to remind himself that the girl he first got to know online is now sitting in front of him. however, as the narrator is referred to by the same internet pseudonym that the author uses for himself (pizi cai), the difference between narrator and author is blurred further. with the statement about the “reality” of the girl, the author-narrator establishes an alternative and more “scientific” way to regard her.[40] to him, an old-fashioned literary comparison is meaningless as it refers to something he has not experienced himself; rather, he compares her laughter to french fries, a commodity he is familiar with through his own experience and which is therefore more authentic and credible to him: not just any type of french fries, but those from the famous fast food chain. ironically, with this comparison, the author-cum-narrator pizi cai would establish a new literary convention as this literary trend demonstrates. however, it is a convention rooted in the real life experiences of the respective authors and readers. all of these references to the real life of the narrator establish a contrast both to the literary realm and the online world where the two characters spend much of their time. real life is also the opposite of the online world where the text was first published and read. yet, the online world constitutes an important part of the lives of the characters in the novel, as well as of the lives of the novel’s author and readers. by establishing the online world as the setting of much of the novel, the narrator-cum-author creates what arjun appadurai has described as a “community of sentiment,”[41] a community between the characters of the novel, the author and the readers. the references to real life serve to further emphasize this community as well as the tangibility of concrete objects—especially of consumer items—within the “reality” of the text: consumable objects refer to a commodity culture as well as to the presence of the beautiful coffee girl who made her way from cyberspace into the narrator’s real life, and whom he will soon touch for the first time.[42] the quoted passages also indicate a sense of (self) irony that characterizes the novel and the two main characters. especially pizi cai seems to fight his disposition towards the romantic with constant irony and recurring emphatic remarks about himself as a scientist who is not romantic.[43] yet in the end it becomes obvious that he is a romantic character after all: he fails to forget the novel’s heroine and continues to mourn for her.[44] irony thus serves to camouflage his emotions as well as his bashfulness in front of girls; it adds a light note to the sometimes sentimental novel—and this sense of (self) irony is also typical for mainland chinese xiaozi, as will be shown below. context (1): fast food, coffee and popular literature in the global context in this context, it is worth recalling that the respective products—fast food, coffee, and to some extent popular literature—travelled the globe. firstly, western style fast food such as it dominates the global market originated in the united states[45]—whence it entered mainland china.[46] fast food is literally translated into chinese as kuaican (快餐), and differs from indigenous chinese food that is also consumed speedily such as snacks (or, “small eats” 小吃) or conveniently “boxed meals” (盒饭). these differ inasmuch as they are not manufactured industrially, and often sold by street vendors. other than these types of food, fast food is perceived as distinctly “western”. in the context of this paper, the label “western” is employed as it is in the source materials at hand. it is a somewhat blurred category referring to elements of (us-)american and european culture. in order to fully understand the meaning attributed to western fast food chains in china, it is worth further considering how they interacted with the mainland chinese context: they offered new products, services and experiences to their customers, as well as a new type of social space. during the maoist years, chinese urbanites moved between public spaces (such as work place or school) which were almost entirely monitored by the state, and private spaces which were scarce, mostly crowded, and in many cases supervised by other family members or neighbours. a place like mcdonald’s thus may be seen as an entirely new model: without the control mechanisms employed by state or family, it allows for new kinds of privacy, social interaction and therefore a certain liberation of lifestyles including romantic encounters which previously were impossible or restricted to the darkness of public parks at night.[47] this is why mcdonald’s in its early years in china was strongly associated with notions of romance and a certain cosmopolitan, scientific and modern luxury. since it has now become more commonplace, especially through the presence of school children and the elderly, and since the chinese foodscape has been further differentiated, it is now locations like starbucks that are used as locations for romantic encounters. practices at the stores and the meaning attributed to these practices differ between china and “the west”: other than in the us, customers in chinese mcdonald’s outlets often linger for hours with only a small purchase, thus modifying the rules of fastness and significantly slowing down the consumption of fast food.[48] likewise, some customers at chinese starbucks may be observed to stay at the stores during slack hours without purchasing anything.[49] secondly, coffee has been a product traded and consumed globally for centuries. as such it has acquired a multitude of meanings and cultural implications: possibly originating in ethiopia, it likely was brought to egypt and yemen and then to the middle east, northern africa and europe. while in yemen it was used by religious practitioners to remain awake during worship; europe developed its own traditions of coffee consumption:[50] first as a luxury item, then as integral part of commercial culture, and later in relation to the rise of the public sphere.[51] japanese coffee culture, in turn, served as model for taiwanese coffee culture.[52] in the united states, coffee was transformed from an expensive, elitist beverage in the nineteenth century to an everyday commodity in the twentieth. facing dwindling markets, the coffee industry took measures to develop coffee into a product whose consumption would serve as a means of distinction: consuming this new type of coffee was turned into an act of nostalgia with which one could evoke a (better) past —as it allegedly was before the advent of industrialization.[53] the rise of the starbucks company is linked to this development[54]—as is its subsequent move onto markets worldwide and into mainland china. in the prc, starbucks and mcdonald’s share a number of characteristics. they are american chains operating with chinese partners,[55] they are perceived by many as the embodiment of american culture,[56] offer new types of social space, and have localized their range of services and products to meet demands of the local market. for example, like other fast food chains in china (and unlike in the “west”), they both offer delivery service.[57] nonetheless, the meanings associated with the two differ, especially because mcdonald’s moved onto the chinese market earlier. thus, by the late 1990s—when cai zhiheng’s novel enjoyed its remarkable success—mcdonald’s had already turned into a more common location while starbucks had just opened its doors and was promising something new, more exotic and luxurious to its customers. as coffee also carried with it notions of romance (after all, it is connected in the imaginary to among other things paris, the city of love), starbucks also became connected to romantic experiences. thirdly, popular literature published in mainland china also has a global dimension. most of the novels discussed in this paper were written by chinese authors for a chinese readership. however, they appear on a bookmarket and inside a cultural field that is shaped to some extent by foreign products, including novels from the other side of the taiwan strait like those of cai zhiheng, as well as bestsellers from other foreign countries, mostly east asia, england or america.[58] mainland chinese popular culture in general has been greatly influenced by east asia and “the west” during the past three decades, most notably by pop music originating from hongkong and taiwan as well as by bestsellers, hollywood movies and tv programmes from the united states.[59] cultural production in china thus has become a part of global processes. however, cultural products as well as the aforementioned consumer products have been successfully localized to attract consumers on the mainland chinese markets. context (2): coffee, consumer culture and chinese xiaozi to frame the novel in its original context, it is worth considering both taiwanese and mainland chinese coffee culture of the mid-1990s as well as the consumption-oriented culture of the mainland chinese xiaozi. in his sociology of fashion (流行文化社会学), sociologist gao xuanyang (高宣扬) describes how taipei at the time boasted at least twenty-six highly individualistic coffee shops,[60] some of which could even compete with world-class coffee shops.[61] while the introduction of coffee—like the proliferation of mcdonald’s restaurants—attests to a westernisation of taiwanese food culture,[62] it is nonetheless remarkable that contemporary taiwanese coffee culture followed japanese coffee culture by adopting “characteristics of ‘japanese-style’ westernisation” (‘日本式’的西方化的特点).[63] considering the long-standing japanese influence on taiwanese culture as well as on taiwanese coffee-house culture during colonial times, japanese companies assumed that japanese-style coffee would best suit the taiwanese taste and way of life, yet another example of what koichi iwabuchi describes as japanese hybridism.[64] while most westerners consume ordinary arabica coffee, the japanese and hence taiwanese markets are dominated by jamaican blue mountain coffee (蓝山咖啡), a special variety of arabica.[65] like elsewhere on the world, taiwanese consumers drink coffee to participate in a certain lifestyle[66] and thus to aestheticize their own lives: so drinking coffee “[can] in reality no longer [be regarded as] consumption for consumption’s sake. rather, through ways of consumption even more elements of culture are brought into the whirlpool of life. through the aestheticization of consumption, consumption and aesthetic appreciation are interlinked, and consumption is sublimated into a cultur[al activity]. at the same time, the processes of consumption in [one’s] life attain ample new cultural meaning.”[67] these parameters of taiwanese coffee culture are important in two respects: firstly, while the product may be associated with “the west” and is related to global economic processes, its meaning is created at the local level. secondly, because coffee consumption is connected with aesthetic and cultural experiences, it is not astonishing to find it connected in the novel and in real life to notions of romantic love. on the chinese mainland, coffee and coffeehouse culture can be traced back back to early twentieth-century shanghai. after the end of the cultural revolution, it resurfaced, especially with the opening of independent and chain stores after 1997.[68] of these, starbucks opened its first stores in 1999 in beijing and a year later in shanghai[69] and has since developed steadily in mainland china’s major cities. the clientele, location, atmosphere and reputation of the different types and brands of coffee stores may vary (most notably, chain stores are more likely to be found in commercial districts, independent stores, for example, in the vicinity of universities). however, there seems to be considerable overlap. as elaborated in the introduction to this paper, consumption is playing a prominent role in contemporary mainland china. the penetration of (global) brand trends into popular literature took place in conjunction with the increasing commercialization and commoditization of chinese society which started in the 1980s and rapidly developed during the 1990s. in fact, this process forms part of what lisa rofel describes as a “desiring china”—a society in which desire and deliberations on the proper way to desire figure more prominently than ever before in the history of the people’s republic of china.[70] also, recent surveys on the attitudes of chinese youth and young adults, who are the consumers of the food and books at the heart of this trend analysis, demonstrate that “western culture” has deeply influenced them,[71] as have products from hongkong and taiwan. as material and monetary wealth becomes more and more accepted as a source of status,[72] competition over economic resources rises in many realms of chinese society. consequently, young and educated urbanites increasingly embrace these changes as chances for self-development and fulfilment, both on the job market[73] and in their leisure time. thus, chinese society differentiates by factors such as income, wealth and lifestyle into groups like the “petty bourgeois” (i.e. xiaozi 小资), the “bobos” (bourgeois bohemians, in chinese bubo 布波),[74] the “well-to-do” (xiaokang 小康, literally “small well-being”), international freemen / freewomen, dinks (double-income-no-kids) and the neo-tribes (zuqun 族群), as analysed by wang jing.[75] in fact, the boundaries between these lifestyle groups are somewhat vague and shifting. the focus of this analysis is the xiaozi as their lifestyle is most closely linked to the trends under scrutiny—and as a number of coffee lovers at starbucks stores call themselves xiaozi.[76] the acceptance of commercialization and commoditization may be viewed as a precondition for the success of consumption trends or, as elaborated in the introduction to this series of trends papers,[77] as a crucial factor of structural susceptibility. during the maoist years, the term xiaozi had a negative, even derogatory meaning.[78] it referred to the petty bourgeoisie, a class considered as ideologically backward, or even as enemies of the people. yet, in the context of china’s rising consumerism, the term was employed to refer to a group of people who sought to distinguish themselves from their fellow citizens through attitudes of life and towards lifestyle. the xiaozi-development peaked around the year 2000,[79] when cai zhiheng’s novel enjoyed its success on the chinese mainland and when starbucks opened its first stores. in 2002, david brooks’ bobos in paradise was translated into chinese and the term bobo—yet another “passing trend”[80]—began to replace xiaozi. in terms of content, much continuity exists between the two phenomena. likewise, neither bobos nor xiaozi are really a “class” that can be defined in sociological categories. rather, they may be seen as an imaginary class turning bourdieu’s ideas of distinction upside-down. what wang jing has pointed out for the bobos, similarly holds true for the xiaozi: whereas for bourdieu “‘taste’ is a class-determined construct,”[81] chinese xiaozi and bobos become a social group on the basis of their shared tastes. with the rise of the term bobo and subsequent successors, the xiaozi-hype has somewhat waned, although the term xiaozi is still frequently employed. it refers to people who define themselves as xiaozi, and some employ it as an adjective to describe the quality of a particular experience or situation, as may be seen from entries in starbucks’ guestbooks (liuyanben 留言本)[82] that are put out in chinese starbucks stores in nanjing for customers to read and write in. while one customer writes about the xiaozi in an ironical tone,[83] another describes how he or she whiled away a hot summer afternoon in an air-conditioned starbucks store, drinking his or her favourite coffee and browsing through a number of good books—an experience that is rated as “oh how xiaozi!”[84] this illustrates that the connection between the consumption of coffee and xiaozi has been well established in the collective imaginary of urban chinese consumers. to understand what it means to be a xiaozi and how to behave properly as one, one may also turn to numerous guidebooks as well as online discussions and blogs.[85] here, xiaozi refers to a consumerist lifestyle (“i am what i consume”, or maybe even: “i consume, therefore i am”) that may be found among one particular section of chinese society—chinese urban, well-educated and well-off middle-class young professionals who enjoy spending a considerable part of their lives in front of computers and online.[86] it is a way of living that places the “i” at the centre of attention and that serves as a means to distinguish oneself from others.[87] their desire for consumption is linked to their desire for individuality. as a consequence, the consumption of brands (including, of course, branded foods) is important, yet which brands to consume varies, depending on locality and time. it seems that xiaozi are caught in a paradoxical situation with regard to trends: on the one hand they want to be trendsetters; on the other hand they emulate the trendsetters in order to be counted among the xiaozi.publications such as the guidebooks by sheng hui (盛慧) or huang haibo cater to would-be xiaozi.[88] a high degree of individualism is thus defined as the prerequisite for belonging to the xiaozi, leaving it to the observer to ponder the inconsistency between the emphasis on individualism and the quest for a group identity. the characterization of xiaozi is also contradictory in other respects. consumption plays an important role in their lives (and their lifestyles), yet they emphasize that being a xiaozi is more a question of mental attitude. material distinction is thus complemented by cultural distinction. it is important that one is familiar with a number of works of art (movies, authors, music). however, while some xiaozi only consider european art-house films worthy of xiaozi attention, others also include hollywood blockbusters in their repertoire. to live up to their ambitions for cultural distinction, xiaozi may turn to the numerous guidebooks published in recent years dedicated to the most important books,[89] movies, and works of art. like the lifestyle guidebooks, these publications provide a shortcut to the cultural distinction a xiaozi wishes to display. a number of xiaozi even claim to have literary ambitions (however, with regard to the xiaozi texts that have emerged, it is not quite clear what is cause and what effect). this demonstrates that the content of a xiaozi lifestyle is not fixed but flexible, and that it is based to some extent on emulation and adaption of the practices of others and of what may be learned from books. the realm of food consumption may serve the xiaozi to define him or herself, for example by demonstrating connoisseurship in relation to wine, tea, and, not surprisingly, coffee. wine stands for refinement and is closely connected to romance, not least because it is perceived as originating in france, the country of romantic love.[90] herbal tea is also considered typical of a xiaozi provided it is consumed in the correct way: in a quiet atmosphere at night, preferably by candle light. like wine and coffee, it is also associated with romance and / or friendship.[91] coffee serves the dual purpose of demonstrating distinction and leisure. for the xiaozi, leisure is associated with peace and pleasure.[92] yet, very few texts refer to the energizing qualities of the caffeinated drink.[93] much as with tea, there are correct ways for xiaozi to drink coffee: high quality coffee should be drunk black. moreover, both smell and colour ought to be sampled before one finally savours the taste of the drink.[94] this way of consuming coffee—especially with the smell of coffee in one’s nose after dinner—may then be considered the epitome of the simple life that a xiaozi strives for:[95] after all, this is a combination of luxury and asceticism—the enjoyment of something special and luxurious that is, at the same time, a simple product. while starbucks is described as not offering anything special when it comes to the actual flavour, it is certainly the most influential among chinese xiaozi to relish coffee.[96] due to its worldwide proliferation, the chain is a similar symbol for american urbanization as mcdonalds and it is positively connoted for chinese xiaozi: “starbucks coffee is not just a drink to us, but, more importantly, it brings us the emotional appeal of foreign countries.”[97] as in the us, the appeal of starbucks rests on the fact that it does not only sell a drink to its customers, but offers an atmosphere (in which the xiaozi perceive the consumption of coffee as quite fitting).[98] trends as processes: from exotic to everyday experiences the taiwanese novel and the first encounter described in it launched two converging trends in mainland china: one in real life and one in literary texts. in his overview of mainland chinese bestsellers, ye qingzhou (叶轻舟) describes how in real life many female readers of the novel imitated the female protagonist’s “philosophy of coffee” in their own style of dating. these young women would emulate the fictional encounter by likewise turning up in coffee colours for their first date (and their male counterparts in blue, in accordance with what might be termed pizi cai’s “[theory] of hydromechanics” 流体力学[99]). like their fictional counterparts, these young couples met for a rendezvous at mcdonald’s where they would share “a large coke and two servings of french fries”.[100] then, like the fictional characters did in their second encounter, they would watch the movie titanic, stroll through the streets and buy a cd and a bottle of perfume.[101] the purchase of a bottle of dolce vita perfume by dior in fact represents a secondary adaptation: after reading an online novel qingwu longed to imitate the protagonist’s stroll through a rain of perfume.[102] the movie titanic is regarded by some xiaozi as the “really classic movie”.[103] the fans of the first intimate touch who imitated the protagonists’ style of dating and thus replicated the connection between romance and mcdonald’s are in a minority. most xiaozi would not make this connection. romance and romantic love are central experiences to them, but mcdonald’s is viewed as a “children’s world” (小孩子的天下).[104] “for younger beijing residents who worked in joint-venture enterprises or foreign firms and had higher incomes [many of whom may be counted among those with xiaozi aspirations], eating at mcdonald’s, kentucky fried chicken, and pizza hut had become an integral part of their new lifestyle, a way for them to be connected to the outside world.”[105] yet, for a romantic setting they would go to starbucks (or a similar location)—which may be seen from many entries in starbucks’ guestbooks: individual consumers draw more or less explicit connections between the consumption of coffee and romantic love, they reflect on their consumption of coffee as well as on their lives in general: the quiet atmosphere at the stores allows them to have what they perceive as true xiaozi-experiences—and in their accounts of their love-lives, and especially, love-sickness, coffee features prominently. in one account by an author who refers to herself as sussie, the bitterness of a failed love is connected to the coffee and cake consumed. after having broken up with her boyfriend the night before, the author of the text now tries to calm down at a starbucks store and reflects on her love: “now i am sitting here quietly by myself and ordered my favourite latte and chocolate cake. sweet things can always give you a good feeling. life cannot always be as one wishes [it to be], but at least it is not too bitter and harsh.” (现在一个人静静地坐下来，点了我钟意的拿铁和巧克力蛋糕，甜的东西总能让人感觉不错，生活不能总是尽如人意，但总不至于太过苦涩。)[106] in entries like these as well as through observable patterns of behaviour, starbucks is established as a place to meet with a lover and to reflect on one’s love (this may be a first encounter with a potential lover as well as the end of a love). through the consumption of coffee at the store,[107] the connection between romantic love and coffee is made. the second trend is a literary trend: a number of characteristics of the first intimate touch have been emulated in numerous (mostly) fictional texts written by mainland chinese authors. to begin with, the novel is a piece of internet literature, first published on a bulletin board, and the protagonists spend much time online which is reflected in the style of the text and which developed into a trend in other novels subsequently published on the chinese book market.[108] the novel also was among the first texts to be published online and then subsequently printed as a regular book. the printed version also turned out to be popular.[109] the move of online texts onto the shelves of chinese bookstores is, in fact, one of the special characteristics of the chinese book market. for many, internet literature does not apparently refer so much to texts published in a new form and medium, but to a literary category that is not explicitly connected with the medium.[110] more important for the present analysis, though, is the depiction of lifestyle as a central stylistic device in the novel. this device was adapted by authors of later novels—or trend followers. firstly, brand names and consumer items, among them food stuff, appear in many texts that emulated the famous taiwanese novel. the consumption of food is not only a means for the respective author to create a (possibly) fancy setting for the plot. rather, the characters define themselves through their consumption habits. of course, the first intimate touch was neither the first nor the only successful novel in which brand names and, more specifically, the consumption of coffee or fast food played a role, yet it is a characteristic of most of the writings of cai zhiheng.[111] other taiwanese and hongkongese authors such as qiong yao (琼瑶), yi shu (亦舒) and zhang xiaoxian (张小娴) whose texts also travelled to the mainland chinese book market chose bars, coffee shops or fast food restaurants as settings, and they also had their protagonists casually drink coffee.[112] it may be assumed that these texts all fed into the trend that started in mainland china in the late 1990s. while these texts may contest the status of the first intimate touch as the originator of the trend, they do not question that this novel is one of the trendsetters, and what is more, one of the most important ones because it remained on china’s national bestseller lists for about two years.[113] since the early 2000s, mainland chinese authors have also employed brand names and the consumption of branded products in their novels to characterize their protagonists.[114] an echo of the scene discussed earlier in this paper appears in a 2003 novel by zhuang yu (庄羽) when the female protagonist enters a mcdonald’s restaurant: basically, i still felt a bit attached to mcdonald’s. when i first got to know [my boyfriend] gao yuan, i was still working as a journalist for a small newspaper. comrade gao yuan bought me one mcdonald’s big-mac-menu a day in order to seek the favour of my stomach. before too long, my vexing stomach could no longer take it—if i did not get to eat [my] mcdonald’s [food] for a day, my spirits would simply go on strike—and i could not think of anything but gao yuan. back then, my feelings towards gao yuan were still quite simple; i just felt from deep down that it was truly appropriate that gao yuan would spend money on me—one mcdonald’s meal a day: that was over thirty yuan! 基本上我对麦当劳还是有点感情的，刚认识高原那会儿，我还是一小报记者，高原同志一天给我买一份麦当劳巨无霸套餐跟我的胃套近乎，没多久，我这不争气的胃就扛不住了，一天吃不着麦当劳就就鼓动我的脑神经罢工，满脑子都是高原。那时候对高原的感情还很单纯，就发自内心地觉得高原真是舍得给我花钱啊，一天一份麦当劳，三十多块钱呢！[115] the narrator of this novel thus remembers how a couple of years earlier, she had found it only natural that her boyfriend would spend a lot of money on mcdonald’s food as part of his strategy to win her heart. apparently, both of them felt at the time that these were the rules of courtship and of experiencing romantic love, similar to pizi cai who expressed his admiration of qingwu’s beauty through the purchase of more french fries and larger coca-colas than he had originally planned.[116] as such, the text may actually be read ethnographically: if we assume that the narration takes place during the late 1990s, the time when the first intimate touch was published in taiwan and then on the mainland, mcdonald’s was already well established in taiwan, but only beginning to gain hold on the mainland. while still lagging behind its competitor, kentucky fried chicken,[117] consumers started to regard mcdonald’s as an attractive venue for spending time and money. with its “scientific” appearance[118] and its aura of the “exotic, american and to a certain extent modern”[119] and of “haute cuisine”, “mcdonald’s became a place where people could gain status simply by eating there.”[120] that is to say, at the time mcdonald’s still ranked among the somewhat more luxurious dining establishments whereas, as has been noted above, the fast food chain today is mostly popular among children and has become a casual venue for young urban professionals. a similar assessment with regard to the trendiness of coffee can be found when the main character of a 2005 text by the same author remembers the time she broke up with her boyfriend: back then, i liked starbucks most. at the weekend, i would often dress as if i had just played badminton and go to starbucks to drink this damned coffee. until today, all the trivialities i would engage in before going out would often come to my mind. whenever i think of all this i cannot help but laugh at myself. who these days would carry [their] badminton equipment and wear white socks and shoes only to have some coffee at starbucks? and who would pretend to be happily leafing through some english newspapers which they did not understand. 那时候，我最喜欢星巴克，我常常在周末的时候精心将自己装扮成刚刚打完网球的样子去星巴克喝倒霉的咖啡，那些出门之前的琐碎情节直到现在还常常回荡在我的脑子里，我想到这些的时候总是忍不住暗暗发笑。现在谁还会背着网球拍穿着白色的鞋袜专门去星巴克喝咖啡呢？中间还要佯装很感兴趣地翻翻看不懂的英文报纸。[121] with ironic distance, the narrator of this fictional episode looks back at her own behaviour of some years earlier. as with the previous narrator reflecting her desire for mcdonald’s, this passage may be read as an ethnographic (self-)description. going to starbucks is a personal statement: the experience is not just about having coffee. rather, it is important to wear what seems appropriate to oneself (i.e., pretending to have been working out) and to behave in ways perceived as appropriate (i.e., pretending to be reading english-language media). the protagonist, it seems, had unquestioningly internalised what she might have learned from one of the guidebooks discussed in the previous section of this paper. after all, one of the guidebooks notes that starbucks is not so much about drinking coffee, but about relishing the atmosphere, an atmosphere with allures of the global.[122] while coffee is not directly linked to romance in this novel, the drink and the venue where it is consumed nonetheless play an important role: firstly, it appears that the character wants to be defined through her attitude—through what and how she consumes. thus, she styles herself according to what she perceives to be appropriate (in order to be perceived accordingly by others). secondly, this scene rises up in her mind as she thinks about the end of her relationship. she experienced her romance at the same time as she delved into consumerism, and, especially, into the consumption of coffee. therefore, a strong indirect link between the two is established—one that is echoed by starbucks consumers, like the real life sussie whose lovesickness was discussed earlier. as both passages from the novels by zhuang yu are written in retrospect, the narrators establish some distance between their earlier selves and who they are (or, rather, believe themselves to be) in the present. what they used to do and what they used to perceive as the most modern way to design their lifestyles now seems outdated, maybe even vulgar. this highlights the changing nature of a trend: the most popular trend today may be boring, outdated, or even ridiculous next year. what remains constant, however, is that the characters in these novels continue to define themselves through consumption. the demystification of the exotic and romantic nature of coffee and mcdonald’s continues in other fictional texts that appeared as mcdonald’s and starbucks became further integrated into the everyday lives of chinese citizens. one of the xiaozi guidebooks contains a brief note for prospective authors of bestselling fiction: among other things, authors are advised to have their first-person narrators “have a coke at a mcdonald’s restaurant waiting for a person that is about to turn up.”[123] this, of course, may also be read as an observation about popular fiction: in a number of texts, mcdonald’s has become an unremarkable setting: it is mentioned in passing that one goes there for a meal because the children like it[124] or to meet an unknown person for a conversation.[125] it has turned into a convenient, everyday location that does not need to be given a lot of attention,[126] thus reflecting the development of mcdonald’s in real life china which has now become a space primarily for children—and is no longer of interest to the xiaozi target group.[127] similarly, characters in fictional texts nonchalantly drink coffee[128] while surfing the internet from home[129] or during other activities.[130] in real life chinese cities, an increasing number of coffee shops and western-style restaurants have been established, which is reflected in contemporary popular fiction: increasingly, therefore, coffee shops rather than mcdonald’s have become the location for romantic encounters in these texts.[131] the smell of coffee forms an important part of the experience. and even in the political novel the fat years: china 2013 (盛世：中国2013年) the protagonist frequents the shops run by starbucks—which by the year of this dystopia will have been purchased by the chinese wangwang group (旺旺集团) and have added a tasty longan plum longjing latte (桂圆龙井拿铁) to its menu.[132] these literary texts point to a twofold change: firstly, the notion of what is considered a “trendy” location for the experience of a (possibly romantic) tryst has shifted from mcdonald’s to coffee shops (not necessarily to starbucks, however).[133] secondly, we see a normalization of the use of these locations. fictional characters go there, but they no longer reflect on it as is the case in cai zhiheng’s “philosophy of coffee” or in the anthropological elaborations of zhuang yu’s characters. (the fat years is to be seen on a slightly different trajectory because this is a very popular book, if a political one, but not about romantic love. however, the presence of the chain in the text also reflects its presence in chinese reality and the proliferation of a literary trend, albeit within a different genre.) in addition, not only those characters who figure as trendsetters in the novels, i.e., the leading characters or those who are considered especially fashionable by other characters in the text, frequent these locations and consume food and drinks, but trend followers also explore these stores. with the texts just mentioned, the trend has therefore reached its peak—and has already begun to decline, or, rather to change direction as the emphasis on romantic love has given way to less memorable everyday activities. but while the concrete locations change, what remains constant is an observable differentiation: certain locations are considered suitable for the experience of romance. they are “in”. the trend changes its appearance, but the greater tendency remains. parallels: adaptation and convergence of trends the two trends analysed here are parallel, interrelated, and converge in terms of content and temporal sequence. as noted, both the literary texts and real life allow for similar observations: mcdonald’s and the consumption of coffee have distinct meanings; over the course of time, these meanings change: what appeared as exotic and luxurious when first introduced has become a mainstream and rather quotidian experience for certain groups. adaptation lies at the heart of this process: over the course of time, authors, literary figures and ordinary consumers in china (at least those of urban middle class provenance) have been able to integrate the exotic into their lifestyles; the exotic has thus become more common. adaptation and emulation also link the two spheres and permit an explanation of the trends’ convergence. firstly, to a certain extent, fictional texts may be read as representations of the real world in which they allegedly play. this is not to suggest that authors of contemporary popular fiction strive for blank realism or provide documentary texts. however, part of the attraction of the texts relies on the fact that the stories can be linked to chinese reality. the brands consumed are tangible objects in this reality. while it is clear that not all chinese (and possibly not even all the readers of the books under consideration) frequent the starbucks coffee shops that appear in the novels, these new stores still form part of the visible everyday culture of many urban chinese. as such, fictional texts amount to a portrait of reality, even if abstracted and, to some extent, imagined. and in this, the texts provide ample evidence of the importance of consumer culture to many strata of contemporary chinese society which, in turn, permits a reading of the texts as reflections of the readers’ and authors’ real-life experiences, and of their desires. secondly, as the contents of bestselling novels discussed in this paper constitute a distinct link to reality, these fictional texts invite one to read them in a similar way to the guidebooks, as guides to the correct and most up-to-date lifestyle, instructing their readers how to emulate it. as fictional products, they also operate on a second level: these books offer their readers interpretations of how to experience this new lifestyle and how to give meaning to it within their own lives. therefore, the increasing amount of consumer products and brand names in contemporary chinese literary texts is not only a method for authors to characterize the protagonists of their texts, but also a means for readers to learn more and adapt a new lifestyle. thirdly, the depiction of consumption in novels is clearly linked to an aestheticization of consumers’ lives. consumption is not merely linked to aesthetic appreciation, as elaborated by gao xuanyang.[134] moreover, as consumption is aestheticized in fictional texts (as well as in guidebooks) it is further elevated, such that it may add an aesthetic layer of meaning to an individual consumer’s life. in fact, the way many starbucks customers reflect on their starbucks experiences in the stores’ guestbooks demonstrates that they perceive them as aesthetic experiences. through these experiences and through their reflection they demonstrate their own aesthetic sophistication, as for example in the elaborate descriptions of the product and atmosphere, with neat pictures or even poems dedicated to starbucks coffee, as in the case of one customer by the name of jasmine cheng: “sometimes clear like the spring stream, / sometimes like turbulent waves in a winding river. / a nature so familiar, yet seemingly unfamiliar, / it is to be felt deep within.”[135] this english language poem (which is one of two poems in a long profile of the author who is on the lookout for a language exchange partner) is a reflection of the aesthetic and cosmopolitan ambitions of its author. after all, in the text, she reflects on the sensation of newness and familiarity of starbucks coffee. moreover, the text and the aesthetic qualities of the drink serve to style herself as an aesthetic person. fourthly, in addition to the parallels in content and meaning, temporal parallels between the two trends are observable. after all, cai’s novel appeared on the chinese market at a time when consumption at mcdonald’s was already firmly established as “an important way for chinese yuppies [predecessors to the xiaozi] to define themselves as middle-class professionals.”[136] moreover, the book was published in the same year that starbucks opened its first store in beijing. with the rising acceptance of mcdonald’s and with its subsequent integration into the lifestyle of larger segments of the population,[137] the meaning it offered to its customers varied: while it still stood for a modern and international lifestyle, by then it had lost some of its exotic appeal. starbucks, in turn, now provided its customers with something new and, therefore, more exotic, yet something that contained a number of characteristics that urban middle class consumers were already familiar with: predictability of service, taste, and cleanliness, as well as notions of a modern, global, transcultural and americanized lifestyle. the parallels as well as the popularity of mcdonald’s, starbucks, and bestselling fiction lead to their mutual reinforcement and convergence. the reaction of one of my sources (who at the time was a 21-year-old undergraduate student at fudan university in shanghai) to the novel and the new consumption outlet permits an understanding of this convergence: she stated that having read the novel, she became curious about the taste of cappuccino. right at that time, the first local starbucks branch opened and gave her the opportunity to taste the exotic drink: “i was curious about how it tasted, largely driven by the romantic imagination the novel generated!” without the novel, we may surmise, she would not have bought one of these expensive drinks. and if, as may be assumed, other people are curious in a similar way, one may wonder whether without the novel starbucks’ entry onto the chinese market would have been less successful. which of the trends was there first, is to some extent an irresolvable chicken-and-egg question. it can be stated for sure, though, that the two converged and thus reinforced each other. conclusion: transcultural desires in urban china the convergence of the two trends, however, does not suffice to explain their success. rather, the consumable objects associated with them—fast food, coffee, and popular literature—met what may be termed the ‘transcultural desires’ of the chinese urban middle class. as noted earlier on, desire has been identified as one of the central elements explaining change in contemporary china as well as in other societies at times of rising consumerism. in the contemporary chinese context, desire serves the population to redefine their position in the world and it serves the government to divert the population: as long as the populace is striving to fulfil their private desires (mostly through consumption and leisure activities), they are less likely to call for political reform. moreover, as lisa rofel argues, the “production of desire lies at the heart of global processes.”[138] this is especially true of this case study involving the desire for romance and for consumer products that have travelled around the globe. as a result, the trends, products and practices associated with them are firmly rooted in the reality of urban china, while at the same time carrying with them notions of the foreign, global, cosmopolitan, or international. thus, these trends, products and practices unite within them the foreign and the familiar, and are rendered essentially transcultural. the transcultural nature of these products conveys notions that are at times precise and at times vague. since this allows both clear-cut interpretations and a certain amount of flexibility on the part of the consumer, i argue that these transcultural items are particularly suited to meeting desires in contemporary urban china. the consumption of these items, in turn, enables chinese consumers (like many consumers elsewhere on the globe) to consume modernity and to define themselves as transcultural. one may, however, wonder in how far the processes analysed in this paper might not be adequately explained as processes of globalisation and localization. one may also wonder in how far a discussion of transcultural aspects promises new insights into the state of contemporary chinese society and into these global processes. after all, research has rightly demonstrated that the success of global chains and franchises rests on their efforts at localization, thus making the foreign tolerable in its new, chinese environment, a process in which customers often voluntarily participate.[139] on the other hand, though, the elements that appear to be globally uniform are highly visible. many chains have designed their (locally specific) logos such that they are easily recognizable. chains impose uniform rules and rituals upon their customers, such as the process for ordering a cup of coffee at a starbucks store. customers in many cases willingly embrace these rules as they offer orientation in a world of consumption and they embrace these rules as opportunities to consume a modernity that is often linked to notions of an american and therefore progressive lifestyle.[140] for chinese consumers, consumption of western food is a means to link up with the world.[141] eating a serving of “crisp but not greasy” french fries at a suburban chinese mcdonald’s or drinking one’s (caffè) latte (or: 拿铁) in downtown nanjing, a customer can imagine they are doing the same as his or her counterpart in downtown manhattan. this suggests that their lifestyle and attitude to life is closer to urban centers on the other side of the world than, for example, to a farming community in nearby rural anhui. such practices may be described as both global and local. however, global practices imply the levelling down of differences. localized versions thereof emphasize that the products and practices have undergone significant change, such that they are perceived as “starbucks turned chinese”—and global and local seem mutually exclusive. yet, practices at chinese mcdonald’s and starbucks contain elements of both without causing inner conflicts for the respective customers. firstly, customers demonstrate knowledge of the world and of modernity by consuming, and by following the rules of the respective enterprise. chinese consumers do, however, demonstrate a certain amount of indifference when it comes to these rules, as may be seen from the leaflets that the starbucks company distributes in its stores.[142] in these leaflets the company explains its particular language to its customers. while this may appear at first glance to be a service to the customers, it is also an indication of the fact that customers do not use the desired vocabulary and therefore impede the efficiency at the stores.[143] secondly, the use of the english language and references to foreign things and places in the starbucks’ guestbooks underlines the consumers’ cosmopolitanism. the poem by jasmine cheng quoted in the preceding section is one example of such cosmopolitanism. on the surface she is introducing herself and her language skills in search of a language exchange partner. at the same time, this—as well as other english language entries—indicates that a store like starbucks is perceived as a cosmopolitan space where one may meet foreigners, or at least enjoy the cosmopolitan aura of their potential presence. even though there is often not a single foreigner present, a chinese customer may imagine being in such cosmopolitan company, much as he (or she) may imagine drinking the same coffee in the same manner as a like-minded foreigner in, for example, downtown new york, creating yet another imagined “community of sentiment”. in fact, the concrete experiences may vary considerably between a starbucks store on fifth avenue and, say, nanjing’s jinling store on hanzhong road (where jasmine cheng wrote her poems and where her readers could “consume” them). what matters, though, for many consumers is that they can imagine themselves participating in a way of life that is perceived as foreign. thirdly, foreign elements allow space for vagueness and re-interpretation, as fits one’s personal situation (thus, starbucks for many is deeply entwined with notions of romantic love, and a place to reflect on and define one’s image of oneself). at the same time, however, the customers, their practices and their evaluations thereof are deeply rooted in their chinese reality that has distinct meanings and implications. this is not least to be seen in their often casual integration of these products and practices into their everyday lives. both foreign and familiar notions are important for the creation of meaning. so, these practices may best be grasped by a third category: transcultural. one single practice simultaneously contains the foreign, the familiar, and the fact that it is rooted in chinese reality without creating tension or even conflict on the part of the consumer. this process is aided by the fact that consumers are not only provided with objects of consumption, but also with cultural products such as tv programmes, movies, or the novels analysed in this paper. these cultural products have distinct transcultural qualities regardless of their country and culture of origin. they form an integral part in the transmission of global consumer culture. fictional texts seem particularly efficient in this context. they invite their readers to be read as guidebooks for an up-to-date lifestyle. moreover, as books they are consumer objects in themselves to be bought, displayed and maybe even read. as such they may also be a means for their readers to display their desired (or imagined) lifestyle, their sense of aesthetics and their imagined affiliation with like-minded people at home and worldwide. both reading and actual consumption are ways to perform one’s imagined and aspired identities. the novels provide consumers with information as well as with possible interpretations and they help spur consumers’ imagination. moreover, they aid consumers in fulfilling their desires—desires for lives that are transcultural. literature abu-er-rub, laila, jennifer altehenger, sebastian gehrig. “the transcultural travels of trends: an introductory essay.” transcultural studies 2 (2011). allen, keith. “berlin in the belle époque: a fast-food history.” in food nations: selling taste in consumer societies, edited by warren belasco and philip scranton, 240-257. new york: routledge, 2002. annett, sandra. “imagining transcultural fandom: animation and global media communities.” transcultural studies 2 (2011). anni baobei 安妮宝贝. two, three things (二三事). haikou: nanhai chubanshe, 2003. appadurai, arjun. modernity at large. minneapolis: minnesota university press, 1996. bai ye 白烨. review of new literary books: 2004-2005 (文学新书评: 2004-2005). beijing: shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2005. baranovitch, nimrod. china’s new voices: popular music, ethnicity, gender, and politics. berkeley: university of california press, 2003. belasco, warren. “food matters: perspectives on an emerging field.” in food nations: selling taste in consumer societies, edited by warren belasco and philip scranton, 2-23. new york: routledge, 2002. brooks, david. bobos in paradise, the new upper class and how they got there. new york: simon & schuster paperbacks. cai zhiheng 蔡智恒. the first intimate touch (第一次的亲密接触). beijing: zhishi chubanshe, 1999. cai zhiheng 蔡智恒. irish coffee (爱尔兰咖啡). shenyang: wanjuan chuban gongsi, 2000 (2008). cai zhiheng蔡智恒. between art and science [sic] (亦恕与珂雪). shenyang: wanjuan chuban gongsi, 2007 (2008). cai zhiheng蔡智恒. “luoshen black tea” (洛神红茶). in the love story in 7-11 [sic] (7-11 之恋), edited by cai zhiheng蔡智恒, 13-39. shenyang: wanjuan chuban gongsi, 2008. chan, koonchung. the fat years. london: doubleday, 2011. chan koon-chung 陈冠中. the fat years: china 2013 [sic] (盛世：中国 2013年). shazhuwang (杀猪网) http://shazhude.net/, february 4, 2010: http://shazhude.net/20100204/606/ (accessed june 2, 2011). chang, hsiao-hung. “fake logos, fake theory, fake globalization”. inter-asia cultural studies 5/2 (2004): 222-236. cheng, jasmine. “mini profile.” entry in starbucks guestbook at nanjing jinling dian (南京金陵店). may 30, 2009, collected in august 2009. croll, elisabeth. china’s new consumers: social development and domestic demand. london: routledge, 2006. gerth, karl. as china goes, so goes the world: how chinese consumers are transforming everything. new york: hill and wang, 2010. dikötter, frank. exotic commodities: modern objects and everyday life in china. new york: columbia press, 2007. gao xuanyang 高宣扬. sociology of fashion (流行文化社会学). taipei: yangzhi wenhua, 2002. gilette, maris boyd. “children’s food and islamic dietary restrictions in xi’an.” in the cultural politics of food and eating, edited by james l. watson and melissa l. cadwell, 106-121. oxford: blackwell publishing, 2005. gui, yeo-ni (ke’aitao 可爱淘). that guy is really handsome 那小子真帅, transl. huang hong 黄黉. beijing: shijie zhishi chubanshe, 2003. guo jingming 郭敬明. never-flowers in never-dream [sic] (梦里花落知多少), cited after: collected works of guo jingming (郭敬明精典作品集). shenyang: chunfeng wenyi chubanshe 2003 (2005), 90-190. habermas, jürgen. strukturwandel der öffentlichkeit: untersuchungen zu einer kategorie der bürgerlichen gesellschaft. neuwied: luchterhand, 1965. hanser, amy. “the chinese enterprising self: young, educated urbanites and the search for work.” in popular china: unofficical culture in a globalizing society, edited by perry link, richard p. madsen and paul g. pickowicz, 189-206. lanham: rowman & littlefield, 2002. he youran 何悠然. xiaozi dictionary (小资辞典). beijing: zhongguo fangzhi chubanshe, 2006. henningsen, lena. “individualism for the masses? coffee consumption and the chinese middle class’ search for authenticity.” inter-asia cultural studies (forthcoming). hockx, michel. “virtual chinese literature: a comparative case study of online poetry communities.” china quarterly 183 (2005): 670-691. hockx, michel. internet literature in china. new york: columbia university press, 2012 (forthcoming). huang haibo 黄海波. petty bourgeoise [sic] (小资女人). beijing: huawen chubanshe, 2002. huang, joe c. heroes and villains in communist china: the contemporary chinese novel as a reflection of life. london: c. hurst, 1973. huang, xuelei. “from east lynne to konggu lan: transcultural tour, trans-medial translation.” transcultural studies 1 (2012) (forthcoming). issenberg, sasha. the sushi economy. globalization and the making of a modern delicacy. new york: gotham books, 2007. iwabuchi, koichi. recentering globalization: popular culture and japanese transnationalism. durham: duke university press, 2002. kong, shuyu: consuming literature. best sellers and the commercialization of literary production in contemporary china. stanford: stanford university press, 2005. lee, leo ou-fan. shanghai modern: the flowering of a new urban culture in china, 1930-1945. cambridge: harvard university press, 1999. liu suli 刘苏里. “the cradle of modern society” (现代社会的摇篮). in looking at europe from the café (咖啡馆里看欧洲), edited by xu zemin 余泽民, 5-7. jinan: shandong huabao chubanshe, 2007. liu, warren k. kfc in china, secret recipe for success. singapore: john wiley & sons, asia, 2008. lozada, eriberto p. “globalized childhood? kentucky fried chicken in beijing.” in feeding china’s little emperors: food, children and social change, edited by jing jun, 114-134. stanford: stanford university press, 2000. “[no title].” entry in starbucks guestbooks at nanjing fenghuang shucheng dian (南京凤凰书城店). no date, collected in august 2009. orvell, miles. the real thing: imitation and authenticity in american culture, 1880-1940. chapel hill: north carolina university press, 1989. ouyang youquan 欧阳友权. introduction to internet literature (网络文学概论). beijing: beijing daxue chubanshe, 2008. ritzer, george. the mcdonaldization of society [revised new century edition]. thousand oaks: pine forge press, 2004. ritzer, george. enchanting a disenchanted world: continuity and change in cathedrals of consumption. thousand oaks: pine forge press, 2010. rofel, lisa. desiring china. experiments in neoliberalism, sexuality, and public culture. durham: duke university press, 2007. roseberry, william. “the rise of yuppie coffees and the reimagination of class in the united states.” in the cultural politics of food and eating, edited by james l. watson and melissa l. cadwell, 122-143. oxford: blackwell publishing, 2005. rosen, stanley. “the victory of materialism: aspirations to join china’s urban moneyed classes and the commercialization of education.” the china journal 51 (2004): 27-51. rosen, stanley: “contemporary chinese youth and the state.” journal of asian studies 68/2 (2009): 359-369. ruthven, k.k. faking literature. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2001. sheng hui 盛慧. open the rose door of bourgeois [sic] (打开小资的玫瑰门). beijing: zhonghua gongshang lianhe chubanshe, 2002. simon, bryant. everything but the coffee: learning about america from starbucks. berkeley: university of california press, 2009. starbucks coffee company. find your starbucks [sic] (寻找星巴克). no place, 2008. starbucks coffee company. how is the taste? help yourself to your customized drink (味道怎么样?来一杯属于您自己的饮品吧). china, 2008. sussie. “[no title].” entry in starbucks guestbooks at nanjing shuiyoucheng dian (南京水游城店). july 27, 2009, collected in august 2009. swislocki, mark. culinary nostalgia: regional food culture and the urban experience in shanghai. stanford: stanford university press, 2009. thiel, petra. “tracking trends and brands in the international children’s book market.” transcultural studies 1 (2012) (forthcoming). thiel, petra. “no logo? china’s branded youth and their representation within contemporary chinese literature and art.” (paper presented at the conference trends on the move: transcultural dimensions of popular flows, oct. 28-29, 2012). uk fast food delivery. fast food delivery uk. http://www.fastfood-delivery.co.uk/, 2011 (accessed oct. 17, 2011). violet. “[no title].” entry in starbucks guestbook at nanjing 1912 dian (南京1912店). july 4, 2009, collected in august 2009. wang hailing王海鸰. chinese-style divorce (中国式离婚). beijing: beijing chubanshe, 2004. wang, jing. brand new china, advertising, media, and commercial culture. harvard: harvard university press, 2008. wasserstrom, jeffrey n. china’s brave new world, and other tales for global times. bloomington: indiana university press, 2002. watson, james l. [ed.]. golden arches east, mcdonald’s in east asia. stanford: stanford university press, 1997. watson, james l. “china’s big mac attack.” in the cultural politics of food and eating, edited by james l. watson and melissa l. cadwell, 70-79. oxford: blackwell publishing, 2005. welsch, wolfgang. “transculturality – the puzzling form of cultures today.” in spaces of culture: city, nation, world, edited by mike featherstone and scott lash, 194-213. london: sage 1999. xia lanxin 夏岚馨. beautiful cannibalistic fish (美丽食人鱼). beijing: zuojia chubanshe, 2004. xinjingbao shuping zhoukan bianjibu 新京报书评周刊编辑部. most influential books: china 2003-2005 (最有意影响力的书：中国 2003-2005). shanghai: dongfang chuban zhongxin, 2006. xu zemin 余泽民. looking at europe from the café (咖啡馆里看欧洲). jinan: shandong huabao chubanshe, 2007. yan, yunxiang. “mcdonald’s in beijing: the localization of americana.” in golden arches east, mcdonald’s in east asia, edited by james l. watson, 39-76. stanford: stanford university press, 1997. yan, yunxiang. “of hamburger and social space: consuming mcdonald’s in beijing.” in the cultural politics of food and eating, edited by james l. watson and melissa l. cadwell, 80-102. oxford: blackwell publishing, 2005. ye qingzhou 叶轻舟, ed. bestseller (畅销书). beijing: beijing gongye daxue chubanshe, 2005. yu, zhansui. “questioning the ‘chinese model of development’, a critical reading of shengshi: zhongguo 2013.” the china beat, http://www.thechinabeat.org/ july 28, 2010: http://www.thechinabeat.org/?p=2423#more-2423 (accessed june 2, 2011). zhang, lijia. “socialism is great!” a worker’s memoir of the new china. new york: anchor books, 2008. zhang xiaoxian 张小娴. the lady on the breadfruit tree (面包树上的女人). haikou: nanhai chubanshe, 1995 (2000). zhuang yu 庄羽. inner and outer (圈里圈外). nanchang: ershiyi shiji chubanshe, 2003 (2004). zhuang yu庄羽. predestined love everywhere (遍地姻缘). guilin: lijiang chubanshe, 2005. [1] this paper was first presented at the 2008 “rethinking trends” conference in heidelberg. i would like to thank a number of colleagues who provided valuable comments, questions and suggestions to sharpen my arguments: jennifer altehenger, christiane brosius, sebastian gehrig, chua beng-huat, andrea hacker, xuelei huang, susan ingram, nic leonhardt, yiman liu, jennifer may, barbara mittler, liying sun, petra thiel and the anonymous reviewers of this journal. [2] for a detailed study of the chinese bookmarket, see: shuyu kong, consuming literature. best sellers and the commercialization of literary production in contemporary china (stanford: stanford university press, 2005). [3] cai zhiheng 蔡智恒, the first intimate touch (第一次的亲密接触) (beijing: zhishi chubanshe, 1999). [4] ouyang youquan 欧阳友权, introduction to internet literature (网络文学概论) (beijing: beijing daxue chubanshe, 2008), 31f. for chinese language internet literature, see also: michel hockx, internet literature in china (new york: columbia university press, 2012, forthcoming). [5] in the section “works” (作品集), cai zhiheng’s homepage (http://www.jht.idv.tw/) still gives the novel in its original form, i.e. in small postings including the date and time of day when they were originally uploaded (march 22, 1998, 01:41:45 through may 28, 1998, 01:58:54). [6] according to ye qingzhou, the novel stayed on the national bestseller lists for 22 months without interruption. (see: ye qingzhou 叶轻舟, ed., bestseller (畅销书) (beijing: beijing gongye daxue chubanshe, 2005), 225). kong shuyu even indicates that the novel remained on the bestseller lists for over two years, but she alerts her readers to the fact that chinese bestseller lists are to be analyzed with care (kong, consuming literature, 181, 188). yet, no matter how cautiously one treats these figures, they attest to the fact that the novel was extremely popular at the time (and still is remembered by many of its readers). also, cai zhiheng has preserved the many enthusiastic responses of his readers on his homepage (see the sections “comment board” (留言板) and “old comments” (旧留言) and in the printed edition of the novel. [7] the development of online literature was, in fact, yet another transcultural process: the first online literature was written in english in the us, the first chinese language texts were written by overseas students in the us. ouyang, introduction to internet literature, 21ff. [8] in this paper, the term “youth” is employed to refer broadly to those who were born in mainland china after 1980, i.e. after the end of the cultural revolution, and who grew up in an increasingly commercializing china, especially in the cities. they are the readers of the novels discussed in this paper. in their early years, many of them were regular customers at mcdonalds, and today many of them frequent stores like starbucks. [9] for a related study on this issue, see: petra thiel, “no logo? china’s branded youth and their representation within contemporary chinese literature and art”, paper presented at the conference trends on the move: transcultural dimensions of popular flows, oct. 28-29, 2012. for the power of brands in general as well as on the global book market, see petra thiel’s contribution to the trends series. petra thiel, “tracking trends and brands in the international children’s book market”, transcultural studies 1 (2012) (forthcoming). [10] see wolfgang welsch, “transculturality–the puzzling form of cultures today,” in spaces of culture: city, nation, world, ed. mike featherstone and scott lash (london: sage 1999), 194-213. [11] see warren belasco, “food matters: perspectives on an emerging field,” in food nations: selling taste in consumer societies, ed. warren belasco and philip scranton (new york: routledge, 2002), 2. [12] see for example: elisabeth croll, china’s new consumers: social development and domestic demand (london: routledge, 2006). [13] george ritzer, enchanting a disenchanted world: continuity and change in cathedrals of consumption (thousand oaks: pine forge press, 2010). [14] lisa rofel, desiring china. experiments in neoliberalism, sexuality, and public culture (durham: duke university press, 2007), 3. [15] miles orvell, the real thing: imitation and authenticity in american culture, 1880-1940 (chapel hill: north carolina university press, 1989), 41. [16] ibid., 41. [17] huang haibo 黄海波, petty bourgeoise [sic] (小资女人) (beijing: huawen chubanshe, 2002), 186. the title should correctly be translated as petty bourgeois women and, indeed, especially in the sections on clothing and hairstyle the book entirely addresses a female readership. all translations of chinese language sources are by the author. [18] for mcdonald’s in china, see: yunxiang yan, “mcdonald’s in beijing: the localization of americana,” in golden arches east, mcdonald’s in east asia, ed. james l. watson (stanford: stanford university press, 1997); yunxiang yan, “of hamburger and social space: consuming mcdonald’s in beijing,” in the cultural politics of food and eating, ed. james l. watson and melissa l. cadwell (oxford: blackwell publishing, 2005), 80-103; james l. watson, “china’s big mac attack,” in the cultural politics of food and eating, ed. james l. watson and melissa l. cadwell, (oxford: blackwell publishing, 2005), 70-79. [19] gao xuanyang 高宣扬, sociology of fashion (流行文化社会学) (taipei: yangzhi wenhua, 2002), 166-167. [20] see, for example: sasha issenberg, the sushi economy. globalization and the making of a modern delicacy (new york: gotham books, 2007). for the localization of mcdonald’s in east asia see the contributions to golden arches east, mcdonald’s in east asia, ed. james l. watson (stanford: stanford university press, 1997). [21] frank dikötter, exotic commodities: modern objects and everyday life in china (new york: columbia press, 2007), 218. for the impact of western food on shanghai regional cuisine, see also: mark swislocki, culinary nostalgia: regional food culture and the urban experience in shanghai (stanford: stanford university press, 2009), 97-141. [22] leo ou-fan lee, shanghai modern: the flowering of a new urban culture in china, 1930-1945 (cambridge: harvard university press, 1999), 18. [23] for example, maris boyd gilette demonstrates in her study on food consumption in xi’an that tv programmes from the us and from china “played an important part in educating locals about westerns foods and foodways.” maris boyd gilette, “children’s food and islamic dietary restrictions in xi’an,” in the cultural politics of food and eating, ed. james l. watson and melissa l. cadwell (oxford: blackwell publishing, 2005), 111. [24] rofel, desiring china, 6; see also karl gerth, as china goes, so goes the world: how chinese consumers are transforming everything, (new york: hill and wang, 2010), 111-132; jing wang, brand new china, advertising, media, and commercial culture (harvard: harvard university press, 2008). [25] yan, “of hamburger and social space”, 82. [26] qingwu herself also signs “her” online texts flyindance. [27] cai, the first intimate touch, 67. when the narrator heard her laugh for the first time, he had already compared it to french fries. ibid., 64. [28] qingwu uses this term to refer to her elaborations, emphasizing that she does not refer to the coffee house chain of the same name, see: ibid., 67, 144. [29] ibid., 68. even her bicycle is coffee-colored, “like warm french café au lait.” ibid., 74. [30] after all, scientific—and hygienic—production methods and high nutritional value have been ascribed to the american fast food chain ever since it came into being and, significantly, ever since its introduction to china as well. see yan, “mcdonald’s in beijing”, 44; gao, sociology of fashion, 155-156. likewise, in her study of the values attributed to food by the muslim hui population of xi’an, maris body gilette demonstrates how mass produced food such as snacks and carbonated drinks is perceived as western and scientific. it offers consumers the possibility to consume modernity, to demonstrate “their cosmopolitanism and familiarity with things foreign” and it represents a “means parents used to prepare their children for the modern world.” see gilette, “children’s food and islamic dietary restrictions in xi’an,” 116-117. on the issues of standardization, rationalization at mcdonald’s in general and the resulting effects, see george ritzer’s classic study: george ritzer, the mcdonaldization of society [revised new century edition] (thousand oaks: pine forge press, 2004). [31] gao, sociology of fashion, 66. [32] desire for romance is, of course, nothing new. for a rather different literary trend resulting from this desire, see xuelei huang’s contribution to the trends series: xuelei huang, “from east lynne to konggu lan: transcultural tour, trans-medial translation,” transcultural studies 1 (2012) (forthcoming). [33] cai, the first intimate touch, 74. in another novel by cai zhiheng, the female main character’s spirits are similarly improved by a cup of coffee. see: cai zhiheng 蔡智恒, between art and science [sic] (亦恕与珂雪) (shenyang: wanjuan chuban gongsi, 2007 (2008)), 131. [34] cai, the first intimate touch, 126. [35] pizi cai vividly remembers what happened to a friend of his: he had invited a girl into a western restaurant, but due to her lack of experience with western food and cutlery and because of her excitement, she ended up spilling food all over her clothes, causing much embarrassment. see: cai, the first intimate touch, 62. [36] huang, petty bourgeoise, 187. [37] cai, the first intimate touch, 65. [38] ibid., 68. [39] k.k. ruthven, faking literature (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2001), 43. [40] moreover, as a scientist he employs his mathematic abilities and quickly calculates that, given his own height and the distance between their eyes, she must be 1.64m tall. cai, the first intimate touch, 66. [41] arjun appadurai, modernity at large (minneapolis: minnesota university press, 1996), 8. for a discussion of appadurai’s concept, see also the contribution to the trends series by sandra annett, “imagining transcultural fandom: animation and global media communities,” transcultural studies 2 (2011). [42] cai, the first intimate touch, 71. [43] see, for example, ibid., 33-34,39, 43. [44] ibid., 166-172. [45] ritzer, the mcdonaldization of society. this is not to say that there were no other models for the fast food industry. germany, for example, saw the rise of the aschinger emporium in the belle époque which at its height was even registered at the stock market. political turmoil during and shortly after the second world war ended this success story. see: keith allen, “berlin in the belle époque: a fast-food history,” in food nations: selling taste in consumer societies, ed. warren belasco and philip scranton (new york: routledge, 2002), 240-257.  [46] mcdonald’s closest competitor, kentucky fried chicken, took a different route as it entered china: the american company decided to hire former mcdonald’s managers from taiwan as their first generation of management staff, reasoning that these would be familiar with the trade and the cultural specifics of the market they would be working for (liu, kfc in china, 27). the same route may be observed in relation to the production of fake consumer products such as louis vuitton bags; hsiao-hung chang, “fake logos, fake theory, fake globalization,” inter-asia cultural studies 5/2 (2004), 222-236. [47] see, for example lijia zhang’s memoirs of life under socialism: lijia zhang, “socialism is great!” a worker’s memoir of the new china (new york: anchor books, 2008), 216f. [48] yan, “of hamburger and social space”, 93ff. elsewhere, yunxiang yan writes about fast food consumption in beijing: “… the notion of fast food refers only to western-style fast food and the new chinese imitations. more important, as a new cultural construct, the notion of fast food includes nonfood elements such as eating manners, environment, and patterns of social interaction. the popularity of fast food among beijing consumers has little to do with either the food itself or the speed with which it is consumed.” yan, “of hamburger and social space”, 82. [49] observations in august 2009. [50] for a chinese perspective on european traditions and practices of coffee consumption, see xu zemin 余泽民, looking at europe from the café (咖啡馆里看欧洲) (jinan: shandong huabao chubanshe, 2007). [51] jürgen habermas, strukturwandel der öffentlichkeit: untersuchungen zu einer kategorie der bürgerlichen gesellschaft (neuwied: luchterhand, 1965). [52] gao xuanyang, sociology of fashion, 177-179. see also the next section of this paper. [53] william roseberry, “the rise of yuppie coffees and the reimagination of class in the united states”, in the cultural politics of food and eating, ed. james l. watson and melissa l. cadwell (oxford: blackwell publishing, 2005), 122-143. [54] bryant simon, everything but the coffee: learning about america from starbucks (berkeley: university of california press, 2009). [55] mcdonald’s, which operates under a franchise system, makes efforts to present itself as a chinese company. 50% of the business belongs to a chinese partner (yan, “mcdonald’s in beijing”, 54). [56] huang, petty bourgeoise, 204. [57] in fact, faced with dwindling customer numbers, fast food chains in the “west” have recently moved to fill in this service gap. see, for example, uk fast food delivery, fast food delivery uk, http://www.fastfood-delivery.co.uk/, 2011 (accessed oct. 17, 2011). [58] the shelves of chinese bookstores attest to this international dimension, as do the publications that introduce their readers to the latest or most influential books. see: bai ye 白烨, review of new literary books: 2004-2005 (文学新书评: 2004-2005) (beijing: shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2005); xinjingbao shuping zhoukan bianjibu 新京报书评周刊编辑部, most influential books: china 2003-2005 (最有意影响力的书：中国 2003-2005) (shanghai: dongfang chuban zhongxin, 2006). see also kong, consuming literature, 120-143. [59] see above, gilette, “children’s food and islamic dietary restrictions in xi’an,” 111. for the influence of pop music from hongkong and taiwan, see nimrod baranovitch, china’s new voices: popular music, ethnicity, gender, and politics (berkeley: university of california press, 2003), 10-18. [60] gao, sociology of fashion, 171-177. [61] ibid., 187. [62] ibid., 158. [63] ibid., 178. [64] koichi iwabuchi, recentering globalization: popular culture and japanese transnationalism (durham: duke university press, 2002). see also sandra annett’s contribution to the trends series “imagining transcultural fandom”. [65] gao, sociology of fashion, 177-179. [66] as holds true for other coffee cultures, too. see: ibid., 159. william roseberry has demonstrated how the american coffee industry countered declining consumption of the drink after the second world war by shaping consumers’ taste and by promoting it as a means of distinction. see roseberry, “the rise of yuppie coffees”. [67] gao, sociology of fashion, 195. [68] liu suli 刘苏里, “the cradle of modern society” (现代社会的摇篮), in looking at europe from the café (咖啡馆里看欧洲), ed. xu zemin 余泽民 (jinan: shandong huabao chubanshe, 2007), 5-7. [69] jeffrey n. wasserstrom, china’s brave new world, and other tales for global times (bloomington: indiana university press, 2002), 23. [70] rofel, desiring china, 3ff. [71] stanley rosen, “contemporary chinese youth and the state,” journal of asian studies 68/2 (2009), 365-6. [72] stanley rosen, “the victory of materialism: aspirations to join china’s urban moneyed classes and the commercialization of education,” the china journal 51 (2004), 27-51. [73] amy hanser, “the chinese enterprising self: young, educated urbanites and the search for work,” in popular china: unofficial culture in a globalizing society, ed. perry link, richard p. madsen and paul g. pickowicz (lanham: rowman & littlefield, 2002), 189-206. [74] the term bobo was coined by david brooks to describe american upper-class consumers who combine bourgeois capitalist values with elements of a counterculture hippie lifestyle. for a description of bobos in their original american habitat, see david brooks, bobos in paradise, the new upper class and how they got there (new york: simon & schuster paperbacks). [75] wang, brand new china, 180-210. [76] for example, in an interview with 23 year old female customer at the joy city store 西单大悦城店 in beijing, august 16, 2009. all interviews were conducted in confidentiality, and the names of interviewees are withheld by mutual agreement. [77] laila abu-er-rub, jennifer altehenger, sebastian gehrig, “the transcultural travels of trends: an introductory essay,” transcultural studies 2 (2011). [78] as for example in the affair surrounding the author ouyang shan 欧阳山 whose novel three family lane (三家巷) was severely criticized on account of the characterization of the main character as a petty bourgeois intellectual. see: joe c. huang, heroes and villains in communist china: the contemporary chinese novel as a reflection of life (london: c. hurst, 1973), 21f. [79] wang, brand new china, 182ff. [80] ibid., 195. [81] ibid., 193. [82] the sample of guestbook entries referred to here was collected in nanjing in august 2009. these entries in starbucks guestbooks are analyzed in greater depth in a separate paper: lena henningsen, “individualism for the masses? coffee consumption and the chinese middle class’ search for authenticity”, inter-asia cultural studies (forthcoming). [83] violet, “[no title],” entry in starbucks guestbook at nanjing 1912 dian (南京1912店, july 4, 2009, collected in august 2009). [84] “[no title],” entry in starbucks guestbook at nanjing fenghuang shucheng dian (南京凤凰书城店, no date, collected in august 2009). [85] the following understanding of the term xiaozi was gained from reading the—at times contradictory—essays collected in: sheng hui 盛慧, open the rose door of bourgeois [sic] (打开小资的玫瑰门) (beijing: zhonghua gongshang lianhe chubanshe, 2002). [86] he youran 何悠然, xiaozi dictionary (小资辞典) (beijing: zhongguo fangzhi chubanshe, 2006), 121ff. [87] for the increasing individualism among chinese youth, see rosen, “contemporary chinese youth”, 368. [88] sheng, open the rose door, huang, petty bourgeoise. [89] for example: bai, review of new literary books; xinjingbao shuping zhoukan bianjibu, most influential books; ye, bestseller. [90] he, xiaozi dictionary, 19ff. [91] he, xiaozi dictionary, 63ff. [92] ibid., 145. [93] relating, for example, how dependent on caffeine some young it professionals are: sheng, open the rose door, 145. [94] huang, petty bourgeoise, 202. see also sheng, open the rose door, 44. [95] ibid., 53. [96] huang, petty bourgeoise, 203. [97] ibid., 204. [98] for the us, see: roseberry, “the rise of yuppie coffees”; simon, everything but the coffee. for the chinese xiaozi, see huang, petty bourgeoisie, 205. [99] cai, the first intimate touch, 70; 144. [100] ye, bestseller, 225. in fact, in the novel, pizi cai purchased two large cokes. cai, the first intimate touch,64 [101] ye, bestseller, 225. [102] cai, the first intimate touch, 139. [103] sheng, open the rose door, 12. [104] huang, petty bourgeoise, 194. random observations in mcdonald’s stores in china easily confirm this: the stores – especially those in neighbourhood areas, away from large shopping outlets – are often populated by school children who use the place to complete their homework and to hang around with friends – away from teachers’ or parents’ gaze. see also watson, “china’s big mac attack”, 73-74; likewise, kentucky fried chicken mainly caters to children, see eriberto p. lozada, “globalized childhood? kentucky fried chicken in beijing,” in: feeding china’s little emperors: food, children and social change, ed. jing jun (stanford: stanford university press, 2000), 114-134. [105] yan, “of hamburger and social space”, 91. [106] sussie ‘[no title]’, entry in starbucks guestbook at nanjing shuiyoucheng dian (南京水游城店, july 27, 2009, collected in august 2009). [107] of course, other items are also consumed and some customers refrain from drinking coffee—nonetheless, to them the atmosphere of starbucks as a coffeeshop is central to their experience. [108] cai is not the only author to employ internet language. for example, a young korean author, who is also popular among the young chinese readership, also employs icons in her novels in large quantities, thus pointing to the fact that this is part of a larger east asian trend. see gui, yeo-ni (ke’aitao 可爱淘) that guy is really handsome (那小子真帅), transl. huang hong 黄黉 (beijing: shijie zhishi chubanshe, 2003). [109] kong: consuming literature, 176-183 (in the passage, kong also discusses cai zhiheng’s novel). [110] michel hockx, “virtual chinese literature: a comparative case study of online poetry communities,” china quarterly 183 (2005), 673-675. [111] coffee features prominently in other texts by cai: in irish coffee, most of the plot takes place in a café in taipei. through his consumption of irish coffee and learning about the intoxicating drink, the narrator falls in love with the owner of the café, thus providing much space to deliberate on the meanings of coffee. likewise, in between art and science many scenes also take place in a taipei café. coffee is also central to the short story “luoshen black tea”: here, tea was central to the romantic relationship between the narrator and his first love. at the end of it, he stops drinking tea and resorts to coffee—so coffee here marks the end of a romantic story. while this means a slightly different subtext is associated with the drink, nonetheless, there is an explicit connection to romantic love. see: cai zhiheng 蔡智恒, irish coffee (爱尔兰咖啡) (shenyang: wanjuan chuban gongsi, 2000 (2008)); cai zhiheng, between art and science; and cai zhiheng 蔡智恒, “luoshen black tea” (洛神红茶), in: the love story in 7-11 [sic] (7-11 之恋), ed. cai zhiheng蔡智恒(shenyang: wanjuan chuban gongsi, 2008), 13-39. [112] see, for example zhang xiaoxian 张小娴, the lady on the breadfruit tree (面包树上的女人) (haikou: nanhai chubanshe, 1995 (2000)), 14. [113] ye, bestseller, 225. kong, consuming literature, 181. see also my remark in footnote 6. [114] see also: thiel, “no logo?” [115] zhuang yu 庄羽, inner and outer (圈里圈外) (nanchang: ershiyi shiji chubanshe, 2003 (2004)), 30-31. [116] cai, the first intimate touch, 64. [117] in his book, warren k. liu, former vice president of business development who worked for yum! brands to launch kentucky fried chicken on the chinese market, details the company’s business strategy which, according to him, achieved success on the chinese market because of its meticulous localization efforts. warren k. liu, kfc in china, secret recipe for success (singapore: john wiley & sons, asia, 2008). [118] yan, “mcdonald’s in beijing”, 44. [119] ibid., 43. [120] ibid., 53. [121] zhuang yu 庄羽, predestined love everywhere (遍地姻缘) (guilin: lijiang chubanshe, 2005), 96. [122] huang, petty bourgeoise, 204. [123] sheng, open the rose door, 38. [124] wang hailing 王海鸰, chinese-style divorce (中国式离婚) (beijing: beijing chubanshe, 2004), 208, 281. [125] ibid., 142. [126] guo jingming 郭敬明, never-flowers in never-dream [sic] (梦里花落知多少), in: collected works of guo jingming (郭敬明精典作品集) (shenyang: chunfeng wenyi chubanshe 2003 (2005)), 121. [127] huang, petty bourgeoise, 194. [128] guo, never-flowers in never-dream, 123, 123, 135, 154, 187. [129] zhuang, inner and outer, 20. [130] zhuang, predestined love everywhere; xia lanxin 夏岚馨, beautiful cannibalistic fish (美丽食人鱼) (beijing: zuojia chubanshe, 2004), 27, 48; anni baobei 安妮宝贝, two, three things (二三事) (haikou: nanhai chubanshe, 2003), 116, 132. [131] ibid., 112, 138; zhuang, inner and outer, 213. [132] i thank friederike assandri for bringing my attention to this novel. chan koon-chung 陈冠中, the fat years: china 2013 [sic] (盛世：中国2013年), in: shazhuwang 杀猪网http://shazhude.net/ february 4, 2010, http://shazhude.net/20100204/606/ (accessed june 2, 2011). for an english language translation, see: koonchung chan, the fat years (london: doubleday, 2011). see also: zhansui yu, “questioning the ‘chinese model of development’, a critical reading of shengshi: zhongguo 2013,” the china beat, http://www.thechinabeat.org/ july 28, 2010, http://www.thechinabeat.org/?p=2423#more-2423 (accessed june 2, 2011). [133] in the texts i analyzed, starbucks was chosen as a neutral setting. see guo, never-flowers in never-dream, 162. [134] see above, gao, sociology of fashion, 195. [135] jasmine cheng, “mini profile”, entry in starbucks guestbook at nanjing jinling dian (南京金陵店), may 30, 2009, collected in august 2009. [136] yan, “of hamburger and social space”, 91. [137] here, the emergence of children and their families as regular customers at mcdonald’s is especially noteworthy, see watson, “china’s big mac attack”, 70-79. [138] rofel, desiring china, 1. [139] yan, “of hamburger and social space”, 93ff; yan, “mcdonald’s in beijing”, and lozada “globalized childhood?”. for a description of a company’s narrative of localization see liu, kfc in china. [140] interview with a female customer in her thirties at the nanjing fenghuang shucheng starbucks store 南京凤凰书成店, located inside nanjing’s most popular book store, august 21, 2009, interview with a 33 year old male customer at the gate store 新中关店 in beijing, august 17, 2009. [141] this holds true for fast food as well as for industrially packaged snacks that are perceived as western, even though they may be produced locally. see yan, “of hamburger and social space”, 88; gilette, “children’s food and islamic dietary restrictions in xi’an,” 117. [142] see, for example: starbucks coffee company, find your starbucks (寻找星巴) (no place, 2008). starbucks coffee company, how is the taste? help yourself to your customized drink (味道怎么样?来一杯属于您自己的饮品吧) (china, 2008). [143] i have developed this point elsewhere in greater detail. see: henningsen, “individualism for the masses?” 1 transcultural studies 2013.1 2013. 1 editor's note monica juneja .04 translations yu-chih lai images, knowledge and empire: depicting cassowaries in the qing court translated by philip hand .07 ōkubo takeharu ono azusa and the meiji constitution: the codification and study of roman law at the dawn of modern japan translated by gaynor sekimori .101 articles diamantis panagiotopoulos material versus design: a transcultural approach to the two contrasting properties of things .145 barbara mittler “enjoying the four olds!”—oral histories from a “cultural desert“ .177 2 contributors to this issue transcultural studies, no 1, 2013, issn: 2191-6411 editors: monica juneja,ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg rudolf g. wagner, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg managing editor: andrea hacker editorial board: christiane brosius, antje fluechter, madeleine herren, monica juneja, birgit kellner, joachim kurtz, axel michaels, and roland wenzlhuemer. transcultural studies is an open-access e-journal published bi-annually by the cluster of excellence, “asia and europe in a global context: the dynamics of transculturality” at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. for more information see: www.transculturalstudies.org contributors to this issue: lai yu-chih received her ph.d. in art history at yale university in 2005. she has been assistant research fellow at the institute of modern history, academia sinica, taiwan, since july 2010. she previously worked as an assistant curator in the department of painting and calligraphy at the national palace museum for seven years, participating in several important exhibitions. her current book projects include “visual empire: image productions, governance, and empire-building in the qianlong court” and “moments of change: japan in modern chinese painting.” ôkubo takeharu is associate professor of the history of japanese political thought at meiji university, japan. he has published widely on the intellectual history of cultural exchange between europe and east asia including kindai nihon no seiji kôsô to oranda (the quest for civilization: encounters with dutch jurisprudence, political economy and statistics at the dawn of modern japan, university of tokyo press, 2010). diamantis panagiotopoulos is professor of classical archaeology at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. his research interests include the social structures of the aegean civilizations, aegean imagery, transcultural phenomena in the eastern mediterranean of the second millennium bce, 3 transcultural studies 2013.1 and ancient sealing practices. he has excavated at major aegean sites and co-directed the zominthos excavations from 2005 to 2007. he is currently leading the interdisciplinary research program on minoan koumasa, aiming at the systematic exploration of the site and its landscape. barbara mittler holds the chair in chinese studies at the ruprecht-karlsuniversität heidelberg and is a director of the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context.” she studied sinology, musicology and japanese at the universities of oxford (ma oxon 1990) and heidelberg (phd 1994, habilitation 1998). her books touch upon chinese avantgarde music, the early chinese press, and artistic production during the great proletarian cultural revolution. philip hand is a british translator who lives and works in xiamen, china. he studied chinese at cambridge university, obtained an ma in translation studies from birmingham university, and today specialises in translation of academic papers. his research interests are the nature of the chinese sentence and persuasive rhetoric in chinese and english translation. gaynor sekimori is a research associate in the centre for the study of japanese religions at the school of oriental and african studies, university of london, and concurrently visiting professor at kokugakuin university, tokyo. her research focuses on japanese religious history. she is a professional academic translator and editor. 03_titel 04_contrib(1) 1 transcultural studies 2013.2 2013. 2 editor’s note monica juneja, joachim kurtz .04 articles ori sela from theology’s handmaid to the science of sciences: western philosophy’s transformations on its way to china .07 yue zhuang “luxury” and “the surprising” in sir william chambers’ dissertation on oriental gardening (1772): commercial society and burke’s sublime-effect .45 mio wakita sites of “disconnectedness”: the port city of yokohama, souvenir photography, and its audience .77 arianna dagnino global mobility, transcultural literature, and multiple modes of modernity .130 2 contributors to this issue transcultural studies, no 2, 2013, issn: 2191-6411 editors: monica juneja,ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg rudolf g. wagner, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg managing editor: andrea hacker editorial board: christiane brosius, antje fluechter, madeleine herren, birgit kellner, joachim kurtz, axel michaels, barbara mittler, diamantis panagiotopoulos, vladimir tikhonov, and roland wenzlhuemer. transcultural studies is an open-access e-journal published bi-annually by the cluster of excellence, “asia and europe in a global context: the dynamics of transculturality“ at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. for more information see: www.transculturalstudies.org contributors to this issue: ori sela is a lecturer at the department of east asian studies, tel aviv university, a fellow of the minerva humanities center at the same institution, and is affiliated with the migration of knowledge research group. he researches the intellectual history of late imperial china, as well as china’s complex transition into the modern period during the 20th century. his dissertation, qian daxin (1728-1804): knowledge, identity, and reception history in china, 1750-1930, analyzed the ways in which knowledge was produced from the middle of the qing period until the republican era and examined the nexus of identity and knowledge during this period. his research interests include philology, historiography, the categorization of knowledge, and china's intercultural interactions with japan and the west, as well as the implications of these interactions on concepts of identity as held by various chinese thinkers. zhuang yue is a postdoctoral research fellow and marie curie fellow at the urpp asia and europe, university of zurich, and a lecturer at the school of architecture, tianjin university. she contributed essays to edited volumes such as from the things themselves: architecture and phenomenology (kyoto: kyoto university press, 2012) and journals such as zhongguo yuanlin 3 transcultural studies 2013.2 [landscape architecture]. she is currently leading an eu marie curie project, ‘matteo ripa’s “views of jehol”: entangled histories and 18th century european and chinese landscape representations,’ to which this article belongs. mio wakita is an art historian who specializes in japanese photography and nineteenth-century japanese visual arts, and teaches japanese art history as an assistant professor at the institute of east asian art history, ruprechtkarls-universität heidelberg. she has published several articles on souvenir photography from yokohama in english, german and japanese. her major publications include “selling japan: kusakabe kimbei’s image of japanese women,” history of photography 33:2 (may 2009): 209-223, and staging desires: japanese femininity in kusakabe kimbei’s nineteenth-century souvenir photography (berlin: reimer, 2013). arianna dagnino holds a phd in world literature and creative writing from the university of south australia (2013) and a master’s degree in foreign languages and literatures from the university of genoa. in the last 25 years, she has lived and worked abroad extensively, as an independent journalist, travel writer, literary translator, and sociocultural analyst. she has published several books on the impact of globalization, mobility, and new technologies on society, culture, and identity. her first novel, fossili (rome: fazi, 2010), is a transcultural odyssey inspired by the four years (1997-2000) she spent as acting correspondent for the italian press in south africa. cultural brokerage | jaspert | transcultural studies cultural brokerage: a medieval mediterranean perspective nikolas japert, ruprecht-karls universität heidelberg the following podcast is of a keynote lecture given by nikolas jaspert on october 09th, 2014. it opened the sixth annual conference of the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context,” which was titled “cultural mediation: creativity, performance, display.” the conference was organized by christiane brosius, melanie trede, and hans harder on behalf of research area b “public spheres”. fig. 1: nikolas jaspert during his lecture in the karl jaspers centre at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg this lecture focuses on the mediterranean, the meeting point between africa, asia, and europe—an area attributed with a higher propensity to cultural mediation than most other regions. academic discourse on syncretism, hybridisation, and transfer has been particularly eager to focus on this “great sea” of small dimensions. reflecting on such approaches and their motivations might serve as a base for more general thoughts on the relation between space and communication within and between societies. which places were particularly apt for the performance and display of communicative practices? what motivated such processes and how were they brought about? what is the relation between cultural mediation and cultural brokerage? some mediaeval mediterranean case studies can help to answer these and other questions. editorial note | issue 1, 2014 | transcultural studies editorial note the contributions presented here address a number of important issues in the study of transcultural interaction: space, networks, agency, and media. transcultural interaction might take place within the space of a transnational ideological community such as the communist international and the later "socialist camp," and in the process it might develop a shared visual language with its equally transnationally connected opponent, in this case the axis powers. (schwartz, zhang) it might occur in a space held together by shared commercial and scholarly interests, but made up of points at great geographical distance from each other such as the united states and japan and inserted into specific local hierarchies such as those between japan and its korean colony (schladitz). it might take place in a narrowly circumscribed space such as the silk road oases, where traders, warriors, herders, and religious men congregated and the conflict and cooperation between the surrounding great powers was acted out (gasparini). or it might be constituted through the social and intellectual action of a foreigner in a distant land such as the jesuit missionary matteo ricci in china, whose survival, activity as a translator, and continued ability to engage with local actors as well as his superiors and friends at home is evidence for his assumption of a shared humanity (hosne). it would seem self-evident that transcultural interaction is a process driven by human beings; that these human beings act not as stand-alone monads but within and through highly structured networks that link actors with different motivations and interests; and that it is through such networks that concepts, institutions, practices, and goods that incorporate them reach a different cultural environment. at the same time, the privileging of the human being that is implied in this understanding attributes to them a god-like power although any little tsetse fly is able to undo it, quite apart from the fact that organisms, weather systems, tectonic plates, or technical devices all are part of networks. these networks sometimes include humans, and these actors most definitely impact human networks. bruno latour has made pertinent comments on this.[1] peter schwartz shows the intricate and highly interactive layers thus formed. the emblems of the revolutionary masses and leaders he studies include, among other layers, a layer of political and ideological authority; of artists from different contexts with different agendas who used different media; of historical references to earlier european depictions of leaders classified as "revolutionary"; of image-making and -recording devices each with their strengths and limits, and of encoding devices as well as the viewing strategies suggested by them. all of these layers are themselves conduits for transcultural interaction, often in a tense and contentious way. a particular contribution made by this study is its thick description of the interaction within the communist context so rarely addressed in transcultural studies. lars schladitz studies a network made up of institutions such as museums in the us and japan, japanese whaling companies, the us navy, and whaling stations in colonial korea with actors in each, who assume particular roles and identities to make the network functional or prevent it from functioning. the head of the japanese whaling company becomes a sponsor of scientific research; a norwegian whale gunner becomes a source of information on whale behavior; the film camera developed for producing entertainment pictures becomes a documentation tool; the museum curator collecting the whale specimens spends much time to establish the network needed to acquire them, then starts interacting with the scholarly community through his articles so as to establish the standing of the collection, and he ends up popularizing his results in lectures and books to secure the funding for the cetacean wing of the smithsonian natural history museum in washington d.c.; the local climate in the korean waters might fail to be as attractive for the whales to spawn as in the year before the arrival of the researcher; the whales flee the orca "killer" whales by swimming close to shore; and after "helping" the whalers by driving the whales toward their trawlers, the orcas abandon their cooperation once the whale is harpooned, and start taking a bite from it. ricci is educated at a school that was to provide the jesuits not just with theology but with the broad education that would enable them to engage with men of letters and men of power in europe. ana carolina hosne studies ricci' first work in chinese, which is based on memorized humanist classics rather than the holy writ or writings by the church fathers and offers to chinese men of letters and of power  maxims on one of the founding blocks of networks: friendship. but ricci writes this in his persona as a european man of letters addressing chinese of the same tribe within a code that gives pride of place to "classical" sources and rational presentation. he assumed that this mode of presentation as well as the argumentative and value underpinnings of friendship were appreciated by both sides. once he moved to his persona as a missionary for whom establishing connections to the same men of letters and of power was of crucial importance for the spread of his religious beliefs, he acted according to a different logic. in all of the cases mentioned, whether we are dealing with revolutionary iconography, propaganda or the laborious process of getting whale specimens to washington d.c., we have written evidence to document the networks, their participants, and their perception. the silent textile fragments and wall paintings studied by mariachiara gasparini, however, offer no such texts, but they do furnish some evidence that allows us to at least partially reconstruct these networks: the textile patterns that are formed by a weaving technique using similar fixed "mathematical" numbers of warp and weft threads. this evidence allows for a tentative reconstruction of the different cultural warps and wefts going into these fabrics. where is the agency driving the transcultural interaction analyzed in these papers?  the quick answer "agency is a function of power," which seems to need no further proof, finds little if any support here. shaoqian zhang' contribution shows that the artists forming, in 1943, the japanese print service society to support the war effort did so with their own, possibly rather complex, motives, but there was no "power" appearing at their studio demanding that they make propaganda prints. the same was true for the chinese artists producing the propaganda prints for the various chinese governments installed by or cooperating with japan as well as for those who did the same in the context of the resistance against japan, whether their output was taken up by the political (propaganda) department of the guomindang/chinese communist party government or published independently. the study by peter schwartz points in the same direction. the ultimate authority, however, that decides on transcultural acceptance (or rejection)—and in fact produces the "pull" for it—is characterized by something one might call "passive agency." the anonymous chinese scholar, to give an example, who is willing to have a look at ricci' on friendship might not have been involved in the activities of selecting the maxims, translating them, spending money to have them cut and printed, writing a preface for the book, or checking whether its maxims contravene an imperial ban on pornography or prognostications concerning the dynasty, but it is to him that all this activity is ultimately directed, and the collective absence among such scholars of any interest in ricci' maxims would assign the nicely printed work to the great dustbin of unsuccessful transcultural offers. the equally unknown father who might – or might not be taking his children to attend a lecture by andrews on whale species and who will perhaps even make a donation to the smithsonian or support a congressman who votes funding for it is under no "power" pressure either way. the endlessly complex layers of agency from andrews' letters to the water currents, from the korean workers taking home part of andrews' whale to cook a soup to the orcas showing up in time for the hunt are in the end all validated only by the passive agency of this father or his counterpart in tokyo who might – or might not go to have a look at the whale model the smithsonian sent in exchange for the specimens. all the "power" of the photographer or cameraman over the image-making and -recording device only opens the way to operate within the agency of the device itself; this agency of the device in turn establishes its own interaction with that of its object, and all three layers depend on the same ultimate arbiter who furthermore enjoys the privilege to "understand" the product according to his or her own devices with often unexpected and creative results. instead of a unified simple ascription of agency to "power" these studies show that transcultural interaction takes place in a complex and highly unstable chain of interlinked and distributed agency of many different hues with the ultimate, unpredictable, and "passive" anchor at the very end of the process. finally, the media. their sad name has reduced their role to just being the blind "middle"men, but since marshall mcluhan and quentin fiore at least the modern media have seen their standing improved. the papers contained in this volume show that the agency or assumed powers of media, as well as their lively interaction existed long before the "globalized" media of modern times. the patterns woven into central asian textiles of the seventh or eighth century reappear as architectural ornaments in murals; the iconology underlying prc bank notes takes up elements from soviet photography and film both of the avant-garde and the stalinist periods, but ultimately goes back to visual strategies developed for earlier political narratives; ricci' on friendship moves from a europe, where print was just in the process of establishing its own features independent of manuscripts, to a highly commercialized chinese urban print culture with the aim of inserting itself into the high-register category of "classics"; andrews mobilizes the full range of "media" at his disposal, trying through their combination to mobilize the strengths of each, and overcome their limitations—with the notebook and its measurements, drawings and descriptions, with photography, the film camera, parts of the whales preserved in alcohol in glass containers, the whale bone specimen itself, slides for public lectures, the painting of a seascape on the museum wall behind the whale skeletons, and scholarly articles as well as popular books. the still prevalent arraignment of academic fields that assigns texts in a given language and scholarly field to one discipline, images in a given medium and from one given place to another, and the historical, cultural, and geographic contexts of all of them again to different disciplines is certainly not contributive to studies such as those attempted here that are defined by the intrinsic connections of an object or process rather than a scholarly discipline. the contributions which the studies in this issue present have to be read and appreciated as efforts to live up to this challenge which all of us face. rudolf g. wagner [1] bruno latour, "spheres and networks: two ways to reinterpret globalization," harvard design magazine 30, (september–december 2009): 139–144. rudolf g. wagner: list of publications curriculum vitae 2013–2019: center associate. fairbank center for chinese studies, harvard university. 2007–2012: co-director, cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows,” heidelberg university. 2009–2019: professor of chinese studies (retired) (seniorprofessor), institute of chinese studies, heidelberg university. 2005–2009: director, centre for east asian studies, heidelberg university. 2003–2004: fellow, wissenschaftskolleg zu berlin (institute for advanced study). 2001–2019: director, european center for digital resources in chinese studies, chinaresource (chinaresource.org). 1996–1998: president of the european association of chinese studies (easc). 1996–2019: specially appointed professor of the shanghai academy of social sciences. 1995–2019: member, berlin-brandenburgische akademie der wissenschaften. 1992: gottfried wilhelm leibniz prize of the deutsche forschungsgemeinschaft. 1992–1996: secretary general of the european association of chinese studies. 1990: award of the akademie-stipendium of the volkswagen foundation, germany, to complete research on wang bi’s philosophy. 1990: visiting professor, harvard university. 1989: funding from the deutsche forschungsgemeinschaft for research at the academy of social sciences, beijing. 1987–2009: professor of chinese studies, institute of chinese studies, heidelberg university. 1984–1986: visiting researcher, center for chinese studies, university of california, berkeley. 136 rudolf wagner: list of publications 1984: visiting professor, john k. fairbank center for east asian research, harvard university. 1982–1983: privatdozent, free university of berlin. 1981–1982: fellow, society for the humanities, cornell university. 1981: habilitation with the dissertation “philologie, philosophie und politik während der zhengshi-ära” [philology, philosophy, and politics in the zhengshi era], free university of berlin. 1978–1981: lecturer, chinese studies, east asian seminar, free university of berlin. 1978–1981: freelance science journalist for broadcasting stations in germany, austria, and switzerland. 1972–1977: assistant professor, sinology, free university of berlin. 1970–1971: harkness fellow (commonwealth fund), university of california, berkeley. 1969–1970: harkness fellow (commonwealth fund), harvard university. 1969: phd, “die fragen hui-yüan’s an kumārajīva” [hui-yüan’s questions to kumārajīva], university of munich. 1962–1969: study of chinese, japanese, political science, and philosophy at the universities of bonn, heidelberg, paris, and munich. 1941: born in wiesbaden as the fourth child of dr. o. h. wagner and renate wagner, née frank. publications a. monographs 1. “die fragen hui-yüan’s an kumārajīva” [hui-yüan’s questions to kumārajīva]. phd diss., ludwig maximilian university of munich, 1969. 2. reenacting the heavenly vision: the role of religion in the taiping rebellion. china research monograph 25. berkeley: university of california, institute of east asian studies, 1982a. 3. ed. with wolfgang kubin. essays in modern chinese literature and literary criticism: papers of the berlin conference 1978. bochum: brockmeyer, 1982b. 137the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) 4. ed. literatur und politik in der volksrepublik china [literature and politics in the people’s republic of china]. frankfurt: suhrkamp, 1983a. 5. the contemporary chinese historical drama: four studies. berkeley: university of california press, 1990a. 6. inside a service trade: studies in contemporary chinese prose. harvardyenching institute monograph series 34. cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1992a. 7. the craft of a chinese commentator: wang bi on the laozi. albany, ny: state university of new york press, 2000a. 8. a chinese reading of the daodejing: wang bi’s commentary on the laozi with critical text and translation. albany, ny: state university of new york press, 2003a. 9. language, ontology, and political philosophy: wang bi’s scholarly exploration of the dark (xuanxue). albany, ny: state university of new york press, 2003b. 10. ed. joining the global public: word, image, and city in early chinese newspapers, 1870–1910. albany, ny: state university of new york press, 2007a. 11. wang bi laozi zhu yanjiu 王粥《老子注》研究, trans. yang lihua 楊立 華. 2 vols. (nanjing: jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2008). 12. ed. with sarah c. humphreys. modernity’s classics. series transcultural research—heidelberg studies on asia and europe in a global context. heidelberg: springer, 2013a. 13. ed. with milena doleželová-velingerová. chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge (1870–1930). heidelberg: springer, 2014a. 14. wan qing de meiti tuxiang yu wenhua chuban shiye 晚清的媒體圖像與 文化出版事業 [media images and cultural publishing in the late qing dynasty]. taibei: zhuanji wenxue chubanshe, 2019a. 15. ed. with catherine yeh, eugenio menegon, and robert f. weller. testing the margins of leisure: case studies on china, japan, and indonesia. heidelberg: heidelberg university publishing, 2019b. b. articles 1. “die auflösung des legalistischen staatssystems gegen ende der han” [the dissolution of the legalist state system towards the end of the han]. archiv orientalni 35 (1967): 244–261. 138 rudolf wagner: list of publications 2. “hui-yüan on dharmakāya.” in papers of the xix international congress of chinese studies, 171–177. bochum: ostasien-institut der ruhr-universität, 1968. 3. “the original structure of the correspondence between shih hui-yüan and kumārajīva.” harvard journal of asiatic studies 31 (1971): 28–48. 4. “lebensstil und drogen im chinesischen mittelalter” [lifestyle and drugs in medieval china]. t’oung pao 59 (1973): 79–178. 5. “der moderne chinesische untersuchungsroman” [the modern chinese social investigation novel]. in neues handbuch der literaturwissenschaft, vol. 21, edited by jost hermand, 361–407. wiesbaden: athenaeum, 1979a. 6. “overcoming dualism: some lessons from the chinese paradigm.” in technologische grundlagenforschung für entwicklungsländer, edited by jürgen henke, 140–146. berlin: technische universität berlin, 1979b. 7. “interlocking parallel style: laozi and wang bi.” asiatische studien/ études asiatiques 34, no. 1 (1980a): 18–58. 8. “soziale und technische faktoren für die verbreitung von biogasanlagen in der vr china” [social and technical factors in the spread of the use of biogas in the people’s republic of china]. der tropenlandwirt 13 (1980b): 134–154. 9. “yan fu.” in internationales soziologenlexikon, vol. 1, edited by wilhelm bernsdorf and horst knospe, 506–508. stuttgart: enke, 1980c. 10. “staatliches machtmonopol und alternative optionen—zur rolle der ‘westlichen barbaren’ im china des 19. jahrhunderts” [the discretionary monopoly of the state and alternative options—the role of the “western barbarians” in nineteenth century china]. in traditionale gesellschaften und europäischer kolonialismus, edited by jan-heeren grevemeyer, 105–136. frankfurt: syndikat, 1981. 11. “the cog and the scout: functional concepts of literature in socialist political culture: the chinese debate in the mid-fifties.” in essays in modern chinese literature and literary criticism, edited by wolfgang kubin and rudolf g. wagner, 334–400. bochum: studienverlag brockmeyer, 1982c. 12. “das han-shi pulver, eine moderne droge im mittelalterlichen china” [the han-shi powder, a modern drug in medieval china]. in rausch und realität, drogen im kulturvergleich, teil 1, edited by rautenstrauchjoest museum, 320–323. cologne: rautenstrauch-joest museum, 1982d. 139the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) 13. “xiao jun’s novel countryside in august and the tradition of ‘proletarian literature.’” in la littérature chinoise au temps de la guerre de résistance contre le japon (de 1937 a 1945), edited by fondation singer-polignac, 57–66. paris: editions de la fondation singer-polignac, 1982f. 14. “biogasnutzung in ländlichen und städtischen regionen” [use of biogas in rural and urban environments]. in umweltpolitik in china: modernisierung und umwelt in industrie, landwirtschaft und energierzeugung, edited by bernhard glaeser, 365–394. bochum: brockmeyer, 1983b. 15. “mineraldünger, pestizide und die sicherung hoher langfristiger erträge” [mineral fertilizer, pesticides, and the securement of high and stable harvests]. in umweltpolitik in china: modernisierung und umwelt in industrie, landwirtschaft und energierzeugung, edited by bernhard glaeser, 177–250. bochum: brockmeyer, 1983c. 16. contributor of twenty articles on chinese sociologists. in internationales soziologenlexikon, vol. 2, edited by wilhelm bernsdorf and horst knospe. stuttgart: enke, 1984a. 17. “god’s country in the family of nations: the logic of modernism in the taiping doctrine of international relations.” in religion and rural revolt, edited by jános m. bak and gerhard benecke, 354–372. manchester: manchester university press, 1984b. 18. “charismatische bewegungen.” in evangelisches kirchenlexikon, vol. 1, edited by erwin fahlbusch, jan milic lochman, john mbiti, jaroslav pelikan, and lukas vischer, 644–646. göttingen: vandenhoeck and ruprecht, 1985a. 19. “china.” in evangelisches kirchenlexikon, vol. 1, edited by fahlbusch et al., 658–663. göttingen: vandenhoeck and ruprecht, 1985b. 20. “der chinesische autor im eigenen licht. literarische selbstreflexion über die literatur und ihren zweck in der vr china” [the chinese author in his own light: literary self-reflection on literature and its purpose in the people’s republic of china]. in moderne chinesische literatur, edited by wolfgang kubin, 75–101. frankfurt: suhrkamp, 1985c. 21. “konfuzianismus.” in evangelisches kirchenlexikon, vol. 2, edited by erwin fahlbusch, jan milic lochman, john mbiti, jaroslav pelikan, and lukas vischer, 1379–1382. göttingen: vandenhoeck and ruprecht, 1985d. 22. “liu binyan oder der autor als wandelnde nische” [liu binyan or the author as a wandering niche]. in moderne chinesische literatur, edited by wolfgang kubin, 430–446. frankfurt: suhrkamp, 1985e. 140 rudolf wagner: list of publications 23. “lobby literature: the archaeology and present functions of science fiction in the people’s republic of china.” in after mao: chinese literature and society 1978–1981, edited by jeffrey kinkley, 17–62. harvard east asian monographs 115. cambridge: harvard university press, 1985f. 24. “the chinese writer in his own mirror: writer, state, and society— the literary evidence.” in china’s intellectuals and the state: in search of a new relationship, edited by merle goldman, 183–231. harvard contemporary china series 3. cambridge: harvard university press, 1986a. 25. “liu binyan and the texie.” modern chinese literature 2, no. 1 (1986b): 63–98. 26. “taiping-bewegung.” in evangelisches kirchenlexikon, vol. 4, edited by erwin fahlbusch, jan milic lochman, john mbiti, jaroslav pelikan, and lukas vischer, 641–643. göttingen: vandenhoeck and ruprecht, 1986c. 27. “taoismus und chinesische volksreligion.” in evangelisches kirchenlexikon, vol. 4, edited by erwin fahlbusch, jan milic lochman, john mbiti, jaroslav pelikan, and lukas vischer, 657–661. göttingen: vandenhoeck and ruprecht, 1986d. 28. “wang bi: ‘the structure of the laozi’s pointers’ (laozi weizhi lilüe)—a philological study and translation.” t’oung pao 72 (1986e): 92–129. 29. “agriculture and environmental protection in china.” in learning from china? development and environment in third world countries, edited by bernard glaeser, 127–143. london: allen & unwin, 1987a. 30. “documents concerning tanqiuzhe [the explorer], an independent literary journal planned during the hundred flowers period.” modern chinese literature 3, nos. 1/2 (spring/fall 1987b): 137–146. 31. “imperial dreams in china.” in psycho-sinology: the universe of dreams in chinese culture, edited by carolyn t. brown, 11–24. washington: woodrow wilson international center for scholars, 1987c. 32. “on christa wolf’s cassandra.” in history, another text: essays on the fiction of kazimierz brandys, danilo kiš, györgy konrád and christa wolf, edited by marianna d. birnbaum and r. trager-verchovsky, 83– 133. michigan studies in the humanities no. 7. ann arbor: university of michigan, 1988. 141the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) 33. “wang bi’s recension of the laozi.” early china 14 (1989): 27–54. 34. “gewalt aus dem imaginaire” [violence from the imaginaire]. in kultur und konflikt, edited by jan assmann and dietrich harth, 414–457. frankfurt: suhrkamp, 1990b. 35. “the prc intelligentsia: a view from literature.” in building a nationstate: china after forty years, edited by joyce k. kallgren, 153–183. china research monograph 37. berkeley: center for chinese studies, 1990c. 36. “‘in guise of a congratulation’: political symbolism in zhou xinfang’s hai rui submits his memorial.” australian journal of chinese affairs 26 (july 1991a): 99–142. 37. “political institutions, discourse and imagination in china at tiananmen.” in rethinking third world politics, edited by james manor, 121–144. harlow: longman, 1991b. 38. “die unhandlichkeit des konfuzius” [the unwieldiness of confucius]. in weisheit: archäologie der literarischen kommunikation ii, edited by aleida assmann and jan assmann, 455–464. munich: finck, 1991c. 39. “china in der géographie imaginaire der erweckungsbewegung” [china in the géographie imaginaire of the revival movement]. in staatenbildung in übersee: die staaten lateinamerikas und asiens, edited by jürgen elvert and michael salewski, 167–179. historische mitteilungen des instituts für österreichische geschichtsforschung 16, beihefte 2. stuttgart: steiner, 1992b. 40. “konfrontation im imaginaire: institutionelle struktur und modernisierung in der volksrepublik china” [confrontation in the imaginaire: institutional structure and modernization in the people’s republic of china]. in revolution und mythos, edited by dietrich harth and jan assmann, 313–346. frankfurt: fischer paperback, 1992c. 41. “reading the chairman mao memorial hall: the tribulations of the implied pilgrim.” in pilgrims and sacred sites in china, edited by susan naquin and chün-fang yü, 378–423. berkeley: university of california press, 1992d. 42. with catherine vance yeh. “a dry and factual account of things witnessed or heard firsthand from other witnesses.” in china’s search for democracy: the student and mass movement of 1989, edited by suzanne ogden, kathleen hartford, lawrence sullivan, and david zweig, 413–423. armonk: sharpe, 1992e. 142 rudolf wagner: list of publications 43. “‘in guise of a congratulation’: political symbolism in zhou xinfang’s play hai rui submits his memorial.” in using the past to serve the present. historiography and politics in contemporary china, edited by jonathan unger, 46–103. armonk: sharpe, 1993a. 44. “operating in the chinese public sphere: theology and technique of taiping propaganda.” in norms and the state in china, edited by chunchieh huang and erik zürcher, 104–138. leiden: brill, 1993b. 45. “der vergessene hinweis: wang pi über den lao-tzu” [the forgotten clue: wang pi on the lao-tzu]. in text und kommentar: archäologie der literarischen kommunikation iv, edited by jan assmann and burkhard gladigow, 257–278. munich: wilhelm fink verlag, 1995a. 46. “life as a quote from a foreign book: love, pavel, and rita.” in das andere china: festschrift für wolfgang bauer zum 65. geburtstag, edited by helwig schmidt-glintzer, 463–476. wiesbaden: harrassowitz, 1995b. 47. “the role of the foreign community in the chinese public sphere.” china quarterly 142 (june 1995c): 423–443. 48. “bei yiwangde weizhi, wang bi de ‘laozi’ jieshixue” 被遺忘的微指— 王弼的老子解釋學 [the forgotten clue: wang bi’s lao-tzu commentary]. translated by xiao se and joachim gentz. xueren 10 (1996a): 313–344. chinese translation of 1995a. 49. “culture and code. historical fiction in a socialist environment: the gdr and china.” in in the party spirit: socialist realism and literary practice in the soviet union, east germany and china, edited by hilary chung, michael falchikov, bonnie s. mcdougall, and karin mcpherson, 129–140. critical studies 6. amsterdam: rodopi, 1996b. 50. “lob des sozialistischen geheimnisses” [in praise of the socialist secret]. in schleier und schwelle, edited by aleida assmann and jan assmann, 125–148. munich: fink, 1997a. 51. “twice removed from the truth: fragment collection in 18th and 19th century china.” in collecting fragments. fragmente sammeln, edited by glenn w. most, 34–52. göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht, 1997b. 52. “neue eliten und die herausforderung der moderne” [new elites and the challenge of modernity]. in länderbericht china. politik, wirtschaft und gesellschaft im chinesischen kulturraum, edited by carsten herrmannpillath and michael lackner, 118–134. bonn: bundeszentrale für politische bildung, 1998a. 143the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) 53. “understanding taiping christian china: analogy, interest and policy.” in christen und gewürze: konfrontation und interaktion kolonialer und indigener christentumsvarianten, edited by klaus koschorke, 132–157. göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht, 1998b. 54. “exploring the common ground: buddhist commentaries on the taoist classic laozi.” in commentaries. kommentare, edited by glenn w. most, 95–120. aporemata: kritische studien zur philologiegeschichte, band 4. göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht, 1999a. 55. “shenbao de weiji: 1878–1879 nian shenbao yu guo songtao zhijian de chongtu he guoji huanjing” 申報的危機:1878–1879 年申報與郭嵩 燾之間的沖突和國際環境 [the shenbao in crisis: the international environment and the conflict between guo songtao and the shenbao]. in zhongguo jindai chengshi fazhan yu shehui jingji 中國近代城市發展 與社會經濟, edited by zhang zhongli 張仲禮 and xiong yuezhi 熊月 之, 286–306. shanghai: shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1999b. 56. “the shenbao in crisis: the international environment and the conflict between guo songtao and the shenbao.” late imperial china 20, no. 1 (1999c): 107–138. 57. “the impact of conceptions of rhetoric and style upon the formation of early laozi editions: evidence from guodian, mawangdui and the wang bi laozi.” transactions of the international conference of eastern studies 44 (1999d): 32–56. 58. “zhonggong 1940–1953 nian jianli zhengyu zhengwen de zhengce dalüe” 中共 1940–1953 年建立正語、正文的政策大略 [the ccp’s 1940– 1953 policies on establishing the correct speech and text]. in wenyi lilun yu tongsu wenhua 文藝理論與通俗文化, edited by peng xiaoyan 彭小 妍, 11–38. taipei: zhongyang yanjiuyuan zhongguo wen zhe yanjiusuo zhoubeichu, 1999e. 59. “das moralische zentrum und das triebwerk des wandels: eine geschichte zweier chinesischer städte” [the moral center and the engine of change: a tale of two chinese cities]. in peking shanghai shenzhen: städte des 21. jahrhunderts. beijing shanghai shenzhen. cities of the 21st century, edited by kai vöckler and dirk luckow, 32–45. frankfurt: campus, 2000b. 60. “the moral center and the engine of change: a tale of two chinese cities.” in peking shanghai shenzhen: städte des 21. jahrhunderts. beijing shanghai shenzhen. cities of the 21st century, edited by kai vöckler and dirk luckow, 32–45. frankfurt: campus, 2000c. english translation of 2000b. 144 rudolf wagner: list of publications 61. “the canonization of may fourth.” in the appropriation of cultural capital: china’s may fourth project, edited by milena doleželovávelingerová and oldřich král, 66–120. cambridge, ma: harvard university asia center, 2001a. 62. “the early chinese newspapers and the chinese public sphere.” european journal of east asian studies 1 (2001b): 1–34. 63. “importing a ‘new history’ for the new nation: china 1899.” in historization. historisierung, edited by glenn w. most, 275–292. göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht, 2001c. 64. “jinru quanqiu xiangxiang tujing: shanghai de dianshizhai huabao” 進 入全球想象圖景: 上海的點石齋畫報 [joining the global imaginaire: the shanghai illustrated newspaper dianshizhai huabao]. zhongguo xueshu 8, no. 4 (2001d): 1–96. 65. “ein chinesisches plädoyer gegen die autonome person” [a chinese plea against the autonomous person]. in die autonome person – eine europäische erfindung?, edited by klaus-peter köpping, michael welker, and reiner wiehl, 83–94. munich: fink, 2002a. 66. “shenbaoguan zaoqi de shuji chuban” 申報館早期的書籍出版 [the early publishing activities of the shenbaoguan]. in wan ming yu wan qing: lishi chuansheng yu wenhua chuangxin 晚明與晚清：歷史傳承 與文化創新, edited by chen pingyuan 陳平原, wang dewei 王德威, and gao wei 高偉, 169–178. wuhan: hubei jiaoyu chubanshe, 2002b. 67. “the philologist as messiah: kang youwei’s 1902 commentary on the confucian analects.” in disciplining classics. altertumswissenschaft als beruf, edited by glenn w. most, 143–168. göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht, 2002c. 68. “biographie als lebensprogramm. zur normativen funktion der chinesischen biographik” [biography as a life program: on the normative function of chinese biography]. in biographie – “so der westen wie der osten?” zwölf studien, edited by walter berschin and wolfgang schamoni, 133–142. heidelberg: mattes, 2003c. 69. “the concept of work/labor/arbeit in the chinese world: first explorations.” in die rolle der arbeit in verschiedenen epochen und kulturen, edited by manfred bierwisch, 103–127. berlin: akademie-verlag, 2003d. 70. “eliten” [elites]. in das grosse china-lexikon: geschichte, geographie, gesellschaft, politik, wirtschaft, bildung, wissenschaft, kultur, edited by brunhild staiger, stefan friedrich, and hans-wilm schütte, 178–180. darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft, 2003e. 145the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) 71. “literatur und politik” [literature and politics]. in das grosse chinalexikon: geschichte, geographie, gesellschaft, politik, wirtschaft, bildung, wissenschaft, kultur, edited by brunhild staiger, stefan friedrich, and hans-wilm schütte, 444–448. darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft, 2003f. 72. “öffentlichkeit und öffentliche meinung” [publicity and public opinion]. in das grosse china-lexikon: geschichte, geographie, gesellschaft, politik, wirtschaft, bildung, wissenschaft, kultur, edited by brunhild staiger, stefan friedrich, and hans-wilm schütte, 543–545. darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft, 2003g. 73. “taiping-aufstand” [taiping rebellion]. in das grosse china-lexikon: geschichte, geographie, gesellschaft, politik, wirtschaft, bildung, wissenschaft, kultur, edited by brunhild staiger, stefan friedrich, and hans-wilm schütte, 735–739. darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft, 2003h. 74. “making sense: wang bi’s commentary on the lunyu.” in zhong ri “sishu” quanshi chuantong chutan 中日“四書”詮釋傳統初探, vol. 1, edited by huang junjie 黃俊傑, 109–158. taipei: taiwan daxue chuban zhongxin, 2004a. 75. “notes on the history of the chinese term for ‘labor.’” in mapping meanings: the field of new learning in late qing china, edited by michael lackner and natascha vittinghoff, 129–142. leiden: brill, 2004b. 76. “report on western-language web-sites, portals and databases pertaining to chinese law.” prepared with the assistance of nicolae statu for the conference on the euro-chinese e-dictionary of law, peking, february 9–10, 2004c. 77. review of gutenberg in shanghai: chinese print capitalism, 1876– 1937, by christopher a. reed. modern chinese literature and culture (2005a). http://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/gutenberg-in-shanghai/. 78. “nachholende modernisierung: thesen zur neuen chinesischen literatur” [catch-up modernization: theses on the new chinese literature]. in der fischer weltalmanach: china, edited by volker ullrich and felix rudloff, 150–153. frankfurt: fischer, 2005b. 79. “shinmatsu shanhai ni okeru chūgokugo shinbun sōkan to kodai chūgoku no seikentachi” 清末上海における中国語新聞創刊と古代 中国の聖賢たち [the sages of chinese antiquity and the establishment of chinese-language newspapers in late qing shanghai]. intelligence 5 (2005c): 14–24. http://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/gutenberg-in-shanghai/ 146 rudolf wagner: list of publications 80. “the powers of philology: saving the eastern han from collapse.” in studies in chinese language and culture: festschrift in honour of christian harbsmeier on the occasion of his 60th birthday, edited by christoph anderl and halvor eifring, 51–65. oslo: hermes academic publishing, 2006a. 81. review of transmitters and creators: chinese commentators and commentaries on the analects, by john makeham. harvard journal of asiatic studies 66, no. 2 (2006b): 593–605. 82. “does this make sense? reading sinological translations.” in zurück zur freude: studien zur chinesischen literatur und lebenswelt und ihrer rezeption in ost und west. festschrift für wolfgang kubin, edited by marc hermann and christian schwermann, 767–776. sankt augustin: steyler, 2007b. 83. “joining the global imaginaire: the shanghai illustrated newspaper dianshizhai huabao.” in joining the global public: word, image, and city in early chinese newspapers, 1870–1910, edited by rudolf g. wagner, 105–173. albany, ny: state university of new york press, 2007c. 84. “das leiden des konfuzius: chinesische lehnbildungen für jesus und luther” [the suffering of confucius: chinese calques for jesus and luther]. in gegenwart des lebendigen christus, edited by günter thomas and andreas schüle, 449–462. leipzig: evangelische verlagsanstalt, 2007d. 85. “säkularisierung: konfuzianismus und buddhismus” [secularization: confucianism and buddhism]. in säkularisierung und die weltreligionen, edited by hans joas and klaus wiegandt, 224–253. frankfurt: fischer, 2007e. 86. “‘still the most appreciated’ work on the subject: on paul cohen’s between tradition and modernity: wang t’ao and reform in late ch’ing china.” the chinese historical review 14, no. 2 (fall 2007f): 185–188. 87. “wan qing xinzheng yu xixue baike quanshu” 晚清新政与西学百科全书 [late qing reform of governance and encyclopedias of western learning]. in jindai zhongguo de baike quanshu 近代中国的百科全书, edited by chen pingyuan 陈平原 and miliena 米列娜 [milena doleželová-velingerová], 33–56. beijing: beijing daxue chubanshe, 2007g. 88. “wei xin guojia yinru ‘xin shixue’: zhongguo 1899 nian” 為新國家引入 “新史學”: 中國 1899 年 [importing a ‘new history’ for the new nation: china 1899]. in zhongguo xiandai xueke de xingcheng 中国现代学科的 形成, edited by fudan daxue lishixue xi 复旦大学历史学系 and fudan daxue zhong-wai xiandaihua jincheng yanjiu zhongxin 复旦大学中外 147the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) 现代化进程研究中心, 254–275. shanghai: shanghai guji chubanshe, 2007h. chinese translation of 2001c. 89. “the importance of context structures on paleography, translation, and analysis: notes on a unit of the ziyi 緇衣 in honor of professor pang pu.” in pang pu jiaoshou bashi shouchen jinian wenji 龐朴教 授八十壽辰紀念文集, edited by wang shouchang 王守常 and yu jin 余瑾, 278–300. beijing: zhonghua shuju, 2008b. 90. “wang bi zhu ben laozi” 王弼注本老子 [wang bi’s annotated edition of laozi]. in yuanfang de shixi, gudai zhongguo jiangxuan ji 遠方的 時習：<古代中國> 精選集, edited by xia hanyi 夏含夷 [edward shaughnessy], 250–283. shanghai: shanghai guji chubanshe, 2008c. 91. “women in shenbaoguan publications, 1872–1890.” in different worlds of discourse: transformations of gender and genre in late qing and early republican china, edited by nanxiu qian, grace s. fong, and richard j. smith, 227–256. leiden: brill, 2008d. 92. “denouement: some conclusions about the zhouli.” in statecraft and classical learning. the rituals of zhou in east asian history, edited by benjamin a. elman and martin kern, 388–396. leiden: brill, 2009a. 93. “encyclopedias.” in encyclopedia of modern china, vol. 1, edited by david pong, 511–512. new york: scribners, 2009b. 94. “ernest major.” in encyclopedia of modern china, vol. 2, edited by david pong, 543–545. new york: scribners, 2009c. 95. “gordon, charles.” in encyclopedia of modern china, vol. 2, edited by david pong, 127–128. new york: scribners, 2009d. 96. “hong xiuquan.” in encyclopedia of modern china, vol. 3, edited by david pong, 521. new york: scribners, 2009e. 97. “journalism.” in encyclopedia of modern china, vol. 2, edited by david pong, 398–400. new york: scribners, 2009f. 98. “secularization: confucianism and buddhism.” in secularization and the world religions, edited by hans joas and klaus wiegandt, translated by alex skinner, 141–159. liverpool: liverpool university press, 2009g. english translation of 2007e. 99. “taiping uprising.” in encyclopedia of modern china, vol. 3, edited by david pong, 520–526. new york: scribners, 2009h. 100. “xuanxue jieshixue” 玄學解釋學 [the hermeneutics of xuanxue philosophy]. in bijiao wenxue guoji xueshu yantaohui: duoyuan zhi 148 rudolf wagner: list of publications mei 比較文學國際研討會：多元之美, vol. 3, edited by yue daiyun 樂黛雲 and meng hua 孟華, translated by yang zhiyi 楊治宜, 249–264. beijing: beijing daxue chubanshe, 2009i. 101. “the zhouli as the late qing path to the future.” in statecraft and classical learning: the rituals of zhou in east asian history, edited by benjamin a. elman and martin kern, 359–387. leiden: brill, 2009j. 102. “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening’: a study in conceptualizing asymmetry and coping with it.” the journal of transcultural studies 2, no. 1 (2011a): 4–139. 103. “produktivkraft forschung – eine chinesische perspektive” [productive research: a chinese perspective]. gegenworte 26 (2011b): 57–61. 104. “ritual, architecture, politics and publicity during the republic: enshrining sun yat-sen.” in chinese architecture and the beaux-arts, edited by jeffrey cody, nancy s. steinhardt, and tony atkin, 223–278. honululu: university of hawaiʻi press, 2011c. 105. “zhongguo de ‘shui’ yu ‘xing’: buduideng de gainianhua yu yingfu shouduan zhi yanjiu” 中國的「睡」與「醒」: 不對等的概念化與應付 手段之研究 [china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening’: a study in conceptualizing asymmetry and coping with it], part 1, translated by wu i-wei 吳億偉. dongya guannianshi jikan / journal of the history of ideas in east asia 1 (december 2011d): 5–43. 106. “don’t mind the gap! the foreign-language press in late-qing and republican china.” china heritage quarterly 30–31 (2012a). http:// www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/features.php?searchterm=030_wagner. inc&issue=030. 107. “die verantwortlichkeit von staatsführung in der spannung zwischen idealisiertem imaginaire und regierungspraxis: china” [the responsibility of governance in the tension between idealized imaginaire and governmental practice: china]. in recht und verantwortung / droit et responsabilité. kongress der schweizerischen vereinigung für rechtsund sozialphilosophie, 11.–12. juni 2010, universität zürich / congrès de l’assocation suisse de philosophie du droit et de philosophie sociale, 11–12 juin 2010, université de zurich, edited by bénédict winiger, matthias mahlmann, philippe avramov, and peter gailhofer, 59–68. stuttgart: steiner, 2012b. 108. “zhongguo de ‘shui’ yu ‘xing’: buduideng de gainianhua yu yingfu shouduan zhi yanjiu” 中國的「睡」與「醒」: 不對等的概念化與應付 手段之研究 [china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening’: a study in conceptualizing asymmetry and coping with it], part 2, translated by zhong xinzhi 鍾欣 http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/features.php?searchterm=030_wagner.inc&issue=030 http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/features.php?searchterm=030_wagner.inc&issue=030 http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/features.php?searchterm=030_wagner.inc&issue=030 149the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) 志. dongya guannianshi jikan / journal of the history of ideas in east asia 2 (june 2012c): 3–54. 109. “zhongguo de ‘shui’ yu ‘xing’: buduideng de gainianhua yu yingfu shouduan zhi yanjiu” 中國的「睡」與「醒」: 不對等的概念化 與應付手段之研究 [china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening’: a study in conceptualizing asymmetry and coping with it], part 3, translated by zhong xinzhi 鍾欣志. dongya guannianshi jikan 東亞觀念史集刊 / journal of the history of ideas in east asia 3 (december 2012d): 3–59. 110. “china: vom quell zum objekt der aufklärung” [china: from source to object of enlightenment]. in aufklärung im dialog: eine deutschchinesische annäherung, edited by stiftung mercator, 49–63. essen: stiftung mercator, 2013b. 111. “a classic paving the way to modernity: the ritual of zhou in the chinese reform debate since the taiping civil war.” in modernity’s classics, edited by sarah c. humphreys and rudolf g. wagner, 77–100. heidelberg: springer, 2013c. 112. with sarah c. humphreys. “introduction.” in modernity’s classics, edited by sarah c. humphreys and rudolf g. wagner, 1–22. heidelberg: springer, 2013d. 113. review of what remains: coming to terms with civil war in 19th century china, by tobie meyer-fong. china quarterly 215 (2013e): 791–793. 114. review of exemplary figures/fayan 法言, by yang xiong, translated and introduced by michael nylan. journal of chinese studies 59 (july 2014b): 312–324. 115. “fate’s gift economy: the chinese case of coping with the asymmetry between man and fate.” in money as god?: the monetization of the market and the impact on religion, politics, law, and ethics, edited by jürgen von hagen and michael welker, 184–218. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2014c. 116. “the formation of encyclopaedic commonplaces during the late qing: entries on the newspaper.” in chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge (1870–1930): changing ways of thought, edited by milena doleželová-velingerová and rudolf g. wagner, 103–136. heidelberg: springer, 2014d. 117. review of lost generation: luo zhenyu, qing loyalists and the formation of modern chinese culture, edited by yang chia-ling and roderick whitfield. caa.reviews, april 17, 2014e, http://dx.doi. org/10.3202/caa.reviews.2014.43. http://dx.doi.org/10.3202/caa.reviews.2014.43 http://dx.doi.org/10.3202/caa.reviews.2014.43 150 rudolf wagner: list of publications 118. review of the transport of reading. text and understanding in the world of tao qian, by robert ashmore. the journal of asian studies 73 (2014f): 211–212. 119. “xiao jun de xiaoshuo ‘bayue de xiangcun’ he ‘puluo wenxue’ chuantong” 蕭軍的小說〈八月的鄉村〉和普羅文學傳統 [xiao jun’s novel countryside in august and the tradition of ‘proletarian literature’]. translated by he min 何旻. bijiao wenxue yu shijie wenxue 比較文學與 世界文學 6 (2014g): 89–98. chinese translation of 1992f. 120. with milena doleželová-velingerová. “chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge (1870–1930). introduction.” in chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge (1870–1930): changing ways of thought, edited by milena doleželová-velingerová and rudolf g. wagner, 1–28. heidelberg: springer, 2014h. 121. “a building block of chinese argumentation: initial fu 夫 as a phrase status marker.” in literary forms of argument in early china, edited by joachim gentz and dirk meyer, 37–66. leiden: brill, 2015a. 122. “cina, 1849. il popolo eletto di dio, guidato dal suo figlio secondogenito a nanchino, la nuova gerusalemme. un’ analisi della teologia taiping.” translated by e. campi and a. zangarini. in popoli eletti. storia di un viaggio oltre la storia, edited by giorgio politi, 267–283. milano: edicioni unicopli, 2015b. 123. “siwei fangshi de zhuanxing yu xin zhishi de puji—qing mo min chu zhongguo baikequanshu de fazhan lichen” 思维方式的转型与新 知识的普及—清末民初中国百科全书的发展历程 [the transformation of the mode of thinking and the popularization of new knowledge: the development of the chinese encyclopedia in the late qing dynasty and early republic period]. fudan xuebao (shehui kexue ban) 2 (2015c): 37–47. 124. “rules for the construction of meaning: ‘translations’ by chinese commentators.” in open horizon: essays in honour of wolfgang kubin, edited by li xuetao 李雪涛, zhang yiping 张依苹, luo yingnan 罗颖男, pan ruifang 潘瑞芳, and wu lijing 吴礼敬, 489–504. beijing: foreign language teaching and research press; düsseldorf: düsseldorf university press, 2016a. 125. “taiping civil war.” in oxford bibliographies in “chinese studies,” edited by tim wright, 27 october, 2016b. https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/ view/document/obo-9780199920082/obo-9780199920082-0139.xml. 126. “‘dividing up the [chinese] melon, guafen 瓜分’: the fate of a transcultural metaphor in the formation of national myth.” the journal of transcultural studies 8, no. 1 (2017a): 9–122. https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199920082/obo-9780199920082-0139.xml https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199920082/obo-9780199920082-0139.xml 151the journal of transcultural studies 12, supplement (2021) 127. “media, literature, and early chinese modernity.” in a new literary history of modern china, edited by david der-wei wang, 114–118. cambridge: the belknap press of harvard university press, 2017b. 128. “can we speak of east/west ways of knowing?” know 2, no. 1 (2018a): 31–46. 129. “the free flow of communication between high and low: the shenbao as platform for yangwu discussions on political reform, 1872–1895.” t’oung pao 104, no. 1–3 (2018b): 116–188. 130. “the language of heaven.” in reading the signs: philology, history, prognostication: festschrift for michael lackner, edited by iwo amelung and joachim kurtz, 97–126. munich: iudicium, 2018c. 131. “advocacy, agency, and social change in leisure: the shenbao guan and shanghai 1860–1900.” in testing the margins of leisure: case studies on china, japan, and indonesia, edited by rudolf g. wagner, catherine v. yeh, eugenio menegon, and robert f. weller, 259–290. heidelberg: heidelberg university publishing, 2019c. 132. “asymmetry in transcultural interaction.” in engaging transculturality: concepts, key terms, case studies, edited by laila abu-er-rub, christiane brosius, sebastian meurer, diamantis panagiotopoulos, and susan richter, 15–38. london: routledge, 2019d. 133. “china and india pre-1939.” in routledge handbook on china-india relations, edited by kanti bajpai, selina ho, and manjari miller, 35–62. london: routledge 2019e. 134. “the global context of a modern chinese quandary: doubting or trusting the records of antiquity.” monumenta serica 67, no. 2 (december 2019f): 441–504. 135. “living up to the image of the ideal public leader: george washington’s image in china.” the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019g): 18–77. 136. with catherine v. yeh. “frames of leisure: theoretical essay.” in testing the margins of leisure: case studies on china, japan, and indonesia, edited by rudolf g. wagner, catherine v. yeh, eugenio menegon, and robert f. weller, 291–308. heidelberg: heidelberg university publishing, 2019h 137. “the early chinese press and the agency of its readers: the dynamics of the transcultural spread of the ‘press’ as an institution.” itinerario 44, no. 2 (2020a): 412–434. 152 rudolf wagner: list of publications 138. “future memory: preserving diverse voices from and about china in a time of unification of thought.” in libraries and archives in the digital age, edited by suzan l. mizruchi, 141–148. camden: palgrave macmillan, 2020b. 139. “xiandai zhongguo xueshu kunjing de quanqiu beijing: yi gu haishi xin gu” 现代中国学术困境的全球背景：疑古还是信古 [the global context of a modern chinese quandary: doubting or trusting the records of antiquity]. guoxue qikan, 3 (2021): 113–144. 140. “the taiping land programme: creating a moral environment.” in the cambridge history of socialism, vol. 1, edited by marcel van der linden, 101–125. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2022. c. work submitted for publication 1. the last stand of the cultural revolution: film, society, and politics 1972–1976 (submitted to heidelberg university publishing). d. to be published posthumously 1. the life and times of a cultural broker: ernest major and his shenbao publishing enterprise in shanghai (1872–1889). 2. the public performance of justice: the transcultural career of an early chinese political installation across eurasia. tracking trends and brands in the international children’s book market | thiel | transcultural studies tracking trends and brands in the international children’s book market petra thiel, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg introduction [t]here is no golden age, no moment when the literature for and of children is better, more precise, or more effective than at any other moment. children’s literature is not some ideal category that a certain age may reach and that another may miss. it is instead a kind of system, one whose social and aesthetic value is determined out of the relationships among those who make, market, and read books. seth lerer[1] when friedrich oetinger (1907–1986), a german children’s book publisher, travelled to sweden in february 1949, he had no idea that he would return to germany with a treasure in his suitcase.[2] although five german publishing houses had declined to buy the first of a trilogy of books written by astrid lindgren, a swedish author as yet unknown in germany, friedrich oetinger nonetheless decided to read the original story when a publishing house in stockholm offered him a licence contract.[3] lindgren’s book was named pippi långstrump (pippi longstocking) after its female protagonist, and it had been published in sweden in 1945. like a robinsonade, it contained a variety of elements from narrative literature, including domestic stories, high sea adventures and treasure hunts. pippi is a nine-year-old sea captain’s daughter and half-orphan who left her father’s ship in order to live in villa villekulla, a quaint house in a small swedish village, together with her horse and mr. nilsson, her little monkey. she is an extraordinary, imaginative girl who loves to spin tales, who questions norms and who often puzzles her environment by doing exactly the opposite of what a girl her age is expected to do. in typically picaresque manner, pippi does not refrain even from tackling unpleasant questions in order to unmask authority and expose the drab, hypocritical world of adults that surrounds her. although grown-ups usually frown upon what they deem to be pippi’s reckless and ill-mannered behaviour, the self-confident, freckle-faced girl reveals herself as an utterly fair and honest supporter of the weak and oppressed. she befriends two children from her neighbourhood, tommy and annika, who love pippi for her kind heart and generosity, and who admire her courage, strength and power, which she regularly demonstrates during the course of the story. with pippi around, every day is for them like an adventure full of excitement, newly-invented games, and pancake parties. although pippi definitely displays role-model qualities, the first pippi book was not immediately recognized and taken to heart by all of its german-speaking reviewers after its publication by oetinger. the swiss daily newspaper berner tageblatt, for instance, criticized the radicalism presented in the book, which was considered too crude for young readers. the musterbibliothek des erziehungsdepartements (model library of the education department) of the city of basel, switzerland, even refused to include the german edition in its children’s book collection, as it was considered to be too inventive and rather offensive.[4] in germany, however, pippi’s adventures were mostly well received. some reviewers praised her humour, her spontaneity and her absurd ideas, which fed the imagination of her audience.[5] others welcomed the book because of its freshness compared to the “trivial, moralizing girl’s literature” that was popular in germany during the 1940s and 1950s.[6] after sixty-six years of publication, the pippi books have proved to be lindgren’s most successful and widely circulated works.[7] the complex and multilayered stories about pippi and her adventures, which constantly shift between realistic and fantastic narrative levels, have conquered the international children’s book market, including the people’s republic of china (prc) and the republic of china (roc), taiwan.[8] one chinese translation of pippi’s adventures was published in a xiaorenshu 小人书 (small comic book) format in the prc in the 1980s.[9] like pippi långstrump, stories about sun wukong 孙悟空, one of the main protagonists of the chinese epic xiyou ji 西游记 (the journey to the west[10]), number among his home country’s enduring bestsellers which have been translated into many different languages and been disseminated abroad. the journey to the west is one of the best-known tales throughout china and is considered a classic of chinese literature in its home country.[11] it tells of a chinese monk’s pilgrimage to india in search of buddhist sutras in the early seventh century. storytellers spread the tale of the monk and his companions, combining the adventure with fantastic elements of the supernatural such as the mythical birth of his monkey companion, who later became sun wukong, the monkey king.[12] today, an extensive range of xiyou ji editions for children, teenagers and adults as well as several different children’s book adaptations of monkey king stories can be found in chinese bookstores and libraries. in the 1980s, a translated series of the monkey king’s adventures was introduced to the german children’s book market, but it did not gain a foothold and thus disappeared.[13] when the pippi långstrump and sun wukong stories are reduced to their core features, and the protagonists’ life circumstances and character traits are compared, the similarities between the swedish girl and the monkey king are astonishing: both are one-of-a-kind characters, spirited, witty, brave and funny. both lead very autonomous lives: pippi, a half-orphan, lives away from her sea captain father in a house somewhere in a small town; sun wukong was originally a stone and came to life through a mythical birth. pippi and sun wukong hold special positions among their peers. they stand out from the crowd because they are endowed with special gifts: pippi is the strongest girl in the world, and sun wukong knows the art of seventy-two metamorphoses. both are courageous leaders who fight for the good, the disadvantaged, the weak and the poor, and who regularly question, challenge and deconstruct authority. they both dress peculiarly and their anarchic, anti-authoritarian and sometimes rather comical behaviour reveals their carnivalesque character. both pippi and sun wukong combine stupendous abilities with a childlike curiosity and naiveté. yet, they are characters children can easily identify with or at least would love to befriend. during pippi’s adventurous trips and travels and during sun wukong’s thrilling journey to the west, the protagonists and their fellow companions regularly meet and overcome dangerous hurdles. every chapter, story and episode in the pippi-books and the xiyou ji adaptations of monkey king stories for children always ends happily, the tension and crises the young readers have to endure throughout the progression of the story notwithstanding. all of the themes or motivkonstellationen[14] in both the pippi långstrump and the sun wukong stories for children contain paradigmatic elements of traditional storytelling. many classic works of children’s literature are composed of similar constellations of motifs, plots and archetypical characters, no matter what their culture of origin.[15] sun wukong’s adventures, astrid lindgren’s pippi books and j. k. rowling’s bestselling harry potter novels all feature a similar cast and story structure. harry potter is an orphan, an outsider in the “muggle” (non-wizarding) world, and a talented student of magic in the wizarding world, endowed with the gift of speaking “parseltongue”, the language of snakes. harry potter is easily recognizable by his lightning-bolt scar, glasses and tousled hair, and he fights against evil together with his friends and classmates, regardless of school rules or wizards’ laws. for all of their similarities, one evident difference between the protagonists harry, pippi and sun wukong is their international recognition. in china, the harry potter novels were as successful as in the rest of the world; the chinese translation of the first volume of the series, hali bote yu mofa shi 哈利伯特与魔法石 (harry potter and the philosopher’s stone) sold five million authorized copies.[16] pippi långstrump stories can be found today on the chinese and taiwanese children’s book markets, for instance in special collections of astrid lindgren’s most famous novels, including emil i lönneberga (emil in lonneberga), bröderna lejonhjärta (the brothers lionheart) and alla vi barn i bullerbyn (the children of noisy village). sun wukong’s journey to the west, however, was not as successful. today copies can only be found in specialized, mostly academic children’s libraries which are not frequented by the common reader, let alone children. in germany, these include the international youth library in munich, the international children’s book archive of the klingspor museum for modern international book art, typography and calligraphy in offenbach, and the libraries of various chinese studies institutes in germany. the picture is similar in other european countries. as the examples of pippi långstrump and sun wukong have shown, a set of diegetic and generic factors similar to global bestsellers as well as high selling numbers in their respective home countries do not guarantee a story’s international success. hence, the reason for the lack of success experienced by some children’s storyies must lie beyond their structure, form and content. this leads to the assumption that inherent cultural features might be the reason why some children’s stories are accepted or rejected. in his article “travelling cultures,” james clifford suggests that cultures should be understood in terms of hybridity. cultures are never formed in isolation; they are a product of complex interrelations and connections, and thus never bound to national borders, either.[17] homi bhaba further states that “the importance of hybridity is not to be able to trace two original moments from which the third emerges, rather … hybridity is the ‘third space’ which enables other positions to emerge.”[18] in homi bhaba’s view, such a third space bears a subversive, creative and productive potential: the (post-colonial) subject does not act passively. on the contrary: migrants, artists and intellectuals embody hybridity when they are moving between cultures, making productive and creative use of their cosmopolitan and multiple cultural affiliations. taking bhaba’s idea of hybridity and clifford’s proposal that “instead of studying people staying at home we should study travel”,[19] i will follow pippi’s and sun wukong’s journeys abroad, examining their hybrid characters and their possible multiple (trans)cultural affiliations. in order to further reveal the driving forces behind the successful commercialization of particular children’s books (given that only popular and marketable “book brands” can set and spread book market trends),  i will focus on three aspects: (1) market factors (including an analysis of book-market mechanisms as well as the discussion of trendsetting and branding in children’s fiction), (2) structural factors (tackling the asymmetries between the chinese and the european children’s book markets), and, since language is an inevitable aspect of global movement, (3) linguistic factors (concerning the translation of children’s literature) leading to further questions of the (trans-)cultural quality of certain texts that have been written for and adapted to young readers. popularizing and commercializing children’s fiction contemporary children’s literature comprises a broad variety of genres and topics. hence, publishing houses throughout the world increasingly depend on microeconomic strategies such as market, target-group and field research to place their products successfully within the different segments of their own national book market and on the international book market. economically speaking, a market is a place where supply and demand converge and where producers, distributers and consumers (re-)negotiate the exchange of goods.[20] markets are dynamic because distribution and marketing systems, product offerings and consumers’ tastes are constantly changing. consequently, what is now regarded as “trendy” will inevitably change as markets develop and transform. as commodities of the publishing industry, books can be considered potential trend objects whose popularity and acceptance is usually measured by their successful placement on the book market and by their sales output.[21] according to futurologists and trend researchers matthias horx and peter wippermann, trends not only mirror the current style and popular taste of a given time, they are sensitive to social change and are thus also indicators of future societal conditions.[22] trends, once they have reached a certain “tipping point”, tend to spread quickly, like a highly contagious disease.[23] compared to short-lived fashion fads, hypes and socio-cultural movements, trends are characterized by their durability.[24] the emergence of trends on the children’s book market cannot always be easily reconstructed, because the production, distribution and consumption of children’s literature operates in a highly volatile and competitive system where different actors (potential trendsetters) simultaneously pursue their own aims, needs and desires. people on the book market command authority when they attempt to facilitate or restrict access to and the distribution of certain texts. they can thus be regarded as “gatekeepers” and “trendsetters” in the evolution of children’s literary trends.[25] in the flow of cultural production, dissemination and consumption, gatekeepers serve as a filter which reduces the amount of publications that flood the market. on the producers’ side, publishing houses, represented by publishers and editors, first and foremost want the texts they polish and put out in print to sell. therefore, they only sign on authors who write stories that suit the publishing house’s product line. furthermore, they hope that an author will establish a name which will underscore the high profile of the publishing house’s brand. booksellers represent the distributor’s side; when driven by idealism, they aim to promote authors and texts which mirror their own (sociopolitical, personal and intellectual) visions. however, bookshops cannot survive without making a profit. hence, their owners must first and foremost find a ready market for their selection of books. the chain of gatekeepers in the book market ends with the consumers, the people who buy and read books. the trend agents on the demand side of the children’s book market are mostly parents, friends or relatives who purchase the books they want the young readers to consume (and here, the parents’ choice does not necessarily correspond with their children’s primary interests). parents often consider their children to be too young to select their own role models. when deciding on which literature their children should read, parents commonly pick stories which reflect their own ideals. often their choices are fuelled by nostalgia, as parents also tend to buy the books they loved to read when they were children.[26] in this way they unconsciously initiate a chain reaction: by helping some stories to maintain and consolidate their status as long-term bestsellers, parents help to establish children’s classics. children’s classics are usually thought of as “good”[27] children’s literature, products of an “international culture of childhood”[28] which have been canonized, reprinted in various editions and series and translated into different languages. when a consumer chooses a book, the publisher’s brand is another influential decision-making element. famous publishing houses like the oetinger publishing group in germany, little, brown and company books for young readers in the usa, or chicken house publishing in the united kingdom (uk), to name a few, are greatly esteemed by authors, booksellers and readers alike for their high-quality and diversified selection of titles.[29] such publishing houses have the power to set new trends and standards in children’s publishing, and to create their own literary trademarks, or: their own publisher’s brand. according to the oxford dictionary of business and management, a brand can be defined as “a tradename used to identify a specific product, manufacturer, or distributor.”[30]  in the uk, most branded products were introduced at the turn of the 20th century, some even in mid-victorian times when manufacturers wanted to distinguish their goods from those of their competitors. they believed that by investing in the quality of a brand it would eventually build up a brand image, “to which consumers will respond by asking for their goods by their brand names.”[31] whether they are cultural goods, commodities, services or even concepts, brands can easily be communicated and advertised. consequently, the name of a renowned publishing house can be regarded as a brand, and the products (books) and names (of authors) associated with it form part of the company’s corporate identity. a book published by the oetinger publishing house always transports the intangible and thoroughly positive attributes of its brand: an oetinger book stands for good children’s fiction; an oetinger book can be trusted. one of the most popular western children’s book authors ever to have signed with the oetinger publishing house was astrid lindgren (1907–2002), creative mother of pippi. in a survey conducted by a radio station in berlin in 2009, people strolling near the brandenburg gate were randomly interviewed about what they spontaneously associated with sweden. the majority mentioned the beautiful landscape while others thought of sweden’s national animal, the moose, or knäckebröd, a typical swedish crispbread. several people also named ikea, an internationally successful swedish furniture chain, and children’s book author astrid lindgren. this shows, that names like ikea and astrid lindgren communicate more than their apparent meaning. ikea and astrid lindgren have not only become brand names, ikea and astrid lindgren are trademarks for sweden in the international consumer goods market.[32] according to shay sayre and cynthia m. king, a brand furthermore “reflects a common thread that runs through a range of products, services, or concepts. at a minimum, that thread usually includes a shared corporate name and logo, but brands usually also extend beyond shared symbols to shared attributes, concepts, stories, philosophies, personalities, and goals.”[33] with the production and dissemination of distinctive national industrial and cultural goods, including commodities, fine art and popular culture, even a popular children’s book author like astrid lindgren can serve as representative of the whole, a brand name associated with more than a specific branch (in lindgren’s case: the international children’s book market). the name lindgren also represents and personifies the spirit of a whole country. brands and brand names are thus transcultural in spite (or even because) of this very association with a particular nation. another crucial factor for the worldwide popularization and commercialization of a children’s story is whether it lends itself to being transferred from one medium to another (hereafter: transmediality), as two recent global sales phenomena show. j. k. rowling’s harry potter novels and stephenie meyer’s twilight saga, a teenage vampire love story, both combine key factors that facilitate the international success of a children’s book. although catering to different audiences, both series reached the top of international bestseller lists and triggered an extraordinary reading mania among children and (young) adults.[34] their movie adaptations drew people of all ages into movie theatres, and paraphernalia like gryffindor[35] scarves, dumbledore[36] puppets and witchcraft utensils such as wands, coats and hats, and manifold collections of diverse twilight collectibles[37] made cash registers ring from new york to beijing. the use of various marketing channels and media merchandizing did more than increase the publishing houses’ profits and the authors’ fame.[38] the sudden omnipresence of both titles within different market segments bestowed the names harry potter and twilight with a unique, emblematic quality. harry potter and twilight began their success as book series; through merchandizing, they became trademarks for an array of cultural goods as well as figureheads of the youth culture of their times.[39] the fact that the harry potter movies were released before the first authorized chinese translations appeared on the chinese book market can also be regarded as an important multiplier for the popularity and acceptance of the harry potter series in china.[40] indeed, it may be safely assumed that it is always easier to consume a movie than to read a book. china’s black markets for cheap fake products, bootlegs and pirated copies of cds and dvds also provide a perfect environment for popularizing (pop) cultural goods and spreading trends. moreover, mcdonald’s and other popular fast-food chains offer tie-ins to promote cartoons and movies throughout the whole world. in the us, for example, mcdonald’s gave out hua mulan dolls with “happy meals” when the disney movie was released, which increased the popularity of the chinese girl-warrior enormously.[41] yet it probably needs the disney brand for the characters to be advertised in this way: while journey to the west figurines, including the monkey king sun wukong, have long been available everywhere in toy stores in china, they have never been distributed by mcdonald’s or other fast-food chains.[42] just like harry potter or the young vampires, the images of pippi and sun wukong have also been successfully disseminated via different media throughout europe and the usa (in the case of pippi långstrump) and east asia (in the case of sun wukong). swedish film director olle hellbom’s pippi långstrump tv series from 1969 and 1970 starring inger nilsson as pippi successfully introduced lindren’s heroine to different audiences beyond the swedish borders. the animated us-american pippi longstocking film adaptation, which was aired between 1997 and 1999 on hbo channel in the usa and on canada’s teletoon channel, boosted the swedish girl’s popularity immensely.[43] for pippi’s 60th german publishing anniversary, the oetinger publishing house presented a large range of new tie-in-products at the 2009 frankfurt book fair. stationery products, dinnerware, games and accessories decorated with pippi-illustrations as well as re-recordings of pippi-audio books were added to the various printed editions of the pippi-trilogy, the cartoon series, and the pippi-movies.[44] when sun wukong’s adventures became more and more numerous and epic in china, different media and literary genres also adopted the existing oral and written material. various types of chinese operas, plays, puppet shows, picture books, comics, cartoons and movies completed the manifold sun wukong-collection over the course of time, “contributing to the public’s familiarity with both plot and characters.”[45] xiyou ji’s multiple transmedial reincarnations not only became part of the “rich background texture” in which chinese thought, speech, and behaviour manifested itself.[46] they also helped to spread the monkey king’s fame across china’s borders, e.g. to japan. saiyuki, the japanese version of the chinese classic, contributed artwork and served as inspiration for several tv and anime series[47], some of which are but very loosely based on the original story. the protagonist of the popular dragon ball computer game, songoku, for instance, is named after the monkey king. dragon ball originally started as a comic strip published in the weekly magazine shonen jump.[48] books, a tv anime series, movies and finally dragon ball video and computer games followed, paving the way for a triumphant long-term success for sun wukong’s different reincarnations in east asia.[49] besides their ability to transfer from one medium to another, the degree of structural susceptibility (strukturanfälligkeit) is likewise pivotal to the popularization and acceptance of stories and book market trends. the faster a cultural good, a commodity, a concept or an idea reacts and adapts to socio-cultural or politico-cultural conditions, the easier it will be communicated to and accepted by its consumers.[50] in the late 1990s, for instance, chinese women’s magazines started to advocate the so-called “model new woman” who “can afford what she desires,” who “is a doer—straightforward, efficient, and self-controlled,” and who is also “a bit of a rebel.”[51]  recent coca-cola advertisements in china have already responded to this phenomenon and presented a new type of female role-model: different tv spots showed self-confident young women enjoying their independent life while drinking coca-cola—with men playing only a minor role.[52] with reference to the structural susceptibility thesis, the promotion of a new role-model such as the described “model new woman” can thus be regarded as a catalyst which helps to accelerate the popularization of new ideals and will, therefore, be able to set and spread new trends throughout the consumer market. the “model new woman” paragon might even help to consolidate the status of the swedish sea captain’s daughter as a long-term bestseller in china, smoothing her way to becoming an accepted role model for chinese girls. likewise, perhaps, sun wukong’s adventures will eventually find their place in the european children’s book market, now that the monkey king’s stories have repeatedly been promoted via different channels in england, the us, and germany over the last four years. damon albarn, for instance, former front man of the british pop band blur and member of the british creative pool “gorillaz”[53], chose sun wukong and his fellow companions when asked to design a cartoon teaser for the british broadcasting corporation (bbc) to promote the 2008 olympic games.[54] this monkey king cartoon strip was created in the distinctive “gorillaz” style and broadcasted throughout the uk during prime viewing time two weeks prior to the opening ceremony in beijing.[55] earlier albarn co-composed an opera based on the journey to the west, which premiered in june 2007, opening the manchester international festival.[56] the stage-adaptation was also shown in france and in the us, the soundtrack even entered the uk albums chart at number five and the uk indie chart at number one. also in 2008 hollywood released a martial arts-adventure-movie entitled the forbidden kingdom with chinese actor jet li playing a featured part as the monkey king. how important the monkey king’s adventures still are for younger generations of contemporary chinese film artists is illustrated by the recent release of a remake of the 1964 animation movie sun wukong danao tiangong 孙悟空大闹天宫(the monkey king: uproar in heaven), one of the best-known tales from the journey to the west.[57] for the 2012 3d-version, computer animation specialists from china collaborated with 3d-experts who worked for the harry potter movies as well as for the oscar-awarded animation movie avatar. the original chinese ink paintings were restored and combined with contemporary animation features; the original soundtrack of the movie was re-recorded and mixed with western musical elements. the movie was shown in the so-called “generation kplus” series which is specially designed for children and young people. it did not join the berlinale competition, though, which makes it rather difficult to evaluate its real influence on the young german audience. thus, despite their multi-channeled circulation within the asian and the western popular spheres, one can only speculate whether (and to what extent) the various sun wukong-images will be able to result in a growing interest in the book series and in a successful dissemination of its different translations.[58] children’s literature beyond culture? the translation and adaptation of children’s fiction according to helene schär, editor-in-chief of the swiss baobab children’s book series which was established to promote german translations of children’s literature from latin america, africa, the middle east and asia, a blatant discrepancy can be detected between the numbers of foreign titles that have been licensed from us-american or european writers compared to those that have been acquired for titles by asian authors. in her article from the year 2006 about images of asia in children’s fiction, schär stated that only twenty-four asian authors (including five illustrators) had found their way into the german children’s book market within the last twenty-five years.[59] of these, a total of sixteen worked and published in their home countries. eight authors (i.e. one third of the group) were living abroad and writing in a foreign (european) language. in order to find explanations for this underrepresentation of “genuine” asian stories in the german-language children’s book market, schär focused on titles that had been written by chinese authors. taking books by for instance lin haiyin[60]林海音 and chen danyan[61] 陈丹燕—authors who write in chinese and live and publish in the prc  schär observed that their works seemed more “foreign” or “exotic” (fremdartiger) than books written by authors living and working in europe.[62] in her study of the chinese children’s and young adult publishing industry of 2008, jing bartz, head of biz beijing[63] until april 2010, confirmed helen schär’s observations. bartz corroborated her opinion that transactions for translation rights are mainly unidirectional: “chinese publishers purchase german licenses, but the business hardly ever goes the other way.[64]”  while schär assumes that this imbalance might stem from cultural differences inherent in the texts, bartz argues that it is structural or organizational problems that uphold the asymmetries in the euro-asian copyright trade.[65] the pivotal moment in a children’s story’s journey from one culture to another is the moment of translation. in her introduction to the anthology beyond babar: the european tradition in children’s literature, sandra l. beckett has pointed out that “translations play a key role in the constitution of literary canons that cross languages and cultures.”[66] for children who are not expected to master foreign languages at an early age, translations are an important means for their first contact with foreign literatures and cultures. however, only well-established stories with proven long-term bestselling qualities are usually translated and disseminated beyond the borders of their countries of origin. usually the publishing house—represented by its editorial office—and the translator agree on the most apt translation strategy with regard to the primary text and the target language, taking into account both cultural contexts. translation is thus more than the transformation of the respective textual corpus into a different language. it is “an act simultaneously involving mediation and refraction.”[67] according to bhaba, translation can also be regarded as “the performative nature of cultural communication” which “continually reminds us of difference, for there is always in translation a starting point and a point of arrival that are never the same.”[68] such a (post-colonial) notion of difference also displays a judgement, namely that of the culture to be translated as being constituted as that of the “other.”[69] hence, a children’s book which features typical cultural traits can also be regarded as a marker of cultural difference. in order to overcome these differences and due to the assumption that their “foreignness” might be too difficult to comprehend by a young reader of the target culture, texts are sometimes altered in the course of their translation.[70] realia like foreign names and locations, coinage, foodstuffs, as well as aspects of behaviour and manners, speech specifics and unfamiliar expressions are sometimes changed during the translation process in order to prevent a book’s rejection on the foreign market. the assumption is that especially when particular cultural idiosyncracies are made explicit in a book, it is unlikely that the story will gain an international readership.[71] pippi långstrump may serve as an example for such a practice of “cultural context adaptation”—a term coined by göte klingberg, who recommended that any attuning of a children’s story to the target language should be restricted only to details.[72] in its german translation, for instance, pippi wears a yellow dress over blue-and-white polka dot pants instead of the original short blue dress with red patches, because the german translator thought the latter would look too frivolous on a child.[73] thai and iranian publishers darkened pippi’s hair and skin colour.[74] british and french translators changed pippi’s typical swedish habit of taking an “eftermiddagskaffe” (afternoon coffee) to “having afternoon tea” respectively to “prendre le thé” in order to match their countries’ customs.[75] much more problematic, however, are substantial modifications to the composition of the book (e.g. the order of the chapters) or to linguistic aspects (e.g. particular oral expressions or idioms) which significantly depart from the swedish original. the first french translation of 1962 liberally omitted four entire chapters which contained what french people at the time considered improper behaviour for a child, namely those chapters where pippi clearly displays her evident superiority over adults.[76] in “pippi leker kull med poliser” (pippi plays tag with the police) two policemen try to send pippi to an orphanage. pippi, however, prefers playing tag with the policemen, letting them balance on the rooftop of villa villekulla, and finally throwing them out of her garden. in “pippi går på kafferep” (pippi has coffee with the ladies), pippi ruins the coffee party which annika’s and tommy’s mother  organized for some ladies of the neighbourhood by raiding the plates full of cakes and pastries and by constantly interrupting the ladies’ conversations. in “pippi muntrar upp tant laura” (pippi cheers up aunt laura), pippi makes up incredible stories about her grandmother, about cows in trains, and about strange-looking singaporean sailors in order to distract annika’s and tommy’s aunt laura, who is complaining about her health. in “pippi ordnar frågesport” (pippi organizes a quiz), a rich lady, ms. rosenblom, hands out presents, clothes and sweets to all the poor village children who successfully pass her quiz. pippi takes ms. rosenblom’s quiz to the point of absurdity by ridiculing the questions and organizing a counter-quiz in which only those children win prizes who cannot answer the questions correctly. english and american translators have likewise omitted the puns and parley that reveal pippi’s wit and her “skillful play with language,” which greatly changes pippi’s character and weakens the book’s intention to question adult authority.[77] in her article “a misunderstood tragedy: astrid lindgren’s pippi longstocking books”, maria nikolajeva, professor of education at cambridge university and children’s literature researcher, states: “in fact, when i used pippi longstocking in my children’s literature classes in the u.s., i discovered, to my frustration, that whenever i wanted to illustrate pippi’s verbal skills by an example i knew from the original, it simply wasn’t there in the translated version.[78]” the swedish-american movie adaptation by british director ken annakin from the year 1988, the new adventures of pippi longstocking, relied heavily on the us-american text. as a result, so nikolajeva, it had to “chiefly rely on slapstick, because the verbal humor of the pippi stories is completely gone” [in the translated versions, p.t.].[79] as a result, the pippi appearing here was, if not lost, then somehow warped in translation. the travels of translative misrepresentations of children’s stories sometimes prolong their journeys around the globe. following the trajectory of the english pippi version, for example, one soon realises that it served as a template for the taiwanese translation. although the introduction presents astrid lindgren as a famous swedish author of children’s literature, ren rongrong 任溶溶, the taiwanese translator, comments on parts of the story that he considered typically british and which thus, in his eyes need additional explanation in order to be intelligible to the young taiwanese audience. in the process, he reinvents a british pippi and thus reconfigures the story to a remarkable degree. when pippi’s little monkey mr. nilsson (chin.: nayuxun 纳雨逊), a farewell gift from pippi’s father, is introduced, ren explains in a footnote that a british naval commander of the same name, nayuxun 纳雨逊, died when he fought napoleon at cape trafalgar.[80] ren obviously mistook admiral lord nelson, a british admiral, as the eponym for pippi’s monkey, because the transcription of ‘lord nelson’ in taiwanese only differs slightly from mr. nilsson’s (nelson: na’erxun 纳尔逊). in spite of ren’s good intention to actually explain british culture to young taiwanese readers, by mediating “images of foreignness” presented in the book he actually obscures them even more, and indeed makes them into “images of strangeness”—at least to the western adult reader who knows the story’s background.[81] unlike the publishers of some western pippi versions, the beijing foreign languages publishing house (beijing waiwen chubanshe 北京外文出版社) did not exercise the option of cultural context adaptation when the decision was made to introduce sun wukong to a german audience. for the translation of a series of chinese sun wukong adventures into german, it drew up contracts exclusively with chinese translators.[82] in the years 1984 and 1987, the translations of over 30 stories were finally completed, embellished with rich and colourful illustrations, and printed for the german book market.[83] in order to inform the young german readers about the genesis of the journey to the west as well as the monkey king’s eminent position within chinese children’s literature, the publishers decided to add an expository introduction printed on the book covers of each volume.[84] inside the book covers the publishers further printed a short synopsis of the book’s storyline as well as a short outline of the following book, a teaser to arouse the young readers’ curiosity and make them want to continue reading the next part of the series. although both publisher and translators tried to reposition their product in the german children’s book market, they did not consider performing a cultural context adaptation when they translated the textual corpus. neither the names of sun wukong’s fellow companions or the other characters presented in the books, nor the settings and symbols which derived from classical mythological stories, nor the chinese pantheon which several episodes refer to, have been thoroughly explained or adapted in order to be more comprehensible to young german readers, an audience which in most cases is familiar neither with the chinese language nor indeed with the details of buddhist principles and thought. however, the editors tried their best to break down the epic storyline of the original, which consists of 100 chapters or juan 卷, into 32 separate picturebook volumes. the german edition further followed the “xiaorenshu principle” with every page being dominated by a colourful picture which is accompanied by a short text explaining the scene. by merely appreciating the sequence of illustrations, even an (almost) illiterate audience is thus able to roughly grasp the course of the story. the german translation is mainly composed of simple, declarative sentences or independent clauses, which are sometimes interrupted by direct speech. from a syntactic perspective, the german texts perfectly meet the demands of an audience of emergent readers. still, it can be safely assumed that some of the paragraphs in the german picturebook edition might have caused some bewilderment among its readers, as will be illustrated in the following: the first part of the classic, which consists of seven chapters covering the mythical birth story of the later monkey king, his acquisition of magical powers, his rebellion in the heavenly kingdom, and his subsequent conversion to buddhism, is covered by three picturebooks of the abridged german sun wukong-series.[85] in the first book, sun wukong comes to life from a stone.[86] he then moves to the border of aolai county where he becomes the king of flower-fruit mountain’s monkey population following a successful trial of courage. after some monkeys tell him about the life of the buddhas, the monkey king decides to leave the mountain in order to search for the path to immortality. after a long quest he finds shelter in a mountain cave, where he finally meets his master, who teaches him the art of shapeshifting and who gives him his courtesy name sun wukong, “monkey who is aware of emptiness.[87]” in the second book, sun wukong wreaks havoc in the heavenly kingdom after he has assumed the position of the emperor’s equerry.[88] when sun wukong finds out that the post as head of the imperial stables does not rank as high as he thought it would, he is enraged. to vent his anger, sun wukong not only frees the horses he is supposed to take care of, but also ruins the peach banquet of the empress mother. as a consequence, sun wukong is dispelled from the heavenly kingdom. in the following, an enlightened buddha is asked to subdue the impudent monkey king and teach him a lesson: yisheng begibt sich zum leiyin-tempel auf dem lingshan-berg und erzählt das dem tathagata. als der tathagata schon alles weiß  und sagt dann zu allen bodhisattwaen [sic]: „ihr bleibt sitzen, um die buddistischen schriften zu lesen, aber ich gehe sofort gen osten, um sun wukong zu unterwerfen.“ dann befiehlt er zwei würdenträgern, anuo und jiaye, ihn zu begleiten.[89] the young readers have already been introduced to yisheng, an adjutant of the jade emperor, but they most certainly have never heard of a tathagata or a bodhisattva before. the organization of the life of buddhist monks in their temples as well as the numerous foreign names and titles might be completely new, perhaps even strange, and exotic to a german pre-schooler. what is most irritating, however, is the fact that the german translation is also grammatically inaccurate. on taking a look at a taiwanese comic edition of sun wukong stories for children, it is striking that the editors not only wrote a short exposition appropriate for its young audience in order to explain the xiyou ji’s classification within the history of literature in china.[90] they also added important facts about buddhism and explanations of the names of some of the main protagonists.[91] the german readers on the other hand have to gather and combine numerous small facts and pieces of information that are scattered throughout the different volumes in order to get a vague notion about the complexities of buddhist thought. they learn that buddhist monks use a certain vocabulary, that there is a set of rules which every buddhist has to obey, and that sometimes incense is burnt during ceremonies.[92] they also learn that buddhists cherish life and that killing a creature—apart from demons and ghosts—is considered a sin. similar to the pippi stories, the adapted plots of the sun wukong adventures for children follow a certain pattern. during the course of the story, the character constellation usually focuses on the four main characters, sun wukong, zhu bajie, monk sha and monk xuanzang. on their epic quest in search of the buddhist sutras, the pilgrims regularly have to overcome hurdles. they are haunted and threatened by different demons and ghosts in disguise, and it is usually sun wukong who exposes their true nature and who saves his companions’ lives. what one has to keep in mind is that the journey to the west is a highly allegorical tale with a rich polysemous texture and—more importantly—not intrinsically a children’s story. therefore, many of its satirical and political layers as well as its multiple rhetorical styles have been lost after they have been adapted for a young audience. how some sun wukong stories have been adjusted for political purposes (and thus been used in a highly adult context) can best be understood on taking a closer look at one specific story, namely monkey subdues the white-bone demon, which has also been published in the german book series for children.[93] in this story, xuanzang, sun wukong, zhu bajie and monk sha end up in a vast wasteland. they are hungry and thirsty, and have no more supplies. sun wukong leaves the group in search of food. in an earlier version of a picture book, sun wukong takes his magic rod and draws a circle on the ground, asking his companions to sit and keep within its borders.[94] when the white-bone demon enters the scene in the disguise of a young woman, pretending to bring food to the hungry pilgrims, xuanzang, zhu bajie and monk sha are too blind to realize that a demon is lurking after them. fortunately, sun wukong reappears and kills the demon with his rod.[95] the white-bone demon ascends to the clouds, only a dead body remains on the ground. since xuanzang “cannot tell the truth from lies,” as the text further quotes, he gets angry and reproaches sun wukong for having killed an innocent woman.[96] in the course of the story, the white-bone demon reappears twice, once camouflaged as the young woman’s mother and another time as an old man. again, xuanzang does not recognize their real nature. before the demon can eat the monk, however, sun wukong saves his life and kills the demon. all that remains is a pile of white bones. when xuanzang is almost convinced that he has been mistaken all the time, zhu bajie reminds him that sun wukong killed three living beings without hesitation. he further assumes that sun wukong has used magic and conjured up the bones by some trick. xuanzang believes zhu bajie and sends sun wukong back to flower-fruit mountain. sun wukong is crestfallen at the fact that xuanzang did not trust his loyal and devoted monkey companion. however, when xuanzang and the other pilgrims are kidnapped by ghosts, sun wukong returns and saves their lives yet again. what at first sight seems to be a classic bad-versus-good-story for children proves on closer inspection of the textual material to be a rather intricate web of allusions and allegories. the story offers different readings and can be interpreted within different historical contexts and frameworks.[97] in a post-cultural revolution analysis, for instance, the white-bone demon, a devil of the first order, can been identified as jiang qing. mao zedong is represented by xuanzong, who searches for the highest truth, and sun wukong, his loyal disciple, can be interpreted as deng xiaoping.[98] another reading focuses on the story’s “polemics about eating or being eaten.[99]” in this interpretation, the white-bone demon depicts krushchevian revisionism, a “man-eating demon beleaguering the pilgrims on their way toward communism; the transitional society as a barren land to be traversed through constant struggle; the party as a muddleheaded body, unable to recognize the danger of it and willing to follow zhu bajie instead of mao.[100]” these examples of possible readings of monkey subdues the white-bone demon demonstrate how textual misrepresentations can develop when the original textual corpus has been primarily written for a mature audience. here, not only a cultural hierarchy has to be adjusted when customizing the story to the developmental stage of its respective audience. linguistic hurdles also have to be overcome when adapting textual intricacies to a less trained readership—even if this means that some deeper meanings or certain allusions within the stories might get lost in translation. there are quite a few and different interactions when a children’s book travels the globe: while most of the pippi stories saw some (more or less creative and helpful) reworkings in the process of being translated into other languages, the adventures of the monkey king did not undergo significant changes before they were introduced to the german children’s book market. comparing the itineraries of both protagonists, the pippi stories continued their journey from one european country to another before they moved further west and east, entering us-american and taiwanese ground, where they can still be found on the bookshop shelves today. sun wukong’s journey to the west, on the other hand, is virtually unknown in europe. what is characteristic of those pippi versions that have been finally and fully accepted by a non-swedish audience is that these adapted pippis combine both global and local, universal and particular elements. hence pippi—in her various “western” existences, but still recognized as a swedish brand—is not only particularly swedish, but a hybrid character that permeates different cultural contexts, without explicit reference to her national, cultural, historical or political background. sun wukong, on the other hand, remains a native of his home country, still epitomizing his specifically chinese background despite the translation of his stories into various languages. conclusion literature for children and teenagers has always had to meet disparate needs: the demands of the book markets, expectations regarding value and content, and the entertainment of its young audience. this means that both producers and consumers determine whether the sales of a product will gain momentum or not. however, the final consumers, that is to say, the young readers, have the least power to influence the children’s book market, which is mainly operated and regulated by adults. as the examples of pippi långstrump and sun wukong have shown, neither a story’s standing as a classic of children’s literature in its country of origin, nor its correlation to a particular literary genre, nor their transmedial commercialization can guarantee a children’s story’s international success. both children’s book series began to travel, in an attempt to expand their popularity globally, almost simultaneously, and yet their itineraries took very different courses. astrid lindgren’s pippi långstrump books were bidden a rather cold welcome in most of the countries where the book was first published in translation. even many swedish publishing houses declined to publish lindgren’s manuscript as they thought pippi too extreme and defiant for a child of the 1940s.[101] over the years, however, pippi has become a beloved, esteemed and admired heroine for generations of children—partly due to socio-cultural and sociopolitical changes, which have also been promoted through various media channels, partly due to the well-established distribution networks the original swedish rabén & sjögren publishing house could fall back onto when signing contracts with foreign publishers, and partly as a result of adaptations of the original written material to fit local cultural contexts, which were made by editors and translators alike. this may lead us to the conclusion that only those translations of children’s stories that have been carefully and concertedly adapted to the culture of their target audience have the potential to move beyond cultural boundaries, a thesis which is supported by nicholas mirzoeff’s concept of transculture. according to mirzoeff, transculture evolves when two cultures collide.[102] in children’s literature, transculture evolves when the original textual and visual material collides with concepts and ideas of the target culture, or to be precise, at the moment of translation and adaptation. what emerges is a new hybrid form, a transculture, which is characterized by its lack of accurately defined borders to identity.[103] this, of course, presupposes a high stability of “culture,” or—in this particular case—a high stability within children’s book publishing in the international children’s book market. pippi, harry, and the monkey king might show similarities when it comes to their looks and their behavior. however, when the cultural settings that are exposed in the stories do not undergo a thorough adaptation while being translated for a foreign audience, as a result, they often do not receive the same appreciation as they originally did in their respective home countries.  in the case of harry potter translations, one might assume that the young wizard’s adventures were certainly adapted for a chinese readership for the simple fact along that a comparable literature of this specific kind had never existed in china before. furthermore, translations are very often deliberately made and presented as a radical alternative to existing mainstream reading in order to attract new readers. the reason that let sun wukong’s “journey to the west” come to an abrupt end was not necessarily asymmetries in terms of cultural hierarchy, but rather the lack of a functional distribution network. while famous publishing houses like rabén & sjögren in sweden or oetinger in germany rely heavily on their elaborate distribution networks and on strong collaborations with big international publishing groups, the beijing foreign language press remains a lone fighter within the shark pool of international children’s book publishing. taking all of these factors into account it is not surprising that sun wukong did not gain the attention—let alone the hearts—of a larger german readership. the charming stories about the scintillatingly witty monkey king have almost completely disappeared from the german book market. pippi långstrump in her various “western” adaptations became a world citizen in a transcultural fictitious literary world without explicit borders, where passports were no longer needed. sun wukong, on the other hand, still remains a children’s book character in transit. references: altehenger, jennifer, laila abu-er-rub, sebastian gehrig, “the transcultural travels of trends—an introductory essay,” in transcultural studies, 2 (2011), 140–163. andrews, julia f., kuiyi shen, “the new chinese woman and lifestyle magazines in the late 1990s,” in popular china –unofficial culture in a globalizing society, eds. perry link, richard p. madsen, paul g. pickowitz (lanham: rowman & littlefield, 2002), 137–162. annett, sandra, “imagining transcultural fandom: animation and global media communities,” in transcultural studies, 2 (2011), 164–188. appadurai, arjun, modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 2005). arbeitsgemeinschaft von jugendbuchverlagen e.v., ed., new children’s books rights guide 2010 from germany, austria & switzerland (frankfurt am main: arbeitsgemeinschaft von jugendbuchverlagen e.v., 2010). arbeitskreis für jugendliteratur e.v., ed., deutscher jugendliteraturpreis: nominierungen 2010 (münchen: arbeitskreis für jugendliteratur e.v.,  2010). ashcroft, bill, gareth griffiths, helen tiffin, eds., post-colonial studies: the key concepts (london: routledge, 2003). bartz, jing, zusammenarbeit deutscher und chinesischer kinderbuchverlage im lizenzbereich (buchinformationszentrum (biz) peking der frankfurter buchmesse, no date) http://www.buchmesse.de/imperia/celum/documents/kinderbuchmarkt%20in%20%0d%20china.pdf(accessed june 23, 2010). berf, paul, astrid surmatz, eds., astrid lindgren: zum donnerdrummel! ein werkporträt (hamburg: verlag friedrich oetinger, 2002). bhaba, homi k. “the third space,” interview with jonathan rutherford in identity: community, culture, difference, ed. rutherford, jonathan (london: lawrence & wishart, 1990), 207-221. bhaba, homi k., the location of culture (london and new york: routledge, 1994). bialek, manuela, karsten weyershausen, eds., das astrid lindgren lexikon: alles über die beliebteste kinderbuchautorin der welt (berlin: schwarzkopf & schwarzkopf, 2004). black, duncan, ed., collins dictionary, 10th edition (glasgow: harpercollins, 2009). british broadcasting corporation, bbc sport’s olympics monkey (2007), in http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics/monkey/7521287.stm(accessed december 8, 2012). börsenverein des deutschen buchhandels e.v., kinder und jugendbücher: marktpotenzial, käuferstrukturen und präferenzen unterschiedlicher lebenswelten, (frankfurt am main: börsenverein des deutschen buchhandels e.v., 2007). bourdieu, pierre, the rules of art: genesis and structure oft he literary field, trans. susan emanuel (cambridge, uk: polity press, 1996). carlsen verlag gmbh, ed., die spur führt zu chicken house (hamburg: carlsen verlag gmbh, 2009). chen, danyan, neun leben (zürich: nagel & kimche, 1995). china book international, “the analysis on hot points of chinese book market,” (sic) (2007) http://www.cbi.gov.cn/wisework/content/11069.html (accessed june 23, 2010). china children’s press and publication group, ed., latest copyright titles, (beijing: china children’s press and publication group, 2010). clifford, james, “travelling cultures,” in cultural studies, eds. lawrence grossberg et al.(london: routledge, 1992), 96–116. coillie, jan van, walter p. verschueren, eds., children’s literature in translation: challenges and strategies (manchester, uk: st. jerome publishing, 2006). cotton, penni, “the europeaness of picture books,” in children’s literature and national identity, ed. margaret meek(stoke on trent: trentham books limited, 2001), 111–120. curtius, ernst robert, europäische literatur und lateinisches mittelalter (tübingen: a. francke verlag, 1993). daebel, nina, “dem todschicken flirt mit dem schönen bösen,“ in bücher, 4 (2009), 32–36. dai, shifeng, ma wenhui, eds., zhu bajie als bräutigam und schwiegersohn, bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 5 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1985). dai, shifeng, tian hui, eds., aufruhr auf dem berg heifeng, bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 4 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1984). dexter, lewis a., david m. white, eds. people, society and mass communications (london: collier 1964). ding, yuzhen, ed., heftige gefechte am tongtian-fluß, die bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 13 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1986). dingwaney, anuradha, carol meier, eds., between languages and cultures: translation and cross-cultural texts (pittsburgh: university of pittsburgh press, 1994). donald, stephanie hemelryk, little friends: children’s film and media culture in china (lanham: rowman & littlefield, 2005). ewers, hans-heino, literatur für kinder und jugendliche: eine einführung (münchen: utb, 2000). ewers, hans-heino, fundamental concepts of children’s literature research, literary and sociological approaches (new york: routledge, 2009). fang, yuan, ed., am zimu-fluß, die bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 15 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1986). farquhar, mary ann, children’s literature in china: from lu xun to mao zedong (armonk, new york: m.e. sharpe, 1999). frisch, nora, “coke-commercials as docu-soap: china’s young generation’s search for identity in the reflection of advertising,” talk given at the early career researchers’ conference on east asian studies, school of social and political studies, september 2007, university of edinburgh. gao, mingyou, ed., der wahre und der falsche sun wukong, die bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 17 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1986). ghesquiere, rita, “why does children’s literature need translation?” in children’s literature in translation: challenges and strategies, eds. jan van coillie, walter p. verschueren (manchester, uk: st. jerome publishing, 2006), 19–33. gove, philip babcock, noah webster, eds., webster’s third international dictionary of the english language. unabridged, 3 vols, vol. 3 (springfield: merriam-webster, 2002). han, shuangdong, ed., die lotosblumenhöhle, bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 9 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1986). hayward scott, dorothea, chinese popular literature and the child (chicago: american library association, 1980). henrichsmeyer, wilhelm, oskar gans, ingo evers, eds. einführung in die volkswirtschaftslehre (münchen: utb, 1993) herrmann, gunnar, alexander budde, eds., merian reiseführer stockholm (münchen: travel house media, 2003). horx, matthias, “die macht der megatrends,” in http://www.horx.com/reden/macht-der-megatrends.aspx (accessed april 1, 2010). horx, matthias, peter wippermann, eds. was ist trendforschung? (düsseldorf: econ, 1996). horx, matthias et al., eds., zukunft machen: wie sie von trends zu business-innovationen kommen (frankfurt am main: campus, 2007). huo, yong, cheng min, eds., mönch sha am liusha-fluß, bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 6 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1984). idema, wilt and lloyd haft, eds., a guide to chinese literature (ann arbor: center for  chinese studies, the university of michigan: 1997). jung, christiane, “tea-time oder kaffee und kuchen? von den schwierigkeiten des übersetzens,” in bulletin jugend + literatur, 2 (1996), 13-20. king, richart and jan walls, “introduction: vibrant images of a turbulent decade“, in king, richard, ed., art in turmoil. the chinese cultural revolution 1966-76 (vancouver: ubc press, 2010), 3-24. klingberg, göte,children’s fiction in the hands of the translator in studia psychologica et paedagogica. series altera 28 (lund: cwk gleerup, 1986). kong, shuyu, consuming literature: best sellers and the commercialization of literary production in contemporary china (stanford: stanford up, 2005). kvint, kerstin, astrid worldwide: a selective bibliography 1946–2002 (stockholm: kvints, 2002). lathey, gillian, ed., the translation of children’s literature: a reader (tonawanda, ny: utp, 2006). lerer, seth, children’s literature: a reader’s history, from aesop to harry potter (chicago: the university of chicago press, 2008). lexe, heidi, pippi, pan und potter: zur motivkonstellation in den klassikern der kinderliteratur (kinderund jugendliteraturforschung in österreich, vol. 5) (wien: edition praesens, 2003). li, baimin, shaping the ideal child: children and their primers in late imperial china (hongkong: the chinese university press, 2005). li, biaojing, ertong wenxue yinlun 儿童文学引论 [introduction into children’s literature] (shanghai: shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1991. li xiuzhen, xu shumin, eds., sun wukong kommt auf die welt, die bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, bd. 1 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1984). li, yuanjun, “a growing children’s book publishing industry in china,” in the publishing industry in china, ed. robert baensch (london: transaction publishers, 2003), 85–99. liang, hongye, ed., drei nashorngespenster stiften unruhe, die bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 31 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1987). lin, chenglin, “a study of chinese young adult reading and its market,“ in the publishing industry in china, ed. robert baensch (london: transaction publishing, 2003), 101–112. lin, fuxin, ed., der grüne löwe wird entlarvt, die bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 10 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1987). lin, haiyin, die geheimnisse der yingzi (münchen: carl hanser verlag, 1997). lingelun, a. (林格伦•阿 [lindgren, astrid]), chang wazi pipi maoxian gushi (长袜子皮皮昌险故事 [adventure stories of pippi longstocking]) (taibei: zhiwen chubanshe, 1993). lingelun, asitelide (林格伦•阿斯特丽德 [lindgren, astrid]), chang wazi pipi (长袜子皮皮 [pippi longstocking]) (beijing: zhongguo chaonian ertong chubanshe, 2006). meek, margaret, “the englishness of english children’s books,” in children’s literature and national identity, ed. margaret meek (stoke on trent: trentham books limited, 2001), 89–100. meyer, stephenie, the short second life of bree tanner. an eclipse novella (london: little, brown book group, 2010). mirzoeff, nicholas, the visual culture reader (new york: routledge, 2001) mo xueyi, ed., eine jadehäsin spielt prinzessin, die bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 32 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1987). mucke, sylvia, “in bewährter tradition—fantasy trends 2011,” in eselsohr: fachzeitschrift für kinderund jugendmedien, 3 (2011), 36-37. nienhauser, william h., ed., the indiana companion to traditional chinese literature (bloomington: indiana university press, 1986). nikolajeva, maria, “a misunderstood tragedy: astrid lindgren’s pippi longstocking books,” in beyond babar: the european tradition in children’s literature, eds. sandra l. becket, maria nikolajeva (lanham: the children’s literature association and the scarecrow press, 2006), 49–74. nikolajeva, maria, “what do we translate when we translate children’s literature?” in beyond babar: the european tradition in children’s literature, eds. sandra l. beckett, maria nikolajeva (lanham: the children’s literature association and the scarecrow press, 2006), 277–279. nünning, ansgar, ed., metzler lexikon literaturund kulturtheorie (stuttgart: metzler, 2008). ohlsen, betty, christian bonetto, eds., sweden (london, victoria, oakland: lonely planet publications, 2009). o’sullivan, emer, “does pinocchio have an italian passport? what is specifically national and what is international about classics of children’s literature,” in the translation of children’s literature: a reader, ed. gillian lathey (tonawanda, ny: utp, 2006), 146–162. ortiz, fernando, cuban counterpoint: tobacco and sugar, trans. harriet de onis (duke university press, durham, 1995). oxford university press, ed., a dictionary of business and management (oxford: clarendon press, 2009). qing, ya, ed., streit mit dem gespensterkönig, die bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 20 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1987). rowling, j. k., harry potter and the deathly hallows (london: bloomsbury, 2007). rowling, j. k., the tales of beedle the bard (london: bloomsbury, 2008). sayre, shay, cynthia m. king, entertainment & society: audiences, trends, and impacts (london: sage publications, 2003). schär, helene, “zwischen aufklärung und klischee: bücher über fremde kulturen können bereichern und eine respektvolle begegnung mit ihnen fördern. asienbilder in der deutschsprachigen kinderund jugendliteratur” in julit, 1 (2006), ed. arbeitskreis für jugendliteratur (münchen: arbeitskreis für jugendliteratur, 2006), 3–12. schikorsky, isa, schnellkurs kinderund jugendliteratur (köln: dumont, 2003). schweikart, ralf , “trendthema all-age” in eselsohr: fachzeitschrift für kinderund jugendmedien, 10 (2009), 14–17. scott, dorothea hayward, chinese popular literature and the child (chicago: american library association, 1980). seifert, andreas, bildergeschichten für chinas massen: comic und comicproduktion im 20. jahrhundert (köln, weimar, wien: böhlau, 2008). smith, andrew, “damon albarn has written an opera, in mandarin,” in the sunday times (2007) in http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/opera/article1738687. ece (accessed june 23, 2010). shepard, aaron, the monkey king (washington: skyhook press, 2009). strewe, uta, bücher von heute sind morgen taten–geschichtsdarstellung im kinderund jugendbuch der ddr (frankfurt am main: peter lang, 2007). sun, jinchang, ed., das rechenbankett, die bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 30 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1987). surmatz, astrid, pippi långstrump als paradigma: die deutsche rezeption astrid lindgrens und ihr internationaler kontext (tübingen und basel: a. francke verlag, 2005). tang, cheng, ed.,  aufruhr im himmel, die bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 2 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1986). tang, guangyou, ed., mit zauberei gegen die drei unsterblichen, die bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 12 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1986). toriyama, akira, dragonball: das geheimnis der drachenkugeln (hamburg: carlsen, 2008). verlag friedrich oetinger, ed., astrid lindgren pressemappe (no date), in: http://www.oetinger.de/%20fileadmin/verlagsgruppe-oetinger.de/pdf/autoren/317%206.pdf (accessed oct 5, 2008). verlag friedrich oetinger gmbh, ed., happy birthday, pippi langstrumpf: alles von dem stärksten mädchen der welt: bücher, filme, cds und mehr (hamburg: verlag friedrich oetinger, 2009). wagner, rudolf g., the contemporary chinese historical drama. four studies (berkeley and los angeles: university of california press, 1990). wasserstrom, jeffrey n., china’s brave new world: and other tales for global times (bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university press, 2007). wen, chengde, ed., die spinngewebehöhle, die bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 23 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1986). white, david manning, “the ‘gatekeeper’: a case study in the selection of news,” in people, society and mass communications, eds. lewis a. dexter, david m. white(glencoe: the free press, 1964), 160–172. wu, ch’eng-en, monkey: folk novel of china, trans. arthur waley (london: allan & unwin, 1943). wu, ch’eng-en, monkeys pilgerfahrt: eine chinesische legende, trans. georgette boner and maria nils (zürich: artemis-verlag, 1947).  wu, ch’eng-en, the journey to the west, 4 vols., trans. anthony c. yu (chicago: the university of chicago press, 1977-1983). wu, cheng-en, the journey to the west, retold by christine sun (oxford, uk: real reads, 2012). wu, tingjie, ed., der qijue-berg, die bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 21 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1987). wu, tschöng-ön, die pilgerfahrt nach dem westen, trans. johanna hertzfeldt(rudolstadt: greifenverlag, 1962). xu, shumin, li xiushen, eds., sun wukong wird zum buddhismus bekehrt, bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 3 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1984). xu, shumin, tian hui, eds., der kampf mit dem gespenst, bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 8 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1984). ye, qingzhou, changxiaoshu [畅销书[ bestseller] (beijing: beijing gongye daxue chubanshe, 2005). yu, hong, ertong wenxue 儿童文学 [children’s literature] (beijing: renmin jiaoyu chubanshe, 2004). zhen, huan, ed., wukong verschafft sich den zauberfächer, die bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 18 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1986). zhen, huan, ed., der schwur des königs, die bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 27 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1987). zhen, ping, ed., der neunköpfige dämon wird besiegt, die bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 19 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1987). zi, chen, ed., tang sengs erfolgreiche rückkehr, die bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig, 34 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1987). [1] cf. seth lerer, children’s literature: a reader’s history, from aesop to harry potter (chicago: the university of chicago press, 2008), 7. [2] this paper was first presented at the 2008 “rethinking trends” conference in heidelberg. i would like to thank the following people who provided valuable suggestions for improving the quality of this article: jennifer altehenger, christiane brosius, andrea hacker, lena henningsen, jennifer may, barbara mittler, and the anonymous reviewers of this journal. i would also like to acknowledge the support of jing bartz, former head of the deutsche biz (book information center) beijing, jörg mühle, children’s book illustrator at labor ateliergemeinschaft frankfurt, martina weiss, librarian of klingspor museum for modern international book art, typography and calligraphy (klingspor museum offenbach für international buchund schriftkunst), and project b12 of the cluster (“rethinking trends—transcultural flows in popular spheres”), which provided funding for research trips to the international youth library (internationale jugendbibliothek ijb) in munich and the swedish institute for children’s books (svenska barnboksinstitutet) in stockholm. [3] cf. manuela bialek and karsten weyershausen, eds., das astrid lindgren lexikon: alles über die beliebteste kinderbuchautorin der welt (berlin: schwarzkopf & schwarzkopf, 2004), 484. [4] the article in the berner tageblatt was published in 1949. it is cited in paul berf and astrid surmatz, eds., astrid lindgren: zum donnerdrummel! ein werkporträt (hamburg: verlag friedrich oetinger, 2002), 187. [5] ibid.: 186–187. [6] ibid.: 188. [7] astrid surmatz states that astrid lindgren is sweden’s most popular and most successful writer, with pippi långstrump being her “central work.” cf. astrid surmatz, pippi långstrump als paradigma: die deutsche rezeption astrid lindgrens und ihr internationaler kontext (tübingen und basel: a. francke verlag, 2005), 1. [8] cf. kerstin kvint, astrid worldwide: a selective bibliography 1946–2002 (stockholm: kvints, 2002), 20. [9] the first chinese xiaorenshu were printed in a picture-book format (chin.: lianhuanhua 连环画) with picture sequences–the pictures dominating the page–which made the story easily intelligible even to readers with little or no character knowledge. professional commercialization in chinese cities during the 1920s through special xiaorenshu stalls, where people could borrow or immediately read the books for little money, facilitated the circulation and popularization of certain stories and books. in this way xiaorenshu became a mass medium of entertainment. cf. andreas seifert, bildergeschichten für chinas massen: comic und comicproduktion im 20. jahrhundert (köln, weimar, wien: böhlau, 2008), 47. how many different pippi translations actually exist in the chinese children’s book market could not yet be definitively established. the china children’s press and publication group [zhongguo shaonian ertong xinwen chuban zongshe 中国少年儿童新闻出版总社] has three pippi picture books under licence, namely pippi långstrump (pippi longstocking, chang wazi pipi lai le 长袜子皮皮来了), pippi långstrump i humlegården (pippi longstocking in the park, chang wazi pipi zai gongyuan 长袜子皮皮在公园),and pippi långstrump i söderhavet (pippi in the south seas, chang wazi pipi zai nan hai 长袜子皮皮在南海), in 2009. in one of its recently published image brochures, the group states that the pippi books are “the best gift to all the children in the world” (gei quan shijie xiao pengyou de zui hao liwu 给全世界小朋友最好礼物). cf. china children’s press and publication group, ed., latest copyright titles, (beijing: china children’s press and publication group, 2010). [11] the notion of “classics” might derive from the latin term civis classicus (according to the roman centuriate constitution, a member of the wealthiest class and highest rank), or from scriptus classicus (author of high standing). cf. lexe, zur motivkonstellation in den klassikern der kinderliteratur (kinderund jugendliteraturforschung in österreich, vol. 5, wien: edition praesens, 2003), 14. in literary history the term “classics” originally referred to paradigmatic texts which had been selected by alexandrine philologists as genera lectiorum for the so-called grammarian schools (grammatikerschulen). cf. ernst robert curtius, europäische literatur und lateinisches mittelalter (tübingen: a. francke verlag, 1993), 255. in chinese it is usually translated with jing 经 (also meaning canon or sutra), commonly relating to seminal works from the premodern period. here, i refer to the modern western concept of classics.  [12] dorothea hayward scott, chinese popular literature and the child (chicago: american library association, 1980), 91. [13] the illustrated series of sun wukong stories was published by the verlag für fremdsprachige literatur peking (foreign languages press beijing, beijing waiwen chubanshe 北京外文出版社). it comprises more than 30 titles. the reason for the story’s failure on the german children’s book market might also derive from the absence of a fully integrated distribution network. [14] according to heidi lexe, the absence of parents, the overcoming of hurdles during quests and voyages, nature topics, or the ‘child’s refusal’ (for instance, the refusal to grow up as in peter pan’s case) are (arche)typal tropes which are usually presented in children’s classics. cf. heidi lexe, pippi, pan und potter. [15] the terms “children’s books” and “children’s literature” are occasionally used as synonyms, although children’s books and periodicals “were already successful on the market at a time when it was not possible to talk of an independent children’s literature.” cf. hans-heino ewers, fundamental concepts of children’s literature research: literary and sociological approaches (new york and london: routledge, 2009), 23. the umbrella term “children’s literature” usually describes the whole range of literary production for children, be it poetry, prose, or drama. since its acceptance as a distinct discipline in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the western academic realm, and since the emergence of more and more genres within the growing textual corpus, the study of children’s literature opened the floor for different schools and voices that challenged this common and rather universal definition. in this article i will focus on literature, mainly novels for young readers aged 9 to 14. in china, children’s literature (ertong wenxue 儿童文学) was always and still is connected with the development of chinese society. on a micro-level, children’s literature is thus regarded there as a means to educate its young readers. on a macro-level, children’s literature is supposed to serve as a long-term tool for modernising the country. therefore, chinese children’s literature not only has to meet the demands of many players within the children’s book market, but also the requirements of the state. cf. mary ann farquhar, children’s literature in china: from lu xun to mao zedong, (armonk und london, england: m.e. sharpe, 1999); dorothea hayward scott, chinese popular literature and the child (chicago: american library association, 1980); baimin li, shaping the ideal child: children and their primers in late imperial china (hongkong: the chinese university press, 2005); hong yu, ertong wenxue 儿童文学 [children’s literature] (beijing: renmin jiaoyu chubanshe, 2004); biaojing li, ertong wenxue yinlun 儿童文学引论[introduction into children’s literature] (shanghai: shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1991. [16] cf. qingzhou ye, changxiaoshu (畅销书 [bestsellers] (beijing: beijing gongye daxue chubanshe, 2005), 174. [17] cf. james clifford, “travelling cultures” in cultural studies, eds. lawrence grossberg et al. (london: routledge, 1992), 96–116. in post-colonial theory, hybridity commonly refers to “the creation of new transcultural forms within the contact zone produced by colonization.”  cf. bill ashcroft, gareth griffiths and helen tiffin, eds., post-colonial studies: the key concepts (london: routledge, 2003), 118. [18] cf. homi k. bhaba, “the third space,” interview with jonathan rutherford in identity: community, culture, difference, ed. rutherford, jonathan (london: lawrence & wishart, 1990), 211. [19] cf. clifford, “travelling cultures”, 96–116. [20] cf. wilhelm henrichsmeyer, oskar gans, and ingo evers, eds., einführung in die volkswirtschaftslehre (münchen: utb, 1993), 23. [21] one may conclude that book market trends merely consist of market flows, which means: it does not really matter what is sold as long as it is sold well, with huge marketing budgets and the right marketing strategy underlining the circulation. bestseller lists which are based on book trade figures reflect this assumption inasmuch as the current top selling titles are not necessarily works of great literary quality but books that appeal to the masses or capture the spirit of the times. the children’s book market, however, operates in quite a different mode compared to the market for adult literature, as this article will show. within what hans-heino ewers refers to as the so-called ‘children’s literary action system’ one can detect many different actors such as librarians, book critics and teachers who simultaneously operate in different segments of the system, e.g., in book distribution, evaluation or acquisition and thus serve as gatekeepers in the children’s book market. cf. hans-heino ewers, fundamental concepts of children’s literature research, literary and sociological approaches (new york: routledge, 2009), 57. [22] cf. matthias horx und peter wippermann, eds. was ist trendforschung? (düsseldorf: econ, 1996), 13. [23] cf. malcolm gladwell, the tipping point. how little things can make a big difference (new york: little, brown book group, 2002). see also: jennifer altehenger, laila abu-er-rub, sebastian gehrig, “the transcultural travels of trends—an introductory essay,” in transcultural studies, 2 (2011), 155. [24] trend researchers speak of a megatrend when a trend’s popularity lasts at least 30 years before it reaches its zenith. next to this long-term ability to maintain a trend’s popularity, three more parameters must be met in order to speak of a megatrend: (1) a megatrend is ubiquitous, radiating through all areas of life and impacting on consumption, economy, and people’s living environment, (2) a megatrend is universal, although it might perform differently in different regions or cultures, (3) a megatrend endures and is thus able to overcome and survive lulls. cf. matthias horx, “die macht der megatrends,” (no date) in: http://www.horx.com/%20reden/macht-der-megatrends.aspx(accessed april 1, 2010). [25] cf. lewis a. dexter and david m. white, eds. people, society and mass communications (london: collier 1964), 160–172. [26] in his work modernity at large, arjun appadurai states that consumption is often repetitive or habitual. according to appadurai, consumption patterns are inscribed into people’s bodies like rituals. a nostalgia-driven purchase of particular children’s books can thus be regarded as a habitualized ritual-like act of consumption. cf. arjun appadurai, modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 2005), 67. the example given also correlates with pierre bourdieu’s field theory: according to bourdieu, the literary field is a place where different actors produce, struggle for and give value to cultural goods. in bourdieu’s understanding, cultural goods (e.g. books) are mainly of symbolic value. people, in this case nostalgia-driven parents or a desire-driven collective, bestow the goods with meaning and, by so doing, determine their (symbolic) value. the publishers react to this demand and stimulate the literary production by signing on more authors, requesting similar stories or by acquiring more licenses. a children’s book with a high symbolic value is therefore likely to become a book market trend. cf. pierre bourdieu, the rules of art: genesis and structure oft he literary field, trans. susan emanuel (cambridge, uk: polity press, 1996), 166-173. [27] cf. emer o’sullivan, “does pinocchio have an italian passport? what is specifically national and what is international about classics of children’s literature,” in the translation of children’s literature: a reader, ed. gillian lathey (tonawanda, ny: utp, 2006), 147. [28] ibid., 147. [29] the german carlsen publishing company which acquired the license to publish the german translation of the harry potter book series, officially introduced the new german chicken house programme in september 2009. according to barry cunningham, chicken house publisher and j.k. rowlings discoverer, the harry potter phenomenon convinced him that good literature for children always appeals to a global audience. he states: “i will never forget the day when j.k. rowling was published within blooomsbury’s children’s program and harry potter started conquering the world. since that time i am convinced that good books appeal to all children, no matter where they are from. this is why i also signed cornelia funke. her popularity has proven that the best books are universal.”  (“ich werde nie den tag vergessen, als ich in meinem kinderbuchprogramm j.k. rowling veröffentlicht habe und harry potter die welt eroberte. seitdem bin ich fest davon überzeugt, dass gute bücher überall die gleiche magische anziehungskraft auf kinder ausüben. deshalb habe ich auch cornelia funkes bücher verlegt, und ihre enorme popularität hat erneut bewiesen – die besten bücher sind universell.”). irrespective of the fact that judgments about a book’s quality are highly subjective and debatable, cunningham implicitly and unintentionally tackles questions of a possible (trans-)cultural potential of literature. one could argue that exceptional publishing successes like the harry potter series and its followers can be regarded as transcultural phenomena which are easily popularized throughout the world because they exhibit unified, homogenized ideas and structures. cf. carlsen verlag gmbh, ed., die spur führt zu chicken house (hamburg: carlsen verlag gmbh, 2009), 4. [30] cf. oxford university press, a dictionary of business and management (oxford: clarendon press, 2009), 71–72. [31] ibid. [32] astrid lindgren’s standing as a swedish cultural ambassador is also shown by her presence in travel guides to sweden, which usually dedicate an extra section to the author. cf. gunnar herrmann und alexander budde, eds., merian reiseführer stockholm (münchen: travel house media, 2003), 62–63. the english edition of the lonely planet travel guide to sweden even lists pippi longstocking as one of the “must read books by swedish authors.” apart from travel recommendations concerning astrid lindgren related spots, such as lindgren’s ancestral village, the world of astrid lindgren or the junibacken pleasure grounds, this travel guide also devotes a short chapter exclusively to the author. cf. betty ohlsen and christian bonetto, eds., sweden (london, victoria, oakland: lonely planet publications, 2009), 18. [33] cf. shay sayre and cynthia m. king, entertainment & society: audiences, trends, and impacts (london: sage publications, 2003), 25. [34] the harry potter novels were published in a series of seven consecutive volumes, the first telling the story of 10-year-old harry’s first encounter with the wizarding world. in the course of the novels, harry grows older, just like his intended readership. whereas the harry potter series attracts male and female readers alike, the twilight audience is mainly female. cf. nina daebel, “dem todschicken flirt mit dem schönen bösen“ in bücher. 4 (2009), 32–36. both series are considered “all-age literature” (sometimes also labeled “cross-over literature”), meaning that harry potter and twilight are read not only by children or teenagers, but also by adults. ralf schweikart refers to all-age literature as a “trend-topic” in today’s publishing industry. according to schweikart, all-age titles have the best chances to become bestsellers. he also states that literature for young readers has developed further in the last years, approximating genres and styles of world literature. cf. ralf schweikart, “trendthema all-age” in eselsohr: fachzeitschrift für kinderund jugendmedien, 10 (2009), 14–17. in sweden, however, the twilight series can be found in the same book section as the pippi series, that is, in the shelves for readers of the age range 9 to 12. [35] gryffindor is the name of one of the four houses at the hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, a boarding school for young wizards and witches. harry potter, the main protagonist of rowling’s novels, lives in gryffindor tower throughout the school year. [36] professor albus dumbledore is headmaster of hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry. [37] according to the online shop amazon.com, the twilight collection comprises twenty-nine merchandising items such as action dolls, board games, trading card sets, jigsaw puzzles, jewelry, posters and bedding articles in addition to the various book and dvd editions. close up, a german distributor of memorabilia, maintains a special twilight online fan shop with more than 60 items. see: http://www.twilight-fanshop.de/?aff=99 . the chinese equivalent to amazon.com, dangdang.com, sells various book editions and movie companions for both series, as well as harry potter bookmarks, colouring books, journals, stickers and postcard albums. [38] famous children’s and young adult book authors usually maintain a website through which they inform their readers about the latest publishing news, communicate with their fans, and sometimes even deliver the soundtrack to their novels. with such a complementary media supply and consumption, diving into the twilight world becomes a multi-sensory experience. other new media, such as online social networks, not only serve as a means to create public identities, shape communities or popularize trends and brands. through facebook a fan gets the chance to actually become a friend of stephenie meyer (or better: of all the different existing virtual meyer personas, because more than eight profiles of the famous author can be found on facebook), notwithstanding spatial or temporal differences, let alone other disparities, shifting the reader-author-relationship to a level yet unknown. [39] the power of a brand name in literature is best shown by its ability to revive, set or sustain book market trends. after the harry potter and twilight books appeared and the initial selling frenzy subsided, similar stories about fantastical worlds of young wizards and teenage vampires emerged, and translations of these stories swamped the international market for children’s and juvenile literature. although their prospects of becoming megatrends can not yet be safely forecast, each series has already helped a genre trend to a revival, because their roots can easily be traced back to two classics of world fiction, namely the arthurian legend with its tales about the famous wizard merlin in the case of the harry potter novels, and bram stoker’s dracula in the case of meyer’s twilight saga. even if harry potter and twilight only turn out to be ephemeral phenomena in the history of children’s fiction, they are without dispute connected to classics, and hence also to ‘literary megatrends.’ the term “megatrend” was coined by us-american bestseller author john naisbitt. in 1982 he published megatrends, in which he predicted the prevalence of emerging global trends. in a hierarchical trend system, megatrends are active on several levels: they pervade and alter different forms of civilization, technologies, economics, and value systems. according to horx et al. a megatrend is furthermore characterized by its global quality: although a megatrend might not have attracted the same attention everywhere yet, it will eventually become visible throughout the globe. cf. matthias horx et al. eds., zukunft machen. wie sie von trends zu business-innovationen kommen (frankfurt/main: campus, 2007), 179. [40] cf. stephanie hemelryk donald, little friends: children’s film and media culture in china (lanham: rowman & littlefield, 2005), 103. [41] cf. jeffrey n. wasserstrom, china’s brave new world: and other tales for global times (bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university press, 2007), 7. [42] cf. hemelryk donald, little friends, 11. concerning harry potter, i argue that marketing factors and the fact that his stories are read by a large number of adults contributed to his international success. once the books became a bestseller, people worldwide grew interested in the “potter phenomenon”, eagerly waiting for the seventh volume to be published in order to discover how the battle between good and evil ends. however, the extent to which the translations of the harry potter novels were adapted to the respective cultural contexts requires further exploration. [43] astrid surmatz even speaks of a veritable “astrid lindgren renaissance” in north america. cf. surmatz, pippi långstrump als paradigma, 399. [44] cf. verlag friedrich oetinger gmbh, ed., happy birthday, pippi langstrumpf: alles von dem stärksten mädchen der welt: bücher, filme, cds und mehr (hamburg: verlag friedrich oetinger, 2009). [45] cf. rudolf g. wagner, the contemporary chinese historical drama. four studies (berkeley and los angeles: university of california press, 1990), 139. [46] ibid.: 139. [47] in her article on transcultural fandom, sandra annett discusses the interdependencies of the global media environment with regard to trends for different styles of animation, which circulate between cultures and nations. annett argues that circulation of this kind is a key factor in trends. cf. sandra annett, “imagining transcultural fandom: animation and global media communities,” in transcultural studies, 2 (2011), 164–188. [48] although the chinese epic served as a blueprint for songoku’s adventures, sun wukong’s japanese anime derivative is an autochthonous figure that has little in common with his chinese predecessor. the german carlsen publishing house published the first volume of the manga series in 1997. it introduces the main protagonist songoku, a human-simian hybrid, who owns a dragon ball which is said to have special magic powers. according to a legend, shenlong, a dragon spirit, will appear once all existing dragon balls are collected and put in one place. the dragon spirit will then fulfill any wish made by the last dragon ball keeper. cf. akira toriyama, dragonball: das geheimnis der drachenkugeln (hamburg: carlsen, 2008). here a combination of (western) translation and (asian) presentation is the reason for the dragonball manga series’s success on the german book market. [49] just how advanced the merchandizing of sun wukong’s image has become is shown by the microsoft office xp multilingual pack. here, a monkey king version is introduced as one of its office assistants. [50] annett refers to this constant adjustment of trends to what is emerging as an “ongoing affective experience.”  [51] cf. julia f. andrews and kuiyi shen, “the new chinese woman and lifestyle magazines in the late 1990s,” in popular china –unofficial culture in a globalizing society, ed. perry link, richard p. madsen, paul g. pickowitz (lanham: rowman & littlefield, 2002), 151. [52] cf. nora frisch, “coca-cola—ein chinesischer mythos? über erscheinungsformen und ideologische aussagekraft politischer mythen in kommerzieller fernsehwerbung in china (1989–2009),” phd thesis, heidelberg 2010. [53] “gorillaz” is the name of a conglomerate comprising of musicians, graphic designers, and illustrators which is also known as a pop group that performs its own pop songs in the form of an animated “virtual” band. [54] the reason for albarn’s choice might derive from the fact that a japanese tv adaptation of the journey to the west was aired by the bbc in the late 1970s, which caused a virtual “monkey mania” amongst its viewers and thus became a cult series in the uk. furthermore, different translations of sun wukong’s stories into english can be found on the british and american (children’s) book market: the journey to the west has been published in a penguin foreign classics edition; the beijing foreign language press on the other hand created special adaptations for a young english speaking audience. even today monkey, as sun wukong is known especially amongst the young descendants of chinese ethnic and immigrant populations in the uk and in the us, is introduced to a young, english-speaking audience as one of china’s most amazing tricksters and superheroes, thus placing him right next to superman, batman and other typical dc comics characters. cf. aaron shepard, the monkey king (washington: skyhook press, 2009); cheng-en wu, the journey to the west, retold by christine sun (oxford, uk: real reads, 2012). christine sun and shirley chiang (illustrator) also edited other versions of chinese classic tales, such as the dream of the red chamber, the three kingdoms and the water margin. for all books a detailed addendum is available offering useful background information and ideas how to include these chinese stories into the regular school curricula (for the journey to the west: http://realreads.co.uk/chinese/pdfs/journeytothewest.pdf.  [55] cf. british broadcasting corporation, bbc sport’s olympics monkey (2007), in http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics/monkey/7521287.stm(accessed december 8, 2012). [56] cf. smith, andrew, “damon albarn has written an opera, in mandarin,” in the sunday times (2007) http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/opera/article1738687.ece (accessed june 23, 2010). [57] for more information, please visit http://www.berlinale.de/external/de/filmarchiv/doku_pdf/20126661.pdf [58] in particular albarn’s monkey king opera might not be able to influence the children’s book market because it attracts a different audience segment. [59] cf. helene schär, “zwischen aufklärung und klischee: bücher über fremde kulturen können bereichern und eine respektvolle begegnung mit ihnen fördern. asienbilder in der deutschsprachigen kinderund jugendliteratur”, in julit, 1 (2006), ed. arbeitskreis für jugendliteratur (münchen: arbeitskreis für jugendliteratur, 2006), 3–12. [60] lin hayin’s semi-biographical novel chengnan jiushi 城南旧事 (old stories from chengnan) was first published in 1960 by erya publishing house taibei. the german publishers carl hanser verlag bought the rights for the german market and published lin’s book under the title die geheimnisse der yingzi in 1997. cf. lin, haiyin, die geheimnisse der yingzi (münchen: carl hanser verlag, 1997). [61] chen danyan’s novel yi ge nühai 一个女孩 (a girl), first published by jiangsu publishing in 1993, tells the story of sansan, a chinese girl, and her coming-of-age during the cultural revolution in china. the german translation neun leben won the austrian children’s book award (österreichischer kinderbuchpreis) in 1996 and the unesco prize 1997 for children’s and young adult literature in the service for tolerance (unesco preis 1997 für kinderund jugendliteratur im dienst der toleranz). it was also nominated for the german youth reading award (deutscher jugendbuchpreis). cf. chen, danyan, neun leben (zürich: nagel & kimche, 1995). [62] it is noticeable, however, that the reception of chinese titles in german is not contingent on the works’ place of origin and distribution. according to schär, neither consumers nor producers differentiate between the two types of chinese writers: a chinese story is a chinese story, as long as it was written by a chinese author, notwithstanding the place or language it was originally published in. cf. schär, “zwischen aufklärung und klischee“, 7. among those authors who work and live outside china, chen jianghong is one of the more well-known and successful writers. educated as an illustrator in china and france, he now lives in paris and writes his books in french exclusively. in germany, chen’s books are published by frankfurt based moritz publishing house, a sub-company of the famous beltz-group. chen jianghong’s latest book, an der hand meines großvaters (literally: hand in hand with grandfather, the original french edition is entitled mao et moi) has been nominated for the german youth reading award 2010 (deutscher jugendbuchpreis 2010). cf. arbeitskreis für jugendliteratur e.v., ed., deutscher jugendliteraturpreis: nominierungen 2010 (münchen: arbeitskreis für jugendliteratur e.v.,  2010), 14–15. [63] the biz beijing is a dependence of the frankfurt book fair, providing all kinds of services concerning the promotion, licensing and distribution of german publications on the chinese book market. [64] cf. jing bartz, zusammenarbeit deutscher und chinesischer kinderbuchverlage im lizenzbereich (buchinformations-zentrum peking der frankfurter buchmesse, no date)http://www.buchmesse.de/imperia/celum/documents/kinderbuchmarkt%20in%20china.pdf.(accessed june 23, 2010).  [65] ibid. according to the new children’s books rights guide 2010 a total of 160 licenses were sold for altogether 46 german publications until the date of publication. korea is the country which ranks highest (with 15 licenses acquired), closely followed by france (14 licenses) and the netherlands (13 licenses). the prc is in fourth place with 9 licenses acquired. roc taiwan shares a place with russia, slovenia and sweden (4 licenses each), thailand with belgium, lithuania, norway, portugal and slovakia (3 licenses each) and japan with croatia, italy, latvia, romania, serbia and turkey (2 licenses each). this example shows that asian publishing houses actively participate in the german licensing market, regardless of possible linguistic problems. cf. arbeitsgemeinschaft von jugendbuchverlagen e.v., ed., new children’s books rights guide 2010 from germany, austria & switzerland (frankfurt am main: arbeitsgemeinschaft von jugendbuchverlagen e.v., 2010). the new children’s books rights guide 2010 is a publication by the association of children’s book publishers in germany, austria and switzerland (arbeitsgemeinschaft von jugendbuchverlagen avj) for those publishers interested in acquiring rights of german language children’s books. it lists a range of new releases of different genres which have been selected by avj-members. [66] cf. sandra l. beckett, “introduction”, in beyond babar, ed. sandra l. beckett and maria nikolajeva (lanham: the children’s literature association and the scarecrow press, 2006), vi. the title beyond babar refers to the children’s classic histoire de babar by french children’s book author jean de brunhoff’s, which was first published in the 1930s. [67] cf. jan van collie and walter p. verschueren, “editor’s preface,” in children’s literature in translation: challenges and strategies, eds. jan van collie and walter p. verschueren (manchester, uk: st. jerome publishing, 2006), v. [68] cf. homi k. bhabha, the location of culture (london and new york: routledge, 1994), 228. [69] cf. anuradha dingwaney and carol meier, eds., between languages and cultures: translation and cross-cultural texts (pittsburgh: university of pittsburgh press, 1994), 4. [70] cf. o’sullivan, 148. [71] according to o’sullivan, selma lagerlöf’s nils holgerssons underbare resa genom sverige (wonderful adventures of nils holgersson) and johanna spyri’s heidi novels are exceptions because both books gained international recognition despite their typical swedish and swiss features. ibid.: 154. [72] cf. göte klingberg, "children’s fiction in the hands of the translator" in studia psychologica et paedagogica. series altera 28 (lund: cwk gleerup, 1986), 17, cited after gillian lathey, ed. the translation of children’s literature: a reader (tonawanda, ny: utp, 2006). actually, klingberg followed the suggestion raised by educational expert theodor brüggemann and children’s literature researcher malte dahrendorf, who both advanced the term adaptation first in the mid-1960s. adaptation in its original meaning describes the modification of a literary work to a different genre or medium. ewers prefers the term “accommodation” [akkomodation] for the customization of children’s and young adult literature to their respective audience. cf. hans-heino ewers, literatur für kinder und jugendliche: eine einführung (münchen: utb, 2000), 203–207. as sandra annett demonstrates, the “japanese repacking” of pop culture icons served as a means to facilitate their translation for and communication to a global audience. [73] cf. surmatz, pippi långstrump als paradigma, 154–155. [74] ibid.: 413. [75] ibid.: 266. [76] cf. svenja blume, pippi långstrumps verwandlung zur “dame bien-élevée”—die anpassung eines kinderbuchs an ein fremdes kulturelles system: eine analyse der französischen übersetzung von astrid lindgrens pippi långstrump (1945–48) (hamburg: kovač, 2001); maria nikolajeva, “what do we translate when we translate children’s literature?” in beyond babar: the european tradition in children’s literature, eds. sandra l. beckett and maria nikolajeva (lanham: the children’s literature association and the scarecrow press, 2006), 283; christiane jung, “tea-time oder kaffee und kuchen? von den schwierigkeiten des übersetzens,” in bulletin jugend + literatur, 2 (1996), 14. [77] cf. maria nikolajeva, “a misunderstood tragedy: astrid lindgren’s pippi longstocking books,” in beyond babar: the european tradition in children’s literature, eds. sandra l. becket, maria nikolajeva (lanham: the children’s literature association and the scarecrow press, 2006), 50. [78] ibid.: 50. [79] ibid.: 50. [80] cf. a. lingelun (林格伦•阿 [lindgren, astrid]), chang wazi pipi maoxian gushi (长袜子皮皮昌险故事 [adventure stories of pippi longstocking] (taibei: zhiwen chubanshe, 1993), 15. [81] the young reader’s attention might not, however, be at all distracted by such an annotation. [82] the serialization of sensational fiction used to be a trend in the victorian literary sphere, as huang xuelei exemplifies in her article on left wing cinema in 1930s china, which has also been published in this issue of transcultural studies. in china, serial publication played a dominant role in the distribution of chinese popular fiction at the beginning of the twentieth century, when book-length stories were circulated in the form of newspaper sequels. in today’s children’s publishing, the trend of serializing fantasy fiction has reached a new level, as recent press releases have shown. just in time for the opening of the leipzig book fair and the annual bologna children’s book fair 2011, different german publishing houses announced the release of several prequels to successful fantasy stories. instead of the continuous production of yet another sequel, authors of fantasy fiction for young readers prolong their bestsellers’ fame and economic success by publishing the ultimate ur-story. cf. sylvia mucke, “in bewährter tradition—fantasy trends 2011”, in eselsohr: fachzeitschrift für kinderund jugendmedien, 3 (2011), 36-37. rowling’s and meyer’s latest publications add to this trend: while rowling published a fairy tale collection which was crucial for the course of the story in the seventh and final book of the harry potter series, meyer composed a spin-off novel covering the background story of a minor character that appeared in the third book of the twilight series, eclipse. both books were written after the last book of each series was published. cf. rowling, j.k., the tales of beedle the bard (london: bloomsbury, 2008); meyer, stephenie, the short second life of bree tanner. an eclipse novella (london: little, brown book group, 2010). [83] the available editions are xiuzhen li and shumin xu, eds., sun wukong kommt auf die welt, die bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig 1 (1984); cheng tang ed.,  aufruhr im himmel, 2 (1986); shumin xu and xiushen li, eds., sun wukong wird zum buddhismus bekehrt, 3 (1984); shifeng dai and hui tian, eds., aufruhr auf dem berg heifeng, 4 (1984); shifeng dai and wenhui ma, eds., zhu bajie als bräutigam und schwiegersohn, 5 (1985); yong huo and min cheng, eds., mönch sha am liusha-fluß, 6 (1984); shumin xu and hui tian, eds., der kampf mit dem gespenst, 8 (1984); shuangdong han, ed., die lotosblumenhöhle, 9 (1986);  fuxin lin ed., der grüne löwe wird entlarvt, 10 (1987); guangyou tang, ed., mit zauberei gegen die drei unsterblichen, 12 (1986); yuzhen ding, ed., heftige gefechte am tongtian-fluß, 13 (1986); yuan fang, ed., am zimu-fluß, 15 (1986); mingyou gao, ed., der wahre und der falsche sun wukong, 17 (1986); huan zhen, ed., wukong verschafft sich den zauberfächer, 18 (1986); ping zhen, ed., der neunköpfige dämon wird besiegt, 19 (1987); ya qing, ed., streit mit dem gespensterkönig, 20 (1987); tingjie wu, ed., der qijue-berg, 21 (1987); chengde wen, ed., die spinngewebehöhle, 23 (1986); huan zhen, ed., der schwur des königs, 27 (1987); jinchang sun, ed., das rechenbankett, 30 (1987); hongye liang, ed., drei nashorngespenster stiften unruhe, 31 (1987); xueyi mo, ed., eine jadehäsin spielt prinzessin, 32 (1987); chen zi, ed., tang sengs erfolgreiche rückkehr, 34 (1987). [84] “der bilderbuchreihe vom affenkönig sun wukong liegt der chinesische, klassisch-mythologische roman „die pilgerfahrt nach westen“ zugrunde. hauptthema dieses romans ist, wie der chinesische mönch xuan zang in den jahren 629 bis 645 nach indien fährt, um die heiligen schriften des erhabenen buddhas ausfindig zu machen. zur darstellung dieses themas schrieb der autor wu cheng’en viele seltsame und zauberhafte geschichten, die seit einigen jahrhunderten vom chinesischen volk gerne gelesen werden. besonders der affenkönig, der die charaktereigenschaften der widerstandskraft und standhaftigkeit verkörpert, ist bei den kindern sehr beliebt. er ist in ihren augen zum helden geworden.” (the classical-mythological chinese novel “the journey to the west serves as template for the illustrated book series about sun wukong, the monkey king. the novel’s main topic is chinese monk xuan zang’s journey to india during 629 and 645 in search of the grand buddha’s holy scriptures. to illustrate this theme, chinese author wu cheng’en wrote many strange and enchanting stories which have been embraced by the chinese people throughout the centuries. especially the monkey king, while embodying character traits such as stamina and pertinacity, is very popular among children. in their eyes he [even] became a hero.)  cf. li and xu, eds., sun wukong kommt auf die welt, 1 (1984). [85] cf. nienhauser, william h., ed., the indiana companion to traditional chinese literature (bloomington: indiana university press, 1986), 414. [86] cf. li and xu, eds., sun wukong kommt auf die welt, 1 (1984). [87] the character sun 孙 refers to the species to which sun wukong belongs (chin. husun 猢狲: simian). in anthony c. yu’s translation of the xiyou ji, wukong 悟空 is refered to as “wake-to vacuity.” sun wukong’s name thus represents the buddhist concept of sunyata, emptiness. the german text does not explain the meaning of sun wukong’s name at all. on the contrary, it is rather misleading as the master only states that sun wukong is a suitable name for an ugly and stupid monkey: “du bist so häßlich, siehst aus wie ein dummer affe. also, du kannst sun als familiennamen und wukong als vornamen annehmen, geht das?”.  cf. anthony c. yu, ed., the journey to the west, vol. 1 (chicago and london: the university of chicago press, 1980), 82; li and xu, eds., sun wukong kommt auf die welt, 1 (1984), 28. the english version of the sun wukong stories for children does not introduce the protagonists’ chinese names either. instead, sun wukong is simply named “monkey”, his fellow companion zhu bajie 猪八戒 (“pig of eight abstinences”) is refered to as “pigsy”, monk sha (“sand monk”) or sha wujing 沙悟净, another of monk xuanzang’s disciples, is named “sandy.” all of these characters can be interpreted as allegories: “xuanzang can be seen as a man in search of enlightenment; the horse that carries him, as his will; the monkey, as his heart (and mind); and the pig, as his physical powers and inclinations.” cf. idema, wilt and lloyd haft, eds., a guide to chinese literature (ann arbor: center for  chinese studies, the university of michigan: 1997), 208f. [88] cf. cheng tang ed., aufruhr im himmel, 2 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1986). [89] “yisheng goes to leyin temple, which is situated on lingshan mountain, and talks to the tathagata. when the tathagata already knows everything and tells all the bodhisattvas [sic]: ‘you stay here and continue reading the buddhist scriptures. i will head further east in order to subdue sun wukong.’ he then asks two dignitaries, namely anuo and jiaye, to accompany him.” cf. shumin xu and xiushen li, eds., sun wukong wird zum buddhismus bekehrt, 3 (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1984), 2. [90] cf. gao, yuanqing，xiyou ji 西游记 (taibei: niudun chubanshe, 1990), 4f. [91] ibid., 7; 10; 43; 59. [92] cf. li and xu, eds., sun wukong kommt auf die welt, 1 (1984), 29. [93] cf. shumin xu and hui tian, eds., der kampf mit dem gespenst, 8 (1984). other available editions are wang, xingbei (text), zhao hongben and qian xiaodai (illus.), sun wu-kung besiegt das weisse-knochen-gespenst dreimal (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1974); wang, xingbei (text), zhao hongben and qian xiaodai (illus.), monkey subdues the white-bone demon (peking: foreign language press, 1976). the original version sun wukong dan da baigujing 孙悟空三大白骨精 was published by shanghai renmin meishu press in 1962 and was most likely addressed to a mature audience. it features impressive woodblock prints which are complemented by short but rather elaborate texts. [94] this part is missing in the german childen’s book version. also rudolf g. wagner states that “[t]here is no precedent circle in the relevant chapter of the xiyou ji, but it appears in a different place, in chapter 50, where it is used (unsuccessfully) to protect tang seng [xuanzang] from another demon.” cf. wang et al., sun wu-kung besiegt das weisse-knochen-gespenst dreimal (1974), 7; wagner, the contemporary chinese historical drama (1990), 171. [95] in the german adaptation for children, the demon sometimes is also refered to as “witch.” choosing this term (instead of “demon” or “ghost”) helps german children to easily distinguish right from wrong, or evil from good. the (bad) witch is a common character in puppet plays for kindergarden children. it also appears in many of the grimm brothers’ fairy tales—a set of stories which belongs to the oral tradition of storytelling in germany and which still circulates in german households. cf. xu and hui (1984), 7. [96] op cit.: 9. in the 1974 edition xuanzang is literally shocked that his disciple destroyed a living being’s life and thus violated one of the most important buddhist tenets. [97] for a more detailed analysis please consult wagner, the contemporary chinese historical drama (1990), 139–235. [98] cf. king, richart and jan walls, “introduction: vibrant images of a turbulent decade”, in king, richard, ed., art in turmoil. the chinese cultural revolution 1966-76 (vancouver: ubc press, 2010), 3–24, 16. [99] cf. wagner (1990), 233. [100] ibid. [101] cf. berf and surmatz, astrid lindgren, 181–188. [102] “[t]ransculture [is] the violent collision of an extant culture with a new or different culture.”  cf. mirzoeff, nicholas, the visual culture reader, (new york: routledge, 2001), 477. the term “transculture” was originally coined in the 1940s by fernando ortiz, who revealed three major steps within the (trans)culturation process: (1) deculturation (divesting one’s own indigenous culture), (2) acculturation (adapting cultural features of the host culture or assimilating to it), and finally (3) neo-culturation (creating new cultural elements or features after the adaptation and assimilation process has finished). cf. ortiz, fernando, cuban counterpoint: tobacco and sugar (durham: duke up, 1995). the term transculturation was introduced in opposition to “acculturation” because of its obvious connotation with colonial power relations and its unidirectional view concerning the description and analysis of cultural contacts. cf. nünning, ansgar, ed., metzler lexikon literaturund kulturtheorie (stuttgart: metzler, 2008), 726.  [103] cf. mirzoeff, nicholas, the visual culture reader (new york: routledge, 2001), 477. 2014.2 editor’s note rudolf g. wagner .04 articles bernd schneidmüller fitting medieval europe into the world: patterns of integration, migration, and uniqueness .08 rudolph ng the chinese commission to cuba (1874): reexamining international relations in the nineteenth century from a transcultural perspective .39 benjamin zachariah a voluntary gleichschaltung? perspectives from india towards a non-eurocentric understanding of facism .63 joyce brodsky crossing boundaries: the art of anjali deshmukh and rohini devasher (in collaboration with the artists) .101 nikolas jaspert cultural brokerage: a medieval mediterranean perspective .132 2 contributors transcultural studies, no 2, 2013, issn: 2191-6411 editors: monica juneja, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg rudolf g. wagner, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg managing editor: andrea hacker editorial board: christiane brosius, antje fluechter, madeleine herren, birgit kellner, joachim kurtz, axel michaels, barbara mittler, diamantis panagiotopoulos, vladimir tikhonov, and roland wenzlhuemer. transcultural studies is an open-access e-journal published bi-annually by the cluster of excellence, “asia and europe in a global context: the dynamics of transculturality“ at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. for more information see: www.transculturalstudies.org contributors to this issue: bernd schneidmüller is professor of medieval history at heidelberg university, director of the “marsilius-kolleg. institute for advanced study”, and vice president of the heidelberg academy of sciences and humanities. within the heidelberg cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context” he directs a project on medieval concepts of ordering the world by continents and empires. rudolph ng studied history in st. louis (usa), heidelberg, and madrid. currently, he is pursuing a doctoral degree at st. catharine’s college, cambridge, where his research interests include global history and migration patterns. his research project examines spanish coolie trade in asia in the nineteenth century when the madrid government, its diplomatic outposts, and a few conglomerates contributed to an international network of human trade spanning asia, europe and the americas. the search for primary sources and secondary literature led him to the story of the chinese commission to cuba, a study of which is the subject of the paper in this issue. www.transculturalstudies.org 3transcultural studies 2014.2 benjamin zachariah read history at presidency college, calcutta, and at trinity college, cambridge, where he completed his phd in 1999. he is the author of nehru (routledge, 2004). developing india: an intellectual and social history, c. 1930-1950 (oxford university press, 2005, 2nd edn. 2012), and playing the nation game: the ambiguities of nationalism in india (yoda press, 2011), and co-editor of the internationalist moment: south asia, worlds and world views, 1917-1939 (sage, 2014). his current work is concerned with global movements of ideas in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and in particular with international revolutionary networks and global fascism. joyce brodsky is professor emeritus, university of california, santa cruz ca. she has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals on a variety of topics in contemporary art and art theory. in 2008 she published experiences of passage: the paintings of yun gee and li-lan (university of washington press). her most recent article, “re-orientalism and globalization: transnational artists from india and representations of the ‘other’” will appear in a forthcoming issue of the periodical visual studies (francis and taylor, routledge). nikolas jaspert is professor of medieval history of the institute of history at the centre for the study of european history and culture, ruprecht-karsluniversität, heidelberg. he specializes in iberian history in the middle ages, crusades, history of orders and, german-spanish relations. he is also the president of the société internationale des historiens de la méditerranée since 2013. http://transculturalstudies.org concessions in “the silver age”: exhibiting chinese export silverware in china susan eberhard introduction how do transcultural artifacts support global political agendas in post-socialist chinese museums? in a 2018 state media photograph, a young woman gazes at a glittering silver compote, her fingertips pressed against the glass case.1 from an orthodox chinese nationalist perspective on history, the photo of a visitor at the silver age: a special exhibition of chinese export silver might present a vexing image of cultural consumption.2 “chinese export silver” zhongguo waixiao yinqi 中国外销銀器 is a twentieth-century collector’s term, translated from english, for objects sold by chinese silverware and jewelry shops to euro-american consumers.3 1 xinhua news agency, “zhongguo waixiao yinqi liangxiang shenyang gugong 中国外销银器 亮相沈阳故宫 [china’s export silverware appears in shenyang palace museum],” xinhua news february 6, 2018, accessed november 5, 2019, http://www.xinhuanet.com/photo/201802/06/c_129807025_2.htm (photograph by long lei 龙雷). 2 chinese title: baiyin shidai—zhongguo waixiao yinqi tezhan 白银时代—中国外银銀器特 展. a compote is a fruit stand, or a shallow dish with a stemmed base. the exhibition catalogue describes the object as a “built-up and welded grapevine fruit dish” (duihan putaoteng guopan 堆焊葡萄藤果盤) and in english, “compote with welded grapevine design.” see wang lihua 王立华, baiyin shidai—zhongguo waixiao yinqi tezhan 白银时代———中国外销银器特展 [the silver age: a special exhibition of chinese export silver] (changsha: hunan meishu chubanshe, 2017), 73. unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. the general introduction and section introductions of the exhibition and catalogue were bilingual, while the rest of the texts were only in chinese; i have focused on the chinese-language texts. 3 h. a. crosby forbes, john devereux kernan, and ruth s. wilkins, chinese export silver, 1785 to 1885 (milton, ma: museum of the american china trade, 1975), 4. while many of the silverwares were made for foreign consumption, others were produced for mixed, foreign non-european, or domestic consumption, especially in the early twentieth century. for the domestic consumption of non-official silverware workshops and retailers, see libby chan, “crossing the oceans: origins and redefinition of chinese export silver ware,” in the silver age: origins and trade of chinese export silver, ed. libby lai-pik chan and nina lai-na wan (hong kong: hk maritime museum, 2017), 169–171. for a history and catalogue of modern chinese silver shops, see chen zhigao 陈志高, zhongguo yinlou yu yinqi 中国银楼与银器 [chinese silver shops and silverwares], 5 vols. (beijing: qinghua daxue chubanshe, 2015). http://www.xinhuanet.com/photo/2018-02/06/c_129807025_2.htm http://www.xinhuanet.com/photo/2018-02/06/c_129807025_2.htm 127the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) to appeal to a clientele of foreign sojourners, many examples combine western object forms with chinese designs and construction techniques. the craft silversmithing industry developed robustly in the chinese treaty ports that were created after the first sino–british opium war ended in 1842. the commercial treaties resulting from the war allowed foreign residents to settle in chinese port cities and claim extraterritorial privileges. the so-called unequal treaties and their effects have been censured in partystate readings of modern history. they are viewed as the start of a “century of humiliation,” a period associated with foreign incursions on chinese sovereignty, which ended with the founding of the people’s republic of china (prc) in 1949.4 as silverwares like the compote are relics of intercultural tensions in the ports, they are unlikely candidates for exhibition as examples of chinese fine craft. yet through a series of translations and historical displacements, the organizers of the touring exhibition the silver age have deftly repositioned them as craft masterworks.5 the silver age was organized by, and first exhibited at, the changsha museum in hunan province in early 2016. it is projected to tour until 2022. each of the exhibition venues to date was a firstor second-tier state museum.6 in line with state cultural policy, these museums are venues where official narratives are buttressed by the use of historical artifacts as “evidence.” the objects in the exhibition, which number about one hundred objects and sets of objects, were borrowed from private chinese collections. in other words, art dealers and auction houses have effectively “re-exported” significant quantities of silverwares initially sold to foreigners during the late qing dynasty and early republican period to collectors in mainland 4 pär kristoffer cassel, grounds of judgment: extraterritoriality and imperial power in nineteenth-century china and japan (new york: oxford university press, 2012), 4–5; paul cohen, “remembering and forgetting national humiliation in twentieth-century china,” in china unbound: evolving perspectives on the chinese past (london: routledgecurzon, 2003), 167. 5 chinese museums association 中国博物馆协会, “changsha bowuguan ‘baiyin shidai — zhongguo waixiao yinqi tezhan’ xunzhan jihua 长沙博物馆 ‘白银时代——中国外销银器特展’ 巡展计划 [changsha museum “silver age—special exhibition of chinese export silverwares” traveling exhibition plan],” chinese museums association website, accessed november 14, 2019, http://www.chinamuseum.org.cn/a/zixun/gedizixun/2017/0629/10359.html. 6 in addition to the changsha museum, the venues have to date of publishing included the shenyang imperial palace museum, the xi’an museum, the yaozhou kiln museum, the datong city museum, and the china museum of fujian-taiwan kinship. 128 concessions in “the silver age” china.7 the objects have evidently been embraced by public audiences; in the first six months that the mainland silver age was on view in changsha, over 500,000 people came to see the show.8 this paper explores the strategies through which curators, museum officials, and state cultural media reporters presented counterintuitive examples of chinese craft heritage as historical precedents for evolving state foreign-policy agendas.9 scholars have tracked how exhibitions of material objects have been deployed by the cultural arms of the chinese communist party (ccp) to support changing and sometimes contradictory domestic politics. the contribution of the present study is to track an instance in which the state cultural heritage industry has worked, if indirectly, to support the ccp’s ambitious overseas development program, the belt and road initiative (bri). taking the museum industry as context and the silver age as a case study, i analyze how silverwares made for a western clientele were reframed through exhibition displays and media reports. in understanding chinese export silverwares as “transcultural” artifacts that are also subject to ongoing translation through exhibition strategies, i draw on finbarr barry flood’s method of studying material culture through dynamic temporal and spatial processes of exchange. he has focused on both “the relationship between strategies of translation associated with the circulation of objects and processes of transculturation” as ongoing and multidirectional.10 further, craig clunas has written that “connected histories” in asia are remembered both through the “material persistence” of objects that 7 hu baofang 胡宝芳, “guo zhi chong’er: yinqi 国之宠儿: 银器 [country’s darling: silverware],” jiancha fengyun 检查风云 8 (2015): 82–83. art dealers in london and hong kong have anecdotally observed a market shift over the last twenty years; currently, chinese export silverwares sell better on the antiques market than english silver, carlos prata, interview with author, february 2, 2018; chiara scotto pasanisi de foscarini, interview with author, january 1, 2019. as evidence for growing interest in chinese export silverware as an area of collecting, christie’s auction house has published a guide to collecting chinese export silverwares online in english to accompany an online sale dated august 15–22, 2019, jill waddell, “chinese export silver—a guide for new collectors,” christie’s asian art, august 6, 2019, accessed november 5, 2019, https://www.christies.com/features/collectingguide-chinese-export-silver-10018-1.aspx. 8 chinese museums association, “changsha bowuguan ‘baiyin shidai.’” 9 guolong lai has written that “cultural heritage” or wenhua yichan 文化遗产 was a neologism imported to chinese from english in the 1980s, but the concept of a “national cultural heritage” has been debated from the beginning of the modern chinese state. see “the emergence of ‘cultural heritage’ in modern china: a historical and legal perspective,” in reconsidering cultural heritage in east asia, ed. akira matsuda and luisa elena mengoni (london: ubiquity press, 2016), 48–50. 10 flood uses a more current notion of the term “transculturation,” initially proposed by anthropologist fernando ortiz, which accounts for multidirectionality of exchange as opposed to a single vector of influence. see finbarr b. flood, objects of translation: material culture and medieval “hindu-muslim” encounter (princeton: princeton universe press, 2009), 9. 129the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) were the result of cultural exchange, as well as the ways in which histories of exchange are remembered and inflected “in the speech and imagination” of people that encounter the object.11 bringing together the two analytical strands, my study centers on the specific ways in which chinese state museums and the museum media have guided the public reception of complex and even problematic transcultural objects. i examine three levels of object reframing through translation employed by exhibition organizers. my analysis is driven by a set of terms that appear in the exhibition gallery text, its catalogue, and in media reports. the texts articulate the exhibition’s stakes within political discourse. i begin with an examination of how the objects were presented in the exhibition as fine craft, and further, how they were interpreted through the formula of “western-style object forms as the base, with chinese patterns as supplementary.”12 as exemplary objects created by new market demands in the treaty ports, their production offered evidence of chinese entrepreneurship, ingenuity, and cultural cosmopolitanism. next, i track how the organizers selected the translated term “chinese export silverwares” as a way of naming and understanding the exhibited objects. in doing so, they privileged a foreign history of reception through collecting, and circumvented their foreign patronage. lastly, i consider how the objects were placed within state historical-ideological constructs, namely, the “silver age” and the “maritime silk road.” by purposefully selecting one of the constructs over the other, but invoking both through the objects’ materiality and history, the silver age aimed to reconcile competing messages about the identity and objectives of the state in a global space. in analyzing the exhibition’s strategies, i argue that the emergence of chinese export silverwares as a subject of collecting and display has provided the grounds for a political re-envisioning of the “century of humiliation.” i contend that such cultural work is critical for the state, as it internally renegotiates the domestic chinese relationship with the prc’s ascendant global status. the variable reception of treaty-port material culture, from artifacts of foreign incursion to examples of fine chinese craft, has relied on the agility of state institutions. they are powerful mechanisms for connecting the chinese public with forms of state-historical knowledge through objects, as well as responsive platforms for conveying policy changes. before examining three levels of object translation used by exhibition organizers in the silver age, i will contextualize the exhibition within the development of the museum industry that has followed chinese economic liberalization in 1978. as the silver age has traveled exclusively to governmental museums, 11 craig clunas, “connected material histories: a response,” modern asian studies 50, no. 1 (2016): 74. 12 in chinese: xishi qixing wei zhu, zhongshi wenshi wei fu 西式器形为主，中式纹饰为辅. 130 concessions in “the silver age” it is necessary to understand the role of the chinese cultural heritage industry in contemporary politics, and the visitor-centric objectives of the industry’s planned development. moreover, i will address how treaty-port history has been interpreted by museums and other cultural sites to support orthodox ideological narratives. the developments have provided the conditions for the silver age to participate in efforts to consolidate a global historical imaginary for the chinese state. the silver age in context: museums and memories of the treaty port era starting in the 1980s, cultural policies issued by the ccp’s central committee have identified state museums and other cultural heritage sites as bases of patriotic education and socialist activity.13 the subsequent array of initiatives, including museum-building quotas, has resulted in the rapid proliferation, upscaling, and re-building of museums nationwide.14 from 2008 to 2013, an average of 239 new official museums were registered with the cultural heritage administration each year; growth has continued apace, and in 2018, the organization reported an addition of 218 museums from the previous year.15 the changsha city museum in hunan province, which organized the silver age under the leadership of curator lihua wang, is one of the new museums built in the last several years. the municipal museum of history and culture was completed in 2015 as part of a culture and entertainment development on the bank of the xiang river. opening in 2016, the silver age was the first special exhibition installed in the museum. scholars have characterized the rapid growth of the cultural heritage industry as a “museum 13 for a history of cultural policy and the development of museums in china, see chen zhuo 陈卓, “zhongguo bowuguan shiye de fazhan yu xianzhuang fenxi 中国博物馆事业的发展与现状分 析 [chinese museum institutional development and analysis of the present situation],” wenbo xuekan 文博学刊 1 (2019), 61–63. for the 2018 attendance statistics, see zhang chong 张冲, “2018 nian woguo xinzeng yiyi duo renci ‘daka’ bowuguan 2018年我国新增1亿多人次‘打卡’博物馆 [in 2018 an additional one hundred million people visited museums by ‘punching cards’],” national cultural heritage administration website, may 18, 2019, accessed november 10, 2019, http://www.sach.gov. cn/art/2019/5/18/art_1027_155112.html. 14 chen, “zhongguo bowuguan shiye de fazhan,” 62. 15 private minjian museums are not included in the official statistics. see kirk a. denton, “can private museums offer space for alternate history? the red era series at the jianchuan museum cluster,” in popular memories of the mao era: from critical debate to reassessing history, ed. sebastian veg (hong kong: hong kong university press, 2019), 80. for 2018 statistics, see zhang chong 张冲, “guojia wenwu ju: jiezhi 2018 niandi quanguo bowuguan shulian yi da 5354 jia 国家文物局： 截止2018年底全国博物馆数量已达5354家 [national cultural heritage administration: by the end of 2018, the number of museums in the entire country already has reached 5,354],” national cultural heritage administration website, may 18, 2018, accessed november 10, 2019, http://www.sach.gov.cn/art/2019/5/18/art_1027_155110.html. 131the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) boom.” studies have focused on museum-centered urbanization as a factor in real estate development, and moreover, museums as statements of soft power and cultural diplomacy. they have argued that the spectacle of a museum building, as opposed to its contents, has operated as a means of promoting the cultural standing of cities.16 yet from a chinese governmental view, domestic audience participation—in the form of attendance levels, accessibility, amenities, and rising exhibition quantity and standards—is just as significant as new construction. visitor attendance is emphasized in state statistics because museums are important sites for learning political doctrine and current political-cultural narratives. in 2018, officials announced that the total number of recorded museum visits that year was a record-setting 1.126 billion, an increase of 100 million from the previous year.17 in part, museum attendance is encouraged by a 2008 policy that makes state-run museums and revolutionary commemorative halls free, with the exception of historical architectural sites. according to official statistics, 88.6 percent of registered museums and other cultural institutions offered free admission in 2018.18 not only the impetus for urbanization and real estate development, cultural policy has also brought more visitors into the doors of new and recently refreshed chinese museums. in china, museums have encouraged domestic visitors to view the past through the lens of citizenship.19 eilean hooper-greenhill has identified the 16 winnie wong, “china’s museum boom,” artforum (november 2005): 123. “museum boom” appears to be a term specific to english-language scholarship and does not seem to have been translated into chinese discussions of the infrastructural growth of museum and cultural institutions; rather, museum-related “booms” characterized in chinese-language media reports have described the number of domestic tourists that visit museums and other cultural sites, particularly during chinese new year, or in the rise of museum products sold through online retailers. see he jianwei 何建为, “daka renshu jizhen, wenchuan chuangpin cheng wanghong: bowuguan fuzeren gai ruhe yingdui 打卡人数激增、文创产品成网红：博物馆负责人该如何应对 [‘punch-in’ numbers of people have shot up, cultural products are hot online: how should museum leaders respond?],” xingjingbao 新京報, september 26, 2019, accessed november 18, 2019, http://www.bjnews.com.cn/ent/2019/09/26/629842. html; an laishun, “cranking up the soft power engine of chinese museums,” in cities, museums and soft power, ed. gail dexter lord and ngaire blankenberg (washington, dc: aam press, 2015), 147. 17 zhang chong, “2018 nian woguo xinzeng 1yiduo renci ‘daka’ bowuguan.” 18 admission is free with the presentation of a national id card for prc citizens, or a passport for foreigners. on the 2008 policy, see huang mingyu 黃明玉, “zhongguo bowuguan de tizhi yu fazhan xiankuang 中国博物馆的体制与发展现况 [chinese museum system and the current development situation],” bowuguan xuekan 博物馆学刊 22 (1997), 231; on 2018 statistics see zhang chong, “2018 nian woguo xinzeng 1yiduo renci ‘daka’ bowuguan.” 19 kirk a. denton, exhibiting the past: historical memory and the politics of museums in postsocialist china (honolulu: university of hawai‘i press, 2014), 12; tracey lie dan lu, museums in china: power, politics and identities (abingdon: routledge, 2014), 186. http://www.bjnews.com.cn/ent/2019/09/26/629842.html http://www.bjnews.com.cn/ent/2019/09/26/629842.html 132 concessions in “the silver age” common factor of the contemporary museum, in its range of manifestations worldwide, as a place where knowledge is the commodity on offer for visitors.20 more specifically, from the founding of the modern state in 1949 to the present, denise y. ho has written that the chinese museum has been a space where political narratives could be signaled and studied. mao era museums and exhibits were political tools for mass education and mobilization, playing a key role in party-state legitimization.21 moreover, due to the flexibility of exhibition spaces, exhibition texts could be and were revised; as ho put it, an exhibition’s text operated as “a barometer for political winds.”22 more recently, post-socialist cultural policy has drawn on this understanding of the museum as “political classroom.”23 a visual means of documenting cultural policies at work, state media reports of exhibitions often feature images of anonymous visitors, like the woman in the exhibition photograph from the the shenyang imperial palace museum (also known as the mukden palace) installation of the silver age; she is a model participant in the post-socialist wave of museum development. visitors seen in media images constitute an active and participatory viewership, engaged in studying encased objects and taking pictures on cellphones. not just leisure experience, museum visits are also a type of collective social labor in ongoing political education efforts.24 the state media photograph of the shenyang visitor raises the question of what historical lesson might be learned from the object in the case, a luxury good made for the euro-american market during the treaty port era. within chinese state museums, material objects are positioned as “evidence” for state agendas.25 they often serve the purpose of creating historical 20 eilean hooper-greenhill, museums and the shaping of knowledge (london: routledge, 1992), 2. 21 denise y. ho, “museum,” in afterlives of chinese communism: political concepts from mao to xi, ed. christian sorace, ivan franceschini, and nicholas loubere (acton: anu press, 2019), 141. specifically, post-reform cultural policy has mandated that museums and memorial halls operate as “patriotic theory education bases,” and as a “part of the composition of socialist cultural activity.” see chen, “chinese museum institutional development,” 62. 22 ho, “museum,” 143. 23 ho, “museum,” 141. 24 yuan guangkuo 苑广阔, “bowuguan cheng daka mudi juyou duzhong xinshi yiyi 博物館成 打卡目的具有多重现实意义 [significance of museums becoming ‘punching-in’ destinations],” sina.com.cn, january 18, 2018, accessed november 21, 2019, http://collection.sina.com.cn/jczs/201801-18/doc-ifyquptv7577751.shtml. 25 denise y. ho, curating revolution: politics on display in mao’s china (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2018), 148. scholars have also gauged the possibility for alternative readings of sensitive histories, such as the cultural revolution in private (minjian 民间) museums. private museums are not closely regulated by the government, and moreover have been encouraged as a form of impetus to cultural and real estate development. see denton, “can private museums offer space for alternate history?,” 80. 133the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) continuity between the past and present. in speeches and published reports, president xi jinping has emphasized how newly revitalized museums are places where the historical record can be “repaired.” in paraphrase, he said that museums make objects speak and impart their historical wisdom to visitors.26 the shenyang visitor is shown viewing a silver compote, or fruit dish on a high stand. in the xi’an installation of the silver age, the compote was placed in a wall case under a detail photograph (fig. 1). its pastoral fantasy, in the grape leaves and swallows springing from the stand, belies its provenance in the martial community of the international concessions in the treaty port of shanghai. according to an inscription engraved on the top of the base, it was given to senior officer armin haupt in 1894 as a gift from the german company of the shanghai volunteer corps.27 based on the inscription, the haupt compote was deeply entangled with the history of foreign extraterritorial privileges at shanghai. as i discuss in the next section, the silver age almost entirely set aside such connections in favor of a framing of the silverwares primarily through craft. in the remainder of this section, i will situate the compote in the treaty-port context that accounts for its provenance as well as the industry that produced it. i will also consider the scholarship on how chinese museums and cultural sites have interpreted modern histories of foreign imperialism. approaches have ranged from presenting orthodox nationalist perspectives to more recent interpretations that align treaty-port markets with present-day economic aims. under the system known as wukou tongshang 五口通商 “five-port trade relations,” the first commercial treaty in 1842 established five treaty port cities: guangzhou, ningbo, xiamen, shanghai, and fuzhou. additionally, hong kong was leased to the united kingdom as a colony. at the height of the treaty port system, there were ninety-two official treaty ports and additional leased territories. prior to the signing of the commercial treaties, a chinese port-based silverwares industry developed in guangzhou under the patronage of both foreigners and local chinese elite clients. unlike the silverwares handicraft industry in colonial british india, which was started by british retailers who employed british and indian craftsmen, the chinese export silverwares industry was run and staffed entirely by chinese shop owners 26 paraphrased from the statement, “他强调，要在展览的同时高度重视修史修志，让文物说 话、把历史智慧告诉人们,” zhang minyan 张敏彦, “tuwen gushi: bowuguan heyi zhongyao? xi jinping ‘daka’ gaosu ni 图文故事：博古管何以重要？习近平‘打卡’告诉你 [illustrated story: why are museums important? xi jinping ‘punches in’ to tell you],” xinhua news, may 18, 2018, accessed november 21, 2019, http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/xxjxs/2018-05/18/c_1122850154.htm. 27 wang, baiyin shidai, 73. original german inscription on base, in script: “die deutsche compagnie, s.v.c., ihrem ausscheidenden compagniechef, herrn lieutenant haupt. shanghai, im dezember 1894.” 134 concessions in “the silver age” and silversmiths.28 many guangdong-based yuebang 粤帮, branch businesses with familial or other native-place commercial connections with cantonese firms, were among the first new silverware retailers in the treaty ports selling to expatriate clients. chief among them was luen wo, the shop where the compote was purchased.29 while the treaty ports opened up new markets for chinese craft industries, pär cassel has written that nearly any point of contact between foreigners and chinese “could be ‘extraterritorialized’” to the foreigners’ benefit.30 28 vidya dehejia, dipti khera, yuthika sharma, and wynyard r. t. wilkinson, delight in design: indian silver for the raj (ahmedabad: mapin publishing in association with timeless books, 2008). 29 on luen wo 联和, see chen zhigao, zhongguo yinlou yu yinqi, 5:100. the compote can be linked to the luen wo retailer from a mark struck on its base. for chinese sojourners arriving in shanghai after it was opened to international settlement, many of whom migrated from guangdong and fujian provinces, see linda cooke johnson, shanghai: from market town to treaty port, 1074–1858 (stanford: stanford university press, 1995), 268–269. 30 cassel, grounds of judgement, 5. fig. 1: haupt silver compote wall case, xi’an museum installation. photograph by author, 2019. 135the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) foreigners in the ports claimed increased privileges through the treaty protections. over time, they sought near-immunity from local laws, along with the cover of gunboats, imported military technologies, and their own police and militia forces.31 one such defense organization was the shanghai volunteer corps, a standing militia made up of foreign residents administered by the shanghai municipal council. the corps responded to threats inside the foreign settlement, such as protests, or outside the settlement, such as civil unrest or rebellion. as isabella jackson has written, all perceived threats were chinese in origin.32 the compote was given to haupt, a senior corps officer and agent for the german import/export firm melchers & co., likely upon his 1894 return to europe.33 when he returned to china in 1897, he expanded melchers & co. to tianjin.34 when understood from the perspective of its provenance, the compote is an artifact of foreign economic expansion and martial self-sovereignty on the chinese mainland. museums and cultural sites have been key participants in keeping the memory of past foreign oppression vivid. seen exclusively from this angle, the production history of chinese export silverwares would seemingly render them antithetical to museum exhibition, especially as authentic fine craft objects. since the 1990s, ccp rhetoric has aimed to solidify foreign aggression and settlement during the late qing period into a cornerstone of chinese national identity. in the aftermath of the 1989 tiananmen suppression, the ccp took the occasion of the 150th anniversary of sino–british conflict in 1990 to raise nationalist sentiment and promote party legitimacy, reinvigorating official narratives through patriotic education and other media.35 as julia lovell has generalized from the account of one of the ccp commemorative studies of the period, “china’s modern history was the story of the chinese people suffering from, then resisting, (western) imperialist aggression, beginning with the ‘shameless’ 31 cassel, grounds of judgement, 4–5. 32 jackson, shaping modern shanghai, 114. 33 a history and description of activities and figures of the svc are recounted in arnold wright, twentieth century impressions of hong-kong, shanghai, and other treaty ports of china: their history, people, commerce, industries, and resources (london: lloyd’s greater britain publishing company, 1908), 413–428. haupt formally requested a leave of absence from the svc in 1894 to return to europe for several years. see “meetings: the municipal council,” the north-china herald and supreme court & consular gazette, december 21, 1894. haupt is listed in the shanghai directory, see the chronicle & directory for china, corea, japan, the philippines, into-china, straits settlements, siam, borneo, malay states, &c. for the year 1894 (hong kong: daily press office, 1894), 565. 34 wright, twentieth century impressions, 742. 35 zheng wang, never forget national humiliation: historical memory in chinese politics and historical relations (new york: columbia university press, 2012), 101–102. 136 concessions in “the silver age” and ‘filthy’ opium war, a concerted plot to ‘enslave our people, steal our wealth and turn a great nation that had been independent for thousands of years into a semi-feudal semi-colony’.”36 a range of cultural institutions dedicated to commemorating different episodes of national humiliation have attempted to keep such historical atrocities alive in the people’s collective imagination. the opium war museum in humen was built on the site where the treaty of nanjing was signed, ending the first sino–british war. in the party’s retelling, the treaty set the stage for years of foreign invasion and oppression. the museum commemorates the ultimately futile actions the official lin zexu took to destroy opium stocks, as well as the place where admiral guan took his last stand.37 newly organized and rebuilt museums reproduce the horrors of japanese war and colonialism, such as the september 18th historical museum in shenyang, the museum of the war of chinese people’s resistance against japanese aggression in beijing, and the unit 731 museum in harbin. according to the director of the beijing japanese aggression museum li zhongyuan, when reopened in 2015, the museum displayed twice the number of photos, and almost triple the amount of relics than before, totaling 1,170 photos and 2,834 objects. in this case, the staggering development of the museum industry has been accompanied by the proliferation of sentiment through the object-based memory of foreign intervention.38 recent installations at museums and cultural sites have begun to negotiate the tension between maintaining the class-based critique of imperialism and supporting new market-based priorities in the postsocialist era. as described by kirk a. denton, the “foreign city” hall in the shanghai history museum primarily conveyed a sense of nostalgia for shanghai’s republican period. it was not bristling with revolutionary umbrage about elite consumption. gunboats at the beginning of the exhibit soon gave way to installations that recalled “the glamorous life of the foreigners,” their lavish spaces of entertainment, and their imported consumer culture.39 additional recent scholarship about shifts in state historical narratives has focused on sites of architectural and cultural 36 julia lovell, the opium war: drugs, dreams, and the making of china (london: picador, 2011), 343. 37 james flath, “‘this is how the chinese people began their struggle’: humen and the opium war as a site of memory,” places of memory in modern china, ed. marc andre matten (leiden: brill, 2012), 167. 38 xu jing, “reopened anti-japanese war museum attracts chinese visitors,” china daily, august 31, 2015, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/culture/2015-08/31/content_21758698.htm. 39 denton, exhibiting the past, 88–90. 137the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) heritage tourism in the context of china’s economic and urban development. most pertinently, hong zhang has evaluated the recuperation of the former italian concession in tianjin as a means of enhancing domestic tourism. zhang has argued that the site was previously associated with foreign threats to chinese sovereignty. after its renovation into a tourist attraction, local officials and writers have downplayed the current-day resonance of the past imperialistic connections of the concession. they argued that even though “the buildings served foreign imperialists in the past, they now serve the chinese people.”40 the global economic dominance of china has justified the selective de-emphasizing of foreign aggression within sites of past humiliation. former foreign enclaves in treaty ports cities such as tianjin, shanghai, qingdao, and xiamen are all popular domestic tourist destinations.41 with the post-socialist rise of china in the global economic milieu, ccp policy agendas are constantly in flux, as are, more subtly, official constructions of the past.42 as geremie barmé has observed, each ccp policy change is inevitably accompanied by the “rehabilitation, re-evaluation, and revision” of official historical perspectives.43 denton and zhang have shown how local re-articulations of historically contentious relics, consumer spaces, and heritage sites helped justify the new chinese market economy and bolster cultural tourism. in the next section, i will track how the chinese museum industry has imparted sophisticated “history lessons” through specific translations and positionings of ambivalent objects, such as the haupt compote and other examples of chinese export silverware. while history is doctrine, its construction must also be multivalent in the museum, readily shifting to support the aims of the party and convey new positions to visitors. the chinese export silverwares on view in the silver age touring exhibition collectively inhabited the contradiction of their production history within 40 hong zhang, “from a symbol of imperialistic penetration to a site of cultural heritage: the ‘italian-style exotic district’ in tianjin,” in chinese heritage in the making, ed. christina maags and marina svensson (amsterdam: amsterdam university press, 2018), 87. 41 another cultural site is of debatable status from a nationalist perspective: suzette cooke has examined the contradictions in the resuscitation of the qinghai official residence of nationalist general and sino-muslim warlord ma bufang as a domestic tourist site. she asked how the story and space of a non-han and non-communist center of power in china’s ethnically and politically fraught northwest can operate as a legitimate site of chinese culture heritage. see suzette cooke, “telling stories in a borderland: the evolving life of ma bufang’s official residence,” in chinese heritage in the making: experiences, negotiations and contestations, ed. christina maags and marina svensson (amsterdam: amsterdam university press, 2018), 43–44. 42 denton, exhibiting the past, 9. 43 geremie barmé, “history for the masses,” in using the past to serve the present: historiography and politics in contemporary china, ed. jonathan unger (armonk: m.e. sharpe, 1993), 260. 138 concessions in “the silver age” ccp ideological narratives: namely, their status as, first, contentious goods produced expressly for members of the foreign settlements, and second, the material evidence of craft achievement and economic success of an agile chinese industry. object display: “western-style object forms as the base, with chinese patterns as supplementary” like tianjin’s italian concession in the abovementioned analysis of hong zhang, the reevaluation of treaty-port material culture as fine craft are the stakes through which “western influence” can be incorporated as an element of chinese cultural heritage. in the case of the silver age, organizers translated the objects for chinese museum audiences by emphasizing their design characteristics and history of craftsmanship. specifically, the formula of “western-style object forms as the base, with chinese patterns as supplementary,” or xishi qixing wei zhu, zhongshi wenshi wei fu 西式器形为主，中式纹饰为辅, is repeated throughout the exhibition and related media accounts.44 in this section, i will analyze the exhibition layout and accompanying texts, to consider how exhibition organizers displayed and framed transcultural objects in post-socialist museums. through strategies of display, the exhibition argued that under western patronage in the treaty ports, chinese silversmithing achieved a new height of virtuosic craft skill and creative design. the challenge was how to reconcile presenting the silverwares as high craft alongside previous understandings of the role played by foreigners at the end of the last imperial dynasty. comparison with a concurrent and identically named exhibition at the hong kong maritime museum of chinese export silverwares will bring decisions made by curators and museum officials based on intended audience into focus. crane and pine, chrysanthemums in blossom, twisted filigree wires: magnified details of patterns and techniques from silverwares in the show greeted visitors to the xi’an museum installation of the silver age (fig. 2).45 objects placed in the introductory gallery were few. two standalone cases, each safeguarding a single vase under a soaring glass canopy, offered a spot-lit preamble for the rest of the exhibition. the first gallery 44 wang, baiyin shidai, 11. on chinese connoisseurship in the ming-qing period, see jonathan hay, sensuous surfaces: the decorative object in early modern china (london: reaktion books, 2010) and craig clunas, superfluous things: material culture and social status in early modern china (honolulu: university of hawaiʻi press, 2004). 45 i conducted fieldwork at the shenyang and xi’an venues of the exhibition; for understanding the first installation at changsha, i relied on photographs, media reports, personal blogs, and the exhibition catalogue. while the content of the exhibition was slightly modified between shows, for the purposes of my analysis i will treat the exhibition as a single assemblage of displays, with an emphasis on its specific arrangements at the xi’an museum in november 2019. 139the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) asserted a stylistic understanding of objects over the historical. the framed panels of free-floating ornament silhouetted against deep purple walls, and the outlines of delicate filigree wire, linked objects on display foremost to the history of chinese fine craft and material culture. yet they encouraged visitors to view design and craft technique as unmoored from a particular historical context. when seen from a distance, glass-enshrined silver vases were rendered into silhouettes of classical chinese “guanyin” vase forms. while visitors would be prompted to note the western forms of objects in subsequent galleries, the introductory gallery positioned them exclusively within the realm of a generalized chinese craft aesthetic. the introductory gallery’s de-historicizing display techniques were accompanied by a lengthy narrative wall-text in both chinese and english, which provided an historical interpretation of the objects for visitors. importantly, their context of production in the treaty ports was not erased. most of the exhibition texts and their re-articulations in chinese state media emphasized craft: forms, motifs, and metalworking techniques. the effect was an attempt to re-articulate the production history of the wares. the treaty ports were not ignored, but rather, they were stripped of their imperialistic threat and any subsequent psychological wounds. by translating the objects within the space of the gallery, exhibition organizers fig. 2: the silver age introductory gallery, xi’an museum installation. photograph by author, 2019. 140 concessions in “the silver age” promoted the entrepreneurial combination of western and chinese design and their consumption within a market economy. craft and ingenuity were promoted over any pernicious valences of their treaty-port origins. the introductory text informed visitors that the essential point to understand about the silverwares was that they were made for buyers or for export to western (xifang 西方) countries during the late qing and early republican periods. the government’s overseas trade policy had an intimate relationship with the development of the silverware industry. from the late eighteenth century to the 1840s, during which time all foreign maritime trade was confined by law to guangzhou’s “single-port system,” the majority euro-american trading constituency favored luxury goods substituting for what they could procure in britain and the united states. here they enjoyed the convenience and price of a china-based industry, where labor was relatively cheap. chinese metalworkers and jewelers responded by producing flatwares and tablewares which often seamlessly replicated western fine goods in appearance, if not in construction. in the 1840s, western powers used gunboats to pry open china’s borders. as the forced opening of treaty ports increased, the export silverwares industry expanded. the industry spread to new markets in cities such as shanghai, tianjin, hankou, and jiujiang. the preface reconciled their complicated history, explaining that as more and more western businessmen came to china, their understanding of chinese culture grew deeper. they gradually grew to enjoy traditional chinese cultural forms. consequently, new types of objects emerged. chinese elements were introduced toward bolstering functionality and for providing ornament, and ultimately “present the appearance of a good combination of chinese and western elements.” the exhibition’s explanation of treaty-port wares thus invested chinese designs with the ability to strategically reconcile cultural difference. delivering the thesis of the exhibition, and the primary argument for the legitimization of the objects it displayed as fine chinese craft, chinese craftsmen were identified as the inventors of a new type of transcultural design. in a very short time, the fashion for the combination of western object forms and chinese decorative elements incited chinese craftsmen’s immense creativity. they used traditional craft techniques to produce one excellent piece after another, pushing chinese silverware craft production toward its summit.46 46 original chinese: “而一旦西式器形与中国元素相结合成为一种时尚, 就激发出了中国银匠们极 大的创造力, 他们用传统手工艺创作了一件又一件艺术佳作, 将中国的银器制作工艺推向了巅峰.” 141the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) chinese silversmiths effectively had created a product that surpassed the objects initially requested by the foreign clientele, which copied western forms whole cloth. the assessment of the production, if not of the position, of silversmithing under conditions of western patronage in chinese craft history is supported by a french period observer. charles lavollée visited a silversmith’s shop in guangzhou in 1843, just after the first opium war: we entered it and were received at the counter by an old man busy weighing silver ingots. the goldsmiths of canton ordinarily work only on command; so they have very few items in store. we could judge, however, by some fine pieces which were to be sent to england, how the chinese workmen are skilled in the art of carving on metals. here are real artists! certainly their works do not surpass those of our parisian industry, which remains the world’s first. but we should not be surprised that the english and americans give great favor to chinese products. the shapes of teapots, sugar bowls, tankards, etc., modeled on those of europe, have a remarkable originality of design, and the chinese subjects that decorate them are perfectly rendered.47 in this french observer’s eyes, chinese oil painters producing for the market of western sojourners were mere assembly-line workers, while the silversmiths were the “true artists.” they had invented original, high-quality craft products by combining chinese designs with european forms. moreover, according to lavollée, the chinese silverwares met or surpassed the designs of domestic goods available to their english and american buyers. stated by the exhibition texts and echoed by a westerner visiting the port city in the 1840s, the primary lens through which audiences should view these objects is through chinese creativity and craftsmanship, as well as their market viability. wrapping up a narrative rise and arch with a fall, the wall passage dated the end of the renaissance in chinese silversmithing to the end of the dynasty, as well as the treaty-port system, in 1911: 47 original french: “nous y entrâmes et nous fûmes reçus au comptoir par un vieillard occupé à peser des lingots d’argent sycee. les orfèvres de canton ne travaillent ordinairement que sur commande ; aussi n’ont-ils que très peu d’articles en magasin. nous pûmes cependant juger, par quelques belles pièces qui devaient être envoyées en angleterre, combien les ouvriers chinois sont habiles dans l’art de sculpter sur métaux. voilà de véritables artistes ! assurément leurs œuvres ne surpassent pas celles de notre industrie parisienne, qui demeure la première du monde. mais ils ne faut pas s’étonner que les anglais et les américains accordent une grande faveur aux produits chinois. les formes de théières, des sucriers, des pots à bière, etc., calquées sure celles d’europe, présentent une remarquable originalité de dessins, et les sujets chinois qui les décorent sont parfaitement rendus.” charles hubert lavollée, voyage en chine (paris: imprimerie de pommeret et moreau, 1852), 363–364. 142 concessions in “the silver age” during the republican period, owing to the tumultuous political situation, the “texture” and level of craft production returned to its prior inferiority. chinese export silverware declined with each passing day.48 in other words, when the nationalists held political sway, the resulting disorder slowly destroyed the conditions that had allowed for a superior level of craftsmanship and design to be achieved. in fact, the chinese silversmithing industry for the domestic market expanded during the republican period, as silverware and jewelry shops operated for local clienteles in many cities. in that light, the “summit” achieved by treaty-port silversmiths, as emphasized by the exhibition text and the french visitor, was the cross-cultural mixing of forms to appeal to a foreign market.49 in the next gallery, the term “chinese export silverwares” was defined as a “combination of western appearance and chinese patterns […] the kind of silverware made in a traditional chinese way […] for export.” the texts and displays emphasized how “traditional” chinese handicraft production techniques were flexibly redeployed toward new product designs. in the section entitled “craft lines of a thousand years” (yimai qiannian 艺脉千年), or craft techniques for working silver, such as filigree work, hammering, engraving, and gilding, were emphasized as the most salient historical aspect of the exhibition. while the techniques are not unique to china, and were likely adapted several centuries earlier from craft techniques developed in western and central asia, the exhibition links them to a longstanding, native craft industry that predated the treaty port era. most of the exhibition’s wall texts and labels contextualized the objects for visitors through their formal qualities, drawing on the descriptive language of craft, or gongyi 工艺, catalogues and textbooks.50 for example, one case addressed the application of the loukong gongyi 镂空工艺, or “openwork” technique, in late qing export silverwares (fig. 3). the case featured several examples of bowls and breadbaskets, but a footed bowl lined with green glass was selected for deeper exploration. in the shenyang installation, the bowl appeared in the case, while in the xi’an installation, it was placed separately in a standalone case nearby. 48 original chinese: “民间时间，由于时局动荡, 外销银器的材质, 制作工艺水平都较以前逊色, 中 国外销银器日渐式微.” 49 from inscriptions, we know that some of the wares were purchased by chinese buyers and asian port sojourners. 50 some supplementary materials were included, such as illustrations from the ming treatise tiangong kaiwu 天工开物 [the exploitation of the works of nature] enlarged onto wall panels. they provided a quick primer on the smelting process presented through ancient chinese texts. other cases examined western forms and packaging. 143the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) the wall text described how the technique relied on silver’s material characteristics for thinness and extensibility; flattened sheets retain their strength so they can be pierced, creating delicate patterning out of the cavities in the form. the wall text included a large photograph of the bowl, approximately the size of the object itself. meanwhile, the bowl in the case was accompanied by a description, which succinctly apprised the viewer of the bowl’s craft characteristics: silver bowl with openwork bamboo leaf pattern, glass insert. open-mouthed rim, curving sides, deep belly, round foot. openwork techniques used on base and belly, ornamented with bamboo forest, paradise flycatcher [type of bird associated with longevity], empty space uses “copper cash” pattern. separable green glass bowl is added. fig. 3: loukong craft technique case, xi’an museum installation. photograph by author, 2019. 144 concessions in “the silver age” viewed in the space of the gallery, the wall text and the photograph could serve as a kind of map to how the object was produced, where the openwork technique was employed, and the design patterns chosen. entirely elided was any mention of the large inscription on the bowl’s foot, “h. a. perak. 1903.” while it is unclear whether “perak” indicated a last name or something else, the roman letters and format of the inscription connected it to a european, and likely british, foreigner. for the exhibition’s audience, the bowl’s peripatetic “social life,” as revealed through the implied provenance of the visible inscription, were left unacknowledged. instead, the bowl, as translated by the displays in both object and photographed form, demonstrated the chinese silversmiths’ application of the metalworking technique loukong and the application of chinese designs of bamboo, flycatcher, and “copper cash” patterns. the culminating section of the exhibition, “charm and intent of mutual harmony” (yiqu xiangrong 意趣相融), carried the argument of the show one step further. it encouraged visitors to view chinese export silverwares as an ideal political merging of western forms and chinese patterns. as the catalogue explained, “one distinctive feature of ces [chinese export silverware] is that it is a perfect combination of western appearance and chinese patterns, which, on the one hand, meets the living habits of the westerners, and on the other hand, coincides with the trend of nature worship and the pursuit of exotic beauty in western world [sic].”51 the section was organized by chinese patterns, such as dragons, plum blossoms, and other flowers and plants, flower-and-bird, and figural and narrative scenes. again, the combination of western object forms with chinese designs was the main rhetorical focus of display. at the xi’an installation of the silver age, a case displaying “dragon design silverwares,” or longwen yinqi 龙纹银器, contained a set including a teapot, a coffeepot, a sugar bowl and a cream pot (fig. 4). the “chinese” design was identified as the embossed and chased dragons that crawled across the surfaces of the vessels. the “western” aspect of the wares were their form, combination, and coordination. while the teapot as a form was invented in china, the development of a three or four-piece tea set started as an eighteenth-century european fashion.52 as tea consumption became increasingly popular, the ensemble of tea utensils included a creamer and sugar bowl. through object and textual assemblages such as the “dragon design silverwares” case, the show encouraged visitors to view export silverwares as modular combinations of material forms and design elements that carried with them generic notions about “chinese” and “western” design. fundamentally, 51 wang, baiyin shidai, 146. 52 philippa glanville, silver in england (london: unwin hyman, 1987), 92–98. 145the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) they were cast as oppositional cultural signs that were reconciled through the innovation of chinese craftsmen. the tea and coffee set was the material evidence for the interpretive construct of “western-style object forms as the base, with chinese patterns as supplementary.” but their canny inventor emerged through the exhibition as the driving force in their history. in other words, the chinese craftsman was the protagonist in their production, with the foreign consumer as critical, but supplementary. the translation of objects by the exhibition through the abovementioned terms was accomplished due to their careful positioning as “evidence” within textual and photographic regimes of description, and techniques of display that bolstered a political aesthetic understanding. in his work on late imperial chinese decorative objects, jonathan hay has studied the taste of the scholarliterati consumer of late imperial chinese objects. this class of consumer brought to objects such as porcelains, bronzes, and carved lacquerware a set of material, sensory, and narrative associations based on connoisseurial knowledge.53 the silver age proposed a different ideal consumer of chinese objects: cosmopolitan treaty port residents and export markets. 53 hay, sensuous surfaces. fig. 4: “dragon patterns” case, xi’an museum installation. photograph by author, 2019. 146 concessions in “the silver age” drawing on the exhibition strategies of the western bourgeois museum to heighten the visual qualities of objects, the tacit message of the show was the triumph of chinese ingenuity over western military might and economic imperialism, via the cultural signaling of bird-and-flower designs on a silver coffee pot. the formula of “western-style object forms as the base, with chinese patterns as supplementary” was a lesson in the function of chinese soft power. in the hands of adept creators and retailers, the application of “traditional” designs and techniques not only met the demands of new markets, but also had a transformative effect on the industry itself. at each venue, the exhibition generated significant press, which gave its arguments a platform outside of the space of the museum. a people’s daily article on the exhibition installed at changsha reiterated the main points succinctly as follows: while maritime trade quickly developed, at the same time that western industry and commerce occupied china, it stimulated the outward reorientation of traditional chinese handicraft industries. on the basis of the demand for opening marketplaces in port cities to sell to foreigners, chinese silversmiths deeply mined national characteristics and made export silverwares that not only satisfied the everyday needs of their consumers, but also attained the highest standards of chinese beauty. this silverware is the proof that china historically opened up and developed its capacity for overseas trade, and is the rich and varied souvenir of modern life. it is also the material vehicle of chinese and western cultural blending.54 as repeated by the people’s daily article, the values reflected by the silverwares were taken almost directly from the exhibition wall text. the language of the installation was thus broadcast throughout the media for online and even print audiences.55 export silverwares were cast as “proof” of the outward-looking, global perspective of artisans in the late qing period, at a time when china has previously defined itself as a victim of foreign imperialism. yet in focusing on the craft and design qualities of the objects and positioning them as new applications of handicraft metalworking techniques, the exhibition sidestepped many elements of the 54 deng xiaoli 邓晓丽, “‘baiyin shidai — zhongguo waixiao yinqi tezhan’ jinri zai changsha bowuguan zhanchu ‘白银时代——中国外销银器特展’ 今日在长沙博物馆展出 [‘the silver age— special exhibition of chinese export silverware’ opens today at changsha city museum],” people’s daily, september 30, 2016, http://hn.people.com.cn/n2/2016/0930/c337651-29088411-2.html. 55 li li 李李 and zhao su 召苏, “waimaoshi shang de bayin zhongguofeng 外贸史上的白银中国 风 [foreign trade history of silver chinoiserie],” china art weekly, november 4, 2017, 12. 147the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) historical and political context of their conditions of manufacture. it glossed over specific object histories, or even patterns of ownership. it did not raise the question of how so many of them returned to china, and their current owners were not indicated in the gallery. instead, all of the objects were couched in a shared provenance of craft production, which served instead to promote native handicraft industries and their entrepreneurial responsiveness to cosmopolitan markets. in addition to the changsha-organized show, a second exhibition on chinese export silverwares opened in late 2017 at the hong kong maritime museum (hkmm). it was similarly titled the silver age: origins and trade of chinese export silver, and was organized by museum curator libby chan.56 the show included 160 objects and sets of objects, drawn mostly from hong kong private collections. instead of taking a craft and design taxonomic approach in arrangement, the show placed export silverwares within the larger material context of silver currency exchanged between western europe and the united states and china, focusing on hong kong’s historical role in maritime trade. located on a pier in the harbor at hong kong, the hkmm is a non-profit, non-governmental museum founded in 2003 by members of the hong kong shipowners’ association. it has presented a bilingual program on maritime history, as it intersects with hong kong’s history as a major port city. unlike the venues for the mainland exhibition, it was independent from ccp cultural policy and regulation. the show expanded the types of objects exhibited in order to show the range of material forms silver has taken historically. the introductory section on the global silver market was composed of a selection of coins and silver ingots, as well as maps that tracked the circulations of silver bullion brought to chinese ports through maritime trade. the section also addressed the history of chinese gold and silversmithing processes. examples of vessels from the liao, tang, and ming dynasties were displayed, as well as jewelry made for ming and qing elites. a description of different metalworking techniques employed by chinese craftsmen, along with brief explanatory definitions, was included as a wall panel. but unlike the touring mainland show, it was not a central concern of the hong kong exhibition. the hkmm show foregrounded the confluence of the material, craft history, and cultural encounter that make up the social history of these objects, situating hong kong at the center of the narrative. the fourth section concentrated on objects from the treaty port era, highlighting the role of hong kong after it was ceded to britain. after the opening of 56 in chinese, baiyin shidai—zhongguo waixiao jinyinqi zhi laili yu maoyi 白银时代—中国外销金 银器之来历与贸易. i was involved in the hkmm show in that i contributed an essay to the exhibition catalogue. 148 concessions in “the silver age” the five ports that were the result of the first sino–british treaty in 1842, the hong kong silverwares industry rose in prominence along with the shanghai industry. the fifth section “craft inheritance: made in hong kong” focused on the hong kong silverwares industry and monetary metals in hong kong. “from canton to hong kong” reconstructed the shop of the prolific hong kong silverwares retail firm wang hing. in this pair of galleries, large color photographs of a retired master silversmith, as well as drawings of his silverware designs, demonstrated the living heritage of the artisanal labor and knowledge local to hong kong. the final section dramatized a western table setting, along with a dense display of dressing table implements. the question of hong kong’s increasingly tenuous political autonomy was elided by the resemblance of its silverwares industry during its time as a british colony to other mainland chinese treaty ports. the show argued that the products of the hong kong silversmithing industry were unique effects of its history as a former british colony, but also that it shared a set of conditions with mainland treaty port cities such as shanghai. using different exhibition strategies, both exhibitions posited a chinese silversmithing industry as a participant in global craft history. further, they reconstructed the late qing and early republican period as a productive time in chinese foreign trade, where china garnered an influential position in the world economy. in both shows, the role of foreign incursion through extraterritoriality at shanghai, and colonialism in hong kong, is nearly excised from the presentation of objects. also common to the exhibitions was the argument that chinese silversmithing reached a previously unrecognized height of design, skill, and quantity of production in the very last days of the qing period. yet as the two exhibitions defined “chinese export silverwares” differently, they also yielded different renderings of a chinese “silver age” in metalworking. while the aim of the hkmm show was to historicize chinese export silverwares in the global silver trade and local history, the aim of the mainland show was to provide visitors a framework for their integration into chinese craft history, translating them into fine craft through display. the hong kong show allowed for more flexible criteria of what could be exhibited in a show that tracked the historical transformative capacities of silver objects, and their material connections to money. the hong kong show’s “silver age” was thus twofold: first, the long history of the material culture of silver and silverwares in china, and second, the hong kong export silverwares industry as an important part of that history. the traveling mainland silver age generalized about the context and character of a chinese export silversmithing industry, aside from the inclusion of a wall-mounted table listing major shops and their cities. 149the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) less concerned with local history or specific industries, it emphasized the productive encounter of western demand with chinese craft techniques through “western-style object forms as the base, with chinese patterns as supplementary.” later in this paper, i will analyze the complex historical-ideological work of the exhibition, in order to identify the “silver age” it proposed for both the treaty-port silversmithing industry and china’s position on the global stage. prior to that point, i will address one additional strategy of translation used by exhibition organizers to position treaty-port material culture as fine craft objects. i argue that the mainland silver age accomplished a historical reorientation in part by placing the objects in a foreign lineage of reception. foregrounding their transcultural collecting history was a means of re-articulating and recuperating them, precisely through their overseas history of reidentification. collecting history and classification: “the truth was revealed: originally, these very special utensils came from ancient china” a second means through which the mainland silver age organizers translated chinese export silverwares for domestic audiences was by framing them within their american reception history. specifically, they stressed the objects’ “loss” in the west and subsequent “rediscovery,” nearly fifty years prior to the planning of the exhibition, in the united states. in a report published online about the development of the exhibition, changsha museum curator lihua wang wrote: the exhibition organizers first bought a group of english-language books on the topic, but chinese export silver is a recently discovered category of cultural objects. before the 1970s, chinese modern export silverwares had fallen into oblivion […].57 unlike the blend of western forms and chinese designs that gained popularity in the treaty ports, many, but not all, early nineteenth-century chinese export silverwares replicated western object designs. their mid-twentieth-century owners assumed they were produced in the united states or britain. in other words, during china’s insular maoist period, 57 original chinese: “白银策展团队事先已经购买了一批相关的英文书籍，但是中国外销银器 是 近 年 来 新 发 现 的 文 物 类 别，在 2 0 世 纪 7 0 年 代 以 前，中 国 近 代 外 销 银 器 还 湮 没 无 闻 … 近 年 来，在 英、美等西方国家，中国近代外销银器已经引起了收藏家、学者和博物馆的重视，被评价为中国传统 银器手工艺的最高峰 。然而，在国内，近代外销银器还没有引起文博界和学术界的大力关注[…],” in “‘baiyin shidai—zhongguo waixiao yinqi tezhan’ cezhan xinde ‘白银时代—中国外销银器特展’策展 心得 [‘the silver age—a special exhibition of chinese export silver’ report on exhibition planning],” changzhou museum website, accessed january 3, 2017, http://www.czmuseum.com/wx/default. php?mod=article&do=detail&tid=17064. 150 concessions in “the silver age” chinese-made silverwares hid in plain sight in american and european collections. in the chinese-language introductory wall text of the exhibition, the organizers attributed the revelation of the objects’ origins to one book: “in 1975, american h. a. crosby forbes’ chinese export silver was published, and the truth was revealed: originally, these very special utensils came from ancient china.”58 indeed, a team of curators and collectors based in massachusetts, led by forbes, published the first study on the silverwares. their forgotten history seemed to coincide with china’s retreat from engagement with much of the united states and western europe during the cold war. around the time of president richard nixon’s visit to china and the softening of sino–american diplomatic estrangement in 1972, the forbes team began publicizing their research on chinese silverwares made for anglo-american markets found in new england collections. in this section, i argue that wang and the exhibition organizers chose to use the translated forbes term “chinese export silverwares” because it offered a transcultural lineage of collecting for the objects. by interrogating the terms of their unearthing through a change in recognition—from silverwares produced by western craftsmen to chinese craftsmen—i will consider the effects of their so-called rediscovery. after exploring how aspects of the objects’ design led to their camouflage in american and british collections, i will consider how the use of the translated term “chinese export silverwares” allowed the objects to be interpreted within a china-centered history of the treaty port era. emphasizing their twentieth-century american reception history was an additional means of eliding more historically sensitive readings. many early nineteenth-century chinese silverwares were modeled after english forms, following the taste of british and american buyers. their seamless replication clouded their production history. unlike the treaty-port silverwares that advertised their chinese connections through design, many silverwares made prior were nearly indistinguishable from silverwares made within anglo-american markets, aside from minute construction details. in producing such objects, chinese silversmiths and retailers took advantage of the assumptions of their buyers about signs of quality. every silver object to be sold in england had to be assayed by the goldsmiths’ guild, and its alloy certified to contain 92.5 percent silver. thereafter it was struck with a set of five stamps, or hallmarks. in the terminology of silver collectors, marks applied to silverwares that mimic this set of impressions are known as “pseudo hallmarks.” 58 original chinese: “直到1975年, 美国人克罗斯比。福布斯 (h. a. crosby forbes) 的 《中国外 销银器》 一书出版, 才使真相浮出水面—原来这些颇具特色的器物来自古老的中国.” the english translation cites the forbes text, but does not mention h. a. crosby forbes by name. 151the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) they were common throughout colonial silverware industries producing for english markets in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, such as those that developed in south africa, canada, the caribbean, and australia.59 in the chinese case, pseudo hallmarks were used regularly, such that many of the initial or retailer’s marks can be linked to known chinese workshops, retail shops, and exporters.60 by contrast, imitated sovereign, duty, and date marks are more unevenly used, and likely have no informational value. unlike the british hallmarking system, chinese pseudo-hallmarking was not under the jurisdiction of any regulating organization, nor was it enforced by threat of punitive measures—aside from those incurred through the violation of english law if imported. besides close resemblance to wares made for other anglo markets from a design perspective, a full or partial pseudo hallmark carried the valence of a known guarantor of value and legitimacy as “english” or even “american.” one example of a set of pseudo hallmarks from an early-nineteenth-century tea service can be connected to the guangzhou retailer wongshing, as indicated through a “w” mark appearing second from the left (fig. 5). the lion to the left of the “w” imitates the sterling mark that certifies that the ware has been assayed at the standard. the mark to the right of the “w,” a figure wearing a crown (or perhaps in this case, a western man wearing a brimmed hat), is patterned after the crowned leopard’s head, which was the london assay office town mark. the mark to the far right is an indistinct rendering of the sovereign’s head, which indicated the payment of duty. the set of pseudo hallmarks is missing any imitation date-letter mark. until the forbes catalogue and subsequent research, the initial mark was often thought to reference american or british retailers or makers. for example, in american museums, objects bearing the “cs” mark of the guangzhou retailer cumshing were commonly attributed to the late eighteenth-century american maker godfrey shiving, who used a “gs” initial mark.61 thus, along with designs that seamlessly imitated similar objects produced by english silversmiths and their anglo adherents, attributions to english and american makers were compelling obstructions to chinese identification. the forbes catalogue and related publications reidentified many objects in both public and private collections as chinese, and therefore part of 59 glanville, silver in england, 163–164. 60 recent catalogues of chinese export silver marks include chen, zhongguo yinlou yu yinqi, and adrien von fersht, chinese export silver 1785–1940: the definitive collectors’ guide, 4th ed. (glasgow: self-published, 2015), accessed march 17, 2018, http://chinese-export-silver.com/ catalogue-of-makers-marks/. 61 forbes, chinese export silver, 74. 152 concessions in “the silver age” the new classification “chinese export silverwares.” further, the publication solidified the use of the term and its definition in american and english collecting and museum circles. the team that published the catalogue was led by h. a. crosby forbes, a historian and curator. founder of the museum of the american china trade in milton, massachusetts, he was a descendant of merchants involved in the nineteenth-century american commodities trade with china.62 forbes had inherited silver made for american merchant robert bennet forbes and his wife stamped by the guangzhou-based retailer khecheong; his interest in the subject developed when he began investigating the possibility that silverwares that had descended in new england merchant families like his own were not what they seemed upon closer inspection.63 yet, as libby chan has written, from the publication of the forbes catalogue up until around the time of the mainland and hong kong silver age exhibitions, the objects have 62 “about,” forbes house museum online, accessed august 8, 2018, http://www. forbeshousemuseum.org/history/. 63 peabody essex museum, philips library, h. a. crosby forbes research files. also see forbes, chinese export silver, 8–9. fig. 5: detail of wongshing retail mark and pseudo hallmarks on chinese export silver teapot, early nineteenth century. national park service, adams national historical park. 153the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) received scant further academic study, and remain obscure outside collecting communities.64 recent attention from chinese collectors has renewed interest in the objects, the implications of which i will address in the next section on the “return” of silverwares to the mainland as part of the recuperation of cultural heritage lost during the “century of humiliation.” 65 the silver age organizers connected the objects in the exhibition to the above-described narrative of recuperation through the selection and translation of the term zhongguo waixiao yinqi “chinese export silverwares.” john devereux kernan and hong kong maritime museum curator libby chan have raised several issues with the term. one of the co-authors of the 1975 catalogue chinese export silver, 1785–1885, kernan later wrote that he preferred “china trade silver” instead. he maintained the continuity of the term selected in compromise with forbes, because by then it was “becoming ever more current.”66 while every word in the phrase is contestable at some level, the primary question has been with the word “export.” the word implies that the objects were made specifically for (western) foreign markets and sent abroad for retail. it elides the possibility that the wares were consumed locally by non-chinese consumers, and also purchased by chinese domestic consumers.67 further, it obscures export markets in east and southeast asia, as well as objects made by the chinese diaspora in locations stretching from indonesia to the philippines. other potential terms would have placed it in different historical and cultural frameworks. chinese-language alternatives are numerous. period advertisements for silverwares catering to a western clientele used a different set of terms to describe the objects. around 1918, luen wo advertised the sale of yangzhuang jinyin shoushi 洋装金银首饰, or “western-style” gold and silver jewelry, a prevalent term at the time.68 yet another term used in period advertisements was xishi 西式, also meaning “western style.”69 in the 1940s, hong kong retailer tai sang advertised for zhongxi canju 中西餐具, or tablewares that combine chinese and western elements.70 in contemporary newspaper and magazine articles on the silverwares, periodizing terms 64 chan, “crossing the oceans,” 152. 65 auction houses and dealers have been actively developing new markets; for example, see waddell, “chinese export silver—a guide for new collectors.” 66 kernan, chait collection, 9. 67 kernan, chait collection, 9. 68 chen, zhongguo yinlou yu yinqi, 5:102. 69 chen, zhongguo yinlou yu yinqi, 5:4. 70 chen, zhongguo yinlou yu yinqi, 5:146. 154 concessions in “the silver age” such as jindai yinqi 近代银器, or “modern silverwares,” are used. the term counters the emphasis on western buyers of “export” wares; the collector zhao su 召素 has written that the term includes objects made by private silver workshops and stores for both foreign export and domestic markets.71 the word jindai generally describes the period from the beginning of the first opium war in 1839 to the founding of the people’s republic of china in 1949, but it can also extend to the end of the qing dynasty. a 2015 exhibition of silverwares and jewelry at the zhejiang provincial museum in hangzhou, titled luxury of gold and silver—a galaxy of gold and silver wares collected by san duo jiu ru included a small selection of export silverwares in its two-volume catalogue, which it described along with objects for domestic markets as qing zhi minguo yinqi 清至民国银器, or “qing-to-republican period silverwares.”72 in 2016, a ningbo chinese harbor museum curator published a short article on the examples of chinese export silverwares in the museum’s collection, using the term qingdai waixiao yinqi 清代外销银器, or “qing-period export silverwares.”73 forty years after the publication of the forbes catalogue, exhibition organizers chose not to re-articulate the exhibited objects within a chinese-specific history of gold and silverwares. besides any of the terms listed above, they might have chosen “late qing and early republican non-official silverwares” or “anglo-chinese silverwares.”74 instead, the objects were framed within a well-established lineage invoked by overseas collectors and curators, one that emphasized the transcultural mobilities of the objects. in the silver age, the forbes term “chinese export silverware” maintained a link to the modern nation of china over the temporal specificity of more endogenous terms. it also retained the indication toward western european and american markets as opposed to asian or domestic markets. finally, it aligned the silver age objects with a transcultural collecting lineage. critical to the mythology of objects is the near-archeological nature of their rediscovery, when origins obscured by western assumptions and classification systems were brought to light. in other words, the 71 zhao su 召素 “zhongguo jindai yinqi yu jinyinye (yi) 中国近代银器与金银业（一） [chinese modern silverwares and gold and silver industry i],” yishupin 艺术品 3 (2015): 64. 72 chen hao 陈浩, jinshe yinhua 金奢银华 [luxury of gold and silver], vol. 1 (hangzhou: zhejiang renmin meishu chubanshe, 2015), unpaginated. 73 chen weili, “ningbo zhongguo gangkou bowuguan qingdai waixiao yinqi 宁波中国港口博物 馆清代外销银器 [ningbo chinese maritime museum qing period export silverwares],” dongfang shoucang 东方收藏 6 (2016): 47–49. 74 james broadbent used the term “anglo-chinese” to describe the silverwares produced in china in the british taste in the early nineteenth-century; see james broadbent, suzanne rickard, and margaret steven, india, china, australia: trade and society, 1788–1850 (sydney: historic houses trust of new south wales, 2003), 124. 155the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) forgotten period in the history of chinese export silverwares as such was a critical aspect in contextualizing their contemporary reemergence as art objects. the gap between the decline of the industry, identified by the mainland show as the republican period, and their reidentification about fifty years later, relieved chinese museum visitors of the responsibility of their social and political history in that period. not only did it suspend half of the century of humiliation from the reception history of the objects, it also excised the culturally sensitive mao period.75 closer scrutiny, particularly within a nationalist-ideological lens, might have required the hardening of terms by which the objects were defined as the material effects of treaty port incursions. but as they were essentially re-discovered just before post-socialist liberalization started in 1978, it was as if they, along with new china, were both newly visible in an international context. the silver age galleries not only positioned the objects within a discovery narrative, but they also provided visitors with a second experience of discovery; namely, upon entering the exhibition, visitors were exposed to a new category of chinese fine craft, still-extant in previously unknown quantities. as a liaoning provincial paper pitched the exhibition: “everyone knows that ancient chinese porcelains were hot commodities in europe, but did you know? two hundred years ago, chinese silverwares were also treasured by european elites.”76 thus, in addition to their claims of technical finesse and design ingenuity, export silverwares in the sheer abundance of their survival overseas represented a cache of late qing craftwork previously unavailable to public knowledge and scholarly understanding. as the exhibition prefatory text related, “in the history of the development of chinese silverwares, late period export silverwares continuously were not recognized. the quantity of this type of wares was limited, as well as dispersed among western elites, and so for a time were covered in dust by history […].” the return of the silverwares to the mainland by collectors, which i will discuss in the next section, was thus a conduit through which an overlooked aspect of chinese craft history was reinstated into the historical record. 75 as denton has written, the historical narrative of shanghai constructed by the shanghai municipal history museum also skips over the mao era in order to strategically create echoes of the present in particular periods and interpretations of the past: “that the republican era is represented as largely devoid of class suffering is a reflection of the ideological emphasis on social harmony in the present, a rhetorical strategy facility by skipping over the mao era, with its violent history of class struggle,” exhibiting the past, 92. 76 original chinese: “中国古代瓷器热销欧洲人尽皆知，但是你知道吗，中国银器在200年前也 曾经因为工艺精湛而为欧洲贵族所宠爱.” see gao wei 高巍, “‘liuyang’ 200 nian waixiao yinqi liaocheng shouzhan ‘留洋’ 200年 外销银器沈城首展 [‘study abroad’ 200 years: export silverwares are main exhibition at shenyang],” huashang chenbao 华商晨报, accessed february 7, 2018, http:// liaoning.nen.com.cn/system/2018/02/07/020360415.shtml. 156 concessions in “the silver age” moreover, the exhibition posited the silverwares as cultural and technological achievements, perhaps even as the height of chinese craftsmanship in gold and silver. that foreign museums, owners, and collectors believed the objects to be american or english is another demonstration of the consummate ability of chinese silversmiths. in this narrative, not only did chinese craftsmen transform native handicrafts, such as porcelain, into export products intensively sought after by europeans, but they could also produce english silverwares at such a high level that they were taken by english viewers and owners to be english. repeatedly, the creativity and enterprise of chinese artisan was the essential lesson learned from the material evidence of chinese export silverwares. as paul cohen has argued, “china-centered” approaches to history track continuities across nineteenth-century history, when foreign relations often appear as the most determinative factors in chinese history. the approach rejects western action as the primary force driving change in china, and also rejects china’s passivity as its defining characteristic. the forbes “discovery” showed that chinese metalworking existed prior to the opening of the treaty ports. far from those skills “grinding to a halt in 1800 or 1840 and being preempted or displaced by the west,” the objects displayed in the silver age are evidence that they flourished.77 chinese export silverwares have received market and state sanction, and even museum canonization, due to the ways in which they can invoke official histories of “foreign impact” while offering a china-centered alternative.78 in embracing the craftsmanship of chinese export silverwares as their most important attribute across the nineteenth century, chinese craftsmen, instead of the western residents for whom they were made, are cast as the “measure of significance.” further, their second “rediscovery” in post-socialist china through the silver age is the result of their prior discovery in a foreign context. as i address in the next section, key to the cultural claims of these objects was the means through which the ambivalent material of silver—so closely connected to national disgrace—can be reclaimed through the circuits and narratives of cultural heritage. 77 cohen, discovering history in china, 154. 78 “foreign impact and chinese response” is the classic and often-glossed formulation of opium war history, as famously formulated by american historian john fairbank in trade and diplomacy on the china coast: the opening of treaty ports, 1842–1854 (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1964). paul cohen has argued for a “china-centered” history of china, which gives chinese actors agency in the late qing period. paul cohen, discovering history in china: american historical writing on the recent chinese past, 2nd ed. (new york: columbia university press, 2010). 157the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) global-historical politics: “silver age” vs. “maritime silk road” the “silver age” of the exhibition’s title had two sets of possible associations for visitors. it referred to a “peak” of creative production in the chinese silversmithing industry. it also connoted a period of economic prosperity within a silver-based economy. the flourishing last century of the ming dynasty, from 1550 to 1650, is often cast as china’s “silver age” in both economic history and political-historical recounting.79 economic historians have argued that, since the beginning of the manila galleon trade through the philippines, china was the primary destination for the spanish-minted silver coins, received in exchange for silks, porcelain, gold, and other goods.80 while europe used gold as its highvalue exchange currency, silver circulated by fineness and weight in the chinese domestic economy. relying on a two-tiered, bimetallic currency system, the imperial government minted copper coins, but allowed the market to determine the value of silver.81 the silver trade brought chinese society into increasing entanglement with the world economy; moreover, monetization spurred domestic consumption.82 thus, a period notable for its circulating wealth due to vast quantities of imported silver was invoked as the temporal context for chinese export silverwares in the exhibition. it was an uneasy choice from the standpoint of historical and economic synchrony, as the treaty port era of 1842 to 1911 is studied and remembered as a period of chinese silver loss rather than prosperity and flow. additionally, the latter is a period of exchange often connected to the geographical imaginary of the “maritime silk road,” or haishang sichou zhi lu 海上丝绸 之路. both constructs, invoked frequently in conversations 79 richard von glahn, fountain of fortune: money and monetary policy in china, 1000–1700 (berkeley: university of california press, 1996), 113–142. for silver imports in modern china, also see william atwell, “ming china and the emerging world economy, c. 1470–1650,” in the cambridge history of china, vol. 8.2, ed. denis c. twitchett and frederick w. mote (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1998), 376–416; takeshi hamashita, “silver in regional economies and the world economy: east asia in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries,” trans. j. p. mcdermott, in china, east asia and the global economy: regional and historical perspectives, ed. linda grove and mark selden (new york: routledge, 2008), 39–56; dennis o. flynn and arturo giráldez, “cycles of silver: global economic unity through the mid-eighteenth century,” journal of world history 13, no. 2 (2002): 391–427. 80 flynn and giráldez, “cycles of silver.” see also man-houng lin, china upside down: currency, society, and ideologies, 1808–1856 (cambridge, ma: harvard university asia center and harvard university press, 2006), xxiii–26. 81 atwell, “ming china,” 400–403. 82 atwell, “ming china,” 416. for a cultural history of consumption during the ming and the moral anxieties that were the result, see timothy brook, the confusions of pleasure: commerce and culture in ming china (berkeley: university of california press, 1999). 158 concessions in “the silver age” about cultural heritage, are contemporary marxian ideological arguments on a global scale. they serve as historical maps for rebuilding chinese cultural prominence on the basis of economic investment and transportation networks. in this section, i will consider how chinese export silverwares and related objects have been positioned in debates about cultural heritage and craft history. first, i will examine how exhibition organizers argued for the inclusion of export silverwares in the large-scale “return” of cultural artifacts to mainland china through private collecting. after addressing how the powerful “silk road” historical imaginary has been invoked in cultural heritage contexts, i will argue that due to the controversial history of the treaty port period, the use of the “maritime silk road” was less appropriate than that of the historically inconsistent “silver age.” both positioned china within a global context, yet the “silver age” was used to translate the objects to museum visitors as a form of material return. the objects thus performed as a type of material reparation for the “century of humiliation.” the silver age exhibition texts and accompanying media posed the collecting of exported silverwares, as well as their heightened profile through exhibition and research, as a component of the “return of overseas cultural artifacts,” or haiwai wenwu huiliu 海外文物回流. the movement is a mass-scale repatriation of chinese art objects and material culture that began about twenty years ago in parallel with china’s economic rise.83 politically invested by the ccp, the overseas dispersion of cultural objects is often constructed as an injustice carried out by foreign imperialists during the century of national humiliation. according to this story, chinese cultural heritage was illicitly taken out of china, or sold by unscrupulous dealers to clients overseas. thus, the recovery of cultural artifacts, most prominently hand-scroll paintings, ceramics, and the objects looted in 1860 from the imperial collections at the yuanmingyuan garden, is lauded as a patriotic enterprise.84 83 wang, baiyin shidai, 1. for a predictive analysis of china’s now widely acknowledged position of global power, see martin jacques, when china rules the world: the end of the western world and the birth of a new global order, 2nd ed. (london: penguin, 2012). 84 for discussion of the recent cultural repatriation movement, see “haiwai wenwu huiliu shi yishu shichang de datou suozai 海外文物回流是艺术市场的大头所在 [overseas cultural artifacts return flow is the art market’s primary essence],” sina.com.cn, accessed october 11, 2017, http://collection.sina. com.cn/auction/hqgc/2017-10-11/doc-ifymrcmn0186848.shtml; andrew jacobs, “china hunts for art treasures in u.s. museums,” new york times, accessed december 16, 2009, https://www.nytimes. com/2009/12/17/world/asia/17china.html; karl e. meyer, “the chinese want their art back,” new york times sunday review, accessed june 21, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/opinion/ the-chinese-want-their-art-back.html. on looting, see james hevia, “looting beijing: 1860, 1900,” in tokens of exchange: the problem of translation in global circulations, ed. lydia h. liu (durham, nc: duke university press, 1999), 192–213. 159the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) the yuanmingyuan and its estranged objects have been the intensive focus of chinese political rancor, incited by the rhetoric of national humiliation. the site was restored into a public park and gardens, but the ruins of the former imperial residences remain as tall piles of artfully landscaped rubble, memorials to the violence of british and french troops. james hevia has called the park a “site of memory” in its refusal to allow visitors to forget past conflict through the reminders of willful, intransigent materiality.85 in one media flashpoint, three bronze zodiac animal heads taken from the site caused public outcry when they were brought to sale at auction in 2000 in hong kong.86 as annetta fotopoulos has argued, the zodiac heads were defined as symbols of chinese nationhood and victimization specifically by drawing on the language, legitimization, and global platform provided by cultural heritage discourse.87 according to fotopoulos, the return of the zodiac heads to chinese soil was less central to the chinese nationalistic cause than the collective, internationally visible effort to rally for the recognition that reparations are deserved for past violations.88 the objects allowed conversations about debts owed to the chinese people to be moved from the local sites of chinese memory to the international realms of the global art market and the unesco world heritage committee. though their status as chinese cultural heritage has been contested, artworks such as the zodiac heads have traceable connections to the pillaging of the former imperial gardens by french and british troops. looting is inextricable from their history of transaction, and from their movement overseas. by comparison, the assertion that chinese export silverwares are part of the “return of overseas cultural artifacts” movement is more tenuous. the wares were produced for sale, in many cases, to non-chinese consumers who took them abroad as private property. yet the phrasing of “return” is consistent with how the objects have been marketed by online retailers to chinese buyers. product listings on alibaba online retail giants mall and 85 james hevia, “the afterlives of a ruin: yuanmingyuan in china and the west,” in collecting and displaying china’s “summer palace” in the west: the yuanmingyuan in britain and france, ed. louise tythacott (new york: taylor and francis, 2018), 26. this edited anthology is the latest contribution to the voluminous english-language scholarship on the yuanmingyuan, its looted artifacts, and national memoryscapes; see for example haiyan lee, “the ruins of yuanmingyuan: or, how to enjoy a national wound,” modern china 35, no. 2 (march 2009): 155–190. 86 for the cultural heritage controversy and responses by contemporary artists, see patricia yu, “making lost heads speak: the yuanming yuan zodiac animals and their ‘analog’ resurrection,” undated unpublished manuscript. 87 annetta fotopoulos, “understanding the zodiac saga in china: world cultural heritage, national humiliation, and evolving narratives,” modern china 41, no. 6 (november 2015): 621. 88 fotopoulos, “understanding the zodiac saga,” 622–623. 160 concessions in “the silver age” taobao have described objects one might identify as chinese export silverwares as “silverwares returned from overseas,” or haiwai huiliu yinqi 海外回流银. a search for this phrase on tmall, where shops are required to register and thus the risk of buying fakes is purportedly reduced, yielded over 560 results, which ranged in dating from the ming to republican periods. while it is impossible to know how many of the wares had any legitimacy as authentic objects, many of them resembled the objects exhibited in the silver age exhibition from the perspective of their forms, designs, and dating.89 the retailers claimed for them a shared provenance with other chinese objects that were “lost” and thus preserved overseas during the turbulence of the intervening hundred-and-fifty years, through the taiping rebellion, the cultural revolution, or the instant liquidation of the smelters’ furnace that can happen at any time. the reclamation of objects that left the mainland during the century of humiliation through the purchasing power of private chinese collectors and buyers might be viewed as a signal of china’s reemergence as a prominent player in the global economy. thus, in terms of their role within the battle over chinese heritage, the silver age objects might be first viewed from the perspective of their material, rather than their chinese-western hybrid form. lieutenant haupt’s compote along with the other silverwares in the silver age are thus not only artifacts of exterritoriality, but might be viewed as the material vestiges of silver “drain” from china to the west during the century of national humiliation. perhaps the most critical factor in understanding the position of chinese export silverwares in chinese state museums is through their transformability of silverwares into economic materials, in the literal and physical return of estranged wealth. historians have argued that china entered a period of economic turmoil in the nineteenth century, starting with the “daoguang depression,” named after the emperor who ruled from 1820 to 1850, which coincided with the political and social upheavals of the opium wars and the taiping rebellion of 1851 to 1864. as richard von glahn has written, it is the “sharp contrast between the ‘prosperous age’ (shengshi 盛世)—as many contemporaries described it—of the eighteenth century” and the decline of the nineteenth century that has “long compelled scholars to ask what forces had brought about such a drastic change in china’s fortunes” at the end of the imperial era.90 there was little governmental regulation of the domestic value of silver. in the last decades of the nineteenth century, the 89 search conducted february 3, 2019. 90 richard von glahn, the economic history of china: from antiquity to the nineteenth century (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2016), 349. 161the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) chinese economy was uniquely susceptible to price fluctuations in the global silver market, as well as volatility and shifts in commodity flows. a series of silver drains to europe and the united states occurred, first during the opium wars of the 1840s, and more recently during 1930s changes in american silver policy. most of the so-called “silver drain” centered around the triangular system of trade that the british adopted in selling opium, in order to avoid the considerable risk of transporting large shipments of spanish silver dollars to china. the british east india company sold licenses to private “country traders” to transport opium from india to china, where they sold the drug for silver. they deposited the silver with british agents, who gave them letters of credit.91 thus in the nineteenth century, relatively little silver was brought to china. as the demand for opium eclipsed the export of chinese goods, anxiety about the currency supply rose among chinese officials and intellectuals. the qing scholar liang tingnan 梁廷枬 wrote in the 1850s, “at the very beginning, silver dollars were used to buy chinese goods. now, all the silver has been taken back. at the beginning, [foreign merchants] collected only silver dollars; today, they also collect silver ingots. at the very beginning, only british silver did not come; today, the silver of the united states and country traders does not come.”92 china’s wealth in the form of circulating commodity currency had vanished in opium smoke. the dependence of the chinese economy on foreign silver coins entered into nineteenth-century discussions among statecraft scholar-officials on national sovereignty. while scholars were split over the question of whether the state should intervene in the currency system, man-houng lin has written that both sides railed against the state’s relinquishing of power over its own monetary system due to the use of foreign currency; in the words of one statecraft scholar, “silver is controlled by cunning merchants abroad.”93 following the historical intersections of silver with national shame, silver in the form of money is indelibly associated with opium consumption, foreign intervention, and the loss of self-sovereignty. the linkage between the perception of overseas control of the silver supply and the silver drain was consolidated by the large indemnity that the chinese state was forced to pay to the british state after the first opium war.94 the silver drains are etched in nationalist memories of the period. anecdotally, present-day reference to 91 jonathan d. spence, the search for modern china (new york: w.w. norton & company, 1990), 130. 92 liang tingnan 梁廷枬, yifen wenji 夷氛聞記 (beijing: zhongua shuju, 1959), 1.11b. as quoted in lin, china upside down, 75. 93 lin, china upside down, 210. 94 von glahn, the economic history of china, 374. 162 concessions in “the silver age” silver exports can raise the nationalist specter of past “silver crises,” attributed in different instances to euro-american trade imperialism and currency manipulation.95 the material return of fugitive wealth, albeit in the “western” forms of souvenir bowls, tea sets, salt cellars, toast racks, and cruet stands, could be seen to operate as a form of historical restitution, alongside other aspects of the “return of overseas artifacts.” the “silver age” as a historical construct powerfully signaled china’s past prosperity and position in the global economy through the medium of silver. while discussions about formerly looted yuanmingyuan artifacts broadcast chinese suffering into global spaces, chinese export silverwares offer the possibility of a parallel, china-centered narrative about cultural heritage, foregrounding the confluence of historical craft technique and modern adaptability. instead of another story of humiliation, the silverwares offer an alternative account of chinese triumph over imperialists through design. further, framed within a western category of decorative arts as a global category of research and collecting, the legibility of their value as fine craft objects can likewise be global, not just limited to chinese audiences. aside from their aesthetic value, the objects have evidential value; they serve as proof for an outward-looking, as opposed to hermetic, chinese past, particularly when it comes to its overseas trade relations. finally, the private collector might see in silverwares the same value that formed the rationale of the english hallmarking system; namely, silverwares are statements of wealth, but they are also easily liquidized if necessary. through invoking the haiwai huiliu, a private act of consumption was less straightforwardly one for private enrichment, but rather a collective effort to restore the treasure of the nation. the exhibition of chinese export silverwares does not overwrite or nullify the chinese heritage sites dedicated to preserving the memory of past periods of foreign imperialism. a china-centered narrative of the treaty port era can coexist alongside the deep wells of nationalist indignation gathered around objects such as the articles looted from the yuanmingyuan imperial collections. in the collective theater of chinese cultural heritage exhibition, and in a context of constant policy re-articulation, they work simultaneously, if contradictorily. yet, it is remarkable that the exhibition elided the most powerful metaphor at play in the chinese cultural heritage industry at the time of the silver age’s organization, the political-historical imaginary of the silk road and 95 for a chinese-nationalist perspective on the damaging effects of 1930s us silver policy, see “effort against silver outflow during the world silver market fluctuation (1933–1935),” bank of china website, accessed july 30, 2018, http://www.boc.cn/en/aboutboc/ab7/200809/ t20080926_1601869.html. 163the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) its littoral extension, the “maritime silk road.”96 in 2013, at forums in kazakhstan and indonesia, xi jinping outlined the ccp’s belt and road initiative (bri), or yidai yilu 一帶一路. from the start, the ccp has positioned the initiative as a “twenty-first century new silk road.”97 an ambitious foreign policy platform that aims to unite the eurasian continent through chinese investment and trade, as of 2018, it had garnered the partnership of over seventy countries, many of which have committed to projects funded by chinese policy banks.98 as xi has frequently reiterated in his speeches on the initiative, it is patterned on the ideological-historical imaginary of the silk road: central asian caravan routes and southeast asian trading ports that supposedly networked ancient china to india, east africa, and europe. from the start, the initiative has been predicated on two branches: the overland “silk road economic belt” (sichou zhi lu jingji dai 丝绸之路经济带) and the “maritime silk road.” in line with the politicization of objects as evidence for state narratives in the chinese museum, cultural heritage has played an integral role in buttressing the agendas of the bri. at the 2017 opening ceremony of the belt and road forum for international cooperation in beijing, xi began his speech by citing particular metal objects in chinese museums as historical evidence for the “silk road spirit” of “peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit”: over 2,000 years ago, our ancestors, trekking across vast steppes and deserts, opened the transcontinental passage connecting asia, europe, and africa, known today as the silk road. our ancestors, navigating rough seas, created sea routes linking the east with the west, namely, the maritime silk road. these ancient silk routes opened windows of friendly engagement among nations, adding a splendid chapter to the history of human 96 the concept of the “silk road” was first posited by german geographer ferdinand von richthofen in the 1870s; see tamara chin, “the invention of the silk road, 1877,” critical inquiry 40 (autumn 2013): 196. while richthofen mentioned a “maritime silk road,” the first full elaboration has been attributed to french archeologist and sinologist edouard chavanne; see yaguang zhang, hui zhang, and chang luo, “the belt and road initiative in the voice of the new era,” in regional mutual benefit and win-win under the double circulation of global value, ed. wei liu and hui zhang (beijing: peking university press, 2019), 3. 97 he fan, zhu he, zhang qian, “construction of the 21st century maritime silk road: present situation, opportunities, problems, and solutions,” trans. wu lingwei, dangdai shehui kexue 3 (2018): 21–22. 98 terry mobley, “the belt and road initiative,” strategic studies quarterly 13, no. 3 (fall 2019): 57; jonathan e. hillman, “how big is china’s belt and road?,” center for strategic and international studies, april 3, 2018, accessed november 15, 2019, https://www.csis.org/analysis/ how-big-chinas-belt-and-road. 164 concessions in “the silver age” progress. the […] “gilt bronze silkworm” displayed at china’s shaanxi history museum and the belitung shipwreck discovered in indonesia bear witness to this exciting period of history.99 a bronze silkworm from the han dynasty (206 bc–ad 220) served as material proof for the importance of the overland silk trade, during an early imperial period that is critical to the founding of han chinese identity. not only were the eastern and western han dynasties notable for their military, cultural, and technological accomplishments, but they controlled trade routes into central asia and reportedly received diplomatic envoys from rome.100 meanwhile, a group of over thirty tang dynasty (ad 618–907) gold and silverwares recovered through marine excavation of a sunken ship at belitung island in indonesia revealed that such objects were potentially destined for trade in southeast asia.101 due to the quality of manufacture and their maritime provenance, françois louis has described them as “among the most important discoveries of tang gold and silver ever made.”102 thus, even at international economic policy events, chinese leaders have drawn on well-known examples of cultural artifacts to provide models from the past for present-day global economic exchange and benevolent cultural cooperation. as tamara chin has noted, the overland diplomacy and trade of a “silk road” has provided a “template for modern international commerce” as well as a “condition or strategy for geopolitical thought and action.”103 it allowed for an idealized utopic formation through vast, flowing networks of peaceful, cross-cultural exchange. according to chin, it recast the past image of china into an “open” empire. in its engagement with the world, the vision counteracted one common and powerful narrative about the late qing empire, often constructed as an isolated, stagnant, and 99 “full text of president xi’s speech at opening of belt and road forum,” xinhua news, may 14, 2017, accessed november 14, 2019, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-05/14/c_136282982. htm. 100 for an overview of the han dynasty from a material culture standpoint, see department of asian art, “han dynasty (206 bc–ad 220),” in heilbrunn timeline of art history (new york: the metropolitan museum of art, 2000), http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/hand/hd_hand.htm; for the gilt bronze silk worm, see liujin tongcan 鎏金铜蚕 [gilt bronze silk worm], shaanxi history museum digital catalogue, december 7, 2016, accessed november 12, 2019, http://www.sxhm.com/index. php?ac=article&at=read&did=10497. 101 françois louis, “metal objects on the belitung shipwreck,” in shipwrecked: tang treasures and monsoon winds, ed. regina krahl, john guy, j. keith wilson, and julian raby (washington, dc: smithsonian institution, 2010), 85–86. 102 louis, “metal objects on the belitung shipwreck,” 85. 103 tamara chin, “the invention of the silk road,” 195. 165the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) backward civilization.104 harm langenkamp argued that the silk road has been evoked as an ideal model for east–west cultural exchange by both chinese and western entities and institutions following the cold war. the notion of “collective harmony” has been put toward the “diverging, rather than contrasting, visions” of both neoliberal cosmopolitanism and post-socialist multiethnic nationalism.105 before the bri, langenkamp wrote that the most well-known chinese cultural deployment of the silk road imaginary was the 1979 ballet rain of flowers along the silk road (silu huayu 丝路花雨), in service of the latter agenda. by performing sinicized renderings of ethnic musical traditions, non-han characters demonstrate their adherence to the homogenizations of “cultural harmony” under han cultural dominance.106 as the bri has developed, initiatives have drawn situationally on the silk road imaginary’s simultaneous yet divergent rhetoric of cosmopolitanism and multiethnic nationalism. the “silk road” has operated capaciously, providing historical continuity for the bri, appealing to both domestic and international audiences, and implicating non-han subjects in its central asian center. the harmonious combination of chinese designs and western forms posited for chinese export silverwares would seem to work most strongly as historical evidence for the cultural exchange narratives of the “maritime silk road.” since the bri was announced, exhibitions and cultural sites in china have increasingly drawn on the cultural-historical template of the terrestrial and maritime silk roads. most directly, a major exhibition of cultural artifacts in 2019 at the national museum of china in beijing followed the bri policy to the letter, with xi jinping’s 2013 bri proposal as the acknowledged impetus for the show. the exhibition’s english title was sharing a common future: exhibition of treasures from national museums along the silk road.107 with the participation of twelve national museums from sites identified on the silk road, the exhibition borrowed 234 sets of artifacts, which it displayed in two sections, the silk road and the maritime silk road, arranged by country. objects from kazakh armor, to a silver russian tea urn, to a carved stone cambodian buddha 104 fairbank, trade and diplomacy on the china coast. 105 harm langenkamp, “contested imaginaries of collective harmony: the poetics and politics of ‘silk road’ nostalgia in china and the west,” in china and the west: music, representation, and reception, ed. hong-lun yang and michael saffle (ann arbor: university of michigan press, 2017), 260. 106 langenkamp, “contested imaginaries,” 255. 107 chinese title: shufang gongxiang: sichou zhi lu guojia bowuguan wenwu jingpin zhan 殊方 共享: 丝绸之路国家博物馆文物精品展 [distant regions enjoy together: silk road national museums exhibition of culture treasures]. 166 concessions in “the silver age” espoused the value of “cultural integration,” with some museums contributing objects that demonstrated the historical impact of china on material culture both domestic and imported.108 moreover, related cultural artifacts produced by late imperial chinese artisans for foreign trade have been framed by museums within the geographical imaginary of a “maritime silk road.” a traveling exhibition on chinese export crafts was first installed at the china maritime museum in shanghai in 2017. including about 130 artifacts such as paintings, fans, silverwares, maps, and nineteenth-century nautical instruments, it was explicitly positioned with the “maritime silk road”; an article in the shanghai observer told visitors that the exhibition would allow them to see, using a chinese idiom, the “rich display of lights and colors” of the ancient maritime silk road.109 additionally, a 2019 exhibition on the history of chinese silver currency at the shanghai museum invoked the “maritime silk road” in historical framing of a section on southern song dynasty (1127–1279) silver bars recovered from the nanhai i, the sunken wreck of a chinese merchant ship.110 moreover, the silver age might have been aligned with the “silk road” imaginary from a chinese craft history perspective. by describing the treaty-port silverwares industry as a high point of the craft, the exhibition organizers drew an implicit parallel with tang dynasty silverwares. as he yunao and shao lei have written, the first “peak” dingfeng 顶峰 of chinese gold and silverware production was during the period.111 on september 9, 2019, the silver age opened at the xi’an museum.112 as the site of the 108 national museum of china 国家博物馆, “shufang gongxiang: sichou zhi lu guojia bowuguan wenwu jingpin zhan 殊方共享: 丝绸之路国家博物馆文物精品展 [sharing a common future: exhibition of treasures from national museums along the silk road],” exhibition website, accessed november 14, 2019, http://www.chnmuseum.cn/portals/0/web/zt/20190411sfgx/. 109 wang zhiyan 王志彦, “zhongguo gongjiang wei yingguo guizu dingzhi de shehu ciqi chang sha yang? zhege zhanshang neng kandao gudai haishang sichou zhi lu de liuguang yicai 中国工 匠为英国贵族定制的奢华瓷器长啥样？ 这个展上能看到古代海上丝绸之路的流光溢彩 [what did the luxury ceramics that chinese craftsmen made for english elite look like? at this exhibition you can see the rich display of objects from the ancient maritime silk road],” shangguan yinwen, september 16, 2017, accessed november 14, 2019, https://www.shobserver.com/news/detail?id=65213. 110 li liang 郦亮, “zhechang tezhan jiekai ‘baiyin diguo’ qianshi jinsheng 这场特展揭开‘白银 帝国’ 前世今生 [this special exhibition uncovers and re-enlivens the ‘silver empire’ of the past],” qingnianbao 青年报, april 27, 2019, accessed november 14, 2019, http://www.why.com.cn/epaper/ webpc/qnb/html/2019-04/27/content_86884.html. 111 he yunao 贺云翱 and shao lei 邵磊, zhongguo jinyinqi 中国金银器 [chinese gold and silverwares] (beijing: zhongyang bianyi chubanshe, 2008), 127. 112 dang tianye 党田野, “xi’an bowuyuan tuichu ‘baiyin shidai — zhongguo waixiao yinqi tezhan’ 西安博物院推出‘白银时代—中国外销银器特展’ [xi’an museum opens ‘silver age—special exhibition of chinese export silverwares’],” sina news. september 29, 2019, accessed november 14, 2019, https://k.sina.com.cn/article_1784473157_6a5ce64502001e21w.html. 167the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) ancient capital chang’an of the qin, han, and tang dynasties, the city and its surrounding areas are rich with archeological treasures. during the tang dynasty, chang’an was an important center of economic and cultural exchange with central and western asia; in the modern mapping of the so-called silk road, it has been positioned as the eastern endpoint of a network of trade and diplomatic routes that extended across the eurasian landmass to european cities including venice.113 galleries at the xi’an museum, as well as at the shaanxi history museum, are dedicated to premodern chinese gold and silverwares, including many examples of tangdynasty silver and gold objects such as cups, bowls, plates, incense holders, and small dragon sculptures.114 qi dongfang and zhang jing have written that tang precious metalwares exhibited characteristics never seen before in chinese traditional craft objects. the characteristics were often described in craft history as “western style” (xifang fengge 西方风格).115 the “west” at this time was not the maritime west of the late imperial period, but instead overland regions to the empire’s west. while chinese craftsmen and laborers had employed gold and silver mining, smelting, and metalworking techniques since the shang period (1600 to 1046 bc), the technologies were relatively less-developed than those in other media such as bronzes and ceramics.116 by the mid-eighth century ad, gold and silverwares in the styles of the sassanian persian, byzantine, roman, and sogdian empires had been imported via tribute and trade conduits. the techniques and designs of foreign wares spurred demand for similar kinds of luxury goods to be made domestically. under official patronage, metalworkers in both northern and southern china brought a high level of craftsmanship to the production of innovative forms and designs.117 given the claims made in the silver age about a similar craft renaissance due to the impact of “western style” on chinese treaty-port silverwares, the exhibition’s xi’an venue might have solidified connections to the historical-ideological (maritime) silk road. 113 for example, the unesco silk roads project included points farther east, such as nara, japan, and points farther west, such as paris, in its mapping of silk road networks. see “about the silk road,” silk roads: dialogue, diversity & development, unesco website, accessed november 15, 2019, https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/about-silk-road. 114 see xiang de 向德, ed. jinhui yude—xi’an bowuyuan cang jinyinqi yuqi jingcui 金辉玉德—西 安博物院藏金银器玉器精粹 [brightness of gold, virtue of jade—selections from the xi’an museum collection of gold and silverwares and jades] (xi’an: xi’an bowuyuan, 2012). 115 qi dongfang 齐东方 and zhang jing 张静, “tangdai jinyin qimin yu xifang wenhua de guanxi 唐代金银器皿与西方文化的关系 [the relationship between tang dynasty gold and silver vessels and western cultures],” kaogu xuebao 考古学报 2 (1994): 173. 116 he and lei, zhongguo jinyinqi, 20–23. 117 he and lei, zhongguo jinyinqi, 128–129; 137. also see qi and zhang, “tangdai jinyin qimin,” 174–188. 168 concessions in “the silver age” yet the “maritime silk road” and the “silver age” have distinct significance and function as constructs. a report on the chinese silver currency exhibition in the shanghai newspaper youth daily positioned them in relation to each other. it explained that china’s “silver age” “was the inevitable result of international trade during the age of ships. as overseas trade developed along with ship technologies, silver was carried long distances and it became the important linkage and bond for the ‘maritime silk road’.”118 an interval where resources were marshaled toward the construction of a maritime trade network, through advanced transportation technology and infrastructure, thus leads to a period of economic plenty. the “maritime silk road” is not just a historical imaginary of peaceful east–west cultural exchange on a foundation of trade. rather, it is more specifically focused on accumulating marine power in order to regain lost cultural prominence. while unvoiced, tacit in the historical formulation is the hope that maritime-based development will lead to a third “silver age” for contemporary china. in 2017, a research group at fuzhou university along with the social science academic press produced a thirteen-volume set of reference books on china’s strategy for building maritime power. at a conference at fuzhou university, the organizers narrated a basic timeline for a new understanding of chinese history in terms of china’s maritime orientation and a “silver age.” they posited that in chinese history, there were three periods of development toward the sea, or xianghai 向海. the first time was during the tang dynasty, when people started using market boats for trade. in the ming and qing dynasties, with the support and protection of maritime policies, prohibitions on maritime trade were ended. thus began the “silver age” of the chinese, and even the global, economy. following economic liberalization in 1978, a focus on developing economy and culture has led to the third and present orientation toward the sea.119 a “silver age,” as defined from the perspective of this set of social scientists, is a period of not only economic prosperity, but one that resuscitates the social flourishing and global cultural dominance of the tang and the late ming periods.120 the contention is shared by the silver age exhibition through its three levels of object translation in the space of the post-socialist museum. there is irony in the narrative elisions required for the “silver age” to work as the imaginative frame for the silver age. as the “maritime silk road” 118 li liang, “zhechang tezhan jiekai ‘baiyin diguo’ qianshi jinsheng.” 119 “‘haishang sichou zhi lu yu zhongguo haiyang qiangguo zhanlüe congshu’ chuban 《海上丝 绸之路与中国海洋强国战略丛书》 出版 [maritime silk road and chinese national maritime power strategy series was published],” fujian ribao 福建日报, september 3, 2017, accessed november 14, 2019, http://fjrb.fjsen.com/fjrb/html/2017-03/09/content_1007702.htm?div=-1. 120 “‘haishang sichou zhi lu zhongguo haiyang qiangguo zhanlüe congshu’ chuban.” 169the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) has served as a template for harmonious economic collaboration, the lasting connections between the national shame of treaty-port incursions and the “silver drain” have hindered its use in this case. the objects counterintuitively operated more securely within the double meaning of a “silver age,” as both the return of an economic material and a signal of chinese innovation. if the intention is to make a case for the inventive capacity of chinese creators given the proper conditions, then chinese export silverwares are best presented as works of fine craft in a type of “silver age,” when creative production met and improved upon demand. in press accompanying the xi’an museum exhibition opening in 2019, the silver age was consistently couched in the terms that have followed the show around china since its first opening in changsha: the transcultural designs of the objects, the forbes revelation in 1975, the large-scale “return,” or huiliu 回流 of the objects, and the objects’ bearing on definitions of a chinese cultural and economic “silver age.” i have argued that exhibition organizers carried out a series of strategic translations to position chinese export silverwares as “evidence” for both a past and future “silver age,” drawing on the concepts and narratives provided by this set of terms. as transcultural objects, chinese export silverwares help articulate a new national relationship with past foreign imperialism through present global prominence through their design and their material. as eilean hooper-greenhill has written, “the radical potential of material culture, of real things […] is the endless possibility of re-reading.” 121 silver has the potential to be viewed as art object or monetary store of value. silverwares thus have a particular flexibility in attesting to both craft and economic history, as revealed by the hong kong maritime museum exhibition. but in the mainland silver age exhibition, the material and design ambivalence of the objects was used to accommodate tensions between competing state narratives. returning to the photo of the shenyang visitor to the silver age, one might ask what elliptical history lesson she had learned from gazing at the haupt compote. narrative compromises made by chinese state museums in the exhibition of historically complex, and materially ambivalent objects, like chinese export silverwares, have revealed the contradictions the state has inhabited in cultural heritage discourses. at this point, it has pursued the double strategy of maintaining the emotional resonance of chinese victimhood at the hands of foreign imperialists, as well as provide the global-historical support for its expansionist projects. given the post-socialist trajectory of the prc and the integral supportive position of the museum and cultural heritage industry within its development 121 hooper-greenhill, museums and the shaping of knowledge, 215. 170 concessions in “the silver age” strategies, the state will continue to further refine the political uses of the museum industry. the bri and its future iterations will likewise continue to rewrite the historical and cultural value placed on objects through their exhibition in state museums. part of the ongoing debate will be about the definition of chinese cultural heritage, and its location within global art hierarchies. whether undertaken by the chinese state-cultural industry or any other organization, the positioning of transcultural objects within narratives about global history can serve as powerful political statements. objects, in their material intractability, on one hand put limits on infinite expression. at the same time, their ambivalence opens them up to constant reframing. acknowledgements thanks to margaretta lovell and caroline riley for their astute comments on an earlier draft of this paper. additional thanks to the journal reviewers and editors for their invaluable suggestions. searching for mani’s picture book | gulácsi | transcultural studies searching for mani’s picture-book in textual and pictorial sources dr. zsuzsanna gulácsi, northern arizona university, flagstaff the use of didactic paintings to illustrate orally delivered religious teachings was a practice maintained throughout the 1400-year history of manichaeism. known as mani's picture in the earlier sources and as mani’s picture-book in later records, a collection of images that depicted the basic tenets of mani are at the center of this study. these paintings were created first in mid-third century mesopotamia with direct involvement from mani (216-276 ce) and were later preserved by being copied and adapted to a wide variety of artistic and cultural norms, as the religion spread across the asian continent. the surviving textual and pictorial evidence of manichaean didactic art has never been collated and analyzed before, nor has it been assessed in light of non-manichaean comparative examples. while the manichaean practice of teaching with images is similar to the pan-asiatic phenomenon of “picture-recitation” or “storytelling with images” studied by victor mair in 1988, more than any other religion, the manichaeans institutionalized the use of their didactic images by attributing a canonical status to them. this aspect contributed to their preservation, albeit in slowly changing artistic forms. already in its original vision, mani’s religion is intended to be universal and thus “transcultural.” from its very start the manichaean mission relied on multifaceted (oral, textual, and pictorial) means of communication that were meant to be adapted to a variety of distinct cultural contexts. due to their nature, most oral means of communication remain undocumented, leaving us no chance to contemplate the culturally distinct verbal characteristics of religious speech acts. rare exceptions to this are transcribed sermons or debates, in which the words of performances became texts and are studied as such. the transcultural nature of manichaean texts is recognized today. as such, parts of mani’s original third-century mesopotamian syriac (eastern aramaic) prose is preserved in coptic translations from fourth-century egypt, just as it is in parthian, middle persian, sogdian, and uygur translations from tenth-century east central asia. while the language (vocabulary, grammar, and syntax) of mani’s writings  naturally changed in the course of the translation process, the content was intended to be preserved -.as accurately as possible. i see analogous traits reflected among the remains of mani’s picture-book surviving from ca. tenth-century east central asia and ca. twelfthto fourteenth-century southern china. although these paintings have just started to be identified and studied, it seems clear that, in course of their historical transmission originally from mesopotamia to central asia and later from central asia to china, their subject matter (i.e. the core theme of this art) is conservatively preserved, while the pictorial language expressing that content is often visually “translated” in order to make the image comprehensible to the culture of its intended viewers.[1]i believe that a newly gained comprehension of the phases of cultural transmission in manichaean didactic art across the asian continent will contribute an important model to our overall understanding of how religious art travels across cultures. my current goal is to report on my research into mani’s picture-book, the results of which form the basis of a monograph scheduled to be published in the nag hammadi, and manichaean studies series published by brill.[2] my overall project is three-fold. it includes the study of the manichaean textual sources, the identification and analysis of manichaean pictorial sources, and the contextualized assessment of the findings under consideration of non-manichaean comparative examples. by situating the manichaean data in a broader context, my study brings together evidence of the practice of teaching with images in other contemporaneous religious traditions (such as eastern christianity, judaism, islam, and most importantly buddhism) in thirdto eighth-century west asia, eighthto twelfth-century central asia and eighthto seventeenth-century east asia. before discussing these three approaches, it may be useful to note some basic facts about the history of the manichaean religion and its surviving artistic remains. map 1: phases of manichaean history (3rd-17th centuries ce) the overall history of manichaeism is better understood today in light of research published in hundreds of articles and books during the past century.[3] an overview of the major phases that make up the history of manichaeism can be illustrated in a map (map 1). this religion originated in mid-third-century mesopotamia from the teachings of mani. from there it immediately spread to the west, where it was persecuted to extinction by the sixth and seventh centuries. manichaean communities existed in iran and west central asia between the third and tenth centuries. spreading further east along the silk road, mani’s teaching reached the realm of the uygurs, whose ruling elite adopted it as their imperial religion between the mid eighth and early eleventh centuries. appearing in china during the seventh century, manichaeism was present in the major cities during the tang dynasty (618–907), surfacing in the historical records as monijiao (“religion of mani”). for a brief period, which corresponded to the zenith of uygur military might and political influence on the tang, manichaeism enjoyed imperial tolerance and was propagated among the chinese inhabitants of the major urban area.[4] the fall of the uygur steppe empire (840/841) was followed bythe persecution of all foreign religions in 843–845. as a consequence, manichaeism disappeared from northern china. its chinese converts fled westwards to the territories of the sedentary uygur empire (841–1213) in the region of dunhuang and the tarim basin, and towards the southern part of china, where a fully sinicized version of the religion, referred to in chinese sources as mingjiao (lit. “religion of light”), existed until the early seventeenth century.[5] during the twentieth century, manichaean artistic remains were known to have come almost exclusively from east central asia, from the region of the oasis city of kocho, which was a trading and agricultural center along the northern silk routes. for  approximately three centuries, it also functioned as the winter capital of the sedentary uygur empire. german expeditions excavated kocho prior to world war i and rescued about 5000 manichaean manuscript fragments and a cache of artistic remains. the resulting publications lead to the scholarly début of the topic of manichaean art in art history during the 1910s and 1920s.[6] during the past twenty-five years, a new understanding of uygur manichaean art emerged based on the identification of an uygur manichaean artistic corpus: the classification and scientific dating of its painting styles, the analytical study of its book medium (i.e., codicology), and the continued research of its iconography. criteria for identifying a corpus, which doubled the number of manichaean remains to 108, were put forward in 1997, and formed the basis for a 2001 catalogue featuring color facsimiles and critical editions of all associated texts.[7] a survey of this corpus revealed that the pictorial remains exhibit two locally produced painting styles: one with western roots, dubbed “the west asian style of uygur manichaean art,” which appears almost exclusively on remnants of illuminated books in codex and scroll formats; the other with eastern roots, designated “the chinese style of uygur manichaean art,” which was found mainly on temple banners, textile displays, and wall paintings. contrary to previous assumptions -, carbon dating combined with stylistic analysis and historical dating reveal that both styles existed during the tenth century. this insight confirms that artists working with distinct techniques and media were employed simultaneously in kocho.[8] the most numerous component of this corpus, the fragments of illuminated manuscripts, were subjected to a codicological analysis in a 2005 monograph that assessed the formal aspects, as well as the contextual cohesion of text and image.[9] although a monograph on manichaean iconography  has yet to be completed, a series of insightful studies have been appearing since the early 1980s.[10] recently, an exquisitely well-preserved group of manichaean paintings that originated in southern china have been identified in japanese art collections.[11] as a result, a growing corpus of seven chinese manichaean paintings is known today. they are silk hanging scrolls that portray explicitly manichaean subjects conveyed in a contemporaneous local artistic style. they were made and used in southern china sometime between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries and subsequently taken to japan, mostly due to japanese interest in collecting chinese pictorial art. the ongoing studies of these paintings will undoubtedly reveal a wealth of new information and thus improve our current understanding of the overall history of manichaean art, specifically chinese manichaean art, as well as that of mani's picture-book. manichaean textual sources on the use of didactic art the comprehensive critical analysis of the known manichaean textual sources provides the foundation of this study. currently eighteen textual sources are known that refer to mani's picture-book (map 2). each of these texts is about a paragraph in length and originated in divergent contexts from throughout the manichaean world. although many of them have been noted in previous scholarship, they have never been studied as a group, nor have they been subjected to a systematic analysis that allows us to collect and assess their data as a whole in order to better understand the history of these unique manichaean works of art. map 2: existence of mani's picture-book as documented in eighteen textual sources (geographical distribution and dates) even the most basic statistical assessment of the distribution of these texts reveals important facts about the history of mani's picture-book (map 2). in terms of their religious contexts of origin, 50% are primary manichaean texts —surviving from the deserts of northeast africa (3 texts) and east central asia (6+1 texts),—which confirms the continued use of the picture-book among the followers of mani. the other 50% of the texts derive from polemical accounts, including christian texts in west asia (1 text), persian islamic texts from west and central asia (2+5 texts), and an official government report from southern china (1 text), suggesting that this manichaean collection of didactic paintings was of interest to rival religious and secular authorities alike. regarding their geographical and chronological distribution, over 40% of these texts (8 texts) discuss the use of mani's picture-book in third-century mesopotamia, and among the uygurs between the eighth and early eleventh centuries. with decreasing significance, chinese use is also confirmed initially in the north, in the capital cities of the tang dynasty, and later in the south, in the coastal fujian province between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries (2 texts). persian sources that specifically mention  mani’s picture-book and not merely “mani the painter” are also included in this survey. starting from the eleventh century, these sources reflect a persian (non-manichaean) admiration for mani’s picture-book (2 texts). more recent persian accounts, dating from the past 300 years, preserve the memory of mani’s picture-book in various literary genres (5 texts). through their temporal and geographical distribution, these eighteen texts reflect the gradually diminishing use of the picture-book, confirming its strong presence in west asia (4 texts) and east central asia (5+1 texts) during the early and the middle era of manichaean history, and a lessened prominence during the late era of this religion in east asia (1 text). an example of what the critical analysis of each text entails can be illustrated with one of the most informative early sources on the picture-book, written by ephrem syrus (d. 373 ce). ephrem mentions the manichaeans’ use of didactic images in syro-mesopotamia in a passage of his prose refutations.[12] dating from sometime in the middle of the fourth century, ephrem composed this text to refute marcion, bardaisan, and mani  who propagated their rivaling version of christianity in west asia. despite its polemical tone, the prose refutations are especially relevant, since ephrem lived within a century of mani and shared with him a common language and cultural background. equally significant is that ephrem quotes directly from a manichaean text and credits mani’s disciples as his source of information. specifically on the practice of teaching with images, he writes: according to some of his disciples, mani also illustrated (the) figures of the godless doctrine, which he fabricated out of his own mind, using pigments on a scroll (syr. megillah). he labeled the odious (figures) ‘sons of darkness’ in order to declare to his disciples the hideousness of darkness, so that they might loathe it; and he labeled the lovely (figures) ‘sons of light’ in order to declare to them ‘its beauty so that they might desire it.’ he accordingly states: ‘i have written them (the teachings) in books and illustrated them in colors. let the one who hears about them verbally also see them in visual forms (syr. yuqnâ, ‘image’ or ‘picture’), and the one who is unable to learn them (the teachings) from [words] learn them from picture(s) (syr. tzwrt, ‘picture’ or ‘illustration’).’[13] ephrem records here that the manichaeans had a collection of images to illustrate their teachings from the very beginning of their history. he credits mani with its authorship. further, he also confirms the doctrinal content of these paintings by stating that they capture mani's “doctrine” and “the teachings.” he refers to the latter with plural pronouns,  because mani’s doctrine consisted of a collection of teachings. ephrem also conveys that the teachings were “illustrated” “in pigment,” “in colors,” “in a visual form,” and that they were “pictures.” the syriac tzwrt (“picture”, “illustration”) is used here as a collective noun that john reeves translates as “picture(s)” in his 1997 edition of the text. the use of the plural in english is justified by the syriac context. the terms “doctrine” and “picture” both function as collective nouns. just as we cannot imagine mani’s doctrine to be one teaching, but rather a collection of teachings, the art that captured mani’s doctrine was most certainly not a single image, but a collection of images, which ephrem knew as a scroll (syr. megillah), the format of which is well suited for storing a collection of individual scenes.[14] with ephrem’s passage in mind, it would be wrong to assume that mani aimed his paintings specifically at an illiterate audience while his texts were meant for the literate members of his community. the vast majority of people listening to any religious teaching in late ancient mesopotamia were illiterate. illiteracy, however, does not seem to be the point here. instead, ephrem states that these images supplemented oral teachings, which were an intrinsic part of manichaean instruction to any and all audiences. the paintings were designed to be seen by those “who hear the teachings verbally” and who are “unable to learn them just from the words.” such teachings were delivered orally in an environment where the paintings played an essential role. they captured the content of the teaching in a medium different from that of the spoken word, by visual means, in order to make comprehension easier for the audience.[15] in other words, these paintings were didactic pictorial displays and the manichaean tradition of using them began with mani himself in mid-third-century southern mesopotamia. other texts confirm its continued use throughout the history of this religion. as a group, the eighteen texts on the picture-book constitute a rich documentary source regarding the names, formats, and materials of this work of art, which understandably changed over time.regarding the history of the name of the collection,early textual sources record it as the picture (syr. tzwrt and yukna, copt. hikon, gr. eikon, parth. ārdahang, and mpers. nigar), while later texts from china and islamic persia call it the picture-book (chin. tu-ching and pers. nigarname). until recently, the latter term dominated modern scholarship. i prefer to use it myself, because it better conveys the idea of a “collection of paintings” and thus avoids the misleading “single image” connotation. in regard to its formats and materials, the texts document that mani’s picture-book existed in both book and textile formats. “picture-books” are noted in both scroll and codex formats, suggesting a horizontal scroll most likely made of parchment in late ancient west asia (containing a series of individual scenes painted next to one another) and a horizontal codex that was probably made of paper in mediaeval central asia (with full page images on folia bound along their shorter side). in addition to such book formats, there are also documented those that we may call “pictorial cloth displays”. it seems that they were portable didactic tableaux (that featured images on the surface of a cloth hanging scroll). examples survived in both painted and embroidered formats among the uygur and chinese manichaean artistic remains. some of the texts convey that mani’s picture-book was listed among the canonical works of the manichaean religion. they state that in addition to books written by mani, the manichaean canon includes a solely pictorial doctrinal work—a collection of didactic paintings attributed to mani.[16] none of the canonical manichaean books survive intact, not even in later copies. only smaller fragments that were produced as translations are known today. as the two most important records of mani’s teachings, the picture-book is frequently singled out with the gospel in west asian sources. these two works from the manichaean canon are used as symbols for the textual and visual records that mani created specifically to prevent the corruption of his teachings. accordingly, theses two books are named in a ten-point list of claims for manichaean superiority in kephalaion 151, where mani states: my church is superior in the wisdom and [the secrets?], which i have revealed to you in it. as for this [immeasurable] wisdom i have written it in the holy books–in the great [gospel] and the other writings – so that it not be altered [after] me. just as i have written it in books, so [i have] also ordered it (keleuein) to be drawn (zōgraphein). for all the [apostles], my brothers, who have come before me, [have not written] their wisdom in the books as i have written it. [neither have] they drawn their wisdom in the picture (hikōn) as [i have drawn] it. my church surpasses the earlier churches [also in this point].[17] the survey of the textual sources confirms that, in addition to writing, painting was employed as a tool by mani to clearly communicate and at the same time avoid any adulteration of his teachings. no other religious prophets, including zoroaster, shakyamuni, and jesus (“my brothers, who have come before me” – as mani calls them in kephalaion 151), wrote down, let alone painted their teachings. mani saw this as an important distinction between him and these predecessors. just as in canonical texts, copies of mani’s collection of didactic paintings were also routinely made, assuring its preservation across the phases of manichaean historya point that i will revisit below.[18] manichaean pictorial art with didactic themes a total of twenty-five manichaean paintings can be identified today from east central asia and southern china that feature didactic subjects depicting core manichaean teachings. i argue that the pictorial themes of these scenes were originally part of the collection of images known as mani’s picture-book. these twenty-five pictorial sources constitute two distinct groups. the primary group is formed of actual paintings of mani’s picture-book. some of these are intact, while others are fragmentary scenes (large enough to be identified) conveyed either in picture-book formats (pictorial scroll and pictorial horizontal codex) or textile display formats (painted or embroidered silk hanging scrolls). the second group consists of copies of the picture-book's scenes preserved as illuminations in manichaean hymnbooks and sub-scenes painted onto manichaean funerary banners. register 1. the light maiden’s visit to heaven. the stages of the visit: 1. greetings by the host upon arrival, 2. meeting with the host in the palace, 3. farewell to the host. register 2. sermon performed around the statue of a manichaean deity (mani). register 3. the states of good reincarnation. four classes of chinese society: 1. itinerant workers, 2. craftsmen, 3. farmers, 4. aristocrats. register 4. the light maiden’s intervention in the judgment after death. register 5. states of bad reincarnation. the tortures of hell: 1. person shot with arrows, 2. person sawed in two, 3. person crushed by a fiery wheel, 4. demons waiting for their prisoner. fig. 1: sermon on mani's teaching of salvation chinese manichaean silk painting, complete hanging scroll, 142 cm x 59,2 cm, colors on silk, ca. 13th century, yamato bunkakan museum, nara, japan. an example of a well-preserved scene from the picture-book has been recently identified. it is a chinese silk painting in the collection of the yamato bunkakan, in nara, japan, dating sometime between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (figure 1). the manichaean origin of this painting was first suggested by takeo izumi on the basis of a comparison with the mani statue, and later affirmed by yutaka yoshida.[19] this 142 centimeter tall hanging scroll is accompanied by a dedicatory inscription with an illegible date that offers this painting “to a temple of vegetarians.”[20] the painting itself consists of five clearly demarcated registers of varying heights that together convey a subject that we may call sermon on mani’s teaching of salvation.[21] at the top, the first register depicts heaven as a palatial building that forms the focus of a narration of events with the repeated images of a few mythological beings. using continuous narration, this composition shows how the light maiden and her entourage conduct their business: arriving on the left while being greeted by an unidentified female host; visiting the host while seated inside the palace (center); and then departing on the right while being seen off by the host. the scene may be titled the light maiden’s visit to heaven. the second register depicts a sermon performed around the statue of a manichaean deity (most likely mani) by two manichaean elects, shown on the right.[22]the elect giving the sermon is seated, while his assistant is standing. a layman and his attendant, seen on the left, listen to the sermon. therefore, the scene may be titled sermon around a statue of mani. the third register is divided into four small squares, each devoted to one of four classes of chinese society in order to capture what seems to be the daily life of the chinese manichaean laity (known as “auditors”). in succession from left to right, the first scene represents itinerant laborers; the second—craftsmen; the third—farmers, and the fourth—aristocrats.[23] this set of scenes may be titled states of good reincarnation. the fourth register depicts the manichaean view of judgment after death. it shows a judge seated behind a desk surrounded by his aides in a pavilion on an elevated platform, to the front of which two pairs of demons lead their captives to hear their fates, either positive or negative. in the upper left corner, the light maiden arrives on her usual cloud formation with two attendants, to intervene on behalf of the man about to be judged. this scene may be titled the light maiden’s intervention in a judgment. the fifth register concludes the hanging scroll by portraying four fearful images of hell that include from right to left: arrows being shot at a person suspended from a red frame, dismemberment, a fiery wheel rolled over a person, and  lastly a group of demon torturers waiting for their victim. this scene may be titled states of bad reincarnation. clearly influenced by the iconography of local buddhist artistic themes, all but one of the scenes look analogous to contemporaneous buddhist works of art, including heaven on top and judgment and hell on the bottom. nevertheless, the reoccurring figure of the light maiden in these scenes, as well as the uniquely manichaean, centrally located, and largest sermon scene, makes this a readily identifiable manichaean work of art. fig. 2: the primary prophets on a manichaean pictorial roll fragment from kocho, ca.10th century. fig. 2a: scroll fragment (mik iii 4947 & iii 5d) with an image of the buddha, museum of indian art, berlin. fig. 2b: reconstruction of scroll fragment with an image of the buddha (gulacsi, 2005), fig. 5/26) fragmentary scenes that nevertheless preserve enough data to identify their actual didactic contents, may also be identified as examples of mani’s picture-book. one such scene is found on a paper handscroll depicting the primary prophets from kocho (mik iii 4974 & iii 5d) in the collection of the museum für asiatische kunst, staatliche museen zu berlin (figure 2).[24] this fragment was identified as manichaean based on the correlation with specific motifs and technical details of manichaean art.[25] this torn piece of lavishly painted paper retains parts of the central being’s mandorla and one of the original four prophets, the historical buddha (figure 2a). shakyamuni is shown in authentic buddhist iconography and is identified by the word “buddha” written vertically on his chest in the parthian language (“b-u-t”) and the sogdian script.[26] this buddha figure belonged to the upper right section of a scene that was originally painted on a horizontal scroll (figure 2b). the original composition was organized around the still-intact large central figure (mani)beneath a canopy. it probably involved, in the section now lost, the other three of the four figures (forerunners to mani), including jesus. this fragment derives from a pictorial didactic diagram with a uniquely manichaean theme, whichwe may call the primary prophets. it was based on manichaean texts from west and east central asia discussing this topic. in these texts, mani is mentioned along with the founders of other religions whose teachings were relevant to manichaeism. the east central asian versions of the texts name four other prophets, all of whom are considered to be of a lesser rank than mani. they include the antediluvian prophet, seth; the buddhist prophet, shakyamuni; the zoroastrian prophet, zarathustra; and the christian prophet, jesus. analogously, the two pictorial fragments from kocho feature five figures arranged in a symmetrical composition that uses centrality and scale to communicate hierarchy—the four somewhat smaller figures, symbolizing the forerunners, surround a larger central figure, most likely mani.[27] during the east central asian (uygur) phase of manichaean history, some scenes of the picture-book were copied to other media and thus survived as scenes on temple banners or illuminated manuscripts discovered in kocho. i argue that such scenes can be identified based on their didactic pictorial contents, since they depict core manichaean teachings that are well documented from textual (often canonical) sources. in the case of book paintings, the lack of contextual cohesion (i.e., the lack of harmonized content between the texts and image) and the sideways orientation of the painting in relation to the writing suggest that the paintings originally had a solely pictorial didactic context (such as a “picture-book”). their scenes developed independently from the illuminated “text-book” during the early, west asian phase of this religion. fig. 3: the work of the religion scene (mik iii 4794 recto, detail), before and after digital reconstruction (6.6 cmx 6.1 cm) fig. 3a: original condition, (gulacsi, 2009, plt.1) fig. 3b: reconstructed image, (gulacsi, 2009, plt.1) an example of a scene that, i suggest, originated as part of mani’s picture-book, is the “work of the religion” scene preserved on the recto of a torn codex folio (mik iii 4974) from the collection of the museum für asiatische kunst, staatliche museen zu berlin (figure 3). the surviving content of the painting (figure 3a) becomes more understandable with a digital, non-interpretive, reconstruction of the same scene (figure 3b). the steps of this reconstruction were discussed in a recent publication.[28] this painting is a didactic diagram that explains the goal of manichaean practice: the freeing of the light from the captivity of the darkness.(1) laypeople donate vegetarian food (that is believed to have a high concentration of light particles) to the elect (the priesthood).(2) after consuming this food, the bodies of the elect free the ight.(3) through the singing of hymns, light departs from the bodies of the elect and heads towards to the realm of light. (4) the moon and sun act as vessels of the light, transporting the freed light particles back to god (to the realm of light). (5) god, i.e., “the father of greatness” (symbolized here by his right hand) reaches into the scene from above to receive the shipment.even when viewing the original painting without the reconstruction, all details of this iconography can be identified in manichaean texts that discuss “the work of the religion.” this scene depicts a core teaching and is free from east central asian (buddhist) influence. therefore, it is most likely that this pictorial subject originated among the scenes of mani’s picture-book. fig. 4: reconstruction outline of a turfan manichaean illuminated codex folio, mik iii 4974, (gulacsi, 2005, fig. 5/8) fig. 4a: recto of paper fragment fig. 4b: verso of paper fragment fig. 4c: reconstructed layout of recto fig. 4d: reconstructed layout of verso in addition to the didactic theme of this painting (i.e., the liberation of light from the captivity of darkness), distinct from the text of the folio (benediction on the leaders of the local uygur community), it is the physical context of the image that preserves codicological clues that suggest a solely pictorial source of origin (figure 4). i hypothesize that the painting survived as a replica of a picture-book scene, copied onto a manuscript folio with a middle-persian language text, which is a benediction of the sacred meal and the leadership of the local community. the benediction text continues on the verso (figure 4a & 4c). the layout of this folio (like that of many other manichaean fragments) can be fully reconstructed (figure 4b & 4d). as this reconstructed page layout shows, the writing utilizes the codex page vertically, while the painting utilizes the same page horizontally. the text does not comment on the painting and, vice-versa, the image does not make a visual reference to the text. i can only interpret this dual discrepancy by suggesting that they were not developed together within the illuminated book, but were instead derived from two independent sources: the texts came from a manichaean textual tradition, while the images from manichaean pictorial art. teaching manichaean doctrine with the aid of both texts and images takes us back to mani himself, who was active in a multicultural part of the world under sasanid rule in southern mesopotamia. regarding the texts left behind by mani, it is known that he was highly literate in several languages and composed and committed himself to writing a significant portion of the manichaean canon. mani viewed his literacy as an important point of distinction between him and the founder of other religions. in regards to the paintings, a variety of textual sources note that mani commissioned or painted images himself that captured his teaching in a visual form. the two originally separate means of communication (textual and pictorial) remained important in later manichaeism and in some cases became combined in a third, new medium (illuminated manuscripts adorned with —horizontally arranged images), which the manichaeans seemed to employ only during the east central asian phases of their history.[29] comparative sources on teaching religion with images across the asian continent manichaean communities were not the only religious traditions active across the asian continent and known to have illustrated the oral instructions of their teachings with didactic art. in 1988, victor mair from the university of pennsylvania devoted a monograph to what he called “picture recitation” or “story telling with pictures”; the book features both secular and religious examples of the practice.[30] the starting point of mair’s research was a genre of popular chinese literature, known as bian-wen (transformation texts). dating from the tang period, transformation texts represent the first extended vernacular narratives in china. the earliest examples discovered from dunhuang included textual manuscripts, as well as painted hand scrolls, sometimes with no texts, just images, which contributed to a confusion regarding the interpretation of their function and origin. according to a popular explanation, they were promptbooks for monks’ sermons and lectures. at the same time, evidence suggested that pien-storytellers were primarily lay entertainers (sometimes women). mair argued that the genre of transformation texts derived from the tradition of chuan-pien, a type of oral storytelling with pictures, i.e., picture recitation, which as a folk tradition in china was poorly documented in historical accounts. since relatively little chinese data was available on picture recitation, mair considered analogous genres from a variety of countries across the asian continent, including india and southeast asia, iran and central asia, as well as japan. through his survey mair could point to the historical depth of the tradition, as well as its diverse religious application, not only among buddhist, but also hindu, jain, islamic, and manichaean communities. fig. 5: teaching with pictorial scrolls in etoki performances of contemporary japan fig. 5a: pointing to scenes of a hanging scroll. etoki performance at saiko-ji, nagano prefecture, japan, (kaminishi, 2006, fig. 5/2) fig. 5b: moving between scenes of hand scroll. etoki performance at dojo-ji, wakayama prefecture, japan, (mair, 1988, color plate 6) the best contemporary examples of the use of images to illustrate oral instructions of religious teachings are found in japanese pure land buddhist temples. with the spread of buddhism from china to the rest of east asia, the practice of picture recitation was transmitted to japan, where it still exists today in the form of etoki performances. the fist monograph in english on the japanese etoki appeared in 2006. the author, ikumi kaminishi, presented a contextualized study that focused on both textual and visual documentary sources, some dating as early as the 10th century. since etoki is still offered today in about two dozen buddhist temples, kaminishi is able to introduce data based on documentary textual and visual sources, actual paintings currently used for the practice, and participant observation. the latter allows the reader to see the survival of specific didactic techniques that utilize pictorial hanging scrolls (vertical textile paintings) (figure 5a) and handscrolls (rolled picture-books) (figure 5b) as visual displays.[31] japanese buddhist sources of picture recitation may help the interpretation of the surviving, fragmentary data provided by manichaean sources from southern china and east central asia. on the one hand, the buddhist analogies document that teaching with images can be done either in a folk setting by laymen, or in the institutional setting of an organized religion by monks for the benefit of the laity. on the other hand, they allow us to see that both pictorial handscrolls (rolled picture-books) and hanging scrolls (vertical textile paintings) are suitable formats for didactic visual displays. the vertical format of the hanging scroll allows the viewer to see a large number of scenes at the same time, the viewing order of which is given by the instructor, who points to the individual scenes as the instruction progresses. the horizontal format— of the hand scroll—prevents the viewer from seeing the entire roll surface simultaneously. instead, it is customary to view only a couple of scenes at the time. in this case, the viewing sequence is defined by the horizontal layout of the scenes, which is right to left in east asia. fig. 6: pictorial scrolls between 7th and 10th centuries from east-central asia fig. 6a: wall painting depicting the showing of a cloth with the four major events, kizil, ca. 7th century, museum of asian art, berlin, (mair, 1988, plate iv) fig. 6b: pictorial paper scroll depicting the ten kings of hell (details), dunhuang, ca. 10th century, british museum, london, (whitfield, 1988, fig. 26) the use of these two formats (i.e., vertical hanging scroll and horizontal handscroll), like the two materials (i.e., painted silk and painted paper) are documented for the buddhist communities of medieval east central asia, who also employed them for conveying didactic pictorial subjects. a version of a vertical textile display depicts the four major events from the life of the historical buddha, which is preserved on a wall painting from the caves of kizil, dating from the 8th century ce (figure 6a). a solely pictorial paper roll depicting the ten kings of hell is preserved in cave 17 at dunhuang, dating from tenth-century, and housed today in the collection of the british museum (figure 6b). these buddhist examples are particularly noteworthy, because they derive from a time and place where the manichaeans were also known to have rendered the images of their picture-book in analogous pictorial formats and materials, in order to illustrate the most important teachings of their tradition. the use of paper in buddhist and manichaean art is first documented in east central asia. while a few illuminated manichaean parchment fragments do survive from kocho,[32] paper clearly dominated the productions of books and picture-books in both codex and scroll formats. east central asia is known for religious and artistic innovations that defined the subsequent formation of these two traditions. the existence of didactic pictorial art and the employment of oral instruction are already confirmed for the pre-east central asian phase of their history. map 3: early manichaean history and the empires of west and central asia the earliest surviving remains of buddhist didactic art derive from the area of the kushan empire, when much of central asia and northern india were encompassed under the rule of an indo-european speaking nomadic people between the 1st and 3rd centuries (map 3). the era of the kushan empire is especially relevant for this study, not only because during its reign the first narrative images of the buddha's life were created, but also because the last century of kushan rule is contemporaneous with mani, who had ties with northern india. although mani spent most of his life within the western regions of sasanid iran, he is known to have led a mission along the eastern frontiers of iran into what  today is northwest india (just south of what belonged to the kushan realm), where he encountered buddhist and jain communities.[33] fig. 7: buddhist didactic narration from the 2nd and 3rd centuries in gandhara fig. 7a: scenes from the life of the buddha, gandhara, pakistan, kushan period, between the 1st century and 322 a.d, grey schist, courtesy of cleveland museum of art. fig. 7b: scenes from the life of the buddha, gandhara, pakistan, kushan period, between the 1st century and 322 a.d, schist, courtesy of arthur m. sackler gallery, washington dc. one of the most important subjects of buddhist art, the narration of the life of the historical buddha, is first documented in the kushan era. extensive stone relief carvings of the life of the buddha that survived from the region of gandhara (today pakistan and afghanistan) from the second and third centuries ce, preserve a rich artistic tradition, which conveys a didactic narrative cycle. examples are known in both the vertical and horizontal formats. a set of vertically displayed scenes can be seen on a stele in the cleveland museum of art (figure 7a). at the top of this relief carving, the narration begins with the birth scene, and what appears to be the scene of the great departure with the buddha on a house leaving behind his princely life, concludes the set on the bottom. a horizontal arrangement is used on the relief at the sackler gallery (figure 7b). the two scenes illustrated here (from the original set of four) show birth, as well as enlightenment. together they constitute the first two scenes of the four major events from the buddha’s life. since organic materials rarely survive from this time, these stone reliefs suggest that portable versions of analogous compositions, most likely rendered primarily on cotton, were also used to visually narrate the events of the buddha’s life during this period. fig. 8: didactic visual libraries in 3rd century mesopotamia fig. 8a: painted baptistery, dura-europos, syria, 244-45 ce, model copy, tempera on plaster, yale university art gallery. fig. 8b: painted synagogue, dura-europos, syria, 244-45 ce, rebuilt original, tempera on plaster, damascus national museum. further west, across the asian continent in third-century mesopotamia, the use of images for religious teachings is also documented in both jewish and christian contexts, suggesting that the manichaeans were not the only ones in the region who employed didactic art in service of their mission. about ten days walking distance (ca. 270 miles=430 km) north of where mani lived, on the roman side of the sasanid border, the archeological remains (discovered at dura from the mid-third-century) preserved didactic paintings in mesopotamian jewish and christian settings (figure 8). the synagogue at dura offers a strong comparative example (fiure. 8a). its mostly narrative scenes are large enough to be seen by a gathered congregation. the meeting hall is framed by built-in benches, orienting the community towards the center, which allows for a relatively comfortable view of all four walls. the pictorial program of such a visual library does not have to mimic the sequence of stories in the hebrew bible. the rabbi brings the images up as he sees fit. he may verbally refer or physically point to them when necessary. the baptistery at dura seems to document an analogous case with scenes such as healing the paralytic, walking on water, woman at the well, and finding the empty tomb (figure 8b). at this early era of christianity, baptism was performed mostly for adults and, thus, it is conceivable that the ritual included a didactic component. in this small chapel, the scenes seem to be selected for their appropriateness for a baptism ritual. at the same time, they constitute part of a didactic visual library. during this time in west asia, the itinerant manichaean priesthood employed a portable medium (a scroll, according to ephrem), but they also had a collection of didactic paintings during the mid-third-century, analogously  similar to the christian and jewish communities of mesopotamia. textual sources confirm that the manichaeans found their collection of didactic painting important enough to be added to their canon in a solely pictorial volume, which they labeled mani’s picture and later, mani’s picture-book. while it is possible that the idea of using didactic art as a visual aid to oral instruction came to mani as a result of seeing portable pictorial tableaus in india, it is also possible that using portable art in the context of oral performances was a broader, regional, west asiatic, artistic phenomenon widely employed in both secular and religious settings in this primarily iranian part of the late ancient world. this line of reasoning would also present an explanation as to why the collection of manichaean didactic paintings featured so prominently during the fourth century in both ephrem’s mesopotamian syriac polemical accounts, and the coptic translations of mesopotamian manichaean literature, but was unknown to augustine of hippo (354-430 ce) only a century later in roman north africa. despite being a lay follower of mani for about twelve years, augustine never mentions mani’s picture-book and specifically states in his contra faustum that the manicheans that augustine knew did not illustrate their teachings nor depict their gods in any visual form.[34] conclusion displaying and explaining images in the course of oral instructions of religious teachings is a phenomenon best known today from the japanese pure land buddhist practice called etoki.  in the course of etoki, a priest or a learned layperson stands next to a large hanging or hand scroll that contains a variety of scenes and points to the images as her elucidation proceeds. this phenomenon is documented among a variety of historical buddhist communities, not only in east asia, but in central and south asia, too. the earliest known use of such didactic art in buddhist context is from the second and third centuries ce, when in kushan empire, especially in the region of gandhara (today’s kandahar region of afghanistan and peshawar region of pakistan), narrative images on the buddha’s life were first portrayed in art and recorded in writing. from their earliest history in mid third-century sasanid mesopotamia, manichaean communities also employed didactic images that were displayed for a group of devotees as part of orally delivered teachings. they covered themes such as the duality of light and darkness, manichaean prophets and deities, and visions of a religious universe and human salvation. future research may reveal evidence on an analogous use of didactic art in late ancient mesopotamia by jewish and christian communities. however, compared to all other religions that employed didactic images to accompany instruction, the manichaeans  were unique in three ways: (1) they consciously used such didactic art as part of their mission from the earliest days of their tradition, (2) they collected these paintings in a solely pictorial “volume” that they attributed to the founder of their religion (calling it mani’s picture or picture-book), and (3) they added this solely pictorial work to their official canon. the canonical status contributed to the preservation of manichaean didactic art and to the custom of teaching with them throughout most of this religion’s 1400-year history. as mani’s teachings began to be disseminated outside southern mesopotamia across the asian continent (already by mani himself), it became necessary to communicate transculturally with the aid of various means of missionary adaptation. not unlike the translation of manichaean texts, the paintings also underwent certain changes in their format, style, and iconography in order to efficiently convey mani’s message to its intended new audience. accordingly, while the overall repertoire of manichaean didactic paintings looked different from one another in sassanid iran, byzantine west asia, uygur central asia, and songor yuan-dynasty china, it did preserve a distinctly manichaean religious content. maintaining a manichaean version of etoki required clearly comprehensible pictorial communication that was suitable as a visual aid to illustrate the religion’s teachings in distinct cultural settings. because manichaeism endured much persecution and is now an extinct world religion, only bits and pieces of information about its historical practices survive today. thus, the study of manichaean texts and art requires painstaking scholarly work in order to uncover, analyze, and interpret the available sources. the attempt to understand the artistic and textual data on the manichaeans’ illustrated instruction, and the pictorial tools employed for it, is no exception. the ongoing research project that i was invited to report on in the above study relies on both textual and pictorial manichaean data that are contextualized in light of comparative non-manichaean examples in order to uncover for the first time a prominent tradition that motivated the creation, use, and preservation of pictorial art as a distinct component of religious life.   [1] zsuzsanna gulacsi, “the central asian roots of a chinese manichaean silk painting in the collection of the yamato bunkakan, nara, japan,” in in search of truth. augustine, manichaeism and other gnosticism: studies for johannes van oort at sixty, edited by jacob albert van den berg, annemaré kotzé, tobias nicklas and madeleine scopello. nag hammadi and manichaean studies series 74 (leiden: brill, 2010), 315-337 + pls. 5. [2] zsuzsanna gulácsi, mani’s picture-book: canonical didactic images of the manichaeans from mesopotamia to china, nag hammadi and manichaean studies (leiden: e. j. brill,forthcoming). [3] a comprehensive bibliography of manichaean studies published in european, west asian, and east asian languages up to 1996 consists of 3,606 entries. see gunner b. mikkelsen, bibliographia manichaica: a comprehensive bibliography of manichaeism through 1996 (turnhout: brepols, 1997). [4] see colin mackerras, the uighur empire according to the t’ang dynastic histories: a study in sino-uighur relations, 744–840 (columbia: university of south carolina press, 1973); and “the uighurs,” in the cambridge history of early inner asia, edited by denis sinor (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1990), 317–42. for a map indicating the locations of the manichaean, nestorian, and zoroastrian temples of chang’an, see patricia buckley ebrey, cambridge illustrated history of china (cambridge: cambridge university press 1996), 117. [5] for a book on manichaean history, see samuel lieu, manichaeism in the later roman empire and medieval china,2nd ed. (tübingen: j. c. b. mohr, 1992). [6] see albert von le coq, chotscho: facsimile-wiedergabe der wichtigeren funde der ersten königlich preussischen expedition nach turfan in ost-turkistan (berlin: dietrich reimer, 1913; reprint, graz: akademie druck, 1973); and die manichäischen miniaturen, die buddhistische spätantike in mittelasien 2 (berlin: dietrich reimer verlag, 1923; reprint, graz: akademie druck, 1978). [7] besides the two collections in berlin that formed the focus of my studies on canon formation (gulácsi, “identifying the corpus,” 177–215; and manichaean art in berlin collections, 267–68), a few fragments of manichaean illuminated books are known from collections in london, st. petersburg, kyoto, and china. they were studied together with the berlin remains in zsuzsanna gulácsi, mediaeval manichaean book art: a codicological study of iranian and turkic illuminated book fragments from 8th–11th century east central asia (leiden: brill, 2005), 15-38. new identifications of manichaean textiles have been made in chayya bhattacharya-haesner, central asian temple banners in the turfan collection of the museum für indische kunst, berlin (berlin: dietrich reimer verlag, 2003), 372, 377–79. [8] in his entry in the encyclopedia on world art, louis hambis (“manichaean art,” 442–43) was the first to question the assumed chronology of the manichaean painting styles, which led me to date the remains in light of scientific, artistic, and textual evidence. see zsuzsanna gulácsi, “dating the ‘persian’ and chinese style remains of uygur manichaean art: a new radiocarbon date and its implications for central asian art history,” arts asiatiques 58 (2003): 5–33. [9] gulácsi, mediaeval manichaean book art. [10] for iconographic studies on the four heavenly kings, the bema festival, the judgement after death, the work of the religion, and mani, see publications by hans-joachim klimkeit, jorinde ebert, yutaka yoshida, and zsuzsana gulácsi. [11] yoshida, “a newly recognized manichaean painting: manichaean daēnā from japan,” in pensée grecque et sagesse d’orient: hommage à michel tardieu, edited by mohammed-ali amir-moezzi et al. (turnhout: brepols, 2009), 697-714; and “a manichaean painting from ningbo: on the religious affiliation of the so-called rokudōzu of the museum yamato bunkakan,” yamato bunka 119 (2009): 1-35 (in japanese); jorinde ebert, "some remarks concerning a recently identified manichaean painting of the museum yamato bunkakan," yamato bunka 119 (2009): 35-47 (in japanese); and zsuzsanna gulácsi, “a manichaean portrait of the buddha jesus: identifying a twelfthor thirteenth-century chinese painting from the collection of seiun-ji zen temple,” artibus asiae 69/1 (2009): 91-145. [12] siegmor dopp and wilhelm geerlings, eds., dictionary of early christian literature (new york: crossroad, 2000), 195-198. [13] ephrem, refutations 126.31-127.11 in john reeves, “manichaean citations from the prose refutations of ephrem,” in emerging from darkness: studies in the recovery of manichaean sources, edited by paul mirecki and jason beduhn (leiden, brill, 1997), 262-263. [14] personal communication with john reeves. in his discussion of mani’s picture, hans-joachim klimkeit also emphasizes that it contained numerous scenes, pointing to a quotation from the 18th chapter of the coptic manichaean homilies, in which mani laments foreseeing the destruction of his church and all the books of his canon: “i weep over the paintings of my picture” (manichaean art and calligraphy, 15-16). [15] a similar understanding of the passage is expressed by albert heinrichs , who writes: “as a missionary of his own creed, mani liked to appeal not only to the ears but also to the eyes of his largely illiterate audiences; so he painted a picture book, which illustrated his religious beliefs in colorful and graphic detail. when depicting the primeval battle between the forces of light and darkness in his book-paintings, mani will have set stark white against pitch-black colors; and to speculate further about mani’s biblia pauperum, i suggest that on its pages red blood was dripping from the fresh cuts in green plants” (“ ‘thou shalt not kill a tree’: greek, manichaean and indian tales,” bulletin of the american society of papyrologists 16, no. 1-2 (1979): 94). [16] a list of what belonged to the manichaean canon in fourth-century egypt is preserved in the coptic manichaean text known as the homilies, where the following twelve works are named: (1) gospel, (2) treasury of life, (3) pragmateia, (4) book of mysteries, (5) book of giants, (6) epistles, (7) psalms, (8) prayers, (9) picture (hikōn), (10) revelations, (11) parables, and (12) mysteries (homilies: 25.1-25.6 in nils arne pedersen, manichaean homilies:with a number of hitherto unpublished fragments (turnhout: brepols, 2006), 25). [17] kephalaion 151, lines 20-30 (wolf-peter funk, kephalaia i (stuttgart: kohlhammer, 2000), 372-373. carl schmidt  and hans jacob polotsky (“ein mani-fund in ägypten. originalschriften des mani und seiner schüler,” sitzungsberichte der preussischen academie der wissenschaften, 1933, 41-43) had incorrectly cited the passage as kephalaion 154, which is how it has been cited in scholarship prior to funk’s edition. the english translation of the coptic passage quoted above is after jason beduhn (personal communication), who published parts of the passage in his “eucharist or yasna?: antecedents of manichaean food ritual,” in studia manichaica: iv. international congress of manichaean studies, edited by w. sundermann (berlin: akademie-verlag, 2000), 14, note 2. in addition to the coptic, there are middle persian and sogdian versions of this subject preserved on two turfan fragments: m 5794 (klimkeit, gnosis on the silk road, 216) and ch. 5554 (werner sundermann, ein manichäisch-sogdisches parabelbuch (berlin: akademie-verlag, 1985), 27-28, lines 125-135), respectively. [18] “i have made another (copy of the book of the) giants and the ārdahanag in merv” (m 5815 lines 112-223, see klimkeit 1993, 260). for a detailed discussion of this parthian letter’s translation, see boyce 1975, 48-49. [19] izumi raises the possibility that the main figure could be mani, due to its similarity to the iconography of the mani statue near quanzhou. he also considers previous interpretations of the painting, which include the themes of the “six buddhist realms” for the overall composition and the “meeting of the three religions” (i.e., taoism, confucianism, and buddhism) for the main scene, but refrains from giving a new interpretation; izumi, “a possible nestorian christian image,” 10–12. yutaka yoshida identifies the main figure as mani and the repeated image of the female figure standing on a cloud with her attendants as the light maiden (sogdian daênâ). regarding the complete image, yoshida suggests that it is an illustration of the manichaean doctrine on individual eschatology and for this reason inspired by a subject depicted in mani’s picture-book. see yutaka yoshida, “a manichaean painting from ningbo,” 5-8. for the previously accepted buddhist interpretation of the image, including the “six buddhist realms” and the “meeting of the three religions,” see seinosuke ide, nihon no sôgen butsuga, 71–73. [20] this important inscription is discussed by yoshida (“a manichaean painting from ningbo,” 8), who provides a japanese translation by t. moriyasu, the english equivalent of which is as follows (yoshida, personal communication): “zhang siyi from a parish (?) called dongzheng, who is a leader of the disciples, together with his wife xinniang [from] the family of zheng make a donation and present respectfully a sacred painting of hades to a temple of vegetarians located on the baoshan mountain. they wish to provide it as their eternal offering. accordingly, peace may be kept. [in the year . . . and in the . . . -th month].” the characters for the date are illegible. [21] for a further study on the manichaean iconography of this painting, see zsuzsanna gulácsi, “the central asian roots of a chinese manichaean silk painting in the collection of the yamato bunkakan, nara, japan” (in japanese), yamato bunka / biannual journal of eastern arts 118 (2009): 17–34; regarding its didactic context of use, see gulácsi, “a visual sermon on mani’s teaching of salvation: a contextualized reading of a chinese manichaean silk painting in the collection of the yamato bunkakan in nara, japan,” studies on the inner asian languages 23 (2008):1–16. [22] i agree with yoshida, who also identifies the deity as mani in “a manichaean painting from ningbo” 4–5. my interpretation of the subject of the main scene as a manichaean sermon scene is based on depictions of sermons in east central asian manichaean art. the best preserved example of a sermon scene can be seen on an intracolumnar book painting (mik iii 8259 folio 1[?] recto) showing a central altar and seated elects, who display communicative hand gestures and hold a book as they deliver their teachings to seated royalty; gulácsi, manichaean art in berlin collections, no. 28. in general, rituals were favored pictorial subjects in manichaean art, as suggested by a survey of the illuminated book fragments confirming eleven ritual scenes that divide into five distinct types (alms service, sermon, hymnody, bema festival, and conversion). in many of these scenes, actual members of the manichaean community are named and uygur royalty are shown. see gulácsi, mediaeval manichaean book art, 203–6. [23] yoshida, “a manichaean painting from ningbo,” 3-4. [24] this fragment was matched from two individual pieces. for the color facsimile and a detailed discussion, see gulácsi, manichaean art in berlin collections, 146–48, 240, 250. for a study of the codicological characteristics of illuminated scroll fragments and the interpretation of the original layout of this fragment, see gulácsi, mediaeval manichaean book art, 88–93 and 185–188, respectively. [25] the motif of a gold disk is used with such frequency in uygur manichaean art that it has been considered a token motif for identification of this fragment, which is thought to be manichaean on other grounds, too (gulácsi, “identifying the corpus,” 197). technical details in the depiction of the buddha correspond to details seen in the execution of other manichaean works of art in the fully painted version of the “west asian style of uygur manichaean art,” which favored the use of an ultramarine-blue background and large quantities of gold in addition to a five-stage execution that concluded with the drawing of delicate details in red line onto the goldand white-covered surfaces. for a detailed discussion, including the execution of the nose, the right hand, and the vine motif, see gulácsi, “dating the ‘persian’ and chinese style remains of uygur manichaean art,” 12–15, 21–22, and figs 9c, 9d, 16d. [26] larry clark suggests that both the script and the language of the three-letter text are sogdian (see appendix i, no. 66, in gulácsi, manichaean art in berlin collections, 240). this reading requires a minor correction. while the script is undoubtedly sogdian, the language cannot be sogdian, as was pointed out to me by yutaka yoshida (personal communication), because the noun pwtis always supplemented with a –y in its nominative form, i.e., pwty “buddha”; b. gharib, sogdian dictionary (teheran: farhangan publications, 1995), 115, line 2929. although this eliminates sogdian as the language, it does not mean that the connotation that clark assigns to the word is wrong. the sogdian script was used in east central asia from the eighth to the eleventh century to write manichaean texts in a variety of other languages, including parthian, middle persian, and old turkic (i.e., old uygur). the language of the inscription on the buddha’s chest is likely one of these, since the noun “buddha” is pwt in parthian and middle persian (desmond durkin-meisterernst, dictionary of manichaean middle persian and parthian (turnhout: brepols, 2004) 118), as well as in old turkic(sir gerard clauson, an etymological dictionary of pre-thirteenth-century turkish (oxford: clarendon press, 1972) 297). [27] this interpretation is based in part on the uygur manichaean pothi-book, which mentions mani and the four prophets: “you (mani) descended after the four prophets (uyg. tört burkhan).” see clark, “manichaean turkic pothi-book,” 183, lines 66, 188, 260–62. [28] zsuzsanna gulácsi, “an experiment in digital reconstruction with a manichaean book painting.” in new light on manichaeism: proceedings of the 6th international congress of manichaean studies, aug. 1-5, 2005, flagstaff, arizona, edited by j. beduhn (leiden: brill, 2009), 145-168 + 12 plates. [29] for a codicological study of horizontally-oriented images in manichaean manuscript illumination, see gulácsi, mediaeval manichaean book art, 133-193. [30] victor h. mair, painting and performance: chinese picture recitation and its indian genesis (honolulu: hawaii university press, 1988; reprint, warren: floating world editions, 2009). [31] mair 1988, 1-16; and ikumi kaminishi, explaining pictures: buddhist propaganda and etoki storytelling in japan (honolulu: hawaii university press, 2006), 103-108. [32] see, ursula sims-williams, werner sundermann and zsuzsanna gulácsi, “an illustrated parchment folio from a middle persian manichaean codex in the collection of the british library, or. 12452d/3 (kao.0111),” journal of inner asian art and archaeology 1 (2006), 139-142. [33] northwest india was visited by mani during the 230s. specifically jain influence is noted in manichaean attitudes towards non-injury (stanley f. johns, “jain elements in manichaeism,” paper presented at the manichaean studies seminar, society of biblical literature, annual conference, 2004). for an overview of mani’s missions, see lieu, manichaeism in the later roman empire and medieval china, 86-107. [34] augustine writes: “these and countless other absurdities are not represented in painting, or sculpture, or in any explanation”(contra faustum 20:9) and  “indeed, your gods have innumerable occupations, according to your fabulous descriptions, which you neither explain, nor represent in a visible form” (contra faustum 20:9 and 20:10, respectively.) material versus design | panagiotopoulos | transcultural studies material versus design: a transcultural approach to the two contrasting properties of things diamantis panagiotopoulos, ruprecht-karls universität heidelberg what academic perversion leads us to speak not of materials and their properties but of the materiality of objects? it seemed to me that the concept of materiality, whatever it might mean, has become a real obstacle to sensible enquiry into materials, their transformations and affordances. ingold 2007, 3 1. introduction it is a truism that globalization has fostered a steady decline in the importance of cultural or national boundaries and geographical distance. as with every historical process, this development has had both positive and negative aspects. in the case of things, global mobility may well have diminished the previously decisive role of geographical distance, thereby bringing the outside world within our reach (positive aspect); yet it has also abolished the aura of the exotic: the magnetic power that foreign things or forms such as artefacts, animals, natural products, styles, techniques, etc. exercised  during the pre-globalization era, a power that most of today’s young students cannot easily comprehend (negative aspect).[1] given this radical temporal change in the perception and evaluation of foreign things, it seems worthwhile to explore this issue within a period when the aura of the exotic was not only tangible but the determining factor of the life and social significance of objects that happened to cross cultural borders. since the high economic and symbolic value of exotica has already been extensively explored,[2] i would like to focus instead on a specific aspect of their alterity: the tension between the thing’s material and its design, whereby design is defined as the plan which lies behind the construction of an artefact. the shifting importance of these two properties of thingness determined to a large degree the perception and social role of precious objects in their new cultural context. the main question this paper addresses is whether the social value of foreign things in a pre-modern society lay in their exotic material or their exotic design or in both, and why. even if the answers to these questions prove simple and straightforward in a particular historical setting, it is necessary to explore them in a comprehensive and systematic manner if one hopes to shape a methodological paradigm that might more thoroughly clarify the perception(s) of foreignness at a diachronic and cross-cultural level. contrary to the traditional line of archaeological thought, which developed a fairly monolithic understanding of foreign things, i would like to adopt an emic perspective by acknowledging the apparent discrepancy in the perception of foreignness between ancient peoples and modern archaeologists. looking at our topic with this kind of “double vision” is perhaps the most productive point of analytic departure, especially given the fact that some archaeologists continue to adhere to a silent hypothesis that places upon ancient societies the same sensibilities and awareness of foreign objects that we hold today. an adequate historical setting for the analysis of the social dimensions of foreignness is provided by the eastern mediterranean in the middle/late 2nd millennium bce, a time in which several regional cultures came into close and intensive contact despite being divided by considerable geographical distance and an open and unpredictable sea.[3] the penetration of foreign things and ideas into the different social spheres of these regional cultures left tangible traces in the material, pictorial, and written records, and in so doing shed light on various forms of transcultural encounters. the present analysis follows a logical path that moves from general issues to the specific study context, discussing: a) the meaning of the term “import” in archaeological disciplines; b) the shifting importance of material and design in pre-modern and modern societies; c) the mediterranean as an adequate field of study for exploring transcultural phenomena; d) the specific historical setting of the late 2nd millennium bce and; e) the “heart of the matter,” in other words the selected imports that provide new insights into the questions discussed in the theoretical sections of the paper. 2. what is an import? in traditional archaeological narratives, the question of imports versus local production has too often been considered in absolute terms and reduced to a choice between objects that were manufactured locally and those that were purchased abroad. although archaeological inventories of foreign objects became very popular and provided a solid foundation for the study of foreign contacts, they also established a simplistic frame of reference for the appraisal of cultural interaction. the identification of individual import items was in turn primarily based on the visual analysis of attributes such as raw material, technique, shape, decoration, and style, with the most important criterion for defining an object as foreign being non-local material. yet even this seemingly unequivocal criterion is not without its challenges. as we shall see, crafted goods whose exotic raw material was not essentially transformed by local workmanship impede a clear-cut attribution to one or the other category. this highlights the main problem with the traditional archaeological approach: the very definition of foreignness is principally a matter of academic classification and not of ancient social practices. for this reason, the usefulness of the traditionally defined term “import” for studying intercultural encounters must be questioned. while the task of identifying the place of origin and reconstructing the intercultural networks and pathways in which foreign objects circulated is doubtlessly a very important task, it should be regarded only as a first step within a more comprehensive archaeological analysis which also focuses on aspects of an import’s perception and consumption within local contexts.[4] in previous studies, this phenomenological dimension of foreignness was approached with similar methodological polarity: the perception of foreign objects was reconstructed in such a way that it largely corresponded to a pattern of total alterity; in other words, foreign things were understood as alien objects that maintained the value of their otherness throughout their “second life” in their new cultural setting. these analyses were therefore dominated by the implication that a foreign object remained a cultural intruder, an intruder whose otherness was clearly distinguishable within a more or less homogeneous material culture. however, it would be naïve to assume that archaeologists’ classification of prestige items as local versus foreign fully reflects the various ways in which they were experienced by local audience, even if this classification is correct, which is, at least in some cases, doubtful. this form of categorical thinking distorts rather than reflects historical reality. it is more plausible to assume that after their cultural dislocation, imports were embedded into local practices and underwent several transformative processes, thereby losing a significant portion of their otherness. in the context of the present analysis, the most interesting aspect of this gradual domestication is the different affect this process seems to have had on the import’s design as opposed to its material, which will be discussed in the last section of the paper. in summary, the traditional ways of defining an import and assuming that it was always perceived as foreign reflect two monolithic concepts for understanding transcultural interaction. the following evaluation of foreign objects in the late 2nd millennium bce aegean highlights the necessity for a more complex interpretative model. 3. material versus design in recent years, the concepts of material culture and materiality have dominated anthropological and archaeological debates, providing innovative analytical perspectives.[5] their impact on these two disciplines has varied markedly. in anthropology, they generated a major paradigm shift liberating this scientific field from the “tyranny of subject” and ascribing to the objects a hermeneutic value no less important than that of individuals and society.[6] in the case of archaeology—a discipline which always had a pronounced focus on artefacts—the main contribution of material studies was an anthropological awareness. it led to a new theory of things that traverses the borders of chronological, typological, stylistic, and technical approaches and opens new directions towards the study of the interaction between humans and artefacts.[7] and yet it seems odd that recent debates about material culture and materiality have been heavily dominated by abstract notions and theoretical concepts and less by the materials and their properties.[8] therefore, it now seems worthwhile to focus on material and study it in relation to the shapes in which it was captivated. in previous archaeological research, the special significance of material in non-industrial societies has often been neglected. material was regarded as an element of the artefact  intended to serve its design and function. this rather anachronistic preference strongly reflects the modern predominance of design over material, which can be traced back to the mechanical reproducibility of artefacts: the mass manufacture of commodities from man-made materials enabled by the industrial revolution and more specifically by assembly line production deprived material of its original aura. nowadays, there can be little doubt that design trumps material and represents the essence of a modern product, an essence whose authenticity is crucial to a commodity’s value and protected by strict international laws. however, in the pre-modern context material was always an essential part of a thing’s biography; it was not just its matter but the very core of the object’s thingness. its physical, chemical, and engineering properties, especially those related to visual and tactual perception, determined to a great extent its social value. yet, as pye emphasized some decades ago, every material had not only inherent “properties” but also “qualities” the properties of materials are objective and measurable. they are out there. the qualities on the other hand are subjective: they are in here: in our heads. they are ideas of ours. they are part of that private view of the world which artists each have within them. we each have our own view of what stoniness is.[9] the shiny, glowing colour of gold[10] like the brightness and warm-feel of amber[11] are qualities that were symbolically charged and as such may often have been more highly appreciated than the object’s properties. not only natural but man-made materials such as metal, glass, and faience were considered to possess similar qualities. their symbolic or even magical (added) value could be associated with what a. gell has described as the “enhancement of technology,” the process of transforming raw material into something new.[12] the divergence between material and design becomes even more interesting when viewed within a transcultural setting. the exportation of an object and its re-contextualization within a new cultural frame represents a crucial turning point in its biography. the most stunning aspect of this process in the pre-modern context is that by the act of crossing cultural borders the perception and appreciation of an import’s material and design could have been variably impacted: while the social value of the foreign material might strikingly increase due to its distant origin and relative inaccessibility, the significance of design might dramatically diminish. one plausible explanation for this dichotomous attitude towards the physical attributes of foreign objects could be the fact that design and function are intrinsically linked.[13] what i mean to say is that from a transcultural point of view, an artefact cannot have a “proper function” instead, it has only a “system function” that can mutate in space and time.[14] function is thus not an intrinsic property of things but a cultural construction.[15] this has become increasingly apparent in recent anthropological and archaeological debates on the notion of “affordance.” this term, coined by j. gibson, refers to the potential uses of an object as defined by its physical properties.[16] the object’s material of manufacture, its texture, surface, and above all its shape, afford a specific function or functions. in order to avoid the normative definition of a proper function based merely on the materiality of a thing, other types of material, pictorial, and written evidence are necessary to reconstruct the contexts of use in which a specific object was embedded and thus its affordance.[17] turning our gaze once again to the foreign objects and their translocation into a new cultural context, it becomes apparent that their original function(s) frequently become illicit or irrelevant and that their functionality reverts to what one might call a “default mode.” during this process, design is deprived of its raison d’être, or at least of one of its most important components. transcultural encounters in the mediterranean regions of the 2nd millennium bce provide a fruitful field of study for exploring this ambiguous attitude towards the two essential properties of exotic objects.  4. the mediterranean as cultural region, field of study, and analytical category at the turn of the 21st century, the mediterranean experienced a remarkable revival both in international politics and the social sciences.[18] as far as the social sciences are concerned, this boom in mediterranean studies is evidenced by a significant increase in the number of academic journals dealing to a greater or lesser extent with the archaeology, history, society, and culture(s) of the mediterranean.[19] as i. morris has suggested, globalization is one if not the only impetus for this contemporaneous awakening of academic and political interests, which began in the 1990s.[20] similarly, i. malkin pointed out that the mediterranean “fits the new era of globalization and supranational frameworks” since it is a region with no clear core or centre and no periphery, an entity that can be better perceived as a network.[21] as long as globalization continues to determine our lives, the mediterranean will provide a very important field of study or even an analytical category for understanding globalization’s phenomena. these three facets of the mediterranean—as region, field of study, and analytical category—warrant further explanation before we proceed to our case study: a. the question concerning the unity of the mediterranean in the broad sense of the term remains open to debate.[22] the mediterranean sea is itself a clearly defined geographic surface; however, the terrestrial components of the mediterranean are less precisely identifiable. even the outer limits of this internally diversified zone cannot be delineated with certainty, no matter what criteria one may use. egypt, for example, illustrates well the intricacies involved in attempting to create a clear-cut definition of the region. the very question as to whether and to what extent egypt was part of the mediterranean at any given period in its history remains without an easy answer.[23] also, egypt lacks what constitutes the basics of a mediterranean landscape: mountains and two elements of the mediterranean triad—it has grain but neither olive oil nor wine. yet the fact that the limits of an entity cannot be defined with absolute certainty should not rule out its very existence. therefore, i propose that one adopt a “realist’s view,” where one speaks about a mediterranean region that possesses a set of common geological, hydrological, climatic, and ecological features that provide a specific (“mediterranean”) backdrop for cultural development on a diachronic level. b. turning from the geographical region to the field of study, we face an even more intense debate over the legitimacy of the mediterranean as a coherent spatial and cultural entity, and consequently as a homogeneous field of scientific inquiry.[24] according to a rather extreme  line of thought within this debate, the mediterranean is nothing more than a geographical term. this critique (which is based on some sound arguments) is actually quite useful for relativizing the equally extreme position that the mediterranean is one cultural region, breathing the same air and having a common destiny. despite the regional and cultural diversity of the mediterranean world there is a sensible way to overcome the concerns related to viewing the mediterranean as an entity. by adopting a realist’s view, one can define mediterranean unity not as a geographically and culturally coherent sphere but as a web that consists of several parts bound together by very strong bonds of mutual dependence. in this way, the similarities and/or differences between the parts become less important. this conception of the mediterranean not as a homogeneous entity but as a network legitimises its utilisation as a clearly defined field of study and, moreover, a valid analytical category in the study of cultural phenomena. c. the mediterranean as a coherent field of study has the inherent potential to serve as a heuristic concept for environmental and social studies.[25] the geographic constellation of different regions and cultures divided by an open sea yet bound together through environmental constraints is specific to the mediterranean and provides a solid foundation for shaping a methodological paradigm of supra-regional networking and interaction.[26] moreover, the mediterranean provides an excellent framework for an alternative way of viewing territories and their histories.[27] this new paradigm can overcome the simplistic level of maps that represent cultures with delineated boundaries interacting with each other.[28] the hermeneutic potential of transcultural approaches which foreground processes rather than nations-cultures-territories is undeniable. among an abundance of relevant analytical concepts, i would like to mention a. appadurai’s scapes as one possible option which—despite their influence in several social science disciplines—have not yet been properly acknowledged in the context of mediterranean studies.[29] appadurai stresses the importance of these culturally formed circuits or networks that shape and cover multiple paths of circulation and are, of course, not identical with cultural territories or nations. his scapes—virtual, deterritorialised spaces that are shaped and structured by a variety of flows and processes—can be extremely fruitful for exploring mediterranean histories. for example, phoenician culture can doubtlessly be perceived more accurately as a scape rather than a territory: a scape would consist of the routes of phoenician trade, the regions with phoenician presence, and the different forms of their interdependence and/or interconnectedness. furthermore, appadurai emphasizes the relationship between the forms of circulations and the circulation of forms and its importance for cultural history, where forms include things, styles, techniques, beliefs, etc.[30] in the mediterranean context, the different forms of circulation (diplomatic gift exchange, trade, tribute, migration, etc.) determine the nature of the forms that are circulated, and vice versa. finally, appadurai draws our attention to the difference between the problem of connectivity and the problem of circulation.[31] there are periods in mediterranean history when connectivity and circulation were both very high, and others when we see high connectivity and low circulation or vice versa—here circulation refers to the frequency of maritime contacts and connectivity to the intensity of cultural interaction. the recognition of this difference can decisively aid our understanding of archaeological evidence: for example, the rich variety of circuits, scales, and speeds dictated the circulation of cultural elements in every period of mediterranean history and must be acknowledged before one attempts to evaluate archaeological data. at the end of this brief discussion, we can deduce that the study of transcultural and global phenomena in a mediterranean “nutshell” can provide extremely useful insights.[32] 5. historical context the historical setting of the present case studies can be summarized as follows: in the 2nd millennium bce, the eastern mediterranean experienced an era of intense cross-cultural interaction, mainly driven by powerful royal elites eager to acquire exotic things. the entire region was tied together through complicated webs of communication and exchange, operating mainly along maritime routes.[33] from the early 18th dynasty onwards, egypt set the pace with its huge resources and demands, expansive policy, and active involvement abroad. the levantine cities benefited from their geographical position; however, throughout their history location also proved to be a mixed blessing. cyprus seems to have been a latecomer, never fully exploiting its enormous potential within this cultural setting. it is hard to explain why this large island—centrally located in the east mediterranean web of intercultural exchange and possessing the richest copper resources in the area—developed a high culture only centuries after minoan crete. as for the minoans and later the mycenaeans, they acted from the margin (albeit a very auspicious margin) lying beyond the sphere of egyptian interests and control yet within the most important maritime networks of exchange. the active minoan and mycenaean involvement in supra-regional trade shows that both cultures did indeed make the most of their geographically determined opportunities. and at the heart of it all was the sea and its ambiguity.[34] the mediterranean sea divided as well as linked together and was a dangerous force that could not be easily controlled. crossing the open sea was always a risky endeavour. for those, however, who were willing and able to do so, long-distance maritime trade opened endless opportunities through the advantages of cost and speed. one astonishing aspect of this interaction is that—in appadurai’s terms—despite low circulation among eastern mediterranean cultures their connectivity was very high. in other words, these cultures came into close contact despite their geographical distance and the extremely fragile character of maritime communication. it is exactly this ambivalence between circulation and connectivity that gave rise to the extremely high interest in foreign objects; an interest that was, however, generally coupled with a limited knowledge of their provenance and the specific role(s) they played in their places of origin.[35] this combination of a desire to possess the exotic and a fragmentary knowledge of it determined the perception of foreign things that reached the aegean region as diplomatic gifts or trade commodities. 6. foreign design in the late bronze age aegean egyptian and near eastern imports were extremely popular in the aegean societies of the 2nd millennium bce.[36] aegean artists treated foreign design in various ways: their inventive reactions included blind imitation and partial or total transformation of the original. there is, in fact, only one clear case of a local industry producing exact copies of a class of foreign imports: the egyptian scarabs, which were already very popular in the aegean by the end of the 3rd millennium bce (fig. 1).[37] fig. 1: imported egyptian scarab from platanos, crete (karetsou 2000, cat. no. 298) the minoan craftsmen produced accurate imitations of the egyptian originals, copying not only their form but also their material and decoration (fig. 2). fig. 2: minoan scarab from platanos, crete (karetsou 2000, cat no. 299) it took archaeologists some time to develop reliable criteria for safely distinguishing between original and imitation—we can confidently assume that it was also no mean task for minoan consumers to tell them apart.[38] the minoan scarab industry remains the only clear case of straightforward mimicry in aegean artistic production. in all other cases where foreign design was appropriated, the original was transformed to a considerable degree. this transformation affected not only the artefact’s design but also its material and function, as several examples will clearly demonstrate. for instance, a group of minoan clay amphorae imitated canaanite/egyptian alabaster amphorae that were evidently imported into the aegean (fig. 3–5).[39] fig. 3: travertine amphora with cartouche of thutmose iii found at katsambas, crete (karetsou 2000, cat. no. 219). fig. 4: white calcite amphora found at the palace of qatna, syria (pfälzner 2008, 230, fig. 142). fig. 5: minoan clay amphora from phaistos, crete, imitating a foreign shape (karetsou 2000, cat. no. 226 b). another excellent example is the duck-shaped vase of rock crystal from the grave circle b at mycenae, which obviously copied canaanite duck-shaped cosmetic boxes carved out of hippopotamus ivory (fig. 6–7).[40] fig. 6: duck-shaped vase made from rock crystal found at mycenae (christopoulos and bastias 1974, fig. on p. 267). fig. 7: levantine duck-shaped vase made from hippopotamus ivory found at ugarit (cluzan 2008, fig. 201). given this free and creative encounter with foreign objects and their shapes, crucial questions arises as to whether, to what extent, or for how long foreign design was perceived as something alien. one could formulate these questions in a different way: did the aspect of a non-local shape add a special material or symbolic value to the locally created object? i would posit that the otherness of foreign design was an ephemeral property and that two different factors unavoidably led to the gradual diminishing of its exotic character: a. due to the intricacies of long-distance maritime trade, only a minute percentage of the aegean population would ever have had the opportunity to acquire direct knowledge of egypt and the near east by way of personal travel. the main effect of this unbalanced circulation was a rather limited knowledge of the artistic production of foreign lands. for this reason, i question whether items that seem foreign enough to persuade a modern scholar were likely to have been recognized as such by ancient consumers.[41] modern scholars have a bird’s eye view that encompasses both sides of the mediterranean, something that the vast majority of the aegean population could not have had. with this in mind, one can postulate that an imported item was perhaps not so easily recognized by virtue of its design or style.  moreover, in late bronze age eastern mediterranean societies, in an age lacking registered trademarks, design had no clear pedigree and local craftspeople willingly imitated foreign forms. their craftsmanship need not necessarily have been driven solely by a mimetic attitude akin to that of the egyptian scarabs (where blind imitation was probably due to a desire for profit rather than a lack of artistic inspiration); instead, artists may have been striving to create something new, innovative, different, and thus appealing for their local markets. in this historical context, authenticity of design was clearly not always of concern.[42]  for example, if we consider the duck-shaped vase made of rock crystal from mycenae, it is highly unlikely that the canaanite origin of its design was recognized as such by the local society. this prestige item was most probably manufactured on crete to imitate a canaanite prototype, then sent either as a gift or trade commodity from crete to mycenae where its design was appreciated not necessarily as something foreign (and certainly not as canaanite) but as something new, rare, different, and precious. b. the aegean artists’ flexible attitude towards foreign design and the freedom to copy and transform everything must have fostered a gradual domestication of foreign forms within local contexts of consumption. one may further imagine that in a sort of reflexive process the mimesis of the original (carried out through the regular production of local copies) affected the “import” and led to the domestication of its alien design, gradually transforming the foreign shape into something familiar. it would seem a logical assumption that after some years the local manufacture of imported amphorae on minoan crete would have enabled a different perception of their canaanite/egyptian prototypes; the latter no doubt gradually appearing less exotic to local consumers. in sum, foreign design could not resist the process of domestication and was absorbed into local production, thus gradually loosing the aura of the exotic.[43] 7. foreign material(s) the high significance that materials played in the social valuation of artefacts has already been emphasized. in the aegean context, the appreciation of the material’s physical properties can be evidenced even without the aid of written sources: for example, several vases (fig. 8)and seals(fig. 9 a–b) made of colored stone clearly demonstrate how aegean artists, fascinated by the physical and visual texture of specific materials, tried to accentuate these material features by adjusting the object’s design to the natural pattern of the stone’s veined surface; in some cases, the seal motif vanishes under the preponderance of the veined pattern, while in others the natural veining is brilliantly arranged to form.  aegean artists and consumers were eager to acquire exotic materials either in their raw state or as artefact (mainly metals, stones, and organic materials such as hippopotamus and elephant ivory, but also man-made materials such as glass and faience).[44] the high appreciation of imported material becomes especially apparent in the case of ivory. virtually all minoan artefacts carved out of ivory during the late 3rd millennium bce were made of hippopotamus teeth imported as raw material from egypt and/or the levant.[45] the most interesting aspect of the minoan elite’s desire for seals or amulets made of hippopotamus ivory is the fact that in its finished state the material cannot easily be differentiated from bone.[46] that the minoan elite preferred to possess objects from expensive ivory rather than cheap and ubiquitous bone makes apparent that what really mattered was not the external appearance of the object—and therefore the intention to “convince” others—but the authenticity of the material. the only plausible explanation for this phenomenon is a belief not in the properties but in the qualities of the exotic material, which must have been regarded not only as valuable but also as being invested with symbolic or magical power.[47] fig. 8: minoan bowl from dolomitic limestone found at chania, crete (siebenmorgen 2000, 278, cat. no. 175). fig. 9 a–b: minoan seal stone made from jasper (corpus of the minoan and mycenaean seals ii 3 no. 340). returning to the key issue of the present paper, the pertinent evidence demonstrates that aegean consumers showed a greater interest in the material than in the design and/or function of exotic objects. several stone vases exported from egypt and canaan to the aegean show traces of local (=aegean) workmanship.[48] minoan artists converted them to shapes that were better suited to local needs and/or aesthetic demands by modifying the vessel’s mouth, surface and base, removing handles, and giving them new attachments. in the case of one egyptian globular vase made of brown porphyritic basalt and found at the minoan palace of kato zakros (fig. 10),the import’s original design was radically transformed to a bridge-spouted jar, a typical minoan shape. fig. 10: converted egyptian vase made from porphyritic basalt found in the minoan palace of kato zakros, crete (karetsou 2000, cat. no. 208). the transformation included: 1) the removal of its original pair of cylindrical handles and their replacement with horizontal ones, attached to the body of the vase by four vertical openings still visible today; 2) the opening of a pouring hole just below the rim and; 3) the addition of a spout probably made of local, soft, gray-brown stone.[49] in sharp contrast to this free—one could even say disrespectful—treatment of the original egyptian design, the minoan craftsmen tried to copy the original material, as evidenced by square depressions on the spout’s outer surface where some kind of white material was inlaid in an attempt to imitate the porphyritic texture of the vase’s stone. in this and other instances, the otherness of the foreign import gradually faded through re-design and regular use. however, the foreign material resisted any transformation and was the source of the artefact’s exotic aura. one can provide other examples that demonstrate a similar attitude towards foreign imports; an attitude that was simultaneously marked by a great appreciation of exotic materials and a neglect of foreign design. the most impressive example is undoubtedly the cache of thirty-six oriental cylinder seals made of lapis lazuli and miscellaneous un-engraved pieces of the same stone all found in the mycenaean palace of thebes.[50] this stylistically heterogeneous group is comprised of cypriote, mesopotamian, mittani, hittite, and kassite cylinder seals. it is likely that at least the kassite sub-group could have reached the theban palace as a diplomatic gift from the kassite king of babylonia burna-buriash ii (fig. 11), whose name is inscribed on one of the pieces.[51] fig. 11: cylinder seal made from lapis lazuli with the name of the kassite king burna-buriash ii (ca. 1359–1333 bce); found at the mycenaean palace of thebes (aravantinos 2008, fig. 177 a). there are indications that this superb collection of foreign cylinder seals was appreciated primarily for its exotic and precious material and not as a result of its seal design or function. thanks to the astute detail published by e. porada, we know that the total weight of the kassite-style seals and the un-engraved pieces with similar proportions (496 grams) closely corresponds to that of one ancient mina, the babylonian unit of weight. this observation might suggest that the objects came to thebes as a shipment (a diplomatic gift perhaps) of lapis lazuli rather than as a group of cylinder seals.[52] this hypothesis is corroborated by the heterogeneous origin of the group and the fact that imported cylinder seals were not used as sealing instruments in aegean societies. thus, it becomes apparent that the objects must have been imported for the sake of their material and not their design and/or function. lastly, the classification of this assemblage as a group of cylinder seals—which from a typological perspective is certainly correct—does not necessarily help us understand the actual significance the objects enjoyed at their place of disembarkation. these pieces were either worn as jewelry or kept in the treasury of the theban palace as a shipment of exotic material that was part of the economic and symbolic capital of this prosperous centre. it would not be far-fetched to suggest that these objects were defined (and obviously named) not by reference to their function but to their material.[53] both of the examples discussed above indicate a predominance of exotic material over design and function. there can be no doubt that these artefacts were appreciated exclusively because of their foreign material. the foreign design that gave them a specific shape and function was either ignored or transformed to meet the practical and aesthetic demands of the local populations.  of course, these observations cannot be taken as a general rule for all the various perceptions and appreciations of exotic material and design. their validity beyond this specific cultural setting and the specific groups of exotica discussed here would need to be scrutinized prior to their application in a new study context. one certainly cannot ignore that in some cases the aura of “finished” objects resulted from the act of crafting and the power associated with foreign crafting skills, as m. helms has persuasively demonstrated.[54] the aforementioned aegean examples demonstrate, however, that craftsmanship was not always appreciated, thus making the construction of a more complex hermeneutic model for the study of exotica indispensable. finally, if we keep the special significance of material in mind and return to the previously discussed positivist distinction between foreign imports and local production, the methodological weakness of this traditional distinction becomes apparent. a typological dichotomy that relies on the place of manufacture as the main criterion for differentiation provides a simplistic frame of reference for the problem of perception and appreciation of foreign things in a local context, a simplistic frame which fails to grasp the complexity of historical reality. another group of objects makes the methodological problems associated with this traditional approach even more obvious. there are several ostrich eggs that were shaped in the form of libation vases (rhyta) and embellished with faience fittings by aegean artists after their importation as raw material (fig. 12).[55] fig. 12: ostrich-egg vase with faience fittings from akrotiri, thera (karetsou 2000, cat. no. 118 a). if one were to follow the positivist typological dichotomy, one would have to define these things as local products since they were manufactured in the aegean by local artists. however, there can be no doubt that they were perceived and appreciated as exotic things by virtue of their material, which was and remained the dominant component of their thingness. 8. conclusions the biographies of objects crossing cultural borders unequivocally demonstrate the mutability of things: the fact that their function and social meaning may have shifted over time.[56] both are determined not—or not only—by the physical properties of the thing but by their embedment in specific contexts of consumption.[57] contrary to previous studies of transcultural encounters that stress different modes of adaptation, i would agree with knappett, who follows lane in suggesting that one key mechanism for innovation is exaptation rather than adaptation.[58] objects that were re-contextualised in a new cultural frame might gradually lose their alien visibility—or a part of it—to become part of the everyday. their evident incorporation into local practices forces us to expand the vocabulary of alterity with terms that go beyond the monolithic concept of “foreign” and include such terms as new, rare, different, precious, or powerful, to name just a few. the gradual deterioration of alterity through an object’s embedment in local systems of practices and values was a process that primarily affected its design and function. the latter were ephemeral qualities that could be modified to suit local needs. contrary to the transformable and reproducible design, material resisted domestication and thus formed the core of an import’s alien character. therefore, i would like to suggest that at least in this specific cultural context—and perhaps in several others—the aura of the exotic did not adhere to the design or style but to the physical thingness of an import. otherness was not primarily a matter of shape or function, but a matter of matter. bibliography abulafia, david. 2005. “mediterraneans.” in rethinking the mediterranean, edited by william v. harris, 64–91. oxford: oxford university press. abulafia, david. 2011. the great sea: a human history of the mediterranean. london: allen lane. antoniadou, sophia and anthony pace, eds. 2007. mediterranean crossroads. oxford: oxbow books. appadurai, arjun. 1990. “disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy.” theory, culture and society 7: 295–310. appadurai, arjun. 2010. “how histories make geographies: circulation and context in a global perspective.” transcultural studies, 4–13. aravantinos, vasilis. 2008.  “mycenean thebes.” in beyond babylon. art, trade, and diplomacy in the second millennium b.c.,edited by joan aruz, kim benzel and jean m. evans, 279–287. new york: the metropolitan museum of art. bagnall, roger s. 2005. “egypt and the concept of the mediterranean.” in rethinking the mediterranean, edited by william v. harris, 339–347. oxford: oxford university press. bennet, john. 2008. “palacetm. speculation on palatial production in mycenaean greece with (some) references to glass.” in vitreous materials in the late bronze age aegean, edited by caroline m. jackson and emma c. wager, 151–172. oxford: oxbow books. bevan, andrew. 2007. stone vessels and values in the bronze age mediterranean. cambridge: cambridge university press. bevan, andrew. 2010. “making and marking relationships: bronze age branding and mediterranean commodities.” in cultures of commodity branding, edited by andrew bevan and david wengrow, 35–85. walnut creek, ca: left coast press. bietak, manfred, ed. 1995. trade power and cultural exchange: hyksos egypt and the eastern mediterranean world: 1800–1500 b.c., ägypten und levante 5. wien:österreichische akademie der wissenschaften. bonnot, thierry. 2002. la vie des objets: d’utensiles banales à objets de collection. paris: editions maison des sciences de l’homme. burns, bryan e. 1999. import consumption in the bronze age argolid (greece). effects of mediterranean trade on mycenean society. unpublished thesis. burns, bryan e. 2010. mycenaean greece, mediterranean commerce and the formation of identity. cambridge: cambridge university press. cline, eric h. 1994. sailing the wine-dark sea. international trade and the late bronze age aegean. bar international series 591. oxford: tempus reparatum. line, eric h. 2005. “the multivalent nature of imported objects in the ancient mediterranean world.” in emporia: aegeans in the central and eastern mediterranean. proceedings of the 10th international aegean conference (athens, italian school of archaeology, 14–18. april 2004).  aegeaum 25, edited by robert laffineur and emanuele greco, 45–51. liège and austin: université de liège, histoire de l’art et archéologie de la grèce antique. cline, eric h. and diane harris-cline, eds. 1998. the aegean and the orient in the second millenium. aegaeum 18. liège and austin: université de liège, histoire de l’art et archéologie de la grèce antique. cluzan, sophie. 2008. “an international nexus of art and trade.” in beyond babylon. art, trade, and diplomacy in the second millenium b.c., edited by joan aruz, kim benzel and jean m. evans, 311–385. new york: the metropolitan museum of art. cochavi-rainey, zipora, ed. 1999. royal gifts in the late bronze age, fourteenth to thirteenth centuries b.c.e.: selected texts recording gifts to royal personages. beer-sheva studies by the department of bible and ancient near east 13. beer-sheva: ben-gurion university of the negev press. colburn, cynthia s. 2008. “exotica and the early minoan elite: eastern imports in prepalatial crete.” american journal of archaeology 112 (2): 203–224. cucuzza, nicola. 2000. “egyptianizing amphorae in minoan crete.” in κρήτη-αίγυπτος. πολιτισμικοί δεσμοί τριών χιλιετιών. μελέτες,edited by alexandra karetsou, 101–106. athens: kapon editions. davies, vivian and louise schofield, eds. 1995. egypt, the aegean and the levant. interconnections in the second millennium b.c. london: british museum press. fanselow, frank s. 1990. “the bazaar economy or how bizarre is the bazaar really.” man 25 (2): 250–265. feldman, lawrence h. 1971. a tumpline economy. production and distribution systems of early central-east guatemala. phd thesis, pennsylvania state university. feldman, marian h. 2006. diplomacy by design. luxury arts and an “international style” in the ancient near east, 1400–1200 bce. chicago and london: university of chicago press. fentress, james and elizabeth fentress, “the hole in the doughnut.” past and present 173: 203–219. foxhall, lin. 2005. “cultures, landscapes, and identities in the mediterranean world.” in mediterranean paradigms and classical antiquity, edited by irad malkin, 75–92. london and new york: routledge. gale, noel h., ed. 1991. bronze age trade in the mediterranean. papers presented at the conference held at rewley house, oxford, in december 1989. studies in mediterranean archaeology 90. jonsered:åström. gell, alfred. 1992. “the technology of enchantment and the enchantment of technology.” in anthropology, art, and aesthetics, edited by j. coote and a. shelton, 40–63. oxford: clarendon press. gibson, james j. 1986. the ecological approach to visual perception. hillsdale, new jersey: lawrence erlbaum. graves-brown, paul m., ed. 2000 a. matter, materiality and modern culture. london and new york: routledge. graves-brown, paul m. 2000 b. introduction to matter, materiality and modern culture, edited by paul m. graves-brown, 1–9. london and new york: routledge. guglielmino, riccardo, francesco iacono and michela rugge. “before the stream: the social and economic role of exotica in the central mediterranean. the case of the ivories from roca.” in exotica in the prehistoric mediterranean, edited by andrea vianello, 172–185. oxford: oxbow books. harris, william. 2005 a. rethinking the mediterranean. oxford: oxford university press. harris, william. 2005 b. “the mediterranean and ancient history.” in rethinking the mediterranean, edited by william harris, 1–42. oxford: oxford university press. helms, mary w. 1988. ulysses’ sail. an ethnographic odyssey of power, knowledge, and geographical distance. princeton, nj: princeton university press.  herzfeld, michael. 2005. “practical mediterraneanism. excuses for everything, from epistemology to eating.” in rethinking the mediterranean, edited by william v. harris, 45–63. oxford: oxford university press. heymans, elon, and gert van wijngaarden. 2011. “low-vale manufactured exotics in the eastern mediterranean in the late bronze age and early iron ages.” in exotica in the prehistoric mediterranean, edited by andrea vianello, 124–136. oxford: oxbow books. hodder, ian. 2012. entangled. an archaeology of the relationships between humans and things. hoboken, new jersey: wiley-blackwell. horden, peregrine and nicholas purcell. 2000. the corrupting sea. a study of mediterranean history. oxford: blackwell publishing. hughes-brock, helen. 2011. “exotic materials and objects sent to—and from?—the bronze age aegean. some recent work and some observations.” in exotica in the prehistoric mediterranean, edited by andrea vianello, 99–114. oxford: oxbow books. ingold, tim. 2007. “materials against materiality.” archaeological dialogues 14: 1–16. jackson, caroline m. and emma c. wager. 2011. “glass in the aegean bronze age: value, meaning and status.” in exotica in the prehistoric mediterranean, edited by andrea vianello, 115–123. oxford: oxbow books. karetsou, alexandra, ed. 2000. kρήτη-αίγυπτος. πολιτισμικοί δεσμοί τριών χιλιετιών. κατάλογος. athens: kapon editions. knappett, carl. 2005. thinking through material culture : an interdisciplinary perspective. philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press. knappett, carl. 2011. an archaeology of interaction. network perspectives on material culture and society. oxford: oxford university press. krzyszkowska, olga. 2005. aegean seals. an introduction. bulletin of the institute of classical studies suppl. 85. london: institute of classical studies. laffineur, robert. 1990–1991. “material and craftsmanship in the mycenae shaft graves: imports versus local productions.” minos 25–26:245–295. laffineur, robert. 2005. “imports/exports in the eastern mediterranean: for a specific methodology.” in emporia: aegeans in the central and eastern mediterranean. proceedings of the 10th international aegean conference (athens, italian school of archaeology, 14–18. april 2004). aegeaum 25, edited by robert laffineur and emanuele greco, 53–58. liège and austin: université de liège, histoire de l’art et archéologie de la grèce antique. laffineur, robert and emanuele greco. 2005. emporia: aegeans in the central and eastern mediterranean. proceedings of the 10th international aegean conference (athens, italian school of archaeology, 14–18. april 2004).  aegeaum 25. liège and austin: université de liège, histoire de l’art et archéologie de la grèce antique. lambrou-phillipson, connie. 1990. hellenorientalia: the near eastern presence in the bronze age aegean, c. 3000–1100 b.c. plus orientalia: a catalogue of egyptian, mesopotamian, mittanian, syro-palestinian, cypriot and asia minor objects from the bronze age aegean. göteborg: åström. latour, bruno. 2005.reassembling the social: an introduction to actor-network-theory. oxford: oxford university press. malkin, irad. 2005. “networks and the emergence of greek identity.” in mediterranean paradigms and classical antiquity, edited by irad malkin, 56–74. london and new york: routledge. malkin, irad. 2011. a small greek world: networks in the ancient mediterranean. oxford: oxford university press. maran, joseph. 2013. “bright as the sun. the appropriation of amber objects in mycenaean greece.” in mobility, meaning and the transformation of things, edited by hans peter hahn and hadas weiss, 147–169. oxford: oxbow books. maran, joseph and philipp w. stockhammer, eds. 2012. materiality and social practice. transformative capacities of intercultural encounters. papers of the conference, heidelberg, 25th–27th march 2010. oxford: oxbow books. miller, daniel. 1987. material culture and mass consumption. oxford: basil blackwell. miller, daniel, ed. 2005 a. materiality. durham and london: duke university press. miller, daniel. 2005 b. “an introduction.” in materiality, edited by daniel miller, 1–50. durham and london: duke university press. miller, daniel. 2007. “stone age or plastic age.” archaeological dialogues 14 (1): 23–27. miller, daniel. 2010. stuff. cambridge: polity press. molho, anthony. 2002. “the corrupting sea. a study of mediterranean history (review).” journal of world history 13 (2): 486–492. monroe, christopher m. 2009. scales of fate. trade, transition, and transformation in the eastern mediterranean ca. 1350–1175 bce. alter orient und altes testament 357. münster: ugarit verlag. morris, ian. 2005. “mediterraneanization.” in mediterranean paradigms and classical antiquity, edited by irad malkin, 30–55. london and new york: routledge. panagiotopoulos, diamantis. 2011. “the stirring sea. conceptualising transculturality in the late bronze age eastern mediterranean.” in intercultural contacts in the ancient mediterranean, edited by kim duistermaat and ilona regulski, 31–51. leuven: peeters publishers. panagiotopoulos, diamantis. 2012. “encountering the foreign. (de-)constructing alterity in the archaeologies of the bronze age mediterranean.” in materiality and social practice. transformative capacities of intercultural encounters, edited by joseph maran and philipp w. stockhammer, 51–60. oxford: oxbow books. pfälzner, peter. 2008. “the royal palace at qatna: power and prestige in the late bronze age.” in beyond babylon. art, trade, and diplomacy in the second millenium b.c., edited by joan aruz, kim benzel and jean m. evans, 219–234. new york: the metropolitan museum of art. phillips, jaqueline. 2008. aegyptiaca on the island of crete in their chronological context: a critical review. wien: verlag der österreichischen akademie der wissenschaften. pini, ingo. 2000. eleven early cretan scarabs. in κρήτη-αίγυπτος. πολιτισμικοί δεσμοί τριών χιλιετιών. μελέτες, edited by alexandra karetsou, 107–113. athens: kapon editions. platon, nicholas e. 1974.  “the origin of mycenaen power.” in history of the hellenic world: prehistory and protohistory, edited by g.a. christopoulos and j. c. bastias, 250–267. athens: ekdotike athinon. porada, edith. 1981/82. “the cylinder seals found at thebes in boeotia.” archiv für orientforschung 28: 1–78. preston, beth. 2000. “the functions of things: a philosophical perspective on material culture.” in matter, materiality and modern culture, edited by paul m. graves-brown, 22–49. london and new york: routledge. purcell, nicholas. 2005 a. “the ancient mediterranean: the view from the customs house.” in rethinking the mediterranean, edited by william v. harris, 200–232. oxford: oxford university press. purcell, nicholas. 2005 b. “the boundless sea of unlikeness? on defining the mediterranean.” in mediterranean paradigms and classical antiquity, edited by irad malkin, 9–29. london and new york: routledge. pye, david. 1968. the nature and art of workmanship. cambridge: cambridge university press; reprinted by cambium press, 2002. sakellarakis, jannis a. 1990. “the fashioning of ostrich-egg rhyta in the creto-mycenaean aegean.” in thera and the aegean world iii, vol. 1:archaeology, edited by d.a. hardy, christos g. doumas, jannis a. sakellarakis and peter m. warren, 285–308. london: the thera foundation. sauvage, caroline. 2013. routes maritimes et systèmes d’échanges au bronze récent en méditerranée orientale. lyon: maison de l’orient et de la méditerranée – jean pouilloux. shapland, andrew. 2010. “wild nature? human-animal relations on neopalatial crete.” cambridge archaeological journal 19 (3): 109–127. shaw, brent d. 2001. “challenging braudel: a new vision of the mediterranean.” journal of roman archaeology 14: 419–453. siebenmorgen, harald, ed. 2000. im labyrinth des minos. kreta – die erste europäische hochkultur. munich: biering, brinkmann. smith, william s. 1965. interconnections in the ancient near  east. a study of the relationships between the arts of egypt, the aegean, and west asia. new haven and london: yale university press. stockhammer, philipp. 2012. “performing the practice turn in archaeology.” transcultural studies, 7–42. tilley, christopher. 2004. the materiality of stone: explorations in landscape phenomenology. oxford: berg. van de mieroop, marc. 2002. “foreign contacts and the rise of an elite in early dynastic babylonia.” in leaving no stones unturned. essays on the ancient near east and egypt in honor of donald p. hansen, edited by erica ehrenberg, 125–137. winona lake, in: eisenbrauns. van de mieroop, marc. 2005. “the eastern mediterranean in early antiquity.” in rethinking the mediterranean, edited by william v. harris, 117–140. oxford: oxford university press. van wijngaarden, gert j. 2008. “the relevance of authenticity. mycenaean-type pottery in the mediterranean”. in import and imitation in archaeology, edited by peter f. biehl and yuri ya. rassamakin, 125–135. langenweißbach: beier & beran. vianello, andrea, ed. 2011 a. exotica in the prehistoric mediterranean. oxford: oxbow books. vianello, andrea. 2011 b. “recognising exotica in the archaeological record: the case of the mycenaean exchange network.” in exotica in the prehistoric mediterranean, edited by andrea vianello, 164–171. oxford: oxbow books. warren, peter. 1997. “the lapidary art—minoan adaptions of egyptian stone vessels.” in texnh. craftsmen, craftswomen and craftsmanship in the aegean bronze age. aegeaum 16, edited by robert laffineur and philip p. betancourt, 209–223. liège and austin: université de liège, histoire de l’art et archéologie de la grèce antique. wengrow, david. 2008. “prehistories of commodity branding.” current anthropology 49: 7–34. wengrow, david. 2010. “introduction: commodity branding in archaeological and anthropological perspectives.” in cultures of commodity branding, edited by andrew bevan and david wengrow, 11–33. walnut creek, ca: left coast press. whittaker, helène. 2011. “exotica in early mycenaean burials as evidence for the self-representation of the elite.” in exotica in the prehistoric mediterranean, edited by andrea vianello, 137–146. oxford: oxbow books. yalçin, ünsal, cemal pulak and rainer slotta, eds. 2005. das schiff von uluburun. welthandel vor 3000 jahren. ausstellungskatalog des deutschen bergbau-museums bochum vom 15. juli 2005 bis 16. juli 2006. bochum: deutsches bergbau-museum. [1] see helms 1988, 129: “… in contrast to our own encompassing global perspective where virtually no portion of the earth remains a mystery, traditional societies were well aware of the existence of unknown and therefore mysterious realms beyond the geographical borders of their worlds.” for the difference between “foreign” and “exotic” see guglielmino et al. 2011, 172 who defined the latter as: “… objects that not only had a foreign origin, but that were also characterized by small bulk and relatively high value (both primary and added…)”; on the normative character of the term “exotic” see heymans and wijngaarden 2011, 125.  [2] see the pivotal and still influential study by helms (1988, esp. 115–130) on the symbolic significance of space and distance in non-industrial societies and the role of exotic material items and distant knowledge as politically valuable “goods.” the distant origin and difficulties of accessibility and acquisition elevated exotica to status objects which powerfully demonstrated the exclusive social position and power of their owners. as feldman 1971, 77 (cited in helms 1988, 121) has aptly formulated: “… the rare thing was the privilege of the ruler.” for the application of helms’s theoretical premises in mediterranean archaeology with a special focus on the social significance of exotica see among others the fine collection of papers in vianello 2011 a, esp. vianello 2011 b, 166–170; guglielmino et al. 2011, 172; furthermore van de mieroop 2002; and colburn 2008. [3] for overviews on and various approaches to cultural interaction in the eastern mediterranean of the 2nd millennium bce see smith 1965; lambrou-phillipson 1990; gale 1991; cline 1994; bietak 1995; davies and schofield 1995; cline and harris-cline 1998; cochavi-rainey 1999; van de mieroop 2005; laffineur and greco 2005; yalçin et al. 2005; phillips 2008; abulafia 2011, 22–41; feldman 2006; antoniadou and pace 2007; monroe 2009; maran and stockhammer 2012; and sauvage 2013. [4] by stressing the importance of ancient perception as a key factor for understanding the impact of foreign things in a given culture, burns 1999, 48 (cited in cline 2005, 46) was one of the first scholars to explicitly question the validity of archaeological inventories and their formal criteria. his emphasis on the dichotomy between reality and perception and on the low visibility of specific imports as foreign objects provides a solid basis for looking more closely at the biography of these exotica within their new cultural frame. cline (2005) took up burns’s argument and attempted to explore what he described as the multivalent nature of imported objects. trying to take full advantage of burns’s critical remarks, cline raised some important issues: for example, at what point in its journey does an export become an import; how does its status and value change; or, whether there is an overlap between its old and new function and/or meaning. an attempt to arrive at a more precise definition of “import” has also been undertaken by laffineur (1990–1991; 2005), who questioned the simplistic dichotomy between imports and local production, favouring a wider and more varied classification dependent upon the individual components of an object, e.g., material, technique, shape and decoration, style, and meaning or function. [5] see miller 1987; miller 2005 a; miller 2007; miller 2010; graves-brown 2000 a; hodder 2012, 30–34. [6] miller 2005 b, 3, 36–41. [7] see recently stockhammer 2012. [8] ingold 2007, esp. 1–3. [9] pye 1968, 47 (cited and discussed in ingold 2007, 13–14); see also bevan 2007, 187: “notions of purity, permanence, and essentialism are frequently projected onto stone due to its unprocessed, nonrecycleable and nonbiodegradeable character”; see further tilley 2004. [10] see whittaker 2011, 138. [11] maran 2013, 147. [12] see gell 1992, esp. 46–47; further jackson and wager 2011, 120: “an object made of glass could therefore have been imbued with power and mystique through the very manner of its coming into being.” consequently, it would be unwise to regard man-made materials as cheap substitutes of their alleged natural prototypes, see for instance hughes-brock (2011, 100) arguing against the hypothesis that glass was distributed in the bronze age mediterranean as a cheap alternative to high-value stones; see furthermore jackson and wager 2011, 118–121.  [13] the question as to whether pre-modern design served mostly—if not primarily—practical rather than aesthetic demands, in other words a specific function or functions, has to be answered with reference to specific contexts or groups of objects. however, in our case this hypothesis seems very plausible. [14] for “proper function” and “system function” see preston 2000, 25–29. as preston (ibid., 22) emphasizes, the nexus between form and function is multi-relational: “the relationship between form and function is many to many. for any function, abstractly specified, there are a multitude of ways to carry it out…. on the other hand, a particular form may serve equally well for the carrying out of more than one function.” [15] see graves-brown 2000 b, 5: “… functions that are “proper” or seemingly intrinsic can mutate. for functions are also defined by systems, which include other artefacts, actions, social contexts … the fact that the function of material artefacts can change should be evidence enough that functionality is not simply a mundane given, a part of the “raw nature” of any artefact, but is in itself part of society and culture.” [16] gibson 1986, 36–38, 127–146. for the implementation of this concept in archaeological disciplines see knappett 2005, 45–58, 111–112; hodder 2012, 48–50: “materials afford certain potentials: thus plastic allows new shapes, reinforced concrete allows larger buildings, the eiffel tower would not have been possible in wood.”; cf. further shapland 2010, 112. [17] that affordance is not an absolute property of materiality but a highly relational property is also stressed by knappett (2011, 63): “a door may afford opening to many adults, but it will not afford opening to a child who cannot reach the handle.” further ibid., 7–8, 62–69; see also graves-brown 2000 b, 4. therefore, an approach to functionality must take as its starting point the complex matrix of co-dependencies that exist between humans and things. this matrix has been the focus of some very influential theoretical paradigms including b. latour’s “actor-network-theory” (latour 2005) and i. hodder’s entanglements; (hodder 2012). for a discussion of these models and a sensible attempt to implement them in archaeology see recently stockhammer 2012 (with bibliography). [18] see harris 2005 b, 1–2; further malkin 2005, 1; malkin 2011, 14. [19] as is aptly mentioned on the book cover of harris 2005 a: “the sun never seems to set on mediterranean studies.” [20] morris 2005, 46–50; further malkin 2011, 13. [21] malkin 2005, 1–2; see also purcell 2005 b, 17. the crucial mediterranean dyad of extreme fragmentation and high connectivity (cf. shaw 2001, 422.) corresponds to the essence of modern decentralised networks, see malkin 2011, 9. for the applicability of network theory in the study of mediterranean history see ibid. 25–45; further molho 2002, 490. [22] some crucial aspects of this problem are discussed by horden and purcell 2000, 7–49; shaw 2001, 419–424; harris 2005 b, 4–5, 20–29; see further purcell 2005 a; purcell 2005 b; molho 2002, 490–491; fentress and fentress 2001, 203–204. [23] see harris 2005 b, 12 (with n. 28); bagnall 2005. [24] see above, n. 23. [25] see malkin 2005, esp. 1–2. [26] abulafia (2005, esp. 65) speaks about the “mediterraneans” focusing on middle seas in other parts of the globe and highlighting their “essential role in the transformation of societies.” however, one should be cautious to avoid &quo;mediterranean stereotypes” and their use as hermeneutic paradigms for explaining processes within this region, especially without taking into consideration the peculiarities of specific localities, see herzfeld 2005.  for a minimalist’s view on the problem of the mediterranean as separate entity see purcell 2005 b, 12–13: “the only way in which the mediterranean is differentiated from its neighbours is by the sheer intensity and complexity of the ingredients of the paradigm. unexpectedly, it turns out to be defined by the paroxysm of factors that are not themselves peculiar to this or any other region.” [27] see foxhall 2005, 75: “mediterranean landscapes are human artifacts in which complex cultural histories are firmly embedded.” [28] see purcell 2005 b, 19: “the mediterranean historian has no use for linear boundaries.” for the necessity to study processes rather than territories in the mediterranean context see also morris 2005 who coined the term “mediterraneanisation” as a better alternative to the static concept of “mediterraneanism.” [29] appadurai 1990. [30] appadurai 2010, 7–8. [31] appadurai 2010, 8. [32] the hermeneutic value of approaches that &quo;globalize pre-modern history” is also stressed by morris 2005, 40. [33] sauvage 2013; further bevan 2007, 32–39. for the practicalities and significance of eastern mediterranean trade in the last centuries of the 2nd millennium bce see the excellent study by monroe (2009) in which virtually all aspects of commercial exchange in this region have been exhaustively analysed. [34] van de mieroop 2005, 138–140. [35] this observation does not apply to some classes of objects, e.g., the egyptian scarabs (see below n. 38–39) which were imported regularly and whose provenance and possibly also original function were well known to aegean consumers.  [36] see lambrou-phillipson 1990; cline 1994; phillips 2008. [37] phillips 2008, 121–134. for egyptian scarabs which were reworked and/or reused in minoan crete see ibid. 135–139. [38] pini 2000. [39] cucuzza 2000; karetsou 2000, 227–213; phillips 2008, 56–58. [40] laffineur 1990–1991, 283–284. [41] on this methodological problem see also vianello 2011 b, 166. [42] whether authenticity in the 2nd millennium bce was an issue at all is a question which has yet to be studied in proper detail. for some brief comments on this modern concept and the methodological risks of applying it in a pre-modern context see van wijngaarden 2008, 125–126; further vianello 2011 a, 200. on the one hand, we can detect a certain interest in the branding of palatial commodities as “royal,” see for instance bennet 2008. on the other hand, we should note the prevalent absence of marks and sealings in the context of trade exchanges; marks that could have been used to prove origin. for the sparse evidence that is available (mostly situated within the context of ceremonial exchange or circulation within an administrative system) see bevan 2010. a significant amount of these commercial activities could be described in terms of a “bazaar economy” (in contrast to a “brand economy”) where buyers had no reliable information about the quality and quantity of commodities since the objects were unbranded, see fanselow 1990 (discussed in wengrow 2010, 21–24). [43] for the non-economic (or not primarily economic) incentives behind local production of exotic imitations see guglielmino et al. (2011, 173): “… the gradual osmosis between the two contexts involved in interaction frequently results in a process of import replacement … the start of local production (or specific forms of it) of once imported goods, may underlie an increase of shared organizational and social features between the societies in contact.” [44] see for example hughes-brock 2011 (lapis lazuli, amber, and glass); jackson and wager 2011 (glass); whittaker 2011 (gold, amber, and other precious materials); maran 2013 (amber). [45] see krzyszkowska 2005, 63–68. [46] earlier generations of archaeologists defined the material of numerous bone seals and amulets as “ivory,” see krzyszkowska 2005, 68. [47] however, in some cases the considerable size of an ivory seal could be interpreted as an attempt at conspicuous display, a demonstration that the artefact was indeed manufactured of valuable exotic material, see krzyszkowska 2005, 67–68. [48] see bevan 2007, 125. [49] warren 1997; laffineur 1990–1991, 284–285; burns 2010, 94; bevan 2007, 125 fig. 6.16. [50] porada 1981/82. [51] porada 1981/82, 50, 68. [52] porada 1981/82, 68–70. [53] for the extreme scarcity of lapis lazuli in aegean sites (“the exotic material par excellence in the bronze age aegean”) see hughes-brock 2011, 99. [54] helms 1988, 115; for the symbolic significance of the manufacturing process see also gell 1992, esp. 46–47; guglielmino et al. 2011, 173. [55] sakellarakis 1990; laffineur 1990–1991, 250–251; laffineur 2005, 54–55; phillips 2008, 80–88; burns 2010, 94. [56] see hughes-brock 2011, 108: “every thing has a social life and exotica have more than most.” [57] see here the enlightening study of stoneware vessel manufactures in the saône-et-loire region by bonnot (2002) who explores their biography from standardized ware to individual objects with aesthetic value (discussed in knappett 2005, 118–122); see furthermore knappett 2011, 116–118, 122–128. [58] knappett 2011, 155: “… innovation occurs through new attributions of functionality.” sardinian, italian, mediterranean: the significance of cagliari’s liminality in post-war documentaries and newsreels gianmarco mancosu understanding the liminal position of cagliari after wwii: context and methods “ci prendereremo cura di lei perchè è una forte e sincera regione d’italia” (we will take care of her because she is a strong and sincere region of italy). this sentence is from the voiceover of a 1949 newsreel entitled notizie dalla sardegna: prima fiera campionaria (news from sardinia: the first trade fair).1 it describes a scene in which young girls dressed in folk costumes observe and cautiously touch a huge tractor exhibited at the international fair held in cagliari, the capital city of the island. the girls embody sardinia and her contact with modernization (represented by the tractor) in a process that notably occurs in the island’s capital city. the narrator’s use of the first-person plural (“we will take care”) implies that it is time for both the city and the island to be properly integrated into the larger social, political, and economic framework of italy. narratives and visual tropes such as those mentioned above were a persistent feature of state-supported non-fiction films about the city of cagliari. although a wealth of scholarship has addressed the construction of the image of sardinia in post-war films, this has predominantly focused on either banditry or economic and touristic development, and has paid much less attention to newsreels about the island’s capital city.2 therefore, this article will focus on twenty-five short 1 “dalla sardegna: prima fiera campionaria,” la settimana incom 247 (rome: incom, february 4, 1949), newsreel. due to the serial nature of the analyzed newsreels, as well as the absence of an identifiable author or director, the footage will be referenced by indicating the title in quotation marks, the series in italics, and the identificatory number of the newsreel; following this, the place of production, the studio, and the date are given in brackets. the film corpus analyzed here was viewed at the historical archive of the istituto luce, whose film archive is also available online at archivioluce, accessed july 28, 2020, http://www.archivioluce.com. all translations from italian are my own. 2 goffredo fofi and gianni volpi, vittorio de seta: il mondo perduto (turin: lindau, 1999); gianni olla, dai lumière a sonetaula, 109 anni di film, documentari, fiction e inchieste televisive 49 films produced between 1947 and 1964—the golden age of italian post-war newsreels—that deal with the political and economic situation of cagliari, plans for its urban development, and the city’s traditions.3 following ann rigney’s and astrid erll’s invitation to expand the transnational paradigm in memory studies,4 this article will first contextualize both the city’s transcultural background and the mechanisms of film production. this will allow it to ascertain the extent to which the complex cultural memories of cagliari were selectively used and adapted based on the aspiring hegemonic national discourses underpinning these films.5 it will then examine how such a selective adaptation cinematographically remapped the fluid status of cagliari between isolation/archaism, and the modernization project pushed by italy. to shed light on these processes, the concept of liminality will be used to foreground how translocal, transnational, and transcultural memories were re-arranged and able to dialectically coexist within the film corpus. the intersection of time (post-fascism, the passage from “archaism” to modernization) and space (the island, in the middle of the western mediterranean sea, as part of italy yet separated from the peninsula) alludes to the uncertain position of sardinia’s capital city within italian maps of belonging.6 as such, the analysis will deal with the paradoxical coexistence of two sets of contradictions: first, the attempt to disentangle the city from an essentialized image of the past and join the nation-state on its journey towards modernization; and second, though related, the re-articulation of its transcultural past in order to reframe its peculiar identity. the filmic representations of cagliari will be understood accordingly as referring to a sulla sardegna (cagliari: cuec, 2008); antioco floris, banditi a orgosolo: il film di vittorio de seta (soveria mannelli: rubettino, 2019). 3 post-war cinematographic news broadcasts presented some continuities in terms of style and production with the propaganda films made during fascism. from the late 1950s onward, the advent of television broadcasts brought the use of cinematographic information services to a slow decline. incom ceased newsreel production in 1964. 4 ann rigney and astrid erll, “editorial,” memory studies 11, no. 3 (2018): 272–273. 5 this article uses the terms “discourse” and “discursive” in line with a foucauldian understanding, whereby discourse indicates sets of representation, texts, institutions, and social and cultural conventions that produce culturally and historically located meanings and specific forms of knowledge. see michel foucault, the archaeology of knowledge, trans. sheridan smith (london: routledge, 1989 [1969]); michel foucault, l’ordre du discours (paris: gallimard, 1970). 6 in this article, “fascism” (with a capital f) will be used when referring to the italian regime (1922–1943), often also called the ventennio. the adjective “fascist” will always be in lower case, following roger griffin, “studying fascism in a postfascist age: from new consensus to new wave?,” fascism: journal of comparative fascist studies 1 (2012): 1–17. post-fascist (hyphenated), as with other words prefixed with ‘post-’ (like post-colonial, post-war), will be used to indicate a temporal fracture, in this case the period that comes after the fascist regime; postcolonialism/ postcolonial (not hyphenated) refers to the political, ideological, and scholarly critique of colonial history, practices, and knowledge. 50 sardinian, italian, mediterranean form of permanent liminality, unable to comprehensively breach the discursive polarization between nation/modernity and island/backwardness.7 from a more theoretically oriented perspective, post-fascist newsreels and documentaries will be regarded as cultural memory dispositifs (apparatuses) due to the role they played in enhancing and maintaining hegemonic exercises of power within the national community.8 dispositif refers to a specific and historically mutable arrangement of elements and the system of relations between these elements; it thus has a “dominant strategic function” that responds to an “urgent need.”9 as memory dispositifs, such short films were part of a “conglomeration of media text” that determined the nature and function of cultural memory at a given time.10 they therefore did not “transport public memory innocently”;11 rather, they filtered and circumscribed how italians should adapt their translocal and transcultural memories according to the new image of a national future, which itself reflected the hegemonic forces at play in post-war italy.12 the choice to focus on this rather neglected corpus of short films, in other words, is motivated by their claim to represent a given 7 agnes horvath, “mythology and the trickster,” in democracy and myth in russia and eastern europe, ed. alexander wöll and harald wydra (london: routledge, 2008), 39–58; arpad szakolczai, “living permanent liminality: the recent transition experience in ireland,” irish journal of sociology 22, no. 1 (2014): 28–50. 8 michel foucault, “the confession of the flesh,” in power/knowledge selected interviews and other writings 1972–1977, ed. and trans. colin gordon (new york: pantheon books, 1980 [1977]), 194–228; giorgio agamben, what is an apparatus? and other essays (stanford: stanford university press, 2009). 9 foucault, “the confession of the flesh,” 195. 10 laura basu, “memory dispositifs and national identities: the case of ned kelly,” memory studies 4, no. 1 (2011): 33–41. 11 andreas huyssen, present pasts: urban palimpsests and the politics of memory (stanford: stanford university press, 2003), 20. 12 in using the phrase “trans-local memories,” i refer to a variety of mnemonic processes caused by the interrelation between different places and people within and beyond a given geographical area that is not exclusively a nation-state. halilovich uses this paradigm to describe the memory dynamics of some of the communities that formed around regions of bosnia, such as the podrinje region, where local dialects are spoken and local customs continue to be observed. migration is the key factor connecting local and transnational/transcultural dimensions of cultural memory. however, by expanding the temporal and the spatial perspective, many other factors—such as colonialism, trade, invasions, cattle drive, and nomadism, to name but a few—may have influenced the cultural memory of a given geographic area. hariz halilovich, places of pain: forced displacement, popular memory and trans-local identities in bosnian war-torn communities (new york: berghahn books, 2013); aleida assmann and sebastian conrad, eds., memory in a global age: discourses, practices and trajectories (london: palgrave macmillan, 2010); lucy bond and jessica rapson, eds., the transcultural turn: interrogating memory between and beyond borders (berlin: de gruyter, 2014); paola bonifazio, schooling in modernity: the politics of sponsored films in postwar italy (toronto: university of toronto press, 2014). 51the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) reality according to the ideological agenda of the christian-democrat ruling party, as well as that of the capitalist elites. the mediated gaze on italy that they offer can significantly aid this article’s investigation into the articulation of cagliari’s transcultural memories in the context of national reconstruction. cagliari’s liminality: temporalities and geographies the selected films are memory dispositifs to the extent that they reworked and remapped cagliari’s transcultural memory in-between sardinianness, italianness, mediterraneanness, and europeanness. in so doing, they address the liminal position of the city both diachronically and synchronically. diachronically, the concept of liminality will show how cagliari’s transcultural past was rearranged and portrayed as part of the pathway towards modernization as driven by the italian nation-state. this process will be read against the background of an anthropological understanding of liminality as provided by arnold van gennep,13 and later elaborated on by victor turner.14 both scholars maintain that any rite of passage is characterized by a séparation from the pre-ritual stage. after this separation comes the marge, the proper liminal condition, a suspended phase which results in the agrégation of the initiate in the new status. the three-phase passage referred to by both van gennep and turner provides a useful guiding light for arranging the analysis of the footage. the séparation will reveal how the city’s transcultural past was selectively reworked in order to be inserted, via the liminal marge, into the final stage of agrégation, which in turn is presented as a new course of national history and, more broadly, of western modernity.15 though this methodological track may appear to follow a straight path, it will become clear that narratives about the past, present, and future of cagliari often intertwine in each film. arranging the analysis of the whole corpus according to a straightforward evolution from archaism to modernization could therefore be misleading. in a further methodological precaution, it is important to note that the tripartite structure is often reduplicated in the transitional period itself, as some institutionalized passages arise within the 13 arnold van gennep, the rites of passage, trans. monika b. vizedom and gabrielle l. caffee (chicago: the university of chicago press, 1960 [1909]). 14 victor turner, “betwixt and between: the liminal period in rites de passage,” in the forest of symbols: aspects of ndembu ritual, ed. victor turner (ithaca: cornell university press, 1967), 93–111. 15 on the unifying and universal paradigm of western modernity, which unfolds in the entanglement between coloniality and modernity, see walter mignolo, “delinking: the rhetoric of modernity, the logic of coloniality, and the grammar of de-coloniality,” cultural studies 21, no. 2 (2007): 449– 514; and enrique dussel, “eurocentrism and modernity (introduction to the frankfurt lectures),” boundaries 20, no. 3 (1993): 65–76. 52 sardinian, italian, mediterranean liminal moment.16 therefore, séparation, marge, and agrégation might be best understood as protean categories able to highlight the hidden threads that connect these films, which are themselves rather diverse in terms of content, style, and narrative. that being said, such an awareness will not constrain the applicability of the paradigm of liminality. rather, it may enable a more finely tuned critical framework that exposes the ideological and discursive forces behind these representations, their evolution, and their attempt to reframe an image of the city and, by extension, of sardinia in accordance with national interests. alongside the diachronic perspective’s consideration of categories such as “backwardness” and “modernity,” the portrayal of cagliari offered in these films needs to be understood synchronically in relation to the idea of sardinian identity as homogeneous, exotic, and subaltern: a paradigmatic image that had long influenced representations of the island by both sardinians and non-sardinians alike.17 since the second half of the eighteenth century, italy became a popular stop on the “grand tour,” attracting travelers driven by a passion for classical civilization and intrigued by the ruins of the ancient world. sardinia soon became an alternative destination to the orthodox grand tour destinations because it “embodied an anti-classical, primitive, and barbaric model of civilization viewed as inferior to the world to which they [the travelers] belonged.”18 travel writing describing the island fed an enduring literary canon that placed the heart of sardinian identity in the mountain region of barbàgia, depicted as mysterious, feral, and even lawless; in other words, sardinia was considered to be untouched by foreign invaders or modernity. at the same time, cagliari was styled as the place where the archaic and exotic traits of the sardinian inland negotiated with european modernity, a city which was “lively and in many aspects agreeable; but it is not sardinia.”19 postcolonial elaborations on liminality offer a powerful device for exploring the position of cagliari as peripherally within the geography of 16 bjørn thomassen, liminality and the modern: living through the in-between (farnham: ashgate, 2014); bjørn thomassen, “thinking with liminality: to the boundaries of an anthropological concept,” in breaking boundaries: varieties of liminality, ed. agnes horvath, bjørn thomassen, and harald wydra (new york: berghahn books, 2015), 39–58. 17 giulio angioni, “indigenous knowledge: subordination and localism,” in nature knowledge: ethnoscience, cognition and utility, ed. glauco sanga and gherardo ortalli (new york: berghahn, 2003), 287–296; maria bonaria urban, “lo stereotipo del sud fra otto e novecento: il caso della sardegna,” incontri 26, no. 2 (2011): 50–63; silvio carta, “the ethno-orientalism of the sardinian ‘culture’,” interventions 16, no. 5 (2014): 675–692. 18 urban, “lo stereotipo,” 25. 19 charles edwardes, sardinia and the sardes (london: bentley and son, 1889), 47; mauro pala, “lawrence e junger: la sardegna come antidoto alla modernità,” nae 1, no. 1 (2002): 49–54. 53the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) western modernity. homi bhabha argues that liminality is an in-between status characterized by ambiguity and hybridity, in which social meanings, subjectivities, and identities are produced.20 the liminal condition enables the potential for change because it breaches the dichotomous relationship between colonizers and colonized, tackling the multidimensional configurations of the relationship between hegemonic (here national/international) and subaltern (local) elements in a given transcultural relationship. as far as this paradigm is concerned, cagliari might be regarded as the threshold site between the allegedly constructed authenticity of the inland and hegemonic national and supra-national discourses. cagliari’s transcultural background and integration in the italian nation-state cagliari has served as a crossroad of cultures, languages, and political systems since the dawn of western civilization.21 the succession of phoenician, punic, roman, byzantine, pisan, spanish, and italian cultures and political forms has left indelible traces in its urban landscape, such as the tuvixeddu phoenician necropolis, the roman amphitheater, the medieval districts of castello, marina, stampace, and villanova, and the art nouveau buildings and areas near the harbor.22 linguistic elements of pre-latin languages (paleosardinian and phoenician), latin, byzantine, catalan, spanish, and italian also permeate casteddàiu, the dialect of the sardinian language spoken in the metropolitan area of cagliari.23 20 homi k. bhabha, “culture’s in-between,” in questions of cultural identity, ed. stuart hall and paul du gay (london: sage, 1996), 53–60; homi k. bhabha, the location of culture (new york: routledge, 1994). 21 robert j. rowland, the periphery in the center: sardinia in the ancient and medieval worlds (oxford: archaeopress, 2001); gian giacomo ortu, la sardegna dei giudici (nuoro: il maestrale, 2005); giovanni lilliu, sardegna nuragica (nuoro: il maestrale, 2006); michael hobart, a companion to sardinian history, 500–1500 (leiden: brill, 2017). 22 founded in the neolithic/nuragic age, cagliari became a bustling commercial port under the phoenician and then punic rulers (seventh to fourth century bce), and under the dominion of rome. the collapse of the roman empire coincided with a period of decline under the vandals that lasted until the end of byzantine domination (roughly eighth century ce). the birth of the four giudicati sardi led to an early form of self-governance, which terminated when the pisans took over the control of the city (twelfth to thirteenth century ce). roughly a century later, rule passed to the aragonese crown, which subsequently, together with the catalans, gave birth to the spanish government that ruled sardinia for four centuries. 23 michael jones, “sardinian,” in the romance languages, ed. martin harris and nigel vincent (london: routledge, 1988), 314–350; eduardo blasco ferrer, linguistica sarda: storia, metodi, problemi (cagliari: condaghes, 2002). 54 sardinian, italian, mediterranean at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the savoy dynasty took over the sardinian throne, inaugurating an era of modernization.24 sardinia became a peripheral extension of the savoy administration even after unification in 1861, when the island became part of the new kingdom of italy.25 between 1861 and 1922, the island underwent a challenging transition from the customary rules and traditions to a new national framework that governed social, political, and economic life.26 the integration of sardinia within the italian state, like that of other southern regions of italy, has often been described as a form of internal colonialism that radically changed the economic, social, and political configuration of the island.27 with the advent of fascism in 1922, sardinia was more or less forcibly integrated into the italian national system.28 this integration manifested through multifaceted political decisions and cultural practices which extended beyond mussolini’s dictatorship into the period of national reconstruction that followed the second world war.29 24 antonello mattone, “la cessione del regno di sardegna: dal trattato di utrecht alla presa di possesso sabauda,” rivista storica italiana 1 (1992): 5–89. 25 mattone “la cessione”; denis mack smith, il risorgimento italiano (roma: laterza, 1999); manlio brigaglia, attilio mastino, and gian giacomo ortu, eds., storia della sardegna (vol. 2): dal settecento a oggi (rome: laterza, 2002); manlio brigaglia, attilio mastino, and gian giacomo ortu, eds., storia della sardegna (vol. 6): la sardegna contemporanea (rome: laterza, 2002). 26 girolamo sotgiu, lotte sociali e politiche nella sardegna contemporanea (cagliari: edes, 1974); carlo lucarelli, the sardinian anomaly in stories of gangs, mafias and honest people (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2008). this led to a general impoverishment of the island, as well as institutional rebellion, social protests, and mass emigration. it is worth remembering that the first italian socialist strike calling for an improvement of working conditions took place in the mining area of buggerru. in this period, banditry also became a widespread means of resisting the italian authorities, especially in the center of the island. 27 antonio gramsci, la questione meridionale (rome: editori riuniti, 1995); salvatore sechi, “autonomia fallita e subnazionalismo in sardegna,” italia contemporanea 161 (1985): 31–58; nicola zitara, l’unità d’italia: la nascita di una colonia (milan: jacabook, 1975); marta petrusewicz, come il meridione divenne una questione (soveria mannelli: rubbettino, 1998); pino aprile, carnefici (milan: piemme, 2016). 28 luciano marroccu, “il ventennio fascista (1922–1943),” in storia d’italia: le regioni dall’unità a oggi. la sardegna, ed. luigi berlinguer and antonello mattone (turin: einaudi, 1998), 501–713. regional, political, social, and cultural practices such as the use of variants of the sardinian language were prohibited so as to promote the italianization of the island’s culture and society. elements of modernization were more evident in the urban centers of cagliari, sassari, nùoro, and oristano, whereas fascism struggled to breach the pre-existing socio-cultural structure in more remote areas. 29 alberto boscolo, manlio brigaglia, and lorenzo del piano, eds., la sardegna contemporanea (cagliari: della torre, 1995). 55the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) post-war non-fiction films: reimagining local and national identities the second world war devastated italy. it destroyed cities and social and economic structures, and the violent conflict between the puppet republic of salò and the resistance movements formed a persistent sore that remained far from healed.30 in this fractured context, mass media sought to make “italian society more visible and audible to its own members” by refashioning local traits into a united italian social model.31 against this backdrop, newsreels and documentaries backed by the government permeated everyday italian life and propagated a new political, economic, and social agenda.32 in 1945, the cinematographic market was formally released from the shackles of the totalitarian control that had characterized the previous fascist propaganda system.33 however, non-fiction film production and diffusion maintained a peculiar monopoly, or, more accurately, an oligopoly. new laws regulating non-fiction cinema favored the largest companies with close ties to the government and the capitalist institutions that operated during the reconstruction of sardinia’s identity, such as big industrial groups or agencies with links to the marshall plan.34 among these companies, the industria cortometraggi milano (incom) took the lion’s share of the non-fiction market. incom films exalted the expansion of italian productivity and the repositioning of italy within the western-atlantic sphere. they praised the governing christian-democrat party and celebrated the capitalist economy with its associated glamorous, consumerist lifestyle, whilst simultaneously emphasizing local traditions and religious values.35 like the fascist 30 paul ginsborg, a history of contemporary italy: society and politics, 1943–1988 (london: penguin, 1990); claudio pavone, una guerra civile: saggio storico sulla moralità nella resistenza (turin: bollati boringhieri, 1991); john foot, italy’s divided memory (london: palgrave macmillan, 2009). after the imprisonment of mussolini (july 1943) and the armistice with the allies (september 1943), italy became a divided country. the north was formally run by the fascist government (the new repubblica di salò) and controlled by the nazi army; the south remained under the rule of the monarchy and the allied forces. 31 david forgacs and stephen gundle, mass culture and italian society from fascism to the cold war (bloomington: indiana university press, 2007). 32 augusto sainati, ed., la settimana incom, cinegiornali e informazione negli anni ’50 (milano: lindau, 2001); bonifazio, schooling in modernity, 11–27. 33 phillip v. cannistraro, la fabbrica del consenso: fascismo e mass media (rome: laterza, 1975); mino argentieri, l’occhio del regime: informazione e propaganda nel cinema del fascismo (florence: vallecchi, 1979). 34 lorenzo quaglietti, storia economico-politica del cinema italiano 1945–1980 (rome: editori riuniti, 1980); gian piero brunetta, storia del cinema italiano: dal neorealismo al miracolo economico 1945–1959 (vol. 3) (rome: editori riuniti, 1993). 35 maria adelaide frabotta, “il cammino dei cinegiornali italiani nel paese e in europa,” in identità italiana e identità europea nel cinema italiano dal 1945 al miracolo economico, ed. gian piero brunetta (turin: edizioni della fondazione giovanni agnelli, 1996), 173–191; sainati, la settimana 56 sardinian, italian, mediterranean propaganda films previously produced by istituto luce, incom films were compulsorily shown at every italian film screening. this meant that both sardinian and italian spectators watched these films en masse. this touches on one of the most controversial points around the reception of non-fiction films: the audience’s appreciation of these products. the majority of scholars agree that post-war non-fiction films were appreciated, mostly because their style was undoubtedly more vibrant and sophisticated than prior fascist footage. however, as political propaganda films came to be regarded as outdated due to the spread of television in the late fifties, it is highly likely that mandatory screenings before feature films for which the audience had bought a ticket began to be perceived as an unnecessary interruption.36 this notwithstanding, non-fiction footage indirectly backed by the italian government remained a pivotal and popular tool with which to reimagine national belonging and memories in accordance with the ideological prerogatives of the political and economic elite. traces of cagliari’s transcultural past: the feast of sant’efis a remarkable example of the reworking of cagliari’s transcultural memories for a national audience is provided by a series of newsreels about the religious feast honoring sant’efis (saint ephysius). the story of ephysius is one of the very few that runs throughout the timespan considered here, and features several transcultural traits. ephysius was a roman soldier born in antioch (turkey) who was martyred near cagliari because of his conversion to christianity (in the fourth century ce). in the mid-seventeenth century, and under spanish dominion, cagliari was ridden with plague. its local authorities decided to pray to saint ephysius to free the city from the disease, organizing a large procession towards the site of his martyrdom. this event has taken place annually ever since.37 two films about the feast, namely si celebra da trecento anni la festa in onore del santo che avrebbe salvato l’isola dal flagello della peste: processione in costumi folkloristici (the feast honoring the saint who would have saved incom; pierre sorlin, “la settimana incom messaggera del futuro,” in la settimana incom: cinegiornali e informazione negli anni ’50, ed. augusto sainati (milan: lindau, 2001), 71–77; bonifazio, schooling in modernity. in spite of the structural and stylistic similarities between luce and incom production, pierre sorlin has highlighted subtle differences between luce and incom films, suggesting the former were mere tools of political propaganda whilst the latter seemed to be more inspired by capitalist interests. 36 gianmarco mancosu, decolonitaly: decolonization and national identity in post-war italy 1945–1960 (phd diss., university of warwick, 2020); argentieri, l’occhio del regime; ernesto g. laura, le stagioni dell’aquila: storia dell’istituto luce (rome: ente dello spettacolo, 1999). 37 a smaller procession in honor of saint ephysius is organized every easter monday, commemorating the unsuccessful attempt by the french navy to invade the city in 1793. 57the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) the island from the plague has been celebrated for three hundred years: the procession of folk costumes)38 and cagliari: festa di sant’efisio (cagliari: the feast of saint ephysius)39 assert the distinctiveness and the homogeneity of sardinian traditions, which are essentialized in the shots of the colorful procession winding throughout cagliari’s streets, in the close-ups of people wearing folk costumes, and in the details of dresses, jewelry, and traccas (old sardinian ox-carts). the diegetic sound of the launeddas, a sardinian woodwind instrument,40 accompanies the moving images. high-angle shots of people crowding the streets convey the heartfelt involvement of sardinians in the feast, which stands as an identity marker that attracts and connects people from every corner of the island. cagliari surfaces here as a site that homogenizes and evens out the multiple and even contradictory histories, memories, and local specificities of the island’s sub-regions.41 all of these stylistic choices tend to detach the celebration and the attendees from their historical dimensions, and the choice to avoid the account of the composite transcultural memories concerning the celebration of saint ephysius seems to be consistent with an attempt to “bring cagliari back to an enchanted place,” to quote the voiceover in the 1960s film cagliari: la sagra di sant’efisio.42 an island in which time seems to have stopped might be the epitome of such an “enchanted place,” and the exaltation of the annual rituality of the procession emphasizes this circular and timeless dimension of sardinian identity. 38 “si celebra da trecento anni la festa in onore del santo che avrebbe salvato l’isola dal flagello della peste: processione in costumi folkloristici,” la settimana incom 941 (rome: incom, may 8, 1953), newsreel. 39 “cagliari: festa di sant’efisio,” la settimana incom 1401 (rome: incom, may 11, 1956), newsreel. 40 andreas fridolin bentzon, the launeddas: a sardinian folk music instrument (copenhagen: akademisk forlag, 1969). the launeddas are composed of three hollow canes that are blown into simultaneously using a particular breathing technique that sees the player use their mouth as an air reservoir. one of the pipes produces a droning bass-like sound whereas the other two play a melody. the structure of the instrument and the timbre it produces make the launeddas quite similar to the bagpipes. 41 three macro-areas can be roughly outlined in the island: campidano is considered to be the southwestern flatland area; barbàgia spans the central mountain region; gallura consists of the northern area. each region differs from the others in terms of its geographical, climatic, linguistic, and historical traits. moreover, campidano, barbàgia, and gallura can be divided further into sub-areas, which makes finding consistent identity markers within them even more difficult. 42 “cagliari: la sagra di sant’efisio,” settimanale ciac 596 (rome: compagnia italiana attualità cinematografiche, may 12, 1960), newsreel. 58 sardinian, italian, mediterranean séparation: cagliari’s traditions and its contact with the “outer” world the cinematographic stabilization and objectification of these transcultural traits disclose an unstable balance between the key categories of tradition and modernity conveyed by the national films about the city. two other films about the saint ephysius procession, italia: l’ambasciatore statunitense zellerbach visita la sardegna (italy: the us ambassador zellerbach visits sardinia)43 and cagliari onora sant’efisio (cagliari pays homage to saint ephysius),44 exemplify the contact between the city’s traditions, its exotic features, and the national audience. cagliari onora sant’efisio praises the city’s devotion to the saint, a devotion acknowledged by both the catholic cardinal ottaviani and the secretary for post, telegraph, and telecommunications, antonio maxia, who traveled from rome to attend the feast. diegetic and non-diegetic sounds play a crucial role in structuring the film’s narrative; the launeddas, sardinian songs, and the noises of the procession lend a folkloric nuance to the film. this sonic dimension, however, contrasts with frames that dwell on people wearing modern clothes and the art nouveau buildings of the cagliari marina. this contrapuntal arrangement of sonic and visual elements is heightened by the voiceover, which talks about an evocative spectacle proper to the “old, but always new, land of sardinia.” the city’s suspended time is put in contact with the modernity of the mainland, embodied by the secretary of the italian government, as well as the images of an urban landscape that has already been “italianized.” furthermore, the voiceover stresses that the celebration attracts an increasing number of tourists from the peninsula; the recollection of sardinian belonging thus begins to assume a marketable dimension, insofar as those traditions are a potential boost for the economic growth of the island.45 the tropes of commodification and “ethnographic marketability” of the city’s past return in the 1957 film about the visit of the us ambassador james david zellerbach. the first part of this newsreel explains some of the economic plans that both italian and international governments are implementing in sardinia, which are to be supervised by zellerbach. the second part shows the ambassador attending the saint ephysius procession in cagliari, with a voiceover stating that the island is moving toward the future while keeping its traditions alive. there is a short scene in which two girls wearing folk costumes shake hands with and gently curtsy to the ambassador, who is in an elevated 43 “italia: l’ambasciatore statunitense zelerbach (sic!) visita la sardegna,” la settimana incom 1534 (rome: incom, may 7, 1957), newsreel. 44 “cagliari onora sant’efisio,” la settimana incom 1916 (rome: incom, may 6, 1960), newsreel. 45 sandro ruju, la sardegna e il turismo: sei testimoni raccontano l’industria delle vacanze (sassari: edes, 2012). 59the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) position on a bench. they seem to pay homage to the us ambassador, who, in the first part of the newsreel, is shown to have supervised and facilitated the development projects. in other words, this scene clearly envisions the séparation from traditions by showing the agrégation within the nation-state and the western world, which is welcomed by sardinians themselves. these films take into account images and discourses of sardinia’s essentialized identity, at times indirectly and at times more overtly. even when describing the more modern areas and the city’s infrastructure, the film continues to resort to narratives and tropes such as traditional costumes, craftsmanship, and folk music, all of which are portrayed as coming from an undefined and timeless past. such elements perform a symbolic rather than descriptive function, because they often seem removed from the plot at hand. however, they in fact serve as cardinal directions, conveying the film’s narrative and, in so doing, refashion exotic images of sardinia for a national audience.46 marge: the city’s past and its path toward modernization the refashioning of both sardinian exoticism and archaism for a national audience did not surface exclusively in the films about the saint ephysius celebration. much of the footage about cagliari’s modernization is also characterized by scenes asserting that sardinia is backward and exotic. in particular, two scenes from the documentary referenced at the very beginning of this article offer remarkable examples of the process that essentialized cagliari’s transcultural past according to its new economic and cultural setting.47 the film starts with a long aerial shot taken from a plane flying over the city. the voiceover describes the harbor as the place from which phoenicians, romans, byzantines, pisans, and the spanish enriched cagliari’s urban landscape and history. a sudden transition brings the viewer into a completely different setting: a low-angle wide shot frames an old woman in traditional dress who walks slowly next to a wall of prickly pears that, according to the commentary, are reminiscent of “african and oriental visions.” the transcultural background conveyed in the first scene is therefore suddenly compressed, de-historicized, and exoticized in order to even more dramatically contrast with the subsequent scenes that feature a crowded trade fair and the technological innovations brought in by the national exhibitors. this film, together with la iii fiera campionaria sarda (the third sardinian 46 maria bonaria urban, sardinia on screen: the construction of the sardinian character in italian cinema (leiden: brill, 2013). 47 la settimana incom 247, newsreel. 60 sardinian, italian, mediterranean trade fair),48 juxtaposes frames of tractors, trucks, and industrial supplies with close-ups of people wearing folk costumes while sewing or whittling. the voiceover exalts the benefit of such traditional skills, explaining that they are a driving force for the economic growth of the island within the national economic structure. people wearing folk costumes are also seen in other documentaries about the trade fair (such as the incom newsreels 409, 1517, and 1896).49 in these films, however, folk clothes stand as a symbolic reference point, presenting sardinia’s insularity to a national audience as peculiar and backward instead of showing the conversion of the island economy to the national framework. moreover, these scenes essentialize the identity of both the city and the island, the latter of which is starkly juxtaposed with the modernity of the mainland. this mechanism is especially evident in a scene from tappe della ricostruzione: fiera della sardegna (stages of the reconstruction: sardinia’s trade fair),50 in which people wearing traditional costumes carefully observe plastic models of ships and planes. their old-fashioned attire symbolizes the isolation briefly mentioned by the voiceover, yet the curiosity with which they regard the plastic models conveys an aspiration to break out of this isolation and embrace modernization. the juxtaposition between the archaic and backward inland landscape and the urban and modern landscape of cagliari becomes even clearer in footage showing important visitors such as the italian prime minister and members of parliament; see, for example, the film il ministro taviani in sardegna (minister taviani in sardinia).51 visitors also included foreign figures such as the us ambassadors zellerbach and luce,52 nato members,53 or groups of journalists 48 “la iii fiera campionaria della sardegna,” la settimana incom 565 (rome: incom, march 8, 1951), newsreel. 49 “tappe della ricostruzione: fiera della sardegna,” la settimana incom 409 (rome: incom, march 1, 1950), newsreel; “inaugurata la fiera di cagliari alla presenza del ministro medici e del presidente della regione,” la settimana incom 1517 (rome: incom, march 13, 1957), newsreel; “italia, cagliari: inaugurata la xii fiera campionaria sarda,” la settimana incom 1896 (rome: incom, march 23, 1960), newsreel. 50 la settimana incom 409, newsreel. 51 “il ministro taviani in sardegna,” la settimana incom 1387 (rome: incom, april 12, 1956), newsreel. 52 “sardegna assetata: l’ambasciatore luce consegna all’isola il foraggio americano che, con quello nazionale, sventerà le minacce della siccità,” la settimana incom 1192 (rome: incom, may 5, 1955), newsreel. 53 “ufficiali della nato in sardegna,” la settimana incom 1353 (rome: incom, may 25, 1956), newsreel. 61the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) and tourism entrepreneurs.54 these figures are shown visiting cagliari and the inland to solve deep-rooted problems such as drought, malaria, and economic and social underdevelopment. they thus embody a hegemonic discourse of development that was put into practice through several economic, social, and military policies. the piano di rinascita della sardegna (plan for sardinia’s rebirth), together with the establishment of numerous nato military outposts and petrochemical production plants, were exalted as projects that were able to connect the island to the atlantic-western world in accordance with the increasingly polarized context of the cold war.55 agrégation: shifting cagliari into the western world the presence of italian as well as foreign politicians, journalists, and entrepreneurs is a testament to the integration and legitimation of cagliari as a truly western city. three films show the integration of the island’s capital city in the national/western political, economic, and cultural framework even more clearly. 56 these films record the inauguration of certain pieces of infrastructure, events attended by sardinian and italian politicians who embody the nation-state taking care of the city. this element stands out in the film about a new public housing project in cagliari, which is celebrated by the italian prime minister antonio segni.57 this film, but also films about the inauguration of the city’s industrial district and the railway connecting cagliari to the mining area of western sardinia, neither employ symbols of the past (launeddas, folk costumes) nor transcultural memories of the city. instead, long shots of various technological innovations (trains, cranes, buildings) convey the idea 54 “numero unico dedicato alla sardegna: i problemi del lavoro e l’emigrazione e gli sviluppi dell’agricoltura. i villaggi turistici sorgono sulle coste settentrionali,” la settimana incom 2257 (rome: incom, august 10, 1962), newsreel. 55 simone sechi, “la sardegna negli ‘anni della rinascita’,” in storia della sardegna (vol. 5): il novecento, ed. manilo brigaglia, attilio mastino, and gian giacomo ortu (rome: laterza, 2002), 66–82; piero bevilaqua, breve storia dell’italia meridionale: dall’ottocento a oggi (rome: donzelli, 2005); guido floris and angelo ledda, servitù militari in sardegna: il caso di teulada (serdiana: la collina, 2010); francesca sanna, “la miniera e il petrolchimico: una questione storica nella sardegna e nell’italia del secondo dopoguerra,” diacronie 17, no. 1 (2014): 1–28. the piano di rinascita (plan for sardinia’s rebirth) was composed of a series of investments and policies that led to the heavy industrialization of some areas of the island and the construction of petrochemical, iron and steel, and energy plants. as far as international military presence in the island is concerned, sardinia is home to 60% of all nato military bases located on italian territory. 56 “una data importante per la sardegna: inaugurato il tronco ferroviario villamassargia–carbonia,” la settimana incom 1486 (rome: incom, 1956), newsreel; “politica edilizia: il presidente del consiglio inaugura 171 nuove abitazioni,” la settimana incom 1492 (rome: incom, december 21, 1956), newsreel; “in sardegna si dà l’avvio alla zona industriale di cagliari,” la settimana incom 1506 (rome: incom, february 6, 1957), newsreel. 57 la settimana incom 1492, newsreel. 62 sardinian, italian, mediterranean that cagliari is already within the national framework, and that the liminal and suspended condition of the city is relegated to the past. the fulfilment of the shift from archaism/isolation to modernization also features in other films that deal with political themes and the diffusion of national/western leisure. as far as the latter topic is concerned, two films about the italian road cycling championship held in sardinia portray cagliari as a city in which a passion for this national sport has already awakened.58 a similar narrative is conveyed in a 1959 incom newsreel about a national song contest held in cagliari.59 the voiceover laments that even the “noble land of sardinia has, alas, its contest,” suggesting that cagliari has also embraced the more glamorous events proper to the capitalist lifestyle. the full agrégation of cagliari into the national system features in the few films about political themes that were set in the city. italy’s geo-political position meant that the country was caught between the two sides of the cold war. reconstruction works funded by the marshall plan, and the development of the cold war order, heavily influenced italian political, cultural, and social life, which started to polarize around the two biggest parties, the christiandemocrats (closely linked both to the us and to industrial groups) and the communist party (the biggest communist party operating beyond the iron curtain).60 this divided political context influenced the representation of cagliari’s political and economic integration within the national system. a film about the ten-year anniversary of antonio gramsci’s death entitled decennale della morte di antonio gramsci alla presenza di palmiro togliatti (tenth anniversary of the death of antonio gramsci attended by palmiro togliatti) is worth mentioning because it interprets the political memory of the fascist dictatorship as a dreadful chapter of italian history.61 moreover, it portrays cagliari as the place in which the stark juxtaposition between the christian-democrats and communists could be somehow suspended in remembrance of gramsci. the first part of the film is set in the village of ales and portrays people paying tribute to gramsci’s birthplace, while the voiceover describes him as a martyr killed by fascist hate. the second part is set in cagliari, and it shows a very well-attended gathering in honor of the 58 “s’apre la stagione ciclistica: la sassari–cagliari,” la settimana incom 126 (rome: incom, march 3, 1948), newsreel; “domenica sportiva in sardegna: a fiorenzo magni la prima del ciclismo. cagliari–genoa 1–1,” la settimana incom 909 (rome: incom, february 25, 1953), newsreel. 59 “italia: tanto per cambiare anche in sardegna un festival della canzone,” la settimana incom 1823 (rome: incom, october 2, 1959), newsreel. 60 elena aga rossi and victor zaslavsky, togliatti e stalin: il pci e la politica estera staliniana negli archivi di mosca (bologna: il mulino, 2007). 61 “decennale della morte di antonio gramsci alla presenza di palmiro togliatti,” la settimana incom 56 (rome: incom, may 2, 1947), newsreel. 63the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) communist thinker. in spite of the indelible fact of his membership in the communist party, gramsci is described as a figure able to offer unifying values that may assist in rebuilding italy, and is remembered as a national hero due to his bold anti-fascist activity. the footage also presents palmiro togliatti, the leader of the italian communist party, proclaiming the universality of gramsci’s thought and the relevance it enjoys well beyond the political debate of his time. this conciliatory narrative is an exception to the standard viewpoint of incom productions, especially in view of the company’s allegiance to the christian-democrat party and capitalist groups. political themes concerning the city also feature in films about national and regional elections. notizie dalla sardegna: elezioni regionali (news from sardinia: regional elections) recounts cagliari’s journey to become the new capital of the autonomous region of sardinia, and praises the citizens’ fervent participation in regional elections.62 this enthusiasm materializes through lively editing in which shots of the voters’ faces are interspersed with frames of the long queues at the polling station; backdrops for a commentary exalting the democratization that followed sardinia’s authoritarian phase. another film produced in 1955, personaggi della breve crisi, apertasi con le dimissioni di corrias e conclusa con l’elezione di brotzu (the protagonists of the brief crisis, which began with the resignation of corrias and resulted with the election of brotzu), is more sober, offering an account of the political crisis that led to the election of the new president of the region of sardinia.63 both films thus show the political agrégation of the city within the national system, while also outlining the peculiarities that made sardinia an autonomous region of italy.64 in these films, fascism is forgotten, or at least not named—though in the latter film the new president of sardinia, giuseppe brotzu, does mention the countless problems sardinia has inherited and the challenges facing the island if it is to modernize as part of europe. these last films depict cagliari as an important stepping-stone by which the peninsula’s social and economic growth may reach the sardinian inland. the city’s role as a bridge to modernization is especially palpable in three other incom films.65 these films share a fairly similar structure. at the 62 “notizie dalla sardegna: elezioni regionali,” la settimana incom 289 (rome: incom, may 13, 1949), newsreel. 63 “personaggi della breve crisi, apertasi con le dimissioni di corrias e conclusa con l’elezione di brotzu,” la settimana incom 1266 (rome: incom, june 24, 1955), newsreel. 64 francesco casula, statuto sardo e dintorni (cagliari: artigianarte editrice, 2001). due to their geographic, linguistic, and cultural peculiarities, sardinia, sicily, friuli-venezia giulia, trentinoalto adige/südtirol, and val d’aosta are sanctioned by article 116 of the italian constitution as autonomous regions of italy. 65 “sardegna: nuovi impianti telefonici,” la settimana incom 415 (rome: incom, march 15, 1950), newsreel; “la cassa per il mezzogiorno stanzia 80 miliardi per la sardegna,” la settimana 64 sardinian, italian, mediterranean very beginning the camera is placed on a ship or mounted on a plane and portrays the city from the perspective of the arriving non-sardinian visitor. during these scenes, a voiceover usually recounts some historical details about the city, often exalting its beauty and making vague mention of its ancient history. introductory frames like these are followed by shots of people engaged in manual and agricultural-pastoral work, or remote villages and untouched landscapes dotted with nuraghi (megalithic towers left by the nuragic civilization);66 launeddas music often accompanies such scenes. the commentary intersperses thinly veiled references to the severe socio-economic conditions and the backwardness of the island with descriptions of a utopic arcadia geographically and chronologically detached from the contemporary world. this scenario suddenly changes as the images, soundscape, and commentary depict the new development projects and the technologies introduced by national and foreign actors whose activities are shown to be based in cagliari. the inauguration of the city’s new airport, the introduction of phone lines, the development of public and private industrial districts, and the expansion of shipping, train, and air services are all exalted as serving to connect the inland to the city and, in turn, to the rest of the world. the scenes of cagliari’s harbor, often shot from the viewpoint of a ship approaching the city, allude to a distance between the peninsula and the island that can be bridged by the implementation of national policies and discourses. furthermore, very slow camera movements, highlighting the bustle of the harbor full of ships, cranes lined up against the skyline, and the view of lively rome overlooking the marina, metaphorically exorcize the alleged isolation and anachronism of the city. the harbor is, therefore, a space where italian modernity can dock and then operate in the city and beyond. the sardinian inland can finally be inserted into the national system at the “livello delle altre regioni italiane” (level of the other italian regions), as the voiceover of the film la sardegna è al lavoro (sardinia is working) asserts.67 incom 696 (rome: incom, december 28, 1951), newsreel; “lo sviluppo economico in sardegna,” la settimana incom 1707 (rome: incom, october 31, 1958), newsreel. 66 the nuragic civilization (civiltà nuragica) developed in sardinia from the twentieth century bce until the second century bce. the name is derived from its most characteristic monument, the nuraghe, a megalithic tower with a truncated-cone shape devoted to multiple functions (social, military, religious, astronomical). currently, at least 7000 nuraghi dot the sardinian territory. the nuragic civilization left no written records; the only written evidence of their existence comes from greek, roman, egyptian, and phoenician literature, which, however, must be considered more mythological than historical in nature. see stephen l. dyson and robert j. rowland jr., shepherds, sailors, and conquerors: archeology and history in sardinia from the stone age to the middle ages (philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press, 2007); see also lilliu, sardegna nuragica. 67 “la sardegna è al lavoro,” la settimana incom 2171 (rome: incom, january 12, 1962), newsreel. 65the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 11, no. 1 (summer 2020) cagliari’s permanent liminalities: bridging the gap between the island and the peninsula the problematic status of sardinia’s capital as a fully european location is the fil rouge that permeates the whole corpus of films. it seems that these films sought to protect cagliari and sardinia from “the danger of sliding towards nearby africa and the third world,” as giulio angioni describes it.68 the footage attempts to avoid this danger by pedagogically envisioning the three passages (séparation, marge, agrégation) that transform the sardinian society from an archaic to a modern one, albeit one driven mostly by non-sardinian figures and paradigms. quite peculiarly, however, these passages do not forcefully imply a straightforward obliteration of the “exotic” and “backward” traits that had traditionally characterized the portrayal of cagliari and sardinia in european culture. rather, scenes showing a city participating in italian/ european modernity exist alongside the reproduction of images of sardinia as peculiar and archaic. this corpus does not define a straightforward passage from exoticism/ backwardness to modernity. rather, divergent cultural memories coexist within the footage, referring to what scholars such as bjørn thomassen, agnes horvath, and arpad szakolczai among others have conceptualized as “permanent liminality.”69 this conceptual tool tackles not only the nature of a given transition, but the configuration of modern societies as a whole. this is because some practices established during liminal periods—in our case the transition from fascism to the republic and the process of the industrial modernization of sardinia—tend to assume “qualities of structure,” thus becoming permanent beyond the transitory time span.70 the rhetoric expressed by these films cements the in-betweenness of cagliari. on the one hand, the footage recounts the city’s past through tropes, symbolic elements, and narratives about sardinian identity that have spread across european culture since the eighteenth century that are, in turn, juxtaposed with the modernization imported from the mainland. on the other hand, but in a manner still clearly related to this emphasis on the past, cagliari is portrayed as a space in which modernization has already been moored, which negotiates the multifaceted transcultural traits of its history with the economic and social models proper to the western world. thus, representations of the city dwell in an unstable condition where old tropes are re-articulated along with the postulation of a new italian identity. 68 angioni, “indigenous knowledge,” 293. 69 thomassen, “thinking with liminality”; horvath, “mythology and the trickster”; szakolczai, “living permanent liminality.” 70 thomassen, “thinking with liminality,” 51. 66 sardinian, italian, mediterranean this fluid balance between the exaltation and the eradication of the liminal nature of the city’s transcultural background sets cagliari both within and outside the imagined community of italy and the self-defined civilized world.71 such a juxtaposition aesthetically materializes the paradigm of “orientalism in one country,” inasmuch as the films provide an attractive form of “at-hand diversity” that can be inserted in the path towards modernization as led by the italian state.72 therefore, by welcoming modernization, cagliari becomes a liminal site in which the particularities of sardinian identity can be reworked and set against the background of policies and discourses introducing modernization in the city and, in turn, in the island. together with this diachronic inclusion of the city within western modernity, the set of films address cagliari’s liminality synchronically in relation to the discourse of a homogeneous (and subaltern) sardinian identity; that is to say, the negotiation between tradition and modernity put the city not simply between past and future, but also in a spatial-liminal position where the archaism and even lawlessness of the sardinian inland, as alleged in some coeval representations,73 is dissolved, while national unity and western modernization are welcomed. cagliari therefore becomes a site suspended between what had been constructed as the heart of sardinian identity (the mountainous inland of barbàgia) and the mediterranean sea, where both invaders and beneficial exchanges arrived. as such, the city stands as a threshold space, accommodating disjunctive and even contradictory temporalities and geographies, and where diverse meanings are “simultaneously represented, suspended, and inverted.”74 the harbor of cagliari in particular is a heterotopic site in which the inland’s archaism is dissolved and the clock of modernity ticks. nevertheless, it also stands as a counter-site recalling the age of invasions that, according to the discourses of these films, kept sardinia in an isolated and backward state. cagliari is thus simultaneously “italian” and “other,” a city whose position in the middle of the mediterranean sea makes it isolated as well as transculturally connected with its memories. tradition and modernity, archaism and democratization, isolation and a capitalist way of life are therefore intertwined in this corpus of films, echoing de facto the multi-layered liminalities of the complex transcultural memories of the city. 71 silvia contarini, margherita marras, and giuliana pias, eds., l’identità sarda del xxi secolo tra globale, locale e postcoloniale (nuoro: il maestrale, 2012), 4–12. 72 jane schneider, ed., italy’s “southern question”: orientalism in one country (new york: berg, 1998); urban, sardinia on screen. 73 olla, dai lumière a sonetaula; valeria deplano, “ripensare la sardegna: l’immagine dell’isola negli anni della rinascita,” in la sardegna contemporanea: idee, luoghi, processi culturali, ed. valeria deplano, francesco bachis, and luciano marroccu (roma: donzelli, 2015), 673–694. 74 such a vantage point is consistent with michel foucault’s definition of heterotopia as a site “juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible.” michel foucault, “of other spaces,” trans. jay miskowiec, diacritics 16, no. 1 (1986), 25. imagining transcultural fandom | annett | transcultural studies imagining transcultural fandom: animation and global media communities sandra annett, wilfrid laurier university introduction the study of media globalisation is a constantly shifting terrain.[1] to write on “global media” is not to select a single, easily defined topic of research, but to enter a conceptual arena fractured along many lines of disciplinary orientation, regional and local scholarship styles, schools of thought, and political allegiance or dissension. some, for instance, see in the globalisation of mass media the spread of a “culture industry” that is “infecting everything with sameness,”[2] in the tradition of the frankfurt school of media criticism and of 1970s anti-colonial activism.[3] in 2001, todd gitlin argued that “if there is a global village, it speaks american. it wears jeans, drinks coke, eats at the golden arches, walks on swooshed shoes…recognizes mickey mouse…bart simpson, r2-d2, and pamela anderson.”[4] cultural globalisation theorist lee artz likewise condemned the dominance of american-style “corporate media hegemony”[5] and “disney’s menu for global hierarchy”[6] well into the first decade of the twenty-first century. as of 2009, critics from daya k. thussu[7] to ōtsuka eiji and ōsawa nobuaki[8] continue to cite the disney co. as a prime example of the aggressive, commercial, homogenizing face of american neo-imperialism, which maps global cultural dominance onto economic might. if some critics see media globalisation as a form of corporate hegemony, however, there are others who resist the “disneyfication” narrative by highlighting the creative potential of active audience appropriations of media. this strain of cultural studies, based on the 1960s work of the birmingham school, focuses on “how media formed the means through which people…expressed their culture”[9] by taking up and reworking texts as “active audiences” with their own “alternative social community.”[10] the enthusiastic embrace of japanese animation outside of japan, from its underground trade in the 1970s to mass-media popularisation in the 1990s, is sometimes seen in this counter-disney vein as a “strongly grassroots activity”[11] that promotes cross-cultural understanding among engaged viewers. so, does media globalisation promote worldwide disneyfication or grassroots fan communities? in this essay, i would ask rather: are these two binary choices–often framed as the “political economy” and “cultural studies” camps–the only options available? as co-productions and international collaborations flourish, and as new media open up new avenues for artists and viewers, it becomes less and less possible to look at any given film, viewer, or company in isolation from other global trends. trends for different styles of animation, which circulate between cultures and nations, peoples and corporations, cut across the top-down hierarchy of the disneyfication model, even as they complicate the untrammelled freedom attributed to active audiences. indeed, this kind of transcultural circulation, revealing the interdependencies of the global media environment, is a key feature of trends. a trend, to my mind, is a text or idea in passage: not yet an established classic in an unquestionable canon, but more than a disposable, forgettable fad. it may be generated by a single person or by a multinational marketing team, and it may continue to promote dominant ideologies and entrenched powers. but on a practical level, it cannot travel without being passed among people, a process that also results in it being changed by the needs, desires and fears of those who take it up. there is no single, final effect of a trend. trends point to an ongoing affective experience[12]—in short, to what is emerging. such emerging transcultural trends in animation pose challenges to the received notions of media globalisation, both the pessimistically critical and the uncritically utopian. they prompt us to ask not whether animation is “bad” or “good” for viewers, but simply: “what can one do with animation?” for instance, if cartoons are merely a hegemonic tool for indoctrinating the young into global consumer culture, what about the children of the gaza strip, who in 2006 protested against the murder of their friends in a drive-by shooting by brandishing images of the popular animated schoolgirl haruhi suzumiya?[13] at the same time, how do we respond to the adults all over the world who derive hours of enjoyment from such complex, edgy programs as watanabe shinichirō’s cowboy bebop (1998), without making them into idealized icons of an uncomplicated agency? in short, how do we address the vibrant transcultural fan cultures—as well as the continuing instances of cultural imperialism—that have sprung up around animation? fig. 1: (december, 2006), youth protest against the drive-by shooting of three children in the gaza strip source: afpbb news similar questions, derived from a range of observations across cultural fields, have become a major focus in globalisation studies in the last ten years. my first step in addressing these questions will thus be to review some of the scholarly literature on globalisation, media, and fan culture currently available, and determine how it might apply to animation. i will then present three case studies of animated works, each of which was created in a different country, decade and medium. the broad scope of my examples, which include the 1935 american “betty boop” short film “a language all my own,” the 1998 japanese television series cowboy bebop, and the 2008 south korean internet cartoon there she is!!, is not intended to provide any sort of comprehensive coverage, or to map out a linear narrative of progressive development. rather, my goal is to demonstrate that “animation” is not a single cohesive entity with the same nature and effects in all times and places. from the international films of the 1920s to the interactive web cartoons of the early twenty-first century, what we call “animation” varies according to many specific, historically-situated contexts, including economies of production, technologies of distribution and affective, imaginative experiences of reception. the first case, that of betty boop, reveals that while there were impulses towards transcultural community in cinematic animation, animated film of this period often participated in a form of media globalisation i call “imperial internationalism.” this mode is based on the exchange of film images between nations “imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign,”[14] drawing on the existing trade routes and bounded national imaginaries of western imperialism. the second case, that of cowboy bebop, shows how trends shifted towards postnational modes of globalisation, based on promoting the free flow of images, technologies, and capital across national borders perceived to be porous or vanishing. these two examples provide the crucial historical and theoretical background necessary for my final case study, that of there she is!! this web cartoon illustrates the ways in which transcultural fan communities today are formed not through a return to bounded national imaginaries, nor through a transcendence of all national and cultural identity, but by working through the frictions of global cultural exchange in mutual, if asymmetrical, collaborations. by paying attention to these shifts in the geopolitical, mediated, and social aspects of animation, i argue, it becomes possible to better understand what creates the linkages of transcultural fandom, and consider the long-term impacts such trends might have beyond the dualisms of corporate media hegemony vs. unqualified grassroots resistance. theorizing global animation the attitude that animation and its audiences can be definitively described once and for all is quite common in film and cultural studies, perhaps because these subjects have only recently become the focus of scholarly inquiry. when establishing new subfields such as animation studies or fan studies, some have found it necessary to “discover” the essential features or universal practices of cartoons and their fans in order to justify studying them at all. while minimally functional as a definitional step, these approaches also establish systematic exclusions based on existing disciplinary concerns. early western reporting and scholarship on japanese anime, for instance, has relied on comparisons with disney in order to define anime’s formal properties, such as the use of less fluid “limited animation” techniques, and its thematic properties, such as a higher incidence of sex and violence. in the tradition of auteurist film studies, walt disney’s films—once simply trendy entertainment—have formed a canonical standard against which all animation is measured. but as susan j. napier argues, this strategy “minimizes the variety of the form”[15] of anime by focusing only on highly polarized examples which are either like disney animation (children’s cartoons) or radically unlike it (violent pornography), rather than exploring the many genres and styles that make up the diverse field of animation in japan, from gentle domestic comedies to surreal, experimental art films. likewise, the ur-text of fan studies, henry jenkins’ 1992 textual poachers, has set certain baseline activities for fan audiences, including tactics such as generating a common “meta-text” or set of interpretive standards relating to a given film or tv series, and responding actively to a favoured text by creating fan fiction, art or videos. textual poachers has proved invaluable for granting fan studies a level of academic acceptability. as matt hills contends, however, once a model like this is established it becomes important for scholars to address the contradictions, absences and conflicts within it, in order to avoid creating “moral dualisms” which rely on identifying “‘good’ and ‘bad’ instances of popular culture” and dividing fans into the institutionally acceptable categories of “resistant” or “complicit” readers.[16] in order to move beyond these dichotomising discourses on animation and its fans, we must find an approach that does not rely solely on dividing resistant from complicit texts or passive from active audiences, but recognizes the ways in which “structure and agency are interrelated and mutually interdependent.”[17] this is the approach i have tried to adopt. the problem of how to frame animation and its consumers only grows more complex when media trends are considered on a globalscale. scholars widely recognize that new media technologies such as television and the internet have played a crucial role in establishing the “complex connectivity”[18] of globalisation. but as of yet, few can agree on whether the globalized mass media homogenize culture under a global “hegemony of consumerism,”[19] or provide new ways for audiences to engage with other cultures across the world from their own locally embedded context. some scholarly works, such as koichi iwabuchi’s recentering globalization: popular culture and japanese transnationalism, have challenged the binary of global homogeneity and local heterogeneity, with its attendant oppositions of dominating western commercialism versus resistant local traditions.[20] iwabuchi is highly critical of the americanisation thesis, pointing out that the “relative decline of american cultural power has brought about the capitalization of intraregional cultural flows, with the emergence of regional media centers such as brazil, egypt, hong kong and japan.”[21] but he hardly sees japan as an innocent “oriental” victim breaking free of the american stranglehold through subversive, hybrid reappropriations of media texts. rather, he argues that “hybridism” is one of the strategies japanese industries use to establish economic power in east and southeast asia, often by drawing upon ties remaining from their imperialist past. “hybridism,” as a national discourse, is promoted in japan as the nation’s unique ability to repackage american media products for its “less-developed” asian neighbours, while simultaneously creating “culturally odourless” products that are easily consumed in america itself. when it comes to media, then, japan is neither simply a borrower nor a lender, but both at once, complicating the distinction between victors and victims in the global culture wars. the case of japanese relations with both the west and east asia thus demonstrates the shifting asymmetries of transcultural flow. as welcome as this more nuanced portrait of intraregional, “recentered” globalisation is, iwabuchi’s emphasis on consumerism as the driving factor of cultural exchange sometimes leads him to overlook fan agency, and to create the kinds of “moral dualisms” that hills criticizes in studies of fan audiences. for instance, iwabuchi is quick to consider fans as “cultural dupes,”[22] and very particular about what constitutes an acceptable reaction in a fan. western anime fans hardly figure in this picture, except as “excessively devoted”[23] eccentrics, mere fodder for self-congratulating japanese newspapers. when he speaks positively of korean and taiwanese fans’ consumption of japanese pop culture, it is to emphasize that they are appropriating that material to build their own local identities, as when he claims that “japanese tv dramas offer for their fans a concrete and accessible model of what it is like to be modern in east asia.”[24] a positive japanese fan of korean dramas, however, is one who uses east asian media not to build a sense of modern personal/national identity or even to engage with korean culture, but to “become more critically aware of japan’s…imperialist history.”[25] of course, there is value in these practices of identity-formation and critique. but the national audiences still being evoked here—the constructive korean, the critically-aware japanese—suggest that iwabuchi’s own criteria of laudable fan behaviour are still subtly shaped by the very moral dualisms of resistant locals/dominant multinationals he tried to avoid in his critique of americanisation. before making such distinctions in (inter)national reception styles, we must ask: what is being lost in the drive to establish acceptable practices of fan consumption based on interpretive standards that the fans themselves may not recognize or agree with?[26] at issue here is the concept of fan communities. while iwabuchi interviewed individual fans, he primarily considers them as consumers, and so does not see them as possessing much  significant sense of collective belonging beyond that granted by economic exchange. arjun appadurai, however, provides a more flexible basis for thinking about media and globalisation not only as the spread of multinational capitalism, but also as a process of forming affective relationships among people through multiple sites of engagement beyond national economies or  allegiances. in modernity at large, appadurai argues that there are a number of intersecting dimensions of cultural flows or “-scapes,” including financescapes of capitalism (iwabuchi’s major concern), ethnoscapes of immigration and diaspora, and mediascapes of information and imagery, among others. we enter these flows through physical practices such as travel and through acts of imagination. indeed, imagination, appadurai says, has itself become “a social practice,” “a form of work…and a form of negotiation between sites of agency (individuals) and globally defined fields of possibility.”[27] global media such as television play a key role in the social practice of imagination by generating many kinds of connection across distance. the most interesting for my purposes is the “community of sentiment,” in which “a group begins to imagine and feel things together,”[28] thus creating their own “imagined worlds.” in this way, groups like fan clubs become able to “contest and sometimes even subvert the imagined worlds of the official mind and the entrepreneurial mentality that surround them.”[29] appadurai thus describes a postnational “global order in which the nation-state has become obsolete and other formations for allegiance and identity have taken its place.”[30] aptly, scholars of japanese popular culture have also found these theories useful. napier has even proposed another term inspired by appadurai’s “-scapes” called  the “fantasyscape.” she describes fantasyscapes as sites of play, “temporary alternative lifestyles that exist parallel to the mundane, which people enter and exit as they please.”[31] anime for napier is a perfect example of a transcultural fantasyscape because it constitutes not merely escapism, but a site of productive imaginary engagement between people in different cultures. still, critics such as imre szeman are sceptical of appadurai’s vision, pointing out that “nowhere does he suggest where the line between [commercialised] fantasy and the potentially productive aspects of the imagination occurs, or how individuals are able to maintain these boundaries and so be ‘agents’ as opposed to dreamers of the collective fantasy of late capitalism.”[32] we might also ask just who really is free to enter and exit fantasyscapes “as they please,” and how they do it. after all, fandom does require a certain amount of capital outlay for media equipment and texts. and with the globalisation of media corporations, that outlay is increasing, as major conglomerates in both japan and north america develop canny transmedia marketing strategies that extend narratives across multiple platforms and products, playing on the ways in which fans accumulate “cultural capital”[33] among their peers. when full comprehension of a text requires access to many different technologies and commodities, even the practice of collecting and sharing information—a cornerstone of fan culture—can be beyond the reach of those in poorer regions, particularly in the global south. following trends certainly involves affective experience, as i have argued, but that does not mean we should lose sight entirely of the other practical, material aspects of trend circulation. we cannot grant agency to “fans” in general without considering how they are differently positioned in the structural asymmetries of global media circulation. of course, appadurai is fully aware of asymmetries in global flows, and of the commercialisation of imagination, as is evident in his brilliant discussion of nostalgia and consumption in modernity at large. furthermore, in his 2006 long essay fear of small numbers, appadurai directly addresses critiques of his optimistic tone by looking at the negative effects of globalisation, including terrorism and genocide. even here, however, his focus is decidedly postnational. if in modernity at large agency crosses borders, in fear of small numbers, “warfare has escaped the context of the nation-state”[34] and terrorism is eminently mobile. while i do not contest his findings, i believe that it is just as important to address the points where global culture does not flow and the nation-state remains influential in order to gain a fuller understanding of animation fandom. at this point, then, it is necessary to find some way between the restrictive economic structures of iwabuchi’s international critique on the one hand, and the free-flowing agency (and horrors) of appadurai’s postnationalism on the other hand. in my understanding, another way of conceptualizing national identity, media trends and fandom may be possible through a careful consideration of fan culture as transnational. transnationalism is not simply another word for postnationalism, or the flow of information and people across the fading borders of a globalised world, just as a transcultural fan community is not necessarily a blissfully multicultural group where people of all origins are (supposedly) united in equality. rather, transnationalism takes into account the friction that anna lowenhaupt tsing describes as a key feature of globalisation. looking at japan’s economic influence in southeast asia, tsing describes friction as “the awkward, unequal, unstable and creative qualities of interconnection across difference.”[35] in her view, globalisation is often economically and socially oppressive, but there is still hope for contestation in and through the very sites of inequality. for instance, even those who are very differently or unequally positioned may form coalitions or collaborations, as international environmental activists, regime bureaucrats and forest-dwelling villagers in indonesia did when they protested against deforestation by japanese sōgō shōsha (general trading companies) in the 1990s. lest this sound too much like the dualistic “us vs. them” approach of uniting disparate groups to resist a common enemy, tsing states that with collaboration, “there is no reason to assume that collaborators share common goals. in transnational collaborations, overlapping but discrepant forms of cosmopolitanism may inform contributors, allowing them to converse—but across difference.”[36] collaboration, like the passage of trends, is also a process involving many intentions and affects. tsing’s concept of collaborative friction thus adds a dimension of productive contestation, or “cross-talk,”[37] to appadurai’s communities of sentiment and jenkins’ earlier, more idealistic, models of fandom, without falling into the overly divisive structures of domination iwabuchi relies on. collaboration as a conversation across difference, i would argue, is precisely the mode that animation fans on the internet work in today, particularly when they interact through the “collaborative-community format” of online forums, such as the multilingual bulletin board dedicated to the korean animation team sambakza discussed later in this paper. this is because online transculturalanimation fan communities like sambakza’s allow participants with diverse perspectives, who may not be equals in terms of language ability or social status in a given collaboration, to exchange views on media works they enjoy in a many-to-many forum of communication. a “transcultural animation fan community” can thus be defined as a group in which people from many national, cultural, ethnic, gendered, and other personal backgrounds find a sense of connection across difference, engaging with each other through a shared interest while negotiating the frictions that result from their differing social and historical contexts. in this light, animation fandom is (to paraphrase jenkins) more than just a marketing concept, but less than a utopian semiotic democracy. rather, it is a way for people to negotiate the opportunities and challenges of the global media environment that is emerging today. cartoon cases from these theoretical speculations, i will turn to my three case studies, which illustrate the changing modes of animation production, distribution and consumption in more grounded historical contexts. my first example comes from america in the 1930s. as leading animation historians leonard maltin and michael barrier have described, the 1930s were walt disney’s golden years. disney’s immense popularity and his growing (and later, much decried) global influence in this period make him the obvious leading man in any good animation story. i would like, however, to cut across this standard narrative and take a detour into a more minor work, a betty boop short called “a language all my own.” this black-and-white sound cartoon was produced in 1935 by the polish-born, new york-based brothers max and dave fleischer. it represents an unusually direct effort to appeal to an international market, an effort born of a confluence of economic necessity and cross-cultural interest not seen in disney’s more successful (and eurocentric) silly symphonies. in its unique approach, however, “a language all my own” also reveals the workings of a more general discourse that linked national identity, international film production and imperial ideology in the early part of the twentieth century. betty boop made her screen debut as a supporting character in 1930, and by 1932, she was a trendy cartoon star with her own series. early on, the betty boop series appealed to adults as much as children with its sexy heroine, surreal plots and knowing allusions to the lower-class urban underworld of booze and jazz. as the depression deepened and the social climate grew harsher, however, betty became subject to a growing moral panic surrounding the depiction of sexuality and vice in hollywood film (not to mention the lives of hollywood film stars.) this panic culminated in the creation of the “hays code,” a motion picture production code designed to censor anything that might “stimulate the lower and baser element”[38] in audiences. by 1934 the code was regularly enforced, so that within four years of her debut, betty’s flapper days came to an end, and the fleischers were forced to seek ways to recover their star from the necessity of covering her up. one of these ways was to turn more to the international market. according to animator myron waldman, the fleischers became aware that betty boop was popular in japan, and decided to create a short film “designed to appeal to the japanese market.”[39] this was “a language all my own.” it features betty boop (redesigned with more modest hemlines) performing the title song, all about how her catchy tune brings people around the world together. after singing to a cheering new york audience, betty sets off in her plane for the land of the rising sun, depicted literally as such with an emblematic sunrise over mt. fuji. while the opening seems like a perfect set-up for the sort of racial-caricature comedy common in cartoons of the period, in this instance, the fleischers were deeply concerned about not offending their japanese fans. as a result, when betty arrives to sing for her cheering japanese fans, the audience members are not depicted as the usual cymbal-hatted pan-asian grotesques, but as more proportionate adult figures with detailed kimono and hairstyles—albeit still rather bucktoothed and hardly individualized. even more surprising, betty sings not only in english but also in japanese. waldman recounts how staff consulted japanese exchange students in america on the lyrics, and also on betty’s dance to be certain her body language and gestures would not be considered inappropriate in japan. rather than confirming artz’s hypothesis that american animation necessarily imposes a coherent, monolithic american ideology on other countries, this work demonstrates a concerted attempt to localize a film by taking into account other languages, customs and cultures, producing a fascinatingly hybrid work designed to travel, to play on the circulation of international trends. and yet, as iwabuchi would say, even this sort of “hybridism” may be nothing more than a selling point that reaffirms the (inter)national power of the producer. looking closer at betty’s performance, it is interesting to note how she physically enacts national differences while still remaining the same old new york cutie. when she sings the line “if you’re near or far / doesn’t matter where you are,” her melody takes up a few bars of the song “the streets of cairo”[40] as she sways, loose and sinuous, to a bongo beat. when she declares that “song’s in ev’ry land o’er the ocean,” however, she stands at attention and salutes to an american march. the combination of music, images and words connotes that to be “far” is to be embodied as a languorous “oriental,” while the universality of song is uprightly western. what’s more, it is the catchphrase that made her famous in the united states, her “boop-boop-a-doop,” that is “known in every foreign home.” betty has the japanese audience repeat this line just as she sings it (see fig. 2).  just as “a language all my own” used orientalist imagery to depict japan as a land full of compliant betty fans, the film’s distributors attempted to build their overseas markets along existing imperial trade routes. these routes facilitated the import of western films to countries around the world, but prevented those countries from entering into film trade as producers. in 1930s japan, fleischer studios products were sold by paramount for 500 yen per one-reel film–half the price of works by local japanese animators. in this way, paramount flooded the market and made it very difficult for small-scale japanese animators to sell their works domestically, much less export them.[41] though betty boop had japanese fans (some of whom were quite active in producing their own films), there could be no western fans of japanese animation in a system of distribution which largely ran from west to east. in both content and distribution, then, this film does not constitute a mutual transcultural exchange. rather, it reveals the orientalist conceptions of bounded national identity on which the cartoon’s attempts to form international relations and international film distribution were founded. in drawing on the imaginaries and trade routes of western-dominated global flows, “a language all my own” represents an effort towards transcultural engagement that finally remains embedded in imperial internationalism. fig. 2: betty listens to the japanese audience “boop” in “a language all my own." used with permission of king features syndicate, inc./fleischer studios, inc. tm hearst holdings, inc./fleischer studios, inc. © 2011 the necessity (and difficulty) of forming cross-cultural connections through media demonstrated in the fleischer’s work has only grown more pronounced in the latter half of the century, as distant places are ever more intertwined in our daily lives through new communications technologies, and internationally mobile trends become the rule more than the exception. as john tomlinson says, in this era, “increasingly homes are open to the world: our sitting rooms places ‘where the global meets the local.’”[42] the advent of television and of personal recording technologies such as the vcr and dvd, especially, enabled direct exchanges between american and japanese animation fans on a scale impossible to imagine in earlier top-down economies of the global film trade. the transformations of televised society are evident in the 1998 anime series cowboy bebop, directed by watanabe shinichirō. rather than starting from fixed national standpoints, cowboy bebop represents a shift towards postnationalism, speculating on how community can be created in a world where “like kites without strings, everyone has lost a sense of where they belong.”[43] as in appadurai’s work, the struggle in this series is to imagine new ways of belonging in a universe of flows. cowboy bebop, like so much post-war anime, is set in the decades following a near-apocalyptic technological disaster: the explosion of a hyperspace gate in orbit above the earth has showered the planet with meteors. the planet’s surface is mostly destroyed, and nation-states no longer exist. as a result, much of humanity has migrated into space, creating a “confusing conglomeration of independent governments, alliances and spheres of influence”[44] spread across the solar system. public safety is only barely maintained by freelance bounty hunters like our protagonists, a mismatched group of quirky, damaged nomads trying to eke out a living aboard the spaceship bebop. these include the coolly impetuous martial artist spike spiegel, tough-but-tender-hearted cyborg jet black, femme fatale faye valentine, and the cute-kid-and-dog duo ed and ein. from this premise, watanabe, along with episode writers satō dai and nobumoto keiko, creates a series of sophisticated, unpredictable and entertaining stories that parody everything from american westerns and 1970s blaxploitation flicks to hong kong martial arts films. both the show’s setting and form thus suggest a mediated environment of diasporic cultural mixing in which power is dispersed and decentralized. this japanese repackaging of pop culture icons for a global audience may sound like a textbook example of iwabuchi’s corporate hybridism, and indeed, there is evidence to suggest that the program’s “culturally odourless,” easily translatable quality may be the reason for its international success.[45] for instance, when an english-language dub of cowboy bebop aired in america on the cartoon network’s late-night “adult swim” programming block, it became an instant “fan favourite,”[46] praised even by those who usually prefer japanese audio tracks with subtitles. reviewer robert baigent, too, attributes the show’s popularity to its stateless ormukokuseki (無国籍) quality, claiming that “cowboy bebop exists in a stateless other place where western and japanese audiences can appreciate it equally.”[47] contrary to the fleischer’s efforts at localization, then, baigent would suggest that cowboy bebop transcends the concept of national audiences entirely to become a truly global trend. while there is something to be said for this argument, i think we must be more careful in applying the japanese term mukokuseki. iwabuchi defines mukokuseki as “‘something or someone lacking any nationality,’ but also implying the erasure of racial or ethnic characteristics.”[48] he finds ethnic erasure characteristic of anime intended for the global market. many anime creators have openly taken the same stance, including such influential figures as the founder of the mobile suit gundam dynasty, tomino yoshiyuki, who, according to author peter carey, insists that he “always tried to make his characters as standard and as universal as possible by not giving them local colour or national colour or ethnic colour.”[49] upon closer inspection, however, cowboy bebop marks a shift away from universalising distribution strategies, and poses a challenge to iwabuchi’s image of globally popular anime as “culturally odourless” and racially neutral. rather than erasing ethnicity, cowboy bebop self-consciously depicts a diverse society composed of african american, italian, chinese and moroccan-descended characters, to name just a few. far from avoiding the cultural context of its production, the show hints ironically at its japanese origins when it depicts the spaceship’s owner, a gruff cyborg named jet, engaging in markedly “japanese” cultural practices such as tending bonsai or bringing back omiyage (souvenirs) of a cute local food called piyoko (even in the english dub) from a short trip to earth. and neither does a globalised—or, interstellar—mass medium contribute to linguistic homogenisation. self-reflexively, the characters in the show often watch television programmes that are, according to the riders, “being broadcasted in twelve different languages.” if this series is “stateless,” then, it is not in iwabuchi’s sense of erasing ethnicity, but in appadurai’s sense of postnational diaspora: hybridity, not corporate hybridism. while nation-states have ceased to exist, ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity has flourished and flows through the new channels of ethnoscapes and mediascapes. for appadurai, as i have mentioned, mediascapes provide not only a way for diasporic travellers to maintain connections with their homelands, but also a way for diverse audiences to form communities of sentiment based around a common feeling, interest or goal. i would like to say that cowboy bebop depicts the formation of just such a community of sentiment, and that these imaginative depictions of mediated bonding provide equally far-flung and diverse audiences with a model for the formation of their own communities. and yet, the behaviour of the bebop crew as an audience sometimes works against such optimistic readings. they rarely all watch television together or use it as a way to connect. a typical scene of television watching from episode 9 finds jet pruning his bonsai in front of the screen as faye, seated on a nearby stairway, casually files her nails. spike half-listens to the broadcast in another room while he scrubs down his personal fighter ship. even the dog ein yawns in front of his own little screen. they are hardly a cohesive audience. rather, each character clearly places his or her own interests foremost, leading to fights and competition as often as cooperation between them. though they drift together for a time as they wander, finally, each of them is so committed to recovering some long-lost source of personal identity—an absent lover, a missing parent, a long-lost home—that they are pulled apart by their different trajectories. by the end, most of the crew members have either left the bebop or died. their momentary collaboration, then, is more striking for the tensions that result from their different histories and goals than for any easy relationship born of sharing in the flows of mediascapes. in this way, cowboy bebop goes beyond televised postnationalism to suggest the fraught and partial connections across difference that are characteristic of online animation and its transnational fan communities. a more fully developed example of computer-mediated transcultural fandom can be found in the case of there she is!!. this popular series of five short web-cartoons was created between 2003-2008 by amalloc, a member of the three-person south korean amateur animation team sambakza.[50] as part of a growing trend towards digital imaging and online distribution in animation, sambakza points to the beginnings of a more participatory but also more unstable way of forming communities of sentiment based on mutual yet asymmetrical mediated exchange. one benefit that internet distribution has for sambakza’s fan community is the more mutual relationship it enables between producers and consumers. since anyone with computer access, the right software and enough determination can now create a cartoon and distribute it worldwide by themselves, the kinds of economic motives that lead american and japanese animation studios to create nationally localized or odourless texts (for example, the need to recover investments on large-scale productions by cornering national film markets, or to secure the best broadcast timeslots) are no longer quite so driving. of course, that is not to say sambakza’s work exists entirely apart from the world economy. the last three episodes of there she is!! were funded by the gyeonggi digital contents agency, an organization formed to promote and develop south korea’s growing digital contents industry using explicitly business-oriented models.[51] but there she is!! itself is not a commodity in the typical sense. copies of the cartoons can be downloaded for free, and to date the site does not sell merchandise or dvds based on the works (though pop-up ads are increasingly in evidence.) fans are not encouraged to buy anything in order to participate in the series. rather, they are asked to add to the site themselves. they may personally contact the producer, amalloc, on the site’s bulletin board to discuss their opinions of the shorts. they may also send in fan art, comics and links to their own videos, which are posted by the animators on the “fan page” gallery on their main site. the creation of flash animation thus becomes a more collaborative process of dialogue between fans and artists, with the bulletin board acting as a (web)site of transcultural engagement. before we become too celebratory, however, it is important to note that the internet is not quite a fully equitable, utopian “public sphere,” as many theorists of the 1990s seemed to feel. mark poster, for instance, has claimed that the internet outdoes jürgen habermas’ theorization of the public sphere in being less hierarchical, and so more democratic and equitable, than the public spheres of habermas’ famous coffee houses. the “salient characteristic of internet community,” he contends, “is the diminution of prevailing hierarchies of race, class and especially gender. what appears in the embodied world as irreducible hierarchy plays a lesser role in…cyberspace.”[52] even appadurai tends somewhat toward this attitude when he says that the “virtual neighbourhoods” enabled by new communications technologies are “no longer bounded by territory, passports, taxes, elections and other conventional political diacritics, but by access to both the software and hardware that are required to connect to these large international computer networks.”[53] appadurai is more realistic than poster in that he mentions technological requirements as a potential structure of exclusion. but still, we cannot underestimate the influence of political, geographical and especially linguistic boundaries that uphold existing asymmetries online. extending tsing’s concept of friction to media, i contend that online interaction is not separable from the “embodied world” or “conventional political diacritics”; rather, it is shot through with conflicts that cross over between physical and virtual communities. there she is!! is a perfect case for addressing these issues because the series itself takes on very real problems of prejudice and social conflict. it uses images and music to tell the story of a girl rabbit named doki who falls in love with a boy cat named nabi in a world where love between cats and rabbits is forbidden (fig. 3). doki is brashly unconcerned with the signs posted everywhere banning cat-rabbit relations, and pursues nabi by popping up comically everywhere he goes. nabi is at first frightened and embarrassed by the rabbit’s attentions, but the more he sees how much doki cares for him, the more he begins to like her as well. the first episode (or, “step,” as they are called) ends with a small gesture of mutual acceptance: nabi tries a glassful of doki’s favourite carrot-juice, while doki gulps down a fishy drink. it is a sweet, hopeful ending almost reminiscent of “a language all my own,” which hoped for an easy reconciliation of differences through the cinematic unification of images and song. fig. 3: nabi and doki walk by a sign outlawing their relationship in there she is!! used with the artist’s permission. as doki and nabi begin to date in successive episodes, however, they face increasing discrimination. nabi is thrown out of a cafe and later jailed because he has been dating a rabbit, while doki is attacked and wounded by crowds of anti-miscegenation protesters. in the classic fashion of a moral panic, the people polarize into two groups: those who support the couple and those who condemn them. in this setting, life seems impossible for doki and nabi, and doki contemplates escaping on an airplane with a ticket marked “paradise.” the final “step” of the series, however, offers neither a gleaming vision of global harmony, as in “a language all my own,” nor a conclusive tragedy, as in cowboy bebop. the lovers do not get to leave for paradise and never find complete social acceptance, but they do opt to maintain their commitment to each other as they work within their community for change. the final shot of the series sees them cleaning anti-miscegenation graffiti off of the drink machines where their relationship began. clearly these conflicts go beyond dreams of disembodied equality. rather, they point to the affective dimension of transcultural trends, in which the travel of texts is motivated by complex interactions of desire, refusal, fear and longing grounded in lived national, regional and transnational experiences. there she is!! fans recognized this dimension when they argued that the shorts are an allegory for the difficult but hopeful national relations between korea and japan—an intriguing theory, given the often bitter history of japanese colonial influence on korean film and animation.[54] furthermore, the fans themselves must face issues of linguistic and cultural friction on the bulletin board. comments on this board are posted in english, korean, japanese, spanish, and a number of other languages, in that order of frequency.[55] as a result, the fans here are highly attuned to differences of nationality and language, and the conflicts they cause. for instance, amalloc has mentioned in posts to the board that his english is not fluent, and he tends to answer korean and japanese comments more readily than english ones. so when he posted a message in english on august 27, 2008 explaining that he is unable to answer all of the comments and questions he receives in english, one poster replied with an angry “flame,” demanding “speak proper english fucking amalloc.”[56] as fans began to fire back insults, however, another poster, going under the handle “dqle,” responded by opening a discussion as to why a cartoon might generate such strong emotion. he then explicitly related the contentious remarks about language brewing on the board to the depictions of anger and discrimination in the darkest instalment of there she is!!, writing “doesn’t this remind you of step 4...?” in this way, sambakza’s fans are engaged, if not in a stable community, then at least in a collaborative attempt at interpretation “across difference,” working in and through the ongoing frictions of the global circulation of animation trends. conclusion the cases of “a language all my own,” cowboy bebop and there she is!! each demonstrate a different mode of cross-cultural exchange. in “a language all my own,” the fleischer brothers created an international film that attempted to act as a bridge between the united states and japan by depicting betty boop as a mobile, hybrid figure able to cross between nations, languages and customs. this kind of cinematic engagement, however, still relied on bounded conceptions of national and cultural difference and on existing international trade routes, so that betty’s performance of “japanese-ness” ultimately reveals the orientalist imaginaries of western imperialism that persisted into the early twentieth century. the case of watanabe shinichirō’s anime series cowboy bebop, by contrast, grew out of the postnational, televisual mode of exchange that arose in the late twentieth century, in which bodies, images and technologies were thought to flow across the fading borders of nation-states. on the one hand, cowboy bebop can be seen as a “stateless” or “culturally odourless” commodity created by corporate media globalisation, as iwabuchi argues. but on the other hand, it also demonstrates new ways of imagining diversity, even as it reveals some of the difficulties of maintaining a community that arise from diasporic mixing. finally, the web cartoon there she is!! exemplifies the workings of fan communities that form at a transnational and transcultural level through the internet. the kinds of global flows involved in transcultural communities are often asymmetrical, as participants do not always have equal access or equal linguistic abilities in a given exchange. this asymmetry may even give rise to frictions between members, revealing cultural chauvinisms or expressions of privilege. but frictions can also prove productive, as they open up opportunities for media fans to reflexively discuss the ongoing social issues that pervade online media through the very channels of communication those media themselves open up. so, while each of these works demonstrates a different socially-, technologicallyand historically-contingent mode of animated globalisation, all three of them point to certain trends in animation toward cross-cultural and even transcultural exchange. that is not to say that animation is a fully liberatory or revolutionary medium, or that all fan movements are acts of pure grassroots empowerment. much animation, as iwabuchi argues, still flows through corporate channels of distribution. and even works such as the fleischers’ cartoons and the sambakza message boards can allow creators and consumers to reaffirm existing dominant discourses. but as examples of transcultural trends, the animated texts i discuss also point to what is emerging: to aspirations (however unfulfilled) for more mutual exchange between those living in the west and east asia, for the expression of cultural and ethnic diversity, and for strategies to work through asymmetries in global flow by acknowledging ongoing social frictions. in that way, these cases serve as examples of the broader changes taking place in the contemporary media environment, encouraging us to remain alert to both the risks and possible rewards of media globalization. i hope that the models of international, postnational and transnational exchange and the three studies of animation outlined here will provide a useful starting point for all of those who wish to collaborate further on imagining transcultural fandom. literature anderson, benedict. imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. london: verso, 1991. appadurai, arjun. modernity at large. minneapolis: minnesota university press, 1996. ---.  fear of small numbers: an essay on the geography of anger. durham: duke university press, 2006. artz, lee. “monarchs, monsters, and multiculturalism: disney’s menu for global hierarchy.” in rethinking disney: private control, public dimensions, edited by mike budd and max h. kirsch, 75–98. middletown, connecticut: wesleyan university press, 2005. ---. “globalization, media hegemony, and social class.” in the globalization of corporate media hegemony, edited by lee artz and yahya r. kamalipour, 3–31. new york: state university of new york press, 2003. ayres, brenda, ed. the emperor’s old groove: decolonizing disney’s magic kingdom. new york: peter lang, 2003. baigent, robert. “review of cowboy bebop.” graduate journal of asia-pacific studies 2.1 (2004): 92–94. brydon, diana. “cross-talk, postcolonial pedagogy, and transnational literacy.” situation analysis 4 (2004): 70–87. buckingham, david and julian sefton-green. “structure, agency, and pedagogy in children’s  media culture.” in pikachu’s global adventure: the rise and fall of pokémon, edited by joseph jay tobin, 12-33. durham: duke university press, 2004. carey, peter. wrong about japan: a father’s journey with his son. new york: random house, 2005. dobbs, mike. “myron waldman 1908-2006.” cartoon brew, february 5, 2006. http://www.cartoonbrew.com/?s=betty+boop+%22language+all+my+own%22 (july 7, 2009). dorfman, ariel and armand mattelart. how to read donald duck: imperialist ideology in the disney comic. new york: international general, 1975. fiske, john. “the cultural economy of fandom.” in the adoring audience, edited by lisa a. lewis, 30-49. london: routledge, 1992. gdca gyeonggi digital contents agency. n.d.http://www.gdca.or.kr/eng/index1.asp (july 7,  2009). hills, matt. fan cultures. london: routledge, 2002. horkheimer, max and theodor w. adorno. “the culture industry: englightenment as mass deception.” in dialectic of enlightenment: philosophical fragments, edited by gunzelin schmid noerr, trans. edmund jephcott. stanford: stanford university press, 2002. iwabuchi, koichi. recentering globalization: popular culture and japanese transnationalism.durham: duke university press, 2002. ---. “nostalgia for a (different) asian modernity: media consumption of ‘asia’ in japan.” positions 10:3 (2002): 547–73. ---. “undoing inter-national fandom in the age of brand nationalism.” mechademia 5 (2010): 87-96 jenkins, henry. convergence culture: where old and new media collide. new york: new york university press, 2006. ---. fans, bloggers and gamers: exploring participatory culture. new york: new york university press, 2006. ---.  textual poachers: television fans and participatory culture. new york: routledge, 1992. khiabany, gholam. “faultlines in the agendas of global media debates.” global media and communication 1.2 (2005): 203–211. lent, john and kie-un yu. “korean animation: a short but robust life.” in animation in asia and the pacific, edited by john a. lent, 89–100. bloomington: indiana university press, 2001. massumi, brian. “notes on the translation and acknowledgements.” in a thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia, gilles deleuze and félix guattari, xvi–xix. minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1987. min, eungjun. “political and sociocultural implications of hollywood hegemony in the korean film industry: resistance, assimilation, and articulation.” in artz and kamalipour, 245–61. “the motion picture production code of 1930 (hays code).” artsreformation.com. 12 april, 2006. http://www.artsreformation.com/a001/hays-code.html (july 7, 2009). “mounting tensions between hamas and fatah” (ハマスとファタハ間の緊張高まる). afpbb news. dec. 15, 2006. http://www.afpbb.com/article/1174867(july 7, 2009). napier, susan j. anime from akira to howl’s moving castle. new york: palgrave macmillan, 2005. ---. from impressionism to anime: japan as fantasy and fan cult in the mind of the west. new york: palgrave macmillan, 2007. ōtsuka eiji and ōsawa nobuaki. why is “japanimation” failing? ( ジャパニメーションはなぜ敗れるか). kadokawa shoten, 2005. patten, fred. watching anime, reading manga: 25 years of essays and reviews. berkeley, california: stone bridge press, 2004. poster, mark. “cyberdemocracy: the internet and the public sphere.” in internet culture, edited by david porter, 201–18. new york: routledge, 1997. spigel, lynn and jan olssen. television after tv: essays on a medium in transition. durham: duke university press, 2006. szeman, imre. [review of modernity at large.] cultural logic 1.1 (1997): n.p. http://clogic.eserver.org/1-1/szeman.html thussu, daya kishan, ed. internationalizing media studies. london: routledge, 2009. tomlinson, john. globalization and culture. chicago: university of chicago press, 1999. tsing, anna lowenhaupt. friction: an ethnography of global connection. princeton, n.j.: princeton university press, 2005. yamaguchi katsunori and watanabe yasushi. japanese film animation history. (日本アニメー ション映画史). osaka: yūbunsha, 1997. [1] i would like to thank the organizers and attendees of the workshops on “rethinking trends—transcultural flows in popular spheres,” hosted in november of 2008 and 2009 by heidelberg university’s “asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows” research cluster. my particular gratitude to those who read and commented on earlier drafts of the paper, including jennifer altehenger, huang xuelei, dr. diana brydon, dr. william lee, and dr. gene walz. i would also like to acknowledge the support of the social sciences and humanities research council of canada, which provided funding for my thesis project. for the full thesis, which contains more detailed accounts of the case studies in this paper, please see https://mspace.lib.umanitoba.ca/ [2] max horkheimer and theodor w. adorno. “the culture industry: enlightenment as mass deception.” in dialectic of enlightenment: philosophical fragments, ed. gunzelin schmid noerr, trans. edmund jephcott. (stanford: stanford university press, 2002 [orig. pub. 1947]), 94. [3] see, for instance, ariel dorfman and armand mattelart, how to read donald duck: imperialist ideology in the disney comic (new york: international general, 1975) and brenda ayres, the emperor’s old groove: decolonizing disney’s magic kingdom (new york: peter lang, 2003). [4] quoted in henry jenkins, fans, bloggers and gamers: exploring participatory culture (new york: new york university press, 2006), 153. [5] lee artz, “globalization, media hegemony, and social class,” in the globalization of corporate media hegemony, ed. lee artz and yahya r. kamalipour (new york: state university of new york press, 2003), 3–31. [6] lee artz, “monarchs, monsters, and multiculturalism: disney’s menu for global hierarchy,” in rethinking disney: private control, public dimensions, ed. mike budd and max h. kirsch (middletown, connecticut: wesleyan university press, 2005), 75–98. [7] daya kishan thussu, ed. internationalizing media studies. (london: routledge, 2009.) [8] ōtsuka eiji and ōsawa nobuaki. why is “japanimation” failing? [“japanimation” wa naze yabureru ka]. (kadokawa shoten, 2005.) [9] spigel, lynn and jan olssen. television after tv: essays on a medium in transition. (durham: duke university press, 2006), 8. [10] henry jenkins. textual poachers: television fans and participatory culture. (new york: routledge, 1992), 2. [11] susan j. napier. from impressionism to anime: japan as fantasy and fan cult in the mind of the west (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2007), 150 [12] i am using “affect” here both in the psychological sense of “emotion” or “feeling” and the philosophical sense of “an ability to affect and be affected” (massumi, xvi), or a shift in the potential or capacity to act. [13] see, for instance, the article “mounting tensions between hamas and fatah,” (ハマスとファタハ間の緊張高まる). afpbb news. dec. 15, 2006. http://www.afpbb.com/article/1174867 (july 7, 2009.)   [14] benedict anderson. imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. (london: verso, 1991), 6. [15] susan j. napier, anime from akira to howl’s moving castle (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2005), 6. [16] matt hills, fan cultures (london: routledge, 2002), xii. [17] david buckingham and julian sefton-green, “structure, agency, and pedagogy in children’s media culture,” in tobin, 24. [18] john tomlinson, globalization and culture (chicago: university of chicago press, 1999), 2. [19] artz, “globalization,” 24.  [20] see also gholam khiabany’s article “faultlines in the agendas of global media debates,” in which he criticizes lee artz for associating homogeneity with “the intercultural dominance of the western model” and hybridity with non-western “cultural artists and audiences.” as khiabany points out on page 208, this merely reifies oppositions between the “commercial, rootless, banal and pre-packaged ‘western’ products and the ‘authentic’, ‘organic’ and deeply rooted culture of the ‘east.’” [21] koichi iwabuchi, recentering globalization: popular culture and japanese transnationalism (durham: duke university press, 2002), 48. [22] ibid., 188. [23] ibid., 31. [24] ibid., 156. [25] ibid., 194. [26] in fact, iwabuchi has drawn on fan studies approaches to address the more positive affective connections japanese fans form through their interest in hong kong idol singers in his essay “nostalgia for a (different) asian modernity: media consumption of ‘asia’ in japan.” his later work on animation, however, continues to rely on a top-down, producer-directed model of distribution and consumption. see for instance “how ‘japanese’ is pokémon?” in tobin (op. cit.), in which he describes how “in japan, media industry leaders decided that computer games and animation would be the main features” of a global “supersystem of entertainment” (63, my emphasis). even his most nuanced and sophisticated assessment of anime fan culture to date, published in 2010, ends by stressing “how the persisting dominance of the neoliberal and (inter-)national framework [of media globalization] has limited the development of transnational dialogues” (94). while this kind of critical caution is laudable, the emphasis on attending mainly to domination over constructive alternatives to that domination recalls lee artz’ “corporate media hegemony,” simply “recentering” on japan rather than america. [27] arjun appadurai, modernity at large (minneapolis: minnesota university press, 1996), 31. [28] ibid., 8. [29] ibid., 33. [30] ibid, 196. [31] susan j. napier. from impressionism to anime: japan as fantasy and fan cult in the mind of the west (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2007), 11. [32]imre szeman, [review of modernity at large]. cultural logic 1.1 (1997): n.p. http://clogic.eserver.org/1-1/szeman.html [33] for more on cultural capital, see john fiske, “the cultural economy of fandom,” in the adoring audience, ed. lisa a. lewis, (london: routledge, 1992), 30–49. for more on transmedia, which also has its positive aspects, see henry jenkins, “searching for the origami unicorn: the matrix and transmedia storytelling,” in convergence culture (new york: new york university press, 2006), 93–130.  [34] arjun appadurai, fear of small numbers: an essay on the geography of anger (durham: duke university press, 2006), 15. [35] anna lowenhaupt tsing, friction: an ethnography of global connection (princeton, n.j.: princeton university press, 2004), 4. [36] ibid., 13. [37] diana brydon, “cross-talk, postcolonial pedagogy, and transnational literacy.” situationanalysis 4 (2004): 70. [38] “the motion picture production code of 1930 (hays code).” artsreformation.com, 12 april, 2006.  http://www.artsreformation.com/a001/hays-code.html (july 7, 2009). [39]mike dobbs, “myron waldman 1908-2006,” in cartoon brew, february 5, 2006. http://www.cartoonbrew.com/?s=betty+boop+%22language+all+my+own%22 (july 7, 2009) [40] this tune was written for the highly sensationalized performance of belly dancer “little egypt” at the 1893 chicago world’s fair, and has since come to signify “the orient” in the american popular consciousness. as an audio cue in early animation, it signals exoticized femininity and eroticism, commonly accompanying images of shapely silhouettes and dancing girls from a range of middle eastern and asian countries. for more on the history of  the song, see donna carlton, looking for little egypt. bloomington: idd books, 2002. [41] yamaguchi katsunori and watanabe yasushi. japanese film animation history. (日本アニメーション映画史) (osaka: yūbunsha, 1997), 26. [42] tomlinson, 54. [43] quoted in napier, anime, 117. [44] fred patten, watching anime, reading manga: 25 years of essays and reviews (berkeley, ca: stone bridge press, 2004), 357. [45] as petra thiel has demonstrated, similar arguments have also been made about the global distribution of children’s literature, a market in which culturally-specific plot points are often altered or removed in the translation process. see thiel’s article in this issue. [46] patten, 58. [47] robert baigent, “review of cowboy bebop.” graduate journal of asia-pacific studies 2.1 (2004): 92–94. in fact, the japanese distribution/reception history of cowboy bebop recounted by patten (358-9) is not quite “equal” to the american, and is actually rather complicated. while most niche anime titles air late at night on satellite stations, cowboy bebop was shown on tv tokyo during primetime, in a 6:00 pm friday timeslot starting april 3, 1998. however, due to its depictions of adult themes such as drug use and homosexuality, only 13 of the original 26 episodes were permitted to air in the first run. the full series was not shown until the autumn 1998–99 season at 1:00am on the wowow satellite network. despite this, bebop won awards at the kobe animation festival and the japan national science fiction convention in 2000, and was popular enough among viewers to warrant a theatrical feature filmin 2001. manga (comics) and video games were also released, creating a transmedia trend that drew japanese (and eventually global) audiences with ever more pieces of same story in different media. [48] iwabuchi, recentering, 28. [49] peter carey, wrong about japan: a father’s journey with his son. (new york: random house, 2005), 98. [50] all cartoons discussed in this section may be viewed at http://www.sambakza.net/.  [51] gdca gyeonggi digital contents agency. n.d.http://www.gdca.or.kr/eng/index1.asp (july 7, 2009). [52] mark poster, “cyberdemocracy: the internet and the public sphere,” in internet culture, ed. david porter (new york: routledge, 1997), 201–18. [53] appadurai, modernity, 195. [54] see john lent and kie-un yu, “korean animation: a short but robust life,” in animation in asia and the pacific, ed. john a. lent (bloomington: indiana university press, 2001), 89–100 and eungjun min, “political and sociocultural implications of hollywood hegemony in the korean film industry: resistance, assimilation, and articulation,” in artz and kamalipour, 245–61. [55] as of november 12, 2010, the languages used out of 2142 original posts (ops) are: english: 1039 ops (48.5%); korean: 899 (42.0%); japanese 121 (5.6%); spanish: 24 (1.1 %); posts in other languages/two or more languages: 59 (2.8%). chinese, polish, and russian are represented in smaller numbers. it is also interesting to note that in the first half of its life, korean was more prevalent than english: the board has gradually become more anglophone as there she is!! climbed the rankings on popular english hosting sites such as newgrounds and albino blacksheep.   [56] the thread has since been removed from the main site’s bulletin board by amalloc. as of july 2009 it could still be found by entering the exact phrase into a search engine, but unfortunately the majority of comments to this board were lost in a site upgrade in may 2010. as a result, the thread no longer appears either on google or on archiving sites such as the wayback machine. it has, however, been archived by heidelberg university’s “asia and europe in a global context” research cluster as part of the trends project. records are available upon request. friendship among literati | hosne | transcultural studies friendship among literati. matteo ricci sj (1552–1610) in late ming china ana carolina hosne, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg the italian jesuit matteo ricci (1552–1610) arrived in the ming empire in 1583 and joined his confrère michele ruggieri (1543–1607) to establish a mission. it was ruggieri who had requested the visitor to the missions to the east, alessandro valignano (1539–1606), to send ricci as his companion for the china mission. ruggieri had arrived a few years earlier; he had visited the canton province in april 1580 at the time of a portuguese trade fair. he also went to the city of zhaoqing, in the same province, a couple of times before he returned to macao in 1582 to meet ricci. it was in zhaoqing that the jesuits built a first residence and a church, which they finished constructing in 1585. the house, as ricci said in a letter to father ludovico maselli, was frequently visited by the powerful men—tutti i grandi—so it was useful for establishing friendship with them.[1] new friends—better still if they were powerful—were essential if the first jesuits were to remain in the ming empire. they would probably not replace the friends that ricci had left in europe, who he missed so much, but, as he told his friend girolamo costa in rome in a letter dated 14th august 1599, the dream of converting the chinese was the main reason for leaving both his country and his dear friends. ruggieri went back to italy in 1589, but ricci stayed in china until his death in 1610. during that time, he made so many friends in china that his friendships, so we may assume, became rather time-consuming. as he told his brother, anton maria ricci, in a letter from peking in late august 1608, less than two years before his death, i have friends everywhere, so many that they will not let me live, and i spend the whole day in living rooms answering different questions, apart from the tasks i have here.[2] in sum, ricci's letters reflect how his friends—old or new, more or less powerful and influential, distant in italy or by his side in china—were present in his life. and friendship, as a theme, inspired ricci to write his first treatise in chinese, jiaoyou lun, usually translated into english as "on friendship." ricci's inspiration was to compose a first treatise in chinese on a subject that was common to, and could bring closer, the two cultures: chinese and european. the jiaoyou lun was written when ricci had just begun immersing himself in an intense intellectual life upon his arrival in nanchang in 1595, a city with a strong literary tradition. apart from holding a key place in pre-christian philosophy, friendship had also served as the subject of a long-running debate among european authors as to its nature and ends, as i shall show later.[3] at the same time, friendship was also a topic of great interest to late ming intellectuals. in the confucian tradition, the "five cardinal human relationships" (wulun) were the five bonds that men in chinese society were to observe and foster: the relationships of husband and wife; with parents; between elder and younger brothers; between ruler and subject; and between friends. of the five relationships in confucianism, the fifth, friendship, was unique. the others were overtly concerned with the maintenance of china as a guojia, literally a "state-family". but friendship was the only bond in society that was freely chosen; and it could be dangerous on account of its potential to create a human relationship that was not hierarchical.[4] during the ming period—especially in the last century of this dynasty—friendship appears to have been celebrated with unprecedented enthusiasm. in general terms, the commercialisation of the ming economy, and the resulting enhancement of social and geographical mobility, created both new needs and new possibilities for friendship: the blurring of traditional social boundaries—such as those between literati and merchants—tended to make ming society less hierarchical, and thus more conducive to the cultivation of friendship among different social groups. what qualifies the late ming as the golden age in the history of chinese male friendship was not the fact that late ming chinese males were necessarily more friendly or more willing to make friends than those of other historical periods, but that their sheer eagerness for discourse on friendship and their bold and innovative rhetoric elevated friendship to a moral high ground that it had never occupied before.[5] moreover, for an educated male, who was supposed to distinguish himself by mastering confucian learning, passing the government-sponsored examinations, and advancing a career in the bureaucratic world, networks of friends remained indispensable.[6] outside this minority of successful candidates, friends were equally if not more important for those excluded from the imperial bureaucracy, since they were one of the main sources of help in finding career alternatives.[7] over time, ricci learned about the examination system, which gave access to positions in the imperial administration as well as the training required for the candidates to master the four books and the chinese classics.[8] as he explained in his account, entitled by its editor pasquale d'elia sj storia dell' introduzione del cristianesimo in cina, the literati grounded their knowledge on confucian doctrine, which ricci defined as a "good moral doctrine."[9] but ricci took his interpretation of confucianism one step further and ascribed to it a non-idolatrous gentility—opposing it to an "idolatrous" buddhism—corresponding to his idea of confucianism as a moral system serving to govern the empire wisely but lacking in metaphysical or supernatural foundations. this rendered confucianism compatible with christianity at both a moral and ethical level, with the latter able to provide confucianism with a supernatural base.[10] after all, the humanist education in europe—the same ricci had received in his hometown, macerata, and rome—was aimed at governing elites; its training in eloquence and its programme in literature and rhetoric as the foundation for civic life were intended to produce both intellectuals and statesmen.[11] this harmonious relationship between letters and politics might have inspired ricci to draw a parallel with confucianism on chinese soil. this article focuses on how friendship among the literati became one more characteristic that helped ricci shape the portrait of the chinese literatus that he would convey to his european audience. there is no doubt that the jesuits—and ricci among the very first of them—would disseminate, and act as the true interpreters of, all the information about china, of which learned europeans made good use in the seventeenth century. the jesuit missionaries to china often had direct and close contact with these savants—both on return visits to europe and through correspondence from china. breadth of learning, so prized by seventeenth-century minds, fostered the inclusion of what david mungello calls a sometimes "exotic" interest in china within their range of interests without disrupting the non-sinological thrust of their work.[12] matteo ricci was among the first, if not the first, to understand the importance of ties of friendship among the chinese literati, and this is how he communicated it to his potential european readers in his account: it is noteworthy that these doctors, and also the bachelors, of the same year establish such a strong friendship among themselves that they become like brothers, and they help one another, and also their relatives, until their death.[13] as i aim to show in this article, ricci regarded friendship as an attribute of the chinese literati, and the importance of this male bonding helped him shape the notion of "literatus" in ming china that he communicated to a european readership. as for himself, his treatise jiaoyou lun—"on friendship"—became a first concrete step towards approaching and befriending the literati in various cities, for it opened the doors to belletristic circles and sophisticated debates. in a first section of this article, i will focus on a textual dimension, the treatise itself, as an initial—and well-aimed—approach to the literati elites, in which ricci shaped and conveyed the notion of virtuous friendship in chinese, in a confucian register. however, the networks and relationships that ricci established with many influential scholars in the late ming period were much more versatile, varied, and mixed than ricci's textual discourse on friendship would allow us to think. in order to examine this aspect, the focus of this essay's second section lies on the relationships ricci established with the chinese literati and scholar-officials in different cities, who came from diverse intellectual traditions and scholarly backgrounds.[14] in turn, ricci became a versatile friend to them, ably adopting "multiple identities" and roles.[15] interestingly, regardless all these different experiences of friendship, ricci shaped a very clear-cut definition of a chinese literatus for a european audience. indeed, as i will discuss in this article, ricci's network of friends, and the different types of friendship he established with learned men from different backgrounds in the late ming period, did not stop him from portraying the chinese literatus as strictly "confucian." the third and last section of this essay is dedicated to some concluding remarks and reflections on ricci's notions and choices of friendship. literary friendship: matteo ricci's jiaoyou lun (1595) many scholars agree that ricci's jiaoyou lun is based on andreas eborensis's sententiae et exempla, ex probatissimis quibusque scriptoribus collecta et per locos communes digesta.[16] the sententiae comprises a collection of aphorisms borrowed from aristotle, cicero, seneca, plutarch, erasmus, herodotus, augustine, ambrose and chrysostomus, among others. however, they disagree on whether or not ricci took this book with him to china.[17] the translator of the jiaoyou lun into english, timothy billings, observes that non-chinese scholars have tended to view ricci's treatise as a chinese translation of european originals, including works by such familiar authors as those mentioned above. instead, chinese scholars have focused on the content of this writing by also considering its connections with the ideas on friendship from the confucian tradition, taking both paths—i.e. european and confucian/chinese—at once, or at least in turn.[18] nevertheless, this could hardly apply to the chinese scholar fang hao and his detailed analysis of ricci's jiaoyou lun and its western sources. fang hao has identified every maxim in ricci's treatise with authors from different traditions, such as those of ancient greece and rome, and the first fathers of the church. among them are cicero, socrates, diogenes, seneca, pliny, plutarch, saint augustine, saint ambrosius, erasmus and casiodorus, all named in phonetic transcription in chinese.[19] one of the many works that influenced ricci's writing is cicero's laelius, which places great stress on the bond between friendship and virtue.[20] cicero played a leading role in the curricula in the jesuit colleges. education in these schools, starting with the roman college, was shaped according to the ratio studiorum—literally, plan of studies. as john o'malley shows, perhaps the most important change the schools brought to the society was a new kind and degree of engagement with culture beyond the traditionally clerical subjects of philosophy and theology, and much of what they taught related only indirectly to the christian religion as such.[21] the ratio included a systematic study of ancient roman and greek authors, and ricci's emphasis on cicero reflects the pre-eminence of this latin author in the ratio, which reached its final form in 1599. cicero was the model of style and elegance; his eloquence and grace was expected to be emulated in the grammar classes at various levels, and in the rhetoric class.[22] cicero's laelius is a dialogue on friendship that takes place after the death of scipio, between gaius laelius—scipio's closest friend—and his two sons-in-law, quintus scaevola and gaius fannius. as laelius says to scaevola, friendship—especially among the sages—is the result of virtue: those, indeed, who regard virtue as the supreme good are entirely in the right; but it is virtue itself that produces and sustains friendship, nor without virtue can friendship by any possibility exist.[23] ricci's treatise drew on various sources in order to shape virtuous friendship, a theme expressed in different maxims.[24] confucian tradition construed friendship as a relationship that would result in self-cultivation, a point of view epitomized in some of confucius's analects, the most famous statements on friendship, which we can see reflected in ricci's jiaoyou lun. maybe no scholar could write on friendship in china without quoting the lines that open confucius's analects: the master said: is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application? is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters? is he not a man of complete virtue, he who feels no discomposure though men may take no note of him? (1:1).[25] ricci indeed gained insight into the connections between friendship and learning, and friendship and self-cultivation. furthermore, he artfully captured key elements of the confucian moral universe, i.e. the difference between the jun zi, which can be translated as gentleman, and the xiao ren, which can be translated as petty man, both so-conceived in a moral sense. the jun zi is a moral man searching for virtue, as opposed to the petty man's aim of satisfying his physical needs and desires, as in the analects: the master said: the superior man thinks of virtue; the small man thinks of comfort. the superior man thinks of the sanctions of the law; the small man thinks of favours which he may receive (4:11).[26] ricci composed a maxim which, we may think, reflects two different kinds of friendship: according to his nature, the gentleman is always motivated by virtue, unlike the petty man: the honourable man makes friends with difficulty; the petty man makes friends with ease. what comes together with difficulty comes apart with difficulty; what comes together with ease comes apart with ease.[27] flattery, and the figure of the flatterer, became another point of confluence that ricci saw in both traditions. on the european side, we may hear the voice of plutarch, who reflects on how to distinguish between a flatterer and a true friend. the flatterer does not apply himself to virtue, and his affection is insincere; without regard to doing those he flatters any good, he only aims to please them. moreover, the flatterer turns vice into virtue in that ...he uses his frank reprehension in vain and frivolous things, and never in those sins and gross faults which are indeed blameworthy: so that this manner of reprehension is a kind of soothing them [men] up and lulling them asleep in their notorious vices.[28] let us now see what ricci's says on the subject in his jiaoyou lun: these days, since friends are speechless, and flatterers have become eloquent, only by keeping my enemies am i able to hear words of truth.[29] clearly, the flatterer is not a true friend: the friend who flatters is no friend, but merely a thief who steals that name and usurps it.[30] and the flatterer is also devious: the intention of the doctor is to use bitter medicine to cure a person's sickness; the goal of the flattering friend is to use sweet words to seek a person's wealth.[31] confucius's analects also make reference to the figure of the flatterer as someone "crafty" and skilful with words, unlike the sincere friend: the master said: there are three friendships which are advantageous, and three which are injurious. friendship with the upright; friendship with the sincere; and friendship with the man of much observation […] these are advantageous. friendship with the man of specious airs, friendship with the insinuatingly soft; and friendship with the glib-tongued: [...] these are injurious (16:4).[32] ricci avoided the christian notion of "flattering" as sin, more specifically as in aquinas' summa theologica, ii–-ii, quaestio 115, art. 2, "whether flattery is a mortal sin?"[33]. it seems that in his search for agreements with the confucian tradition regarding flattery, ricci avoided these further references to the adulatio, which he mainly translated into chinese as chanyu 諂諛or ning 佞.[34] the ning ren 佞人 were actually not advisable as entourage of rulers because, unlike true friends, they are obsequious and repeat exactly what the prince says so as to gain advantages.[35] what we can definitely confirm is how wisely ricci combined the themes and topics regarding friendship found in both traditions, as well as his omission of those that were not so easy to share, translate and explain. in this regard, on the confucian side, in his treatise the jesuit omitted the five relationships and the way in which friendship fitted into that broader picture. it was his friend, the chinese literatus—and convert—feng yingjin (1555–1601) who made reference to the five basic human relationships (wulun)in the preface he penned to jiaoyou lun in the reprint of 1601.[36] and, actually, one of the most serious criticisms against the jesuits was that they did not enter into the wulun: they did not marry, therefore they neglected the relationship of husband and wife (fu fu); they left home, and thus their relationships with their parents (fu mu) and brothers (xiong di) were broken; and by leaving their country they lost their relationship with their ruler (jun chen), so that only relationships with friends (peng you) remained.[37] of course, ricci knew about the wulun, the five cardinal relationships in china, and referred to them in his account as part of the "law" of the literati, i.e. confucianism. here we may think of two reasons for this telling omission of the five relationships in ricci's treatise. the first, the jesuit did not hesitate to express his scepticism when presenting them as "typically" chinese: they [the literati] care so much for these five relationships which they regard as proper to men, i.e. father and son; husband and wife; lord and vassal; elder and younger brother; and between friends, thinking that the foreign kingdoms do not pay attention to these relationships.[38] moreover, one of the maxims ricci composed for his jiaoyou lun places friendship above the relationship between family members, which undermines core values of the confucian tradition. in maxim 50, ricci claims that friends surpass family members in one point only: it is possible for family members not to love one another. but it is not so with friends. if one member of a family does not love another, the relationship of kinship still remains. but unless there is love between friends, does the essential principle of friendship exist?[39] in this sentence, friendship potentially overrules the natural relationship between parents and children, and its corresponding virtue, through which any individual belongs to the world as well as mankind: filial piety. filial piety, a virtue that contains respect for parents and ancestors, also grounds the political relationship between ruler and subject. this leads us to the second—and maybe most important—reason why ricci might not be eager to refer to the five relationships, which is also connected to an apparently (non)"religious" aspect of the treatise. indeed, ricci's jiaoyou lun has been regarded as a "secular" work by his translators, mainly for two reasons. on the one hand, it is based on ricci's omission of the christian notion of friendship, i.e. charity, since he was not able to transmit the revelation to the chinese. a notion that, indeed, was possible in europe, but—according to filippo mignini—not very "efficient" for ricci's purposes in the china mission.[40] let us remember that the notion of christian charity refers to men's love of god, which then leads to love of others. friendship provides, for aquinas, the paradigm through which the theological virtue of charity can best be conceptualised. charity is a friendship involving love towards god and all rational beings capable of loving him. in turn, among different reasons, timothy billings underscores the secular essence of ricci's treatise, as he mentions the christian god in only two of the one hundred maxims on friendship—maxims 16 and 56.[41] nevertheless, a qualitative rather than quantitative criterion should be applied when analysing their contents. in his search for a terminology suitable enough to bring christianity and confucianism together, ricci manages to introduce in this first treatise the omnipresent lord on high—shang di 上帝—whom he saw in the chinese classics as proof of an ancient confucian monotheism. but ricci construed the confucian books as a means to convey doctrine. in a letter to the superior general claudio acquaviva, ricci explains that students have to master the four books in order to pass the exams to become imperial officers. the candidates do not have to know them all, he explains, but choose one, and thus are asked questions on the chosen topic they know very well. but, as ricci says, someone had to recite them all to the jesuits, because "we want to prove all things of our doctrine with their books."[42] apart from the proof of monotheism in the lord on high or shang di, in one of the two maxims—number 16—in which he mentions "god," i.e. the lord on high, ricci introduces friendship as a mandate from the lord on high, something i interpret as a first attempt to introduce christian charity into chinese culture, i.e. in a confucian register. according to this maxim, each person cannot fully complete every task, for which reason the lord on high commanded that there be friendship in order that we might render aid to one another. if this way were eradicated from the world, humankind would surely run to ruin.[43] in short, the idea that men have to be friends and help each other because the lord on high so commands cannot be underestimated. last but not least, we must not forget that ricci was presenting his first attempt at writing, translation and composition in chinese. with regard to concepts such as "god" or "charity," as well as their absence in the treatise, it is a well-known fact that ricci aimed to transmit christianity in a confucian register, so we cannot define his work as secular because of their absence. ricci was searching; he was experimenting with a terminology to convey the idea of the one and only christian god, and used that of the lord on high (shang di) and men being friends, helping each other, according to shang di's commands. what is more, ricci himself regarded his jiaoyou lun as "an exercise of translation," as he expressed it to general claudio acquaviva in a letter from nanchang: last year i wrote some sayings from de amicitia in chinese as an exercise; and chose the best of our books; and, as they were taken from several eminent authors, the literati were amazed, and in order to give it more authority i wrote a preface and gave it as a present to one of the king's relatives, who also has a title of king.[44] resuming the analysis on the omission of the five relationships, it might be related to ricci's need to alter hierarchies and position the shang di 上帝 or lord on high at the apex, for it is him that demands that men cherish these relationships. this is something that we can appreciate more clearly in his catechism tianzhu shiyi 天主實義, usually translated into english as the true meaning of the lord of heaven. even though it was published in 1603, ricci was already working on its revision in 1596.[45] to sum up, in this section we have focused on a textual dimension of ricci´s notion of friendship. as howard goodman and anthony grafton have pointed out, ricci was a humanist and a scholar who knew how to work with texts: confucian classics, which he mastered as the price of entrance for conversations with the chinese elite; and western classics, which gave him the authority to offer an alternative to confucianism.[46] in this sense, as nicolas standaert states, ricci compared chinese traditions with frameworks that were familiar to his european audience, who had received the same humanistic grounding as he. this comparison was also the impulse for other humanistic writings by ricci which proclaimed wisdom from the west on the basis of sayings by "ancient saints and sages," written explicitly for a general non-christian readership.[47] ricci also chose open literary forms to shape his notions of friendship on chinese soil, such as the classical authors, whose writings can be characterized by an open style, essay-like texts, aphorisms or, in ricci's case, maxims.[48] ricci's counterparts on chinese soil were also experts in handling china's rich textual tradition, and—as ricci might have preferred to ignore—they were not exclusively dedicated to the exegesis of confucian texts. in the late ming period, chinese scholars were very interested in chan buddhist texts and many of the confucian scholars exerted a great influence on chan buddhism; they also had the necessary authority over the interpretation of chan´s textualized past.[49] as for a definition of friendship, there is no single unanimously accepted definition of perfect friendship among the ancients in the west, and ricci would not make an exception by providing one. while they generally agreed on its fundamental qualities of virtue, wisdom, and beneficence, they often disagreed on the definition of each of these and their value with respect to one another. yet they generally agree on the following fundamentals: perfect friendship exists only between virtuous men who love virtue in one another for its own sake; true friends—amici veri—are like a single soul in two—or, sometimes, more—bodies; they have all possessions in common, and their affection is reciprocal; their characters, tastes, and opinions are in complete agreement; while growing closer to one another in intimacy, they also grow in virtue and wisdom, which benefit others besides themselves.[50] however, it is important to stress here that the western tradition conveyed an ideal of virtuous friendship directly connected to wisdom, which could be related to the concept ricci found circulating in china. and ricci did not miss the opportunity to write about it. indeed, writing such an essay, and at such a time, was the perfect way to make friends among the literati and in belletristic circles. last but not least, friendship was vitally necessary to the jesuits for the printing and circulation of their works. in the ming literary world, the reputation and circulation of books increased in proportion to the reputation of the scholars who penned prefaces and postscripts, and ricci enhanced the scholarly reputation he gained through his chinese publications with the assistance and contributions of prestigious literati.[51] friendship among (the many kinds of) literati ricci's friendship with the princes of the le an and jian'an commanderies motivated the composition of one of the most valued gifts the jesuit could offer: his treatise on friendship (jiaoyou lun), the first of his works written in chinese. that encounter was about seizing an opportunity to write about friendship or, as ricci put it, it was about creating the opportunity. ricci invented a fictional situation to explain why he wrote on friendship; it was to answer the prince of jian'an commandery's questions—and curiosity—about european notions of friendship. it was first published without ricci's knowledge in 1595. he explained this episode in a letter to the general of the society of jesus, claudio acquaviva (1543–1615). the literati were very interested in his de amicitia, and they would ask him to show it to them, so he always had some copies at hand, however... ...one who pretended to be a friend transcribed them and, taking them to his land, a city near here, printed them under my name without telling me about it.[52] ricci arrived in late june 1595 in nanchang, one of the centres of late ming intellectual life and mandarin power. soon after his arrival, ricci noted the strong presence of private academies. indeed, in jiangxi province, where nanchang is located, there were more private academies than in any other province, a total of 294 out of the 1,946 in the ming dynasty; it supplied one of the highest numbers of jinshi (doctor's) degree holders.[53] and in nanchang ricci was also introduced to the world of discussion circles, where he began to appreciate that confucianism was not a monolithic orthodoxy but a living doctrine with a variety of conflicting tendencies.[54] he narrates several experiences in his storia. in fact, in addition to the friendship ricci established with a prince, shortly afterwards in his account he claims to have established friendship with "another type of literati," "the satraps of that land"—i satrapi di quella terra—who were devoted to spreading the true law—la vera legge—in their confraternities.[55] such was the case of a man in his seventies, zhang huang (1527–1608), who taught many disciples in the city of donghu, currently hebei. in 1592 zhang huang was elected president of the famous academy of the white dear (bailudong shuyuan). he was impressed by ricci's virtue and earnestness. indeed, even though ricci was always exhausted by the never-ending flow of guests he received at his residence, with no time left for study, he did not take up zhang huang's suggestion to order his servants to say that he was not at home. ricci rejected lying as "not virtuous" and forbidden for men of god.[56] he must have found this anecdote significant enough that he told it to the general of the society of jesus, claudio acquaviva, in a letter of november 1595, explaining to him that the old zhang huang acknowledged that in that land "they would tell a lie at every step—ad ogni passo—without scruples."[57] ricci often made reference to the chinese habit of telling lies, and he actually saw it as an obstacle to true friendship, as he expressed in his account: there is no doubt of [...] how blossoming insincerity and lies are in this kingdom, even among learned and noble men, as well as literati. it is because of this that nobody trusts anyone here, it being a realm of suspicion, not only among friends but also among close relatives, between brothers, father and son, and nobody can be trusted. and everything among them is about an external politeness, and beautiful words, without true friendship and love coming from inside.[58] in 1598 ricci left nanchang and stopped at nanjing. he arrived in beijing, the capital city of the empire, that same year. but it was a bad time because hostilities had broken out in korea, so ricci returned to nanjing, where he set up a residence in february 1599. a very influential man in that city, zhu shilu, helped the jesuits to settle down there, providing them with a licence. as zhu himself said, he was a very sick man, for "of all the ailments, i have had them all."[59] as ricci narrates in his storia, zhu liked the jiaoyou lun very much. he was very active in the literary and philosophical debating assemblies, the jiang xue, where the literati would discuss "things of virtue."[60] in sum, in this city ricci acquired a new group of friends and students, and was warmly greeted by the mandarins. it was also here that ricci came into contact for the first time with sophisticated exponents of buddhist philosophy, some of them literati who belonged to the wang yangming school.[61] zhu himself had composed a booklet, zhuzi xiaoyan, under the influence of thinker wang yang ming. in nanjing, ricci befriended literati who belonged to this school, such as jiao hong (1541–1620). in his storia, ricci introduced him as a zhangyuan—one who had obtained the first position among three hundred candidates to become doctors in his year—"who was engaged in preaching the three sects in china, which he himself practised."[62] here, ricci is referring to the three teachings, the sanjiao, i.e. confucianism, buddhism and daoism, all in one, which attracted some of the late sixteenth-century intellectuals associated with what became known as the taizhou school. the goal of their philosophical efforts was to their way into an inner essence, which, once attained, rendered the distinctions between buddhism, daoism, and confucianism insignificant.[63] however, over time, ricci would grow hostile to these intellectual traditions; but his rejection was less based on a profound knowledge of its main tenets than in the "idolatrous" nature he ascribed to them, especially to buddhism. in jiao hong's view, learning cannot be a lonely quest. jiao hong's emphasis on the role of friends in learning embodies both the traditional confucian concern for friendship and the heightened importance that it received in the taizhou school. seemingly quoting matteo ricci, jiao hong said: "friends are my second self."[64] indeed, this is the opening maxim of ricci's jiaoyou lun, clearly based on aristotle's ethics. let us remember that in this work aristotle dedicates two books—viii and ix—to friendship. in the fourth chapter of the ninth book, aristotle focuses on the virtuous man and the relationship he establishes with himself. he is at peace with himself: both his joys and his sorrows are respectively consistent with themselves, since they invariably proceed from fixed and regular causes; for he does not delight at one time in what will excite his repentance at another [...] he is similarly affected towards his friend, whom he considers a second self.[65] ricci made use of this maxim, and translated it into chinese: my friend is not another, but half of myself, and thus a second me—i must therefore regard my friend as myself.[66] and here lies one of the features of the classical concepts of friendship, i.e. the impact of friendship on identity formation and self-knowledge. for aristotle, this otherness of the other/friend is exactly the factor that contributes to one's self-knowledge.[67] resuming our story, ricci narrates that jiao hong was hosting one of the "most famous men of our times," li zhi (1527–1602), who "shaved his head and lived like a he shang," i.e. buddhist monk. and, "because he was of great erudition in their letters and science, and he was 70 years old, he had earned great fame and had many disciples."[68] ricci narrates that these two literati welcomed him warmly, especially li zhi, who had an arrogant attitude, not receiving high mandarins nor paying visits to them. but ricci says in the third person that: when the father, according to their customs, paid a visit to him, he [li zhi] received him together with literati of his entourage and discussed many things about the law [he preached], even though [li zhi] did not want to confute nor contradict the father; on the contrary, he said that their law was true.[69] li zhi was accused of pursuing friendship with no regard for his family and kinsmen. when he felt he had fulfilled his family duties, he sent his family to another city and concentrated on the learning of the way. still surrounded by literati friends and enjoying their patronage, he longed to travel across the land, enjoying nature, friendship, and intellectual companionship. he subscribed to controversial and, most importantly, "subversive" ideas—from the viewpoint of orthodox confucianism opposed to a strong influence of buddhism—from the wang yangming school, and became a "dangerous character" in late ming society.[70] li zhi had made some copies of ricci´s jiaoyou lun for his disciples, and had in fact himself composed a piece on friendship. but he was at odds regarding the true purpose of ricci's visit to china, declaring: i have met three times with him [ricci] already and i am still not sure what he came for. maybe to study the book of changes, or confucius, but i am afraid those are not the reasons.[71] li zhi also composed a poem for ricci, included in his "a book to burn," fen shu, in which he characterizes ricci as a "mountain recluse," a shanren.[72] the term shanren refers to a daoist sage, usually living in seclusion or poverty, often against the confucian norm. as haun saussy has pointed out, the language used by contemporary and near-contemporary chinese to describe ricci has definite patterns of its own, to which nothing on the european side corresponds. ricci was a social man; he enjoyed his conversations with chinese intellectuals, and discreetly boasted in his journals of the poems dedicated to him by his learned friends. one such piece of occasional verse has been preserved in li's fen shu.[73] as for the different—quoting saussy—"chinese ricci," the english translator of the jiayou lun, timothy billings, draws attention to an essential difference between the two extant manuscripts of ricci's jiaoyou lun. one of these is conserved in the archives of the pontificia università gregoriana, apparently dating to the late sixteenth century; it contains an italian translation of only seventy-six of the full one hundred maxims, all written in a single unidentified hand that is certainly not ricci's. a second manuscript was discovered in frederick north's—earl of guilford—collection at the turn of the millennium, and currently forms part of the british library manuscript collection (bl). this one is written in ricci's own distinctive hand, and it includes both the chinese text and ricci's own italian translation.[74] unlike the manuscript at the pontificia università gregoriana, it contains one hundred maxims. sometime between 1596 and its republication in the edition of 1599—now lost—or 1601—the earliest extant, ricci decided to add twenty-four new maxims to bring the total up to a perfect hundred. as billing states, the most fascinating single feature of the bl manuscript as an early draft of the essay is the way that ricci identifies himself in the colophon, which reads "compiled by the mountain recluse shanren from the kingdoms of the far west, li madou". from the references to this term on the previous page, shanren also refers to a particular type of sage and enjoyed great popularity as a self-designation among freethinking literati in the late ming.[75] in the copy belonging to one of ricci's closest friends, feng yinjing, and in the edition of 1601 that he penned, later used by li zhizao for the standard 1629 collection of first writings of heavenly studies, the colophon reads "compiled by the moral scholar xiu shi from the great western ocean, li madou," where the term xiu shi suggests a scholar—a confucian scholar—in training who is devoted to moral self-cultivation, thus revealing two slightly different versions of ricci's identity. indeed, the bl manuscript of 1595–96 records ricci's short-lived attempt to fashion his public identity as a shanren, or the popular late ming version of a daoist sage, before his self-fashioning as a confucian scholar. however, i should observe one last thing: in the italian translations in both manuscripts, ricci introduces himself as a "philosopher." over time, ricci became acquainted with literati who were not satisfied with the current neo-confucianism, since they considered it had become too impregnated with buddhism. these dissenting literati became part of ricci's closest circle until his death in 1610. they rebuked the neo-confucian tradition, which reinterpreted the classics through moral intuition rather than through learning. among these literati we can find those prominent scholar-officials who came to be called "the pillars of the church": xu guanqi (1562–1633), baptized in 1601, li zhizao (1557–1630), baptized in 1610, and yang tingyun (1557–1627), baptized in 1611. they offered matteo ricci patronage, protection and friendship. xu is well-known for working with ricci on the translation of the first six books of euclid's elements. admitted to the hanlin academy, where scholars were given training for the highest offices within the empire, xu remained in beijing and gave very important support to the jesuits.[76] li collaborated with ricci on various publications, including the definitive edition of the european world map and translations of european astronomy and geometry texts. yang tingyun was an active member of the donglin academy—from which a donglin movement opposed to emperor wanli sprouted—which proclaimed a return to an "orthodox" confucianism. the donglin movement in general was a manifestation of a considerable crisis that neo-confucianism went through in late ming china and it had a close relationship with the catholics.[77] in this section i have focused on some of the friends ricci made, in different cities, and from different intellectual traditions and schools. and, in turn, these interactions had an effect on the way ricci would introduce himself to—or was seen by—the chinese literati over the years. we know by now that matteo ricci experienced different kinds of friendship with different types of literati. indeed, ricci was well aware of the complexity of the confucian tradition itself, not to mention its diversity of practices. however, over time, he would narrow the category of "literati" to that of "confucian," never buddhist or daoist. in his account of the jesuit mission to china, ricci defined confucianism as the "sect" of the literati: that [law] of literati is the oldest in china; that explains why it has always had control of the government, why it flourishes, why it has the most books and is the most esteemed. in this sect nobody is appointed by choice but by the study of the arts, and no graduate or magistrate ever ceases to profess it. its author or [...] authority is confucius [...]. this law has no idols, but only venerates heaven and the earth or the king of heaven.[78] ricci's insight into the diversity of the intellectual world in ming china did not divert him from this tight definition of the chinese literatus as confucian. to shape this definition, ricci brought together two characteristics he observed in the chinese literati: first, their status as scholars, well-learned men who were—among other things—dedicated to literary activities and debates; second, their duty to contribute to good stable government. however, ricci merged and brought together two characteristics that, in imperial china, were not always harmoniously embodied in the literati: sometimes they could be in conflict; sometimes there were contradictions between the cliques of the strict officials and the literati types.[79] last but not least, ricci must certainly have grasped that in imperial china no educated layman, however devoted to buddhism, could forsake his confucian persona, and his definition as a male depended on it. confucianism was thus both his gender identification and his mark of social power.[80] in turn, ricci expected the same recognition from his peer-group, and never lost his perspective of how far his own status as a european-educated jesuit should take him on chinese soil, as he narrated in a letter to the superior of the china mission, duarte de sande, dated 29th august 1595 from nanchang: as suggested by the visitor [alessandro valignano] and by y. p., it has been determined that [...] in order to slowly secure and expand this mission, we make the most of any opportunity to establish a residence in another city, located in the interior part of china and, our lord be served, an opportunity presented to us in april 1595. a very important mandarin was passing by shaozhou, where he was the former governor[...]. he is now based in peking, as one of the highest authorities in the ministry of war [...]. he brought his sick son with him [...] and when in zhaoqing, he learned through another mandarin friend of ours about our residence in this city and [...] he told him he regarded us to be men of great virtue with knowledge of diverse sciences, so it would be easy for us to help his son recover [...]. with this information, the mandarin later called us[...]. and i went to meet with him [...] he asked us if we could give his son some medicine [...]. in this i saw a great opportunity for us to approach such a powerful mandarin, and replied to him that it could not be done in one day [...] for he was about to leave [...]. i myself wanted to go with him, because, beyond the desire to serve him and cure his son, those were also days in which i wanted to change places and go to the court in peking, because i did not find myself well in shaozhou [in the canton province], for it was an unhealthy environment, but also because, being literati ourselves, who came from such a long distance to stay in china, we wished to see the nobility of the imperial court [...]. the mandarin replied that he would take us with him.[81] consequently, ricci wished to go as far as the imperial court in peking, and so he did. an excellent reputation among the literati achieved through a mix of politics, diplomatic relations and years of study could lead him to the imperial court. in this regard, ricci cannot be dissociated from another role that the jesuits could play: that of the cortigiano, trained in the art of conversation and refined rhetoric, when reputation at court was an essential premise for the success of the society of jesus and its members, be it in a european court or in peking.[82] last but not least, as a missionary, ricci was surely convinced that friendship was one of the most personal forms of contact for conversion.[83] an italian jesuit and his literati friends in ming china. when worlds do not collide this article has aimed to show how friendship became one more component of the notion of the chinese literatus that ricci shaped throughout his years in china. writing a treatise on friendship was a first and very important step. indeed, the jiaoyou lun embodies a textual dimension of ricci's insight into friendship and how he formulated it on chinese soil. as we have seen, in his treatise the jesuit artfully matched views and notions of friendship that the european tradition shared with the chinese/confucian tradition, placing virtuous friendship, closely connected to wisdom, at the core of his treatise. but ricci also found common ground regarding the negative sides of friendship, like those expressed in flattery and the figure of the flatterer as a false, self-interested friend; the opposite to true virtuous friendship. in turn, certain omissions, paradoxically, shed light on the contents of the treatise, like the five confucian relationships —which comprise friendship—,proving how ricci was trying to establish a different hierarchy, with the lord on high at the apex. in this direction, the present article has also analysed how ricci tentatively introduced certain christian notions of friendship into his first work in chinese, and it has made a case against scholars who have defined it as "secular." we should always bear in mind that, in this first treatise, ricci was experimenting with words, terms and translation, as he told the superior general acquaviva in a letter mentioned above. so we should not expect a polished notion of charity as christian friendship in the treatise, but rather should observe how subtly ricci introduces it. discourse on friendship enabled ricci to access different networks and circles of literati and become part of them. as i have shown in this article, this textual dimension would not reflect ricci's real experiences of friendship in china, as well as its diversity. we have also seen how ricci might have enjoyed "multiple identities" through the portrayals given by his friends, as in the case of li zhi and his fenshu shows. ricci was a scholar, who undoubtedly enjoyed participating in the intellectual debates of his time in literati associations, literary clubs, and philosophical debating assemblies. he was saw himself as a "philosopher," as per his signature in his jiaoyou lun in the italian version, but also as a mountain recluse shanren or a scholar xiu shi as in the different chinese versions of the treatise. he could also be a cortigiano who wanted "to see the nobility in the imperial court in peking." last but not least, ricci was a missionary, and as such he would have regarded friendship as one of the most personal forms of contact for conversion. ironically, the more integrated ricci became in the various networks of literati, gaining insight into their different intellectual backgrounds and traditions, the more clear-cut a definition of his main interlocutors, the literati, he would convey in his accounts and letters to his superiors, friends, confrères, and relatives in europe. we may ask why ricci did not opt for communicating to his peer-group in europe how varied, rich, and complex the intellectual world in the late ming period, of which he was a part, really was. instead, ricci chose the opposite direction. it is possible that ricci selected and combined the elements of the chinese reality, which his potential european readership could relate to. one aspect of these elements deserves special mention: friendship as an intellectual and elitist type of male bonding would not have been new to ricci when he encountered it in china. indeed, he himself came from a male universe in europe, that of jesuit colleges. the society of jesus very quickly attracted the cultural elite and their male offspring from every country in europe to study in its schools.[84] once in china, ricci understood that confucianism was both a gender identification and a mark of social power of the learned man.[85] and here we may find one reason why this confucian essence would not only overshadow but also inspire ricci to leave out all the nuances and complexities of the coexisting intellectual trends and schools in the late ming era in his portrayal of the chinese literatus. as we have seen throughout this article, ricci's interpretation of confucianism was based on his definition of it as a good moral system, meant to serve the empire wisely but lacking in supernatural foundations. good moral works, letters and good government were all the result of the confucian training the literati had to go through to hold posts within the empire. ricci combined these elements and—we could go a step further here—turned them into a formula. and friendship and mutual help were also an attribute of the "confucian" literati, becoming part of that formula as well. this is the kind of friendship that ricci wanted to write about in chinese, in his treatise, and simultaneously convey to a european audience. as for himself, ricci adapted and redefined the political element of friendship on chinese soil, for in his case this intellectual bonding was not related, for example, to the pursuit of an official post within the empire, to mention but one of the purposes of friendship. instead, it was about receiving protection in order to establish and expand jesuit residences and, more importantly, to provide stability to the ambitious enterprise of a jesuit mission in the ming empire. regardless of the complexities and contingencies of the china mission, they never deflected ricci's attention from the things that he and the "confucian" literati had in common: knowing about who to make friends with, and how. [1] pietro tacchi venturi sj, opere storiche del p. matteo ricci s.i. comitato per le onoranze nazionali con prolegomena (macerata: giorgetti, 1911–1913), 2 vols; ii, 64. [2] venturi, opere storiche, ii, 376. [3] reginald hyatte, the arts of friendship: the idealization of friendship in medieval and early renaissance literature (leiden: brill, 1994), 5. [4] norman kutcher, "the fifth relationship: dangerous friendships in the confucian context," the american historical review 105, no. 5 (december 2000): 1615–1629, 1615. [5] martin huang, ed.,male friendship in ming china (leiden: brill, 2007), 17ff. [6] excluding the masses of peasants, artisans, clerks, buddhist and daoist priests—not to mention all women—from the licensing stage of the selection process ensured that those in the competition were a self-elected minority of young men from literati or merchant families, lineages, or clans with sufficient linguistic and cultural resources to invest in their male children. see benjamin elman, a cultural history of civil examinations in late imperial china (california: university of california press, 2000), 248–249. [7] huang, male friendship in ming china, 2–3. [8] among the four books, the analects (lun yu), and the doctrine of the mean (zhong yong) are attributed to confucius, the great learning (da xue) is attributed to confucius's disciple zeng zi (505–436 bce), while the mencius (meng zi) comprises dialogues by mencius, another pupil. they were so grouped by the thinker zhu xi during the song dynasty in the eleventh century. the five classics—the odes, the documents, the rites, the changes, and the spring and autumn annals—can only be called confucian, according to michael nylan, in two senses: confucius and his followers may have used some—but not all—of them as templates for moral instruction. and, second, early traditions ascribe to confucius the tasks of compiling, editing, and in a few cases composing the separate parts of this repository of wisdom, although modern scholarship generally disputes those pious legends. until late in the song period (960–1279), the five classics were generally considered more essential to confucian learning than the collection of four books. see michael nylan, the five "confucian" classics (new haven: yale university press, 2001), 1–10. [9] matteo ricci, storia dell'introduzione del cristianesimo in cina, in fonti ricciane. documento originali concernenti matteo ricci e la storia delle prime relazioni tra l' europa e la cina (1579–1615), ed. pasquale m. d'elia (roma: la libreria dello stato,1942–1949), 3 vols; 1: 44. ricci began writing the history of christianity in china in italian, between 1608–1610, on the request of superior general claudio acquaviva. after ricci's death on 11 may 1610, the belgian jesuit nicolas trigault, who arrived in peking in 1611, completed ricci's manuscript in latin and published it in augsburg in 1615 with the title de christiana expeditione apud sinas. [10] this confucian-christian synthesis that ricci forged was at the core of the so-called "accommodation" practiced by the china mission. in general terms, the term accommodation became central to missionology in the 1950s and 1960s, mainly based on the concept of cultural adaptation. even though the term accommodation contributed to a great extent to ricci's "hagiography," lay scholars provided different interpretations of this concept. for instance, david mungello has described ricci´s method of accommodation as "intellectually flavoured christianity", and part of this flavouring must be seen as confucianism. see david mungello, curious land. jesuit accommodation and the origin of sinology (honolulu: university of hawaii press, 1985), 73. [11] anthony grafton and lisa jardine, from humanism to the humanities. education and the liberal arts in fifteenth-and sixteenth-century europe (cambridge: harvard university press, 1986), xi-xiii; 4–28. [12] mungello, curious land, 14. [13] ricci, storia dell'introduzione del cristianesimo in cina, 1:49. translation by the author. by "doctors"—dottori in italian—ricci is referring to the jin shi, the highest degree that candidates could obtain through the civil service examination system. [14] simply put, the basic distinction between literati and scholar-officials was that, unlike the scholar-officials, the literati were those who had failed to pass the first level of examinations or refused to take it. however, they were erudite people, hence the attribute of "literati." see nicolas standaert, ed., handbook of christianity in china, vol. 1, 635–1800 (leiden: brill, 2001), 389. [15] here i quote antonella romano, who refers to the jesuits' "multiple identities" as the result of local mediations among diverse agents acting in different contexts, rather than the result of deliberately created internal policies, controlled from the upper echelons of the society of jesus. in sum, the learned missionary is more a product of permanent negotiations between individuals and their strategies in local contexts. see antonella romano, "multiple identities, conflicting duties and fragmented pictures: the case of the jesuits," in le monde est une peinture. jesuitische identität und die rolle der bilder, eds. elisabeth oy-marra and volker r. remmert (berlin:akademie verlag, 2011), 45–69. [16] andreas eborensis (original name, andrea de rèsende, 1498–1573), born in ebora, was a well-known portuguese latinist who had studied at various european universities and taught at lisbon and coimbra. [17] pasquale d'elia sj, editor of the fonti ricciane, was among the first to point out that ricci might have used the compendium of maxims by de resénde as a kind of "master text" for his treatise on friendship, for the following reasons. first, because de resénde's work was in the beitang church in beijing; second, its popularity is proven by its numerous reprints in the main european cities; and, finally, because of its prestige within the society of jesus. see matteo ricci, storia, i, 368–69, note 1. jonathan spence is not so certain that matteo ricci could have taken de resende's work with him, for the beitang edition of the 1590 paris version could be a subsequent import; see jonathan spence, the memory palace of matteo ricci (new york: penguin, 1984),142; 295 note 27. [18] matteo ricci, on friendship: one hundred maxims for a chinese prince, trans. timothy billings (new york: columbia university press, 2009), 19–20. all translations of ricci's chinese texts in this essay will quote from billing's renderings unless otherwise indicated. [19] fang hao 方豪, liushi ziding gao 方豪六十自定稿. [collected works of maurus fang hao] (taibei: taiwan xuesheng shuju 臺灣學生書局), 1969, 利瑪竇「交友論」新研，下冊, 1857–1871. [20] among works that stress cicero's influence on the jiaoyou lun, see joseph dehergne, "les sources du kiao yeou luen ou traité de l' amitié de ricci," recherches de science religiouse 72 (1984): 51–58. dehergne mainly focuses on the similarity of the contents of ricci's treatise and cicero's laelius. see also jonathan spence, "matteo ricci and the ascent to peking," in east meets west: the jesuits in china, 1582–1773, eds. charles e. ronan and bonnie oh (chicago: loyola university press, 1988), 3–18. [21] john o'malley, the first jesuits (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1993), 241. [22] robert maryks, st. cicero and the jesuits: the influence of the liberal arts on the adoption of moral probabilism (aldershot: ashgate, 2008), 89–93. see also andrea battistini, "i manuali di retorica dei gesuiti," in la "ratio studiorum": modelli culturali e pratiche educative dei gesuiti in italia tra cinque e seicento, ed. gian paolo brizzi (rome, bulzoni editore, 1981), 77–120. [23] cicero, cicero de amicitia (on friendship) and scipio's dream. translated with an introduction and notes by andrew p. peabody, http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924074466651, cornell university library, 1994, [accessed 1 september 2011], 17. [24] see, for instance, maxims 18, 30, 46, 61, 70 and 90. [25] the chinese classics, ed. james legge, vol. 1, confucian analects (project gutenberg, 2003), 2. http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=1235955& pageno=2 [accessed on 07. december 2013]. [26] confucian analects, 12. the terms chosen by james legge, "superior man" jun zi 君子–always understood in a moral sense—and "small man" xiao ren 小人,are kept for the sake of consistency in his english translation of this work, but in the body text the translations "gentleman" and "petty man" have been used. [27] jun zi zhi jiao you nan, xiao ren zhi jiaou you yi. nan he zhe nan san, yi he zhe san ye [君子之交友難，小人之交友易。難合者難散，易合者散也]. ricci, on friendship, 117, maxim 62. [28] plutarch's moralia: twenty essays, trans. philemon holland (london: dent, 1911), 36–37. https://archive.org/stream/plutarchsmoralia00plutuoft#page/36/mode/2up [accessed on 01. may 2014]. [29] jin ye you ji mei yan, er chanyu zhe zhe wei ning, ze wei cun chouren, yi wo wen zhen yu yi [今也友既沒言，而諂谀者為佞，則惟存仇人，以我聞真語矣]. ricci, on friendship, 104, maxim 38. [30] chanyu you, fei you, nai tou zhe, tou qi ming er jian zhi er [諛諂友，非友，乃偷者，偷其名而僭之耳]. ricci, on friendship, 124, maxim 82. [31] yi shi zhi yi, yi ku yao chou ren bing chan you zhi xiang, yi gan yang gan ren cai [醫士之意，以苦藥瘳人病諂友之向，以甘言干人財]. ricci, on friendship, 126, maxim 85. [32] "glib-tongued" is legge's translation of ning 佞. confucian analects, 60. http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=1235955& pageno=60 [accessed on 01. may 2014]. [33] flattery can be a mortal sin when it is contrary to charity, and flattery is contrary to charity—and mortal sin—in three ways: 1) when a man praises another man's sin; 2) by reason of the intention, as when one man flatters another, so that by deceiving him he may injure him in body or soul; 3) by way of occasion, as when the praise of a flatterer, even without his intending it, becomes to another an occasion of sin. if, however, one man flatters another from the mere craving to please others, or again in order to avoid some evil, or to acquire something in case of necessity, this is not contrary to charity. consequently it is not a mortal but a venial sin. see thomas aquinas, summa theologica, vol ii-ii, trans. english dominican province (westminster: christian classics, 1981), question 115. http://www.egs.edu/library/thomas-aquinas/articles/summa-theologica-part-ii-ii-secunda-secundae-translated-by-fathers-of-the-english-dominican-province/treatise-on-the-cardinal-virtues-qq-47-170/question-115of-flattery/ [accessed on 02. may 2014]. [34] i consulted the following version of ricci's jiaoyou lun in chinese: 交友論, jiaoyou lun, in li zhizao 李之藻, tianxue chuhan 天主初函 [1629], vol. 1, (taibei shi 臺北市: taiwan xuesheng shuju 臺灣學生書局, 1965).  even though there are other maxims and characters used by ricci to translate "flattering" and "flatterer," i believe that in ricci´s treatise chan yu 諂諛 and ning 佞 are used when indirectly conveying the idea of "flattery"—adulatio—as sin. in other maxims, like 71: "if you cannot rely on me as a friend, then we are both flatterers." er bu de yong wo wei you, er jun wei wu mei zhe [爾不得用我為友，而均為嫵眉者], timothy billings translates wu mei zhe 嫵眉者 as "flatterers," but i think that here the characters are chosen to refer to words that are charming and sweet without being adulatio. see ricci, on friendship, 122, maxim 71. in any case, this translation is valid in the sense that it is hard to find a different term in english. [35] this can be observed in zhang juzheng 張居正's the emperor's mirror, dijian tushuo 帝鑑圖說, completed in 1573. the senior grand secretary zhang (1525–82) created this illustrated textbook on rulership for the nine-year-old wanli emperor (r. 1572–1620), who had succeeded to the ming throne in 1572. zhang was the boy's chief tutor. zhang refers to ning ren 佞人 under the tang-dynasty emperor taizong 康太宗 (r. 626– 649), typically considered to be one of the greatest emperors in chinese history. 張居正，帝鑑圖說，japanese reprint of 1605, teikan zusetsu, 3 冊. i thank rudolph g. wagner for pointing this work out to me. [36]  for a translation of feng yingjing's preface into italian see matteo ricci, dell'amicizia, ed. filippo mignini (macerata: quodlibet, 2005), 54–55. [37] nicolas standaert, yang tingyun, confucian and christian in late ming china: his life and thought (leiden: brill, 1988), 158. [38] ricci, storia dell'introduzione del cristianesimo in cina, i, 120. [39] you yu qin, wei ci chang yan, qin neng wu xiang aiqin. you zhe fou, gai qin wu ai qin, qin lun you zai 「chu ai hu you, qi youli yan cun hu」? [友於親，惟此長焉, 親能無相愛親。友者否，蓋親無愛親，親倫猶在「除愛乎友，其友理焉存乎」]. ricci, on friendship, 111, maxim 50. [40] ricci, dell'amicizia, 24. [41] ricci, on friendship, 11. [42] venturi, opere storiche, ii, 247. [43] ge ren bu neng quan jin ge shi, gu shangdi ming zhi jiaoyou, yi bici xu zhu, ruo shi chu qi dao yu shi zhe, ren lei bi san huai ye [各人不能全盡各事，故上帝命之交友，以彼此胥助，若使除其道於世者, 人纇必散壞也]. ricci, on friendship, 96, maxim 16. [44] venturi, opere storiche, ii, 226. [45] matteo ricci, tianzhu shiyi 天主實義, in tianxue chuhan 天主初函, ed. li zhizao 李之藻 (taibei: taiwan xuesheng shuju 臺灣學生書局, 1965), 589, columns i-ii. [46] howard l. goodman and anthony grafton, "ricci, the chinese, and the toolkits of textualists," asia major, third series 3, no. 2 (1991): 95–148, 102. [47] nicolas standaert, "the transmission of renaissance culture in seventeenth-century china," renaissance studies 17, no. 3 (2003): 367–391; 368–375. [48] tanja zeeb, "moralist concepts of friendship: an interplay of stability and dynamism," in varieties of friendship: interdisciplinary perspectives on social relationships, eds. bernardette descharmes, e.a. heuser et al. (gottingen: v& r unipress, 2011), 77–96; 78–79. [49] jiang wu, enlightenment in dispute: the reinvention of chan buddhism in seventeenth-century china (oxford: oxford scholarship online, 2008), doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195333572.001.0001. see especially chapter 2 "the literati and chan buddhism". [50] hyatte, the arts of friendship, 9. [51] ronnie po-chia hsia, a jesuit in the forbidden city: matteo ricci, 1552–1610 (new york: oxford university press, 2010), 141. [52] venturi, opere storiche, ii, 226. [53] hsia, a jesuit in the forbidden city, 149. [54] paul rule, k´ung-tzu or confucius? the jesuit interpretation of confucianism (australia: allen and unwin, 1986), 22. [55] ricci, storia dell'introduzione del cristianesimo in cina, i, 371. [56] wenshu huang, 黄文書，陽明後學於利瑪竇的交往及其函義，漢學研究第27卷第3期 (民國98年9月), 131. [57] venturi, opere storiche, ii: 212. [58] ricci, storia dell'introduzione del cristianesimo in cina, i, 101. [59] huang, 黄文書，陽明後學於利瑪竇的交往及其函義, 139. [60] ricci, storia dell'introduzione del cristianesimo in cina, ii, 46. [61] neo-confucianism has traditionally been divided into two branches. one is the cheng-zhu tradition, after its leading exponents cheng yi (1033–1107) and zhu xi (1130–1200), which is often described as "rationalistic"; it is also called the school of principle. the second tradition or school is "lu-wang neo-confucianism," named after its two leading representatives: lu xiang shan (1139–1193) and wang yangming (1472–1529), also called the xin xue or school of mind. ricci was familiar with the cheng-zhu school, but seemed to show little awareness of the lu-wang branch. it is worthwhile mentioning that the term "neo-confucianism" does not exist in chinese; it is derived from a phase of regeneration from the fount of confucius referred to in the term dao tong, i.e. "transmission of the true way." see mungello, curious land, 60. [62] ricci, storia dell'introduzione del cristianesimo in cina, ii, 65. [63] timothy brook, "rethinking syncretism: the unity of the three teachings and their joint worship in late-imperial china," journal of chinese religions 21, no. 1 (1993):13–44; 19–20. [64] according to edward chien, even though the mere emphasis on teachers and friends is not necessarily confucian, jiao hong's evaluation of teachers and friends is different from that of the buddhists. in jiao hong's frame of reference, the teacher does not command as much authority as a chan (buddhist) master. moreover, he bears a relationship to the student which, although highly personal, may or may not be informal. in fact, according to jiao hong, the teacher need not be any person in particular, but can be anybody anywhere. he said "the passers by in the streets are all my teachers." as chien states, such a concept of the teacher contains a strong element of egalitarianism, which had been growing in the wang yangming school of mind, especially among jiao hong's fellow members of the taizhou school. and it can also be traced to confucius, who declared in the analects, 7:2, "when i walk along with two others, they may serve me as my teachers." see edward t. ch'ien, chiao hung and the restructuring of neo-confucianism in the late ming (new york: columbia university press), 228ff. [65] aristotle, aristotle ́s ethics and politics, comprising his practical philosophy, translated from the greek. illustrated with introductions and notes; the critical history of his life; and a new analysis of his speculative works; by john gillies, ll.d., in two volumes (london: printed for a. strahan; and t. cadell jun. and w. davies, 1797), .363. https://archive.org/stream/aristotlesethics01aris#page/362/mode/2up [accessed on 20. june 2011]. [66] wu you fei ta, ji wo zhi ban, nai di er wo ye: gu dang shi you ru ji yan [吾友非他，即我之半，乃第二我也：故當視友如己焉]. ricci, on friendship, 91, maxim 1. [67] see zeeb, "moralist concepts of friendship," 88. [68] ricci, storia dell'introduzione del cristianesimo in cina, ii, 67. [69] ricci, storia dell'introduzione del cristianesimo in cina, ii, 68. [70] jiang, jin, "heresy and persecution in late ming society: reinterpreting the case of li zhi," in late imperial china 22, no. 2 (december 2001): 1–34;15–29. [71] huang, 黄文書，陽明後學於利瑪竇的交往及其函義, 27. [72] li zhi zhu 李贄著, fen shu 焚書. xu fen shu 續焚書, (beijing: zhonghua shuju 中華書局, 1975) 二四七. [73] saussy makes various references to the "chinese ricci," like the identification that li zhi establishes with a fish that turns into a bird, travelling from one end of the world to the opposite, inspired by the opening lines of the zhuangzi, one of the foundational texts of the daoist tradition. saussy views the echo of the zhuangzi as "strategic," in that it might help ricci establish himself in the world of chinese letters; see haun saussy, "matteo ricci the daoist." (paper presented at the conference matteo ricci four hundred years after, city university of hong kong, hong kong, october 2001). [74] i have consulted these two manuscripts of ricci's on friendship (jiaoyou lun). the first from 1595–1596 held in the british library (add. 8803), and the manuscript at the pontificia università gregoriana (mss, apug 292, ff.189–200). filippo mignini draws attention to the fact that this is an anonymous manuscript, probably an italian translation of the bl manuscript. see ricci, dell'amicizia, 30–33. [75] ricci, on friendship, 13ff. [76] see gregory blue, "xu guangqi in the west. early jesuit sources and the construction of an identity," in statecraft and intellectual renewal in late ming china: the cross-cultural synthesis of xu guangqi (1562–1633), eds. c. jami, p. engelfriet and g. blue (leiden: brill, 2001), 19–71. [77] erik zürcher states that yang tingyun observed both differences and similarities between confucianism and christianity. despite the differences, the basic assumption is that the relationship between the two doctrines is one of congruity and complementarity, provided that confucianism is cleansed of neo-confucian speculations. see erik zürcher, "jesuit accommodation and the chinese cultural imperative," in the chinese rites controversy: its history and meaning, ed. david mungello(sankt augustin: monumenta serica monograph series xxxiii), 45. see also standaert, yang tingyun, confucian and christian in late ming china. [78] ricci, storia dell'introduzione del cristianesimo in cina, i, 115. [79] see sun weiguo, "different types of scholar-official in sixteenth-century china: the interlaced careers of wang shizhen and zhang juzheng," ming studies 53, no. 1 (spring 2006): 4–44. [80] timothy brook praying for power: buddhism and the formation of gentry society in late-ming china, (cambridge: harvard university press and harvard-yenching institute monograph, 1993), 188 onward. as susan mann has pointed out, historical studies of chinese men "as men" have been few, at least until the last decade, which is surprising, since bonds among men in china were the key to success and survival for both rich and poor, elite and commoners. the question is: what sorts of homosocial bonds did these various sex-segregated social networks give rise to, or how they might be understood. see susan mann, "the male bond in chinese history and culture," the american historical review 105, no. 5 (december 2000): 1600-1614. [81] venturi, opere storiche, ii, 127–128. [82] see flavio rurale, "che sia 'persona eminente per prudenza e grazia di conversare'" in i gesuiti e la ratio studiorum, eds manfred hinz and roberto righi, danilo zardin (rome: bulzoni, 2004), 5. [83] lewis r. rambo, understanding religious conversion (new haven: yale university press, 1993), 80ff. [84] in this regard, alan bray has pointed out how in the west, or some parts of the west, friendship, as masculine friendship, has been no less asymmetrical than gender itself, with women entering the picture just at the margins of friendship. see alan bray, the friend (chicago: the university of chicago press, 2003), 10–11. [85] brook, praying for power, 188ff. the world according to cosmas indicopleustes | faller | transcultural studies the world according to cosmas indicopleustes—concepts and illustrations of an alexandrian merchant and monk stefan faller, albert-ludwigs-universität, freiburg this paper is designed to give an insight into the person commonly called cosmas indicopleustes and his work, the χριστιανικὴ τοπογραφία (henceforth referred to as christian topography). we will take a look at the lavishly illustrated manuscripts, the cosmological model propagated therein, and cosmas’ knowledge about parts of what we call the far east—china, india and sri lanka. moreover, we will examine whether cosmas can be interpreted as a transcultural person according to wolfgang welsch’s definition. welsch developed his concept of transculturality from 1991 onwards,[1] feeling that under the pressure of a constantly growing globalization, the common notion of “culture”, earmarked by herder as a homogeneous, spherical and closed entity,[2] should be revised. welsch does not think the concepts of multiculturalism and interculturalism to be fruitful alternatives, since, in his view, they perpetuate the notion that different cultures are somehow antagonistic, even though a peaceful modus vivendi is desired. welsch proposes that, nowadays, formerly homogeneous cultures permeate each other, and in this sense living in this world has become transcultural. it is not the scope of this paper to evaluate welsch’s theory as a whole.[3] he has, however, always stressed that transculturality is not only a phenomenon among a great multitude of people, but also a category at the individual level;[4] moreover, despite the fact that it is universally existent today, he claims transculturality has been there since ancient times.[5] therefore, it seems legitimate to examine whether cosmas indicopleustes fits his concept. 1. cosmas – a mysterious person trying to trace cosmas as a person has always been difficult. while there is a wealth of images of authors from antiquity or late antiquity—be they realistic or fictitious—nobody seems to have even tried to depict cosmas. ulrich harsch, who in 1997 started a very tremendous website with electronic texts of various kinds—called bibliotheca augustana[6]—gives the picture reproduced here as figure 1, when referring to cosmas. fig. 1: ‘cosmas’ as depicted in the bibliotheca augustana, courtesy of ulrich harsch. professor harsch adds the following caption, though: “monachus anonymus (effigies cosmae non exstat)” (an anonymous monk (a picture of cosmas does not exist)). we will be able to clarify the identity of this person later. furthermore, there is quite a controversy about the name of this intriguing author; it started in the seventeenth century, when the dutch scholar isaac voss claimed that cosmas was not the real name of the author of the christian topography, but rather a nickname, prompted by his preoccupation with cosmological matters.[7] it is hard to prove or disprove this statement, but it is a fact that the name cosmas—as well as the epithet μοναχός, which makes him a monk—only occurs in one of the manuscripts dating from the eleventh century.[8] also, his other, even more famous epithet, ἰνδικοπλεύστης (the one who sailed to india), is doubtful. at any rate, it is a scholarly invention, based on the portions of his work in which he displays some knowledge about india. unfortunately, he does not say anywhere that he actually visited the subcontinent—there is only one episode in which he relates that he embarked on a sea voyage to india, but owing to stormy weather and superstitious beliefs, the passengers convinced the captain that he should break off the journey and hasten to the nearest port, which happened to be in africa (top. chr. 2.30).[9] usually, the author openly tells his readers when he has visited a place he describes, but not so about india. for sri lanka, he explicitly mentions a merchant named sopatros who provided him with information for a substantial portion of his narrative. since we will never find out if he was in india, or what his real name was, and since both cosmas and indicopleustes are possibly appropriate denominations, we may as well continue naming him in this way. all the information we get about cosmas is gleaned from his work. according to it, he wrote the christian topography about twenty-five years after he visited the ethiopian city of adule in the year that the axumite king, caleb ella asbeha[10], went to war against the himyarites in southern arabia. this campaign started sometime between the years 522 and 525, which suggests that the topography was written between the years 547 and 550 (top. chr. 2.54-63).[11] also, the fact that cosmas mentions two eclipses appears to corroborate this, as he is probably referring to the solar eclipse on february 6th and to the lunar eclipse on august 17th of the year 547.[12] from top. chr. 2.1, in which he addresses a certain pamphilus, at whose request he began his work on the christian topography, we learn that cosmas considers alexandria his own city—whether he was born there, we do not know, but at least around the year 550 his life seems to have been centred there.[13] from the same passage we learn that cosmas seems to have been a somewhat elderly man at that time; at least he was suffering from several diseases that might intimate old age: [...] ἐνοχλῶν ἡμῖν περὶ τούτου οὐ διέλειπες, ἀσθενῶν ἡμῶν τυγχανόντων τῷ σώματι, ταῖς τε ὄψεσι καὶ τῇ ξηρότητι τῆς γαστρὸς πιεζομένων, καὶ συνεχῶς λοιπὸν ἐκ τούτου ἀσθενείαις συχναῖς περιπιπτόντων […] [...] and never ceased to importune us about this work, enfeebled though we were in body, afflicted with ophthalmia and costiveness of the bowels, and as the result suffering afterwards from constant attacks of illness; [...][14] in the same paragraph, cosmas also tells us something about his education. he clearly did not take pride at all in worldly erudition: […] ἄλλως τε δὲ καὶ τῆς ἔξωθεν ἐγκυκλίου παιδείας λειπομένων καὶ ῥητορικῆς τέχνης ἀμοιρούντων καὶ στωμυλίαι λόγων ἢ κομπῷ χαρακτῆρι συνθεῖναι λόγον οὐκ εἰδότων, καὶ ταῖς τοῦ βίου πλοκαῖς ἀσχολουμένων. […] while besides we were deficient in the school-learning of the pagans, without any knowledge of the rhetorical art, ignorant how to compose a discourse in a fluent and embellished style, and were besides occupied with the complicated affairs of everyday life. this statement seems to be true, judging from the language and style displayed in the christian topography. while there are numerous passages of either confused content or reiterating thoughts, both of which defy any precepts of ancient rhetorical art, these incongruities are also found on the grammatical level. we cannot expect classical attic grammar from an alexandrian writer of the sixth century a.d., but cosmas’ sometimes very long (and not always coherent) sentences are not a sign of a particular language variety, but of a lack of rhetorical training. whenever he uses absolute nominatives, employs incongruent case structures or confuses singular and plural, it is hard to tell whether these are colloquialisms or errors that went unnoticed by a rhetorically unskilled mind.[15] however, there is another sort of learning that the christian whom we call cosmas regarded as much more valuable than the “pagan” way of instruction—his authorities are the bible and a certain bishop who deserves our attention: αὐτὸς οὐδὲν ἧττον ἐνοχλῶν ἡμῖν οὐ διέλειπες, ὡς λόγον ἡμᾶς ἔγγραφον ἐκθεῖναι […] οὐδ᾽ ἐξ ἐμαυτοῦ πλασάμενος ἢ στοχασάμενος, ἀλλ᾽ ἐκ τῶν θείων γραφῶν παιδευθείς, καὶ διὰ ζώσης δὲ φωνῆς παραλαβὼν ὑπὸ τοῦ θειοτάτου ἀνδρὸς καὶ μεγάλου διδασκάλου πατρικίου, […] μετέδωκε θεοσεβείας καὶ γνώσεως ἀληθεστάτης, ὃς καὶ αὐτὸς νυνὶ ἐκ θείας χάριτος ἐπὶ τοὺς ὑψηλοὺς καὶ ἀρχιερατικοὺς θρόνους ἀνήχθη τῆς ὅλης περσίδος, καθολικὸς ἐπίσκοπος τῶν αὐτόθι κατασταθείς. nevertheless you ceased not pressing us to compose a treatise […], not as communicating opinions and conjectures of my own framing, but what i had learned from the divine scriptures, and from the living voice of that most divine man and great teacher patricius, […]. patricius propagated the doctrines of holy religion and true science, and has now by the grace of god been elevated to the lofty episcopal throne of all persia, having been appointed to the office of bishop catholic of that country. [top. chr. 2.2] as stated earlier, it may be uncertain whether cosmas was indeed a monk; that he was a christian is beyond doubt. that he was an adherent of nestorianism is very likely—not only do his cosmological ideas have a nestorian foundation, as we shall soon see, but his outright veneration for patricius is telling. this person, a convert from persian zoroastrianism, is better known as aba i. (or with the syriac honorific title: mar aba). he followed and propagated the teachings of theodore of mopsuestia and nestorius and was “bishop catholic” (i.e., patriarch) of the assyrian church of the east at seleucia-ctesiphon between 540 and 552.[16] along with thomas of edessa, who translated aba’s syriac speeches into greek, he gave lectures on theodore and nestorius in alexandria, and it seems that cosmas attended them. patricius and thomas had to withdraw from that city speedily, though—nestorianism had been banned as a heresy at the council of ephesus in 431, and alexandria was a strictly anti-nestorian city.[17] in fact, nestorius’ main opponent at the council was the alexandrian patriarch cyril. the fact that cosmas attended these heretic lectures and did not give up his ardent veneration of patricius/mar aba clearly shows that his support for nestorianism was indefatigable. this, of course, made him a member of a minority group in a somewhat hostile environment, and it may well have been the main reason for the author of the christian topography to hide so cautiously behind his work. whether his religious attitude is a sign of transculturality in welsch’s sense is debatable. put simply, it can be said that cosmas was influenced by at least three religious systems—non-christian beliefs (which he openly rejected), orthodox christian beliefs (be they preor post chalcedonian, i.e., mono/ miaphysite or not) and nestorian (christian) beliefs. if he had been an openly confessing nestorian and, more importantly, had antagonized christian orthodoxy (as he did with “pagan” beliefs), there would have been nothing transcultural about him in this respect, since an important point in welsch’s concept is that features of different cultural entities are not only known to an individual subject, but are at least partly accepted. but cosmas is more subtle and never disparages orthodoxy, to such an extent that neither photius, who did not like the christian topography owing to linguistic and cosmological reasons,[18] nor montfaucon, who procured its first modern edition in 1706, took note of the inherent nestorianism.[19] it can be argued that cosmas did not see a great difference between his favoured sect and official christianity, as did the fathers of the ephesian council,[20] all the more so, if indeed he called mary the “mother of god” (which is not a nestorian practice)[21] and if he really became a monk (because there were definitely no nestorian monasteries anywhere in the vicinity of alexandria).[22] seen from this perspective, his religious attitude would indeed show transcultural traits. there is yet another side to cosmas, though. as he states himself, he used to be a merchant in his former life; as such, he has travelled to the aksumite empire in ethiopia, as mentioned before. explicitly, he also mentions having sailed around the island of socotra (top. chr. 3.65) and having ventured into what he calls “three gulfs”: ταῦτα δὲ παραλαβὼν ἐκ τοῦ θείου, ὡς εἴρηται, ἀνδρός, ἤτοι καὶ αὐτῆς τῆς πείρας, ἐσήμανα· ἐμπορίας γὰρ χάριν ἔπλευσα τοὺς τρεῖς κόλπους, τόν τε κατὰ τὴν ῥωμανίαν καὶ τὸν ἀράβιον καὶ τὸν περσικόν, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν οἰκούντων δὲ ἢ καὶ πλεόντων τοὺς κόλπους ἀκριβῶς μεμαθηκώς. having learned these facts from the man of god, as has been said, i have pointed them out as coincident also with my own experience, for i myself have made voyages for commercial purposes in three of these gulfs – the roman, the arabian and the persian, while from the natives or from seafaring men i have obtained accurate information regarding the different places. [top. chr. 2.29] fig. 2: the arabian pensinsula, the aksumite empire and the “three gulfs” mentioned by cosmas. the bodies of water cosmas refers to are the mediterranean, the red sea and the persian gulf. these two aspects—devout nestorian christian doctrine combined with a vast personal travelling experience—are the two parameters we must keep in mind to further understand cosmas’ work. it should be noted, however, that cosmas himself does not see a dichotomy between these two “worlds”, as might be expected. convinced by the speeches of mar aba, he still does not belittle or conceal his mercantile past, but finds the knowledge he acquired back then to be in keeping with his newly won convictions. another important detail from this short passage should be highlighted: so far, it has only become clear that cosmas thought highly of the city of alexandria (top. chr. 2.1) and may have associated it with notions of home. by referring to the mediterranean sea as a “[gulf stretching] towards the roman empire” ([κόλπος] κατὰ τὴν ῥωμανίαν), he reminds us that egypt then formed a part of the byzantine empire. ‘romania’ (ῥωμανία) was one of the contemporary terms the byzantines used when referring to their empire, as does cosmas on four occasions.[23] he also uses the adjective ῥωμαϊκός (roman) and always speaks of ‘romans’ (ῥωμαῖοι or ῥωμεῖς) when he refers to byzantine subjects. with ἕλληνες (greeks), he only refers to the ancient or hellenistic greeks and almost always uses the word in the sense of ‘pagan’.[24]  this is also in keeping with byzantine terminology. it may be argued that the use of byzantine phrases does not necessarily prove cosmas to have been a legal subject of the emperor of constantinople,[25] but it certainly does show that he was influenced by byzantine culture. 2. the christian topography within the mental framework mentioned above, cosmas unfolds much more than the title of his work may suggest. the christian topography is not only a travelogue of places that might be interesting to a christian, but it comprises both cosmology and geography. its major aim is to propagate a “truly” biblical view of the world. the first edition of the work seems to have comprised five books, the first of which sought nothing less than to demolish the view that the world is spherical and that there are antipodes—a conviction that most learned people at the time shared, no matter whether they professed to be christians or not. it was first proposed by ancient greek scholars whom cosmas regarded as pagan. the second book explains the shape of the universe that cosmas considered to be true. the world order and measurements of the earth are based entirely on texts from the bible. cosmas’ concept is quite unique and deserves some consideration. we will take a look at it in the next section. book 3 quotes many texts in favour of the cosmological model outlined before. it stresses the authority and harmony of the scripture, while book 4 sums up the biblical shape of the universe and aims at refuting the spherical concept. finally, book 5 quotes and discusses at length passages from the bible that describe the tabernacle of the jews and the texts from the patriarchs, prophets and apostles that, in cosmas’ view, allude to it. the publication of this work seems to have aroused severe criticism, for which there was good reason, as we shall see. since some of these doubts had been raised by fellow christians, cosmas felt obliged to answer to a few crucial questions and therefore published an extended version of the work. in book 6 of the new edition he tried to prove that the sun is much smaller than the earth. as we shall see, this point is essential for his cosmological concept as a whole. book 7 brought forward arguments against the theory of a professing christian, who claimed that heaven was an ever-revolving sphere, but nevertheless not indestructible. the first point is crucial also to cosmas’ cosmos; the second is a matter of belief and of biblical interpretation. book 8 presents an interpretation of the prayer of hezekiah. it discusses the impact that the retrogression of the shadow on the sun dial had on the babylonians and the impact that isaiah’s prophesies had on the persian ruler, cyrus. since there is no apparent physical reason why anything should be in motion in cosmas’ universe, although the sun, the moon and the planets can be seen moving, cosmas gives an answer to all critical voices concerned with this issue in book 9. he simply ascribes the motion of the heavenly bodies to the hard work done by angels. for all those who were still not satisfied, cosmas, in book 10, quotes from the works of the church fathers to show that his doctrines are in keeping with the official teachings. the christian topography could have stopped at this point, since the concept as a whole had been explained sufficiently and the critical questions had been answered—perhaps not to the complete satisfaction of those who had raised their doubts, but certainly to the extent that cosmas was willing and able to deal with them. still, the ten books described above are not all that is featured in the codices; there seems to have been a third edition, probably posthumously, of cosmas’ topography together with two of his works that are otherwise lost, a geography and an astronomy. horst schneider, in an article from 2006, argues that the two additional books we have in our edition of the topography are excerpts from the geography and the astronomy respectively.[26] book 11 supports this claim, because it features a description of animals and plants from africa and india, as well as an account of the island of sri lanka. on the other hand, book 12, which demonstrates how several old pagan writers bore testimony to the antiquity of the old testament scriptures, is difficult to accept in the context of an astronomical treatise. it certainly was not intended to be part of the topography. since several differences between the codices, in which the christian topography is extant, have been mentioned, a few words should be written about the nature of these manuscripts. the oldest of them is the vaticanus graecus 699. it was written in uncial characters in the ninth century at constantinople; it is currently kept at the vatican library. it only contains books 1 to 10. the other two extant codices are both from the eleventh century. the sinaiticus graecus 1186 was written in byzantine minuscules, probably in cappadocia, and is now located in the library of st. katherine’s monastery on the sinai peninsula. of the three this codex is the best preserved  and contains books 1 to 12. the laurentianus plut. ix. 28, also in minuscules, was probably written at iviron monastery on mount athos and is now at the laurentian library at florence. like the sinaiticus, it contains books 1 to 12.[27] all three manuscripts provide us with a set of beautiful illustrations. since these sets of drawings are very similar in all three codices, it is evident that they have been copied from a common source. in many instances the illustrations are alluded to in the text, so it is very probable that even the first edition was embellished with them—whether by cosmas himself or by somebody at his request cannot be determined and is irrelevant. a first category of illustrations is one that concerns biblical scenes and serves to make the text of the quotations from the scripture more intelligible to the readers of the topography; colourful examples include the picture of elijah’s ascension, or of moses receiving the law on mount sinai. to cosmas’ worldview, moses’ encounter with god on mount sinai was crucial, as we will see in a short while. fig. 3: unknown artist, the conversion of paul, codex sinaiticus graecus 1186, fol. 126v, 11th century, probably from cappadocia, now at st. katherine's monastery, sinai. fig. 4: unknown artist, the conversion of paul, codex vaticanus graecus 699, fol. 83v, 9th century, from constantinople, now at the vatican library. the depictions of st. paul’s conversion highlight the grade of similarity and difference between the codices. the miniature in figure 3 shows the scene in the codex sinaiticus. when comparing the corresponding miniature from the codex vaticanus (figure 4), it will be noticed that paul is travelling from jerusalem to damascus in both illustrations, but the first scene, which shows paul still at jerusalem, is missing in the vaticanus. paul is recognizable in both codices, although his face looks different; and looking at the second person from right in figure 4, we recognize the face of the monachus anonymus that professor harsch added to his online text edition in the bibliotheca augustana (cf. figure 1).[28] the person is neither anonymous nor a monk, though; the caption in the codex vaticanus identifies him as hananias, the man who took care of paul when he was blinded and stayed at damascus for three days. all of the pictures among the first category may have been adapted from illustrated versions of the scripture that cosmas probably had at hand. the illustrations of the second category are completely different and definitely cosmas’ own inventions, since they are specially designed for he purpose of enhancing cosmas’ cosmological theories, to which we will turn now.[29] 3. cosmas’ cosmos in order to understand the drawings of cosmas’ cosmological model, it is important to consider both its intellectual roots and its biblical basis. as cosmas states clearly  several times, it was the lectures of mar aba / patricius that sparked the general ideas for his concept.[30] a few of these ideas can be directly traced back to the works of theodore, the bishop of mopsuestia (modern day yakapınar in turkey) from 392-428.[31] he was the teacher of nestorius and was declared a nestorian heretic posthumously in 553. he also was one of the exponents of the exegetical school of antiochia, which continued to flourish in edessa and nisibis. other than the alexandrian school, which propagated a mostly allegorical interpretation of the bible, theodore and his forerunners and followers favoured an almost strictly literal interpretation.[32] this is what cosmas extensively does as well. the three crucial texts cosmas chose as a foundation for his model of the universe are genesis 1, exodus 25f. and hebrews 9. the relevance of the passage on creation in genesis 1 is evident. cosmas focuses especially on genesis 1.1: “in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth” and stresses that god created only these two categories and that therefore there could not be anything else. also, genesis 1.6-8 is essential for cosmas’ construct: (6) and god said, “let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” (7) and god made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. and it was so. (8) and god called the firmament heaven. the passages from exodus and hebrews are not as readily available for cosmological purposes as the ones from genesis, and they have to be viewed in the context of each other: in exodus 25f., moses receives instructions on how to construct the sanctuary in which the lord is to be venerated, i.e., the tabernacle, together with its interior parts and devices, such as the ark of the covenant, the table for the shewbreads, candlesticks, and curtains. the most important verses for cosmas from exodus 25f. are the following: (25.8) “and let them make me a sanctuary, that i may dwell in their midst. (9) according to all that i show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle, and of all its furniture, so you shall make it. (23) and you shall make a table of acacia wood; two cubits shall be its length, a cubit its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height.  […] (30) and you shall set the bread of the presence on the table before me always. […] (26.31) and you shall make a veil of blue and purple and scarlet stuff and fine twined linen; in skilled work shall it be made, with cherubim; (32) and you shall hang it upon four pillars of acacia overlaid with gold, with hooks of gold, upon four bases of silver. (33) and you shall hang the veil from the clasps, and bring the ark of the testimony in thither within the veil; and the veil shall separate for you the holy place from the most holy.” the aim of the passage from the letter to the hebrews is to show that valid covenants have to be ratified by the shedding of blood, the ultimate offering of blood being the crucifixion of jesus christ. by way of argumentation, the author of the letter cites a few examples from earlier jewish tradition, among them the sprinkling with blood on the tabernacle and all devices for worship by moses. central to cosmas are the following lines: (9.21) and in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. […] (23) thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. (24) for christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of god on our behalf. taken at face value, these verses are designed to mean that heaven, the most holy place, was in need of a greater offering—namely christ—than its counterpart on earth, the holy tabernacle, for which an offering of the blood of calves and goats was sufficient. cosmas takes literally the word ‘copies’ of hebrews 9.24, meaning ‘effigies’ (the greek text has “ὑποδείγματα”, in the sense of ‘παράδειγματα’, ‘patterns / paradigms’), and concludes that the instructions given to moses in exodus 25f. for the building of the tabernacle are in fact based on the shape of the universe. therefore any cosmological model had to look like the tabernacle, or perhaps like the ark of the covenant, which is the most holy place within it. in the following words, cosmas sums up his synthesis of the three biblical texts: εἶτα μετὰ ταῦτα προστάττει αὐτῷ σκηνὴν ἐπιτελέσαι κατὰ τὸν τύπον, ὃν ἑωράκει ἐν τῷ ὄρει, ὡσανεὶ τύπον οὖσαν παντὸς τοῦ κόσμου. ἐποίησεν οὖν τὴν σκηνὴν κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν μιμήσασθαι θέλων τὸ σχῆμα τοῦ κόσμου οὕτως· τριάκοντα πηχέων τὸ μῆκος καὶ δέκα τὸ πλάτος, καὶ μεσολαβήσας καταπέτασμα μεσόθεν ποιεῖ αὐτὴν χώρους δύο, καὶ ἐλέγετο ἡ πρώτη ἅγια, ἡ δευτέρα ἡ μετὰ τὸ καταπέτασμα ἅγια ἁγίων. τύπος δὲ ἦν ἡ ἐξωτέρα τούτου τοῦ κόσμου τοῦ ὁρωμένου, κατὰ τὸν θεῖον ἀπόστολον, ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς ἕως τοῦ στερεώματος, ἐν ἧι ὑπῆρχε τράπεζα κατὰ τὸ βόρειον μέρος καὶ ἐπάνω τῆς τραπέζης δώδεκα ἄρτοι, τύπον ἐπέχουσα τῆς γῆς, καρποὺς παντοδαποὺς ἔχουσα μηνιαῖον ἕνα, ὡσανεὶ τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ δώδεκα. he then afterwards directed him to construct the tabernacle according to the pattern which he had seen in the mountain – being a pattern, so to say, of the whole world. he therefore made the tabernacle, designing that as far as possible it should be a copy of the figure of the world, and thus he gave it a length of thirty cubits and a breadth of ten. then, by interposing inside a veil in the middle of the tabernacle, he divided it into two compartments, of which the first was called the holy place, and the second behind the veil the holy of holies. now the outer was a pattern of this visible world which, according to the divine apostle, extends from the earth to the firmament, and in which at its northern side was a table, on which were twelve loaves, the table thus presenting a symbol of the earth which supplies all manner of fruits, twelve namely, one as it were for each month of the year. [top. chr. 3.51] graphically, cosmas expresses his theory with the following image: fig. 5: unknown artist, a sketch of cosmas’ pattern of the universe, codex sinaiticus graecus 1186, fol. 65r, 11th century, probably from cappadocia, now at st. katherine's monastery, sinai. in line with cosmas’ interpretation of the scripture, heaven and earth are contained in a box; the earth (γῆ οἰκουμένη) is positioned at the bottom, seemingly resting on a stretch of ocean (ὠκεανός), while heaven stretches out in a watery curve above. the visible part is closed off from the invisible part by the firmament (στερέωμα). the image is not to be understood in such a way that the earth floats on top of the ocean, but that the earth and the ocean are at the bottom of cosmas’ construct, and the land is encircled by the waters. what is striking in this picture is the altitude that the earth rises up to, and this is probably the most unique feature in cosmas’ universe. in section 2, we have already learned that the motion of the sun, the moon and the planets is ascribed to the work done by the angels, but there was one more problem to solve. if the sun always remained in the closed system that cosmas established, how could there be anything like night? cosmas was not the first cosmographer who faced that difficulty,[33] but he is one of the few in the western world who solved it by postulating that a huge conical mountain existed in the north around which the sun was forever circling. when the sun was behind the mountain, the shadow it cast created night on earth. this can be seen in a second, much more detailed, and very beautiful sketch featured in the codex sinaiticus: fig. 6: unknown artist, a more detailed sketch of cosmas’ pattern of the universe, codex sinaiticus graecus 1186, fol. 69r, 11th cnetury, probably from cappadocia, now at st. katherine's monastery, sinai. the sun appears twice in this sketch—once rising (ἥλιος ἀνατέλλων) to the right of the “northern highlands” (βόρεια μέρη ὑψηλά), and once setting (ἥλιος δύνων) to the left of them. there has been some speculation about the sources of this concept. in this form, it may be his own invention, but one should be aware that cosmas, unskilled as he may be in rhetoric, is not at all unlearned. the list of authors from whom he quotes comprises some twenty four pages in the edition of wolska-conus; many of these authors are christians, and most have written in greek, but cosmas has also dealt with syriac, armenian and latin works, and is obviously well-read in the classics: aristotle is quoted fairly often. for astronomical and geographical writings, cosmas references aratus, cleomedes, ephorus, eratosthenes, eudoxus of cnidus, geminus, hipparchus, marinus of tyre, moses of chorene, pappus of alexandria, pliny the elder, posidonius, ptolemy and strabo. what might be of interest here is that he also preserved a fragment from pytheas of massilia. in his work on the ocean, pytheas claims that the inhabitants of the far north showed him the dwelling place of the sun (τὴν ἡλίου κοίτην), i.e., at least in cosmas’ reading, the place where the sun spends the night (top. chr. 2.80). what must have been clear to cosmas is that wherever the sun went at night, that place had to lie in northern regions. the idea that the sun hides behind a mountain reminded beazley of an “indian concept”,[34] probably mount meru or sumeru, a feature of hindu, buddhist and jain cosmology. mount meru, which is located either at the centre of the earth or at the north pole, is extremely high with an altitude of 84000 yojanas, i.e., something between 378,000 to 756,000 miles (608,202 to 1,216,404 km). even the sun and all the planets revolve around it. the analogies to cosmas’ northern mountain are striking indeed, and he exhibits good knowledge of indian matters elsewhere as well.[35] from a transcultural perspective, this makes cosmas special. his intellectual horizon obviously has its foundation in the greek lore of the ancients; he utterly rejects the religious parts of it, but accepts cosmological considerations whenever they fit into his system. this system, in turn, has been influenced by thoughts from the schools of antiochia, edessa and nisibis and has apparently been augmented by ideas from regions further east. we will return to this connection later. other than that, it is clear from figure 6 that cosmas assumed that god resided in the uppermost part of the heavens, above the firmament, and that he really imagined the earth to be surrounded by, not floating upon, the ocean. the image denotes four gulfs (κόλποι δ), which brings us to cosmas’ concept of the shape of the earth. still basing his notions on the biblical texts quoted above, cosmas says: πέριξ δὲ τῆς τραπέζης κύκλῳ κυμάτιον στρεπτὸν σημαῖνον τὴν θάλασσαν, τὸν λεγόμενον ὠκεανόν, εἶτα καὶ πέριξ τούτου πάλιν κύκλῳ στεφάνην παλαιστοῦ σημαίνουσαν τὴν πέραν γῆν, ἔνθα ἐστὶ καὶ ὁ παράδεισος κατὰ ἀνατολάς, ἔνθα καὶ τὰ ἄκρα τοῦ οὐρανοῦ τοῦ πρώτου τοῦ καμαροειδοῦς τοῖς ἄκροις τῆς γῆς πάντοθεν ἐπερείδεται. the table [i.e., the table for the shewbreads, which, as we learned above, cosmas regarded as the mosaic model of the earth] was all round wreathed with a waved moulding symbolic of the sea which is called the ocean, and all round this again was a border of a palm’s breadth emblematic of the earth beyond the ocean, where lies paradise away in the east, and where also the extremities of the first heaven, which is like a vaulted chamber, are everywhere supported on the extremities of the earth. [top. chr. 3.52] combined with what he had read in the works of geographical authors, had heard from sailors and fellow merchants, and had seen for himself (this is where his personal experience begins to play a part in his universe), cosmas draws a map of the earth: fig. 7: unknown artist, cosmas’ map of the earth, codex sinaiticus graecus 1186, fol. 66v, 11th century, probably from cappadocia, now at st. katherine's monastery, sinai. cosmas’ earth is flat in the sense that it is not spherical. the high elevation in the northern part is there, but it cannot be seen from a bird’s-eye view. and the earth is not circular but rectangular. this may be striking at first, but it is a logical deduction from the dimensions of the table for the shewbreads given in the bible. cosmas himself explains it in this way: καὶ ὁ μωϋσῆς δὲ διαγράφων ἐν τῇ σκηνῇ τὴν τράπεζαν, τύπον ὑπάρχουσαν τῆς γῆς, τὸ μῆκος αὐτῆς δύο πήχεων προσέταξε γενέσθαι, καὶ τὸ πλάτος πήχεως ἑνός. […]  ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐκ τοῦ μωϋσέως μεμαθηκότες ὅτι ἐπὶ τὸ μῆκος πλέον ἡ γῆ ἐκτέταται, λέγομεν πάλιν μεμαθηκότες πείθεσθαι τῇ θείᾳ ὄντως γραφῇ. moses, likewise, in describing the table in the tabernacle, which is an image of the earth, ordered its length to be of two cubits, and its breadth of one cubit. […] having learned, moreover, from moses that the earth has been extended in length more than in breadth, we again admit this, knowing that the scriptures, which are truly divine, ought to be believed. [top. chr. 2.19] a little later in the same book (top. chr. 2.47 and 48), cosmas gives figures for the earth’s dimensions from china in the east to cádiz in the west, and from the northerly hyperboreans to ethiopia in the south. he arrives at the rather unsurprising conclusion that the ratio of length and breadth is 2:1 and, therefore, correlates with moses’ figures. apart from that, the four gulfs already mentioned in figure 6 include the three already alluded to in section 1, viz. the mediterranean, the red sea and the persian gulf, augmented by the caspian sea, which cosmas does not claim to have visited. part of the mediterranean and its coastline are readily recognizable in figure 7, while most parts of northern europe, africa, arabia and asia have been neglected. the ocean in this image clearly surrounds the earth and separates it from paradise, which is located at the eastern end. the flowery “paradise in eden” (ἐν ἐδὲμ παράδεισος) is a reality for cosmas, although he stresses that it is separated from the earth by a stretch of impassable ocean. consequently, the four main rivers of the world, the phison, identified as ganges/indus (which cosmas thought to be one and the same, cf. top. chr. 2.81), the nile, the euphrates and the tigris, which have their origin in biblical paradise, have to wend their courses under the ocean into the earthly realms. 4. cosmas and the far east it has been mentioned that, when describing the shape of the earth, cosmas drew on what he either had seen himself or was informed about by others. indeed, his travelling experience as a merchant is remarkable. so, as a final point, let us see what cosmas has to tell us about the east of the real world. whether he ever reached india is uncertain, but that he had good sources on trade routes and on matters of local flora, fauna and geography is a fact. most of the material relevant for our purpose comes from book 11 of the christian topography, that is, from the book which is, in all probability, an excerpt from cosmas’ otherwise lost geography. the texts relating to the far east are embellished with illustrations of a third category. they are neither taken from illustrated bible editions, nor designed to visualize theories, but were adapted from what cosmas had actually seen in various places. a few of them may serve as examples. in top. chr. 11.8, cosmas presents the picture of a “choirelaphos” (χοιρέλαφος), which literally means ‘pig deer’ or ‘hog deer’: fig. 8: unknown artist, the χοιρέλαφος – ‘hog deer’, codex laurentianus plut. ix.28, fol. 268v, 11th century, probably from iviron monastery, mt. athos, now at the laurentian library, florence, italy. what cosmas has to say about this animal is quite laconic: τὸν δὲ χοιρέλαφον καὶ εἶδον καὶ ἔφαγον. the hog-deer i have both seen and eaten. this means that he probably visited the area to which this species was endemic. if the hog-deer lived in india, then cosmas would rightfully bear his epithet ‘indicopleustes’. but currently this conclusion cannot be drawn. so far scholars have suggested three animals that cosmas may have referred to (winstedt 1909, 351): two of them, axis porcinus, with the promising english name ‘hog deer’, and axis maculatus, or ‘spotted deer’, do live in india, but do not resemble cosmas’ drawing in the least. the third, babyrousa, also bears a promising name: babi is the malay and indonesian word for ‘pig’ and rusa means ‘deer’. this genus of pigs is (and in all probability always was) present only in the indonesian islands of sulawesi, lembeh, sula, malenge and buru.[36] even though there are some similarities between this animal and that of cosmas’ sketch (figure 9), it is hard to believe that he travelled as far as central or eastern indonesia. fig. 9: the sus babyrousa – ‘hog deer’. another possibility of finding the χοιρέλαφος that cosmas saw and ate would be to travel to a different continent—africa. the common warthog (phacochoerus africanus), or the desert warthog (phacochoerus aethiopicus), which is the subspecies cosmas is most likely to have encountered, looks very much like the illustration in top. chr. 11.8 (figure 10). perhaps adule in the aksumite empire was the place where the merchant had the chance to taste the meat of a χοιρέλαφος. fig. 10: the phacochoerus africanus – warthog, courtesy of patrick giraud. there is another exotic illustration that has caused some controversy—one commonly called gazelle and palm trees. this picture is notoriously misplaced in the codices. in the vatican manuscript, it appears in the description of cosmas’ adulitic adventure (top. chr. 2.55), while in the sinaitic and the laurentian codex it is erroneously placed in book 6, chapter 34 (talking about the different climates of the earth). most scholars have thought that this picture belongs to book 11 and claimed that the confusion arose when the compiler who formed the present edition of the christian topography from the (no longer extant) “complete works” of cosmas made a mistake.[37] fig. 11: unknown artist, gazelle and palm trees, codex sinaiticus graecus 1186, fol. 146r, 11th century, probably from cappadocia, now at st. katherine's monastery, sinai. the picture’s caption reads: ταῦτά εἰσι τὰ λεγόμενα μοζᾶ, οἱ φοίνικες οἱ ἰνδικοί these are the so-called ‘mozá’, the indian date palms if cosmas indeed saw these trees and, moreover, heard the word ‘mozá’ in connection with date palms, it could for the first time be said that the epithet ‘indicopleustes’ contains some truth. in modern india there are no date palms, but in the indus valley, which now belongs to pakistan, and was in cosmas’ time regarded as a part of india, date palms grow abundantly. in the makrān region, the major part of which belongs to balochistan, one of the most highly praised varieties of dates is called ‘mozāti’. this could be the etymon for cosmas’ word ‘mozá’.[38] dates were perhaps one of the commodities cosmas traded in; another with which he was familiar was silk, one of the most significant import goods of the byzantine empire.[39] in top. chr. 2.45f. cosmas describes in some detail the origin of silk and the trade routes along which it could be imported: αὕτη δὲ ἡ χώρα τοῦ μεταξίου ἐστὶν ἐν τῇ ἐσωτέρᾳ πάντων ἰνδίᾳ, κατὰ τὸ ἀριστερὸν μέρος εἰσιόντων τοῦ ἰνδικοῦ πελάγους, περαιτέρω πολὺ τοῦ περσικοῦ κόλπου καὶ τῆς νήσου τῆς καλουμένης παρὰ μὲν ἰνδοῖς, σελεδίβα, παρὰ δὲ τοῖς ἕλλησι, ταπροβάνη, τζίνιστα οὕτω καλουμένη, κυκλουμένη πάλιν ἐξ ἀριστερῶν ὑπὸ τοῦ ὠκεανοῦ, ὥσπερ καὶ ἡ βαρβαρία κυκλοῦται ἐκ δεξιῶν ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ. καί φασιν οἱ ἰνδοί, οἱ φιλόσοφοι, οἱ καλούμενοι βραχμάνες, ὅτι ἐὰν βάλῃς ἀπὸ τζίνιστα σπαρτίον διελθεῖν διὰ περσίδος ἕως ῥωμανίας ὡς ἀπὸ κανόνος τὸ μεσαίτατον τοῦ κόσμου ἐστί, καὶ τάχα ἀληθεύουσιν. (46) πολὺ γὰρ ἀριστερά ἐστιν, ὡς δι᾽ ὀλίγου χρόνου βασταγὰς μεταξίου γίνεσθαι ἐκ τῶν ἐκεῖ, ἐκ διαδοχῆς ἑτέρων ἐθνῶν, ἐν περσίδι διὰ τῆς γῆς, διὰ δὲ τῆς θαλάσσης πάνυ πολλὰ διαστήματα ἀπέχουσα ἀπὸ τῆς περσίδος. ὅσον γὰρ διάστημα ἔχει ὁ κόλπος ὁ περσικὸς εἰσερχόμενος ἐν περσίδι, τοσοῦτο διάστημα πάλιν ἀπὸ τῆς ταπροβάνης καὶ περαιτέρω ποιεῖ ἐπὶ τὰ ἀριστερὰ εἰσερχόμενός τις ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ τζίνιστα, μετὰ τὸ καὶ διαστήματα πάλιν ἱκανὰ ἔχειν ἀπὸ τῆς ἀρχῆς ἐξ αὐτοῦ τοῦ περσικοῦ κόλπου, ὅλον τὸ ἰνδικὸν πέλαγος ἕως ταπροβάνης καὶ ἐπέκεινα. διατέμνει οὖν πολλὰ διαστήματα ὁ διὰ τῆς ὁδοῦ ἐρχόμενος ἀπὸ τζίνιστα ἐπὶ περσίδα, ὅθεν καὶ πλῆθος μεταξίου ἀεὶ ἐπὶ τὴν περσίδα εὑρίσκεται. περαιτέρω δὲ τῆς τζίνιστα οὔτε πλέεται οὔτε οἰκεῖται. now this country of silk is situated in the remotest of all the indies, and lies to the left of those who enter the indian sea, far beyond the persian gulf, and the island called by the indians selediba and by the greeks taprobanê. it is called tzinista, and is surrounded on the left by the ocean, just as barbaria is surrounded by it on the right. the indian philosophers, called the brachmans, say that if you stretch a cord from tzinista to pass through persia, onward to the roman dominions, the middle of the earth would be quite correctly traced, and they are perhaps right. for the country in question deflects considerably to the left, so that the loads of silk passing by land through one nation after another, reach persia in a comparatively short time; whilst the route by sea to persia is vastly greater. for just as great a distance as the persian gulf runs up into persia, so great a distance and even a greater has one to run, who, being bound for tzinista, sails eastward from taprobanê; while besides, the distances from the mouth of the persian gulf to taprobanê; and the parts beyond through the whole width of the indian sea are very considerable. he then who comes by land from tzinista to persia shortens very considerably the length of the journey. this is why there is always to be found a great quantity of silk in persia. beyond tzinista there is neither navigation nor any land to inhabit. as pigulewskaja points out,[40] cosmas was the first to stress the two possible routes to and from china: the overland silk road, along which persia played a major part (even the name cosmas uses for china, tzinista, is obviously derived from iranian cinistan), and the so-called silk road of the sea, along which the island of taprobanê (sri lanka) was an important entrepôt. cosmas says the sea route is longer because china has a curved coastline, which it has, but the difference in length of the routes could be better accounted for when considering the extension of india towards the south, which cosmas underestimates, judging from his world map (figure 7), and with the existence of the malay peninsula, which cosmas is not aware of at all. his mention of the indian philosophers as a source for geometrical knowledge in the literal sense of the word is also interesting. these philosophers likewise had the concept of mount meru, as mentioned above, and could have introduced cosmas to it, whether by personal or indirect communication, or by means of written works. at any rate, it is worth noting that cosmas not only draws on what he had seen in far-away regions, but also on what he had learned from a certain intellectual elite residing there. this shows his vital interest in other cultures and his perplexing readiness towards receiving knowledge from them. this demonstrates, again, cosmas’ rationale: his rejection of ideas originating from non-christian beliefs, his interest in all things non-christian, and his acceptance of whatever follows his personal view of christianity and his cosmological model. being a merchant who apparently favoured sea routes, cosmas devotes much of his text to the subject of trade between eastern africa and the indian region. as in the passage above, sri lanka, whose name s(i)elediba, which is a derivation of sihaladipa/singhaladvipa (‘island of the sinhalese’), cosmas is the first to mention with certainty, plays a major role: ἐξ ὅλης δὲ τῆς ἰνδικῆς καὶ περσίδος καὶ αἰθιοπίας δέχεται ἡ νῆσος πλοῖα πολλά, μεσῖτις οὖσα, ὁμοίως καὶ ἐκπέμπει. καὶ ἀπὸ μὲν τῶν ἐνδοτέρων, λέγω δὴ τῆς τζινίστα καὶ ἑτέρων ἐμπορίων, δέχεται μέταξιν, ἀλοήν, καρυόφυλλον, ξυλοκαρυόφυλλον, τζανδάναν, καὶ ὅσα κατὰ χώραν εἰσί· καὶ μεταβάλλει τοῖς ἐξωτέρω, λέγω δὴ τῇ μαλέ, ἐν ᾗ τὸ πίπερ γίνεται, καὶ τῇ καλλιανᾷ, ἔνθα ὁ χαλκὸς γίνεται καὶ σησάμινα ξύλα καὶ ἕτερα ἱμάτια – ἔστι γὰρ καὶ αὕτη μέγα ἐμπόριον–, ὁμοίως καὶ σινδοῦ, ἔνθα ὁ μόσχος καὶ τὸ κοστάριν καὶ τὸ ναρδόσταχυν γίνεται, καὶ τῇ περσίδι καὶ τῷ ὁμηρίτῇ καὶ τῇ ἀδούλῃ, καὶ πάλιν τὰ ἀπὸ ἑκάστου τῶν εἰρημένων ἐμπορίων δεχομένη καὶ τοῖς ἐνδοτέρω μεταβάλλουσα καὶ τὰ ἴδια ἅμα ἑκάστωι ἐμπορίωι ἐκπέμπουσα. the island being, as it is, in a central position, is much frequented by ships from all parts of india and from persia and ethiopia, and it likewise sends out many of its own. and from the remotest countries, i mean tzinista and other trading places, it receives silk, aloes, cloves, sandalwood and other products, and these again are passed on to marts on this side, such as male, where pepper grows, and to calliana, which exports copper and sesame-logs, and cloth for making dresses, for it also is a great place of business. and to sindu also where musk and castor is procured and spikenard,[41] and to persia and the homerite country, and to adulé. and the island receives imports from all these marts which we have mentioned and passes them on to the remoter ports, while, at the same time, exporting its own produce in both directions. [top. chr. 11,15] fig. 12: india, the maldives and sri lanka. silk and its country of origin are mentioned again, as are many other commodities with their origins and destinations. pepper is among them, which according to cosmas grows in male. here he does not refer to the capital island of the maldives, but to the malabar coast in south-western india (cf. figure 12). this stretch of land is sometimes called “pepper coast” even today. details like these also suggest that it is likely that cosmas travelled to india, although he could have copied some of the data from other merchants’ logs or handbooks.[42] he does have an illustration of pepper vines, though, and a text along with it, both of which are so detailed and accurate that personal inspection and experience are almost a certainty: fig. 13: unknown artist, pepper tree, codex sinaiticus graecus 1186, fol. 202v, 11th century, probably from cappadocia, now at st. katherine's monastery, sinai. τοῦτο τὸ δένδρον ἐστὶ τὸ τοῦ πιπέρεως· ἕκαστον δὲ δένδρον ἑτέρῳ ὑψηλῷ ἀκάρπῳ δένδρῳ ἀνακλᾶται διὰ τὸ λεπτὸν εἶναι πάνυ καὶ ἀσθενές, ὥσπερ καὶ τὰ κλήματα τῆς ἀμπέλου λεπτά· ἕκαστος δὲ βότρυς δίφυλλον ἔχει σκέπον· χλωρὸν δὲ πάνυ ἐστίν, ὥσπερ ἡ χρόα τοῦ πηγάνου. this is a picture of the tree which produces pepper. each separate stem being very weak and limp twines itself, like the slender tendrils of the vine, around some lofty tree which bears no fruit. and every cluster of the fruit is protected by a double leaf. it is of a deep green colour like that of rue. [top. chr. 11.10] as mentioned before, cosmas paid a lot of attention to the island of sri lanka. his remarks on it have been extensively scrutinized by scholars in recent years.[43] because of this, i would like to confine myself to a few passages that seem pertinent in our context. in top. chr. 11.13, cosmas tells us about sri lanka: αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ νῆσος ἡ μεγάλη ἐν τῷ ὠκεανῷ, ἐν τῷ ἰνδικῷ πελάγει κειμένη, παρὰ μὲν ἰνδοῖς καλουμένη σιελεδίβα, παρὰ δὲ ἕλλησι ταπροβάνη, ἐν ᾗ εὑρίσκεται ὁ λίθος ὁ ὑάκινθος· περαιτέρω δὲ κεῖται τῆς χώρας τοῦ πιπέρεως. πέριξ δὲ αὐτῆς εἰσι νῆσοι μικραὶ πολλαὶ πάνυ, πᾶσαι δὲ γλυκὺ ὕδωρ ἔχουσαι καὶ ἀργέλλια· ἀγχιβαθαὶ δὲ ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πλεῖστον πᾶσαί εἰσιν. this is a large oceanic island lying in the indian sea. by the indians it is called sielediba, but by the greeks taprobanê, and therein is found the hyacinth stone. it lies on the other side of the pepper country. around it are numerous small islands all having fresh water and coconut trees. they nearly all have deep water close up to their shores. it is true that sri lanka is a fairly big island, but not as big as the ancients thought it was. like them, cosmas overestimates its size, perhaps induced by local measurements and by the important role it played in trade. the numerous little islands around sri lanka do not exist, but it may be that cosmas here alludes to the over 1000 little islets of the maldives, most of which have coconut trees and fresh water. the islets on the outer reefs of the atolls are indeed close to deep water. [44] cosmas witnessed coconut trees and how they are harvested. in top. chr. 11.11, he presents us with the following picture: fig. 14: unknown artist, coconut tree, codex sinaiticus graecus 1186, fol. 203r, 11th century, probably from cappadocia, now at st. katherine's monastery, sinai. the text that accompanies the drawing of the “indian nuts” (κάρυα ἰνδικά) also calls them ἀργέλλια a word already found in the passage discussed above (top. chr. 11.13). this is likely to be a derivation of sanskrit narikela (meaning ‘coconut’ or ‘coconut tree’), probably by way of sinhalese and/or persian mediation. apart from that, cosmas shares first-hand information about the trees' appearance, the taste of their nuts and their contents. according to him, the indians also make an alcoholic drink from the coconut water—here he may have been mistaken because the toddy he perhaps tasted is not made from coconut water, but from the sap of palm blossoms. in the last few passages, as we became familiar with cosmas as a merchant, his ardent christian side seems to have receded. still, it is there, even in those passages in which cosmas deals with apparently worldly matters. on two occasions (top. chr. 3.65 and 11.14) he proudly tells us about a small group of christians in sri lanka. significantly, this is the first mention of christians on sri lanka. the second passage reads as follows: ἔχει δὲ ἡ αὐτὴ νῆσος καὶ ἐκκλησίαν τῶν ἐπιδημούντων περσῶν χριστιανῶν καὶ πρεσβύτερον ἀπὸ περσίδος χειροτονούμενον καὶ διάκονον καὶ πᾶσαν τὴν ἐκκλησιαστικὴν λειτουργίαν. οἱ δὲ ἐγχώριοι καὶ οἱ βασιλεῖς ἀλλόφυλοί εἰσιν. the island has also a church of persian christians who have settled there, and a presbyter who is appointed from persia, and a deacon and a complete ecclesiastical ritual. but the natives and their kings are heathens. [top. chr. 11.14] the fact that the christians are all persian expatriates—including the believers, the priest and probably the deacon—definitely has a special meaning to cosmas. these people were from the same country as his revered teacher, mar aba, and they were most probably nestorians. 5. conclusions cosmas is not easy to gauge. later readers judged that doubt can be cast on almost everything about him, starting from his name, that the cosmological model he propagates can hardly be taken seriously, that his digressions are on the verge of being tedious and that his language is, to say the least, a little unconventional. i hope to have made it a little more acceptable to believe that he really visited india and therefore has a right to be called indicopleustes. moreover, we have seen that his cosmological model may be naive and definitely has no factual basis, but at least we have been able to understand its intellectual foundation. the fervour and persistence that cosmas displays in propagating his concept is remarkable, if not admirable. cosmas is interesting in that he adhered to a christian minority group that was not well liked in sixth-century alexandria; despite this unfortunate situation, there are hints that, on a personal level, he was able to live at peace with both nestorian and orthodox concepts. regarding his ethnicity, hardly anything definite can be said, except that he obviously felt himself to be alexandrian and did not conceal being a byzantine citizen either. intellectually, he proves to have been influenced by various cultures. imbued with classical greek and hellenistic learning, he rejected the parts he considered pagan and augmented the rest with christian notions, predominantly from asia minor and syria. with literal biblical lore and concepts he may have found in indian thought systems, he created his own, original universe. in terms of profession, it may not be certain whether he became a monk or not, but it is clear that at the time of writing the christian topography, his proficiency in holy writ and his exegetical ardour would have fit perfectly in a monastic surrounding. still, he does not see this stage of his existence in contrast with his former life as a merchant—he regards these two as a whole. while a trader, he displayed an enormous interest in commercial data from a vast geographical area as well as in the flora, fauna and cultural matters of various kinds. undoubtedly, cosmas was, as travis lee clark put it, a “cosmopolitan and flexible thinker,”[45] or, to make use of a dictum by wolfgang welsch, “an almost paradigmatic figure of transculturality” (eine geradezu paradigmatische figur der transkulturalität).[46] these properties, as well as the unique illustrations in the manuscripts that convey his text, still make him worth studying, even in times when northern mountains that hide the sun have become unfashionable. list of illustrations figure 1: ‘cosmas’ as depicted in the bibliotheca augustana; courtesy of ulrich harsch. source: http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/graeca/chronologia/s_post06/cosmas/cos_intr.html accessed june 16, 2011. figure 2: the arabian pensinsula, the aksumite empire and the “three gulfs” mentioned by cosmas; source: google earth. figure 3: unknown artist, the conversion of paul, codex sinaiticus graecus 1186, fol. 126v, 11th century, probably from cappadocia, now at st. katherine’s monastery, sinai. source: weitzmann/galavaris 1990, plate xii b. figure 4: unknown artist, the conversion of paul, codex vaticanus graecus 699, fol. 83v, 9th century, from constantinople, now at the vatican library. source: the yorck project: 10.000 meisterwerke der malerei. dvd-rom, 2002. isbn 3936122202. distributed by directmedia publishing gmbh. figure 5: unknown artist, a sketch of cosmas’ pattern of the universe, codex sinaiticus graecus 1186, fol. 65r, 11th century, probably from cappadocia, now at st. katherine’s monastery, sinai. source: galey 1979, fig. 166. figure 6: unknown artist, a more detailed sketch of cosmas’ pattern of the universe, codex sinaiticus graecus 1186, fol. 69r, 11th century, probably from cappadocia, now at st. katherine’s monastery, sinai. source: galey 1979, fig. 164. figure 7: unknown artist, cosmas’ map of the earth, codex sinaiticus graecus 1186, fol. 66v, 11th century, probably from cappadocia, now at st. katherine’s monastery, sinai. source: weitzmann/galavaris 1990, plate ix a. figure 8: unknown artist, the χοιρέλαφος – ‘hog deer’, codex laurentianus plut. ix.28, fol. 268v, 11th century, probably from iviron monastery / mt. athos, now at the laurentian library att florence / italy. source: winstedt 1909, plate xiii. figure 9: the sus babyrousa – ‘hog deer’. source: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/datei:hirscheber1a.jpg accessed june 16, 2011. figure 10: the phacochoerus africanus – warthog; courtesy of patrick giraud. source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/file:namibie_etosha_phacochere_01.jpg accessed june 16, 2011. figure 11: unknown artist, gazelle and palm trees, codex sinaiticus graecus 1186, fol. 146r, 11th century, probably from cappadocia, now at st. katherine’s monastery, sinai. source: weitzmann/galavaris 1990, plate xiii a. figure 12: india, the maldives and sri lanka; source: google earth. figure 13: unknown artist, pepper tree, codex sinaiticus graecus 1186, fol. 202v, 11th century, probably from cappadocia, now at st. katherine’s monastery, sinai. source: weitzmann/galavaris 1990, ill. 181. figure 14: unknown artist, coconut tree, codex sinaiticus graecus 1186, fol. 203r, 11th century, probably from cappadocia, now at st. katherine’s monastery, sinai. source: weitzmann / galavaris 1990, ill. 182. ______________________________ references anastos, milton v. “the alexandrian origin of the ‘christian topography’ of cosmas indicopleustes.” dumbarton oaks papers 3 (1946): 73-80. -----“nestorius was orthodox.” dumbarton oaks papers 16 (1962): 117-140. antor, heinz. “from postcolonialism and interculturalism to the ethics of transculturalism in the age of globalization.” in: heinz antor et al., eds., from interculturalism to transculturalism. mediating encounters in cosmopolitan contexts. heidelberg: universitätsverlag winter, 2010, 1-13. beazley, charles raymond. the dawn of modern geography. london: murray, 1897. beekes, robert. etymological dictionary of greek. 2 vol.s. leiden / boston: brill, 2010. braun, oskar. ausgewählte akten persischer märtyrer. kempten: kösel, 1915. clark, travis lee. imaging the cosmos. the christian topography by kosmas indikopleustes. philadelphia: diss. temple university, 2008. conti, luisa. “vom interkulturellen zum transkulturellen dialog: ein perspektivenwechsel.” in: melanie hühn, dörte lerp, knut petzold, miriam stock, eds., transkulturalität, transnationalität, transstaatlichkeit und translokalität. theoretische und empirische begriffsbestimmungen (berlin: lit verlag, 2010): 173-189. faller, stefan. taprobane im wandel der zeit. stuttgart: steiner, 2000. -----“die malediven und lakkadiven in griechischen und lateinischen quellen.” in: stefan faller, ed., studien zu antiken identitäten (würzburg: ergon, 2001), 163-192. fischer, bernd. “transkulturelle teilhabe.” in: steven d. martinson / renate a. schulz, edd., transcultural german studies / deutsch als fremdsprache (bern, berlin etc.: peter lang, 2008), 55-72. fortescue, adrian. the lesser eastern churches. london: catholic trust society, 1913. freudenberger, silja. “interculturalism, transculturalism, and the problem of ‘meaning’.” in: hans j. sandkühler / hong-bin lim, edd., transculturality – epistemology, ethics and politics (frankfurt, berlin etc.: peter lang, 2004), 39-50. galey, john. sinai und das katharinenkloster, mit einer einführung von george h. forsyth und kurt weitzmann. stuttgart / zürich: belser, 1979. hahn, wolfgang. “der heilige kaleb ella asbeha – könig des abessinierlandes und seine münzen.” money trend 3 (2000): 60-67. herder, johann gottfried. auch eine philosophie der geschichte zur bildung der menschheit. frankfurt a.m.: suhrkamp, 1967 [originally published 1774]. -----ideen zur philosophie der geschichte der menschheit. riga / leipzig: hartknoch, 1784-1791. hughes-buller, ralph, ed. imperial gazetteer of india: provincial series: baluchistan. calcutta: superintendent of gov. print, 1908. kirwan, laurence p. “the christian topography and the kingdom of axum.” the geographical journal 138, no. 2 (jun., 1972): 166-177. klotz, alfred. “ὁδοιπορία ἀπὸ ἐδὲμ τοῦ παραδεῖσου ἄχρι τῶν ῥωμαίων.” rheinisches museum, n.f. 65 (1910): 606-616. krall, jakob. “studien zur geschichte des alten aegypten, iv. das land punt.” 11. abhandlung der sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen akademie der wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische classe, 121. vienna: f. tempsky, 1890. mccrindle, john w., trans. and comm. the christian topography of cosmas, an egyptian monk. london: hakluyt society, 1897. mittag, franz peter. “zu den quellen der expositio totius mundi et gentium. ein neuer periplus?” hermes 134 (2006): 338-351. pigulewskaja, nina v. byzanz auf den wegen nach indien: aus der geschichte des byzantinischen handels mit dem orient vom 4. bis 6. jahrhundert, überarb. dt. ausg. berlin: akademie verlag, 1969. sachau, eduard, ed. and trans. theodori mopsuesteni fragmenta syriaca. leipzig: engelmann, 1869. schleißheimer, bernhard. kosmas indikopleustes, ein altchristliches weltbild. diss. münchen: salzer, 1959. schneider, horst. “kosmas indikopleustes, christliche topographie: probleme der überlieferung und editionsgeschichte.” byzantinische zeitschrift 99/2 (2006): 605-614. schwarz, franz ferdinand. “kosmas und sielediba.” živa antika (antiquité vivante) 25 (1975): 469-490. seeber, hans ulrich. “transculturality and comedy in zadie smith’s serio-comic novel white teeth (2000).” in: heinz antor et al., edd., from interculturalism to transculturalism. mediating encounters in cosmopolitan contexts (heidelberg: universitätsverlag winter, 2010), 101-119. stornajolo, cosimo. le miniature della topografia cristiana di cosma indicopleuste, codice vaticano greco 699. milano: hoepli, 1908. weerakkody, don patrick mervyn. taprobanê – ancient sri lanka as known to greeks and romans. turnhout: brepols, 1997. weichhart, peter. “das ‘trans-syndrom’. wenn die welt durch das netz unserer begriffe fällt.” in: melanie hühn, dörte lerp, knut petzold, miriam stock, eds., transkulturalität, transnationalität, transstaatlichkeit und translokalität. theoretische und empirische begriffsbestimmungen (berlin: lit verlag, 2010): 47-70. weitzmann, kurt. illustrated manuscripts at st. catherine’s monastery on mount sinai. collegeville (minnesota): st. john’s univ. press, 1973. weitzmann, kurt and george galavaris. the monastery of saint catherine at mount sinai: the illuminated greek manuscripts, volume one: from the ninth to the twelfth century. princeton: princeton univ. press, 1990. welsch, wolfgang. “transkulturalität. lebensformen nach der auflösung der kulturen.” information philosophie may 1992 (h. 2): 5-20. -----“transkulturalität. zwischen globalisierung und partikularisierung.” jahrbuch deutsch als fremdsprache 26 (2000): 327-351. -----“transkulturelle gesellschaften.” in: peter-ulrich merz-benz and gerhard wagner, eds., kultur in zeiten der globalisierung. neue aspekte einer soziologischen kategorie (frankfurt a.m.: humanities online, 2005): 39-67. -----“was ist eigentlich transkulturalität?” in: lucyna darowska / thomas lüttenberg / claudia machold, eds., hochschule als transkultureller raum? kultur, bildung und differenz in der universität (bielefeld: transcript 2010): 39-66. wilson, don e. / reeder, deeann m.mammal species of the world: a taxonomic and geographic reference. volumes 1 and 2, baltimore: johns hopkins university press, 2005. winstedt, eric otto, ed. the christian topograpy of cosmas indicopleustes, ed. with geographical notes. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1909. wittmann, josef. sprachliche untersuchungen zu cosmas indicopleustes. diss. borna-leipzig: noske, 1913. wolska-conus, wanda, ed. and trans.cosmas indicopleustès, topographie chrétienne, 3 vols, paris: éditions du cerf, 1968, 1970, 1973. [1] welsch made his theory public for the first time in a speech delivered in wuppertal to the deutsche gesellschaft für phänomenologische forschung on may 23rd, 1991; a version of this speech was printed as wolfgang welsch, “transkulturalität. lebensformen nach der auflösung der kulturen,” information philosophie may 1992 (h. 2): 5-20. several augmented papers followed. the most important ones were: wolfgang welsch, “transkulturalität. zwischen globalisierung und partikularisierung,” jahrbuch deutsch als fremdsprache 26 (2000): 327-351; welsch, “transkulturelle gesellschaften,” in kultur in zeiten der globalisierung. neue aspekte einer soziologischen kategorie, peter-ulrich merz-benz, gerhard wagner, eds. (frankfurt: humanities online, 2005), 39-67; welsch, “was ist eigentlich transkulturalität?” in: hochschule als transkultureller raum? kultur, bildung und differenz in der universität, lucyna darowska, thomas lüttenberg, claudia machold, eds. (bielefeld: transcript, 2010), 39-66. others have taken up and supported his theory, most recently bernd fischer, “transkulturelle teilhabe,” in transcultural german studies, deutsch als fremdsprache, steven d. martinson, renate a. schulz, eds. (bern: peter lang, 2008), 55-72; heinz antor, “from postcolonialism and interculturalism to the ethics of transculturalism in the age of globalization,” in from interculturalism to transculturalism. mediating encounters in cosmopolitan contexts, heinz antor et al., eds.(heidelberg: universitätsverlag, 2010), 1-13; hans ulrich seeber, “transculturality and comedy in zadie smith’s serio-comic novel white teeth (2000),” in ibid., 101-119; luisa conti, „vom interkulturellen zum transkulturellen dialog: ein perspektivenwechsel,” in transkulturalität, transnationalität, transstaatlichkeit und translokalität. theoretische und empirische begriffsbestimmungen, melanie hühn, dörte lerp, knut petzold, miriam stock, eds.(berlin: lit verlag, 2010) 173-189. [2] cf. johann gottfried herder, auch eine philosophie der geschichte zur bildung der menschheit (frankfurt: suhrkamp, 1967 [originally published 1774]), esp. 44f.; herder, ideen zur philosophie der geschichte der menschheit (leipzig: hartknoch, 1841). [3] although welsch’s theory received mostly benevolent responses, there are points that could be criticized. welsch, in most of his papers, defends himself against the claim that transculturalism creates a uniform and tedious global cultural continuum (cf. e.g. welsch 2010, 59-62). in welsch 2000, 336, fn. 27, he acknowledges that the word ‘transkulturalität’, which he previously believed to have coined, already had been used before, but still defends his use of the word as original. silja freudenberger in “interculturalism, transculturalism, and the problem of ‘meaning’”  in transculturality – epistemology, ethics and politics, hans j. sandkühler and hong-bin lim, eds. (frankfurt: peter lang, 2004), 41), while recognizing a conceptual difference between interculturalism and transculturalism, denies a “competition” between them—a point that welsch would hardly agree with. finally, peter weichhart in “das ‘trans-syndrom’. wenn die welt durch das netz unserer begriffe fällt” (in transkulturalität, transnationalität, transstaatlichkeit und translokalität. theoretische und empirische begriffsbestimmungen , melanie hühn, dörte lerp, knut petzold, miriam stock, eds. (berlin: lit verlag, 2010): 47-70) thinks that “trans”-concepts are a fashion which may have become a little exaggerated. this is no conceptual criticism, though, and he admits that the “trans”-creations may still be valuable, if they have a sound methodology. [4] for the individual level of transculturality cf. for instance welsch’s chapter “hochschätzung der mischlinge” in “transkulturalität. lebensformen nach der auflösung der kulturen,” 16.; for a methodologically elaborated version see welsch transkulturalität, 339f. (section called “mikroebene: transkulturelle prägung der individuen”), welsch “transkulturalität. zwischen globalisierung und partikularisierung.”  51-54 and welsch “was ist eigentlich transkulturalität?” 45-48. [5] for transculturality as a phenomenon of antiquity see welsch, “transkulturalität. lebensformen nach der auflösung der kulturen,” 6 (doubting herder’s cultural concept even for past times), welsch “transkulturalität. zwischen globalisierung und partikularisierung,” 342f. (“transkulturalität–schon in der geschichte”), welsch “transkulturelle gesellschaften," 55f., welsch “was ist eigentlich transkulturalität?” 50-52. in the last of these articles (p. 50 with fn. 10), welsch argues that the emergence of greek culture cannot be understood without taking into account the impact of egypt, asia, babylonia and phoenicia. this is certainly correct. his remark “a striking piece of evidence: almost 40 % of the greek lexicon is of semitic origin” (ein schlagendes indiz: nahezu 40 % der griechischen wörter sind semitischen ursprungs) is quite unsubstantiated, however. it is true that a higher percentage of the greek lexicon as assumed previously may belong to a non-indo-european substrate language, but there are no hints at a semitic nature of that language so far; the quantity of lexical items with an obvious or at least probable semitic origin is much less than welsch assumes. for the present state of research see robert beekes, etymological dictionary of greek, 2 vols (leiden: brill, 2010). [6] bibliotheca augustana, litteraturae et artis collectio>, bibliotheca augustana, litteraturae et artis collectio, accessed june 16, 2011. [7] eric o. winstedt, ed., the christian topograpy of cosmas indicopleustes (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1909), 2. [8] laurentianus plut. ix. 28 (now at the laurentian library at florence). [9] all quotations from the christian topography are taken from wanda wolska-conus, ed., cosmas indicopleustès: topographie chrétienne, vol.s i-iii (paris: les éditions du cerf, 1972). [10] ella asbeha (‘the one who brings in the dawn’) was the royal epithet of caleb, son of tazena, who became king of the ethiopian empire of axum in 515 a.d. and is called ἐλλατζβάας by cosmas (top. chr. 2.56). for further information on this king, who also was made a christian saint, and on the inscriptions referring to him, see wolfgang hahn, “der heilige kaleb ella asbeha – könig des abessinierlandes und seine münzen,” money trend 3 (2000): 60-67. [11] more on cosmas’ ethiopian adventure can be found in laurence p. kirwan, “the christian topography and the kingdom of axum”, the geographical journal 138, no. 2 (june 1972): 166-177. [12] the passage in question is top. chr. 6.3. see jakob krall, “studien zur geschichte des alten aegypten, iv. das land punt,” 11. abhandlung der sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen akademie der wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische classe, 121 (vienna: f. tempsky, 1890) 72, ann. 2; winstedt the christian topograpy of cosmas indicopleustes, 5, ann. 2; bernhard schleißheimer, kosmas indikopleustes: ein altchristliches weltbild (münchen: w. u. j.m. salzer, 1959), 6 (misrepresenting the date for the solar eclipse as feb. 2nd); wolska-conus vol. i, 1968, 16 (erroneously referring to two solar eclipses, just like nina v. pigulewskaja, byzanz auf den wegen nach indien: aus der geschichte des byzantinischen handels mit dem orient vom 4. bis 6. jahrhundert, überarb. dt. ausg. (berlin: akademie verlag, 1969), 112). [13] milton v. anastos summarized the references to alexandria found in the christian topography. cosmas seems to have not only lived in that city, but seems to have been proud of it. milton v. anastos, “the alexandrian origin of the ‘christian topography’ of cosmas indicopleustes,” dumbarton oaks papers 3 (1946), 76. [14] all translations from the christian topography are taken from john w. mccrindle, trans. and comm., the christian topography of cosmas, an egyptian monk (london: the hakluyt society, 1897). i have corrected obvious misprints throughout. [15] for a closer look at cosmas’ language see josef wittmann, sprachliche untersuchungen zu cosmas indicopleustes (borna-leipzig: noske, 1913). [16] for further information on mar abapatricius see adrian fortescue, the lesser eastern churches (london: catholic trust society, 1913), 82f., oskar braun, ausgewählte akten persischer märtyrer (kempten: kösel, 1915) and schleißheimer kosmas indikopleustes, 9f. [17] see anastos “the alexandrian origin,”, esp. 76f. the nestorians made a strong distinction between the man jesus and jesus as the divine son of god and believed that there were two persons in jesus christ; monophysitism, the position considered “orthodox” after the council of ephesus and the one prevalent in egypt at least until 518, held that christ was one person and had only one nature, his humanity being absorbed by his deity. at the council of chalcedon in 451, however, monophysitism was also declared heretic and replaced by the dogma that there were two inseparable natures in the one person of jesus christ. however, the patriarch of alexandria and the other bishops of egypt refused to accept the dogmata of chalcedon, because they seemed to represent a new version of nestorianism to them.  until cosmas’ lifetime, the byzantine emperors tried to enforce the orthodox (i.e. chalcedonian) position. even now the coptic church is monophysite (or “miaphysite” in post-chalcedonian terminology). [18] cf. photius, cod. 36, quoted fully in winstedt the christian topograpy, 1f. [19] cf. mccrindle the christian topography of cosmas, an egyptian monk, ix. [20] milton v. anastos, “nestorius was orthodox,” dumbarton oaks papers 16 (1962): 117-140, argues that nestorius’ views were not heretical, but deplores that “he was not able to present them more skillfully. the obscurity and prolixity of his style are major defects [...].” perhaps cosmas had a similar notion.the historical fact that nestorianism had been declared heretical was undeniable, but if the reason for this was only a matter of rhetorical style (a feature cosmas admittedly did not hold in high esteem), there was no reason for him to openly condemn “orthodoxy”, either. [21] in top. chr. 5.244, mary is referred to as “mother of god” (θεοτόκος), a term which nestorius strongly advised against. he proposed “mother of christ” (χριστοτόκος) instead. the denomination is in the laurentian codex and in the sinaiticus, but not in the vaticanus. montfaucon included it in his editio princeps, whereas winstedt and wolska-conus mention it only in the apparatus criticus. mccrindle wondered “had cosmas in his monastery relapsed into what was there considered orthodoxy?” mccrindle, the christian topography of cosmas, x. [22] this is not to say that nestorian monasteries did not exist. there were several of them in persia, on the opposite coast in arabia, and even in china. it is hard to believe anything like a nestorian monastic society existed in egypt, which was still strongly dominated by mono/ miaphysite tendencies. [23] apart from top. chr. 2.29 also in 2.45, 2.75 and 11.23. [24] mccrindle felt obliged to explain his translation of ἕλληνες as ‘pagans’ throughout the christian topography like this: “in the days of cosmas it was used, not so much to designate persons of hellenic descent, as persons who clung to the old superstitions of greece and rome and rejected christianity.”  ibid., xi. [25] for instance, owing to byzantine influence, the arabs continued to call the mediterranean sea ‘sea of rome’ (baḥr al-rūm) until the end of the nineteenth century, although they were never subjects of the byzantine empire. [26] horst schneider, “kosmas indikopleustes, christliche topographie: probleme der überlieferung und editionsgeschichte,” byzantinische zeitschrift 99/2 (2006): 605-614. [27] for more details on the codices see wolska-conus, vol. i, cosmas indicopleustès, 45-50. [28] in an e-mail to the author on march 13th, 2011, prof. ulrich harsch confirmed that he took the portrait of the “anonymous monk” from cod. vat. gr. 699, fol. 83v. he says that he electronically removed the halo (which is missing in fig. 1) to give a less saintly appearance to the monachus anonymus. [29] travis lee clark argues in his dissertation that the “narrative” images were as important to cosmas’ intentions as the “cosmological” ones and rightly points out that they were not later additions, but native to the text of the christian topography (p. 162). still, it is quite possible that cosmas had models he could draw on for the “narrative” images, while his “cosmological” sketches must be as original as the theories he developed. see travis lee clark, imaging the cosmos. the christian topography by kosmas indikopleustes (philadelphia: temple university, 2008) 162. [30] apart from the passage quoted above, cosmas refers to mar aba-patricius on three other occasions; in top. chr. 2.29, where he claims to have received information on geographical matters from him, in top. chr. 5.1 in the context of the description of the tabernacle made by the jews in the wilderness, and in top. chr. 8.25 as a source of information on babylonian cosmological models. [31] for instance, the notion that the universe consists of nothing else than heaven and earth, which we find as a central hypothesis in cosmas’ works, is very strong in theodore’s commentary on genesis 1. eduard sachau, ed. and trans., theodori mopsuesteni fragmenta syriaca (leipzig: engelmann, 1869), 4, 6, 18. [32] for more information on theodore of mopsuestia and the school of antiochia see schleißheimer, kosmas indikopleustes, 10-15. [33] ibid., 30f. [34] charles raymond beazley, the dawn of modern geography (london: murray, 1897), 41. [35] however, this is not the only way to explain this part of cosmas’ cosmology; it has also been postulated that the babylonians and even the ancient greeks had the notion of a mountain behind which the sun hid at night, or at least the idea of an impressive range of mountains somewhere in the north schleißheimer, kosmas indikopleustes, 29f. [36] don e. wilson and deeann m. reeder, eds., mammal species of the world: a taxonomic and geographic reference, volume 1 (baltimore: johns hopkins university press, 2005), 637. [37] see for instance, wolska-conus, cosmas indicopleustès, vol. 1, 173f. [38] cf. r. alph hughes-buller, ed., imperial gazetteer of india: provincial series: baluchistan (calcutta: superintendent of gov. print, 1908), 36: “throughout makrān the staple food is dates. [...] though all the trees belong to the species phoenix dactylifera, they are distinguished locally into more than a hundred kinds, according to weight, size, and quality of the fruit. all trees are known either as pedigree trees (nasabi) or non-pedigree trees (kuroch). among the former the best varieties are mozāti, āp-e-dandān, haleni, begam jangi, and sabzo.” i must admit that, when i first saw the word μοζᾶ next to the image of the tree, my impression was that this was a rendering of arabic (and persian) moz, meaning ‘banana’ (in fact, this is the etymon of linnés scientific name for ‘banana’, musa, and the banana-like plants, musaceae). later i discovered winstedt had come across that idea already (1909, 16). on closer inspection, however, the plant cosmas depicts does not so much resemble a banana tree, but really a date palm, as most scholars (including wolska-conus) have assumed and expressed by way of their captions to the picture (none of them have commented on the word μοζᾶ, though). in the light of the term mozāti referring to dates, i think winstedt’s otherwise attractive ‘“banana hypothesis’ hypothesis” should be laid to rest. [39] on the importance of silk for byzantium see pigulewskaja byzanz auf den wegen nach indien, 80-87. [40] ibid., 126. [41] mccrindle has “androstachys” in his translation, which is also what the codices give. but since this word is unknown, he suggests that this is a misspelling of nardostachys, which is the greek term for spikenard. see mccrindle the christian topography of cosmas, 366, esp. note 7.  wolska-conus has emended this word in her greek text, so the translation should also be changed accordingly. [42] one might think of byzantine, but also of syriac, persian, arabic, himyarite or ethiopian manuals—at least the merchants cosmas most probably came into contact with in egypt would be from these regions. unfortunately, no such manual is extant for the time in question or anytime close. a few works cosmas may have used, or ones that show at least some parallels with the route to india are as follows: i. a treatise from the middle of the fourth century, containing geographical and commercial information, extant in two latin versions and commonly called expositio totius mundi et gentium. see pigulewskaja byzanz auf den wegen nach indien, 46-50 and 100-109, as well as franz peter mittag, “zu den quellen der expositio totius mundi et gentium. ein neuer periplus?”, hermes 134 (2006): 338-351. ii. a very short treatise the author of the expositio may have used is called ὁδοιπορία ἀπὸ ἐδὲμ τοῦ παραδεῖσου ἄχρι τῶν ῥωμαίων (“journey from eden, the paradise, to the romans.”) see alfred klotz, rheinisches museum, n.f. 65 (1910): 606-616,as well as pigulewskaja byzanz auf den wegen nach indien, 100-109 and 323f. perhaps cosmas knew its contents, which may have sparked his effort to prove that paradise is contiguous with earthly realms in top. chr. 2.43-45. iii. a curious report about a lawyer from egyptian thebes, from the fifth century, travelling via the axumite kingdom to sri lanka, preserved in a treatise on the brahmans by palladius. see j. duncan m. derrett, “the history of ‘palladius on the races of india and the brahmans,’” classica et mediaevalia 21 (1960): 64-135, as well as don patrick mervyn weerakkody, taprobanê – ancient sri lanka as known to greeks and romans (turnhout: brepols, 1997): 119-131, and stefan faller, taprobane im wandel der zeit (stuttgart: steiner, 2000): 142-151. iv. the historical work of ammianus marcellinus (late fourth century), v. the ecclesiastical history of philostorgios (early fifth century; only an excerpt compiled by photios survives) and vi. the historia arcana of procopius (sixth century) all feature references to byzantine commerce with the east, although not systematically. the list of these works is not meant to suggest that cosmas copied large portions, or anything at all from them—in fact, his accounts about eastern regions exceed them and are far too lively to be the result of mere compilation—but they are meant to show that in cosmas’ lifetime and the immediately preceding centuries india, sri lanka, china and their commercial goods were of great interest to the byzantines. [43] franz ferdinand schwarz, “kosmas und sielediba,” živa antika (antiquité vivante) 25 (1975): 469-490; weerakkody taprobanê–ancient sri lanka as known to greeks and romans,133-144; faller taprobane im wandel der zeit, 151-161. [44] stefan faller, “die malediven und lakkadiven in griechischen und lateinischen quellen,” in: stefan faller, ed., studien zu antiken identitäten (würzburg: ergon, 2001), 163-192. [45] clark imaging the cosmos, iv. [46] welsch writes this about a fictional character, henrik ibsen’s peer gynt. his reasons for doing so are reminiscent of the non-fictional person of cosmas, though: “ibsen’s peer gynt (first staged in 1876), when scrutinizing his identity, discovers a multitude of personalities inside himself: that of a passenger, of a gold-digger, of an archaeologist, of one who knows how to enjoy life, etc. this is reflected by his wandering between various countries and cultures: from his home in norway to morocco, into the sahara and to egypt, to the atlantic and the mediterranean, also visiting various mythical places. peer gynt is an almost paradigmatic figure of transculturality. he represents the transgression from the old ideal of a person as a monad (sphere-like, monolithic, like the old concept of cultures) to the new mode of being as a nomad, a wanderer between various worlds and cultures – a minor change in the order of letters, and everything is different.” ([…] ibsens peer gynt (uraufführung 1876) entdeckt, als er seine identität erforscht, eine ganze reihe von personen in sich: einen passagier, einen goldgräber, einen archäologen, einen propheten, einen bonvivant usw. – so wie er auch äußerlich ein wanderer zwischen unterschiedlichen ländern und kulturen ist: zwischen seiner norwegischen heimat und marokko, der sahara und ägypten, dem atlantik und dem mittelmeer und zahlreichen mythischen orten. peer gynt ist eine geradezu paradigmatische figur der transkulturalität. er repräsentiert den übergang vom alten ideal der person als monade (kugelartig, monolithisch wie das alte konzept der kulturen) zur neuen seinsweise des nomaden, des wanderers zwischen verschiedenen welten und kulturen – ein kleiner buchstabentausch, und alles ist anders.) see welsch, “was ist eigentlich transkulturalität,” 46. the korean images of tibet and sirhak scholars | tikhonov | transcultural studies the korean images of tibet and sirhak scholars: the plurality of truths? in relation to the issue of the epistemological shift in eighteenth-century korea. vladimir tikhonov, university of oslo 1. as is well-known, the proto-korean state of silla has its origins in the tribal chiefdoms of kyŏngju valley (south-eastern part of the korean peninsula). it cemented its nascent statehood in late fifth, early sixth centuries, adopted chinese-style administrative laws (520), buddhism (527) and its own independent era name (536) (seth 2006, 38). the formation of tibetan statehood proceeded almost concurrently, although it began to play a significant historical role in northeast asia only later. by the end of sixth century, gnam ri srong btsan, a tribal chieftain of yarlung area to the southeast of today’s lhasa, managed to solidify his control over the yarlung valley and the adjacent lands (beckwith 1987, 14-19). while both tibet and silla decisively strengthened their respective statehoods through a complicated process of both peaceful and military (inimical) interactions with tang china in mid-seventh century, the direct information exchange between the two states does not seem to have flourished. whatever information the silla intellectuals could obtain on tibet was mostly acquired from the chinese sources, while the tibetans’ knowledge of the “countries east to the sea” (haedong–the name under which the korean peninsula states and sometimes also the polities of the japanese archipelago were known in china) was mostly limited to their representatives residing in china. for a good example, the commentary to sandhinirmocanasūtra (known in korean as haesimmilgyŏng so) by the famed silla-born buddhist monk, wônch’ûk (613-696), was translated into tibetan by the dunhuang-based translator, gos chos grub, in early ninth century. it was then included in the treatises section (bstan ’gyur) of the tibetan buddhist canon, and cited by many later scholars, for example, by the great tsong kha pa (1357-1419) (inaba 1977; kapstein 2002, 78-81; ko 1997). another silla-born monastic, sichuan-based meditator kim musang (680-756), is mentioned in several tibetan works as someone related to the early development of the tibetan buddhism. significantly, sba bzhed (the testament of ba), a famed account of the establishment of buddhism during the royal period, mentions a mid-750s meeting between the tibetan emissaries to “eg-chu” (chengdu, the capital of sichuan) and “master kim, a clairvoyant and tamer of tigers.” he was said to have greatly assisted the tibetan guests by producing some–in the view of the authors of the testament of sba–rather correct predictions about the imminent persecution of buddhism at the tibetan court. of course, “master kim” was assumed to be chinese. the record of this important encounter was preserved in some later works, notably dpa’ bo gtsug lag phreng ba’s (1504-1566) mghas-pa’i dga’-ston (the banquet of scholars). otherwise, it was generally ignored, partly because kim musang did not have any known tibetan disciples, or possibly because of the animosity of yuan period and post-yuan tibetan authors towards chinese influences (pyŏn 2009, 298-310; kapstein 2002, 69-84; stein 1961, 4-9). both proto-korean buddhists, wônch’ûk and musang, exclusively used literary chinese in their writings, spoke chinese during their sojourns in china, ultimately gave up hope that they would return to their native land of silla, and ended their days in china. that was why they could be introduced to tibet as “chinese” authors, with all the consequences, also negative, it could imply. for the tibetans, they represented not silla (“korea”), but rather chinese buddhism of various sectarian colours — just brought to them by the sinified foreigners from a country about which they knew close to nothing. china dominated not only the material but also the information exchanges between the two peripheral lands of the tang-centred oikumene. its hegemonic position in the field of exchanges between the peripheries of what is often called “east asian cultural sphere” is underscored by a comparison with mediaeval europe. there, a peripheral country like eleventh-century kievan rus’, could enter into marriage alliances with such far-lying states as france, hungary, norway, and possibly anglo-saxon britain (bogomolets 2005; cross 1929; ingham 1998). it is not that tibetan affairs did not exert influence upon korea; in fact, it seems a plausible theory that tang’s preoccupation with the struggle against the powerful tibetan empire of mang srong mang btsan (r. 650-676) in the early 670s (beckwith 1987, 32-36) ultimately weakened its onslaught upon silla and enabled the latter to consolidate its position as the unifier of the korean peninsula south to taedong river (sŏ 2002). but to what degree silla rulers themselves were aware of the influence tibet (kor. t’obŏn, ch. tufan) could exert on the contemporaneous politico-military situation in east and central asia remains a mystery. after all, no direct embassy, emissary, trade, or religious exchanges between tibet and the early states of the korean peninsula (before koryŏ) are known to us. 2. “china” is a word with many meanings. in yuan dynasty times, when both the successor of silla, the proto-korean state of koryô (after 1270), and tibet found themselves to be tributaries of the yuan court, the yuan dynasty-ruled “china” became the conduit for the first ever large-scale exchanges between the korean peninsula and tibet. both territories were in a relationship of dependency with the yuan dynastic government. between 1259 and 1356, koryŏ was effectively a vassal state of the yuan court where both kings (who regularly intermarried with mongol emperors) and the most influential aristocrats (routinely described in south korean historiography as “pro-yuan elements”) were following instructions from the yuan capital, having also, to a considerable degree, internalised the culture and lifestyle of the metropolitan yuan society (min 2000; lee 2002a). almost concomitantly with the eventual subjugation of koryŏ, in 1260, ’gro mgon chos rgyal ’phags pa (1235-1280), the head of sa skya school, became the “imperial preceptor” and the spiritual head of all the mongolian buddhist domains. at the same time, tibet was formally placed under the administration of the mongol-appointed local officials directly reporting to the mongol throne.  thus it became a “special administrative district” of sorts inside the yuan empire (shakabpa 1967, 81-90). the ties of dependency were probably somewhat stronger in the case of tibet, which practically lost its political autonomy at that period, while koryŏ remained, in principle, a self-governing realm; but in any case, both tibet and koryŏ became two parts of the same politico-cultural space, albeit under slightly different conditions. this political development led to a significant intensification of mutual contacts. tibetan esoteric teachings were introduced to koryô (sørensen 1993), and the esoteric buddhist art of tibetan origin seemingly transferred through mongol-ruled china, exerting influence on the development of the koryô buddhist art. in some cases, the skills of yuan artisans were directly imported. yŏnboksa monastery bell in the koryŏ capital of kaesŏng was cast by  commissioned yuan craftsmen (1346), and kyŏngch’ŏnsa monastery’s ten-storied pagoda (kyŏnggi province, kaep’ung county) was also erected by imported artisans from the mongolian empire (1348). otherwise, large numbers of koryŏ monastics, including monastery craftsmen, were able to witness the esoteric buddhist art in yuan’s cultural centres, to where they could relatively freely travel, and use the imported art objects (chin 1985, 3). a result of such a broadening of the space for contacts was a visible trend towards esoterism in the late koryŏ buddhist art. the combined statue (hapch’e pulsang) of vairocana and śākyamuni from unjusa temple, where the two buddhas sit back to back, is understood to be one such example of tibetan esotericism influencing koryô art. another well-known example is ch’ilchangsa temple’s four-faced stone pillar (sabangsamyônjon), with akṣobhya, amitābha, ratnasambhava, and amoghasiddhi representing east, west, south, and north respectively (hô 2000). tibetan vajrayāna-influenced images—especially that of śākyamuni and avalokiteśvara—were common in early fourteenth-century koryô buddhist art. the most typical traces of vajrayāna art influence upon the koryŏ buddhist sculpture include double-layered props with upwardly oriented lotus ornaments (angnyŏn) and downwardly oriented lotus ornaments (pongnyŏn) that are tightly linked (or sometimes almost merged) together. they also include triangle-shaped props substituting the traditional korean round ones, or high, pearl-shaped uṣṇīṣa (excrescence) on the top of the head, as well as threeor five-faceted crowns (pogwan) (chin 1985, 7-16). in most cases, the late koryŏ or early chosŏn vajrayāna-influenced buddhist images from korea are easily recognisable; the stylistic differences between them and the preceding tradition are clear. apart from the seemingly indirect artistic and religious influences, some direct contacts between tibetan figures and koryô court—unheard of in silla times—materialised too. koryôsa (fasc. 31, ch’ungnyôl-wang fourth year, seventh lunar month) records a touching story of a korean monk known only under the tibetan-styled name jizhe xiba (dge bshes se-pa? 吃折思八), who, as a young layman, originally from chindo island (near the southwestern coast of the korean peninsula), was taken prisoner during the suppression of the anti-mongol sambyôlch’o mutiny in 1271. in yuan china, he was ordained as a monk. having been trained in the tibetan tradition, he came back to kaesông in 1294 as a yuan imperial household teacher, in search of his parents. he was given a solemn welcome by selected royal officials, and his parents, who turned out to be poor farm hands struggling to eke out their living near sôsan, were allowed residence on kanghwa island (closer to the royal capital of kaesông) and given tax exemption privileges. it is unclear whether the koryô prisoner was taken as far as tibet proper, but it is clear that his visit—which also enriched the koryô court with some tibetan scriptures and ritual implements—brought korean buddhism into direct contact with the tibetan vajrayāna tradition. another visit by a tibetan monk was recorded by 1314 and yielded more than eighteen thousand tibetan buddhist scriptures presented by the visitor to the koryô court. the best known recorded case of a koryŏ royal visiting tibet, however involuntary, was ch’ungsŏn-wang’s (r. 1298, 1308-1313) exile to tibet (1320-1323), although it is not specified in which tibetan region he actually sojourned. interestingly, ch’ungsŏn-wang and his family were also said to have received their buddhist precepts from the tibetan monks (koryôsa, fasc. 33, ch’ungsôn-wang original year, sixth lunar month, pyŏngjin day). the special position of the tibetan monks as dharma teachers to the yuan imperial house added a political motive to the purely religious interest in vajrayana’s esoteric rituals, and provided an additional stimulus for koryô’s monastics and courtiers to enter into direct contact with the tibetan buddhist tradition. however, it remains unknown to what degree the tibetan esoteric tradition that the koryô intellectuals of the mongol domination period were undoubtedly well aware of was identified with “tibet” as a geo-cultural reality. although superficially direct in the sense of direct contacts between koryô court, monks and tibetan religious figures, it appears that the interaction between koryô and tibet was still essentially mediated by the regional centre, yuan china. without the monks from the tibetan periphery of the yuan realm being stationed in the yuan imperial capital and serving as imperial teachers, they probably would not have made contact with yet another yuan periphery, namely koryô kingdom. 3. in the neo-confucian realm of koryô’s successor state, chosôn (1392-1910), tibetan buddhism lost its relevance for the new literati elite. tibet is referred to in chosŏn’s royal veritable records (chosŏn wangjo sillok) mostly in relation to the tang dynasty history and politics. it was mentioned, for example, in 1404 as a tributary country which sent its scions to tang’s confucian academy (t’aejong fourth year, eight lunar month, twentieth day), and in 1537 as a vassal state which was granted the imperial gift of the shujing and shijing texts by the tang imperial court (chungjong thirty-second year, second lunar month, first day). the tibetan empire’s military intrusions upon tang were used as a precedent in court discussions of hideyoshi invasion in 1592 (sŏnjo twenty-fifth year, tenth lunar month, fourteenth day), tibet being chiefly mentioned as a “threatening” semi-barbaric neighbour of tang (sŏnjo twenty-ninth year, sixth lunar month, twenty-third day). in any case, in the historical imagination of the chosŏn officials tibet had hardly any independent existence of its own. it was essentially seen as a part of tang-related, or sometimes yuan-related, memories. it is suggested, for example, that some of the letters of the korean alphabet invented on a royal decree of king sejong in 1443 might have followed the patterns of the relevant letters of the new mongolian script invented by a tibetan lama, “imperial preceptor,” ’gro mgon chos rgyal ’phags pa, for kublai khan (ledyard 2002, 70-73). the suggestion seems fully plausible since ’phags pa’s alphabet as a source of inspiration for sejong’s scholars was already mentioned in chosŏn dynasty’s linguistic scholarship (lee 2002b, 12). however, the tibetan origins of ’phags pa, or tibetan roots of his new script did not seem to have attracted much attention: ’phags pa’s script was viewed primarily as a part of yuan history. a change in perspective—at least, in some quarters—came in the late eighteenth century. politically and culturally, this period inaugurated important changes both in tibet and in chosôn korea. in tibet, qing imperial troops were stationed in the capital, lhasa, from 1750, with the power of the chinese administrative representative, amban, being drastically strengthened. in a way, tibet was administratively incorporated into the qing power structures, although qing rule there was certainly much looser than in china proper (shakabpa 1967, 140-152). in chosôn korea, the last half of the eighteenth century saw increasing acceptance of the “barbarian” manchu qing dynasty as an economical and cultural superpower that korea was supposed to diligently learn from. the members of the late eighteenth-century korean “tribute” missions to qing were often people of unusual intellectual curiosity, who were deeply interested in acquiring more precise knowledge of what they perceived as peripheries of the world. they pursued this by meeting with the different “barbarians” that one could encounter in the imperial metropolis, both europeans and the representatives of non-han peoples from the margins of the qing empire, tibetans included (jung 2010). that was the context for the accidental meetings between chosŏn literati and tibetans in late-eighteenth century china, which vastly improved the level of awareness about tibet in korea’s intellectual elite. the meetings took place in beijing or in the vicinities of the imperial capital, which basically meant that china continuously appeared as the “central” mediator in the contact of two peripheries. what changed, however, was the perspective. tibet was becoming not simply a part of the historical reminiscences from the tang times, but a historical and cultural reality meriting interest in itself. 4. in twentieth-century korean historiography, sirhak (“real scholarship”) is the generic term referring to all the neo-confucian literati of seventeenthto nineteenth-century chosôn deemed either more iconoclastic or more pragmatic and less dogmatic than contemporaneous mainstream thought. first used in the 1930s, the concept of sirhak reflected the passionate willingness of korea’s nationalist and (at least, partly) leftist historians to search for the indigenous roots of modernity in korea’s pre-modern past, thus rebuffing the theories of the japanese colonialist historiography which tended to regard korea as a quintessential “oriental” society unable to develop any modernity on its own. the term sirhak denotes a modernist evaluation of certain pre-modern thinkers as “relatively progressive” rather than implying any intrinsic connection between different intellectuals labelled together as “sirhak scholars.” the philosophers, writers, and statesmen known as “sirhak proponents” in today’s scholarship never formed any sort of unitary scholarly group or lineage (baker 1981). there was, however, one feature more or less common to the majority of all those now known as “sirhak adepts” across all the fractional differences—namely the encyclopaedic nature of  their scholarship and insatiable curiosity about regions of the world and natural phenomena that were less known to their contemporaries (setton 1992). sirhak was about broadening the current notions of the world, in a time when increased contacts with qing china and the improved ability to absorb newer european scholarship via qing made such an intellectual enterprise possible. thus, it hardly comes as a surprise that most new information on tibet in eighteenth and nineteenth-century korean literature is to be found in the writings of scholars classified today as sirhak adepts. a great sirhak scholar coming from the mighty patriarchs (noron) fraction (cho 2004), pak chiwŏn (1737-1805), developed an interested in tibet and tibetan buddhism from direct experience. in 1780, he was lucky enough to be selected to join the escort of his distant relative, pak myŏngwŏn (1725-1790), who was sent as emissary to beijing to congratulate emperor qianlong on his seventieth birthday. the emperor then ordered the chosŏn emissary to pay respects to the person who he officially called his teacher, namely the sixth panchen lama, lobsang palden yeshe (slob bzang dpal ldan ye shes) (1738-1780), who resided in jehol in a special luxurious monastic residence named after tibet’s famed tashilhunpo (bkra shis lhun po) monastery, panchen lama’s time-honoured seat of power. the chosŏn emissary, an orthodox neo-confucian, was profoundly shocked by the order to bow to a “barbarian monk”, but since the orders were imperial, there was no way to refuse. pak chiwŏn, who followed his highly-placed relative to the tashilhunpo residence, was definitely not impressed with the “barbarian monk” who looked, in his view, “too fat to give a feeling of cleverness and smartness, and devoid of dignity in spite of the hugeness of his body.” however, the display of qing china’s highest dignitaries—presided over by emperor qianlong himself—respectfully bowing to the “monk from a western tributary state” and feeling enormously honoured by a touch of the monk’s head on their heads, was definitely impressive. pak chiwŏn was, first and foremost, perplexed by the degree of importance attached to lobsang palden yeshe by the qing court, and started questioning on this matter the new friends he had made in beijing and jehol, mostly chinese literati. the replies he obtained were an even more perplexing combination of facts about tibet and buddhist legends, peppered with glaring inaccuracies. pak chiwŏn was told, for example, that the sixth panchen lama, lobsang palden yeshe, was “fourth panchen lama.” the contemporaneous dalai lama, the eighth dalai lama, jampel gyatso (byams dpal rgya mtsho, 1758-1804), was erroneously identified as “seventh dalai lama.” the chinese interlocutors of pak also wrongly described panchen lama, supposedly the reincarnation of amitābha, as a reincarnation of ’gro mgon chos rgyal ’phags pa, the famed teacher of kublai khan. in fact, it was the celebrated third dalai lama, sonam gyatso (bsod nams rgya mtsho, 1543-1588), known for his conversion of the mongols, who once proclaimed himself a reincarnation of ’phags pa (and his powerful protector, mongols’ altun khan, to be a reincarnation of kublai khan), so it is not impossible that the two were confused. futhermore, pak was assured that dalai lamas—who are celibate monks—were “hereditary rulers” of tibet, whose wives, however, did not request the chinese honorary titles for tributary rulers’ spouses since they were monks’ wives (pak (1780) 2004, vol. 2, 151-187). given the number of mistakes in the description of tibet offered to the curious chosŏn guest, it was clear that tibet was a peripheral place on the “mental map” of chinese intellectuals who acted as pak’s main information sources in this matter. however, pak managed to grasp several important facts. he was told, for example, that the historical and religious core of tibet is its central-western region (ű-tsang, or dbus gtsang), that contemporaneous tibet was dominated by the “yellow hat” (dge lugs pa) denomination, and that “a great monk of the ming times,” tsong kha pa, was the founder of this denomination. it does not, however, transpire from the record of his travel, yŏrha ilgi (jehol diary), that he learned much about tibetan buddhism, beyond the stories of tibet’s high-ranking monks’ miracle making, or their political involvement with the rulers of china. in fact, one of the key facts he gleaned about ’phags pa was the invention of the new mongol alphabet by a tibetan monk on kublai khan’s orders (pak (1780) 2004, vol. 2, 203-214). it is “china” that emerges as central to the tibet-related narratives of yŏrha ilgi; as the bestower of ranks and gifts upon tibet’s monastic hierarchy; as the “senior country” that tibet submits tributes to; and as the beneficiary of tibetan monks’ supernatural abilities. again, even yŏrha ilgi’s accounts on tibet—some of the most detailed throughout the whole chosŏn period—are formed in the context of china’s cultural, diplomatic, and informational dominance in the region. it was, in fact, still possible that chosŏn intellectuals could only learn about tibet and vice versa through china’s mediation. a china-centred regional network of knowledge provided the basic framework for any such learning about each other. to be sure, pak chiwŏn was hardly in a position to relativise china and establish any of its neighbours on an equal footing, despite the emphasis in the modern south (and north) korean research literature on his supposedly “independent” stance that was “transcendent of the sino-centric worldview.” the non-chinese peoples of the “outer” reaches of the east asian cultural world are both exotisised and marginalized in his account. russia, for example, was understood by him to be a “cluster of barbarian villages” to the north of amur river where the carriages were driven by donkey-sized hounds with more than ten small bells on their neck, and where the “giant barbarians” inhabiting it were always playing flute while going out (pak (1780) 2004, vol. 2, 195). tibetans were essentially placed in the same category of non-confucian, “wild” tributaries of china—“the people who are ever rougher and tougher than mongols, and whose appearance, which resembles strange beasts or bizarre spirits, is really frightening.” tibetans were thought to be less “frightening” than “the muslims, who descend from the ancient uyghurs,” but religious magic, identified as their “essential skill,” was more or less equalled with the “brutal force” synonymous with mongols or uyghurs. the sinocentric “culture-barbarism” dichotomy was still valid for pak, but the difference brought about by eighteenth-century developments lay in pak’ stronger interest towards the “barbarian outskirts” of the world, and the realism with which he analysed them. for example, pak expected that the manchu rulers of china, slowly descending from the peak of their power, would be seriously challenged by mongols, “the heirs of the great yuan dynasty”, in the near future. moreover, he thought that korea, isolated as it was by its peninsular position, should take a keener interest in the “barbarian” neighbours of china since the rule of sinicised manchus was not likely to continue forever, and some new “barbaric force” could come to replace them (pak (1780) 2004, vol. 2, 196-199). if anything, pak was a great realist and the relations between tibet and china were also understood in yŏrha ilgi to be strictly pragmatic. they were essentially seen as china’s attempt to “divide and rule” the diverse “tributary monastic rulers” of tibet by showering them with honours and gifts, and as tibet’s attempt to use the formalities of the tributary system in order to maximise the advantages from its interchange with china. in other words, the answer to the question as to why lobsang palden yeshe was being lionised by qianlong’s court was realistic and simple: because tibetans, “rude barbarians” as they were, represent a potentially threatening force to reckon with. gone was the world seen through the prism of the confucian ideology of “civilising the barbarians.” pak saw “barbarians’” own agency as decisive in their interactions with china. and, while emphasising the role of confucianism as chosŏn korea’s “only valid teaching,” pak was prepared to accept that the truth, to a degree, may be plural, and that even buddhism, exemplified by its tibetan form, might contain some grains of “final truth,” constituting a “teaching” in its own right (pak (1780) 2004, vol. 2, 185-186). pak’s world still had a clearly distinguished “civilised”, confucian centre and “barbarian” periphery; but the periphery, both in the geographical and cultural senses of the word, was decisively heightening its profile. 5. apart from pak chiwŏn, another sirhak scholar to leave a lengthy description of tibet was yi kyugyŏng (1788-1856). he was an encyclopaedic scholar, whose magnum opus, oju yŏnmun changchŏn sango (the dispersed manuscripts, lengthy writings and extended commentaries by oju [yi kyugyŏng]), finished in the end of the 1830s, included practically everything that the erudite men of east asia might interest themselves in the early-nineteenth century; from firearms and potato planting to arguments on buddhist transmigration theory and the christian doctrines. it is not, however, that the christian doctrines attracted the indefatigable encyclopaedic scholar as much as, for example, western astronomy or geography, which he had a genuine interest in (kim 2009). as long as the realm of “teaching” was concerned, yi professed his exclusive adherence to the confucian orthodoxy, and attempted to explain the proliferation of all the diverse heterodoxies, from ancient taoism to catholicism, by the gradual decline of the “true,” confucian learning. unlike the orthodox neo-confucians, however, he was genuinely interested in the “diverse heterodoxies,” and felt challenged, for example, by the fact that so many learned chinese and koreans were “seduced” by the “heavenly lord’s heresy” (catholicism). since the late ming dynasty chinese catholic intellectuals often referred to catholicism as “a teaching close to the confucian way.” yi, who regarded korean catholics as “harmful heretics,” surmised that the sort of catholicism which entered korea might have been a mixture of the original western teaching with “destructive heresies” of china, like folk taoism or white lotus sect (yi 1980, vol. 18, 303-319). then how did the learned gentlemen of korea end up being attracted by such an unhealthy mixture? yi’s best guess was that it was exactly the superficial closeness of sinified catholicism to the “confucian way” that facilitated the “seduction” of some of the best younger scholars of his time by the “western heresy” (yi 1980, vol. 18, 316-318). yi’s classification of the “teachings” was a vertical, hierarchical system, with “orthodox” views at the top, with diverse “heterodoxies” below. the latter were incomparable with the “sage learning” but still contained some elements which either superficially resembled the truth or even contained some elements of it. the buddhist idea of transmigrations, for example, resembled to a certain degree the fully orthodox views on the cyclical circulation of the material force (qi) in the universe; and talk of humans reborn as beasts was not in reality that outlandish since, as mencius said, lazy people who interest themselves only in getting food and clothing, are close to beasts (yi 1980, vol. 18, 220-227). buddhist talks of “hells” and posthumous retribution were understood as an attempt to induce the “foolish” commoners to mend their sinful ways by appealing to their superstitious consciousness. the talks of hell were not fully nonsensical, since the realm of death corresponded to the yin element in the neo-confucian cosmology and the reward for good deeds, together with retribution for the bad ones, was also a law in the confucian moral cosmos. the “heterodox” stories of hell did not seem, however, to succeed in reducing the numbers of sinners (yi 1980, vol. 18, 236-239). in the cases in which stories of “heterodoxies” were intertwined with the genealogy of the “orthodoxy”, yi was especially careful. he took great pains, for example, to diligently check whether a great silla confucian, sŏl ch’ong (seventh and eighth centuries), the son of the famed buddhist exegete wŏnhyo (617-686), was really a brother to korean avataṃsaka school founder, ŭisang (625-702), as some geomantic books claimed (yi 1980, vol. 20, 179-184). such an attentive, soul-searching attitude towards the challenges of the “heterodoxies” was what made the difference between yi’s sirhak scholarship and standard neo-confucian fare of the times. first and foremost, tibet interested yi as an example of what buddhist “heterodoxy” might develop into; at the same time, it was seen as a “tributary” of china from the times of tang, its history becoming from that point a part of the history of the china-centred world. apart from yŏrha ilgi—which yi cites extensively—his work draws on several qing geographical and historical treatises. his main sources include daqing yitongzhi (gazetteer of the great qing, 1743), chen ding’s (b. 1650) dianqian jiyou (records of travels by dianqian, 1702), and even the collection of works by qianlong emperor (r. 1735-1799), who was congratulated by the same embassy that pak chiwŏn had joined a couple of decades earlier. yi’s sources contained a plethora of information that pak chiwŏn did not manage to access. for example, yi describes in details the differences between the yellow hat (dge lugs) and red hat (kar ma bka’ brgyud) schools of tibetan buddhism, and cites a long chinese account of tibet’s early-eighteenth century history that was troubled by the dzungars’ invasion of 1717, china’s intervention in 1718-1723, and the subsequent anti-chinese insurrections in tibet. regardless of how detailed it may be, yi’s description is also both exoticising and eroticising. tibet, as seen through the eyes of china’s official and unofficial authors, looked like a country of mysterious esoteric rituals, often incorporating sex and sexual symbols. some of the descriptions of such rituals resemble the accounts of “indescribable rites of the aborigines” by european travellers in africa (in nineteenth-century africa travelogues by the european writers. see, for example, stevenson 1982), including a particularly terrifying account of a esoteric ceremony in which a pregnant woman was bound, sliced into small pieces, and cannibalised; her cries of pain being called “buddha’s cries of joy.” the account, which depicted the tibetan monks drinking the fresh blood of their dying victim and then scalping her to make a gilded alms bowl, adequately demonstrated what both yi’s chinese sources and yi himself might have thought about the “buddhist heterodoxy” in its tibetan variety (yi 1980, vol. 18, 246-265). buddhist tibet was seen as a land of “evil heresy” (sasul)—frightening, but also fascinatingly exotic. 6. the perceptions of foreign lands and peoples deemed peripheral are often characterised by lack of direct contacts and first-hand knowledge. since the peripheries are assumed to be less important, older knowledge about them may easily be neglected by next generations of intellectuals. it means that the perceptions of such peripheries in a traditional society, with its general scarcity of information on the outside world, would be characterised more by ruptures than continuity; the new generations having to develop anew knowledge of some particular faraway and unimportant parts of the world. these general reflections also seem to be applicable to the traditional korean contacts with tibet. in eighteenth-century learned milieus of chosŏn, knowledge of the kim musang’s tibetan connections was absent, and tibetan influences upon koryŏ buddhist art attracted little attention. knowledge of tibet was largely reduced to what little could be gleaned from the available chinese sources and, while containing some interesting in-depth accounts (for example, tsong kha pa was rightly understood to be the dge lugs sect’s founder), was mostly fragmentary and unsystematic. however, the knowledge of tibet was certainly improving with time. yi ik (1681-1763), a great teacher of eighteenth-century sirhak scholars of the southern (namin) faction, was ignorant of tibet to the point of identifying it as a “xiongnu tribe” (sŏngho sasŏl, fasc. 11, “pukchŏk”), while the younger generation, represented by pak chiwŏn and yi kyugyŏng, managed to build up much more adequate accounts of tibet’s ethno-geography and history. it was, of course, mostly the history of tibet’s contacts with china that they managed to obtain access to, or the history of tibetan buddhism as seen through the exotising lens of chinese confucianism. it was essentially a story of china’s “western barbarian tributaries.” the fact that tibet, an obviously non-sinitic part of china-centred, east asian historical time and space, firmly entered the consciousness of at least some prominent intellectuals of eighteenth and early nineteenth-century chosŏn korea, certainly points to an important epistemological shift that the korean intelligentsia was undergoing at that point. heterogeneous peripheries of the sinitic oikoumene, such as tibet, began to matter more than they used to. still, they mattered only in the context of china-dominated spatial-temporal continuity and only to the extent that they were coverable by chinese sources. by way of a conclusion, it may be said that by the late eighteenth century the “western barbarians” of tibet with their exotic “heterodox” rituals, and strangely prominent role to play in the complicated construction of qing’s world empire, attracted much deeper and broader interest from korea’s sirhak encyclopedic scholars than they had done before. “barbarians” as they were, they were understood to be strong enough to press china into honouring them, in a world which no longer was automatically rotated around its presumed centre in beijing. and their religion, “heterodox” as it was, was also simultaneously seen as containing some grains of truth. while it catered mostly to “barbarians” or “superstitious commoners” and largely consisted of magic tricks, sometimes vile, sometimes titillatingly exotic, or “wild stories” of hells and paradises, it still had a positive mission to play, too. the world became too complicated to be explained by the literal application of the neo-confucian dogma alone, too multilayered, and too unpredictable. if the “barbarian manchus” were able to sinify themselves and build a new chinese empire on ming’s ruins, why then should not one expect some new “barbarian” tribe to repeat this feat at a later point? and should not one pay more attention to the “barbarian” peripheries in a situation wherein they might lay claim to a more central role later? the rise of unified japan and qing china traumatised chosŏn korea, as it was accompanied by hideyoshi invasion (1592-1598) and two manchu incursions (1627 and 1636-37). but, in the end, it also played a role in relativising “centre-periphery” paradigms, making the koreans acutely feel the necessity to learn more about the real diversity of the populations of the east asian oikumene. references: baker, donald. 1981. “the use and abuse of the sirhak label: a new look at sin hu-dam and his sohak pyon,” kyohoesa yongu 3: 183-254. beckwith, christopher. 1987. the tibetan empire in central asia (princeton: princeton university press). bogomolets, wladimir. 2005. “anna of kiev: an enigmatic capetian queen of the eleventh century,” french history 19, no. 3: 299-323. chin hongsŏp. 1985. “koryŏ hugi kŭmdong pulsang e nat’ananŭn lama pulsang yangsik” (the lamaist style visible in the buddha images of the late koryŏ period). kogo misul 66-67: 1-25. cho sŏngŭl. 2004. “chosŏn hugi sŏngnihak haech’e ŭi che yangsang” (some aspects of the deconstruction of neo-confucianism in the late chosŏn dynasty), kukhak yŏn’gu 5: 51-85. chosŏn wangjo sillok (veritable records of chosŏn): http://sillok.history.go.kr/  cross, samuel. 1929. “yaroslav the wise in norse tradition,” speculum 4: 177-97 hô ilbôm. 2000. han’guk pulgyo sok ûi t’ibet’û pulgyo (tibetan buddhism inside korean buddhism), pulgyo p’yôngnon 5:  http://www.budreview.com/news/articleview.html?idxno=456. accessed 12.12.2011. inaba, shōju. 1977 “on chosgrub's translation of the “chieh-shên-mi-ching-shu”.” in buddhist thought and asian civilization: essays in honor of herbert v guenther on his sixties birthday (emeryville, calif.: dharma publishing), pp. 105-113. ingham, norman. 1998. “has a missing daughter of iaroslav mudryi been found?” russian history 25: 231-70. jung jae-hoon. 2010. “meeting the world through eighteenth-century yŏnhaeng,” seoul journal of korean studies, 23, no. 1: 51-69. kapstein, matthew. 2002. the tibetan assimilation of buddhism: conversion, contestation and memory (oxford: oxford university press). kim ch’aesik. 2009. yi kyugyŏng ŭi oju yŏnmun changchŏn sango yŏn’gu (research on oju’s dispersed manuscripts, lengthy writings and extended commentaries byyi kyugyŏng). phd dissertation, sungkyunkwan university. ko yŏngsŏp. 1997. muna wŏnch’ŭk kwa kŭ kyohak yŏn’gu (study on muna wŏnch’ŭk and his doctrinal research). phd dissertation, dongguk university. koryŏsa (history of koryŏ): http://147.46.181.118/image/snug0669.pdf. accessed 12.12.2011. ledyard, gari. 2002. “the international linguistic background of the correct sounds for the instruction of the people,” in kim-renaud, young-kei (ed.), the korean alphabet: its history and structure (honolulu: university of hawaii press), pp. 31-89. lee hyoung-woo. 2002a. “political power groups of koryŏ dynasty after the period of yűan china’s intervention,” international journal of korean history 3: 27-50. lee, ki-moon. 2002b. “the inventor of the korean alphabet” in kim-renaud, young-kei (ed.), the korean alphabet: its history and structure (honolulu: university of hawaii press), pp. 11-33. min, hyon-ku. 2000. “koryŏ politics under the mongol control: dynastic continuity during the period of royal absence,” international journal of korean history 1: 17-28. pak chiwŏn. (1780) 2004. yŏrha ilgi (jehol diary). transl. into modern korean by yi sangho. seoul: pori. vols. 1-3. pyŏn insŏk. 2009. chŏngjung musang taesa (great preceptor chŏngjung musang) (p’aju: han’guk haksul chŏngbo). seth, michael. 2006. a concise history of korea: from the neolithic period through the nineteenth century. (rowman & littlefield). setton, mark. 1992. “factional politics and philosophical development in the late chosŏn,” journal of korean studies 8: 37-79. shakabpa, tsepon w. d. 1967. tibet: a political history (new haven and london: yale university press). sŏ yŏnggyo. 2002. “nadang chŏnjaeng kwa t’obŏn” (silla-tang war and tibet), tongyang sahak yŏn’gu 79: 1-30. sørensen, henrik. 1993. “lamaism in korea during the late koryŏ dynasty,” korea journal, 33: 67-81. stein, rolf. 1961. une chronique ancienne de bsam-yas: sba-bzed, edition du texte tibetaine et résumé francaise (paris: bibiotheque de l'lnstitut des hautes etudes chinoises, textes et documents). stevenson, catherine barnes.1982. victorian women travel writers in africa(boston: twayne publishers). yi kyugyŏng. 1980. oju yŏnmun changchŏn sango (the dispersed manuscripts, lengthy writings and extended commentaries by oju [yi kyugyŏng]) (seoul: minjok munhwa ch’ujinhoe), vols. 1-20. a mathematic expression of art | gasparini | transcultural studies a mathematic expression of art: sino-iranian and uighur textile interactions and the turfan textile collection in berlin. mariachiara gasparini, ruprecht-karls universität heidelberg introduction the two main roads around the tarim basin in xinjiang province, china, are commonly referred to as the northern and southern silk road. along them once thrived important cities and sacred places, where different artistic influences from various central asian cultures had gathered. the northern road, along which the city of turfan is located, transversed one of the main cross-cultural regions between east and west, which can be defined as sogdian-turfanese. it reaches from the city of samarkand in present uzbekistan to the area of dunhuang in gansu province, china (figure 1).[1] indian, iranian, chinese, turkic and mongolian tibetan populations, along with diasporas from small and big heterogeneous ethnic groups, which over the centuries had moved in many directions along the silk road network, were among those who created a style that, due to its multi-ethnical features, should be recognized as "central asian". nevertheless, this term has still not found its rightful place in the history of art. instead, the style has been labeled as "chinese", or sometimes "iranian", or "indian" depending on the scholarly discipline of the studies. however, in the sogdian-turfanese context, where languages and religions belonging to western, eastern, northern, and southern regions coalesced, the collaboration of local artisans who emerged from this cultural melting pot made a distinctly central asian style recognizable and different from those of the metropolitan and central areas of the great chinese, iranian or indian empires. the cultural osmosis that took place in the tarim basin created a common frame of references with common signs and graphemes, which are visible on various surfaces, among them textiles. textiles were not only a highly movable commodity and a medium that could easily travel across the boundaries of the above-mentioned empires; they were also adaptable to various indigenous eurasian contexts. fig. 1: northern and southern silk road © idp at the british library, http://idp.bl.uk/ [accessed on 18. june 2014]. since the end of the nineteenth century, central asia and the western regions of china attracted the attention of many european, russian, american, and japanese scholars, resulting, amongst other ventures, in various archaeological expeditions along the northern and southern silk roads. the number and collections of pieces of art discovered in the region since then have enriched our knowledge of human interactions and practices in the eurasian continent. nevertheless, their categorization has remained problematic. there are immense collections of wall paintings, wooden elements, decorated and non-decorated manuscripts in known and unknown languages, and painted and woven textiles. but while many of these collections were studied thoroughly, textiles, due to the technicality of their making, have never been acknowledged as a form of "fine art" but rather relegated to the field of material culture. their role was—and still is—commonly explained as combining aesthetic, artistic, and engineering processes. a typical example can be found in berlin. between 1902 and 1914, albert grünwedel, director of the indian department of the museum of ethnology of berlin, and albert von le coq, his assistant at the museum, led four royal prussian turfan expeditions to the area that was then known as "chinese turkestan". although the wall paintings, the majority of manuscripts, and banners that they collected on these journeys have been thoroughly analyzed and published, the collection of textiles that they brought back always occupied a secondary place in these studies. a few pieces were shown by von le coq after his return and later scholars compared some examples with other media, but the collection as a whole has never been published or analyzed.[2] among the scholars interested in the royal prussian turfan expeditions only a few have specifically analyzed and published about depicted costumes or textiles that were collected in xinjiang. in 1998, ulf jäger, in his investigative study on the "tocharian mummies" that were discovered in the taklamakan desert, compared the costumes of the "tocharian mummies" with the apparel of knights depicted on wall carvings of the kizil caves, which are in the museum of asian art in berlin. however, jäger did not mention the turfan textile collection.[3] later, in 2003, chhaya bhattacharya-haesner published a study about the painted banners from the same expeditions and included in her work some of the woven fragments that she identified as embroidered banners.[4] in 2004, another couple of fragments were analyzed and published in a collection of essays regarding the first century of research into the art of the silk road.[5] most recently, the international dunhuang project (idp) at the british library sponsored the digitization and the cataloging of the turfan textile collection from august to october 2012.[6] after a first visual comparison with the better-known dunhuang textile collections in the british museum and the victoria & albert museum in london, and the guimet museum in paris, i carried out a technical analysis of the structures, fibers, and colors which traced very specific combinations of technique and material. these combinations i define broadly as "sino-iranian" or "sino-turkic" rather than "irano-chinese" or "turkic-chinese." "sino-iranian", for example, refers to the combination of elements created by groups of chinese and iranian language speakers in the western regions of china using chinese silk, while "sino-turkic" refers to the combination with nomadic (mainly turkic) elements from the northern steppe.[7] the above combinations were fundamental in the development of central asian art, which brought forth a number of unique elements as a result of the processes of transculturation described below. the re-use of ancient totemic and graphic asian elements in central asian textile production created new compositions and iconographies that followed different proportions and standards. this process included the assimilation but also the rejection and the translation of original symbolic meanings. the employment of some specific patterns on central asian textile surfaces has been often misunderstood or simply labeled as "chinese", "sasanian", or "nomadic", without a clear differentiation or clarification between geographic areas and cultures. based on the data collected to date and also thanks to the comparison with earlier items recently discovered in the ancient steppes of eurasia—today belonging to the category of the so-called "animal-style"—it appears evident that central asian textile iconography was originally developed in pastoral-shamanic contexts and only later included in buddhist, zoroastrian, manichean, and islamic sacred spaces.[8] the relationship between nomadic and settled life, which had great impact on central asian artistic productions, changed from a latitudinal exchange between northern and southern trade-routes to longitudinal interactions that enriched the creation of that multicultural and transcultural network between eastern and western areas. in his recent work, jonathan karam skaff has clarified the relationships between settlers and nomadic groups of people between central china, northern steppes, and western regions. according to him the middle kingdom was envisioned as a "cultural island" surrounded by geographical barriers, but these physical obstructions were far more permeable than the rhetoric would suggest. for example, this conception of the gobi as a barrier ignores that china-inner asia borderlands—rich in grasslands inhabited by turko-mongols—lay south of the desert in close proximity to the sui-tang capital (581-618/618-907).[9] part of this cultural intertwining has been traced in my analysis of the turfan textile collection in berlin and by comparing it with some of the mural paintings gathered during the four above-mentioned expeditions or left in situ. rather than searching for the original meaning or the peculiar religious features of a woven pattern or grapheme, this essay focuses on the common cultural mathematic expression of counting warps and wefts in woven surfaces as it was developed by various ethnic groups in the sogdian-turfanese context. although, in the last decade, the art of weaving has gathered more attention and more research has been published, semiotic and aesthetic aspects have been often disregarded. textiles are generally cataloged along with technical information or mentioned within historical contexts that tend to trace the use of this medium as a religious or kingship tool of power; nevertheless, little attention is paid to color palette, material, and terminology.[10] except in some rare specialist works on textile history, where the study of chinese (or other asian language) sources is evident, the lack of technical textile terminology and the wrong transliteration and translation of asian terms in western languages have created much confusion and misunderstanding in the field of art history. [11] the word "silk" is often employed as a substitute for the majority of textiles, regardless of the weaving structure. in isolated instances, the terms "brocade" and, even more rarely, "damask" are used to identify (even if inappropriately) patterned polychrome compounds.[12] without neglecting the historical context and by paying special attention to terminology, the present study looks at the medium of textile as a mathematical expression of art that, due to the engineering process necessary for its creation, became a visual language of signs that were universally comprehended and adaptable to different territorial areas. processes of de-territorialization and recycling that occurred over centuries have been approached here as constitutive of art forms that emerged following the cultural central asian osmosis in the sogdian turfanese area. it is not among the tasks of this paper to explain the reproduction of a specific pattern on textile or of an entire composition on the murals and the architecture of the scattered caves along the silk roads, but it is important to point out that the comparison of those different twoand three-dimensional surfaces has suggested and sometimes confirmed the use and re-use of compositions and materials over a period of about six centuries (seventh to thirteenth century), beyond the boundaries of the various local cultures. the fragments were first compared with pieces from the mogao caves in dunhuang; only a second analysis has brought the fragments closer to pieces not necessarily "chinese," which were excavated in xinjiang and qinghai and are now held in museums and other institutions across the globe. if sūtra wrappers, plain weaves with dyed patterns, and some other fragments appear to be identical to those from dunhuang dated to the tang period and to the period of the five dynasties and ten kingdoms (907-979), the rest of the fragments—mainly discovered in qocho—seem to belong to a combination of motifs and patterns developed over a longer period in various areas of central asia, specifically eastern iran. particularly interesting are those identified as uighur that suggest a syncretic style of chinese and sogdian elements, a few of which will be discussed in this essay. in the first half of the ninth century, the uighurs—a turkic people—moved into the tarim basin from mongolia. when in 856 they established their kingdom established in the region, the city name of the han (206 bce-220 ce) colony, gaochang, was changed to qocho. at that time, the region had already been influenced by sogdian art and various motifs or patterns were reproduced on a variety of textiles. known as the merchants of the silk road, the sogdians were a group of iranian peoples who flourished in central asia between the fifth and the eighth centuries. they first appeared in chinese sources around 100 bce. in this context, the analysis of some of the mentioned fragments reconfirms not only the idea of a possible adaptation of sogdian motifs under uighur artistic patronage in the region between the tenth and eleventh centuries, as already suggested by russell-smith, but also the great influence that this had on the textile production of the later mongol period, both in china and central asia.[13] textile as a mathematic expression of art and economy the study of textiles calls for an interdisciplinary approach that includes art history, anthropology, archaeology, history, and other fields. at the same time, in the study of textiles as a form of art, the fundamental role of tools and machines cannot be ignored. from raw fibers to the spinning of threads to the creation of a woven surface made of wefts and warps, textiles require technology. we will never know how the process began, but we can imagine how much materials and machines influenced the aesthetics of textiles. it is evident that, ever since basic textile structures were created, weaving has demanded mathematical thinking. whatever may have led humans to the creation of textile surfaces—perhaps a casual weaving of plant fibers—there is no doubt that the process, once discovered, formed and transformed economies, societies, and cultures. a simple or complex weaving structure is based on one of the three basic binding systems: tabby (or "plain"), twill, and satin. of these binding systems, tabby is the easiest and probably the first ground that was developed (figure 2). the ratio is 1/1; each end passes over and under one pick, like in straw or bamboo baskets.[14] twill and satin followed the first type and created slightly more complex ground effects. a twill ground is made of ends over two or more picks to create diagonal lines, and satin is made by five or more ends and an equal number of picks to give a smooth appearance. based on these three binding systems, many variations of textiles have been created. these ratios between warps and wefts and the employment of extra bindings were utilized in most ancient, central asian textiles—mainly warpor weft-faced compounds—and later, luxurious eurasian textiles, such as lampas or brocaded damask. the knowledge of the ratio of threads was necessary to transform straight lines into complex patterns or sophisticated compositions. the deconstruction of a symmetric pattern in the creation of asymmetries and the introduction of new motifs were not only due to new trends but also to the cooperation of different artisans. mathematical variations created new textile grounds. thus, if a plain fabric was originally created for the necessity to cover the human body, the woven textile was an early phenomenon of common fashion across eurasia that required similar or identical knowledge and expertise in the counting and binding of threads. fig. 2: three basic binding systems (from the left: tabby, twill, and satin). reconstruction by the author. regarding the turfan collection, the fragility and the discoloration of the fragments as well as the museum's original confusing catalogue numeration have probably discouraged a previous systematic re-cataloguing and technical analysis.[15] in spite of the short time available for the digitization of the fragments, much interesting data have been collected and exquisite patterns have been disclosed. with the use of a digital microscope, they could be identified and their compositions reconstructed. this allowed for comparisons with textiles depicted on murals or on other weavings. there are some three hundred and fifty pieces in the collection (among which are banners, canopies, bags, cloth fragments, silk and paper flowers, and sutra wrappers), most of which are made of silk and cotton in different structures, sometimes combined with paper, leather, or bamboo. among these, there are three major structures: warpand the weft-faced compounds, which, because of the long-standing production in the area, can be defined as typical central asian textiles, and a type of self-patterned compound which was popular in the chinese territories. similarly to the warp-faced compound, which first appeared in the western zhou period (1046–771 bc), and which required a second group of warp threads to create the desired pattern, the weft-faced compound, which was developed during the northern and southern dynasties (420-589), required a second group of weft for patterning.[16] the third type was a self-patterned textile especially produced in china with a ground in tabby and/or twill (as well as variations) that is also similar to some of the fragments in the turfan collection. during the han period, the term qi 綺 referred to a self-patterned compound on a tabby ground. however, in the tang period, it was mainly known as ling 綾 (also referring to damask on twill). a self-patterned compound made in satin ground has been very well known in europe under the name of damask since the twelfth century; it was most likely produced in china during the yuan period (1271-1368) and known there as duan 緞.[17] for this reason, the pieces analyzed here are referred to as "self-patterned compound" rather than "damask". aside from patterns and compositions woven within the grounds, embroidering (in different stitches) and tie-dyeing or clamp-resist dyeing were also among the techniques used for patterning central asian textiles; they were often made in plain structures or in gauze and kesi 刻絲 tapestry. the common mathematical thinking among people of different origins, which lies at the heart of textile creation, resulted in similar or even identical engineering and technical processes that made textile a major medium of cultural interactions. this phenomenon of mathematical processing and cultural interaction is particularly evident on sino-iranian weaving surfaces produced in the sogdian-turfanese context. the arts and techniques of textile production were indeed de-contextualized from specific locations to be transmitted and mixed in different regions and with various cultures. in turn, the variations of looms and textile surfaces created the foundations of economic and trading systems that included cultivation and farming of mulberry trees and cocoons for the production of silk, or sources of other fibers like cotton, hemp, and ramie, the trading of bamboo or wood for building looms and tools, and the import and export of raw materials and finished products.[18] used as currency, textile was one of the main goods in the inventories discovered in burial sites and sacred temples in the western regions of china.[19] some patterns that became popular in the east as well as in the west, and which are especially prominent on sogdian-turfanese fragments, prove the interchangeable use of textile as money along the silk road. the long-standing production of some of them was probably not only due to casual aesthetic reasons but also served as a "visual resemblance" of patterns already minted on coins. one of the best examples is the so-called "sasanian" beads roundel featuring a single or mirrored pattern (often an animal), which is possibly related to the western coins with beads that generally included a king or a god (different from the chinese wushu 五銖type with a squared hole in the middle) (figure 3).[20] this interchange of patterns on different media needs to be linked to two phenomena: first, the political expansion of different groups or peoples followed by the establishment of new political entities in central asian territories, and second, the creation of monastic complexes. if some patterns became signs of kingship in different areas or along the boundaries of the vast silk road network, the use and re-use of textile occurred also because of the spread of religions. textiles added to the salary of soldiers were often exchanged for other goods in local markets or cut in pieces and used for the making of religious and devotional items.[21] the creation of banners, canopies, and other textile objects made of different assembled pieces of fabric in various structures and colors was a common practice, visible on the fragments discovered both in xinjiang and gansu. fig. 3: sassanian coin, bead roundel including animal on textile and wushu coin for comparison. reconstruction by the author. mutual influence and identification of a group of fragments the turfan collection can be mainly divided into personal items (robes, shoes, purses, etc.) and religious offerings (banners, canopies, and pennants). as mentioned above, the process of textile recycling occurred over the centuries and is visible on some fragments; pieces produced in the seventh or eighth century, possibly by chinese artisans, were re-used and adapted to motifs and patterns sometimes embroidered two centuries later by people of a different culture or religion. in this regard, it was necessary to extensively study iranian and turkic culture to identify and clarify sino-iranian and nomadic developments, as well as interactions in the sogdian-turfanese area. comparing different media has become the main approach used for the analysis of these textile fragments; similar practices between different ethnic groups sometimes created the same forms of art. thus, an interdisciplinary analysis of media, styles, and cultures together with the analysis of the hues and the reconstruction of the color palettes have led toward a nonconventional way of studying asian art and an understanding and clarification of the role of textile as a medium of human expression and communication. in what follows, i will present some of the most important pieces identified to date, which introduce some of the transcultural interactions that occurred in central asia through the art of weaving and embroidering. in particular, they reflect sino-sogdian and sino-uighur developments and consist of two early variations of the sino-iranian and sino-turkic styles. this categorization aims to clarify the predominance of some style combinations which, as already explained, cannot be easily categorized as being strictly "chinese" or "sasanian." the turfan collection includes various patterns and styles that are not closely related to chinese culture; they contain elements that belong to other traditions. a good example of this mixture that reconfirms the stylistic interchange between different indigenous cultures is a unique miniature dress made of red gauze and samite. while it resembles dresses of the tang figurines discovered in the graveyard of astana (dated to the tang period), the wide sleeves betray an earlier, non-chinese style of clothing (figure 4).[22] they can be found, for example, on one of the groups of "tocharian knights" depicted on a wall-painting from kizil, which is dated between the fifth and sixth centuries. these knights wear robes with wing-like sleeves identical to those of the small dress (figure 5). miniature clothes were especially made as funerary accoutrements to cover figurines or to be placed on the dead, such as the pieces discovered in yinpan (along the southern silk road).[23] the small red samite dress in the turfan collection very much resembles the one found on the breast of one of the mummified caucasian bodies discovered in the taklamakan desert in the tarim basin that was covered with ancient, western-style double robes dated to the third to fourth century ce. we do not know where these textiles were produced but the compositions of roman-hellenistic putti and parthian-style rhombi nets with geometric motifs (identical to those used as junctions between later "sasanian roundels" textiles) betray a strong western iconography that had a long-standing influence on the production of central asian textiles.[24] according to the museum's inventory cards, the small red dress was discovered in a hole in a kizil cave. the turfan textile collection has not been radiocarbon dated yet, but since the finds in the kizil caves date back to between the third and eighth centuries and the dress resembles a tocharian costume while also resembling the type of dress on the so-called yinpan man, we can assume that it was made between the fourth and sixth centuries, thus certainly predating the astana earlier than the astana figurines. since figurines or small statues began to appear only later as a new tang fashion, the miniature dress in "tocharian style" was probably made as a purse to contain offerings to be placed in the caves.[25] fig. 4: miniature dress. 7th–9th century. silk gauze and samite. 15 × 11 cm. from the caves of kizil, xinjiang, china. turfan collection, berlin (iii 7277). © staatliche museen zu berlin, museum für asiatische kunst. photograph by mariachiara gasparini. fig. 5: tocharian knights. 5th–6th century. wall painting. from the caves of kizil, xinjiang, china. turfan collection, berlin (iii 9020a). © staatliche museen zu berlin, museum für asiatische kunst. photograph by mariachiara gasparini. the interaction of different cultures and styles in this area is also evident in the interplay between other media, especially between textiles and architecture, wall paintings, and both earlier and coeval sculptures. according to sarah fraser, many ceilings in dunhuang resemble textile canopies but also the shape of wooden ceilings "from architectural buddhist cave temples in pakistan and afghanistan".[26] no similar circular shape appears in the dunhuang collections held in the previously mentioned european museums. in terms of shape, the roundel canopies in the turfan collection instead resemble the domes of some caves in bezeklik, kizil, or kumtura, which probably inspired the later central asian islamic architecture, and differ from the pyramidal, square type preferred in gansu. among the canopies featured in the collection and analyzed for this study, two examples have a roundel-shaped form.[27] the first is a green and blue multi-stripe samite with a diameter of only fourteen centimeters, discovered in qocho, and the second, from toyok, with a diameter of about twenty eight-centimeters, in warp-faced compound with a ground of multiple, small pearl roundels, including a rosette (figure 6).[28] fig. 6: canopy. 7th–9th century. multi-stripe silk samite and paper. from qocho ruins α, xinjiang, china. turfan collection, berlin (iii 4917). © staatliche museen zu berlin, museum für asiatische kunst. photograph by mariachiara gasparini. the multi-stripe textile type was used in many different ways. for example, the first canopy mentioned above echoes the skirt of one of the figurines from astana (figure 7) but also one of the three triangular pennants in the turfan collection from the sāngim ravine. the stripes of the pennant include small floral and abstract patterns (figure 8). as such, the composition is much more complex and resembles a rug from gandhara, dated to the second or third century ce and held in the walter museum in baltimore, on which sits a meditating bodhisattva (a schist sculpture).[29] fig. 7: female figurine. clay and silk. 8th century. from astana cemetery, xinjiang, china. xinjiang museum, urumqi, china. reconstruction by the author. fig. 8: pennant. 8th–9th century. multi-stripe silk twill. from sāngim ravine, xinjiang, china. turfan collection, berlin (iii 7315). © staatliche museen zu berlin, museum für asiatische kunst. photograph by mariachiara gasparini. the collection contains an additional two pennants, one from tumshuq, found during the fourth expedition in 1914, which represents textile evidence of a very popular decorative motif on architecture (figure 9) and a second type with embroidered flowers from the kumtura cave 13 (figure 10). the former is a composition of tabby, twill, damask, and some parchment elements, and is identical in shape and size (twenty-eight by twenty-two centimeters) to those depicted around the death-bed of the buddha in parinirvana on the mural from the kizil cave 171 (figure 11). similar ornaments also appear on the external border of the kizil domes, such as the copy displayed in the museum in berlin, which is combined with some of the original wall paintings, and on two wooden elements (a board and a stupa), all held in the museum, as well (figures 12 and 13). fig. 9: pennant. 7th–8th century. silk twill and parchment. from tumshuq (temple of three buddhas, west cliff), xinjiang, china. turfan collection, berlin (iii8066). © staatliche museen zu berlin, museum für asiatische kunst. photograph by mariachiara gasparini. fig. 10: pennant. 8th–10th century. silk gauze and cotton with flowers embroidered in silk. from kumtura cave 13, xinjiang, china. turfan collection, berlin (iii 165). © staatliche museen zu berlin, museum für asiatische kunst. photograph by mariachiara gasparini. fig. 11: buddha in parinirvana. 6th–7th century. wall painting. from the caves of kizil, xinjiang, china. turfan collection, berlin (iii 8891). © staatliche museen zu berlin, museum für asiatische kunst. photograph by mariachiara gasparini. fig. 12 & 13: architectural elements with pennants collected during the four turfan expeditions . wood. undated. turfan collection, berlin. © staatliche museen zu berlin, museum für asiatische kunst. photograph by mariachiara gasparini. among the many fragments gathered during the four expeditions, the embroideries dating back to between the ninth and eleventh centuries that show a combination of recycled material and adapted patterns represent the masterpieces of the collection. they belong to a period when the presence of manichaeism became stronger until the uighur rulers adopted it as their official religion.[30] almost all embroideries are identified and can be divided into three types. the first contains particularly interesting, very fine chain stitches with alternating golden threads. the chosen colors were mainly crimson and ultramarine. a second type of embroidery is similar to those discovered in dunhuang with typical chinese features. these embroideries are made in satin or feature split stitches on fine, plain silk.[31] the third type includes blue and red silk geometric patterns, such as rhombi, on plain, thick cotton or hemp weavings, which resemble some patterns of the robes worn by the sogdians in one of the praṇidhi (past-vows)scenes from bezeklik, which were gathered during the expeditions and lost in berlin during the second world war.[32] the only survivor, which is currently held in the state hermitage museum in st. petersburg, russia, has similar motifs but not identical to those in question. a comparison with ornaments on wall paintings and wooden beams held in the museum in berlin strongly suggests that these embroideries date back to between the eighth and twelfth centuries. the first group features a warp-faced compound with a figure that has been identified as the bodhisattva maitreya, the universal buddha of the future. it is one of the best preserved pieces and has been published on its own. however, several fragments with identical textile structures, embroideries, and colors, which are catalogued separately, suggest that they belonged to a possible original composition.[33] maitreya is sitting in a cross-legged position, reminiscent of a previous indo-iranian style as can be seen on the gandhāra sculpture of the kuṣān period (first to fifth century ce). although his moustache and the remaining zig-zag mandorla embroidered on the textile ground appear to be similar to those of the buddha in the praṇidhi scenes from bezeklik, the composition as a whole in its two-dimensionality resembles very much the maitreya buddha depicted on one of the walls from the maya cave in kizil, which is now held in the museum of asian art in berlin (figure 14). most likely, the embroidered maitreya was the central figure of a large banner surrounded by other characters. his feet, almost reversed with the soles completely visible, suggest that the banner was intended to be high-placed and seen from below. the other two fragments, depicting a couple of human figures and a separate, small head, are reminiscent of a typical buddhist banner with a bodhisattva in the center surrounded by attendants or other small figures, as seen in many painted buddhist banners such as the avalokiteśvara as saviour from perils in the british museum, which was discovered in dunhunag and is commonly dated to the same period of these three mentioned fragments (figure 15).[34] fig. 14: maitreya with attendants. 3rd–5th century. wall painting. kizil, from maya cave, site 3 (no. 224), xinjiang, china. turfan collection, berlin (iii 8836). © staatliche museen zu berlin, museum für asiatische kunst. photograph by mariachiara gasparini. fig. 15 a, b, c: maitreya with donors. 10th–11th century. silk warp-faced compound with embroidery in chain silk stitches and golden gilded paper stripes. from qocho ruins α (a; b) and qocho library k (c), xinjiang, china. turfan collection, berlin (a: iii 4796; b: iii 4920b; c: iii 6630). © staatliche museen zu berlin, museum für asiatische kunst. photograph by mariachiara gasparini. similar in technique to this maitreya is the embroidery of a group of figures identified by zsuzsanna gulácsi as the virgin of light and her attendants.[35] the group belongs to the manichean pantheon and is depicted like the composition of avalokiteśvara on two scrolls from dunhuang, which are held in the british museum (figure 16). fig. 16: virgin of light. 9th–10th century. silk warp-faced compound with embroidery in silk satin and split stitches and golden gilded paper strips. from qocho library k, xinjiang, china. turfan collection, berlin (iii 6251). © staatliche museen zu berlin, museum für asiatische kunst. photograph by mariachiara gasparini. although partially damaged, this embroidery still shows the pigments of the threads and gold couching on flat paper threads, which is a typical chinese technique that was already popular in the tang period. also, the flowers under the figures are like those depicted on wooden beams from the caves and combined with other, widely used "uighur" ornaments. for instance, a sequence of elongated leaves was often combined with colored zig-zag or red serpentine, which also frame the above-mentioned praṇidhi scenes from bezeklik (figure 17). this type of leaf also appears in the form of embroidery on another banner fragment from the turfan collection.[36] as with many uighur motifs, the leaf was an adaptation of an ancient type which is also visible in other contexts. an example is the panel of a funerary couch in the freer gallery, washington, dc, dated to the northern qi dynasty (550-577). it was probably engraved for a sogdian official living in china and was discovered in the henan province. it is decorated with identical leaves and other central asian motifs that were also discovered on textile grounds.[37] fig. 17: sogdian leaf, zig zag, serpentine. reconstruction by the author. the warp-faced compound production seems to have decreased around the end of the eighth and the beginning of the ninth century, when the weft-faced compound types, such as samite, became popular. however, the above-mentioned compositions—the maitreya and the virgin of light—are dated to between the tenth and eleventh centuries. they are embroidered on fine, thick warp-faced compounds that are well preserved and seem to have been recycled and embroidered with later uighur-manichaean elements.[38] placed side by side with two of the wooden combs collected during the expeditions and examined with a digital microscope, the stitches of the gold couching seem to be divided by the teeth of the combs that measure about one millimeter (figures 18 and 19). the resulting chain is incredibly small, very similar to the type produced during the han period or earlier, during the era of the warring states (476-221 bce). looking at the fragments, it seems that the uyghur preferred to use very fine and complex ancient techniques which required particular expertise and were very time consuming. the chain-stitches were probably made with a needle-hook, similar to some of the types collected during the turfan expeditions, now in the museum in berlin.[39] satin or split-stitches, on the other hand, appear in larger compositions with chinese features, such as those found in dunhuang. among those in the turfan collection, the fragment of a big banner with a buddha and a bodhisattva, and another with a human figure, which can be included in the second group of embroideries, are of particular interest.[40] fig. 18: comb. undated. wood. from kumtura, xinjiang, china. turfan collection, berlin (iii 215). © staatliche museen zu berlin, museum für asiatische kunst. photograph by mariachiara gasparini. fig. 19: microscopic photo of maitreya (figure 15). 10th–11th century. golden gilded paper strips with red twisted couching (about 1mm). turfan collection, berlin (iii4796). © staatliche museen zu berlin, museum für asiatische kunst/mariachiara gasparini. dated to the same period—between the tenth and eleventh centuries— is a small piece of self-patterned yellow fragment with a bird, most likely a phoenix, which was collected during the first expedition to the ruins at qocho (figure 20).[41] the image is outlined in ink, the stitches have almost completely disappeared, and just a few in yellow, blue, and brownish-red are visible on the small surface (thirteen by three centimeters). in terms of style, the head-shape and the blue tail plumes are identical to those of the birds depicted in cave 82 at bezeklik, which is not only near to qocho but was, at the time, culturally homogeneous. fig. 20: manichaean phoenix. 9th–10th century. self-patterned compound with ink and embroidery in silk satin stitches. from qocho ruins α, xinjiang, china. turfan collection, berlin (iii 6988). © staatliche museen zu berlin, museum für asiatische kunst. photograph by mariachiara gasparini. on the wall painting, a group of small birds (or phoenixes) flies around a big tree, plants, and a crane (figure 21). considering that some of the previously mentioned flowers with blue (red and golden) stitches, which are similar to those remaining on the bird, were identified as manichaean embroideries, and that the mural with the birds decorates a manichaean cave, the embroidered bird can be dated to between the tenth and twelfth centuries, even if the yellow ground seems to be an older chinese self-patterned weaving. as in many other cases, it is possible that older textiles were recycled and eventually embroidered later. fig. 21: manichaean phoenix. 9th–10th cent. wall painting (detail). bezeklik cave 82, xinjiang, china. reconstruction by the author. the last group of embroideries with blue and/or red geometrical patterns that i have analyzed and tried to identify suggests a very early form of central asian-chinese ṭirāz. this term generally refers to a textile in cotton or linen with an arabic inscription, sometimes combined with geometric patterns, which was considered the only possible form of patterning in islamic territories in the early and middle islamic period. the six fragments of this last group in the turfan collection are all very similar in style and can be dated to the same period (ninth to eleventh century), although they were discovered in different places: qocho, kumtura, and yarkhoto. closely related to these are two other fragments that were lost in berlin, during the second world war, but which were published in a catalogue of missing objects of the former museum of indian art.[42] identical to one of the two lost pieces is a still existing fragment in the turfan collection with two rhombi embroidered in blue and red stitches (figure 22). although they resemble a pattern depicted in one of the praṇidhi scenes from bezeklik, the fragment could also be part of an ornamental frieze under an embroidered inscription, as in the example of a ṭirāz fragment held in the textile museum of washington, dc, dated to the same period.[43] fig. 22: fragment. 9th–10th century. cotton tabby embroidered with blue and red silk rhombi, kumtura canyon, xinjiang, china. turfan collection, berlin (iii7596). © staatliche museen zu berlin, museum für asiatische kunst. photograph by mariachiara gasparini. a bigger fragment (thirty-seven by twenty-four centimeters), which also belongs to the last group, features perpendicular lines of blue rosettes and resembles the embroidery on a byzantine red silk reliquary pouch from st. michael in the church of beromünster, switzerland, which can be dated to the same period (tenth to eleventh century) (figure 23).[44] taken together, the turfan fragments described above might suggest an early type ofṭirāz which was produced in ancient central asian workshops and which, once islam arrived in the area, were transformed in ṭirāz workshops.[45] because they differ in style from all the other weavings studied so far and because of the materials and the techniques used, this group of embroideries within the turfan collection has challenged experts who seek to classify textiles following fixed stylistic labels. fig. 23: fragment. 9th–10th century. cotton embroidered with blue silk rosettes. place of discovery unknown, from xinjiang, china. turfan collection, berlin (iii 127) © staatliche museen zu berlin, museum für asiatische kunst. photograph by mariachiara gasparini. the kind of grounds and woven patterns featured in the collection were made for a long time without much change. the techniques needed to create them were acquired by different artisans in a shared territory. a textile technique must be mastered in order to be adapted for new variations of threads, which requires further mathematical thinking and engineering. a large variety of languages and cultures converged in turfan, as well as other areas of xinjiang, creating a perfect platform for multiethnic and multicultural interactions between east and west.[46] the embroideries discussed above represent an important evolutionary step in the art of textiles. the reuse of old surfaces as the ground for new embroidered compositions has helped to preserve original structures or to hide some woven patterns (included in the textile grounds themselves). this form of recycling has led to a better understanding of the circulation of textiles. furthermore, the adoption of ancient chinese techniques, such as chain stitches or the old couching on flat paper threads, and sogdian motifs, such as the elongated leaf by the uighurs, reconfirms historical changes which occurred between the ninth and eleventh centuries. when, in 856, the uighur kingdom was established in turfan, many different artistic practices already thrived in the area, the most predominant being chinese and sogdian. in the eleventh century, when buddhism replaced manichaeism as the official religion of the kingdom, ancient and new compositions in a brighter color palette overlapped, which is especially visible on wall paintings and embroideries. the praṇidhi scenes from bezeklik are among the wall paintings that better show the adoption and adaptation of old motifs in new color palettes that were transferred to textile surfaces as well. the scenes always depict a central buddha, sometimes with a mustache as an uighur feature, surrounded by people of different ethnicity that offered him their vows. because the uighur ruler was both a religious and political leader, the scenes represented the spiritual and civil submission to the new kingdom by the various peoples living in turfan. therefore, not only were motifs and patterns adapted and included into this new turkic religious context but they were literally "worn" by the new kingdom that was thus able to express its kingship to local people in a language of signs that was already known. conclusion this essay presents only some fragments of the turfan collection, which were catalogued and digitized in 2012. the selection aims to specifically highlight the combination or the adaptation of some sino-iranian and turkic-uighur elements. the analysis and the study of central asian textile production and the identification of a possible central asian textile imagery are still ongoing. from the data collected to date, it is fair to say that the artistic styles produced in the territory currently belonging to china—therefore often misidentified as being "chinese"—and the recycling of materials and techniques that lasted for many centuries strongly suggest intense transcultural interaction. although stereotypical artistic labels such as "chinese tang" or "sasanian-sogdian" have often forced the identification or the cataloguing of some patterns, their inherent combinations have instead created a very specific kind of art that today is still not fully recognized. the art of central asia, in which textile is included as a unique medium, cannot be simply identified or labelled as straightforward chinese, iranian, preor early islamic, or uighur. without a doubt, the uighur period represents a crucial junction in the development of central asian art. in this period, the uighurs incorporated patterns, motifs, and techniques that were later transmitted by the mongols across ancient eurasia. processes of adaptation and rejection are visible on many different surfaces, from wooden beams to wall paintings. however, the art of weaving required a very specific kind of expertise to renew and transform new types of textile art. it is a typology of art expressed through mathematical computation of very thin threads using ancient models, which were often re­contextualized and adapted in new kingdoms and religious communities that not only engaged with previously unknown territories and beliefs, but also needed to be visually approved and confirmed by indigenous peoples. thus, local traditions, images, and religious symbols were often embraced without a clear idea of their original meaning, not as conceptual models, but rather as a form of dominion and kingship that became a very specific, refined art of intertwined central asian styles. [1] yehoshua frenkel, "the turks of the eurasian steppes in medieval arabic writing," in mongols, turks and others: eurasian nomads and the sedentary world , ed. reuven amitai and michal biran (leiden: brill, 2005), 201. the term "sogdian-turfanese" is borrowed from matteo compareti, "the role of the sogdian colonies in the diffusion of the pearl roundels pattern," in ērān ud ānēran. studies presented to boris il'ič maršak on the occasion of his 70th birthday, ed. matteo compareti, paola raffetta and gianroberto scarcia (venice: cafoscarina, 2006), 151. [2] for example: albert von le coq, chotscho (berlin: dietrich reimer, 1913), 6; 43–46; 49–52. [3] ulf jäger, the new old mummies from east central asia: ancestors of the tocharian knights depicted on the buddhist murals? some circumstantial evidence, sino-platonic papers 84, ed. victor h. maier, (philadelphia: university of pennsylvania, 1998), http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp084_mummies_central_asia.pdf [accessed on 23. january 2014]. [4] chhaya bhattacharya-haesner, central asian temple banners in the turfan collection of the museum für indische kunst, berlin (berlin: dietrich reimer, 2003). [5] jorinde ebert, "segmentum and clavus in manichaean garments of the turfan oasis" and kazuko sakamoto, "two fragments of luxury cloths discovered in turfan: evidence of textile circulation from west to east," in turfan revisited: the first century of reserach into the arts and cultures of the silk road, ed. desmond durkin-meisterernst et al. (berlin: dietrich reimer verlag, 2014), 72–83 and 297–302. [6] the technical results will be published on the idp webpage. some of the pieces are also included in my ongoing doctoral research which investigates a larger period, from the seventh to the fourteenth century, with the provisional title de-coding central asian textiles: the transfer of northern silk road textile imagery onto european surfaces. [7] further clarification regarding sino-iranian and sino turkic combinations will be provided in my future dissertation. see note 6. [8] joan aruz, ed., the golden deer of eurasia: perspectives on the steppe nomads of the ancient world (new york: the metropolitan museum of art, 2006). [9] jonathan karam skaff, sui-tang china and its turko-mongol neighbors: culture, power, and connections, 580–800 (oxford: oxford university press, 2012), page 53, location 1100, kindle edition. [10] liu xinru 劉欣如, silk and religion: an exploration of material life and thought of people, ad 600-1200 (new delhi: oxford university press, 1996), 90. recently the royal asiatic society of great britain and ireland has published an issue on textiles: helen wang and valerie hansen, eds., textiles as money on the silk road, special issue of the journal of the royal asiatic society, third series, vol.23, no. 2 (april 2013). [11] significant for the study of the turfan textile collection in berlin is angela sheng, "innovations in textile techniques on china's northwest frontier, 500–700 ad," asia major 11, no. 2 (1998) 117–160. [12] brocade is a specific kind of textile that requires an extra weft during the weaving process to create a pattern on a single ground. the extra weft does not reach the two lateral selvedges, otherwise it would be classified as "lanciato". both asian and western scholars who are not specialised in the field of textile history tend to refer to a warpor weft-faced compound, which instead require a double warp and a double weft respectively and thus create a pattern during the weaving process together with the basic warp or weft, as "brocade". see, for instance, huo wei 霍巍, "searching for tubo brocade garments overseas," china's tibet 23, no. 3 (2012): 61–71.this mislabeling is probably due to a confusion of the two homonymous chinese ideograms jin 金 (gold) and jin 錦 (weaving), which were frequently used during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to describe a golden weaving or brocaded textile in gold. the word "brocade" is now generally used to refer to any polychrome or patterned textiles. indeed, the second ideogram contains the character for "gold". interestingly, modern chinese-english online dictionaries, such as mdbg (http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php), translate the second ideogram jin 錦also as "brocade" or "embroidered work." see: http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=1&wdqb=jin. [accesed on 18. june 2014]. [13] cf. etienne de la vaissière, "sogdian trade," encyclopaedia iranica, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sogdian-trade [accessed on 10. february 2014]. zhang guangda 張廣達 and rong xinjiang 榮新江, "a concise history of the turfan oasis and its exploration," asia major 11, no. 2(1998): 13–36. lilla russell-smith, uighur patronage in dunhuang: regional art centres on the northern silk road in the tenth and eleventh centuries (leiden: brill, 2005). part of my study on the uighur textile style was presented at the asor annual conference in october 2013 in baltimore (md), u.s.a. non-chinese fragments: the negotiation of textile images in the tarim basin. [14] the end is an individual warp thread. a pick is the single passage of the shuttle that carries one or more weft threads. [15] archive's cards and restoration cards are often mismatching. furthermore a few pieces were purchased during the expeditions rather than found in situ. [16] zhao feng 趙豐, zhi xiu zhen pin: tu shuo zhongguo si chou yi shu shi 織绣珎品:图说中国丝绸艺 [treasures in silk: an illustrated history of chinese textiles], (hangzhou: yishatang. fushi chuban 艺纱堂。服饰出版,1999). also online: http://www.wys.com.cn/silk-book/html/contents/glossary.htm [accessed on 20. june 2014]. [17] ibid. http://www.wys.com.cn/silk-book/html/contents/goloss/b/b3.htm [accessed on 16. june 2014]. [18] see mariachiara gasparini, "the silk cover of the admonitions scroll. aesthetic and visual analysis," in ming and qing studies (2013): 161–218. part three. [19] wang and hansen, textiles as money. [20] matthew canepa, the two eyes of the earth: art and ritual of kingship between rome and sasanian iran (berkeley: university of california press, 2009), 193, location 2482, kindle edition. [21] jacques gernet, buddhism in chinese society: an economic history from fifth to tenth century, trans. franciscus verellen (new york: columbia university press, 1995), 33–34; 210–219. [22] samite is a weft-faced compound made of twill ground with an extra weft to create the composition. similar textiles were published in http://catalog.hathitrust.org/search/home?lookfor=%22xinjiang%20weiwu'er%20zizhiqu%20bo%20wu%20guan.%22&type=author&inst=all, sichou zhi lu: han tang zhiwu 絲绸之路:汉唐织物 [silk road: han-tang weaving] (beijing: wenwu 文物, 1972), plates 41; 42; 35. [23] zhao feng 趙豐, recent excavations of textile in china (hong kong: isat7costume squad ltd, 2002), 68–69. [24] according to barber the textiles were produced in the eastern roman empire and traded into the tarim basin. however, a similar piece with putti (in blue) held in the abegg foundation in riggisberg, switzerland, suggests a central asian production. elizabeth w. barber, the mummies of urumqi (new york: norton, 2000). [25] gernet, buddhism in chinese society, 24. [26] sara e. fraser, performing the visual: the practice of buddhist wall painting in china and central asia, 618–960 (standford: standford university press, 2004), 100. [27] two notable exceptions are fragments of two big square-shaped canopies with repeating wood-block printed motives of buddha in front of a stupa (iii4906, iii8737 and iii531), which resemble an indo-iranian style that will not be discussed in this essay. [28] the second canopy was included and discussed in  gasparini, "the silk cover of the admonitions scroll." [29] item 25.267, walter museum. http://art.thewalters.org/detail/9687/a-meditating-bodhisattva/ [accesed on 16. may 2014]. [30] valerie hansen, the silk road: a new history (new york: oxford university press, 2012), 108. [31] for different type of stitches see zhao feng 趙豐, treasure in silk in the appendix. also online under the header "interlacing." http://www.wys.com.cn/silk-book/html/contents/goloss/c/c3.htm [accessed on 02. february 2014]. [32] fourteen scenes of praṇidhi were collected during the expeditions. the one in question is scene 6 from temple 9, published in von le coq, chotscho, 22. see also maria rudova, "praṇidhi," in turfan revisited: the first century of reserach into the arts and cultures of the silk road. monographien zur indischen archäologie, kunst und philologie band 17, ed. desmond durkin-meisterernst et al. (berlin: dietrich reimer verlag, 2004), 279. [33] albert von le coq, die buddhistische spätantike in mittelasien (berlin: dietrich reimer verlag, 1934), 68 pl. 34; ghose rajeshwari ed., kizil on the silk road: crossroads of commerce & meeting of minds (mumbai: marg publication: 2008) 77 and bhattacharya-haesner, central asian temple banners. 164-165. [34] see the image on the idp database (british museum; painting), item 1919, 0101, 0.2, http://idp.bl.uk/database/search_results.a4d?uid=15883785427;random=5895 [accessed on 09. february 2014]. [35] zsuzsanna gulácsi, manichaean art in berlin collections: a comprehensive catalogue. corpus fontium manichaeorum: series archaeologica et iconographica 1 turhout: brepols, 2001), 195. [36] item iii 4924a [37] the funerary couch is held in separate pieces in the freer gallery, washington d.c; museum of fine art of boston, the museum of east asian art of cologne, and the guimet museum in paris. "silk road luxuries from china" http://www.asia.si.edu/explore/asia/silkroad/couch.asp [accessed on 03 january 2014]. [38] xu zheng 徐崢, "polychrome woven silk" in textiles from dunhuang in uk collections, ed. zhao feng 趙豐(shanghai: donghua university press, 2007), 121. [39] many tools, among them combs, needles, loom weights, are held in the asian art museum in berlin and are as of yet not studied or published. the needle-hook also known as tamboure-hook is faster and more practical than a needle. it pierces the fabric, picks up the thread used, and pulls it back through a loop. the repeating of loops "automatically" creates a chain stitch. [40] item iii 4800 and iii 6187 respectively. [41] greek letters were used to identify ruins of the ancient city of qocho. map made and published in albert grünwedel, bericht über archäologische arbeiten in idikutschari und umgebung im winter 1902–1903 [report on archaeological work in idikutshari and surrounds in the winter 1902–1093] (münchen: verlag der k. b. akademie der wissenschaften in kommission des g. franz‘schen verlags j. roth, 1906), fig. 2. [42] caren dreyer, lore sander and friederike weis, dokumentation der verluste. band iii. museum für indische kunst (berlin: staatliche museen zu berlin, 2002). [43] ernst kühnel and louisa bellinger, the textile museum catalogue of dated tiraz fabrics. umayyad, abbasid, fatimid, (washington: national publishing company, 1952), 30; pl xiv. item 73.15. another fragment in the collection (iii 7440) features a line of blue stitches on the edge which covered a secret inscription visible with a microscope that will be re-contextualized and discussed in a future study. a photo of the piece has been sent to various linguistics experts but to date the language of the inscription has not been identified. it might be related to the fragment with rhombi and thus similar to the ṭirāz held in washington. [44] mechthild flury-lemberg, textile conservation and research: a documentation of the textile department on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the abegg stiftung foundation (bern: schriften der abegg-stiftung, 1988), 273, fig. 556–557. [45] when, in 751, the tang were defeated by the arab army on the talas river, many artisans were deported from east to west and vice versa. most turkic people converted to the new religion around the tenth century. as a consequence, a combination of ancient and new techniques and styles occurred. [46] cf. map of the spoken and written languages made by the berlin‒brandenburg academy of sciences and humanities in "turfan, an oasis in east turkestan", http://www.bbaw.de/bbaw/forschung/forschungsprojekte/turfanforschung/en/turfanstudies [accessed on 03 january 2014]. a transcultural approach to crosscultural studies: towards an alternative to a national culture model thor-andré skrefsrud introduction processes of globalization and international migration are changing societies across the world. cultural formations and identities are less frequently bound to geographic and national communities. rather, cross-border relationships and experiences help to shape cultural identities that are plural and dynamic. according to steven vertovec, these dynamic cultural identities could be framed as a “transnational” development; for vertovec, this term refers to the multiple relationships and practices connecting people, organizations, and institutions across national borders.1 improved communication, transportation, telecommunication, and technology have increased global interrelations across a broad range of domains. the result is what vertovec calls a context of superdiversity in which cultural traditions travel and transcend traditional borders, allowing individuals and groups to retain multiple forms of affiliation to their national heritage.2 for vertovec, transnationalism describes the evolution of such interconnections and relationships, which challenges conventional notions of cultural diversity as something stable, organized, and clearly identifiable as related to distinct cultural communities or national borders. in spite of vertovec’s approach to social complexity and change, crosscultural studies in disciplines such as psychology, international management, and communication have depended heavily upon a national culture model. this framework recognizes a level of cultural diversity within the borders of nation states, yet seeks to identify common traits shared broadly across the inhabitants of a nation. a leading figure within this field is the dutch scholar 1 steven vertovec, transnationalism: key ideas (london: routledge, 2009). 2 steven vertovec, “super-diversity and its implications,” ethnic and racial studies 30, no. 6 (2007): 1024–1054, https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870701599465; fran meissner and steven vertovec, “comparing super-diversity,” ethnic and racial studies 38, no. 4 (2015): 541–555, https:// doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2015.980295. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870701599465 https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2015.980295 https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2015.980295 82 a transcultural approach to cross-cultural studies geert hofstede,3 whose research team has developed an influential and widelyused framework with which to identify and compare cultural differences and similarities between people from different countries.4 hofstede defines six distinct dimensions of culture, which are identifiable on both a national and organizational level. these are: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, masculinity, long/short-term orientation, and indulgence/ restraint.5 on a national level, hofstede’s six-dimension model provides a tool for identifying a nation’s culture, which allows for comparison between nations. similarly, on an organizational level, the cultural dimensions make it possible to analyze an organization’s main characteristics. for example, in a culture with a tendency to avoid uncertainty, firms or public organizations would be less encouraged to undertake risky projects. according to hofstede, individuals are collectively mentally programmed in a way that “distinguishes the member of one group or category of people from others.”6 each member of a community therefore carries a “software of the mind,”7 a distinctive pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting that culturally programs the individual. for hofstede, such cultural programming makes nations and national affiliation the most effective units by which to examine cultural difference. in this paper, i critically question the suitability of a framework that is grounded in the classification of cultures for studying cultural interactions in the twenty-first century. as discussed above, contemporary understandings of culture view it as dynamic and interrelated, while hofstede’s understanding emphasizes categorization and stability. drawing attention to the potential conflict between these two views, i propose an alternative framework, arguing for a transcultural approach to cross-cultural studies based on 3 geert hofstede, gert jan hofstede, and michael minkov, cultures and organizations: software of the mind. intercultural cooperation and its importance for survival, 3rd ed. (new york: mcgrawhill, 2010); geert hofstede, culture’s consequences: international differences in work-related values (newbury park, ca: sage, 1989). 4 klaes eringa, laura n. caudron, fei xie rieck, and tobias gerhardt, “how relevant are hofstede’s dimensions for inter-cultural studies? a replication of hofstede’s research among current international business students,” research in hospitality management 5, no. 2 (2015): 187– 198, https://doi.org/10.1080/22243534.2015.11828344; chrysovalantis gaganis, iftekhar hasan, panagiota papadimitri, and menelaos tasiou, “national culture and risk-taking: evidence from the insurance industry,” journal of business research 97 (2019): 104–116, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jbusres.2018.12.037. 5 hofstede, “dimensionalizing cultures: the hofstede model in context,” online readings in psychology and culture 2, no. 1 (2011): 1–26; 19, https://doi.org/10.9707/2307-0919.1014. 6 hofstede, culture’s consequences: international differences, 21. 7 hofstede et al., cultures and organizations, 5. https://doi.org/10.1080/22243534.2015.11828344 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.12.037 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.12.037 https://doi.org/10.9707/2307-0919.1014 83the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 12, no. 2 (summer 2021) wolfgang welsch’s transcultural model.8 using examples from an educational context, i illustrate how a transcultural approach to teaching may counteract a conventional conception of culture in school that runs the risk of reifying the identities and practices of students with minority backgrounds. although many schools now contain students from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, issues of diversity are often reduced to superficial celebrations and single happenings, without much consideration of the cultural complexity of individual students.9 asking how a transcultural approach could be beneficial in an educational setting may help teachers to recognize complexity as a common feature in today’s schools. in this way, teachers may critically challenge practices where minority students are expected to adapt to and perform in school settings that replicate mainstream and dominant pedagogical practices. my research question is thus: how can welsch’s transcultural framework form an adequate alternative to hofstede’s conventional model of national cultures, and in which ways could such a framework be beneficial when applied to a pedagogical context? i first clarify the characteristics of hofstede’s approach to cross-cultural analysis, and critically assess its implications for understanding and interacting with people from other cultures. i then present welsch’s work on cultural transformation and demonstrate how welsch’s concept of transculturality thus offers a convincing alternative to hofstede’s model. central to this approach is a nuanced and multidimensional understanding of the dynamic space in which cross-border social formation and identity construction operate. i conclude the article with a discussion of the importance of a transcultural perspective for teachers working in increasingly diverse classrooms. hofstede’s model of national cultures hofstede has been a leading scholar in cross-cultural studies for over forty years. he and his research team have conducted a number of comprehensive studies on the influence of culture on workplace values. conducting his first research in the late 1960s, hofstede used a sample of 116,000 ibm engineers, representing a wide spectrum of nationalities, to identify cultural characteristics as related to national affiliation.10 hofstede first developed four categories within which to map cultural characteristics: uncertainty 8 wolfgang welsch, “transculturality: the changing form of cultures today,” filozofski vestnik 22, no. 2 (2001): 59–86; wolfgang welsch, transkulturalität: realität, geschichte, aufgabe (vienna: new academic press, 2017). 9 stephen may and christine e. sleeter, ed., critical multiculturalism: theory and praxis (new york, ny: routledge, 2010). 10 hofstede, culture’s consequences: international differences; hofstede et al., cultures and organizations. 84 a transcultural approach to cross-cultural studies avoidance, masculinity, power distance, and individualism. he later added two new categories to include characteristics not covered by the previous four, namely long/short-term orientation and indulgence/restraint.11 he calls the resulting model “the dimensional paradigm.”12 according to hofstede, these six categories are independent but closely related, simultaneously stable and distinct, and they differ significantly between employees from different countries. on this basis, hofstede concludes that most countries share a particular national character. he calls this “the collective programming of the mind, which distinguishes the members of one human group from another.”13 further, he has asserted that globalization does not affect the applicability of this model; rather, these six dimensions can help researchers to understand the internal logic and the implications of these changes. the first category, power distance, describes the extent to which “the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally.”14 the second, uncertainty avoidance, refers to “the extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by uncertain or unknown situations” or aim to avoid such situations.15 societies that score high on individualism, the third category, prize individual achievements over collective values such as identifying with and caring for the extended family and the larger community. the fourth category is masculinity, which specifies to what degree a society is characterized by “masculine” values such as competitiveness, performance, and success, rather than “feminine” values such as solidarity, care for the weak, and warm personal relationships. in the 1980s, hofstede added a fifth category, long/short-term orientation. while the values found along the long-term pole are “perseverance, thrift, ordering relationships by status, and having a sense of shame,” those along the short-term pole involve “reciprocating social obligations, respect for tradition, protecting one’s ‘face,’ and personal steadiness and stability.”16 hofstede later added a sixth category, indulgence/restraint, to refer to the extent to which a society allows “free gratification of basic and natural human desires related to enjoying life and having fun.”17 11 hofstede et al., cultures and organizations. 12 hofstede, “dimensionalizing cultures,” 21. 13 hofstede, culture’s consequences: international differences, 21. 14 hofstede et al., cultures and organizations, 61. 15 hofstede et al., cultures and organizations, 191. 16 hofstede, “dimensionalizing cultures,” 13. 17 hofstede, “dimensionalizing cultures,” 15. 85the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 12, no. 2 (summer 2021) hofstede’s model is partially grounded in a critique of cultural universalism and partly in the need for organizations and companies to boost their competitive advantage by utilizing international relationships.18 in developing his model, hofstede drew inspiration from cultural relativism, which criticizes the view that culture can be interpreted and judged according to a universal standard. for hofstede and other cultural relativists, to embrace this viewpoint would be to repeat the mistakes of colonial times, where “foreigners often wielded absolute power in other societies and imposed their rules on those societies.”19 hofstede built on anthropological and sociological traditions that emphasize unique national cultures. an example of such traditions can be found in the writings of johann gottfried herder (1744–1803).20 faced with an expanding and dominating french state, herder vigorously argued for the existence of a distinctively german cultural essence: that is, a specific history and set of characteristics that distinguish germany and german culture from france and french culture. in a similar vein, hofstede claimed that “cultural differences cannot be understood without the study of history.”21 from this perspective, to understand the origins of cultural difference, one must conduct a comparative study of the history and seemingly distinct features of national cultures.22 hofstede’s model corresponds with the need for greater international communication and interaction across national borders, and a widespread interest in gaining a competitive advantage that emerged in the years following world war ii. as communication and international relations increased in the postwar period, businesspeople, health workers, and immigrant workers required tools and cultural guidelines to help them perform their work in new and foreign cultural contexts. a number of diversity management programs were developed in response, including hofstede’s theory on the comparison of national cultures.23 like hofstede’s theory, much of this work has been focused on deciphering cultural codes and identifying the different 18 anastasia gaspay, shana dardan, and leonardo legorreta, “‘software of the mind’—a review of applications of hofstede’s theory to it research,” journal of information technology theory and application 9, no. 3 (2008): 1–37. 19 geert hofstede, culture’s consequences: comparing values, behaviors, institutions and organizations across nations, 2nd ed. (london: sage, 2001), 15. 20 johann gottfried herder, philosophical writings, trans. and ed. michael n. forster. (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2002). 21 hofstede, culture’s consequences: comparing values, 12. 22 hofstede, culture’s consequences: comparing values, 15. 23 see also edward t. hall, the silent language (new york: doubleday, 1959); larry a. samovar, richard e. porter, edwin r. mcdaniel, and carolyn s. roy, communication between cultures, 9th ed. (boston: cengage learning, 2017). 86 a transcultural approach to cross-cultural studies deep structures of cultures in order to facilitate effective communication and fruitful interaction. in an increasingly globalized business environment, there remains a need for people from different cultural backgrounds to work together, meaning that improved interactions with other national business cultures is often a key factor for success. as companies enter new markets, and international cooperation between project teams or within production processes becomes increasingly common, misunderstandings, misinterpretations, and faulty communication become more and more likely. from a corporate perspective, markus hofelich notes that to act as if one is above national cultural differences is to give the impression that one is systematically working against them.24 hofstede sought to mitigate against these issues, writing that “the study of national cultures is stimulated by a need for better international understanding and cooperation and is made possible by the availability of more systematic and more objective information.”25 thus, according to hofstede’s model of national cultures, international financial and professional success can be achieved by acquiring in-depth cultural knowledge about the distinct customs, practices, and worldviews of the cooperating nations. the strength of hofstede’s model therefore lies in the practical applicability of its framework, which supposedly allows anyone who works within international relations to comprehend the cultural etiquette of different countries. for example, individuals may become aware that some cultures have no place for small talk within business negotiations, while in other societies it may be impossible to get into business without first building a good relationship.26 hofstede’s framework has also proved itself useful for a number of studies within the financial sector. for example, and as emphasized by chrysovalantis gaganis et al., it is highly important to investigate the cultural factors that drive risk-taking in this domain, especially considering the revelations of the last decade’s global financial crises.27 however, gaganis et al. note that research within finance, particularly that which focuses on risk-taking, has paid considerably less attention to the influence of national culture in comparison to other domains.28 while acknowledging the influence that culture exerts 24 markus hofelich, “international business culture 101: corporate etiquette on a global scale,” experteer magazine, october 16, 2016, accessed january 18, 2022, https://us.experteer.com/ magazine/international-business-culture/. 25 hofstede, culture’s consequences: comparing values, 15. 26 hofelich, “international business culture 101.” 27 gaganis et al., “national culture and risk-taking.” 28 gaganis et al., “national culture and risk-taking.” https://us.experteer.com/magazine/international-business-culture/ https://us.experteer.com/magazine/international-business-culture/ 87the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 12, no. 2 (summer 2021) on financial decision-making, studies have tended to focus on firm-specific determinants, which means that culture itself receives little attention in spite of its importance.29 in a study of the interplay between national culture and the willingness of insurance firms to take risks, gaganis et al. found evidence to support a positive relationship between individualism and risk-taking along with a negative relationship between uncertainty avoidance or power distance and risk-taking.30 in this way, their study draws attention to the relation between values, attitudes, and behaviors in the form of managerial decisions. the study also strengthens the premises of hofstede’s model, which is to question the idea that there exists a common standard of values, thought, and behavior that all societies supposedly accept or act in accordance with. limitations of a national culture model although hofstede’s model of national cultures is a widely used framework for cross-cultural studies,31 it can be problematized in several ways.32 firstly, it bears asking how a person’s “software of the mind” and “mental programming”33 might relate to their national culture. hofstede et al. assert that there will always be a certain level of cultural variation within a society, and that the national culture framework allows for a variety of individual practices, habits, and worldviews.34 however, the national culture model suggests that people from different countries living within the same nation still share certain national characteristics related to their nation of residence. for example, hofstede writes that “even if a society contains different cultural 29 see also george andrew karolyi, “the gravity of culture for finance,” journal of corporate finance 41 (2016): 610–625, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2016.07.003. 30 gaganis et al., “national culture and risk-taking,” 114. 31 eringa et al., “how relevant are hofstede’s dimensions for inter-cultural studies?”; donald j. lund, lisa k. scheer, and irina v. kozlenkova, “culture’s impact on the importance of fairness in interorganizational relationships,” journal of international marketing 21, no. 4 (2013): 21–43, https://doi.org/10.1509/jim.13.0020; nigel holden, “why marketers need a new concept of culture for the global knowledge economy,” international marketing review 21, no. 6 (2004): 563–572, https://doi.org/10.1108/02651330410568015. 32 søren askegaard, dannie kjeldgaard, and eric j. arnould, “reflexive culture’s consequences,” in beyond hofstede: culture frameworks for global marketing and management, ed. cheryl nakata (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2009), 101–121; susan forquer gupta, “integrating national cultural measures in the context of business decision making: an initial measurement development test of a mid-level model,” cross cultural management: an international journal 19, no. 4 (2012): 455–506, https://doi.org/10.1108/13527601211269987; peter nynäs, “interpretative models of estrangement and identification,” in bridges of understanding: perspectives on intercultural communication, ed. øyvind dahl, iben jensen, and peter nynäs (oslo: unipub forlag, 2006), 23–37. 33 hofstede et al., cultures and organizations, 5. 34 hofstede et al., cultures and organizations, 7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2016.07.003 https://doi.org/10.1509/jim.13.0020 https://doi.org/10.1108/02651330410568015 https://doi.org/10.1108/13527601211269987 88 a transcultural approach to cross-cultural studies groups … they usually share certain cultural traits with one another that make their members recognizable to foreigners as belonging to that society.”35 these cultural traits consist of patterns of thought in the form of values, so-called “deep structures,” that are formed early in childhood as part of processes of socialization into society.36 the deep structure of culture refers to elements that “have been part of every culture for thousands of years,”37 such as views on the relation between god and man, the citizen and the state, and equality and hierarchy in a society. consequently, within a national-culture paradigm, individuals are perceived as products of their societies. the values of the individual affect their society’s attitudes, which in turn affects the behavior of its members. therefore, people are first and foremost seen as representatives of cultural communities, and can be explained and understood in light of their presumed cultural background. amartya sen and vertovec, however, have cautioned that even within a given culture, myriad subcultures exist that could be very different from the majority culture.38 moreover, a person’s cultural identity is seldom bound to a particular community, but is continuously produced and reproduced in transformative processes of cultural exchange. this understanding underlines the fact that an individual’s cultural identity is therefore more dynamic and difficult to classify than a national culture framework seems to assume. by emphasizing a strong connection between the individual and the national culture, hofstede’s model runs the risk of trapping people in schematic formulations about cultural beliefs and practices. a second limitation exists on the national level. an increase in mobility means that cultural communities are constantly being renewed and reshaped.39 it is increasingly common for people from various cultural backgrounds to meet, confront, and interact with one another, which also effects the way that they understand themselves as part of a community. the conventional tendency to identify cultures as stable systems of practices, a tendency that hofstede’s model embraces, is built on the premise that cultures can be described according to a more or less static essence. however, what is taken to be the essence of a culture is always someone’s values, norms, or practices, which, through the 35 hofstede, culture’s consequences: comparing values, 10. 36 samovar et al., communication between cultures, 36. 37 samovar et al., communication between cultures, 36. 38 amartya sen, identity and violence: the illusion of destiny (new york: norton, 2006); vertovec, transnationalism. 39 stephen may and christine e. sleeter, ed., critical multiculturalism: theory and praxis (new york, ny: routledge, 2010). 89the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 12, no. 2 (summer 2021) emergence of an “imagined community,”40 are then projected onto others who may or may not share them. claiming to define the essence of a culture always involves power, since some people set the premises while others are subsumed into the definition. historically, this process is exemplified in what edward said describes as “the oriental discourse.”41 the western understanding of the “orient” was developed “by making statements about the orient, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it.”42 the west thus exercised its power by defining the “essence” of the orient against a constructed image of itself. another historical example is the norwegian nation-building process of the 1850s, which aimed to construct the norwegian nation against danish and swedish influences. to cultivate a vision of true “norwegianness,” the authorities gave schools a key role in promoting and implementing a national cultural “essence” constructed from a selected set of motifs. however, the cultural identities of several groups, such as the sami, were never considered a part of this common national culture.43 it therefore appears that a national culture framework is not able to recognize cultural complexity within and across groups and societies. cultural traditions and communities are constantly evolving, and are much more interrelated and hybrid than hofstede’s model is able to express. third, hofstede’s national culture model inevitably constructs difference as a hindrance to meaningful interaction. according to hofstede, a business deal can easily fall apart due to cultural misunderstandings.44 to succeed in a highly competitive world market, one must navigate the turbulent waters of cultural difference. within such a perspective, cultural diversity is seen as a problem or an obstacle that prevents the progression of cooperation and partnerships. though the connection may be unintentional, this view aligns with discourses of deficit in the media and elsewhere. such discourses send a negative message to people with minority cultural backgrounds or who speak minority languages, by claiming that their cultural, religious, and linguistic resources are hindrances to integration. communities and groups are positioned as “problems” that need to be solved. those who represent a difference from the mainstream are seen as culturally, linguistically, and socially deprived and 40 benedict anderson, imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism (london: verso, 1991), 6. 41 edward w. said, orientalism (london: routledge & kegan paul ltd., 2003 [1978]), 3. 42 said, orientalism, 3. 43 thor ola engen, “the recognition of students’ origin in liquid times,” in origins: a sustainable concept in education, ed. hanna ragnarsdóttir and fred dervin (rotterdam: sense publishers, 2014), 87–100. 44 hofstede, et al., cultures and organizations. 90 a transcultural approach to cross-cultural studies in need of repair.45 the national culture model can be viewed as compensating for this perspective, in that it seeks to classify so-called “deficiencies” in order to smooth the rough and bumpy road to cross-cultural understanding. if differences are perceived as barriers to effective communication, the national culture model supposedly provides a tool for businesspeople, researchers, and teachers with which to circumvent these obstacles. hence, the national model seems to reduce cultural interaction to an exercise of controlling and predicting differences, which dismantles “human interpersonal interactions into a mechanistic set of laws.”46 despite the critique discussed above, however, proponents of a national culture model could argue that the model acknowledges the cultural change and hybridization taking place as globalization continues to influence different national cultures. for hofstede, for example, the difference between national cultures is in itself an indication of cultural change, as national cultures have developed and continue to expand and evolve in interaction with each other.47 from this perspective, the model does acknowledge the significance of cultural traditions for understanding people, as it predicts problems or potential misunderstandings that may arise when people with different cultural backgrounds come into contact. moreover, it follows that the model accounts for the fact that globalization has an impact on cultures; according to hofstede’s logic, this makes attempts to decipher cultural codes an important and ongoing process. in this regard, it is likely that advocates of the national culture model would oppose my critiques here. nevertheless, i still believe that there are grounds to argue that a national culture model is not the most appropriate way of approaching cross-cultural studies in this era of change. transformations in the relationships between individuals, culture, and society make it difficult to see people as representatives of certain cultures and communities. claiming the existence of a national “mental programming”48 or specific deep cultural traits that characterize a nation presupposes a problematic conception of culture that reinforces borders and risks trapping people within a narrow understanding of cultural identity. for migrant students, for example, being identified with a certain cultural background may be problematic as it can reproduce stereotypes and stigmatization, create a so-called “us versus them” mentality, and ultimately prevent students from reaching their full potential. on this basis, there is good 45 colin baker and wayne e. wright, foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism, 6th ed. (blue ridge summit, pa: multilingual matters, 2017), 397. 46 nynäs, “interpretative models of estrangement and identification,” 24. 47 hofstede, culture’s consequences: comparing values. 48 hofstede et al., cultures and organizations, 5. 91the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 12, no. 2 (summer 2021) reason to seek an alternative way to approach cultural interaction and so avoid classifying cultural behavior. the following section does just that: drawing on welsch’s work on cultural transformation and dynamics,49 i discuss how a transcultural understanding of cultural interaction may form a critical alternative to hofstede’s model. transculturality: an alternative approach the intermingling of human cultures through international migration and diaspora is not a new phenomenon. in the european context, for example, the historical narratives of migration within the roman empire under the pax romana, the jewish diaspora in the jewish-roman war of ad 66–73, and the flight of the french huguenots in the early modern period offer important perspectives for contemporary movement. nevertheless, increasing processes of globalization and changing patterns of mobility are bringing cultures and people closer to each other than ever before. multinational corporations sell to consumers all over the world, while technology, money, and labor travel ever more swiftly across national borders, bringing people into contact with each other in new ways. different biographies, practices, ideas, and beliefs meet and interact, making societies highly culturally complex. welsch, too, found that conventional concepts of single cultures, including the national culture model, are no longer suited to their object.50 rather, he argues, we need a concept that accounts for hybridity and change, or, as he puts it, “a new conceptualization of culture.”51 welsch therefore developed a concept that may be helpful when reflecting on new ways of approaching cross-cultural studies. he called this new perspective “transculturality” and advocated for a transcultural lens to be applied to both the macro and micro levels of cross-cultural analysis.52 at the macro level, cultural communities are extremely interconnected and entangled. interactions and the exchange of ideas, products, and materials across borders generate what welsch characterized as a state of hybridity,53 or what ulf hannerz has described as “creole”54 cultures. this exchange implies that, at the macro-level, culture is characterized by a dynamic interplay among variables, including ethnic, linguistic, and religious 49 welsch, “transculturality”; welsch, transkulturalität. 50 welsch, “transculturality”; welsch, transkulturalität. 51 welsch, “transculturality,” 59. 52 welsch, “transculturality”; welsch, transkulturalität. 53 welsch, “transculturality,” 68. 54 ulf hannerz, cultural complexity: studies in the social organization of meaning (new york, ny: columbia university press, 1991). 92 a transcultural approach to cross-cultural studies backgrounds, as well as socioeconomic status. a transcultural perspective thus highlights inner differentiation as well as the “mixtures, fusions, synergies and exchange processes” taking place between different cultures.55 unlike essentialist models, it does not fall into the trap of overlooking the extent of internal diversity within cultures, 56 nor does it attempt to locate the “essence” of a cultural community. instead, it captures how cultural ideas and practices interact, travel, and become recontextualized in new settings. similarly, at the micro level, cultural identity is dynamic and embedded in ongoing processes of cultural negotiation and exchange.57 with reference to peter berger et al., welsch has suggested that life in the twenty-first century could be understood as “a migration through different social worlds and as the successive realization of a number of possible identities.”58 most people belong to many different cultures and see themselves as members of a variety of communities and groups.59 as a result, cultural practices and life views are continuously developing and transforming as people from different backgrounds communicate and engage with each other. on this basis, welsch argued that cultural identities are not categorically determined, but are rather relational and dynamic: existing, developing, and transforming within a changing social context.60 as part of the nordic research project “learning spaces for inclusion and social justice—a study of successful immigrant students and school communities in four nordic countries,” i arrived at a more nuanced and fuller understanding of the complex situations which many migrant students navigate. these situations are a result of the transcultural and super-diverse conditions of change in contemporary society. during the study, joke dewilde, one of the researchers, followed a group of students newly-arrived in an upper secondary school in east norway.61 one of these students was bahar, a 16-year-old girl who had moved to norway as a teenager from afghanistan 55 see also sigurd bergmann, “transculturality and tradition: renewing the continuous in late modernity,” studia theologica 58, no. 2 (2004): 140–156; 143, https://doi. org/10.1080/00393380410012736. 56 welsch, “transculturality”; welsch, transkulturalität. 57 welsch, “transculturality,” 71. 58 peter l. berger, brigitte berger, and hansfried kellner, the homeless mind: modernization and consciousness (new york: random house, 1974), 77. 59 sen, identity and violence. 60 welsch, “transculturality,” 71. 61 joke dewilde and thor-andré skrefsrud, “including alternative stories in the mainstream: how transcultural young people in norway perform creative cultural resistance in and outside of school,” international journal of inclusive education 20, no. 10 (2016): 1032–1042, https://doi.org/ 10.1080/13603116.2016.1145263. https://doi.org/10.1080/00393380410012736 https://doi.org/10.1080/00393380410012736 https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2016.1145263 https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2016.1145263 93the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 12, no. 2 (summer 2021) and attended an upper secondary school in the southeast of norway. bahar used social networks such as facebook on a daily basis and operated with different accounts, one for friends and one for family. in this way, she navigated between the roles of a “traditional” muslim girl at home and a liberal young person on social networks. when talking with friends, she used dari and norwegian, as well as standard english and english internet slang, challenging an understanding of languages as bounded and stable entities.62 moreover, bahar subscribed to several facebook communities. one of these communities was for fans of “afghanistan’s next top model,” a show that parallels similar reality television shows in many countries. another group, “afghan culture,” aimed to portray afghanistan in a positive light by showing sides of the country seldom covered by traditional media.63 it was clearly important to this young migrant girl to present and identify with alternative stories about afghanistan. she used her cultural knowledge and insight to look beyond dominant media discourses in norway, which present afghanistan as a land at war, and position herself in relation to what can be seen as a more nuanced, complex, and multifaceted picture of cultural identity. this example illustrates the increasingly complex and multidimensional decisions that many young migrant people face with regard to issues of identity, origin, and belonging. however, processes of globalization and cultural transformation will inevitably have different effects on individuals as well as within and between groups. as welsch emphasizes, a shift to a transcultural perspective calls for analysis on both the macro and micro levels and indicates that different processes may operate at the same time. some people may seek to reconstruct and restructure their identities both in relation and in contrast to categories such as muslim or afghan (such as in the example above). others may rediscover and reinterpret traditional perspectives and practices, and in some cases even withdraw from mainstream society and retreat to segregated minority communities. according to welsch, however, a transcultural awareness of global cultural flows and interdependencies helps us to interpret changes in ways that avoid the suggestion of boundedness and closed identities.64 welsch therefore argues that a transcultural model avoids the cultural essentialism that continues to haunt contemporary understandings of cultural differences.65 62 adrian blackledge, angela creese, and rachel hu, “protean heritage, everyday superdiversity,” working papers in translation and translanguaging, paper 13 (birmingham: birmingham university, 2016), https://tlang754703143.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/proteanheritage-everyday-superdiversity.pdf. 63 dewilde and skrefsrud, “including alternative stories.” 64 welsch, “transculturality,” 73. 65 welsch, “transculturality,” 61. https://tlang754703143.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/protean-heritage-everyday-superdiversity.pdf https://tlang754703143.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/protean-heritage-everyday-superdiversity.pdf 94 a transcultural approach to cross-cultural studies the characteristics of transculturality by introducing the prefix transin “transculturality,” welsch not only moved beyond conventional understandings of culture and nations as bounded autonomous systems, but emphasized the alteration and reconstruction of culture that takes place when cultures meet, which can be seen from the empirical example above.66 from a transcultural perspective, culture is both transversal and transformative: transversal in the sense that cultures are becoming more and more cross-cultural, and transformative in the sense that they are constantly developing, restructuring, and changing. welsch thus set his transcultural perspective apart from the concepts of multiculturality and interculturality, which he found to rely on the assumption that cultural communities are static, pure, and uniform.67 multiculturality and interculturality are both well-intentioned contemporary attempts at understanding cross-cultural interaction. while the concept of multiculturality aims to address the problems that arise when different cultures exist within the same society,68 interculturality addresses interactions and communication between cultures.69 used in a descriptive sense, multiculturality describes a society as a patchwork of different cultural communities living side by side; in the public discourse, multiculturality includes a political argument for equality and equity between these different cultures. interculturality, on the other hand, describes the exchanges and communication that take place between representatives of different cultures. normatively, it encourages dialogue between cultures in order to promote social cohesion and prevent or avoid social conflict and instability.70 both concepts involve the idea that cultural communities exist in autonomous and distinct spheres. a transcultural perspective therefore asks to what extent these terms really do depart from conventional understandings, since they too tend to frame cultural identities within conventional discourses of essence, categorization, and control. similarly, from a transcultural perspective, cultural identity is not equivalent to national identity.71 in contrast to hofstede’s claim that an individual’s cultural formation is determined by their nationality or national status, welsch 66 welsch, “transculturality”; welsch, transkulturalität. 67 welsch, “transculturality,” 64. 68 will kymlicka, “multicultural states and intercultural citizens,” theory and research in education 1, no. 2 (2003): 147–169, https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1477878503001002001. 69 nynäs, “interpretative models of estrangement and identification.” 70 welsch, “transculturality,” 66. 71 welsch, “transculturality,” 73. https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1477878503001002001 95the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 12, no. 2 (summer 2021) argued that the individual also contributes to forming the context and creating society.72 in this way, community remains relevant when it comes to shaping a person’s knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and values, as the individual cannot be understood outside of this context. according to welsch, this interaction between individual and context implies that cultural beliefs contribute to forming and defining a society, at the same time as the structure and substance of these cultural beliefs are shaped and influenced by the context in which they occur. these parallel processes reject the notion that “someone who possesses a japanese, indian or a german passport must also culturally unequivocally be japanese, an indian or a german.”73 cultural identities extend beyond the borders of national cultures, which means that individuals transcend attempts to explain, predict, and determine their thinking and actions. in fact, welsch notes, “the way of life for an economist, an academic or a journalist is no longer german or french, but rather european or global in tone.”74 at the same time, transcultural identities involve “a side of local affiliation,”75 which indicates the significance that context has for understanding cultural identity. despite critically questioning the relation between cultural identity and national affinity, a transcultural framework therefore remains sensitive to the significance of the contexts within which individuals think and act. as the following section will show, welsch’s transcultural perspective positions itself against theories of cultural hybridization that tend to deny the important roles context, local affiliation, and cultural traditions play for people across the world.76 a critique of hybridization and universalism theories of hybridity often describe a person as someone who picks up various cultural influences without any commitments or affinity to the original context from which these elements are derived.77 the individual’s identity is thus multiple, with frequent and often non-synchronous shifts, placing the hybrid identity within what homi bhabha described as “the third space” or “in72 welsch, “transculturality,” 73. 73 welsch, “transculturality,” 73. 74 welsch, “transculturality,” 68. 75 welsch, “transculturality,” 84. 76 welsch, “transculturality,” 74. 77 albert r. lillie and mariela páez, “cultural hybridity,” in encyclopedia of diversity in education, ed. james a. banks (los angeles: sage, 2012), 522–523. 96 a transcultural approach to cross-cultural studies between.”78 however, as stephen may and christine e. sleeter have pointed out, this approach to identity is problematic.79 not only does it presuppose the existence of the same boundaries that it purports not to exist, but it also runs the risk of disregarding the fact that people living in a globalized world often do identify with specific historical, cultural, and linguistic communities. theories of hybridization tend to be neoliberal in their approach and thus are only representative of those with stable economies and sheltered lives.80 as jonathan friedman has explained, particular groups often self-identify as culturally hybrid; this is not necessarily an ethnographic observation, but rather a claim to cosmopolitanism and a sanctioned form of cultural mixing.81 in turn, this self-imposed definition becomes a “definition for others via the forces of socialization inherent in the structures of power that such groups occupy: intellectuals close to the media; the media intelligentsia itself; in a certain sense, all those who can afford a cosmopolitan identity.”82 the answer from welsch would thus be that a transcultural framework is able to cover global and local as well as universalistic and particularistic aspects. the logic of transcultural processes allows the transcultural framework to do this quite naturally, since it acknowledges the mutability of cultures on both the macro and micro level.83 from a transcultural perspective, the individual’s need for cultural roots and belonging is not discharged; rather, tradition is seen as dynamic. welsch and hofstede would however agree that cultural universalism undermines perspectives that recognize power and domination. in an educational context, for example, when a curriculum aimed at the dominant culture is taken for granted, school success may be reduced for those students who represent a difference to the cultural majority. presenting universal standards as “natural” and “neutral” without taking into account their contextual foundation contributes to mask forms of domination and relations of power that are “elusive, unrecognized, taken for granted, and therefore all 78 homi k. bhabha, the location of culture (london: routledge, 1994). 79 may and sleeter, critical multiculturalism. 80 may and sleeter, critical multiculturalism. 81 jonathan friedman, “global crises, the struggle for cultural identity and intellectual porkbarrelling: cosmopolitans versus locals, ethnics and nationals in an era of de-hegemonisation,” in debating cultural hybridity: multicultural identities and the politics of anti-racism, ed. pnina werbner and tariq modood (london: zed books, 1997), 70–89. 82 friedman, “global crises,” 81. 83 welsch, “transculturality,” 84. 97the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 12, no. 2 (summer 2021) the more powerful and uncontestable.”84 nevertheless, the transcultural model diverges considerably from hofstede’s national culture model with regard to how universalism is understood and applied. while hofstede’s model seeks to pinpoint specific cultural traits and characteristics within the borders of different national communities, a transcultural perspective sees this exercise as simply another form of cultural universalism. according to welsch, “nations are not something given but are invented and often forcibly established.”85 thus, “folk-bound definitions are highly imaginary and fictional; they must laboriously be brought to prevail against historical evidence of intermingling.”86 from a transcultural perspective, hofstede’s national culture model appears to function as an instrument of power. hofstede’s model reduces people to a product of their national affiliation, which implies seizing and transforming them “by the very act of conceptualizing, inscribing, and interacting with them on terms not of their choosing.”87 the idea that people can be predicted, understood, and explained through their nationality suggests an internal homogenization that simultaneously excludes those who do not fit neatly within this category.88 welsch’s transcultural framework offers an alternative approach, in that it emphasizes the dynamic and hybrid aspects of culture. a transcultural approach to the classroom across the world, many schools are experiencing an increase in cultural, linguistic, religious, and ethnic diversity in the classroom, causing new challenges for educators. many new migrant students have highly complex cultural backgrounds. as migrant routes often pass through various states and territories, with long and formative stays in the countries of transit, their country of affiliation may not necessarily be their country of birth, and their mother tongue is not necessarily the language in which they are most proficient. teachers must acknowledge and recognize the complex backgrounds of children and young people without relying on simplistic assumptions and cultural stereotypes, and must also ensure their curriculum is free of such assumptions. teaching in diverse schools also requires the skills to allow students to use their 84 roy richard grinker and christopher b. steiner, perspectives on africa: a reader in culture, history and representation (oxford: blackwell, 1997), 571. 85 welsch, “transculturality,” 62. 86 welsch, “transculturality,” 62. 87 jean comaroff and john comaroff, of revelation and revolution: christianity, colonialism, and consciousness in south africa (chicago: university of chicago press, 1991), 15. 88 welsch, “transculturality,” 63. 98 a transcultural approach to cross-cultural studies previous knowledge and competences in a way that empowers both the student and the learning community as a whole.89 welsch’s transcultural model encourages teachers to embrace the freedom and autonomy of students in ways that recognize each student’s wide range of cultural and linguistic expertise, rather than impose restrictions on their identities. in contrast to a static conception of cultural identity, in which a student’s complex experiences would be reduced to a single category, the transcultural model encourages teachers to take the intricate life stories of their students seriously. regardless of whether they are first, second, or third generation migrants, it is of critical importance that the identities of migrant students are not restricted to their nation of origin or the cultural backgrounds of their parents or grandparents. by affirming the complexity of students’ backgrounds, teachers may enhance the students’ sense of belonging and contribute to boosting their academic achievement.90 hence, the transcultural model not only serves as a critique of pedagogical practices and discourses that essentialize cultural backgrounds and treat them as a set of practices that can be described, labeled, and taught; welsch’s work may also inspire teachers to find creative ways of exploring a wider understanding of what it means to be norwegian, for example. it leads us to examine who “is allowed” to call themselves norwegian. welsch’s transcultural model may thus lay the foundation for a learning environment that prevents stereotypes from developing and allows students to explore the dynamics and complexity of cultural identity, including negotiations of national belonging and participation. training teachers to adopt a transcultural perspective should better equip them to address cultural conflicts among their students. a transcultural approach to teaching should involve critically questioning how and why minority backgrounds are so often undervalued in society. those who differ from the mainstream are often conceptualized within a discourse of deficit, meaning that cultural variation is constructed as a problem, something that should be removed or repaired in order to enter the mainstream classroom.91 a transcultural model, however, allows for a more nuanced intervention than is permitted by a national culture model. teachers are encouraged not to explain conflicts away based on cultural differences, for example through categorical statements such as “that is just how it is with foreigners.” by applying a transcultural model, teachers may help students to see how their 89 jim cummins and margaret early, identity texts: the collaborative creation of power in multilingual schools (stoke-on-trent: trentham books, 2011); may and sleeter, critical multiculturalism. 90 cummins and early, identity texts: the collaborative creation of power in multilingual schools. 91 baker and wright, foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism. 99the journal of transcultural studies, vol. 12, no. 2 (summer 2021) biographies overlap and intertwine in society, and how conflicts also relate to other dimensions such as class and socioeconomic status. teachers trained in a transcultural approach should be able to challenge the idea that some backgrounds are supposedly beneficial to the classroom while others are considered to be hindrances. a transcultural approach to teaching should involve critically questioning how and why minority backgrounds are so often undervalued. conclusion in this paper, i have critically examined hofstede’s influential national culture model, arguing that the model overlooks the dynamic character of cultural interaction. against this background, i have presented welsch’s work on transculturality as a convincing alternative framework within which to map cultural interactions. 92 furthermore, i have imagined the ways in which such a framework could be beneficial when applied to a pedagogical context and argued for its adoption in the classroom. while the national model relies on the classification of cultures and seeks to explain an individual’s behavior by analyzing values, beliefs, and attitudes on a national level, a transcultural framework emphasizes culture as a dynamic process. from a transcultural perspective, a person’s identity is rarely bound to one particular group or community, but rather reflects a range of communities of which the person is part.93 moreover, human beings are uniquely self-reflective and selfdefining, producing and reproducing identity in transformative processes of cultural interaction and exchange.94 thus, the transcultural framework acknowledges that cultural identities are dynamic and that these identities refuse categorization on both the individual and the social level.95 consequently, a transcultural framework underlines the critiques that deem the national culture model as out-of-date and deterministic. as the paper has shown, a national culture model aims to investigate, discover, and establish an understanding of the cultural other, a project that results in objectifying the other and controlling them through knowledge. hence, a national culture model could be accused of promoting a positivistic project: that is, a project that, if properly implemented, promises to predict, explain, and control the 92 welsch, “transculturality”; welsch, transkulturalität. 93 sen, identity and violence. 94 nynäs, “interpretative models of estrangement and identification.” 95 welsch, “transculturality.” 100 a transcultural approach to cross-cultural studies other.96 critically, one could therefore object to a national culture model on the basis that it risks embracing negative stereotypes that encapsulate and label other people in a way that traps them within predefined conceptions and understandings. in light of this critique, a national culture model is not only ethically problematic but dated, in the sense that it does not sufficiently take cultural exchange and complexity into account. from this perspective, a transcultural framework provides a necessary contribution to cross-cultural research. a transcultural approach may help researchers to conduct a more precise analysis that better corresponds to the cultural intersections that most people experience in their everyday life. this includes a more nuanced and multidimensional understanding of the relation between tradition, national culture, and the individual. a transcultural frame of reference does not devalue culture, tradition, or geographic affiliation; rather, it pays attention to what may happen across and within these planes. furthermore, a transcultural approach may help teachers to become more sensitive to the complex cultural backgrounds of their students, encouraging them to look past stereotypes and to recognize each child as a culturally complex individual. teachers who adopt a transcultural perspective should develop a more nuanced and multidimensional understanding of the relationships between tradition, national culture, and the individual.97 this, in turn, may be helpful for students, as they will no longer be identitfied with a predetermined background that may put restrictions on who they are and what they are capable of achieving in the classroom. when teachers build a transcultural capacity to recognize instances of stereotyping and prejudice, they may help students to see themselves in the curriculum and believe that their competencies matter in the classroom community.98 by adopting a transcultural model within a pedagocial context, teachers can enhance students’ sense of belonging and validate their potential for academic success. hopefully, critical scholarship within cross-cultural studies will make increased use of this transcultural framework to recognize cultural complexity, and this in turn will contribute to the reduction of prejudice, categorizations, and stereotyping. 96 gayatri chakravorty spivak, “subaltern studies: deconstructing historiography,” in the spivak reader: selected works of gayatri chakravorty spivak, ed. donna landry and gerald maclean (london: routledge, 1996), 203–235. 97 heidi a. smith, “transculturality in higher education,” learning and teaching: the international journal of higher education in social sciences 13, no. 3 (2020): 41–60, https://doi. org/10.3167/latiss.2020.130304. 98 niranjan casinader, “transnational learning experiences and teacher transcultural capacity: the impact on professional practice—a comparative study of three australian schools,” intercultural education 29, no. 2 (2018): 258–280, https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2018.1430284. https://doi.org/10.3167/latiss.2020.130304 https://doi.org/10.3167/latiss.2020.130304 https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2018.1430284 the chinese commission to cuba (1874) | ng | transcultural studies the chinese commission to cuba (1874): reexamining international relations in the nineteenth century from a transcultural perspective rudolph ng, st catharine’s college, cambridge fig. 1: cover page of harper’s new monthly magazine, june 1864, vol. 29. (cornell university library) as the abolitionist movement gained momentum in the second half of the nineteenth century, agricultural producers in cuba and south america urgently began looking for substitutes for their african slaves. the result was a massive growth in the “coolie trade”––the trafficking of laborers known as coolies––from china to plantations overseas.[1] on paper, the indentured workers were abroad legally and voluntarily and were given regular salaries, certain benefits, as well as various legal rights not granted to slaves. in practice, however, coolies were often kidnapped before departure and abused upon arrival. their relatively low wages and theoretically legal status attracted employers in agricultural production around the world. virtually all the european colonies employed coolies; from the spanish sugar plantations in cuba to the german coconut fields in samoa, coolies were a critical source of labor. for the trade in coolies between china and latin america, a handful of spanish conglomerates, such as la zulueta y compañía and la alianza, held the monopoly. assisted by spanish diplomatic outposts, these conglomerates established coolie stations along the south chinese coast to facilitate the transportation of laborers. their branches across the globe handled the logistics, marketing, and finances of the trade. the substantial profits accrued from the high demand for labor encouraged the gradual expansion of the trade after 1847, with the highest number of coolies being shipped to cuba and peru in the 1860s and 1870s. by 1874, over 260,000 indentured chinese workers had embarked for the ports of havana (140,000+)[2] and lima (120,000+)[3], and in due course these workers had an enormous impact on global agricultural production.[4] the lucrative coolie trade between china and latin america came to an abrupt end in the 1870s after allegations of abuse in the international press were subsequently confirmed by western diplomats.[5] a series of diplomatic struggles ensued between the qing dynasty and the spanish crown over the treatment of the coolies. five nations–– england, russia, france, germany, and the united states––mediated between the two, but ultimately, they supported the chinese case. these diplomatic disagreements resulted in the dispatch of a qing delegation to cuba to investigate the allegations of mistreatment. its final report described the appalling working conditions of the chinese coolies in the spanish possessions. after the report was made public, resistance to the trade grew in southern china, and the spanish government was forced to end the trade in laborers between china and latin america before both governments had even signed a final written agreement banning it. the qing delegation to cuba, which ultimately brought down the global coolie network between china and the spanish-speaking world, was covered extensively by the chinese and international press throughout much of the 1870s.[6] information about the creation of the commission, its journey, and the final report appeared in newspapers across the globe. as was already evident in contemporary assessments, the delegation’s journey was of historic significance, and many predicted it would have a huge impact on the sino–spanish coolie trade and on international agricultural production. moreover, unlike repeated chinese defeats at the hands of foreign powers, the commission represented one of the few instances in the nineteenth century when the qing dynasty scored a diplomatic victory against a european nation. yet, despite its great historical significance, rather surprisingly, the chinese commission to cuba has not been thoroughly examined by historians; as a consequence, the general public remains relatively unaware of the commission and its significance.[7] for the same historical period, historians of sino–foreign relations have instead focused their attention on the treaty of nanking (1842), the treaty of tientsin (1858), and the convention of peking (1860). it is therefore worth asking why this extraordinary chinese commission to cuba and the resulting sino–spanish treaty of 1877 have been largely ignored by scholarship as well as by the public. seeking to address this lacuna in the scholarship, this paper examines the origin of the commission, its investigation, and the consequences of its findings. furthermore, in view of the primary sources that have been made public in spanish and chinese archives during the last decades, the history of the commission suggests that a basic reexamination of sino–foreign relations in the nineteenth century is called for. of no less importance, the apparent exclusion of the commission in the historiography of the period is indicative of the processes of reconstruction of public memory in china today.[8] from conventional to transcultural historiography although the chinese commission to cuba is rarely the subject of specialized examination, it does belong to the larger history of coolies,[9] which is an integral part of the historiography of the qing dynasty and of sino-foreign relations. despite some fundamental differences of opinion, many chinese and western historians have agreed on a number of operational assumptions concerning nineteenth-century qing dynasty and chinese–western diplomatic relations. for decades, historiographical approaches to the study of sino–western relations have seen the two “sides” as distinct monolithic entities. the western “impact” and the corresponding chinese “reaction” described in the scholarly literature is heavily based on this east–west dichotomy.[10] this causal reasoning corresponds well with arguments made in modernization theory about china’s path to the modern world. furthermore, coolie history is widely assumed to be indicative of the last chinese imperial dynasty’s weakness in confronting the western powers. for instance, the zongli yamen––the office of the qing dynasty, which was created to handle foreign affairs––is often described as inexperienced and as submitting to the wishes of the western nations; as being a form of chinese bureaucracy that merely received imperial orders or acted upon the direct commands of its chief, prince gong. rarely have historical studies focused on the collaborations among and between the chinese and foreign diplomats, and their collective influence on eventual qing policies vis-à-vis western countries. beyond these preconceived notions of monoliths, duality, and causality in coolie history, both western and chinese accounts have reconstructed the past of the coolie trade as part of the larger narrative of china’s victimization. particularly vivid in the 1960s and 1970s, virtually all prc publications related to the chinese coolies have depicted the coolie trade, along with the chinese commission to cuba, as further proof of western imperialism’s impositions upon the chinese people. the chinese coolies, their families, and the entire nation were seen as helpless victims in western hands, and the crimes of the coolie trade were laid at western feet alone.[11] these absolute depictions of western victimizers and chinese victims are part of a public and academic rhetoric, albeit more subdued, that is heard in the people’s republic of china to this day.[12] however, some recently released sources indicate that the coolie trade was never a one-sided venture involving only the spaniards.[13] indeed, both chinese and spanish agents were heavily involved in creating, expanding, and maintaining the international network in human trade. this paper intends to demonstrate that the commission to cuba in 1874, which eventually resulted in the end of this trade, was also an outcome of a close cooperation between chinese, westerners in chinese employ, and western diplomats who were willing to work across national boundaries to achieve goals that were beyond their particular state interests. from the planning of the commission to the execution of its duties and securing the consequences for its report, the “west” was in fact heavily involved, in most cases even on the chinese side. the leadership of the zongli yamen invited participation from known and trusted foreign colleagues working in the chinese customs; prince gong, the chief of the zongli yamen, knew full well that the complicated diplomatic encounters between china and spain which resulted from the allegations of coolie abuse could be best resolved with assistance from a team of westerners such as robert hart, a. macpherson,[14] and alfred huber, all of whom worked in the chinese customs. in this respect, the state and the institutions of state in the late qing period merit further examination since the national labels, categories, and boundaries that have until now framed their analysis appear to be at odds with the historical record. the spanish coolie trade and the creation of the chinese commission although chinese laborers had been going abroad to work since the eighteenth century,[15] the institutional structure and global organization of the coolie trade first materialized in the 1840s. taking advantage of the newly signed treaty of nanking, british firms such as tait & co. and syme, muir & co. dominated the human trade between china and the british possessions abroad in the 1840s and early 1850s. coolie stations were established along the chinese coasts, but coolie recruitment was largely delegated to local chinese crimps. when the british parliament passed legislation against the coolie trade in 1855, the dominant position in the trade was taken over by spanish firms––for instance, la zulueta y compañía and la alianza––whose agricultural operations in latin america required manpower far beyond what the african slave trade could provide, even if it had not been hampered by the british navy’s efforts to cut off the supply lines. the sugar industry in cuba and guano fertilizer excavation in peru were labor-intensive businesses, and their continuation and expansion was seriously threatened by a lack of workers. thus, in the entire two hundred year-history of the international coolie trade it was during the 1860s and 1870s that these spanish companies imported the largest number of laborers. growing in tandem with this huge importation of chinese indentured laborers, were voices opposing the coolie trade. from coolie recruitment and treatment onboard transport ships to working conditions in latin america, local chinese officials, western diplomats, and newspapers inside and outside of china made their objections known. of particular concern were sino–spanish recruitment practices, which were seen as the most barbarous offense, since the majority of coolies were lured to latin america under false pretenses. in the early 1850s, as many coolies later testified to the commission, many chinese in southern china were aware of the cooperation that existed between the spanish agents and their chinese counterparts: spanish vessels come to china, and suborning the vicious [sic] of our countrymen, by their aid carry away full cargoes of men, of whom 8 or 9 of every 10 are decoyed.[16] the kidnapping and luring of chinese males into the barracoons or onto coolie ships caused widespread turmoil in various places in southern china, particularly near the ports opened for foreign residence and foreign trade through the 1842 treaty of nanking. local petitions asked for help from the public, and printed reports in newspapers described the disappearance of chinese men and the subsequent destruction of families.[17] equally important to the local officials who took up the matter was the fact that the economies in these regions suffered as a result of the coolie trade. in 1860, for example, lao chongguang 勞崇光 (1802–1867), viceroy of liangguang, staged a raid on a spanish ship in canton, from which more than one hundred chained chinese coolies were rescued.[18] by then, most british firms had already been prompted to withdraw from the coolie trade, and british diplomats now pressured the qing government to ban the trade with spain, citing unrest in southern china.[19] among the most vocal diplomats campaigning against spanish coolie trade was rutherford alcock (1809-1897), the british minister to china from 1865 to 1869. during his tenure in peking, the british government signed the emigration convention of peking (1860), which provided safeguards for the well-being of chinese coolies contracted by british firms.[20] the us envoys in peking were equally adamant in their resistance to the coolie trade. many based their arguments on humanitarian grounds. one representative, peter parker (1804-1888), who had been an ordained presbyterian minister and medical doctor in china before beginning a diplomatic career, reiterated that the trade should be banned primarily on humanitarian and religious grounds. during his tenure as the american minister to china between 1855 and 1857, parker was confronted with repeated reports about this human trafficking, much of it involving american ships. in 1856, he publicly denounced the coolie trade, appealing to all americans in china not to be part of it. labeling it as “irregular and immoral traffic,” parker argued that this inhumane business would eventually damage the relationship between china and the united states altogether. he found further support in the rhetoric of the growing american abolitionist movement. for him, features of the coolie trade “strongly resembled those of the african slave trade in former years… exceeding the horrors of the ‘middle passage.’”[21] parker also raised concerns about the treatment of the coolies in cuba and peru to his colleagues from the zongli yamen. however, it would be naive to argue that these anti-coolie trade sentiments were solely grounded in humanitarian concerns. economic and pragmatic considerations also played an important role in driving the opposition against the sino–spanish coolie trade. some american diplomats, such as humphrey marshall, argued that it was in american economic interests to stop the chinese coolie trade immediately. marshall, the first us commissioner to china, explained that american agricultural production, particularly in the south, would be threatened by latin american competitors who were continually employing “cheap chinese labor.”[22] himself a planter from kentucky, marshall wrote to the secretary of state in 1853 with an estimate that each chinese coolie cost eighty dollars per annum to employ, “far below the cost of slave labor, independent of the risk which the planter runs in his original investment.” in addition, marshall argued that the chinese were “patient of labor, tractable, obedient as slaves, … [and] will compel from the earth the maximum production.”[23] in his conclusion, he claimed that the coolie trade, if allowed to continue, would challenge american political and economic power; he thus recommended that the president promote policies that would ban the involvement of american ships in the coolie trade.[24] in addition to these humanitarian and economic motives, the us diplomatic corps in peking was also concerned that the coolie question would affect overall sino-western relations and, perhaps more importantly, damage the westerner’s image in china. benjamin parke avery (1828-1875), chief american envoy to the qing empire between 1874 and 1875, summarized it succinctly: apart from the motives of humanity, growing out of our desire to ameliorate the condition of the chinese now in cuba and to effect a reform for the future, we feel that a failure to settle the pending dispute on a basis that will remove all causes of complaint about the treatment of chinese by spain would react against foreigners generally, in the estimation of the people of this empire, and by intensifying their hatred for us, lead to increased difficulties in our relations with them.[25] despite these calls to action by american and british diplomats, initial reactions from qing officialdom were tepid throughout the 1860s.[26] this indifference, however, changed in the early 1870s, when prince gong was faced with two key incidents and realized that he needed to address the issue directly. first, the spanish consul in 1871 requested permission to open a coolie recruitment center in canton, which had already been approved by the local governor. in the following year, the spanish consul once again asked the zongli yamen to approve his plan to open more recruitment centers across southern china. upon approval, a spanish coolie agent, francisco abella of the zulueta company, petitioned the local officials in amoy for permission to open his own recruitment center. however, abella’s specific petition was refused by the local governor because of abuse allegations against the zulueta company that had surfaced in the press. the spanish minister then demanded that abella be reimbursed the sum of $300,000 for his loss. the zongli yamen refused, but the spanish diplomats continued to exert pressure.[27] at around the same time, the already abysmal conditions among chinese coolies became so serious that the coolies themselves appealed to the american consul in lima for help; he in turn forwarded their petitions to the us state department, where they were turned over to samuel wells williams. williams then presented the actual petitions written in chinese by the coolies to the zongli yamen. these petitions described the oppressive circumstances under which the coolies were working and living every day, and the coolies themselves asked the emperor to do whatever was possible to save them from their misery. as williams added, the condition of these laborers is very lamentable. far off in a distant land, they have met this suffering and misery, and they are like birds in a cage out of which there is no escape… [i would suggest] that you may devise deliverance and succor.[28] although it was not exactly a requirement of his position, and he was certainly under no obligation to do so, williams urged the staff of the zongli yamen to demonstrate that the emperor was not altogether overlooking the petitions of his people in peru. he further suggested that, before the qing government could send its own envoy to peru to protect its citizens, the american ambassador in lima might be able to help on behalf of the chinese officials. but williams also pointed out that although the american diplomats could help, the zongli yamen had to first ask the us president for this courtesy directly.[29] at first, the reaction was subdued. as williams recalled, these officials expressed their sympathy with their suffering countrymen, regretted that they should have been inveigled into such a miserable, cruel, servitude, and hoped that the evils would soon be mitigated, but they had no vivid sense of their own responsibilities in the matter, and made no inquires as to the most desirable means of doing anything. soon afterwards, however, williams received a much more positive response directly from prince gong, who signaled his awareness of the matter and indicated that he would deliberate as to what solutions were at his disposal.[30] in fact, prince gong had already decided to act. he first contacted most of the foreign envoys in peking to corroborate the allegations of coolie abuses in latin america. the envoys for denmark, france, germany, great britain, the netherlands, spain, and the united states all received a letter from prince gong asking their opinion on the sino–spanish coolie trade, inquiring into the allegations, and seeking suitable suggestions for resolving the problem. but no one would confirm the allegations on the record, and francisco otín, the spanish chargé d'affaires to china, even vehemently denied them.[31] some diplomats said that evidence was the key to determining what course of action the qing government should take. mr. fergusvan, the dutch minister in china, expressed that every country has the right to see that its subjects who emigrate to other lands are well treated there; and if china has undoubted proof that the laborers who have gone abroad have been cruelly treated, no matter in what country, she has the right to inform the high officials of that country that chinese coolies can no longer be allowed to go there.[32] several foreign diplomats as well as foreigners working for the chinese maritime customs service urged prince gong in one way or another to send a delegation to cuba to investigate the abuse allegations. after listening to these opinions, prince gong finally asked emperor tongzhi in 1873 for approval to send an investigative team to havana. in his memorial to the emperor, prince gong specifically mentioned the advice given by robert hart, the inspector-general of the chinese imperial maritime custom service,[33] to create a team of suitable experts for this purpose. significantly, it was also hart, who prepared a standard questionnaire with fifty-one items for the commission to follow.[34] true to hart’s academic training in belfast, which had included legal and humanist studies,[35] his instructions to the commission presented a specific, systematic set of questions that was intended to elicit facts as well as personal experiences. the answers to these and other inquiries ultimately formed the basis on which the qing government acted to put an end to the spanish coolie business. hart was anything but a narrow-minded customs bureaucrat. he appears to have had a personal interest in the success of the commission as well as in making sure that the public knew of its work. in addition to developing the questions to elicit information from the coolies, hart used the newspapers in china and abroad to promote the agenda of the upcoming commission. familiar with the power of the press in the west, he contacted all major newspapers in shanghai, urging the editors to print news concerning the commission to cuba.[36] he must have been pleased to see that many newspapers in china frequently published reports about the commission and the coolie situation in latin america. even before its start, the commission received wide coverage in the chinese and foreign press.[37] national newspapers, such as the new york times in the united states, the shenbao in china, el diario de la marina in cuba, and the times in the united kingdom, all frequently reported on the imperial commission. some of these chinese and foreign newspapers would later receive materials concerning the commission’s findings from robert hart directly.[38] the purpose of the commission and details about its members[39] the complaints of the coolie “slaves,”[40] and finally the commission’s activities in cuba,[41] all were subject of detailed reports in the newspapers. the english-language newspapers in particular, many of which had connections to hart, provided extensive coverage on the team members, particularly on chen lanbin 陳蘭彬(1816–1895), the chief commissioner.[42] fig. 2: chen lanbin 陳蘭彬 (1816–1895), chief commissioner of the cuba commission. (wikimedia commons) the members of the chinese commission to cuba in the minds of prince gong and robert hart, the commission (see table 1) had to be international in nature. prince gong first selected chen, who at that time was the chief officer of the chinese educational mission in the united states, where he managed the educational program for a select group of chinese schoolboys in hanover, new jersey. the choice of chen to head the commission seemed advantageous. first, he was one of the very few chinese officials who had diplomatic experience abroad. moreover, chen came from guangdong province, where most coolies originated, and could communicate with them in their local languages and dialects.[43] on the advice of hart, prince gong nominated a. macpherson, a british national, and alfred huber, a french national, as the other two commissioners. both had been working under hart in the chinese maritime customs service for years. at the time of their nominations to the cuba commission, macpherson was the commissioner of customs at hankou, and huber held the same position in tianjin. both were able to read and speak chinese fluently[44] and were well known in the foreign community in china.[45] prince gong’s selection of these three individuals was not arbitrary or without purpose. in his memorial to the emperor in june 1873, he indicated that foreign nationals were included in the planned commission with two specific goals in mind. first, the commission, especially through the presence of macpherson and huber, should be familiar with cuba and the cuban people [不至有人地生疏之慮]; and second, in order to preempt spanish complaints of partiality, an international delegation would provide unbiased observers whose final assessments would win approval from other nations [足以關日國之口而服各國之心].[46] on september 21, 1873, imperial approval for the delegation was granted, and prince gong announced the establishment of the cuba commission with a core membership made up of chen, macpherson, and huber. the appointment of the rest of the delegation was left up to chen, who received this news while stationed in hartford, connecticut. having worked in a diplomatic and educational capacity for some years, chen already had staff in the united states upon whom he could rely. his deputy in washington was yung wing 容閎, the first chinese graduate of an american university.[47] yung wing recruited two americans to the commission, luther northrop, who in new haven had played host to two boys from the china educational mission, and henry terry, both of whom had legal knowledge and knew spanish. chen’s confidant in the united states, zeng laishun 曾蘭生, a singaporean with chinese heritage, went to havana to prepare for the commission’s upcoming trip.[48] in february and march 1874, chen, macpherson, and huber traveled separately from washington d.c., hankou, and tianjin to havana, where they began a two-month investigation into the allegations of abuse of chinese coolies. table 1: membership of the chinese commission to cuba [49] name position in delegation nationality position outside delegation chen lanbin 陳蘭彬 chief commissioner chinese chief officer of the chinese educational mission in the us a. macpherson 馬福臣 commissioner british commissioner of customs at hankou, china alfred huber 吳秉文 commissioner french commissioner of customs at tianjin, china luther h. northrop[50] translator american interpreter of spanish, west haven, conn., us henry t. terry[51] member american attorney, hartford, connecticut, us ye yuanjun 葉源濬 member chinese chinese language instructor, hartford, connecticut, us chen lun 陳論 member chinese student, hartford, connecticut, us zeng laishun 曾蘭生 member (arrived in cuba before the commission to make preparations) singaporean chinese with malaysian descent translator, affiliated with the chinese educational mission in hartford, us. journey and investigation of the delegation in cuba fig. 3: the commission’s journey in cuba. map: detail from thomas jeffreys, the island of cuba with part of the bahama banks & the martyrs, 1775. (david rumsey map collection).[52] on march 17, 1874, the full commission convened in havana, where they first met with the spanish governor general in cuba. immediately afterward, they paid visits to all western diplomats in cuba to consult with them concerning their investigation. consular representatives from great britain, france, russia, the united states, germany, sweden, norway, denmark, the netherlands, austria, belgium, italy, and portugal were all informed of the commission’s purposes in cuba.[53] while the conflict was strictly between china and spain, this important move to involve all the western powers most likely came from discussions between commission members chen, huber, and macpherson, as well as others. among these meetings, of particular importance was the discussion between the commission and josé maria de eça de queiroz, the portuguese consul in cuba and a known opponent of the introduction of coolies. to chen lanbin, the portuguese consul gave a detailed depiction of maltreatments suffered by chinese coolies in cuba, expressing his special concerns about the unethical practice of re-contracting, which was employed by the spanish planters after the end of the original term of eight years.[54] after meeting with foreign diplomats in havana, the commission began interviewing chinese coolies in same city over a period of nineteen days. to form a deeper understanding of the coolies’ living situation, it spent five days in matanzas, three in cardenas, three in colon, three in sagua, four in cienfuegos, four in guanajay, and one in guanabacoa. the commission completed a trip through the most important sugar-producing cities of cuba, where they were able to see, talk with, and observe the chinese coolies firsthand, in plantations, warehouses, refineries, and prisons.[55] chen and the others also discussed matters with the local spanish sugar planters and with juliánde zulueta, the most important oligarch in cuba and owner of much of the sino–spanish coolie trade.[56] while in cuba, the commission strictly complied with diplomatic protocol. during its investigations, local spanish officials determined all the hours of visiting the warehouses and prisons. visits to the plantations would take place only after prior arrangements with business owners had been made. thus, except for the conversations they had with coolies on the street, the results of the commission’s investigation were no surprise to the spaniards. although the interviews were conducted in chinese and usually led by the imperial commissioner, the western members were present and understood the accounts through a translator.[57] in addition to the verbal accounts, the commission members were able to see with their own eyes the wounds inflicted on the coolies. verified by personal inspections, current and past wounds of the coolies were noted. the commission documents included the narratives of individual coolies and the injuries allegedly inflicted upon them by their masters: the loss of ears, loss of sight, loss of fingers, loss of teeth, and so forth, as a result of beatings by their employers.[58] these documents—both the testimonies and the final report—were all the more telling, as the coolies talking with the commission were facing potential retaliations from the cuban planters.[59] on may 8, 1874, the commission concluded its investigation and left havana. shortly after its departure, the spanish newspapers in cuba summarized its journey on the island. the sugar planters appear to have had no illusions about the eventual results of the report. it would, the editorials argued, place the cuban planters and the entire spanish coolie trade in an unflattering light. one cuban newspaper, el león español,succinctly described local sentiments shortly after the commission had departed from havana: neither is it probable that the visit of the commissioner mr. chan lan pin will stop producing its impacts nor was it done for the fun of making the trip. and, frankly speaking, since his upcoming reports to his country must be unfavorable to us, one should believe, without venturing much, that the arrival of the asian colonists, as has been verified until today, will either stop completely or be significantly restricted.[60] the editorial was correct. the written and oral testimonies from the chinese coolies collected by the commission constituted a scathing indictment of the cuban sugar planters and the spanish authorities on the island. based on 1,176 individual testimonies made by the coolies, the commission argued that the employment contracts were virtually meaningless because neither the spanish authorities nor the cuban business owners complied with the terms allegedly agreed upon.[61] almost 90 percent of the chinese coolies testified that they had been sent to cuba without their consent. additionally, upon termination of the contract, the coolies were not freed or provided a means of returning to china; instead, they were held with the assistance of the local spanish authorities and continued to work in cuba. without hope of ever returning to china or gaining their freedom in cuba, many coolies committed suicide. as a result of these circumstances, less than 2 percent of all chinese coolies ever saw their homes in china again.[62] with their stacks of documents, the commission headed back to washington d.c. to compile and translate its final report. chen returned to peking in late 1874, armed with the final written reports regarding the allegations of coolie abuse.[63] after much discussion within the zongli yamen, contacts were resumed between the chinese foreign office and western diplomats in peking in february 1875.[64] prince gong sent a package of materials to the spanish envoy, the diplomats of the five powers and––deliberately violating his original agreement with the spaniards––to representatives of other western powers. in the package the zongli yamen staff included the damning report about the spanish coolie trade written by chen, macpherson, and huber, along with a significant number of coolie testimonies. not only did the zongli yamen send the materials to the diplomats in peking but the chinese diplomatic staff also forwarded the commission report, which included a chinese version besides english and french, to many officials throughout the country. this act, coupled with the efforts of robert hart to alert the media about the report, spread the news about coolie abuses to all the major chinese cities, where newspapers reprinted the key findings of the report and added editorial commentaries.[65] shortly thereafter, the international press also reacted to the commission’s report with extensive coverage.[66] fig. 4: editorial condemning the coolie trade, shenbao, march 17, 1875. (library of the institute of chinese studies, heidelberg) consequences and aftermath francisco otín, the spanish envoy in peking, visited the zongli yamen in march 1875 and registered three separate official protests. first, he complained that an american jurist had been added to the team (since terry had not been included in the original list). second, he criticized the absence of chen, macpherson, and huber in peking for cross-examination by the spanish legation and demanded their presence. and third, he insisted that the definitive final report should be written in both english and spanish instead of chinese because the spanish representatives did not read chinese.[67] he further added that the zongli yamen should not have sent the report to all the embassies in peking.[68] a rumor also began circulating that spain was getting ready to take military action against china and would particularly target taiwan.[69] li hongzhang 李鴻章, the senior statesman in peking, and ding zhenduo 丁振鐸, the viceroy of minzhe, believed that spanish threats were just “empty words”;[70] nevertheless, both men began making military preparations in anticipation of a spanish landing in taiwan or southern china. the zongli yamen, for its part, refused to accede to spanish demands, since prince gong had been informed by hart that on the coolie question china was enjoying the advantage in diplomatic circles as well as, according to assessments of the media coverage, in the eyes of the public.[71] after publication of the commission report, a number of western diplomats wrote to their home countries reporting on the public reaction in china. their writings suggested that the moral standing of all westerners had suffered damage. the us minister to china, william evarts, to give one example, wrote to the secretary of state, a great deal of information in regard to the sufferings of the chinese in cuba has been given to this government and scattered around the empire, and the good name of all western peoples has been more than compromised in consequence.[72] after reading the report and witnessing the chinese reaction to the matter, the members of the western diplomatic corps in peking seem to have distanced themselves from their spanish colleagues. in communications to their home countries, these diplomats expressed their conviction that the report was factually correct and voiced support for the chinese cause. the american diplomat avery, for example, indicated that along with other western diplomats, he would be willing to act as a mediator between china and spain and to facilitate efforts on behalf of the chinese to obtain redress for the abuses, protect the coolies, and stop the continuation of the spanish coolie trade. he was certain that his colleagues in other chinese ports would join in efforts to prevent further illicit coolie trade.[73] negotiations between china and spain did, in fact, take place in peking between 1875 and 1877, and were conducted under the auspices of the big five. finally, on june 1, 1877, the spanish ambassador in peking signed a new treaty with the qing government. it officially put an end to the spanish coolie trade, which for all practical purposes had stopped in 1874.[74] in the final ratified agreement “concerning the emigration of chinese subjects to the island of cuba,”[75] spain agreed that in the future it would not recruit coolies by force or trickery.[76] china was to send a permanent mission to cuba to monitor the condition of the coolies,[77] while spain was forced to pay for the return of former coolies to china.[78] moreover, all chinese coolies still in cuba were to be released following ratification of the treaty.[79] in 1879, the first permanent chinese consulate in havana was established, allowing chinese officials to observe and regularly report back to peking on the well-being of those coolies who had yet to finish their contracts into the 1880s. concluding remarks: revisiting the dichotomy in sino-foreign relations this paper has discussed the chinese commission and its trip to cuba in 1874, the reasons for its establishment in response to the spanish coolie trade, the identities of its members, its investigation in cuba and subsequent report, and the aftermath of its activities, including an eventual formal ban on sino–spanish human trafficking in 1877. at every step in the process, the commission was the product of a series of interactions between chinese and non-chinese: the coolie trade between china and latin america started with cooperation between chinese crimps and spanish agents; the decision to dispatch an investigative commission to cuba was the result of the exchange of information and opinion involving qing officials, westerners in the employ of the qing customs, and western diplomats; although the commission was chaired by a chinese with overseas experience, the majority of the commission’s members were foreigners in qing employ, and their involvement in the investigation in cuba was critical to its ultimate success; the extensive coverage by the international press, which increased the impact of the commission and its findings considerably, was the result of hart’s making use of his extensive contacts with the editors of chinese and foreign language papers published in china as well as with the international press. thus, in the end the substance of the commission to cuba differed markedly from a conventionally understood “chinese” delegation. the history of chen and his team demonstrates that none of the traditional units, such as “china,” “the west,” “the zongli yamen,” “great britain,” or the “united states” can serve as suitable explanatory tools with which to explain the motivations and actions of the individuals involved. as the work of the commission suggests, foreigners working as qing officials were willing to act in the chinese interest even outside their contractual duties in the customs for the following reasons: independent of the attitude of the country of their citizenship, they agreed with the basic thrust of the commissions’ work; diplomats were willing to support a chinese cause against one of their “western” members because they agreed with the public opinion in their home countries that the chinese indeed had a case; because the growing public chinese clamor against the abuses threatened to endanger the standing of foreigners in china altogether; and because doing the right thing might be useful in shielding their own agriculture from the competition of cheap indentured labor. in this context the traditional units of analysis are largely meaningless. i suggest that they conceal rather than reveal the transnational nature of the process in which this commission came about and worked, as well as the transcultural interaction in the articulation of the values that carried it to success. on an individual level, foreign diplomats were rarely unrelenting imperialists or virtuous saviors of the chinese coolies. instead their actions appear to have been guided by a number of motives, including personal experiences, and were driven only partly by national interests. the private advice given by western diplomats to prince gong, the mediation provided by the diplomats of the big five, and the consular assistance of the european representatives in lima and cuba were all part and parcel of the humanist beliefs and pragmatic goals of these diplomats. the line between chinese and non-chinese diplomats was often––if not always––contested. robert hart, a. macpherson, alfred huber, and samuel wells williams were certainly “foreign” in the sense that they held british, french, or american passports, but they also worked tirelessly for a “chinese” cause. as the work of prince gong, hart, chen, macpherson, huber, and williams illustrates, national boundaries and state affiliations in the late imperial age remained entangled constructs with changing features. an even more problematic aspect of the traditional historiography is that it has reduced sino–foreign interactions to a dualistic simplification of historical events like the coolie trade, which necessarily entailed a western “impact” and a corresponding asian “response.” equally critical is the notion that the west and china assumed their roles as oppressors and victims, respectively. under this east–west dichotomy, research questions such as “why was china unprepared for western contact?” and “how did the western powers use diplomacy and war to gain power in china?” have surfaced; this kind of framework does not allow for analysis other than one driven by the anachronistic racial or national agendas that may have never been primary considerations for most actors. certainly, one can attribute the relative neglect of the commission to cuba in both academic circles and public debate to a number of factors. primary materials concerning the commission are scattered across different continents and are written in different languages. furthermore, spain has long been regarded as having played a largely insignificant role in the asia–pacific region and as being a lesser power in europe. but the most important factor, i would argue, appears to be the incompatibility between the history of the commission and the master narrative of late imperial chinese history. to be sure, the perception of a major chinese diplomatic victory against a european power in protecting chinese citizens abroad does not correspond well with the storyline of a victimized, weak, and helpless qing empire. the study of the commission to cuba as an integral part of sino–foreign relations in the nineteenth century provides a critical angle to the prevailing master narrative and offers some crucial lessons: that we not let an essentially cross-border phenomenon be falsely observed through the lens of the nation-state; that we ought to pay more attention to the ways in which western and non-western actors interacted in the nineteenth century, particularly in the context of sino–foreign relations; and that racial and national labels may not always adequately explain the motivations governing the actions of people. a different approach to examining sino–foreign relations in late imperial china might better serve us in truly understanding the period. at a time when human trafficking is still a booming business in many parts of the world, a revision of traditional, preconceived notions might provide a fuller explanation of the driving forces and operational mechanisms behind such illicit trade. the approach pursued in this study has greatly benefitted from the debates on transcultural interaction in the cluster “asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows” at heidelberg university as well as from the advice and support of rudolf wagner, hans van de ven, gabriela ramos, andrea hacker, antje fluechter, frank gruener and martin dusinberre, as well as valuable comments by two anonymous readers. all remaining errors are mine. [1] in addition to the coolies from china, a significant number of coolies also came from india and from various islands in the pacific. for the purposes of this paper, however, the term “coolie” refers to the chinese laborers, as they represented the overwhelming majority of human “products” that were being sent to cuba and south america in the nineteenth century. [2] juan perez de la riva, “demografía de los culíes chinos en cuba (1853-1874),” el barracón y otros ensayos (la habana: editorial de ciencias sociales), 471. [3] arnold meagher, the coolie trade: the traffic in chinese laborers to latin america, 1847-1874 (bloomington: xlibris), 222. [4] this impact was not merely a substantial growth of the agricultural production (sugar, above all) in latin america, but also the transition of the production mode from a manual-based agriculture to the much more efficient, machine-based production. see mary turner, “chinese contract labour in cuba, 1847–1874,” caribbean studies 14 (july 1974): 66–81; fernando ortiz, contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azúcar (1940) (madrid: cátedra, 2002); sidney mintz, sweetness and power: the place of sugar in modern history (new york: viking, 1985). [5] most of the chinese coolies were sent to cuba and peru. the coolie trade to these two locations was stopped in 1874. the qing government signed a separate agreement with peru for another investigation to take place in peru. see “the treaty between china and peru,” north china herald, august 8, 1874. [6] the chinese press in this paper refers to the newspapers printed in china at the time, including both chinese-language and english-language periodicals. in the 1870s major papers published in china included the chinese–language shenbao 申報 (1872–1949), the wanguo gongbao 萬國公報 (1868–1907), and the english-language north china herald (1850–1951) in shanghai, and the xunhuan ribao 循環日報 (1874–1947), as well as the china mail (1845–1974) in hong kong. for further discussions on newspapers and public sphere in china during this period, read rudolf wagner, ed., joining the global public: word, image, and city in early chinese newspapers, 1870–1910 (albany: suny press, 2007). for a specific study on the shenbao, see barbara mittler, a newspaper for china? power, identity, and change in shanghai's news media, 1872–1912 (cambridge, ma: harvard university asia center, 2004). [7] in addition to the negative responses gleaned from casual discussions with my chinese acquaintances, my review of a few chinese textbooks found no mention of the commission or of the 1877 treaty between spain and china. [8] scholarly literature that touches upon the chinese commission to cuba has largely utilized a similar corpus of primary sources. from the chinese perspective, the coolie history has been written on the basis of chinese emigration: report of the commission sent by china to ascertain the condition of chinese coolies in cuba (shanghai: imperial maritime customs press, 1876, http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/44812135 [accessed on 24. november 2014], and the coolie petitions, dispositions, and letters reproduced in chen hansheng 陳翰笙 ed., 華工出國史料彙編 [collection of historical materials on overseas chinese laborers] (beijing: zhonghua, 1985). from the western perspective, a great deal has been written based on the us and british diplomatic correspondence, parts of which were published in papers relating to the foreign relations of the united states (washington: government printing office, 1861-)(hereafter: foreign relations) and british parliamentary papers (shannon: irish university press, 1968) (bpp). little use has been made of spanish archival materials, especially the correspondence between madrid and its representatives in china. autobiographical writings of the spanish coolie trade company representatives in china also deserve further exploration in the studies of the coolie trade. these papers are located in el archivo histórico nacional (ahn) and el archivo general de la administración (aga). [9] critical examinations related to chinese coolies have been written in english and spanish. in english, see lisa yun, the coolie speaks: chinese indentured laborers and african slaves in cuba (philadelphia: temple university press, 2008); evelyn hu-dehart, “chinese coolie labor in cuba in the nineteenth century: free labor or neoslavery,” contributions to black studies 12 (1994); robert irick, ch’ing policy toward the coolie trade, 1847–1878 (taipei: chinese materials center, 1982); and, arnold meagher, “introduction of chinese laborers to latin america,” (phd diss. uc davis, 1975). for chinese-language studies, see fn. 8. in spanish, see manuel moreno fraginals, el ingenio: complejo económico social cubano del azúcar (barcelona: critica, 2001); juan j. pastrana, los chinos en las luchas por la liberación cubana, 1847–1930 (havana: instituto de historia, 1963); juan j. pastrana, los chinos en la historia de cuba, 1847–1930 (havana: editorial de ciencias sociales, 1983). [10] see ssu-yü teng and john k. fairbank, china’s response to the west: a documentary survey, 1839–1923 (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1954); john k. fairbank, trade and diplomacy on the chinese coast (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1953). [11] for example, see ding zemi 丁則民, “meiguo pohai huagong shiji” 美國迫害華工史輯 [historical chronicle of chinese workers under american oppression], lishi jiaoxue 歷史教學 3 (1951): 5–8; zhang zhilian 張芝聯, “1904–1910 nian nanfei ying shu delansiwaer zhaoyong huagong shijian de zhenxiang” 1904–1910 年南非英屬德蘭斯瓦爾招用華工事件的真相 [the truth about the employment of chinese workers in british transvaal in south africa, 1904-1910], beijing daxue xuebao 北京大學學報 3 (1956): 77–96; shi jun 史軍, “du yidian shijie shi” 讀一點世界史” [reading some world history], people’s daily, april 9, 1972. such portrayals continued even shortly after the cultural revolution, see luo rongqu 羅榮渠, “’nuli’, ’kuli’ de xueleishi—” “奴隸”、“苦力”的血淚史—ya fei la bei yapo minzu de gongtong kunan 亞非拉被壓迫民族的共同苦難” [“slaves” and “coolies”: sufferings shared by the oppressed asian, african, and latino peoples], people’s daily, november 13, 1977. [12] li nanyou 李南友, “haiwai huagong xueleishi” 海外華工血淚史 [history of blood and tears of overseas chinese workers], people’s daily, november 27, 1983; also see the documentary, huagong juntuan 華工軍團 [army of chinese laborers], 6 episodes, first broadcast in 2009 by cctv. directed and written by guilin zhang, xiaobin wang, yongqing chen, and zhihong ren. http://jilu.cntv.cn/humhis/huagongjuntuan/videopage/index.shtml [accessed on 03. december 2014]. [13] in the last decade, the reorganization of the spanish national archives has made access to the primary sources of the coolie trade from the spanish perspective possible. particularly relevant is the archival material from the ministry of overseas affairs (ministerio de ultramar), which sheds light on the four-decade-long diplomatic negotiations between madrid and peking over the coolie trade. [14] in all the spanish, chinese, and english sources, i have yet to come across the full first name of macpherson. [15] one of the first organized chinese mass migrations followed a dutch initiative in the seventeenth century. see army vandenbosch, “a problem in java: the chinese in dutch east indies,” pacific affairs, vol. 3, no. 11 (november 1930): 1001. [16] cuba commission report, 7. [17] wu jianxiong 吳劍雄, shijiu shiji qianwang guba de hua gong 十九世紀前往古巴的華工 1847–1874 [chinese laborers heading to cuba during the nineteenth century] (taipei: academia sinica, 1988), 9. [18] british parliamentary papers, vol. 4: 202–203. [19] yun, the coolie speaks, 21. [20] after the signing of the convention, the costs of coolie procurement became so high that many british planters decided to stop importing more chinese coolies. see meagher, the coolie trade, 249. [21] “public notification of peter parker,” january 10, 1856. parker correspondence, 625–626. [22] house executive document no. 123, 33rd cong., 1st sess.  [23] ibid., 78-82. [24] moon-ho jung, coolies and cane: race, labor, and sugar in the age of emancipation (baltimore: johns hopkins university press, 2006), 19. [25] avery to fish, no. 168, foreign relations, july 7, 1875. [26] in fact, this was the observation made by both the american and spanish envoys in peking at that time. see williams to fish, no. 134, foreign relations, november 6, 1873; ahn, ultramar, 5198, exp. 6. [27] irick, ch’ing policy toward the coolie trade, 249–250. [28] prince gong to williams, no. 37b, foreign relations, july 17, 1871. [29] williams to fish, no. 37, foreign relations, july 26, 1871. [30] prince gong to williams, no. 37b, foreign relations, july 17, 1871. [31] ahn, ultramar, 5194, exp. 39. [32] avery to fish, no. 151, foreign relations, march 31, 1875. [33] chouban yiwu shimo 籌辦夷務始末 [the management of barbarian affairs in its entirety], vol. 91, 27–29. [34] avery to fish, no. 151, foreign relations, march 31, 1875. [35] quite different from today’s college major selections, hart’s undergraduate degree at queen’s university in belfast followed a liberal arts program in which he studied a wide variety of subjects such as languages, history, and philosophy. importantly, his program included a year-long legal training before he graduated in 1853. see queen’s college calendar of 1853, located at the special collections at the queen’s university of belfast, which indicates hart’s graduation and academic program. [36] hart to campbell, no. 149, the i.g. in peking: letters of robert hart, 1868–1907 (cambridge: harvard university press, 1975), april 21, 1876. [37] for reports prior to the return of cuba commission, see north china herald, october 4, 1873 (vol. 28, issue 0335), february 12, 1874 (vol. 29, issue 0354), may 2, 1874 (vol. 29, issue 0365). [38] hart to campbell, no. 149, letters of robert hart, april 21, 1876. in this letter, hart gives instructions to his associate to whom the materials should be delivered. [39] “arrival of chinese commissioners,“new york times, february 20, 1874. [40] “cuba: the chinese commission––slaveholder’s alarms,” new york times, february 21, 1874. [41] “zhongguo pai shichen fu guba guo” 中國派使臣赴古巴國 [china sends special envoy to cuba], shenbao, october 10, 1873. [42] for coverage on chen lanbin see, for example, china mail, december 18, 1873, and north china herald, december 25, 1873. various transliterations of chen’s name appear in contemporary english and spanish publications: “chin lan pin,” “chin len pin,” and “chan lan-pin.” [43] williams to fish, no. 134, foreign relations, november 6, 1873. [44] ibid. [45] macpherson apparently enjoyed a good relationship with the american legation in peking. samuel wells williams, the american chargé d'affaires in peking at that time, directly provided macpherson with a copy of the decree of o'donnell in 1860, and the recent law of valmaseda, ordering the reengagement of coolies in the united states. see williams to fish, no. 134, foreign relations, november 6, 1873. [46] chouban yiwu shimo, vol. 91, 29. “日國” denotes spain. [47] yung wing (1828–1912), graduated from yale university in 1854. while chen and his international team were travelling to cuba, yung was accompanied by two americans who were heading to peru for another investigation of the working conditions for coolies there. [48] edward j.m. rhoads, “in the shadow of yung wing: zeng laishun and the chinese education mission to the united states,” pacific historical review 43 (2005): 19–58. [49] the exact roster of the commission is not clear. while the listed members had participated in the commission’s activities in cuba, there were probably more assistants (chinese or otherwise) accompanying the commission. one cuban newspaper reported that the commission had ten assistants. see el diario de la marina, april 10, 1874. [50] el diario de la marina, march 18, 1874; “arrival of chinese commissioners,” new york times, february 20, 1874. [51] ibid. [52] cuba commission report, 2–4. [53] cuba commission report, 2. [54] the portuguese diplomat remained outspoken on the coolie trade, despite repeated attempts by the planters to buy his silence in front of the delegation. see eduardo marrero cruz, julián de zulueta y amondo: promotor del capitalismo en cuba (havana: ediciones unión, 2006), 76. this route of the commission in cuba is an approximate drawing, according to the descriptions stated in the cuba commission report. the commission visited numerous plantations in all key agricultural sites, where coolies were heavily populated. [55] cuba commission report, 3. [56] “cuba: the new decrees––immigration to the united states––the chinese commission,” new york times, may 14, 1874. [57] cuba commission report, 4. [58] cuba commission report, 39. [59] yun, the coolie speaks, 45-48. [60] el león español, may 17, 1874. “[…] la visita del comisionado sr. chin lan pin, ni es probable que deje de producir sus efectos ni que se haya hecho por ganas de pasear; y como, hablando con franqueza, sus informes al llegar a su país deben sernos poco favorables, se puede creer, sin tener que aventurarse mucho, quela venida de colonos asiáticos como se ha verificado hasta el día, o cesará del todo o se restringirá notablemente.” as cited in josé luis luzón, “chineros, diplomáticos y hacendados en la habana colonial: don francisco abellá y raldiris y su proyecto de inmigración libre a cuba (1874),” boletín americanista, nº. 39-40 (1989), 148. my translation. [61] cuba commission report, 3. [62] evelyn hu-dehart, “chinese coolie labor in cuba in the nineteenth century,” contributions in black studies 12 (1994): 3; cuba commission report, 150–151. [63] it is unclear if macpherson and huber returned to china before chen did. archival documents only indicate that chen went back to china with ye, who was also a member of the commission. see irick, ch’ing policy toward the coolie trade, 301. in any case, the final commission report and their translated copies, which are dated to october 20, 1874, were signed by all three commissioners. [64] avery to fish, no. 151, foreign relations, march 31, 1875. [65] “jielu zongli yamen chaban zhao gong chu yang shi laiwen” 節錄總理衙門查辦招工出洋事來文 [summary of the zongli yamen’s inspection on the worker recruitment for overseas], shenbao, march 10–16, 1875. also “shu shichen deng bing fu chakan guba hua yong qingxing bingce gong jie hou” 書使臣等禀復查勘古巴華傭情形禀册供結後 [conclusion of the inspection of the chinese laborers in cuba], shenbao, march 17, 1875. [66] for instance, see “suppression of the coolie trade,” new york times, february 26, 1877 and “el fin de la colonization asiatica,” el diario de la marina, january 28, 1877. [67] ahn, ultramar, 5194, exp. 39. [68] chouban yiwu shimo, vol. 91, 27–29. [69] irick, ch’ing policy toward the coolie trade, 293–294. the spanish legation had repeatedly used military threat as a threat. see hart to campbell, no. 66, letters of robert hart, october 9, 1873. [70] ibid. [71] hart to campbell, no. 66, letters of robert hart, october 9, 1873. [72] seward to evarts, no. 78, foreign relations, january 10, 1878. [73] avery to fish, no. 151, foreign relations, march 31, 1875. [74] the details of the sino-spanish negotiations and diplomatic ruptures were reported by the spanish envoy to the ministry of overseas affair in 1877. see ahn, ultramar, 5221, exp. 50. [75] ahn, ultramar, 279, exp. 4. “convenio relativo a la emigración de súbditos chinos a la isla de cuba.” [76] ibid., article 1. [77] ibid., article 2. [78] ibid., article 4. [79] ibid., article 16. language, memory, and affect in diasporic food discourse: austin clarke’s barbadian culinary memoir emilio amideo “food looks like an object but is actually a relationship.”1 “the new cultural demographies of the african diaspora, as we slowly, patiently map them, must always drop by the table, for here the interarticulatory logic of the material and the symbolic blends the universal and the particular at the same place—inside the one in the all.”2 touching memories: a visceral approach to diasporic food narratives food occupies a pivotal place in every society, not just for the sustenance it provides our bodies as the material basis of our very existence, but also as a form of communication, in the way it conveys meaning and plays a role in constructing identities and regulating social roles. as claude fischler states: “any given human individual is constructed, biologically, psychologically and socially by the food he/she chooses to incorporate.”3 when dealing with food, the material and the symbolic form two sides of the same coin—so much so that a simple expression like “thinking with food” both recalls the fact that consuming food is essential for thinking (as a bodily function of the brain), and indicates the possibility of thinking (as critically engaging) with food in order to express meaning as a semiotic practice. numerous theorists have considered the potential that food has for meaning-making and have often compared its use in society and culture to 1 terry eagleton, “edible ecriture,” times higher education, october 24, 1997, accessed june 25, 2021, https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/edible-ecriture/104281.article. 2 hortense spillers, “introduction. peter’s pans: eating in the diaspora,” in black, white, and in color: essays on american literature and culture (chicago: university of chicago press, 2003), 1–64; 64. 3 claude fischler, “food, self and identity,” social science information 27, no. 2 (june 1988): 275–292; 275, https://doi.org/10.1177/053901888027002005. https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/edible-ecriture/104281.article https://doi.org/10.1177/053901888027002005 64 language, memory, and affect in diasporic food discourse that of language. roland barthes, for example, has emphasized how the use of food (its manipulation, incorporation, commodification, etc.) does not only act as a medium for the exchange of information, but also represents and transmits specific situations and, more generally, enables signification.4 similarly, claude lévi-strauss has discussed how food can be considered a language capable of expressing social structures and cultural systems,5 while arjun appadurai and pierre bourdieu, among others, have highlighted the way that food creates and structures social relations. bourdieu points to food’s function here especially in terms of social class stratification and its connection to taste,6 while appadurai notes that food may signal either solidarity and intimacy, or individuality and distance, depending on the context.7 food plays a role in structuring our perception of self, especially if we think about body image representation or eating disorders,8 but it also defines the way we perceive others.9 this is reflected in the creation of national identities, where food is accounted for as the result of historical processes defining eating habits or fashions. as such, food and its related practices map processes of colonialism, migration, exclusion, and both individual and social boundary marking.10 the centrality of food in the dialectical construction of the self and the other is particularly evident in diasporic contexts, where migrants are confronted with an imperative to construct and reconstruct their sense of personal identity and cultural belonging. here, food often acts as a symbolic means by which to create “a feeling of home away from home,”11 thus producing a connection to a (more or less imaginary) homeland; something that may provide migrants with 4 roland barthes, “toward a psychosociology of contemporary food consumption,” in food and culture: a reader, 3rd ed., ed. carole counihan and penny van esterik (new york: routledge, 2013), 23–30; 24. 5 claude lévi-strauss, “the culinary triangle,” in counihan and esterik, food and culture, 40–47. 6 pierre bourdieu, distinction: a social critique of the judgment of taste (cambridge: harvard university press, 1984). 7 arjun appadurai, “gastro-politics in hindu south asia,” american ethnologist 8, no. 3 (1981): 494–511; 496, https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1981.8.3.02a00050. 8 susan bordo, unbearable weight: feminism, western culture, and the body (berkeley: university of california press, 1993). 9 wenying xu, eating identities: reading food in asian american literature (honolulu: university of hawaiʻi press, 2008), 2. 10 david bell and gill valentine, consuming geographies: we are what we eat (london: routledge, 1997), 168. 11 mustafa koç and jennifer welsh, “food, identity, and immigrant experience,” canadian diversity 1, no. 1 (2002): 46–48; 47. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1981.8.3.02a00050 65the journal of transcultural studies 12, no. 1 (summer 2021) a level of stability as they adapt to a new place and lifestyle.12 this feeling of home can also be registered as a “taste of home,” reflecting the way a visceral experience of food—that is, an experience that pays attention to appearance, taste, smell, sound, and texture—enables an emotional and affective relation or attachment to a place to emerge.13 a visceral approach, as robyn longhurst et al. explain, takes into account our sensory engagement with both the material and the discursive environments we inhabit. it therefore structures the way we perceive and make sense of our experiences and surroundings—something that becomes intensified with the experience of migration. in fact, in a diasporic or migratory context, an individual’s awareness of their mental and physical engagement with their surroundings becomes more acute as they adapt to, contest, or maneuver around a new material and discursive environment:14 12 my use of the term “diaspora” is aligned with the view stuart hall expresses in “cultural identity and diaspora.” hall delineates a diasporic experience that is peculiarly caribbean in nature (though parts of it resonate across the whole black diaspora) and implies the production and reproduction of one’s identity anew through transformation and difference. he writes: “i use this term here metaphorically, not literally: diaspora does not refer us to those scattered tribes whose identity can only be secured in relation to some sacred homeland to which they must at all costs return … this is the old, the imperialising, the hegemonising, form of ‘ethnicity’ … the diaspora experience as i intend it here is defined, not by essence or purity, but by the recognition of a necessary heterogeneity and diversity; by a conception of ‘identity’ which lives with and through, not despite, difference; by hybridity.” stuart hall, “cultural identity and diaspora,” in identity: community, culture, difference, ed. jonathan rutherford (london: lawrence & wishart, 1990), 222–237; 235 [italics in the original]. on cultural models that rethink the hybridity of diaspora, see also paul gilroy, the black atlantic: modernity and double consciousness (london: verso, 1993); homi k. bhabha, the location of culture (london: routledge, 1994); james clifford, routes: travel and translation in the late twentieth century (cambridge: harvard university press, 1997). also, on the difference and overlap between the terms “diaspora” and “transnationalism,” see thomas faist, “diaspora and transnationalism: what kind of dance partners?” in diaspora and transnationalism: concepts, theories and methods, ed. rainer bauböck and thomas faist (amsterdam: amsterdam university press, 2010), 9–34; ato quayson and girish daswani, “introduction—diaspora and transnationalism: scapes, scales, and scopes,” in a companion to diaspora and transnationalism, ed. ato quayson and girish daswani (oxford: wiley blackwell, 2013), 1–26. 13 robyn longhurst, lynda johnston, and elsie ho, “a visceral approach: cooking ‘at home’ with migrant women in hamilton, new zealand,” transactions of the institute of british geographers 34, no. 3 (july 2009): 333–345; 333, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2009.00349.x. 14 i owe this reflection to sara ahmed’s discussion of the feeling of comfort. ahmed describes comfort as the fit between body and object, or individual body and environment, and uses this to describe the feeling of “out-of-place-ness” or discomfort. though ahmed focuses especially on the experiences of queer people in a society that is socially shaped by heteronormativity, this can also aptly express the experience of the migrant. both instances are associated with a more acute awareness of the body in relation to the place it occupies. ahmed writes: “discomfort is a feeling of disorientation: one’s body feels out of place, awkward, unsettled … the sense of out-of-place-ness and estrangement involves an acute awareness of the surface of one’s body, which appears as surface, when one cannot inhabit the social skin, which is shaped by some bodies, and not others.” sara ahmed, the cultural politics of emotion, 2nd ed. (edinburgh: edinburgh university press, 2014), 148. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2009.00349.x 66 language, memory, and affect in diasporic food discourse migrating involves developing an understanding of different social, cultural, economic and political systems, but it also involves coming to a sensual and visceral understanding of different microgeographies of the body, such as different languages, gestures, textures, sounds, smells, tastes and culinary practices.15 a visceral engagement with our environment might involve the synesthetic experience of smelling, handling, and tasting food, and is likewise responsible for creating and triggering cultural memories.16 in fact, memories often emerge through a number of embodied practices or sensory experiences that are repeated, almost ritually, in the process of cooking and of handling food.17 this particularly applies to smells, which, as david sutton explains by drawing on piet vroon,18 “more easily connect with ‘episodic’ than ‘semantic’ memories (i.e., life-history memories as opposed to ‘recognition of a phenomenon’ memories), and also because of the tendency for smell memories to be emotionally charged.”19 similarly, a sort of “remembrance in the hands” enables us to think about the possibility of touching memories—“touching” here in both the sense of the verb and the adjective.20 we may therefore think about the possibility of both reaching out to (almost touch) memories, and of experiencing them in an emotionally charged way. taste, too, is laced with emotional memories: a famous literary example is marcel proust’s description of the way the taste of a madeleine dipped in tea enables the protagonist’s memories of both his aunt léonie and the village of combray to resurface.21 a blend of food, memory, and emotion is at the basis of the narrative language that structures the subgenre of culinary memoir, to which barbadian canadian writer austin clarke’s pig tails ’n breadfruit belongs. the peculiar affective, visceral language that clarke employs to write about the food of his barbadian origin from his north american (mainly in canada and the us) 15 longhurst, johnston, and ho, “a visceral approach,” 334–335. 16 allison hayes-conroy and jessica hayes-conroy, “taking back taste: feminism, food and visceral politics,” gender, place & culture: a journal of feminist geography 15, no. 5 (2008): 461–473; 463, https://doi.org/10.1080/09663690802300803. 17 david e. sutton, “cooking skills, the senses, and memory: the fate of practical knowledge,” in counihan and esterik, food and culture, 299–319; 302. 18 piet vroon, smell, the secret seducer, trans. paul vincent (new york: farrar, straus & giroux, 1997). 19 david e. sutton, remembrance of repasts: an anthropology of food and memory (oxford: berg, 2001), 89. 20 for more on the concept “remembrance in the hands,” see paul connerton, how societies remember (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1989), 93. 21 marcel proust, in search of lost time, trans. c. k. scott moncrieff and terence kilmartin, rev. d. j. enright, vol. 1, swann’s way (new york: the modern library, 1992 [1981]), 60–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/09663690802300803 67the journal of transcultural studies 12, no. 1 (summer 2021) diaspora reflects the need to incite change in hitherto monolithic conceptions of national and cultural affiliations by way of introducing a new diasporic sensibility to canadian cultural belonging.22 cooking food with feeling: a barbadian culinary memoir in the north american diaspora austin clarke’s pig tails ’n breadfruit was published in canada in 1999 and was followed by a united states edition in the same year. these two editions have slightly different titles—a quirk that often occurs when a work of art crosses the canada/us border. nonetheless, both editions underline the fact that clarke’s text is a memoir. while the canadian edition’s subtitle, “rituals of slave food, a barbadian memoir,” additionally emphasizes the connection between the text, slave food, and the barbadian tradition,23 the subtitle of the us edition focuses more specifically on the text’s subgenre: “a culinary memoir.”24 as a type of memoir, pig tails ’n breadfruit narrates memories of specific moments or events in the author’s life. in fact, its selective narrative distinguishes it from the genre of autobiography, as it does not relate the entire life story of an individual. similarly, although it cannot be considered a work of fiction, the book not only incorporates several invented or enhanced elements, but also makes use of narrative techniques that are typical of the novel as a genre.25 specifically, it belongs to the subgenre of culinary memoir, since the memories narrated are interspersed with descriptions of cooking or eating certain types of food.26 22 clarke moved from barbados to canada in 1955, though he also spent some time living and working in the us (especially between 1968–1973, when he was appointed visiting lecturer at different universities before his designation as cultural attaché of barbados in washington). 23 austin clarke, pig tails ’ n breadfruit: rituals of slave food, a barbadian memoir (toronto: random house, 1999). 24 austin clarke, pig tails ’ n breadfruit: a culinary memoir (new york: the new press, 1999). all further references are to this edition. the use of a different title in the us is reminiscent of a similar event involving the afro-canadian writer lawrence hill, whose novel the book of negroes, as it was originally published in canada, entered the us publishing market with the title someone knows my name. the reason behind that change, as hill explains, resided in the different resonance that the term “negro” had in canada (where it was slightly more neutral, if outdated) and in the us (where the longer evolution of the term burdened it with deeply ingrained and violent racialized connotations). see lawrence hill, “why i am not allowed my book title,” the guardian, may 20, 2008, accessed october 15, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2008/may/20/ whyimnotallowedmybooktit. perhaps the use of the term “slave” in the canadian title raised similar concerns about the possibility of alienating part of the us readership. 25 g. thomas couser, memoir: an introduction (new york: oxford university press, 2012), 15. 26 vivian nun halloran, the immigrant kitchen: food, ethnicity, and diaspora (columbus: the ohio state university press, 2016), 12. https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2008/may/20/whyimnotallowedmybooktit https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2008/may/20/whyimnotallowedmybooktit 68 language, memory, and affect in diasporic food discourse each chapter is named after a specific barbadian or diasporic food/recipe, which in turn provides the starting point for clarke’s memories to resurface. it is around these memories that clarke constructs his narrative. alongside stories of his life, then, the reader can, for example, learn something more about “pelau” or the origins of “pepperpot”; discover clarke’s special method of preparing a chicken-based dish in the chapter titled “chicken austintatious”; or make use of the recipe for “breadfruit cou-cou with braising beef.” as vivian halloran observes, the recipes presented make no claims to originality or replicability, and as such are not as rigorous as those that can be found in cookbooks.27 rather, they are meant to engender forms of identification between the reader and the author through the embodied experience of taste.28 in other words, although food plays a central role in the text, it is its narrativization that particularly interests clarke. this plays on what james beard refers to as “taste memory,”29 or the ability to recall the exact taste of the ingredients. as a shareable experience between the writer and their audience, taste memory functions in two important ways. on the one hand, it enables a fuller appreciation of the narrative through the phenomenological experience it engenders; that is to say, the narrative is amplified by the bodily experience of the food and related memories through actual touch, smell, and taste. on the other, it allows a sense of relationality to develop in the (figurative or material) act of preparing and sharing a meal, inasmuch as the audience is figuratively invited to dinner in a domestic environment—one that is intimate, or at least informal, making them an intimate confidant/e. the performative gesture of figuratively inviting readers to dinner assumes even greater relevance in a diasporic context, where food enables the creation of a sort of “imagined community” that unites people relationally across the diaspora.30 in this sense, clarke’s narrative representations of food memories serve as snapshots of his childhood and pivotal life experiences—and, by extension, of experiences shared by the caribbean immigrant community in canada—that both he and his readers can savor as part of a canadian “imagined commensality.”31 in fact, clarke’s narrative emphasizes the experience of immigration and focuses on home cooking not only in canada32 but also in the us. in this way, the experience of cooking and eating food 27 halloran, the immigrant kitchen, 12–13. 28 halloran, the immigrant kitchen, 12–13. 29 james beard, delights and prejudices (philadelphia, pa: running press, 2001), 4. 30 benedict anderson, imagined communities: reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism (london: verso, 2016 [1983]). 31 bell and valentine, consuming geographies, 169. 32 halloran, the immigrant kitchen, 13. 69the journal of transcultural studies 12, no. 1 (summer 2021) becomes a way of recreating a “taste of home” in the different other homes that he inhabits. the taste of home that clarke recreates in his narrative is almost tangible. its viscerality is granted by the linguistic and affective images he evokes from the very first pages, where, concerning the barbadian culinary tradition that he inherited from his mother and aunts, he writes: taste is the thing. and touch. tasting and touching. so, we are talking about cooking food with feeling. feeling is stretched to include “feeling up” the food: touching the fish; pulling out the entrails of a chicken with your fingers; peeling potatoes and slicing them with a knife while holding them in your hand—not using a gadget that ensures precision of cut and duplication of each slice.33 the continuous references to taste and touch underscore the focus of this passage on the sensory realm. what clarke refers to here is exactly the affective relationality that the experience of cooking and eating engenders, as well as the way this sense of relationality enables the emergence of memories and emotions. it is precisely the materiality of food, the visceral experience of it through taste, touch, and smell, that triggers memories. this is particularly evident in the way clarke stretches the semantic implications of the word “feeling” to connect the emotional with the material and the corporeal. in other words, his narrative highlights how the materiality of the tastes, textures, and aromas of the food he prepares reveal his emotional or affective attachment to people and places, thus demonstrating “how belonging and not-belonging” to a specific place, culture, or community are indeed “felt.”34 the touch and smell of food provoke clarke’s memories to resurface and facilitate their articulation, bringing to the fore the close relationship between touch and affect/emotion that structures the whole narrative. in touching feeling, eve kosofsky sedgwick reflects on the enlightening correspondence between touch and affect/emotion with these words: a particular intimacy seems to subsist between textures and emotions. but the same double meaning, tactile plus emotional, is 33 clarke, pig tails ’n breadfruit, 3. 34 emma-jayne abbots, the agency of eating: mediation, food and the body (london: bloomsbury, 2017), 63 [italics in the original]. in refusing to separate affect and emotion, i join sara ahmed in rejecting a gendered dichotomy that considers emotions to be a result of rendering unconscious knowing cognizant. many affect theorists subscribe to this division, from brian massumi to melissa gregg and gregory seigworth. however, as ahmed suggests, it risks reproducing a cartesian dualism that splits body from mind, hierarchically privileging reason over passion and mind over body in terms of perception. ahmed, cultural politics of emotion, 206–208; brian massumi, politics of affect (cambridge, ma: polity, 2015); melissa gregg and gregory j. seigworth, the affect theory reader (durham: duke university press, 2010). 70 language, memory, and affect in diasporic food discourse already there in the single word “touching”; equally it’s internal to the word “feeling”. i am also encouraged in this association by the dubious epithet “touchy-feely”, with its implication that even to talk about affect virtually amounts to cutaneous contact.35 to touch is not only an emotional and tactile gesture but also a relational one, since to touch is always to be touched in return, both materially and emotionally.36 it is precisely this multi-layered perspective—textual, textural, affective—that structures clarke’s memoir. far from representing a mere abstraction in the form of figurative language, his way of narrating “cooking food with feeling” brings deep affective connections to the surface. these connections not only form part of his own story but are also part of the collective experiential knowledge of the black diaspora and its culinary tradition. largely originating from slave food, this tradition represents a “cuisine born from poverty and necessity that transforms into nourishment parts of animals considered undesirable or filthy.”37 this can be seen, for example, in clarke’s description of black pudding and souse, which he defines as “the food of the gods and the slaves of barbados.”38 clarke explains how, through skillful handling, black pudding and souse—the latter a national symbol of barbados—were transformed from “parts of the pig that nobody else wanted or had the heart to eat” into “the sweetest thing handed down by our ancestors, african slaves, to each and every one of us present-day wessindians.”39 throughout the narrative, he uses bajan or barbadian creole—here highlighted by the term “wessindians,” meaning “west indians” and referring to caribbean people—and the plural personal pronoun “we.” this reflects his attempt to create a sense of relationality that unites modern-day bajans and their slave ancestors, as well as his efforts to retrieve both personal and collective memories.40 35 eve kosofsky sedgwick, touching feeling: affect, pedagogy, performativity (durham: duke university press, 2003), 17. 36 sedgwick, touching feeling, 14. 37 xu, eating identities, 7. 38 clarke, pig tails ’n breadfruit, 162. 39 clarke, pig tails ’n breadfruit, 162. 40 vivian nun halloran, “recipes as memory work: slave food,” culture, theory and critique 53, no. 2 (2012): 147–161; 156, https://doi.org/10.1080/14735784.2012.682791. the term “bajan” denotes both the inhabitants of barbados and the language (i.e., barbadian creole, an englishbased creole language with african and british influences that is spoken on the caribbean island of barbados). see, among others, frederic g. cassidy, “barbadian creole: possibility and probability,” american speech 61, no. 3 (1986): 195–205, https://doi.org/10.2307/454663. https://doi.org/10.1080/14735784.2012.682791 https://doi.org/10.2307/454663 71the journal of transcultural studies 12, no. 1 (summer 2021) elements of bajan structure the whole narrative, and its use is most evident in the chapter titled “privilege.” the chapter begins with the memory of a phone call that clarke received from errol walton barrow, then prime minister of barbados, for whom he worked as an advisor on internal political affairs. clarke is alarmed by the formal way the prime minister addresses him—calling him “mr. clarke” rather than the usual “austin” or “tom”—and barrow’s insistent questions about the nature of privilege. fearing the seemingly inevitable approach of some kind of serious political trouble, clarke stutters as he tentatively tries to define privilege as something connected with some sort of advantage or immunity. however, barrow soon interrupts him, telling him, “i shall show you real ‘privilege!’”41 and demanding clarke meet him at his house. clarke writes: my knowledge of barbadian language, with all its diplomatic nuances of ambivalence, double entendre and duplicity, prompted me in my frantic moment of arrival to interpret the prime minister’s words to mean that he was about to strip me of my rank, take away my diplomatic passport and privilege, and show me the real power of a prime minister, the girth of his privilege.42 upon his arrival at the prime minister’s house, clarke is presented to a crowd of powerful men, mainly senior ministers, and is soon admonished by the prime minister for not knowing what privilege is. barrow claims that this ignorance—from a professor working in an ivy league university, no less— must mean that clarke has forgotten his cultural roots, perhaps as a result of his life abroad.43 he then turns to clarke himself: “‘tom,’ he then said, ‘privilege is slave food, man. i just cooked this. we’re having privilege for dinner.’”44 as the threat of being deprived of his own privileges turns into an invitation to dinner, the chapter continues with a description of how the dish known as “privilege”—made from simple, poor ingredients such as okra, white rice, pig tails, salt beef, and lard or cheap lard oil for cooking— originated in the days of slavery. clarke introduces the reader to the recipe for and origins of privilege using the “native language of the people who invented it: the bajan language,”45 and explaining the deep relationship that slaves developed with food. 41 clarke, pig tails ’n breadfruit, 55. 42 clarke, pig tails ’n breadfruit, 56 [italics in the original]. 43 from 1968 to 1970, clarke taught literature at yale, where he co-founded the university’s black studies program. 44 clarke, pig tails ’n breadfruit, 59. 45 clarke, pig tails ’n breadfruit, 60. 72 language, memory, and affect in diasporic food discourse as a matter of fact, scarcity caused slaves to develop a deep connection with food, even a yearning for it. this scarcity was a result of the economic machinery of the plantation; the practice of keeping slaves in a constant state of hunger and feeding them just enough to keep them productive was encoded in law, such as the infamous code noir.46 their proximity to starvation was not only figuratively transposed into folktales, in which hulking starving figures abounded, but was also materially translated into a desire to possess food: to touch and cherish it. clarke writes: one thing about cooking that comes from the slave days is that you have to feel-up everything and put your two hands in everything and on everything that you are cooking. you have to touch-up the food and love-up the food. rub your two hands over the pig tails and the salt beef, together with the seasoning. if you do not touch-up and love-up the meats and the ingreasements, your food is not goingrespond and taste sweet when it done.47 bajan appears here in the syntactical structure (e.g., “not going-respond,” “when it done”) and through the terms “ingreasements” (for “ingredients”) and “sweet” (for “good,” as in tasting good). these elements represent clarke’s attempt to create a sense of relationality and belonging across the caribbean and african diaspora through the use of “nation language”: a term coined by clarke’s compatriot and fellow writer edward kamau brathwaite. brathwaite used this term to indicate the evolution of “the kind of english spoken by the people who were brought to the caribbean, not the official english now, but the language of slaves and laborers, the servants who were brought in.”48 these days, this language is reflected in the work of writers from the caribbean and the african diaspora in their use of non-standard english. as a language that voluntarily remains, at least in part, opaque to outsiders, the use of nation language reflects a number of discursive practices of resistance that developed during the colonial period and have survived until today. these practices originally included the encoding of secret messages in spirituals sung on the plantation to plan escapes or revolts, as well as different actions meant to sabotage the mechanics of slavery (e.g., lying to the masters; pretending to misunderstand their orders; stealing from them; and even maiming or killing 46 valérie loichot, “the ethics of eating together: the case of french postcolonial literature,” in food and literature, ed. gitanjali g. shahani (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2018), 169–185; 173. 47 clarke, pig tails ’n breadfruit, 64. 48 edward kamau brathwaite, “from history of the voice: the development of nation language in anglophone caribbean poetry,” in rotten english: a literary anthology, ed. dohra ahmad (new york: w. w. norton, 2007), 459–468; 464. 73the journal of transcultural studies 12, no. 1 (summer 2021) oneself). all of these are examples of ways in which slaves strategically redirected colonial power dynamics through “circumlocutionary styles of speech, story, and action”—tactics that developed “partly [in] an effort to avoid confronting colonizers in unwinnable head-on conflicts.”49 in a manner similar to other creoles, bajan’s relative simplification allows ambiguity and misdirection to proliferate.50 clarke’s use of bajan, then, as well as his account of the irony surrounding the name “privilege”—used for a dish made from the waste of the plantation owner’s kitchen—reflect exactly these strategies of indirection, namely the capacity to play with language to create new meanings and produce a counter-discourse. the text abounds with examples of the semantic proliferation of bajan terms related to food, often with amusing outcomes. the term “pork chop” (a type of food that is held in high regard in barbados) can, for example, be used to indicate the female anatomy;51 similarly, “cou-cou,” made of finely ground corn cooked in water with okra boiled in it, also refers to a woman who is “good in bed.”52 clarke’s discussion of “dryfood” offers another example of the collective memories associated with certain dishes and the strategies of resistance formed in the slave period. as he writes, collecting the requisite ground provisions involved an “exercise in piracy, a midnight bivouac, a secret mission behind enemy lines” at a time when penetrating the enemy lines “was nothing more than stealing from the plantation.”53 clarke’s narrative reflects a deep connection between the black diaspora’s traditional relationship with food and the use of nation language inasmuch as they are both capable of creating a feeling of home, even in the dislocated space of the diaspora. the simplicity of the ingredients and the special tactile and affective connection to food during its preparation, but also the capacity to improvise (a skill linked to the scarcity of food in the days of slavery) and the creolization of cooking practices are in fact all aspects that recall the ability of nation language to b(l)end the english language to incorporate different linguistic and cultural elements, to “feel” in a different way, and to produce new meanings from the available materials.54 the way of “cooking food with 49 monique allewaert, ariel’s ecology: plantations, personhood, and colonialism in the american tropics (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 2013), 107. 50 allewaert, ariel’s ecology, 107. 51 clarke, pig tails ’n breadfruit, 126. 52 clarke, pig tails ’n breadfruit, 104. 53 clarke, pig tails ’n breadfruit, 68–69. 54 the term “creolization” was originally used in linguistics to refer to the development of the creole language through the contact (and subsequent mixing and simplification) of different languages. in a broader sociocultural context, the term refers to the development of new cultural formations as a result of the contact between societies and relocated people, especially in the caribbean. in the 74 language, memory, and affect in diasporic food discourse feeling” that clarke recalls thus appears to be an attempt to approximate the natural, environmental, and bodily experience of nation language. of this, brathwaite writes: this total expression comes about because people be in the open air, because people live in conditions of poverty (“unhouselled”) because they come from a historical experience where they had to rely on their very breath rather than on paraphernalia like books and museums and machines. they had to depend on immanence, the power within themselves, rather than the technology outside themselves.55 nation language relies heavily on orality and sound, and so on the corporeal and performative dimension. the immanent experience of nation language and the way it combines elements of existing languages to create something new are similarly expressed through the textural/emotional relationship between the body and food, and the peculiar history of improvisation, syncretism, and creolization of cooking practices in the black diaspora. it is precisely this immanent experience that enables memories to resurface and contributes to the development of affective relationalities across the black diaspora. european colonialism and the slave trade were not only responsible for the transplantation of people, but also of animals and different types of crops—not to mention the pathogens that contributed to the decimation of indigenous populations.56 more specifically, the transfer of food from africa and europe to the americas enabled the creation of a culinary “contact zone”57 within which caribbean in particular, it reflects, as edward kamau brathwaite suggests, “the way the four main culture-carriers of the region: amerindian, european, african and east indian: interacted with each other and with their environment to create the new societies of the new world.” edward kamau brathwaite, “timehri,” in the routledge reader in caribbean literature, ed. alison donnell and sarah lawson welsh (london: routledge, 1996 [1970]), 274–279; 274. as robin cohen explains, creolization “describes a position interposed between two or more cultures, selectively appropriating some elements, rejecting others, and creating new possibilities that transgress and supersede parent cultures, which themselves are increasingly recognised as fluid.” creolization manifests itself in a number of cultural productions, ranging from religion, to music, to, as discussed in this essay, food. robin cohen, “creolization and cultural globalization: the soft sounds of fugitive power,” globalizations 4, no. 3 (2007), 369–384; 381, https://doi.org/10.1080/14747730701532492. for a detailed explanation of creolization as a linguistic phenomenon, see john h. mcwhorter, defining creole (oxford: oxford university press, 2005). 55 brathwaite, “from history of the voice,” 467. 56 as sidney mintz emphasizes, one of the results of european colonialism was that “the islands and nearby shores became one of the most ethnically diverse regions of the globe, exposed to a modernization that had rested on genocide, slavery, large-scale acculturation, early and forced industrialization, and then, revolution.” “caribbean,” sidney mintz, accessed july 24, 2021, https:// www.sidneymintz.net/caribbean.php/. 57 spillers, “introduction,” 50. https://doi.org/10.1080/14747730701532492 https://www.sidneymintz.net/caribbean.php/ https://www.sidneymintz.net/caribbean.php/ 75the journal of transcultural studies 12, no. 1 (summer 2021) “french, english, spanish, african, and native had ample opportunities to begin tasting and experimenting with one another’s food.”58 as a consequence, new meanings began to arise around the social aspects of food. the caribbean islands, in particular, became the testing grounds for european imperialism, modern-day slavery, and innovative capitalist experiments that were meant to supply european metropoles with products such as spices (e.g., ginger, nutmeg, allspice, and mace), beverage bases (e.g., coffee and chocolate), dyes (e.g., indigo, annatto, and fustic), various starches, essential oils, fruits, and, above all, sugar and rum.59 as culinary historian jessica harris stresses, “slavery was about economics.”60 since feeding the african slaves the same food that european settlers were eating was not cost-effective, slave traders began to learn about the dietary habits of african people and started to introduce inexpensive crops that would grow in american soil. this practice was so widespread that, she explains, “what happened agriculturally over here [in america] was basically african in a sense, especially in the caribbean and the tropics.”61 introduced as a source of food for slaves, inexpensive breadfruit began to spread throughout the caribbean, as did yam, which continues to bear a strong religious connection to west african traditions,62 and a number of other foods now common in the english caribbean and that have retained their african sonorities, such as fufu, cucu, callaloo, or benne (wolof for “sesame”).63 different culinary traditions met and crossed in the caribbean, giving rise to a creolized way of cooking characterized by improvisation and adaptation. together with people, their stories, and the meanings attached to them,64 this way of cooking migrated to other places, enriching 58 donna r. gabaccia, we are what we eat: ethnic food and the making of americans (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1998), 25. 59 sidney mintz, sweetness and power: the place of sugar in modern history (new york: vikingpenguin, 1985), xvi. 60 jessica harris, baltasar fra-molinero, and charles i. nero, “when food tastes cosmopolitan: the creole fusion of diaspora cuisine. an interview with jessica b. harris,” callaloo 30, no. 1 (2007): 287–303; 295, https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2007.0128. 61 harris, fra-molinero, and nero, “when food tastes cosmopolitan.” 62 yam is used in religious ceremonies in ghana and nigeria, and also across atlantic religions, such as the afro-brazilian candomblé. see harris, fra-molinero, and nero, “when food tastes cosmopolitan,” 296. 63 see harris, fra-molinero, and nero, “when food tastes cosmopolitan,” 296. 64 emma-jayne abbots, “approaches to food and migration: rootedness, belonging and exchange,” in the handbook of food and anthropology, ed. jacob klein and james watson (london: bloomsbury, 2016), 115–132; 120. see also sidney mintz, “food and diaspora,” food, culture & society 11, no. 4 (2008), 509–523; 518–520, https://doi.org/10.2752/175174408x389157. https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.2007.0128 https://doi.org/10.2752/175174408x389157 76 language, memory, and affect in diasporic food discourse itself at every step in the process. discussing the element of improvisation that characterizes the afro-diasporic culinary tradition, harris, like clarke, draws attention to the fact that this tradition does not rely on cookbooks or exact measurements. rather, it involves a process of improvisation through trial and error, since, as she says, “we cook with our mouths.”65 in a manner that recalls the characteristics of nation language mentioned above, she continues: “we don’t use recipes. it’s the orality of it. it’s the improvisation of it. we do the same thing with food that we do with music. we make jazz. and that’s what we do. it’s what we do with all art forms. we make quilts. we take things and improvise.”66 syncretism and creolization are especially present in the chapters titled “pepperpot” and “pelau.” pepperpot is the name of a stewed meat dish strongly flavored with spices. originally invented by amerindians, it was later adopted by guyanese people. since, as clarke writes, “barbadian immigrants … helped populate most o’ guyana” under the british rule,67 barbadians assert that they too contributed to the creation of the dish. within the text, pepperpot acts as a means by which a collective memory of a country like guyana—as an emblem of caribbean syncretism—may resurface. in fact, guyana endured both dutch and english colonialism and is now mainly populated by indodescendant and afro-descendant people—groups that are often framed as historical opponents. clarke writes: so, when you talk ’bout pepperpot, a dish of great national-cultural significance … you talking about revolution, communism, social and racial dislocation, political strife, and the indians, africans and british that make up the guyanese population. only a nice plate o’ guyanese pepperpot can bring these two factions, these fractious factions, together, make them siddown at the same political table, or the same dining table on a sunday afternoon to eat lunch. there’s no other kind o’ cement that could stick these two warring factions o’ indians and africans together.68 similarly, the chapter “pelau” recalls food that symbolically represents a creolized caribbean culture. pelau, clarke reminds us, is slave food prepared using the “less desirable” parts of a chicken (e.g., necks, wings, feet, backs), rice, tomatoes, and different spices. with the witticism that characterizes his writing, clarke—who maintains that trinidadians are “tricky” with regard to 65 harris, fra-molinero, and nero, “when food tastes cosmopolitan,” 302. 66 harris, fra-molinero, and nero, “when food tastes cosmopolitan,” 302. 67 clarke, pig tails ’n breadfruit, 174. 68 clarke, pig tails ’n breadfruit, 183–184. 77the journal of transcultural studies 12, no. 1 (summer 2021) hot cuisine—writes: “the trickidadians invent it. we’ll give them that much. but we in barbados perfect it!”69 one of the most important aspects of pelau is precisely the fact that it represents the creolization of multiple cultures: trinidad’s population is made of people with many different cultural backgrounds: africans, indians, chinese people from hong kong and jamaica, pottogee people from portugal and guayana, and others thrown in and mix up. “outta many, one people.” and outta all these various tribes comes the dish, pelau.70 using the national motto of jamaica (“out of many, one people”), clarke reflects on the creolization that characterizes both the cultures and the culinary traditions of the caribbean. in doing so, he simultaneously emphasizes the relational sense of cultural belonging that emerges from their collective memory around food and its preparation. this sense of cultural belonging is not enclosed within national borders, but overflows them. retained in the caribbean and african diasporas, it enables the creation of a discourse that rethinks the effective meaning of belonging to a place or a culture. conclusions: peppering canadian identity with a diasporic sensibility food is both influenced by and constitutive of multiple identities, which in turn are catalyzed around the intersections of gender, ethnicity, class, age, and transnational attachments.71 starting with a consideration of the close relationship between food and identity, i have explored the way austin clarke articulates a sense of relational cultural belonging in his affective narration of various memories, all of which are connected to eating or preparing certain types of food. in drawing greater attention to the senses, clarke’s narrative provides a deeper understanding of how food and eating situate an individual in their material and discursive environment.72 in other words, if affect is an embodied practice in the form of a visceral, vital force “that drive[s] us toward movement, toward thought and extension,”73 we might think of food discourse along the same lines. in this sense, food discourse has the potential to “increase the political understanding of how people can be moved or mobilized either 69 clarke, pig tails ’n breadfruit, 193 [italics in the original]. 70 clarke, pig tails ’n breadfruit, 192. 71 abbots, the agency of eating, 61. 72 abbots, the agency of eating, 63. 73 gregg and seigworth, the affect theory reader, 1. 78 language, memory, and affect in diasporic food discourse as individuals or as groups of social actors.”74 in fact, as katherine mckittrick suggests, “social practices create landscapes and contribute to how we organize, build, and imagine our surroundings.”75 clarke’s narrativization of his memories and experiences thus restores the black presence as a constituent of canadianness, despite numerous attempts to inscribe the history of the nation as euro-white.76 instances of this reinscription abound within the text: from the multiple times clarke mentions having to source alternative ingredients to reproduce these recipes from canada or the us; to when he recalls the flavorless food he used to eat in the 1950s at trinity college in the university of toronto until a dish similar to pelau was added to the menu;77 or even as he describes fighting the extreme cold to visit toronto’s kensington market to buy oxtails.78 these experiences demonstrate that blackness must not always be thought of in diasporic terms. rather, blackness possesses a canadian dimension, just as canada possesses a black history.79 this symbiotic relationship is also evident in other works by clarke, most notably his 2008 novel, more, in which kensington market is also a haunt of its protagonist, idora morrison. already unconcerned that the way she cooks cornmeal in toronto for her friend josephine does not reflect the “traditional way of stirring meal-corn cou-cou” in barbados,80 it is idora’s experience of visiting kensington market that particularly enables her to situate west indianness within toronto. describing her arrival in the market, clarke writes: and idora was just as cheerful, and changed her personality, and behaved like a west indian, pronouncing words with an island lilt and cadence, and adding, as if in increments, more west indian words and inflections than before. … “[w]henever i go to the jewish market—which is what we called it years ago—i become more west 74 hayes-conroy and hayes-conroy, “taking back taste,” 469. 75 katherine mckittrick, demonic grounds: black women and the cartographies of struggle (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 2006), xiv. 76 rinaldo walcott mentions countless examples of the erasure of blackness in canada, including the renaming of streets and places; the destruction of whole towns and slave cemeteries; and police brutality. see rinaldo walcott, black like who? writing black canada, 2nd rev. ed. (toronto: insomniac press, 2003), 136; rinaldo walcott and idil abdillahi, blacklife: post-blm and the struggle for freedom (winnipeg: arp books, 2019), 63–64. 77 clarke, pig tails ’n breadfruit, 192. 78 clarke, pig tails ’n breadfruit, 198. 79 paul barrett, blackening canada: diaspora, race, multiculturalism (toronto: university of toronto press, 2015), 16. 80 austin clarke, more (new york: amistad, 2010 [2008]), 206. 79the journal of transcultural studies 12, no. 1 (summer 2021) indian than when i left my apartment. you know what i mean? and i stop behaving like a canadian…” “like going home, you mean? like going back to your culture?” josephine said. “nothing so serious, girl. is just the smells and the things. and the taste of things that i intend buying,” idora said. “i know these ingreasements in this kensington market …”81 through the smell and her anticipation of the taste of the food she intends to buy, idora is able to affectively connect with her life back in barbados, yet she redefines this experience as a canadian one. as a matter of fact, when her friend josephine asks her if visiting the market makes her feel like “going home,” idora responds that she knows those “ingreasements” (meaning the taste and smell of the ingredients from the caribbean, an affective surplus that can only be rendered via the use of nation language) in “this” kensington market, in canada: not somewhere else. becoming “more” west indian and less canadian (i.e., euro-white canadian) does not reflect a refusal of canadianness. rather, it serves as a way of redefining what it means to be canadian from a position of absence and elsewhere (i.e., the experience of being black or caribbean in canada) that nevertheless firmly exists within the nation and that enables, as mckittrick emphasizes, a critique of the nation by “expos[ing] its social, political, racial, and sexual limitations.”82 it is exactly this awareness of living simultaneously “within and without the nation”83 that enables clarke to express a new way of conceiving cultural identity, bringing a diasporic or transnational sensibility to canadian cultural belonging. from his place in the canadian diaspora, he affirms: “i consider myself as much a southerner as a barbadian,”84 thus bringing together his sense of multiple belonging to the caribbean, to canada, and to the us. clarke’s narrative draws on the experiential knowledge of the black diaspora, a knowledge that remains rooted in the flesh and that unfailingly recognizes the imbrication of the discursive and the symbolic with the material and the lived.85 as barbara christian emphasizes, the black cultural tradition does not separate art from life, nor ethics from politics, and it opposes the distinction between theory and praxis: 81 clarke, more, 196 [italics mine]. 82 mckittrick, demonic grounds, 103. 83 barrett, blackening canada, 12. 84 clarke, pig tails ’n breadfruit, 230. 85 darieck scott, extravagant abjections: blackness, power, and sexuality in the african american literary imagination (new york: new york university press, 2010), 3. 80 language, memory, and affect in diasporic food discourse people of color have always theorized—but in forms quite different from the western form of abstract logic. i am inclined to say that our theorizing (and i intentionally use the verb rather than the noun) is often in narrative forms, in the stories we create, in riddles, and proverbs, in the play with language, since dynamic rather than fixed ideas seem more to our liking.86 through the food stories that he passes on to his readers and by playing with language, often enhanced by the use of bajan, clarke theorizes the possibility of a diasporic cultural belonging. this belonging is not rooted in mythical tales of origin or purity, but rather celebrates the potential of inhabiting multiple homes at the same time, thus unfixing canadian identity from a eurocentric perspective. if canadian heritage food and canadian culinary history often fail to recognize or mention the influence of black diasporic culinary practices upon canadian food discourse,87 thus making blackness once again an “absented presence” in canada,88 clarke demonstrates that this tradition is indeed a constitutive component of the canadian identity. through his attention to the senses—the texture, taste, and smell of food—and the memories they awaken in our body, clarke offers us an insight into the fluidity of identity. looking in, we see how resistance and change constantly redraw and shift cultural boundaries, opening up space for a diasporic or transnational approach to canadian cultural belonging. 86 barbara christian, “the race for theory,” in within the circle: an anthology of african american literary criticism from the harlem renaissance to the present, ed. angelyn mitchell (durham: duke university press, 1994), 348–359; 349. 87 see for example dorothy duncan, nothing more comforting: canada’s heritage food (toronto: dundurn, 2003); dorothy duncan, canadians at table: food, fellowship, and folklore. a culinary history of canada (toronto: dundurn, 2011). 88 walcott, black like who?, 27. editorial note | transcultural studies editorial note like the field of inquiry from which it takes its name, transcultural studies has developed quickly over the past five years. starting with what, in hindsight, looks like a rather slim issue of 99 pages in 2010, the journal has not only grown in size (to 289 pages in this issue) and thematic breadth, but also introduced new features, which, judging from readers’ and authors’ feedback, have enhanced the utility of our site as a platform for scholarly discussion. themed sections, video podcasts, and other multimedia formats, as well as a continued commitment to making articles originally written or published in other languages available in english, have all helped to broaden the scope of our project and sharpen its profile. at the same time, they have significantly increased the workload of the editorial team. to share this burden more equitably, responsibilities have now been spread over three pairs of shoulders instead of two. beginning with this release, joachim kurtz, a professor of intellectual history at heidelberg whose research centers on exchanges of scientific and philosophical knowledge between europe and east asia, is joining our effort to stimulate and distribute empirically grounded studies in a transcultural mood. the five articles in this issue, one of which is a translation of a path-breaking article first published in italian, underline the fertility of transcultural approaches in areas as diverse as the history of science, art history, archaeology, visual anthropology, and literary studies. although dealing with very different regions and time periods, all essays aim to understand the mobility of people, artifacts, and institutions as well as less tangible objects such as concepts, practices, styles, and genres, by studying the physical traces they left behind in the diverse environments shaping and shaped by their presence or passage. operating each with its own distinct analytical vocabularies, these essays underline the necessity of, and contribute toward, crafting a more nuanced lexicon that enables a firmer grasp of transcultural phenomena. they also show that this enterprise does not need to reinvent the wheel: all draw on and enter into conversation with existing languages—postcolonial, structuralist, or other—and demonstrate that their terms can be turned into more adequate tools by tightening their usages and specifying their realms of application. dhruv raina’s essay, which opens this issue, adds to our understanding of the global career of the concept of the “sciences”—one of the few notions whose essential modernity is rarely, if ever, questioned—by tracing its “critical assimilation” in india. building on earlier work on the naturalization of the term in late nineteenth-century bengal, raina reconstructs how the sciences came to be qualified as “exact” and “positive” in the early twentieth century. instead of extracting evidence from scientific books and papers, he scrutinizes the “meta-narrative” sketched in three pioneering works on the history of science among the “ancient hindus.” written by “cultural amphibians” equally versed in the idioms of contemporary science and classical learning, these books offer a “reverse commentary” on european representations of the nature of the sciences and orientalist views of ancient indian forms of knowledge. this commentary was no vain historiographical rationalization, fabricated to defend the dignity of indian civilization. rather, it must be read in the larger context of the institutionalization of the natural and social sciences, which drew some of its legitimacy from a selective revitalization of the past. of particular interest from a transcultural perspective is the fact that the linkage between the proliferation of modern scientific practices and the reconstruction of their history was by no means unique to india. as iwo amelung has recently shown, the history of chinese science was shaped in similar ways by a roughly contemporaneous generation of amphibious scientists who used reflections on the past to valorize their own expertise. one could also mention that in germany, likewise and again at around the same time, the history of technology could not have taken root as an academic discipline without the incisive and perhaps also not entirely disinterested support of the association of german engineers (vdi). even casual readers will easily understand why the magisterial essay on narrative art between india and the hellenistic world by the late maurizio taddei (1936–2000) seemed so important to our concerns that we decided to translate it more than twenty years after its initial publication in 1993. based on decades of work on the art of gandhāra, and many years in situ, taddei reviews and refutes with unparalleled facility the parochial views that have shaped orientalist understandings of the “classic components,” i.e., alleged greco-roman elements, in the stelae, statues, and reliefs preserved in this forgotten indo-european borderland. without denying the contributions of earlier generations, his account of changing european views of indian art, buddhism, and their expression in gandhāran artifacts—shifting seamlessly between, and at times even confounding, adulation and condemnation—lucidly exposes the religious and ideological assumptions underlying persistent but largely unproductive debates about who influenced whom and whose style or ideas were more original. focusing on narrative reliefs depicting scenes from the life of the buddha, taddei argues that gandhāran art has no exact counterparts in either greece or india. its representative works should thus not be seen as illicit, if by some standards alluring, mongrels but as independent creations that deserve to be studied in their own right. his analysis proves that the explanatory force of approaches tracing the “interplay of influences” overlooks much of what studies of a more transcultural (not his term) orientation are able to recover. by treating the results of direct or mediated contacts as genuine co-productions, i.e. studying them without reflexively privileging questions of origin, ownership, or preeminence, we gain “a beautiful opportunity” to recognize their specific or even unique features. even those inclined to disagree with the somewhat idealistic wording of taddei’s conclusion should be able to concur that this rich essay, ancient by the standards of current academic fashions, exemplifies many virtues that transcultural studies can ignore only at their peril. linkages in and between localities are a key theme of christiane brosius’ article on public art in urban spaces. with the idea of a “center” or an “artistic mainstream” able to grant or deny entry to artists from the margins having become an anachronism, the essay shows how cultural practice today has moved towards a more transversal process of linkages that seeks to renew its anchors within one or more localities. the art festival 48°c public.art.ecology, transculturally curated in delhi in 2008, allows the author to explore the relationship between globally mobile, contemporary art and its local emplacement within the urban setting of a mega-city. the city itself, an urban agglomeration that absorbs natural resources at an alarming rate, functions as an index of the new geopolitical and economic status of asia. the article asks questions about the possibilities of artistic intervention within urban public space that emerges as an alternative to the museum or the gallery for staging new narratives, images, and critical perspectives. the ethnographic study draws on information obtained from the organizers of the festival, its curators, and visitors. it proposes the concept of “in-between” to refer to those spaces that lie beyond the more consciously coded arenas and which could become sites of contestation. in addition, it raises questions about the very nature of “publicness” and of the city as a site of human rights and civil society in india. by fashioning itself as both a festival and a discursive realm for cultural debate—and oscillating uncertainly between the two—48°c continued to partake of the exclusionary privileges of contemporary art and remained safely cocooned from the teeming urban sprawl beyond. lisa safford’s article on lacquer painting in colonial and postcolonial vietnam can be located within the growing body of work that seeks to theorize artistic modernism as a transculturally constituted movement. its formation—so the general argument runs—can be meaningfully studied only when non-western experiments are brought center stage to destabilize the apparatus wherein the north atlantic west is cast as the center from which avant-garde trends radiated to the peripheries. the study of vietnam demonstrates how modernist art was born out of the encounter of local artists with institutions and practices introduced by the colonial power—art schools, new media, and naturalist styles. much in the manner of the “reverse commentary” explored by raina, local subjects that were formed through the colonial experience drew on the construct of a “hyperreal” europe (dipesh chakrabarty) to generate a kind of modernism that revalorized tradition instead of dethroning it. lacquer painting came to serve as an expression of the urge towards liberation from the colonial yoke and was used to create works in a style and format that staked a claim to be considered “modern.” parallels to developments described by raina extend to the institutional level. colonial art schools opened a space for traditional artisans conversant with the medium of lacquer to train as “artists.” the idioms of european landscape painting were deployed by vietnamese artists together with a critical engagement with modernist tropes of primitivism to create a style of painting in lacquer that could articulate its own specific social critique. yet such a style, the article argues, developed an elasticity that allowed it to be used by different actors in specific historical moments—making lacquer painting both a museum object and a mass-produced tourist souvenir. the final contribution in this issue explores the conditions that facilitate the migration of a literary genre. supplementing her recent monograph on the chinese political novel, catherine vance yeh’s essay reconstructs the role of shanghai’s shenbaoguan publishing house in paving the way for the recasting of chinese narrative prose around the turn of the twentieth century. expanding on events summarized in a single paragraph in her book, the author aims to recover the material and cultural conditions that triggered the meteoric rise of the political novel in china after 1898. driven by its energetic british founder, ernest major, the shenbaoguan set a model of commercially viable publishing that included a nation-wide distribution network, appealing print formats, and channels for effective communication between editors and readers. but the press also contributed to create a favorable cultural environment. thanks to its protected location in shanghai’s international settlement and the port city’s affluent urban audience, it was ideally positioned to introduce chinese readers to the novel as the leading literary genre in europe and to prepare the ground for a rehabilitation of homegrown narrative. in paratextual writings and advertisements, major and his chinese associates worked to dispel traditional suspicions, defending in the process the novel’s ambivalent affective potential, its entertainment function, and its broadened target readership, including women—all causes, yeh argues, that were later taken up by the protagonists of her monograph. the immediate reward for the shenbaoguan’s foray into fiction publishing was mainly commercial. the intellectual impact of their cultural brokerage is much harder to gauge. still, both are well worth studying and recounting, if only in the humble pages of transcultural studies. as always, we hope you will enjoy reading this issue and look forward to your comments, critiques—and further submissions to keep our expanded editorial team busy. monica juneja and joachim kurtz combat and collaboration | zhang | transcultural studies combat and collaboration: the clash of propaganda prints between the chinese guomindang and the japanese empire in the 1930s–1940s. shaoqian zhang, oklahoma state university on the night of july 7, 1937, chinese and japanese troops engaged in a firefight in the vicinity of the lugou bridge, a crucial access route to beijing.[1] only a few months after this incident, key cities in the surrounding region fell to japanese forces. although the two countries had fought spasmodically since 1931, full scale war did not commence until 1937, and ended only with the surrender of japan at the end of world war ii. the eight years of the second sino-japanese war opened the way for the rise of the chinese communist party (ccp), which eventually overthrew and replaced the previously dominant guomindang (gmd, the nationalist party). japan, on the other hand, had to abandon its imperialist aspirations and redefine its role, not only within east asia, but also with respect to the west. introduction: war and propaganda posters as early as the first sino-japanese war (1894–5) and the russo-japanese war (1904–05), the japanese had already availed themselves of mass-produced forms of political art such as lithographs, woodblock prints, painting illustrations, and photographs to portray themselves in an idealized manner for the domestic, chinese, and international audience.[2] theoretically, propaganda art was to have the function of "organiz[ing] [the] group mind and simplify[ing] its mass thinking."[3] it set out to guide the audience towards a desired shared attitude. during the russo-japanese war, colored woodblock prints, which actually had started to decline after the introduction of photography, regained their appreciation because of their perceived value as easily digestible visual forms to prompt japanese domestic audiences to identify with the government's war-time goals.[4] world war i taught most nations the value of propaganda. harold lasswell, who traced the new role of government propaganda, concluded in 1927, "the history of the late war shows that modern war must be fought on three fronts: the military front, the economic front, and the propaganda front."[5] not surprisingly, during the second sino-japanese war, propaganda and one of its essential mediums, the political poster, played a vital role. for china, the war coincided with and spurred the efforts of a modernized state to gain international standing and respectability. in this process, political prints articulated revised narratives of national identity. as far as the scope of this paper is concerned, my discussion will be limited to the confrontation between the gmd and japan in visual propaganda warfare directed towards chinese audiences.in their efforts to foster a resolve in their support and weaken their opponents' cohesiveness and fighting spirit, both sides used the printed image as well as theater plays, newspapers, radio broadcasts and movies all played vital roles.among all these propaganda instruments, my study will focus on the "visual spectacle" of the large-scale wartime posters created by the contending parties for pasting on walls, because their consistently shared iconographic elements cry out for analysis. reception: japan's impact on chinese art before the second sino-japanese war the form of the political poster is closely connected to technological developments, namely the introduction of inexpensive, multi-copy processes of color printing and the development of new printer's inks. modern printing techniques for images were ushered in on a large scale during the late nineteenth century in china, when british entrepreneur ernest major, the manager of thechinese-language newspaper shenbao 申報 (shanghai newspaper), set up the dianshizhai lithography press in 1879.[6] shanghai's dynamic political and cultural structure formed a hybrid environment for invention and innovation that accentuated the cross-fertilization in mass communication content and technology throughout asia. rudolf g. wagner concludes that about 7% of the images in the first twenty volumes of the dianshizhai pictorial (1884–1891) were copies from western pictorials. he therefore argues that, in terms of the circulation of images, china had been swiftly incorporated into the global system by the end of the nineteenth century.[7] later, especially after the may fourth movement in 1919, some artists further embraced up-to-date international design vocabularies such as those found in japanese graphic prints, art deco imagery, and russian constructivist illustrations. japan played a key role in china's education in western culture, and politically a handful of chinese scholar-officials such as zhang zhidong (1837–1909) advocated a program of "learning from the west through japan 驅徑東洋學西洋" after china's devastating defeat in the first sino-japanese war in 1895.[8] even before this date, as argued by lai yu-chih, a number of chinese artists collectively known as the shanghai school absorbed elements of japanese visual culture in their work.[9] over the course of the 1920s and 1930s, sino-japanese artistic societies mounted several joint art exhibitions[10] and more and more chinese artists started paying attention to japan. by the 1920s, the influence of japanese art on chinese propaganda art began to manifest itself in the domain of political cartoons. many political posters produced during the first united front (1922–27) borrowed the style and content of another popular japanese pictorial genre that had emerged around the turn of the twentieth century: manhua 漫畫.[11] chinese political cartoons reached their height after the outbreak of the may 30 movement in 1925, probably the most significant anti-imperialist and labor movement.[12] the famous chinese cartoonist feng zikai (1898–1975), who was strongly influenced by japanese techniques, published several of his anti-imperialist manhua in a then-popular journal, zhongguo qingnian 中國青年 (chinese youth).[13] this spawned many imitations and numerous pictorials were published, such as gongren huabao 工人畫報 (the workers' pictorial), bagong huabao 罷工畫報 (the strike pictorial) and gongren zhilu 工人之路 (the path of the worker).[14] tōyō and tōa shin chitsujo as the twentieth century got underway, japan coined the term "tōyō" to emphasize a pan-asian cultural alliance. as analyzed by stefan tanaka, "tōyō" is a "geocultural entity" that encompassed the history and culture of the east, as opposed to that of the west.[15] in the words of tanaka, the mentality behind the dichotomies between the east and west is that all of asia was grounded in similar cultural and spiritual roots and formed a barrier, even superiority, against the west tōyō provided the conceptual arena in which to make claims for an area as well as a cultural typology that encompassed and located both shina and other asian countries.[16] clearly, then, japan, considered itself to be the legitimate inheritor of orthodox east asian civilization, the possessor of the best of asia. meanwhile, the tumultuous situation in china provided excellent opportunities for japanese expansionism. having occupied manchuria earlier, japan officially introduced the concept of tōa shin chitsujo 東亜新秩序 (new order in east asia) when it occupied a number of important chinese cities on november 3, 1938.[17] the two wars––the "china incident" (shina jihen) with china and the greater east asia war (dai tōa sensō) against the united states––therefore became a part of the tōa shin chitsujo campaign. to sum up, sino-centrism had dominated chinese-japanese relationships among chinese as well as japanese elites for hundreds of years, but after japan's meiji restoration, the influence of japanese aesthetics on chinese art had become undeniable. in fact, rather than being seen as a challenge to the traditional chinese artistic canon, japanese elements seem to have been most easily incorporated into the newly emerging art styles and genres, such as the shanghai school, or the political cartoon. however, japan's colonial expansion complicated its cultural influence on china as the chinese set out to develop a novel set of icons to distinguish themselves from japanese cultural aesthetics. propaganda of the imperial japanese army in the political climate of the early twentieth century, military conflicts were also accompanied by wars in the public media and news. already during the russo-japanese war and well before the advent of widespread government propaganda during world war i, the japanese government had been aware of the propaganda value of manipulating news.[18] during second sino-japanese war we also see a significant participation of chinese opponents of the japanese colonial enterprise in the propaganda battle. nevertheless, factional disagreements frustrated china's official and non-official efforts to establish a national news network and implement a forceful propaganda agenda.[19] as far as propaganda posters were concerned, numerous war-related art prints were produced in both china and japan. in fact, the japanese print business reached its culmination with the foundation of the japanese print service society (nippon hanga hokokai), organized by print artists in the early spring of 1943 to give direct support to the war effort.[20] already during the russo-japanese war, japanese woodblock artists took up the challenge of photography by imbuing their works with a heightened sense of realism to convince the public that their scenes were authentic.[21] in addition to functioning as a reporting tool, such prints were usually propagandistic in both their nationalistic subject matter and their emotional energy. as part of the tōa shi chitsujo campaign since 1938, numerous political prints depicted japan as a forceful protector of the essence of east asian culture. the goal was "to convey the idea of war not as destruction but as a positive adjunct of east asian culture, and to illustrate the japanese occupation of china as peaceful."[22] in december 1937, a few months after the lugou bridge incident, beijing was captured by the japanese. significantly, many bureaucrats who had served in the beiyang government prior to the northern expedition were re-appointed by the imperial japanese army (ija). some of these men had been exiled from politics for many years, and japan offered them an opportunity for a comeback. former beiyang official wang kemin 王克敏 (1879–1945) was appointed head the new regime, and the old five colored flag was restored as its official banner.[23] the restoration of beijing––capital city of several dynasties––as the seat of government became an effective symbol for japanese troops advertising themselves as protectors of the "orthodox" asian culture. soon after that, the east asian cultural association was established in beijing in early 1938, thus demonstrating that the japanese empire represented the antithesis of western imperialism. from the time of the mukden incident in 1931, the major japanese propaganda agency tasked with appealing to the chinese population for the ija was senbuhan 宣撫班 (the pacification unit). after beijing was occupied, the shinminkai 新民會 (the new people association) was established with a function similar to that of the senbuhan 宣撫班. however, while the leadership was japanese, the majority of the staff members were chinese,. both organizations had their headquarters in beijing, but there were also a number of regional agencies based on the same model. after the establishment of the china expeditionary army (支那派遣軍 shina haken gun) in september 1939, the hōdōbu 報道部 (report department) was established, modeled after senbuhan. under the hōdōbu there were several hōdōhan 報道班 (report units). they were responsible for propaganda work in north china, and communicated directly with tokyo.[24] these agencies sent out propaganda material along with medicines and everyday necessities as a way of manipulating the mindset of the chinese population in the occupied territories.[25] the most direct approach for propaganda posters was for these agencies to appropriate the visual traditions found in chinese nianhua 年畫 (new year pictures). according to the document of the china expeditionary army entitled "tai shina senden jisshi sankō 对支那宣伝実施参考 [reference materials for propaganda work in china]," prior to the chinese new year of 1938, the beijing government dispatched policemen to give every household a poster to paste on the wall to replace the new year pictures from the previous year. [26] the posters generally adopted stories with an aura of auspiciousness chinese populations were familiar with. these posters usually portray a figure dressed in japanese military uniform or traditional chinese attire, sometimes with happy round-faced children. among the numerous posters produced by those propaganda agencies, i have selected a few that represent the mainstream pictorial themes of the ija. examples of the ija's propaganda posters speaking in january 1940, the chinese communist party general zhu de (1886–1976) pointed out that the japanese were exceptionally skillful at using visual resources such as large propaganda posters and small brochures, usually adopting visual elements with traditional chinese motifs.[27] the poster below, published in 1939, was an example of the china expeditionary army's visual assertion of "authentic traditionalism" (figure 1). its message was mostly concerned with the themes of "peace" and "harmony." the inscription reads: "as we gallop towards a new china, heaven and earth are always bright 躍進新中華，天地常明朗." the background features a dreamlike scenery of a sunrise with multi-colored clouds scattering the light. the rising sun takes up the symbol of the sun from the japanese flag and the "new china" that is bathing in its light is made up of a a group of chinese buildings, including pavilions, city gates and gate towers that are to evoke the chinese tradition and its values. some buildings are fading into the clouds while others are partially concealed by trees, a quintessential scene of imperial beijing. fig. 1: poster "as we gallop towards a new china, heaven and earth are always bright," text in chinese, ca. 1937–1940, china. lithograph, 40 x 30 in. stanford, hoover institution library and archives. at the center of the poster, a man in typical qing dynasty male attire is riding on a flying horse, holding the five colored flag and pointing the way forward. the flying horse is a traditional chinese cultural symbol. as early as the western han dynasty (206 bce–24ce), the powerful emperor han wudi (156–87 bce) wrote several eulogies in praise of the flying horse, one of the magical creatures having a certain connection with dragons.[28] the overall implication of the image, then, is that "we" are being led by a magical power and moving forward with great speed under the benign light of the japanese rising sun. overall, the poster creates an idealistic scene, permeated with traditional cultural elements. far from being an attempt to urge change or revolution, it presents the image of a smooth and rapid transition from "old china" to "new china" supported by japan. with its emphasis on the abstract ideals of "new china" and "heaven and earth," it is unlikely that this poster was aimed at an audience of people still struggling with basic needs for survival. it was easier, relatively speaking, for the japanese to emphasize the legitimacy of the imperial and traditional culture. an ideal confucian state was required to keep the mandate of heaven and produce a well-ordered society in which harmony and social hierarchy prevailed. since japan maintained the lineage of an imperial dynasty reaching deep into the past, it could therefore be perceived as an ideal model of confucianism. as suggested by some japanese historians at the time, japan, as opposed to china and korea, had never in recorded history been conquered by a foreign invader (figure 2).[29] another good example of this political notion can be seen in the poster "new political order 新政." it features a background in red, the auspicious color of chinese culture and architecture, in which a golden phoenix emerges from the watch tower of the beijing city wall, along which are displayed numerous five-colored flags. the most striking image here, aside from the red color, is the golden phoenix. symbolizing rebirth, these mythical animals have historically crowned important japanese buildings such as the golden pavilion of kinkakuji and the phoenix hall of byōdōin in kyoto as seen in the photograph besides the poster. fig. 2: poster "the new political order," text in chinese, ca. 1938–1939, china. lithograph, 30 x 21 in. stanford, hoover institution archives (left). bronze phoenix on the roof of the golden pavilion at kinkaku-ji. photograph by shaojuan zhang (right). as observed by the china expeditionary army, most chinese people were very superstitious and only a few were literate. as a result, the c.e.a. went on to appropriate visual motifs from old customs, superstitious thoughts, and folk religion.[30] this poster is a point in case. the phoenix is an icon from ancient asian mythologies. in china, as well as in japan, the mythical phoenix was adopted as a symbol of the imperial household, particularly the empress. this mythical bird represents fire, the sun, justice, obedience, fidelity, and the southern star constellation.[31] according to legend, the hō-ō (phoenix in japanese) appears very rarely, and only to mark the beginning of a new era––the birth of a virtuous ruler, for example. in another tradition, the hō-ō appears only in peaceful and prosperous times (nesting, it is said, in a paulownia tree), while hiding in times of trouble. as the herald of a new age, the hō-ō descends from heaven to earth to do good deeds, and then returns to its celestial abode to await a new era. it is a symbol both of peace (when the bird appears) and of disharmony (when it disappears)."[32] therefore, the phoenix on the top of the gate tower most likely symbolizes the peace after rebirth, accomplished through the occupation of the japanese imperial army. at the same time, because it is placed at the highest point of the entire architectural complex, it is a symbol of the japanese imperial army itself as a power above all to reign over the entire world in peace, and of the prestige of its fame. in addition to "orthodox east asian culture," the ija tended to underscore the ideas of "peace" and "protection" (figure 3). this poster, for example, features several related symbols such as peace doves, smiling faces and a young child. the pastel colors compose an idealized world in which hatred and fear are absent. at the center of the poster, a japanese imperial army soldier holds a child who is grasping a five-colored flag, and both are smiling and looking into the distance of an ideal future. a peace dove flies in a blue sky above while another takes food from the soldier's hand. the soldier, a perfect example of romantic heroism, plays here a maternal rather than a martial role, hiding the uglier aspects of the world from the eyes of the child. the poster invokes people's desire for peace and harmony rather than radical change and the cruelty of the battlefield. fig. 3: poster "chinese child with soldier of the imperial japanese army," ca. 1939–1940, china. lithograph, 40 x 30 in. stanford, hoover institution library and archives. the ideas of "peace" and "protection" were sometimes translated into the notion of "brotherhood" (figure 4). this poster, titled "good will between china and japan," features two cartoon-like characters: a chinese man, dressed in blue and holding the banner with this slogan, and a japanese man, dressed in white and waving his arm, along which a slogan reads "peaceful order in east asia." both have large, smiling faces with red cheeks. in the background is a map of the globe that focuses on japanese territory, clearly indicating japan as being the leader of this community of brotherhood. as in the previous poster, red, the most auspicious color, predominates. in most political posters produced by the japanese imperial army, japan is visualized as the elder brother (figure 5). the poster, entitled "china and japan are like brothers that build east asian peace together," draws on a very famous story about the song dynasty historian and politician, sima guang (1019–1086). as even zhu de noticed, the japanese had on many occasions utilized the story of sima guang as a metaphor for their relationship with china.[33] when sima guang was a child, one of his playmates fell into a large ceramic vat and was about to drown. the other children scattered in panic, but sima guang cracked the vat with a rock and saved the child. his calm decisiveness won him considerable praise. though the story might be apocryphal, it has remained popular in china up to the present day. fig. 4: poster "good will between china and japan," text in chinese, ca. 1938–1939, japan. lithograph, 31 x 21 in. stanford, hoover institution library and archives. fig. 5: poster "china and japan are like brothers that build east asian peace together," text in chinese, ca. 1938–1939, japan. lithograph, 31 x 21 in. stanford, hoover institution archives. the poster has altered the story slightly so as to fit its propaganda agenda. a giant vat, set in a traditional chinese garden landscape, has been broken by a little japanese boy, dressed in the jia uniform; he appears calm, decisive and smart, like the original figure in the story. a chinese boy is depicted flowing out of the broken vessel along with a stream of water. the rock used by the japanese boy to break the vat lies nearby. the vat itself is topped by the japanese national flag together with the chinese five-colored flag. the obvious message of this poster is that smart and brave japanese are saving the chinese from their own mistakes and ignorance. the japanese are the elder brothers, the chinese are the younger brothers. further symbolism is added by four characters inscribed on the vat, reading "ronggong zhi weng 容共之甕 [vessel containing communism]." thus, the chinese people have drowned themselves in a political structure tolerating communism, and this "vessel" must be broken by the japanese to save china. another standard approach of the japanese imperial army was to equate the guomindang with communism, claiming it was "turning [china] red/communist chihua 赤化." where the gmd government advocated an "anti-imperialist and anti-invasionist" policy, the japanese advocated "anti-communism." representing themselves as defenders of "orthodox" chinese culture, the japanese propagandists portrayed communism as a primitive and foreign ideology. and chiang kai-shek—ironically, in light of previous and subsequent events—was portrayed as the ultimate icon of this ideology and his government, by extension, was communism's stronghold in china. as the self-anointed representative of a "legitimate" east asian culture and the true heir to the best traditions, the jia tended to emphasize the benefits of the status quo, and advertised themselves from a defensive standpoint with romantic celebratory imagery—unlike the aggressive tone of propaganda during the russo-japanese war (figure 6). published in 1938–9, this colorful poster features a buoyant soldier on horseback, dressed in traditional chinese outfit with military boots, confidently brandishing the peking government's five colored flag. to the right, he overlooks a scene in which a diverse group including peasants, scholars and foreigners is gathered in harmonious felicity to observe the (japanese) sun rising auspiciously over beijing's most hallowed architectural monuments. behind him, soldiers wearing both traditional and modern military garb march into a dark and stormy environment to confront the enemy threatening this idyll, personified by grotesque caricatures of chiang kai-shek and stalin looming in the blackness above. "chiang" appears bold and disproportionately skinny, while "stalin" appears stout and tough-looking. fig. 6: poster "celebrate the new order," ca. 1939–1940, china. lithograph, 31 x 41 in. stanford, hoover institution library and archives. this poster underscores the ija's position as defender of the legitimate order, in which traditions are respected and all classes and nationalities abide in peace and harmony. indeed, among the group of contented citizens shown in the poster is a woman in japanese costume, serving to highlight the pan-asian posture of the ruling government. relating chiang kai-shek, who was in a united front with the communists, to stalin, the gmd-ccp alliance appears as a dark and gruesome future that has to be prevented by all means. under the assumption that many chinese were unfamiliar with the principles and ideals of communism, relating chiang kai-shek to such a foreign ideology was a plausible strategy to discredit him. the japanese military advance across china worked effectively and by december 1937 they captured the gmd capital nanjing and in october 1938 wuhan, forcing the gmd to retreat to the inland mountain city of chongqing. during this process, the ija intensified its propaganda efforts. for example, only one week after the occupation of wuhan, the bilingual chinese and japanese wuhan bao (the wuhan newspaper) already started publishing.[34] but following the fall of wuhan, the gmd launched several large-scale counter-offensives against the ija, and from 1940 on the ija encountered tremendous difficulties in administering the seized territories. it attempted to solve its occupation problems through the creation of friendly puppet governments, the most prominent being the nanjing nationalist government headed by wang jingwei (1883–1944), a close associate of the late sun yat-sen. at this stage, the ija, as well as the new nanjing government, continued to connect the gmd with communism. the japanese even claimed that the presence of the communists was the reason why there was war in east asia in the first place. the wang jingwei government maintained that "the new republican government [of nanjing] is the orthodox chinese government. it carries the mission of fulfilling peace, fighting anti-communism and maintaining tōa shin chitsujo. that is why it is revolutionary."[35] wang jingwei's government published several journals to reflect this ideology, such as sanmin zhoukan 三民周刊 (three people's principles weekly), ziyou pinglun 自由評論 (independent critic), xin shiji 新世紀 (the new epoch), and shidai wenxuan 時代文選 (contemporary essay). additionally, it used flyers, banners, mass meetings, newspapers and wall posters as vehicles of propaganda. before the fall of wuhan, most of the ija's posters had been produced in tokyo. later some of the images were produced in china. in late 1938, for example, shandong province produced half a million propaganda brochures for the ija, which were disseminated by aircraft.[36] aside from the military conflict between the gmd and the nanjing government, there was a visual contest between the two as well. their propaganda posters were ephemeral and attempted at times to distort political reality, and could on occasion be convincing. as we can learn from almost every case in chinese history, from the northern expedition to the cultural revolution, such posters would provoke, foment and inspire for only a brief period;[37] immediately afterwards, having made the required impression, they would suddenly disappear, their powerful and compelling imagery seemingly disowned and forgotten. the messages they had sent to people, together with their visual languages, usually became outdated quite soon. combat: the second united front between the gmd and ccp the war of resistance had reduced the conflicts between the gmd and ccp and had prompted the formation of the second united front (1937–1946); the ccp red army was now officially reorganized as part of the national revolutionary army. while the gmd engaged the japanese in conventional battles, the some of the ccp's contingents in the nra engaged in guerrilla warfare, while protecting their regular forces for a later conflict with the gmd.[38] within the political department of the military high command, however, an agency in charge of political education, media relations and propaganda, the ccp proved to be quite efficient, which, was even noticed by the japanese military who onsidered the political department's activities to be "highly skilled."[39] this was not the first time that such an institution had been established. prior to the northern expedition, at the suggestion of soviet military strategist henk sneevliet (1883–1942), sun yat-sen set up the political department of central military command in 1924 at the huangpu military academy, a modern military school in guangzhou dedicated to training a revolutionary army. most members of the political department, including the chairs, vice-chairs and political department secretaries, were chinese communist party members.[40] indeed, it is said that the national revolutionary army included about 1,000 ccp members, 70% of whom were in charge of political education.[41] although the first marriage between the gmd and ccp was one of convenience and was filled with mistrust, their joint efforts excelled in the techniques of propaganda to mobilize the chinese lower classes into supporting the northern expedition in 1927.[42] the ccp was quick to benefit by becoming adept in an art at which the soviet communists excelled—that of transmuting the hopes and fears of a mass audience into positive action through printed imagery.[43] the central military command had been dissolved after the success of the northern expedition and the founding of nanjing as the capital. it was reactivated, however, under the pressure of the japanese invasion, soon after the january 28 incident in 1932. the core mission of the central military command was to coordinate military strategies for the second sino-japanese war. the political department of the central military command was re-established in february 1938, with chen cheng (1898–1965) (gmd) as the chief director and zhou enlai (1898–1976) (ccp) as deputy director. in april, guo moruo (1892–1978) (ccp), a key figure in the production of propaganda for the northern expedition, was appointed chairman in charge of anti-japanese propaganda.[44] as kushner notes: "imperial japanese forces singled out the communist army as being most successful at recruiting the local chinese population against the japanese."[45] it must also be pointed out that the gmd-ccp central military command was not the only source of its anti-japanese propaganda. it often left this task to voluntary associations or local military units. in addition to the political department of the central military command, there were also numerous "political departments" under different institutions of the gmd military organization, and a number of civilian "anti-japanese propaganda" agencies. after the japanese promulgated the ideal of the "new order in east asia" on november 3, 1938, their chinese opponents strove to utilize a variety of signs, symbols and artistic techniques to create their own propaganda print art in an effort to counter tōa shin chitsujo. the gmd-ccp alliance treated the japanese emphasis on traditional and imperial culture as hypocritical. it created posters with a quite different focus, addressing groups of people who were less sensitive to traditional symbols and more concerned with the survival of the country. for the gmd-ccp alliance, the primary goal was to assert the necessity of anti-japanese war efforts, to galvanize the chinese people to fight, to mobilize the class consciousness of japanese soldiers against the policies of their government, and to elicit the sympathy of the international community.[46] to provide a useful comparison, i have selected a number of propaganda posters produced by the gmd-ccp alliance that were aimed at chinese audiences. these images show some of the core themes to be found in gmd/ccp propaganda during the second sino-japanese war (figure 7). this poster, for example, published by the political department, military command, offers an aesthetic impression that is strikingly different from japanese exemplars. a blunt caption, reading "it is the enemy or us!" accompanies a depiction of a chinese soldier in blue military uniform stabbing a japanese soldier. the chinese soldier, facing away from the audience, is proportionally much larger than the japanese soldier. his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, revealing muscular lower arms and hands, while the japanese soldier is so defenseless that he is unable to hold his gun, and puts up a last futile struggle as blood pours from his chest. there are not a great variety of colors in this poster, only light blue, red and greyish blue. however, the calligraphic lines of the image are effective in depicting movement and a sense of nervous emotion. fig. 7: poster "it is the enemy or us!" text in chinese, ca. 1938–1945, china. published by the political department of the military command. lithograph, 22 x 17 in. stanford, hoover institution library and archives. the message in this poster is quite straightforward: the chinese can beat the japanese. it also aims to arouse hatred towards the foreign enemy. there are no cultural symbols to give the audience any clues as to the difference between the two countries, but the japanese soldier is shown with sideburns, darker skin and an angular physiognomy, underscoring the fact that he is ethnically alien to the chinese. needless to say, hatred of foreign enemies became increasingly important as a component in chinese nationalism as the war progressed. in fact, the political department had already discovered during the northern expedition that propaganda promoting hatred and resentment was generally more effective than any other for mobilizing the lower classes.[47] therefore, chinese propaganda posters reached their peak of influence with posters produced during the second sino-japanese war that were openly fanning hatred and fear of the foreign enemy . fig. 8: poster "enemies can destroy our materials but they cannot shake our will," text in chinese, ca. 1939–1945, china. published by the political department of the military command. lithograph, 21 x 15 in. stanford, hoover institution library and archives. generally speaking, the posters produced by the chinese side have more communistic undertones, and have working classes, peasants and other non-elite people as their intended audience (figure 8). in this poster, for example, a group of armed, uniformed soldiers is depicted marching into a bombed-out area, which is possibly a pictorial translation of the "war frontier." on the left, a larger-than-life soldier stands upright, dressed in winter uniform and carrying a gun, with one arm and a fist upraised. as noticed by mary ginsberg, raised fists are among the most widely-adopted icons in soviet propaganda art.[48] the theatrical aesthetic celebrated by this poster, including the colors and the figural postures, impress upon the spectator the earnestness of the national cause and the necessity of joining the army to fight in the field. the caption below exclaims: "enemies can destroy our materials but they cannot shake our wills." the visual and textual content of this poster was intended to channel revolutionary energy where it was needed most. the firm posture and intense expression of the figural type represents an ideal of the robust and stalwart soldier that was also typical of soviet propaganda art. as pointed out by victoria e. bonnell, the bolshevik male heroes of the red army became more or less the premier icons of soviet russia.[49] the ruined homes in the background inform viewers of the destruction wrought by the japanese. the color red is used extensively in this poster, but unlike the auspicious red in japanese works, here it symbolizes something entirely different, namely, the bloody nature of warfare. under these red colors, the chinese soldiers are shown marching through a white doorway into an unknown future. red, moreover, is also the color of communism. color symbolism was frequently used in soviet propaganda art. bonnell comments that the color red served in russian religious icons to identify the sacred. the color red also had positive connotations in western european socialist art.[50] the revolutions of 1848 began with red flags being hoisted in france and continued with others in germany. in this poster, the red colors contrast vividly with the khaki of the uniforms and the white of the bombings, which clearly aims to increase the desire to save the nation. in the years 1937 and 1938, the relationship between the gmd and hitler's germany took a turn for the worse. chiang had developed a close relationship with adolf hitler's third reich in 1934, and regarded the german model of one party under one leader as a useful paradigm for his own regime.[51] after the official outbreak of the sino-japanese war, germany continued to be the primary chinese source of weapons.[52] this is visible in the propaganda posters produced between 1936 and 1937, as an example in the german helmet worn by the soldier in the image below (figure 9).[53] hitler had even lamented that the combat between china and japan was pushing china into the arms of communism.[54] but with japan becoming more essential to hitler's overall strategy as a member of the axis, germany eventually recognized the legitimacy of manchukuo in 1939, and claimed that the japanese presence in china was preventing its falling to the communists.[55] in this poster, we also see non-conventional artistic elements with more emphasis on geometric patterns, and much effort expended on the typography—the hand-drawn modern chinese characters (meishuzi 美術字). clearly, the artist embraced up-to-date international design vocabularies such as those found in art deco-imagery and russian constructivist illustrations.[56] he or she explored the flexibility in the form of the chinese written characters and their ability to communicate both visually and symbolically. fig. 9: poster "every day the enemy does not stop its aggression is a day in which our resistance will not rest," text in chinese, ca. 1939–1942, china. published by the political department of the military command. lithograph, 31 x 11 in. stanford, hoover institution library and archives. in addition to visually provocative posters, there were also didactic posters that were more neutral in their visual language, and that aimed at educating and remaking new chinese citizens under the conditions of war. a poster created in 1939 by china's revolutionary army, for example, unambiguously promotes the ideal of a "disciplinary and obedient citizen" for the nation with clear instructions given in a "right way versus wrong way" language (figure 10). this poster, produced by the political department of the military command, is utterly didactic in its pictorial and verbal depiction of models of nationalist discipline. created in the wake of the japanese invasion to explain the stakes of war more precisely, this revolutionary imagery was directed equally at nationalists and communists to inspire resistance to the invaders. at the center of the poster is a portrait of chiang kai-shek, with four boxes above him illustrating four "right ways."[57] chiang insisted that "[the enemies] want to use different methods to shake our will and threaten our inner spirit 欲以種種方法搖撼吾人之意志，威脅吾人之精神."[58] under the pressure of the japanese onslaught in 1939, questions regarding the attitude of a model chinese citizen under a national crisis were repeatedly addressed by chiang's government, and the regulations prescribed in this poster are an effective summary of these discussions. chiang here serves as a unifying symbol for chinese citizens, regardless of their political beliefs. fig. 10: poster tuhua bibao (pictorial wall post), text in chinese, 1940, china. published by the political department of the military command. lithograph, 31 x 21 in. stanford, hoover institution library and archives. in the caption the president says: "anything that is advantageous to the enemy and harmful to the nation should not be done. anything that is advantageous to the nation and helpful for our military affairs should be done with great efforts." flanking chiang's portrait are images, dramatically crossed through with red x's, depicting the behaviors which are considered injurious to the cause of social rehabilitation. juxtaposed with these are images of everyday forms of behavior that show a healthy, militaristic and national attitude. above the inscription "change [a] drunken and dreamy life," a group of people are shown enjoying a decadent life of drinking and playing a simple gambling game with finger digits, an undesirable behavior bound to produce a self-indulgent personality with a weak and unhealthy body. another image window portrays two people having a discussion in front of a dance hall, one dissuading the other from entering, with a caption below reading "straighten up citizens' everyday life; ban all abnormal activities." after the outbreak of the pacific war, the second sino-japanese war became a theater of world war ii, and china officially became a member of an international anti-axis allies, together with the u.s., the u.k. and the ussr. chiang kai-shek's portrait now replaced that of sun yat-sen and appeared more frequently in public places and the print media (figure 11). this poster, for example, is titled "military comes first; victory comes first" and features a portrait of chiang kai-shek against a background of a pattern formed by endless repetitions of the new slogan "resistance war/ national construction" 抗戰建國 that was proclaimed around 1938. after the outbreak of the second sino-japanese war, new laws were passed to prioritize the war. all political dissidents were released and the ccp's legal standing was confirmed. meanwhile, different social groups were galvanized to cooperate in making china ready and well-equipped for war. in march 1938 the gmd held a meeting of 403 congressmen in wuhan and determined that the two most important missions right then were "to defeat the enemy" and "to construct the country." these two ideas were not to be separated, and major principles of diplomacy, the military, the economy and education were incorporated into this overall theme.[59] chiang kai-shek became a unifying symbol for the pursuit of these national priorities. fig. 11: poster "resistance war—national construction: military affairs come first; victory comes first," text in chinese, ca. 1938–1940, china. published by international anti-aggression association, china branch. lithograph, 22 x 17 in. stanford, hoover institution library and archives. meanwhile, this poster displays the aesthetic qualities of critical woodblock prints advocated by the leftwing writer lu xun (1881–1936), which became popular during the 1930s, and it is very likely that the artists who produced propaganda posters were influenced by the emerging woodblock arts movement (figure 12). during the 1930s, a few left-wing cultural communities, not officially associated with the gmd or ccp, also participated in the anti-japanese and anti-invasion cultural campaigns. lu xun (1881–1936), a leader in the may fourth movement, launched his own woodblock movement.[60] the japanese valued the aesthetic qualities and the prestige of the "traditional" form of ukiyo-e woodblock prints. but for lu xun, inspired by käthe kollwitz (1867–1945), woodblocks allowed for mass cooperation and mass production and had the concomitant potential for political agitation. fig. 12: li hua 李華, china, roar, woodcut, 20 x 15 cm, 1936. the modern woodblock movement fostered the emergence of the woodblock print in china during the 1930s and 1940s as a dominant mode of representation especially among artists with left-wing and communist inclinations. chinese woodblock prints helped to create a new and expressive visual language. in the words of tang xiaobing, "this generation of chinese printmakers greatly extended the vocabulary, grammar, and versatility of the black-and-white woodblock print and promoted it as a superbly expressive and evocative common visual language of the modern age."[61] with their dramatic compositions, chisel marks, arrangements of black and white, and representations of various objects in light and shade, these prints easily matched the requirements of propaganda posters. julia andrews has suggested that after lu xun's death and the outbreak of the japanese war, woodblock print artists were enlisted to create nationalistic and propagandistic (anti-japanese) images. the idea of art as propaganda was now fully embraced by both nationalists and communists. she writes: prints produced after the japanese invasion, although still somewhat varied in style, tend toward a greater unity of purpose and a more urgently ideological tone, and are often carved in styles that are more realistic and easily readable.[62] if we compare the poster produced by the gmd in 1938–40 to the 1936 woodcut, "china, roar," we can discern a strong consistency in style. both illustrate a fascination with the interplay between positive and negative space; both place emphasis on a powerful centralized icon; and both display a crude and unrefined manner in rendering contours. the poster entitled "resistance war/ national construction: military affairs come first; victory comes first," avoids any complication in its visual language, relying as it does on a contrast between black and white color blocks, which not only suggests a sublime aura of dignity, but also brings our attention directly to chiang's portrait and the inscription below. similarly, in "china, roar," the black and white colors, free of any distraction from other colors, are able to represent intense, even maniacal emotions. although produced as a lithographic print, it has the visual qualities of a woodblock print. therefore, we can very plausibly speculate that some artists who worked for the gmd during the second sino-japanese war were the same ones who were active in the woodblock movements of the 1930s. similar to lu xun, they had also been influenced by käthe kollwitz's prints, which had been published in chinese journals and provided inspiration to the first generation of modern chinese woodcut artists,[63] and it is very likely that she provided the same inspiration to the first generation of gmd-ccp propaganda artists as well. many posters were produced by the gmd and different cultural groups during the second sino-japanese war. they were diverse in their content, visual strategies and artistic techniques. stephanie donald has commented on chinese propaganda posters produced during the cultural revolution: "the main themes of the posters of course changed over time, emphasizing different priorities and objectives in conjunction with the fluctuations of central policy. yet they constituted a particular and omnipresent aspect of the mechanisms used by the party-state to ensure the dominance of its discourse."[64] however, wartime propaganda posters differed. while they relied more heavily on people's "pre-existing attitudes" and fundamental interests in security,[65] they also played an important role in the gmd/ccp's effort to rally popular support for the war, and the galvanizing imagery and slogans were intended to mobilize of the population to join in the their anti-invasion effort. employing dramatically contrasting colors and stirring slogans with oversized characters, these posters offered visual provocations, trying to whip up feelings of hate, fear and love among the spectators. such drastic emotions provided useful points of entry for the propagandists who were attempting to foster a sense of community that would be crucial if the war of resistance was to succeed.[66] a comparison between the ija and gmd-ccp posters according to barak kushner: "by the onset of large-scale war between china and japan in august 1937, print media policy turned away from overt censorship and more towards propping up social support for the war."[67] the second sino-japanese war promoted the production and circulation of printed propaganda on both sides. apart from the military conflict between the gmd-ccp and the ija, there was a visual combat between the two as well. from a technical point of view, the japanese-inspired political posters were of better quality because highly professional artists were employed by the imperial japanese army. as kendall h. brown has pointed out, "evidence suggests that these artists were not 'drafted' but volunteered, welcoming the chance to demonstrate their patriotism while receiving positive publicity and a trip to an interesting locale."[68] the ccp also commented that the japanese had greater financial resources at their disposal than the chinese army, and that the political posters produced by their own side seemed to fail in attracting the interest of people who were more educated.[69] the posters produced by the japanese underscored the imperial japanese army's position as defenders of the legitimate asian order, in which traditions were respected and all classes and nationalities lived in peace and harmony. in the words of brown, "japan's victory in the russo-japanese war of 1904–1905 and the feeling of having succeeded in the great meiji project of 'civilization and enlightenment' (bunmei kaika) brought about a new consciousness of japanese culture vis-à-vis the west."[70] japan regarded itself as the legitimate protector of asian culture and the leader of tōa shin chitsujo, challenging the sino-centrism that had dominated the chinese-japanese cultural exchange throughout its long history. in the words of kushner, "the japanese consistently used the term 'thought war' to describe the fight for ideological supremacy in asia and later against the west."[71] japanese posters delivered clear and confident messages, imbued with a sense of political romanticism. as a result, depictions of the real human cost of war were very rare in japanese propaganda posters. by contrast, the political posters produced by the ccp-gmd alliance were aimed at the lower classes and tended to emphasize struggle, survival and hatred. they rejected the abstract ideas of east asian cultural values and traditions, and approached the audience in a more direct and responsive way, as indeed would the propaganda produced after 1949 by the ccp. as harriet evans and stephanie donald put it, "they are graphic reminders of mass insecurity, arbitrary violence, and personal trauma."[72] these posters adopted class-based issues as their principal concern. the traumas and emotions of the lower classes had not played a significant role in earlier chinese art. the propaganda artists of the gmd-ccp shifted their focus from the elite individual to the crowd, and rejected political romanticism. in the words of john fitzgerald, "romantics and idealists were now said to keep the masses in a state of sleep. [for the gmd-ccp] there was no escaping the iron grip of the realist paradigm. try as they might to take to the streets or organize mass protests, romantics could not possibly represent the masses...in fact, they constituted these counterrevolutionary forces themselves."[73] many of those posters relied very little on elegance or aesthetics. employing simple yet dramatically contrasting colors and stirring slogans done in oversized characters, they were visual provocations, intended to activate the populace by summoning up emotions of hate, fear and love. the simple colors, moreover, provided an antithesis to the flamboyant designs of japanese propaganda posters. interestingly, though produced by a government on the defensive, the chinese posters represented violence and tension much more frequently than did the japanese, perfectly reflecting the anxieties of the chinese regarding national survival. conclusion in the latter half of the nineteenth century, following the opening of japan and the treaty ports in china, sino-japanese trade boomed and for the first time in history, japan began to play a decisive role in china's destiny, especially in its efforts to emulate the technical and cultural advances of the west. the shanghai school of the late nineteenth century and the political cartoons of the 1920s provide convincing evidence of the japanese influence on chinese art. compared to the alien western culture, japan's version of the west seemed easier for the chinese to assimilate. however, the political conflict between the two countries culminated in the second sino-japanese war and the pacific war. needless to say, the war had a profound impact on the future political structures of both countries. there were many reasons for this japanese influence on chinese art. other than the obvious reasons, such as the opening up to foreign cultures and the increasing numbers of japanese immigrants in shanghai, a greater appreciation of printmaking and the blurring of boundaries between high and low art also proved to be essential factors.[74] the introduction of lithography and the circulation of newspapers and journals not only affected the political atmosphere, but also had a substantial impact on art traditions in china. many chinese artists of humble origin were suddenly able to gain access to a variety of visual imageries and launch their own creative practices.[75] indeed, from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, chinese artists were exposed to a variety of imageries from japan and other parts of the world. these changes in art practice and production technique in china laid the groundwork for the richness of propaganda imagery in the twentieth century. however, following the second sino-japanese war, the collaborative efforts directed towards art and culture reform nearly faded from historical memory, given the causalities of the war and the lasting animosities it generated. according to the observation of frederic sharf, "there can be little doubt that japan emerged from the world war i as a world power in terms of both military might and the ability to shape international diplomatic and public opinion."[76] and in this context, the "magical" potency of propaganda was noticed by leaders all over the world. the ccp leader mao zedong commented in 1937: "our party should strictly obey the following guidelines: [we will] spend one cent [of effort on] fighting against the japanese [directly on the battlefield]; two cents on marginal expenses; seven cents on recruiting [new party members]; ten cents in propaganda."[77] this comment, which developed a line for the ccp to get hold of the entire country after the war with japan, helps us not only to understand how much attention the ccp paid to the power of propaganda, but also explains why so many communistic connotations were to be found in the chinese propaganda posters during the war. these posters also allow us to witness the changes in chinese nationalism from "to learn about the west from japan, 徑取東洋學西洋" to, by the 1920s, the slogan of the ccp "ally with the soviet union and the communist international, [to] help peasants and workers. 聯俄聯共, 扶助農工." four years after the second sino-japanese war, the chinese communist party had replaced the gmd as the ruling authority, and propaganda posters took on a greater life, exerting ever more pervasive influences on the everyday lives of chinese people. the new rulers came with a different set of ethics, but they had a fair amount of experience to rely on in honing concept and message to maximum perfection. bibliography primary sources di wo zai xuanchuan zhanxianshang 敵我在宣傳戰線上 [we and enemies on the frontier of propaganda warfare]. wenhua jiaoyu yanjiuhui 文化教育研究會, 1941. wodang wojun fan diwei de xuanchuan gudong gongzuo 我黨我軍反敵偽的宣傳鼓動工作[the propaganda efforts of our party and our army against enemies and puppet governments]. wenhua jiaoyu yanjiuhui 文化教育研究會, 1941. crow, carl. i speak for the chinese. new york: harper, 1937. chiang, kai-shek. soviet russia in china: a summing-up at seventy. translated by madam chiang kai-shek. new york: george g. harrap & co, 1957. hu, shi 胡適. "cantong de huiyi yu fansheng 慘痛的回憶與反省 [tragic memory and reflection]." hu shi xueshu wenji: zhexue yu wenhua 胡適學術文集: 哲學與文化 [a collection of hu shi's academic essays: philosophy and life]. shanghai: zhonghua shuju, 2001. lu, xun 魯迅. "zhongguo muke zhanlan xu 中國木刻展序 [preface to the woodcut exhibition in china]." ershi shiji zhongguo meishu wenxuan 二十世紀中國美術文選 [anthology of chinese art in the 20th century], eds. shui tianzhong 水中天 and lang shaojun 郎紹君. shanghai: shanghai fine art publisher, 2001. zhu, de 朱德. zhu de xuanji 朱德選集 [a selection of zhu de's works]. beijing: renmin chubanshe, 1983. secondary sources a ying 阿英. zhongguo nianhua fazhan shilüe 中國年畫發展史略 [a brief history of chinese nianhua development]. beijing: chaohua chubanshe, 1954 a to z photo dictionary japanese buddhist statuary, search term "phoenix". http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/buddhism.shtml. akami, tomoko. japan's news propaganda and reuters' news empire in northeast asia 1870–1934. dordrecht: republic of letters, 2012. anderson, benedict. imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. london: verso, 1991. andrews, julia f. and kuiyi shen, eds. a century in crisis: modernity and tradition in the art of twentieth-century china. new york: guggenheim museum, 1998. barmé, geremie "an artist and his epithet: notes on feng zikai and the manhua." papers on far eastern history 39 (march 1989): 15–27. bernays, edward l. propaganda. brooklyn, ny: ig publishing, 2004. bi, keguan 畢克官 and yuanlin huang黃遠林, zhongguo manhua shi 中國漫畫史 [history of chinese cartoons]. beijing: culture and art publishing house, 2006. bonnell, victoria e. iconography of power: soviet political posters under lenin and stalin. berkeley: university of california press, 1999. brown, kendall h. "out of the dark valley: japanese woodblock prints and war, 1937–1945." impressions 23 (2001): 65–85. chia, lucille. printing for profit: the commercial publishers of jianyang, fujian (11th–17th centuries). cambridge: harvard university press, 2002. clark, toby. art and propaganda in the twentieth century. new york: harry n. abrams, 1997. davis, walter. "welcoming the japanese art world: wang yiting's social and artistic exchanges with japanese sinophiles and artists." in the role of japan in modern chinese art, edited by joshua a. fogel, berkeley: university of california press, 2013. dobson, sebastian, anne nishimura morse, and frederic sharf. a much recorded war: the russo-japanese war in history and imagery. boston: mfa publications, 2005. doob, leonard. propaganda and its psychology and technique. new york: holt, 1935. earhart, david. certain victory: images of world war ii in the japanese media. new york: m.e. sharpe, 2008. edwards, louise. "drawing sexual violence in wartime china: anti-japanese propaganda cartoons." the journal of asian studies 72, no. 3 (2013): 563–586. erickson, britta lee. "patronage and production in the nineteenth-century shanghai region: ren xiong and his sponsors." phd diss., stanford university, 1996. evans, harriet, and stephanie donald. picturing power in the people's republic of china: posters of the cultural revolution. lanham, md: rowman & littlefield publishers, 1999. fitzgerald, john. awakening china: politics, culture, and class in the nationalist revolution. stanford: stanford university press, 1996. flatch, james. the cult of happiness: nianhua, art, and history in rural north china. seattle: university of washington press, 2004. gan, xianfeng 甘險峰. zhongguo manshi shi 中國漫畫史 [history of chinese cartoons]. jinan, china: shandong huabao chubanshe, 2008. ginsberg, mary. the art of influence: asian propaganda. london: british museum press, 2013. golomshtok, igor. totalitarian art in the soviet union, the third reich, fascist italy and the people's republic of china, 1st us edition. new york: icon editions, 1990. horner, david. the second world war. vol. 1, the pacific (essential histories). new york: routledge, 2003. hsu, immanuel chung-yueh. the rise of modern china, 5th edition. new york: oxford university press, 1995. hung, chang-tai. war and popular culture: resistance in modern china, 1937–1945. berkeley: university of california press, 1994. kawase, chiharu 川瀬千春. sensō to nenga: "jūgonen sensō" ki no nitchū ryōkoku no shikakuteki puropaganda 戦争と年画 「十五年戦争」 期の日中両国の視覚的プロパガンダ [war and new year pictures: the visual propaganda between japan and china in the fifteen years of battles]. matsudo-shi: azusa shuppansha, 2000. kushner, barak. the thought war: japanese imperial propaganda. honolulu: university of hawaii press, 2007. lai, yu-chih. "ren bonian (1840–1850) and japanese culture in shanghai, 1842–1895." phd diss., yale university, 2005. laing, ellen johnston. selling happiness: calendar posters and visual culture in early twentieth-century shanghai. honolulu: university of hawaii press, 2004. lasker, bruno, and agnes roman. propaganda from china and japan, a case study in propaganda analysis. new york: institute of pacific relations, 1938. lasswell, harold d. propaganda technique in the world war. 1938. reprint, eastford, ct: martino fine books, 2013. lent, john a., ed. illustrating asia: comics, humor magazines, and picture books. honolulu: university of hawaii press, 2001. linhart, sepp. niedliche japaner oder gelbe gefahr? / dainty japanese or yellow peril? westliche kriegspostkarten 1900–1945 / western war postcards 1900–1945. vienna: lit, 2005. liu, heng-hsing 劉恒興. "when the great way prevails: thought and cultural discourse on the kingly way in datong period manchukuo (1932–1934)." hanxue yanjiu 漢學研究 30, no. 3 (2012): 297–329. liu, yang and xu jiaquan. "quanmian kangri zhanzheng luxian de queding 全面抗日戰爭路線的確定 解讀《洛川會議會議記錄》 [determining the line of the all-out war of resistance against japan – a reading of the "record of the luochuan conference]." china archives 中國檔案 5 (2011): 76–77. lü, peng. a pocket history of 20th-century chinese art. milan: charta, 2010. mackinnon, stephen. "toward a history of the chinese press in the republican period." modern china 23, no.1 (jan 1997): 3–32. mcintyre, tanya. "chinese new year pictures: the process of modernisation, 1842–1942." phd diss., university of melbourne, 1997. min, anchee, duo duo, and stefan r. landsberger. chinese propaganda posters: from the collection of michael wolf. hong kong: taschen, 2003. minick, scott, and jiao ping. chinese graphic design of the twentieth century. london: thames & hudson, 2010. mitter, rana. forgotten ally: china's world war ii, 1937–1945. boston: houghton mifflin harcourt, 2013. murdock, michael. disarming the allies of imperialism: agitation, manipulation, and the state during china's nationalist revolution, 1922–1929. new york: ithaca, 2006. needham, joseph and tsien tsuen-husin. science and civilisation in china. vol. 5, chemistry and chemical technology, part i: paper and printing. cambridge, ma: cambridge university press, 1985. reed, christopher a. gutenberg in shanghai: chinese print capitalism, 1876–1937. vancouver: ubc press, 2004. ren, jianshu 任建樹 and zhang quan 張銓. wusa yundong jianshi 五卅運動簡史 [a brief history of may 30 movement]. shanghai: shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1985. reynolds, douglas. china, 1898–1912: the xinzheng revolution and japan. cambridge, mass: harvard university press, 1993. rostovtzeff, michael i. "parthian art and the motive of the flying gallop." in independence, convergence, and borrowing in institutions, thought, and art, 45–56. cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1937. shyu, larry n. and david barrett. china in the anti-japanese war, 1937–1945: politics, culture and society. london: peter lang publishing, 2000. spence, jonathan d. the search for modern china. 2nd ed. new york: w. w. norton, 1999. struve, lynn a. time, temporality and imperial transition: east asia from ming to qing. honolulu: university of hawaii press, 2005. tanaka, stefan. japan's orient: rendering pasts into history. berkeley: university of california press, 1995. tang, xiaobing. origins of the chinese avant-garde: the modern woodcut movement. berkeley: university of california press, 2007. ukiyo-e caricatures, 1842–1905 database. [accessed on 11. june 2014]. http://kenkyuu.eas.univie.ac.at/karikaturen/. wagner, rudolf g. "the shenbao in crisis: the international environment and the conflict between guo songta and the shenbao." late imperial china 20, no. 1 (june 1999): 101–25. ———. "joining the global imaginaire: the shanghai illustrated newspaper dianshizhai huabao." in joining the global public: word, image and city in early chinese newspaper, 1870–1910, edited by rudolf g. wagner, 105–174. albany: suny press, 2007. wang, qisheng 王奇生. dangyuan, dangquan yu dangzheng: 1924–1949 nian zhongguo guomindang de zuzhi xingtai 黨員、黨權與黨爭: 1924–1949 年中國國民黨的組織形態 [party member, party power and party survival: the organization status of the gmd from 1924 to 1949]. shanghai: shanghai shudian chubanshe, 2003. ———. guo gong hezuo yu guomin geming 國共合作與國民革命 [the cooperation between the gmd and ccp]. zhongguo jindai tongshi 中國近代通史 [the history of modern china], vol. 7. nanjing: jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2006. ———."beifa zhong de manhua yu manhua zhong de beifa 北伐中的漫畫與漫畫中的北伐 [the cartoons in the northern expedition and the northern expedition in the cartoons]" nanjing daxue xuebao 南京大學學報 [the journal of nanjing university], no. 5 (2004): 79–89. wang, jianmin 王建民. kang ri zhanzheng抗日戰爭 1937–1945 [the anti-japanese war: 1937–45]. zhongguo jindai tongshi 中國近代通史 [the history of modern china], vol. 9. nanjing: jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2006. wang, zonghua 王宗華. zhongguo da geming shi 中國大革命史 [history of chinese great revolutions]. beijing: renmin chubanshe, 1990. watt, james c. y. and barbara brennan ford. east asian lacquer: the florence and herbert irving collection. new york: metropolitan museum of art, 1991. wei, shuge. "beyond the front line: china's rivalry with japan in the english-language press over the jinan incident, 1928." modern asian studies 48, no.1 (2014): 188–224. winkel, margarita. "photograph and ukiyo-e prints." in the hotei encyclopedia of japanese woodblock prints, edited by amy reigle newland, vol. 1 and 2, 269–272. amsterdam: hotei publishing, 2005. zarrow, peter. china in war and revolution, 1895–1949. london: routledge, 2005. zhang, shaoqian. "visualizing the new republic: pictorial construction of the new chinese citizen (1985–1937)". phd diss., northwestern university, 2012. zhang, yufa 張玉法. zhongguo xiandai shi 中國現代史 [history of modern china]. taipei: donghua shuju, 1977. [1] most images from this article come from the archives of the hoover institution, stanford university. i therefore wish to express my gratitude to dr. jidong yang, dr. hsiao-ting lin and ms. carol leadenham for their invaluable help at stanford university. i am also indebted to dr. xiaodong he and dr. shaojuan zhang for their help with the japanese translations, and to whitney chandler for his advice on writing this article. the two anonymous reviewers' suggestions helped tremendously in shaping the final version of this paper. [2] sepp linhart, niedliche japaner oder gelbe gefahr? /dainty japanese or yellow peril?: westliche kriegspostkarten 1900–1945 /western war postcards 1900–1945 (vienna: lit, 2005); ukiyo-e caricatures, 1842–1905 database, accessed june 11, 2014, http://kenkyuu.eas.univie.ac.at/karikaturen/. [3] edward bernays, propaganda (brooklyn, ny: ig publishing, 2004), 44. [4] for more information on images associated with the russo-japanese war, read frederic sharf, "a much recorded war," in a much recorded war: the russo-japanese war in history and imagery, ed. sebastian dobson et al. (boston: museum of fine arts publications, 2005). [5] harold d. lasswell, propaganda technique in the world war (1927; repr., eastford, ct: martino fine books, 2013), 214. [6] traditional chinese uses of print included copies of religious texts and imagery, illustrated books for elite audiences, and pictures printed for popular consumption, especially new year prints invoking prosperity. the chinese had found that their own printing techniques were outdated and inefficient when compared to those used by western missionaries and entrepreneurs, who introduced gutenberg through the distribution of bibles, newspapers, journals and commercial flyers. for information on chinese print history, see ellen johnston laing, selling happiness: calendar posters and visual culture in early twentieth-century shanghai (honolulu: university of hawaii press, 2004), 25–6; stephen mackinnon, "toward a history of the chinese press in the republican period," modern china 23, no.1 (jan 1997); christopher a. reed, introduction to gutenberg in shanghai: chinese print capitalism, 1876–1937 (vancouver: university of british columbia press, 2004). [7] rudolf g. wagner, "joining the global imaginaire: the shanghai illustrated newspaper dianshizhai huabao," in joining the global public: word, image and city in early chinese newspapers, 1870–1910 (albany, ny: state university of new york press, 2008), 3–96. [8] zhang zhidong first brought up "learning from the west through japan" in his exhortation to study& 勸學篇 in 1898. more information will be found in douglas reynolds, china, 1898–1912: the xinzheng revolution and japan (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1993), 213. [9] the shanghai school is a style of chinese art popular in the late nineteenth century and centered in shanghai. the representative artists of shanghai school include ren xiong (1823–1857), ren bonian (1840–1896), and wu changshuo (1844–1927). lai yu-chih has a lengthy discussion in her dissertation on how chinese graphic design and the art of the shanghai school drew influence from japanese art, especially from japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints. see laiyu-chih, "ren bonian (1840–1850) and japanese culture in shanghai, 1842–1895" (phd diss., yale university, 2005). [10] walter davis, "welcoming the japanese art world: wang yiting's social and artistic exchanges with japanese sinophiles and artists," in the role of japan in modern chinese art, ed. joshua a. fogel (berkeley: university of california press, 2013), 84. [11] manhua can be literally translated as "cartoons" or "impromptu paintings." interestingly, the term manhua was first adapted from the japanese term manga in may 1925. the term "zikai manhua" was applied to the paintings of the feng zikai published in wenxue zhoubao 文學週報 (literature weekly). see geremie barmé, "an artist and his epithet: notes on feng zikai and the manhua," in papers on far eastern history 39 (1989): 17. [12] ren jianshu 任建樹and zhang quan 張銓, wusa yundong jianshi 五卅運動簡史 [a brief history of the may 30 movement] (shanghai: shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1985), 246. [13] gan xianfeng 甘險峰, zhongguo manhua shi 中國漫畫史[history of chinese cartoons] (jinan: shandong huabao chubanshe, 2008), 87. [14] information on this part can be found in bi keguan 畢克官 and huang yuanlin 黃遠林, zhongguo manhua shi 中國漫畫史 [history of chinese cartoons] (beijing: culture and art publishing house, 2006), 45. [15] stefan tanaka, japan's orient: rendering pasts into history (berkeley: university of california press, 1995), 11. [16] ibid., 5. [17] wang jianmin 王建民, kang ri zhanzheng 抗日戰爭 1937–1945 [the anti-japanese war: 1937–45]; zhongguo jindai tongshi 中國近代通史 [the history of modern china], vol. 9 (nanjing: jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2006), 194. [18] for more information, read tomoko akami, japan's news propaganda and reuters' news empire in northeast asia 1870–1934 (dordrecht: republic of letters, 2012). [19] the program of establishing an effective chinese propaganda network is discussed in shuge wei, "beyond the front line: china's rivalry with japan in the english-language press over the jinan incident, 1928," modern asian studies 48, no. 1 (2014): 188–224. [20] kendall h. brown, "out of the dark valley: japanese woodblock prints and war, 1937–1945," impressions 23 (2001): 66. [21] the influence of photography on woodblock prints has been dealt with in margarita winkel's "photograph and ukiyo-e prints," in the hotei encyclopedia of japanese woodblock prints, ed. amy reigle newland, vol. 1 (amsterdam: hotei publishing, 2005), 269–72. [22] brown, "dark valley," 67. [23] di wo zai xuanchuan zhanxian shang 敵我在宣傳戰線上 [the enemy and we on the frontier of propaganda warfare] (wenhua jiaoyu yanjiuhui 文化教育研究會, 1941), 277. [24] chiharu kawase 川瀬千春, sensō to nenga: jūgonen senso ki no ni chū ryōkoku no shikakuteki puropaganda 戦争と年画「十五年戦争」期の日中両国の視覚的プロパガンダ [war and new year pictures: the visual propaganda between japan and china in the fifteen years of battles] (matsudo-shi: azusa shuppansha, 2000), 113. [25] ibid., 133. in addition to propaganda materials aiming at chinese audiences, there is the extensive english-language propaganda produced by japan in manchukuo, such as contemporary manchuria (1937–1940). [26] ibid., 114–5. [27] zhu de 朱德, zhu de xuanji 朱德選集 [a selection of zhu de's works] (beijing: renmin chubanshe, 1983), 217. [28] for a study of the migration of this image across eurasia, see michael i. rostovtzeff, “parthian art and the motive of the flying gallop,” in independence, convergence, and borrowing in institutions, thought, and art (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1937), 45–56. [29] lynn a. struve, time, temporality and imperial transition: east asia from ming to qing (honolulu: university of hawaii press, 2005), 257. [30] chiharu kawase, sensō to nenga, 114–5. [31] james c. y. watt and barbara brennan ford, east asian lacquer; the florence and herbert irving collection (new york: metropolitan museum of art, 1991), 73–80. [32] a to z photo dictionary japanese buddhist statuary, search term "phoenix," http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/ho-oo-phoenix.shtml [accessed on 11. june 2014]. [33] zhu de, zhu de xuanji, 朱德選集 [a selection of zhu de's works] (beijing: renmin chubanshe, 1983), 218. [34] di wo zai xuanchuan zhanxian shang, 76. [35] "新國民政府， 乃國民政府之正統， 它負有'實現和平'、 進行'反共'、 安定'東亞新持續'的使命， 其革命性也正在這裏." ibid., 32. [36] ibid., 77. [37] for more information on, and samples of, chinese propaganda posters from different periods, read anchee min, duo duo and stefan r. landsberger, chinese propaganda posters: from the collection of michael wolf (hongkong: taschen, 2003). [38] rana mitter, forgotten ally: china's world war ii, 1937–1945 (boston: houghton mifflin harcourt, 2013); david horner, the second world war vol. 1: the pacific (essential histories) (new york: routledge, 2003), 14–15. [39] barak kushner, the thought war: japanese imperial propaganda (honolulu: university of hawaii press, 2006), 128. [40] wang qisheng, guogong hezuo yu guomin geming 國共合作與國民革命 [the cooperation between the gmd and ccp]. zhongguo jindai tongshi 中國近代通史 [the history of modern china], vol. 7 (nanjing: jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2006), 79. [41] wang zonghua 王宗華, zhongguo da geming shi 中國大革命史 [history of chinese great revolutions] (beijing: renmin chubanshe, 1990), 366. [42] for more information on the first united front and its effect on the gmd's transformation, see wang qisheng,"the cooperation". [43] peter zarrow, china in war and revolution, 1895–1949 (new york: routledge, 2005), 194. [44] wang jianmin, "the anti-japanese war", 161. [45] barak kushner, the thought war, 128. [46] wo dang wo jun fan di wei de xuanchuan gudong gongzuo 我黨我軍反敵偽的宣傳鼓動工作[the propaganda efforts of our party and our army against enemies and puppet governments] (wenhua jiaoyu yanjiuhui 文化教育研究會, 1941), 61. [47] i have discussed the issues of emotional efficiency of the northern expedition political posters in chapter two of my dissertation "visualizing the new republic: pictorial construction of the new chinese citizen (1985–1937)". [48] mary ginsberg points out that the iconography for the soviet revolution features banners, the five-pointed star, hammer-and-sickle, and raised fists. in mary ginsberg, the art of influence: asian propaganda (london: british museum press, 2013), 50. [49] victoria bonnell points out in her book that male heroes such as the worker, the peasant, and the red army solider were archetypal figures and the icons of soviet russia. cf. victoria e. bonnell, iconography of power: soviet political posters under lenin and stalin (berkeley: university of california press, 1999), 64. [50] ibid., 32. [51] more on this may be found in peter zarrow, china in war, 255. [52] wang jianmin, "the anti-japanese war", 183. [53] ibid., 183–5. [54] ibid., 191. [55] ibid., 194. [56] for more information on international design vocabularies in chinese graphic art, see julia f. andrews, "commercial art and china's modernization," in a century in crisis: modernity and tradition in the art of twentieth-century china, eds. julia f. andrews and kuiyi shen (new york: guggenheim museum, 1998), 181. [57] from left to right, it reads: "praise the loyal ones who die [for the nation];" "cultivate the industrious and sportive youthful spirit;" "do not violate the three principles of the people, do not violate the governmental decree." "do not work for enemies and traitors, do not lead the way for enemies and traitors, do not seek information for enemies and traitors;" "use the opportunities of gathering to encourage people's revolutionary spirit and establish the consciousness to fight;" "do not buy merchandise from the enemy, do not sell food or necessities to the enemy;" "maintain ultimate loyalty to the nation; and maintain ultimate filial piety to the people." [58] on may 15,1939, an important weekly newspaper, jiefang 解放 [liberation] also published an article named "dongyuan zhongguoren 動員中國人 [mobilizing the citizens of china]," authored by chiang kai-shek, expressing the urgency behaving like a true chinese during the japanese invasions. [59] wang jianmin, "the anti-japanese war", 118–119. [60] information on this section has been taken from lu xun 魯迅 "zhongguo muke zhanlan xu 中國木刻展覽序 [preface to the woodcuts exhibition in china]," ershi shiji zhongguo meishu wenxuan 二十世紀中國美術文選 [anthology of chinese art in the twentieth century], eds. shui tianzhong 水天中 and lang shaojun 郎紹君 (shanghai: shanghai fine art publisher, 2001), 303. [61] xiaobing tang, origins of the chinese avant-garde: the modern woodcut movement (berkeley: university of california press, 2007), 1. [62] julia f. andrews and kuiyi shen, a century in crisis, 213. [63] xiaobing tang, the modern woodcut movement, 89. [64] harriet evans and stephanie donald, picturing power in the people's republic of china: posters of the cultural revolution (lanham, md: rowman & littlefield, 1999), 64–5. [65] bruno lasker has argued that wartime propaganda differs from that produced in times of peace, and that war time propaganda relies on the audience's pre-existing attitude toward the war from the perspective of "general human desire" and "collective security." see bruno lasker and agnes roman, propaganda from china and japan, a case study in propaganda analysis (new york: institute of pacific relations, 1938), 117. [66] numerous political cartoons and posters were produced during the war of resistance against japan (1937–45). however, the major focus of my research is on the posters put up on walls rather than cartoons that were published in journals and newspapers. for information on political cartoons during the war of resistance, see, louise edwards, "drawing sexual violence in wartime china: anti-japanese propaganda cartoons," the journal of asian studies 72, no. 3 (2013): 563–586; chang-tai hung, war and popular culture: resistance in modern china, 1937–1945 (berkeley: university of california press, 1994). [67] barak kushner, the thought war, 77. [68] brown, "dark valley", 67. [69] di wo zai xuanchuan zhanxian shang, 241. [70] kendall h. brown, the hotei encyclopedia of japanese woodblock prints, vol. 1 (amsterdam: hotei publishing, 2005), 210. [71] barak kushner, the thought war, 12. [72] harriet evans and stephanie donald, picturing power, 5. [73] john fitzgerald, awakening china: politics, culture, and class in the nationalist revolution (stanford: stanford university press, 1996), 344. [74] laiyu-chih, "ren bonian", 33. [75] this opinion is held by britta lee ericcultkson, in "patronage and production in the nineteenth-century shanghai region: ren xiong and his sponsors" (phd diss., stanford university, 1996), 4. [76] anne nishimura morse, "exploiting a new visuality: the origins of russo-japanese war imagery," in a much recorded war, 31. [77] "我們黨必須嚴格遵循的方針是: 一分抗日, 二分敷衍, 七分發展, 十分宣傳" mao zedong's speech during the luochuan conference in shanxi, august 1937. see liu yang劉揚and xu jiaquan徐家泉, "quanmian kang ri zhanzheng luxian de queding 全面抗日戰爭路線的確定 解讀《洛川會議會議記錄[determining the line of the all-out war of resistance against japan – a reading of the "record of the luochuan conference]," china archives 中國檔案 5 (2011): 76. crossing boundaries | brodsky | transcultural studies crossing boundaries: the art of anjali deshmukh and rohini devasher (in collaboration with the artists) joyce brodsky, university of california santa cruz in an interesting new development in the art world, a generation of artists are [sic] now collecting data about their world using technological instruments but for cultural purposes. shared tool-using leads to overlapping epistemologies and ontologies. these artists both make powerful art and help make science intimate, sensual, intuitive.[1] anjali deshmukh, who resides in new york city, and rohini devasher, who lives in new delhi, are two artists crossing several kinds of boundaries in both their art and their life.[2] these artists utilize systems like feedback loops and other forms of digital technology innovatively.[3] their broad interests may reflect the trend of artists who have undertaken different programs of higher education instead of enrolling exclusively in an art school. within art history this new direction may be seen as an offshoot of conceptual art; however, for deshmukh and devasher an emphasis on handmade practices forms an important component of their work and functions alongside a strong conceptual direction. in this article i discuss the practices of two artists of indian background by examining their use of sophisticated technology, interest in science, and the effects of globalization and the internet on their artwork. both artists emphasize systems and structures related to biology, psychology, sociology––in other words, academic disciplines that encompass some of the most important mapping of human behavior. despite the fact that these two artists live in different environments, globalization, cosmopolitanism, the internet, and other forms of crossing boundaries have created more similarities than variances in their practices. one profound similarity is the strong relationship between text and visual image. the conjoining of these two forms of expression is a growing phenomenon in the larger world of global contemporary art. text has always played a crucial role in the viewing experience––sometimes before, sometimes during, and often after direct perception of the art object. this is not to suggest that most artworks are not primarily visual, but rather that perception has always been linked to concepts denoted in language, and this is even more apparent today. another trend in both artists’ output is their interest in interactive art events in conjunction with the creation of objects. they cross boundaries between an art historical tradition and aesthetic that is rooted in things intended for exhibition and viewing within institutional frameworks, toward what nicolas bourriaud has theorized as the relational aesthetics in which “the role of artworks is no longer to form imaginary and utopian realities, but to actually be ways of living and models of action within the existing real.”[4] in an interesting turn away from a superficial crossing of borders, both deshmukh and devasher eschew hybridity in their work. since the 1980s, the art of both transnationals and artists who remained in their country of birth has been marked by this dominant theme, which marwan karaidy has referred to as a global, commoditized hybridity, or a superficial multiculturalism in which icons of east and west are “pasted” together. hybrid cultural forms are not anomalies in media globalization. rather, the pervasiveness of hybridity in some ways reflects the growing synchronization of world markets. this irony is expressed best by oliver boyd-barrett (1998), for whom market forces have contributed to an “increasing hybridity of global culture, ever more complex and more commodified.” nonetheless, this global culture is “everywhere more complex and more commodified in the same sort of way.”[5] this turn away from a facile hybridity is apparent in the work of many younger artists across the globe, and it is one major reason that the concepts behind the creative work of an artist of indian background living in the united states and an indian artist living in india are similar. like many younger artists, anjali deshmukh and rohini devasher are crossing boundaries not only between disciplines but also across national and cultural borders. while the forms of art have become amazingly diverse throughout the twentieth and the first decade of the twenty-first centuries, they have primarily emerged as outgrowths and expansions of previous forms and styles within a taxonomy structured by western art history. the artists i am discussing, while still utilizing material practices, rely increasingly on electronic technologies that are outgrowths of the internet. as a consequence, what is rapidly emerging is a complex digital art as a new global form. the world wide web also enables global exchanges that expedite this development, and the internet is emerging as a new and appropriate venue to exhibit new practices. in many ways this is a profound turn of events as the works of artists from everywhere are now able to bring their contributions to a global audience, thereby laying a path that will undermine the power of the art world and its various institutions to control creative practices.[6] an important factor in influencing change is that the younger generation of artists is often educated differently from prior generations, and some of them are as well versed in areas like cosmography, astronomy, ecology, botany, biology, engineering, physics, mathematics, as they are in their art practices. this diversity of interest allows for an exploration of the transcultural through the lens of the sciences, which function in a “universalist” sense wherever science is practiced—even if context favors one direction over another. of course, there have been artists in the past whose work has been brushed with a veneer of science; but for some artists of the current generation, science is as intrinsic to their creative thinking as artistic practices. this pursuit across disciplines could result in a breaking apart of the disciplinary boundaries that still function in academic institutions. these artists are also less interested in serving as tokens of their countries or their cultures within a global art scene. the tedious themes that dominated much discourse in the indian art world between the 1950s and the 1990s have been rendered irrelevant. the anxiety of national identity, typically phrased in the form of apocalyptic binaries such as “indianness vs. internationalism” or “tradition vs. modernity,” has receded; the chimera of auto-orientalism, with its valorization of a spurious “authenticity,” to be secured as the guarantee of an embattled local against an overwhelming global, has been swept away.[7] often cosmopolitan in their outlooks, they are sensitive to the profound changes that govern almost every personal way of being in the twenty-first century. their use of science emerges from a wish to understand the major issues and events that endanger the earth and to join their knowledge to visual practices that enable that understanding. at the same time, many artists still want to pursue different material practices and heritages that are often vehicles for evolving aspects of cultural differences. this may serve to counter the critique that the internet and globalization produce homogeneity, since borders are crossed in almost every sphere of living in the contemporary world. i have chosen these two artists from among the many that utilize elements of science in their work precisely because they employ traditional artistic media like drawing and painting in conjunction with sophisticated forms of digital media and elements of scientific research. it is more often the case that artists who are interested in science and digital media consider traditional art practices to be out of date, and as a result crossing boundaries between art and science is not a primary concern. in this essay i argue that crossing boundaries between nationalities, cultures, disciplines etc. is a major effect of globalization and can be the generator of innovation in each of these spheres.[8] for instance, devasher is an amateur astronomer who also studies the relations between the biological laws that govern growth; she uses these relations as metaphors in creating uncanny digital photographs, videos, and drawings. deshmukh is interested in systems employed in games and map-making as well as in complex theories of cosmography and the relations between reason and subjectivity, which she explores in her paintings, installations, digital prints, and related writings. alongside the art/science aspects of their artworks, an underlying theme for both is the return of the romantic notion of the sublime. both artists embrace it as metaphor for the post-apocalyptic sentiment that permeates a great deal of contemporary art. as mentioned above, they also share a manner of writing about their work that is complex, articulate, objective, and far from the emotive subjectivism of artists who often described their creative practices by denying the efficacy of verbal explanations. in addition, while both artists exhibit many of their works in traditional venues, electronic media allows for an encounter with their art that is in ways parallel to, while different from, engaging them in physical space; in other words, electronic media is rapidly emerging as a new venue for exhibiting art.[9] major differences between the two artists emerge as well: deshmukh’s earlier work referenced religious iconography, particularly hindu symbolism, and her art is more deeply rooted in political and social concerns. devasher, on the other hand, uses scientific theories in order to create surreal and sometime monstrous forms that depict genetics gone awry. another crucial reason for choosing both of these artists as case studies for crossing boundaries within the context of this article is their south asian heritage. this introduces cultural issues as another factor in exploring the theme of crossing boundaries. what is interesting to note here is that while deshmukh was born and educated in the united states she is transcultural in her embrace of aspects of inherited indian culture. in contrast, devasher, born and educated in india, tends to eschew obvious references to that culture. comparison of these artists challenges the tendency to form stereotypical interpretations drawn from notions about cultural and national differences, particularly in this age of globalization. prior to discussing their artworks, it is crucial that i define the manner in which i use the terms art, science, technology, and crossing boundaries. western art is usually defined as a series of endeavors that seek an emotional or aesthetic response to the (in this case) visual creations that are produced; it values idiosyncratic or original perspectives that are at odds with traditional practices. this is a modernist point of view that does not include many of the traditional visual objects produced in the west and is inadequate for the practices we label postmodernist and contemporary. furthermore, it is obviously erroneous when applied to the “art” of many non-western cultures. the very notion of art as a separate category of human endeavor has been the subject of debate in aesthetics, sociology, and particularly in critical theory for many decades. the current use of the term “visual culture” is an attempt to address that critique. with these caveats in mind, i will discuss practices in the visual arts as picturing real and imaginative worldviews from both a subjective and objective viewpoint. they can appeal to both the senses and the intellect and exist in a variety of venues, some of which are free of the constraints of galleries and museums. science is usually defined in the following manner: “the underlying assumptions of the scientific approach are that the natural observed world is real, nature is essentially orderly, and objectivity can be achieved through self-discipline and the reliance of techniques such as the calibration of instruments, repeatability, and the multi-observer verification.”[10] while this definition of science is still the default position, contestation of the objectivity of scientific observation and the notion of reality has been ubiquitous in modern and postmodern critical theory. akin to the questioning of the nature of art is the contextual component of scientific observation, as well as contesting theories about the essential order of the world, let alone the entire cosmos. acknowledging the importance of these theoretical issues for the purposes of this discussion, i will adhere to the definition proposed above in order to understand the ways in which these artists integrate the scientific approach in their practices. the third component, technology, is usually considered the handmaiden of science and a tool used to solve problems rather than a means of discovering basic principles: this situation has become complicated, however, because researchers in technology often move into areas where there is little established scientific knowledge, thus opening up new worlds for science to explore. for example, researchers attempting to enable computers to simulate human intelligence have raised new questions about the nature of the brain.[11] in the work of deshmukh and devasher, technology has served as a tool with which to cross the boundaries of art and science, and to explore digital technology as a mechanism for generating new visual forms and for viewing them. the designation “crossing boundaries” is both vast in application and vague in meaning, as it is ever shifting. it comprises the actual boundaries crossed by physical bodies and the boundaries in social, political, religious, and cultural arenas, as well as the crossing of artificial barriers between disciplines, particularly in the academy. in the history of art, the separation between the dominant west and everywhere else, and the system of defining “isms”—arguably the results of the enlightenment—still prevails, though it is being slowly eroded mainly through the crossing of boundaries. in this article, i am most interested in addressing crossing boundaries in the arena of cultural exchanges that have been enabled by globalization/cosmopolitanism and the internet and exploring how they affect artists’ practices.[12] transcultural lives in this comparison of two artists who live in different countries, it is interesting to note the similarity in the cosmopolitan nature of their lives: both are children of highly educated parents and are highly educated themselves; both are urban dwellers and have grown up and currently live in dynamic centers of political power and culture life. deshmukh was born in washington d.c. in 1979 and was raised in bethesda, maryland. india has always played a large role in her life, but from afar: her parents are from maharashtra, and marathi was the language in the family home when she was young. she writes about her parents: my mother, saudamini deshmukh, is from pune, maharashtra. she first came to the u.s. in 1967 as a student and received her phd from harvard in sanskrit. she continues to work in language education and translating ancient sanskrit texts into english. my mother is liberal politically. my father was from achalpur, maharashtra. he came to the u.s. in 1973 after attending medical school in india and training in england. he passed away in 1994.[13] in 2005 deshmukh received a fulbright scholarship to study in delhi, the first time that she spent an extended amount of time there. she majored in english and fine arts at amherst college, massachusetts, and earned her mfa in painting at the rhode island school of design in 2005. while she has not exhibited extensively, her work is displayed on the internet and she has had several solo exhibitions and group shows.[14] from 2006–2009, my works explored geo-social, political, and religious aspects of the globalized world with particular focus on india. they were made through the lens of the sublime, a term often used to describe a quality of awe-inspiring greatness that transcends beauty to reach limits of fear and horror…i often focused on india because of my ancestral, religious, and emotionally truncated connection to her…so i reacted to how her harsh visual and social extremities reflect the dented pressure of emotion on reason, how she walks the line from “third world” emergency to emerging world power, from conservation to consumerism….and i reacted to my own displacement as a beneficiary and victim of immigration.[15] although born in the united states, deshmukh often alludes to feelings of displacement. on the micro level, dislodgment may allude to her personal experiences, and on a macro level to global and cosmological shifts. crossing boundaries is not only an internal fact of deshmukh’s life, but may also provide a template for many other categories that she ruptures in her creative practices, like, for instance, closely relating her writing to the visual images she creates. educated to utilize modern and postmodern art forms that may be described as “western,” deshmukh’s attachment to india and her knowledge about local and national events in the history of the subcontinent also inform her artistic vision. she communicates about profound issues that are not only particular to india, but to the world at large, in order to bring her artistic endeavors in line with the social and political matters of deep concern that are enabled by crossing multifarious boundaries. born in 1978, devasher writes about her parental background: with regard to my parents, my father was in the ias or the indian administrative service and he studied history in college. he died when i was five so my sister and i were brought up by my mother and her parents, my grandparents, whom we lived with in delhi. my mother, who is quite amazing, went to the same art college i did in delhi, the college of art and studied graphic design. she worked as a designer for the housing and urban development corporation of india until her retirement last year.[16] devasher received a bfa in painting from the new delhi-based college of art in 2001, and an mfa in printmaking from the winchester school of art in the united kingdom, in 2004. she has exhibited her works throughout india, the united kingdom, and worldwide.[17] devasher’s cosmopolitan sensibility has been reinforced by her education in london and her experiences abroad, including her fellowship at the max planck institute for the history of science in berlin. while many of the younger artists who practice in india highlight personal, social, and political issues in their work, devasher’s art is more removed from specific references to india. she is primarily interested in the relations between art and science—math, genetics, botany, astronomy—which are linked in her lithographic prints, drawings, digital prints, and highly sophisticated video feedbacks to create supernatural forms that are ostensibly rooted in the natural world. over the past two years [2006–08] i have been exploring some ideas put forward in goethe’s botanical writings in which goethe’s search for “that which was common to all plants without distinction” led him to evolve a purely mental concept of the archetypal plant. this archetype …resulted in what one writer has described as a “botanist’s nightmare” consisting of all known leaves and flowers combined around a single stem.…what results are hybrid organics that float in a twilight world between imagined and observed reality…forms in constant flux, in a state of continuous transformation. they could be denizens of a science-fictional botanical garden, specimens in a bizarre cabinet of curiosity or portents of a distant future (italics added).[18] this brief biography addresses some of the issues pertinent to the transcultural lives, which are identified by homi bhabha as transnationals who are situated in what he described as the in-between or the third space “neither here nor there.”[19] this formulation may apply to deshmukh whose family migrated to the united states. however, it may also apply to artists like devasher who live and practice in other countries for extended periods of time. so many artists cross national boundaries in order to study, exhibit, and to dwell outside of their country of origin that being in bhabha’s third space need not necessitate permanent immigration. artists have always moved to other countries in order to study, particularly since the early twentieth century, but the rate of crossing borders has accelerated exponentially in the last decades. as well, artists today can easily encounter cross-cultural elements through globalization and the internet. it is in the emergence of the interstices—the overlap and displacement of domains of difference—that the intersubjective and collective experiences of nationness, community interest, or cultural value is negotiated. how are subjects formed “in-between,” or in excess of, the sum of the parts of difference.[20] systems and structures while science and technology have always played a part in the construction of artworks they have usually been hidden factors: engineering components in architecture and technical solutions in sculpture; knowledge of the chemical components of binders and colors in painting and printmaking, and more recently in the chemicals utilized in photography. in ancient art and particularly after the renaissance, systems were intrinsic to creating new structures like perspective, and the grid system governed the formation of many works particularly in minimalism and conceptualism. in the art of deshmukh and devasher, systems are often foregrounded and often form the “meaning” of the work. i use terms like “lens,” “map,” or “game” to explain a working process that defines the nature of each system, how processes relate to their artifacts; a “lens” may be a diagram providing instructions for a painting process or a tool for comprehension, while the painting embodies practice. a “map” may be a geographic space (metaphorical/imagined/real) within which a painting navigates a cultural, political, or natural phenomenon. a “game” may be a mechanism for outcomes, a roulette wheel of theoretical images that can’t escape from the laws of randomness.[21] while the topics or themes examined in her works continue to evolve, the common thread in deshmukh’s work is a system approach, where the system produces “outcomes” in the form of paintings, digital prints, interactive street installations, and in the science fiction stories she creates. in 2004 and 2005 when she was in graduate school and on a fulbright to india she began to pair paintings and digital drawings using illustrator (deshmukh, 3/19/14). in the painting convergence of still and moving objects, arisen, fish-like forms are spread out rhythmically on a horizontal canvas and change from opaque to transparent. the digital drawing convergence of still and moving objects exposes the system driving this panting by mapping all kinds of color exchanges on two overlapping circles. for the painting the artist blended the colors within the areas of these circles and painted these blends for time periods between 1 and 6 hours (deshmukh, 3/16/14). in other paintings from 2005, small clusters of pyramidal shapes or open chains and webs that resemble structural models of molecules of matter float in vast spaces and conjure up deep seas in fury, the infinite cosmos, or deadly conflagrations. deshmukh places an oil painting next to the depiction of the system driving its production as she does with subduction and eruption: falling water (fig. 1) and the digital drawing subduction and eruption: rising earth (fig. 2).[22] fig. 1: anjali deshmukh, subduction and eruption: falling water, 2005, oil on canvas, 30″x 48″ (copyright anjali deshmukh). fig. 2: anjali deshmukh, subduction and eruption: rising earth, 2005, digital print, 30″x 48″ (copyright anjali deshmukh). in the former work, ghostly forms as well as clusters of pyramidal forms inhabit the ocean depths. research on the internet suggested to deshmukh shapes that refer to specific crystal structures.[23] in the digital drawing a cone of color schematizes the formation of the earth from its fiery core through plates under the earth up to the oceans. in its cosmic form vadavanala, vadavamukha, a’urva—submarine fire—consumes the universe, transforming it into a great cosmic ocean. a universal ocean of fire is reflected in the story of matsya and the earthly flooding oceans of water…vadavanala was described as existing in the far southeast oceans. now, we have the pacific “ring of fire” stretching through indonesia, japan, the aleutian islands, california coast, the andes, the south pole, creating a larger circle of flames out of the small endless columns of eruption…if i saw each tectonic plate as a transparent or semitransparent membrane, it is not so different from alveoli.[24] alveoli are the membrane in the lungs that inflate and deflate. in the text accompanying the digital drawing, deshmukh compares them to subduction of the tectonic plates and their effect to that of a quake on earth and water 100 miles away.[25] in this rich set of textual and visual comparisons, deshmukh unveils the complexity of her practices as she moves from painterly abstractions to mythological associations and finally to scientific data about the earth and the breathing human body, all the while making allusions to some of the deadliest of natural disasters as well as to aspects of industrialization and globalization. prior to the shift to interactive street installations in 2012, her paintings and digital drawings explored systems related to game theory. one of the prints, out of bounds, is a 79” x 57” digital drawing composed of kaleidoscopic shapes of color bordering a perspective stage upon which a dense ball of linear pattern and colored flecks swirl as an aftereffect of shattered stained glass. according to the artist, “the print is a depiction of a massive game-board on which two players would manipulate the 4 elements of nature to create a model for utopia, using game pieces made of glass. the symbol of utopia in the game’s theory is the successful shaping of a perfect circle in the center of the board” (deshmukh, 3/20/14). with this print deshmukh exhibited small paintings that were outcomes of the out of bounds “‘game’ or system—real and imagined landscapes” (deshmukh, 3/22/14).[26] the surfaces of some of the small paintings in the exhibition are thick and resemble lava flows or silted mud. one called 2050 is a canvas covered with what looks like black “tar” with a red-purple substance pushing through and ruts sculpted into the surface.[27] the title may reference a site at one particular latitude or longitude, or a future catastrophic eruption resulting in a “sublime” crust. in all of these works, deshmukh brings the formal structures of minimal abstraction together with expressive abstraction. however, rather than utilizing the brush mark that is the sign of the individual creator, she sculpts the paint to suggest geological forces at work. rohini devasher also employs systems and structures that image the patterns, rhythms, and tensions that are inherent in organic growth in order to interrogate “the universal underlying structure within nature’s complexity. more recently, my practice has focused on trying to define the ambiguous space between science and art, imagined and observed reality.”[28] as an example, hybrid i, a digital print and drawing from 2007, is a bizarre amalgamation of eleven cactus-like, prickly organic plant forms that surround a pink and orange center exuding an outrageous sexuality: a vagina dentate in its thorny density (fig. 3).[29] fig. 3: rohini devasher, hybrid i, 2007, color pencil, archival pigment print on hahnemuhle photo rag paper, 44″x 44″ (copyright rohini devasher and project 88 mumbai). like the prints, although somewhat more decorative, the 2006 ghosts in the machine, a single channel projection, [e]xplores elements of self-organization and emergent temporal structures of pattern distribution born of self-reflection. the work seeks to explore how complex structures and forms are generated from initially random processes. these evolve into morphologically rich integrated relationships offering insights into the complexity lurking within nature's processes. employing video feedback as a generative system, many of the forms appear to model biological processes of growth and evolution echoing neural networks, biological tissues, capillaries, plant structures, and embryonic forms, all of which were arrived at by pointing a dv camera at its own output, they are entirely self-generative ghosts within the machine. [30] watching the more recent video arboreal (2011) is a mesmerizing and often eerie experience (fig. 4). from a sparse tree-like form filling only the center of a black space it metastasizes in 15 minutes to engulf the whole field with its incessant branching. it is x-ray-like with sections in gray and highlighted parts that eventually overwhelm any resemblance to “healthy” organic growth. to create the work devasher positions a video camera in front of a television screen with two mirrors mounted at right angles. she selects elements from hours of video footage of slowly forming unpredictable patterns in order to create complex images that resemble fractals, osteocytes, phytoplankton, zooplankton, insects, and in this case, trees.[31] this work began with an exploration of l-systems. fig. 4: rohini devasher, aboreal, 2011, video still, single channel video, duration 16 minutes (copyright rohini devasher and project 88 mumbai). the lindenmayer system, a formal grammar most famously used to model the growth processes of plant development, introduced and developed in 1968 by the hungarian theoretical biologist and botanist aristid lindenmayer. l-system rules are recursive in nature which in turn leads to self-similarity and thereby fractal-like forms that mimic branching patterns in the natural world…via a deeply intuitive process, the artist constructs a successive set of trees through the gradual manual layering of more than 700 individual layers of video…by gradually increasing the recursion level the form slowly “grows” and becomes more complex, engulfing the space.[32] walking out into the natural world after watching this video several times is an experience fraught with anxieties. i did so in early winter and some trees were bare and others still shrouded in their dying leaves. the former seemed to be made of cold fractals that might replicate themselves at any moment, and the latter seemed to be expanding their dead leaves to blot out the sky. while nature is often depicted as awesome, beautiful, or at least benign, we have become increasingly subject to its devastating side; devasher’s video suggests its more threatening possibilities.[33] astronomy is a prime interest for devasher and provides sources for some of her most compelling works. at the start of a short video devasher appears standing in jantar mantar, an eighteenth-century astronomical observatory in delhi, where she speaks about her study of astronomical observatories and other historical monuments of scientific observation. deep time is part of an ongoing project that looks to map common points between astronomy and art practice through the lens of metaphor. the works in the show, monographed geographies, parts unknown, surface tracking, and reading into the stars are explorations of strange terrains where myth and fiction blur the boundaries of what is real and imagined. devasher’s most recent work in the project was exhibited in a solo exhibition deep time at project 88, in mumbai, which continued the work involving astronomical observatories. her intention was “to map common points between astronomy and art practice, through the lens of metaphor” (devasher, 3/26/14). this exhibition consisted of seven bodies of work all related to astronomical observatories and continued the work started in 2009. among them was parts unknown, a seven-channel video of images taken at the indian astronomical observatory at hanle—one of the world’s highest sites for optical, infrared, and gamma-ray telescopes (fig. 5) fig. 5: rohini devasher, parts unknown, 2012, video still, seven channel video with wall drawing, 4 digital photoframes (8inches), 3 led tv’s (11 inches) (copyright rohini devasher abd project 88 mumbai). in each of the seven videos “new terrains and fictions were created through the layering of video with drawings and satellite images of the earth” (devasher, 3/26/14). in three large drawings monographed geographies i, ii, iii (124″ x 31″ each)colored pencil is drawn on to an archival pigment print created through the layering of photographs with satellite images (fig. 6). fig. 6: rohini devasher, monographed geography i-valley, 2012, color pencils, archival pigment print, hahnemuhle museum etching paper, 145″x 33″ (copyright rohini devasher and project 88 mumbai). surface tracking is a set of small map drawings in color pencil and acrylic of aerial views of the thirty dishes in giant meterwave radio telescope array outside the city of pune, india: “used by astronomers across the world, research at the facility includes determination of the epoch of galaxy formation in the universe, pulsar research and the observation of different astronomical objects such as galaxies, supernovae, the sun and solar winds” (devasher, 3/26/14). surveyor is a series of sixteen print/drawings of color pencil on archival pigment print. set in the high latitude desert of ladakh at an altitude of 14,500 feet, the indian astronomical observatory (iao) at hanle is one of the world's highest sites for optical, infrared and gamma-ray telescopes. the satellite images of the telescopes and their surrounding landscape captured with the aid of the open source software nasa worldwind, overlaid with drawing transform these spaces into strangely mythic terrains (devasher, 3/26/14). in this exhibition devasher produced a major body of work focused on the interstices between art and science, drawing and electronic printing, myth and reality, locality and universal expansion. the images created from various kinds of hybridization are akin to what she explored in the site-specific wall drawing parts unknown, which wascreated at the max planck institute for the history of science in berlin. constantly shifting between internal perceptions that are mapped onto external sites creates multivalent perspectives on a newly discovered world that only crossing boundaries could generate. her work emerges from a site that seems almost free of national, religious, or even particular cultural references; while these factors may emerge at some level of interpretation, her hybrid mixtures address profound global anxieties. the sublime and global catastrophes in many of her works deshmukh alludes to some of the deadliest global disasters and to aspects of industrialization, colonialism, and globalization. [deshmukh] offers fresh interpretation of landscapes through the relationship between environmental science and geopolitics… [her] series conflict salt stories revolves around the artist's textual description of a series of weapons that use salt crystals. allusions to the salt satyagraha of 1930 in india and the african diamond trade provide a lens through which the paintings may be viewed…weapon legends: the law of the state (2006), is a digitally printed work that contemplates the tragedies of the vietnam war, in particular the use of rainbow herbicides by the us military in southeast asia.[34] deshmukh’s “abstract” paintings are filled with complex references and address global problems like climate change and border conflicts alongside hindu mythology, which she employs as age-old metaphors for some of the same concerns. in certain works she utilizes the indian subcontinent as a paradigm with examples like the salt satyagraha as both a local event and a global model.[35] in the series of paintings, the conflict salt stories from 2006–2007, the shaped canvases (most 5′ x 3½′) hang slightly from the wall, which may reference minimalist objects like those of ellsworth kelly. unlike his pristine panels, however, hers are lushly painted in gorgeous colors. devoid of human presence, they sometimes refer to man-made catastrophic events that poison the earth, air, and oceans. conflict salt stories: oil through a prism on the arabian sea is replete with red, yellow, blue, and green oil paint, colors that resemble the light shining on the surface slick after an oil spill. in many of her paintings rich rainbow colors are the visual skin that ironically shroud the horrors beneath. this is the nature of the sublime that deshmukh speaks about as a crucial center of her work: the aesthetic beauty of paint itself becomes a vehicle for portraying the effects of horrendous catastrophes. the digital print of 2006, weapons legends: the law of the state, (almost 5′ x 5′) is the legend or coding system underlying the conflict salt stories series (fig. 7). fig. 7: anjali deshmukh, weapons legends: the law of the state, 2006–2007, digital print, 62.5″ x 62.5″ (copyright anjali deshmukh). it plots hundreds of natural and man-made weapons including vomiting, pulmonary, and nerve agents, lachrymatories, missiles, herbicides, incendiaries, and the poisonous agents used in the vietnam war. this weapon glossary appropriates the color coding system of the original “rainbow agents”—including the most notorious, agent orange—used during the vietnam war and the manner in which they are inflicted on the world’s populations (deshmukh, 3/16/14). this information is presented through the pristine beauty of the transparent elliptical shape that seems to rotate on the circular base. “each weapon family (e.g., nerve agents) is assigned a shape, and each individual weapon (e.g., sarin gas) is assigned a unique color. this chart acts as a ‘decoder’ suggesting that the abstract floating shapes in the paintings of the conflict salt series symbolize specific weapons” (deshmukh, 3/16/14). on the xerox page of the packet of her works and writing cited in note 15, the print weapons legends is reproduced in the center of a page surrounded by a short story: it is a fiction, not a description that illuminates the image. “it’s [a cloud seeder] a carrier of things already. rain, colonialism, resistance. and [c]hemicals, rainbow agents—they’ve already been used.” the print and story are almost segues into the conflict salt stories series discussed above. as a science fiction writer, deshmukh contends that like science, “race, nation, gender can be jettisoned and re-imagined in science fiction, while science provides a common language for the reality in which we live” (deshmukh, 3/20/14). if deshmukh focuses on the external effects of humankind’s abuse of nature, devasher presents images of the internal, biological consequences of experimentation and mutation on organic and human life. these may be the effects of technological and chemical usage in conflagrations and rapid industrialization. in devasher’s mixed media, large wall drawings that are extended versions of her prints and videos, such interpretive meanings are particularly applicable. in the wall drawing of 2004(8′ x 14′), for instance, the center “pod” swells with a fertility that throws off swirling strands that almost begin to engulf their generator (fig. 8). fig. 8: rohini devasher, wall drawing i "seed," 2004, charcoal, acrylic, dry pastel, oil pastel on constructed wall, 8’ x 15’, winchester school of art, uk (copyright rohini devasher and project 88 mumbai). the mixed media drawing untitled from 2008 (8′ x 16′)—in four parts on plywood—is composed of a creature with a dense center of eye-like shapes. tentacles migrate from drawn lines to material extensions that cast shadow onto the surface. this monstrous beast is a creature of the sublime, magnificent as a possible “natural” organism, and grotesque, as in arboreal:a mutant of organic processes gone awry. it is not far-fetched to view this organism as a visual metaphor for human “mutation.” bloodlines of 2009 (fig. 9) is “a video and print installation consisting of a 45-minute-long single channel video projected in loop alongside a large digital print of the entire genealogy of parent organisms become superimposed in the video to produce a variety of offspring.”[36] fig. 9: rohini devasher, bloodlines, 2009, video and print installation, single channel video projected onto fabric: duration 45 mins, print: 60″ x 60″ on hahnemuhle fine art baryta paper (copyright rohini devasher and project 88 mumbai). devasher describes it as: a warehouse full of impossible monsters…. an idea put forward by the evolutionary biologist, richard dawkins in his book “the blind watchmaker.” bloodlines’ introduces us to a family tree where each “parent” breeds a set of progeny, which in turn produce offspring of their own.[37] impossible monsters––in this case two dragonflies “drawn” with video feedback—is the visual impact of doppelganger i and ii of 2011. in 7-minute two-channel videos on a tablet-sized lcd screen, hybrid forms are constructed to begin a new taxonomic structure. the two videos are related yet distinct: doppelganger i charts a slow process of evolution gaining in complexity. doppelganger ii explores the idea of invariant pattern linking variable detail, i.e. some elements such as the dragonfly’s thorax remain constant…both dragonflies go through nine transitions where in one case the form increases in complexity, while the other changes, sometimes subtly, sometimes drastically but always with the same structures in place.[38] in bloodlines and doppelganger perception of the stages of metamorphosis produces a mesmerizing and persuasive sense of a “reality” in the light of a purely digital event. while aesthetically compelling, the ramifications of these transformations in nature are horrific in relation to the uncontrollable transmutations that may occur. interactive real life events works of interactivity in the arts have been theorized as part of the evolutionary art historical narrative of late modernism—happenings, performances, political or social street actions—or as the supposed anti-object conceptual direction of postmodern practices. another and more recent direction roots interactive art in both religious and secular rituals and in popular celebrations that are ancient in origin. the situationist international, active in the late 1960s to early 1980s, provides yet another approach. stemming from a revised marxism, guy debord attacked the commoditized products of late capitalism in the society of the spectacle andpromoted art practices that celebrated the union of art and life, often in radical acts.[39] it is perhaps in relation to rituals stemming from her interests in hinduism and certainly from a desire to bring art and life together that anjali deshmukh’s practices shifted in 2012 when she asked audiences to participate in shaping the outcomes from the systems she creates. in a complex and aesthetically affecting wall installation, tell me the story of a lifetime (2012), deshmukh continued in three dimensions what she calls a foil to out of bounds (fig. 10). fig. 10: anjali deshmukh, tell me a story of a lifetime, 2012, participatory installation, mixed media, 70″ x 85″ (copyright anjali deshmukh). from the plotting of utopias in metaterraform game to the emotional responses to the real that explores self or life creation in tell me the story, reason falters before cosmic forces and fantasies about the way the world works. deshmukh, created a magnetized gameboard on the wall. written across the gameboard were 289 experiences––what she calls events. these events include statements about family, illness, death, experiences of nature and more. game pieces representing 900 emotions were scattered across the board. audiences were asked to pick numbers randomly combining events and emotions. from these random pairings, the artist created short stories shaped by the audience (deshmukh, 2/20/14). extending what was explored in tell me a story, in 2013 deshmukh created random fortune generator 1 as part of a group show put together by the south asian’s women’s creative collective for the dumbo art festival in new york (fig. 11). fig. 11: anjali deshmukh, random fortune generator i, 2013, outdoor participatory installation, mixed media, one-third of a city block (copyright anjali deshmukh). taking place in the urban environment of city streets this participatory art installation and game board converted tell me the story of a lifetime into a game that hundreds of participants could play simultaneously. i was no longer a creator of outcomes––the audience was. instead of being on a wall, i designed a game board on a stretch of road made of cobblestones. i coded and sub-coded over 1,100 events by color, into an evolving taxonomy that includes internal (psychological and philosophical), physiological (negative, positive, neutral), social (by degree of closeness) and solitary sensory (natural and artificial) experiences. players didn't know this unless they asked me, but it structured the color (deshmukh, 3/20/14). while there were multiple games occurring on the board, the micro-fiction game resonated deeply with the participants. in this game, each person picked up a penny labeled with a number that represented one of 900 emotions. they did not know yet which emotion they had picked. they put their penny on an event on the game board and then discovered the emotion they selected. then the player met with deshmukh or a trained “game interpreter” to help them shape a story—a “micro-fiction piece” that combined their event and emotion. the participant’s micro-fiction pieces were often powerful, creative reflections on their existences and psychological states. the games are all built around compassionately exploring and “testing” hypotheses about human interaction and behavior, and the outcomes and observations of those interactions are used to shape the design and concepts underlying the work. the scientific feedback loop becomes a tool for a creative process for both [the artist] and the participants. the games are all built around compassionately exploring and “testing” hypotheses about human interaction and behavior, and the outcomes and observations of those interactions are used to shape the design and concepts underlying the work. the scientific feedback loop becomes a tool for a creative process for both [the artist] and the participants (deshmukh, 3/20/14). [40] it is perhaps the same blend, though executed in a different manner, which underscores rohini devasher’s performative and interactive rituals. “beginning in july 2009 and through 2010, i traveled back and forth across the country with different individuals to witness a specific stellar event or visit a particular astronomical site. from patna for the longest total solar eclipse, varkala for the annular eclipse, i traveled to some of the most hallowed sites of india astronomy.”[41]the work produced from these travels, we are starstuff, “is a chronicle of people whose lives have been transformed by what they see in the sky” (fig. 12). fig. 12: rohini devasher, we are starstuff, installation at sarai, csds, new delhi, 2 audio vignettes, duration 11 mins, 10 mats, 10 mp3 players (copyright rohini devasher). in the garden of the sarai residency, visitors lay on foam mats placed in a circle with small mp3 players and listened to audio pieces of edited interviews made with twenty amateur astronomers in delhi. “as few as one, as many as ten people lying down together gazing up at the sky, mimicking the act of amateur astronomers [the] world over, and like them linked by common experience, in this case of the audio files, of the experience of this ‘collective rest or sleep.’”[42] in this interactivity devasher crosses the boundaries between art and science by creating an event that could be enacted anywhere across the globe. it is a transcultural life activity whose ramifications include stimulating collective consciousness about the wonders of nature and perhaps also hastening a call for its protection. conclusion this article was made possible by internet viewing. just as deshmukh and devasher have utilized that technology for research and to create artworks, internet viewers like myself are enabled by this amazing technology. wherever electronic devices are available a viewer is able to conjure up transcultural images and text that are free from institutional constraints and can be posted by anyone from anywhere. acknowledging the caveats that are and will be raised to confront this optimistic portrayal, at this moment the crossing of boundaries that this technology promotes is astonishing. i take issue with boris groys’s argument that, based on walter benjamin’s art in the age of mechanical reproduction concerning the copy and the original, the art created by this technology needs to enter the museum in order for the copy to become the original.[43] as i sit before my computer the virtual world is at my fingertips and each instance of the original is available to me and to anyone else who wants to access it. deshmukh and devasher are among many artists worldwide who are creating new forms that may eventually necessitate a new system, the ramifications of which are not yet fully apparent. one such is a form of viewing enabled by digital technology that allows the viewer as much time as needed to explore the various components of artists’ works in all their complexities. this occurs without the restrictions of museum or gallery viewing, which are often constrained by time and by the particularities of the space. there is no better way to conclude this essay than through a discussion of the crossing of boundaries between word and image in anjali deshmukh’s superb oil painting metaterraform game, which is derived from a glass marble (fig. 13) fig. 13: anjali deshmukh, metaterraform game, 2011, oil on canvas, 42″ diameter (copyright anjali deshmukh). another outcome of the out of bounds game or system previously mentioned, the work is a visual feast of abstract color swirls like those created by a marble held up to light. if one were to fracture the glass it would form diamond slivers in perfect geometry like those that deshmukh has painted on the right side as a contrast to the explosion of color on the left. however, the contrast is not a real one but rather a visualization of “seeing” from different perspectives. deshmukh writes about this work: if we think of the glass as the kind of “raw material” for the game, for the search for perfection or utopia in the symbolic shape of a circle, there's [sic] layers of sad irony given that the marble is a circle itself. this is in some way the contradiction of perspective, that the further we step beyond the boundaries defined by our interpretation of reality, the more our understanding of reality and morality is turned on its head, the serpent eating its tail... do we destroy the perfect form from our lack of awareness of its existence/where is the line between discovering and creating? the image is also influenced by thinking about a bird's eye view of the pacific trash gyre.[44] [1] this is a quote from roger malina, “intimate science and hard humanities,” leonardo 42, no. 3 (2009): 184. roger malina is executive editor of the periodical leonardo, which is published by the mit press. [2] while developing this article, i corresponded via email with the two artists. i have indicated the date of our correspondence after each instance where they have added and elaborated on material. i have copyright permission for all quoted text. [3] in this discussion i exclude many artists whose prime medium is electronic/digital in order to concentrate on artists who cross boundaries between material art practices and science/technology. an excellent exhibition addressing the trend i am discussing here is intimate science, whichoriginated at the miller gallery at carnegie mellon university in 2012 and toured through 2013, http://millergallery.cfa.cmu.edu/exhibitions/intimatescience/ [accessed on 6. june 2013]. while science and technology have always played a part in art-making, this article explores how the pervasiveness of contemporary technology and science has engendered new categories of art-making. [4] nicolas bourriaud, relational aesthetics (dijon: presse du reel, france, 1998), 13. in contrast, an interesting defense of collecting institutions, like the modern museum, is central to borys groys, art power (cambridge: the mit press, 2008), kindle edition. groys suggests that it is only within the context of a museum that new forms of art can be defined as art; that is, by being contrasted with what is already collected in the museum. this view may be critiqued as a defense of the museum’s power to decide what is art at any given time. [5] marwin m. kraidy, hybridity or the cultural logic of globalization (philadelphia: temple university press, 2005), 9. i explored this (among other) texts as a participant in the stone art theory institutes’ seminar “art and globalization,” which was directed by james elkins at the chicago art institute in july of 2007. in contrast, arjun appadurai, fear of small numbers: an essay on the geography of anger (durham: duke university press, 2006) argues for a form of globalization from below that is enabled by new technologies. [6] however, it remains to be seen whether or not that mode of experiencing artworks will eventually be co-opted, as groys suggests, by their necessary museumification. [7] see ranjit hoskote, “ranjit hoskote; signposting the indian highway,” http://www.heartmus.com/ranjit-hoskote-signposting-the-indian-highway-3358.aspx. [accessed on 28. august 2011]. a contrasting view concerning the hybrid nature of many global multicultural forms is posited by kraidy in hybridity. i explored this text as a participant in the stone art theory institutes’ seminar “art and globalization,” which was directed by james elkins at the chicago art institute in july of 2007. [8] i am indebted to the works of homi bhabha whose writings––though contested––on the space “in-between” and on the third space of immigration and transnationalism informs my work greatly. see in particular the location of culture (london: routledge, 1994). i am also indebted to arjun appadurai’s works on the “sociology of culture” in the light of globalization. see arjun appadurai, modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization (minnesota: university of minnesota press, 1996). [9] as this is not a critique of their practices, i hope that use of their work as examples of my thesis is sufficiently fleshed out through encounters with their work on the internet. i want to thank both artists for interacting with me via that medium and for sending excellent electronic images of their work. i have frequently used their words as the best entrée into their creative practices. as a result, i have included them as collaborators in this article. [10] stephen wilson, information arts (cambridge: the mit press, 2002), 12. [11] stephen wilson, art and science (new york: thames and hudson, 2010), 9. this text is important as it introduces many artists from all over the world who work in the interstices between art, science, and technology. [12] the complexities governing how globalization and cosmopolitanism are identified are topics of contestation, particularly how they function in the realms of political, social, economic, and cultural life. i am using the terms here in the broadest sense, as a discussion of the intricacies of the question is beyond the scope of this article. [13] anjali deshmukh, email message to author, august 22, 2012 [14] the first solo exhibition was agent green of the acacia tortilis and other weapons in delhi at the habitat center in 2006, and the second where you want to be was held at the higher bridges gallery in fermanagh, ireland in 2009. her work has also been included in a number group exhibitions: the 8th annual iaac erasing borders exhibition curated byvijay kumar in 2011, which traveled from the queens museum of art in new york to several venues (the charles b. wang center, at stony brook university, new york; the alcon gallery, new york city; and the jorgensen gallery, university of connecticut, storrs); radiate at the windsor art center in windsor, connecticut curated by kathryn meyers in 2012; she was one of four artists included in the exhibition grain at renu modi’s galerie espace, new delhi, 2013; she also participated in the dumbo arts festival held in new york in 2013 and again in 2014. [15] this quote is taken from a disc and a xerox packet of words and images sent to me in november 2009. it can be found on pages 3 and 4. the quote was revised by deshmukh in an email received march, 2014. i want to thank kathryn myers for introducing me to deshmukh’s exciting work. [16] rohini devasher, email message to author, may 8, 2013. [17] some of the group shows in which she has exhibited were at the kiran nadar museum, the institut d’art contemporain, villeurbanne/rhône-alpes; the zacheta national gallery of art, in warsaw; the apeejay media gallery and vadehra art gallery in delhi; the frieze art fair, regents park london, 2011; green cardamom and the british library in london; bose pacia in kolkata; the royal scottish academy in edinburgh. her first solo show breed was held at project 88 in mumbai in 2009 followed by her second solo permutation with nature morte, new delhi. a recent project was shown at the kochi muziris biennale 2012 , kochi india. devasher was the recipient of the forbes contemporary artist of the year award 2014, the skoda breakthrough artist award 2013 and the sarai associate fellowship 2010 and inlaks fine art award 2007 and 2008. she was most recently an artist in residence at metal culture in the uk, 2013 and at the max planck institute for the history of science in berlin between march and june 2012. she was part of the kochi muziris biennale (with her work parts unknown) and has shown her work at the iziko museum, cape town, south africa, the wanas foundation, sweden, courtauld institute of art, khojlive12; her most recent exhibition was in 2014 at project 88 in mumbai, india. [18] this quote and some of the subsequent material is from “interview: rohini devasher,” invest artindia.com, https://web.archive.org/web/20090814120802/http://www.investartindia.com/artist-interviews/interview-rohini-devasher [ accessed on 03. december 2014]. [19] homi bhabha, the location of culture. [20] bhabha, the location of culture, 2. bhabha’s positing of the third space is highly controversial. ien ang in “introduction: commodities and the politics of value,” the social life of things: commodities in cultural perspectives (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1986), 7 discusses the limits to bhabha’s theories about “double consciousness” or biculturality or the in-between and the third space. she suggests that transnational practices do not occur in an empty space that constitutes the dichotomy of “where you are from and where you are at,” but that this space is filled with new forms produced at the site of collision/collusion that produces a creative syncretism. see luis eduardo guarnizo and michael peter smith, “the locations of transnationalism,” in transnationalism from below, eds. michael peter smith and luis eduardo guarnizo, comparative urban and community research 6 (new brunswick: transaction publishers, 1998), 6. “transnational practices do not take place in an imaginary ‘third space’ (bhabha 1990; soja 1996) abstractly located ‘in-between’ national territories. thus, the image of transnational migrants as deterritorialized, free-floating people represented by the now popular academic adage ‘neither here nor there’ deserves closer scrutiny […].transnational practices, while connecting collectivities located in more than one national territory, are embodied in specific social relations established between specific people, situated in unequivocal localities, at historically determined times.” while these critiques are apt, it was nonetheless bhabha’s formulation of transnational status that provided profound grist for the mill. [21] this quote is from “statement and info” on deshmukh’s website, http:/www.anjalideshmukh.com [accessed on 10. october, 2013]. [22] page 15 and 16 of the packet cited in note 15. [23] deshmukh adds “the crystal structures are associated with igneous (volcanic) rock-amphibole, olivine, proxene, mica, and others.” additional comments made on march 20, 2014. [24] the text is on page 16 in the packet noted in 15. [25] the earthquake in chile in february 2010 set off tsunamis along the pacific coast all over the world, but it did not produce the same scale of waves elsewhere as those affecting chile itself. [26] deshmukh showed these paintings and digital prints in the higher bridges gallery, fermanagh, ireland, 2009. [27] deshmukh describes the small painted landscapes as based on “aerial imagery from around the globe using google earth and they refer to specific longitudes and latitudes for most of the landscapes—whether real or imagined, or of the future. hence the longitude/latitude numbers of some of the titles.” (quotation from additional comments made march 22, 2014). [28] “interview: rohini devasher.” [29] for images of these and other works through 2007 see “rohini devasher’s photostream.” flickr from yahoo, http://www.flickr.com/photos/rohinidevasher/ [accessed on 08. april 2014]. [30] rohini devasher. “ghosts in the machine,” exhibition brochure (new delhi: apeejay media gallery, september 2006), http://www.apeejaymediagallery.com/archive_ghosts_in_the_machine.htm [accessed on 23. october 2013]. [31] see http://prod-images.exhibit-e.com/www_naturemorte_com/rohini.pdf. [32] see arboreal video on vimeo, http://vimeo.com/32772527 [accessed on 28. november 2011]. [33] in a 20-print series also labeled arboreal, each 20” x 24” print is created by “the layering of selected still frames of video focuses on a different kind of ‘tree’––each one the possible source of generating a sequencing video on its own.” from a pdf file devasher sent, of the exhibition permutation at nature morte in new delhi in 2011, figs. 10, 11. [34] hyewon yi, exhibition catalogue, old westbury: amelie a. wallace gallery, nov. 1–dec. 6, 2007. [35] the salt satyagraha started on march 12, 1930 and was the first nonviolent organized opposition led by gandhi to protest the tax on salt imposed by the british colonizers. [36] see hemant sareen, “rohini devasher,” frieze magazine 144 (january–february 2011), http://www.frieze.com/shows/review/rohini-devasher/ [accessed on 28. february 2014], for a reproduction of this and other more recent works in video. [37] see 10 minutes of the video at http://vimeo.com/32833104 [accessed on 29. november 2011] and devasher’s description. [38] devasher, permutation. emailed to the author via https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#label/rohini+devsher/13c723e382701b7e?projector=1. see also sareen, “rohini devasher.” [39] for the situationist international see guy debord (1958) “ preliminary problems in constructing a situation ,”internationale situationniste #1 trans. ken knabb (paris, june 1958); and guy debord, the society of the spectacle (1967; repr., detroit: black and red, 2000). [40] a second work, random [fortune] generator 2 was shown in 2014 at the brooklyn museum, which invited the south asian women’s creative collective to present the exhibition again. [41] rohini devasher, “parts unknown: making the familiar strange,” max planck institute for the history of science, http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/en/news/features/feature26 [accessed on 05. october 2013]. [42] rohini devasher, “the light of things hoped for…,” https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#label/rohini+devsher/13c723e382701b7e?projector=1 [accessed on 30. june 2012]. a significant part of this research was undertaken under the sarai associate fellowship of the “city as studio” initiative of the sarai programme at csds, delhi between february–november 2010. [43] groys, art power, 1043–46 to 1161–62. see walter benjamin, “the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction,” in illuminations, ed. hannah arendt (1936; repr., new york: harcourt, brace and world, 1968). [44] the quote was taken from material deshmukh emailed to the author on december 1, 2010. the gyre of garbage is a trash patch in the north pacific ocean whose size can only be estimated but which may be as large as the united states. gadkar-wilcox_design_3_12_2016.indd universality, modernity, and cultural borrowing among vietnamese intellectuals, 1877–1919 wynn gadkar-wilcox, western connecticut state university the policy questions at the palace examination held at huế in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries frequently asked examinees to demonstrate not only their knowledge of the ancient classics or of major neo-confucian texts, but also their comprehension of european civilization, technology, and modern ideas transmitted in literary sinitic. the need for nguyễn dynasty scholar-officials to understand their world in new terms became even more urgent after french forces and spanish forces attacked đà nẵng in 1858. in the context of negotiating the 1862 treaty of saigon, which ceded three southern provinces to the french, the nguyễn administration asked candidates at the palace examination how to use the ideas of “attack, defense, or negotiation” most effectively against their french adversaries. the nguyễn dynasty’s tự đức emperor 嗣德 (r. 1848–1883), would ask similar questions again in 1868 and 1877. after the completion of french efforts to establish a protectorate over annam and tonkin in 1885, the palace examinations turned increasingly to establishing how, or whether, the nguyễn dynasty could or should harness their knowledge and expertise in the classics to comprehend electricity, trains, steamships, and other such contemporary technology.1 arguments about the applicability of neo-confucian ideology to comprehending technology remained a theme of the palace examinations until nguyễn control over the education system came to an end in 1919, fourteen years after the system of civil service examinations had been abandoned in china. in addition to being forced to adapt to the military presence of france, these examinations also occurred within a shifting east asian intellectual context. in china, the destruction wrought by the second opium war spurred a series of reforms. starting in the 1860s, a chinese effort at selfstrengthening was led by the intellectuals and statesmen li hongzhang 李鸿章 (1823–1901) and zeng guofan 曾國藩 (1811–1872) and focused on establishing the zongli yamen, or ministry of foreign affairs, and the maritime 1 see đặng văn thúy’s response to the 1904 policy question in xuân kinh điên thí văn tuyển [selected works from the spring palace examinations], manuscript a. 208, sino-nom institute, hanoi, vietnam, 8–13. see also wynn gadkar-wilcox, “french imperialism and the vietnamese civil service examinations, 1862–1919,” journal of american-east asian relations 21 (2014): 381–387. 34 universality, modernity, and cultural borrowing among vietnamese intellectuals customs office. they also worked to improve the qing armed forces in terms of firearms technology, shipbuilding, and the education of military and diplomatic officers. japan embarked on a more thorough and much more effective program of reforms following the meiji restoration in 1868. this involved not only a far more successful military reform than china’s, but also a wholesale borrowing of western techniques in industrialization and the establishment of an advanced technological infrastructure. much more than in the chinese case, japanese administrators under the meiji emperor also embraced cultural elements of westernization far more quickly than their counterparts in china. the precedents provided by japan and china gave nguyễn intellectuals a number of options to choose from in dealing with the threat from france. this article investigates how vietnamese ideas about europe, and about technology associated with european powers, were filtered through chinese sources. even through the 1910s and 1920s, decades into the era of french imperialism in indochina, vietnamese intellectuals still looked to their chinese (and sometimes indian) counterparts not only for strategies for coping with the presence of europeans but also for their understanding of the history of western culture and technology. this article will consider several specific examples. first, it will examine the way in which the 1877 policy question and the model answer that accompanied it borrowed its ideas about the origins and development of western civilization and technology from xu jiyu’s 徐繼畬 (1795–1873) 1849 text yinghuan zhilue 瀛環志略 (short account of the maritime circuit).2 it will then consider echoes of the ideas of chinese reformist intellectuals, such as tan sitong 譚嗣同 (1865–1898) and liang qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929), especially on the 1904 examination and on the later writing of its top graduate dang van thuy 鄧文瑞 (1858–1936). it will also examine the implicit emphasis on gandhian thought in the 1919 examination. in the course of these examples, i am interested in looking at the way in which these examinations evidence a shift away from confidence in the ability of candidates to answer questions by making reference to canonical texts in classical chinese. this lack of faith in canonical texts caused candidates to increasingly view “western civilization” as a unique and separate phenomenon (that is to say, in particularistic terms). this development, which mirrors intellectual changes amongst chinese reformers, is deeply ironic, since it was largely through reading the work of chinese thinkers that vietnamese intellectuals became convinced that they 2 xu jiyu, yinghuan zhilue 瀛環志略 [short account of the maritime circuit] (shanghai: shao ye shan fang, 1898), accessed august 21, 2017, http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=gb&res=2293. in the case of all terms and names requiring descriptions in multiple languages, i have given the terms in english, followed by characters, pinyin, and, where appropriate, quốc ngữ (modern vietnamese). all translations are the author’s unless otherwise stated. 35the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 could not rely on ideas from china to explain their world. thus, even as these scholars continued to defend the premises of a classical east asian education, they came to defend it as something particular rather than something universal. because of this, the relationship between vietnamese intellectuals and their canonical texts changed. rather than regarding the classics, very broadly defined in the vietnamese case, as a source for the universal values of a civilized society, they increasingly defended them (or, at times, rejected them) as aspects of a particular, historical, asian tradition of confucianism.3 the final example i consider in this article—the intellectual tran trong 3 this line of reasoning is borrowed from joseph r. levenson, liang ch’i chao and the mind of modern china (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1950), and joseph r. levenson, confucian china and its modern fate. volume 1: the problem of intellectual continuity (berkeley: university of california press, 1964), and also his less well-known but very important revolution and cosmopolitanism: the western stage and the chinese stages (berkeley: university of california press, 1971). over the course of the last three decades, historians have viewed levenson’s contribution through the lens of paul cohen’s influential interpretation of it in his discovering history in china: american historical writing on the recent chinese past (new york: columbia university press, 1984), 57–96. this interpretation, which accurately frames levenson’s argument as being about the intellectual transformation from tradition to modernity, suggests that by understanding modernity as being derived from western countries, levenson denies agency to chinese actors in their own history, since “the picture of the chinese revolution that emerged from this perspective was one that was shaped, from beginning to end, by problems posed for china by the modern west” (78–79). instead, cohen proposes a “china-centered” view of chinese historiography, which purportedly gives agency back to chinese actors in their own history, in part by pushing the question of modernity back further into history rather than giving the impetus for that modernity to the british cannons of the opium war or to the translation of mill or rousseau. i have critically appraised cohen’s notion of “china-centered” history as well as the tacit application of “china-centered” or “autonomous” historiography to vietnam, in wynn wilcox, ed., vietnam and the west: new approaches (ithaca, ny: cornell southeast asia program, 2010), 7–12. two brief points can be made about this here. the first is that cohen’s view of levenson’s remarks assumed that what was important to chinese thinkers was that modern ideas were coming from western sources, or that modernity was somehow to levenson inherently westernized, whereas in fact what mattered was not whether modernity was western but that chinese intellectuals perceived it to be so. levenson’s critique focuses not on western texts or western ideas at all, but on how modernist epistemologies caused chinese thinkers to think through elements of chinese tradition particularistically, as a defined tradition of a national state among particular national states needed to be made equivalent with other european nations. see levenson, liang ch’i chao, 4–5, and levenson, confucian china, xxvii–xxx. second, and more importantly, cohen’s “china-centered” view is ironically an example of the modernistic “search for equivalency” that levenson provides. for the desire to “discover” in china a china-centered past is undoubtedly a desire to find in china a particularistic past that is equivalent to the purportedly particularistic past of the west. it is in other words evidence that, at least in the case of chinese historiography in north america as it has evolved since the 1980s, the impetus for understanding the past still involves finding something in the chinese past that will be its own equivalent to western modernity. when viewed in this light, cohen’s arguments about china-centered history mirror liang qichao’s arguments for finding antecedents for modern thought in the chinese past in an almost uncanny way, and in this way ironically affirm levenson’s original analysis, since it is impossible to think historiographically about autonomous histories (especially along national lines) without tacitly accepting the conceits of modernist historiographical thought. 36 universality, modernity, and cultural borrowing among vietnamese intellectuals kim’s (1883–1953) interpretation of confucianism as related to henri-louis bergson’s (1859–1941) conception of intuition, which was directly borrowed from the chinese reformer liang shuming—represents the culmination of this transformation. in that case, a version of the confucian orthodoxy is given legitimacy because of its resonances with the universalistic rationality of post-enlightenment french thought, but ironically, the insights about that universal rationality still emerge from the chinese intellectual milieu. xu jiyu’s influence on the 1877 palace examination on the 1877 palace examination, the tự đức emperor of vietnam sought to understand the origins and development of european nations in the context of negotiations with the french. he asked: how, when, and where did all the countries [and peoples] of the far west begin? they have existed for a long time already, but they only began to arrive here and be discussed during the ming dynasty. how did we not hear of them earlier and investigate their scope and extent? how are they able to succeed and expand so rapidly? compared with past examples, is it true or not that they are very sophisticated?4 this question contrasted with similar policy questions in 1862 and 1868 that asked candidates to comment on what would be for them the best military strategy to deal with the western barbarians, and to choose a different one if traditional means of using attack, defense, or negotiation proved insufficient.5 in those previous examples, both the questions and the answers presumed that the appropriate way of devising a military strategy was to compare the westerners with other tribal peoples mentioned in the histories. thus, both the emperor in the question and the candidates in the answers made analogies to previous “non-civilized” peoples who had “invaded” china, such as xiongnu and the kitan, and based on their examples, devised strategies such as marriage alliances or payments to make the westerners go away. the 1877 question was something different. it assumed from the start that the westerners possessed a unique history that required particular 4 “何始何在㣲何極泰西諸國立國。日乆從人生以夾已固有之無至明論始見其諸前代豈荄無聞。究其 規模。何以駸又日盛較諸往事果否擅.” đình thí văn tập (hereafter đtvt), appendix of phạm thị kim, “những vấn đề chống ngoại xâm qua văn thi hội thi đình của một số nhà khoa bảng thời tự đức,” [issues of foreign invasion in the palace examinations of a number of candidates of the tu duc era] (phd diss., viện hán-nôm, 1986), 71. 5 quốc triều đình đối sách văn. archival manuscript v.hv. 318/2. viện hán nôm, hanoi, vietnam, 29 and 93. 37the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 investigation. to understand this required more than drawing analogies to the classics, since peoples from the far west were largely absent from such sources. instead, the examination suggested a focus on european history as particular and unique. doing so, however, would undermine one of the central conceits of the structure of the policy question, and of the examination system itself: that by studying a series of (broadly conceived) canonical texts, and by using them as precedent for understanding the world, one could develop a universally applicable way of comprehending human knowledge. ironically, however, the officials administering the 1877 examination expected candidates to affirm the particularity of european history by borrowing directly from chinese sources. this can be seen in the “model answer” composed to provide a key for graders to evaluate the policy question. based on previous precedent, the chief reader, nguyễn văn tường (1824–1886), and the two readers, nguyễn hữu độ (1813–1888) and nguyễn thuật (1842–1911), most likely wrote this model answer.6 in substance, the model answer derived portions of its responses to the emperor’s question from a single chinese source: xu jiyu’s 1849 yinghuan zhilue.7 key sections of the model answer are either paraphrased or borrowed entirely from this text. for example, the description of how gunpowder technology reached the western countries is lifted verbatim from the chinese text. the passage below is identical in both xu jiyu’s geography and the model answer for the 1877 examination. it describes how the history of the ming (mingshi) notes that western mercenaries found employment in the armies of timur, the founder of the timurid empire in central asia in the fourteenth century. these mercenaries manned timur’s cannons, and it was speculated that they brought cannon technology back to the west via their experiences in timur’s armies: 6 french officials deported nguyễn văn tường to tahiti for his role in instigating the aid-the-king movement in 1885. his influence was evident prior to the 1880s. tường was originally from quảng trị province, and ascended in rank fairly quickly, despite not having passed the palace examination, due to his own force of personality and talent at negotiation. in 1853, he was appointed the tri huyện (prefect) of the newly established district of thành hóa in quảng trị. nguyễn hữu độ, who was from thanh hóa province, received the degree of cử nhân (“elevated person,” a graduate of the metropolitan-level examination) in 1837, and received a phó bảng (subordinate list) distinction on the palace examination only one year later, in 1838. he then began a long and distinguished career as an official, chiefly in the cơ mật viện (privy council) and the ministry of finance. nguyễn thuật also had a distinguished career as a nguyễn official. originally from quảng nam province, he received the cử nhân title in 1867 and was on the phó bảng list in the 1868 examinations. his long official career included many years as the chief reader of imperial examinations, along with serving on the nội các (cabinet), as an ambassador to china, as minister of defense, and as the tổng đốc of thanh hóa province. 7 xu jiyu, yinghuan zhilue. 38 universality, modernity, and cultural borrowing among vietnamese intellectuals in the final years of the yuan dynasty (1279–1368), a german who had worked for the mongols began to copy [cannons], but [westerners] still did not know how to put them to use. during the reign of the hongwu emperor (1386–1398) of the ming (1368–1644), the imperial son-in-law timur (tamerlane, 1336–1405), king of samarkand, was joined by a military unit of people from the european part of the western region and [they] then took gunpowder back to all the countries [of europe] and then [they] were able to learn how to use [cannons]. even those parts of the 1877 model answer that are not directly lifted from the yinghuan zhilue paraphrase its discussion of the growth of western civilization. both include quasi-biblical accounts of babylon, a description of the rise of ancient greece, and an account of the development of cannon and firearm technology. they both share generalizations about westerners, such as their agricultural base, and their more recent emphasis and dependence on foreign trade for their economies, which in both texts provides the explanation for their encroachment into asian lands.8 there are several aspects of their reliance on this chinese text that seem at least initially surprising. insofar as the emperor’s question mostly concerned french encroachment, it is notable that the readers, and possibly even those taking the exams, would likely have had some access to literary sinitic accounts of french people and culture written by vietnamese authors, such as ngụy khắc đản’s account of his experiences and observations in paris and elsewhere, written down during his participation in phan thanh giản’s 1863 mission to renegotiate the nguyễn dynasty’s concessions to the french. his như tây ký 如西記 (exemplary record from the west) for example, gave extensive descriptions of the history of france, including biographical information on such figures as charlemagne, napoleon, and joan of arc. it also extensively describes the french education system, its pre-1871 second empire constitutional monarchy, its military organization, its economy, and its administrative divisions.9 in many ways, this text would have been much more useful in answering this question than the more general introduction to western history and culture offered by xu jiyu. even if students or the readers could not find a copy of this text, the extant copies of which are handwritten, many other 8 đtvt, 93–97; see also yinghuan zhilue, books 4 and 6 and the account of these chapters in fred w. drake, china charts the world: hsu chi-yü and his geography of 1848 (cambridge, ma: harvard east asian research center, 1975), 112–149. 9 ngụy khắc đản, như tây ký, ms. a. 764, library of the école française d’extrême-orient, paris, esp. 108–111; nguyễn kim oanh, “giới thiệu tác phẩm như tây ký của ngụy khắc đản,” thông báo hán nôm 53 (2002). 39the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 texts originating from the 1863 embassy, some of which were printed, would also have been available. these include the more general account in tây phù nhật ký 西浮日記 (diary of floating to the west), which was also partly written by ngụy khắc đản, as well as the accounts of the official phạm phú thứ such as tây phù thi thảo phụ chư gia thi lục 西浮詩草附諸家詩錄 (record of poems and correspondence on floating to the west).10 the reliance on xu jiyu is also surprising, given that the readers would have had the opportunity to acquire direct knowledge of the history and culture of france. chief reader nguyễn văn tường, who would later serve briefly as regent after the death of the tự đức emperor in 1883, had firsthand experience with the french as the chief negotiator for the nguyễn of the 1874 treaty that ceded back to the dynasty the territory taken for france by the rogue naval officer francis garnier the previous year.11 similarly, nguyễn hữu độ came to be known for his close relationships to certain french officials, though it is possible that he did not yet have those contacts by 1877.12 what this does indicate is that chinese books were still viewed as valuable repositories of knowledge in 1877; chinese books and knowledge were circulated extensively in vietnam until the 1930s.13 the irony of this reliance on a chinese text to understand france and europeans in general is that the results were the same as they would have been if they had depended upon more direct sources. perhaps this was because xu jiyu derived much of his information from discussions with westerners, and in particular from his long conversations about history and geography with a missionary from new jersey, david abeel, in the mid-1840s.14 it was from abeel that xu jiyu got his biblical interpretation of civilization’s ancient past, and probably also his enlightenment view of the role of greek and roman civilization in establishing modern europe, as well as his notion of the uniqueness of western civilization and of the character of particular nation-states. thus, the authors of the 1877 examination policy ironically 10 moreover, although xu jiyu’s book was printed in japan, there is no particular evidence that it was widely available in nguyễn vietnam. the sino-nom institute’s only copy of the book is an untitled twentieth-century copy; no copies appear to exist in the national library of vietnam. 11 quốc sử quán triều nguyễn, đại nam thực lục chính biên [first collection of the veritable record of the great south], vol vii (hanoi: giáo dục, 2007), 1433. 12 nguyễn q. thắng, từ điển nhân vật lịch sử, 512. 13 on questions of literary transmission and distribution across east asia, see kathlene baldanza, “publishing, book culture, and reading practices in vietnam: the view from thắng nghiệm and phổ nhân temples,” journal of vietnamese studies 13, no. 3 (summer 2018): 9–28; and “books without borders: pham thận duật (1825–1885) and the culture of knowledge in mid-nineteenth century vietnam,” journal of asian studies 77, no. 3 (2018): 713–740. 14 drake, china charts the world, 35–37. 40 universality, modernity, and cultural borrowing among vietnamese intellectuals reached their model answer to the question about the perceived uniqueness of the west through a chinese text. the 1904 examination: đặng văn thụy, tan sitong, kang youwei, and liang qichao in the 1904 palace examination’s policy questions, candidates were asked to consider whether theories of the natural order of the universe (đạo) from the earliest times were still relevant in the current situation. the policy question asked candidates to consider the role of đạo in popular cosmology, yin–yang theory, five phases theory (五行, wu xing), and in neo-confucian (道學, daoxue/đạo học) ideology. the policy question suggested that these varied conceptions of đạo would provide an alternative means of comprehending modern technology. it asked whether đạo could be used to assist in governing under the present conditions where “european countries” had drawn near. could the language of the yin–yang duality and the five elemental phases (wood, metal, earth, fire, and water), which had long been used to explain everything from medicine to astrology to physics, also be used to provide a theoretical framework for modern technology? the question pointed out that, while western technology produced machines capable of “piercing through wood” and “setting men ablaze,” these technologies were fundamentally based on an understanding of the element of fire. similarly, many of the mining technologies employed in france and england involved an understanding of the properties of water. the question inquired as to why the existing knowledge of the five phases could not be used as a means to derive this same technology. on that basis, could not the confucian classics be used to comprehend such things as electricity and therefore be of use in constructing trains and steamships? 15 the gist of this question sought to use the classic texts to understand the development of modern technology and engineering. as the question later specifies, “the classic texts” were broadly understood as not only encompassing the five classics (the authoritative books adopted during the han dynasty as forming the basis for confucian thinking) and the four books (a smaller collection popularized by the neo-confucian thinker zhu xi), but also histories, military strategy texts, other daoxue texts written by key reformers in the eleventh and twelfth centuries ce, and works in the daoist and buddhist traditions. the 1904 policy question, and the one written response to it that has survived, did not include the direct borrowing from a chinese text seen in the 1877 model answer. yet the ideas associated with the chinese hundred 15 xuân kinh điên thí văn tuyển (hereafter xkđtvt) 春京會試文選 [selected works from the spring palace examinations], manuscript a. 208, sino-nom institute, hanoi, vietnam, fo. 7–8. 41the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 days reforms of 1898 (a failed attempt to achieve political reforms to limit the qing monarchy) are behind almost everything in the text. for example, the question’s language is strongly reminiscent of zhang zhidong’s 張之洞 (1837–1909) 1898 notion of “chinese learning for fundamental principles and western learning for practical application.”16 the question seems to imply that a theory for modern engineering and technology could be found in the purportedly all-encompassing knowledge of the four books, five classics, major histories, and other canonical east asian texts, and the technology itself could be imported without disturbing a universalistic theory of civilization. this is precisely the line of reasoning zhang zhidong pursued.17 though zhang zhidong and tan sitong were making arguments about technology for drastically different political purposes, vietnamese examiners and examinees were willing to borrow from their ideas without regard to their particular political affiliation. the 1904 question’s application of yin–yang and five phases theory to electricity and metallurgy also strongly suggests the influence of tan sitong’s writing. he argued that modern chemistry and physics support a unified view of the existence of all things. he associated this view with the confucian notions of ren [humaneness] and dao [in the confucian context, the path toward human truth], and with a number of mahayana buddhist texts. tan sitong wrote: “how can we destroy one element and separately create another one? in mineralogy, metal cannot be extracted from nonmetallic ores […] water, for example, gradually dries up when heated; it is not destroyed but has merely been decomposed into hydrogen and oxygen.”18 later, in a discussion of arable land and overpopulation, he argued that ideas derived from five phases theory could be used to support inquiry into a number of different forms of modern technology. for example, in the field of electricity, an understanding of heat might help elucidate how power might be transferred without wires; an understanding of earth and topography could help understand geography; an understanding of water could help combat drought and flood, and so on.19 in addition to the topics and vocabulary of tan sitong’s passages being similar to the policy question of 1904, the rhetoric strongly suggests the kind of empiricism linked to the texts written 16 see levenson, confucian china and its modern fate, vol. 1, 60. the original can be found in zhang zhidong, 張之洞, quan xue pian 勸學篇 [exhortation to study], chinese text project, accessed december 4, 2018, https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=en&res=771533. 17 zhitian luo, inheritance within rupture: culture and scholarship in early twentieth century china (leiden: brill, 2015): 140–142. it makes sense that zhang zhidong’s more conservative reformist views would appeal to the nguyễn bureaucracy responsible for framing the question, as opposed to explicit references to the ideas of kang youwei or liang qichao. 18 tan sitong, an exposition of benevolence: the jen-hsüeh of t’an ssu-t’ung, trans. chan sin-wai (hong kong: the chinese university press, 1984), 90. 19 tan sitong, an exposition of benevolence, 213. 42 universality, modernity, and cultural borrowing among vietnamese intellectuals by key neo-confucian thinkers. in fact, one of the key intellectual exercises required of candidates in the 1904 policy question was to link questions of modern technology with the conception of dao embraced by zhou dunyi 周敦頤 (1017–1073 ce), cheng hao 程顥 (1032–1085 ce), cheng yi 程頤 (1033–1107 ce), lu xiangshan 陸象山 (1139–1192 ce), and wang yangming 王陽明 (1472–1529 ce).20 this resonates with tan sitong’s tendency to see electricity as a manifestation of qi and therefore indistinguishable from the self, albeit without the same buddhist overtones: those who are willing to learn must realize that electricity is the brain; that there is no place without electricity just as there is no place without the self; if we wrongly think that there is a difference between others and the self; we will be unbenevolent. nevertheless, electricity and the human brain are nothing more than manifestations of ether.21 đặng văn thụy (1858–1936), the highest placed candidate in the 1904 examination, wrote an answer that clearly exhibits the influences of the key chinese intellectual moment of the hundred days reforms of 1898. in the introductory passages of his answer, in an argument reminiscent of tan sitong, he argues that the universe is governed by a single đạo from which modern science could not be exempted: it takes only one person to create factions and parties. everything is all alike, and all culture follows the same path. things at rest and things moving are all within the great đạo. all-under-heaven is equitable and its principles can be implemented in the future as they are today!22 thus, đặng văn thụy argued that intellectuals should use yin–yang and five phases theory “as a key tool” in understanding engineering and technology so that a unified theory of the world, based on the eight trigrams of the classic of changes 易經 (yijing/kinh dịch) and encompassing ethics, cosmology, and modern science, could prevent the balkanization of different types of knowledge.23 đặng văn thụy then proceeded to argue that description of the physical world found in the classics actually predicted those articulated by the 20 xkđtvt, 6–7. 21 tan sitong, an exposition of benevolence, 72. 22 xkđtvt, 10. 23 xkđtvt, 13. 43the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 modernist view of scientific processes. this argument is along lines that are reminiscent of liang qichao’s and hu shi’s efforts to see the advancements of modern civilization as inherent in classical east asian civilization. he quoted the rites of elder dai, an expanded version of the liji or classic of ritual, in which zengzi (505–435 bce), one of the “four sages” of confucianism and one of confucius’s main disciples, doubted that the earth could be square by noting that “if the heavens were round and the earth square, then the laws of the four corners could not apply to each of them.”24 instead, zengzi explained that the ancients thought the heavens were round and the earth square only in metaphorical terms, to emphasize that the heavens were yang and the earth yin.25 next, he turned to the classic of changes, a divination text reflecting on the symbolic significance of a series of broken and unbroken lines in hexagrams and one of the five classics. đặng văn thụy explained that the second hexagram, earth 坤 (kun/khôn), was represented as having rotated on an axis, though that does appear to be a novel or even implausible reading of this hexagram.26 it is easy to miss the almost imperceptible shift in perspective in these answers from the pre-1877 era. the key is that this 1904 examination essay accepted the universality of modern science, and then tried to anchor science in the classics. in this way, the classics had already become the particular, and western science the universal. in earlier examinations, europeans were the particular, and they needed to be fitted into the universal canon. here, the universal truth was that the earth was round and revolved around the sun, and what was necessary was to find such truths embedded in the classical texts. the classics had already become derivative and secondary. to forestall this demotion of the classic texts, đặng văn thụy insisted that the classics imbue learned people with an ethic that reminds them that the purpose of technological and scientific advancement is to pursue a humane and harmonious society. though “european countries” are “making progress toward civilization,” and some have come “peacefully with goods to trade,” this did not mean that they possessed the knowledge of classical chinese civilization. in fact, technological advancements do not have self-evident social purposes. westerners “present trifling forms of knowledge as if they represent some major achievement,” in the process “undermining our writings on yin–yang and the five phases” to construct “a system 24 zengzi 曾子, da dai li ji 大戴禮記 [the rites of elder dai], the chinese text project, accessed december 4, 2018, http://ctext.org/da-dai-li-ji/ceng-zi-tian-yuan, § 1. see also robin wang, images of women in chinese thought and culture (indianapolis: hackett, 2003), 48–49. 25 qiong zhang, making the new world their own: chinese encounters with jesuit science in the age of discovery (leiden: brill, 2015), 60. 26 xkđtvt, 22. 44 universality, modernity, and cultural borrowing among vietnamese intellectuals essentially based on profit.” the reason for western technology was to enrich westerners. the đạo must be “revived,” rather than destroyed; insights about technology should be integrated within a system of proper reason (lí).27 in his post-1904 writings, đặng văn thụy’s debt to the hundred days reforms becomes even more obvious. he developed a very close bond with the two other top graduates of the 1904 examination, the nationalists trần quý cáp (1870–1908) and huỳnh thúc kháng (1876–1947). the bond between these three figures persisted even though đặng văn thụy had chosen a traditional official career while the other two had rejected official service because of the dynasty’s subservience to the french. on the occasion of the death of trần quý cáp in 1908, đặng văn thụy composed the following poem: in the beginning, you had success in small matters but just like kang [youwei] and liang [qichao], your fate was poverty. in the press, your many words startled those who listened in these difficult times, your four pearls showed your remarkable ability. jia yi’s [200–169 bce] talents were admired in the past, marx was nothing without engels. in the new year, we come together from distant places, the desires of italy’s three heroes were not the same.28 (đặng văn thụy “on hearing the news of my friend and classmate’s death” [1908]) this poem shows the direct link between the thinking of the hundred days reform and the access of vietnamese intellectuals to revolutionary european ideologies. đặng văn thùy literally compares kang youwei and liang qichao with karl marx and friedrich engels. moreover, the poem contains an explicit reference to liang qichao’s writings. the poem refers to “italy’s three heroes,” which is a reference to giuseppe garibaldi (1807–1882), the general of italian unification; giuseppe mazzini (1805–1872), the italian journalist and politician who popularized the cause of italian unification; and camillo benso, the count of cavour (1810–1861), a statesman and diplomat who supported the cause of italian unification from behind the scenes. in a well-known essay, liang qichao had argued that the efforts of all three were necessary for the success of the italian national project.29 the three tiến sĩ (“presented scholar” or doctoral-level examination) graduates had 27 xkđtvt, 27. 28 poem reproduced in nguyễn nghĩa nguyên, cụ hoàng-nho lâm, 136. 29 liang qichao, “yidali jianguo sanjie zhuan,” in liang qichao quanji, ed. yang gang and wang xiangyi (beijing: beijing chubanshe, 1999), vol. iii, 827–855. 45the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 fancied themselves as vietnamese versions of these three italian national figures, with trần quý cáp playing the role of garibaldi, at the forefront of the anticolonial campaign; huỳnh thúc kháng as the vietnamese mazzini, inveighing against injustice in the press; and đặng văn thụy as cavour, working behind the scenes to achieve reform through diplomatic negotiation.30 in the last line, đặng văn thụy appears to regret not having been on the front lines with trần quý cáp, going “forward together.” indeed, one of đặng văn thụy’s last works was a tribute to kang youwei on the occasion of his death. the poem illustrates that despite the problems of the modern era, the core problem of politics had not changed: before the west arrived, the chinese unicorn were five hundred strong31 the path of humaneness was not taken by qi or liang. after three thousand years of fairness and logic the last sixteen have been a battlefield within the walls of qingdao, an old man a mound of chrysanthemums carries the aroma down to the bones the deep-green mulberries in the end are motionless as the mountains and trees still sing the song of [confucius] the unadorned king.32 (đặng văn thụy, “upon hearing the news of kang youwei’s death” [1927]) the problem of western encroachment, for đặng văn thụy, was still not fundamentally different from the problems of governance and rule experienced by the zhou dynasty during the spring and autumn period (770–476 bce). it was a question of just rule. french rule in vietnam should be rejected on the grounds of its despotism, just as the ancient confucian philosophers mencius and xunzi had rejected the way of the five famous despotic monarchs of that era as emblematic of the failure of the “way of the despot” (bá đạo). instead, mencius and xunzi had encouraged rulers to follow the way of a true king (vương đạo).33 the “sixteen years of war” in china between 30 nguyễn nghĩa nguyên, cụ hoàng-nho lâm, 98, 139. 31 possibly a reference to kang youwei’s use of apocryphal texts about confucius that referenced unicorns. see anne cheng, “nationalism, citizenship, and the old text/new text controversy in late nineteenth-century china.” in joshua a. fogel and peter zarrow, eds., imagining the people: chinese intellectuals and the concept of citizenship, 1890–1920 (armonk: m. e. sharpe, 1997): 70–71. 32 đặng văn thụy, khuyến tân học thuyết, 27–28. 33 on the mencian distinction between vương đạo and bá đạo, see james legge, ed. and trans., the chinese classics vol. ii: the works of mencius (oxford: clarendon, 1895), 455. legge translates the terms as “sovereign” and “chief.” for the translation of 王道 as “true king” see peimin ni, understanding the analects of confucius (albany: suny press, 2017), 317. 46 universality, modernity, and cultural borrowing among vietnamese intellectuals the overthrow of the qing dynasty in 1911 and kang youwei’s death in 1927, and the warlords that had emerged from this period, were no different a problem than the despots of the ancient past, as far as he was concerned. đặng văn thụy drew an absolute continuity between the ancient despots, the modern warlords, and the french “protectors.” all of these rulers would ultimately fail because they did not have the loyalty of the people. in the words of mencius, “when one by force subdues men, they do not submit to him in heart.”34 for all of đặng văn thụy’s interest in engineering, cavour, and marx, this principle remained unchanged. however, despite this apparent traditionalism, đặng văn thụy still unwittingly demonstrates that in his perception modernist scientific inquiry is a particular and specific thing that requires new procedures not anticipated by the previous structure of examination answers. in levensonian terms, đặng văn thụy, like liang qichao, embraced traditional notions of đạo defensively. even as he defended confucian ethics as a universal worldview, he implicitly did so by declaring it to be equivalent or even superior to western culture. thus, he produces two particularities, which ultimately foreclosed the possibility of seeing the classical canon as anything other than a chinese confucian tradition. the 1919 examination: liang qichao and rabindranath tagore in the 1919 palace examination, the last to be held, the khải định emperor asked whether or not classical asian notions of civilization defended a kind of autocracy. he observed that “many countries around the world talk about civilization” (văn minh/wenming), and inquired into what this concept could really mean, given that it was used to denote “everything from human relations to national politics to ways of the time to the customs of the people.” the history of vietnam and china, he noted, has as much “confusion and disorder” as they did civilization, and openly wondered whether a lesson to be drawn from the chinese experience is that its style of governance may have actually “retarded the advent of civilization.”35 the obvious antecedent for the emperor’s line of thinking in this regard is liang qichao, who argued in “on reforming the people” (1902), that while ancient china had all the requisite ideas to be a “civilized great state,” it lacked the ability to spread its ideas and compete with the rest of the world. though the idea of văn minh (“civilization,” cf. chinese wenming 文眀) could be located in ancient china, reform was necessary to make this 34 mencius, gong sun chou i, trans. james legge. chinese text project, accessed june 29, 2016, http://ctext.org/mengzi/gong-sun-chou-i?searchu=sovereign&searchmode=showall#result. 35 quốc sử quán triều nguyễn, đồng khánh, khải định chính yếu (hereafter dkkdcy) (hanoi: thời đại, 2010), 420. 47the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 idea dynamic in a modern context.36 by the time of this examination, however, ideas about confucianism among chinese reformers had evolved; even liang qichao had abandoned his earlier idea that a reform of chinese institutions could be based on a recovery of the genuine spirit of an ancient confucianism that had been obscured by later commentary.37 in this sense, the vietnamese emperor was at least a decade behind the times, in that he found that “a confucian pedigree was necessary to make a modern idea respectable.”38 the emperor’s question also asked whether western civilization (as represented by the french) was really any more civilized than eastern civilization. french policies in indochina contradicted their claims of civilizational superiority, according to the emperor. for example, “taxes” were onerous “to the point that people both inside and outside of cities have had their property confiscated,” even though they had been identified as being under hardship.39 worse still, the french system of taxation imposed upon the vietnamese an unfair system of social classes and prevented mutual aid. painting an idealized picture of the past, the emperor claimed that when a particular person suffered a crop failure or other hardship in the past, their taxes would be paid through mutual-aid arrangements or covered by the village elite. now, however, the situation was different, because the vietnamese were being told that modern “civilization” consists of dividing people into three classes, rather than the four traditional classes of scholar, farmer, artisan, and merchant: the “high class” or wealthy, those with fancy villas; the “middle class,” who were “able to provide for themselves”; and the “lower class.” since all of these classes, under a french idea of civilization, were made up of autonomous individuals, rather than of village units helping each other, this division created a cruel tax burden that the poor would not have been able to pay. in the traditional imperial system, by contrast with the french, the goal was “to collect enough revenue for our purposes without imposing great harm on our people.”40 this idealization of the past did not deny that modern technological and cultural change was necessary. “we have entered a civilized era,” 36 alison adcock kaufman, “one nation among many: foreign models in the constitutional thought of liang qichao,” (phd diss., university of california at berkeley, 2007), 93–97. the words and phrases used by the emperor are so similar, on occasion, that it leaves little doubt that he was specifically thinking of this text. kaufman is quoting zhongguo zhi xinmin [liang qichao], “xinmin shuo” 新民说 [on renewing the people], xinmin congbao 5 (april 1902): 1–11. 37 levenson, liang ch’i chao, 2. 38 levenson, liang ch’i chao, 88. 39 dkkdcy, 420–421. 40 dkkdcy, 420–421. 48 universality, modernity, and cultural borrowing among vietnamese intellectuals the emperor declared, and therefore, “our politics must be renovated and improved.” however, the french did not always give a clear method for that improvement. the emperor complained that, after participating in a devastating war (world war i), the french did not give any clear method for honoring the dead or the heroes of that war, and did not appreciate the vietnamese contribution to the war effort. the emperor asked, how “do we take care of our people in a civilized way and still make progress?” given that french civilization was not civilized in practice, adopting western values would not automatically lead to civilized behavior. the emperor’s thinking resonated with the neo-traditionalism of the indian poet and thinker rabindranath tagore (1861–1941) and the political and intellectual figure mohandas gandhi (1869–1948). the emperor’s critique resembled, for example, tagore’s argument that world war i was based on a violent nationalism that was to be avoided, and that the indian national congress erred in basing their ideas “on western history.”41 similarly, the emperor’s rejection of western ideas of social class as uncivilized recalls tagore’s statement: in the west the national machinery of commerce and politics turns out neatly compressed bales of humanity which have their use and high market value; but they are bound in iron hoops, labelled and separated off with scientific care and precision. obviously god made man to be human; but this modern product has such marvellous square-cut finish, savouring of gigantic manufacture, that the creator will find it difficult to recognize it as a thing of spirit and a creature made in his own divine image.42 the fact that the emperor’s thought resonated with that of tagore and gandhi was not without precedent in this era. olga dror has pointed out the influence of gandhi’s hind swaraj on the early romantic twentieth-century scholar-official kiều oánh mậu (1854–1912).43 she points to the similarity of the following passage from hind swaraj to kiều oánh mậu’s ideas, but it is equally indicative of the emperor’s ideas about civilization: we have managed with the same kind of plough as existed thousands of years ago. we have retained the same kind of cottages that we had in former times and our indigenous education remains the same 41 pradip kumar datta, rabindranath tagore’s the home and the world: a critical companion (london: anthem, 2005), 110–111. 42 rabindranath tagore, nationalism (new york: macmillan, 1917), 16–17. 43 olga dror, cult, culture, and authority: princess liễu hành in vietnamese history (honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 2007), 148–149. 49the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 as before. we have had no system of life-corroding competition. each followed his own occupation or trade and charged a regulation wage. it was not that we did not know how to invent machinery, but our forefathers knew that, if we set our hearts after such things, we would become slaves and lose our moral fiber.44 just as gandhi and tagore infused their critiques of colonialism and western modernity with traditionalist elements, so too did the khải định emperor. however, this was not mere conservatism, as evidenced by the fact that gandhian ideas were not only embraced by traditional scholar officials such as kiều oánh mậu, but also by reformists like the emperor’s critic phan châu trinh.45 purportedly traditional elements were now being defended as particularly asian or even particularly vietnamese, rather than as universal truths, and they were being used as a defense against the onslaught of western modernity and colonialism, rather than as a simple affirmation of a universally acceptable confucian philosophy.46 postscript: trần trọng kim, liang shuming, and the persistence of chinese modernism in vietnam though the system of traditional education in classical chinese ended with the examinations in 1919, the transfer of contemporary ideas through the circulation of books in chinese characters continued. the historian and intellectual trần trọng kim (1883–1953), who was notably the failed prime minister of the japanese-sponsored empire of vietnam in 1945, prior to the august revolution, wrote what is arguably the most influential vietnamese book on confucianism in 1929–1930. one criticism of his interpretation was that it was so eclectic that what was being understood as confucianism in vietnam was in fact “trần trọng kim-ism.”47 he explained that henri bergson (1859–1941), a contemporary “philosopher of substantial fame from france,” had argued that “it is only through intuition that we know reality.”48 in fact, trần trọng kim’s version of intuition was a very compressed version of bergson’s ideas. bergson explained, in introducing the principles of metaphysics, that people could know a thing either by 44 mahatma gandhi, hind swaraj (delhi: rajpal and sons, 2010), 50. 45 david g. marr, vietnamese anticolonialism (berkeley: university of california press, 1971), 272. 46 levenson, confucian china, xxvii. 47 quoted in shawn f. mchale, print and power: confucianism, communism, and buddhism in the making of modern vietnam (honolulu: university of hawaiʻi press, 2008), 77. 48 mchale, print and power, xxxiii. 50 universality, modernity, and cultural borrowing among vietnamese intellectuals “moving round the object” or by entering “into it.”49 the first case, which he associated with pure empiricism, would only produce relative knowledge. in that case, the observer would be intentionally detached from the object of study, and would therefore be able to observe the object and apprehend its meaning only from that observer’s standpoint. even after observation of an object—such as after staring at a distant star from many observatories—the scientist was in no better position than a mathematician using calculus. that is to say, we are only creating a greater and greater number of approximations of reality, and since we cannot perform infinitely many observations, what remains after this time-consuming process is a crude representation of the object one is trying to describe. on the other hand, one who embodies a thing by entering into it would learn about it through experience and perform it through intuition. bergson gave us the examples of reading the greek classics or learning to dance. whereas one might learn homer by having someone translate a passage, and then explain it, for bergson, this would be a far cruder method than having someone learn to read homer in the original. similarly, a dance teacher might be able to lecture a crowd of potential dancers on the kinesiological and physiological principles behind a certain movement, but their knowledge of it would be far more comprehensive if they learned to embody the movement by dancing themselves. “it follows from this,” bergson told us, “that an absolute can only be given in an intuition, whilst everything else falls within the province of analysis. by intuition is meant a kind of intellectual sympathy by which one places oneself within an object in order to coincide with what is unique in it and consequently inexpressible.”50 trần trọng kim explained that we could “look at the studies of bergson” and “clearly recognize the highest thoughts of confucianism.”51 this was because bergson’s idea of intuition seemed to resonate with canonical confucian ideas about the natural order of the universe.52 it was also because intuition associated metaphysical reality with embodied practice, and this view corresponded perfectly to the primacy of ritual in the classical writing of confucius, mencius, and xunzi, as well as the descriptions of ritual in the doctrine of the mean, which is one of the canonical confucian “four books.” bergson allowed trần trọng kim a way to posit the relevance of confucianism as a spiritual supplement to western materialist 49 henri bergson, an introduction to metaphysics, trans. t. e. hulme (new york: g. p. putnam’s sons, 1912), 1–2. 50 bergson, an introduction to metaphysics, 6–7. 51 trần trọng kim, nho giáo, xxiii. 52 mchale, print and power, 82. 51the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 philosophy. in shawn mchale’s words, “the use of bergsonian ‘intuition’ allowed trần trọng kim to ignore history when he wanted, to assert radical social differences between east and west, but then to build limited bridges between east and west at the level of epistemology.”53 this seemingly bizarre fitting of the square peg of confucianism into the round hole of twentieth-century intuitionist metaphysics was what leftist intellectuals such as ngô tất tố (1894–1954) were complaining about when they said, as mentioned earlier, that what was being understood as confucianism in vietnam was in fact “trần trọng kim-ism.”54 but what seemed to be a highly original, if suspect, interpretation of confucianism was in fact not original at all. trần trọng kim borrowed almost the entirety of his mapping of intuitionism onto confucianism from the chinese new culture movement intellectual liang shuming. like trần trọng kim, liang had been attracted to arguments that confucianism could be seen as a form of empiricism. similarly, liang had come to believe bergsonian intuition was the best western metaphysical analogy to confucianism, because “like the empiricists, bergson started from human experience, but unlike them, however, he did not reject metaphysics.”55 it was liang shuming that coined the term zhijue (vietnamese trực giác) to translate bergson’s idea of intuition, in 1921, in the course of his works comparing eastern and western philosophies.56 using this, it was originally liang, not trần trọng kim, who “fashioned his own theory of the chinese mind and of confucianism with this and other bergsonian concepts.”57 by the 1930s, however, this cultural borrowing went largely unnoticed, because younger vietnamese intellectuals were no longer able to read new ideas in literary chinese. regardless of whether new knowledge about technology or modernity emanated from chinese texts or french ones, these texts had the same epistemological result. they required proponents of a universalistic classical canon to find that appealing to universal values without reference to the 53 mchale, print and power, 82. 54 quoted in mchale, print and power, 77. 55 thierry meynard, the religious philosophy of liang shuming: the hidden buddhist (leiden: brill, 2011), 82. 56 liang shuming abandoned the concept of zhijue by 1934 in favor of lixing (reason). yanming an, “liang shuming and henri bergson on intuition: cultural context and the evolution of terms,” philosophy east and west 47, no. 3 (july 1997): 337–340. see also liang shuming, dongxi wenhua jiqi zhexue 東西文化及其哲學 [eastern and western cultures and their philosophies] (shanghai: shangwu yinshuguan, 1937), 72–73. 57 guy alitto, the last confucian: liang shu-ming and the chinese dilemma of modernity (berkeley: university of california press, 1986), 96. 52 universality, modernity, and cultural borrowing among vietnamese intellectuals content from which those values were derived was a hollow exercise. moreover, in the course of formulating and responding to these exams, not only the candidates but also the officials responsible for evaluating the examinations, including the emperor himself, slowly realized that european history, culture, and diplomacy were not explained by the canon. nor could any proper action toward european barbarians be easily derived from that canon. as strained analogies mounted, there was a shift toward viewing westerners as possessing a particular civilization, one that was outside the norms described as universal in the canon. once westernization was seen to be particular, however, the canon could no longer be seen as universal. in this situation, the questions asked shifted. the task of vietnamese intellectuals was no longer to incorporate westerners into the existing and purportedly universal canon of philosophical texts and histories. rather, by the beginning of the twentieth century, western civilization was viewed particularistically, in contrast and even in binary opposition to eastern civilization. once scholars came to believe that there were “western” and “eastern” versions of civilized society, the power of the civilizing rhetoric of the classical canon began to wane. fitting medieval europe into the world | schneidmüller | transcultural studies fitting medieval europe into the world patterns of integration, migration, and uniqueness bernd schneidmüller, ruprecht-karls universität heidelberg in these times of globalisation, history above all becomes a history of entanglements.[1] the complexity of today’s processes of change and exchange can no longer be explained by unchanging entities, but instead by transcultural connectivities. our current experiences with worldwide flows of migration reveal the dynamics underlying the instability of political systems and the enduring power of cultural hybridisations. the present article aims to provide some critical input to the history of entanglements and migrations from the perspective of medieval history. it came into being through various research forays into the constant swings between integration and disintegration in the cultures of medieval europe. a priority programme conducted by michael borgolte and myself for the deutsche forschungsgemeinschaft (german research council) provided the opportunity to work with a team of junior and experienced scholars and to do away with the traditional framings presented by national histories and the established disciplinary cultures.[2] in the end we recognised the necessity of no longer explaining european history in terms of the integration of european factors, but of placing europe into the nexus of the world.[3] i was given strong stimulus for this by the heidelberg cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context. the dynamics of transculturality”. on the basis of these interactions i shall come up with some new and surprising conclusions about entanglement and migration in the middle ages. of lesser importance to me here are the historical findings that have recently been made by transcultural research.[4] the crux of the matter rather is medieval perceptions that have remained marginalized or received little attention in the modern era. which is why a fresh reading of the old sources presents a number of surprising insights that reveal the temporal situatedness of the premises underlying knowledge.[5] point of departure for this study was the observation that in the medieval era, two different discourses developed about the inclusion or exclusion of europe in or from the world. both will be sketched out here. this text is not aimed at criticising the research to date, but sees itself rather as a self-ironic contribution about a number of older connections in outdated concepts concerning the continent of europe.[6] research into medieval concepts in their historical alterity is breaking up a sclerotic image of the middle ages and countering it with a fairly unexpected medieval period that may puzzle those fond of using current ideas of europe to their own strategic ends. these thoughts adopt a clear position, because current debates about the cultural depth and unity of the continent of europe tacitly assume a homogeneous frame of reference that has ostensibly developed from antiquity and the middle ages. on closer inspection, though, we see that this has grown from subsequent wishful thinking, just like the whole european concept of the middle ages.[7] the following will present a medley of three interpretative approaches that arose in latin europe from the seventh to the fifteenth century. the concern here is firstly with the notion[8] that europe constitutes a third of the entire world (tertia pars mundi) and a fourth of the world’s surface. attention will then be paid to the medieval belief that europe always existed as a constant place of immigration for various peoples, religions and cultures. and finally we shall deal with medieval controversies as to whether the peoples of europe had been formed by migration, or by remaining on their own patch of soil. these antitheses have been articulated as historical contradictions between migrating or staying, as well as through competing models of either hybridisation or of the blood being rooted in the soil. europe as the third part of the world (tertia pars mundi) points of departure for my thoughts are several bits of knowledge that are basic to general medieval studies. riding on the shoulders of the world pictures that held sway in antiquity, medieval authors divided the planet into three parts, which were the continents of africa, asia, and europe. on round maps of the world (which were shaped like an ‘o’), asia occupied half of the world in the form of an inscribed ‘t’, while europe and africa took up a quarter each. jerusalem formed the centre of the world, ever since the time of the crusades (fig. 1).[9] this interpretation of the whole was decisive for the medieval understanding of geography and of god’s plan for salvation,[10] which for a long time hindered a segmental cartography focused solely on europe. fig. 1: t-o-diagram, according to isidore of seville. london, british library, royal ms 12 f.iv, fol. 135v. not until the twelfth century—as for instance in the “liber floridus” by lambert, canon of saint-omer (fig. 2)—was greater interest taken in depicting the european’s own life world.[11] isidore of seville’s epitome conveyed the biblical knowledge of the division of the world under sem, japheth and cham, the three sons of noah, to the middle ages with added precision. by pointing to biblical traditions, which had quite happily managed till then without a concept of the three continents, the european peoples were brought together with their kindred nations the world over, which all came from the great ur-father, noah. this led to congruence between the three continents and the three families of man.[12] fig. 2: map of europe in lambert of st-omer, in liber floridus. ghent, universiteitsbibliotheek, ms 92, fol. 241r. in his ‘imago mundi’, the twelfth century theologian honorius augustodunensis presented a more advanced knowledge of geography with a socio-historical twist, and further advanced this mapping on the basis of his readings of genesis and in keeping with medieval models of society. according to this, the human race was already divided into three estates in biblical times, to wit: freemen, warriors and slaves. the freemen descended from sem, the warriors from japheth, and the slaves from cham. unlike the children of cham (gen. 9), japheth’s descendants could receive salvation (fig. 3).[13] fig. 3: simon marmion, map of the world, c. 1459–1463, in fleur des histoires, jean mansel. brussels, bibliothèque royale albert i, ms 9231, fol. 281v. the rich research done into historical cartography over the last few decades has impressively established a number of leaps forward in the geographical evidence and empirical findings from the twelfth to the sixteenth century,[14] and above all pointed out correlations and interactions between the latin-western, the greco-byzantine and the arabic pictures of the world.[15] the change from the original ‘orientation’, which is to say the alignment of the map to the east (oriens), to a preference for the north, was presumably due to the power of the compass needle, which was now offering increasing safety in nautical affairs (fig. 4). at the same time, this fundamental change in direction—which to this day has shaped our ways of looking so much that maps aligned to the south or east seem scarcely ‘legible’—did not go so far as to alter the basic terms. the word ‘orientation’ stubbornly remained, even though the orient—as a major frame of reference for god’s plans for humanity and the latter’s goals—had long since lost its monopoly on structuring the depictions of the world. on the ebstorf map (around 1300, fig. 5), paradise and thus the origin of humanity still lay due east of india.[16] the portulan charts, which were swung to the north and ‘geared to practice,’ had to manage from the late middle ages onward with merely the coastal outlines and harbours, and completely without the history of god’s saving grace. fig. 4: albino de canepa, portulan chart (oriented to the north), 1489. minneapolis, university of minnesota, james ford bell library. fig. 5: ebstorf map, c. 1300. (wikipedia/kolossos) as the empirical recording of the world’s geography proceeded between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, europe forfeited more and more of its place as one whole fourth of the world. the portuguese voyages to the south atlantic led to a picture of africa’s geographical mass that had once seemed impossible. europe, which had been thought of as equally large, was trimmed down to very modest proportions. then on encountering the new world, the reduction of the surface of europe in proportion to the planet underwent an even more rapid acceleration in the sixteenth century.[17] at that very moment when the europeans were readying themselves to leap across the oceans, their own continent shrank more and more on the maps. a self-assured approach to european cartography solved the dilemma by no longer equating importance with size. at the end of the sixteenth century—following on from sebastian münster[18]—came that famous picture of europe as queen (fig. 6). europa regina no longer assumed just a quarter of the world, like old europe in the maps of yore. sovereign dominion on earth was no longer measured by quantity, but in the late sixteenth century by quality. this asserted itself through long-enduring images of civilisation and culture. europe, just a quarter of the world on the old t-o-maps, and inextricably linked with both asia and africa, now stepped to the fore. in this way, the ruling continent could impressively be distilled from the far greater world. fig. 6: fig. 6: sebastian münster, europe as queen—europa regina, basel 1588, in cosmographia, fol. xli. europe as a place of migration for religions, peoples and culture the christianisation of europe, which was first completed at the end of the fourteenth century after eradicating all the previous polytheistic religions,[19] knit the people and nations together in a community of faith and religion.[20] this was accompanied by pushing through the greek and latin cultures of writing and scholarship, which led to the adoption of and further developments in the knowledge of the world from mediterranean antiquity. with their languages and writing, the new peoples and realms also adopted specific patterns of social order, norms and myths. this awareness of the alien provenance of their faith, origins and ways of thinking shaped how the new was implanted into older traditions. clearly, after the loss of the holy land to arabian empire-building, christianity of the greek orthodox or latin-catholic churches created its own cultic centres in place of the time-honoured patriarchies in the eastern mediterranean.[21] the ascent of the roman papacy and re-stylisation of the patriarchy in constantinople are not simply explicable by the capital’s role in the imperium romanum. rather the decline of the old patriarchy of jerusalem, in the land where christianity was born, had left an authority gap that was boldly filled by the medieval construct of the apostle’s bones migrating to the west. for all the significance that was attributed to rome or constantinople, the christians in both the west and the east were instilled with a constant belief in the origins and goal of salvation. humanity had developed from the east to the west; east of india was paradise, as the medieval maps showed, which remained a place of longing for lost oneness with god (fig. 7).[22] the people of the high and late middle ages envisaged in the east the realm of the priest-king john, from whom they hoped for help against the muslims.[23] the east was the location of jerusalem and the holy sites where god had made his pact with humanity, where jesus had spread his word, had died and resurrected, and where ultimately the miracle of the pentecost had taken place and the first congregation formed. jerusalem, the navel of the world, meant for christians the beginning and goal of salvation, because it was here according to the chiliastic notions of the middle ages that the last emperor was to lay down his crown and sceptre.[24] fig. 7: paradise, detail of ebstorf map, c. 1300. (wikipedia/kolossos) jerusalem, located on high medieval maps in asia, at the centre of the world, was without doubt the foremost place of remembrance for christian europe (fig. 8). the bloody crusades and the countless pilgrimages to palestine aimed at the bodily annexation, as it were, of the holy city, as was constantly brought to mind in church services and sermons. even when the muslim expansion at the end of the middle ages prompted opinions that meanwhile christendom had found its home in europe, jerusalem remained the decisive place for european longings, way above other apostolic places of pilgrimage in rome, constantinople or santiago di compostela.[25] there was no thought of europe as being a distillate from this connection with the holy land through god’s plan for humanity’s salvation. fig. 8: jerusalem, detail of ebstorf map, c. 1300. (wikipedia/kolossos) according to medieval theories of descent, which were handed down as the living past,[26] not only religion but also peoples and cultures migrated from east to west, from mesopotamia, egypt or troy to europe. migrational flows of peoples and nations, as the medieval texts taught, were nothing less than the basic pattern of history. modern models of a “fortress of europe” could not for that reason have existed in the ethnography of the early and high middle ages. already the romans of antiquity had chosen not to have their civilisation rise on their own italian soil. the departure of the noblemen from the ashes of troy and their journeys across the mediterranean were one of the key features of roman imaginings about its size and origins (fig. 9). virgil had invested this mediterranean migration myth with the highest literary import in his aeneis written at the time of augustus. and if the reference to the losers of the trojan war may seem somewhat paradoxical today, aeneas’s derivation offered the roman empire and its medieval scribes a unique opportunity to find a place in the framework of main cultures from the heroic days of old. fig. 9: leaving troy, c. 1470, in recueil des histoires de troie. paris, bibiliothèque nationale de france, collection ou fonds louis de bruges, français 59, fol. 308r. as the frankish kingdom elbowed its way to a position of dominance in western europe in the early middle ages, frankish authors picked up on this pattern of trojan descent and constructed a similar story for their own people, featuring the exodus from troy, long periods of wandering, and the successful establishment of the empires in gaul and germania.[27] this tale of troy maintained by the romans and the franks became the blueprint for many medieval origin myths and grew to become the most successful model for shaping up one’s own life world by means of an ideal past. even those peoples for whom other origins were invented in scandinavia (goths), macedonia (saxons) or armenia (bavarians), availed themselves of the glory of geographically far-flung roots from ancient times. inspirations for this were clearly models from greco-roman and biblical antiquity, above all the old testament stories of wandering in the wilderness and the possession of canaan by the people of israel. being god’s elect and having received his promise was closely bound with long migrations to the promised land. studies by alheydis plassmann on origin myths from the early and high middle ages,[28] and by norbert kersken on drafts of national histories in the high middle ages,[29] make it clear that successful migrations formed the backbone of most originary myths about european peoples. particular mention should be made here of the importance of these two summary works and the rich pickings they contain. alheydis plassmann has teased out highly distinct forms and motifs for the topos of migration in britannia, among the franks and in their subsequent realms in germany and france, as well as among the langobards and the saxons. but she emphasises that “a pure autochthonous origin to the gens … as motif was far less popular,” and that none of the authors she studied advanced the conviction that “that had always been the order of things.” as explanation for this she forwards an established school of sociological thought based on plato’s republic, which says there has to be a “primal deed” at the beginning of any society’s history, namely “revolt and the formation of a new order.”[30] the transmission of this notion—which has enjoyed a broad basis in antique and modern political thought—to the middle ages is stimulating and demands even broader empirical and theoretical underpinnings by expanding cultural studies to embrace global history as a whole. regarding the outlines relating to national histories in the high and late middle ages, norbert kersken has worked on the importance of the realities that people believed in of a primary migration under a salient conqueror in france, england, scotland and hungary. he contrasts this with the “autochthonous concepts of history” of the scandinavian and slavic peoples.[31] this important distinction has only partly been qualified by more recent research into the history of entanglements between scandinavia and the rest of europe,[32] or into the humanistic influence on the way polish national history was written and embedded in latin christendom.[33] we must obviously acknowledge that such notions of migration were lynchpins of the medieval self-image. but caution is advised when interpreting them, and earlier distinctions between an ‘older’ and a ‘younger’ europe should not be enlisted without more ado.[34] what is still lacking at present is a suitably broad research platform for the history of migrations as a believed-in normality in medieval europe. the aim of these remarks is to point out that this is not due to a lack of sources, but to a lack of interest within historical research, which has satisfied itself from time to time since the enlightenment with the revelation that the origines gentium was a naïve fairy-tale, or at best a historiographical construct. which means we are faced with a new beginning in the history of migration and entanglements when we no longer wish to rescue the broad stream of medieval texts as historical facts, or to dissect out ‘cores of reality’, but want rather to discover forms of alterity in bygone ‘knowledge of migrations’. exemplary here are three lines of research into early and high medieval transmissions that all direct attention to rediscovering the things that went without saying, to new questions about old texts, and to some astonishing revelations about the ‘celtic fringe’. first of all, a new look should be taken at medieval texts that openly name migration as a common means of forming historical unions. after the histories of the goths, langobards and saxons from the early middle ages, the ‘historia welforum’ would be important to consult here (fig. 10). in the second half of the twelfth century, the anonymous chronicler of the house of welf certified that it had a distinguished frankish and thus trojan past. history turned into a succession of violent conquests and emerging power structures: “if anyone finds that implausible, let them read the histories of the people (historiae gentilium) and discover that almost every country was conquered by violence and taken by foreigners. the trojans often did this after they were driven from their own territories, as did the goths, the alani, the huns, the vandals, and also the langobards and the other peoples, above all those from the north.”[35] fig. 10: genealogical tree of the welf dynasty, in historia welforum from weingarten. fulda, hessische landesbibliothek, cod. d 11, fol. 13v. secondly, we should mention the byzantine empire, which has often dropped out of sight when looking at ‘european migrations’. it came about through a deliberate shift in emphasis in the fourth century ad and the processes of reconstitution since the sixth. even if the capital, constantinople, constituted a stabilising element up until the ottoman conquest in 1453, greek sources liked to recall the change from old to new rome.[36] in the meantime, the many migrations inside the byzantine empire have been brought more clearly to the fore,[37] including the relocation of certain population groups performed for political expediency.[38] further attention should be paid to the optimistic model of the development from a sclerotic ancient rome in the west, to a go-getting new rome in the east. this imperial migration continued on into the modern era once the 1453 disaster of constantinople was overcome by the idea of a dynamic new start centred on moscow as the third rome. to come to the third point: what is the situation with the regions on the celtic fringe of europe, where archaeological finds have led researchers generally to moot demographic and cultural stasis? it has been objected that one must not forget the tenacity that was evinced in celtic europe, above all in medieval ireland, when we look at the literary models of migration.[39] admittedly there is no arguing about the fact that people stayed put, because this outline is more concerned with the foundations that are believed to have been laid by migrations in the middle ages. the case of ireland shows—contrary to every expectation that it has an untouched, native character—that precisely this island on the western rim of the continent fitted very nicely into the european ‘normal model’ of migratory consciousness. in the eleventh century, the lebor gabála, with its purported history of the land, gave etic and emic views when describing the gaelic migrations to the promised land of the irish island.[40] dagmar schlüter has compared this text with wolfram of eschenbach’s parzival (julia zimmermann) and the regensburger schottenlegende (thomas poser) and drawn attention to the impact of the irish source, which was disseminated in a number of versions up until the seventeenth century.[41] a quick review of schlüter’s observations will be helpful here, because their philological astuteness facilitates access. lebor gabála goes back to the old testament in order to place the irish in the line of noah’s son japheth. from him descended fénius farsaid, who established two lineages, the rulers over the gaels, and the rulers over scythia. fénius and the pharaoh’s daughter had a son who developed irish in egypt from 72 other languages, thus honing it to the peak of perfect human speech. similarly the gaels were led—like the israelites—out of egypt, first to scythia, where after certain confusions only three of the chained-together ships bearing the people survived. these finally arrived at ireland, where the gaels encountered three women at three places: banba, fótla and ériu. each of them requested that her name should be given to the whole of ireland, but ultimately it was ériu who got her way.[42] this mixture of long peregrinations—from egypt and scythia, which is to say from africa and asia, to the west of europe—and the encounter with the indigenous peoples already living there formed a basis for historical awareness in medieval ireland. so these written memories which are handed-down in ireland stand in strong and valiant contrast to any modern ideas that something authentic might still be found in europe’s celt belt. decisive for the european culture of remembrance in the middle ages—as we may sum up this triad—was the complete reshaping of the continent by migrations. its peoples and realms came about at the end of years of wandering; its cultures grew from diverse roots. only with the transition to the modern age, when farewell was bid to the old originary legends, did the nations come to be rooted in the mother soil of europe and the european continent taken as the point of origin and the measure of all civilisation. the decisive turning point for the european cultures of memory in the middle ages—as the lively research into humanism is revealing with increasing clarity—was the period around 1500.[43] the famous words of aeneas silvius piccolomini may be taken as symptomatic of the change. in his responses to the conquest of constantinople by the ottomans in 1453, he created the term ‘europeans’ (europaei) and invoked a european community of fate under the catholic faith (fig. 11). his speech on the turks in 1454 stylised europe as a unifying fatherland, as home and domicile: “the fall of constantinople, my venerable fathers, illustrious princes and all you other men distinguished by your ranks and education, was for the turks a great victory, but for the greeks the greatest catastrophe, for the latins the utmost humiliation, and which torments and puts fear into each and every one of you, or so i believe, the more so the nobler and gentler you are. for what befits a good and noble man more than to care for the faith, to champion religion, and to fortify and uphold as best he may the name of christ the saviour? but now that constantinople is lost, now that such a great city has fallen into the clutches of the foe, so much christian blood been shed, and so many of the faithful been taken into servitude, the catholic faith is gravely wounded, our religion ignominiously shaken, the name of christ immoderately damaged and abased. not in any of the centuries before has the christian fellowship, in all truth, suffered a greater humiliation than now. for while in former times we were wounded in asia and africa, in foreign lands, we have now been shaken and cut down here in europe, in the fatherland, in our own home, in our own domicile. some may say that the turks [already] sailed from asia minor to greece many years ago, that the tatars came and entrenched themselves this side of the don, that the saracens occupied part of spain after crossing the strait of gibraltar; but we have never lost a city or a place in europe in any way comparable to constantinople. … and this city, so gainful, so vital, so valuable, has been lost for christ the lord and became the booty of mohammed the seducer—while we remained silent, if not to say: were asleep.”[44] fig. 11: cristoforo buondelmonte, map of late medieval constantinople, c. 1466, in liber insularum archipelagi. paris, bibliothèque nationale de france, ms lat. 4825, fol. 37v these words were designed to shake up the people. after the loss of constantinople for the christians, four of the five patriarchal churches were under islamic rule: jerusalem, antioch, alexandria, and constantinople. rome alone had been left to christianity. after such experiences of loss and threat, piccolomini dismissed the old image of the turks according to old frankish legend as having joint origins with the franks. no longer did he trace the turks back to the trojans, but to the scythians instead. this decisive repudiation of any kinship between the turks and the european peoples was accompanied by their exclusion as asiatic barbarians, “steeped in every form of debauchery”.[45] that was a new idea of europe, in which piccolomini united the fear of foreign barbarians with the personal belief of being among the chosen. piccolomini aimed this link between europe and christianity pragmatically at the union of the latin and the greek churches. this led of course to a growth in ideological potential in which the european sense of mission took on an increasingly clear shape. europe as the cradle of the true faith and culture—this idea accompanied the successful european power expansion around the world from the sixteenth century onward, along with the differentiation of the peoples into the civilised and the savages. these lines of development cannot be traced purposefully from the middle ages. on the contrary: the practice of marshalling an exclusive idea of europe was not widely practiced and not something obvious. aeneas silvius’s stirring words, which he later continued in his admonishions following his election as pope pius ii, competed with national concepts inside of europe and with the un-emotive inclusion of europe in world history. so an embattled christianity did not simply seek its home in europe. rather, it was this tight situation that actually encouraged a modern idea of europe of a positive cast. wander or stay—hybridisation or native soil this sub-heading pinpoints the concepts that were developed throughout the middle ages for dealing with the establishment of nations and empires. without glossing over the distinctions they present, an opening hypothesis will be advanced of temporal succession. the medieval image of perfectly natural hybridisation through migration was followed after the turn from the middle ages to the early modern era by a new system of historical interpretation in which individual peoples had lived since time immemorial on their native soil and never mingled with others. this model of ethnic purity competed from the second half of the fifteenth century onward with the older certainty that various peoples had wandered over large distances. we know the considerable impact on modern concepts of peoples and nations and on modern forms of citizenship that is exerted by the accident of birthplace and the length of the line of descent. a clear historical development cannot be distinguished. but latin europe saw a clear sense of its own sphere of communication develop from the high to late middle ages, as was further reflected by european cartography. the model of europe as an integral part of the world gave birth to new ideas about the greatest possible advance occurring in the history of the globe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. otto of freising († 1158) came up with the famous thesis that dominion, science and piety had migrated from the east to the west, which consequently marked the culmination of political, cultural and religious development in world history.[46] this model resembles many others in the courageousness with which an author styles himself as the climax and destination of world history. the idea of rulership, science and piety coming from east to west in permanent waves of migration evoked a tight model of development in latin europe in which westernisation was seen as the ennoblement of history. the stasis that the cologne canon alexander of roes[47] attained by anchoring sacerdotium, imperium and studium in the italians, germans and french came in the last quarter of the thirteenth century, at the time when the first collective expansion of the latin europeans across the mediterranean sea collapsed.[48] it was certainly not by chance that this concentration on the core of europe occurred parallel to the downfall of the christian crusaders in palestine (fig. 12). at first the capture of jerusalem in 1099 by the crusaders had inspired considerable confidence in the prospect of missionizing the entire world. all the more dramatic then for the christian self-image was the collapse of christian rule in the holy land between 1187, upon the fall of jerusalem under sultan saladin, and 1291, with the conquest of acre as the last bastion of the crusaders by the mamluks. during the high middle ages this self-image had resolutely avoided involving itself in europe, instead pursuing an agenda of universal missionary work. but now the wave of expansion in latin christendom reversed into its sobering opposite. two reports from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries show this change in the streams of migration. the first is well-known and much cited; the second should be looked at closer as its inversion. fig. 12: pietro vesconte, map of palestine after 1329, in chronologia magna, paulinus minorita. paris, bibliothèque nationale de france, ms lat. 4939, fol. 10v-11r. prior to 1127, at the apex of the first successes, fulcher of chartres, canon of the church of the holy sepulchre in jerusalem, celebrated the new identity of the western christians in the orient: for we who were occidentals have now become orientals. he who was a roman or a frank has in this land been made into a galilean or a palestinian. he who was of rheims or chartres has now become a citizen of tyre or antioch. we have already forgotten the places of our birth; already these are unknown to many of us or not mentioned any more. some already possess homes or households by inheritance. some have taken wives not only of their own people but syrians or armenians or even saracens who have obtained the grace of baptism. …he who was born a stranger is now as one born here; … our relatives and parents join us from time to time, sacrificing. even though reluctantly, all that they formerly possessed. those who were poor in the occident, god makes rich in this land. those who had little money there have countless bezants [gold coins] here, and those who did not have a villa possess here by the gift of god a city. therefore why should one return to the occident who has found the orient like this?[49] but in 1290/91, shortly before the fall of acre, the franciscan monk fidentius of padua swung this success story round into its exact opposite. although many christians arrived from almost every nation to acre, they did not love their new fatherland, but constantly remained newcomers who adhered to their various languages and customs. “it is curious that many christians who came with much passion to the holy land returned to their home countries with an even greater passion.”[50] at the end of the middle ages, humanism brought about a remarkable transformation in the centuries-old understanding of the distant origins of the peoples and cultures. with the passing from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century, just as latin europe was readying itself to cross the oceans, the old teachings of europe as the third part of the world and on the asian descent of the peoples and cultures made way for new ideas about their origins. central here were—slightly overstated—(1) new concepts of ethnic purity, (2) the association between blood and native soil, (3) the nationalization of world history, and (4) the hierarchizing distillation of europe from the entire world. around 1500, new ideas came to replace the older traditions about the origins of peoples based on migration.[51] these peoples no longer had captured their respective lands during the course of history, but had always been there. the change in narrative resulted from an ethnographic turnabout that presumably goes back to the discovery and humanistic reception since 1455 of tacitus’s germania.[52] tacitus had already described the german people around 100 a.d. as indigenes, not as arrivals: “the people of germany appear to me indigenous, and free from intermixture with foreigners, either as settlers or casual visitants.”[53] for late medieval readers, this teaching on the state of native citizenship changed all that had been known till then. these new ideas contrasted strongly with the medieval traditions of migration and the origin myths about the peoples based on lengthy peregrinations and conquests. tacitus’s writing now polarised european scholars. momentous distinctions came into effect regarding the past that had been credited to the germanic or romance peoples.[54] in view of its impact, we shall cast an eye on the swabian discourse.[55] in 1456/57, at the time perhaps that tacitus’s germania was discovered, the augsburg benedictine monk sigmund meisterlin wrote in his augsburg chronicles, in both latin and german, that the swabians had been raised on their soil since time immemorial (fig. 13). this is the opposite model to the trojan migration legend, even if thoroughly influenced by it.[56] fig. 13: the construction of augsburg, 1522, in sigmund meisterlin’s chronicle. munich, bayerische staatsbibliothek, res/2 j.publ.g. 97#beibd.2, fol. 4v. meisterlin’s augsburg was older than rome. his swabians, a people descended from the progeny of noah’s son japheth, were the first to have arrived in the land, which they populated. the vindelici, named after their city of vindelica, constituted one of the swabian tribes prior to roman expansion. swabia was where the campaigns of devastation were despatched from to pre-christian italy. the romans felt the severity of lucan’s furor teutonicus; the swabians held out more tenaciously than any of the other tribes; even caesar failed against them. he was unable to vanquish the warlike swabians, and only managed to win their affections through goods and gifts. since then, the romans, as lords of the world, never accomplished anything of magnitude without the help of the swabians. audacious and faithful—meisterlin already placed the origins of the swabians’ self-confidence in the roman imperial period.[57] these swabian discourses later expanded. heinrich bebel rooted his own tribe in his home soil and wrote a tract on the german peoples as indigenes. with this we discover an interesting watershed—from the swabian perspective—in the late medieval historical memory of the peoples. no longer did they come to their land, they were always there.[58] conrad celtis puts this succinctly with regard to the germanic peoples, who had always lived on the same patch of earth and been engendered under the same sky. writing on the situation in germany and the german way of life, he noted in 1500: “an unvanquished people, well-known throughout the world, has lived forever there where the earth, bent in its spherical form, descends to the north pole. they patiently tolerate the heat of the sun, the cold and hard work; they cannot put up with the idleness of slothful living. this is an indigenous people (indigena gens) that does not trace its origins to another lineage, but that was sired under its own sky …”[59] many lines of tradition come together in this discourse of indigenous origins. decisive starting points were provided by tacitus with the god tuisto who arose from the earth, and his son mannus, the apical ancestor and founder of the germanic people (germany, chap. 2). the harmonisation of ethnographic knowledge with biblical lore was not necessarily done in a uniform manner under humanism, but the variations can be reduced to clear patterns. under the name of annius of viterbo, the papal librarian giovanni nanni (1432–1502) penned a text on the origins of the european peoples which allegedly came from the chaldean priest-prince berossus from the fourth or third century b.c. this pseudo-berossus turned tuisco, or tuisto, who in tacitus is still a god of the germans, into noah’s adopted son and the first legislator on the rhine (fig. 14). with that it seemed proven that the germans were older than the trojans. unlike the woolly eastern borders of the germanic world that we find in tacitus, pseudo-berossus was much clearer: his tuysco was the ruler of sarmatia. in this way, the european empire took shape in the minds of the humanists, from the don to the rhine.[60] and by declaring the scythians to be noah’s first pupils, scythian history was likewise enlisted for german purposes. with that the link was discovered that made german civilisation the oldest in the world, and marked by a strong opposition to everything roman.[61] this served a clear goal for giovanni nanni: “fighting against and ultimately destroying rome!”[62] fig. 14: “tuiscon, father of all germans,” 1543, in ursprung und herkummen der zwölff ersten alten könig und fürsten deutscher nation, burckard waldis. munich, bayerische staatsbibliothek, res/2 a.gr.b. 1121#beibd.5, fol. a2v. a retrograde extension of the german language and culture to the beginnings of humanity was undertaken in der oberrheinische revolutionär. das buchli der hundert capiteln mit xxxx statuten at the turn to the sixteenth century. this reform tract underlined that german was the language of adam, and the sole tongue spoke in noah’s ark, prior to japheth bringing it to the rhine. “the only tongue spoken in noah’s ark was that of adam, and it was german. japheth then brought it to the rhine.”[63] soon after, the bavarian historian aventin also considered including the gauls in the german bloodline, but noted their degeneracy brought on by the mingling of their language and blood. against this, german power could hold its own against and over every empire. tuisco’s offspring had extended their rulership far across the world, “into the asiatic sarmatia, now ‘tartary’, and to scythia bordering india”. in their subsequent struggle against the romans they had allegedly attacked and seized the fertile countryside of the roman empire, to wit italy, france, spain, africa and asia.[64] everything foreign would be repelled by the germans’ valour and moral purity. the reason given for this was the chastity of the german men, who despised nothing more than effeminacy and held nothing in higher regard than purity. for which reason they had in primeval times avoided the proximity of women, foreigners and books.[65] with this, the scholarly humanists created their own associative picture of the ascendancy of the german people, which had lived on its “old sod” since time immemorial. there was no place in this self-image for dynamics and hybridisation through migrations, land occupation and settlement, or ethnogenesis. the consequences for the ongoing development of national stereotypes were considerable in the modern era, because it made quite a difference whether a people developed its history from foreign origins or from the eternally same soil of the homeland, which is to say from the bond between blood and soil. the research is closer to its onset than its end, because not until the lines of development in other european countries have been established from the sources can we establish a reliable basis to compare such concepts about origins.[66] so in the end we are faced with a paradox: the more of the world the european peoples accessed, the older and purer they claimed the history of their own people to be. in terms of geographical knowledge, europe shrank by relation more and more (fig. 15, following page). the southern voyages of the portuguese in the fifteenth century proved that one could no longer speak of europe and africa as being of equal extent, as had been believed since ancient times. the circumnavigation of the globe in the sixteenth century then turned europe into an even smaller part of the world. the europeans overcame this by making new distinctions between the civilized world and the savages,[67] through colonialism and slavery,[68] and through the idea of europe as queen of the world. it was to take some time before this essentialism was seriously challenged. in return, the present methodological and theoretical approaches are now all the more resolute. ‘transcultural studies’ is making an end of the old models of acculturation and of the export of civilisation, and returning europe back to a small patch of the world, even smaller than it already was on the ebstorf map around 1300. fig. 15: martin waldseemüller, map of the world (cosmographiae introductio), 1507, africa breaches the frame of the map. washington, dc, library of congress, geography and map division. [1] this text presents in broad swaths a translation of bernd schneidmüller, “die mittelalterlichen destillationen europas aus der welt,” in europa in der welt des mittelalters: ein colloquium für und mit michael borgolte, ed. tillmann lohse and benjamin scheller (berlin: de gruyter, 2014), 11–32. i would like to thank the editors and the publisher for their kind permission and malcolm green for the english translation. [2] summary publications from the dfg-schwerpunktprogramm 1173: michael borgolte, juliane schiel, bernd schneidmüller, and annette seitz, eds., mittelalter im labor: die mediävistik testet wege zu einer transkulturellen europawissenschaft. europa im mittelalter: abhandlungen und beiträge zur historischen komparatistik, ed. michael borgolte and wolfgang huschner, vol. 10 (berlin: akademie verlag, 2008); michael borgolte and bernd schneidmüller, eds., hybride kulturen im mittelalterlichen europa: vorträge und workshops einer internationalen frühlingsschule—hybrid cultures in medieval europe: papers and workshops of an international spring school. europa im mittelalter: abhandlungen und beiträge zur historischen komparatistik, ed. michael borgolte and wolfgang huschner, vol. 16 (berlin: akademie verlag, 2010); michael borgolte, julia dücker, marcel müllerburg, and bernd schneidmüller, eds., integration und desintegration der kulturen im mittelalterlichen europa. europa im mittelalter: abhandlungen und beiträge zur historischen komparatistik, ed. michael borgolte and wolfgang huschner, vol. 18 (berlin: akademie verlag, 2011). [3] michael borgolte, julia dücker, marcel müllerburg, paul predatsch, and bernd schneidmüller, eds., europa im geflecht der welt: mittelalterliche migrationen in globalen bezügen. europa im mittelalter: abhandlungen und beiträge zur historischen komparatistik, ed. michael borgolte and wolfgang huschner, vol. 20 (berlin: akademie verlag, 2012). cf. michael borgolte, “migrationen als transkulturelle verflechtungen im mittelalterlichen europa: ein neuer pflug für alte forschungsfelder,” historische zeitschrift 289 (2009): 261–285; michael borgolte, “mythos völkerwanderung: migration oder expansion bei den ‘ursprüngen europas’”, viator 41 (2010): 23–47. [4] michael borgolte, ed., migrationen im mittelalter: ein handbuch (berlin: de gruyter, 2014); the encyclopedia of global human migration, ed. immanuel ness (chichester: wiley-blackwell, 2013). [5] my own sketches on this: bernd schneidmüller, “europäische erinnerungsorte im mittelalter,” jahrbuch für europäische geschichte 3 (2002): 39–58; bernd schneidmüller, grenzerfahrung und monarchische ordnung: europa 1200–1500 (munich: beck, 2011). [6] fundamental now to the history of the research and interpretations is klaus oschema, bilder von europa im mittelalter. mittelalter-forschungen, vol. 43 (ostfildern: thorbecke, 2013). [7] achim thomas hack, “das mittelalter als epoche im schulbuch: periodisierung und charakterisierung,” in das bild des mittelalters in europäischen schulbüchern, ed. martin clauss and manfred seidenfuß (berlin: lit, 2007), 85–116; jürgen voss, das mittelalter im historischen denken frankreichs: untersuchungen zur geschichte des mittelalterbegriffes und der mittelalterbewertung von der zweiten hälfte des 16. bis zur mitte des 19. jahrhunderts. veröffentlichungen des historischen instituts der universität mannheim, vol. 3 (munich: w. fink, 1972); uwe neddermeyer, das mittelalter in der deutschen historiographie vom 15. bis zum 18. jahrhundert: geschichtsgliederung und epochenverständnis in der frühen neuzeit. kölner historische abhandlungen, vol. 34 (cologne: böhlau, 1988); jean-daniel morerod, “la base textuelle d’un mythe historiographique: le ‘moyen âge’ des humanistes italiens,” in retour aux sources: textes, études et documents d’histoire médiévale offerts à michel parisse, ed. michel parisse and sylvain gouguenheim (paris: picard, 2004), 943–953. [8] on the power exerted by such concepts, see hans-werner goetz, vorstellungsgeschichte: gesammelte schriften zu wahrnehmungen, deutungen und vorstellungen im mittelalter, ed. anna aurast, simon elling, bele freudenberg, anja lutz, and steffen patzold (bochum: winkler, 2007). [9] folker reichert, das bild der welt im mittelalter (darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft, 2013), 9–42; ingrid baumgärtner and martina stercken, eds., herrschaft verorten: politische kartographie im mittelalter und in der frühen neuzeit. medienwandel – medienwechsel – medienwissen, vol. 19 (zurich: chronos, 2012); christoph markschies, ingeborg reichle, jochen brüning, and peter deuflhard, eds., atlas der weltbilder. berlin-brandenburgische akademie der wissenschaften: forschungsberichte, vol. 25 (berlin: akademie verlag, 2011); anna-dorothee von den brincken, studien zur universalkartographie des mittelalters. veröffentlichungen des max-planck-instituts für geschichte, ed. thomas szabó, vol. 229 (göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht, 2008); ingrid baumgärtner and hartmut kugler, eds., europa im weltbild des mittelalters: kartographische konzepte. orbis mediaevalis. vorstellungswelten des mittelalters, vol. 10 (berlin: akademie verlag, 2008); evelyn edson, emilie savage-smith, and anna-dorothee von den brincken, medieval views of the cosmos (oxford: bodleian library, university of oxford, 2004); ute schneider, die macht der karten: eine geschichte der kartographie vom mittelalter bis heute (darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft, 2004). [10] hans werner goetz, geschichtsschreibung und geschichtsbewußtsein im hohen mittelalter. orbis mediaevalis. vorstellungswelten des mittelalters, vol. 1 (berlin: akademie verlag, 1999); hans-werner goetz, gott und die welt: religiöse vorstellungen des frühen und hohen mittelalters, part 1, vol. 1, das gottesbild. orbis mediaevalis. vorstellungswelten des mittelalters, vol. 13.1 (berlin: akademie verlag, 2011); hans-werner goetz, gott und die welt. religiöse vorstellungen des frühen und hohen mittelalters, part 1, vol. 2, ii. die materielle schöpfung: kosmos und welt. iii. die welt als heilsgeschehen. orbis mediaevalis. vorstellungswelten des mittelalters, vol. 13.2 (berlin: akademie verlag, 2012). [11] gent, universiteitsbibliotheek, ms. 92, fol. 241r. reproduced in oschema, bilder von europa im mittelalter, ill. 11. cautious evaluation of the same, 452–473. [12] see oschema, bilder von europa im mittelalter, 336 ff. [13] honorius augustodunensis, imago mundi, ed. valerie i. j. flint. archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge49, (paris: librairie philosophique j. vrin, 1982), 7–153, in particular 125. [14] evelyn edson, the world map, 1300–1492: the persistence of tradition and transformation (baltimore : johns hopkins university press, 2007); rudolf simek, erde und kosmos im mittelalter: das weltbild vor kolumbus (munich: beck, 1992); patrick gautier dalché, la géographie de ptolémée en occident (ive–xvie siècle) (turnhout: brepols, 2009). regarding the portulan charts see monique de la roncière and michel mollat du jourdin, portulane: seekarten vom 13. bis zum 17. jahrhundert (munich: hirmer verlag, 1984). [15] michael borgolte, “christliche und muslimische repräsentationen der welt: ein versuch in transdisziplinärer mediävistik,” in berlin-brandenburgische akademie der wissenschaften: berichte und abhandlungen 14 (2008): 89–147. [16] hartmut kugler, ed., die ebstorfer weltkarte: kommentierte neuausgabe in zwei bänden (berlin: akademie verlag, 2007). [17] anna-dorothee von den brincken, fines terrae: die enden der erde und der vierte kontinent auf mittelalterlichen weltkarten. schriften der monumenta germaniae historica, vol. 36 (hanover: hahnsche buchhandlung, 1992); abraham ortelius, theatrum orbis terrarum: gedruckt zu nuermberg durch johann koler anno mdlxxii; mit einer einführung und erläuterungen von ute schneider (darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft, 2006). [18] caspar hirschi, “boden der christenheit und quelle der männlichkeit: humanistische konstruktionen europas am beispiel von enea silvio piccolomini und sebastian münster,” in leitbild europa? europabilder und ihre wirkungen in der neuzeit, ed. jürgen elvert and jürgen nielsen-sikora (stuttgart: franz steiner verlag, 2009), 46–66. [19] christoph stiegemann, martin kroker, and wolfgang walter, eds., credo: christianisierung europas im mittelalter. 2 vols. (petersberg: michael imhof verlag, 2013); rudolf schieffer, christianisierung und reichsbildungen: europa 700–1200 (munich: beck, 2013). [20] for the historical and cultural importance of monotheism see garth fowden, empire to commonwealth: consequences of monotheism in late antiquity (princeton, n.j.: princeton university press, 1993); michael borgolte, christen, juden, muselmanen: die erben der antike und der aufstieg des abendlandes 300 bis 1400 n. chr. (munich: siedler-verlag, 2006). [21] ernst pitz, die griechisch-römische ökumene und die drei kulturen des mittelalters: geschichte des mediterranen weltteils zwischen atlantik und indischem ozean, 270–812. europa im mittelalter. abhandlungen und beiträge zur historischen komparatistik, vol. 3 (berlin: akademie verlag, 2001). [22] bernhard pabst, “ideallandschaft und ursprung der menschheit: paradieskonzeptionen und -lokalisierungen des mittelalters im wandel”, frühmittelalterliche studien 38 (2004): 17–53. [23] ulrich knefelkamp, die suche nach dem reich des priesterkönigs johannes: dargestellt anhand von reiseberichten und anderen ethnographischen quellen des 12. bis 17. jahrhunderts (gelsenkirchen: a. müller, 1986); bettina wagner, die ‘epistola presbiteri johannis’ lateinisch und deutsch. überlieferung, textgeschichte, rezeption und übertragungen im mittelalter: mit bisher unedierten texten. münchener texte und untersuchungen zur deutschen literatur des mittelalters, vol. 115 (tübingen: niemeyer, 2000). [24] hannes möhring, der weltkaiser der endzeit: entstehung, wandel und wirkung einer tausendjährigen weissagung. mittelalter-forschungen, vol. 3 (stuttgart: thorbecke, 2000); beat wolf, jerusalem und rom: mitte, nabel – zentrum, haupt; die metaphern ‘umbilicus mundi’ und ‘caput mundi’ in den weltbildern der antike und des abendlands bis in die zeit der ebstorfer weltkarte (bern: lang, 2010); bruno reudenbach, ed., jerusalem, du schöne: vorstellungen und bilder einer heiligen stadt. vestigia bibliae, vol. 28 (bern: lang, 2008). [25] klaus herbers, pilger, päpste, heilige: ausgewählte aufsätze zur europäischen geschichte des mittelalters, ed. gordon blennemann, wiebke deimann, matthias mauser, and christofer zwanzig (tübingen: narr, 2011). [26] františek graus, lebendige vergangenheit: überlieferungen im mittelalter und in den vorstellungen vom mittelalter (cologne: böhlau, 1975). cf. also beate kellner, ursprung und kontinuität: studien zum genealogischen wissen im mittelalter (munich: w. fink, 2004). [27] troia: traum und wirklichkeit, ed. joachim latacz (stuttgart: theiss, 2001). published in conjuncture with the exhibition oft the same name, shown at forum der landesbank baden–württemberg, in cooperation with the archäologisches landesmuseum baden–württemberg in stuttgart, the braunschweigisches landesmuseum and herzog–anton–ulrich-museum – burg dankwarderode in braunschweig, and the kunst und ausstellungshalle der bundesrepublik deutschland in bonn, 2001/2002; kordula wolf, troja – metamorphosen eines mythos: französische, englische und italienische überlieferungen des 12. jahrhunderts im vergleich. europa im mittelalter. abhandlungen und beiträge zur historischen komparatistik, vol. 13 (berlin: akademie verlag, 2009). [28] alheydis plassmann, origo gentis: identitätsund legitimationsstiftung in frühund hochmittelalterlichen herkunfserzählungen. orbis mediaevalis. vorstellungswelten des mittelalters, vol. 7 (berlin: akademie verlag, 2006). [29] norbert kersken, geschichtsschreibung im europa der ‘nationes’: nationalgeschichtliche gesamtdarstellungen im mittelalter. münstersche historische forschungen, vol. 8 (cologne: böhlau, 1995). [30] plassmann, origo gentis, 361f. [31] kersken, geschichtsschreibung im europa der ‘nationes’, 800f. [32] thomas foerster, vergleich und identität: selbstund fremddeutung im norden des hochmittelalterlichen europa. europa im mittelalter. abhandlungen und beiträge zur historischen komparatistik, vol. 14 (berlin: akademie verlag, 2009); dominik waßenhoven, skandinavier unterwegs in europa, 1000–1250: untersuchungen zu mobilität und kulturtransfer auf prosopographischer grundlage. europa im mittelalter. abhandlungen und beiträge zur historischen komparatistik, vol. 8 (berlin: akademie verlag, 2006). [33] hans-jürgen bömelburg, frühneuzeitliche nationen im östlichen europa: das polnische geschichtsdenken und die reichweite einer humanistischen nationalgeschichte, 1500–1700. veröffentlichungen des nordost-instituts, vol. 4 (wiesbaden: harrassowitz, 2004). [34] apart from this hierarchisation, which developed in the period when europe underwent a divide, but also expressly stimulated by the courage that went into this attempt to achieve structure, the spp-schwerpunktprogramm 1173 tried to develop a non-targeted perspectival approach to europe in the middle ages, cf. note. 2.—regarding the medieval history of europe (in the world ) cf. hans-werner goetz, europa im frühen mittelalter, 500–1050. handbuch der geschichte europas, vol. 2 (stuttgart: verlag eugen ulmer, 2003); michael borgolte, europa entdeckt seine vielfalt, 1050–1250. handbuch der geschichte europas, vol. 3 (stuttgart: verlag eugen ulmer, 2002); michael north, europa expandiert, 1250–1500. handbuch der geschichte europas, vol. 4 (stuttgart: verlag eugen ulmer, 2007); thomas ertl, seide, pfeffer und kanonen: globalisierung im mittelalter (darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft, 2008); akira iriye and jürgen osterhammel, eds., 1350–1750, weltreiche und weltmeere. geschichte der welt, ed. wolfgang reinhardt, vol. 3 (munich: beck, 2014). [35] matthias becher, ed., quellen zur geschichte der welfen und die chronik burchards von ursberg. ausgewählte quellen zur deutschen geschichte des mittelalters, vol. 18b (darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft, 2007), 34/35. [36] franz dölger, “rom in der gedankenwelt der byzantiner,“ in byzanz und die europäische staatenwelt: ausgewählte vorträge und aufsätze (ettal: buch–kunstverlag, 1953), 70–115; kilian lechner, “hellenen und barbaren im weltbild der byzantiner: die alten bezeichnungen als ausdruck eines neuen kulturbewußtseins” (doctoral dissertation, lmu munich, 1954); kilian lechner, “byzanz und die barbaren,” saeculum 6, (1955): 292–306; herbert hunger, reich der neuen mitte: der christliche geist der byzantinischen kultur (graz: verlag styria, 1965); hélène ahrweiler, l’idéologie politique de l’empire byzantin. l’historien, vol. 20 (paris: presses universitaires de france, 1975); ralph-johannes lilie, byzanz: das zweite rom (berlin: siedler-verlag, 2003). [37] peter charanis, studies on the demography of the byzantine empire: collected studies (london: variorum reprints, 1972); anna avraméa, le péloponnèse du ive au viiie siècle: changements et persistances. publications de la sorbonne. série byzantina sorbonensia, vol. 15 (paris: publications de la sorbonne, 1997); hélène ahrweiler and angeliki e. laiou, eds., studies on the internal diaspora of the byzantine empire (washington, d.c.: dumbarton oaks research library and collection, 1998); michel balard and alain ducellier, eds., migrations et diasporas méditerranéenes (xe–xvie siècles). publications de la sorbonne. série byzantina sorbonensia, vol. 19 (paris: publications de la sorbonne, 2002); victor spinei, the great migration in the east and south east of europe from the ninth to the thirteenth century. 2 vols (amsterdam: hakkert, 2006). [38] peter charanis, “the transfer of population as a policy in the byzantine empire”, in charanis, studies on the demography of the byzantine empire. [39] an overview may be found in michael richter, irland im mittelalter: kultur und geschichte (stuttgart: kohlhammer, 1983). [40] rezension i, given in the ‘book of leinster’, the oldest manuscript from the end of the 12th century: richard i. best, osborn bergin, and michael a. o’brien, eds., the book of leinster formerly lebar na núachongbála, vol. 1 (dublin: dublin institute for advanced studies, 1954), 1–56. john t. koch and john carey, eds., the celtic heroic age: literary sources for ancient celtic europe and early ireland and wales, 2nd edition. celtic studies publications, vol. 1 (malden, mass.: celtic studies publications, 1995), 213–266; cf. dagmar schlüter, history or fable? the book of leinster as a document of cultural memory in twelfth-century ireland. studien und texte zur keltologie, vol. 9 (münster: nodus, 2010). [41] thomas poser, dagmar schlüter, and julia zimmermann, “migration und ihre literarische inszenierung: zwischen interkultureller abschottung und transkultureller verflechtung,” in borgolte, europa im geflecht der welt, 87–100, here 93–95. [42] i follow here the chapter in poser, “migration und ihre literarische inszenierung,” 93–95. [43] of fundamental importance caspar hirschi, wettkampf der nationen: konstruktionen einer deutschen ehrgemeinschaft an der wende vom mittelalter zur neuzeit (göttingen: wallstein, 2005); cf. also frank l. borchardt, german antiquity in renaissance myth (baltimore: john hopkins press, 1971); paul joachimsen, geschichtsauffassung und geschichtsschreibung in deutschland unter dem einfluß des humanismus, vol. 1 (leipzig: teubner, 1910); ulrich muhlack, geschichtswissenschaft im humanismus und in der aufklärung: die vorgeschichte des historismus (munich: beck, 1991); johannes helmrath, “die umprägung von geschichtsbildern in der historiographie des europäischen humanismus,” in von fakten und fiktionen: mittelalterliche geschichtsdarstellungen und ihre kritische aufarbeitung, ed. johannes laudage (cologne: böhlau, 2003), 323–352; johannes helmrath, “probleme und formen nationaler und regionaler historiographie des deutschen und europäischen humanismus um 1500,” in spätmittelalterliches landesbewußtsein in deutschland, ed. matthias werner (ostfildern: thorbecke, 2005), 333–392. [44] johannes helmrath, “enea silvio piccolomini (pius ii.) – ein humanist als vater des europagedankens?”, in europa und die europäer: quellen und essays zur modernen europäischen geschichte, ed. rüdiger hohls, iris schröder, and hannes siegrist (stuttgart: franz steiner verlag, 2005), 361–369, quellen 366–369, quelle 6.1c. [45] hirschi, „boden der christenheit und quelle der männlichkeit,“ 49. [46] see hans-werner goetz, das geschichtsbild ottos von freising: ein beitrag zur historischen vorstellungswelt und zur geschichte des 12. jahrhunderts. beihefte zum archiv für kulturgeschichte, vol. 19 (cologne: böhlau, 1984). a new interpretation may be found in joachim ehlers, otto von freising: ein intellektueller im mittelalter (munich: beck, 2013). [47] alexander of roes, “noticia seculi”, in alexander von roes: schriften, ed. herbert grundmann and hermann heimpel. monumenta germaniae historica. staatsschriften des späteren mittelalters, vol. 1:1 (stuttgart: hiersemann, 1958), 149–171, here 159; on the further development of the roman-german empire in the late middle ages see len scales, the shaping of german identity: authority and crisis, 1245–1414 (cambridge, n.y: cambridge university press, 2012). [48] annette seitz, das lange ende der kreuzfahrerreiche in der universalchronistik des lateinischen europa (1187–1291). historische studien, vol. 497 (husum: matthiesen, 2010). [49] fulcher of chartres, historia hierosolymitana, ed. harold fink, trans. frances ryan (knoxville: university of texas press, 1969), lib. iii, chap. 37, 271–272. [50] fidentius of padua, “liber recuperationis terre sancte ([1274] 1290–1291),” projets de croisade (v. 1290–v. 1330), ed. jacques paviot (paris 2008), 54–169, here 62f. [51] i am consulting in the following my own expositions in bernd schneidmüller, “erinnerte gentes: geschichtsgedächtnis für das spätere mittelalter,” in völker, reiche und namen im frühen mittelalter, ed. matthias becher and stefanie dick. mittelalterstudien, vol. 22 (munich: w. fink, 2010), 395–409. [52] dieter mertens, “die instrumentalisierung der ‘germania’ des tacitus durch die deutschen humanisten,” in zur geschichte der gleichung ‘germanisch – deutsch’: sprache und namen, geschichte und institutionen, ed. heinrich beck, dieter geuenich, heiko steuer, and dieter hakelberg. ergänzungsbände zum reallexikon der germanischen altertumskunde, vol. 34 (berlin: de gruyter, 2004), 37–101; dieter mertens, “caesar, arminius und die deutschen: meistererzählungen und aitiologien,” in antike im mittelalter: fortleben, nachwirken, wahrnehmung, ed. sebastian brather, hans ulrich nuber, heiko steuer, and thomas zotz (ostfildern: thorbecke, 2014), 383–441. cf. also arno borst, der turmbau von babel: geschichte der meinungen über ursprung und vielfalt der sprachen und völker, 4 vols. (stuttgart: hiersemann, 1957–63), 3.1: 1033–1101; christopher b. krebs, negotiatio germaniae: tacitus’ germania und enea silvio piccolomini, giannantonio campano, conrad celtis und heinrich bebel. hypomnemata, vol. 158 (göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht, 2005). [53] germany and the agricola of tacitus, trans. edward brooks (philadelphia: david mckay, 1897), 2.1., http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/europe/l/bl_text_tacitus_germania.htm [accessed on 03. december 2014]. [54] the explosiveness of this new interpretation, up to its ideologisation in the 20th century, is striking in hirschi, wettkampf der nationen, 489–501. [55] see klaus graf, “das ‘land’ schwaben im späten mittelalter,” in regionale identität und soziale gruppen im deutschen mittelalter, ed. peter moraw. zeitschrift für historische forschung. beiheft, vol. 14 (berlin: duncker & humblot, 1992), 127–164; klaus graf, exemplarische geschichten: thomas lirers ‘schwäbische chronik’ und die gmündener kaiserchronik’. forschungen zur geschichte der älteren deutschen literatur, vol. 7 (munich: w. fink, 1987). [56] gernot michael müller, “‘quod non sit honor augustensibus si dicantur a teucris ducere originem’: humanistische aspekte in der cronographia augustensium des sigismund meisterlin,” in humanismus und renaissance in augsburg. kulturgeschichte einer stadt zwischen spätmittelalter und dreißigjährigem krieg. frühe neuzeit, vol. 144 (berlin: de gruyter, 2010), 237–273. [57] as evinced in dieter mertens, “spätmittelalterliches landesbewußtsein im gebiet des alten schwaben,” in werner, spätmittelalterliches landesbewußtsein in deutschland, 93–156, here 145f. [58] krebs, negotiatio germaniae, 226–250. [59] gernot michael müller, die ‘germania generalis’ des conrad celtis: studien mit edition, übersetzung und kommentar. frühe neuzeit, vol. 67 (tübingen: niemeyer, 2001), 94f. [60] ronald e. asher, ed./trans., national myths in renaissance france: francus, samothes and the druids (edinburgh: edinburgh university press, 1993), app. i: text and translation of annius fragments attributed to berosus and manetho, 191–233, citation 202; on tuisco, tuisto as noah’s adopted son: 208. [61] asher, national myths in renaissance france, 198. [62] hirschi, wettkampf der nationen, 331. [63] der oberrheinische revolutionär: das buchli der hundert capiteln mit xxxx statuten, ed. klaus h. lauterbach. monumenta germaniae historica. staatsschriften des späteren mittelalters, vol. 7 (hanover: hahnsche buchhandlung, 2009), chap. 10, 135; cf. also chap. 8, 127: “der sproch, den adam sproch, das ist almantz sproch, darumb die tuschen hiessen in latin ‘almani’”. on the theory of origins klaus h. lauterbach, geschichtsverständnis, zeitdidaxe und reformgedanke an der wende zum sechzehnten jahrhundert: das oberrheinische ‘buchli der hundert capiteln’ im kontext des spätmittelalterlichen reformbiblizismus. forschungen zur oberrheinischen landesgeschichte, vol. 33 (freiburg: k. alber, 1985), 167–179 (with references to hildegard of bingen, whose adam and eve also spoke german). [64] johannes aventin, “chronica von ursprung, herkomen und taten der uralten teutschen …,” in johannes turmair’s genannt aventinus kleinere historische und philologische schriften (munich: kaiser, 1881), 299–372, here 343. [65] as evinced by hirschi, wettkampf der nationen, 333–337. [66] see for instance with regard to the gallic usurpation of france’s frankish past, colette beaune, naissance de la nation france (paris: gallimard, 1985); jean-louis brunaux, nos ancêtres les gaulois (paris: éditions du seuil, 2008); henri duranton, “‘nos ancêtres, les gaulois’. genèse et avatars d’un cliché historique,” cahiers d’histoire 14 (1969): 339–370. [67] urs bitterli, die ‘wilden’ und die ‘zivilisierten’: grundzüge einer geistesund kulturgeschichte der europäisch-überseeischen begegnung, 3rd edition (munich: beck, 2004). [68] walter demel, ed., entdeckungen und neue ordnungen, 1200 bis 1800, wbg weltgeschichte: eine globale geschichte von den anfängen bis ins 21. jahrhundert, vol. 4 (darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft, 2010); wolfgang reinhard, geschichte der europäischen expansion. vols. 1–2. (stuttgart: kohlhammer, 1983–1985). 2014.1 editor’s note rudolf g. wagner .04 articles peter j. schwartz the ideological antecedents of the first-series renminbi worker-and-peasant banknote or what mao tse-tung may have owed to dziga vertov .08 shaoqian zhang combat and collaboration: the clash of propaganda prints between the chinese guomindang and the japanese empire in the 1930s–1940s .95 mariachiara gasparini a mathematic expression of art: sino-iranian and uighur textile interactions and the turfan textile collection in berlin .134 lars schladitz whaling, science, and trans-maritime networks, 1910–1914 .164 ana carolina hosne friendship among literati. matteo ricci sj (1552–1610) in late ming china .190 2 contributors transcultural studies, no 1, 2014, issn: 2191-6411 editors: monica juneja,ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg rudolf g. wagner, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg managing editor: andrea hacker editorial board: christiane brosius, antje fluechter, madeleine herren, birgit kellner, joachim kurtz, axel michaels, barbara mittler, diamantis panagiotopoulos, vladimir tikhonov, and roland wenzlhuemer. transcultural studies is an open-access e-journal published bi-annually by the cluster of excellence, “asia and europe in a global context: the dynamics of transculturality“ at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. for more information see: www.transculturalstudies.org contributors to this issue: peter j. schwartz is associate professor of german and comparative literature at boston university. he is the author of after jena: goethe’s elective affinities and the end of the old regime (bucknell up, 2010) and various articles on goethe and his age, georg büchner, aby m. warburg, and michael haneke. he is currently preparing a complete translation of andré jolles’s einfache formen (simple forms, 1930). shaoqian zhang is an art historian and holds an assistant professorship at oklahoma state university, where she specializes in east asian art and architecture. she received her ba from beijing university and her phd from northwestern university, before joining oklahoma state university in 2011. with a particular interest in the history of chinese printmaking and propaganda art, zhang is currently writing a book that investigates the evolution of chinese prints from the end of the qing dynasty to world war ii, with special emphasis on the influence of japanese art on chinese art. her publications include articles in modern art asia (2011), parnassus (2008), and kaogu yu wenwu (2002). www.transculturalstudies.org 3transcultural studies 2014.1 mariachiara gasparini graduated from the university of eastern studies in naples and obtained a merit evaluation from sotheby’s institute of art in london before she joined the cluster’s graduate programme for transcultural studies (gpts) in november 2012, to pursue a phd. her dissertation project explores the transfer of textile imagery from central asia to europe along the silk road between the 7th and 14th centuries. among her most recent publications is “the silk cover of the admonitions scroll: aesthetic and visual analysis”, in ming and qing studies, 2013. lars schladitz is a phd candidate in erfurt university’s history department, in the research group “world regions and interactions”. his work investigates the history of modern japanese whaling and examines how continued global entanglements shaped both the practice of whaling and the attitudes towards whales. the project featured in this issue blends his research interests: the history of modern japan, as well as environmental and global history. he recently contributed a study of japanese antarctic whaling to the germanlanguage edited volume weltmeere. wissen und wahrnehmung im langen 19. jahrhundert (göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht, 2014). ana carolina hosne is a marie curie experience researcher for the gerda henkel foundation at the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context”, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. she has held positions as a visiting scholar and research fellow at various institutions, including the center for chinese studies in taipei, taiwan, harvard university, and the european university institute. her field of research is the society of jesus in the late 16th to early 17th century in ming-dynasty china, colonial latin american history, and early modern european history. she is the author of the book the jesuit missions to china and peru, 1570-1610. expectations and appraisals of expansionism (routledge, 2013). her current book project is entitled words and images: the different approaches to and expressions of memory in the jesuit mission to china (16th–17th centuries). from theology’s handmaid to the science of sciences | sela | transcultural studies from theology’s handmaid to the science of sciences: western philosophy’s transformations on its way to china ori sela, tel aviv university during the nineteenth century the category of philosophy was warmly adopted by asian thinkers.[1] first in india, then in japan, and finally in china, scholars who gradually became more acquainted with western systems of knowledge accepted not only the uses of this category and its usefulness, but also its superior position within western knowledge systems and hence its crucial importance for their countries in their perceived quest for modernization. these scholars thus attempted both to disseminate western philosophical knowledge and to formulate their indigenous knowledge systems within its philosophical framework. this process of adaptation is particularly fascinating in light of the fact that the category—philosophy—had already been introduced to china in the seventeenth century, but was, overall, rejected. in this article i sketch and analyze the various ways in which philosophy transformed in the west from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, that is, the process that made the category appealing to chinese scholars at the end of this period. i present, first, the type of philosophy that was introduced to china by the jesuits and, second, the various transformations philosophy underwent until its reintroduction in the nineteenth century. philosophy’s changing relationship with theology and religion is emphasized, as, i claim, this relationship had significant bearing on the modes of introduction as well as on the receptiveness to philosophy in china, particularly in the earlier period. lastly, the reception of the category is outlined along with the dynamics of its changing nature during the dialogue between western and chinese protagonists. i thereby problematize and challenge the assumption that philosophy was important always or by default in the west and therefore no justification was needed for its introduction to and importance in asia. philosophy, of course, has never been an immutable category that changes in content alone; the term itself has had different referents and thus its own intellectual history. moreover, in none of the periods examined here was there a single type of philosophy; my focus is therefore on the kinds of philosophy—or rather, the kinds of perceptions of philosophy—that ended up in china in the context of philosophy’s transformations in the west. jesuit philosophy and its opponents the jesuit giulio aleni (艾儒略, 1582–1649) was among the first to bring the category of philosophy to china. to present “philosophy” to his late ming dynasty (1368–1644) scholarly audience he first used a transliteration: 斐祿所費亞 (fei-lu-suo-fei-ya). he then equated philosophy with the “learning” or “discipline” of principles (理學/科)—the neo-confucian doctrine and ideology, which developed during the song dynasty and was closely related to the imperial authorities—explaining the term as follows: 理學者﹐義理之大學也。人以義理超於萬物﹐而為萬物之靈。格物窮理則於人全﹐而於天近。然物之理藏在物中﹐如金在砂﹐如玉在璞﹐須淘之﹐剖之以斐祿所費亞之學。 the learning of principles is the great learning among the [various discussions of] meanings and principles. it is by way of “meanings and principles” that men surpass the myriad things and become the luminous spirit of the myriad things. the “investigation of things and the fathoming of principles” thus encompasses the entire human condition and comes close to heaven. indeed, as gold is [hidden] in the sand, jade in the uncut stone, so is the principle of things hidden within the things; one must filter [the sand] with water or chisel [the stone] in order to [arrive] at the learning of philosophy.[2] aleni’s 1623 explanation, equating philosophy with the learning of principles, seems to have worked quite well, for soon thereafter the transliteration was abandoned and the chinese term for philosophy became “the investigation of things and fathoming of principles” (格物窮理), a classical chinese formulation that was at the core of the learning of principles and well known to any chinese scholar at the time.[3] in the same essay, however, aleni also presented several branches of knowledge and learning as well as the curriculum for the study thereof, not just philosophy. and despite his high regard for philosophy, he claimed that “all [these branches of learning] consider theology as the ultimate [learning]” (無不以陡祿日亞為極).[4] aleni, having already presented the transliteration of theology (dou-lu-ri-ya), further translated the term as “learning of the way” (道學), again making it appear as an indigenous chinese classical term that could also stand for song neo-confucianism alongside the “learning of principle” (理學), which he equated with philosophy. it was theology, according to aleni, that incorporated the teachings of the sages and worthies (聖賢) of the west, and by ”making [theology’s] way bright and clear, there would be no meanings and principles in christianity that are not established” (明其道使天主教中義理無不立).[5] aleni introduced “the great sage called duo-ma-si” (大聖名為多瑪斯), i.e., thomas aquinas (1225–1274), whose writings were “extremely broad and also got hold of the previous sages’ words” (甚博又取前聖之言). he explained that “what theology elucidates is the most illuminated, the most selected, and the truest” (陡祿日亞所言，最明，最簡，最確).[6] theology and philosophy were thus rendered as complementary—philosophy dealing mostly with the learning or the way of humans (人學/道) and theology with the way of heaven (天學/道);[7] yet the complementary relations were still hierarchical, with theology granted supremacy within aleni’s proselytization project. this project was very clear to aleni’s audience, whether the audience was supportive and sympathetic to it or not. two of the more sympathetic of aleni’s chinese audience—yang tingyun (楊廷筠, 1562–1627) and xu xuchen (許胥臣)—also wrote prefaces to accompany the publication of the xixue fan. these prefaces demonstrate how aleni’s (and others’) attempts to use classical chinese lexicon and idioms to convey western knowledge may have backfired: while the use of classical chinese terms made the western concepts seem closer and more familiar to chinese scholars, it also rendered western philosophical terms superfluous to what the confucians already had and may have prompted chinese scholars to argue against such concepts of their own culture’s making.[8] indeed, xu xuchen, in his preface to aleni’s xixue fan, plainly asserted that such explanations about heaven “did not begin with western learning” (非自西學始也), and weighed in using the authority of the cheng brothers (cheng hao 程顥, 1032–1085, and cheng yi 程頤, 1033–1107)—two of the neo-confucian sages of the song dynasty—on the significance of reverence to heaven.[9] for xu, adhering to christianity did not mean to discard his confucian identity and teachings; rather, it meant to support or assist (翼) confucian learning. xu also brought into the discussion xu guangqi’s (徐光啓, 1562–1633) notion of “when the rites are lost seek out in the open [i.e., outside of the civilized center]” (禮失求野) to further bolster the idea that the new teachings from the west were part of confucian ancient teachings.[10] xu xuchen therefore emphasized what “cohered with the teachings of the ancient sages” (有合于古聖之教) and thus time and again related to himself and his peers as “we/us confcuians” (吾儒), thereby exposing the anxieties over cultural identity that christianity and western learning as a whole had brought to the fore.[11] similarly, yang tingyun began his preface with an explanation that aleni’s and ricci’s works addressed what the confucians of antiquity had preached, and that only from the qin and han dynasties onwards was this line of teaching broken (屈) and the learning of heaven (天學) obscured (晦).[12] this explanation—echoed almost verbatim by those who later tried to reconcile western with ancient chinese mathematics and astronomy without recourse to christianity—also highlighted the compatibility of jesuit teachings with confucianism.[13] the solution to making western concepts palatable to the chinese audience thus also turned out to be the problem: if confucian learning already contained these concepts, what need was there for foreign assistance in revitalizing them? why should confucian scholars be interested in jesuit philosophy, especially when the theological side—tightly intertwined with the philosophical—often seemed not to correspond so neatly with confucianism? jesuits, nonetheless, continued to try to draw attention to christianity and to explain about both theology and philosophy. in 1654, for example, luigi buglio (1606–1682, 利類思) wrote a preface to his translation of thomas aquinas’s summa theologiae, the chaoxing xueyao (超性學要). in the preface buglio explained that “the learning of the great west has six branches, and only the ‘branch of the way’ is the most valued and important, for all the [other] branches are the learning of men, but the ‘branch of the way’ is the learning of heaven” (大西之學凡六科，惟道科為最貴且要，蓋諸科人學而道科天學也。). this “learning of heaven,” buglio continued, “is called dou-lu-ri-ya [theology] in the western language, wherein dou points to the lord of heaven, originally called deus; and lu-ri-ya [logiae] points to explanations and investigations of the principles of the lord of heaven’s workings” (天學西文曰陡祿日亞，雲陡指天主，本稱陡斯，雲祿日亞指講究天主事理也).[14] although buglio stressed the need to study both the learning of heaven and that of men, it was clear that the hierarchy, with heaven at the top, was retained, and so was, of course, the religious purpose behind the translation project as a whole. in 1669, just as the jesuits regained their control over the astronomical bureau after the yang guangxian (楊光先, 1597–1669) affair when yang tried to uproot western influence especially at the astronomical bureau (successfully for several years, but vanquished by 1669),[15] another work, written by buglio, along with gabriel de magalhães (1610–1677, 安文思) and ferdinand verbiest (1623–1688, 南懷仁), was written about the west. it contained much previous work done by aleni and added to it the authors’ views. this work—the xifang yaoji 西方要記 (important records of about the west)—contains an entry on “western learning” (西學), wherein the authors reaffirmed the hierarchy of religious teachings over philosophy explicitly: “among the various scriptures, the most revered is the classic of the lord of heaven [i.e., the bible]; next are the writings of the sages and worthies in history; and all the types of ‘investigation of things and the fathoming of principles’ come next” (經典書籍，最上則為天主之經，其次則歷代聖賢所著述者，而格物窮理諸种［...］次之). thereafter the authors explained—following aleni—the six types of learning; and theology (as aleni put it—the learning of the way, 道學) was deemed: “the most important [type of learning]” (最重), related first and foremost to “the lord of heaven and the scriptures” (天主經典).[16] such religious purpose, however, seems to be missing altogether from one of the major (and last) treatises about philosophy written by the jesuits in china. this treatise, the qionglixue 窮理學 (the learning of fathoming principles, also known as cursus philosophicus), seems to have omitted theology and was focused on philosophy.[17] indeed, verbiest’s memorial to the kangxi emperor of october 16, 1683, anchored the import of the book in the significance of philosophy: “philosophy is the root of all [types] of learning. and so, too, all renowned scholars, past and present, have said in their discussions of that which is essential, refined, pure, and precious in every [type] of learning that philosophy is the fountainhead of all learning” (窮理學為百學之根也。且古今各學之名公凡論﹐諸學之粹精﹐純貴﹐皆謂窮理學為百學之宗).[18] philosophy, one might surmise, gained the upper hand and theology, along with  religious fervor, was discarded. however, religion and theology were not discarded, though they were not mentioned at all; they were the elephant in the room or, in this case, in the emperor’s and his officials’ halls. the final aim of introducing philosophy in this way was, via its incorporation into the examination system, to bring in the means for better convincing the chinese and the manchus of the religious agenda verbiest had in mind. as the jesuit andrea lubelli (陸安德, 1611–1685) put it just two months after verbiest’s memorial, the aim was that the chinese “would easily find their way to the divine law.”[19] philosophy still served as a means to a religious end. the chinese officials and the manchu emperor (and officials), nonetheless, could see the religious agenda through the veil of philosophy, even though god or the bible were not mentioned; anyone who had read even a small part of the jesuit works in chinese—including that of verbiest—written before the qionglixue could hardly fail to see the tight connection between philosophy and theology. fig. 1: the elephant in the halls. jesus and the four evangelists (from top-right, clockwise: matthew 瑪竇, luke 路加, mark 瑪爾謌, and john 若望) as depicted in various illustrated publications on the life of jesus, such as aleni’s tianzhu jiangsheng chuxiang jingjie (天主降生出像經解, illustrations and explanations of the incarnation of the lord [jesus]). this work was first published in 1637 and was later republished several times with a wide circulation and in various forms. some of the images were also used by chinese opponents of the jesuits—such as yang guangxian—to expose and attack their religious agenda. the image here is from a circa 1640 similar edition of the tianzhu jiangsheng chuxiang jingjie by aleni, titled tianzhu jiangsheng yanxing jixiang (天主降生言行紀像, records and illustrations of the words and deeds of the incarnation of the lord [jesus]) ms# 52-1049 (f.4v), houghton library, harvard university.[20] thus, while interpretations over the meaning of the argument used by the officials to discard the qionglixue (namely, the incongruity between the western notion that cognitive faculties are located in the brain and the classical chinese notion that they are located in the heart) may vary, with elman focusing on discrepancies over medical knowledge and kurtz seeing it as a “mere pretext” these interpretations are complementary rather than contradictory. for the purposes of this article, i would stress the understanding promulgated by the jesuit i. dunyn-szpot around 1700, that “there was a particular doctrine of divine law embedded within [european philosophy] that ran counter to the wisdom and the religion that had ruled china for so many olympiads of centuries.”[21] the qionglixue thus represented philosophy’s swan song in china until the late nineteenth century.[22] therefore, although verbiest’s formulation of philosophy as “the root of all [types] of learning” and “the fountainhead of all learning” seems similar to the later formulation of philosophy as “scientia scientiarum” (“the science of sciences”), discussed below, significant discrepancies remained: first, it was clear that above the “fountainhead of all learning” resided a queen, theology, even if concealed; second, the breadth of the category philosophy, as shown below, made it clear to chinese scholars (long before the qionglixue) that they could pick and choose from those fields of knowledge that they deemed essential (astronomy and mathematics in particular) without partaking of verbiest’s entire philosophical project. lastly, the historical context wherein verbiest’s qionglixue was proposed is significant: by 1683 the qing empire had just consolidated its rule over mainland “china” and the island of taiwan. the form of the examination system along with its underlying neo-confucian ideology had been reestablished not long before, and the kangxi emperor remembered the bitter experience of the (by far milder) examination reform that took place and was rescinded just as he was about to take power in the late 1660s. the empire in 1683 seemed to work quite well; the need for an external knowledge system to replace the well-oiled examination machine or confucian learning as a whole was absent.[23] and the threat of a new knowledge system to the very identity of “us ru” (a term used by xu xushen, among others, in order to squelch the almost unavoidable cultural-identity objection, as well as by those feeling the threat) was perceived even if god was put out of the equation.[24] to substitute the fundamental texts that served as the basis for the examination system (or even to append to them a significant foreign part) was to substitute the very cultural basis of the examinees’ identity, not just to teach them a different method of reasoning. indeed, the kangxi era was the time when parts of seemingly more neutral fields of knowledge—astronomy and mathematics—were firmly grounded and legitimated through the ethos of “western learning originated from china” (西學中源), to some extent because of the threat to confucian identity.[25] in short, as nicolas standaert has successfully demonstrated, verbiest’s project “failed definitively” and western philosophy was marginalized no later than the late seventeenth century; not long after entering the chinese stage, the western category of philosophy stepped out of the scene.[26] standaert also noted the negative reaction of the eighteenth-century siku quanshu editors to western philosophical texts and concepts, for example in their comments on aleni’s xixue fan where, after reiterating aleni’s explanations of the western categories, they wrote: the things they [the westerners] investigate [所格之物] are secondary aspects of tools and figures, and the principles they fathom [所窮之理] are even more irrelevant, prodigious, and intractable. that is why theirs is a heterodox study (yixue) [異學].[27] what the chinese scholars rejected, however, was not western philosophy in toto but rather jesuit philosophy, even if in their view the knowledge transmitted by the jesuits was fully representative of western knowledge or learning.[28] moreover, some important aspects of jesuit philosophy—such as mathematics or physics—were incorporated into the chinese discourse, especially at the turn of the eighteenth century (by mei wending梅文鼎, 1633–1722, for example), even if they too had their challengers.[29] yet the category as such was dismissed. what, then, did the category of philosophy stand for in the eyes of the jesuits? philosophy, according to aleni’s xixue fan, included logic, physics (part of natural philosophy in other jesuit texts), metaphysics, and mathematics (including geometry, astronomy, and music; in other jesuit texts and curricula, mathematics was sometimes treated as a category separate from philosophy).[30] at the center of this philosophy stood aristotle, as aleni’s xixue fan demonstrates.[31] philosophy thus conceived was a broad category, and there was no consensus in the sixteenth century (when the jesuit order was established) as to where exactly the “jurisdiction” of philosophy began or ended.[32] since augustine (354–430), philosophy had been rendered subservient to christian theology; but the philosophy thus incorporated into christian discourse was very limited in scope, mainly taking neo-platonism as a basis for christian metaphysical assertions. the reintroduction of aristotle via arabic sources into the christian world proved problematic to the relation between philosophy and theology, as the 1277 condemnation of many philosophical works related to aristotle demonstrates.[33] at the same time scholars were trying to reconcile aristotelianism and theology. some of the main points of dispute included aristotle’s claims about “the eternity of the world and the denial of the possibility of creation ex nihilo.”[34] some late medieval scholars considered philosophy the “queen” of the “sciences” or the “liberal arts,”[35] or separated philosophy and theology altogether. another way to bring aristotle into the christian fold without losing the theological credo was to separate aristotle’s metaphysics from his natural philosophy. in doing so, however, a new problem arose, namely how to reconcile natural philosophy, metaphysics, and theology. thomas aquinas, whose teachings would later form an important part of jesuit philosophy (and thomas aquinas was also introduced to china, as i have demonstrated above), put theological limits on the scope of philosophy, incorporating natural philosophy, metaphysics, and theology into one hierarchical scheme.[36] for the jesuits, following thomas aquinas, philosophy, however venerated, thus became the “handmaid” or “servant” of its “mistress” theology (philosophia ancilla theologiae), which was often understood to be the “queen of the sciences” (regina scientiarum).[37] theology’s supremacy, as interpreted by the church, is perhaps best illustrated by jesuit founder ignatius loyola’s (1491–1556) famous dictum: “we ought to hold fast to this principle: what i see as white, i will believe to be black if the hierarchical church thus determined it.”[38] although this rule, the thirteenth of the “rules for thinking, judging, and feeling with the church” in ignatius’s spiritual exercises, was not written to elucidate the relationship between philosophy and theology, nonetheless, the basic epistemological stance that puts the church above other forms of knowledge, captures the idea that the religious ruled supreme. the purpose of philosophy, thus conceived, was to prove the theological truth, not to express or develop new worldviews and certainly not to contradict any theological claims.[39] christopher clavius (1538–1612), who was in many ways the mastermind behind the gregorian calendar reform of 1582 and matteo ricci’s teacher at the collegio romano in rome, though engaged deeply in mathematical and astronomical studies, also adhered to this view of theology. clavius thus insisted that astronomy was of use to theology (astronomiae utilitas ad theologiam) and that “astronomy is necessary for ecclesiastics” (astronomia necessaria est personic ecclesiasticis). indeed, the very project of the gregorian calendar reform was driven by religious impetus.[40] although jesuits thinkers did not always abide by this principle, participating as they did in the “scientific revolution” and occasionally going beyond the stagnant position assigned to them,[41] the backdrop for their work was, overall, an acceptance of theological supremacy. as joachim kurtz put it with regard to logic: “the logic taught at jesuit institutions of higher learning throughout this period was intended to defend dogma, but it was not at all dogmatic in its methods.”[42] the jesuits did not introduce—and had no reason to—competing seventeenthor eighteenth-century philosophies to china, the types of “new philosophy” that would eventually be regarded as synonymous with the advent of the scientific revolution and modernity. descartes (who started out as a jesuit), bacon, locke, berkeley, leibniz, and newton, to name just a few of the new philosophers, were for the most part muted in jesuit discussions in china, as were the renaissance humanists. although the jesuits had books by these authors and others available at their libraries in china,[43] as far as the chinese audience was concerned these books and their authors were invisible. at the same time, european philosophers (leibniz being one of the more famous examples) could increasingly obtain information on chinese systems of knowledge—using the term “philosophy” to label them—as the term was broad enough to encompass the chinese variety. indeed, when nicolas trigault (金尼閣, 1577–1628) translated ricci’s journals, which were written in italian, into latin, he systematically rendered ricci’s term for the chinese scholars—“letterati” or “mandarini letterati”—into the latin “philosophi.”[44] for the european audience, trigault’s translation published in 1615 (with many following republications and translations into other european languages) was the only accessible source, since ricci’s italian version remained unavailable until the early twentieth century. the publication of other jesuit works on “chinese philosophy,” the most famous of which was the confucius sinarum philosophus (published in paris in 1687),[45] brought new ideas from china to europe. these presented various forms of confucianism (in a positive or negative light, according to the presenter), and allowed european philosophers to modify some of their own philosophical concepts in the process.[46] these “new philosophies” and their dynamics of polemics with jesuit philosophies were relevant to the changes in the category of philosophy within europe, and perhaps also to the “birth of non-religion [which] led to the birth of the modern category of religion,” as standaert claimed.[47] it should be noted that in addition to philosophy per se the jesuits in seventeenthand eighteenth-century europe were also interested in other, related fields of knowledge, participating in discussions and disputes on topics like history, philology, and their relation to philosophy[48]; the history of philosophy[49]; the quarrel of the ancients and the moderns[50]; and, naturally, the reformation. none of these discussions and the philosophical debates that came in their wake[51] travelled to china with the jesuits. more importantly perhaps, the relation between metaphysics and natural philosophy—“the single most problematic and important theme of the textbook tradition [and] the major source of philosophical concern since the revival of interest in aristotle in the christian west”—was not introduced.[52] emerging as a problem in the late middle ages, as aristotelianism was taking hold of the christian discourse, the relation between metaphysics and natural philosophy became even more pressing by the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a related problem surfaced: the relation between natural philosophy and mathematics, or between “aristotelianism’s qualitative approach to natural-philosophical explanation and competing conceptions of natural philosophy in which the quantitative understanding of natural processes was the chief aim.”[53] with descartes and other champions of mechanical philosophy, the quantitative approach began to displace the qualitative one, accompanied by the idea that knowledge claims should be tested by means of experimentation (empiricism) and by doubts concerning the possibility of valid knowledge (skepticism).[54] these new concerns did not, however, undermine the superior position of the broad category of philosophy in the seventeenth century, especially as philosophy “replaced theology as the foundational discipline.”[55] in descartes’s system of knowledge, mathematics, mechanics, medicine, and natural and moral philosophy were all to be unified. philosophy, for descartes, was a tree in which metaphysics was the root, natural philosophy (or physics) the trunk, and the specific sciences of “mechanics, medicine, and morals […] the branches.”[56] in the two-and-a-half centuries between the publication of descartes’s principles of philosophy (1644) and the reintroduction of western philosophy to china, however, the categorization of knowledge in the west went through fundamental changes. as the quantitative sciences rose in prestige, the branches of descartes’s tree increasingly claimed to be roots, or else completely different trees. in the eighteenth century and even more so in the nineteenth, scientia, formerly a generic term for knowledge, came to signify specific (often quantitative) knowledge systems that were in the process of breaking away from philosophy.[57] philosophy’s “jurisdiction” narrowed, its larger claims for being the upholder of knowledge were questioned, and the “scientist” as a social and professional designation came to challenge the philosopher in importance and prestige. in the contemporary view, as michael h. mccarthy has put it, “the liberation of reason from faith” was to be “complemented by the liberation of empirical sciences from philosophy.”[58] at the same time, “the scientific character of philosophy […] lost credibility, and the hope of achieving a final system of knowledge lost its fascination.”[59] philosophy was waging a losing battle. why then did chinese intellectuals (and their western and japanese interlocutors) continue to regard philosophy as the most important tree in the garden of knowledge even at the turn of the twentieth century? the answer, i suggest, is to be found in the way philosophers and historians of philosophy had remolded and remodeled philosophy, first in the west, then in china and japan. scientia scientiarum: philosophy’s grand claims the rise of the “sciences” was not the only cause of philosophy’s retreat. some branches of philosophy itself had questioned the very possibility of valid knowledge. hume, for example, questioned the then-prevalent theory of causality, undermining the possibility of knowledge of cause and effect. like other empiricists (e.g., locke) before him, hume further called into question the very possibility of valid a-priori knowledge, a cornerstone of the “rationalist” philosophy of descartes, leibniz, and others.[60] such skepticism, too, was a source of concern about the fate of the philosophical endeavor as a whole. in order to survive philosophy had to redefine itself, this time not as a tree in the garden of knowledge but rather as the overarching structure of the entire garden. philosophy was thus recast as the “scientia scientiarum”—the science of sciences[61]—the system that held the various disciplines together, gave them their methods, and provided them with justification. it was kant, above all, who was credited with redesigning “the architecture of philosophy”[62] in such a way as to give philosophy this overarching role. with his “copernican revolution in philosophy,”[63] kant inaugurated what haakonssen calls “the epistemological paradigm,” in which “the most deep-rooted element […] [was] the assumption that knowledge has to be accounted for in terms of the activity (or passivity) of the individual person’s mind.”[64] by prioritizing epistemology kant enabled philosophy to assume its position as scientia scientiarum; now, according to this view, all the other sciences depended on philosophy’s descriptive and prescriptive explanations of the relationship between the mind and external objects and phenomena. the scientist’s methods, his ability to comprehend reality, and his limitations in doing so were accordingly understood as depending on philosophical inquiry.[65] by prioritizing epistemology, kant also proclaimed a duality between the world as it is “in itself” and the world we can perceive. in so doing, kantian epistemology made the theological world safe for the reconciliation of tradition and modernity. this aspect [i.e., dualism] of the kantian legacy provides what amounts to an epistemological “fire wall” enabling theologians eager for reconciliation with the modern world to embrace scholarly results and cognitive advances apparently antithetical to christian faith.[66] after the late eighteenth century kantian epistemology thus became a staple of many types of theologies, making kant’s views of philosophy even more dominant in the western world. as many in the west sought either to reconcile modern science with theology or to sever the two, philosophy, conceived as scientia scientiarum, could serve either as a mediator or as a barrier between them.[67] institutionally, philosophy’s role as the “science of sciences” made it “the only [discipline] that can generate a unifying abstract metaphysics [to] unite and underpin the whole project of a university.”[68] kant’s own views were quick to be institutionalized in many german universities due to efforts by kant’s students and by kant’s patron, karl abraham freiherr von zedlitz, the minister in charge of prussian higher education.[69] whether it was because of social-institutional factors or because of his philosophical ingenuity, kant’s thought became a cornerstone for generations of scholars to come. as guyer and wood note (even if with some exaggeration), “all modern thinkers are children of kant, whether they are happy or bitter about their paternity.”[70] one further feature of kant’s project is pertinent to our discussion, namely kant’s own view of the history of philosophy and of philosophy’s role in history, a view instrumental to shaping our understanding of seventeenthand eighteenth-century philosophy, at least until recently. kant, following others such as d’alembert, treated the history of philosophy as a history of human reason at a time when the discipline of history itself began prioritizing, at least in part, the history of reason and the human mind.[71] kant and others thus provided an explanatory model of the scientific revolution, one in which historical progress in philosophy—i.e., in human mind and reason—was the causal and enabling factor in the revolution in science.[72] within this framework, logic—“the science of the rules of the understanding in general”—was prioritized, although in different ways by different scholars.[73] kant thus won a decisive battle in philosophy’s war for survival, but the war itself was (and is) not over. significantly, however, kant and his followers managed to shift much of the battleground to the human mind, and, as i will show, it would take some time until new contenders, such as psychology, would contest philosophy on this newer battleground. during the nineteenth century, first the german idealists and then the neo-kantians took kant in different directions and often disagreed over what kant actually said or should have said.[74] hegel, his disputes with kant notwithstanding, proposed that philosophy was “the only genuine” scientific knowledge of truth, perpetuating philosophy’s self-prioritization, even if not without opposition.[75] mathematics, for example, challenged philosophy’s claim for scientific supremacy. already in kant’s writings we can see mathematics as philosophy’s main contender, and the notion that mathematics was the most important discipline kept surfacing throughout the nineteenth century, as karl friedrich gauss’s (1777–1855) famous statement that “mathematics is the queen of the sciences” demonstrates.[76] though neither philosophy nor mathematics won a decisive victory—the struggle has lingered well into our own time—each discipline declared itself victorious. philosophy, however, has gradually spread its wings over the other disciplines to form the “philosophy-of” disciplinary model: the philosophy of history, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mathematics, and so on.[77] however, mathematics was not the only discipline to challenge philosophy. during the eighteenth century historians were also claiming priority for their discipline, often invoking the same arguments philosophers used to claim priority for theirs.[78] the “history-of” genre—the history of philosophy, of science, of culture, and so on—can in this respect be thought of as the equivalent of the “philosophy-of” model. ironically, perhaps, with neo-kantian historians in the nineteenth century more inclined to present philosophy as the scientia scientiarum, even history conceded to philosophy, and historical narrative itself became a vehicle for the dissemination of philosophy’s grand image. it was not only the german idealists and the neo-kantians that accepted this superior view of philosophy: victor cousin, for example, went so far as to describe philosophy as “the light of all lights, the authority of authorities,”[79] and george bale described the beginning of positivism as “an attempt to bring philosophical salvation to wayward science.”[80] august comte, the pioneering french positivist, wrote that “the object of our philosophy is to direct the spiritual reorganization of the civilized world”[81]; and ernst mach, one of positivism’s most important proponents in germany, claimed in 1883 that “the true endeavor of philosophy [lies in] guiding into one common stream the many rills of knowledge.”[82] for the positivists, knowledge of self, society, and nature had to be based on similar scientific principles, hence positivism’s association with scientism (and sometimes with materialism). the potential for gaining such scientifically valid knowledge was thought to be vast. philosophy and science were thus tied together hierarchically and with one overarching methodology.[83] john stuart mill, a positivist thinker himself in some degree, stressed the methodological point much further. for him, within the broader category of philosophy, logic was ascendant. inspired by bacon, mill thought of logic as the ars atrium, “the science of science itself.”[84] most important for mill was inductive logic, the laws of which he saw as “the laws of thought,” providing “a method of proof.”[85] mill’s a system of logic (1843) quickly became popular, and as mathematicians pursued logic as a mathematical discipline, logic grew in both prestige and autonomy.[86] the notion that philosophy had to salvage or at least direct the sciences (and humanity) was linked to the growing “crisis of modernity” and the anti-modernist trend, particularly in the second half of the nineteenth century. many in this period decried “the threat of industrialization and mass society to the values inherent in western civilization.”[87] although portents of this crisis can be seen as early as hegel and the “problem of modernity’s self-reassurance” (more on this below), the crisis began in earnest only a few decades later, perhaps due to hegel and his followers’ attempts to reconcile the tension that habermas defines as follows: modernity can and will no longer borrow the criteria by which it takes its orientation from the models supplied by another epoch […] [i]t has to create its normativity out of itself. modernity sees itself cast back upon itself without any possibility of escape.[88] for jacob burckhardt (1818–1897), history rather than philosophy provided a possible way to cope with the crisis. through history burckhardt sought “to preserve the ‘spiritual continuum,’ to demystify the crisis of modernity, to rehabilitate the past, and to secure future cultural renewal.”[89] rejecting the notion of historical progress—one of the cornerstones of modernity for many historians and philosophers—burckhardt “sought to undermine modernity and to solve the derelict, meaningless experience of his own day.”[90] the “task of the historian,” burckhardt thought, was to bring to light the relationship between materiality and spirituality wherein “the spiritual, in whatever domain it is perceived, has a historical aspect under which it appears as change [and] every event has a spiritual aspect by which it partakes of immortality.”[91] spirituality, it is worth noting, is to be taken here not as related to ecclesiastical forms of any kind, but rather as the opposite of what is material and, as the german term geist suggests, in intellectual terms.[92] thus, in condemning enlightenment philosophy and its offshoots for destroying the human spirit[93] and in trying to overcome philosophy with history, burckhardt, like those he criticized, inadvertently produced a philosophy of his own. the crisis of modernity was also, relatedly, a “crisis of modern reason.” the roots of this crisis emerged, ironically, with the philosopher most closely linked to the glorification of reason, namely with kant. kant not only elevated the notion of reason but also demarcated reason’s boundaries, bifurcating its roles into theoretical reason on the one hand and practical reason on the other, the first responsible for knowledge of nature, the second for knowledge of morality. the contradiction inherent in this dual system of reason, according to kant, was limited to human consciousness, however, and was not part of “the nature of things themselves.” in this way kant sought, as it were, to save reason from itself. nonetheless, the notion that human consciousness—the very abode of reason—was responsible for reason’s contradictions made reason suspect, giving rise to “the view that reason does not and cannot rule the world, that the world in its heart of hearts is chaotic and incomprehensible.”[94] though hegel and others had tried to solve this problem, especially through the notion of historical progress (the progress of reason, among other things), the historical events of the mid-nineteenth century, the failure of political revolutions in particular, seemed to prove otherwise. a dissonance thus emerged between the lofty claims of various scientism-oriented systems and the “realization that it [science] does not and cannot provide any guidance for human life, […] that the hegemony of modern reason actually undermines human well-being.”[95] as a result newer philosophical views such as perspectivism and relativism began to take hold, and doubts soared concerning the very possibility of attaining truth, philosophy’s traditional goal. one of the most trenchant attacks on kant’s view of reason came from nietzsche and his perspectivism.[96] but while nietzsche rejected most of the philosophies that had come before him, positivism in particular, he still thought that “philosophy should ‘dominate’ […] and that ‘genuine philosophers are commanders and legislators’; philosophy thus should be less about the ‘will for truth’ and more about the ‘will for power.’”[97] for nietzsche, as for many others, philosophy thus simultaneously became the harbinger and signifier of modernity, the root of modernity’s crisis, and the facilitator of relief from modernity’s impediments. nietzsche, of course, also criticized religion (at times contending that philosophy itself had become a sort of religion, leading to nihilism), a critique which resounded more in europe than in america, where philosophy often had a more pronounced religious tone in the nineteenth century. nevertheless, philosophy in america had much institutional success during the period in question, with many presidents of colleges and universities being themselves philosophers-cum-theologians. princeton’s presidents john witherspoon and james mccosh, who published widely on philosophical and theological issues, serve as examples of a larger trend; and the title of princeton professor charles w. shields (yet another proponent of philosophy’s role as scientia scientiarum)—“professor of the harmony of science and revealed religion”—says much about the agenda at play in nineteenth-century american academia.[98] as mentioned earlier, kant’s position was one of the enabling factors for just such a “harmony.” other philosophical approaches that developed in america in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries included pragmatism and analysis. while some thinkers of both strands tried to limit the scope of philosophy’s undertakings, philosophy’s stature remained largely intact. as morton white put it, “dewey and santayana […] remained, like croce, sympathetic to hegel’s view of philosophy as synoptic, as a total view of the universe and man.” and, it was dewey and pragmatism that played an important role in the philosophical interaction with both china and japan. it is only later, as white writes, when we come to the tradition of russell and moore, to wittgenstein, to logical positivists like carnap and his followers, to some of the american realists, that we find a complete and total rejection of [h]egelian doctrine and style. philosophers in these traditions deny that philosophy must construct a world view that will encompass and illuminate science, art, morals, religion, and politics. they do so not only because some of them reject metaphysics as meaningless, but also because none of them thinks of philosophy as a super-discipline, as an instrument of cultural criticism, or as a substitute for religion.[99] during the timeframe that forms the core of the present article, however, analytic philosophy and its representatives played a very marginal role in china. even russell, who visited china and lectured at beijing in the early 1920s, did not leave a significant mark on the way his chinese interlocutors conceived of philosophy as a category in the early twentieth century.[100] similarly, dewey’s pragmatist influence, while making a greater impact on chinese scholars, left their basic views about philosophy intact.[101] it was the former view of philosophy as a “super-discipline” that remained triumphant, at least in the initial stages of the introduction of western philosophy to asia. whether presented as the guarantor of the sciences (as in positivism) and the producer of modernity or as the sciences’ “significant other” (and hence as “spiritual”), philosophy—especially modern philosophy, identified as it was with modernity—retained a supreme status in early twentieth-century china. furthermore, as early as the second half of the eighteenth century, when the distinction between “civilization” and “barbarism” gained currency, non-western cultures came to be judged also by their capacity to produce philosophy of the western type.[102] for kant, mill, and many others, “barbarians” did not think in “abstract concepts” and were therefore incapable of producing the kind of philosophy associated with modernity. kant explicitly claimed (and of course—he was not an exception at that time) that “humanity has its highest degree of perfection in the white race” and based on a variety of reasons, geographical determinism in particular, explained the intellectual superiority of europe’s “white race.”[103] in this sense, only europe, following in the footsteps of its ancient greek forefathers, was a civilization in the full sense of the term.[104] thus victor cousin, delivering a series of lectures on “the course of the history of modern philosophy” in paris in 1828 and 1829, summarized the rise of “modern civilization” and its tight nexus with “modern philosophy”: [i]n the seventeenth century all europe became the theatre of philosophy; philosophy was everywhere acclimated; it thrust its roots into the very heart of europe, in france, in england, in germany; these were the equal and different homes of modern civilization. […] behold modern philosophy then, at the end of the seventeenth century, constituted, i repeat it, interiorly and exteriorly; it possessed its four necessary elements: it was naturalized in the three great nations which represented civilization; it had at its service living languages, full of the future, and which place it in direct communication with the masses. thus it marched forward, to become one day an independent, universal, and almost popular power.[105] as philosophy kept taking different routes and reinventing itself, such histories of philosophy and of the modern scientific, political, and economic revolutions continued to assert philosophy’s central role.[106] wilhelm halbfass, discussing the interaction between india and europe, pointed out that [w]hile the european historians of philosophy in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries still question whether the concept of philosophy can be applied beyond the tradition of european, fundamentally greek thought, a process of globalization takes place in which non-european traditions not only adopt european philosophical concepts and teachings, but also reinterpret and reconceive their own ways of thinking as philosophy. indians have responded not only to specific philosophical ideas, but above all to the term and concept “philosophy” itself. for modern hinduism, the concept of philosophy has become a vehicle of self-understanding, of assimilation and “westernization,” but also of self-affirmation against the west.[107] moreover, halbfass shows how the sanskrit term darśana (from the root dṛś, “to see”) became the equivalent (among other contested terms) of “philosophy” in modern indian languages (in particular hindi and bengali) and how the introduction of english curricula and universities (since 1835 and 1854, respectively) served to further establish the concept of philosophy in indian intellectual life.[108] back in china from the 1860s onwards, japanese scholars were fascinated with philosophy. instead of using a familiar classical expression, however, as had been the case when the jesuits brought philosophy to china two centuries earlier, in 1874 the japanese scholar nishi amane (西周, 1827–1897) coined a new term, tetsugaku (哲学), to express the category’s newness and significance. this term soon became popular and the norm for translating or discussing philosophy in meiji japan and thereafter.[109] following in the footsteps of kant, comte, and mill—whom he studied in europe—nishi amane described philosophy as “the science of sciences […] chief among all sciences” (哲学は科学の科学; 哲学は、百学の学なり).[110] in the context of the meiji notion of and attempts for “civilization and enlightenment“ (bunmei kaika, 文明開化), the new term, category, and their contents, symbolizing modernity and modern civilization, quickly spread, and during the 1880s histories of philosophy—including chinese philosophy—were published in japan.[111] there was, however, nothing trivial about the fascination of japanese scholars with the category of philosophy. this fascination stemmed from what the japanese had learned from the west, and what they learned was that philosophy was not theology’s handmaid but nothing short of scientia scientiarum, “the science of sciences”—the basis for everything, from a thriving economy and political structures to military strategy and technology. philosophy was understood as the basis of the nation itself. in the meantime, having just been defeated twice by the west in the opium wars, and facing the difficulties in subduing the taiping rebellion of the 1850s and early 1860s, china’s aim had been a material “self-strengthening” in order to build a stronger military. protestant missionaries who taught in china—at the same time that meiji japan was importing western philosophy—did not bring modern western philosophy, and when they did it was partial and imbued with protestant theology, not unlike the jesuit case. thus, as tetsugaku was winning decisive victories in japan (and further changing in the west), no equivalent change was taking place in china.[112] however, the chinese witnessed firsthand japan’s success in building a powerful state and military during the sino–japanese war of 1894–1895. china’s defeat by japan drove chinese scholars to try and understand how both japan and the west had become so powerful. as chinese scholars increasingly went to japan after the 1894–1895 war, and even more so after the failed 1898 “hundred days reform” and the 1900 boxer rebellion, they came to believe that the key to recovery was not a self-strengthening type of material enhancement but lay, as their japanese interlocutors had told them, in the new category just imported from the west—philosophy, rendered in chinese as zhexue (哲學). in this way japanese and chinese scholars and officials came to prioritize philosophy, subscribing to (and reproducing significant parts of) the discourse of philosophy outlined above. and as in india and japan a few decades earlier, chinese scholars took it upon themselves to spread this gospel by disseminating western philosophies while re-conceptualizing their own intellectual history with the help of western philosophical toolkits and categories. cai yuanpei (蔡元培, 1868–1940), who in the aftermath of the 1898 failed reform resigned from office and supported western learning in private academies, defined zhexue in 1901 as “the doctrine of principles, by which rules and principles of things are investigated and clarified” (原理之學﹐所以究明事物之原理原則者也). cai saw philosophy as a “unified doctrine” (統合之學),[113] as opposed to lixue, which he regarded a “partial doctrine” (部分之學). along with the term/category the various branches, methodologies, and terminology of western philosophy were also introduced, with logic, especially inductive logic, which was considered the basis for the sciences, at the center.[114] after having studied in france and germany, cai later emphasized that “the most important among them [the sciences] are philosophy and politics” (其尤甚者為哲學及政治學) and admitted the great influence of japan on his line of thought.[115] cai yuanpei’s influence was significant. he not only served in private academies during the final decade of the qing and as the president of peking university (1916–1919) and academia sinica (1928–1940) but also in executive governmental capacities as the minister of education in 1912, and he continued to play key roles in the guomindang during the 1920s and 1930s.[116] soon enough a broad range of western modern philosophical works were translated and discussed by these intellectuals:[117] yan fu translated works by thomas huxley, adam smith, john stuart mill, and herbert spencer and wrote about many others[118]; liang qichao deliberated about montesquieu, rousseau, bentham, bluntschli, darwin, and kidd, and was presumably the first to introduce kant to china[119]; wang guowei brought the thought of nietzsche and schopenhauer[120]; and many others joined the intellectual feast. the first book entitled zhongguo zhexue shi 中國哲學史 (history of chinese philosophy) was published in 1916 by xie wuliang (謝無量, 1884–1964), who also mentioned the japanese origin of the term zhexue, and stressed, like cai and others before him, that “all the principles of science derive from philosophy […] philosophy is in fact the source of science” (凡科學之原理無不出於哲學[...]哲學實為科學之原矣).[121] that the history of chinese philosophy was written, however, did not mean that a consensus existed about the very idea that there ever was such a thing called “chinese philosophy.” in this debate, an offshoot of which has in recent decades been resurrected in the form of “the legitimacy of chinese philosophy” (zhongguo zhexue hefaxing 中國哲學合法性),[122] the contenders argued about whether the indigenous thought and knowledge systems of china could be properly termed “philosophy.” while arguments for each side abounded, the main issue, for our purposes, was the great importance attached to this question: philosophy was so crucial for the modernization project that both sides in the debate saw china’s modern fate as, at least partly, dependent on it. both sides wanted to appropriate modern western philosophy either by discarding china’s thought in the past or by presenting it as compatible with modern western philosophy. feng youlan (馮友蘭, 1895–1990), one of the most important historical actors in disseminating the notion that there was an indigenous “chinese philosophy” and a columbia university phd graduate, wrote in 1930 that “philosophy is originally a western term. nowadays, the main task of those who wish to discuss the history of chinese philosophy is to search through each type of scholarship in chinese history, get hold of that which can correspond to what the west has called philosophy, select and recount it” (哲学本一西洋名词。今欲讲中国哲学史，其主要工作之一，即就中国历史上各种学问中，将其可以西洋所谓哲学名之者，选出而叙述之).[123] he further justified this urgent need to find philosophy in china by explaining the relationship between philosophy and modern science, or modernization more generally: 近代学问，起于西洋，科学其尤著者。[。。。] 所谓中国哲学者，即中国之某种学问或某种学问之某部分之可以西洋所谓哲学名之者也. modern scholarship originated in the west, with science its outstanding [product]. [so,] what is called chinese philosophy, are those types of scholarship or those types of sections of scholarship which can be compatible with what is called philosophy by the west.[124] another prominent scholar who wrote about this issue was qian mu (錢穆, 1895–1990), especially in his xiandai zhongguo xueshu lunheng 現代中國學術論衡 (assessment of modern chinese scholarship). in it he discussed several categories that were imported from the west with no direct correspondent in chinese history (such as “religion”). as for philosophy, he wrote: 哲学一个名词，自西方传译而来，中国无之。故余尝谓中国无哲学，但不得谓中国无思想。西方哲学思想重在探讨真理，亦不得谓中国人不重真理。尤其如先秦诸子及宋明理学，近代国人率以哲学称之，亦不当厚非. the term philosophy was transmitted from the west; china did not have it. formerly i have said that china did not have philosophy, but it does not mean that china has no thought. [that] western philosophy and thought stress the inquiry of truth also does not mean that the chinese do not stress truth. especially those such as the masters prior to the qin [dynasty] and all the way to the song’s and the ming’s “learning of principle,” modern compatriots usually consider them as philosophy, and that should not be condemned.[125] “chinese philosophy” was thus legitimated by the 1930s. nonetheless, not everyone concurred[126]—with philosophy’s significance or with its chinese legitimacy—since yet another debate had been brewing since the 1920s, the “view of life versus scientism” (人生觀/唯科學) debate. among the disputed issues, a substantial one was the place of philosophy in modernity and in relation to (natural/exact) sciences. was philosophy as important as the philosophers and historians of philosophy made it out to be? the question was left unresolved, but it resurfaced time and again during the twentieth century; yet even among those who advocated “only science” (唯科學, i.e., scientism) there were influential intellectuals—such as hu shi (胡適, 1891–1962)—who maintained that the scientific method and rationale leading the sciences was grounded in philosophy and within it, logic.[127] meanwhile, another “philosophy” entered china and gradually gained more followers: marxism, socialism, and their various interpretations. in his 1923 “shehui zhexue gailun” 社會哲學概論 (“outline of social philosophy”) qu qiubai (瞿秋白, 1899–1935), one of the political leaders of the chinese communist party and one of its major theorists during the 1920s and early 1930s, presented all branches of science historically and as “emanating from within philosophy” (從哲學之中分出). he further argued that “as a result of the division between the sciences, philosophy was pushed to gradually be able to become [a] comprehensive and consistent [system of] knowledge, that commands every aspect of knowledge, both spiritual and material, and that seeks to find a tendency towards one whole universal perspective” (科學分工的結果，使哲學漸漸能成為綜合一貫的智識，有統率精神物質各方面的智識而求得一整個儿的宇宙觀之傾向). in qu’s view, that was the main aim (and at times the accomplishment) of philosophy—or rather of “modern philosophy” (現代哲學)—especially since kant and laplace.[128] ai siqi (艾思奇, 1910–1966), who was also one of the prominent intellectuals to shape marxist thought in china, claimed in his 1934 dazhong zhexue 大衆哲學 (philosophy for the masses) that although it seemed that the development of science had reached its apogee and that the various sciences could replace philosophy, it would be a grave mistake to believe this: 科学的研究，是各部分分门别类地实行的，所以每种科学的认识，也各有一定的范围，至于包含一切范围的普遍的认识，仍是哲学的任务。[...] 哲学则研究最普遍最一般的法则。 scientific research is the practice of classifying and differentiating each section, by which each type of scientific knowledge has definite limits. but as for universal knowledge, containing all limits, this is the task of philosophy. […] philosophy, therefore, examines the most universal and the most general rules.[129] both qu and ai exerted a profound influence in consolidating the view of marxism in the republican era. both were also influential in their relationships with the leadership of the ccp and with mao zedong in particular. it should thus come as no surprise that mao himself held philosophy—his own philosophy—in high regard, or that when he managed to gain power throughout mainland china he saw (his own) philosophy as the guiding principle for any intellectual activity (and not just intellectual). qu, ai, and others—following in marx’s footsteps—precisely claimed that philosophy’s most “important question was in its need to transform the world” (重要的問題是在于要改變世界).[130] that was the background to the 1938 founding of the xin zhexue hui 新哲學會 (the new philosophy association), which ai siqi launched with mao’s blessing in september of that year. in the announcement for the founding of the association (新哲學會緣起), ai expressed the nexus of theory and practice: “practice requires theory, but theory must be integrated with practice” (實踐需要理論, 理論必須結合于實踐). and as far as theory was concerned, and its relation with practice in particular, philosophy held supreme importance, for “philosophy is the only foundation of the most general methodology, it is the only synthesis of all particular sciences and all the way to all practical experiments” (哲學只是最一般的方法論上的基礎, 只是各科學及一切實踐經驗的綜合). as such, ai claimed that philosophy was a critical endeavor in the most pressing concerns of china: “the war of resistance and the founding of the nation” (抗戰建國).[131] mao’s opening speech at the association’s 1940 first annual congress—in which, apart from mao and ai, zhu de (朱德, 1886–1976), the commander of the revolutionary army at the time, and over fifty other participants joined—further expressed the urgency of philosophical research. indeed, edgar snow’s first impression of mao—that of “a deep student of philosophy” who was widely read in various philosophical traditions—resonates with the importance mao attached to the new philosophy association and its “brilliant” (光明) future.[132] just a year after the new philosophy association was established mao had organized another philosophy group, the zhexue xiaozu 哲學小組 (the philosophy group), in which (together with ai) he was personally involved. soon thereafter more philosophy groups and associations sprang up in different echelons of the communist party along with publications that served to circulate the philosophy discussed in the groups’ meetings. these publications also emphasized the special chinese circumstances and the need for the sinification of the (marxist) new philosophy to account for these special circumstances and characteristics. ai siqi’s 1941 essay celebrating the new philosophy association’s third year was therefore appropriately titled: “discussion of the special characteristics of the new philosophy and the sinification of the new philosophy” (論新哲學的特性与新哲學的中國化).[133] the nexus of philosophy, politics, practice, and national identity was accordingly consolidated in ai siqi’s writings as well as in mao’s priorities.[134] conclusion the nexus of thought and action—in this case of marxist philosophy (馬克思主義哲學)—was, however, not a new thing either in china or in the west. when the jesuits tried to spread christianity during the qing period this notion was captured in the confucian term “to save the world” (救世). this notion was tightly linked to the confucians’ cultural identity and hence verbiest’s final attempt to introduce philosophy as a basis for the examination system with the qionglixue faced a dim fate. even though verbiest’s description of philosophy as “the fountainhead of all learning” seems quite similar to kant’s scientia scientiarum, there is an important gap between them: the first had theology hovering above it; the second made philosophy autonomous. the first encountered a strong and confident empire and its reassured scholars; the second met with a crumbling empire and later a divided country struggling to survive. in both cases the cultural identity of the chinese audience was at stake; in the first, the threat was resisted, in the second, intellectuals often felt they should change that identity because the “old culture” was considered by many as the very reason for china’s decline. those who felt the threat was too strong in the twentieth century sought ways to soften the blow, as it were, by anchoring new philosophies in chinese antiquity (much like the “xixue zhongyuan” ethos before) or by finding precedents for new ideas in china’s past. the immense differences in the historical contexts between the two encounters with philosophy meant that not only did the category “philosophy” change, but also that the entire background—of both those who transmitted and those who received it—was changed. therefore, the jesuit thinkers who had introduced western thought to china in the seventeenth century strove to reconcile what they understood as “philosophy” with china’s indigenous knowledge systems and terms, feeling, as they did, less confident about their own superiority over china. as kurtz has put it: “[t]he jesuits had to prove that europe in general and christianity in particular had attained a level of civilization that was comparable to that of china.”[135] by the late nineteenth century, however, when philosophy re-entered china, its western (and japanese) propagators wished—and were this time able—to present philosophy as a new category altogether, to differentiate it from china’s own terms, and to explain from a victors’ self-confident perspective how it could aid the chinese. philosophy was not only the “science of sciences” but also the knowledge of the victorious. to be sure, it was much more than a break with theology: once philosophy—the new/modern philosophy—was tied to notions of modernity and civilization, to political, social, and economic power, and to progress as a whole, its significance for chinese intellectuals was clear. it was up to these chinese intellectuals, and not to the foreign propagators of philosophy, to find indigenous parallels with philosophy in their past if they wished (and many of them did). indeed, by the turn of the twentieth century, philosophy’s transformations in the west had made the category of philosophy appear sufficiently different from china’s own systems of thought, helping to make it more relevant and enticing to the chinese during a turbulent and particularly vulnerable period in their country’s history. [1] i am thankful to birgit kellner, joachim kurtz, and the anonymous reviewers. this research was supported by israeli science foundation grant 55/12. [2] all translations are my own unless specifically noted. see giulio aleni艾儒略, xixue fan 西學凡 (a summary of western learning), in tianxue chuhan 天學初函 (first collection of celestial studies), comp. by li zhizao 李之藻 (1565–1630) (taibei: taiwan xuesheng shuju, 1965), 21–60, at 31. for alfonso vagnoni’s (1566–1640) equation of philosophy with existing chinese categories in his xiushen xixue 修身西學 (the western learning of self-cultivation, 1630) and for francisco furtado’s (1589–1653) similar approach in mingli tan 名理探 (an exploration of the patterns of names [i.e., logic], 1631), see zhong shaohua 鍾少華, “qingmo zhongguoren duiyu ‘zhexue’ de zhuiqiu” 清末中國人對於'哲學'的追求 (“the pursuit of ‘zhexue’ [philosophy] in late qing china”), zhongguo wenzhe yanjiu tongxun 2:2 (june 1992): 159–189, esp. 162–163. [3] for more on the notion of gewu qiongli see willard j. peterson, “fang i-chih: western learning and the ‘investigation of things’,” in the unfolding of neo-confucianism, ed. wm. theodore de bary (new york: columbia university press, 1970), 369–409. [4] see aleni, xixue fan, 51. [5] ibid., 50. [6] ibid., 51. [7] e.g., ibid., 56. [8] see also howard l. goodman and anthony grafton, “ricci, the chinese, and the toolkits of textualists,” asia major, iii (1990): 95–148. [9] aleni, xixue fan, 21. [10] xu also clarified the hierarchical order between mathematics and religious practice, for example in his preface to the translation of euclid’s elements: “the major [type of learning] is self-cultivation and serving heaven; the minor [type of learning] is the investigation of things and fathoming of principles [which includes mathematics]” (大者修身事天，小者格物窮理). see xu guangqi ji 徐光啓集 (the collected works of xu guangqi), collected by wang zhongmin 王重民 (shanghai: zhonghua shuju, 1963), 1: 75. [11] e.g., aleni, xixue fan, 24. for more on the evolution of “li shi qiu ye” and other such catchphrases see han qi 韓琦, “ming-qing zhi ji ‘li shi qiu ye’ lun zhi yuan yu liu” 明清之際"禮失求野"論之源與流 (“the origin and spread of ‘when the rites are lost seek out in the open’ during the ming-qing transition”), ziran kexue shi yanjiu 自然科學史研究 (studies in the history of natural sciences) 26.3(2007): 303–311. [12] aleni, xixue fan, 9–10. [13] for a discussion about western scientific studies in seventeenth and eighteenth-century china see my “confucian scientific identity: qian daxin’s (1728–1804) ambivalence toward western learning and its adherents,” east asian science, technology and society 6 (2012): 147–166. [14] see luigi buglio, “chaoxing xueyao zixu,” in xu zongze 徐宗澤, ming-qing jian yesuhuishi yizhu tiyao 明清間耶穌會士譯著提要 (abstracts of jesuit translations and original works from the ming and qing [periods]) (taibei: zhonghua shuju, 1958), 189–190. [15] for more on the yang guangxian affair in the 1660s see, e.g., zhu weizheng, coming out of the middle ages: comparative reflections on china and the west (armonk, ny and london: m.e. sharpe, 1990), esp. 81–112; jacques gernet, china and the christian impact: a conflict of cultures (cambridge, london, new york: cambridge university press, 1986), esp.134–135; eugenio menegon, “yang guangxian’s opposition to johann adam schall: christianity and western science in his work budeyi,” in western learning and christianity in china, ed. roman malek (monumenta serica monograph series xxxv/1, 1998), 311–338; harriet t. zurndorfer, “‘one adam having driven us out of paradise, another has driven us out of china’ yang kuang-hsien’s challenge of adam schall von bell,” in conflict and accommodation in early modern east asia: essays in honour of erik zurcher, eds. leonard blusse and harriet t. zurndorfer (leiden, new york, koln: e.j. brill, 1993), 141–168; john d. young, confucianism and christianity: the first encounter (hong kong: hong kong university press, 1983), 77–96; elman, on their own terms, 134–144. [16] luigi buglio, et al., xifang yaoji (shanghai: shangwu yinshuguan, 1936; congshu jicheng chubian vol. 3278), 3–4. [17] we should keep in mind that the entire qionglixue has not been preserved, and that in those sections that are preserved there are indeed references, though cursory, to theology. see shang zhicong尚智丛, “nan huairen qionglixue de zhuti neirong yu jiben jiegou” 南怀仁《穷理学》的主体内容与基本结构 (“the basic contents and framework of ferdinand verbiest’s qionglixue”), qingshi yanjiu 3 (aug., 2003): 73–84, esp. 75–76. [18] ferdinand verbiest, “jincheng qionglixue shu zou” 進呈窮理學書奏 (“memorial on the respectful presentation of the book cursus philosophicus”), reprinted in xu zongze, ming-qing jian yesuhuishi, 191–193, on 192. for a full translation of the memorial see joachim kurtz, the discovery of chinese logic (leiden; boston: brill, 2011), 81–84. the translation here is largely based on kurtz’s translation with minor modifications. [19] see kurtz, the discovery of chinese logic, 69. [20] for more on such illustrated texts, their origins, sources, and circulation see, e.g., nicolas standaert, an illustrated life of christ presented to the chinese emperor: the history of jincheng shuxiang (1640) (sankt augustin: institut monumenta serica, 2007); d. e. mungello, the great encounter of china and the west, 1500–1800 (lanham, md.: rowman & littlefield publishers, 2009), 38–48. [21] quoted in kurtz, the discovery of chinese logic, 86. [22] see benjamin a. elman, on their own terms: science in china, 1550–1900 (cambridge, mass., london: harvard university press, 2005), 146–147; kurtz, the discovery of chinese logic, 86. [23] see benjamin a. elman, a cultural history of civil service examinations in late imperial china (berkeley los angeles, london: university of california press, 2000), esp. 524–534. [24] see sela, “confucian scientific identity.” [25] ibid. [26] for more on seventeenth-century categories and their transition into ming and qing china, see nicolas standaert, “the transmission of renaissance culture in seventeenth-century china,” renaissance studies 17.3 (2003): 367–391; nicolas standaert, “the classification of sciences and the jesuit mission in late ming china,” in linked faiths: essays on chinese religions and traditional culture in honour of kristofer schipper, eds. jan a.m. de meyer and peter m. engelfriet (leiden: brill, 2000), 287–317. see also nicolas standaert, “the investigation of things and the fathoming of principles (gewu qiongli) in the seventeenth-century contact between jesuits and chinese scholars,” in ferdinand verbiest (1623–1688), jesuit missionary, scientist, engineer and diplomat, ed. j. w. witek (nettetal: steyler verlag, 1994), 395–420. for more on contemporaneous philosophy, both jesuit and general, see conal condren, stephen gaukroger, and ian hunter eds., the philosopher in early modern europe: the nature of a contested identity (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2006); paul f. grendler, the universities of the italian renaissance (baltimore: johns hopkins university press, 2002); john w. o’malley, ed., the jesuits: cultures, sciences, and the arts, 1540–1773 (toronto: university of toronto press, 1999); and liam m. brockey, journey to the east: the jesuit mission in china, 1579–1724 (cambridge, ma: belknap, 2007). [27] see standaert, “investigation of things,” 418. see also zhong mingdan 鈡鳴旦 [nicolas standaert], “siku quanshu zongmu duiyu xixue de pingjia” 四庫全書總目對於西學評價 (“the evaluation of western learning by the siku quanshu zongmu”), zhongwai guanxi shi xuehui tongxun 4 (1983): 4–11. [28] for such rejection—not wholesale but of the general cultural and religious implications of western learning—by prominent early qing scholars, esp. fang yizhi, gu yanwu, and mei wending, see, e.g., willard j. peterson, “changing literati attitudes toward new learning in astronomy and mathematics in early qing,” monumenta serica 50 (2002): 375–390; and peterson, “fang i-chih.” [29] see sela, “confucian scientific identity.” [30] see standaert, “the classification of sciences,” 287–317. for more on jesuit education, see brockey, journey to the east, 211–217. [31] in his section on the beginnings of western philosophy aleni treated aristotle as the major figure, writing: “[t]here was one worthy scholar named aristotle, his knowledge outstanding, his learning profound, his talent vast. he was the teacher of alexander the great” (有一大賢名亞理斯多﹐其識超卓﹐其學淵深﹐其才曠逸。為歷山大王之師); see aleni, xixue fan, 42. for more on the varieties of aristotelianism brought to china see robert wardy, aristotle in china: language, categories and translation (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2000). [32] when discussing juan luis vives (1493–1540), malusa, in a passing remark, defined vives’s view of philosophy “as the true knowledge of things human and divine,” also noting that for agostino steuco (1497–1548) “‘wisdom’ and ‘philosophy’ [were] synonymous.” see luciano malusa, “renaissance antecedents to the historiography of philosophy,” in models of the history of philosophy: from its origins in the renaissance to the ‘historia philosophica,’ eds. giovanni santinello et al.  (dordrecht: kluwer, 1993), 1: 3–65, at 12, 20, 42. according to the jesuit francisco de toledo (1532–1596) it was not “appropriate to consider philosophy to be a separate science” since it was identical to wisdom in general; “rather it was almost an universal genus, ‘containing the various sciences within itself’” (ilario tolomio, “the ‘historia philosophia’ in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,” models of the history of philosophy, 1: 66–160, at 91). see also cesare vasoli, “the renaissance concept of philosophy,” in the cambridge history of renaissance philosophy, eds. c. b. schmitt, quentin skinner, and eckhard kessler (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1988), 57–74. pereira (1535–1619) contended that “philosophy is divided chiefly into three kinds of sciences: natural, mathematical and that divine one that is called metaphysical,” quoted in michael john gorman, “mathematics and modesty in the society of jesus: the problems of christoph grienberger,” in the new science and jesuit science: seventeenth-century perspectives, ed. mordechai feingold (dordrecht: kluwer academic publishers, 2003), 1–31, at 22. [33] stephen gaukroger, descartes’s system of natural philosophy (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2002), 35–48. [34] ibid. [35] herrade of landsberg’s (12th c.) diagram of the liberal arts provides a wonderful visual illustration of this notion; see michael masi, “a newberry diagram of the liberal arts,” gesta 11:2 (1972): 52–56. [36] gaukroger, descartes’s system of natural philosophy, 35–48. [37] see avihu zakai, “the rise of modern science and the decline of theology as the ‘queen of sciences’ in the early modern era,” reformation and renaissance review 9.2 (2009): 125–151, on 126. [38] george e. ganss, s. j., ed., ignatius of loyola: the spiritual exercises and selected works (new york; mahwah: paulist press, 1991), 213. see also the first rule in this section: “with all judgment of our own put aside, we ought to keep our minds disposed and ready to be obedient in everything to the true spouse of christ our lord, which is our holy mother the hierarchical church,” ibid., 211, and note 162 on 432. see also wade rowland, galileo’s mistake: a new look at the epic confrontation between galileo and the church (new york: arcade publishers, 2003), 100; roger ariew, “christopher clavius and the classification of sciences,” synthese 83:2 (may 1990): 293–300. for more on the relation between philosophy and theology, see margaret j. osler, divine will and the mechanical philosophy: gassendi and descartes on contingency and necessity in the created world (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1994); david c. lindberg and ronald l. numbers eds., god and nature: historical essays on the encounter between christianity and science (berkeley: university of california press, 1986). [39] see also paul blum’s distinction between philosophenphilosophie and schulphilosophie and ian hunter’s application of that distinction to the jesuit case. for blum’s full argument, see paul richard blum, philosophenphilosophie und schulphilosophie: typen des philosophierens in der neuzeit [philosophers’ philosophy and school philosophy: types of philosophizing in the modern period](stuttgart: frantz steiner verlag, 1998); ian hunter, “the university philosopher in early modern germany,” in the philosopher in early modern europe: the nature of a contested identity, eds.conal condren, stephen gaukroger, and ian hunter (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2006), 35–66, esp. 45. [40] see volker r. remmert, “‘our mathematicians have learned and verified this’: jesuits, biblical exegesis, and the mathematical sciences in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries,” in nature and scripture in the abrahamic religions, eds. jitse m. van der meer and scott mandelbrote (leiden; boston: brill, 2008), 1: 667. [41] for recent accounts see michael elazar and rivka feldhay, “honoré fabri s.j. and galileo’s law of fall: what kind of controversy?” in controversies within the scientific revolution, eds. marcelo dascal and victor d. boantza (amsterdam and philadelphia: john benjamins, 2011), 13–32; mordechai feingold, ed., jesuit science and the republic of letters (cambridge, ma: mit press, 2003). [42] joachim kurtz, the discovery of chinese logic (leiden; boston: brill, 2011), 23. [43] see nicolas standaert, “the transmission of renaissance culture in seventeenth-century china,” renaissance studies 17.3 (2003): 367–391. for more on renaissance philosophy in general, see cesare vasoli, “the renaissance concept of philosophy,” in the cambridge history of renaissance philosophy, 57–74. [44] similar terms were employed by trigault, such as “senatus philosophicus”, or “philosophicis magistratibus.” see luca fezzi, “osservazioni sul de christiana expeditione apud sinas suscepta ab societate iesu di nicolas trigault,” rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa 35.3 (feb., 2000): 541–566, esp. 555–557; jacques gernet, “della entrata della compagnia di giesù e christianità nella cina de matteo ricci (1609) et les remaniements de sa traduction latine (1615),” comptes rendus des séances de l’académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, 147e année, n. 1 (2003): 61–84, esp. 68–69. [45] for further research on the differences in the introduction of confucian scholarship and schools of thought to europe see knud lundbaek, “chief grand secretary chang chü-cheng and the early jesuits,” china mission studies (1550-1800) bulletin iii (1981): 2–11; knud lundbaek, “the image of neo-confucianism in confucius sinarum philosophus,” journal of the history of ideas 44.1 (jan.–mar., 1983): 19–30; claudia von collani, “the first encounter of the west with the yijing: introduction to and edition of letters and latin translations by french jesuits from the 18th century,” monumenta serica 55 (2007): 227–387. [46] see arnold h. rowbotham, “the impact of confucianism on seventeenth century europe,” the far eastern quarterly 4.3 (may, 1945): 224–242; d.e. mungello, “european philosophical responses to non-european culture: china,” in the cambridge history of seventeenth-century philosophy, eds. daniel garber and michael ayers (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1998), 87–100; jonathan israel, “admiration of china and classical chinese thought in the radical enlightenment (1685–1740),” taiwan journal of east asian studies 4:1 (june 2007): 1–25; zhang yunyi, “‘the western spread of chinese philosophy’ and marxism,” frontiers of philosophy in china 6:1 (2011): 114–133; eric s. nelson, “the yijing and philosophy: from leibniz to derrida,” journal of chinese philosophy 38:3 (sep. 2011): 377–396; edmund leites, “confucianism in eighteenth-century england: natural morality and social reform,” philosophy east and west 28:2, sinological torque (apr. 1978): 143–159; edmund leites, “philosophers as rulers: the literati in early western images of confucianism,” in as others see us: mutual perceptions, east and west, eds. bernard lewis, edmund leites, and margaret case (new york: international society for the comparative study of civilizations, 1985), 203–214; thijs weststeijn, “spinoza sinicus: an asian paragraph in the history of the radical enlightenment,” journal of the history of ideas 68:4 (oct. 2007): 537–561; bernard paul sypniewski, “china and universals: leiniz, binary mathematics, and the yijing hexagrams,” monumenta serica 53 (2005): 287–314; james a. ryan, “leibniz binary system and shao yong’s ‘yijing’,” philosophy east and west 46:1 (1996): 59–90. [47] nicolas standaert, “the jesuits did not [sic] manufacture ‘confucianism’,” east asian science, technology and medicine 16 (1999): 115–132, esp. 127–129. [48] see, e.g., donald r. kelley, “the theory of history,” in the cambridge history of renaissance philosophy, 746–761; r.w. serjeantson, “hobbes, the universities, and the history of philosophy,” in the philosopher in early modern europe: the nature of a contested identity, eds. conal condren, stephen gaukroger, and ian hunter (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2006), 113–139. [49] see donald r. kelley, “introduction,” in the shapes of knowledge from the renaissance to enlightenment, eds. donald r. kelley and richard h. popkin (dordrecht: kluwer academic publishers, 1991), 1–4; and various essays in santinello, models of the history of philosophy, vol. 1 (note the scarcity of jesuit scholars mentioned in this very detailed monograph, e.g., kircher, 24; francisco de toledo, 91; pereyra (or pereira), 92–95; and torsellini, 411). [50] i take this quarrel broadly as including not only the so-called original quarrel (also known as the battle of the books) of ca. 1687–1715, but rather as a broad theme that extended far beyond the eighteenth century. on the “original” quarrel see joan e. dejean, ancients against moderns (chicago: university of chicago press, 1997), ix–xii. on the broader quarrel, from machiavelli to rousseau, see patrick riley, “rousseau, fenelon, and the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns,” in the cambridge companion to rousseau, ed. patrick riley (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2001), 78–93. on the quarrel as early as the fifteenth century, see hans baron, the crisis of the early italian renaissance: civic humanism and republican liberty in an age of classicism and tyranny (princeton: princeton university press, 1966), xxvii, 282–283, 346–353, 396, 406–409, 435–436;see also anthony grafton, what was history? the art of history in early modern europe (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2007), 15, 18–19, 174, 248. on the quarrel as a theme in 1960s france and as related to structuralism, see francois dosse, history of structuralism, vol. 1: the rising sign, 1945–1966, trans. deborah glassman (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1997), esp. 191–201. [51] see malusa, “renaissance antecedents,” esp. 52–59. debates on the origin of philosophy (as a divine, human, or demonic product) were also not transmitted to china. on these debates, see santinello, models of the history of philosophy, vol. 1 as well as tolomio, “the ‘historia philosophia’ in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,” 66–160. [52] gaukroger, descartes’ system of natural philosophy, 36. [53] ibid., 36. [54] see ibid., 53, 68–70. also see charles h. lohr, “the sixteenth-century transformation of the aristotelian division of the speculative sciences,” in the shapes of knowledge from the renaissance to enlightenment, 49–58. [55] see werner schneiders, “concepts of philosophy,” in the cambridge history of eighteenth-century philosophy, ed. knud haakonssen (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2006), 26–44, at 26. [56] gaukroger, descartes’ system of natural philosophy, 226; see also roger ariew, “descartes and the tree of knowledge,” synthese, 92:1 (july 1992): 101–116. in 1682 the german bibliographer martin lipen (1630–1692) could still claim to “take the word philosophy in a broad sense (in ea latitudine capio), as is common in the academies (academiis). in these, apart from the three faculties of theology, law and medicine, one finds also philosophy. […] [a]ll knowledge of languages, antiquities, and sciences, all criticism (critica) of ancient and more recent writers, all history, philology, rhetoric, poetics—in short anything bearing the name of polymatheia or pansophia—are related to philosophy.” see ilario tolomio, “the ‘historia philosophia’ in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,” 81. [57] see the various essays in david cahan, ed., from natural philosophy to the sciences: writing the history of nineteenth-century science (chicago: university of chicago press, 2003), and in davis baired, eric scerri, and lee mcintyre eds., philosophy of chemistry: synthesis of a new discipline (dordrecht: springer, 2006). on the growing distinction between the arts and the sciences in the seventeenth century, see claire j. farago, “the classification of the visual arts in the renaissance,” in the shapes of knowledge from the renaissance to enlightenment, eds.donald r. kelley, and richard h. popkin (dordrecht: kluwer academic publishers, 1991) 23–48. [58] michael h. mccarthy. the crisis of philosophy (albany: suny press, 1990), 2. [59] see werner schneiders. “concepts of philosophy,” in the cambridge history of eighteenth-century philosophy, 26–44, at 41. [60] see georges dicker, kant’s theory of knowledge: an analytical introduction (oxford: oxford university press, 2004). [61] see roy tseng, the sceptical idealist: michael oakeshott as a critic of the enlightenment (thorverton: imprint academic, 2003), 60. note that the term “scientia scientiarum” had been used since the middle ages to describe various fields, including dialectics, the study of canon law, and, of course, theology. see, e.g., gérard defaux, “rabelais and the monsters of antiphysis,” mln 110:5 (1995): 1017–1042; karl shoemaker, “when the devil went to school: canon law and theology in the fourteenth century,” in crossing boundaries at medieval universities, ed. spencer e. young (leiden: brill, 2011), 255–276, on 262; avihu zakai, jonathan edwards’s philosophy of history: the reenchantment of the world in the age of enlightenment (princeton: princeton university press, 2003). nonetheless, the scientia of the late eighteenth century had different meaning from the scientia of the middle ages or renaissance, and while dialectics, law, or theology had been in one way or another under the aegis of religion beforehand, by the late eighteenth century the sciences and philosophy were breaking away from such aegis, as i discuss below.   [62] michael h. mccarthy, the crisis of philosophy, 188. [63] see david roger oldroyd, the arch of knowledge: an introductory study of the history of philosophy and methodology of science (new york and london: methuen, 1986), 123. [64] knud haakonssen, “the history of eighteenth-century philosophy: history or philosophy?” in the cambridge history of eighteenth-century philosophy, 3–25, at 19. kant was not the first to put the human mind center-stage (descartes, locke, and hume, to name a few, had prioritized epistemological issues well before him); kant’s project seems to have been the most ambitious, however, as well as the most successful in terms of its historical influence; see, e.g., anthony kenny, a new history of western philosophy, vol. 3: the rise of modern philosophy (oxford: clarendon press, 2008), 101–102. [65] see also immanuel kant, anthropology from a pragmatic point of view, trans. victor lyle dowdell (carbondale: southern illinois university press, 1996), esp. 5, 126. [66] gordon e. michalson, jr., kant and the problem of god (malden, ma.: blackwell, 1999), 17. [67] this is not to say that kant’s assertions went uncontested; yet they could rarely be dismissed offhand. for more on kant’s influence on nineteenth-century and later theology, see, e.g., adina davidovich, religion as a province of meaning: the kantian foundations of modern theology (minneapolis: fortress, 1993) and bernard m.g. reardon, kant as philosophical theologian (new york: macmillan, 1987). [68] t. j. hochstrasser, “the institutionalisation of philosophy in continental europe,” in the cambridge history of eighteenth-century philosophy, 69–96, at 91. [69] it should be noted that the institutionalization of philosophy did not follow the same path in all countries. in this respect, germany and france provided the main alternatives. i focus on germany because the german view of philosophy was predominantly the one the chinese and japanese would later encounter. see also t. j. hochstrasser, “the institutionalisation of philosophy in continental europe.” [70] see immanuel kant, critique of pure reason, trans. and ed. paul guyer and allen w. wood (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1998), 23. [71] see ernst cassirer, the philosophy of the enlightenment, trans. fritz c. a. koelin and j. pettegrove (princeton: princeton university press, 1968), 218. for a critique of cassirer as taking an overly philosophical approach to history see donald r. kelley, fortunes of history: historical inquiry from herder to huizinga (new haven: yale university press. 2003), 2–3. for various histories of human reason, ideas, and thought, such as kulturgeschichte, geistesgeschichte, histoire des mentalités, and their modern reincarnations (including intellectual history), see ernst schulin, “german ‘geistesgeschichte’, american ‘intellectual history’ and french ‘histoire des mentalités’ since 1900: a comparison,” history of european ideas 1:3 (1981): 195–214. see also anthony pagden, “the rise and decline of intellectual history,” intellectual news 1 (1996): 14–15; michael oakeshott, what is history? and other essays, ed. luke o’sullivan (exeter: imprint academic, 2004), esp. 345–372. [72] on the “historical task of reviewing and celebrating the progress of the human mind,” see kelley, fortunes of history, 41–42. for the rise of the notion of “progress” (especially linked to the quarrel of the ancients and moderns at the turn of the eighteenth century) see john bagnell bury, the idea of progress: an inquiry into its origin and growth (whitefish, mt: kessinger, 2004), 56. on the view of philosophers as predominant in the intellectual history leading to modernity in the eighteenth century and later (and for a critique of this view), see paul wood, “science, philosophy, and the mind,” in roy porter ed., the cambridge history of science, vol. 4: the eighteenth century (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2003), 800–824. see also haakonssen, “the history of eighteenth-century philosophy: history or philosophy?”; bernard cohen, “the eighteenth-century origins of the concept of scientific revolution,” journal of the history of ideas 37:2 (april–june, 1976): 257–288; joseph m. levine, the autonomy of history: truth and method from erasmus to gibbon (chicago: university of chicago press, 1999). [73] see david a. duquette, “kant, hegel and the possibility of a speculative logic,” in essays on hegel’s logic, ed. george di giovanni (albany: suny press, 1990), 1–16, at 1. [74] see christopher adair-toteff, “neo-kantianism: the german idealism movement,” in the cambridge history of philosophy, 1870–1945, ed. thomas baldwin (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2003), 27–42. [75] roy tseng, the sceptical idealist, 59. [76] this dictum was published posthumously in 1857 as a quote by gauss. see, e.g., jacqueline boniface, “the concept of number from gauss to kronecker,” in the shaping of arithmetic: after c. f. gauss’s disquisitiones arithmeticae, ed. catherine goldstein et al. (berlin: springer, 2007), 315–342, esp. 335. other essays in the anthology trace the development of this idea after gauss. [77] see the essays (half written by mathematicians, half by philosophers of mathematics, trying, as it were, to reach an understanding) in bonnie gold and roger a. simons (eds.), proof & other dilemmas: mathematics and philosophy (washington, dc: mathematical association of america, 2008). [78] see kelley, fortunes of history, 5–6. [79] victor cousin, introduction to the history of philosophy, trans. henning gotfried linberg (boston: hilliard, gray, little, and wilkins, 1832), 23. on cousin’s relation to the history of ideas and to eclecticism see donald r. kelley, “eclecticism and the history of ideas,” journal of the history of ideas 62:4 (oct. 2001): 577–592. [80] george gale, “scientific explanation,” in the cambridge history of philosophy, 1870–1945, 608–620, at  614. [81] august comte, a general view of positivism, trans. j. h. bridges (london: routledge, 1908), 49. [82] see ernst mach, the science of mechanics: a critical and historical account of its development, trans. thomas j. mccormack (chicago and london: open court, 1919), xi. mach also asserted that “a philosophy is involved in any correct view of the relations of special knowledge to the great body of knowledge at large—a philosophy that must be demanded of every special investigator” (ibid., 505–506). [83] see more on scientism and positivism in richard olson, science and scientism in nineteenth-century europe (urbana, il: university of illinois press, 2008); see also rom harré, “positivist thought in the nineteenth century,” in the cambridge history of philosophy, 1870–1945, 11–26. similarly (though with a different agenda in mind) herbert spencer thought of philosophy as “completely unified knowledge”; see herbert spencer, a system of synthetic philosophy, vol. 1: first principles (new york: appleton, 1882), 134. [84] see john stuart mill, a system of logic, ratiocinative and inductive, being a connected view of the principles of evidence and the methods of scientific investigation (new york: harper publishers, 1859), 6. [85] harré, “positivist thought in the nineteenth century,” 16–17. [86] see peter simons, “logic: revival and reform,” in the cambridge history of philosophy, 1870–1945, 119–127. [87] woodruff d. smith, politics and the sciences of culture in germany, 1840–1920 (oxford: oxford university press, 1991), 73, 193. [88] jurgen habermas, the philosophical discourse of modernity: twelve lectures, trans. frederick g. lawrence (cambridge, ma.: mit press, 1987), 6–7, 16. [89] john r. hinde, jacob burckhardt and the crisis of modernity (montreal: mcgill-queen’s university press, 2000), 201. [90] hinde, jacob burckhardt, 201. [91] jacob burckhardt, reflections on history, trans. m. d. hottinger (indianapolis: liberty fund, 1979), 14–15, 36. [92] see dilthey’s remark: “spirit [geist] has the same meaning as montesquieu’s spirit of the laws, hegel’s objective spirit, and ihering’s spirit of roman law,” in donald r. kelley, the descent of ideas: the history of intellectual history (burlington, vt: ashgate, 2002), 264. [93] hinde, jacob burckhardt, 14. [94] see michael allen gillespie, “nietzsche and the premodernist critique of postmodernity,” critical review 11:4 (1997): 537–554, esp. 538. [95] ibid., 540. [96] see also patrick a. heelan, “nietzsche’s perspectivalism: a hermeneutic philosophy of science,” in babette babich and robert s. cohen eds., nietzsche and the sciences, vol. ii: nietzsche, epistemology, and philosophy of science (dordrecht: kluwer, 1999), 203–220, esp. 203–205. [97] see maudemarie clark, nietzsche on truth and philosophy (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1990), 243. [98] see more in bruce kuklick, a history of philosophy in america, 1720–2000 (oxford: oxford university press, 2001); paul charles kemeney, princeton in the nation’s service: religious ideals and educational practice, 1868–1928 (oxford: oxford university press, 1998); david n. livingstone, darwin’s forgotten defenders: the encounter between evangelical theology and evolutionary thought (grand rapids, mi: eerdmans, 1987), esp. 100–122. see also shield’s philosophia ultima or the science of the sciences, vol. ii: the history of the sciences and the logic of the sciences (new york: scribner, 1889). [99] see morton white, the age of analysis: 20th century philosophers (new york: mentor books, 1964). [100] see also jiang yi and bai tongdong, “studies in analytic philosophy in china,” synthese 175:1 (july 2010): 3–12. [101] for john dewey’s influence on hu shi, see takeuchi yoshimi, what is modernity? writings of takeuchi yoshimi, trans. and ed. richard f. calichman (new york: columbia university press, 2005), 93–102. see also nancy f. sizer, “john dewey’s ideas in china, 1919 to 1921,” comparative education review 10:3 (oct. 1966):  390–403; jessica ching-sze wang, john dewey in china: to teach and to learn (albany: suny press, 2007). [102] one may argue that the japanese (and the chinese) had their own conceptions of “civilization” as well as of “barbarism,” but these changed toward the end of the tokugawa era. see, e.g., david l. howell, “territoriality and collective identity in tokugawa japan,” daedalus 127.3, early modernities (summer, 1998): 105–132; and joshua a. fogel, “issues in the evolution of modern china in east asian comparative perspective,” the history teacher 29.4 (aug., 1996): 425–448. [103] see immanuel kant, natural science, ed. eric watkins, trans. lewis white beck et al. (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2012), 576. see also michael levin, j. s. mill on civilization and barbarism (london, new york: routledge, 2004). [104] see haakonssen, “the history of eighteenth-century philosophy: history or philosophy?”; marcello verga, “european civilization and the ‘emulation of the nations’ histories of europe from the enlightenment to guizot,” history of european ideas 34:4 (dec. 2008): 353–360; prasenjit duara, “the discourse of civilization and pan-asianism,” journal of world history 12:1 (2001): 99–130; bruce mazlish, civilization and its contents (stanford: stanford university press, 2004). [105] see victor cousin, the course of the history of modern philosophy, trans. o. w. wight (new york: d. appleton & company, 1866, vol. ii): 119–121. for more on the rise of the notion of civilization in europe see, e.g., gilbert rist, the history of development: from western origins to global faith (london, new york: zed, 2008); herald fischer-tiné and michael mann, eds., colonialism as civilizing mission: cultural ideology in british india (london: anthem press, 2004); prasenjit duara, “the discourse of civilization and pan-asianism,” journal of world history 12.1 (2001): 99–130. in particular see the writings of françois guizot (1787–1874): françois pierre guillaume guizot, general history of civilization in europe, george wells knights, trans. (new york: d. appelton, 1928); john stuart mill’s dissertations and discussions: political, philosophical, and historical (london: john w. parker and son, 1859), esp. 160, and john stuart mill, on liberty (boston: ticknor and fields, 1863), 133–139; and thomas taylor meadows (1815–1868), the chinese and their rebellions viewed in connection with their national philosophy, ethics, legislation, and administration, to which is added, an essay on civilization and its present state in the east and west (london: smith, elder & co; bombay: smith, taylor & co., 1856), 543–545. see also john k. fairbank, “meadows on china: a centennial review,” the far eastern quarterly 14.3 (may, 1995): 365–371; and brett bowden, the empire of civilization: the evolution of an imperial idea (chicago: university of chicago press, 2009). [106] see also lucien braun, histoire de l’histoire de la philosophie (paris: ophrys, 1973); and ulrich johannes schneider, die vergangenheit des geistes. eine archäologie der philosophiegeschichte (frankfurt am main: suhrkamp, 1990). [107] wilhelm halbfass, india and europe: an essay in understanding (albany: suny press, 1988), 263. [108] halbfass, india and europe,. 263–309. [109] see more on nishi in thomas r.h. havens, “scholars and politics in nineteenth-century japan: the case of nishi amane,” modern asian studies 2.4 (1968): 315–324. for more on the translation of western terms and concepts during the meiji see earl jackson, jr., “the metaphysics of translation and the origins of symbolist poetics in meiji japan,” pmla 105.2 (mar., 1990): 256–272. [110] see ō shuka 王守華, “nishi amane,” in kindai nihon no tetsugaku 近代日本の哲学 (modern japanese philosophy), ed. suzuki tadashi 鈴木正 et al. (tokyo: hokuju shuppan, 1990), 14–51, esp. 24, 48 n. 17; thomas r. h. havens, “comte, mill, and the thought of nishi amane in meiji japan,” the journal of asian studies 27.2 (feb., 1968): 217–228; gino k. piovesana, recent japanese philosophical thought, 1862–1962, a survey (tokyo: enderle bookstore, 1963), 12–13. [111] for example, uchida shūhei’s (内田周平, 1857–1944) 1888 shina tetsugaku shi 支那哲学史 (history of chinese philosophy) and inoue enryō’s (井上円了, 1859–1919) 1888 tetsugaku yōryō 哲学要領 (essentials of philosophy). see also hirakawa sukehiro, “japan’s turn to the west,” trans. bob tadashi wakabayashi in the cambridge history of japan: volume 5—the nineteenth century, eds. marius b. jansen, and john whitney hall (cambridge, uk; new york; melbourne: cambridge university press, 1989), 432–498. [112] see my “a preliminary overview of the genealogy of zhexue in china, 1888–1930,” in what is philosophy?—china, eds. ralph weber and robert gassmann (forthcoming, brill, 2014). [113] cai’s notion of unified versus partial doctrines/learning/knowledge derived—in all likelihood—from spencer through the mediation of japan, and nishi amane in particular. see herbert spencer, first principles (new york: d. appleton and company, 1888), 134; ō shuka, “nishi amane,” 28. [114] cai yuanpei, “zhexue zonglun” 哲學總論 (“an outline of philosophy”), in cai yuanpei quanji 蔡元培全集 (the complete works of cai yuanpei), cai yuanpei (hangzhou: zhejiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 1997), 1: 354–363; for cai’s discussion of philosophy after world war i see cai yuanpei, “dazhan yu zhexue” 大戰與哲學 (“the great war and philosophy”), in cai yuanpei wenji 蔡元培文集 (collected works of cai yuanpei), cai yuanpei (taibei: jinxiu chuban, 1995), 6: 226–233. see also zhong shaohua, “qingmo zhongguoren duiyu ‘zhexue’; de zhuiqiu,” 164–176. [115] cai yuanpei, zhongguo lunlixue shi 中國倫理學史 (history of ethics in china) (taipei: shangwuyin shuguan, 1966), 1–4, 151. [116] see gao pingshu, “cai yuanpei’s contributions to china’s science,” in chinese studies in the history and philosophy of science and technology, boston studies in the philosophy of science, eds.fan dainian and robert s. cohen (dordrecht; boston: kluwer academic publishers, 1996), 395–417. for cai yuanpei’s biography see gao pingshu 高平叔, cai yuanpei nianpu  蔡元培年譜 (chronological biography of cai yuanpei) (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1980). [117] for the purposes of my discussion it is irrelevant whether or not chinese intellectuals had a clear grasp of their subject matter or whether they misinterpreted some western philosophers, as had been argued, for example, about liang qichao. see huang k’o-wu, “liang qichao and immanuel kant,” trans. hu minghui and joshua a. fogel, in the role of japan in liang qichao’s introduction of modern western civilization to china, ed. joshua a. fogel (berkeley: institute of east asian studies, university of california berkeley, center of chinese studies, 2004), 125–155 (most of the studies in this volume are useful for understanding the formation of liang’s thought and the way western ideas, reshaped in japan, made their way into early twentieth-century china). [118] benjamin schwartz, in search of wealth and power: yen fu and the west (cambridge, mass.: harvard university press, 1964), esp. 43, 84. [119] see huang k’o-wu, “liang qichao and immanuel kant.” [120] see joey bonner, wang kuo-wei: an intellectual biography (cambridge, mass., and london: harvard university press, 1986); hermann kogelschatz, wang kuo-wei und schopenhauer: eince philosophische begegnung (wang guowei and schopenhauer: a philosophical encounter) (stuttgart: franz steiner verlag wiesbaden, 1986). [121] xie wuliang, zhongguo zhexue shi 中國哲學史(history of chinese philosophy) (shanghai: zhonghua, 1930), 2. [122] three issues of contemporary chinese thought (37, no. 1–3, fall 2005 to spring 2006) were dedicated to translations of chinese articles on this subject. see also: carine defoort, “chinese scholars on chinese philosophy,“ contemporary chinese thought 30.4 (1999): 4–8; carine defoort, “is there such a thing as chinese philosophy? arguments of an implicit debate,” philosophy east and west 51.3 (2001): 393–413; carine defoort, “is ‘chinese philosophy’ a proper name? a response to rein raud,” philosophy east and west 56.4 (oct., 2006): 625–660; rein raud, “philosophies versus philosophy: in defense of a flexible definition,” philosophy east and west 56.4 (oct., 2006): 618–625. see also ge zhaoguang葛兆光, “wei shenme shi sixiang shi—‘zhongguo zhexue’ wenti zai si” 为什么是思想史"中国哲学"问题再思 (“why is it intellectual history—the problem of ‘chinese philosophy’ reconsidered”), jianghan lundan (2003.7): 24–26; ge zhaoguang葛兆光, sixiangshi de xiefa: zhongguo sixiangshi daolun 思想史的写法：中国思想史导论 (the method of writing intellectual history: an introduction to chinese intellectual history) (shanghai: fudan daxue chubanshe, 2004); fang chaohui 方朝暉, “zhongxue” yu “xixue”: chongxin jiedu xiandai zhongguo xueshu shi “中學”與“西學”：重新解讀現代中國學術史 (“chinese learning” versus “western learning”: new interpretation of the history of modern chinese scholarship) (baoding: hebei daxue chubanshe, 2002), esp. 29–108, 397–400.  [123] feng youlan, zhongguo zhexue shi 中國哲學史 (history of chinese philosophy) (hong kong: sanlian shudian, 1992), 1:. 5. [124] feng youlan, zhongguo zhexue shi, 9. note that the english translation by derk bodde omitted this whole discussion (as the translator remarked: “portions which it was felt would be of less interest to westerners, have been omitted”, xii). see feng yu-lan, a history of chinese philosophy, trans. derk bodde (princeton: princeton university press, 1952), vol. 1. see also john ewell’s discussion of feng youlan’s notion of philosophy in: john woodruff ewell, re-inventing the way: dai zhen’s “evidential commentary on the meanings of terms in mencius” (1777) (phd dissertation, university of california, berkeley, 1990), 1–23. [125] see qian mu, “lüelun zhongguo zhexue” 略论中国哲学 (“a brief discussion of chinese philosophy”), in xiandai zhongguo xueshu lunheng, (taibei: dongda tushu gongsi, 1984), 21–39. [126] for fu sinian’s views against the adaptation and use of philosophy in discussions about china’s past and his influence on hu shi and on institutional developments at academia sinica see carine defoort, “fu sinian’s views on philosophy, ancient chinese masters, and chinese philosophy,” in learning to emulate the wise: the genesis of chinese philosophy as an academic discipline in twentieth-century china, ed. john makeham (hong kong: the chinese university press, 2012), 275–310. [127] see wang zuoyue, “saving china through science: the science society of china, scientific nationalism, and civil society in republican china,” osiris, 2nd series, vol. 17 (2002): 291–322; fan dainian范岱年, “weikexuezhuyi zai zhongguo lishi de huigu yu pipan”  唯科學主義在中國歷史的回顧与批判 (“review and critique of the history of scientism in china”) kexue wenhua pinglun 2.6 (2005): 27–40. [128] see qu qiubai, “shehui zhexue gailun,” in qu qiubai wenji 瞿秋白文集 (collected writings of qu qiubai) (beijing: renmin chubanshe, 1987), 2: 310–380, esp. 310–311, 340–357. [129] ai siqi, “dazhong zhexue,” in ai siqi wenji 艾思奇文集 (collected writings of ai siqi) (beijing: renmin chubanshe, 1981), 1:129–282. [130] ibid., 140. for more on these thinkers and the development of marxism in china at the time see nick knight, li da and marxist philosophy in china (boulder: westview press, 1996); nick knight, marxist philosophy in china: from qu qiubai to mao zedong, 1923–1945 (dordrecht: springer, 2005); arif dirlik, revolution and history: the origins of marxist historiography in china, 1919–1937 (berkeley: university of california press, 1978); joshua a. fogel, ai ssu-ch'i’s contribution to the development of chinese marxism (cambridge, mass.: harvard university press, 1987); werner meissner, philosophy and politics in china: the controversy over dialectical materialism in the 1930s (stanford: stanford university press, 1990). see also li huaiyin’s reinventing modern china: imagination and authenticity in chinese historical writing (honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 2013) for the impact of various philosophies (esp. marxism) of historiography in china during the twentieth century. for more on marx’s complex notions of philosophy see, e.g., martin puchner, poetry of the revolution: marx, manifestos, and the avant-gardes (princeton: princeton university press, 2006). [131] see yu lianghua 于良華, ‘guan yu yan'an ‘xinzhexue hui’”; 關于延安新哲學會 (on the yan'an “new philosophy association”), zhexue yanjiu 3 (1981): 75–80. [132] ibid., 78. see edgar snow, red star over china (new york: grove press, 1968), 92–95. [133] see yu lianghua, “guan yu yan'an ‘xinzhexue hui’,” 80; knight, marxist philosophy in china , 106–107, 122–123, 197–213. [134] a few years later the party adopted “mao zedong thought” (毛澤東思想) as the leading party theory/philosophy. this was based to a large extent on the discussions about philosophy mentioned above. see ibid., 211–213. [135] kurtz, the discovery of chinese logic, 26. japanese neutrality in the nineteenth century | howland | transcultural studies japanese neutrality in the nineteenth century: international law and transcultural process douglas howland, university of wisconsin, milwaukee what could be less relevant to world history than japan’s proclamation of neutrality during the franco–prussian war in 1870? indeed, the event is typically absent from histories of japan’s modern diplomacy and international relations.[1] however, if we consider japan’s proclamation of neutrality in the context of the history of international law and its translation into east asia in the nineteenth century, then japan’s neutrality proclamation becomes a significant set of events. in fact, as the first act of international diplomacy undertaken by the revolutionary meiji government—the regime of 1868 that successfully westernized japan within four decades—japan’s effort at neutrality in the franco–prussian war was a defining experience in japan’s international development. because the european powers refused to recognize japanese sovereignty in its territorial waters and its foreign relations, japanese leaders of the new state came to realize the extent to which their participation in the international law of the family of nations enforced their submission to the western powers. fifteen years later, japan’s experience during the sino–french dispute deepened its understanding of neutrality. the dispute, in which neither side ever formally declared war, nonetheless involved belligerent acts of war, such as the french blockade of taiwan. the japanese government was faced with a conundrum: to declare official neutrality or to follow the examples of britain and the united states and remain friendly with both belligerents. the dispute produced much confusion, annoyed members of the international community, and provoked a number of proposals to reform the laws of war. international jurists started recommending the requirement of formal declarations of war on the part of belligerents and proclamations of neutrality on the part of neutrals. this essay examines japanese neutrality in the context of the history of neutrality during the nineteenth century. as an international and transcultural process, this history is marked, on the one hand, by changing ideas of international laws of war and the rights of neutrals among the western powers and, on the other hand, by three points at which japan’s international history intersected with these developments in the meaning and practice of neutrality: japan’s mistakes during the franco–prussian war; japan’s informal neutrality during the sino–french conflict of 1884; and japan’s successful declaration of neutrality during the spanish–american war in 1898. we begin with an examination of the concept of neutrality in europe and in chinese and japanese translations of international law in the 1860s. we then turn to the connection between shifts in translation words and shifts in the practice of neutrality in the nineteenth century; that is to say, shifts in the practice and meaning of neutrality among the family of nations. for neutrality evolved during the nineteenth century, and japan’s own effort to enact neutrality was but one piece of that evolution. 1. chinese and japanese translations of “neutrality” any discussion of the translation of a concept such as neutrality faces two problems of linguistic methodology at the outset. first, a concept must be located in the material of words, the meanings of which are determined by their context in some text or argument or discourse. to imagine concepts apart from their manifestation in words, or to ascribe to concepts some universal identity that can be traced through history, would be to commit an error of “semantic transparency.” there is, for example, no universal and fixed idea of “neutrality.” the meanings or ideas contained by the words “neutral” and “neutrality”—and their cognates in latin, french, german, and so on—changed in the course of european history. as i recount below, the meaning of neutrality in nineteenth-century europe vacillated between abstention from conflict and impartiality during conflict, before officially fixing on the latter at the 1907 hague peace conference. hence, we do well to remember that meaning is not transparent. a word’s meaning in one text has a problematic relationship to prior and subsequent iterations or translations; and such a series of words must be questioned for the meaning they may hold. rather than think about meaning in an ideal or “transparent” sense, apart from words, i urge us instead to locate meaning in the material context of words.[2] when we turn to the problem of translation words for neutrality in chinese and japanese, we face two trajectories of meaning that intersect with each other: european words and those represented by chinese characters used in china and japan. the problem of understanding the translation of neutrality becomes an effort to mark these intersections in developments of meaning. to complicate matters, as we will see, the translation of neutrality into japanese is troubled by the presence of compound words and abbreviations. but there is a second problem of methodology, one which has been central in the shift of translation studies from linguistics to semiotics and discourse analysis in the past three decades. to theorize about translation in this abstract manner is to imagine translation in the same way that a translator pursues his or her craft, as a mediation between two languages. beginning with roman jakobson’s work decades ago, linguists have repeatedly critiqued such a version of translation. the fact that words pass readily among languages demonstrates the porous boundaries of any given language. accordingly, a language is not so much a thing as a pattern of behavior, and words are transcultural material, available to language users independent of such idealized unitary languages. moreover, acts of translation are directed to target audiences at the level of performance or parole, which is not at all the focus of linguistics with its idealized languages or langues. so, in addition to the material context of words in texts, we should examine the social setting in which meaning is generated and discourse is constructed. for the meanings of concepts and words in translation are best understood in those historical settings that give rise to their efficacy.[3] accordingly, this essay examines how neutrality and its translation words engaged those diplomatic institutions and international events in which neutrality was politically meaningful. in the 1860s, at least two sources were available to japanese leaders as they considered taking a neutral position in the franco–prussian war. one source came from china, the other from japanese students of the dutch, but both of these provided chinese-character translation words. for those unfamiliar with the languages of east asia, suffice it to say that throughout the nineteenth century educated japanese were fluent in the written form of chinese known as “literary chinese”; in fact, japanese culture incorporated literary chinese or kanbun as a form of japanese language. this situation facilitated the immediate introduction of chinese texts to japan. when w.a.p. martin translated henry wheaton’s elements of international law into literary chinese in 1864, it was promptly reprinted in japan, where, between 1868 and 1876, it underwent several syntactic transformations and accrued a number of commentaries to better domesticate the text. [4] martin had undertaken his translation for the benefit of the chinese imperial government, in his capacity as an official employed by the tongwenguan or language institute. his japanese commentators similarly sought to better inform the japanese government as it pursued diplomacy with the western powers.[5] because wheaton’s work described international law on the basis of an empirical observation of existing practice, martin believed that wheaton offered the chinese an excellent introduction to international law. martin consistently translated neutrality as juwai— read in japanese as kyokugai (局外). this was a chinese word most at home in poetry or belles-lettres, where it referred to one’s remaining outside a situation or apart from some development. that is, the term emphasized the outsider status of the person in question.[6] as a translation word for neutrality, martin used juwai to indicate the non-involvement of those third parties who were not belligerents to a conflict, and the term proved successful. martin’s translators at the tongwenguan continued to use juwai to translate neutrality, as did others who translated international legal texts into chinese during the following decades.[7] martin’s japanese interpreters consistently followed his translation. the second source for japan’s leaders as they considered a formal neutrality in the franco–prussian war came from the japanese discipline of dutch studies, which had developed in the eighteenth century and taken a dramatic turn in the 1860s, when a group of students were sent to holland to study law, politics, and economics. one of them, nishi amane, produced a book that was based on lectures by simon vissering, which he had attended in leiden between 1863 and 1865.[8] published on the eve of the meiji revolution in 1868, nishi’s book was called vissering’s international law (fisuserinku-shi bankoku kōhō). compared to martin’s translation of wheaton, nishi’s vocabulary drew from an alternative set of japanese translations for neutrality. these included, first, the verb expression katayoranu (倚ラヌ), the negative form of katayoru,which quite literally means to not take sides or to not be biased, and second, the translation word chūritsu, which is read in chinese as zhongli (中立). zhongli, or chūritsu, is an ancient chinese word from the confucian classic, doctrine of the mean, and refers to the noble leader standing firmly in the middle without inclining to either side. it refers not to the behavior of a state but to the attitude assumed by the noble individual in undertaking the work of government, as he centers his energy for action.[9] as a translation word for neutrality, chūritsu shares with katayoranu and the concept of neutrality the sense of avoiding bias or behaving impartially. in the 1860s, dutch studies scholars combined chūritsu with kyokugai to produce the compound translation word kyokugai chūritsu, a practice that nishi encouraged when he equated chūritsu and kyokugai as translations for neutrality. it is this compound word which appears in all of japan’s proclamations of neutrality during the nineteenth century, so we can be confident that both martin’s and nishi’s works served as points of reference for the japanese government and its advisors in 1870 and thereafter.[10] 2. the practice of neutrality in the nineteenth century as it happens, these two translation words for neutrality, kyokugai and chūritsu, correspond to the debate over the practice of neutrality as it developed within the international community in the nineteenth century. like kyokugai, did neutrality mean abstention—that a neutral shunned all contact with belligerents? or, like chūritsu, did it mean impartiality—that a neutral sided with none of the belligerents but treated them all in the same manner? it is curious that in using wheaton as a point of departure, chinese and japanese readers had access to both understandings of neutrality. nonetheless they were exposed to wheaton's preference for impartiality, which he gleaned from the work of emeric vattel and which was typical of anglo-american legal scholars in the nineteenth century.[11] in his survey of meanings of the concept of neutrality, ernest nys observed that “non-participation” was a common understanding among the ancient cultures of egypt, india, and greece regarding matters of war.(rome disallowed such a position—a third party was either with or against rome.) in europe during the middle ages, particularly at the time of the great schism within the catholic church, the idea of neutrality began to develop as a position of rest or tranquility, of taking no side. neutrality in religious matters, however, differed from neutrality in war on land. because the feudal systems of the middle ages imposed obligations on vassal landholders, the most important of which was a right of free passage granted to one’s superiors and sometimes the enemies of those superiors, collective recognition of neutral territory was slow to develop. it achieved a degree of acceptability only with the permanent neutrality of malta and switzerland in the wake of the treaty of vienna (1815). in the nineteenth century, belligerents came to have an interest in agreeing to the neutral status of certain states, for neutral territory assured an absence of enemy forces and thus helped define the battleground and belligerent strategies.[12] neutrality on the high seas during war, however, developed even more slowly. unlike the perhaps straightforward task of neutralizing a bounded territory, the high seas involved the neutrality of persons, especially owners of ships and cargo. as several historians of law have remarked, neutrality did not exist at the start of the modern era in europe, when mercantilism was a dominant economic form and the capture of ships was a legitimate economic practice. when two states were at war, a third party was either an ally or enemy; it could not rest neutrally. the gradual development of neutral status depended on bilateral treaties and the slow development of customary practice, as the arrogance and privileges of belligerents were transformed into the rights of belligerents and neutrals. nonetheless, the powers were committed to the belligerent customs of declaring contraband and exercising a right to board, search, and seize ships carrying contraband. the language of the day spoke not of neutrals but of friends and enemies; enemy ships and goods were always prone to capture, and those of friends were uncertainly free.[13] if, as nys argues, some international strategists proposed a concept of neutrality as a state’s and her subjects’ immunity from war as early as the 1600s, it did not get a prominent hearing until vattel’s treatise on the law of nations in 1759.[14] even so, the dominance of belligerent rights in nineteenth-century debates foreclosed the idea of neutrality as immunity from war, and emphasized instead the duties which neutrals owed belligerents.[15] the terrible destruction wreaked by the crimean war is often credited as a harbinger of change. the declaration of paris in 1856 began to protect the private property of neutrals at sea, while the geneva convention of 1864 began to protect the neutrality of medical and rescue personnel on land and sea. rather than submit to the established custom of war, such that belligerents gave orders and intimidated neutrals into submission, reformers strove to make neutrality a position of principle. beginning in the 1860s, in coordination with a belligerent’s rights of war, international lawyers often represented neutrality as two related duties: (1) the duty of abstention, by which states insisted that its subjects or citizens not take part in a conflict nor offer any form of support to either of the belligerents, and (2) the duty of impartiality, by which states argued that a neutral state should make no restriction against one belligerent that it did not also impose against the other(s).[16] to be sure, these duties of neutrals corresponded to related rights; if a neutral asserted its right to prevent belligerent warships from visiting its ports, then the belligerent was bound by a corresponding duty to respect the neutral right. but international respect for neutral rights was slow in coming. like the 1856 paris declaration and the 1864 geneva convention, neutrality was usually a matter corollary to some other, arguably more pressing issue. in the nineteenth century, the context was most often declarations of war and the belligerent right to declare contraband. the failure of belligerents to declare war prior to the opening of hostilities created hardships for neutral merchants. when belligerents decreed one or another commodity contraband, then neutral shipping suffered directly from the rights of belligerents to seize contraband goods and the ships carrying them. in fact, one prominent call for reform—that a declaration of war must precede the opening of hostilities—was made in 1885, following the peculiar situation produced by the sino–french conflict of 1884, in which neither belligerent ever declared war but in which france decreed a blockade of taiwan, designated rice as contraband, and in general, produced much confusion for japan, germany, the united states, and britain as their ships traversed the china coast.[17] indirect discussion of neutrality at the first hague peace conference in 1899 produced no results. however, at the second hague conference in 1907, which followed the very problematic russo–japanese war, the international community settled on a number of neutral rights. most relevant to our purposes in this essay, delegates to the hague determined that neutrality as the duty of impartiality alone pertained to international law. as it was then articulated, any prohibition imposed by a neutral power against a belligerent must be impartially applied against all belligerents, in war on land and sea.[18] abstention—the shunning of contact with belligerents—was not a duty in international law but a matter left to each state’s own national law. the japanese compound term for neutrality, kyokugai chūritsu, nicely captures these two understandings of neutrality. kyokugai, or the non-involvement of the outsider, corresponds to the duty of abstention. a neutral does not take part in a conflict and does not offer aid to either belligerent. chūritsu, by comparison, corresponds to the duty of impartiality: one stands in the middle and takes no side. it is clear that japan’s experience of neutrality in the franco–prussian war was a struggle over not abstention but impartiality or chūritsu. japan found itself so inextricably bound to both belligerents that abstention seemed an erroneous description of neutrality. japan did not actively assist either france or prussia, but its territory was used for military purposes against its will. in the same way that the international community decided in 1907 that abstention was a matter for each state to determine according to its municipal law, and that impartiality was the only duty of neutrality under international law, so too the japanese came to emphasize neutrality as impartiality—the middle position of taking no side. at the same time, the franco–prussian war of 1870 marks that moment at which the practice of neutrality among the western powers began to shift. prior to 1870, the leading naval powers—great britain, france, the united states, and spain—typically issued neutrality proclamations that prohibited their own respective subjects or citizens from becoming involved in a conflict that did not include the motherland. they focused on abstention. while, for example, the first such act in 1794 on the part of the united states was called a “neutrality proclamation,” the british counterpart of 1819 was a “foreign enlistment” act; analogous to its american precedent, it prohibited british subjects from enlisting in foreign armies or navies or in giving aid to any belligerent in a conflict toward which britain remained neutral. but in the 1860s, practices began to change. this was largely a result of both the american civil war, which produced great acrimony between britain and the united states over british subjects aiding the confederate navy as it attacked united states shipping, and the war of the triple alliance (or paraguayan war), in which paraguay’s effort to expand to the sea was combated by brazil, argentina, and uruguay.[19] in 1866, in response to the south american war, the dutch issued a new style of neutrality proclamation, which shifted the primary target of prohibitions from utch subjects to foreign belligerents. the dutch proclamation concerned the behavior of belligerent ships in dutch harbors; it prescribed what they could and could not do and limited the stay of belligerent ships to twenty-four hours. four years later, with the franco–prussian war, spain, the united states, and japan issued similar declarations of neutrality that asserted neutrality in this new manner, as a set of restrictions imposed impartially upon all belligerents. these declarations prohibited belligerents from a range of activities, which included engaging in hostilities in neutral territorial waters; arming, furnishing or equipping warships in neutral territory; requesting provisions or coal in neutral harbors more often than every ninety days; bringing prizes into neutral ports; pursuing an enemy’s ship from a neutral harbor until 24 hours had elapsed since the departure of the ship, and so on.[20] such a practice of neutrality would expand in subsequent decades, especially with the spanish–american war in 1898 and the russo–japanese war in 1904. 3. japanese neutrality in the franco–prussian war japan’s 1870 proclamation of neutrality was prepared by vice-minister for foreign affairs terajima munenori and his superior, foreign minister sawa nobuyoshi. they reportedly consulted with the french consul in tokyo, maxime outrey, and the prussian (or north german confederation) consul maximilian von brandt, as well as a third person, the dutch-american missionary guido verbeck, who taught english at the government’s institute for western learning, the kaiseijo. verbeck was asked to advise japanese officials on the language of the proclamation because he was familiar with wheaton’s international law and well connected to certain government officials who had been his students, particularly terajima’s assistant soejima taneomi.(japanese historians have also reported that terajima was strongly motivated in reaction to european condescension. not only had the western powers been indifferent to japan’s neutrality during the earlier crimean war, but more immediately, von brandt had told terajima that his government would presume to treat japan as a neutral during the current onflict with france.) in keeping with western practice of international law, terajima informed the prussian and french consuls that japan intended to assert its right to declare neutrality in the current conflict.[21] japan’s proclamation of neutrality was issued on 24 september 1870, two months after that of spain and two weeks before that of the united states [22] a reading of the proclamation demonstrates that it is the equivalent of comparable neutrality acts by other powers. in its clarity of word and intent, it should have accomplished precisely what it was intended to do: to restrict the behavior of belligerents in japanese territory. but two problems intervened. one was an oversight on the part of japanese officials and the foreigners whom they consulted: article 3 specified only that, when warships of both belligerents entered the same japanese harbor, the one belligerent warship would not be allowed to depart until 24 hours after the other had departed. the article neglected to include merchant vessels, and france would soon take advantage of that omission. the second problem was a conundrum produced by the regime of extraterritoriality written into the system of unequal treaties that japan had signed with the western powers. article 4 prohibited foreign warships, which might be stationed in japanese harbors for the purposes of protecting foreign residents in japan, from undertaking belligerent actions in foreign wars. but because japan had so recently suspended by treaty its jurisdiction over foreigners within japanese territorial waters, japan appeared to have no remedy for violations of article 4.[23] both problems surfaced in october 1870, as a result of what became known as the linois affair. this grew out of a longstanding arrangement between france and the previous tokugawa government of japan to allow france to station warships in japanese harbors.[24] on 8 october, the french warship linois, stationed at yokohama, observed the german merchant ship rhein depart. since the 24-hour rule did not apply to merchant ships, the linois sped off in pursuit of the rhein, which, in order to forestall capture, anchored immediately down the coast at kawasaki, still in japanese waters. the linois continued to harass german merchant ships, restricting them to japanese harbors and, eventually, forcing an end to german trade with japan.[25] prussian consul von brandt protested to the japanese foreign ministry, and urged the government to revise articles 3 and 4 of the neutrality proclamation.[26] sawa and terajima agreed with the prussian consul and prepared amended articles which would, respectively, specify that merchant ships were not to be pursued until after a 24-hour interval and prohibit the use of japanese harbors and inland waters for military purposes.[27] unfortunately for japan, not only did french consul outrey protest the changes to the original neutrality proclamation, but so did british envoy harry parkes on behalf of all of the treaty powers in japan. drawing on the principle of “common interest” informed by the most-favored-nation clause attached to each of japan’s treaties with the western powers, parkes and outrey argued that japan could not unilaterally amend its neutrality proclamation in consultation with only one of the treaty powers. only a conference of all the treaty powers could provide a legitimate solution to the prussian protest.[28] such a meeting never materialized, although terajima and his assistant soejima met independently with outrey and von brandt later in october.[29] during the first months of 1871, france persisted with impunity in harassing german ships in japanese waters.[30] in march, outrey made a final statement on japanese wishes to revise their neutrality proclamation; he simply ruled out any change to such a proclamation, once it had been issued. as for prussian complaints about the behavior of french warships, outrey acknowledged that prussia was free to do the same as france in japanese waters. with great pretension, he praised the japanese government for its scrupulous respect for international law and its rigorous impartiality shown to both belligerents during the conflict.[31] thus, no solution was achieved during the war, and only when prussia became generous after its victory over france did it forgive japan’s inability to force france to obey japanese neutrality regulations. in november 1871, prussia dropped its claim against japan for damages resulting from the lost trade in japan.[32] japan’s problematic neutrality in 1870 had a number of consequences. most immediately, japanese leaders realized the gravity of their position under the unequal treaties and the need to revise them as soon as possible. a precipitous attempt was undertaken by the iwakura mission to the united states and europe, which departed in december 1871 and brought up treaty revision at its first stop, washington, d.c. unfortunately, as the us secretary of state pointed out, none of the japanese diplomats had the credentials to negotiate new treaties.[33] the slow work of treaty revision would occupy japanese diplomacy for the next twenty-some years. initially, however, the japanese government blamed france for the problems of 1870 and 1871. takahashi sakue, one of japan’s leading international lawyers who subsequently served as legal advisor to the japanese navy during the sino–japanese and russo–japanese wars, argued that france had been at fault in every respect during the franco–prussian war. takahashi judged that, given the widespread acceptance among civilized nations of the 24-hour rule, french behavior was simply cynical; and given the clarity of japan’s original neutrality proclamation, france had brazenly violated japan’s prohibition on turning vessels for the protection of french nationals into belligerents acting against german vessels. by any standard of international law, when french vessels were transformed into belligerent warships, they should have then been bound by the 24-hour rule that applied to belligerent warships.[34] from this experience, japan learned that rights of neutrality depended on the military power to force belligerents to acknowledge a neutral’s rights. as neutrality came to mean impartiality, a position that granted an active role to both belligerent and neutral, the japanese realized that the only way to maintain one’s neutrality was to be ready and able to force others to maintain their own respective duties. 4. neutrality on hold: the sino–french dispute of 1884–1885 accordingly, the japanese government was determined to revise its neutrality proclamation in accord with the precedents of the great powers. as tension grew between china and france in 1883 and 1884, japanese international lawyers studied examples of neutrality proclamations and prepared a revised law for japan. according to takahashi sakue, an added incentive was the french presumption that, in the event of war, japan would abide by its 1870 neutrality proclamation. working with their american advisors in the foreign ministry and the austrian jurist lorenz von stein (an advisor to japan’s plans for a constitution), japanese officials produced a new proclamation of neutrality on september 2, 1884.[35] primary among these advisors was henry denison, whom the foreign ministry had employed to assist with japan's treaty revisions. it is possible that gustave boissonade was also consulted; although his primary responsibility was the preparation of a revised civil code of law for japan, he had provided legal advice during japan’s 1874 invasion of taiwan.[36] france had been expanding into vietnam during the third quarter of the nineteenth century, giving china cause for anxiety, and went so far as to occupy hanoi in april 1882. in a manner resembling japanese action in korea, france had insisted to china that vietnam was an independent and sovereign state, free to become france’s protectorate if she so wished. several rounds of negotiations, beginning in late 1882, came to naught, so france increased the pressure on china by sending french troops to the chinese-vietnamese border in march 1883. french and chinese troops clashed there in june and, in august, the french navy bombarded key ports in taiwan and attacked the southern treaty port of fuzhou. negotiations continued in spite of these military actions, which created a truly anomalous situation, much to the displeasure of the states most involved in trade with china: britain, the united states, germany, and japan.[37] but neither china nor france officially declared war; both preferred to rely on the forbearance of would-be neutrals. france did not want an official war to close british or japanese ports on the grounds of official neutrality; hong kong and nagasaki were key coaling stations for french ships. likewise, china hoped that the presence of the other powers along her coast and in her ports would help to mitigate french aggression. although the united states immediately offered its good offices to undertake mediation between china and france, the french refused any involvement of a third party.[38] the situation dragged on through autumn and, by 1885, france was fighting an undeclared war by virtue of two actions: france first declared a pacific blockade of taiwan in october 1884 and then, in order to increase pressure on beijing, declared rice contraband in february 1885. these actions led the western powers and japan to confer about whether or not to declare neutrality and, if not, how best to manage the awkward situation along china’s coast. both china and france had already provoked japan in august and september 1884 respectively. the chinese government made three requests of japan: to cease coaling french ships in its harbors, to stop transmitting french dispatches by undersea cable, and to prohibit the sale of horses destined for the french army. since china had not declared war, japan refused these requests, as did the other powers, which also declined to assist china in such a manner.[39] france, however, went further by suggesting to the japanese government that coal might be considered contraband, in order to keep japanese coal supplies from the chinese fleet. an exchange of visits and diplomatic notes between french ambassador to japan, joseph-adam sienkiewicz, and foreign minister inoue kaoru, eventually clarified that coal would not be declared contraband, in keeping with france’s longstanding commitment to coal as a free good, but sienkiewicz did raise the prospect of fuel oil as contraband. although neither article was declared contraband, the japanese were peeved that france was meddling with japanese trade and interfering with the otherwise good relations between france and japan. as the japanese noted, the best way to protect their trade would be a formal declaration of neutrality, but like britain and the uunited states, they were hesitant to issue a formal declaration because neither france nor china had formally declared war.[40] in the months that followed, japan’s official policy was to cooperate in solidarity with the british, united states, and german governments.[41] when france declared a pacific blockade of taiwan in october 1884, the british government insisted that, categorically, a blockade is an act of war. although the french disputed that judgment, they assured the british foreign office that france would not assume her belligerent right to search and seize goods on british ships. but the british government retaliated: it formally announced that it considered that france and china were in a state of war and it invoked the foreign enlistment act of 1870, which prohibited french ships from coaling or making repairs in british ports. the french were particularly annoyed that they were denied access to singapore and hong kong. but britain still made no formal declaration of neutrality, as neither france nor china had yet declared war, and britain could keep in reserve the additional threat of more stringent rights of neutrality that could follow from a formal declaration of neutrality. although japan agreed with the british judgment that a blockade is an act of war, japan, like britain, made no formal declaration of neutrality but, unlike britain, chose to remain on good terms with both france and china by refusing neither access to nagasaki’s harbor.[42] in february 1885, france declared rice contraband, intending to increase the pressure on china by preventing rice tribute from reaching the court in beijing and thereby denying provisions to the north. this action provoked an outcry of protest among european states; denmark, for example, condemned the action as a violation of danish treaties with france. even the french navy was confused, asking how they could stop transports of rice if they had not yet declared war.[43] in the next weeks, a cordial row ensued between british foreign secretary lord granville and french ambassador waddington, as each invoked what his government felt were the principles of international law. the british eventually agreed with france that a belligerent had the right to declare as contraband whatsoever it chose, and that the judgment regarding the appropriateness of an rticle as contraband was left to that belligerent’s prize court. but the problem remained: this was an undeclared war, even if the british government had already acknowledged a state of war. as public pressure grew in london and as the french assumed a more belligerent tone, the british government at last warned france that any attempt to seize rice from a british ship would be considered a violation of the 1856 declaration of paris and would be countered by force.[44] the warning apparently served its purpose, for no apprehensions of british carriage were reported. the ambiguities surrounding this undeclared war were never truly settled. on behalf of the international legal community, german jurist heinrich geffcken roundly condemned french actions. the french had created a “bizarre” state of affairs alien to international law and more reminiscent of older practices. geffcken charged that france’s putative blockade of taiwan resembled a reprisal of earlier centuries, and that her assertion of the belligerent right to declare contraband resembled the eighteenth-century pretentions of britain, all in the absence of a declaration of war. worse, the abnormality of the situation was augmented by the peculiar assertion of a limited set of neutral rights on the part of states such as britain that refused to declare themselves formally neutral.[45] takahashi sakue drew more pointed conclusions: since a declaration of war is not necessary for war, french actions against china constituted a de facto state of war, and third parties were accordingly obliged to declare and maintain their neutrality. takahashi consequently disapproved of the informal agreements reached between france and britain during the conflict: that the conflict could be construed as a simple problem confined to the navies of france and china. france’s action was untenable, but so was the position taken by third parties. although a formal declaration of neutrality, like a declaration of war, was not mandatory, takahashi maintained that neutral parties could not stand by simply as observers but were obliged, in the face of a de facto war, to maintain strict neutrality. he thus encouraged the international community to take up these questions at a future convention.[46] nonetheless, the behavior of britain and france in this sino–french dispute taught the japanese a valuable lesson: a state might manipulate international law to its own advantage. whatever the judgment as to “who won the war,” and china’s proud claims of victory continue to be supported by recent scholarship—france had managed, by not declaring war, to both maintain a gentleman’s agreement with britain for peaceful relations and pressure chinese shippers to cease transports of rice, a measure that reportedly raised rice prices in northern ports near beijing and encouraged the chinese court to negotiate.[47] through all this, japan continued to treat both france and china impartially, as a friend to both. but behind the scenes, japan took advantage of china’s distraction in order to expand japanese influence into korea. several foreign diplomats in china noted that the chinese were increasingly willing to settle matters with france in order to devote their full attention to japan and japanese activity in korea.[48] 5. official neutrality in 1898 the sino–french conflict remained distressing to many in the international community, for the reasons outlined by geffcken and takahashi. reforms regarding declarations of war and the laws of contraband were presented for discussion at the institut de droit international and would inform actions taken at the hague peace conferences in 1899 and 1907. more germane to this essay, however, is the fact that because the sino–french conflict never became an official war, japan’s revised neutrality proclamation was not promulgated until the spanish–american war in 1898. recall from above the way in which neutrality developed in the nineteenth century: the international community interpreted neutrality as abstention and impartiality but, in 1907, determined that international law made a rule of impartiality only; abstention was left to national laws. japan’s revised neutrality proclamation, prepared in 1884 but not issued until 1898, seems to have settled with the majority on neutrality as impartiality. or did it? both the terminology and the practice of neutrality demonstrate a marked variability in the late nineteenth century, for these were transcultural phenomena under processes of construction. let us look at terminology first. in the 1884 and 1898 iterations of japan’s neutrality proclamation kyokugai chūritsu continued to serve as the translation word for neutrality. but by way of abbreviation, references to a “neutral power” dropped kyokugai from the compound term and expressed the term simply as chūritsukoku (中立囯). does this mean that chūritsu alone became a sufficient translation for neutrality? one might draw such a conclusion, since in the japanese language today, chūritsu is the term for neutrality, while a kyokugaisha (局外者) is an outsider. but why then did the japanese government persist in expressing neutrality as the compound term, kyokugai chūritsu? an explanation lies in its non-japanese referent. while the japanese term for formal neutrality remained constant, the official translations of japan’s neutrality proclamation changed. in 1870, the official english and french versions rendered kyokugai chūritsu as “strict neutrality.” however, in 1884, the same term was translated as “strict and impartial neutrality.” in 1898, it was again “strict neutrality.”[49] the japanese wording remained the same, while its french and english translations changed. it turns out that these language differences are not significant. or, to put the point more exactingly, these terminological differences are variations in parole, speech performances directed at target audiences. a survey of neutrality proclamations in roughly the last third of the nineteenth century reveals a similar variation among those of other states. consider the following list: “attitude . . . of strict neutrality” (venezuela, 1898) “conserver la neutralité” (haiti, 1854) “de maintenir une stricte neutralité” (france, 1861) “maintain the strictest neutrality” (netherlands, 1877) “maintain full and strict neutrality” (greece, 1898) “d’observer une stricte neutralité” (france, 1877, 1911) “d’observer scrupuleusement les devoirs de la neutralité” (italy, 1870) “scrupulously observe the duties of neutrality” (italy, 1877) “observe a strict neutrality” (france, 1898) “observe the most strict neutrality” (haiti, 1898; spain, 1877) “observe the most strict and absolute neutrality” (portugal, 1866) “observe the strictest neutrality” (netherlands, 1898, 1904, 1911) “the preservation of perfect neutrality” (netherlands, 1866) “preserving the strictest neutrality” (venezuela, 1917) “remain neutral” (peru, 1870)[50] from these examples we first observe that, in general, few countries issued declarations of neutrality that made a point of declaring neutrality per se. an equally common alternative was simply to issue regulations governing the behavior of subjects or belligerents during war. one variation of this alternative was the practice of sweden, whose neutrality law demanded “the strict observance” of royal ordinances concerning trade and navigation during war (1866, 1894). venezuela did likewise in 1898, but many countries simply proclaimed laws that undertook to regulate behavior during war.[51] second, none of these countries is consistent with either the issuance of a neutrality proclamation or its phrasing. a state may issue a neutrality proclamation during one war but not the next; proximity to the theatre of war was surely a factor in a government’s decision whether or not to declare formal neutrality. moreover, any given state’s representation of neutrality is quite variable. “strict” is the most common attribute of neutrality, but in practice, how does “strictest” or “full” or “perfect” or “absolute” compare to strict neutrality? these words qualify the announcement of a government’s intentions to rest neutral, but they have no direct bearing on the content of neutrality regulations, which are generally identical. perhaps the most unusual phrasing of neutrality was that of the united states neutrality proclamation in 1870, which demanded “the duty of an impartial neutrality” during the franco–prussian war and provided a set of laws that include both those respecting the abstention of united states citizens from the war and those impartially restricting the behavior of all belligerents in united states territory. it seems that in this united states case, “impartial” could encompass both abstention and impartiality.[52] if we compare for moment the development of translation words for neutrality in china, which had provided the sources for japanese translation words, we see a similar indeterminacy of terminology. as noted above, the chinese translators of international law who worked with w.a.p. martin at the tongwenguan in beijing continued to use juwai (or kyokugai in japanese) for neutrality. but in the late 1880s, a rival translator at a rival institution—john fryer at the jiangnan arsenal in shanghai—introduced terminology much more like that of the japanese. instead of juwai alone, fryer started using the japanese compound term, juwai zhongli (or kyokugai chūritsu), as well as its two components. it is not clear whether fryer was specifically influenced by japanese translations in his choice of chinese translation words for neutrality, but rune svarverud has concluded that, apart from fryer’s use of the compound term, both juwai and zhongli served fryer as “technical” translations for neutrality, and both appear as “stylistic variations” in fryer’s translations.[53] in spite of this variability, chinese choices of translation terminology changed absolutely in 1902 because of japanese preferences. in that year, three legal texts translated into chinese from the japanese produced a new standard for chinese translation work based on japanese precedents. thenceforth, juwai zhongli was the translation word for neutrality, which could be shortened to zhongli alone.[54] japan’s successful westernization had become a model for a new generation of chinese activists, whose borrowing of japanese terms produced new norms for china in the first decade of the twentieth century. in addition to these variations in the terminology of neutrality, the practice of announcing neutrality was equally unsettled. the large collection of neutrality statements issued at the start of the spanish–american war in 1898 displays a wide range of possibilities.[55] roughly half of the countries assured the united states of its neutrality during the conflict; four of these— ecuador, guatemala, paraguay, and peru—added that they were doing so in light of their responsibilities under international law. the other half issued formal declarations of neutrality accompanied by sets of laws. of this half, only one country, china, issued laws that pertained to the behavior of belligerents alone. in this regard, china’s first formal declaration of neutrality mimicked that of japan in 1870. likewise, only one country, liberia, issued laws that pertained to liberian citizens alone and demanded that they abstain from all interaction with belligerents. mexico and rumania declared their neutrality and added simple injunctions to their respective citizens to rest neutral and not to involve themselves in the war. the dominican republic was unique in issuing a lengthy statement that exhorted the belligerents to respect its freedom of commerce, since the dominican republic depended on united states shipments of grain, and encouraged its citizens to be productive so that there would be sufficient food in the country for the duration of the war. two countries—belgium and russia—emphasized that their neutrality rested on the 1856 declaration of paris, which guaranteed the freedom of neutral goods, eliminated privateers, and specified conditions for a blockade. the majority of the latter half of countries issued neutrality declarations such as those described earlier, a set of laws that commanded their neutral subjects to abstain from participation in the war, and a set of laws that restricted the behavior of belligerents in neutral ports and territory. japan was among this most thorough and progressive group, alongside some european states (denmark, france, great britain, italy, the netherlands, and portugal) and some from the americas (brazil, haiti, and venezuela). by 1898, these general trends in the practice of neutrality arguably demonstrate a growing european and american acceptance of international law, which was also making inroads into asia. in addition to japanese and chinese declarations of neutrality, thailand and the ottoman empire also gave assurances of neutrality during the conflict. a perhaps more profound indication of the transcultural development of international law in 1898 is the small group of states who noted the authority upon which their neutrality was grounded. in addition to the belgian and russian reiterations of the 1856 declaration of paris, a handful of states made specific reference to international law as the ground of neutrality: china, haiti, italy, japan, and russia. in addition, both great britain and haiti noted that their position of neutrality arose from respective treaties with the united states, which bound them to specific policies of neutrality in the event that the united states was a belligerent in a war. three states, however, were especially astute in making clear that a declaration of neutrality followed from both international law and domestic law: britain, italy, and japan. if the customs and agreements of international law gave a state its international responsibilities of neutrality, these three states also noted that their laws restricting both subjects and belligerents followed from a duly constituted domestic authority. the law of the land governs not only domestic subjects and citizens of foreign powers but also belligerents within its territory. as the japanese had learned in 1870, the point of neutrality encompasses both the prohibitions on the behavior of subjects and belligerents, and the power to enforce those prohibitions. japan was well on its way to achieving the neutrality that it had originally sought in 1870. 6. conclusions japan was not alone in working out a position of neutrality in the nineteenth century. this essay has sought to demonstrate that even as the concept and practice of neutrality were introduced to japan in the 1860s, the meaning and practice of neutrality among the family of nations in europe and the americas remained unsettled. japan accordingly took its cues from its fellows in the international community. as neutrality evolved, states placed restrictions on their own subjects and the belligerents of a war; at the same time, the power to enforce those restrictions was given greater heed. but cultural variation in practice was the rule, and only with the 1907 hague convention did the international community agree on a common concept and practice of neutrality. what does this tell us about international law and the attempt to reform the laws of war as a transcultural process? one great source of uncertainty is the habit that coleman phillipson once noted: that a provisional action in war provides a precedent that will subsequently become understood as custom and thereby a principle of international law.[56] neutrality, by comparison, was a concept recognized as necessary by the family of nations in the nineteenth century, and hence its history is cause for optimism. a majority of the powers supported and adopted progressive developments with neutrality and were willing, at the 1907 hague peace conference, to agree to several new international rules that would henceforth govern the relations between belligerents and neutrals in war. such willingness on the part of the international community to compromise is remarkable, even if, within a decade, other matters on which compromise proved impossible gave rise to disputes that would tear the family of nations apart. author’s note. earlier versions of this essay were presented for the inaugural conference of the european society for the history of political thought at the european university institute, florence (2009), and at the cluster of excellence “asia and europe, in a global context” of heidelberg university (2010). for their comments and suggestions, i thank harald fuess, madeleine herren, bela kapossy, lászló kontler, joachim kurtz, david mervart, martin van gelderen, and rudolf wagner. [1] exceptions include hanabusa nagamichi, nihon gaikō shi (tokyo: shibundō, 1960), 17–18; and richard sims, french policy towards the bakufu and meiji japan, 1854–1895 (richmond: japan library, 1998), 111–113. [2] douglas howland, translating the west: language and political reason in nineteenth-century japan (honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 2002), 5–6, 18–25. [3] roman jakobson, “on linguistic aspects of translation,” in on translation, ed. reuben brower (cambridge: harvard university press, 1959), 232–239; and douglas howland, personal liberty and public good: the introduction of john stuart mill to japan and china (toronto: university of toronto press, 2005), 19–25. [4] see henry wheaton, wanguo gongfa, trans. w.a.p. martin, reprinted as bankoku kōhō (edo: kaiseijo, 1865); tsutsumi koshiji, bankoku kōhō yakugi (n.p., 1868); shigeno yasutsugu, wayaku bankoku kōhō (kagoshima: n.p., 1870); and nakamura masanao and takaya tatsukuni, bankoku kōhō reikan (tokyo: n.p., 1876). on martin’s translation, see rune svarverud, international law as world order in late imperial china: translation, reception, and discourse, 1847–1911 (leiden: brill, 2007), 87–112 passim; and wang jian, goutong liangge shijie de falü yiyi (beijing: zhongguo zhengfa daxue chubanshe, 2001), 138–186 passim. [5] w.a.p. martin translated wheaton’s so-called sixth edition of 1855, annotated by w.b. lawrence. but this and subsequent editions reproduced the final edition that wheaton completed in his lifetime, the third edition of 1846. see richard dana’s “preface” to henry wheaton, elements of international law, 8th. ed., ed. richard dana ([1866] repr. oxford: clarendon, 1936), v–ix. [6] see morohashi tetsuji, dai kanwa jiten (tokyo: taishū kan, 1970), vol. 4: 136. in addition to terminology related to neutrality, morohashi includes an interesting example from the chinese vernacular novel hongloumeng: juwairen (or kyokugaijin), a “third party.” [7] martin and his assistants used juwai to translate neutrality in their translations of theodore woolsey, gongfa bianlan (beijing: tongwenguan, 1877) and johann kaspar bluntschli, gongfa huitong (beijing: tongwenguan, 1880). also see justice doolittle, a vocabulary and handbook of the chinese language romanized in the mandarin dialect (foochow: rozario, marcal, & co, 1872), vol. 2: 200. [8] vissering (1818–1888) was primarily a political economist, author of a major handbook on practical economics, and dutch minister of finance from 1879 to 1881; see irene hasenberg butter, academic economics in holland, 1800–1870 (the hague: nijhoff, 1969), 50–57 passim, 122–126; watanabe yogorō, shimon fisseringu kenkyū (tokyo: bunka shobō hakubunsha, 1985). watanabe includes a biography and an extensive bibliography of vissering’s writings. [9] see the chung yung, trans. james legge, the chinese classics (1935, repr. taipei: smc, 1991), vol. 1: 390; or sishu jizhu, ann. zhu xi (taipei: xuehai chubanshe, 1979), 6. [10] nishi amane, fisuserinku-shi bankoku kōhō, in nishi amane zenshū, ed. ōkubo toshiaki (tokyo: munetaka, 1962), vol. 2: 3–102. see also satō tōru, bakumatsu-meiji shoki goi no kenkyū (tokyo: ōfūsha, 1986), 165, 357–358; ichimata masao, nihon no kokusaihōgaku to kizuita hitobito (tokyo: nihon kokusai mondai kenkyūjo, 1973), 7, 21; taoka ryōichi, “nishi shūsei bankoku kōhō,” kokusaihō gaikō zasshi 71 (5/1972): 1–57 (esp. 20–21); the important early dictionaries of hori tatsunosuke, a pocket dictionary of the english and japanese language (edo: n.p., 1862), 530; james c. hepburn, a japanese and english dictionary with an english and japanese index (shanghai: n.p., 1867), “appendix,” 69; inoue tetsujirō, tetsugaku jii (tokyo: tokyo daigaku sangakubu, 1881), 58. [11] see wheaton, elements of international law, 8th. ed., 433 (§423) and 446 (§435). [12] ernest nys, “notes sur la neutralité,” revue de droit international et de législation comparée, ser. ii, vol. 2 (1900): 470–477, 479–487, 585–587. see also m. morand, “les origines de la neutralité perpétuelle,” revue générale de droit international public 1 (1894): 522–537. [13] see thorvald boye, “quelques aspects du développement des règles de la neutralité,” recuil des cours 64 (1938, part 2): 157–231; philip c. jessup and francis deák, neutrality: its history, economics, and law, vol. 1, the origins (new york: columbia university press, 1935), xi–xiv, 3–19; and john macdonell, “some notes on neutrality,” journal of the society of comparative legislation, ns 1.1 (1899): 62–69. [14] nys, “notes sur la neutralité,” 477–479, 585, 496–497; philip c. jessup and francis deák, “the early development of the law of neutral rights,” political science quarterly 46.4 (1931): 481–508; and emer de vattel, the law of nations, ed. b. kapossy and r. whitmore (indianapolis: liberty fund, 2008), 523–541. [15] see, for example, henri de kusserow, “les devoirs d’un gouvernement neutre,” revue de droit international et de législation comparée 6 (1874): 59–88. [16] see charles g. fenwick, the neutrality laws of the united states (washington, d.c.: carnegie endowment for international peace, 1911), 1–14; louis féraud-giraud, “de la neutralité,” revue générale de droit international public 2 (1895): 291–296; william edward hall, a treatise on international law, 8th ed. (oxford: clarendon press, 1924), 92–102. [17] louis féraud-giraud, “des hostilités sans déclaration de guerre,” revue de droit international et de législation comparée, 17 (1885): 19–49; rikard kleen, “le droit de la contrebande de guerre,” revue de droit international et de législation comparée, 25 (1893): 124–160. [18] see james brown scott, the hague conventions and declarations of 1899 and 1907, 3d. ed. (new york: oxford university press, 1918), 134, 211; and a. pearce higgins, the hague peace conferences and other international conferences concerning the laws and usages of war (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1909), 457–483. [19] i thank my colleague aims mcguinness for his help in identifying the war in south america. [20] francis deák and philip c. jessup, a collection of neutrality laws, regulations, and treaties of various countries (washington: carnegie endowment for international peace, 1939), 736–737, 794–796, 934–935, 1189–1194; fenwick, the neutrality laws of the united states, 23–28, 48–51; and neutralitätserlasse: 1854 bis 1904 (berlin: mittler, 1904). a quasi-precedent for the dutch action in 1866 was a prohibition in 1854, at the start of the crimean war, against privateers or warships of any flag entering neutral harbors; states issuing such a decree included brazil, portugal, and the netherlands. see deák and jessup, idem., 97–98, 812–813, 902–903.; and neutralitätserlasse, 216–217. [21] see takahashi sakue, “la neutralité du japon pendant la guerre franco-allemande,” revue de droit international et de législation comparée 33 (1901): 255–268; takahashi sakue, “historical account of the neutrality of japan since 1870,” kokusaihō zasshi 1 (1902), no. 2: 1–5, no. 4: 1–5, and no. 10: 1–6; osatake takeshi, “fu-futsu sensō to nihon,” rekishi chiri 25 (1915): 107–116; and sims, french policy, 13, 16, 111–112. on verbeck, see william elliot griffis, verbeck of japan (new york: revell, 1900), 52–53, 125, 188, 225, 234–235; hazel j. jones, live machines: hired foreigners and meiji japan (vancouver: university of british columbia press, 1980), 94–98; umetani noboru, the role of foreign employees in the meiji era in japan (tokyo: institute of developing economies, 1971), 30–34. [22] japan’s “proclamation of neutrality” and its official french and english versions are printed in nihon gaikō monjo, ed. gaimushō (tokyo: gaimushō, 1955), vol. 6 [1870]: 32–37. hereafter ngm. a german translation is printed in neutralitätserlasse, 243–244. [23] see douglas howland, “the foreign and the sovereign: extraterritoriality in east asia,” in the state of sovereignty: territories, laws, populations, ed. douglas howland and luise white (bloomington: indiana university press, 2009), 35–55. [24] on the background of french troops in japan, see hora tomio, “bakumatsu-ishin ni okeru ei-futsu guntai no yokohama chūton,” in meiji seiken no kakuritsu katei, ed. meiji shiryō kenkyū renkakukai (tokyo: ochanomizu shobō, 1967), 166–269; meron medzini, french policy in japan during the closing years of the tokugawa regime (cambridge: east asia research center, harvard university, 1971); and sims, french policy, 94–96. [25] osatake, “fu-futsu sensō to nihon,” 114; takahashi, “la neutralité du japon pendant la guerre franco-allemande,” 261–263; and takahashi, “historical account of the neutrality of japan since 1870,” 1, no. 4: 1–5. [26] von brandt to sawa and terajima, 11 october 1870, in ngm, 6: 37–40. [27] the revised articles are reprinted in ngm, 6: 40; for an english translation, see deák and jessup, a collection of neutrality laws, regulations, and treaties of various countries, 737. [28] parkes to sawa and terajima, 14 october 1870, in ngm, 6: 44–46; and sims, french policy, 112. [29] summaries of the meetings with outrey and von brandt on 24 october 1870 are printed in ngm, 6: 48–57. these include surprising discussions of the independence of mail steamers and care for the sick. [30] see the series of letters from von brandt to the japanese foreign ministry, in ngm, 6 [1870]: 60–66, and 7 [1871]: 393–397. [31] outrey to sawa and terajima, 5 march 1871, in ngm, 7: 397–405. [32] arnim to the japanese minister in paris, 13 november 1871, in ngm, 7: 432–433. [33] marlene j. mayo, “a catechism of western diplomacy: the japanese and hamilton fish, 1872,” journal of asian studies 26.3 (1967): 389–410; john peter stern, the japanese interpretation of the ‘law of nations,’ 1854–1874 (princeton: princeton university press, 1979), 84–87. [34] takahashi, “la neutralité du japon pendant la guerre franco-allemande,” 264–268. [35] takahashi sakue, “hostilités entre la france et la chine en 1884–1885 et étude des lois de neutralité au japon pedant ces hostilitiés,” revue de droit international et de législation comparée 33 (1901): 489–506, 631–654. [36] denison served in japan from 1880 to 1914. see imai shōji, oyatoi gaikokujin, vol. 12, gaikō (tokyo: kajima shuppankai, 1975), 159–202; jones, live machines, 98–103; ōno katsumi, “meiji gaikō to denison komon kenshin,” bungei shunjū (11/1966): 180–189; umetani, role of foreign employees, 45–48. boissionade served the justice ministry from 1873 to 1895. see jean-pierre lehmann, “native custom and legal codification: boissonade’s introduction of western law to japan,” proceedings of the british association for japanese studies 4.1 (1979): 33–72; ōkubo yasuo, bowasonaado (tokyo: iwanami, 1977); sims, french policy, 266; umetani, role of foreign employees, 35–37. [37] h. castonnet desfosses, “les rapports de la chine et de l’annam,” revue de droit international et de législation comparée 15 (1883): 321–339, 452–477, 587–596, and 16 (1884): 39–54; lewis m. chere, the diplomacy of the sino–french war (1883–1885): global complications of an undeclared war (notre dame: cross-cultural publications, 1988); henri cordier, histoire des relations de la chine avec les puissances occidentales, 1860–1900, vol. 2 (paris: félix alcan, 1902); lloyd eastman, throne and mandarins: china’s search for a policy during the sino–french controversy, 1880–1885 (cambridge: harvard university press, 1967); and thomas f. power, jr., jules ferry and the renaissance of french imperialism (1944, repr. new york: octagon, 1966), 154–193. [38] young to frelinghuysen, january 4, 1884 and enclosures, in foreign relations of the u.s.: 1884 (washington: gpo, 1885), 69–78. hereafter frus. see also several notes from young to the zongli yamen, as reported to the french foreign ministry in july and august 1884, in ministère des affaires étrangères, documents diplomatiques: affaires de chine et du tonkin, 1884–1885 (paris: imprimerie nationale, 1885), 55–66 (hereafter ddact); young to frelinghuysen, september 16, 1884, frus: 1884, 103–104; and takahashi, “hostilités entre la france et la chine,” 494. in spite of the official french disinclination to rely on third parties, several u.s., british, and german officials acted as conduits for negotiations. [39] takahashi, “hostilités entre la france et la chine,” 631–633; and young to frelinghuysen, september 16, 1884, in frus: 1884, 104. see also chere, diplomacy of the sino–french war, 117. [40] japanese foreign ministry to sienkiewicz, undated attachment to no. 255 of 1884.10.23, in ngm, 22 (1884): 573–574; sienkiewicz to ferry, 1884.9.13, in ddact, 104. see also courbet to peyron, 1884.9.13, in ddact, 105; ferry to peyron, 1884.9.13, in ddact, 105–106. sims recounts the fitful efforts of both japan and france to create a bilateral alliance during this period, based on the interests shared by france (in vietnam) and japan (in korea) against chinese claims of suzerainty. see french policy, 119–142. [41] takahashi, “hostilités entre la france et la chine,” 497–498. [42] see the correspondence between waddington and granville, october 23, 1884 through february 11, 1885, in house of commons, france, no. 1 (1885) (london: harrison and sons, 1885), 1–13; enomoto to inoue, 1884.10.22 and 1884.11.12, in ngm, 22: 571–572 and 578–581; and takahashi, “hostilités entre la france et la chine,” 502–506. see also chere, diplomacy of the sino–french war, 118–119. [43] sienkewicz to inoue, 7 february 1885, in ngm, 23 (1885): 550–551.; waddington to granville, 20 february 1885, in house of commons, france, no. 1 (1885), 14; patenôtre to ferry, 30 january 1885, in ddact, 185–186; and rosenörn-lehn to de croy, 16 march 1885, in ministère des affaires étrangères, documents diplomatiques: affaires de chine [1885] (paris: imprimerie nationale, 1885), 43–44 (hereafter ddac.) see also chere, diplomacy of the sino–french war, 126–129; and hosea ballou morse, the international relations of the chinese empire (new york: longmans, green, & co., 1910–1918), vol. 2: 362–363. [44] see the correspondence between waddington and granville, february 27 through april 4, 1885, in house of commons, france, no. 1 (1885), 15–21; “france and china,” times, 24 february, 1885, 5; and takahashi, “hostilités entre la france et la chine,” 636–647. [45] [friedrich] heinrich geffcken, “la france en chine et le droit international,” revue de droit international et de législation comparée 17 (1885): 145–151. also see the comments of french minister to germany, baron de courcel, to ferry, february 22 and 24, 1885, and the extract translated from the journal officiel de l’empire allemand, in ddac, 26–28; these present a less indulgent german attitude toward france than offered by chere, diplomacy of the sino–french war, 64–73. [46] takahashi, “hostilités entre la france et la chine,” 647–654. [47] patenôtre to ferry, 2 march 1885, in ddact, 197–198. for the chinese interpretation, see david scott, china and the international system, 1840–1949 (albany: suny press, 2008), 82–84; and marquis tseng [zeng jize], “china—the sleep and the awakening,” the asiatic quarterly review (january 1887): 2–10. [48] patenôtre to ferry, 16 march and 28 march 1885, in ddact, 205–209 and 217–218. the chinese foreign affairs archive marks a sudden number of reports about japanese actions in korea beginning in october 1884; see qingji waijiao shiliao, ed. wang yanwei (beiping: n.p., 1932–1935), juan 49: 920–923. see also chere, diplomacy of the sino–french war, 58–59; eastman, throne and mandarins, 185–186, 196–198; and e.v.g. kiernan, british diplomacy in china, 1880–1885 (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1939), 160–171. [49] compare ngm 6 (1870): 32–37; takahashi, “hostilités entre la france et la chine,” 498–499; and ngm 37 (1898): 279–285. a partial english translation of the 1898 proclamation is available in frus: 1898 (washington, dc: gpo, 1901): 878–881. [50] deák and jessup, a collection of neutrality laws, regulations, and treaties of various countries, 590–594 (france), 669 (greece), 682–684 (haiti), 731–732 (italy), 795–798 (netherlands), 872–873 (peru), 904 (portugal), 936 (spain), 1294–1295. (venezuela). the collection included in neutralitätserlasse: 1854 bis 1904 is much more limited. [51] ibid., 972 (sweden), 1293 (venezuela). [52] ibid., 1189. [53] svarverud, international law as world order in late imperial china, 119–127. svarverud points to fryer’s translation of edmund robertson’s essay on “international law,” in the ninth edition of the encyclopedia britannica, as a turning point; it was titled gongfa zonglun and completed sometime between 1886 and 1894. see also wang jian, goutong liangge shijie de falü yiyi, 158–159. [54] svarverud, international law as world order in late imperial china, 178–179. svarverud notes that, after 1902, an expression such as juwaizhe (“a neutral”) or juwai zhi bang (“a neutral power”), which we find in martin’s translations and doolittle’s vocabulary, was no longer possible; the appropriate term became zhongliguo, after the japanese chūritsukoku. chinese documents of the sino–japanese war in 1895—in qingji zhong-ri-han guanxi shiliao ed. zhongguo jindaishi ziliaohui (taibei: zhongyang yanjiuyuan, jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1972)—include juwai bing chuan, for “third-party” troops and ships (4225, 4233–4234), juwai for neutrality (3594, 3660), and juwai zhongli for neutrality (3574, 3655, 3754, 3984). [55] this discussion is based on the collection assembled by the u.s. state department and reprinted in frus: 1898: 841–904. [56] coleman phillipson, international law and the great war (london: t. fisher unwin, 1915), 339. editorial note | transcultural studies editorial note this issue of transcultural studies features two stand-alone articles analyzing circulations of concepts or religions and a themed section rethinking artistic contributions to knowledge production from a transcultural angle. diverse in terms of disciplinary background (ranging from intellectual and missionary history to media studies, art history, and anthropology) and regional focus (including japan, china, westand central asia as well as the united states), the four studies highlight, each in their own way, the complex ways in which individual and collective agency is distributed in the contested creation of inescapably entangled worlds. while sharing an interest in the efficacy of more or less visible eurasian networks, the two historical essays opening this issue approach their respective topics on very different scales and with very different goals: one reconstructs a brief and seemingly insignificant moment in the history of translation to unsettle conventional units of investigation in the writing of intellectual history; the other reviews the span of more than a millennium to re-evaluate the connection between strategies of persuasion and the success and legacy of missionary activities. despite, or perhaps because of, their pronounced differences both pieces illustrate the potential of a global outlook that understands the “global” as a multi-scalar perspective with sufficient granularity to inform and support both micro-historical studies and macro-historical inquiries. david mervart’s essay on early japanese attempts to find an adequate rendering for the european notion of a “republic of letters” starts at the most microscopic level. looking over the shoulders of a lonely translator struggling in late eighteenth-century nagasaki to transpose this peculiar european metaphor to a context his curious japanese audience may recognize as relevant to their own practices and concerns, the article throws the man’s labors into relief by zooming out from his scholar’s studio and situating them against the larger background of both sino-japanese and trans-eurasian exchanges of knowledge and information in the early modern period. migrations of people and texts, facilitated by the rise of print culture and crossing multiple spatial, linguistic, and political boundaries, are traced as material conditions of our translator’s troubles. at the same time, the circuits of sociability that made such movements possible are identified as indispensable social and intellectual conduits linking distant but in many ways comparable milieus. the eventual solution proposed by the weary translator evoked the spirit and practices valorized in the imaginary european “republic of letters” by equating this fictive community, no less metaphorically, with the seminar-style reading sessions of learned gentlemen common in private academies throughout tokugawa japan. in mervart’s re-creation, this fleeting moment gains methodological significance as an eloquent reminder that the continuity which students of intellectual history, even those professing to operate in a global mode, are used to ascribe to epistemic communities need not coincide with linguistic or political entities. rather than elucidating an episode in early modern “japanese thought” the author’s intricate tale recovers a mediated multilingual conversation connecting permeable worlds of learning located at both ends of the eurasian landmass that defy simplistic characterizations in national or cultural terms. the permeability of boundaries figures no less prominently in thomas ertl’s comparison of the nestorian and franciscan missionary presence in east and central asia. puzzled by the starkly different legacies and levels of success of these two distinct missionary efforts, the author traces the steps of a dazzling array of monks, traders, priests, and soldiers who travelled to the far east to spread the gospel as well as the reverse journeys of converts, pilgrims, and emissaries seeking instruction or alliances with christian leaders. this meticulous analysis pays equal attention to macroscopic reconstructions of the pathways along which better and less known mediators journeyed and microscopic re-creations of significant encounters in places as varied as yangzhou, baghdad, xian, quanzhou, karakorum, genoa, ormus, the tarim basin, and the mongolian steppe. although invariably marked by the co-existence of multiple languages and religions, if not outright syncretism, hardly any of these scattered contact zones remained conducive to missionary activities for sustained periods of time. likewise, the stability of the long-distance networks on which the missionaries relied depended on favorable conditions both at home and abroad. ertl argues that in addition to their respective strategies of persuasion, both types of volatility must be taken into account when explaining the paradoxical results of the nestorian and franciscan missions: the relative success of the nestorians in asia that was soon overshadowed by their fatal loss of support in mesopotamia on the one hand, and on the other the franciscans’ inability to leave a lasting mark in the far east while decisively shaping european images of asia and its inhabitants through their widely circulated travelogues and letters. the second segment of this issue of transcultural studies features a themed section entitled re-thinking artistic knowledge production: global media cultures—distributive creativity, whose authors engage with what might be termed the participatory turn in contemporary art. art history’s move away from a history of style into the more amorphous field of visual culture can be seen as an attempt to make space for different media—prints, posters, video, film, and digital images. apart from challenging the established methods of the discipline, this privileging of forms of collective and collaborative production among artists, curators, technicians, scenographers, and playwrights has unsettled the notion of authorship that is premised on the modernist legacy of artistic autonomy as a guarantor of a work’s authenticity. contemporary collaborative art practice deploys the notion of “creativity” as a way of democratizing the elitist concept of “art.” it reads the work as process rather than finished product and the viewer no longer as passive consumer but as participant in the continuing production of the work. even a mass medium like television is equipped with technical possibilities of enhancing a mode of participation that—by blurring the distinction between sender and receiver—could promote a more reflexive stance. while socially collaborative practices have been largely seen as artistic gestures of resistance, as a refusal to capitulate to a politics of self-interest and a culture of the spectacle, a scholarly engagement with this form of “distributive creativity”—as the articles in this section show—has to grapple with a number of tensions that make up the matrix between producers, works, and functions. moreover, by valorizing often intangible group interactions over the more tangible, definitive image, object, or exhibition, participatory art becomes a slippery field to research. introducing the themed section, franziska koch points to the methodological challenges of investigating distributed agency and relational spectatorship from a transcultural perspective. what happens to a work when seen at another time and in another place through the prism of cultural difference? does it become a site to negotiate that difference? samantha schramm addresses many of these issues in her study of the exhibition the people’s choice (arroz con mango), created in new york in 1981 as part of a collaborative enterprise between the artists’ collective group material and the inhabitants of the spanish speaking neighborhood of 13th street, where a room was rented for the show. the author identifies multiple levels of agency involved in the production of artistic knowledge: collective curatorship within the artists’ group, the agency of the local residents who chose objects seeped with private memories from their homes and brought them into the realm of the exhibition space, where they in turn became agents—latourian actants—in the production and transmission of meaning. the choice of alternative viewing spaces far removed from the museum, schramm argues, fosters a more intense, even haptic, form of viewing and transforms the spectator into a participant. and yet, as she points out, a series of tensions pervaded the exhibition: there was the difficulty in identifying the terms on which collective authorship gets negotiated, the struggle between institutionalized and informal curatorial agency, and not least the problematic situation of the objects themselves as the individual memories they embodied were in danger of being overlaid by a form of pre-packaged ethnicity. paradoxically, the multiple possibilities of cultural reading rendered the exhibition into a transcultural space where the objects mediated different understandings of culture—and where in the end their multiple stories, their references to countless places and times, militated against closed readings or the ascription of fixed identities within a given urban neighborhood. from a disciplinary perspective, any analysis of art or media as engaged social activity requires analytical tools and a methodological approach that, at least in part, draws upon concepts of the social sciences, such as community, empowerment, or agency, to name but a few. such an approach, combining anthropology with media studies, informs cora bender’s investigation of the formation of a post-frontier, native american popular culture around 1900, where she analyses participatory art as both a socio-political as well as a symbolic activity. her article conceptualizes “distributed creativity” as a set of cultural and media strategies that took shape in the interstitial contexts of american nation-building and the frontier cultures, which were marked by axes of power along which circulation and exchange took place. bender fleshes out the different strategies resorted to by native groups to “stage” cultural productions, themselves imbricated in transcultural exchanges between groups within and beyond the reservations. far from being passive observers of the emergence of new media or quasi-passive appropriators of their technical possibilities, native americans, bender forcefully argues, were “there when media first happened” and their choices and strategies significantly contributed to its development. mediatization in turn-of-the-century north america took place within a transcultural space of collaboration, transformation, and struggle across a field of unequal power relationships. a similar dynamic is still at work today: digital media, though an available resource that enhances the visibility and audibility of claims, continues to be controlled by powerful institutions and legal statutes. the two articles in this themed section suggest that distributed creativity could engender a more fruitful and dynamic relationship between the political and the aesthetic. by using transcultural methods to query the material they investigate, both authors signal towards the potential of transcultural mobility and connectivity to generate subjectivities that would address the tension between containment in spaces, memories, or routines as well as overlapping identities that produce a desire to transcend the limits of historical location and to address the world. a world, as these and the two preceding articles in this issue show, that takes shape in and through such appeals, either as the concrete stage for human action or the abstract arena in which competing claims for the recognition of identities, ideas, and beliefs are adjudicated. monica juneja and joachim kurtz re-thinking artistic knowledge production | koch | transcultural studies “re-thinking artistic knowledge production: global media cultures—distributed creativity.” an introduction franziska koch, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg this section, “re-thinking artistic knowledge production: global media cultures—distributed creativity,” features two contributions chosen from a symposium with the same title [1] that took place may 23‒24, 2013 based on a collaboration between members of the dfg research network “medien der kollektiven intelligenz” (2011–2014, university of konstanz) [2] and hosted by the chair of global art history at heidelberg university.[3] an investigation of distributed forms of artistic, or more generally of aesthetic, knowledge production in times of global connectivity calls for a transcultural perspective. such a perspective presents an academic challenge at two levels. at the level of empirical research, targeting transculturality in the global field of artistic and aesthetic practices requires researchers to trace various—often intricate or obscure—trajectories when analyzing how art works, concepts, or aesthetic practices travel from one location to the other and how their agents and technological mediation actively promote or refuse to negotiate cultural differences at specific moments. at a more reflexive level, the transcultural lens calls for a critical and historical awareness of how the very research methodologies that we apply to study these trajectories are part of epistemic formations that cannot be separated from culturally specific practices of knowledge production. this obliges us to re-consider post-colonial theories that called for a paradigmatic self-reflexive change in research, which would acknowledge and overcome the epistemic violence that the use of “western” analytic frames or concepts brings with it when answering questions of artistic or aesthetic knowledge production. in the last decade, scholars discussing the critical potential of a transcultural perspective to respond to this epistemological challenge have built on this agenda. they take post-colonial theory’s earlier call for an institutional critique seriously,[4] but are concerned about its tendency to absolutize the dichotomy of western vs. other epistemic frameworks. consequently, they seek to avoid imposing the theoretical findings resulting from a politically informed engagement with (post-)colonial power structures on historically and regionally different and very diverse socio-political and cultural contexts. in the wake of the “global turn” of the late 1990s, scholars of art history,[5] visual (cultural) studies, and visual and media anthropology [6] have begun to critically discuss and constructively overcome those cultural assumptions, as well as nationally or civilizationally defined, static units of research, which have historically shaped these disciplines and crucially (in-)formed their methodological approaches. to take the example of art history, this multi-fold engagement has brought forth a range of very instructive, innovative case studies,[7] theoretically highly engaging monographs,[8] and manifesto-like writings.[9] the research on constellations—both contemporary and historical—of “collaborative” or even “collective” artistic knowledge production reflects a dialogue among and across disciplines, as demonstrated by the contributions from an art historian, samantha schramm, and a visual anthropologist, cora bender. their articles address both the epistemological legacies of such knowledge, and the ways in which scholarly work on these processes might (only) be nested in specific localities, nurtured by certain cultural beliefs, and shared by particular agents, despite the involved and resulting notions of (globally) shared and/or “distributed creativity.”[10] yet, while the latest media paradigm of the worldwide web and its impact on professionals as well as amateurs, who are engaged in a vast, increasingly overlapping field of creative practices, has prompted academics to reconsider issues of participation and collaboration in art and artistic practices,[11] cross-culturally or even transculturally framed studies of these issues have remained rare.[12] the two authors rise to this challenge by each offering a detailed analysis of two very specific and not directly related cases: the historical role of indigenous people in shaping modern north american popular culture, and a contemporary exhibition project that socially engaged (with) a spanish-speaking neighborhood in new york. both texts zoom into complex phenomena of collaborative creative knowledge production as they reflect on the methodological decision to limit their scope to one region or an even narrower urban locale. the articles thus demonstrate that an analysis that addresses both collaborative practices at a micro level, and the new media technology that supports actors in their local settings, is invaluable when attempting to answer the large question of transculturality. both articles take north america as the main geographical context, and consider conceptions of “globality” that obviously changed over the twentieth century. the articles innovatively address two recent academic discourses and explore their existing, but largely understudied connections: on the one hand, media-related research on aspects of collectivity (as foregrounded by the symposium sub-title “global media cultures”), and on the other hand, art-related research on aspects of transculturality (as a specific connotation of the symposium sub-title “distributed creativity”). both articles address the subject of artistic knowledge production from the related vantage points of a) collective authorship in processes of distributed creativity and b) transcultural phenomena in shared or even collective creative/artistic practices, while at the same time framing these points as particularly prominent aspects of (modern or contemporary) global media cultures. samantha schramm’s contribution focuses on the exhibition the people’s choice. (arroz con mango) (new york, 1981) by the artists’ collective group material as a case study to analyze processes of cultural transformation in collaborative artistic practices that raise questions which go beyond the notion of (single) authorship. her article relates to forms of shared knowledge production shaped by the artists themselves, who made such practices a subject of explicit reflection on the level of the display. at the same time, schramm considers how the objects from private homes that were put on display in the people’s choice refer also to cultural everyday-life practices on a larger scale. taking her cue from bruno latour’s notion of the circulating references of objects, she asks how transcultural collectivity is shaped by the circulation and transformation of the objects themselves, which become creative mediators in processes of transcultural knowledge production. cora bender’s article extends the temporal and geographic horizon of the section to include the beginning of the twentieth century and post-frontier american popular culture. she analyzes entanglements of newly emerging media technology (especially photography and film), rapid industrialization, and the invention of leisure time on the one hand, and the opening up of the vast american interior for touristic exploration following the end of the “indian wars” on the other. her study demonstrates how new arenas of cultural representation such as rodeos, fairs, and exhibitions went hand in hand with a shift in american politics towards a more or less forced integration of the diverse american populace under the umbrella of american patriotism. yet, despite the violence involved in this integration, bender argues from a media anthropological point of view that indigenous actors played a crucial role in bringing forth the new creative forms which marked this era and then subsequently evolved into what is nowadays called “global media culture.” her article provides a strong case study to learn how the imagination of a community and the new media-based distribution of its representations can actually include as well as cover up many, often conflicting voices and creative agents without them necessarily contesting the overall imaginary. bender’s argument that native people “were not hapless victims of mediatization,” but that “they were there when media first happened, and they collaborated in making them happen” does indeed challenge the concept of cultural appropriation (aneignung) that is so prominent in media and communication studies. while such a position does not contradict the other symposium contributors’ scepticism regarding today’s media user—aptly called a “prosumer”[13]—and his/her inability to maintain strong cases of independent and creative authorship,[14] it affirms the overall impression that historical as well as contemporary media developments and related cultural practices attest not only to forms of cultural “appropriation,” but to that of a cultural “cooperation” between locally situated agents, (digitally) inter-connected media, and increasingly global communicational networks. a comparative reading of bender’s and schramm’s articles makes clear that the specific power relations within each of the socio-political and historical settings is a key factor in explaining how forms of cultural appropriation as well as cooperation evolve, change, and might continue to (in-)form distributed creativity across further locales and times. taken together, the articles also provide partial but complementary answers to some of the symposium’s lingering questions, while highlighting the need to address those questions that only appear as an afterthought of a comparative reading: are there new ways of collectively producing and sharing artistic knowledge in the broadest sense, which would transcend earlier practices by which artist groups and networked amateurs alike, as well as artistic or simply creative media, were able to overcome the (modernist) ideals of single authorship? or do we see historical conflicts of “authentic” authorship, unequal power relations, and cultural misunderstandings taking on a new look and becoming viral on a new, global scale? [1] see the symposium’s program, “re-thinking artistic knowledge production: global media cultures—distributed creativity.” http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/newsevents/events/archive/event-view/cal/event/view-list|page_id-456/tx_cal_phpicalendar/2013/05/23/re_thinking_artistic_knowledge_production_distributed_creativity_global_media_cultures.html [accessed on 17. november 2015]. [2] for a comprehensive overview of the activities of this interdisciplinary research network see “dfg-research network ‘medien der kollektiven intelligenz’.” http://www.uni-konstanz.de/mki/ [accessed on 17. november 2015]. for the interdisciplinary results of the network see, among others, mathias denecke, anne ganzert, isabell otto, and robert stock, eds., reclaiming participation: technology—mediation—collectivity (bielefeld: transcript, forthcoming 2016). [3] as guest editor of this section and co-organizer of the symposium “re-thinking artistic knowledge production: global media cultures—distributed creativity,” i would like to thank both authors and their peer reviewers, as well as the journal’s editors for their meticulous work and joint academic efforts, which ensured that a significant part of the inspiring symposium discussion is now reflected in publication. [4] for surveys of the post-colonial turn, see for example doris bachmann-medick, cultural turns: neuorientierungen in den kulturwissenschaften (reinbek: rowohlt, 2006) and bill ashcroft, gareth griffiths, and helen tiffin, eds., the post-colonial studies reader (london/new york: routledge, 2006 (1995)). [5] the state of critical art historical meta-reflection regarding the so-called global turn in the german speaking region is summarized in matthias bruhn, monica juneja, and elke anna werner, eds., „universalität der kunstgeschichte?“ kritische berichte: zeitschrift für kunstund kulturwissenschaften 40, no. 2 (2012). a more recent overview of disciplinary positions is offered by the public lecture series “global art history,” 7. october 2015 to 27. january 2016, at linz university, austria. http://ku-linz.at/universitaet/aktuelles/details/article/gobal-art-history-ringvorlesung-im-wintersemester-201516/ [accessed on 17. november 2015]. for an edited volume that features the state of critical discussions in the anglo-american research community, see for example: jill h. casid and aruna dʼsouza, eds., art history in the wake of the global turn and clark studies in the visual arts (williamstown: sterling and francine clark art institute, 2014). [6] among the key texts associated with the reflexive turn in anthropology are: bob scholte, “toward a reflexive and critical anthropology (1969),” in reinventing anthropology, ed. dell hymes (new york: pantheon, 1972); talal asad, ed., anthropology and the colonial encounter (amherst, ny: prometheus books, 1973); paul rabinow, reflections on fieldwork in morocco (berkeley: university of california press, 1978); jay ruby, ed., a crack in the mirror: reflexive perspectives in anthropology (philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press, 1982); james clifford and george e. marcus, eds., writing culture: the poetics and politics of ethnography (berkeley: university of california press, 1986); clifford geertz, works and lives: the anthropologist as author (stanford: stanford university press, 1988); and ruth behar and deborah a. gordon, eds., women writing culture (berkeley: university of california press, 1996). [7] see for example monica juneja, “global art history and the ‘burden of representation’,” in global studies: mapping the contemporary, ed. hans belting (ostfildern: hatje cantz, 2011), 274–297, in which she critically asks if art history can be made global in reference to earlier, less self-reflexive attempts such as james elkins, ed., is art history global? the art seminar (new york: routledge, 2007). her article is representative of the latest critical approaches, in that the theoretical reflection on the epistemological challenge is constructively answered by means of specific case studies from non-euro-american regions—in this case, contemporary art from south asia. the analysis highlights the crucial, long-standing cultural entanglement and shared discourse of non-european artistic centers, and the status of europe and north america as the dominant centers of the modern academic discipline. [8] see for example amelia jones, seeing differently: a history and theory of identification and the visual arts (london: routledge, 2012), in which she provides a study that critically explores the modern western approach that conceives of art as a binary proposition and relates it to identification. [9] in donald preziosi and claire farago, art is not what you think it is. wiley blackwell manifestos (chichester: wiley-blackwell, 2012), farago and preziosi have explicitly framed their equally critical consideration as a “manifesto” to mark the disciplinary urgency with which they call for art historians to engage in a productive meta-reflection. [10] axel bruns, in blogs, wikipedia, second life and beyond: from production to produsage (new york: peter lang, 2008), 230–231 provides a useful definition of “distributed creativity” based on creative and web-based processes of “produsage,” in which user-led productions and content-creation are generated in decentralized and distributed ways: “whether users are directly collaborating in the creation of collective works of art, or collaborating somewhat more distantly in the sharing and mutual critiquing of the individual work and its collection and exhibition in creative communities, we can generally describe such practices as forms of distributed creative work. […] the term of the artist, especially in the romantic idea of the ‘great artist,’ however, also points us to the wider effect of the collaborative aspects of produsage in this and other cases: artistry and creative work, and the idea of the creative work, are substantially affected by community-based produsage efforts, as these undermine the idea of the work itself as a complete, finished, and defined entity just as they undermine the idea of the industrial product as a complete, finished, and defined package. produsage […] has no fixed products, but only temporary artefacts of the ongoing process; creative produsage, then, does not generate artworks, not even artworks ‘in progress,’ but instead offers a creative process which may generate temporary artefacts along the way.” compare note 13 for a related definition of the “prosumer.” [11] particularly prominent are attempts to define participatory art and a relational understanding of artworks, their makers, and their viewers: nicolas bourriaud, relational aesthetics (dijon: les presses du reel, 1998); claire bishop, artificial hells: participatory art and the politics of spectatorship (london: verso, 2012); rudolf frieling, “towards participation in art,” in the art of participation 1950 to now, ed. rudolf frieling et al. (san francisco museum of modern art/london: thames & hudson), 33–49. an introduction to this discourse is in samantha schramm, “arts and media: participation and relation,” in denecke, reclaiming participation, 175–181. [12] among the few monographs that come to mind are: grant kester, the one and the many: contemporary collaborative art in a global context (durham: duke university press, 2011) and miwon kwon, one place after another: site-specific art and locational identity (cambridge: mit press, 2002). [13] the term was coined by american futurist alvin toffler, who predicted the blurring of the demarcations between producers and consumers in highly saturated marketplaces. such markets would trigger the mass production of highly customized products that, in turn, would require consumers to actively participate in the production process, for example, when specifying design requirements. as a consequence, the consumer would at least partially assume the conventional role of producers as content-providers, see alvin toffler, the third wave: the classic study of tomorrow (new york: bantam, 1980). later, the term was more narrowly applied to people who create value for companies without receiving wages, see george ritzer and nathan jurgenson, “production, consumption, prosumption: the nature of capitalism in the age of the digital ‘prosumer’,” journal of consumer culture 10, no. 1 (march, 2010), 13–36. compare note 10 for a related definition of the term “produsage.” [14] such was the case in the joint symposium contribution by klaus schönberger and christian ritter (zurich university of the arts (zhdk)), “zwischen aneignung und hacking. umnutzung/umformung/transformation popkultureller codes.” the issue was also addressed by henry keazor (heidelberg university) in his paper, “asi or aso? artistic swarm intelligence vs. artistic sell out in the era of the web 2.0,” and by asko lehmuskallio (university of california berkeley/helsinki institute for information technology (hiit)), in his paper, “cameras and translocal practices: embodied looking relations and medium-specific differences.” compare note 1. 2015.1 editorial note monica juneja and joachim kurtz .04 articles dhruv raina translating the “exact” and “positive” sciences: early twentieth century reflections on the past of the sciences in india .08 maurizio taddei narrative art between india and the hellenistic world .34 christiane brosius emplacing and excavating the city: art, ecology, and public space in new delhi .75 lisa bixenstine safford art at the crossroads: lacquer painting in french vietnam .126 catherine vance yeh recasting the chinese novel: ernest major’s shenbao publishing house (1872–1890) .171 2 contributors transcultural studies, no 1, 2015, issn: 2191-6411 editors: monica juneja, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg joachim kurtz, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg rudolf g. wagner, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg managing editor: andrea hacker editorial board: christiane brosius, antje fluechter, madeleine herren, birgit kellner, axel michaels, barbara mittler, diamantis panagiotopoulos, vladimir tikhonov, and roland wenzlhuemer. transcultural studies is an open-access e-journal published bi-annually by the cluster of excellence, “asia and europe in a global context: the dynamics of transculturality“ at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. for more information see: www.transculturalstudies.org contributors to this issue: dhruv raina is professor at the jawaharlal nehru university, new delhi. he studied physics at the indian institute of technology, mumbai, and received his ph.d. in the philosophy of science from göteborg university. his research focuses on the politics and cultures of scientific knowledge in south asia. he has co-edited situating the history of science: dialogues with joseph needham (1999), social history of sciences in colonial india (2007), and science between europe and asia (2010). images and contexts: the historiography of science and modernity (2003) was a collection of papers contextualizing science and its modernity in india. s. irfan habib and he co-authored domesticating modern science (2004). his most recent book is needham’s indian network (2015). maurizio taddei (1936-2000) was a leading scholar of early buddhist art with broad interests ranging from archaeological work to scholarly analysis, the history of oriental studies in italy, and teaching. a graduate of the university of rome, he became professor of indian archaeology and art www.transculturalstudies.org 3transcultural studies 2015.1 history at the istituto universitario orientale in naples in 1968. he was the author of 230 scholarly works, many of which were translated into foreign languages. among them are india antica (1972), monuments of civilization: india (1978), and on gandhara (2003), a posthumous collection of essays in italian with english summaries. the article in this issue is a full translation of one of them. christiane brosius is professor of visual and media anthropology at the heidelberg centre for transcultural studies. her research focuses on large art events and emerging contemporary art scenes in delhi and kathmandu as well as mediatised affection and politics of affect in urban india. she is co-founder of the digital database tasveerghar – a house of pictures and project leader of a hera-funded transnational research collaboration on single women in delhi and shanghai. her latest monograph, india’s middle class. new forms of urban leisure, consumption and prosperity, has been revised and reprinted by routledge new delhi in 2014. lisa bixenstine safford is professor of art history and chair of the art department at hiram college in ohio. while her expertise is in western art— renaissance and modern—she has received numerous grants from funding bodies such as the neh, fulbright-hays, aacu, and asianetwork, to travel and learn in japan, china, korea, vietnam, india, and sri lanka. her asian research interests concern the preservation or translation of traditional culture in modern and modernizing societies. catherine vance yeh is professor of modern chinese and comparative literature at boston university. her research interest lies in global cultural interaction and flow in the field of literature, media, and visual culture during the 19th and 20th centuries. she has published widely on the subject of entertainment culture and social change, and her publications include shanghai love: courtesans, intellectuals and entertainment culture, 18501910 (2006) and the chinese political novel: migration of a world genre (2015). she is currently finishing a book project with the working title “the rise of peking opera dan actors to national stardom and chinese theater modernity, 1910s-1930s”. http://transculturalstudies.org http://www.tasveerghar.net/ http://www.hera-single.de/ http://www.hera-single.de/ editorial note | transcultural studies editorial note the opening essay by ori sela in this issue of transcultural studies represents the journal’s first foray into the field of philosophy, a discipline not often addressed from a transcultural angle. while natural scientists have, by and large, come to accept the social and cultural dimensions of their trade, many philosophers remain reluctant to embrace the situatedness of their endeavour, insisting instead on an emphatically defended separation between systematic and historical studies of philosophical problems. even philosophers of culture, operating under the suspicious gaze of their less conciliatory peers, rarely attempt to blur this anxiously policed boundary. one reason for this intransigence may, paradoxically, lie in the remarkable growth of “comparative philosophy.” since its modest beginnings in mid-twentieth-century north america, comparative philosophy has established itself as a sizeable sector of the global philosophical economy, with a sustainable infrastructure of dedicated chairs, specialised journals, and professional associations. yet, this success has come with a price: few comparative philosophers have withstood the temptation to mobilise reified notions of culture to bolster their claim that cultural differences are of systematic significance, above and beyond the immediate concerns of an ethics of recognition. only in recent years have such exercises been supplemented by research that focuses on actual philosophical encounters. sela’s article, which traces two distinct phases in the introduction of european philosophy in china—the seventeenth and late nineteenth century, respectively—is part of this on-going reorientation. it demonstrates that a reconstruction of the concrete circumstances under which specific texts and ideas migrated between europe and china reveals more about the reasons for success or failure than even the most sophisticated speculations about the alleged structural deficits of the chinese language or a supposedly incurable addiction to an impotent tradition. thus, sela’s contribution underlines the virtues of a transcultural approach that does not reject comparative questions but instead translates them onto a level of concreteness that allows for empirically grounded answers. in a similar historiographic move, yue zhuang aligns her investigation with those recent studies that search for more plausible interpretive frameworks with which to uncover specific european strategies of interpreting texts and artefacts from asian civilizations, and which elicit responses that do not readily fall into the explanatory moulds of romantic idealisation or imperialist epistemic appropriation. this story too is about the “encounter between europe and china,” about the ways in which perplexing alterity could take hold of collective imaginations in a distant locality.  much has been written about the role of chinoiserie in shaping artistic fashions and consumer cultures in europe during the age of commercial capitalism.  yue zhuang takes her enquiry beyond the immediately visible gestures of appropriation and emulation of chinese objects, teahouses or gardens, to investigate a deeper engagement with the often less easily decipherable articulations of chinese culture. the author’s approach seeks to recover the more indirect modes of recasting alien, seemingly opaque, texts and images into familiar models and thereby deploying them to shape emergent discourses of european modernity. the article reads the descriptions of oriental landscape in william chambers’s dissertation on oriental gardening in conjunction with edmund burke’s theory of the sublime and beautiful to demonstrate how exotic landscapes, which connoted “luxury,” could effectively be harnessed as a medium to proffer arguments about values of virtuous citizenship in a burgeoning commercial society. the chinese garden served as an allegorical medium to rehearse the discourses of the scottish enlightenment on a range of subjects from physiology to martial virtue and commerce theory. zhuang’s exercise suggests that specifically grounded and close readings of materials not only bring to light the plurality of active engagements produced within individual encounters, but could contribute to refining our paradigms of investigating transcultural relationships as they stretch across many historical periods and spaces. in the imaginary geography of globalisation, treaty ports are seen as contact zones par excellence. however, mio wakita’s study of commercial souvenir photography in late nineteenth-century yokohama reveals that these supposedly open cities may play a more ambiguous role in global circulations. the port’s rapid development in the late 1860s attracted not only merchants, missionaries, and mercenaries, but soon also aroused the curiosity of tourists from japan and abroad. domestic travellers came to the city to experience “the world,” while members of the emerging tribe of foreign globetrotters flocked to yokohama to catch an authentic glimpse of the “real japan.” yet, both groups had to revise their expectations due to the shifting forms of cultural “disconnectedness” that separated the city and its inhabitants from the rest of japan. wakita reveals these ruptures by tracing changing photographic representations of this peculiar site of transition and transience in the works of two local studios. her study reconstructs the initially parallel and later competing cultures of commercial image making and consumption among the japanese and foreign communities until both were rendered obsolete by technological development. the invention of the kodak #1 in 1888 ushered in the age of the amateur photographer and paved the way for a still more disconnected tourist gaze that was informed more by clichés and popular discourse than by personal experience. by examining the interconnected movements of people, images, objects, ideas, and practices in situ, wakita nuances our understanding of the forms and functions of commercial souvenir photographs and enriches our picture of the complex site to which these visual representations were tied. while practitioners of literary studies were among the earliest to respond to the challenges posed by global mobility to their disciplines, earlier paradigms such as comparative literature or an inclusive world literature are now being enriched and supplemented—perhaps even with the effect of undermining the premises of “inclusion” as a pedagogical and analytic move—by a transcultural perspective that seeks to recuperate and analyse specific literary articulations of “neo-nomadic” sensibility. arianna dagnino has chosen a structural and systematic approach to this problematic by proposing a heuristic model for literary studies constituted by five factors: “time,” “context,” “practice,” “meaning,” and “agency.” taken together, the contributions in this issue reveal how different disciplines search for nuanced and empirically substantiated ways of theorizing the transformatory potential of transcultural connections, with all their unpredictable inflections. we wish you instructive reading and look forward to your feedback. monica juneja, joachim kurtz “luxury” and “the surprising” | zhuang | transcultural studies “luxury” and “the surprising” in sir william chambers’s dissertation on oriental gardening (1772): commercial society and burke’s sublime-effect yue zhuang, university of exeter chinese gardens fascinated the english and british elite in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. this fascination was not mere exoticism but was associated with the moral political discourse within which the english landscape movement evolved.[1] in seventeenth and eighteenth-century europe, china enjoyed a considerable reputation for its civility and moral government.[2] in britain, the chinese garden, known for its irregularity and its capacity to please the senses and imagination, was evoked by various people, including sir william temple (1628–1699) and joseph addison (1672–1719), in order to articulate and legitimate their own interests and pursuits in society.[3] in the late eighteenth century, a book entitled dissertation on oriental gardening (1772)[4] by sir william chambers (1723–1796),[5] an architect to king george iii (r. 1760–1801), marked yet a new representation of chinese gardens. contrary to previous representations of the irregular chinese style by temple and addison, chambers’s gardens were not enemies of “the regular,” which had become associated with the tyrannical state.[6] cultivating an air of sensationalism,[7] chambers’s chinese gardens consisted of scenes of the pleasing, the terrible, and the surprising, which, he emphasised, were capable of exciting opposite and violent sensations (dg,28, 64); whereas the english style, typically represented in lancelot “capability” brown’s (1716–1783) “naturalistic” gardening, which chambers criticized, was a mere imitation of nature.[8] the english style was monotonous, insipid, and demonstrated a languor of the mind (dg, 33). although attacked by “old corps” whigs as a “tory landscape,”[9] the dissertation won support from other whig politicians like edmund burke (1729–1797), who called himself a “chamberist.”[10] burke’s showing favour to the dissertation was not mere coincidence. in fact, the contrast between the two mental states—languor and violent sensations—which chambers proposed in the dissertation,resonated deeply with the effect of the beautiful and the sublime as described by edmund burke in his philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful (1757), which chambers had carefully studied.[11] the burkean sublime-effect and the dissertation on oriental gardening as richard bourke has suggested, burke’s enquiry was an investigation into training imaginative sensibilities.[12] terms like sensibility, imagination, and taste, in eighteenth-century britain, were as political as they were psychological or moral. an important background to this phenomenon lies in the nature of the constitutional government of britain. after the glorious revolution of 1688, political authority no longer rested upon the monarch’s prerogatives. the morals or virtues of englishmen were seen to include the very protection of english liberty and constitutional government.[13] this english concept of virtue was inherited from the roman virtus, which referred to martial values like courage, self-restraint, and strength.[14] as philip ayres discusses, following the revolution the newly empowered english aristocrats used roman-republican constitutional liberty as their model of governance.[15] the aristocrats identified martial values as constituting the core values of an englishmen’s virtues. according to the stoic philosopher seneca, the greatest enemy of virtus was fortuna—that is, wealth or luxury.[16] the stoic’s teaching was close to british hearts and was reflected in the anxiety about the corruption of morals by commerce that was constantly on display in different representations of the time including, for example, the famous pamphlet,estimate of the manners and principles of the times (1757) written by the ardent whig, the reverend john brown (1715–1766). whilst traditional minds condemned commerce as sinful, scottish enlightenment thinkers like adam smith (1723–1790) considered commercial society as the final stage in the development of society, naturally succeeding that of agriculture.[17] in this final stage, the aesthetic qualities of commodities satisfied “the nicety and delicacy of our taste,”[18] which signalled progress; however, smith also noted the emasculating effect of excessive luxury. inhis theory of moral sentiments (1759) he commented that “perhaps the delicate sensibility required in civilized nations sometimes destroys the masculine firmness of character.”[19] the refined material culture of commercial society, which enhanced sensitivity to the pleasures of liberty and commerce (i.e. liberal or civilian virtues), also undermined martial values. to counteract the negative effect of commerce adam smith and many other liberal thinkers suggested military strategies to revive the languishing martial spirits of britons and the nation.[20] chambers, of scots descent, emphasised this scottish enlightenment discourse.[21] but as an architect he took up a sensationalist approach and, following burke’s theory of the sublime, introduced the theory that moulding citizens’ martial virtues could be achieved through city landscaping; he disguised this theory in the garb of chinese gardens. chambers confessed in personal correspondence to his friend, the famous swedish naval architect, frederick chapman (1721–1808), that his account of chinese gardens was not authentic. but rather, as chambers wrote, “it is a system of my own which as it was a bold attempt of which the success was very uncertain, i fathered it upon the chinese who i thought lived far enough off to be out of reach of critical abuse.”[22] the dissertation therefore may be read as an allegorical text that talked about english landscape gardening through a chinese garb—a literary technique that was not uncommon during chambers’s time.[23] allegorical chinese images were often adopted by european authors in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries because of the general model-effect or cultural superiority that china enjoyed at the time.[24] as previous scholars have noted, the chinese models adopted by europeans functioned as mirrors or disguises for certain values that were inherent in the western non-orthodox tradition. as models, the chinese subjects served as a justification for those western values.[25] in the case of the dissertation, the decision to introduce the chinese garden to europe was made because, as chambers proposed, chinese gardeners were “not only botanists, but painters and philosophers, having a thorough knowledge of the human mind, and of the arts by which its strongest feelings are excited” (dg, 11).these “chinese” philosopher-gardeners may be seen as mirrors of both those contemporary french architects in the academy of architecture who emphasised the impact of architecture on sensations, such as germain boffrand (1667–1754) and jacques-francois blondel (1705–1774) with whom chambers studied;[26] and british philosophers (e.g. edmund burke and lord kames [henry home, 1696–1782]) whose works on aesthetics were written from the perspective of the operation of the senses.[27] for example, beauty, as burke defined it, “was some quality in bodies, acting mechanically upon the human mind by the intervention of the senses”(pe, 112). in his elements of criticism (1762), lord kames stated: “architecture [and gardening] cannot otherwise entertain the mind, but by raising certain agreeable emotions or feelings.”[28] these ideas influenced chambers’s exploration of the art of landscape gardening. as he declared at the beginning of the preface to the dissertation in reference to gardening, compared with buildings and other arts “its dominion is general; its effects upon the human mind certain and invariable” (dg, v). these architects and philosophers’ sensationalist notes deviated from the authority of lockean associationism and the popular concept of the dominating role of “reason in producing our passions.” the sensationalist notes were underpinned, as recent scholarship has revealed, by eighteenth-century physiology.[29] developed from thomas willis’s anatomy of the brain (1664), major teachers at the edinburgh medical school, such as william cullen (1710–1790), emphasised the nervous system as the structural basis for the total integration of body function and the perceptive capacity or sensibility of the organism.[30] the sensibility of the nerves, they assumed, depended not on the faculty of reason but on the quality of received perceptions.  hence, the edinburgh medical school held that “all man’s higher attributes—taste, imagination, and indeed the capacity to reason—would, in the last analysis, depend on his condition of existence, diet, weather, labour and so forth… sensibility [was] in the end related to the individual’s mode of life and should, in the healthy state, be properly adjusted to it.”[31] this physiological account of the nervous system, combined with a new interest in the environment as a determinant of man’s nature and of civilization generally,[32] directly influenced the discourse of imagination, aesthetics, and philosophy. “the beautiful” and “the sublime,” or buildings and gardens, were not valued as mere aesthetic objects but as constituting the living environment that played an important role in shaping the human imagination. as burke made plain, his enquiry was “to find whether there are any principles, on which the imagination is affected, so common to all, so grounded and certain, as to supply the means of reasoning satisfactorily about them.”[33] lord kames also claimed that a built environment reflected the moral worth of its proprietors: “a house and garden surrounded with pleasant fields, all in good order, bestow greater lustre upon the owner than at first will be imagined. the beauties of the former are, by intimacy of connection, readily communicated to the latter.”[34] it is upon such an integrated psycho-physiological and moral discourse that chambers built and envisioned his sensationalist landscape theory, emphasising the effect of the art of landscape gardening on shaping the imagination. with scenes of “the terrible” and “the surprising”—howling jackals, gibbets, apparatus of torture, and shocks of electrical impulses (dg, 27–29), chambers’s descriptions differed radically from addison’s earlier account of chinese gardens as a source of the pleasures of the imagination; however, it was still firmly in accordance with burke’s concept of the sublime.[35] whilst for addison the beautiful evoked the soul or senses’ highest gratification (or a perfect state of perception), for burke the sublime elicited a more superior, intensified experience. burke’s definition of the sublime, as aris sarafianos suggests, was designed to be compatible with the physiologists’ theory of the contractility of the nerves.[36] from the physiologists’ view, the rational “soul” as the vital force was not a speculative form of mechanical fluidism but rather an innate “force in the fibres themselves, a life which makes them contract.”[37] a healthy condition was obtained when fibres were in “continuous oscillation, in constant movement as an expression of the vis vitalis.”[38] whilst burke connected the beautiful with pleasures (relaxation), his definition of the sublime was affected in terms of “pain or danger” or of “sickness, and death” (heightened instances of tension). the most intensified, lifting emotion, according to burke, therefore, could not be the pleasures evoked by the beautiful, wherein the fibres are in constant rest or trapped in an unchanging movement, but rather that great emotion of “delightful horror” caused by the sublime, which occurred at the point of a baffling, contradictory, but clearly physiological threshold where “a change as produces a relaxation should immediately produce a sudden convulsion,” and “a violent pulling of the fibres” (pe, 132). the sublime was thus positioned by burke against the beautiful as an antidote against the languid, for it intensified vitality through “an exertion of the contracting power of the muscles” (pe, 173), keeping the organism in an active, healthy condition. as suzanne guerlac suggests, the tension of the sublime functioned as a kind of homeostatic device, or constancy mechanism, ensuring against the risk of the dangerous reduction of tension induced through pleasure. [39] the sublime thus had the effect of curing weakness. congruent with burke’s theory of the beautiful and the sublime, chambers orchestrated oriental scenes of luxury and the surprising where the passenger’s “attention is constantly to be kept up,” and his mind led through a “quick successions of opposite and violent sensations” (dg, 64, 28). for this scenic dyad of luxury and the surprising, chambers used an ambivalent image of the chinese garb as a narrative model with which to refer to the british reality. the refined summer scenes of the chinese gardens, as i will show, are not a mere backdrop for an oriental paradise but a mirror of british commercial hedonistic gardens like the vauxhall gardens in london. reflecting the urban commercial exuberance from colonial trade, the luxury gardens signalled a refined sensibility to the pleasures of liberty, commerce, and the arts, which marked out a higher commercial civilization. however, the excessive luxury of the summer scenes, projected through the effeminacy and decadence of the chinese princes, alerted the british elite to their own potential corruption by way of material comforts. the scenes of the surprising, on the other hand, are appropriations from both the jesuits’ accounts of the emperor kangxi’s (r. 1661–1722) annual autumn hunts in mulan, a vast area of mountains and forests in inner mongolia,[40] and the underground renaissance humanist practices of initiation rites.[41] the manchu strategy of sustaining military vigour in its army, intermingled with hermetic-neoplatonic tenets of spiritual regeneration, was transplanted into the british discourse of rejuvenating the nation’s military spirit and martial values. pseudo-military journeys through “chinese” gardens, when further applied to visionary national transportation networks, would have functioned as vehicles of the sublime-effect for chambers, the comptroller of the king’s works. landscape, in chambers’s vision, was not a mere object catering to the landowners’ aesthetic gaze. rather, embedded in living environments, landscape was a site for moulding british citizens’ sensations, and it was expected to counteract the emasculating effect of the excessive commodities produced by commercial society. luxury: visions of a commercial society the 1760–70s were a time in which britain experienced economic prosperity as the peace of paris (1763) secured great imperial gains. under the conditions associated with the new commercial society, national anxiety about moral corruption became particularly pertinent. as john brown observed about civil life in hisestimate of the manners and principles of the times (1757): every house of fashion is now crowded with porcelain trees and birds, porcelain men and beasts, crossed legged mandarins and brahmins, perpendicular lines and stiff right angles: every gaudy chinese crudity, either in colour, form, attitude, or grouping, is adopted into fashionable use, and has become the standard of taste and elegance… there is hardly a corner of the kingdom, where a summer scene of public dissipation is not now established.[42] the greatest worry concerning the new economy was that the rich english middle class who had made quick fortunes in the colonies were not only bringing back habits of luxurious consumption, but also of oriental corruption. these “nabobs” openly competed for political power with the landed aristocracy in parliament and elsewhere, by means of bribery. as the historian and whig politician, horace walpole querulously asked in 1773: what is england now? a sink of indian wealth, filled by nabobs and emptied by maccaronis! a senate sold and despised! a country overrun by horse-races! a gaming, robbing, wrangling, railing nation without principles, genius, character, or allies. [43] chambers’s “chinese” summer scene—a landscape of luxury—precisely responds to these social reflections. it is worth noting that in his representation the landscape of luxury has an ambivalent effect encompassing both civility and effeminacy. this ambivalent image not only reflected chambers’s own identity—a patriotic politician from a mercantilist background—but it also aligned him with his companion scottish liberal thinkers who not only saw the necessity of global trade to make britain a great nation but were also aware of commercialism’s fatal side-effect—effeminacy. (a) luxury as civility in contrast to the conservative moralist presentation of chinoiserie as “foreignness” and grotesque, chambers welcomed and even celebrated oriental luxury as a scene of civility. he presented them all in detail: the plentiful waterworks, the rich plantations, the exotic animals and birds, the sophisticated tree-lined walks; the “cabinets of verdure” and the grottos adorned with “incrustations of coral shells, ores, gems and christalisations [sic]”; the elegant pavilions with sophisticated names (e.g. miao ting), the finishings of marble, “inlaid precious woods, ivory, silver, gold, and mother of pearl”; the splendid and spacious buildings, furnished with “pictures, sculptures, embroideries, trinkets, and pieces of clock-work of great value,” “enriched with ornaments of gold, intermixed with pearls, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and other gems” (dg, 20–23). in the chinese gardens, all senses were satisfied. as chambers related, smell was pleased by aromatic herbs and flowers, as well as fragrant, artificial breezes; taste was aroused by sweet-scented water; hearing was entertained by melodious birds and murmuring fountains; and there were many objects that pleased the sense of sight and stimulated the imagination: the finest verdure, the most brilliant, harmonious colouring imaginable; the most colourful birds, such as gold and silver pheasants and pea-fowls; painted glass that fitted in windows, which tinted the light and gave a glow to objects; and the tinted-glass skylights in the halls of the moon, which filled the interiors with the pleasing gloom of a fine summer’s night. in this way, chambers showed himself to be a follower of the new evaluation of luxury that was put forward by liberal thinkers like david hume and adam smith. hume and smith did not consider luxury items as being associated with the excess and ostentation of the older elite consumption, nor did they consider that foreign imports harmed the domestic economy. instead they suggested that these imports expressed civility, comfort, fashion, taste, and moderation. hume, for example, identified “luxury” with the invention and production of manufactured goods designed for the “gratification of the senses.”[44] thus luxury functioned as an incentive for individual and social-economic improvement. as maxine berg points out, the emerging higher way of life and the new capitalistic economic order in europe had drawn inspiration from the growing trade with asia since the seventeenth century.[45] the asian craft objects of luxury in chambers’s scenes, therefore, represented for europeans a whole new category of what berg calls “an economy of quality and delight,” which stimulated new ways of thinking about a more civilized way of life and undermined the existing system of feudalism. monarchs and politicians skilfully used asiatic luxury to promote this new liberal political-economic order to aid their own interests. frederick louis, prince of wales (1707–1751), chambers’s royal patron, was one such example. frederick sponsored the famous vauxhall gardens (1732), a popular pleasure garden displaying oriental tastes and entertainment. vauxhall was a key site of “the new capitalists’ cultural enterprise” in london.[46] for frederick, who brought reformation to the british economic-political system,[47] to patronize the luxury hedonistic garden was not only an effective way to distinguish him from the old feudal political-economic order and monarchical tradition; it was also an effective way of bringing down that order and of promoting the new order of free trade that had won him tremendous support from the mercantile middle class. the “chinese” scenes of luxury, with their obvious parallels with this hedonistic garden, may be seen as homage by the scottish merchant’s son to the hanoverian prince who, by promoting asiatic luxury gardens, had initiated the reform of foreign and commercial policies in favour of the overseas trading community and had facilitated the establishment of a liberal, civil, and commercial society. (b) luxury as effeminacy however, the scenes of luxury in oriental gardens had another aspect in that luxury objects were marked with the character of femininity: sweet and scented vegetables, “clumps of rose trees” and “lofty flowering shrubs” made up “a wilderness of sweets adorned with all sorts of fragrant and gaudy productions.” (dg, 20) birds were chosen for their beautiful colours and melodious songs; animals for their mild and obedient nature—deer, antelopes, spotted buffaloes, and sheep; there were “murmuring fountains, sleeping nymphs”; water gave sweet scent, breezes were fragrant and artificial; music was soft; the books in the library were for entertainment; and the paintings were amorous. (dg, 21) the feminine character of objects was virtually expressed in human figures—eunuchs, women servants, and concubines—who were either indulging in all sorts of entertainment: dining, conversation, music, and playing games or waiting in secret recesses for their visiting patrons. the only male characters, chinese princes, as represented by chambers, were engaged with nothing in particular, instead preferring to “retire with their favourite women” to pavilions, “whenever the heat and intense light of the summer’s day becomes disagreeable to them; and here they feast, and give loose to every sort of voluptuous pleasure” (dg,23–24). in describing it thus, chambers echoed a predominant view in the minds of the eighteenth-century british elite: asia, like india and china, epitomised the evil union of luxury and effeminacy. the seventeenth and eighteenth-century british readers were familiar with the conquest of the ming empire by the manchus through works like the jesuit martin martini’s bellum tartaricum (london 1654) and elkanah settle’s play the conquest of china by the tartars (london 1676). these descriptions perpetuated what would become a familiar binary in the eighteenth century of the sensual, effeminate southern chinese and their antithesis in the hardy masculine northern tartars (manchus)[48] who in time would be softened and feminized by those they had conquered, the han chinese. for eighteenth-century british audiences, such representations dovetailed with warnings about the potential effeminisation of britain through the import and consumption of luxury items, which would emasculate the masculinity and virility of their virtus. in the early eighteenth century, in his characteristics of men, manners, opinions, times (1711), anthony ashley cooper (1671–1713), the third earl of shaftesbury, had already warned of the negative effects of commercial luxury and effeminacy.[49] it was therefore widely recognized by the mid-eighteenth century that commercial society inevitably brought with it luxury consumption and effeminate masculinity. as mentioned above, aristocratic men’s public virtues were seen to include the very protection of liberty and national freedom. in commercial society, martial values were seen as being undermined by refined living. as adam smith recognized, the outcome of an increasingly commercial and liberal order produced “weak men.”[50] adam ferguson described the upper class of britons in the following way: “the hearts of our people are not steel, they are softened by a disuse of arms, by security, and pacific employments.”[51] lord kames also noted that “where arts, manufactures, and commerce, have arrived at perfection, a pacific spirit prevails universally.” [52] he saw this “pacific spirit” as a danger on the grounds that now “not a spark of military ardour” remains, “nor will any man be a soldier.”[53] the anxiety of decline resulting from excessive commerce was prevalent. in his highly popular history of europe, first published in 1786, william russell warned: so great an influx of wealth, without any extraordinary expenditure, or call to bold enterprise, must soon have produced a total dissolution of manners; and the british nation, overwhelmed with luxury and effeminacy, might have sunk into an early decline.[54] the task, therefore, as adam ferguson, among others, saw it, was to find a way “to mix the military spirit with our civil and commercial policy.”[55] war, military exercises, militias, and a standing army, were among various means proposed by scottish liberal thinkers[56] to stir up the military spirit. chambers was familiar with this discourse. as he wrote in his correspondence, “our gardeners, and i fear our connoisseurs too, are such tame animals, that much sparring is necessary to keep them properly on their haunches.”[57] the 1760–70s was a period that witnessed continued and extensive militia agitation in britain. the british navy, benefiting from the “blue water” tradition,[58] grew at a greater rate than the army, and at immense expense. naval reviews and exercises were also intensified during george iii’s reign (1760–1820).[59] these social phenomena were reflected in the scenes in the dissertation, for example, “they observe, that the different aquatic sports of rowing, sailing, swimming, fishing, hunting and combating, are an inexhaustible fund of amusement”; “sea-ports with fleets of vessels lying before them, forts with flags flying, and batteries of cannon”; “upon their lakes, the chinese frequently exhibit sea-fights, processions, and ship-races” (dg, 47–48). for chambers, such active scenes of military exercises became an integral part of urban scenes, emphasizing masculinity and virility and transferring their resultant virtue “or moral stiffening” to citizens.[60] but these virtue-inducing military spectacles had to be moderated in accord with the time and place in the city or country. to engage with a larger polity, chambers instead orchestrated a pseudo-military journey through a landscape containing scenes of the surprising, in which citizens were not merely spectators but became travellers on a journey, like a manchu-roman soldier on a campaign. the surprising: making the martial self as chambers described in the surprising scenes: his way now lies through dark passages cut in the rocks, on the side of which are recesses, filled with colossal figures of dragons, infernal fiends, and other horror forms, which hold in their monstrous talons, mysterious, cabalistical [sic] sentences, inscribed on tables of brass; with preparations that yield a constant flame; serving at once to guide and to astonish the passenger: from time to time he is surprised with repeated shocks of electrical impulse, with showers of artificial rain, or sudden violent gusts of wind, and instantaneous explosions of fire; the earth trembles under him, by the power of confined air; and his ears are successively struck with many different sounds, produced by the same means; some resembling the cries of men in torment; others the roaring of bulls, and howl of ferocious animals, with the yell of hounds, and the voices of hunters; others are like the mixed croaking of ravenous birds; and others imitate thunder, the raging of the sea, the explosion of cannon, the sound of trumpets, and all the noise of war. for chambers’s contemporary british readers, such descriptions might not have been as whimsical as they now appear. they might have reminded them of the manchu emperor kangxi’s hunts, which were vividly described by the jesuit ferdinand verbiest (1623–1688) who attended the emperor on occasions in 1682 and 1683. these accounts were included in john lockman’s travels of the jesuits, into various parts of the world (london, 1743),[61] a significant work of its type, which can be found in the public and private library catalogues of many elite of the time.[62] as we read in verbiest’s letter: “the emperor’s troops marching in high mountains and dark forests”; “trumpets sounding and drums beating all the way”; exposure to “the scorching sun-beams,” to the rain, and to other clemencies of the weather; experiences of extreme fatigue; “cannon discharged, from time to time, in the vallies—purposely that the noise and fire issuing from the mouths of the dragons, with which they are adorned, might spread terror around.”[63] it is not difficult to trace the parallels between verbiest’s account of the manchu emperor’s hunts and chambers’s fantastical description of the chinese gardens.[64] as previous scholars have revealed, chambers did indeed use jesuits’ accounts, including jean denis attiret’s (1702–1768) recently published letters on yuanming yuan, to create his dissertation.[65] but what is important to note is that chambers’s imitation was not born of mere curiosity. just as the luxury of his chinese gardens reflected british commercial exuberance and frivolous effeminacy, the pseudo-military journey in the scenes of the surprising might well have referred to the scottish thinkers’ debate on how to maintain british aristocrat men’s virility, for which the qing emperor’s hunts might have served as a model. as a minor ethnic group ruling a chinese empire with vast territories, the manchurian imperial project rested on a strong military ethos. aware of the chinese traditional paradigm of civilian and military virtues of rulership,[66] the manchu emperors considered the military a more adequate foundation than civilian culture for their extensive and powerful empire. for the emperors, maintaining martial prowess would fend off what they clearly perceived as a profound threat to manchu identity after assimilating the chinese civilization.[67] during the early and mid-qing dynasty (1683–1820), imperial hunts were frequently held in the area of mulan. in their letters and reports missionaries, who were often obliged to join these hunts, unequivocally presented these hunts as a major strategy used by the kangxi emperor to strengthen military spirit among his own soldiers. for example, verbiest reported in his letter: “the emperor, whose chief design by this progress was to keep his troops in exercise, succeeded in that respect to the utmost of his wishes,” which, as the jesuit goes on to explain, was “to prevent the luxury which prevails in china and a too long inactivity, from enervating their courage, and lessening their former valour.”[68] the manchurian experience of balancing between the civilian and the military in their governance would have been of great interest for those british readers who saw themselves in similar situations. thus, beneath chambers’s scenes of the surprising a programme of landscape experience as pseudo-military training can be discerned, one which echoed those military schemes proposed by adam smith and other scottish thinkers in order to reinforce british citizens’ martial virtues amidst commercialization. by way of the missionaries’ representations, the qing imperial strategy therefore, became engaged in the reformation of governance technologies in britain, which was transforming into an empire amidst their eighteenth-century global expansion. however, it would be over-simplifying to consider the jesuits’ descriptions as the sole source for chambers’s ideas, which were also imbued with western symbolism. for example, the narrative of the surprising scenes taking form in a journey as a trial of elements demonstrates the influences of hermetic-neoplatonic doctrines and a strong underground source of renaissance humanism.[69] in hermetic-neoplatonic philosophies, the human being is a microcosm of the universe, and his interior relations and movements are connected to cosmic relations and movements.[70] as corpus hermetica relates, in an initiatory journey the neophyte, by “experiencing all sensations of everything created, fire and water, dry and moist” and embracing in his thought “all things at once, times, places, substances, qualities,” “may understand god.”[71] associated with the practice of hermetism-neoplatonism in the renaissance academies, a variety of initiatory rituals or ritualized “games” were reinvented from greek and roman mythologies, whilst landscapes and gardens were often employed as the sites for the initiation of the imagination.[72] for example, malaspini in one of his novella, recorded a ritualistic event that took place in the private garden of the rucellai family of florence in 1536. members of the party from the orti oricellai school were systemically subjected to sights, sounds, and odours that confused their senses.[73] similar stories recurred in a quasi-historical novel séthos (paris, 1731) by the french abbé jean terrasson.[74] the novel proposed an initiatory journey through its description of the trials of séthos, following in the steps of orpheus through the underworld, who was subjected to three trials by fire, water, and air, before being admitted into the temple precinct.[75] the resemblance between the continental examples and chambers’s scenes of the surprising reflected the continuing hermetic-neoplatonic tradition in britain. in the emerging british empire, hermetic-neoplatonic philosophies were fostered along with the growth of freemasonry. the neoplatonic-masonic ideal[76] claimed a dominant presence in the ideology of key british social and cultural establishments, such as the society of dilettanti, the royal academy, and the hanoverian royal family,[77] and they had a considerable effect on the art and architecture of eighteenth-century britain.[78] a founder of the royal academy and patronized by the monarchs, chambers was committed to making his architecture and landscape design engage with the public interest. the trial of “the elements” in the surprising scenes: fire, rain, wind, electricity, and earthquakes, drawing from facets of masonic folklore and neoplatonic symbolism, were not for mere entertainment. fused with elements from the battlefields, the “sounds of trumpets, cries of men in torment, explosions of cannon, and all the noises of war”—reminders of the seven years war of 1756–1764—the surprising scenes were intended to form an initiatory passage reinvented in an age of burgeoning commercial capitalism. these disturbing physical experiences embodied burke’s sublime-effect as a kind of mental or sensory exercise or labour, “an exertion of the contracting power of the muscles,” which “as such resembles pain, which consists in tension or contraction, in everything but degree” (pe, 35). by increasing the tension of the body, putting the body on the verge of pain and exciting the strongest opposite sensations, the mock-trial experiences functioned as a kind of constancy mechanism, as if to expose the body of british subjects through the purification of war, to create a new martial identity. “one magnificent garden”: the dissertation as a sensationalist landscape theory as the architect for princess augusta’s kew gardens between 1757 and 1763, chambers had already experimented with his sensationalist landscape embodying the burkean sublime-effect at kew gardens. comprising twenty-three buildings, all freely laid out around irregular routes, chambers’s kew gardens was not only “a designed emblem of british government,”[79] as richard quaintance suggests, but may also be understood as an instrument designed to shape visitors’ sensations and virtue. the drawing of a view of the menagerie, and its pavillion [sic] in chambers’s plans, elevations, sections and perspective views of the gardens and buildings at kew in surry (1763) (fig. 1) is a good example. the delicate and exotic chinese pavilion, the pond of goldfish, and the runways and cages for chinese pheasants, anticipated the summer scenes of luxury in the dissertation nine years later. in contrast to the fragility and femininity of the wood structure to the engraving’s left, is the sturdiness of a stone building, the temple of bellona (the ancient roman goddess of war), dedicated to those who served in the seven years war (1756–1763). thus the sublime of the bellicose goddess—the associations with military vigour would be evoked in the visitor’s mind—would counteract the softening effect of oriental luxury. fig. 1: the sublime-effect is embodied in the contrast between the fragility and femininity of the wood pavilion and the sturdiness of the stone building of the temple of bellona, the ancient roman goddess of war. chambers’s design of the menagerie at kew gardens, in plans, elevations, sections and perspective views of the gardens and buildings of kew in surry (london, 1763) a further example is shown in a view of the ruin in chambers’s plans. (fig. 2) a passenger approaching the ruinous arch from the south would note how the arch twists the path to focus a northward gaze through its arch towards the gleaming temple of victory crowning the hilltop. richard quaintance comments how a generalized “melancholy” seems an irrelevant self-indulgence to one’s experience on the walk with its vista of a military monument beyond.[80] according to the burkean sublime-effect discussed above, this spatial-emotional effect may be understood as an embodiment of the sublime-effect. the tension between the roman ruin and the temple of victory, for chambers, would prevent the passenger’s imagination from sinking into melancholic reflection on the roman past. rather, at the sight of the monument to the british victory in the seven years war, his passion would be “shaken and worked to a proper degree.” thus the viewer’s confidence would be cultivated in terms of british martial valour as a contemporary form of roman virtus. fig. 2: the sublime-effect is embodied in the tension between the sunlit columns of the temple of victory and the dark-shaded stones of the roman ruin. chambers’s design of a triumphal arch at kew gardens, in plans, elevations, sections and perspective views of the gardens and buildings of kew at surry (london, 1763) equipped with the methods of shaping human sensations using the sublime-effect, chambers in his dissertation, was able to imagine beyond the boundary of a landscape garden like kew to the whole “kingdom as one such magnificent vast garden.”[81] in about two thirds of chambers’s dissertation, he laid out in detail the “chinese” methods of constructing roads, canals, bridges, and plantations, envisioning a scheme of “city landscaping.” if burke, the political theorist, wished to affect citizens’ minds by aesthetic-psychological training, chambers, the architect, proposed an ambitious project of making the garden city itself into an instrument of education and an experimental site for moulding citizens’ martial virtues.[82] in chambers’s vision, the chinese roads, with various arrangements, could produce all kinds of different effect—the pleasing, the terrible, and the surprising. as he related a most striking effect was obtained by those spacious roads “planted on each side with lofty trees, and stretching in a direct line, beyond the reach of the eye.” likewise, when the roads turned at certain points where some new or uncommon objects suddenly appeared, those objects would occupy the mind agreeably, “their abrupt appearance occasions surprise; which, when the extent is vast, and the repetitions frequent, swells into astonishment and admiration” (dg, 33). still more exciting feelings were perhaps aroused when the roads were constructed in natural wonders. he imagined, in some places, these roads are carried, by lofty vaulted passages, through the rocks and mountains; or, upon causeways and bridges, over lakes, torrents, and arms of the sea; and in others, they are supported, between the precipices, upon chains of iron, or upon pillars, and many tire of arcades, over villages, pagodas, and cities (dg, 38). chambers emphasised that the experiences of “the incertitude of the mind” and “the anxiety” that they arouse in the mind were likewise “very strong impressions, preventing that state of languor into which the mind naturally sinks by dwelling long on the same objects” (dg,33). applying the antithetical scenes as an emotional adventure in city landscaping, chambers showed that by careful control of the urban landscape, the everyday travelling experience—an interplay between the senses and the landscape—could become a forum of pseudo-military training. the irregular, uncertain, and adventurous experiences that the traveller experienced would awaken his senses from the drunkenness of the pleasures of entertainment and the enjoyment of luxury, from the soft feelings of love and grief, from what burke described as “that sink, that melting, that languor” effect of the beautiful and of the excessive commodities produced by commercial society. in these experiences of horror, fear, and sudden astonishment on their travels, the british elite would build their mind in the mould of a virtus, a stoic solider who learned to withstand the adversities and reversals of fortune. roads and rivers might become a substitute for what adam smith proposed as military education and provide “the best schools for forming every man to this hardiness and firmness of temper” and for “curing him of the opposite weakness.”[83] in this way, the city, or the country per se, built as the landscape garden chambers envisioned, would function as a burkean homeostatic device or constancy mechanism. it came to act as a kind of displacement of the rigors of military experience whereby the moral effects of the latter were translated into the context of the modern commercial state. chambers’s grand vision of the sensationalist landscape city might have been influenced by the chinese landscape tradition in which imperial gardens were constructed as integral to the city and the city was built as a landscape garden.[84] by the time of the eastern han dynasty (25–220 ce), the chinese construction of cities, systems of transportation, irrigation, water conservation, and city landscaping were already being combined to achieve an integrated effect on both moral cultivation and political economy.[85] this tradition was significantly elaborated by the early qing emperors.[86] through a number of letters, engravings, and publications contributed by missionaries and merchants, which had been circulating in europe since the seventeenth century,[87] the image of chinese landscape cities impressed the european audience. the reception of imagery of china in europe, however, was not simply a bilateral process. as discussed, in the case of chambers’s dissertation on oriental gardening the chinese gardens were interpreted under overlapping intellectual frameworks of scottish physiology, the roman republican concept of virtus, as well as the initiatory journeys in the hermetic-neoplatonic tradition.therefore, not only was the chinese garden labelled as the psychological-physiological antitheses of the pleasing and the surprising or the relaxation and contraction of the nerves, but it was also associated with social and moral oppositions such as civility (regeneration) and degeneration, effeminacy and masculinity, which were central to british imperial anxieties. in chambers’s dissertation, among the often confusing images of the chinese garden, a masculine manchurian empire, and an effeminate oriental civilization entangled with european traditions of making the virtus, are found encoded the british statesmen’s imaginings of an empire regenerated in an age of commercialization. exploiting this double-entendre model, chambers envisioned british landscape cities as sites of not only burgeoning commerce and refined taste, but also of pseudo-military training. applying the sublime-effect to the design and construction of british cities, for chambers, would ensure the british empire’s stability and global dominance not only in terms of economic development but also in strengthening its military might and ethos. chambers’s approach to landscape gardening differed from that of progressive whigs like horace walpole who yoked landscape gardening to the idea of “liberty.” nor can chamber’s theory be simply labelled a “tory landscape,” asserting the absolute right of the king.[88] chamber’s theory rather embodied the ideology of classical republicanism (as held by rockingham whigs such as edmund burke), for whom virtue was the foundation of good government and society.  china, viewed as a model of a moral society and politics in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was evoked in order to mask chambers’s politicized aesthetics of landscape theory. the dissertation on oriental gardening provided a powerful and highly significant example of how european–asian contact, in both its reality and imaginary dimensions, shaped discourses on the building of britain’s identity in the second half of the eighteenth century. acknowledgements this paper was completed under the sponsorship of eu marie curie actions. professor mark dorrian (university of edinburgh), my phd supervisor, helped with the focus of the paper and contributed many constructive suggestions. an earlier version of the paper was presented at the conference dimensions of transcultural statehood (1500–1900) held at heidelberg university, where it received useful comments from participants like professor philip stern (duke university).  professor andrea riemenschnitter, professor hans b. thomsen, and other colleagues at the university research priority program “asia and europe” at the university of zurich have also shared their thoughts during the development of this paper. bibliography avcioglu, nebahat. turquerie and the politics of representation, 1728–1876.  farnham: ashgate, 2011. ayres, philip. classical culture and the idea of rome in eighteenth-century england.  cambridge: cambridge university press, 1997. bending, stephen. “a natural revolution? garden in eighteenth-century england.” in refiguring revolutions: aesthetics and politics from the english revolution to the romantic revolution. edited by kevin sharpe and steven n. zwicker, 241–266. berkeley etc: university of california press, 1998. berg, maxine. luxury and pleasure in eighteenth-century britain.  oxford: oxford university press, 2005. blue, gregory. “china and western social thought in the modern period.” in china and historical capitalism: genealogies of sinological knowledge. edited by timothy brook and gregory blue, 57–110. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1999. bourke, richard. “pity and fear: providential sociability in burke’s philosophical enquiry.” in the science of sensibility: reading burke’s philosophical enquiry. edited by koen vermeir and michael funk deckard, 157–175. dordrecht, london: springer, 2012. brewer, anthony. “luxury and economic development: david hume and adam smith.” scottish journal of political economy 45, no. 1 ( february 1998): 78–98. brewer, john. the sinews of power: war, money, and the english state, 1688–1783.  new york: alfred a. knopf, 1989. brown, john. an estimate of the manners and principles of the times. fourth edition. ed.: london, 1757. burke, edmund, and j. t. boulton. a philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful.  london, 1958. chambers, william. a dissertation on oriental gardening: the second edition, with additions, to which is annexed, an explanatory discourse by tan chet-qua, of quang-chew-fu, gent. 2nd ed.  london: printed by w. griffin, 1773. ———. a dissertation on oriental gardening ... to which is added, an heroic epistle [by william mason], in answer to sir william chambers ... the eleventh edition.  dublin: w. wilson, 1773. coffin, david r. the italian garden.  washington: dumbarton oaks, 1972. costa, gustavo. “longinus’s treatise on the sublime in the age of arcadia.” nouvelles de la république des lettres no. 1 (1981): 65–86. curl, james stevens. the art and architecture of freemasonry.  london: batsford, 1991. the emperor of china’s palace at pekin; and his principal gardens, as well in tartary as at pekin, gehol, and the adjacent countries; with an elevation of the great mogul’s throne.  london: 1753. fabricant, carole. “the aesthetics and politics of landscape in the eighteenth century.” in studies in eighteenth-century british art and aesthetics. edited by ralph cohen, 49–81. berkeley: univ. of california, 1985. ferguson, adam l. l. d. reflections previous to the establishment of a militia.  london: r. & j. dodsley, 1756. guerlac, suzanne. “delights of grotesque and sublime (book review).” diacritics 15, no. 3 (1985: fall): 46–53. hanafi, zakiyah. the monster in the machine: explorations of monstrosity in early modern italy.  durham, nc: duke university press, 2001. harland-jacobs, jessica. builders of empire: freemasons and british imperialism, 1717–1927.  chapel hill: university of north carolina press, 2007. harris, eileen. “burke and chambers on the sublime and beautiful.” in essays in the history of architecture presented to rudolf wittkower. edited by douglas fraser et al., 1: 207–213. london: phaidon, 1967. harris, john, j. mordaunt crook, and eileen harris. sir william chambers: knight of the polar star. studies in architecture vol.9.  london: zwemmer, 1970. hendrix, john. “neoplatonism in the design of baroque architecture.” in neoplatonism and western aesthetics. edited by aphrodite alexandrakis and nicholas j. moutafakis, 113–130. albany: state university of new york press, 2002. hersey, g. l. “associationism and sensibility in eighteenth-century architecture.” eighteenth-century studies 4, no. 1 (1970): 71–89. jacob, margaret c. living the enlightenment: freemasonry and politics in eighteenth-century europe. oxford: oxford university press, 1991. home, henry (lord kames). elements of criticism. 2 vols: dublin: printed for sarah cotter, 1762. ———. sketches of the history of man. edinburgh, 1774. kelly, jason m. the society of dilettanti: archaeology and identity in the british enlightenment. new haven: yale university press, 2009. kitson, peter j. romantic literature, race, and colonial encounter. nineteenth-century major lives and letters.  new york: palgrave macmillan, 2007. kuchta, david. the three-piece suit and modern masculinity: england, 1550–1850.  berkeley: university of california press, 2002. lawrence, christopher. “the nervous system and society in the scottish enlightenment.” in natural order: historical studies of scientific culture. edited by barry barnes and steven shapin, 19–40. london: sage publications, 1979. lockman, john.  travels of the jesuits, into various parts of the world. london, 1743. lovejoy, arthur. “the chinese origin of a romanticism.” the journal of english and germanic philology 32, no. 1 (jan., 1933): 1–20. mcdonnell, myles anthony. roman manliness: virtus and the roman republic. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2006. mcnabb, jody. “a physiology of the imagination: anatomical faculties and philosophical designs.” etd collection for mcmaster university, january 1, 2011. munby, a. n. l., and d. j. watkin. sale catalogues of libraries of eminent persons.  architects;? edited with introductions by d.j. watkin. vol. 4, london: mansell with sotheby parke-bernet publications, 1972. neocleous, mark. “‘o effeminacy! effeminacy!’ war, masculinity and the myth of liberal peace.” european journal of international relations  (november, 2011): 1–21. nieuhof, johannes, and john ogilby. an embassy from the east-india company of the united provinces to the grand tartar cham emperour of china.  london: j. macock, 1669. ogborn, miles. “locating the macaroni: luxury, sexuality and vision in vauxhall gardens.” rtpr 11, no. 3 (1997): 445–461. pamela kyle crossley. “the rulerships of china.” american historical review 97, no. 5 (december 1992): 1468–1484. quaintance, richard. “kew gardens, 1731–1778: can we look at both sides now?” in kew gardens: a controversial georgian landscape. edited by patrick eyres (special issue of new arcadian journal no. 51/51 [2001]): 14–51. ———. “toward distinguishing among theme park publics: william chambers’s landscape theory vs. his kew practice.” in theme park landscapes: antecedents and variations. edited by terence young and robert riley. 25–47. washington, d.c.: dumbarton oaks research library and collection, 2002. russell, william. the history of modern europe. london, 1786. saisselin, remy g. “architecture and language: the sensationalism of le camus de mezieres.” the british journal of aesthetics 15, no. 3 (summer 1975): 239–254. sarafianos, aris. “the contractility of burke’s sublime and heterodoxies in medicine and art.” journal of the history of ideas 69, no. 1 (2008): 23–48. shaftesbury, anthony ashley cooper, and j. m. robertson. characteristics of men, manners, opinions, times.  indianapolis: bobbs-merrill, 1964. vidler, anthony. the writing of the walls: architectural theory in the late enlightenment. london: butterworth architecture, 1989. vidler, anthony, and claude nicolas ledoux. claude-nicolas ledoux: architecture and utopia in the era of the french revolution [english ed.]  basel: birkhäuser-publishers for architecture, 2006. waley-cohen, joanna. “commemorating war in eighteenth-century china.” modern asian studies 30, no. 4 (1996): 869–899. wang, qiheng and yi su. “pingdi qi pengying, chengshi er linhe: qingyiyuan yu qingdai beijing chengshi shengtai jianshe” [平地起蓬瀛，城市而林壑: 清漪园与清代北京城市生态建设 erecting peng-ying islands from the plain, constructing the city as forest: qingyi garden and the qing eco-construction of beijing] in zhongguo zijincheng xuehui lunwenji [中国紫禁城学会论文集(第三辑) proceedings of the forbidden city society] vol. 3. beijing: zijincheng chubanshe, 2000. wang, qiheng, changming yang and li qin. “qingdai huangjia yuanlin yanjiu de ruogan wenti [清代皇家园林研究的若干问题 some issues in qing imperial garden studies].” jianzhushi [建筑师 architects], no.6 (1995): 47–50. wang, qiheng. fengshui lilun yanjiu [风水理论研究 study of the fengshui theory]. 2nd ed. tianjin: tianjin university press, 2003. watkin, david. “freemasonry and sir john soane.” journal of the society of architectural historians 54, no. 4 (1995): 402–417. ———. sir john soane: enlightenment thought and the royal academy lectures. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1996. wiebenson, dora. “‘l’architecture terrible’ and the ‘jardin anglo-chinois.’” journal of the society of architectural historians 27, no. 2 (1968): 136–139. wittkower, rudolf. “english neo-palladianism, the landscape garden, china and the enlightenment.” l’arte, no. 6 (1969): 177–190. xu, yinong. the chinese city in space and time: the development of urban form in suzhou.  honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 2000. yates, frances amelia. giordano bruno and the hermetic tradition.  london: routledge and kegan paul, 1964. zhuang, yue. “et in arcadia ego: landscape theory and the funereal imagination in 18th-century britain.” university of edinburgh, 2013. [1] the literature on these subjects is considerable. some key texts on the english landscape garden and its relation to china include rudolf wittkower, “english neo-palladianism, the landscape garden, china and the enlightenment,” l’arte, no. 6 (1969): 177–190. on english landscape gardens as a political discourse, see stephen bending, “a natural revolution? garden in eighteenth-century england,” in refiguring revolutions: aesthetics and politics from the english revolution to the romantic revolution, ed. kevin sharpe and steven n. zwicker (berkeley etc: university of california press, 1998), 241–266. [2] on this subject, see gregory blue, “china and western social thought in the modern period,” in china and historical capitalism: genealogies of sinological knowledge, ed. timothy brook and gregory blue (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1999), 57–110, esp. 67–75. [3] sir william temple, an english diplomat and essayist, wrote about chinese gardens in his upon the gardens of epicurus; or of gardening, in the year 1685, when he retired to sherry. he praised the “wholly irregular” chinese gardens which, for him, resembled a platonic moral political order with virtue as the criterion. joseph addison’s famous essay in the spectator, june 1712, evoked the “judicious wildness” of chinese gardens to legitimize the emerging naturalistic english landscape gardening serving the interests of a new middle class. the naturalness of the english style in addison’s vision, as carole fabricant suggests, represents a bourgeoisie ideology in the eighteenth-century—essential egalitarian or liberal-democratic assumptions about the natural individual right to property. see william temple, the works of sir william temple (new york: 1968); carole fabricant, “the aesthetics and politics of landscape in the eighteenth century,” in studies in eighteenth-century british art and aesthetics, ed. ralph cohen (berkeley: univ. of california, 1985). temple’s reference of the chinese irregular gardens, or “beauty without order,” was treated by arthur lovejoy and yu liu as the origin of a revolution of european landscape gardening shifting from the regular to the irregular style. see arthur lovejoy, “the chinese origin of a romanticism,” the journal of english and germanic philology 32, no. 1 (jan, 1933): 1–20. yu liu, seeds of a different eden: chinese gardening ideas and a new english aesthetic ideal  (columbia, s.c.: university of south carolina press; london: eurospan [distributor], 2008)  lovejoy and liu’s treatment overlooks the fact that english landscape gardens developed from the existing european gardening tradition, which included “the irregular,” as revealed by garden historians such as john dixon hunt in garden and grove: the italian renaissance garden and the english imagination, 1600–1750  (london: dent, 1986). lovejoy and liu’s treatment also neglects the european discourse on the effects of contrary landscapes and gardens on the human imagination, a theme which is discussed, for example, by k. claire pace, “‘strong contraries...happy discord’: some eighteenth-century discussions about landscape,” journal of the history of ideas 40, no. 1 (jan–mar 1979):141–155. my paper further notes that the enlightenment discourse of psychology evolved with those of morality and physiology. this is a theme that is receiving increasing attention in the contemporary scholarship on the discourse of sensibility, e.g. richard bourke, “pity and fear: providential sociability in burke’s philosophical enquiry,” in the science of sensibility: reading burke’s philosophical enquiry, ed. koen vermeir and michael funk deckard (dordrecht, london: springer, 2012), and aris sarafianos, “the contractility of burke’s sublime and heterodoxies in medicine and art,” journal of the history of ideas 69, no. 1 (2008). also cf. note 7. [4] sir william sir chambers, a dissertation on oriental gardening ... to which is added, an heroic epistle [by william mason], in answer to sir william chambers ... the eleventh edition  (dublin: w. wilson, 1773). hereafter cited as dg. [5] sir william chambers (1726–1796) was born in gothenburg, sweden to a scottish merchant family under the royal patronage of the swedish east india company. he was a visitor to both china and india while he served in the company during his youth. settling in london in 1755, he was appointed architectural tutor to the prince of wales (the future george iii) and then a distinguished official architect (e.g. a joint architect to king george iii from 1761; a founder of the royal academy of arts in 1768; comptroller of the king’s works from 1769–1782; and surveyor-general and comptroller from 1782 until his death). he built many landmark public and private buildings, including somerset house and princess augusta’s kew gardens. [6] this idea first materialized in james thomson’s poem entitled liberty, published in the mid-1730s. the poet relates that france, suppressed by a tyrannical government, forced nature into a formal strait-jacket. see wittkower, “english neo-palladianism, the landscape garden, china and the enlightenment,” 183. [7] the term “sensationalism” here refers to its literary meaning, i.e. “making impressions on the senses.” on sensationalism, chambers was in line with those theorists and architects of the academy of architecture in france, such as germain boffrand (1667–1754), jacques-francois blondel (1705–1774) and julien david le roy (1724–1803). they held a sensationalist perspective that the common purpose of architecture is expression, and that poetic and psychological effects should play a role in the creation and appreciation of architecture. for example, germain boffrand in his livre d’architecture (1745) stated: “an edifice, by its composition, expresses as on a stage that the scene is pastoral or tragic, that it is a temple or a palace, a public building destined to a specific use, or a private house. these different edifices, through their disposition, their structure, and the manner in which they are decorated, should announce their purpose to the spectator.” germain boffrand, livre d’architecture (paris, 1745), 16. jacques-francois blondel, with whom chambers studied architecture in paris from 1749–1750, in his cours d’architecture [(paris, 1771) 389–390] restated boffrand’s idea and dealt more specifically than boffrand with emotion, or the emotionally felt qualities of buildings. see g. l. hersey, “associationism and sensibility in eighteenth-century architecture,” eighteenth-century studies 4, no. 1 (1970): 71–89; david watkin, sir john soane: enlightenment thought and the royal academy lectures  (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1996), 185. the sensationalism of the academy of architecture in france is connected to the discourse of sensibility in britain in the second half of the century. see note 26. [8] the controversy between chambers and lancelot brown over the subject of naturalistic gardening style has been much discussed. a popular view that chambers’s criticism of brown was caused by his jealousy of brown’s gaining more royal projects neglects the fact that their debate was underlined by the moral sensationalist discourse which chambers endorsed. nikolaus pevsner has rightly observed that chambers objects to the evenness of brown’s style, his “eternal, uniform, undulating lines,” not only because of their dullness, but also because they can express only one set of sentiments. see nikolaus pevsner, “the other chambers,” architecture review, 101 (1947): 195–198. [9] in the 1760–70s, british politics was dominated by constitutional quarrels between old corps whigs and the so-called tory establishment, each defending democracy and the king’s royal power respectively. whilst the english garden was firmly yoked to the whig ideology of “liberty,” criticism of the english garden was often associated with toryism and an assault on the english constitution.  in a famous satire, a heroic epistle to sir william chambers, by the “old whig” poet william mason (1724–1797), chambers, with his close relations to the unpopular scottish politician, john stuart, 3rd earl of bute (1713–1792), and george iii, was presented as a star figure of the tory establishment.  accordingly, the scenes of the terrible and the surprising in his dissertation were lampooned as “tory landscape,” an assertion of the king’s independence from the parliament and the use of royal prerogatives. for an analysis of the political drive of mason’s epistle, see bending, “a natural revolution? garden in eighteenth-century england,” 241-266. [10] burke called himself a “chamberist” as opposed to chambers’s rival, lancelot brown. burke also encouraged oliver goldsmith (1730–1774) to launch a counter-attack against a heroic epistle. see oliver goldsmith’s letter to william chambers, bm add. ms 41134, 21bv, 21c, 21d. cited in eileen harris, “designs of chinese buildings and the dissertation on oriental gardening,” in sir william chambers: knight of the polar star, studies in architecture vol.9, ed. john harris, j. mordaunt crook, and eileen harris(london: zwemmer, 1970), 161. [11] on this subject, see eileen harris, “burke and chambers on the sublime and beautiful,” in essays in the history of architecture presented to rudolf wittkower, ed. douglas fraser et al. (london: phaidon, 1967), 207–213. burke’s sublime is not the final source for chambers’s sensational scenes of “chinese gardens.” chambers had already written of “scenes of horror” in an essay called “the art of laying out gardens,” which was included in his designs of chinese buildings (london, 1757). in fact both chambers’s and burke’s sublime belonged to the virgilian arcadian tradition, which was revived in the arcadian classicism of the renaissance and was very much active in european artists’ imaginations. see liliana barroero and stefano susinno, “arcadian rome, universal capital of the arts,” in art in rome in the eighteenth century, eds. edgar peters bowron and joseph rishel (philadelphia: philadelphia museum of art in association with merrell, 2000), 47–75; gustavo costa, “longinus’s treatise on the sublime in the age of arcadia,” nouvelles de la république des lettres no. 1 (1981): 65–86; yue zhuang, “et in arcadia ego: landscape theory and the funereal imagination in 18th-century britain” (university of edinburgh, 2013), 105–106. also see note 35. [12] bourke, “pity and fear: providential sociability in burke’s philosophical enquiry.” 157–175. [13] david kuchta, the three-piece suit and modern masculinity: england, 1550–151850 (berkeley and los angeles, california; london: university of california press, 2002), 112. [14] myles anthony mcdonnell, roman manliness: virtus and the roman republic  (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2006), 50–51. [15] philip ayres, classical culture and the idea of rome in eighteenth-century england (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1997), 1. [16] the struggle between virtus and fortuna is central to seneca’s thoughts. seneca, moral essays 1, trans. john w. basore, 3 vols. (cambridge, mass.; london, 1958),4–6,  27–28. cf. neal wood, “some common aspects of the thought of seneca and machiavelli,” renaissance quarterly 21, no. 1 (spring, 1968): 11–23. [17] adam smith, lectures on jurisprudence, eds. r. meek, d. raphael and p. stein (oxford: clarendon press, 1978), 149–150. [18] ibid., 209. [19] adam smith, the theory of moral sentiments, eds d. raphael, and a. l. macfie (indianapolis, indiana: liberty press, 1982), 245–246. [20] for a detailed discussion, see mark neocleous, “‘o effeminacy! effeminacy!’ war, masculinity and the myth of liberal peace,” european journal of international relations (november, 2011): 1–21. [21] chambers maintained a persistent interest in absorbing enlightenment thoughts. he was a reader of both david hume and françois-marie arouet de voltaire and to the latter he sent a copy of his dissertation. through his connection with lord bute, with whom many scottish liberal thinkers such as adam ferguson and adam smith were related or in correspondence, chambers would also have had first-hand knowledge of the latest scottish liberalism thoughts. [22] chambers’s letter to frederick chapman in stockholm, dated 28 july 1772. bm add. ms 41133, 78. cited in harris, crook, and harris, sir william chambers: knight of the polar star, 158. [23] as examples, both jonathan swift’s gulliver’s travels (1726) and the citizen of the world (1760) by oliver goldsmith, chambers’s close friend, are such allegorical narratives. [24] see gregory blue, “china and western social thought in the modern period,” 57–110, esp. 67–75. [25] ibid., 72–73. it should be noted, though, that the use of “china” as an allegory is not univocal for its general model effect, but is comingled with other forms of narratives. as i discuss in the following pages, the effeminate image of china was used in the dissertation to criticize the effeminacy emerging in british society. also, see david porter’s discussion of the dissertation in terms of its “chinoiserie” as “an aesthetic of the ineluctably foreign, a glamorization of the unknown and unknowable for its own sake.” david porter, “chinoiserie and the aesthetics of illegitimacy,” studies in eighteenth century culture 28 (1999): 27–54; and his “beyond the bounds of truth: cultural translation and william chambers’s chinese garden,” mosaic 37, no.2 (2004): 41–58. [26] see note 7. chambers’s dissertation received a favourable review from the academy of architecture the same year it was published: see procès-verbaux de l’académie royale d’architecture, ed. henry lemonnier (paris, 1911–1926), viii: 139–141, 16 nov. 1772, and 1 dec. 1772. the similar emphasis of chambers’s chinese gardens and étienne-louis boullée’s (1728–1799) idea of “l’architecture terrible” on producing many varied emotions was discussed by dora wiebenson, journal of the society of architectural historians 27, no. 2 (1968): 136–139. studies of eighteenth-century works by the academy of architecture and jardin anglo-chinois as a sensationalist discourse entailing psychology and morality include, for example, anthony vidler and claude nicolas ledoux, claude-nicolas ledoux: architecture and utopia in the era of the french revolution [english ed.] (basel: birkhäuser-publishers for architecture, 2006). remy g. saisselin, “architecture and language: the sensationalism of le camus de mezieres,” the british journal of aesthetics 15, no. 3 (summer 1975): 239–254. chambers’s dissertation has largely been overlooked from this perspective. [27] see harris, “burke and chambers on the sublime and beautiful,” 207–213. [28] henry home (lord kames), elements of criticism, 2 vols. (dublin: printed for sarah cotter, 1762), 1: 431–432. [29] jody mcnabb, “a physiology of the imagination: anatomical faculties and philosophical designs” (etd collection for mcmaster university, january 1, 2011). aris sarafianos, “the contractility of burke’s sublime and heterodoxies in medicine and art,” 23–48. [30] christopher lawrence, “the nervous system and society in the scottish enlightenment,” in natural order: historical studies of scientific culture, eds. barry barnes and steven shapin (london: sage publications, 1979), 19–40. [31] ibid., 25. [32] glacken, c.j. traces on the rhodian shore: nature and culture in western thought from ancient times to the end of the eighteenth century (berkeley: university of california press, 1967), 551–622. cited in ibid., 24. [33] see edmund burke and j. t. boulton, a philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful  (london,1958), 13. (hereafter cited as pe) [34] lord kames, elements of criticism, 2:70. [35] as mentioned earlier, burke and chambers’s idea of the sublime followed the virgilian arcadian tradition. with its prevalent violent emotional oppositions, such as love and frustration, and pleasure and pain, the virgilian arcadia provided a model for a site of emotions that expressed some key values (e.g. vice and virtue, freedom and restraint) of roman moral philosophy or “natural law,” which was influential among many eighteenth-century british thinkers like burke and hume. this moral background built on “natural law,” which underpinned burke and chambers’s sublime, was missing from the addisonian concept of beautiful. the “unbounded views” and “spacious horizon” that addison considered as the source of “delightful stillness and amazement in the soul,” as richard bourke discussed, is not only admiration of the greatness of nature, but also the mind’s delights in its own limitless “liberty” or expansiveness. see bourke, “pity and fear: providential sociability in burke’s philosophical enquiry.” for the idea of “natural law” underpinning burke’s philosophy and world view, see john attarian, “edmund burke: champion of ordered liberty,” the intercollegiate review (fall 1997): 37–43. [36] sarafianos, “the contractility of burke’s sublime and heterodoxies in medicine and art,” 23–48. [37] hubert steinke, irritating experiments: haller’s concepts and the european controversy on irritability and sensibility, 1750–1790 (amsterdam, n.y.: rodopi, 2005), 37. cited in ibid., 26. [38] ibid. [39] suzanne guerlac, “delights of grotesque and sublime (book review),” diacritics 15, no. 3 (1985, fall): 46–53. [40] imperial hunts were a useful strategy for the early qing emperors to consolidate their rule in china. see michael g. chang, a court on horseback: imperial touring & the construction of qing rule, 1680–1785 (cambridge, ma: harvard university asia center, 2007). also see note 60. [41] see note 72–73. [42] john brown, an estimate of the manners and principles of the times, fourth edition. ed. (london, 1757), 47. the book ran to seven editions and had been extracted in journals like the gentleman’s magazine and london magazine. [43] horace walpole’s correspondence, ed. wilmarth s. lewis (new haven, 1937–83), xxiii: 498. [44] david hume, essays moral, political, and literary, ed. e. miller (indianapolis: liberty classics, 1985), 268. cited in anthony brewer, “luxury and economic development: david hume and adam smith,” scottish journal of political economy 45, no. 1 (february 1998): 78–98. [45] maxine berg, luxury and pleasure in eighteenth-century britain (oxford: oxford university press, 2005), 20.  [46] on vauxhall gardens in relation to eighteenth-century british material culture, see david e. coke, alan borg, vauxhall gardens: a history (new haven: published for the paul mellon centre for studies in british art by yale university press, 2011); miles ogborn, “locating the macaroni: luxury, sexuality and vision in vauxhall gardens,” rtpr 11, no. 3 (1997): 445–461. [47] see nebahat avcioglu, turquerie and the politics of representation, 1728–1876  (farnham: ashgate, 2011), 97–124. [48] according to pamela kyle crossley, “tartar” was originally a linguistic not an ethnic category, the name of a turkic-speaking medieval people of central eurasia. this people became a significant element in early mongol federations of the twelfth century, and the name became commonly applied to the mongol peoples as a whole. pamela kyle crossley, the manchus (oxford: blackwell, 1979), 1–4. the manchus were a very distinct people from both the original tartars and the mongols, although their histories were often conflated. by the seventeenth century they were, no longer nomadic horsemen like the mongols, but a stable farming, hunting, and fishing people. however, in the orientalizing imagination of the west in the early modern period the tendency to discriminate between tartars and chinese and to homogenize a vast array of people and cultures under the term “tartar” prevailed. see peter j. kitson, “tartars, monguls, manchus, and chinese” in peter j. kitson, romantic literature, race, and colonial encounter, nineteenth-century major lives and letters (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2007), 182 [49] anthony ashley cooper shaftesbury and j. m. robertson, characteristics of men, manners, opinions, times  (indianapolis: bobbs-merrill, 1964), 2: 16, 35, 88. [50] adam smith, the theory of moral sentiments, 117. [51] adam l. l. d. ferguson, reflections previous to the establishment of a militia  (london: r. & j. dodsley, 1756), 15. [52] henry home (lord kames), sketches of the history of man (edinburgh, 1774), ii: 493. [53] ibid., 520. [54] william russell, the history of modern europe (london, 1786), ii: 468. [55] ferguson, reflections previous to the establishment of a militia, 3. [56] neocleous, “‘o effeminacy! effeminacy!’ war, masculinity and the myth of liberal peace,” 1–21. [57] letter of sir william chambers to a gentleman who had objected to certain parts of his dissertation on oriental gardening. library of the college of architecture, cornell university. bound in a copy of chambers’s dissertation on oriental gardening, 2nd edition, 1713. cited in harris, crook, and harris, sir william chambers: knight of the polar star, 192. [58] “blue water” policy refers to the distinctive system of national security that was available in britain from about 1650 to 1920. the essence was the establishment of naval supremacy and the retention of a european ally or allies to divert the resources of france towards an expensive european campaign. see john brewer, the sinews of power: war, money, and the english state, 1688–1783  (new york: alfred a. knopf, 1989), 175. [59] ibid., 33–34. [60] on how military exercises were used as spectacles to strengthen citizens’ military spirit and patriotism during george iii’s reign, see scott hughes myerly, british military spectacle: from the napoleonic wars through the crimea (cambridge, mass.; london: harvard university press, 1996), 9, 33–35. [61] according to john lockman’s annotations, ferdinand verbiest’s letters were written originally in latin. they were dedicated to louis xiv and were printed at paris by étienne michallet, rue st. jacques, 1685. in travels of the jesuits, verbiest’s letters appear under the title “a journey undertaken by the emperor of china into western tartary, anno 1683.” see john lockman, travels of the jesuits, into various parts of the world. compiled from their letters; now first attempted in english; intermix’d with an account of the manners, government, religion, &c. of the several nations visited by those fathers; with extracts from other travellers, and miscellaneous notes, by mr. lockman. london. 1743, 140–160. [62] such catalogues include s. baker and g. leigh, a catalogue of several libraries and parcels of books lately purchased (london, 1767); william cater, a catalogue of valuable and elegant books, being several libraries, lately purchased (london, 1768); william otridge, a catalogue of above fifteen thousand volumes: in which are included the library of the rev. mr. chalmers, of eglin, in scotland (london, 1770). lockman’s travels is also cited in contemporary intellectuals’ works, including john brown’s a general history of the christian church (edinburgh, 1771), ix. [63] lockman, travels of the jesuits, 141–142. [64] of chambers’s library, there remains no full catalogue, only a sale catalogue from the three-day auction held at christie’s during july 16, 18 and 19, 1796. lockman’s travels is not included in this sale catalogue, which contains 151 out of 264 books in chambers’s library that were auctioned. see a. n. l. munby (gen. ed), sale catalogues of libraries of eminent persons, vol. 4,  architects ed. d. j. watkin (london: mansell with sotheby parke-bernet publications, 1972). given the parallels between his depiction of the surprising scenes and the account in lockman’s travels, it may be assumed that chambers re-enacted verbiest’s account in lockman’s book. further research is required to demonstrate chambers’s access to lockman’s travels. [65] attiret’s exclusive account of yuanmingyuan, published in the lettres edifantes of 1749 and translated into english by joseph spense (under the pseudonym of sir harry beaumont) in 1752, was one of europe’s main sources of information on chinese gardens. jean denis attiret, lettres edifantes et curieuses (paris 1749), 1–61. english translations also appeared in periodicals such as the monthly review, vii (1752), 421–426; scots magazine, xiv (1752), 589–593. chambers not only made a reference to attiret in the dissertation, but also appropriated the jesuit’s description in many other places in the book. see harris, crook, and harris, sir william chambers: knight of the polar star, 149–150. [66] for the qing emperors, tang emperor taizong (r. 626–649) was an ideal embodiment of combined civil and military virtue. cited in joanna waley-cohen, “commemorating war in eighteenth-century china,” modern asian studies 30, no. 4 (1996): 869–899. on tang taizong, see howard wechsler, “tai-tsung (reign 626–649) the consolidator,” in the cambridge history of china, vol. 3, sui and tang, 581–906, part i, edited by denis twitchett (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1978), 188–241, especially 239–241. [67] joanna waley-cohen, “commemorating war in eighteenth-century china,” 873. also see pamela kyle crossley, “the rulerships of china,” american historical review 97, no. 5 (december 1992): 1468–1484. [68] lockman, travels of the jesuits, 142. [69] for a canonical study on the subjects of hermetism and neoplatonism in the renaissance, see frances amelia yates, giordano bruno and the hermetic tradition (london: routledge and kegan paul, 1964). [70] john hendrix, “neoplatonism in the design of baroque architecture,” in neoplatonism and western aesthetics, eds. aphrodite alexandrakis and nicholas j. moutafakis (albany: state university of new york press, 2002), 117. [71] “the mind to hermes,”in corpus hermeticum xi; optimist gnosis. cited in yates, giordano bruno and the hermetic tradition, 33–34. translated by marsilio ficino (1433–1499), corpus hermeticum, as a major text of hermetism-neoplatonism, was an important source of renaissance humanist strength. [72] italian late renaissance and baroque gardens such as bomarzo, pratolino, and castello were examples of gardens used for initiatory journeys. see mario praz, il giardino dei sensi (milano: a. mondadori, 1975). giovanna ragionieri, il giardino storico italiano (siena: olschki, 1978). david r. coffin, the italian garden  (washington: dumbarton oaks, 1972). [73] malaspini’s story (novella 24, vol.2, 1599) was cited from luciano berti, il principe dello studiolo. francesco i dei medici e la fine del rinascimento florentino (florence: editrice edam, 1967), 144–166 in zakiyah hanafi, the monster in the machine: explorations of monstrosity in early modern italy  (durham, nc: duke university press, 2001), 16–19. [74] jean terrasson, séthos, ou vie tirée des monuments anecdotes de l’ancienne egypte (paris, 1731). this influential work was translated into english in 1731 and into german in 1737; it was printed in paris in 1767. cf. anthony vidler, the writing of the walls: architectural theory in the late enlightenment  (london: butterworth architecture, 1989), 98, 210. [75] ibid., 98. [76] many members of eighteenth-century british freemasonry were from the conservative elite class, who drew their ideals from classical republicanism and enlightenment philosophes. the conservative elite envisioned a utopian british empire as a regenerated roman republic under the reign of emperor augustus. for classical republicanism in freemasonry ideologies, see margaret c. jacob, living the enlightenment: freemasonry and politics in eighteenth-century europe  (new york; oxford: oxford university press, 1991), 204–220. cf. ayres, classical culture and the idea of rome in eighteenth-century england. for freemasonry’s imperialist commitment, see jessica harland-jacobs, builders of empire: freemasons and british imperialism, 1717–1927  (chapel hill: university of north carolina press, 2007). [77] the references on the prevalence of freemasonry memberships in the society of dilettanti, the royal academy and the hanoverian royal family, are respectively, jason m. kelly, the society of dilettanti: archaeology and identity in the british enlightenment  (new haven: yale university press, 2009), 17–18. david watkin, “freemasonry and sir john soane,” journal of the society of architectural historians 54, no. 4 (1995): 402–417. “a library and museum of freemasonry information leaflet: english royal freemasons,” http://freemasonry.london.museum/os/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/english-royal-freemasons.pdf (accessed on 12-04-11) [78] for a detailed account on this subject, see james stevens curl, the art and architecture of freemasonry (london: batsford, 1991). [79] see richard quaintance, “kew gardens, 1731–1778: can we look at both sides now?” in kew gardens: a controversial georgian landscape, ed. patrick eyres (special issue of new arcadian journal no. 51/51 [2001]): 14–51. [80] richard quaintance, “toward distinguishing among theme park publics: william chambers’s landscape theory vs. his kew practice,” in theme park landscapes: antecedents and variations, eds. terence young and robert riley (washington, d.c.: dumbarton oaks research library and collection, 2002), 25–47. [81] william chambers, a dissertation on oriental gardening: the second edition, with additions, to which is annexed, an explanatory discourse by tan chet-qua, of quang-chew-fu, gent., 2nd ed. (london: printed by w. griffin, 1773), 133. [82] the western perception of the integrated effects of the chinese landscape city was commingled with the hermetic-neoplatonic tradition, in which cities were a key site of shaping citizens’ morals. supposedly founded by hermes trismegistus, the egyptian city of adocentyn described in picatrix is a prototype of the ideal republic, ruled by a combination of rational laws and magical, natural religions. picatrix, lib. iv, cap. 3. cited in yates, giordano bruno and the hermetic tradition, 58. this vision of an ideal city was realized in augustan rome and revived in the renaissance. representations of this hermetic utopia were, among others, tomasso campanella’s city of the sun (1623), nicolas poussin’s landscape with a city, and giovanni battista piranesi’s campo marzio (the field of mars) (1762)—a scheme of city planning for urban regeneration. chambers neighboured with piranesi in 1753–1754 during his five-year stay in rome and may well have been influenced by him. this utopian city tradition was re-imagined by englishmen through pastoral settings, not without chinese influences. robert castell (d. 1729), author of the villas of the ancients illustrated (1728), first theorized the “city as forest,” which was then followed by abbé laugier’s famous principle of gardening as city planning. chambers was receptive to both of these ideas. [83] adam smith, the theory of moral sentiments, 244. 246. [84] qiheng wang, changming yang, and li qin, “qingdai huangjia yuanlin yanjiu de ruogan wenti [清代皇家园林研究的若干问题 some issues in qing imperial garden studies],” jianzhushi [建筑师architects], no.6 (1995): 47–50. [85] for a general discussion on this subject, see qiheng wang, fengshui lilun yanjiu [风水理论研究 study of the fengshui theory] 2nd ed. (tianjin: tianjin university press, 2003). for a case study of suzhou city on this topic, see yinong xu, the chinese city in space and time: the development of urban form in suzhou  (honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 2000), 40–52. [86] qiheng wang and yi su, “pingdi qi pengying, chengshi er linhe: qingyiyuan yu qingdai beijing chengshi shengtai jianshe” [平地起蓬瀛，城市而林壑: 清漪园与清代北京城市生态建设 erecting peng-ying islands from the plain, constructing the city as forest: qingyi garden and the qing eco-construction of beijing] in zhongguo zijincheng xuehui lunwenji [中国紫禁城学会论文集(第三辑) proceedings of the forbidden city society] vol. 3 (beijing: zijincheng chubanshe, 2000). [87] one of the earliest disseminations in europe of images of actual chinese cityscapes and landscape views was johan nieuhof’s het gezantschap der neêrlandtsche oost-indische compagnie, aan den grooten tartarischen cham, den tegenwoordigen keizer van china , first published in amsterdam in 1665 and containing 150 plates. the account documents the first dutch embassy to china that was undertaken from 1655–1657. it was translated and published in french, german, latin, and english  in the 1660s. the earliest english version is johannes nieuhof and john ogilby, an embassy from the east-india company of the united provinces to the grand tartar cham emperour of china  (london: j. macock, 1669). another early attempt to disseminate images of actual chinese gardens in england is the emperor of china’s palace at pekin; and his principal gardens, as well in tartary as at pekin, gehol, and the adjacent countries; with an elevation of the great mogul’s throne (london: 1753). this book comprised twenty engravings, most of which were based on the engravings by matteo ripa during 1711–1713 of the kangxi emperor’s summer palace at chengde. [88] see note 9. krishna and the plaster cast | falser | transcultural studies krishna and the plaster cast. translating the cambodian temple of angkor wat in the french colonial period michael s. falser, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg the analysis of hidden power constellations existing within the translation process that occurs between cultures – in this case between asia and europe – is an emerging feature in (trans)cultural studies. yet given the prevalent focus on texts and images, techniques of direct material translation – such as plaster casts – are rarely discussed. although the historico-cultural significance of this form of physical copying and of exhibition in european museum collections has been rediscovered in the last decade, the analysis of their relevance in colonial translation politics remains a desideratum. this paper focuses on the politico-cultural history of french plaster casts in general, and in particular on those made from the cambodian temple of angkor wat during early french explorative missions, subsequently displayed in museums and at universal and colonial exhibitions from the 1860s to 1930s. it explores the hypothesis that plaster casts were a powerful translation tool used to appropriate the local built heritage of the indochinese colonies for global representation.[1]this process of architectural translation, however, left unexpected space for artful products per se ranging fromfrench amateurs' fanciful interpretations of khmer art to ambitious reconstitutions inscribed into colonial propaganda and a vernacular, post-colonial afterlife. translational turns, colonial politics of translation, and the technique of plaster casts in order to approach plaster casts as a powerful tool for the colonial appropriation of built heritage it is useful to conceptualize them within the process of translation. the translational turn of the last two decades addresses the shift from a linguistic perspective, focused on the written text, to a broader concept that includes (a) translation’s metaphorical character, describing  innumerable human interactions and connections inside and between cultures (culture as translation – culture as text); and (b) the use of the term translation to describe power relations in any kind of cultural contact situation and process(es) of exchange and transfer (translation as cultural practice). i employ this second approach in my focus on the french colonial strategies for the appropriation of indochinese cultural heritage, and intend to conceptualize colonial history in general as a “politico-cultural translation history in an uneven power relation.”[2] viewed from this perspective, cultural theory “deals with the relationship between the conditions of knowledge production in one given culture, and the way knowledge from a different cultural setting is relocated and reinterpreted according to the conditions in which knowledge is produced. they are deeply inscribed within the politics, the strategies of power, and the mythology of stereotyping and representation of other cultures.”[3] using power as one possible key term in the colonial context implies the assertion of an asymmetry in translational flows of knowledge accumulation and a partial representation of the colonized source text. the dominant authority, network, or regime tries to control the (often institutionalized) translation process, which is “not simply an act of faithful reproduction, but, rather, a deliberate and conscious act of selection, assemblage, structuration, and fabrication – and even, in some cases, of falsification, refusal of information, [and] counterfeiting”[4]– taken together it is a manipulation of the parts being (or not being) translated as “orientalized” texts in order to conform to the expectations of the occidental target culture. however, this colonial translation process was never completely controllable and sometimes yielded surprisingly "vernacular" results. in contrast to this postcolonial critique of cultural appropriation through translation, the mere ontological status of translations allows them to stand as new and creative texts for an (in our case, western) audience and simultaneously as “continuers of the [eastern] originals.”[5] how can we conceptualize the translatability of material culture,[6] in this case the specific power and translation structure within the process of plaster casting (moulage en plâtre)? technically speaking, “the first stage in the production of a cast [moulage] is the taking of plaster moulds from the original, using a separating agent to prevent the plaster sticking to the surface. since all sculpture, other than that executed in very low relief, has projections and undercutting [sic] these moulds were invariably made in many pieces. the piece moulds would then be enclosed in an outer casing, the interior coated with a separating agent and the wet plaster poured in. the divisions between the piece moulds produces [sic] a network of casting lines on the completed plaster cast”[7] to be cut away afterwards from the dried plaster. using a special technique of plaster or a lightweight fabric and plaster mix (staff), the negative form of the mold or cast could generate multiple castings (moule à bon creux); a later development introduced gelatin into the process, allowing for  up to sixty castings.  and a special imprinting technique (estampe) that was primarily applied to the casting of large architectural surfaces (in this case bas-reliefs, pediments, pilasters, etc.) was the result of molding with potter’s clay for one or two castings only (figs.1-3).[8] figs. 1-3: the modern production process of plaster casts of/for decorative elements (left) and of/for architectural surfaces (centre) and the storage of lightweight decorative elements (french: staff) (right), photos taken at maison auberlet, successor of the original auberlet et laurent which executed the decoration of the 1:1-scale model of angkor wat at the international colonial exhibition in paris 1931. source: michael falser 5. 2010 in order to explore the hypothesis that plaster casts were a powerful tool in the french colonial appropriation of the built heritage of angkor, georges didi-huberman’s reflections onimprints (empreintes) in relation to power are especially useful: the process of impression leaves the trace of an original object in a foreign medium. whereas the original object will naturally alter its physical appearance over time (e.g., aging, patina, and decay), the trace of an object might technically be fixed as a permanent, anachronic marker – an unchangeable imprint represented by a molding as the basis of plaster casting. this moment of direct and intimate contact with the original (in the process of translation) imbues the imprint/molding with authenticity and authority. [9] comparable to the process of coinage, the possession of representative moldings (in our case those of the large khmer temple of angkor wat) acts as a kind of central key or generic code for authentic retranslations. re-materialization empowers the owner (in our case the colonial agent) to translate and circulate exact, licensed, and valuable copies of the object in any desired place, context, time frame, function, and for an audience and political intention determined by the representatives of power (in our case museums as well as universal and colonial exhibitions in france). in order to place such situations of translation in their proper historico-cultural context, it is necessary to contextualize them with the help of several general questions,[10] which will guide us through our case study of the french plaster casts of angkor wat and their intended gaze by a european audience: 1. what was or was not translated (characteristics of the source, material context)? 2. when or how frequently and under what circumstances did the translation occur (temporal context)? 3. where and over what distance did the translation occur (spatial context)? 4. who was/were the translator/s (agency, mediation, institutional context)? 5. how was the translation carried out (resources, medium, techniques, processes, (un-)translatability)? 6. why was an object translated (motives, expectations, context of operation, norms)? 7. for whom was an object translated (intended audience, target culture, demand, distribution, circulation)? 8. what was the result or the end product of translation (hybridity in re/presentations, unexpected results, reception)? moulage sur nature – moulage sur culture: a motivational history of modern cast collections the history of museums with originals and plaster casts as well as plaster cast museums (musées de moulage)carries within it a fundamental contradiction: the general concept of a museum as a protective temple of and site for the cultural education of a larger public through original works of art would not, at first glance, seem to include cast copies. an analysis of the motivational history of cast collections (as opposed to collections of original objects) provides us with greater insight into the evolution and contested discourse of the field of art history, taken within its specific national-political context, than it does into the displayed art pieces themselves. similarly, a product of translation might tell us more about the background of the translation process and the translator than about the original text. cast collections, especially in museums, were ideological “combat zones of justification and demonstration”[11] where natural and cultural products were systematically selected, organized, hierarchized, and displayed according to a dominant evolutionary theory of the evolution of nature and culture (such as art) in general. a consistent feature of casts as a medium of translation is their “contested status […] at every stage of their history; […] the processes of reproduction embodied in casting [were] inevitably disputed, their definition always provisional.”[12] since earliest times in modern history, laster casts have served either as working models (aide-mémoire) in an artist’s atelier and visual representatives of the sculptor’s intermediate stages of production. since roman (or even ealier) times, copies served as substitutes of venerated originals in private and royal collections. for an early-modern use of moulage sur culture in large public presentations, one can look to the important mid-eighteenth-century cast collection of the german painter anton raphael mengs, founded in rome and later transferred to dresden. focusing on roman casts of ancient greek sculpture, mengs’ motivation was based on the ideas of the german art historian and archaeologist johann joachim winckelmann, whose geschichte der kunst des altertums (1764) was the first publication to establish a chronological classification of art, in particular – and the development of civilization in general – as a cycle of organic growth, maturity, and decline. studying the art of ancient greece through roman copies, artists and powerful rulers alike could reimagine both the ideal state of “high” civilization and and its developed sense of artistic creativity. yet in parts of europe the plasterers’ artistic copying skills as well as their “original” casts received as little official acknowledgment as the originals themselves, which were deserving of individual “copy-rights.” in 1793, the same year that mengs’ collection was posthumously opened to the public, parisian plastererscollectively petitioned the national convention to have their metier incorporated into artistic copyright law. it is interesting to note that they related their profession to sculpture and drew a parallel between their understanding of casting and the typographic work in literary production. here, at the outset of the age of the “procédés méchaniques à reproduire les empreintes” – and more than a century before walter benjamin’s famous essay on art in the age of mechanical reproduction, albeit written in reference to photography and not plaster casts – these copy experts feared a “trafic de piraterie” and “abus” from rivaling “contrefacteurs,” and defended their expertise as an economical but high-quality mass reproduction of art for public instruction.[13] the idea of large-scale study museums containing plaster casts was born in the academies of fine arts and, in 1834, found its way to paris with the musée des études in the école des beaux-arts, where the academic development of architects and artists was combined with stylistic studies using plaster casts from sculptures of classical european antiquity. after the 1840s, when plaster casts gained influence in the natural sciences and for the reproduction of surface-oriented “realism,” their three-dimensional quality challenged the two-dimensional technique of photography. however, from an artistic point of view, the use of plaster casts was accused of faking art and “imprisoning beauty in a straitjacket.”[14] the effects of this “a-chronical and anachronical aspect of plaster casts”[15] were noticeable: first, the age value of an original piece of art was suppressed; second, the casts themselves were not perceived by the spectator as time-specific copies with their own documentary value, but were confused with the original art object(s) that they represented. moulage sur nature became a powerful freezing and fixation tool used to document a natural and even human hic et nuncstatus. in the great nineteenth-century scientific undertaking to compile comprehensive classifications, important collections of plaster casts emerged for use in botanical analysis and clinical realism. this found direct application in the comparative analysis practiced by the french naturalist and zoologist george cuvier (1769-1832) in the fields of anatomy and paleontology, albeit with a strong focus on the theories about the extinction of species. in this instance, plaster casts touched upon the sciences that bridged the gap between natural and cultural observation: ethnography and anthropology. plaster casts were used for their supposedly objective accuracy and scientific neutrality to establish comparative repertoires in emerging evolutionary and hereditary theories, and as part of new world exploration and global circumnavigation. they served to document the human skull or a body entire; they helped to develop natural as well as ethnic taxonomies that classified human entities and hierarchies for ethnographic museums, simultaneously emphasizing eurocentric racial ideologies (figs. 4, 5). fig. 4: a plaster cast of adolphe victor geoffroy-dechaume (moulage sur nature) of parts of an original female body (about 1840-1845), sources: photographie du musée de sculpture comparée, claire lathuille/capa/fonds geoffroy-dechaume, mmf. fig. 5: a plaster cast by alexandre pierre marie dumoutier (moulage sur nature) of a head of matua tawai, a new zealander of ikanamawi (1838), sources: musée de l’homme, laboratoire d’anthropologie, paris all these historical and methodological positions would gradually be inscribed in a much larger european appropriation of world culture – colonialism – which provides the broader context for this case study. apart from the scientific mission to complete museums’ existing collections of original artwork with cast pieces, the mass production and nationwide circulation of moulages sur culture facilitated pedagogical instruction and artistic reformation in keeping with the spirit of the newly founded first french republic (1792). it became necessary to systematically control the quality of casts in order to avoid cheap and supposedly “lying translations”[16] and those made by bad (which meant private) plasterers. conceived as a commercial monopoly, the atelier de moulage was founded in 1794 as a subdivision of the louvre museum where originals and moldings were displayed next to each other (fig. 6). although this type of hybrid display was gradually abandoned during the second half of the nineteenth century, plaster casts would continue to play an important scientific role in archaeological reconstitutions that simulated the historic environments of newly acquired originals. fig. 6: musée du louvre, to the left the plaster cast of the facade of the treasure house of knidos, to the right the original fragment of the nike of samothrake. source: paris, bibliothèque des arts décoratifs, collection maciet the musée de sculpture comparée at the trocadero palace in paris during this nineteenth-century european race to acquire antiquities – either originals from archaeological sites or plaster copies – the louvre’s atelier de moulage primarily produced casts for the growing market of artists, educational institutions, museums, and industries related to the decorative arts; casts were sold through elaborate catalogues and at shows. [17] the institutional and commercial repertoire of plaster casts gradually expanded from canonical objects of classical antiquity to an encyclopedic pretension that would encompass the french middle ages to the renaissance and incorporate archaeological objects from the near and middle east, where colonial france sought to augment its political influence. in competition with the project for a musée des copies,[18] which would house reproductions of significant works of antique art from across europe, an 1848 petition sought to establish a musée de plâtres that would contain exclusively national (!) sculptures and have its own atelier national de moulage. among others, the petition was signed by the historian, architect, and conservator eugène viollet-le-duc (1814-1879). and in 1866, in volume eight of his dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française du xie  au xvie siècle (chapter on "sculpture"), viollet-le-duc formulated his program for the establishment of a musée de sculpture comparée.  his anti-academic intent was to confront the established école des beaux-arts canon of greek statuary with french sculptures in the architectural context of the middle ages, thereby drawing formal and technical analogies between the periods. in so doing he put plaster casts at the very center of an ideological debate that existed during the second empire: a veritable “querelle des moulage”[19] in which viollet-le-duc’s epistemological model showed similarities to cuvier’s comparative anatomy. but most importantly, his historiographic approach, which compared the classic greek art of phidias’ athens with the medieval cathedrals of reims and paris (the latter mainly cast back-ups produced during his architectural restorations throughout france),[20] was a francocentric interpretation of winckelmann’s evolutionary and cyclic concept of archaism, maturity, and decline. just months before his death, viollet-le-duc reiterated his comparative vision for a musée de moulage to the minister of public instruction, jules ferry, and the director of fine arts, antonin proust, who agreed to incorporate viollet-le-duc’s collection into the palais du trocadéro at the exposition universelle (universal exhibition) of 1878. yet not until 1882 was the musée de sculpture comparée officially inaugurated, with the famous artistic plasterer adolphe victor geoffroy-dechaume as its first director. the collection was displayed in four halls: the first, archaic-period hall contained assyrian and egyptian art with ancient greek objects placed next to french statuary of the eleventh and twelfth centuries (figs. 7, 8). the second, period-of-maturity hall positioned hieratic greek art next to thirteenth-century french pieces from the reims, paris, and amiens cathedrals (in keeping with viollet-le-duc’s vision of the île-de-france as a medieval attica). the third hall identified a period of decadence juxtaposing greco-roman art with french objects from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; the fourth contained objects from the italian and french renaissance and french regional schools. contemporary photography provided a decisive aesthetic impulse for viollet-le-duc’s intended metonymic display of de-contextualized (fragmented) and de-historicized (patina-free) architectural objects, using plaster casts within a neutral black background, but leaving the edges between the casts to indicate the technical character of the copy. this type of display allowed him to present only selected elements of larger architectural ensembles as long as the singular elements (e.g., columns, pilasters, lintels, pediments, portal figures, etc.) could be overlapped aesthetically or connected in an arrangement that would represent the structural whole from which they came. critical voices called viollet-le-duc’s comparative, quite "transcultural" settings, which included the placement of an assyrian bas-relief next to a portal figure from the abbaye de saint-pierre de moissac, “purely accidental” and architectural displays such as the main portal of the basilique de vézelay not comparative, but “deformative”.[21] fig. 7: the plaster cast of the portal of the 12th-century madeleine church in vézelay (in the background) in the musée de sculpture comparée; to the lower left are pedestals of egyptian sculptures   source: photographie du musée de sculpture comparée, paul robert/capa/archives mmf fig. 8: page of the exhibition catalogue of the musée de sculpture comparée (1894) with plaster casts of soullac church on the left and a cast statue of chephren on the right (which is shown at the very left edge in the fig. 7). sources: armand guérinet, ed., le musée de sculpture comparée du palais du trocadéro. paris 1894, plate 145. in 1900, a catalogue of the museum’s plaster casts contained 1,300 items (99% were of french medieval art), plus an additional 1,300 plaster casts that were for sale from the museum’s atelier du moulage[22] the atelier was organized under the direction of the mouleur en chef, jean pouzadoux, and coexisted with the louvre’s atelier de moulage and its moldings of classical antiquities (some decades later they merged). but viollet-le-duc’s vision did not last long: minister ferry voted for a more nationalistic and republican orientation and foreign objects that had originally been used for direct comparison were eliminated in favor of a purely encyclopedic, heavily enlarged, and french-nationalistic presentation under the directorship of the archaeologist, historian, collector, and pedagogue camille enlart (1904-27).[23] “the metonymic logic of viollet-le-duc was abandoned: the fragment did not represent an entity [any more] but merely illustrated it. the precise grammar that had structured the initial collection was slowly replaced by a vast encyclopedia whose reading order remained obscure.”[24] thus, the entire concept of cultural translation and specifically that which occurred through the medium of plaster casts was completely reconceptualized. then, in 1937, the year paris hosted its last large international exhibition, the side wings of the trocadéro were incorporated into the palais de chaillot, and the musée de sculpture comparéewas renamed the musée des monuments français. under its new director, paul deschamps, the museum contained french art with copies of sculptures, wall paintings, architecture, and decorative arts. the new name itself was illustrative of the programmatic revision, harkening back to alexandre lenoir’s museum by the same name, which had opened in 1791 to protect original french art from vandalism and chronologically portray a glorious french history. viollet-le-duc’s transcultural concept, along with plaster casts of foreign art, had disappeared. the musée indochinois at the trocadéro palace in paris the representation of colonized culture was one of the central tasks of all universal exhibitions, from london in 1851 to paris in 1937 until the official project of colonialism came to an end in the 1950/60s. the paris universal exhibition of 1878 was an early milestone in that history. in 1874, the commission des voyages et missions scientifiques et littéraires was founded to organize and promote the political importance of the french colonial mission civilisatrice. within this framework – and for a pre-exhibition trial period – thepalais de l’industrie, located on the champs-elysées, was to temporarily house the musée ethnographique des missions scientifiques with its ethnographic collections from latin america, russia, central asia, and last but not least cambodia, which was represented by a small collection of maps, photographs, original sculptures, and plaster casts.[25] for the exhibition itself, the whole collection was moved to the west wing (aile passy) of the newly erected, hilltop trocadéro, located above the champs de mars, and opened under the temporary name exposition historique et ethnographique. it was divided into two sections: the exposition historique de l’art ancienand the ethnographie des peuples étrangers;in the latter, cambodia was again featured next to egypt, india, china, and japan. according to the livret-guide du visiteur, it was here where “the first samples of the gigantic […] ruins of the khmer civilisation”[26] were brought to europe. the visitors of the exhibition could see an original part of the large, snake-headed balustrade from the preah khan temple’s chaussée des géants, into which a missing lower part had already been integrated with a plaster cast implant (figs. 9, 10).[27] fig. 9: the railing of the preah khan temple during the 1878 universal exhibition in paris. source: louis delaporte, voyage au cambodge. l’architecture khmer (paris: delagrave, 1880; reprint paris: maisonneuve & larose, 1999): 245 fig. 10: the railing of the preah khan temple, photographed for the catalogue of the musée indochinois. source: armand guérinet, ed., le musée indo-chinois. antiquités cambodgiennes exposée au palais du trocadéro (paris: éditions guérinet, no date), plate 56. in fact, this embellished sculptural ensemble came from the musée khmer,locatednortheast of paris in compiègne, which had been inaugurated in 1874 under the direction of the naval captain, explorer, and khmer art amateur louis delaporte (1842-1925). however, the first large display of a complete khmer temple architecture on the european continent was introduced with a 1:10-scale plaster cast model which was based on delaporte’s earliest sketches of one of the five giant entry gates to the angkorian city of angkor thom and executed by the gifted italian plasterer ghilardi who also participated in delaporte’s later missions for plaster casts of the angkorian temples (fig.11). the overall coordination of this undertaking had been coordinated by the art connoisseur emile soldi, who helped to popularize khmer art in his 1881-publication les arts méconnus – les nouveaux musées du trocadéro.[28] with an impressive engraving for this book, he re-translated the parisian plaster cast model of the angkor thom gate back to the re-invented original site which he had never visited himself (fig.12). fig. 11: the gate to angkor thom in a 1:10 scale plaster cast model as the first architectural representation of the angkorian architecture on european soil during the universal exhibition in paris 1878 (here depicted during an exhibition in the musée guimet in 1908). source: annales du musée guimet, bibliothèque de vulgarisation: exposition temporaire au musée guimet. catalogue (paris: ernest leroux. 1908), pl. 1. fig. 12: an engraving of the 1:10 scale model for the 1878 paris exhibition, re-translated as model (!) to the imagined original cambodian site, as depicted in the publication les arts méconnus – les nouveaux musées du trocadéro by émile soldi. source: émile soldi, les arts méconnus – les nouveaux musées du trocadéro (paris: ernest leroux, 1881), between pp. 288-89. an excellent draftsman, delaporte participated in the voyage d’exploration of doudart de lagrée and francis garnier (1866-1868), which explored the mekong river as a potentially navigable trade route into southwest china. since 1863, lower parts of cambodia had been part of the french protectorate with the result that the ministère de la marine, for clearly expansionist reasons, financed this geographical mission. during the voyage, the explorers visited – as a mere side effect of colonial curiosity – the ninthto thirteenth-century temples of angkor located in northern cambodia, which at that time belonged to the territory of siam. after the first french report on angkor by the missionary charles-emile bouvillevaux and only five years after the french naturalist henri mouhot published his influential voyages dans les royaumes de siam, de cambodge, de laos et autres parties de l’indochine  (1868), which had been funded by the british colonial administration because of its interest in siam, delaporte’s drawings of the ankor temples appeared in the 4-volume de lagrée/garnier mission publication. these drawings were the impetus for four subsequent explorative, chiefly archaeological and reconnaissance missions to angkor led by delaporte. as they relate to the overall approach of this paper, these missions can be conceptualized as massive, appropriative colonial acts of material translation from angkor to france, undertaken in the form of a theft of original, small, transportable objects and the molding of larger, non-transportable sculptures and architectural fragments. the first of delaporte’s expeditions (1873) had a dual purpose: (a) to identify and select angkorian sculptural and architectural pieces of interest for french museums under the patronage of contre-amiral dupré and the direction des beaux-arts du ministère de l’instruction publique;and (b) to explore the tonkin province with the support of minister ferry and commissioned by the société de géographie. along with other personnel, including a hydrographic engineer, a geologist, doctors, soldiers, and working staff, delaporte took along the bridge and road builder from saigon, faraut, the draftsman laederich, the french captain and spécialiste des moulage filoz, and, as already mentioned above, the italian plasterer ghilardi. in his lengthy 1874 mission report, published in the journal officiel de la république française, delaporte gives a detailed account of the on-site production of sixty-six highly fragile moldings and plaster casts and their transportation to france.[29] he describes how the team collected (sometimes even using a stone saw) a representative selection of original architecture and molded pieces. and in his book voyage au cambodge: l’architecture khmer (1880) delaporte writes about the 1873 mission, its process of trial and error, and the physically exhausting nature of producing moldings and casts in the tropical humidity of angkor, proudly mentioning the 32-meter long carton pâte molds executed by his colleague filoz in fifty-four separate panels, depicting the bas-reliefs of the galérie des combats in the temple of angkor wat. the mission was, without a doubt, a colonial example of illicit traffic. delaporte himself reports that the “local siamese governor forbade the withdrawal of statues or sculptures from the angkor monuments,” but was assured that the french “just desired to visit and study the ruins, to collect inscriptions and take moldings of sculptures and bas-reliefs.”[30] this was only partly true insofar as the molding procedure (an early technique of material appropriation) could be used to circumscribe original property rights. in fact, the mission had worked together with the inspector, surveyor, and french resident at phnom penh, etienne aymonier, to develop exact drawings and photographs of the bayon temple, which might later facilitate a complete reconstitution. shortly after gaining admittance to the twelfth-century sanctuary of angkor wat, the team had had to return to saigon due to bad weather and deteriorating health conditions, yet filoz continued to make on-site moldings and lieutenant jean moura was charged with transporting the original (!) and copied sculptures out of angkor; in phnom penh they were carefully wrapped for shipping to france. delaporte’s report of 1874 summed up the mission’s achievements as follows: the “acquisition”[31] of seventy original sculptures and architectural fragments (pilasters, figural pieces of a balustrade, cornices, columns, capitals, sculptured bases, window frames, boundary stones of pagodas, bas-reliefs, a large collection of moldings (e.g., the famous leper king statue), thirty-four molded panels of bas-reliefs of angkor wat, and about fifty moldings from other temple structures); the discovery of ten new ruins; plans, drawings, and photographs of twenty remarkable monuments; and a collection of recorded inscriptions. in comparison to a linguistic translation process that disassembles the syntax of a text in one language in order to recompose its elements in another, delaporte’s plaster cast collection was a systematic appropriation of the generic code of the khmer temple structures to be transported into a new cultural context and restaged in france as hybrid representations of the original buildings. called back to france due to ill health, delaporte sent 120 cases of moldings to the louvre seeking suitable exhibition space. his offer was rejected (probably due to the fact that the louvre was gradually removing plaster casts in favor of originals), so delaporte transferred his collection to the newly established musée oriental de compiègne that, renamed musée khmer, could display its masterpieces regardless of whether they were cast copies or original objects. after their successful but temporary presentation at the paris universal exhibition of 1878 (located next to egyptian, chinese, and japanese art), delaporte writes in his voyage au cambodge: l’architecture khmer about his plan to ultimately make the collection “accessible au public!”[32] in paris (see fig. 9). delaporte was discontent not only with the peripheral location of his museum in compiègne but also with its incomplete status, and convinced minister ferry to finance the second angkor mission in 1881/82. under the aegis of the société académique indochinoise,and with far less financial support than in 1873, he embarked once again with faraut, ghilardi, and laederich on a four-month journey that, for serious health reasons, would be his last. in his 1881 letter from angkor to louis de ronchaud, secretary general of the école des beaux-arts, delaporte reports on his meticulous studies of angkor wat, which included draft plans, photographs, moldings of the masterpieces, and the “acquisition” of original sculptures some of which had already been sent to saigon.[33] the third mission to angkor (1886/87) was carried out under delaporte’s proxy supervision by lucien fournereau, inspecteur des bâtiments civils au service des travaux publics in cochinchina, sylvain raffegaud, sculpteur attaché aux travaux publiques, and inspecteur kerautret, along with draftsmen, plasterers, and workers for the on-site wooden scaffoldings. these two missions of 1881/82 and 1886/87 focused on the collection of plaster casts for large architectural temple reconstitutions. in 1888, fournereau’s mission report to the minister of public instruction and fine arts gave a full list of accomplishments: in total they had taken 520 plaster casts (241 alone from angkor wat); thirteen original objects, including a wooden ceiling panel from the surrounding galleries and a sleeping buddha figure from the central cruciform gallery of angkor wat; 400 photographs; and finally, a series of floor plans, sections, elevations, and detailed drawings of decorative elements from angkor wat, the baphuon, and several other temples. the last mission conceived by delaporte was led by the saigon-based artist and plasterer urban basset in 1896/97 with the goal to finally complete the reconstitutions of angkor wat’s central tower and “tourette de baion.”[34] regarding the circulation and diffusion of these physical products of khmer temple translations, fournereau’s report mentions the curious fact that although the plaster casts had been conceived as instructional tools for museums and art schools, both in the colonies and the motherland, as a result of diplomatic donations made to supportive local colonial authorities, some ended up “in the verandahs and offices”[35] of colonial civil servants and their friends. and when angkor became part of the french protectorate in 1907, its decorative elements appeared on official french colonial architecture throughout indochina. additionally, it is important to mention that angkorian moldings and plaster casts from these scientific missions (as well as local reproductions) may have made their way to the musée sarraut in phnom penh, inaugurated in 1920 for the permanent colonial collection of khmer antiquities. this museum had, as part of an art school led by georges groslier, its own atelier de moulage (figs. 13, 14) and salle de vente, which supplied both the local as well as the rising international tourist trade with angkorian plaster casts and the occasional original sculptures, which for this commercial purpose were de-listed by the commission de declassement and removed from the protected heritage zone of angkor.[36] lastly, during the early twentieth century, plaster cast series and angkorian originals alike were sold out of paris to locations across europe. fig. 13: the atelier de moulage in the musée sarraut (today national museum) in phnom penh/cambodia in the 1920s with a large panel from the galleries of angkor wat (left). source: national museum of phnom penh, cambodia fig. 14: plaster casts of apsara reliefs of angkor wat. source: national museum of phnom penh, cambodia four years after its temporary display at the paris universal exhibition of 1878, the musée khmer permanently moved from compiègne to the trocadéro in paris, and opened under the new name musée indochinois des antiquités cambodgiennes (fig. 15); some years later its collection was photographed for  a superb publication by armand guérinet (figs. 16, 17).[37] with viollet-le-duc as a member of the committee, the post-exhibition at the trocadéro was divided into space for three permanent museums: the musée d’ethnographie, the musée de sculpture comparée, and delaporte’s collection. all three museums functioned within the time-tested system of methodological classification of objects, and their comparative and intrinsic display followed an evolutionary approach. with the angkorian plaster casts produced during four missions spanning the years 1873-1897,[38] delaporte could finally stage his cast collages as masterpieces in their own right.[39] fig. 15: the angkorian heritage in the musée indo-chinois at the palais trocadéro in paris, in front the naga (snake-headed) balustrade from angkor wat, above the whole display one can see the iron roof structure of the trocadero palace. source: école national supérieure des beaux-arts, ensba paris. figs. 16, 17: angkor in the musée indo-chinois at the palais trocadéro in paris: the bayon-like interpretation (above) and a ‘section’ of angkor wats’ central tower of the lower east side (below). source: armand guérinet, ed., le musée indo-chinois. antiquités cambodgiennes exposée au palais du trocadéro (paris: éditions guérinet, no date), plates 36, 2. ascertaining the exact positioning of delaporte’s museum was difficult until today. on a general plan of the trocadéro palace of around 1903, the director of the musée de sculpture comparée, camille enlart (1903-1927), included a self-made legend that placed the indochinese museum at the south-western edge of the building(fig. 18). delaporte himself sketched two different versions of his museum’s floor-plan in a 1886-letter to the director of fine arts, kaempfer.[40] one free-standing reconstitution was moved because another one was completed with new plaster casts from a later mission to angkor (fig.19a, b). on a more detailed level, only a sketch of the floor on the museum’s first level was available for our research (fig. 20). it was prepared for an inventory by the art historian and curator of the musée guimet, philippe stern,[41] who acted as temporary director of the musée indochinoisfor a short time after delaporte had died. fig. 18: floor plan of the trocadéro palace with a legend by the director camille enlart (after 1903). source: capa/archives mmf. fig. 19 a, b: two sketchy floor plan variations for the indochinese museum by louis delaporte in a letter of 1886. source: archive des musées nationaux, paris. fig. 20: a sketchy floor plan of the musée indo-chinois by the curator of the nearby musée guimet, philippe stern in ca. 1925 with the indication of the staging of the free-standing temple reconstitutions of bayon and angkor wat. source: philippe stern, inventaire des moulage du musée indochinois (untitled, undated manuscript, c. 1925, archive du musée guimet paris.) with the help of mouleur en chef pouzadoux, delaporte followed the display mode of his neighbor, the musée des sculpture comparée: a wide range of decorative panels and sculptures were positioned in the fragmentary aesthetics of passe-partout photographs to create stylistically comparative groups hung on the walls; the walls, as well as large parts of the open iron-and-glass roof, were covered with black velum. in this sober and mystic atmosphere with its spotlight staging, the freestanding architectural reconstitutions from vietnam (cham), burma, and especially angkor were without a doubt the most spectacular features. they can be characterized either as (a) surface-oriented 1:1 scale façade or building sections with a high degree of accuracy in relation to the original composition (e.g., angkor wat); or (b) hybrid, scale-reduced collages of individual 1:1 scale panels that reacted to the spatial limitations of the museum (e.g., the bayon temple interpretative model). concerning the plaster cast reconstitutions of angkor wat, delaporte focused on two specific locations: the west entry gate of the outer enclosure and the east section of the main central tower massive. compared with the west entry gate as it stands today, delaporte’s reconstituted parisian interpretation was quite accurate and only altered small details, such as gestures of lateral figures; the actual lintel is broken today and the lateral columns are missing (figs. 21a-d). figs. 21 a-d: angkor in the musée indo-chinois: angkor wat’s western inner facade of the western entry gate (above) and in comparison with the original site today (below).source: armand guérinet, ed., le musée indo-chinois. antiquités cambodgiennes exposée au palais du trocadéro (paris: éditions guérinet, no date), plate 3 (above), falser 2010 (below). the same is true for the architectural ensemble of the lower east side of the main central tower (compare fig. 17) (fig. 22a-d). the central image depicted on the pediment is krishna killing kamsa with his sword. in its original location at angkor wat, both lower half-pediments depict scenes from the ramayana epos. interestingly, delaporte copied only the lower left half-pediment for his reconstitution, which depicted the alliance of rama and lakshmana in the presence of the monkey-king sugriva. the original lower right half-pediment was replaced with a scene from another half-pediment located on the northern part of the central tower, probably due to the already decayed state of the original or the aesthetic desire to create a supposedly more balanced composition for the parisian museum. figs. 22 a-d: angkor in the musée indo-chinois: the ‘section’ of angkor wats’ central tower of the lower east side (above) and in comparison with the original site today (below). source: armand guérinet, ed., le musée indo-chinois. antiquités cambodgiennes exposée au palais du trocadéro (paris: éditions guérinet, no date), plate 2 (above), falser 2010 (below). it is interesting to note that in voyage au cambodge: l’architecture khmer delaporte cites london’s south kensington museum with its two (oriental and european) architectural or cast courts – the courts were opened in1873[42] and the museum was later named the victoria & albert museum. it is quite clear that this museum’s more encyclopedic display of entire architectural reconstitutions was a major source of inspiration for the physical presentation of his own khmer casts (fig.23). fig. 23: the ‘cast courts’ in the south kensington museum (now victoria & albert museum) as an international reference for delaporte’s museum in paris. source: copyright victoria & albert museum, london nonetheless, delaporte’s concept of a museum that classifies objects and depicts the evolution of style was more likely a reflection of viollet-le-duc’s original metonymic and comparative idea for the musée de sculpture comparée: delaporte’s attaché, henri la nave, even defined the musée indochinoisas its logical extension when he referred to the assyrian, egyptian, and greek exhibits as being surpassed by the quality of its khmer bas-reliefs.[43] the rather curious illustration below (fig. 24) shows how complicated the exhibition spaces for french national and colonial heritage were in regard to the visitor’s course and his visual perspectives inside the museum: standing in the show room with the impressive head of the very french sculpture of the marseillaise (a sculpture by françois rude of 1792 used for the arc de triomphe) he could already see, through an open door, angkorian-style columns in the next room, which also housed another giant head – this time in the angkorian style (fig. 25). with its tour leading from european to asian plaster casts, the trocadero exhibition scenario turned into a veritable transcultural parcours. fig. 24: the head of the marseillaise for the arc de triomphe (with a young visitor’s hand in its mouth) at the trocadero palace and musée indochinois in the next room. source: fonds henri olivier, médiathèque du patrimoine, french ministry of culture fig. 25: the giant plaster cast of a crowning head in the bayon-style. source: fonds durand, médiathèque du patrimoine, french ministry of culture during its forty-seven years of existence (1878-1925), delaporte’s museum did not, generally speaking, achieve its intended goal: the pedagogical proliferation of khmer art into the french artistic scene. despite the fact that in 1899 delaporte was himself honored with the title conservateur des collections khmères, the museum lacked serious institutional recognition. it also lacked the consistent financial support usually afforded a permanent collection. and yet it had been integrated into the parcours for visitors of the paris universal exhibitions of 1878, 1889, and 1900, and this despite the fact that it lacked professional management and played no important role in the systematic scientific research of asian art. however, for the history of the various reconstitutions of khmer temple architectures in french exhibitions delaporte’s plaster cast museum played a crucial role. as a musée imaginaire (a dictum of andré malraux) of the nineteenth-century french colonial world, its plaster casts[44] stood in competition with the musée guimet: founded in lyon (1879) and transferred to paris in 1882, its collection of original asian (also cambodian) art was located just a few hundred meters away. the musée indochinois closed in 1927, just two years after the death of its passionate spiritus rector. the original artwork went to the musée guimet and in 1937 (when the trocadéro was demolished to make room for the new palais de chaillot for the 1937 international exhibition) delaporte’s plaster casts disappeared from public view. at this time, the french colonial project as a whole had lost much of its popularity and political attraction. as a consequence, the scheduled display of the indochinese collection at the new palais chaillot was eliminated from the floor plans.[45] the same was true for the pavillion-like reconstitutions of colonial heritage: they were limited and minimized as much as possible, as we shall see late in this paper. a small collection of plaster casts from ‘far-east’-angkor were, along with a longer list of ‘antiquités orientales’, still available in the ‘provisional catalogue’ of the plaster cast ateliers of the french national museums in 1928.[46] krishna on the move: plaster casts from angkor in universal and colonial exhibitions in france it is beyond the scope of this article to reconstruct the detailed use of plaster casts for angkorian reconstitutions at all universal and colonial exhibitions. as a consequence, i have decided to focus on the previously mentioned krishna pediment from angkor wat as it migrated from its original cambodian setting to the paris universal exhibitions (1878, 1889), the national colonial exhibitions in marseille (1906, 1922), and finally the great international colonial exhibition in paris in 1931. according to stern’s circa 1925 inventory of the musée indochinois, the krishna cast reached france after delaporte’s 1896/97 mission. however, a closer look at one of the pediments in the first large-scale attempt at an “angkor”-style reconstitution in france proves that it had already appeared on the european stage during paris universal exhibition of 1889 (figs. 26 a,b). therefore, it might be necessary to backdate the casts’ arrival to the fournereau/raffegaud mission of 1887/88. fig. 26 a, b: the pagode d’angkor for the universal exhibition in paris 1889 – overall view (above) and detail with krishna pediment (below). source: ministère de la culture (france) médiathèque de l'architecture et du patrimoine diffusion rmn. the architect who was commissioned to construct the 1889 pagode d’angkor was daniel fabre, chef du service des travaux publics in phnom penh. the structure itself was a fantastical interpretation comprised of little turrets and an exaggeratedly pointed tower. delaporte was dissatisfied with the overall result; the same would be true of the representation of cambodia eleven years later at the paris universal exhibition of 1900. this time it was the école des beaux-arts-trained architect alexandre marcel who was charged with the representation of cambodia and who oversaw the reconstitution of the complete temple hill of wat phnom, located in the cambodian capital of phnom penh and having little apparent relation to angkorian temple structures.[47] then followed the exposition coloniale de marseille (the marseille colonial exhibition) of 1906 – the first national colonial exhibition to take place in france – with the architect henri vildieu, architecte de la 1e classe des travaux publics in the indochinese province of tonkin, responsible not only for the coordination of the section indo-chinoise but also, together with the architect françois lagisquet (inspecteur principal des batiments civils), for the pavillon du cambodge, which attempted to include both angkor wat and the bayon temple styles (fig. 27). faraut, a participant on two delaporte missions, contributed drawings for the interior showrooms and delaporte helped with plaster casts for a translational “idée exacte.”[48] in marseille, the cambodian pavillon seemed to have been stretched laterally from its reconstituted form in delaporte’s musée indochinois, but the krishna pediment of angkor wat was still reused on almost every pediment (fig. 28). fig. 27: the pavillon du cambodge for the national colonial exposition in marseille in 1906 after the architects vildieu/lagisquet. source: archives departmentales bouches du rhone, marseille fig. 28: the pavillon du cambodge for the national colonial exposition in marseille in 1906, detail. source: m. beau, l’indo-chine à l’exposition coloniale de marseille (marseille: imprimerie marseillaise, 1906), 129 (cliché baudouin, marseille) the (national) colonial exhibition of 1906 brought to a close the first phase in the reception, translation, and therefore appropriation of ancient angkorian culture at universal and colonial exhibitions. the more imaginative, fantastical, and less “authentic” architectural reconstitutions that dominated this phase had one simple explanation: until the franco-siamese treaty of 1907, the region of angkor was not part of the french protectorate; therefore, opportunities for the expansion of archaeological, art historical, and photographic resources required for an exact translation of the angkorian temples into the french hemisphere were limited. this situation completely changed once the northwestern provinces of cambodia became part of the french protectorate. as a consequence, the material translation and representation of the temples of angkor evidenced a new quality and quantity at the exposition nationale coloniale de marseille (national colonial exhibition) of 1922 (fig. 29). as never before, the picturesque reconstitution of angkor, now representing whole indochina, was staged as a symbol “of the existing indochinese unity and proof of the most vital and materialized power of france in asia.”[49] in relation to the theoretical concept of translation as a powerful tool of colonial appropriation, i will use the french term impression – translated here as “proof” (related to épreuve) designating both a reprint of moldings as well as photographic negatives – to refer literally to (a) the direct imprint of the surface of the local angkor temple structure into the french moldings in situ; and (b) the impressive visual effect that their translated representation implanted in the hybrid temple reconstitutions made in france – as symbols of french colonial potency – and had upon the stunned visitor in the globalizing exhibition environment. never before had the contested status of the mere technical, supposedly innocent procedure of plaster casting been more evident in french colonial history. situated within a large indochinese complex, the palais de l’indochine was intended to duplicate the central massive of angkor wat, with a square base of 70 meters side length, four 40-meter high corner towers, and a 57-meter central tower. its chief architect was auguste émile joseph delaval, chef du service des travaux de l‘indochine. he supervised the production of 50,000 m2 of internal and external lightweight plaster cladding (staff), carried out by the firm auberlet et laurent. an astounding 35,000 plaster casts were made of the various decorative elements and bas-relief needed for the 300-meter long interior galleries. most of the documents, decorative motifs, sculptures, moldings, and bas-reliefs had been provided by originals or moldings from delaporte’s musée indochinois and the musée guimet [50] due to either missing documentation on further detail or to modern requirements imposed at marseille (e.g., the whole temple structure was elevated in order to create a vast space for modern architectural display in the model’s basement), auberlet et laurentalso invented new or added “inedited motifs”[51] to their enormous surface translation. the krishna motif, for example, was duplicated on several pediments on both the main structure and subsidiary buildings (fig. 30). figs. 29, 30: the palais d’indochine for the exposition nationale coloniale in marseille 1922 by architect auguste émile joseph delaval – a giant model and as a picturesque background for the staged cambodian dance troupe. source: commissariat géneral de l’exposition, exposition national coloniale de marseille décrite par ses auteurs (marseille: imprimerie de vaugirard 1922, 10 and 15, photos detaille). without a doubt, the apex of the colonial display of french possessions in america, africa, and asia took place in the parc de vincennes at the exposition coloniale internationale de paris. (international colonial exhibition of paris) in 1931. here cambodia was represented by the temple of angkor wat, considered to be “the highlight of the exposition.” (fig. 31)[52] under the supervision of charles and gabriel blanche (father and son), both architectes d.p.l.g. (diplômés par le gouvernement), it was staged as a 1:1 scale “reproduction plus fidèle”[53] with its central massive and a 200-meter reinterpretation of the elevated chaussée centrale on an area of 6,000 m2 (fig. 32). once again, this powerful representation of colonial patrimoine was used as a symbol of the french mission civilisatrice under the gouvernement général de l’indo-chine: “nothing other than angkor wat could better symbolize with majesty and harmony the prestige of our domain in asia, the gloriousness of its past and the devotional care with which the french paid their respect in front of its masterpieces.”[54] fig. 31: official plan of the exposition coloniale internationale in paris 1931 in the bird’s eye view with the reconstitution of angkor wat in the lower left side. source: archives nationales d’outre-mer anom, aix-en-province. fig. 32: the central pathway to the 1:1 scale model of angkor wat at the 1931 exhibition, in a postcard. source: postcard, private collection michael falser in juxtaposition to this ageless and spotless parisian reconstitution of angkor wat, the french mission simultaneously included the on-site restoration and preservation of the original temple with its centuries-old traces of decay, imperfection, alteration, and patina, under the authority of the école française d’extrême-orient (efeo). it is possible that gabriel blanche visited angkor himself, in order to study the original site and the decorations carefully. how and if moldings, originals, and plaster casts from delaporte’s museum were used remains unclear, since it had been closed in 1925 and emptied by 1927. and as had been the case with all previous reconstitutions, the ephemeral temple structure of 1931 was not built of massive stone (like the original cambodian) but with the use of an enormous wooden scaffolding (erected by the entreprise lajoinie) onto which thousands of patinated plaster casts were attached by 400 workers from the nearby montrouge factory of auberlet et laurent. not surprisingly, the krishna pediment was present in various forms, either as  orginal 1:1 scale motifs or in a newly arranged composition (figs. 33, 34). figs. 33, 34: the angkor wat model for the 1931 exhibition in construction process. source: construction moderne, 34/25. mai 1930, 525, photos p. cadé. pierre courthion’s classification of staged structures at the paris international colonial exhibition of 1931 provides a useful summary of the material translation process of colonized culture in the museum and exhibition displays, here discussed. he divides the “re-presented” (trans-lated) buildings in relation to their intended audience(s) into three categories:  (1) “new creations in a more or less independent environment” that were appreciated by artists; (2) “stylized interpretations of certain groups of inhabitants and buildings to create a characteristic ensemble” in the style of an open air museum, to address the dilettante; and (3) “copies and exact reconstitutions of buildings and indigenous palaces” for the pleasure of ethnographers and scholars to “contemplate a picturesque folklore.”[55] this type of classification can apply to various kinds of translations. all versions of angkor, from the musée indochinois to the  paris international colonial exhibition of 1931, participated to some extent in all three categories. as hybrid translations, they created and incorporated interpretative and reconstituting elements into a final and unique product, whose singular elements could not be distinguished by the visitor. delaporte’s musée indochinois version of angkor wat was intended as an exact copy, whereas the bayon-like tower reconstitution in the same museum was clearly a highly creative interpretation that incorporated singular plaster casts as exact copies within a new collage. for the exhibition of 1931, the bayon-style tower was degraded to housing the power-generator for the giant angkor wat model (fig. 35). similarly, in 1931, the gigantic 1:1 scale model attached “authentic” elements, which had been multipliedad infinitum, to a wooden scaffold-structure that housed a series of interior exhibition halls within this now fundamentally re-modeled (new) architectural entity. in so doing, the plaster casts fostered the visual order of a perfect colonial world, one that did not exist except within the french museum or exhibition context.[56] fig. 35: this tower, which mixed the style of the bayon temple and the gates to angkor thom, housed the power-generator for the illumination of the giant angkor wat model of the 1931 exhibition. sources: illustration, 23.5.1931, 12. as “ornamental exaggerations” and “hallucinating marvels,”[57] these untranslatable stylistic pictograms and recurring, recognizable icons (e.g., the krishna pediment) guaranteed the powerful colonial claim of an authentic translation of appropriated, exotic indochinese culture. the highly contested status of this colonial translation practice, in which plaster casts played such a decisive role, became apparent in 1931 when parisian anti-colonial, leftist intellectuals joined forces with surrealist artists (such as andré breton, paul eluard, louis aragon, and george malkine) to criticize the colonial power demonstration in the parc de vincennes. the exhibition itself stood in clear contrast to the political reality of a fading french colonial influence in indochina. “ne visitez pas l’exposition coloniale!”[58] was the protestors’ collective declaration; thus giving voice to the crucial fact that the heyday of colonial exhibitions was over, and, in fact, no colonial exhibition followed. the last great exhibition on parisian and french soil was the exposition internationale des arts et techniques dans la vie moderne (paris international exhibition of the arts and techniques in modern life) of 1937, which drastically reduced the number of colonial architectural representations. they were removed in favor of a more nationalistic and regionalist display of modern and traditional french architecture, displaced from their previously central position to the peripheral île des cygneson the river seine. ten years after the final removal of plaster casts from delaporte’s musée indochinois, the small-scale pavillon de l’indo-chine,executed by paul sabrié, architecte des batiments civils indo-chinoises, in a verticalized bayon-style (compare the horizontalized version of 1906), marked the silent and unspectacular end in the career of colonial plaster cast translations of angkor (fig.36). fig. 36: the pavillon de l’indo-chine by architect paul sabrié for the 1937 international exhibition in paris. sources: caran, archives nationales paris lost in translation, or the survival and revival of the plaster casts of angkor by the time of the paris international exhibition of 1937, delaporte’s plaster casts had disappeared into parisian factory storage in clichy. in 1945, they were transferred to a storage room in the musée d’art moderne, where they suffered from inadequate storage conditions. in 1973, the musée guimet had them moved to the abbey of saint-riquier in the northern province of picardy.[59] generally speaking, the colonial history of plaster casts went full circle from valuation to devaluation, from being works of art to being mere fixation tools in the various natural sciences, to a reevaluation within their own right as well as within their retrospective use as a colonial “copying technique” for appropriation and popularization of exotic heritage. after the 1930s, when colonialism was in sharp decline, original objects in museum collections aesthetically (and “morally”) ruled out their copied (“faked”) counterparts. plaster cast collections were demolished because their artistic and scientific worth was no longer appreciated – even less so if they were associated with a controversial colonial past. in france, renewed interest in the artistic and documentary value of plaster casts may have been due to a self-reflexive turn toward colonial history: a postcolonial shift that may owe its existence to the generation gap between those with direct colonial memory – a gap of perhaps forty to fifty years if one takes cambodian independence in 1953 as a marker – and a new generation of researchers. the reflexive turn brought with it the reevaluation of plaster cast collections. in the early 1990s, with the fall of the iron curtain, the end of vietnamese occupation in cambodia, and angkor wat’s nomination to the unesco world heritage list in 1992, global interest and international efforts to restore the temples on-site returned to angkor. in 1998, a small exhibition was prepared in saint-riquier/somme under the patronage of unesco in order to present the international community’s conservation efforts: in addition to old plaster casts, giant photographs of the bas-reliefs of angkor wat were presented by the university of applied sciences in cologne, germany, which is responsible for the on-site stone conservation at angkor wat today. then in 2002, under the supervision of the conservator pierre baptiste, the musée guimet surveyed the plaster casts that had remained stored “without care and order”[60] in the humid barns and caves of saint-riquier. surprisingly, the original krishna cast pediment reappeared in acceptably good condition (fig. 37). more than a hundred years after its molding on the roofs near the central tower of angkor wat (fig. 38), the cast was recovered and moved once again, this time to a storage facility in bourgogne with adequate climate conditions, for restoration. an exhibition of the angkorian plaster casts around the person of louis delaporte is currently in preparation at the musée guimet for the years to come. fig. 37, 38: the original plaster cast of the angkor wat-pediment as it was found in the storage of the monastery of st. riquier/somme in 2002 (fig. 37) and the original pediment at angkor wat in a historic photo, most probably taken on the same day of the making of the molding, before 1900 (fig. 38). sources: pierre baptiste, asie du sud-est, musée guimet 2002, (fig. 37), archives photographiques du musée guimet, paris (fig. 38). within the post-colonial context of recent reevaluations of plaster casts, in particular of angkor, other european museums have rediscovered their holdings. for example, the ethnographic museum (völkerkundemuseum) in berlin-dahlem, germany (today a part of the museum of asian art) has angkorian casts that were created during turn-of-the-century expeditions which were independent from delaporte’s initiatives. as matter of fact, it was this museum that owned the most complete collection of angkorian plaster casts (mostly the bas-reliefs from angkor wat) around 1900 – when angkor was not yet under direct french control (fig. 39). fig. 39: the display of the bas-reliefs of angkor wat on the upper left wall (according to the reports about 600 m2!) along with other indian and south-east asian plaster casts in a photograph of the völkerkundemuseum berlin (stresemannstraße), around 1926. source: copyright national museums berlin, prussian cultural foundation, asian art museum, art collection south-, southeastand central asian art. nonetheless, the european or even global history of the material translation of angkor, particularly in the form of plaster casts, remains to be written.[61] another important documentary aspect of angkorian plaster casts becomes particularly significant when comparing the krishna cast from circa 1890 with the original pediment on-site in 2010: the old cast retains a three-dimensional auratic memory of the old surface (cf. didi-huberman’s ressemblage par contact) that has, in large part, been lost due to decay or frequently due to excessive or poor restoration. in a postcolonial and even global age, the old plaster casts from angkor might be used as a conservator’s tool for a contemporary material retranslation from paris back to the original site. and lastly, from an architectural-historical point of view it is interesting to note that the angkorian plaster casts were used in cambodia not only on the outside and inside of public buildings during the french colonial period and during cambodian independence, but reappeared in cambodian postmodern architecture after 1990. as an ironic and vernacular after-effect of the once colonial translation (and appropriation) process of exotic, cultural, built heritage through the technique of plaster casts, they became a common feature on cambodian streets from phnom penh to battambang. a fixed set of recurring plaster cast images and 1:1 scale models from angkor’s french colonial history, can now be found retranslated into a self-stereotyping khmer culture (figs. 40-43). figs. 40, 41: above: bas-reliefs of angkor wat above the entry of a national bank of cambodia in phnom penh that was built in the french-colonial period, partly destroyed by the khmer rouge in 1975 and rebuilt in a postmodern version in the 1990s. below: angkorian decor at the entry to the hotel cambodiana in phnom penh. source: falser 2010/2011. figs. 42 a-b: concrete casts of angkorian heritage at the atelier de moulage of the national museum and in front of the school of fine arts, both in phnom penh. source: falser 2010/2011. fig. 43: a new gateway to angkor thom in battambang city. source: falser 2010/2011. [1] this research was carried out as part of the author’s postdoctoral research project entitled “heritage as a transcultural concept – angkor wat from an object of colonial archaeology to a contemporary global icon” funded within the chair of global art history at the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context” at the university of heidelberg, germany. see the project homepage at: http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/research/d-historicities-heritage/d12.html. the author would like to thank pierre baptiste, thierry zéphir, and agnès legueul from the musée guimet, bertrand porte of the école française d’extrême-orient at the national museum of phnom penh, cambodia, christiane demeulenaere-douyère from the national archives in paris, emmanuelle polack, carole lenfant, florence allorent and jean-marc hoffmann of the musée des monuments français/cité d’architecture et patrimoine in paris, martine cornède and anne-isabelle vidal of the national archives in aix-en-provence, laure haberschill of the bibliothèque des arts décoratifs in paris, françoise portelance and emmanuel schwartz of the école nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in paris, anne fourestie and jean-daniel pariset of the médiathèque du patrimoine in paris, anne sheppard of the victoria & albert museum, martina stoye, curator of the museum of asian art, berlin, bertold just of the gipsformerei (replica workshop) of the berlin museums, and mr. lebufnoir of the maison auberlet et laurent in saint maur, for their valuable help, as well as jaroslav poncar for his photographic tour through angkor wat in february 2011. thanks also to angela roberts and beatrice dumin-lewin for their patient copy-editing of this article. [2] translation by the author, originally: “die übersetzungsgeschichte ist damit als teil der kolonialgeschichte aufzufassen und die koloniale kulturgeschichte als eine kulturpolitische übersetzungsgeschichte in einer ungleichen machtsituation zu begreifen.” anil bhatti, “zum verhältnis von sprache, übersetzung und kolonialismus am beispiel indiens,” in kulturelle identität. deutsch-indische kulturkontakte in literatur, religion und politik, eds. horst turk and anil bhatti (berlin: erich schmidt verlag, 1997), 5, quoted in doris bachmann-medick, cultural turns. neuorientierungen in den kulturwissenschaften, 3rd ed. (reinbeck bei hamburg: rowohlt, 2009), 244. [3] ovidio carbonell, “the exotic space of cultural translation,” in translation, power, subversion, eds., román álvarez and m. carmen-áfrica vidal, topics in translation 8 (clevedon: channel view publications ltd/multilingual matters, 1996), 79-98, here 79. for theoretical discussions of the representation of the “other” in the context of museums, see also kate sturge, representing others: translation, ethnography and the museum (manchester: st. jerome publ., 2007). [4] maria tymoczko and edwin gentzler, eds., translation and power (amherst: university of massachusetts press, 2002), xxi. [5] theo hermans and werner koller, “the relation between translations and their sources, and the ontological status of translations,” inübersetzung. ein internationales handbuch zur übersetzungsforschung, eds. harald kittel et al. (berlin, new york: de gruyter, 2004), 23-30, here 26. [6] with regard to the term translatability in and between cultures, see sanford budick and wolfgang iser, eds., the translatability of cultures: figurations of the space between (stanford: stanford university press, 1996). [7] malcolm baker, “the history of the cast courts,”1982, and published in the v & a masterpiece series. revised 2007. victoria and albert museum (london), last accessed november 6, 2011, http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/the-cast-courts [8] for more details on the production process, see “technique du moulage” (extrait de l’inventaire des moulages de sculptures de moyen-age, de la renaissance et des temps modernes. paris, musée de sculpture comparée, palais du trocadéro. paris 1928), in florence rionnet, l’atelier de moulage du musée du louvre (1794-1928). notes et documents des musées de france (paris: réunion des musées nationaux, 1996), 381-382. [9] georges didi-huberman, “der abdruck als paradigma. eine archäologie der ähnlichkeit,” in  ähnlichkeit und berührung. archäologie, anachronismus und modernität des abdrucks (köln: dumont literatur und kunst verlag, 1999), 14-69, reprint from the catalogue l’empreinte of the centre georges pompidou (paris, 1997). [10] see armin paul frank, “translation research from a literary and cultural perspective: objectives, concepts, scope,” in frank, kittel, and greiner, übersetzung, 790-851. [11] translation by the author, originally: “[…] le musée de moulages est un musée de combat, de justification, de démonstration”, see dominique de font-réaulx, “l'histoire de l'art en ses musées, les musées de moulage,” in histoire de l’art et musées. actes du colloque, école du louvre 2728.11.2001, ed. dominique viéville (paris:  école du louvre, 2005), 155-171, here 156. [12] mary beard, “cast: between art and science,” in les moulages de sculptures antiques et l’histoire de l’archéologie. actes du colloques international, paris, 24 octobre 1997, eds. henri lavagne, françois queyrel (genève: droz, 2000), 157-166, here 158. [13] pétition des citoyen-mouleurs tendant à obtenir le bénéfice de la loi du 19 juillet 1793 sur la propriété artistique, an ii – pétition des citoyens mouleurs à la convention nationale 1794, see rionnet, l’atelier, 326-327. [14] translation by the author, originally: “la beauté emprisonnée comme dans une camisole de force”, see théophile gautier in la presse (1847), cited in à fleur de peau. le moulage sur nature au xixe siècle. paris, musée d'orsay, 29 octobre 2001 27 janvier 2002, eds. marie-dominique de teneuille and quentin bajac (paris: rmn, 2001), 13. [15] translation by the author, see dominique de font-réaulx, “s’éprendre de passion pour ces charments production naturelles… les moulages sur nature de végétaux d’adolphe victor geoffroy-dechaume,” in de teneuille and bajac, à fleur, 60-71, here 69. [16] translated by the author, originally: “traductions mensongères”, see rionnet, l’atelier, 2. [17] more on this topic, see also: florence rionnet, „un instrument de propagande artistique : l’atelier de moulage du louvre,“ revue de l'art, année 1994, volume 104, numéro 1: 49 – 50. [18] albert boime, “le musée des copies,” gazette des beaux-arts, october (1964): 237-247. [19] willibald sauerländer, “gypsa sunt conservanda: l’obession de la scuplture comparée,” in le musée de sculpture comparée. naissance de l’histoire de l’art moderne, ed. barry bergdoll (paris: éditions du patrimoine, 2001), 72-79, here 75. [20] for a larger discussion of the role of plaster casts in nineteenth-century restoration work, especially in the oeuvre of viollet-le-duc, see groupe de recherche sur le plâtre dans l'art (grpa) sous la direction de georges barthe, ed., le plâtre: l’art et la matière (paris: éditions créaphis, 2001). [21] originally “comparison” and “écrasement”, in louis gonse, “le musée des moulages au trocadéro,” gazette des beaux-arts (1882): 60-72, here 66, 68. [22] ministère de l’instruction publique et des beaux-arts, direction des beaux-arts et monument historiques, ed., musée de sculpture comparée. catalogue des moulage de sculptures appartenant aux divers centres et aux diverses époques d’art, exposés dans le galeries du trocadéro, (paris: imprimérie nationale, 1900). [23] for general information on the museum and its plaster cast collection, see cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine (paris) and léon pressouyre, eds., le musée des monuments français, (paris: nicolas chaudin, 2007). [24] translation by the author, see dominique de font-réaulx, “la découverte des collections de moulages,” in bergdoll, le musée, 26-33, here 28. [25] nelia dias, le musée d’éthnologie du trocadéro (1878-1908). anthropologie et muséologie en france (paris: editions du cnrs, 1991), 163-174. [26] translation by the author, see philbert breban, livret-guide du visiteur à l’exposition historique du trocadéro (paris: dentu, 1878), 109-110. [27] pierre baptiste, “la collection de moulage du musée national des arts asiatiques – guimet,” in du moulage au fac-similé, diffusion du patrimoine et conservation préventive, ed. denis guillemard,conservation-restauration des bien culturels. cahier technique no.8, avril 2002: 61-64, here 62. for a general introduction to the khmer plaster casts in french collections, see pierre baptiste and thierry zéphir, “l’art khmer dans les collections nationales françaises,” in l’art khmer dans les collections du musée guimet, eds. pierre baptiste and thierry zéphir (paris: éditions de la réunion des musées nationaux, 2008), 11-18. for a further explanation of the plaster cast implant during the exhibition see pierre baptiste, “virtual visions of angkor: plaster casts and drawings in the indochinese museum of the trocadero,” in “archaeologizing“ heritage? transcultural entanglements between local social practices and global virtual realities (proceedings of the 1st international workshop on cultural heritage and the temples of angkor, 2-4 may 2010, heidelberg university), eds. michael s. falser and monica juneja (heidelberg: springer, fortcoming 2012). [28] émile soldi, les arts méconnus – les nouveaux musées du trocadéro (paris: ernest leroux, 1881). [29] louis delaporte, “rapport fait au ministère de la marine et des colonies et au ministère de l’instruction publique, des cultes et des beaux-arts, sur la mission scientifique aux ruines des monuments khmers de l’ancien cambodge,” journal officiel de la république française, (1.4.1874): 2515-2518; (2.4.1874): 2546-2548. see also: louis delaporte, “une mission archéologique aux ruines khmers,” revues des deux mondes, xlviie année, troisième période, tome 23 (15.9.1877): 421-455, here especially 454, 455. on delaporte and his missions, see thierry zéphir, “louis delaporte au coeur de la forêt sacrée,” in âges et visages de l’asie. un siècle d’exploration à travers les collections du musée guimet. ‎catalogue d'exposition, dijon, musée des beaux-arts, 2 juillet-28 octobre 1996, ed. jean-paul desroches (dijon: société française de promotion artistique, 1996): 61-68, here 68, note 18. [30] translation by the author. because this passage is a crucial statement by delaporte on the question about the appropriation of originals and plaster cast copies, we cite the entire passage in its original version: “la province d’angcor fait partie du royaume de siam; nos rapports avec les mandarins de cette nouvelle contrée devaient être différents de ceux que nous avions entretenus avec les mandarins du cambodge. déjà, lors de son passage à siem reap, chef-lieu de la province, m. bouillet avait eu une entrevue avec le gouverneur. ce mandarin s’était montré très effrayé de notre arrivée et avait déclaré que des ordres permanents du roi de siam s’opposaient à l’enlèvement de statues ou sculptures des monuments d’angcor. ces ordres nous étaient connus d’avance. m. bouillet avait donc rassuré le mandarin en lui disant que nous désirions seulement [accentuation m.f.] visiter et étudier les ruines, recueillir des inscriptions et prendre des moulages [accentuation m.f.] de sculptures et de bas-reliefs. pour applanir les difficultés de ce côté, j’envoyai prendre à bord de la canonnière mouillée à l’embouchure de la rivière des cadeaux que j’offris au gouverneur, et il consentit, en échange, à nous fournir les guides et les hommes dont nous avions besoin.” see delaporte, rapport, 2546-2547. [31] delaporte, rapport, 2548. [32] louis delaporte, voyage au cambodge. l’architecture khmer (paris: delagrave, 1880; reprint paris: maisonneuve & larose, 1999): 247. [33] cited in agnes combe, “le role des collaborateurs de louis delaporte au musée indochinois du trocadéro” (unpublished monograph, paris: mémoire école du louvre, 1999/2000), annexe. [34] cited in combe, le role, annexe 6. [35] translation by the author, see lucien fournereau, “rapport d’ensemble sur la mission archéologique accomplie dans le siam et au cambodge, adressé au ministre de l'instruction publique et des beaux-arts,” journal officiel de la république française (11.8.1888), cited in combe, le role, annexe 5. [36] the monthly reports of the angkor conservators at the efeo archive in paris mention the commission de déclassement’s clearance of original angkorian sculptures for sale to tourists (“to prevent the originals being stolen without control” as it was argued). there are also documents that prove the worldwide distribution of plaster casts from angkor mostly to educational institutions, such as the cité universitaire in paris in 1934,  and politically important people in french indochina and france, e.g. the director of political affairs in hanoi in 1942, the chef of a batallion in hanoi in 1942, a commander of the indochinese airforce in 1931, the director of public instruction in hanoi 1941, the french consulate in singapore in 1937, representatives of air france or the messageries maritimes in sydney. for the maison du cambodge, built in 1954 at the cité universitaire, this tradition continued when cast bas-reliefs from angkor wat and whole lion statues from bantay srei were used at the central entrance. [37] armand guérinet, ed., le musée indo-chinois. antiquités cambodgiennes exposée au palais du trocadéro, (paris: éditions guérinet, n.d.). [38] the missions of delaporte, faraut, fournereau, raffegeaud, and basset are also documented in the archives nationales d’outre-mer in aix-en-provence, southern france. these details will be published in the author’s forthcoming publication on the transcultural history of angkor wat. [39] for the larger context see the excellent work by agnès legueul, les moulages de musée indochinois du trocadéro: histore et devenir (unpublished monograph, paris: mémoire école du louvre, 2004-2005). [40] ‚musée khmer au palais du trocadéro – rapport à m. le directeur des beaux arts par m. l. delaporte, 26. juillet 1886‘ (archive des musées nationaux, cote 5hh1). this letter mentions a long list of new objects for delaporte’s collection. i would like to thank mrs. polack at the musée des monuments français, paris, for this information. an entire correspondence on this issue is preserved in the archives nationales in paris. [41] philippe stern, inventaire des moulage du musée indochinois (untitled, undated manuscript, ca. 1925, archive musée guimet, paris). [42] see baker, history of the cast courts; and tanya harrod, “the cast courts at the v & a, london,” the burlington magazine, 127, no. 983 (feb.1985): 110-111. [43] henri la nave, “monuments khmers au trocadéro (restitutions),” revue universelle, 1.4.1903/no.83 (1903): 161-164. [44] these casts’ molding traces were – unlike in the neighboring musée de sculpture comparée (!) – flattened to simulate authentic objects original sculptures standing next to them. [45] on a floor plan which is today in the archive of the musée des monuments français (palais chaillot) one can see the indochinese display conceived for the upper central risalith of the new palais chaillot by the architexts boileau, azème and carlu. as a matter of fact, besides other parts of south-east asia, a special cambodian section was not planned. for this information, i am very grateful to mrs polack at the musée des monuments français, paris. [46] ateliers de moulage des musées nationaux, catalogue des moulages de sculptures de l’antiquités, de l’orient et de l’extrême-orient (édition provisoire). paris: services commerciaux et techniques de la réunion des musées nationaux, palais du louvre, 1928. [47] henri la nave, “l'art khmer et les restitutions du trocadéro,” gazette des beaux-arts 32 (1904): 326-340, here 326. [48] frédéric baille, l’indo-chine à l’exposition coloniale de marseille. rapport à monsieur le gourverneur général de l’indo-chine (marseille: imprimérie samat et cie, 1907), 22. [49] translation by the author, originally: “a ce systeme incontestablement pittoresque, on substitua en 1922, la conception d’un palais unique, synthétisant par sa grandeur prestigieuse et la splendeur de son style millénaire, l’entité réelle de l’unité indochinoise et donnant l’impression plus vivante, plus  matérialisée de la puissance de la france d’asie”, see adrien artaud, exposition national coloniale de marseille 1922. rapport general. (marseille: imprimérie de sémaphore, 1923), 171-72. [50] artaud, exposition, 93-94. [51] translation by the author, see commissariat général de l’exposition, ed., exposition national coloniale de marseille, decrite par ses auteurs, (marseille: imprimérie de vaugirard, 1922), 81. [52] translation by the author, originally “clou de l’exposition”, see marcel olivier, ed., exposition coloniale internationale de paris 1931. rapport general, tome v.ii: les sections coloniales françaises (paris: imprimérie national, 1933), 658. [53] anthony goissaud, “le temple d’angkor vat et les pavillons de la section de l‘indochine,” construction moderne, 34 (25.5.1930): 518-529, here 518. [54] translation by the author, see charles et gabriel blanche, “a l’exposition coloniale. le temple d’angkor reconstitué,” la construction moderne, 46 (16.8.1931): 723-735, and 47 (23.8.1931): 743-750, here 735. [55] translation by the author, see pierre courthion, “l’architecture à l’exposition coloniale,” art et décoration 60 (juli 1931): 37-54, here 37. [56] after patricia l. morton, hybrid modernities: architecture and presentation at the 1931 colonial exposition, paris (cambridge, ma: mit press, 2000), 206. [57] translation by the author, see èmile bayard, l’art de reconnaitre les styles coloniaux de la france (paris: librerie garnier frères, 1931), 220. [58] andré breton, et al., “ne visitez pas l’exposition coloniale” (may 1931); and “premier bilan de l'exposition coloniale” (july 1931), reprinted in tracts surréalistes et déclarations collectives 1922-1939, ed. eric losfeld (paris: la terrain vague, 1980), vol. 1, 194-5 and 198-200. [59] for probably one of the first general articles on the angkor moldings in france, see rené dumont, “angkor vat à l'exposition coloniale internationale de 1931,” in le moulage. actes du colloque international, 10-12.4.1987, ed. association pour le colloque international sur le moulage (paris: la documentation française, 1988), 121-125. [60] translation by the author, see baptiste, la collection, 64. [61] the author carried out further research on the khmer plaster cast collection in berlin and will publish the results of this research in the near future. early catalogues from the völkerkundemuseummention these plaster casts from angkor, see staatliche museen zu berlin, ed.,  führer durch das museum für völkerkunde i, schausammlung (berlin; leipzig: de gruyter, 1929). the people's choice: transcultural collectivity and the art of shared knowledge production | schramm | transcultural studies the people’s choice: transcultural collectivity and the art of shared knowledge production samantha schramm, university of konstanz on january 10, 1981, the new york-based artistic collective group material opened the show the people’s choice (arroz con mango) in a room on 13th street in new york, which the artists had rented as a space apart from the common institutions of art.[1] the name of the exhibition points to the collective’s agenda; it invites the predominantly spanish-speaking local residents to participate by choosing the objects to be displayed, including personal everyday objects as well as works specifically created for the exhibition. consequently, the aim of the exhibition can be described as an institutional critique, combined with a democratic empowerment of the people from the neighborhood. the exhibition addresses different modes of collectivity. on a first level, group material acts and defines itself as an artistic collective, referring to forms of participation within the group. on a second level, the exhibition engages different people from the neighborhood surrounding the exhibition space as creative partners, who are encouraged to contribute to the content of the exhibition.[2] last but not least, collectivity is also defined by the show’s objects themselves, which can be understood as potential agents. thus, modes of collaboration appear as a complex network, engaging human and non-human agents in the production of meaning and the circulation of knowledge.[3] according to bruno latour, knowledge derives from “movements:”[4] “knowledge, it seems, does not reside in the face-to-face confrontation of a mind with an object, any more than reference designates a thing by means of a sentence verified by that thing. on the contrary, at every stage we have recognized a common operator, which belongs to matter at one end, to form at the other, and which is separated from the stage that follows it by a gap that no resemblance could fill.”[5] in the people’s choice (arroz con mango), the works displayed exemplify the gap between an object used for private purposes at home and bearing primarily personal—rather than aesthetic—meaning, and the cultural transformation of the object into something perceived in the context of an exhibition space. their “chain of transformations”[6] concerns not only a change of place, but also a transformation of the cultural agency of objects, which are able to convey and transform notions of culture. understanding the exhibition then as a site of transcultural knowledge production, the transmission of knowledge through the objects themselves must be addressed. as “migrating images,” they are part of the cultural, social, and national identities of their owners.[7] as “cultural transmitters,”[8] they are involved in their own cultural transfer processes, from private homes to public visibility in an exhibition. recent approaches to participation in art have referred to the change of the former spectator into an active participant, who fulfills the artwork either by perception or sometimes even through an involvement in the actual production of art.[9] however, the people’s choice (arroz con mango) also draws attention to the function that the objects themselves have in shaping the collective process. this inevitably raises the question of how the objects evolve as artworks, and what kind of cultural significance they gain when temporarily abandoning their place and functions in private homes in order to be put on display in the exhibition. in seeking to answer these questions, the paper will first address the context of participatory art as such, then move on to an analysis of the exhibition, contextualizing it in relation to site-specific practices;[10] finally, it will offer an exploration of the cultural transformation of objects in the exhibition as well as their agency as transcultural objects. participation, collective artworks and the circulating reference of objects there is an increasing interest in art history and related disciplines to describe artworks that are collaboratively produced by several people.[11] however, collaboration is a highly ambiguous term, as it can refer to working together as well as to working with an enemy.[12] while the term “collaboration” refers mainly to art that is produced by several people, wider notions of “participatory art”[13] have stressed the importance of the relations between participants who perform collective—and at times even anonymous—artistic activities. according to boris groys, these collaborative practices are oriented toward “the goal of motivating the public to join in, to activate the social milieu in which these practices unfold.”[14] while the term participation is commonly used to describe situations wherein one or more persons participate in decisions, actions, or the creation of works, the forms or the extent of communication may vary greatly, from possibilities of limited or only partially fulfilled involvement to extended forms in which every member has equal rights and thus also takes part in the decision-making process. in art and intention, paisley livingston distinguishes between rare forms of collective or “joint authorship” and collective productions of art.[15] although some works have been “collectively produced” and are, therefore, a result of group efforts, in many cases they are not collaboratively authored as such. furthermore, cases of joint authorship can apply to actions that show only limited participation and communication; for example, when single authors are performing independent actions that only relate to each other in the outcome. finally, livingston addresses forms of joint authorship that require that all participants know of the actions and plans of the others, with mutual support and reciprocal monitoring, united in the urge to perform “an irreducibly collective action.”[16] in these cases, joint authors must “intend to realize” the shared goal, act in accordance with it, and develop “meshing sub-plans;” meaning that different acts of participation can be realized simultaneously and still represent the mutual belief of all actors.[17] in the case of the people’s choice (arroz con mango), it is evident that the forms of participation envisioned by group material’s members cannot be defined as joint authorship between the artists and the owners of the exhibits: not only did the artists' collective clearly appear as the actual author of the show, but the artists had also very clearly described what kind of works they deemed appropriate for the exhibition in the first place. as a consequence, the group did not claim authorship of all of the objects on display, but assumed an authoritarian position by legitimizing the concept of the show as an artistic enterprise.[18] critics have observed that alternative art groups tend to glorify the artist’s role, often sharing the “almost mystical belief that artists are endowed with special sensitivities and powers that set them apart from other people.”[19] however, this focus on questions of authorship and the role of the artist in participative art carries the risk of overlooking the ways in which knowledge is produced and transformed through the objects. therefore, the role of the objects within networks of collaborative productions should also be analyzed. when addressing media-based processes of participation in which knowledge is produced, i.e. existing gaps between knowledge and non-knowledge of the art’s cultural context, transmissions between different human or even non-human actors come into focus: what happens when a culturally diverse neighborhood becomes a “laboratory”[20] for artists? what does it mean for personal objects to receive a broader cultural meaning in a public exhibition? it is thus important to also address the “circulating reference” of the objects,[21] which become mobile and re-combinable after having been removed from their homes and arranged aesthetically in the exhibition; yet, even a gallery space that is explicitly defined as an alternative to the museum becomes a “white cube,” in which objects are perceived as artworks. in the people’s choice (arroz con mango), the works shift from the personal sphere to something perceived in the context of an exhibition. their “chain of transformations”[22] concerns not only a change of place, but also a transformation of the cultural agency of objects, which become mediators in a transfer of knowledge from private to public. this paper will therefore explore media-based processes that go beyond basic notions of authorship, addressing instead forms of participation that have to be understood as a collective production; at the same time the objects induce the experience of cultural transformation. an in-depth analysis of this transformation requires a closer look into the conception of the exhibition to begin with. the exhibition the people’s choice (arroz con mango) by group material the people’s choice (arroz con mango) was on view in an independent room financed by the members of group material between january 10 and february 1, 1981. it was one of the first collective exhibitions of the group, which was founded in september 1979 and initially consisted of students who had just finished their undergraduate degrees at the school of visual arts.[23] soon after their first meetings they rented their first exhibition space in july 1980—a storefront at 244 east 13th street on the lower east side in new york. the concept of the people’s choice (arroz con mango) was originally announced as follows: “the people’s choice—an exhibition of favorite art possessions on loan from the people and households of 13th street between 2nd and 3rd avenues, and the members of group material. a display of the private gone public, of the-not-normally-found-in-an-art-gallery, of personal choice and cultural value on one block in new york city.”[24] in planning the exhibition, the members of group material went from door to door in the neighborhood of their collective exhibition area, addressing the neighbors and requesting their participation with the help of hector and celinda, two spanish-speaking children.[25] in a letter of invitation addressed to “dear friends and neighbors of 13th street,”[26] the group also noted what kinds of objects they would prefer for the exhibition: “we would like to show things that might not usually find their way into an art gallery: the things that you personally find beautiful, the objects that you keep for your own pleasure, the objects that have meaning for you, your family and your friends. what would these objects be? they can be photographs, or your favorite posters. if you collect things, these objects would be good for this exhibition. if you knit, crochet, do needlepoint, or any other craft, these would be good, also. drawings, paintings, sculpture, furniture or any other art forms created by yourself or others will be included. choose something you feel will communicate to others.”[27] the intention was for the community to hand in their own objects for display. rather than objects of an aesthetic value, those with personal meaning were favored, among them “personal mementoes, photographs and gifts.”[28] the objects were sometimes accompanied by a personal statement from the owner, a fact that underlines their personal significance: “nearly everything came with a story, as a whole, the show turned into a narrative of everyday life, a folk tale in which intimacies were shared without shame.”[29] to adapt the exhibition to the needs of the working class, the gallery was open from five to ten in the evening and on weekends and holidays from noon to ten.[30] installation photographs from the show reveal that the objects were not displayed in a systematic way, as is usually done in museums, but more like the arrangements of objects in private homes, for which the owners combined objects which they liked and to which they had a personal connection. around one hundred objects were stacked from floor to ceiling right at the entrance to the exhibition space,[31] together with labels identifying their owners, and sometimes including a personal story. the majority of the objects displayed were figurative pictures, which built an association with the human body. reproductions of images of saints were juxtaposed with comic drawings, wedding pictures, and school pictures, as well as different kinds of personal family photographs. also on display were a mural made by the neighborhood kids, amateur paintings—among them family portraits or imaginary landscapes—and a clay item made by someone’s dead grandmother.[32] central to the exhibition was the display of portrait photographs of family members or relatives: “the photographs were of babies, first communions, weddings, pictures taken in the army, and in one case, a billboard of superimposed snapshots documenting the history of an entire family. each picture had its own story, and together they added up to a moving, detailed record of a small community within the city.”[33] consequently, most of the objects and pictures displayed in the exhibition are part of everyday life, and are used to remember as well as to mark the different stages in the life of a social person. the photographs displayed foster the relation between image and object and thus act in direct relation to the people of the exhibition’s neighborhood. since the invention of photography, the photograph has given “a sentiment as certain remembrance”[34] and has had an aura of authenticity due to the physical relation between it and its object.[35] whereas the act of taking a photograph has been discussed widely in terms of a physical connection with its object, the processes before and after the click of the shutter can be understood as culturally coded gestures.[36] the selection of the subject, its staging, the distribution of the photograph, its reception and the handling of the picture are thus part of daily life practices in a specific cultural context. consequently, photography is evidence of a culture of memory, in which the pictures are not only taken, but also used, and thus are part of everyday social practices. the significance of the exhibition lay in those forms of personal memory that were part of daily life practice and became visible without being reduced to a stereotypical vision of “the other;” and this is mostly due to the fact that the people of the neighborhood claimed their own visibility through the selection of their objects. in the exhibition, the objects underwent a transformation in visibility from a personal to a broader cultural significance, attesting to the lives and tastes of a multicultural neighborhood in new york: “imagine, that for three weeks there would be a room full of things that describe the people of 13th st.!”[37] this emphasis is also reflected in the title of the exhibition: the people’s choice (arroz con mango), referring to the inclusion of the people from 13th street and their creative involvement. furthermore, the title also makes a reference to cuban culture; the subtitle of the show, “arroz con mango,” suggested by someone from the neighborhood, is a cuban expression that means something like: “what a mess.”[38] this reference calls to mind the political situation between cuba and the united states at the time. from april to september 1980, a major “cuban exodus”[39] reached florida and became known as los marielitos, among them artists and intellectuals as well as prisoners. due to the ephemeral quality of the exhibition, and the fact that few reproductions and reports of it are still in circulation, an analysis of the exact historical and cultural background of the objects in the show would be more than difficult. nevertheless, by virtue of their diversity, the objects were a manifestation of the diverse culture of the neighborhood of 13th street. from alternative spaces to site specificity as transcultural practice the collective works of group material relate to the site as a cultural location, are defined by locational identities. in an attempt to depart from criticizing the cultural framework of the museum, the group ended up renting its own room for exhibitions; which, as group member tim rollins put it, was “not a space, but a place, a laboratory of our own.”[40] by using the metaphor of a laboratory, rollins refers to processes of knowledge production as tied to a specific location. the exhibition the people’s choice (arroz con mango) must therefore be discussed in the context of art that is produced outside of conventional museum space. however, this still raises the question of if, or how, the perception of visitors changes in those alternative spaces. the group’s claim that the people’s choice (arroz con mango) attempted “to approach the relationship between artists and audiences” by enlarging “the capacitiy that the gallery has to represent different aesthetic agendas”[41] really appears to have remained the hope that, in getting familiarized with both the new objects on display and the curious site of display, the visitor would experience an intensification of the act of viewing, which would lead to increased participation. in caution! alternative space! from 1982, group material referred to their development and artistic strategies while simultaneously addressing the importance of an alternative space for their projects: group material started as twelve young artists who wanted to develop an independent group that could organize, exhibit and promote an art of social change. in the beginning […] we met and planned in living rooms after work. we saved money collectively. […] we looked for a space because this was our dream—to find a place that we could rent, control and operate in any manner we saw fit. […] without this justifying room, our work would probably not be considered art. and in our own minds, the gallery became a security blanket, a second home, a social center in which our politically provocative work was protected in a friendly neighborhood environment.[42] even if a truly “alternative space”[43] will never be realized as a space independent of all given power relations, to call for and try to realize such an alternative already marks an important step in correcting and questioning the authority of the museum. still, group material, like many other alternative art groups, later returned to museum space for exhibiting their artworks when they became well-known artists, even though many of the cultural and political implications of their works remained the same.[44] in her essay, “one place after another. notes on site specificity,” miwon kwon analyzes the concepts as well as the transformation of site specificity from the late 1960s to today.[45] by departing from the phenomenological sites of minimal art, kwon addresses the social, institutional, and discursive formations of site specificity in art. while artists criticize the institution of the museum as such, their work, at the same time, “no longer seeks to be a noun/object but a verb/process, provoking the viewer’s critical (not just physical) acuity regarding the ideological conditions of viewing;” and its relationship to the site becomes one of “unfixed impermanence,” which is experienced only in elusive situations.[46] these artistic practices, which also include the work by group material, refer to “a discursively determined site”[47] that is shaped by social conditions, knowledge, and cultural debate. in theories of site specificity, the fluctuation of site art has been addressed as “a temporary thing, a movement, a chain of meanings and imbricated histories.”[48] in such conceptions of a transitive space, a transition of the objects themselves as mobile entities within such nomadic practices as well as the collective rocesses must be equally addressed. moreover, the relation of the objects to the site includes their entanglement with other human and non-human agents, establishing a temporary, site-specific process that unfolds in complex networks. lucy lippard has pointed out that in the 1980s, apart from so-called mainstream art, artistic projects departed from the objectives of mainstream art and were “going to have to restore the collective responsibility of the artist and create a new kind of community within, not apart from, the rest of the world.”[49] similarly, group material later called for an alternative production of culture with their projects, outside of mainstream art: our exhibitions and projects gather different levels of cultural production into one site. by doing this we are automatically serving more audiences than the mainstream. a lot of specific shows have had specific community concerns; a lot of them touch social relationships in the way the artwork is perceived. in other words, why can’t an art show be organized that has a different level of concern besides the specialized artist?[50] even though it is obvious that it was the location of the alternative exhibition spaces which led to the inclusion of objects from the area’s spanish-speaking residents, the the people’s choice (arroz con mango) nevertheless developed a collective vision through the presentation of objects that transcended the idea of a single culture. it therefore addresses local concerns, as the diverse cultural neighborhood became visible in its significance as a local group of the city of new york; in this way, they were able to portray themselves as protagonists of their own cultural history. according to doug ashford, the exhibition “was produced with the idea that the objects culled from our friends and neighbors would produce an alternative archive of the experiences of art, an experience deduced from the beliefs of others—those not in the room.”[51] inasmuch as a transcultural approach emphasizes modes of transformation between regions and cultures,[52] the intention of the exhibition was to draw attention to a more transcultural vision of the local, which addressed the dynamic relationship of objects as well as the circulation of artefacts, even before the frequently-addressed topic of mobility in a global world.[53] given this understanding, the various objects visible in the exhibition became mediators in a vision of culture that was depicted as global and local at the same time. rather than a “de-territorialization” of the objects, in relation to which arjun appadurai has described the global transmissions of cultures and of imagination “as an organized field of social practice,”[54] the exhibition launched a “re-terriorialization”[55] of the works as transcultural objects. thus, the objects already belong to multiple spaces and different locations in the context of the exhibition. while the objects themselves appear as shifting cultural entities, the people’s choice (arroz con mango) nevertheless remains a contested place, referring to different—even diverging—cultural spaces, and thus remaining ambivalent: the collective’s theory of culture, the cultural significance of the exhibition space, and the cultural background of the personal objects of a neighborhood known as a “melting pot for ethnic groups”[56] and various subcultures are not easily united in a common project. this also creates a certain imbalance between the definition of art espoused by the group members and the interests of the local people, who could only speak for themselves through the presentation of objects and stories then defined as art. thus, the group still claimed to hold an authoritarian position, for example by describing the possible content of the exhibition in advance or selecting a specific neighborhood, which was not resolved by the inclusion of those personal objects in an exhibition context. still, as the objects remained unspecific in their reference to “a” specific and thus constructed culture, they avoided a typification of culture according to ethnic and national attributions of certain traditions.[57] the way the objects were presented in the exhibition thus aimed at a visibility of local culture as a whole, while trying to avoid encouraging a merely stereotypical vision of the neighborhood. these processes of transformation were not mainly defined by the members of the group, but more by the circulation of the objects themselves, which in turn determined a more transcultural vision of culture. visions of transcultural collectivity the concept of the the people’s choice (arroz con mango), that people would actually contribute objects that had meaning for them, gave the exhibition itself a kind of collectivity that can also be understood as transcultural, establishing itself in a position that shifts between different cultures and identities. the objects displayed did not refer to one place, but themselves illustrated the idea of multiple places as well as multiple authorships. at the same time, group material, in a way, performed a kind of cultural critique, including a critique of the museums’ space as such, defined by the group as a critique of the dominant culture: “indeed, it is fundamental to our methodology to question every aspect of our cultural situation from a political point of view, to ask, ‘what politics inform accepted understandings of art and culture? whose interests are served by such cultural conventions? how is culture made, and for whom is it made?’”[58] the aim of the collective was thus to enhance what they defined as an “actual cultural production,”[59] which also sought to question and redefine the idea of the dominant u.s. culture: “group material researches work from artists, non-artists, the media, the streets. […] in our exhibition, group material reveals the multiplicity of meanings that surround any vital social issue. our project is clear. we invite everyone to question the entire culture we have taken for granted.”[60] however, there seems to be a strong ambivalence between the theoretical concept of culture in the writings of group material and the lived culture of those who participated in the exhibition. because the objects themselves acquired a new significance in the exhibition and underwent a cultural transformation from private to public, there was always the risk that they would come to represent a mere folkloristic notion of everyday life. on the other hand, some of the exhibited pieces—like a collection of pez candy dispensers —also refer to processes of negotiation and shifts in the cultural identity of their owners. because of its ambivalent position, the people’s choice (arroz con mango) was certainly unique in the history of the group, as the artistic collective leaned more towards an activist understanding of culture, in which art was defined as an “instrument of social change.”[61] in a later interview regarding their activist concept of art, group material explained how they “wanted to truly affect the social relations that surrounded the production and distribution of artwork”[62]—although this vision was never fully realized, because whereas the members of group material later exhibited work in major museums, the people who selected and lent the objects only gained temporary visibility. the people’s choice (arroz con mango) thus remained an important attempt at involving forms of collectivity that aimed at, but never fully realized a transcultural vision of culture. it thus hovers between a portrayal of culture as a specific and ideological construct and a portrayal of culture as a practice and a process of negotiation, in which communication and circulation occur not only between people, but also between objects. due to the transfer of the objects from private to public, locality and modes of belonging to various places are negotiated, but are always at risk of turning again into a mere representation of the lives and personal tastes of their owners. thus, a transcultural vision of the exhibition remains partially utopian, but is most closely realized by the diverse objects themselves and their multiple ties to human and non-human actors. bibliography appadurai, arjun. modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization. minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1996. ashford, doug. “group material: abstraction as the onset of the real,” european institute for progressive cultural policies. http://eipcp.net/transversal/0910/ashford/en [accessed on 6. october 2014]. ault, julie, ed. show and tell: a chronicle of group material. london: four corners books, 2010. avgikos, jan. “group material timeline: activism as a work of art.” in but is it art? the spirit of art as activism, edited by nina felshin, 85–116. seattle: bay press, 1995. barthes, roland. camera lucida: reflections on photography. new york: hill and wang, 1981. billing, johanna, maria lind, and lars nilsson, eds. taking the matter into common hands. on contemporary art and collaborative practices. london: black dog, 2007. bishop, claire, ed. participation. london: whitechapel, 2010. blunck, lars. between object & event: partizipationskunst zwischen mythos und teilhabe. weimar: vdg, 2003. brändle, ilka. “das foto als bildobjekt: aspekte einer medienanthropologie.” in bilderfragen: die bildwissenschaften im aufbruch, edited by hans belting, 83–100. münchen: fink, 2007. frieling, rudolf and boris groys, eds. the art of participation: 1950 to now. san francisco: museum of modern art / thames and hudson, 2008. goldbard, arlene. “when (art) worlds collide: institutionalizing the alternatives.” in alternative art new york, 1965–1985: a cultural politics book for the social text collective, edited by julie ault, 183–200. minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 2003. goldstein, richard. “enter the anti-space.” village voice, november 11, 1980, 40–41. green, alison. “citizen artists: group material.” afterall: a journal of art, context and inquiry 26 (2011): 17–25. group material, “caution! alternative space!, 1982.” in contemporary art: a sourcebook of artists’ writings, edited by kristine stiles and peter howard selz, 894–895. berkeley: university of california press, 1996. ———, “group material interviewed by critical art ensemble, 1988.” in interventions and provocations: conversations on art, culture, and resistance, edited by glenn harper, 19–30. albany: state university of new york press, 1998. ———, “letter to the friends and neighbors of the 13th street, december 22, 1980.” in ault, show and tell, 35. ———, “on democracy, 1990.” in bishop, participation, 135–137. ———, “press release (excerpt), january 1981.” in ault, show and tell, 34. ———, “statement, 1985.” in stiles and selz, contemporary art, 895. groys, boris. “a geneaology of participatory art.” in the art of participation: 1950 to now, edited by rudolf frieling and boris groys, 18–31. london: thames and hudson, 2008. juneja, monica. “global art history and the ‘burden of representation." in global studies: mapping contemporary art and culture, edited by hans belting et al., 274–297. ostfildern: hatje cantz, 2011. ——— and michael falser, “kulturerbe—denkmalpflege: transkulturell. eine einleitung.” in kulturerbe und denkmalpflege transkulturell: grenzgänge zwischen theorie und praxis, edited by monica juneja and michael falser, 17–34. bielefeld: transcript verlag, 2013. kester, grant h. the one and the many: contemporary collaborative art in a global context. durham: duke university press, 2011. kwon, miwon. “one place after another: notes on site specificity.” october 80 (1997): 85–110. latour, bruno. reassembling the social: an introduction to actor-network-theory. oxford: oxford university press, 2005. ———. pandora’s hope: essays on the reality of science studies. cambridge: harvard university press, 1999. lawson, thomas. “the people’s choice: group material.” in show and tell: a chronicle of group material, edited by julie ault, 32. london: four corners books, 2010. lippard, lucy r. get the message? a decade of art for social change. edited by lucy lippard. new york: e.p. dutton, 1984. ———. “trojan horses: activist art and power.” in art after modernism: rethinking representation, edited by brian wallis, 341–358. boston: godine, 1984. livingston, paisley. art and intention: a philosophical study. oxford: clarendon press, 2005. mersmann, birgit and alexandra schneider. “cultural transmissions and the mission of images.” in transmission image: visual translation and cultural agency, edited by birgit mersmann and alexandra schneider, 1–8. newcastle: cambridge scholars publishing, 2008. meyer, james. “the functional site; or, the transformation of site specificity.” in space, site, intervention: situating installation art, edited by erika suderburg, 23–27. minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 2000. pedraza, silvia. political disaffection in cuba’s revolution and exodus. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2007. rollins, tim. “what has to be done.” in show and tell: a chronicle of group material, edited by julie ault, 218. london: four corners books, 2010. ———. “a proposal for learning to get things off our chests: behavior, discipline, and our project,” unsolicited statement to group material, july 22, 1980, in ault, show and tell, 12–15. satinsky, abigail. “the art of policy: the work of group material.” master’s thesis, school of the art institute of chicago, 2009. wallis, brian, ed. democracy: a project by group material. seattle: bay press, 1990. [1] for a description of the exhibition see also: ault, show and tell, 30–36. the following members of group material organized the exhibition: hannah alderfer, julie ault, patrick brennan, lilian dones, anne drillick, yolanda hawkins, beth jaker, mundy mclaughlin, marybeth nelson, tim rollins, peter szypula, and michael udvardy. [2] it has already been pointed out that group material’s projects move away from the ideal of autonomous works of art, instead defining the process and the action itself as art: “[t]heir product, or work of art, is signified by the exhibition itself and the collaboration it represents.” avgikos, group material timeline, 90. [3] latour, reassembling the social, 63–86 [4] latour, pandora’s hope, 39. emphasis in the original. [5] ibid., 69. [6] ibid., 79. [7] mersmann and schneider, cultural transmissions and the mission of images,” 1. [8] ibid., 2. [9] see bishop, participation; blunck, between object & event; billing et al., taking the matter into common hands; frieling et al., the art of participation. [10]kwon, “one place after another.” [11] billing et al., taking the matter into common hands; kester, the one and the many. [12] kester, the one and the many, 2. [13] see bishop, participation; blunck, between object & event; billing et al., taking the matter into common hands; frieling et al., the art of participation. [14] groys, “a geneaology of participatory art,” 18. [15] livingston, art and intention, 75–76. [16] ibid., 77. [17] ibid., 79. emphasis in the original. [18] referring to similar artistic practices, miwon kwon has already noted that “because of the ‘absence’ of the artist from the physical manifestation of the work, the presence of the artist has become an absolute prerequisite for the execution/presentation of site-oriented projects.” kwon, “one place after another,” 102. emphasis in the original. [19] goldbard, “when (art) worlds collide,” 190. [20] latour, pandora’s hope, 32. [21] ibid. [22] ibid., 79. [23] the first members of the group were: hannah alderfer, julie ault, patrick brennan, yolanda hawkins, beth jaker, marybeth nelson, marek pakulski, tim rollins, peter szypula, and michael udvardy. ault, show and tell, 7–8. [24] excerpt from group material, “press release, january 1981,” 34. [25] ault, show and tell, 30. [26] group material, “letter to the friends and neighbors of the 13th street,” 35. [27] ibid. [28] lawson, “the people’s choice,” 32. [29] ibid. discussing group material’s first show, richard goldstein has mentioned that “there is much assemblage of image and text, as if the artists were trying to coax you away from a purely visual interpretation.” goldstein, “enter the anti-space,” 1–40. [30] avgikos, “group material timeline,” 90. [31] green, “citizen artists: group material,” 18. [32] ibid. [33] ibid. however, green does not analyze the transcultural implications of the objects. [34]>barthes, camera lucida, 70. [35] ibid., 76–99. [36] brändle, “das foto als bildobjekt,” 84. [37] group material, “letter to the friends and neighbors,” 35. [38] ault, show and tell, 30. [39] pedraza, political disaffection in cuba’s revolution and exodus, 151. [40] rollins, “what has to be done,” 218. [41] group material, “group material interviewed by critical art ensemble,” 25 [42] group material, “caution! alternative space! (1982),” 895. [43] ibid. [44] paradigmatic for group material’s return to the museum is the exhibition democracy: education, which was on view at the dia art foundation in new york in 1988. [45] kwon, “one place after another.” [46] ibid., 91. emphasis in the original. [47] ibid., 92. [48] meyer, “the functional site,” 24. [49] lippard, get the message?, 170. [50] group material, “group material interviewed by critical art ensemble,” 23. [51] ashford, “group material.” [52] see juneja and falser, “kulturerbe—denkmalpflege: transkulturell,” 17–26. [53] see juneja, “global art history,” 274–297. [54] appadurai, modernity at large, 31. [55] juneja, “global art history,” 275. [56] avgikos, “group material timeline,” 92. [57] see juneja, “global art history.” [58] group material, “on democracy, 1990,” 135–136. [59] rollins, “a proposal for learning to get things off our chests,” 14. [60] group material, “statement, 1985,” 895. [61] avikos, “group material timeline,” 89. [62] group material, “group material interviewed by critical art ensemble,” 21. howland_design_3_12_2016.indd territorial foundations of the sovereign state in east asia douglas howland, university of wisconsin-milwaukee the issue of territorial sovereignty in asia was brought into question by european aggression, for european incursions into asia created asian awareness of territorial sovereignty by its very violation.1 this essay examines processes through which governments in east asia began to solidify their territorial foundations. key to the transformation of japan and china into european state forms was the legal connection between state and territory, a relationship made explicit in the bilateral treaties that japan and china signed with the foreign powers in the nineteenth century. although bilateral treaties were at the time standard practice between state governments, these treaties were unusual insofar as their extraterritorial provisions defined spaces of exception for foreigners in asian lands. these territorial exemptions reflect the nineteenth-century linkage of territorial sovereignty in international law to the privileged position of the european powers, for extraterritoriality was the condition imposed by those powers on china and other “oriental” countries because of their allegedly insufficient degree of civilization. european incursions and their lesson of territorial sovereignty pulled china and japan in two directions. on the one hand, corollary to territorial sovereignty was the duty to protect within the territory not only the rights of other states but also the rights that each state claimed for its nationals in that territory. japan and china needed to possess the legal and political organization capable of fulfilling this set of duties. on the other hand, japan and china realized that they had to consolidate their respective territories, lest foreign powers claim proximate footholds that could become security threats. the fact that these processes of state formation ensued so differently in china and japan—and produced such different results—underlines the point that a state is not a natural agent in an international world of states: it is a set of historically contingent practices.2 1 see teemu ruskola, “raping like a state,” ucla law review 57, no. 5 (2010): 1531–1532. 2 douglas howland and luise white, “introduction: sovereignty and the study of states,” in the state of sovereignty: territories, laws, populations, ed. douglas howland and luise white (bloomington: indiana university press, 2009), 1–18. 11the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 an example of this contingency is the fact that, common to international relations and international law then and now, not all decisions were formally codified by treaty. the great powers were often willing to approve gentlemen’s agreements in diplomatic practice, which would effectively sanction the legality of such agreements. this essay thus presents examples of both territorial designations through treaty law and territorial claims that attained international sanction through diplomacy. in other words, this essay substantiates the point that power and legitimacy are intertwined in international law and international relations—to recall the analysis of e. h. carr, the tension between power and rules effectively politicizes international law.3 international law in the nineteenth century was eurocentric: the great powers deliberately undermined their putative vision of equality and autonomy among states, and their efforts to create a quasi-liberal world order sustained aggressive policies of imperialism and colonialism. this essay does not pursue a critique of international law and relations as experienced in “the periphery” in the nineteenth century, for others have done so already.4 this essay does not treat territorial sovereignty as “territorial exclusivity”—a reified factor in organization analysis on the part of political scientists—which marks either the lack of sovereignty or its attainment.5 nor does this essay treat territory as state property, after the analysis of international lawyers.6 rather, territorial sovereignty—as exclusive jurisdiction within state territory—is a set of territorial practices that began to secure european-style statehood in east asia and, modeled on those of european states, constitute the territorial foundations of sovereign statehood. they represent a goal toward which asian governments worked within the confines of the nineteenth-century world order. before moving on, it may be worthwhile to note that this essay assumes two points that are treated elsewhere: first, sovereignty as a nineteenthcentury european concept came to signify a state’s legal claim to territory. territorial claims prior to the coordination of international law in the 3 phil c. w. chan, “a critique of western discourses of international law and state sovereignty through chinese lenses,” baltic yearbook of international law 15 (2015): 191–215; e. h. carr, the twenty years’ crisis, 1919–1939, 2nd. ed. (london: macmillan, 1946), 177–180. 4 antony anghie, imperialism, sovereignty, and the making of international law (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2004); arnulf becker lorca, mestizo international law: a global intellectual history, 1842–1933 (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2014); chan, “a critique of western discourses of international law.” 5 ja ian chong, external intervention and the politics of state formation: china, indonesia, and thailand, 1893–1952 (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2012). 6 michael j. strauss, territorial leasing in diplomacy and international law (leiden: brill nijhoff, 2015), 34–50. 12 territorial foundations of the sovereign state in east asia nineteenth century were personal claims made on behalf of sovereigns, and these personal claims were eventually assumed by states as they were constructed in the nineteenth century. sovereignty may be an assemblage of various claims or rights—including those of peoples or nations or races—but territory is the primary ground of the state as it has been constructed in the eurocentric international order, first under the supremacy of the british empire and then under the regimes of the league of nations and the un. second, sovereignty became associated with nationalism in the nineteenth century and the concept was formalized at the versailles peace conference in the name of “self-determination.” the transmission of such an idea in east asia was facilitated by at least three factors: first, chinese geography had long identified “peoples” linked to their homelands and such practice contributed to geographical knowledge in japan, korea, and vietnam. second, certain international law texts that coincidentally associated “nations” and “peoples” with the state (vattel, wheaton, woolsey) were translated into literary chinese beginning in the 1860s, and these were subsequently taken to japan, korea, and vietnam. and third, the imagination of competing races or peoples provided by social darwinism became, after the 1880s, a popular notion especially in japan. be that as it may, however much nationalism influenced the creation of states in asia or elsewhere, territory remains the ground of sovereignty in the modern state. territorial claims and the doctrine of terra nullius in the nineteenth century, two principles in international law were proposed that better enabled the great powers to justify their claims to territory and the euro-american expansion of colonies and empires. one was “effective occupation,” identified by actual settlement or the establishment of government administration. the act produced by the congress of berlin in 1885, for example, described effective occupation as “the establishment of authority […] sufficient to respect existing rights, and as the case may be, freedom of trade and of transit.”7 other authorities at the time interpreted effective occupation as governmental control “sufficient to provide security to life and property.”8 a second principle that was raised to justify territorial 7 “general act of the conference […] respecting the congo, signed at berlin 26 february 1885,” art. 35, in clive parry, ed., the consolidated treaty series vol. 165 (dobbs ferry: oceana, 1969–81): 485–502. a great deal of interpretive debate ensued as to the meaning of le cas échéant, officially translated as “as the case may be” but equally rendered “if need be.” was freedom of trade and transit a condition of effectivity or not? 8 norman hill, claims to territory in international law and relations (london: oxford university press, 1945), 146–148. 13the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 claims was the doctrine of uti possidetis (“as each possesses”). it had originally justified the legal transfer of captured private property at the end of a war, but came to mean—with reference to statehood—that administrative boundaries become international boundaries when a colony achieves independence.9 the doctrine appeared in the course of the revolutions in spanish america in the early nineteenth century—as an effort to prevent european states from reclaiming american land as “effectively occupied”—and it arguably informed the process of decolonization in africa and elsewhere during the 1950s and 1960s.10 the problem with the discovery and occupation of new territory had always to do with the doctrine of “vacant country” or “unoccupied territory”: in the nineteenth century, this would be formalized as territorium nullius or terra nullius.11 the doctrine was something of a misnomer, for most cases were not a matter of actually “unoccupied” or “vacant” land but the perception of a level of organization or civilization among the inhabitants. in the “age of exploration,” a local leader not deemed sufficiently sovereign was induced to offer evidence of submission and obedience to the european king, which was taken for “effective control” by the sovereign 9 historians of international law overlook an earlier history of the principle of uti possidetis, which developed in the eighteenth century to differentiate the territories of the spanish and portuguese colonial empires, both of which had disrespected the line between the two established by the 1494 treaty of tordesillas. the treaty of madrid of 1750 revoked the treaty of tordesillas and recognized the status quo, for the first time fixing effective possession as a norm for south america: territories were to remain “as each effectively possesses” (uti possidetis de facto). uti possidetis thereafter developed into the more commonly understood principle that informed relations among the newly independent republics of spanish america and brazil and the european powers. see jairo ramos acevedo, “el ‘uti possidetis’ un principio americano y no europeo,” misión juridica 5 (2012): 145– 163; joshua castellino and steve allen, title to territory in international law: a temporal analysis (aldershot: ashgate, 2003), 11. 10 see hill, claims to territory in international law and relations, 154–156; and giuseppe nesi, “uti possidetis doctrine,” max planck encyclopedia of public international law, ed. rüdiger wolfrum (oxford: oxford university press, 2018). http://opil.ouplaw.com/view/10.1093/ law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e1125 [accessed march 17, 2018]. although scholars and legal opinions routinely cite uti possidetis as a principle that informed the disposition of colonial territories upon their independence, suzanne lalonde argues that such claims are founded upon an “exaggerated assessment” of the principle and that other legal principles have been equally significant in determining borders, including state succession, nemo dat, and territorial integrity. (nemo dat quod non habet—no one can give what he does not have—pertains to the fact that a new state has only the territory of its predecessor.) see determining boundaries in a conflicted world: the role of uti possidetis (montreal: mcgill-queen’s university press, 2002). 11 andrew fitzmaurice, “the genealogy of terra nullius,” australian historical studies 129 (2007): 1–15; and andrew fitzmaurice, “discovery, conquest, and occupation of territory,” in the oxford handbook of the history of international law, ed. bardo fassbender and anne peters (oxford: oxford university press, 2012), 840–861. 14 territorial foundations of the sovereign state in east asia european claimant.12 this was typically spanish or portuguese practice. by comparison, the french and english made formal treaties or agreements with native peoples in north america—for peace, military alliance, trade, or purchase of land—as did the dutch in the east indies. although some explorers were instructed to claim any lands “not previously possessed by any christian prince,” the rulers of some lands in india, the middle east, and north africa, as well as china and japan, were considered to possess a sovereign status of equivalent rank.13 as friederike kuntz has demonstrated in her analyses of early modern diplomacy, the ottoman sultan was treated as a sovereign equivalent to the king of france.14 likewise, the chinese emperor and japanese shogun were sovereigns in their respective lands, and no european explorer ever attempted to claim their territories as “vacant country.” negotiations and treaties were required—especially because, as i have argued elsewhere, in the persisting context of natural law, both china and japan continued to maintain a sovereign status and were capable of acting as sovereign peers of their european rivals.15 in 1886—prompted by the ambiguities of the 1885 general act of berlin regarding africa—international lawyer ferdinand de martitz proposed to redefine terra nullius as “land not under any sovereignty.”16 this was a controversial definition that the institut de droit international eventually refused to endorse. martitz and his rival, éduard engelhardt, both attempted to provide some substance to the act of berlin, in the absence of any explanation as to what, in the eyes of the signatory powers, constituted “effective” occupation of territory in africa. the berlin act maintained only that “effective occupation” required that the occupier notify the other powers and establish an authority in the occupied territory or protectorate. engelhardt criticized the act and its signatories for their lack of clarity, and proposed that effective occupation be understood to include the various measures also specified by the other articles of the act: that slavery in occupied territory be abolished; that freedom of religion in occupied territory be maintained; that the rights of the indigenous people be 12 arthur s. keller, oliver j. lissitzyn, and frederick j. mann, creation of rights of sovereignty through symbolic acts, 1400–1800 (new york: columbia university press, 1938), 10. 13 keller, lissitzyn, and mann, creation of rights, 10, 13. 14 friederike kuntz, “aporias: the international relation, interrelated sovereigns, the human individual, and power-knowledge” (phd diss., university of bielefeld, 2015). 15 douglas howland, international law and japanese sovereignty: the emerging global order in the 19th century (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2016), 27–48. 16 ferdinand de martitz, “occupation des territoires,” revue de droit international et de législation comparée 19 (1887): 371–376. also see fitzmaurice, “the genealogy of terra nullius,” 10–13. 15the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 respected; that freedom of trade and transit throughout occupied territory be maintained; and so on.17 martitz’s definition sought to specify that territory, whether inhabited or not, was available for occupation if it were not under the sovereignty of any member of the “civilized” family of nations. although this was a proposal tailored to bismark’s plans for german colonization in africa, the majority of international lawyers found martitz’s proposal not only groundless within nineteenth-century international law, but also inappropriately reminiscent of the “age of exploration” and its valorization of the rights to conquest of christian princes. in 1889, the institut’s resolution on occupied territory reproduced the majority of engelhardt’s recommendations.18 in his magisterial review of the issues, charles salomon concluded that, although the berlin conference may have produced a “uniform doctrine” concerning occupation, the position of the powers was odious and incomplete. to salomon, the object of territorial occupation was self-enrichment and neither the berlin act nor the institut’s resolution guaranteed—apart from personal property—the rights of indigenous peoples. their care and education justified the occupier’s creation of a protectorate.19 in this respect, martitz was au courant in restricting inclusion within the family of nations to “civilized” states. the 1890s and 1900s witnessed an increasing use of international treaties to transfer titles to land—as acts of international law—but this practice was highly controversial within positivist international law as it developed its doctrine of “civilized society.” because treaties were said to express the sovereign wills of civilized rulers, if a local chieftain were qualified to sign a treaty—or at best, scratch his “x” on the appropriate line—he must be sovereign and able to transfer african lands to a european power. however, if the local chieftain were not civilized and hence not properly sovereign, the treaty was not a legitimate document and the european power could not rightfully occupy african lands ceded by an illegitimate treaty. legal scholars raised identical questions about the legitimacy of treaties between china or japan and the european powers—william edward hall, for example, asserted that neither china nor japan was a “civilized” realm and judged all european 17 éduard engelhardt, “étude sur la déclaration de la conférence de berlin relative aux occupations,” revue de droit international et de législation comparée 18 (1886): 433–441, 573–586. 18 the debate is summarized in “quatrième commission d’études: examen de la théorie de la conférence de berlin de 1885, sur l’occupation des territoires,” annuaire de l’institut de droit international 9 (1888): 243–255; the 1889 resolution is reprinted in james brown scott, ed., resolutions of the institute of international law dealing with the law of nations (new york: oxford university press, 1916), 86–88. 19 charles salomon, l’occupation des territoires sans maître: étude de droit international (paris: a. giard, 1889), 189–200, 209–210, 260–274. 16 territorial foundations of the sovereign state in east asia treaties with them to be illegitimate. presumably, china’s cession of hong kong to the united kingdom was null and void. of course, most statesmen deliberately ignored this technical contradiction, for colonial control of african lands and the stability of extraterritorial arrangements in china, japan, korea and the middle east depended upon european acknowledgment of the legitimacy of their treaties.20 consider a pair of examples. the current sino–japanese dispute over the senkaku or diaoyu islands, as unryu suganuma and martin lohmeyer point out in their meticulous analyses, erupted only in 1969 with the discovery of valuable natural resources in the seabed surrounding the islands.21 for centuries, the diaoyu/senkaku islands were known to subjects of both china and japan. the chinese historical record confirms that during both the ming and qing dynasties, chinese missions to the liuqiu (ryūkyū) kingdom routinely passed by the diaoyu/senkaku islands—as did liuqiuan missions to china. both suganuma and lohmeyer recount how ships routinely used the diaoyu/senkaku islands as a navigational marker; thus, the islands figured on chinese route maps. but this does not mean either that chinese subjects “discovered” the islands or that they “claimed” the islands as chinese territory. the islands were uninhabited and without sovereignty—terra nullius—a status confirmed by british naval surveys of the region beginning in 1843.22 only after japan annexed the ryūkyū kingdom in 1879—as okinawa prefecture—did japanese authorities take an interest in the senkaku islands. beginning in 1885, the governor of okinawa prefecture urged the japanese government to claim the islands as japanese territory, which it did immediately after the sino–japanese war in 1896, and placed them under the jurisdiction of okinawa prefecture. japanese businessman koga tatsushirō then leased the islands for thirty years, during which time he established an expanding settlement and several businesses there, from agricultural developments to collecting guano for fertilizer and albatross feathers for women’s hats.23 20 anghie, imperialism, sovereignty, and the making of international law, 92–96; howland, international law and japanese sovereignty, 14–18; martti koskenniemi, the gentle civilizer of nations: the rise and fall of international law 1870–1960 (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2001), 138–142. 21 unryu suganuma, sovereign rights and territorial space in sino-japanese relations: irredentism and the diaoyu/senkaku islands (honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 2000), 11–14, 129–131; martin lohmeyer, to whom belong the diaoyu/senkaku islands under public international law? (berlin: logos, 2009), 14, 83–85. 22 suganuma, sovereign rights, 89–91; lohmeyer, to whom belong, 55–56. on pp. 145–146, however, lohmeyer notes the recent and anachronistic chinese argument that china “discovered” the islands in the ming dynasty and thereafter possessed them. 23 suganuma, sovereign rights, 98, 118–119; lohmeyer, to whom belong, 62–71, 141–143. 17the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 it is clear that, while china took little interest in the diaoyu islands, japan settled and possessed them. the 1951 san francisco treaty at the end of the second world war—signed between japan and the republic of china (on taiwan)—did not mention the islands, and the attentions of japanese and chinese remained elsewhere. neither the roc nor prc took much interest in the un negotiations over the unclos treaty (in force since 1994), yet japan, in spite of its minimal participation in the unclos negotiations, was the only country to veto the 200-mile exclusive economic zone, which the prc has keenly supported since signing onto the treaty in 1996.24 since 1970, however, the roc and the prc persist in their claims upon the islands. the situation hasn’t been helped insofar as all parties —the usa, china, and japan—have decided in the interests of entente in the present to leave the resolution of the dispute to future leaders. historian suganuma concludes that the senkaku islands have been “held hostage” to geopolitics and sino–japanese relations.25 as entente has been replaced by belligerent posturing, nationalistic activists from japan, taiwan/roc, and the prc periodically invade the islands, making irredentist claims for one party or another; at the same time, political leaders denounce their opponents with references to international law. on the one hand, lohmeyer grants legitimacy to the many and diverse legal strategies of all parties, and concludes that all are likely to fail, since each state is less interested “in resolving the problem than in having their views prevail.”26 on the other hand, melissa loja argues that both the roc and prc acquiesced in the status quo post bellum of japanese possession at the end of the war, and neither government raised any opposition when it might have done so (points with which lohmeyer concurs). the japanese demonstrated effective occupation during the four decades that mark its two wars with china, and the islands remained japanese possessions. loja concludes that china lacks any legal basis for its opposition to japan.27 china’s claim 24 suganuma, sovereign rights, 28–32; lohmeyer, to whom belong, 75–77. 25 suganuma, sovereign rights, 136–139. 26 lohmeyer, to whom belong, 218, 230–231. 27 melissa h. loja, “status quo post bellum and the legal resolution of the territorial dispute between china and japan over the senkaku/diaoyu islands,” european journal of international law 27, no. 4 (2016): 979–1004. see also suk-kyoon kim, “perspectives on east china sea maritime disputes,” in the limits of maritime jurisdiction, ed. clive schofield, seokwoo lee, and moon-sang kwon (leiden: brill nijhoff, 2014), 285–296. 18 territorial foundations of the sovereign state in east asia is based on the threat of force.28 a second case offers a contrast as to how international law may misinform these sensitive issues. already in the 1870s, japan had begun to apply european international law to its relations with china and korea; after 1909, as colonial master of korea, japan maneuvered in effect a “land grab” on behalf of japan’s korean protectorate. japanese legal scholar and official shinoda jisaku, who served as a legal advisor to the japanese army during the russo–japanese war and subsequently in the japanese administration of korea, oversaw the maneuver. as nianshen song recounts, shinoda argued that the area north of the tumen river (kando or kantō in japanese) was effectively terra nullius insofar as it had never been clearly under the sovereignty of either qing china or joseon korea. shinoda’s argument pointed to erroneous maps drawn in the 1710s, which incorporated the fact that koreans had deliberately misinformed qing officials about the qing–joseon border, but which nonetheless became official chinese representations of the border region. (the maps were subsequently copied by french scholars and thus became international references.) two centuries later, when imperial japan was interested in expanding and solidifying its position against russia, as well as developing a “northeast asian transportation corridor” through the region, newly corrected maps and martitz’s legal proposal to define terra nullius as “land without sovereignty” provided a dubious means to demonstrate that the kando area belonged to korea—and hence to japan. because japanese-occupied korea served as a buffer to russia, the uk and the other powers were content to let japan have its way.29 the fact that the area was secured for korea by its colonial masters may complicate china–korea border relations today, but china has not challenged this status quo post bellum. territorial sovereignty these european practices of territorial claims began to transform local practices in nineteenth-century east asia after the example of europe, for territoriality in the nineteenth century became a question of exclusive state jurisdiction. formal descriptions of the state and state behavior in international law texts emphasized the fundamentals of territory, and 28 despite this pessimism, several scholars have recently proposed a variety of solutions, including godfrey baldacchino, solution protocols to festering island disputes: “win-win” solutions for the diaoyu/senkaku islands (abingdon: routledge, 2017); and balazs szanto, china and the senkaku/ diaoyu islands dispute: escalation and de-escalation (abingdon: routledge, 2018). 29 nianshen song, “the journey towards ‘no man’s land’: interpreting the china–korea borderland within imperial and colonial contexts,” the journal of asian studies 76, no. 4 (2017): 1035–1058. 19the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 these became familiar to chinese and japanese scholars and officials in the 1860s and 1870s, as euro-american texts of international law were translated into literary chinese and introduced to japan (and korea and vietnam). a book such as henry wheaton’s elements of international law emphasized the immunity of state territory from foreign intrusions, and johann bluntschli’s das moderne völkerrecht der civilisierten staaten acknowledged a widespread definition of the state as consisting of a territory, a population, and a government.30 in the anglo-american world, legal positivists emphasized the sovereignty of the state, as each state strove to assert its complete jurisdiction over the criminal and civil matters of persons within its territory. each worked to consolidate state authority over all aliens within its territory and over all its subjects at home and abroad and on its ships at sea. state control of territory came to mark a state’s sovereignty—its absolute jurisdiction within its own territory. in the face of the unfair treaties between the foreign powers and china and japan respectively—which created extraterritorial zones and other such assaults on chinese and japanese sovereignty—the two governments responded quite differently. even though chinese officials were aware of british encroachments in india, they were slow to organize an effective strategy against the great powers of europe. this was perhaps because of china’s massive size and many land borders, because both power and government functions began devolving to the provinces during the taiping rebellion of the 1850s, and because of the distraction of the tongzhi palace coup in 1861. but an equally significant factor was the chinese imperial government’s longstanding accommodation of foreigners in resident communities, much like the ottoman sultans’ arrangements of “capitulations.” different in the nineteenth century, however, were the foreign powers’ legal demands for extraterritoriality, trade privileges, and the cession or lease of territory. ongoing conflicts and a somewhat tardy realization of the nature of the problem delayed chinese effectiveness. by contrast, the meiji government in japan immediately undertook two critical tasks. first, the japanese worked quickly to secure japan’s borders in order to claim lands that foreign powers might construe as “unoccupied”; japan sought to enlarge its territorial outposts so as to both keep foreigners at bay and maintain a better defensive position for the japanese homeland. second, the japanese government worked assiduously to manage the confusing conditions of extraterritoriality to japan’s benefit. this involved a constant struggle with the ministers and envoys of 30 see rune svarverud, international law as world order in late imperial china: translation, reception, and discourse, 1847–1911 (leiden: brill, 2007). 20 territorial foundations of the sovereign state in east asia foreign powers in order to force them to recognize that extraterritoriality meant only that foreign subjects would not be subjected to japanese courts of law. foreigners were nonetheless required to obey japanese law when in japan. the exceptions created by extraterritoriality did not prohibit japan from exercising its territorial sovereignty—to make laws that governed all people in japan. the following treats these issues in turn. territorial claims prior to the meiji revolution of 1867, the tokugawa shoguns had ruled over a geographically defined polity—the shogun’s domain—but this was nothing like a modern state with its homogenous national territory. rather, persons within the shogun’s domain were identified by status (mibun), a legal ranking of persons into such groups as samurai, peasants, townspeople, outcastes, and more. moreover, the members of each different status group occupied different spaces within the shogun’s domain: most exceptional of these were the regional lords’ domains, shinto and buddhist religious institutions, and outcaste villages—all of which were largely self-governing units. this polity extended from the domain of japan, under the authority of the shogun, to groups at the peripheries identified as “barbarian”: the ainu in hokkaidō to the north, and the ryūkyūans to the south. the meiji decision to reconstruct this polity after 1868 pursued two crucial policies: first, the elimination of status in 1871 began the work of re-identifying all persons as japanese subjects of the japanese emperor. this process of social homogenization was extended to the ainu and ryūkyūans, as the island of hokkaidō and the new prefecture of okinawa were integrated into the new japanese state. second, an 1873 decree eliminated internal autonomies, such as lords’ domains and outcaste villages, and was accompanied by the creation of a national territory divided into prefectures and governed from the new imperial capital in tokyo. that new homogenous territory of japan, in which national laws applied to all subjects of the japanese emperor, was the space of japanese imperial rule.31 to be sure, another significant piece of this reconstruction of japan was the creation of a japanese nation, defined more in terms of the characteristics of the people than by territory; but this modern space of the nation corresponds 31 david l. howell, “territoriality and collective identity in tokugawa japan,” daedalus 127, no. 3 (1998): 105–132, and david l. howell, geographies of identity in nineteenth-century japan (berkeley: university of california press, 2005), 1, 4–8, 22, 151, 198. 21the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 to the internal realm of japan.32 the external realm was defined by the territorial sovereignty of the japanese state, and japan constructed its new state deliberately in order to create a set of domestic and international institutions that would assert japan’s equality with its euro-american tutors who defined the international community. within that community, japan’s statehood was defined territorially, even if extraterritoriality temporarily undermined japan’s sovereignty over that territory. because of the extraterritorial provisions of the unfair treaties of the 1850s and 1860s, japan realized that it must consolidate its territory, lest foreign powers claim proximate footholds that became security threats. the japanese government immediately began to secure sakhalin and the kurile islands, the ogasawara (bonin) islands, and the ryūkyū islands as japanese territory.33 sakhalin—or karafuto—had been an ambiguously russo-japanese possession after 1855, but an 1875 treaty with russia granted the island to russia in return for japanese possession of the kurile islands. the ogasawara islands, by diplomatic agreement with the uk and the usa, were recognized internationally as a japanese possession in 1875; british minister to tokyo harry parkes informed the english residents of the bonin islands that japan had assumed sovereignty over the islands.34 as we have seen, the ryūkyū kingdom conducted tributary relations with ming and qing china, as well as extensive trade with the satsuma domain during the tokugawa period. in 1874, japan declared the islands to be japanese territory, and the taiwan incident (or formosan expedition) began a fitful process of eliminating chinese objections. in 1879, with the encouragement of the usa and willingness of the uk, japan’s claim over the island chain was legitimized and okinawa prefecture was created.35 more demanding was japan’s effort to convince the international community that japan’s inland sea was in fact japanese territorial water. 32 kevin m. doak, a history of nationalism in modern japan (leiden: brill, 2007), 6–11, 32–35; and stefan tanaka, new times in modern japan (princeton university press, 2004), 48–53, 83–84. an explanation of the internal and external aspects of state sovereignty was featured in wheaton’s elements of international law, available to japanese scholars in the 1860s in chinese translation, see svarverud, international law as world order. 33 kanae taijudo, “japan’s early practice of international law in fixing its territorial limits,” japanese annual of international law 22 (1978): 1–20; kawasaki takako, “nihon no ryōdo,” in nihon to kokusaihō no hyakunen, vol. 2, riku – kū – uchū, ed. kokusaihō gakkai (tokyo: sanseidō, 2001), 95–126; kamikawa hikomatsu, ed., japan-american diplomatic relations in the meiji-taisho era (tokyo: pan-pacific press, 1958), 81–82, 98–106; masaharu yanagihara, “japan,” in the oxford handbook of the history of international law, ed. fassbender and peters, 474–499. 34 see derby to parkes, march 8, 1877, in great britain, the national archives, foreign office file f.o. 262/301: [78]. 35 george h. kerr, okinawa: the history of an island people (rutland, vt: tuttle, 1958). japan and china continued to negotiate until january 1881, when japan broke off negotiations. 22 territorial foundations of the sovereign state in east asia the question was raised during a legal case that arose from an 1892 maritime collision between a british steamship and a japanese naval vessel in the inland sea. the british company’s appeal in the case—known as government of japan v. p & o steamship co.—argued that the inland sea was a public highway because foreign vessels, under the arrangements of extraterritoriality, had “rights of passage” through the inland sea in order to reach the “open” treaty port of kōbe. therefore, the company argued, the sea was international water. japan insisted to the contrary that the inland sea was japanese territorial water, and defended its position with legal definitions of territorial waters, as well as the wording of japan’s 1870 act of neutrality (prepared during the franco–prussian war). kaneko kentarō presented that judgment before the institut de droit international in march 1894, and the japanese government officially decreed in march 1896 that the inland sea was japanese territorial water. the japanese foreign ministry thereupon sent a diplomatic note to that effect to both the british minister in tokyo and the british foreign office; the british government acquiesced in that disposition, and the other naval powers followed suit.36 unlike japan, china had negotiated an “equal treaty” with a european power already in the seventeenth century—the famous 1689 treaty of nerchinsk with russia—and conducted trade negotiations with the portuguese and the dutch at the imperial court.37 while chinese scholars argue that these activities represent early chinese attempts to assert a modern form of sovereignty, i would instead consider these acts as prerogatives of monarchy: the qing emperor sought to maintain his sovereign authority over his dynastic territory. if anything, european trade policy became an ominous warning for nineteenth-century scholars such as wei yuan, who sounded the alarm to his fellows over the expansionist policies of european monarchs and corporations—especially the fate of india under increasing british domination. the 1842 cession of hong kong to the united kingdom was irksome, but the imperial chinese government grew ever more outraged by the persistent demands of the european powers for diplomatic representation in beijing, the right to proselytize christianity in rural areas, and increased trade and territorial privileges. diplomatic conflict led to military conflict in the 36 douglas howland, “international law, state will, and the standard of civilization in japan’s assertion of sovereign equality,” in law and disciplinarity: thinking beyond borders, ed. robert j. beck (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2013), 196–199. 37 chi-hua tang, “china–europe,” in the oxford handbook of the history of international law, ed. fassbender and peters, 704. see also john e. willis, jr., “ch’ing relations with the dutch,” in the chinese world order, ed. john king fairbank (cambridge: harvard university press, 1968), 225–256. 23the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 1850s and 1860s, in which china was not able to defend its interests and was forced to sign new unequal treaties.38 further territorial cessions followed: with the 1860 treaty of beijing, for example, the uk demanded that china cede the kowloon peninsula, which had theretofore been leased in perpetuity to minister harry parkes on behalf of the british monarch.39 however, chinese officials at the zongli yamen (“foreign office”) realized the significance and utility of international law as they resolved a dispute with prussia in 1864 concerning china’s territorial waters. in the course of the second schleswig war (or danish–schleswig war) raging in europe, the new prussian minister illegally seized three danish merchant vessels in neutral chinese waters as war prizes. the zongli yamen invoked their new chinese translation of wheaton’s elements of international law both to charge the prussians with violating chinese territorial waters and to successfully force prussia to compensate the danish government for damages.40 subsequently, in the 1870s and 1880s, the chinese government pursued active negotiations with russia, france, and the uk in order to secure its borders in central asia and manchuria (russian siberia), southeast asia (french indochina), and burma and tibet (british india). to validate its claims along the yunnan–burma border, for example, chinese authorities sent an exploratory mission under the direction of yao wendong to map the border; his findings informed china’s negotiators on the delimitation commission established in 1886, which then defined and redefined the border in the conventions of 1894 and 1897.41 a comparable initiative was the raising of certain territories to the status of province. for example, the peculiar ambiguities created by the sino–french dispute of 1884–1885—never officially declared a war—encouraged china to elevate the island of taiwan to the status of province; this act removed the island from the local provincial administration of fujian and placed 38 see dong wang, china’s unequal treaties: narrating national history (lanham: lexington books, 2005). 39 “convention of peace between her majesty and the emperor of china” (art. vi), in william frederick mayers, ed., treaties between the empire of china and foreign powers (shanghai: north china herald, 1877), 8–10. 40 tang, “china–europe,” 705; wang tieya, “international law in china,” recueil des cours 221 part 2 (1990): 232–234. 41 yao wendong prepared the text of yunnan kanjie choubian ji between 1887 and 1889 but it was not published until 1891, and was then frequently reprinted in the 1890s. the anglo–chinese conventions regarding the chinese border with burma are assembled in godfrey e. p. hertslet, ed., with the assistance of edward parkes, treaties, &c., between great britain and china; and between china and foreign powers, and orders in council, rules, regulations, acts of parliament, decrees, &c., affecting british interests in china, 3rd. ed. (london: harrison and sons, 1908), vol 1: 88–90, 99–109, 113–118. 24 territorial foundations of the sovereign state in east asia it more securely under the direct management of the imperial government. xinjiang too was made a province in order to better secure its borders with russia in the vast expanse of “turkestan.”42 the chinese government, in other words, had become sufficiently competent in international law to be able to use it to defend china’s territorial borders. likewise, chinese officials effectively employed the doctrine of the national territoriality of ships at sea to defend itself in the sinking of the ss kaoshing at the start of the sino–japanese war in 1894. the british steamship had been leased by china in order to transport troops to korea, but a japanese gunboat sank it in violation of british neutrality. in spite of the soundness of, and international support for, china’s arguments, they were rejected by british officials in the foreign office, who were committed to japan’s position in the case.43 to the detriment of these efforts to define and defend china’s borders, a barrage of additional concessions and privileges in chinese territory exploded in 1898. lest any state receive an advantage over any other, as japan appeared to have done in the wake of the sino–japanese war, the powers all made demands for special privileges in respective parts of china: russia in manchuria, germany in shandong, the uk in the yangzi valley, france in the southwest. in addition, they demanded concessions to construct railroads and telegraph lines, and to develop mining and lumber industries—the chinese granting of which was fueled by the huge indemnities that concluded its peace agreements. the chinese government was simply unable to restrain the foreign powers at century’s end, and many of these concessions were reversed only when territorial jurisdiction was secured after the establishment of the prc in 1949. yet some territories continue to disturb geopolitics today. although macao and hong kong returned to the prc in the 1990s, the case of taiwan remains controversial. china ceded the island to japan in 1895, and the 1943 cairo declaration indicated the allies’ wish to return all of japan’s “stolen territory” to the republic of china. but the communist revolution in 1949, followed belatedly in 1951 by the peace treaty between the roc and japan, has left the status of taiwan ambiguous and contentious to this day. the prc and its allies see taiwan as chinese territory.44 42 shin kawashima, “china,” in the oxford handbook of the history of international law, ed. fassbender and peters, 468–469. on the sino–french dispute, see douglas howland, “japanese neutrality in the nineteenth century: international law and transcultural process,” transcultural studies 1 (2010): 14–37, esp. 24–28. 43 douglas howland, “the sinking of the s.s. kowshing: international law, diplomacy, and the sino–japanese war,” modern asian studies 42, no. 4 (2008): 673–703, esp. 690–694). 44 phil c. w. chan, china, state sovereignty, and international legal order (leiden: brill nijhoff, 2015), 179–216. 25the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 international leaseholds a corollary to the asserting of territorial claims in east asia was the signing of international leaseholds—the renting of foreign territory in accord with the legal principle that a state’s sovereignty over its territory includes the right to temporarily alienate territory. the typical international lease was contracted between two states for the benefit of the lessee state, and was an alternative more honorable than theft and more peaceable than war. although the uk is usually credited with having begun the practice by leasing kowloon peninsula after 1842, china first leased the island of macao to portugal in 1535.45 nonetheless, when they discuss international leaseholds, jurists typically cite the flurry of leases signed by china with foreign states in the 1890s—even though these coincided with a widespread surge of leasing activity between 1875 and 1903, according to michael j. strauss.46 russia, for example, leased parts of the liaodong peninsula in order to have a naval station close to its eastern frontier; the uk leased weihaiwei in order to have a naval base near beijing, korea, and japan; and france leased part of guangzhou bay in order to have a naval base between southern chinese ports and its indochina colony.47 if the international leasehold was a treaty freely contracted between states, the more problematic variant was the “lease in perpetuity” based on the principle of extraterritoriality and included in the “unequal” treaties of the mid-nineteenth century. leases in perpetuity set aside territory in shanghai, yokohama, and the other treaty ports for the benefit of foreign residents in china and japan. the great powers negotiated with china or japan on behalf of their respective residents in order to establish a foreign settlement and, subsequently, the residents or their representatives dealt directly with the government of china or japan in fulfillment of the rental agreements of the lease.48 45 strauss notes that the history of the macao lease is at best “murkey” because no texts survive. the 1535 arrangements were repeatedly revised, then neglected, and portugal claimed sovereignty over macao in 1822, a status not recognized by the chinese government until 1887. see territorial leasing, 58–61. 46 strauss, territorial leasing, 70–74. 47 j. h. w. verzijl, international law in historical perspective, vol. 3, state territory (leiden: sijthoff, 1970), 400–404; c. walter young, the international legal status of the kwantung leased territory (baltimore: johns hopkins university press, 1931), 97–104; strauss, territorial leasing, 74–80. these treaties are conveniently assembled in john v. a. macmurray, comp., treaties and agreements with and concerning china, 1894–1919, vol. 1, manchu period (1894–1911) (new york: oxford university press, 1921). 48 strauss, territorial leasing, 67–69, 117–121. 26 territorial foundations of the sovereign state in east asia but jurists have questioned the nature of leases in perpetuity as international law. because the beneficiary of the lease is the foreign resident community, some jurists treat a lease in perpetuity as a “purely private law conception.” verzijl, for example, rejected such a lease from consideration because it is not a “genuine international lease” and has something of a more “private law nature.” he thus foregrounds the chinese cases of 1898.49 whatever the legal nature of the lease—whether a lease in perpetuity or a proper international lease—the rights transferred by the lease could only be specified in a treaty and jurists were unanimous that the treaty determined all rights transferred by the lease. the defining aspect of a lease was that it was not a cession of territory; it transferred not sovereignty but only aspects of jurisdiction. as oppenheim argued, the lessee state might treat the leased territory as its own territory and a lease might resemble cession, but the territory legally remained the property of the leasing state, and the lease may end by virtue of a time limit or an act of rescission.50 leases, in sum, were concluded with the mutual understanding that the territory leased remained the possession of the lessor. japan’s efforts to eliminate the leases in perpetuity in japanese treaty port settlements led to one of the first cases to go before the international court of arbitration in 1902. when japan renegotiated its unfair treaties in 1894, it assumed that the revised treaties put an end to all aspects of extraterritoriality—the treaty ports and foreign settlements were returned to japanese jurisdiction. but the uk, france, and germany argued instead that the clause stating that standing leasehold arrangements would continue meant that japan could not levy taxes on the property of the leaseholds or any buildings erected on that land. the dispute became known as the japan house tax case and its arbitration, which ruled against japan, was widely denounced as an unwarranted persistence of privilege and miscarriage of justice. only in the midst of the second world war were foreign residents finally willing to relinquish their leaseholds.51 as in japan, the question of china’s leases in perpetuity with the foreign populations in the treaty ports was tied to a revision of china’s unequal treaties. unlike japan, however, china faced unrelenting unwillingness on the part of the powers to revise these treaties, and china was never able 49 verzijl, international law in historical perspective, vol. 3, state territory, 397. 50 hersch lauterpacht, private law sources and analogies of international law (london: longmans, green & co., 1927), 181–182.; lassa oppenheim, international law: a treatise, 3rd. ed. (london: longmans, green & co., 1920), vol. 1, peace: 378–379; strauss, territorial leasing, 5–27. see also wang tieya, “international law in china,” 306–311. 51 douglas howland, “the japan house tax case, 1899–1905: leases in perpetuity and the myth of international equality,” zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches recht und völkerrecht 75, no. 2 (2015): 413–434. 27the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 to force them to consider revisions, as japan had done. persisting conflict between china and the foreign powers—the second opium war, the sino–french dispute, and the boxer rebellion—added new unequal treaties with new indemnities and privileges for foreigners in china. only in the twentieth century did the situation change, especially after chinese anger exploded in the wake of the versailles peace conference, where the great powers allowed japan to inherit former german leaseholds and concessions in shandong. although the concessions were returned to china in 1921, chinese attitudes were by that point transformed. in the 1920s—and as an affront to the great powers—the republic of china accepted the soviet union’s offer to unconditionally relinquish all treaty privileges in china negotiated by the former russian tsar’s government. but all of china’s ongoing efforts to renegotiate its unequal treaties with european powers during the 1920s and 1930s failed, first because of european unwillingness or indifference and then because of the distraction of japan’s violent encroachments into china.52 the leaseholds in china’s treaty ports persisted into the second world war, until china negotiated the end of its unequal treaties and euro-american extraterritorial privileges in 1943. the japanese occupation of much of the east coast of china rendered foreign privileges there irrelevant. extraterritoriality implicit in the preceding discussion is the fact that extraterritoriality posed an enduring problem in japan’s and china’s respective relations with the euro-american powers from the start. the principle of extraterritoriality, which informed the unfair treaties, was the claim of a foreign exemption from territorial sovereignty. as expressed in the treaties, it encompassed consular jurisdiction, the establishment of autonomous foreign settlements (leases in perpetuity), and the loss of tariff freedom—for the foreign powers reserved the right to determine all tariffs on imports and exports. consular jurisdiction was the treaty powers’ legal basis for the immunity of their subjects from chinese or japanese prosecution; rather than submit foreign residents to local judicial proceedings, local authorities were obliged to turn a foreign criminal offender over to the consul of his nationality. but extraterritoriality encouraged further privileges that subjects of the treaty powers erroneously claimed in china and japan. these alleged privileges of extraterritoriality—such as the “right” to travel freely or to hunt—arose from the putative immunity of resident foreigners from chinese or japanese sovereignty and the impunity with which they disregarded chinese or japanese laws and customs.53 52 tang, “china–europe,” 706–711; chan, china, state sovereignty, and international legal order, 79–84. 53 howland, international law and japanese sovereignty, 49–51. 28 territorial foundations of the sovereign state in east asia there was a crucial difference, however, between the privileges of foreigners in china and japan respectively. chinese practice had been quite generous in the first centuries of qing rule, for the chinese emperor typically granted a measure of extraterritoriality to foreign merchants. in addition to mongols and manchus, the russian and portuguese communities had their own respective communal laws and jurisdictions within china under the authority of a leader responsible for maintaining order within the community. but expatriate foreigners were still obliged to obey chinese law—the opium war, recall, began when chinese officials punished british smugglers for their crimes against chinese law.54 under duress after the opium war, however, the qing government initially sought to confine foreigners to the treaty ports. the treaty of wangxia with the usa in 1844, for example, stipulated that the citizens of the united states are permitted to frequent the five ports of kwangchow, amoy, fuchow, ningpo and shanghai, and to reside with their families and trade there, and to proceed at pleasure with their vessels and merchandize to and from any foreign port and either of the said five ports, and from either of the said five ports to any other of them.55 but as a result of negotiations with the uk and the other powers after the second opium (or arrow) war, the 1858 tianjin treaty granted to foreigners the privilege to travel into the interior, to proselytize christianity, and to purchase land and buildings in the countryside.56 the presence of foreigners in china, however, who felt superior to and hence unrestricted by chinese law, provoked misunderstanding and conflict. missionary facilities were frequent targets of suspicion on the part of local chinese. rumors that foreigners mutilated children and used their blood and organs prompted an anti-christian riot at a french orphanage in tianjin 54 pär cassel, grounds of judgment: extraterritoriality and imperial power in nineteenth-century china and japan (new york: oxford university press, 2012), 15–29, 36–38, 40–47; yongjin zhang, “curious and exotic encounters: europeans as supplicants in the chinese imperium, 1513–1793,” in international orders in the early modern world, eds. shogo suzuki, yongjin zhang, and joel quirk (abingdon: routledge, 2014), 55–75. 55 “treaty of peace, amity, and commerce between the united states of america and the chinese empire” (art. iii), in mayers, ed., treaties between the empire of china and foreign powers, 76–83. 56 “treaty of peace, friendship, commerce, and navigation between her majesty the queen of great britain and ireland and the emperor of china” (art. x), in mayers, ed., treaties between the empire of china and foreign powers, 11–20. one of the few unsettled disagreements i have encountered in the diplomatic record was whether or not foreign ships were free to navigate all internal waters of china. see “extract from dispatch of alcock to medhurst,” as enclosure in terashima to parkes, 20 december 1873, in f.o. 881/2504: 29–30. 29the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 in 1870. this provoked an international incident, but more than two decades later, the murder of two german missionaries in shandong in 1897 became the pretext for the occupation of jiaozhou by german naval forces, and germany subsequently demanded and received the lease of jiaozhou for ninety-nine years. moreover, the preferred solution to foreign suspicions of chinese jurisdiction, the “mixed court,” particularly undermined chinese sovereignty. consular jurisdiction meant that a crime committed by a foreigner in china or japan was to be under the jurisdiction of the national consul; so, for example, a british defendant was tried by the british consular court. chinese defendants were always subject to the jurisdiction of chinese courts. but the mixed court, composed of both foreign and chinese judges, was intended both to tutor the chinese in european justice and to comprehend the many foreign nationalities in shanghai and the other treaty ports. however, it came to try cases involving chinese subjects only and thereby usurped chinese judiciary functions that should never have come within its purview.57 in 1902, china finally received some assurance of an end to extraterritoriality when the british pledged “to give every assistance to such [judicial] reform” and to “be prepared to relinquish her extra-territorial rights when she is satisfied that the state of the chinese laws, the arrangement for their administration, […] warrant her in so doing.”58 note, however, that such an understanding had accompanied the initial treaties between japan and the foreign powers; moreover, the japanese had seen the dangers of the mixed court and had thwarted its creation in japan.59 having learned from the experience of china, japan looked on the freedom of foreigners with great apprehension and sought to restrain foreign residents’ freedom of movement in japan. largely because of the ferocious violence of samurai opponents to foreign relations after 1856, and because the shogun was unable to guarantee the safety of foreigners in the japanese countryside, the uk and the other powers agreed in their treaties with japan that foreign residents in japan would be confined to the treaty ports. but as peace was restored after the meiji revolution, foreigners chafed at the restrictions; merchants wanted to travel in the countryside in order to make direct contact with japanese suppliers, 57 wang tieya, “international law in china,” 254–256; cassel, grounds of judgment, 66–84. 58 “treaty between great britain and china respecting commercial relations, &c. [art. xii],” in hertslet, ed. treaties &c., between great britain and china, 182. 59 howland, international law and japanese sovereignty, 43–45, 66; san’eki nakaoka, “japanese research on the mixed courts of egypt in the earlier part of the meiji period in connection with the revision of the 1858 treaties,” jōchi ajia-gaku [journal of sophia asian studies] 6 (1988): 11–47. 30 territorial foundations of the sovereign state in east asia and missionaries wanted to freely spread their teachings—as they could in china. however, it was the foreign residents’ confusing of extraterritoriality and consular jurisdiction that created legal havoc and official discord between foreigners and japanese authorities in the 1860s. foreigners’ claims to immunity from japanese law so outraged the japanese government that, during the 1870s, it concentrated on eliminating this foreign misunderstanding of extraterritoriality. as japanese officials emphasized, japan had given up only its judicial jurisdiction by treaty—its legislative jurisdiction over foreign residents remained intact. but from the autonomous spaces of the treaty port settlements, foreigners demanded the right to travel freely throughout japan, to hunt in the countryside, to settle within the interior of the country, and more.60 although these were repeatedly declared to be rights, the legal language of the nineteenth century insisted on pairing rights with duties. presumably a right to travel into the interior of japan would be matched with a duty to conduct oneself according to japanese law while in the countryside of japan. a right to hunt in japan would be matched with the duty to carry a hunting license and obey the regulations as to when, where, and what defined the season. but no such duty was clear to foreigners. because of the extraterritorial principle that informed their residence in japan, foreigners misperceived themselves as immune to japanese law and its enforcement. they imagined that when they sojourned in japan, it was as though they were at home in their native lands.61 japan was successful in its quest, for a series of scandals eventually embarrassed the diplomatic community into honoring japan’s position. in the celebrated middleton case, american john middleton shot the japanese policeman who attempted to apprehend him as he was illegally hunting—only to be acquitted by a consular court. in the bankoku shinbun incident, british newspaperman j. r. black was arrested and his press confiscated for publishing a newspaper in the japanese language. the japanese government prohibited foreigners from publishing japanese newspapers, because it feared that foreigners could be duped into spreading seditious propaganda for the “people’s rights” advocates; the british government had to agree. hence, by 1879, the foreign powers made a point of notifying their residents in japan that they were obliged to obey japanese laws: japanese territorial sovereignty was affirmed and consular jurisdiction 60 ōyama azusa, kyū jōyaku ka ni okeru kaishi kaikō no kenkyū (tokyo: otori shobō, 1967); and sumiyoshi yoshihito, “nihon ni okeru ryōjisaiban seido to sono teppai,” hōritsu ronsō (meiji daigaku) 43, no. 1 (august 1969): 23–74. 61 cassel argues that the situation in china was far less clear as to whether foreign residents were required to obey chinese law or not. see grounds of judgment, 85–94. 31the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 was returned to its narrow definition specified in the treaties. should a foreigner wish to hunt in japan, he had to possess a hunting license; should a foreigner wish to travel through japan, he or she could do so only with an official passport.62 conclusions violations of asian sovereignty on the part of european states and persons made explicit the legal relation between territory and sovereignty in the nineteenth century. this is not to assert that, prior to the intrusions of europeans into chinese and japanese territory, china or japan had no sense of their own territories or something akin to territorial sovereignty. rather, the practices of treaty making, extraterritorial foreign settlements, cessions and leases of land, and consular jurisdiction conspired to place a new layer of meaning upon territory and the sense of “home-land.” territory became the legal ground of the modern state and thereby, the homogenized territory marking a “nation state” or, in the case of the prc, a multinational “people’s state.” japan successfully opposed euro-american aggression in the nineteenth century, by developing the legal and political organization needed to impose jurisdiction within its own territory. japan thereby became one of the great powers and pursued its own agenda of colonialism in china and east asia. china, by contrast, struggled well beyond the collapse of its imperial government and endured foreign impunity until the 1949 revolution. only then did china begin to reverse those earlier violations of chinese territorial sovereignty. yet geopolitics today remain unsettled in east asia. japan never ended its war with the soviet union; as a result, it remains in dispute with russia over the kurile islands. the korean peninsula is divided between two opposed states, and taiwan’s future is unclear. meanwhile, we witness the challenge that china poses to international law and international relations as it recovers its status as a world power. the transition from sovereign to sovereignty has produced multiple effects on current analyses within international law, political science, and international relations. when scholars today discuss sovereignty as “legitimate dominion” within a territorially defined state, they re-map the powers of a monarch onto the contemporary state form.63 the sovereign is indeed connected to sovereignty, and this is why the figure of the king historically informs that of the state—recall hobbes’s famous frontispiece 62 see douglas howland, “an englishman’s right to hunt: territorial sovereignty and extraterritorial privilege in japan,” monde(s): histoire, espaces, relations, no. 1 (2012): 193–211; and howland, international law and japanese sovereignty, 49–72. 63 joan fitzpatrick, “sovereignty, territoriality, and the rule of law,” hastings international and comparative law review 25 (2002): 303–340, esp. 308–309. 32 territorial foundations of the sovereign state in east asia to leviathan. but that was centuries ago, and today, such an approach to sovereignty muddles more than it helps. does the state, like the king, have legitimate power over objects or property in its domain? to agree so readily encourages both the political scientist in his or her organizational analysis to reify “territorial exclusivity” as a mark of sovereignty, or the international lawyer to describe territory as the personal property of a state. this essay instead speaks of a state’s exclusive jurisdiction within its territory as a necessary goal. for this latter strategy allows us to begin to understand the processes of asserting jurisdiction within state territory. as the state obtains exclusive jurisdiction within its territory, the state achieves its sovereign and territorial basis. this, i argue, is the essence of sovereign statehood today. acknowledgements earlier drafts of this article were presented at the workshop “nation, race, and survival: transnational discourse and activism in the construction of the east asian modern,” at the university of connecticut, storrs, and to the departments of history and asian studies at the university of tennessee, knoxville. i thank peter zarrow, shellen wu, and their colleagues—as well as the anonymous peer reviewers for the journal—for their helpful suggestions. it is also a pleasure to thank the max-planck-institut für ausländisches öffentliches recht und völkerrecht, heidelberg, for support of my research and writing as i revised the article. 1 transcultural studies 2012.1 2012. 1 editors note rudolf g. wagner .04 on the occasion of the editor’s 70th birthday .06 monica juneja articles philipp stockhammer performing the practice turn in archaeology .07 derya bayır and prakash shah the legal adaptation of british settlers in turkey .43 roland wenzlhuemer and michael offermann ship newspapers and passenger life aboard transoceanic steamships in the late nineteenth century .77 series on multi-centred modernisms: shukla sawant instituting artists’ collectives: the bangalore/bengaluru experiments with “solidarity economies” .122 christine guth the multi-centered modernities of hokusai’s “under the wave off kanagawa" .150 2 contributors to this issue transcultural studies, no 1, 2012, issn: 2191-6411 editor: rudolf g. wagner, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg managing editor: andrea hacker editorial board: christiane brosius, harald fuess, madeleine herren, monica juneja, birgit kellner, joachim kurtz, axel michaels, and roland wenzlhuemer. transcultural studies is an open-access e-journal published bi-annually by the cluster of excellence, “asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows“ at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. for more information see: www.transculturalstudies.org contributors to this issue: philipp w. stockhammer is an archaeologist and works as a post-doctoral researcher at the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows” at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. his research focuses on the european and eastern mediterranean bronze age as well as archaeological theory and methodology. derya bayır is a member of glocul: centre for culture and law, queen mary, university of london, and a legal consultant at avci & yazici law firm in i̇stanbul specialising in international human rights and minority rights, criminal law, and the turkish legal system. prakash shah is director of glocul: centre for culture and law at queen mary, university of london. his research interests include legal pluralism, cultural diversity and law, and law and religion. roland wenzlhuemer is a research group leader at cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows” at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. he researches and teaches modern history with a particular focus on colonial and global history. michael offermann is an ma student of history and a student assistant at cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows” at the ruprecht-karls-universität 3 transcultural studies 2012.1 heidelberg. his research interests focus on colonial history but also extend to theories and methods of history from an interdisciplinary perspective. shukla sawant is a visual artist and an associate professor of visual studies at the school of arts and aesthetics, jawaharlal nehru university, new delhi.. she teaches courses on contemporary art and her research interests include art in colonial india, early modernism, and photography. christine guth is tutor in asia design history at the royal college of art and victoria and albert museum. her research has focused on the history of collecting in japan and across cultures. her current project is a study of the social life of hokusai’s “great wave.” 02_contributors 02_titel editorial note | transcultural studies editorial note this issue of transcultural studies brings together five fine studies with three different foci. each essay argues with its own modern countertext, which helps sharpen its profile and highlights its relevance for present-day scholarly and public debate. and all five open the door to new questions about processes of transcultural interaction and their dynamics. the articles by bernd schneidmüller and rudolph ng confront modern european and chinese historiographies and public perceptions with historical records that have been pruned so as not to disturb a unified vision—that of an unbroken continuity of european identity in the former case, and of the victimization of china by the great powers in the latter. once installed in their rightful place, these records bring forth new insights: schneidmüller reveals different and greatly shifting medieval notions of european identity formed in relation to other continents of the world; ng provides evidence of a close interaction between foreigners and chinese officials in securing china’s international interests, but also in convincing the peking court that it had a responsibility for the welfare even of lowly chinese coolies in cuba. the contributions by nikolas jaspert and benjamin zachariah focus on the definition of concepts that can be used to characterize transcultural actors and currents. both use a case study approach to substantiate their arguments. jaspert explores the notion of the cultural broker in mediating between political entities that were often committed to competing religions, while zachariah, by uncovering the close connections between indian nationalists and german national socialists, argues for recasting our concept of fascism by discarding its eurocentric frame so as to accommodate the transcultural interactions characteristic of this particular ideological repertoire. joyce brodsky has cooperated with two artists, one, rohini devasher, sojourning in new delhi, the other, anjali deshmukh, in new york, to explore transculturality as a lived process of crossing boundaries. in their life, work, and thinking, both artists are highly articulate actors who consciously live in a world where transcultural interaction is an accepted feature of everyday life. and yet, these normalized interactions still sit uneasily within inherited structures that are characterized by multiple and often overlapping boundaries: conceptual frames such as those demarcating the notions of art, science, or virtual realities; institutionalized structures such as nation-states, traditions, or museums, or ingrained expectations of the artist as the proactive performer and the spectator as the passive recipient. their dialogue with the art historian shows that their multiple crossings of boundaries proactively react to the pressures they feel from the persistent boundaries framing art. while all of the contributions draw their conclusions from detailed source-based research, they also invite us to undertake further explorations. how, in the gradual formation of the consciousness of a world that encompassed the entire globe, did other geographically, culturally, religiously, ethnically, or even climatically circumscribed entities such as the “muslim” or “buddhist” world, “persia”, “east asia”, “india,” or “asia” define themselves and each other and what was the range of changing or competing conceptions that were articulated? how did these articulations interact with each other? what came about when, for example, “europeans” perused early arab and persian travelogues or the world map that muhammad al-idrisi drew for the norman ruler roger ii in palermo? what were, furthermore, the conceptual underpinnings of identifying these entities beyond the empty geographical signifier? and how were frames—such as the idea of climate as a determining factor—in turn negotiated in transcultural interactions? how did the europeans become “white” or the chinese “yellow” without themselves noticing or being asked? demonstrating the crucial role played by foreign nationals and even diplomats in an interactive process involving chinese gangs and court officials that both started and ended the shipping of chinese coolie labor to latin america opens the door to a range of important as well as intriguing questions: was there indeed—and more than simply in principle—a level field for different nation states in the evolving system of international law so that even the great powers would support the cause of a weaker nation against one of their own if they felt it had a case? how does the judgment on the merits of the chinese case relate to the standard of civilization that became codified in international law at this time? what was the role of these foreign nationals in recasting the qing court’s perception of its responsibilities towards even the lowliest of its citizens in far-away cuba? was there a global levelling process that gradually entitled human beings—whatever their station and place—to some basic rights and what forms of activity and organization developed to help enforce this entitlement? what notion of its own responsibilities towards its people did the chinese court have, and how did it react to and interact with the notions gradually encoded into international law?  the cultural brokers discussed by jaspert mediate across frontiers, perceived by both sides as a dividing line between themselves and potentially hostile others. it is a role that was useful and perhaps even profitable, but because the purpose of these brokers was to mediate compromises rather than win decisive victories, it came with little glory and was often taken on by people with little standing in the official hierarchy. the fact that rulers around the medieval mediterranean made active use of such brokers shows that to them the familiar modern narrative of a medieval mediterranean world defined by endless hostile conflict, which was interrupted by short phases of exhausted peace, and the notion of mediators as haloed peace-bringers would not have sounded fitting. the metaphorical concept of the broker as used by jaspert successfully groups a wide range of historical actors with limited institutional power—merchants, mercenaries, women, slaves, monks—based on their specific function in transcultural and transnational interaction. his study invites further exploration of the potential of this concept as an explanatory category in transcultural studies beyond its use in political and legal negotiations. many of its core features (such as trust, protection from both sides, perceived usefulness, and value in facilitating interaction) also apply to a range of other actants including objects, practices, and concepts. one might even say that liminal areas, such as the mediterranean sea or frontiers, can act as brokers because they are accessible and known to both sides and facilitate communication between them without being committed to either. transcultural interaction does not take place in a utopian dreamland with everyone on his or her best behavior and harboring only the best intentions. it is often most intense in areas where one might like to see less of it. this certainly is the case with fascism, an ideological current with followers around the world during the inter-war years, which, after the second world war, was recast as the direct precursor of auschwitz. communist critics followed the directives of the comintern and branded their opponents according to a single perspective that saw fascism everywhere as a reaction of the same range of domestic forces to the same range of domestic problems and opponents. in doing so, they disregarded both the hugely different local conditions and origins of fascist movements in places such as india, the us, italy, iraq, chile, germany, england, france, japan, or china, and the actual interaction among these movements regardless of their inherent differences. while this interaction shows that the involved actors consciously shared a “fascist” mindset (which was also the view of their communist opponents as well as the various secret services tracking the activities of both of them) or were testing its fit for their own agenda, zachariah’s study of the indian subcontinent prompts us to ask: what was the main anchor for fascism’s attractiveness for the different actors espousing fascist ideas and connecting to fascist organizations? was it, for example in india and other british colonies, nazi polemics against british imperialism, going by the motto “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” (which has no intrinsic connection to fascism) rather than the claim to being part of a herrenrasse? was it, for example in china, not nazi antisemitism but fascism’s promise to provide an ideology for the masses that could turn them against communism as well as offer forms of organization and propaganda that could match communist efforts in these fields? and how was china to negotiate fascism linked to nazi germany while fighting against a japanese occupation, given that germany and japan were both part of the axis alliance and japan was advertising its role in china as liberating it from the communist menace? how did ideological affinity and political calculation or even philosophy interact to have a sizeable contingent of indian volunteers fight on the german side against the soviet union and to have bose’s indian national army try to liberate india from british colonial rule by marching into northern india with the japanese imperial army? and, last but not least, how can we explain the place of hitler’s mein kampf at the top of the indian bestseller list in our days? crossing boundaries,as brodsky’s article shows, is a provocative, creative, and liberating act. in all three aspects it can be constitutive of modern art and live up to its purpose. but crossing boundaries presupposes the boundary and the question is whether the crossing is as dependent on the boundaries as the boundaries are on the crossing. evidently, there are many boundaries out there that cannot be eliminated by fiat and many more that one would rather not want to eliminate. (a human being randomly spraying pedestrians with bullets crosses boundaries of humane and legal behavior that one rather might want to keep in place.) in fields such as art, performance, fiction, or philosophy there are few hard obstacles to such crossings but the soft boundaries of tradition and habit, often reinforced by rewarding compliance and punishing transgression, can become formidable constraints. the field of transcultural studies as a whole crosses boundaries as a matter of course, while greatly benefitting from work done within the traditional boundaries of academic fields. crossing boundaries unwittingly depends on and contributes to the perpetuation of these very same boundaries. the problem comes to a head in brodsky’s discussion and the artistic practice of anjali deshmukh and rohini devasher with boris groys’ theory of the institution of the museum. groys argued that actual or potential museumization was a key marker that separated art from objects as well as originals from copies, a process that recasts objects as “art”. it has also been a key feature in the validation of objects for the art market. does crossing the boundaries of the museum into public spaces or the world wide web provide a critical view of the limits of the museum, or does it aim at the elimination of this institution, and if so, will there be any markers of art and what would they be? the article prompts us to come to terms with differences in the kinds of boundaries as well as the dialectics between boundaries and their crossing. transcultural studies is looking forward to further discussions of these issues. rudolf g. wagner conceptualizing sorrow and hope: the discourse of han in south korea hye lim nam, ruprecht-karls universität, heidelberg bodily memory of pain is easily erased but the wound of the heart grows ever worse it departs and returns and stares at me deep in the night not only stares but weeps sadly shakes from anger or embraces despair the pain of the body is sensory but the wound of the heart in touch with the essence of life is perhaps what is called han han by pak kyŏngni1 introduction in the summer of 1983, a reporter from the kyunghyang shinmun, a major daily korean newspaper, traveled to wonju to interview pak kyŏngni, a prominent writer considered by some as “the mother of korean literature.”2 the occasion for this interview was the publication 1 pak kyŏngni 박경리, pŏrigo kal kŏnman namasŏ ch’am holgabunhada 버리고 갈 것만 남아서 참 홀가분하다 [i leave light-heartedly with nothing left to keep] (seoul: maroniebuksŭ 마로니에북스, 2008), 106, my translation. 2 ch’oe chaepong 최재봉, “pak kyŏngni t’agye…sunanŭi minjoksa p’umŭn ‘han’gungmunhak ŏmŏni’ 박경리 타계…수난의 민족사 품은 ‘한국문학 어머니’ [pak kyŏngri passes away…the ‘mother of korean literature’],” hankyoreh 한겨레, may 5, 2008, accessed august 15, 2018, http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/society/obituary/285931.html. 55 of the fourth volume of what became pak’s five-part, sixteen-volume historical epic called t’oji 토지 (land), a story spanning five generations of a rural landowning family in the politically turbulent late nineteenth and twentieth centuries and set in japan, korea, china, and russia.3 in the course of their discussion, pak expanded on a concept that she considered a major theme running throughout her work: “the meaning of han is not limited to sadness or mournfulness. that may be part of han, but han itself is deeper and more fundamental. every living thing in the world possesses some degree of han and lives to resolve it. that is why han can also be a source of strength and a creative, life-steering energy.” the reporter went on to explain how each character among the hundreds in t’oji had to live with their own form of han.4 in the mid-1990s, t’oji was translated into english for the first time as part of a unesco effort to collect representative literary works worldwide. under the title “trapped by han: land,” a los angeles times reviewer wrote: “like the 19th century russian writers who gave us glimpses into the russian character, pak explores the korean soul. central to land is han, which has no english equivalent. han, the korean tenet of an eternal woe, unrequited love and unending hope, lives in all pak’s characters.”5 straddling essentialist and nationalist tones, han has been understood as a prominent and unique emotional feature of korean identity not only in the literary field but also in other academic fields. despite its widespread use, its meaning has been difficult to pin down and has thus led to various broad and contradictory claims regarding its nature, cause, and function. han as an emotion concept han 한 derives from the sino-korean character 恨 and is, arguably, not a specifically korean word, concept, or characteristic, especially in the context of other asian languages and areas where chinese script is used. it has, however, developed a contemporary “ethnonationalist” and essentialist 3 sowon s. park, “an unknown masterpiece: on pak kyŏngni’s land and world literature,” european review 23, no. 3 (2015): 433, doi: 10.1017/s1062798715000113. 4 “<t’oji>ŭi chakka pak kyŏngnissirŭl ch’aja <토지>의 작가 박경리씨를 찾아 [visiting pak kyŏngri, author of t’oji],” kyunghyang shinmun 경향신문, june 3, 1983, accessed august 15, 2018, https://newslibrary.naver.com/viewer/index.nhn. 5 k. connie kang, “trapped by han: land,” los angeles times, september 15, 1996, accessed august 20, 2018, http://articles.latimes.com/1996-09-15/books/bk-43990_1_park-kyong-ni. 56 conceptualizing sorrow and hope: the discourse of han in south korea significance in korea.6 the emotion concept7 has been discussed and used individually and collectively with variable force and meaning depending on its historical context. the following is a concise compilation of key studies that have attempted to define han in the literary and academic spheres. in the 1980s, poet and activist ko ŭn 고은 wrote: “we cannot deny that we were born from the womb of han and raised in the bosom of han.”8 ko viewed han as a negative emotion accumulated over korea’s history through the peninsula’s experience of foreign aggression, colonization, and poverty.9 linguist chŏng taehyŏn 정대현 wrote that due to its long period of accumulation, han has not easily disappeared; it is independent of an object or a cause, and it is experienced passively, like a bodily ache.10 chŏng also emphasized that han is the sorrow of helpless victims such as women oppressed by chosŏn-period confucian values and social structures.11 in contrast, literary scholar ch’ŏn idu 천이두 drew out the positive aspect of han, arguing that it “has both negativity and transcendence nested within it.”12 ch’ŏn viewed han as a multifaceted emotional “complex” that contained both “bright” and “dark” sides as well as both affection, chŏng 정 情, and resentment, wŏn 원 怨.13 in the 1990s, inquiries into shamanism in korean folk culture pointed to han as a crucial cause for being drawn to shamanism, according to 6 sandra so hee chi kim, “korean han and the postcolonial afterlives of ‘the beauty of sorrow,’” korean studies 41 (2017): 257, doi:10.1353/ks.2017.0026. 7 the term “emotion concept,” as used by margrit pernau, views emotions not as stable objects but as embodied conceptual “indicators” and “factors of a changing reality” based on the experience and interpretation of materiality. see “introduction,” contributions to the history of concepts 11, no. 1 (2016): 25, doi:10.3167/choc.2016.110102. 8 chi kim, “korean han,” 255. 9 kim tongkyu 김동규, “han’gukchŏk uurŭi chŏngch’e: han(恨)kwa mellangk’olli sai 한국적 우울의 정체: 한(恨)과 멜랑콜리 사이 [the identity of korean depression: between han (恨) and melancholy],” hegel yŏn’gu 헤겔연구 [hegel studies] 37 (2015): 299. doi:10.17281/ khegel.2015..37.010. 10 chŏng taehyŏn 정대현, “han(恨)ŭi kaenyŏmjŏk kujo 한(恨)의 개념적 구조 [the conceptual structure of han],” han’guk munhwa yŏn’guwŏn 한국문화연구원 [journal of korean culture studies] 6 (1985): 70. 11 chŏng, “hanŭi kaenyŏmjŏk kujo,” 72–75. 12 chi kim, “korean han,” 256. 13 ch’ŏn idu 천이두, “‘han(恨)’ŭi kujoe taehayŏ ‘한(恨)’의 구조에 대하여 [on the structure of han],” hyŏndae munhak iron yŏn’gu 현대문학이론연구 [the journal of modern literary theory] 3 (1993): 171. 57the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 cultural anthropologist ch’oe kilssŏng 최길성.14 writer and former minister of culture i ŏryŏng 이어령 gave a series of lectures compiled into a book linking the economic success of south korea with the shamanic ecstasy derived from the resolution of han.15 in the late 1980s and 1990s, psychiatrist min sŏngkil 민성길 published and presented his psychiatric findings on han identifying it as a “uniquely korean psychological state” linked to a physical malady called hwa-byung 화병 (fire-illness). he called for an “ethnic psychiatry” that would identify uniquely korean socio-cultural factors to treat patients.16 as this brief overview of existing literature attests, the understanding, perception, and application of han have been varied and often contradictory. some of the main tensions nested within the emotion concept based on relevant literature include the following: han is an emotion afflicting the socially disadvantaged—especially women and the working classes—while claiming applicability to the whole of korean society. han cannot be fully comprehended by non-koreans and it cannot be translated accurately, although other people with a history of foreign aggression may feel han and not recognize it as such, making it both universal and unique. han is both sorrow and hope. it is both negative and positive. such broad and ambiguous claims regarding the emotion concept of han underline the contentiousness and complexity of its vocabulary and discourse. despite—or perhaps because of—this ambiguity, han has been able to play a significant role in shaping korea’s realm of experience. an emotion’s tangible, lived experience is closely bound to its discourse, since the vocabulary of emotion is inextricably tied to its social experience and expectation. thus, as the language of han increased and diversified in its formulation, it has arguably affected the way individuals and groups feel and express themselves over time. additionally, the more han has been written and theorized about, the greater and more legitimate its vocabulary has become. the primary sources examined here are two essays from a collection titled hanŭi iyagi 恨의 이야기 (the story of han), published in 1988. the first text, 14 soyoung suh, “stories to be told: korean doctors between hwa-byung (fire-illness) and depression, 1970–2011,” culture, medicine and psychiatry 37, no. 1 (2013): 88, doi:10.1007/s11013012-9291-x. 15 i ŏryŏng 이어령, kŭraedo paramgaebinŭn tonda 그래도 바람개비는 돈다 [still the pinwheel turns] (seoul: tonghwasŏjŏk 동화서적, 1992), 238. 16 suh, “stories to be told,” 87–88. 58 conceptualizing sorrow and hope: the discourse of han in south korea “hanŭi kŭkpokŭl wihayŏ” 恨의 극복을 위하여 (towards the overcoming of han), is an essay first published in 1980 by the poet ko ŭn. the second text, “hane taehan minjungsahoehakchŏk shiron” 한(恨)에 대한 민중사회학적 시론 (essay on han and minjung sociology), is an essay first published in 1987 by sociologists han wansang 한완상 and kim sŏngki 김성기. ko, han, and kim have creatively formulated the meaning, value, and application of han in an attempt to redefine and establish korean culture, identity, and history. arguably, these interpretations, which build upon one another, show that han is neither stable nor timeless and that its meaning and value have been wide-ranging, even among contemporaries. this article does not attempt to pinpoint exactly when, where, and by whose authority the notion of han came into existence, if that were possible at all. the word han existed in the korean vocabulary as a sino-korean character, as previously mentioned, before the emergence of the presently examined discourse. it would also be a misleading claim to simply consider it a twentieth-century construct seized by korean intellectuals in the postwar years to construct a national identity, as this would overlook the lived experiences of those who have actually felt this emotion. what this article attempts to address are the different interpretations of han based on a close reading of two texts to uncover how its authors endeavored to imbue the emotion concept with a sense of urgency and agency. this article is based on written material and intends to comparatively approach the aforementioned texts to disclose some of the underlying presuppositions and conceptual tensions that deserve closer scrutiny. the analysis will be categorized temporally, according to past, present, and future dimensions of the writers’ interpretations of han. ideological demystification is not the ending to the story but rather the hope to better understand how the tensions within han opened up a discursive space that allowed different agents to conceptually engage with this emotion. ultimately, the goal is to examine what the writers attempted to do with the emotion concept of han. the theoretical impulse upon which this article is based has to do with the critical relationship between emotions, concepts, and history as proposed by ute frevert, margrit pernau, and imke rajamani. ute frevert has laid out two basic premises in her introductory text to geschichte der gefühle: (1) emotions make history. gefühle machen geschichte. they motivate and deter actions, form and destroy communities, and allow and disrupt communication. (2) emotions are not only able to make history (geschichtsmächtig) but also have histories of their 59the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 own (geschichtsträchtig). they are not constant but rather changing in expression, object, and value.17 emotions and their vocabularies are embedded in particular spatial and temporal contexts that lend them meaning; they are not passive descriptors and instead actively form and project what they describe.18 the language of emotion “mirrors cultural conventions and social norms. but it also allows [historians] to read back what people actually felt, wanted to feel, or meant to feel. and they impart an insight into the transience of emotions, in their historicity and temporality (zeitgebundenheit).”19 han will be treated as both emotion and concept here—as a temporally and spatially grounded subject of both conceptual history and emotion history. such a perspective, which aims to “expand conceptual history beyond language” through “concepts of emotion,” has been suggested by margrit pernau and imke rajamani.20 pernau and rajamani have argued that emotions play an important role in conceptual change and aim to “bring conceptual history and the history of emotions into a dialogue from which both will profit,”21 a view that is regarded as important and necessary in this article. based on frevert’s emphasis on the place of emotion within history as well as pernau’s and rajamani’s stress on the potential of emotions as agents of conceptual change, han is regarded in this article as an emotion concept that has a history just as much as it is a part of it, as a case study exemplifying how emotion and reason are entangled and not opposed,22 and as a concept that can create as well as embody change. by analyzing how han has been interpreted and explicated in different ways by different intellectuals, this article hopes to contribute to its discourse by arguing that han is a contested and multifaceted emotion concept in history. by situating it in a particular historical context and examining its contradictions, it also seeks to challenge common essentialist, ethnonational perceptions. 17 ute frevert, “was haben gefühle in der geschichte zu suchen?” geschichte und gesellschaft 35, no. 2 (2009): 207. 18 ute frevert, vergängliche gefühle (göttingen: wallstein verlag, 2013), 11–12. 19 frevert, vergängliche gefühle, 15. 20 margrit pernau and imke rajamani, “emotional translations: conceptual history beyond language,” history and theory 55, no. 1 (2016): 46. 21 pernau and rajamani, “emotional translations,” 47. 22 pernau and rajamani, “emotional translations,” 55. 60 conceptualizing sorrow and hope: the discourse of han in south korea han and the minjung movement out of the many historical moments in which han has been discussed, one of the significant periods in which it conveyed momentum as a concept of change was during the minjung movement in the 1970s and 1980s.23 han was crucially linked to this movement by various writers who saw the suffering of the people due to political, economic, and social oppression as a central element in the minjung realm of experience.24 this connection between han and minjung is a prominent feature that threads together the collection of essays in the story of han. minjung 민중, roughly translated as “people,” “proletariat,” or “folk,”25 was a highly debated idea that came into public focus as a result of the adjustments in the state–society relationship after a successful military coup d’état led by pak chŏnghŭi 박정희 in 1961.26 the ensuing regime, which prioritized rapid industrialization and repressive strategies of control, birthed groups of dissidents that looked to minjung as a rallying concept.27 though its contours were contested by groups influenced by differing ideologies and the role that intellectuals envisioned for themselves in relation to it changed over time, the general consensus among its advocates was that minjung did not include all korean nationals, that it excluded the wealthy and those with political power or privileges, and denounced foreign influence.28 it has been argued that the flexibility and inclusivity of the concept gave it a greater practical relevance in social movements, which continuously reinterpreted the concept according 23 kim jin 김진, “han(恨)iran muŏsin’ga 한(恨)이란 무엇인가? [what is han?],” in han(恨)ŭi hakchejŏk yŏn’gu 한(恨)의 학제적 연구 [interdisciplinary studies of han], ed. sin ch’angsŏk 신창석 (seoul: ch’ŏrhakkwa hyŏnsilssa 철학과 현실사, 2004), 12. 24 kim yŏngp’il 김영필, “hanŭi hyŏnsang hakchŏk punsŏk 한의 현상학적 분석 [phenomenological analysis of han]” in han(恨)ŭi hakchejŏk yŏn’gu 한(恨)의 학제적 연구 [interdisciplinary studies of han], ed. sin ch’angsŏk 신창석 (seoul: ch’ŏrhakkwa hyŏnsilssa 철학과 현실사, 2004), 212. 25 o seyŏng 오세영, “80nyŏndae han’gugŭi minjungsi 80년대 한국의 민중시 [minjung poetry in the 1980s],” han’guk hyŏndae munhak yŏn’gu 한국현대문학연구 [the journal of korean modern literature] 9 (june 2001): 138, http://www.dbpia.co.kr/article/node00586933. 26 chang sangch’ŏl 장상철, “1970nyŏndae ‘minjung’ kaenyŏmŭi chaedŭngjang 1970년대 ‘민중’ 개념의 재등장 [reemergence of the ‘minjung’ concept in the 1970s],” kyŏngjewa sahoe 경제와 사회 [economy and society] 74 (june 2007): 118–119, http://www.dbpia.co.kr/article/node00837729. 27 chang, “1970nyŏndae ‘minjung’ kaenyŏmŭi chaedŭngjang,” 119. 28 o, “80nyŏndae han’gugŭi minjungsi,” 141. 61the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 to the situation.29 most minjung movement activists advocated for an “ideal democratic society” in opposition to authoritarian rule,30 although there certainly were socialists who used the term “proletariat.”31 the term minjung had been used in the context of japanese colonial rule to refer to the korean people in opposition to the japanese people, as exemplified in the 1923 korean revolutionary manifesto by sin ch’aeho 신채호,32 but its usage since the 1970s has revolved around a distinct sense of purpose—an urgent need to establish a minjung-centric society and an effort to reinterpret korean history based on their resistance to oppressive rule.33 the movement’s central premise was that the minjung were the principal and rightful agents of society and of history.34 groups of intellectuals differed on whether they themselves were part of the minjung or separate from them, but nevertheless compelled to help them realize their own political agency.35 in the 1970s, they tended to see their role as educators, awakening the “sleeping” minjung to realize their historical agency; in the 1980s, the intellectuals increasingly thought of themselves as a part of the minjung.36 han was a central theme in the writings of minjung movement intellectuals. poet kim chiha 김지하, whose unwavering critical stance was inspired by his catholic faith37 and whose works were influential to many minjung theologians,38 was one of the leading figures of the minjung movement. starting with “five bandits,” a poem that led to his arrest in may 1970, he suffered multiple subsequent beatings and arrests, later 29 cho taeyŏp 조대엽, “kwangju hangjaenggwa 80nyŏndaeŭi sahoe undong munhwa 광주항쟁과 80년대의 사회운동문화 [gwangju uprising and the culture of social movements in 1980],” minjujuŭiwa in’gwŏn 민주주의와 인권 [journal of democracy and human rights] 3, no. 1 (2003): 197. http://www. dbpia.co.kr/article/node00504847. 30 o, “80nyŏndae han’gugŭi minjungsi,” 143. 31 o, “80nyŏndae han’gugŭi minjungsi,” 142. 32 chang, “1970nyŏndae ‘minjung’ kaenyŏmŭi chaedŭngjang,” 119. 33 chang, “1970nyŏndae ‘minjung’ kaenyŏmŭi chaedŭngjang,” 136. 34 chang, “1970nyŏndae ‘minjung’ kaenyŏmŭi chaedŭngjang,” 128. 35 chang, “1970nyŏndae ‘minjung’ kaenyŏmŭi chaedŭngjang,” 135. 36 chang, “1970nyŏndae ‘minjung’ kaenyŏmŭi chaedŭngjang,” 136. 37 kyung moon hwang, a history of korea, (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2010), 247. 38 mun tonghwan 문동환, “kim chihaŭi ‘ojŏk’ minjung sinhak chaech’ok 김지하의 ‘오적’ 민중신학 재촉 [chiha kim’s ‘five bandits’ prompts minjung theology],” hankyoreh 한겨레, august 26, 2008, accessed october 26, 2018. http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/society/society_general/306754.html. 62 conceptualizing sorrow and hope: the discourse of han in south korea coming close to being executed by pak’s regime.39 in 1971, he wrote in “satire or suicide” that the ceaseless violence inflicted on the minjung and the resulting accumulated experience of sorrow produced han. this han was the foundation on which poetic resistance was based.40 ko ŭn 고은, also a poet and a former buddhist monk, whose writings carried a certain “buddhist sensibility” as kim’s works had with catholicism, wrote various socially conscious poems in the 1970s and 1980s, such as “arrows” (1977), which called for democratic activists to leave behind everything for the sole purpose of “advancing with all our might” towards an envisioned political struggle.41 he saw the tragic pain of han accumulated in the minjung as a passive emotion that cannot lead to a will to reform—as kim chiha believed—especially in his essay “towards the overcoming of han.”42 minjung theology was an activist ideology and “theology of praxis” that drew its divine knowledge from the experience of the oppressed and marginalized and gained their energy from han.43 as its main proponent, sŏ namtong 서남동 proclaimed himself to be a “medium” or “prophet of han” in his 1983 publication titled a study of minjung theology.44 minjung sociology, according to han wansang 한완상, was “conceived and raised in a site of suffering” and emerged as a kind of social diagnosis and potential prescription to treat this pain.45 his critique of social inequality and national division between north and south as well as advocacy of democratic ideals were influential in the social movements into the 1980s.46 kim sŏngki 김성기, who coauthored papers with han, was part of the next generation of scholars influenced by minjung 39 hwang, a history of korea, 236–237. 40 chang, “1970nyŏndae ‘minjung’ kaenyŏmŭi chaedŭngjang,” 120. 41 hwang, a history of korea, 242. 42 kim, “haniran muŏsin’ga,” 24. 43 donald n. clark, “growth and limitations of minjung christianity,” in south korea’s minjung movement, ed. kenneth m. wells, (honolulu: university of hawai‘i press, 1995), 92. 44 sŏ namtong 서남동, “hanŭi saje 한의 사제 [prophet of han],” in minjung sinhagŭi t’amgu 민중신학의 탐구 [a study of minjung theology] (seoul: hangilsa, 1983). 45 chŏng supok 정수복, “han wansanggwa pip’an sahoehagŭi hyŏngsŏng 한완상과 비판사회학의 형성 [han wansang and the making of critical sociology in korea],” han’guk sahoehakhoe 한국사회학회 [the korean sociological association] 51, no. 1 (2017): 389, http://www.dbpia.co.kr/ article/node07117666. 46 chŏng, “han wansanggwa pip’an sahoehagŭi hyŏngsŏng,” 368. 63the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 sociology.47 han and kim later wrote about han in “essay on han and minjung sociology,” viewing it as a potential catalyst for social change.48 i hyojae 이효재 regarded han as an emotion borne most acutely by women on behalf of the minjung and argued that han represented the afflictions of the weak more generally. by drawing attention to the historical and societal oppression of women, she called for a “new image of women” that does not consider han as a given female instinct or social fate.49 interest in han thus spread through various fields of study as minjung movement frontrunners employed it as a lens for social scrutiny and as a magnifier for the suffering caused by structural violence. minjung and han were strategically connected by various writers who lent these concepts increasing political significance. foremost among these were ko, han, and kim, whose essays on han were published together in a collection in the late 1980s. the story of han in 1988, a selection of fourteen essays on the subject of han was assembled and published under the title hanŭi iyagi 한의 이야기, or the story of han. a three-part collection concerning the nature, structure, and resolution of han, these essays were meant to serve as a foundation for further research according to its editor, sŏ kwangsŏn 서광선.50 contributions from the fields of psychology, literature, sociology, politics, theology, and women’s studies had been published in various books and journals between the late 1970s and the mid 1980s, a period marked by dictatorships, censorship, mass demonstrations, and the rise of the minjung movement in south korea. of particular interest here are two of its essays, which are addressed to the writers’ peers, urging them to advance their understanding of minjung experience and of han. the authors of these texts are concerned with democratization, unification, and nation building in a broader sense, attempting to situate korea in the world through the crafting of an emotional identity. 47 chŏng, “han wansanggwa pip’an sahoehagŭi hyŏngsŏng,” 390. 48 han wansang 한완상 and kim sŏngki 김성기, “han(恨)e taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron 한(恨)에 대한 민중사회학적 시론 [essay on han in minjung sociology],” in hyŏndae chabonjuŭiwa kongdongch’e 현대자본주의와 공동체이론 [modern capitalism and community theory], ed. seoul university sociological research group, (seoul: hangilsa 한길사, 1980). 49 i hyojae 이효재, “han’guk yŏinŭi han 한국 여인의 한 [the han of korean women],” yŏsŏnggwa sahoe 여성과 사회 [woman and society], seoul: jungwoosa, 1978. 50 sŏ kwangsŏn 서광선, “mŏrimal: 恨maech’in saram, 恨 maech’in minjok 머리말: 恨 맺힌 사람, 恨 맺힌 민족 [preface: han-filled people, han-filled nation],” in hanŭi iyagi 한의 이야기 [the story of han], ed. sŏ kwangsŏn 서광선 (seoul: borhee press, 1988), 8. 64 conceptualizing sorrow and hope: the discourse of han in south korea the first essay, “towards the overcoming of han,” was written by poet and activist ko ŭn. he wrote during a time of national crises, becoming “awakened” to the political reality following the act of self-immolation of garment-worker chŏn t’aeil 전태일 in 197051 and the implementation of a constitutional dictatorship in 1972.52 ko became a leading figure in the struggle for democracy, human rights, national unity, and the minjung movement as attested by various leadership roles in the association of writers for practical freedom (1974), the national association for the recovery of democracy (1974), the korean association of human rights (1978), and the association of national unity (1979).53 he served several prison terms and experienced detention and torture under the watch of the korean central intelligence agency.54 following the assassination of president pak chŏnghŭi 박정희 in october 1979 and the successful coup led by chŏn tuhwan 전두환 in december of that year, laborers and students demonstrated en masse against chŏn’s takeover during the so-called “seoul spring” in early 1980. groups of dissidents had been rallying around opposition leader (and future president) kim taejung 김대중, meeting regularly to discuss their views of the state, plan countermeasures, and exchange information.55 on may 15, 1980, one hundred thousand protesters—mostly students—demonstrated in front of seoul station.56 that same day, the “declaration of 134 intellectuals” was issued in public opposition to chŏn’s regime, which included ko ŭn’s and seoul university professor han wansang’s names.57 on may 17, martial law was forcibly extended to the whole country, campuses were shut down, and kim, ko, han, and many others were arrested and tortured under sedition and conspiracy 51 “chronology,” ko ŭn, accessed november 21, 2018, http://koun.co.kr/koun/chronology.html. 52 hwang, a history of korea, 236–237. 53 anthony of taizé, “ko un: korean poet, world poet,” translations of korean literature by brother anthony of taizé, accessed november 21, 2018, http://anthony.sogang.ac.kr/kounbio.htm. 54 “ko un,” the griffin trust for excellence in poetry, accessed november 21, 2018, http://www. griffinpoetryprize.com/awards-and-poets/lifetime-recognition-award/ko-un/. 55 han namgyu 한남규, “sigi kidarimyŏ naesil tajyŏ – kim taejungssi 시기 기다리며 내실 다져김대중씨 [kim taejung, ensuring internal stability while waiting for the right moment],” chungang ilbo 중앙일보, april 17, 1980, accessed november 22, 2018. https://news.joins.com/article/1534768. 56 hwang, a history of korea, 263. 57 “1980nyŏndae ch’o chisigin siguksŏnŏn 1980년대 초 지식인 시국선언 [early 1980s declaration of intellectuals],” minjuhwa undong kinyŏmsaŏphoe 민주화운동기념사업회 [korea democracy foundation], accessed november 23, 2018, http://www.610.or.kr/board/content/page/40/post/384?. 65the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 charges.58 the demonstrations culminated on may 18 with the kwangju uprising, a student protest that turned into a bloody civil movement lasting ten days, during which a brutal government crackdown killed over two hundred and injured hundreds more.59 that was also the year in which ko’s essay, “towards the overcoming of han,” was first published. given the political backdrop of tireless demonstrations by students, intellectuals, laborers, and other activists, a minjung movement gaining traction and running the gamut of academic discourses, and with the challenging tasks of democratization and unification ahead, ko’s broad, radical, and uncompromising style and content seem to encapsulate south korea’s zeitgeist of the 1970s and 1980s, as will be examined in further detail in this article. the second text, “essay on han and minjung sociology,” coauthored by han wansang and kim sŏngki 김성기, was first published in early 1987. social critic and activist han wansang was twice relieved of his professorship at seoul national university in the 1970s for his involvement in the democratic movement, especially after reading an anti-government declaration in 1975.60 along with many other opposition leaders, han was imprisoned in 1980 under conspiracy charges.61 he was invited to emory university as a visiting professor after his release “to ensure his personal safety,” effectively living in exile only to return a couple of years later as democratic movements were starting to build momentum.62 in the 1960s, han had studied and taught in the southern united states. there, he was exposed to the civil rights movement and the anti-vietnam war protests, events that deepened his commitment to social reform back home.63 han later wove together “western theory” and the concept of minjung,64 striving to make the tools of sociology more applicable to 58 hwang, a history of korea, 263. 59 hwang, a history of korea, 264. 60 kim p’ansu 김판수, “han wansang puch’ongninŭn nugu? 한완상 부총리는 누구? [who is deputy prime minister han wansang?],” kyunghyang shinmun 경향신문, january 29, 2001, accessed november 30, 2018. http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?art_id=200101291915401. 61 kim, “han wansang puch’ongninŭn nugu?” 62 “han wan-sang,” emory university, accessed november 30, 2018, http://www.emoryhistory. emory.edu/facts-figures/people/makers-history/profiles/han.html. 63 chŏng, “han wansanggwa pip’an sahoehagŭi hyŏngsŏng,” 367. 64 kim hogi 김호기, “han wansangŭi ‘minjunggwa chisigin’ 한완상의 ‘민중과 지식인’ [han wansang’s ‘the minjung and the intellectual’],” hankook ilbo 한국일보, october 8, 2018, accessed november 30, 2018, http://m.hankookilbo.com/news/read/201810071104343156. 66 conceptualizing sorrow and hope: the discourse of han in south korea korea’s current situation.65 along with minjung theology and minjung literature, the field of minjung sociology that he spearheaded greatly influenced scholarly debates in the 1970s and 1980s, especially his works the minjung and the intellectual and minjung sociology.66 cultural critic and professor kim sŏngki was part of a subsequent generation of minjung sociologists, publishing studies on minjung and subjecthood in the late 1980s as well as collaborating with han on “an essay on han and minjung sociology,” published in february 1987.67 the year 1987 was a year of political breakthrough in south korea, as chŏn tuhwan 전두환 succumbed to domestic and foreign pressure and assented to a direct presidential election.68 the memory of the 1980 kwangju uprising—kept alive through underground networks even as the chŏn regime maintained official silence surrounding the “incident”—the slowdown of the economy, and the overthrow of ferdinand marcos in the philippines in 1986 fueled the resistance against the authoritarian system.69 when chŏn declared that a parliamentary election would follow the end of the term in june 1987 to ensure the succession of his preferred candidate, over a million demonstrators—students, laborers, and activists, joined this time by “salary workers, managers, housewives” and other middle class people—flooded the streets throughout the country.70 earlier in january, it had come to light that pak chongch’ŏl 박종철, a linguistics student at seoul national university suspected of anti-government activities, had died from torture in police custody despite the authorities’ botched attempts to conceal the truth.71 this event, which shocked and galvanized the nation, moved han wansang to write the following in the joongang daily: “as his contemporary, as a professor, as a parent dismayed by the speechlessness of pak’s han-filled father, we eagerly await the day of freedom, the day of justice that will burst forth the 65 chŏng, “han wansanggwa pip’an sahoehagŭi hyŏngsŏng,” 367–368. 66 kim, “han wansangŭi ‘minjunggwa chisigin.’” 67 chŏng, “han wansanggwa pip’an sahoehagŭi hyŏngsŏng,” 390. 68 hwang, a history of korea, 262. 69 hwang, a history of korea, 265–266. 70 hwang, a history of korea, 267. 71 clyde haberman, “seoul student’s torture death changes political landscape,” new york times, january 31, 1987, accessed november 29, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/31/world/ seoul-student-s-torture-death-changes-political-landscape.html. 67the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 language of sorrow that has accrued into han […].”72 the “essay on han and minjung sociology,” published shortly after this incident, reflects a growing sense of anticipation. collective resentment and anger are intimately intertwined with resolution and hope for a new future, as will be analyzed in the sections below. the bitter past in his essay on han, ko ŭn argues for the existence of a unique and cohesive korean national history that has produced han but has also been disrupted by it. han is said to be a product of a particularly adverse history, one constantly undercut by “sinocentric thinking and the feeling of historical marginalization.”73 han is strongly linked to past experiences: “han is not a wound but a scar. han is not pain itself but the long memory of pain […].”74 han is not only a painful product of history but also the present “memory” of all the layers of suffering from the past. the repeated use of “accumulated” and “accumulation” throughout the text underscore han’s association with a prolonged buildup of past recollections. while ko underscores that han is a product of history, he also points the blame at han for facilitating the isolation and suffering of the korean people—in other words, for being a cause of rupture with world history, cutting the korean people’s ties with all other world peoples. he writes that “han is exactly this history, that of a non-diverse path of ordeals and suffering”75 associated with “the internal toadyism of a regressive culture”76 that has only allowed korea to maintain a relationship to china and no other world regions. ko acknowledges that “every nation or tribe that survives to this day has undergone a long and turbulent historical unfolding.”77 he seems to take for granted that there are distinct, ethno-national communities that develop corresponding distinct, basic emotions, even though—as he notes himself—international affairs are moved by “political and social 72 han wansang 한완상, “in’gwŏn pojangŭi hwaksirhan changch’irŭl 인권보장의 확실한 장치를 [for the firm implementation of human rights],” chungang ilbo 중앙일보, january 21, 1987, accessed november 29, 2018, https://news.joins.com/article/2083267. 73 ko ŭn 고은, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ, 恨의 극복을 위하여 [towards the overcoming of han]” in hanŭi iyagi 한의 이야기 [the story of han], ed. sŏ kwangsŏn 서광선 (seoul: borhee press, 1988), 26. 74 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 30. 75 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 28. 76 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 24. 77 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 28. 68 conceptualizing sorrow and hope: the discourse of han in south korea relations of conflict”78 and thus must form in contexts of continuous contact. if every community that survives has a history of conflict, it remains unexplained why han should occur only in korea and why it should be “untranslatable.” despite his prior statement regarding korea’s sinocentric foreign relations, ko categorically argues that korea’s emotional experience is “completely different” to that of its east asian neighbors china and japan and that “there is no han to be found there.”79 though the current form of han may not exist elsewhere, remnants of the “original form of han” from primitive nomadic communities is said to continue to exist in other languages, as seen in chinese as “hen” 恨, in sanskrit as “upanāha,” in mongolian as “korosul,” and in manchurian as “korsocuka.”80 in manchuria, however, which has “had close ties to the korean peninsula since prehistoric times,” ko writes that a feeling of “wild anger or loathing […] lapsed into a form of sadness” following the dismantling of the manchu dynasty.81 similarly, the evolution of “korosul” in mongolian into an emotion denoting “sorrow” is linked to the demise of the mongols and the jurchen.82 these supposedly analogous transformations of “korsocuka” and “korosul” to that of han in the korean context do no service to the claim of han’s untranslatability, and neither do the translations of the word itself in other geographical contexts. the lack of a similar deteriorative process in han’s development in china is partially attributed to “the economic and cultural gap caused by the great wall and the sinicization of nomadic tribes,”83 although this vague explanation regarding the assumed stability of han in china leads to more questions than answers in regard to korea’s emotional uniqueness. ko traces han back to a time in history when han was not “untranslatable” but a common feature in asian prehistoric societies. referring to the “nomadic” cultures of sumerian and ancient indo-aryan civilizations, he writes that […] [their] relocation implies two conditions: occupation caused by invasion, and resignation caused by defeat. nomadic groups were required to develop a way out of each moment of crisis as well as the fear and insecurity caused by the process of relocation. 78 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 27. 79 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 29. 80 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 34. 81 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 43. 82 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 43. 83 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 39. 69the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 here, a feature of nomadic life on the continent—a wild, combative spirit and the terrible hostility toward the other—develops. this is likely the original form of han.84 before han decayed into its current shape in the korean context, its “original form” was that of a “wild, combative spirit.” ko idealizes and grossly generalizes “nomadic life on the continent” and its character despite having no substantial historical evidence to support his claims. he romanticizes collective life of the ancient past and its “vigor.”85 what is bemoaned is a supposedly primordial, dynamic, and belligerent desire in the face of danger that has been lost in han’s current form—and by extension, in the current korean people. ko attempts to argue that a dynamic spirit that belonged to the people long ago must be recovered. in an essay also published in the story of han, literary critic and journalist im hŏnyŏng 임헌영 responds critically to ko’s theory of han. im agrees with ko on the point that the emotion of han has “existed for a very long time” and that the usage of han in korea differs from that of china and japan, where it means “loathing and resentfulness.”86 im situates ko’s take on han as part of an attempt by various nationalist writers to assign han a social and historical function. he notes, however, that ko’s concept of han is much too “vague” and its “scope of applicability is too broad.”87 the statements in the excerpt above imply that “kings, generals, aristocrats as well as frail women and slaves could all have han, and its emotional scope ties together everything from lofty patriotism to petty individual resentment under the name of han.”88 im further wonders how well-known lyrics written by the ruling class from the feudal past could have been regarded as part of the literature of han if the emotion occurs only in the minjung. in national literature, im points out, most works that express extreme sorrow are linked to han,89 in contrast to ko’s claims that han has never existed in pre-modern literature. like ko, han wansang and kim sŏngki agree with his interpretation of han as an emotion caused by and accumulated through prolonged 84 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 36. 85 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 38. 86 im hŏnyŏng 임헌영, “hanŭi munhakkwa minjungŭisik 한의 문학과 민중의식 [the literature of han and minjung consciousness],” in hanŭi iyagi 한의 이야기 [the story of han], ed. sŏ kwangsŏn 서광선 (seoul: borhee press, 1988), 104. 87 im, “hanŭi munhakkwa minjungŭisik,” 106. 88 im, “hanŭi munhakkwa minjungŭisik,” 107. 89 im, “hanŭi munhakkwa minjungŭisik,” 109. 70 conceptualizing sorrow and hope: the discourse of han in south korea oppression, referencing him as an authority on han. han and kim also describe han as a “product,” an “accumulation,” even a “cultural heritage” of despair stemming from systemic, historical injustice.90 unlike ko, who reaches back into a reimagined prehistory, han’s and kim’s account of han is more focused on the structural conditions of the relatively recent past. according to han and kim, two particular factors are responsible for the occurrence of han: economic exploitation and political exclusion. economic exploitation and consequent poverty are named as the first “structural cause” of han. poverty is shown to be “chronic” as han is traced from the chosŏn period to the colonial period and finally to the present.91 in regard to the second cause of han, they write: an even more important structural factor of han is the limitless abuse of power of a section of the political bureaucratic authorities. this was then aggravated by the conspicuous consumption and lifestyles of the emerging upper classes formed of the political bureaucracy and business elites. by the 1970s, the minjung, who had grown vast, began to perceive their own political, economic, and cultural exclusion and accumulated han in a new way.92 political exclusion, they argue, is the second cause of han, one that is closely tied to economic exploitation. han and kim take critical note of the “conspicuous consumption and lifestyles of emerging upper classes” and “business elites” that represent the politically privileged. they also mention “political bureaucratic authorities” in a rather neutral way without explicitly elaborating on the present political regime, perhaps out of caution. though the issue of class is mentioned in reference to both causal factors, han wansang saw the concept of minjung as different from class. his view was that “class could be included in the minjung concept, but minjung could not be subjected to the classist concept.”93 he does, however, group those with political and economic power into a ruling class, “critiquing the ideology of the ruling class” through a sociological perspective.94 90 han wansang 한완상 and kim sŏngki 김성기, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron 한(恨)에 대한 민중사회학적 시론 [essay on han and minjung sociology],” in hanŭi iyagi 한의 이야기 [the story of han], ed. sŏ kwangsŏn 서광선 (seoul: borhee press, 1988), 96. 91 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 68. 92 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 68–69. 93 chŏng, “han wansanggwa pip’an sahoehagŭi hyŏngsŏng,” 389. 94 chŏng, “han wansanggwa pip’an sahoehagŭi hyŏngsŏng,” 391. 71the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 the first factor of han, poverty, is characterized as “absolute lack,” while the second factor, political exclusion, as “relative need.”95 the characterization of “absolute” versus “relative” is interesting given the political situation of the time, since the political need might be seen to be just as “absolute.” perhaps seen from the perspective of the minjung, material, tangible needs were certainly the more pressing issue. the political and economic problems, however, go hand in hand—as han and kim have noted themselves in the previous passage—and cannot easily be disentangled in addressing structural oppression and han. beyond internal historical, political, and socioeconomic factors, ko, han, and kim broaden han’s causal range to foreign influences. ko writes that japanese authorities in the colonial period are said to have deliberately removed epic myths, heroic folktales, and enterprising seasonal customs, leaving only han-filled, “plaintive folk culture” behind.96 han is perceived to be assisting the colonizer, as a causal factor in what ko regards as the current collective lack of will. explained in this way, he echoes to some degree “the character features of the korean people” identified by the japanese governor-general’s office and korean intellectuals of the colonial period, which included the features “lacking in vitality,” “lacking in courage,” and “lacking in self-reliance.”97 based on his critiques of han as a backward national trait, ko may have been influenced by essentialist and fatalist views of han himself and internalized colonial-era self-blame, which interpreted korea’s weakness and colonization as a natural consequence of intrinsic, non-progressive characteristics in koreans. interestingly, while arguing that foreign influence is partly to blame for producing han, ko nevertheless presents the historical continuity of han, an “indigenous sentiment,” in defiance of a “western logic” that “separates traditional and modern consciousness in modern cultural history.”98 ko goes so far as to say that “han is hereditary,”99 echoing a biological view of han also developed by kim chiha, who wrote that han is “inherited and transmitted, boiling in the blood of the people.”100 as notions of race and ethnicity became conflated with nation, han 95 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 69. 96 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 29. 97 kyung-koo han, “the anthropology of the discourse on the koreanness of koreans,” korea journal 43, no. 1 (2003): 27. 98 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 32. 99 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 32. 100 chi kim, “korean han,” 255. 72 conceptualizing sorrow and hope: the discourse of han in south korea became an “ethnonational, biologistic badge of korean uniqueness” in the process.101 while ko focuses on the remnants of the colonial era, han and kim reference “cold war logic” in the footnotes, claiming that the marginalization of the minjung and thus the continuation of their han is attributed to the polarized ideology of the cold war and national division dictated by foreign powers.102 the political domain of han is thus extended beyond a matter of ruling class versus minjung in korea, attributing han’s cause partly to international conflict, although this explanation remains at the level of a theoretical assumption rather than a concrete political example. the uncertain present ko sees the current notion of han as a popular ideology beyond the bounds of the emotional. in his view, han was discussed as an ideological standard in the pursuit of a national literature, affecting historical science, religious studies, minjung culture, and even socioeconomics […] when the social possibilities deferred in the 1970s were opened and the need arose to critique han, it had already become a trend.”103 not only did the less-educated korean minjung fall prey to han but also intellectuals, who became “slaves to the conceptual trend.”104 ko’s contemporary mun sunt’ae 문순태 also critiqued the notion of han’s alleged “conceptual lineage,” which was taken as a given in literary circles of their time. in an essay titled “haniran muŏshin’ga” 한이란 무엇인가 (what is han?), mun lists various contemporary writers and critics including kim yŏlkyu 김열규, kwŏn yŏngmin 권영민, and chŏng hyŏnki 정현기, questioning why and how they interpret well-known works to carry han at its base.105 this uncritical reception of han as a conceptual banner of national intellectuals and minjung alike is what ko aims to recognize, critique, 101 chi kim, “korean han,” 266. 102 kenneth m. wells, “the cultural construction of korean history,” in south korea’s minjung movement: the culture and politics of dissidence, ed. kenneth m. wells (honolulu: university of hawai‘i press, 1995), 17. 103 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 24. 104 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 24. 105 mun sunt’ae 문순태, “haniran muŏshin’ga 한이란 무엇인가 [what is han?],” in hanŭi iyagi [the story of han], ed. sŏ kwangsŏn (seoul: borhee press, 1988), 138. 73the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 and correct. by “social possibilities deferred in the 1970s,” he alludes to the oppressive pak regime and the building momentum of social change in the 1970s, leading up to the present moment in which the path to social change has been “opened.” further, this “individualistic, regressive” han is said to be interfering in minjung psychology, becoming a widespread convention in the emotional expressions of daily life. the danger of getting caught up in the emotion and subsequently “becoming blinded to life’s renovation and activeness produces the paradoxical need to identify what han is.”106 as though it were an infectious disease that stealthily invades the senses, han is described as though it possessed a life of its own, catching the oblivious minjung unawares and thwarting collective action. ko assigns a great deal of agency to han and its ability to overpower “our optimistic willpower” and to lead to “extinction” while stripping the agency from the people, depicted as merely passive recipients. especially in the early sections, the text downplays the human actors, and in this way avoids assigning either blame or agency to any specific group of people. humans are simply swept along in the unfolding of history and the workings of han. ko even writes that […] han is not in time but is an atemporal experience. thus, han is the creation of the politically-excluded korean people’s apolitical and ahistorical experience. han is not an emotion of loss but rather of extinction and is not temperamental but subdued in nature. when this han outweighs our other facets and our optimistic willpower, it leads to the fog of alienation, resignation, and decadence.107 han is associated with “atemporal,” “apolitical,” and “ahistorical” experience. the non-progressivity of this emotional characteristic in koreans is extended to temporal, political, and historical dimensions. according to this description, han seems to lie beyond the realm of progress altogether, and it indicates ko’s subscription to the notion of universal and linear historical progress. this severe diagnosis sits uncomfortably with the other claims that han is deeply historical and political—a “national emotion formed out of korean peoples’ history” and “a political outcome.”108 han is the “creation” of the experience of political exclusion, but it is also a causal factor for suspension from time, history, and politics and a potential 106 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 24. 107 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 30. 108 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 44. 74 conceptualizing sorrow and hope: the discourse of han in south korea menace for koreans that could lead to “alienation, resignation, and decadence.” han and kim also seek to correct the trend of abstraction and idealization of han through the analysis of common minjung rituals that deal with han. it must be noted, however, that their emphasis on han as a tangible, lived emotion rather than as a theory has its limitations as their essay is based on external sociological observations. han and kim investigate two present modes of han’s expression: kut 굿, or shamanic ritual, and t’alchum 탈춤, or mask dance, two “important forms of expression of minjung arts” that “articulate the long-held hopes, emotions, and conflicts of the minjung collective.”109 first, shamanism and shamanic ritual became imbued with symbolic political value during the minjung movement. at a student rally on june 26, 1987 at seoul national university, students and professors witnessed professor i aeju 이애주 expressing her grief over the torture and death of student pak chongch’ŏl 박종철 through a symbolic dance of rebirth and liberation. on july 9, at yonsei university, professor i once again performed a hanp’uri 한풀이 dance at the funeral of another student martyr, i hanyŏl 이한열, to console the han of the deceased.110 these performances, which professor i described as “belonging to the minjung, a leap into the wave of liberation and unification,” became a widely publicized symbol for the democratization, unification, and minjung movements.111 the hanp’uri dance performed by i aeju is a form of kut 굿, “a religious ceremony in which the shaman interacts with spirits through song and dance,”112 and it epitomized a burgeoning trend of symbolic folk rituals in protest movements that began in the 1960s.113 the “ritual to invoke native land consciousness,” for example, became a legendary performance in which over a thousand students participated during a massive protest at seoul national university in may 1964, and which concluded with a symbolic funeral of the military government.114 109 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 96. 110 “i aeju kyosuŭi ‘parammaji’ ch’umgwa ‘hanp’uri’ ch’um 이애주 교수의 ‘바람맞이’ 춤과 ‘한풀이’ 춤 [professor i aeju’s ‘parammaji’ dance and ‘hanp’uri’ dance],” minjuhwa undong kinyŏmsaŏphoe, accessed december 1, 2018, http://www.610.or.kr/board/data/view/114. 111 “hangjaengŭi kŏrimunhwa, ‘kŏri kut’ kwa i aejuŭi parammaji” 항쟁의 거리문화, ‘거리굿’과 이애주의 바람맞이 [the street culture of resistance, ‘kŏri kut’ and i aeju’s parammaji], minjuhwa undong kinyŏmsaŏphoe, accessed december 1, 2018, http://www.610.or.kr/board/content/page/20/ post/199?. 112 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 74. 113 chungmoo choi, “the minjung culture movement and popular culture,” in south korea’s minjung movement, ed. kenneth wells, 108. 114 choi, “the minjung culture movement,” 109. 75the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 as leaders and participants of movements steeped in such forms of expression, han and kim explain the social, religious, and political significance of kut for the minjung in the following way: a major experience of minjung religion is found in shamanic form. kut could be seen as the formal expression of the minjung’s collective religious experience. kut is the minjung’s effort to change from excluded and objectified masses to subjects. it is the survival mechanism of the minjung, their “subjective and collective spirit.”115 in a 1983 book titled theology, ideology, and culture, sŏ kwangsŏn 서광선, editor of the story of han, had written that the shaman had the social role of undoing the han of a minjung that had nowhere else to turn.116 he describes shamanism as “‘folk,’ ‘popular,’ ‘people’s,’ and now ‘minjung,’ not only because it is shared by the majority of the korean people, but also because it has been officially ignored, if not openly persecuted, first by the literati of the yi dynasty, and then by the new and modernized governments, both japanese and then korean.”117 sŏ justifies shamanism as “a proper korean religion because it predated buddhism, taoism, confucianism or christianity” and “is pervasive in korean minds, and […] alive in the korean way of life.”118 the shaman carries the burden of addressing the minjung’s “han, their troubles, their tears, and their frustrations.”119 han and kim share the view towards shamanic kut as a significant and historically marginalized religious form, which has nevertheless “sustained them [minjung] through the crises and perils of this world and the other-world.”120 historian kim sŏngsik 김성식 also referenced shamanic ritual in a 1984 column in the donga ilbo, using it as an analogy to explain the role of politics in people’s lives. kim wrote that rituals such as okukut 오구굿 existed to relieve the burdens of han carried by the dead, while politics assumed the role of relieving the emotional burdens of han in the living. in his analogy, politics was supposed to be a figurative kut for the living—the technique of relieving people of their burdens and 115 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 74–75. 116 sŏ kwangsŏn, theology, ideology, and culture, (hong kong: world student christian federation, 1983), 37, accessed december 5, 2018, https://www.ibiblio.org/ahkitj/wscfap/arms1974/ book%20series/theologyideo&cul/tic-chapter2.htm. 117 sŏ, theology, ideology, and culture, 35. 118 sŏ, theology, ideology, and culture, 35. 119 sŏ, theology, ideology, and culture, 35. 120 sŏ, theology, ideology, and culture, 36. 76 conceptualizing sorrow and hope: the discourse of han in south korea sorrows.121 such references to kut and shamanism exemplify how elements from the minjung culture and movement had become widespread in the vocabulary of political resistance. in contrast, ko’s view is that shamanism is a cultural feature that must be overcome. ko dismisses shamanic rituals as distractions to social change, since han must be resolved not through folk or spiritual dimensions using hanp'uri 한풀이 (ritual for releasing han) or haewŏn 해원 (notion of undoing a grudge) but rather on a political level. in other words, the only way to eliminate han would be through a political and human equality that would allow the oppressor and oppressed to dance together.”122 he later lists various forms of hanp’uri in rural folk culture including dances, satire, and games, only to argue that […] if the release of han means to liberate society of it, then such amusements are only amusements. these types of activities only lead back to han. amuse yourself all you want, but you will have to return to your old place of han. this is the structural mechanism of such activities.123 ko addresses the rising interest in folk culture and its reformulation as a contemporary tool for nationalism and resistance as advocated by a growing cultural movement, especially in universities and public festivals.124 ko rejects “folk” expression as merely temporary “amusements” that do not permanently alleviate han. he claims that only something on a more explicitly “political level” could help achieve utopian “equality,” but declares this vaguely without further elaboration on how to attain such change. given such public, politicized performances as that of i aeju, however, his negative assessment of folk culture does not take full account of the expressive potential of han and ritualized forms of resistance. 121 kim sŏngsik 김성식, “‘naenggasŭm’ŭi sŭt’ŭresŭ ‘냉가슴’의 스트레스 [the stress of a ‘cold heart’],” donga ilbo 동아일보, june 2, 1984, accessed december 5, 2018, http://newslibrary.naver. com/viewer/index.nhn. 122 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 43. 123 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 55. 124 i hana 이하나, “1970–1980nyŏndae ‘minjok munhwa’ kaenyŏmŭi punhwawa chaengt’u 1970–1980년대 ‘민족문화’ 개념의 분화와 쟁투 [differentiation and controversy over the concept of ‘national culture’ in the 1970s–1980s],” kaenyŏmgwa sot’ong 개념과 소통 [concept and communication] 18 (2016): 198, doi:10.15797/concom.2016..18.005.198. 77the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 second, mask dances also became a popular mode of expression for the minjung movement in the 1980s.125 the mask dance developed from harvest ceremonies to popular village performances satirizing the rich and powerful. the minjung movement adopted the genre, “drums, gongs, cymbals,” noisiness, vulgarity and all, as a way for the minjung to transcend their han through laughter.126 “folk culture” became popular in universities in the 1970s starting with the establishment of mask dance groups on every campus.127 through folk song, dance, and theater, this counter-cultural trend merged with student movements under the pak chŏnghŭi 박정희 regime.128 even in the 1960s, students had organized campaigns for hyangt’ogaech’ŏk 향토개척 (national unification and native land development), turning their attention to farming life instead of state-building projects.129 students would perform mask dances and folk music after lectures on agriculture.130 kim chiha wrote in 1970 that the satire and songs of the minjung must be developed into an explosive possibility for change;131 as he predicted, various forms of “folk” expression such as theater, mask dance, and music became symbolic displays of anti-government and anti-foreign sentiment.132 the pak regime dismissed shamans, their rituals, and other such “folk” elements as outdated customs in the uncompromising drive toward modernization.133 despite and against such an approach, a budding revival of minjung culture appropriated elements of “folk culture”—though greatly romanticized, formalized, and essentialized134—creating new practices of resistance. 125 clark, “growth and limitations of minjung christianity,” 95. 126 clark, “growth and limitations of minjung christianity,” 96. 127 o cheyŏn 오제연, “1970nyŏndae taehangmunhwaŭi hyŏngsŏnggwa haksaengundong 1970년대 대학문화의 형성과 학생운동 [the creation of a new ‘university culture’ in the 1970s, and its relationship with the student movements],” yŏksa munje yŏn’gu 역사문제연구 [critical studies on modern korean history] 28 (october 2012): 107. 128 o, “1970nyŏndae taehangmunhwaŭi hyŏngsŏng,” 108. 129 choi, “the minjung culture movement,” 108. 130 o, “1970nyŏndae taehangmunhwaŭi hyŏngsŏng,” 94. 131 chang, “1970nyŏndae ‘minjung’ kaenyŏmŭi chaedŭngjang,” 120. 132 i, “1970–1980nyŏndae ‘minjok munhwa,’” 198. 133 i, “1970–1980nyŏndae ‘minjok munhwa,’” 180. 134 i, “1970–1980nyŏndae ‘minjok munhwa,’” 180. 78 conceptualizing sorrow and hope: the discourse of han in south korea han and kim interpret the mask dance positively as a minjung form of resistance on a collective and political level, affirming that all gathered at the mask dance stage are “subjects and participants” in a “collective event.”135 in doing so, they advocate a “revolutionary aesthetic” in folk arts, expressing a rather idealized notion of the minjung and their culture as many members of folk-theater groups did at the time.136 though they paint a straightforward image of counter-cultural resistance in masked performances, it was also the case that landowners sometimes financed such communal festivities in the pre-capitalist period “to ease farmers’ discontent and thus rule them more effectively.”137 further, mask dances at universities were partially student reconstructions of popular performing arts, which objectified popular culture. there was a case in which students taught the reconstructed mask-dance ritual back to villagers.138 further, the 1960s pak regime passed the cultural assets conservation act, under which select regional “folk cultures” were officially recognized, formalized, and preserved, losing their connection to the lives of the minjung.139 thus, popular performing arts genres were complex and contested but did, nevertheless, “further revolutionary imagination.”140 thus, ko renders shamanism as a distraction, while han and kim appreciate it for its vitality. ko regards folk forms of expression as simply amusements and possibly temporary solutions for han that are ultimately useless, whereas han and kim hold up kut and mask dance as highly transformative, unifying, and politically radical means of expression. han and kim, along with minjung theologians, hold that shamanism sustained the minjung through crises and that mask dances afforded them a break from reality as well as a new social perspective through humor. the ritualistic and masked performances by i aeju and university students also exemplify how han served as a creative impulse for real action and how these religious and cultural modes of thought, feeling, and expression provided new creative, syncretic ways of expressing dissent even if they were based on misinterpretations or appropriations of an essentialist notion of “tradition.” these certainly served as the basis for dynamic and contested reinterpretations and reformulations of what could be said in an era of limited political expression. 135 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 87. 136 choi, “the minjung culture movement,” 110–111. 137 choi, “the minjung culture movement,” 115. 138 choi, “the minjung culture movement,” 111. 139 i, “1970–1980nyŏndae ‘minjok munhwa,’” 180. 140 choi, “the minjung culture movement,” 115. 79the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 the imagined future the broader divergent views of han in scholarship—particularly in the literary sphere—are schematized by im hŏnyŏng 임헌영 in the following way: han—retaliatory emotion—catharsis—social consciousness—revolution han—resignation—catharsis—acceptance of reality—nihilism141 according to im, “the debates in the literature on han have been over which of these is truly the literature of han.”142 the first line of thought has led to a literature of han linked to social critique, which is the trend exemplified by kim chiha. it also links han to social consciousness and revolution, which is closer to han’s and kim’s conception of what this emotion can achieve, although it is not “retaliatory.” the latter progression is closer to ko’s interpretation of han, which links the emotion to nihilism and resignation. ko repeatedly critiques suggestions that current han is conducive to revolution: it is claimed that this han can birth a new historical will through its accumulated strength, but the logic that the accumulation of han can develop into revolutionary willpower is incorrect. the moments of combative minjung action occurred only when there was a complete break from han [...]. it would be impossible for the minjung of han to eradicate social incongruities through han. han cannot evolve into other values. in order for han to become revolutionary, it would have to be reformed into a stronger emotion that borders on resentment, hatred, and vengeance.143 ko calls for a radical transformation of minjung emotion into a stronger, more forceful form—and, by extension, a radical transformation of the people themselves. if han is “hereditary” and so engrained within the “minjung of han,” then it follows that not only the emotion must be eradicated or transformed but the nature of the people themselves must be completely renewed and undergo a “complete break from han.” ko argues that previous revolutionary moments in history, “moments of combative minjung action” occurred not due to han but due to a fundamental departure from it. 141 im, “hanŭi munhakkwa minjungŭisik,” 107. 142 im, “hanŭi munhakkwa minjungŭisik,” 107. 143 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 48. 80 conceptualizing sorrow and hope: the discourse of han in south korea han and kim, however, approach han as “an agent of structural and historical change”144 with an important social function: in this text, han is seen as a major driver of minjung actions and attitudes and as a force that will create a new history. therefore, han is not simply the despair accumulated over a long time or the affective experience of the past but rather an experience of the future—a force that can open up a new history. what is historical should not be limited to the past. han seems to be individual, but it is a collective experience. it might seem to be a thwarted desire or hope, but it is at the same time an energy that creates new structures. it is the experience of the past while also being the energy that opens life to the future.145 han, a “major” dynamic emotional force, shapes “minjung actions and attitudes” in potentially new ways. han and kim argue that it is not historically insignificant, not “limited to the past,” not “individual” and not “thwarted desire or hope,” but just the opposite. in the passage above as well as in their conclusion, it is continually emphasized that han, being “both sadness and strength,” can “create a new history” and “a new society,” and “open up future horizons for the minjung.”146 thus, collective han can become the link between past and future and take on the “gateway role from despair to hope,”147 although one might ask how uniform and inclusive an emotion linked primarily to minjung could be. again, they write, the reason why han is emphasized is because it is […] both a cumulative inherited form of minjung life experience and the basis upon which the minjung collective’s latent ability could develop a future directionality.148 the minjung collective, it is argued, already possess a “latent ability” to look towards the future—an underlying will to devise change based on experience. 144 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 65. 145 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 67. 146 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 96. 147 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 96. 148 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 70. 81the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 in stark contrast, ko argues that “the revolutionary claims of han are not […] required to earn the support of the minjung,”149 that it is irrelevant: there is a claim that this sort of accumulated han may contribute to the minjung’s revolutionary potential. if this han were able to link itself to justice and lead to historical change, han would be a creative mechanism to display to the world. however, it is impossible for han to fuel the will to achieve historically significant acts. han only leads to more han.150 the achievement of “justice and historical change” was a major concern of intellectuals in ko’s time, and there was an earlier tendency, particularly in kim chiha’s satirical works, which viewed han as an emotional trigger for revolution. for ko, the path to a “healthy minjung culture” involves the discarding of outdated customs, particularly shamanism and han.151 these must be overhauled and “han itself must undergo a creative transformation”:152 rather, it is due to han that the korean people are handicapped from developing ideological gravity or a passionate realization of values. han is the residue of the truth of our experience, not the truth itself. han is not progressing towards the future but a way forward that coincides with the past.”153 as previously stated, han is seen as the cause of korea’s historical deviation from other world regions and its stunted development. han cannot be taken as the “truth” of minjung experience but rather its by-product, a deterrent to the realization of historical progress and the attainment of “ideological gravity.” a history of han moves forward in time but can only “coincide with the past” rather than leading to a new kind of future through a revolutionary and political transformation. given these differing interpretations of han’s potential, what is the way to a new future? for ko, the solution to han and the way to a better future seems to take a religious or spiritual form. biblical and buddhist references are made in his argument for radical emotional change: 149 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 32. 150 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 31. 151 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 46. 152 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 46. 153 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 32–33. 82 conceptualizing sorrow and hope: the discourse of han in south korea the old testament is composed of the suffering of the minjung […] it is full of resentment, curses, hatred, and punishments that denounce evil […] this resentment is not unlike korea’s primitive notion of han, although korea’s han is not based on prophetic will but on shamanic sources. the new testament then replaces this resentment with love, unfolding the history of a new era.154 the practice of drawing parallels between the afflicted korean minjung and the children of israel date back to korea’s period under japanese rule. in the 1920s and 1930s, korean christians drew comfort from the story of deliverance in the bible.155 in this case, ko inserts the concept of minjung into the biblical narrative, weaving together the histories of the jews and the koreans and seeing the older, reactive notion of han in the prophetic workings of the old testament. in the new testament, however, “jesus, a carpenter and man of the minjung who was surrounded by han-ridden people, lived a life and died a death […] through which others were liberated.”156 he seems to imply that a radical eradication of han—an emotional liberation—should occur based on transformative divine intervention, through a spiritual overcoming. ko also writes that change is shown in […] the mercy of buddha toward a society of love that allows human beings not to remain subordinate and that allows them to continuously become buddha. han needs to become sublimated into the power that leads to a world of love […] its significance will be transformed by the larger calling to unification and democratization.157 han must be “sublimated,” overcome by higher spiritual and political means. ko’s “world of love” is one based on the bond of unification and democratization. ko’s reference to buddha here is interesting, since he critiques the “nihilism” and “resignation” associated with buddhism earlier in his essay. in line with such a view, it could be argued that the forms of spirituality propagated by both buddhism and christianity emphasize sacrifice and giving up material life, which might be used to keep the minjung poor and oppressed rather than make them active political agents. thus, the spiritual aspect of his proposed solution to han is ambiguous and problematic. 154 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 58. 155 clark, “growth and limitations of minjung christianity,” 93. 156 clark, “growth and limitations of minjung christianity,” 93. 157 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 58. 83the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 further, the political and spiritual seem to converge in ko’s vision of a future without han. national unification and democratization constitute the “true” vision of the future, and han is its obstacle. thus, if han is indeed the remnant of a long history that must be overcome urgently, it is necessary to find a way to regenerate it as the will and emotion of the true identity of the nation. han is not our destiny but an external force from the past blocking a new future. we must confront this external force.158 only by tackling han, this “force from the past,” can a new future be achieved. han is removed from the “true identity of the nation” and is externalized and antagonized as an urgent task, although it is questionable how “external” it can be. the destiny of the nation is progress, to change the course of a history “blocked” by han. the issue is that ko only states the necessity “to find a way” to the achievement of the new future and does not offer a concrete solution on how to attain the resolution of han. it is possible that by the statement, “its significance will be transformed by the larger calling of unification and democratization,” ko means that han will fade away or be replaced by a different emotion as a side effect of larger political endeavors, such as the unification of north and south korea. however, he also sees the need to “confront this external force” urgently. the question remains: how, what, and who can bring about the radical affective transformation that is required for historical regeneration and for minjung revolution, unification, and democratization? can change come from within without interference from outside forces? is the solution spiritual? in their observations of minjung religion and arts, han and kim seem to provide answers to these questions. they argue that there is an embedded potential for social change and means of action in kut and the mask dance. first, the ritual of kut is a social mechanism that facilitates the release of han, which manifests itself as collective ecstasy. in the ritual of hanp’uri, the release of han could lead the possessed shaman to reproach the spirit’s former tormentors. however, the shaman does not allow for the hanp’uri to lead to revenge. what is important is to note that the space of kut allows the shaman to play the role of a comforter that relieves the victim’s suffering rather than that of an avenger. thus, social resentment and psychological buildup can be released. the space of such release is kut. 158 ko, “hanŭi kŭkpogŭl wihayŏ,” 59. 84 conceptualizing sorrow and hope: the discourse of han in south korea if han is buildup, ritual ecstasy is its release. the buildup of han and its shamanic release can be seen as two opposite extremes, but actually these are two sides to the same coin. if the buildup of han is a phenomenon that occurred most frequently in the discrimination and abuse of the lower classes of chosŏn society and in the repressed ambitions and desires of the modern minjung and its release is shamanic ecstasy, then the social utility and function of han and ecstasy can be easily confirmed.159 ecstasy in korean shamanism is a state of spirit possession in which emotions and the body are released through a supernatural power. in the site of kut, the shaman controls the flow of emotions in the people who are present through song, dance, and play.160 korean studies scholar kim yŏlgyu 김열규 argued in the early 1970s that in shamanic rituals, the observers—members of the community—were also made to participate in the spiritual performance, experiencing shared ecstasy.161 the function of the shamanic performance in kut is the undoing of pent up emotions, to “relieve the victim’s suffering” caused by “social resentment and psychological buildup” in a way that avoids retaliation. it is an internal as well as a collective manner of releasing han that opens a space that is both metaphorical and literal for spiritual restoration. ecstasy fills the collective and drives away the mundane world.162 han and kim seem to argue that the solution to han already exists in folk culture, and that is contained in the complementary mechanisms of buildup and release found in kut. this dual process is not simply spiritual; rather, its significance is amplified to address the broader societal and historical resolution of collective victims’ suffering: kut is the expression of a culture’s dream for a world of fusion and the restoration of a mythical world through song and dance. it is not about fixed religious precepts but about a dionysian dance.163 159 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 79. 160 “sinmyŏng” 신명 [ecstasy], encyclopedia of korean culture, accessed december 11, 2018, http://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/contents/index?contents_id=e0032913. 161 kim yŏlgyu 김열규, han’guk minsokkwa munhak yŏn’gu 한국 민속과 문학 연구 [korean folklore and literature] (seoul: ilchogak 일조각, 1971), 271, as cited in choi, “the minjung culture movement,” 115. 162 “sinmyŏng.” 163 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 76–77. 85the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 the “dionysian dance” alludes to an irrational, spontaneous, playful, emotional outpouring beyond the boundaries of the given norms. through kut, the minjung can perform through their bodies and voices—and thus live out in tangible form—their desires for a different kind of “mythical world” of harmony. han and kim see a potentially “mutual relationship” between the process of han’s “formation, accumulation, expression, and eruption” with the “developmental stages of social movements.”164 they define as a necessary future task the detailed study of how the minjung’s han and historical revolutions are connected, as this kind of knowledge will reveal how to link the passion of ecstasy with the fervor of minjung participants in the current revolutionary movement.165 second, the mask dance transcends the present and unites the collective through satire: the most holy and most secular, most divine and most human are thus mixed together in an event such as the mask dance […] it has an asynchronous factor in that it does not wholly deny the normative frame of the past and present while simultaneously dreaming of a new future […] the mask dance is not a simple performance of an enlightened state but a crafting together of this world and the world of enlightenment. this world and the next are not severed. the forbidden elements in the traditional dance narratives such as eroticism or mockery dissolve existing conventions and discard social logic.166 according to this passage, the narrative of the mask dance breaks with social conventions in its “eroticism” and “mockery.” simultaneously, it removes boundaries between the holy and secular, the divine and human, “this world and the next,” and between past, present, and future “crafting together” an integrated world. therefore, “mask dances are not only about humor or mockery but rather […] express situations of current social conflict through a satirical spirit and can be interpreted as the deep rooted minjung will to fashion new structural change.”167 this echoes the notion propagated by cultural critic ch’ae hŭiwan 채희완 that ritualized theater challenges divisions—“the division of work and play, of production and consumption, of haves and have-nots”—in the lives of koreans.168 164 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 99. 165 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 99. 166 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 92–93. 167 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 96. 168 choi, “the minjung culture movement,” 115. 86 conceptualizing sorrow and hope: the discourse of han in south korea the characters, themes, and narratives in mask dances are consequently deeply rooted in a collective awareness of the world and of society: the stage of mask dances is a site in which critical observations of reality and feelings of resentment explode in artistic form. the suppressed and accumulated han erupts. through this outburst of han, the minjung can affirm their own feelings and become conscientized. with the release of han on a higher stage, they experience the victory over the absurdities of reality. this experience of triumph becomes the hope and promise of a complete restoration and overcoming. it is also the minjung’s political yearning to participate in a future utopia. given the point that the latent desires emerge in ritualistic collective play, the mask dance represents the dream of the minjung collective. a living dream that is performed directly through the body.169 han “erupts” in mask dances in dramatized confrontations based on “critical observations of reality.” this leads to political awakening and self-realization, as the minjung “affirm their own feelings and become conscientized.” by public, collective means on a “higher stage,” the release of han occurs as participants and observers realize the “absurdities of reality” and overcome han through humorous narrative resolution. the spontaneous and unintentional eruption of emotion also expresses unaddressed “latent desires” and “dreams” that can finally emerge in unrestrained artistic form. it is through this deeply embodied experience—“performed directly through the body”—that han and kim find the utopic yearnings of the minjung beyond the present reality. in direct contrast to ko’s view, they emphasize the significance of the social mechanism of han, which fulfills “a key role in the mechanism of social change” and is “the emotional core of the […] social reform movement”:170 and finally, this is how the minjung’s han, along with individual self-realization, prompts collective social change. founded on ecstasy and a spirit of resistance, the han of minjung does not flow regressively and can rather function as a dynamic factor for historical development. in this way, han and social change can meet in a meaningful way.171 169 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 94. 170 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 96. 171 han and kim, “hane taehan minjung sahoehakchŏk siron,” 97. 87the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 this is their conception of the minjung’s collective mechanism of structural change: han leads to self-realization and a critical awareness of reality through religious and artistic performance, a dramatization rooted in social and political conflict; the “spirit of resistance” shown in the satire of mask dance leads to the emergence of a critical attitude and a transcendence of the boundaries of the present; the ecstasy resulting from kut leads to a “collective consciousness” that unites human and divine, the dead and the living; through the processes of affective resolution in mask dances and kut, han can be seen to act as a trigger for the “expansion” of awareness and experience. thus, it is argued to be a progressive and dynamic factor that “prompts collective social change,” builds a sense of solidarity, and leads to “historical development.” ultimately, han must converge with social change. han and kim thus argue that minjung forms of expression constitute an intrinsic mechanism of change and an orientation towards the future. even though their essay remains at a theoretical level, they attempt to exemplify how resistance and social critique has occurred and can occur through collective, performative means triggered by han. though an explicit path for “the overcoming of han” was not established by ko, he opens a space through this essay to critique popular, revered notions of han and to call on his readers—his peers—to confront obstacles to national and historical transformation. ko’s broad sketch of the transformation of han as well as its sociocultural environment over time also suggest a potential for change in the emotion concept itself. underlying ko’s theory of han is the notion that, despite essentialist claims, things have not always been the way that they are and that they need not stay that way. conclusion “towards the overcoming of han” and “essay on han and minjung sociology” are similar in their examination of han as a deeply rooted and primarily collective emotion belonging to the minjung; the accumulated result of political and historical exclusion; having a spiritual and religious dimension; and an emotion that plays with temporal, political, social, and historical boundaries. ko argues that han is a thoroughly negative facet of korean people, while han and kim see it as an emotion that is negative but carries much positive potential as well. for ko, it is a factor that is to some extent “external” and must be completely transformed and overcome. it is a tool for self-critique directed towards “korean” qualities that hinder korea’s progress. ko’s perspective on current han is more individualistic compared to the united, collective sense of han as argued by han and kim. 88 conceptualizing sorrow and hope: the discourse of han in south korea the most striking and significant difference lies in their ideas about han’s relation to past, present, and future. ko’s understanding of han is past-oriented and stresses impossibility, while han and kim see han as a future-oriented emotion of possibility. ko laments the loss of a past “original” form of han, which manifested itself as a dynamic and heroic spirit of retaliation. han and kim, however, attribute political potential and social utility to han as an “experience of the future.” for han and kim, han is a deeply internal and embedded coping mechanism that can lead to political and social transformation. they regard han as a valuable and indispensable aspect of minjung culture as opposed to ko’s interpretation of han as an emotion that must be discarded. han and kim argue that han is deeply performative and embodied, even though, as they admit themselves, their interpretations may be a stretch as they themselves are outside observers of “folk culture.” whereas ko argues cynically that were han revolutionary, it would have been a creative mechanism to show to the world, han and kim seem to suggest that han might actually be a mechanism of such value. rather than focusing on isolated, essentialist theories on han that are common in the han discourse, tensions within individual conceptions of han were teased out in the present textual analysis. based on the comparative findings, it can be said that han varies not only from person to person or community to community but within these entities themselves. moreover, han itself has been considered as an emotional and conceptual agent, as its language shaped and was in turn shaped by experience and expectation at a particular moment in korean history. this article has attempted to show that the concept of han is not a self-contained unit of emotion with one true, authentic meaning, nor a relativist construct simply depending on individual interpretation. han has shaped and been reshaped by its discourse. because han was given a language, it was able to speak; because han created a space for multidisciplinary debates, and because of han’s inherent conceptual tensions, the greater and more legitimate its vocabulary became. as an emotion concept, it can and has played a significant role in individual and collective ways of thinking, feeling, and perceiving korean society, history, and the world. repercussions from the far east | ertl | transcultural studies repercussions from the far east: a comparison of the catholic and nestorian presence in china thomas ertl, university of vienna the city of yangzhou is located along the lower course of the yangzi river, about seventy kilometers from nanjing. under the yuan dynasty (1271–1368), yangzhou was a wealthy trading town along the imperial canal, which connected the capital city of beijing in the north with the fertile southern chinese empire. along the banks of the canal, in the east of the city, lies the grave of muhammad puhadin. the muslim scholar, who came to china as a preacher of his faith, is considered to be a direct descendant of the prophet muhammad. puhadin died in yangzhou, where he is also buried, in 1275. his grave is part of a small cemetery containing twenty-five graves, sculpted according to arabian archetypes, in which both chinese muslims and arabian merchants were laid to rest. as a missionary, puhadin was likely to have been involved in the construction of the crane mosque, which has undergone several modifications in recent years. however, it still bears witness to the muslim presence in thirteenth-century yangzhou.[1] islam was not the only foreign religion to leave its mark on the city. some years ago, stone monuments were discovered in the urban area of yangzhou,[2] which shed significant light on the spread of christianity during yuan rule in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. in 1981, farmers unearthed a nestorian gravestone measuring thirty by twenty-five centimeters (fig. 1),[3] which bears an illustration of a cross flanked by angels and two inscriptions—a chinese text and a turkish text in syriac script.[4] the motif of the “cross-on-lotus” symbol is widespread in nestorian art throughout asia.[5] although the texts differ in detail, they contain the same basic information. the slightly lengthier turkish version—here partly supplemented by the chinese text—reads in translation: in the name of our lord jesus christ. in 1628 according to the counting of the emperor alexander, in the year of the snake, in the third month, on the ninth day [20th of may 1317], the wife of the xindu from dadu [beijing], the woman elizabeth, at the age of 33 accomplished the order of god. her vitality and her body have settled down in this tomb. her soul may find home and destination in paradise accompanied by the everlastingly pure women sarah, rebecca and rachel. may she be commemorated for ever. amen, yes and amen![6] fig. 1: nestorian gravestone of elisabeth, wife of the xindu from dadu, 1317, yangzhou (found in 1981). 29.8 x 25.8 x 4 cm. yangzhou museum. [geng, klimkeit, laut, grabinschrift, plate 1.] monuments like these yield important evidence to support the argument that nestorian christianity was established in central and eastern asia.[7] however, nestorianism was not the only christian denomination active in yangzhou in the medieval period. one generation before the discovery of the nestorian monument, in 1951, members of the chinese people’s liberation army uncovered a tombstone that had been used for the city’s fortification.[8] an image of the virgin mary and child is carved in the upper panel of the gravestone (fig. 2).[9] beneath this, there are sequences from the passion of the holy martyr catherine of alexandria. on the left, catherine is kneeling in prayer while the wheels of torture are miraculously destroyed. according to the legenda aurea, the popular thirteenth-century collection of saints’ lives, the angel who destroyed the wheels of torture employed such tremendous force that 4,000 heathens were killed—two of them can be seen on the tombstone’s relief. on the right, catherine’s decapitation by sword is shown. slightly above this, in a third scene, a pair of angels, clearly reminiscent of the above mentioned nestorian gravestone, lower the martyr’s body into a tomb, presumably a reference to the martyr’s tomb on mt. sinai. beneath this, a man on his knees is holding a naked infant in his arms. the infant most probably symbolizes the immortal soul of the deceased, now returned to its creator.[10] the lower half of the gravestone, enclosed by a floral tendril ornament, bears a latin inscription in which uncial letters are written in gothic style. it reads in translation: in the name of the lord amen. here lies catherine, daughter of the late sir domenico de vilioni, who died in the year of the lord 1343 in the month of june.[11] fig. 2: gravestone of catherine vilioni, daughter of domenico de vilioni, 1342, yangzhou (found in 1951). negative reproduction of the original rubbing made in 1952. [rouleau, “yangchow latin tombstone,” plate ii.] shortly after the discovery of catherine’s gravestone in 1951, another headstone was uncovered, with a brief inscription reporting the death of catherine’s brother antonio in 1344.[12] catherine and antonio may well have belonged to the genoese vilioni family. in 1348, a certain domenico ilioni was mentioned in connection with a merchant called jacopo de oliverio, who is reported to have lived for several years in the “kingdom of china” and quintupled his wealth during his stay.[13] the grave monuments are clear evidence of the religious diversity which existed in the decades around 1300, both in yangzhou and in china overall.[14] alongside confucianism and taoism, and the by then well-established chinese variant of buddhism, adherents of many other doctrines and denominations lived in china and enjoyed the freedom to practice their respective faiths without interference from the authorities. amongst them were manicheans, zoroastrians, jews, jacobeans, armenian, georgian, and greek orthodox christians, as well as people who followed shamanic ideas and rituals.[15] when roman-catholic missionaries, merchants, and envoys set foot on chinese soil for the first time, the nestorians had already been living and working in the middle kingdom for many centuries. nevertheless, no christian denomination outlived the medieval epoch in china. after zhu yuanzhang successfully ascended to the throne in 1368 and replaced the mongol rule with the native chinese ming dynasty, the new imperial administration expelled not only the mongols from the country, but also many others of non-chinese descent, in order to return to a “pure” and more harmonious chinese society.[16] while ethnic minorities survived the purge, the christian faith did not. this was not only an effect of the new policies under the ming dynasty: the situation of christian communities all over central and east asia had already been weakened by the spread of the plague a few decades prior to the shift of power in china.[17] despite its demise in the late middle ages, the christian presence in the far east had lasting consequences for the monks’ and traders’ societies of origin. while catholics resided only briefly in the medieval chinese empire—about one hundred years—and attracted few converts, the impact on western europe appears to have been particularly significant. studying the impact of missionary texts on the missionaries’ home countries is an approach already tested by current scholarship.[18] for the nestorian church, whose missionaries’ sojourn in the far east was notably longer and more effective regarding the number of converted individuals and entire peoples, the impact at home was of lesser importance. to be more precise, nestorian missionaries had considerable success in the far east but a rather limited impact at home in mesopotamia.[19] accordingly, the nestorian legacy comprised numerous gravestones in remote areas of the chinese periphery. in contrast, the catholics were unable to win many turkish, mongolian, and chinese souls while in china. their legacy in terms of popular travelogues, however, exerted a wide-ranging influence on european society in the late medieval and early modern period, and showed its influence when the jesuits, drawing on a “missionary discourse” and missionary techniques based on the experience of medieval missionaries, replaced the medieval franciscans as missionaries in the far east.[20] both missionary influence on the far east and the repercussions of these activities in the home countries in the west differed considerably in the two cases in question. in order to unfold the similarities and differences of nestorian monks’ and franciscan friars’ missionary work, the reverberations in their respective home countries will be compared, first by investigating the two christian groups and their presence in the far east individually, and then by comparing the two and by looking at the repercussions in their respective regions of origin. the nestorians and the “church of the east” christianity had been developing beyond the euphrates since the second century. christian identity beyond the eastern border of the roman empire slowly gained an awareness of independence and autonomy exemplified by a specific christological position, one that differed from that of the greek orthodox church.[21] in the seventh century, the “apostolic church of the east,” or “east syrian church,” had a firm ecclesiastical structure, was institutionally and dogmatically independent of the west, and had its own catholicos-patriarch, who originally resided in the persian capital of seleukia-ktesiphon, and, as of the eighth century, in baghdad.[22] within the roman empire, the eastern church was rigorously attacked[23] and disdainfully termed the “nestorian church.”[24] this name was dismissive and incorrect, since the doctrinal position of the east syrian church was defined by the christology of the two natures and two hypostases and by the formal adoption of the exegesis of theodore of mopsuestia (350−428 ce). it was not developed by nestorius (386−451 ce), but was the result of a long process that occurred several centuries after his death.[25] hence, “nestorianism” is a foreign appellation,[26] shaped and used by christians within the roman empire and, indeed, so widespread that it is also used here for practical reasons. even though the nestorian church was never a state church and always remained a religious minority living under non-christian rule, syrian and persian traders, as well as priests and monks, soon carried the nestorian message to the east.[27] by the end of the third century, the message had already reached the southwest-indian malabar coast. there, traveling monks quickly became the pillar of south indian christianity and the starting point of further missionary activity,[28] mostly along the silk road towards central and eastern asia. the faith won numerous followers, particularly among the turkish and sogdian populations along the central asian caravan routes.[29] as a result, communities expanded in commercial urban centers, such as samarkand, and church structures were established in these places as well.[30] in 635, the nestorian monk alopen, whose name is known only in its chinese form, arrived in the chinese capital city of xian.[31] he was warmly received by the emperor and spent his remaining years carrying out missionary work within the then-blooming tang empire.[32] as the first missionary of the east syrian church to be known by name in china, he and his successful work over the following decades are described in a famous inscription discovered in the seventeenth century. the so-called “nestorian stele” was carved in the year 781.[33] it states: in the time of the accomplished emperor taitsung […] among the enlightened and holy men who arrived was the most-virtuous olopun from the country of syria. […] in the year ad 635 he arrived at chang-an. […] the sacred books were translated in the imperial library, the sovereign investigated the subject in his private apartments. when becoming deeply impressed with the rectitude and truth of the religion, he gave special orders for its dissemination.[34] under the emperor’s protection, the nestorian community grew in china and spread to both tibet and the oasis towns of the tarim basin in the east of the empire. at the beginning of the eighth century, the commercial city of kashgar at the western edge of the basin was governed by a christian sovereign.[35] there was also a large nestorian community in dunhuang, another commercial city along the silk road, whose theological writings and mural paintings have been partially preserved.[36] nevertheless, in the middle of the ninth century, all religions stemming from the west lost imperial favor. in an edict released by emperor wuzong in the year 845, monks and nuns were forced to return to lay life. the nestorian church, which had developed in china mainly as a community of monks, was strongly affected by the new imperial policy. by the second half of the tenth century, the east syrian church’s mission in china, which had begun so auspiciously, had come to an end for the time being.[37] in contrast, the spread of christianity continued among the turkish in central asia. by the turn of the eighth century, the nestorian catholicos mar timothy i (727/8−823 ce) had set the stage for a missionary renewal in the east.[38] he sent out monks trained as missionaries and achieved great success on the plains of central asia. in 781, timothy gave a written account of a turkish khan who had converted to christianity along with almost all of his subjects.[39] this was only the beginning, however, of a fruitful expansion of the east syrian church amongst turkish tribes. at the onset of the eleventh century, the mongolian people of the kerait tribe, who had settled to the south of lake baikal, collectively joined the christian faith.[40] the nestorians also gained numerous followers among the uyghur people, who lived primarily in and around turfan on the northern edge of the tarim basin. these turkish and mongolian people brought nestorianism back to china.[41] when the unified mongols successfully took their military campaigns to the west under the leadership of genghis khan, numerous nestorian communities were displaced and destroyed. once the mongolian leadership was on solid ground and peace had returned, their empire stretched from the chinese sea to the euphrates and the new rulers soon became protectors and sponsors of nestorian christianity.[42] there had already been some nestorians among the mongols at the beginning of the conquests. the commercial links between the near east and china that were then secured under the protection of a single political entity facilitated relations between the catholicos-patriarch in baghdad and the numerous communities in the far east. soon, a nestorian church structure headed by metropolitans and bishops was consolidated anew along the silk road.[43] in east asia, there was a metropolitan see within the northern bow of the yellow river, which was part of the territory of the partially christianized öngüt people.[44] the nestorians once again secured a foothold in the chinese heartland—in numerous cities along the yellow river, in the southeastern chinese coastal area up to zayton (quanzhou),[45] and along the lower course of the yangzi river.[46] in this region, a nestorian from samarkand named mar sargis founded seven cloisters during the first few decades of the fourteenth century.[47] the east syrian church did not forfeit its reputation as a religion of and for outsiders, even though its adherents in the thirteenth century were not only syrians and persians, but also turks and mongols. some of them held important offices at the court of the great khan, and as a result, nestorianism came to be held in high esteem by the ruling elite.[48] for instance, the prominent christian chinkai, who hailed from the newly converted kerait people, served several khans as a consultant and chancellor. nestorian christianity also had a lasting influence on the mongolian rulers themselves. this was mostly due to the wives and concubines selected by the khans from the central asian populations, where christianity was firmly entrenched.[49] the most prominent woman who converted to christianity was the kerait-born princess sorghaghtani (ca. 1192–1252), daughter-in-law of genghis (1162–1252) and mother of mongke (1209–1259) and kublai khan (1215–1294).[50] another member of the small but distinguished turkish-mongolian elite of christian faith was xindu from beijing, the husband of elizabeth, whose gravestone was previously mentioned.[51] this noble functionary of turkish or mongolian origin held high offices at the court of the emperor buyantu, who ruled the empire between 1311 and 1320.[52] yet the nestorians in central and eastern asia always remained a negligible religious minority. the clergy consisted mainly of syrians and iranians, even more than one hundred years after their arrival in china.[53] they had only a tenuous connection to the mother church in mesopotamia and to their ecclesiastical head, the catholicos in baghdad.[54] therefore, nestorian life and theology in the far east were strongly shaped by the social and religious environment of the area.[55] numerous christianized turks and mongols retained their shamanic beliefs, dominated by ancestral spirits and demons, while at the same time confessing the christian faith, lured by its promise of salvation after death.[56] due to its status as a minority faith in exile, nestorian christianity relinquished its claim to exclusivity and purity. furthermore, given its co-existence with of a variety of religions, nestorian christianity had daily contact with non-christian beliefs and practices. the consequence of this was not only dialogue but also cross-religious interaction and borrowing.[57] the syrian church, for instance, picked up notions from mahayana buddhism, which was widespread in china and is the most popular branch of buddhism in east asia up to this day. drawing on the metaphorical language inherent in mahayana buddhism, jesus rows the “boat of mercy to the sky” and his crucifixion is described as “hanging up the luminous sun in the sky.” this integrates two central tenets of mahayana buddhism into the nestorian belief system.[58] the nestorian visual universe adopted many elements of contemporary central and east asian artistic production as well,[59] exemplified by iconographic scenes on gravestones showing stylistic influences from various peoples, cultures, and beliefs.[60] thus, its success among the central asian peoples changed nestorian christianity into another form of locally acculturated christianity. in the end, the nestorian efforts had no lasting success, since the struggle for religious dominance was won by other groups by the mid-fourteenth century: neo-confucian teachings in many parts of china, islam among the central asian turkish peoples, and lamaist buddhism among the mongols. developments in the east syrian church’s homeland went in a similar direction. soon after the dogmatic and structural establishment of the nestorian church, its growth was stopped by islamic expansion. yet the circumstances changed significantly in the nestorians’ favor again in the middle of the thirteenth century. in the wake of the conquest of baghdad by the mongols in 1258, the christians were not only spared, but the catholicos even received one of the former caliph’s palaces as a residence. the first ilkhan hülagü (1218−1265) had a christian mother, the above-mentioned sorghaghtani, as well as a wife of the same faith. the syrian chronicler barhebraeus (1226−1286) referred to the ilkhans as staunch christians who had surrounded themselves with christian advisers and had maintained good diplomatic contacts with the christian armenians, georgians, and europeans, while considering the muslims to be rebels.[61] the syrian nestorians were aware that their destiny depended on the goodwill of the mongolian ilkhanate. that was one reason why they appointed the monk rabban marcos (1245−1317) in 1281—despite his mediocre knowledge of syrian, the nestorian liturgical language—as their new catholicos-patriarch. marcos was the son of a nestorian cleric of the öngüt people. with his teacher, rabban bar sauma (1220−1294), a cleric of uyghur origin who had been raised in beijing’s christian environment, marcus had left china and was on a pilgrimage to jerusalem.[62] due to turmoil in syria, both turkish and chinese pilgrims remained at the court of the catholicos in baghdad, who had assigned marcos the metropolitan dignity of china but died a few months later. after his promotion to the see of catholicos, marcus selected the name mar jahballaha iii. with him at their head, the leading nestorian circles in iraq hoped to preserve the favor of the mongols, and at first, their hope appeared well-founded. jahballaha iii founded new cloisters and churches, and the ilkhan sent bar sauma to rome, paris, and bordeaux as an ambassador, in order to meet the pope and the king of france.[63] for the first time, the east syrian church gained immediate contact with the ecclesiastical and secular authorities of latin christianity. nevertheless, the nestorians’ diplomatic intervention did not enable the ilkhan to attain his political goal of forging a military alliance against the muslim mamluks.[64] relations between the muslim majority and the christian minority deteriorated noticeably over the course of time. when the incumbent ilkhan ghazan (1271−1304), who had been baptized as a child and educated as a christian, converted to islam shortly before the turn of the fourteenth century, the christians’ situation started to become precarious.[65] churches were destroyed and discriminating regulations for clothes were introduced. when jabhallaha died in 1317—the year in which elizabeth’s gravestone was crafted in yangzhou—christians had already become a degraded and oppressed minority. during the fourteenth century, nestorian communities suffered from arbitrary taxes and temporary bans, introduced with the intent to stop them from practicing their religion. many nestorians buckled under the pressure and converted. missions in baghdad and southern mesopotamia had to be abandoned entirely.[66] with his devastating campaigns around 1400, the muslim mongol timur lenk accelerated the decline of the nestorians. they were able to survive only in the impassable highlands of northern iraq, around mosul and kirkuk. catholics on their way to the far east the history of catholicism in central asia and china began much later than that of nestorianism and can be regarded as a response to the mongolian thrust towards europe.[67] mongolian armies had scarcely left western europe in 1241 when christian missionaries started traveling to the far east. their goal was twofold: to avert further onslaughts on christendom and to convert the invaders to the “true faith,” thereby winning military allies in the fight against the muslims in the holy land and the near east. by order of the pope, the franciscan monk john of plano carpini was the first to take the road to mongolia.[68] across bohemia and silesia, through the territory of the “golden horde” in ukraine and south russia, following a northern route of the silk road, the missionary finally reached the mongolians’ ancestral homeland in 1246. after months of waiting, john finally received an audience with the newly elected khagan (great khan). presumably, he used this opportunity to deliver a letter from the pope. in this document, pope innocent iv asked the khagan to refrain from fighting the christians. but in his reply, the khagan called upon the pope and europe’s secular rulers to accept his universal leadership.[69] after his return, the italian monk was the first western european to provide insight into the countries and people of eastern asia to his compatriots in a travel report.[70] yet it was after this journey that the heyday of the catholic missionaries in medieval asia began with the mongolian conquest of baghdad in 1258. the fall of the caliph’s seat opened up a wider scope of action to the christians in the mongolian empire, which, around 1260, stretched from mesopotamia to the china sea. in contrast to the muslim policy, mongolian governance was characterized by religious tolerance and indifference.[71] the first person to take advantage of this was the fleming william of rubruck, who traveled on behalf of the pope and the french king to the khagan in 1252. in karakorum, mongke khan granted him an audience but had no interest in converting to christianity or in supporting western christendom, neither in the fight against islam nor in the attempt to re-conquer the holy land.[72] nevertheless, catholic friars and missionaries did not abandon their plans. following an invitation from kublai khan, the franciscan john of montecorvino from southern italy traveled to beijing shortly before 1300.[73] for his trip, he chose to sail from persia to india and on to china. after arriving in the chinese capital, john began founding catholic churches. he built churches, workshops, and lodgings for newly baptized christians, preached in chinese and translated the psalms and the new testament into uyghur, the language used by the mongols. in his letters to rome, john proudly reported that he had converted several thousand moors and nestorian christians to catholicism. in 1307, pope clemens v promoted the missionary to archbishop of beijing and charged him with establishing a church organization. seven franciscan bishops were sent by the pope to inaugurate john and to give him support. the first archbishop of china conferred upon the new arrivals the administration of the diocese of quanzhou, which he had founded in southern china.[74] in the 1320s, odoric of pordenone also went to china.[75] odoric had spent many years with other franciscans in the mongolian khanate of gypjak in southern russia, starting around 1300. later, he had worked as a missionary in constantinople, trabzon (asia minor), and tabriz. in 1322, he set out for the far east to join john of montecorvino in china. odoric traveled by ship from ormus to guangzhou, then over land through china to the capital. finally, in 1325, he reached khanbaliq (beijing), where he supported archbishop john of montecorvino for three years. odoric returned to europe when john died in 1328. eight years later, toghan timur (1320−1370), the last mongol to sit on the chinese imperial throne, sent a delegation to pope benedict xii (ca. 1285–1342). the envoys were escorted by two genoese men in mongolian service. the pope benignly accepted the khagan’s request for a successor for john of montecorvino, sending john of marignola and a delegation of 50 to china. in 1342, john reached beijing with 32 companions. however, he did not remain in the chinese capital, but returned to europe in 1353. some years later, the catholic church’s first attempt to gain a foothold in the middle kingdom ended with the mongols’ defeat and withdrawal from china. the jesuits renewed this mission in the sixteenth century—using techniques the medieval mendicants had developed, but employing them differently than their contemporary franciscan and dominican colleagues.[76] paradoxically, friars and missionaries from western europe considered nestorian christians as both fellow believers and ruthless competitors.[77] nevertheless, the two christian minorities became natural allies, connected by their faith in the biblical revelation and at variance with religions such as buddhism or islam. they supported each other and mutually administered the sacraments if priests of the other denomination were absent. they shared the few available church rooms and celebrated liturgical feasts such as easter and pentecost together. nestorians and catholics had a common cause‚ “in honor of the cross,” as william of rubruck once put it.[78] despite this, however, latin friars seem to have added a competitive and sometimes hostile element to the inter-christian relationship. the main reason for this was the strict catholic claim to absoluteness and the often openly displayed disregard for non-christian religions as well as for other christian denominations. once more, william of rubruck gave a succinct account of this position in his description of the nestorians and their church in the mongol empire: the nestorians there are ignorant. they recite their office and have the holy scriptures in syriac, a language they do not know, so that they chant like the monks among us who know no grammar; and for this reason they are completely corrupt. above all they are usurers and drunkards, and some of them, furthermore, who live among the tartars, have several wives just as the tartars have. on entering the church they wash their lower members, in the saracen manner; they eat meat on fridays and follow the saracens in having their feasts on that day. the bishop takes his time about visiting those parts, doing so perhaps hardly once in fifty years. on that occasion they have all the male children, even those in the cradle, ordained as priests. as a result almost all their men are priests. thereafter they marry, which clearly contravenes the decrees of the fathers; and they commit bigamy as well, in that when their first wife dies these priests take another. they are all simoniacs, moreover, and administer none of the sacraments without a fee. they are active on behalf of their wives and children, and consequently have an eye not to spreading the faith but to making money. the result is that when any of them rear the sons of aristocratic mongols, even though they instruct them in the gospels and the faith, nevertheless by their immorality and their greed they rather alienate them from the christian religion. for the lives of the mongols and even of the idolaters are more blameless than their own.[79] william’s characterization of east asian nestorianism was grounded in behaviors that were mainly due to the nestorian church’s social and religious assimilation.[80] infrequent contact with the mother church in mesopotamia and only cursory knowledge of syriac, which was used as a liturgical language in order to affirm the unity of the church, undoubtedly posed real problems.[81] a married priesthood corresponded not only to nestorian habits, but also to the practice in many oriental churches.[82] the remaining points made by rubruck should probably be considered confessional polemic. similar intellectual prejudices can be found with other catholic travelers who met nestorians on their sojourn in the east. at the threshold of the fourteenth century, this disdainful attitude was strengthened by concrete anti-nestorian actions, when, for example, john of montecorvino began to evangelize for the catholic faith under the nestorians and referred to his successful conversion work in several letters to the pope. additionally, john wrote of the prince of the öngüt’s conversion to catholicism.[83] after the death of this neophyte khan georg, the succeeding öngüt sovereign returned to nestorianism.[84] inter-christian aversions lingered and characterized the last decades of medieval christianity in central asia and china. a rumor about the murder of two franciscans, slain by nestorians at an unknown place in central asia in the second half of the fourteenth century, reveals the deterioration of the relationship of the two christian denominations in fourteenth-century asia.[85] different missions and divergent repercussions nestorians and catholics traveled to the far east on different roads. to begin with, the initial conditions were quite distinct. more precisely, the east syrian church was a minority church. even in their region of origin in mesopotamia, the nestorians lived in a predominantly muslim society. hence, they faced a familiar situation in the expansion towards the east along the silk road. in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the scattered nestorian church lived under the shield of the mongol empire. under these circumstances, the desire to be on good terms with the mongolian elite was understandably strong. in contrast, the mendicant friars were members of a dominant church, which claimed religious and cultural supremacy in the societies within an orbit that encompassed the whole peninsula of western europe. since the beginning of the crusades, this church’s profile had sharpened considerably. the struggle against muslims and pagans in the holy land and at the edges of europe fostered this process, as did the marginalization of heretics within christendom.[86] since the thirteenth century, the mendicant friars played a crucial role in the church’s ambitions to lead christianity, combat its foes, and banish its vices. convinced of the supremacy of the roman catholic church and of their own exceptional duties within it, dominicans and franciscans worked as the pope’s vanguard in europe’s heartlands and beyond its borders.[87] the practical missionary work differed as well. the nestorians were familiar with managing life as a religious minority within societies often hostile to them. translations of basic texts, such as the gospel or liturgical hymns from syriac to sogdian, uyghur, and other languages, were a means to achieve this goal.[88] additionally, the need to adapt to other cultures and religions furthered the openness to syncretism and hybridity that developed in east asia.[89] this openness towards foreign systems of belief, ceremony, and behavior was a fundamental reason for the success of the mission among the turkish and mongolian peoples in central asia, who had supported nestorianism at the court of the mongolian khagan. despite their assimilation, the nestorians could not curb the triumphant spread of islam, whether in the persian ilkhanate or in central asia. the east syrian church had been marginalized since the fourteenth century. in contrast, the mendicant missionaries followed a different path. they first traveled to eastern asia in the thirteenth century and appeared more as frail individuals than as a menacing group. as a consequence, they did not need to concern themselves with the everyday problems of a converted christian’s congregation of turks and mongols in the midst of a periodically hostile environment. from this perspective, it was easy to criticize nestorian syncretism and to perceive their own confession as the only pure and right form of christianity. different experiences in the far east yielded different results for nestorians and catholics at home. syrians and persians had been bringing their faith to the east since the third century, and, up until the fourteenth century, the east syrian church was the “most successful missionary church in contemporary ecumenical christendom,” with a geographic radius of action that significantly exceeded those of all other christian denominations.[90] communication and cohesion between the “inner metropolitanates” in the near east and the “outer metropolitanates” in south, central, and east asia were difficult but still functioned to a certain extent, bolstered mainly by the common liturgical language and the regular dispatch of prelates by the catholicos-patriarch.[91] yet the limited cultural transfer among the numerous ecclesiastical provinces in the far east led to relative isolation. journeys from the east to mesopotamia, such as rabban bar sauma’s pilgrimage with his disciple marcos, appear to have been rare exceptions. thus, it is not necessarily surprising that there are few written nestorian travel accounts. transmitting worldly knowledge of foreign landscapes, customs, and cultures was never a prominent goal of nestorians traveling east. the legacy of the nestorian mission in eastern asia consists, therefore, of theological texts and many gravestones, such as those in yangzhou mentioned previously.[92] most of these nestorian gravestones can still be found in inner mongolia,[93] the region where nestorianism successfully spread among the mongolian and turkish peoples. the monuments show the historical existence of christians in the east—both immigrants from the west and indigenous converts. what they do not exhibit, however, are the broader repercussions of the nestorian mission in the far east within the homelands of these missionaries and their religion. fig. 3: nestorian gravestones, inner mongolia. [halbertsma, early christian remains, plate 39.] friars and travelers hailing from western europe could not look back to a time-honored tradition of missionary work in asia. the far east was not a well-known mission area, but virgin land. countries and peoples were visualized according to biblical and antique texts. it was only with the slow integration of new knowledge that people were able to overcome traditional stereotypes and develop new concepts of the east, more in keeping with reality. in contrast to these intellectual alterations in the west, catholic parishes failed in their early attempts to take firm root in the mongol empire. neither john of montecorvino’s quest for a permanent church organization nor a small italian exile community in yangzhou could change this. western christendom was not affected geographically by the east asian mission, since an extension of roman catholicism was out of reach. however, the journeys of latin christians to the east had a strong impact on western europe. the legacy of this mission is not evident in the stone monuments in the east, even though there are still a few gravestones of franciscan missionaries in china.[94] rather, it manifests itself through texts from the west. in contrast to the nestorians, john of plano carpini and his followers recorded their expeditions to the exotic mongol empire in travel reports, which were taken up and studied in europe with immense enthusiasm. gillman and klimkeit noticed the lasting effects of this short term-missionary activity: “the history of the franciscan friars travelling to central and east asia is one that lasted hardly one hundred years. yet the events of these epoch are important in view of the information those travelers have supplied.”[95] the urge to record experiences in asia and to render them accessible to a bigger audience was not limited to the clerical sector. after his return from china in 1271, marco polo wrote a travel report, deuisament dou monde (“description of the world”), better known as il milione, which made him the best-known european of the middle ages. however, this merchant journey, which marco polo undertook with his father and brother, is also connected with the christian mission. in his prologue, marco polo reports that his father niccolò and uncle maffei had already traveled to the empire of the mongols in 1260. from kublai khan, they received the order to return to the west and deliver a letter to the pope. regarding the delegation and the contents of this letter, marco polo writes: he [the khan] sent to the apostle saying that he must send as many as a hundred wise men of learning in the christian religion and doctrine, and who should know also the seven arts and be fitted to teach his people and who should know well how to argue and to show plainly to him and to the idolaters and to the other classes of people submitted to his rule that all their religion was erroneous and all the idols which they keep in their houses and worship are devilish things and who should know well how to show clearly by reason that the christian faith and religion is better than theirs and more true than all the other religions.[96] however, on their journey to the east in 1271, the three venetians were accompanied not by one hundred scholars, but only by two dominicans. in asia minor, both friars apparently lost their courage and returned to the west. as a result, the ecclesiastical aspect of the expedition fell into oblivion, although marco polo mentions the existence of nestorian churches or nestorian parishes in many places. he also describes kublai khan as a friend and admirer of the christians. overall, marco polo presented the different faiths of eastern asia with an open mind and without strong judgments.[97] only the muslims, enemies of the christians in the west, were described pejoratively. the milione is a peculiar mixture of a dry economic manual, which lists facts of the economic situation in towns on the route, and an amusing collection of anecdotes, in which legends of different provenances were gathered. the book describes the idealized kublai khan and his court, to which a substantial part of the work is dedicated, as out of the ordinary. marco polo states that he accomplished diplomatic missions in the empire as a personal representative of the khan and also held an important political function as vicegerent of the city of yangzhou in the mongol empire. it may not be a coincidence that yangzhou is the city in which a latin christian community presumably lived at the beginning of the fourteenth century. despite their divergent priorities, perspectives, and intentions, the travel reports from the layman of venice and the friars of the mendicant orders were read together. first, the audience consisted of educated men, both in the clerical and monastic as well as in the courtly and civic milieu. this is confirmed by the rapid translation of the milione into latin, the clerical language of scholars.[98] the narrative potential of the texts was quickly recognized and employed for different purposes. berthold of regensburg, for example, spoke in his sermons about the mongols, on the one hand to admonish his listeners to conjugal loyalty, and on the other hand, to hold his listeners’ attention with lurid tales of the destructiveness of the tatars.[99] others incorporated the new knowledge of fabulous creatures into their paintings on canvas, parchment, or church walls.[100] the writings of john of plano carpini, marco polo, and other travelers on central and east asia offered material for teaching and, undeniably, for entertaining stories. singular motifs and miraculous histories from the travel reports became regular components of the late-medieval heroic saga, and the original texts and their literary adaptations changed the dominant image of the asian continent and its people in europe. the medieval travel writers systematically opened up a previously unknown world in their texts, allowing centuries-old stereotypes, which had sprung from biblical and antique writings, to be overcome or at least to be qualified. the “blank spot” which marked eastern asia in the mental map of europeans began to be filled.[101] information on natural history in the travel reports was deciphered slowly but steadily for an enlargement of the empirical world. until the fourteenth century, theologians and historians had primarily been interested in the legends and miraculous stories from asia that they could use in their own texts and imaginations. nevertheless, in addition to the description of peoples, religions, and cultures, the travel reports from eastern asia contained information about the geography of the newly visited countries. in the thirteenth century, the polymath roger bacon had used his friars’ contemporary itineraries to sketch a new picture of the eastern hemisphere. generally, the authors of substantial encyclopedias of this time based their descriptions of the cosmos and the world on the traditional ancient and early-medieval narratives. however, broader interest in the geography of asia arose at the turn of the fifteenth century. at this time, the travel reports were no longer understood as histories of miracles, but as important sources of information, enriching people’s geographic impressions of the world. to be sure, many images and concepts remained blurred or incorrect, and scholars often continued to regard southern china as part of a greater india. nevertheless, the representation of the “middle kingdom” on modern fifteenth-century maps was much more accurate than ever before. the mappa mundi of around 1450 by fra mauro, a venetian monk and cartographer, is just one example. though fra mauro used claudius ptolemy’s antique map as a basis for his own work, he amended the model by adding newly acquired first-hand knowledge.[102] the public’s perception of east asia was decisively reshaped by these travel reports.[103] on the one hand, the “new china” was depicted with almost realistic geographic precision in regard to its towns, coasts, and islands; on the other hand, based on the milione and similar texts, it was conceived as an exceedingly rich country.[104] the explorers of the fifteenth century were evidently familiar with this new knowledge about the east. the picture drawn in the travelogues from eastern asia must have been both a temptation and a challenge. henry the navigator, who organized and financed the portuguese exploration of the west african coast in the second quarter of the fifteenth century, likely owned a copy of the milione. at the portuguese king’s court, a western route to india was first discussed, on the basis of the information provided by marco polo, around 1474.[105] christopher columbus was staying in lisbon as well at that time. during protracted negotiations, the genoese explorer convinced isabel of castile and ferdinand of aragon, the catholic monarchs, to support his plan to set sail for india via the west. in these months, columbus apparently studied the latin version of the milione carefully and marked and commented on particularly important sections.[106] these often included references to the wealth of the east, which he most likely wanted to use to impress his financiers. in the end, the catholic travelers to the east left a visible mark on history, not by proselytizing in the far east, but by enhancing the knowledge and attraction of the far east in their home countries in the west. this was by no means only a medieval phenomenon. a strong “home impact” can also be found in later jesuit missions fueling “colonial fantasies” and engagement in colonial activities.[107] the travelers added their part to the creation of “useful and reliable knowledge,” which helped their audiences in the west to understand and ultimately conquer the world.[108] in contrast, the very different starting point of the nestorians in the middle east led to a different development of their missionary activities and their impact on their country of origin. due to their minority status at home, the nestorians were better prepared for cross-cultural adaptation and assimilation. this increased their missionary success in the east, but could not prevent their increasing marginalization in the west. this, then, is the variety of consequences to which medieval cross-cultural travel led.[109] the results of these two different missions to the far east produced very different effects. the nestorians were successful when it came to the actual conversion of people, but lost their standing to political and natural changes on which they had little influence. the franciscans had little effect on their new host societies, but they created a legacy on which later undertakings could build. both missions had the same goal, but the franciscan mission had effects that were not intended and could not have been foreseen. they renewed european knowledge of and interest in the societies of the far east, a process that and ultimately facilitated the resurgence of christian missionary activities in the 16th and 17th centuries. [1] on muslims in thirteenth-century china, and especially in its southeastern coastal areas, see hajji yusuf chang, “chinese muslim mobility in sung-liao-chin period,” in islam in china: key papers, ed. michael dillon (folkestone: global oriental, 2009), 1:159–160. on muslims in yangzhou and muslim migration to yuan china, see fan ke, “maritime muslims and hui identity: a south fujian case,” journal of muslim minority affairs 21, 2 (2001): 309–332, and reprinted in dillon, islam in china, 242 (yangzhou) and passim. on the mosque, see nancy shatzman steinhardt, “china’s earliest mosques,” journal of the society of architectural historians 67, no. 3 (2008): 330–361, here 343. [2] on problems and proceedings of archeological research on medieval religions in twentieth-century china, see samuel n. c. lieu, “medieval manichaean and nestorian remains in the zayton (quanzhou) of marco polo,” in new light on manichaeism: papers from the sixth international congress on manichaeism organized by the international association of manichaean studies, ed. jason d. beduhn (leiden: brill, 2009), 183–193. [3] on the discovery and excavation of the gravestone, see shimin geng, “reexamination of the nestorian inscription from yangzhou,” in jingjiao: the church of the east in china and central asia, ed. roman malek and peter hofrichter (nettetal: steyler, 2006), 253. [4] shimin geng, hans-joachim klimkeit, and jens peter laut, “eine neue nestorianische grabinschrift aus china,” ural-altaische jahrbücher, n. f. 14 (1996): 164–175; geng, “reexamination.” [5] arthur c. moule, “the use of the cross among the nestorians in china,” t’oung pao 28 (1931): 78–86; ian gillman and hans-joachim klimkeit, christians in asia before 1500 (richmond: curzon, 1999), 231. [6] geng, “reexamination,” 254. a german translation is provided by geng et al., “grabinschrift,” 170. [7] p. yoshiro saeki, the nestorian documents and relics in china (tokyo: maruzen, 1951); max deeg, “towards a new translation of the chinese nestorian documents from the tang dynasty,” in malek and hofrichter, jingjiao, 115–131; tjallin h. f. halbertsma, early christian remains of inner mongolia (leiden: brill, 2008), passim. on the characteristics and iconography of the nestorian grave materials, see ibid., 159–217. [8] on the discovery of the tombstone, see francis a. rouleau, “the yangchow latin tombstone as a landmark of medieval christianity in china,” harvard journal of asiatic studies 17, no. 3–4 (1954): 348–351. [9] rouleau, “yangchow latin tombstone,” 351–352. on the role of mary in nestorianism, see richard m. price, “marian piety and the nestorian controversy,” in the church and mary, ed. robert n. swanson (woodbridge: boydell press, 2006). [10] on the iconography, see rouleau, “yangchow latin tombstone,” 355–356. [11] the original latin inscription is printed in rouleau, “yangchow latin tombstone,” 353: in nomine dñi amen hic jacet / katerina filia qondam domini / dñici de vilionis que obiit in / anno domini milleximo ccc / xxxx ii de mense junii. [12] franz xaver peintinger, “in nomine domini: ein christlicher grabstein in yangzhou (1344),” in the chinese face of jesus christ, ed. roman malek (nettetal: steyler, 2002), 1:285–289. [13] rouleau, “yangchow latin tombstone,” 360–363; roberto s. lopez, su e giu per la storia di genova (genoa: universita di genova. istituto di paleografia e storia medievale, 1975), 184. [14] on the diversity of christian communities in central asia and china during the time of the mongols, see gillman and klimkeit, christians, 249. [15] on christianity in medieval central asia and china prior to 1500, see arthur c. moule, christians in china before the year 1550 (london: society for promoting christian knowledge, 1930); gillman and klimkeit, christians, 205–306; nicolas standaert, ed., handbook of christianity in china, vol. i, 635–1800 (leiden: brill, 2001). on christians in yuan china, see samuel h. moffett, a history of christianity in asia, vol. 1, beginnings to 1500 (maryknoll, ny: orbis books, 1998). on the mongolian stance towards religion, see christopher a. atwood, “validation by holiness or sovereignty: religious toleration as political theology in the mongol world empire of the thirteenth century,” international history review 26, no. 2 (2004). [16] on the early ming legislative program of enhancing social control, see edward l. farmer, zhu yuanzhang and early ming legislation: the reordering of chinese society following the era of mongol rule (leiden: brill, 1995), 105–113. [17] see gillman and klimkeit, christians, 234–235. on possible vestiges of the christian past still extant in the fifteenth century and beyond, see gillman and klimkeit, christians, 305. on doubts about the authenticity of the “nestorian stele” excavated in 1625, see david e. mungello, curious land: jesuit accommodation and the origins of sinology (stuttgart: steiner, 1985), 164–172. [18] for example, see ulrike strasser, “a case of empire envy? german jesuits meet an asian mystic in spanish america,” journal of global history 2, no. 1 (2007). [19] while the dichotomy of success and failure no longer dominates the scholarship on christian conversion, i use the terms here to accentuate the divergent legacies of nestorians and franciscans in the east and in the west. regarding the “complexities of conveying and consuming religious teachings across cultural borders,” see charles h. parker, “converting souls across cultural borders: dutch calvinism and early modern missionary enterprises,” journal of global history, 8, 1, 2013, 51. [20] peter r. d’agostino, “orthodoxy or decorum? missionary discourse, religious representations, and historical knowledge,” church history 72, no. 4 (2003): 709; liam brockey, journey to the east: the jesuit mission to china, 1579–1724 (cambridge: harvard university press, 2007), 7. this is true even though matteo ricci’s knowledge of christendom in china prior to the jesuits’ arrival was very limited. see the scant remarks in his description of china: matteo ricci, descrizione della cina (macerata: quodlibet, 2011), 126–127. [21] on the lengthy process of introducing christological innovations to the east syrian church, see gerrit j. reinink, “tradition and the formation of the nestorian identity in sixthto seventh-century iraq,” church history and religious culture 89, no. 1–3 (2009): 217–218. on the parallel formation of nestorian liturgy, see bayard h. jones, “the history of nestorian liturgies,” anglican theological review 46 (1964): 160–165. [22] wilhelm baum and dietmar w. winkler, die apostolische kirche des ostens: geschichte der sogenannten nestorianer (klagenfurt: kitab, 2000), 13–42. on nestorian christology as a response to justinian’s religious policy and the decisions of the fifth ecumenical council of 553 ce, see reinink, “tradition,” 248–249. [23] susan wessel, cyril of alexandria and the nestorian controversy: the making of a saint and of a heretic (oxford: oxford university press, 2004). [24] on the formation and spread of the religious tenets via treatises and letters accompanied by collections of further texts and documents, intended both to represent the orthodoxy of one’s own teaching and expose the errors of one’s opponents, see rowan a. greer, “the use of scripture in the nestorian controversy,” scottish journal of theology 20, no. 4 (1967): 413–422; thomas graumann, “the distribution of texts and communication-networks in the nestorian controversy,” in comunicazione e ricezione del documento cristiano in epoca tardoantica: xxxii incontro di studiosi dell’antichità cristiana, roma, 8–10 maggio 2003 (rome: institutum patristicum augustinianum, 2004), 237–238. [25] dietmar w. winkler, ostsyrisches christentum: untersuchungen zu christologie, ekklesiologie und zu den ökumenischen beziehungen der assyrischen kirche des ostens (münster: lit, 2003); reinink, “tradition,” 225. [26] sebastian p. brock, “the ‘nestorian’ church: a lamentable misnomer,” bulletin of the john rylands university library of manchester 78, no. 3 (1996) 23–35. [27] wolfgang hage, “der weg nach asien: die ostsyrische missionskirche,” in kirchengeschichte als missionsgeschichte, ed. knut schäferdiek, vol. 2, bk. 1, die kirche des früheren mittelalters (münchen: kaiser, 1978); gillman and klimkeit, christians, 208–209.; yves raguin, “china’s first evangelization by the 7th and 8th century eastern syrian monks,” in malek, the chinese face of jesus christ, 1:159–161. [28] on early christians in india and the presence of the east syrian church there, see gillman and klimkeit, christians, 155–165; a. mathias mundadan, history of christianity in india, vol. 1, from the beginning up to the middle of the sixteenth century (bangalore: church history association of india, 1984), 78. [29] gillman and klimkeit, christians, 206–207. and 212–215. [30] jean dauvillier, “les provinces chaldéennes ‘de l’extérieur’ au moyen age,” in mélanges offerts au r. p. ferdinand cavallera, doyen de la faculté de théologie de toulouse, à l’occasion de la quarantième année de son professorat à l’institut catholique, ed. jean dauvillier (toulouse: bibliothèque de l’institut catholique, 1948), 283–287; erica c. d. hunter, “the church of the east in central asia,” bulletin of the john rylands university library of manchester 78, no. 3 (1996); jean maurice fiey, pour un oriens christianus novus: répertoire des diocèses syriaques orientaux et occidentaux (stuttgart: steiner, 1993), 128. this work contains a complete and commented list of the east syrian church’s dioceses in the west and east. [31] dauvillier, “les provinces chaldéennes,” 296–297; c. y. hsü, “nestorianism and the nestorian monument in china,” asian culture quarterly 14, no. 1 (1986): 46; gillman and klimkeit, christians, 221–222 and 269–270. [32] on the major religions in eighth-century tang china, see peter n. gregory and patricia buckley ebrey, “the religious and historical landscape,” in religion and society in t’ang and sung china, ed. patricia buckley ebrey and peter n. gregory (honululu: university of hawai’i press, 1993), 18–35. [33] moule, christians in china, 27–52; saeki, nestorian documents, 11–112; hsü, “nestorianism,” 46–65 (about the discovery and its interpretation throughout the centuries); xu longfei, die nestorianische stele in xi’an: begegnung von christentum und chinesischer kultur (bonn: borengässer, 2004); raguin, “china’s first evangelization,” 164–167; gillman and klimkeit, christians, 271–275. [34] paul carus, the nestorian monument: an ancient record of christianity in china (chicago: the open court publishing company, 1909), 13. [35] for nestorians in kashgar and in territories subjected to the qara khitai, see michal biran, the empire of the qara khitai in eurasian history between china and the islamic world (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2005), 178–179. [36] moule, christians in china, 52–64; saeki, nestorian documents, 416–418; li tang, a study on the history of nestorian christianity in china and its literature in chinese: together with a new english translation of the dunhuang nestorian documents (frankfurt am main: peter lang, 2004). on nestorian inscriptions found in dunhuang, see hsü, “nestorianism,” 67–69. [37] dauvillier, “les provinces chaldéennes,” 298; moffett, christianity, 302–313; raguin, “china’s first evangelization,” 170–171; gillman and klimkeit, christians, 282–285. [38] gillman and klimkeit, christians, 218. [39] ibid., 217–218. [40] dauvillier, “les provinces chaldéennes,” 308–309; erica c. d. hunter, “the conversion of the kerait to christianity in ad 1007,” zentralasiatische studien 22 (1989/90): 140–163; moffett, christianity, 400–402; gillman and klimkeit, christians, 226–230 and 287. [41] igor de rachewiltz, “the turks in china under the mongols: a preliminary investigation of turco-mongol relations in the 13th and 14th century,” in china among equals: the middle kingdom and its neighbors, 10th–14th centuries, ed. morris rossabi (berkeley: university of california press, 1983). [42] hsü, “nestorianism,” 66; jean maurice fiey, chrétiens syriaques sous le mongols: il-khanat de perse, xiiie–xive s. corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium (louvain: secrétariat du corpus sco, 1987), 2–6; gillman and klimkeit, christians, 285–287. [43] on the church’s structure, see dauvillier, “les provinces chaldéennes,” 263. [44] ibid., 303–304; halbertsma, early christian remains, 35–48. on the nestorian tradition in inner mongolia, see ibid. 73–74 and 135–158. on another sepulchral inscription of presumably öngüt provenience, see james hamilton and ru-ji niu, “deux inscriptions funéraires turques nestoriennes de la chine orientale,” journal asiatique 282, no. 1 (1994): 147–155. [45] qin zhang yang, “nestorian churches and their followers along the southern china coast in the yuan,” in andrea da perugia: atti del convegno, perugia, 19 settembre 1992, ed. carlo santini (rome: il calamo, 1994), 105–128; moule, christians in china, 78–85; bizhen xie, “the history of quanzhou nestorianism,” in malek and hofrichter, jingjiao, 257–277; hamilton and niu, “deux inscriptions,” 155–163; samuel n. c. lieu, “nestorian remains from zaitun (quanzhou), south china,” in malek and hofrichter, jingjiao, 277–291; lieu, “medieval manichaean,” 190–199; gillman and klimkeit, christians, 293–298. [46] dauvillier, “les provinces chaldéennes,” 300–301. [47] moule, christians in china, 145–165; louis ligeti, “les sept monastaires nestoriens de mar sargis,” acta orientalia hungarica 26, no. 2–3 (1972): 169–178; gillman and klimkeit, christians, 296. [48] ibid., 287–290; halbertsma, early christian remains, 48–57. [49] james d. ryan, “christian wives of the mongol khans: tartar queens and missionary expectations in asia,” journal of the royal asiatic society 8, no. 3 (1998): 411–421. [50] moffett, christianity, 443–444; li tang, “sorkaktani beki: a prominent nestorian woman at the mongol court,” in malek and hofrichter, jingjiao, 349–355. [51] on the identification of xindu, see geng, “reexamination,” 253–254. [52] herbert franke, “eine qarluq-türkische familie im dienste der mongolischen großkhane,” in scholia: beiträge zur turkologie und zentralasienkunde. annemarie von gabain zum 80. geburtstag, ed. klaus röhrborn and horst wilfrid brands (wiesbaden: harrassowitz, 1981), 64–79. [53] gillman and klimkeit, christians, 239 and 294–295. [54] ibid., 237–238. [55] halbertsma, early christian remains: 245. [56] on cultural hybridity as a tool to understand cross-cultural missionary activity, see parker, “converting souls,” 51–52. on the mutual interchange and acculturation of religions in medieval china, see christine mollier, buddhism and taoism face to face: scripture, ritual, and iconographic exchange in medieval china (honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 2008). [57] gillman and klimkeit, christians, 258–262. [58] gerhard rosenkranz, die älteste christenheit in china in den quellenschriften der nestorianer-texte der tang-dynastie (berlin: ostasien-mission, 1939), 7 and passim. [59] ken parry, “images of the church of the east: the evidence from central asia and china,” bulletin of the john rylands university library of manchester 78, no. 3 (1996): 143–162; ken parry, “an unusual artifact from south china,” journal of the asian arts society of australia review 15, no. 2 (2006): 12–13. on tombstones and amulets “combining the symbol of the cross with buddhist and shamanistic emblems like that of the lotus and the swastika,” see gillman and klimkeit, christians, 230. [60] wasilios klein, “christliche reliefgrabsteine des 14. jahrhunderts von der seidenstraße: ergänzungen zu einer alttürkischen und zwei syrischen inschriften,” in vi symposium syriacum, ed. rené lavenant (rome: pontificio istituto orientale, 1994), 439–442; gillman and klimkeit, christians, 230–231; halbertsma, early christian remains, 216–217 and 244. [61] on hülagu’s attitude towards christianity, see fiey, chrétiens, 18–32. [62] fiey, chrétiens, 38; morris rossabi, voyager from xanadu: rabban sauma and the first journey from china to the west (tokyo, new york and london: kodansha, 1992). [63] moule, christians in china, 94–127; jean richard, “la mission en europe de rabban çauma et l’union des églises,” in orient et occident au moyen âge, ed. jean richard (london: variorum reprints, 1976), 162–167; pier borbone, storia di mar yahballaha e di rabban sauma: un orientale in occidente ai tempi di marco polo (turin: zamorani, 2000). [64] fiey, chrétiens, 31 and 47–51; frédéric luisetto, arménians et autres chrétiens d’orient sous la domination mongole (paris: geuthner, 2007), 101–116. [65] fiey, chrétiens, 66–73; luisetto, arménians, 38–50. [66] on the christians’ fate in fourteenth-century iraq, see fiey, chrétiens, 74–84. [67] for a survey of the franciscan missions to the mongols, see moffett, christianity, 406–414; gillman and klimkeit, christians, 242–251 and 298–305. [68] on john of plano carpini, see joseph p. byrne, “giovanni di piano carpini (c. 1180–1252),” in key figures in medieval europe: an encyclopedia, ed. richard c. emmerson and sandra clayton-emmerson (new york: routledge, 2006), 259. [69] moffett, christianity, 407–408. [70] erik hildinger, trans. and ed., the story of the mongols whom we call the tartars. friar giovanni di plano carpini’s account of his embassy to the court of the mongol khan (boston: branden, 1996). [71] on religious toleration as a means of mongolian politics, see atwood, “validation.” [72] moffett, christianity, 409–414. [73] on john of montecorvino in china, see gillman and klimkeit, christians, 300–303. [74] jean richard, “zayton, un évêché au bout du monde,” in chemins d’outre-mer: etudes d’histoire sur la méditerranée médiévale offertes à michel balard, ed. damien coulon (paris: publications de la sorbonne, 2004), 745–751. [75] henry yule, trans., the travels of friar odoric: blessed odoric of pordenone. italian texts and studies on religion and society, (grand rapids, mi: eerdmans, 2002), 1–62 (“introduction” by paolo chiesa). [76] see above footnote 22. on tensions between the orders, see brockey, journey to the east, 102–104. [77] wolfgang hage, “das nebeneinander christlicher konfessionen im mittelalterlichen zentralasien,” in xvii. deutscher orientalistentag, ed. wolfgang voigt, (wiesbaden: steiner, 1969), 2:517–525. [78] anastasius van wyngaert, ed., “wilhelmus rubruquensis, itinerarium ad partes orientales,” in itinera et relationes fratrum minorum saeculi xiii et xiv (quaracchi-firenze: collegium s. bonaventurae, 1929), 29, 43. on the relations between different christian groups, see gillman and klimkeit, christians, 249–251; peter bruns, “doch wegen der ehre des kreuzes standen wir zusammen … östliches christentum im itinerar des wilhelm von rubruk (1253–1255),” zeitschrift für kirchengeschichte 113, no. 2 (2002): 145–169. [79] peter jackson, trans. and ed., the mission of friar william of rubruck: his journey to the court of the great khan möngke, 1253–1255 (london: hakluyt society, 1990), chap. xxvi, 12, 163–164. on rubruck’s general picture of the nestorian clergy, see ibid., 46–50 (“introduction”); gillman and klimkeit, christians, 248. [80] on rubruck’s stance towards the nestorians, see moffett, christianity, 411–412. gillman and klimkeit, christians, 298–299. [81] wolfgang hage, “einheimische volkssprachen und syrische kirchensprache in der nestorianischen asienmission,” in erkenntnisse und meinungen, vol. 2, ed. gernot wießner (wiesbaden: harrassowitz, 1978), 131–160. on “nestorian literacy,” see gillman and klimkeit, christians, 251–252. [82] ibid., 239. [83] dauvillier, “les provinces chaldéennes,” 303. [84] gillman and klimkeit, christians, 293. [85] hage, “der weg nach asien,” 387; gillman and klimkeit, christians, 251, 299. [86] on the impact of the aggression against outer enemies and catholic self-conceptions, see the contributions in michael frassetto, ed., heresy and the persecuting society in the middle ages: essays on the work of r. i. moore (leiden: brill, 2006). [87] on the franciscan’s attempt to shape medieval society, see thomas ertl, religion und disziplin: selbstdeutung und weltordnung im frühen deutschen franziskanertum (berlin: de gruyter, 2006), 367–388. [88] gillman and klimkeit, christians, 251–262. [89] on hybridity in missionary work, see peter burke, cultural hybridity (cambridge: polity press, 2009), 9–11 and 42–44. see also parker, “converting souls,” 64–71. [90] hage, “der weg nach asien,” 373. on the nestorian presence as far east as manchuria and korea, see alexander toepel, “traces of nestorianism in manchuria and korea,” oriens christianus 89 (2005): 77–85. [91] klaus koschorke, „ob er nun unter den indern weilt oder unter den chinesen … die ostsyrisch-nestorianische kirche des ostens als kontinentales netzwerk im asien der vormoderne,” jahrbuch für europäische überseegeschichte 9 (2009): 18–24. on the relations of nestorian christians in india to the supreme head in persia, see mundadan, history, 98–102. for the metropolitanates “de l’extérieur” in central and east asia and their ecclesiastical status, see dauvillier, “les provinces chaldéennes,” 272–316. on the nestorian church’s ecclesiastical structure within the ilkhanate, see fiey, chrétiens, 6. [92] raguin, “china’s first evangelization,” 161–164 and 167–170. on nestorian texts and fragments produced for liturgical purposes and preserved in turfan and other sites in central asia and china, see gillman and klimkeit, christians, 251–256. [93] on the archeological excavation and documentation of nestorian and other christian remains in this area, see halbertsma, early christian remains. [94] see lieu, ‘medieval manichaean,’ 291 (gravestone of andrea of perugia in quanzhou, 1332 ce). [95] gillman and klimkeit, christians, 243. [96] marco polo, the description of the world, trans. and annot. a.c. moule and paul pelliot (london: g. routledge & sons, 1938), 79. [97] johannes witte, das buch des marco polo als quelle für die religionsgeschichte (berlin: hutten-verlag, 1916); leonardi olschky, “manichaeism, buddhism and christianity in marco polo’s china,” asiatische studien 5, 1–2 (1951): 1–21; gillman and klimkeit, christians, 290–291; nathan j. ristuccia, “eastern religions and the west: the making of an image,” history of religions 53, 2 (2013): 170–204. [98] barbara wehr, “a propos de la génèse du ‘devisament dou monde’ de marco polo,” in le passage de l’écrit des langues romanes, ed. maria selig, barbara fank, and jörg hartmann (tübingen: gunter narr, 1993), 299–326. [99] jussi hanska and antti ruotsala, “berthold von regensburg, ofm, and the mongols: medieval sermon as a historical source,” archivum franciscanum historicum 89 (1996): 425–445. [100] on the influence of the missionaries’ work on european art, see arnold lauren, princely gifts and papal treasures: the franciscan mission to china and its influence on the art of the west, 1250–1350 (san francisco: desiderata press, 1999). [101] johannes fried, “suche nach der wirklichkeit: die mongolen und die europäische erfahrungswissenschaft im 13. jahrhundert,” historische zeitschrift 243 (1986): 287–332. [102] angelo cattaneo, “fra mauro’s cosmographus incomparabilis and his mappamundi: documents, sources, and protocols for mapping,” in la cartografia europea tra primo rinascimento e fine dell’illuminismo, ed. diogo ramado curto (florence: olschki, 2003), 19–48. [103] william a. r. richardson, “east and south-east asia: cartographers’ attempts to reconcile the maps of ptolemy and martellus with marco polo’s travels and with portuguese charts,” in terrae incognitae 32 (2000): 1–22. [104] folker reichert, “chinas beitrag zum weltbild der europäer: zur rezeption der fernostkenntnisse im 13. und 14. jahrhundert,” in das geographische weltbild um 1300: politik im spannungsfeld von wissen, mythos und fiktion, ed. peter moraw (berlin: duncker & humblot, 1989), 33–57. [105] ilaria luzzana caraci, “marco polo e le grandi scoperte geografiche dei secoli xv e xvi,” in l’impresa di marco polo: cartografia, viaggi, percezione, ed. cosimo palagiano (rome: tiellemedia, 2007), 21–26. [106] folker reichert, “columbus und marco polo—asien in amerika: zur literaturgeschichte der entdeckungen,” zeitschrift für historische forschung 15 (1988): 1–61. [107] for an example of the impact of the german jesuit mission in the eighteenth century, see strasser, “a case of empire envy?” 39–40. the significance of missionary networks within early-modern processes of globalization is discussed in luke clossey, “merchants, migrants, missionaries, and globalization in the early modern pacific,” journal of global history 1, no. 1 (2006): 41–58. [108] patrick o’brien, “historical foundations for a global perspective on the emergence of a western european regime for the discovery, development, and diffusion of useful and reliable knowledge,” journal of global history 8, no. 1 (2013): 1–24. [109] on representatives of different faiths as “agents of cross-cultural interaction and transcultural entanglement in the middle ages,” see tilmann lohse, “pious men in foreign lands: global-historical perspectives on the migrations of medieval ascetics, missionaries, and pilgrims,” viator 44 (2013): 123–136. translating the “exact” and “positive” sciences | raina | transcultural studies translating the “exact” and “positive” sciences: early twentieth century reflections on the past of the sciences in india dhruv raina, jawaharlal nehru university, new delhi the concept of science is a singularly powerful, normative, and dominating one in the anglophone world.[1] in the nineteenth century, with the institutionalization of disciplines under the organizational rubric of the university, “science” came to connote not just a body of knowledge, but also referred to a prescriptive protocol for making scientific discoveries. equally, by the middle of the nineteenth century, through william whewell’s writings, the term “scientist” came to represent an individual pursuing science in a focussed manner, and has stayed with us since (ross 1962; whewell 1847). interestingly enough, niklas luhmann once pointed out that while the modernity of modern society or art are still debated, that of science is not considered worth questioning (luhmann 2002). perhaps this explains how rapidly the term began to acquire the intimations of a cultural universal. this big picture of science pinned on the frame of cultural universality did not fracture into a jigsaw of sciences until the last decades of the twentieth century (galison 1996). by then, the term had come to designate a plurality of epistemic and institutional cultures, and often enough epistemically distinct constellations of knowledge, at least after the middle of the twentieth century. this paper does not historicize the globalization of the term “science” in nineteenth and twentieth century europe. rather it explores the naturalization of the term in late nineteenth century bengal, and the different meanings and objects that the term came to designate as it came to be qualified as “exact” or “positive.” in order to do so it does not turn to an archive of scientific papers on physics or geology, but to the meta-narrative of the history of science. this choice is not an arbitrary one as “scientist” and “historian” were one and the same until the history of science began to acquire a separate disciplinary identity in the 1920s (thackray and merton 1972). at least until the work of pierre duhem and paul tannery the history of science was part of the contemporaneous practice of science and not a mere reflection on its past (brush 1995; laudan 1993). this paper attempts a social epistemological understanding outlined in an earlier paper in order to explore how the term “science” was qualified in colonial india (raina 2009). post-colonial theorists, anthropologists, sociologists, historians, and philosophers of science have raised salient concerns regarding the virtual impossibility of transcending the “hermeneutic circle” defined by the colonial experience. in as much as post-colonial theory of science destabilizes the representation of the orient in social science theory, it represents one version of cultural production in the social sciences. the central question addressed here is how did indians writing in the early decades of the twentieth century construct indian knowledge systems as positive or exact and what did they mean by the term “science”? towards the last decades of the nineteenth century, indians began to write histories of the sciences in english (raina 2003). in this paper i take up the discussion around three books published from kolkata in the first decades of the twentieth century; these being the positive sciences of the ancient hindus (1915) by brajendra nath seal (1864–1938); and hindu achievements in exact sciences (1918) and the positive background of hindu sociology (1921) by benoy kumar sarkar (1887–1949). these books were published during the period of late colonialism when a new national consciousness seeking to liberate itself from colonial rule had begun to first orchestrate itself (sarkar 1975). both figures were associated with the national council of education, an educational movement that sought to oppose the agenda of colonial education (raina and habib 2004). colonial education drew its legitimacy from the legacies of science and the social sciences, which became instruments not just for civilizing the colonized but also for resolving the central problem of colonial governmentality (kumar 1991). as the first generation of indian cultural amphibians entered the modern educational system they were prompted to produce a “reverse commentary” (kaviraj 1993). it could be argued that the notion of science framing these early works on the history of sciences in south asia was the dominant one in the philosophy of science discourse in the west, namely that which was presented in two contemporary master narratives authored by john s. mill (1806–1873) and william whewell (1794–1866)—these being mill’s a system of logic (1843) and whewell’s history of the inductive sciences (1847). returning to the works of sarkar and seal, two points need to be emphasized. the first is that their books could be read within the context of the reception of western social science and history introduced through the educational system of the colonial state in india. this manner of reading is familiar to historians of science. secondly, while these texts attempted to reconstruct the history of the natural and social sciences in india respectively, they were also responding to western representations of indian knowledge systems. while contesting western representations of indian knowledge systems, these texts worked within representations of the sciences of the west. in other words, the problem here lies at the interface of canonical representations of the social science disciplines in the west and the response of south asian scholars to these representations towards the end of the nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth century. the positive and the exact sciences let us turn first to the work of benoy kumar sarkar since it provides us with an understanding of what the received meaning was of a positive science. ideas about positivism amongst the bhadralok community in kolkata date back to the 1860s—positivism having reached india through the efforts of the british positivists such as richard congreve. as has been pointed out by geraldine forbes and jasodhara bagchi independently, positivist religion was first welcomed by the bhadralok class since they saw in it a role for themselves in the social transformation of society—the influence of positivism, like in other contexts, was manifest in the attempt to integrate it with a reformed hinduism (forbes 1975). in addition to positivist ideas, certain spencerian notions had also acquired currency for it was felt that the western-educated indian class, small though it be, would and could play a central role in initiating social progress (kumar 1991). benoy kumar sarkar was considered an influential cosmopolitan scholar in his time but has since become, as roma chaterji writes, a footnote in the history of indian sociology, who is rarely taught, if at all, in bengal (chaterji 2007). in 1918 he published hindu achievements in the exact sciences (hereafter haes), one among his few slim volumes, which was based, unlike the work of seal discussed below, on the secondary literature produced by british indologists, a burgeoning community of indian historians, and european historians and philosophers of science.[2] the work attempted a comprehensive account of science in ancient and medieval india by establishing the “chronological links” and “logical affinities” between the scientific investigations of the hindus, greeks, chinese, and saracens (sarkar 1918, v). in other words the history of science was about the history of transmissions embedded within a theory of epistemological correspondences. this work, produced during the rising tide of the nationalist struggle, sought to redress the paucity of literature on the history of hindu and chinese science, and in doing so “the students of comparative culture-history could find that the tendencies of the oriental mind have not been essentially distinct from those of the occidental mind” (sarkar 1918, v–vi). seal’s work had provided the source material on the methodological premises of the sciences in india. the chapters on the different sciences in sarkar’s book are preceded by one entitled “historical perspective,” which is of concern to this paper rather than the content of the subsequent chapters. the chapter celebrates the discovery of radioactivity and the possibility of envisaging an age where the mastery of the atom would provide energy for “cosmical epochs of time” (sarkar 1918, 1). the optimism, we are informed, surpassed that of francis bacon who had first advocated the experimental and inductive methods. but the important point to note is that while the exact sciences could be deductive-mathematical or inductive-physical it was the commonwealth of nations that had contributed to their growth and development (sarkar 1918, 2). recognizing that positive science was about three hundred years old, it was equally important “to remember this picture of the intellectual condition of europe at the beginning of the seventeenth century in every historical survey of the ‘exact’ sciences (whether deductive-mathematical or inductive-physical), as well as in every comparative estimate of the credit for their growth and development due to the different nations of the world” (sarkar 1918, 2). in other words, he was suggesting that comparisons were to be chronologically synchronous. since the contents of his book relate to an epoch of science considered pre-scientific, the merit of the argument could only be estimated against the backdrop of parallel developments amongst the greeks, the chinese, the greco-romans, and the saracens (sarkar 1918, 3). in the indian case, sarkar, drawing on the work of seal, who figures in his bibliography, pins down so-called investigations in exact science from the period 800 bce to 1400 ce; his examples include the work by the mathematician bhāskaracharyā (c 1150) and that of the logician gunaratna (1350), the work on chemistry “rasa-ratna-samuchchaya,” and madanapala, the author of one the important texts on materia medica (1374) (sarkar 1918, 3). sarkar does not offer a definition of what he means by the exact sciences, but the reader is left to infer from the choice of historical texts and authors that it includes mathematics, astronomy, logic, and those disciplines involving weights and measures. the rupture or break separating the pre-scientific, viz. the scientific inquiries of the ancients and medieval, and the modern sciences lay in the fact that the former produced, according to whewell as quoted by sarkar, “no truths of real or permanent value.” this, whewell went on to elaborate in his history of the inductive sciences, was because the whole of pre-modern science displayed extreme ingenuity and subtlety, invention and connection, demonstration and method, and yet out of these no physical science may be developed. we may obtain by such means logic and metaphysics, even geometry and algebra; but out of such materials we shall never form optics and mechanics, chemistry and physiology (whewell, quoted in sarkar 1918, 3–4). in other words the methods of the pre-moderns led to scholasticism and they could not have produced exact sciences such as optics or mechanics, or positive sciences such as chemistry and physiology. in broad agreement with whewell’s thesis that the pre-modern-modern break was accounted for in terms of the invention of a new method, sarkar flagged several points of disagreement. firstly, the discipline of pure mathematics in india was fairly advanced in antiquity and the middle ages and had anticipated the european discoveries of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, and this mathematics could well have been the basis for the mathematical sciences (sarkar 1918, 4). the grounds for this inference came from the writings and translations of astronomical and mathematical manuscripts by british indologists such as henry colebroke and their subsequent integration into the histories of mathematics such as those authored by florian cajori (colebroke 1817; cajori 1909).[3] one marker of the distinction between the exact sciences and positive sciences in this work is a historical departure in the development of the sciences that dated back to the seventeenth century. the contributions of hindu science were not merely restricted to the exact sciences, but to the positive sciences, though it is possible that they did not influence the development of modern science in the same manner as did the exact sciences. the discussion is often marked by indigenism, given that these interlocutors were writing against the grain of the narratives of oriental indebtedness to the greek tradition. thus sarkar readily admits that while writing was received as in other civilizations from the phoenicians, and that varahamihira’s astronomy reveals greek and roman sources “india’s indebtedness to foreign peoples for the main body of her culture has been virtually nil” (sarkar 1918, 5–6). this radical alterity is needed in order to stage the central inference that the hindu intellect has thus independently appreciated the dignity of objective facts, devised the methods of observation and experiment, elaborated the machinery of logical analysis and truth investigation, attacked the external universe as a system of secrets to be unravelled, and wrung out of nature the knowledge which constitutes the foundations of science (sarkar 1918, 6) (emphasis added). the passage is replete with markers of indigenism as well as images of a triumphant baconian science that are projected onto the past.[4] the methods of observation and experimentation in the sciences of ancient and medieval india had been elaborated upon in the book of seal; and sarkar repeatedly turns to seal’s work (eight times in his book) to justify several of the historical claims in favour of the scientificity and mature stature of indian science. if this was the nature of science on the subcontinent then the hindus too were “pioneers of science and contributors to exact, positive and material culture; which meant that no superiority could be claimed either for greece or india nor could any fundamental differences in mental outlook, weltanschauung or vision be demonstrated between the two civilisations” (sarkar 1918, 6). the qualification of the sciences or the achievements thereof as hindu has itself been a matter of scholarly discussion: whether the elements of a proto-hindu cultural nationalism were cobbled together at this time (zachariah 2011), or whether the terms hindu sciences or hindu mathematics were merely taken over from british orientalists to refer to the sanskrit textual tradition. the science histories of prafulla c. ray and seal do not qualify the term “hindu,” while sarkar in several places underlines what it does not mean. within the texts of the three authors mentioned here the term “hindu science” is an empty signifier, and this is clarified in sarkar’s hindu sociology as much as in the haes as is evident from passages subsequently cited. but the challenge concerning the exact and the positive arises from the claim “that the age of experimental and inductive science is about three hundred years. it is this period that has established the cultural superiority of the occident over the orient. but this epoch of ‘superiority’ need be analyzed a little more closely” (sarkar 1918, 6). the term “hindu” is employed merely as a label marking the sanskrit textual tradition’s claim to a place in the pantheon of scientific nations, and not to connote any exceptionalism. this reversed the trope of india as a spiritual civilization, incorporating it into the comity of material and positive cultures. this also reveals the importance science had acquired as a marker of difference—as discussed in machines as the measure of man (adas 1990)—and the impact of whewell’s history of the inductive sciences (whewell 1847) in prescribing a philosophical conception of science that was not just european.[5] for sarkar it was important to go beyond the whewellian template that he elaborates so effectively with historical material and his patented brand of sociology. this interpretation could as well have been inspired as a form of what eric hobsbawm would have called cultural combat. sarkar, as discussed in some earlier work (raina and habib 2004), was part of an important cultural movement inaugurated by satish chandra mukherjee who went on to found the national council of education in the last decades of the nineteenth century. sarkar departed from rabindranath tagore, sri aurobindo, and others who had been emphasizing the spiritual distinctiveness of indian culture. sarkar and with him several members of the breakaway society for the promotion of technical education argued for the materialistic and positive orientation of indian culture, which would in turn strengthen india’s claim to self-rule (chatterjee 2014, 108, and raina and habib 2004). in this attempt to re-envision the social sciences sarkar identified several points of departure from standard conceptions of sociology and science. the sociological study was based on an analysis of sukracharyya’s sukraniti. turning to an ancient indian text to ground a new sociology was in turn a product of india’s attempt to stake its claim to modernity, which sarkar had earlier set out to construct a history of the natural sciences of india. sociology for sarkar provided the conceptual/theoretical instruments not only to understand indian society but also to destabilize the representations of india that were developed by orientalists and indologists—if one may say this avant les lettres. in a way then, this claim to and assertion of modernity reflected the preoccupation with india’s “present rather than her past” (chatterji 2007, 130). but the classical indian work that sarkar took up in the project of reconstructing the social sciences was devoted to identifying the landmarks in india’s cultural history and did not examine the dynamic processes of the growth of civilizations (sarkar 1921, 1). nevertheless, sarkar’s study was based on his engagement with the non-mystical elements of indian society, or the positive elements of “hindu social economy” (sarkar 1921, 5). consequently, the study of indian civilization commenced with a re-examination of the methods hitherto adopted, their shortcomings, and their relevance. it has been pointed out that the responses of the bengali bhadralok class to theories of biological and social evolution were quite different. theories of biological evolution were easily assimilated within the hindu cosmologies. however, theories of social evolution, clothed as social darwinism, were opposed and resisted within the circle being discussed (raina and habib 1996). in fact, there appears to have been a larger disagreement with theories of social evolution as opposed to biological evolution. the distinct stance of the circle to which sarkar belonged, its signature so to speak, is evident in the introductory remarks of the book. sarkar disengages his work from theories postulating progressive stages of social development. his concern was not to identify the “several stages in the making of modern indian life and thought” (sarkar 1921, 1). this also meant the rejection of the standard chronology of societal evolution. nevertheless, several broad points of departure may be identified and these are balanced by several methodological and conceptual clarifications, one of which deals again with the notion of the positive. the first of the rejections addresses the portrayal of indian civilization as transcendental or religious. sarkar argues that the transcendental and other-worldly aspects of hindu life and thought have been made too much of. it has been supposed and believed during the last century that hindu civilization was essentially non-economic and that its sole feature was ultra-asceticism and over-religiosity such as delight in condemning the “world, the flesh and the devil.” sarkar opposed this characterization for he felt that “nothing can be farther from the truth” (sarkar 1921, 6). on the contrary, he proposes that “human life is never governed by religion which is everywhere a brilliant superstition consisting in the vain effort to understand the nature of god” (sarkar 1921, preface, 15). the study of the history of india in his view ought to commence with the recognition that the transcendental, the religious, and the metaphysical reveal themselves through the positive, secular, and metaphysical (sarkar 1921, 6). in other words, the culture synthesized the polar dichotomies of western culture, namely worldly/otherworldly, positive and transcendental, culture/faith, science/religion (sarkar 1921, 6). he appeared to be pushing social science theory beyond its standard dichotomies. but to what end? evidently the perceived inadequacy with this characterization of indian culture is echoed in his unhappiness with weberian sociology, which runs through the introductory chapter. a passage he finds particularly objectionable, because it does not reflect for him the social reality of indian life, runs as follows: “the hindu spirit is very religious and very speculative. obstinate guardian of traditions, it is singularly insensible to the joys of action and to demands of material progress” (weber, quoted in sarkar 1921, 18). this he indicates is the “most representative and substantial interpretation of the modern eur-american sic world on indian culture as developed in and through hinduism and buddhism” (sarkar 1921, 18). this representation of india was widespread in the so-called social sciences, authorized naturally by weber’s sociological investigations. this dissatisfaction with weber’s construction of hindu society would resonate amongst subsequent generations of indian academics. but this theory of indian society had been taken up by a number of asian thinkers who adopted the “fallacious sociological methods” of the modern west. the method was premised on the distinction between “the orient and the occident” as the first principle of science (sarkar 1921, 19). the second departure presents itself in the interrogation of the representation of india by indologists. indology did not begin with max mueller but his sacred books of the east series were certainly raised to the level of the canon in regards to indian civilization and culture. sarkar would argue that the sacred books of the east series, alongside india: what it can teach us, and chips from a german workshop, had merely presented the idealistic, the metaphysical, or mystical side of indian culture to the exclusion of its materialistic, secular, and objective side. and it was this side that sarkar was interested in revealing (sarkar 1921, preface, 9). the lopsided emphasis had in fact played up the distinction between orient and occident. thus arose the strident rejection of the notion of oriental or occidental ideals of existence (sarkar 1921, preface, 14). he would write: “it is the subordination of the east to the west in recent times both in politics and culture that has inspired the bombastic jingo fallacy: ‘east is east, and west is west’ ” (sarkar 1921, preface, 16). if weber’s sociology was problematic, max mueller’s history of sanskrit literature (1860) created the image of india as marked by vague idealism, unpractical mysticism, and otherworldly absurdities. methodologically this image was a product of three fallacies. the first of these was attributable to the ignorance of the positive, materialistic, secular institutions, and theories of the hindus. the second arose from a comparative reading of history marked by a deep chronological asymmetry. features of ancient and medieval india were frequently compared with the features of the modern “eur-american” world. this historiography portrayed the west as enlightened and progressive, while india was arrested in tradition and scholastic medievalism. and finally, the most important objection that was even more difficult to dismiss was the inability to differentiate or appreciate the distinction between institutions and ideals (sarkar 1921, 21). reversing these methodological fallacies would become sarkar’s cause célèbre. but what of the notion of the positive? in the first instance the term could have been taken to connote the experimental realm of knowledge. but we need to understand the meanings and sources of the actors. did they have a different proposal? what did sarkar mean by the term “positive”? to evince this we have to go back to auguste comte’s ideas of the functional evolution of mankind characterized by three mental stages; and the last of the stages, the état positif, marked by the reign of experience (sarkar 1921, 11). this appreciation of comte’s social evolution is schematized below. stages of development theological metaphysical positive nature of the stage of development fetishism, polytheism, monotheism scholasticism age of speciality and generality dominant social groups warriors legists, juriconsultants scholars dominant forms reign of imagination reason experience sarkar proceeds to depart from this picture, for the only connection he sees between the positive background of hindu sociology and comte’s philosophie positive lies in the value he attaches to the category “positive.” positive knowledge is construed as an assemblage or association of scholarly activity, exact knowledge, based on experience or experiment, followed by generalization, specialization, where science appears as the antithesis of religion (sarkar 1921, 11). in other words, the idea of the positive ensconces the notion of an intellectual reform that precedes the reform of society. thus, while concurring with the notion of the positive, sarkar objects to the law of three stages. these objections arise from his understanding of indian society and are equally inspired by western critiques of comte. sarkar rejects comte’s law of the three stages, as “an objective exhibition of the dynamics of culture-history.” the theory is rejected on the grounds that historically it would be impossible to identify an epoch where reason ruled supreme to the exclusion of imagination or experience, or even where the writ of imagination prevailed to the exclusion of experience or reason, or even further experience prevailed to the exclusion of imagination and reason. in other words the idea of sequential development and progress was not found acceptable. it was argued that there were no anthropological or psychological grounds to infer that imagination belonged to the primitive mind, and that this stage was a precursor to that where ratiocination and concrete experience dominated (sarkar 1921, 11). this critique of comte’s law was shared with a number of western scholars and he acknowledges the influence of leon brunschvig, rené worms, and lucien lévy-bruhl (sarkar 1921, 12). sarkar was in the process of rejecting the characterization of indian civilization as anchored in a stage where the spiritual and metaphysical predominated. neither at the cognitive level nor at the societal level was sarkar ready to retain in his social theoretic scheme the idea of progress as accepted by his western contemporaries. how exactly did sarkar envisage changing this picture of india and highlighting its positive side? this was to be accomplished programmatically by altering the focus of priorities of research on the history of indian art, a study of its economy, and political systems over the centuries. furthermore, literary criticism was to create, interpret, and study the canons of hindustan’s literatures, which included the sanskritic, dravidian, and vernacular (sarkar 1921, 12). this would tell us far more about “the marriage rules, the joint family, the cottage industry, the autonomous system of cooperative village communities… the elastic theological apparatus and religious paraphernalia, the institution of kingship … that constitute the complex of indian life” (sarkar 1921, 13) and was to comprise the basis for the sociology of the region. this brings me to the last point about sarkar that i wish to emphasize in this essay, namely his symmetrical approach to the study of modernity in both the east and west. he argued that the new technological discoveries, such as those in the steam-and-machine-age were surely revolutionary for asians as much as they were for the “eur-american” world (sarkar 1921, preface, 16). consequently, these developments were not to be taken as signs of peculiarly occidental or non-oriental exceptionalism.[6] on the other hand, since the site of some of these discoveries was europe, and these revolutionary changes emanated from there, it could not be argued that they were either unsuited to the oriental genius, or antagonistic to the spirit of the orient, even though they may be considered emblematic of materialist civilization. on the contrary while these developments were modern, this revolutionary age should be seen as constituting “one of the phases of the world’s evolution.” these developments could be assimilated by any system of human polity depending on “the stage and requirements of its growth” (sarkar 1921, preface, 17). and yet in denying european exceptionalism, he was also denying indian exceptionalism. the symmetry underlying this approach reinforced his attempts at constructing a more robust social theory. thus he was to write: “so-called hindu ideals there are none; there is nothing exclusively indian in hindu culture; any idea, fact or truth alleged to be the essential characteristic of the ‘spirit of hinduism’ is at the same time the feature of the genius of other lands … india is not one, but many” (sarkar 1921, preface, 18). we see therefore in sarkar’s oeuvre a meeting ground of western critiques of positivist social theory and indian resistance to constructions in the terms of this very social theory. it must be mentioned nevertheless that sarkar called his method historico-comparative. apparently, he did not envisage a complete break with western social science theory or history; and he felt that a proper appreciation of the achievements of the sciences of india could only be acquired against the backdrop of the landmarks in the history of western science. the application of this method would for him reveal that the idea that the indian mind was predisposed naturally to metaphysical and unpractical speculation was founded on what he terms “mal-observation and non-observation” (sarkar 1921, 4). this image was produced by the ignorance of the positive background as reflected in its socio-economic and socio-political life. the picture of metaphysicians, philosophers, and transcendental speculators is then a distorted one (sarkar 1921, 5). it is curious that sarkar’s radical critique would not echo in the social sciences in india or abroad or in educational curricula in subsequent decades. when a homologous critique crystallized in the 1960s and 1970s, its genealogy would commence elsewhere. the question of method brajendra nath seal was a philosopher who wrote an epistemological monograph on the sciences of india entitled the positive sciences of the hindus (hereafter tpsh) in english. the early chapters of the book explore the so-called mechanical, physical, and chemical theories of the “ancient hindus.” for more than one reason it is important to read seal’s and sarkar’s books together. both scholars belonged to the same social network of bengali intelligentsia, were very closely associated with the national council of education, and wrote in the same newspapers, reviews, and periodicals (sarkar 1946). in order to develop a new curriculum for the colleges and universities they came to be associated with, an attempt to restore, refurbish, and revitalize the past was required. beyond being active members in similar associations and societies, seal’s book was published before sarkar’s and the latter cites the former in sufficient detail to develop his argument. but sarkar’s agenda went beyond exploring the methods of the natural sciences. he aspired to set out the method and scope of the social sciences as well, even though one of the works discussed here deals with the exact sciences. seal’s book possibly had a more lasting reception than did sarkar’s. this is because it became one of the canonical texts on the history of science and scientific method of the period. more importantly two chapters of the book conferred on it an extended shelf life. these chapters were republished in the second volume of one of the most important histories of science produced by an indian chemist, viz. the history of hindu chemistry by ray (ray 1902; raina 2014). the chapter on the scientific method, which in fact was the seventh chapter in seal’s book, was canonized as an authoritative statement on the methodology of sciences of india. in ray’s volume, seal’s chapter on the mechanical, physical, and chemical theories has a preface where seal lays out his methods and concepts. the chapter of tpsh on mechanical and chemical theories, seal points out in his preface to the ray volume, offered a synoptic view “of the entire field of physico-chemical science,” covering those elements that “reached the stage of positive science as distinguished from the mythological and empirical stages” (seal, in ray 1909, e). in other words, features of so-called positive science coexisted with the other stages in the growth of knowledge. chapter vii of the tpsh appears as an appendix in the second volume of ray’s history. clarifying his motivation for writing the chapter seal makes explicit his historical practice for interpreting the one system in the language of the other. he starts out in the tpsh by suggesting that the necessity for studying the methodology of the sciences of india derives from the need to arrive at “a right understanding of hindu positive sciences,” and as a philosopher attempts to take on board “its strength and its weakness, its range and limitations” (seal 1915, 244). but the task he undertakes is a history of philosophical and scientific ideas. the purpose of his enterprise is thus to show that this science was not “all practical recipe” and “unverified speculation,” and that the movement was “positively scientific.” but for this generation of indians, it was still too early to break out of the orientalists’ tropes, and seal employs the trope of the decline of the sciences of india, whose growth he suggests was “arrested at an early stage” (seal 1915, 244). in the preface to ray’s book again he clarifies that his purpose is to expose the methodological precepts of this knowledge, that in fact it was not “unverified and unverifiable speculation (the very antipodes of science)” (seal, in ray 1909, f). before establishing the scientificity of the methods employed, he sets about clarifying his own method of engaging with the sources. the first step he refers to as returning to the original sanskrit sources and eschewing any secondary literature. the second is his attempt to overcome historical presentism, as he writes that he seeks to guard himself against “the unscientific, unhistorical but very common and almost inevitable habit of reading modern ideas into old guesses or speculations of a happy-go-lucky or nebulous character.” in other words he finds the need to protect himself against this “fatal facility of unconscious distortion or misrepresentation” (seal, in ray 1909, g). like sarkar he too sees himself as a practitioner of the historico-comparative method that he first employed in his comparative study of vaishnavism and christianity published in 1899. inductivism as a philosophy of science developed by mill and whewell had a positive reception amongst these indian interlocutors. the indian encounter with western inductivism goes back at least half a century before seal’s book was published. in 1852, james robert ballantyne, the superintendent of the benaras college between 1846–1861, published a work entitled synopsis of science from the standpoint of nyāya philosophy (ballantyne 1852), and as is evident from the title, the objective was ostensibly to compare western and eastern philosophy from the point of view of the methodology of obtaining knowledge.[7] the contents included a discussion on western logic, science, and history. it was written with the goal of dispersing european ideas among sanskrit pundits at the college, such as bāpudeva sāstri and vitthala sāstri (dodson 2010, 102–103), and deriving its engagement and style from the nyāya-sutras (ganeri 1996, 11). the work devoted specific importance to the processes of inference and induction for, as ballantyne pointed out, it was the baconian conception of induction that underpinned the progress of the sciences, and rather than refute the hindu speculations on the subject, the hermeneutic of the conversation was to “take as a starting point some established point in their own philosophy, and to show how the philosophers of europe have followed up the enquiry” (ballantyne 1852, xi). and what better text was there to stage this conversation than francis bacon’s novum organum, although it was a work considered passé in europe at the time. until the beginning of the nineteenth century it was considered to be the seminal text in western philosophy engaging with a rational scientific methodology. the application of this method would, it was argued, lead to the discovery of new and useful “truth”/ knowledge that could in turn improve mankind’s material conditions. as michael dodson writes, the novum organum “was thereby characterised as the text which best represented europe’s transition into modernity through the presentation of an enabling scientific methodology” (dodson 2010, 106). as pointed out earlier, seal, unlike sarkar, engages with mill’s a system of logic (mill [1843] 1973–74) in order to translate the methodological premises of science in india. his reading of mill has to be reckoned with at three levels. firstly, a system of logic has to be read as a philosophical exposition of the scientific method. secondly, it offers seal a model to be adopted in order to demonstrate the scientificity of the methods of the so-called hindu sciences. thirdly, seal appeared to have been producing a response to what he perceives to be the limitation in mill’s a system of logic. in the last chapter of tpsh of about fifty pages, laying out the methodology of the sciences of india, mill’s work figures eight times. in addition to logic, mill discussed the methods of science in studying natural and social phenomena. thus while the book was titled a system of logic one should not be deluded into thinking that it was a work on formal logic. on the contrary, mill’s proposal of the “logic of consistency,” dealt with the procedure of deriving conclusions from evidence, based on an analysis of causation and inductive reasoning. the principles of experimental sciences were discussed in book iii of a system of logic. it could be argued that mill’s work serves seal as a kuhnian exemplar for the exposition of the methodology of the sciences of india, as much as it is a work in comparative epistemology. interestingly, seal’s book, while written in english, is generously punctuated with quotations from the relevant sanskrit texts and has four indices at the end of the book—a large number given that the book comprised 295 pages exclusive of the index. the first index is in sanskrit and lists the sanskrit authorities cited, the second is also in sanskrit and indexes the sanskrit texts cited, the third is again in sanskrit, indexing the philosophical terms employed in sanskrit, and this is followed by an index in english, not as detailed as the previous two. furthermore, if we scrutinize the section headings of chapter vii and x of mill’s book and chapter vii of seal’s book (see the table below), a pattern becomes evident. the pattern reveals that the epistemic organization of the chapters of mill’s book provides seal with a structural template to discursively expose the methodology of the sciences in india. and as a work in comparative epistemology it uncovers the similarities and differences in terms, concepts, and methods. while pointing out the limitations in the indian procedures, it also points out that the indian procedures in places are “more comprehensive as well as more original and suggestive than mill” (seal, in ray 1909, f). the approach consisted of revealing the inductive method by proceeding not necessarily in the sequential order of the chapterization of a system of logic but in a reconstruction that keeps the structure of the epistemic elements between the two thought systems in conversation and builds a parallel methodological framework, not identical, but similar to that of modern science. in order to do so, the method employed is “historico-comparative.” and here too he proposes a hermeneutics of caution: “i have also practiced, or tried to practice, a habitual understatement, without unconsciously falling into that ‘suppressio veri’ which is so often a ‘suggestio falsi’ ” (seal, in ray 1909, g). the table below illustrates seal’s historical comparative method at work—that of ferreting out cognitive homologues from the different indian philosophical schools or darśhanas. chapterization of j. s. mill’s a system of logic the subsections of chapter vii of b.n. seal’s the positive sciences book ii, chapter vii: on observation and experiment observation and experiment; results in the different sciences book v chapter iv: fallacies of observation fallacies of observation book ii, chapter i: of inference doctrine of inference, analysis and indication of inference; how to ascertain concomitance book iii, chapter vi: composition of causes specific cause and effect; canon of the method of subtraction book iii, chapter viii: of the four methods of experimental inquiry. [method of agreement; method of difference; the relationship between the previous two; joint method of agreement and difference; method of residues; method of concomitant variations] [mill, 1973, 388–406] the joint method of difference, proof of the method…; unconditional antecedent…; elimination of the irrelevant factors; nyāya objection to the method of difference…; synchronousness of cause and effect book iii, chapter x: the plurality of causes, and of the intermixture of effects plurality of causes, nyāya ground of inference; vyāpti/unconditional concomitance…; difference between nyāya method and mill’s joint method of agreement… book iii, chapter xi: the deductive method the deduction method…; navya nyāya and its significance in the history of thought…; applied logic book vi: on the logic of the moral sciences the logic of particular sciences book vi, chap vii: … experimental method in the social sciences the scientific methods as applied to therapeutics book vi, chap x: the inverse deductive or historical method the scientific method as applied to grammar and philology thus seal suggests that the indian physico-chemical theories and classifications commenced with the observation of instances that were analyzed and sifted. this procedure was meticulously followed in the texts on materia medica and meteorology (seal 1915, 243–247). lest it be construed that this was the character of all the sciences, seal is quick to point out that as far as observational astronomy was concerned, the quality of the observations was, to say the least, lacking. however, he had to explain the agreement between the calculation of the lunar constants entering into the calculation of lunar periods and eclipses with the figures in pierre-simon laplace’s tables. this was accomplished by “a systematic process of verification and correction by comparison of the computed with the observed results” over more than a thousand years (seal 1915, 247). does the overall structure fit into an inductive framework? seal was very cautious about making this claim for he points out that the experiment “as an independent method of proof or discovery” was rarely recorded in books though they were not entirely absent. having said that, he does point out the rare instances where experiments are referred to in works such as udyana’s kiraṇāvalī (seal 1915, 248). ray would in his own work cite several other such instances from indian alchemy (ray 1902). there are several aspects of seal’s work that merit a detailed discussion, but the point i wish to emphasize here is that seal takes up mill’s work as a template to frame his own exposition of the indian tradition. it was in book iii, chapter viii of a system of logic that mill discussed the four methods of experimental inquiry, where experimental reasoning was employed to connect a condition preceding or accompanying a phenomenon with an invariable law. of these four methods, those of agreement and difference are clearly the most important and draw seal’s attention for he reckons with some similarity between mill’s and the indian conception of science, in as much as the latter was also inductive and ratiocinative. thus the indian doctrine of inference or anumāna is “based on the establishment of an invariable concomitance between the mark and the character inferred.”[8] in other words this system of inference was “neither merely formal nor merely material.” in that sense it differs from mill’s, since it combined the formal-material and deductive-inductive processes; in other words the method was neither identical with the aristotelian syllogism (formal-deductive) nor with mill’s induction (material-inductive process). this inference combined formal validity with material truth (seal 1915, 251). the procedure for making an inference is then discussed in detail. but seal’s exposition concludes that anumāna or analogy in the indian tradition anticipates mill’s analysis of the syllogism as a material inference, “but is more comprehensive.” in the five propositions of the indian syllogism, the third one, called udhārana, “combines … mill’s view of the major premise” of an instance already observed, “fortified by a recommendation to extend its application to unobserved cases.” in the aristotelian view this is the formal ground of inference. however, there is the requirement of vyāpti, invariable concomitance, between the mark and the character inferred, which is the ground for an inductive generalization. the problem of induction for mill and seal is, therefore, to resolve the following: “under what conditions are we justified to assert a universal real proposition on the basis of our necessarily limited observation” (seal 1915, 252). we come back to this in the next paragraph. seal completes his elaboration by pointing out that applied logic, or the “logic of the special sciences,” is a characteristic feature of hindu scientific investigation (seal 1915, 290). coming back to the question of the methods of agreement and difference, seal sees in the nyāya textual tradition both similarities with mill’s methods and the possibility of surpassing the limitations inherent in mill’s formulation, and suggests a qualification to the method of difference in its negative aspect, that he labels the “method of subtraction”[9] (seal 1915, 257). however, the method is still not free of difficulty, for there are two different aspects to the definition of a cause: “(1) the unconditional invariableness of antecedence, (2) the immediateness of antecedence” (ibid., 258). the proposed revision of mill’s method of difference required its enunciation in a form that emphasized the forgoing aspects. drawing on a method encountered in later buddhist works called the panchakārani, seal labels this revised method the “method of joint difference” (referred to in the table above), which combines the positive and the just footnoted negative forms (seal 1915, 258). the five distinct steps characterizing the joint method of difference according to the panchakārani are discussed in the work, but are basically directed towards foregrounding the unconditionality and immediateness of the antecedent. this is recognized by seal as the source of revision of mill’s canon, in addition to being consonant with experimental practice. the stronger claim seal makes, which i do not attempt to engage with here since it is not relevant to the paper, is that an exploration and analysis of anumāna in the nyāya tradition would disclose a more comprehensive account of the syllogism than does aristotle’s or mill’s analysis (seal 1915, 259). what is characteristic of “the hindu scientific mind” for seal is that “without being content with the general concepts of science and a general methodology, it elaborated the fundamental categories and concepts of such of the special sciences as it cultivated with assiduity, and systematically adapted the general principles of scientific method to the requirements of the subject-matter in each case.” and the most notable example for seal is the logic of therapeutics of charaka (seal 1915, 291). this idea would later animate ray’s history of chemistry and the history of scientific philosophy of debiprasad chattopadhyaya (chattopadhyaya 1979) where they sought to elaborate the idea of methodological robustness of ancient indian medicine. from the positive to the exact the vocation of the “exact” and “positive”—two terms employed to characterize the so-called sciences of indian antiquity—need to be contextualized within the larger history of the institutionalization of the natural and social sciences in late colonial bengal. and yet both these terms are key concepts in the disputes over method that animated the philosophy of sciences from the end of the nineteenth century in the west. this concurrence is not accidental; sarkar and seal employed a procedure called comparative history to explore and possibly revitalize the indian tradition. i suspect that the hindu achievements in the exact sciences and the positive sciences of the ancient hindus fall into this genre of comparative exploration. an earlier study had used the term “critical assimilation” to refer to one response of cultural redefinition of modern scientific knowledge in late nineteenth century india (raina and habib 1996). though the response was so characterized more than a decade ago the term still does some justice to the project of these two philosophers. the ideas of mill and whewell acquire a second level of salience. they were embroiled in a vitriolic debate in the nineteenth century that remains relevant to the history of philosophy of science, and reveals the social and political values that frequently underpin scientific debates. while both believed that the british public should support the anti-slavery movement in north america, both also believed that it was philosophy itself that needed to be revamped before the political and social system could be reformed; and that the transformation of society could be initiated through the elaboration and dissemination of a new philosophy of science. again they disagreed about which one, for each of them believed that their own philosophy of science was best suited to the task (snyder 2012, 11–13). this aspect of the mill-whewell debate possibly appealed to seal and other members of the circle—the idea of the evocation of the scientific method prior to the social engineering of society. for seal and sarkar this could be done by reworking the resources of indian philosophy and the positive sciences. an important distinction has to be drawn between the response to baconian inductivism in banaras in the 1850s, and the response to the inductivism of whewell and mill in calcutta at the end of the nineteenth century. ballantyne’s synopsis was motivated by a larger programme to diffuse european knowledge but was restrained hermeneutically by two considerations. the first, as a form of dialogue, sought a common philosophical anchor in european and indian philosophy; the second strived to establish that baconian inductivism surpassed the “hindu syllogism” (dodson 2010). in the turn-of-the-century histories of science authored by ray, seal, sarkar, and others on “indian” inductivism, the aim ostensibly was to establish that the sciences of india rested on robust methodological foundations, pivoted around the core pramāṇa of anumāna or inference.[10] neither seal nor sarkar refer to the synopsis but engage with and draw upon whewell and mill, suggesting that the discussion on baconian inductivism was already passé. seal particularly argued that the indian syllogism far surpassed mill’s method. there remain questions that need to be answered concerning these philosophical conversations across time and geographies. the philosopher bimal k. matilal rejected the objection that twentieth century attempts to articulate the ideas of the ancients were futile. on the contrary, while the motivations of philosophers from different periods and cultures differed there were important philosophical questions and puzzles that continued to be of contemporary relevance. these included “the problem of knowledge and its criteria, the problem of perception and the status of the external world” (matilal 1986, 2–3). it stands to reason that the problem of what counts as valid knowledge has been addressed differently by philosophical systems such as those of the rationalists who foreground reason and the empiricists who foreground science. (mohanty 2001, 6). the concerns of philosophers writing in sanskrit was pivoted around the question whether perception was the only means of acquiring valid knowledge (pramāṇa) or whether inference (anumāna) was also a pramāṇa. what needs to be reckoned with is that the epistemological vocabularies in the two traditions are comprised of terms considered synonymous, but actually denote different objects. one of the arguments cited by jitendra n. mohanty is that comparative philosophy is an unavoidable enterprise for cultural amphibians, forever rendering one tradition in terms of another or translating from one language into another. but then one must ask what philosophy is—is it about things in themselves or about the comparison of ideas, concepts, and theories? according to mohanty comparative philosophy is a second order discipline serving the important role of liberating philosophers from dogmatically inhabiting their own traditions and thereby freeing philosophy itself (mohanty 2001, 85). mohanty identifies four ways in which the enterprise of comparative philosophy is undertaken. the first he calls intellectualist, and the engagement is initiated when a philosophical tradition a is perplexed by some problems that seek a solution and turns to philosophical tradition b in the hope of being enriched by it or being aided in finding a solution. the downside of this engagement is that votaries of tradition a may tend to view the tradition as possessing a solution to all problems (mohanty 2001, 87–88). the second path is that of the wisdom seeker, and this path is characterized by an asymmetry. indian philosophy is portrayed as mystical and a blind eye is turned to the analytical, logical or epistemological components or traditions in indian philosophy. in like manner, indian philosophers studying western philosophy have paid little attention to the christian mystics or the gnostics (mohanty 2001, 87–88). in this manner a particular construction of indian philosophy is reproduced on both sides of the east-west philosophical divide. the third modality is that of supplementation and it could be seen as a variant of the first proposed by mohanty. the programme of supplementation is prompted by the desire to fill up perceived gaps and vacancies in one tradition by importing the missing components from another tradition. the problem then is that this filling up may not be tantamount to assimilating the imported components into the deficit tradition—“it may remain external or an appendix to the tradition” (mohanty 2001, 89). and finally, i suspect we have the purely philosophical modality, that mohanty and matilal are themselves committed to, which is the project of “recognizing how a different tradition realizes a quite different possibility not envisaged in one’s own” (mohanty 2001, 89). it could be argued, following mohanty on the hermeneutics of comparative philosophy, that seal’s intent was equally to reveal the possibilities of the indian syllogism that were not anticipated in the european tradition and vice versa. despite this, seal and sarkar were agreed that the development of the scientific tradition in india was arrested at an early stage. the trend of the argument would suggest that if the scientific methodology rested on solid inductivist foundations then the causes for the arrest of the development of the sciences must be found elsewhere, rather than in essentialist explanations relating to dominance of speculative philosophies. from our own perspective, it is interesting to observe seal employing mill’s a system of logic as a model or scaffold for revealing the methodology of the sciences of india. we may marvel at seal’s scholarship and reading and yet find his identification of correspondences and cognitive homologies for “translating” indian philosophy into a western system highly problematic from a contemporary perspective. similarly, sarkar, as a perceptive critic of comte’s stadial theory of social evolution, would still consider the sociological project worthwhile enough to indicate what should be studied and how. while the term critical assimilation would functionally describe the process just mentioned, we have here a glimpse of how an image of a neutral and objective science had managed to lodge itself in the late nineteenth century indian imaginary. this was only possible through efforts that worked across and within different cultural and philosophical traditions, searching out cognitive homologies to anchor the conversation. bibliography adas, michael. 1990. machines as the measure of men: science, technology, and ideologies of western dominance. new delhi: oxford university press. ballantyne, james r. 1848. lectures on the nyāya philosophy, embracing the text of the tarkasangraha. benares: printed for the use of the benares philosophy east & west college, by order of the government nwp, [by] the recorder press. ballantyne, james r. 1852. a synopsis of science, from the standpoint of the nyāya philosophy. vols. 1 and 2. mirzapore: orphan press. bernal, john d. 1965. science in history. vol. 2, the scientific and industrial revolutions. harmondsworth: penguin books. brush, stephen g. 1995. “scientists as historians.” osiris 10: 215–231. cajori, florian. 1909. history of mathematics. new york: macmillan. chatterjee, partha. 1993. nationalist thought and the colonial world: a derivative discourse. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. chaterji, roma. 2007. “the nationalist sociology of benoy kumar sarkar.” in anthropology in the east: founders of indian sociology and anthropology, edited by patricia uberoi, nandini sundar, and satish deshpande. delhi: permanent black, 106–131. chattopadhyaya, debiprasad. 1979. science and society in ancient india. calcutta: research india publications. colebrooke, henry t. 1817. algebra with arithmetic and mensuration from the sanscrit of brahmagupta and bhāscara. translated by henry t. colebrooke. london: john murray. colebrooke, henry t. 1824. “on the philosophy of the hindus: part ii—on the nyāya and vaiseshika systems.” transaction s of the royal asiatic society 1: 92–118. dodson, michael s. 2010. orientalism, empire and national culture: india 1770–1780. delhi: cambridge university press. forbes, geraldine. h. 1975. positivism in bengal: a case study in the transmission and assimilation of an ideology. calcutta: minerva associates. galison, peter. 1996. “introduction: the context of disunity.” in the disunity of science: boundaries, contexts and power, edited by peter galison and david j. stump. stanford: stanford university press. ganeri, jonardon. 1996. “the hindu syllogism: nineteenth century perceptions of indian logical thought.” philosophy east and west 46, no. 1: 1–16. kaviraj, sudipta. 1993. the unhappy consciousness: bankimchandra chattopadhyay and the formation of nationalist discourse in india. delhi: oxford university press. kumar, krishna. 1991. political agenda of education: a study of colonialist and nationalist ideas. london: sage publications. laudan, rachel. 1993. “histories of the sciences and their uses: a review to 1913.” history of science 31: 1–34. luhmann, niklas. 2002. theories of distinction: redescribing the distinctions of modernity. stanford: stanford university press. matilal, bimal krishna. 1986. perception: an essay on classical indian theories of knowledge. oxford: clarendon press. mill, john s. (1843) 1974. a system of logic, ratiocinative and inductive. vols. 7–8 of collected works of john stuart mill, edited john m. robson. toronto: university of toronto press. mohanty, jitendra n. 2001. explorations in philosophy: essays by jitendra n. mohanty. edited by bina gupta. delhi: oxford university press. raina, dhruv and s. irfan habib. 1996. “the moral legitimation of modern science: bhadralok reflections on theories of evolution.” social studies of science 26, no. 1, 9–42. raina, dhruv and s. irfan habib. 2004. domesticating modern science: a social history of science and culture in colonial india. new delhi: tulika books. raina, dhruv. 2003. images and contexts: the historiography of science and modernity in india. delhi: oxford university press. raina, dhruv. 2009. “knowledge.” in transnational dictionary of world history, edited by akira iriye and pierre-yves saunier. basingstoke: palgrave books, 620–626. raina, dhruv. 2014. “the making of a classic: the contemporary significance of ray’s historical approach.” indian journal of history of science 49, no. 1: 443–456. ray, prafulla c. 1902. a history of hindu chemistry. vol. i. calcutta: chuckervertty & co and kegan paul. ross, sydney. 1962. “scientist: the story of a word.” annals of science 18, no. 2: 65–95. sarkar, benoy kumar. 1946, education for industrialization: an analysis of forty years of jadavpur college of engineering and technology (1905–45). calcutta: national council of education. sarkar, benoy kumar. 1918. hindu achievements in exact sciences: a study in the history of scientific development. bombay, calcutta, and madras: longmans, green and co. sarkar, benoy kumar. 1921. the positive background of hindu sociology. allahabad: panini office. sarkar, sumit. 1975. the swadeshi movement in bengal. new delhi: peoples publishing house. seal, brajendranath. 1915. the positive sciences of the hindus. london: longmans, green and co. snyder, laura j. 2012. “experience and necessity: the mill-whewell debate.” in philosophy of science: key thinkers, edited by james robert brown. new york: continuum, 10–31. thackray, arnold and robert k merton. 1972. “on discipline building: the paradoxes of george sarton.” isis 63: 473–495. whewell, william. 1847. history of the inductive sciences, from the earliest to the present times. 3 vols. 2nd ed. london: john w. parker. zachariah, benjamin. 2011. playing the nation game: the ambiguities of nationalism in india. delhi: yoda press. zilberman, david b. 2006. analogy in indian and western philosophical thought. dordrecht: springer. [1] the first version of this paper was presented at heidelberg university’s seminar “global concepts? keywords and their histories in asia and europe,” organized by monica juneja, joachim kurtz and susan richter in january 2011; modified versions were subsequently presented at crassh, cambridge university and dalhousie university, canada in 2014. i thank simon schaffer for his suggestions on the whewell-mill debate. [2] curiously enough, whewell figures prominently in the references and citations in sarkar’s book and mill does not, while in seal’s work mill figures but whewell does not. both seal and sarkar would have known the works of mill and whewell, but seal was more philosophically inclined than historically although, like sarkar, he repeatedly called his method “historico-comparative” [3] sarkar mentions colebrooke’s appreciation of bhaskara’s demonstration of the pythagorean theorem, the general solution to indeterminate problems of the first degree, and the solution to indeterminate problems of the second degree; the first of these solutions anticipating, according to colebrooke, the work of john wallis in the seventeenth century; the second that of claude gaspard bachet de méziriac in 1624 and leonhard euler (sarkar 1918, 15–16). [4] as we shall see ahead, seal, in explicitly setting out his hermeneutic, cautions against this approach. [5] sarkar reminds us that whewell admitted that the hindus “felt the importunate curiosity with regard to the definite application of the idea of cause and effect to visible phenomena,” “drew a strong line between a fabulous legend and a reason rendered,” and “attempted to ascend to a natural cause by classing together phenomena of the same kind.” sarkar is surprised that this “attitude of mind” whewell does not find “in any non-greek except the hindu! he forgets altogether the claims of the chinese.” the surprise is explainable in terms of his predisposition to the idea of science as a cultural universal (sarkar 1918, 75). [6] rejecting the idea that the scientific revolution was the moment of great divergence between east and west, sarkar suggests instead: “the real and only cause of the parting of ways between the east and the west, nay, between the mediaeval and the modem, was the discovery of steam, or rather its application to production and transportation. the steam engine effected an industrial revolution during the first three decades of the nineteenth century. it is this revolution which has ushered in the ‘modernism’ of the modem world in social institutions, science, and philosophy, as well as brought about the supremacy of eur-america over asia. the year 1815 may be conveniently taken to be the year one of this modernism, as with the fall of napoleon it marks also the beginning of a new era in world-politics, practically the era in which we still live. the difference between the hindu and the eur-american, or between the east and the west, is a real difference to-day. but it is not a difference in mentality or ‘ideals’ or so-called race genius. it is a difference of one century, the ‘wonderful century,’ in a more comprehensive sense than wallace gives to it” (sarkar 1918, 7). writing half a century later, the physicist and historian of science, john d. bernal, identified the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as “the great formative centuries of the modern world … representing a liberating phase of human development in which man had at last found prosperity and unlimited progress…. the new methods of experimental science elaborated in the seventeenth century were to be extended over the whole range of human experience and at the same time in their applications were to keep pace with and infuse the great transformation of the means of production we call the industrial revolution” (bernal 1965, 504). [7] to h. t. colebrooke must go the credit for canonizing the mathematical and logical traditions of india for nineteenth century indologists. if his translations from brahmagupta’s and bhaskara’s work played a role in stimulating european interest in indian algebra, the discovery of the hindu syllogism through his engagement with gautama’s nyāya-sutra (colebrooke 1824) became the standard reference on indian logic through the nineteenth century, generating in the process great interest and influence amongst mathematicians at the royal society and attracting the interest of researchers and indologists at the royal asiatic society (ganeri 1996, 4). [8] ballantyne’s treatment of the method of induction correlated closely with the nyāya discussion of apprehending invariable concomitance, and this itself was recognized as the common ground of the two traditions (dodson 2010, 106). [9] in the text seal elaborates: “now, if a disappearing b disappears, even though all other antecedents remain and there is no other change in the case, then and only then can the causal relation be ascertained. it is not a mere table of positive or negative instances…; it is this method, which we may term the method of subtraction…, that is the only exact and rigorous scientific method” (seal 1915, 257). [10] david zilberman’s analogy in indian and western thought was published about eight decades after seal’s book, and could be seen as another attempt in comparative philosophy addressing the question of method in the two traditions. curiously enough, seal’s book is not referred to here. zilberman begins by pointing out that nothing new on the subject of analogy had been added to western philosophy since aristotle’s prior analytic, despite the philosophical literature drawing widely upon “analogies, examples, paradigms and incomplete inductions.” he sees mill, as does seal, as the one philosopher who extended the concept of analogy into the foundations of the logic of scientific discovery by developing the method of similarity and differences (zilberman 2006, 45). turning to the theory of analogy in indian philosophy, the circumstances of its development are very different, but the theoretical positions of the different philosophical schools exhibit “a deep and well understood supplementariness” (ibid., 46). this is the reason why the reader of seal’s tpsh encounters an elaboration of the nyāya point of view constantly measured and clarified with respect to the position of the other schools. in the light of the multi-systemic character of indian philosophy marked by their supplementary relationship, zilberman proposes a three-stage model for periodizing successive theories of analogy (ibid., 48–9). the spectrum of conceptions of analogy confers the organization of philosophical and scientific knowledge with an inter-systemic characteristic of complementariness. zilberman sees the juxtaposition of the variants and solutions as a “family of paradigms for working out our contemporary problems in the sociology of knowledge, and in the logic and methodology of science” (ibid., 50). the books of seal and zilberman are separated by more than eight decades, and yet there are two points on analogy in the indian philosophical system about which they may have been in agreement. 2015.2 editorial note monica juneja and joachim kurtz .04 articles david mervart the republic of letters comes to nagasaki: record of a translator’s struggle .08 thomas ertl repercussions from the far east: a comparison of the catholic and nestorian presence in china .38 themed section: re-thinking artistic knowledge production: global media cultures—distributed creativity franziska koch re-thinking global knowledge production: global media cultures—distributed creativity. an introduction .64 samantha schramm the people’s choice: transcultural collectivity and the art of shared knowledge production .70 cora bender indigenous knowledge in the production of early twentieth century american popular culture: distributed creativity between “frontier” and “middle ground” .86 2 contributors transcultural studies, no 2, 2015, issn: 2191-6411 editors: monica juneja, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg joachim kurtz, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg rudolf g. wagner, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg managing editor: andrea hacker editorial board: christiane brosius, antje fluechter, madeleine herren, birgit kellner, axel michaels, barbara mittler, diamantis panagiotopoulos, vladimir tikhonov, and roland wenzlhuemer. transcultural studies is an open-access e-journal published bi-annually by the cluster of excellence, “asia and europe in a global context: the dynamics of transculturality“ at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. for more information see: www.transculturalstudies.org contributors to this issue: david mervart is a visiting lecturer at the centro de estudios de asia oriental at the universidad autónoma de madrid and a research associate of the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context” at the university of heidelberg. he obtained his phd from the university of tokyo in the history of east asian political thought and has held fellowships at the university of cambridge, the czech academy of sciences, and leiden university. he works on the intellectual history of eurasian interactions in the eighteenth century. he may be contacted at david.mervart@uam.es. thomas ertl is professor of economic and social history of the middle ages at the department of economic and social history at the university of vienna. his research interests include the early franciscan order and late medieval and early modern economic and social history of western europe. he has a strong interest in transcultural entanglement and comparisons between medieval europa and asia, and is the author of alle wege führten nach rom. italien als zentrum der mittelalterliche welt (all roads led to rome: italy as center of the medieval world), ostfildern :thorbecke verlag, 2010. mailto:david.mervart@uam.es 3transcultural studies 2015.2 franziska koch is assistant professor to the chair of global art history at the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context” at heidelberg university. her research centers on contemporary asian art with a focus on china and korea, and on exhibitions as mediators of transcultural artistic and curatorial practices. as a member of the dfg research network “medien der kollektiven intelligenz” (media of collective intelligence) (university of konstanz, 2011– 2014), she co-organized the symposium “re-thinking artistic knowledge production: global media cultures—distributed creativity” (heidelberg university, 2013). her dissertation will be published as die “chinesische avantgarde” und das dispositiv der ausstellung: konstruktionen chinesischer gegenwartskunst im spannungsfeld der globalisierung (the “chinese avantgarde” and the exhibition’s dispositif: constructing contemporary chinese art in the area of tension of globalization), bielefeld: transcript, spring 2016. samantha schramm is a post-doctoral researcher working in the field of modern and contemporary art history and media theory. she worked as a scientific staff member at the department of media studies, university of konstanz (2010– 2015). she also held a post of visiting professor of art history at the staatliche hochschule für gestaltung in karlsruhe in 2013. as a member of the dfg research network “medien der kollektiven intelligenz” (media of collective intelligence) (university of konstanz, 2011–2014), she co-organized the symposium “rethinking artistic knowledge production: global media cultures—distributed creativity” (heidelberg university, 2013). her dissertation is published as land art: ortskonzepte und mediale vermittlung; zwischen site und non-site (land art: site-specific concepts and [their] representation in [different] media; between site and non-site), berlin: reimer verlag, 2014. cora bender is an anthropologist specializing in media, medical anthropology, and native north america. based on long-term field work, her dissertation exploring upper midwest indigenous media and knowledge cultures was awarded the frobeniuspreis for excellent ethnographic research and published as die entdeckung der indigenen moderne: indianische medienwelten und wissenskulturen in den usa (the discovery of indigenous modernity: native american media and its impact on knowledge cultures in the united states), bielefeld: transcript verlag, 2011. she has held positions in frankfurt and bremen, and has been a visiting professor at the university of texas, at the university of heidelberg’s cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context,” and at the ludwig maximilian university of munich. currently, she teaches at the graduate college “locating media” in siegen. http://transculturalstudies.org tomonaga sanjūrō’s epistemology of international relations | shibasaki | transcultural studies tomonaga sanjūrō’s epistemology of international relations: the “self-state-international relations” proto-paradigm in modern japan. atsushi shibasaki, komazawa university, tokyo translated by gaynor sekimori, soas, university of london originally published in kokusai seiji (international relations) 156, kokusai seiji kenkyū no sentan (the frontier of international relations) 6, march 2009. introduction the purpose of this article is to explore the historical significance of the life and thought of tomonaga sanjūrō (1871-1951), a scholar of the history of western philosophy active from the end of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth.[1] there are two broad reasons for studying tomonaga. first, we need to reassess his place, not only in international relations (ir), but also in modern japanese intellectual history and the history of philosophy, given the fact that he has not hitherto been widely studied or evaluated. the second reason concerns his significance within the intellectual history of international cultural relations (icr) and ir. in particular, this article examines tomonaga’s position in the exegitical genealogy of the discourse on immanuel kant’s theory of peace, as expressed in his perpetual peace: a philosophical sketch (zum ewigen frieden. ein philosophischer entwurf; 1795), and tominaga's role in the formation of an epistemological base for understanding modern ir in japan. an epistemological mechanism is the basis for asking and answering the question “what is international relations?”, which emerges from kant’s work. such an epistemology is concerned with how we understand ir as one phase in the construction of that world in relation to all the other phases. such an inquiry falls within the field of icr (jap. kokusai bunkaron), not just the intellectual history of ir, since it deals with “the (epistemology of) ir as a culture”, asking how we should think about and understand as a “culture” the way the world we call “international relations” is constructed, in that culture consists of people devising ways and means to live their lives, and dealing with questions of vital importance to them.[2] my specialist field is primarily icr and the intellectual history of ir. in pursuing the second reason for making the present study, alluded to above, i have selected tomonaga as my subject because, under the influence of neo-kantianism, he committed himself to forming japan’s modern identity from a perception of the world based on the study of the history of philosophy. however, since virtually no study of tomonaga himself exists, it is first necessary to clarify his image within modern japanese intellectual and philosophical history by using incontestable factual evidence. i will follow a basically chronological path, linking the relevant details from tomonaga’s life with the discourse on the epistemology of ir. the article is divided into three sections. section 1 covers what is generally known about tomonaga’s life and work, and makes a particular study of a period that has been neglected in existing scholarship – his thought and activities when his scholarship was in a formative state, from the 1890s to the time immediately after his return from study in germany in 1913. this examination adds a further layer to our knowledge of who tomonaga really was. section 2 focuses on tomonaga’s activities in the taishō era (1912-1926). in particular i examine two of his major works from that time, kanto no heiwaron (kant’s discourse on peace), published in 1922 and kinsei ni okeru “ga” no jikakushi (a history of the awareness of “self” in modern times) of 1916, considering them in relation to each other, in terms of their content, their significance within tomonaga’s thought, and their place in the scholarship in japan concerning kantian peace. finally, section 3 gives a summary of tomonaga’s work in the post-kant’s discourse on peace period and of the relationship between his work and that of his successors, centering on the exegetictal genealogy of kant’s theory of peace. here i present my hypothesis about tomonaga’s historical significance,  that he was a formative figure in modern japanese philosophy, a “contextualizer” for the understanding of western philosophy, and the formulator of a proto-paradigm for the epistemology of ir in modern japan. tomonaga sanjūrō basic frame of reference tomonaga sanjūrō is generally known as a professor of the kyoto imperial university active during the taishō era, and as a neo-kantian historian of philosophy who had studied under the german philosopher wilhem windelband (1848-1915).[3] unlike his colleague nishida kitarō (1870-1945), his scholarly efforts centred on the exposition of the history of western philosophy, and even though he exerted a considerable influence on his contemporaries, and for some time later, as an interpreter and introducer, the originality of his words and ideas has been almost completely undervalued. the same observation can be applied to the image of tomonaga as an author. his scholarship has not been highly evaluated, despite his two main writings mentioned above, a history of the awareness of “self” in modern times and kant’s discourse on peace. the former, though a basic work, was the first real definitive history of western philosophy published in japan, while the latter was the first japanese work to provide a systematic interpretation of kant’s theory of peace from a philosophical stance. at the time, both books were widely read, even if only among a select handful of the elite, and they had a huge influence on people’s understanding both of the history of philosophy and of kant. however they never received the critical acclaim of works such as nishida’s zen no kenkyū (an enquiry into the good) or sansuijin keirin mondō (a discourse by three drunkards on government, 1887) by nakae chōmin (1847-1901), and there has never been any real attempt to try and extract any more historical meaning from them than might be expected from an outline of the subject. this article does not intend to stress the academic significance of tomonaga simply by meticulously investigating him as a lacuna in research history. rather it asks whether the reason that his discoveries have not until now been taken up for discussion has been due to the fact that though they were obviously important, they also appeared to be overly self-evident, both from a later perspective and also from that of people at the time. in fact, his discoveries are connected directly with basic ideas about the nature of the modern world: how should we understand the world as a whole both now and in the future, and indeed, what is this world? to appreciate this point, we must first deconstruct the received image of tomonaga to reveal the true nature of his thought and activities. tomonaga sanjūrō was born in 1871 in what is now nagasaki prefecture, the third son of a retainer of the former ōmura domain, and he died on september 18, 1951 at the age of eighty.[4] he attended a private academy of confucian learning (kangakujuku) from 1882; then, in 1887, after completing his second year at the ōmura middle school, he entered the kyōritsu middle school in tokyo. in 1889 he entered the first higher and middle school, where he was influenced by uchimura kanzō (1861-1930),[5] then a teacher there, to aspire towards the study of philosophy. though his father died that year (his mother had died when he was twelve), his elder brother, who was already working, provided him with the money to continue his schooling. he was greatly influenced by a book he read at that time, heroes and hero worship by thomas carlyle (1795-1881). in 1895 he entered the tokyo imperial university where he specialised in philosophy and the history of philosophy. among his teachers were raphael von koeber (1848-1923), inoue tetsujirō (1855-1944), motora yūjirō (1858-1912), and nakajima rikizō (1858-1918).[6] he graduated in july 1898, and the following september began work, at the age of 27, as a professor at the shinshū university[7] in kyoto, where he taught, not only philosophy and the history of philosophy, but also ethics and psychology. he moved to tokyo in 1901 when the university relocated to the sugamo district of the capital, and married the poet bifuku hideko the following year. he had four children, of whom the second child and the eldest son was (the future nobel prize-winner) shin’ichirō (1906-1979).[8] in 1902, he published tetsugaku kōyō (an outline of philosophy), one of the first systematic textbooks on philosophy to appear in japan, and in 1905 tetsugaku jiten (dictionary of philosophy), the first thorough dictionary of philosophical terminology in japanese.[9] neither work was truly original; rather they represented tomonaga’s digest of german-language models of textbooks and dictionaries. they were well-received, and the dictionary in particular continued to be widely used by students and scholars.[10] before the departure for germany during the period 1898-1909, tomonaga worked both as a scholar and a cultural critic. he was no ivory-tower scholar divorced from the affairs of the world: this image in fact dates only from the last two decades of his life. by contrast, during the first decade of the twentieth century,[11] he was taking a hard look at what was happening in japan while continuing his main academic work concentrating on the history of philosophy.[12] applying his knowledge of the history of western philosophy, he developed his arguments about how japan and the japanese should behave as a civilised nation, mainly in the journal teiyū rinrikai rinri kōenshū.[13] this discussion climaxed in the period after the russo-japanese war (1904-1905), as tomonaga considered what japan’s postwar philosophical position should be, employing greek philosophy, as well as the don quixote and hamlet thesis developed by ivan turgenev,[14] and other devices. at this time too he produced numerous articles that looked at the theory of civilisation as a type of international comparative philosophy, concerned about what things japan should adopt or reject from foreign civilizations (jap. jinbun), starting with their philosophies.[15] for example, in an essay published in october 1906 called “gaisenmon wa ichijitekitaru beshi” (the triumphal arch should be temporary),[16] he opposed plans to build a permanent triumphal arch on the site of the former babasaki gate in tokyo to celebrate the japanese victory in the war with russia,[17] criticizing the very fact of building a triumphal arch, and recommending that if it were built, it should only be temporary. tomonaga considered that such memorials were “relics of barbarism”, no different to the way barbarians walked around with the heads of their enemies draped around their necks. japan should be proud of not having such a tradition and there was no need “to transplant uncivilized customs”. he then asserted that we have only to put ourselves in the place of the russians to understand that behaviour which must give rise to feelings of resentment and retaliation is not desirable either from the standpoint of humanity or the national interest. thus he would be happy if all the triumphal arches built in japan after the russo-japanese war were simply temporary. he concluded: “once the triumph is over, i would like to offer my services to dismantle the arches completely so that no traces remain. while we have won an historic victory that signifies the beginning of a new age for japan, it should be a matter of pride to us that we do not continue to hold on to the image of triumphal celebration.” in later years, tomonaga regarded this opinion as one of the starting points of his interest in the discussion of peace. however, a second look suggests that its argument was not so much concerned with peace as with the question of what parts of western culture and institutions japan should incorporate and what parts it should reject. it was, in other words, a discussion about the need for self-awareness in the face of the impact of western acculturation. such arguments by tomonaga about the relationship between the japanese people and philosophy generally had this purpose. tomonaga’s arguments ultimately contract along two lines. the first concerns the type of philosophy japan and the japanese should adopt. tomonaga made a comparative study of contemporary currents of thought in britain, france and germany on the basis of an examination of individualism (jap. koseishugi) and the philosophy of personality (jinkaku tetsugaku).[18] reviewing the historical process by which these ideas flowed into japan from the middle of the nineteenth century, he concluded that english and german ideas had been introduced harmoniously, on the basis of neo-kantian idealism and hegelian philosophy. let us examine this argument according to a representative article tomonaga wrote prior to his departure for germany, “seiyō ni okeru botsuga shisō to shuga shisō to no shōchō to minzokuteki bunpu to o nobete waga kuni no shisō ni oyobu” (rise and fall, and national distribution, of ideas of selflessness and the subjective self in the west, with reference to japanese thought).[19] he surveyed the history of the introduction of western philosophy as follows. the first philosophies to be imported, in the early years after the formation of the meiji government in 1868, were the “determinist and naturalistic metaphysics, utilitarian ethics, individualistic politics” and “naturalistic and individualistic ideas” of the english philosophers, john stuart mill (1806-1873), jeremy bentham (1748-1832) and herbert spencer (1820-1903). they contributed greatly to the japanese enlightenment and the shattering of “old customs”. in addition, rousseau’s political philosophy based on the individual was imported earlier than hegelian nationalistic political philosophy, and this too became a “powerful weapon against evil practices”. next to be imported were the german absolute idealism and universalism of g. w. f. hegel (1770-1831), hermann lotze (1817-1881) and others. these ideas appeared at a time when “old customs” had almost all been swept away and were appropriate for “reconstructing after destruction”. these ideas, especially hegel’s, had an “eastern flavour” in that “politically and ethically they set a high value on ‘universalism’”, and, “in terms of religion, they had a tendency towards mysticism in their idealism and pantheism.” as a result, the japanese “discovered through german thought a close affinity between eastern and western thought, as well as a theoretical justification in it for eastern ways of thinking. reversing the order, mediated by european thought, they arrived at a discovery of the value and truth of their own ways of thinking, and their own national polity, systems and customs.” despite this, the individualism that had been introduced in the 1870s was not lost. now, “english ethical theories of self-realization that succeeded absolute idealism and emphasized ideas of personality”, individual-based pragmatism, and a personal idealism that “rejected universalism and stressed both the freedom and dignity of the personality and realism” were being imported, tomonaga commented. when we think about the introduction of western philosophy to japan, tomonaga continued, in one sense its ideas were more like a specific medicine to treat a particular disease rather than a new flesh and blood body. japan did not have an “national bias” towards western philosophy. the advantage of this fact was that the japanese “could, more or less without preconceived ideas, appreciate western philosophy, criticize it, reject its shortcomings, and adopt its strong points. the same attitude also allowed them to harmonize eastern and western thought”. he pointed out, however, that at the same time “it had no stabilizing uniformity”. the japanese could not live just according to the ways of thinking of the past, but unfortunately, because they had adopted ideas that had a real body for europeans “out of context”, western philosophy could not go beyond being a “temporary breath of fresh air or a specific medicine”. tomonaga then asked, what is the burning issue for japanese philosophy? in a word, it is either outright acceptance or rejection, or otherwise the harmonization, of personality-based theories and absolutism, singly or together. this was important, both in the sense of how to accept, reject or harmonize the two streams of thought transplanted from abroad, and in the sense of accepting, rejecting or harmonizing “the tendency towards eastern universalism or western individualism”. tomonaga thought that at some time in the future, a philosophy of “absolutism incorporating an ample content of voluntarism and empiricism” would become influential. tomonaga made this statement because he considered that pantheistic, absolutist, mystical and selfless (ger. selbstlosigkeit) german thought had “the closest affinity of all western ways of thinking to eastern thought” and that “it was the old, yet new, truth belonging both to the east and the west”. he also thought, as we have seen already, that ideas about the subjective self were a necessity for a modern society. tomonaga concluded by wondering whether in japan, “german thought would assimilate english thought and whether it would be possible to incorporate western-style individualism into eastern-style ‘universalism’”, on the basis of “absolutism in conformity with the theory of personality, and intellectualism in conformity with voluntarism”. he added the reservation however that absolutism would finally be the foundation, not individualism. in this essay, tomonaga discovered one solution to the question that he had been asking since his debut as a scholar, defining the philosophical issue that japan needed to solve, based on a study of the history of philosophy: to adopt english and american theories of the personality while maintaining a substructure of german absolutism, based on a neo-kantian-type understanding of the history of philosophy. tomonaga’s views were carried on into his 1916 work history of the awareness of ‘self’, written after his return from germany. this understanding of the history of philosophy, and the conclusions he reached, clearly demonstrate that the model of what he was to work on following his period abroad was already in place before his departure. it also means that tomonaga did not take a neo-kantian approach from the very beginning of his formation as a scholar, but chose neo-kantian idealism as the philosophy that he himself, as well as japan and the japanese, should adopt, as a result of his wide-ranging investigations into the currents of contemporary western thought and his selection from among them. the second course taken by tomonaga’s arguments concerned the premise upon which such a selection could be made. this premise was an understanding of the world in terms of international cultural relations, in the sense that he attempted to formulate the type of construction within which international relations (as subject) and culture correspond and exist. for japan and the japanese to be qualified to select what philosophies they want from the various countries of europe and to establish their own philosophical position, they must exist in the world preserving their own civilisation, on a par with western countries, he said. for his essays on the triumphal arch (1906) and selflessness and the subjective self (1909) to hold good, he had to have constructed a stable world view. to demonstrate such a world, made up of cultural exchanges between members (of which japan was one) on an equal footing, tomonaga employed the concepts of assimilation (ruika) and adaptation (ōka), found also in the two articles mentioned, to describe the mechanism of cultural reception and transformation.[20] this represented the fulfillment of the project that tomonaga was concerned with before he went to germany, “the philosophical formation of modern japan”. in later years, he is reported to have recalled how, having in his youth witnessed the frenzy of the rokumeikan period,[21] he “was led at last to aspire towards a philosophy that had the purpose of greatly uplifting japanese civilisation and realising national excellence”.[22] putting aside how authentic this report is, the priority for tomonaga was clearly not pure research that stood aloof from society, but a concern for the philosophical position japan and the japanese should incorporate, summed up by neo-kantian idealism, and the basis on which this might be achieved – a mechanism of international culture made up of a schema of subject, state and culture, based on the relationship of subjects of equal status. study abroad and return to japan tomonaga spent the years 1909-1913 studying in europe. it is commonly held that he was greatly influenced by wilhelm windelband,[23] under whom he studied, that when he returned to japan he took out of publication all the works he had published until then (actually, the dictionary of philosophy and the outline of philosophy continued to be reprinted), and that after his return he no longer produced the kind of cultural criticism that he had before he left. regarding the first point, tomonaga in fact only attended windelband’s lectures for little more than six months, and hardly received any personal tuition from him at all. and when we consider he stayed for a comparatively long time in other places in germany, such as berlin, as well as in britain, france and italy, among others, it is obvious he could not have developed as close a relationship with windelband as is commonly thought.[24] however, as the following comments show, what seems to have impressed tomonaga the most seems to have been the way windelbrand lived as a teacher and a scholar. “there were many scholars in germany, but it was windelband to whom [i] owed the most. windelband was like an eminent priest with no theatricality about him at all.”[25] “seeing windelbrand in germany, i felt keenly that someone with my strengths was not at all equal to the task of being a university professor.”[26] this led to the changes we will see in tomonaga as described in points two and three. was there in fact a complete discontinuation between tomonaga’s arguments before he went to germany and after he returned to japan, as the second point suggests? the answer is “no”. rather, tomonaga went on to explore, within the framework of pure academic study, the position of the idealist philosophy that he had partially decided upon before he went to germany and about which his conviction further deepened while abroad. based on his own modest demeanour, achieved through windelband’s influence, he moved his efforts to enlighten people about this idealist philosophy in both his teaching and his writing. a history of the awareness of “self” in modern times,[27] compiled to honour windelband, who had died in 1915, and based on lectures[28] tomonaga gave after his return to japan, was brought to completion in the course of this transition. however, in terms of content and construction, most of the work had already been completed in the essay finished before he went to germany, the above-mentioned essay “selflessness and the subjective self”. what “out-of-publication” means is that tomonaga’s attitude based on his convictions had changed. in only one place in a history of the awareness of “self” does his argument comparing the renaissance to the meiji restoration in japan remain.[29] this is the sole vestige of of the cultural criticism that had engaged his attention before he went to germany, a discourse on modern japan and the japanese based on western philosophical history that regarded the modern western philosophical experience extending over several centuries being equivalent to the modern japanese philosophical experience extending over several decades. this is one indication why a history seems to have been viewed in later times simply on the order of an outline. after his return to japan, tomonaga was confronted with the fact that germany had become an enemy country as a result of the outbreak of the great war. in the past germany had been held up in japan as the home of  idealist philosophy (to which tomonaga himself subscribed), yet now there were bitter attacks being made on german militarism, and criticism was being levelled that german philosophy itself was by nature militaristic and aggressive. tomonaga attempted to answer this criticism in essays such as “shisōjō no kokusan shōreiron” (encouragement of domestic production in terms of ideology) and “doitsu shisō to gunkokushugi” (german thought and militarism), in a history of the awareness of “self” and in “seccho no hihyō ni taishite” (a response to critical reviews of my works), a reply to reviews of doitsu shisō to sono haikei (german thought and its background), a collection of articles published in may 1916.[30] the essay entitled “encouragement of domestic production in terms of ideology”[31] was written as the first part of “german thought and militarism”. here tomonaga employed the concepts of assimilation (ruika) and adaptation (ōge) to set up his hypothesis that the constant adoption and critical study of thought from abroad results in the wholesome development of a people, and based on this, he criticised exclusionist and closed currents of thought, saying “a country closed to ideas commits intellectual suicide”. tomonaga, in stressing that the evaluation of a system of thought must always be made carefully from a position of equality, based on “a truly sincere and speculative conscience” and “conscience in the broadest sense”, developed a general framework for cultural reception and exchange. in the latter part of this essay, and in its companion, “german thought and militarism”,[32] tomonaga studied the relationship between german thought and militarism by distinguishing three periods of german thought: (1) at the time of kant, (2) post-kant, especially hegel and his successors, and (3) bismarck and later. there were no militaristic elements in kant, the fountainhead of german idealism; if anything, there was anti-militarism. the romanticism of johann gottlieb fichte (1762-1814), friedrich schelling (1775-1854) and friedrich schleiermacher (1768-1834) occupies a grey zone, having elements of both kant and hegel but also the seeds of militaristic currents of thought. by the time we get to hegel, militaristic elements become apparent for the first time. however, hegel’s militarism was not “aggressive”, but rather “a militarism by the state intended to protect its representative civilisation”. however, after bismarck, the ideology of rapid development and pragmatism prevailed over idelaism, fostering a militarism far removed from idealism. the “civilised state” (jinbun kokka) changed into the “authoritarian state” (kenryoku kokka). it was in this series of essays that tomonaga for the first time referred to kant’s “perpetual peace”.[33] this was the starting point for kant’s discourse on peace. thus it was not written on the back of post-war leaguism (renmeishugi), but in the context of defending german thought during the great war against accusations it was militaristic. that being said, tomonaga was not an unconditional pacifist. in “a response to critical reviews of my works”,[34] he made his own attitude to war clear. first, there was no basic contradiction between the idealist spirit and war. “war is what brings forth in the most fundamental, direct and vivid form honour, single-heartedness, loyalty, sacrifice and the courage to fight for justice.” “simply as a japanese, and as an individual, being born in the home of bushidō,[35] and belonging to a family having the bushi (warrior) temperament, emotionally i have deep sympathy for this view.” and from the fundamental spirit of idealism too he could not but affirm war – by giving oneself to an absolute value that transcended actual gain and loss, one entered a spiritual and eternal life. second, whether war is good or bad depends on the values and motives for which it is waged. thus it is a “masamune blade”;[36] even if it serves to realize ideals and protect civilisation, it can also suppress ideals and destroy civilisation. tomonaga did not deny all war, but he repudiated the improper use of war and war where idealism only meant moral justification. the contemporary polemic that confronted tomonaga on his return from germany was directly connected with his own social and academic position, and so, unlike the contemporary issues with which he had been engaged before going abroad, must have posed immediate and serious questions regarding his academic and intellectual identity. when tomonaga compiled a number of his articles into german thought and its background in may 1916, he detached “encouragement of domestic production” from “german thought and militarism”, even though the two were originally intended as two parts of the same article; they were placed apart and no reference was made to any connection between them.[37] as a result, with its character as a personal response to current issues brought about by the great war removed, german thought and its background was presented to the world as a purely academic study, a companion volume to a history of the awareness of “self”. in 1922, the two works were republished in a combined volume called kinsei ni okeru “ga” no jikakushi: shin risōshugi to sono haikei (a history of the awareness of “self”: neo-idealism and its background, 5th edition), but this time the fifth chapter of german thought (“encouragement of domestic production”) was missing entirely. this represents tomonaga’s final “reforging” of his work to remove comments on current events. kant’s discourse on peace the work after this time, except for a few short pieces on current topics, tomonaga devoted himself to basic research, centring on fichte, carlyle, descartes and lotze. in 1919 he decided to retire from the kyoto imperial university and concentrate on educational activities as the principal of a normal school, citing poor health, his inability to match windelband as a teacher and scholar, and the impossibility of accomplishing the description of two thousand years of philosophical history. however, as a result of the encouragement and persuasion of his colleagues, in particular nishida kitarō, a very close friend, who wrote, “i am sure there are better wives than my own and better friends than my own. but my wife is my wife, and my friends are my friends”,[38] he decided to remain at the university. kant’s discourse on peace was the work that occupied him immediately after he had weathered this turning point in his life. like many other of tomonaga’s works, kant’s discourse on peace was a compilation that developed and integrated three lecture-based essays. the first, “kanto no eienteki heiwaron no hanmen” (a profile of kant’s theory of eternal peace, 1921)[39] discussed basic approaches to the discussion and was centred on the first part of perpetual peace, the “preliminary articles”, plus some of kant’s other works, while the second, “kanto no heiwaron ni tsuite” (concerning kant’s discourse on peace, 1922),[40] dealt with the “definitive articles” and the “first supplement” of perpetual peace. tomonaga amalgamated these two in “kanto no heiwaron” (kant’s discourse on peace, 1922),[41] adding some extra content. this third essay was published virtually unchanged as the single volume kant’s discourse on peace.[42] this study is commonly understood to have the following characteristics. first, it was not simply a commentary on perpetual peace but the first work in japan that attempted a systematic reconstruction of kant’s philosophical stance concerning peace within the corpus of his whole philosophy. second, as we have already seen, tomonaga’s argument initially arose out of his defence of german philosophy during the great war and was by no means an attempt to jump on the bandwagon of post-war wilsonism, internationalism and leaguism. rather, its prime purpose was to ring a warning bell about the longing for post-war peace, pointing out that this desire seemed to be emotional and philanthropic. in the preface, tomonaga described his motive for writing the book as the desire to demonstrate the persistence of his own concern for peace, mentioning his essay on the triumphal arch that he wrote before the war, his essay on german thought and militarism that he wrote after his return from europe, and “a response to critical reviews of my works”. (this motive was not however mentioned in the essay “encouragement of domestic production”.) nevertheless, as my research has shown, none of these essays in fact dealt primarily with peace, and if that is so, what is the significance within the internal development of tomonaga’s thought of kant’s discourse on peace, which to all appearances is an outline or introduction? the impossibility of a world state certain points in tomonaga’s argument as it appears in kant’s discourse on peace are worth noting. the first is that he draws a clear line between the supranationalism of kant and the supraindividualism of hegel. this marks the difference between the priority of the individual over the state in eighteenth century thought and the priority of the state over the individual in romanticism and later philosophy. it is certainly possible to draw a line between kant and hegel, but as tomonaga pointed out, hegelian-type moments are already traceable within kant. he argued however that kant did not systematize them as a philosophy. he made the same claim, as we have seen above, when he was trying, during the great war, to deny that german philosophy was militaristic. it took on an even greater importance in kant’s discourse on peace. the second, and more important, point is tomonaga’s discussion about kant’s second definitive article (the right of nations shall be based on a federation of free states), concerning the impossibility a world state. the generally accepted interpretation is that kant’s “international state (civitas gentium; jap. kokusai kokka), which would continue to grow until it embraced all the peoples (jap. minzoku) of the earth”[43] means neither a world state nor a world government, but only a loose federation retaining its sovereignty, like the league of nations. most commentators give as their evidence for this view kant’s “negative substitute” argument, that “if all is not to be lost, [the positive idea of a world republic] can at best find a negative substitute in the shape of an enduring and gradually expanding federation likely to prevent war. the latter may check the current of man’s inclination to defy the law and antagonise his fellows”.[44] in addition, they often quote from the teleological explanation in kant’s first supplement, that control becomes more difficult as the state grows larger, and that states are separated by the workings of “nature” and the “belligerence” of people. however, tomonaga did not accept these opinions, for he was not satisfied with the argument of negative substitution, and he regarded the teleological interpretation to be of low ethical value. on the contrary, he insisted that theoretically, kant  had to recognize the possibility of a world state. certainly, the realization of an international state or a world republic in the form of a large number of states “joining together into one state while maintaining their autonomy”[45] is clearly contradictory and impossible, seen from the perspective of the self determination of the state. however, “there is clearly no contradiction” if for the sake of convenience, we could term an international state (though here the term ‘international’ is already inappropriate) a merger into one state of several states which have completely given up their autonomy and overcome all obstacles, and apply the term world republic to the broadest extent of this process.”[46] if therefore there is no basis for saying that world formation has to be confined to the condition of separation into states, then it is hard to support kant’s argument. according to tomonaga, kant himself, in retaining the logic that, just as autonomous individuals gather together to form a state, autonomous states are not limited to gathering together to form an international society, but can go on to form a world state, perceived that his own philosophical system, in giving priority to the state over the individual, lacked logical systematization. thus, even if we deem that there is some significance in the very fact itself that numerous states preserve their own autonomy while being mutually opposed, there is still no reason for an international state or a world republic in this sense to be impossible. the reason an international state is impossible in the former sense lies in the contradiction between “international” and “state”, so, in order to make room for “international” as kant constructed it, we can either dispose of “state” and make a “league” (renmei), thinking of a league of nations, or else we can dispose of “international”, and think of an international state or a world republic in the latter sense, retaining the “state”. in order to make the latter option to be impossible, we must demonstrate that it is impossible to dispose of “international” and that there is a certain significance in the fact itself of numerous states preserving their own autonomy while being mutually opposed. the most straightforward way to prevent war between states is to remove all the conditions of hostility between them and by doing so bring about an international state or world republic in the latter sense. even if this is difficult to achieve, we should not only hold it up as an ideal, but also as that which agrees with the spirit of kant’s philosophy, concerned with the question of right (quid juris).[47] as an interpretation based on negative substitution shows, states as autonomous bodies that come together and are united on the basis of subordination cannot be defined as “states”. tomonaga thought though that if we do away with the given premise about a “state”, that it is an autonomous body that cannot be united with a body that holds a superior position to itself, then a world state is achievable. to borrow his words, an “international state” means is what we should be able to achieve if we dispose of  “state” and form a league or confederacy, and dispose of “international” and form a world state. despite this, tomonaga did not stand on the side of a world state. as we have seen, he had already argued that though it was possible to differentiate between kant and hegel, hegelian ideas about state supremacy were already in preparation within kant. in tomonaga’s view, while kant recognised a world state in theory, he considered that its basis was the separation of the world with the autonomous state as the basic unit. as proof for this, tomonaga somehow collected together evidence to support his contention that kant recognised the “significance of the ‘national’” (kokuminteki mono no igi)[48] and that for him “there was some significance in the very fact of numerous states preserving their own autonomy while being mutually opposed”.  in this way, tomonaga tried to “enclose” (fūjikome) the possibility of a world state. nevertheless, the grounds for tomonaga’s argument were very weak. though his academic conscience did not let him use a teleological argument, a study that turns to its own advantage a metaphor comparing academic separation to national separation and makes broad interpretations of accounts of national uniqueness that are no more than irrelevant detail cannot, even considered in the most favourable light, be very convincing. all the same, tomonaga’s “enclosure”, concerning the impossibility of a world state based on kant, has survived solidly down to the present, its theoretical weakness unresolved, either during tomonaga’s time or by succeeding generations. this would suggest that any legitimacy of the state of the world premised on a modernistic state system can ultimately only be demonstrated tautologically. the significance of kant’s discourse on peace when we trace the hermeneutical lineage in modern japan regarding kant’s ideas of peace, the leading figures before tomonaga were nishi amane (1829-1897), nakae chōmin (1847-1901) and katō hiroyuki (1836-1916).[49] their interpretations, however, basically reinforced their own understanding of reality and their opinions based on it, and so were somewhat arbitrary. in the same period, the political scientist imanaka tsugimaro (1893-1980), yoneda shōtarō (1873-1945), a professor of sociology at kyoto imperial university, and kuwaki gen’yoku (1874-1946), a kantian philosopher who taught at the imperial universities in kyoto and tokyo, among others, also published studies of kant, but even though they differed from tomonaga’s interpretation in parts, they did not achieve his degree of systematization and meticulousness.[50] in addition, some, like kanokogi kazunobu (1884-1949), an ultranationalist philosopher from the kyushu imperial university, asserted that, far from “eternal peace”,  the actual state of the world was “eternal war”, while others, like kameya seikei (1856-1930), a buddhist scholar and educator, published works comparing kant favourably with confucius and christ.[51] for tomonaga, a history of the awareness of “self” in modern times and kant’s discourse on peace were comprehensive expressions of his own philosophical and ideological stance through an account of the history of western philosophy and a systematic description of kant respectively. in the former, he clarified the fundamental construction and the historical formation of the philosophical position that he himself held and that he believed japan and the japanese should also hold, eschewing the methodology he had employed prior to his study in germany that had overt contemporary implications. this work was popular among both scholars and students as a basic study of the history of western philosophy and in compiling it, tomonaga acted as a “contextualizer” in the philosophical formation of modern japan. kant’s discourse on peace reflected tomonaga’s long-held interest in securing, by means of a systematic outline of kant’s arguments, a stable position for japan and the japanese as one entity within the differentiated international structure. it formulated how people possessing a modern awareness of self exist in relationship to the state and the world, drawing on how the modern world is formed, based on an understanding of the history of idealism that is set out according to the historical interpretation found in a history of the awareness of “self”. in other words, autonomous individuals possessing self will construct a state along the lines of a social contract, and autonomous states possessing sovereignty will construct an international society. however, the individual states do not become a world state. tomonaga sanjūrō was a philosopher who studied and discussed philosophy as a way of viewing the world and human beings and who had the clear purpose of using it to construct for the nation of japan a stable position in the modern world. his two works presented a structure of the world that comprised a continuum of the individual (self), state (sovereignty) and international society (not an international state or a world state). he thus played an important historical role in laying the foundation for an epistemology of international relations in modern japan, in a period just prior to the growth of academic specialization and the development of the theory of international relations within the specialized field of sociology. the epistemology of international relations “patching up”: tomonaga’s latter years with the exception of a study made to commemorate the two hundredth anniversary of kant’s birth in 1924 following  a six-month visit to germany, tomonaga continued his study of the course of pre-kantian philosophy, centring on descartes[52] and rousseau. in 1931 he retired from the kyoto imperial university as an emeritus professor, but continued teaching at otani university and other places. by the end of the war he was suffering from ill-health, and concentrated his energies on revising and making additions to a history of the awareness of “self” in modern times and kant’s discourse on peace. this work tomonaga self-deprecatingly called “patching up”. in the early post-war period, he published the work of his latter years in two volumes, tetsugakushiteki shōhin (a short history of philosophy) and renesansu oyobi sen-kanto no tetsugaku (the renaissance and pre-kantian philosophy).[53] in addition, revised editions of a history of the awareness of “self” in modern times were published in 1946, 1947, 1948 and 1950, and of kant’s discourse on peace in 1947 and 1950. the  title of latter work was given a modern orthography but otherwise there was little change. however, the 1948 edition of a history of the awareness of “self” was substantially revised to make its connection with kant’s discourse on peace clear and to strengthen the relationship between the two works.[54] he also incorporated his inquiries into the connection between buddhism and mystical thought, a topic in which he had long been interested, and he devoted himself to shin pure land buddhism in his latter years. we are enabled to know tomonaga’s sentiments at this time through the slight differences in the essays he chose to include in the volumes and the new introductions he wrote. he remained committed to the possibility of the “philosophy of reason” and sustained the hope that germany, again defeated in war, would come about on the basis of idealism. he also criticised views that saw german militarism and “german culture” as identical. it is clear that there was no deviation at all in his arguments from his prewar views. “self-state-international relations” the greatest significance of tomonaga sanjūrō in terms of modern japanese intellectual and philosophical history concerns his contributions to the philosophical formation of modern japan, and his role as a “contextualizer” for an understanding of western philosophy. his “originality” is to be found in the fact that he was both an interpreter and an introducer during the period of “western impact”. in other words, he was a “contextualizer” in the sense he established a context for comprehending the history of philosophy, which in turn became the basis for understanding the world, in order to bring, at the very least,  a stability to the constantly vague and wavering national consciousness of modern japan. he fixed his ideas among the intelligentsia through his educative activities and discussion. his careful inquiry and study to “stabilise” modern concepts of subjectivity, the world and identity were in marked contrast to the more “unstable” (jap. yuragi) study of topics like asianism and “modern conquest” theory. the historical significance of tomonaga does not stop here. in his pursuit to form a modern japanese philosophy, tomonaga not only focused on philosophical concepts and the history of philosophy: his objective in studying western philosophy had a “practical purpose”,[55]  to formulate an epistemological mechanism or a premise for a world view to enable japan and the japanese to have a stable understanding of themselves in the modern world. he did not formulate a self, a state or international relations detached from all others, but set up the thesis that self, state and international relations were tightly connected in an organic and cross-referential structure. in brief, this was a three-tiered structure: the individual, rooted in an independent and autonomous self, the nation-state (society), made up of such individuals, and international relations (society), constituted of these independent and autonomous nation-states and premised on non-dissolution into a world state.  we can provisionally call this “self-state-international relations”. it is a cross-referential mechanism that specifies the modern world view and acts as a framework for asking the question, “what is international relations” in modern times. the modern epistemology of international relations has, whichever way we look at it, undeniably assumed a kind of world based on this mechanism, regardless of whether we accept it or criticise it. of course, this “self-state-international relations” is an invented idea. furthermore, if we think of it in terms of kant’s individual-centredness, it  has a logical weakness, as tomonaga perceived. however, tomonaga managed to contain this weakness and concocted a way of explaining the world, half by accident and half by intent, by directly confronting the reality of his time. those who followed him neither tried to reformulate this schema completely, nor attempted to examine the difficult points that tomonaga had marked out, that might be summarised as the issue of a world state.  rather, they took this framework as a given and tried to reinforce it further. tomonaga among kant’s interpreters this is clear when we look at tomonaga’s successors as interpreters of kant. a direct successor of tomonaga’s discourse on international relations and the world based on kant was “kanto ni okeru kokusai seiji no rinen” (the idea of international politics in kant) by nanbara shigeru (1889-1974), a professor of political science in the law faculty at the tokyo imperial university, and its revised version, “kanto ni okeru sekai chitsujo no rinen” (the idea of a world system in kant).[56] nanbara, following in tomonaga’s theoretical footsteps, as they appeared in the idea of the autonomy of the self in kant’s discourse on peace, also reached the same conclusion, that “a world state was impossible”. though he did not go beyond the “negative substitute” theory, he used it to demonstrate the validity of a world federal state, going one step beyond kant’s position and highlighting notions of nationalism (jap. minzoki kokkaron) based on concepts held by fichte and his successors. nanbara discussed the construction of modern international relations, using tomonaga’s idea of the “enclosure” (fūjikome) of the theoretical possibility of a world state. the postwar arguments of kōsaka masaaki (1900-1969), a student of tomonaga’s,[57] were however organised without any reference to tomonaga’s “enclosure”. in accordance with a “society of world citizens”, kōsaka regarded a world republic as a positive ideal and as a principle of control, and the league of nations as a negative substitute, a principle of organization, and a “schematised idea” (jap. zushikika sareta rinen). there is  no connection here with tomonaga’s arguments. hardly anyone who followed nanbara and kōsaka in post war kantian scholarship can be regarded as having erased tomonaga’s “stamp” and opened up the choices that he had offered – to dispose of “international” or dispose of the “state”. rather, they accepted this premise made at a time before the separation of philosophy and the social sciences, and made no effort to go further into it,  regarding tomonaga’s interpretation of kant based on “enclosure” as unshakeable. theirs was an attitude of “standard operating procedure”,[58] in that they were content not even to consider whether a “world state” was possible or not. from the 1970s in particular there appeared a few scholars who advocated a different position: that it was self-evident to think about the world only in terms  of international relations based on separate states. banba nobuya (1937-1989), a political scientist in the field of international relations, and mogami toshiki (b. 1950), a legal scholar specialising in international law, expressed opinions about transnational movements, the activities of non-state actors, a global society based on the human interest (global humanism), and the possibility of a global culture.[59] it is, however, difficult to say that their studies have gone beyond the existing epistemology of modern international relations. we can cite two reasons for this. first, changing reality does not seem to have caught up with them, and second, and more important, most of them are concerned solely with “international relations” or with trying to reform the level of the entire globe at one fell swoop. if they had given consideration to the epistemological mechanism of “self-state-international relations” they would, i think, realise the necessity, both now and in the future, of unravelling the various standards that make up the world and the mutual connections within “international relations”. something similar can be found in the understanding of kant’s discourse on peace in the english-speaking world. according to eric s. easley, in his survey of the history of the reception of perpetual peace in the english-speaking world from the time of its publication in the late eighteenth century down to the present time, there are two patterns of interpretation.[60] pattern 1 is peace proposals above the state level, interpretations from the mid nineteenth century to the mid twentieth century, while pattern 2 is peace proposals at the state level, interpretations from the 1950s. pattern 1 has two phases: the first has as its object the formation of an international state by reining in state sovereignty, and the second stops at a federation or commonwealth, where state sovereignty is curbed. pattern 2 also has two phases: in the first there is a strengthening of the state’s autonomy and indispensible importance, and the second is represented by democratic (liberal) peace. easley sees the transition between patterns 1 and 2 to be the important moment. if however we adopt a view that asks how we should understand and explain this world as it has come about – the viewpoint of the study of the epistemology of international relations – what is decisive is the moment when we gave up on the world state and saw it as an impossibility. as far as i understand by looking at easley’s work and the sources he has quoted, it is not certain how the moment when this impossibility was recognised came about in the english-speaking world. however, looking back at the discussion so far, the greatest significance of the study of kant’s ir is connected, not only with “kant’s image” or “democratic peace”, but particularly with the existence of a concentrated epistemological reflection regarding how the modern world has been constructed and the mechanism by which it was done. conclusions this purpose of this article has been first to examine the historical significance of tomonaga sanjūrō in modern japanese intellectual and philosophical history and to show that he was not a purveyor of second-hand information but a contextualizer for the understanding of modern western philosophy, who shouldered a national task: the philosophical formation of modern japan. this is embodied in a history of the awareness of “self” we have seen too that we can detect tomonaga’s originality in the breadth of his undeviating academic conscience, in the clear reflection of his awareness of contemporary issues in work that seen from a later time may seem to be simply an introduction and commentary, and in the way it was constructed, paradoxically because it was close to being an outline and an exposition. his work was not a specialised “translation” with the interpolation of his own theories, like the chinese scholar yan fu’s,[61] but on the other hand, like yan fu, he carried out his work with a strong normative awareness – how should one’s country and people be moulded at a time of modern growth confronted by the western powers? besides the philosophical formation of modern japan, tomonaga also had to argue for a type of world in which japan and the japanese could exist stably in the modern world, exchange “civilisations” and continue to live in harmony with others. tomonaga draw the basic structure of the image of this world in kant’s discourse on peace, while making connections with a history of the awareness of “self” in modern times. the series of articles he wrote before he went to germany, beginning with the essay on the triumphal arch, and his awareness of contemporary issues as it appeared in his essays on his return, defending german philosophy during the great war, intricately influenced the background to this discussion. kant’s discourse on peace, as an extension of this research history, was to all appearances a commentary on the theory of peace, but it also  developed as an argument that did not stop here. tomonaga’s own change of attitude after he returned from germany was also a factor in this work’s complicated background and the opaqueness of its intent. finally this article has termed the configuration of the world that tomonaga presented, drawing on kant, “self-state-international relations”. there are drawbacks in limiting the modern epistemology of international relations to such a reliance on kant, but i have proposed that it is supported by a very firm and powerful framework for underpinning an understanding of the human world  and so has become stable. this conceptual construction is itself in further need of refinement, but the state of ir studies itself is closely related to it and so it will be of ongoing importance to elucidate the historically distinctive scholarly features of ir studies (incorporating international political science and the discourse on international relations) on the basis of this hypothesis. let me give one example. in his first work,  man, the state, and war, kenneth waltz gave a reverse image of the epistemological system of  “self-state-international relations” in his three “images” of international relations.[62] while waltz’s argument had the limited objective of seeking the causes of war between states, it had also to consider the interrelation of the images. however, while the discussion at the analytical level, limiting the scope of the study to a basic explication of each of the images, broadened the theoretical range to the phenomena of international relations in general, it ended up in a reduced, and perhaps trivialised, treatment of the interrelation of images. further, waltz himself moved on to create the theory of structural realism (neorealism),[63] focusing his attention only on the level of the international system. however, the possibility of a theoretical “development” by limiting the scope of the study to a basic explication of each of the separate images and by expanding the range of generalization is effective, i think, because the organic relationship that is self-state-international relations that permits that separation and limitation is already assumed and shared. though beyond the scope of this article, but i believe on further reflection that a study of tomonaga can be connected with the ir epistemology and the history of the formation of a world view that waltz and western scholars of international politics relied upon. this approach to thinking about how the world has come about is of a definite term; it will change with changing reality. that being so, we will have to strive once more to discover a new epistemological mechanism in place of “self-state-international relations” to relate to the new reality. i predict that by doing so, we will be able to stimulate a realignment in the state of  knowledge that is ir, and by extension the state of knowledge of the whole of the social sciences and the humanities. this will be significant as an intellectual activity that contributes to   our thinking about and discussing the works from the standpoint of ir. [1] this article brings together the arguments made in my “nihon ni okeru kindai kokusai kankei ninshiki no genteki keisei, tomonaga sanjūrō to ‘jiga, kokka, kokusai kankei’” (the proto-paradigm for an epistemology of modern international  relations in japan: tomonaga sanjūrō and “self-state-international relations”), ph.d. dissertation, university of tokyo, february 2007, and is based on a report given at the conference of the japanese political science association (nihon seiji gakkai) on october 7, 2007. related articles include “’jiga, kokka, kokusai kankei’ bunka toshite no kokusai kankei ninshiki kenkyū josetsu (“self-state-international relations”: prolegomena for the study of the epistemology of  international relations as culture), kokusai shakai kagaku 52, march 2003; “tomonaga sanjūrō no kanto-ron, kindai nihon no tetsugakuteki keisei to kokusai kankei ninshiki keisei no genteki kōsaku” (tomonaga sanjūrō’s discourse on kant and the making of the epistemological basis of modern international relations), kokusai shakai kagaku 53, march 2004; and “kokusai kankei ninshiki to tomonaga sanjūrō” (tomonaga sanjūrō and the epistemology of international relations), sōbun 497, may 2007. [2] concerning this point, see “kokusai bunkaron ni okeru futatsu no bunka” (two cultures in international cultural relations), kokusai seiji 129, february 2002. [3] for example, “tomonaga sanjūrō”. tetsugaku jiten (tokyo: heibonsha, 1971), p. 1029. [4] for general descriptions of tomonaga and his literary works, see “tomonaga sanjūrō” in kindai nihon tetsugaku shisōka jiten, eds nakamura hajime and takeda kiyoko (tokyo: tōkyō shoseki, 1982), pp. 392-394; “tomonaga sanjūrō” in meiji bungaku zenshū 80, meiji tetsugaku shisō shū (tokyo: chikuma shobō, 1974); “tomonaga sanjūrō” in nihon shisōshi jiten, eds koyasu nobukuni et al (tokyo: perikansha, 2001),  p. 393; “commentary” and “chronology” by mitsui kiyoshi in tomonaga sanjūrō, kinsei ni okeru “ga” no jikakushi, definitive edition (tokyo: kadokawa, 1952); tomonaga sanjūrō sensei no omoide (tomonaga sanjūrō sensei no omoide hensankai, 1957). the biographical details in this article are all derived from the information in these sources. [5] translator’s note: uchimura kanzō, founder of the christian nonchurch movement, taught briefly at the first higher and middle school, but was forced to resign within a year for refusing to bow before the imperial rescript on education in january 1891 as was required (the so-called “disrespect incident”). the daiichi kōtō chūgakkō (first higher middle school) was organized out of daigaku yobimon (university preparatory school) in 1884; legislation of 1886 demarcated the higher school as an imperial university preparatory school. after world war ii, the higher schools were all incorporated into the university system (the first higher school, situated at komaba, became part of tokyo university). see donald roden, schooldays in imperial japan (berkeley: university of california press, 1980). [6] translator’s note: raphael von koeber was a german-russian teacher of philosophy. he had taught at the universities of berlin, heidelberg and munich before going to japan in 1893. he taught at the tokyo imperial university until 1914; among his students were natsume sōseki and nishida kitarō. inoue tetsujirō was a conservative philosopher who had studied in germany between 1884 and 1889. he contributed to the discourse on the japanese national polity based on the family state around the figure of a divine emperor, writing a commentary at the invitation of the ministry of education on the imperial rescript on education. he was extremely anti-christian. motora yūjirō was a psychologist who had studied psychology in the united states, receiving a doctorate in the subject from johns hopkins university in 1888. he began lecturing on psychology at the tokyo imperial university in 1889 and was appointed professor the following year, when he also published the first psychology text book in japanese, shinrigaku (psychology). nakajima rikizō, who had a doctorate from yale, was a philosopher and ethicist, who adopted the theory of the british kantian scholar thomas hill green. the professor of ethics and philosophy at the tokyo imperial university, he wrote on kant and hegel and introduced dewey’s outlines of critical theory of ethics to japan. [7] translator’s note: shinshū daigaku was established in kyoto in 1896 out of the former takakura gakuryō (training institute attached to higashi honganji) of the shin pure land sect. it moved to sugamo in tokyo in 1901, but returned to kyoto in 1911 as shinshū ōtani daigaku. it became ōtani daigaku in 1922. [8] translator’s note: tomonaga was appointed an associate professor at the kyoto imperial university in 1907, whereupon the family moved back to kyoto. he became a full professor in 1913 on his return from germany. after his retirement in 1931 he became a professor at ōtani university. [9] tetsugaku kōyō (tokyo: hōbunkan, 1902.11); tetsugaku jiten (tokyo: hōbunkan, 1905.1). [10] see the remarks of miki kiyoshi (1897-1945) and amano teiyū (1884-1980) in the omoide (recollections), cited in note 4 above. [11] his main works during this period are tetsugaku to jinsei (philosophy and human life), (tokyo: ryūbunkan, 1907) and jinkaku no tetsugaku to chōjinkaku no tetsugaku (the philosophy of personality and the philosophy of super-personality), (tokyo: kōdōkan, 1909.9) [12] articles published at this time include “shizen kagaku no chishiki ni motozukeru yuishinron” (idealism based on the knowledge of natural science), teiyū rinrikai rinri kōenshū 12 (1903.4), 71-100, and “tetsugakushi kōkyū no shishu to kenkyūhō to ni tsuite” (purposes and methods in studying the history of philosophy), tetsugaku zasshi 200 (1903.10), 21-30. these publications are found listed in meiji tetsugaku shisō shū (meiji bungaku zenshū 80), ed. senuma shigeki (tokyo: chikuma shobō, 1974). they occupy an important place as some of the earliest discussions of methodology in the modern japanese study of the history of philosophy. [13] for the teiyū rinrikai, see “teiyū rinrikai” in minkangaku jiten jikō-hen, eds kano masanao, tsurumi shunsuke and nakayama shigeru (tokyo: sanseidō, 1997), p. 435. see also miyamoto matahisa, “sōritsuki no ‘teiyū rinrikai’ no seikaku” (the character of the teiyū ethical society at its inception”, kanazawa daigaku kyōikubu kiyō 19 (1970.12). translator’s note: the teiyū ethical society grew out of an informal discussion group formed in 1897 (the hinoto tori year, i.e. teiyū) called the teiyū konwakai by ōnishi hajime (1864-1900), a philosopher, critic and poet, anesaki masaharu (1873-1949), an intellectual and scholar who had studied philosophy at the tokyo imperial university, and others. the name was changed to teiyū rinrikai in 1900, when the society began publishing a journal (teiyū rinrikai rinri kōenshū). [14] translator’s note: “hamlet and don quixote” was a speech delivered by turgenev on january 10, 1860, at a public reading to benefit the society for the aid of needy writers and scholars. the essential turgenev, ed. elizabeth cheresh allen (evanston, ill.: northwestern university press, 1994), pp. 547-564. [15] “kirō jinbun no tokusei o ronjite waga kuni jinbun no shōrai ni oyobu” (the characterisics of greek civilisation and their connection with the future of japanese civilisation), teiyū rinrikai rinri kōenshū 38 (1905. 11), 1-34; “kirō minzoku no tetsugakuteki soshitsu (the philosophical temperament of the greek race), in his tetsugaku to jinsei (op. cit), pp. 96-148; “don kihōte to hamuretto (gendai shichō ni oite)” (don quixote and hamlet in contemporary thought), parts 1 and 2, teiyū rinrikai rinri kōenshū 46 (1906.7), pp. 53-73, 47 (1906.8), pp. 23-48. [16] teiyū rinrikai rinri kōenshū 49 (1906.10), pp. 93-94.  [17] translator’s note: on may 6, 1906 a triumphal arch was set up at babasakimon, where the old gate and bridge had been removed and a new road constructed for the victory parade (there had been a serious accident here in 1904 when many people were crushed at the gate during a lantern-lit parade). for the russo-japanese war and triumphal arches, see takashi fujitani, splendid monarchy: power and pageantry in modern japan (berkeley: university of california press, 1998). [18] “jinkaku tetsugaku zakkan” (miscellaneous thoughts about the philosophy of personality), tōa no hikari 4: 4 (april 1909), pp. 19-32. other articles include “koseishugi ni tsuite” (individualism), part 1 teiyū rinrikai rinri kōenshū 75 (december 1908), pp. 45-80; part 2 teiyū rinrikai rinri kōenshū 76 (january 19090, pp. 46-64. [19] published in three parts in the teiyū rinrikai rinri kōenshū: 79 (april 1909), pp. 1-41; 81 (june 1909), pp. 37-58; 82 (july 1909), pp. 11-45. the section discussed comes from no. 82. [20] tomonaga, “ruika to ōka”, in jinkaku no tetsugaku to chōjinkaku no tetsugaku, op. cit., pp. 347-373. [21] translator’s note: in 1883 a western-style brick building was built in the hibiya district of tokyo where balls and other social events were held, attended both by japanese and foreign dignitaries. the rokumeikan became a symbol of the rapid westernization of japanese culture, but its functions were abandoned in 1890 when there was a reaction to westernization after attempts to revise the unequal treaties failed. [22] shibutani ai, “onyōju no gotoki onshi” (my beloved teacher) in omoide (op. cit. note 4), p. 58. [23] translator’s note: windelband, of heidelberg university, was a neo-kantian german philosopher of the badische schule with an interest in psychology and the cultural sciences. he was widely read among japanese scholars in the early decades of the twentieth century. [24] “boronya tetsugaku taikai” (bologna philosophical conference), sōbun year 2, no. 8 (1911.8), pp. 157-162; “yūshugaku bankoku taikai ni oite” (the international eugenics congress), teiyū rinrikai rinri kōenshū 130 (1913.6), pp. 1-43.  translator’s note: the fourth world conference of philosophy took place in bologna in april 1911 and many sessions were dedicated to the history of  philosophy. the first international eugenics congress was held in london in july 1912 with 400 delegates. [25] mitsui kō, “onshi tomonaga sensei” (my esteemed teacher tomonaga [sanjūrō]) in omoide op. cit. (note 4), p. 66. [26] ibid. p. 82. [27] kinsei ni okeru “ga” no jikakushi. tokyo: hōbunkan, 1916. [28] “kinsei ni okeru “ga” no jikakushi” (a history of the awareness of “self” in modern times), teiyū rinrikai rinri kōenshū 138 (1914.2), pp. 38-69, 139 (1914.3), pp. 1-35, 144 (1914.8), pp. 11-47. in 1914 and 1915 tomonaga wrote several essays simultaneously; it was the period he published most intensively. [29] “the reform in european thought that took place in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries bears in its character some similarity with the reform of our own meiji restoration. they are very similar in that, as civilisations with a strong self-identity, they discovered another, quite different, civilisation, and, realising that this civilisation, which they had regarded as uncivilised, was, in many important ways, richer and superior to their own, they completely reconstructed their world view based on natural science, and liberated the conscience of the individual that had previously been bound both ethically and in terms of learning, by traditional lore and by faith.” “kinsei ni okeru ‘ga’ no jikakushi”, teiyū rinrikai rinri kōenshū 138, p. 40. [30] doitsu shisō to sono haikei (tokyo: hōbunkan, 1916). [31] “shisōjō no kokusan shōreiron ni tsuite”, teiyū rinrikai rinri kōenshū 149 (1915.1), pp. 18-31. [32] “doitsu shisō to gunkokushugi”, teiyū rinrikai rinri kōenshū 150 (1915.2), pp. 40-75. [33] “shisōjō no kokusan shōreiron ni tsuite”, p. 27. in “doitsu shisō to gunkokushugi”, pp. 51-52, he discussed the differences between hegel and nietzsche. [34] “seccho no hihan no taishite”, teiyū rinrikai rinri kōenshū 172 (1916.12), pp. 27-46. [35] translator’s note: bushidō (“way of the warrior”) was an ideal popularized in the late nineteenth century principally through the writings of nitobe inazō (1862-1933). [36] translator’s note: the swords made by the swordsmith masamune (ca 13th century) are regarded as the greatest examples of the art of sword-making. here it is used in the sense of a “double-edged blade”. [37] translator’s note: the book was composed of five chapters. “german thought and militarism” appeared as chapter three (pp. 104-161) and “encouragement of domestic production” appeared as chapter five (pp. 220-240). [38] two letters to tomonaga sanjūrō, 9 october 1919 (letter 257) and 10 october 1919 (letter 258).  nishida kitarō zenshū vol. 18 (tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1953), pp. 215-218. [39] “kanto no eienteki heiwaron no hanmen”, tetsugaku kenkyū 60 (1921), pp. 1-29. [40] “kanto no heiwaron ni tsuite – jūichigatsu muika kyōto tetsugakukai kōen” (kant’s discourse in peace, a lecture given to the kyoto philosophical society, november 6), tetsugaku kenkyū 70 (1922), pp. 33-66. [41] “kanto no heiwaron”, kaizō (1922.3), pp. 1-47. [42] kanto no heiwaron (tokyo: kaizōsha, 1922). [43] japanese translation of kant’s perpetual peace: tōyama yoshitaka (trans.), “eien heiwa no tame ni”, kanto zenshū 14 rekishi tetsugaku ronshū (tokyo: iwanami shoten, 2000), p. 273. all italics are as they appear in the original. translator’s note: the english translation is from hans siegbert reiss, kant: political writings (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1991 [1970]), p. 104. [44] ibid. [45] tomonaga, kanto no heiwaron, p. 23. [46] op. cit. pp. 22-25. [47] op cit. p. 24. [48] ibid. [49] for a comprehensive summary, see matsuyama shin’ichi, “tomonaga sanjūrō ni okeru kanto no heiwaron, tsuke, kanokogi kazunobu to kameya seikei to ni okeru kanto no heiwaron” (kant’s discourse on peace according to tomonaga sanjūrō, with supplement, kant’s discourse on peace according to kanokogi kazunobu and kameya seikei), in matsuyama shin’ichi chosakushū (collected works of matsuyama shin’ichi) vol. 7 taishō tetsugakushi kenkyū (a study of philosophy in the taishō era), (tokyo: kobushi shobō, 1999, first published 1965), pp. 126-159; katagi kiyoshi, “’eikyū heiwaron’ yori mita waga kuni ni okeru kanto no juyō ni tsuite” (the reception of kant in japan seen in terms of “perpetual peace”), in ienaga saburō and komaki osamu eds. tetsugaku to nihon shakai (philosophy and japanese society), (tokyo: kōbundō, 1978). [50] kuwaki gen’yoku, “kanto no rekishi tetsugaku ni tsuite” (kant’s philosophy of history), tetsugaku zasshi 340 (1916.6), kanto to gendai no tetsugaku (kant and modern philosophy), (tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1911); yoneda shōtarō, “kanto no rekishi tetsugaku (4)” (kant’s history of philosophy, 4), tetsugaku kenkyū 40 (1919), pp. 78-104; imanaka tsugimaro, “kanto no keiyakuteki kokusai shakai ron” (kant’s international social contract), gaikō jijō 419 (1922.4), “kanto no seiji shisō” (kant’s political thought), dōshisha ronsō 8 (1922.6). [51] kanokogi kazunobu, eien no ikusa, tokyo: dōbunkan, 1915, “kanto no ‘eien no heiwa’ o ronzu” (on kant’s perpetual peace), tetsugaku zasshi 353,354 (1916.7, 1916.8); kameya seikei, eien no heiwa (perpetual peace), (tokyo: kōdōkan, 1918). [52] dekaruto (descartes), (tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1935), “seiyō tetsugakushi gaisetsu, kinsei zenki” (outline of the history of western philosophy, first half of the early modern period), iwanami kōza tetsugaku (iwanami lectures on philosophy) vol. 3. (tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1933), dekaruto seisatsuryoku (descartes’ meditations), (tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1936), etc. [53] tetsugakushiteki shōhin – rusō, kanto, rottsue (a short history of philosophy – rousseau, kant, lotze), (nagoya: reimei shobō, 1948); renesansu oyobi sen-kanto no tetsugaku (the renaissance and pre-kantian philosophy), (tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1948). [54] kinsei ni okeru “ga” no jikakushi (a history of the awareness of “self” in modern times), revised edition (tokyo: hōbunkan, 1948). [55] yoshikawa hiroyuki, tekunogurōbu (techno-globe), (tokyo: kōgyō chōsakai, 1993). [56] nanbara shigeru, “kanto ni okeru kokusai seiji no rinen” (the ideal of international politics in kant), in seijigaku kenkyū, onozuka kyōju zaishoku nijūgonen kinen (a study of political science, in commemoration of twenty-five years work by professor ono), ed. yoshino sakuzō, (tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1927), pp. 492-564, “kanto ni okeru sekai chitsujo no rinen” (the ideal of a world system in kant), nanbara shigeru chōsakushū (complete works of nanbara shigeru), vol. 1, (tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1972, first published 1942), pp. 121-194. the content of the two is slightly different. concerning nanbara’s argument, see karube tadashi, “heiwa e no mezame” (awakening to peace), shisō (2003.1), pp. 15171; katō takashi, nanbara shigeru, (tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1997). translator’s note: in english, see also war and conscience in japan: nambara shigeru and the asia-pacific war, edited and translated by richard h. minear (lanham, md: rowman and littlefield, 2010); andrew e. barshay, state and intellectual in imperial japan: the public man in crisis,  (berkeley: the university of california press, 1988); andrew e. barshay, “the public man and the public world in modern japan: nanbara shigeru and hasegawa nyozekan revisited”, social science japan journal 7: 2 (2004), pp. 263-275. [57] kōsaka masaaki, “kanto no eikyū heiwaron” (kant’s perpetual peace), tenbō (1951.1),pp. 38-43, seiji, jiyū oyobi unmei ni kansuru kōsatsu (a study in the intellectual history of peace), (tokyo: kōbundō, 1947), “sekai kōmin no tachiba” (the standpoint of the world citizen), in kōsaka masaaki chōsakushū vol. 3, (tokyo: risōsha, 1965), pp. 181-223 (first published 1947). [58] typical of the work of this period are katagi kiyoshi, “kanto no ‘eikyū heiwaron’ no rekishiteki igi to hōhōron no mondai” (the historical significance of kant’s perpetual peace and issues of methodology), kokusai gakuin saitama daigaku kenkyū kiyō 8 (1987); miyata mitsuo, “kanto no heiwaron to gendai” (kant’s perpetual peace and the modern day), in miyata mitsuo, heiwa no shisōshiteki kenkyū (an intellectual historical study of peace), (tokyo: sōbunsha, 1987), pp. 137-199 (first published 1977); utsunomiya yoshiaki, “eien heiwa no kōsō” (conception of perpetual peace), in utsunomiya yoshiaki, kanto no kami (kant and god), (tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1998, first published 1987), “kanto no heiwa no tetsugaku” (kant’s philosophy of peace), hokkaidō daigaku hōgakubu kiyō 62 (1987), pp. 55-108, 223-258. [59] works of particular interest include: banba nobuya, “heegeruteki kokka, rekishikan kara kantoteki kyōdōtairon e” (from an hegelian view of the state and history to a kantian theory of community), nihon heiwa gakkai henshū iinkai ed. kōza heiwagaku 2 heiwa no shisō (lectures on peace studies 2, the idea of peace), (tokyo: waseda daigaku shuppanbu, 1984), pp. 113-136; mogami toshiki, kokusai shisutemu o koete (beyond the international system), (tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1995). [60] eric s. easley, the war over perpetual peace: an exploration into the history of a foundational international text, basingstoke: palgrave macmillan, 2004. see also mark f. franke, global limits: immanuel kant, international relations, and critique of world politics, new york: university of new york press, 2001. [61] translator’s note: yan fu (1854-1921) was a prominent interpreter of western ideas for chinese audiences, translating scholars such as thomas huxley, adam smith and john stuart mill. he was interested in the theory of translation and offered his own interpretations to the ideas he translated. see benjamin i. schwartz, in search of wealth and power: yen fu and the west. (cambridge: belknap press of harvard university press, 1964). this work has been translated by hirano ken’ichirō into japanese (university of tokyo press, 1978). hirano writes that “the development of a theory of international cultural relations can be traced back to benjamin schwartz’s study of yan fu. . . to analyze yan fu’s cultural struggles, schwartz applied a path-breaking methodological framework, defining a culture as “a vast, ever-changing area of human experience” and proposing to deal with the encounter between two cultures as a vantage point for taking a new look at both cultures.” (“a theory of international cultural relations: development from benjamin schwartz’s study of yan fu” [in japanese], journal of east asian cultural interaction studies 2, 2008). in english, see hirano kenichirō, “professor benjamin schwartz’s influence on the studies of yan fu in japan”, coe-cas working paper, waseda university, march 2007. [62] kenneth n. waltz, man, the state, and war: a theoretical analysis (new york: columbia university press, 1959). (this was based on his doctoral dissertation, man, the state and the state system in theories of the causes of war, submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy in the faculty of political science of columbia university, new york, 1954.) translator’s note: the three images for looking at the behaviour of international relations are: the individual (human behaviour), the state (internal structure), and the international system (international anarchy). [63] translator’s note: an ir theory that the international structure acts as a constraint on the actions of states (outlined in kenneth n. waltz, theory of international politics [reading, ma: addison-wesley publishing company, 1979]). china on display for european audiences? | koch | transcultural studies “china” on display for european audiences? the making of an early travelling exhibition of contemporary chinese art–china avantgarde (berlin/1993) franziska koch, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg contemporary chinese art–phenomenon and discursive category mediated by exhibitions exhibitions have always been at the heart of the modern art world and its latest developments. they are contested sites where the joint forces of art objects, their social agents, and institutional spaces intersect temporarily and provide a visual arrangement for specific audiences, whose interpretations themselves feed back into the discourse on art. viewed from this perspective, contemporary chinese art–as a phenomenon and as a discursive category that refer to specific dimensions of artistic production in post-1979 china–was mediated through various exhibitions that took place in the people’s republic of china (hereafter, people’s republic). in 1989, art from the people’s republic also began to appear in european and north american exhibitions significantly expanding western knowledge of this artistic production. since then, national and international exhibitions have multiplied, while simultaneously becoming increasingly entangled: the sheer number of artworks that circulate between chinese urban art scenes and western art metropolises has risen steeply, as have the often overlapping circles of contemporary artists, art critics, art historians, gallery owners, and collectors who successfully engage across both sides of the field. to a certain degree these agents govern exhibition-making and act as important mediators or “cultural brokers”[1] globalizing the discursive category of contemporary chinese art: it is covered in worldwide news media, promoted by museums with an international outlook both inside and outside the people’s republic, and established by agents whose actions are not confined to local or national settings. significantly, these activities are no longer governed by cold war ideologies, at least not in the same ways they were prior to china’s reform and opening policy, initiated in the late 1970s, and the fall of the iron curtain in late-1980s europe. these observations logically imply that the category of contemporary chinese art is neither monolithic nor clear-cut but rather subject to continuous renegotiation, being reconfigured for and by each exhibition. however, my research on western exhibitions of artwork produced in the people’s republic after 1979, as well as the development of exhibition activities in china during the same period, shows that several factors account for the tendency of these exhibitions to claim and even brand the category as a stable canon of artworks, artists, art practices, and artistic concepts. this canon does not easily change or broaden over time, despite the fact that the number of people active in the art world has risen. meanwhile, exhibition-making has become part of a prosperous transnational culture industry, exemplified by the worldwide proliferation of biennials, art fairs, and auctions. the numerous group exhibitions of contemporary chinese art displayed to european and american audiences in the last twenty-five years bring forth two recurring observations: first, the claim that a show represents the best, most innovative, and representative of recent artistic production in the people’s republic; second, that the exhibition provides an artistic window through which to understand “china” as such. no doubt such claims are hardly new and can be dismissed as the conventional marketing rhetoric of western art exhibitions, which present non-western artwork as an attraction based on assumptions of cultural difference. yet if we consider exhibitions as platforms where processes of cultural symbolization take place, we can examine the conditions under which art produced in the people’s republic becomes visible in the west and vice versa. however, it is important to remember that these processes are inherently pre-configured and produce notions of “the west” and “china” in relation to historically changing and permeable national, cultural, and economic boundaries, which themselves determine the degree to which mutual artistic exchange and the transfer of art objects and agents can occur.  nonetheless, an examination of these processes enables us to question how such exhibitions negotiate notions of identity and difference, contributing to change(s) or stabilizations in these boundaries. historical background and socio-political asymmetries governing exhibition practices in china and the western world during the 1980s this paper proposes to investigate the conditions that (in)formed the first large group exhibition of contemporary chinese art from the people’s republic presented in europe after 1979: the travelling group show china avantgarde, which opened in berlin in early 1993.[2] before analyzing the exhibitionin detail, it is important to recapitulate the historical conditions that had a decisive impact on its making. i will contextualize china avantgarde in relation to two important forerunners that exemplify the differences between the chinese and the european exhibition scenes in 1989: zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde in beijing and magiciens de la terre in paris. the exhibition in berlin explicitly refers to these earlier events, their concepts, and agents, thus drawing on a small social network that already linked art and artists across european and chinese borders. in general, the development of post-cold war contemporary chinese art was marked by fundamental political, economic, and institutional asymmetries that existed between a) the unsettled situation governing exhibitions in the people’s republic after the iconoclasm of the great proletarian cultural revolution (1966–1976), on the one hand; and b) the highly differentiated modern museum and gallery infrastructure of euro-america with its internationally connected art market and extended public and private funding systems, on the other. during the 1980s, these asymmetries fueled the dynamic flow of art objects and agents as politically enhanced cultural exchange became increasingly common as a result of deng xiaoping’s reform and opening policy.[3] yet contemporary chinese art was largely ignored by west european and american audiences until 1989,[4] when it suddenly began to appear in group exhibitions that were imported by prestigious institutions of modern and contemporary art, thereby skipping the tedious path through small galleries or non-profit art spaces, which conventionally leads to recognition by the major public museums. another route for the reception of chinese art within the medium of twentieth-century western exhibition space has been its display in museums dedicated to the presentation of artifacts and the art of “foreign civilizations,” or in museums that specialized in (east) asian art in particular. besides ancient bronzes, jades, ceramics, and religious sculptures, these institutions often featured traditional chinese art forms such as calligraphy and ink-and-wash painting on paper or silk, yet similar works marked by the stylistic changes that resulted from the encounter with western modernism were largely excluded.[5] and while ancient works and pre-modern artistic techniques, crafts, and designs were often admired by western collectors and travelers to china, the results of chinese artistic modernization–at least when obviously entangled with western artistic expressions–usually found no appeal. if considered at all, these objects were often classified as “inferior” to and “derivative” of western accomplishments. this perspective followed the logic of colonial taxonomies and the eurocentric master narrative of a western “mission to civilize,” with its enlightenment claims to universal and teleological (stylistic) progress; developments that the non-western world and “developing countries” in particular would need to catch up with before being considered “equal.” especially after world war ii and the founding of the people’s republic of china under the chinese communist party, in 1949, western museum exhibits tended to exclude ink paintings and calligraphy from the people’s republic, thereby affirming a pre-modern focus that was based upon ideological concerns. occasionally, the resulting gap in their collections was filled by means of displaying contemporaneous art from taiwan and hong kong that followed the “indigenous” chinese aesthetic tradition, or works by chinese émigré artists, who followed traditional artistic idioms.[6] then in 1993, one finds early signs of a revised exhibition practice in western museums of modern and contemporary art: in general, these revisions can be considered the beginning of a broader western reception of contemporary art from the people’s republic. besides china avantgarde, which toured europe following its première in berlin, the exhibition china’s new art, post-1989 was inaugurated in hong kong and subsequently staged in australia and the usa, and seventeen chinese artists made their debut at the venice biennale in italy. these three events were pivotal to the early international success of chinese art. it was through them that categories such as “modern,” “avant-garde,” “experimental,” or simply “new”[7]–designating artistic production that had evolved within the context of political reforms undertaken by the communist party under deng xiaoping–mediated chinese art to audiences outside of mainland china.[8] in china–and consequently in western catalogs as well–these attributes generally refer to a heterogeneous field of artistic practices that enabled chinese artists in the 1980s to go beyond the revolutionary propaganda imagery of the previous decade and overcome severe political restrictions in the field of art.[9] for the purpose of this article, it will suffice to simplify the volatile and multilayered realities of artists working in the people’s republic from 1949 to 1979 by stating that the directive which dominated the production and display of art during this period was to “serve politics.” in essence, this meant that artistic production had to conform to the ruling (and often changing) chinese communist party line and its totalitarian regime. artworks and their makers were defined as the “cogs and wheels in the whole revolutionary machine,”[10] as mao zedong–quoting vladimir lenin–had outlined in his 1942 “talks at the yenan forum on literature and art,” which became the main guideline for cultural politics after the foundation of the people’s republic. the notion of “art for art’s sake” was explicitly rejected[11] and works of art thus accused ran the risk of being censored or destroyed. their makers, on the other hand, had to fear varying forms of punishment that, at different stages in the political development of china and especially during collective campaigns of “thought reform,” ranged from regular sessions of “self-criticism,” to public criticism in the state-controlled media, to being sent to the countryside or factories in order “to learn from the farmers and workers.” during the great proletarian cultural revolution (hereafter, cultural revolution), public humiliation, the imprisonment of artists for any supposed deviation, and the castigation of their family members was particularly common and violent. however, as julia f. andrews observed: “art was in china an occupation of high social and economic status. china took its own art extremely seriously, as is evidenced by the great amount of critical writing on the subject, the government sponsorship of national exhibitions, the training of art students, and, perhaps most important, the canonizing of particular artists and styles of art as superior to those of earlier times. the chinese government invested generously in the production of art. even though housing was in short supply, artists were given studio space, supplies, and money to travel. chinese artists painted pictures that those in charge deemed to be of high quality, even as the nation’s critical standards grew more distant from those of the outside world.”[12] in general, jobs were assigned by the state linking every citizen to a specific “work unit” (danwei). until well into the 1990s, this system of work units exerted a decisive power over the life of any “art worker.” not only did it regulate the supply of artistic material, studio space, and income, but the work unit also decided on the private living conditions of its members, such as the granting of marriage applications, the allocation of housing, as well as the opportunity to move.[13] in such an increasingly controlled environment, incentives for artists to experiment and deviate from officially approved styles of artistic expression–namely, socialist realism, and the reformed style of ideologically affirmative, mostly figurative ink painting, as well as adapted forms of “folk art” that featured political messages–were scarce. in addition, continuous friction in the cultural bureaucracy and fights within the various party wings often led to the sudden and serious disgrace of those very artists who had been singled out as role models. when one considers the violent iconoclasm of the cultural revolution–which intensified the political restriction on all cultural expression and led to the closure of art academies, universities, and even schools in its paradoxical attempt to collectivize and simultaneously control education and artistic expression–one can understand how mao zedong’s death in 1976 and the subsequent political and economic liberalization implemented under deng xiaoping in 1978/79 came as a relief to many artists. in the aftermath of the cultural revolution, the older generation of rehabilitated artists cautiously tried to reform academic standards and official notions of socialist realism. they successively enlarged the narrow ideological canon of figurative oil painting, ink painting, and sculpture by (re)introducing motifs and stylistic features that had been forbidden. a telling example is luo zhongli’s photorealistic and larger-than-life sized portrait of a poor peasant called "father" from 1980, which won first prize at the 2nd china youth art exhibition.[14] as martina köppel-yang points out, this drastic depiction of a farmer’s poverty–his sunburnt and wrinkled face with rotten teeth, the dirt under the nails of his injured hand holding a lacerated bowl of tea–deconstructed the beautifying and heroic propaganda imagery of farmers and workers that had dominated the previous decade under mao’s regime, as exemplified in pictures collected by the national museum of china at the time, such as wang xia’s “girl of sea island” from 1961 and jin zhilin’s “commune secretary” from 1974.[15] in addition to the deconstruction of propagandistic imagery, it is important to note that the monumental portrait was emphatically called “father,” hinting at a critical disengagement from mao zedong as the sole figure that had previously been monumentalized and incessantly staged as the “father” of the masses, adored by faithful and honoring children.[16] while luo’s portrait still followed socialist ideals laying bare the strained situation of the peasants, many younger artists attempted to abandon the socialist understanding of art altogether. through imported and by now more frequently translated books, magazines, and other media (formerly banned or forbidden to circulate), artists became increasingly acquainted with the currents of twentieth-century western art. this led to challenging appropriations mostly at the hands of first generation art students, who had graduated in the mid-1980s from art academies that were reopened in the late 1970s. their artwork and exhibition activities spread across the nation and they were soon coined the ’85 new wave art movement (’85 xinchao meishu yundong, 八五新潮美术运动),[17] widely discussed in official art magazines at the time.[18] in the absence of a broadly established western-style art market–with commercial galleries, private and corporate funding of artistic production, various museums for modern and contemporary art, and non-profit art spaces–and amidst the insecurity and opportunities that the reform and opening policy had created, chinese artists were keen to pave new ways to reach the public and stir an interest in their art. they hoped that this would help them gain political freedom and economic independence from the official cultural bureaucracy. 1989 in beijing: zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde gao minglu,[19] a prominent art critic and editor of the art magazine meishu (art monthly), together with a group of enthusiastic critics and some artists[20]–among them the renowned art critic li xianting[21]–successfully inaugurated the seminal exhibition zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde (literally translated: chinese modern art exhibition) in 1989.[22] after preparations that lasted three years,[23] the group was finally able to schedule the event for february 5–19, 1989 at the china art gallery (today called national art museum of china, namoc) in beijing.[24] according to gao minglu, this was the first time in the history of this prestigious institution (built in 1958) that a show was staged without financial support from the central or local governments or work units, a convention that characterized the state-controlled cultural activities of museums in the people’s republic until the late 1980s.[25] through a variety of sources–this included private connections with liberally oriented organizations (such as the tianjin writers and artists association) and private businessmen, and the individual contribution of 100 rmb per exhibiting artist–the organizational committee succeeded in raising 118,600 rmb. although they did not reach their target budget of 150,000 rmb, the funds were sufficient to realize the exhibition.[26] zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde is considered a landmark in the history of modern chinese art, not only in regards to its institutional and economic aspects but also in relation to its participants and the category of artwork presented: more than 177 works by at least 120 artists [27] were displayed in an official space and to a large urban public, despite the fact that the works fundamentally called into question official notions of art. the show was extensively discussed in chinese art magazines and received some limited western media coverage.[28] significantly, the claim to be “modern” (xiandai), as the chinese exhibition title suggested, was (re)configured through the inclusion of art forms and media that had largely been excluded from previous public museum exhibitions, such as installation and performance art as well as conceptual works.[29] while the predominance of oil and ink paintings (110 of the 174 works listed in the catalog) can be attributed to the artists’ academic training, the relatively high proportion of thirty-one “installation” (zhuangzhi), “performance” (zhanchu), and “mixed media” (zonghe cailiao) artworks highlighted the new diversification and the reference to western art forms that were a feature of the ’85 new wave art movement. all fifty-three works with color illustrations in the small exhibition catalog depart from official conventions (despite the fact that they are mostly figurative paintings) by presenting their motifs in abstracted, distorted, fragmented, gestural-expressive styles or through collage and mixed media techniques. in addition, their titles ostentatiously depart from the conventional themes that dominated the official chinese art practice of the time: national heroes and leaders of the people, history paintings with socialist subject matter, or landscape paintings that convey the beauty of the people’s republic and glorify the (politically-guided) heroic endeavors of the masses staged in front of such scenic views. instead, this selection of artworks stressed individual subjectivity, the depictions of daily life, urban settings, the ugly side effects of modernization, and disturbing emotions.[30] gao minglu recalls that he obtained official support to mount the exhibition from the chinese artists’ association (required by the national art museum) only after he agreed to exclude artworks “that were: 1. opposed to the communist party and the four fundamental principles (sixiang jiben yuanze) [四项基本原则[31]]; 2. pornographic (interpreted as any display of sexuality) images; 3. performance or action pieces.”[32] but he was still able to insist on “having performance in a form of documentaries,”[33] which meant the display of performance photographs, illustrated in the catalog as well as recorded in the opening day documentary made by filmmaker wen pulin.[34] yet upon first encountering the exhibition’s title on banners and billboards or on the bilingual catalog’s cover pages, chinese visitors would not have necessarily associated radical and groundbreaking art forms with the term “modern” (xiandai), as it also referred to ideologically affirmative art forms such as realist oil painting with socialist subject matter. after all, cultural officials had adopted deng xiaoping’s affirmation of the “four modernizations” (sige xiandaihua, 四个现代化)–a directive to enhance modernization in agriculture, industry, national defense, and science and technology–and proclaimed it a guiding principle in the arts as well. rather, it was the eye-catching exhibition logo designed by yang zhilin[35]–an adaptation of the traffic sign for “no u-turn”–that immediately signaled to the audience the artists’ attempt to change art, and maybe even its social impact in a way that would preclude a return to former academic, institutional, and official conventions. in fact, the logo was ubiquitously present at the exhibition site and in the show’s larger context: it was depicted on the catalog and on huge banners that were strung across the museum’s entrance steps (because the museum would not allow them to be hung from the roof top as originally planned); it decorated the captions affixed next to the artworks;[36] it was printed on invitation cards and on the organizers’ letterhead, and in some cases these documents were additionally stamped with a red seal bearing the logo. this extensive use conveys the will of the organizational committee to enhance the exhibition’s public visibility and effectively brand the event, giving its heterogeneous content a unifying, provocative, and iconic “corporate identity.”[37] the more radical connotation of the exhibition’s english subtitle demonstrated, even to those viewers who did not understand english, that the curators referred to an international outlook, daring to call their exhibition china/avant-garde in what was a deliberately radicalized translation of the actual chinese into the lingua franca of western art centers (fig. 1). fig. 1: cover illustration of the catalog zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde 1989. as gao minglu explained in his later writings: the chinese title of the exhibition of china/avant-garde is ‘zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan (chinese modern art exhibition)’ rather than ‘zhongguo qianwei yishu zhan (chinese avant-garde exhibition).’ we chose different titles in chinese and english because during the ’80s, ‘xiandai’ (modern) was more frequently used than ‘qianwei’ (avant-garde) in the chinese art world. we chose ‘xiandai’ as the chinese title, which means new and radical art, and is more suitable for its own cultural context. on the other hand, in a western context ‘modern’ might indicate modernism, an old style. although ‘avant-garde’ is also out of fashion in the west, we thought it closer to the idea behind the chinese avant-garde and proper for foreigners’ understanding the new art movement.[38] radicalizing only the english subtitle was surely also a wise choice in light of the curators’ previous problems with censorship.[39] it turned out to be an effective strategy to catch the attention of western art critics, exhibition makers, and audiences as well.[40] given the relatively small number of westerners living in beijing and the short time span of the exhibition, not many foreigners could actually visit the show.[41] but the predominant citation of the exhibition’s english subtitle in chronologies of chinese art events,[42] which many western exhibition catalogs now provide, inevitably enhanced a western reading of the participants and their artistic concepts in association with the general spirit of historical european avant-garde movements and their canonized (anti-)modernist claims: such as anti-academism, radical self-expression and artistic subjectivity, the annihilation of “high art” in practices of the everyday, and art practice as transgression and as an attack on the institution of art itself.[43] the events on beijing’s tiananmen square (june 4, 1989) brought hopes for further political liberalization to a sudden, dramatic end and reaffirmed the severe official restrictions on art exhibitions and other cultural events that had already partially affected the zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde. in fact, authorities closed the exhibition twice due to two scandalous art actions: on the opening day and without official approval or a gun license, the female artist xiao lu fired two gunshots in her installation entitled “dialogue”; authorities arrested her partner, the artist tang song, and subsequently xiao lu as well,[44] closing the exhibition that same day and not allowing it to reopen until five days later, on february 10.[45] then on february 14, the second closure was precipitated by an anonymous and later proven to be fictitious bomb threat, written by artist liu anping. the authorities reopened the museum on february 17, just two days before the end of the exhibition.[46] as a result, the show was open for only seven of the planned fourteen days, and the organizational committee was heavily fined and debarred from future exhibition activities.[47] while these circumstances hindered the exhibition from functioning in conventional ways and prevented subsequent exhibition activities with the same outlook, they greatly enhanced its reputation as a truly vanguard event. in retrospect, this exhibition seems to have mediated the locally specific and sometimes contradictory struggles of artists who: a) tried to reform and perhaps even partially break with official notions of art and the affirmative exhibition practices of the authoritarian chinese communist party; while b) simultaneously seeing themselves as active participants in the party’s call for modernization, reform, and opening within the cultural domain. their socio-political critique from its many coded disguises to its most explicit expressions–that is, from the majority of more cautious and officially approved paintings to the unannounced, spectacular, and scandalizing artistic performances staged at the opening–negotiated the inner boundaries of chinese artistic production and related official attitudes. they also self-confidently pushed the frontier of the broadening contact zone of artistic exchange located between the art worlds of china and those of europe and america. 1989 in paris: magiciens de la terre while the climate for innovative exhibitions changed dramatically in china after the tiananmen incident–barring the public display of vanguard projects during the following years[48]–the exhibition magiciens de la terre[49] was organized by a major european institution that same year and featured three chinese artists from the people’s republic: huang yongping, gu dexin, and yang jiechang. all three had presented works at zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde only three months before this european debut.[50] the controversial show organized by jean-hubert martin at the centre pompidou and la grande halle de la villette in paris from may 18–august 14, 1989 marked an important turn in western mainstream exhibition practice.[51] it sought to question the eurocentric and colonial approaches that had historically defined the genealogy of modern art and its universalistic claims, excluding the visual and artistic production of those areas which did not adhere to the humanistic master narrative of progress evidenced by an aesthetic evolution of styles. as the french art historian and one of the first curators to promote contemporary african art in france, pierre gaudibert,[52] wrote in his contribution to the magiciens catalog: the mainstream exhibition policy vis-à-vis non-western art was still one of ignorance and declassification. he therefore called for a “de-centering approach,” when curating works from “artists of cultures, which are different from ours”:[53] the symbolic violence of the legitimizing artistic power of the occident–with claims to natural universality–terribly extends to all artists of these ‘other’ peoples. they are immediately and almost automatically judged as followers and epigones, as pale imitators of renowned occidental artists or they are considered as producers of visual objects, which are savored as collectibles for private homes, but deemed unworthy of real or imagined museums.[54] curators such as gaudibert and martin critiqued european art discourse and exhibition practice for having long predicated their modernity on the essential “otherness” of non-western works. they pointed out that western institutions had largely dismissed these works as “primitive,” “handicraft,” at best skilled copies of western masterpieces, or as ritual objects with no aesthetic agenda of their own, supposedly formed in tribal cultures where the notion of art and artistic authorship did not exist. martin and the curatorial team of magiciens[55] decided to challenge these problematic notions of art, inviting a hundred living “creators” from all five continents and presenting them in light of the “magic” of creativity rather than “art.” as martin argues in the catalog’s preface: it is with the word ‘magic’ that one commonly qualifies the vivid and inexplicable influence, which art exerts. it seemed appropriate inasmuch as it was wise to avoid the word ‘art’ in the title, which would inevitably have labeled creations that stem from societies that do not know this concept.[56] instead, the umbrella term magiciens (magicians) was meant to enhance an anthropological approach that would place exhibiting “works coming from the third world […] on an equal footing with those of our [occidental] avant-gardes […without] persisting to put these creators in a ghetto [by exhibiting their works in isolation rather than alongside their western counterparts], in an ethnographic category of archaic relict derived from colonial exhibitions.”[57] according to martin, the overall aim was to show and thereby “to affirm their existence in the present.”[58] however, the exhibition was heavily criticized for failing to achieve these aims and for leaving unquestioned the dominance of the european art museum, the role of the white curator, and the european aesthetic and art market preference for the exotic or archaic as modernism’s “alter ego.” as the post-colonial reading of the exhibition by artist-cum-critic rasheed araeen pointed out at the time: if we wish to challenge this distinction [between modern and traditional], then it will have to be done within a context that challenges the dominance of western culture. ‘magiciens de la terre’ has very cleverly confused this question by assuming that other cultures are facing some kind of spiritual crisis resulting from ‘western contamination.’ the crisis is, in fact, of western humanism; its failure to come to terms with the modern aspiration of the ‘other.’[59] the european art world had begun to invite “the others” on supposedly equal terms, acknowledging the colonial and modernist assumptions that had hitherto governed the reception and integration of non-western art in european institutions, markets, and discourses. yet it seemed unprepared to follow through with the implied relativization, critique, and de-centering of its own established artistic notions and the prevailing power relations of its agents and institutions. 1993: a first peak at group exhibitions of contemporary chinese art abroad the european public had to wait another four years to be able to visit several exhibitions entirely dedicated to the contemporary artistic production of the people’s republic.[60] the two key exhibitions–china avantgarde and china’s new art, post-1989–opened in 1993, touring various museums in europe and asia during the period 1993–1997: china avantgarde premièred in germany and then travelled through several neighboring countries, while china’s new art, post-1989 opened in hong kong and then travelled to australia, england, and the usa. the latter also produced smaller offspring in commercial galleries in taiwan and england, and supplied a few pieces of “representative” work for the 22nd são paulo biennial (brazil, 1994). lastly, contemporary chinese art made its debut in june 1993 at the 45th international art exhibition of the venice biennale (xlv esposizione internationale d’arte. la biennale di venezia). taken together, these three major events in 1993 created a significant media echo and stimulated large public attention. they can be viewed as the first bold signal that contemporary chinese art was being included in the canonical network of international artists and the western art market (see table 1).[61] table 1: early western group exhibitions of contemporary chinese art, duration and location: china‘s new art, post-1989 (cna); mao goes pop (a variant of cna); biennale: são paulo-chinese exhibition (a variant of cna); post-mao pop (a variant of cna); new art from china (a variant of cna); china avant-garde (ca); venice biennale: punti cardinali–chinese exhibition (pc). chart by franziska koch. china avantgarde in berlin a chronological analysis of this eventful year should correctly begin with the exhibition china avantgarde organized in the haus der kulturen der welt (hkw) in berlin,[62] which opened on january 29 (a day before china’s new art, post -1989)[63] and closed on may 2, 1993, and whose opening day alone drew 1,000 visitors.[64] the exhibition subsequently travelled to the newly opened kunsthal rotterdam in the netherlands (may 29–july 15, 1993), to the museum of contemporary art in oxford, england (july 31–october 17, 1993), and finally to the brandts klaedefabrik in odense, denmark (november 13, 1993–february 6, 1994); its last venue was the roemer and pelizaeus-museum in hildesheim, germany, which provided space for this unexpected display (september 12–november 27, 1994) as part of the local china festival.[65] the exhibition functioned as a platform for a multilayered translational process that introduced chinese artworks to an interested european public. i will explore this process by focusing on the creation of the exhibition’s title and on the selection of artworks that were exhibited or otherwise presented in the catalog. in addition, i will examine the aims of the curatorial team and the obstacles posed by the wider institutional and political context of the time. a detailed discussion of the many artworks on display lies beyond the scope of this paper. instead, it will treat the individual exhibits in a summary manner, only occasionally highlighting specific works (such as those of huang yongping or wang guangyi) in order to exemplify artistic strategies, styles, and positions that were common at the time and, therefore, helped the curators to affirm their exhibition concept. overall, the analysis tries to present various and diverging factors and agencies that (in)formed the exhibition as an early platform where notions of both china and contemporary chinese art were negotiated in cultural, political, and economic respects after 1989. the making of a title: china avantgarde or rather a chinese artistic avant-garde the german title of the exhibition china avantgarde referred both literally and substantively to the english subtitle of the zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde organized in beijing four years earlier. the exhibition in berlin presented sixteen artists, the first nine of whom had exhibited in this earlier event, bolstering their reputation as influential artists in china and abroad: ding yi, geng jianyi, gu dexin, huang yongping, wang guangyi, wu shanzhuan, yu youhan, zhang peili, fang lijun[66], zhao bandi, zhao jianren, lin yilin, ni haifeng, wang jinsong, yan peiming, and yu hong.[67] due to limited exhibition space and budget constraints, the curators resolved to present another forty-four artists in the catalog only, eleven of whom had also taken part in beijing.[68] the berlin catalog enhanced the international recognition of the previous chinese exhibition by describing it as a seminal event, which had comprehensively, authoritatively, and effectively made visible a new artistic movement with avant-garde claims, the ongoing artistic achievements of which the berlin show allegedly wanted to present. yet, as one of the berlin curators, the german artist andreas schmid, stated in a private interview:[69] wolfger pöhlmann, the in-house curator who headed the hkw’s department “art and film,” insisted on this title largely because he considered it an attractive and very marketable label in view of the positive connotations that the term avant-garde carried within the european art-historical context and popular discourse. in both realms avant-garde is associated with artistic dynamism, abrupt stylistic changes, the revolt against tradition, and the idea of attacking a self-contained sphere of “high art”; the avant-garde gravitates around the aesthetic notions of “high art” in order to fuse or open them to the experiences of the everyday, thereby transgressing the established notion of beauty. this line of thought is also reflected in the catalog’s introduction, in which pöhlmann explains the perspective on chinese art that the berlin exhibition intended to provide. the artworks on display were to make visible what he considered a double characteristic of chinese artistic production, which is marked by both references to modern western concepts of art and to those inherently chinese: [on the one hand] china’s new zeitgeist, which is primarily exemplified by the new individualism that accompanies the orientation towards commodities and consumption, is reflected in all cultural realms. on the other, the examination of [chinese] tradition takes center stage. even if formal analogies to artistic styles that we are acquainted with such as pop art, minimal art, conceptual and land art, performance, video and installation art, photographic realism, [and] informel impose themselves [upon us european viewers] when beholding the works, again and again upon closer inspection we discover the chinese roots. this is one of the essential aspects that simultaneously constitute and determine the autonomy and specific quality of the chinese modern [or, chinese modernism]. the alienated symbol of the traffic sign ‘no u-turn’ [pöhlmann writes: ‘not return’, f.k.] served as poster-motif for the beijing exhibition ‘china/avant-garde’; despite the incisive events of 1989, it seems that the development in cultural as well as social life cannot be turned back. our exhibition title ‘china avantgarde’ alludes to this. better than vague and easily misunderstood terms such as ‘modern’ or ‘contemporary,’ the term avant-garde describes a characteristic that also pertains to the most recent chinese art, because ‘avant-garde’ describes artistic flows that blow-up traditional forms of expression and want to introduce new developments. avant-garde artists express both the crisis of art’s function and meaning and a passionate search for a new sense of artistic agency and rebellion against the isolation of artists from society.[70] the berlin title followed pöhlmann’s agenda by almost literally translating into german the english subtitle of the beijing exhibition, simply omitting the diagonal slash between china and avant-garde. in fact, this translational mediation effected the international proliferation of the english label avant-garde in reference to experimental and western-oriented chinese artistic production, which gao minglu and his organizational committee had precisely had in mind when initially choosing the english (sub)title. adopting it and making it the main title for the berlin show effectively promoted the label in the western reception of contemporary chinese art and guaranteed that european media coverage of the exhibition automatically reinforced it in public discourse. however, pöhlmann’s decision and the underlying interpretation of the beijing and berlin exhibition titles had not been uncontested. the three main curators of the berlin show–the dutchman hans van dijk, the german jochen noth, and andreas schmid–were initially not in favor of china avantgarde. they thought their exhibition quite distinct from its chinese forerunner and did not want to create the mistaken impression that they were merely restaging or offering a direct sequel to beijing; using a title that resembled and resonated so strongly with the “original” might suggest just that. moreover, they wanted to avoid political connotations that might be transmitted by the title of the berlin catalog (as will be elaborated in the section “art-historical connotations of the title”). the response of both western museum audiences as well as potential chinese readers of the catalog–an english and a (hong kong) chinese edition were published[71]–would inevitably be colored by the ideological issues of 1989 that had marked the fortunes of zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde. the trilingual catalog was an exceptional and pioneering instance in early western group exhibitions of post-1979 chinese art.[72] yet translating back-and-forth a politically as well as art-historically charged term such as avant-garde ran the risk of creating strong references to its twin connotations: avant-garde in the art-historical and in the political sense, which were not necessarily defined the same way within the different cultural contexts at hand. excursus: theoretical debates on the term avant-garde the preceding observations merit an excursus that will illuminate the theoretical background of the term avant-garde. although also at stake in the making of the berlin exhibition, its organizers seldom related in explicit ways to the strained history of the term. as its long and contradictory history conveys, the term has been strongly contested in europe and beyond.[73] arguably, the most familiar (and equally most debated) publication that related anglo-american writings on the topic to european discussions was peter bürger’s ambitious theory of the avant-garde (1984; theorie der avantgarde, 1974). in his marxist reading of late-nineteenth-century french and german usage and of early european literary and artistic vanguard movements (such as surrealism, futurism, dadaism, and russian constructivism), bürger observed that: the preposition avant means not, or at least not primarily, the claim to be in advance of contemporary art (this is first true of [arthur] rimbaud), but rather the claim to be at the peak of social progress. the artist’s activity is avant-gardist not in the production of a new work but because the artist intends with this work (or with the renunciation of a work) something else: the realization of a saint-simonian utopia or the ‘multiplication’ of progress, a task that rimbaud assigns to the poet of the future. inasmuch as avant-garde artists go beyond the sphere of art, they stand in a relation of tension to the principle of aesthetic autonomy. the saint-simonians [socialist co-combatants in the 1820s] polemicized against the idea of l’art pour l’art, [heinrich] heine was amused by the ‘uprisings’ of the young germans against goethe, and rimbaud condemned all of western poetry as mere entertaining game. the avant-garde needs autonomous art in order to protest against it.[74] stressing this as a basic paradox of the european vanguard movements, bürger suggests that despite their divergent programs and political positions “they all share the questioning of the autonomy of art […], the protest against an art that has removed itself from life praxis”[75] by affirming “the social function of the artist […that results] either in anarchist revolt or engagement for the revolution.”[76] further, since “the attack on the institution of art and the revolutionizing of life” essentially belong together, and the vanguard movements “(with the sole exception of dadaism) never abandon aesthetic claims, despite their anti-aesthetic attitude,” the avant-garde faces “aporias […] in the process of trying to realize their project.”[77] as bürger observed: “the political dilemma arises wherever revolutionary engagement is serious, as it must lead to a collaboration with radical left or right parties or groups”[78] and results in the artists losing their autonomous stance. “the aesthetic dilemma is connected to the fact that the institution of art survives the avant-garde attack on it,”[79] inasmuch as their artworks all end up in the very institution that they attacked. moreover, these movements did not succeed in abolishing traditional art categories (as dadaism sought to do), nor in uniting subjective transgression and social revolution (as the surrealist project proclaimed), nor in collectivizing the cultural means of production (as the constructivists had demanded). consequently, bürger diagnosed a “failure” of the historical european avant-garde movements; however, he insisted that this notion could be misleading “because it conceals the fact that that which has failed has not simply disappeared, but continues to exert influence precisely in its failure.”[80] hal foster, a prominent post-modern american critic of bürger’s theory, specifically questioned the german scholar’s underlying evolutionist narrative which allowed him “to present history as both punctual and final” and “treat the historical avant-garde as pure origin and the [post-war euro-american] neo-avant-garde as riven repetition;” thus assuming that “to repeat the historical avant-garde, […] is to cancel its critique of the institution of autonomous art; more, it is to invert this critique into an affirmation of autonomous art.”[81] against the “seductive despair” of bürger’s diagnosis (based on what foster calls “the pathos of all frankfurt school melancholia”), foster concludes that his reading “is mistaken historically, politically, and ethically. first, it neglects the very lesson of the avant-garde that bürger teaches elsewhere: the historicity of all art, including the contemporary. it also neglects that an understanding of this historicity may be one criterion by which art can claim to be advanced as art today. (in other words, recognition of conventions need not issue in the ‘simultaneity of the radically disparate’; on the contrary, it can prompt a sense of the radically necessary.) second, it ignores that, rather than invert the prewar critique of the institution of art, the neo-avant-garde has worked to extend it. it also ignores that in doing so the neo-avant-garde has produced new aesthetic experiences, cognitive connections, and political interventions, and that these openings may make up another criterion by which art can claim to be advanced today.”[82] therefore, foster proposes the hypothesis that “rather than cancel the project of the historical avant-garde might the neo-avant-garde comprehend it for the first time?” in this context, “comprehend” does not mean “completes” but rather “recognizes” that both the historical and the neo-avant-garde are part of an “interminable” creative critique.[83]although none of these authors had chinese art movements in mind when they tried to define the notion of the avant-garde or considered recent re-actualizations of its claims and strategies in neo-avant-garde expressions, alone this brief discussion shows that applying the term to post-revolutionary chinese art activities might be useful, while simultaneously running the risk of losing its object in translation. in this regard, let us consider the american art historian norman bryson, who applied the euro-american understanding of the term in the contextualization of works by the ’85 new wave art movement. this led him mainly to observe basic socio-political differences between the chinese and the western art worlds: if in the west the historical problem of the avant-garde has been its enduring weakness relative to the cultural and economic mainstream, in china the situation has been almost the reverse: a political avant-garde, the party, has monopolized power for fifty years.[84] following the discursive differentiation between political and aesthetic aspects of the avant-garde, as outlined by bürger, bryson states: the art from the people’s republic presented in this exhibition [inside out: new chinese art at the asia society museum in new york, 1998] describes a very different historical experience, of the avant-garde (xianfeng) in office and in power–avant-garde practice in varying degrees sponsored or underwritten by the state [...]. if in the west the impulse to launch ‘another movement’ has been channeled into an aesthetic ghetto, in the people’s republic it has been a state prerogative, and one formidably used.[85] while bryson follows bürger in describing the historical “failure” of the european avant-gardes to realize their desired synthesis of autonomous art and modern, rationalized life, he suggests that for chinese artists the challenge was to ensure that the state did not absorb the entire artistic sphere.[86] he describes this problematic relationship as marked by ambivalent processes of “entanglement” and “recuperation,” which became even more complex after deng xiaoping’s economic reforms in 1979: [...] for now forms of thinking which earlier might have qualified as dissident or counter-revolutionary were capable of being reclassified and harnessed to the state’s own program of economic diversification and the maximization of profit. from this perspective, aesthetic practices that clearly advertised their relationship to western precedents or counterparts, or that sought to build the institutions of an art market, could be recognized and tolerated as necessary components of the latest state drive toward modernization. a society in need of advanced technology and consumer goods, and a new place in the global economy, must perforce accept new modes of aesthetic activity (conceptual art, performance art, installation art) alongside new music, new fashion, new cinema–and a new stock exchange.[87] bryson follows chinese critics such as gao minglu or li xianting, who suggested that paintings of the so-called chinese “political pop” were an artistic response to the new unanimity of socialist reign and capitalist market reforms: if the uncanny resemblance between state avant-gardism and aesthetic avant-gardism represented one range of possible complicities, the introduction of capitalist principles and a burgeoning art market represents another, and between them both sides of the ‘dual system’ appear to have colonized all the available space in which an authentic avant-garde might possibly maneuver.[88] however, bryson’s dualist differentiation between historical european avant-gardes and the chinese art movement, between the socialist regime and its capitalist agenda seems suspiciously simple and heroic, when he states that “the people’s republic is now a society where the principle of contradiction–the epic collision of socialist and capitalist cultures–has been allowed to develop to a unique and historically unprecedented degree […]. the terrain opened up by colliding forces affords singular opportunities for aesthetic intervention and social critique.”[89] yet this position enables bryson to offer an idealistic third way, which he believes chinese artists can pave as (self-empowered?) subjects located between the pressure of the state and the market, albeit at the “microlevel” of daily activity: what is perhaps being sketched here is an idea of power that, in the west, can be expressed only in tentative terms: that in societies of disciplinarity, ideology may no longer be required to be the primary cohesive force binding the subject in social space. what holds the social formation together are modes of activity whose basis lies at the microlevel, in the myriad acts of repetition and self-regulation by which the subject inscribes itself in social discourse. viewed negatively, the art that enacts this position can be thought of as the expression of ‘cynical reason,’ as peter sloterdijk has described it. the cynic knows his beliefs to be empty, he is already ‘enlightened’ about his ideological relation to the world; to that extent he has rendered himself immune to the charge of bad faith, or of complicity with the dominant order. what this position constructively opens up, however, is a new territory of analysis and practice. for if power is no longer to be located at the macrolevel of the great ideologies, in the colossal and mythic confrontation of socialism and capital, and if it is instead to be found at a microlevel that is ‘below’ politics and ideology, then individual subjects are able to intervene and innovate at their own scale and on their own terms. if the basis of cultural reproduction lies in the subject’s own capacities for compulsive repetition and system-building, the significance of aesthetic practice is that it permits those capacities to be deflected or redirected toward the subject’s own ends. the art of the avant-garde becomes a model of the ways in which subjects–however great the historical pressures acting upon them–may organize and lead their own lives.[90] more than a decade later, bryson’s faith in the chinese artist as an enlightened, self-contained, and independent subject flying below the radar of “macrolevel” politics and ideologies seems strikingly romantic, in view of the overwhelming commercialization of chinese contemporary art and the lack of independent, (self-)critical mechanisms; the chinese government now supports all kinds of artistic expression, as long as it is profitable and complies with the newly implemented “cultural industry.” the following section will not explore the art-historical responses of chinese curators-cum-critics or art historians, who subsequently dealt with the topos of a chinese avant-garde,[91] but will return to the beginnings of its practical negotiation and institutionalization within the medium of the group exhibition. one instance where the early translational problems and transcultural entanglements of the term became evident was the making of the exhibition title china avantgarde in berlin. art-historical connotations of the title as far as the art-historical and inter-exhibitionary implications of the title are concerned, the reference to the beijing show was not at once obvious to the german public. most likely, they would learn about the exhibition by reading texts written by pöhlmann and others in the berlin catalog, since the beijing event had not been broadly reported in western media nor were contemporaneous chinese reviews translated at the time.[92] unlike the intellectual art lover in china, a german viewer could not immediately associate the new artistic approaches and scandalizing performances of beijing’s china/avant-garde with the german exhibition title china avantgarde. in this regard, pöhlmann’s assumption seems to have been correct: that the berlin audience would simply take the label avant-garde to mean an artistic movement that claims a radical break with tradition and brings about marked changes in modern artistic styles. for the german audience, however, the artworks themselves did little to confirm this idea since–as pöhlmann mentions in his introduction–stylistically they looked rather familiar, even conventional to the european eye; in the last section of this paper, an analysis of the display will explore this effect. despite presenting artwork whose very existence was previously unknown to the german public, the obviously western-inspired language of most pieces did not make a radical statement, especially when considered against the stylistic achievements and concepts of historical european avant-garde artists. in the well-established european museums of modern and contemporary art, chinese artists experimenting with modernist western stylistic features–such as surreal, abstracted, fragmented, collaged, or gestural-expressive ways of handling paint–even seemed quite natural given the eurocentric and progress-oriented logic of western modernity in art. as previously mentioned, this line of thought assumes pre-modern chinese artistic production to be “authentic” and “classical” in its own right, while art created after coming in contact with european or american modernism, including socialist art practices, be assessed in relation to its european forerunners and counterparts, who constitute the dominant center of the modern world. in this respect, the chinese artworks shown in berlin seemed to attest to the hegemony of western concepts of modernism, inasmuch as they were seen to appropriate and not radically alter or break away from them. therefore, reading the title in the possible sense of china as the subject claiming to be (art) avant-garde–a new force that might succeed or even overcome historical european and american avant-garde art movements and their formal characteristics–must have struck the european art public as a provocative yet utopian marketing slogan. hence, when viewing the artwork in relation to the exhibition’s main title, the dominant interpretation was to understand it as representing a chinese art movement that is vanguard only in relation to its own cultural context. still, the fact that the european curators kept the nominalization of china when transferring it from china/avant-garde, instead of advertising more modestly and specifically a “chinesische avantgarde” (chinese avant-garde), slightly contradicts pöhlmann’s argument. while in his introduction he stresses that one should take the “chinese roots” into account and not overlook the chinese artistic traditions, the decision to capitalize china in the title partly hampers such a nuanced approach–especially when allusions to western styles impose the feeling of familiarity upon the european viewer. even though the title places the geographic term on par with the european notion of a radical modern artistic movement, it deliberately generalizes possible, significant specificities of avant-garde by attaching it to the country and culture of china as a whole, instead of to chinese artistic endeavors in particular. however, one should keep in mind that this translation was connected to the institutional strategy of exhibiting artworks embedded within a more comprehensive program, which mapped out china in its many cultural facets rather than exclusively concentrating on the latest experimental chinese fine arts. it also indicates that because china was generally considered to be a distant and culturally unfamiliar country to most exhibition visitors, the main strategy must first be to advertise the culture as a whole. only when reading the catalog essays does it become clear that the exhibition more specifically questioned the complex art-historical relationship between (historical) european avant-garde concepts and the vanguard modernist concepts of chinese artists. nonetheless, the berlin audience was correct in its interpretation of the title as an “exhibitionary avant-garde event” in relation to european mainstream art presentations: for the first time since the cultural revolution a whole range of contemporary artworks from the people’s republic was put on display that neither affirmed the official art doctrine of the chinese government nor persisted to focus on widely appreciated art and artifacts of pre-modern china. this in itself made the berlin show a vanguard endeavor in the european context. after all, the show and its catalog demonstrated that many chinese artists were, in fact, engaged in renegotiating modernism in alternative ways, thereby pluralizing its meanings. political connotations of the title that the berlin exhibition was directly involved with the question of discursive as well as institutional power is evident in the political issues that were at stake in choosing a title. the three main curators were concerned about a title that would indeed relate closely to the chinese exhibition in 1989, because they knew that european audiences would associate this year with the negative image of the people’s republic depicted in european media reports of the violent repression of mass protests on tiananmen square. in addition, recent insights into the socialist regime of the german democratic republic (gdr), which had come to light in the wake of german reunification, would loom large in the berlin reception of art created in another communist country. as a result of this media discourse and local historical experience, the curators were concerned that the exhibition’s chinese artists would be equated with chinese political dissidents: a simplistic ideological interpretation that they wanted to avoid because it was likely to obscure the inherently art-related and increasingly autonomous stance that had marked the artistic production of the last decade in china. the curators would probably have agreed with bryson’s differentiation between the historical european avant-garde movements and the approaches in experimental chinese art of the late 1980s (and for a short period after 1989 as well): while the european avant-gardes often claimed to revive art in order to engage with “real life”–tearing down any overly autonomous, segregated, purely aesthetic, or self-contained place of art in society–chinese artists were eager to establish art as a sphere that was independent, at least from the political aspects of everyday life under the centralized regime of the communist party. they struggled to free artistic practice and discourse from the reigning cultural politics and from the superimposed state bureaucracy with its controlling mechanisms. this did not, however, exclude their struggle for official recognition, nor necessarily lead to their opposing the leninist-maoist doctrine of “art for the sake of the people.” it was in order to change people’s attitudes and culturally reform society that many artists wanted their new stylistic approaches to be included in academic curricula, to be broadly discussed at symposia and in art magazines, and hopefully to have their works shown in state-controlled galleries such as the national art gallery in beijing. yet especially after the events of june 4, 1989, most artists refrained from taking an openly political stance, choosing instead to withdraw from public engagement into private, low-profile exhibition activities, if they engaged in any at all. it had become clear to many young chinese artists and critics that the communist party would not grant further artistic freedom, but had tightened its control and was determined to strictly censor any exhibition project that did not conform to its ideology. in retrospect, one can find many reasons that existed for the fact that the subject matter of the feverish artistic production of 1980s china (even though initially triggered by political liberalization) was not necessarily concerned with party politics. given all these circumstances, the foremost aim of schmid, van dijk, and noth was to present the striking complexity and plurality of artistic concepts en vogue in the people’s republic at the time, including many works that did not allude to issues of (cultural) politics. the strained diplomatic relationship between the people’s republic of china and germany, as well as between the other european countries that hosted the touring exhibition in 1993/94, presented another aspect of the curators’ political concerns. in order to calm potential institutional worries regarding the foreign relations of and with china, noth formulated in a 1991 draft of the exhibition project that “any kind of political connotation, for instance in the sense of ‘dissident art’ should be avoided [by the curatorial concept],” since “the exhibition’s goal is to document artistic, not outspokenly political qualities.”[93] in addition, he warned that “every open confrontation with chinese authorities may threaten the participating artists or at least their participation (if they still live in china).”[94] yet the curator also remarks that a “certain benevolent neutrality of chinese authorities is to be expected, as long as they are under the impression that chinese culture is presented in ways that apparently demonstrate its liberal quality to the outside world, without interfering in chinese internal affairs.”[95] the exhibition draft further proves that schmid and noth expected to encounter difficulties not only from the official chinese side, but also sought to caution potential collaborating art institutions not to jeopardize the undertaking within germany, where “direct political confrontation with the chinese regime would possibly discourage sponsors and cause pressure from german authorities.”[96] the precarious curatorial attempt to focus on artwork that ran the risk of official chinese disapproval, on the one hand, without stirring official attention, on the other, proved necessary and prudent. although chinese officials had made van dijk leave the people’s republic on earlier occasions, suspecting foreigners of involvement in the democratic movement on tiananmen square, he and schmid were able to revisit china as tourists in 1991 and 1992[97] and contact and discuss their exhibition project with local artists. however, they avoided officially declaring the purpose for their travels. similarly, most of the participating artists obtained a tourist visa for germany and attended the opening of the exhibition in berlin.[98] it was only shortly before the opening in january 1993 that a chinese diplomat in the berlin branch office of the chinese embassy voiced concerns about the content of the exhibition. in an unofficial conversation with a local german politician (a member of the berlin senate), the chinese diplomat argued that most of the invited artists were not famous in the people’s republic and consequently the exhibition would create a misleading impression of the actual cultural life of his country. moreover, the chinese representative criticized the fact that a significant number of the participants were living outside of china at the time.[99] schmid writes that the chinese ambassador later travelled from bonn to berlin to protest against the exhibition, claiming that it did not present what could be called authentic or representative modern chinese art.[100] however, coming at this late juncture the ambassador’s gesture did not threaten the exhibition, rather it reaffirmed the non-official nature of the artwork on display and the title’s suggestion that the art belonged to an avant-garde movement operating outside of or in opposition to the ideological mainstream of its country and beyond the party’s control. political side effects such as these indicate that the curators and artists indeed operated in a delicate arena between two very different and still relatively separate cultural and political systems. this made it necessary to think through each step of the exhibition, to negotiate diplomatically, and to avoid as much as possible involving official entities and institutions on either side.[101] consequently, the curators had to solve yet another major logistical problem–the export of the artwork–in unorthodox ways.[102] synthesis in translation: the final title in the end, the initial concerns of the curatorial team about the attention-grabbing and politically charged title ceased and a telling compromise was found: the berlin exhibition was called china avantgarde. zhongguo qianwei yishuzhan (中国前卫艺术展). significantly, the chinese translation that the curatorial team in berlin prominently provided on the catalog cover is not the same as the original chinese title used in beijing: zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan (中国现代艺术展). the more literal translation of avantgarde as qianwei (前卫) eliminates the broader and less radical meaning of the term xiandai (现代), modern, substituting the latter with the more politically and art-historically charged specificity found in the german title (fig. 13). while the choice of the divergent chinese term qianwei prevented a literal, one-to-one reference to the beijing show, the connection was paradoxically provided by the german reference to beijing’s english subtitle, china/avant-garde. in fact, berlin’s chinese translation radicalized the militant connotations of beijing’s english subtitle: the term qianwei (as its french and english counterparts) originally derives from a military context in which a combat group or unit of guards (wei 卫-garde) operates “before” or “at the forefront” (qian / 前–avant) of the main battlefield; the armed forces operating behind this group being guided to victory with the help of these vanguards. as gao explained, the reason for not applying this term to the artworks on display in beijing was the fact that it was less frequently used than the broader term xiandai; however, he does not explain why this term had more currency than qianwei.[103] perhaps the reason is that the public self-positioning of the ’85 new wave artworks and unannounced, pioneering art performances on display in beijing had first to affirm and publicly establish this vanguard status, which only the english subtitle dared to predict? after all, during the lengthy making of this exhibition the organizational committee itself did not agree on whether the show should be a retrospective of recent artistic trends or a presentation of the most radical, current artistic approaches, committed to groundbreaking artistic progress. only after the closure of the exhibition, the performance scandals, and the repression of further artistic experiments in the aftermath of the tiananmen protests, was the non-official status of the majority of exhibiting artists and affiliated critics solidified. in retrospect, their attempt to change the ideologically-dominated artistic conventions seemed pioneering, notwithstanding the fact that by the end of 1989 it also seemed the lost cause of an avant-garde movement that had politically failed. by 1993, the term avant-garde art was used in china precisely and explicitly to describe experimental, non-affirmative approaches and to distinguish those artists who had not completely given up their ’85 new wave-spirit nor succumbed to political pressure after 1989. it described artists who tried to reorient their artistic production under the given circumstances in ways that still allowed a continuing search for new expressions, separate from the official call for a socialist concept of art. in this regard, the chinese subtitle of the berlin exhibition can be seen as a historiographic instrument that reinscribed and translated the artistic movement in china and the beijing exhibition as more qianwei than xiandai–a manifestation of a chinese “avant-garde” rather than simply another chinese “modern” exhibition. the curators and the institution the berlin exhibition owes its success in part to the curators’ expert knowledge of the conditions of chinese art production. unlike the curatorial team of jean-hubert martin in paris, who consulted the mainland chinese art historian fei dawei, having no in-depth personal knowledge of the chinese art scene,[104] all three curators of the berlin show had studied or worked for several years in china in close contact with artists and other intellectuals. they were very much aware of the sharpened division and heightened tension between the so-called official versus non-official positions in the arts post-1989, as well as of the fact that the latest response of artists seemed to be a de-politicized stance or at least a disillusioned search for (economic) niches that would allow them to make a living through their art. even though the curators were critical of the european connotation of avant-garde in the sense of “negatively oppositional,” especially when applied indiscriminately to the kind of chinese artwork that the communist party disapproved of, they nonetheless applied the term in their catalog essays when writing about the artists and the background of their work; yet they applied it in accordance with its use by chinese artists themselves. the german artist andreas schmid (b. 1955) moved to beijing in 1983 to study chinese and was enrolled as an art student at the famous zhejiang academy of fine arts in hangzhou (today china academy of art, caa) from 1984 to 1986.[105] in an autobiographical remark, he recalls meeting members of one of china’s first and most influential post-revolutionary artist groups, the “stars” (xingxing), in beijing before getting to know hangzhou art students such as gu wenda, zhang peili, geng jianyi, wu shanzhuan, and chen yanying, who were about to become influential proponents of the ’85 new wave art movement (fig. 2).[106] fig. 2: andreas schmid during the making of china avantgarde at the haus der kulturen der welt berlin in 1993, sitting in ni haifeng’s installation territory. photograph: hans van dijk. courtesy: andreas schmid the trained designer and artist hans van dijk (b. 1946 †2002) moved to the people’s republic in 1986 and soon began to document and exhibit works by the new generation of chinese artists.[107] in 1993, he founded an art consultancy in beijing, which joined with the belgian collector frank uytterhaegen and the chinese artist ai weiwei under the name china art archives and warehouse in 1999, and still exists today (fig. 3).[108] fig. 3: hans van dijk (1946–2002) during a preparatory journey in wuhan 1991. photograph: andreas schmid. jochen noth (b. 1941), a former leading activist of the german communist students’ movement, sought political exile in the people’s republic in 1979. in 1986, he became a german language lecturer at the german academic exchange service (deutscher akademischer austauschdienst, daad) in beijing, establishing close contacts with intellectuals in the capital’s literary and art scenes.[109] after returning to germany in 1988, he founded the asien-pazifik-institut für management, a china-related business consultancy. andreas schmid had known jochen noth from his language studies in beijing. in 1990, several years after their return to germany, the two made plans to exhibit contemporary art from china. however, their first attempts to convince smaller culture and art-related institutions such as the art gallery of the daad[110] in bonn or the künstlerhaus bethanien in berlin[111] were declined or met with complete disinterest. according to schmid, one main reason for this was that exhibiting chinese artworks was considered politically incorrect in light of the tiananmen incident.[112] it was wolfger pöhlmann of the hkw who finally read their proposal and agreed to have a closer look at their photographs documenting chinese artworks. these materials convinced pöhlmann as well as the director of the hkw, günter coenen, who courageously suggested in a march 1991 meeting to plan the exhibition as part of a larger cultural program that would include public readings of chinese literature and poetry, the presentation of theatre plays and films, and concerts of classical chinese music as well as rock bands from the people’s republic.[113] the idea of a comprehensive set of events featuring different aspects of chinese cultural production closely followed the institutional framework of the hkw: composed of several departments with the overarching mission of enabling cross-disciplinary programs that would present the contemporary culture of foreign countries, mainly from the third world, to the german public.[114] this institutional profile was established in 1988, after the belated restoration of the iconic berlin kongresshalle: the congress hall was built by the architect hugh stubbins as the american contribution to the international fair of architecture and construction interbau in 1957, and collapsed in 1980 due to structural defects. with german reunification the structure catapulted into the geographic heart of the capital (previously a marginal location near the berlin wall) and the institution into its cultural scene. the initially exclusive focus on so-called third world countries rapidly adapted to include nations that (formerly) belonged to the communist-governed world, the latter having previously been excluded from the official agenda of west german cultural exchange. shortly after the initial agreement with the hkw, schmid and van dijk met at a symposium of the heinrich böll foundation in bonn. among its discussants were fei dawei, the chinese consultant of magiciens de la terre, and the artist huang yongping, both of whom had remained in paris following the exhibition. more than a year after magiciens, fei had organized the exhibition chine demain pour hier, enabling six emigrant chinese artists[115] and three musicians to elaborate and present site-specific works in the village of pourrières in southern france. despite these promising exhibition activities, the heinrich böll foundation had just declined an exhibition proposal by van dijk; learning about the plans in berlin, he enthusiastically joined the project. according to schmid, van dijk’s private archive on contemporary chinese art already contained substantial information on several artists and included the collected issues of influential chinese art journals; these materials featured the new artistic approaches of 1985—1989 and were difficult to find in europe.[116] as such, this additional source of information substantially helped the curatorial team assemble the catalog. while the hkw granted schmid and van dijk a full-time curator’s contract, noth worked part-time for the exhibition because of other professional obligations.[117] according to schmid, and the imprint of the catalog, they divided the curatorial work including publications and other exhibition preparations: van dijk was responsible for the compilation of the artists’ bibliographies and other textual documents, schmid researched the images, and noth was in charge of the overall editing of the catalog. the display in berlin was supervised by wolfger pöhlmann and kai reschke from the hkw, who discussed the arrangement with schmid and van dijk; in rotterdam van dijk was the sole contact for the local museum staff; and schmid was in charge of the displays at the exhibition’s later venues in oxford, odense, and hildesheim.[118] the overall budget for the berlin exhibition was fixed at 820,000 dm, including the production cost of the catalog, preparatory travel, and the curators’ remuneration. compared to other exhibitions, such as china! zeitgenössische malerei (china! contemporary painting) held in bonn (1996), this sum was barely sufficient to cover the costs of advertisement for the bonn show. for all venues together, schmid remembers the actual costs to have been 945,000 dm.[119] the selection of the exhibiting artists and those additionally presented in the catalog in the exhibition draft of 1991, the co-curator jochen noth wrote that the goal was “to show artworks of contemporary artists of the prc, who partly live in exile, partly in china” and share the common characteristic “that they work with forms of expression and motifs in their artworks [that are] independent of the official chinese art doctrine and have detached themselves from conventions and traditions to such an extent that they have arrived at an individually expressive [art] language.”[120] apart from this general description, the curators could only specify their field of interest more precisely by defining it as something that the production should not be. this classification indicates how fuzzy the terms chinese avant-garde or modern chinese art still were during the making of the exhibition. basically, it was the exhibition selection itself that determined–at least in europe–what kind of art and which artists would be considered part of chinese vanguard art after 1993. in their draft, noth and schmid proposed selecting “around 15 artists” where there is …noticeable evidence of them not belonging to one of the following categories of contemporary chinese art: works that serve the official art doctrine of the chinese communist party. this concerns artworks in the tradition of socialist realism as well as those that make use of modern ‘western’ language, the content of which however is marked by political, propaganda statements, as, let’s say, a painting in the cubist tradition with the declaration ‘even the girls of national minorities are nowadays dancing to the sound of modern cassette recorders’ […] ‘academic’ modern works […] that transfer […] stylistic elements of post-romantic western art without aiming at a [critical] examination of their content […and] often have a purely decorative, idyllizing character. works of traditional chinese painting, at least those that cultivate traditional motifs and stylistic forms in an unconcerned [literally: ‘unbroken,’ f.k.] manner.[121] the exhibition draft then continues to specify several crucial problems for the selection process: first, the fact that many of the artists who were considered worthy of being selected were located in different parts of europe, america, and australia, having recently left china. while the curators still classified them as “chinese” artists, it worried them that these recent diasporic art communities were marked by “rivalry and the formation of cliques,” a fact that noth describes as “typical for exiled communities in general, […] and even more so for chinese artist groups in exile.”[122] second, the concept contrasts exiled artists with the situation of those young, vanguard artists still living in china, who were considered to work “under strong political pressure, partially secluded, possibly having to fear contact with foreigners.”[123] in his article on the making of the exhibition, schmid recalls the recently graduated artist fang lijun as an example of just such strained working conditions. the curators met fang in beijing’s artist village xicun at yuanmingyuan, where he struggled to live as an independent artist rejecting any state-provided employment.[124] and the catalog describes ni haifeng as another example of a rather isolated artist, working on the island zhoushan near shanghai on a reduced salary after having been dismissed from a position as art teacher in 1989 on the charge of inappropriate political attitudes and style of dress.[125] in their draft, the curators also anticipated problems in translating the artworks’ cultural contexts for european audiences. in a statement that partially contradicted the premise that the curatorial choice of non-official, vanguard, and western-oriented approaches could enhance the european reception, the organizers expected european/german viewers to appreciate the chinese artworks at times “mainly in terms of western influences, [thus…] ignoring the originality that lies in a very chinese concept of the image.” [126] while these viewers would probably “underestimate such pictures as mere imitations, […in] other cases the decorative charm of chinese motifs will be overestimated, despite their conventionality.”[127] a third possible misconception is seen in the fact that when “pictures have a manifest social content, they often enjoy the fame of [expressing political] dissent.”[128] the curators sought to solve such complex problems by forming a selection committee that “should exclusively consist of non-chinese members.”[129] they were convinced that this composition would avoid the pressures of influence deriving from the official political side and/or the factionalism of chinese artist groups. in case of disagreement, the representatives of the hkw, wolfger pöhlmann and the director günter coenen, as well as the curators of the other museums in oxford, odense, and rotterdam should have the last word.[130] the committee was actually made up of noth, van dijk, schmid, and pöhlmann. according to schmid, the first call for participants addressed to chinese artists living in asia, europe, and the usa in 1991 resulted in 150 applications.[131] when visiting these artists, the curators gathered additional materials and came to the conclusion that they had to widen their initial focus from the proponents of the ’85 new wave art movement and participants in the 1989 zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde exhibition to include new painting trends that had emerged after 1989: from the ’85 new wave artists they chose, in particular, those who had continued to experiment: zhang peili, known for his early video works (fig.4); geng jianyi, with a conceptual work documented by photographs and small mixed media sculptures (fig. 5); the autodidact gu dexin with his environments made of melted plastic sheets (figs. 6–8); ni haifeng, with mixed media installations involving (ink) painted characters and numbers on plastic sacks filled with clothes and hung above a layer of bricks to form a pedestal, and the series of four overwritten photographs of a performance (figs. 9–12), and wang guangyi with oil paintings mixing socialist propaganda with iconic, capitalist brands in a pop-art style (fig. 13); the latter style had similarly appeared in the works of the older painter yu youhan (as in the background of fig. 9 and 15), who was therefore called the “father of chinese pop-art” and also included. fig. 4: exhibition view of four video films by zhang peili (b. 1957): 30 x 30, 1988 (upper left), the chinese character ‘wei’ no. 3, 1991 (upper right), ci hai–standard pronunciation, 1992 (below), and homework no. 1, 1992 (center), on display at china avantgarde at the haus der kulturen der welt berlin 1993. photograph: andreas schmid. fig. 5: geng jianyi (b. 1962): building no. 5, nine black/white photographs, each 80 x 60 cm, 1990, detail. photograph: andreas schmid. fig. 6: exhibition view of china avantgarde at the haus der kulturen der welt berlin 1993: gu dexin (b. 1962): 1993-01-29, in-situ installation, grain and plastic material, 1993 (center); geng jianyi (b. 1962): building no.5, nine black/white photographs, 1990; building no. 5, nine black/white photographs, each 80 x 60 cm, 1990 (right). photograph: andreas schmid. fig. 7: exhibition view of china avantgarde at the kunsthal rotterdam 1993: gu dexin (b. 1962): 1993-01-29, in-situ installation, grain, plastic material and ladder, 1993 (center); yu hong (b. 1966): beginners, oil on canvas, 168 x 167 cm, 1991 (back left); zhang peili’s (b. 1957) video film ci hai–standard pronunciation, 1992, and the standard pronunciation of 1989, triptych, oil on canvas, each 100 x 80 cm (back center); fang lijun’s (b. 1963) group two no. 11, oil on canvas, 100 x 80 cm and group two no. 3, oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm, 1992 (right). photograph: andreas schmid. fig. 8: exhibition view of china avantgarde at the kunsthal rotterdam in 1993: gu dexin (b. 1962): 1993-01-29, in-situ installation, grain, plastic material and ladder, 1993 (center); fang lijun’s (b. 1963) group one no. 5, oil on canvas, 80 x 100 cm, 1990 (back left). photograph: andreas schmid. fig. 9: exhibition view of china avantgarde at the haus der kulturen der welt berlin in 1993: (front) ni haifeng (b. 1964): territory, in-situ installation, mixed media, 1993; (back left) yu youhan (b. 1943): mao zedongs periods of life, oil on canvas, 100 x 280 cm, 1990; (back second from left) yu youhan: chairman mao in discussion with farmers from shao shan, oil on canvas, 167 x 119 cm, 1991; (opposite side) yu youhan: renminbi (peoples money), two pieces out of four, oil on canvas, each 100 x 218 cm, 1988; (back, center, obscured) yu youhan: mao zedong with asian, african and latin american friends, oil on canvas, 100 x 280 cm, 1990. photograph: andreas schmid. fig. 10: exhibition view of china avantgarde at the haus der kulturen der welt berlin in 1993: (front) ni haifeng (b. 1964): territory, in-situ installation, mixed media, 1993; (left) ni haifeng (b. 1964): without effect,one of four black/white photograph-collages, 1992; (back center to right)yan peiming (b. 1960): head, oil on canvas, 207 x 155 cm, 1992 and two heads, oil on canvas, 130 x 780 cm, 1990; (right) yu youhan’s (b. 1943) portrait of mao zedong, oil on canvas, 167 x 119 cm, 1992. photograph: andreas schmid. fig. 11: exhibition view of china avantgarde at brandts klaedefabrik in odense in 1993/94 (front) ni haifeng (b. 1964): territory, in-situ installation, mixed media, 1993; (back left) gu dexin (b. 1962): 1993-01-29, in-situ installation, grain and plastic material, 1993. photograph: andreas schmid. fig. 12: ni haifeng (b. 1964): without effect,one of four black/white photograph-collages, 1992. courtesy: andreas schmid. fig. 13: cover illustration of the german catalog china avantgarde, edition braus (heidelberg, 1993) featuring wang guanyi’s (b. 1956), great criticism–marlboro, oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm, 1990 as representatives of the more recent trends and artist groups, the curators selected: lin yilin, who worked with bricks reminiscent of the huge construction sites in guangzhou, where he was active in the artist group “big tail elephant” (fig. 13 and fig. 14); the curators offered a first german debut to the works of recently graduated painters fang lijun (fig. 16, 17), zhao bandi (fig. 18) ), wang jinsong, and yu hong (as in the background of fig. 7) fig. 14: exhibition view of yin yilin’s (b. 1964) installation the simple wall, wall of bricks with plastic sacks filled with water, 1993, and zhang peili’s (b. 1957) video film ci hai–standard pronunciation, 1992, and the standard pronunciation of 1989, triptych, oil on canvas, each 100 x 80 cm, 1991, on display in china avantgarde at brandts klaedefabrik in odense, denmark in 1993/94. photograph: andreas schmid. fig. 15: exhibition view of yin yilin’s (b. 1964) installation the simple wall, wall of bricks with plastic sacks filled with water, 1993 (center); yu youhan’s (b. 1943) the life of mao zedong, oil on canvas, 100 x 280 cm, 1990 (right); fang lijun’s group two no. 2, oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm, 1992 and group two no. 5, oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm, 1992 (back center and right) on display in china avantgarde at the roemerand pelizaeus-museum in hildesheim 1994. photograph: andreas schmid. fig. 16: exhibition view of fang lijun’s (b. 1963) group two no. 2, oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm, 1992 (right), and yan peiming’s (b. 1960) head, oil on canvas, 207 x 155 cm, 1992 (left), on display in china avantgarde at the haus der kulturen der welt berlin, 1993. photograph: courtesy andreas schmid. fig. 17: exhibition view of fang lijun’s (b. 1963) group two no. 2, oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm, 1992, group one no. 5, oil on canvas, 80 x 100 cm, 1990 (back left); wang guangyi’s (b. 1956) great world–necessary violence, oil on canvas, 120 x 100 cm, and three oil on canvas paintings from the series great criticism, 150 x 100 cm each, 1990 (back center to right), on display in china avantgarde at the museum of contemporary art oxford 1993. photograph: andreas schmid. fig. 18: the artists (from left to right) wu shanzhuan (b. 1960), wang jingsong (b. 1963) and ni haifeng (b. 1964) in the haus der kulturen der welt berlin in front of zhao bandi’s (b. 1966) little zhang, oil on canvas, 215 x 140 cm, 1992, and left of yu youhan’s (b. 1943) renminbi (peoples money), two pieces out of four, oil on canvas, each 100 x 218 cm, 1988. courtesy andreas schmid. as opposed to many of the ’85 new wave artists, these participants did not reject realist painting idioms. rather, they infused their figurative portraits of predominantly young people in undefined or private settings, with strongly ironic or humorous depictions that showed them as disillusioned, disinterested, or bored by political matters and bereft of any clear-cut ideological attitude. the only painter who exhibited abstract paintings was the shanghai-based artist ding yi. yan peiming (dijon), zhao jianren (amsterdam), huang yongping (paris), and wu shanzhuan (hamburg)–the only artists already living outside the people’s republic–were included with works that partly responded in situ to the berlin institution. for example, huang mounted papier-mâché made of washed books and journals on nine columns of the hkw entrance hall fig. 19: huang yongping (b. 1954) mounting his in-situ installation 9 pillars for china avantgarde in the foyer of the haus der kulturen der welt berlin, paper pulp attached around nine columns, 1993. photograph: andreas schmid fig. 20: detail of huang yongping’s (b. 1954) 9 pillars for china avantgarde, in-situ installation in the foyer of the haus der kulturen der welt, paper pulp attached around nine columns, 1993. photograph: andreas schmid in addition, he displayed a utility sink with books stored underneath, as if to be washed, and the resulting paper pulp in the sinks thereby visualizing the process of discursive and material amalgamation that he undertook. fig. 21: (center) huang yongping (b. 1954): installation saladette, mixed media, 1993 and (back) yan peiming (b. 1960): two heads, oil on canvas, 130 x 780 cm, 1990, on display in china avantgarde at the haus der kulturen der welt berlin, 1993. photograph: andreas schmid. huang’s work can be taken to exemplify the transcultural trajectory of chinese artists who emigrated to europe or america and then changed their strategic adaptations of western artistic concepts and styles and the respective negotiations of their cultural identities. with his work in berlin, huang related back to an earlier, groundbreaking installation created after his time as a core member of the xiamen dada group, active around 1985/86 in the southern provincial town of xiamen. at the time, the artist had begun to experiment with aleatoric ways to create artwork, deconstructing the notion of the “masterpiece” and criticizing the institutional aspects of art. this approach was inspired by western artists and philosophers such as marcel duchamp, ludwig wittgenstein, and john cage as well as by chinese concepts of buddhism and daoism.[132] for the installation he used a turning wheel inscribed with short instructions that he stopped by chance after posing the question, how to unite western and chinese artistic traditions: the answer was “wet method.” in consequence, the artist washed wang bomin’s history of chinese painting and herbert read’s a concise history of modern painting for two minutes and placed the resulting paper pulp on a broken glass plate supported by a wooden box inscribed with the exact date (december 1, 1987) and manner of production (see illustration no. 5 on p. 6 of the catalog online. two years later, huang exhibited this work at the zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde, also showing the conceptual piece “how to tear away the national art gallery with a rope.”[133] he and his xiamen dada friends suggested the displacement of this powerful institution by means of a tricycle that would tear away the building, its entrance columns tied with long ropes to the vehicle. while huang continued to use paper pulp created from washed books and journals for his installation “reptile” at magiciens de la terre, this artwork did not attack the european museum as directly as had his conceptual work the national art gallery in beijing. on the contrary, in the centre pompidou (paris) huang gave the papier-mâché a more symbolic form alluding to both ancient chinese grave mounds and to huge turtles, a chinese emblem for longevity. while thereby expanding the conventional motifs on display in a european modern art museum with forms stemming from a chinese cultural background–forms that would usually be shown in archeological exhibitions–the artist did not explicitly challenge the french museum. only in berlin did huang again resolve to address the supporting architectural skeleton of the institution, when he chose the nine columns of the hkw foyer as the site for his installation. in this case, he attached the paper pulp at different heights around the columns, as if the amalgamated result of the “washed” cultural discourses in books and magazines had overtaken the modernist inner structure of the institution and were either oddly decorative or threatened to swallow the “bones” of the building. indeed, the accumulated textual material looked as if stranded by a heavy flood, as if the paper pulp was a trace that remained to indicate the level of feverish cultural interaction that might previously have filled the building. in 1999, he was invited to install artwork in the french pavilion at the venice biennale (directed by harald szeemann) and once again seemed to have refined his critical approach to art institutions. although he had given up using papier-mâché, huang again used columns, in this case in the form of large tree trunks that pierced the exhibition pavilion. the chinese artist turned french citizen “crowned” the classicist architecture and its historical mission of national representation with mythological animals made of metal, a composition that formally alluded to traditional chinese ridge turrets decorating imperial palaces. in retrospect, huang’s artistic critique of the modern art system and its institutions grew from a more radical, dadaist attempt in beijing (1989) to a more synthetic and decisively transcultural approach in 1999. while his critique continued to undermine the nationalist, colonialist, and eurocentric modern history of the museum, it was constructively fused with elements that point to an entangled or kindred history of art and its institutional aspects. the other emigrated artists who exhibited at china avantgarde also elaborated on issues of their cultural and socio-political backgrounds, as exemplified by yan peiming’s huge black-and-white oil portrait of mao zedong conducted with wide, expressive brush strokes (left in the background of fig. 10). while yan applied the same style, colors, and portrait-genre to all his works, the choice of mao zedong as subject matter seemed a conscious effort to deal with the power of this political figure and the iconic qualities that mao-portraits had acquired during the previous decades of visual propaganda in china. however, by treating the portrait of the dictator in the same manner as the other, anonymous heads that he painted (fig. 9, fig. 15, and fig 20), yan seems to have found a way to deconstruct and lay bare the effects of monumental power and acts of veneration that previous depictions of the “great leader” were able to instill and provoke. another example of critical transcultural engagement, albeit less dedicated to questioning inherited art forms such as oil painting or overwhelming motifs such as mao zedong, was wu shanzhuan’s conceptual performance “red humour international.” he documented his various attempts to work as a foreign art student on a tourist visa in germany, including at the kassel documenta ix in 1992. during the berlin exhibition he was hired to work in the hkw’s cafeteria and exhibited the documents that proved his employment and foreign resident status. fig. 22: wu shanzhuan (b. 1960) in front of his conceptual work including the contract for the laborer of berlin, 1993, hired by the canteen in the haus der kulturen der welt berlin during the exhibition china avantgarde. photograph: andreas schmid. according to the biographies in the berlin catalog, half of the sixteen participants had studied art in hangzhou, another quarter in beijing, two in shanghai, one in guangzhou, and one in dijon. apart from the three recently emigrated artists and yan peiming, who had already left china in 1981, the remaining three-quarters of exhibiting artists worked in beijing (six artists), in shanghai (two), and one each in guangzhou, wuhan, hangzhou, and zhoushan. these numbers indicate that the curators were able to realize their goal of organizing an exhibition that predominantly featured recent works by artists from the people’s republic. and the regional distribution of participants not only reflects the fact that non-official art approaches were products of the biggest chinese urban centers and the hosting art academies, but also indicates the importance of the curators’ personal networks. while schmid’s studies in hangzhou helped to recruit many artists with this academic affiliation, van dijk’s residence in beijing was the background for contacting the majority of artists who worked in the capital. in an effort to expand this limited regional scope and provide a broadened panorama, the curators included short biographies and illustrations of the works of forty-four additional artists in the catalog. in the catalog’s appendix, the sixty featured artists are divided into two separate lists, ordered according to their place of study, current residence, and year of birth. this classification illustrates that the participants had recently split into a majority of thirty-three artists living abroad and a minority of twenty-seven residing in china.[134] half of the exhibiting artists belonged to the generation born before 1960; the other half was born between 1960 and 1966. the oldest exhibiting artist was yu youhan (b. 1943), while the youngest participant was yu hong (b. 1966). given that this span of time had witnessed several marked changes in the chinese art educational system, in the official doctrines regarding the arts, and in divergent working conditions–and included the harsh decade of the cultural revolution–the catalog makes clear that artists with differing experiences, formative backgrounds, and a variety of heterogeneous approaches began to reconfigure modern art after 1979. thus the catalog provided broader background information, which helped to further contextualize the berlin selection and vanguard positions in light of their historical, social, and cultural aspects. exhibited artworks of the three chinese artists who took part in magiciens de la terre, huang yongping and gu dexin showed installation works and only yang jiechang presented ink paintings on paper at the paris exhibition in 1989.[135] in china avantgarde installations still played an important role, with six of the sixteen artists presenting large mixed media arrangements that respected and adapted to the on-site architecture, including one set of video works by zhang peili that ran on four television monitors (fig. 3).[136] although the installations were prominently placed in the middle of the exhibition halls and given proportionally more space in the catalog than in the exhibition itself, they were outweighed by fifty-nine paintings (fig. 9, fig. 10, figs. 15–18 and fig. 21). the imbalance between these different art forms closely mirrored the ratio of paintings to installations exhibited in beijing’s zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde (1989)[137] and spoke to the fact that painting was still the preferred medium of many chinese artists, especially those of the youngest generation.[138] a characteristic feature of the european reception of china avantgarde was the heightened media attention given to paintings (as opposed to installation works), many being reproduced in articles that reviewed the berlin exhibition. journalists most frequently illustrated the paintings of fang lijun, yu youhan, yu hong, and yan peiming with motifs that depicted easily distinguishable chinese facial features and political icons such as mao zedong. ironically, the installation work–considered the most avant-garde art form in china and certain to have been censored in official chinese venues and media coverage–did not receive much attention in europe.[139] viewers approached it as they would the mixed media installations of western contemporary artists and found it difficult to associate any specific cultural context to these chinese works. on the other hand, the narrative aspects of figurative painting were not only easier to relate to–given the comparison with earlier european painting styles–but the academic realist training of the chinese artists was familiar to german art lovers, who were acquainted with its prominence in the socialist artistic production of the former gdr. consequently, these viewing experiences provided an easily accessible context from which to evaluate the stylistic, technical, and motif-related similarities and differences of the chinese artworks on display. another reason why painting became a particularly influential selection criterion for future european and american exhibitions is the preference shown by the art market. andreas schmid recalls that the prominent german collector peter ludwig–who specialized in american pop art and also collected emerging pop painters from the former ussr–became interested in chinese art as a result of the berlin exhibition, buying two paintings by fang lijun.[140] apparently fang’s work appealed to the collector not only because painting was (and still is) one of the most marketable art forms–an established commodity that is easier to transport, store, preserve, and hang than most installation work–but also because the artist’s academic training assured technical quality. in addition, the figurative realist style together with fang’s depiction of smirking, bald-headed men, who resembled cloned and exaggerated alter egos of the artist himself (fig. 16 and fig. 23), seemed to present a radically altered vision of chinese modern life, one that stood in stark contrast to the young, faithful maoist heroes that german viewers had come to associate with official chinese modern art. fig 23: view of fang lijun’s (b. 1963) group one no. 5, oil on canvas, 80 x 100 cm, 1990, in front of his studio at yuanmingyuan, beijing, photographed in 1991. photograph: andreas schmid. the catalog’s cover the considerable marketability of these new trends in chinese painting is further exemplified by the cover of the exhibition catalog (fig. 13): it features an oil painting by wang guangyi with the title “great criticism–marlboro” (1990). the painting’s square format is composed of nine smaller square images that alternate between the detail of a fierce-looking peasant’s head and his downward-striking fist. this repetitive pattern is interrupted by the logo of the marlboro cigarette company, located in the center of the piece. while the grim face of the man and his fist are reminiscent of chinese revolutionary propaganda posters, seemingly objecting to the iconic capitalist brand in the middle of the picture, long sequences of printed numbers in black and white irregularly cover the whole pictorial surface, as if to immerse both the human conviction and the advertisement for the cigarettes in the same indifferent sphere of leveling numbers and calculations. the cigarette company had no reservations about wang’s playful and ironic juxtaposition of communist and capitalist motifs: as the catalog’s imprint reveals, the company was itself the owner of the piece. according to the catalog’s appendix, the work was not exhibited, and yet it featured on the cover and again within the volume. this decision to advertise the much broader and varied content of the exhibition with an undisplayed painting that stressed the hybrid conjunction of chinese propaganda motifs and emblems of western consumerism, demonstrates the economic and institutional constraints that the exhibition faced. the cover image obviously references the marlboro company, which is acknowledged as a sponsor of the exhibition, but it also illustrates that the artists as well as the curators relied on conventional market mechanisms in order to draw attention to their projects. placing an installation on the cover would not have yielded any direct association with western stereotypes or images of “china,” nor stirred art-historical or political connotations referring to the exhibition’s title term, avantgarde. while it would have been equally possible to market the exhibiting artist zhang peili as china’s first video artist or huang yongping and his xiamen dada group as representative of early chinese concept art and institutional critique, it was painters like fang lijun and wang guangyi who would soon be equated internationally with new chinese art. even though the berlin curators gave great emphasis to installation works in the actual display, the environment of reception that included art market preferences seemed to determine the future tendency of giving central visibility to painters. the catalog’s layout and narratives important chinese agents–who had a huge impact on how the european audience evaluated the artwork on display–are among the nine chinese authors of the catalog’s sixteen essays, and include the prominent critics li xianting and zheng shengtian, the latter a professor of painting at the hangzhou academy. their narratives cover topics that include: the chronological development of modern chinese art from 1979 to 1993, modernist art since the 1920s, the role of the zhejiang academy of fine arts, chinese art history, art criticism, and traditional aesthetic concepts. the catalog’s seven texts that focus on fine arts are completed by nine essays on chinese modern music, literature, theatre, film, photography, architecture, and urban and popular culture.[141] the differing agendas of these european and chinese authors successfully carved out a discursive space that established contemporary chinese art as the most important, prolific, and promising part of all artistic production in china. while the european authors envisaged their role as that of mediating agents who would bring back into view the socio-political and historical conditions that fell out of western sight during the cold war era, the chinese writers used the european exhibition and catalog as a powerful platform that allowed them to circumvent the official, local discourse and foster counter-narratives backed by international reception. in keeping with these aims, the articles by li xianting and zheng shengtian detail the chronological development of experimental and semi-official artistic events since 1979. they trace the roots of the new stylistic and conceptual approaches of the youngest generation of chinese artists as far back as the first modernist artistic production in 1920s and 30s china. while they take into account the decisive maoist art doctrine and the institutional context of chinese art academies and museums, they stress the independent stance of vanguard artists and critics since the 1980s, and argue that chinese artists developed their own ideas rather than simply creating a derivative version of western modernism. the catalog’s chronological exhibition overview is the most important instrument with which to present a compelling narrative of experimental chinese approaches that constitute a substantial artistic movement in their own right. the chronology demonstrates to foreign and chinese readers that this new artistic movement had already realized more than eighty exhibitions in official and non-official venues situated in china and abroad: it begins in 1979 with the beijing exhibitions of the “stars” (xingxing huahui, 星星画会) and the “no name group” (wuming huahui, 无名画会) and ends in 1992 with recent shows in beijing and tokyo. while the information effectively communicates both the vibrancy of the chinese modern art scene during the 1980s (with the peak of activity from 1985 to 1987) and the growing number of exhibitions taking place outside china after 1990, it does not include all official art exhibitions opened in china during this period; it therefore leaves unclear which proportion of “mainstream” exhibition activity these “vanguard” events actually represented. while western art historians and exhibition makers used this chronological overview and an avant-garde focus to explore the unchartered art-historical space  of china, chinese proponents could thereby bridge the  lack of adequate, post-1989 platforms for their historiographic claims. the latter more or less openly criticized official notions of art, and used the western catalog as an alternative site to establish a counter-discourse; a site where their negotiation of modernity in art and their account of the function of art might gain public recognition, albeit to a great extent still invisible to chinese audiences. they assumed that their narratives once published internationally would eventually feed back into chinese publications and journals. for different reasons, both sides had a strong interest in telling the story of the chinese avant-garde art movement as one that began in 1979, as a rupture with the artistic production under maoist cultural politics. in the framework of the eurocentric master narrative of modernism, it appeared logical and compelling to argue that the new chinese approaches were mainly nourished by renewed contact with western art trends made possible by the political reforms of deng xiaoping; hence, implicitly retaining the claim that western modern art discourse and practice were decisive in the formation of new chinese art. and for the chinese art critics it was essential to stress a radical break with former art forms and practices, and argue in favor of a post-revolutionary perspective that looked to the west in order to undermine the dominant power over artistic production exerted by the party; in so doing they secured their own position as independent voices and makers of the avant-garde. neither side had an interest in acknowledging and assessing the ambivalent reality wherein many artists participated in official activities as well as independent exhibitions. instead, most european and chinese observers argued in favor of a clear-cut distinction between vanguard, experimental approaches and politically affirmative, official stances. preliminary conclusions the early exhibition china avantgarde, together with its hong kong competitor china’s new art, post-1989 and the venice biennale of the same year (1993) undoubtedly shaped a standard perspective on contemporary chinese art, which continues to influence european and american audiences to this day. even though the political overtones in the western reception of contemporary chinese art have changed, they have not yet disappeared. it is now the image of china as a rising global player–the powerful organizer of the 2008 olympic games and an entity that questions the western concept of human rights and “eats up” worldwide oil resources–which continues to dominate western news and consequently influences the reception of chinese art in europe and america. and exhibition practice has also gone global: although 1993 was a climactic moment that introduced chinese group exhibitions in the west, this type of panoramic approach, which explains chinese art in cultural and socio-political terms, still prevails at the beginning of the twenty-first century. in fact, it is even fostered by the chinese government’s historical decision to invest in contemporary art shows as an instrument of foreign politics: the exhibitions living in time (berlin, 2001) and alors, la chine? (paris, 2003) were created through official cooperation between the respective governments. similarly, it is noteworthy that although curators, art critics, collectors, and gallery agents have multiplied, there is still a strong tendency to rely on the same powerful local mediators and renowned “cultural brokers” when staging an international show of contemporary chinese art: li xianting was once again asked to write for the mahjong catalog in bern (2005) and chang tsong-zung, the initiator of the hong kong exhibition, was chosen to join the curatorial team of the international guangzhou triennial: farewell to post-colonialism in fall 2008; zheng shengtian has become the editor of the critical magazine yishu. journal of contemporary chinese art, based in canada and taiwan, and the hkw staged further exhibitions dedicated to contemporary art from china and other east asian countries.[142] and equally significant is that although the circle of chinese artists who exhibit internationally has grown continuously, twenty-nine of the 110 artists in the swiss exhibition mahjong,which toured germany, austria, and the usa from 2005 to 2007, are the same as twelve years ago. if one considers only the one-third of mahjong participants who were born prior to 1970,[143] then 30% of them were already presented in 1993. and taking gao minglu’s 2005 publication the portraits of 100 most influential artists in contemporary chinese art[144] as another reference point, forty-five of these one hundred artists were already presented in one or more of the three 1993 exhibition catalogs (even if their work was not exhibited). this indicates the canonizing power of these early exhibitions and exhibition makers, providing most of their participants with a stepping stone to an international career. lastly, although the subject matter of contemporary chinese art has changed, it still remains internationally renowned for figurative painting, replete with ironic and political allusions. and chinese performance art, which began to grow in the late 1990s, is still largely mediated through photographs or video films, scarcely staged directly in the west and mostly underrepresented in western group and panorama exhibitions. however, the amount of installation art from the people’s republic has increased enormously and has developed into a special subtype: huge site-specific or event-related commissioned works have been installed in european or north american art institutions and biennials, often benefitting from cheap labor and the low price of art materials in china. such productions cater to the ongoing western desire for emblematic works that represent the power of china as a rising market force. cai guoqiang’s award-winning contribution to the 48th venice biennale in 1999, “venice’s rent collection courtyard,”[145] or his project “closing rainbow: fireworks project for closing ceremony of the 2008 beijing olympic games”[146] are only two of the most obvious and sometimes hotly debated examples. similarly popular events were ai weiwei’s  two contributions to kassel’s documenta 12 in 2007: “template,” an outdoor construction assembled from numerous “recycled” traditional chinese wooden doors and windows; and “fairytale,”[147] a project that brought 1001 chinese to live in kassel during the event and document their personal experiences with cameras; as well as his recent large-scale installation, “sunflower seeds,”[148] presented at the turbine hall of tate modern in london (2010). in light of these developments, critics are skeptical about the tendency of the “chinese avant-garde’s” mature proponents to overly monumentalize and exploit the spectacular function of art. this concern demonstrates just how much and how quickly chinese artists have become part of the institutional and economic mechanisms that function within the global mainstream, and which bridge previous asymmetries that existed between the chinese and western art worlds.[149] this mutual rapprochement, adaptation, and dialogue led to what has recently been called “the global contemporary,”[150] significantly omitting the lingering question of the avant-garde. yet the example of ai’s recent imprisonment by chinese officials on dubious, evidently politically-motivated charges demonstrates that neither does the historical western distinction between an aesthetic and a political avant-garde seem applicable, nor do we see a repetition of the multifaceted tensions that surrounded this dichotomy in beijing (1989) or berlin (1993). rather, it would seem that the previous “multi-centered avant-gardism,” marked by various conceptual, temporal, and spatial imbalances and divergences has arrived in the “global village.” when coining the term “global village” in reference to a post-literate electronic age, the media theorist marshall mcluhan did not envision a peaceful, culturally homogeneous, pastoral idyll, but rightly foresaw the potential for great disagreement, discontinuity, and contradicting diversification resulting from a virtually shrinking globe.[151] in the last three decades, the intensified relationships, multiple flows, and boosted circulation of images and their makers and brokers–all members of a transcultural community that has been drastically and abruptly reconfigured by media-technological and economic changes–raise the likelihood that ongoing negotiations of cultural differences and identities will no longer keep to the neat, aesthetic framework of the museum, nor be easily dismissed as just another political scandal or violation of artistic freedom. after this retrospective evaluation of the significant, medium-term influences that exhibitions provided with their categorizations, selections, agents, and institutions–forming and informing early attempts to put chinese contemporary artworks on display for western audiences–we should carefully revisit current global displays and ask how they present chinese art, enhancing certain images of “china” and obscuring others. [1] for a recent study that explores the notion of the “cultural broker” from a transcultural perspective see rudolf g. wagner, “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening.’ a study in conceptualizing asymmetry and coping with it,” transcultural studies 1 (spring 2011): 4–36, 92, and note 157, accessed november 20, 2011, http://transculturalstudies.org. an earlier essay that applies the term to (western) curators of (non-western) art exhibitions was written by mari carmen ramiréz, “brokering identities: art curators and the politics of cultural representation,” in thinking about exhibitions, ed. reesa greenberg et al. (london/new york: routledge, 1996), 21–38. [2] this paper goes back to a talk i held in connection with the international conference “‘china’ on display: past and present practices of selecting, exhibiting and viewing chinese visual and material culture,” chaired by francesca dal lago at leiden university, december 6–8, 2007. she edited an early version of the text, envisioned as an altered publication in her edited volume, forthcoming 2012. i also would like to thank the two anonymous peer reviewers whose insightful, encouraging and constructive comments helped me to improve the current version. last but not least, i am deeply grateful to monica juneja as well as andrea hacker and her team, who have generously and professionally supported the publication in technical, linguistic, and stylistic regards. [3] one important aspect of this renewed cultural exchange was the exhibition of foreign art, which stirred much attention in the chinese art world and allowed chinese artists to see western and non-western art firsthand. see hans van dijk, “bildende künste nach der kulturrevolution. stilentwicklungen und theoretische debatten,” in china avantgarde, ed. haus der kulturen der welt (heidelberg: edition braus, 1993), 22. [4] exceptions include some small group exhibitions in american college galleries and two larger shows at the pacific asia museum in pasadena, california, usa: beyond the open door: contemporary painting from the people’s republic of china (39 artists) in 1987 and ‘i don’t want to play cards with cézanne’ and other works: selections from the chinese new wave and avant-garde art of the eighties (44 artists) in 1991. both were staged at the pacific asia museum only, which is an institution dedicated to presenting the cultural and ethnological aspects of arts created in asia and the pacific islands. while the following early exhibitions took place in institutions whose focus was contemporary or modern art, they often included only chinese artists who had (recently) emigrated to the west: chine, demain pour hier in 1990 with site-specific installations in the small town of pourrières, france (6 artists); silent memory (8 artists) in 1993 at the museum of modern art oxford, england; fragmented memory. the chinese avant-garde in exile (4 artists) in 1993 at the wexner center of art, columbus, ohio, usa. the first small group exhibition that falls into the more narrow definition of contemporary chinese art, as formulated in this paper, and consisted mostly of artists still working in the people’s republic of china was new chinese art, post-mao product in 1992/3 (7 artists) at the art gallery of new south wales, sydney, australia. for a google earth-based visualization that maps ca. 60 influential post-1979 group exhibitions of contemporary art from the people’s republic at art institutions in north america, western europe, australia, hong kong, and japan, see the author’s pilot project gecca mapped at http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/research/heidelberg-research-architecture/hra-portal/detail/m/franziska-koch-projekt-exhibition-map.html, launch date january 2012. this online resource will allow the user to explore the above-mentioned exhibitions through metadata such as the names of curators, number of artists, exhibition dates, links to the hosting art institutions, and catalog cover illustrations. [5] prime examples of such museums in germany are: the museum für ostasiatische kunst, in cologne (founded in 1913); and the museum für asiatische kunst, in berlin–a recent fusion of the museum für ostasiatische kunst (established in berlin, 1906) and the museum für indische kunst (founded in 1963), the latter goes back to the indian collection of the museum für völkerkunde berlin, which was founded in 1873. other prominent examples are: the musée guimet (founded in 1989) and musée cernuschi (inaugurated 1898) in france; the victoria and albert museum (going back to 1852) as well as the asian collections of the british museum in england; the chinese collections of the boston museum of fine arts (inaugurated 1876) and the freer gallery in washington, d.c. (opened 1923) in the usa, to name but a few. [6] the post-1979 (and in particular post-1989) transformation of exhibition practices in these (art) museums with non-western regional, cultural, and/or anthropological profiles merits a separate paper, which would supplement the findings made in relation to the reception of art from the people’s republic in those western museums that are specifically dedicated to modern and contemporary art. although such analysis lies beyond the scope of this paper, it is indicative of the separate receptive strands that the western exhibitions of “modern,” “avant-garde,” or “new” chinese art considered in this paper largely excluded artworks in the traditional idiom, i.e., ink paintings on paper. the exhibition makers implicitly or explicitly legitimized this exclusion not only by referring to art categories derived of western modernism, but also because art academies and artists in the people’s republic themselves conventionally classify ink-and-wash painting as guohua (国画), “national painting,” thus distinguishing it from xihua (西画), “western painting,” (which generally means academically painted oil-on-canvas works). however, this institutional differentiation is itself a modern, complex, and dynamic process that changes over time. nonetheless, viewed through the “curved” lens of western exhibition catalogs published during the last 25 years, these publications attest to the fact that this distinction holds true; as much as a single catalog might illustrate exhibits that show the ongoing fluidity and fuzziness of these contested categorical and institutional demarcations. [7] for english discussions of the terms “chinese avant-garde” or “experimental art” written by chinese scholars who are also influential in the chinese art scene, see: gao minglu, ed., the wall. reshaping contemporary chinese art (new york/beijing: albright-knox art gallery, buffalo art galleries/millennium art museum, 2005), 43–56; and wu hung, transience–chinese experimental art at the end of the 20th century (chicago: university of chicago press, 1999), 12–16. a very valuable volume that translates influential primary sources into english, albeit without republishing the original chinese texts, which are hard to find in western libraries, is: wu hung and peggy wang, eds., contemporary chinese art: primary documents (honolulu: university of hawaii press, 2010). for a critical rereading of these authors and the current chinese discourse, from a critical theory perspective, see: paul gladston, “writing on the wall (and entry gate): a critical response to recent curatorial meditations on the ‘chineseness’ of contemporary chinese visual art,” yishu. journal for contemporary chinese art 6, no. 1 (march 2007): 26–33; and gladston, “(more writing on) the wall: reshaping (gao minglu’s vision of) contemporary chinese art,” yishu 6, no. 3 (september 2007): 103–110. this pointed critique motivated gao to respond with: gao minglu, “who is pounding the wall? a response to paul gladston’s ‘writing on the wall and (entry gate): a critical response to recent curatorial meditations on the ‘chineseness’ of contemporary chinese art,” yishu 6, no. 2 (june 2007): 106–115. gladston further elaborated and broadened his reflections in: gladston, “permanent (r)evolution: contemporaneity and the historicization of contemporary chinese art, part two,” yishu 9, no. 3 (may/june 2010): 96–102. [8] see martina köppel-yang, semiotic warfare. the chinese avant-garde 1979–1989. a semiotic analysis (hongkong: timezone 8, 2003). she discusses some of the most canonical artworks of this period and their political context. for a comprehensive and in-depth discussion of the development of modern art since the foundation of the people’s republic, see: julia f. andrews, painters and politics in the people’s republic of china 1949–1979 (berkeley/los angeles: university of california press, 1994). a study that largely draws upon earlier research is: maria galikowski, art and politics in china. 1949–1984 (hongkong: the chinese university press, 1998). and a groundbreaking study from which all these publications draw is: ellen johnston laing, the winking owl: art of the people’s republic of china (berkeley/los angeles/london: university of california press, 1988). [9] the artistic development that began in the mid-1980s was embedded in a wider cultural discourse, referred to as “cultural fever” (wenhua re, 文化热) by chinese intellectuals. see wang jing, high culture fever. politics, aesthetics, and ideology in deng’s china (berkeley/los angeles: university of california press, 1996). [10] mao tse-tung, “talks at the yenan forum on literature and art” (may 1942), in selected works of mao tse-tung, vol. iii.  accessed 20.11.2011 http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-3/mswv3_08.htm, see unpaginated “conclusion, may 23, 1942, [section] iii.” [11] ibid., mao says: “there is in fact no such thing as art for art’s sake, art that stands above classes or art that is detached from or independent of politics. proletarian literature and art are part of the whole proletarian revolutionary cause […].” [12] andrews, painters and politics, 8–9. [13] karen smith, nine lives. the birth of avant-garde art in new china (zürich: scalo verlag, 2005), 407–449. smith describes, among others, the life of the artist wang jianwei (b. 1958). his biography is similar to that of many artists who came of age in the post-revolutionary period and serves as an example to illustrate how individuals were affected by the state apparatus: wang was sent to the countryside for two years as were many of the urban youth in mao’s attempt to regulate the red guards, an initially successful strategy to reestablish his position as the “great helmsman” of the country. in order to escape this collective relegation, wang joined the people’s liberation army in 1976, obtaining a discharge in 1982. subsequently, he was able to attain the humble position of store master at chengdu painting institute, where he could paint in his spare time. despite the fact that wang was not an accredited artist, as those who studied at the institute, three of his paintings were accepted at the annual national art exhibition. but the jury had to overrule the institute’s director in order that at least one of wang’s paintings could participate: and the painting won the first prize in its category. having served in the army, he was finally granted the right to enroll at the zhejiang academy of fine arts in hangzhou–without having to pass the rigorous entrance exam and despite the age limit for students–for the two-year postgraduate program designed to educate a new generation of teachers. even though he had married in 1983, the couple could not live together because both were natives of and therefore registered in different cities (beijing and chengdu) and attached to different work units. after his graduation in 1988, and after wang was granted the right to move from chengdu to the beijing painting institute in 1990, it took the couple another three years until they were finally granted an apartment that they would not have to share with other couples, and yet another year to upgrade to a flat with a kitchen. smith explains that these living conditions often significantly influenced the artistic media and formats which the first generation of post-revolutionary artists chose, and that wang’s transition from painting to conceptual projects and later to theatrical performances and documentary video works was also motivated by a lack of studio space for painting and a heightened awareness of and interest in social issues based on his own experiences. [14] luo zhongli, father, 1980, oil on canvas, 215 × 150 cm. http://www.namoc.org/en/collection/200902/t20090205_66388.html accessed on 12.12.2011. [15] wang xia, girl of sea island, 1961, 173×84cm,oil on canvas. http://www.namoc.org/en/collection/200902/t20090205_66506.html. accessed 12.12.2011. jin zhilin, commune secretary, 1974, 107 × 87 cm, oil on canvas. http://www.namoc.org/en/collection/200902/t20090205_66432.html. accessed 12.12.2011. [16] köppel-yang, semiotic warfare, 92–103. [17] gao minglu, a chinese art critic and major editor of the art magazine meishu (art monthly) from 1984 to 1990 and temporary guest editor of meishubao (fine arts in china), claims to have coined this term in an influential article about the numerous artists’ groups active at the time, see: gao minglu, “the 1985 new wave art movement,” in china’s new art, post-1989, ed. valerie c. doran (hong kong: hanart tz gallery and asia art achive, 1993), c–ciii. this is the english translation of an article originally published as: gao minglu, “bawu meishu yundong,” artists’ newsletter (meishujia tongxun), no. 5 (april 1986): 15–23. after moving to the usa in 1991, gao explored and published further details of the movement in his doctoral thesis: gao minglu, “the ’85 movement: avant-garde art in the post-mao era.” phd diss., harvard university, 1999. on page 43, he writes: “in the two years 1985 and 1986, seventy-nine self-organized avant-garde art groups, including more than 2.250 of the nation’s young artists, emerged to organize exhibitions, to hold conferences, and to write manifestos and articles about their art. a total of 149 exhibitions were organized by the groups within the two years.” one reason for gao’s emigration was the political restrictions imposed on art criticism and exhibition activity following the tiananmen incident. in september 1990, the editorial team of meishu was replaced by conservative editors and gao was suspended from work: gao, reshaping, 368–383, 374. gao’s first chinese monograph on the ’85 new wave art movement had been published more than a decade earlier: gao minglu et al., history of contemporary chinese art 1985–1986 (zhongguo dangdai meishushi 1985–1986) (shanghai: shanghai peoples press, 1991). [18] see gao, “the ’85 movement,” 43–44: “avant-garde ideas and art groups were enthusiastically promoted in new magazines and newspapers such as meishu sichao (art trends), founded in january 1985; zhongguo meishubao (fine arts in china), begun in july 1985; and huajia (painters), first published in october 1985. established journals such as meishu (art monthly), the most influential magazine in contemporary chinese art world, published by the official chinese art association since 1950, also strongly supported the young art groups due to an open-minded policy and the young editorship. jiangsu huakan (jiangsu pictorial), a magazine traditionally focused on ink painting, also shifted attention to the ’85 movement. many of the publications’ editors were young critics who themselves were involved in the avant-garde. these journals reported the activities of the group movement. during 1985 and 1986, i myself travelled nationally several times to visit various groups and collected a lot of materials, such as manifestos, slides of their works, articles and notes. in the april 1986, i gave a talk entitled ‘bawu meishu yundong,’ (the ’85 art movement) at that year’s national oil painting conference (quanguo youhua taolunhui) organized by the chinese artists association; in it i discussed the art ideas and works of various groups and showed about 200 slides to an audience consisting mostly of influential artists. since it was presented at the first official meeting in the art world after the anti-bourgeois liberalism campaign and it sent a sign of political relaxation and a policy of more openness, the publication of this text helped ease, to a degree, the suppression of some avant-garde groups by local officials. in zhongguo meishubao, li xianting and his fellows created a special section for the avant-garde groups, called qingnian qunti zhuanlan (young artists groups), and continually reported on and discussed the groups’ activities, ideas and works.” on page 44, note 30, gao adds: “[…] li xianting, one of the most influential critics of chinese avant-garde was an editor of meishubao from 1985 to 1990. peng de and pi daojian, the active critics from hubei province, were the founders of meishu sichao. li luming, a critic and artist from hunan province, founded huajia.” for a short but concise discussion of these art magazines, their makers, structures, and debates at the time, see: köppel-yang, semiotic warfare, 52–54. [19] for his earliest account of the exhibition, in chinese see: gao minglu, “fengkuang de yijiubajiu–zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan shimo [1989–a crazy year: a description of the beginning and end of the ‘zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan’ exhibition],” qingxiang (tendency quarterly), no. 12 (1999): 43–76. for a brief chinese-english account of this exhibition and its forerunners, see: gao, reshaping, 69–70, 371–376. for his most detailed english account, see: gao, “the ’85 movement,” 84–112. [20] see “zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan chouzhan tonggao, diyihao [announcement of the organization of the chinese modern art exhibition],” zhongguo meishubao (fine arts in china), no. 44 (october 1988): 1. this public announcement followed the foundation of the organizational committee of the zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan (zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan choubei weiyuanhui) on october 8, 1988 in beijing, electing gao minglu as its chair. he provides an english transcript of the announcement’s nine points in: gao, “the ’85 movement,” 94–95. on page 95 he specifies: “[…] 6. the advisers [of the exhibition] are: ru xin [chair of the chinese aesthetic study society (zhonghua quanguo meixue xuehui)], li zehou, liu kaiqu [influential artist of the older generation], wu zuoren [influential artist of the older generation], shen changwen [director of the sanlian publishing house(sanlian shudian)], shao dazhen, tang kemei, jin shangyi and ge weimo. 7. members of the organizational committee are: gan yang [editor of culture: china and the world (wenhua: zhongguo yu shijie)], zhang yaojun, liu dong, liu xiaochun, zhang zuying, li xianting, gao minglu, tang qingfeng, yang lihua, zhou yan, fan dipan, wang mingxian, kong changan and fei dawei. 8. director of the preparatory committee is: gao minglu.” [21] for an early account of the exhibition by li, see: li xianting, “wo zuowei zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan chouzhanren de zigongzhuang [my point of view as curator of the chinese modern art exhibition],” meishu shilun (art history and theory), no. 3 (1989): 24. reprinted in english as “confessions of a ‘china/avant-garde’ curator (1989)” in: wu and wang, primary documents, 116–120. [22] the catalog of the exhibition zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde lists the seven co-organizing entities on its bilingual cover pages as follows: “wenhua: zhongguo yu shijie, congshu (culture: china and the world, a book series); zhonghua quanguo meixue xuehui (china national society of aesthetics); meishu zazhi (art magazine); zhongguo meishu bao (fine arts in china); dushu zazhi(reading magazine); beijing gongyi meishu zonggongsi (beijing craft and art cooperation); zhongguo shirongbao (china urban sight press).” but the catalog does not identify the members of the organizational committee by name except gao minglu, who is acknowledged as the author of the preface located on the first two pages of this unpaginated, 46-page booklet. much later gao recalls in gao, reshaping, 70: “after its initial conception during the zhuhai conference in 1985, china/avant-garde had to be ‘recognized,’ which meant finding a sponsor. for one year, not a single organization was willing to sponsor the event; meanwhile the china avant-garde art research institute, an organization formed by critics, disbanded. by the time i started the project in 1988, i had already secured the support of the highly influential journal dushu (readings) and its publisher sdx joint publishing company, as well as that of the chinese fine arts institute. but in the end, i still had to obtain the permission of the chinese society for aesthetics before we could proceed with the exhibition at the national museum of fine art [today namoc].” for an account of the exhibition that also examines some of the exhibited works in detail and mentions li xianting’s pivotal role, see: köppel-yang, semiotic warfare, 62–65, 174–180. [23] gao minglu details the exhibition’s preparatory phase in the chronology included in gao,  reshaping, 373–374: “1986 […]. in november, the chinese modern art research committee (zhongguo xiandaiyishu yanjiuhui), an association of about thirty critics, is founded in beijing, in part as a planning committee for the nationwide avant-garde exhibition […]. 1987 […]. a planning meeting […] is held on march 25 and 26 in beijing. the show is given the seemingly neutral working title nationwide exhibition of research and communication of young art groups (quanguo qingnian yishuqunti xueshu jiaoliuzhan). authorities see through the ruse, however, and on april 4 ban all organized scholarly communication among young people. then, on april 12, a leader of the chinese artists’ association (zhongguo meishujia xiehui), a government-approved organization directed by the chinese communist party (ccp), approaches the chief organizer of the exhibition [gao himself] with a request to terminate his activities. plans for a nationwide exhibition are halted.” the background to these temporary political restrictions was the campaign against “bourgeois liberalism” that targeted new cultural activities and political thought in 1987 through mid-1988. for further obstacles during the making of the exhibition, see note 27. [24] for the official, bilingual website of the national museum of china (zhongguo meishu guan) see: www.namoc.org. accessed 21.11.2011. its online archive of “past exhibitions” currently goes back as far as january 2006. although it lists a considerable number of related artists and organized exhibitions under the english section “history,” the groundbreaking zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde, its makers, and exhibiting artists are conspicuously absent. also, the modernist artworks presented in the section “collection > highlights > fine arts > oil painting” underscore the manner in which the museum tries to underpin the ambivalent state agenda: most of the participants from zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde do not feature here, even though they subsequently took part in some of the museum’s exhibitions, and despite the fact that today they belong to china’s top-selling and globally most renowned art stars. [25] see gao, “the ’85 movement,” 96. [26] see ibid., 96–102, 100–102: gao lists the sum raised by the tianjin writers and artists association at 20,000 rmb, that of “various factories and companies” at 40,000 rmb, another 100 rmb per artist, which equaled “about the amount of their monthly salary” and totaled 18,600 rmb. he explains that the biggest private sponsor was the businessman “song wei, who ran the great wall fast food company (beijing changcheng quaizan) and contributed 50.000 yuan [rmb] to the exhibition, without stipulation and contract […]. due to the misfortune of his business [which closed two months after the exhibition as a consequence of the political repression that followed tiananmen], the organizational committee paid back 30.000 yuan [rmb] of his original 50.000 yuan [rmb] donation to song wei as a loan for securing his business. song wei has never returned the money and left the budget problem to the organizer [gao minglu himself] to suffer it for about two years [in note 121, gao writes that with the help of fundraising friends he was able to pay back the money before leaving china in 1991]. by the time of the exhibition opened in february 1989, the organizational committee had collected 118.600 yuan [rmb] (about $23.000). the original budget was at least 150.000 yuan [rmb] (about 30.000 $). that included the fee for gallery space (more than 50.000 yuan [rmb]), shipping fees, fees for space design, advertising fees, conference fees, the catalog fee and so on.” given these numbers it remains unclear why gao speaks of 118.600 rather than 128.000 rmb as total funds raised; since the exchange ratio that gao uses in the text greatly varies (from 4 to 8.45), the us dollar amounts remain doubtful. still, his calculation demonstrates how large even the economic dimensions of this exhibition were. [27] early western accounts of the exhibition indicate a higher number of artworks and artists than listed in the actual exhibition catalog, see for example: julia f. andrews, “chronology of chinese avant-garde art. 1979–1993,” in fragmented memory: the chinese avant-garde in exile, ed. julia f. andrews and gao minglu (columbus: wexner center for the arts, 1993), 11: she states “297” artworks; cf. van dijk, “bildende künste,” 32: he speaks of “around 300 works”; and cf. the later account in gao, reshaping, 374: he writes “a total of 293 paintings, sculptures, videos, and installation by 186 artists.” all three authors agree that there were 186 artists, but do not give the source of this estimation. in contrast, the exhibition catalog lists only 120 artists by name; in addition, it mentions one unspecified artists group (the southern artists salon) and in three other cases declares that a work was co-authored with “other artists,” who remain unnamed. the catalog only mentions 174 exhibition items, providing their titles and material but no dates and sizes; 53 of these are shown with color illustrations. the discrepancy between the catalog and the actual number of artworks on display surely had pragmatic reasons (e.g., the need to print it in advance); however, political issues were also at stake, since some of the unauthorized performances that took place during the opening would have been censored if announced in the catalog. therefore, it is correct that the actual number of participating artists and artworks was higher than in the catalog. the catalog was affordable at 5 rmb and was printed in a first edition of 10,000 copies, according to the following imprint on the back cover of the small volume: “zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan, english translation: hou hanru, book binding designer: chen weiwei, publisher: guangxi renmin chubanshe, [address of the] licence holder: nanning shi hetilu 14, printer: guangxi minzu yinshuachang, first edition published: 1989/1/1, format: 787 x 1092 1/24, first edition with 10.000 pieces, isbn 7-219-01014-1/j.162.” the catalog is now accessible online at the asia art archive: http://www.china1980s.org/files/feature/lpb12s_201009091433111406.pdf. accessed 12.11.2010. i also thank francesca dal lago for providing me with a copy of it. [28] for an overview of newspaper and magazine clippings about the exhibition, which includes 11 foreign language and 55 chinese language clippings (including newspapers based in hong kong) from the year 1989/1990, see gao, “the ’85 movement,” 260–264. since this overview leaves out li xianting’s influential account of the exhibition in meishu shilun in march 1989, it seems to present a partial selection. see: li, “confessions,” in wu and wang, primary documents, 119. [29] the categorization of artworks listed in the catalog is: of 174 artworks, 85 are listed as “oil painting” (youhua), including one work specified as “oil paint on paper” and two works as “oil and collage” (youhua and pintie); 23 as “water and ink” (shuimo hua), plus one “rubbing with ink on chinese paper” (xuanzhi mo tuoyin) and one “spray brush and ink on paper” (zhi penhui pintie); 14 as “synthetic material” (zonghe cailiao), apparently meaning mixed media; ten works as “installation” (zhuangzhi), four of which were marked as “installation [made of] photographs” (zhuangzhi zhaopian); seven as “performance photos” (zhanchu zhaopian); five as “sculpture” (diaoshu); four as “pottery” (tao); three as “acrylic” (bingxi hua); three as “wood carving” (mudiao); three as “relief” (fudiao); three as “soft sculpture” (bigua);  two as “silk screen” (siwang banhua);  two as “etching” (tongbanhua); two as “printing” (banhua);  two as “paper cutting” (jianzhi); one as “graphics” (no translation in chinese is given, even though the term pingmian sheji would have been possible); one “iron sculpture” (duantie); one “paint on photographs” (zhaopian jiaogong); and one work was designated as being made of “plastic” (suliao). [30] see the illustrations of the catalog online at http://www.china1980s.org/files/feature/lpb12s_201009091433111406.pdf. accessed 12.12.2011. [31] these principles were stated by deng xiaoping in 1979 as beyond (public) debate: the principle of upholding 1) the socialist path, 2) the people’s democratic dictatorship, 3) the leadership of the communist party of china, and 4) marxist-leninist-maoist thought. [32] gao, “the ’85 movement,” 93. [33] ibid.: “[…] it may be easy to understand why the authorities would prohibit performance and action art, because performance art was totally new art form completely breaking out the conventional idea of art. secondly, in the chinese avant-garde art movement, performance art was extremely provocative in directly venting individual liberality and long-time suppressed intuitive feeling. thirdly, since it was very common that performances took place in public spaces unpredictably as happenings, to the authorities it would seem easy for them to be transformed into political events, such as a demonstration.” [34] see the two illustrations of performances in: zhongguo meishu guan (china art gallery beijing), ed., zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde (beijing: zhongguo meishu guan/china art gallery, 1989), 12 (unpaginated): image no. 16, subtitled “hou hanru, yang jiechang (jie cang), speaking. communication. mankind (photos) (performance)”; and no. 17, subtitled “wei guangqing and other artists, suicide i (photos) (performance).” wen pulin’s documentary film sequences show that some of the performance photographs were hung as a series neatly framed under glass, while other photographs of art performances were integrated in collage-like presentations or directly posted onto the museum walls. see his documentary film clips at: http://wason.library.cornell.edu/wen/archive.php. accessed 18.11.2011. [35] gao minglu spells the designer’s name “yang zhilin” in the subtitle of fig. 18 that illustrates the logo in: gao, “the ’85 movement,” unpaginated illustration appendix; cf. li, "confessions",  119. according to li, the name of the designer is “zhang zhilin,” and he himself asked the designer to create a logo and then accepted zhang’s suggestion of the adapted traffic sign. [36] see wen pulin’s film documentation of the opening day, as in note 34. [37] the asia art archive hong kong website that is dedicated to this exhibition provides exemplary evidence of these materials, see: http://www.china1980s.org/files/feature/lpb12s_201009091433111406.pdf. accessed 12.11.2011. see also the three digitalized film sequences by wen pulin, which document the opening day, including most of the seminal performances, the display of artworks, the visitors, and the reactions of security personnel, as in note 31. these clips clearly show how the logo was used as a branding tool within the museum as well as on the building’s exterior. [38] gao, “the ’85 movement,” 89, note 116. [39] see köppel-yang, semiotic warfare, 56. following the accounts by gao, she traces the original idea to organize zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan back to the influential conference of art critics and artists, the zhuhai symposium (originally: great slide show of young artistic trends `85 and scientific symposium (bawu qingnian meishu shichao daxin guandeng zhan ji xueshu taolunhui) on august 15, 1986. it was co-organized by the painting institute of zhuhai and meishu (art monthly) on the initiative of artist wang guangyi. at the time, the exhibition was still envisioned to take place in the agriculture exhibition center in beijing (beijing shi nongye zhanlanguan) in 1987. as köppel-yang notes, p. 63: “however, in 1987 a second campaign against bourgeois liberalism created a conservative climate. because of this, as well as for financial reasons, the exhibition was delayed. […] further, in november 1988, the huangshan symposium–or symposium on modern chinese artistic creation 1988 (baba zhongguo xiandai yishu chuangzho yantaohui)–convened as a preliminary organizational meeting. artists and critics presented recent works and trends, made a preliminary choice and discussed new strategies. […] while both the chinese artists association and the national gallery supported the project, china/avant-garde was the first national exhibition organized by professional art critics, rather than by cadres, and the first one that was privately financed. […] song wei became china’s first nouveau riche collector of contemporary chinese art. he bought several paintings exhibited in the show, for example wang guangyi’s series mao zedong–black grid, and took others for consideration. his plan to found a museum for modern art in one of beijing’s traditional courtyard houses did not, however, succeed.” on p. 65, note 147, köppel-yang also mentions that the artist wang luyan acquired some of the artworks song had only taken for consideration, and later sold some of them to the former swiss ambassador to china, the private collector uli sigg. this early collecting trade between chinese artists and western buyers is affirmed by sigg himself in a more recent interview: matthias frehner, “zugang zu china. uli sigg im gespräch mit matthias frehner,” in mahjong. chinesische gegenwartskunst aus der sammlung sigg, ed. bernhard fibicher and matthias frehner (ostfildern-ruit: hatje cantz verlag, 2005), 16. [40] see köppel-yang, semiotic warfare, 63–64: she mentions that gao minglu and li xianting were the main agents and decision makers behind the curatorial concept, but had diverging views and responsibilities: “for li xianting, however, the exhibition was not a retrospective but an event of the chinese avant-garde movement, ‘active and offensive,’ with room for experimental works. since li was responsible for design and construction, his ideas strongly impregnated the exhibition. the exhibition occupied six rooms of the national gallery. li designed the first room, in which he showed pop art, installations and performances as provocative stimuli to disturb aesthetic habits. by contrast, other rooms on the first floor presented important trends of the 1980s as a retrospective according to thematic and stylistic criteria, such as ‘sublime atmosphere/concept of the great soul, emphasis of the cold, emphasis of the hot’.” on p. 195–196, köppel-yang provides the transcription of an interview with shui tianzhong, who was the editor-in-chief of zhongguo meishubao (fine arts in china) from 1987–89, where li xianting was working as well. shui confirms the diverging strategies of gao and li. cf. gao minglu’s narrative that does not mention li’s role and speaks instead of spontaneous art actions and a “war” against institutionalized notions of official art, in gao, reshaping, 69–70. [41] the documentary of wen pulin (see note 34) repeatedly captures the faces of western visitors in the crowd (less than twenty according to my observation), which seems dominated by middle-aged male chinese visitors. [42] for a recent extensive online compilation of exhibition catalogues that provides chronologies, see the website of the asia art archive hong kong at: http://www.china1980s.org/tc/chronology.aspx. accessed 08.11.2011. most of these chronologies start with exhibition activities as early as 1978/9 and end in the year of their publication. zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde is always mentioned as one of the most prominent and largest early exhibition events. [43] for a theoretical discussion of avant-garde that was also cited in the anglo-american discourse, see: peter bürger, theorie der avantgarde (frankfurt a. m.: suhrkamp, 1974). see further explanations in the text below. [44] for a chinese discussion of the exhibition, see lü peng and dan yi, eds., zhongguo xiandai yishu shi 1979–1989 [chinese modern art history 1979–1989] (changsha: hunan meishu chubanshe, 1992), 325–253. for a detailed analysis of the exhibition that also discusses the debates of chinese art critics surrounding the pistol shot event, see: köppel-yang, semiotic warfare, 62–65 and 174–180. xiao lu’s intervention and the installation was subsequently canonized as a work authorized by both her partner and herself, often underlining tang’s authorship as a radical avant-garde artist. only recently has xiao lu made conscious and artistic efforts to reclaim single authorship for this seminal work, questioning the gender bias that greatly privileged male artists during the 1980s and 90s, see the autobiographical fiction xiao lu, dialogue (hong kong: hong kong university press, 2010). for a psychoanalytically inspired critical reading of her claims and latest works in this regard, see adele tan, “elusive disclosures, shooting desire. xiao lu and the missing sex of post-89 performance art in china,” in negotiating difference. contemporary chinese art in the global context, ed. franziska koch et al. (weimar: vdg verlag, 2012), forthcoming. [45] see köppel-yang, semiotic warfare, 175. [46] the author of the anonymous letters calling for a closure of the exhibition saying there were explosives hidden in the national gallery was not discovered. liu anping had sent three letters of the bomb threat: one to the national gallery, one to the municipal government, and one to the beijing public security bureau. see gao, “the ’85 movement,” 110–112. liu anping confirmed this fact in a conversation with me. [47] see köppel-yang, semiotic warfare, 64: “the national gallery imposed a fine of two thousand yuan [today ca. 220 €/ 300 usd] on the seven co-organizers of the exhibition, for breaking the regulations and conditions specified in the exhibition contract. in addition, the gallery announced that further exhibition projects of these organizing units would not be accepted for a period of two years.” this was equal to an exhibition ban on the entire range of experimental and vanguard artistic production, because the seven co-organizing entities were the main magazines that had encouraged and favorably published comments on the ’85 new wave art activities; any official display of artwork would need at least one such co-organizing institution to acquire the official permission to exhibit. [48] for an account of the problems of exhibiting after june 4, 1989, see francesca dal lago, “locating creative space,” in doran, china’s new art, post-89, lxii–lxiii; and nicholas jose, “towards the world: china’s new art. 1989–93,” in doran, china’s new art, post-89, xxxvii–xl. for an account of chinese official reactions at the time, see john clark, “official reactions to modern art in china since the beijing massacre,” pacific affairs 65 (autumn 1992): 334–352. [49] jean-hubert martin, ed., magiciens de la terre (paris: éditions du centre pompidou, 1989). [50] see their artworks illustrated in the catalog of zhongguo meishu guan (china art gallery beijing), zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde, fig. 5, 11 and 16 (unpaginated part of illustrations); and in the catalog of martin, magiciens de la terre, 186–187, 188–189 and 266–267. [51] for a discussion of the post-colonial turn in relation to the museum and previous exhibitions such as the notorious primitivism in 20th century art. affinity of the tribal and the modern (museum of modern art new york, 1988), see hans belting, “contemporary art and the museum in the global age,” in contemporary art and the museum. a global perspective, ed. peter weibel and andrea buddensieg (ostfildern-ruit: hatje cantz verlag, 2007), 16–38. the tate modern (london) convened a panel discussion in 2009 commemorating 20 years of the post-colonial turn in exhibition practices, see http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/eventseducation/symposia/17464.htm. accessed 08.11.2011. the reconsiderations of eminent critics, who evaluated three important 1989 exhibitions that marked the turn (magiciens, the other story, and the havana biennal) are available as podcasts at: http://static.tate.org.uk/1/onlineevents/podcast/mp3/2009_04_03_exhibitions_and_the_world_at_large_no_maharaj-1.mp3; http://static.tate.org.uk/1/onlineevents/podcast/mp3/2009_04_03_exhibitions_and_the_world_at_large-2; http://static.tate.org.uk/1/onlineevents/podcast/mp3/2009_04_03_exhibitions_and_the_world_at_large-3_4. accessed 08.11.2011. see also the affiliated paper publication by jean fisher, “the other story and the past imperfect,” tate papers 12 (autumn 2009): http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/tatepapers/09autumn/fisher.shtm. accessed 08.11.2011. for an elaborated post-colonial european exhibition concept after magiciens that included chinese artists, see marianne brouwer, ed., heart of darkness (otterlo: stichting kröller-müller museum, 1995). [52] pierre gaudibert (1928–2006) was the curator of the musée d’art moderne de la ville de parisfrom 1966 to 1972, where he created the contemporary section titled animation–recherche–confrontation (arc), whose aim was to provide a cross-cultural program of music, literature, and fine arts to the new french middle class. he later became the director of the musée des arts africains et océaniens de paris, which today is the musée du quai branly. see pierre gaudibert, l’art africain contemporain (paris: éditions cercle d’art, 1991). [53] pierre gaudibert, “la planète tout entière, enfin...,” in martin, magiciens, 18–19. [54] ibid., 19: “la violence symbolique du pouvoir de légitimation artistique de l’occident–à la prétention naturellement universelle–s’applique terriblement à tous les artistes de ces peuples ‘autres.’ ceux-ci sont jugés immédiatement et presque automatiquement comme des suiveurs et des épigones, de pâles imitateurs d’artistes occidentaux connus ou bien tenus pour des producteurs d’objets visuels savoureux à collectionner dans sa maison, mais indignes de musées réels ou imaginaires.” english translation in the text by f.k. [55] the catalog acknowledges martin as the general curator, mark francis as his vice-curator, and aline lucque and andré magnin as assistant curators with claire blanchon and marie-jeanne peraldi as sub-assistants. in addition, franck andré jamme, corneille jest, francois lupu, bernard lüthi, bernard marcadé, jean-louis maubant, carlo severi, jacques soulillou, and yves véquaud were charged with special missions to help select art from around the world. [56] martin, “préface,” in magiciens, 8–11, 9. “c’est par le mot de ‘magie’ que l’on qualifie communément l’influence vive et inexplicable qu’exerce l’art. il a paru approprié dans la mesure où il était prudent d’éviter dans le titre le mot “art” qui aurait d’emblée étiqueté des créations provenant de sociétés qui ne connaissent pas ce concept.” english translation in the text by f.k. [57] ibid., 8. [58] ibid.: “[…] même ceux qui déclarent sans ambages qu’il n’y a pas de différence entre les cultures ont souvent bien du mal à accepter que des œuvres venues du tiers monde puissant être mises sur un pied d’égalité avec celles de nos avant-gardes [… .] pourtant, de l’idée d’une enquête sur la création dans le monde aujourd’hui, on pouvait imaginer de n’exposer que des auteurs non occidentaux, sachant que l’existence de l’art dans nos centres ne fait pas de doute. c’était persister à mettre ces créateurs dans un ghetto, dans une catégorie ethnographique de survivance archaïque issue des expositions coloniales, alors qu’il importe d’affirmer leur existence dans le présent.” english translation in the text by f.k. [59] rasheed araeen, “our bauhaus others’ mudhouse,” third text. third world perspectives on contemporary art and culture 3, no. 6 (spring 1989): 3–14, 14. this special issue of the journal was devoted to a critical analysis of magiciens de la terre. [60] see the author’s gecca mapped, a google earth-based visualization of such exhibitions at the time, as in note 4. [61] for an account of chinese art at the venice biennales, see francesca dal lago, “papercuts, colorful pictures and mountains of shit: ‘china’ at the venice biennale, 1980–2007,” international symposium china on display: past and present practices of selecting, exhibiting and viewing chinese visual and material culture, 6–8 december 2007, university of leiden, netherlands, unpublished paper. chinese works had participated in the venice biennale prior to 1993; however, the popular papercuts and works in socialist idioms were not placed in the section of “contemporary art.” [62] for the english edition of the catalog, see haus der kulturen der welt, ed., china avant-garde. counter-currents in art and culture / 中國前衛藝術 (oxford: oxford university press, 1994). i use the german catalog as the basis for citations translated into english, because the published translation of the english edition is partly of poor quality. in what follows, i refer to the house of world cultures using its german acronym hkw. [63] considering the different time zones, the german opening on a friday must have taken place almost at the same time as the opening in hong kong on saturday, the next day. however, the hong kong catalog reprint of the asia art archive hong kong (2001), which states “exhibition dates: 1993[,] 30 jan–28 feb[.] hong kong arts festival, hong kong arts centre and hong kong city hall” (see fifth page of the unpaginated introductory section) differs from the original catalog published by hanart tz gallery hong kong (1993), which states “exhibition dates and venues: 31 january–14 february, 1993[.] exhibition hall, low block, hong kong city hall, central, hong kong[.] 2 february–25 february, 1993[.] pao galleries, 4th and 5th floors, hong kong arts centre, 2 harbour road, wanchai, hong kong” (see fifth page of the unpaginated introductory section). [64] andreas schmid, “the dawn of chinese contemporary art,” in koch et al., negotiating difference (forthcoming 2012). [65] curiously, these dates cannot be found in the german edition of the china avantgarde catalog, nor are they listed in the archive of exhibitions accessible on the house of world cultures website. i thank andreas schmid for providing me these dates and related press material and news clippings. in an interview, he mentions that a spanish institution was also interested in inviting the exhibition but the idea was not realized. see andreas schmid, “interview about the making of ‘china avantgarde’ conducted by franziska koch,” january 8, 2008. [66] the china avantgarde catalog claims fang lijun participated in the zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan exhibition (beijing), as do many current gallery websites that present his curriculum vitae, but the beijing catalog does not mention him. [67] she is the only female artist who exhibited in berlin; another seven were among the 44 artists who did not exhibit in berlin but were portrayed in the catalog. the small percentage of female participants is typical of early exhibitions of contemporary chinese art shown within china and outside. [68] the 300-plus page berlin catalog provides short biographical dates and descriptions of their artistic approach, and features at least two (often four to six) illustrations per artist: ai weiwei, cai guoqiang, chen danqing, chen haiyan, chen shaoxiong, chen zhen, gu wenda, hu bing, liang hao, li tianyuan, liang juhui, liu shaojuan, liu wei, liu xiaodong, ma desheng, ma kelu, qin yufen, qiu ping, ren rong, song gang, song haidong, tan ping, wang deren, wang gongyi, wang keping, wang luyan, xu bing, xu tan, xu zhongmin, yan li, yang jiechang, yang jun, yuan shun, zhang jianjun, zhang wei, zhao gang (gang zhao), zhao suikang, zheng chongbin, zhou yunxia, zhu jinshi, xiao lu, tang song, zhao wenliang, yang yushu. the italics mark those artists who participated in zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde. [69] schmid, interview conducted by koch, january 8, 2008. [70] wolfger pöhlmann, “ einführung,” in haus der kulturen der welt, china avantgarde, 9. “der neue ‘zeitgeist’ chinas, der sich vor allem an dem mit der warenund konsumorientierung einhergehenden neuen individualismus festmachen lässt, spiegelt sich in allen bereichen der kultur. auf der anderen seite bleibt die auseinandersetzung mit der eigenen tradition das zentrale und beherrschende moment. selbst wenn sich bei der betrachtung der werke chinesischer kunst formale analogien zu uns vertrauten künstlerischen stilrichtungen wie pop art, minimal-, conceptund land-art, performance, videound installationskunst, fotografischer realismus, informel aufdrängen, entdeckt man bei näherer beschäftigung immer wieder die chinesischen wurzeln. dies ist einer der wesentlichen aspekte, der zugleich die eigenständigkeit und spezifische qualität der chinesischen moderne ausmacht und bestimmt.  als plakatmotiv für die pekinger ausstellung ‘china/avant-garde’ diente das verfremdete symbol eines verkehrszeichens ‘not return’, und trotz der einschneidenden ereignisse von 1989 scheint sich im kulturellen wie gesellschaftlichen leben die entwicklung nicht mehr umkehren zu lassen. unser ausstellungstitel ‘china avantgarde’ spielt darauf an, und der begriff der avantgarde trifft besser als vage und missverständliche worte wie ‘modern’ oder ‘zeitgenössisch’ ein wesensmerkmal auch der jüngsten chinesischen kunst, denn ‘avantgarde’ bezeichnet künstlerische strömungen, die überlieferte ausdrucksformen sprengen und neue entwicklungen einleiten wollen. avantgarde-künstler bringen die funktionsund sinnkrise von kunst ebenso zum ausdruck wie die leidenschaftliche suche nach einem neuen sinn künstlerischen handelns und aufbegehrens gegen die isolation der künstler von der gesellschaft.” english translation and italics in the text by f.k. [71] the german edition was published in time for the berlin opening, the english and chinese editions a year later. for the english edition, see note 62. for the chinese edition, see wolfger pöhlmann et al., ed., 中國前衛藝術 (zhongguo qianwei yishu) (hong kong s. a. r.: oxford university press, 1994). while the english edition is a one-to-one translation of  the german catalog, the chinese edition (written in traditional chinese) includes four additional texts: li tuo (“1985”); gao minglu (當代大陸新潮美術, “dangdai dalu xinchao meishu,” “contemporary new wave fine art of mainland china”); zhang xudong (從「朦朧詩」到「新小說」, “cong ‘menglongshi’ dao ‘xinxiaoshuo,’” “from ‘misty (or hermetic) poetry’ to ‘new novel’”); and dai shihe (寫實–從技法到精神, “xie shi–cong jifa dao jingsheng,” “realism–from technique to spirit [or meaning]”). [72] pöhlmann, “einführung,” 9. he considers it “our [the german curators’] duty to make understandable and accessible our evaluation and reflection on their [the chinese artists’] work also expressing our gratitude and appreciation through realizing an english-chinese version of the present catalogue.” translated from the german by f.k.: “[…] uns eine pflicht, durch realisierung einer englisch-chinesischen version des vorliegenden kataloges unsere wertung und reflexion ihrer arbeit auch als ausdruck unseres dankes und unserer wertschätzung verständlich und zugänglich zu machen.” to the best of my knowledge, the first large group exhibitions of contemporary chinese art held outside china  which continued this practice were: china’s new art, post-1989 in hong kong (1993) and die hälfte des himmels in bonn, germany (1996). since the 1990s, chinese catalogs of contemporary group exhibitions frequently include english translations; however, western group exhibitions of chinese art with bilingual catalog publications or separate chinese editions are less frequent. [73] see for example the long article on the history of the term by karlheinz barck, “avantgarde,” in ästhetische grundbegriffe. historisches wörterbuch in sieben bänden, ed. karlheinz barck et al., vol. 1 (stuttgart/weimar: j.b. metzler, 2000), 544–577. although not wholly eurocentric in scope, since he discusses south american debates relating to the term, barck does not include any from asia. [74] peter bürger, “avant-garde,” in encyclopedia of aesthetics, ed. michael kelly, vol. 1 (new york: oxford university press, 1998), 185-189, 186. [75] ibid. [76] ibid. [77] ibid., 187. [78] ibid. [79] ibid., 188 [80] ibid. [81] hal foster, the return of the real: the avant-garde at the end of the century (cambridge, ma/london: massachusetts institute of technology press, 2001), 10–11. [82] ibid., 14. [83] ibid., 15. [84] norman bryson, “the post-ideological avant-garde,” in inside/out. new chinese art, ed. gao minglu (berkeley/los angeles/london: university of california press, 1998), 51–58. [85] ibid., 51–52. [86] ibid., 52. [87] ibid. [88] ibid. [89] ibid., 53. he then goes on to describe the following artworks to illustrate his argument: “tap water factory: a mutually voyeuristic installation” by geng jianyi (1987); “ice: central china 1996” by wang jin (january 28, 1996 in zhengzhou city); wu shanzhuan’s “red humour” (1986); xu bing’s “book from the sky” (1987–91); and works by zhang peili, song dong, and qiu zhijie. [90] ibid., 57–58. [91] for a discussion, see the literature given in note 7. [92] for a recent compilation and translation of three contemporaneous chinese reviews, see wu and wang, primary documents, 113–132. [93] jochen noth, “skizze des ausstellungsvorhabens ‘chinesische avantgarde in den neunziger jahren’ [draft of the exhibition project ‘chinese avant-garde in the nineties’],” (unpublished, typewritten document, dated 16 februar 1991), 1–4, 3. i thank andreas schmid for providing me with a copy of the document. “[…es soll] jeder offene politische akzent etwa mit dem stichwort ‘dissidenten-kunst’ vermieden werden….[, da] die ausstellung vor allem künstlerische und nicht manifest politische qualitäten dokumentieren soll.” english translation in the text by f.k. [94] ibid.: “[…weil] jede offene konfrontation mit den chinesischen behörden die beteiligten künstler selbst oder zumindest ihre teilnahme (wenn sie noch in china leben) gefährden kann.” english translation in the text by f.k. [95] ibid.: “[…es ist jedoch auch eine] gewisse wohlwollende neutralität chinesischer behörden solange zu erwarten […], solange sie den eindruck haben, dass hier chinesische kultur dargestellt wird, die ihnen liberalität nach außen zu bescheinigen zeigt, ohne sie im innern zu stören. ” english translation in the text by f.k. [96] ibid.:  “[…] direkte politische konfrontation gegen das chinesische regime evtl. sponsoren abschrecken und sogar druck von seiten deutscher behörden auslösen kann.” english translation in the text by f.k. [97] schmid, interview conducted by koch, january 8, 2008: he recalls that the first china visit with van dijk took place november 4–december 1, 1991; december 8, 1991–january 17, 1992 he flew to new york to visit the chinese artists hu bing and gu wenda, who had emigrated to the usa. the second visit to china was made in 1992 by van dijk, pöhlmann, and schmid and only lasted ca. two weeks (according to schmid, who could not remember the exact dates of this second journey during the interview). cf. his later written statement in schmid, “the dawn,” (forthcoming) where he recalls: “during the preparatory phase the curatorial team traveled several times for research purposes in order to meet as many chinese artists as possible. in 1991 hans van dijk and i went to china for more than three weeks. at first hans was afraid that the chinese authorities would not let him enter the country. but we were lucky and did not meet with any problems at this point. in 1992 jochen noth, hans van dijk, and wolfger pöhlmann as the head of the art and film department of the hkw went to china again for about two weeks, while i stayed in the office. in june 1992, i flew to new york to visit chinese artists there. it was the first time that i met ai weiwei, who was living in poor conditions in soho. in paris, hans and i met with huang yongping, yang jiechang, and other artists. on another tour with the hkw’s lorry, hans and i drove to amsterdam. we talked the night through with the artists and gathered further material. i also remember under what astonishing conditions we met the artist fang lijun in november 1991, before he became one of the best-selling chinese artists and an international star of the chinese art scene only three years later […]. at that time, he lived in an artists’ village called xicun (west village) near the old summer palace yuanmingyuan on the western outskirts of beijing. his living and working space was very small, measuring not more than 18 square meters. at the time that hans and i went to see him, he had not been able to sell one single drawing or painting. his participation in our exhibition and in another traveling exhibition, which opened in hong kong also in 1993, kick-started his career.” [98] schmid, “the dawn art,” forthcoming. he mentions the artists lin yilin and zhao bandi in particular. the former also travelled to subsequent venues and adapted his installation in situ. [99] the note of the german politician regarding this conversation also conveyed that the chinese officials would not actively intervene, but rather rely on their headquarters in bonn to undertake any further steps. i thank andreas schmid for showing me the unpublished note written by the member of the berlin senate, dated january 5, 1993. [100] schmid, “the dawn,” forthcoming. [101] schmid, interview conducted by koch, january 8, 2008: he recalls that the strongest positive reaction from german political circles was a letter sent by the former chancellor of west germany helmut schmidt, who congratulated the curators on their exhibition. schmidt was the first german chancellor to visit the people’s republic; the visit took place in 1975 at the end of the cultural revolution. [102] ibid. schmid states that some of the artwork was imported by the artists themselves, in their hand luggage; others were declared as “decoration material” by western businessmen who exported them as personal belongings. [103] the term qianfeng (前锋), “the vanguard,” was already used by early chinese communists as the title of their 1920s journal, doing so in reference to their understanding of the western political avant-garde. the journal was secretly published in shanghai between july 1924 and february 1927, see: endymion porter wilkinson, chinese history. a manual, 2nd rev. ill. ed., (cambridge: harvard university asia center, 2000), 996. but nationalist writers, who were associated with the anti-communist ideals of the guomindang, also published a magazine during the early 1930s with the title xianfeng zhoubao and xianfeng yuebao, wherein xianfeng (先锋) is another translation for “avant-garde,” composed of xian / 先 meaning “before” or “first” and feng / 锋 originally denoting a “swordpoint” or more generally something “sharp”, i.e., the spearhead of a movement, see: literary societies of republican china, http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/denton2/publications/research/soc.htm. accessed 23.11.2011. and a literary and art magazine dedicated to the early adaptation of western artistic avant-garde styles named yifeng (yi / 艺 denoting “art”) also existed in the 1930s. it published a special edition on surrealism in october 1935 to which artists such as liang xihong and li dongping contributed, having learned about european art styles during their studies in japan, see: lang shaojun, “wegbereiter der modernen kunst in china,” in haus der kulturen der welt, china avantgarde, 50. after the victory of the chinese communists and the founding of the people’s republic of china in 1949, the terms qianwei, qianfeng, and xianfeng were used to designate the communist party as the “avant-garde” of the people in accordance with marxist-leninist and maoist political thought. compared to these terms’ resonance with the party’s long-standing official rhetoric, xiandai seems to have been defined as less narrowly and ideologically leftist in 1989. after all, deng xiaoping had made the “four modernizations,” (四个现代主, sige xiandaizhu) the motto of the day. so simply calling the exhibition “modern” (xiandai) also prevented the potentially dangerous implication that the artists were publicly claiming themselves instead of the communist party to be the (cultural) “avant-garde” of the people. [104] in a conversation with me in fall 2006, jean-hubert martin mentioned that he travelled for several days in china and relied on fei dawei, who introduced him to chinese artists. [105] andreas schmid was born in stuttgart, germany, where he also studied painting and art education at the state academy of fine arts from 1974 to 1981. in hangzhou, he studied seal carving, calligraphy, and the history of calligraphy. at the time, foreign students were not yet allowed to join the oil painting department, which lacked adequate teaching staff following the persecutions during the cultural revolution. today he works as an artist based in berlin, is additionally active as curator, and regularly writes for the section on contemporary chinese art of the e-journal artnet.com. in 1997/8 he organized the exhibition zeitgenössische fotokunst aus der volksrepublik china (contemporary photography from the people’s republic) in berlin, chemnitz, and darmstadt, germany. he also co-organized the project dreams of art spaces collected that investigates independent project spaces and initiatives run by artists and art associations in asia, europe, and australia and was presented at the guangzhou triennial 2008. for biographical details, see his website: http://andreasschmid.info/vita.php?l=en. accessed 02.12.2011. [106] see schmid, “the dawn,” (forthcoming) and schmid, interview conducted by koch, january 8, 2008: he specifies that he came into contact with zhang peili, saw the graduation works of geng jianyi, and became friends with gu wenda. the senior students wang guangyi and huang yongping had already left the academy after their graduation and were no longer working in hangzhou. [107] hans van dijk was born in deventer, the netherlands. he studied at the arnhem arts academy and the eindhoven design academy, graduating in 1970. after developing an interest in chinese classical furniture, language, and culture, he moved to china in 1984, studying at nanjing university and at the nanjing art academy (nanjing yishu xueyuan). in 1993, after an intervening period of time when he was officially disallowed from staying in china, he founded the new amsterdam art consultancy (naac) in beijing. after a business merger, he continued to archive documents on ca. “5000 chinese artists,” according to robert bernell, see: robert bernell, “in memoriam: hans van dijk (1946–2002),” china information, no. 16 (2002): 108. the online version of this article can be found at: http://cin.sagepub.com/content/16/1/108.citation. accessed 02.12.2011. see also a biographical website in memory of van dijk established by ai weiwei: http://www.archivesandwarehouse.com/gallery/caaw/new_gallery/hans/hans.htm. accessed 02.12.2011. [108] see the homepage of caaw http://www.archivesandwarehouse.com/gallery/caaw/html/caaw.html, accessed 12.12.2011 today, the institution is run in cooperation with the swiss gallery owner urs meile, whose lucerne-based gallery (established in 1992) opened a branch office in beijing’s cao changdi district in 2005 in an architecture designed by ai weiwei. [109] jochen noth studied german literature at heidelberg university during the 1960s, where he became a founding member of the central committee of the communist league of west germany (kommunistischer bund westdeutschlands) and actively engaged in the radical leftist students’ movement. as official editor of the league’s press releases, he faced several charges by the german government, issued in 1975 and thereafter. he avoided imprisonment by leaving munich for vienna, paris, and london, where he continued to work for the communist movement, before finally seeking political exile in the people’s republic in 1979. there he worked for the german department of radio beijing and later became a german teacher in a foreign language institute of a university in beijing. increasingly working in cooperation with the german academic exchange service (daad), which was in close contact with the german embassy in beijing, the political charges against him were finally eased in 1986. for an extensive german biographical interview, see jochen noth, “jochen noth, management-berater und ehemaliger maoist im gespräch mit dietrich brants,” http://www.swr.de/swr2/programm/sendungen/zeitgenossen/archiv/-/id=660644/nid=660644/did=2268738/8rgdxx/index.html. accessed 04.08.2011. [110] this gallery still exists today with the mission to exhibit art and visual culture from foreign countries. it focuses on art scenes that are unfamiliar to the broader german public and works in close cooperation with german curators, artists, and scholars living abroad, who work for or cooperate with the daad in these countries. [111] the künstlerhaus bethanien in berlin was founded in the mid-1970s when local artists occupied the former hospital building and began to establish it as a non-profit space for international residencies and artistic exchange. to date more than 950 international artists have been included in its residence program, see http://www.bethanien.de/kb/index/trans/de/page/history. accessed 22.11.2011. [112] schmid, interview conducted by koch, january 8, 2008. [113] schmid, “the dawn,” forthcoming. he mentions that the cultural program staged the first european concert of cui jian, who is known as the “first chinese rock-star.” the concert was attended by 4,000 enthusiastic listeners at the hkw. the saxophonist liu wei and china’s renowned female rock band, cobra, also performed. schmid recalls well attended public readings of chinese writers such as gu cheng, bei dao, duo duo, and yang lian. the company of actor meng jinhui from beijing presented samuel beckett’s waiting for godot;tan dun from new york conducted dutch musicians interpreting the work of chinese composers; and the program also featured films related to china. in addition, the museum of east asian art in berlin-dahlem inaugurated an exhibition of chinese ink painting created in traditional idioms. [114] bernd michael scherer, the house. the cultures. the world (berlin: nicolai verlag, 2007). see also the website created on behalf of the 50th anniversary of the hkw: http://www.hkw.de/en/hkw/gebauede/50/kongresshalle.php, last accessed december 6, 2011. [115] huang yongping (based in paris since 1989); yang jiechang (based in paris and heidelberg since 1989); cai guoqiang (based in tokyo since 1987); gu wenda (based in new york since 1987); yan peiming (based in dijon since 1981); and chen zhen (based in paris since 1986). [116] schmid, “the dawn,” forthcoming. he mentions the journals xin meishu, meishu bao, and jiangsu huakan. [117] schmid, interview conducted by koch, january 8, 2008. he mentions that the monthly salary for their full-time curatorship was 1,500 dm per person; further, that conflicts arose after the berlin opening because the hkw did not extend van dijk’s contract, even though he was heavily involved in facilitating the overall program during the entire exhibition period and the show’s preparations for the additional venues. [118] ibid. he recalls that he and van dijk had little say as regards the actual placement of artworks on display in berlin, because the institutional hierarchy privileged wolfger pöhlmann and kai reschke. the cooperation with the in-house curators in oxford and odense was much more collaborative, and in hildesheim, schmid was completely free to arrange everything by himself. [119] ibid. he states that the costs for odense were 72,000 dm, and for oxford 36,000 dm. [120] noth, “skizze,” 1–4, 1–2. “[…] werke von zeitgenössischen künstlern aus der vr china vor[zu]stellen, die teils im exil, teils in china leben […und deren gemeinsamkeit ist], dass sie in ausdrucksform und inhalten ihrer werke unabhängig von der offiziellen chinesischen kunstdoktrin arbeiten und sich soweit von den konventionen und traditionen gelöst haben, dass sie zu einer individuellen ausdrucksstarken sprache gefunden haben.” english translation and italics in the text by f.k. [121] ibid.: “[…werke, die] erkennbar nicht zu folgenden kategorien der zeitgenössischen chinesischen kunst gehören: werke, die im dienst der offiziellen kunstdoktrin der kpch stehen. das betrifft sowohl werke in der tradition des sozialistischen realismus, als auch solche, die sich einer modernen ‘westlichen’ sprache bedienen, deren inahlt aber von einer politischen, propagandistischen aussage geprägt ist, etwa ein gemälde in kubistischer tradition mit der aussage: ‘auch die mädchen der nationalen minderheiten tanzen heute zum klang moderner kassettenrekorder’. […] ‘akademische’ moderne werke. damit sind gemeint bilder oder plastiken, die stile und stilelemente aus der nachromantischen westlichen kunst übernehmen, aber ohne dass eine inhaltliche auseinandersetzung damit verbunden ist. solche bilder, die häufig den ölmalereiklassen der kunstakademien entspringen, haben meist einen rein dekorativen, idyllisierenden charakter. werke der traditionellen chinesischen malerei, zumindest wenn sie die traditionelle motivund formensprache mehr oder weniger ungebrochen pflegen.” english translation in the text by f.k. [122] ibid., 1–4, 2: english translation in text by f.k.–for the german original see note 123 below. they do not give examples of such cliques, but in the 2008 interview, schmid mentions chinese artist groups in new york (gu wenda, hu bing) and paris (huang yongping, yang jiechang, chen zhen, yang peiming) which they had contacted. the diverging opinions between influential mainland critics such as li xianting, who accused the emigrated artists of obviously catering to western taste, affirm certain tensions. the paris-based younger art critic fei dawei wrote a response to li defending the stance of these artists, who faced different environments, which caused them to explore different artistic approaches without necessarily forgetting their own cultural background. for a discussion of both positions, see carol lu, “back to contemporary: one contemporary ambition, many worlds,” e-flux, no. 1 (december 2009), http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/102. accessed 16.11.2011. [123] noth, “ skizze,” 1–4, 2. “[…] rivalitäten und cliquenbildung […typisch für] exilgruppen allgemein, […] und für chinesische künstlergruppen im exil noch viel mehr. […chinesische künstler in china dagegen arbeiten] unter starkem politischen druck, […] verstreut, z.t. […] zurückgezogen […und müssen u. u.] kontakte mit ausländern fürchten.” english translation in the text by f.k. [124] schmid, “the dawn,” forthcoming. [125] haus der kulturen der welt, china avantgarde, 148–149. [126] noth, “skizze,” 1–4, 2: “[europäische betrachter neigen…] gelegentlich dazu, in solchen bildern vor allem die westlichen einflüsse wiederzuerkennen […], sie übersehen die originalität, die in einer ganz chinesischen bildauffassung liegt.” english translation in the text by f.k. [127] ibid.: “sie unterschätzen solche bilder dann als bloße nachahmungen. in anderen fällen wird der dekorative charme chinesischer bildelemente überschätzt, obwohl sie ganz konventionell sind.” english translation in the text by f.k. [128] ibid.: “wenn bilder einen manifesten sozialen inhalt haben, genießen sie oft einen dissidentenbonus.” english translation in the text by f.k. [129] ibid.: “[die kommission sollte…] ausschließlich aus nicht-chinesen bestehen, da nur so vermieden werden kann, dass ihre arbeit vom druck von cliquen-, familienoder regionalbeziehungen und -intrigen beeinträchtigt wird.” english translation in the text by f.k. [130] it is interesting to note that four years earlier, in the magiciens catalog’s introduction, martin’s rationale to exclude local curators was that european curators did not know any local curators and it would take too much time and money to establish a joint working agenda. in berlin, even though the mutual contact and collaboration with chinese curators was already in place, precisely this prompted the european curators to avoid a joint exhibition project. [131] schmid, “the dawn,” forthcoming. [132] for huang’s explanation of his artistic concepts at the time, see the catalog of his american solo show: philippe vergne and doryun chung, eds., house of oracles: a huang yong ping retrospective (minneapolis: walker art center, 2005). the show’s extensive website also features valuable articles and illustrations of his work, including quotes by huang, see hanru hou, “change is the rule,” 2005, http://visualarts.walkerart.org/oracles/details.wac?id=2232&title=writings. accessed 21.11.2011. [133] for an illustration and short analysis of this work, see köppel-yang, semiotic warfare, her fig. 14, unpaginated part of illustrations. [134] 14 of the emigrated artists lived in the usa (nine in new york, two in michigan, one in san francisco, one in vermillion, and one without detailed location); seven in germany (five in berlin, one in düsseldorf, one in hamburg); six in france (three in paris, two in dijon, one in aix-en-provence). 14 of the artists residing in china lived in beijing, four in guangzhou, three in shanghai, two in hangzhou, two in nanjing, one in wuhan, and one in zhoushan. [135] see note 50. [136] exhibition catalogs play an important role in this transfer process. on the one hand they inform curators about works already presented in former exhibitions, on the other hand different catalogs sometimes reproduce the same images in order to portray the work of an artist or include photographs of displays that the actual exhibition catalog could not yet include because it was printed in advance. for example, the china avantgarde catalog uses a photograph of gu dexin’s installation made of plastic sheets in 1984 that was already included in the magiciens catalog, albeit as a blown-up and mirror-inverted detail. the china avantgarde catalog also presented a photograph of huang yongping’s installation “reptiles” (1989), realized for magiciens but not yet illustrated in its catalog. and china avantgarde also reused the same photograph of huang’s “‘a history of chinese art’ and ‘short history of modern art’ after washing the books two minutes in a washing machine” (1987) that had appeared in the catalog for beijing’s zhongguo xiandai yishuzhan. china/avant-garde. [137] cf. note 50. [138] in fact, painting dominates the exhibition accounting for two-thirds of exhibited works (and 45% of the artworks illustrated in the catalog). performances (documented with photographs) and installations account for only one-seventh and one-eighth of the exhibited works, respectively. however, installations appear much more prominently in the catalog (29% of all illustrated works) than in the actual exhibition, while photography is less prominently featured (at only 10%). [139] i thank the hkw for providing me with a copy of the press clippings, comprising more than 100 pages, on which this observation is based. [140] schmid, interview conducted by koch, january 8, 2008. schmid was approached through the gallery owner krings, who consulted the collector. after showing krings the exhibition, schmid was invited to cologne to give ludwig a presentation, after which the collector decided to buy two pictures by fang lijun. the hkw website states that one of the paintings sold for 12,000 dm, mentioning that twelve years later works of comparable size were already sold for 180,000 usd at a sotheby’s auction in hong kong, see: http://www.hkw.de/de/hkw/gebauede/50/1993.php. accessed 17.12.2011. [141] table of contents: “beijing 1979–1992: frequent changes of scene” (jochen noth); “the fine arts after the cultural revolution: stylistic development and cultural debate” (hans van dijk, andreas schmid); “an introduction to the history of modern chinese art” (li xianting), “the precursors of modern chinese art” (lang shaojun); “aesthetics, art history and contemporary art in china” (pi daojian); “modern chinese art and the zhejiang academy in hangzhou” (zheng shengtian); “the dao in modern chinese art” (liu weijian); “the small freedom of the market: chinese cinema during the period of reform” (hsien-chen chang); “how do you recognize reality? issues in contemporary chinese literature” (michael kahn-ackermann); “chinese hermetic lyric poetry” (sabine peschel); “modern chinese lyric poetry” (yan li); “the chinese spoken theatre” (antje budde); “beijing's experimental theatre” (meng jinghui); “chinese music in the 1980s: the aesthetics of eclecticism” (barbara mittler); “cui jian and the birth of chinese rock music” (liang heping, ulrike stobbe); “contemporary chinese photography from a ‘correct’ to a ‘fragmentary’ world-view” (andré kunz). [142] for example: china–between past and future curated by wu hung (march 24–may 14, 2006), included a program of chinese photography, opera, music, films, lectures, and a symposium; and re-imagining asia. a thousand years of separation curated by wu hung and shaheen merali (march 13–may 18, 2008). [143] since the generation born after 1970 was too young to have participated in the exhibitions of 1993. [144] gao minglu, the portraits of 100 most influential artists in contemporary art (wuhan: hubei fine arts publishing house, 2005). [145] see five illustrations of the large-scale installation on the artist’s homepage: http://www.caiguoqiang.com/shell.php?sid=6&pid=33. accessed 22.11.2011. the text specifies the artwork as: “108 life-sized sculptures created on site by long xu li and nine guest artisan sculptors, 60 tons of clay, wire and wood armature, and other props and tools for sculpture, four spinning night lamps, facsimiles photocopies of documents and photographs related to rent collection courtyard (dated 1965).” for a detailed contextualization of this work, see britta erickson, “an ‘other’ point of view: cai guoqiang takes ‘the rent collection courtyard’ from cultural revolution model sculpture to winner of the 48th venice biennale international award,” chinese-art.com 2, no. 1 (1999): http://www.chinese-art.com/contemporary/volume2issue4/other/other2.htm. accessed 12.12.2011. the ensuing, heated chinese debate on cai’s “copy-right infringement” is mentioned in the catalog: esther schlicht and max hollein, eds., art for the millions. 100 sculptures from the mao (frankfurt/münchen: schirn kunsthalle/hirmer, 2009), 149–196.  this catalog includes an essay by christof büttner on the “transformations of a work of art. ‘rent collection courtyard,’ 1965–2009,” 20–48, that explores the historical background of the original work, on which cai’s restaging is based, and an essay by martina köppel-yang reflecting on cai’s references, “venice’s rent collection courtyard. commentaries on and projections of a utopia,” 162–169. [146] see two illustrations on the artist’s homepage: http://www.caiguoqiang.com/shell.php?sid=6&pid=33. accessed 12.12.2011. see also brianne cohen, “cai guo-qiang’s explosion events as performances of planetarity?,” in koch et al., negotiating difference (forthcoming, 2012). [147] salome schnetz, ed., ai weiwei: fairytale. a reader. (new york: jrp/ringier, 2011). among others, the volume offers texts by roger m. buergel (the curator of documenta 12) and ai weiwei himself. [148] juliet bingham, ed., ai wewei. sunflower seeds (london: tate publishing, 2010). [149] see for example the conscious ambivalence with which some critics received ai weiwei’s “sunflower seeds”: kristina kleutghen, “editor’s review: ai weiwei 艾未未, sunflower seeds (2010). unilever installation, turbine hall, tate modern, 12 october 2010–2 may 2011,” modern art asia, no. 5 (november 2010): 1–3, http://modernartasia.com/kleutghen%20ai%20weiwei.pdf, accessed 12.12.2011; and paul gladston, “at an oblique and markedly penumbral remove: a critical review of ai weiwei’s installation ‘sunflower seeds’ at tate modern turbine hall,” randian, december 24, 2010: http://www.randian-online.com/en/reviews/reviews-overview/sunflower-seeds-gladston.html. accessed 12.12.2011. [150] see the exhibition: the global contemporary. art worlds after 1989 (september 17, 2011–february 5, 2012), http://www.global-contemporary.de/en, accessed november 22, 2011, curated by peter weibel and andrea buddensieg at the museum of the school of new media (zkm) karlsruhe, germany;  and related publications of the consulting research project “global art and the museum,” which has published, among other texts, hans belting and andrea buddensieg, eds., the global art world. audiences, markets, and museums (ostfildern-ruit: hatje cantz verlag, 2009). [151] gerald emmanuel stearn, mcluhan hot & cool (penguin books, 1968), 137, 279, 280, and 314. in the 1960s, mcluhan detailed his vision of the “global village”–the world in the post-literate electronic age–with remarkable prescience, 280: “the more you create village conditions, the more discontinuity and division and diversity. the global village absolutely insures maximal disagreement on all points. it never occurred to me that uniformity and tranquility were the properties of the global village […]. the tribal-global village is far more divisive–full of fighting–than any nationalism ever was. village is fission, not fusion, in depth. people leave small towns to avoid involvement […]. the village is not the place to find ideal peace and harmony. exact opposite. nationalism came out of print and provided an extraordinary relief from global village conditions. i don’t approve of the global village. i say we live in it.” editor’s note | transcultural studies editor’s note on july 14, 2012, heidelberg’s cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows” received the good news that its funding was extended for another five years. that the focus for this second round will be broader becomes apparent in the cluster’s new subtitle “the dynamics of transculturality,” which shows that it intends to test the bold hypothesis that “transcultural interaction is the lifeline of all culture.” if proven, this would herald a dramatic shift in the basic approach to the study of culture and necessitate developing the appropriate methodologies, reorganizing institutional structures, and procuring the resources needed for this type of research. our journal will continue its efforts to serve as a critical platform where scholars from all over the world—including, of course, the heidelberg’s cluster, which itself is an enterprise where scholars from many countries work—can address the daunting challenges confronting transcultural research. among these challenges is the management of a journal such as transcultural studies. it is not a venue that adds another voice to a chorus of outlets in an established academic field. instead, the journal sets out to facilitate the exploration of a still evolving approach that focuses on the interaction between, rather than the action within, national, language, or media borders. hence, the editorial work  goes beyond checking the general fit of a submission for the journal, securing an appropriate peer-review, and then gently (or not so gently) prodding the author to deliver on time for the next issue. in a new approach with vast applicability, as is the case with transcultural studies, finding qualified and willing reviewers is a difficult task, and the editors themselves often take on the role of intellectual sparring partners to help authors bring out the full potential of their arguments. to broaden the scholarly base on which this editorial work must needs rest, the cluster’s steering committee has asked monica juneja to step in as co-editor. she is a professor of global art history, and readers will be familiar with her work from earlier issues where she introduced and jointly edited the series on multi-centred modernisms. she has been a mainstay of support in building this journal, which her new role as co-editor now formally reflects. at the same time, her joining the principal editorship is also intended to signal the importance thattranscultural studies attaches to media other than text. we are also happy to welcome antje fluechter as a new member of our editorial board. she is a historian whose work focuses on concepts of state and administration. her research investigates the way reports about state organization in india and china have enriched the arsenal of reform ideas in northern europe since the opening of the sea routes. despite being in the midst of finalizing her habilitation thesis, she continuously supported the journal’s editorial work and we are confident that she will be able to also attract further contributions from scholars with a european focus. one member of the editorial board, harald fuess, decided to shift his attention to the management of the cluster’s ma and doctoral program. we thank him for his contributions. with its three articles and enhanced podcast, the new issue continues our exploration of different formats to present transcultural research. the speaker in the podcast is neil macgregor, the director of the british museum. his widely and enthusiastically reviewed book a history of the world in 100 objects, which was part of a multimedia project by accompanying a bbc tv series of 100 installments, has substantiated the “history” in the title by tracing the way certain objects have travelled into different contexts, or how they absorbed features from objects that came from elsewhere. his opening talk at the cluster’s annual conference in  october 2012, on which this podcast is based, probes two key questions of transcultural research: what happened to an object as a carrier of meaning once it was inserted into a different, unfamiliar context, and how are migrating objects from elsewhere reinvented and claimed  as “authentic” markers of the national and cultural identity in their new homes. the essays by huang xuelei and petra thiel, which comprise the second and last part of the themed section “the transcultural travels of trends,” also take on the question of what happens to objects that are removed from their erstwhile cultural context.  however, both authors focus less on the stark differences between meaning that cultural features and goods acquire on their trajectories, but on transculturally shared sensibilities and markets that form around, for example, migrating plot lines of sentimental stories (huang), or challenging character features of fictional child protagonists (thiel). both studies highlight the role of local agency (or the lack of it) in this process, which involves a certain adjustment to local conditions, yet we are reminded of the fact that the modern world has developed a much larger homogeneity in tastes and preferences among literate urbanites, which in turn allows for a spectacular increase in the migration of cultural items as well as their spread through the variety of modern media. the studies thus open the door to the wider question about the historicity of transcultural interaction as well as the change in the dynamics of this interaction in accordance with changing historical circumstances. both studies also present substantial empirical evidence to caution against a reductionist approach, wherein transcultural interaction is treated as a dependent variable of power relations (and their asymmetries). instead, instances of refusal or partial appropriation of travelling cultural goods, which follow a trajectory independent of overarching structures of power, urge us to find explanatory arguments that account for often less predictable modes of reception within new local contexts. why should a swedish children’s book about pippi longstocking, which many swedish publis hers had declined to publish because they considered it to be too risky, embark on a world career, while a story about the monkey king sun wukong from the wonderful chinese novel journey to the west, which was distributed as part of a very official and richly funded prc government effort to reach foreign audiences with cultural products from china, never made it outside of china? why should an english sentimental novel as well as another english novel that copied its plot line be widely translated and resurface as very successful film scripts, one for a hollywood producer, the other for a chinese producer? why would the latter’s film then trigger another, very popular chinese film written by a woman of polish origin, who had married a chinese man in paris. she also wrote a novel along the same plot line, but why would her prose version be consequently used in canton for a chinese film with the great star ruan lingyu in the female lead-role? the documentation and analysis offered by these studies challenge us to find adequate ways of theorizing agency within transcultural encounters. subrata mitra explores the dynamics of the interaction between post-colonial national governments with a strong commitment to maintain the unity of the “national” realm inherited from the colonial power, and sub-national movements who vie for greater autonomy or even independence and mobilize resentments by regional groups against their marginalization. a traditional political science approach might describe the challenge of sub-national movements in terms of efforts by statusand benefit-seeking elites to capitalize on a subliminal resentment against preferred treatment of other groups and regions by the central government and then develop a model delineating the stages of the conflict. the author refines this model by adding history and culture as relevant resources for sub-national mobilization, and presenting the claims to secular modernity as one used primarily by the central government. he points out that both these tactics have seen many uses in india and elsewhere and all participants in the described conflict are aware of this fact. this directs us to further issues that merit investigation: what was the process in which these resources of legitimacy gained international standing and acceptance; what are their sources of authority; what were the channels (if any) through which both sides became familiar with this resource; what use did they make of them in their public presentation, and how did their strategies interact with other instances where these resources had been used in similar political contestations? different academic disciplines will open their own paths to engage with the challenge of transculturality. for any field focused on conflict and its management, an understanding of transculturality as unstructured interaction must be an idealistic anathema that fails to account for the very real presence of political confrontations, which is often undergirded by cultural claims. the explicit uneasiness of subrata mitra’s paper with such an understanding shows how much work has yet to be done before a broader and sustainable understanding of transculturality is reached. rudolf g. wagner 2016-07-21_ejournal_01-2016.indd 2016.1 editorial note diamantis panagiotopoulos and rudolf wagner .04 articles susanne marten-finnis art as refuge: jewish publishers as cultural brokers in early 1920s russian berlin .09 themed section: global encounters, local places: connected histories of darjeeling, kalimpong, and the himalayas tina harris, amy holmes-tagchungdarpa, jayeeta sharma, and marcus viehbeck global encounters, local places: connected histories of darjeeling, kalimpong, and the himalayas—an introduction .43 jayeeta sharma a space that has been laboured on: mobile lives and transcultural circulation around darjeeling and the eastern himalayas .54 emma martin translating tibet in the borderlands: networks, dictionaries, and knowledge production in himalayan hill stations .86 kalzang dorjee bhutia local agency in global movements: negotiating forms of buddhist cosmopolitanism in the young men’s buddhist associations of darjeeling and kalimpong .121 samuel thévoz on the threshold of the “land of marvels:” alexandra david-neel in sikkim and the making of global buddhism .149 2 contributors transcultural studies, no 1, 2016 editors: monica juneja, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg joachim kurtz, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg rudolf g. wagner, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg managing editor: andrea hacker editorial board: christiane brosius, antje fluechter, madeleine herren, birgit kellner, axel michaels, barbara mittler, diamantis panagiotopoulos, vladimir tikhonov, and roland wenzlhuemer. transcultural studies is edited at the heidelberg center for transcultural studies (hcts) and published by heidelberg university publishing. the journal is freely available at http://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/ (open access). issn: 2191-6411 contributors to this issue: susanne marten-finnis received her phd in applied linguistics from the university of tübingen and is currently professor of applied linguistics at the university of portsmouth, united kingdom. her latest book, der feuervogel als kunstzeitschrift: žar ptica; russische bildwelten in berlin 1921–26, follows the rise of the art journal zhar ptitsa (the firebird) in post-1917 berlin. tina harris is an assistant professor of anthropology at the university of amsterdam. her book, geographical diversions: tibetan trade, global transactions, was published in 2013 by the university of georgia press. her research interests include borderland studies, critical human geography, infrastructure, and material culture. amy holmes-tagchungdarpa is an assistant professor of religious studies at grinnell college in iowa, the united states. she is the author of the social life of tibetan biography: textuality, community, and authority in the lineage of tokden shakya shri (lanham: lexington, 2014). 3transcultural studies 2016.1 jayeeta sharma is an associate professor of history at the university of toronto. she is the author of empire’s garden: assam and the making of india (durham: duke university press, 2011). she is on the editorial board of global food history and the editorial collective of radical history review, and is editor of the empires in perspective book series at routledge. she is the founder of the collaborative eastern himalayan research network, whose activities include the project sherpa digital archive and a digital darjeeling portal. markus viehbeck is an assistant professor of buddhist studies at the university of heidelberg (germany). as part of the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context,” he investigates tibet’s relations with other cultural contexts, with a particular focus on the eastern himalayas. he is the author of polemics in indo-tibetan scholasticism: a late 19th-century debate between 'ju mi pham and dpa' ris rab gsal, wiener studien zur tibetologie und buddhismuskunde 86 (wien: arbeitskreis für tibetische und buddhistische studien, 2014). emma martin is lecturer in museology at the university of manchester and head of ethnology at the national museums in liverpool, uk. she received her doctorate from the school of oriental and african studies, university of london in 2014 for her thesis “charles bell’s collection of ‘curios:’ negotiating tibetan material culture on the anglo-tibetan borderlands, 1900–1945.” kalzang dorjee bhutia is currently a lecturer in the department of religious studies at grinnell college. he received his phd in buddhist studies from the university of delhi, and his current book project focuses on the modern history of buddhism in sikkim in a global context. samuel thévoz received a ph.d. in literature from the university of lausanne and leads a three-year stand-alone project as an advanced researcher supported by the swiss national science foundation. he is the author of un horizon infini: explorateurs et voyageurs français au tibet, 1846–1912 (paris: university press of paris-sorbonne, 2010). he recently edited marie de ujfalvy-bourdon, voyage d’une parisienne dans l’himalaya, paris: transboréal, 2014. representing the republic of korea in europe: the sarangbang displays in copenhagen and london park ji young mise en exposition as a knowledge communication device displays depicting traditional korean houses or room interiors are a frequent occurrence in museums possessing korean art and culture exhibits. among other parts of the korean house, this article will focus on one particular form of such installations by treating two sarangbang 사랑방, 舍廊房 (“male scholars’ study” is the most common english translation) displays. the first is in the korean ethnographic collection of the national museum of denmark, built in 1966; the other is in the korea gallery at the british museum, constructed in 2000. co-initiated by and built with the support of the government of the republic of korea (south korea), these sarangbang were constructed by a national artisan renowned for the preservation and repair of traditional korean houses, shin young-hoon 신영훈 (1935–). for the installations, he built a real house in what is called the traditional korean style, han-ok 한옥, 韓屋, which has a tiled roof, wooden pillars, papered windows with wooden muntins, and a stone foundation. within this architectural setting, interior rooms were built around korean artifacts, such as an elaborate mattress, paintings and calligraphies, a folding screen, a writing desk, a stationery chest, lamps, the four treasures of the study (paper, ink stick, ink stone, and brush), a ceramic pencil case, and other objects. these two traditional korean houses, staged with korean objects from the chosŏn period, are not particularly unfamiliar items in terms of museum exhibition. the use of architectural elements as museum objects for displaying regional cultural traditions has a long history dating back to the 1900 paris exposition, where houses were exhibited inside and outside of pavilions or decorated with architectural motifs. in the early twentieth century, some european and american art museums installed period rooms, which provided a historical and architectural context for 172 representing the republic of korea in europe displaying the museum’s collection.1 this function has been extended by transporting or building a whole house within the exhibition halls of museums, mainly in archaeological, ethnological, and encyclopedic museums with the theme of a country’s culture. with its imposing dimensions and meticulous detail, the exterior and interior of a house implanted within a museum exhibition play a role in creating atmosphere or contextualizing works of art or artifacts from a particular period. as a communication device, it is charged with mediating relevant historical knowledge via a three-dimensional visualization. in fact, our two cases of sarangbang installed in european museums were provided by korea as objects imbued with korean people’s own traditional cultural references. these houses were created in situ by a contemporary master artisan, albeit in traditional style, with the placement of furniture and props suggested by museum curators. therefore, they are neither transpositions nor exact copies of any particular historical building from korea that might show the past as it was; rather, they are each an assemblage of certain techniques, ideas, and knowledge related to present-day scholarship on korean art and culture.2 an examination of the communication dynamics of these sarangbang, employed to deliver knowledge about korean art and culture to european visitors, may help in unpacking how museum displays attempt to construct and communicate a holistic knowledge of one society to another.3 the museum exhibition is a crucial site for popularizing the knowledge that is simultaneously produced and appropriated by the natural and social sciences, and the humanities. in terms of its communicational scope, the museum exhibition shares the attributes of media insofar as it not only shows something, but also informs ways of seeing. in short, the exhibition is a semiotic event capable of producing both meaning and 1 to learn more about the national pavilions at international expositions, see edward n. kaufman, “the architectural museum from world’s fair to restoration village,” assemblage 9 (june 1989): 21–39. for the period room, see neil harris, “period rooms and the american art museum,” winterthur portfolio 46, no. 2/3 (summer/autumn 2012): 117–138. 2 assemblage here refers to a deleuzian concept, agencement: “what is an assemblage? it is a multiplicity which is made up of many heterogeneous terms and which establishes liaisons, relations between them, across ages, sexes and reigns – different natures.” see gilles deleuze and claire parnet, dialogues ii, trans. hugh thompson and barbara habberjam (new york: columbia university press, 2002), 69. 3 in this paper, following james clifford, the terms “art” and “culture” are employed to encompass two major classificatory categories that were imposed on objects of non-western origin collected by and translocated to western museum. see james clifford, “on collecting art and culture,” in the predicament of culture: twentieth-century ethnography, literature, and art (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1988), 215–251. 173the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) framework.4 the mise en exposition can be treated as a communication device for constructing and diffusing scientific knowledge about the social meaning of artifacts and their affiliated culture—not only about where an object was made and used, but also where it is collected and exhibited.5 furthermore, by adopting a semiotic perspective similar to that of luisa passerini, who treats history as a communicative process and conceives history dually, as both the events that took place in the past and the cognition of what occurred, post-factum,6 the museum exhibition can also be associated with practices of writing historiography. this idea brings to the fore the literary structure of historiography and the literary dimension of the social experience.7 again, the objects exhibited in a museum are not only represented in the world they were made for, but also the world in which they have been semiotized. taking this as our baseline, our consideration of the sarangbang displays in european museums begins with the original meaning of sarangbang, as part of living space, on the korean peninsula from the late fourteenth to the late nineteenth century, then extends to current perspectives on the sarangbang and its position in the republic of korea. the observation and analysis of the materialized knowledge with different signs present in the sarangbang reconstructions and the mode of meaning construction manifest in the museum context may also be considered in light of the 4 in the expo média movement (1982–1987) in france, an approach to the exhibition as a specific medium was developed, with the exhibition as a device producing meaning for the public. this approach was defined according to the four dimensions featuring a medium: 1) the institution that produces an exhibition, 2) how it is produced and constructed, 3) to whom it is addressed, and 4) the type of effects it may have on the audience. for more details, see jean davallon and émilie flon, “le média exposition,” culture et musées, hors-série (2013): 19–45. 5 the expression, “scientific knowledge” is usually linked to the natural sciences. the development of scientific methods from the seventeenth century onwards contributed to our acquiring a certain knowledge relating to the physical world and its phenomena. at the same time, this method functions as a criterion determining the results of studying certain disciplines as scientific knowledge. to be scientific, a method of investigation must be based on observable and measurable evidence, subject to the specific principles of reasoning and experimentation. a scientific approach consists of collecting data through observation and experimentation, then by formulating and testing hypotheses. this scientific approach, first applied to the natural sciences, conceives nature as an object of study, with physics and chemistry. after the introduction of the positivist tendency, the other disciplines, or soft sciences, such as history, literature, sociology, which take humanity and society as their object of study, have incorporated these criteria in order to validate the relevance of their results. see lydia patton, “methodology of the sciences,” in the oxford handbook of german philosophy in the nineteenth century, ed. michael n. forster and kristin gjesdal (oxford: oxford university press, 2015), 594–606. 6 luisa passerini, “history and semiotics,” historein 1 (1999): 13. 7 keith moxey, “semiotics and the social history of art,” new literary history 22, no. 4 (autumn 1991): 985–999. 174 representing the republic of korea in europe relation between museum and visitor, who co-construct signification in situ.8 in terms of knowledge communication, the display needs to be viewed as an experience by visitors. when it comes to analyzing the display itself, there are, as enumerated by stephanie moser, not only the physical elements of the display to take into account, but also the other details of the surroundings in which the object is presented, such as architecture, location, layout, color, and so on. all of these “really matter when it comes to creating a system of meaning relating to the subject being represented.”9 through a detailed examination of the display, i seek to use the example of sarangbang in european museums to demonstrate how their display produces a body of knowledge related to korea while negotiating different cultural values and existing hierarchies, such as those between european and extra-european societies, as well as between works of fine art and ethnographic artifacts. the sarangbang and its ascent to cultural heritage it is necessary to first introduce the sarangbang in its original context of the chosŏn era, a period that lasted roughly from the late fourteenth to the early twentieth century. the sarangbang, conventionally called the “scholar’s study” in english, is actually a multifunctional room in the men’s quarters of an upper-class (yangban 양반, 兩班) house. this is the place where the head of the upper-class family, who directed not only his family, but also played an important role in traditional korean society, spent much of his time. it can be therefore perceived as a symbol of the order and discriminatory authorities of this period: a very strict hierarchy between men and women, free and slave men, old and young. legally, the chosŏn’s social class system had only two categories of people, the yang’in 양인, 良人 (commoners) and the chŏn’in 천인, 賤人 (base persons). however, people were socially divided into four different classes: yangban 양반, 兩班 (scholarly officials), who constituted the superior and dominant class; the chung’in 중인, 中人 (junior officials), who represented the middle class; the yang’in 양인, 良人 (peasants, tradesmen and workmen), who made up the common people; finally, chŏn’in 천인, 賤人 (serfs, butchers, acrobats, shamans, etc.), who were considered outcasts. as yangban status was determined not only by lineage, an aspiring yangban needed to justify his status according to several specific criteria. 8 for this analysis, i mainly observed the current displays and published written sources of the sarangbang installation that can be accessed by visitors. i also interviewed several people who have engaged in the projects to gain an understanding of the situation. i would like to express my gratitude to everyone who generously accepted my request to give an interview. 9 stephanie moser, “the devil is in the detail: museum displays and the creation of knowledge,” museum anthropology 33, no. 1 (spring 2010): 22–32. 175the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) for example, 1. at least one of his ancestors had to have been invited to a competition of high officials or be a renowned scholar, and his genealogy had to clearly establish this filiation. 2. from generation to generation, the lineage had to have resided in the same village. 3. the lifestyle of yangban included obligations such as: practicing ancestor worship and hospitality, and following and preserving an academic and moral training. 4. he had to marry a wife who was part of a family that also met the three prior requirements.10 this space was generally used as a study, living room, bedroom, and guest room, but also served as a place where all the personal and social activities of a male head of household took place.11 this was made possible by its flexible architectural features. its doors and windows could be opened or closed to modify the space as required by the occasion or the vicissitudes of climate. the traditional heating system under the floor, ondol, meant that daily activities took place sitting on the floor and necessarily influenced the layout; likewise, the size of the space and the furniture remained quite modest. its interior style was also influenced by the neo-confucian ideal advocating honor and sobriety in everything.12 in the early twentieth century, as chosŏn society was swept by a wave of “modernization” (or “westernization”), the space and culture of the sarangbang gradually disappeared. in south korea today, there exist only about fifty upper-class houses from the chosŏn period.13 10 miyajima hiroshi 미야지마 히로시, 宮嶋博史, miyajima hirosi ŭi yangban: uri ka mollattŏn yangban ŭi silch’e rŭl ch’ajasŏ 미야지마 히로시 의 양반: 우리 가 몰랐던 양반 의 실체 를 찾아 서 [miyajima hiroshi’s yangban: in search of yangban we didn’t know about] (seoul: nŏmŏbooks, 2014), 32–33. 11 for a discussion of further spatial and social features of sarangbang, see yun ir-i 윤일이, han’guk ŭi sarangch’ae: chosŏn sidae sangnyu chut’aek sarangch’ae ŭi kongganjŏk t’ŭksŏng e kwanhan yŏn’gu 한국의 사랑채: 조선시대 상류주택 사랑채의 공간적 특성에 관한 연구 [sarangch’ae of korea: research for spatial characteristics of sarangch’ae, upper-class house of chosŏn period] (busan: sanjini, 2010), 12–39. 12 for the history of the upper-class house during the period of rule by the chosŏn dynasty, see choe sang-hŏn 최상헌, chosŏn sangnyu chut’aek ŭi naebu konggan kwa kagu 조선 상류 주택의 내 부 공간과 가구 [the interior and furniture of the upper-class house in the period of chosŏn], (seoul: ihwa yŏja taehakkyo ch’ulp’anbu, 2006). 13 choe sang-hŏn, chosŏn sangnyu chut’aek ŭi naebu konggan kwa kagu, 25. 176 representing the republic of korea in europe however, the space and the culture of the sarangbang returned to korean society in another form. in the 1960s and 1970s, with the emergence of state-led policy on cultural properties, the culture of the chosŏn era was assigned the status of korea’s perpetual traditional culture.14 the life of yangban, who had lost their high status and the attendant respect following modernization in the twentieth century, came to symbolize korean society. their lifestyle is now considered to be the korean tradition, and most koreans imagine their ancestors as yangban class, even though a third of the chosŏn period population during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries was composed of nobi 노비, 奴婢 (slaves).15 it was near the end of the twentieth century, when confucian tradition seemed to wane in everyday life, that many families attempted to secure a symbolic title as yangban. in korea, the abolition of castes in 1894 meant that all koreans could become yangban. therefore, during the chosŏn period and even into the twentieth century, certain people tried to become yangban. the number of yangban increased constantly through the end of the chosŏn period. until the abolition of social discrimination took place in 1894, the yangban class, which accounted for about seven percent of the population at the end of the seventeenth century, increased to such an extent that it constituted about half of the total population in the late nineteenth century. the number of recognized yangban families is still growing today.16 thus, the particular history of the class of yangban and their lifestyle in the period of chosŏn became the general history of all koreans. for present-day koreans, yangban are regarded as the symbolic ancestors of every korean today, representing the core values of korean society and conveying a somewhat imaginary vision of korea to the world in the name of korean tradition. as the socio-economic development of south korea and the east asia area more broadly has been attributed since the 1980s to its confucian culture, the ruling ideology of yangban, confucianism, once rejected by korean society in criticism of the regime that led to 14 for this tradition-making in the republic of korea, see im hyung-taek 임형택 et al., chŏnt’ong: kŭndae ka mandŭrŏnaen tto hana ŭi kwŏllyŏk 전통: 근대가 만들어낸 또 하나의 권력 [tradition: another power made by modern] (seoul: inmul kwa sasangsa, 2010). 15 due to scant surviving historical records of population during the chosŏn period, the exact number of nobi is not known. generally, scholars estimated pro tanto. see james b. palais, confucian statecraft and korean institutions: yu hyŏngwŏn and the late chosŏn dynasty (seattle: university of washington press, 1996), 208–270. 16 for further information on the history of becoming yangban, see chung jae-young 정재영, “20 segi huban yangban ŭi sŏngkyŏk pyŏnhwa wa jaesil ŭi kŏllip 20세기 후반 양반의 성격 변화 와 제실의 건립 [changes in the nature of yangban and the establishment of ancestral shrines in the late twentieth century: focused on the case of suya-ri village of cheongdo county in gyeongbuk province],” jibangsa wa jibangmunhwa 지방사와 지방문화 [journal of local history and culture] 17, no. 1 (2014): 103–137. 177the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) japan’s annexation of korea, has solidified its position as the bulwark of korea’s intangible cultural heritage. the confucian tradition in south korea also distinguishes the country from its neighboring rivals such as north korea (dprk) and the people’s republic of china (prc), whose communist regimes have denounced confucianism as a feudal order, or japan, which has directed foreign attention to its buddhist culture. because of its incorporation into south korean national identity, confucianism is considered worthy of study, preservation, reintegration in the present, and transmission to future generations. as an ideology, confucianism has neither form nor substance, and requires manifestations in one or more objects that recall the past and visibly convey its key message to people today. among other traditional artifacts or architectures, the sarangbang, the portion of the upper-class house from the chosŏn period where the male head resided, has been selected and re-materialized to facilitate the conservation, restoration, and transmission of traditional korean culture. furthermore, its interior decor is intended to realistically reproduce the room used by a sŏnbi 선비 (confucian scholar), potentially adding further meanings to this mise en exposition. the sarangbang display makes sense as a medium that evokes national and ethnic feelings and a concrete representation of an “imagined community.”17 museums devoted to korean culture, which have appeared both in and outside the country since the 1960s, often stage a sarangbang, similar to those in our two cases.18 the sarangbang reconstruction enables the individual objects of the past to evoke a place, giving the impression that this room was brought in its entirety from a single moment in time. from a semiotic perspective, the sarangbang in a museum display may be considered as a sign that designates an object and is designated for interpretation by a visitor. taking peirce’s typologies of sign as icon, index, and symbol, the different objects and interpretations of the sarangbang in a museum may be surmised.19 firstly, as an icon, the sarangbang is an architectural reproduction of part of a traditional korean house. in the exhibition space, it provides a spectacular contextual scene in relation to 17 see benedict r. anderson, imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism, 2nd ed. (london: verso, 1991). for the korean case, see shin gi-wook 신기욱, han’guk minjokchuŭi ŭi kyebo wa chŏngch’i 한국 민족주의의 계보와 정치 [ethnic nationalism in korea: genealogy] (p’aju: ch’angbi, 2009). 18 the numerous museums that have had or have sarangbang displays cannot be all listed in this paper. some examples would be the national museum of korea and national folk museum in seoul, both in south korea, the british museum in london, the national museum of natural history in washington, dc, and the recently opened national ethnographic museum in warsaw. 19 charles s. peirce, “logic as semiotics,” philosophical writings of peirce ed. justus buchler (new york: dover publications, 1955), 98–119. 178 representing the republic of korea in europe the exhibited artifacts surrounding the visitor. also, construction processes and rigorous conformism are considered essential. we cannot make an icon for an unknown object, because it must illustrate cognitive arrangements. the icon includes a reproduction action.20 secondly, considering the sarangbang as index, the exterior and interior of this korean house are meant to indicate the past material and intellectual lives of sŏnbi in chosŏn korea. the sarangbang is portrayed as a scientific object, related to ethnographic and art historical fact, as it suggests a causal link between past lives and its material traces. thirdly, as a symbol according to convention, the sarangbang refers to traditional korean culture.21 the semiosis of this medium—the exhibition of the sarangbang—will be captured by understanding the denotation of a sign, the received meaning, and the way of communication. the sarangbang is placed in a museum in order that its signifier, as part of a traditional korean house, conveys a signified related to the culture of korea. however, its construction of meaning in the museum gallery may be altered if we take into account the “model visitor”: its signification also varies according to who visits this gallery; that is to say, the meaning-making dynamics may shift depending on the communication situation the sarangbang occupies.22 paek’aksanbang, the sarangbang in the national museum of denmark in 1966, the korean government sent shin young-hoon, the national artisan for traditional house preservation and repair, to copenhagen with thirteen tons of wood to build a korean house inside the national museum of denmark.23 a sarangbang, modeled after the one located in the yeongyeongdang complex 연경당, 演慶堂 in the secret garden (biwon 비원, 秘院) of changdeokgung palace 창덕궁, 昌德宮, was designed by yi gwang-gyu 이광규 (1918–1985), a master of traditional wooden architecture. 20 umberto eco, le signe : histoire et analyse d’un concept, trans. jean-marie klinkenberg (bruxelles: labor, 1988), 91. 21 this semiotic perspective of sarangbang display is further discussed in park ji young, “musée national d’art coréen, un dispositif de transmission de valeurs et de connaissances des arts coréens : analyse muséologique de la mise en exposition de sarangbang aux musées nationaux en république de corée” (phd diss., université d’avignon et des pays de vaucluse, université du québec à montréal, ecole du louvre, 2017), https://archipel.uqam.ca/11674. 22 this expression “model visitor” is borrowed from umberto eco’s “model reader.” see umberto eco, “introduction: the role of the reader,” in the role of the reader: explorations in the semiotics of texts (bloomington: indiana university press, 1979), 7–11. the “model visitor” is a model of the potential visitor presupposed by exhibition producers. 23 “han’gukkwan kaekwan 한국관 개관 [korea gallery reopening],” joongang ilbo 중앙일보 (october 13, 1966): 7. https://archipel.uqam.ca/11674 179the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) with his blueprints in hand, shin spent an entire month building the house by himself in the exhibition gallery of the national museum of denmark. the korean government presented the korean house in the museum as part of a unesco project, “relocating east and west” (1957–1966).24 as denmark had taken part in the korean war (1950–1953) by sending a hospital ship, the jutlandia, to busan in 1951 as a member of the united nations, this project was planned as a diplomatic exchange.25 according to shin’s recollections, there were very few korean things on display, and his traditional korean costume, which was prepared for the opening ceremony, still remains as an object on view to the public.26 as the korean government thought the sarangbang had been well received, two years later yi and shin were sent to mexico city for eight months to set up a korean pavilion in a park.27 the “korean house” is still on view in gallery no. 270 of the national museum of denmark. it is a life-size replica measuring four meters in height and six meters in width. it is composed of two interconnected kan 칸 (a square space between pillars). an open room and parquet floor with balustrade are attached to one side of the gallery. the rectangular room has a tiled roof. one door and one window are open, while two other windows on the wall are closed. on the left part of the house, between the roof and the window, is a signboard that reads “paek’aksanbang 백악산방” in korean (fig. 1).28 there are two large stones under the balcony. the rooms are staged inside with furniture and props. the left part of this room is meant to be a study, with a bookcase and a reading desk. a mattress and pillows are arranged in a sitting position on the floor. there are also several sitting cushions set out for guests, while calligraphies hang on the wall. on the right side of the room, wooden furniture, lamps, books, ceramics, 24 seo wansu and oh wonsŏp, “segye e simnŭn ‘han’guk ŭi ŏl’ 세계에 심는 한국의 얼 [spirit of korea in the world],” joong ang ilbo 중앙일보 (january 14, 1967): 6. 25 yi chŏng 이청, “inmulyŏngu’ shin young-hun munhwajae jŏnmunwiwon 申榮勳 문화재 전 문위원 [‘prospography’: shin young-hun, member of the cultural property expert committee],” wŏlgan chosŏn 월간조선 [monthly chosun], april 1999, accessed august 15, 2018, http://monthly. chosun.com//client/news/viw.asp?ctcd=&nnewsnumb=199904100027. 26 shin young-hoon 신영훈, “moksu ŭi hanŏk iyagi:moksu ŭi london tongshin 4 목수의 한옥이야기: 木壽의 런던통신 4 [korean house story of a carpenter: moksu’s correspondence from london 4],” hanok munhwawon 한옥문화원 [hanok cultural center], july 19, 2000, accessed august 15, 2018, http://hanok.org/index.php?_filter=search&mid=carpenter&search_keyword=%eb%8d%b4%eb%a7%88%ed%81%ac&search_target=title_content&document_ srl=13337. 27 yi chŏng, “‘inmulyŏngu’ shin young-hun munhwajae jŏnmunwiwon.” 28 it can be translated literally as “room of white big mountain.” paek’aksan also refers pukhansan 북한산 in seoul. http://monthly.chosun.com/client/news/viw.asp?ctcd=&nnewsnumb=199904100027 http://monthly.chosun.com/client/news/viw.asp?ctcd=&nnewsnumb=199904100027 http://hanok.org/index.php?_filter=search&mid=carpenter&search_keyword=%eb%8d%b4%eb%a7%88%ed%81%ac&search_target=title_content&document_srl=13337. http://hanok.org/index.php?_filter=search&mid=carpenter&search_keyword=%eb%8d%b4%eb%a7%88%ed%81%ac&search_target=title_content&document_srl=13337. http://hanok.org/index.php?_filter=search&mid=carpenter&search_keyword=%eb%8d%b4%eb%a7%88%ed%81%ac&search_target=title_content&document_srl=13337. 180 representing the republic of korea in europe and a charcoal brazier are displayed (fig. 2). it is difficult to say which part of the day this scene is meant to show. because of the guardrail in front of the house, it is not easy to take in the interior of the room. the details of the exhibited objects are obtained by using the gallery’s multimedia panel. this panel provides information on the name, image, production date, and provenance of each object. most of these objects were donated at around the same time as the building was erected, while others, such as the ceramics and some wooden furniture, are from the museum’s original korean collection, mostly from dr. kaj kalbak’s donation of 1963. as the object labels in this room exist only in digital form, visitors are unable to find a readily available explanation of this house for themselves within the exhibition space. there is no provision of information about the building that might help explain the meaning of this space. the date of construction, the identity of those who constructed it, the historical period from which the house originates, or who might have lived in the house all go unmentioned. however, the museum website provides some information on the house (although only in danish), noting that “the most spectacular ‘object’ in the korean collection is a copy of a traditional sarangbang or the learned man’s study.”29 as mentioned above, the meaning of the displayed object is conveyed by the object itself or via digital labels. the nature of the museum in which it is installed and the sequence of neighboring exhibition galleries, as well as the objects displayed around it co-construct its meaning. the sarangbang is in the ethnographic treasure gallery of the national museum of denmark. the museum covers danish history, including its colonies, classical, and near eastern archaeology. in each area, there are many stacks of typical ethnographic artifacts collected by european and american collectors in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, such as clothing, transport items, tools, pottery, and relics from all over the world: north, south, and central america, africa, asia, oceania, and the arctic. rearranged in 1998, the korea gallery is located between a gallery with east asian ceramics, which is next to the japan gallery, and the china gallery. this reflects korea’s geopolitical position in east asia. the gallery was designed to be entered after passing through the two big galleries that display elements of the cultures of korea’s neighbors. about three hundred objects are exhibited in the korea gallery. a large showcase to the side of the house displays traditional costumes and accessories from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as artifacts related to shamanism. in the two wall racks on the right side of the house are buddhist relics and bronzes, craftworks 29 original: “den mest spektakulære ‘genstand’ i den koreanske samling er en kopi af en traditionel sarangbang eller den lærde mands studerekammer.” nationalmuseet i københavn, “asien / korea,” accessed january 20, 2019, https://natmus.dk/historisk-viden/verden/asien/korea/. https://natmus.dk/historisk-viden/verden/asien/korea 181the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) fig. 1: view of the front of the “korean house,” life-size sarangbang replica in gallery no. 270 of the national museum of denmark (author’s copyright). fig. 2: view of the internal area of the sarangbang replica in gallery no. 270 of the national museum of denmark (author’s copyright). 182 representing the republic of korea in europe from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, as well as various artifacts such as masks, fans, embroideries, and writing tools from the chosŏn period. on the left wall, there is a traditional wedding robe for a bride and a portrait of a male scholar. a cabinet in the middle exhibits a korean folk painting from the late nineteenth century. most of these objects were collected and donated by danes who stayed in korea in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with further material donated by the south korean government when the korea gallery opened in 1966. han’yŏngdang, the sarangbang in the british museum in 2000, shin young-hoon was involved in the building of his second korean house exhibit in europe, this time at the british museum. with the support of the korea foundation as part of their sponsorship of korean galleries in foreign museums, a new korean gallery with about 250 objects opened in part of the area previously occupied by the british library.30 the korea 30 a mission that seeks to promote a better understanding of korea in the international community and increase friendship and goodwill between korea and the rest of world through a variety of exchange programs. it is noteworthy that a fund from the government is sensitive to korean public opinion. fig. 3: corner of sarangbang replica in the british museum. note structural details and the position of the two information boards (author’s copyright). 183the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) foundation spent around 150,000 euro on the construction of the sarangbang in this new gallery.31 the materials for the house—earth, roofing, stone, and wood—were prepared and prebuilt in korea, then packed and shipped to england in two containers. shin and twelve other korean artisans, including son deok-gyun 손덕균, a specialist in traditional wood furniture, designed and built the sarangbang in the british museum in fifteen days.32 no’andang 노안당, 老安堂, the pavilion of prince hŭngson 흥선대원군, 興宣大院君 built in 1864 in unhyŏngung palace 운현궁, 雲峴宮, was the model;33 however, as it was to be built inside a museum building, weight was a considerable issue, and the pavilion was not fully reconstructed, with several modifications made in relation to scale. the use of architectural elements was not new to the museum’s korean art exhibitions, but it was the first time they had built a “close to full-scale replica” of a traditional korean house in a gallery.34 located in room 67 for korea, this sarangbang is slightly bigger than the denmark installation. two rooms with floors finished with laminated paper lacquered with bean oil and a room with a wooden parquet floor make up a house with three kan, comprising an area of approximately 26.4 square meters in total (fig. 3). following the grammar of traditional korean house building, each visible wooden pillar on the tiled stylobate stands on square foundation stones. a signboard in the center of the area under the roof is painted with han’yŏngdang 韓英堂 in sinitic characters (fig. 4).35 two thirds of the wooden ceiling is covered with paper. as the building is attached to a corner of the 31 “taeyŏng pangmulgwan han’kuksil 11wŏl kaegwan 대영박물관 한국실 11월 개관 [korea gallery in british museum reopens in november],” joongang ilbo 중앙일보 (july 6, 2000): 11. 32 shin young-hoon, “moksu ŭi hanŏk iyagi: moksu ŭi london tongshin 1 목수의 한옥이 야기: 木壽의 런던통신 1 [korean house story of a carpenter: moksu’s correspondence from london 1],” hanok munhwawon 한옥문화원 [hanok cultural center], july 19, 2000, accessed august 15, 2018, http://hanok.org/index.php?_filter=search&mid=carpenter&search_keyword=%eb%8d%b4%eb%a7%88%ed%81%ac&search_target=title_content&document_ srl=13334. 33 hwang hyŏntak 황현탁, “close up. yŏngguk pangmulgwan e mun yŏn sangsŏl han’kuksil 클로즈 업. 영국박물관 에 문연 상설 한국실 [close up. permanent korea gallery open in british museum],” kukchŏngsinmun 국정신문, november 20, 2000, accessed august 18, 2018, http://www. korea.kr/archive/governmentview.do;jsessionid_korea=jhn9s8jhjqy2xxjwtpjkmprsscpwh55gss112sc65mffd1jnyyvr!618259598!832012722?newsid=148746933. there is a discrepancy in the information given on the model of this sarangbang. according to the korean government, it was modeled after the no’andang in unhyŏngung palace built in mid-1800s, and according to the british museum, its model is the sarangbang of the yeongyengdang in the changdeokgung palace. 34 sascha priewe, “atmosphere and surroundings: the use of architecture in korean exhibitions and galleries at the british museum,” in arts of korea: histories, challenges, and perspectives, ed. jason steuber and allysa b. peyton (gainesville: university of florida press, 2018), 40–65. 35 han’yŏngdang can be translated as “the korea-uk house.” http://hanok.org/index.php?_filter=search&mid=carpenter&search_keyword=%eb%8d%b4%eb%a7%88%ed%81%ac&search_target=title_content&document_srl=13334. http://hanok.org/index.php?_filter=search&mid=carpenter&search_keyword=%eb%8d%b4%eb%a7%88%ed%81%ac&search_target=title_content&document_srl=13334. http://hanok.org/index.php?_filter=search&mid=carpenter&search_keyword=%eb%8d%b4%eb%a7%88%ed%81%ac&search_target=title_content&document_srl=13334. http://www.korea.kr/archive/governmentview.do;jsessionid_korea=jhn9s8jhjqy2xxjwtpjkmprsscpwh55gss112sc65mffd1jnyyvr!618259598!832012722?newsid=148746933 http://www.korea.kr/archive/governmentview.do;jsessionid_korea=jhn9s8jhjqy2xxjwtpjkmprsscpwh55gss112sc65mffd1jnyyvr!618259598!832012722?newsid=148746933 http://www.korea.kr/archive/governmentview.do;jsessionid_korea=jhn9s8jhjqy2xxjwtpjkmprsscpwh55gss112sc65mffd1jnyyvr!618259598!832012722?newsid=148746933 184 representing the republic of korea in europe gallery, one door and three windows made of wood and paper are all open to the gallery. a wooden door and two other paper windows on the wall remain closed. like the exterior, the interior of the sarangbang (fig. 5) represents the traditional korean way of life, in particular the scholarly life of men in the chosŏn period. the national museum of korea and chung yangmo 정양모, its director at the time, initiated the arrangement and furnishing of the interior with new objects produced specifically for this room. the wooden furniture maker son deok-gyun made fourteen pieces of wooden furniture, while wooil-yo 우일요, a korean white porcelain production company, provided twenty pieces of korean ceramics for the sarangbang.36 all the furniture and props are in two rooms with papered walls and floors. the scene is set for someone reading a book. in front of a mattress, a book lies open on the reading desk with other stationery items close by. sitting cushions for guests are kept on one side. other daily necessities such as a tea set, a lamp, and a letter rack are also displayed. an ink painting decorates one wall. an understanding of the building and its furnishings is shaped by two text panels with images located on the two open sides of the house. the first panel, on the long side of the building, has two sections. along with a drawing of a mid-nineteenth century house complex, the first section, titled “a gentleman’s room,”37 provides information on houses in the chosŏn period in general and on sarangbang in particular. the second text, “furnishing the sarangbang,” explains the ways in which confucianism, as practiced in the late chosŏn period, influenced the style of home furnishing and names the nine objects on view from the position of the information panel. these are listed with index numbers on a photograph.38 the other text-image panel is installed on the short side of the building and it also has two sections. the first section, “furnishing the sarangbang,” repeats the identification of “simplicity and clarity” as features of sarangbang furniture and explains the use of paper in 36 priewe, “atmosphere and surroundings,” 56. 37 transcription of panel text “a gentleman’s room”: houses in the joseon period (1392–1910) had different areas reserved for men and women, reflecting confucian principles. this room, known as sarangbang, and its adjacent floor area were a central part of the outer quarter of a house complex. in this multi-functional space, a man studied, greeted guests, dined, and slept. the furniture and utensils adorning the room showcased his taste, knowledge, and wealth. 38 transcription of panel text “furnishing the sarangbang” (1): many aspects of everyday life were guided by confucian principles, including the style of home furnishings. furniture in the sarangbang, a male space, featured simplicity and clarity. furniture in female spaces was elaborately decorated, using metal, lacquer and patterned wood. 185the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) fig. 4: visitors observing the sarangbang replica and displays of portable material culture in room 67 for korea, at the british museum. note the signboard at the center of the area below the roof. “kyŏngjinchu yŏchogŏsa 庚辰秋 如初居士 [autumn 2000 yŏchogŏsa (pen name of kim ŭng-hyŏn)]” (author’s copyright). fig. 5: interior of the sarangbang replica in the british museum (author’s copyright). 186 representing the republic of korea in europe traditional house architecture.39 this text is also accompanied by a list of the names of the objects in the sarangbang visible from the position of the panel. the second section, “the british museum’s sarangbang,” is dedicated to the sarangbang in the british museum: its architect, date, model, and style, with credit lines and a photograph of the construction scene.40 this panel indicates only the names of the objects on display inside the house, whereas detailed information is provided on the building. from the perspective of museum object label-writing conventions, the british museum gives the sarangbang building and its furnishings the status of a museum object on view, but the props and pieces of furniture are treated as secondary. founded in 1753, the british museum is one of the largest museums in the world and is considered to be the world’s first public national museum to open.41 the collections and permanent exhibitions of this encyclopedic and universal museum are part of a vast temporal and geographical project. it has permanent exhibitions about the americas, ancient egypt, ancient greece and rome, asia, the near east, and europe. the level on which the korea gallery is located has two exhibition rooms. one is dedicated to korea, the other to chinese ceramics. the lower-level gallery that is linked to the korea gallery is china and south asia; thus, the korea gallery is surrounded by displays of chinese objects. the korea foundation gallery in the british museum, created in 2000 by the korea foundation’s donation, was refurbished at the end of 2014 with a grant of the national museum of korea, but the sarangbang continues to be exhibited as before. the wider korean exhibition is composed of various korean objects, from sixth-century pottery to contemporary artworks, and its sub-topics cover diverse areas such as korean history, a history of the museum’s korean collection, korean women’s culture, etc. around the sarangbang, objects from the chosŏn period are on display: a model korean house made in the 1900s, coinage, women’s clothing and accessories and fans. furthermore, the traditional korean-style latticework 39 transcription of panel text “furnishing the sarangbang” (2): furniture in the sarangbang, a male space, featured simplicity and clarity. furniture in female spaces was elaborately decorated. korean paper (hanji) is applied as a finishing material to a great range of surfaces in such a building: windows, doors, walls, ceiling, and floors. the paper was used to improve the lighting of the rooms and provide some privacy and protection from the elements. 40 transcription of panel text “the british museum’s sarangbang”: this sarangbang reconstruction was built by the renowned korean architect shin young-hoon and twelve korean craftsmen in july 2000. this building is in the style of an upper-class house of the mid-1800s. its design is based on the sarangbang of the yeongyeongdang (house of flowing happiness) in the changdeokgung palace in seoul. 41 see jeffrey abt, “the origins of the public museum,” in a companion to museum studies, ed. sharon macdonald (chichester: wiley-blackwell, 2011), 115–134. 187the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) that covers the windows nearest the gallery emphasize the focus on chosŏn culture in this section of the gallery. a traditional korean house built in european museums in the copenhagen and london cases, the contemporary reproduction of the traditional korean house is employed to contextualize objects on display or to provide a cultural example of korean traditions for museum visitors. the house’s component parts are nearly the same in both cases. modeled on upper-class, or yangban, men’s quarters, the exterior of each house represents a sarangbang. each house is furnished with different articles associated with the daily life of a man of the chosŏn period, and the space is staged at the moment of using the sarangbang as a space for study. each sarangbang, with its traditional korean architecture and focus on the lifestyle of a korean classical scholar, is technically, intellectually, and financially supported by the south korean government with the intention of transmitting to europeans a knowledge of korea’s unique cultural identity. however, from a communication perspective, these two sarangbang seem to create different meanings in addition to offering a way of seeing this aspect of traditional korean culture. of course, there is an approximately fortyyear gap between the sarangbang in copenhagen and the london version. the growing scope of financial and academic support from the republic of korea has also impelled changes in how the same objects and culture are presented. the later sarangbang had the advantage of being built according to more accurate historical research and it imposes a more aesthetic perspective on the space and culture; for example, the quality of the props displayed together and their disposition with the proper ratio were meticulously assessed. yet the differing signification of each sarangbang project comes not only from the installation itself, but also reflects the different communication situations the two exhibitions occupy. even though both are european universal museums dealing with “world cultures,” the composition of the korean collections in the two museums is very different, and their curatorial approaches also seem dissimilar. this difference reflects, to a certain point, tradition and the current position of a eurocentric universal knowledge production system about the cultures of the world, which usually refers to non-european cultures.42 from the sarangbang in the two museums, several conflicting points emerge in shaping this mise en exposition of korean art and culture in european society. this does not mean that there has been a polarity 42 for further discussion of museums of world cultures today, see barbara plankensteiner ed., the art of being a world culture museum: futures and lifeways of ethnographic museums in contemporary europe (bielefeld: kerver, 2019). 188 representing the republic of korea in europe between european curators and institutions and korean specialists and the government in displaying korean culture in the museum. rather, the mise en exposition of sarangbang is a result of long-term collaboration between the two sides and in the traditions of exhibiting korean art.43 the dissonance arises from the communication situation involved in creating shared value between different places and times in a museum space. dealing with the encounters around the installation of a sarangbang in a museum in representing korean culture to europe in relation to these two cases seems sometimes to subvert and sometimes to reinforce the global hierarchies of values associated with non-european and traditional arts. firstly, disciplinary frameworks marked by rigid boundaries between ethnology and art history are imposed on practice, interpretation, and classification, and bring about a slippage in the full message that a staged sarangbang is expected to deliver. the south korean government chose an upper-class sarangbang architecture modeled after royal palace architecture, and emphasized the associated scholarly ethos as a symbol of quintessentially korean aesthetic and moral culture, in the national museum of denmark. however, the “house filled with korea’s mood” is subsumed under nineteenth-century european ethnographic disciplinary norms such as collecting samples of daily life, eccentric curios rather than examples reflecting the aesthetic sense of native people, and is interpreted as an ethnographic example of korean architecture and culture. in the british museum, the korean architectural reference was placed in a folk-art section in the earliest proposal for the new gallery in 1991. however, in the final version of the contract for the construction of the sarangbang in the british museum, it is specified that it should conform to “the nature of that installed in the national museum of korea.”44 the sarangbang display in the national museum of korea at that time was created by chung yang-mo for a temporary exhibition entitled “chosŏn sidae munbang chegu 조선 시대 문방 제구 [stationeries in the chosŏn period]” in 1992. the exterior of the building was not built in its entirety, but the interior is meticulously composed in order “to capture the minds and tastes of gentlemen and help to understand the spirit of traditional arts and crafts.”45 this way of displaying the sarangbang interior is still on view in the permanent exhibition gallery for calligraphy and painting (the former 43 for the history of korean art, and its exhibition history outside of korea, see steuber and peyton eds., arts of korea. 44 priewe, “atmosphere and surroundings,” 52. 45 kungnip chungang pangmulgwan 국립중앙박물관 [national museum of korea], chosŏn sidae munbang chegu 조선시대문방제구 [stationaries in the chosŏn period] (seoul: t’ongch’ŏn munhwasa, 1992), 5. 189the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) art gallery), which are two genres of art valued as “high art” in east asia.46 this approach to the sarangbang interior added the korean art historical view by showing the art world of people living in the chosŏn period beyond everyday life. putting an architectural element in a museum as a cultural reference has a long tradition in western european and north american art museums. this idea was explicitly adapted at the philadelphia museum of art, whose former director, fiske kimball, inspired by european museums such as skansen in stockholm, sweden, believed that architecture can synthetically illustrate a people’s art and culture.47 during the 1920s, kimball transported and exhibited architecture from all over the world, including a japanese teahouse and a qing scholar’s study, to display in his new museum. when the sarangbang in copenhagen was built, it was received as “a specimen of the beauty of asian architecture.”48 however, it is rare for an asian museum to place architectural heritage in an art-historical perspective. in the history of pre-modern east asian art, architecture is, unlike in the western conception of art history, not understood within and included in the notion of art.49 old houses are regarded not as artworks but as ethnographic artifacts and are collected and usually exhibited only in folk museums. the sarangbang is a reconstruction of an old house concept executed in modern craftsmanship, rather than consisting of historical material artifacts or transporting a whole house to a museum. the reconstructed saranbang is a pure architectural concept seeking to transmit knowledge of chosŏn architectural history, while also attempting to act as a materialization of korean intangible heritage—the transmitted, endangered, and preserved house building technique of chosŏn period. in doing so, it dissociates this structure from folklore, customs, and social relations associated with the house as an object of daily life in chosŏn korea. the korea foundation also underlines this particular aspect of the sarangbang in the british museum: “this room is installed inside the exhibition gallery, but it is different from the existing exhibition room in that it was built as a han-ok to be viewed in 46 burglind jungmann, “identity and aesthetics: some thoughts about the ‘koreanness’ of korean art,” misulsahak yŏn’gu 美術史學硏究 [korean journal of art history] 300 (2018): 317. 47 lauren weiss bricker, “the writings of fiske kimball: a synthesis of architectural history and practice,” studies in the history of art 35 (1990): 225. 48 seo wansu and oh wonsŏp, “segye e simnŭn ‘han’guk ŭi ŏl’.” 49 guo hui, “canonization in early twentieth-century chinese art history,” journal of art historiography 10 (june 2014): 2–6. 190 representing the republic of korea in europe terms of architecture rather than as an exhibition set [educational tool].”50 the architecture displayed as museum object in a european museum is not a reproduction but a historical remnant. jean davallon remarked upon the communicational contract between exhibition producers and visitors “by habit”: “the authenticity” of a displayed object, “the veracity” of mobilized knowledge and “the definition” of the represented world. according to him, the mise en exposition is expected to be loyal to this procedure in representing itself to its visitors.51 as an object produced in the present by the museum, the sarangbang display engages fundamentally this contract of (european) museum communication. but its other nature is as a visual manifestation of korean culture, intended from the korean side to impose the authenticity of an object in order to indicate the existence of a specifically korean world. this tug-of-war between two worlds with differences in cultural values but operating in a shared space brings about the ambiguous status of this “copy,” according to the national museum of denmark, or “reconstruction,” as per the british museum, in the exhibitions. for in stabilizing its position for the clear delivery of the features of the object to the visitor, certain communicational strategies have been executed while others still need to be established. for example, the construction of the sarangbang was videotaped by the british museum in order to produce a documentary about traditional korean architecture and thus to add value to its authenticity as a museum object. however, as it was newly built by the museum as a vehicle for transmitting cultural historical knowledge, its scientific veracity is more strictly policed than other genuine historical objects in the exhibition. in delivering historical knowledge, the reproduction is at times preferred to the original: “a good copy is better than a deficient original.”52 the most fastidious reproduction must maintain a sincere relationship with the latest qualified history. however, the reproduction also must be restituted by reference to elements and narratives selected by the producer, which might leave the gap between the historical evidence and the reconstruction and inscribe fictive elements in the museum device. likewise, as noted by david jacobi when delving into the communication of the model and the restitution of 50 original: “이 사랑방은 전시실 내부에 설치되었으나, 전시 세트가 아닌 건축 개념의 한옥 으로 지었다는 점이 기존 전시실의 건축물과 다른 점이다.” see korea foundation 국제교류재단, “taeyŏng pangmulgwan han’guksil sarangbang wangong 대영박물관 한국실 사랑방 완공 [korean museum of sarangbang completed],” kf newletter, july 2000, accessed october 8, 2018, http:// newsletter.kf.or.kr/korean/contents.asp?vol=21&lang=korean&no=213. 51 jean davallon, l’exposition à l’œuvre : stratégies de communication et médiation symbolique (paris: l’harmattan, 1999), 31–33. 52 david lowenthal, the past is a foreign country – revisited (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2015), 455. http://newsletter.kf.or.kr/korean/contents.asp?vol=21&lang=korean&no=213. http://newsletter.kf.or.kr/korean/contents.asp?vol=21&lang=korean&no=213. 191the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) archaeological research in the museum, the reproduction can offer a historical experience as tangible and authentic as the original, but it is nevertheless another experience: the reconstruction, as synoptic tool, […] is not only to help the visitor to perceive but also to retain, to memorize the essential information. as in the process of schematization, the model can become an important cognitive contribution. in this case, everything that has been eliminated from the representation (the reduction of concreteness and analogy) reinforces and highlights the preserved and indeed remarkable details, as if they are highlighted for the intention of the viewers. stylized and more abstract, what this model loses in resemblance is gained in comprehension. it guides and models the gaze of the visitors and, without saying so, imposes a deliberate point of view.53 in the sarangbang cases, the two museums have taken an example of a house from the high society of the nineteenth century. different synchronic and diachronic components of korean culture disappear, leaving only the masculine culture of the ruling class. also, staging the room as a study without mentioning its other functions limits information regarding the ways of living during the chosŏn period. the scientific veracity of an object in a museum comes not only from an exact restitution of the past, but also from sincere mediation of the intended message to its visitors. this veracity is not only legitimated by well-conducted academic research, but also by wellperformed communication. having become identified as national heritage of korea, the sarangbang, as it has so far been displayed in museums, represents a homogeneous korean culture, at the risk of causing a misunderstanding of the relationship between the staging and the visitors’ knowledge of the sarangbang. for example, the virtue of poverty reflected in the exhibition of the sarangbang, and which is mentioned in the panel text, does not refer to a poor life, but to idealized poverty and an aesthetic choice of this particular time and class. the yeongyeondang, the model for these two sarangbang, was not a part of an upper-class house at all; rather, it was part of a complex royal 53 daniel jacobi, “la maquette entre reconstitution savante et récit imaginaire dans les expositions archéologiques,” la lettre de l’ocim 123 (may–june 2009): 21. my translation. for more discussion about the point(s) of view imposed by museography, see daniel jacobi, “les faces cachées du point de vue dans les discours d’exposition,” la lettre de l’ocim 100 (july–august 2005): 44–53. 192 representing the republic of korea in europe palace.54 moreover, the protagonist of this scene, the man of letters, is often a character endorsing a collective and abstract identity, who never existed and whose existence has not been established historically. if a sarangbang installed in a museum is not loyal to existing historical research data but derived from cultural clichés and fails to define accurately the world it represents, it will not be able to play its role in knowledge communication as desired by the producers of an exhibition. conclusion the achievement of modernity through invented tradition,55 the pursuit of a unique “koreanness” and affirmation of confucianism as a national ideology have all been widely imposed on korean art museography as well as historiography. from the early nineteenth-century beginning of the “great divergence” (to employ the words of kenneth pomeranz) between most western european or north american countries and east asian countries,56 this historiography has been undertaken with a view to producing and diffusing knowledge of korean art and culture in ways suited to western or global standards. with the growing economic and political power of east asian countries since the 1980s, museographic devices and korean art-historical research paradigms developed in and for korean museums increasingly mediate the way korean art is presented in european and north american museums, where installations receive financial and scholarly support from the south korean government. the mise en exposition of the sarangbang was developed to communicate scientific knowledge in this context. however, in european museums, which are presumed to have stronger scientific communication rules due to their long traditions and also to be less likely to be invested in korean identity 54 for a more current discussion of yeongyeongdang, see kim tong-uk 김동욱, “gojong 2 nyŏn ŭi yeongyeongdang suri e taehesŏ 고종 2년의 연경당 수리에 대해서 [a research on the reconstruction of yeonkyeong-dang in the second year of king gojong’s reign],” kŏnch’uk yŏksa yŏn’gu 건축역사연구 [journal of architectural history] 13, no. 37 (2004): 53–69; sa jean sill 사진실, “ yeongyeongdang jinjak konggan unyŏng gwa kŭkchangsajŏk ŭiŭi 연경당 진작(演慶堂進爵) 의 공간 운영과 극장사적 의의 [the spatial management of yungyungdang jinjakand its significance in korean theatre history],” han’guk kŭk yesul yŏn’gu 한국극예술연구 [the journal of korean drama and theatre] 27 (2008): 13–61, and son shin-young 손신영, “yeongyeongdang kŏnch’uk yŏndae yŏn’gu: saryo rŭl chungsim ŭro 演慶堂 建築年代 硏究 : 史料를 中心으로 [a study on the year of the construction of yeongyeongdang],” misulsahak yŏn’gu 美術史學硏究 [korean journal of art history] 242–243 (2004): 121–157. 55 on this, see the papers in eric j. hobsbawm and terence o. ranger, eds., the invention of tradition (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1983). for the korean case, see im hyung-taek et al., eds., chŏnt’ong: kŭndae ka mandŭrŏnaen tto hana ŭi kwŏllyŏk. 56 kenneth pomeranz, the great divergence: china, europe, and the making of the modern world economy (princeton: princeton university press, 2000). 193the journal of transcultural studies 10, no. 2 (winter 2019) construction and national promotion as korea might wish, the same communicational device is liable to produce uncontrolled meanings in the absence of supplementary explanation. this tends to bind korean art and culture to an ethnic and exotic perspective rather than communicating its aesthetic merits, which can be a trap, if korean art seeks to avoid this attitude on the global art scene. notwithstanding, european museums have also changed their perspective on korea exhibitions in recent years. as demonstrated by the attempts to find an epistemological place for the british museum in their communication strategy on their sarangbang, the two worlds meeting in an exhibition space must each change their cultural values or accommodate the new global cultural context. are these sarangbang in copenhagen and in london authentic objects, that is to say, materialized intangible korean cultural heritage? or are they a copy of a traditional korean house, respectively? their meaning has been subject to incessant construction as we described and will continue to evolve as the global context changes. on the occasion of the editor’s 70th birthday | juneja | transcultural studies on the occasion of the editor’s 70th birthday this issue of transcultural studies features a first contribution to an untitled series of essays that we have put together to felicitate rudolf g. wagner, the journal’s editor and one of the cluster’s directors during its first phase. this is a small token of our appreciation for his invaluable contribution to the life of the cluster, and for his stimulating and helpful presence among us. in the first offering of this series roland wenzlhuemer tells the story of a particular and fascinating genre: ship newspapers produced during long intercontinental journeys, which offer us an unexpected glimpse of this social microcosm in transit. here’s wishing you a good read and look out for more to come! monica juneja imaging byzantium and asia | stephan-kaissis | transcultural studies the image of the buddha: buddha icons and aniconic traditions in india and china claudia wenzel, heidelberg academy of sciences and humanities i. discourses on images: byzantium and the east this paper, based on my talk in the series “byzantium beyond its eastern borders,” hopes to contribute to the study of aniconic buddhist art in india and china by referring back to the iconoclasm (bilderstreit) of the eighth and ninth centuries in the byzantine empire, and the subsequent development of an image theory, to justify the already well-established image cult. by deliberately adopting methodological approaches and terms that have been used for some time in byzantine art history, relevant visual and textual evidence about the buddhist tradition will be restructured and evaluated, and similarities and dissimilarities will be indicated. sometime between 726 and 730 ce, emperor leo iii (717-741 ce) supposedly had an icon of christ removed from the chalke gate of his palace and replaced it with a cross, the symbol of the former power and magnificence of the empire. this act, which at first may not have intended to be iconoclastic, is seen as the inauguration of the first iconoclastic period (730-787 ce) in byzantine (krannich et al. 2002, 4-5). under leo’s son, constantine v (741-775 ce), the theological debate between iconodules (those who venerate images) and iconoclasts (those who destroy images) took shape. the iconoclasts won their first victory with the synod of hiereia, presided over by constantine v in 754. their position was manifested in the horos of the synod, which addressed issues of “false” and “true” images, and the fundamental problem of how the divine or the nature of christ can be represented at all. however, after constantine’s death, the resolutions of the seventh council of nicaea in 787 under empress irene ended the first iconoclastic period and reinstated the cult of images. during the second iconoclastic phase (813-842), the debate heated up one more time and the conflict escalated. even after the restoration of icons by empress theodora in 843 and the triumph of orthodoxy, the rivalries between the emperor and the patriarchs continued. not only text sources, but also polemical miniatures in book illuminations like that of the chludov psalter reflected the theological controversies. right from the beginning, images were at the centre of the debate, which developed with increasing aggressiveness. empress irene had the cross above chalke gate again replaced by an icon of christ that was later stoned by soldiers of leo v in 814 when the second iconoclastic phase began. another cross took its place. finally, a mosaic of christ supplanted the symbol (belting 1994, 159-160). likewise, figural representations in the church of hagia sophia had been destroyed and replaced with crosses (speck 1998, 63, abb. 47). the image wars of the byzantine iconoclasts had a seminal impact, not only on the later history of the religious icon, but also on the theoretical foundations of image theory in general. the christian theologians finally had to take a stand on what an image is or can be, or what it should not be taken for. in this respect, byzantine iconoclasm has turned out to be immensely fruitful for the modern discipline of art history in the west. however, in the field of east asian art history, not much is yet known about a comparable discourse on religious images. one reason for the lack of a coherent study on chinese buddhist image discourse is certainly the “disconnected discourse on images in textual sources,” as shinohara koichi has rightly pointed out (shinohara 2004, 207). at first glance, it may even seem that such a discourse on image theory is not to be expected in buddhism because, unlike the monotheistic religions of judaism, christianity and islam, buddhism never bothered about prohibiting the making of images of the enlightened one. this is true for early indian buddhism, which had not yet developed representations of the buddha in human form, as well as for chinese buddhism, which learned about buddha images when the new religion spread to its territory during the first two centuries ce. at that time, image making was already promoted as an adequate means of accumulating religious merit. still, the chinese were well aware of the question of how to represent the ultimate truth of buddha’s enlightenment. fig. 1: buddha amitābha with inscribed pedestal, dated 746. grey limestone, height including pedestal 94 cm, width of pedestal 49,5 cm, photograph by jürgen liepe, courtesy of staatliche museen zu berlin, stiftung preußischer kulturbesitz, museum für asiatische kunst, ostasiatische kunstsammlung. berlin’s museum für asiatische kunst holds an amitābha statue (figure 1) that was created around the time when the first iconoclastic phase had reached its climax in byzantium. the statue illustrates the contemporaneous chinese discourse on image theory. it is dated to the fifth year of the era tianbao 天寶(746) of the great tang dynasty that constituted the image friendly, golden age of buddhism in china. the pedestal of the statue bears a votive inscription that provides information about the donors and their motivation for sponsoring “one stone image of amitābha” 石弥陁像一區, a description of the statue’s original location in terms of a sacred geography (“in the north [the statue] connects to the high hills that are mount gṛdhrakūṭa; in the south it faces the great river that is the eightfold meritorious water [of the pure land]” 北連高阜，乃耆闍崛山；南對大川，即八功德水。), and the standard wish for a good reincarnation. the opening lines read as follows: [夫]至真無像，非像無以表其真。至理無言，非言何以旌旗理[1]。 as a matter of general principle, while highest truth is devoid of any image, without images there would be nothing to make visible its [being the] truth; and while highest principle is devoid of all words, how, without words, would its [being the] principle be made known.[2] the inscription’s tone of apology for image making is not at all an isolated case. there are many more examples of votive inscriptions on statues or image stelae[3] that justify the creation of the work, or at least reflect upon the need for such holy representations. what is remarkable is that these inscriptions discuss the problem of representing the highest truth not only for the medium of images, but also for the medium of words or language. yet, whatever medium is chosen, the central question that remains is the truthfulness of representation. the inscription on the amitābha pedestal from 746 names such truthfulness “highest truth” (zhizhen 至真) and “highest principle” (zhili 至理). truthfulness of representation was likewise the point of departure for the byzantine theologians who debated on the refusal or affirmation of images. basically, the christian godhead is invisible and can therefore not be represented in material matter. of god’s three hypostases (father, son, and holy spirit) only the son, the incarnate christ, became visible. as christ in his incarnation has shown, the divine can touch material matter and is able to imbue it, which in turn explains the efficaciousness of relics, both primary and secondary. charles barber has shown how the christian icon was already well established in the late seventh century and prior to the outbreak of iconoclasm, by tying it firmly to the cult of relics, because “both are matter transformed into a holy state—the relic having become holy by contact and the icon by having a specific form, a likeness, impressed into its material nature” (barber 2002, 36). in the course of the following two centuries, iconophile patriarchs developed a sophisticated construct to explain how man-made icons can be truthful images because of their participation in the divine, and they continually refined their analysis of the relation between the archetype—christ in his incarnation—and his image. leading thinkers of the iconoclasts’ camp, on the other hand, insisted that the only admissible icon is the eucharist, sanctified by the declaration “this is my body”; apart from it, only the cross could be used to represent the godhead, yet not as an icon, but as a figure or sign thereof (barber 2002, 103-104). in addition, these iconoclasts saw the figure of the cross as equivalent to verbal testimony, emphasizing the antithesis of word and image (barber 2002, 93). as john strong (strong 2004, 3) pointed out in quoting robert sharf, contemporary buddhologists have noticed that “buddhism…..has come to bear an uncanny resemblance to medieval christianity… [with] its saints, relics, and miraculous images” (sharf 1999, 79). while a systematic comparison between christian and buddhist image theories is missing, efforts have been made in recent years to get a clearer picture of the nature of religious images in east asia. the two most remarkable volumes in this respect are the books on images, miracles, and authority in asian religious traditions, edited by richard h. davis in 1998, and images in asian religions: texts and contexts, edited by phyllis granoff and koichi shinohara in 2004. the conclusions reached by the contributors of the first volume are at times quite contradictory: in examining miracles performed by buddha images, robert l. brown states that the relationship between the buddha and his image is not a direct one, and other factors like the objective nature of the image or its personality are more likely agents for the miraculous powers of images (brown 1998: 50-51). for phyllis granoff, the painted image of the buddha is, like his mantra, capable of having an effect in this world because of the buddha’s inherent presence (granoff 1998: 76). and by considering icons of the buddha at three different levels of decreasing significance from original to copy and replications of the copy, donald f. mccallum seems to indicate a decrease in the buddha’s presence from original to various replications (mccallum 1998: 218-221). although these are valuable contributions to an understanding of the buddha’s image as a wonder-working icon, not much has been said about representations of the enlightened one in non-pictorial form. consequently, in their second volume, granoff and shinohara stressed the need for more scholarly works on apologetics for and arguments against image worship in the asian context (granoff and shinohara 2004: 1). for this study i will rely more strictly than before on the methodological construct provided by studies in byzantine image discourse to understand claims of truthfulness in representations of the buddha. to this end, i differentiate between modes of representations that i like to term “iconic” and “aniconic.” for a long time both terms have been in usage in art-historical discussions of early indian buddhist art. they pertain to representations of the buddha in narrative reliefs depicting him either in human form (“iconic”), or lacking an anthropomorphic image (“an-iconic”). however, for the wider scope of this study, that also includes medieval chinese buddhism, these terms need further clarification. the “iconic mode” still relates to anthropomorphic depictions of the buddha that appeared in india at the end of the first century ce at the latest and prevailed thereafter. it is reasonable to further divide iconic representations into more general depictions of the buddha in human form and the buddha’s true icon in particular. for the latter group, a discussion about byzantine icon theories may prove especially rewarding. the “aniconic mode” of representation is found in the indian cultural sphere as well as in china, but it produced distinct modes of expression according to the different historical settings. early indian buddhism developed various aniconic types within the scope of narrative pictures that never show the buddha in human form. instead, his presence was indicated by means of symbols or by emblematic representations as well as by his “non-image.”[4] in contrast, the chinese aniconic phase refrained from any pictorial representation whatsoever and only carved the words of the buddha in chinese calligraphy. the restriction to words on the chinese side has the advantage that it provides written texts that can be analyzed, although the texts themselves never fail to suggest the limitations of language in the same way that suggest the inadequateness of images, as we shall see. early indian buddhism, it seems, knew other ways to avoid the limitations of language: without leaving the confines of the pictorial, it found impressive ways to give form to the invisible. ii. aniconism in india: symbols, emblematic representation, and the non-image from the very beginning, buddhist practice and devotion in india was aniconic in the sense that anthropomorphic images of the buddha were not made. but this first aniconic phase was in no way iconoclastic. early indian buddhists did not have an image of the enlightened one. just like hinduism and jainism, buddhism did not know of any icons to be venerated during the four centuries before ce. for that reason, there was also no need for an outspoken prohibition of image making. the buddha was simply not rendered in human form, but that does not at all mean that he was not represented. with regard to india, i would propose that three different kinds of aniconic representations can be distinguished: firstly, by alluding to the enlightened one with a certain set of symbols; secondly, by emblematic representations of the enlightened one’s body; and, thirdly, by representing him as a non-image. symbols an example for the first kind of aniconic representation is the veneration of the new-born bodhisattva by gods, a relief on the ajātaśatru pillar of the stupa from bārhut in india from the second century bc (snellgrove 1978, 30, plate 8). the new-born bodhisattva, buddha śākyamuni, in his last rebirth as gautama siddharta, occupies the center of the relief but remains invisible. instead, his presence is symbolized by a richly decorated seat, surmounted by a canopy, and a pair of footprints, that are touched by the god maheśvara in veneration. an inscription gives evidence for this iconographic theme (snellgrove 1978, 30). since the inscription explicitly mentions that these are the gods venerating the new-born bodhisattva, there is no doubt that the future buddha is meant to be present in this relief. the same might be assumed for another relief on the same stupa pillar from bārhut, the descent of the buddha from the heaven of the thirty-three gods (snellgrove 1978, 30, plate 9). after his enlightenment, the buddha ascended to the heaven of the thirty-three gods to preach to his deceased mother who had been reborn into this heavenly place. waiting for the buddha’s return, the god indra built a triple staircase for him to descend from this heaven. in the center of the relief we see this staircase and the prints of buddha’s feet on it; one foot at the topmost step and the second on the bottommost. worshippers are lined up to the right and in front; to the left, a decorated throne in front of a tree illustrates the following visit of the buddha to a nearby town.  a condensed version of the buddha’s descent from the heaven of thirty-three gods from butkara was recently on display in the gandhara exhibition in bonn, berlin, and zürich (gandhara 2008, 106, kat. nr. 45). it may be interesting to note that the butkara relief depicts the buddha’s footprints in a traditional way, parallel to each other on the bottommost step of the staircase, while the earlier bārhut relief separates them, indicating perhaps the actual movements of the buddha as he descends, thus strengthening the buddha’s actual presence in the image. in some cases the problem of the buddha’s presence in the image is much more complex and diversified. the enlightenment at the tree sanctuary on the prasenajit pillar of the bārhut stupa (snellgrove 1978, 42, plate 22) is a well known example of this complexity of meaning. the tree of enlightenment with its characteristically pointed leaves in the topmost panel of the relief is decorated with garlands and parasols and venerated by the gods standing next to it, indicating that the enlightenment has just taken place. but the architectural structure underneath the tree indicates that a sanctuary has already been build around the holy place where worshippers venerate the buddha’s richly decorated seat. behind the seat, two examples of the so-called omega symbol appear, each consisting of a lotus wheel and a trident (trīsūla) that represents the three jewels: buddha, dharma (doctrine) and sangha (community). furthermore, the veneration scene is separated by a fence from more worshippers shown below, and a tall column crowned by an elephant that was erected outside the fence (snellgrove 1978, 42). while it might be argued that the relief depicts the sanctuary of the buddha’s enlightenment, rather than the actual enlightenment itself, the inscription incised at the roof of the sanctuary (bhagavato sakamunio bodho) translates as “the enlightenment of the lord śākyamuni,” thus pointing to the actual event. furthermore, one figure seated to the left of the middle panel can be identified as māra (ghandara 2008, 74, abb. 3), who is depressed because he had been defeated by the buddha, who he could not distract from attaining enlightenment. the relief’s inscription and the figure of māra indicate the buddha’s actual presence in the image, while the architectural structure does not (luczanits 2008, 73). this seeming contradiction might not have bothered the buddhist believers at bhārhut in ancient india because they had already conceived of the buddha as a divine being whose enlightenment was timeless, or beyond time, and for them the relief was showing “a scene of a cosmic and divine event” (brown 1998, 44). emblematic representations the second mode of aniconism is the emblematic representation of the enlightened one’s body. one striking example can be found at the northern gate of “stūpa one” in sāñcī from the first century ce (gandhara 2008, 76, abb. 6, and snellgrove 1978, 41, plate 21). here, the buddha’s body is represented from top to bottom by the omega symbol crowning a lotus rosette, a column like structure consisting of two parallel borders framing a sequence of floral motifs, and the buddha’s footprints with the wheel of the law (dharmacakra). these symbols are joined to represent the head, body axis, and feet of the buddha. emblematic representations are continued in the south of india (luczanits 2008, 75), for example, at the great stupa at amarāvatī and in a well-known relief from the stupa’s railing (klimburg-salter 1995, 103, kat. nr. 61). rāhula, the natural son of the buddha, is brought to his father. his mother had sent him to ask for his inheritance, and the buddha thereupon ordained him as a monk. in the background of the relief two houses, a curtain, and a door indicate a public space, separate from the interior, where a crowd has assembled around the buddha’s throne. to the left, several palace women watch the little boy rāhula, who is gently pushed towards his father’s seat by a nobleman. two more women kneel in front of the buddha’s footprints, while the space to the right is occupied by a crowd of ordained monks. the buddha’s seat is a high throne on which a round cushion has been placed. behind is a flaming column with a wheel of the law and the omega symbol. while the throne occupies the center of the relief, the flaming pillar runs along the central axis, thus positioning the unseen buddha in the very center of the composition. the beholder is even able to imagine the more than life-sized figure of the buddha, who is said to have been extraordinarily tall. the non-image the third mode of aniconic representation might be called “the pictorial non-image.” it uses compositional means already seen in the emblematic representation of the buddha’s body, but in this case without depicting anything at all. another scene from amarāvatī offers a fine example. it is part of a relief illustrating four scenes: the conception of the buddha by the dreaming māyā, the interpretation of the dream to the king and queen at court, the birth of the buddha, and the presentation of the newborn to the wise śākyavardhana, who foresees his buddhahood (knox 1992, 121, plate 61). in the birth scene, queen māyā is standing to the right, next to a smaller female servant. her outstretched left arm reaches up to the branches of a sāl tree, under which she is about to give birth. while pushing her right hip forward, the baby buddha emanates from her right side without causing her any pain. the queen’s pose resembles that of a dancer, emphasizing the ease and painlessness of the birth. to the left, four male figures holding a long cloth are arrayed in a semicircle. these are the four lokapālas, or heavenly kings, who are prepared to receive the newborn child. in the pictorial composition of the birth scene, all the figures are positioned along a line encircling the new-born buddha, the last lokapāla and the female servant are, therefore, seen from behind, while it is to be imagined that the beholder of the scene steps forward to complete the circle around the baby buddha. the stool next to māyā functions not only as repoussoir, but also points explicitly to the center of the composition where the holy birth takes place. this center is empty, or rather, occupied by the buddha’s non-image. to ensure that the beholder partakes in viewing the buddha’s non-image, two tiny footprints have been added on the section of the cloth that the first lokapāla holds, right in the center of the composition as a whole. it can indeed be said that the buddha’s absence in the very center of the picture gives weight to his actual presence. this last example dates to the second century ce, when representations of the buddha in human form had already begun to be created. seckel proposed that during a transitional period in the second and third centuries ce, aniconic and iconic representations of the buddha coexisted (seckel 1976, 33-36 und 2004, 49-54). still, his attempt to identify samples that unite human and symbolic representations of the buddha in one image was only partially successful. the amarāvatī relief of three anthropomorphic buddhas alternating with three stupas (bachhofer 1929, ii, plate 131) that he mentions (seckel 1976, 33 and 2004, 49) dates to the eleventh rather than to the third century. for the relief of the worship scene (bachhofer 1929, ii, plate 129) showing the enlightened one in human form below, and the adoration of his emblematic representation in the register above (seckel 2004, 49-50, plate 52), bachhofer has given a more convincing interpretation, suggesting that the representations refer to the three jewels and stand for the buddha and the dharma, while a third representation of a stupa, symbolizing the sangha, is lost. nevertheless, there are rare examples that combine the buddha in iconic and aniconic mode, such as the wall painting from the central asian cave temples at kyzil of the first quarter of the seventh century (seckel 2004, 19, figure 9, and karow 1989, 147), formerly in the museum für völkerkunde in berlin, until it was destroyed in world war ii. part of the wall painting depicting the ajātaśatru legend is a bodhisattva who presents a piece of cloth illustrating the four great events in the buddha’s life: his birth, enlightenment, first sermon and death. in all scenes, the buddha is portrayed in human form; only in his birth scene does he remain unseen and is symbolized by a halo. looking at the three different kinds of aniconic representations of the buddha shown above, it might be said in conclusion that the early ‘aniconic’ phase of indian buddhism seems to share with christianity the notion that the highest truth—buddhahood or enlightenment, and the godhead respectively—was ultimately invisible. in fact, invisibility of the buddha secured the truthfulness of the depiction. different modes of invisibility were deployed for pictorial representation. first of all, symbols may represent the presence of the enlightened one. among these, the footprints of the buddha deserve special attention because of their close affinity to relics. as already noticed by quagliotti 1998, 126-127, in quoting brown 1990, 95-96, the buddha touching the ground with his feet has to be understood as an “act of grace,” and the footprints left behind are thus relics of touch. in emblematic representations like the one from the northern gate of stupa one in sāñcī, the buddha’s footprints are complemented with more symbols that roughly delineate the position of the buddha’s entire body within the pictorial space. this development is taken even further in the buddha’s non-image, where the space for the human body of the buddha is already outlined but remains invisible. an additional emphasis is provided by the symbolic footprints that reassure the observer of his appearance in the human world. iii. the icon of the buddha in india and china representations of the buddha in human form can be attested in india at the end of the first century ce, at latest. they emerged around the same time in māthura, south of new delhi, and in gandhāra in the northwest of pakistan. one of the earliest dateable sculptures of the buddha is dated by inscription to the thirty-second year of the kaniska era, which probably corresponds to the year 110 ce (klimburg-salter 1995, 115-116, and sharma 1984, 190). it was carved from the white spotted sandstone of the māthura region (klimburg-salter 1995, 115-116 and 251-252; sharma 1984, 190). sculptures like this show the buddha in human form but not in a form that any ordinary human being might be able to possess. the buddha had to be portrayed as the fully enlightened one in human form. this was achieved by endowing his image with the special bodily attributes that all enlightened ones are said to possess, not only the historical buddha, born as siddharta gautama, but all buddhas of the past and future, in our, or any other world of the ten directions. the importance of the bodily attributes for any buddha image in india and china, no matter if painted, sculpted, or even mental, can hardly be overestimated. descriptions of these are listed in the buddhist canon, specifying thirty two primary and eighty secondary attributes (xianghao 相好) of a superhuman being. while most of the former appear in all lists, some attributes appear in only some lists. for the most part, however, these lists are homogenous. some of the thirty-two primary attributes found in the text sources are reflected in buddha images, such as the early example from māthura: the buddha’s well proportioned, extremely tall, and dignified body with its slender and long limbs is likened to that of a lion king. other attributes mentioned in the texts pertain in particular to his head, hands, and feet, thereby giving shape to the buddha’s superhuman uşņīşa and ūrņā as well as to the dharma wheels on his hands and feet. his skin was said to be of a golden hue, emitting light from every single pore. in short, all parts of the buddha’s body, even those that are not easily depicted like his teeth or tongue, or even features that cannot be represented, like his voice, are determined by his being enlightened. his physical shape and condition are a necessary effect of his enlightenment experience. a remarkable parallel can be drawn with the icon of christ. the portrayal of his physical features follows the notion of a “delineation,” which places every human being into a coded system of particular features that establish a distinctive identity. in letter of the three patriarchs to the byzantine emperor theophilos (829-42), the patriarchs of alexandria, antioch, and jerusalem stated that “the icon of a man is not inscribed according to nature, but according to position.” (barber 2002, 107-110). in other words, there was no doubt about what the historical, incarnated christ “looked like,” because there was only one way the son of the tripartite godhead could have manifested physically in the world. taking this thought even further, iconophile theologians such as theodore of stoudios (759–826) underlined in their writings the fact that an icon has to be seen as a living eyewitness of actual events (barber 2002, 131). in this manner, the thirty two major bodily attributes of a buddha are witness to his completion of awakening and are, therefore, the only adequate way to represent him in human form. even though the buddha is shown in his human shape as a result of his last incarnation in the human world, his particular bodily marks are witness to his transcendence of the human realm. this is why the bodily attributes displayed in buddhist sculpture varied only slightly over the course of time. generally speaking, differences in style aside, the iconography of the buddha’s human form remained remarkably stable. during the chinese northern qi dynasty (550-577), new stylistic influences from india and central asia had been absorbed. a beautifully sculpted and gilded buddha from the spectacular 1996 qingzhou findings (nickel 2001, 165-167, katalog nr. 18) presents the typical style of this period. the youthful and elegant figure displays a low uşņīşa, while the ūrņā is either missing or simply painted. the face and the uncovered parts of the body were gilded, representing the light emitting from the enlightened one’s body. the qingzhou sculpture is only one of countless examples of chinese buddha icons that were made of stone, wood, or bronze. they were portable or set up in wooden temple architecture or hewn directly from the walls of cave temples. they all testify to a firmly established image cult in china that is further evidence of numerous written and painted sources. the tradition of king udyāna’s first image in the christian tradition, the legend of st. luke the evangelist, who portrayed the virgin mother and the son, was developed roughly from the sixth to the eighth centuries, and propagated the idea that christ’s image, but also that of his mother, the virgin, can be regarded as an historical portrait (belting 2004, 70-72). in this way, images of the mother and child not only claimed authenticity, but also lent credence to the historicity of the divine event of the incarnation. the buddhist tradition knows of a comparable legend about a first image of the enlightened one; but, in contrast to the painted portrayal by st. luke, the buddha’s first image was three dimensional and carved of sandalwood. earliest references to the creation of a first image by the youthful king udyāna (優填 or 優陀延王), king of vasta, are found in two canonical scriptures on image making—the sutra spoken by the buddha on the making of buddha images (佛說作佛形象經, t# 692, 16:788a-c) translated in the later han-dynasty (25-220), and the sutra spoken by the buddha on the retribution of merits [attained by] making and installing buddha images (佛說造立形象福 報 經, t# 693, 16:788c-790a) translated in the eastern jin dynasty (317-420). the legend is further developed in the ekottarāgama (增一阿含經, t# 125, 2:706a2-26) by gautama sanghadeva from around 385; it has been treated extensively by soper (soper 1959, 260b-261b, 259-265, 46-49, 70-71, 88-89) and, more recently, by carter (carter 1990, 26-27) and shinohara (shinohara 1998, 153-154 and 169). in the late fifth century, the udyāna legend was linked with the story of the dream of emperor ming (58-76 ce) of the han dynasty, the official tale of how buddhism was introduced to china. the now lost scripture mingxiang ji 冥祥記by wang yan王琰 claims that the buddha’s painting that the emperor received was in fact the same first image produced at the behest of king udyāna in the buddha’s lifetime, thus giving authority to chinese icons of the buddha (carter 1990, 1-2). however, the older version of the story in the ekottarāgama does not mention a painting but refers to an image sculpted from sandalwood: king udyāna was distressed at not being able to behold the enlightened one’s appearance when the buddha dwelt in the heaven of the thirty-three gods to preach to his late mother maya. therefore udyāna decided to have a sandalwood image made, five feet in height. when the buddha descended from the heaven of the thirty-three gods, he accepted it and pointed out the various merits achieved by image making (t#125, 2:706a2-26 and 708a27-b14). this scene is found illustrated in a stone relief from gandhāra (karow 1989, 89), where we see the buddha holding the image up in his hand and udyāna kneeling in front of him. the udyāna legend became embellished over time with details relating how one or many artisans were miraculously transported to the heavens to create the likeness of the living buddha. competing with the udyāna story, a second legend about a golden image, ordered by king prasenajit, soon emerged. udyāna’s image seems to have enjoyed greater popularity in china because it was the sandalwood image that appeared in the dream of emperor wu (r. 502-549) of the liang dynasty, who sent envoys to sravasti to fetch it (shinohara 1998, 153-155). apart from the seminal role the udyāna legend played in establishing an image cult in china, it also set the stage for an upcoming image discourse, as we shall soon see. even today, there is an icon named the udyāna shaka in the seiryoji in kyōtō that is believed to be a direct copy of the legendary udyāna image that was brought from china to japan by the monk chonen in 985. one japanese version of the story of how the icon came to japan even claims that the original found in china was secretly transposed with the copy that had been made for the japanese delegation. seiryoji’s shaka icon was always believed to embody miraculous powers that could be transferred to a replica, if the copy was done with appropriate accuracy (mccullum 1998, 219-221). of the roughly one hundred surviving replicas, the most famous is the saidaiji shaka that was created in 1249 in front of the original icon in seiryoji. upon its completion, the saidaiji shaka miraculously produced bead-like relics as a sign of its sacred power (mccullum 1998, 214-215). divine and miraculous images (ruixiang 瑞像) the udyāna story does not only establish the tradition of a first image in the likeness of the enlightened one, but also makes a claim for the anthropomorphic buddha image to be a divine image (lingxiang靈像 ) that is religiously efficacious, even to the point that it is equal to the extraordinary salvific powers of the buddha’s relics. the salvific efficacy of a divine image is affirmed by its ability to work miracles, which, once it happens, turns out to be not at all surprising, but rather expected and matter-of-fact. furthermore, the type of miracles produced by images is foreseeable and consists primarily of various appearances of light and the self-induced movement of the image (brown 1998, 26-31). stories about miraculous images (ruixiang 瑞像) were recorded in various text sources compiled during the sixth and seventh centuries and range from the biographies of eminent monks (gaoseng zhuan 高僧傳, t#2059, 50: 322-424) by huijiao 慧皎, from around 531, to the assembled records of response of the three jewels in the spiritual realm (i.e. china) (ji shenzhou sanbao gantong lu集神州三寶感通錄, t#2106, 52: 404-435), compiled in 664 by daoxuan 道宣(596-667). within these miracle stories, a group of marvelous icons termed aśoka images can be identified. historically, king aśoka (reigned ca. 273-232 bce) of the maurya dynasty left his famous stone edicts to testify to his widespread propagation of buddhism, but at his time still no anthropomorphic buddha images were known. in china, his fame for having distributed 84, 000 relic stupas all over the world probably suggested that he had also sent sacred images (shinohara 1998, 141-148). even though stories of aśoka images had become popular in the south of china, the notion of images possessing miraculous powers probably first arrived in the northern parts of china in the fifth century, and furthermore seems to have come from india proper (shinohara 1998, 159). these aśoka images are characterized not only by their wonder-working abilities, but also by their miraculous origin that is usually narrated in stories about wondrous discoveries. one typical story about such images is the finding of two stone images floating on the song river淞江 in wu 吴during the western jin period (265-316) that were brought later to the tongxuan temple 通玄寺. the account is preserved in several versions in a number of texts that were listed by shinohara (shinohara 1998, 176). one identifies them as aśoka images, and was illustrated during the tang dynasty in a mural on the west side of the south wall in cave 323 at dunhuang with narrating text in accompanying cartouches (fojiao dongzhuan gushi huajuan 2000, 147, plate 122). to the upper right, two large buddha statues on lotus pedestals with halos are depicted in the middle of a river. cartouches identify them as “buddha vipaśyin” 維衛佛 and “buddha kāśyapa” 迦叶佛. some people have already gathered at the shore, among them monks who pay respect to the miraculous apparition. the cartouche beside it tells the whole story: 此西晋有二石佛，浮游吴/江淞。波濤彌盛，飄飄逆水而/降。舟人接得。其佛裙上有名/號，第一維衛佛，第二迦叶佛。/其像見在吴郡供養。 here are the two stone buddhas from the western jin dynasty that came floating along the song river in wu. as the billows gathered strength, [the statues] floated against the current and approached the boatmen, who took a hold of them. on the buddhas’ robes there were inscriptions; the first read: buddha vipaśyin; the second read: buddha kāśyapa. these statues are seen in wu prefecture for worship. in the middle ground, the statues have already been taken aboard a boat by some laymen and a monk, who seems to point to the direction of their final destination. a small cartouche above the boat scene gives the location as “river song in wu” 吴淞江. nevertheless, the endeavor of securing the images had not been an easy one. to the right, a ceremonial space has been delineated by raising fan-banners 幡 (wu hung 1986, 302), and at least two daoist figures are shown paying respect. the text in the cartouche beneath them explains: 石佛浮江，天下希/瑞。請囗囗囗謂囗/道來降，章醮迎之。/數旬不获而歸 when the statues floated along the river, the world hoped for an auspicious omen. invited […]  calling […] the way sent [them] down, [daoist priests] welcomed the statues with seals and sacrificial ceremonies. [since they] could not obtain [the statues] for several tens of days, they returned.” in contrast, buddhist monks and laymen were more successful. the cartouche directly beneath the boat tells the end of the story: 靈應所之不在人事。有/信佛法者以爲佛降，/風波遂静，迎送向通/玄寺，供养迄至于今。 the occurrence of a numinous response does not depend on the works of people. when believers in the buddhist law held that [the statues] had been sent by the buddha, the wind and waves calmed down, and [the statues] were welcomed and taken to tongxuan monastery where they are worshipped until this very day. as this example shows, the origin of images was considered highly significant. apart from buddha icons that are associated with emperor aśoka, the miracle stories also account for images that were discovered buried in the ground, in relic-like manner, usually with some supernatural appearance of light indicating the place where the pious finder was supposed to dig for them (shinohara 1998, 148-151). in this way, the miracle stories reflect the authorization of an image cult being established in china. one of the early propagators of such a cult seems to have been emperor wu (r. 502-549) of the liang dynasty, who often appears and plays a central role in such miracle stories, and whose figure apparently was modeled after the prototypical emperor aśoka (shinohara 1998, 152-156). the true countenance (zhenrong 真容): the buddha’s shadow apart from the udyāna (or prasenajit) image that represents the legend of the buddha’s first image, and the notion of wonder-working divine images exemplified by the aśokan type of images, the buddhist tradition also knows of another true image of the enlightened one, the so-called buddha’s shadow (foying 佛影) at nagarahāra (hadda, afghanistan). it might be assigned to the category of acheiropoietos images, those “not made by hand.” in the byzantine context, the acheiropoietos images can be seen as an early solution to the problem of manufactured items being thought of as unsuitable for the accommodation of the divine. in the later sixth century, two particular important acheiropoietos icons that claim a miraculous origin became known: the sacred mandylion, a cloth bearing christ’s portrait kept in constantinople, was understood to be his bodily imprint and, therefore, worshiped as a relic of touch (belting 2004, 64-70). john of damascus narrated in his writings how christ “took a cloth, and having pressed it against his face, impressed its portrait upon the same, which it has kept until now.” the so-called camouliana icon, also on cloth, was discovered by a pious christian woman hidden in a fountain in her garden. it had the wondrous ability of making copies of itself when it came in contact with other materials, and even transferred its protective and talismanic powers to the copy (barber 2002, 24-25). the buddha’s shadow at nagarahāra is the image that comes closest to the idea of an image that was not made by human hands, but by the buddha himself by means of bodily contact. according to legend, the buddha penetrated the rock of the cave at nagarahāra with all of his body and manifested his shadow on the wall as a kind of reflection for the sake of the nāgas that had been converted by the buddha. various accounts by traveling monks on the buddha’s shadow cave have been transmitted, among them the famous report by faxian who traveled in india from 399 to 414. they all tell of a particularity of the shadow, namely that it appears clearly only when seen from a distance, but becomes dull as one approaches (soper 1959, 265-268). the apocryphal sutra on the ocean-like samādhi of buddha contemplation (guan fo sanmei hai jing觀佛三昧海經, t#643, 15:645c-697a) traditionally said to be translated by buddhabhadra from sometime in 412, contains the best known description of the phenomena: 釋迦文佛踊身入石，猶如明鏡人見面像，諸龍皆見佛在石內映現於外。[...] 爾時世尊結加趺坐在石壁內。眾生見時，遠望則見，近則不現。諸天百千供養佛影，影亦說法。(t#643, 15:681a27-b4) [buddha śākyamuni’s] whole body penetrated the rock; and just as in a bright mirror a man can see the image of his face, so the nāgas all saw the buddha within the rock while radiantly manifesting himself on its exterior... the tathāgata sat cross-legged within the rock wall, while everyone watched; although only those who looked from afar could see him, for close by he was invisible. the various gods in their hundreds and thousands all adored the buddha’s ‘shadow,’ and the ‘shadow’ also preached the law. (translated by soper 1959, 266) during the fifth century, the cult of the buddha’s shadow thrived in china; it is known that the influential monk huiyuan 慧遠 (334-416) built a cave resembling the famous site at nagarahāra: 遠乃背山臨流營築龕室。妙算畫工淡彩圖寫。色疑積空望似烟霧。暉相炳噯若隱而顯。(t#2059, 50:358b12-14) [hui]yuan then built a grotto, backing against the mountain and overlooking the stream, and worked out a wonderful scheme by which a painter drew [the form] in pale pigments. the colors one might have taken for layers of air; seen from a distance they were like mist, [from which] the glorious body-signs gleamed forth as if they were now hidden and now revealed. (translated by soper 1959, 32-33) by the middle of the seventh century, when xuanzang玄奘 (602-664) visited the western regions, the buddha’s shadow cave was in decline, and it was hard to behold the enlightened one’s countenance any longer. only those with ardent belief were able to observe it, as xuanzang reports: 昔有佛影煥若真容。相好具足儼然如在。近代已來人不遍覩。縱有所見髣髴而已。至誠祈請有冥感者。乃暫明視尚不能久。(t#2087, 51:879a2-5) in the old days there was a buddha’s ‘shadow’ here, as luminous as if it had been the true countenance. the major and minor attributes were complete, and as awe-inspiring as if he had been really present. in recent times people have not seen it so fully; at best what was visible was only a summary likeness. for those who pray with complete faith there is a mysterious manifestation, which may be glimpsed clearly for a while, but does not last long. (translated by soper 1959, 267) xuanzang distinguishes clearly between the buddha’s true countenance (zhenrong 真容) that is characterized by completeness of the major and minor bodily attributes and a mere likeness (fangfu 髣髴 or 仿彿) of that countenance that is simply not able to benefit the believers as the true countenance once did. the decline of the shadow’s salvific powers, undoubtedly, reflects the belief in the decline of dharma (mofa 末法) that was widespread in xuanzang’s time. the theory of the decline of dharma speaks of three phases: at first there is the most salvivic era of the true dharma (zhenfa 真法), which is followed by an era of mere semblance of the dharma (xiangfa 像法), before the final period of decline, when even the semblance of the buddha’s teaching is lost.  in the seventh century, it was generally held that the period of the decline of dharma had already set in; therefore, xuanzang narrates that the true countenance of the buddha was virtually lost, only manifesting itself incompletely and temporarily as a response to the most ardent prayers. if it was to appear at all, it would merely resemble the true countenance, but most of the time it remained indistinguishable or invisible. the tree varieties of buddha icons discussed so far—the first image of udāyana, the divine images from the time of aśoka, and the true countenance of the buddha’s shadow—all show a remarkable relationship to buddha relics and their worship. while the divine images are able to produce relics themselves, the other two are outstanding examples of buddha images that join the ranks of contact relics, or paribhoga relics (strong 2004, 20, note 51). this is obvious for the buddha’s shadow at nagarahāra, as we have seen; but also for the udyāna image, there is a transmission from the buddha who actually touches the image and pats its head after his descent from the heavens (soper 1959, 261, and carter 1990, 7). relics of the buddha are generally classified into bodily (śārīrika) relics and relics of use or touch (paribhoga), which had some kind of direct physical connection with the buddha, and a third category of commemorative (uddesika) relics, into which fall buddha images more generally (strong 2004, 20-21). mental images we have to keep this classification in mind if we want to understand the most astonishing of all true images of the buddha, the ones that are only created mentally by a process of ongoing visualizations (guanxiang觀像). the sutra on the ocean-like samādhi of buddha contemplation, which strongly propagated the cult of the buddha’s true countenance at nagarahāra, is probably the oldest scripture in a group of six visualization (guan 觀) sutras that came to be known in china during the fifth century and exerted considerable influence thereafter. based on references in the chu sanzang jiji (出三藏記集 t#2145, 55:11c11-24) and the biographies of eminent monks (t#2059, 50:335c11), the translation of the sutra on the ocean-like samādhi of buddha contemplation is traditionally attributed to buddhabhadra 佛陀跋陀羅 (359-429), an indian monk allegedly born in kapilavastu in north india who came to china via the southern sea route. he is believed to have been highly knowledgeable about central asia, since he had studied in kashmir or gandhāra for several years. upon arriving in chang’an, he enjoyed close association with kumārajīva and translated the larger sukhāvatīvyūhasūtra with baoyun. in ca. 411 he was banished from chang’an, but was subsequently invited to lushan by huiyuan. at huiyuan’s urgent request, he translated the dharmatrātadhyānasūtra 達摩多羅禪經 for which huiyuan wrote a preface. later, possibly after leaving lushan sometime in 412, buddhabhadra translated the guanfo sanmeihai jing. the attribution to buddhabhadra was recently contested by yamabe nobuyoshi, who holds that the author or authors of the scripture are as yet unknown (yamabe 1999, 296-297). a number of later works that yamabe also lists (yamabe 1999, 34-37) quote extensively from the sutra on the ocean-like samādhi of buddha contemplation, thus bearing testimony to the scripture’s growing influence. a long passage from chapter nine, “on the visualization of the image,” is found in the seventh-century work essential teachings of scriptures (zhujing yaoji 諸經要集 , t#2123, 54:1-194) by daoshi 道世 (dates unknown). these quotations frame the discussion of paying respect to the buddha, his image and superior monks, but not to secular rulers (shinohara 2004, 184-189). daoshi also compiled the encyclopedic anthology the jade forest in the dharma garden (fayuan zhulin 法苑珠林, t #2122, 53:269-end). this work has a comparable discussion of how to pay respects to the buddha, but in contrast to the essential teachings of scriptures that quotes the visualization practices described in the sutra on the ocean-like samādhi of buddha contemplation, the jade forest’s section on paying respects to the buddha is dominated by miracle stories (shinohara 2004, 197) which focus on divine images like those of the aśoka type. while image worship is an important topic in daoshi’s works, a vital distinction is made between the worship of material images and the contemplation of mental images. the sutra on the ocean-like samādhi of buddha contemplation promotes the visualization of mental images. these are created by means of contemplation in the practitioner’s mind, after he has observed, as a first step, a material image of the buddha, until he is able to reproduce all the buddha’s major and minor bodily attributes correctly and completely in his mind with his eyes closed. the mental image created is then examined step by step—visualizing the distinguishing bodily attributes of the buddha from the uşņīşa at the top of his crown to the dharma wheel on the soles of his feet, downwards and upwards, as many times as possible. the contemplation proceeds from one image to thousands that fill all mental space in the ten directions—from sitting images to images that can stand up and walk around freely and, furthermore, talk to and instruct the practitioner. such visualizations are normally hampered by the practitioner’s karmic obstructions and afflictions, which must be eliminated from time to time with purification and repentance rites. near the end of the visualizations, all images suddenly disappear, and the practitioner’s insight into the emptiness of all phenomena causes the buddha’s shadow, namely the real body of the buddha, to appear. this means that despite all limits of space and time, the practitioner is actually transferred into the very presence of the buddha himself, and receives a prophecy of his own future buddhahood, with buddha śākyamuni reaching out with his right hand to touch the practitioner’s head. as soon as this contemplation is successful, the practitioner encounters the buddha in his real body. although his image, be it material or mental, is not identical with the buddha, the buddha is at last found in his image, because his real body shares certain characteristics—the thirty-two bodily attributes of enlightenment—with the image. while the sutra on the ocean-like samādhi of buddha contemplation does not elucidate any further on the detailed mechanism of this process, a comparative look at the christian icon might clarify: in defending the use of icons, patriarch nikephoros (758-828) referred back to aristotelian philosophy of constructing a formal relation between the archetype (christ) and its image (christ’s icon), which was seen as equal to the relationship between cause and effect. even though archetype and image are different entities, they share a partial quality, namely likeness, which is given by the archetype to representation, and is represented in the icon. while the aristotelian background is probably completely irrelevant for the mechanism described in the sutra on the ocean-like samādhi of buddha contemplation, it is striking that the likeness that mediates between the icon and its archetype results in “a full visualization of that which has given itself to vision” (barber 2002, 117). furthermore, nikephoros elucidated on the fact that “there is nothing of presence in the icon; it is a showing without representation,” but “it becomes the point of departure for the contemplation” (barber 2002, 121). likewise, material and mental images of the buddha serve as a point of departure for his contemplation; but prior to the encounter with the buddha’s real body, all the images that have been created mentally are abandoned and disappear because the buddha is not present in these images. in his thirty-two bodily attributes, the buddha has given himself to representation, rewarding the practitioner with his presence in a vision (jianfo 見佛), as soon as the process of correct visualization (guanfo 觀佛) is completed. versions of the udyāna legend: iconodules and iconoclasts the story about udyāna manufacturing and presenting a first image to the buddha is a key to the reconstruction of arguments that favor and refute images in the buddhist context. the sutra on the ocean-like samādhi of buddha contemplation, which strongly promoted the cult of the buddha’s shadow and visualizations of mental images leading to a true vision of the buddha, narrates a version of the udyāna story that unmistakably advocates an iconophile viewpoint. this version by far exceeds the image-friendly stance taken by the ekottarāgama, and suggests that the compiler(s) of the ocean-like samādhi sutra must be ranked among the most fervent buddhist iconodules. the following events are narrated when king udyāna brought his golden image on the back of an elephant to the place of the buddha’s descent: 爾時金像。從象上下猶如生佛。足步虛空足下雨華。亦放光明來迎世尊。時鑄金像。合掌叉手為佛作禮。爾時世尊。亦復長跪合掌向像。時虛空中百千化佛。亦皆合掌長跪向像。(t#643, 15: 678, b10-14) at that time, the golden image dismounted the elephant like a living buddha, and, walking through the air and raining flowers from under its feet, it welcomed the world-honored one by emitting light. then the golden image joined the palms together and raised the hands to pay obeisance to the buddha. at that time, the world-honored one also knelt in front of the image with palms joined. at the same time, the hundreds and thousands of manifested buddhas in the air also joined their palms and knelt in front of the image. soper (soper 1959, 260) had already noticed the audacity of having the buddha himself kneeling in front of his own image. this rather outrageous gesture befits a scripture that fervently advocates images as a practical means for practitioners to get not only a glimpse of the buddha’s real body, but also to get as close to one’s own enlightenment as possible by attaining a prophecy from the buddha himself. surely, such a biased favoring of images did not remain uncontested. the voices of those who highlighted the limitations of images are found in another image-friendly scripture, the aforementioned sutra spoken by the buddha on the merits of image making in the mahāyāna 佛說大乘造像功德經 (t#694, 16:790-796), translated by khotanese devaprajñā between 689 and 691. it is the latest sutra in the group of those that deal with the merits of image making, and it clearly reflects reservations about the flourishing image cult. here, the story about king udāyana presenting his sandalwood image to the buddha takes an interesting turn: 爾時閻浮提內國王、大臣、并四部眾，皆以所持種種供具，供養於佛。時優陀延王頂戴佛像，并諸上供珍異之物，至如來所而以奉獻。佛身相好具足端嚴，在諸天中殊特明顯，譬如滿月離眾雲曀。所造之像而對於佛，猶如堆阜比須彌山不可為喻。但有螺髻及以玉毫少似於佛，而令四眾知是佛像。爾時優陀延王白佛言。世尊，如來過去於生死中為求菩提，行無量無邊難行苦行，獲是最上微妙之身無與等者。我所造像不似於佛。竊自思惟深為過咎。(t#694, 16:793a11-21) at that time, all the kings, great ministers, and the four kinds of people of the countries in jambudvipa all gave the various gifts they were holding in worship of the buddha. then king udāyana, carrying the buddha statue on [the top of] his head, and with rare things as offerings, approached the tathāgata seat and presented all this respectfully. the major and minor attributes of the buddha’s body ever endowed with splendor were particularly evident among the gods, like the full moon leaving the obscuring multitude of clouds. when the man-made image was compared with the buddha, it resembled a small hill that cannot be turned into mount sumeru. although the spiral headdress and the urna were a little similar to that of the buddha, the four kinds of people [present] were still induced to know that it is a [mere] image of the buddha. at that time king udāyana addressed the buddha and said: “world-honored one, when in the past the tathāgata sought  bodhi in the [endless circle of] life and death, he practiced immeasurable and limitless hardships and austerities, and obtained this unsurpassed, wondrous body that nothing can equal. the image that i made is not similar to the buddha.” and he secretly thought to himself that he had made a grave mistake. in this version of the story, udāyana realizes that, despite all his efforts, the image that he made is only an image and “not similar to the buddha.” even though the thirty-two bodily attributes—here represented by the “spiral headdress and the ūrņā”—are correctly depicted, the gap between the image and genuine body of the buddha in all his glory seems unbridgeable. the story ends with the buddha comforting udāyana, pointing out that he nevertheless attained considerable merit because he had already “made immeasurable beings achieve the benefit of deep faith.” udāyana is assured that in the future believers will obtain great blessings from the image that he made. by the end of the seventh century at the latest, the image cult in china had obviously already faced resistance and was in need of encouragement. the opposing argument found in the sutra spoken by the buddha on the merits of image making in the mahāyāna is the same as the most widespread contention of the byzantine iconoclasts: it is a man-made or manufactured image (suozao zhi xiang 所造之像), utterly unfit for comparison to the splendor (duanyan 端嚴) of the buddha’s real body, and inappropriate to the point of becoming an example of “faults and errors” (guojiu 過咎). the vocabulary used by the buddhist critique of image making is similar to that of the christian iconoclasts who held that “an image is deemed to render an insufficient, if not deceptive, account of its subject” and might be defined as “false image,” since the truthfulness of any pictorial representation can be seriously questioned (barber 2002, 56). that said, what was the counterargument of the buddhist “iconoclasts”? one answer is found in the writings of another defender of images, the seventh-century chinese vinaya specialist daoxuan 道宣(596-667). in 662, daoxuan had, along with other leading clerics of his time, presented a memorial to the tang throne to ward off the immediate danger of losing part of their autonomy after emperor gaozong issued an order to reconsider the matter of monks and nuns paying respect to, and bowing in front of, rulers and parents. in the course of this debate on how to pay respect, daoxuan had also attempted to discuss image worship, claiming that images as representations of the buddha served as monastic objects of worship for the purpose of “paying respect to the buddha” (shinohara 2004, 202). daoxuan had taken up the matter before in his earlier vinaya commentary, finally revised in 636, in which he included a chapter on “paying respect to monks and images” (sengxiang zhijing僧像致敬, t#1804, 40.131b-135a). in this chapter, he argued for the importance of upholding the monastic hierarchy, which is given expression in paying respect to elders, and to the buddha himself, in the form of his image. nevertheless, he had to admit that there are forms of worship that are still superior to image worship (shinohara 2004, 199-201). what are these superior forms of worship? in his vinaya commentary, daoxuan quotes a story from the commentary on the great perfection of wisdom (da zhidu lun大智度論, t#1509, 25:137a1-21). the story relates a kind of contest between the buddha’s disciple subhūti and the nun utpalavarnā about how to best venerate the buddha. when the buddha was about to descend from the heaven of the thirty-three gods, subhūti dwelt in contemplation in a rock cave, pondering: 佛常說，若人以智慧眼觀佛法身，則為見佛中最。(t#1509, 25:137a4-6) the buddha has always preached that contemplating the buddha’s dharma body with the eye of wisdom is the ultimate among [all kinds of] buddha visualizations. thereupon he decided not to go to the place where the buddha was about to descend, which was awaited by the multitude of gods and men alike. in contrast, the nun utpalavarnā had made all the necessary efforts and even used magic to get to the place of the buddha’s descent and to be the first to see the buddha’s body and pay homage to him. when she finally succeeded in doing so, the buddha addressed her saying: 非汝初禮。須菩提最初禮我。所以者何。須菩提觀諸法空,是為見佛法身，得真供養，供養中最。非以致敬生身為供養也。以是故言:須菩提常行空三昧，與般若波羅蜜空相相應。以是故佛命令說般若波羅蜜。(t#1509, 25:137a16-21) you are not the first to pay homage; subhūti was the first to pay homage to me. how is that? subhūti contemplated the emptiness of all phenomena, which is seeing the buddha’s dharma body, and achieved the true worship, the utmost among [all kinds of] worship. he did not consider paying respect to the living body as veneration; therefore i say: in persistently practicing the samādhi of emptiness, subhūti responded to the attributes of emptiness of prajñāpāramitā. for that reason the buddha orders the teaching of the prajñāpāramitā. as this story shows, even though venerating the buddha’s body and his image is advisable, the highest form of veneration is the contemplation of emptiness of all phenomena (guan zhufa kong 觀諸法空), which is equivalent to a vision of the buddha’s real body, his dharma body (jian fo fashen 見佛法身). by contemplating emptiness, subhūti experiences prajñāpāramitā, the perfection of wisdom, which is highly recommended by the buddha. could it be then that advocates of the doctrine of emptiness, or even a cult of prajñāpāramitā, favored a more iconoclastic point of view? iv.  aniconism in china an eponymous body of scriptures, known as the perfection of wisdom sutras, canonize the teachings on emptiness and prajñāparāmitā that played a significant role in the intellectual life of sixth century china. as will be shown, the impact of these scriptures is clearly seen in the second aniconic phase in china when selected passages of these sutras appear as rock carvings in the mountainous landscape of shandong province. teachings on emptiness also played a significant role in theoretical discussions about iconoclasm. the threat of iconoclasm in china, iconoclastic movements and persecutions of the sangha threatened buddhist belief three times. the last and most severe of these persecutions in 845[5] ended its golden age irretrievably. imperial attacks on the religion included the demolition of images, the closing or destruction of monasteries, the confiscation of monastic land, and the forceful return of monks and nuns into lay life. the economic reasons behind this are well known: monasteries had accumulated incredible wealth and thereby gained political influence; clerics did not pay any taxes and were not subject to secular law, and the sheer material value of buddhist statues provided an incentive to melt them down and make them into coins or weapons. but apart from political and practical considerations, educated circles also discussed iconoclasm in theory; for example, immediately before the second buddhist persecution was decreed at the court of emperor wu of the northern zhou dynasty (556-581). emperor wu had, for several consecutive years, held debates on the issue of the superiority of the three teachings, namely confucianism, taoism, and buddhism. in 577, when he had just defeated the northern qi-dynasty, he summoned 500 eminent monks to his court and declared that monasteries, scriptures, and images were about to be destroyed. buddhist sources such as the tenth fascicle of daoxuan’s guang hongming ji 廣弘明集 (t# 2103.52:153a28-154a9) and the biographies of eminent monks report that, in one last debate, only the brave monk huiyuan [淨影]慧遠 (523-592) defied the emperor who was trying to beat the buddhists at their own game. in arguing for the uselessness of buddha images, the emperor referred to the buddhist mahāyāna teaching of emptiness of all phenomena, and said: 且自真佛無像，則在太虛，遙敬表心。 (t#2060, 50: 490a28-29) the true buddha is beyond representation, for he resides in the great void; the distant reverence [that we feel for him should be] revealed in our hearts. (translated by soper 1959, 138) thereupon huiyuan explained: 詔云。真佛無像。信如誠旨。但耳目生靈，賴經聞佛籍像表真。若使廢之，無以興敬。帝曰虛空真佛。咸自知之。未假經像。(t#2060, 50:490b10-13) his majesty has proclaimed that the true buddha is beyond representation; and truly these are like the words of a god. but the ear and eye create the spirit; and it is by relying on the scriptures, or by listening to a buddha, or with the aid of images, that the truth is made manifest. if they are now to be done away with, there will be no way to arouse devotion.” the emperor replied: “the true buddha of the void is known naturally by all men, with no borrowing from scriptures or images. (translated by soper 1959, 119) even though huiyuan managed to rebut the last argument, his plea was of no avail, and the persecution was initiated. only when the emperor suddenly died one year later was the buddhist teaching rehabilitated. with regard to the status of the images, huiyuan holds that they manifest the truth just like the scriptures or words of the buddha; nevertheless, he also admits that “the true buddha is beyond representation.” the crucial point here is that images and words are manifestations of the buddha’s truth in this world, while the buddha himself is identical to the great void or emptiness of all phenomena. this seeming contradiction is resolved in the doctrine of the twofold truth (erdi 二諦), according to which all phenomena simultaneously participate in an ultimate truth and a conventional truth. while the latter is reality as experienced by the unenlightened, the ultimate truth equates emptiness and the transcendence of all language and reasoning (muller 2009, article “twofold truth” in ddb). when the emperor used the doctrine of emptiness of the ultimate truth to validate his annihilation of buddhist images and scriptures, he did not understand that ultimate and conventional truths are mutually dependant on each other: without affirming a “conventional truth,” there is no “ultimate truth” that can be claimed as superior. in his defiance of buddha’s images and scriptures, huiyuan reminds him of this fact. the discourse on true attributes: rejecting the bodily attributes of the buddha and their visualization fig. 2: giant rock scripture at mount tie in zoucheng, shandong province, china, with carved text passage expounding the path of the bodhisattva, dated 579 ce, stone, height 51.70 m, width 14 m, photograph taken by and courtesy of heidelberger akademie der wissenschaften, 2008 when the chinese turned to the aniconic in the second half of the sixth century, it was not to avoid representations of the buddha in human form, as early indian buddhism did, while using his non-image to enhance and intensify the pictorial representation; instead, the chinese refrained from any kind of pictorial representation and focused on the buddha’s written words. selected passages taken from the buddha’s “golden words” were carved into the natural rock bed of hills and mountains in shandong province. in contrast to writing sutras on paper or cloth, carving them into cliffs beneath the sky, or into the rough walls of cave temples, was a monumental undertaking. the inscription of mount tie in zoucheng, for example, covers 725 square meters, and its sheer size makes it impossible to read the whole text from a single standpoint, or even to see it as a whole (figure 2). the text of mount tie expounds on the path of the bodhisattva, the enlightened being who, according to the mahāyāna ideal, practices compassion and wisdom and finally achieves supreme enlightenment in order to save all living beings. we are informed in a subsidiary inscription called “stone hymn” that the text was carved in stone to preserve it for eternity against the expected “inferno at the end of the eon,” namely the end of the buddhist teaching and the world. mount tie’s carving was finished on september 23rd 579, according to the western calendar; about one year after the second persecution of buddhism had come to an end with the sudden death of emperor zhou wudi, as mentioned before. it may well be seen as a triumphant return to the spreading of buddhist teachings. fig. 3: rubbing of the rock inscription at mount tao in tengzhou, shandong province, china, with invocations of prajñāpāramitā, buddha avalokiteśvara, and buddha amitābha, and remains of a colophon, rock inscription undated, probably second half of the sixth century, ink on paper, height 1.82 m, width 1.65 m, photograph taken by and courtesy of heidelberger akademie der wissenschaften, 2007 to a remarkable extent, the stone-carved passages deal with definitions and praises of the perfection of wisdom, prajñā-pāramitā. an excerpt in ninety-eight characters from the sutra on the great perfection of wisdom spoken by mañjuśrī (文殊師利所說摩訶般若波羅蜜; t #232, 8:726a-732c), on the nature of the prajñā-pāramitā was carved in six places, and another excerpt in fifty-four characters from the same sutra on the nature of buddha contemplation in two more places. sometimes, the prajñā-pāramitā is likened to a talisman, and its invocation becomes spell-like in character. the perfection of wisdom is all the more equated to salvific buddha figures. at mount tao 陶山 in tengzhou 滕州, prajñā-pāramitā was carved next to the names of the buddhas avalokiteśvara (guanshiyin 觀世音佛) and amitābha (omituo 阿弥陁佛), not only giving it the same status enjoyed by these buddhas, but also suggesting that it  was invoked orally in the same way these buddhas usually are (figure 3). fig. 4: giant diamondsutra carved in stone sutra valley at mount tai, shandong province, china, undated, probably second half of the sixth century, stone, height of carved surface 32 m, width 62,1 m, photograph taken by and courtesy of heidelberger akademie der wissenschaften, 2006 in other carved sutra passages, prajñā-pāramitā is linked to the discussion of the real attributes (shixiang 實相) of the buddha. at the largest inscription site in shandong province, in stone sutra valley at mount tai 泰山, one third of the diamondsutra (vajracchedika prajñāpāramitāsūtra ) was carved in columns of irregular length, covering a surface of about 1800 square meters (figure 4). as one of the most important buddhist texts in all of east asia, this sutra from the group of prajñāpāramitā scriptures has been essential for establishing the teachings of the mahāyāna in china. the text itself is in the form of a dialogue between the buddha and his disciple subhūti, whom we have met before in the veneration contest with the nun utpalavarnā. at one point, subhūti affirms that whoever hears this sutra being preached by someone with a pure heart will bring forth the real attributes, and he explains what they are: 世尊! 是實相者，則是非相，是故如來說名實相。 world-honored one! these real attributes are non-attributes; for that reason the tathāgatha says they are called real attributes. since the real attributes of the buddha are non-attributes, thus no different from emptiness, certain conclusions about the buddha’s body and its perception are unavoidable. the first concerns the visibility and representability of the buddha in his physical body: 須菩提! 於意云何? 可以三十二相見如來不? 不也，世尊! 不可以三十二相得見如來。何以故？如來說三十二相，即是非相，是名三十二相。(t#235, 8:750a20-23) the buddha asked: subhūti, what do you think? can the tathāgatha be seen in his 32 attributes? [subhūti answered:] no, world honored one! the tathāgatha cannot be seen in his 32 attributes. why is that? because the 32 attributes that were taught by the tathāgatha are actually non-attributes. this is called ‘32 attributes’. the second treats the possibility of contemplation of the buddha: 須菩提! 於意云何? 可以三十二相觀如來不? [。。。] 須菩提白佛言：世尊! 如我解佛所說義，不應以三十二相觀如來。爾時，世尊而說偈言：若以色見我，以音聲求我，是人行邪道，不能見如來。 (t#235, 8:752a11-18) [the buddha furthermore asked:] subhūti, what do you think? can the tathāgatha be contemplated in his 32 attributes? [and subhūti answered:] world honored one! according to my understanding of the meaning expounded by the buddha, the tathāgatha should not be contemplated in his 32 attributes.at that time the world honored one spoke the following verse: if someone saw me in form, or sought for me in sounds, such a person would walk the wrong way and could not see the tathāgatha. the diamondsutra thus mentions the issue of the buddha’s bodily attributes two times. the first time, the visibility (jian 見) of the buddha in his thirty-two attributes is rejected; this rejection includes the buddha’s anthropomorphic image. the second time, even the contemplation (guan 觀) on the thirty-two bodily attributes is denied or dismissed, indicating a rejection of the buddha’s mental images as well. as the verse sums up, either path would not lead to a vision of the buddha or into the buddha’s presence. at mount tai, the selection of the diamondsutra seems to suggest a refusal of the buddha’s image that is then given form in the giant rock carving. fig. 5: rock cut passage from the vimalakīrtinirdeśasūtra at mount ge in zoucheng, shandong province, china, dated 580, stone, height 20.88 m, width  8.36 m, photograph taken by and courtesy of heidelberger akademie der wissenschaften, 2006 apart from the scriptures of the prajñāpāramitā group, other mahāyāna works expound the teachings of emptiness as well. from the body of texts most popular in china, a passage from the vimalakīrtinirdeśasūtra, or the sutra spoken by vimalakīrti (維摩詰所說經 t#475, 14:554c28 – 555a24) was chosen to be carved at mount ge 葛山in zoucheng (figure 5). the inclining western slope of this low mountain bears an inscription in ten vertical columns of about forty characters each, on a surface of 175 square meters (figure 6). the text is still too large to be taken in as a whole, just like those at mount tie and mount tai. the passage itself is located near the end of the sutra, when the wise layman vimalakīrti finally encounters the living buddha and discusses how to contemplate the body of the enlightened one. fig. 6: virtual reconstruction of the sutra passage carved at mount ge, ink on paper rubbings of single characters pasted on virtual 3d model of the rock, damaged characters added from the printed taishō edition of the buddhist canon, processed by ke peng in 2008, courtesy of heidelberger akademie der wissenschaften in the carved text, the noble vimalakīrti says the following about the contemplation of the buddha’s body and its real attributes: 如自觀身實相。觀佛亦然。。。。不觀色不觀色如。不觀色性。。。。 非四大起。同於虛空。。。。不可以智知。不可以識識。無晦無明無名無相。無強無弱非淨非穢。不在方不離方。非有為非無為。無示無說。。。。非有相非無相。同[4]真際等法性。。。。 非大非小。非見非聞非覺非知。。。。無已有無當有無今有。不可以一切言說分別顯示。(t# 475, 14:554c29-555a23) as if contemplating the real characteristics of my own body—so do i view the buddha. ... i neither view him as form, nor view him as the suchness of form, nor view him as the nature of form. ... he does not arise from the four great elements and is identical to space. ... he cannot be understood with wisdom, nor can he be known by consciousness. he is without darkness (i.e., ignorance), without brightness (i.e., understanding), without name, and without characteristic. he is without strength, without weakness, and neither pure nor defiled. he does not occupy a region, nor does he transcend the regions. he is neither conditioned nor unconditioned. he is without manifesting and without explaining. ...he neither has characteristics nor is without characteristics. he is identical to the true limit and equivalent to the dharma-nature. ... he is neither great nor small. he is neither vision, nor hearing, nor perceiving, nor knowing; ... without past, without future, and without present. he cannot be discriminated or manifested using any verbal explanations at all. (translated by mcrae 2004, 185-186) and, as one is tempted to add, “he cannot be made manifest by any image at all.” the real attributes of the buddha, promoted in the vimalakīrtinirdeśasūtra, are definitely different from the thirty-two bodily attributes of the enlightened one that characterize his image, but also different from anything “made manifest by any discursive analyses.” in this respect, the rock carvings at shandong are to be understood at least as aniconic, maybe as iconoclastic. after all, even language and discriminative thinking is rejected; denying the message of the rock-carved words as well, leaving only the mere efficacy of the buddha’s golden words. buddha names: the buddha’s aniconic presence fig. 7: rubbing of “buddha king of great emptiness” carving at mount hongding in dongping county, shandong province, china, rock carving around 564 ce, ink on paper, height 9.20 m, width 3.40 m, photograph taken by and courtesy of heidelberger akademie der wissenschaften, 2006 apart from selecting passages from the buddhist canon, the aniconic rock carvings in shandong province portray the buddha’s presence in another way: where anthropomorphic images of the buddha such as those on the outer walls of many cave-temples would be expected, only buddha names are carved on the cliffs. among the giant buddha names carved into the opposing slopes of mount hongding洪頂山in dongping county東平縣, the one that reads “buddha king of great emptiness” is the largest one, measuring approximately nine meters in height (figure 7). this particular buddha, whose name is invoked not only on the cliff of mount hongding, but in eight more places on the former territory of the northern qi, is mentioned nowhere in the buddhist canon. the “buddha king of great emptiness” is a creation of the buddhist circles responsible for the art of rock carvings in the sixth century, and is to be understood as an exaltation of the concept of great emptiness. in the commentary literature of this time, great emptiness is seen equaling the perfection of wisdom, which in turn is called mother of all buddhas, or buddhahood itself. consequently, only prajñāpāramitā, the highly abstract, deep and mysterious concept of the perfection of wisdom, is able to compensate for the insufficiency of images and words. v. conclusions while a comprehensive comparative study of christian and buddhist icons is still lacking, in recent years awareness of the affinity of buddhist and christian medieval culture has grown. while in the field of byzantine studies research in image discourse is already longstanding, the topic was touched upon only occasionally in chinese studies. this paper assembles pictorial and textual sources relevant to image theory in chinese buddhism, and is an attempt to restructure and reread them along lines set by analyses of byzantine image discourse. a number of parallels become apparent when looking at the practice of an image cult in both cultural spheres: the key questions for any kind of representation in a religious context are the fundamental invisibility of the divine and the problem of truthfulness of the medium chosen to represent it. anthropomorphic representations of christ and buddha may or may not be adequate embodiments of the divine. in the case that they are held to be so, the byzantine theologians, as well as the buddhist clerics, follow the same legitimating strategies: the need for a first image is recognized, and a legend based on the idea of a portrayal of the historical christ/buddha is developed around it. another possibility is offered in images of the true countenance, which are factually seen as relics of contact that recommend themselves for worship. as for the kinds of images that are not produced via bodily contact with christ/buddha, the problem of their manufactured nature has to be solved. one successful strategy consists of concealing their man-made nature and declaring them to be acheiropoietos, images“not made by hand.” this claim is usually substantiated by stories of unexpected discoveries found in the chinese sphere in numerous examples of so-called aśoka images. while theories of how exactly the relation between the archetype and the image is to be understood differs in byzantine and china, a common feature is the belief that even though the images and the divine are essentially different, they basically posses the potential to evoke a vision of the real body of christ/buddha. arguments against images as adequate embodiments of the divine also seem to be similar. their manufactured nature is the main critique in the version of the udyāna legend presented in the sutra spoken by the buddha on the merits of image making in the mahāyāna. there are probably many more arguments to be discovered in the buddhist scriptures, and a lot of work still needs to be done to give a comprehensive account of image defenders and image critics in chinese buddhism, whom we better not call iconoclasts too hastily. while iconoclasm and persecution was a severe threat to buddhist teachings in china, it is always portrayed as state-controlled demolition. the image discourse within the buddhist community seems to have always been rather moderate, cultivating the view that images, as well as language, will always be expedient means to enlightenment, but should never be taken for the ultimate truth of buddhahood itself. finally, another point of contact for image discourses in byzantium and china is what charles barber describes as the “strong antithesis of word and image,” which in byzantium was “typical of the rhetoric of second iconoclasm.” in his analysis of the five iconoclastic poems that were written close to the cross that was placed on the chalke gate in 815, barber notices that the iconoclastic theologians who wrote the poems repeatedly connect the symbolic figure of the cross to the prophets’ verbal testimony in the old testament (barber 2002, 93). likewise, the golden words of the buddha seem to have been the chinese counteraction to buddhist image veneration. it seems as if a discussion of the thirty-two bodily attributes designating the buddha as the enlightened one according to the mahāyānan teaching on emptiness initiated a second aniconic phase in buddhism. in contrast to the first aniconic phase of early indian buddhism that realized the aniconic representation of the buddha in a pictorial context, the second aniconic phase in china relied only on writing the buddha’s golden words on natural rock surfaces. the sutra texts selected for carving clearly reflect the idea that the thirty-two bodily attributes of the buddha are as empty as all phenomena, and therefore inappropriate for attaining a vision of the real buddha. instead, the subtle and wonderful perfection of wisdom is praised and invocated as the mother of all buddhas. by simply carving various buddha names, prajñāpāramitā, and the often evoked “buddha king of great emptiness,” aniconic representations of the buddha in china thus gained a new quality: instead of shaping the rock into a human-shaped buddha figure, the buddha’s name is carved onto it in carefully crafted calligraphy. in the same way that anthropomorphic buddha images have been used as an aid for contemplation and the generation of mental buddha images, sutra passages and buddha names were suitable for recitation and invocation, another kind of mental contemplation that would take the believer closer to the enlightened one, not via the image, but via the word or language. nevertheless, as the chinese were well aware, seeing the buddha in form, or seeking him in sounds, would mean taking the wrong path in one’s quest for awakening, as the rock cut diamondsutra at mount tai lets the believers know. in this respect, and contrary to the above mentioned “strong antithesis of word and image” in byzantium, the iconic and the aniconic have in china always been seen as two sides of the same coin. ______________________________ list of illustrations: fig. 1:  buddha amitābha with inscribed pedestal, dated 746. grey limestone, height including pedestal 94 cm, width of pedestal 49,5 cm. photograph by jürgen liepe. courtesy of staatliche museen zu berlin, stiftung preußischer kulturbesitz, museum für asiatische kunst, ostasiatische kunstsammlung.   fig. 2: photograph of giant rock scripture at mount tie in zoucheng, shandong province, china, with carved text passage expounding the path of the bodhisattva, dated 579 ce. stone, height 51.70 m, width 14 m. photograph taken by and courtesy of heidelberger akademie der wissenschaften, 2008 fig. 3:  rubbing of the rock inscription at mount tao in tengzhou, shandong province, china, with invocations of prajñāpāramitā, buddha  avalokiteśvara, and buddha amitābha, and remains of a colophon. rock inscription undated, probably second half of sixth century. ink on paper. height 1.82 m, width 1.65 m. photograph taken by and courtesy of heidelberger akademie der wissenschaften, 2007. fig. 4:  photograph of giant diamondsutra carved in stone sutra valley at mount tai, shandong province, china. undated, probably second half of the sixth century. stone, height of carved surface 32 m, width 62,1 m. photograph taken by and courtesy of heidelberger akademie der wissenschaften, 2006. fig. 5:  photograph of rock cut passage from the vimalakīrtinirdeśasūtra at mount ge in zoucheng, shandong province, china, dated 580. stone, height 20.88 m, width  8.36 m. photograph taken by and courtesy of heidelberger akademie der wissenschaften, 2006. fig. 6:  virtual reconstruction of the sutra passage carved at mount ge: ink on paper rubbings of single characters pasted on virtual 3d model of the rock; damaged characters added from the printed taishō edition of the buddhist canon. processed by ke peng in 2008. courtesy of heidelberger akademie der wissenschaften. fig. 7:  rubbing of “buddha king of great emptiness” carving at mount hongding in dongping county, shandong province, china. rock carving around 564 ce. ink on paper, height 9.20 m, width 3.40 m. photograph taken by and courtesy of heidelberger akademie der wissenschaften. 2006. references: bachhofer, ludwig. 1929. die frühindische plastik. 2 vols. pantheon, firenze: casa editrice. charles barber 2002. figure and likeness:  on the limits of representation in byzantine iconoclasm. princeton: princeton university press. belting, hans. 2004. bild und kult. eine geschichte des bildes vor dem zeitalter der kunst. münchen: verlag c.h. beck. brinker, helmut. 2001. “auf buddhas frühen spuren in china” in die rückkehr des buddha. chinesische skulpturen des 6. jahrhunderts. der tempelfund von qingzhou, edited by lukas nickel, 19-41. zürich: museum rietberg. brown, robert l. 1990. “god on earth. the walking buddha in the art of south and southeast asia.” artibus asiae 50: 73-107. ——— 1998a. “expected miracles: the unsurprisingly miraculous nature of buddhist images and relics.” in images, miracles, and authority in asianedited by richard h. davis, 23–35. boulder: westview. ——— 1998b. “the miraculous buddha image: portrait, god, or object?” in images, miracles, and authority in asian religious traditions, edited by richard h. davis, 37-54. boulder: westview carter, martha l. 1990. the mystery of the udayana buddha. (supplemento n. 64 agli annali – vol. 50 , fasc. 3) napoli: istituto universitario orientale coomaraswamy, anda k. 1972. elements of buddhist iconography. new delhi: munshiram manoharlal. first published 1935 by harvard university press davis, richard h.,ed. 1998.  images, miracles, and authority in asian religious traditions. boulder: westviewpress. dunhuang wenwu yanjiusuo 敦煌文物研究所 [research institute for cultural relics in dunhuang], ed. 1981-87. dunhuang mogaoku:敦煌莫高窟 [mogao cave temples of dunhuang]. 5 vols. (zhongguo shiku 中国石窟 [cave temples in china]). beijing: wenwu chubanshe, . effenberger, arne. 1998. “vom zeichen zum abbild – frühzeit christlicher kunst.” in byzanz. die macht der bilder, edited by michael brandt and arne effenberger,14-39.  hildesheim: dom-museum hildesheim. fojiao dongzhuan gushi huajuan 佛教东传故事画卷 [illustrated volume of stories about the transmission of the buddhist teaching to the east]. 2000, edited by sun xiushen 孙修身. (dunhuang shiku quanji 12 敦煌石窟全集 12, dunhuang yanjiuyuan zhubian 敦煌研究院主编). shanghai 上海: shanghai renmin chubanshe 上海人民出版社, shanghai shiji chuban jituan 上海世纪出版集团. granoff, phyllis. 1998. “divine delicacies: monks, images and miracles in the contest between jainism and buddhism.” in images, miracles and authority in asian religious traditions, edited by richard davis, 55-97. boulder: westview press.. ——— and shinohara koichi, eds. 2004. images in asian religions: texts and contexts. asian religions and society series. toronto: ubc press. huntington, susan l. 1992. “aniconism and the multivalence of emblems: another look”. ars orientalis 22: 111-156. huntington, susan l. 1990. “early buddhist art and the theory of aniconism.” art journal 49, no. (4): 401-408. karow, otto. 1989. symbolik des buddhismus. tafelband. symbolik der religionen 22. stuttgart: anton hiersemann. klimburg-salter, deborah e. 1995. buddha in indien. die frühindische skulptur von könig aśoka bis zur guptazeit. wien: ausstellungskatalog des kunsthistorischen museums. knox, robert. 1992. amaravati. buddhist sculpture from the great stūpa. london: british museum press. krannich, thorsten, christof schubert, and claudia sode, eds. 2002.  die ikonoklastische synode von hiereia 754. studien und texte zu antike und christentum 15. tübingen: mohr siebeck. kunstund ausstellungshalle der bundesrepublik deutschland gmbh, ed. 2008. gandhara – das buddhistische erbe pakistans. legenden, klöster und paradiese.  mainz: verlag philipp von zabern. luczanits, christian. 2008. “der frühe buddhismus und gandhara.” in gandhara – das buddhistische erbe pakistans. legenden, klöster und paradiese, edited by kunstund ausstellungshalle der bundesrepublik deutschland gmbh 2008, 72-77. mainz: verlag philipp von zabern. muller, a. charles, ed. digital dictionary of buddhism. http://www.buddhism-dict.net/ddb/. accessed june 22, 2011. museum für ostasiatische kunst berlin-dahlem, ed. 1970. ausgewählte werke ostasiatischer kunst. berlin: wissenschaftliche bearbeitung beatrix von ragué. mccallum, donald f. 1998. “the replication of miraculous images: the zenkoji amida and the seiryoji shaka.”  in images, miracles, and authority in asian religious traditions, edited by richard h. davis, 207-226. boulder: westview. mcrae, john r. 2004. “the vimalakīrti sutra. translated from the chinese (taishō volume 14, number 475).” in the sutra of queen śrīmālā of the lion’s roar and the  vimalakīrti sutra, 65-201.  berkeley: numata center for buddhist translation and research. nickel, lukas, ed. 2001. die rückkehr des buddha. chinesische skulpturen des 6. jahrhunderts. der tempelfund von qingzhou. museum rietberg zürich. ausstellungskatalog altes museum, staatliche museen zu berlin, museum rietberg zürich, royal academy of arts. zürich: museum rietberg. quagliotti, anna maria. 1998. buddhapadas. an essay on the representations of the footprints of the buddha with a descriptive catalogue of the indian specimens from the 2nd century b.c. to the 4th century a.d. kamakura: institute of the silk road studies. seckel, dietrich. 1976.  jenseits des bildes – anikonische symbolik in der buddhistischen kunst. abhandlungen der heidelberger akademie der wissenschaften: philosophisch-historische klasse, jahrgang 1976, 2. heidelberg: abhandlung. ——— 2004. before and beyond the image. aniconic symbolism in buddhist art, translated by andreas leisinger and edited by helmut brinker and john rosenfield.  supplementum 45. zürich:  artibus asiae publishers. sharma, r.c. 1984. buddhist art of mathurā. new delhi: agam kala prakashan. ——— 1992.  bharhut sculptures. new delhi: shakti malik abhinav publications. shinohara koichi. 1998. “changing roles for miraculous images in medieval chinese buddhism: a study of the miracle image section in daoxuan’s ‘collected records’.”  in images, miracles, and authority in asian religious traditions, edited by richard h. davis, 141-188. boulder: westview. ——— 2000. “the ‘iconic’ and ‘aniconic’ buddha visualization in medieval chinese buddhism.” in representation in religion: studies in honour of moshe barasch, edited by  jan assmann and albert i. baumgarten, 133-148. leiden: brill. ——— 2004. “stories of miraculous images and paying respect to the three jewels: a discourse on image worship in seventh-century-china.” in images in asian religions: texts and contexts. asian religions and society series, edited by granoff, phyllis and shinohara koichi,180-222. toronto: ubc press. snellgrove, david l. 1978. the image of the buddha. paris: unesco. soper, alexander coburn. 1959. literary evidence for early buddhist art in china. supplement 19. zurich: artibus asiae. speck, paul. 1998. “bilder und bilderstreit.” in byzanz. die macht der bilder katalog zur ausstellung im dom-museum hildesheim, edited by michael brandt and arne effenberger, 55-67. hildesheim: dom-museum hildesheim. strong, john s. 2004. relics of the buddha. buddhisms: a princeton university press series, edited by stephen f. teiser. princeton: princeton university press. taddei, maurizio. 1995. “was bedeutete der buddhismus für die frühe indische kunst?” in buddha in indien. die frühindische skulptur von könig aśoka bis zur guptazeit, edited by  deborah e. klimburg-salter, 41-9. wien: ausstellungskatalog des kunsthistorischen museums. wenzel, claudia. 2007. “anikonik im chinesischen mahāyāna-buddhismus: die wahren merkmale des buddha.” in weltbild – bildwelt ergebnisse und beiträge des internationalen symposiums der hermann und marianne straniak-stiftung, weingarten, edited by walter schweidler, 271-292. sankt augustin: academia verlag. wong, dorothy c. 2004. chinese steles. pre-buddhist and buddhist use of a symbolic form. honolulu: university of hawai’i press. wu hung. 1986. “buddhist elements in early chinese art (2nd and 3rd centuries a.d.).” artibus asiae xlvii 3 (4): 263-352. yamabe nobuyoshi. 1999. the sūtra on the ocean-like samādhi of the visualization of the buddha: the interfusion of the chinese and indian cultures in central asia as reflected in a fifth century apocryphal sūtra. umi microform 9930977, dissertation, yale university. [1] the rigid parallelism in the inscription notwithstanding, the last two characters are as they are rendered here. one may have expected to read 施其 instead. [2]  unless otherwise indicated, all translations are by the author. [3] like the four-sided stele dedicated by an yi  society led by li sengzhi and wang a’quan (li sengzhi, wang a’quan heyi zao simian xiangbei李僧智王阿全何邑造四面像碑), dated 520 in the victoria and albert museum in london, sandstone, height 1.73 m, that has: “since the divine doctrine is of subtle transcendence, it cannot truly be manifested but that words and images are the only means to comprehend this doctrine. since perfect knowledge is profoundly deep, it cannot be truly fathomed but that representational figures are the only means of displaying the glorious signs [of buddhahood].” published in wong 2004, 77-82, inscription translated by perceval w. yetts. the george eumorfopoulos collection: catalogue of the chinese and corean bronzes, sculpture, jades, jewellery and miscellaneous objects. vol. 3, buddhist sculpture, pp. 43-50. pls. 8-13. london: benn ltd., 1932. [4]  or, as brown 1998, 52, note 10, put it: “... the argument for an aniconic period of art would not be in terms of the symbols being the buddha (such as the bodhi tree being the buddha), nor of the symbol “replacing the buddha,” but that the symbol indicated his presence in particular contexts.” [5] coinciding with the second iconoclastic phase in byzantium from 815 to 843. whaling, science, and trans-maritime networks, 1910-1914 | schladitz | transcultural studies whaling, science, and trans-maritime networks, 1910–1914 lars schladitz, university of erfurt the archive of the smithsonian national museum of natural history in washington, d.c. preserves a photograph of the museum's mammal exhibition hall in 1915 (figure 1). it depicts a row of upright glass showcases containing skeletons of various mammal species; the showcases are arranged in a line and are classified according to their biological relationships. the skeleton of a gray whale (its scientific name at the time was rhachianectes glaucus) is mounted in an extra case on the wall above this careful arrangement and dwarfs all the other exhibits. the artifact is carefully suspended from the roof and supported with plaster, in order to give the impression of a whale drifting through water. the visual dominance of the whale skeleton in the museum display also underscores the artifact's special value as one of only two complete gray whale skeletons on display anywhere in the world at a time when they were already believed to be extinct. fig. 1: eschrichtius robustus skeleton, mounted on display at the national museum of natural history in washington, d.c. in 1915. national museum of natural history, division of mammals. mmp usnm 199527. the skeleton had been obtained in early 1912 by roy chapman andrews (1884–1960), assistant curator in the department of mammals at the american museum of natural history in new york city (amnh), while visiting the japanese tōyō hogei (oriental whaling) company's whaling station in ulsan in colonial korea (chōsen). working together with the newly successful and expanding whaling business, andrews had arranged the shipment of two of these precious skeletons, one for each of the two premier american natural history museums.[1] andrews visited japanese whaling stations on two separate expeditions between 1910 and 1912, when he collected and produced a large number of specimens, photographs, and scientific data, and initiated an exchange that reached truly pacific dimensions and went far beyond his original scientific agenda to collect cetaceans. the collection of the two museum exhibits brought together an american scientific mission to the philippine sea seeking whales, whalers, and colonizers from japan on new hunting grounds, koreans looking for employment and food at the docks, technology and seasoned personnel from norway, and last but not least, the gray whales on their annual journey between the bering sea's winter quarters and the korean nursing grounds. all those translocal actors and movements eventually connected at the coast of the korean peninsula.[2] following the question, under which circumstances knowledge of whales was produced, i will use the pictured gray whale artifact as a starting point from which to explore the global network underpinning the scientific practice of collection and analysis in the whaling grounds of thesea of japan and in the united states. this was a period when historical processes like the emergence of a new cetacean science, the establishment of a "modern" japanese whaling industry using appropriated norwegian technology, and the implementation of a colonial system in korea occurred concurrently. i will demonstrate that the global entanglement of japanese whaling was not a one-sided transfer of technology from europe to asia, but rather a multidirectional flow of knowledge and artifacts. previous research on this early period of japanese whaling has focused on the introduction of norwegian whaling technology through the movement of whaling experts and equipment, largely omitting the flows originating from japanese whaling, which were relatively limited up to the 1930s.[3] an analysis of andrews's research expeditions to the stations of the tōyō hogei company will significantly broaden this perspective. it reveals that despite the limited range of the japanese whaling operations at the time, they nonetheless proved crucial to western scientific research on whales by providing equipment, expertise, and specimens. japanese whalers, on the other hand, were eager to place themselves in a global framework of whaling and gain scientific information about whale stocks and movements. the japanese and korean waters where the whalers and andrews worked together became a seascape in which both scientific knowledge and artifacts were produced alongside the global commodities of whale meat and oil. this entanglement of scientific and commercial practice was locally embedded into the japanese colonial practice and into the currents and animal migrations of the northern pacific ocean and the japanese sea. histories of maritime research are commonly written with a focus on the researchers and their organizations.[4] while prey animals, ships, and machinery, as well as many colonial subalterns, usually have little or no voice in historical writing, it is impossible to deny that they had a major impact on the way the networked commercial whale hunting and whale science were practiced and on the results they produced.[5] the agency of the human actors was always determined and limited by non-human forces within a complex network.[6] in executing his scientific work andrews was equally as influenced by his own network of whaling specialists in japan and korea, as he was by his scientific tools, the whaler's equipment, and the unpredictable behavior of the whales. this culture‐nature approach makes it possible to include technology (such as harpoon guns or cameras) in the study, as well as to put "the ocean into history,"[7] even though the relationship between human actors in the capitalist colonial setting or between the whales and their hunters was never a "symmetrical" one.[8] the question about the processes underneath the water surface, how the activity of andrews and the whalers influenced the whales and their ecosystem, and in what way the submarine movements influenced the humans on the ships and shores has recently surfaced with increasing frequency.[9] efforts to expand these studiesscope to what lies beneath the surface of the ocean, to include human actors' impact on and interdependencies within the northern pacific ecosystem, inevitably have to include the results of the very research a study on whale science is seeking to deconstruct, and still will not answer all the questions about the pacific connections and relationships that might arise, yet provide a fruitful new perspective and make is possible to historicize the pacific ocean.[10] focused here on the one whale species whose skeleton ended up on the museum wall, this perspective demonstrates that the circumstances around its collection had a far greater geographical reach and deeper impact than what is visible on the surface.[11] the written historical traces center around andrews and his fellow scientists and contacts at the whaling stations as historical actors. andrews and other museum staff exchanged numerous letters with various japanese and norwegians employed at the whaling stations. these included well-known individuals from the story of japanese whaling like the main individual behind its inception, oka jūō (then president of the company), and the norwegian gunner, hendrik g. melsom. lesser-known people included employees of the whaling company like the managers matsuzaki and ogiwara, with whom andrews organized the transport of specimens. however, reading against the grain indicates that a great deal of andrews and the human network's agency was determined by their complex relationships with objects, "nature", and with "silent" colonial subjects. first, i will present this relationship between objects and humans by outlining the network that existed between andrews and his scientific tools. second, i will trace the entanglement of his research with the various persons engaged in whaling activity in japanese whaling grounds, which formed a trans-pacific circle representing a number of different interests. in what follows, i will show how japanese waters became the grounds where the gray whale could be preserved for the western public through research and the collection of specimens, and how this endeavor interacted with the maritime environment. and lastly, i will demonstrate the complexity of the relationships in the network at the colonial whaling station in korea by examining the field between the scientific whale collector and the "silent"colonial subaltern. whaling and the tools of a scientist after his return from the month-long visit to the ulsan whaling station aspecimens, photographs, and scientific data, and had initiated an exchange that nd a subsequent expedition to the korean inland to collect further mammals and birds in september 1912, andrews wrote a letter to his colleague and fellow specialist on mammals, joel a. allen. in it he outlined his discoveries. during my stay about thirty-five specimens were killed and i secured measurements and notes of all of them and photographs of many. these photographs show every part of the animal in detail and are, i believe, the only ones extant. three rolls of motion picture films showing the operations at the stations were also taken. one fine skeleton of the california gray whale was secured for this museum and, as had been arranged, one for the smithsonian institution. a considerable quantity of alcoholic material consisting of parasites and sections through the internal organs for histological study was preserved.[12] as this short passage indicates, andrews's work as a scientist not only relied on his previous knowledge of cetaceans, but also on a number of objects without which he could not work and whose limitations greatly determined the results of his research. the baggage andrews brought with him to japan contained tools that had evolved as the new standard accoutrements of scientific inquiry during the nineteenth century: a field journal in which to write measurements and notes about particularities of the examined animals, create a statistical basis for his research, and write down the information he could gain from the whalers' experience; containers to conserve and transport various animal artifacts, and a relatively recent tool for scientific exploration—a 4x5″revolving back graflex camera. the instrument was transportable enough to be used for fieldwork on a cramped catcher boat and the shutter and speed of the photographic plates were sufficient to capture relatively rapid movements including the sounding of a whale or even a harpoon in mid-flight. andrews later account of his research to allen reveals the use of different tools that formed a vital part of his practice as a scientist. first, his scientific processing of whales consisted of a complete record of all the animals that were killed. andrews numbered all the whales and made notes in his field journal. while he did note that measurements of body lengths might not be precise because he could not take them while the whale was still in the water intact, he relied on the accuracy of descriptions and measurements to produce valid scientific results about cetaceans. the great advantage of working at a modern shore whaling station, as andrews described, was the ability to take measurements after the whole whale had been landed; however, this did not necessarily apply to the korean whaling station, where parts of the whale was partially dismembered before the crane removed it from the water. beginning with the "no. 1" gray whale (a female which included a fetus itemized as "1a") caught on 8 january 1912, andrews described in detail the appearance of every whale including color, form, body size, and individual parts, as well as the baleen, and later processed this information for his scientific publications.[13] andrews's main task for the museum was the collection of specimens as objects for study and exhibition. since the museum was financed largely by donations, spectacular displays that appealed to a wider public were of great importance. materials had to preservable and only smaller specimens of complete animals or organ samples could be transported in containers with alcoholic liquid. otherwise, the off-site study of whales was limited to the skeletons, which also constituted-cleaned and assembled in lifelike postures-the core of animal representation in the museum's exhibition halls, and was sometimes combined with painted backgrounds to give an impression of the animal's natural habitat.[14] most of the whales whose skeletons were preserved seem to have been male specimens and were generally chosen for preservation because of their extraordinary size.[15] apart from the two gray whale skeletons, andrews also had a skeleton of a humpback whale and an orca that had been shipped to the united states from korea. these were added to the amnh's collection, which already included sperm whale, sei whale, and "sulphur-bottom" (blue whale) skeletons that he had gathered during his earlier expedition to stations on the japanese islands in 1910. besides shipping a large number of crates containing bones, teeth, skins, and other animal parts, the large number of photographs andrews brought home formed another substantial part of his scientific production of knowledge. andrews's indication that he took photos of most of the caught whales reveals that, along with a complete account of statistical data, pictures played an important role in providing scientific evidence. the fact that photographs of pacific whales were a novelty further increased their value. in his popular book, whale hunting with gun and camera, first published in 1916, andrews wrote about the process of developing the exposed negatives into visible photographic images and their importance: for me, developing the photographic negatives after a trip at sea is almost as fascinating as taking them, and no secret treasure chest was ever opened with greater interest than is the developing box. [...] i shall never forget the breathless interest with which i developed the negative exposed when the humpback whale came up beneath the ship [...]. i had had no time to focus the camera, and really expected a blurred picture, but still there was just a chance that it might be good. the image appearing on the plate slowly assumed form and i saw that it was a picture of a great body partly hidden beneath the ship. no one but a naturalist can ever know what it meant to get that photograph and how impatiently i waited until it could be taken from the hypo bath and examined.[16] the images were taken to document the actual process of whale hunting. he described the procedure of turning the photographic plates into visible images as something that allowed him to almost relive the actual hunt. while andrews wrote about the emotional impact that the production of the images had on him, he also claimed that his status as an expert "naturalist" gave him a special connection to the images taken. it was his position as a scientific specialist that enabled him to capture pictures of the whale hunt that no one else could. despite having been taken spontaneously and under rather uncontrolled circumstances, the pictures are described as authentic documents of the whale, which capture a moment that might have otherwise been lost. andrews described the spontaneous snapshot and excitement during the processing of the pictures to a broad audience in a report, but in a letter to his colleague allen he spoke of the same incident in more modified terms; the language and the content of his writing clearly differed depending on the context. although taking photographs for scientific purposes had to be done objectively, without emotions, and under controlled circumstances, describing the same process to a large audience allowed for the notion of adventurous exploration and emotional involvement. while andrews presented himself as an adventurous explorer in front of a general audience, his scientific works predominantly employed the passive voice. methods and tools took the role of the protagonist here. there is little doubt that andrews was picturing and describing his work according to the norms and expectations of his different audiences. this language difference becomes more obvious when comparing his scientific texts with personal letters and more popular texts where, in the latter, he would describe whales anthropomorphically or describe the people at the whaling station instead of focusing on his object of research. the pictures taken by andrews were not just incorporated into the museums' scientific archive and used as objective proof of whale behavior and appearance, they also reached a greater public through his various publications and the numerous public lectures he made across the united states, the main attraction of which was the display of exotic landscapes and animals through colored lantern slides. andrews'office at the museum's department of mammalogy also received a number of requests from private persons for prints of whale pictures. his use of photographic equipment not only served the purpose of proving scientific facts and of showing the "true" appearance of whales, but it also provided a source of astonishment and entertainment for a wider audience that was increasingly interested in exotic animals and in "oriental" places. by the turn of the century, "western" science had already described japanese whaling and the species of whales caught by examining japanese whaling accounts; however, western naturalists had done little to meet the high scientific standards of knowledge production represented in the tools and standardized processing employed by andrews. in his 1894 article karl august möbius, the german zoology professor and director of the museum für naturkunde in berlin, praised the japanese ability to formulate "true-to-nature" (naturwahrheit)descriptions of animals' properties and acknowledged that the drawings in japanese accounts must have been made while studying the freshly killed animals. he also suggested that although these drawings reflected the particularities of the different whale species well, they were not sufficient to describe and classify the animals scientifically.[17] after contacting a colleague from london for advice, möbius concluded that the description of the "kokukujira"matched the existing scientific description of the gray whale in the northern pacific years before andrews' "rediscovery"of the lost species.[18] whether or not andrews was aware of möbius's description, he was nevertheless (arguably) the first "western" naturalist to study japanese whaling first hand. because of the massive and economically important global hunt for whales they formed a presence in public discourse and had already been located inside the taxonomy of biological research; however, a broad scientific research agenda was not established until the end of the nineteenth century.[19] in his accounts, andrews stressed that his descriptions of whales were a scientific novelty. he used his observations at the whaling stations and the expertise of the whalers to write and publish a number of scientific articles on whales and porpoises, most notably on the gray whale and the sei whale (balaenoptera borealis). andrews wanted to improve upon an older systematic description of gray whales that had been published by the whaling captain charles m. scammon in 1874. like andrews, scammon had used insight gained by participating in whale hunting in the pacific northwest of the united states to write an objective and scientific account. unlike andrews, however, scammon was not a trained professional naturalist. while he used similar techniques, including measurements, descriptions, and various lithographs that were meant to objectively describe the species, andrews' scientific work was dependent on newer tools like the photographic camera and was meant to be more objective and to reform cetacean science.[20] still, his approach relied exclusively on scientific tools and on finding the right spot to observe whales, as well as on a level of cooperation with various human actors who would assist in the collection of specimens and provide knowledge based on years of experience. together with those humans would also come a number of tools-ships, harpoons, and blubber knives-which were much less made for scientific work than andrews's equipment, yet they too were indispensable in his whale research. establishing a network of whalers and scientists andrews cultivated a public persona that he shared with many earlier and contemporary naturalists. he was a good marksman and a passionate hunter; he was a representative example of american white middle-class manliness, a type perhaps best represented by former president theodore roosevelt.[21] but andrews was also a trained specialist in taxidermy and mammalogy and he worked for the museum on a professional basis. this reflects a larger development within natural history museums, where, by the 1890s, the staff was made up entirely of trained personnel with a university educations.[22] because of his position in the department of mammals and the museum's plan to build up a marine mammals collection, andrews planned to join an ongoing expedition aboard the u.s. navy operated research vessel uss albatross.[23] the ship's task was to gather information about maritime resources around the philippines and other southeast asian islands. as a result, andrews first came to japan in 1909. he stopped in yokohama while en route to manila, and later took a shore leave in nagasaki.[24] the albatross expedition was part of the american government's larger research agenda following the colonization of the philippines after the spanish-american war (1898) and the subsequent philippine-american war (1899-1902).[25] with regard to andrews' mission to collect whale specimens, the cruise on the albatross proved to be less than satisfactory. in his report to the american museum's director, hermon carey bumpus, he expressed his disappointment at the lack of opportunities for observing whales, let alone collecting them for the museum: first i tried a heavy ball in a shot gun and succeeded in getting one big fellow so badly wounded that i got the iron in him, but the toggle broke he got away. the next two times i tried the whale gun and both times killed a big dolphin, but the bomb killed each of them so quickly that they sank before the whale boat could be turned about to give me a chance with the iron. [...] the other two times we lowered for cetaceans, the shots were difficult and i missed. so the sum of that part is nothing. every man on the ship said that they had never been on a cruise when cetaceans were so scarce.[26] andrews's disappointment with the albatross cruise revealed that, in order to achieve his scientific goals, he would not only have to travel to a location where cetaceans were common enough to ensure success within a reasonable time, but also that he would have to acquire enough expertise to kill and secure smaller dolphins and porpoises as well as the large whales that were in high demand for museum collections. clearly, neither his own expertise nor the equipment he would have at hand during regular expedition work would be sufficient to safely collect the animals, let alone observe their behavior for extended periods of time. unlike the other large marvels of natural history exhibitions-including dinosaur bones and large mammals such as the rhinoceros-whales were of continued worldwide economic importance, and this, to a large part, drove the scientific interest in them. furthermore, unlike digging up dinosaur bones (which would win larger fame for andrews in the following decades) or shooting large mammals in a safari-like setting, killing whales and collecting their remains required specialized tools that only the whaling industry could provide.[27] landing at nagasaki harbor during the return journey of the albatross in february 1910, andrews used local networks to gain information about the regional whaling operations. he was able to contact the newly founded tōyō hogei company, which had just been formed by uniting a number of whaling companies and now held the de facto monopoly on whaling in japanese and colonial waters.[28] andrews managed to contact the company's president and received permission to spend time at the company's whaling stations, to join the whaler's daily work on the catcher boats, and to secure whale specimens for his museum in new york. having already spent time with whalers on vancouver island in the spring of 1908, working with whalers to gain scientific data was not a new activity to andrews. but because of some conflict with the american whalers, the earlier expedition had failed to produce any specimens for the museum. the director of the amnh gave him the permission for a leave of absence and a budget of $1,000 to spend on artifacts and shipment.[29] once in japan, andrews travelled to the company's headquarters in shimonoseki and from there proceeded to the whaling station at ōshima (wakayama prefecture) at the seto inland sea, where he spent his first successful month. in march 1910, after already making observations and securing a number of skeletons that were put immediately into transport crates and shipped to new york, he went to the whaling port at aikawa in the rikuzen province (today miyagi prefecture) on the pacific coast, to make further observations and collect another whale skeleton. unlike other branches of natural history collection and survey work, whale research was absolutely interdependent with commercial practice. in contrast to the countless amateur and professional naturalists who supplied museums with collected plants, insects, and hunted animals, the complexity of andrews' work was much greater. seen in this light, the willingness of the japanese to help his endeavor proved very valuable. the whaling company allowed andrews to commit to his scientific work and actively supported him in both the administrative procedures for traveling and in the acquisition of whales, which in most cases were given to the museum free of charge. this proved to be a lucky arrangement for the museum since rare whale specimens were not only very hard to come by, but also expensive. by securing a north atlantic right to whale on the long island coast in 1908, andrews' first contact with whales had taken $3,200 from the department's allowance for a cetacean exhibition.[30] in 1913, a whaling captain from the declining american whale fleet operating from vineyard haven in massachusetts offered to sell the museum a bowhead whale for $10,000-the museum offered $2,500 instead.[31] by contrast, the museum paid the small sum of ¥300 (or $150) for the shipment of a giant beaked whale whose catch was arranged on matsuzaki's initiative and bought from another japanese whaling company for shipment to new york.[32] andrews had seen a skeleton of the species in the imperial museum in tokyo and had discovered that these whales were being caught in the tokyo bay area. andrews asked matsuzaki to acquire a skeleton during the summer hunting season, and it arrived in new york in 1911.[33] the procurement of the invaluable gray whale skeleton pictured hanging on the wall at the smithsonian required as little as $100 for the shipment.[34] altogether, andrews arranged the shipment of a total of six large whale skeletons from all the major species caught in japanese waters. the museum had already made plans for a new cetacean exhibition annex (about which andrews wrote to ogiwara) that was based on a similar exhibition in the british museum, london. due to various delays and financial concerns, it was not opened until 1924. almost all the major specimens exhibited in the annex originated from andrewscontact with the tōyō hogei company.[35] the primary contacts andrews made while on expedition in japan and korea included the norwegian gunners, with whom he seems to have spent most of his time at the station, and the japanese staff of both the headquarters of the tō yō hogei company and the local whaling stations. some of the norwegians, who were hired by the japanese for their experience in tracking the whales and shooting them with the harpoon gun, were already highly seasoned whalers in japanese and korean waters. in fact, many of the norwegians were already in korea before the japanese had arrived and had vast experience in the area and whaling operations.[36] hendrik g. melsom, who would later become a successful businessman with the establishment of pelagic whaling operations, had already worked for a russian whaling company in east asia.[37] after the russo-japanese war (1904–1905), when the japanese whalers took over the business, melsom stayed on with the japanese companies, who hired him for his experience. in his scientific publication on the gray whale andrews expressly acknowledged melsom's help. andrews had carefully written of melsom's experience in his journal and later drew on it to describe the behavior of the whales.[38] it can thus be safely assumed that most of the second hand information andrews used for his research originated from the expedience of the norwegian employees rather than the japanese staff. andrews and melsom exchanged letters after they both left korea and andrews even visited melsom in norway. they continued to exchange letters about personal and whaling matters well into 1914, when andrews (ultimately unsuccessfully) attempted to arrange an expedition to south atlantic whaling stations.[39] spending time at the whaling company's network of whaling outposts, whose number had grown significantly during the early years of the twentieth century, andrews observed and actively participated in the hunting of whales. after some time observing the whaler's technique, he was allowed to shoot the harpoon gunan unforgettable moment that he later recalled on numerous occasions.[40] the use of the camera as his metaphorical hunting tool during expeditions to japan and korea combined a notion of male hunting with the ideal of natural conservation for posterity.[41] having already secured a number of artifacts for shipment to new york, among them a large sperm whale skeleton and a blue whale, andrews returned to the united states via europe, where he visited various natural history museums. after his return, andrews continued to exchange letters with his contacts at the tōyō hogei. he sent several copies of his scientific results as well as a number of prints from the photographs he had taken to the whalers in japan in thanks for their assistance at the whaling stations. ogiwara from the whaling company wrote the following in english to andrews. from the beginning to the last our meaning were to assist you all what we can for the sake of science, and did never expect anything in return except your books relating the whale on these water, when published as result of your study from the scientifical point of view.[42] representatives of the whaling company like the president oka jūrō and ogiwara not only supported andrews'whale research actively but also expressed a great interest in his results, which might possibly have increased the profitability of their whaling operations. evidently, not all of the japanese whalers had a good command of english, but they showed great interest in obtaining foreign-language scientific results. andrews, on the other hand, seems to have ignored japanese literature on whales and whaling. this omission surely was in part due to his very limited skills in japanese; however, it also hints at the implicit cultural hierarchies which surrounded his whale research. in fact, in 1910 the tōyō hogei company published an extensive account of the history and status of the japanese whaling industry in which observations were made about the various whale species caught and of their use in the industry.[43] since 1899 when, after oka's trip to whaling stations in norway and the subsequent transport of equipment, ships, and manpower to japan, the company's earliest precursor was founded, the whalers had long been entangled in a transnational flow that also included scientific information about whales. in general, "western" scientific results and taxonomies had long influenced japanese writing about whales and whaling.[44] being supplied with new research on the very whales the company would catch at their stations was of great interest to the japanese. the expansion of the whaling stations had increased the need for trained personnel to man the whaling ships who not only knew how to handle the harpoon cannon, but could also interpret the chased whale's behavior and find the best areas and time to encounter the prey. so far the ship's most qualified (and best paid) position was manned by hired norwegian gunners. a training program for japanese gunners had been set up by the imperial fisheries institute in 1908, but when andrews visited the korean station in 1912, the harpoon cannons were still exclusively in the hands of seasoned (and expensive) norwegian gunners.[45] andrews' contributions could provide valuable information to the whaling company and help make the still largely unexplored happenings beneath the ocean surface more visible to the whalers. ultimately, the acknowledgement andrews gave the company for their help would also put it on the world map of whaling.. the japanese whaler's interest in scientific results indicates that the flow of scientific data and artifacts was not one sided, but became a mutual exchange of products. while the whaling company allowed andrews to use their facilities in order to secure whale bones for shipment to new york, the established network proved useful on both sides. in return for the whales killed by the whalers at the japanese and korean shore stations, the staff of the museum of natural history shipped a number of smaller whale models to japan. the first batch was sent to japan after andrews' first expedition and consisted of humpback, right, and sperm whale models. andrews suggested that the company install these models and stressed their scientific value.[46] oka jūrō wrote a letter of thanks to the president of the museum of natural history: we cannot but feel grateful for the engrossed resolution adopted by the board of the trustees kindly sent by you, which reached to us in safe.we feel much ashamed to accept such unexpected courtesy from you, while we did not extend so much facilities to mr. roy andrews as to give you ample satisfaction.the models to be presented by you will never fail to give us much interest, by which we believe we shall be able to improve ourselves in our business. [sic][47] one of the whale models delivered to japan was later donated to the fisheries section of the tokyo imperial university by the whaling company.[48] thus, what had started as a transport of specimens eventually became a trans-pacific circuit for the exchange of scientific material, a circumstance that benefited not only the whalers in japan, but also created new specimens and observations, in the form of andrews'scientific publications, available to japanese research and educational institutions. previously, when few skeletons of real whales were available, life-sized whale models were built at the museum of natural history. one of andrew's first tasks in the mammalogy department was to help build a life-sized blue whale model for exhibit in the mammal hall out of a wire "skeleton"and painted papier-mâché. similar models of different whale species were then shipped to japan in exchange for the skeletons that came to the museum. in this exchange of artifacts, japanese whalers enabled the collection of authentic whale specimens for scientific research, and in turn received scientific results that, in case of the models, mimicked the actual animal. conserving the "lost gray whale" while andrews's first expedition to east asia had been extremely successful, the cetacean museum collection was still missing an example of a species that was believed to be extinct on the american coast. his contacts in the whaling company had informed him about a whaling station in the south of the korean peninsula where tōyō hogei whalers were catching gray whales as well as humpback whales during the winter season. andrews contacted ogiwara in september 1911 while the latter was on a business trip to great britain buying additional trawlers for the company. he explained his wish to collect gray whales, or "devil fishes" as they were commonly called, and humpback whales to complete his research. andrews wrote to matsuzaki, his contact at the company's headquarters in shimonoseki: in order to make an absolutely complete study of the pacific whales, it is going to be necessary for me to have skeletons of the devil fish and humpback. i am wondering whether your company would be willing for me to come over to japan this next winter and get a devil fish at urusan [ulsan] or chanzendogo, korea. i feel rather delicate about asking your company to allow me to bother them again after all the kindness which you showed me in japan before, but i do not know any place in the world where they are taking devil fish other than at your stations.[49] matsuzaki agreed to andrews request for a second expedition and recommended a visit to the whaling station at ulsan to maximize his chances for a catch. andrews also received corporate help due to the arrangements he made with the colonial authorities. while gray whales had once populated the american west coast, migrating from the northern pacific to the baja california peninsula annually, whalers had decimated the regional stocks so dramatically that by the beginning of the twentieth century the species was considered extinct.[50] andrews' predecessor in gray whale research, charles s. scammon, had already written about the possible extinction of the whales in 1874 and, with the disappearance of gray whales and other species, a large portion of the american whaling industry had followed.[51] not only did this make the acquisition of new specimens and the observation of whales around california impossible, very few animal artifacts had been secured for scientific research during the period of whaling activity. when andrews, as a result of his expedition, was writing about the relationship between the eastern pacific (californian) and western pacific (korean) populations of the gray whale, he had no measurements and descriptions of the "extinct" whales that would meet the scientific standards. instead, he had to compare bones from an incomplete skeleton from the national museum with the skeletons he had collected in korea. the hunting and killing of gray whales in korea gave andrews an opportunity to attempt what scientists and museums before him had failed to achieve: acquiring a pristine example of the species before it vanished from human exploitation. in his scientific paper he wrote, "during the past twenty years the species had been lost to science and many naturalists believed it to be extinct."[52] while efforts to actually conserve whales in international waters did not start until the late 1920s, scientific studies on their numbers revealed that the situation was critical. when the american association for the advancement of science finally discussed the need for more scientific work in order to conserve the stocks of pacific animals, andrews'body of work was listed as one of the few recent efforts on the subject.[53] even in the hunting grounds of the japanese whalers, which andrews considered to be a place where industrial exploitation was new, the gray whale was a rather rare species. a compilation of catch results between 1910 and 1933 showed that, in this time period, a total of 1,474 gray whales had been caught by japanese companies, and concluded that the 1910 total population of western gray whales consisted of only 1,000 to 1,500 animals.[54] although hunted by japanese net whaling groups throughout the tokugawa period, only a small portion of the annual catches that were recorded around the japanese islands during the nineteenth century were koku kujira. by the turn of the century, almost no gray whales were sighted in japanese waters apart from in the korea strait.[55] the gray whale populations would spend the summer months in the colder and more nutritious waters of the sea of okhotsk, out of reach of the japanese shore whalers. they only came into range during winter on their migration to the nursing grounds south of the korean peninsula.[56] the seasonal wanderings of the animals limited both their availability for the whalers, who could only make a profit out of them during the winter season, and the timeframe for andrews to actually complete his fieldwork. while the whalers did know the approximate time of the whales'arrival on the hunting grounds, fluctuations due to unforeseeable circumstances could pose a serious economic threat to the whaling company, in addition to the danger of losing ships on the ocean. the stormy weather during the winter season was frequently seen as the reason for poor catch results-chōū maru, the first "modern"catcher boat built in japan, sunk during a storm in the sea of japan entailing significant loss of life.[57]. another frequently mentioned element of the gray whale hunt was the presence of orca whales (orcinus orca), themselves only infrequently killed by the whalers. as the apex predator of the ecosystem, the orcas were the far distant second in the preying of the gray whales and often interfered with the human whale hunting. in his scientific publication about the gray whale, andrews reported that a large number of the whales he examined had bite marks or even their tongues ripped out. andrews retold an event from melsom's day at sea while the former was at the shore. the carcass of a gray whale melsom had shot was attacked by a pod of orcas. they circled about the vessel and one of them forced open the mouth of the dead whale to get at the tongue. when captain melsom fired at the killer with his krag rifle the animal lashed out with its flukes, smashing the ship's rail, and disappeared.[58] despite this violent encounter and the whales'preying on the whalers' profits (and andrews'specimens), the presence of orcas seems not to have been seen as a serious problem or competition. andrews assumed that orca whales would kill and consume gray whales on their own, although he had never witnessed such an event.[59] he did not speculate on the possible impact the preying of the orca whales could have on the gray whale stock's reduction in concurrence with the whaling. andrews, however, went on to write about the benefits of the orca's presence for the whalers: as soon as the orcas appear if the gray whales are not paralyzed by fright they head for shore and slide in as close as possible to the beach where sometime the killers will not follow them. [...] the orcas are not afraid of the ships and will not leave the whales they are chasing when the vessels arrive, thus giving much assistance to the human hunters. captain johnson [...] brought to the station at ulsan a gray whale which had been shot between the fins. he had first seen the killers circling about the whale which was lying at the surface, belly up, with the fins outspread, being absolutely paralyzed by fright. the vessel steamed up at half speed and johnson shot at once, the iron striking the whale in the breast.[60]. while the gray whales usually fled the whaling boats, the ecosystem's largest natural predators, orcas, seem to have adapted to the whaling operations by feeding on the gray whale carcasses. for the whalers, on the other hand, hunting the elusive gray whales, as andrews described, could be much faster and more efficient when orcas were present.[61]. japanese whaling statistics indicate that, through concessions at the korean whaling ports, the tōyō hogei company was in fact the only japanese whaling company catching gray whales in japan by 1912. in total, seventy gray whales were processed by the company during the season of andrews'visit to korea and all were caught in the korean hunting grounds from ulsan.[62] the japanese authorities, represented through the ministry of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries, had controlled the extent of japanese whaling by allowing only thirty catcher boats to operate in japanese waters. these had to be run by japanese companies with japanese captains. despite this measure, the gray whale stocks in the western pacific nearly vanished during the first half of the twentieth century.[63] mirroring the events on the other side of the pacific, by the end of the nineteenth century, the catches of gray whales declined strongly in the 1920s and the whaling station in ulsan was subsequently closed down in 1933.[64] the expedition to korea thus gave andrews the opportunity not only to travel to a colonial frontier where animals would still be common enough for research, but also where the established infrastructure of both the authorities and the whaling company would allow him to gather with ease specimens of a species that had vanished from the longtime hunting grounds of whalers. while andrews did express concern about the possible extinction of whales due to the hunting, it was at the same time an indispensable requirement of his scientific work.[65] contemporary discourses about the function of natural history museums stressed the value of museum collections as part of a larger conservation effort that would archive and preserve remains of animals that might otherwise be forgotten after falling victim to the "progress of man".[66] in this context, killing animals for the sake of science and long-term preservation became the premise of conservation, and enabled artifacts like the skeleton, as well as records and photographs, to be preserved for later generations. the collection of a whale and the colonial view although andrews spent two months at the whaling station and afterwards proceeded inland into the korean north, exploring "[...] the last portion which had remained unvisited by white men,"[67] korean individuals are conspicuously absent from his correspondence. on the other hand, andrews made numerous references to koreans in his textual work and took a number of photographs of the korean workers at the whaling station and during his subsequent trip inland. as opposed to the pictures he took of japanese and norwegian station employees, some of which he later sent back as personal gifts, the koreans pictured are never given any names or individual markers, but are identified by rather generic designations like "young korean" or "korean man."these documentary images depict koreans posing in front of andrewscamera, and andrews himself dressed in korean-denoted items of clothing, which display a reversed mimicry towards the colonial subaltern. these images demonstrate andrews'paternalistic view of the koreans as colonial subalterns and subjects for research, while at the same time revealing an interest in the culture through the appropriation of korean clothes for photographs (he also did something similar with japanese clothes on tatami mats while on expedition in japan).[68] his pictures of the koreans and japanese reveal a curiosity for his subject that was akin to his interest in the whales he was studying; andrews was acting as an agent for western and japanese colonial culture.[69] pictures taken by andrews showing the local police forces in uniforms lined up for a photo shoot and letters of gratitude to members of the japanese authorities written by the museum suggest that to some extent andrews had contact with the japanese colonialadministration. while conducting ethnographic research was hardly the focus of his work, it did fit into the contemporary logic of placing colonial subjects into the same museum context as animals or other "natural" artifacts.[70] some of andrews' descriptions of life at the japanese whaling stations and his lantern-slide lectures about the "land of the cherry blossom"presented japan and the japanese as exotic and oriental. however, his correspondence with the japanese from the whaling company suggests that he also considered his japanese contacts as equal partners in business and science. andrews kept in personal contact with matsuzaki even after he had resigned from the tōyō hogei in 1913 and tried to establish a cannery business in mexico. andrews supported him by sending a rare book and by seeking out additional material on the subject that might help matsuzaki.[71] similarly, he wrote a letter of recommendation to a rubber company with which ogiwara attempted to establish business relations.[72] the whaling stations in korea had played a crucial part in the establishment of the modern japanese whaling industry. as a reliable cheap labor force, koreans were frequently employed in the various whaling companies operating from harbors on the korean peninsula.[73] while no koreans held any positions of higher rank in the whaling company, it is evident that they played an important role in whaling operationsand were crucial to the success of commercial whaling, as well as andrew's research agenda. another account can give a small glimpse into the extent of korean employment in the whaling business in korea. in 1906, the japanese author and journalist emi suiin had visited the ulsan whaling port where, after the victory in the russo-japanese war in 1905, the japanese whalers had taken over the whaling concession from the russians. during his stay, he spent some time on the rex maru, the ship of melsom. melsom acted both as the gunner and captain of the boat. besides him, there were two other norwegians aboard, one of them the boat's engineer. according to emi, the other ten crew members were all koreans. one of the koreans-the only one emi referred to by name-was the rex maru's boatswain, kim chin hee. as boatswain, kim was foreman in charge of the (korean) deck crew during whaling operations. this was the highest rank possible to achieve for a korean.[74] while the koreans were not able to apply for higher and more qualified positions within the whaling business, they were employed in the whaling operations to provide manpower for the labor-intensive tasks and shipboard functions. among the photographs taken by andrews at the whaling station in korea in 1912 were numerous depictions of the landing of the whales at the wharf. although many images show the approach of the catcher boat with the whale alongside and the winching of the whale at shore, there are also pictures in which andrews combined his main interest-whales-with a secondary object of scientific interest-koreans. one image (figure 2) is accompanied by the archival description "gray whale showing blubber and two koreans."it shows a partially stripped gray whale winched on the wharf's crane. in the background, several workers with cutting tools are standing in a working pose and looking into the camera. due to their working garments, their nationality cannot be securely verified; however, two persons standing in front of the scenery are clearly denoted as korean by their white coats, pants, and hats. like the people in the background, they too are looking into the camera. their function within the whaling station remains unclear. their clothing, which differs from the rest of the workers, suggests that they were not directly involved in the carving up of the whale or perhaps that they changed clothes for the picture pose. in accordance with the museum's orientation towards both ethnography and natural history, andrews was not only interested in collecting animal specimens and photographs, but also in collecting knowledge about any objects, places, or people that fit into the expedition's scientific aim of describing the exotic and the unknown. although neither the whales nor the korean workers posing in front of the carcass on the wharf were allowed to speak as historical actors, both constitute crucial elements of the network that was in formation. fig. 2: "gray whale showing blubber and two koreans," ulsan, 1912. american museum of natural history, central archives. 59.95,1. oil on canvas, museum. as previously mentioned, the language and content of andrews's statements varied substantially depending on their audience. the same image was used in diverse contexts with different captions. while in scientific publications on the gray whale, the image was used among others to visualize body parts of the whale with no reference made to the two figures standing in front ("head, pectoral fin and section of black blubber"),[75] in the book whale hunting with gun and camera, which was aimed at a wider, more general audience, the same image (with a slightly larger angle of view) was commented on with a detailed reference to the koreans: "cutting in a gray whale. the head is lying on the wharf and two koreans are standing beside it. they wear longs white coats, enormous baggy trousers and a horsehair hat."[76] the photographs that andrews employed to document the "true" sequence of the whaling operations in korea and japan must therefore be understood within the ideological formations surrounding their production and reception.[77] besides the koreans being an object of exotic fascination in the pictures he took, andrews also described circumstances that afford us a glimpse into the active part koreans played during whaling operations, and in andrews' scientific practice. in his subsequent book, andrews brought his whaling experiences to a wider audience and described a situation at the whaling station involving koreans: after i had secured the skeleton of a gray whale and had piled the bones, partially cleaned, in the station yard, the koreans descended upon them like a flock of vultures. with a knife or a bit of stone they scraped each bone, cleaning it of every ounce of meat. at first this seemed to me a splendid arrangement, but suddenly i discovered that some of the smaller bones themselves were disappearing and realized that my skeleton was slowly but surely being boiled for soup.it did not take long to issue an edict against all koreans in reference to my whale, but the matter did not end there. the pile of toothsome bones was too great a temptation and whenever i happened to be out of sight some white-gowned native was sure to steal up and leave with a bone under his coat.[78] whereas andrews at first considers this korean practice of cleaning the bones helpful to his collection of a specimen, his appreciation ends when the completeness of the scientific artifact is endangered by their actions. the defiance he describes-within the paternalistic discourse of the "native"-in which the koreans ignore his orders to leave the bones alone, hints at the strategies used by the colonial subjects to appropriate andrews' presence at the station. the act of obstinacy also shows that, despite andrews' privileged status as a guest researcher with the backing of the whaling company and the colonial authorities, the power within the whaling station's network was not completely in his or the stationmaster's hands.[79] conclusion this case study of andrews's expedition to the japanese whaling grounds and of the acquisition of gray whale skeletons in particular reveals that the production of "objective"knowledge about cetaceans according to scientific standards was determined by a complex network of human and non-human actors who were in constant interaction and mutual interference. while "modern" japanese whaling was the outcome of the global flow of knowledge, technology, and personnel, the whalers and andrews (as a scientist on expedition to find animal artifacts like the precious gray whale skeletons) were making an arrangement that proved to be beneficial to both sides. andrews relied on the experience, knowledge, and technology of the whalers to achieve his scientific goals, while the whalers sought to benefit from the products of his scientific processing. for his scientific conservation of the otherwise inaccessible gray whale, andrews not only had to cross the pacific to reach the newly formed japanese shore whaling industry, but he also had to go one step further into the frontier of scientific and commercial exploration at the korean whaling stations. while we cannot access these factors without exploring the (human) traces of these activities, both andrews and the whalers'agencies were strongly determined by the objects they had to rely on while conducting their work. these included whaling equipment like ships, whaling stations, and harpoons, which, along with andrews' tools of scientific practice, the whales themselves as research objects, and the "natural" surroundings such as orca whales, deeply influenced the outcome of andrews' research. last but not least, the transmaritime network at the korean whaling station was also determined by the asymmetrical yet mutual power relationship between the colonial agents and the colonial subalterns. [1] 1910 had been a successful business year for the tōyō. during the summer season, it had processed 324 large whales; a significant increase over the previous year's 255 whales, while the winter season until march had yielded 444 whales. simultaneously, prices for whale oil and meat had gone up by 30–40% with one whale netting between 2,200 and 4,000 yen on average. the company declared an annual net win of 840,000 yen. "whaling lucrative business" in dainippon suisan kaihō 343 (1911); on a global level, norwegian whaling (and their technology which the japanese had chosen to adapt) had largely replaced the american system which had dominated the industry until the 1860s. bjørn l. basberg, "hegemonic transition: american and norwegian whaling in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries" international journal of maritime history 20, no. 2(2008): 208–214; for the history of modern japanese whaling, see johan n. tønnessen and arne o. johnsen, the history of modern whaling (berkeley: university of california press, 1982), 135–146; arne kalland and brian moeran, endangered culture: japanese whaling in cultural perspective (copenhagen: nordic institute of asian studies, 1990), 75–81; fukumoto kazuo, nihon hogei shiwa: geiso manyufakuchua no shiteki kōsatsu o chūshin ni (tokyo: hōsei daigaku shuppankyoku: 1978), 220–246; morita katsuaki, kujira to hogei no bunkashi (nagoya: nagoya daigaku shuppankai: 1994), 329–336; takahashi junichi, kujira no nihon bunkashi. hogei bunka no k ōsaki o tadoru (kyoto: tankōsha, 1992), 78–87; torisu kyōichi, saikai hogei no shiteki kenky ū (fukuoka: kyūsh ū daigaku shuppankai, 1999), 333–349. [2] see matt k. matsuda, pacific worlds: a history of seas, peoples, and cultures (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2012), 5–6. [3] hiroyuki watanabe, japan's whaling: the politics of culture in historical perspective (melbourne: trans pacific press, 2009), 10–42; eldrid mageli, "norwegian-japanese whaling relations in the early 20th century. a case of successful technology transfer." scandinavian journal of history 31, no. 1 (2006): 1–16. [4] helen m. rozwadowski, the sea knows no boundaries: a century of maritime science under ices (copenhagen: international council for the exploration of the sea, 2002), 42–76; rozwadowski acknowledges the boundaries posed by the natural environment and technology in helen m. rozwadowski, fathoming the ocean: the discovery and exploration of the deep sea (cambridge: harvard university press, 2008), 5, 45–46. [5] see d. graham burnett, sounding of the whale: science & cetaceans in the twentieth century (chicago: the university of chicago press, 2012), 63–78, 138–189. burnett offers some insights into the workings and tools used by the discovery committee. [6] see timothy mitchell, the rule of experts: egypt, techno-politics, modernity (berkeley: university of california press, 2002),10–11; bruno latour, pandora's hope: essays on the reality of science studies (cambridge: harvard university press, 1999), 145–215; bruno latour, "on recalling ant" in actor network theory and after, ed. john law and john hassard (oxford: blackwell publishers, 1999), 15–24. [7] see jeffrey w. bolster, "putting the ocean in atlantic history: maritime communities and marine ecology in the northwest atlantic, 1500–1800," american historical review 113, no. 1 (2008): 19–47. [8] see samuel j. m. m. alberti, "objects and the museum," isis 96, no. 4 (2005): 561. [9] ryan tucker jones, "running into whales: the history of the north pacific from below the waves," the american historical review 118, no. 2 (2013): 350–352; see kären wigen," ahr forum. oceans of history: introduction," the american historical review 111, no. 3 (2006): 721. [10] human-ecosystem interaction on the pacific ocean was not something new to the twentieth century. rather, these entanglements have shaped the pacific's history since the appearance of mankind. see david igler, the great ocean: pacific worlds from captain cook to the gold rush (oxford: oxford university press, 2013), 5–11, 99–128; jones, "running into whales," 352–377; matsuda, pacific worlds, 6. [11] for biological studies on the impact of whaling on ocean ecosystems, see timothy e. essington, "pelagic ecosystem response to a century of commercial fishing and whaling," in whales, whaling, and ocean ecosystems, ed. james a. estes et al. (berkeley: university of california press, 2006), 38–48; boris worm, heike k. lotze, and ronsom a. myers, "ecosystem effects of fishing and whaling in the north pacific and atlantic oceans" in ibid., 335–342. [12] letter from roy chapman andrews to joel asaph allen, 5 september 1912, box 222, file 968, 1912–1916, american museum of natural history, central archives. [13] roy chapman andrews, whale notes, measurements, korea, jan.‐ feb. 1912, in journals, 1908–1912, vol. 4, amnh central library, rare book collection. a54; 3. [14] oliver cummings farrington, "the rise of natural history museums," science, new series 42, no. 1076 (1915): 206–207. [15] see gary kroll, america 's ocean wilderness: a cultural history of twentieth-century exploration (lawrence: university press of kansas, 2009), 25–26. [16] roy chapman andrews, whale hunting with gun and camera: a naturalist's account of the modern shorewhaling industry, of whales and their habits, and of hunting experiences in various parts of the world (new york: d. appleton-century company, 1935), 54. [17] karl möbius,"über den fang und die verwerthung der walfische in japan," mitteilungen der sektion für küsten und hochsee fischerei 7 (1894): 18. [18] möbius,"über den fang und die verwerthung der walfische in japan," 20. [19] see burnett, the sounding of the whale, 2–4. [20] charles m. scammon, the marine mammals of the north-western coast of north america: described and illustrated together with an account of the american whale-fishery (san francisco: carmany, 1874), 23–33. [21] see robert e. kohler, all creatures: naturalists, collectors, and biodiversity, 1850–1950 (princeton, oxford: princeton university press 2006), 70–71; gail bederman, manliness & civilization: a cultural history of gender and race in the united states, 1880–1917 (chicago: the university of chicago press, 1995), 170–216. [22] kohler, all creatures, 205–215. [23] dean c. allard, "the origins and early history of the steamer albatross, 1880–1887," marine fisheries review 61, no. 4 (1999): 1–20; victor g. springer, "kumataro ito, japanese artist on board the u.s. bureau of fisheries steamer albatross during the philippine expedition, 1907–1910," marine fisheries review 61, no. 4 (1999): 42. [24] roy chapman andrews, under a lucky star: a lifetime of adventure (garden city, blue ribbon books, 1945), 79. [25] theodore roosevelt, "scientific surveys of the philippine islands," science 21, no. 542 (1905): 761–762; see david g. smith and jeffrey t. williams, "the great albatross philippine expedition and its fishes," marine fisheries review 61, no. 4 (1999): 32–38. [26] letter from roy chapman andrews to hermon carey bumpus, box 159, file 564b, 1910–1913, amnh central archives. [27] see burnett, the sounding of the whale, 29–30; rozwadowski, fathoming the ocean, 45–48. [28] after its foundation in 1909 by uniting twelve japanese whaling companies, tōyō hogei k.k. controlled eighteen whaling stations in both korea and japan, along with twenty-eight whaling boats. honpō no noruee shiki hogeishi (osaka: tōyō hogei kabushiki kaisha, 1910), 10–22. [29] letter from h.c. bumpus to roy chapman andrews, 4 april 1910, box 159, folder 564b, 1910–1913, amnh central archives. [30] see kroll, america's ocean wilderness, 12. [31] letter from roy chapman andrews to h.h. bodfish, 1 march 1913, andrews folder vii-1, amnh department of mammals. [32] letter from matsuzaki m. to roy chapman andrews, 30 june 1911, box 142, folder 503, january–may 1912, amnh central archives. [33] roy chapman andrews, "beradius bairdii in japan," science 36, no. 939 (1912): 902–903. [34] letter from roy chapman andrews to george h. sherwood, 6 october 1911, andrews folder iii-i, 1908–1915, amnh dm. [35] letter from hermon c. bumpus to george s. bowdoin, 4 october 1910, box 159, folder 564b, 1910–1913, amnh central archives. also published in forty-third annual report of the trustees of the american museum of natural history (new york, 1912), 22. [36] mageli, "norwegian-japanese whaling relations in the early 20th century," 4–8. [37] tønnessen and johnsen, the history of modern whaling, 132–133. [38] roy chapman andrews, the california gray whale (rhachinectes glaucus cope): its history, habits, external anatomy, osteology and relationship (american museum of natural history, 1914), 231. [39] letter from roy chapman andrews to hendrik g. melsom, 17 june, 1914, andrews folder iii-i, 1908–1915, amnh dm. [40] roy chapman andrews, the ends of earth (new york: g. p. putnam's sons, 1929), 46–47; see kroll, america's ocean wilderness, 9. [41] see kroll, america's ocean wilderness, 9–11. [42] letter from ogiwara d. to roy chapman andrews, 23 january, 1911, folder toyo hogei, 1910–1917, amnh, dm. [43] honpō no noruee shiki hogeishi, 67–104. [44] hogeishi (tokyo: dainihon suisankai, 1896), 149–164. [45] "training whaling gunners," dainippon suisan kaish ō 311 (1908): 3. the article claims that a norwegian gunner would earn around 1,000 yen per season. despite efforts to increase the number of japanese gunners, norwegians remained in employment in japan well into the 1930s. see eldrid ingebjørg mageli, towards friendship: the relationship between norway and japan, 1905–2005 (oslo: oslo academic press, 2006), 111–118. [46] letter from roy chapman andrews to ogiwara d., 1 march 1911, folder toyo hogei, 1910–1917, amnh dm. [47] letter from oka jūrō to h.c. bumpus, 30 march 1911, box 159, file 564, amnh central archives. [48] letter from ogiwara d. to roy chapman andrews, 11 june 1913, box 159, file 968, amnh central archives. [49] letter from roy chapman andrews to matsusaki, 29 july 1911, andrews folder iii-i, 1908–1915, amnh dm. [50] for the development of catch numbers along the american coastline, see randall r. reeves and tim d. smith, "commercial whaling, especially for gray whales, eschrichtius robustus, and humpback whales, megaptera novaeangliae, at california and baja california shore stations in the nineteenth century (1854–1899)," marine fisheries review 72, no. 1 (2010): 4–19. [51] see david a. henderson, "nineteenth-century gray whaling: grounds, catches and kills, practices and´depletion of the whale population," in the gray whale. eschrichtius robustus, ed. mary lou jones, steven l. swarts, and stephen leatherwood (orlando: academic press, 1984), 159–186; scammon, the marine mammals of the northwestern coast of north america, 33. [52] andrews, the california gray whale, 232. [53] barton warren evermann,"the conservation of the mammals and other vanishing animals of the pacific," the scientific monthly 14, no. 3 (1922): 261. [54] dale w. rice and allen a. wolman, the life history and ecology of the gray whale (eschrichtius robustus) (the american society of mammalogists, 1971), 122–123. the numbers of gray whales had already been significantly decreased due to pre-modern whaling in the pacific by both japanese and euro-american whalers. david w. weller et al., "the western gray whale: a review of past exploitation, current status and potential threats," journal of cetacean research and management 4, no. 1(2002): 7–9; igler, pacific worlds, 117–128. [55] see ōmura hideo, "history of gray whales in japan" in the gray whale. eschrichtius robustus, ed. mary lou jones, steven l. swarts, and stephen leatherwood (orlando: academic press, 1984), 65–73. [56] biological research, including andrews' own, has stated the possibility that (korean) and eastern (californian) populations occasionally mix, meaning that some of the whales andrews had examined may indeed have travelled around the northern pacific, from the coast of the united states. dale w. rice, allen a. wolman, and howard w. braham, "the gray whale, eschrichtius robustus," marine fisheries review 46, no. 4 (1984): 8–9; andrews, the california gray whale, 236; recent research based on genetic sampling, however, has declared the two populations as distinctive and isolated. rick d. deluc et al., "genetic differences between western and eastern gray whales (eschrichtius robustus), journal of cetacean research and management 4, no. 1 (2002): 2–4. [57] honpō no noruee shiki hogeishi, 218; watanabe, japan's whaling, 25–26; tønnessen and johnsen, the history of modern whaling, 137. [58] andrews, the gray whale, 240. [59] see thomas a. jefferson, pam j. stacey and robin w. baird, "a review of killer whale interactions with other marine mammals: predation and co-existence," mammal review 21, no. 4 (1991); rice and wolman, the life history and ecology of the gray whale, 98–99. [60] andrews, the gray whale, 240. [61] andrews described the gray whales' ability to surface and breathe extremely quietly and without creating ripples when ships were near to avoid pursuit, calling them "[...] the cleverest and most tricky of all large whales." ibid., 241. [62] "nippon hogeigyō suisan kumiaihō," dainippon suisan kaihō 46, no. 9 (1912): 33–34. [63] ironically, and in stark contrast to the situation during andrews's period of research, the western pacific population today is critically endangered while the eastern (californian) population is considered relatively stable. encyclopedia of marine mammals (amsterdam: academic press, 2009), s.v. "gray whale," 504–507; howard b. braham, "the status of endangered whales: an overview," marine fisheries review 46, no. 4 (1984): 4. [64] rice and wolman, the life history and ecology of the gray whale, 122. [65] andrews, whale hunting with gun and camera, 20–21; see also kroll, america's ocean wilderness, 12–23; burnett, the sounding of the whale, 118–123. [66] farrington,"the rise of natural history museums," 207–208. [67] roy chapman andrews, lectures on natural history and travel. a.m amnh dm. [68] a similar mix of paternalism and appreciation was also present in the japanese attitudes and curiosity towards the koreans. e. taylor atkins, primitive selves: koreana in the japanese colonial gaze, 1910–1945 (berkeley: university of california press, 2010), 3–5, 52–100. [69] eleanor m. hight and gary d. sampson, "introduction: photography, race and post-colonial theory," in colonialist photography. imag(in)ing race and place, eds. eleanor m. hight and gary d. sampson (london: routledge, 2002), 1–5. [70] see diane losche, "the fate of the senses in ethnographic modernity: the margaret mead hall of pacific peoples at the american museum of natural history," in sensible objects. colonialism, museums and material culture, eds. elizabeth edwards, chris gosden, and ruth b. phillips (oxford: berg, 2006), 230. [71] letter from roy chapman andrews to matsuzaki m., 29 january 1913, andrews folder iii-i, 1908–1915, amnh dm. [72] letter from roy chapman andrews to the revere rubber company, n.y., 1 october 1912, folder toyo hogei 1910–1917, amnh dm. [73] see watanabe, japan's whaling, 24–42. [74] emi suiin, hogeisen. jitchi tanken (tokyo: hakubunkan, 1907), 93; watanabe, japan's whaling, 32–33. [75] andrews, the gray whale, plate xix. [76] andrews, whale hunting with gun and camera, 193. [77] see abigail solomon-godeau, photography at the dock. essays on photographic history, institutions, and practices (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1997), 179–182. [78] andrews, whale hunting with gun and camera, 192–193. [79] see alf lüdtke, eigen-sinn. fabrikerfahrungen, und politik vom kaiserreich bis in den faschismus (hamburg: ergebnisse-verlag, 1993), 120–160. 1 transcultural studies 2012.2 2012. 2 editor's note rudolf g. wagner .04 articles neil macgregor trajectories of meaning: the shifting power of things .07 subrata mitra sub-national movements, cultural flow, and the malleability of political space: from rational choice to transcultural perspective and back again .08 themed section: the transcultural travels of trends xuelei huang from east lynne to konggu lan: transcultural tour, trans-medial translation .48 petra thiel tracking trends and brands in the international children’s book market .85 2 contributors to this issue transcultural studies, no 2, 2012, issn: 2191-6411 editors: rudolf g. wagner, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg monica juneja,ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg managing editor: andrea hacker editorial board: christiane brosius, antje fluechter, madeleine herren, monica juneja, birgit kellner, joachim kurtz, axel michaels, and roland wenzlhuemer. transcultural studies is an open-access e-journal published bi-annually by the cluster of excellence, “asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows“ at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. for more information see: www.transculturalstudies.org contributors to this issue: neil macgregor is a british art historian and director of the british museum since august 2002. he read french and german at new college, oxford, and studied philosophy at the ecole normale supérieure in paris. for six years he was a lecturer in the history of art and architecture at the university of reading and a part-time lecturer at the courtauld institute of art. in 1981 he became editor of the arts periodical, the burlington magazine, and then in 1987 became director of the national gallery. subrata mitra is professor and head of the department of political science, board member and former director of the south asia institute, and former spokesperson for "governance and administration" at the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows” at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. he edits the routledge advances in south asian studies series and his research interests include comparative politics, rational choice, methods, citizenship, re-use and south asian area studies. xuelei huang is an associate member of the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows” at the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. her reasearch interest include 3 transcultural studies 2012.2 chinese film history, intellectual history of republican china, mass media, mass communication studies, and popular culture studies. she currently holds the alexander von humboldt fellowship (2013-15)for a research project called “the cesspool and the rose garden: the social life of smell in modern china, 1840s—1940s.” petra thiel is writing her phd thesis on gender issues within contemporary chinese adolescent novels. her research interests include children’s literature, the history of childhood, and modern chinese literature. in may 2012 she became managing director of the confucius institute at the ruprecht-karlsuniversität heidelberg. cover v3_contributors emplacing and excavating the city | brosius | transcultural studies emplacing and excavating the city: art, ecology, and public space in new delhi christiane brosius, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg every claim on public space is a claim on the public imagination. it is a response to the questions: what can we imagine together? … are we, in fact, a collective; is the collective a site for the testing of alternatives, or a ground for mobilising conformity? —nancy adajania, 2008 introduction contemporary art production can facilitate the study of a city’s urban fabric, its societal change, and its cultural meaning production; this is particularly the case when examining exhibition practices and questions of how, why, when, where, and by whom artworks came to be emplaced and connected to certain themes and concepts[*]. emplacement here refers to the process of constructing space for certain events or activities that involve sensory and affective aspects (burrell and dale 2014, 685). emplacing art thus concerns a particular and temporary articulation of and in space within a relational set of connections (rather than binaries). in south asia, where contemporary “fine art”[1] is still largely confined to enclosed spaces like the museum or the gallery, which seek to cultivate a “learned” and experienced audience, the idea of conceptualising art for and in rapidly expanding and changing cities like delhi challenges our notions of place, publicness, and urban development. the particular case discussed here, the public art festival, promises—and sets out—to explore an alternative vision of the city, alternative aspirations towards “belonging to and participating in” it.[2] nancy adajania’s question “what can we imagine together” indirectly addresses which repositories and languages are available and can be used for such a joint effort, and who should be included in the undertaking. how can an elite discourse of contemporary, globalised art—undoubtedly self-reflexive and critical as well as potentially transgressive—be emplaced in public space? does art, once brought into the public space, undermine its exclusiveness to enable the shaping of “public space” as, in adajania’s words, a collective “site for the testing of alternatives?” is such an approach possibly also—at least in part—testing alternatives for a globalised art that “lost touch” so it can exit from exclusionary mechanisms of knowledge production and institution building? the aspiration to “be meaningful” to more than those visiting gallery spaces, to speak an urban language, and to contribute to changing cities into liveable spaces for all, generates contradictions and tensions that we seek to explore here. in this article the idea of art as way of engaging with the future of the city and as “temporary space use” will enable an analysis of the complicated relationship between the city, art, and ecology, and between the different groups and institutions that contributed to a specific public art festival, the 48°c public.art.ecology. however, even though the aspiration of the festival was to become the property of the public across all social strata, and to integrate as well as collaborate with local groups was sought in particular instances—such as mary miss’ work roshanara’s net, made up of a temporary garden of medical plants that invited surrounding communities to engage with and rethink a dilapidated mughal heritage site, or shaina anand and ashok sukumaran’s motornama roshanara, involving rickshaw-drivers’ narrations of the decline of an industrial neighbourhood[3] —the sources and data upon which this paper is based point towards a predominantly elite and educated discourse of “belonging,” “participating,” and “publicness.”[4] 48°c public.art.ecology, which was held 12–21 december, 2008 in the booming urban agglomeration of delhi, the world’s second most populous city with around twenty million inhabitants, was the first large-scale public art and ecology festival in india. fig. 1: detail from the frontpage of the 48°c public.art.ecology festival’s website, using a cityscape image. for almost two weeks, visitors viewed art projects created by more than twenty-five artists: works by seventeen indian artists and collectives and eight artists and groups from the united states, the netherlands, germany, japan, canada, switzerland, denmark, and argentina. their works were located at eight nodal points spread across a central part of the city and connected through the newly built metro network. fig. 2: the eight selected sites along the metro lines, including a short blurb from the concept note of the festival. the artists were encouraged to engage with local groups and research historical specificities at the selected sites. artists could also seek support from a research team comprising faculty, junior researchers, or students of urban design.[5] as a supplement to the artworks, a symposium on ecology, urban space, and public art was held, and nature walks, film screenings, and talks on environmental and ecological issues were offered as a further complement to the installations. fig. 3: 48°c public.art.ecology festival programme. although all the works were removed after the festival, detailed documentation of the event was provided by two films (bose 2009a and b), a small brochure of the artworks published by the goethe-institut (gi 2008), and an edited volume which is currently in preparation. however, the fact that the majority of activities and available documents for public communication were produced in english underlines the festival’s exclusionary character. even if english counts as a “link language” in india, the majority of delhi’s citizens would not have been able to engage with the material without challenges. this was different with the artworks: some national and international artists used hindi alongside english, the volunteers at the sites could speak at least two languages, and a work like motornama roshanara challenged visitors by featuring hindi-speaking rickshaw drivers as guides. the fairly short exhibition period and the fact that the festival was a single unrepeated event notwithstanding, 48°c was remarkable in its size, thematic focus, the kinds of exhibits it produced, and the media attention it attracted.[6] as a critical intervention it motivated the establishment of several initiatives related to public art while also encouraging multiple audiences to engage with the city through the theme of environment and ecology. knowing that one festival could change neither the prevalent exclusive attitude towards urban planning nor the exclusive mechanisms of contemporary art, the organisers sought to establish the event as a “beginning of a conversation” (pooja sood, in bose 2009b), or a “seed of change” (mary miss, ibid). furthermore, ecology has, since the new millennium, become one of the key themes used to source funding and attract investors from both private and public sectors and national and international backgrounds, both for environmental work and cultural production. the initiative revealed early signs of what has come to be known as the “festivalisation of cities,” or the “biennalisation” of art; both are popular strategies to attract capital flows and media attention and are effective in making a city, an art community, or a festival more visible to a global audience (filipovic et al. 2009; quinn 2005). to investigate this phenomenon and explore the dynamic fabric of a city like delhi, we find the notion of “in-between space” as dynamic temporary space, which is manifest in public art festivals like 48°c, to be particularly suited. rather than reducing “in betweenness” to a gap between monolithic binaries, we draw upon gilles deleuze and félix guattari’s (1988, 25) notion of the “in between” as a zone of connectivity across various levels, and the german concept of “temporary space use” (zwischenraumnutzung) which alludes to the ability to temporarily fill a “gap” with new significance and aesthetic experience, very much like a liminal space.[7] seen from such a perspective, 48°c succeeded in bringing to the fore a temporary landscape of sites that changed the city’s face for a while and showing aspects that would have otherwise remained invisible, forgotten, marginalised. yet, despite their critical and creative potential such festivals also run the risk of turning art and urban space into a didactic strategy that merely serves the agendas of larger economic-political issues, and interests or anxieties of a privileged social stratum. the festival underlined the idea of an inclusive city, open to all citizens. but paradoxically, this theoretical underpinning can also exclude certain vernacular or “inappropriate” factors (e.g., religion’s role in everyday life, or “folklore” as a domain of the public). art scholars like annapurna garimella (2012) have criticised the hierarchising of art forms at festivals like 48°c where forms of “vernacular street art” are sidelined or dismissed as “naïve” and “uncritical.” while 48°c aimed at overcoming the exclusivist language of gallery spaces, the format of the white cube was still the basis of some of the works. consequently, the selected sites were approached with a particular art practice agenda that must be distinguished from more “popular” interventions in secular public spaces, such as melas (fairs), yatras (religious procession), and other forms of performance (guha-thakurta 2011). there are parallel initiatives, which—though not on an equivalent scale or using the same thematic and organisational framework—mirror a similar interventionist spirit in public space. a good case in point is the safdar hashmi memorial trust (hereafter sahmat[8]) and its continuing activities for the promotion of secularism and cultural pluralism in india, particularly in light of the rise of the politics of religious extremism since the late 1980s. additionally, the changing field of labour forces and their exploitation through global capitalism is a frequent subject of art and street theatre. with vivan sundaram and sheba chhachhi, for instance, 48°c featured two major proponents of these critical initiatives. another example is the kala ghoda arts festival in mumbai’s fort area, which has been held annually since 1999 and turns one neighbourhood into a mela for nine days using street art installations. karen zitzewitz defines this particular event as appealing “strongly to the centrality of ethics” and as nominating “fine art and art world spaces as mechanisms for the production of a cosmopolitan disposition” by using the ethics of a particular form of urban imaginary and modernism that, as the scholar further elaborates in her book the art of secularism (zitzewitz 2014), manages to join appreciation for pluralism with a “desire for social justice” (ibid., 96). similarly, the 48°c festival brochure declared the aim of providing “public spaces for culture, dialogue and peaceful interactions of civil society and communities” (gi 2008, 7). the rhetoric of temporary space management may also include the processual transformation of “abandoned,” “silenced,” or “ignored” spaces or wasteland into “usable” and creative spaces in urban environs. it may facilitate certain groups to sense their potential to shape the city, at least temporarily, and thus participate in its change. it may encourage others to invest in increasing property value and thus exclude groups formerly “belonging” to the place undergoing change (gentrification). the risk is (partial) privatization and closure. in the case of 48°c, the imagination of the opposite is evoked: equal access to art and public space in an otherwise highly hierarchical, competitive, and exclusive society; a laboratory for a “new” (and better) city. the art festival creates the vision of possible urban change for a responsible and inclusive civil society. one could further argue that 48°c also provided an opportunity for temporary redefinition and appropriation of the city (haydn and temel 2006). to shape new imaginaries of the city, the festival sites “excavated” older layers of urban history that relate back to the mughal period, the british empire, or more recent post-colonial developments. this article reveals how the art festival created “multiple relationships between art and the city” (hall 2007, 1376), many of which were based on (constructive) conflict and exclusion (deutsche 1996), on ambivalence and contradictions. according to mitchell (2003), 48°c can be seen as a means of claiming the right to the city, a right that often lies in the hands of hegemonic groups and institutions who privilege the idea of an institutionalised and dominant nationalism. 48°c’s aim was to stimulate demotic, civic participation in city politics, allowing for a more differentiated, local, and critical interaction with ownership in and of the city through the artworks, community involvement, or the accompanying activities offered. this article will explore three qualities of “in-between” space and will draw upon the works of, and interviews with, some of the artists and researchers who made 48°c possible. all interviews and statements used come from groups that can be identified as “learned.” they belong to professional museum and curating circuits, the artists involved, and researchers. the first aspect i want to consider is the role of both ecology and art in defining the different qualities of public space and publicness during 48°c. the translocal dynamics which were imbedded in the public art festival by entangling notions of public art and ecology will be explored through the works of haubitz + zoche (germany/uk) and krishnaraj chonat (india). the discussion of these artworks will touch on issues of access, mobility, and experience in public as well as the multiple functions and histories of spaces (e.g., river pollution and deforestation). a second focus will explore the relationship between dominant regulation, demotic moderation, and the appropriation of space (zukin 2010, 24). this relationship will be examined through art projects by friso witteveen (netherlands) and ravi agarwal (india). a third focus will explore public art as a means of reflecting and inserting protest into public spaces, and will thereby consider restrictions of access and of citizenship. amar kanwar’s project the sovereign forest (india) will be examined as a specific deliberation on public art and protest spaces in delhi. fig. 4: list of national and international artists and artist groups/performers. focus 1: relating global and local perspectives on public space rather than understanding global and local as two poles (one static, the other mobile and placeless), the concept of “in-between” space suggests that a translocal approach can assist an understanding of simultaneously connected spaces that allow one to perceive different shades of a concept such as “public space” (see freitag and van oppen 2010, 5). this concept is less fraught with the elitism that sometimes marks cosmopolitanism, centre-periphery-asymmetries, or arguments of “influence;” it is also reflected in the organisational framework of 48°c, which was composed of a bi-national team and employed a transcultural approach: 48°c was commissioned by the goethe-institut new delhi and the international cooperation enterprise for sustainable development (gtz, now giz); in addition, it was supported by the delhi government, the environmental ngo delhi greens, the norwegian embassy, the swiss arts council pro helvetia, and the japan foundation.[9] the festival was curated by pooja sood, artistic director of khoj international artists association, upon invitation by the goethe-institut south asia in delhi (hereafter gi). because this initiative was the first of its kind on this scale, shifting the idea of contemporary art from the gallery into the open city space, collaboration with different experts was a necessary curatorial prerequisite. much attention was invested in the allocation of, and then permits for, exhibition sites, which is why sood approached architect and urban designer k. t. ravindran to bring in a team of researchers from the tvb school of habitat studies and the department of urban design at the school of planning and architecture (spa). the collaboration with the urban resource group (hereafter urg) was crucial in that the researchers “excavated” and sourced data on the selected festival sites by means of mapping so that the artists could choose the most appropriate place for their exhibition needs. the team produced “activity” maps to study which spaces were “activated” by whom, when, and how (e.g., commuters, lunch break, commercial, religious). moreover, the group explored the use of the particular sites by particular social groups (e.g., industrial labour, white collar workers). sood mentions the challenge of thinking about the different kinds of publics addressed and engaging with such a festival, what the event could mean to “the public”, and whether it would make a difference for the city’s future.[10] stefan dreyer, then director of the goethe-institut (hereafter gi), also told me that a plan to host an event addressing the question of public space in india had been in the pipeline for a long time (pers. comm., delhi 2008). the gi in delhi has a long and respected history of creating platforms for critical discussion and engagement; since the 1990s it has fostered relationships with artists, filmmakers, writers, activists, and intellectuals in delhi and beyond. bringing together the critical and financial support team for 48°c and securing state support and permits for each site posed a challenge, not least because a project of this size and format had never been undertaken in delhi before. cooperation with pooja sood had been secured several years earlier, and the giz had a declared interest in supporting a project that fit their agenda. the collaboration between these diverse groups is pertinent to the translocal dynamics and synergies discussed in this article: for instance, giz’s agenda was reflected in the german organisation’s interest in environmental issues, while the gi helped to choreograph a more intellectual narrative and a focus on the role and fabric of public space in delhi’s cultural milieu. although the giz’s developmental background––though its role was as a partner rather than as a donor––increasingly perceives urban environments as a threat to natural habitats, the gi sees its role as a catalyst for debates about civil society by means of cultural incentives and activities. khoj, on the other hand, envisages a more responsive and dynamic infrastructure for cutting-edge contemporary artists and it combines this with intellectual debates about the environment, public art, urbanisation, and transregional networking across asia. the city administration possibly hoped to burnish their image, realising the need to encourage civil participation in urban recreation and identification with local cultural politics, particularly with respect to the growing environmental challenges, such as water shortage, pollution, deforestation, and air pollution as well as the health issues that accompany them (zukin 2010, 5). although other social groups were not excluded from the event, by and large, and often unacknowledged, the festival reflected a perspective of the educated and english-speaking middle classes familiar with the discourse on climate change and the format of public art interventions. fig. 5a: “use map” of kashmere gate created by the urban resource group. fig. 5b: “activities map” of kashmere gate created by the urban resource group. 48°c presented delhi as a metropolitan city that was, on the one hand, pushing with full force towards rapid urban growth and change, with all of the enormous environmental and urban planning challenges that entails, and, on the other hand, challenging the “world class” rubric in order to develop and contemplate alternatives. artworks touched upon themes such as water scarcity, air pollution, deforestation, public transport, and population management, but also on the local histories of social groups and neighbourhoods, ancient heritage sites, and the decline of industries due to the changing priorities of urban planning and life. positioning “public” spaces there was an ethical undertone to the event; both nature and public space, it seemed, were part of an alarming narrative of “extinction,” which demanded drastic steps of protection and regeneration in order to make a city like delhi a better place for everyone to live. indeed, the name of the festival, 48°c public.art.ecology, is a reference not only to the highest temperature ever recorded in delhi, but also to global warming and to the city as an overheated organism of urban planning, population density, and real estate development. delhi’s ambition to be considered a “world class city” (brosius 2014) simultaneously facilitates demolition and removal and privileges the tastes and desires of elite status groups. arunava dasgupta, head of the department of urban design at the school of planning and architecture and project advisor to the urg that provided the artists with information on the sites, laments a “loss of everyday public realms that the social life of this city has actually suffered heavily” (gi 2008, 16). he suggests that everyday urban public space is sacrificed “to increasing privatization of public domains, greater exclusivity in urban access conditions and steady degradation of physical quality of the few existing urban spaces” (ibid.). underlining this is the idea that belonging and social stratification are spatialised and legitimised through gating and restriction of access, in other words: strategies of emplacement. this inclination resonates in the works of authors like sharon zukin, who studies issues of access and urban ownership. in her recent book naked city she reflects on participation as belonging and proposes a search for “origins” as a concept “enabling people to put down roots. this is the right to inhabit a space, not just to consume it as an experience” (2010, 6). while i find the term “origins” problematic because of its nativist undertones, i think that zukin’s work can help us look at the art festival as a project of emplacement and excavation as well as a search for different trajectories that complicate the relation to a place. the works featured in 48°c speak of multi-layered meanings of rivers, urban planning, and dislocation and thematise forgetting and repressing, as well as connecting and remembering. in several cases, such as the dilapidated heritage sites or the de-industrialised neighbourhoods in old delhi, belonging derives from narratives of nostalgia or loss; indeed, 48°c assembled a variety of public sites that have, to some extent, already been turned into memories through closure, privatisation, material decline, and civil neglect. it is the temporal animation or enchantment of these otherwise sidelined places that highlights the concept of “emplacement” and “in betweenness” for this analysis. what united all sites was their close vicinity to metro stations, which allowed visitors to reach artworks in a ten to fifteen minute walk or five minute rickshaw drive. the accessibility was crucial to ensure that visitors could develop a new and intimate experience of the city. the different qualities and topographies of “authentic places” also alert us to the fact that the organisation of public space in india, often rooted in colonial urban planning, is not just the result of a homogenising “westernisation” but has also evolved from other local aspects and vernacular histories of public spaces such as the maidan (large assembly place) (ibid.), the adda (local coffeehouse) (chakrabarty 1999), or the ghats (riverbank with steps). but in what way can these sites be termed “public”? emphasising the difficulty in applying universal and highly eurocentric concepts to india, sudipta kaviraj (1997) famously argued that … [t]he idea of the public is a particular configuration of commonness that emerged in the capitalist-democratic west in the course of the eighteenth century. it has some associations, particularly ones like universal access and öffentlichkeit (openness), which might not be expected to exist universally in ideas of common space (1997, 86). […] the idea or the concept of the public is only a historically specific configuration of the common. in indian society there was a rich repertoire of concepts of common responsibility, obligation, action, that did not share the characteristic features of a bourgeois publicity like a recognisable source, proper authorisation, impersonality, legality, state sanction, and clear ascription of individual responsibility, nor did it carry the no less crucial negative feature of being distinguished from the private. (1997, 89) in his study of the maidan in calcutta, he also demonstrates how a “foreign” concept has been accommodated and “vernacularised”—turned into an “authentic” local site—for different local groups and classes and, for the staging of protest and other forms of civil concern (ibid., 100–108), transformed into a transcultural contact zone. as this paper highlights, the notion of “public” with respect to defining the role of “public art” and “ecology” is critical and projects a consensus about “public” as the largest inclusive space that provides access for all people equally, and the protection of “ecology” as collective domain and duty. yet, depending on where, by whom, and when the term is used, it carries with it an inherent device of inequality and exclusion, as well as different definitions of citizenry and civil society and their ownership over “public space” and the city’s different ecologies. the festival was intended to engender social inclusion, states ainsworth on the website curating cities. a database of eco public art: it “provided an opportunity for new audiences to experience contemporary art. some of the local roadside teashops were transformed into media hubs where visitors could stop for chai and have a conversation about the festival or the city. the teashops created a democratic atmosphere, with people from different areas coming together and sharing space.”[11] whether these sites were really used by all visitors alike cannot be confirmed, but the example suggests an awareness that even public spaces are part of processes of distinction and social differentiation. the “new” spaces that emerged with economic liberalisation, such as malls, cafés, or lounge bars, have also become the signatures of a newly emerging public leisure space and of a “gated” privacy that is predominantly accessible to an educated and affluent public. in referring to 48°c, dasgupta’s statement seems to suggest that a steady decline of everyday spaces for the “ordinary” citizens and city has favoured the privileged classes. if, as has often been suggested, the global city’s move towards consumer-oriented neoliberal agendas has brought public space under scrutiny, where it is increasingly contested as globalised, privatised, surveyed, or regulated, then we must also recognise that public space in india has a different trajectory and that the proposed loss of public space in the wake of privatisation must be analysed critically and carefully in order to see different local and temporal qualities in the “social production of space” (lefebvre 1991). in the 48°c brochure, dasgupta suggests that the festival allowed local variants of public space to unfold: ironically, it is in these indigenous urban spaces interspersed within the fabric of the city that clues to a possible alternative trajectory of the present confusing urban scenario unfold and get enacted […] while the ongoing cry of “broader perspectives and larger goals” from city authorities, planners, designers, policy makers become more and more intense and tangible. (gi 2008, 16) by discussing “indigenous” spaces, dasgupta indicates that he has no intention of privileging a monolithic and linear indian urbanity that seeks to move towards “the developed city.” rather, he signals the existence and recognition of vernacular public spaces (such as a street or river embankment). the quote invokes the notion of “meaningful” space as something that is rooted in and based on everyday use (zukin 2010), thus shifting attention to specific ecologies and histories that are often rendered peripheral in the larger, often eurocentric, categories, aspirations, and imaginaries of urban planning (see haubitz + zoche, below). dasgupta’s emphasis on “indigenous” spaces and their recovery is also in tune with geographer jennifer robinson’s insistence that we acknowledge the positions of “ordinary cities” and places as a counterpoint to the linear, canonised, and top-down demands of the category of “world class cities” (robinson 2005; mitchell 2003). likewise, others argue for an approach that is not so heavily rooted in a stereotyped and essentialised difference between “india” and “europe,” as touched upon by the artist-environmental activist ravi agarwal in conversation with documentary filmmaker krishnendu bose: we always talk of european cities where the street life is very good and [the] coffee shops [are] but i think there is no difference here. i am sure if you put [a] street chair out on a pavement, just a chair, people will come and sit on it; [if] you put two chairs there will be a conversation so there is a conversation going to be happening. but those two chairs are not available, the chairs on the pavement today. (bose 2009a; see also demos 2013) 48°c emerges at the critical interstices which are taken for granted in comparisons of “east” and “west,” particularly in the context of the delhi government’s growing aspiration to turn delhi into a “world class city.” (brosius 2014) parts of this state-driven rhetoric includes concepts like “urban recreation,” “green,” or “eco-city,” all of which highlight the challenge of transforming booming cities into sustainable environments, albeit for different reasons and “user groups” (rademacher and sivaramakrishnan 2013).[12] by reinventing the city both as ecosystem and social fabric, 48°c emphasised urban nature as a means of creating and unmaking public spaces, local histories, and memory. for instance, various art projects addressed the social and ritual role of water usage and access in delhi’s history and paid close attention to the shifting meanings and values attributed to water as a public resource. sheba chhachhi’s work the water diviner on display at the public library on chandni chowk, old delhi, explored the use of waterways under mughal and british rule to highlight the various layers of urban development and historical memory that are sidelined in contemporary urban politics and everyday life. fig. 6a: sheba chhachhi’s the water diviner displaying a historic map of a mughal waterway on chandni chowk. sheba chhachhi, the water diviner, 2008. video projection (based on photographs by umeed mistry), silent, duration 3 minute loop. delhi, public library fig. 6b: sheba chhachhi’s the water diviner showing a montage of a miniature related to krishna playing with the gopis/gopis taking a bath in the river, superimposed on a contemporary photograph of yamuna filled with garbage. sheba chhachhi, the water diviner, 2008. video projection (based on photographs by umeed mistry), silent, duration 3 minute loop. delhi, public library. the installation that fills the underground swimming pool, which was only discovered in the course of the research undertaken by the delhi-based artist, consists of parcelled-up newspaper, light boxes, and a video screen, all immersed in blue light. one of chhachhi’s central propositions of the work is that people today have forgotten the river yamuna’s mythological relevance as a divine and feminine body, and a setting for religious narratives such as the love story between radha and lord krishna. to recuperate lost memories of the history of water in delhi, and drawing from the riverine culture of the yamuna, chhachhi evokes tropes from popular culture such as the gopis bathing in the river, the ascetic, or musicians on the river bank. at the heart of the installation lies a long light box showing an 1830 map of shahjanabad (old delhi, where the installation is situated) with the then existing waterways, which have been replaced by roads and railways. another use of public art and ecology as an “in-between” space revealing the everyday vernacular, fragmented sites, and aspects of an informal and “ordinary” city, surfaced in atul bhalla’s work chabeel. fig. 7a: craftsmen completing their work on the kiosk. atul bhalla, chabeel, 2008. sand, cement, water, ceramic tiles, stickers, recyclable paper, plywood, video projection, dimensions variable. delhi, kashmere gate. fig. 7b: chabeel in the evening, when bhalla projected images taken from his yamuna walk. atul bhalla, chabeel, 2008. sand, cement, water, ceramic tiles, stickers, recyclable paper, plywood, video projection, dimensions variable. delhi, kashmere gate. fig. 7c: another element of the artwork attached to a barrier on a street outside kashmere gate. atul bhalla, have you ever seen the yamuna, 2008. sand, cement, water, ceramic tiles, stickers, recyclable paper, plywood, video projection, dimensions variable. delhi, kashmere gat fig. 7d: plan of the artworks’ locations around kashmere gate. the installation of an enlarged walk-in water vessel placed next to kashmere gate (a mughal monument under “protection” by the archaeological survey of india, located near one of the largest metro stations and normally closed to the public). it also served as a kiosk and was based on the northwest indian ritual of handing out free drinking water to the public, which is considered to be a means of earning personal merit. chabeel, explains bhalla (pers. email communication, 2015), “is essentially a punjabi phenomenon and has its source in nirjala ekadashi, the eleventh day of the hottest month. this day is celebrated by hindus and sikhs as a day to give out free lassi (yoghurt-based drink, cb) and now food; the practice has now been taken over by the sikhs on occasions of the birthdays of the sikh gurus.” moreover, the vessel is often used as a personal carrier of sacred water when visiting a holy river for pilgrimage. aimed at remembering the forgotten and shifted waterways of the past—and in that sense showing parallels to chhachhi’s water diviner—bhalla pursued the idea of the multi-layered histories and narratives. he excavated one such connected history when he looked at old maps of pre-1956 delhi and discovered that the yamuna once ran next to kashmere gate. bhalla connected his performative installation to the yamuna river with signboards in the metro station and stickers in hindi and english asking “have you ever seen the yamuna? have you ever touched the yamuna?” he thereby suggests that the river has been effectively cut off from the city’s everyday life, since for many “city-zens” it has become a restricted area or a “nuisance” to be avoided (sharan 2014).[13] one might argue that in bhalla’s work the yamuna functioned as an “in-between” place, which, though precious and fertile to some (e.g., as provider of agricultural production, as ritual cremation ground, as site of ritual immersion), to others is a polluted space and burden; indeed, this is demonstrated in the fact that leisure use of its embankment is “restricted.” in bhalla’s view, the river is “shunned” by the middle classes and the elite, and thus not a public but rather a marginalised and discriminated space. the highly mediated cleaning efforts by environmental groups or spiritual communities (e.g., meri dilli meri yamuna, transl. my delhi my yamuna—a large river-cleansing agitation organised by the religious-spiritual organisation the art of living) since 2010 reveal a growing desire to recover and include the river as a cleansed, reclaimed, and potentially rejuvenating (middle-class) leisure space, thereby triggering a reinterpretation of accessibility and ownership. although stressing the importance of recovering the river and water’s multiple meanings for a more complex understanding of nature’s relevance for urban recreation, civil responsibility, and participation, as much as for the connectivity of religion and civil society, chabeel was, interestingly enough, also one of the few artworks that dealt with religious practice in “secular” cities. the presence of religion in contemporary global art in india is closely tied up with notions of modernism and rationality and the tensions caused by a “political doctrine of secularism” that impacts contemporary art production (see zitzewitz 2014: 5). as a consequence, the inclusion of religious themes in the secular field of gallery art is often accompanied by tensions, and/or blended out since it is predominantly associated with religious extremism played out in the public domain. urban imaginaries and experiences the ways in which they have woven together the different sites, it turned the city into a different space! (festival visitor, pers. comm., delhi 2010) my research was carried out between 2010 and 2014, a few years after 48°c had taken place. open interviews were conducted with stakeholders from the art and urban design fields, several of the participating artists from india, art critics, curators, filmmakers, and art scholars from delhi. many of my informants had strong memories of the festival sites as hospitable, tension-free, open spaces that invited social mingling and created a leisurely atmosphere for “hanging out” rather than hurrying through or by. the fact that the relatively new metro connected all sites and that mobility was part of the experience also contributed to a positive perception of the festival. this contrasts with the often-felt anxieties usually connected to mobility and loitering in the city, particularly at nodal points of high fluctuation. the connectivity of the eight chosen sites through a grid,[14] with each site hosting several of the artists,[15] in addition to the outreach programme, changed many (privileged) participants’ perception of moving in and through the city. though not directly intended, it especially appealed to middle-class women’s experiences of restricted mobility and the tensions of living in the city. divya chopra, an urban designer involved in the urg, argued that restrictions and threats to mobility, the feeling of precarity in public—shared by many citizens but mainly raised by members of the educated middle classes—turned the festival into a space of potential flânerie. she expressed this view in a personal conversation while referring to 48°c as a “carnival” (divya chopra, pers. comm., delhi 2010). such perceptions of temporary lightness and joyous celebration stand in contrast to the “normal” experiences of being overshadowed by the threat of male aggression that women live through on a daily basis. public space is still largely amale-dominated domain; while new models for gendered behaviour and mobility have been facilitated since the economic liberalisation in the 1990s, tensions seem to have escalated as women have moved into—and appropriated—public space. such zones of contestation are found particularly in “thoroughfares” for commuters, in governmental administrative or tourist sites, and in cinemas, business, and shopping centres of the kind found in and around connaught place (sometimes also referred to as central place), a prominent vestige of colonialism where four festival sites were located. this place at delhi’s centre has hardly any residential qualities; it is largely filled with “strangers” who commute in accordance with traffic hours and have little attachment to the localities. during the festival, barakhamba road, one of the major roads leading towards connaught place, was transformed to such an extent that, as divya chopra further elaborates, “i felt safe going there because there was light and there was a different kind of crowd that was coming to view public art.” (divya chopra, pers. comm., delhi 2010). the otherwise abandoned and seemingly unsafe place, particularly for women, shifted from a transitory, “loitering site” to being pleasant and recreational. but the appreciation of such a shift was not only gender based. arunava dasgupta noticed the following at another of the festival’s sites located directly at connaught place: […] with palika parking, andrej[16] has put up this spectacular place; in the evenings no one goes there, it is dark. but it was changed in the process of the three screens put up, the infrastructure changed, and transformed the place into a positive, fantastic, celebratory place, it has nothing to do with gentrification. we can do that with other critical places. (arunava dasgupta, pers. comm., delhi 2010) because it has little residential and even local identification—it is part of a predominantly commercial area of new delhi—the open areas on top of the underground market palika bazaar (built in the 1970s) turn the site into a “transit space.” at daytime, it offers people a leisurely walk and a place to sit during their lunch break. however, after office closing hours and nightfall, palika bazaar carries the stigma of low-class, male crowds, the “crowd” divya chopra referred to that causes discomfort particularly among women. others refer to it as a site where homeless people, drug addicts, and daily wagers assemble. a researcher from the urg explained that originally the more “upper-class” and “safe” part directly on the adjunct central park had been selected as a festival venue but due to anti-terrorist security measurements the plan had to be dropped (anonymous, pers. comm., delhi 2014). dasgupta’s comment underlines the desire for safe and relaxed access and use of public places in business areas. it also refers to the notion that not every form of improvement through culture must result in gentrification and the exclusion of lower-middle or low-class populations, quite the opposite. thus, 48°c could indeed facilitate aspirations towards a more engaged, positive, and liberal notion space. but whereas middle-class cosmopolitanism would often be associated with demands for “exclusive restriction,” dasgupta is far from claiming that public spaces like connaught place should be “cleansed” of “unruly”subjects like street vendors, or other representatives of lower and often stigmatised social strata. instead, he privileges respect for and attention to social diversity and inclusion (deutsche 1996, xiii). in a self-reflexive mode, he argues that [o]ur preoccupation has always been that we create public space for the public ––but we are at a huge distance with our imaginations and the real citizenry […] i am not talking about a public, a singular space, but a city space, connections with a space, degrees of involvement, multiple in nature, cross-sectional in terms of representation. […] i want my students to have that connection with the city. […] we need to make people reconnect with the space. (arunava dasgupta, pers. comm., delhi 2010) mobility and safety play a major role, both in terms of general public security and the role of women in public. while the former was a constant factor in negotiations with government offices and police, female visitors highlighted the latter—though not officially addressed at the festival—as relevant. access to public space by means of a public art festival must not be taken for granted and reveals the contested and conflict-ridden nature of public space as highly regulated (deutsche 1996). it took two years of intense planning, financing, and collaboration by two internationally active german organisations, and the approval of high-level government bureaucrats and police in delhi to realise the 48°c festival, gain permissions to place the artworks in public, and allow large crowds to gather. when decisions were made to finance 48°c, preparations were already ongoing with respect to the 2010 commonwealth games. the feat of organisational challenges is particularly impressive given that delhi had recently been shaken by market place bombings in september 2008 and the city administration was fearful of more terrorist attacks and thus careful about the regulation of larger public assemblies. with respect to 48°c, the festival organisers had to obtain seventy-five permits from thirty-five governmental agencies—an significant organisational challenge. in personal conversation, dasgupta tells me that connaught place had been part of the festival, with six sites of public art exhibition, but because of a bomb blast there on 13 september 2008, the police did not give permission. he recalls that the neighbouring rooftop of palika bazar, which was turned into a public park, could remain an exhibition site, but only after tough negotiations with the local police. it was argued that the site was an important message to the visitors: they could trust public safety again: “we said that ‘you decide: we want to hold a public event so that people gain back their faith and confidence in these spaces. and if you want to restrict it then it’s crazy’” (2010). this way, dasgupta argues, the festival turned from an intentionally bottom-up event to a “top-down” festival. another aspect of access and mobility addressed by the festival was the middle-class’s general reluctance to consider public space as productive rather than just “empty” or a “nuisance.” the way in which the metro became not just a means of travel but an “attitude,” and the care given to the site selection were seen as a call for a more appreciative and attentive understanding of the many different urban spaces and histories in the city. this was one rather pedagogical aspect of the festival agenda, which was geared towards the more affluent middle classes. although moving through delhi is a hassle for all citizens, members of the wealthy middle classes in particular consider public spaces (including public transport) to be unhealthy and filled with alleged “nuisances”, including beggars, street vendors, roaming animals, cars, and unstructured, harassing crowds which should be generally avoided. and yet, this celebration of seamless mobility is central to 48°c. for many visitors taking the metro to visit sites in old delhi this may very well have shaped a new feeling for the city and its social and environmental ecology. according to the festival’s curator, sood, the aim was to “make these people who are used to taking cars explore the city in different ways” (gi 2008). in delhi, mobility and status are closely linked; elite and upper-middle-class people associate walking and taking public transport with the “lower class.” people “of class” more often than not avoid the public; they avoid being seen on streets lest they be associated with the “common man.” in this context the introduction of the metro system in delhi has partly gentrified neighbourhoods, opened public space, and changed the idea of accessibility. in 2008 only two metro lines were (more or less) completed, and it was a herculean task for 48°c organisers to use this network to designate the art sites so that people could visit eight sites in one day.[17] through the use of the overground metro the city unfolds as a panorama; it enables people to move fairly quickly and easily through the city, while travelling by car often spells delays such as traffic congestion and can be risky. public transport facilitates not only travel faster from point a to b but offer a different experience of one’s self in space along with a different gaze upon the urban landscape. ravi agarwal, contributor to the 48°c festival, describes his experience of using the metro and looking at nature: i feel that some of the spaces were always there, but they were “different” spaces then (before the metro). […] for example, there’s a metro going over the forest now from chhattarpur, mehrauli to gurgaon. and it goes over the forest, you know. so, suddenly you could see the forest. … with the metro, the city can be experienced differently. (ravi agarwal, pers. comm., delhi 2010) gender-specific experiences must be considered as well, since women might not necessarily share the same ease with the metro (despite the introduction of ladies compartments), and affluent middle-class women largely prefer to take the car for safety and status reasons. deep waterscapes as previously mentioned in relation to chhachhi’s and bhalla’s work, the importance of water in delhi formed a key theme and narrative for many artists involved in 48°c. both the water diviner and chabeel convey relational and deep histories of how water stands for so much more than a physical substance. the river as carrier of socio-cultural and religious practice and change also played a role in some of the eight international projects that were developed at the 48°c festival. two european artists, sabine haubitz (berlin, munich) and stefanie zoche (london, munich), who have collaborated since 1998, developed the yamuna blues, which explored the ways in which we engage with the river as part of the public domain but also as part of cultural and religious heritage. their film project viewed the river as a neglected yet key resource, one that had been partly destroyed by careless urban development, industrial waste, and a widespread ignorance of nature’s public good (as opposed to nature as a religious domain used for purification rituals). that the dilapidated state of rivers such as the yamuna has become an issue of concern for the affluent middle classes, who now see nature as important for recreation and leisure, must not be ignored; indeed, this shift in attitudes signals the unique ability of art spaces to reshape sites of contestation and transgression. in the yamuna blues, water and the embankment become an “in-between” space that is fitted within the larger narrative and topography of 48°c. next to kashmere gate (see fig. 7d), where several other public art projects dealing with water were installed (e.g., subodh gupta’s stainless steel bucket and atul bhalla’s chabeel), a forty-foot high bamboo tower––a hybrid structure reminiscent of a watchtower or a lighthouse––was constructed; the construction style used for the tower was similar in many respects to large buildings––including high-rise buildings––built in urban india today. however, instead of sending light-encoded signals or highlighting the feeling of surveillance, a light beam was directed onto a projection screen on the floor simulating a “water pond.” the images projected were recorded observations shot by haubitz + zoche over a period of two weeks on the route from yamuna’s source in yamunotri to delhi. underwater shots that immerse the viewer in the water alternated with images of people’s activities along the banks and with impressions of nature. the film depicts a river’s transformation from clear to black water. says haubitz: “in india, the yamuna is seen as [a] sacred river, as [a] goddess. [against] this backdrop, the drifting remains of durga figures, during durga puja—female headless straw-puppets, from a distance, looked like abused bodies —a symbolic reading that can be transferred to the ways in which people deal with the river” (pers. e-mail comm. 2014). fig. 8a: haubitz + zoche, the yamuna blues, 2008. bamboo construction, video beamer, hd-video, loop 10 min. delhi, kashmere gate. fig. 8b: detail of the projection. haubitz + zoche, the yamuna blues, 2008. bamboo construction, video beamer, hd-video, loop 10 min. delhi, kashmere gate. fig. 8c: selection of stills from the projected film. haubitz + zoche, the yamuna blues, 2008. bamboo construction, video beamer, hd-video, loop 10 min. delhi, kashmere gate. to the artists, the paradox of treating the river both as sacred and polluted was mirrored in the figures, albeit ignoring that in processions such as durga puja, the immersion of the deities in water and their deterioration is part of the ritual cycle and not perceived as neglect by the worshippers. in an interview, haubitz + zoche stated that one of the problems in the attitude of (middle-class) indians towards the river is that they do not see the river and its embankment as contributing to the public good, or even as a spiritual and physical zone of recreation and leisure. scenes of worship on and by the river (perceived as pollution by some middle-class indians, since puja flowers are thrown in with plastic bags) present “for an outsider view… a very strong contradiction” of this perspective. the suggestion is that for many people who live in delhi the river is not a significant part of the local topography, whereas “[i]n munich, we always cycle along the river, it is nice to be close to the river, so part of our psychological experience of this space is to have this really wonderful river” (bose 2009b, interview). considering nature and natural resources as contributing to a “common good,” and as something worth protecting, nurturing, and respecting, is not necessarily contradictory to religious practices. however, in the context of secularisation and decolonisation, national progress and nature’s protection have formed an ambivalent alliance that has often facilitated the exploitation and destruction of natural resources as well as their conversion into a “luxury good” that can only be accessed by a privileged few. whether it is a gated community or a theme park, these new sites are presented as eco-friendly and nurturing biodiversity. amita baviskar (2002; 2010) has called this phenomenon “bourgeois environmentalism.” she argues that access to nature has become increasingly privatised and commodified, and that nature is increasingly appreciated because of this conspicuous connection to leisure for people with the necessary symbolic and economic capital. the development of river embankments as sites of recreation, cultivation, and leisure, as practiced in cities such as london, paris, and berlin, is new to the south asian context (hubermann 2012). today these cities are known for their famous embankments and have increasingly undergone deindustrialisation and gentrification in areas that were previously neglected and stigmatised. the presence of nature is crucial to attracting investment in cities, particularly for the affluent classes. the encroachment of the commonwealth games village (2010) or the akshardham temple (2005) on the “preserved” territory of the yamuna floodplains is one incident that underscores the growing pressures of the real estate market (brosius 2014). in the 1990s malhotra jagmohan, the then vice chairman of the delhi development authority, developed a plan to transform delhi into the “paris of the east” by recreating the embankment of the yamuna in the city centre. this led to the demolition of “illegal” encroachments housing more than half a million people. trees as icons urban deforestation—another central topic of 48°c—is a paradoxical issue in light of the fact that, since the early 2000s, the delhi government has branded the city as the “greenest city in india.” this has been achieved through the relocation of hundreds of thousands of people, for instance from along the river embankment. south indian artist krishnaraj chonat acknowledged this upheaval, and the theme of his installation was thus one of uprooting, dislocation, and “resettlement.” this was represented by one tree hanging, like a person, from a crane positioned at barakhamba road, next to an abandoned colonial bungalow. its daytime appearance and the spectacular way the tree was lit up at night, offered different visions of the city. fig. 9a–b: krishnaraj chonat, crane + tree, 2008. uprooted, dead tree, crane. delhi, barakhamba road. since 2000, around 200,000 trees have been cut down to make way for residential and commercial, road, and metro constructions in delhi. barakhamba road, a prominent festival site, was once an avenue framed by large trees. most of these trees were uprooted during the construction of the metro and when the southern part of the city’s colonial heart in connaught place was transformed into a business district. fig. 10a-b: barakhamba road in delhi, 2013. today the road leading towards connaught place is a busy thoroughfare that bustles with white-collar workers and street vendors during the daytime, but is deserted at night. the key queries presented by chonat’s crane+tree, which stands adjacent to one of the last deserted colonial bungalows now squeezed between several high-rise office blocks, are related to different notions of development and progress and to questions of how much nature should be sidelined and sacrificed to make way for national and urban progress.[18] in a conversation with filmmaker krishnendu bose, chonat mentions the challenge for an artist who is used to working in gallery spaces to suddenly expose his art to a large public; he asks whether such an artwork really matters to the man on the street (bose 2009b). the work received both praise for its monumentality and criticism for being too “iconic” and for addressing—albeit very affectively—especially the urban upper middle classes with this language of spectacle. in other words, the assumption was that the affluent middle class do not care about trees vanishing from public places as long as their local parks remain untouched, whereas “ordinary” people, many of them migrants from villages and forest areas, were more likely to be familiar with this destruction. responding to my question about the critique of his work as elitist monumentalism, chonat responded: when thinking about what kind of work i would make in this “space” that could speak to a great mix of peoples and positions, i felt it should be something very symbolic, encapsulating all these concerns. i wanted to somehow combine a certain directness with subtlety in this artwork that touched upon the sense of loss, of great absence in the collective consciousness of people who would experience this “sudden insertion” in their otherwise often overlooked everyday reality. in other words, to explore the possibility of putting a soul “up there” that one gazed at in awe and reverence, as if looking at a shrine, a suspended deity or something like that. a higher thing, a sahasrara (white lotus, cb) perhaps […] here endangered (pers. email comm., 2014). the emphatic appeal to save trees was, nonetheless, appreciated by many middle-class visitors, and the fact that the media paid so much attention to these “branded” and precarious sites might have, despite the critiques, also played a part in changing people’s minds. in this context, the criticism that 48°c was merely the offspring of neoliberal environmentalism and concepts of creative cities (leslie 2005) monopolised by a highly monolithic notion of an elitist middle class that has no “real” connection with the workings of vernacular everyday life, seems one dimensional. focus 2: state and non-state contestations the second part of this paper explores public art as inhabiting the space between institutionalised, national venues and informal, open infrastructures––particularly with respect to the issue of public urban space controlled by the state versus vernacular space managed by subaltern or civil forces from (often) bourgeois backgrounds (deutsche 1996, xxi). 48°c has played a major role in challenging dominant space regulations because it occurred when conservative institutional canons and sites such as museums were being challenged by the new dynamics of economic liberalisation and a growing alternative “white cube” art scene in the 1990s (deutsche argues that public art must not necessarily be identified with democratisation of space and participation [1996, xxii–iii]). temporary space use thus became an important means of inserting controversial themes into familiar environments and of allowing new art forms and urban imaginaries to take shape. between old city and new city sudipta kaviraj and others have explored colonial town planning, particularly with respect to the creation of “in-between” spaces such as the maidan. one of the largest open spaces, the ramlila maidan, was chosen by dutch artist friso witteveen for his installation entitled hocus pocus. it is yet another space that is sandwiched between two capitals, urban ecologies, and models of habitat: the walled city of shahjahanabad (founded in 1648) and new delhi (founded in 1912). the maidan was part of colonial urban planning and functioned as a buffer zone between the so-called black town and the white town. many of delhi’s open, green spaces can be traced back to the mughal period when walled gardens and waterways became sites of elite power and leisure; or to the period when delhi was declared the new capital of the empire in 1911, catalysing the mapping of a new spatial landscape of power––axes for parades or government buildings––that were meant to foster “decent, civilised, cultivated urban living” (kaviraj 1996, 91). today, ramlila maidan has once again become a zone for temporary uses; it is one of the rare sites designated for the aam admi (common men/citizenry). indeed, it is a truly multifunctional and socially diverse space and still hosts large religious festivals (ramlila, dusserah), circuses, cricket matches on sunday afternoons or weekday evenings, public meetings (sabha), demonstrations, and rallies. as the urg team explains: this idea of an “in-between” urban border zone trapped within the city becomes a unique condition of urban life that allows the mutual existence of the recognized world of the formal city and the not so accepted but real and alive aspects of the informal (grey/in-between) city. (urg, data file, 35) fig. 11a: the images shows that the installation was gated, thus cutting off a large chunk of the public space for protection purposes. friso witteveen, hocus pocus, 2008. mild steel, mdf reflective foil and paint, 24 x 20 x 4 m. delhi, ramlila ground. fig. 11b: friso witteveen, hocus pocus, 2008. mild steel, mdf reflective foil and paint, 24 x 20 x 4 m. delhi, ramlila ground. after visiting all the possible festival sites during a preliminary stay in summer where he was accompanied by and could also tap into the research of the urg team, witteveen selected the ramlila maidan. the outcome was a monumental and yet poetic engagement with the past and the present of the growing city, inviting people to reflect on their position between the “old” and the “new,” between the “unordered” or “informal,” and the “regulated.” employing reflective material and citations from mughal architecture that also suggest proximity to high-rise buildings with glass surfaces, witteveen created a play with different temporalities and spatialities. (one object) pocus opens up like a blossoming flower to the city around it, reflecting it, while (the second one) hocus, with inverted mirror-like surfaces, reflects itself and the viewer standing inside, allowing him/her to see his/her own image within the architectural landscape, and feeling, as the artist puts it, the “heat of the city” (bose 2009b). the installation plays with elements appropriated from the eighteenth century heritage site of the jantar mantar,[19] particularly the inner circles of the ram yantra buildings, to the south of connaught place. the architectural element of the ram yantra became the conceptual basis for witteveen’s hocus pocus, reflecting the hindi words jantar mantar, which are seen to be a corruption of yantra mantrayantra is a spatial representation of the divine or the occult and mantra is its auditory form, so witteveen in a personal e-communication (june 2015).[20] as a consequence of extreme security measurements taken by the delhi government following terrorist bomb attacks in mumbai, as well as bomb blasts in delhi ahead of the festival, public spaces were closed off and heavily controlled. for hocus pocus, this meant that it was literally “fenced off” and thus, unintentionally, turned into a “gated” work with restricted access. it is yet another result of the festival’s aspiration to open up public spaces from the “bottom up” at a time when various factors, e.g., the fear of terrorist attacks, brought about the closure and surveillance of such sites “top-down” (dasgupta, above). taxidermy inside and outside the museum an interesting case study for the exploration of how government institutions today regulate space and thus to some extent the imaginaries of national identity, is ravi agarwal’s work extinct. over the past ten years the artist, originally from new delhi, has made the interesting transition from environmental activist and documentary photographer to artist and, of late, curator. he has worked with art installations that address issues such as declining industries and labour conditions in the context of high capitalism as well as pollution and farming, often with a focus on the river yamuna. his own work has been exhibited abroad, for instance at documenta 11 (2002), curated by okwui enwezor, or in the travelling exhibition indian highway (bublatzky 2011). agarwal’s work for 48°c was research based and dealt with delhi’s last three remaining vultures—stuffed and preserved in a diorama in the natural history museum near connaught place. since their eradication from the city—due to the presence of diclofenac in the bodies of milk-giving animals, according to agarwal—vultures can now be seen only as taxidermied curiosities. once, the vulture, a docile and harmless animal as agarwal underlines, inhabited everyday spaces but its association with death, cadavers, and putrefaction, clashed with notions of “world class” hygiene and aesthetics, which ultimately lead to its extermination. agarwal’s reference to the museum dioramas can be understood as a critique of the colonial ethos and the national as well as capitalist rhetoric of progress and development: the ossified state of this remarkable bird of prey mirrors the state of nature and thus of civilisation. the elements in the large installation can also be understood as a gesture towards the ambivalence of “progress” as an evolutionary or destructive way of urban change (bose 2009b). the diorama and projections in front of the museum of natural history speak volumes in their proximity to mandi house, the headquarters of indian national television, as well as the major national museums, which were established after india’s independence and were expected to facilitate national progress through national education. fig. 12a: ravi agarwal, extinct, 2008. photographic and light-box installation, images, text and video. delhi, mandi house chauraha. fig. 12b-c:: ravi agarwal, extinct, 2008. photographic and light-box installation, images, text and video. delhi, mandi house chauraha. by exhibiting site-specific photographic and light box installations that refer to the historical presence of vultures in the city, agarwal confronts issues that include the precarious relationship between humans and nature, or the ambivalent potential in the idea of development. in conversation with filmmaker bose, he asks how one can contemplate the future of the city if extinction becomes so much part of one’s lives that it almost seems natural (bose 2009b). extinct was installed on a roundabout in front of the museum where it formed a very different memorial from the monuments of national remembrance (commemorating heroes and events) that are normally found on such prominent urban sites. it could also be argued that the vultures as museum objects across the road from the exhibit on the roundabout can turn the installation into an extension and reconfiguration of the museum experience—carried forward and imbued with new signification, rather than challenged or dismantled.[21] the importance of active civil participation and the need to question the definition, and destruction, of what is deemed a “nuisance” by a few, was thus highlighted. agarwal took the stuffed animals out of the sanitised space of the museum and “reanimated” them by placing them in soundscapes and magnified slide projections in front of the national museum. his intention was to provoke reflection on the “fake” realities of dioramas, which aim at creating the illusion of realism and presence, while the “original” has been lost forever. agarwal sought to use the notion of loss as an appeal to viewers: where is a city going when it builds such destruction into its profile? if you extinguish and render irrelevant the habitats of flora and fauna, as well as humans, what is lost through the progress of urban development? is this evolution “natural?” agarwal’s work also addressed the fact that dressing something up as a diorama, or turning it into a monument, enforces a different perspective of it altogether––one of distance and ossification instead of dialogue and mobility. he played with the canonised and familiar (museum, photograph, monument, or diorama) and inserted the unfamiliar by obscuring what are usually clear boundaries and temporalities: the vultures, up until only a few years ago, alive and perched in the trees and on buildings next to the natural history museum, were re-imported into their natural habitat as copies. he also sought to expand the boundaries of the traditional monument and the monumental genre by inviting other forms of contemplation and engagement and thus enforcing “counter-hegemonic” ways of seeing (burk 2006, 952). extinct was not alone in this at 48°c where the artist vivan sundaram, who created the public art project flotage in the mughal-style roshanara garden located north of old delhi, critiqued a museum and state-based way of creating and imposing knowledge flows from the top down: “we still have the notion that public art is (as follows): you put a statue on a pedestal and a roundabout and that’s public art” (bose 2009b).[23] this statement, one could argue, is less a critique of who or what is put on a pedestal and why at any given time, than of the ways in which this gestures towards a top-down rhetoric that discourages the participation of the citizenry. (according to sundaram, one aim of contemporary art should be to surprise and to generate questions and curiosity [bose 2009b.]) new public art inhabits the space between older and coexisting forms of public art, such as folklore and religious art or monuments of national or historical relevance, the former is usually placed outside the secular public sphere, while the latter is often an inextricable part of the hegemonic and didactic canon (guha-thakurta 2011, see also watson 2008). such complexity corresponds closely with adrienne burk’s argument for the “beneath and before” of “publicness” in urban public art, using vancouver as her case study (2006, 961). in personal conversation, agarwal supported the view that a festival like 48°c can shape new public spaces to accommodate participatory approaches that move beyond the confines of monumental and hegemonic art and beyond the restriction of art engagement to national canons and to the gallery and museum: i remember the first meetings with pooja (sood), we met the secretary of the ministry of environment and he said: “so, you want to hang up paintings? on a flyover?” and i said: “well, no, not exactly paintings. […]” they could not think of anything else! the recognition that art can be not just that, you know, that shift was happening with 48°. […] so, i think it’s a good thing, at least […] “public art” becomes part of the public dictionary and people start thinking about it. they might not totally understand it, so it’ll take many more of those things, you know? it’ll take a few years of constant working at that. (ravi agarwal, pers. comm., delhi 2010) in order to get the project up and running, one of the first hurdles was to disentangle the divergent meanings attributed to public space and public art from associations with the government. as the artist sheba chhachhi, who created the water diviner in chandni chowk’s public library in old delhi, puts it: “public space communication is largely […] government propaganda […] i think the state always (assumed, it) owned the public space” (in conversation with filmmaker krishnendu bose [bose 2009b; adajania 2008]). evidently, the idea of what constitutes public art and public space radically differed between bureaucrats and the 48°c representatives. the risk that the government would refuse requests for installation access to urban spaces for a host of reasons was always substantial. in conversation, a core project coordinator and co-curator of 48°c described how the organisers tried to ensure that the government would open up the selected spaces: this was an amazing gesture, and never really happened like this before! first we had to get their general approval and familiarize them with the overall idea/concept. we made dummies for them, breaking down every site, put it on a map. we had to argue that indian contemporary art is booming so much right now, that environment is a “hot topic.” they were actually quite open, and they knew that these were big issues, very popular at the time […] (protocol notes form conversation with anonymized team worker to 48°c, 2010). the quote also hints at the city’s growing desire in 2007 to rebrand itself as “world class,” and to use art and culture and the issue of climate change to effect this. agarwal’s account of his interactions with government employees who assumed that public art meant hanging pictures on bridge walls indicates that city officials were wading into new territory with 48°c, but it was not just bureaucrats who were challenged. a co-curator of 48°c also explained that indian artists are often “uncomfortable” with the idea of public art, with having to put themselves “out there,” and with coming out from behind the sheltered walls of the “white cube” into the open to confront an unknown audience and to be measured against other points of reference. public art in this context has a function that is almost diametrically opposed to the rather monolingual messages conveyed in national memorials, which are still very much based on a “national canon” and on notions of a past “golden age” or “heritage.” the audience envisaged by 48°c’s organisers was clearly not a national citizen in this “classical” sense, but rather a critical citizen who appreciates complexity and subversion. the purpose of this section has been to explore the arts festival 48°c as an “in-between” space that marks, and challenges, different positionalities in hegemonic national discourses and institutions as well as alternative publics. this slippage between what might also be termed official and unofficial, dominant and demotic, allows us to further excavate aspects of how urban public space is constituted. focus 3: protest spaces i think that the state always owned the public space. [but over time, cb], it’s become more aggressive about its ownership and legislation […] there is an attempt to manage the city and that has actually ended up in reducing public space […] you (now) have in fact the reverse process where increased police control are generating a passive citizenry which simply consumes whether it is advertising or state propaganda or spectacle (sheba chhachhi, in conversation with krishnendu bose [2009b]). this statement by sheba chhachhi brings the issue of restriction of artworks into the larger realm of public protest. by addressing the issue of civil participation, the artist’s words recall the quote by adajania at the beginning of this article. several of the indian artists involved in 48°c had been active in political and social movements for years, if not decades, and many of their works responded to their concerns in this context. the experience of placing art in public and of addressing themes and publics outside the “white cube,” is often associated with experiences of pushing against the boundaries erected by the state apparatus and against various local challenges such as religious extremism or land grabbing. worldwide, large cities have seen the rejuvenation of their main squares as protest grounds, both in the “global south” as well as in the “global north.” this is paralleled by increasing attempts by police and other government initiatives to control and restrict public spaces in order to keep unruly crowds from entering the arena of public (and media) visibility. in delhi, demonstrations have been largely restricted to two places since the 1980s: the ramlila maidan and parliament road near jantar mantar, close to connaught place and parliament. the former is large and the latter is a narrow dead-end street usually bustling with metro commuters, but what both have in common is that they are “gated” and cannot be seen by large groups of onlookers who might want to join in. police are wary of demonstrations and protests are heavily restricted. ramlila grounds formed the stage for enormous and unprecedented anti-corruption protests in 2011, but jantar mantar road, the small lane near parliament, was ignored for the first time in decades when massive protests by youths across all social strata of the middle classes filled rajpath, the huge avenue connecting parliament with india gate south of connaught place, following the brutal gang-rape of a young female student in central delhi on 16.12.2012 (the rape victim died of her fatal injuries, triggering an ongoing discussion channelled through different media about women’s safety in urban space). while civil protest is something to be managed by governments in cities across the globe, the fear of terrorism in the new millennium is another more pressing issue. in the case of 48°c, it caused many bureaucratic problems for the organisers of the event. the experience of dealing with highly regulated space when it comes to public art projects can be seen in the reflections of members of the organising team. permissions had to be acquired from all kinds of departments and responsible bureaucrats and politicians. as divya chopra (urg) explains, “there had to be ten different official permissions for each site. you cannot just come and plop a work of art in public space”; the police, fire brigade, and sometimes also the archaeological survey of india (asi) had to be approached for approval and the designs for the different sites had to be explained to the officials. in fact, permissions remained a key topic up to the day before the opening of the festival. one issue was the security alert caused by bomb blasts in delhi in november 2008, which was further intensified by the mumbai bomb blasts earlier that year. as a result, police and other security personnel were very sensitive about “gatherings,” even in the context of a festival, and sought to avoid them by means of restriction, particularly around the central business district, connaught place. space policing became part of a larger debate amongst a core group of artists and curators about the spatial restrictions faced by critical crowds and how this controversial tactic affects art and activism in a space. furthermore, the discourse surrounding the closing down of public space and the eviction of protesting publics, which is addressed in deutsche’s essay on agoraphobia, is another aspect that deserves attention. deutsche proposes a leftist nostalgic view of public space as somehow “more authentic” and democratic before the advent of high capitalism, which ushered in an era of authoritarian group control (and states) and sanitised spaces (deutsche 1996, 282–4). this situates protest spaces and movements within a temporal frame and allows for a consideration of generational agendas and experiences. centre-periphery entanglement protest as a metaphor and as a translocal narrative featured in many works at 48°c, particularly in documentary filmmaker amar kanwar’s video and photo installation the sovereign forest. fig. 13: amar kanwar, the sovereign forest, 2008. installation, video screens, 160 photographs shown in forty-nine light boxes, text banner. delhi, jantar mantar road. located at the entrance to jantar mantar road, the work in progress revolved around the theme of denied citizenship and restricted participation in the context of land disputes, the violent exploitation of natural resources, and the abuse of human rights through governmental and commercial agendas and privileges. it also reflects the physical and symbolic distance of the people of india to their parliament as their protests are confined to this marginalised and almost hidden street between parliament and connaught place. although kanwar’s protagonists (with whom he has been collaborating for years, also on levels of political activism) are members of marginalised communities, such as adivasi (tribals) in remote areas of the national territory, the underlining argument was that their struggles are everyone’s concern and must be faced and explored in places like delhi. kanwar’s work argued that the state conducts a war against its own people and makes the natural resources and habitations of the oriyans its battleground. he also suggested that the driving force behind this war were the industrial interventions that have taken place in disputed areas since 1999. kanwar centred his work not just on documentation but also on self-reflection and contemplation of the ways in which such conflicts are seen, dealt with, and ignored. the public art project he developed for 48°c assembled various landscapes of violence and witnessing: the artist placed his work––video screens, 160 photographs shown in forty-nine light boxes, and one text banner, which told stories about the displacement of populations and protest movements across the country (e.g., oriyan tribes resistance to attempts to convert nature into industry)––around a single and sacred pipul tree growing on a triangular island. the films shown under the tree told stories of assassination, murder, and funerals of leaders of subaltern movements that had been killed by those whose interests support displacement and exploitation of people and natural resources (bose 2009b). for the ten days of the festival, kanwar insists, the triangular site, embedded within delhi’s topography of protest, and often anger and violence, became a space for conversations and even contemplation, inviting both commuters and protesters to invoke “another space.” kanwar observed that even in what he calls a “harsh city” like delhi, people respond positively when an open space is offered (bose 2009b). this public artwork was not just about protests outside of delhi; kanwar also addressed the issue of public space as protest space within the city. since he grew up in delhi and associates himself with different campaigns or moments in delhi’s history, the city as a place that enables protest formed a key theme in his project. it also reflected the history of shifting protest spaces from the boat club at rajghat[23] in front of india gate and close to parliament and the prime minister’s office to jantar mantar road. the art project site is an allegorical microcosm of the protests enacted by citizens with a variety of concerns all over india. it seeks to expose a situation where representatives sent to claim their “right” of freedom find themselves more or less hidden from view. every day groups and assemblies come to show their dissent in the area where kanwar’s public art project was situated. thus, in kanwar’s work, we see both an engagement with scenes of conflict at the “felt periphery” of the nation’s territory, and with spaces and scopes of protest at the heart of the nation, the capital itself. what emerges is a temporary space and imaginary topography that allows for engagement with the idea of “performative” (see adajania’s citation at the beginning of this paper) and participating citizenship.[25]artist and activist chhachhi too stresses the point that while the 1980s witnessed a confident occupation of public space, for instance, within the women’s movement’s anti-dowry protest, public space in recent years has been facing increased policing. she argues that this shapes a passive citizenry with “protest in areas of designated dissent” (bose 2009b). although 48°c envisaged that it would facilitate and shape a sense of collective and solidaric ownership of the city, it was impossible to pinpoint exactly who those publics should and could be. possibly, this challenge was also not presupposed since only in the process of putting the festival together and watching the different “stages” of public art engagement unfold, was the fragmented ownership of and ways of belonging to the city spelt out, very often differently in the individual artworks. this also applies to the other activities (e.g., workshop, eco-walks), and even the tricky politics of getting permits and finding, to borrow clifford geertz’ concept, “thick” sites. concluding thoughts an art festival like 48°c in a city like delhi provides a useful lens through which to observe the fabric of public space when it is accessed, shaped, and even contested by artists, activists, and different publics, in order to imagine a future for “their” city, for their lives. public space, as we have seen in the three parts of this article, is certainly not linear or one-dimensional. and it is precarious as much as it is precious. most festival sites were “public” only once permits were granted, after gates and minds were opened, and all kinds of boundaries were shifted. a commentator in bose’s film the latent city says that she never thought it would be so difficult to find public spaces in delhi, for so much of what they thought was “there” and available, turned out to be regulated, encroached, denied. it might not be productive to diagnose the state of public space solely through polarising terms like “there” or “not there,” “vanishing” and “extinct.” “in betweenness” is marked by its temporal and fluid character through which the fabrics of the past, different forms of space use and space restriction, and corresponding imaginaries (e.g., of pluralist modernity or civil society) can surface. temporary space use might be a more appropriate approach to consider qualities and hierarchies of “public” space. as indicated above with reference to zitzewitz and guha-thakurta, there are various notions of public space that are aligned with the epistemological trajectories that triggered the way artists, curators’, and other agents involved in organising art events that “take place,” conceive of art’s role in society. many of the artist’s projects were either intended to change the visitors’ perspective on places or to draw their attention to other layers of spatial past and practice. for a short period, 48°c functioned as a magnifying glass on the selected sites, and excavated stories and voices that would otherwise remain silent, forgotten, or repressed. the artworks discussed here facilitated communication between places and people across the sites that were themselves linked by the metro. whether they spoke to all people and publics alike is questionable, particularly since the exclusivist mechanism of globalised contemporary art was largely upheld. so while the curation of the city along the eight sites was probably an expansion of mobility and a form of gaining access to previously unvisited places for many members of the educated and english-speaking middle classes, this was but one perspective. many ordinary people would not have chosen to visit all the sites in one go, thus experiencing the artworks as they travelled through a space they would normally traverse as commuters or consumers, or daily wagers, and schoolchildren. the “we” coined in the quote at the beginning of this article, imagining a different city, a more inclusive city, is thus an imaginary emblem and aspiration. it remains part of a particular perspective of “publicness” and/as “in betweenness;” of a very “learned” patchwork of experts—be they curators, artists, or researchers who are familiar with idioms of exclusive forms of knowledge. it is from this perspective that the combination of art, city, and ecology makes sense. but regardless of this limitation, one may argue, at least a connection was made, a thought process started, and a possibility of emplacing more diverse ways of belonging to and participating in the city’s future was opened up. the ambivalences and tensions of urban “closure” and “restriction” shaping public spaces is somewhat reflected in the translation of gallery art into public spaces. so while one argument could certainly be that the festival reflected a certain conservatism and bourgeois panic (the loss of natural resources and urban recreation for an elite middle class), it also opened chances for new and demotic ways of thinking about the fabric of public space, the right of access to environment in a “global” city. the works of artists like bhalla or chhachhi, for instance, allowed for the manifold layers of history and spatial meaning to merge in performative correspondence. agarwal’s work challenged the willingness of many citizens to tolerate extinction and their assumption that taxidermy can cover the loss. chonat and kanwar pointed out the violence that accompanies economic growth and wealth. haubitz + zoche, as well as witteveen, played with zones of liminality between public and private, religious and secular. all artists dealt—not so much in a didactic but rather in a poetic fashion—with a whole spectrum of ways in which people have used spaces and natural resources in the past and how they use them today. thus, “in betweenness” surfaces as a relevant spatial practice—maybe because of its intangibility and temporality. 48°c must not be seen as an isolated moment; as previously mentioned, its predecessors include sahmat and the kala ghoda arts festival, and there are numerous events that succeeded it (though i particularly mention the delhi-based ones that underline self-reflexive elements). many of my informants agreed that 48°c was a benchmark in the delineation of public art initiatives in india and emphasised that today (2014) it is easier to initiate public art events because of it. this was partly due to the festival organisers’ tenacity in realising their vision and to the government’s burgeoning understanding that such events throw a positive light on the city; that public art is more than just “hanging paintings on walls” or “placing statues at a roundabout.” a case in point is the more recent festival entitled yamuna.elbe (2012, see http://yamuna-elbe.org/ and http://yamuna-elbe.de/), which had some issues with permits in the planning stage but generally enjoyed the support of the city government. ironically, the exhibition was executed on a site by the river yamuna that had witnessed massive demolition of informal settlements in the first decade of the new millennium to make space for a gated leisure and bio-park. large festivals like 48°c have, however, not been curated anymore, but the financial dimension, the sheer scale, and organisational demands might have improved the infrastructure for smaller, more compact public art projects addressing key topics that are regularly initiated with assistance from similar organisations. none of these, unfortunately, has drawn upon the expertise of researchers such as arunava dasgupta and his team from the school of planning and architecture. such collaboration might have led to a more sustained engagement with social change and spatialisation as well as what public art’s role in this could be. by now, the files and maps produced by the urg are “archival data,” an unused repository with much scope for further exploration. in addition to “temporary space use,” and allowing for various kinds of emplacement and perspectives, public space can also be approached as a transit zone or an excavation site, a liminal space that contains different experiences, memories, and imaginaries in the city where diverse groups can make their way along well-trodden––or newly hewn––paths. in this sense it resembles guattari and deleuze’s notion of the rhizomatic “in betweeness” of space. this is also part of the visibility, facilitated by both researchers from the spa or the artworks themselves, of what has “fallen” or “slipped” between the cracks of space and time and subsequently been forgotten. 48°c formed an “in-between” space in many ways: first, it was temporal and intangible––it surfaced for a short time and then vanished. second, it created various opportunities for artists and citizens to look at, shape, and read spaces in “their” city and to relate to these spaces and to art in public differently. third, it could not be reduced to binary oppositions such as “local” or “global,” “private” or “public,” but had to be understood as a vertical and horizontal landscape that connected a range of translocal spatial references and historical memories. last but not least, an excavation of the different sites and works of art revealed a rich and somewhat paradoxical set of interrelational histories of “public space” particularly in the context of notions like ownership, participation, and access. these histories overlap and compete; they cannot be reduced to one model, despite the fact that a modernist discourse of bourgeois cosmopolitan space or dogmatic secularism is most prevalent and holds the most currency both in urban planning and contemporary art. in the epigraph to this essay adjanaia states that “every claim on public space is a claim on the public imagination;” in light of this art festival, and the complex histories it implies, we would propose that this requires a pluralistic and open-ended urban imaginary. list of illustrations fig. 1: detail from the frontpage of the 48°c public.art.ecology festival’s website, using a cityscape image. http://www.48c.org/ [accessed on 04. may 2015]. fig. 2: the eight selected sites along the metro lines, including a short blurb from the concept note of the festival. http://www.48c.org/spaces.html [accessed on 04. may 2015]. fig. 3: the festival programme. http://www.48c.org/program.html [accessed on 04. may 2015]. fig. 4: list of national and international artists and artist groups/performers. http://www.48c.org/artists.html [accessed on 14. july 2015]. fig. 5a: “use map” of kashmere gate created by the urban resource group. http://www.48c.org/kashmereuse.pdf [accessed on 14. july 2015]. fig. 5b: “activities map” of kashmere gate created by the urban resource group. http://www.48c.org/kashmereactivity.pdf [accessed on 14. july 2015]. fig. 6a–b: sheba chhachhi, the water diviner, 2008. video projection (based on photographs by umeed mistry), silent, duration 3 minute loop. delhi, public library. photograph by sonia jabbar. permission by the artist. fig. 7a–c: atul bhalla, chabeel, 2008. sand, cement, water, ceramic tiles, stickers, recyclable paper, plywood, video projection, dimensions variable. delhi, kashmere gate. photo and permission by the artist. fig. 7d: plan of the artworks’ locations around kashmere gate. http://www.48c.org/kashmeresite.swf [accessed on 14. july 2015]. fig. 8a–c: haubitz + zoche, the yamuna blues, 2008. bamboo construction, video beamer, hd-video, loop 10 min. delhi, kashmere gate. photos and permission by haubitz. fig. 9a–b: krishnaraj chonat, crane + tree, 2008. uprooted, dead tree, crane. delhi, barakhamba road. photos and permission by the artist. fig. 10a–b: barakhamba road in delhi, 2013. photograph by christiane brosius. fig. 11a–b: friso witteveen, hocus pocus, 2008. mild steel, mdf reflective foil and paint, 24 x 20 x 4 m. delhi, ramlila ground. photo and permission by the artist. fig. 12a–c: ravi agarwal, extinct, 2008. photographic and light-box installation, images, text and video. delhi, mandi house chauraha. photos and permission by the artist. fig. 13: amar kanwar, the sovereign forest, 2008. installation, video screens, 160 photographs shown in forty-nine light boxes, text banner. delhi, jantar mantar road. cbn ramesh lalwani. https://flic.kr/p/5ju3qh [accessed on 22. july 2015]. bibliography adajania, nancy. 2008. “public art?” rsa arts & ecology 13. http://archive.is/ue1m [accessed on 21. july 2015]. anjaria, jonathan s. 2012. “is there a culture of the indian street?” in “streetscapes,” special issue, seminar 636 (august), http://www.india-seminar.com/2012/636/636_jonathan_s_anjaria.htm [accessed on 21. july 2015]. baviskar, amita. 2002. “the politics of the city.” in “shades of green,” special issue, seminar 516 (august): 40–42. ———. 2010. “urban exclusions: public spaces and the poor in delhi.” in finding delhi: loss and renewal in the megacity, edited by b. chaturvedi, 3–5. new delhi: penguin books delhi. bose, krishnendu. 2009a. 48°c: public.art.ecology. video, 22 mins. english. earthcare productions. ———. 2009b. the latent city: when art excavates the city. video. 56 mins. english. earthcare productions. brosius, christiane. 2014. india’s middle class: new forms of urban leisure, consumption and prosperity. 2nd ed. new delhi: routledge. bublatzky, cathrine. 2011. “the display of indian contemporary art in western museums and the question of ‘othering’.” in global studies: mapping contemporary art and culture, edited by hans belting, jacob birken, andrea buddensieg, and peter weibel. karlsruhe: hantje-cantz, 298–313.? burk, adrienne l. 2006. “beneath and before: continuums of publicness in public art.” social & cultural geography 7 (6): 949–964. burrell, gibson and karen dale. 2014. “space and organization studies.” in adler, paul et al (eds.). oxford handbook of sociology, social theory and organization studies. oxford: oxford university press. chakrabarty, dipesh. 1999. “adda, calcutta: dwelling in modernity.” public culture, 11 (1): 109–145. deleuze, gilles and felix guattari. 1988. a thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia. translated by brian massumi. london: athlone. demos, t. j. 2013. “the art and politics of ecology in india. a roundtable with ravi agarwal and sanjay kak.” in “contemporary art and the politics of ecology,” special issue, third text 27 (1):151–161. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09528822.2013.752201#.va4ccwcw-uk [accessed on 21. july 2015]. deutsche, rosalyn. 1996. evictions: art and spatial politics filipovic, elena, marieke van hal, and solveig ovstebo, eds. 2010. the biennial reader. an anthology on large-scale perennial exhibitions of contemporary art. ostfildern: hatje cantz. freitag, ulrike and achim von oppen, eds. 2010. translocality—the study of globalising processes from a southern perspective. leiden: brill. garimella, annapurna. 2012. “in the round, on the street,” in “streetscapes,” special issue, seminar 636 (august): http://www.india-seminar.com/2012/636/636_annapurna_garimella.htm [accessed on 25. april 2015]. gi (goethe institut). 2008. 48°c public.art.ecology: delhi’s first public art festival. delhi. guha-thakurta, tapati. 2011. “the blurring of distinction. the artwork and the religious icon in contemporary india.” in the indian postcolonial: a critical reader, edited by elleke boehmer and rosinka chaudhuri, 33–58. new york: routledge. hall, tim. 2007. “artful cities.” geography compass 1 (6): 1376–1392. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749-8198.2007.00064.x/full [accessed on 21. july 2015]. hawkins, harriet. 2014. for creative geographies: geography, visual arts and the making of worlds. london: routledge. haydn, florian and robert temel, eds. 2006. temporäre räume: konzepte zur stadtnutzung (temporary spaces. concepts of urban usage). basel: birkhäuser. hubermann, jennifer. 2012. ambivalent encounters: childhood, tourism, and social change in banaras, india. new jersey: rutgers university press. jha, anand kumar. (2006). “public protests: urban spaces and their policing.” http://www.scribd.com/doc/11347723/public-protest-spaces-and-their-policing [accessed on 02. may 2015]. kaviraj, sudipta. 1997. “filth and the public sphere: concepts and practices about space in calcutta.” public culture 10 (1): 83–113. lefebvre, henri. 1991. the production of space. hoboken, nj: wiley-blackwell. leslie, deborah. 2005. “creative cities?” geoforum 36 (4): 403–405. mitchell, don. 2003. the right to the city: social justice and the fight for public space. new york: guilford press. pariat, janice. 2009. “expert views (geeta kapur).” time out, new delhi. phadke, shilpa, sameera khan, and shilpa ranade. 2011. why loiter? women and risk on mumbai streets. delhi: penguin. quinn, bernadette. 2005. “arts festivals and the city.” urban studies 42 (5–6): 927–943. raaj, neelam. 2008. “out of galleries, onto streets.” the times of india, december 12. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/out-of-galleries-onto-streets/articleshow/3825004.cms [accessed on 11. april 2015]. rademacher, anne and m. k. sivaramakrishnan. 2013. ecologies of urbanism in india: metropolitan civility and sustainability. new york: columbia university press. robinson, jennifer. 2005. ordinary cities: between modernity and development. new york: routledge. sharan, awadhendra. 2014. in the city, out of place: nuisance, pollution, and dwelling in delhi, c. 1850–2000. delhi: oxford university press. srivastava, sanjay. 2012. “national identity, bedrooms, and kitchens: gated communities and new narratives of space in india.” in the global middle class: theorizing through ethnography watson, grant. 2008. santhal family: positions around an indian sculpture. antwerp: museum can hedendaagse kunst. zitzewitz, karen. 2014. the art of secularism: the cultural politics of modernist art in contemporary india. delhi: oxford university press. zukin, sharon. 2010. the naked city: the death and life of authentic urban spaces. oxford: oxford university press. [*] i would like to thank the peer reviewers and the journal editors for their very constructive help. thanks also to the artists featured in this piece, for generously providing images of their works, and for their feedback on the article. much gratitude is owed to the goethe institut delhi, especially to robin mallick and dr. dreyer, to pooja sood, arunava dasgupta, divya chopra, and krishnendu bose. [1] my use of “fine art,” for lack of a better term, aims at defining art production that is usually made for consumption in galleries and museums and is distinguished from “popular” art—that is, artworks produced for religious purposes or political communication. i am aware of the problematic nature of these terms and conscious of their blurred boundaries. [2] with the term “public art,” i refer to what the art historian geeta kapur has defined as “project-based events where artists are invited to stage their interventions in public space […] to evoke viewer-participation” (pariat 2009). this initiative is rooted in the global north and began in the 1960s. but as the artist amar kanwar, who also participated in 48°c (see below), argues, public art is about the “blind spot” that many middle-class cosmopolitans have for the long and deep history of art in public, which is often referred to as “little” tradition, or as “folk art,” “popular art,” or “kitsch” (amar kanwar, pers. comm., 2011). this theme requires more locally specific research, which would enable a more differentiated discussion of “public” as a predominantly western perception or as a locally appropriated one, thereby allowing for a reconsideration of the concepts of “patronage,” “vernacular” art practices, religious art, etc. also, sahmat's important role cannot be further investigated in the framework of this article. see http://www.sahmat.org [accessed on 22. july 2015]. [3] for a detailed documentation of the project, including transciptions of conversations and video work, see http://studio.camp/event.php?this=motornama, http://pad.ma/tk/player/00:04:05.523 [accessed on 27. june 2015]. [4] the main informants of this study are professionals from museum and curating circuits, the artists themselves as well as urban designers. interviews were conducted between 2010–2014. [5] for a variety of reasons (e.g., lack of time at the site or in preparing the work, unfamiliarity with delhi etc.), not all of the artists were able to achieve this. the urban resource group was made up of more than three dozen students and former students from the tvb school of habitat studies and the department of urban design, spa. each festival site was researched and documented by one group and a mentor, and a core group produced a report. artists were briefed on various aspects of the festival by members of the core group, e.g., k. t. ravindran, arunava dasgupta, divya chopra, but also pooja sood. after the first round of visits, artists sent their concepts of proposed works including the preferred sites. artists were able to make a second visit to the designated site to further fine tune the proposals. final curating and financial issues (budget for project production) was handled by khoj. (information provided by divya chopra, in an email conversation, march 2015). [6] the budget for this event was €450,000. see http://eco-publicart.org/48-degrees-celsius/ [accessed on 14. november 2014]. [7] building on guattari and deleuze, an “in-between” space can also be seen as a zone that connects multiple spaces, not necessarily in an traceable linear movement from a to b, but rather as a “… a perpendicular direction, a transversal movement that sweeps one and the other way, a stream without beginning or end that undermines its banks and picks up speed in the middle” (deleuze and guattari 1988, 25) and blurs the distinct, even when it claims to do otherwise. “liminality” is a concept from ritual studies coined by victor turner to underline the moment of transition, often turning an order on its head, with no clear view of what the outcome might be. [8] sahmat (safdar hashmi memorial trust) reaches out to publics across different social strata through performances, exhibitions, the publication of books, posters, and the production of audio-video materials. for more information about their activities up to 2009, see http://www.sahmat.org/20years%20of%20sahmat.pdf [accessed on 22. july 2015]. [9] these include organisation-sponsored, individual elements of the festival such as performances, symposia, and guided walks. [10] talk by pooja sood at experimenter curator’s hub 2014 (https://vimeo.com/105335506) [accessed on 11. april 2015]. [11] lucie ainsworth. 2008. ”48 degrees celsius,“ curating cities database, http://eco-publicart.org/48-degrees-celsius/ [accessed on 27. june 2015]. ainsworth is assistant curator at art & design department, unsw sydney. see also http://www.niea.unsw.edu.au/research-area/public-culture [accessed on 22. july 2015]. [12] the idea of a clean/green delhi is not linked to the notion of “world class,” but goes back to the 1990s when mc mehta, a lawyer and environmentalist, publically supported a policy that would decrease the pollution levels in delhi through the introduction of a public transport system based on cng, and by shifting polluting industries out of the city centre. [13] bhalla as well as chhachhi’s works engage with the “public” life of the embankment, which often goes unnoticed by those whose everyday practices do not depend on and are not ritually related to the river. indeed, the river offers a complex microcosm of life worlds (see hubermann 2012). this is diametrically opposed to the more panoptic view of the river as a cosmopolitan space for recreation, which rests on a different aesthetic of ordered and gated spatialisation. [14] see http://www.48c.org/spaces.html [accessed on 21. july 2015]. [15] see http://www.48c.org/artists.html [accessed on 21. july 2015]. [16] andrej zdravic is a slovenia and us-based independent film and sound artist who placed three large film screens on palika parking in connaught place. these films showed images and played sounds related to the forces of nature (e.g., water, fire, earth, the human body). [17] previously, ten sites had been chosen, but two––both further south of the other sites––had to be dropped because the metro connectivity would not have been achieved in time. [18] crane + tree is not the only work dealing with forests and trees; amar kanwar’s the sovereign forest addresses deforestation and the exploitation of natural resources and their human caretakers—mostly tribal people from odisha and chhattisgarh—and thus consciously places a story from the national peripheries into the “centre” of power. [19] the jantar mantar, built in the early eighteenth century, is a set of several architectural astronomy instruments and part of unesco world heritage. [20] moreover, as witteveen explained, the title is reminiscent of the joy of playing with words, as in a hobson-jobson, a dictionary published in 1886, assembling a glossary of colloquial anglo-indian words which came into use during the british rule of india. [21] i want to thank one of the anonymous peer reviewers for this suggestion. [22] the term plop art was coined by architect james wines (1969) and means a work of art that has been thoughtlessly “plopped” into a public space. see william poundstone. “plop! splat!” http://blogs.artinfo.com/lacmonfire/2009/10/23/plop-splat/ [accessed on 24. june 2015]. [23] the boat club used to be a place for large protest movements/demonstrations. following the sikh riots in 1984, it was temporarily closed off for leisure activities and public gatherings. in 1993 the then prime minister, narasimha rao, banned rallies altogether. see jha (2006). [24] interestingly, what may not have been evident in 2008, is the fact that many urban. middle-class protest movements migrate between the street and online forums. the rape case of 2012, for instance, led to the biggest street protests since several decades, reappropriating delhi’s rajghat. editorial note editorial note since the launch of our journal in 2010, transcultural studies has been expanding within and across several disciplines to new topics and approaches. connected and transnational histories, multi-scalar perspectives, and interdisciplinary analyses of issues have begun to open new paths for understanding historical complexity at local and global levels. transcultural studies aspires to provide a platform for the ongoing exploration of such new paths, rather than to formulate a canon that might end up stifling discussion and competition among different research traditions, theoretical schools, and methodological approaches in this young field. as our world continues to confront forces of segregation and nationalism—themselves products of transcultural interaction even as they seek to resist it with postulates of purity—rigorous critical scholarship hopefully has an important contribution to make: to deepen understanding of the vital importance of transcultural interaction for any aspect of culture—and to live up to it by itself engaging in connected and collaborative research across national and disciplinary boundaries. the present issue, comprising one independent article and a themed section, offers several new thematic and methodological foci. the contributions describe places as different as 1920s berlin and the border region between the british raj, tibet, and sikkim in the himalayas, yet they all deal with the dynamics of transcultural interaction at sites where local and global interests merge and collide, driven by actors from different ethnic groups, institutional backgrounds, and religious as well as political traditions. they all have their own agenda and transcultural connections, which are realized in the fields of commodity exchange and developing knowledge. the articles address three connected issues: the role of place within a transcultural contact zone; the importance of the larger institutional setting of a given locality, and the motives driving individuals to become cultural brokers in such places. the contributions in this issue demonstrate how, in such versatile social milieus, seemingly local encounters may acquire a transregional or even global reach. the authors analyse the places under discussion, whether berlin or colonial darjeeling and kalimpong in the himalayas, not simply as localities but as contact zones whose political, social, and geographical context is crucial in determining both the form and content of transcultural interaction. this approach allows the papers to challenge traditional narratives and to show the relevance of hitherto neglected evidence that links local processes with larger transcultural exchanges. the issue opens with an article by susanne marten-finnis, who explores the role of the russian publishers who, for a short period (1921−24) after the october revolution and the russian civil war, made berlin the chief centre of russian publishing. the author begins her analysis with the rise of a new russian intellectual elite in st. petersburg who had close ties to jewish publishing enterprises that had long-standing commitments to encouraging philosophical and ideological discussion and to disseminating knowledge in society. in the aftermath of the october revolution, many of these publishers relocated to berlin. the liberal atmosphere secured by the larger institutional framework of weimar germany and the long-standing publishing tradition in berlin fostered a fruitful symbiosis between german and russian publishers, many of whom (on both sides) were of jewish origin but pursued very different agendas as “cultural brokers” mediating between russia and the world. the author identifies three groups: russian emigrants living in berlin, nostalgic for pre-revolutionary russia and waiting for the bolshevik regime to collapse; emissaries mediating between the new bolshevik elites in soviet russia and the german publishing sector, and highly politicized avant-garde artists who engaged with global trends while believing in the ideals of the new soviet society. moving from a recognized hub in the middle of europe to a marginal(ized) mountain region on the border between the british empire and a firmly sealed tibet, the themed section explores transcultural interaction in a contact zone far from capitals, seaports, and courts, but operating according to the same kind of locally infused logic. the four papers explore how, for a time darjeeling and kalimpong evolved into international centres for commercial, spiritual, and intellectual exchanges. as the authors of the introduction note, darjeeling and kalimpong had already been asian trade hubs before colonial interests intervened, but only in their wake did the two towns acquire global significance due to their favourable climate, their overseas exports (darjeeling tea and kalimpong wool), and—last but not least—their strategic position as frontier cities facilitating cross-border exchanges of knowledge and goods. these centres soon attracted sojourners and settlers from different parts of the region and the world. they greatly contributed to the unique spiritual and intellectual atmosphere that gave these two places such a central role in the flourishing of modern buddhism and the dissemination of knowledge about tibet, its language, and its culture. eschewing a reductionist account of colonial domination, the themed section uncovers the “hidden histories” and significance of local elites while also exploring the complex motivations, loyalties, and networks of the foreigners congregating here, highlighting connections and intersections within the broader narratives of global history. jayeeta sharma’s analysis identifies colonial anxieties rather than a colonial “master plan” as the driving force in darjeeling’s development from a remote himalayan village to a transcultural hub. to help british residents of india cope with its climate, the rāj set up a hill refuge in the cool himalayan borderlands. with the triple charm of a mild climate, growing economy, and availability of knowledge about tibet, darjeeling attracted a diverse and growing population from the region as well as from among the global scholarly and religious community. sharma foregrounds these agents as the real protagonists of darjeeling’s success story: british officers, lepcha cultivators, nepali workers, sherpa porters, gurkha soldiers, sikkim landholders, bengali clerks, scottish planters and missionaries, and prominent euro-american visitors—an ethnically and culturally mixed group of people whose relationships involved hybridization as well as segregation, shaped by the asymmetry underlying colonial domination. emma martin explores the global dimension of local intellectual networks in the creation and negotiation of knowledge about tibet. providing the only window to the theocracy of tibet with its sealed borders, darjeeling combined a strategic position with a favourable intellectual environment that attracted asian and european scholars who wrote histories, ethnographic studies, travelogues, and dictionaries relating to tibet. martin’s main interest is in the pioneering and painstaking, but also very collective effort to make the tibetan language comprehensible to the outside world, as well as the diverse cultural backgrounds and philological practices that came together in this enterprise. pride of place here goes to the local monasteries that offered themselves as transitory homes for a global community of “agents” with different spiritual, intellectual, or political motives. the monasteries enabled these sojourners to interact with local elites and each other and to develop hitherto inaccessible knowledge about things spiritual, geographic, political, and linguistic which were of absorbing if highly varied global interest, including the strategic considerations of the rāj. whatever the individual motivation of the people working on the tibetan language, their publications were mainly directed toward colonial administrators rather than native speakers. the access to tibet that darjeeling and kalimpong offered linked them to the twentieth-century global buddhist revival. in his study of the branches of the young men’s buddhist association (ymba) in both cities from the 1930s to the 1960s, kalzang dorjee bhutia explores their cosmopolitan connections as well as the local characteristics of these branches. part of a modernizing current in both colonial and non-colonized asian societies led to the establishment of branches of or counterparts to the ymca, the ymba goes back to the buddhist revival in colombo, ceylon, in 1898, its activities consciously mirroring those of the ymca. it was part of a cosmopolitan buddhism that shared an identity without having a consistent ideology, clear centre, or central administration. the particulars of the darjeeling and kalimpong ymba branches illustrate the importance of the local environment and the networks of local agents even in such global movements. samuel thévoz concludes this section with a portrait of the charismatic and unconventional alexandra david-neel (1868–1969), whose sojourns in tibet and interaction with tibetan buddhist monks changed her own buddhist worldview and prompted her to write books that transformed western perceptions of tantric tibetan buddhism from “degenerate” to a source of “modern” high spirituality. tracing her path from the theosophical society to tibetan buddhism, the study examines the extent to which david-neel’s perception of buddhism was shaped by encounters with prestigious figures of tibetan buddhism—especially with the dalai lama in kalimpong and the abbot of lachen monastery in sikkim. henceforth she considered it her responsibility to be the intermediary between this tradition and the west as she proclaimed the universal relevance of pristine buddhism to the modern world. her unrivalled personal experiences and profound knowledge, combined with a strong impetus for intellectual self-staging as well as reliance on spiritual guidance, provide a powerful example for the role of transcultural interaction among individual agents in the emergence of global buddhism. the cosmopolitanism and ensuing global appeal of these two himalayan border towns firmly places them within connected histories that challenge a braudelian geodeterminism. the case studies in this themed section show that the historical trajectory of even a remote mountain region is essentially open rather than defined by their intrinsic remoteness and unruliness, as postulated in willem van schendel’s and james c. scott’s “zomia” model for these highlands with its stress on distance from state-imposed order. cosmopolitan “port cities” may be located right in the himalayas, their openness in this case secured by the british empire. while dealing with two of the issues mentioned above (the impact of local characteristics and the institutional environment of a given place on its role as a contact zone), all articles in this issue highlight the need for more research and reflection on the third: how to identify the characteristics and motivations of the cultural brokers involved. does “swedish,” “colonial administrator,” “tibetan buddhist abbot,” “jewish intellectual,” or “unconventional woman” suffice to anchor the motivation driving these people to spend many of their best years in exploring and expanding the frontiers of knowledge? what if the “colonial administrator” becomes a defendant of tibet, or the “jewish intellectual” is only tagged by others as jewish, while he himself has no connection to the jewish religion, has a mixed ancestry like everybody else, and might consider himself primarily a professional artist? what if the “tibetan buddhist abbot” decides to move to the british rāj and build a house for himself that combines colonial style with tibetan features? the ultimate exercise of such tagging—the story of the march of the “pure” homo sapiens sapiens north, wiping out neanderthal-type humans on the way—has by now yielded to the unsurprising discovery that we all happily run around with a dose of neanderthal genes. evidently, neither a passport, nor ethnicity, profession, religion, gender, nor any other general ascription can be relied upon to provide a safe anchor to determine what drives people’s attitudes and actions on a given issue at a particular time and space. individuals also are shaped by being part of smaller and larger communities that have developed their own traditions, networks, and habits. they draw on different registers for different issues, and might at high-temperature times such as war or revolution privilege one over all others without being able to explain themselves once things have cooled down. given the fact, finally, that all of this issue’s featured actors have grown up in a cultural environment already marked by transcultural interaction, no one engages in it with a clean slate. through their painstaking research, the authors have shown the need for more research on the identity and particular motivations in space and time of the agents of transcultural interaction. in the hope that you find this issue useful for your research and teaching, we also strongly encourage scholars to submit relevant research to transcultural studies. diamantis panagiotopoulos and rudolf wagner beginning with this issue, diamantis panagiotopoulos, a professor of classical archaeology at heidelberg whose research focuses on maritime networks and mobility in the bronze age eastern mediterranean, is joining the editorial team. he will broaden its competence and encourage submissions from scholars working on early history in the interstices of archaeology, anthropology, demography, and geography. the editors 2017-04-10_ejournal_02-2016.indd 2016.2 editorial note monica juneja and joachim kurtz .04 articles pierantonio zanotti the reception of max weber’s cubist poems (1914) in taishō japan .12 saphinaz-amal naguib engaged ephemeral art: street art and the egyptian arab spring .53 themed section: transcultural studies: areas and disciplines daniel g. könig and katja rakow the transcultural approach within a disciplinary framework: an introduction .89 daniel g. könig islamic studies: a field of research under transcultural crossfire .101 pablo a. blitstein sinology: chinese intellectual history and transcultural studies .136 hans martin krämer japanese studies .168 esther berg and katja rakow religious studies and transcultural studies: revealing a cosmos not known before? .180 2 contributors transcultural studies, no 2, 2016 editors: monica juneja, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg joachim kurtz, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg rudolf g. wagner, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg managing editor: andrea hacker editorial board: christiane brosius, antje fluechter, madeleine herren, birgit kellner, axel michaels, barbara mittler, diamantis panagiotopoulos, vladimir tikhonov, and roland wenzlhuemer. transcultural studies is edited at the heidelberg center for transcultural studies (hcts) and published by heidelberg university publishing. the journal is freely available at http://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/ (open access). issn: 2191-6411 contributors to this issue: pierantonio zanotti is a research fellow at ca’ foscari university of venice, italy. his research interests focus on japanese literature of the early twentieth century and the reception of european avant-garde movements (especially italian futurism) in japan. he is a member of the editorial board of the international yearbook of futurism studies. saphinaz-amal naguib is professor of cultural history at oslo university. she is presently a fellow at the centre for advanced study (cas) at the norwegian academy of science and letters in oslo. her main fields of research are ancient egyptian religion and art, heritage, and museum studies. her latest publications include the formative past and the formation of the future, coedited with terje stordalen (oslo: novus press, 2015); and “translating the ancient egyptian worldview in museums,” in lotus and laurel: studies on egyptian language and religion in honour of paul john frandsen, ed. rune nyord and kim ryholt (copenhagen: museum tusculanum, 2013), 233–240. 3transcultural studies 2016.2 daniel g. könig studied european history, islamic studies, and political science at the university of bonn, where he received his phd in medieval history for his dissertation on reasons for converting to christianity in late antiquity and the early middle ages. he is author of the book arabic-islamic views of the latin west: tracing the emergence of medieval western europe (oxford: oxford university press, 2015), and currently holds the position of start-up professor for transcultural studies at the cluster asia and europe in a global context. katja rakow received her phd in religious studies from heidelberg university and is currently assistant professor of religious studies at utrecht university. her book, transformationen des tibetischen buddhismus im 20. jahrhundert: chögyam trungpa und die entwicklung von shambhala training (göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht, 2014), analyses the complex transcultural dynamics that shaped the creation of shambhala training as an innovative set of tibetan-buddhist practices and teachings. her recent research projects focus on material culture and transcultural aspects of pentecostalism. pablo a. blitstein studied ancient greek and roman literature and philosophy at the university of buenos aires and chinese history at the institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (paris), where he completed his phd in early medieval chinese history. he is currently a researcher at the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context: the dynamics of transculturality” at heidelberg university. his book, “les fleurs du royaume: savoirs lettrés et pouvoir impérial dans la chine du sud aux ve–vie siècles (the flowers of the realm: literary knowledge and imperial power in southern china, 5th–6th centuries),” was recently published by les belles lettres. hans martin krämer is professor of japanese studies at heidelberg university. his specialization is in modern japanese history, particularly japanese society and culture in the global perspective. he has recently published his second monograph, shimaji mokurai and the reconceptualization of religion and the secular in modern japan (honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 2015), and co-edited the volume religious dynamics under the impact of imperialism and colonialism: a sourcebook (leiden: brill, 2017). esther berg is a research assistant at the institute for world church and mission at the sankt georgen graduate school of philosophy and theology in frankfurt/main. she has studied religious studies, east asian studies, and transcultural studies at heidelberg university, where she is currently finishing her phd on the glocal dynamics of lived religiosity in a modern neocharismatic megachurch in singapore. a voluntary gleichschaltung | zachariah | transcultural studies a voluntary gleichschaltung? perspectives from india towards a non-eurocentric understanding of fascism benjamin zachariah, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg introduction using historical material from india, this essay is part of a larger attempt to rethink the eurocentrism, explicit or implicit, which marks our understanding of fascism; and also to rethink indian fascism using (often eurocentric) theories of fascism.[1] this essay conceives of fascism as a family of ideas, with common—though often disavowed—roots, intellectual underpinnings, styles and organisations of movements, and sometimes even a strong overlap of personnel. the phenomenon of fascism in india has not been adequately explored, in part because of a prejudice that fascisms in general are strictly european phenomena and that non-europeans only produced inadequately understood imitations. when and if it is addressed at all, fascism in india is usually attributed (correctly) to the hindu right, collectively known as the sangh parivar,[2] but often (incorrectly) only to the hindu right[3]; however, its history in india is a much longer and broader one. the argument hinges on the contention that the emergence of a fascist imaginary and a fascist set of political organisations in the 1920s and 1930s depended to a large extent on what i call a “voluntary gleichschaltung” of ideas, movements, and institutions, which saw themselves as belonging to the same family but adopted the characteristics of a more successful sibling.[4] a number of these ideas, in which race and volk were operative categories, existed in earlier versions from the previous century. they lent themselves to a fascist repertoire[5] that found its conjuncture between the world wars—a repertoire that was drawn upon by a number of movements entitled to use of the adjective “fascist.” indian intellectuals were aware of, and participated in, fascist and nazi organisations and (as the material presented in this essay will demonstrate) in the institutionalisation or attempted institutionalisation of nazism in germany and in india. the longer history of engaging with ideas of race and volk in india and the world, which was part of the same history rather than a separate one, dating from the midto late nineteenth century, was drawn on by both germany and india. and the coalescing of ideological frameworks that were recognisably fascist or nazi took place in a context whereby the lesser strains in a worldwide framework of thinking clustered around the more successful strains, borrowing and adapting from them and thereby “working towards the nazis”[6]—and the italian fascists before them—in a voluntary gleichschaltung. but this adaptation did not altogether abandon its right to manoeuvre, to select from a “fascist repertoire”—and later to remould it to create new languages of legitimation. gleichschaltung is, of course, an idea that carries very specific normative overtones that are associated with the nazi state in particular; it is a process of appropriation from above by means of special legislation and through the use of state power. a “voluntary gleichschaltung,” in this respect, might seem like a contradiction in terms; but the use of the oxymoron indicates that an international recognition of the affinities and possibilities of working together predated the existence of fascist states. possible alternatives such as “fascist zeitgeist”—or indeed “fascist syncretism”—privilege structure over agency and do not do justice to the work of the ideologues who sought to connect discrete strands and movements to one another. the transfer of fascist ideas across borders, times, and political contexts has been a sensitive subject for historians. it is never possible to entirely avoid the enquiry being overdetermined by presentist concerns: in other words, the “bitch that bore him is in heat again”[7] argument (vicarious apologies for the sexism of the translation are due here)[8] is never very far away. indeed, if there is any need at all for a generic theory of fascism, or for any theorising on fascism at all, it is the fact that this theorising has a politically activist dimension: it is surely of mere academic importance whether one classifies a movement or a set of ideas as “fascist” or merely “proto-fascist,” reserving the former for the “real thing”. there is a recognisable continuum from right-wing nationalisms toward fascisms, and though the exact point at which one draws the line may be interesting in retrospect, by the time a movement achieves its goals and becomes fascism “proper,” recognizing it is too late.[9] a related point needs to be made here: the distinction between a (fascist?) movement in search of (state) power and one that has already achieved a fascist state is crucial to any comparative analysis, because after a successful machtergreifung the (leading) fascist party has access to the state’s mechanisms of control and violence, and often merges its own apparatus of violence with that of the state. we should agree a priori, i think, that fascist movements and fascist states are different, as are movements and states more generally. any comparison that fails to make this distinction will risk being misleading. for reasons of thematic coherence, i shall concentrate here on indian engagements with nazism, which i treat as a form of fascism. this approach is justified by the fact that contemporaneous theorising on fascism, in contrast with retrospective analyses, was based on nazism as the second major example of fascism, and by the knowledge that a single instance does not make for good theorising (the spanish civil war sharpened the debates and the polarisation of opinion). the recent literature on generic fascism tends to disagree about whether the starting point for comparison should be italian fascism, which after all gave the movement or tendency its name,[10] or german nazism, which others have argued is so different that it does not fit into generalisations about fascism at all.[11] there is, however, no obvious reason why the paradigmatic example should be an “original,” or the most successful, version; nor, indeed, why a paradigmatic example is needed at all where there are many examples to draw upon that make a comparative approach more fruitful. this essay concentrates on ideas or ideological tendencies and frameworks—while passing over actual movements of (proto-)fascist, paramilitary organisations and their political parent bodies, as also of the question of fascist aesthetics. the old adage that fascist movements are not original, not ideologically consistent, are clearer about who or what they are against than what they are for, and are willing to improvise or to borrow popular (and populist) elements from other movements, might be seen as a difficulty,[12] but i suggest that analysis has to be carried out at various levels. an analysis at the level of movements, the mobilisation of the alleged organic nation in the form of paramilitary organisations, must also be carried out without sidestepping the question of fascism itself; however, this is a topic i shall defer to a later piece. a certain type of populism does indeed lie at the empty core of fascisms, where the purificatory power of violence and the identification of the enemy within operate at an important level beyond ideology. it is possible to work with a “style” argument and suggest that aspirations to military or paramilitary mobilization dating to before the first world war were universal in the india of the 1920s and 1930s, but also that they represent a worldwide tendency. one view might be that using the term “fascism” to describe all these strands is absurd.[13] nevertheless, not to see a fascist example and engagement in all of these is to miss an important part of the story. perhaps it is easier to acknowledge this important presence if fascism is not seen as a specific european import that comes readymade and relatively clearly formed or, to put it another way, as a “fascist repertoire” rather than as a “fascist minimum;”[14] and moreover, as a repertoire in which india(ns) contributed independently rather than imitatively.[15] to attempt a preliminary clarification of this distinction, it might be important to note that the “fascist minimum” argument relies on an agreed-upon set of attributes without which a political movement is not yet, or not quite, considered fascism, whereas a “fascist repertoire” argument is less concerned with a check-list of elements that have to be present in order for the movement to meet the minimum qualification deemed properly fascist. instead, it enables us to see a wider repertoire from which ideologues have the agency to choose. the repertoire tends to include an organic and primordial nationalism involving a controlling statism that disciplines the members of the organic nation to act as, for, and in the organic (or völkisch) nation that must be purified and preserved. it is in the service of preserving this organic nation that a paramilitarist tendency towards national discipline is invoked. the coherence of the repertoire is maintained by inciting a sense of continuous crisis and alarm about the potential decay of the organic nation if discipline and purity is not preserved.[16] the scholarly literatures on fascism and on india do not, at present, speak to each other adequately.[17] if for a start, we are allowed to note that ideas usually associated with fascism were far more widespread in india than has been previously assumed, the enquiry might defer the definitional question somewhat in order to begin legitimately. there is much anecdotal and autobiographical evidence to indicate the influence of fascism, generically and therefore with a small “f,” on intellectual and political circles in india, and yet this has never been systematically studied.[18] the aims of this paper, therefore, are two-fold. the first is to attempt to delineate the use of the term “fascism” so that it can serve as an analytical category rather than merely as a term of political abuse (while acknowledging that it is not necessarily desirable that the latter aspect is altogether dispensed with—a reminder of the dictum that political vocabulary is always both normative and descriptive, but with the corollary that the normative aspect can overpower the descriptive, leaving the latter hollowed out).[19] this is in part a problem of retrospectivism: fascism is, today, a word that has a very strong normative significance, ironically dominated by visions of nazi germany that were in large part constructed after 1945. a reading of fascism that partakes of the post-1945 normative significance of the term is impossible to avoid altogether. in some ways, therefore, the problem is one that is not particular to the historiography of india: fascism (the italian “original”) was read in 1922 quite differently from generic fascism during the spanish civil war, or in germany in 1933 or 1945. in part, this is also a problem of terminology: inconveniently, not all fascist movements called themselves “fascist.” the second aspect is to attempt an understanding of the importance of fascism in india in its heyday. was there a serious fascist presence in india during the 1920s and 30s? were indians seriously engaged with questions of fascism between the wars? how mainstream were views of, for instance, national belonging as related to race (aryanness), of the nation as a body, of the use of eugenics and norms of physical fitness? how many of these ideas are now, retrospectively, seen specifically in terms of nazism through they were very much part of the zeitgeist?[20] this is also, therefore, an exercise in disaggregation: a number of the elements now associated with fascism in one way or another—militarism, national discipline and mass mobilisation, eugenics, aryanism, the excitement of “modernity”—have older and more divergent histories that cannot be subsumed merely within a history of “fascism.” at the same time, there were those who supported fascist regimes in europe and saw aspects of fascism that were worth emulating in india, with necessary changes (a religiously-tinged rather than a secular ideology here, a replacement of jews with muslims there). this essay is an attempt to pay attention to the contexts in which fascist ideas, or ideas similar to fascist ideas, or ideas that have been retrospectively identified as fascist but were part of a broader context of debate at the time, were expressed. it requires that attention be paid to ideas and contexts,[21] to terminology as well as meanings (the two are far from always congruent),[22] and to ideologues and their constituencies. institutionalisation and organisations: nazi-indian connections it might seem strange that in retrospect, indian engagements with nazism or fascism are so often recast in terms of misunderstandings or of “incompletereadings” of the “real thing,” and that a sort of “impact-response” approach creeps into work on the subject.[23] this section demonstrates that there were explicit organisational and ideological links between nazi ideologues and indian activists based on cooperation and mutual understanding—an early and sustained mutual interest between fascists/ism and india(ns). a great deal more can be written about these organisational and institutional connections, but this section provides what i hope will be enough of a summary to sustain the argument. two books by bengalis about germany published around 1933 provide an entry point for our debate, as do two contrasting perspectives on the advent of the third reich. the educationist, pioneering sociologist, economist, historian, and swadeshi activist benoy kumar sarkar welcomed the elevation of hitler to power, describing him as “vivekananda multiplied by bismarck.”[24] (vivekananda was the first international god–man produced by india, who famously presented “hinduism” to an international audience at the 1893 world’s parliament of religions in chicago.) saumyendranath tagore, who spent the late 1920s up to 1933 moving in and out of berlin, and was a nephew of the poet rabindranath, wrote about the brutality of the nazi regime and, for the benefit of his indian audience, commented that indians were too easily taken in by the nazis' apparent respect for “aryan” culture and the aryan race, to which indians claim to belong. they did not know, he wryly commented, that the nazis saw indians as degenerate aryans due to many generations of miscegenation, and were therefore willing to leave indians to their fate under british rule.[25] benoy sarkar’s views were unembarrassed and clear: “hitler is the greatest of germany‘s teachers and inspirers since fichte.” [26] “what young germany needed badly was the moral idealism of a vivekananda multiplied by the iron strenuousness of a bismarck. and that has been furnished by hitler, armed as he is with two among other spiritual slogans, namely, self-sacrifice and fatherland.”[27] sarkar saw the jewish question as a kulturkampf similar to the catholic confrontation with the bismarck state, (which no one hears of any more today). in a similar manner‚ he declared, “the jewish question … [will] be liquidated in nazi germany in a few years.”[28] (although there is no obvious indication here that sarkar had anything like the “endlösung” in mind.) the need for nazi action against jews was allegedly the “over-judaisation of the public institutions in berlin as well as in other cities,” which made it necessary to “purge the public institutions of the jews and ordain for them a legitimate proportion of the services not exceeding the demographic percentage.”[29] saumyendranath tagore’s hitlerism: the aryan rule in germany is based on articles written between april and december 1933. it relentlessly documents nazi brutalities including news of concentration camps (very early on, and as an outsider of sorts, he quickly recognised what many germans later claimed to have known nothing about). “world famous men like professor einstein, the musician bruno walter, the painter max liebermann, have no place in the national germany of hitler.”[30] “in the concentration camps communists have been murdered by s.a. mercenaries on the plea that the prisoners attempted to escape.”[31] tagore also exposes the “end of unemployment” scam by doing the sums and revealing the nazis’ sleight of hand: paying women to stay home saves large amounts of money on wage bills. he characterizes the nazi state’s attitude by pointing out that they “will bring back women to their proper sphere—the home.”[32] these two views express the divergences and realignments into various political tendencies among the group of indian exiles who were responsible for working closely with the german government to attempt to bring down the british empire during the first world war.[33] a central element was composed of communist sympathisers such as virendranath chattopadhyay (“chatto”), who was one of the main organisers, along with willi münzenberg, of the conference of oppressed peoples and nationalities in brussels in 1927. (this is the better-known tale of indians in germany between the two world wars, the one which survives in literary and historical treatment.)[34] chatto drew on his friendship with jawaharlal nehru to set up an indian information bureau in berlin that was funded in part by the indian national congress. run for the most part by a.c.n. nambiar, chatto’s brother-in-law, and by nambiar’s lover, eva geissler, who had been a typist in the german communist party (kpd) office in berlin, the bureau was ostensibly an organisation created to facilitate study for indian students in germany. in fact, it was a front for the political recruitment of indians in germany, and was also linked to anti-fascist political networks in berlin.[35] but there was also a right-wing engagement of and with exile groups. nazi attempts to organise indians and other “orientals” in supporting the regime is a subject that has been little studied hitherto. and yet, as early as 1923 the “bavarian extremist leader hitler,” as british intelligence put it, was attempting to mobilise the support of various maverick intellectuals from turkey, egypt, and india.[36] although these early attempts were not particularly successful, with mussolini’s italian fascists winning more recruits amongst indians, both ideological and organisational indo-german nazi connections were formed reasonably early. in 1928 an “indischer ausschuss” of the deutsche akademie was founded; the parent organisation had been established in 1925, and is the forerunner of today's goethe institut, which started off as the language-teaching branch of the deutsche akademie: there really is no institutional stunde null in german history.[37] the co-founders of the “indische ausschuss” were dr karl haushofer, a specialist in “geopolitics” and one of the popularisers of the theory of lebensraum so beloved of the national socialists, and the bengali nationalist tarak nath das.[38] tarak nath das was, along with benoy kumar sarkar, part of the national council of education in bengal, which debated a “swadeshi” curriculum for indian education free from the domination of colonial models of education and acculturation that they believed provided the ideological underpinnings for colonial domination. das had moved to the united states as a fugitive from british “justice” in connection with the swadeshi movement. there he became associated with organising indian immigrant labour in the united states and canada and with the beginnings of the notorious ghadar party, which had mobilized indian immigrant labour during the first world war and attempted to send bands of immigrants back home to foment rebellion in india.[39] he acquired his us citizenship as early as 1913, was a member of the wartime independence for india committee in germany, and had spent a number of years in fascist italy before returning to germany.[40] his letters to lala lajpat rai, organiser-in-chief of a “hindu” parochial tendency in the indian national congress, suggest that he was a very early supporter of a völkisch view of national belonging; the model of education propounded here was a hindu version of the jesuit order.[41] the deutsche akademie's india institute awarded scholarships to about 100 indian students between 1929 and 1938. from 1937 it was headed by the indologist and member of the ss, professor walther wüst,[42] who replaced dr franz thierfelder, who had also switched allegiance to the nazis in 1933, signing his letters “mit deutschem gruß und heil hitler.”[43] the institute also became active in pro-german propaganda during the nazi period, was incorporated into the nsdap auslands-organisation (nsdap-ao), and was instrumental in starting nazi cells in various firms in calcutta that were under german control. it also funded german lektors who taught german to indian students who wanted to come to germany. one of these taught german at the calcutta ymca; and horst pohle, the nazi agent who was the german lektor at calcutta university, was said to be very close to the arya samaj, whose members were singled out as desirable students for the munich-based india institute.[44] among the other indians closely associated with the institute were the above-mentioned benoy kumar sarkar, later a convinced supporter of national socialism, and ashok bose, the nephew of subhas chandra bose, a future collaborator with nazism.[45] in 1933 the left-leaning and congress-recognised representative organisation of indian interests in germany, the indian information bureau, was—quite literally—broken up by the nazis: its office at friedrichstrasse 24 in berlin was smashed to pieces and its documents and equipment strewn about. the gestapo arrested acn nambiar, who was also beaten up by the hitler-jugend for good measure. he was then released, thanks to the intervention of subhas chandra bose in vienna, who was apparently able to call in favours from persons who had contacts with the nazis. the nazis paid nambiar a compensation of 2000 marks, and he agreed to file a complaint about the hitler-jugend rather than the gestapo.[46] he then went with eva geissler, up to that point the secretary of the indian information bureau, to prague. he was in prague in 1938 as a correspondent for nehru's paper, the national herald, which was formed in the same year. nehru himself came to prague around the time of the munich pact when france and britain effectively handed czechoslovakia over to hitler's germany.[47] germany soon began to lose its leftist (indian and non-indian) political activists to other countries: saumyendranath tagore, after imprisonment for his alleged role in an attempt to assassinate adolf hitler (he said later that he had had no such intention, but that it would have been worth a try had he been in a position to do so), found his way to paris amongst various german and other exiles from the nazi regime, and into the anti-fascist league of henri barbusse and the french popular front.[48] virendranath chattopadhyay made his way to the soviet union, where he vanished in one of stalin's purges around 1937.[49] to the right of the political spectrum, tarak nath das and benoy kumar sarkar continued to be associated with an extended circle of nazis in the new reich, not least through the deutsche akademie.[50] a stream of indian students continued to pass through german universities and polytechnics throughout the 1930s, many of whom were, to a greater or lesser extent, impressed by the nazis; the indische ausschuss of the deutsche akademie continued to fund a number of these, and to provide support.[51] although not all of these students acquired a long-standing fascination with german nazism, some returned to home universities where there was a tradition of support for national socialism, including calcutta university, where benoy kumar sarkar was the leading light of its “german club.”[52] in aligarh, dr spies, the professor of german, ran the aligarh university nazi cell from 1935 along with professor abdur sattar kheiri, who was formerly associated with the first world war berlin india committee. in 1937 kheiri led a brown shirt march at his university in honour of the prophet's birthday.[53] furthermore, kheiri’s german wife was in charge of publishing and circulating the nazi journal, spirit of the times, the english version of geist der zeit, which was the official nazi paper abroad.[54] the fascination with fascism developed by some practicing muslims is something that warrants further attention, as it cannot be explained simply by a reading of the concept of “aryan.” a case in point is the kheiri brothers, abdur sattar kheiri and his brother abdul jabbar kheiri. also referred to early in their careers as the “beirut brothers,” they were boy scout masters in lebanon, language teachers in istanbul, pan-islamists in berlin, travellers to the ussr, and as returnees to india, propagandists for the national socialists.[55] both brothers pleaded to be allowed to return to india long before they were actually permitted to do so. their argument was that as believing muslims they had had no choice but to act against the british empire during the first world war because the empire had been at war with the khilafat.[56] some version of an organicist unity of state and people seemed to provide the initial resonances for these engagements; but lest it be said that “islam” and “fascism” have affinities, as several propagandists would like to suggest today,[57] it might be worth pointing out that several people also believed that communism, barring the explicitly atheist parts, was compatible with islam and capable of being expressed in islamicate language. as the crisis of 1938 developed, jawaharlal nehru was in europe and reported for his paper, the national herald, on the surrender to hitler at munich that saw the dismemberment and eventual absorbtion of czechoslovakia by nazi germany. horst pohle, the nazi lektor appointed and paid by the deutsche akademie, wrote to his superiors in munich that nehru's european trip and his journalistic despatches were not doing the nazi cause in india much good; in fact, a great deal of goodwill towards the nazis had been lost due to nehru's powerful writing.[58] when nehru stopped in munich in the same year for a secret meeting with the nazi leadership, british intelligence reports following his movements were sure that his anti-fascist credentials were strong enough for him to be completely trusted, although they never found out what the discussions were about. [59] nehru was also trying to recruit jewish technical experts to work in india where their skills were required. he also believed that this would ease the impending humanitarian catastrophe that he saw unfolding before him as jews were progressively stripped of their rights in germany and austria.[60] in 1938 subhas chandra bose, the president of the indian national congress, advised nehru strongly against interfering in the matter of jews, which, bose believed, was none of their business. this, nehru later noted in his private correspondence with bose, was to drive a wedge between the two former friends and comrades: “you will remember that just previously there had been a terrible pogrom in germany against the jews and the world was full of this. i felt that we must express our opinion in regard to it. you say that you were ‘astounded when i produced a resolution…seeking to make india an asylum for the jews.’”[61] nehru nonetheless managed to place a few jews in jobs in india.[62] when the nazi-soviet pact was signed in august 1939, disrupting the last hope of “collective security” against the nazi threat, a general world war became only a matter of time. september 1939 was in many ways anticlimactic for indians who had been watching international affairs with interest. two years into the war, subhas chandra bose escaped dramatically from india, turning up in nazi berlin where he was joined by his family and by associates from his vienna days.[63] this is the best-known episode in the indo-german relations of the period; we need not belabour the point here except to say that although bose was a willing collaborator with the nazis, he was less than impressed by their tentative commitment to indian independence.[64] another unexpected returnee to berlin was acn nambiar; he was recruited by the nazis from his location in occupied france, returned to berlin, and became subhas bose’s right-hand man while the latter tried to wring a guarantee of indian independence out of the nazi leadership. when bose left germany to go to japan, nambiar stayed on as head of the indian legion and of bose's free india centre, which he joined in january 1942. imprisoned after the war as a collaborator, nambiar managed to slip into switzerland and was given a passport by jawaharlal nehru's interim government, to the great annoyance of the british, though they had also considered trying to recruit him as a spy after the war, given his experiences both in nazi germany and as a former communist who had had access to the soviet union.[65] nambiar made his way back to germany in 1951 as the first indian ambassador to the federal republic.[66] all of this is indicative of a widespread and well-networked organisational infrastructure as well as a strong set of informed engagements with nazi organisations and ideology that belies the argument that indian (or other non-european) collaborators with the nazis did not know what they were doing.[67] despite the vagueness of some appropriations of fascism amongst indian ruling-class aspirants, it cannot be said that fascism was unknown in india or by indians. conduits of information could be found easily amongst the indian exiles in italy and germany, both proand anti-fascist, as well as amongst occasional travellers through europe.[68] antecedents and contexts: fascism and india when we speak of “fascism,” we are deliberately mixing what the late michel foucault called “regimes of truth”:[69] on the one hand we are, indeed, aware that to describe a trend as “fascist” must be to discredit it, politically speaking. the word “fascist” is, in a barthesian sense, one with a surplus meaning that evokes much more than it describes[70] and is far more normative than it is descriptive. in other words, one is using a teleology of anticipation that is politically intended to show closeness to fascism: how close is close enough? on the other hand, we are aware that the term “fascism” cannot be used too loosely without diluting its meaning; it is important, therefore, to distinguish between “fascist!” as a term of abuse and “fascist” as an analytically useful category.[71] the tension between the two must be acknowledged, not disavowed; but i do not think it is possible to make a choice. chronologically, i think it is necessary to make a crucial distinction between engagements with fascism generically, or with italian fascism and german nazism in particular. in the latter case a further distinction should be made between the period before around 1938 and after 1938, when a world war seemed inevitable to everyone, not just to forward-thinking alarmists or leftist intellectuals. after 1938 a more opportunist engagement with italy or germany, based on the cliché of the enemy’s enemy being a friend, might have played a more prominent role than previously. a key question for me at each stage was, “what did those who engaged with fascism and found positive elements in it know?” the answer, as i think has been established above, is: quite a lot. a good many people were very well informed, and their continued engagement with fascism was more than the misguided misreadings of an ignorant and distant group. right through the period under discussion, there were indian political exiles in europe who were reporting back to selected informants at home through private letters and articles for newspapers. in this correspondence with india they argued ideological positions, reported on nazi-led pogroms in germany and europe, and on daily life in nazi germany.[72] these émigrés were well connected and well informed across the political spectrum. there was also a regular movement of people to and from europe, some as students, some as professionals, and some as political activists. another important point is the question of who engaged with fascism. the answer is that almost everyone did; the problem, of course, is how. fascism was one of the major world ideologies in the interwar period; it would have been astonishing had indian intellectuals not engaged with it. mohandas k. gandhi, for instance, wrote to romain rolland in 1931: mussolini is a riddle to me. many of his reforms attract me. he seems to have done much for the peasant class. i admit an iron hand is there. but as violence is the basis of western society, mussolini’s reforms deserve an impartial study. his care of the poor, his opposition to super-urbanization, his efforts to bring about co-ordination between capital and labour, seem to me to demand special attention. i would like you to enlighten me on these matters. my own fundamental objection is that these reforms are compulsory. but it is the same in all democratic institutions. what strikes me is that behind mussolini’s implacability is a desire to serve his people.[73] m. k. gandhi, who is not usually associated with fascism (although the communist and then ex-communist m.n. roy used the term “fascist” with reference to his leadership),[74] had a style of charismatic leadership that might have been seen as similar to fascism in some respects (minus the violence); he certainly believed in disciplining the masses he mobilised, he emphasised loyalty to the collective, the reliance upon the judgement of those of greater moral virtue (himself), and he was not a particular fan of parliamentary institutions.[75] a point that might be useful here is that references to fascism outside europe tend to reproduce essentialist national categories in their discussions. i find it difficult to understand historians who talk about the various voices that denounced fascism as evidence that “the arabs” or “indians” were not fascists without recognising that it is precisely these denunciations that show that there was something to denounce.[76] (it is of course a fallacy of nation-centric thinking that we believe that the categories “arabs” or “indians” had any relevance to actual life.) were various intellectuals, in india or in egypt, simply making their positions on european politics clear? this seems unlikely. in fact, socialists in india keenly debated how seriously to take a fascist threat in india, and they concluded that there was danger of a discontented lower middle class (especially in the face of the great depression) being seduced by the myth of a strong leader and a strong state.[77] there is also the question of languages of legitimacy or of legitimation: what could one say about fascism in public? what did one say about fascism in private correspondence? in india, by the beginning of the 1930s, the hegemonic language of nationalism (and i think we can agree that fascism is a form of nationalism) was either a form of bland gandhian rhetoric about moral self-strengthening and non-violence (to be distinguished from gandhi’s own ideas, which as noted here, have been seen to have some affinities with fascism), or a much stronger leftist position on the need to overcome capitalism and achieve socialism, albeit after the interim goal of national independence had been achieved. the point to be made here is that there was a strong identification, both formally and informally, with a leftist, and a non-racial, non-sectarian understanding of the future of india and the making of a future “nation.” this made many explicitly fascist ideas unacceptable as public arguments, and therefore many of these discussions took place in private, or at any rate in less public fora.[78] there is an assumption that fascism in general, or italian fascism in particular, was only attractive to some indians before they properly understood its imperialist intentions: in the case of italian fascism, the turning-point for this period of fascination should have been the abyssinian war in 1935–36. although this episode did lose mussolini’s fascists some of its indian support it did not lose the fascists their more committed support, judging by articles in the indian press. there was a tendency amongst some intellectuals to claim that as a great nation that had had colonies in the past and should have them in the future, india obviated this.[79] privately, this group of thinkers was not disturbed by fascism’s imperialist tendencies, though some of them might have denounced the abyssinian invasion in public. this brings us to another related point: ideas that are close to or related to fascism, versus the terms themselves. fascism or nazism were not necessarily terms that were used by people whose ideas were close to or even directly borrowed from fascism or nazism. we might take the easy way out and avoid the term “fascism” entirely, especially as it was not, in the period described, one of the central political categories in indian politics.[80] (then again, nor was “fascism” the internally used term in, say, spain, romania, or hungary: we are in danger of confusing the term with the thing itself.) if the argument is about identifying a zeitgeist, one needs to look at the ideas themselves and their similarities to other ideas; “fascist,” in this context, is less awkward than an attempt to avoid the term. the question of a necessary claim to originality (common to all nationalist ideologues since each nation supposedly has a unique character and genius) must be raised here. even when the contents of ideologies are blatantly similar, the claim to difference is essential. an attempt at straightforward imitation could not possibly be legitimate; instead, the borrowings had to be underplayed or mediated by statements of alleged assimilation and domestication. so, the question remains: to what extent were there ideas within the indian political context that made it possible to identify with fascist trends, and how far back do we want to go in search of them? aryanism and related mysticisms were certainly important in india from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, as they were in britain and in the rest of the world, but perhaps that is taking the argument a little too far back, even for teleology; but certainly, the aryanism theme was influential.[81] another influential idea was that of a disciplined nationalism that subordinated a backward population to the directing will of an enlightened and superior leadership. in his autobiographical book the indian struggle, subhas chandra bose called for a synthesis between communism and fascism.[82] he later told rajani palme dutt in an interview that he had misunderstood fascism, seeing it merely as “an aggressive form of nationalism,” which he and many other indians saw as desirable at the time.[83] the quote from the indian struggle is often presented in truncated form, and its appearance in the relatively larger context of a recent review article is to be welcomed. palme dutt’s interview, preparing the ground for bose’s attempt to lead a popular front campaign supported by the communists and compatible with the dimitrov line, was intended, of course, to downplay the connection with fascism. bose wrote: considering everything, one is inclined to hold that the next phase in world-history will produce a synthesis between communism and fascism. and will it be a surprise if that synthesis is produced in india? in spite of the antithesis between communism and fascism, there are certain traits common to both. both communism and fascism believe in the supremacy of the state over the individual. both denounce parliamentary democracy. both believe in party rule. both believe in dictatorship of the party and in the ruthless suppression of all dissenting minorities. both believe in a planned industrial reorganisation of the country. these common traits will form the basis of the new synthesis. that synthesis is called “samyavada”—an indian word, which means literally “the doctrine of synthesis or equality.” it will be india’s task to work out this synthesis.[84] this set of conflations also enables us to understand that an indian word for “socialism,” in an aim to “nationalise” the term, contributes to the ambiguities in how the word was being used at the time. a “national socialism” is hardly an unusual resolution of the problem of collectivism with authenticity: beyond the obvious polemic that the nazis had the same idea, there was also a long-standing tendency in indian nationalist political thinking to reject “the west” as individualistic and materialistic and to tend towards forms of collectivity. while an emergent and self-defined left embraced the materialistic, another tendency sought to hold on to the alleged spiritual core of “indian” civilisation (benoy sarkar’s vivekananda), to amplify its anti-individualism, and to develop its völkisch elements—without necessarily asserting that indian civilization was otherworldly and spiritual. the idea was that the renewal and strengthening of a “nation” otherwise liable to decay ought to come from the “folk-element”: this notion had long been understood and actively promoted in india. “in the reconstruction of indian history, modern scholarship has to be devoted more and more to the exposition of the influence that the masses of the country have ever exerted in the making of its civilization” benoy sarkar programmatically declared.[85] to understand this folk element, one must undergo an “initiation amongst the folk.”[86] he further declared, more or less as a corollary to the “greater india” arguments made by some of his colleagues, that across asia culturally, a continuity of folk forms of religion could be discerned such that the buddhist, saiva, and vaisnava distinctions did not hold.[87] a sort of spiritual lebensraum was thus opened up for greater india. similarly influential was the organicist idea of a nation, combined with a militarist understanding of mass mobilisation in the period leading up to and after the first world war.[88] this was connected with responses to british insults about the effeminacy of indians, and of bengalis in particular.[89] an older interest in reviving “arya dharm,” or the “hindu race,” and linking it with european—and theosophical—understandings of the aryan “race” as the most evolved of the historically great races, and indian attempts to link up with these discussions as resources of legitimation, played a long-term role in mobilising potential recruits to a notion of aryanism that the nazis also mobilized to good effect.[90] the aryanism of the theosophists was, of course, of interest and importance to early nazi formations in germany and austria.[91] benoy sarkar’s insistence that india could provide or had provided the world with great and worthwhile intellectual products can also be seen in his reminder to readers that nietzsche, whose notion of “will to power” he greatly admired, had learned his philosophy from the manusmriti and his politics from the arthashastra.[92] while it would take more space than we can allow here to outline the affinities of ideology, or the ideas that had longer, nineteenthand early twentieth-century, pre-fascist histories, it is necessary to note their existence. nor is it obvious in which directions the ideas “flowed”: though some nazi mysticism had “indian” roots, and ideas of aryan civilization or supremacy transcended the barriers of “west” and “east,” this was to be expected, as the public arenas of “west” and “east” were not sealed off from one another nor separated in any way but polemically. the exact relationships between völkisch, organicist, and fascist ideas need to be examined in more detail than can be done here; but as a starting point one might say that the former sets of ideas definitely formed a part of the fascist repertoire, even if they were not the only elements of a fascist repertoire. criteria, definitions having had the benefit of looking at some indian material, we can now revisit the question of standards and definitions of fascism. from a strictly material-conditions-based approach, fascism was never a serious threat in the india of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s.[93] if, on the other hand, ideological borrowings and attempts to incorporate fascist or “proto-fascist” ideas into future statist projects are important, then we must raise questions about the influence of fascist ideas in india also among people who did not fully identify themselves ideologically as fascists.[94] a number of innovations as to what powers a state could acceptably appropriate do form some of the main fascist contributions to statecraft; but does this suggest that if fascism does not capture or use state power there is no point in studying it?[95] to study it then is (once again) too late, politically speaking. an ideological framework that seeks to reorganize a society completely, to found a centralised state, and to create an organic unity between volk and government, must be able to draw upon a longer and broader history in order to establish these links. we can now reject the set of arguments that considers fascism as primarily a european phenomenon,[96] both in terms of a history of ideas (and their origins in europe) and in terms of the desire and ability of groups to create movements of controlled mass participation and organised violence that were seen as merely “available for piracy” elsewhere.[97] why a set of borrowed ideas “ain’t nothing like the real thing,” to paraphrase coca-cola’s borrowed line from the popular song, is unclear when there is no consensus on what “the real thing” really is. so far the literature struggles with what i might call an “original” and “copy” problem: the original is in europe and the outside world copies it, either properly and correctly, in which case it is fascist (in our case), or imperfectly (in which case it is not fascist, though it might have similarities). by the standards of having to conform to fixed elements of an ideology, most fascists or nazis were not fascists (with a small “f”) or indeed nazis. this is a problematic conclusion at which to arrive. fascism, according to this view, is to be taken as a whole. either you swallow it completely or you are not a fascist. this is an ideal-typical model of an “ideology” and the question of “deviation”—in fact, a rather stalinist view of ideology.[98] a simplistic “impact-response” approach to the study of a “western” influence on a “non-western” context has long been considered unviable.[99] european fascisms influenced one another. although it is true that there is a hierarchy of fascisms in analyses of european fascisms as well, british or hungarian fascisms are still considered closer to “the real thing” than indian or latin american ones.[100] marxists saw fascism as an outgrowth of capitalism in crisis, with the main camp followers being the lower middle classes and the regime allied with large capitalists, whose response to the crisis was to dispense with the paraphernalia of liberal democracy.[101] this was based largely on germany and did not work even for italy, where antonio gramsci was already lamenting the communists’ short-sightedness at not having enough knowledge of the lives and aspirations of the italian peasantry to wean them away from the fascists.[102] for others, fascism’s driving forces were the displaced pre-industrial elites struggling for a return to power. both views held that fascism was a conservative phenomenon and consequently provided a top-down perspective, as gramsci and other marxist thinkers recognised.[103] this they have in common with some theorists of “totalitarianism,” who were often less interested in the specificities of fascism than in comparing fascist regimes with that of the ussr, in large measure to use the negative connotations of the former to discredit the latter.[104] “totalitarian” as a term was usually seen as positive by fascists themselves,[105] and some critics insisted that the totalitarian state control of all aspects of life was integral to fascist ideologies as it never was to marxism of any variety, which was, at least in theory, not fond of increases in state power.[106] (lenin’s great polemical struggle to distinguish engels’ approach to the state from that of the anarchists—not altogether successfully—might be mentioned in this context).[107] later approaches emphasised the structures of ideas and symbols as marking out fascism from other regimes. contrary to the “conservative” approach, they stressed the socio-revolutionary character of fascism: between communism and conservatism, a “holistic-national radical third way,” [108] definitely modern rather than backward looking and making its appearance as a populist ultra-nationalism carried by a new elite. its organisational form was that of a mass party, its revolutionary element lay in the quest for power that sought to overhaul established institutions and order rather than to restore them, and it was marked by an attempted permanent mobilisation of the populace in order to resurrect the nation and a mythical golden age.[109] this requires a fascism to be more than just a particularly nasty, violent, racist, and militant nationalism, reliant on paramilitary groups intimidating the volksfeind, the “enemy of the people.” for those to whom a comparative approach is still relevant, fascism remains largely a european phenomenon. in the great tradition of an arendt, an adorno, and a horkheimer, who represented fascism as a pathology of the european intellectual tradition of western man,[110] recent historical work that sees fascism as a pathology of a highly technologised civilisation or of modernity itself seems to apply itself self-consciously to the european world. we might wish to deploy centre-periphery models, in which the periphery is very much connected with the centre and not separate from it, against these approaches, but so far the argument has not yet begun. frantz fanon’s stray remarks about the dehumanisation of non-europeans in the colonies as connected to the dehumanisation of other europeans accomplished by european fascists come to mind;[111] but the agents of fascism here are still europeans, whose actions abroad (imperialism) are connected with their actions at home (fascism), in a version of the communist party of india’s position on the dimitrov line.[112] fanon even suggests an exceptionalist argument: the persecution of jews in europe constitutes “little family quarrels” in comparison with the position of the black man in europe.[113] a set of approaches that present fascism as not merely a european but a potentially wider problem, are those from psychoanalytic perspectives. they have the advantage of not being focused on particular regimes in power, but interested instead in tendencies that enable fascist ideas to take hold in a society. i have in mind reich and fromm particularly, whose ideas, respectively, of the “authoritarian” personality formation, which is prone to surrender power to a superior authority after long training in self-repression, and of an “escape from freedom,” might produce a wider set of questions on why appeals to völkisch solidarities, surrenders to paramilitary training, and militant nationalisms, actually work.[114] nonetheless, both in terms of the available sources and the notorious difficulties of reading the reception of ideas on a wider scale, this set of questions remains exactly that. in some of the recent literature, there is a tendency to look at fascism as a style of politics rather than as a movement with a degree of coherence.[115] one must, using this approach, avoid running the risk of dismissing ideological currents merely as window-dressing for the “real” politics, say, of communistor jew-bashing, in other words, of separating fascism as a set of ideas too completely from fascisms as movements. it might be useful, keeping such an approach in mind, to think in terms of continuity in assertive nationalism, right-wing populism, and fascism, and not to insist on any special status for “fascism” as a normative category; this is particularly useful when looking at its blurry edges. although the connections of proponents of a militant hindu nationalism (now simply referred to as the sangh parivar or hindutvabadi) as avölkisch nationalism with fascism and nazism, not to mention with its leaders, are well worked out,[116] it remains unclear how much the appeal of the hindu ideologues m.s. golwalkar, k.b. hegdewar, or v.d. savarkar actually depended upon the borrowings of their ideas from fascists, rather than the similarities that they recognised and perhaps reformulated in the language of fascism. the sangh parivar, and especially those who organised its paramilitary wings and wrote its ideological treatises, were familiar with european fascism, particularly its most successful italian and german variants, and found them good, worthwhile, and useful models to emulate. this is not to suggest, however, that all of their ideas were merely imitations. it is not clear whether the fascist connection garnered any further support for the hindutva brigade amongst their following, or whether the family resemblances of the ideologies brought them closer together. another example can be seen in a “muslim” group: inayatullah khan al-mashriqi, the founder and leader of the khaksar movement, which was also called fascist in its own time, claimed to have met hitler in 1926; later he even claimed that hitler had learned from him.[117] that the greater power of germany or italy to enforce the “national” will and to purify the national body of outsiders was appealing is evident from this often-quoted passage from 1939: to keep up the purity of the race and its culture, germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the semitic races—the jews. race pride at its highest has been manifested here. germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in hindusthan to learn and profit by.[118] and what of those who were heavily influenced by aspects of fascist or nazi ideology (that is, not ideology called fascist or nazi retrospectively and/or used as terms of delegitimisation, but things called fascist or nazi at the time) but did not appear to be entirely fascist or nazi in all their aspects and fell short of a “fascist minimum,”[119] or indeed exceeded it but mixed it up with various eclectic elements that were at first glance quite incompatible with one another? figures like benoy kumar sarkar, hero and ideologue of the bengal swadeshi movement might fall into this category. his “indigenous” forms of sociology made him a desirable intellectual; at the same time his open support for nazi ideas of social engineering survived well into the second world war.[120] to what extent did ideas that clearly belonged to the cluster that made up fascism logically lead to fascism? we can enumerate common elements that have in some instances been associated with fascism. in no particular order: aggressive nationalism, conflations of race and nation, disciplining the body, eugenics, populism, controlling and civilising the masses—and it is logical to suggest that all of this is part of the discontents of “modernity”—another category for which the goalposts have shifted and continue to shift.[121] instead, as i have suggested in this essay, we might want to consider a model of ideas that gravitate towards each other; that is, the indian recognition in european fascisms of elements considered desirable and that were already to some extent sought to be realised in india, in other words, not necessarily ideas simply to be copied. this approaches a version of the zeitgeist argument put forward by zeev sternhell, among others, that the core of fascist ideas were already in place well before the first world war.[122] it also retains, if used unsubtly, the dangers of teleology—kevin passmore’s argument that many ideas that went into fascism also went into other ideologies is important here.[123] let us consider instead a worldwide fin-de-siècle and post-great-war set of phenomena that finds their ideological expression and geographical focal point in italian fascism and then in nazi germany, both of which provide successful models for others. once a successful version provides a language to legitimate what other versions are also attempting, the versions gravitate towards the successful variants, not through a top-down gleichschaltung imposed by a state, as in the case of nazi germany, or indeed of occupied europe under nazi rule, but in a relatively consensual process, where the individual variants retain the ability—and indeed demand the right—to insist on variations.[124] a fascist imaginary? to summarise what i have said so far about the concept “fascism”: on the one hand, there are contemporaneous usages; if we are used to “fascism” being short-hand for the holocaust, auschwitz, and genocide then we are speaking from a post-1945 perspective. on the other hand, retrospectively we are forced to identify necessary elements that we are willing to call “fascism,” while recognising at the same time that they were part of a continuum of ideas and practices at the time. contemporaries saw various forms of fascism—in terms of the use of the concept itself—from 1922 onwards, as part of several interrelated trends in world history. we also need to distinguish between fascism as an attractive and emulable, if flexible, set of ideas, and fascism in power, at which point we are looking at states. in the present case we are looking at structural situations in which the possibility of fascism coming to power was real, and at people—agents, if you will—who wished to link their ideas and movements with fascism in order to come to power. we are also looking at fascist trends within wider movements, such as anti-colonial nationalisms or nationalisms in general. let me try and provide here a sense of the range of engagements with fascism, and some more specific examples. in an earlier essay i explored a set of incoherent fascinations with fascist ideas as well as more concrete appreciations of fascism: a strong nationalism; the body and the body politic; eugenics (that there was nothing particularly fascist or nazi about an engagement with eugenics is now reasonably well known);[125] the organic and disciplined nation; the developmental imagination.[126] it is instructive to look at contemporary anti-fascist assessments of fascism as a presence in india. the interpretation of the 1935 dimitrov line of the comintern (that at the time stood for a united front of all popular and democratic forces against fascism) by the communist party of india (cpi) was that fascism was not a serious danger in india, and that as a result the line had to be interpreted as a popular front against imperialism rather than fascism, because fascism was the form taken by capitalism in crisis at home while imperialism was the overseas manifestation of capitalism. this became received wisdom, and was to a certain extent the line taken by the congress socialist party (csp) within which the cpi worked after it was banned in 1934. the csp was founded in 1934 as a group within the indian national congress before the dimitrov line was proclaimed (though after dimitrov developed his view of fascism in december 1933),[127] and it was intended to work with the congress towards a preliminary goal of national independence with a larger goal of raising awareness of socialism and of achieving socialism after independence. as a result, the csp could with some justification claim to have anticipated the dimitrov line.[128] many members of the csp were marxists outside the communist party. they also seemed relatively sceptical about the claims of nationalism, although they could see the need for an alliance with nationalism themselves: [...] in fighting its own battle the bourgeoisie also fights the battle of the masses, in so far as bourgeois democracy consists in releasing the forces of production from the strangle-hold of feudalism. but the united front of the bourgeoisie and the masses, whom it exploits, is largely held together by national idealism, whose function it is to hide the naked reality of class struggle under the cover of the unities of race, language, culture, tradition, historical memory, government etc.[129] the csp differed from “orthodox communists” in wanting to mobilise the petite-bourgeoisie in unison with the proletariat: due to large-scale unemployment during the depression, the petite-bourgeoisie were a disillusioned class; some sections suffered like the working class and “they become revolutionary, and according to the leadership offered to them, they are capable of being either on the side of fascism or of socialism.” in short, we have here a large influential, because politically-minded, class, vehemently critical of present capitalism, in part at least socialistic in its attitude. today this class is not fascist [...] but it is potentially revolutionary and is yearning for a more intelligent economic system. it is easily misled by fascism’s all-embracing appeal [...][130] the dangers of fascism were stressed; the depression had “persuaded the indian bourgeoisie to think of economic planning, which must take on a fascist or semi-fascist character, so long as private property in the means of production is not abolished.”[131] it was noted with distaste that some indians were attracted to fascism; at the london school of economics students’ union election “a wealthy indian student stood on the fascist ticket [...] of course he was trounced by the united front candidate—but the fact that he stood on the ticket is significant and we must not miss its import.”[132] this set of engagements was close to official comintern positions, but at the same time cautious about ideological affinities that could, in alliance with international contexts, lead to a fascist movement in india; and indeed, considerable space in the congress socialist was given over to refuting fascist arguments: an adequate indication that the voice being countered was a significant one. despite a broad acceptance of the communist party of india’s reading of the dimitrov line, the csp maintained that fascism was a significant danger in india. among the prominent voices promoting pro-fascist arguments was that of the engineer-technocrat, and former dewan of the princely state of mysore, sir mokshagundam visvesvaraya, whose pro-business regime in that state had made it a model for a developmentally active state policy that capitalists aspired to in the rest of india. visvesvaraya stressed the need to “improve the working efficiency of the villager” through a system of “home discipline to train the body, the mind and the character of the villager and to educate him in practices of self-reliance and self-help.” [133] the idea of “citizenship training” runs through his work, the need for it arising from the basic fact that “india is inhabited by people in all stages of civilisation from the primitive to the most advanced.”[134] special efforts were required “to raise every class of people in the scale of economic civilisation,” otherwise “national progress as a whole is bound to be retarded.”[135] economic progress, in visvesvaraya’s view, would lead the process of national progress as a whole; though the latter included “political, social and cultural” progress as well.[136] “the public should be induced and trained to make up their mind to work harder, more methodically and in clear cooperation with their neighbours.”[137] by 1934, he stressed the need for military training and conscription “to introduce the much-needed elements of regularity, method, and discipline into the daily life of the indian population.” he quoted roosevelt on the need for moving “as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline,”[138] and a fascist manifesto, noting the establishment in italy of “leisure time” institutions, which “promote the better enjoyment of the free time of workers of all classes with the object of raising their intellectual, moral, physical and social status in accordance with a policy of enhancing national values.”[139] he added, what has gone wrong with the indian population is that their collective will power is feeble [...] in countries like germany and japan and generally in most european states, a determined effort is made by the governments concerned to promote the physical and economic efficiency of their citizens [...][140] in 1930, dr manoranjan ukil had the misfortune of confiding in a friend who turned out to be a police informant.[141] ukil was then director of the tuberculosis enquiry, which was conducted by the indian research fund association, and he was deputed by calcutta university to travel extensively for tuberculosis research. he was also a bengali who had been abroad more than once. ukil gave an account of indian students abroad, and the state of world politics: he was full of praise of the new spirit in germany [...] that notwithstanding the international pressure to stifle her growth germany was today becoming a virile and most powerful entity. [...] by a system of gymnasium and physical exercise the youth of germany was today becoming sturdy and in that way a new race was coming to the fore. ukil stated that it was his intention to write a series of books on student life abroad and on the adoption of a system of physical regeneration by the indian people. [...] in germany, there was genuine sympathy for indian leftwing aspirations. [...] at munich a book called gandhi revolution was selling like hotcakes [sic]. interest in indian matters had been recently roused to a great extent.[142] the larger statement in which these remarks are embedded contains a mixture of support for a gandhian movement, an endorsement of violence, and an implicitly eugenicist argument that, in some readings, could be seen as an endorsement of the rising national socialist movement in germany, though that is not necessarily clear from the references to race and physical fitness that cut across such political divides at the time. if we regard the strange mixture of ideas that the zeitgeist made available as the context of the times, we will be engaged in a history of ideas that is not as rarefied as that which studies the well-worked-out academically-respectable and properly-footnoted ideas of traditional intellectual history; however, in both cases, the question of social impact needs to be posed. who came into contact with these ideas? and what difference did it make? by asking this are we instrumentalising ideas? or are we, instead, asking what forms of action are enabled by the acceptability or unacceptability of certain political ideas? an often unselfconsciously held set of eugenicist assumptions enabled a form of thinking about “development” that could instrumentalise the “masses” even as “development” was to be conducted in their name and for their alleged future prosperity.[143] the missing duce and the reluctant führer? it is clear, then, that many indians saw the merits of fascism as a strong and self-reliant form of nationalism. they also saw the need for someone to direct that strong self-reliance adequately, and they sought out the required charismatic leadership. one colleague wrote to jawaharlal nehru in 1936: [...] on your socialism, there is one question i should like to ask you: why do you stop with it, why don’t you go on to the next step, fascism, and be done with it. of course, fascism is a reaction against socialism, just as socialism is a reaction against capitalism. i shall put it in hegelian terms: capitalism is the thesis, socialism is the antithesis and fascism is the synthesis. that is how the world movement is working itself out: here in india, the word will be nationalism, the only difference i can see [...] you will end up as mussolini or hitler, not as lenin: and on the whole i prefer you to be mussolini, though i do not hide myself from the fear that it may be a hitler.[144] this is strikingly similar to subhas chandra bose’s understanding of the march of world forces in a remoulding of hegelianism, and it is indicative that bose was not particularly original or radical in his thinking, though of course bose anticipated a slightly different synthesis that would not be called fascism but “samyavada.” nehru replied aggressively, and with a rather elitist tone: have you gone so far astray as to think in terms of fascism? [...] i agree that lenin is much beyond reach but why this fall to mussolini or hitler? politics apart, i dislike the vulgarity of mussolini as well as the fascism in germany. why does fascism breed such crude types, or is it the crude types that beget fascism?[145] crucially, one of nehru’s first reactions against fascism was—rather in the manner of british conservatives who were willing to profess a grudgingly admiration for fascists from a distance but not join those who made the jump to actively support them at home or abroad—a distaste for its “crude” nature, its “vulgarity.”[146] nehru was, of course, also well versed in a socialist tradition that understood the dangers of fascism, which made him a premature anti-fascist. but the question that had been put to nehru was, of course, one of leadership, and could not be evaded. this leadership was something that remained ambiguous in the search for a strong direction for a national movement, one that, every now and then, would involve disciplining the “masses.” in a passage notable for its ability to both reject a conception of the strong leader and reinstate it at the same time, nehru wrote to one of his correspondents: the so-called modern view is to lay greater stress on the social group and its organisation, hoping that a better environment will produce a better individual. of course [...] the individual and the social group act and re-act on each other. it is a question of stress. always the method of securing wise and unselfish legislatures has been a vital problem. plato as you know wanted philosophers to be rulers. the difficulty has been to find a method of picking out these supermen and placing them in seats of power. much will depend on the objective that one aims at. even apart from this it is an extraordinarily difficult thing to get the right man at the top [...] ultimately, one can only rely on a sufficiently enlightened wide-awake public opinion.[147] all one had to do was to educate public opinion to recognise the right leaders; yet it is the leaders themselves who educate public opinion. this is, of course, a circular argument: leaders enlighten masses in order for the masses to better recognise leaders and to better praise and anoint them. nehru did not reject the idea of plato’s philosopher-ruler outright—if only they could be properly selected. the implications seem to have been lost on the intellectual elite who naturally cast themselves as enlightened leaders. this was also very far from an ideal of popular participation in government, which nehru and other socialists constantly proclaimed as their aim.[148] but nehru was aware of, and clearly uncomfortable with, the tendency towards a fascist cult of leadership, even when directed at himself. nehru conducted his own character assassination anonymously in his destruction of the cult of leadership surrounding him when he wrote of himself in the modern review as “rashtrapati,” custodian of the state.[149] the article warned readers of a growing tendency to see nehru as a saviour of some sort, even a führer, and suggested that it might even appeal to jawaharlal’s not inconsiderable vanity to see himself as a napoleon or a caesar but made it clear that such thinking was detrimental to the democratic principles for which an indian national movement ought to stand. let me be clear on this point, i am very far from suggesting that nehru was at any point seriously close to fascism. and yet he was forced to engage with what was very much the language of the times, and in the language of the times. this need to protest is in itself an indication that there was something to protest against. indeed, it is in refutations and denials that the importance of that which is being denied becomes evident: one of the easiest ways for historians to deny the importance of fascism in any given context is to amplify the anti-fascist voices—whose existence, when looked at more closely, is indicative that there was most probably a fascism to oppose.[150] towards some conclusions the brief vignettes provided here serve to indicate that the argument that not much was known about fascism in india, which is often used for more amorphous and “popular” engagements with fascism and is often made with regard to fascism as movement rather than as ideological tendency, does not hold. as many of the intelligence documents recording the careers and travels of itinerant intellectuals note, it is precisely because they sought to propagate the ideas they travelled with that these intellectuals were considered dangerous; and as the same documents record, despite various attempts at halting the movements of the people or the ideas they propagated, the ideas still moved.[151] despite the diversity and unpredictability of the directions taken by fascist ideas—in part because of the tendency noted above of ideas gravitating towards one another due to their intrinsic similarities and then taking on a common language and set of expressions—we cannot say that the “original” or “originals,” insofar as it makes sense to use that expression at all, was or were not known in india. nonetheless, it is important to see fascism as a phenomenon that was much more widespread than the borders of europe, both between the wars and after (on which subject there is and will be much more to say: this essay does not follow the resilience, partial eclipse, and revival of fascist ideas in india into the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries). much of the (still meagre) material on “global” fascism “outside europe” still sees europe as the natural homeland of fascism; it is not clear why this is the case. the story after 1938 is of greater interest to some, as it relates more directly to event-history and to histories of the second world war.[152] and in some cases there is much more to discuss, as it is only after 1938 that imperial surveillance mechanisms took account of fascists, rather than simply chasing communists, anarchists, or “communal” sectarian troublemakers of a lesser order. but that, as i have indicated before, is a longer story for another time. after 1938 an opportunistic attachment to fascist causes is harder to separate from longer-term and more ideological political engagements. it is also, of course, the period during which the imperatives towards a voluntary gleichschaltung were far stronger: in order for an alliance to be successful, it was important to appear to speak from the same position in public. after 1938, it becomes more difficult to distinguish those whose ideological affinities enabled the transformation from those who jumped before they were pushed. what someone “actually believed” could be unreadable both at the time and in retrospect. exploring the presence of recognisably fascist ideas in india in a classical fascist period between the two world wars—and outside the circles of the hindu right wing that now claims the succession—is important to destabilise the historiographical assumption that fascism was and could only be european. it is also a helpful corrective to the tendency that sees fascism only in the hindu right in india, when it is willing to see fascism in india at all. there were other fascists in the game at the time, other fascist groups and parties. they could recombine in various ways, in an internal voluntary gleichschaltung of similar movements; or they could come into conflict with one another. and they could also provide the context of ideological and social support for a larger movement, which would then have a “tradition” to draw upon. [1] i would like to thank jeffrey vernon, stefanie von schnurbein, sudipta kaviraj, britta ohm, mana kia, subhas ranjan chakraborty, bhaskar chakraborty, oyndrila sarkar, and three anonymous referees for their comments on this article. [2] for example, sumit sarkar, “the fascism of the sangh parivar,” economic and political weekly 28, no. 5 (january, 1993): 163–167; marzia casolari, “hindutva’s foreign tie-up in the 1930s. archival evidence,” economic & political weekly, 22 (january 2002): 218–228; tobias delfs, hindu-nationalismus und europäischer faschismus: vergleich, transferund beziehungsgeschichte (hamburg: eb-verlag, 2008); and jairus banaji, ed., fascism: essays on europe and india (delhi: three essays press, 2013). [3] a hindu völkisch tendency approvingly cited italian fascist and german national socialist ideas as worthy of emulation, or clearly drew upon them. see, for instance, v.d. savarkar, hindutva: who is a hindu? (nagpur: bharat publications, 1928); m.s. golwalkar, we or our nationhood defined (nagpur: bharat publications, 1939). [4] the term “voluntary gleichschaltung” is mine, but the literature on how italian fascism began to resemble german nazism after the axis starts to form (in particular with regard to anti-semitism) has been useful in this regard. see for instance m.a. ledeen, “the evolution of italian fascist antisemitism,” jewish social studies 37, no. 1 (winter, 1975): 3–17. [5] i use the term “fascist repertoire” in the manner of federico finchelstein’s use of the phrase “fascist catalogue of ideas”: federico finchelstein, transatlantic fascism: ideology, violence, and the sacred in argentina and italy, 1919–1945 (durham: duke university press, 2010), 6. see my review in social history 36, no. 2 (may 2011): 215–216, for an account of why this is useful. [6] this is a reference to ian kershaw’s idea of “working towards the führer,” in which he says that ordinary germans, ordinary bureaucrats, and other nazis, anticipated what they thought were the führer’s wishes, and sought to carry them out, which is what made an ordinarily weak dictatorship function. see ian kershaw, “’working towards the führer’: reflections on the nature of the hitler dictatorship,”contemporary european history 2, no. 2 (july 1993): 103–118. the idea of the “weak dictatorship” he attributes to hans mommsen, beamtentum im dritten reich (1966): see ian kershaw, “hitler and the uniqueness of nazism,” journal of contemporary history 39, no. 2 (2004): 239–254; 243. this theory can be modified to accommodate an idea of persons working towards the successful ideology. [7] bertolt brecht, epilogue to the resistible rise of arturo ui: a gangster spectacle, adapt. george tabori (new york: samuel french inc., 1972), 128; last line: “the bitch that bore him is in heat again.” [8] in the original: bertold brecht, der aufhaltsame aufstieg des arturo ui (1941; repr., berlin: edition suhrkamp, 1965) 124: "der schoß ist fruchtbar noch, aus dem das kroch." [9] michael mann, fascists (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2004) and michael mann, the dark-side of democracy: explaining ethnic cleansing(cambridge: cambridge university press, 2005) explores the connections between what he calls “fascism” in a more limited sense, and “fascism!” with a capital f and an exclamation mark in a wider sense, classifying the latter work as belonging to the latter category. [10] r. j. b. bosworth ed., the oxford handbook of fascism (oxford: oxford university press, 2009) uses this as a starting point. [11] ian kershaw, “hitler and the uniqueness of nazism,” journal of contemporary history 39, no. 2 (2004): 239–254. [12] juan j. linz, “some notes towards a comparative study of fascism in sociological historical perspective,”in fascism: a reader's guide, analyses, interpretations, bibliography, ed. walter laqueur (berkley: univ. of california press, 1977), 29–31. [13] franziska roy, “youth, national discipline and paramilitary organisations,” (phd diss.,warwick university), 2013. [14] roger griffin ed., general introduction to fascism (oxford: oxford university press, 1995), 1–12, lists ten major elements of fascism, and the possibility of identifying a “fascist minimum” in terms of a “common mythic core,” following his own argument in roger griffin, the nature of fascism (london: pinter, 1991). [15] why must indians simply be reduced to the role of perpetual consumers of modernity and not its producers (to borrow an argument from elsewhere)? see partha chatterjee, the nation and its fragments (princeton: princeton university press, 1993), 3–13. [16] mann, fascists, ix, sees a “family resemblance,” in terms of “organic nationalism, radical statism and paramilitarism,” between fascism and many tendencies not quite fascist as yet: in other words, he proposes a distinction that does not quite hold. [17] to a large extent my engagements with a fascist imaginary began with its connection with models of development from the 1930s onwards. benjamin zachariah, “beyond economics: ideas of developing india, c. 1930–1950,” (phd diss., university of cambridge, 1999) published in a revised and shorter version as benjamin zachariah, developing india: an intellectual and social history, c. 1930–1950 (2005; repr., delhi: oxford university press, 2012). [18] a predecessor essay to this one is benjamin zachariah, “rethinking (the absence of) fascism in india,” in cosmopolitan thought zones: south asia and the global circulation of ideas, ed. sugata bose and kris manjapra (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2010), 178–209. the present essay is more programmatic than the last named. [19] on the normative as well as descriptive content of a political term, see quentin skinner, “some problems in the analysis of political thought and action,” political theory 2, no. 3 (aug. 1974): 277–303; especially 294–295. [20] not all zeitgeist arguments are equal, however; see ernst nolte, three faces of fascism (1963; repr., new york: signet, 1969), 21–25, for a version of this argument, now perhaps considered somewhat compromised after his contribution to the historikerstreit, the big debate among historians in the middle of the 1980s in which he was understood to be reading nazism merely as a response to bolshevism, and therefore relativising nazism; see ernst nolte, “zwischen geschichtslegende und revisionismus? das dritte reich im blickwinkel des jahres 1980,” in “historikerstreit”: die dokumentation der kontroverse um die einzigartigkeit der nationalsozialistischen judenvernichtung, ed. rudolf augstein, (munich: piper, 1987), 13–35. for a different zeitgeist argument, which is, however, restricted to “western modernity,” see roger griffin, modernism and fascism: the sense of a beginning under mussolini and hitler (basingstoke: palgrave, 2007), in which he sees the fascist quest as one for an alternative modernity. see also jeffrey herf, reactionary modernism:technology, culture, and politics in weimar and the third reich (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1984). this is not the place to reprise the debates about modernity and modernism in relation to indian fascism. i shall defer this to a later paper. [21] for a summary of these debates, see james tully ed., meaning and context: quentin skinner and his critics (cambridge: polity press, 1988). [22] a problem with begriffsgeschichte, it should be noted, is that it means both “terminological history” and “conceptual history,” the latter being the normalized english translation. however, the different terms are often used for the same concept, and differing concepts can be described in shorthand by the same term. “socialism,” in this context, is a notorious example. [23] maria framke,delhi-rom-berlin: die indische wahrnehmung von faschismus und nationalsozialismus 1922–1939 (darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft, 2013). she seems, however, aware of the problem. see her recent review article, maria framke, “encounters with fascism and national socialism in non-european regions,” südasien-chronik—south asia chronicle 2 (2012): 350–374. [24] benoy kumar sarkar, the hitler state: a landmark in the political, economic and social remaking of the german people (calcutta: insurance and finance review, 1933), 13. [25] soumyendranath tagore, hitlerism: the aryan rule in germany (calcutta: ganashakti, 1934), 42–43. [26] sarkar, the hitler state, 4. [27] sarkar, the hitler state, 13. [28] sarkar, the hitler state, 31. [29] sarkar, the hitler state, 31. [30] tagore, hitlerism, 18. [31] tagore, hitlerism, 21. [32] tagore, hitlerism, 26. [33] for histories and pre-histories of this episode that are not entirely satisfactory, see nirode k. barooah, india and the official germany 1886–1914 (frankfurt: peter lang, 1977); nirode k. barooah,chatto: the life and times of an indian anti-imperialist in europe (delhi: oxford university press, 2004); tilak raj sareen, indian revolutionary movement abroad, 1905–1920 (delhi: sterling, 1979); and possibly the most systematic work, based on german archives, frank oesterheld, “'der feind meines feindes': zur tätigkeit des indian independence committee (iic) während des ersten weltkrieges in berlin" (master's thesis, humboldt university berlin, 2004). the approaches of all these studies tend to sideline considerations of ideology. [34] barooah, chatto: sareen, indian revolutionary movement abroad; arun coomar bose, indian revolutionaries abroad, 1905–1922, in the background of international developments (patna: bharati bhavan, 1971); kris k. manjapra, “the mirrored world: cosmopolitan encounter between indian anti-colonial intellectuals and german radicals, 1905–1939” (phd diss., harvard university, 2009); syed mujtaba ali, chacha kahini (in bengali) (1952; repr., calcutta: new age publishers, 1417 b.s. 2010). for an overview, see benjamin zachariah, “indian political activities in germany, 1914–1945,” in transcultural encounters between germany and india: kindred spirits in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, ed. joanne miyang cho, eric kurlander, and douglas t mcgetchin (new york: routledge, 2014), 141–154. [35] all-india congress committee (aicc) files, 1929, fd 20 (kw 1), fd 20 (ii), nehru memorial library (nml), new delhi. [36] india office records, british library, london [ior]: l/pj/ 12/102, 1923, f. 2. [37] bundesarchiv, berlin: r51/1–16 & 144. [38] this is acknowledged in the official history of the institute, which can be found on the web, in indien-institut e.v. münchen, http://www.indien-institut.de/en/chronicle [accessed on 20. april 2013]. note the sudden jump for the nazi period: nothing is mentioned for the time between 1932 and 1946. [39] the best scholarly account of this is still harish k. puri, ghadar movement: ideology, organisation and strategy (amritsar: guru nanak dev university press, 1983). [40] ior: l/pj/12/166. [41] tarak nath das to lajpat rai, geneva, 11 january 1926, “not for publication,” file acc. no. 512, nehru memorial library, new delhi [nml]. [42] see anna sailer, “der indologe walther wüst und das ns-regime, 1933–1945,” (master’s thesis, humboldt university berlin, 2008). [43] bundesarchiv, berlin, r51/16, r51/8. thierfelder was responsible for the document written in 1945 that claimed that the deutsche akademie was a non-nazi institution, and he cited tarak nath das's membership of the indische ausschuss as grounds for its non-nazi nature; all of its nazi activities he seeks to blame on wüst. see bundesarchiv, berlin, r51/8, ff. 0203054–0203067, written in 1945. thierfelder was back in charge of the institute by 1946, alongside tarak nath das, http://www.indien-institut.de/en/chronicle [accessed on 20. april 2013]. [44] ior: indian political intelligence (ipi) file l/pj/12/505, ff. 80–81. from printed report: “strictly secret: an examination of the activities of the auslands organization of the national socialistische deutsche arbeiter partei [sic], part ii: in india.” [45]publicity materials for the india institute, munich, distributed on the occasion of its 75th anniversary in 2003, do not mention the names of ashok bose and benoy kumar sarkar. an earlier version of the indien-institut's website listed their names. http://www.indien-institut.de/ [accessed on 20. may 2010]; this has been replaced by the version cited above. leonard gordon, brothers against the raj: a biography of indian nationalists sarat and subhas chandra bose (new york: columbia university press, 1990), 256–257, mentions ashok bose's presence in munich after 1931 as a student of applied chemistry. benoy sarkar was also a regular contributor to karl haushofer's journal, geopolitik. [46] ior: l/pj/12/73. [47] ior: l/pj/12/74. [48] intelligence bureau file on soumendranath tagore, ib sl. no. 106/26, file no. 166/26 hs folder part ii, west bengal state archives [wbsa], calcutta. [49] horst krüger papers, zentrum moderner orient [zmo], berlin, box 68, no. 457,1. [50] “akademie zur wissenschaftliche erforschung und zur pflege des deutschtums.” bundesarchiv, berlin, r51/1, rules of the association, 1925, end of file, no page numbers. [51] bundesarchiv, berlin, r51/16. records of students are few and far between, and it is unclear as to whether they were destroyed by the vicissitudes of war or deliberately. [52] maharashtra state archives, bombay (msa), home department (special), files 830a, 1939 and 830(i), 1939. see also eugene d'souza, “nazi propaganda in india,” social scientist 28, no. 5/6 (may–june 2000): 77–90, based on the above two files but lacking a context for them. [53] national archives of india, new delhi [nai]: home department, government of india, file no. 21/65/39 poll. (int.). “consideration of steps to be taken to combat nazi activity in the aligarh university,” 1–7. copy in jawaharlal nehru university (jnu), archives on contemporary history (ach), pc joshi archive, file 11-1939. [54] nai: home department, government of india, file no. 21/65/39 poll. (int.). “consideration of steps to be taken to combat nazi activity in the aligarh university,” 1–7. copy in jawaharlal nehru university (jnu), archives on contemporary history (ach), pc joshi archive, file 11–1939. [55] majid hayat siddiqui, “bluff, doubt and fear: the kheiri brothers and the colonial state 1904–45,” indian economic and social history review 24, no. 3 (1987): 233–263. [56] nai: home (political), file 30/5/30, copy in jnu, ach, pc joshi archive, file 74/1930: “question of the grant of an assurance of immunity from prosecution to abdul jabbar kheiri in the event of his return to india.” [57] see, for instance, jeffrey herf, nazi propaganda for the arab world (yale: yale university press, 2009). [58] bundesarchiv, berlin, r/51/144, horst pohle's report from calcutta, 1938. [59] report dated august 29, 1938, ior: l/pj/12/293, f. 136. [60] all india congress committee [aicc] papers, nml, file no. 12/1938 and file no. fd 42/1938. [61] jawaharlal nehru papers [jnp], nml, vol. ix, ff. 193–197 (ff. 291–223), jawaharlal nehru to subhas chandra bose, allahabad, april 3, 1939: quote from f. 195 (f. 221). he is probably referring here to the reichskristallnacht pogroms, judging by the date, late in 1938. [62] benjamin zachariah, nehru (london: routledge, 2004), 97. [63] gordon, brothers against the raj, 441–490. [64] ior: l/pj/12/73. [65] decipher of d.i.b. [director, intelligence bureau] private telegram no. 347, sent 11.12.1945, received 12.12.1945, in recently released file (2014), national archives (uk), kv-2 3904, 41. [66] ior: l/pj/12/74. [67] a recent biographer of subhas chandra bose, a relative who hopes to use a renewal of nationalist hagiography around this figure to launch his own career in politics, either deliberately suppresses material in his possession, or cannot be bothered to look at them, for this material must yield at least as much evidence as i have been able to present in this paper. sugata bose, his majesty’s opponent: subhas chandra bose and india’s struggle against empire (cambridge, ma: belknap press, 2011). see my review of the book in american historical review 117 no. 2 (april 2012): 509–510. [68] for indian, and in particular bengali, engagements with italy under fascism, see mario prayer, “self, other and alter idem: bengali internationalism and fascist italy in the 1920s and 30s,” calcutta historical journal 26, no.1 (january–june 2006): 1–32. [69] michel foucault, “truth and power,” in power/knowledge: selected interviews and other writings, 1972–1977, ed. colin gordon (new york: harvester, 1980). [70] roland barthes, mythologies, trans. annette lavers (1957; repr., london: paladin, 1972). [71] this distinction is proposed tongue-in-cheek in mann, fascists, x. mann sees a “family resemblance,” in terms of “organic nationalism, radical statism and paramilitarism,” between fascism and many tendencies more loosely called fascist! see mann, fascists, ix. [72] for an anti-fascist view from the period, see tagore, hitlerism. [73] m.k. gandhi to romain rolland, 20 december 1931, in collected works of mahatma gandhi, vol. 54, 297. http://www.gandhiserv.org [accessed on 15. february 2009]. [74] m.n. roy, fascism: its philosophy, professions and practice (1938; repr., calcutta: jijnasa, 1973), 31–32. [75] i have made similar points elsewhere: see benjamin zachariah, “in search of the indigenous: jc kumarappa and the philosophy of ‘gandhian economics,’” in colonialism as civilising mission: the case of british india, ed. harald fischer-tiné, michael mann (london: anthem press, 2004), 248–269; zachariah, “development: possible nations,” chap. 4 in developing india. see also ranajit guha, “discipline and mobilise,” in subaltern studies 7: writings on south asian history and society, ed. partha chatterjee and gyanendra pandey (oxford: oxford university press, 1992), 69–120; on gandhi’s distaste for parliaments see mohandas k. gandhi, “hind swaraj[1909],” in gandhi: hind swaraj and other writings, ed. anthony j. parel (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1997); on his wish to be “dictator” of the non-cooperation movement (albeit before mussolini’s march on rome and thus before “dictator” had acquired its fascist connotations), see jawaharlal nehru, an autobiography (london: bodley head, 1936), 46f. [76] see, for example, israel gershoni, “egyptian liberalism in an age of ‘crisis of orientation.’ al-risāla’s reaction to fascism and nazism, 1933–39,” in international journal of middle east studies 31 (1999): 551–576. for a useful discussion on the presentist problems of discussing the relationship between national socialism and the “arab world,” see sophie wagenhofer, “rassischer” feind – politischer freund? inszenierung und instrumentalisierung des araberbildes im nationalsozialistischen deutschland (berlin: klaus schwarz verlag, 2010), 9–17. [77] there were several articles in the congress socialist, for instance, from 1934 to 1938 (when the journal folded for lack of funds) that reiterated these points. [78] benjamin zachariah, developing india; benjamin zachariah,“interlude: envisioning the new india,” in nehru (london: routledge, 2004), 139–168; benjamin zachariah, playing the nation game (delhi: yoda press, 2011). [79] the greater india society, whose members included the historian romesh chandra majumdar and the linguist suniti kumar chatterjee, was influential in pushing the idea of an indian cultural sphere that extended into east and southeast asia. see susan bayly, “’imagining ‘greater india’: french and indian visions of colonialism in the indic mode,” in modern asian studies 38, no. 3 (2004): 703–744. [80] i have in mind here something in the nature of a begriffsgeschichte approach; see reinhard koselleck, “richtlinien für das lexikon politisch-sozialer begriffe der neuzeit,” in archiv für begriffsgeschichte 11 (1967): 81–99. the contention is that one cannot understand the political life of a state (we could say here, an area we have identified for our purposes as a unit of political discourse) without understanding the central historical-political categories (geschichtliche grundbegriffe) which inform that unit. however, it is harder to identify these categories in the process of formation, and especially as they operate across linguistic, “national” or cultural contexts. in this connection, see melvin richter, “begriffsgeschichte and the history of ideas,” in journal of the history of ideas 48, no. 2 (1987): 247–263; also zachariah, developing india, 13–17, for a formulation of this problem in connection with india in the context of the skinner debate. [81] see, for instance, stefan arvidsson, aryan idols: indo-european mythology as ideology and science (2004; repr., chicago: university of chicago press, 2006); alex owen, the place of enchantment: british occultism and the culture of the modern (chicago: university of chicago press, 2004); anne taylor, annie besant: a biography (new york: oxford university press, 1992); tony ballantyne, orientalism and race: aryanism in the british empire (basingstoke: palgrave, 2002); and for an earlier and uncritical acceptance of aryanism, e.b. havell, the history of aryan rule in india (london: george g. harrap & company ltd, 1918). for discussion of an extreme version of aryanism that actually invoked the nazis, see nicholas goodrick-clarke hitler’s priestess: savitri devi, the hindu-aryan myth, and neo-nazism (new york: new york university press, 1998). [82] subhas chandra bose, “the indian struggle, 1920–1934,” in the indian struggle, 1920–1942 (calcutta: asia publishing house, 1964). [83] subhas chandra bose, “report of an interview with r. palme dutt, published in the daily worker, london, january 24, 1938,” in netaji collected works, volume 9: congress president: speeches, articles and letters, january 1938–may 1939, eds. sisir kumar bose and sugata bose (delhi: oxford university press, 1995), 2. [84] framke, “encounters with fascism and national socialism in non-european regions,” 365. [85] benoy kumar sarkar, preface in the folk-element in hindu culture: a contribution to socio-religious studies in hindu folk-institutions (london: longman’s, green & co., 1917), vii. [86] sarkar, preface in the folk-element in hindu culture, ix, quoting professor r.r. marrett’s paper on “folklore and psychology” read before the london folklore society. [87] sarkar, preface in the folk-element in hindu culture, xvi. also, benoy kumar sarkar, chinese religion through hindu eyes: a study in the tendencies of asiatic mentality (shanghai: the commercial press, 1916), from which he quotes at length in the preface to the folk-element in hindu culture. [88] roy, “youth, paramilitary organisations and national discipline.” [89] mrinalini sinha, colonial masculinity: the “manly englishman” and the “effeminate bengali” in the late nineteenth century (manchester: manchester university press, 1995); john rosselli, “the self-image of effeteness: physical education and nationalism in nineteenth-century bengal,” in past & present 86 (february 1980): 121–148. [90] for the larger argument behind this, see benjamin zachariah, “the invention of hinduism for national use,” in playing the nation game, 153–204. [91] see for instance nicholas goodrick-clarke, the occult roots of nazism: secret aryan cults and their influence on nazi ideology (new york: new york university press, 1992); eric kurlander, “the orientalist roots of national socialism? nazism, occultism, and south asian spirituality, 1919–1945,” in transcultural encounters between germany and india, 155–169. [92] benoy kumar sarkar, “the influence of india on western civilisation,” in journal of race development 9 (1918–1919): 91–104; 101–2. originally an address given at columbia university, new york, april 1918. [93] georgi dimitrov, “the working class against fascism,” in marxists in the face of fascism, ed. david beetham (new jersey: barnes and noble, 1984), 179–186. [94] zeev sternhell has recently pointed out that the core of ideas that he is willing to call fascist were already in place before the first world war, and were concerned with a conscious rejection of universalist ideas that were a part of what he calls the eighteenth century inheritance—for instance in the writings of charles maurras. this is missed by a purely “material conditions” approach. he also points out that the need to identify fascist trends in political thinking is connected with the related political risks of such a rejection; see zeev sternhell, “how to think about fascism and its ideology,” in constellations 15.3 (2008): 280–290. of course, the rejection of “post-enlightenment rationality” is not peculiar to full-fledged fascism (some post-colonial thinkers do the same, with different implications). but the similarities and differences, and the routes of divergence will be crucial to a properly contextualised study of any political ideology. [95] this view is in consonance with robert o. paxton, in which approach fascism is what it does rather than what it says, as it has no major or consistent theorist; see robert o. paxton, the anatomy of fascism (new york: alfred a. knopf, 2004), esp. 16. at which point, as sternhell points out in response, huge bodies of opinion, massive amounts of printed material in circulation, etc. must simply be discounted as unimportant, and there is no real ground for a generic category “fascism”; see sternhell, “how to think about fascism,” 282f. attempts to study fascism out of power include linz, “some notes towards a comparative study of fascism.” [96] for a notable set of enquiries that begins to question, though inadequately (by still holding on to a “diffusionist” model), the eurocentric framework, see stein ugelvik larsen, ed.,fascism outside europe: the european impulse against domestic conditions in the diffusion of global fascism (boulder, colo.: social science monographs, 2001). for a more recent and more successful attempt to analyse the coming together of domestic and international considerations and the process of mutual recognition (a term that the book does not use, but could well have done) of different kinds of fascism, see finchelstein, transatlantic fascism. [97] see benedict anderson, imagined communities: reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism (london: verso, 1983), for the piracy idea, though not in the context of fascism. [98] benjamin zachariah, “in pursuit of moving ideas: notes on the chase,” in knowledge, space and locality: transcultural reconfigurations between asia and europe, ed. joachim kurtz and martin hofmann (forthcoming). [99] for a strong critique of this approach, now more than two decades old, see paul a. cohen, “the problem with ‘china’s response to the west,’” in discovering history in china: american historical writing on the recent chinese past (new york: columbia university press, 1984), 9–55. [100] see griffin, ed., fascism. the debates on fascism and nazism in latin america are, however, far more subtle that those on asia or the arab world. see, for instance, finchelstein, transatlantic fascism; ronald c. newton, “nazi menace” in argentina, 1931-1947 (stanford: stanford university press, 1992); jürgen müller, ed.,nationalsozialismus in lateinamerika: die auslandsorganisation der nsdap in argentinien, brasilien, chile und mexico, 1931–1945 (stuttgart: heinz, 1997). these deal in a differentiated way with questions of propaganda, affinities of ideas, and reception. i can claim no systematic acquaintance with the literature, and must thank dr silke nagel for bringing some of this material to my attention, without, of course, implicating her in the inadequacies of my treatment of it. [101] dimitrov, “the working class against fascism.” [102] antonio gramsci, “notes on italian history,” in selections from the prison notebooks, ed. and trans. quintin hoare and geoffrey nowell smith (london: lawrence & wishart, 1971), 1–48. [103] for the question of the class basis of other fascisms, or for other marxists recognising that a top-down approach was inadequate, see, notably, clara zetkin, august thalheimer, and wilhelm reich; and see f. l. carsten, “interpretations of fascism,” in fascism: a reader's guide, 459–487. [104] on the cold war-imposed nature of the “totalitarianism” concept, see ian kershaw and moshe lewin, ed., preface in stalinism and nazism: dictatorships in comparison (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1997), xi. the lumping together of different regimes under the label “totalitarian” makes sense only as a reference to state capacity, and does not allow for comparative study of groups who might have desired state power but did not have it, or indeed, those who had state power but a weak state. [105] see bruno bongiovanni, “totalitarianism: the word and the thing,” in journal of modern european history 3 (2005): 5–17. [106] zeev sternhell, “fascist ideology,” 325–406, quote from 379; he writes specifically about italian fascism, but also mentions the spanish version. [107] vladimir i. lenin, the state and revolution: the marxist theory of the state and the tasks of the proletariat in the revolution (1918; marxists internet archive, 1999), http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ [accessed on 19. november 2010]. [108] roger eatwell, fascism: a history (1995; repr., london: vintage, 1996), xxiv. [109] roger griffin, the nature of fascism. see also roger griffin, “the primacy of culture: the current growth (or manufacture) of consensus within fascist studies,” in journal of contemporary history 37, no. 1 (2002): 21–43. [110] hannah arendt, the origins of totalitarianism (new york: harcourt, brace and co., 1951); theodor adorno and max horkheimer, dialectic of enlightenment (amsterdam: querido, 1944/1947). [111] frantz fanon, the wretched of the earth (1961; repr., harmondsworth: penguin, 1967), 79–81; frantz fanon, black skin, white masks (1952; repr., new york: grove press, 1968), 115f. [112] see below. [113] fanon, black skin, white masks, 115; see in particular 115–122 on the “negro and the jew.” [114] wilhelm reich, the mass psychology of fascism (1933, revised 1942; repr., new york: farrar, strauss & giroux); erich fromm,the fear of freedom (london: routledge, 2001). originally published as erich fromm, escape from freedom (new york: farrar & rinehart, 1941). [115] one volume, kevin passmore ed., women, gender and fascism in europe, 1919–45 (new brunswick: rutgers university press, 2003), uses “fascism” in its title, but (perhaps usefully) extends its analysis to far right movements more broadly, and includes studies of italy, germany, romania, hungary, serbia, croatia, yugoslavia (as a whole), latvia, poland, france, spain, britain, and europe more generally. there is a certain slippage that is in fact inadvertently productive: from fascism to far-right movements to ultra-nationalist movements. [116] for instance, casolari, “hindutva’s foreign tie-up.” by contrast, christophe jaffrelot, the hindu nationalist movement and indian politics 1925 to the 1990s: strategies of identity-building, implantation and mobilisation (london: hurst, 1996), specifically avoids the fascism question. [117] see markus daechsel, “scientism and its discontents: the indo-muslim ‘fascism’ of inayatullah khan al-mashriqi,” in modern intellectual history 3, no. 3 (2006): 443–472, esp. 453 on mashriqi’s account of his meeting with hitler. [118] golwalkar, we or our nationhood defined. [119] griffin noted in 1995 that there was no consensus on what constituted a “fascist minimum,” and that there were very few historians who were willing to engage with generic fascism; see griffin, fascism, 1. [120] see manjapra, “the mirrored world,” 295–362, on benoy kumar sarkar. i disagree with manjapra that the eclecticism of sarkar’s ideological influences indicates merely “affinities” with fascism but not fascism proper—what, then, is fascism proper? this is especially so since sarkar’s is not a case of a distant and superficial engagement with a set of ideas, but one of first-hand acquaintance. [121] see, for instance, griffin, modernism. also mann, fascists, where the use of the category “modernity” is somewhat superficial: it is european, and has a “dark side”; fascism and communism are “alternative, if failed, visions of modernity” (p. 17). [122] sternhell, “how to think about fascism.” [123] kevin passmore, “the ideological origins of fascism before 1914,” in the oxford handbook of fascism, 11–31. [124] for such an approach, see finchelstein, translatlantic fascism. [125] for a recent, and provocative, comparative perspective that reads nazi germany as “socialist” rather than as “fascist,” see alberto spektorowski, “the eugenic temptation in socialism: sweden, germany, and the soviet union,” in comparative studies in society and history 46, no. 1 (2004): 84–106. see the recent oxford handbook of the history eugenics, eds. philippa levine and alison bashford (oxford: oxford university press, 2010). [126] zachariah, “rethinking (the absence of) fascism in india.” [127] see ian kershaw, the nazi dictatorship, 4th ed. (london: arnold, 2000), 28. [128] jayaprakash narayan’s claim in why socialism? (benares: all india congress socialist party, 1936). some of the writing in the first issue of the congress socialist, equating social democracy with fascism, echoed the comintern line of the time; see ashit mukerjea, “social democracy = fascism,” congress socialist (29.09.1934): 10f. the similarity is illustrated by the “crossovers” of oswald mosley, and earlier benito mussolini; also by the cripps tendency in the british labour party. mukerjea speaks of “social democratic betrayal and treachery, particularly from 1914 onwards,” and calls it “the pathmaker for the advance of fascism and imperialist war.” [129] amarendra prasad mitra, “the communal problem and the national movement,” in congress socialist (29.09.1934): 6. he characterised the congress as a “hindu bourgeois party”; such unities as were stressed by congress and did not exist as common between hindus and muslims, alienating the muslim bourgeoisie, and leading to “muslim national idealism,” see 6f. [130] “letter to the editor from asit mukerjea,” calcutta, 04 october 1934, in congress socialist (06.10.1934): 16. [131] mitra, “the communal problem,” in congress socialist (29.09.1934): 7. [132] congress socialist (10.03.1935): 10. [133] mokshagundam visvesvaraya, rural reconstruction in india: an outline of a scheme (bangalore city: bangalore press, 1931), 15. [134] mokshagundam visvesvaraya, “citizenship training,” chap. 6 in nation building: a five-year plan for the provinces (bangalore city: bangalore press, 1937), 38f. [135] visvesvaraya, nation-building, 39. the process of such training was also laid out: the “ordinary citizen” was to be “advised” by the “leaders of the country” (who must first “come to a proper understanding among themselves”) to “adopt a standard dress, a uniform language, besides certain well-recognised international habits and practices in matters pertaining to business, society, travel and self-defence”; see visvesvaraya, nation-building,42. [136] mokshagundam visvesvaraya, district development scheme: economic progress by forced marches (bangalore city: bangalore press, 1939), 60. in this vein, caste distinctions, “communalism” and untouchability could be dealt with through economic progress. this was an idea which visvesvaraya first advanced in his reconstructing india (london: p. s. king, 1920), especially 8, 13–15. [137] visvesvaraya, district development scheme, 12. [138] mokshagundam visvesvaraya, planned economy for india (bangalore city: bangalore press, 1934), 263. [139] tomaso sillani, ed., what is fascism and why? (lo stato mussoliniano), trans. c. grove heines, helen rossetti angeli et al.(london: ernest benn, 1931), as cited in visvesvaraya, planned economy, 260. [140] visvesvaraya, planned economy, 203, 205, 263. he also produced a set of “rules for citizen efficiency,” visvesvaraya,planned economy, 264f. [141] w. r. john, office of dy insp-gen of police, rys & cid, madras, june 17, 1930 to cowgil, personal asst to dib simla, copy to bengal ib dig, with enclosure of a report on one prof. ukil, who travelled with one e. r. mahajani [information not on file] and left india via dhanushkodi on july 23, 1929, f.173. enclosure, “copy of a report from a source, regarding prof. doctor ukil, and manoranjan gupta.” intelligence bureau files, ib sl no. 44/1928, file no. 53/28, ff.172–171, west bengal state archives [wbsa], calcutta. [142] ib sl no. 44/1928, file no. 53/28, ff.172–171, wbsa, calcutta. fritz diettrich ed., die gandhi revolution (dresden: w. jess, 1930). [143] zachariah, developing india. [144] george joseph to jawaharlal nehru, july 18, 1936, jnp, nml, vol. 37, ff. 57–8. [145] nehru to george joseph, august 7, 1936, jnp, nml, vol 37, f. 59. [146] one exception is lord londonderry, an example documented by ian kershaw, making friends with hitler: lord londonderry, the nazis and the road to war (london: penguin, 2004). kershaw’s willingness to treat this exceptional case as more exceptional than it really was is based on studies of documents produced within the constraints of what was acceptable in polite circles in england; a study of the correspondence of colonial officials would yield another view. see, for instance, the correspondence in the papers of p.j. grigg, then finance member of the viceroy’s executive council, churchill college archive centre, university of cambridge, especially grigg’s correspondence with montagu norman, governor of the bank of england. [147] nehru to babu bhagavandas, (23.09.1933), jnp, nml, vol. 7, ff. 263–5. emphasis mine. [148] it might be added that this was also quite far from what many, both at the time and retrospectively, would be willing to call a “marxist view” of history, unless it be seen as a rather caricatured simplification of the idea of the bolshevik “vanguard,” as expressed in stalin’s leadership cult. [149] written by nehru under the pseudonym “chanakya”; see modern review (november 1937), copy in jnp, nml, part ii, sl no 54 and nehru’s letter to krishna kripalani at vishwa bharati university, (02.06.1938) jnp, nml, vol. 41, ff. 5–6, in which he confirms he wrote it himself. [150] one of the major deficiencies in the literature on fascism in the arab world is that it concentrates on saying that there wasn’t any, wasn’t much, or that its existence was invented in retrospect by zionist propagandists to justify israel. i have refrained here from analysing this in much detail, but see, for instance, various levels of apologia in gerhard höpp, peter wien, and rene wildangel eds., blind für die geschichte? arabische begegnungen mit dem nationalsozialismus (berlin: klaus schwarz verlag, 2004). the counter-position, from herf, nazi propaganda for the arab world, is equally flat, and appears to rely upon the idea of “the arab” as an undifferentiated entity (as at times, however, does the position he opposes). [151] see benjamin zachariah, “internationalisms in the interwar years: the travelling of ideas,” in the internationalist moment: south asia, worlds and world views, 1917–1939, eds., ali raza, franziska roy, and benjamin zachariah (delhi: sage, 2014), 1–21. [152] see, for instance, johannes voigt, indien im zweiten weltkrieg (stuttgart: deutsche-verlags-anstalt, 1978); milan hauner, india in axis strategy: germany, japan and indian nationalists in the second world war (stuttgart: klett-cotta, 1981); romain hayes, subhas chandra bose in nazi germany: politics, intelligence, and propaganda, 1941–43 (new york: columbia university press, 2011); jan kuhlmann, subhas chandra bose und die indienpolitik der achsenmächte (berlin: schiler verlag, 2003); hans-bernd zöllner,der feind meines feindes ist mein freund: subhas chandra bose und das zeitgenössisches deutschland unter dem nationalsozialismus, 1933–1943 (münster: lit, 2000), and the “netaji”-focused list could be greatly multiplied, with contemporary accounts, memoirs of allies, associates and admirers, and so on. narrative art between india and the hellenistic world | taddei | transcultural studies narrative art between india and the hellenistic world maurizio taddei these pages synthesize everything i said—not read—over the course of four lectures given at the ismeo seminars in the palazzo brancaccio on february 15, 22, 29, and on march 7, 1992.[*] there are also some additions, partially prompted by the questions posed to me at the end of each meeting, meant to make the presentation more precise and well-documented. i had the opportunity to talk about closely related subjects on various occasions: at the institut für tibetologie und buddhismuskunde of the university of vienna in 1989, at the institut d'archéologie et d'histoire ancienne of the university of lausanne in 1990, and once more in the same year at the institute of archaeology of the archaeological survey of india, in new delhi. the same subjects—analyzed more from an indian than a gandharan viewpoint—were also dealt with during my course “archaeology and history of the art of india” at the faculty of letters and philosophy of the istituto universitario orientale di napoli during the academic year 1991–92. a final notice: some of the reflections that follow have been included in an article currently being printed in vestnik drevnej drevnei istorii. journal of ancient history.[†] i would like to thank prof. gherardo gnoli, president of ismeo, and dr. beniamino melasecchi, director of ismeo schools, for asking me to hold this series of lectures and for encouraging me to publish this essay. il faut [...] admettre que les bouddhistes indiens, quoique ayant servi de maîtres à tous les autres, n'ont pas plus que les autres pulsé en eux-mêmes la connaissance de la statuaire, et qu'ils ont, eux aussi, appris à martier le ciseau à l'imitation de maines étrangères. mais alors de qui ont-ils pu tenir l'art de la sculpture? les collections du museé de lahore répondent: ils l'ont tenu des grecs. (one has […] to admit that the indian buddhists, although they played the role of teachers for all others, have not for their part pushed for an understanding of statuary art more than the others, and that they, like the others, have learned to handle the chisel by imitating foreign hands. but then, from whom could they have received the art of sculpture? the collection in the lahore museum gives the answer: they received it from the greeks). —th. duret the gandharan school is not an example of hellenistic influence upon indian art, but the reverse [...] —e. b. havell [...] the gandhāra school was merely a branch of the cosmopolitan graeco-roman art of the early empire. —v. a. smith[1] for the last century and more, the study of indian art has been investigating the most formal, or rather morphological aspects of the ancient production, coming to a stylistic classification that is fairly accurate, though not as sophisticated as that of greek art; at the same time, efforts were made to pursue an analysis of the images that made the most of the literary tradition, in an endeavor to decipher and classify or, in other words, label, the figurative scenes. confined in this manner to the narrow tracks of a purely descriptive iconography, the history of indian art has not yet opened itself to the methodological approaches that have borne fruit in other contexts and that also represent prospects which may be provisionally put aside but cannot be fully ignored: i am above all referring to the social history of art, to warburg-related iconology, and to the different structuralist approaches. in recent times, i have been happy to assist in the rise of new interests—including the directions just mentioned—that pay particular attention to dealing with the problems related to the concept of “narration.” this has been a particular focus of a recent essay by vidya dehejia[2] (we will have occasion to come back to this). it was already quite common to make use of the expression “narrative art” as opposed to others such as “symbolic art,” “iconism,” etc. for example, the english scholar john irwin, who is particularly interested in symbolic—cosmological and above all cosmogonic—aspects of indian art, wrote that “gandhāra artists worked mainly in the service of texts, and what they give us is literary narrative in stone—not an art speaking its own aesthetic language.”[3] we will come back to this. since it is my intent here to go into some aspects of “narration” within the artistic production in india and gandhāra, i will first try to explain the term “narration.” it seems to me that it can be connected—in the sense that concerns us here—with myths and stories, when these become artistic creation. i draw a distinction between “myth” and “story” because, although it is true that all myths are stories, not all stories are myths; however, we can say that a story may contain a varying number of mythical elements, and that all myths may be “told” in a more or less articulate manner, depending on their narrators. when i say “myth”—perhaps the explanation is superfluous—i am talking about the cognitive process that, in our culture, from plato onwards, is distinguished from logos or logical reasoning, while cultures that are different from ours have considered it, and still do consider it, an entirely appropriate way to express a system of thoughts.[4] it is our culture, following aristotle above all, that has sharply pitted mythos against logos, placing the latter on a higher level than the former, to which at most an auxiliary function was attributed. by “story,” on the other hand, i mean a type of narration that is not explicitly mythical, but rather sets out to record and describe events which actually occurred in historical time even if the narrator/artist did not personally experience them. it is not always possible to draw a definite line between myth and story; on the other hand, it is not even always possible to clearly separate mythical and logical thinking. but this is an issue that would take us too far from our topic. fig. 1: descent of buddha from the trāyastriṃśa heaven. relief found at butkara i, swat valley, pakistan. now preserved at swat museum, saidu sharif. [fig. 3 in the original.] at this point we realize the fact that, under the category “narrative art,” we end up finding works as different from each other as a relief with the descent of the buddha from the trāyastriṃśa heaven (fig. 3) and one of the scenes from trajan’s column in rome: in the first as well as the second we are confronted with an event that is narrated, but in one case are dealing with a myth that is being told—albeit with essential simplicity—whereas, in the other, with a story that tends to become a myth but which is firmly rooted in history, or, to be more precise, the annals. the objects here in the second are common objects: weapons, fences, ponds, and bridges. but in the first, the stairs which form the core of the representation are not common stairs to be used at their pleasure by the characters of the narration: they are most definitely symbols. we can agree therefore that, in this manner, the concept of “narrative art” remains rather vague, being only the opposite of representations that are fixed in an iconic rigidity: in icons, to be precise, from which all becoming is excluded. these are the vehicles of a “message” that is made only in space and does not unfold in time, because time belongs to the relative, the human, to things that can be felt: the icon on the other hand aims at reproducing the absolute as it is experienced by the artist—or rather as the artist learned to reproduce it from the instructions by those who had experienced god, thus situating himself as the intermediary between truth and the faithful.[5] it is worthwhile to invoke the words of a unique and original thinker, the russian orthodox priest pavel florenskij:[6] the witnesses [i.e. the saints], by way of the icon painters, give us the images—eide, eikónes—of their vision. through their artistic form, the icons bear witness directly and graphically to the reality of these forms: they pronounce the name of god with lines and colors. … icon painters thus bear witness not to their art of making icons, i.e. to themselves, but to the holy witnesses of the lord and, with them, to the lord himself. at this level of significance, it is clear that the pictorial representation is not something that can stop halfway: either it reaches its purpose, putting us in touch with the symbolized reality and therefore becoming one with its purpose, or it does not, and is therefore dead and misleading. in this perspective, there is no room for mediocre works: we have masterpieces, or nothing. florenskij even declares his conviction through the following upsetting but perfectly consistent formulation: among the philosophical demonstrations of god's existence the most convincing seems to be one that you cannot find in manuals: it can be expressed through the syllogism “because rublev’s[7] trinity exists, god exists!” this viewpoint may seem strange to the european reader, even more so because it is expressed by a european scholar—albeit an eastern european and member of the clergy—who was anything but ignorant of the modern speculation that took place until the first decades of our century (he died in a stalinist prison in 1943); i think it can nevertheless be of some help to us in approaching the field of indian iconography with greater sensibility. in india—and the himalayan countries—the correspondence between the divine and the image (the icon, which is not only mūrti, “form,” but pratimā, or rather bimba, reflection as in a mirror) is guaranteed either by the artist's mystical experience or by the tradition, of which the priests or, in some cases, the whole community, are guardians.[8] if we were to find a constant feature in different religious contexts that allows us to define an icon, we could say that it is the testimony of divine presence and immobility par excellence. it was not without reason that the rulers who wished to state the divine origin of their royalty—if not their own partaking of divine nature—made use of the formal qualities that usually mark an icon: frontality, immobility, rigidity, luminosity, and bi-dimensionality. i think that, at this point, the fundamental difference between icon and narrative representation should be clear; but it should be equally clear that it would be a mistake to consider these two categories as being quite distinct, without overlapping. fig. 2: stela from kāpiśa, afghanistan. now preserved at the national museum of afghanistan, kabul. [fig. 12 in the original.] it might suffice to give one example: when india and the same gandhāra, probably under the impulse of mature mahāyāna thought, started to favor the images of the buddha or of bodhisattvas as isolated figures or in mystical groups (e.g. triads) which were, however, not inserted into a narrative context, those who commissioned the images did not altogether neglect the episodes of the buddha’s life or his former lives as told in the jātakas to build meaningful compositions. these stories, however, were crystallized in highly simplified forms that seem to act only as reminders. this is true for some stela from kāpiśa (fig. 12), as well as some of the reliefs on the façade of cave 19 at ajanta depicting the dīpaṃkara jātaka and siddhārtha's meeting with his son,[9] and also in some pāla stela such as the one from nālandā with the story of the conversion of aṅgulimāla, etc.[10] the distinctive elements of the scene have by now been reduced to mere attributes, such as the piglet in the iconography of st. anthony the abbot, or the cogwheel in that of st. catherine of alexandria, though perhaps without the ethno-historical substance of the latter. the predominant feature in these works is the image of the buddha, whose colossal dimensions reveal him as what he is, regardless of the insertion into a story: we are tempted to define it as a true and proper icon with a juxtaposition of a narrative element, in accordance with a conventional compromise that was not to meet with great success. yet we must return with this opinion to a more cautious definition as we can see that—in some cases at least—these works act as a “support” to others that are central in both the physical and the ideational sense, and their purpose is to transmit, by means of allegory, a doctrinal and ideological message that is normally foreign to the true icon.[11] therefore, we must admit that, when we speak of “narrative art” in connection with the art of gandhāra, we are only saying that this art finds its best expression in recounting coherent sequences, or fabulae,[12] which is perhaps saying quite a lot but is definitely not everything. the interesting question is, rather, a different one: in telling these stories—and we all know that they are mainly episodes in the life of the buddha—in what way does gandhāra differ from indian art and in what from hellenistic-roman art? we will try to give an answer by looking at this problem from another point of view, the widely debated issue of the so-called classic “component” in the art of gandhāra. it is a well-known fact that, when it was discovered (in the second half of the nineteenth century), gandhāran art was hailed with real enthusiasm by western scholars, who saw in the gandharan production a felicitous—if not the most felicitous—moment for the art of the subcontinent and, according to some, the only one that could be called art. the indian content was not questioned, but it was the hellenic form that gave it aesthetic dignity. what was happening in european culture at the time? the first half of the nineteenth century had witnessed a blossoming of studies on the religions of india, which went together with the expansion and consolidation of british rule in the subcontinent. one had passed from a stage of tentative and nebulous knowledge where one was incapable of distinguishing between buddhism and brahmanism to one of critical analysis, of verification based on texts. by the mid-nineteenth century, scholars had access to some well-grounded works, some of which are still useful to this day. it is enough to remind ourselves that the first edition of introduction à l'histoire du bouddhisme indien, by eugène burnouf, saw the light in 1844. such was the impact, such the fascination that the philosophical and above all the ethical doctrines of buddhism exerted on the european—and in particular evidently the english—intellectuals that priggish victorians and the anglican clergy took the trouble to denounce, at times with the pitch of an ideological crusade, the “dangers” of this asiatic religion. its greatest sin was located in its alleged or real atheism, as well as in the theory of reincarnation: in this condemnation, buddhism was matched with darwin's theory of the evolution of species. however, we must say that the crusade against buddhism was generally a failure: the light of asia, a narration in blank verse of the life of the buddha, written by edwin arnold and first published in 1879, ran to at least a hundred reprints in england and america and helped to spread knowledge to very broad audiences that had hitherto been the preserve of a few specialists. at the end of the century, the enthusiasm for buddhism—in spite of the numerous condemnations shared by the fortunate english poet and the ancient indian sage—was at its highest and would be maintained in one way or another to this day.[13] in buddhism, arnold, and with him scholars in universities and academies, had discovered an acceptable face of asia and particularly of india. in his preface, in which he avoids any, even veiled, confrontation with christianity, arnold defines buddhist asia as a “magnificent empire of belief” that unfortunately today does not include india, although “the mark of gautama's sublime teaching is stamped ineffaceably upon modern brahmanism, and the most characteristic habits and convictions of the hindus are clearly due to the benign influence of buddha’s precepts.”[14] even those who maintained an attitude of rejection towards buddhism could not help but find in gautama a wonderfully wise person, on par with and perhaps superior to the sages of greek and roman antiquity, though not comparable to jesus of nazareth. we can witness an appropriation of buddhist thought by european culture. stripped of its less “digestible” elements, buddhist thought ended up being likened in a way to christianity, especially from an ethical point of view. in this process, the new atmosphere naturally had a considerable weight which had been formed with the arrival of comparatism in the study of religions. while, on the one hand, europeans could approach buddhism without causing too much scandal and even recognize in it (with the help of scholars of max mueller’s caliber) quasi-christian elements, this christianity on the other hand was from now on also studied as one among many religions: in mid-century germany and france, even more than in england, rationalism and positivism obtained great success in inducing a critical reassessment of the figure of christ thanks to two works which also did not fail to make their influence felt in england: das leben jesu kritisch bearbeitet (1835) (the life of jesus, critically examined, english translation by george eliot, london, 1846), written by the hegelian david friedrich strauss (now known for being the target of a violent attack by friedrich nietzsche in 1873), but above all, vie de jésus (1863) (the life of jesus, english translation london, 1863) by ernest renan. we are also not lacking attempts to locate a common ground in the gospels of christ and the buddha in coincidences, “accord,” or interdependence: we may mention, at least from the 1880s to the first decade of the twentieth century, the names of the german rudolf seydel, the dutchman g.a. van den bergh van eysinga, and the american albert j. edmunds;[15] but for the italian reader, the translation which carlo formichi gave us in 1912 of aśvaghoṣa’s buddhacarita, accompanied by an introductory essay and a commentary, deserves to be briefly brought back to mind. formichi compared the two religions, implying, in some respects, a preference for buddhism. he was answered not only—and in a calm way—by [the then prime minister] luigi luzzatti, who maintained the superiority of christianity, but also by a curious pamphlet from a priest, one pier luigi veneziani. we are less interested in the arguments against formichi and luzzatti than in the argument veneziani tried to make with regard to the buddhacarita and its author because it shows how dangerous the catholic church considered, on the eve of world war i, the rivalry “of a buddhism that nowadays they want to substitute for christianity and which finds favor with the upper classes and with women, with fashionable society and theosophists and modernists of recent date: perché acwaghosa [sic] è per noi un qualche eretico fanatico che ci è restato ignoto nella storia delle eresie, o un qualche strano e solitario pensatore come il noto vecchio di lasnaia poljana, leone tolstoi, il quale sotto l'influenza di quelle idee che il giudaismo aveva da lungo tempo sparse in oriente e che il cristianesimo aveva esso pure diffuse sulla coltura e sulle idee fondamentali dell'umanità in soli 125 anni di esistenza, ci à regalato una strana e colossale mistificazione del cristianesimo stesso. e non cerchiamo se inconsciamente o per mala volontà. (for acwagosha [sic] is for us a certain heretical fanatic that has remained unknown to the history of heresy, or some strange and singular thinker like the notorious old man from yasnaya polyana, leo tolstoy, having, under the influence of those ideas which judaism had for a long time already spread to the orient and which christianity also, within just 125 years had spread into the culture and basic ideas of humanity, given us a strange and monstrous hoax of christianity itself. and we are not interested in whether this was done unconsciously or with bad intentions.) so aśvaghoṣa was nothing but “a fanatical heretic or a pagan who was not sufficiently informed about christianity!” this attitude was anything but new among writers of the catholic persuasion: the matter of christian influences became, for some of them, as noted by h. de lubac, a fixation; in this case, the lashing condemnation only reveals the embarrassment of the zealous priest when confronted with the now universally positive assessment of buddhism.[16] however, in welcoming the buddha to the western pantheon of the sages of all ages, european culture shielded itself against this other religion, brahmanism, with which it could not manage to find any point of contact and which it continued to often find repulsive, especially on account of the caste system but also because of the extreme “weirdness” of the myths surrounding its incomprehensibly numerous divinities. we are reminded of the statement by edwin arnold already quoted according to which whatever is good in brahmanism seemed to be due to the “benign influence of buddha’s precepts.” buddhism, which had by then almost disappeared from india, became, paradoxically enough, the only part of india european culture was ready to accept. i would go further: after somewhat obtuse and essentially parochial initial opposition, official european culture was able to welcome buddhism with sincere satisfaction, because insofar as it had disappeared from india, it could never be identified with any of the major ethno-political forces of modern india. moreover, having been acknowledged as similar to christianity, it could be presented as a prefiguration of christianity itself, thus giving a “historical” justification for the european presence in india. the operation was completed with the extreme emphasis placed by historians such as vincent smith on those periods of indian history that were considered particularly fortunate because they were unified and characterized by “benevolent” dynasties, which were—not coincidentally—buddhist: moving backwards in time, the gupta, the kuṣāṇa, and, above all, the maurya. at the beginning of the twentieth century, the reorganized archaeological survey of india, entrusted to the classical archaeologist john marshall by that great political manipulator of culture, lord curzon, concentrated its efforts mainly on surveying and excavating buddhist sites, leaving a bit on the sidelines the interest in hindu and muslim antiquities that had arisen during previous decades. a favorable terrain for this operation had already been prepared for some years with the first attempts to classify the “graeco-buddhist” art of gandhāra. this is not the place to delve into a history of the studies of gandhāra, especially because an overview that is admirable in its clarity has been available for some time: the contribution à l'étude de l'art du gandhâra, (contribution to the study of the art of gandhāra) by henry deydier;[17] however, some notes on the terms in which the debate was conducted in those early years seem to be called for, because i believe that they framed all later scholarly literature. in scarcely the space of a year, the englishman vincent smith and the frenchman émile senart offered two substantially similar readings of gandharan production, although they differed on the chronology. while senart, in his essay published in the journal asiatique in 1890, wanted to limit the period of the flourishing of gandharan art to the first and second centuries a.d., smith, whose article had been published a year earlier in the journal of the asiatic society of bengal, proposed 200 a.d. as the date for the earliest works of the romano-buddhist school of peshawar and 600 a.d. as the probable latest date for any work of the gandhāra school in the lower kabul valley. however, he also added that all the sculptures of any artistic merit were made between 200 and 350 a.d. smith returned to the subject of the extinction of art in india in the fourth century, a truly bizarre proposition that can nevertheless be explained by what seemed obvious to him, namely that beauty and greek (or rather roman) classicity were one and the same thing. probably the same motivation is at the root of the narrow chronological terms proposed by senart. in the beginning of this century which is so rich in initiatives, the first volume of the work that is still the most important on the subject was published in france, l'art gréco-bouddhique du gandhâra (graeco-buddhist art of gandhāra) (1905), by alfred foucher. the title itself already takes a stance and the interpretive key is extremely precise: it proceeds, in the development of the art of gandhāra, from a maximum of greekness (with a minimum of indianness) to a minimum of greekness, that is to say, a greekness which becomes more and more degraded or indianized. yet foucher keeps a balanced approach, dividing the merits between the two components in an admirable attempt at synthesis:[18] pour notre part, nous définirions volontiers cet art comme la combinaison d'une forme classique et d'un fond bouddhique, l'adaptation de la technique grecque ou, plus exactement, hellénistique à des suject strictement indiens. [...] l'originalité et l'interêt de ces oeuvres singulières consistent justement dans cette intime union du génie antique et de l'âme orientale, dans cette sort de fusion de la légende bouddhique coulée à même les moules importés d'occident. [...] c'est bien, selon le mot d'e. curtius, "une page nouvelle de l'art grec" qui s'ouvre; mais le sens de cette page ne peut être déchiffré qu'en sanskrit. (as far as we are concerned, we will gladly define this art as a combination of a classical form with a buddhist background, as the adaptation of greek or more precisely hellenistic technique to strictly indian themes […] the originality and the interest of these unique works consist exactly in this intimate union of the antique genius and the oriental soul, in this kind of fusion of the buddhist legend cast into forms imported from the west […] it is indeed, to quote ernst curtius, “a new page in greek art” that opens here; but the meaning of this page can only be deciphered in sanskrit.) however, alongside the more “academic” systematizations of the material (smith, senart, foucher, grünwedel), the first controversies also began to emerge. it was a somewhat atypical englishman, e. b. havell, who in 1908, in his book indian sculpture and painting, expressed judgments on gandharan art along the following lines: “the buddhas and bodhisattvas of this period are soulless puppets, debased types of the greek and roman pantheon, posing uncomfortably in the attitudes of indian asceticism;” and again, three years later, in his very widely distributed the ideals of indian art, he defined “graeco-buddhist” art as “the trivial, decadent sculpture of gandhara, to which many critics would attribute the source of indian artistic inspiration.”[19] havell was not denouncing greek and roman art; his intention was to show that india had produced works of art of equal value, even if reflecting different ideals. he followed in the tracks of owen jones, henry cole, and george birdwood in his esteem for indian decorative art, but the anti-gandharan polemic gives his approach a very different meaning. he reassessed non-gandharan indian art in every respect, and it is significant that havell identified gandhāra as the symbol that had to be knocked down, the obstacle that had to be removed in order to overcome the convenient misunderstanding of an india that derived the very “idea” of beauty from greece. havell’s ideas were taken up perceptively by a young indian intellectual, ananda k. coomaraswamy, who caused quite a stir at the international conference of orientalists in copenhagen in 1908 by claiming that not only gandharan art was an unfortunate hybrid from an aesthetic point of view but that the gandharan sculptors had proved to be totally inadequate for the task. this was the way in which coomaraswamy argued and, with him, indian culture showed that it knew how to react to the ideological pressure exacted by european scholars. havell and coomaraswamy’s opinions did not go unnoticed. foucher, in a lecture given at the musée guimet in 1912, tried to clarify his position:[20] c'était récemment encore la coutume de triompher bruyamment de l'infériorité artistique des indiens, réduits à accepter toute faite de la main d'autrui la réalisation concrète de leur propre idéal religieux. c'est la mode à présent, par engouement d'esthéticien ou rancune de nationaliste, de faire payer à l'école du gandhâra sa manifeste supériorité par un dénigrement systématique de sa plus noble production. nous nous refusons pour notre part à partager en cette occasion aussi bien le mépris injustifié de l'ancienne critique pour l'inspiration indigène que le dépit mal déguisé de la nouvelle contre la facture étrangère. ce n'est pas le père ou la mère qui a fait l'enfant, c'est le père et la mère. l'âme indienne n'a pas pris une part moins essentielle que le génie grec à l'élaboration de la maquette du moine-dieu. c'est un cas où l'orient et l'occident ne pouvaient rien l'un sans l'autre. il serait vain de se complaire de parti-pris et tour à tour dans l'exaltation ou le mépris, soit de l'europe, soit de l'asie, alors que l'occasion s'offre si belle de saluer dans le prototype eurasien du buddha l'une des créations les plus sublimes dont leur collaboration ait enrichi l'humanité. (just recently it was a custom to noisily hold forth about the artistic inferiority of the indians, reduced as they were to accept, ready-made by others, the specific realization of their own religious ideals. it is the fashion at present, either through the fancy of the esthete or the grudge of the nationalist, to make the school of gandhāra pay for its evident superiority through a systematic denigration of its finest works. as far as we are concerned we refuse on this occasion to either share the unjustified disdain of earlier critical opinion for the indigenous inspiration or the badly concealed spite of the new critical opinion for the foreign workmanship. it is not either father or mother who has made the child, it is father and mother. the indian soul has not played a less important role than the greek genius in the development of the model of the monk/god. this is a case where orient and occident could not have achieved anything without each other. it would be in vain to indulge in bias in either exaltation or contempt, be it for europe or asia, while there is such a beautiful opportunity to welcome in the eurasian prototype of the buddha one of the most sublime creations with which their collaboration has enriched humanity.) foucher was not wrong, but in a sense he did not understand, or pretended not to understand. coomaraswamy replied patiently:[21] for the benefit of m. foucher [...] and of other scholars who may suppose, with him, that mr. havell, professor münsterberg, and i, have cared more for indian art than for art, i may point out that our estimate of gandhara sculpture as of small aesthetic significance must not be taken as evidence of any prejudice against the art of europe; it simply indicates concurrence in the view that "in the long sands and flats of roman realism the stream of greek inspiration is lost for ever [sic]." to admire gandhara art, as art, is not a compliment to the greatness of the greeks, but only shows how far that greatness has been misunderstood. we are evidently also dealing with a dialogue of the deaf because, at the time, the most important issue was apparently the origin of the buddha image, and the dilemma, an odd one indeed, was whether or not india would have succeeded in representing the buddha in human form without the impregnating inspiration of greece. the controversy evidently ended up being more ideological than scholarly. in substance, the debate focused on iconographic models, on formal elements such as the drapery, and on architectural and decorative elements. these aspects have been thoroughly scrutinized since then, and we hope to come soon to a satisfactory chronological arrangement of the art of gandhāra on the basis of stylistic analyses as well as epigraphic, numismatic, etc. documentation.[22] what was perhaps not sufficiently taken into consideration, however, is the fact that the narrative reliefs from gandhāra tell the story of the buddha’s life in a way that has no counterpart in india and perhaps not in the classical world, either. in other words, what was not given due consideration is what we could define as the narrative structure of gandharan reliefs. i would like to attempt a reading of gandharan art from this perspective that is more focused on syntax than on morphology, even though i am well aware of the extremely provisional nature of this attempt. as is well known, jātakas and stories of the life of gautama buddha are not lacking in the earlier indian artistic production which precedes the development of the school usually defined as “greek-buddhist.” in the essay that i cited above, vidya deheja has described various forms of narrative representation, each characterized by particular technical expedients or conventions that permit, amongst other things, a considerable conciseness in narration itself. she distinguishes between monoscenic, synoptic, conflated, continued, and linear representations making use of various examples from bharhut, sanchi, amaravati, goli, and gandhāra. even though these distinctions are undoubtedly very useful, the way in which the different scenes are combined so as to produce a program, particulary when this program coincides with a “life,” is perhaps even more substantial. the famous reliefs on stūpa 1 at sanchi (first half of the first century a.d.) or the ones on the stūpa at bharhut (early decades of the first century b.c.), today in the indian museum of calcutta, are splendid examples of a fully-developed narrative art, in which the single story unfolds with an extraordinary richness of detail and of elements in the setting that are not always strictly necessary for understanding the event. the figure of the protagonist—the buddha or bodhisattva—is physically absent, a perhaps canonical preclusion that prevents the buddha from being represented in human form; he is an invisible presence, an immobile “center,” that does not act but gives meaning to the actions of the other characters. by taking the form of a symbol, the buddha is devoid of all contingency. the represented scenes obviously have their referents in buddhist literary texts, but we are dealing with texts that are not important with regard to what the buddha does but as to what the buddha says. reading a work such as the dīghanikāya will make this very clear. for example, we may take the beginning of the sāmañña phala sutta with its splendid description of the court of ajātasattu gathered during a night of a full moon and the decision to visit the enlightened one, the arrival of ajātasattu and his retinue on elephants in the mango grove of the physician jīvaka, his surprise about the absolute silence, and the vision of the enlightened one surrounded by 1500 monks in meditation. the description is greatly effective because, in all its essentiality, it has its own literary dignity independent from the philosophical substance of the story: the anamnesis which ajātasattu is induced to make of his previous religious experiences and of the enlightening words addressed to him by the buddha. there is no necessary connection between the narrative frame and the philosophical message. the reader is prepared for the sacredness of the revelation by a story in which the buddha does not play an active part. he does not perform actions; he is nothing but the word, lógos. once the story is transferred to stone, it is obvious that that word refrains from becoming a narration: to become explicit, it requires either previous knowledge by the observer or the intervention of a “guide,” as vidya dehejia duly pointed out when talking about the forerunners of narration in stone. the figures that she calls “picture-showmen” might very well have been none other than members of the saṃgha with the specific task to accompany the pilgrims. we can especially see that, in the relief of bharhut representing the sāmañña phala sutta (fig.2), the word (the teaching buddha) reveals itself the moment the story ends.[23] fig. 3: detail of a pillar from the bharhut stupa. indian museum, calcutta. this is the second scene from the bottom in figure 4. photograph, 1897, 25 x 13 cm. leiden university library, digital image library, 87931. [fig. 2 in the original.] the sculptor of bharhut has seized upon the core elements of the story: the king arrives in the mango grove with his women, on elephants, asks where the buddha and his silent followers are, and then, followed by jīvaka and the women, kneels in front of the buddha, in the light of a lamp. the buddha is, as always in these reliefs, represented by symbols: the sunshade, the empty throne, and the footprints. the structure of the story finds a perfect correspondence in the visual account. to be surprised by the fact that the buddha is not represented in human form is perfectly nonsensical. what difficulty would a sculptor as experienced in rendering the human figure as the one at bharhut have in depicting the seated buddha as he is described in the dīghanikāya? certainly none at all. not only is his choice a perfectly conscious one, it is not even necessary to think of some explicit canonical ban: the buddha is depicted in symbolic form simply because this is the fullest, most satisfying way to illustrate his role in the story. the use of the symbol does not detract from the narrative effect of the representation if we confine ourselves to the single relief. the function of the relief is to recall to memory the episode of the dīghanikāya; its effect on the devotee is of course also to remind him how even the most powerful people on earth must become humble before that mystical center, which is the word of the buddha. if we then consider the wide figurative context (fig.4), we realize that the reliefs on the pillar are not arranged in a chronological order. we will probably never be able to fully understand the “program” of the vedikā at bharhut, nor those of other contemporary or slightly later complexes such as the stūpa 1 at sanchi, but i would say that we can easily rule out that the chronological sequence of the episodes was a concern for either artists or patrons.[24] we know, however, that literary texts such as the buddhacarita, the lalitavistara, the dīvyāvadāna, and numerous other works that have come down to us in the indian original or in chinese translation, give us chronologically arranged stories of the buddha's life, or at least some elements to outline an ideal story, as has been attempted in times closer to us—and with a variety of narrative devices as well as the use of different sources—in the wake of arnold, by h. oldenberg (1881), édouard schuré (1885), r. pischel (1905), andré-ferdinand herold (1922), a. hillebrandt (1925), luigi suali (1925), e.h. brewster (1926), edward j. thomas (1927), c.a.f. rhys davids (1928), ernst waldschmidt (1929), alfred foucher (1949), giuseppe tucci (1967), and andré bareau (1985), just to name the most well-known. fig. 4:pillar from the bharhut stupa. indian museum, calcutta. repository caption: sculpture piece excavated from the stupa at bharhut: left side of ajatachatru pillar. photographic print, 1874. photographer: joseph david beglar. british library, photo 1003/(1493). [fig. 1 in the original.] it was on the abovementioned literary texts, in addition to the speeches of the buddha, the jātaka, the avadāna, and perhaps other, earlier, lost “stories” that indian sculptors from all the regional “schools” drew. from sanchi to amaravati, and from bharhut to gandhāra, we can easily identify a common corpus from which sculptors drew in accordance with the patrons’ intentions.[25] let us take by way of example a relief (c. second century a.d.) from amaravati (fig.11).[26] there appear three scenes: the one in the middle is a moment in buddha’s life—the subjugation of the elephant nālāgiri—the one on the right is a jātaka, and the one on the left an episode from the sarvaṃdadāvadāna. the scenes are separated from one another by four globular elements (lotus flowers) but these provide a break only if an analytical reading is made: the overall effect is that of a continuous representation, although there is no temporal relation between the three episodes. we are dealing with exemplary scenes, which we could more to the point call exempla or práxeis, which could be taken up in any edifying context regardless of the chronological order in which the episodes might have occurred. fig. 5: relief from amaravati. museum caption: drum-frieze from amaravati, third century. palnad marble, 37.5 x 134.75 x 7 cm. london, british museum, 1880,0709.90. © trustees of the british museum. [fig. 11 in the original.] perhaps the time is not yet ripe to attempt an interpretation of this earliest indian buddhist production in terms of social history. vidya dehejia has, however, appropriately emphasized the highly collective nature of the commissioning of these works within india proper, in śuṅga, śātavāhana, ikṣvāku, and kuṣāṇa circles, in contrast to what happened later, when almost no other commissioning was imaginable than that by royalty.[27] the individual donor often offered to pay for the execution of a small part of the work, alongside numerous others: one gets the impression of a society where a surplus of the production found itself at the disposal of a large number of producers (mainly artisans) who could directly secure merit for themselves through individual and fundamentally free donations. in such a socioeconomic situation, the success which the scenes of the buddha's life or the jātakas had on account of their exemplary value is quite understandable, supporting, as they did, an individual ethos. usages of this type are not lacking in gandhāra, either (as we will see later on), but here we are more likely to find a marked preference for the succession of scenes forming a “story” or a “life.” these scenes, arranged along the wall of the stūpa so as to be taken in at a glance during the pradakṣiṇā (the ritual circumambulation), show a narrative strategy that is particular to them: the succession of episodes alternating with small columns, pilasters, or panels (figs. 6–7) is not the only storytelling method known in gandhāra, but it is the one normally followed to narrate the life of the buddha and the jātakas. other fabulae and depictions, in which that same characteristic of a coherent narrative is in fact rather dubious, are not divided into panels, but follow each other on the wall of the stūpa in an unbroken succession of figures, whose agitated gesticulations (fig. 8) form a curious contrast with their being unfortunately mute to us, although one cannot infrequently see similarities between them and hellenistic precedents with dionysiac subjects. however, in those stories, the buddha almost never appears, and neither do the other personages of the lives (i.e. the jātakas): the choice of the narrative technique is therefore clearly dictated by the nature of the story that is being told. often the frieze with a continuous narration unfolds on the drum of the stūpa, above the frieze with the succession—in separate scenes—of episodes from the life of the buddha (figs. 8–9); this cannot be attributed to the mere demands of architectural taste, because there are also cases where the life of the buddha occupies both the upper and the lower frieze, but in these cases the narrative in both unfolds in separate scenes (fig. 10). fig. 6: relief found at saidu sharif i, swat valley. swat museum, saidu sharif, pakistan. [fig. 6 in the original.] fig. 7: provenance unknown. private collection. [fig. 7 in the original.] fig. 8: provenance unknown. private collection. [fig. 8 in the original.] fig. 9: relief found at saidu sharif i, swat valley. museo nazionale d'arte orientale, rome. [fig. 9 in the original.] fig. 10: relief found at saidu sharif i, swat valley. swat museum, saidu sharif, pakistan. [fig. 10 in the original.] unfortunately, there is very little documentation on the decorative “programs” of the gandharan stūpas. we all remember the stūpa from loriyan tangai in the indian museum of calcutta,[28] whose reliefs narrate siddhārtha’s life cycle from birth to renunciation, and the one from sikri in the lahore museum,[29] whose reliefs illustrate the whole cycle. johanna e. van lohuizen-de leeuw wrote very perceptively that “the function of these panels could be compared with that of the stations of the cross in the roman catholic churches, both used as illustrations of the master’s life and, at the same time, as a meditation-object.”[30] the comparison might well appear obvious, but it is not: in both cases a close connection is established between the narrative cycle and the worshipper’s course; it is even likely that the ritual practice of the pradakṣiṇā influenced certain technical aspects of the gandharan reliefs.[31] van lohuizen’s observation should prompt us to a closer examination. i think that the most acute analysis is the one conducted by santo mazzarino. in his il pensiero storico classico (1966) (historical thinking in classical antiquity), he wrote:[32] nell'arte buddhica di gandhara la precedente tendenza narrativa indiana, per esempio di bharhut, subisce un'evoluzione: gli artisti s'interessano alla vita del buddha, considerata in ogni suo momento, con accentuato interesse per ogni episodio [...]. anche questo aspetto [...] è grecanico e non. [...] anche per i greci non c'è distinzione, nel racconto figurato, tra fatti mitici e fatti storici, tutti visti quasi come contemporanei. ma buddhica è l'idea di una figurazione dei vari episodi che riguardino la vita e la personalità del salvatore. meglio ancora: l'idea della continuità precisa, aderente ai testi, può pur essere greca; ma quella forma classica trova la sua continuazione, in ambito indiano, nella storia figurata della vita di buddha, come anche, in ambito cristiano, nello istoriare del tardo impero e del medioevo. in tutta questa evoluzione, estrema¬mente significativa per la storia della cultura universale, [...] l'età ellenistica ha un posto eminente [...]. tuttavia, solo un classicismo maturo poteva istoriare non più battaglie o cacce, ma gli episodi che esprimono la interiorità di una vita nel suo svolgimento religioso. il senso della biografia spirituale, che è nell'arte del gandhara, presuppone che il mondo classico abbia trovato forme d'espressione per una biografia che non è più di sole práxeis; e ci riconduce, grosso modo, all'età imperiale romana, piuttosto che nel 2° secolo a. c. (in the buddhist art of gandhāra, the indian narrative propensity, for example in bharhut, undergoes a development: the artists become interested in the life of the buddha, considered in all of its moments, with a heightened interest in each episode [...]. even this aspect is both hellenic and not [...]. for the greeks there is no distinction between myth and historical facts in a pictorial narrative, both being seen as being about on the same temporal plane. but the idea of a depiction of different episodes that concern the life and the personality of the savior is buddhist. better yet: the idea of a precise continuity in a close fit with the texts may very well be greek; but this classical form finds its continuation, in the indian environment, in the illustrated history of the buddha’s life, as it also does, in the christian environment, in the istoriare (the illustration of historical narratives) of the late roman empire and the middle ages. in this entire development, which is extremely significant for the history of universal culture, the hellenistic age occupies an eminent position [...]. however, only in a mature classicism could istoriare no longer depict battles and hunts but the episodes that express what goes on inside a life in its religious development. the sense of a spiritual biography, which is there in the art of gandhāra, presupposes that the classical world has found a form of expression for a biography that is not one of praxeis (specific actions) only; and which leads back, roughly, to the age of imperial rome rather than the second century b.c.) the difference between gandharan art and the art of india proper does not lie, then, in gandharan art being “narrative” rather than symbolic (“literary narrative in stone,” in the words of john irwin), but in its use of a type of narrative that we could call historical and linear, which is absolutely original compared to both india and the west. we can indeed easily agree with mazzarino’s opinion that the gandharan way of narrating the life of buddha cannot fit into the second century b.c. but was it really necessary to wait for inspiration to come from experience with the imperial roman environment? i do not think so. this would come with the risk of falling into the same trap as sac. dott. p. l. veneziani, who, to “make sense” of aśvaghoṣa’s existence, found no better way but to make him into a christian heretic or a plagiarist of christian ideas. the excavations at butkara i in swat have yielded a fairly substantial group of reliefs with scenes from the life of buddha (figs. 3–4) that are now ascribed—together with others that are stylistically similar (figs. 5–6)—to the end of the first century b.c. or the first half of the first century a.d., both on the basis of archaeological evidence (d. faccenna) and on stylistic grounds (j. e. van lohuizen-de leeuw, john and susan huntington, chantal fabrègues). with regard to the last-named authors, i would like to point out that both huntington and fabrègues give much weight to an undoubtedly present, though maybe overestimated, stylistic element of parthian origin while overlooking what is actually significant in these reliefs, namely the knowledge of indian stylistic elaborations, particularly those of bharhut.[33] fig. 11: relief found at butkara i, swat valley. swat museum, saidu sharif, pakistan. [fig. 4 in the original.] these are scenes in which the buddha sometimes appears only as a symbol (fig. 3), and unfortunately, we cannot know into what context these were inserted. however, the shape of the panel reminds one of the horizontal linear succession pattern characteristic of gandhāra, even if there is nothing to ensure that this succession was rigorously chronological: but tendentially it certainly was. fig. 12: from swat (?). museum caption: gandhara school, the return to kapilavastu, first–second century. found at swat valley. london, british museum, 1972,0920.1. © trustees of the british museum. [fig. 5 in the original.] it was therefore at a very early date (at least during the first century a.d.) that a sequence of episodes took shape in gandhāra and consolidated that came to form—albeit with countless variations—a complete “life.” here the various narrative texts making up this “life” are no longer significant insofar as they frame the different sermons of the buddha in a fable-like chronology (i.e. the sāmañña phala sutta, for example, starts “once the exalted one was staying near rājagaha in the mango grove of the medical doctor jīvaka...”), thus, in a way, providing the episodes with a reason; the episodes acquire significance in their own right, whereas each of them gets meaning from, and at the same time confers meaning to, the others due to a mutual concatenation.[34] narrative fragments of probably different origins that were first entrusted to bards and perhaps actually originated in their environment are grouped together and take on a more definite shape; purely narrative passages alternate with events of highly symbolic import; the zest for narrating gives way to the dazzling vision of the supernatural event—located within time and yet timeless—or to a facile dwelling on the edifying message of an episode. the result is a cycle that is complete in itself, from the miraculous conception of siddhārtha to the parinirvāṇa and the division of the relics: it is sufficiently detailed to be perceived as an entire life, but not to the point of losing the essential effect of unity, as happened in the slightly obsessive (but also meaningful, though in a different way) dilution of the episodes one encounters seven or eight centuries later in [the buddhist temple complex of] barabudur in java. the course of buddha’s life—which is still the course of a human life—acquires here an exemplary value that is utterly unprecedented. it is the earthly temporality that imposes itself on that of the fable and interweaves itself—in sudden flashes—with that of the myth: the foundational moments, such as the enlightenment under the pīpal tree during a particular alignment of the stars, or the “first steps” of the lord of the world straight after his birth, are set in the unspecified temporality of the in illo tempore, if meditated upon individually, but necessarily also in this exact moment of a life that is the model for the life of every devotee. but we failed here to consider, say, from a structural point of view, the fact that every cycle of gandharan reliefs allows us to take up the subject again directly after the end of the narration, in a manner indicating the possibility to repeat the event. one relief which deserves attention (fig. 8) preserves, from right to left, the adoration of the stūpa (a scene that follows the death of the buddha), the buddha between two worshippers, and the birth of siddhārta: could it be that the buddha between the worshippers (a “paradise?”) is the pivotal scene in which the entire cycle finds at one and the same time its beginning and its end? let us therefore confine ourselves to the “life” as a linear course. if we bear in mind that a text such as the buddhacarita, almost certainly slightly later or contemporaneous with the first realizations of gandharan narratives (that is kuṣāṇa period, second century a.d.), offer a substantially analogous narrative structure, we cannot help seeing, in both the sculptures and the literary text, the mark of a profound change in mentality with a new and different attitude toward the divine.[35] attempts at a chronological arrangement of the narrative material are, of course, to be found in the ganges region of india as well: there is nothing, however, that is comparable to the systematization offered by gandhāra, so sophisticated in balancing the mythical and the “historical” components, the moralizing with the mystical exigencies. the monks surely found a truly effective support for their preaching in those scenes, which follow one another as discrete moments of a single fabula, and from which they could draw an entire range of admonishments and exhortations. but if this type of narrating has no real counterpart in india; we would search for its model in the hellenistic-roman world in vain. it was right there, in gandhāra, that the choice was made to commit the religious message to the dimension of human life. undoubtedly, through interaction with the hellenistic-roman culture, india came in contact with such experiences as the mythological representations decorating sarcophagi or friezes in villas—representations largely of a celebratory of metaphorical nature—as well as those on columns with spiral reliefs, born from the need to tell a story that was both linear and cyclical, and not completely different from the one shown in the gandharan lives of the buddha. and yet we are dealing with things that are different, if only because the scenes carved into the spiraled columns could not be read by anyone in continuous succession, but must have reckoned—as brilliant has shown for trajan’s column—with a perusal from privileged spots.[36] but neither mythological events, even though they tend to spread over a lifetime, like the lives of achilles, odysseus, or heracles, nor the res gestae of the emperors narrated in stone, could have been straightforward “models” for the gandharan lives of the buddha. the hellenistic, or possibly alexandrine (ca. 150 b.c.), models could have played an important role, as in the case with the scenes from the odyssey found in a house on the esquiline hill. these are divided by equidistant pillars and have been attributed to a date between 50 and 40 b.c.,[37] but they are representations in which the story is just a pretext for landscape painting, “a kind of contamination,” as m. borda writes, “of megalographia with naturalistic landscape,” for which there is an exact reference in the work of vitruvius. it may also be interesting—for our own purposes—to follow the development that took place in representations of a biographical nature in roman funerary art, in which, however, it seems that from a preference for the chronological arrangement of the life of the deceased, which had been consolidated since the end of the first century or at the beginning of the second century a.d., there is a shift during the first decades of the second century towards an increasing appreciation for the emblematic rather than the sequential aspects of the story.[38] but even in his case, it would be, i believe, neither legitimate to perform meaningful comparisons, nor to expect derivations or parallels in the art of gandhāra. it does not seem easy, as i said, to find in the hellenistic-roman world any “model” for the gandharan lives of siddhārtha. it is true that, around this time, an attempt was made to give a definitive sequence to the “labors” of heracles while, at the same time, giving greater weight to the “positive,” civilizing effect of these exploits;[39] but it remains equally true that these could be arranged in any order one might want without their message losing in depth or clarity; and this—there is actually no need to emphasize it—would not be possible in the case of the lives of the buddha gandhāra has handed down to us. naturally there are no elements here that would allow us to state positively that these depictions of the lives of the buddha were earlier compared to similar creations of the hellenistic-roman world. we can, however, say with certainty that the products in the western world which bear the closest resemblance to gandharan “lives”—the christian illustrated historical narratives mentioned by santo mazzarino or certain cycles of the life of achilles, such as the one on the silver plate in the kaiseraugst treasure (fig. 15)[40]—are much later by far.[41] i believe the time has now come for gandharan art to be considered not as a phenomenon to be explained by the interplay of “influences” but as the product of a mature hellenism that found itself in direct contact with buddhism (and here—as we have seen—foucher’s insights are of great help). it was buddhist thought—and thus indian culture—which at this moment was the victorious subject that also disposed of expansive drive. for that reason, it is only natural that the earliest gandharan buddhist reliefs that we mentioned above are the ones that were most heavily inspired by indian models. in its first years of spreading, buddhist thought could not have used any other language but an indian one, even if it immediately proved to have a strong propensity to dress in hellenistic clothes as it was appropriated and reworked by a local culture that was precisely deeply hellenistic. fig. 13: silver plate from kaiseraugst. museum caption: achilles plate, 330–340. silver, 4643 grams. produced at pausilypos, thessalonica-thessaloniki, found at kaiseraugst, switzerland. augst, museum augusta raurica, 63. photograph: susanne schenker. [fig. 15 in the original.] on the other hand, buddhism was certainly not the only asian religion with which hellenism had to do, and we may speculate whether, rather than merely “forms” of the hellenistic tradition being bent to the expressive demands of buddhist art, we should not also talk about a narrative structure that had been developed in northwestern buddhism, for which hellenism was able to readily provide the most suitable formal repertory, and which it, in turn, appropriated to have it reflect afterwards on other, more western, religious experiences. coming back to foucher’s words, it is perhaps in this narrative tradition, and not only in the creation of a particular image of the buddha that we are offered, in the study of the relationships between asia and europe, “l’occasion si belle” (a beautiful opportunity) if not of welcoming one of the most sublime creations (let’s leave aside some excessive enthusiasm), then certainly of recognizing a new way of living the religious experience which the collaboration between asia and europe has offered to humankind. unfortunately, the dedicatory inscriptions in gandharan sanctuaries are scarce and only concern isolated images, but we will not be far from the truth if we assume that the extremely numerous small stūpas that surround the monumental ones—which are probably or certainly royal bequests—in gandhāra were offered by single private individuals: the huge number of stūpas of more or less modest dimensions also makes us confident that large sections of the population had the capacity (both economic and social) to donate. the difference with regard to the commissions in sanchi, bharhut, or amaravati lies in the fact that, in gandhāra, complete sacred stories were offered according to a repertory that, while controlled by the saṃgha, required a reflection on all or part of a cycle of the life of the enlightened one and, at the same time, allowed one to express one’s own devotion by accomplishing a personal act that is not [like in sanchi, bharhut, or amaravati] an individual contribution towards a collective project, but is complete in itself, different from the larger stūpas only in its dimensions. it is perhaps too far-fetched to see in this a more rigid, so to say “concentric,” social structure as compared to the polycentric structure of pre-kuṣāṇa india; but i would not consider it useless to give this argument a thought. in gandharan art, as we have been told many times and as is largely correct, there are ideas and iconographic motifs that we will see fully developed later further east, in india and beyond.[42] but what, then, would be the destiny of the “gandharan” linear narrative technique outside of gandhāra? it had a very modest impact in mathurā, even in the kuṣāṇa period, as mathurā was surprisingly impervious to such narrative forms in spite of the frequent and prolific exchanges between these two areas of artistic production.[43] indeed, it seems that mathurā had little interest in any form of narrative representation, and the exceptions are often marked by a decidedly “gandharan” taste.[44] there is no lack, however, of representations of scenes from siddhārtha’s life which nonetheless respond to the requirements of a different expression, where spatial composition prevails over the linear narration characteristic of the cycles on the walls of the gandharan stūpas. this is so in the case of a relief from the mathura museum (fig. 14) that shows, from right to left: the birth of siddhārtha/first steps, māra’s attack/enlightenment, descent from the trāyastriṃśa heaven, first sermon, and death.[45] is it clear that the artist wanted—without getting troubled by problems of correct chronological succession—to put the descent from the trāyastriṃśa heaven (which should come after the first sermon and not before it) in the middle, thus making it the key element of the whole composition. in this way, he drew attention to the ontologically axial function of the buddha while, at the sides, he put, in an intermediate position, two gnosiologically foundational moments (significantly similar in their iconographic arrangement) and, in the outermost positions, the two events that pertain more closely to māyā, birth and death. i here take the opportunity to underline the fact that an insufficiently controlled use of terms in this field can often lead to some impairment in understanding: the compositional structure of the mathurā relief in question would seem in fact to be in conflict with the formula given by h. zimmer for the concept of time that was most peculiar, to use his words, to india: the indian experience of time is cyclical and lives in the eternal recurrence of the one and the same[...]. it does not lie within the indian cyclical notion of time to single out any special moment as being all important. indian art does not immortalize the climax. according to zimmer, indian images “timelessly at ease” contemplate the onlooker without displaying any particular moment of action. this is in contrast with the taste for the fleeting moment, for the climax, crystallized by classical greek art in order to comprise in it the idea of both “not yet” and “no more.”[46] the explicit reference to lessing helps us understand the exact meaning that zimmer wanted to give his words: the highest point is not to be understood as the dramatic climax but that magic moment which is pregnant with both past and future. as lessing wrote, “to show the eye the extremest point is to bind the wings of fancy, and to compel her, inasmuch as her power cannot go beyond the impression on the senses, to busy herself with feeble and subordinate images, beyond which is that visible fullness of expression which she shuns as her boundary.”[47] fig. 14: relief from mathura. museum caption: life scenes of buddha, ca. 2nd century. mathura museum, mathura. [fig. 14 in the original.] there will therefore be no contradiction between what zimmer thought about the concept of time in indian art and what we came to claim about the mathurā relief (or, as we shall see, about any other indian work), provided that we force his words slightly: indian art does not rule out that particularly significant moments stand out—each cycle of time needs phases, even more than linear time does!—but it refuses to catch the action in its dynamic happening: the significant moment does not flee like the greek kairós, it just is. joanna williams has put together a typologically homogeneous group of gupta stela from sarnath, depicting stories of the buddha’s life.[48] here, too, we can see how indian art—even when it has a fabula with a chronological structure at its disposal—tends not to take the succession of events into account (here, it is mainly from the bottom to the top). but what is particularly interesting is the fact, as stressed by williams, that the latest stela of the group is the one that chooses the freest and, seemingly, quite random order of the various episodes represented on its sculpted surface. these stela with a vertical development are evidently quite a different matter from the friezes with a horizontal development. even if the scenes were the same and their arrangement responded to the same criterion of chronological succession, it still is something different whether one develops a story horizontally or places the different moments with one above the other. this is especially true when seen in terms of the reaction of the devotee to the vision: a vertical arrangement is eminently synoptic, while a horizontal development makes us think about the doing, which is precisely the peculiarity of gandhāra that i tried to underline in the previous pages. i hope i did not create the false impression that gandharan horizontal narration may not go together with other forms of representation. besides the aforementioned stela from kāpiśa, the pseudo-niches (fig. 13) that decorated some st¯pas could be accompanied by horizontal narrative cycles.[49] they also show episodes of the buddha’s life, or jātakas, but those are placed one above the other, and not necessarily in chronological order (bottom-up or top-down). their meaning is not narrative but allegorical or symbolic,[50] and that is how the gandharan st¯pa provides the worshipper with the most aptly combined means of meditation. fig. 15: provenance unknown. museum caption: scenes from the life of buddha, 1st century–320, kushan period. schist, 68.0 x 41.30 cm. found at gandhara, pakistan. now preserved at cleveland museum, 1958.474. [fig. 13 in the orignal.] list of illustrations fig. 1: descent of buddha from the trāyastriṃśa heaven. relief found at butkara i, swat valley, pakistan. now preserved at swat museum, saidu sharif. pakistan. [fig. 3 in the original.] fig. 2: stela from kāpiśa, afghanistan. now preserved at the national museum of afghanistan, kabul. [fig. 12 in the original.] fig. 3: detail of a pillar from the bharhut stupa. indian museum, calcutta. this is the second scene from the bottom in figure 4. museum caption: reliëf op een pilaar van de bharhut stupa in brits-india. photograph, 1897. gravure, 25 x 13 cm. leiden university library, digital image library, 87931. http://bit.ly/bharhut_stupa_detail [fig. 2 inthe original.] . fig. 4: pillar from the bharhut stupa. indian museum, calcutta. museum caption: sculpture piece excavated from the stupa at bharhut: left side of ajatachatru pillar. photographic print, 1874. photographer: joseph david beglar. british library, photo 1003/(1493). © the british library board. [fig. 1 in the original.] fig. 5: relief from amaravati. museum caption: drum-frieze from amaravati, 3rd century. palnad marble, 37.5 x 134.75 x 7 cm. london, british museum, 1880,0709.90. © trustees of the british museum. [fig. 11 in the original.] fig. 6: relief found at saidu sharif i, swat valley. swat museum, saidu sharif, pakistan. [fig. 6 in the original.] fig. 7: provenance unknown. private collection. [fig. 7 in the original.] fig. 8: provenance unknown. private collection. [fig. 8 in the original.] fig. 9: relief found at saidu sharif i, swat valley. museo nazionale d'arte orientale, rome. [fig. 9 in the original.] fig. 10: relief found at saidu sharif i, swat valley. swat museum, saidu sharif, pakistan. [fig. 10 in the original.] fig. 11: relief found at butkara i, swat valley. swat museum, saidu sharif, pakistan. [fig. 4 in the original.] fig. 12: from swat (?). museum caption: gandhara school, the return to kapilavastu, 1st–2nd century. found at swat valley. london, british museum, 1972,0920.1. © trustees of the british museum. [fig. 5 in the original.] fig. 13: silver plate from kaiseraugst. museum caption: achilles plate, 330–340. silver, 4643 grams. produced at pausilypos, thessalonica-thessaloniki, found at kaiseraugst, switzerland. augst, museum augusta raurica, 63. photograph: susanne schenker. © augusta raurica. [fig. 15 in the original.] fig. 14: relief from mathura. museum entry: life scenes of buddha, ca. 2nd century. mathura museum, mathura. photograph: cb biswarup ganguly, wikimedia commons. http://bit.ly/life_scenes_of_buddha. [fig. 14 in the original.] fig. 15: provenance unknown. museum caption: scenes from the life of buddha, first century&ndash320, kushan period. schist, 68.0 x 41.30 cm. found at gandhara, pakistan. now preserved at cleveland museum, 1958.474. [fig. 13 in the original.] [*] this article was originally published in italian with an extensive english-language summary in maurizio taddei, on gandhāra. collected articles, edited by giovanni verardi and anna filigenzi, vol. ii, napoli 2003, 335–380. the full english translation published here was drafted by emanuele mattei and revised by rudolf g. wagner. anna filigenzi, one of the editors of the volume where this article originally appeared, not only helped us to obtain the right to publish this translation, but also generously offered help with improving and correcting our rendering. we are deeply indebted to her. we are also grateful to paola d’amore, the director of the department for the ancient near and middle east in the museo nazionale d’arte orientale ‘guiseppe tucci’ in rome for providing us with many of the images originally used for this article. the translations of the quotations were added by rudolf g. wagner and edited by anna filigenzi. [†] taddei, m., g. verardi “archeologija i buddizm—vklad ital’janskogo instituta srednego i dal’nego vostoka (ismeo),” vestnik drevnej istorii, 2 (1993): 152–162. [1] th. duret, voyage en asie, paris 1874, 326; e.b. havell, indian sculpture and painting, london 1908, 41; v. a. smith, the early history of india, 4th ed., london 1924, 282–283. [2] v. dehejia, “on modes of visual narration in early buddhist art,” in art bulletin 72, 1990, 374–392; also “narrative modes in ajanta cave 17. a preliminary study,” in sas 7, 1991, 45–57. in addition to d. schlingloff’s more general essay (d. schlingloff, “erzählung und bild. die darstellungsformen von handlungsabläufen in der europäischen und indischen kunst,” in beiträge zur allgemeinen und vergleichenden archäologie 3, munich 1981, 87–213), we must also remember his numerous and important contributions on ajanta (collected in studies in the ajanta paintings, delhi 1987) and on other ancient buddhist monuments of india, such as “the mahābodhi-jātaka in bharhut,” in ludwik sternbach felicitation volume, lucknow 1979, 745–749; “aśoka or māra? on the interpretation of some sāñcī reliefs,” in l. a. hercus et. al., eds., indological and buddhist studies. volume in honour of professor j. w. de jong, canberra 1982, 441–455; “das śyāma-jātaka: schultradition und bildüberlieferung einer buddhistischen legende,” in h. bechert, ed., zur schulzugehörigkeit von werken der hīnayāna-literatur, i (abhandl. der akad. der wiss., in göttingen, phil. hist. kl., 3rd s., n.149), göttingen 1985, 203–218; “die meditation unter dem jambu-baum,” in wiener zeitschrift für die kunde südasiens xxxi, 1987, 111–130. an interesting iconological and semiological foray is that by r. parimoo, “vidhura paṇḍita jātaka—from barhut to ajanta. a study of narrative, semiological and stylistic aspects,” in g. bhattacharya, ed., in akṣayanīvī: essays presented to dr. debala mitra, delhi 1991, 177–189. as to the art of gandhāra, there are several astute observations in l. nehru, origins of the gandhāran style. a study of contributory influences, delhi 1989. worth mentioning, all their severe inadequacies notwithstanding, are also the works by p.e. karetzky, namely “hellenistic influences on scenes of the life of the buddha in gandhara,” in oriental art xxxv 3, 1989, 163–168; also her the life of the buddha. ancient scriptural and pictorial traditions, lanham 1992. [3] j. irwin, “the mystery of the (future) buddha's first words,” in annali del’istituto universitario orientale di napoli 41, 1981, 633. [4] among recent works on the myth as a cognitive process, one of the most stimulating is that by k. hübner, die wahrheit des mythos, munich 1985; italian translation, la verità del mito, milan 1990. [5] on the function of images in european culture, see d. freedberg, the power of images. studies in the history and theory of response, chicago 1989. on the attitude toward images in eastern christianity, see, among recent contributions, j. pelikan, imago dei. the byzantine apologia for icons, new haven 1990. there is no need to recall the neo–platonic origins of these european speculations about the image: suffice it to refer to the essays by a. grabar, now collected in his volume les origines de l'esthétique médiévale, paris 1992. [6] the work quoted here by p. florenskij (in russian) was published under the title “ikonostas,” in bogoslovskye trudy ix, 1972, and published in italian translation by e. zolla, le porte regali: saggio sull'icona [the royal doors: an essay on the icon], milano 1977. italian readers can find other works on art in p. florenskij, la prospettiva rovesciata e altri scritti [the reverse perspective and other writings], edited by n. misler, roma 1983. obviously, florenskij's has his precedents in byzantine thought: for the issue discussed here, see especially maximus the confessor (7th century; cf. grabar, les origines, 114–16). [7] andrej rublev (~1360–~1428), eastern church icon painter, whose work has become an important model for later painters (editor’s note). [8] as reported in the mānasāra. see s. k. sarasvati, “an ancient text on the casting of metal images,” in journal of the indian society of oriental art iv, 1936, 140. on the role of the images in indian art, see also several works by h. zimmer, especially “yoga and the figurative sacred image,” in his artistic form and yoga in the sacred images of india, princeton 1984, 21–64. another work full of very interesting and useful ideas is that of niharranjan ray, idea and image in indian art, new delhi 1973. [9] for example, a stela from shotorak: m. bussagli, “osservazioni sulla persistenza delle forme ellenistiche nell'arte del gandhāra” [observations on the persistence of hellenistic forms in the art of gandhāra], in rivista dell’istituto nazionale d’archeologie e storia dell’arte 7, years v–vi, 1956–1957, 149–247 (now also in m. bussagli, indica et serindica, roma 1992), 200 ff., fig. 39; h. g. franz, buddhistische kunst indiens [buddhist art of india], leipzig 1965, 103, pl. 176 (caption with incorrect indication of provenance); on cave 19 at ajanta: m. hallade, inde. un millénaire d'art bouddhique, paris 1968, 138, fig. 101. [10] for example, d. and p. g. paul, “just the one finger yet. a rare representation of aṅgulimāla in pāla art,” in d. mitra and g. bhattacharya, eds, nalinīkanta śatavārṣikī, dr. n. k. bhattasali centenary volume. studies in art and archaeology of bihar and bengal, delhi 1989, 35–39. another example is the representation of the story of the elephant nālāgiri: t. tse bartholomew, “‘taming of the elephant’ and other pāla sculptures in the asian art museum of san francisco,” ibid., 61–65. [11] see for example m. taddei, “appunti sull'iconografia di alcune manifestazioni luminose dei buddha” [notes on the iconography of some luminous manifestations of the buddha], in gururājamañjarikā. studi in onore di giuseppe tucci, napoli 1974, vol. ii, 435–449; s. vasant, “dīpaṅkara buddha at ajanta,” in g. bhattacharya, ed., ak?ayanivi, cit., 170–176; m. taddei, “the dīpaṅkara-jātaka and siddhārtha's meeting with rāhula. how are they linked to the flaming buddha?” in annali del’istituto universitario orientale di napoli 51, 1992, 103–107. [12] “fabula: the set of narrated situations and events in their chronological sequence.” g. prince, a dictionary of narratology, 1987. [13] on the attitude of european culture against buddhism, see: h. de lubac, la rencontre du bouddhisme et de l'occident, paris 1952; 2nd ed. paris 1985; italian translation buddhismo e occidente, milano 1987, 101 ff.; ph. c. almond, the british discovery of buddhism, cambridge 1988; several interesting points can also be found in p. mitter, much maligned monsters. history of european reactions to indian art, oxford 1977; r.-p. droit, l'oubli de l'inde. une amnésie philosophique, paris 1989. see also m. winternitz, geschichte der indischen literatur, vol. ii, calcutta 1927, 402–423. [14] matthew arnold, the light of asia; or, the great renunciation (mahābhinishkramana), being the life and teaching of gautama, prince of india and founder of buddhism (as told in verse by an indian buddhist), new york and boston 1879, preface, vii–viii (editor’s note). [15] winternitz, geschichte der indischen literatur, 277 ff. [16] c. formichi's book açvaghoṣa poeta del buddhismo [aśvaghoṣa, buddhism’s poet] came out in the “biblioteca di cultura moderna” [library of modern culture], of the laterza publishing house, bari 1912; l. luzzatti's text is in the corriere della sera, august 9th, 1912; p. l. veneziani's pamphlet had the title buddismo e cristianesimo. i canti buddistici di acwaghosa e l'on. luzzatti. controversie religiose [buddhism and christianity. the buddhist songs of acwaghosa and the honorable luzzatti. a religious controversy], roma 1913 (quoted passages on pp. 4, 10, 84). cf. de lubac, la rencontre du bouddhisme et de l'occident, 185. [17] h. deydier, contribution à l'étude de l'art du gandhâra. essai de bibliographie analytique et critique des ouvrages parus de 1922 à 1949 [contribution to the study of the art of gandhāra. essay of analytical and critical bibliography of the works published between 1922 and 1949], paris 1950. it should be noted that, in those years, alongside the debate on the alleged greek roots of indian art, another discussion arose on the origin of classical indian theatre, a debate that involved scholars of the caliber of albrecht weber, who favored recognizing a greek origin, or at least a greek influence, and of richard pischel, who strongly opposed this theory. the issue is summarized in n. savarese, teatro e spettacolo fra oriente e occidente [theater and performance between orient and occident], roma 1992, 226–232. [18] l'art gréco-bouddhique du gandhâra, i, 2. [19] e.b. havell, indian sculpture and painting, london 1908, 42; id., the ideals of indian art, london 1911, 80. for more on the personality of this protagonist in the cultural debate in india at the beginning of the century, see g. flora, “arte e nazionalismo in india. la scuola bengalese negli anni del movimento swadeshi” [art and nationalism in india. the bengali school during the years of the swadeshi movement], in la modernizzazione in asia e in africa. studi offerti a giorgio borsa, pavia 1989, 137–152; s. cross, “e.b. havell and the art of india,” in temenos (london) 10, 1989, 224–243; t. guha-thakurta, the making of a new “indian” art. artists, aesthetics and nationalism in bengal, c. 1850–1920, cambridge 1992. [20] a. foucher, “l'origine grecque de l'image du bouddha,” in conférences faites au musée guimet en 1912 (annales du musée guimet, bibliothèque de vulgarisation, 38), paris 1912, 271–272. [21] a. coomaraswamy, “buddhist primitives,” in his the dance of shiva. fourteen indian essays, bombay 1948, 81. [22] amongst the most recent reviews we must mention: g. fussman, “chronique des études kouchanes (1975–1977)” [chronicle of kushan studies (1975–1977)], in journal asiatique 1978, 419–436; id., “numismatic and epigraphic evidence for the chronology of early gandharan art,” in m. yaldiz and w. lobo, eds., investigating indian art, berlin 1987, 67–68; id., “chronique des études kouchanes (1978–1987),” [chronicle of kushan studies (1978–1987)], in journal asiatique 1987, 333–400: m. taddei, “gandhāra, arte del,” in enciclopedia dell’arte antica, ii supplemento 1971–1994 711–721, roma 1994. important (even if not always convincing) contributions to the study of relationships between the hellenistic-roman world and gandhāra will be found in h. ch. ackermann, narrative stone reliefs from gandhāra in the victoria and albert museum in london, rome 1975. [23] a. k. coomaraswamy, la sculpture de bharhut, paris 1956, 52–53. figs. 30 and 33. a vivid representation of the attempts to explain “aniconism” in indian primitive buddhist art can be found in h. de lubac, aspects du bouddhisme, paris 1951; italian translation, aspetti del buddhismo, milan 1980, 75 ff. a recent attempt by susan l. huntington to prove the non-existence of an “aniconic period” in early indian buddhist art (“early buddhist art and the theory of aniconism,” in art journal, winter 1990, 401 ff.) contains a number of useful considerations but addresses the issue in inappropriate terms and therefore totally misses its mark: see the prompt reply by r. linrothe, “inquiries into the origin of the buddha image: a review,” in east and west 43, 1993 (241–256). [24] one might further investigate whether the venue where each of these scenes occurs may have been decisive in their placement. cf. d. schlingloff, “erzählung...,” cit.; id., “ein zyklus des buddhalebens in ajanta” [a cycle of buddha’s life in ajanta], in wiener zeitschrift für die kunde südasiens xxvi (113–148), 1983, 146–148, which, however, examines unitary contexts very different from those discussed herein. [25] i would like to point out two useful recent collections: j. l. panglung, die erzählstoffe des mūlasarvāstivāda-vinaya analysiert auf grund der tibetischen übersetzung [the narrative materials of the mūlasarvāstivāda-vinaya, analyzed on the basis of the tibetan translation], tokyo 1981; l. grey, a concordance of buddhist birth stories, oxford 1990. [26] d. barrett, sculptures from amaravati in the british museum, london 1954, 73, pl. xiva; r. knox, amaravati. buddhist sculpture from the great stūpa, london 1992, 115–116, n.56. [27] v. dehejia, “the collective and popular basis of early buddhist patronage: sacred monuments, 100 bc–ad 250,” in b. stoler miller, ed., the powers of art: patronage in indian culture, delhi 1992, 35–45. vidya dehejia does not deal here with the case of gandhāra. [28] n.g. majumdar, a guide to the sculptures in the indian museum, ii. the graeco-buddhist school of gandhāra, delhi 1937, 116, pl. xiv. [29] harald ingolt, gandhāran art in pakistan, new york, 1957, 17, pl. i1. it is truly odd that, in the stūpa from sikri, the most remarkable among the very few in gandhāra to preserve a complete decorative cycle, the panels are arranged in an order that differs from the chronological arrangement which obviously one would have expected. on this subject, see a. foucher, “les bas-reliefs du stûpa de sikri (gandhâra),” in journal asiatique, sept–oct. 1903, (185–330), 186–190; l’art gréco-bouddhique de gandhâra, i, 266–267, paris 1905. it is hard to provide an explanation for this, but it is even harder to believe that this order was indeed the one designed at the time of the creation of this work. foucher himself in fact notes that “a pluisiers reprises, nombre de fragments de frise, par hasard conservés, nous fournissent des suites biographiques fort étendues” (there are several instances where a number of frieze fragments, which have by chance been preserved, provide us with rather extensive biographical subjects) (ibid., 267). this was indeed the rule. it is easy to observe that, when the fragment of a frieze contains more than one episode, the order—barring a few rare exceptions—is always chronological, from right to left. since there seems to be no reason to doubt the accuracy and the documentary scrupulousness of col. deane, who supervised the removal of the stūpa and its transfer to lahore, foucher assumed that the rule—strict in the case of “petites frises sculptées sur une même dalle de pierre” (small friezes sculpted onto the same stone slab)—of the succession from right to left “ne s'appliquait pas toujours aux frises de dimensions plus considérables et composées d'une série de panneaux détachés” (was not always followed for friezes of more extensive dimensions and made up by a series of separate panels) (“les bas-reliefs...,” 190, note 1). if this is true, it is hard to understand the reason. since it is not possible, for the moment, to check the rear and the sides of the panels from sikri for signs that could give more reliable hints about the original assembly, i will assume an attitude of extreme caution and not rule out the possibility that we are looking at an assemblage error, which possibily occurred during a reconstruction with reclaimed materials. [30] j. e. van lohuizen-de leeuw, the “scythian” period, leiden 1949, 108. [31] m. taddei, “della cosiddetta ‘prospettiva rotante’ nell'arte del gandhāra” [on the so-called “rotating perspective” in the art of gandhāra], in prospettiva 53–56, 1988–1989 (scritti in ricordo di giovanni previtali, vol. i), 71–74. other interesting remarks in m. mariottini spagnoli, “relationships between the perspective and compositional structure of the bharhut sculptures and gandharan art,” in east and west 20, 1970, 327–347. [32] s. mazzarino, il pensiero storico classico [historical thinking in classical antiquity], ii 1, bari 1966, 239–240. mazzarino was inspired by the work of m. bussagli, “note sull'immagine del buddha,” [notes on the image of buddha], in atti dell'accademia nazionale dei lincei: rendiconti , s. viii, ii, 1947, 202–239 (now also in m. bussagli, indica et serindica, roma 1992), especially 223ff. [33] d. faccenna, “excavations of the italian archaeological mission (ismeo) in pakistan: some problems of gandharan art and architecture,” in central asia in the kushan period: proceedings of the international conference on the history, archaeology and culture of central asia in the kushan period, dushanbe, sept. 27–october 6, 1968, i, moscow 1974, 126-176; j.e. van lohuizen-de leeuw, “new evidence with regard to the origin of the buddha image,” in south asian archaeology 1979, ed. h. härtel, berlin 1981, 377–400; s.l. and j.c. huntington, the art of ancient india. buddhist, hindu, jain, new york 1985, 109–124; ch. fabrègues, “the indo-parthian beginnings of gandharan sculpture,” in bulletin of the asia institute, n.s., i, 1987, 33–43; also nehru, cit. an important contribution to gandhāran chronology can be found in a doctoral thesis defended by ch. fabrègues at the school of oriental and african studies of the university of london in 1991, the jewellery of the gandhara sculpture in schist and its chronological significance. [34] these aspects briefly illustrated here are perhaps to be studied in connection with the difficult transformation of the methods of time reckoning that was happening at about this time. for this argument, see p. daffinà, “senso del tempo e senso della storia: computi cronologici e storicizzazione del tempo” [the meaning of time and the meaning of history: time reckoning and the historicization of time], in rivista degli studi orientali lxi, 1987, 1–71. [35] aśvaghoṣa’s buddhacarita is now available, in a good and recent italian translation by a. passi—in addition to the one made by formichi—which comes with with an equally good commentary, le gesta del buddha (buddhacarita canti i–xiv) [acts of the buddha], milan 1979 (which also mentions, on p. 230, the question of the relationships with the figurative production). on the more general subject of the lives in buddhist literature, see winternitz, cit., vol. ii, leipzig 1920, 181–277; engl. transl., cit., 226–401; e. j. thomas, the history of buddhist thought, 2nd ed., london 1951, 278–283; é. lamotte, histoire du bouddhisme indien. des origines à l'ère śaka [history of indian buddhism. from the origins to the śaka era], leuven 1958, 718–756; t. r. v. murti, the central philosophy of buddhism. a study of the mādhyamika system, 2nd ed., london 1960, 79–80. murti sees in the literature of the lives a process of “polarization” of buddhism towards the māhayāna: “the mahāvastu, lalita vistara and the avadāna literature constitute, both in literary form and content, a distinct step towards the māhayāna. deification of the buddha, legendary tales glorifying the buddhas and bodhisattvas in the approved purāṇic style with all manner of exaggeration, a trend towards buddhabhakti and the glorification of the exalted bodhisattva ideal are the characteristic features of these. the epics and dramas of aśvaghoṣa (contemporary of kaniṣka) served the same purpose. we see in these the steps by which buddhism became a popular religion with attractive legends and a glorious pantheon.” this opinion—shared by many other scholars—certainly contains some truth, but is in need of being deepened and clarified. i personally do not think that the idea of “popular” is of much use in this context: it is actually difficult to reduce the complex mahayanic ontology to a mere devotional, or, more precisely, “popular” trend. [36] see r. brilliant, visual narratives. storytelling in etruscan and roman art, ithaca 1984; it. trans., narrare per immagini. racconti di storie nell'arte etrusca e romana, firenze 1987. [37] almost every retrieved panel is preserved in the vatican library. see l. vlad borrelli, “un nuovo frammento dei ‘paesaggi dell'odissea’” [a new fragment of the ‘landscapes of the odyssee,’], in boll. d’arte xli, 1956, 289–300; m. borda, la pittura romana [roman painting], milan 1958, 184–186; r. bianchi bandinelli, roma. l'arte nel centro del potere [rome. art in the center of power], milano 1969, 16–17, fig. 119. [38] on this specifically roman subject, see n. b. kampen, “biographical narration and roman funerary art,” in american journal of archaeology 85, 1981, 47–58. [39] “reorganization of the olympia twelve was perhaps the work of an unknown hellenistic author, and appears for us first in diodorus and the tabula albana. but the composition of the twelve seems not to have been well observed in art or literature, and there are often omissions and additions” (j. boardman, in lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae v, zurich 1990, s.v. “herakles, iv a. herakles dodekathlos,” 15–16). [40] h. a. cahn and a. kaufmann-heinimann, eds., der spätrömische silberschatz von kaiseraugst [the late roman silver treasure from kaiseraugst)] derendingen 1984; il tesoro nascosto. le argenterie imperiali di kaiseraugst (catalogo della mostra, palazzo dei conservatori, roma 1987–1988) [the hidden treasure. the imperial silverware from kaiseraugst (exhibition catalogue, palazzo de conservatori, rome, 1987–1988)], milan 1987, 154 ff. the achilles plate dates back to the second third of the 4th century. that the interest in such lives of heroes—especially achilles—in hellenistic-roman art is a late trend has already been duly noted by l. guerrini, “infanzia di achille e sua educazione presso chirone” [the childhood of achilles and his education by chiron], in seminario di archeologia e storia dell'arte greca e romana dell'università di roma, studi miscellanei, 1, roma 1961, 52. [41] in this respect, it is obvious that comparative stylistic investigation can unveil something about potential contacts or parallels. interesting contributions for the identification of stylistic correspondences between gandharan art and mediterranean late-antique art can be found in d. ahrens, “some remarks on relations between coptic and buddhist art,” in bulletin de la societé d'archéologie copte 26, 1984, 9–14; id., “bemerkungen zu den ost-west-beziehungen in der spätantike” [notes on relations between east and west in late antiquity], in schatzkammer simeonstift, museumsdidaktische führungstexte 8, trier 1986, 24–30. one might also reread, in this perspective, the important article by d. faccenna, “su una raffigurazione in un capitello corinzio di aquileia” [on a representation in a corinthian capital in aquileia], in gururājamañjarikā, cit., 411–434. [42] in this respect, see the foucher’s classic art gréco-bouddhique de gandhāra, vol. ii, ch. xvii. [43] j.e. van lohuizen-de leew, “gandhāra and mathura: their cultural relationship,” in aspects of indian art, ed. p. pal., leiden 1972, 27–43; ead., “new evidence with regard to the origin of the buddha image,” cit. [44] see, for example, reliefs such as the one in the lucknow museum reported by r.c. sharma, buddhist art of mathurā, delhi 1984, 201–202, 227, n. 115, or another in the lucknow museum analyzed by j. williams, “sārnāth gupta steles of the buddha's life,” in ars orientalis x, 1975, (171–192), 185, fig. 13. [45] a.k. coomaraswamy, history of indian and indonesian art, new york 1927, 62, 236, fig. 104; s.l. and j.c. huntington, cit., 155, fig. 8.33; h. mode, altindische skulpturen aus mathurā [ancient indian scultures from mathurā], hanau-main 1986, 23–24, pl. 9; karetzky, the life..., cit., fig. 7. [46] h. zimmer, “some aspects of time in indian art,” in journal of the indian society of oriental art i, 1933 (30–51), 35–37. other keen observations on different behaviors of classical greek art and indian art towards time can be found in h. zimmer, “the indian sacred image and classical art,” in his artistic form and yoga..., cit., 3–20. for a recent review on “cyclical time” in indian thought, see a.n. balslev, a study of time in indian philosophy, wiesbaden 1983, 140–150. [47] g.e. lessing, laocoonte (trans. by e. sola), firenze 1954, 19. [note by translator: the reference is to lessing’s statement in laokoon iii, “dem auge das aeusserste zeigen, heisst der phantasie die fluegel binden, und sie nöthigen…., sich unter ihm mit schwächern bildern zu beschäftigen, über die sie die sichtbare fülle des ausdrucks als ihre grenze scheuet” (g. e. lessing’s ausgewählte werke in sechs bänden, stuttgart 1889, vol. 6, 17) the english translation follows robert phillimore, tr., laocoon translated from the text of lessing, london 1874, 29.] i find the reference to laocoonte proposed by d. schlingloff inappropriate, ak?ayanivi, cit., 163, note 125: “...in kizil the continuous action of the stories is reduced to the delineation of only one scene, which shows the most significant moment of the story.” lessing did not refer to the most “significant” moment of a story, but of an action. [48] “sārnāth gupta steles...,” cit. [49] art gréco-bouddhique de gandhâra, cit., i, fig. 70–72. [50] see for example m. taddei, “the dīpaṃkara-jātaka...,” cit. to get an idea of the semantic potentiality of that original iconographic structure, the reader may simply analyze reliefs 159–169 as reproduced in gandhāran art in pakistan, cit. art as refuge: jewish publishers as cultural brokers in early 1920s russian berlin | susanne marten-finnis | transcultural studies art as refuge: jewish publishers as cultural brokers in early 1920s russian berlin susanne marten-finnis, university of portsmouth berlin as the chief centre of russian publishing during the years 1921 to 1924, berlin saw the rise of a vibrant russian publishing landscape that was largely based on the mediation of agents from the metropolitan centres moscow and st. petersburg. their transcultural agency turned the german capital into the chief centre of russian publishing, with more books appearing in russian than in german. the outsourcing of russian publishing to berlin was a consequence of the bolshevik literacy campaigns, along with paper shortage, obsolete print technologies, and the lack of skilled labour in soviet russia. moreover, russian publishing endeavours profited from berlin’s position as a centre of publishing excellence and low-cost printing and postage during the german hyperinflation. publishing projects accommodated the various aspirations of russians who stayed in berlin either as declared emigrants or as travellers from soviet russia; they offered discursive spaces that enabled both groups to share or dispute their respective views outside their homeland. publishing thus emerged as a medium that not only accommodated cultural otherness and a variety of intellectual traditions. it also enabled adversaries to step out of the isolation that war and revolution had inflicted on them, and to disseminate their manifestos through a number of multilingual editions and reviews, to audiences world-wide, with a particular visibility in the art sector. art, it seemed in the aftermath of russia’s blockade, was powerful enough to surmount linguistic barriers[1] and to offer a bridge between russia and europe, past and future. accordingly, art reviews were seen as “thundering trumpets revealing to the astonished western world the glamour of russian art and scholarship,”[2] as the berlin-based theatre review teatr i zhizn’ [theatre and life] put it in 1922. at the same time, it provided to the emigrant communities a refuge from the painful present, and a tool to attract the interest and commitment of a global audience for solidarity and protest. the present article will look behind the scenes of these processes and shed light on its facilitators: jewish publisher-entrepreneurs and editors who stayed in berlin during the period under discussion, and acted as intermediaries between the new russia where the bolshevik regime was still weak, and the old russia, which lived on among the growing community of russians in the centres of emigration. in keeping with jaspert’s categorization, these intermediaries are henceforth called “the others.” they contrast with a second group of agents, “the emissaries,” who had travelled to berlin on the instruction of the soviet commissars. the latter mediated between soviet institutions and the german publishing sector, where the jewish presence was also very prominent, and society at large, primarily german berliners in the immediate environment of the russians, but also european and global readers. as it turned out, in 1924 the majority of emissaries moved from preliminary to permanent emigration, whereas a third group, the “go-betweens,” also sent by the soviet commissars to share russian culture with german, european, and global audiences, mostly returned to russia to commit themselves to further soviet assignments both at home and abroad. using the paradigm of “cultural brokerage,”[3] this article will reveal how the alliance between soviet institutions, russian creativity and jewish publishing expertise—transferred to berlin—triggered an unprecedented intensity of communication between russia and the west. its central thesis is that the transcultural agency of jewish publishers, through their “sacred craft,” multilingualism of the press, entrepreneurship, and intellectual tradition, was able to overcome linguistic and cultural barriers as a prerequisite for bridging political and ideological objections after the russian revolution and the russian civil war, and thus to contribute to the emergence of an international russian culture in berlin that stimulated the city’s rise to a world metropolis. the “sacred craft” since the invention in europe of metallic type printing in the fifteenth century, rabbinic leaders had praised printing and publishing as the “sacred craft” and a powerful tool for the dissemination of knowledge—one of the most important commandments in the jewish tradition. published portfolios among jewish communities tended to be of a pedagogical nature. without the institutions of a state, jewish life in the diaspora had to rely on education as one of the two most important and effective means for the transmission of jewish culture to future generations, the second being publishing. hence followed the didactic mission to target a mass jewish readership. originally, jewish presses emerged as a child of the haskalah, the jewish enlightenment embodying the first phase of a rapid secularisation and modernisation of ashkenazi jewish culture. early haskalah presses appeared in hebrew and combined jewish tradition and philosophical enquiry among narrow circles of scholars, the maskilim. they established themselves as a forum for scholarly assembly and debate, expressed by titles such as asefat ha-khamim [the gathering of scholars], a hebrew journal founded in 1877.[4] during the second phase of the haskalah, presses took on the role of a ‘mentor, herald, and teacher’[5] to the less educated, offering tuition and moral guidance to a mass jewish audience. in eastern europe this implied the use of the yiddish vernacular, in addition to hebrew. jewish presses thus came to rely on a diglossic[6] use of language, while its principle mission became education, rather than information. this was in contrast to the press ideals of the surrounding peoples, which lived by the mediation of news items, comments, and entertainment. with the attempt of haskalah leaders to intensify the dialogue between christian and jewish communities,[7] the use of hebrew along with yiddish was replaced by press multilingualism, which presented a choice between russian, polish, and german. hence, jewish presses came to function in a social environment that included more than one speech community. the same applied to its journalists and editors whose command of various languages—hebrew and yiddish, besides russian, german, and polish—paved the way for a more transparent relationship between jews and christians in the multilingual empires of central and eastern europe. thus, jewish presses generated a transcultural public sphere whose linguistic and ideological implications depended not only on the circulation of press items, but even more on the linguistic competence and mobility of their producers and recipients. a russian-jewish press emerged only during the third phase of the haskalah. it represented the publishing projects of russian jews in the sense of the pre-revolutionary,[8] pre-soviet russian empire, who had a secular education, and whose preferred language was russian because it was their primary language to make knowledge accessible to the non-jewish reader. this endeavour was instrumental in russian becoming the language of organized jewish scholarship in late imperial russia. well-known examples of organized jewish scholarship being largely a russian enterprise are the society for the spread of enlightenment among the jews of russia, founded in 1862; the jewish historical-ethnographic society, founded in 1908, led by simon dubnov and his journal evreiskaia starina [the jewish heritage]; and the russian-language jewish encyclopedia, published in st. petersburg between 1906 and 1923. the russian jewish intellectual elite lived in st. petersburg, which became the centre of jewish art and scholarship despite restrictions on jewish residency.[9] there was a conglomerate of russian publishing enterprises in st. petersburg, many of them founded by a jewish initiative. their owners were increasingly acculturated to russian language and culture and moved from printing and publishing to editing, from books to magazines and newspapers. nevertheless, the jewish intellectual tradition of philosophical enquiry, ideological controversy, and knowledge dissemination into society at large remained the sponsor of the “sacred craft,” and maintained a standard of ethical conduct that preserved its essence without the requirements of jewish languages and religious ritual and law. both tsarist and bolshevik authorities welcomed the jewish expertise in disseminating knowledge: the former on their mission to reorganise the lives of the jews by encouraging them to acquire a russian education, in particular during the era of the great reforms in the 1860s, and the latter in their efforts to spread the message of the revolution. these endeavours were intrinsically linked to st. petersburg and moscow. they brought jewish publishers closer to administrative institutions, and as a result, the jewish presence in publishing grew to further prominence. their agents were secular russian jews who were part of a social class that was educated and distinctly urban. they spoke russian and felt attached to russian culture. transferred to berlin, they continued to participate in russian cultural enterprises by providing significant shares of financial and moral support.[10] their anchorage within the russian language and culture clearly distinguished them from yiddish modernist groups usually originating from the former pale of settlement[11] who also stayed in berlin around this time. among them were the editors of the modernist yiddish review milgroym, with its cognate hebrew issuerimon [both meaning pomegranate], rachel and mark wischnitzer from minsk, the members of the kiev kultur-lige [league of culture], and uri zvi grinberg from the rebellious warsaw literary group khalyastre [the gang]. the milgroym editors followed the kultur-lige’s approach to promoting the development of yiddish as an expression of all spheres of secular jewish culture, including literature, art, theatre, and education, and thus advocated a jewish revival in the european diaspora. their attempt to bring respect for traditional jewish life into harmony with western civilization was in sharp contrast with uri zvi grinberg’s albatros, also published in berlin at the time, and the views of other khalyastre members. their pessimistic vision of christian-jewish symbiosis in the post-war world is vented in grinberg’s poem in malkhes fun tseylem [in the kingdom of the cross],[12] and his essay veytikn-heym oyf slavisher erd [home of anguish on slav soil],[13] both of them full of apocalyptic imagery.[14] a similar attitude is reflected in the poem biznes: moskve-berlin [business moscow–berlin],[15] the introductory part of which is formulated in terms of the apocalypse and the extermination of the jewish people.[16] hence, jewish cultural agency in berlin was not the act of a homogeneous group, but fuelled by ideological diversity ranging from russian acculturation and the project of a jewish renaissance in europe to the vision of destruction and jewish emigration from europe to palestine. the contacts between these groups were characterised by delimitation and polemic, rather than friendly coexistence. this is, however, beyond the scope of the present article, in which only the agency of those jewish publishers will be discussed who were acculturated to russian language and society in both its preand post-revolutionary state. their “jewish identity” will thus be considered in the light of their entrepreneurial and intellectual disposition as a shared heritage of their “sacred craft,” rather than any religious dimension or jewish national aspiration. divided passions while the “sacred craft” had been essential in spreading the message of the haskalah during its first phase from berlin to the jewish communities of eastern europe, a hundred years on, the reverse trend can be observed, with jewish publishing expertise right in the forefront. in 1922, the german capital hosted some 150 russian political journals and reviews[17] and forty-eight russian publishing enterprises, whose number rose to eighty-seven in 1924.[18] but not all of them were émigré publishing houses. others were established as soviet enterprises. the liberal atmosphere of weimar germany and the geographical proximity to their homeland had encouraged some publishers to transfer their business to berlin; others were lured by the favourable conditions resulting from the german hyperinflation. low-cost printing, postage, and skilled labour in the publishing sector, as well as the provision of quality paper and printing facilities by german peers, attracted a large number of publisher-entrepreneurs from both the russian metropolitan centres and the former pale of settlement. again, jewish publishers in particular rose to prominence because of the cultural-educational nature of their publishing portfolios, which were now in great demand in both soviet russia and central europe. in russia this was due to the bolshevik literacy campaigns and the thirst for education among the previously underprivileged, with a growing need for books of popular science and world literature in russian translation. in the newly independent national states of central europe, a second market for schoolbooks emerged among the yiddish speaking communities in response to the cultural autonomy granted to them by the 1919 paris peace conference. a third big market comprised russian classical and world literature for the rising number of russian emigrants scattered around europe. while these three publishing markets evolved concurrently with the favourable economic conditions in germany, more russian publishers left for berlin at the behest of the new governing elites in soviet russia. their agency is not only linked to the long-standing alliance between russian authorities and jewish publishing expertise, but also to the more recent coincidental rise of bolshevik rule during the establishment of about one third of all new publishing houses as jewish initiatives. these were the so-called private cooperatives, whose publishing portfolios[19] were of a cultural-educational nature.[20] their owners had been able to escape nationalization chiefly for two reasons: firstly, because the bolsheviks had foreseen that the soviet state-sponsored publishing house gosizdat,[21] founded in may 1919, would not be capable of satisfying the growing need for literature as part of the bolshevik literacy campaigns. formerly catering to a small elitist group of readers, the intelligentsia, literary products now had to serve a mass audience thirsting for knowledge and education. the requirements of this new mass audience were accommodated by the literacy campaigns during the initial stage of bolshevik rule, 1918–21, aiming at the inclusion of ever more people into the revolutionary movement and bringing them together in the common cause.[22] the bolshevik leaders thus found it necessary, for a certain time at least, to rely on the private cooperatives, thus profiting for an extended period from jewish expertise in the preparation and publication of learning resources. in 1921, when a paper shortage, obsolete print technologies, and the lack of skilled labour seriously jeopardized the production of books in soviet russia, bolshevik leaders decided to outsource russian publishing to berlin, which at that time was a centre of competence and professionalism in the printing and publishing industry. they assumed that it would be easier for the private publisher-entrepreneurs, with their contacts abroad, knowledge of foreign languages, and negotiating skills, to build supportive and commercial relationships with german publishers, and to procure their help for the provision of printing paper and equipment, as the latter might prefer to deal with a private publisher rather than a representative of gosizdat.[23] the publishing houses gelikon, petropolis,[24] and epokha[25] opened branches in berlin. other publishers founded new presses, either independently,[26] or under the auspices of german publishers. instrumental in this respect was an agency established by alexander e. kogan, who launched a bureau for typographical engineering and support [печатно техническое бюро][27] as part of his publishing house russkoe iskusstvo [russian art], founded in berlin in 1921. this bureau served as a first point of contact for publishers from countries with “strong currency” who intended to transfer their businesses to berlin. set up to help them surmount “the enormous technical obstacles they encountered at every step and turn when trying to establish themselves in germany,”[28] it became an important link in a chain stretching from the narkompros,[29] the soviet peoples’ commissariat for education, to the german publishing and printing sector in berlin and leipzig. indeed, those years saw a symbiosis that turned out to be unique in the history of publishing, enabled by the attitude of german publishers among whom the jewish presence was also very prominent. mosse, ullstein, fischer, philo, schocken, wolf, and cassirer are cases in point. during the 1920s they began to consider book design and presentation to be at least as important as text. in their search for graphic artists, designers, and illustrators, they welcomed experts like kogan. exemplary are the collaborations between ullstein and russkoe iskusstvo, mosse[30] and znaniia [knowledge],[31] and between grzhebin and the spamersche verlagsdruckerei in leipzig. ullstein furthermore helped the yiddish klal-farlag, a continuation of the folks-farlag in kiev, but also lent a hand to v. d. nabokov (the father of the novelist) in setting up his publishing house slovo [the word].[32] while ullstein supported russkoe iskusstvo in terms of finance and commerce,[33] it profited from its owner’s expertise in high-quality art printing and graphic design while broadening its publishing portfolio by moving into intellectual literary journalism and book publishing, with a special interest in book-cover design.[34] many german publishers thus acknowledged the skills of their newly-arrived peers and appreciated them as inspiring visitors to learn from, rather than as competitors or suspicious strangers to be shunned. their attitude was welcomed by the new bolshevik elites, as it helped them to maintain their programme of national enlightenment despite the crisis of book publishing in russia. at the same time, it improved the positions of jewish publisher-entrepreneurs, whose mobility was a valuable asset to what proved to be a lucrative business during the period of german hyperinflation. and although it is the cultural aspect of their intermediacy that is under discussion here, both mobility and profit played their respective roles within this “brokerage.” what exactly does cultural brokerage entail? the term “brokerage” was originally applied in the field of economics, where it designates a third party involved in a commercial transaction as an intermediary or a facilitator between seller and purchaser. here it is applied to the analysis of interand trans-cultural agency.[35] cultural brokers are agents who are deliberately active in intercultural communication, attempting to teach, promote, or simply to enable exchange across cultural or religious borders.[36] the use of brokerage is advantageous, because brokers know the markets, products, and prices, besides having established contacts with producers and prospective clients; i.e. they have access to resources and tools that may not be available to an individual, especially a newcomer to the field. the meaning of the word extends nowadays to acts of mediation, or negotiations, as in the brokering of a peace treaty. however, meanings are not always so explicit. attitudes change, some faster than others, which is also reflected in the connotation of brokerage. today, brokerage can be perceived as a loaded term, i.e. a term that has assumed a connotation within a discourse; one of those words that, besides its explicit, public meaning contains an implicit hidden meaning, or association, depending on the attitude and experience of the communicator and the receiver. hence, the application of “cultural brokerage” within the jewish context, in the present case referring to mobile agents active in the publishing business, requires clarification. here it serves as a tool to describe and analyse the activities of jewish publishers in berlin, with “cultural brokers” referring to “cultural intermediaries” and “advocates” or “agents of cultural change.”[37] in order to scrutinize their space of activity, three types of agents can be discerned: others, emissaries, and go-betweens.[38] others the others, according to jaspert’s conceptual model on jewish intermediacy,[39] comprise all individuals who live—whether voluntarily or not—in a cultural environment that is different from their own. in the present context, this concept applies to the russians staying in berlin, either as emigrants waiting in the wings for the bolshevik regime to collapse, or voluntarily as visitors travelling on soviet passports. for both groups, the preliminary character that informed their intended sojourn had implications on those cultural agents who would use the german capital as a hub to maintain links between the communities of russia abroad and russia at home, between the old, pre-revolutionary russia, which had virtually ceased to exist, but lived on among the growing russian communities in berlin and other centres of emigration, and those staying in soviet russia where the bolshevik regime was still weak. hoping for an imminent return to their homeland, the emigrants had undertaken to maintain the russian spirit among the scattered russian communities. their agency struck a balance between the urge to assert and celebrate communal particularities and the need for a broader public.[40] it becomes most visible in the russian periodical culture they developed in berlin, in order to promote internal cohesion among russian expatriates without the infrastructure of state institutions,[41] and to promote links between them while also combating the subversion of russian language, literature, and art. this intention informed the mission of the almanacs they launched in berlin. these almanacs primarily addressed russian-speaking audiences, with the exception of graphical material, which offered german, english, and french translations of the captions. hence, since the publishers considered their sojourn in berlin to be preliminary from the outset, these publications focused first and foremost on building bridges between soviet russia and russians living outside the soviet union. only to a lesser extent were they intended to help their readers negotiate between home, the emigrant community, and the host society.[42] their almanacs included the above-mentioned teatr i zhizn’ [theatre and life], spolokhi [northern lights], and vereteno [spindle]. teatr i zhizn’ appeared under the editorship of eugen grünberg, v. v. klopotovsky [leri], and sergei gorny, and was devoted to the propagation abroad of russian scenic art, and writings about the work and life of artists in russia both at home and abroad.[43] spolokhi, on the other hand, was launched as a journal of literature, art and society. it covered essays, poetry and literary criticism, thus resuming the tradition of nineteenth-century russian literary journalism and following in the footsteps of the pre-revolutionary “thick journal.” here in berlin, it had undertaken “to serve russian literature and culture from an unwelcoming and unwanted distance,”[44] as the editor alexander drozdov pointed out in his mission statement. while both teatr i zhizn’ and spolokhi appeared regularly between 1921 and 1923, the literary-artistic almanac vereteno, also conceived as a monthly bulletin, remained an ephemeral undertaking. established in may 1922 as the organ of the eponymous association vereteno, its aim was twofold: unfettered by any political convictions, to combat the subversion of russian art and literature, in particular the contamination of the russian language,[45] and to promote communication with similar creative forces in russia, rather than restricting its activities to the russian diaspora communities.[46] hence the symbol of the spindle [russian “vereteno”], which suggested a device that supports itself and spins the fragile thread between the emigrant communities and the mother country during these difficult times. although the initiative of vereteno members turned out to be abortive due to internal disputes and discord,[47] its idea was subsequently revived by the almanac chisla [numbers], launched in paris in 1930. all these periodicals supported communication between russian metropolitan and diaspora communities. but they also turned out to be carriers of group identity for the dispersed russian emigrants, striking a balance between entertainment and comfort, with a tenor set by the yearning for the homeland, the lack of experience in coping with exile, and the hope for a swift return. while steering clear of politics, they promoted joint projects, with special attention given to music, literature, and the performing arts: the ballet, the theatre, and the new russian cinema. the endeavours of these agents to maintain the dialogue between creative forces in russia and in berlin during the years 1921−24, and the strong interaction they facilitated between what was eventually to crystallize into two divergent branches of russian cultural production[48] —soviet and émigré—represent the most prominent feature of “russian berlin.” it made the german capital a place of dynamic exchange, rather than a closed system of émigré culture, and distinguished the “russian berlin” from “russian paris,” “russian prague,” or any other centre of the post-1917 emigration.[49] it is therefore justified to label the agency of these “others” as cultural brokerage. emissaries while the agency of the “others” remained largely confined to russian language communities, the cultural brokerage of the “emissaries,” in contrast, implied crossing linguistic barriers. it concerned agents who had left for berlin, as discussed above, on the instructions of the bolshevik government, perhaps with a degree of voluntariness that remains open to speculation, the so-called emissaries, a term that, according to jaspert, describes those cultural brokers who actively or deliberately transfer cultural messages.[50] in the first instance, these emissaries mediated between the new bolshevik elites in soviet russia and the german publishing sector. in the second instance, both groups made use of their “sacred craft” to disseminate knowledge into society at large, primarily to german berliners in the immediate environment of russian communities staying in berlin, but also to european and global readers, while making use of the success story of the ballets russes as the first successful russian artistic endeavour to go global, and of russian creative forces scattered in other countries of emigration, france in particular, where the mir iskusstva [world of art] group had just been reunited. a first group of emissaries comprised the owners of the private cooperatives sent to berlin: jewish publisher-entrepreneurs who, due to the educational nature of their portfolios, were appreciated by the institutions of the new russia, in particular the soviet commissars at the narkompros who had instructed them to raise funds for soviet book production and set up their business in berlin. to this end, publishers had contrived a strategy that was both extraordinary and ingenious. while securing the provision of paper and print facilities from german publishers,[51] they took advantage of the global interest in russia’s destiny during this period of political turmoil, and displayed the oeuvre of russian artist-exiles. in that respect, they addressed target groups that had shortly before been generated in paris by the members of the mir iskusstva group, a circle of artists around sergei diaghilev, formed in 1898. the costumes and stage decorations these artists had created for diaghilev’s ballets russes from 1909 onward were the first russian art project to be highly appreciated by western audiences. originating from st. petersburg, the group was now reunited on foreign soil,[52] which they celebrated with an exhibition organised at the paris gallery “la boëtie” in june and july 1921. the aim of this exhibition was twofold: to generate empathy among the parisian public for russia’s destiny, and to assign a greater visibility to the oeuvre of the miriskusstniki, as stipulated in the exhibition brochure: in the chaos that represents the modern world in a painful gestation of the days to come all eyes are on russia: a new mystery hovers over her, adding to her traditional mystery. we are waiting anxiously in the dark for the sun to rise on her new destinies; for it is not only political and economic interest that binds us to this vast empire of the european orient. deep empathy unites the french spirit to the slavic soul. […] we have already known her musicians and dancers. and in these dark times when the iron curtain between us and the great tragedy which is committing its wild acts behind the river weichsel and the northern shores of the sea, it is they, the musicians and the dancers that remind us of the living russia. but her artists are less well known to us. the image certainly has a language that needs no translation; it doesn’t have, with the exception of prints, the precious facility of replication and expression that the book has. it is confined to its individual role.[53] the publicity that the instigators, a. e. kogan and georgi lukomsky, created around their exhibition helped them to launch a campaign for the internationalisation of russian art and its display to audiences well beyond the confines of paris. they correctly gauged that russian silver age[54] art, as displayed in the décor of the ballets russes performances, would still find a receptive audience[55] in paris and other capitals of the western world. they therefore referred their target groups to the magnificent exhibitions of russian paintings in paris and london and pavlova’s success story in paris, as well as the outstanding concerts of russian music, diaghilev’s ballet, and the mastery and refinement of russian stage and choreography[56] such as the firebird.[57] indicative of this view is the mission statement of teatr i zhizn’, which points out that foreigners often look down haughtily on our political clumsiness and lack of talent that has thrown us out of our homeland to unfamiliar shores, with scorn they look down on our social helplessness, our never-ending inner dissensions. but once russian art appears before them, in gesture, in word, sound or colour, they instinctively bow their heads and remember in awe russia’s creative originality.[58] in shared editorship, kogan and lukomsky envisaged the launch of illustrated monographs in german, french, and english, in which to present reproductions of works by the artist-decorators léon bakst, the most prominent scenic artist of the time,[59] and konstantin somov; editions on fifteenthto seventeenth-century russian art, and a number of illustrated volumes about the architectures of ancient kiev, ancient st. petersburg, and ancient moscow.[60] moreover, they had editions on russian graphics and design[61] in the pipeline, which they intended to publish in russkoe iskusstvo in berlin. for mid-1921, they planned the launch of two international reviews: l’art russe–the russian art–die russische kunst, and zhar ptitsa [the firebird], the former edited by lukomsky, head of the paris-based affiliate of l’art russe, the latter with kogan signing as art director and chief editor, residing in berlin. for l’art russe, kogan promised expert articles under the broad headings “russian art exhibitions abroad and russian artistic life in europe and america;” “bibliographical material disseminated by russian art editions;” “public sales and auctions of russian art works,” and “chronicle information, press items and rossica.”[62] zhar ptitsa’s art section, on the other hand, was designed to share with global audiences the treasures of the russian artistic heritage: high-quality tableaux and front covers designed by the artist-decorators bakst, bilibin, griogriev, gontcharova, iakowleff, soudeikine, stelletsky, und tchekhonin, together with the history of each artist’s background in russia and their careers abroad; insights about the oeuvre of russian sculptors; illustrations from old russia; contributions on russian architecture (monasteries, fortresses, the masters of eighteenth-century architecture; traditional russian countryside dwellings, the so-called “izbas,” and imperial palaces together with their artistic miracles), and metropolitan and provincial russian museums; leading representatives of russian stage, ballet, and opera; and russian costumes, books, and folk dance.[63] not only was zhar ptitsa’s editorial programme much more sophisticated compared to l’art russe, its lifespan of five years (1921–26) with fourteen issues in all, greatly exceeded that of l’art russe, of which only three issues appeared. zhar ptitsa, as a matter of fact, also topped the lifespan of all other russian periodicals launched in berlin during the early 1920s. only the last issue of 1926 appeared in paris. the review’s elegant appearance, its silver age-inspired format and typography, its lavish illustrations employing the latest technologies of fine-art printing, photography, and book ornamentation were outstanding. they reminded russian emigrants of the extravagant, russian pre-revolutionary art reviews mir iskusstva (1899–1904) and apollon (1909–13), and enabled foreign readers to revisit the success story of ballets russes performances. in order for his art editions and reviews to reach global audiences, kogan made use of the effective distribution network established during his long experience as an internationally renowned professional in art printing and graphic design:[64] in france and belgium through the affiliates of russkoe iskusstvo, the société moskva, und the société n. p. karbasnikoff; in the united states through brentanos booksellers new york and washington; in the united kingdom and ireland through marc wilenkin’s agency of russian newspapers and periodicals; and to south america through the gregorio a. kassian import of russian books, music and home-industry agency in buenos aires. paris, london, new york, and buenos aires were also the cities of the biggest ballets russes triumphs. it is therefore no coincidence to see kogan’s publishing outlets at these places, as they can be related to the performances of diaghilev’s troupe, whose stage decorations, like the reviews of the “emissaries,” were also silver age-inspired and the first successful encounter of western audiences and russian art. in this way, kogan secured a global readership willing to learn about the russian artistic heritage, whose subscription fee provided an essential contribution to the funds for the soviet book market.[65] in the years to come, zhar ptitsa rose to be a prominent and enduring publishing project that united contributing artists in exile and bolshevik animators in their endeavours to establish a mass audience for solidarity and protest. both groups profited from the brokerage of this russian jew whose dissemination expertise and skills in the art of printing enhanced the visibility of the former and the income of the latter. the focus on art reviews directed to audiences in germany, western europe and the americas, with a complete absence of political messages, was in line with the recommendations of narkompros commissar anatoli lunacharskii, who had encouraged contacts with weimar germany; soviet russia, he argued, could only learn from western approaches to proletarian culture. but he also understood that cultural contacts with western intellectuals would be feasible only as long as they steered clear of politics. he therefore instructed his emissaries to limit their activities strictly to the arts sector.[66] from this instruction evolved their strategy to display the russian artistic heritage and transport their audiences into an ideology-free zone in the past. this neutral stance and elimination of current political issues from their publishing projects appears to have been a decisive factor in their eventual emigration, after the bolsheviks in russia consolidated their power and no longer needed and supported their jewish publisher-friends. yet the strategy of sheer display without any political message was copied in berlin as late as 1924 by n. g. berezhansky [pseudonym for kozyrev] in his ephemeral art review zlatotsvet [chrysanthemum]. there is no obvious indication of a connection between soviet institutions and berezhansky. rather, he seemed to have given up his career as a military correspondent and political journalist in riga to use resources available in berlin to display his private collection of russian folklore[67] in zlatotsvet, which he launched at the olga diakova publishing house in berlin. however, berezhansky’s project documents that, over several years, the display of russian art to international audiences developed its own dynamics through agents who were able to cross linguistic and professional barriers within russian and german communities. the two groups predestined for this were the russian germans from the baltics and agents who had a knowledge of yiddish. closely linked to germany by culture or language, many of them stayed on in berlin long after the city had ceased to be the capital of russian emigration, as the 1925 census reveals. berezhansky’s self-appointed mission points to a second group of emissaries. the year 1921 saw the professional printing of literary works disappear from soviet russian soil, and with it the trust of many writers in the new government;[68] they left, and with them their publishers, friends, and supporters, who followed them into exile and established new presses abroad, either independently, or under the auspices and with the support of local publishers and printers. hence, there were two groups of emissaries in berlin: one pro-soviet group following bolshevik instructions, and the other, who had escaped the political and social situation in soviet russia and became an active part of russian-speaking diaspora communities in central and western europe, usually sharing an anti-bolshevik attitude. this differentiation is important in order to understand their strategies of accommodation and resistance, and the complexity of jewish agency in berlin. one sees here the different interests of jewish publishers and editors, and the relationships with their (new) environment, and thus the specific transcultural exchange processes and entanglements that they had built up or were involved in before 1925 when bolshevik control was asserted, closing the borders between east and west in stalin’s soviet union. their berlin-based activities were governed by the loyalties and alliances formed before and after 1917. yet the presence of publishers like kogan also forces us to call into question the boundaries between the emigration and the soviet union that russian emigrants and soviet russians eagerly tried to maintain. kogan ran an émigré publishing house that was also an early soviet enterprise, using resources available in berlin to educate a global readership about russian culture and to provide books for soviet russia, where resources were inadequate for their production. the nature of “services” publishers delivered thus largely depended not only on their varying degree of resistance or conformity to the new governing elites in soviet russia, but also on their experience in pre-revolutionary russia. go-betweens the internationalisation of russian art was also the quest of a third category of cultural brokers; the “go-betweens,” comprising those who mediate between two (or more) cultural spheres without being fully accepted members of either (or any) group.[69] in the present context, the term “go-betweens” refers to a small group of people who actively and deliberately transferred cultural messages from russia to the west and vice versa. in contrast to the “others” and the “emissaries,” who were looking to their russian heritage and avoiding any reference to current political events, the agency of the “go-betweens” was governed by their utopian vision and the ideals of the new society in soviet russia, and thus highly politicised. while the emissaries’ intention to display russian silver age art in the west to support the patronage of soviet book production has never been publicly admitted—we know about it only from the intensive correspondence in 1919−21 between maxim gorki, vladimir i. lenin, and vatslav v. vorovskii, the head of gosizdat[70]—the “go-betweens” explicitly acknowledged their mediating role. they comprised avant-garde artists rehearsing constructivism and suprematism on new ground, using the german capital not just as a centre of publishing resources, but also as a hub from which to advocate their views and launch their manifestos into the wider world. “go-betweens” did not identify with the emigrant community. with their statement on a new international style, “by the strength of a combined effort the new collective international style is emerging, and all who aim to play a part in its development are friends and comrades-in-arms,”[71] they made a provocative effort to contrast with, or even counteract, the nostalgic tones displayed in the publishing projects of the “others” and the “emissaries,” who in turn labeled them as chaotic, disorganized, and unable to identify with the internal system and discipline of the russian community in berlin.[72] they turned up in berlin around the time of the treaty of rapallo, by which germany accorded the ussr de jure recognition. motivated by the prospect of cultural exchange that both governments encouraged, the agency of two go-betweens stands out: el lissitzky and ilya ehrenburg, both of them cosmopolitan russian jews, the former an artist, architect, typographer, and theoretician, the latter a writer and journalist. while instructed by the narkompros to present the art of the new russia to europe, and travelling legitimately on soviet passports, they were as yet unsure whether they were going to end up as future emigrants or soviet citizens. their focus was on publicity rather than publishing, heralding the new soviet spirit in two prominent projects: the erste russische kunstausstellung [first russian art exhibition], which took place in the van diemen gallery in october 1922,[73] and veshch−gegenstand−l’objet, a spectacular trilingual review of international avant-garde creativity published in the spring of that same year.[74] transfer of knowledge and material objects initiated by the narkompros, together with a series of other exhibitions, the first russian art exhibition was organised by el lissitzky, naum gabo, david shterenberg, and nathan altman. lissitzky also designed the cover for its catalogue.[75] the show displayed more than 500 exhibits. it was intended as a showcase of soviet artistic achievements and a focus for creating and harnessing sympathy for the new regime.[76] it had undertaken to create a forum for cultural exchange between european and russian artists.[77] the most important creations of the russian avant-garde were exhibited in berlin, and a variety of innovative utopian projects were unveiled. among them were works by the organisers lissitzky and shterenberg, but also by wassili kandinsky, marc chagall, and naom gabo, who lived in berlin as exiles. the fact that they saw their works flagged as “soviet art” indicates not only their unresolved status, but also the blurred boundary of what exactly was classified as “soviet art.” while their works served the instigators of the exhibition for disseminating the message of the revolution to german audiences, the graphic designer and art theoretician henryk berlewi referred to it as “new jewish art.”[78] he delineated two trends in contemporary jewish art, one preoccupied with romantic folklore and mysticism, the other “with the modern universal task.”[79] it is no coincidence that such debates took place in berlin, whereas inside russia, bolshevik leaders became increasingly reluctant to allow national artistic styles, imposing more and more political and social restrictions on the development of individual talents. outside russia, however, they were still promoting them. although many conservative and avant-garde artists, including the principal jewish artists, had objected to bolshevik cultural politics and left the country, and only a modest jewish presence remained, notably in the theatre,[80] european artists continued to look with admiration to soviet russia, where the new revolutionary social context had provided rich fodder for avant-garde artists. “we have tremendous support in the russians!” said theo van doesburg, leader of the de stijl movement in holland, in 1922; “the germans are gutless in comparison […] great things can happen.”[81] kurt schwitters, the editor of the dadaist review merz, was similarly impressed. he found the constructivists’ principles irresistible.[82] they were international in outlook, strove for a better world, dismissed superficialities and ignored their own needs in the quest for a new order. they valued the group rather than the individual, emphasized the role of communication, and did not forget the common man.[83] he was so impressed with lissitzky’s ideas that he invited him to publish them in merz in july[84] and october 1923.[85] in july 1924, schwitters and lissitzky jointly produced a double issue that is said to be the most remarkable of all issues.[86] it was here in berlin that the russian avant-garde established contacts with the luminaries of german art and architecture, among them bruno taut, walter gropius, hans scharoun, paul klee, and georg grosz. berlin was also where the utopian vision of the russian avant-garde met the projects of the “gläserne kette” [the glass chain] and other german trends, and where russian and german avant-garde artists created a shared history, developing from utopian representations towards functional approaches in 1919 and to the realisation of utopia in the late 1920s.[87] confident in the commercial possibilities of such innovative art, berlin art dealers greeted the exhibition with enthusiasm.[88] the response of the local public, however, to whom the exhibition was presented with a charitable façade, was less warm.[89] the profits made from the sale of works in the exhibition were to go to a fund to help russian people afflicted by famine.[90] according to lukomsky, fewer than 1,700 entrance tickets had been sold during the first two weeks, whereas during the first two weeks of the paris mir iskusstva exhibition of 1921, the number had topped 15,000.[91] knowledge about the other and the other’s knowledge to create a forum for young soviet and western european masters to exchange their views on the latest trends of avant-garde creativity was also the mission of the trilingual avant-garde review veshch−gegenstand−l’objet. their editors, el lissitzky and ilya ehrenburg, had spent their formative years in western europe and were thus familiar with russian and european innovative cultural trends and challenges. published in russian, german, and french, veshch presented an international rallying call to avant-gardists who had been separated by the great war.[92] it appeared at skythen, whose owner, alexander shreyder, was a declared emigrant—only one of many examples showing that russian berlin saw intellectual exchange taking precedence over political recriminations, and that publishing portfolios were governed by cultural needs and market conditions, rather than ideological convictions. in february 1922, lissitzky wrote to malevich “[…] we experienced in vitebsk very good, very significant and very multi-temporal times [многовременное время]. however, my pulse is thumping and i follow it. […] i’ve organized a review, jointly with ehrenburg. as you will see—veshch—an affirmation of new art. […]. so, we come in contact with everything that is new in the world, and in any case it will be an international review. france, germany, italy, america, hungary, belgium, holland, czechoslovakia and yugoslavia have already joined us. […] the first issue will appear in two weeks. […].”[93] this concept of transcending national boundaries and relating developments in post-revolutionary soviet art and design to similar trends in the west was unprecedented. veshch published authors from russia, germany, france, holland, italy, and the united states, as well as translated material from l'esprit nouveau and other leading avant-garde reviews. while articles on conceptual issues and contemporary western art were published mostly in russian, sometimes along with german and french translations, distinctive material on russian contemporary art and russian exhibitions[94] appeared in german and french only. although the transfer of these cultural messages was necessarily linked to translation, it went far beyond purely linguistic assignments. ehrenburg and lissitzky did not simply transfer texts from one language into another, or from one country to another. their european experience had enabled a knowledge transfer that included mutual exchange of views, comments and open debate, and was eventually complemented by the transport of material objects displayed in the first russian exhibition later that year. like kogan, lukomsky, and berezhansky, the editors of veshch had crossed linguistic barriers. unlike the former, however, they did not publish for commercial reasons nor to comfort or entertain. neither did they lure their readers into the ideology-free zones of the past. their project displayed a utopian vision, heralding a new spirit and an affirmative positioning, as had been advocated by the unovis group.[95] while drawing upon their experience in both western europe and russia, they were not in complete agreement but still loyal to the political agenda of the new russia, and they wanted to see their revolutionary message disseminated into society at large. their method of combining innovative developments in avant-garde art and design with cultural and social progress[96] found a receptive audience in the west. veshch thus came to be associated with a broad notion of artistic creativity that encompassed painting, sculpture, and design, and became identified with a politically progressive, but not explicitly marxist, ideological stance.[97] the way lissitzky and ehrenburg approached interdisciplinary issues related to the visual and scenic arts, architecture, literature, and music, was well received by their european peers. rather than advocating a systematic concept, the editors of veshch offered discussion and dispute from different and even contradictory perspectives, which distinguished their approach from the more systematic attitudes towards constructivism,[98] as expressed for example by its soviet russian advocate alexei gan in his manifesto constructivism.[99] while gan established a complete thesaurus of constructivism, strengthened by marxist quotations, lissitzky and ehrenburg flagged an open text as a forum—a space for assembly, where experts could gather and debate constructivism, thus allowing its concept to emerge gradually. to this end they chose a particularly suitable tool: a questionnaire filled in by leading figures of the european avant-garde, among them fernand léger, gino severini, jacques lipchitz, alexander archipenko, and juan gris, to documented these artists’ individual views on constructivism.[100] this path towards a definition, namely by gradually shaping the subject matter through debate and discussion while overcoming contradictions, is very similar to the talmudic discourse of intertextuality, where the principal meaning germinates through an infinity of rabbinical disputes.[101] as the editors of veshch and organisers of the exhibition, lissitzky and ehrenburg, along with shterenberg, altman, and gabo, effected a process of cultural transfer that occurred on various levels, both textual and material. in the present case, the transport of textual messages (veshch) preceded the transport of material representations (exhibition). as a result of their agency, a comprehensive body of knowledge about the other, but also the other’s knowledge, was transported from russia to the west, and vice versa in the case of veshch, which makes ehrenburg and lissitzky cultural brokers in the sense of truly mediating “go-betweens,” who made use of berlin as both a centre of russian publishing culture and a hotspot of communication. as it turned out, the sojourn in berlin of all cultural agents discussed in this article was temporary. paradoxically, many of the “others” became half-way émigrés and returned to russia, among them spolokhi editor alexander drozdov. the “emissaries,” ironically, among them kogan, lukomsky, grzhebin, and kagan, ended up in paris. their transition from preliminary to permanent emigration distinguished the “emissaries” from the “go-betweens,” most of whom returned to russia, in the case of lissitzky and ehrenburg after extended periods of living abroad. lissitzky’s interlude between cultures[102] ended in 1925 when he left berlin, as he decided that revolutionary art was only possible in a revolutionary society.[103] ehrenburg took a similar decision. his return to russia did not surprise anyone, as he had become increasingly isolated among the russian berliners.[104] gabo moved on to the united states; shterenberg and altman returned to russia. berezhansky, the editor of zlatotsvet, returned to riga in 1925 to resume his assignment for the newspaper segodnia. during the years to come, the “go-betweens” aligned their work with soviet government politics, both at home and on future assignments abroad. a case in point is el lissitzky’s decoration of the soviet pavilion at the international press exhibition (pressa) in cologne in 1928, which became the greatest attraction of the entire pressa.[105] conclusion in conclusion, the mediation of russian art to berlin, european, and global audiences was facilitated by cultural agents whose discursive skills were intrinsically linked to the jewish tradition of intertextuality and the dissemination of knowledge. at first glance, their agency seems to support the general narrative of jews as outsiders and typical “intermediaries” or “middlemen” in european history, basically in the area of economics and sciences. but there is more to it. they cannot be classified as “service nomads” in the sense of slezkine, who referred to the jews as people “specializing in the delivery of goods and services that natives were unable or unwilling to perform.”[106] rather, in the present context, they were more experienced and could do it better than the natives. after moving to berlin they were even able to improve their services, whether they were bolshevik, emigrant, or on a self-appointed mission, through the technical support and sponsorship provided by their german peers. few publishers, however, outlasted the favourable conditions they had enjoyed during the period of german hyperinflation. wage rates in the typographic industry had almost doubled, and postal rates increased by ten to fifteen times, with serious implications for distribution. while it had cost between one and a half and two dollars to dispatch fifty books abroad by registered post, by january 1924 it cost about twenty-six dollars,[107] which hugely affected circulation. but during the years before, berlin’s position as a paradigmatic node of publishing knowledge, competence, and profit enabled them to use the german capital as a platform for the dissemination of their respective messages to both russian and global communities, thus to promote the city’s rise to a world metropolis. besides this aspect of dissemination as a powerful remnant of their jewish heritage, their cultural agency entailed publishing projects that had borrowed their mission from the prehistory of the jewish press and the distant forerunners of haskalah journalism, with three characteristic features: their publishing projects maintained links between dispersed communities after their departure into a diaspora existence, a strategy mostly utilized by the “others;” they provided a western readers with tuition and guidance on russian art, a tool mostly used by the “emissaries;” and they established a forum for a diversity of communities to gather for debate and to proclaim their manifestos into the wider world, a forum mostly used by the “go-betweens.” the tendency of these cultural brokers to consciously identify themselves collectively as jewish, and forming particular bonds among each other, is not to be found in the jewish content of their publishing projects. neither is it found in any religious goals, but in their shared heritage and ideals as disseminators par excellence: firstly by maintaining links between communities scattered in the european diaspora; secondly, by heralding education and knowledge as a prerequisite for the survival of a tradition; and thirdly, by helping defined groups of people to communicate their ideas and to convey their messages to society at large. transferred to berlin and shared with a wider international public, those ideals came to form prominent jewish contributions to modern journalism, of which the genre of the manifesto is probably the most spectacular. it is derived from a type of journalism that is based on an inherent messianic vision and a powerful ethos of communication and outreach,[108] which aims to make the world a better place. this ambition is grounded in the strong spiritual responsibility of the jewish community for the world community. it is part of the jewish messianic hope from suffering to redemption, often intensified when preceeded by a revolutionary or cataclysmic event. such an event often produces a call for immediate commitment, enthusiastically nourished by a vision of the future alongside exhortations encouraging speedy action to transform the world. in the present context, the transformation evolving from the cultural agency of jewish publishers was preceded by revolution and civil war, with three lasting effects: they initiated a globalisation of russian art; they stimulated berlin’s rise to a world metropolis, and they helped to turn a considerable fraction of the russian population into “people of the book.” bibliography abyzov, iuri. “rizhskaia gazeta ‘segodnia’—kto ee delal, kto v nei pechatalsia i kto ee chital [the riga gazette ‘segodnia (today)’—editors, printers, and readers].” in parkhomovsky, evrei v kul’ture russkogo zarubezhia, vol. 1, 221–239. alekseev, gleb. letter to the editors. novaia russkaia kniga [the new russian book] 10. december 11, 1922. amfiteatrov-kadashev, v. “zdes’ i tam [here and there].” teatr i zhizn’ [theatre and life]11 (june 1922): 4. “anketa [questionnaire].” veshch—gegenstand—objet 1−2 (1922): 16−18. “anketa.” veshch—gegenstand—objet 3 (1922): 11−12. anonymous. “bibliografiia: russkaia kniga za-granitsei [bibliography: the russian book abroad].” teatr i zhizn’ 1−2 (october 1921): 18. ———. “izdatel’stvo epokha [the publishing house epokha].” novaia russkaia kniga 1 (1922): 35. ———. “khronika i raznye zametki: izdatel’stvo z. i. grzhebina [chronicle and various remarks: the publishing house of z. i. grzhebin].” russkaia kniga 1 (january 1921): 9. ———. “khronika i raznye zametki: novoe russkoe khudozhestvennoe izdatel’stvo [chronicle and various remarks: a new russian art publisher].” russkaia kniga 4 (april 1921): 11–12. ———. “khronika izdatel’stva ‘russkoe iskusstvo’ [chronicle of the publishing house ‘russian art’].” zhar ptitsa [firebird] 1 (august 1921): 41–42. ———. “les éditions de ‘l’art russe’ [the editions of ‘l’art russe’].” in loukomsky, mir isskousstva, and galerie la boëtie, l’art russe à paris en 1921, no pagination. ———. “literaturnoe sodruzhestvo ‘vereteno’ [the literary association ‘vereteno’].” teatr i zhizn’ (may 1922): 20. ———. “russkaia khudozhestvennaia vystavka v berline [the russian art exhibition in berlin].” zhar ptitsa 8 (1922): 23–24. ———. “vereteno [spindle].” novaia russkaia kniga 5 (may 1922): 15. arbatov, z. “dnevniki. vospominaniia. dokumenty. ‘nollendorfplatskafe’ (literaturnaia mozaika) [diaries. memoirs. documents. ‘café léon’ (literary mosaic)].” grani: zhurnal literatury, iskusstva, nauki i obshchestvenno-politicheskoi mysli [facets: journal of literature, art, science, and socio-political thought] 14, no. 41 (january−march 1959): 106–122. basner, elena. “my i zapad: ideia messionerstva v russkom avangarde.” [us and the west: the messianic idea in the russian avant-garde] in russkii avangard 1910−1920-kh godov v evropeiskom kontekste [the russian avant-garde of the 1910−1920s in a european context], edited by g. kovalenko, 27–35. moskau: nauka, 2000. bechtel, delphine. “les revues modernistes yiddish à berlin et à varsovie de 1922 à 1924: la quête d’une nouvelle jérusalem? [the yiddish modernist reviews in berlin and warsaw: the quest for a new jerusalem?]” etudes germaniques 2 (1991): 161–177. bénédite, léonce. untitled speech given at the opening of the mir iskusstva exhibition. in loukomsky, mir isskousstva, and galerie la boëtie, l’art russe à paris en 1921, no pagination. berlewi, henryk. “yidishe kinstler in der hayntiger rusisher kundst: tsu der rusisher kundst-oysshtellung in berlin 1922 [jewish artists in today’s russian art: the art exhibition in berlin, 1922].” milgroym 3 (1923): 14−18. “blokada rossii konchaetsia [the blockade of russia is coming to an end].” editorial to veshch—gegenstand—objet 1−2 (1922): 3. boyarin, daniel. intertextuality and the reading of midrash. bloomington: indiana university press, 1990. cottington, david. cubism in the shadow of war: the avant-garde and politics in paris, 1905–1914. new haven: yale university press, 1998. d. [sic], “krizis russkogo knizhnogo dela v germanii [the crisis of russian book publishing in germany].” vremennik obshchestva druzei russkoi knigi [annual of the society for the friends of the russian book] (1925): 84–86. drozdov, aleksander. “domashnie stranitsy [editorial note].” spolokhi [turmoils] 1 (november 1921): 27–28. dukhan, igor. “el lissitzky: jewish as universal; from jewish style to pangeometry,” ars judaica 3 (2007): 1–20. evreinov, nikolai. “khudozhnik pechatnogo dela [an artist of print design].” (alexander eduardovich kogan) russkaia mysl’ [russian thought] 118 (11 march 1949): 5. fleishman, lazar, robert hughes, and olga raevskii-hughes. russkii berlin 1921–1923: po materialam arkhiva b. i. nikolaevskogo v guverovskom institute [russian berlin 1921–1923: on the basis of b. i. nikolaevsky’s archive material at the hoover institution]. paris: ymca press, 1983. fuks, leo and renate fuks. “yiddish publishing activities in the weimar republic, 1920−1933.” leo baeck institute year book 33, no. 1 (1988): 417–434. gan, alexei. constructivism. tver: tverskoe izdatel’stvo, 1922. gessen, iosif vladimirovich. arkhiv russkoi revoliutsii [archive of the russian revolution], vol. 22. berlin: slovo, 1937. golubeva, olga d. gorki-izdatel’ [gorky as a publisher]. moscow: izdatel’stvo vsesoiuznoi knizhnoi palaty, 1968. goodman, susan tumarkin. “alienation and adaptation of jewish artists in russia.” in russian jewish artist in a century of change, 1890−1990, edited by susan goodman, 28–39. münchen: prestel, 1995. gorki, a. m. “telegramma zaveduiushchego izdatel’stvom ‘vsemirnaia literatura’ a. m. gorkogo v. i. leninu ob otsutstvii bumagi u izdatel’stva, 6 march 1919 [telegram by the director of the publishing house ‘world literature’ a. m. gorki to v. i. lenin about the lack of printing paper].” istoricheskii arkhiv [historical archive] 30 (1958): 67–95. ———. “pis’mo a. m. gorkogo v. v. vorovskomu o pechatanii izdanii ‘vsemirnoi literatury’ za granitsy 21 may 1919 [letter of a. m. gorki to v. v. vorovskii about the printing abroad of editions by the publishing house ‘world literature’].” istoricheskii arkhiv 2 (march−april 1958): 67–95. greenbaum, alfred abraham. jewish scholarship and scholarly institutions in soviet russia, 1918−1953. jerusalem: hebrew university of jerusalem, centre for research and documentation of east european jewry, 1978. grinberg, uri zvi. “in malkhes fun tseilem [in the kingdom of the cross].” albatros 3–4 (1923): 15–24. ———. “veytikn-heym oyf slavisher erd [home of anguish on slav soil].” albatros 3−4 (1923): 25–27. guesnet, françois. “russian jewish cultural retention in early twentieth century western europe: contexts and theoretical implications.” in schulte, tabachnikova, and wagstaff, the russian jewish diaspora and european culture, 1–7. hemken, kay-uwe. el lissitzky. köln: dumont, 1990. jaspert, nikolas. “mendicants, jews, and muslims at court in the crown of aragon.” in cultural brokers at mediterranean courts in the middle ages, edited by nikolas jaspert and jenny rahel oesterle, 107–147. paderborn: wilhelm fink, 2013. juniberg, leonid. “evrei-izdateli i knigotorgovtsy russkogo zarubezhia’ [jewish publishers and book traders of russia abroad].” in parkhomovsky, evrei v kul’ture russkogo zarubezhia, vol. 1, 129–141. kodzis, bronislava. literaturnye tsentry russkogo zarubezhia, 1918−1939: pisateli, tvorcheskie obedineniia, periodika, knigopechatanie [the literary centres of russia abroad, 1918–1939: writers, creative associations, periodicals, book publishing]. münchen: sagner, 2002. leri [v. v. klopotovskii]. “na vecher ‘russkogo iskusstva’ [at an evening of russian art].” teatr i zhizn’ 1−2 (october 1921): 16. lissitzky, el. “proun.” merz 6 (october 1923): 1. ———. “topographie der typographie [topography of typography].” merz 4 (july 1923): 47. lissitzky, lazar [el]. “pis’mo malevichu [letter to malevich].” eksperiment [experiment] (1999): 150. lodder, christina. “el lissitzky and the export of constructivism.” in situating el lissitzky: vitebsk, berlin, moscow, edited by nancy perloff and brian reed, 27–47. los angeles: getty research institute, 2003. ———. “ideology and identity: el lissitzky in berlin.” in schulte, tabachnikova, and wagstaff, the russian jewish diaspora and european culture, 339–364. loewenthal, naftali. “hebrew and the habad communication ethos.” in hebrew in ashkenaz: a language in exile, edited by lewis glinert, 167–192. new york: state university of new york press, 1993. loukomsky, george, société mir isskousstva [sic], and galerie la boëtie, ed. l’art russe à paris en 1921: exposition des artistes russes à paris en 1921 [russian art in paris in 1921: an exhibition of russian artists in paris, 1921]. paris: édition “l’art russe” a. kogan, 1921. lozinsky, leonid. “petropolis.” in vremennik obshchestva druzei russkoi knigi [annual of the society for the friends of the russian book] 2 (1928): 33−38. lukomsky, georgi. “itogi i zadachi russkoi khudozhestvennoi deiatel’nosti zagranitsei (1919−1921) [the display of russian art abroad: results and endeavours, 1919−1921].” novaia russkaia kniga 2 (february 1922): 3−4. ———. “russkaia vystavka v berline [a russian exhibition in berlin].” argonavty: illiustrirovannye sborniki po voprosam izobrazitel’nogo iskysstva i muzeinoi zhizni [argonauts: illustrated collections on questions of the fine arts and museum life] 1 (1923): 68–69. lunacharskii, anatoli. v. “peredovoi otriad kultury na zapade [the vanguard of culture in the west].” khudozhestvennaia zhizn’ [artistic life] 4–5 (1920): no pagination. markish, perets. “biznes: moskva–berlin [business: moscow–berlin].” khalyastre [gang] 1 (1922): 62. markowitz, fran. “criss-crossing identities: the russian jewish diaspora and the jewish diaspora in russia.” diaspora 4, no. 2 (1995): 201−210. marten-finnis, susanne. “outsourcing culture: soviet and émigré publishing in berlin and a. e. kogan’s illustrated magazine zhar-ptitsa, 1921–26.” in presse und stadt: zusammenhänge—diskurse—thesen, edited by susanne marten-finnis and markus winkler, 61–86. bremen: lumière, 2009. ———. “the return of léon bakst in zhar ptitsa: berlin 1922; slav magic or oriental other?” journal of modern jewish studies 12, no. 2 (2013): 276–297. ———, and igor dukhan. “propaganda and design: the soviet pavillion at the pressa” in the pressa: international press exhibition in cologne 1928 and the jewish contribution to modern journalism, edited by susanne marten-finnis and michael nagel, vol. 1, 151–216. bremen: lumière, 2011. ———. “transnationale öffentlichkeit im russischen berlin: die avantgarde-zeitschrift vešč—gegenstand—objet [a transnational public sphere in russian berlin: the avant-garde journal veshch—gegenstand—objet].” osteuropa 58, no. 3 (2008): 37–48. michie, michael. working cross-culturally: identity learning, border crossing, and culture brokering. rotterdam: sense publishers, 2014. mission statement from the editors. teatr i zhizn’ 1−2 (october 1921):1–2. nakov, andrei. the first russian show: a commemoration of the van diemen exhibition berlin 1922. london: annely juda fine art, 1983. paret, peter. german encounters with modernism, 1840–1945. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2001. parkhomovsky, mikhail, ed. evrei v kul’ture russkogo zarubezhia: stati, memuary, publikatsii i esse, 1919−1939 [jews in the culture of russia abroad: collected articles, memoirs, publications, and essays]. jerusalem: center for russian jewry abroad in jerusalem, 1992. piotrovskii, v. letter to the editors. novaia russkaia kniga. december 7, 1922. raeff, marc. “emigration—welche, wann, wo? kontexte der russischen emigration in deutschland, 1920–1940 [emigration—which one, when, where? contexts of the russian emigration in germany, 1920–1940].” in russische emigration in deutschland, 1918–1941: leben im europäischen bürgerkrieg [russian emigration in germany, 1918–1941: life during the european civil war], edited by karl schlögel, 17–31. berlin: akademie verlag, 1995. ———. russia abroad: a cultural history of the russian emigration, 1919–1939. new york: oxford university press, 1990. rejtblat, abram i. “ja. n. bloch i izdatel’stvo ‘petropolis’ [the publishing house ‘petropolis’].” in parkhomovsky, evrei v kul’ture russkogo zarubezhia, vol. 3, 170–189. scandura, claudia. “das ‘russische berlin’ 1921–1924: die verlage [‘russian berlin’ 1921–1924: the publishers].” zeitschrift für slawistik 32, no. 5 (1987): 754–762. schlögel, karl. berlin ostbahnhof europas: russen und deutsche in ihrem jahrhundert [berlin, europe’s eastern train station. russians and germans in their century]. berlin: siedler verlag, 1998. schreiner, stefan. “isaak ber lewinsohn, der ‘mendelssohn’ der russischen juden [isaak ber lehwinsohn: mendelssohn of russian jews].” judaica 1–2 (1991): 82–91. schulte, jörg, olga tabachnikova, and peter wagstaff, ed. the russian jewish diaspora and european culture, 1917−1937. leiden: brill, 2012. shterenberg, david. erste russische kunstausstellung, galerie van diemen & co: gemälde neuer meister [the first russian art exhibition, gallery van diemen & co: paintings by new masters]. berlin: verlag internationale arbeiterhilfe, 1922. singer, isidor. presse und judenthum. mit einem briefe mr. lawrence oliphants an den verfasser [judaism and the press. including a letter by mr. lawrence oliphant to the author]. wien: löwy, 1882. slezkine, juri. the jewish century. princeton: princeton university press: 2004. stanka, vladas. “v. s. voitinsky.” novyi zhurnal [new journal] 61 (1960): 237–251. struve, gleb. “the double life of russian literature.” books abroad 28, no. 4 (1954): 389–406. tenenboym, yoysef. “di yidishe shprakh af der tog-ordnung fun der shlus-konferents in paris, 1919 [the yiddish language on the agenda of the paris conference of 1919].” yivo bleter 41 (1958–59): 217–229. the people of the book: jews in german publishing, 1871–1938. edited by abigail strubel. new york: leo baeck institute, 1996. exhibition catalogue. ulen [el lissitzky]. “die ausstellungen in rußland [the exhibitions in russia].” veshch—gegenstand—objet, 1–2 (1922): 18–19. valencia, heather. “the vision of zion from the ‘kingdom of the cross:’ uri zvi grinberg’s albatros in berlin (1923).” in berlin—wien—prag: modernity, minorities and migration in the inter-war period, edited by susanne marten-finnis and matthias uecker, 159–174. bern: peter lang, 2001. webster, gwendolen. kurt merz schwitters: a biographical study. cardiff: university of wales press, 1997. westheim, paul. “die ausstellung der russen [the exhibition of the russians].” das kunstblatt 1 (1922): 493–498. williams, robert c. culture in exile: russian émigrés in germany, 1881–1941. ithaka: cornell university press, 1972. winchevsky, mark [morris]. gezamlte shriftn [collected writings], vol. 9. new york: tsukunft farlag, 1927. wischnitzer-bernstein, rachel. “di naye kundst un mir [modern art and us].” editorial. milgroym 1 (1922): 2–7. [1] raeff, russia abroad, 17–31, 30. [2] amfiteatrov-kadashev, “zdes’ i tam,” 4. [3] jaspert, “mendicants, jews and muslims,” 107–147. [4] the striking literary-philosophical title not only alluded to the jewish scholarly tradition, but was also cunningly designed to lead the russian censors away from the journal’s political agenda, to “smuggle our [revolutionary] ideas into russia through the back door,” as asefat ha-khamim, published in königsberg, spread socialist ideas in hebrew among russian jews; it had to fold after its eighth edition, because the imperial censors would not allow the journal to enter russia. see: winchevsky, gezamlte shriftn, 193. [5] singer, presse und judenthum, 87. [6] diglossia: two languages functioning side by side, in the present context yiddish, the “vernacular,” the language of daily life, and hebrew, the language of writing, reserved for torah study and prayer, viewed as “the sacred tongue.” [7] schreiner, “isaak ber lewinsohn,” 82–91. [8] markowitz, “criss-crossing identities,” 201–210. [9] greenbaum, jewish scholarship and scholarly institutions, 4–5. [10] raeff, russia abroad, 27. [11] the western region of imperial russia stretching from the baltics to the black sea, beyond which jewish residency was normally prohibited. [12] grinberg, “in malkhes fun tseilem,” 15–24. [13] grinberg, “veytikn-heym oyf slavisher erd,” 25–27. [14] valencia, “the vision of zion,” 159–174. [15] markish, “biznes,” 62. [16] bechtel, “les revues modernistes,” 161–177. [17] scandura, “das ‘russische berlin,’” 754–762. [18] kodzis, literaturnye tsentry russkogo zarubezhia, 77. [19] juniberg, “evrei-izdateli i knigotorgovtsy russkogo zarubezhia’,” 129–141. [20] among them were alkonost (run by samuil m. aliansky) and gelikon (run by abram g. vishniak), see "khronika i raznye zametki," 9–10, 21; petropolis (run by iakov n. blokh and abram s. kagan), see lozinsky, “petropolis;” ogonki (established by the editor, a. g. levinson, and the publisher, zinovii grzhebin, who also ran the grzhebin publishing house); vozrozhdenie (run by a. b. levinson and l. z. katz); efron (by ilya efron); and kopeika (by benedikt katlovker, alexander e. kogan, and gorodetskii), see gessen, arkhiv russkoi revoliutsii, 333–334. [21] acronym for gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo [state-owned publishing house]. [22] golubeva, gorki-izdatel’, 97. [23] gorki, “telegramma zaveduiushchego izdatel’stvom ‘vsemirnaia literatura’,” 67–95, 73. [24] lozinskii, “petropolis.” [25] “izdatel’stvo epokha,” 35. [26] examples include grzhebin, grani, mysl, obelisk, ogonki, and efron. [27] “khronika izdatel’stva ‘russkoe iskusstvo’,” 41–42. [28] ibid. [29] acronym for “narodny kommissariat prosveshcheniia” [soviet people’s commissariat for education]. [30] stanka, “v. s. voitinsky,” 237–251. [31] “bibliografiia: russkaia kniga za-granitsei,” 18. [32] fuks, “yiddish publishing activities in the weimar republic,” 417–434. [33] “khronika i raznye zametki: novoe russkoe khudozhestvennoe izdatel’stvo,” 11–12. [34] the people of the book, 11–12, 20. [35] jaspert, “mendicants, jews, and muslims at court in the crown of aragon.” [36] ibid. [37] michie, working cross-culturally, 40–41. [38] jaspert, “mendicants, jews, and muslims at court in the crown of aragon.” [39] ibid. [40] guesnet, “russian jewish cultural retention,” 6. [41] schlögel, berlin ostbahnhof europas, 104. [42] ibid. [43] mission statement from the editors, teatr i zhizn’, 1–2. [44] drozdov, “domashnie stranitsy,” 27–28. [45] “literaturnoe sodruzhestvo ‘vereteno,’ 20. [46] “vereteno,” 15. [47] piotrovskii, letter to the editors; alekseev, letter to the editors; see also fleishman et al., 1983, 86. [48] struve, 1954, 389–406. [49] fleishman, hughes, and raevskii, russkii berlin, 2. [50] jaspert, “mendicants, jews, and muslims at court in the crown of aragon.” [51] marten-finnis, “outsourcing culture,” 61–86. [52] bénédite, untitled speech. [53] ibid. [54] the metaphorical characterization for russian culture from the 1880s to 1914. [55] raeff, “emigration,” 21. [56] lukomsky, “itogi i zadachi,” 3–4. [57] ballet by igor stravinsky, world premiere in paris, 1910. [58] mission statement from the editors, teatr i zhizn’, 1–2. [59] marten-finnis, “the return of léon bakst.” [60] “les éditions de ‘l’art russe’.” [61] “khronika i raznye zametki: novoe russkoe khudozhestvennoe izdatel’stvo,” 11–12. [62] ibid. [63] ibid. [64] evreinov, “khudozhnik pechatnogo dela,” 5. [65] marten-finnis, “outsourcing culture.” [66] lunacharskii, “peredovoi otriad kultury na zapade.” [67] abyzov, “rizhskaia gazeta,” 221–239. [68] juniberg, “evrei-izdateli i knigotorgovtsy russkogo zarubezhia’.” [69] jaspert, “mendicants, jews, and muslims at court in the crown of aragon.” [70] gorki, a. m., “pis’mo a. m. gorkogo v. v. vorovskomu.” [71] “blokada rossii konchaetsia,” 3 [72] amfiteatrov-kadashev, “zdes’ i tam,” 4. [73] shterenberg, erste russische kunstausstellung, 1. [74] marten-finnis and duchan, “transnationale öffentlichkeit,” 37–48. [75] nakov, the first russian show, 11. [76] lodder, “ideology and identity,” 339–364. [77] shterenberg, erste russische kunstausstellung, 3–4. [78] berlewi, “yidishe kinstler in der hayntiger rusisher kundst,” 14–18. [79] ibid. [80] goodman, “alienation and adaptation of jewish artists,” 28–39. [81] hemken, el lissitzky, 29. [82] webster, kurt merz schwitters, 117–118. [83] ibid., 126–127. [84] lissitzky, “topographie der typographie,” 47. [85] lissitzky, “proun,” 1. [86] webster, kurt merz schwitters, 155. [87] marten-finnis and duchan, “transnationale öffentlichkeit.” [88] westheim, “die ausstellung der russen,” 493–498. [89] “russkaia khudozhestvennaia vystavka v berline,” 23–24. [90] shterenberg, erste russische kunstausstellung, 2. [91] lukomsky, “russkaia vystavka v berline,” 68–69. [92] on the nationalistic orientations in the avant-garde movements before, during, and after world war i, see cottington, cubism in the shadow of war; paret, german encounters with modernism, 133–185; basner, “my i zapad,” 27–35. [93] lissitzky, “pis’mo malevichu,” 150. [94] ulen, “die ausstellungen in rußland,” 18–19. [95] acronym for utverditeli novogo iskusstva [affirmators of new art] (avant-garde group established by kazimir malevich in vitebsk). [96] lodder, “el lissitzky and the export of constructivism,” 36. [97] ibid. 38. [98] dukhan, “el lissitzky,” 1–20. [99] gan, constructivism, 1. [100] “anketa,” veshch—gegenstand—objet 1–2, 16–18; “anketa,” veshch—gegenstand—objet 3, 11–12. [101] boyarin, intertextuality and the reading of midrash. [102] lodder, “ideology and identity,” 361. [103] williams, culture in exile, 307–308. [104] arbatov, “dnevniki. vospominaniia. dokumenty,” 106–122. [105] marten-finnis and dukhan, “propaganda and design.” [106] slezkine, the jewish century, 4–39. [107] d., “krizis russkogo knizhnogo dela v germanii,” 84–86. [108] loewenthal, “hebrew and the habad communication ethos,” 167–192. (re-)configuring mao | gehrig | transcultural studies (re-)configuring mao: trajectories of a culturo-political trend in west germany sebastian gehrig, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg in the 1960s, a search was mounted within left-wing circles all across western europe for a “third way” to overcome the cold war confrontation between the “soviet-dominated socialism” prevailing in eastern europe and the “american capitalism” in western europe. since stalinism had been discredited after the 20th congress of the communist party of the soviet union in 1956, mao zedong and his idea of a cultural revolution attracted more and more left-wing intellectuals. inspired by the struggles of formerly colonized people in indochina, africa and south america, newly evolving subcultural left-wing milieus started to question the organizational models and ideologies of what they soon called the “old left.” in the “new left’s” global protest movements of the late 1960s, new icons[1] soon came to represent this shift in left-wing thinking within very different national left-wing subcultures: ho chi minh, fidel castro, ernesto “che” guevara and mao zedong took their places next to traditional communist icons such as karl marx, friedrich engels, vladimir ilyich lenin, and joseph stalin. although maoism turned into a globally recognizable political trend[2] in the 1960s and 1970s, “new left” activists across the globe reconfigured, and thus localized, the iconic image of mao and his ideology very differently, depending on the respective national, social and political contexts in which each of them operated.[3] ever since the ascendancy of mao as the leader of the chinese communist revolution, there have been multiple images of mao zedong.[4] already in the 1930s, mao himself realized the power of a carefully crafted image by consciously employing his own writings, photographs, and woodcut prints as powerful propaganda tools. at that time, the chinese communist party (ccp) began to intensify the propagation of its message via texts and images. in 1942, these efforts culminated in mao’s famous “talks at the yan’an forum on literature and arts,” in which he outlined the importance of the arts and especially painting for communist propaganda. already at this early stage, mao also tried to appeal to western audiences. in 1936, the journalist edgar snow transported a most powerful portrait of mao to readers in europe and the us.[5] initially, the mao-cult had been conceived as a reaction to the growing leader cult of “director general” chiang kai-shek, the leader of the nationalist guomindang.[6] yet, the efforts to stylize mao as leader of the ccp soon proved to be such an effective “branding strategy” that mao’s image merged with the institution ccp.[7] in a process of “authoritarian branding,” the fabricated image of mao served the streamlining of internal interpretations of the ccp’s political agenda within the party organization as well as external signalling.[8] when the chinese cultural revolution began in 1966, “multiple” and “mysterious” images of mao developed.[9]  due to the mere use of mao phrases in cultural revolution propaganda, maoist ideology became open to interpretation. this situation was enhanced through mao’s own behaviour. during the cultural revolution, he merely communicated to the chinese people via his writings, which remained ambiguous.[10] when maoism spread as a political trend to movements in the third world and western student groups, the icon mao and his ideology were thus already designed to acquire multiple meanings. living on the edge of the cold war divide in europe, west german radical left-wing activists soon recognized mao zedong and his idea of a cultural revolution as an appealing ideology, which they reconfigured into their political agendas. due to the extensive use of different media in ccp-propaganda, the icon mao lent itself perfectly to transcultural reconfigurations. within third world movements as well as in western europe and the us, the use of the icon mao and the adherence to maoist ideology thus turned into a widely recognized political trend through which left-wing activists created new spaces for imaginaries of a “better world.”[11] after examining the intellectual interest in mao zedong and his ideology in west germany since the early 1960s, this article will demonstrate how the left-wing group kommune i (= commune i) introduced the icon mao into student protests. while intellectuals acknowledged mao’s importance as a leading political thinker, kommune i introduced the icon mao as a means of provocation during the emerging student protests in west berlin in 1966/67. west berlin left-wing student groups played a key role in the evolution of a nationwide student movement at that time. this article argues that only the decline of student protests turned the reference and adherence to mao and his ideology into a widespread political trend within many different subcultural left-wing networks and publics.[12] when spontaneous student protests lost their momentum, mao and his ideology seemed to offer a point of reference to organize renewed left-wing opposition to the west german state in the 1970s. interestingly, at this point, mao simultaneously appealed to dogmatic cadre party members as well as terrorist groups and other left-wing activists. the final part of this article will trace the spread of mao’s iconic image to artistic circles and popular culture. the fact that the icon mao and left-wing jargon eventually found their way into popular culture highlights the historical significance of the left-wing subcultures and publics of the time. a “curiously electrifying impact”: intellectual enthusiasm for mao in the 1960s through their interest in mao and china during the 1960s, intellectuals representing the whole political spectrum of the west german political arena prepared the grounds for the development of a broader political trend.[13] in this process, left-wing and right-wing thinking met more than once. perhaps surprisingly, mao zedong was in fact first introduced into the west german political debate by liberal and right-wing intellectuals. in 1961, the liberal journalist rolf schroers discussed mao’s ideas on warfare tactics in his book der partisan (= the partisan)[14], which was inspired by the ideas of carl schmitt, the infamous right-wing expert on constitutional law who served as the “kronjurist (crown-attorney) of the third reich.”[15] schroers stylized the partisan as the last autonomous individual in a world dominated by bureaucracy and technology. this interpretation followed conservative diagnoses of post-war reality put forward by arnold gehlen and hans freyer. these authors viewed individual freedom as severely restricted by large-scale state-led development plans, which influenced politics across western europe at the time, as well as by other technocratic constraints.[16] two years later, schmitt published his own interpretation of the new global situation in theorie des partisanen (= theory of the partisan).[17] in this book, schmitt argued that the rise of partisan warfare, which had come to full fruition in china, had put the ius publicum europaeum and staatlichkeit at stake,that is, the classic european idea of the international state system and its function.[18] this assumption was meant to support schmitt’s theory of the end of the classic european state system and the emergence of regions of influence (großräume) dominated by powerful nations. these powers would not only rule their national domains but also dominate a region of influence around them. in schmitt’s eyes, the end of the classic state system also implied the end of regular warfare. consequently, non-national combatants like the maoist partisan had emerged in the struggle against domination by regional powers. in light of successful liberation struggles in asia, africa and south america since the end of world war ii,[19] many militant activists understood schmitt’s theory to mean that partisans were capable of shattering the liberal-democratic system of western european states. after the student protests of “1968,” some radical left-wing activists, following schmitt’s course of thought, slowly turned into right-wing activists.[20] a prominent example of this shift in political beliefs was günter maschke. starting his political career in the left-wing group subversive aktion (= subversive action), which will be described later in more detail, he became famous as the “dutschke of vienna.”[21] in the early 1970s, maschke spent one and a half years in cuba. drawing on large parts of schmitt’s theory of partisan warfare, maschke developed his own approach to guerrilla warfare during that time. disillusioned by cuban reality, however, he returned to austria. maschke’s interest in right-wing thinking while he was still a left-wing activist then facilitated his smooth transition into being an adherent of right-wing ideology.[22] manifold connections between right-wing and left-wing publics[23] through mao’s writings on partisan warfare were once more revealed in 1970 when joachim schickel, a left-wing sinologist and journalist in hamburg, praised schmitt as “the only personally approachable author” who was capable of elaborating “competently on the topics of partisans and irregular fighters.”[24] in 1966, sebastian haffner, a liberal journalist, wrote the preface to the german translation of mao’s writings on guerrilla warfare. haffner regarded mao’s concept of the “people’s war” as a “key text of this century,” written by a “genius”, and acclaimed its “curiously electrifying impact.”[25] he posited that mao’s idea of a strategy that enabled the weak to defeat the strong had fundamentally changed the world. universal peace was no longer to be achieved by a new type of pax romana; any imperial strategy had thus become obsolete. this, however, might be the “true key to universal peace,” haffner concluded admiringly. in 1967, the philosopher karl jaspers started his assessment of the federal republic’s situation in world politics with a chapter on china. in jasper’s view, the prc’s rise as a nuclear power fundamentally changed the world order. in a time of deradicalisation of the us-soviet antagonism, jaspers attributed an aggressive attitude to the prc regime.[26] mao zedong thus became a respected and sometimes feared political authority even in liberal and conservative publics during the first half of the 1960s. from the mid-1960s onwards, china also became a major issue in intellectual left-wing networks and publics. driven by the desire to discover new models for social change in west germany, intellectuals were susceptible to mao’s cultural revolution in their attempt to revitalize left-wing theoretical debates.[27] the political situation in the german democratic republic (gdr), the use of military force against east german citizens in 1953 and soviet military interventions in hungary in 1956 and in czechoslovakia (cssr) in 1968 had discredited soviet socialism, particularly in west germany. china appeared to be the most promising socialist “newcomer” to world politics, having successfully defeated japan in world war ii and split from the ussr in 1960/61. in 1965, hans magnus enzensberger founded the periodical kursbuch,which almost immediately became the leading theoretical left-wing journal of the late 1960s.[28] from its beginning, china was a major focus of the magazine. joan robinson, an english economist, explained world politics “viewed from china”[29] in the second issue. jan myrdal’s two articles entitled “reports from a chinese village,” published in the sixth and twenty-third issues, were meant to show the enormous benefits of the cultural revolution for chinese peasants.[30] in the sixteenth issue of kursbuch, peter schneider pondered the potential of cultural revolution ideology to destroy the “cultural industry” that dominated the west.[31] in the next issue, eduarda masi tried to explain the changes within the traditional chinese family caused by the cultural revolution.[32] in an eighty-five-page essay, joachim schickel declared china and maoism to be legitimate successors of marxist thinking.[33] he described several aspects of mao, thus creating images[34] that later particularly attracted young left-wing activists. by highlighting mao’s talents in the fields of politics, guerrilla warfare, poetry and philosophy, schickel managed to appeal to all evolving left-wing grassroots groups.[35] the range of talents ascribed to mao inspired many to adopt maoist ideology in the following years,[36] including activists seeking to found a new “truly revolutionary party,” which later became the so-called k-gruppen (= k-groups),[37] as well as militant activists and terrorists. in the twenty-fourth issue schickel praised the “self-education of the masses” following mao’s “primacy of practice” as the ultimate improvement of revolutionary pedagogy.[38] schickel also translated and commented on several important collections of mao’s writings. as a publisher of travelogues, he acted as an eyewitness to the cultural revolution and thus gained credibility within intellectual and subcultural left-wing publics.[39] schickel became one of the most important agents to introduce mao and his ideology to the west german left wing. he provided german-language literature on china at a time when, aside from translations of mao’s “little red book” and selected works, little else existed.[40] schickel thus centrally participated in generating genuine interest in china and acted as a trendsetter with regard to maoist ideology. other contemporary authors writing on china stressed schickel’s prominent role as a translator and editor of important publications by and about mao. hans heinz holz, for example, characterized schickel’s works as “insights which no future scientific analysis should fall behind.”[41] german literature on china was supplemented by translations of travelogues written by foreign journalists and intellectuals.[42] along with these accounts, the reprint of edgar snow’s red star over china helped west german left-wingers envisage the revolutionary atmosphere of the 1930s yan’an base areas.[43] clearly, the contemporary political and social situation in china had become a major topic of discussion within west german left-wing publics. but as in other countries around the globe during the late 1960s, journalistic and intellectual writing on china played a greater role in the initial dissemination of maoist ideology than mao’s own words.[44] the limited flow of information in the late 1960s also facilitated various and often conflicting interpretations of mao’s role as a socialist theoretician in left-wing subcultures. in a somewhat asymmetrical information flow, west german left-wing publics received only a selective picture of the real socio-political situation in china at the time. intellectuals like schickel thus served as gatekeepers in the process of introducing maoist ideology to subcultural milieus. the rise of mao as an icon: from intellectual circles to grassroots milieus the “new left’s” political start in the federal republic of germany was particularly difficult. at the beginning of the 1960s, the radical political left wing had been marginalized. the kommunistische partei deutschlands (=communist party of germany/kpd) had been banned in 1956, and the sozialdemokratische partei deutschlands (= social democratic party of germany/spd) had removed the theory of class struggle from its party statutes in 1959. the revitalization of socialist and communist thinking was tied to an identity crisis, which west german society had faced since the early 1960s. after the building of the berlin wall, a reunification of the two german states appeared to have become impossible. thus, west germans had to negotiate the post-war consensus of living in a “provisional state.” the general societal situation within the federal republic was a major focus of the ensuing discussion about the nature of the west german state. the media started to question the actions of the conservative government.[45] in 1962, the so-called spiegel-affäre(= spiegel-affair) uncovered the government’s authoritarian behaviour towards journalists.[46] the magazine der spiegel had published a report that exposed the limited ability of the west german military as part of nato forces to respond to a soviet attack on western europe. the article contained very detailed confidential information. on the charge of treason, the west german ministry of defence searched the editorial office of der spiegel and arrested, along with the author of the article, the chief-editor of the magazine, rudolf augstein, and four other members of staff. the free press seemed endangered as the editorial office was only fully cleared of governmental officials four weeks after the first search. a debate now arose around the perceived lack of democratic freedom and consciousness in german society.[47] in the course of this debate, members of the institut für sozialforschung (= institute for social research) in frankfurt am main highlighted the function of the social sciences as “educational sciences.” following this rise of the “frankfurt school,” left-wing ideas promoted by social scientists increasingly gained attention within intellectual circles.[48] thus, the intellectual left wing recaptured the public attention that the political left wing had lost in the years of strict anti-communism during the adenauer era.[49] as a result, subcultural left-wing networks and publics evolved with the revitalization of left-wing thought. it is crucial to understand the development of new protest methods within west german subcultural left-wing milieus in order to understand why mao could become such a successful and trendy political icon in the student movement and after. the deep roots of the student protest methods were ideas that were originally derived from 1910/20s avant-garde theory. this connection would later also facilitate close ties between artists interested in china and student protest networks. this fact, in turn, added much to the growing transmediality of the trend. from the end of the 1950s, young fans of pop and rock music had expressed their dissatisfaction with society at a grassroots level.[50] adopting american music culture was initially a general, non-political expression of protest by young west germans against the conservative authorities that dominated society.[51] at the same time, young left-wing activists were searching for new ways to gain influence within the parliamentary public beyond traditional means of political activism within fixed party structures and networks. radical left-wing activists could no longer rely on the support of party networks since the ban of the kpd and the exclusion of the sozialistischer deutscher studentenbund (= socialist german student union/sds) from the spd in 1961.[52] in the eyes of spd party leaders, the sds had expressed ideas that were too radically communist. after 1961, the sds only existed as a loose network of local and regional groups until its dissolution in 1970.[53] thus, young leftists desiring publicity for their political demands had to discover new ways to be recognized by the media and affect parliamentary discussions. in the early 1960s, the evolving left-wing subcultural groups of the “new left” in west germany put new protest methods into practice. these methods would later be enlivened with catchy mao slogans, taken from the chinese foreign language press’ german version of the “little red book” available in west germany since 1966.[54] provocative instances of “direct action,” first developed by the american student association students for a democratic society (sds), which despite the identical abbreviation based its actions on a very different theoretical basis than its west german counterpart mentioned above, now captivated also the imagination of west german activists. sit-ins, teach-ins and go-ins became widely used protest methods and revolutionized political protests around the world.[55] west german students returning from their studies in the us introduced this new kind of extra-parliamentary protest to west germany.[56] simultaneously, guy debord acting as the leader of the parisian chapter of situationiste internationale (si) revitalized ideas that had initially been developed in the context of avant-garde art, dadaism, and surrealism in west european bohemian circles in the 1910s and 20s.[57] inspired by debord, a group of artists in munich called gruppe spur (= group spur) adopted ideas from situationists and american artists known as beatniks.[58] the founding members allegedly coined the group name on a walk. looking back on their tracks in the snow, they agreed on the name spur, i.e. track, written in capital letters.[59] situationists and beatniks favoured merging art and political action. wishing to experience the rediscovered futurist, 1910s lifestyle of “the avant-gardist merging of art and everyday life”[60] himself, dieter kunzelmann, a member of gruppe spur and later one of the leading members of kommune i, travelled to paris to live as a gammler (“loafer”).[61] the notion of the necessity to merge art, daily life, political action and their own lifestyle prevailed among artists in europe and the us at that time. within youth culture, transnational influences of art conceptions and new provocative lifestyles pursued by american beatniks and weathermen, dutch provos, discussed in more detail below, and members of the british independent group and situationists melded in the growing left-wing subcultures in west german cities. the trend of using mao, the icon, for one’s own political ends reached its tipping point within the left-wing subculture propelled by actions of activists with close ties to the group subversive aktion. starting in 1962, the ideas of “direct” and “provocative” action inspired subversive aktion, which was founded by former members of gruppe spur. subversive aktion expeditiously formed “microcells” in munich, west berlin, frankfurt, nuremberg and stuttgart. particularly the microcells in west berlin and munich developed new notions of how to “revolutionize society.”[62] these notions also determined the two main factions within the growing student movement. the west berlin section of subversive aktion, led by rudi dutschke and bernd rabehl, advocated a mixture of traditional marxist ideology and provocative activism to create publicity. a faction around dieter kunzelmann, returned from paris, favoured provocative actions in the spirit of the situationists, who mainly aimed to criticize the “cultural industry.” both agreed, however, on the general notion that all political activity had to provoke the social authorities.[63] provocation would stir social disapproval and was intended to generate publicity. in 1966, both factions agreed to infiltrate the west berlin chapter of the sds to gain a broader organizational platform and network.[64] within the sds, they quickly gained authority through provocative tactics against the administration of the freie universität (free university/fu) and the city magistrate.[65] since the mid-1960s, activists had reconfigured the “authoritarian branding” of the political icon mao, which the chinese communist party (ccp) had established. in the prc, the idea of “mao-zedong-thought” had been branded as the successful merger of marxism-leninism and chinese realities since the 1940s.[66] while subcultural activists now engaged in branding mao either as a signifier for justified militant rebellion, a new source of ideological legitimation in the process of party-building, or simply as a new political and philosophical point of reference, western artists simultaneously reproduced the mao portrait within pop-art publics. yet, this facet of the trend only developed within the arts, most famously in andy warhol’s mao-posters, when some subcultural left-wingers already questioned mao’s authority. this development is described in a later section of this article. first, the icon mao was simply used as a symbol of dismay at the west german establishment. mao zedong entered the west berlin left-wing public when he was instrumentalized by radical members of the sds who were connected to the circles of dutschke and kunzelmann. criticizing one of the first provocative acts against the university administration, a berlin newspaper named der abend ran the headline “mit mao für die freie liebe: rotgardisten sprengten diskussion an der fu” (=“with mao for free love: red guards bust fu discussion round”). as some of the protesters wore mao-buttons, the author immediately associated the protesters’ behaviour with the chinese cultural revolution. when describing the goals of the activists, however, the author stated that they aimed to establish a “commune” to educate “provos.” after completing their “education,” these “provos” would supposedly stage provocative “hecklings” to trigger “the revolution” in west germany.[67] kommune i members were thus associated with mao’s simultaneously emerging cultural revolution, although their goals were much more related to situationist strategies and point to dutch “provos” as role models. since 1965, an amsterdam-based action group called “provos”, a short form of “provocateurs,” had organized protest actions inspired by anarchist currents. the group especially gained international fame in its protest against the royal wedding of princess beatrix of the netherlands and klaus von amsberg, a german nobleman and former wehrmacht officer, in march 1966. in june 1966, dutch “provos” engaged in riots in connection with protests by construction workers claiming their holiday fees. this kind of militant and action-focused behaviour became a focal point of many west berlin activists in 1966/67. kunzelmann and dutschke had direct contacts with the group following a visit to the amsterdam institute for social history. subsequently, they also invited some dutch activists to west berlin. [68] the icon mao continued to prove its provocative potential in the following years. in one of the first trials against a kommune i member in 1967, rainer langhans read aloud from the “little red book” during his arraignment to demonstrate his contempt for the judge and the court as state institutions.[69] at that time, members of kommune i regularly travelled to east berlin to collect chinese propaganda material, not only because selling these brochures to the west berlin subculture defrayed the group’s living expenses.[70] dieter kunzelmann, one of the founders, described in his autobiography how west german activists imagined the chinese cultural revolution as an uprising of chinese youth against the “authoritarian structures” of society, similar to their own revolt against “the establishment.”[71] during the year 1967, the rebellious image of mao dominated the political discourse of radical left-wing activists in west berlin. consequently, a slogan inspired by mao on a blackboard in the west berlin sds headquarters stated: “one can summarize the truth of socialism in one word: rebellion is justified.”[72] short films like harun farocki’s die worte des vorsitzenden (words of the chairman) of 1967 glorified maoist slogans that seemed to legitimise militant action. holger meins, a terrorist and later member of the raf, shot the film. in it, a protagonist dressed like a member of the chinese red guards makes a paper dart from a page of the “little red book” and throws it at another actor playing the shah of persia (iran). while throwing, the actor says, “the words of mao zedong have to become weapons in our hands.” french films like louis malle’s viva maria! (1965) and jean-luc godard’s la chinoise (1967), the latter depicting a maoist student group living in a shared apartment, transported a romantic notion of “making a revolution” and supplemented the revolutionary attitude of the student protesters. for a short time, a group associated with dutschke and kunzelmann even called itself "viva maria!" before kunzelmann founded kommune i.[73] brigitte bardot, who played one of the main characters in viva maria!, became even more popular among left-wing publics across european borders when she posed in a red guard suit. the red guard look quickly became part of a radical chic that was characteristic for the protests around “1968” in the western world.[74] this development highlighted the convergence of different themes and ideas. while films such as viva maria! pointed to the situationist idea of “direct action” and the revolution as a funny and joyful happening, maoist themes began to serve as legitimation for a militant rebellion. as the chinese cultural revolution appeared at the time to be a success from a radical left-wing perspective, maoist ideology seemed to lead the way to victory in the “revolutionary struggle”. at the 22nd conference of the sds, held in west berlin from september 4–8, 1967, members of kommune i annoyed delegates by constantly playing chinese revolutionary songs and army marches, wearing uniforms of the chinese red guards and distributing propaganda material. the delegates, however, viewed the performance as one of the jokes or provocations that kommune i had become famous for rather than as a serious political statement.[75] up until the end of 1967, mao zedong thus served mainly as a provocative icon used by kommune i in order to win public attention. the chinese cultural revolution was evaluated as a general uprising of youth against the authorities. combined with mao’s catchy slogans, this notion of china was used as a provocative topic without judging the real situation in china or mao’s ideology in detail.[76] fritz teufel and rainer langhans, both members of kommune i, expressed their intention of staging such political happenings in the magazine der spiegel as follows: “without provocation, we are not recognized.”[77] associating many provocative acts with mao, the political magazine der spiegel frequently labelled commune members as “maoists.”[78] mirroring the influence of kommune i on the media coverage of the student movement, rudi dutschke was referred to as the “berlin prophet” of mao zedong in an article published in der spiegel in 1967. moreover, the article’s author stated that mao was the most influential guiding authority for radical west german students.[79] indeed, dutschke frequently argued using maoist terms. in his eyes, only a permanent state of revolution could bring about a true change in society. the notion of a permanent revolution, first introduced by bakunin and later developed further by lenin, figured prominently in the european image of the maoist vision of revolutionary processes at the time.[80] in his preface to the “little red book,” lin biao moreover had characterized the essence of mao’s works as the merging of theory and practice. what cadres learned in studying mao’s writings had to be immediately applied in practice to accomplish fast political success. the revolutionary had to learn the most necessary first and immediately put into effect what he had just learned. lin biao thus emphasized practice.[81] potential mistakes occurring in the course of political actions had to be identified and activities amended if necessary. dutschke saw in the cultural revolution a continuous social transformation, which was not guided by a great plan. actions of the red guards in china seemed to be constantly improved by their daily experiences of living in a changing society. dutschke envisaged exactly such a method for the social transformation in west germany. this idea also pointed to mao’s dogma of the “primacy of practice,” that stated that it was the duty of the revolutionary to “make the revolution” and not only talk about theory.[82] dutschke thus emphasized the importance of direct, immediate action. in his eyes, the revolutionary had to discover the right political strategy and tactics in a kind of “trial-and-error” process. naturally, the trend of quoting mao and using cultural revolution gadgets such as the “little red book,” red guard shirts or mao buttons in performance and revolutionary action also contained a playful, ironic facet at this time. in a satirical leaflet reflecting the conservative newspapers’ press coverage of china, kommune i even attributed mao’s honorary titles (“great teacher,” “great leader,” “great commander-in-chief,” “great helmsman”) to chiang kai-shek. some years later, k-gruppen members would have judged such behaviour as a serious affront to their idol mao. the text of the leaflet ironically referred to the reporting on the rising power of china in many west german newspapers. numerous articles reported on “red china” as a new potential threat. the country had just tested its first atomic bomb in 1964. the emerging cultural revolution triggered social violence resulting in many deaths. thus, many members of the press judged the fact that western student activists had nonetheless chosen mao as a role model as a threat to west german society. this negative reporting now became the target of the kommune i leaflet. the kommune i announced a meeting with chinese officials at the embassy in east berlin because they wanted to meet “real” chinese people before they were all “slaughtered.” the screening of two films was planned during the meeting. while the first film reported meetings of red guard members with “the great teacher, great leader, great commander-in-chief, the great helmsman chiang kai-shek [sic!],” the second was about nuclear weapon tests in china. the leaflet closed with the announcement that after the films, special candy would be served: “chinese caramel bonbons” containing trace elements that trigger brainwashing.[83] this last remark sarcastically commented on the bewilderment among journalists that west german students were following maoist ideology. the contrast between the mostly critical articles on china in the west german press and the appeal of mao’s writing among left-wing activists originated from a deep distrust of left-wingers in the press. gretchen dutschke, the wife of student protest leader rudi dutschke put it like this: “when the bourgeois press reported on mass murders in china, we simply did not believe it.”[84] the media was part of the “system” at large and, accordingly, could not be trusted in the eyes of many left-wing activists.[85] the immediate success of creating publicity by using provocative actions, as carried out by kommune i members, supplanted classic marxist positions that the sds had propagated in the early 1960s. kommune i members thus became the most important trendsetters in the process of introducing mao to the radical left-wing public in west berlin. the sudden and successful introduction of the icon mao during the years 1966/67 even confounded some sds-activists. reimut reiche, chairman of the sds in 1966, stated in 1967 that no one would have dared refer to a mao slogan at an sds meeting only a year earlier. now, in 1967, it happened frequently, accompanied by “pretentious laughter” from the people present at sds meetings. the iconic and merely provocative use of mao had to stop, reiche concluded: “now, we have to learn to read him [mao zedong, s.g.] properly: we have to learn from the revolution of the third world.”[86] reiche’s statement shows that the provocative use of mao by kommune i members and the circles around rudi dutschke had successfully made the icon mao popular within student protest networks and publics in west berlin (and beyond). reiche’s statement, however, also foreshadowed the more dogmatic use of mao in the future. in the summer of 1968, the student movement lost momentum. having spread all over west germany, student protests were nevertheless concentrated in west berlin and frankfurt am main. by this time, mao had become a well-established icon in the left-wing public and its networks all over west germany. the focus on the vietnam war had simultaneously led student movement members to become increasingly interested in the “struggle of the third world.” in this struggle, china was seen as one of the leading actors. after the west german parliament passed so-called notstandsgesetze (= emergency laws)[87] in may 1968, a legislation which was opposed by wide parts of west german society, one of the major goals of the student protesters became unattainable: in the fight against the new laws, left-wing grassroots activists had aimed to join forces with the unions to gain a stable organizational platform and network.[88] an alliance between the student protesters and the unions thus ended before it had really begun, once the common cause of fighting the emergency law legislation had vanished. left-wing activists needed a stronger organizational basis than the loose network of local and regional sds groups to sustain their protests. consequently, the idea of cadre parties was revived by parts of the left-wing milieu. as a result, the iconic image of mao zedong was re-evaluated. until then, he had served as a provocative symbol that represented pure revolt. henceforth, left-wing subcultural activists studied maoist ideology intensely, and in the process of forming cadre parties mao became an ideological authority.[89] intellectual enthusiasm about mao’s role as a political philosopher, artist, partisan fighter and revolutionary, as expressed earlier in kursbuch articles, was now transformed into real political, grassroots activism.[90] in 1969, the student movement split into two main factions. this schism of the student movement, however, was already foreshadowed by the founding of kommune i parallel to the activities of subversive aktion members within the sds. one of them favoured the idea of establishing new lifestyles and communes. through the “revolution” (i.e. radical change) of personal lifestyles and everyday life, supporters of this faction believed a revolution of society would eventually be facilitated.[91] groups following this general political notion adhered to the rebellious image of mao. this became obvious in radical left-wing newspapers such as agit 883, published from 1969 to 1972. on one of the paper’s covers, mao was put in a theoretical continuity that led from marx, engels and lenin through mao to “che” guevara.[92] in this reading, the classic communist icons marx, engels and lenin led directly to the “third-world leaders” mao and guevara, who were admired for their resistance against imperial powers. another cover showed a large mao portrait, put up as a huge banner outside a building in west berlin during a military parade of the american forces. the american soldiers were drawn with pig faces.[93] in an article discussing the foundation of militant groups, a depiction showed mao as a “jack in a box”-like figure, waving a flag in the one hand, while presenting a machine gun in the other.[94] mao’s image was, however, also used to discredit the other main faction of the left: the growing cadre parties. after the disbandment of kommune i, dieter kunzelmann founded a militant group called zentralrat der umherschweifenden haschrebellen(= central committee of the rambling hashish rebels). when coining the militant group’s name, kunzelmann implicitly used the title of mao’s work “on the mentality of rambling rebel crowds,”[95] ironically referring to the growing dogmatic attitude within the newly founded k-gruppen.[96] as mao criticized rambling rebels in his writing, kunzelmann’s subversive use of the title pointed critically at the cadre groups. at that time, both cadre groups as well as kunzelmann’s “hashish rebels” were in the middle of abandoning playful and provocative public protest, which kunzelmann, too, had been engaged in as a member of kommune i. in taking the idea of symbolic provocative actions one step further to militant action, kunzelmann became the mastermind of the first west german terrorist group, which was based in west berlin.[97] while mao had at first merely served as a symbol of youth rebellion in connection with the chinese cultural revolution, at the turn of the decade to the 1970s, the trend changed its nature. for a short while during the years of 1967-72, a variety of subcultural groups, ranging from militants and terrorists to cadre parties, used mao slogans. within the cadre groups, chinese propaganda and mao’s ideology were taken as indisputable truths.[98] the ideological foundations of these groups had already been laid in many statements written by intellectuals in the mid-1960s. in particular, grassroots activists now rediscovered articles by schickel and myrdal.[99] admiration for mao within the k-gruppen now led to a period of dogmatic allegiance to chinese world politics within wide parts of west german left-wing grassroots milieus. in the early 1970s, even west german terrorist groups used the iconic image of mao. they tried to gain attention and support among left-wing subcultural groups by exploiting the popularity of mao within grassroots publics that had initially been created by the activities of kommune i.[100] dieter kunzelmann concluded in his memoirs that in the transition period from student protests to many diverse local and regional left-wing subcultural milieus, “somehow all radical left-wing organizations were more or less fans of mao, be it because of the thesis of the permanent revolution, his successful underground activities during the long march, or the cultural revolution.”[101]after this period, the political trend of using mao’s slogans, image and writings was monopolized by the k-gruppen. the chinese government had encouraged party foundations in europe since the early 1960s. in a german version of the peking rundschau (= beijing review) (since 1964) and china im bild (published since 1956 as a pictorial presenting china in glamour and glory, from 1966 onwards with a clear maoist agenda), the ccp tried to reach a wider german readership. the publications of these newspapers and a radio broadcast in german called radio peking beginning in 1960 even led to the foundation of a first cadre party in 1965, the marxistisch-leninistische partei deutschlands (= marxist-leninist party of germany/mlpd). the party, however, was completely detached from “new left” student protest networks and publics.[102] although calling itself a party, the mlpd only consisted of a negligible number of activists. the first cadre party developing from student protest networks was the kommunistische partei deutschlands/marxisten-leninisten (= communist party of germany/marxists-leninists/kpd/ml). it was founded in 1968 and also acknowledged by the chinese government. next to smaller splinter groups, two other major maoist parties were assembled in 1970 and 1973. since 1970, the kommunistische partei deutschlands/aufbauorganisation (= communist party of germany/assembling organization/kpd/ao)–later just called kpd–organized the growing number of activists. in 1973, the kommunistischer bund westdeutschland (= communist association west germany/kbw) was founded.[103] while party members used maoist thought as their ideological basis, italian marxist-leninist groups also became role models for the parties’ organization.[104] this fact once more highlights the “new left’s” transnational character. in the 1960s and 1970s, left-wing protest in west germany developed from various outside influences. these foreign inspirations then amalgamated in new ideological and organizational constructs. within cadre parties, former members of student protest groups now started to fundamentally change their political activism and private lifestyles. the initial student uprising had been fuelled by creative, subversive and provocative action and was driven by the desire for a radical liberation of the self from “authoritarian” social structures in the private sphere. cadre party leaderships now imposed traditional protest methods on their members. similar to third world maoist movements, reference to mao now often served just as “a pose, an imitative adoption of mao’s personal authoritarian style” to legitimise a strict chain of command within cadre groups.[105] strikes and organized mass demonstration–sactions already pursued by the german communist party of the 1920s and 30s–became primary means of public protest again. moreover, party members and adherents were required to adopt “proletarian” lifestyles. while protests had centred at the universities in 1967/68, cadre groups now prepared their members to agitate the “proletariat” in the factories. the spontaneous protests, organized within the loose network of sds groups, had failed to establish a sustainable infrastructure for radical left-wing opposition in the federal republic. the cadre parties’ firm organizational structures therefore became an appealing opportunity to engage in further protests. research estimates a number of 100,000 to 150,000 activists following this promise throughout the 1970s.[106] by the mid-1970s, the stock of left-wing subcultural bookstores reflected the widespread interest in maoist ideology within west german left-wing subcultures. no less than eleven left-wing publishing houses associated with militant groups and k-gruppen had established contact with the chinese publishing house guoji shudian (國際書店).[107] access to chinese writings initially improvised via the chinese embassy in east berlin, was now coordinated by a functioning subcultural network of publishing houses and left-wing bookstores. there was a growing interest in mao’s writings as a basis for a “revolutionary organization” following the decline of student protests in late 1968. accordingly, subcultural networks began to provide direct access to chinese propaganda material. starting in the early 1970s, left-wing publishing houses and bookstores provided burgeoning left-wing milieus with literature. greater independence from periodicals run by intellectuals contributed to an increasing separation of subcultural and intellectual left-wing publics throughout the 1970s. in a joint initiative called the verband des linken buchhandels (= association of leftist booksellers/vlb), k-gruppen and other subcultural groups published a catalogue in the attempt to list all available “revolutionary literature.”[108] despite conflicts during the production process, which ultimately caused the association to break up, a catalogue of 3,000 works was published in 1972. among the literature listed, the catalogue included fifty-eight writings by mao himself in the category “classics of marxism-leninism” and an additional one hundred and one publications on the “contradiction between socialist states and imperialism/social imperialism” and “building socialism in the people’s republic of china.”[109] in 1974, deng xiaoping officially presented the “theory of the three worlds” before the united nations assembly. this seemed to substantiate the notion of china as a model for a “third way” and further deepened the interest of leftists in maoist thinking.[110] deng stated that the world was oppressed by us capitalism and soviet social imperialism. agreeing with deng’s assessment of the contemporary global situation, many west german leftists perceived the successful struggles of formerly colonized people as models for their own fight against the usa and the ussr. deng’s theory also seemed to have direct implications regarding the still unsolved “german question.” some left-wing activists, among them rudi dutschke, had identified the german division as a necessary precondition for the superpower’s stabilization of influence within their blocs.[111] the success of a united struggle of the “people of the third world” and european nations against the two superpowers now even seemed to open up possibilities for german national reunification: for some, maoist china seemed to offer the clue even to the german question. “the most prominent person in the world”: mao in the arts and popular culture the period of the 1960s and 1970s were characterized by a vibrant left-wing artistic scene not only in west germany, but in many parts of the west european world. in accordance with the situationist dogma of merging art and daily life, many artists tried to “politicize” their work. the abovementioned gruppe spur, for example, was founded in this spirit.[112] artists also increasingly showed an interest in mao as a motif. in the late 1960s, german artists like thomas bayrle, gerhard richter, jörg immendorff, eugen schönebeck, k. p. brehmer and sigmar polke introduced mao to the general public in their avant-garde works. sympathizing with the student movement, these artists were also members of left-wing intellectual and grassroots publics. their artistic interest in mao was another facet expressing his popularity and status as a trendy icon in left-wing networks. conversely, artists also quite literally increased mao’s visibility in artist circles and among the general public. mao’s popularity in intellectual circles and his appropriation by left-wing activists for political action were thus also reflected in the visual arts and subsequently entered popular culture. in the late 1950s, the art academy in düsseldorf became a prominent centre of left-wing art.[113] as early as 1958, the first neo-dada exhibition was shown in cologne, later followed by an exhibition of american pop art.[114] sigmar polke and gerhard richter studied under joseph beuys and others in düsseldorf from 1961 to 1967.[115] at that time, the art academy was highly influenced by american pop art as well as performance art in the spirit of beuys.[116] in 1963, and again in 1966, polke and richter presented their work in joint exhibitions shown in düsseldorf, west berlin and hanover:[117] both of them would later paint portraits of mao. thomas bayrle, too, expressed his fascination with china, which also guided his artistic work. in his eyes, each chinese individual took part in forming the “collective will” in chinese society. he contrasted this notion with the will imposed by adolf hitler on the individual in third reich society.[118] china in the days of the cultural revolution on the other hand appeared to bayrle as a country where the experiment of forming a functioning “democratic” mass society had succeeded.[119] in this spirit, bayrle’s mao portrait of 1966 was not painted on canvas. fascinated by chinese mass choreographies, bayrle built an installation consisting of dozens of vertically aligned wooden panels in the style of modern advertising boards. a hidden electrical device allowed the panels to rotate vertically thus revealing in alternation a portrait of mao and a big red star. the interaction between art and politics became most obvious in jörg immendorff’s paintings. up until the mid-1970s, immendorff illustrated posters and leaflets for the newly founded kpd/ao.[120] these illustrations also included an iconic depiction of mao or quotations by mao. by modifying mao’s quotes, immendorff advertised the kpd/ao’s youth organization and the party’s clandestine methods.[121] immendorff also frequently articulated his conviction that it was the duty of the artist to be politically active and to merge art and political activity. in the painting dem volke dienen mit pinsel und farbe (serving the people with brush and paint), immendorff modified the maoist slogan of “serve the people” to stress his contribution as an artist to the “revolutionary activities” of other grassroots activists.[122] in the painting, a man, maybe immendorff himself, is shown in front of a red flag, holding a brush and a paint can in his hands. in the sketch rot bleibt rot (red remains red), immendorff depicted the portraits of the “five classic” icons of communist ideology in the eyes of the k-gruppen marx, engels, lenin, stalin, and mao.[123] in contrast to the line of thinkers presented by militant activists in agit 883,described above, k-gruppe members drew a line from marx, engels and lenin directly to stalin and mao emphasizing the importance of the latter three in the development of concepts for the establishment of a revolutionary party. immendorff therefore artistically illustrated the k-gruppe members’ belief that a revolution without a “revolutionary party” was impossible. in contrast to other left-wing groups mentioned above, cadre group members were convinced that any revolutionary attempt to change society had to be led and organized by a party organization. in 1984/1985, immendorff once again painted mao in a cycle of paintings called anbetung des inhalts (adoration of content).[124] in this cycle, he also painted other dictators such as hitler and stalin. by connecting mao to the two other great dictators of the 20th century, immendorff critically reflected on his maoist past. others, however, had already voiced criticism of chinese politics much earlier. in 1972, the west berlin band ton, steine, scherben featured a picture of mao with the caption: “mao, mao, why did you abandon us?” on the cover of their newly-released album keine macht für niemand (= no power for no-one). this statement was meant to criticize the decision of the chinese government to receive us-president nixon in that year. during his official state visit, nixon also met mao. as part of the west berlin radical left-wing milieu, the band expressed the general feeling of dismay shared by many leftists across different groups with regard to changes in chinese foreign policy occurring at the time. the meeting between mao and nixon called into question their image of mao as the new legitimate leader of communism against capitalism. as part of the west berlin left-wing scene, the album’s title referred to a new development within the west berlin subculture. militants now also began squatting in the attempt to establish “state-free zones.” during the early 1970s, the band’s members were part of this militant “scene” and had close ties to first terrorist groups, whose members later joined the bewegung 2. juni (= movement 2nd of june) and the red army faction (raf). during concerts, band members or fans frequently read mao quotes between songs.[125]  in the early 1970s, mao probably reached the peak of his popularity in the field of art with andy warhol’s pop-art adaptation of the official mao portrait shown in tiananmen square, beijing. warhol followed a suggestion by bruno bischofsberger, a swiss gallery owner, to make a portrait of the most famous person in the world. bischofsberger had albert einstein in mind. warhol, however, had read in the magazine life that mao was the most famous human being of that time.[126] in a retrospective article on warhol’s works, sabine müller argued that mao represented a simplistic western notion of chinese communism, dominated by ideological propaganda images.[127] as tilman osterwold contended, mao became part of the cultural memory of the west and symbolized “the east” in “the western imagination.”[128] however, by printing more than 2,000 pictures of mao, warhol showed that mao had also become a commercial(ly viable) icon since the student protests of 1968.[129] due to warhol’s international popularity, his mao portraits also quickly reached the west german general public. mao’s iconic status throughout the 1970s was once more revealed in a published photograph of paul breitner, a west german soccer star, sitting in a rocking chair in his living room, below a portrait of the “great chairman.”[130] the picture presents an intriguing mixture of bourgeois and subversive elements. breitner is photographed sitting properly dressed in a rocking chair in his living room wearing a checked shirt, a dark slipover and dark trousers. he is reading the german version of the beijing review. a dog (a boxer) is sitting next to the rocking chair. breitner thus only seemed to use popular icons of youth protest while living in a rather bourgeois environment.[131] in the early 1970s, breitner had cultivated his own image as a new, young, rebellious sportsman who would rather study “mao, marx, and ‘che’ between training sessions than jerry cotton”[132] like his fellow team members. although he was well on the way to becoming a wealthy man at that time, breitner used mao’s image to appear as the “bad boy” of west german professional soccer and thus gained popularity.[133] attracted by the rebellious aura of the 1967/68 student protests, breitner stylised himself as a sympathizer of the movement by adopting elements of chinese propaganda. in return, members of the west berlin left-wing network acknowledged breitner as one of them, pointing out his haircut as a clear indicator of a “revolutionary look.”[134] breitner had a beard and an afro-look haircut at that time. according to members of the band ton, steine, scherben mentioned above, breitner even visited their flat on 11 january 1973. the band had sent breitner a copy of one of their albums. in return, breitner invited them to a soccer game in berlin. in 1999, breitner reflected on this period of his life as follows: there was a group in munich called sdaj [= sozialistische deutsche arbeiter jugend/socialist german worker’s youth, s.g. [135]]. in the beginning of 1972, at a time when i was already a professional soccer player playing for bayern munich, i took part in some of their actions during which i also got to know ton, steine, scherben. in the beginning of 1973, i met them again. … after that meeting, contact between us ended, which had only been sporadic anyway. … i liked the music of the scherben, but i was not a die-hard fan. what interested me, was their [the band’s, s.g.] critical attitude towards the establishment and their connections to underprivileged groups, such as students. at that time, i myself was not only a soccer player, but i also studied special education (sonderpädagogik). i led kind of a hermaphrodite’s life. on the one hand, i was a soccer player and as such standing on the side of the privileged people. on the other hand, i also was a student. that was why i empathized with ton, steine, scherben.[136] frequently criticizing the economic mechanisms of professional soccer in marxist terms, breitner’s popularity even made it onto the pages of the new york times in 1972. henry kamm called breitner “a new hero of the german new left” and “the newest hero of west german counterculture” who “has captured a surprising place for the new left in the most popular and highly paid group in the country–the national soccer team.”[137] breitner left his soccer club 1. fc bayern münchenafter winning the world cup. he signed a contract with real madrid, a soccer club associated with “feudal behaviour,” as peter brügge put it in a spiegel article. this especially referred to the player’s salaries. leaving west germany in 1974, breitner now claimed that he had always tried to fight his “left-wing image,” but the image had been stronger. as he had some connections to left-wing activists until 1973, breitner seemed to have downplayed his interest in left-wing activities in the interview. nevertheless, his interest in left-wing ideology seems to have been half-hearted as he termed students an underprivileged group. though he remained a frequent critic of the social and economic mechanisms of professional soccer, this interview marked breitner’s break with his left-wing youth.[138] subsequently he also stopped using left-wing iconic items in his public presentation. in their conflict with radical left-wing protesters, conservative politicians and the media became increasingly suspicious of popular culture. in 1969, the bayernkurier, a conservative bavarian newspaper, attacked erika fuchs, the ingenious german translator of mickey mouse comic books. in the eyes of the bayernkurier,the disney characters in fuchs’ german translation had adopted the “sociologist-chinese of the new left.”[139] the term “sociologist-chinese” (“soziologen-chinesisch”) referred to the colloquial language that characterized left-wing discussions during the student movement years and after. in the 6th mickey mouse issue of 1969, a verbandsideologe (= “group ideologue”) accompanied the beagle boys who suggested that they had to take over the “means of production.” fuchs adamantly denied any intention of clandestinely introducing left-wing ideology into her texts. at the same time, however, left-wing high school pupils published a marxist analysis of mickey mouse characters in the nationwide high school paper wir machen mit (= we participate). in their eyes, scrooge mcduck was a “prototype monopoly capitalist.” donald duck became a symbol of “revisionist social democrats,” whereas huey, dewey, and louie represented the “socialist youth.” the pupils only recognized the beagle boys as revolutionary. these appeared to be “true disciples of mao,” as they would “get down to business with the expropriation of the exploiters.”[140] thus, as a result of left-wing activists’ attempts to politicize everyday life, the trend of referring to mao, originating from intellectual circles and propelled by a growing left-wing subculture, came to be connected with one of the most famous products of american popular culture in west germany at that time. breitner’s and fuchs’s use of maoist icons and left-wing rhetoric presented curious transformations and comebacks of mao as a trendy icon in new contexts. the fact that a soccer player and a comic translator felt compelled to engage with left-wing publics shows the political significance of left-wing subcultures at the time. rise and fall of mao in west german publics the reference to and adoption of mao’s writings and the chinese cultural revolution as ideological role model turned into a political megatrend, to be felt in many regions of the world in the 1960s and 70s.[141] maoism became a subversive alternative to hegemonic public culture. it was propelled by student protests in the usa and western europe since the 1960s. in west germany, the tipping point of this trend was marked by actions performed by kommune i in 1967. intellectual interest had paved the way for the development of a broad trend affecting left-wing subcultures all over west germany since the early 1960s. while liberal and right-wing intellectuals developed an interest in mao’s contribution to global warfare tactics, left-wingers discovered china as a new ideological role model state. the chinese social and political development appeared to be a “third way” to a better society in the eyes of many left-wing intellectuals. the revolutionary tide of the “struggle of the third world” thus also reached west germany from the mid-1960s on. left-wing intellectuals, however, did not immediately turn into trendsetters. mao as icon and maoism as an ideology were initially introduced to the networks between student movement members’ in a rather “apolitical” manner. kommune i members realized that a society still affected by patterns of strict anti-communism would be utterly enraged by non-conformist performative maoist behaviour. the icon mao and gadgets like the “little red book,” red guard shirts and mao-buttons served this strategy very well, as the reaction of political magazines like der spiegel show. for many student protesters, the kommune i members were proven right by their publicity success. as representatives of the “new left,” former members of the subversive aktion now entered the network of the sds. what was seen as china’s youth rebellion, the chinese red guards movement, was equalled by the aspirations of west german activists. china served as a “screen” onto which many leftists projected their romantic notions of a supposedly already existing “new kind” of society, such as they hoped to establish in west germany.[142] this process represented a re-configuration of chinese events in the west german context. it was only this initial re-interpretation of the ongoing events in the prc that facilitated a localization of maoism in the european political context. consequently, this re-configuration facilitated the fast spread of the trend within the west german left-wing subculture in 1967/68. west german subcultural left-wing activists of the time were extremely susceptible to this interpretation of chinese events. much of their protest was driven by a general dissatisfaction with conservative restrictions on youth by the older generations. still appearing authoritarian in nature, german society seemed to prove the existence of nazi attitudes within state institutions and society in general. in the left-wing activists’ attempt to fundamentally change west german culture and society to overcome third reich legacies, the romantic notion of a successful cultural revolution in china mirrored hopes for a real “lebensstilrevolution” (= lifestyle revolution) in west germany. this revolution of german culture and politics would encompass the overcoming of traditional family relations, work relations, and social relations in general, all of which were topics widely discussed among left-wing circles. mao zedong and his ideology, especially his idea of a cultural revolution, thus became one of the most important points of reference for left-wing protests in the 1960s and 1970s. from 1968/69 onwards, the simultaneous intellectual discussion of mao, his adoption as an art motif, and the use of new protest methods rooted in avant-garde art theory had turned mao into a trendy, widely recognized political icon. the close connection between left-wing political networks and the avant-garde art scene created a new kind of provocative political protest culture. while the trend of adopting maoist slogans and ideology was now well established, it started to change in nature with the transformation of the student movement within left-wing subcultural milieus. mao became popular within militant circles and amongst adherents of cadre parties. the trend’s changing nature within west german subcultures is most evident in the person of dieter kunzelmann. starting from left-wing artistic circles and connected to situationists, he co-founded kommune i to revolutionize his personal lifestyle. later, he radicalized provocative symbolic protests to the point of militant action and founded one of the first west german terrorist groups. after his imprisonment, he became a member of a maoist cadre group.[143] while left-wing intellectuals tried to propagate the cultural revolution as a social role model and thus ultimately served as trendsetters for subcultural discussions, they also acted as gatekeepers. information about the social and political situation in china initially travelled to west german left-wing publics only via a small number of publications, because especially grassroots activists distrusted news on china reported in the west german press. as long as the left-wing subculture had not established direct contact with the chinese publishing house guoji shudian, translations by german sinologists remained the only source for left-wingers to acquire information in german about china. these translations and other materials about china were always accompanied by commentaries and prefaces, and thus contained potentially biased opinions. since he had already published widely on china in the 1960s, joachim schickel could become one of the key agents in spreading the trend in west germany. since left-wing groups had found their own channels of information from the early 1970s onwards, left-wing intellectuals’, artists’ and subcultural activists’ publics and networks—which had merged for the short period of student protest—lost their inter-connections. after the student movement had lost its momentum, classic marxist notions of how to organize “class struggle” regained currency within left-wing subcultures. after the decline of the student movement, mao was no longer merely recognized as a “global communist hero” in the debate on how to organize protests. now, his ideology was intensely studied. within the evolving k-gruppen, he became the “fifth classic” communist theorist. this adoption of mao’s ideology represented a transcultural flow of the chinese concept of communism to west germany. maoist ideology was not only adopted, however, it was also reconfigured and mixed with european communist ideology in k-gruppen discussions.[144] thus, maoist thinking melded with other classic communist schools of thought and formed new hybrid transcultural ideologies, unique to each k-gruppe. these cadre parties attracted up to 150,000 adherents during the 1970s. yet, the peak of the mao-cult within k-gruppen also marked his end: after mao’s death in 1976, west german activists mourned the “greatest marxist-leninist of our times.”[145]  the trend of applying and following maoist examples came to a sudden end in the late 1970s. with china’s proclamation of the end of the cultural revolution in 1976 and the beginning of economic market reforms in 1978, maoism lost its appeal for west german left-wing activists.[146] during the general modernization process of west european states in the 1960s and 1970s, small extra-parliamentary groups developed new protest methods particularly designed to generate publicity and popularity by provoking social authorities and state institutions.[147] these methods were deeply rooted in futurist, situationist and avant-garde art theory, turning political action into provocative acts and spectacles. by using these new protest methods, left-wing activists broadened the boundaries of already existing publics. until then, politics had been negotiated in parliament, the press, the unions and intellectual circles. now, left-wing activists created new publics and turned them into stages for political action. the creation of public spectacles through sit-ins, go-ins, teach-ins, happenings and street theatre created in turn publicity and media presence that the left-wing milieu might otherwise never have acquired. with the retreat of more and more left-wing activists from the goal of a “revolution” in west germany, left-wing subcultural milieus began to dissolve by the mid-1970s. many activists commenced to participate in “single-issue” movements like the anti-nuclear movement, the women’s movement or the peace movement. these movements focused on social change and reform, but not revolution.[148] during the “german autumn” in 1977, when a series of terrorist attacks ultimately discredited the use of political violence as well as the radical left wing as a whole, the majority of left-wing grassroots activists finally (and publicly) abandoned the prospect of a revolution in the federal republic.[149] the dissolution of grassroots milieus combined with growing new protest movements also heralded the decline of maoist influence on west german intellectual, grassroots and artistic milieus and publics. the official end of the chinese cultural revolution in 1976 and chinese economic reforms beginning in 1978 completed the decline of the culturo-political trend of maoism within west german subcultural publics. just as the trend could only gain ground in west german society in the specific socio-political situation of the late 1960s, it now lost its appeal completely as times changed. many maoist-inspired protest methods and theoretical ideas, however, found their way into the new social movements via left-wing activists and were thus further transformed. conclusion to conclude, it can be argued that the propagation of the iconic image of mao and maoism represented a culturo-political trend (not just) in west germany in the 1960s and 1970s. as pop art and the new protest methods of the student movement developed from some of the same avant-garde art theories, artists and musicians frequently used mao’s iconic image. mao very often appeared in collages and on protest banners.[150] mao’s ideology not only found recognition in radical left-wing circles, it was also evaluated and respected by liberal, conservative and right-wing intellectuals. though never a political ideology favoured by major parts of society, maoism was frequently debated in the newspapers in the context of intellectual and political discussions on china’s role in world politics.[151] in a cover story published in june 1968, spiegel authors even concluded their article by quoting mao to criticize the student protesters’ lack of patience. “whoever wants the revolution here and now–like the impatient members of the sds–needs political mass support instead of religious time and leisure. regarding this issue, mao’s bible states: if we tried to go on the offensive when the masses were not yet awakened, that would be adventurism. if we insisted on leading the masses to do anything against their will, we would certainly fail.”[152] the spread of intellectual debate into political magazines such as der spiegel and kursbuch, subcultural networks and artistic discussion not only turned mao and maoism into an ideological flow on elite (left-wing intellectual) and anti-elite (left-wing subcultural) levels, but also into a culturo-political trend widely recognized in west german publics of the 1960s and 1970s. literature abu-er-rub, laila, jennifer altehenger, and sebastian gehrig. “the transcultural travels of trends: an introductory essay.” transcultural studies 2 (2011). albrecht, clemens, günter c. behrmann, michael bock, harald homann, and friedrich h. tenbruck. die intellektuelle gründung der bundesrepublik. eine wirkungsgeschichte der frankfurter schule. frankfurt am main: campus, 1999. albrecht, willy. der sozialistische deutsche studentenbund (sds). vom parteikonformen studentenverband zum repräsentanten der neuen linken. bonn:  dietz, 1994. appadurai, arjun, modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization. minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1996. bacarta, louis. china in der kulturrevolution. ein augenzeugenbericht. wien: molden, 1967. baumann, cordia, nicolas büchse, and sebastian gehrig. “einleitung: protest und gesellschaftlicher wandel in den 1970er jahren.” in linksalternative milieus und soziale bewegungen in den 1970er jahren, edited by ibid., 11-32. heidelberg: universitätsverlag winter, 2011. bayrle, thomas. “drei impressionen.” in touching the stones. china kunst heute, edited by waling boers, 112-115. köln: könig, 2006. becker, jürgen, and claus von der osten (eds). sigmar polke. die editionen 1963–2000. ostfildern: cantz, 2000. benicke, jens. von adorno zu mao. über die schlechte aufhebung der antiautoritären bewegung. freiburg: ca ira, 2010. blumer, giovanni. die chinesische kulturrevolution 1965/67. frankfurt am main: europäische verlagsanstalt, 1969. cheek, timothy. “mao, revolution, and memory.” in a critical introduction to mao, edited by ibid., 3-30. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2010. connery, christopher leigh, “the world sixties.” in the worlding project, edited by rob wilson and christopher leigh connery, 77-108. berkeley: north atlantic books, 2007. cook, alexander. “third world maoism.” in a critical introduction to mao, edited by timothy cheek, 288-313. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2010. davis, belden, “french maoism,” in the 60s without apology, edited by sohnya syres, anders stephanson, stanley aronowitz, and frederic jameson, 148-177. minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1984. deng xiaoping, “rede von deng hsiao-ping, dem leiter der delegation der volksrepublik china.” peking rundschau 15 (1974): 8-13. diehl, laura k., “die konjunktur von mao-images in der bundesdeutschen „68er“-bewegung.” in kulturrevolution als vorbild? maoismen im deutschsprachigen raum, edited by sebastian gehrig, barbara mittler, and felix wemheuer, 179–201. frankfurt am main: peter lang, 2008. diers, michael. schlagbilder. zur politischen ikonographie der gegenwart. frankfurt am main: fischer, 1997. elbaum, max. revolution in the air: sixties radicals turn to lenin, mao and che. new york: verso, 2002. fahlenbrach, kathrin. protestinszenierungen. visuelle kommunikation und kollektive identitäten in protestbewegungen. wiesbaden: westdeutscher verlag, 2002. dutschke, gretchen. wir hatten ein barbarisches, schönes leben. rudi dutschke. eine biographie von gretchen dutschke. köln: kiepenheuer & witsch, 1996. fischer, jürgen (ed.). linke verlage informieren. verzeichnis linker lieferbarer bücher (vllb). berlin: maulwurf buchvertrieb, 1975. fischer, peter. “pop und viel mehr. komplexität im werk von warhol, polke und richter.” in warhol–polke–richter. in the power of painting 1, edited by peter fischer, 11-24. dielsdorf: lichtdruck mathieu, 2001. fürmetz, gerhard (ed.).“schwabinger krawalle.” protest, polizei und öffentlichkeit zu beginn der sechziger jahre. essen: klartext, 2006. gehrig, sebastian. “‘zwischen uns und dem feind einen klaren trennungsstrich ziehen.’ linksterroristische gruppen und maoistische ideologie in der bundesrepublik der 1960er und 1970er jahre.” in kulturrevolution als vorbild? maoismen im deutschsprachigen raum, edited by sebastian gehrig, barbara mittler, and felix wemheuer, 153-77. frankfurt am main: peter-lang, 2008. gehrig, sebastian, barbara mittler, and felix wemheuer (eds). kulturrevolution als vorbild? maoismen im deutschsprachigen raum.frankfurt am main: peter lang, 2008. gehrig, sebastian. “sympathizing subcultures? the milieus of west german terrorism.” in between prague spring and french may: opposition and revolt in europe, 1960–1980, edited by martin klimke, joachim scharloth, and jacco pekkelder, 233-50. new york/oxford: berghahn-books, 2011. gillen, eckhardt. feindliche brüder? der kalte krieg und die deutsche kunst 1945-1990. bonn: bundeszentrale für politische bildung, 2009. haffner, sebastian. introduction “der neue krieg” to theorie des guerillakrieges oder strategie der dritten welt, by mao tst-tung (reinbek: rowohlt, 1966), 5-34, re-printed in: die raf und der linke terrorismus, edited by wolfgang kraushaar, 2 vols, vol. 1, 157-81. hamburg: hamburger edition, 2006. hayworth, charles w. “mao’s journey’s to the west: meanings made of mao.” in a critical introduction to mao, edited by timothy cheek, 313-31. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2010. hecken, thomas. gegenkultur und avantgarde 1950–1970. situationisten, beatniks, 68er. tübingen: narr franke attempto, 2006. hecken, thomas. avantgarde und terrorismus. rhetorik der intensität und programme der revolte von den futuristen bis zur raf. bielefeld: transcript, 2006. von hodenberg, christina. konsens und krise. eine geschichte der westdeutschen medienöffentlichkeit 1945–73. göttingen: wallstein, 2006. holmig, alexander. “die aktionistischen wurzeln der studentenbewegung: subversive aktion, kommune i und die neudefinition des politischen,” in handbuch 1968. zur kulturund mediengeschichte der studentenbewegung, edited by martin klimke and joachim scharloth, 107-18. stuttgart: j.b. metzler, 2007. holz, hans heinz. widerspruch in china. politisch-philosophische erläuterungen zu mao tse-tung. münchen: hanser, 1970. hürten, heinz, waldemar gurian: ein zeuge der krise unserer welt in der ersten hälfte des 20. jahrhunderts. mainz: matthias-grünewald-verlag, 1972. immendorff, jörg. das grafische werk. in zusammenarbeit mit beate reifenscheid und dirk geuer. düsseldorf: geuer & breckner, 2006. immendorff, jörg. zeichne. arbeiten aus seinem archiv. mit einem essay von christoph danelzik-brüggemann. köln: walther könig, 2008. jaspers, karl. antwort. zur kritik meiner schrift wohin treibt die bundesrepublik? münchen: piper, 1967. kailitz, susanne. von den worten zu den waffen?: frankfurter schule, studentenbewegung, raf und die gewaltfrage. wiesbaden: vs verlag, 2007. kleiner roter buchladen (braunschweig), polibula (göttingen), and verband des linken buchhandels (bremer sekretariat) (eds). das politische buch. katalog sozialistischer literatur 1972. köln: gaehme henke, 1972. klimke, martin, and joachim scharloth. “maos rote garden? ‚1968’ zwischen kulturrevolutionärem anspruch und subersiver praxis –eine einleitung.” in handbuch 1968. zur kulturund mediengeschichte der studentenbewegung, edited by martin klimke and joachim scharloth, 1-7. stuttgart: metzler, 2007. klimke, martin. “sit-in, teach-in, go-in. die transnationale zirkulation kultureller praktiken in den 1960er jahren am beispiel der direkten aktion,” in handbuch 1968. zur kulturund mediengeschichte der studentenbewegung, edited by martin klimke and joachim scharloth, 119-33. stuttgart: j.b. metzler, 2007. klimke, martin. the other alliance. student protest in west germany and the united states in the global sixties. princeton: princeton university press, 2010. koenen, gerd. das rote jahrzehnt. unsere kleine deutsche kulturrevolution 1967–1977. frankfurt am main: fischer, 2002. koenen, gerd and laura k. diehl. “mao als mona-lisa der weltrevolution. erinnerungen an den westdeutschen maoismus.” in kulturrevolution als vorbild? maoismen im deutschsprachigen raum, edited by sebastian gehrig, barbara mittler, and felix wemheuer, 27-38. frankfurt am main: peter lang, 2008. kort, pamela (ed.). jörg immendorff. zeichnungen 1964-1993. bern: gachnang & springer, 1995. kühn, andreas. stalins enkel, maos söhne. die lebenswelt der k-gruppen in der bundesrepublik der 70er jahre. frankfurt am main: campus, 2005. kunzelmann, dieter. leisten sie keinen widerstand! bilder aus meinem leben. berlin: transit, 1998. kurme, sebastian. jugendprotest in den 1950er jahren in deutschland und den usa. frankfurt am main: campus, 2006. van laak, dirk. gespräche in der sicherheit des schweigens. carl schmitt in der politischen geistesgeschichte der frühen bundesrepublik. berlin: akademie verlag, 1993. lachenmeier, dominik, “die achtundsechziger-bewegung zwischen etablierter und alternativer öffentlichkeit.” in handbuch 1968. zur kulturund mediengeschichte der studentenbewegung, edited by martin klimke and joachim scharloth, 61-72. stuttgart: j.b. metzler, 2007. leese, daniel. “performative politics and petrified image: the mao cult during china’s cultural revolution.” phd-diss. university of bremen, 2006. leese, daniel. “the mao cult as communicative space.” totalitarian movements and political religions 8 (2007) 3: 623-39. leese, daniel. “mao the man and mao the icon.” in a critical introduction to mao, edited by timothy cheek, 219-39. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2010. macfarquhar, roderick, and michael schoenhals. mao’s last revolution. cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 2006. mao tse-tung. worte des vorsitzenden mao tse-tung. peking: verlag für fremdsprachen, 1966. mao tse-tung. selected works of mao tse-tung. volume iv. beijing, foreign language press, 1961. mao tse-tung. “über die praxis.” in ausgewählte werke, bd. 1, 347-64. peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1968. mao tse-tung. “über die mentalität umherschweifender rebellenhaufen.” in ausgewählte werke, vol. 1, 129f. beijing: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1968. marmulla, henning. “das kursbuch. nationale zeitschrift, internationale kommunikation, transnationale öffentlichkeit.” in handbuch 1968. zur kulturund mediengeschichte der studentenbewegung, edited by martin klimke and joachim scharloth, 37-47. stuttgart: j.b. metzler, 2007. masi, eduarda. “die familie im alten und neuen china.” kursbuch 17 (1969): 98-128. moravia, alberto. die kulturrevolution in china. reinbek: rowohlt, 1971. müller, jan-werner. ein gefährlicher geist. carl schmitts wirkung in europa. darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft, 2007. müller, sabine. “symbole der politik in der modernen medien und konsumgesellschaft: andy warhols mao wallpaper.” in politisierter konsum–konsumierte politik, edited by jörn lamla and sighard neckel, 185-206. wiesbaden: verlag für sozialwissenschaften, 2006. myrdal, jan. report from a chinese village. new york: random house, 1965. myrdal, jan. “erzählungen aus einem chinesischen dorf.” kursbuch 6 (1966): 40-72. myrdal, jan. “erzählungen aus einem chinesischen dorf.” kursbuch 23 (1971): 145-65.  myrdal, jan. china–die revolution geht weiter. münchen: dtv, 1974. osterwold, tilman. “andy warhol. commissioned art. cars–-stars–-disasters.” in andy warhol. cars and business art, edited by renate wiehager, 15–25. ostfildern-ruit: dr. crantz’sche druckerei, 2002. pas, niek. “mediatization of the provos. from a local movement to a european phenomenon.” in between prague spring and french may. opposition and revolt in europe, 1960–1980, edited by martin klimke, jacco pekelder, and joachim scharloth, 157-176. new york: berghahn books, 2011. pekelder, jacco. “towards a new concept of the state.” in linksaltenative milieus und soziale bewegungen in den 1970er jahren, edited by cordia baumann, nicolas büchse, sebastian gehrig, 61-83. heidelberg: universitätsverlag winter, 2011. reiche, reimut. “worte des vorsitzenden mao.” neue kritik 41 (1967): 9. reimann, aribert. dieter kunzelmann. avantgardist, protestler, radikaler. göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht, 2009. reinders, ralf and ronald fritsch. die bewegung 2. juni. gespräche über haschrebellen, lorenzentführung, knast. berlin: id-verlag, 1995. robinson, joan. “von china aus gesehen.” kursbuch 2 (1965): 83-102. roth, florian. die nation im politischen diskurs. die bundesrepublik deutschland zwischen neuer ostpolitik und wiedervereinigung (1969-1990).baden-baden: nomos, 1995. rowell, margit. “sigmar polke. strategien der subversion.” in sigmar polke. arbeiten auf papier 1963–1974, edited by margit rowell, 9-22. ostfildern-ruit: dr. crantz’sche druckerei, 1999. sachsenmeier, dominic. “little red book.” in the palgrave dictionary of transnational history, edited byakira iriye and pierre-yves saunier, 686f. houndsmill: palgrave-macmillan, 2010. scharloth, joachim. “ritualkritik und rituale des protests. die entdeckung des performativen in der studentenbewegung der 1960er jahre.“ in handbuch 1968. zur kulturund mediengeschichte der studentenbewegung, edited by martin klimke and joachim scharloth, 75–87. stuttgart: j.b. metzler, 2007. scheibe, moritz. “auf der suche nach der demokratischen gesellschaft.” in wandlungsprozesse in westdeutschland. belastung–integration–liberalisierung 1945–1980, edited by ulrich herbert, 245-77. göttingen: wallstein, 2002. schickel, joachim. “dialektik in china. mao tse-tung und die große kulturrevolution.” kursbuch 9 (1967): 45-129. schickel, joachim. “china 1970: die selbsterziehung der massen oder die pädagogik revolutionieren.” kursbuch 24 (1971): 181-198. schickel, joachim. die mobilisierung der massen. chinas ununterbrochene revolution. münchen: list, 1971. schickel, joachim. china in der welt. ein außenpolitisches dosier. münchen: hanser, 1973. schickel, joachim. große mauer, große methode. annäherungen an china. stuttgart: klett, 1968. schickel, joachim (ed.). guerilleros, partisanen. theorie und praxis. münchen: hanser, 1970. schickel, joachim. gespräche mit carl schmitt. berlin: merve-verlag, 1993. schmidtke, michael. der aufbruch der jungen intelligenz. die 68er jahre in der bundesrepublik und den usa. frankfurt am main: campus, 2003. schmitt, carl. theorie des partisanen. zwischenbemerkung zum begriff des politischen. berlin: duncker & humblot, 1995. schneider, peter. “die phantasie im spätkapitalismus und die kulturrevolution.” kursbuch 16 (1969): 1-37. schoenbaum, david. die spiegel-affäre. ein abgrund von landesverrat. berlin: parthas, 2002. schreer, stephanie. “thomas bayrle … lineare paradoxa im kleinen und im großen ...,” in thomas bayrle. texte von jean-christophe ammann, rolf lauter, stephanie schreer, edited by jean-christophe ammann, 7-18. darmstadt: häussler, 1994. schroers, rolf. der partisan. ein beitrag zur politischen anthropologie. köln: kiepenheuer & witsch: 1961. sichtermann, kai, jens johler, and christian stahl. keine macht für niemand. die geschichte der ton steine scherben. berlin: schwarzkopf & schwarzkopf, 2008. siegfried, detlef. time is on my side. konsum und politik in der westdeutschen jugendkultur der 60er jahre. göttingen: wallstein, 2006. snow, edgar. roter stern über china. frankfurt am main: märz, 1970. sonnenberg, uwe. “der verband des linken buchhandels (vlb) in den 1970er jahren. ein netzwerk innerhalb der netzwerke.” in linksalternative milieus und neue soziale bewegungen in den 1970er jahren, edited by cordia baumann, nicolas büchse, and sebastian gehrig, 161-88. heidelberg: universitätsverlag winter, 2011. tolomelli, marcia. “repressiv getrennt” oder ”organisch verbündet.” studenten und arbeiter 1968 in der bundesrepublik deutschland und in italien. opladen: leske+buderich, 2001. vonwiller, laurent. “der lange marsch in der seifenblase: die kommunistische partei der schweiz/marxisten-leninisten (kps/ml) im rückblick.” in kulturrevolution als vorbild? maoismen im deutschsprachigen raum, edited by sebastian gehrig, barbara mittler, and felix wemheuer, 39-49. frankfurt am main: peter-lang, 2008. wiehager, renate. “introduction.” in andy warhol. cars and business art, edited by renate wiehager, 1–14. ostfildern-ruit: dr. crantz’sche druckerei, 2002. wolin, richard. the wind from the east. french intellectuals, the cultural revolution, and the legacy of the 1960s. princeton: princeton university press, 2010. [1] in this paper, i use the term “icon” in the spirit of aby warburg’s definition for schlagbilder, investigating the rhetorical and symbolical use of mao’s image, the historical changes in that use, as well as techniques of representation, cf. michael diers, schlagbilder. zur politischen ikonographie der gegenwart (frankfurt/m.: fischer, 1997), 7–13. [2] following appadurai’s approach to “cultural flows,” transcultural trends in this paper are seen as carriers of concepts, commodities and products, as well as lifestyles within or across different publics. these trends, however, are often reconfigured in their new cultural contexts and thus become localized once more. see: arjun appadurai, modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1996). see also: laila abu-er-rub, jennifer altehenger, and sebastian gehrig, “the transcultural travels of trends: an introductory essay,” transcultural studies 2 (2011). [3] see: jens benicke, von adorno zu mao. über die schlechte aufhebung der antiautoritären bewegung (freiburg: ca ira, 2010); belden davis, “french maoism,” in the 60s without apology, ed.sohnya syres et al. (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1984), 148–77; richard wolin, the wind from the east. french intellectuals, the cultural revolution, and the legacy of the 1960s (princeton: princeton university press, 2010); christopher leigh connery, “the world sixties” in the worlding project (berkeley:north atlantic books, 2007), ed. rob wilson and christopher leigh connery, 77–108, 95–102; alexander cook, “third world maoism,” in a critical introduction to mao, ed. timothy cheek (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2010), 288-313; max elbaum, revolution in the air: sixties radicals turn to lenin, mao and che (new york: verso, 2002), 41-58. [4] see: timothy cheek, “mao, revolution, and memory,” in a critical introduction to mao, ed. cheek. (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2010), 3-30, 3. [5] see: edgar snow, red star over china (london: victor gollancz, 1937). [6] daniel leese, “mao the man and mao the icon,” in a critical introduction to mao, ed. timothy cheek (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2010), 219-39, 223f. [7] daniel leese has employed the term “branding strategy” in his investigation of the mao cult. see: leese, “mao the man and mao the icon,” 226. [8] the term “authoritarian branding” is employed by daniel leese in his investigation of the mao cult’s roots in china. see: daniel leese, “the mao cult as communicative space,” totalitarian movements and political religions 8 (2007) 3: 623-39, 628f. [9] see: daniel leese, “performative politics and petrified image: the mao cult during china’s cultural revolution”, phd-diss., university of bremen 2006, 177. [10] ibid. [11] davis, “french maoism”; wolin, the wind from the east; connery, “the world sixties; cook, “third world maoism”; benicke, von adorno zu mao. [12] the term “public(s)” is used here to avoid the habermasian term “public sphere” which focuses on the establishment of rational decision-making through public discourse. following bourdieu’s idea of “social fields,” appadurai’s “communities of sentiment” and anderson’s “imagined communities,” these “public(s)” are conceptualised as shifting social realms (i.e., fields) that enable social, emotional and political participatory action. publics are constituted in social processes such as practicing a lifestyle, consuming certain objects or committing to a political movement (i.e., they are based on emotional desire). publics are not confined by cultural or national boundaries, but are merely dependent on (in-)direct communication and the adhesion felt between their agents. see also: laila abu-er-rub, jennifer altehenger, and sebastian gehrig, “the transcultural travels of trends: an introductory essay,” transcultural studies 2 (2011). [13] “die militärischen schriften mao tse-tungs […] gehören zu den schlüsselbüchern dieses jahrhunderts. sie sind das werk eines außerordentlichen geistes, und jeder leser spürt nach wenigen seiten die eigentümlich elektrische wirkung, die der direkte kontakt mit dem genius unfehlbar hervorbringt.” see: sebastian haffner, “der neue krieg,” in theorie des guerillakrieges oder strategie der dritten welt, by mao tse-tung (reinbek: rowohlt, 1966), 5–34, reprinted in die raf und der linke terrorismus, ed. wolfgang kraushaar, 2 vols., vol. 1 (hamburg: hamburger edition, 2006), 157–81, 157. [14] rolf schroers, der partisan. ein beitrag zur politischen anthropologie (köln: kiepenheuer & witsch, 1961). for a short biography of schroers see: dirk van laak, gespräche in der sicherheit des schweigens. carl schmitt in der politischen geistesgeschichte der frühen bundesrepublik (berlin: akademie verlag, 1993), 251–56. [15] the term was coined by waldemar gurian. cf. heinz hürten, waldemar gurian: ein zeuge der krise unserer welt in der ersten hälfte des 20. jahrhunderts (mainz: matthias-grünewald-verlag 1972), 119. [16] jan-werner müller, ein gefährlicher geist. carl schmitts wirkung in europa (darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft, 2007), 159f. [17] carl schmitt, theorie des partisanen. zwischenbemerkung zum begriff des politischen (berlin: duncker & humblot, 1963). [18] van laak, gespräche in der sicherheit des schweigens, 70–85. [19] see: cook, “third world maoism.” [20] müller, ein gefährlicher geist, 164-167. [21] rudi dutschke was the most prominent west german left-wing student activist during the protests in 1967/1968. [22] müller, ein gefährlicher geist, 165. [23] similar to maschke’s turn to the right wing, horst mahler developed from a lawyer defending student movement members in court into a founding member of the left-wing terrorist group red army faction (rote armee fraktion/raf). in the 1990s, he reentered public life as a right-wing activist. in contrast to maschke and mahler, hans jürgen krahl turned from a member of a conservative student association into one of the leading sds protagonists in frankfurt am main. see: susanne kailitz, von den worten zu den waffen?: frankfurter schule, studentenbewegung, raf und die gewaltfrage (wiesbaden: vs verlag, 2007), 165ff. and gerd koenen, “thankmar, der junge krahl. der sds-theoretiker hans-jürgen krahl–ein wanderer von der extremen rechten bis zur radikalen linken,” frankfurter rundschau, february 5, 2005: 28f. [24] joachim schickel, gespräche mit carl schmitt (berlin: merve-verlag, 1993), 9. [25] sebastian haffner, “der neue krieg,” 157. [26] karl jaspers, antwort. zur kritik meiner schrift wohin treibt die bundesrepublik? (piper: münchen, 1967), 15-28. [27] see: sebastian gehrig, barbara mittler, and felix wemheuer (eds), kulturrevolution als vorbild? maoismen im deutschsprachigen raum (frankfurt am main: peter lang, 2008). [28] henning marmulla, “das kursbuch. nationale zeitschrift, internationale kommunikation, transnationale öffentlichkeit,” in handbuch 1968. zur kulturund mediengeschichte der studentenbewegung, ed. martin klimke and joachim scharloth (stuttgart: j.b. metzler, 2007), 37-47. [29] joan robinson, “von china aus gesehen,” kursbuch 2 (1965): 83-102. [30] jan myrdal, “erzählungen aus einem chinesischen dorf,” kursbuch 6 (1966): 40–72; jan myrdal, “erzählungen aus einem chinesischen dorf,” kursbuch 23 (1971): 145-65. see also: jan myrdal, report from a chinese village (new york: random house, 1965). [31] peter schneider, “die phantasie im spätkapitalismus und die kulturrevolution”, kursbuch 16 (1969): 1-37. [32] eduarda masi, “die familie im alten und neuen china,” kursbuch 17 (1969): 98-128. [33] joachim schickel, “dialektik in china. mao tse-tung und die große kulturrevolution,” kursbuch 9 (1967): 45-129. [34] in this paper, i refer to the term “image” as kathrin fahlenbrach defined it in the context of the orchestration of protest by social movements. cf. kathrin fahlenbrach, protestinszenierungen. visuelle kommunikation und kollektive identitäten in protestbewegungen (wiesbaden: westdt. verlag, 2002), 160. [35] cf. laura k. diehl, “die konjunktur von mao-images in der bundesdeutschen „68er“-bewegung,” in kulturrevolution als vorbild? maoismen im deutschsprachigen raum, ed. sebastian gehrig, barbara mittler, and felix wemheuer (frankfurt am main: peter lang, 2008), 179-201. [36] sebastian gehrig, “zwischen uns und dem feind einen klaren trennungsstrich ziehen.” linksterroristische gruppen und maoistische ideologie in der bundesrepublik der 1960er und 1970er jahre,” in kulturrevolution als vorbild? maoismen im deutschsprachigen raum, ed. sebastian gehrig, barbara mittler, felix wemheuer (frankfurt am main: peter lang, 2008), 153–77; sebastian gehrig, “sympathizing subcultures? the milieus of west german terrorism,” in between prague spring and french may: opposition and revolt in europe, 1960–1980, ed. martin klimke, joachim scharloth, and jacco pekelder (new york/oxford: berghahn books, 2011), 233-250. [37] andreas kühn, stalins enkel, maos söhne. die lebenswelt der k-gruppen in der bundesrepublik der 70er jahre (frankfurt am main: campus, 2005), 111-14. [38] joachim schickel, “china 1970: die selbsterziehung der massen oder die pädagogik revolutionieren,” kursbuch 24 (1971): 181-98. [39] joachim schickel, die mobilisierung der massen. chinas ununterbrochene revolution (münchen: list, 1971); joachim schickel, china in der welt. ein außenpolitisches dosier (münchen: hanser, 1973); joachim schickel, große mauer, große methode. annäherungen an china (klett: stuttgart, 1968); joachim schickel (ed.), guerilleros, partisanen. theorie und praxis (münchen: hanser, 1970). [40] since the beginning of the cultural revolution in the prc, chinese authorities provided left-wing activists across the globe with 110 million copies of the “little red book” in 36 languages, see: leese, “performative politics and petrified image,” 122. [41] hans heinz holz, widerspruch in china. politisch-philosophische erläuterungen zu mao tse-tung (münchen: hanser, 1970), 8. [42] giovanni blumer, die chinesische kulturrevolution 1965/67 (frankfurt am main: europäische verlagsanstalt, 1969); louis bacarta, china in der kulturrevolution. ein augenzeugenbericht (wien: molden, 1967); alberto moravia, die kulturrevolution in china (reinbek: rowohlt, 1971); jan myrdal, china–die revolution geht weiter (münchen: dtv, 1974). [43] edgar snow, roter stern über china (frankfurt am main: märz, 1970); cf. gerd koenen and laura k. diehl, “mao als mona-lisa der weltrevolution. erinnerungen an den westdeutschen maoismus,” in kulturrevolution als vorbild? maoismen im deutschsprachigen raum, ed. sebastian gehrig, barbara mittler, and felix wemheuer (frankfurt am main: peter lang, 2008), 27-38, 30. [44] connery, “the world sixties,” 96; see also: charles w. hayworth, “mao’s journey’s to the west: meanings made of mao,” in a critical introduction to mao, ed. timothy cheek (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2010), 313-31. [45] christina von hodenberg, konsens und krise. eine geschichte der westdeutschen medienöffentlichkeit 1945–73 (göttingen: wallstein, 2006), 323-60. [46] david schoenbaum, die spiegel-affäre. ein abgrund von landesverrat. (berlin: parthas, 2002). [47] moritz scheibe, “auf der suche nach der demokratischen gesellschaft,” in wandlungsprozesse in westdeutschland. belastung—integration—liberalisierung 1945–1980, ed. ulrich herbert (göttingen: wallstein, 2002), 245-77. [48] clemens albrecht et al., die intellektuelle gründung der bundesrepublik. eine wirkungsgeschichte der frankfurter schule (frankfurt am main: campus, 1999), 78-131. [49] this loss of public influence by the left wing was most prominently documented by the tremendous election success of the conservative party cdu in 1957, when it gained 50.2% of votes. [50] sebastian kurme, jugendprotest in den 1950er jahren in deutschland und den usa (frankfurt am main: campus, 2006), 177-224. [51] detlef siegfried, time is on my side. konsum und politik in der westdeutschen jugendkultur der 60er jahre (göttingen: wallstein, 2006), 209-428; gerhard fürmetz (ed.), “schwabinger krawalle.” protest, polizei und öffentlichkeit zu beginn der sechziger jahre (essen: klartext, 2006). [52] despite the similar names and identical acronyms, the american and west german sds represented quite different student associations, cf. martin klimke, the other alliance. student protest in west germany and the united states in the global sixties (princeton: princeton university press, 2010), 10-39. [53] willy albrecht, der sozialistische deutsche studentenbund (sds). vom parteikonformen studentenverband zum repräsentanten der neuen linken (bonn:  dietz, 1994), 310-445. [54] dominic sachsenmeier, “little red book,” in the palgrave dictionary of transnational history, ed. akira iriye and pierre-yves saunier (houndsmill: palgrave-macmillan, 2010), 686f. [55] alexander holmig, “die aktionistischen wurzeln der studentenbewegung: subversive aktion, kommune i und die neudefinition des politischen,” in handbuch 1968. zur kulturund mediengeschichte der studentenbewegung, ed. martin klimke and joachim scharloth (stuttgart: j.b. metzler, 2007), 107-118; for a history of the german and american sds see: michael schmidtke, der aufbruch der jungen intelligenz. die 68er jahre in der bundesrepublik und den usa (frankfurt am main: campus, 2003), 40-56; klimke, the other alliance. [56] martin klimke, “sit-in, teach-in, go-in. die transnationale zirkulation kultureller praktiken in den 1960er jahren am beispiel der direkten aktion,” in handbuch 1968. zur kulturund mediengeschichte der studentenbewegung, ed. martin klimke and joachim scharloth (stuttgart: j.b. metzler, 2007), 119-33, 120-23. [57] thomas hecken, gegenkultur und avantgarde 1950–1970. situationisten, beatniks, 68er (tübingen: narr franke attempto, 2006), 135-58. [58] ibid., 21-38. [59] for the group’s development see: eckhardt gillen, feindliche brüder? der kalte krieg und die deutsche kunst 1945-1990 (bonn: bundeszentrale für politische bildung, 2009), 282-305. [60] thomas hecken, avantgarde und terrorismus. rhetorik der intensität und programme der revolte von den futuristen bis zur raf (bielefeld: transcript, 2006), 29. [61] dieter kunzelmann, leisten sie keinen widerstand! bilder aus meinem leben (berlin: transit, 1998), 18–44; see also: aribert reimann, dieter kunzelmann. avantgardist, protestler, radikaler (göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht, 2009), 43-122. [62] the development of subversive aktion is described in holmig, “die aktionistischen wurzeln der studentenbewegung,“ 107–10; reimann, dieter kunzelmann, 64-91. [63] holmig, “die aktionistischen wurzeln der studentenbewegung,” 108; reimann, dieter kunzelmann, 123-210. [64] kunzelmann, leisten sie keinen widerstand!, 50. [65] joachim scharloth, “ritualkritik und rituale des protests. die entdeckung des performativen in der studentenbewegung der 1960er jahre,” in handbuch 1968. zur kulturund mediengeschichte der studentenbewegung, ed. martin klimke and joachim scharloth (stuttgart: j.b. metzler, 2007), 75-87, 78-86. [66] leese, “the mao cult as communicative space,” 623, 628. [67] “mit mao für die freie liebe: rotgardisten sprengten diskussion an der fu,” der abend, november 28, 1966, cf. martin klimke and joachim scharloth, “maos rote garden? ‚1968’ zwischen kulturrevolutionärem anspruch und subersiver praxis–eine einleitung,” in handbuch 1968. zur kulturund mediengeschichte der studentenbewegung, ed. martin klimke and joachim scharloth (stuttgart: metzler, 2007), 1-7, 1. [68] see: niek pas, “mediatization of the provos. from a local movement to a european phenomenon,” in between prague spring and french may. opposition and revolt in europe, 1960–1980, ed. martin klimke, jacco pekelder, and joachim scharloth (new york: berghahn books, 2011), 157–76, 169. [69] scharloth, “ritualkritik und rituale des protests,“ 79. [70] kunzelmann, leisten sie keinen widerstand!, 55f. [71] ibid. [72] cf. “studenten: nein, nein, nein,” der spiegel 24 (1967): 46-59, 47. the phrase “to rebel is justified [zaofan you li]” originated from a letter exchange between mao and red guards at tsinghua university in 1966. students had sent mao two big-character posters stating “long live the proletarian revolutionary spirit of rebellion!” in his reply, mao supported this claim and directed the anger of red guards at reactionaries within the chinese communist party (ccp): “you say it is right to rebel against reactionaries; i enthusiastically support you.” see: roderick macfarquhar and michael schoenhals, mao’s last revolution (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 2006), 87ff. [73] holmig, “die aktionistischen wurzeln der studentenbewegung, 109; reimann, dieter kunzelmann, 113-22. [74] gerd koenen, das rote jahrzehnt. unsere kleine deutsche kulturrevolution 1967–1977 (frankfurt am main: fischer, 2002), 145. [75] ibid. [76] kunzelmann, leisten sie keinen widerstand!, 55. [77] in der spiegel 51 (1967): 64. [78] cf. “lieber fritz! wem soll das nützen? peter brügge in der berliner kommune i,” der spiegel 31 (1967): 37-39, 37.  [79] “studenten: nein, nein, nein,” der spiegel 24 (1967): 46-59, 47. [80] see: “wir fordern die enteignung axel springers,” der spiegel 29 (1967): 29-33, 30. [81] see: mao tse-tung, worte des vorsitzenden mao tse-tung (peking: verlag für fremdsprachen, 1966), ii-iii. [82] mao tse-tung: “über die praxis,” in ausgewählte werke, bd. 1, by mao tse-tung (peking: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1968), 347-64, 353, 358. [83] the text of the leaflet reads: „liebe kommunehospitanten! die massenschlächterei in china geht weiter. bevor alle chinesen abgemurkst sind, habt ihr noch eine chance, leibhaftige zu besichtigen. wir haben einen termin mit ihnen ausgemacht: mittwoch 30. august, 18 uhr in der chinesischen botschaft. einen gültigen westdeutschen ausweis benötigt ihr, berliner gibt es unter uns sowieso nicht. wir sehen zwei filme, einen über den 5. und 6. empfang der rotgardisten durch unseren großen lehrer, großen führer, großen oberkommandierenden und großen steuermann tschiang kai-schek, und einen anderen film über die atombombenexperimente in china, die uns das leben kosten werden. nach den filmen gibt es leckere sachen, z.b. chinesische karamellbonbon mit gehirnwäschespurenelementen. genaue anschrift der botschaft: berlin-karlshorst, herbert-dunckerstr. 26, s-bahnhof karlshorst. eure k i.“ cf. kunzelmann, leisten sie keinen widerstand!, 54. [84] gretchen dutschke, wir hatten ein barbarisches, schönes leben. rudi dutschke. eine biographie von gretchen dutschke (köln: kiepenheuer & witsch, 1996), 108. [85] dominik lachenmeier, “die achtundsechziger-bewegung zwischen etablierter und alternativer öffentlichkeit,” in handbuch 1968. zur kulturund mediengeschichte der studentenbewegung, ed. martin klimke and joachim scharloth (stuttgart: j.b. metzler, 2007), 61-72, 62. [86] reimut reiche, “worte des vorsitzenden mao,” neue kritik 41 (1967): 9. [87] protest against the so-called “emergency laws” was inspired by the misuse of their legal forerunners during the weimar era. many west germans saw their democratic system endangered because the “emergency laws” of the weimar constitution had facilitated hitler’s seizure of power in 1933.  [88] marcia tolomelli, “repressiv getrennt” oder ”organisch verbündet.” studenten und arbeiter 1968 in der bundesrepublik deutschland und in italien (opladen: leske+buderich, 2001), 231-52. [89] kühn, stalins enkel, maos söhne, 111-13. [90] cf. diehl, “die konjunktur von mao-images in der bundesdeutschen ‚68er’-bewegung.” [91] wolfgang kraushaar, “berliner subkultur. blues, haschrebellen, tupamaros und bewegung 2. juni,” in handbuch 1968. zur kulturund mediengeschichte der studentenbewegung, ed. martin klimke and joachim scharloth (stuttgart: metzler, 2007), 261-77; wolfgang kraushaar, “die frankfurter sponti-szene. eine subkultur als politische versuchsanordnung,” archiv für sozialgeschichte, 44 (2004): 105-22. [92] see agit 883 58 (1970): cover. [93] cf. agit 883 62 (1970): cover. [94] see: agit 883 83 (1971): 8. [95] mao tse-tung, “über die mentalität umherschweifender rebellenhaufen,” in ausgewählte werke, band 1, by mao tse-tung (beijing: verlag für fremdsprachige literatur, 1968), 129f. [96] ralf reinders and ronald fritsch, die bewegung 2. juni. gespräche über haschrebellen, lorenzentführung, knast (berlin: id-verlag, 1995),23. [97] see: reimann, dieter kunzelmann, 237-54. [98] research on swiss and austrian k-gruppen has shown this effect, see articles by felix wemheuer and angela zimmermann in sebastian gehrig, barbara mittler, and felix wemheuer (eds.), kulturrevolution als vorbild? maoismen im deutschsprachigen raum (frankfurt am main: peter lang, 2008), 53-76; 77-106. [99] see: koenen and diehl, “mao als mona-lisa der weltrevolution,” 30. [100] gehrig, “zwischen uns und dem feind einen klaren trennungsstrich ziehen.” 153-78. [101] kunzelmann, leisten sie keinen widerstand!, 141. [102] kühn, stalins enkel, maos söhne, 18. [103] ibid., 18; 21-38. [104] ibid., 18. [105] see: cook, “third world maoism,” 297; the strict organisation of west german cadre groups is described in: koenen, das rote jahrzehnt; the swiss activist laurent vonwiller even let his cadre party decide on his private love life choices, see: laurent vonwiller, “der lange marsch in der seifenblase: die kommunistische partei der schweiz/marxisten-leninisten (kps/ml) im rückblick,” in kulturrevolution als vorbild? maoismen im deutschsprachigen raum, ed. sebastian gehrig, barbara mittler, and felix wemheuer (frankfurt am main: peter lang, 2008), 39-49. [106] kühn, stalins enkel, maos söhne, 287. [107] this number only includes subcultural publishing houses and fails to include well-established publishing houses like wagenbach or rotbuch, cf. jürgen fischer (ed.), linke verlage informieren. verzeichnis linker lieferbarer bücher (vllb) (berlin: maulwurf buchvertrieb, 1975), section 39: “bücher aus china”. i would like to thank uwe sonnenberg for pointing me to this connection between west german bookshops and chinese suppliers. [108] see: uwe sonnenberg, “der verband des linken buchhandels (vlb) in den 1970er jahren. ein netzwerk innerhalb der netzwerke,” in linksalternative milieus und neue soziale bewegungen in den 1970er jahren, ed. cordia baumann, nicolas büchse, and sebastian gehrig (heidelberg: universitätsverlag winter, 2011), 161-88. [109] kleiner roter buchladen (braunschweig) et al. (eds), das politische buch. katalog sozialistischer literatur 1972 (köln: gaehme henke, 1972), 13-17; 85-90. [110] deng xiaoping, “rede von deng hsiao-ping, dem leiter der delegation der volksrepublik china,” peking rundschau, 15 (1974): 8-13. [111] cf. florian roth, die nation im politischen diskurs. die bundesrepublik deutschland zwischen neuer ostpolitik und wiedervereinigung (1969-1990) (baden-baden: nomos, 1995), 224f. [112] cf. hecken, gegenkultur und avantgarde 1950–1970, 21-38. [113] for the networks of the artists mentioned see: gillen, feindliche brüder?, 235-82. [114] ibid., 219–24. [115] cf. peter fischer, “pop und viel mehr. komplexität im werk von warhol, polke und richter,” in warhol–polke–richter. in the power of painting 1, ed. peter fischer (dielsdorf: lichtdruck mathieu, 2001), 11-24. [116] margit rowell, “sigmar polke. strategien der subversion,” in sigmar polke. arbeiten auf papier 1963–1974, ed. margit rowell (ostfildern: cantz, 1999), 9-22, 9. [117] cf. jürgen becker and claus von der osten (eds), sigmar polke. die editionen 1963–2000 (ostfildern-ruit: dr. crantz’sche druckerei, 2000), 401. [118] cf. stephanie schreer, “thomas bayrle…lineare paradoxa im kleinen und im großen...,” in thomas bayrle. texte von jean-christophe ammann, rolf lauter, stephanie schreer, ed. jean-christophe ammann (darmstadt: häussler, 1994), 7-18, 7. [119] in 2006, bayrle depicted his initial fascination and later disillusionment with mao and china after his visits there in 1990 and 2005 in three paintings accompanied by short texts. he stated once again that his enthusiasm for china had been based on the idea that the chinese masses were creating something better by working together as a collective, rather than just living as a group of individuals (exemplified by the perfect mass ceremonies during official celebrations). see: thomas bayrle, “drei impressionen,” in touching the stones. china kunst heute, ed. waling boers  (köln: walther könig, 2006), 112-115. [120] jörg immendorff, das grafische werk. in zusammenarbeit mit beate reifenscheid/dirk geuer (düsseldorf: geuer & breckner, 2006), 32. [121] jörg immendorff, zeichne. arbeiten aus seinem archiv. mit einem essay von christoph danelzik-brüggemann (köln: walther könig, 2008), 32, 38. [122] pamela kort (ed.), jörg immendorff. zeichnungen 1964-1993 (bern: gachnang & springer, 1995), abb. 61. for the original text see: mao tse-tung, “serve the people,” in selected works of mao tse-tung, vol. 3, by mao tse-tung (peking: foreign language press, 1967), 177f. [123] kort (ed.), jörg immendorff, abb. 62. [124] immendorff, das grafische werk, 50-54. [125] kai sichtermann, jens johler, and christian stahl, keine macht für niemand. die geschichte der ton steine scherben (berlin: schwarzkopf & schwarzkopf, 2008), 64, 109. [126] sabine müller, “symbole der politik in der modernen medienund konsumgesellschaft: andy warhols mao wallpaper,” in politisierter konsum–konsumierte politik, ed.jörn lamla and sighard neckel (wiesbaden: verlag für sozialwissenschaften, 2006), 185-206, 188. [127] ibid. [128] tilman osterwold, “andy warhol. commissioned art. cars–stars–disasters,” in andy warhol. cars and business art, ed. renate wiehager (ostfildern-ruit: dr. crantz’sche druckerei, 2002), 15-25, 19. [129] renate wiehager, “introduction,” in andy warhol. cars and business art, ed. renate wiehager (ostfildern-ruit: dr. crantz’sche druckerei, 2002), 1-14, 8. [130] cf. peter brügge, “‘ich wäre auch nach griechenland gegangen.’ peter brügge über den nach spanien abgewanderten nationalspieler paul breitner,” der spiegel 35 (1974): 92f, 92. [131] although breitner shared a flat with his teammate uli hoeneß for a short while, neither breitner nor hoeneß became deeply engaged in any protest actions or were part of left-wing networks. [132] brügge, “‘ich wäre auch nach griechenland gegangen,’” 92. [133] ibid. [134]  sichtermann, johler, and stahl, keine macht für niemand, 118. [135] the sdaj was founded in 1968 as a youth organization and had close ties to the deutsche kommunistische partei (dkp/german communist party). it attracted some 15,000 members, and youth festivals, organized by the sdaj apparently attracted up to 100,000 people. see: koenen, das rote jahrzehnt, 272f. [136] sichtermann, johler, and stahl, keine macht für niemand, 140. [137] cf. henry kamm, “soccer star a hero to german new left,” the new york times, july 20 (1972). [138] brügge, “‘ich wäre auch nach griechenland gegangen,’” [139] cf. “mickey mouse: jünger maos,” der spiegel 43 (1969): 65-67, 65. [140] ibid., 67. [141] connery, “the world sixties;” cook, “third world maoism.” [142] koenen and diehl, “mao als mona-lisa der weltrevolution,” 35. [143] see: reimann: dieter kunzelmann. [144] cf. kühn, stalins enkel, maos söhne. [145] ibid., 113. [146] for the break-up of the international alliance with china see also: cook, “third world maoism,” 298f. [147] jacco pekelder, “towards a new concept of the state,” in linksaltenative milieus und soziale bewegungen in den 1970er jahren, ed. cordia baumann, nicolas büchse, and sebastian gehrig (heidelberg: universitätsverlag winter, 2011), 61-83. [148] cordia baumann, nicolas büchse, and sebastian gehrig, “einleitung: protest und gesellschaftlicher wandel in den 1970er jahren,” in linksalternative milieus und soziale bewegungen in den 1970er jahren, ed. ibid. (heidelberg: universitätsverlag winter, 2011), 11-32. [149] gehrig, “sympathizing subcultures? the milieus of west german terrorism,” 243f. [150] cf. diehl, “die konjunktur von mao-images in der bundesdeutschen ‚68er’-bewegung,” 184; hecken, avantgarde und terrorismus, 44-46. [151] the political magazine der spiegel even published translations of mao’s writings. in one piece, mao talks to his niece about the necessity of learning other languages so as to reach a better understanding of her own language. mao appears as a tolerant, benevolent person offering advice. cf. “gespräche maos mit seiner nichte,” der spiegel 28 (1967): 77.  [152] “wer aber–wie die ungeduldigen vom sds–die revolution hier und heute will, braucht politische masse statt religiöser muße. und dafür gilt maos bibel: wenn das bewusstsein der massen noch nicht geweckt ist und wir dennoch einen angriff unternehmen, dann ist das abenteurertum. wenn wir die massen stur zu etwas veranlassen, das sie selbst nicht zu tun wünschen, so wird das ergebnis unweigerlich eine niederlage sein.” cf. “sds: zur sonne,” der spiegel  26 (1968): 38-55, 55; cf. mao tse-tung, selected works of mao tse-tung. volume iv (beijing: foreign language press, 1961), 243. instituting artists’ collectives | sawant | transcultural studies instituting artists’ collectives: the bangalore/bengaluru experiments with “solidarity economies” shukla sawant, jawaharlal nehru university, new delhi it often comes as a revelation to art observers who are searching for an alternative to the commerce-driven contemporary art worlds of mumbai and delhi, with their imposing art spaces and booming auction houses, that much unusual and interesting work can be found in bangalore, a city known internationally as a thriving information technology hub and far removed from the world of spectacular art fairs and large exhibitions. this surprise is unsurprising. as an artist and academic who has been involved for several years in putting together collective manifestations within the university and as a working group member of khoj international artists’ association for seven years, i am only too familiar with the conservatism of a market-driven economy of art —where size, spectacle, and rarity form the currency of artistic worth— which is even more potent when large, warehouse-size spaces have to be filled and growing demand for speculative collectables has to be met. the emergence of global exhibition circuits and an art market where the works of select contemporary artists from asia enjoy high visibility and higher prices has reinforced a phenomenon that has been observable since the very beginnings of modernism. this phenomenon is a paradoxical one where being oppositional generates cultural capital that, in turn, translates into market value. today a similar trend can be observed among a large number of artists and curators who, on the basis of their “alternative” status, have made their way into the speculation-driven art market with its proliferating auctions, fairs, and art funds. art as entertainment manages to effect a neutralization of contexts and to assimilate a reputation built on being alternative.[1] the term “alternative” is therefore something of a misnomer when it is used uncritically to describe an art practice with little contextual life of its own other than as an empty commodity sign.[2] but it is precisely this kind of practice that has come to dominate the art worlds of mumbai and delhi in the last few years where works are being tailor-made for transaction as peripatetic objects with signature value in the “big top” of the art fair.[3] even more baffling are the recent explanations offered by critics who now speak of a “post-critical” turn in art.[4] yet there are art worlds that thrive on the periphery of the art fair and auction house circuits. in bangalore, for example, where there are few galleries and the support from state-run organizations is rudimentary, a culture of artists’ collectives flourishes. this comprises an extensive network of creative energies and works in diverse areas of the visual arts, performance, and film, all of which provide a rich field of experiences and exchange on a regular basis. the alignments within this art world are, for all intents and purposes, non-hierarchical. self-organization is a key feature that gives artists the necessary flexibility to become a significant presence. while most formations reflect solidarity across class and gender lines (or at least attempt to), participation and directional roles vary from time to time with individuals taking on active, ideational responsibilities for specific projects. loosely bound and often engendered by the technophilia of a generation that learned its alphabet on a computer keyboard, this “solidarity economy” has led to numerous collaborative initiatives in the city.[5] they range from galleryor apartment-based projects, to annual festive gatherings in public parks and streets, as well as collective manifestations of close-knit communities of peers.[6] these formations came together in the experimental art schools that emerged in the 1960s and blossomed in the 1980s right in the heart of bangalore. their work is often temporal, at times existing only in a dematerialized manner or as a web-based venture, or even as a social project involving interactive events that leave no physical residue. this is a practice that has been legitimated through curatorial and art historical discourse. two of the most visible new delhi based organizations supporting it are sahmat and the khoj international artists’ association, both of which have long been associated with “alternative” practices and have recently released publications that document their histories (accounts that, oddly enough, elide all internal disagreements, opposition, debates, and ruptures within the formations and offer a wrinkle-free narrative of their existence).[7] this is in keeping with the recent intensification of a commerce-based art exchange, in which histories of debate are being obliterated by critics and curators who, subscribing to a connoisseurial notion of an artwork's worth, prefer to valorize objects that reside in museums or have ended up as collectibles in the homes of the privileged few. this tendency to bypass historical and social processes and to ignore works that fail to reach the exalted status of collectability, or are not premised on the physical shaping of material but exist as concepts with a temporal physical life or site specific address or even simply as human networks that impact the way we think, has meant that we are being exposed to only a partial art history of our times. any attempt to put a counter-narrative on record, however, is difficult because of the probable lack of archival material; often the artists themselves were not really concerned with their own place in history. and even when the artworks that emerge from “non-collectable” contexts do take the shape of an object, find their way into a museum, or feature in one of the elaborately choreographed shows that form an integral part of the cultural exchange between india and its economic suitors,[8] very little attention is paid to the framework from which they emerge or the numerous unconventional structures that have nurtured and supported the emergence of these groundbreaking works. in short, the artistic formations that are often artworks in themselves go mostly ignored. it is therefore important to carefully differentiate between the large, disembodied formations that pose as “alternative” structures or democratic artists’ associations and the networks of solidarity that engender a different economy of art based on reciprocal exchange and collaboration. a corporate body that controls and directs art’s social functions is usually behind the former,[9] while the latter rejects any form of a priori hierarchy. i have long been interested in collaborative modes of working and the inclusionary impulses of the bangalore art world. however, given the communitarian spirit of the work and the above-mentioned fragmentary nature of the available archival material, it is difficult to trace this history through a narrativization of the permanent and tangible artifacts assignable to individual figures. i have therefore had to rely to a great extent on oral traces, conversations, and fieldwork to piece together a coherent narrative. my focus on bangalore is in no way intended to suggest that the collective efforts there represent some kind of “radical” intervention or are marked by a desire to upset the status quo by a challenge to the prevailing order using institutional critique as the core motivating factor. such a claim would be self-defeating, especially considering griselda pollock’s argument that such schemes have become a part of well-established and rehearsed art-historical convention.[10] according to pollock, such interventions have become so integral to the notion of the “avant-garde” that today “radical” and “revolutionary” have become commonplace terms that are liberally adapted to promote the novelty of the “latest, the newest, the most up to date” art product.[11] conversely, the current experiments in bangalore, premised as they are upon a desire for public comprehension, outreach, collaboration, and interactivity, perplex us because we have been conditioned to regard art as an oppositional practice upon which base we may draw up lists of art historical milestones.[12] clearly, the critiques posed by feminist and post-colonial studies of the nature of the “radical” modernist must be considered in any discussion of developments in contemporary art. it is just as important to understand the possibilities of what collaborative formations can achieve in order to press a critical position and to avoid reading them as some sort of compromised arrangement. it is therefore crucial to distinguish between art practices that use collaboration to maintain the status quo through a series of invisible, coercive mechanisms and those that genuinely seek to make a difference by mobilizing social forces for meaningful interventions in the ways we think.[13] towards a dematerialized art practice the collective efforts that have unfolded in bangalore during the last two decades of the last millennium, specifically the adopted modes for art-making and audience-building, reveal a quest to re-examine the role of art in society through the distinct shift from object-based works to dematerialized art practice.[14] john devraj, a dedicated grassroots activist who uses art to address social ruptures (especially communal divides) by means of participatory action, initiated one outstanding early experiment. the most remarkable feature of his work was the manner in which he embraced interactivity and rejected art as a self-contained aesthetic domain. fig. 1: the making of born free, a sculpture created by john devraj with 3000 school children photo courtesy of devraj, 1994. this was followed by a series of interventions made by c.f john and his extended surrogate family of artists, vistaar. this flexible group worked from project to project with meager resources, often engaging with site-specific mediations outside of the gallery space. fig. 2: walls of memories, a site-specific intervention in an abandoned well by c.f.john, tripura kashyap and azis t.m. from the collective vistaar photo courtesy of c.f.john, 2003. acting as a curator in 1999, the artist pushpamala n organized sthalapuranagalu, a dialogue with the city of bangalore, its public spaces, statuary, and ecology.[15] shamala, one of the featured artists, created a floating installation on ulsoor lake (one of several water-bodies in the city, which are slowly drying out due to public encroachments and indiscriminate use of underground water aquifers) from bamboo shafts and wax casts of plastic hearts. fig. 3: bihisti, an installation on the ulsoor lake, bangalore by shamala, a part of the sthalapuranagalu project curated by pushpamala. n. photo courtesy of shamala, 2003. inviting members of the public to express their sentiments about the dying lake, shamala—using a pop cultural emblem and an interactive approach—was able to stage a symbolic intervention and thus direct public attention to a challenging environmental issue. in 2001 the bangalore hubba, a state-supported street festival on the city’s main shopping thoroughfare, became the context for an artistic intervention when the artists surekha and suresh kumar g inserted their own projects into the state’s somewhat paternalistic program of “fun and frolic” aimed at the middle classes. suresh, for example, expressed his environmentalist concerns by gifting plants to passersby and plotting the new homes of these adopted green lives on a map of the city. he sought to nurture a re-signification of the city as a green sanctuary by creating a network of surrogate care and positioning himself against those elements that had turned the city into a concrete landscape. aiming to draw the attention of bangalore’s citizens to the lack of civic amenities in the city, surekha chose to resuscitate a street alcove that was covered with grime and often used as a shelter by the homeless. cleaning and inscribing the surface with text allowed her to remind the thronging crowds of the many contradictions in the neo-liberal agenda that was altering the city’s landscape and pushing it towards unsustainable, overindulgent consumption. fig. 4: “do not urinate!” a site-specific installation by surekha on m.g. road, bangalore, during the banglaore hubba festival. photo courtesy of surekha, 2001. over the last decade bangalore has witnessed a sea change during which these early efforts have coalesced into the artists’ residency model that sees a physical studio space as the nucleus of experimental attitudes. no 1shanthiroad, a space leavened by the presence of the artist and art historian suresh jayaram, is perhaps the fulcrum of this interest group and a key part of the cycle of reciprocity that informs the triangle arts trust network and its sub-continental affiliate khoj.[16] however, through the voluntary nature of their participation and through the infinitely mutable process of creative collaboration, the artists at no 1shanthiroad have managed to minimize institutional delimitation fig. 5: a performance by suresh jayaram in cubbon park, bangalore. photo courtesy of jayaram, 2005. cross-fertilization is not limited to the parameter of the group itself. constant crossovers between different groups of artists have led to initiatives like the 2009 samuha experiment. this experiment featured a “time share” studio venture in which a shared space was supported by many artists in the city and coordinated by the artists suresh kumar g, archana prasad, and shivaprasad s. it turned into a 441-day programmed project with twenty-three artists and activists investing their time and capital in diverse artistic undertakings. fig. 6: a performance by suresh kumar g during the samuha project. photo courtesy of suresh, 2009. besides these initiatives, there are several other, often cross-cultural, residencies and collective efforts like the bar 1 project, which is sustained by the low profile yet enduring support of swiss artist christoph storz. fig. 7a: open day at the bar 1 space. photo courtesy of suresh, 2011. fig. 7b: an installation by mithila baindur as part of the the bar 1 collective’s india-india residency show held at samuha. photo courtesy of suresh, 2010. another example is the jaaga combine that was initiated by archana prasad and freeman murray from the united states. jaaga hosts a cosmopolitan hub in a nomadic, pellet architectural structure that has a peripatetic existence. fig. 8: the jaaga space for co-working. photo courtesy of prasad, 2012. however, what complicates the picture is the fact that some formations are quasi state sponsored, while others are funded by international cultural organizations as a part of the latter’s “diplomatic” initiatives; still others are supported by galleries. all three sponsors implicate each other in an interlocking relationship. yet, the bottom line does not seem to be one of mere individual profit but rather the weaving together of a complex social fabric that leads to what may be termed a commonwealth of an art economy generating a network of possibilities through collaborations.[17] this network benefits from the cooperative and voluntary nature of the exchange and “barter” that has developed between artists. it helps them to generate visibility that would otherwise be lacking. the question of whether profitability automatically implies that the cooperative arrangements are compromised remains an open one. grant kester argues that without weighing the outcome of such initiatives it is futile to disparage every form of collaboration with mainstream agencies. he suggests that while that the current art world retains a residue of high modernist attitudes that allow it to be quite comfortable with the idea of maintaining a critical distance from institutions, its attitude towards alliances is more ambiguous as it often deems such initiatives to be a sign of intellectual concession. kester is, however, also attentive to the subtle coercive mechanisms that are brought to bear through such collaborative means. referring to pierre bourdieu’s notion of the “embezzlement” of representation, kester alerts us to the thrust and parry of power that can result in collaborators appropriating a platform for their own ends.[18] collectivized efforts have a long history in the city of bangalore. the current formations therefore cannot be viewed as isolated, recent occurrences. to properly contextualize them it is necessary to look to the city’s cultural past and to analyze the role that catalytic institutions and individuals have played in the shaping of this distinctive art world, including the recent attempts at new ways of making and experiencing art. to what do we attribute the abundance of initiatives that have cropped up in bangalore in recent years? how are we to recount the art history of a period that is impossible to convey through an enumeration of objects that can be catalogued and displayed? can this recent past be recounted by bringing to light the often silent, invisible, and magnetic force fields that direct and shape the way we think rather than the sum of objects that were created? alliances on the margins and their historical precedents in an attempt to answer these questions i propose to examine earlier formations and their structural constituents. this is no easy task as there all kinds of complex motivations at work in their formation in bangalore/bengaluru. at times there seems to have been a need to carve out a regional identity that is premised on a linguistic affiliation to the larger world of literary practices and the formation of a “kannada” identity as a distinguishable characteristic within the contemporary. given the fact that the borders and boundaries of linguistic taxonomy that precluded the notion of fluid, networked identities are the problematic legacy of modernist administrative exigencies, one needs to examine more minutely the flows of ideas that inform the making of the visual-art world and the diversity of their active participants. any forced assimilation into a linguistically or ethnically determined character that precludes the possibility of a layered identity or multilingualism (as was the case before the 1950s and the drawing up of territorial markers based on linguistic numeric majority) leaves little room to understand aesthetic practices that are informed by dialogue.[19] for example, examining the careers of some of the key figures who have played a vital role in the formation of bangalore as an intercultural node reveals that many were recipients of bursaries to travel and study in institutions that fall outside the political map of present day karnataka. many of them continue to have widespread cosmopolitan connections. paradoxically, the resurfacing of anxieties about identity in the late 1990s was accompanied by an increase of connections with the artist-led workshop model that was proposed not in the metropolises of the west but in apartheid-torn south africa. this led to the formation of the triangle arts trust and its attendant solidarity chain of workshops that stretches across continents. in a similar manner, collectivized efforts in bangalore were set in motion when artists began to speak out against the strictures of colonial education. the consolidation of colonial education in the nearby city of mysore and its institutional critique (through a parallel formation of localized institutions) in bangalore are near simultaneous events. in recent years the role of organized art education has been the subject of close scrutiny among art historians who offer thorough analyses of the institutions that laid the ground for a colonially conceptualized art education in bengal and the bombay presidencies in the nineteenth century.[20] their richly nuanced work has countered the persistent thread that permeated earlier accounts of modernism in india; namely, that the work produced by artists adhering to norms of imperial pedagogy was unworthy of inclusion in art historical accounts because such works were incapable of critical messages or conceptual breakthroughs.[21] these narratives, however, focus mainly on specific geographical regions. there is an urgent need to expand the parameters of their enquiry and to include developments in the southern part of india, particularly because the two art worlds intersected and overlapped in the former princely state of mysore. this region included bangalore and acquired the nomenclature “karnataka” only after the organization of the subcontinent into linguistically determined administrative units in 1956.[22] still, most students of contemporary art in india would be hard-pressed to name a single artist from the region prior to the 1990s whose reputation and success (in terms of exhibitions, publications, art historical accolades, and auction house sales) could match that of raja ravi varma, amrita sher-gil, rabindranath tagore, m.f. husain, manjit bawa, or subodh gupta. it may come as a surprise that one of the earliest attempts to appropriate the colonial form of education for critical objectives was undertaken in bangalore. kalamandiram (temple of art), an artist-led center that was envisaged as an educational facility and professed an adherence to gandhian ideas, was founded in 1919, the very year in which kala bhavana, the institute of fine arts in rabindranath tagore’s visionary arts center santiniketan, was inaugurated.[23] it is important to recall that rabindranath tagore visited bangalore in 1919 and delivered public lectures on his educational project. he used this opportunity to raise funds through public contributions for his newly formed viswa-bharti university.[24] bangalore’s own kalamandiram was initiated by a.n subba rao, who was a “staunch believer of gandhian principles” and had taken part in the “freedom movement as a citizen of india.”[25] subba rao, who in his youth had received his education at a cooli matha,[26] later studied art at the chamarajendra technical school in mysore.[27] in 1892 the british established the chamariijendra technical institute in nazarabad. this was an educational facility that aimed at enhancing the economic viability of art through its industrial application to the production of tradable goods. the institute officially moved to its current location in mysore in 1913, seven years after the visiting prince of wales laid its foundation to commemorate the late maharaja, h.r. sir sri chamarajendra wadiyar bahadur of mysore. the institute was one of the many gestures of munificence bestowed on the public by the colonial administration to ensure a loyal following in the region. [28] the institute became the focal point of all early challenges to the colonial educational system. subba rao, disappointed by the lack of opportunities that this colonial training actually offered (the only artistic success that came his way was as a modeler of three-dimensional maps for geographical surveys), contested the exclusionary processes through which some students received bursaries for further education and some did not; he made it his goal to set up his own institution [29] after a brief stint of teaching in a school, he decided to set up his own teaching facility in bangalore to instill in artisans the confidence they needed to pursue a professional career. the swadeshi, or theself-reliance movement, was on the upswing at this time and subba rao’s call was a motivating force for many. in its initial years, the school was essentially a loosely structured facility that was largely sustained by the artist’s own income. he seems to have followed the cooli matha system, in which the students paid no fee and instead offered labor in return for instruction in painting. in other words, the students assisted him with the day-to-day functioning of the school and with the commercial work he undertook to support himself and his venture. in effect, it was an apprentice system with a curriculum based largely on craft-oriented, utilitarian skills. until 1927, when an official visit by the then diwan of mysore, sir mirza ismail, led to the institute being given a state grant to cover its running expenses, it was essentially self-supporting.[30] despite his modest background, subba rao had considerable organizational and promotional abilities with which he sustained the school during this precarious phase. he managed to establish an independent circuit of trade for the craft objects he and his students produced outside of colonial exhibitory mechanisms. in matters of educational outreach, the institute, despite its fragile finances, also brought out the first art journal in kannada called kala, which included articles in english from time to time.[31] subba rao also organized regular independent art expositions. the kalamandiram arts and crafts exhibition, for example, drew artists as distinguished as abdul rehman chughtai, nandalal bose, and d.p roychoudhury as well as young women artists like ambika dhurandhar into its fold. despite its professed association with the nationalist cause, however, the institution’s educational curriculum remained entwined with the methods of art instruction that were followed by the art schools initiated in the late nineteenth century by the british in the trading port cities of calcutta, bombay, and madras. in fact, the mysore administration had sent a number of aspiring artists from the region to these colonial art schools so that they might acquire the skills of academic training. most crucially, however, it can be inferred from the range of articles published in the journal kala, that the intellectual world of the time exhibited “chaos of heterogeneity.”[32] the journal placed essays on german expressionism next to articles on perspectival drawing and intriguing biographical descriptions of artists that ranged from stalwarts of the baroque period to bland royal academicians.[33] the larger intellectual world that was forming around the swadeshi ideal also found its way into kala. articles by ananda coomaraswamy, rabindranath tagore, and abanindranath tagore were translated into kannada for publication in the journal. this was in addition to the mainstay of the publication comprising contributions on craft techniques that spanned from metalwork to wood carving, which reflected the legacy of colonial education. the kalamandiram nonetheless provides an early example of the search for an appropriate cultural model to replace the british administered industrial arts schools in india, which were promoted as economically viable options to replace the “traditional” forms of courtly patronage that were in decline. it is clear from the inception of kalamandiram that once “natives” appropriated colonial institutional structures they also began to harness their potential to serve wider social and political objectives. fig. 9: the kalamandira studio complex. photo courtesy of sawant, 2011. in keeping with imperial attempts to check an idle working class that was considered “profligate, indigent and intemperate; ready to starve but not to […] work hard,” colonial authorities institutionalized learning and mobilized regulatory regimes of training in the arts. they were “aimed at inculcating habits of sobriety and industry.”[34] this attitude, as has been pointed out by several scholars,[35] was maintained towards the local artisanal communities who became the first “beneficiaries” of institutional education. however, even loyal subjects of the empire often met this process of social engineering with resistance. for example, despite his loyalty to the mysore court, the career of k.venkatappa, who would become the preeminent artist of his time, is a tale of determined refusals and boldly asserted bids for autonomy in the face of a system of straitjacketed education. k. venkatappa’s career has been the subject of close scrutiny and much admiration in karnataka; the most prominent museum in bangalore was named after him. but perhaps the most analytical assessment of his career has come from the historian janaki nair. by mapping his tempestuous yet loyal relationship with the royal family of mysore and keeping in mind the fact that he received royal support for his education from the maharaja, nair provides interesting insight into the struggles over artistic autonomy in the early twentieth century.[36] the eccentric but brilliant venkatappa began militating against colonial restrictions in education fairly early in his career, when, after his initial schooling at the chamarejendra technical institute, he insisted on being trained by abanindranath tagore, the initiator of the new indian art style of painting, at the government college of art in calcutta. at a time when students in search of higher education in art were either sent to the jamshedji jeejibhoy school of art in bombay or the government college of art in madras, his audacious demand to study under tagore was met with skepticism. nevertheless, the mysore administration eventually relented. for venkatappa, however, this was only a partial victory. he was convinced that in order to be fully qualified as an artist, he would have to obtain a higher education in england; this plan was thwarted by the outbreak of the first world war. i emphasize this point in order to draw attention to the fact that in his search for knowledge, venkatappa remained unconstrained by the dictates of the time and did not succumb to the division between a nationalist outlook and a cosmopolitan position. after completing his education in calcutta, venkatappa initially declined work commissioned by the mysore palace and instead worked as an independent artist. one motivating factor was the yogic vow of aparigriha (austerity and autonomy), which he had taken in 1913.[37] although he was expected to embark on a successful, official career, venkatappa refused employment offers from the government and proposals to teach in the newly emerging art institutions. instead, by offering training in his studio he created a coterie of followers who had significant impact on the art world of the time. combative by nature[38] and unable to fit into any institutionalized system, he nonetheless remained invested in the idea of fine craftsmanship and skill; in addition, in spite of his pledged devotion to the aesthetics of the “new indian art” initiated by abanindranath tagore in calcutta, he never shed his overriding tendency towards naturalism. in venkatappa’s personal diaries over fifty years of his detailed, daily chronicles reveal an apparent wish to create a structure that avoided the oppressiveness of a dry, regulated colonial education, and yet retained the level of orderliness and discipline required to master any art practice.[39] toward the end of his life he attempted to realize his project by investing his energies in teaching young students free of charge and in setting up a museum of his own work that was unmediated by the juried process of competitive selection and elimination, which had been the procedure in the salon exhibitory spaces where he had made his initial professional career. this spirit of self-confidence seems to have informed the work of the generation that overlapped with the last years of venkatappa’s life. in the 1960s, a group of proactive individuals raised the necessary seed capital and lobbied the government to create environments where artists could flourish. as a consequence, several organizations were instituted in different parts of karnataka. unlike their much-lauded counterparts in the bombay progressives group, none of the artists behind these initiatives acquired commercial standing in the greater art world. still, their spirit of collectivity and collaboration lasted much longer than the brief life of the “canonical” progressives.[40] fostering a new, collective consciousness the recent surge of interest in collaborative ways of working to achieve common goals owes perhaps most to the legacy of the maverick artist and educator rudrappa mallapa hadapad, whose importance to the bangalore art world became apparent in 2003 when he passed away. in a gesture befitting his stature, the art press (including art india, which was the only magazine with a nationwide distribution at the time) ran a series of tributes written by artists and critics demonstrating the reverence felt by a whole generation of cultural activists.[41] this veneration was on display once again in 2011 when varta, a new art journal from kolkata, put out a special edition on art education that was guest edited by indrapramit roy. hadapad was the only artist whose work received a special section devoted entirely to his art-educational venture —the ken school of art in bangalore.[42] it is evident from the extensive writing about the school by former students like sheela gowda, bv suresh, and surekha (now all significant figures in the field of indian contemporary art) that hadapad’s communitarian view of life and art, which he put into practice during the three decades that he led the ken school, had a deep impact that continues to resonate in the manner in which the bangalore art world functions. hadapad, who studied at the jamshedji jeejibhoy school of art in bombay in the 1950s and briefly at the venerable nutan kala mandir,[43] set up the ken school in bangalore in 1968. this undertaking was similar in spirit to the creative utopian collectives within modernism that sought respite from the relentless consumerism engendered by economic modernity.[44] the ken school, which derived its nomenclature from the german word kennen (knowledge or perception),[45] began in a modest, even rudimentary complex of sheds that had been pared out of the fruit and vegetable market in the heart of bangalore. over the years the school, which had no landmark architectural structure, became a hub for interdisciplinary interactions between diverse art practices and creative figures from different generations. this conceptual artwork called “the ken school”, may not have acquired the dominant physical presence of its counterpart, the chitra kala parishad (created around the same time by civic and economic elites of the city), but its ideology of spreading art into everyday life came to inform the way collectives in bangalore were formed in the decades that followed. cutting across institutional affiliations and social class backgrounds, networks radiated from this nerve center and created a complex of connected communities that now have a thriving presence in the city. in keeping with hadapad’s notion of art as a way of life rather than as an object-based practice, a number of these communities concentrate on pursuing art as a means of re-crafting society through public intervention and educational intent.[46] in her tribute to the artist, sheela gowda, herself an alumna of the ken school, notes: “hadapad did not place much value on the art object as a collectible commodity. he never attempted to be a contender on the art market. neither its language nor its social circuit was familiar to him.”[47] lacking the pragmatic approach required to build the physical and administrative edifice of an institution through bureaucratic governmental channels, he resorted to a hands-on creative method of building a structure in which the bricks were people and the mortar, a way of thinking. fig. 10a: a mosaic mural made out of waste material at the ken school of art. photo courtesy of sawant, 2011. this alternative model of an artist-centered school flourished for three decades; it had various educational outlines that could cater to hobbyists as well as to students who were invested in the idea of art as a way of life. because of his rural background and his familiarity with the pain of penury and the sense of loss that a migrant to the city experiences, hadapad understood the difficulties faced by the young artists from marginalized communities who were invested in the idea of educational accomplishment as a way of extracting themselves from their social quagmire.[48] the school thus served as a home away from home for many young migrants who lived in its open spaces until they became self-supporting. using recycled industrial waste and discarded urban detritus to fashion basic studio infrastructure and communitarian living spaces, the architecture of hadapad’s school was as organic as its curriculum. because of the school’s openness to a wide range of disciplines, the courtyard would often function as a performance space, an art gallery, a lecture room, or a dormitory for visitors. in this fluid space, students encountered authors, playwrights, poets, social activists, and filmmakers in the mediating context of art education. in the informal way of imparting ideas that he adopted through commentary, lectures, dialogical interaction, and witty repartee, hadapad created a space for emancipation and transformation of the self that was unrestricted by a curricular meta-structure. in his artistic practice, which involved an eclectic choice of referential visuals and an emphasis on technique and methods, he differed very little from a number of art educators in the period whose concerns were principally formal ones.[49] his works quote pablo picasso, marc chagall, piet mondrian, and paul klee alongside the sculptural and architectural heritage of karnataka. hadapad considered modernism’s emancipatory promises to be a core value; his efforts were not merely directed towards yet another restaging of modernism’s “universalist” language. today, the ken school of art is ailing from problems such as a rundown infrastructure. in comparison, the karnataka chitrakala parishath, which was established around the same time, is doing quite well. this difference in the two institutions’ state of affairs is due in part to hadapad’s steadfast refusal to compromise with the commercial side of art, at the core of which lay a romantic belief in an autonomous art world that would function through an internal dynamic process, as long as there was a need for it. fig. 10b: the artist surekha—an alumna of the ken school—in the lithography studio of the school. photo courtesy of sawant, 2011. after his death in 2003, hadapad’s ideology permeated deep into the creative circulation system. yet the institute itself became a family-run establishment that attempted to keep his beliefs alive despite facing indigence due to a lack of support. on the other hand, under the astute and pragmatic leadership of prof. m.s. nanjunda rao the ken school’s contender, karnataka chitra kala parishath, became the most prominent art establishment in karnataka. therefore, despite its academically insular curriculum that features only an occasional nod towards changing attitudes in art-making, its history demands closer scrutiny. the sprawling campus, situated in the part of town where the politically influential live, had a humble start as the mysore pradesh chitrakala parishath located in the residence of the artist aryamurthy who, like nanjunda rao, was associated with the chamarajendra technical institute at mysore. at the same time in bangalore, svetoslav roerich, the acclaimed russian artist, and h k kejriwal, the business magnate, attempted to lay the foundation for a cultural center and began to lobby with the political establishment for support. their plans came to fruition after kejriwal offered a seed corpus grant from his family foundation. in return, the government offered the institute prime land and additional funds to build a statement architectural structure that would match the ambitions of an emergent regional cultural identity. all this was carried out under the watchful eye of prof. m.s. nanjunda rao, who by then had become the founding secretary of the fledgling organization. in keeping with the linguistic demarcation of the state, the new institute fused with the chitrakala vidyalaya —an art school that had been founded by nanjunda rao— and eventually came to be called the karnataka chitrakala parishath. this pioneering group’s ability to harness corporate funds and to convince the state apparatus to be the central agent in its functioning led to its phenomenal growth over the decades. today, the institute comprises an impressive museum complex along with temporary display galleries, workshops, and airy studios. the museum collection and display, however, tells the story of a project of personal aggrandizement undertaken by the founders, who through an adroit weaving together of government subsidy and personal wealth claimed to be working all the while in the public interest. it is interesting to note that a large section of the museum eventually became a memorial to nicholas roerich and his son svetoslav roerich, with a vast collection of their work on permanent view. the imposing gallery that was named after the kejriwal family eventually housed the family’s art collection, which was “donated” to the state in 1995. in other words, it is hardly a museum where a collective memory of modernism’s diversity resides. at the same time, nanjunda rao built up a significant collection of traditional paintings from mysore that, along with puppets and other artifacts from the region, came to occupy the same platform as the contemporary collection. the result is a sharp contrast within the chitrakala parishath’s various collections. within the school differences emerged between different interest groups and litigation and political wrangling often led to temporary closures and lockouts until the government stepped in and appointed a central authority from the indian administrative service. at that point the parishath eventually settled into a routine of producing competently trained artists. in some sense the kalamandiram, venkatappa’s independent aparigriha stance, the ken school of art with its utopian outlook, and the karnataka chitrakala parishath all represent different schools of thought about how art worlds function and project ideas about themselves. their histories offer ways of looking at the numerous artist-led initiatives that dot the art-making landscape in bangalore and increasingly crop up elsewhere as well. it would be naive, however, to suggest that merely by virtue of being artists’ associations they are somehow either free of the constraints imposed by funding structures or, conversely, completely controlled by them. with government establishments appearing staid and predictable in their approach, with budget freezes limiting what they can achieve, and with the rarity of receptive administrators, the reality of having to work towards productive ends with meager means has brought more and more artists together in a voluntary effort to raise funds. through contributions and personal efforts they seek to support a complex but richly abundant art scene. even the nomenclature of the groups suggests the notion of bringing together people and ideas. samudaya, samuha, jaaga, colab art & architecture, somberikatte @ 1shanthiroad, each of these titles celebrates the idea of collectivity, or the notion of bringing people together. often small in scale and sparse in capital investment, and thus the very opposite of “corporate aesthetics” with its lavish inputs (in which the “distressed look” of an abandoned building is often an artifice for effects), the functioning of these collectives encodes all the tensions that exist between the order of the market: notions of artistic autonomy, an oppositional stance versus collaboration, and a multiplicity of identities defining the artists who work in these fluid spaces. critics have lamented the lack of cohesion that a professed agenda in the form of a declaration of intent or manifesto would prove.[50] but that is precisely the main contradiction of modernism: how is it possible to declare in advance one’s future goals and yet claim that one searches for new modes of aesthetic meaning making? as the ominous clouds of economic uncertainty hang over the world and the threat of collapse troubles the art market, artists’ communities may do well to renew and strengthen the patterns of “solidarity economies,” which offer the promise that another art world is possible. selected websites of artists’ initiatives in bangalore/bengaluru http://www.jaaga.in/ http://www.1shanthiroad.com/ samuha.wikidot.com/ http://www.bar1.org/ http://www.attakkalari.org/ http://maraa.in/ http://www.bornfreeart.org/ http://www.cfjohnart.com/ [1] i am indebted for many ideas to richard bolton, “enlightened self interest: the avant garde in the’80s” in grant h. kester, ed., art, activism, and oppositionality: essays from “afterimage” (durham: duke university press, 1998), 23–50. my analysis of artists’ collectives also draws upon grant h. kester, conversation pieces, community and communication in modern art (berkeley: university of california press, 2004). several arguments in this essay are also the result of classroom discussions with students at the school of arts and aesthetics, jawaharlal nehru university new delhi, especially rajshree biswal, a phd candidate. i have also engaged for some time with the writings of martha rosler, julian stallabrass, miwon kwon, and okwui enwezor. i will be referring to some of the issues they have raised in relation to the contemporary art world through a colloidal mix of ideas. [2] it is a well-established fact that the practice of organizing exclusive solo shows of artists with identifiable “signature” works was initiated by the french gallerist durand-ruel in the early twentieth century by leveraging their production through bank loans. (these banks eventually collapsed, leading to great economic hardship for artists). we have seen a similar tale unfold with the recent advent of galleries contracting artists to produce bodies of work that are leveraged in advance of exhibitions. [3] i wish to make it very clear that i am not contesting the place of the art fair and the auction house. they are relevant within the art economy. however, i do wish to question those artists and curators who participate in the relentless production of “art” as branded, empty objects to be traded and transacted, rather than as a practice of creating compelling meaning. even a cursory glance at the press reports about fairs reveals that their primary objective is trade, and a majority of the vast crowds that throng art fairs are, without a doubt, drawn to it because of the relentless publicity conflating art with money. the only exhibition in delhi that has witnessed crowds as large as the ones at the india art summit (now india art fair) was the display of the nizam of hyderabad’s jewels at the national museum in delhi in 2001. in her presentation at the india art summit in 2009, geeta kapur also argued that art fairs are about money. [4] see, for example, kavita singh, “a history of now: contemporary art museums,” art india 15, no. 1 (2010): 26–33. for an astute reading of the of the art fair paradigm, see enwezor okwui, “history lesson,” art forum, september, 2007, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_1_46/ai_n28045892/ and martha rosler’s “take the money and run? can political and socio-critical art ‘survive’” e-flux journal 12, no. 1 (2010), http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/107. [5] some issues pertaining to collectivized efforts in the economic sphere were debated in a panel discussion on “solidarity economy” at the fourth world social forum in mumbai, india, january 20, 2004. i am attempting to use that filter to look at the manner in which art practitioners have organized themselves in recent years. for further explanations see the website for the alliance for a responsible, plural and solidarity economy, accessed march 12, 2012, http://aloe.socioeco.org/index_en.html [6] at the end of this essay is a list of websites detailing the wide-ranging activities of some of these collectives. i have also drawn on extensive discussions i have had with the artists pushpamala n, suresh jayaram, sheila gowda, surekha, archana hande, suresh kumar g, and the critic and art historian anil kumar h.a, whose writings are accessible on his blog, accessed march 09, 2012, http://www.anilkumarha.com [7] safdar hashmi memorial trust, sahmat 20 years 1989-2009 a document of activities and statements (sahmat: new delhi, 2009), and pooja sood, ed., the khoj book: 1997-2007. contemporary art practice in india (noida: harper collins, 2010). [8] for example, in a recent presentation of his work on june 29, 2011 at the goethe-institut/max mueller bhavan in bangalore, the artist amar kanwar drew the audience’s attention to the arms deal that the french government had brokered with the indian government. this deal led to an enhancement of the cultural capital of contemporary art in india that manifested when the centre pompidou in paris hosted the exhibition paris-delhi-bombay, which opened on may 25, 2011. paris-delhi-bombay (paris: éditions du centre pompidou), may 2011. exhibition catalog [9] the corporation, a 2003 canadian documentary film directed by mark achbar and jennifer abbott and scripted by joel bakan, provides a humorous, yet hard-hitting account of how corporate bodies function. it is my contention that today even gargantuan cultural organizations employ similar mechanisms that are coercive and lack transparency in their way of functioning,. the film was screened by the public service broadcasting trust (psbt) during its open frame 2004 film festival at the goethe-institut/max mueller bhavan, new delhi on august 29, 2004 and widely discussed in the art circles of delhi. mark achbar, joel bakan and harold crooks, the corporation, directed by mark achbar and jennifer abbott (2003; vancouver, british columbia: big picture media corporation 2004, 2005), dvd. [10] griselda pollock, avant-garde gambits 1888-1893: gender and the color of art history (new york: thames hudson, 1993). with this seminal text pollock provided many points of departure for an understanding of how sexual politics and racist discourse inform the making of art and the writing of its histories. [11] note, for example, how neatly the notion of the avant-garde and today’s market dovetail. the director of the india art summit (now india art fair), neha kripal, was recently quoted as saying “oh certainly, bangalore redeems its status as a city that uses technology to its advantage. again that’s what adds to the city’s flexible approach to art.” aparna chandra, “the new avant garde, ” bangalore mirror, december 18, 2010. [12] for a complex reading of the “alternative” art scene in bangalore, see h.a anil kumar, “visual collectives, ‘others’ their effect in bangalore,” art deal, 29 (2009): 13. some state organizations, such as the karnataka lalit kala akademi, have done some exemplary work when helmed by administrators like n. marishamachar. marishamachar also runs the samyojitha trust to promote the arts and artists from bangalore and mysore. [13] in an interview with mick wilson, grant kester points out that the modus operandi of right wing and conservative forces as well as the market often involves floating organizations that replicate governmental means purporting to build communities through cultural channels, all the while keeping their narrow agendas intact. see grant kester, “autonomy, agonism, and activist art: an interview with grant kester,” by mick wilson, art journal 66, no. 3 (2007): 107–118, http://www.grantkester.net/resources/art+journal+interview.pdf on the relationship between corporate self-interest and cause-related marketing through cultural avenues see bolton, “enlightened self interest”. [14] i borrow the term from john chandler and lucy lippard who coined it in the late 1960s to describe a discursive shift in art practice that emphasized concepts over formal attributes of material and physical longevity. john chandler and lucy lippard, “the dematerialization of art”, conceptual art: a critical anthology, eds. alexander alberro and blake stimson. (london: mit press, 1999), 46–50. [15] in kannada, the local language, sthala puranas are traditionally written by scholars to describe the importance and significance of pilgrimage and temple sites, thus giving visitors an insight into the history, local traditions, and culture of the site. [16] the studio is linked to khoj international artists association, which started out as a non-hierarchical artists’ collective in 1996. it is now structured as an institution with a director at its helm and an advisory panel of artists. in its early years the activities of khoj gained ideational shape and were collectively realized by a flexible “working group” of artists, art historians, and critics with a diversified support system of funding that was based primarily on the donation of artworks by artists. khoj was initially an annual, fifteen-day workshop held in modinagar, an industrial town close to new delhi, which hosted artists from across the world. the residency model with a permanent studio space in new delhi came into being in 2001. [17] interestingly, commercial galleries as well as private foundations and international cultural organizations often assisted such initiatives with technical equipment and know-how, and actively coordinated and participated in organizing open days and walkabouts in studios. moreover, many artists often exhibit their works in venues other than galleries and are not affiliated with just one organization. websites, blogs, and newsletters detailing each other’s activities also help in generating visibility for all concerned. [18] grant kester does voice his exasperation at the one-dimensional critique of collaborative art practices, which suggests that artists forfeit their capacity for self-determination through such alliances. he points out that market forces have perhaps a far greater bearing on diminishing an art world’s capacity for self-determination. kester, “autonomy, agonism, and activist art,” 107. [19] in fact, the catalytic figures in bangalore include an earlier generation of artists like s.g. vasudev, who was originally from mysore and one of the founder members of the iconic 1960s artists’ collective at cholamandalam near chennai. the current chairperson of the lalit kala akademi in new delhi balan nambiar has also been instrumental in nurturing an art eco-system in bangalore, despite being from the neighboring state of kerala. [20] during india’s colonial period, the british administered the region through geographically determined provinces called presidencies of british india, which remained in place until 1947. although the first art schools were set up in these regions, they were emulated in the princely states of india on a smaller scale. for an in-depth analysis of art education in colonial india see tapati guha thakurta, the making of a new ‘indian’ art: artists, aesthetics and nationalism in bengal, c.1850-1920 (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1992) and partha mitter, art and nationalism in colonial india 1850-1922 (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1994). [21] william archer’s influential book india and modern art, for example, completely eliminates all references to academic artists. william archer, india and modern art (london: george allen unwin, 1959). [22] for a detailed account of the states reorganization act of 1956, see vappala pangunni menon, the story of the integration of the indian states, (new york: macmillan, 1956). [23] while the institute continues to function even today with a sizeable student body, records pertaining to its history are scattered and scarce. for my account i have primarily relied on the journal kala published by kalamandiram from 1923 onwards and the unpublished mva dissertation by a.m prakash, “bangaluru kalamandira ondu ithasika adhayaana” (mva thesis hampi: kannada university, 2010) which is the only detailed historical account of the school currently available. translations from kannada were provided by h.a anil kumar, department of art history, kannada chitrakala parishath, bengaluru. [24] dr. s. radhakrishnan ed., rabindranath tagore: a centenary, volume 1861-196 (new delhi: sahitya akademi, 1961), 475. [25] an office memorandum of kalalamandiram dated 25/07/1975, available in the institute, describes its early history in some detail. kalamandiram collection. memorandum, 1975, bangalore. [26] it was a system of education in rural karnataka, where young boys would live in mathas or spiritual retreats to obtain an education. in return they would fulfill domestic duties for a village household in exchange for a daily meal. see g.kkaranth, rural youth: a sociological study of a karnataka village (new delhi:, concept, 1981), 42. [27] a.m prakash “bangaluru kalamandira ondu ithasika adhayaana,” 5–8. [28] i am not trying to account for an originary moment for these efforts in a historicist mode, but merely suggesting that more work needs to be done to study the networks that informed the intellectual world of the time. the historical details of the origins of chamarejendra technical institute can be gleaned from a guidebook constance e. parsons, mysore city (london: oxford university press, 1930). the book also details the history of the chitrashala art gallery at the jaganmohan palace in mysore. [29] a.m prakash,“bangaluru kalamandira ondu ithasika adhayaana,” 7–9. [30] an allegorical lesson may be learnt from the fact that the grant was withdrawn when it became known to the british government that the school was ideologically opposed to colonial rule. the grant was withdrawn at the behest of a mysore university functionary who complained of anti-colonial activities at the school. interestingly, he supported their stance but felt his own position within the government would be compromised. this happened when the mysore diwan (chief administrative officer), mirza ismail, had gone to london and was not in a position to offer support. a.m prakash, “bangaluru kalamandira ondu ithasika adhayaana,” 13. [31] due to lack of archival care in preserving these issues, only six-odd volumes of the journal are currently available at kalamandiram. the office memorandum dated 25/07/1975 laments that its publication made losses which had severe financial consequences for the institute. memorandum, 1975. [32] i borrow a phrase from gyan prakash. see gyan prakash, “writing post-orientalist histories of the third world: perspectives from indian historiography,” comparative studies in society and history, 32, no. 2. (1990): 397. [33] the journal, for example, featured the work of german expressionist artist käthe kollwitz. see kala, i, issue 6 (1923):141–147. [34] parsons, mysore city, 24 [35] see partha mitter, art and nationalism, 29–31 and gulammohammed sheikh, ed., contemporary art in baroda (new delhi: tulika, 1997), 48–51. [36] in her close reading of venkatappa’s diaries, which are housed in the karnataka state archives, janaki nair examines his struggles for independence as an artist in colonial india. janaki nair, “k.venkatappa and the fashioning of a mysore modern in art,” mysore modern: rethinking the region under princely rule (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 2011), 165–195. [37] aparigraha in sanskrit means to be non-grasping or practicing an ideology of limiting possessions through self-restraint. it is a vow taken by those who practice raja yoga or ashtanga yoga. venkatappa took his vow while on a pilgrimage to the himalayas. see s.k ramachandra rao, k. venkatappa, the man and his art (bangalore: directorate of kanada and culture, 1988),145. [38] rao, k. venkatappa, 85–88. [39] the diaries are housed in the karanatka state archives in bangalore. [40] the progressives disintegrated as a group soon after their first collective show in 1949. many members opted to relocate to europe to seek a place within international modernism. in fact, the art critic jag mohan labeled souza’s 1948 show in bombay as a farewell show in anticipation of the artist’s imminent departure to london. see ratan parimoo, “f.n souza and the bombay art scene during the 1940s” historical development of contemporary indian art 1880-1947, eds. ratan parimoo and sandip sarkar. (new delhi: lalit kala akademi, 2009), 489–500. the art societies set up in karnataka during this period include the ideal fine art society in gulbarga founded by jagadevappa khanderao; the karnataka art society in dharwad run by d.v halbhavi; and the hubli fine art society initiated by madivallapa minajigi, who later established an institute in bangalore as well. [41] see, for example, sheela gowda, “portrait of a guru” art india, 9, issue i (2004): 108–109. [42] art varta, 3, issue 1 (2011): 29. [43] the nutan kala mandir, an art school that tutored students who were not accepted by the j.j school of art, bombay’s premier art institute, was set up in bombay in 1935 by g.s dandavatimath, a lingayat kannadiga. [44] of the numerous collectives that emerged around this time across the world, the gutai group from japan, the international network of artists called fluxus, and the arte povera movement in italy are among the best known. unlike these movements the ken school curriculum remained rooted in painting. [45] this was conveyed to me in a conversation with his son, the current director of the ken school of art. [46] today, karnataka has the largest number of art schools in india. bangalore alone has sixty art institutes. see r.b. desai, “art offers a wide canvas of jobs,” the hindu, tuesday, feb 1, 2011 and anilkumar h.a., “trends, motifs affinities in the contemporary art of karnataka,” lkcontemporary, no.46, ed. amit mukhopdhyay (2002): 7–15, accessed may 21, 2012, http://www.anilkumarha.com/?p=45 [47] gowda, “portrait of a guru,” 108. [48] the hadapads are a socially marginalized community of barbers, and even though they were absorbed into the lingayat reformist movement the ground realities of social ostracism have dogged them for centuries. see laxman siddappa ainapur, the dynamics of caste relations in rural india, (jaipur: rawat publications, 1986; 1st edition), 56 and “treat lingayat hadapads as backward community” the times of india, hubli edition, aug 6, 2010, accessed august 1, 2011, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-08-06/hubli/28282078_1_community-barbers-social-justice [49] this is apparent from an interview he gave to the artist yusaf arakkal. yusaf arakkal, national herald, october 21, 1984. [50] for example, in a panel discussion on artists’ collectives at the goethe-institut/max mueller bhavan (bangalore) on june, 19 2009, the art historian and critic shivaji k. panikkar presented an extremely critical view of the formations in bangalore; he strongly maintained that they lacked radical intent or a professed goal. the transcultural approach within a disciplinary framework | daniel g. könig and katja rakow | transcultural studies the transcultural approach within a disciplinary framework: an introduction daniel g. könig, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg and katja rakow, universiteit utrecht the term “transcultural” probably constitutes one of the most important and widely discussed conceptual keywords in the humanities and social sciences of recent years. the aim of this journal section is to analyse and evaluate the relationship between the transcultural paradigm and various more or less established academic disciplines or fields of research. the contributors to this themed section have all worked in the context of an interdisciplinary research institution dedicated to developing and advancing the transcultural approach in the humanities and the social sciences. many also taught in a master’s programme in transcultural studies, a new and exciting transdisciplinary degree programme that introduces students from various disciplinary backgrounds to the transcultural paradigm and its associated methods and fields of investigation. the editors’ initial objective was to collect contributions that would explain how different academic disciplines interact with the transcultural paradigm. thus, the themed section was intended to discuss the transcultural potential of a given discipline with the twofold aim of promoting awareness of its transcultural dimensions among specialists and students in the respective field, and of increasing mutual understanding among proponents of the transcultural approach who stem from different academic backgrounds. since the latter usually work in a multidisciplinary environment, they often face the challenge of having to communicate differently with their “transcultural” colleagues than with peers in their respective discipline of origin—which can often lead to misunderstandings. last but not least, this collection aimed to offer the contributors the chance to describe their traditionally defined academic fields of research while also showcasing the merits of applying a transcultural approach. during our discussions and the writing process, however, it became increasingly obvious that these initial objectives raised several complex questions that each contribution would have to answer. defining the transcultural approach: many disciplines—many definitions writing for this themed section posed a double challenge. on the one hand, our contributors were confronted with the problem of defining the content and limits of their respective academic discipline. such a task not only requires the ability to summarize centuries-old traditions and fields of research without losing too many nuances; it also became increasingly unclear whether the academically organized fields of research treated here—islamic studies, sinology, japanese studies, and religious studies—actually represent academic disciplines, e.g. from a methodological point of view. on the other hand, the contributors faced the difficulty of agreeing on a common definition of the transcultural approach. this issue arose from the fact that during the past eight decades different fields of research have successively adopted the transcultural paradigm, which produced manifold definitions depending on the requirements of each field. the transcultural approach originates in the conceptual term transculturación, which was coined by fernando ortiz in his study on processes of cultural reconfiguration in early modern cuba, first published in 1940. ortiz’s aim was to find a conceptual alternative to the term “acculturation” which, in his opinion, failed to express that processes of interaction between groups of different cultural origin do not only result in processes of transmission, reception, adaptation, and assimilation, but also lead to the transformation and amalgamation of previously distinct cultural elements within a new cultural synthesis.[1] after ortiz’s initial use, the term resurfaced in the field of transcultural psychology with publications going back as far as 1965.[2] in the following decades, it spread to various professional fields such as counselling,[3] nursing,[4] and corporate management.[5] however, the definition of the term “transcultural” as it was (and is) used by psychologists, nurses, counsellors, or managers differs considerably from the one coined by ortiz and does not necessarily draw on the latter’s thought. confronted with the task of bridging cultural divides in communicative situations between medical professionals and patients, social advisors and clients, or managers and staff, these professionals were and are mainly interested in background knowledge about cultural differences and techniques of communication. the latter should enable them to overcome communicative obstacles that arise from the respective interlocutors’ different cultural backgrounds as expressed in different world views, traditions, practices, and modes of understanding. in this context, the prefix “trans-” indicates these professionals’ objective of bridging the differences between cultures, which are generally regarded as comparatively inflexible systems of thought and behaviour. according to this interpretation, such cultural differences can be bridged with the help of specific techniques that either enable the active professional to appeal to culturally “neutral” anthropological universals or to empathize and react adequately to certain modes of culturally defined thought and behaviour. at the same time, humanities and social science scholars became increasingly aware that defining cultures as closed systems was fundamentally problematic. this can be witnessed in works by proponents of, for example, post-colonial studies such as homi bhabha, and resulted in the emergence of a modified definition of the term “transcultural.”[6] since the end of the twentieth century, and especially since the second decade of the twenty-first, the number of publications that employed this modified paradigm, and thus analysed a large number of themes and fields of research from a transcultural perspective, has increased significantly. slowly but surely, a methodological approach began to develop, which, thematically, focused on interactive processes and thus followed the tradition of ortiz and the professions outlined above. methodologically, however, this approach endorsed a number of tenets from post-colonial studies, namely the necessity of regarding phenomena of cultural interaction not only from one single, e.g. “eurocentrist,” perspective, but of analysing each phenomenon from different, e.g. “subaltern,” points of view with the aim of uncovering and adequately representing the complexity of human relations and related perceptions. consequently, the transcultural paradigm was applied to a large range of theoretical fields of research, which gave a new impulse to such diverse topics as gender issues,[7] cross-cultural as well as international relations and communication,[8] migration studies,[9] questions related to identity formation,[10] literary studies,[11] visual and media anthropology,[12] art history,[13] urbanism and environmental studies,[14] and political theory.[15] it is important to note that the transcultural paradigm has not only been applied to describe modern and contemporary phenomena, but also the past.[16] the application of the transcultural paradigm to these and other fields of research in the humanities and social sciences has given rise to different understandings and a multiplicity of interpretations that are closely related to the exigencies and requirements of each field. given the increasing flood of publications on the subject, it is thus hardly surprising that various definitions of “transculturality,” the term “transcultural,” and other variations have appeared,[17] including some early efforts at summarizing its research history and the current state of the art.[18] defined over and over again, the term “transcultural” now not only lacks a standardized definition, but—considering the discrepancies between the applied and the theoretical sciences as sketched out above—is also used in considerably diverse ways. it is possible to discern four fundamental definitions: in a very general way, the term “transcultural” can be used to describe phenomena that transcend cultural boundaries, in the sense that they are common to various, if not all, human groups. if approached in this way, the term is used to describe phenomena that could also be defined as anthropological universals (e.g. crime, intellectual activity, etc.), which, because they are common to all human groups, cannot be confined to specific cultural milieus. this definition certainly plays a role—at least implicitly—in the abovementioned fields of transcultural psychology, nursing, counselling, and corporate management, all of which need to draw on an understanding of anthropological universals to facilitate intercultural communication between individuals and groups defined according to cultural criteria. such a definition is not only considered too broad by most scholars, but is also rejected because it still builds on the premise that cultures constitute macro-milieus characterized by fixed frameworks of human thought and behaviour. it fails to acknowledge the observable complexity of processes of cultural interaction and identification. a second, still rather general definition uses the term “transcultural” to define a specific variety of phenomena that transcend cultural boundaries. having originated within a particular historical constellation, these phenomena become part of many different cultural milieus thanks to processes of diffusion, transmission, and reception—for example, roman law as it was received and implemented in post-roman societies, or islam or buddhism as they are practiced in areas outside their historical regions of origin in later times. according to this definition, transcultural phenomena are shared by different and distinct cultural milieus without falling into the category of anthropological universals. although this definition also fails to systematically question the notion that cultures constitute fixed frameworks of milieu-bound thought and behaviour, it nevertheless acknowledges that these cultural frameworks are and can be penetrated by external cultural influences, which then contribute to the transformation of the initial cultural framework. although such processes of boundary crossing are often highlighted in connection with processes such as the impact of modernity on societies or the phenomenon of globalization[19], transculturality can obviously not be regarded as a recent phenomenon. a third definition uses the term “transcultural” to delineate phenomena that are situated between cultural milieus separated by linguistic, religious, normative, or other kinds of boundaries. it builds on rather than discards the previous definition by focusing on milieus and agents that act as connecting links between different cultural spheres. here, the prefix “trans-” does not denote phenomena that are common to various cultural milieus, but highlights those phenomena that, while being part of various cultural milieus, also stand between them. such studies focus on acts of mediating and translating as well as so-called “cultural brokers.”[20] the fourth and most recent definition uses the term “transcultural” to describe a particular method of approach that, from a thematic point of view, deconstructs concepts such as “society,” “class,” “nation,” “culture,” or “civilization.” methodologically, this definition encourages analysis of phenomena that question supposed boundaries. it obliges the researcher to analyse phenomena from various angles and thus to insist on the multipolarity, multiple perspectives, and transformative dynamics inherent to the research subject.[21] in sum: the transcultural paradigm serves different needs in different fields of research. applied sciences such as transcultural nursing, transcultural management, or transcultural psychology employ the paradigm to overcome cultural boundaries because they inhibit intercultural communication between caretakers and patients or between different professional agents. the purely academic sciences, in turn, mainly employ the transcultural paradigm to focus on specific facets of human interaction. highlighting the latter’s complexity almost inevitably leads to the deconstruction of hitherto widely accepted academic categories. applying the transcultural approach: questioning the boundaries of academic disciplines the various definitions of the transcultural paradigm emerged in separate fields of research due to different exigencies and requirements. consequently, it is necessary to elaborate on the complex relationship between the transcultural paradigm on the one hand, and individual disciplines or fields of research on the other. in this themed section, the focus lies on a selection of academic fields in the (theoretical, rather than applied) social sciences and humanities, in this case islamic studies, sinology, japanese studies and religious studies to explain the relationship between the transcultural paradigm and their respective field, the authors of the following essays had to grapple with various issues which arise from the triple task of defining the transcultural approach, of circumscribing a traditional field of research, and of relating both to each other. one important characteristic of studies using the transcultural approach as described in the definitions above (especially definitions iii and iv) is that they are mostly situated either at the margins or between traditional academic disciplines. this is primarily due to the thematic focus of the transcultural approach and its predilection for questions and topics that transcend ethnic, regional, national, linguistic, religious, and, in the widest sense, cultural boundaries. every academic discipline needs to specify and limit the scope of its field of research in one way or another. accordingly, there exists a considerable tension between the demands of the transcultural approach and the traditional definition of an academic discipline. for example, in the field of history, applying the transcultural approach necessitates transcending the framework of national, institutional, even universal history—in the latter case by pointing out different forms of universal history as written in different times, regions, and languages. in the field of linguistics, the transcultural approach calls for an analysis of phenomena that transcend the corpus and system of a given philology or even the linguistic sphere as such. in the study of specific religious traditions, the transcultural approach calls for an analysis not of the latter’s systemic character, but of its entanglement with other (possibly competing) religious systems, practices, and institutional structures as well as their various cultural, political, and economic contexts. in the various area studies, the transcultural approach calls for an appraisal of the respective area’s role within a much wider regional context, and so on. in addition to questioning (pre-defined) boundaries inherent to any subject of analysis, the transcultural approach also emphasizes the relevance of specific subfields of research, which often stand at the margins of established academic disciplines. in this way it stretches and even questions the boundaries of established fields of research. reaching beyond the confines of established academic fields represents a considerable intellectual challenge. scholars who employ the transcultural paradigm are expected to master linguistic, methodological, and other academic skills that exceed those expected of a specialist in a single academic field. for young researchers still looking for a tenured post, adopting the transcultural approach can constitute a career risk: academic employers still tend to favour candidates with a firm grasp on what is traditionally considered a discipline or field of research, rather than an innovative, but experimental approach. since the long-term relevance, impact, and explanatory potential of the transcultural paradigm are still difficult to estimate, the academic establishment hesitates to jeopardize its traditional disciplinary structure. this conservative recruiting policy seems partly justified if one considers the challenges associated with providing the next generation of students with a solid academic education in at least one field of study. most proponents of the transcultural approach either combine in their biography different strands of education, or have invested many years in the acquisition of additional academic qualifications. dedicating serious attention to more than one language, textual culture, and methodological framework is more difficult and time-consuming than focussing on one pre-defined specialization. at the same time, acquiring and teaching several disciplinary qualifications challenges students and academic teachers alike. consequently, teaching the transcultural approach has to contend with compromise. one option is to focus on the education of more advanced young researchers such as phd-candidates, leave the academic formation of b.a.and m.a.-students to the traditionally organized academic system, and thus refrain from exerting influence on the core elements of academic education. this produces researchers that approach a transcultural field of study from the perspective of their original academic field of specialization. alternatively, teaching the transcultural approach can begin at the basic level of university education, thus immediately and simultaneously exposing students to different fields of research and methodologies. this involves the risk of neglecting important auxiliary skills needed to delve into the depths of a particular field of research, e.g. language skills: there is no point in producing “experts” on japan, islam, or the european middle ages who have never read a japanese, arabic, or latin text. finding the correct balance of introducing transcultural, i.e. transdisciplinary approaches, into the traditional disciplinary structure of academia while maintaining high quality standards certainly constitutes one of the biggest challenges that proponents of the transcultural approach are facing at the moment. against this backdrop the collection of essays at hand elaborates on the relationship between the transcultural approach on the one hand and traditional disciplines or fields of research on the other. so far, this relationship has rarely been addressed and, if it has, then with concerns about challenges of interdisciplinary cooperation rather than the formation and education of transcultural scholars from an early stage onwards.[22] the problem of cross-disciplinary cooperation constitutes an important challenge to all disciplines and fields of research as well as to transcultural studies as such: as already sketched out above, the diversity of interpretations associated with the transcultural paradigm also results from the fact that each scholar using the paradigm reacts to a very specific range of ideas, tenets, methods, and discussions that are characteristic of his or her field of specialization. consequently, anthropologists, archaeologists, ethnologists, historians, philologists, political scientists, and specialists of certain regions, religious traditions, and textual corpora have to adapt the transcultural paradigm to a very different set of academic traditions and requirements. taking a closer look at different academic disciplines or fields of research reveals that probably none of them lacks a transcultural component: in the history of humankind, no language, territory, religious, or legal system has been impervious to what we may term “external” influences. it would be incorrect to assume that academics have only recently begun to investigate phenomena that could be classified as “transcultural” according to the definitions given above: the field of european history, for example, firmly established as an academic discipline at latest since the nineteenth century, has never been completely dominated by ethnicist, racist, or nationalist ideas. historians of religion, philosophy, or the sciences have always transcended the frameworks set by more specialized and occasionally also more narrow-minded historical approaches, thus creating alternative categorizations, epochal boundaries, and subfields of research. in the same way, the academic discipline of religious studies, slowly emerging in departments of theology during the nineteenth century, programmatically looked beyond the confines of specific religious systems. the aim was not always to compare, but to understand processes transcending the boundaries of specific religious traditions such as rationalisation or secularisation.[23] from a european perspective, the academic disciplines dealing with regions outside europe, such as arabic and islamic studies, indology, sinology, or japanese studies, all have a transcultural history of their own.[24] however, in spite of the fact that transcultural phenomena have always played a certain role in different fields of research, the question how the transcultural approach can be adapted to these fields has not received attention yet. analysing how different fields of research interact with the transcultural approach inevitably leads the investigating scholar into the respective field’s disciplinary history. academic fields of research are of different age and thus look back on a longer or shorter history of thematical and methodological evolution. this evolution continues due to the fact that particular societal constellations, technological developments, and changing institutional structures require different forms of knowledge and knowledge production. this gives impetus to the creation of new academic fields and subfields. transcultural studies is merely one among many that received an institutional framework in recent decades. although many scholars worldwide contribute to this field and several academic journals bear the epithet “transcultural” in their titles,[25] only few universities so far offer degrees in this field of research.[26] against this backdrop of constant thematic, methodological and institutional evolution, defining a particular discipline becomes rather challenging. the question of how to define a particular discipline is not only problematic because the different fields of academic investigation represented in this themed section dispose of a longer or shorter history of institutionalization in a context that may be labelled “european” or “western.” it also arises because scholars of different backgrounds differ considerably in the way they define specific fields of research. for example, defining islamic studies or japanology is problematic, not only because both fields of research draw back on a large array of disciplinary approaches, but also because they emerged within a western context that concerned itself with societies classified as “non-western,” thus creating a dichotomy between forms of external and indigenous knowledge production about the same subject-matters.[27] scholars in these fields thus risk producing research results that are contested by members of the very societies under investigation for the sole reason that these scholars do not pertain to these societies. the history of these academic fields is thus characterized by tensions resulting from the question of who has the right to analyse and evaluate the cultural heritage of a particular society, a question intrinsically tied to the orientalist debate.[28] investigating the role that the transcultural paradigm can play if applied to various academic disciplines or fields of research thus raised problems that we could not have imagined at the outset of this project. however, engaging with these problems furnished two important results: deconstructionist from a methodological point of view, the transcultural paradigm tends to question the relevance of boundaries, not only in a cultural sense. if applied to any given discipline or field of research, it will ultimately stretch or even question the latter’s defined boundaries. applying the transcultural paradigm to various disciplines or fields of research is thus fraught with tension, a tension that ultimately seems rather productive, however: it opens up new perspectives by directly confronting the engaged scholar with the methodological, ideological, and institutional challenges inherent in every field of investigation. coping with these challenges simultaneously may initially produce confusion and disorientation. ultimately, however, it will result in an acknowledgement and critical evaluation of our contemporary forms of knowledge production and their adequacy, and will open up new lines of enquiry. [1] fernando ortiz, contrapunteo cubano el tabaco y el azúcar (havana: jesús montero, 1940). [2] anthony v. s. de reuck and ruth porter, eds., transcultural psychiatry: a symposium (london: churchill, 1965); ari kiev, transcultural psychiatry (new york: the free press, collier-macmillan, 1972); turan m. itil, ed., transcultural neuropsychopharmacology (istanbul: bozak, 1975); john l. cox, ed., transcultural psychiatry (london: croom helm, 1986); also see the journal transcultural psychiatry, edited by the division of social and transcultural psychiatry, department of psychiatry at mcgill university since 1997. [3] john mcfadden, ed., transcultural counseling: bilateral and international perspectives (alexandria, va: american counseling association, 1993). [4] madeleine m. leininger and marylin r. mcfarland, eds., transcultural nursing: concepts, theories, research and practice (new york: mcgraw-hill, 2002); jan i̇lhan kızılhan, handbuch zur behandlung kriegstraumatisierter frauen: transkulturelle behandlungsmethoden und techniken am beispiel der frauen aus dem irak (berlin: verlag für wissenschaft und bildung, 2016). [5] george f. simons, carmen vazquez, and philip r. harris, eds., transcultural leadership: empowering the diverse work force (houston: gulf publishing company, 1993); albert koopman, transcultural management: ein umweltorientiertes modell interkultureller organisationsberatung (köln: edition humanistische psychologie, 1994); albert koopman, transcultural management: how to unlock global resources (cambridge: blackwell, 1994). [6] homi bhabha, the location of culture (london: routledge, 1994). [7] ylva hernlund and bettina shell-duncan, eds., transcultural bodies: female genital cutting in a global context (new brunswick: rutgers university press, 2007); saugata bhaduri and indrani mukherjee, eds., transcultural negotiations of gender: studies in (be)longing (new delhi: springer, 2016). [8] germaine w. shames, transcultural odysees: the evolving global consciousness (yarmouth: intercultural press, 1997); ellen e. berry and mikhail n. epstein, eds., transcultural experiments: russian and american models of creative communication (basingstoke: macmillan, 1999); virginia h. milhouse, molefi kete asante, and peter o. nwosu, eds., transcultural realities: interdisciplinary perspectives on cross-cultural relations (thousand oaks: sage, 2001); andreas hepp, transkulturelle kommunikation (konstanz: uvk, 2006). [9] kerstin kazzazi, angela treiber, and tim wätzold, eds., migration – religion – identität: aspekte transkultureller prozesse (wiesbaden: springer vs, 2016). [10] claude-hélène mayer and stephan wolting, eds., purple jacaranda: narrations on transcultural identity development (münster: waxmann, 2016); irene gilsenan nordin, chatarina edfeldt, lung-lung hu, herbert jonsson, and andré leblanc, eds., transcultural identity constructions in a changing world (frankfurt am main: pl academic research, 2016). [11] karen r. lawrence, ed., transcultural joyce: contributions of the xiv international james joyce symposium in seville, spain (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1998); rocío g. davis, transcultural reinventions: asian american and asian canadian short-story cycles (toronto: tsar, 2001); elisabeth bekers, ed., transcultural modernities: narrating africa in europe (amsterdam: rodopi, 2009); nora tunkel, transcultural imaginaries: history and globalization in contemporary canadian literature (heidelberg: universitätsverlag winter, 2012). [12] christiane brosius and roland wenzelhuemer, eds., transcultural turbulences: towards a multi-sited reading of image flows (berlin: springer, 2011); christian suhr and rane willerslev, transcultural montage (new york: berghahn, 2013). [13] pauline bachmann, melanie klein, tomoko mamine, and georg vasold, eds., art/histories in transcultural dynamics: perspectives on narratives and frameworks in the 20th and 21st century (paderborn: wilhelm fink, 2015); michael falser, angkor wat: from jungle find to global icon; a transcultural history of heritage (berlin: de gruyter, 2016). [14] stefan l. brandt, ed., transcultural spaces: challenges of urbanity, ecology, and the environment (tübingen: narr, 2010). [15] sybille de la rosa, ed., transkulturelle politische theorie (wiesbaden: springer vs, 2016). [16] madeleine herren, martin rüesch, and christiane sibille, transcultural history: theories, methods, sources (berlin: springer, 2012); stefan hanß and juliane schiel, eds., mediterranean slavery revisited (500–1800) – neue perspektiven auf mediterrane sklaverei (500–1800) (frankfurt am main: chronos, 2014); lucy audley-miller and beate dignas, eds., wandering myths: transcultural uses of myth in the ancient world (berlin: de gruyter, 2016); wolfram drews and christian scholl, eds., transkulturelle verflechtungsprozesse in der vormoderne (berlin: de gruyter, 2016); netzwerk transkulturelle verflechtungen, transkulturelle verflechtungen: mediävistische perspektiven (göttingen: göttinger universitätsverlag, 2016). [17] see e.g. wolfgang welsch, “transculturality: the puzzling form of cultures today,” in spaces of culture: city, nation, world, ed. mike featherstone and scott lash (london: sage, 1999), 194–213; monica juneja, “kultur, kulturtransfer und grenzüberschreitungen: joachim eibach und claudia opitz im gespräch mit monica juneja,” zeitenblicke 11, no. 1 (2012), http://www.zeitenblicke.de/2012/1/interview/ [accessed on 30. march 2017]. [18] jutta ernst and florian freitag, “transkulturelle dynamiken: entwicklungen und perspektiven eines konzepts,” in transkulturelle dynamiken: aktanten, prozesse, theorien, ed. jutta ernst and florian freitag (bielefeld: transcript, 2014), 7–30; also see wolfram drews and christian scholl, “transkulturelle verflechtungsprozesse in der vormoderne: zur einleitung,” in drews and scholl, transkulturelle verflechtungsprozesse, vii–xxiii; ulrike freitag and achim von oppen, “translocality: an approach to connection and transfer in area studies,” in translocality: the study of globalising processes from a southern perspective, ed. ulrike freitag and achim von oppen (leiden: brill, 2010), 1–21; andreas langenohl, ralph poole, and manfred weinberg, eds., transkulturalität: klassische texte (bielefeld: transcript, 2015). [19] see e.g. gudrun lachenmann, “globalisation in the making: translocal gendered spaces in muslim societies,” in freitag and oppen, translocality, 335–367, on page 340: “different voices have highlighted the necessity of a fundamental methodological reconsideration of approaches within a process of globalising social science. elements in this debate are the increasing interest in strengthening qualitative methodology in what could be called transcultural (comparative) social research. our analysis refers to concepts and phenomena considered to be constitutive of globalisation, such as social movements, networks, civil society, thereby avoiding dualisms of blocks, cultures etc. globalisation is studied through its constitutional elements of interlinking and connectedness, flows.” [20] cf. margarell connell szasz, ed., between indian and white worlds: the cultural broker (norman: university of oklahoma press, 1994); marc von der höh, nikolas jaspert, and jenny rahel oesterle, eds., cultural brokers at mediterranean courts in the middle ages (munich: fink, 2013). [21] cf. “understanding transculturalism—monica juneja and christian kravagna in conversation,” in transcultural modernisms, model house research group,publication series of the academy of fine arts vienna 12 (berlin: sternberg press, 2013), 22–35. [22] paula krüger, ed., transcultural studies: interdisziplinarität trifft transkulturalität (bremen: universitätsdruckerei, 2005). [23] see the contribution by katja rakow and esther berg. [24] see the contributions by pablo blitstein, daniel g. könig, and hans-martin krämer. [25] see e.g. the journal transcultural studies, founded in 2005 and published by brill, http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/23751606 [accessed on 29. august 2016]¸ as well as the journal of transcultural medieval studies, founded in 2014 and published by de gruyter, http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jtms [accessed on 29. august 2016]. [26] among those offering a degree are heidelberg university (“transcultural studies,” http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/studies/ma-transcultural-studies.html, [accessed on 29. august 2016]; bremen university (“transkulturelle studien,” http://www.kultur.uni-bremen.de/index.php?id=3020, [accessed on 08. february 2017]; warwick university (“translation and transcultural studies,” http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/applying/postgraduate/masters/tts/, [accessed on 29. august 2016], meiji gakuin university (“department of global and transcultural studies,” http://www.meijigakuin.ac.jp/en/academics/faculty/international/global_and_transcultural_studies.html, [accessed on 29. august 2016]. [27] see the contributions by hans-martin krämer and daniel g. könig. [28] see the contribution by daniel g. könig. a space that has been labored on | jayeeta sharma | transcultural studies a space that has been laboured on: mobile lives and transcultural circulation around darjeeling and the eastern himalayas jayeeta sharma, university of toronto introduction the paradox of darjeeling is how well, and simultaneously, how narrowly its space, sights, products, and people are known. for global consumers, darjeeling conjures a gourmand taste enshrined in elegant cafes and kitchens, a brand that evokes lush gardens for a colonial beverage that became the world’s first gi-protected tea. this is a name whose glamour led to its appropriation by a hollywood film as well as a french lingerie chain. for aficionados of imperial nostalgia, new age seekers, travellers, and vacationers, darjeeling evokes quaintly ethnic charm, an edenic mountain backwater recently disordered by sub-nationalist violence linked to the gorkhaland movement. such popular perceptions have in common that they elide the complex transcultural dynamism that arose from the historical trajectories of circulation and contact that not only produced darjeeling’s imperial and global significance, but constituted it as a unique space of livelihood and labour, especially for mobile himalayan groups. following mary l. pratt’s important insight, this article explores darjeeling as a high-altitude contact zone constituted around the spatial and temporal co-presence of subjects previously separated by geographic and temporal disjuncture, whose historical trajectories of circulation intersected in and because of this mountain space.[1] at the darjeeling hill station of british india, high altitudes and temperate climes promised to alleviate bodily ills and nurture modernity through the plantation, missionary, military, and mountaineering enterprises that had taken root. given the diversity of indigenous, migrant, and colonial subjects who inhabited this space, asymmetrical and unequal experiences based on class, race, and gender difference became intrinsic to this promise. such subjects included lepcha cultivators, foragers, and guides, bhutia load carriers and clan notables, nepali labourers, cooks, nursemaids, soldiers, and translators, sherpa porters and climbers, english explorers and army officers, scottish administrators, planters and missionaries—subjects who constituted darjeeling as an interactive arena for circulation, a transcultural space that offered, to a greater or lesser degree, possibilities for historical agency. british indian darjeeling arose as a hill station, the simulacrum of european temperate zones where white empire-builders recuperated from tropical summers. later, it became a byword as the prized supplier of a desirable global beverage, tea. in analyzing its historical character as a transcultural contact zone, this article is inspired by the geographer henri lefebvre’s directive to analyze space as a social product that incorporates the social actions of individuals around the process of production, within relations of production, and via forces of production.[2] rather than a quaint queen of the hills, darjeeling is to be known as a mutable transcultural “space that has been laboured on” by subjects whose mobile passages, livelihood strategies, asymmetrical relationships, and urban encounters made its and their histories.[3] in exploring how darjeeling transcended its character as a colonial settlement that displaced indigenous people in order to service european leisure and medical needs, and evolved into a mountain hub where transcultural commodities, practices, and ideas circulated, the article seeks out the hidden traces of labouring himalayan groups whose subaltern livelihoods played a key role in its emergence as a destination for euro-american leisure and adventure, as did their encounters with mobile and transnational elites and institutions. a space at the top of the world in 1835, a remote himalayan hamlet’s potential to become a health-giving sanatorium resort impelled a takeover by the english east india company. david arnold discusses how respected british medical practitioners such as james johnstone and william twining popularized a belief that extended exposure to excessive heat and humidity caused physical degeneration of the white race. [4] stints of temperate recuperation were deemed essential if europeans were to thrive while labouring in hot climates. this strong environmentalist paradigm, which continued for a century or more, established as imperial dogma that periodic recuperation could best be enjoyed in newly established mountain towns with attached sanatoriums, dubbed hill stations. medical advocacy of periodic recuperation in temperate environments provided the impetus for the establishment of high-altitude towns that were set up across dutch, spanish, british, french, and american colonial empires.[5] during the 1830s, british administrators enjoyed a choice of temperate hill stations, but all lay at a considerable distance from the capital, calcutta, and the bengal presidency. a closer alternative seemed possible when lieutenant-colonel lloyd visited a sikkim mountain hamlet called dorjéling (rdo rje gling) on his return from negotiations about himalayan frontiers.[6] lloyd’s mission originated from the east india company’s obligations after the 1817 treaty of titalya, when it bestowed on sikkim hill tracts recently annexed from nepal.[7] deputy surveyor-general captain j. d. herbert was asked to determine dorjéling’s suitability as a sanatorium site for bengal. he found the hamlet, the former headquarters of a kazi (chief) virtually deserted, partly due to clashes between nepali and sikkimese forces, partly due to internecine conflict within sikkim. it was topped by the ruins of a buddhist monastery (on what the british came to call observatory hill), founded by a sikkim aristocrat, lama rinzing dorji laden la as a branch of the pemayangtse monastery. a nepali raid had destroyed the dorjéling monastery, but local lepchas continued to revere the location. in contrast to the local reverence for a sacred site, what mattered to the british was herbert’s declaration that at a lofty height of 7000-plus feet, dorjéling met all the medical requirements to rejuvenate the white race.[8] this recommendation provided the impetus for calcutta to put pressure on the chogyal to grant dorjéling to the british. the colonial archive has a rare document in the lepcha language that records the relevant transaction on 25 february 1835: “that health may be obtained by residing there i from friendship make an offering of durgeeling to the governor general sahib.”[9] richard sprigg found that this sonorous phrase originated with lloyd, who was dissatisfied with the chogyal’s terse pronouncement that the british were permitted to build houses. the lloyd-inspired declaration of friendship elided the sikkimese ruler’s unhappiness at the british refusal to exchange the fertile dabgong territory for his gift. the chogyal expressed his unhappiness by discouraging his subjects from accepting british employment at the hill station.[10] a decade later, his simmering grievance provoked him into an attack on botanist joseph hooker and his companion archibald campbell when they entered sikkim. captain herbert wrote frankly of his dependence on assistance from indigenous guides, from a people called the rong. their nepali neighbours knew them as lepchas, a pejorative attribution of “imperfect speaker” that became their nomenclature in the colonial lexicon. rong denoted mountain peak, from the phrase mutanchi rong kup rum kup, children of snowy peaks (figure 1). the mightiest was kanchenjunga (a transliteration of the tibetan name, kangs-chen-mdzod-lnga), known to the rong as kongchen kongchlo (big stone) or king-tzum-song-bu (the highest over our heads).[11] fig. 1: j. burlington smith, lepcha family, darjeeling, eastern himalayas, ca. 1888–1929. photographic print, 15 x 20 cm. edinburgh, national library of schotland, acc. 7548/f/4. according to local legend, the ancestors of the rong, fudongthing and nazong nyu, were created from kanchenjunga’s snows.[12] the resident mountain deity came to be known as dzonga, head of spirits and deities in the indigenous bon faith and in the sikkim version of buddhism.[13] the rong preferred to live and to bury their dead within sight of kanchenjunga and the mythical land of happiness and bounty believed to lie around it, mayel lyang.[14] for the colonial british and euro-americans at large, kanchenjunga and other himalayan peaks inspired entirely different sentiments, via a post-romantic ethos that valued mountains for their beauty, size, and as a representation of human triumph over nature.[15] the darjeeling hill station was built in kanchenjunga’s shadow, but it was a moot point whether lepchas could experience it as anything close to a land of happiness (figure 2). fig. 2: darjeeling, kinchingunga and the snows from beechwood park, 1897. photochrom, 20.9 x 26.8 cm. zurich, central library, 400020059. captain herbert lauded the lepchas as “a totally different race, morally and physically, from the people in the plains…they allow themselves to be originally the same people with the bhoteeas or inhabitants of tibet…in every thing the reverse of the hindoostanee.”[16] indigenous “difference” augured well for colonial needs, since “the character of these people particularly fits them to cooperate with europeans in improving the country…without those prejudices which obstruct our efforts at improvement every step we take in the plains.”[17] lepchas saw themselves as brothers of the bamboo since they used it to build houses, weave baskets, and construct bridges, rafts, fences, bows, arrows, and household utensils, as well as using the shoots and seeds as food.[18] herbert remarked at their versatility with nature. “with nothing but a long straight knife, the lepcha will in an incredibly short period of time, house himself. if we were thirsty on the road, a lepcha was immediately ready with a drinking cup fashioned out of a bamboo…or a large leaf.”[19] a challenge for the british was how to successfully colonize a mountain locality where fewer than a hundred lepchas seemed to reside, whose rent roll yielded only rs 20. herbert attributed its near-desolation to the flight of a thousand lepchas from the chogyal’s suzerainty into the ilam region of nepal. “with their chief, eklatok, whose brother (is) barrajeet kazee, whose wife and children have been murdered by the raja of sikkim, they have sought protection within the goorkhalee territory, where they have obtained a settlement. like all mountaineers, however, they sigh to return to their native glens… the first step towards establishing a sanatorium at dargeeling would be to invite these men to return to their homes.”[20] he anticipated their return once the lepchas learnt of the british takeover. the generally glowing tenor of herbert’s report demonstrates the specious mechanics of “discovery,” wherein colonial functionaries often employed overly optimistic language to argue for territorial and resource gains. herbert did express a few misgivings based on lack of assistance from the sikkim court, but his calcutta superiors, who fervently desired this hill station, chose to ignore them.[21] instead, the company set in motion a classic process of colonial land acquisition to acquire dorjéling.[22] once the gift was obtained, lloyd journeyed to the new british sikkim, assisted by assistant surgeon chapman, with the remit to establish basic urban infrastructure.[23] their first stop was the bengal hamlet of titalya. it lay only twenty miles from sikkim, but it took them months to organize sufficient labourers, troops, and supplies. finally, they managed to send heavy provisions with two hundred or so load carriers from the plains.[24] lloyd and chapman’s road diary narrative of slow climbs, unplanned stops, and large-scale desertions has to be read against the colonial grain to obtain a proper sense of the harsh toll this journey exacted on labourers who lacked suitable attire, footwear, or any experience of peepsa fly-infested foothills and freezing altitudes. herbert had written that “a lepcha will carry twice the load of a bearer or coolie, and he will carry it with good will.” [25] what he failed to mention was that lepchas did so in a familiar mountain environment where they eked out a tolerable subsistence from forest and field, which gave them a fair degree of agency when it came to undertaking arduous wage labour. to connect darjeeling to the plains, the british state needed roads that would allow for the passage of wheeled vehicles as well as animal and passenger transport.[26] the first effort produced the old military road in 1842, but it took several years, and cost numerous labouring lives and a great deal of money.[27] lieutenant robert napier (the future imperial hero lord napier of magdala) of the madras sappers, who were deployed as experienced builders, was feted on its completion.[28] but that first road proved extremely steep.[29] in 1861, a replacement was built, the hill cart road, which had a more accessible gradient to accommodate carts.[30] rail transport entered the bengal government’s radar soon after the inauguration of the first indian rail line in 1854. however, ecological and technical challenges meant that a railway line from calcutta to siliguri was only introduced in 1878. rail construction was slow until the bengal government drafted plains workers from a famine-relief initiative.[31] with such an array of logistical obstacles, colonial officials were compelled to seek assistance from plains labour contractors.[32] there was no surety as to how long lepcha labourers would stay. when the titalya men wished to leave, lloyd judged it expedient to pay cash advances and raise wages. even then, many fled when they heard rumours that nepal was to attack darjeeling.[33] shortfalls of grain and produce reduced labourers to a narrow, inadequate diet that caused diarrhoea and dysentery outbreaks. the numerous deaths linked to the old military and hill cart roads indicate that local reluctance to work for the british had good cause. in 1839–1840, only fifty-one lepcha males and thirty-seven females responded to british overtures to settle at darjeeling, despite a warm welcome for their chief’s son on his return from nepal, and cash advances to followers.[34] eventually, the bengal government permitted campbell to write off advances to lepcha settlers as irrecoverable.[35] over the next couple of decades, lepchas were willing to adjust to the demands of wage-work, but usually on a temporary basis for specific tasks, such as plant collecting for botanical expeditions. livelihoods continued to be based on a blend of shifting cultivation, foraging, and hunting, which earned lepchas the reputation of being less enterprising and willing to turn their hands to new tasks than new himalayan migrants. in the absence of a reliable civilian labour pool for early darjeeling, colonial officials were compelled to conscript military labour for the essential upkeep of mountain roads. this consisted of indigenous men from sikkim and nepal who joined a new militia, the sebundy sappers, drawn in by the lure of cash advances.[36] unfortunately, those sappers were “ill clad, worse fed, and badly housed” as they cleared road obstructions and opened drains against torrential rains.[37] when sapper numbers fell drastically due to fevers and smallpox, campbell had to request a hundred troops from another bengal militia, the bhagalpore hull rangers.[38] until trains made travel easier and cheaper, the prime constituency of darjeeling visitors was an upper crust of civil servants seeking refuge from hot and humid bengal summers. another substantial group was convalescing invalids, especially british soldiers. such invalids formed the subjects of a drawing by the surgeon-artist frederick william de fabeck that depicted scantily clad labourers carrying them in dandees (sedan chairs) up precipitous paths.[39] with the introduction of the narrow gauge “toy train” in 1881 that transported rail passengers up fifty-one steeply winding miles, such human conveyance became redundant, but only for the journey. at the hill station destination, load carriers continued to be in evidence, since mountain topography demanded subaltern muscle to heft everything from firewood to pianos to people (figure 3). fig. 3: missionary being taken up a hill on a litter, darjeeling, ca. 1890. photographic print, 15.5 x 11 cm. edinburgh, national library of scotland, acc. 7548/f/9. largely due to such environmental and labouring challenges, early darjeeling’s urban infrastructure relied on construction workers obtained through british india’s “coolie” markets, which supplied imperial mines and plantations.[40] this is to be understood in the light of south asian labour histories that show how such labourers were part of a larger proletarian workforce drawn from indigenous and marginalized groups whose livelihoods were threatened by colonial annexations, forced agrarian commercialization, and artisanal deindustrialization.[41] such labour was labelled as “coolies,” common parlance for waged workers employed at manual, low-end tasks.[42] the next section of the article will examine how burgeoning labour opportunities and the intercession of local intermediaries brought in other himalayan groups, and how they responded to the ethnic labour niches beloved of colonial employers. from hill station to circulation hub from the mid-nineteenth century, a wide array of himalayan migrant groups arrived in search of the various types of manual and service work available in and around the hill station, from household to plantation to military to mountaineering work. geoff childs’s exploration of migrations as protracted historical processes rather than as singular events provides a useful insight into how emic and ontological narratives about small-scale “push and pull” movements can contribute toward a larger discussion of how circulation typologies affected himalayan social and cultural transformation.[43] as lefebvre reminds us, “social space contains a great diversity of objects, both natural and social, including the networks and pathways which facilitate the exchange of materials, things, and information. such ‘objects’ are not only things but also relations.”[44] following his call to examine urban spaces in light of the labour and labourers that constitute them, darjeeling and its hinterland can be problematized as a circulatory social space where seasonal, temporary, or permanent migrations, and the conditions that led to them, created networks of classed, raced, and gendered relationships. a wide swathe of himalayan groups was attracted both by the prospect of earning cash wages and by the possibility of moving away from ecologically marginal lands and semi-feudal relations of production. from grooms to porters to tea workers to expedition porters, the majority of migrant labourers joined a floating subaltern population that gradually stabilized into ethnic niches that serviced the darjeeling economy. as improved transport links brought in more seasonal visitors and summer residents, households of convalescing visitors, planters, officials, missionaries, hotels, schools, and boarding houses required reliable staff to function as cooks, grooms, nursemaids, water-carriers, sweepers, and bearers. visitors from calcutta complained about the higher cost of employing himalayan servants but had little choice since plains servants, who were used to lower wages, disliked the cold climate. especially during the summers, when darjeeling rentals were full, himalayan men found many domestic openings as cooks, majordomos, grooms, or watchmen. female migrants had more restricted opportunities as sweepers and ayah nursemaids. as migrants moved in, colonial officials gradually refined a complex ethnography that differentiated between himalayan labouring subjects based on reified cultural and biological traits that fitted tasks to groups. for instance, most migrants from nepal were deemed suitable for plantation, household, and skilled indoors tasks, while lower-end, strenuous outdoor jobs were predominantly given to so-called bhutia groups, the homogenizing label given to tibetan-ethnic migrants from semi-pastoral and nomadic communities. in the colonial lexicon, bhootea, bhotiya, bhotia, or bhutia referred to a broad swathe of tibetan-dialect speakers who inhabited the buddhist border regions of sikkim, bhutan, nepal, tibet, and himalayan india. wim van spengen described them as groups of cross-cultural traders whose activities arose in response to the eco-systematic complementarity of himalayan nomadic and sedentary borderland groups. they combined transhumance herding of yak and sheep with cultivation of barley, buckwheat, and eventually potatoes, near seasonal settlements. during winter migrations, they bartered wool, hides, butter, iron, and salt for grain and sugar at periodic, open-air markets from assam to kashmir to tibet.[45] lloyd and chapman had recommended that instead of lepchas, “bhooteas” should be preferred for outdoor tasks, especially for heavy lifting or lengthy travel.[46] for outdoors and menial occupations, it became a truism that bhutia readiness to travel, familiarity with load carrying, and modest wage demands made them desirable for outdoor labour and expedition employment. as bhutia and nepali migrants circulated into darjeeling’s hinterland in greater numbers, lepchas began to be seen as shy, retiring, and less physically capable than other groups, except for their exceptional foraging skills. we see such logic at play when botanist joseph hooker, who made darjeeling his base for botanical expeditions into sikkim and nepal, was advised by darjeeling administrator campbell and nepal ethnologist hodgson as to the specific types of expedition subordinates he should employ.[47] felix driver usefully reminds us that scientific exploration was a job of work, and major expeditions required large labour forces, with all the planning and organization that attended other colonial laboring enterprises.[48] when hooker journeyed to darjeeling in 1848, he had no difficulty in finding porters in titalya to act as temporary escorts to his mountain destination. a decade of darjeeling colonization, with the frequent transport of provisions and visitors via the new military road, had made a considerable difference since lloyd and chapman’s journey. to hooker, darjeeling was as busy as “an australian colony, not only in (the) amount of building, but in the accession of native families from the surrounding countries.”[49] for nearby botanical forays, he employed lepcha plant collectors whose foraging knowledge proved vital to amass the 150,000 specimens of 2000 different species that he triumphantly sent to kew. “these (lepcha collectors) either accompanied me on my excursions, or went by themselves into the jungles to collect plants, which i occupied myself in drawing, dissecting, and ticketing: while the preserving of them fell to the lepchas, who, after a little training, became, with constant superintendence, good plant-driers.”[50] driver discusses how victorian exploration narratives took pains to enhance their credibility for readers with long descriptions of the efficacy of collectors in their capacity as instruments for the collection of knowledge, the only role for which such local intermediaries were valued.[51] on the one hand, hooker composed lengthy and appreciative screeds about lepchas’ forest skills. on the other hand, he deemed it unnecessary to name these human instruments, some of whom worked for him for several years; neither the collectors, nor the porters, nor the treasurer who enumerated expenses in lepcha script with “a fine, clear hand.”[52] a fine irony arises from the appellation that lepchas bestowed on european explorers; they knew the latter as mik thuk, “those who poke with their eyes”[53] (figure 4). fig. 4: william walker, dr hooker in the rhododendron region of the himalayas, after a painting by frank stone, 1854. mezzotint. private collection. portrait of dr hooker in sikkim with lepcha collectors, nepalese guards and gurkha sepoys, in a pine forest at 9000 feet with kanchenjunga in the background. for his next expedition to the distant reaches of eastern nepal, hooker needed several labourers able and willing to carry supplies for fifty-six people for three months. he described to his father how “preliminaries towards my trip to the snows” involved interviewing a “motley group of natives—of various tribes colours & callings such as one rarely sees any of & still more rarely all together.”[54] hodgson and campbell dissuaded hooker from hiring additional lepchas beyond a few collectors, since, in their view, they would not do well in carrying heavy loads over a lengthy period. nepali labour was not a choice since hooker could not return “runaway” labourers to their homeland.[55] darjeeling had already shown that plains coolies did not do well in snowy terrain. eventually, campbell found him fourteen “bhutan run-aways” led by a headman, accustomed to travel at all elevations, men hefty and willing to carry eighty-pound loads of rice and canned goods.[56] although hooker complained about their less-than-docile demeanour compared to the lepchas, bhutias were popular when it came to expedition recruitment. driver writes that when the schlagintweit brothers undertook large-scale scientific explorations between 1854 and 1858, among their collectors was dablong, a bhutia who had travelled with hooker, along with chagi, a darjeeling lepcha.[57] hooker lavishly praised campbell’s actions as darjeeling superintendent, since the scottish doctor-turned-administrator had purchased land to build houses, barracks, and a bazaar, created lodging for invalid european soldiers at the new cantonment and sanatorium, and ensured that plentiful labour was available. in a similar vein, contemporaries eulogized campbell as “sole ruler of the station and territory…(who acted) to inspire the aborigines with confidence in british rule, to induce the neighbouring tribes to settle in the territory, and to render darjeeling a commercial centre for traders from countries round about”.[58] this illustrious visitor’s description of official triumphs wilfully ignored how much of colonial success, especially such interventions around labour, depended on building networks of local intermediaries and chiefs. campbell negotiated for years with a number of chiefs in the region to encourage their lepcha, bhutia, and mech subjects to move into the darjeeling area. until he managed to arrive at terms with them, the colonial administration was not only labour-strapped but cash-strapped, unable to collect revenue for almost a decade.[59] a key intermediary during darjeeling’s early years was the chebu lama, a lepcha notable who first acted as a political informant on sikkimese and tibetan affairs, then graduated to supplying labouring personnel.[60] his nephew, tenduk pulger, who was married to a bhutia noblewoman, was indispensable to the procurement of porters and servants for expeditions where he favoured important travellers with his presence, personal entourage in tow.[61] tenduk’s influence extended into kalimpong, where he made a name as a benefactor of buddhist and christian causes, and for his services during the 1888 conflict with tibet, he was given the honorific of raja.[62] the lepcha elder tumahang sitling, who moved to darjeeling from ilam, mobilized workers and helped lay out the lloyd’s botanical gardens in 1879.[63] another bhutia nobleman tsiwang rinzing laden la, whose clan had endowed the monastery that originally stood on observatory hill, assisted campbell in tea experiments and helped european investors procure land for plantations. his younger clan members such as ugyen gyatso and rinzing namgyal became invaluable auxiliaries of the great game in their role as “tibet pundits,” as did another of his descendants, sonam laden la, a police officer who became known as sardar (contractor) for his efficacy in providing everything from labour to mules and horses for the european visitors.[64] well-versed in tibetan and buddhist high culture, such elite local intermediaries nurtured close ties to mercantile, political, and religious structures across sikkim, bhutan, and tibet. in return for their assistance, especially on labour procurement, they received land grants and revenue collection rights, secured sons’ and nephews’ appointments to government offices, were honoured with british titles, and socialized with colonial functionaries at public forums such as the lebong race-course. another important category of himalayan migrant labour consisted of individuals and agrarian groups from central and eastern nepal, mostly tibeto-burman dialect speakers whose mountain origins earned them the label pahari (from pahar, or hills), or newar artisanal castes from the kathmandu valley. the darjeeling they entered was a space whose physical and social landscape was quickly changing into a commodity economy. captain hathorn described how, in 1863, nine years after his first visit to darjeeling, “fire and axe have swept away the tree and creeper to make way for tea.”[65] only a decade after hooker’s visit, the forested slopes around darjeeling where lepcha collectors foraged for orchids and rhododendrons to send to kew gardens were domesticated into tea “gardens.” the smuggled china plants that hooker had glimpsed growing in campbell’s garden were the harbingers of the first commercial british tea plantation in 1856.[66] tea, in its darjeeling form, acquired worldwide prominence through the industry of such labouring migrants from contiguous himalayan frontiers. for the other major tea region of british india, assam, the colonial state introduced penal labour recruitment on indentured contracts under pressure from a tea lobby whose plantations were located in malaria-infested forested tracts, far from roads and towns.[67] by contrast, darjeeling had little need for a formal state-run recruitment system due to plantation’s proximity to the impoverished and ecologically marginal borderlands, many of whose inhabitants were already circulating into british india. both push and pull factors operated to gradually encourage labour circulation along porous himalayan frontiers once the hill station’s existence was known; from the mid-nineteenth century, darjeeling became a favoured destination in nepal, as is apparent from a famous folk saying: “suna ko lingo, chandi ko ping, ek jieu khana launa lai thikai chha darjeeling,” or “darjeeling will take care of me.”[68] michael hutt describes how nepali peasants, enslaved, or landless, or over-taxed, or oppressed by rapacious moneylenders, forsook their native hills for what they called “mugalan” (meaning india, literally, land of mughals), to move eastward into british territory where the grass appeared greener.[69] he cites the author lainsingh bagdel, whose migrant protagonist, in the novel muluk bahira, wears tattered clothes and carries a khukri (machete), a bamboo mat, and a blanket, much more than others owned when they arrived in mugalan. “what a miserable state they were in, those arrivals. although there was no kipat (communal) land in mugalan, one could earn enough to feed one’s stomach…you didn’t have to go to bhot (tibet) for salt, you didn’t have to suffer.”[70] by the 1870s, 34.1% of the darjeeling district’s population was of nepali origin, but it took a while to stabilize into a permanent or even a settled workforce.[71] planter handbooks warned that every winter a great many peasants came from nepal, but left plantations in the spring when it was time to plant at home. others fell on hard times in this new world and, when debts to moneylenders became burdensome, “they run away to nepal.”[72] local intermediaries in both india and nepal, especially those who advanced capital to would-be migrants, played a crucial role in facilitating such movement in an environment where the rugged terrain could extend journeys into days or weeks.[73] as one man recollected, “you do not run across the wild country of eastern nepal. you creep up and down, out and about, over steep ridges, through jungle valleys, across rushing rivers, on trails that you can hardly see.”[74] on the nepali end, village and clan heads acted as contractors and moneylenders. on the darjeeling side, cohorts of plantation workers journeyed back to recruit relatives or neighbours with the inducement of cash advances from planters. their success was such that in 1895, the darjeeling tea company’s co-chairman, the scottish planter george christison, was able to announce to london’s society of arts that 175 tea gardens employed approximately 70,000 workers, growing a crop worth well over 10 million pounds. the majority of those workers were born in nepal.[75] (figure 5). fig. 5: thomas paar, tea harvest, eastern himalayas, ca. 1888-1929. photographic print, 16.6 x 11.2 cm. edinburgh, national library of scotland, acc. 7548/f/4. another labouring niche that attracted nepali migrants was the british indian army, specifically its gurkha regiments. unlike plantation openings that recruited men, women, and even children, military labour was open only to men from specific ethnicities. successful applicants were required to be from those groups whom the british considered naturally martial races, the magar, gurung, limbu, and rai. originally theorized in 1833 by hooker’s host, ethnologist and former resident of nepal brian hodgson, who moved to darjeeling after his retirement, the traits that constituted such a martial race were comprehensively revised and tabulated in lieutenant-colonel eden vansittart’s army handbook, notes on goorkhas.[76] vansittart’s handbook was published in 1890, the same year that a gurkha recruitment army station opened in darjeeling. between 1886 and 1904, 27,428 gurkhas were recruited there to serve in war and to perform peacetime tasks such as road building on labour-short frontiers.[77] it became clear that of that number, many arrived via local tea plantations. to the chagrin of planters, once the recruitment station opened, they faced a constant problem of desertion. for nepali labourers who moved to darjeeling, a chance at army life as a gurkha soldier, despite the risk of death and injury, became a highly prized form of employment. in contrast with plantation and domestic employment, the gurkha soldier’s job was more or less permanent, held the prospect of land grants, pensions, and other benefits, and carried relatively high social status among one’s compatriots. darjeeling’s abundance was framed in terms of its tea economy in the form of folk sayings prevalent in nepal such as “chiya ko bot maa paisa falchha,” meaning “money grows on tea bushes.”[78] even as thousands of nepal inhabitants listened to such sentiments and hoped for darjeeling plantation employment, many became dissatisfied at the scanty promotions that awaited them, limited to a handful of jobs as foremen or overseers. the army offered one way out, albeit only for a select number of male migrants from nepal. aspiration to gurkha status was therefore limited to a small, gendered proportion of plantation workers. not just the army, but most avenues for upward mobility among labourers totally excluded women. it is ironic that tea planters held that a peculiar and positive trait of women workers was that they were more steadfast, i.e. less likely to leave plantations than their menfolk. a critical look at the raced and gendered structures that underlay colonial labour practices shows that rather than some intrinsic gendered predisposition, subaltern women’s seeming loyalty to plantations and households stemmed from lack of choice, given their relative immobility due to childrearing responsibilities, as well as female exclusion from military labour and the top echelons of domestic and plantation labouring jobs. while the identity of a gurkha soldier was ostensibly limited to certain ethnicities, oral histories reveal interesting slippages through which local groups might subvert colonial barriers and assert agency. army rules declared that gurkha recruitment was open only to newly arrived magars, gurungs, limbus, and rais from wild parts of nepal. colonial ethnographies of biologically determined martial traits excluded lepchas and newars as too peaceable to be acceptable soldiers. they offered ecological and cultural arguments for rejecting “line boys,” the second-generation offspring of gurkha soldiers, as too corrupted by urban living to make good soldiers. but the ethnographic determinism of military recruiters could not altogether stop other himalayan groups from infiltrating the category of gurkha. british recruiters relied on the appearance, testimony, and documents of applicants as well as the mediation of local translator-intermediaries. this was a weak link that allowed supposedly excluded men to take advantage of shared himalayan physiognomy and knowledge of the nepali vernacular to join the army. local lore recalls how men such as dak singh lepcha, who was accepted into a gurkha regiment, used the nepali sounding name singh in public rather than the revealing lepcha.[79] long-time prosperity and upward socio-economic mobility for labouring migrants, where possible, often required multiple generations to achieve. oral histories speak of individuals who followed a trajectory of chain migration in the wake of relatives or village brethren, spurred on by success stories, real or not. gopal singh pradhan moved as a youth from his home in bhatgaon, in eastern nepal, to fikkal, close to the indian border. he journeyed with family members to darjeeling, where they joined working parties on the racecourse at lebong. gopal rose through the ranks to become a petty contractor, settling on a land grant at the new 12th mile village established near kalimpong. the decisive break came in the second generation when his eldest son, bhim bahadur, was promoted to the rank of first-class contractor, handling jobs over rs 50,000. later, he received the prestigious state title of rai bahadur.[80] gurkha retirees joined forces with such men, who began as labourers and attained middle class status as contractors, teachers, clerks, or overseers, as producers and consumers of a new nepali vernacular that displaced dialects to become a literary language, in a homeland and in public arenas that were as self-fashioned as their lives. euro-american adventures in a himalayan orient this section explores how darjeeling’s appeal to mobile himalayan groups was paralleled by its growing allure for euro-american visitors who helped constitute a distinctive himalayan-orientalist trope for adventure. such an adventure trope was most vividly expressed through the western desire to conquer high himalayan peaks, particularly mount everest, to which darjeeling was then the gateway. such adventure quests catalyzed a new global visibility for this contact zone of the british empire, and allowed new transcultural opportunities for well-heeled euro-american men and women. as they flocked to darjeeling, such adventurers co-opted himalayan labourers such as lepcha plant collectors, bhutia porters, gurkha guards, or sherpa climbers, as mobile auxiliaries to realize orientalist dreams. the latter, in turn, sought to transform such openings into long-term advantage for familial and clan advancement. when joseph hooker stayed at darjeeling, he was awestruck that hodgson’s windows overlooked what he declared the world’s grandest landscape of snowy mountains. “kinchinjunga (forty-five miles distant) is the prominent object, rising 21,000 feet above the level of the observer out of a sea of intervening wooded hills; whilst, on a line with its snows, the eye descends below the horizon, to a narrow gulf 7000 feet deep in the mountains, where the great rungeet, white with foam, threads a tropical forest with a silver line.”[81] in those picturesque surroundings, he kept company with british officials such as hodgson and campbell and retired army officers such as lloyd, as well as temporary european visitors and settlers in search of health, a cool climate, and rarefied nature adventures. for hooker himself, this himalayan sojourn represented a rare chance to mark his name in the exotic annals of science and exploration, a chance that earned him the coveted position of director of kew gardens. for several of the early european pioneers who struggled in darjeeling around the time of hooker’s visit, however, their mountain quest was motivated by spiritual or economic aims. the majority were from modest british or german backgrounds, intent on religious or agrarian enterprise, sometimes both. on the religious mission front, german lutherans such as the wernicke-stölke family eventually flourished as farmers, bakers, and planters, although they initially struggled to convert indigenous lepchas.[82] just as those german missionaries had little choice but to bake or plant to make a living, other european newcomers found that life in this frontier settlement was harder than they had expected. after graduating from rugby, edmund cox, inspired by a brother’s tales of india, journeyed to darjeeling in 1876 with a dream of becoming a tea planter. to his amazement, the parson who preached the town’s sunday sermon was not only the rector of the elite st. paul’s school, but the proprietor of several tea estates. but cox was discouraged when he witnessed the strenuous physical labour that tea required, and the necessity for more capital than he could command. he left darjeeling to join the well-established career path of the colonial police.[83] even after the tea industry was well established, there was little room for dilettantes. the former lt. col. hannagan recollected, “tea planting in those days was a particularly arduous job, entailing long hours in the field beginning at dawn and ending with dusk…the planter would have to do his own plumbing and sanitation, his own engineering and construct his own buildings. he had to be a bit of a surveyor, as most roads were inclined to follow goat tracks and woodcutters’ paths, and hillsides were steep and cut up by marshes and deep ravines, large boulders and precipices. he had to study the transport of his crop, and be an accountant to keep his own books, a little bit of a lawyer, and even a judge to settle the disputes that would arise.”[84] undoubtedly, european planters enjoyed plenty of compensations in their frontier life. planters ranked fairly low in british india’s white society compared to officials, but the hallmark of their existence was a virtual autocracy over workers and local structures, a far cry from the modestly middle-class backgrounds whence the majority of planters originated. when the rev. william macfarlane moved to darjeeling in 1870, his success in winning over labouring converts was largely predicated on support from his scottish countrymen, who formed the majority of tea planters. around that time, there was a growing realization among missionaries that education and health interventions created local acceptance more easily than the time-honoured strategies of street preaching and debunking indigenous faiths. macfarlane and his lay and church supporters, the majority of whom had personally benefitted from an excellent state education system, became committed to educating subaltern groups, aside from seeking to convert them. modest as it seems, it was unprecedented for private colonial capital that he obtained support from nine plantation managers, most of them scotsmen, to fund fifty-five schools in thirty-eight tea villages.[85] ambitious young men such as gangaprasad pradhan, whose journey brought him from chainpur in nepal to a plantation labouring existence at ging, was enabled via the scottish mission to move into the teacher-training program at the darjeeling normal school.[86] gangaprasad eventually became the first himalayan man to be ordained as a pastor, and acquired renown as a prolific author of nepali christian works from the mission’s gorkha press.[87] whether at the teacher-training normal school that educated bhutia, lepcha, and nepali students as teachers, catechists, and translators, or at new girls’ schools, in a region where indigenous secular schooling was practically non-existent, such pedagogical strategies effectively demonstrated the efficacy of missionary networks in enhancing individual mobility, albeit to a limited extent. from 1881, when the darjeeling mountain railway’s picturesque toy train carried passengers directly up the mountains all the way from calcutta via siliguri, ever-larger numbers of euro-american visitors decided that an indian destination with a temperate climate surrounded by sublime scenery was worth enduring twenty-four hours in a train (figure 6). the philadelphia photographer william rau spoke for them when he declared, “though traveling on the narrow gauge railway to darjeeling be at times monotonous, somewhat uncomfortable and largely dangerous, our journey’s end will well repay us for its annoyances.”[88] fig. 6: darjeeling railway. reversing station, ca. 1920. postcard, 8.7 x 13.8 cm. private collection. darjeeling provided an ample living for sundry european and anglo-indian proprietors of boarding houses, hotels, schools, and purveyors of photographic studios who catered to invalids, retirees, colonial families with young children, and just plain leisure-seekers visiting for short and long stays, as they employed himalayan labour to meet those needs. a remarkable sight that frequently struck visitors was the considerable number of uniformed white children. hooker had remarked on darjeeling’s “active, rosy, and bright young community…it is incredible what a few weeks of that mountain air does for the india-born children of european parents: they are taken there sickly, pallid or yellow, soft and flabby, to become transformed into models of rude health and activity.”[89] in contrast to the scottish presbyterian mission that focused on subaltern labouring groups, catholic missionary outfits had focused their energies on expensive british-style public schools such as loreto convent, st. paul’s school, and st. joseph’s school, which boarded european boys and girls sent to escape the tropical plains. (figure 7). while their student bodies were initially restricted to european offspring, by the inter-war years they enrolled small numbers of mixed-race and elite himalayan children, such as the lhasa aristocrat rinchen dolma taring, whose guardians in british india sent her to the loreto convent.[90] fig. 7: st paul's school and darjeeling, ca. 1907. postcard, 13.6 x 8.8 cm. private collection. herbert’s vision of darjeeling as eastern india’s premier sanatorium and hill station counterpart to simla was more than fulfilled, some fifty years after his visit. its main attraction was a striking distinctiveness from the tropical plains and cities of india. it appeared as an exotic site removed from the standard sights associated with oriental towns, but equally, one where climate and landscape gave it an affinity to european mountains. mrs guernsey, who wrote for the popular magazine harper’s about her two-year sojourn in darjeeling, was one of the first authors to introduce it to euro-american print publics as the “indian alps.”[91] travellers’ accounts, guidebooks, and postcards prepared visitors to expect pristine views of white-roofed colonial bungalows, framed by majestic mountains, waterfalls, and forests declared to rival any alpine vista. unlike the first privately published guidebooks, which only targeted european investors, mary avery’s 1878 guidebook was explicitly aimed at euro-american visitors who sought holidays at a scenic hill station. like mrs. guernsey, she assured her readers that “remembrance of the alpine regions sinks into nothingness at the sight of a mountain 28000 feet high!”[92] prominent calcutta publishers such as thacker and spink and newman made sure they updated their darjeeling guidebooks every other year. publications that were aimed at the global english-reading tourist market appeared from major publishers such as john murray and underwood & underwood. even darjeeling events such as earthquakes and torrential rains that might interest travellers and missionary families were reported worldwide in newspapers such as the brooklyn eagle, volksblatt, and berliner börsenzeitung.[93] images of himalayan peaks first entered the global visual repertoire when artists such as frederick de fabeck and edward lear produced paintings of kanchenjunga, followed by marianne north, whose paintings were enshrined at kew gardens.[94] while de fabeck was a sanatorium doctor, lear and north were affluent artists who enjoyed illustrious reputations. indeed, lear’s painting of kanchenjunga was a commission for the viceroy, his personal friend.[95] by the late victorian era, darjeeling had become an essential leitmotif on elite globetrotting itineraries, with prominent visitors such as lady dufferin, colonel olcott, edward lear, mark twain, and minor european and indian royalty constantly keeping it in the news. the bengali government did its best to woo such travellers and provide a suitably sanitized experience, whether with municipal legislation that limited porter wages, or with a new sanatorium road that bypassed the sights and smells of the native bazaar.[96] however, the official expectation that visiting euro-americans should confine themselves to the sanitized portion of this urban space was undercut by their growing fascination with darjeeling’s natives and migrants, deemed to be as picturesque as their environs. cox described the hill people as a quaint and curious lot. “there were giants from bhutan, middling-sized people from sikkim, known as lepchas, and little ghurkas from nepal […] all totally different from the natives of the plains. as a rule they had fair, even reddish complexions, eyes of greyish blue, and some had quite light hair […] all sorts of picturesque pigtailed strangers from across the himalayas, thibetans from lhasa, and real chinamen from the wilder parts of the flowery kingdom.”[97] avery’s guidebook noted, “it is really wonderful what an immense weight these coolies, both men and women, can carry in this manner, and so far from sinking under their burden, they seem rather to enjoy it. we did hear of a piano carried by a sturdy woman to the station on her back […] we did not see but could have believed it from our own experience!”[98] visuals of women porters carrying staggeringly heavy loads on the one hand, and staged dances of tibetan lamas on the other, circulated widely to showcase himalayan exoticism, complete with anecdotes about strapping female porters carrying pianos on their backs.[99] an entire visual vocabulary of the himalayan orient was produced via lantern slide, guidebook, postcard, stereoscope, and eventually, cinema newsreels. the newman’s guidebook gushed, “a sturdy independent lot these people are, looking capable of holding their own with any one. they are, even in their dirt, picturesque.”[100] (figure 7) fig. 8: 20-woman team on a darjeeling highway. (n.)—who would not be a man in india?, ca. 1903. photographic print on curved stereo card, 9 x 18 cm. boston, public library. darjeeling’s increasing renown as a global tea producer enriched this orientalized atmosphere that euro-american adventurers relished, even as they compared its denizens favourably to backward inhabitants of their own world. “a tea garden…is interesting not only from seeing the tea in all its stages, but also for the study it affords of the picturesque hill men and women. the costume (minus the dirt) is not unlike that of neapolitan women.”[101] such expressions of the himalayan picturesque formed a distinctive sub-trope within orientalism, a transcultural product of this contact zone that outlasted british rule in the forms of western-buddhist culture and new age chic. joseph hooker had enjoyed special permission to travel over eastern nepal in quest of novel botanical finds, but his was a rare exception. in lieu of closed nepal and tibet, darjeeling formed the main embarkation point when euro-american sportsmen discovered that alpine climbing pursuits transferred well to himalayan peaks. this impulse created a burgeoning demand for mountain guides and high-altitude porters. initially, swiss and italian alpine professionals such as mathias zurbriggen were imported as climbing experts, but they lacked local knowledge and were much more expensive than asian natives.[102] instead, british mountaineering enthusiasts with alpine experience, members of the himalayan club and the royal geographical society, the majority of whom were army officers, opted for a home-grown imperial alternative as they attempted to train gurkha soldiers as their mountain and sporting auxiliaries. general the hon. charles bruce of the 5th gurkha regiment, in his memoir himalayan wanderer, recounted his strategies to transform a “fresh caught recruit” into a modern man with sporting avocations.[103] bruce claimed he was the first to realize the gurkha soldier’s latent sporting potential when he recruited parbir and harkbir thapa for hill-racing, running, and other masculine pursuits that upper-class british society prized.[104] by 1915, when vansittart revised his army handbook, sporting talent was enshrined as an intrinsic trait of the gurkha soldier, as famous in the himalayan orientalist lexicon as his aptitude for battle. but the one sport where gurkhas did not seem to excel was climbing, which their patrons attributed to the low gradient of their home regions. in their place, the british turned their attention to sherpa migrants in darjeeling, himalayan natives whose homeland lay at exceedingly high altitudes. from the 1910s, the mountaineering enthusiasts of the himalayan club and the royal geographical society were thrilled to locate, among darjeeling’s bhutia labourers, the sherpa of nepal, a group that seemed to them the nearest himalayan equivalent of the sturdy alpine peasant. sherpas were recent entrants into the darjeeling economy, but for centuries they had worked as seasonal load carriers in nepal and tibet to supplement the meagre subsistence that their home environs provided. according to sherpa lore, they had relocated from eastern tibet to the solu-khumbu border region of nepal in the seventeenth century.[105] there they grew barley and buckwheat and pastured yaks at 11,000–12,500 feet. a unique opportunity arose for them when the scottish climber, dr alexander kellas, declared that sherpas were biologically superior to any other himalayan group for high-altitude work, worthy of training in modern euro-american mountaineering techniques.[106] this preference transformed the lives of sherpas in the darjeeling contact zone, where they were previously indistinguishable to employers from other bhutia labouring groups. now sherpa children grew up in solu-khumbu watching adults carry salt and wool loads as far as darjeeling, hearing tales of the “chilingna” white men whom sherpas might accompany to mountains that reached the sky.[107] the breakthrough was when sherpa porters acquitted themselves famously on the much-publicised 1921 everest expedition.[108] sherry ortner notes that after 1921, it became an accepted colonial precept that the skilled, risky, and relatively lucrative labouring jobs on himalayan climbing expeditions went to sherpa men.[109] the “discovery” of the sherpa male as an exalted high-altitude labourer and his new divergence from the category of bhutia worked to the disadvantage of other himalayan groups, whether lepchas, nepalis, or other bhutias. the mountain establishment’s biological logic, which essentialized the sherpa male body, meant that others were relegated to less lucrative, less risky jobs lower down the mountain, as were sherpa women. even among sherpa men, differentiation was consciously fostered. the himalayan club, the colonial institution that acted as the official gatekeeper of himalayan mountaineering, created an elite category of tigers when it awarded a coveted badge and stipend to porters who distinguished themselves on expeditions. one such tiger, sherpa tenzing norgay, went on to become darjeeling’s most famous citizen when he climbed the world’s highest mountain in 1953. before this, he had spent decades as an ordinary labouring migrant at darjeeling. norgay had journeyed as an eighteen-year-old with twelve other boys and girls from his village over perilous mountain terrain to the promised land of darjeeling. there he exchanged his rags for nepali-style clothes gifted by his milkman employer and cut his sherpa-style braid so as not to appear rustic. however, he did not realize that cutting his hair was a misstep toward his ambition to work as a climbing porter. norgay later recollected, “this was all right for darjeeling, but bad with the expedition, for they thought i was a nepali, and they wanted only sherpas.”[110] since his appearance was no longer that of a sherpa, the himalayan club rejected him when he applied to the 1933 british everest expedition. after his 1933 rejection, norgay returned to mundane labouring work, travelling back to solu-khumbu to carry salt loads to tibet, and joining the labour gang that rebuilt the st. paul’s school chapel. two years later, when he applied to join eric shipton’s new everest expedition, he made sure that he conformed to the british recruiters’ image of a genuine sherpa. ironically, this involved wearing a western-style suit.[111] norgay was overjoyed when he was hired, since “the wages on the expedition were 12 annas a day, which would be raised to one rupee a day for every day above snowline; so if i went, i would make more money than i ever did before.”[112] norgay and the climbing sherpa community settled in the toong soong and bhutia busti neighbourhoods of darjeeling, alongside other bhutia neighbours. for successful sherpa climbers, ambitions centered on schooling their children and saving for yak and land purchases in solu-khumbu. living in the darjeeling contact zone, everyday cultural norms changed; for instance, indian tea with milk and sugar became their daily staple, while tibetan tea was reserved for special, ceremonial occasions. tenzing norgay recollected how living in darjeeling, sherpa households like his could afford their beloved momo dumplings filled with pork many more times than once a year at the tibetan new year celebration, and how they frequently supplemented this delicacy with indian-style meat curries. with newly acquired indian citizenship, these climbing sherpas joined fellow himalayan denizens who made the nepali language and darjeeling their own, even as the once porous borders across nepal, tibet, bhutan, and india that allowed such borderlands peoples to access mobile opportunities this contact zone changed to become rigidly impermeable in the face of antagonistic new nationalisms. conclusion this article explored the social production of colonial darjeeling as a distinctive urban locale that generated a variety of labouring, commodity, and cultural transactions as it became a key contact zone for the british empire with the himalayan borderlands and their mobile populations. it examines how this space evolved from a hill station resort designed for recuperating british and european bodies into a transcultural hub whose space served as a lively arena for himalayan circulation. an expanding and diversifying colonial economy accentuated the darjeeling region’s historical and geographical connections with other borderlands and greatly increased the numbers of subaltern as well as elite migrants. notwithstanding the challenge of interpreting the largely opaque processes through which subaltern historical subjects led their lives, this article aimed to problematize and perhaps even access some part of the hidden transcripts of the mobile individuals and groups who laboured to make this space but rarely had their voices or names appear in the archive. darjeeling’s circulating groups included lepcha cultivators, bhutia load carriers, nepali labourers, gurkha soldiers, and sherpa porters in their encounters with euro-american visitors to darjeeling, english officials, scottish planters, missionaries, and explorers, of whom only some imagined themselves as himalayan natives, and only some depended on selling their labour to others. particularly in the case of such subaltern subjects of history, it behoves the historian to imaginatively explore the scope of the opportunities (and lack thereof) for socio-economic mobility that this transcultural space did offer, as it acted as a contact zone that brought hitherto separate groups together, until the end of empire and the rise of new asian nationalisms disrupted the spatial permeability of that zone. [1] mary louise pratt, imperial eyes: travel writing and transculturation (london: routledge, 1992), 17–18. [2] henri lefebvre, the production of space, trans. donald nicholson-smith (oxford: wiley-blackwell, 1991), 26–46. [3] ibid., 45. [4] david arnold, the tropics and the travelling gaze: india, landscape, and science 1800–1856 (seattle: university of washington press, 2006), 140–142. [5] the literature on imperial hill stations includes aditi chatterji, landscapes of power: the colonial hill stations, research papers 59 (oxford: school of geography, university of oxford, 2003); pamela kanwar, imperial simla: the political culture of the raj (delhi: oxford university press, 1990); dane k. kennedy, the magic mountains: hill stations and the british raj (berkeley: university of california press, 1996); and queeny pradhan, “empire in the hills: the making of hill stations in colonial india,” studies in history 23, no. 1 (2007): 33–91. [6] h. v. bayley, “journal by lt. col. lloyd,” appendix b in dorje-ling (calcutta: g. h. huttmann, bengal military orphan press, 1838), i–v. [7] r. k. sprigg, “the lepcha language and three hundred years of tibetan influence in sikkim,” journal of the asiatic society of india 24, no. 1–4 (1982): 16–31. [8] j. d. herbert, “particulars of a visit to the siccim hills,” pts. 1 and 2, gleanings in science 15 (1830): 89–96; 16 (1830): 114–124; report on dargeeling: a place in the sikkim mountains; proposed as a sanatorium, or station of health (calcutta: baptist mission press, 1830). [9] r. k. sprigg, “the lepcha text of the deed of grant of darjeeling,” aachuley: a quarterly lepcha bilingual news magazine 2, no. 2 (1998): 4–11. [10] lt. col. lloyd to fort william, 20 june 1838, foreign department, political consultations, nos. 118–119, national archives of india, new delhi (hereafter nai). [11] fr. matthias hermanns, the indo-tibetans: the indo-tibetan and mongoloid problem in the southern himalaya and north-northeast india (bombay: k. l. fernandes, 1954), 29. [12] yishey doma, legends of the lepchas: folk tales from sikkim (chennai: tranquebar press, 2010), 4. [13] anna balikci denjongpa, “kangchendzonga: secular and buddhist perceptions of the mountain deity of sikkim among the lhopo,” bulletin of tibetology 2, no. 1 (2002): 5–37. [14] pema wangchuk and rita zulca, khangchendzonga: sacred summit (kathmandu: pema wangchuk, 2007), 31–32. [15] see peter hansen, the summits of modern man (cambridge: harvard university press, 2013). [16] herbert, report on dargeeling, 11. [17] ibid., 11. [18] helene plaisir, “grammar of lepcha” (phd diss., university of leiden, 1968), 4. [19] herbert, report on dargeeling, 11. [20] ibid., 11. [21] j. d. herbert to the foreign department, 28 may 1830, nos. 8–12, military letters turner, india office letters, asia and africa collection, british library, london; j. d. herbert to the foreign department, 18 june 1830, nos.139–140, military letters turner, india office letters, asia and africa collection, british library, london. [22] j. d. herbert to the foreign department, 6 april 1835, political consultations, nos. 100–104; 1836, no, 33; 11 february 1838, nos. 107–113, nai. [23] lt. col. lloyd to the foreign department, 8 august 1836, political consultations, nos. 36–37, nai. [24] bayley, “journal by assistant-surgeon chapman,” appendix a in dorje-ling, i–v; bayley, “journal by lieutenant-colonel lloyd,” appendix b, in dorje-ling, i–v. [25] herbert, report on dargeeling, 11. [26] from officer on special duty to foreign department, 17 april 1837, political consultations, no. 27; 22 may 1837, political consultations, nos. 113–114; 19 june 1837, political consultations, nos. 39–44, nai. [27] from officer on special duty to foreign department, 20 june 1838, political consultations, nos. 115–117; 22 november 1841, political consultations, nos. 87–89, nai. [28] lss o’malley, bengal district gazetteers: darjeeling (calcutta: government printing press, 1907), 180. [29] from officer on special duty to foreign department, 19 june 1839, political consultations, nos. 43–45, nai. [30] e. c. dozey, a concise history of the darjeeling district since 1835 (darjeeling: gorkha press, 1917), 4. [31] mary h. avery, up in the clouds, or darjeeling and its surroundings: historical and descriptive (calcutta: w. newman & co., 1878), 9. [32] from officer on special duty to foreign department, 7 august 1837, political consultations, nos. 139–140; 18 september 1839, political consultations, nos. 167–168, nai. [33] “darjeeling,” the asiatic journal 110 (1 february 1839): 96. [34] from officer on special duty to foreign department, 3 july 1839, political consultations, nos. 72–73; 4 may 1840, political consultations, nos. 113–115; 28 december 1840, political consultations, nos. 71–72, nai. [35] from darjeeling superintendent to foreign department, 1 august 1851, political consultations, nos. 149–150, nai. [36] from officer on special duty to foreign department, 22 august 1838, political consultations, no. 65; 1 june 1840, political consultations, nos. 82–83, nai. [37] from officer on special duty to foreign department, 19 october 1842, political consultations, nos. 148–151, nai; the dorjeeling guide (calcutta: samuel smith & co., 1845), 25–27. [38] from officer on special duty to foreign department, 18 may 1842, foreign consultations, no. 23; 23 august 1841, foreign consultations, no. 60; 8 november 1850, foreign consultations, nos. 137–142; 17 january 1851, foreign consultations, nos. 155–156, nai. [39] frederick william alexander de fabeck, european invalids on road to darjeeling, drawing, ca. 1860–1890. london, victoria and albert museum, http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/o76256/drawing-frederick-william-alexander/ [accessed on 16. january 2016]. [40] from officer on special duty to foreign department, 5 february 1840, foreign consultations, nos. 91–92; 9 november 1840, foreign consultations, nos. 91–92; 24 may 1841, foreign consultations, nos. 59–62; 4 october 1841, foreign consultations, nos. 118–120, nai. [41] see works such as ravi ahuja, pathways of empire: circulation, “public works,” and social space in colonial orissa (c. 1780–1914) (hyderabad: orient blackswan, 2009); michael anderson, “india, 1858–1930: the illusion of free labor;” prabhu mohapatra, “assam and the west indies, 1860–1920: immobilizing plantation labor,” in masters, servants, and magistrates in britain and the empire, 1562–1955, ed. douglas hay (chapel hill: university of north carolina press, 2004), 455–480; p. mohapatra, “‘tea and money versus human life:’ the rise and fall of the indenture system in the assam tea plantations, 1840–1908,” in plantations, proletarians, and peasants in colonial asia, ed. e. valentine daniel, henry bernstein, and tom brass (london: frank cass, 1992), 142–172; ian kerr, “on the move: circulating labor in pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial india,” supplement, international review of social history 51 (2006): 85–109. [42] see jayeeta sharma, empire’s garden: assam and the making of india (durham: duke university press, 2011) for a discussion of the term coolie. [43] geoff childs, “trans-himalayan migrations as processes, not events: towards a theoretical framework,” in origins and migrations in the extended eastern himalayas, ed. toni huber and stuart blackburn (leiden: brill, 2002), 11–32. [44] lefebvre, the production of space, 77. [45] wim van spengen, tibetan border worlds: a geo-historical analysis of trade and traders (london: kegan paul international, 1992), 98–106. [46] bayley, “journal by asst-surgeon chapman,” appendix a in dorje-ling, i–v; bayley, “journal by lt-col. lloyd,” appendix b in dorje-ling, i–v. [47] joseph dalton hooker, himalayan journals: notes of a naturalist in bengal, the sikkim and nepal himalayas, the khasia mountains, &c. (london: john murray, 1855). [48] felix driver, “intermediaries and the archive of exploration,” in indigenous intermediaries, ed. shino konishi, maria nugent, and tiffany shellam (canberra: australian national university press, 2015), 13, http://press.anu.edu.au/publications/aboriginal-history-monographs/indigenous-intermediaries/download [accessed on 1. january 2016]. [49] hooker, himalayan journals, 108. [50] ibid., 105. [51] driver, “intermediaries,” 12. [52] r. k. sprigg, “dr. hooker’s lepcha treasurer (1848–49),” aachuley: a quarterly lepcha bilingual news magazine 2, no. 3 (1998): 5. [53] a. r. foning, lepcha, my vanishing tribe (kalimpong: chy-pandi farm, 1987), 71. [54] sir joseph dalton hooker to sir william jackson hooker from darjeeling, india, 20 october 1848, indian letters 1847–1851, jdh/1/10 f.115-117, the royal botanical gardens, kew, http://www.kew.org/learn/library-art-archives/joseph-hooker/letter-hooker-sir-joseph-dalton-hooker-sir-william-jacks-73 [accessed on 1. january 2016]. [55] hooker, himalayan journals, 168. [56] ibid., 169–170. [57] driver, “intermediaries,” 12. [58] “darjeeling guide,” the calcutta review, 1857; reprinted in lss o’malley, bengal district gazetteers, addendum 1, 281–320. [59] william wilson hunter, a statistical account of bengal: districts of darjiling and jalpaiguri, and state of kuch behar (london: trübner & co, 1876), 83. [60] from darjeeling superintendent to foreign department, 14 june 1850, foreign consultations, nos. 369–560, nai. [61] mrs. a. h. guernsey, “an englishwoman among the himalayas,” harper’s new monthly magazine 53 (1876): 839–848. [62] john graham, at the threshold of three closed lands: the guild outpost in the eastern himalayas (edinburgh: r. & r. clark, 1897), 49–50. [63] foning, lepcha, 136. [64] see nicholas rhodes and deki rhodes, a man of the frontier: s. w. laden la (1876–1936), his life and times in darjeeling and tibet (kolkata, 2006). [65] j. g. hathorn, a handbook of darjeeling: with brief notes on the culture and manufacture of tea, and rules for the sale of unassessed waste lands etc. (calcutta: lepage, 1863), 13. [66] c. h. fielder, “on tea cultivation in india,” society of arts journal 17 (1868–1869): 291–292. [67] jayeeta sharma, “‘lazy’ natives, coolie labour, and the assam tea industry,” modern asian studies 43, no. 6 (november–december 2009): 1287–1324. [68] h. r. k gibbs, the gurkha soldier (calcutta: thacker, spink & co ltd, 1943), 40. [69] michael hutt, “going to mugalan: nepali literary representations of migration to india and bhutan” south asia research 18, no. 2 (september 1998): 195–214. [70] michael hutt, “where is home for an indian nepali writer?” in indian nepalis: issues and perspectives, ed. t. b. subba et al. (new delhi: concept, 2009), 28–48. [71] hunter, a statistical account of bengal, 85. [72] notes on tea in darjeeling by a planter (darjeeling: scotch mission orphanage press, 1888), 70–72. [73] catherine warner, “flighty subjects: sovereignty, shifting cultivators, and the state in darjeeling, 1830–1856,” himalaya: the journal of the association for nepal and himalayan studies 34, no. 1 (2014): 23–35, http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol34/iss1/8 [accessed on 10 may 2016]. [74] tenzing norgay, tiger of the snows, ed. james ramsay ullman (new york: putnam, 1955), 17. [75] g. w. christison, “tea planting in darjeeling,” society of arts journal 44 (1895–1896): 623–644. [76] see lieutenant-colonel eden vansittart, notes on goorkhas: being a short account of their country, history, characteristics, class, etc. (calcutta: superintendent of government printing, 1890); brian hodgson, on the kocch, bódo and dhimál tribes (calcutta: j. thomas, 1847); miscellaneous essays relating to indian subjects, 2 vols. (london: trübner & co., 1880); and mary des chene, “military ethnology in british india,” south asia research 19, no. 2 (october 1999): 121–135. [77] c. g. morris, gurkhas (delhi: manager of publications for government of india, 1933), 130–131. [78] bidhan golay, “rethinking gorkha identity,” peace and democracy in south asia 2, nos. 1–2 (2006): 24–49. [79] miku foning, personal communication, 2012. [80] kushal pradhan and laval pradhan, personal communcation, 2012. [81] hooker, himalayan journals, 112. [82] “the wernicke-stolke story,” photocopy of a history of a family of darjeeling planters, 1841–1937, wernicke-stolke family papers, mss. eur photo eur 421, asian and african collection, british library, london; also see fred pinn, darjeeling pioneers: the wernicke-stölke story (bath: pagoda press, 2008). [83] sir edmund cox, my thirty years in india (london: mills & boon, 1909), 15. [84] lt. col. l. hannagan, “darjeeling planting—then and now,” in wernicke-stolkefamily papers, mss. eur photo eur 421; also see pinn, darjeeling pioneers. [85] darjeeling kalimpong and sikkim news (1898), 48; church of scotland missionary archive, 1829–1933, published as microfiche by adam matthew publishers. [86] reports of the darjeeling mission, letter to supporters, 22 february 1876, church of scotland missionary archive, 1829–1933, published as microfiche by adam matthew publishers. [87] p. r. pradhan, personal communication, 2012. [88] william h. rau, a descriptive reading on darjeeling, illustrated by twelve lantern slides (philadelphia: william h. rau, 1891), 7. [89] hooker, himalayan journals, 110. [90] see rinchen dolma taring, daughter of tibet (london: john murray, 1970). [91] guernsey, “an englishwoman among the himalayas,” 839–848. [92] avery, up in the clouds, 21. [93] “darjeeling, st joseph’s seminary,” volksblatt, june 5, 1886; “miscellaneous”, supplement to berliner börsenzeitung, october 3, 1899; and “four hundred persons drowned at darjeeling,” brooklyn eagle, december 10, 1899. [94] frederick william alexander de fabeck, view of kanchenjunga from jelapahar, drawing, ca. 1860–1890. london, victoria and albert museum, http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/o105766/drawing-frederick-william-alexander/ [accessed on 1. february 2016]; edward lear, mount kanchenjunga from darjeeling, 1877. oil on canvas, 78 ½ x 112 ½ in. london, the fine art society, http://www.victorianweb.org/victorian/painting/lear/paintings/2.html [accessed on 1. february 2016]. [95] see edward lear and ray murphy, edward lear’s indian journal: watercolours and extracts from the diary of edward lear, 1873–1875 (london: jarrolds, 1953). [96] bill for the registration and control of porters and dandeewallas in the darjeeling and kurseong municipalities, 21 may 1883, asian and african collection, ior/l/pj/6/100, file 976, british library, london. [97] cox, my thirty years in india, 25. [98] avery, up in the clouds, 57. [99] a selection of darjeeling women porter images published in 1907 by photographer james ricalton is in the british library’s image gallery. http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/apac/photocoll/other/019pho000000181u00038000.html; http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/apac/photocoll/n/019pho000000181u00037000.html [accessed on 1. february 2016]. [100] newman’s guide to darjeeling (calcutta: w. newman & co., 1900), 24. [101] avery, up in the clouds, 58. [102] peter hansen, “partners, guides, and sherpas,” in voyages and visions: towards a cultural history of travel, ed. jas elsner and joan-pau rubies (london: reaktion, 1999), 210–231. [103] c. g. bruce, himalayan wanderer (london: alexander maclehose & co., 1934), 32. [104] ibid., 78. [105] michael oppitz, “myths and facts: reconsidering some data concerning the clan history of the sherpas,” kailash 1 (1974): 1–2. [106] a. m. kellas, “a consideration of the possibility of ascending the loftier himalaya,” the geographical journal 49, no. 1 (1917): 26–46. [107] norgay, tiger of the snows, 17. [108] “mount everest expedition,” the geographical journal 58, no. 1 (july 1921): 56–58. [109] see sherry b. ortner, life and death on mt. everest (princeton: princeton university press, 1999). [110] norgay, tiger of the snows, 19. [111] the royal geographical society’s online picture library owns a photograph that shows eric shipton, the expedition leader, interviewing sherpas, including tenzing norgay, at darjeeling in 1935. http://images.rgs.org/imagedetails.aspx?barcode=3682 [accessed on 1. february 2016]. [112] norgay, tiger of the snows, 24. list of illustrations fig. 1: j. burlington smith, lepcha family, darjeeling, eastern himalayas, ca. 1888–1929. photographic print, 15 x 20 cm. edinburgh, national library of scotland, acc. 7548/f/4. http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15799coll123/id/78778/rec/1 [accessed on 10. june 2016]. creative commons attribution-noncommercial-sharealike 2.5 fig. 2: darjeeling. kinchinjunga and the snows from beechwood park, 1897. photochrom, 20.9 x 26.8 cm. zurich, central library, 400020059. http://www.recherche-portal.ch/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=zad&fn=search&vl%28freetext0%29=ebi01_prod005842183 [accessed on 20. june 2016]. cc0 fig. 3: missionary being taken up hill on a litter, darjeeling, ca. 1890. photographic print, 15.5 x 11 cm. edinburgh, national library of scotland, acc.7548/f/9. http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15799coll123/id/78892/rec/156 [accessed on 15. june 2016]. creative commons attribution-noncommercial-sharealike 2.5 fig. 4: william walker, dr hooker in the rhododendron region of the himalayas, after a painting by frank stone, 1854. mezzotint. private collection. http://image.invaluable.com/housephotos/christies/26/109726/h0027-l03264103.jpg [accessed on 5. july 2016]. public domain. fig. 5: thomas paar, tea harvest, eastern himalayas, ca.1888–1929. photographic print, 16.6 x 11.2 cm. edinburgh, national library of scotland, acc.7548/f/4. http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15799coll123/id/78603/rec/11 [accessed on 10. june 2016]. creative commons attribution-noncommercial-sharealike 2.5 fig. 6: darjeeling railway. reversing station, ca. 1920. postcard, 8.7 x 13.8 cm. http://wiki.fibis.org/index.php/file:darjeeling_railway_reversing_station.jpg [accessed on 5. july 2016]. creative commons license; cc by-nc-nd 3.0 fig. 7: st paul’s school and darjeeling, ca. 1907. postcard, 13.6 x 8.8 cm. private collection. http://wiki.fibis.org/index.php/file:darjeeling_and_st_paul's_school.jpg#filehistory [accessed on 5. july 2016]. creative commons license; cc by-nc-nd 3.0 fig. 8: 20-woman team on a darjeeling highway. (n.)—who would not be a man in india?, ca. 1903. photographic print on curved stereo card, 9 x 18 cm. boston, public library. http://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/sq87dj436 [accessed on 1. june 2016]. public domain. 2017-10-06_front matter.indd 2017.1 editorial note diamantis panagiotopoulos with rudolf g. wagner .04 articles rudolf g. wagner “dividing up the [chinese] melon, guafen 瓜分”: the fate of a transcultural metaphor in the formation of national myth .09 dietrich reetz mediating mobile traditions: the tablighi jama’at and the international islamic university between pakistan and central asia (kyrgystan, tajikistan) .123 jeanine dağyeli weapon of the discontented? trans-river migration as tax avoidance practice and lever in eastern bukhara .169 antía mato bouzas territorialisation, ambivalence, and representational spaces in gilgit-baltistan .197 timothy nunan the violence curtain: occupied afghan turkestan and the making of a central asian borderscape .224 reports from the field srđan tunić ukiyo-e between pop art and (trans)cultural appropriation: on the art of muhamed kafedžić (muha) .259 2 contributors transcultural studies, no 1, 2017 editors: monica juneja, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg joachim kurtz, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg rudolf g. wagner, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg managing editor: andrea hacker editorial board: christiane brosius, antje fluechter, madeleine herren, birgit kellner, axel michaels, barbara mittler, diamantis panagiotopoulos, vladimir tikhonov, and roland wenzlhuemer. transcultural studies is edited at the heidelberg center for transcultural studies (hcts) and published by heidelberg university publishing. the journal is freely available at http://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/ (open access). issn: 2191-6411 contributors to this issue: rudolf g. wagner is senior professor in chinese studies at ruprecht-karlsuniversität heidelberg and an associate at the fairbank center, harvard university. he is an intellectual historian with a strong interest in the political implications and the transcultural connections of ideas, concepts, institutions, and actions. his published work covers a wide range from studies of early medieval philosophical commentaries to chinese newspapers since the 1870s, from religious movements to the adaption of foreign concepts in china, from the “new historical drama” to prose literature of the people’s republic of china. dietrich reetz is a political scientist and author of islam in the public sphere: religious groups in india, 1900–1947 (oxford university press, 2006). as senior research fellow of the leibniz-zentrum moderner orient in berlin, he is researching muslim actors and institutions in south asia and their impact in other regions of the world. as an external faculty member of the 3transcultural studies 2017.1 department of political science at the free university berlin, he covers international relations, conflict studies, and transregional governance. he engages in public outreach through the media and through consultancy. jeanine dağyeli is research fellow at leibniz-zentrum moderner orient in berlin. she received her phd in central asian studies from humboldt university in berlin. her research interests include labour history and anthropology, (moral) economy, human-environment relations, and concepts of illness, healing and death. her monograph “gott liebt das handwerk.” moral, identität und religiöse legitimierung in der mittelasiatischen handwerks-risāla was published by reichert. antía mato bouzas is research fellow at the leibniz-zentrum moderner orient in berlin and has a background in political science with a focus on south asia. she is the author of india y pakistán: conflicto y negociación en el sur de asia (india and pakistan: conflict and negotiation in south asia) published by biblioteca nueva, madrid, in 2011. as member of the crossroads asia network funded by the german bundesministerirum für bildung und forschung, she has focused on understanding the kashmir dispute from a border perspective. her current project centres on migration from northeastern pakistan and the gulf and is funded by the deutsche forschungsgemeinschaft. her research interests include the theme of borders, transnationalism, and belonging. timothy nunan is assistant professor (wissenschaftlicher mitarbeiter) at the center for global history at the freie university of berlin. he is the editor of writings on war (polity, 2011), a compendium of carl schmitt’s interwar writings on international order that he translated, and the author of humanitarian invasion: global development in cold war afghanistan (cambridge university press, 2016), a history of development and humanitarianism in afghanistan from the cold war to the rise of the taliban. his current research agenda examines the clash of the international socialist movement with the international islamist movement during the cold war. srđan tunić is an independent curator, researcher, writer, and project manager, as well as a contributor to the cultural innovators network’s trans-cultural dialogues and infilitri (street art archive) projects. since 2011 he has worked with civil association artikal in belgrade, on the independent project “about and around curating/kustosiranje,” an educative and research curatorial program, with colleague andrej bereta. he is also a co-founder of street art walks belgrade (staw blgrd) with ljiljana radošević. tunić is currently enrolled in the ma program of the unesco chair in cultural policy and management in belgrade. (http://srdjantunic.wordpress.com/) ono azusa and the meiji constitution | takeharu | transcultural studies ono azusa and the meiji constitution: the codification and study of roman law at the dawn of modern japan ōkubo takeharu, meiji university, tokyo translated by gaynor sekimori, soas, university of london introduction full-scale contact with the western powers in nineteenth century east asia had the impact of shaking the foundations of the established international order and the region’s understanding of the world.[1] under the tokugawa shogunate, japan had, from the middle of the seventeenth century, pursued a policy of national isolation, generally expressed at the time as “closing the ports” (kaikin 海禁),[2] with limited trade being carried out with china and the netherlands through nagasaki (under tokugawa administration), and with korea, the ryūkyūs and the ainu through the domains of tsushima, kagoshima (satsuma) and matsumae respectively. since japan had not established any accredited vassal relationship with the chinese court, official diplomatic relations between the two countries were suspended and the only exchanges with china were commercial, through chinese merchants conducting trade in nagasaki. japan did however have ties with korea, based on the so-called kyorin 交隣 (neighbourly relations) diplomacy, but these ties remained between japan and korea alone and did not go further. the peaceful reign of the tokugawa shogunate held sway with little change (despite minor vicissitudes) for 250 years. the situation in asia changed in the nineteenth century, and for japan in particular with the arrival of the perry expedition. in 1853, four ships under the command of commodore matthew calbraith perry (1794–1858) of the east india squadron of the united states navy appeared at uraga harbour in the bay of edo (now in kanagawa prefecture). the arrival of the so-called “black ships” led ultimately to the tokugawa government signing friendship and trade treaties with the western powers, which included articles covering unilateral most-favoured-nation treatment, a system of consular courts and a loss of tariff autonomy. they are known as the “unequal treaties.”[3] as a result, japan made a sharp turn towards a foreign policy based on “opening the country” (kaikoku 開国). from the viewpoint of transcultural studies, “opening the country” is an extremely interesting subject for study. as far as japanese society was concerned, the act of “opening the country” that had its beginnings in perry’s arrival was a political-historical event, propelling it semi-forcibly, as it was admitted, into the western international system of the nineteenth century. however, this also gave japan the opportunity to come into direct contact with a european world that possessed a history and tradition of a different nature from its own. japanese scholars, intellectuals and politicians in the last part of the nineteenth century, while understanding acutely the unequal balance of power between japan and western countries, attempted a positive dialogue with european thought. they searched for a way to preserve japan’s independence as a nation in a non-western sphere, by studying and adopting the knowledge of european jurisprudence, political economy and political science. under a complicated power structure fraught with contradiction and tension, they made an intensive and renewed study of their own traditional legal culture and social ethics, and pulled together a political design that looked towards the formation of an open society.[4] even though we talk about the “reception” of western culture, this does not by any means imply a simple imitation of european learning or the direct import of european political systems and values without any change. rather, when japanese intellectuals and politicians encountered different cultures and traditions, they made the greatest possible use of their own traditional vocabulary and concepts to study in a critical way western political theory. in other words, political theory was in no way something abstract. at the time of the opening of the country, their intellectual efforts aimed at liberating european political theory from a closed historical identity and imbuing it with a new practical meaning in a new context. their serious intellectual struggle led to the creation of a new political system and social ethic as they sought ways for japan to survive as an independent state. such activities expanded in many forms in japan in the last part of the nineteenth century, and an advanced polemic developed. as the activities of non-western intellectuals living in the nineteenth century, they have a significance that goes beyond the confines of japanese studies; from the perspective of transcultural studies, they have a great importance. with the opening of the country, japanese society was confronted with a great political task: codification of the law and enacting a modern constitution. tokugawa society underwent a metamorphosis and its system of government, which had continued for more then 250 years, collapsed within a scant fourteen years. as japan became incorporated into the european international system, the framework of its society as a whole was rocked to its very core. in late 1867 a political revolution known as the “meiji restoration” occurred and a new government came into being. from the time of its inauguration, this “meiji government” ran up against the difficult diplomatic issue of revising the “unequal treaties,” and to do so, it felt it had actively to study the western social sciences and legal systems in order to create the sort of civilised nation that western countries would recognise as an equal. on the domestic front too, it had to restore social order, which had been thrown into confusion following the restoration, and establish a smooth system of rule as a new, modern state. both external and internal demands thus required the urgent codification of law. at the same time, a freedom and popular rights (jiyū minken 自由民権) movement grew up from among the populace, seeking an expansion of the rights of the people and a broadening of the right to participate in politics. in 1875 the government announced that constitutional government would be set up in gradual stages (“deed for constitutional government”; rikken seitai no shōsho 立憲政体の証書, dajōkan fukoku no. 58), and six years later, in october 1881, it issued an “imperial edict for inaugurating a national assembly” (kokkai kaisetsu no mikotonori 国会開設の詔). meanwhile, a considerable number of private draft constitutions were being prepared by popular rights figures outside the government. for example, the kōjunsha (交詢社), the “society to promote social contacts” that was closely associated with fukuzawa yukichi 福沢諭吉 (1835–1901), one of the founders of modern japan, produced what was known as the “privately-prepared draft constitution” (shigi kenpō hōan 私擬憲法案), and ueki emori 植木枝盛 (1857–1892) drew up the “tōyō dai-nihon national constitution proposal” ( tōyō dai-nihonkoku kokken-an 東洋大日本国国憲按), which stipulated popular rights, including the right to protest and revolt, based on natural law. the government regarded such private initiative with apprehension and ultimately enacted an “imperially-bestowed” constitution (kintei kenpō 欽定憲法), resisting these popular demands. this was japan’s first modern constitution, the so-called meiji constitution (formally, constitution of the empire of japan), which came into force on november 23, 1890. as a considerable amount of prior research has shown, the meiji constitution was drafted by a group centring on itō hirobumi 伊藤博文(1841–1909) and inoue kowashi 井上毅 (1844–1895).[5] making reference to the prussian constitution, they established that the emperor (tennō 天皇), of an unbroken imperial line and inviolable sacredness held the sovereign power to rule. nevertheless, we cannot overlook the existence of the private draft constitutions that disappeared from the stage of history once the meiji constitution came into being. by casting light on them, we can exhume “another history,” different from the official history, and thereby reveal the many possibilities inherent in the political ideas that existed at the dawn of modern japan. in order to follow this interest further, i would like to take up the political thought of ono azusa 小野梓 (1852–1886), a leading scholar in the popular rights movement in the 1870s and 1880s who is known as the “founder of political science in japan.”[6] he is also famous for his involvement, together with ōkuma shigenobu 大隈重信 (1838–1922), in the founding of waseda university (tōkyō senmon gakkō). i will examine ono’s private draft constitution, kokken hanron 国憲汎論(a general treatise on constitutions), to shed light on what went into ono’s political thought as he arrived at his ideas about the constitution. to the extent kokken hanron has been called “a work that throws undying light on meiji legal history,”[7] it is greatly superior to the other private draft constitutions in both quality and volume. in particular, i would like to draw attention to the fact that from his youth, ono addressed the study of roman law, and he continued to give his undivided attention to the study of civil and constitutional law right to the end of his short life of thirty-four years. through the analysis i undertake below of his ideas about the relationship between civil and constitutional law, i would like to answer two questions: to what extent, at a fundamental level, was ono able to get to grips with the whole body of western law, and how was this understanding transplanted to the legal traditions of east asia? in the process, i hope to be able to elucidate a unique discourse on the constitution conducted by one intellectual speculating about western and east asian thought during the period of legal codification that was starting point for the building of japan as a modern nation.[8]　 the intellectual world of roma ritsuyō—roman law and utilitarianism (1) annotated translation of roma ritsuyō ono azusa was born in 1852 (kaei 5), one year before perry’s arrival in japan, in the province of tosa (in modern shikoku), the second son of ono setsukichi, a samurai of sukumo domain. he spent his childhood and youth amid the confusion that attended the last years of the tokugawa shogunate, and in 1870, in the early years of the restoration period, he went to study in the united states, privately funded. then in 1873, he was selected as a sponsored scholar of the ministry of finance and sent to study in england. however, the ministry ordered his return the following year. awaiting him in japan was the great political surge that was the movement calling for a national assembly under itagaki taisuke 板垣退助 (1837–1919) and others. following his return, though, he “lived withdrawn,”[9] and immersed himself in making an annotated translation called roma ritsuyō 羅瑪律要 (the essentials of roman law).[10] the source of his translation was the english translation, the pandects; a treatise on the roman law and upon its connection with modern legislation (1873) by r. de tracy gould, of the pandecten-systeem,eerst deel (1866), written by the dutch legal scholar, joel emanuel goudsmit (1813–1882).[11] the very interesting thing about this work is that it follows the style of an “annotated translation” (sanyaku 纂訳). it is not simply what we usually mean by “translation,” since it consists, not just of the translation of the original text itself, but also of passages and explanations inserted by ono. these constitute ono’s own research, and derive largely from quotations from works by jeremy bentham. thus we can regard roma ritsuyō as an independent work which bears the traces of his intellectual struggle with european law, embracing roman law according to ono and benthamite utilitarianism. this work has a further important significance, both in terms of the pioneering role it played in introducing roman law to japan very early in its modern period and in terms of the history of the reception of western law in japan. as is well known, japan maintained trade and mutual exchange with the netherlands throughout the tokugawa period, despite the ban on overseas intercourse from the seventeenth century, through the voc (dutch east india company) settlement of dejima in nagasaki. from here emerged “dutch studies of dutch learning” (rangaku 蘭学), principally the natural sciences, such as medicine, astronomy and pharmacology. and at the dawn of the modern era too, when there was a concerted effort to gain knowledge of western humanities and social sciences, it was against the backdrop of this tradition that knowledge of contemporary law, political science and economics was brought from the netherlands. knowledge concerning european legal systems came first from the translation of dutch legal texts, including the constitution, criminal code and codes of civil and criminal procedures, during the 1840s under mizuno tadakuni 水野忠邦 (1794–1851), a senior councillor (rōjū 老中)in the shogunate.[12] these translations had extremely limited exposure and were not widely known among the general public. it was to be the scholars of the bansho shirabesho 蕃書調所, a school of western learning founded on the traditions and knowledge of dutch learning, set up by the shogunate in 1857 in response to perry’s arrival, who propelled the understanding and dissemination of european law, politics and economics. in a landmark decision, the shogunate decided in 1862 to send two scholars, nishi amane 西周(1829–1897) and tsuda mamichi 津田真道 (1829–1903) to study in the netherlands. they left the following year, as the first students to be sent officially to study in europe. they studied in leiden for two years under the supervision of simon vissering (1818–1888), a professor in the faculty of law at leiden university, who gave them personal instruction in a five-course curriculum of natural law, international law, constitutional law, political economics and statistics. nishi and tsuda became the first japanese to study abroad in europe, receiving direct, systematic and comprehensive instruction from a noted european scholar in the mechanisms of european law, political institutions and economics. after their return to japan, they translated their dutch lecture notes into japanese, which were published in a series of books: seihō setsuyaku 性法説約 (lectures on natural law) in 1879, bankoku kōhō 万国公法 (lectures on international law) in 1868, taisei kokuhō ron 泰西国法論 (lectures on constitutional law) in 1868, and hyōki teikō 表紀提綱 (lectures on statistics) in 1874. they were to exert a great influence on shogunal policy, as well as on the subsequent building of the meiji state and the development of academic thought in japan.[13] as a result of nishi’s and tsuda’s period of study in the netherlands, knowledge of european legal systems and law, mediated by dutch learning from the early modern period, accelerated rapidly, both in understanding and diffusion, compared with their former limited exposure. moreover, after 1868, political science and the law flowed into the country in vast quantities from the leading countries of the time—britain, france, germany and the united states. most scholars and politicians in japan were engaged in seeking a model that worked for the codification of their own law: what country should they look to to provide it? thus three different and opposing patterns were devised, the english, the french and the german.[14] by comparison, the importance and influence of dutch studies gradually declined. given the particular historical circumstances surrounding the reception of european law, and the current political situation, why did ono seem to go against the trend of the times, “living withdrawn” and throwing himself into the world of roman law through the work of the dutch jurist, goudsmit? of course, ono was no longer a rangaku scholar—he translated it into japanese from an english translation. however, if we want to throw light on the intellectual landscape that made up the background for roma ritsuyō and to follow the traces of the various conflicts that developed, then ono’s work is of significance in the history of political thought at the dawn of the modern age in japan. let us begin our investigation by looking at the distinctive features of the original work, pandecten-systeem.[15] (2) j. e. goudsmit and nineteenth-century dutch law joel emanuel goudsmit was born on june 13, 1813 in leiden to jewish parents. after entering the university of leiden in 1829, he studied under cornelis jacobus van assen (1788–1859), a scholar of roman law, and was appointed professor of roman law at that university in 1858.[16] he was an active member of a number of academic societies, including the koninklijke akademie van wetenschappen (the royal netherlands academy of arts and sciences), and was made a ridder (knight) of the order of the netherlands lion. his pandecten-systeem, published in 1866, is a representative work of dutch jurisprudence in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and its english translator, r.de tracy gould, referred to goudsmit as one whose “name has long been regarded, throughout the continent of europe, as of supreme authority, in all that concerns … roman law.”[17] during goudsmit’s time as a student, he was greatly influenced by johan rudolph thorbecke (1798–1872), a professor at the university of leiden and one of the lights of dutch legal circles at the time. thorbecke had in turn been influenced by a german scholar of roman law, friedrich carl von savigny (1779–1861) and was one of the first to work in historical jurisprudence, asserting that law developed over history within the manners and culture of a people, and thereby pushing aside the prevailing abstract arguments of the proponents of natural law. it was within this context that thorbecke’s interest in law moved towards positive law (ius positum), man-made law as distinct from natural law. he called for the realization of a responsible cabinet, limitations on the powers of the monarch and a broadening of the franchise, and proposed changes to the constitution. in march 1848, king willem ii, fearful of the repercussions of the february revolution in france that overthrew the monarchy of louis philippe, suddenly shifted from his conservative and absolutist stance and formed a committee to revise the constitution, with thorbecke as its head.[18] a revised constitution was promulgated in november 1848. it introduced a system of a responsible cabinet, a truly constitutional monarchy with specific limitations on the authority of the king, and direct election of members of the lower house, state assemblies and local councils. in this way, the netherlands experienced a moderate political reformation, as a liberal system was established which made thorbecke the prime minister. from the middle of the nineteenth century, historical jurisprudence and legal positivism extended their power widely in dutch legal circles as a result of such political activities and movements.[19] simon vissering, who mentored nishi amane and tsuda mamichi, was a student of thorbecke and his successor at the university of leiden. goudsmit also had a close friendship with thorbecke and was a colleague of vissering in the same faculty. another student of thorbecke was the philosopher cornelis willem opzoomer (1821–1892), through whose work nishi amane studied the ethics of j. s. mill (1806–1873), and opzoomer too had been a close friend of goudsmit since their university days. goudsmit later wrote to opzoomer, recalling their time as students. “i feel very nostalgic when i frequently recall pleasant evenings together. we were lighthearted and cheerful, not worrying about the future but delighting in the incomparable works of papinian and donellus and the newly-published savigny.”[20] this was the environment within which goudsmit studied roman law. it was not at all surprising that he should have been deeply influenced by the historical school of jurisprudence led by savigny that was opening new vistas on the study of roman law in germany at that time. in his pandecten-systeem, goudsmit gave an overview of the research history concerning roman law and criticised the school of natural law that had risen to dominance in the eighteenth century for “its grand defect … exclusiveness” and its ahistoricity, based on pure reason. its followers “were unable to perceive that the present is attached to the past by indissoluble ties” and that “the experience of several centuries” is “an indispensable pilot, whose guidance must be followed.” he ascribed the “historic school,” whose pioneer was savigny, as “having reconnected the broken chain which linked the past to the present, and replaced the history of law upon its pedestal.”[21] the distinguishing feature of the historical school of jurisprudence is the understanding that the law, like language, manners and customs, is born of a “common conviction of a people” and that it takes form and develops together with that people. “law” (recht) is explained as a system of rights, an organic combination of rights as subjective recht based on the “will of individual people.” goudsmit also incorporated this concept of law and rights, and as we shall see, it runs throughout the first book of pandecten-systeem. we may find the background to this idea in the historical context of the codification of civil law that occurred in the netherlands in the nineteenth century.[22] with the collapse of french rule in 1813, the netherlands established its own constitution the following year. the code civil(napoleonic code) however remained in force and the implementation of a new code took some time. a committee under johan melchior kemper (1776–1824) submitted a draft code based on the idea of natural law in 1816, but parliament turned it down in 1820 as being dogmatic, ignoring historically-based legal custom. the civil code that finally came into force in 1838 was based largely on the french code civil it was supposed to replace. this incited people’s interest in roman law, which underlay the french code, and which had, long before the french unification of the european codes, formed the legal tradition of the continent. on top of this came the famous controversy of 1814 in germany between savigny and the jurist anton friedrich justus thibaut (1772–1840), who taught roman law at the university of heidelberg. thibaut suggested a general civil code for all of germany (then composed of 41 kingdoms and territories), but savigny opposed the idea as premature, saying that law was based on custom and needed an historical context. there were, in the netherlands and germany at the time, great differences of opinion concerning both the evaluation of the french civil code and the significance of roman law as a legal tradition. nevertheless, we can see that the historical school was born when jurists took up the banner against the movement that looked to a law based on “universal reason,” unconcerned with the organic development of existing law. in this sense, the study of roman law by the historical school both in the netherlands and germany during the period of codification in europe was not simply an academic exercise but had practical meaning. this was the environment within which goudsmit emerged. all the same, goudsmit was aware that at times the historical school was overconcerned with historical research and so was in danger of losing sight of its purpose as a study of law. he rarely referred to the “folk,” the concept that jacob ludwig grimm (1785–1863) and others had inherited. in his inaugural lecture given at leiden university in 1859, he insisted that roman law was the well-spring of existing legal systems in europe, and declared, “one should study roman law, not because it is roman but because it is law.”[23] in lectures to students too, he pointed out that the superiority of roman law was in the way it could be applied practically. specifically, goudsmit pointed out that roman law had the ability to adapt to customs, concepts and political systems gradually changing, not to agitate people through sudden revolution or weaken the respect for traditions, but rather to disentangle obstinate systems as necessary and adjust their direction.[24] if people understand the “fresh and inspiring spirit” within roman law and study it as a “model for the development of law,” they will be able to refine their legal system in a way more freely and over a broader scope than now. though we speak of studying ancient rome, he said, this is not with the intention of being overconcerned with the vestiges of times past, such as the slave system. rather, through the study of history we reject irrational elements like the slave system that connote ancient rome and separate out the useful and universal functions possessed by roman law. thus we understand the meaning of the law as it is today and its origins, and acquire the technique to interpret and apply it appropriately. this in itself is the modern significance of studying roman law, said goudsmit.[25] stemming from such concerns, goudsmit sometimes accepted positively and sometimes reviewed critically the work on the pandects by contemporary german jurists like georg friedrich puchta (1798–1846) and bernhard windsheid (1817–1892), successors of savigny. his pendecten-systeem was the work that systematised his own study of roman law. (3) roman law and utilitariansim in roma ritsuyō how did ono azusa tackle goudsmit’s work? he described his motivation to undertake the annotated translation in the following way. “since the restoration,” japan has paid great attention to “the west,” “wanting to adopt the strengths [of western countries] to overcome its own weaknesses.” the same applies to the legal system, with “some looking to france and others to britain.” however, “western law largely has its origin in roman law.” “the napoleonic code and the (civil) code of frederick [ii], valued and respected by europeans, also have their origins in roman law. the laws of britain and the united states also find their basis in roman law.” consequently, all those who “study deeply” the present western legal system “must first study roman law.” “if we do not learn its origins, we cannot investigate whether its descendants are genuine or not.”[26] thus even as japan was adopting western legal systems it was necessary to study the roman law that was their “origin.” ono later reminisced about the particulars of his annotated translation in his jiden shiryō 自伝志料 (autobiographical materials). according to him, after about twenty years had passed since the opening of the country, there was a concerted effort to assimilate the law of france and other european countries. however, this consisted of nothing but superficial explanations of “the letter of the provisions” and did not reach any “deep analysis” of the “principles of law” (hōri, 法理) that supported its foundation. thus he had decided to seek what “our civil law” should be by investigating the essential qualities of western law by tracing it back to roman law, its well-spring, with goudsmit’s work as a guide.[27] as ono noted, the meiji government, looking towards codifying its laws, was at that time seeking to introduce european law formally by translating it verbatim. there is a famous episode which symbolizes this state of affairs, when etō shinpei 江藤新平 (1834–1874), who was involved in establishing the new political institutions as a high-ranking government official, ordered mitsukuri rinshō 箕作麟祥 (1846–1897), to render the french civil code into japanese. etō said to mitsukuri, “just hurry up and translate it, it doesn’t matter if there are some translation mistakes.”[28] ono’s study of roman law was also a criticism of such a government attitude. at the beginning of the pandecten-systeem, goudsmit presented a classification of rights into four divisions, based on the system adopted by the german jurists gustav hugo (1764–1844) and georg arnold heise (1778–1851): rights concerning things (zaken-recht), rights of obligations (obligatie-recht), family rights (familie-recht) and rights of inheritance (erf-recht). but, goudsmit said, over and above discussing each particular subject, there are “certain points which are common to all the relations of right”; this he discussed in “book first” of the pandecten-systeem, “of rights in general” (algemeen deel).[29] ono’s roma ritsuyō was a translation with added commentary of the first five chapters of “book first”: (1) rights (het recht), (2) the idea of rights, and their divisions, (3) of persons, or subjects of rights, (4) of things, or objects of rights, and (5) of the exercise of rights and the means of enforcing them. a distinctive characteristic of goudsmit’s pandecten-systeem as a whole is the practice of roman law and its applicability to the present. to this end, his main text analyses rights and the system of laws within them, and explanatory notes illustrate their continuity within the legal systems of the countries of europe at the present time. ono was in sympathy both with goudsmit’s methodology based on the historical school and with his practical concerns, and guided by this he acquired a focus through which to relativise and criticise modern western legal systems. ono then moved on to a study of “rational law” (gōri no hō 合理の法) and the “principles of law” (hōri 法理) that were spread throughout “roman law,” preserving the “common happiness of the people.” first, ono had to define “law” and “right.” he used the word kenri 権理 to translate recht (right), explaining his choice in accordance with the original text. “broadly speaking, that which is called rights (recht) (kenri 権理) is the universal conviction (de gemeenschappelijke overtuiging).” this “leads all members of the same community to recognise and adapt one uniform rule as the guide of their actions.” it appears in the form of “laws” (ritsurei 律例) and “customs” (kanshū 慣習).[30] as “broadly speaking” demonstrates, here rights (recht) is not “right” in a narrow sense but indicates “law” as a whole. it may be inferred that ono’s understanding was correct on this point from a footnote, which reads, “the notion of ‘rights, recht’ which the ancient romans use is frequently of the same meaning as the matrix of the “laws.” defining “right” in the narrow sense, he again followed goudsmit’s original text. “a right in its subjective sense is the power given, by right in the objective sense, to the will of a person, relatively to a certain object.”[31] thus in roma ritsuyō, law is understood as a system of rights through which subjective right/recht is organised. rights and obligations are determined by means of the “law” as “defined by the people in general,” that is, by all the members of the same community. ono’s commentary tells us that he had, with great effort, correctly understood goudsmit’s jurisprudence, developed out of the work of savigny and others of the historical school. based on this definition of “law,” ono went on to insert a comment about the historical development of roman law that cannot be found in goudsmit’s original, explaining that the basis of roman law is to be found in the “disposition of the people towards self-government (jichi 自治)” existing within the political culture of republican rome, and in the legal traditions of the jurists who supported it.[32] how did ono understand the concept of “rights” that was at the core of this? what he developed here was a theory of rights based on “status.” relying on goudsmit’s historical school argument, ono explained that human rights are determined by “various laws and ordinances” (hatto 法度) enacted for the purpose of “maintaining the social intercourse of people.” but they are by no means “natural.”[33] goudsmit wrote that for the romans, “status” meant “the position which a man occupies relative to other men,” and though all are capable of having rights, they are not the same for all. he classified rights into three: the right to liberty, the right to citizenship and the right to ties of agnation. ono added his own comment, saying that in republican rome, there existed “free people,” “the right to liberty” and “the right to citizenship” among people who had the legal status and state of freeborn individuals.[34] with the development of the law and society, the citizens of republican rome established broad “civil rights” (minken 民権) based on the rights to liberty and citizenship. there, “civil rights” were made up of various rights, including “the right to vote,” “freedom of marriage and betrothal,” “freedom to trade,” and “rights pertaining to the possession of property.”[35] thus ono, through the concept of “status,” depicted rights in roman law as historical products that came into being in roman political culture, that is, self-government by the people. it was here that he detected the origins of “civil rights” within contemporary western legal systems. this does not mean, however, that ono evaluated all of roman law as rational principles of law. goudsmit had pointed out that “rights to ties of agnation” that relied on the slave system or the paterfamilias had “no connection with us today.”[36] ono went further and criticised such rights head-on, citing examples from east asian legal culture. he discovered within the “subjugation” of wives and children to the “paterfamilias” in the roman family system a close resemblance with family relationships in east asia, which he judged to be “damaging to the interests of human society.”[37] he also stated clearly that the slave system was “irrational” (hiri 非理) and ran counter to “the great principle of utility (shinri 真利).[38] during the tokugawa period in japan, the bushi (warriors), as retainers of the various daimyo (domain lords), placed their lives and bodies into the care of their lord, and this ono saw as being in the nature of servitude. however, japanese society had freed itself, he said, from the shackles of servitude and drudgery that closely resembled “ancient rome,” as a result of the meiji restoration and the subsequent abolition of the domains. this in itself was a golden opportunity to create a political society by “free people” possessing “civil rights.”[39] thus for ono, living in east asia, there was practical significance in his criticism of the irrationality of the slave and patriarchal systems and in casting light on the civil rights of a free people. in his discussion about the slave and patriarchal systems, it is notable that ono rejected the irrationality of roman law by quoting from jeremy bentham’s principles of the civil code, pronouncing that “where there is shinri 真利(true utility), there is shinri 真理 (true principles).[40] here, distinguishing between rational principles and irrationality in roman law, ono introduced “utility” as his own individual axis. guided by goudsmit’s study of roman law, he utilized bentham’s jurisprudence to prune away the “irrationality” lying within it. thus he attempted to break away from the bounds of western society and extract, from the well-spring of western legal tradition, universal “principles of law” capable of being applied to another cultural sphere. from the third chapter, ono quoted widely from bentham’s study of the civil code, comparing it to the pandects text. of particular interest is that a discussion of rights is introduced, based on bentham’s “state” / “condition.”[41] as ono noted, like goudsmit’s historical jurisprudence, bentham’s theory of civil legislation also takes the position of legal positivism, understanding that rights and obligations are created by the law. bentham also criticised the idea of natural rights. he pointed out that rights and obligations are determined by law according to various states and conditions, such as “husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant, between equal citizens, [and] government and people,” based on “sociability,” “that existed before the establishment of laws.”[42] here, ono detected a common concept of rights between goudsmit’s roman law, based on historical jurisprudence, and bentham’s theory of civil legislation. from this point of view, he deduced a theory of legal rights, rejecting natural rights and defining rights as a legal product enacted in order to protect various kinds of “social intercourse”(jinkan kōsai人間交際). in the final part of the roma ritsuyō, ono introduces bentham’s criticism of natural rights and the social contract. quoting from chapter five of the part two of “principles of the civil code,” ono criticised natural rights and the social contract as spoken of by philosophers from hugo grotius to jean-jacques rousseau. he closed his work by praising bentham’s arguments “that expounded the correspondence between utility and truth” and made clear that “obligations are necessarily based on utility” as “one of the greatest of all discoveries, penetrating the shallow views of past and present.” [43] in this way, ono was led by goudsmit’s study of roman law, itself deeply influenced by historical jurisprudence, to look back on the origins of the western legal tradition and from there to attempt to elucidate the “principles of the law.” however, ono did not share the same historical traditions as goudsmit, born a european, and so needed to build a foundation for roman law’s usefulness as a “rational law,” based on open and general principles. therefore he had introduced bentham’s legislative and civil law theories that had reconstructed the law on the basis of humanistic ideas grounded on the “fact” of empirical science, pleasure over pain. bentham’s jurisprudence and historical jurisprudence shared something in common in that both determined rights to be positive law, and criticised natural rights and the theory of social contract. (4) the significance of the annotated translation in the history of political thought ono’s roma ritsuyō was the first attempt at a thorough study of rome undertaken at the dawn of modern japan, and it is extremely important for two reasons. first, the idea of legal rights based on social intercourse, deduced in a form that bridged goudsmit’s historical jurisprudence and bentham’s civil law theories, had a special resonance with the popular rights movement of his time. in february 1875, ono published an article called “the thieves of rights” (kenri no zoku 権理之賊), against the backdrop of bentham’s discourses on rights. in it, he criticised shallow-minded students with only a superficial knowledge of western books who, at a time when discussion centred on the establishment of a representative assembly, called for rights and freedom because they harboured a personal grudge or because they sought fame and honour. the problem for ono was that, influenced by the idea of natural rights, such people were advocating natural liberty (rights and freedom bestowed by heaven). as far as he was concerned, this natural liberty would ultimately lead to a society where only the fittest would survive. people would not think of others but simply assert their own rights, regardless of everyone else, so that finally they would despoil one another of their very lives. this was too radical and over-excessive, and “greatly harmful to the way of coexistence.”[44] besides criticising the idea of natural rights and natural liberty, he also advanced another type of discussion about rights. he called the idea “civil liberty, or the rights based on social intercourse.” according to ono, legal rights and obligations should come into existence where mutual human intercourse is protected by law, such as the relations between husbands and wives, parents and children, guardians and wards, masters and servants, self and others, and state and people.[45] rights and obligations thus first make their appearance in the enactment of laws based on social life. consequently, we must consider, without going to extremes of behaviour and advocating our own personal rights alone, how we set up a system of laws that is aware of social intercourse and go on to determine rights and obligations accordingly. this is a true theory of rights and liberty. we can trace ono’s interest in social life, that is, “the way of mutually sustaining and supporting the lives of one another” and “living together in harmony” to an essay he wrote in 1870, prior to going abroad to study, entitled “on the salvation of the people” (kyūminron 救民論).[46] it is possible that at the root of his constant awareness of these concerns was the influence of the philosopher han yu (768–824), through writings such as “essentials of the moral way” (yuandao 原道) that he had known from childhood.[47] his theory of civil rights in roma ritsuyō was also achieved as he developed further the issues he had been interested in before he went abroad, employing traditional vocabulary from east asian thought and expanding its concept. although ono had thrown himself into the freedom and people’s rights movement, his ideas about rights within social intercourse showed him to be seeking a path different to that of people like ueki emori who advocated natural rights and the right of resistance. as a result, of all his intellectual activity, ono’s inquiry into the legal system – civil law and the constitution – was highly significant also in terms of achieving civil rights. as we shall see in the next section, his conception of a constitution that was both moderate and gradual came into being as an extension of his theory about rights. the second reason for the importance of roma ritsuyō is that ono’s intellectual efforts displayed within it are of great significance from the viewpoint of the reception of bentham’s utilitarianism early in the meiji period. in edo-period japan, the concept of “utility” (ri 利) was at times often discussed negatively, as for example in terms of the difference between yi 義(righteousness or justice; jp. gi)and li 利(benefit or utility; jp. ri) in confucianism.[48] when utilitarianism entered japan from the west as the latest thing in philosophical ideas in the meiji period, it made a great impact on people in that it spoke positively of maximising utility and happiness. in the early meiji years in particular, bureaucrats dealing with law codification in the government, such as mutsu munemitsu (1844–1897), shimada saburō (1852–1923) and ga noriyuki (1840–1923) were greatly receptive to bentham’s utilitarianism.[49] they took a great interest in bentham’s jurisprudence as a science of legislation that brings about true happiness for society as a whole, and subsequently produced a great number of translations of bentham’s works. there is an overlap here too with ono, whose annotated translation, roma ritsuyō, paved the way for his appointment as a bureaucrat within the civil law section of the justice ministry. closer study however reveals the existence of unmistakable differences between ono and a core figure among the bureaucrats, mutsu munemitsu. in his essay shiji seiridan 資治性理談, mutsu asserted that if people were left to themselves “freely,” they would be moved only by “greed” and conflicts and disorder would be sure to occur. the result would be a diminishing of the “pleasures of humankind.” therefore, “superior people” with a great amount of knowledge and understanding must demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages of any situation to “inferior people” and determine what constitutes wrongdoing. in other words, “superior people” lay down the law thinking of the greatest happiness of society, and “inferior people” “submit” to it. in this way, true happiness for all of society will be realised.[50] what mutsu took from bentham’s jurisprudence was the figure of the legislator as a superior person who governs subjects through sanctions based on a calculation of pleasure. this was the diametric opposite of ono, whose concern was always how to determine legal rights and obligations within the social intercourse of people. in his civil code, bentham determined what were legal rights and obligations and put restrictions on unlimited natural freedoms. further, he insisted that people were able to enjoy life, security, survival, equality and true liberty because the penal code kept control over the illegal behaviour that violated such rights.[51] consequently, the penal code, which carries out legal sanctions, is “the language of a father and a master” and it precedes all other codes.[52] if we consider the relationship between penal and civil law, the figure of the legislator that mutsu drew lessons from was, within bentham’s jurisprudence, a commanding presence in the penal code. ono, by contrast, deeply admired rather the civil code throughout his life. recent research on bentham has drawn attention to the distinctive perspective of his civil code. according to paul joseph kelly, for example, for bentham, “law provides the basic framework of social interaction by delimiting spheres of personal inviolability within which individuals can form and pursue their own conceptions of well-being.”[53] ono’s viewpoint also meshes with such an understanding. through his study of roman law and through his efforts to identify civil rights as the principles of law existing at the origin of western legal systems, and even as he came to grips with bentham’s jurisprudence, ono exhibited a keen appreciation of a civil code that determined the rights and obligations within the social life of people, rather than of a penal code that governed people through commands and criminal law. in the early years of the meiji period, when the codification of law emerged as a political issue, the government favoured adopting western systems of law superficially, by means of direct translation. as a result, however, this led to chaotic political situation, and the government met ridicule over its lack of principle. while many politicians and scholars actively looked to britain, germany or france as a model for the course japan should follow, amid the exigencies of the time, ono went to the opposite extreme, submerging himself in western legal traditions and daring to choose the more roundabout route of roman law as a subject of study. he turned his interest to ideas concerning the traditional culture of self-government in europe, and endeavoured to extract universal principles of law capable of being applied to japan, with its different historical experience. his efforts are positioned within intellectual history as an activity that gave further depth to how western legal systems and jurisprudence were received in japan, advancing knowledge of them from their limited initial exposure in the tokugawa period to a more systematic understanding. further, the roma ritsuyō itself is also of great interest in terms of cultural contact, as the result of ono’s close study of goudsmit’s pandecten-systeem, one of the preeminent dutch legal works of the time. dutch studies (rangaku) had played an important role during the tokugawa period as the one and only conduit to a knowledge of the western world, and subsequently formed the foundation for the reception of the humanities and social sciences in japan. however, by the beginning of the meiji period, people’s interest had turned completely toward the scholarship of britain, germany and france as a result of the decline in the position of the netherlands in the international society. this meant that there was less to learn from the dutch political and legal systems as models. it can be said that there was also a certain fortuity in ono’s encounter with goudsmit’s work. nevertheless, the most advanced scholarship from britain, france and germany was being absorbed by the netherlands at the time, to be combined with its own political and scholarly currents, and this was assimilated in a simpler form out of practical interest. goudsmit’s study of roman law, though influenced by german scholars of historical jurisprudence of the time, did not lapse into abstract commentary, nor did it dwell on “folk.” it must have seemed an eminently suitable text for ono, coming across roman law for the first time. conversely, it must have provided ono with fruitful and abundant material for speculation when he was investigating the original state of the law, politics and human beings while undertaking roma ritsuyō. in this sense, dutch jurisprudence, though not belonging to a country considered able to provide a model for japan, became all the better a guide for ono’s political and intellectual activities, as he studied the origin of western legal systems. this then is not an episode we can overlook when we consider the reception of western jurisprudence in modern japan. all the same, ono’s intellectual efforts still had a way to go. we will now examine how he went on to deepen his study of the idea of a civil code and how that led him towards the idea of a constitution. political concepts in kokken hanron (1) historical jurisprudence and utilitarianism just over 200 years ago when britain’s american colonies finally broke away and declared their independence, two major political philosophies confronted each other across the atlantic. the american declaration of independence of 1776 invoked, in some famous brief sentences, the doctrine that all men are created equal and possessed of the natural unalienable rights of man: rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that it was to secure these rights that governments, deriving their just powers from the consent of governed, were instituted among men. but only three months before the declaration of independence was signed, jeremy bentham had announced to the world in his first book a fragment on government his famous formulation of the principles of utilitarianism.[54] thus h. l. a. hart described the emergence of benthamite utilitarianism in his essay, “utilitarianism and natural rights.” leo strauss refers to the formation of the historical school, which included historical jurisprudence, as follows: the historical school emerged in reaction to the french revolution and to the natural right doctrines that had prepared that cataclysm. in opposing the violent break with the past, the historical school insisted on the wisdom and on the need of preserving or continuing the traditional order.[55] the idea of natural rights was the theoretical wellspring of the american declaration of independence (1776) and the french declaration of the rights of man (1789). the historical school and utilitarianism arose in criticism of, and opposition to, this idea. in the roma ritsuyō, these two great and widely influential streams in nineteenth century european jurisprudence intersected and flowed together. through his study of roman law, ono investigated the situation of “civil rights” within the tradition of “popular self-government” that had been formed in europe over the course of history. he then attempted to revise the understanding of civil rights as a universal “principle of law” from the viewpoint of empirical science, thereby transcending european history and legal culture. in doing so, he was criticising the reception of western legal systems based on direct translation. by going back to the very origins of the european legal tradition, he detached the “principle of law” from its roots and on that basis introduced it into japanese society. viewed from a different angle, however, points of difference inevitably existed between historical jurisprudence and utilitarianism in nineteenth-century european legal thought. in fact, if we consider how they laid the foundation for law, the frames of reference of the two might be said to be diametrically opposite. bentham defined “law” as “the commands of a sovereign” whose object should be the “happiness of the whole community” and “general utility.”[56] in a general view of a complete code of laws, he set forth four principles for the promotion of happiness, based on an analysis of pleasure and pain: subsistence, abundance, security and equality. of the four, he gave primacy to security.[57] on the other hand, the historical jurisprudence embodied in goudsmit’s pandecten-systeem attached great importance to customary law as well as written law; like language and custom, law was based on the “common conviction of a people” living in the same country, and was understood as being formed and developing over history, together with the community. thus historical jurisprudence and bentham’s jurisprudence had certainly an affinity in that they both criticised the theory of natural law and determined legal rights on the basis of positive law. at the same time, however, there was a sharp division between them over whether to reduce law to the commands of the sovereign based on the principle of utility or whether to make the history and legal traditions of the whole community its foundation. this difference took actual form during the period of law codification in europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when many countries, such as prussia and austria, undertook, on a large scale, to arrange their laws into a systematic national code. bentham, invented the term “codification,” played a role in codifying laws in nineteenth-century britain and made proposals to several countries, including turkey, egypt and france, for codifying their laws. criticising english common law, he wanted a legislator to edit a complete collection of the laws, “embracing the whole of litigation,” based on the principle of utility.[58] the historical school, however, as can be seen also in goudsmit’s work, rather criticised hasty attempts to introduce perfect and faultless law codes and sought to select and record laws that had come into being over history just as they were. how then did ono deepen his inquiry into these two legal theories following his completion of roma ritsuyō? and how did his work fare when he worked as a bureaucrat during a time of codification when the meiji state was trailing in the wake of the west? to anticipate my conclusion a little, ono’s use of historical jurisprudence as a frame of reference and his interest in the question of utilitarianism continued in a tense relationship, with both theories serving to support his academic thinking. he went on to refine further the “principle of law” that he had extracted from within the european legal tradition and root it in japanese political society in order to grapple with the serious political issues surrounding codification. (2) from romaritsuyō to minpōno hone roma ritsuyōbrought ono to the attention of government officials, and in august 1876 he was appointed to the ministry of justice to codify civil law. though he resigned after ten days over differences with other members of the committee, he received a new appointment in october and thereafter worked as a bureaucrat, actively involved in preparing laws. he retired from public office in 1881 as a result of the political crisis of that year,[59] and took the opportunity to join with ōkuma shigenobu 大隈重信 (1838–1922) to organise a political party, the rikken kaishintō (立憲改進党; constitutional progressive party) and to write up his own proposal for a constitution, his magnum opus, kokken hanron 国憲汎論 (a general treatise on constitutions) between 1882 and 1885. it was thus on the basis of his experience as a bureaucrat involved in legal matters that he produced his own private draft constitution. at the same time he was also deepening his understanding of civil law and in 1884 wrote and published the first volume of minpō no hone (民法之骨; the bones of civil law), based on roma ritsuyō. it is considerable interest that kokken hanron and minpō no hone have an almost twin-like relationship, their prefaces even beginning with the same words.[60] let us now examine how ono’s understanding of civil law deepened between roma ritsuyō and minpō no hone, in the process throwing light on the connection between ono’s ideas about civil law and about the constitution. what first strikes us when we compare the two works is the strong influence of the idea that the law is the command issued by a sovereign, found in the works of bentham and his follower john austin (1790–1859).[61] ono defined a system of laws to be “commands, the commands of the ruler,” whose ultimate object was to “secure” “subsistence, abundance and equality” and to “preserve the tranquillity of the nation and society.”[62] of interest here is that ono did not translate the world “sovereign” (shukensha, 主権者) directly, though he had introduced the definition of the law held by bentham and austin, but rather used the expression shuchisha (主治者), meaning “someone in political charge,” “ruler.”[63] i will discuss the significance of this further below. for the time being, we can confirm that ono introduced the legal theories of bentham and austin as the basis for his discussion in minpō no hone, unlike in roma ritsuyō, which was based on historical jurisprudence, in an article of 1877, “minkei nihō jitsuri” (principles of civil and criminal law), ono wrote that following the meiji restoration, there had been frequent calls to bring in “european and american laws and legal institutions.” however, because these were closely connected with, and inseparable from, “local customs and practices” that had been followed in the west “from ancient times.” therefore, sometimes “strange precedents” were included that impaired the “essentials of the legal system.” what we who live in east asia, he said, with “different habits and customs,” can truly learn from european jurisprudence is the “essentials of the legal system.” in pointing this out, ono was advocating giving concrete form to a “universal theory of law,” that is, bentham’s and austin’s jurisprudence, “based on the principle of utility.”[64] nevertheless, the actual content of minpō no hone is by no means simply a verbatim copy of the legal theories of bentham and austin. for example, concerning the connection between civil and criminal law, ono emphasised, unlike bentham, that “civil law is prior to criminal law, and criminal law has been established to preserve the civil law.” according to him, it was civil law, with its purpose of “explaining and elucidating the rights and obligations in social intercourse,” that was the “primary basis of the legal system.”[65] besides, the content of minpō no hone relies greatly on roma ritsuyō and much of its argument is based on goudsmit’s pandecten-systeem. for instance, the list of references at the beginning of minpō no hone includes the names not only of bentham and austin, but also contemporary dutch and german scholars of roman law, such as goudsmit, savigny, hendrik cock, johann friedrich kierulff, and windsheid.[66] their arguments do appear in the text, and most are quotations from goudsmit’s pandecten-systeem, transferred from the roma ritsuyō. throughout minpō no hone, ono reviewed roma ritsuyō on the basis of a “universal theory of law” as he attempted to construct his own theory of civil law, whose core was the idea of rights. in minpō no hone, ono again defended the idea of rights based on “status,” which “those who lectured on the roman legal system in later times, as well as bentham” advocated.[67] according to ono, “a person’s status” is his “state and condition in terms of other people.” people live together with others, and “rights” and “obligations” come into being from within the relationships among free citizens, from those between obligees and obligors, and to those between parents and children and between siblings. citizens’ rights, such as the “rights of subsistence, and of freedom and equality,” are first formed when people acknowledge among themselves “the status of an independent person.” types of “social intercourse” are formed relative to other people from within their mutual lives, and here various types of “status” emerge. civil rights, as legal rights, are determined premised on this status and state in order to protect “social intercourse” in the form of relationships towards others. in this assertion can be seen traces of “rights within social intercourse” that he had pursued constantly from his study of roma ritsuyō. he had thus come to understand the theory of status within roman law and bentham’s theory of the state as being superimposed one upon the other. by perceiving “status” in a more pluralistic way, he sought to break free of the “slave system” and the “old patriarchal system” in the laws of republican rome. he had thus rethought what he had written in roma ritsuyō, based on more open “universal theory of law.” moreover he maintained in minpō no hone his views derived from historical jurisprudence concerning “history and legal culture.” this was because, in his development of his theory of rights based on status within social intercourse, those interactions and the political culture that premised them were extremely important elements. by returning to the source of the intellectual traditions of european legal systems, roma ritsuyō had extracted principles of civil law based on a political culture of “popular self-government.” by contrast, in minpō no hone, ono took up the question of how these principles could be applied to, and rooted in, japanese political society. and so he again confronted the philosophical and practical questions of the “principles of law” and “history and political culture.” what kind of legal concepts then existed in japanese society? in minpō no hone, ono pointed out first that from ancient times, “law” had been considered the “commands of the ruler.” in this respect, the japanese concept of the law has something in common with bentham’s jurisprudence.[68] however, according to ono, east asia lacked the concept of “civil law.” “laws and ordinances” had been formulated “from the times of xia and shang” in china, but law was regarded as comprising only “categories of penalties” and “criminal law.” as a result, the “truth” of the law was not studied and no heed was paid to anything “like civil law.” the same was true of japan after it accepted the tang (chinese) system in the administrative reorganization of “the taihō era” (seventh century) and later looked to the model of the ming code (da ming lü 大明律). “no doubt the notion of civil law was lacking, and did not exist in the mind of the people of asia until modern times.”[69] within the legal traditions of east asia, laws as commands of the ruler did not go beyond the bounds of penal law; the idea of a “civil law” that determined and defended the rights and obligations of people based on the law remained underdeveloped. what prevented the concept of civil law from developing in east asia and japan? according to ono, “the head of the family, the master of the house” ruled the family in japan as well as in “ancient rome and present-day china.” the family was made the basic unit forming the state. modern western nations, by contrast, consisted of a political society organised of “independent and autonomous individuals.”[70] the political cultures of japan and ancient rome share a point in common, not in the latter’s “popular self-government” but rather in the patriarchal family system. ono said that a society based on the family is one whose underlying principle is jō 情(sympathy, affection, sentiment). here, like in the slave system, people other than the family head or the master were not regarded as “elements of society” and as a result, they did not try to take any interest themselves in their own society. by contrast, political societies in modern western nations were organized by “independent, autonomous law-abiding citizens” governed by ri 理 (reason). a strong society, an assemblage of the strengths of its members, is formed when each person as an individual unit has a strong interest in that society. a political society based on a “civil law” that determines the rights and obligations between people with spirit of independence and autonomy is “civilised government.”[71] ono then went on to quote directly his criticism of the relationship of father and son in japanese society that he developed in roma ritsuyō.[72] ono’s argument was also formed in the context of his experience as a legal bureaucrat. in 1873, japan’s first comprehensive civil code draft, the imperial civil code provisional rules (kōkoku minpō kari kisoku, 皇国民法仮規則) was issued by the meihōryō (institute for legal studies) in the ministry of justice. following this, there was a trend within the meiji government to construct a framework for the codification of civil law around the rights of the household head and sole inheritance by the eldest son. ono’s arguments were a criticism of such tendencies. while ono regarded bentham’s theories of legislation highly, he thought that civil law could not function sufficiently only as the commands of a sovereign. civil law which set up and defended legal civil rights could only be established in a political society rooted in the ethos of independence and self-government. the intellectual task confronting ono, as he tried to introduce the principles of the law that determined civil rights in east asia was how to get to grips with his own political culture, which had no tradition of “civil law.” how did he surmount this issue? we will investigate this question in the final section when we discuss the connection between ono’s theories of civil law and of the constitution. (3) stratagems concerning japanese legal traditions in kokken hanron kokken hanron was written in 1881, when ono had resigned as a bureaucrat. its first two volumes were published the following year, and its final volume in 1885, just four months before he died. he directly incorporated the western jurisprudence and political theories of bentham and austin, as well as francis lieber (1798–1872) and theodore dwight woolsey (1801–1889), producing a work that attempted to construct a new design for a constitution.[73] it has an excellent scheme and content, even compared with the drafts prepared by other japanese scholars of the time. how did ono expand his ideas about the constitution on the basis of his understanding of civil law down to that time? there is a close relationship between kokken hanron and minpō no hone. not only do they have the same preface, but the definition of the law and the theory of rights in the former were taken directly from the latter. ono did not differentiate civil law and the constitution as was done between private and public law, but rather combined them into a single theory of legal rights based on status that he had been studying up to that point. according to ono, whereas civil law determines rights within “people’s mutual intercourse,” a constitution “explains the relationship between rulers and subjects, differentiates the positions of officials and the people, and sets out the authority of officials and the rights of the people.”[74] in other words, the difference between civil law and the constitution arises from the differences in status within human interactions, according to whether the object is the mutual relationships among the people or the relationship between ruler and ruled. all the same, a constitution has its own importance. according to ono, even though “people’s mutual intercourse” is governed by civil law, without a constitution, subjects may be “regarded as slaves by their rulers” and individuals cannot control rights such as the possession of property, and even life itself. therefore the establishment of a constitution “does not only set right the relationships between rulers and subjects but also dealings between the subjects themselves.”[75] here ono sets forth questions related to the inherent nature of a constitution: who is the “ruler” and, if a political system is established, is legislation rooted in “popular self-government” possible. this insight derives from ono’s own experience as a legal bureaucrat. in chapter 16 of kokken hanron, he reminisced about his activities then, pointing out the “hybrid” conditions that existed at a time when japan was without an independent legislature, administration and judiciary.[76] in the present political circumstances, even if legal bureaucrats attempted to introduce civil law, their efforts would easily be quashed by the administrative authority, the dajōkan (council of state, 1868–1885). moreover, if the civil code was enacted, it would be difficult to protect the civil rights of the people, because judicial powers were not independent. having experienced setbacks as a legal bureaucrat, he reached the decision that the only way to establish civil law as the “primary basis of the legal system” was to first establish a constitution. in kokken hanron, ono called for checks and balances between the three powers of the legislature, administration and judiciary. he pointed out that the legislature had an eminent role in response to the need for social vitalisation in a civilised society.[77] however, power should not be concentrated only here. ono therefore envisaged a supreme constitutive (seihon no shoku 政本の職) which had the power to both convene and dissolve the legislature, so protecting against absolutism on the part of both the legislators. in this way ono conceived a fourfold division of power within the political body: the supreme constitutive, the legislature, the administration and the judiciary. who then bore the responsibility of the supreme constitutive, the very basis of the system? according to ono, it was the people who elected representatives to the national assembly and the sovereign who had the power to convene and dissolve the assembly, that is, the emperor.[78] he thus proposed the idea of the “united rule of monarch and people” (kunmin dōchi 君民同治), in order to ensure the “greatest happiness of the greatest number of people.” on the other hand, though, ono had misgivings about the emperor becoming a despot. thus, he spoke of introducing, as an institutional guarantee, a cabinet made up of the party with the largest number of seats, as in english-style parliaments, and a representative system comprising ministers responsible to the assembly.[79] according to him, a constitutional system of government must be led by a national assembly based on “the ethos of popular self-government.” in order to avoid the tragic harm that comes, as during the french revolution, of people rising in revolt in the name of unrestricted natural rights, it is necessary to draw up a legislative system that legally determines people’s rights. in this sense, “representative government” is the system that regulates, and protects against, both “the despotism of the monarchy” and “the oppression of the masses.” thus in his constitutional ideas too, ono spoke of legal rights in the same way as civil rights, calling for rights to be determined by positive law and rejecting innate natural rights, and he developed his theory of parliamentary government on this basis. ono’s conception of the state called for the realisation of a party cabinet and a representative system based on the idea of the “united rule of monarch and people.” in contrast to ueki emori and others in the jiyūtō (liberal party) who, under the influence of french radicalism, advocated the idea of natural rights and sought a broadening of political rights in an extreme form, ono wanted to create policies and ideology for the rikken kaishintō that looked toward the establishment of a moderate national assembly based on english-style ideas of a parliamentary cabinet system and a constitutional monarchy. at the same time, what we should note in connection with ono’s idea of civil law is that his constitutional ideas centring on the discourse of sovereignty include much that is critical of the jurisprudence of austin and bentham. first, let us look at ono’s criticism of austin and his contention that the law is the command of the sovereign. austin defined “sovereignty” as being in the hands of “a person or a body of persons.” ono criticised this, quoting from lecture vi of austins’s lectures on jurisprudence or the philosophy of positive law, as having the danger of leading to autocracy.[80] according to ono, the locus of “sovereignty” lay within “all the people together” and “the state as a whole,” including both people and emperor.[81] the “political ruler” (shuchisha, 主治者), at the centre of establishing laws, was the government of the time. however, this government, the “ruler,” was no more than a representative of the people of the country, who bore sovereignty. this is why the “ruler” had to legislate considering the country as a whole, both people and emperor, that is, the “sovereign.” here we see the close and mutually comprehensive relationship between ono’s theories of civil law and the constitution. in minpō no hone, ono had been influenced by the theory that the law was the command of the sovereign, but he consistently changed the wording from “sovereign” (shukensha 主権者) to “[political] ruler” (shuchisha 主治者). behind this lay criticism of austin’s ideas about sovereignty. by separating “shukensha” and “shuchisha” he determined that the locus of sovereignty was the people of the country as a whole. through this, he asserted that legislation by the “ruler,” the government of the day had to support the self-government of the people, who were “sovereign.” in other words, in order to bring about a realm of civil law rooted in “the autonomy of the people,” it was necessary to establish a constitutional system of the “united rule of monarch and people,” based on a representative system and government by the majority party. in this sense, ono’s discourse on civil law was formed in the context of the theory of sovereignty and the conception of the state he developed in kokken hanron. ono’s discourse on sovereignty also connoted criticism of bentham. ono’s seihon no shoku 政本の職 was modelled after bentham’s “constitutive authority” and “supreme constitutive.”[82] however, ono criticised bentham’s development of the idea of popular sovereignty, in terms of the happiness of the greatest number, that demanded that sole sovereignty rest in people, who were the constitutive authority.[83] according to ono, first of all this was not the same as the discourse of popular sovereignty taught by rousseau, but risked falling into “popular despotism.” moreover, it was not suitable for japan, since there the emperor “reigned over the four seas in order to provide for the greatest happiness of the people.” as a result, the supreme constitutive (seihon no shoku) was the responsibility both of the people and the emperor. we see here how ono’s ideas about a constitutional monarchy combined a theoretical struggle with western political thought and an attempt to base his findings within japan’s legal traditions. the “united rule of monarch and people” too was an idea distilled by retracing his own history. thus again he confronted questions concerning the law and history. the imprint of this struggle is most clearly seen in the second chapter of kokken hanron, “historical precedents of constitutions in our country.” in this chapter, ono elucidated the existence of the idea of rule at the origin of japan’s legal tradition, which was that “the people do not exist to serve the emperor; rather the emperor exists to serve all the people.” through a study of the kojiki (records of ancient matters, 712) and the nihon shoki (chronicles of japan, 720), he confirmed that the “the great law of the central land of the luxuriant reed plains (toyoashihara no nakatsukuni)” had flowed through history from ancient times down to the present.[84] at first glance, this positive evaluation of japan’s legal tradition encompassing imperial rule and the “united rule of monarch and people” seems to be at complete discrepancy with minpō no hone, which is consistently negative. however, as we have already seen, ono considered that, since the political society of japan lacked a tradition of “popular self-government” and its “notions of civil law” were immature, a constitution had to be established before civil law could be determined “as the most important foundation of the legal system.” it was as if ono had stepped back from the front line, illustrating, in order to realise codification of civil and other law, that the establishment of a constitutional system of government upon the idea of the “united rule of monarch and people” was the historical product of the japanese legal tradition, and making that the starting point for the legal system. we see here ono’s strategy concerning the legal tradition. however, he was not advocating absolute emperor worship or japan-centrism. his stance can be understood in the way he grappled with bentham’s criticism of the declaration of rights issued during the french revolution. for ono, attempting to discover “the germ of constitutionalism” within the political society of contemporary japan, describing the political ideal in the figure of the emperor as the sovereign who provided the people with “the greatest good” was only part of his task, since there remained the question of how to situate civil rights on the basis of the constitution. was it even necessary to specify and guarantee the rights of citizens vis-à-vis the government in the constitution? in pursuing this theoretical question, ono took up bentham’s “anarchical fallacies,” adding his own critical study. the “anarchical fallacies” was a denunciation of the declaration of rights issued by the french national assembly in 1791, which bentham criticised for determining the rights of citizens based on natural rights. as far as he was concerned, to consider absolute and inviolable natural rights that existed before the formation of governments and to mention them expressly in a constitution was nothing other than to instigate resistance and insurrection towards all laws and ordinances.[85] further, from bentham’s point of view, as an expounder of the doctrine of popular sovereignty, only the consensus of the people of the nation could limit the authority of a people’s assembly. the existence of a declaration of rights set up a priori can only be harmful, restricting the future enactment of laws by the national legislature.[86] however, ono squarely refuted bentham’s arguments. of course, he shared bentham’s denunciation of natural rights. yet he did not completely agree with bentham, saying it was not altogether futile to make clear details of civil rights through a constitution. he found positive meaning in the constitution, saying, “it informs officials of their limits and the people of their rights.”[87] the reason ono gives for this is noteworthy. according to him, because the japanese have become accustomed to “the oppression of officials,” a constitution is necessary to clarify the rights they should possess. in this vein, he criticised bentham: for people such as the great scholar [bentham], born in a country of freedom like great britain, who have heard about their rights from a young age and are accustomed to them, such rights are second nature to them. though they may feel themselves that there is no need to clarify their rights [in a constitution], this is a case that applies only to britain, not to our country. how can we then approve of and accept his statements?[88] ono had discerned a universality of “legal principle” in bentham’s jurisprudence down to this point. however, here he claimed that even bentham had at times been unconsciously constrained by the a priori premise of his own legal tradition. in the context of discussion about a national assembly according to the idea of popular sovereignty, bentham’s assertion that it was unnecessary to clarify the people’s rights in a constitution applied only to britain, where the concept of freedom and a consciousness of rights were rooted like “second nature.” particularly in political societies like “our country,” japan, where the knowledge of the finer points of their rights was still immature, and where people were used to “the oppression of officials,” even if a national assembly should be formed, there would remain the danger that people’s rights would be violated by the government’s abuse of its authority. it was a vital necessity that the people’s rights vis-à-vis the government be clearly stated in a constitution and that the people be made to understand the details of these rights. in this criticism of bentham, ono displayed a keen and subtle understanding of the tension between history and law. looking at this from a different point of view, bentham’s jurisprudence advocating the science of constitutionalism is also implicitly premised by european legal traditions of “popular self-government.” in this sense, even if benthamite constitutionalism was adopted in japan, it alone was not sufficient for the needs of japanese civilisation. questions such as the form of japanese political culture and the nature of the legal culture formed over history had also to be considered. here ono grappled long and hard with the issue of law and history. having a strong sense of the danger posed by a political culture where the government is always able to deprive the people of their rights, he attempted, without falling into a form of own-culture centrism, to formulate a methodological position whereby he could discover the possibility of the “germ of constitutionalism” from within his own legal tradition. in the four chapters after chapter 8 of kokken hanron, ono made a theoretical examination, modelled on frances lieber’s on civil society and self-government, of the rights of the people versus the government, including mental and physical liberty and the freedoms of association, speech, belief, possession of property and petition.[89] he then went on to discuss how they could be reinterpreted from within japan’s legal tradition. this he does on chapter 12, “the origins of civil rights in japan’s ancient past.” there, ono first challenged the opinion, expressed by fukuzawa yukichi, that “from ancient times, japan had a government, but was not a nation, and that subjects were slaves of the [political] rulers.” however, ono said that it might look that way “to the naked eye,” but seen “through a microscope” it was possible to discern the “thread of civil rights.”[90] for example, there was the so-called “decree of the bell and box,” mentioned in the nihon shoki in an item dated 646 (taika 2). according to ono, this system, where the government of the day hung up a bell and provided a box in order to receive petitions and hear people’s grievances, demonstrates that people had the “freedom” institutionally “to discuss political matters publicly.”[91] then there was article 4 of the jōei shikimoku (1232), the administrative code of the kamakura shogunate, also known as the goseibai shikimoku (formulary of adjudications). this determined that “provincial military governors” (shugonin) may not arbitrarily confiscate the private property of a person, calling it an offense, even if that person has committed a crime. this is evidence, ono said, of the survival of “the principle that officials are there for the people, not the people for officials.”[92] of course, the “thread of civil rights” that had continued down history had been for a time on the brink of danger under the military government of the tokugawa period. however, even during that perilous time, it continued to be passed down within the “minds” of the people as legal tradition. this tradition had been revitalised and brought to fruition by the meiji restoration, with the opening of the country and exposure to western political theory.[93] the post-restoration flourishing of the freedom and popular rights movement and activities seeking the establishment of a national assembly and a constitution have come about as an extension of this legal tradition. here then is today’s “germ of constitutionalism.” thus ono discovered another intellectual tradition, with its “origins” in ancient japan, different from the legal concept that understood the law to be the “orders of the ruler.” furthermore, he had retrieved the “thread of civil rights” from the mists of japanese history, where people possessed “rights” and “the freedom to discuss matters publicly and to take legal proceedings against officials”[94] were guaranteed as legal rights. of course, it is also necessary to study the validity of ono’s historical description from different angles.[95] what we should note here, though, is that ono’s argument was also strongly conscious, as well as critical, of the bunmeiron no gairyaku (an outline of a theory of civilisation, 1875). this was an influential work by fukuzawa yukichi (1835–1901), an intellectual of an older generation than ono who created the basis for modern japan through his pioneering studies of western thought. in the ninth chapter of that work, “the origins of japanese civilisation,” fukuzawa traced japanese civilisation from ancient times comparing it with western civilisation. he took issue with the “arbitrary use of authority” that prevailed then, pointing out that “in japan there is a government but no nation.”[96] in the tenth chapter, “a discussion of our national independence,” he insisted on the necessity to mobilise “the power of manners and customs” such as “the relationship between lord and vassal” and cultivate “a spirit of service to the country” in order to maintain japan’s independence. however, for fukuzawa this was in the final count “an expedient of civilisation.”[97] ono directly criticised fukuzawa’s conception of civilisation that stated “in japan there is a government but no nation.” ono ventured to use a “microscope” to view his own legal traditions from within, to unearth the “thread of popular rights” and the “germ of constitutionalism” where people could discuss politics publicly and had the right to bring an action in court against officials. he truly believed that without the investigation and reinforcement of their own sources of civil rights, it would be impossible to create a new constitutional system following the principle of self-government, or to achieve codification. this does not mean, though, that ono ever abandoned his critical gaze regarding the japanese legal tradition that lacked “the notion of civil law.” in the final chapter of kokken hanron, he pointed out that “a constitutional nation is a self-governing nation.” even if a constitution was realised, it would not work properly without “a spirit of self-government and independence” among the people. here ono once again criticised japanese society based on the patriarchal family system, quoting from minpōno kotsu.[98] it was the very extermination of such evil customs in japan’s legal culture that was the country’s greatest and most urgent task. ono said that the japanese people must achieve this by themselves, as a constitutional nation.[99] even if a constitutional system revolving around representative government and a party cabinet according to the principle of “united rule of monarch and people” was established under law, a truly constitutional nation could not come about until the legal tradition that looked to patriarchal control had been overcome and a political society replete with a spirit of self-government and independence been constructed by means of instituting civil law as the primary basis of the legal system. this had to be done by the hands of the people themselves. thus ono exhumed the “thread of popular rights” from japan’s legal tradition and contemplated creating a new political culture of self government by a truly constitutional nation. ono’s ideas about civil laws and the constitution had a multilayered relationship within his intellectual activity. his intellectual struggle over the subjects of law and history was charged with a sharp tension and difficulty until the end. returning to the roots of the european legal tradition, ono azusa, the political philosopher, strove to break the impasse surrounding history and law in japan. conclusion ono azusa, having put his soul into the achieving the enactment of a civil law and the establishment of a constitutional system, passed away in january 1886, four months after publishing the last volume of kokken hanron. kaneko kentarō 金子堅太郎 (1853–1942), who was involved in drafting the constitution of the empire of japan (the meiji constitution) with itō hirobumi and inoue kowashi, said in a eulogy to ono that the work “was of the strong opinion that it was not right to advance european and american theories unless on the basis of japanese history and so made national history its foundation,” and remarked, “prince itō has read it very closely.” kaneko continued, “presented to prince itō, mr ono’s work must never disappear” and he revealed “the japanese constitution owes greatly to mr ono’s power.”[100] whatever ono’s real effect, itō hirobumi was considerably influenced by the historical school, through friedrich von gneist (1816–1895), a pupil of savigny, whom itō consulted in berlin about european constitutions in 1882. certainly, the meiji constitution incorporated the results of the western constitutional theory “on the basis of japanese history.” in his commentaries on the constitution of the empire of japan, itō, commented on the right to petition in article 30 in the same way as ono had done: “in the reign of the emperor kōtoku, a bell and a box were hung out, through which the people might make their representations and complaints.” he pointed out that “it is the ultimate object of the constitution to secure respect for the rights of the people, while tender love is borne them, and care is taken to see that no one is excluded from the enjoyment of any of these benefits. this may be regarded as the height of political morality.”[101] however, the meiji constitution differed greatly in character from ono’s constitutional ideas, in both actual institutional mechanisms and in spirit, being centred on the supreme authority of the emperor: “the sovereign power of reigning over and of governing the state is inherited by the emperor from his ancestors and by him bequeathed to his posterity. all the different legislative as well as executive powers of state … are united in [him].”[102] in the course of the dispute over the compilation of the civil code that occurred between 1889 and 1892, the jurist hozumi yatsuka 穂積八束 (1860–1912) held that “we are a country that respects the rules of the ancestors and where the family system prevails; therefore authority and the law are derived from the family.” this view led him to find an overlapping of japan’s “rules of the ancestors” and roman family law, which he evaluated positively.[103] thus the authority of the household head was stipulated in the meiji civil code, and so was formed the idea of a family state supporting the meiji constitution. the process of the formation of such a meiji state system can perhaps be considered a watering-down of ono’s struggle between the legal traditions of europe and japan. here ended the early stage of the reception of western jurisprudence in modern japan. nevertheless, ono azusa’s efforts have intellectual significance, down to the present day. the two great currents of nineteenth century european jurisprudence, the historical school and utilitarianism, flowed into his endeavours concerning the law, where a concern for “the principles of law” intermingled, in constant tension, with a serious regard for “history” and “legal culture.” through this encounter with a foreign tradition, how close can we come to the essence of rational principles of law that have the potential for universality, though formed on the basis of the history of a different political society? can we make them the foundation of our legal system in the historical context of our own political society? is there also the possibility that we may change our own political culture and ethos ourselves?[104] ono’s intellectual activities throw a brilliant light on the reception of european law and legal traditions in japan from the late tokugawa period, when limited absorption changed to systematic understanding, from the viewpoint of one man’s unflagging determination to penetrate the sources even more deeply. his activities also suggest to us that there were many layers to his self-conscious and continuous engagement with the issue of establishing a constitution in the non-european environment of japan and indeed living under such a constitution. references anzai, toshimitsu. fukuzawa yūkichi to seio shisō – shizenhō, kōrishugi, shinkaron (fukuzawa yūkichi and western thought – natural law, utilitarianism and evolution). nagoya: nagoya daigaku shuppankai, 1995. auslin, michael r. negotiating with imperialism: the unequal treaties and the culture of japanese diplomacy. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press, 2006. austin, j. lectures on jurisprudence or, the philosophy of positive law, 4th edition, london: john murray, 1879. bentham, j. “principles of the civil code,” in the works of jeremy bentham, published under the superintendence of his executor, john bowring, vol. i, 297–580. edinburgh: william tait, 1843. bentham, j. “a general view of a complete code of laws,” in the works of jeremy bentham, published under the superintendence of his executor, john bowring, vol. iii, 155–210. edinburgh: william tait, 1843. davis, sandra t. w. “ono azusa and the political change of 1881.” monumenta nipponica 25: 1–2 (1970): 137–154. davis, sandra t. w. intellectual change and political development in early modern japan. ono azusa, a case study. rutherford [n.j.]: fairleigh dickinson university press, 1980. david a. dilworth and g. cameron hurst (tr.): fukuzawa yukichi’s “an outline of a theory of civilization. revised edition”. new york: columbia university press, 2009. drentje, j. thorbecke: een filosoof in de politiek. amsterdam: boom, 2004. duynstee, w. j. a. j. geschiedenis van het natuurrecht en de wijsbegeerte van het recht in nederland. geschiedenis der nederlandsche rechtswetenschap, deel ii. amsterdam: noord-hollandsche uigevers mij., 1940. goudsmit, j. e. toespraak aan zijne leerlingen ter gelegenheid van de opening zijner lessen over de instituten van het romeinsche regt, leiden, 1864. goudsmit, j. e. redevoering over de vraag: “waartoe dient in den tegenwoordingen tijd de beoefening van het romeinsche regt in nederland?”, haarlem, 1864. goudsmit, j. e. brief van mr. j. e. goudsmit, aan mr. c. w. opzoomer, naar aanleiding van een werkje van prof. büchel, üeber die nature des bezitzes. leiden, 1868. goudsmit, j. e. pandecten-systeem, eerst deel, leiden, 1866, translated by r. de tracy gould, the pandects; a treatise on the roman law and upon its connection with modern legislation, london, 1873. feenstra, r. “contacten op juridisch gebied tussen nederland en japan in 2e helft van de 19e eeuw” (contacts in the legal domain between the netherlands and japan in the second half of the nineteenth century), in gratia commercii, opstellen aangeboden aan prof. mr. a. van oven ter gelegenheid van zijn afscheid als hoogleraar aan de rijksuniversiteit te leiden, ed. p. tuit et al. zwolle: tjeenk willink, 1981, 57–69. fujita, satoru. kinsei koki seijishi to taigai kankei (a political history of the latter part of the early modern period and foreign relations). tokyo: tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 2005. fukushima, masao. “roma ritsuyō sanyaku fuchū ni okeru ono azusa no kenkai to sono tokushitsu” (ono azusa’s opinion and its distinctive features as seen through his annotations to roma ritsuyō, in ono azusa-kō, kokken hanron, roma ritsuyō, eds fukushima masao, nakamura kichisaburō and satō atsushi. tokyo: waseda university institute of comparative law, 1974. fukushima, masao. “bibliographical introduction” in ono azusa zenshū (collected works of ono azusa), vol. 1. tokyo: waseda daigaku shuppanbu, 1978. fukuzawa, yukichi. bunmeiron no gairyaku (an outline of the theory of civilisation), revised and annotated by matsuzawa hiroaki. tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1995. fukuzawa, yukichi. an outline of the theory of civilisation. revised translation by david a. dilworth and g. cameron hurst, iii. tokyo: keio university press, 2008. gipouloux, f. the asian mediterranean. cheltenham: edward elgar publishing limited, 2011. haley, j.o. authority without power: law and the japanese paradox. oxford: oxford university press, 1991. hart, h. l. a. “utilitarianism and natural rights,” in essays in jurisprudence and philosophy, oxford: oxford universiot press, 1983. hiraishi, naoaki. nihon seiji shisōshi (a history of japanese political thought). revised edition. tokyo: hōsō daigaku kyōiku shinkōkai, 2001. howland, d. r. translating the west: language and political reason in nineteenth-century japan. honolulu: university of hawaii press, 2002. hozumi, yatsuka. “minpō idete chūkō horobu” (the civil code destroys loyalty and filial pierty), in hozumi yatsuka shū, ed. nagao ryūichi. tokyo: shinzansha shuppan, 2001. itō, hirobumi. dai nihon teikoku kenpō gige (commentaries on the constitution of the empire of japan). tokyo: kokka gakkai, 1889. english translation by miyoji itō, commentaries on the constitution of the empire of japan, tokyo: igirisu hōritsu gakkō, 1889. itō, hirobumi. kenpō gige (commentaries on the constitution), revised and annotated by miyazawa toshiyoshi. tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1940. izuhara, masao. jiyū minkenki no seiji shisō – jinken, chihō jichi, heiwa (political thought during the freedom and popular rights period – human rights, local autonomy, peace). kyoto: hōritsu bunkasha, 1995. katō, eiichi. “development of japanese studies on sakoku (closing the country): a survey.” acta asiatica 22 (1972): 84–103. katō, hidetoshi. “the significance of the period of national seclusion reconsidered.” journal of japanese studies 7:1 (1981): 85–109. kelly, p. j. utilitarianism and distributive justice, jeremy bentham and the civil law, oxford: oxford university press, 1990. kinoshita, keita. “saikin no ono azusa kenkyū dōkō tenbyō” (outline of recent trends into research into ono azusa), waseda daigaku shikiyō vol. 34, 2002. kossmann, e. h. the low countries 1780–1940. oxford: oxford university press, 1978. laver, michael s. the sakoku edicts and the politics of tokugawa hegemony. amherst, new york: cambria press, 2011. levy, j. a. “j. e. goudsmit,” in mannen van beteekenis in onze dagen: levensschetsen en portretten. ed. n. c. balsem. haarlem: tjeenk willink, 1882. macintyre, alasdair. whose justice? which rationality? notre dame: university of notre dame press, 1988. maruyama, masao. “kaikoku” in maruyama masao-shū (collected writings of maruyama masao), vol. 8. tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1996. maruyama, masao. maruyama masao kōgiroku, vol. 5. nihon seiji shisōshi (collected lectures, vol. 5, history of japanese political thought), tokyo: tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1999. matono, hansuke. etō nanpaku. tokyo: nanpaku kenshōka, 1914. matsuzawa hiroaki. “jiyū minken no seiji shisō – oboegaki” (the political thought of popular rights – memorandum). shakai kagaku kenkyū 35: 2, 1984. matsuzawa hiroaki. kindai nihon no keisei to seiyō keiken (the formation of modern japan and the western experience). tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1993. miyamura, haruo. rigakusha chōmin – aru kaikoku keiken no shisōshi (the scientist [nakae] chōmin – an intellectual history of an experience of “opening the country”). tokyo: misuzu shobō, 1989. miyamura, haruo. kaikoku keiken no shisōshi – chōmin to jidai seishin (the intellectual history of the experience of “opening the country” – [nakae] chōmin and the spirit of the age). tokyo: tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1996. miyamura, haruo. shintei nihon seiji shisōshi – [jiyū]no gainen o jiku nishite (new and revised history of japanese political thought). tokyo: hōsō daigaku kyōiku shinkōkai, 2005. mutsu, munemitsu. “shijisei ridan” (principles of governance). hakushaku mutsu munemitsu ikō (posthumous manusripts of count mutsu munemitsu). tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1929. nieuw nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek. vol. 6, amsterdam: n. israel, 1974. ogiwara, takashi. tenpu jinkenron to kōrishugi, ono azusa no seiji shisō (natural human rights and utilitarianism, ono azusa’s political thought). tokyo: shinhyōron, 1996. ōkubo, takeharu. kindai nihon no seiji kōsō to oranda (the quest for civilization: encounters with dutch jurisprudence, economics and statistics at the dawn of modern japan). tokyo: tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 2010. ono, azusa. ono azusa-kō, kokken hanron, roma ritsuyō. eds fukushima masao, nakamura kichisaburō and satō atsushi. tokyo: waseda university institute of comparative law, 1974. ono, azusa. ono azusa zenshū (collected works of ono azusa). tokyo: waseda daigaku shuppanbu, 1978–1982. ōshima, akihide. “sakoku” to iu gensetsu—kenperu-cho, shizuki tadao-yaku “sakokuron” no juyōshi (the expression “sakoku”—a history of the reception of kaempfer’s “sakokuron” as translated by shizuki tadao). kyoto: mineruva shobō, 2009. otterspeer, w. de wiekslag van hun geest, de leidse universiteit in de negentiende eeuw. den haag: stichting hollandse historische reeks, 1992. poortinga, e. de scheiding tussen publieken privaatrecht bij johan rudolph thorbecke 1798–1872) theorie en toepassing. nijmegen, 1987. satō, atsushi. “ono azusa sanyaku roma ritsuyō ni tsuite” (ono azusa’s annotated translation, roma ritsuyō), in ono azusa-kō, kokken hanron, roma ritsuyō, eds fukushima masao, nakamura kichisaburō and satō atsushi. tokyo: waseda university institute of comparative law, 1974. satō, atsushi. “ono azusa to romahō” (ono azusa and roman law), in gendaihō no shoryōiki to kenpō rinen, eds moriizumi akira et al. tokyo: gakuyō shobō, 1983. satō, atsushi. “ono azusa to pandekten hōgaku” (ono azusa and pandecten law.” waseda daigaku shikiyō 36 (2004). sawa, taiyō. ono azusa no seiji shisō no sōgōteki kenkyū—nihon no kenpōgaku to seitō seikō no genryū (general study of ono azusa’s political thought—study of the constitution in japan and the origins of political parties and their platforms). tokyo: tōkai daigaku shuppankai, 2005. strauss, l. natural right and history. chicago: university of chicago press, 1953. sugawara, hikaru. nishi amane no seiji shisō—kiritsu, kōri, shin (nishi amane’s political thought—discipline, utility, trust). tokyo: pelikansha, 2009. sugiyama, shinya. “kokusai kankyō to gaikoki bōeki” (the international environment and foreign trade), in nihon keizaishi 3, kaikō to ishin. tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1989. takata sanae, “ono azusa sensei o omou (thinking of ono azusa sensei), in ono azusa, ed. waseda daigaku bukkyō kyōyūkai. tokyo: taiseisha, 1918. takii, kazuhiro. doitsu kokkagaku to meiji kokusei—shutain kokkagaku no kiseki (the german science of state and the meiji state system: tracing lorenz von stein’s science of state). kyoto: mineruva shobō, 1999. takii, kazuhiro. the meiji constitution: the japanese experience of the west and the shaping of the modern state, translated by david noble. tokyo: international house of japan, 2007. tashiro, kazui. “foreign relations during the edo period, sakoku re-examined.” trans. susan d. videen. journal of japanese studies 8:2 (1982): 283–306. toby, ronald. “reopening the question of sakoku: diplomacy in the legitimation of the tokugawa bakufu.” journal of japanese studies 23:2 (1997): 323–364. ugai, masashi. bakumatsuishinki no gaikō to bōeki (foreign relations and trade in the 1850s–1970s). tokyo: azekura shobō, 2002. verwaijen, frans b. early reception of western legal thought in japan, 1841–1868. proefschrift leiden, 1996. verwaijen, f. b. “tokugawa translations of dutch legal texts.” monumenta nipponica 53, no. 3 (autumn 1998): 335–358. waseda daigaku bukkyō seinenkai, ed. ono azusa. tokyo: tōsanbō, 1926. watanabe, hiroshi.‘meiji ishin-ron’ to fukuzawa yūkichi” (“on the meiji restoration” and fukuzawa yūkichi). kindai nihon kenkyū 24, 2007. watanabe, hiroshi. nihon seiji shisōshi (a history of japanese political thought, 17th to 19[th] century). tokyo: tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 2010. watanabe, hiroshi. a history of japanese political thought, 1600–1901, translated by david noble. tokyo: international house of japan, 2012. yamamuro shin’ichi. hōsei kanryō no jidai – kokka no sekkei to chi no rekishi (the era of law-making bureaucrats: state design and the role of intellectuals). tokyo: bokutakusha, 1984. yamashita, shigekazu. “ono azusa to bensamu” (ono azusa and bentham). kokugakuin hōgaku 6:3 (1969). yamashita, shigekazu. “ono azusa to f. riibaa” (ono azusa and f. lieber). kokugakuin hōgaku 15:4 (1978). yoshii tamio. “ono azusa to hō shisō” (ono azusa and his legal thought). waseda hōgakkaishi 25 (1974). zhu xi “mengzi jizhu” (commentary on mencius), sishu zhangju jizhu (collected commentaries on the four books). beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1982. [1] an earlier version of this essay was published in memoirs of the institute of social sciences, meiji university 49(2), 2011–2013. [2] the term kaikin was coined in ming china, and a similar policy was also pursued in li dynasty korea. such policies were followed to enable the governments to control foreign relations and particularly trade relations. the term by which the policy of national isolation is best known today is sakoku 鎖国, invented by shizuki tadao in translating a work of engelbert kaempfer’s in 1801, sakokuron 鎖国論. for a discussion of the origins of sakoku and its implications, see hiraishi (2001), fujita (2005), ōshima (2009), etc. for english studies on this subject, see laver (2011), tashiro (1982), katō eichi (1972), katō hidetoshi (1981), gipouloux (2011), etc. [3] whether or not the unequal treaties really were unequal has today given rise to a great amount of academic discussion that also incorporates the foreign settlements, etc. see sugiyama (1989), ugai (2002), watanabe (2007). in english, see for example auslin (2006). [4] the encounter with western political ideas by japanese intellectuals and politicians through the “opening of the country” was of a scale and depth not usually conceived. the intellectual activity that grew out of this encounter with a completely different civilisation was undertaken with a self-awareness that freed western political theory from a closed historical identity and bestowed upon it a new significance (miyamura [1996], 285–286). for an examination of the research into the history of political thought surrounding “opening the country” and a discussion of the methodology, see miyamura (1989), maruyama (1996), matsuzawa (1993), watanabe (2010). in english, see watanabe, noble trans. (2012), howland (2002). [5] for a recent study, see takii (1999). in english, see takii 2007. [6] takata, 1918, 19. for a study of ono azusa in english, see davis (1980). [7] fukushima (1978), 595. [8] this essay is based on the fourth and fifth chapters of ōkubo (2010). [9] jap. senkyo 潜居. ono azusa. jiden shiryō, in ono azusa zenshū, vol. 5, 316. [10] ono’s manuscript copy of roma ritsuyō was for a long time preserved in the ministry of justice library. it became widely known after the complete text was published in 1974 by the waseda university institute of comparative law as ono azusa-kō, kokken hanron, roma ritsuryō, critically edited by fukushima masao, nakamura kichisaburō and satō atsushi. [11] j. e. goudsmit, pandecten-systeem, eerst deel, leiden, 1866, translated by r. de tracy gould, the pandects; a treatise on the roman law and upon its connection with modern legislation, london, 1873. [12] see verwaijen (1996) for a study centring on an analysis of the waran rissho 和蘭律書, translated by mitsukuri genpo (1799–1863). for a general study of tokugawa translations of dutch legal texts, see verwaijen (1998). for a broad sketch of the reception of dutch law in japan in the latter half of the nineteenth century, see feenstra 1981. [13] for a detailed study, see ōkubo (2010), chapters 1–3. these chapters will shortly appear in english translation as the quest for civilization: encounters with dutch jurisprudence, economics and statistics at the dawn of modern japan (brill). [14] for a representative study that analyses conflicts in the reception of western political theory in meiji japan, see yamamuro (1984). [15] prior scholarship analysing ono azusa’s treatise on civil law includes satō (1974) (1983) (2004), fukushima (1974). however, they do not seek to trace the dutch law in the background, nor do they ask what sort of person goudsmit was, or what the distinctive features of the pandecten-systeem were. [16] for a biography of goudsmit, see levy (1882) and also the entry “j. e. goudsmit” in the nieuw nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, 610–611. [17] r. de tracy gould, “translator’s preface,” in the pandecten, vii. [18] for representative studies of thorbecke’s political thought, see for example poortinga (1987) and drentje (2004). [19] see otterspeer (1992), kossmann (1978), duynstee (1940). [20] j. e. goudsmit, brief van mr. j. e. goudsmit, aan mr. c. w. opzoomer, naar aanleiding van een werkje van prof. büchel, üeber die nature des bezitzes. leiden, 1868, 5. [21] j. e. goudsmit, pandecten-systeem, 12–13. the pandecten, 13. [22] the following summary is based on “j. e. goudsmit” in levy 1882. [23] j. e. goudsmit, redevoering over de vraag: “waartoe dient in dan tegenwoordingen tijd de beoefening van het romeinsche regt in nederland?”, haarlem, 1864, 29. [24] j. e. goudsmit, toespraak aan zijne leerlingen ter gelegenheid van de opening zijner lessen over de instituten van het romeinsche regt, leiden, 1864, 7–8. [25] ibid., 6–9. [26] ono azusa, “roma ritsuyō”, ono azusa zenshū vol. 2 (1979), 3–4. [27] ono azusa, “jiden shiryō”, ono azusa zenshū, vol. 5, 316–317. [28] matono (1914), vol. 2, 107. [29] j. e. goudsmit, pandecten-systeem, 16–19, 35–36; the pandects, 17–21, 40–41. [30] ono azusa, roma ritsuyō, 10; j. e. goudsmit, pandecten-systeem, 29, the pandects, 32. [31] ono azusa, roma ritsuyō, 30; j. e. goudsmit, pandecten-systeem, 34–35, the pandects, 38–39. [32] ono azusa, roma ritsuyō, 10–27. [33] ibid., 40. [34] ono azusa, roma ritsuyō, 40; j. e. goudsmit, pandecten-systeem, 44–45, the pandects, 49–51. [35] ono azusa, roma ritsuyō, 40–42. [36] j. e. goudsmit, pandecten-systeem, 44, the pandects, 49. [37] ono azusa, roma ritsuyō, 172. [38] ibid., 50. [39] ibid., 51–52. [40] section 3, “the rights of father and child” of the roma ritsuyō (196–199), is ono’s own commentary patterned after bentham’s “principles of the civil code,” third part, chapter iv “father and child.” in the fifth chapter of roma ritsuyō too, ono introduced “bentham’s laws on inheritance and succession,” found in second part, chapter iii, 334–336. bentham’s “principles of the civil code” was first published in french in 1802, included in traités de legislation civile et pénale by étienne dumont. it is probable that ono used the english translation. [41] in particular, ono azusa, roma ritsuyō, 187–189, 224. [42] here ono relies on j. bentham, “principles of the civil code,” and j. bentham, “a general view of a complete code of laws,” in the works of jeremy bentham, vol. i, 338–339 and vol. iii, 179–180 respectively. [43] ono azusa, roma ritsuyō, 228–229; j. bentham, “principles of the civil code,” 351. [44] ono azusa, “kenri no zoku.” ono azusa zenshū vol. 3, 1980, 13–14. [45] ibid., 14–16. [46] ono azusa, “kyūminron.” ono azusa zenshū vol. 3, 1980, 3. see davis (1980), 27–28. [47] see kinoshita (2002), 246. [48] for example, zhu xi, “mengzi jizhu” (commentary on mencius), sishu zhangguo jizhu (commentaries on the four books), 202. [49] studies in the reception of utilitarianism in the early meiji period include matsuzawa (1984), miyamura (2005), anzai (1995) and sugawara (2009). see also chapter 2 of ōkubo (2010). [50] mutsu (1929), 246–248. for a detailed study of mutsu’s reception of bentham’s utilitarianism, see miyamura (2005), ch. 12. [51] j. bentham, “principles of the civil code,” 301–302, “a general view of a complete code of laws,” 160. [52] j. bentham, “a general view of a complete code of laws,” 161–163. [53] p. j. kelly (1990), 81. [54] hart (1983), 181. [55] strauss (1953), 13. [56] for example, j. bentham, “a general view of a complete code of laws,” 186. [57] j. bentham, “principles of the civil code,” 302–303. [58] j. bentham, “a general view of a complete code of laws,” 205–210, “principles of the civil code,” 324. [59] in october the date for the opening of the diet was announced and this gave impetus to the formation of political parties. at the same time, ōkuma shigenobu was dismissed from office and the satsuma-chōshū coalition took firm control of the government. see davis (1970), davis (1980), 148–150. [60] ono azusa, “kokken hanron,” ono azusa zenshū, vol. 1, 7–14; “minpō no hone,” ono azusa zenshū, vol. 2, 235–237. [61] j. austin, lectures on jurisprudence or, the philosophy of positive law, 4th edition, london: john murray, 1879, vol. 1, 225–226. “every positive law … is set by a sovereign person, or a sovereign body of persons.” [62] ono azusa, “minpō no hone,” ono azusa zenshū, vol. 2, 240–245. [63] ibid., 240, 243. [64] ono azusa, “minkei nihō jitsuri,” ono azusa zenshū, vol. 3, 448–449. [65] ono azusa, “minpō no hone,” ono azusa zenshū, vol. 2, 251–253. [66] ibid., 238–239. [67] ibid., 257–268, 276–282. [68] ibid., 241. [69] ibid., 249–250. [70] ibid., 299–302. [71] ibid., 301. [72] ibid., 302–306. [73] for ono’s political theory and studies of the kokken hanron, see, for example, yamashita (1969), (1978); yoshii (1974), izuhara (1995), ogiwara (1996), sawa (2005). however, there has been insufficient study of ono’s research into western jurisprudence as a whole, including connections with the incorporation of the theory of civil law and roman law. [74] ono azusa, kokken hanron, 9–10. [75] ibid., 10. [76] ibid., 159–166. [77] ibid., 150–155, 179–180. [78] ibid., 173–175. [79] ibid., 186–188, 334, 367–369. [80] ibid., 46. 54. [81] ibid., 55–56. [82] ibid., 173–176. j. bentham, “constitutional code,” in the works of jeremy bentham, vol. ix, 1843, 96–98, 153–160. it is thought that ono used bowring’s edition. for problems related to bowring’s edition of the “constitutional code,” see “editorial introduction” to constitutional code, vol. 1 in the collected works of jeremy bentham, edited by f. rosen and j. h. burns, oxford, 1983. [83] ono azusa, kokken hanron, 175–176. [84] ibid., 15–24. [85] j. bentham, “anarchical fallacies; being an examination of the declaration of rights issued during the french revolution,” in the works of jeremy bentham, vol. ⅱ, 496–503. [86] ibid., 492–493. [87] ono azusa, kokken hanron, 113. [88] ibid., for an excellent study of this section, see miyamura (1996), 19–22. [89] see particularly kokken hanron, 70–72. [90] ibid., 114–115. [91] ibid., 116. [92] ibid., 122–123. [93] ibid., 123–126. [94] ibid., 119. [95] maruyama masao (1999, 118–134) discusses the jōei shikimoku. he understands there to be two diametrically-opposite ways of thinking about the law. “[if we think in terms of ancient japanese law], the law meant regulations proclaimed from above; they had a vertical structure.” this was connected to the post-meiji concept of the law, that “a system of law was formed, along a systematic hierarchy of laws – orders – execution, and rights were allotted according to positive law.” the era of the jōei shikimoku involved another concept of the law. “this was a period when the right to take legal action was at the core of the law, and when all legal thought was permeated by a way of thinking of the civil law type: public order was a dynamic process to resolve conflict to resolve violations of rights by rationalizing legal procedures.” he added the comment about article 4 of the jōei shikimoku, that “protecting the just rights of the weak and those in a disadvantageous situation is called ‘justice/righteousness’.” [96] fukuzawa yukichi, bunmeiron no gairyaku (1995), 220–221. in english, see dilworth and hurst tr. (2009), 187. [97] ibid., 298–299. [98] ono azusa, kokken hanron, 572–573. [99] ibid., 573. [100] waseda daigaku bukkyō seinenkai, ed. ono azusa, 1926, 57–58. [101] itō, 1940, 61–62. english translation by miyoji itō, 62–63. [102] itō, 1940, 2. english translation by miyoji itō, 7. [103] hozumi, 2001, 110–111. for the controversy over the civil code, see for example haley 1991. [104] for a study concerning “dialogue” and “transformation” in the pursuit of “rationality” among various traditions and encounters with different traditions, see macintyre, 1988, from which i have received many valuable suggestions. writing about modernist painting outside western europe and north america | elkins | transcultura studies writing about modernist painting outside western europe and north america james elkins, school of the art institute of chicago modernist painting, broadly construed, follows a trajectory from david, manet, and cézanne to picasso, expressionism, surrealism, and abstract expressionism, and this trajectory is widely shared by art historians in various countries. the uncertain path of painting after world war ii forms much of contemporary critical writing, but prior to minimalism and conceptualism the principal works, places, and concepts continue to comprise a lingua franca in which deeper discussions of modernism take place.[1] this general story is itself contentious, and it is probably best understood as an uneasy confluence of several master narratives.[2] but, for my immediate purposes here, those differences are internal to a larger issue. the enormous amount of art literature produced around the world can give the impression that modernist painting outside this main trajectory is well studied, and that it can be considered a global phenomenon. yet this conclusion obscures a profound problem for an art historical study that is interested in modernist and late-twentieth century practices in painting, and that intends to look beyond western europe and north america. (when painting practices become international at the end of the twentieth century, or when they are effectively global through international exhibitions, the issues i am addressing here become less important and sometimes disappear entirely.)[3] when modernist painting made outside the main trajectory is introduced into contexts wherein the cardinal moments of modernism are taken for granted, the unfamiliar work can appear unequal for at least four reasons. first, it can seem limited when it is directed to a particular market that is outside the mainstreams of modernist interest, as, for example, with harbor-front and marine painting done in modernist styles. second, modernist painting outside the trajectory can appear uninteresting when the pressing problems of modernism appear to be played out elsewhere, for example in the case of the panamanian primitive and naïve artists who stand at the beginning of panamanian modernism: their naïveté cannot appear as exemplary as, say, rousseau’s. panama’s principal self-taught early modernist is ignacio núñez soler (1891–1983), whose work is exhibited at the museo del barro in asunción. fig. 1: ignacio nuñez soler (paraguay, 1891–1983), mis personajes (serie), oil on canvas, centro de artes visuales/museo del barro (asunción). his work touches on several themes also present in the art of henri rousseau and the montmartre “primitifs.” third, painting outside the trajectory can seem misinformed when it is the result of limited communication between a major artistic center and a local one. an example is the short-lived phenomenon of chilean cubism, practiced essentially by only one chilean artist in paris, vicente huidobro (1893-1948), who was primarily a poet and critic rather than a painter.[4] cubism in chile never developed much beyond a few echoes of picasso, georges braque and their circle, plus the work huidobro did while he was in that circle in paris from 1916 to 1918. it remains chile’s principal example of cubist practice. fourth, such painting is often done later than similar art in the centers, so that it necessarily appears belated, and therefore, in the logic of modernism, of slightly but distinctly lesser value. judgments like those prevent histories of modernist painting from being more inclusive, unless they are also histories of individual nations’ painting—in which case they are not likely to be widely read in north america, western europe, and in university departments elsewhere that are committed to the main trajectory. negative or neutral valuations of art outside the trajectory effectively corral the existing textbooks of modernism to a narrow field of canonical—if debated—works and masters, virtually all of them in north america and western europe, with particular and traditional exceptions, such as scandinavian expressionism and russian cubo-futurism. the profusion of current art-critical writing and curatorial projects throughout the world would seem, at first, to solve this problem. the inclusion of other modernist practices, such as brazilian modernism, chinese communist-era oil and mural painting, and australian modernism, is sometimes pointed to as a sign that the exclusions are increasingly a thing of the past, but i am skeptical of that line of argument because it assumes that such practices are fully integrated and not just annexed; it implies that the problems that led to the exclusivity of the main trajectory are themselves not structural but simply traditional and therefore easy to jettison.  there is far more documentation on modernist painting around the world than any one scholar can possibly read—and yet the material is scattered, local, and not usually linked to wider conversations about modernism. the art-critical and curatorial literature is strongly multicultural but seldom assays the link between its specialized objects of interest and worldwide issues of modernist painting. new textbooks have not solved the problem, either. a truly even-handed multinational history of modernism would include modernist artists from countries such as panama, chile, tibet, indonesia, and kenya. it could appear willful, idiosyncratic, or misguided, because it would risk compressing the principal moments of modernism or even losing them in a sea of apparently secondary examples. such a text would be hard to market, and in fact none has yet been produced. on the contrary, the best text on modernist painting, art since 1900, is almost exclusively concerned with adjustments to the main trajectory.[5] virtually none of the artworks mentioned in the book come from outside western europe and north america.[6] the same obstacles can be observed in periodicals; the art bulletin and art history publish relatively few articles on modernist painting outside the main trajectory and few articles on non-western modernism in general. it can be difficult, from an editor’s point of view, to find moments outside the trajectory that will be of compelling interest to scholars who work on the central problems of modernist painting. partly that is because it is difficult to locate first-rate scholarship outside the main trajectory, although there are many exceptions; and partly it is due to the discursive structure of art history, which is built around and for the interpretation of works within the main trajectory. editors of journals such as  the art bulletin are increasingly sensitive to this issue, and the proportion of essays on “unusual” modernist initiatives increases each year. but as in politics, sometimes efforts at inclusion are not enough, because the effort at inclusion is made in a type of language, or from an institutional and historical affiliation, that prevents real integration. the problem is structural, not merely political. these issues do not appear outside of art history, in journals like boundary 2 and third text, which regularly publish essays on non-western modernist practices. it has been suggested that the relative lack of unconventional modernisms in art history is just a result of the discipline’s resistance to narratives outside the main trajectory. it has also been said that a political and institutional critique of the kinds of art history that privilege the main trajectory reveals its limitations in interpreting non-canonical modernisms. but in this case, a reliance on political critique may be a blind spot in postcolonial critique. the problem is deeper than politics, because it involves the reasons why it seems important to attempt the critique at all. a journal such as third text has no difficulty admitting specialized studies of modernist practices outside north america and western europe because postcolonial and other approaches do not engage the narratives of modernist art history. from their point of view, these narratives are over-determined and historically limited, and it would be best restart them in a different place. that would be the happy ending of the story i want to tell here, except that the values and interests of modernist art history are much more pervasive than it may seem, and there is no critical approach to modernist painting that is effectively free of them. it is crucial to continue engaging the main trajectory and the entire institutional, critical, and historiographic apparatus that supports it, as outmoded and ideologically limited as they may seem, because they still underwrite the conditions under which modernist practices can appear as history. it is important to see what can be done to expand the roster of modernism. otherwise entire practices of modernist painting will continue to be marginalized or wholly absent from curricula outside the countries they were made, and the historical study of twentieth-century painting will continue to be centered on just a very small fraction of the actual output of modernist painting. the purpose of this essay is to collect the approaches that are currently in use, in order to further conversation on the subject. before i begin, i will give an example of the problems posed by “unusual” art outside the expected canons of modernism. i will offer more general theoretical observations in an afterword. introductory case: albert namatjira. one of the most contested domains of twentieth-century painting outside of western europe and north america is australian aboriginal acrylic painting. it is a recent tradition, having begun only in 1974, but in the last quarter of the twentieth century it has grown to the point at which it supports several aboriginal communities, and is represented in at least a hundred galleries worldwide.[7] at least five distinct interpretive agendas have been brought to bear on individual paintings: that of the artist and his or her relatives and community; of anthropologists interested in aboriginal culture; of gallerists invested in the paintings’ market value; of art historians concerned with the works’ relation to western art; and of curators interested in finding acceptable ways of presenting the works alongside non-aboriginal australian painting.[8] fig. 2: albert namatjira painting ghost gum trees. photo courtesy of the hermannsburg school, http://hermannsburgschool.com. in this vexing field, where the contest for interpretive power has such high political and artistic stakes, one of the most intriguing figures is the aboriginal artist albert namatjira (1902-1959), who is a kind of inverted precursor of late twentieth-century aboriginal painting.  i am not proposing namatjira as a modernist; rather, i want to take some problems about the interpretation of his work as examples of the issues i will be exploring later.[9] namatjira’s work does not set a straightforward precedent for the later development of aboriginal acrylic painting because he had adopted a western watercolor style instead of transferring aboriginal motifs and images to acrylic and canvas as the later artists did. his landscape watercolors, made mainly in the area around alice springs, are strongly reminiscent of watercolors made by his teacher, rex battarbee (1893-1973). the comparison is often made and as often questioned, because if namatjira’s work were to be seen simply as a version of battarbee’s, then his oeuvre would no longer be aboriginal, or represent an aboriginal perspective. the modern history of aboriginal painting would have begun with a case of full assimilation to the west, and namatjira would have set aboriginal meanings aside in the name of success: not a helpful precedent for a movement whose authenticity is its imprimatur in the art market, or for the many white australians who work with aboriginal communities trying to ensure that traditions are not diluted or forgotten. in the 1950s namatjira was celebrated, widely exhibited, and even granted australian citizenship, so the incentive for him to adopt a western manner was strong.[10] his work was exhibited, in the anthropologist howard morphy’s words, “partly as a sign of what aborigines were capable of achieving once ‘civilized.’”[11] in 1944 battarbee himself proposed that “aboriginal painters could paint in the french style without any criticism,” just as namatjira managed to paint in the “european style.”[12] the contrary position, first articulated in the 1950s, was that namatjira’s art wasn’t western but aboriginal, and that “every brush stroke was influenced by a tribal way of thinking.”[13] fig. 3: albert namatjira (left) and rex batterbee (right). photo courtesy of the national library of australia. by the end of the century his reception had become considerably more complex because the older interpretations were complicated by a growing awareness that promoting namatjira was, in morphy’s words, as much “a denial of aboriginal art as a recognition of it”.[14] increasingly elaborate attempts were made to demonstrate the mixed westernness and aboriginality of arrernte watercolors. some writers have stressed the particular circumstances in which namatjira painted, suggesting he and other arrernte aboriginal watercolorists of the 1950s “be understood in relation to the particular circumstances of their own history and the motivations of the artists.”[15] another kind of interpretation emphasized the topographic accuracy of namatjira’s paintings—their baked color, stark light, and apparently uncanny fidelity to the landscape around alice springs, where namatjira lived. there have also been attempts to dissect the paintings in order to distinguish westernness and aboriginality. in an essay in the 1992 book the heritage of namatjira, ian burn and ann stephen argue that there are particular qualities of the paintings that can be assigned to namatjira’s ethnicity, including the absence of balanced compositions, the unexpected distribution of emphases throughout the scene, the attention given to the edges, and a decorative impulse that led namatjira to make his landscapes into collections of distinct textures.[16] i mention these competing interpretations to illustrate the suspension of ideas that characterizes current interpretive discourse. each of the perspectives i have mentioned leads to problems. parsing the formal properties of the paintings, as burn and stephen do, assigns cultural difference to a series of incremental formal properties. for me, that is not a convincing strategy. one would hope that painting embodies thoughts about ethnicity in ways more interesting than imbalanced compositions. the difficulty with the first interpretation, in which namatjira’s art is seen as a product of his particular circumstances, is that it sidesteps the question of whether the art expresses something inherently aboriginal: a question that, in many nuanced forms, comprises the central object of interest in namatjira’s painting. saying his paintings are topographically faithful reduces them to realist documents, and shrinks his culturally-specific contribution to an interest in geological and botanical accuracy. each of the three interpretations i have sampled—topographic, anthropological, and formal—rehearses in microcosm issues that recur, in many forms, in writing about twentieth-century painting throughout the world. i will return to each of them later. what i want to emphasize here is that the literature on namatjira cannot be exported; it remains of compelling interest in the context of australian modernism, but not outside it. the reason is not only that aboriginal culture is a particular concern in australia; it is also that battarbee himself, the source of namatjira’s practice, is a minor figure even within the history of early twentieth-century realist watercolor landscape painting. in australian literature on the subject, battarbee remains largely unstudied. his practice descends from a generation of academic english watercolorists whose interest today is mainly historical. the early twentieth-century english watercolor tradition, including battarbee himself, is minor in the sense that the work does not contribute to wider practices of twentieth-century landscape painting. the particular formal properties burn and stephen attribute to namatjira, including asymmetry and attention to texture, were common in english landscape watercolor from cotman onward. to value namatjira’s work it is to some degree necessary to avoid placing battarbee in the history of twentieth-century painting, otherwise his student namatjira will be seen as the student of a painter who was himself provincial and retardataire.[17] does it matter that one of the first modern aboriginal painters happened to take as his model a rear-guard modernist? it does not, until it becomes of interest to say what place namatjira might have in the overall history of twentieth-century painting. in that wider arena, his work appears isolated and, in most contexts, irrelevant. this may not seem like a problem; after all, each country and region has its own history of art practices that respond to the local situation. but the coherence of modernist painting as a whole is compromised, unless there is a way to include namatjira in the same conversations that address modernists elsewhere. if the world’s production of modernist painting were judged according to the crucial works and critical concepts of modernist discourse, most of it would be excluded. and yet what sense does the phrase “the history of modernist painting” have when it excludes so much of the world, and so much of the practice that comprises modernism? this problem is the sphinx that has to be answered before it will be possible to imagine a truly inclusive multicultural history of twentieth-century painting. first answer: add new avant-garde practices to the main trajectory a common strategy in art history scholarship is to report on times and places that can figure as avant-garde in relation to modernist painting in western europe and north america. recent studies of avant-garde painting in brazil, czechoslovakia, hungary, russia, and poland have made use of this approach. new scholarship on avant-gardes outside western europe and north america is promising, although there are still only a few specialists in such subjects in north american and western european universities. in 2002, the most recent year for which i have this information, there were no tenured art historians in north american universities who worked in southeast european modernism or south american modernism. the reasons are complex, but tied to the value accorded to moments in modernist practice that are understood as avant-garde, and therefore essential. the most common supplements to the main trajectory of modernism, both in terms of faculty hires and published work, are central and eastern european painting (mainly polish and russian cubo-futurism and constructivism), in part because of their strong connections with innovative moments in western european modernism. in north america, it has become traditional for larger art history departments to supplement their modernist scholars with a specialist in polish or russian avant-gardes. the choice largely reflects, i think, the dissemination of the interests exemplified by the journal october. one would hope that universities with such positions would be engaged in ongoing discussions about the historical reasons underlying their choices of specialist hires, but in my experience most of the talk has to do with the notion that hiring should promote as diverse a coverage of world art as possible, with no thought of the historical specificity of the choices that are made. (how interesting, that the russian avant-garde is considered a priority in north american art history in 2010.) the focus on modernism’s innovative moments is subject to strong limitations for two reasons, one practical and the other ideological. in practical terms it becomes difficult to justify the inclusion of a large number of relatively unstudied avant-gardes in the primary sequence of modernist painting. the new instances tend increasingly to be minor in comparison to events in western europe and north america.[18] they can even serve, indirectly, to justify work that concentrates on the western modernist sequence at the exclusion of what are taken to be inessential movements elsewhere. there are many examples of painters who have been the subjects of scholarly studies designed to bring out the painters’ avant-garde qualities and make them relevant to the western narrative. in bratislava in 2003, i was urged to study the work of štefan bartušek prukner (b. 1931). his painting is broadly expressionist, and he has tried his hand at many styles, from polish-style expressionism to a kind of primitivism à la emil nolde. the work is wild and colorful, but not innovative by international standards. in a catalog essay, the critic dušan brozman compares prukner to pollock, saying that prukner avoids the usual symmetries and orientations of other artists in favor of a kind of all-over painting.[19] the comparison is stretched, because prukner’s painting is not all-over, and his figures observe the laws of gravity. even the scruffy, anthropomorphized insects in his summertime on the sea (1995) prance on a horizontal dance floor. the case for prukner as an avant-garde modernist is weak, but the efficacy of the argument depends on the public it is intended to convince. for a gallerist or a collector brozman’s argument might be helpful; but for an art historian pondering which artists to include in an undergraduate course on modernism it probably will not be persuasive. a large number of relatively unstudied painters could lay claim to being genuinely innovative and essential for the main trajectory of modernism. if the unclassifiable czech painter jan zrzavý (1890-1977) were to be taken into the mainstream narrative, he might change its terms entirely.[20] he is odd and wild enough, to stand alongside or even replace painters such as ernst, klee, or dalí in introductory accounts of the century. (each of them is very different, of course, and none are similar to zrzavý. i am only signaling zrzavý’s potential to displace accepted artists in the standard narrative.) perhaps unhappily, it is not very likely that anyone will write a textbook from which klee has been omitted to make room for zrzavý. fig. 4: jan zrzavý, kleopatra, 1942–1957, oil and gold on canvas, 202 x 181 cm, národní galerie praha. in researching this article i have deliberately tried not to report on new, “important” painters. part of the reason not do so is to avoid the now-customary mining of “exotic” places, and the entire imperialist agenda that it involves. another reason is more philosophic. in adorno’s formulation of the avant-garde, it must remain possible that an avant-garde practice is initially unrecognizable. a recognizable avant-garde, one ready to be “discovered,” is also one whose criteria of innovation are already in place. if i find someone like zrzavý, and decide he is a potentially important artist, i am using criteria that i have learned elsewhere, and my “discovery” is really only a recognition of things i have already known, presented to me in a new combination or in an unfamiliar cultural context. this creates a contradiction that is itself formative for the inclusion of unfamiliar artists in the main trajectory. on the one hand, the prevailing rhetoric of multiculturalism and multiple modernities enjoins art historians to expand the canon; on the other hand, the only tools for achieving that expansion are themselves derived from avant-garde moments that are already part of the canon. fig. 5: kleopatra on a czech postage stamp. photograph by the author. for these reasons, when i encounter promising artists who are, by western european standards, unknown, i try to resist the temptation to represent them to the west, or to nominate them as important discoveries. the philosophic grounds of my “discoveries,” and the ideological interest that drives the “discoveries,” are both suspect. second answer: acknowledge the westernness of the avant-garde and of modernism the interest accorded to avant-garde moments is not capricious, but built into the structure of modernism itself. in other words, the main trajectory and the conversations that make it significant impel western scholars to pay attention to whatever can be taken as avant-garde. a good illustration of the dilemma this creates is the work of the japanese scholar shigemi inaga, who has written on japonisme and on japan’s reception of japonisme. he has described his feelings as a student in paris in 1987, where he saw the exhibition le japon des avant-gardes at the pompidou center.[21] he recalls that he felt “awkward” for three different reasons. first, in the west, products (usually crafts), which are not categorized as art, are excluded from the avant-garde. second, western art historians assign these elements to the “japanese tradition” so that japanese art is disallowed from participating in modernism and the avant-garde. this can be called a consistent logical violence [shyubi ikkan shita bouryokusei].  and third, the west selects those modern japanese arts which already have a similarity to the [western] avant-garde, and then searches for their japanese-ness…[22] inaga could not bring himself to accept this “perverse” [tousaku] logic in the name of “cross-cultural sociability,” but neither did he want to allow himself to simply feel “pain looking at a distorted image of my home country as a faithful patriot” might. the conjunction of two impossible positions left him uncomfortable [igogochi no warusa]: “who am i,” he asks, “talking about this gap, and where am i located?” inaga has also put the dilemma in a more elaborate form, arguing that the discomfort is actually double, with both sides compounded: the awkward relation between the excitement and guilt of telling other people about one’s culture, and the awkward alteration between superiority and guilt that comes from allowing oneself to interpret other cultures. the initial cause of inaga’s discomfort at le japon des avant-gardes was the fact that western scholarship excludes crafts from fine art, which involves excluding much of modern japanese art from the category of the avant-garde. the “violence” [bouryokusei] of the historical tradition that excludes japanese craft, and that “perversely” [tousaku] searches for japanese-ness in those remnants of the tradition that can be considered sufficiently modern—i.e., western—is irreparable. post-renaissance western thinking on art is predicated on the distinction between art and craft, whether the craft is western or non-western, so it is not possible simply to right the imbalance and begin again. the only “solution,” if it can be called that, is to foster awareness akin to inaga’s “discomfort” [warusa]. a heightened awareness of the writer’s dislocated and ambiguous position may be an optimal strategy for writing about modernism outside of the mainstream. it can be adapted to each scholar’s viewpoint, and changed as conditions change. it also has the advantage of being well attested in the literature of cultural studies, from v. s. naipaul to homi bhabha. yet it also begs the question of the relation between the standard trajectory and the material under consideration. by suspending or rejecting the judgments of modernist discourse, an approach such as inaga’s defers the “logical” clash of systems and postpones difficult questions concerning the value and place of the unfamiliar work. by the modernist logic of le japon des avant-gardes, japanese crafts simply cannot be valued in the way that modernist paintings are, and japanese avant-garde paintings, in turn, are found wanting. faced with those unacceptable conclusions, inaga is impelled to reflect on the dilemma of choice. his work is exemplary of non-western scholarship on western art, and his account is an exemplary reaction to le japon des avant-gardes, but it is an open question whether a meditation on the dilemmas of choice and judgment contributes to the understanding of modernist art. the “consistent logical violence” of modernist discourse demands that new material be evaluated, and the longer that valuation is postponed, the more artificial and elaborate such meditations become. the impetus behind inaga’s anguish can only be a belief in certain core concepts of modernism, even when he seeks to dissolve or at least complicate modernism’s harsh judgments about what is not western. it is not accidental that inaga’s own scholarship is often reticent when it comes to conclusions and claims. he is a strong observer and historiographer, and, perhaps, a weaker participant. writing about cultural dilemmas—like inaga’s meditations, like this essay—can be an optimal strategy for avoiding “logical violence,” but it defers participation and revision of the narratives it addresses. scholarship that acknowledges the westernness of the avant-garde and of modernism must still negotiate the fact that the impetus to write about modernist painting comes primarily from the west, and brings with it concepts of the avant-garde. inaga’s meditation is a pause in the search for a working answer, not—as he knows—an answer. third answer: follow the local critical tradition it may seem more appropriate to focus on the local reception of the work, rather than on the large-scale problems of its possible relations to the mainstreams of modernism. that approach seems reasonable. after all, artwork finds its meaning and significance in the context in which it is made and exhibited. the overwhelming majority of modernist paintings, those done by little-known artists, have minimal critical contexts, but when there is textual evidence associated with the work—a newspaper review, a catalogue essay—then the work has at least the elements of a local critical tradition. a newspaper review or a mention in an exhibition brochure is enough to provide the means for an art historian to understand how the work is understood in its own setting. metka krašovec is a slovenian painter who teaches at the academy of fine arts in ljubljana, slovenia. in the late 1980s she painted neoclassical faces of women, but when i saw her work in the galerija equrna in january 2003, she was represented by several surrealist landscapes.[23] one depicted a french garden, set on a height over the ocean. in the painting, two lovers stand alone next to a fountain. beyond them is an ocean, delimited by the curve of the earth. the picture has the stillness associated with de chirico’s metaphysical style, a solid functional sense of illumination as in delvaux, and the hyper-realistic crystalline detail normally exemplified for the later twentieth century by dalí. and yet, so the owner of the equrna gallery informed me, krašovec does not think of herself as a descendent of any of those painters. the owner opened a copy of the oxford history of western art, published in 2000, and turned to page 497, where krašovec’s paintings are described as “a new mannerism.”[24] that english-language reference is about the only description of krašovec’s work in a language other than slovenian, and the owner offered it as proof that a non-slovenian observer would agree that krašovec is not a principally a surrealist. the author of that section of the oxford history of western art, paul crowther, is not a historian of modern art but an aesthetician, phenomenologist, and expert on kant. he is given to idiosyncratic aesthetic judgments such as “the key artist in understanding the transition from modern to postmodern is malcolm morley.”[25] (i do not know any similar claim made on morley’s behalf: he is a photorealist with an uneven reception.)[26] crowther’s appellation, “new mannerism,” is only meant in the most informal fashion, and does not imply that the work is not indebted to surrealism. fig. 6: metka krašovec, trojno ogledalo (triple mirror), acrylic on canvas, 1992, 145x160 cm. fig. 7: metka krašovec, čas (time), acrylic on linen, 1992, 81x100cm. the owner then showed me the slovenian press clippings for krašovec’s work, which avoid the word surrealism in favor of general references to slovenian “feeling—what is in other contexts referred to as “utmetnostni dialekt” (artistic dialect). the expression was apparently first coined in the 1961 congress of slovenian art history, partly as a way of describing a difference, and a national character, without spelling out what exactly the difference or character might be.[27] in the press notices of krašovec’s work, descriptions of the work imply a kind of utmetnostni dialekt, and a non-western genealogy, without stating it in so many words. the strength of the local historical tradition is that it remains faithful to the particular constellation, the feel and detail, of the local scene. the successful reception of krašovec’s work in ljubljana depends on not dwelling too much on names such as de chirico, and also not saying too precisely what alternate influences might be. this is a common situation wherever the work itself is perceived, rightly or wrongly, to have a quality that might be damaged by too close an association with obvious and famous predecessors. the critical notices of krašovec’s work are enough to begin a history of reception, but if i were to follow these leads in her case, i would be unable to link her paintings to the western stories of art history. they would float free in their own elusive, evasive genealogy. the work would appear disconnected from the main trajectory of western modernism. such a description would preserve the work for its local context, but defer the moment when western modernism could be brought to bear. fourth answer: disregard the context and describe the work sympathetically it may seem better to leave the local historical sense of an artist to one side, and try to describe the work on its own terms. if i were to write about the historical terms according to which krašovec’s work has been understood, i still might not have an account that would make sense for a reader interested in the wider histories of art in other countries. it is dubious to insist that her practice be given a new genealogy distinct from de chirico’s metaphysical style, or that she be discussed in terms of the meanings of national style in slovenia, rather than in terms of the international practices of surrealism. although it is not my immediate concern here, it would be evasive to avoid all mention of previous styles in favor of an analysis of the galerija equrna’s place in ljubljana’s art scene, because that would avoid coming to terms with either the local or the international critical writing. so perhaps it is better to leave aside the historical settings proffered by critics and historians, and try to describe the work on its own terms. fig. 8: ivan grohar, sejalec (the sower), oil on canvas, 1907, courtesy of the national gallery of slovenia. the first-generation slovenian impressionist ivan grohar (1862–1911) is a good candidate for this fourth possibility, because the historical reception of his work within slovenia has stressed his uniqueness. he is taken as a foundation for slovenian modernism, and so his affinities with van gogh or giovanni segantini are played down in favor of an appreciation of qualities that are uniquely his—and therefore uniquely slovenian. his painting the sower (sejalec, 1907) is one of dozens of the same motif that were made throughout europe beginning with the barbizon school. it can seem that each country has its own sower, who is interpreted in terms of each country’s sense of its heritage. in austria, for example, there is albin egger-lienz’s (1868–1926) powerful the sower (der sämann, 1908). the coincidence in dates is often remarkable. in this case, egger-lienz was six years younger than grohar, and painted the sower one year later. in grohar’s case, the subject is associated with slovenian work ethic. a sower is seen less as a symbol of the country’s fertility than of the hard work necessary to make it fertile. fig. 9: vincent willem van gogh (schilder), the sower. arles, november 1888, oil on canvas, 32 cm x 40 cm, courtesy of the van gogh museum amsterdam (vincent van gogh foundation). grohar painted several canvases around the same time as the sower. another of equal importance, which hangs next to it in the narodna galerija in ljubljana, is the larch (macasen, 1904). a larch bisects the canvas, and beyond it is a view to a steep field. toward the top of the frame the field gives way to forests and there is a view of mountains beyond. the exact location of the scene has been verified by photography, and what appears to be snow on the mountains is actually characteristic whitish scree slopes. grohar cut the canvas down, and andrei smrekar, director of the narodna galerija, tells me that grohar also erased most of his native village in order to make the scene more modernist. he left a single farm building on the slope and some barely discernible houses on a hill at the top left. the result is not only flatter and more modern-looking, but also more directly about the wild country. grohar painted his name carved in the larch, placing himself in that exact spot, and the painted carving mimics the sculpted look of his paint. both are thick, pasty, and nearly wooden. like the sower, the larch is a wild subspecies of postimpressionism. the marks are dense and heavy-handed, sometimes even scrappy, like adolphe monticelli’s. in places, grohar let the raw red-brown burlap show through between patches of paint. grohar is the most important of a small group of seminal slovenian postimpressionists that also includes rihard jakopič (1869–1943), who mounted the first modernist exhibition in 1910, matei sternen (1870–1949), and matija jama (1872–1947), who was more faithful to grohar’s manner. they are understood as characteristically slovenian, and for that reason the scholarship they have attracted has not made much of their debt to non-slovenian art. jakopič in particular played an important role in defining slovenian art; he reinterpreted the region’s art as going back to the eighteenth century and was once caricatured as moses. in these last paragraphs i have paid attention to the paintings themselves, rather than their indebtedness to non-slovenian art. i have not said much about the local historiographic tradition, which stresses grohar’s nearly complete independence of segantini. (one slovenian historian told me that for grohar, segantini just “meant modernism.”) it is entirely possible to go on in this vein and write monographic treatments of artists focusing on their works. such writing exists wherever art history is a developed discipline. by focusing on what are understood as intrinsic properties of the art, this kind of writing replicates the concerns of art historians who have tried to write about western artworks on their own terms. yet there is a difference: grohar’s the sower is not a unique painting, but one of dozens like it in several european countries. a monograph on piet mondrian’s broadway boogie-woogie might be justified in keeping rather strictly to the object itself, but a monograph on grohar’s the sower would not. writing about the object itself has a significant and eventually crippling limitation: it ignores history. this fourth solution has resulted in some wonderful writing, but in comparison to art historical narratives about canonical figures, it is not history. it can be reflective and evocative, and it can propose links to all sorts of cultural events and ideas within the region or nation. however, if such writing does not investigate the painting’s link with the broader history of painting, it is not art history in a full sense. when the writing is thoroughly researched it can be significant as local history (the third option), and when it is less well researched it can work as an evocation of the art (the fourth option). whatever it is, such writing is not clearly part of the larger collection of texts that are aware of one another and of the sequences of art and ideas that comprise modernism. fifth answer: write the histories of institutions john clark’s modern asian art surveys about twelve countries, from the inception of modernism to contemporary art.[28] he is skeptical of the search for avant-gardes, and he presents his book as what i would call institutional history; he is interested in the individual occasions for the making and reception of art, and in theory he is equally interested in whether the work contributes to an avant-garde or not. in his methodological introduction, clark considers the work of the japanese painter yorozu tetsugorō (1885–1927), a prominent japanese modernist. of yorozu’s painting naked beauty (1912), clark writes: it “could be interpreted… as evidence of the vain longing to be up to date at the periphery, whose position is always constructed as dystopic by its very distance from the utopian centre.”[29] (“nude beauty”, the translation clark prefers, is probably closer to the painter’s intentions, but the museum uses the translation “naked beauty”.) fig. 10: yorozu tetsugorō, naked beauty (裸体美人), oil on canvas, 162 cm×97 cm, 1912, courtesy of national museum of modern art, tokyo. yorozu’s portrait of a woman (1910) would be similarly “positioned” by the “critique of ‘orientalism,’ which has now become orthodox in the euramerican academy… as a poor and inauthentic copy.” clark calls that kind of interpretation “orientalist” (in quotation marks, perhaps to signal that this orientalism is an illegitimate extension of the original french orientalism, which was directed at the middle east), and he wants to correct it by considering the japanese perspective. “in fact,” he continues, the painting “marks the re-situation of discourse that has already been entirely assimilated”: yorozu took what he knew, and what he needed, and put it to work in a new context. it is that new context that matters—its “local discourse needs,” its goals and meanings. clark prefers a “deliberately neutral” approach, one that “consciously stands aside from the search for what is modern or radical.”[30] a sign of this neutral attitude is that clark considers the avant-garde in just one chapter of his book, about two-thirds the way through, between chapters on the salon and on nationalism. the avant-garde, he says, is really only a modernist value, and it refers to those who are “ideologically equipped to criticize earlier positions in the discourse.” it names a certain position taken in regard to history; a position that demands innovation and seeks to understand previous ideas in a comprehensive sense.[31] because it “draws its authority from origination,” the avant-garde “becomes forced to absolutely privilege the new.”[32] these definitions make it possible for clark to analyze the modernism of tokyo around 1900, in which yorozu worked, as just a modernism among others, with an avant-garde among others—different, but potentially comparable, to avant-gardes elsewhere. “what appears derivative from a euramerican perspective,” clark concludes, “has its quite originating avant-garde function within that japanese context.”[33] there are many such formulations in modern asian art, and some detailed considerations of the level of awareness of the west that was obtained in the tokyo school of fine arts. contact between paris and the tokyo school of fine arts was exceptionally close in the first two decades of the twentieth century. the futurist manifesto was translated in 1909, and yorozu’s teacher, the modernist painter kuroda seiki (b. 1866), mentioned in 1912 that he had just been sent a recent futurist exhibition catalogue. in march 1914 there was an exhibition of der sturm prints, and albert gleizes and jean metzinger’s du cubisme (1912) was translated into japanese in 1915, just two years after the english translation. these facts contribute to the sense that yorozu and kuroda were well in control of the reception of the western avant-garde, and therefore that they should be evaluated by different criteria rather than being considered as belated post-impressionists. naked beauty was, clark says, a “deliberately provocative display of recently received post-impressionist mannerisms.” what matters for its appreciation is the contemporaneous japanese sense of certain french modernism, and the economic, political, and strategic reasons why elements of french practice were adopted. the devaluation of non-western avant-gardes, clark says, stems from “an ideological debate about authority,” and ignores “the relativizing function of the avant-garde.” for example, the appearance of der sturm prints in tokyo in 1914 “should be seen as the functioning of the avant-garde as a transcultural group in communicating among themselves.” japanese artists such as yorozu and kuroda were not derivative because they were “actors in an international movement where cultural origin provided only a context of origination not of authentication.”[34] the phenomenon of the avant-garde, together with its concept of originality, should be seen as an ideology shared by many cultures. even the concept of originality might be relative, because it might be different from one place to another.[35] just to be clear, i think three arguments are entwined here: the claim that avant-gardes are relative to their contexts, so that one may be as interesting as another; that yorozu was thoroughly familiar with the european precedents and was playing a “mannerist” game with them; and that he was part of an international avant-garde that traded ideas back and forth. i am only concerned here with the first of these. the difficulty with accounts like clark’s, i find, is that after a while they become counter-intuitive. i can read with interest about yorozu and koruda for fifteen or twenty pages, but after that it becomes increasingly difficult for me to remain engaged by their paintings. yorozu’s and koruda’s works clearly depend on simplified or impoverished versions of van gogh and other european painters, and as much as i may want to undermine that judgment, it returns insistently. it becomes difficult for me to sustain interest in yorozu’s paintings as independent works, comprehensible and viable without their western references. the work looks derivative, and so does the art scene in tokyo. clark could say that such an opinion is just a repetition of western orientalist prejudices, and that it is a consequence of the thrall of the ideology of western avant-guardism. but i wonder if the western perspective is quite so easy to discount. the art practice at the tokyo school of fine arts is certainly specific to its time and place, and i agree that it constitutes an avant-garde that is identifiably different from the one in paris in those years. but the ideological, economic, and cultural differences are not enough to prevent the work from being seen as derivative, and that will be true not only for western observers but for anyone who studies modernism in the west. i may prefer yorozu’s naked beauty to a painting by van gogh, but that does not erase yorozu’s dependence on van gogh. i may devalue the very notion of dependence as a western construction, but that does not prevent me from experiencing yorozu’s painting as dependent. i may not care about the direction of influence. if yorozu influenced van gogh, instead of the other way around, i would not particularly care—but that does not stop me from experiencing the direction of influence as part of the work’s character. clark wants to change the terms of the conversation in modernist art history so that works like naked beauty will not be devalued or ignored, but there is a severe obstacle in the way of that entirely admirable goal: the very structure of art history and modernism. there is no sense to modernism without the privileging of innovation and of the avant-garde: you cannot subtract away those terms, or claim they are relative, without dismantling the very idea of modernism. clark would like to rewrite the concept of the avant-garde so it can be sensitive to differing cultural contexts, but that cannot be done by claiming that originality is relative, or that new contexts rewrite the notion of what is innovative. the avant-garde in the non-relative sense, the sense to which clark objects, is like a vital organ. it cannot be removed without destroying modernism’s sense of itself. it seems to me that if modern asian art were to succeed in relativizing the avant-garde, it would no longer be called modern asian art, because there would no longer be any sense in writing about modernism. or, to put this another way: if clark’s strategies were effective, then art historians would be equally interested in avant-garde practices wherever they have occurred, whether it was tokyo in 1912 or samoa in 1990. (american samoa had one of the more belated modernist moments in world art.) in fact historians remain interested in the times and places where innovation—the avant-garde—was strongest, and it is no small part of clark’s interest that the people in the tokyo school of fine art were virtually neck-and-neck with european theorists. art historians are not interested in avant-gardes just because each one is economically and ideologically unique: they are interested because the work itself seems original. it enriches art history to be asked to reconsider western values, and to think about concepts such as belatedness as the conceptually narrow concern of a naïve western historiography. i find a great deal of interest in clark’s discussions of particular avant-gardes, and it is especially significant that after reading a postcolonial account, a run-of-the-mill western text may well seem unreflective. i just do not think it is as easy as clark supposes to rethink concepts such as originality and innovation, to redefine ideas such as dependence and influence, or to relativize ideas like the avant-garde. it is not enough to stress local historical situations, because that only defers the moment when it is necessary to come to terms with the fact that the work is dependent on western models. if i subtract concepts like “belated” and “dependent,” and try to redefine the avant-garde as an “international movement,” then i end up with a maimed concept of modernism. the full game of art history is significantly more challenging. it requires me to be sensitive to the unique characteristics of the tokyo school of fine arts around 1900, and it certainly asks me to be understanding and sympathetic with paintings like naked beauty, but it also reminds me that yorozu’s paintings cannot compete with van gogh’s. in theory, in a scholarly world where socioeconomic differences are what matters, and not specifically art, yorozu’s painting could certainly be understood to be just as interesting as van gogh’s. but that world does not yet exist, and the proof is very simple: clark’s modern asian art is a work of western art history, shot through with western postcolonial theory, western protocols for the writing and research of art history, western interpretive methods, and a very western concern with modernism. to imagine otherwise, as clark does, is invigorating but unpersuasive. sixth answer: define the work per negationem i showed an outline version of these first five solutions to the slovenian scholar tomaž brejc, who teaches art history and theory at the academy in ljubljana. he proposed a sixth answer, taking as an example the slovenian painter rihard jakopič (1869–1943). how, brejc asked me, should i write about this painter, who is one of the seminal figures of slovenian modernism? take for example memories (1912) in the narodna galerija, which hangs one room away from grohar’s the larch and the sower. the painting is certainly indebted to intimist work, but it is not mistakable for a vuillard. in a broad sense, it is impressionist, and that is the way jakopič is usually identified in slovenian art criticism (and, for that matter, on the 100 tolar banknote issued in 1992). yet jakopič is not an impressionist in the way that monet or even sisley are, nor is he very close to german or hungarian impressionists. brejc has written a book on slovenian modernism, and he told me he has long wrestled with this problem. in the end, he favors to specify the artist by saying what he is not. this definition per negationem, as he calls it, has the virtue of being very faithful to whatever the painting at hand actually is. memories is not vuillard, monet, early nolde, or early schmidt-rottluff, or any number of others. jakopič was never a fauve, even though he used complementary contrasts in his painting. something in memories builds from the slovenian reception of signac, and later there was also the influence of kandinsky. it is possible to work through the possible antecedents and say, in each case, what jakopič was not. i am impressed by brejc’s application of this method, which seems to me ideally sensitive to the often unnamable differences between painters and their prototypes. brejc’s book, unfortunately not translated from the slovenian, could be exemplary in that regard. yet, i also wonder if the definition per negationem is not compelled to depend, at every point, on existing western descriptions. without the existing literature on the fauves, for example, it would not be possible to make sense of the claim that jakopič adopted fauve’s color practice but not their other concerns. brejc’s via negativa is promising, but i do not think it can be a model for the description of non-western work. seventh answer: adjust the stress several times, when discussing this problem with friends and colleagues, it has been suggested to me that the question is not so much one of theory, but of emphasis. place less stress on western painters, people say, and the problem will eventually be ameliorated or solved. if the plurality of art historians in all countries spent more time on lesser-known artists, then the burden of art history’s emphasis would shift and finally the margins would become a new center. in effect, my friends have told me that the problem is only a question of the privilege that has historically been given to canonical western modernists, and that the next generations of art historians can solve it passively, by refusing to contribute to the growing mass of scholarship on the major figures. one way of paying attention differently would be to give up the metaphor of the family tree of modernism, where the sturdy trunk is western european and north american modernism. the metaphor of rhizomes, made popular by gilles deleuze, might be a substitute. rhizomes, according to deleuze, proliferate in all directions, so that there is no preferred direction or central node. deleuze’s metaphor is not quite accurate because rhizomes are offshoots of root processes, so no matter how tangled they are, they lead into a large central plant. still, the many modernist practices that flourished throughout the world in the first half of the twentieth century could be pictured as rhizomes, distantly or indirectly connected to the massive central core of modernism in western europe. a better model might be mycelia, the vegetative bodies of fungi, because they are truly without a center. they branch and divide through the soil with no pattern whatsoever, and they grow from spores that might be scattered anywhere. a mycelial model of modernism would let each local center be as important as every other center, and there would be no central body—no equivalent, in this fungal metaphor, of the mushroom. it is worth considering the options seriously. a rhizomatic model, in which a cloud of tiny randomly oriented shoots surrounds a central stalk, is a fairly good way of picturing the situation in the first three decades of the twentieth century. it reflects the fact that artists on the margins did not always imagine their relation to the center as if they were branches of a tree, but in more complicated ways. it also does justice to the fact that artists in the center—for example picasso working in paris in the 1910s—knew of the existence of many modernisms, even if they might not have had a clear understanding of some of them. from picasso’s perspective, the many offshoots of modern art must have appeared as a halo or cloud of minor interests. the difference in weight is also well modelled by the rhizome theory, a massive and compact art scene in the west, and a widely dispersed but lightweight system of interrelated art scenes elsewhere. the mycelium model, on the other hand, replaces the center in the name of equality, and posits a world filled with labyrinthine connections to equally weighted centers. it models the situation within some regions, but it is not an accurate model when it comes to the influence of the main trajectory. there could be many more models, as many as there are ways of paying attention to different art practices. i mention the rhizome and mycelium metaphors because they capture two major alternatives. all such options, i think, are ultimately unrealistic. it is idealistic to say that the problem of the overbearing influence of the west can be mitigated by paying more attention to the margins. the overwhelming influence of the center, or centers, was a historical fact over much of the twentieth century, and in order to overcome it, more will be required than just shifting the emphasis. even if art historians decided, on a worldwide basis, to stop writing about picasso and matisse, the presence of those artists in art historical discourse would still inform future accounts of other artists. that is the root-level problem that is not solved by paying attention differently. i have often found myself fascinated by artists i discover for the first time, and as i study them, their works become richer and loom in my imagination. i was introduced to fujita tsuguharu (1886–1968) by clark’s account; he was an artist with very divided loyalties, and his works seem to reflect that fact. he graduated from the tokyo school of fine arts in 1910, and went to paris. he was back in japan during the china war in 1938, working as a war artist. during the war in the pacific he was back in paris; and even though he was barred from exhibiting there after the war, he eventually became a citizen in 1955. clark makes some sensitive observations on fujita’s dour graduation self-portrait of 1910, wondering if his “domineering downward-looking stance” might mean he already has begun to “disown” his culture. clark wonders about the white background in a self-portrait done in paris in 1926: is this “the past turned to nothing, or is it the nothingness of the past that the (parisian) world he inhabits cannot recognise except in the elaborate play of brushwork?”[36] often tsuguharu seems to avoid the question, making popular and middle-brow decorative pictures for the parisian and japanese art markets. but those markets fluctuated over the years, and his own sense of them was apparently just as variable. it is seldom clear, in fujita’s works, where his alliances and affinities lie, and that makes his work a good subject for a study on identity and its relation to painted signs. it makes him grow in my imagination, until he seems a better indicator of those ideas than any french artist living in paris in those same years. and yet i know that behind those questions are the expectations and norms against which fujita measures himself—the 1910 self-portrait is a species of late western academic painting, and its hauteur works in that context; the 1926 painting is a light concoction of klee, dufy, and matisse, and its virtuoso line and airy white emptiness are expressive on account of those particular precedents. in other words, paying attention differently is rewarding and historically specific, but it defers the question of wider connections. eighth answer: just give up what to do? some kinds of painting are especially far removed from the discourses of modernism, for example the debased landscapes offered to tourists on montmartre, or paintings of jungles and coral reefs on the walls of shopping malls. such work probably cannot be well described in the language of modernism or serious art history. it needs to be appreciated differently—“on its own terms,” as people say—and the whole project of historical writing should probably be set to one side. it could be argued that such work is not only a major component of the sum total of modernist painting, but the majority of all painting done in the last century. an interesting place to think about this is the leopold museum in vienna. because it is the result of rudolf leopold’s personal sense of austrian modernism, and because the display space is extensive, it raises sharp questions about what can, what might be, and what should not be recuperated for the history of twentieth-century painting. the collection includes major painters, essential in any account of modernism, among them gustav klimt, egon schiele, oskar kokoschka, and lovis corinth. the collection also includes work by followers, who figure in accounts of austrian modernism: for example, koloman moser (1868–1918), a more decoratively-minded member of the secession, and anton kolig (1886–1950), a member of the movement called carinthian kolorismus. but among them, leopold has hung painters whose contribution to european, and even austrian, modernism is dubious. in the winter of 2003, gustav hessing (1909–1981) was prominently displayed, but his loose adaptations of cubism are unconvincing, and his long career only seems to make that point over and over again. josef dobrowskyi (1889–1964) is represented by several dark, overwrought adaptations of breughel, a painter whose work has long been an important presence in the nearby vienna kunsthistorisches museum. but dobrowsky’s paintings, even as a record of the historical reception of breughel, are not very interesting. another such artist is leopold blauensteiner (1880–1947); he was an extremely literal-minded pointillist who preferred his dots in neat rows as if they had been painted with an inked comb. fig. 11: gustav hessing, landschaft (landscape), gouache on paper, 23,8 cm x 38 cm, 1980, courtesy of the leopold museum, vienna. in one room leopold has hung a series of flower paintings, including one by egge sturm-skrila (1894–1943), another by anton faistauer (1887–1930), and a third by anton kolig (1886–1950), which shows evidence that kolig was looking at matisse. the pictures are modernist, but in parts also indifferent to modernism, as if they were answers to the question: if you like flowers, and you are a modernist in austria in the 1930s, how can you paint? together with schiele, faistauer and kolig comprised the short-lived neukunstgruppe, and that is enough to ensure their presence in art history. sturm-skrila is a more obscure painter. the canvases in the leopold museum are grouped, however, as flower paintings, making the difference less visible. each of them is lovely. they have a particular solidity that i take as an echo of courbet, an important progenitor for expressionism. they also share a rich crimson that is typical of the decade in much of central european modernist painting; it occurs again in the carinthian kolorismus painters. kolig taught in the wiener akademie along with josef dobrowsky, who also painted flowers, and one of their students was karl josef gunsam (1900–1972) who also painted modernist flower arrangements. but if i go on like this, i am only distracting myself. these paintings do not belong in art history: they belong to the private moments i have on my way from one historical encounter to another. these paintings take themselves out of history, they are a hiatus from thinking about vienna, or about austria’s contribution to modernism, and i imagine that may have been leopold’s intention. the private enjoyment of flower paintings is not at all a poor thing. anyone who loves painting knows that it very often works by producing just such incommunicable feelings that seem detached from historical meaning. i forget myself in front of sturm-skrila’s mediocre bouquet, and then i remember myself in the next gallery. that lull in cognitive intensity, that aesthetic encounter, that lapse into subjective space—call it whatever you like—is utterly central to what some modernist painting is about. i do not want to parody it, devalue it, or criticize it at all. but it is not relevant to the problem at hand, which is the production of historical meaning. if i give up trying to write a historical account of yorozu, grohar, and the others, then my task does not necessarily become simpler: i am still faced with the challenge of trying to put my personal reaction into words. but my task is different, and it no longer has to do with the problems i am pursuing. an insidious and tremendously difficult question lurks here. it makes sense not to consider sturm-skrila, faistauer, kolig, dobrowsky, and gunsam in terms of the history of modernism, to exclude them from the essential canons of the history of art. their flower paintings are simply not necessary for a serious consideration of modernism. it would be artificial to try to find a place for their flower paintings in a history of twentieth-century painting. if i did so, i would be misusing the paintings and misunderstanding their intended public. but if i exclude those paintings, where do i stop? can i then say flower painting as a whole is not part of twentieth-century painting? on what grounds? are there not ambitious and important flower paintings by matisse, nolde, mondrian, picasso, bonnard, and lucian freud? weren’t the pop appropriations by warhol, tom wesselman, alex katz, and wayne thiebaud made possible by the earlier history of modernist still life paintings? and should we not doubt any attempt to exclude flower paintings, because after all their low value is a leftover from the baroque hierarchies of genres? once i begin to exclude certain paintings and types of paintings, there is no way to know how to stop. if a single painting can somehow be granted exemption from being considered historically, then all paintings can be. my simple judgment that sturm-skrila is not appropriate for a historical account raises questions that are lodged deep within the discipline. afterword there is no simple solution to the problem of writing art historical accounts of the world’s modernist painting. we should take heart from that, because if there were a single answer, it would mean there are no significant differences between painting made in different regions or countries and that all modernist painting was a massive world-wide project, something akin to modern physics, and therefore suitable to a single explanatory model. happily, that is not true. but the lack of a single answer should also be regarded as a serious challenge. if we do not continue to work on this problem, then paintings made in smaller countries, marginal places, and neglected regions, will be lost to the international dialogue on art history. their voices will grow even fainter, and the trumpeting of the picassos and pollocks will get stronger each year. the larger book project, of which this article is part, will pursue two different approaches: first, it will consider a number of case studies in more depth, bringing the requisite historical details and context that are necessarily missing here. i agree entirely with scholars such as iftikhar dadi (author of a recent book on pakistani modernism) that what tim clark calls the “matter,” the historical particularities of any art, is crucial for any plausible account.[37] i hope my schematism here has not made the theoretical possibilities less persuasive. secondly, the book will explore the current theorizing on types, locations or streams of modernism. a growing body of scholarly writing addresses the idea that there have been multiple modernisms. from the point of view of this project, these texts are sometimes problematic. when the subject is modernism in relation to international contemporary art, then there is less of a problem for the subject pursued here, because varying manifestations of modernisms in contemporary practice can be studied together: an echo of paraguayan modernism in a contemporary paraguayan installation piece, for example, does not require a discussion of the relation of paraguayan modernism and other modernisms. terry smith’s new work on contemporaneities is a good case in point. the overlapping senses of temporality and art practice that he observers are not mutually incompatible; none of them contains claims of precedence over others, or seeks to exclude others.[38] but where the subject is modernist practices before the rise of international postmodern or contemporary art, i.e. during the decades in which modernist practices were more or less isolated from one another—the mid-century decades that produced most of the work i have considered in this essay—then scholarship that proposes multiple modernisms is, i think, more problematic. work by andrea huyssen and others on multiple modernisms runs the risk of omitting modernism’s claims on universality.[39] it is entirely possible to rewrite the history of twentieth-century painting in a more inclusive manner, welcoming regional and national practices, and speaking of multiple modernisms, but that inclusivity comes at a high price. it entails the omission, the erasure, or the bracketing of modernism’s claims to universality. the abovementioned book art since 1900 has good reasons for its nearly exclusive focus on north america and western europe: they lie in the self-description of the artists and critics. more inclusive, multicultural or multiple accounts, in which modernisms proliferate and co-exist in a world that is newly, or belatedly, acknowledged to be international, play false with the sense that the avant-garde normally had of itself. it is a trade-off, and there is no easy solution. i only wish to signal the fact that the work of writing about modern art is harder than postcolonial theory, and accounts of multiple modernisms, sometimes wish to make it. i will end with descriptions of two projects, one just completed and another underway. the first is the book art and globalization, just out at the time of writing (autumn 2010).[40] at the moment, it is the most comprehensive international attempt to gather the pertinent literature in art history, postcolonial studies, and political theory, to understand what it means to say that art has become, or is becoming, global. the contributors bring a wide number of references to bear on the problem, and end, without reaching a consensus, on the problem of bridging the socio-economic analyses of postcolonial theory with the value-based, often aesthetic concerns of art history. i think that art and globalization makes it clear that there is in fact a profound difference of discourses between the two sides, and that they have not, so far, produced a new synthesis or even a useful dialectic. that difficult fact has often been obscured by the euphoria of the contemporary art world and by the thousands of individual essays on particular cultural contexts, which can make it seem as if the world is slowly being attended to, moment by moment, artist by artist, and that there is no need to be concerned about the compatibility of different accounts. the second project is one i am working on: a response to art since 1900. that book has been controversial since its launch (more accurately, multiple launches), and it has become a commonplace in art history to complain about it. the criticism is often aimed at the consolidation of the concerns of the writers who are identified, more or less, with north american poststructuralist art criticism. despite the four authors’ sometimes wide and candidly voiced differences, they all belong to the critical field exemplified by the journal october (it may be described, roughly, as students of rosalind krauss, students of her students, other authors associated with the journal, scholars whose work is informed by accounts in and around october, texte zur kunst, and some other journals); their model has become dominant in north american and western european academia. i do not think it is an exaggeration to say that any person presenting himor herself for a position as a modernist art historian at a major university in western europe or north america will be expected to be somewhere within the field of influence that centers on october. this is rarely articulated because it is so difficult to put fairly. art historians at north american and western european universities who specialize in twentieth-century art speak from a very wide range of perspectives, and have divergent interests. but it remains true that in the principal institutions all are indebted to the october model. the october model, as it is embodied in art since 1900, relies on a narrow and by now predictable canon of artists and artworks: duchamp, some picasso, pollock, surrealist photography, early experimental film, conceptual art, minimalism, and perhaps a dozen others. the list of artists and movements of interest is also recognizable by what it excludes, even within north america and western europe: neoexpressionism (vilified in one page in art since 1900), francis bacon (several of the authors of art since 1900 do not consider him a major figural artist of the postwar period), the school of paris (entirely omitted from art since 1900), and many others. in research universities in the united states, art since 1900 is currently the de facto undergraduate textbook. along with several other scholars, i am working on a response to it so as to provide a book that is inclusive, both within the areas of north america and western europe, and also outside of them. currently, students of twentieth-century art have two choices: either they focus on the canonical stories of modernism, as exemplified by art since 1900; alternatively they study multiple modernisms, in which case they either face some of the issues i have tried to sketch in this essay, otherwise they move, in some degree, from art history to postcolonial studies or other social and economic interpretations. it is not easy to see how to construct a book that will augment and complement art since 1900 and at the same time remain of compelling interest to art historians interested in the canonical narratives and locations of modernism. but it is an important project, with consequences for the next generations of historians. i am as puzzled about this as anyone, and i would be happy to hear from readers with further ideas. [1] this essay is a draft for a chapter of a work in progress called the project of painting: 1900–2000. a first sketch was published under “writing about modernist painting outside western europe and north america” in compression vs. expression: containing the world’s art, ed. john onians (new haven: yale university press, 2006), 188–214. this version offers an afterword that considers the place of this kind of inquiry in the growing field of global art history. [2] see, james elkins, master narratives and their discontents. with an introduction by anna arnar. theories of modernism and postmodernism in the visual arts, vol. 1. (cork: university college cork press, 2005). [3] that difference is explored in art and globalization, the stone theory seminars, vol. 1, james elkins, zhivka valiavicharska and alice kim (eds.), (university park: penn state press, 2010). [4] see milan ivelic and gaspar galaz, chile: art actual (valparaiso, chile: ediciones universitarias de valparaiso, 1988), 27–60; also 1900–1950: modelo y representación, ed. milan ivelic (santiago de chile: museo nacional de bellas artes, 2000). i thank ivelic, then director of the museo nacional de bellas artes in santiago de chile, for this information. [5] hal foster, rosalind krauss, yve-alain bois, benjamin buchloh, art since 1900: modernism, antimodernism and postmodernism (london: thames & hudson, 2005) [6] in this regard see the excellent review by pepe karmel, art in america 93, no. 10 (november 2005): 61, 63, 65, 67. [7] this figure is an estimate extrapolated from the number of galleries in melbourne in 2003 (over twenty) and the number in alice springs in 1998 (thirty-three). for the latter figure see howard morphy, aboriginal art (london: phaidon, 1998). [8] in the enormous literature see, fred myers, painting culture: the making of an aboriginal high art (durham: duke university press, 2002). i thank nigel lendon, howard morphy, terry smith, and charles green for advice on this section. [9] i thank terry smith for pointing out this framing problem. [10] the citizenship resulted only in increased hardship. [11] morphy, aboriginal art, 22. [12] quoted in morphy, aboriginal art, 272. [13] “when albert started exhibiting some critics labeled him as a copyist. they said he was mimicking a western style. what they were trying to say was that his works were un-aboriginal. this statement has no credibility. the critics were blinded by their western ideals. what they couldn’t realize was that behind these works was an aboriginal mind, every brush stroke was influenced by a tribal way of thinking….” christopher hunter, “the critics,” accessed july 25, 2003, www.hermannsburgschool.com/index.html. [14] morphy, aboriginal art, 22. [15] ibid., 272. [16] ian burn and ann stephen, “namatjira’s white mask: a political interpretation,” in the heritage of namatjira, ed. jane hardy, vincent megaw, and ruth megaw (port melbourne: william heinemann australia, 1992), 249–282. [17] for more on the modernist uses of australian landscape watercolors, see graham coulter-smith’s account of imant tillers’s appropriations. tillers’s works, unlike namatjira’s, have an unambiguous and readily identifiable take on their originals. graham coulter-smith, the postmodern art of imants tillers: appropriation en abyme, 1971–2001 (london: paul holberton publishing, 2002). [18] this is the case, for example, with those passages in steven mansbach’s modern art in eastern europe: from the baltic to the balkans, ca. 1890–1939 (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1999) that are concerned with the disclosure of significantly avant-garde moments in eastern european painting. this is, however, only one of three concerns of mansbach’s book. for a full discussion see my review of steven mansbach, modern art in eastern europe, in the art bulletin 82, no. 4 (2000): 781–785; and “response [to anthony alofsin’s letter regarding the review of mansbach’s modern art in eastern europe],” art bulletin 84, no. 3 (2002): 539. [19] dušan brozman, [untitled essay,] štefan bartušek prukner (banská bystrica, 1996), 13. [20] karel srp, jan zrzavý (prague: academia, 2003); i thank karel srp for the gift of this book. [21] le japon des avant-gardes ran from 1986 to 1987. [22] inaga shigemi, “la peinture moderne en occident et son extérieur,” in kaiga no tôhô: orientarizumu kara japonisumu (l’orient de la peinture: de l’orientalisme au japonisme).  (nagoya: nagoyadaigaku syuppankai, 1999), 2–3.  [23] for the older work: metka krasovec’s works on netgallery-slovenia, accessed november 17, 2010, http://yellow3.eunet.si/yellowpage/netgalle/kraswork.html. [24] paul crowther, “postmodernism,” in oxford history of western art, ed. martin kemp (new york: oxford university press, 2000), 497. crowther’s books include critical aesthetics and postmodernism (new york: oxford university press, 1993). [25] crowther, critical aesthetics, 159, 187. [26] for samples see artcyclopedia, accessed november 9, 2010, http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/morley_malcolm.html. [27] i thank nadja zgonik for this information. [28] john clark, modern asian art (honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 1998). [29] ibid., 17. [30] ibid., 217. [31] ibid., 219. [32] ibid., 222. [33] ibid., 225. [34] ibid., 225. [35] “the avant-garde becomes forced to absolutely privilege the new when it draws its authority from originality,” he writes: but how could any avant-garde be understood apart from a privileging of originality? clark, modern asian art, 222. [36] ibid., 231. [37] see iftikhar dadi, modernism and the art of muslim south asia (chapel hill: university of north carolina press, 2010); and dadi’s review of partha mitter’s triumph of modernism: india’s artists and the avant-garde, 1922–1947 in art bulletin 90, no. 4 (december 2008): 652–654. [38] see, for example, terry smith, “contemporary art and contemporaneity,” critical inquiry 32, no. 4 (summer 2006): 681–707; terry smith, what is contemporary art? (chicago: university of chicago press, 2009). [39] see, for example, andreas huyssen, “modernism at large,” in modernism, ed. astradur eysteinsson and vivian liska (amsterdam: john benjamins publishing, 2007), 53–66. [40] elkins, art and globalization. 3.2018_front matter.indd 4 editorial note editorial note this issue of transcultural studies opens with a study of interventionist art at urban sites in the heart of post-apartheid johannesburg. fiona siegenthaler examines the role of artists as agents in the public spaces of a transforming city, as they resist, contest, or end up complicit in its gentrification. the article describes two different approaches adopted by artists as they engage with projects of urban revitalization: while the artist ismail farouk developed new trolleys to campaign for the rights of informal entrepreneurs, the artist duo the trinity session worked with the city of johannesburg to refurbish parks and develop a program of site-specific art in densely populated inner-city neighborhoods. the work of art in this study emerges as something ongoing, a definition that shifts from a finished product to an intervention. the use of public space and the sites chosen to challenge the image of the city as a site of urban decay has the effect of broadening the audience to include those who may not be regular gallery visitors. yet the position of artists in a gentrifying city, siegenthaler argues, remains caught in the ambivalent nature of their sociality as politically engaged actors, as well as residents and consumers of the same urbanity. though at first glance this would appear to be a local story, it unfolds against the backdrop of complex transformatory processes that mark the transition from a “european-style” city to an “african” one, signaling the importance of locality to a transcultural investigation. further, siegenthaler’s study builds on a distinction that separates the art it examines from that which circulates globally under the label “african contemporary art.” in doing so, such work wrestles with established notions of whom a work of art is expected to “please,” who has the right to assess it, and how we measure its efficacy. the often unpredictable forms of artistic production that we encounter in this story of engaging with the city have been described by the author as ending in a form of capitulation to, or complicity with, the forces of neoliberal gentrification they had set out to oppose, leaving us with the question: could this very failure succeed in pushing the concept of art further? what does such intervention make visible, not only in the urban locale, but also in the art world beyond? the second contribution moves from the exploration of urban art to the transcultural histories of politics and law. egas moniz bandeira reconstructs a pivotal moment in the global history of constitutional thinking in the first decade of the twentieth century. within five years, four major eurasian powers, russia, persia, and the ottoman and qing empires, drafted constitutional documents in a roughly simultaneous effort 5transcultural studies 2017.2 to align their polities with an emerging international consensus on the indispensable elements of modern statehood. focusing on the tumultuous process that led to the presentation of the first and ultimately futile drafts of a qing constitution in the years leading up to the fall of the dynasty in 1911, the author draws attention to the interconnected nature of the global wave of constitutional movements. his careful analysis, which draws on published sources and archival materials in eight languages, challenges two conventional assumptions that continue to inform simplistic accounts of an exclusively western origin of the modern world order. in their attempt to craft a charter suited to meet the specific needs of the vast qing empire, he shows that chinese scholars and officials looked not only to the euro-american “centers” of constitutional thought or their japanese outpost. rather, their insights were formed in a dialogue with thinkers in other so called “peripheral” states, such as russia, persia, and ottoman turkey, who wrestled with problems much more similar to their own than those addressed by the western models that their blueprints allegedly mimicked. instead of a unidirectional transfer from the west to the rest, the history of constitutional thinking as recounted here thus reveals a complex network of multidirectional linkages that punctures the plausibility of diffusionist paradigms. these latter assumptions often entail a second tacit assumption that moniz bandeira’s study invites us to question: namely, the general temporal precedence of euro-american developments. to be sure, many tenets of the modern world order found their earliest expressions in europe and north america or the territories dominated by western powers. but this does not imply that every aspect we have come to identify as essential to the modern world system was conceived and implemented there first, in splendid isolation, and only then transferred, with inevitable delays, to regions struggling to catch up. the “constitutional moment” captured in moniz bandeira’s essay suggests a more complicated chronology that acknowledges the more or less simultaneous contributions by actors and societies from around the world through which this system was eventually stabilized. the two concluding studies focus on an aspect of the early east asian treaty port system that has attracted little attention: the firms and places at the margins that failed in their efforts to exploit the new options. takahiro yamamoto delves into the local archive of the port town arita on kyushu island in southern japan, which to this day is a center of porcelain production. what he found allowed him to reconstruct the forgotten efforts of the tashiroya company to establish itself in japanese and chinese treaty ports and do global business with porcelain products in places as far apart as new york, seoul, and singapore, until it was 6 editorial note brought down by japanese competitors and market fluctuation. steven ivings describes hakodate, a fishing village in japan’s far north, which had been made a treaty port because of its fine natural harbor and had even been the capital of a short-lived “ezo republic.” he shows how it never attracted the local and international entrepreneurial talent that made places like shanghai or yokohama into such regional and global hubs of trade, finance, and media, but drew only rough whaling crews and a few frustrated consuls. even for such micro-historical studies, there are formidable challenges to exploring the connections that tie local actors to layers of state and international diplomacy on the institutional side, to developments and actors in far away places with their own records in other languages, and to ideas and concepts that have become widely shared across languages. these two superbly sourced papers call for further explorations with different methodologies and, hopefully, cooperation from different fields. what makes a shop in arita, which is not even a treaty port, imagining itself as a trading and even manufacturing company with dependencies across different treaty ports and beyond? what does the reliance on family members to manage these dependencies say about the tashiroya family’s (lack of) trust in legal institutions in other treaty ports or states to secure its rights? what were the models for japanese bureaucrats and diplomats in acting as facilitators and protectors of japanese trade in shanghai or korea? how does one integrate the study of a single business with that of the international market in which it operates? what role do the productive, cultural, and financial resources of the hinterland, rather than the safety of the harbor from storms, play in the fate of a treaty port such as hakodate? how does one define the locale of a treaty port? are the successful ones among them primarily part of the geographical and political entity where they are situated, or primarily part of a network of treaty ports and other international hubs with which they share a substantial degree of independence from the government? to what degree did the east asian treaty ports offer an attractive level field for entrepreneurs from east asia, even though extraterritoriality privileged the westerners? would the hanseatic league be a good model to think about these ports? even the most enclosed locale and local activity is inextricably linked to transcultural exchanges. starting out from this assumption rather than from the often staunchly defended identity and authenticity of the local remains the real methodological and practical challenge of transcultural studies. monica juneja, joachim kurtz, and rudolf g. wagner editor’s note | transcultural studies editor’s note this issue comes out a few days after the german funding agencies announced their decision to extend the life of the heidelberg cluster—now retooled as “asia and europe in a global context: the dynamics of transculturality”—for another five years. this is good news for the growing field of transcultural studies. it also places a big burden and responsibility on the shoulders of the scholars working in this group to make the best of this unique chance. transcultural studies will strive to attract and present—together with contributions from other researchers in this field—some choice studies from the cluster’s harvest. recent months have seen a lively discussion in academic circles and the press about the heavy financial burden that subscriptions to scholarly journals pose on universities. this has, as in the case of the harvard faculty of arts and sciences, been accompanied by appeals to publish scholarly results in open-access formats. many young scholars especially in the humanities, however, are concerned that most academic bodies making decisions on hiring, promotion, or tenure have yet to shed their set opinion that things not printed on paper are somehow “lightweight,” even if, as is the case with transcultural studies, the electronic journal features as strong a peer-review process as any respectable printed journal. this is where senior scholars can make a difference by deciding to embrace this format and actively contribute to establishing professionally run and academically vetted open-access journals as accepted venues for top-quality publications. from my personal experience i can say that the technical options offered by this medium and the reactions to my piece on “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening’” in ts 2011.1 has been most gratifying. within days, i had readers’ reactions, some suggesting further supporting evidence, others taking issue with the translation in a footnote, and still others writing that they were using it for their teaching. a chinese translation was started within weeks and two parts of it have now been published. not least among the gratifications was the information that several thousand people had opened the file and the majority of them had downloaded it. it is my hope that this experience will encourage others. we have a steadily growing readership not least due to our recent inclusion into the lists and indices of various e-content aggregators and directories such as ebsco and doaj. this issue opens with philipp stockhammer’s study of the transcultural appropriation of mycaenean pottery in a new environment in the southern levant. through this shift of context, the complex interaction between the agency of the pottery forms and the humans fitting them to their uses leaves traces on the pottery shards themselves which can serve as silent evidence for the underlying dynamics. stockhammer therefore takes the evidence from his case study to critically probe the ability of different recent archaeological approaches to account for these dynamics, especially the agency of objects and their role as actants that prompt actions of humans. we hope this is the beginning of a discussion that others will join. the study by derya bayır and prakash shah nicely inverts the european focus on turkish immigrants by asking how british settlers in turkey adjust to their new legal environment. based on both the legal stipulations and interviews with british settlers and their turkish neighbors, the article explores to what degree the capacity of the nation state is undermined by the messy transcultural mix of rights, assumed entitlements, and prejudice in law enforcement. the series on multi-centred modernisms assembled by monica juneja and franziska koch continues with two contributions. shukla sawant, an artist and academic, draws our attention to vibrant collectives of artists in the indian city of bangalore whose experiments have yet to find a place in mainstream narratives of modernism, which still privilege canonical perspectives that have come to stand for the nation. sawant brings to light untold stories of a movement the precedents of which go back to colonial times: engaged, collaborative art practices are seen as a gesture of opposition and re-humanization. these artists’ collectives seek to restore social bonds by transcending the instrumentality of the market and by rejecting object-based contemporary art as being consumerist. the commitment which, according to sawant, energizes this work suggests a renewal of the avant-garde's blurring of the line between art and life. stray references to the links between early modernist artists from india and expressionism point to an uncharted field of study, where hidden tracks cutting across the nation, the colony, and the metropolis need to be recovered, though many might be lost due to a significant, if often deliberate, lack of documentation. the second contribution to the series, a talk by christine guth, is an experiment that goes back to the interactive format of the lecture series. we feature here a podcast of guth’s lecture of may 31, 2010, “the multi-centred modernities of hokusai’s ‘under the wave off kanagawa’,” in which she explores the conflicting scholarly ascriptions wherein japanese ukiyo-e prints were cited as examples of “modernity” in the context of edo urban culture and at the same time viewed as “traditional” in their role as precursors of western modernism. a response by daniel shapiro, a young art historian and musicologist who participated in the seminar, is in the works and will be posted shortly under the comment section. we will study your reactions to this format to see whether it should be further pursued. rudolf g. wagner images, knowledge, and empire | lai | transcultural studies images, knowledge and empire: depicting cassowaries in the qing court lai yu-chih, academia sinica, taiwan translated by philip hand originally published in chinese under the title “tuxiang, zhishi yu diguo: qinggong de shihuoji tuhui 圖像, 知識與帝國：清宮的食火雞圖繪,” the national palace museum research quarterly, 29:2 (2011). introduction: where the new qing history meets art history the new qing history studies have been one of the most widely noticed and fruitful developments in the last decade or so of chinese historical research.[1] the qing was previously seen as an extension of chinese dynastic rule, but the new qing history studies stress that despite being the ruling house of china, the dynasty was established and led by the manchus. the importance of research into “sinicisation” is greatly deemphasised; in its place is a focus on the difference of manchu rule.[2] examples include the martial culture of the qing and their policies toward the border regions of tibet, mongolia, and central asia. of particular interest is the fast expansion of the qing empire, which nearly tripled its territory in one short century (1660–1760). on this basis, the writers of the new qing history have raised a challenge to the description of the qing in traditional historical writing as a closed, stagnant victim of western imperialism. from the perspective of comparative and global history, they have drawn comparisons between the qing and other modern empires such as the russian, the british, and the ottoman. they have attempted to argue that the dynasty, particularly the high qing, was an expansionist colonial empire in the modern sense.[3] in other words, the expansion and rule of the qing is intimately connected with the global history of the eighteenth century. it is a world historical event, and thus has implications for global history. however, the new qing history has not been entirely without its critics. in particular, as so many of the new qing historians have relocated the qing period from the “late imperial” to the “early modern,” one of the key issues for research is the “modernity” of the qing empire, and how it contributed to the formation of a globalised world. the concept of a “modern empire” signifies more than armed conquest and territorial expansion. it also involves the levels of administration and symbolism: how the empire was understood, perceived, and investigated in a relatively “scientific” way. are the similarities or parallels between the qing and other early modern empires just a coincidence? or is it indeed one more node linked into a global network of interconnections? did the qing really play a role in the formation of the modern, globalised world? in the first major work of the new history, a translucent mirror: history and identity in qing imperial ideology, pamela kyle crossley discusses how qing “emperorship” evolved away from its earliest central asian model as the qing territory expanded and their subject peoples became more diverse. by the eighteenth century, qianlong had developed a “simultaneous emperorship” that encompassed and transcended all cultures and ideologies. like louis xiv, qianlong styled himself a universal monarch, ruler of multiple worlds.[4] crossley lists many interesting details to illustrate this point: the use of male and female figures to represent each nation or ethnicity in the huang qing zhixian tu 皇清職貢圖 (illustrated tributaries of the qing empire) was an import from europe; qing “cabinets of many treasures (duobao ge 多寶格)” seem to be a reflection of european “curiosity cabinets.”[5] however, the sources for many of these arguments are not given, and this is one of the criticisms that the book has faced.[6] even more fervent discussion has followed laura hostetler’s qing colonial enterprise: ethnography and cartography in early modern china. that book attracted at least ten reviews, and the criticisms raised reveal the level of scepticism faced by the new qing historians.[7] using the examples of qing map-making and the production of the miao man tuce 苗蠻圖冊 (miao albums), hostetler attempts to show that the close linkage between imperial expansion and the development of ethnography and modern cartography is not a phenomenon that is limited to early modern (1500–1800) europe; and that the qing’s use of new maps and ethnography show that it was not merely a part of the early modern world, but acutely aware of its position in the global order, and actively pursuing technologies and knowledge that could contribute to the construction of empire. many scholars agree with hostetler’s attempt to place cartography and ethnography in the context of the often-ignored exchanges of technology between china and europe, but there are also a significant number of authors who question exactly what the links between chinese and european technology are. for example, c. patterson giersch suggests in his review that the link with europe is clear for the new qing maps, but not so for chinese ethnography.[8] and both l. j. newby and mark c. elliott wonder, if visual representation or ethnographic description and depiction were important parts of the qing colonial enterprise, why there are no ethnographic works other than the miao albums?[9] were there no similar works outside of the miao albums? how should we link the qing court with europe, and how does the qing empire fit into the global order? the qing court, and qianlong’s court in particular, produced many pictures of the tributes and gifts of precious objects and animals that flowed to the court from all over the world. more importantly, many illustrated cyclopaedias were created. as well as the illustrated tributaries of the qing empire discussed by crossley, there are the encyclopaedic niao pu 鳥譜 (album of birds)[10], the zoological shou pu 獸譜 (album of beasts)[11], and the jiachan jianxin 嘉產薦馨 (fine produce and excellent flavours)[12] detailing the plants found around the old capital of mukden (shenyang). these works are very different to the traditional leishu (book by category) encyclopaedias that had been compiled before: the compilation process involved first-hand accounts and the dispatching of court and local officials to gather information. these were significant innovations. the scepticism of historians towards hostetler’s research, and hostetler’s failure to answer the question of exactly what form the exchange between china and europe took, reflect the partitioning of disciplines in modern academic practice. historians are increasingly directing their attention towards images and what they tell us about the construction of empire, and cultural exchanges; but limitations in their knowledge and analysis of images mean that historians’ expositions are often somewhat piecemeal. on the other side of the partition, art historians’ work on the qing court and its interest in introducing european elements is often stuck on the level of stylistic analysis. it contents itself with ascribing influence on a painter’s work to an abstract “west.” in fact, the resources and limitations of history and art history are complementary for a research trying to determine exactly how different cultures relate to each other. within the discipline of art history, there is a strand of research dedicated to western styles found in qing court art; but its relevance to other areas of research has never been explored. if this research is re-examined in the context of global history, and integrated with work on cultural history, trade history, environmental history, and history of technology, then we may achieve a more dynamic picture of the qing court and its relationship with the outside world. with this objective in mind, this essay discusses a series of qing court paintings of birds labelled emo birds. it demonstrates that the birds are in fact cassowaries, a creature which was much celebrated during the european age of discovery. attached to those images is a text by the qianlong emperor, yuzhi emo niao tuji 御製額摩鳥圖記 (imperial inscription for the picture of emo birds). i give a close reading of this text and trace its european source material, referred to in the text as a “western book,” a work of natural history commissioned by the king of folangji 佛朗機 (france, see below). from this starting point, i explore a number of questions. how did images and information from the european voyages of discovery come to the qing court? why was qianlong so interested in this bird? what exactly was the “western book” from which qianlong’s knowledge of cassowaries came? these apparently disparate and inconsequential questions take us from the qing court to the land of galaba (indonesia, see below) where the emo birds lived, and on to folangji or france, qianlong’s source of information. in the process, the links amongst these distant regions gradually emerge. if we can trace all of these linkages, we can shine a light on a small thread which knits into the larger cloth of global history. it is worth mentioning that this small thread is in some ways representative of global flows of information in this period of history. the paintings of cassowaries in the qing palace are not an isolated example: it was common during the qing to paint exotic tribute creatures in a western-influenced style.[13] european historians have also made some important findings in recent years on how images of rhinos, cassowaries, and even exotic plants circulated in europe the time of the renaissance through to the age of discovery.[14] this european research discusses how flora and fauna from the new world came to europe, and how they were understood, interpreted, imagined, and collected by european elites; and it has also revealed how these exotic findings and the depiction of nature are inextricably linked with the representation of empire.[15] images and representations of exotic fauna are not simply of zoological interest; they are an important artefact in cultural history. they reveal modes of cultural influence, acceptance, and transfer; and they lead into complex issues in the construction of empire, representation of power, and regimes of knowledge.[16] the paintings of the emo bird in the court of qianlong are part of a dialogue with the cassowary, a new world animal newly discovered and imagined by europe. by examining the texts of qianlong, we can gain insight into how qianlong understood new world animals as interpreted and imagined by “the west.” more precisely, we can compare images and texts of the emo bird in at the qing court with their european source materials to gain a clearer understanding of how europe constructed and imagined the new world; and how these images of the new world came to the qing court from europe; and how the qing court received and transformed them. this essay is divided into six sections, with an introduction and conclusion. the first four sections discuss the literature and the texts themselves; the final two sections address the images. the first section reconstructs a series of texts and images about the emo bird created at the qing court. for this, i rely mainly on the zaobanchu gezuo chengzuo huoji qing dang 造辦處各作成作活計清檔 (archives of the workshop of the imperial household department) (the archives), a daily record of the work carried out in each of the court workshops. these disjointed records of processes and pieces give us a window on the complexity of the creation of paintings in the qing workshops. court painting cannot be adequately described by the traditional artist-centred approach to art history; and the relationship of a finished picture to its subject is not captured by a simple dichotomy of “accurate life-drawing” or not. court records allow us to see how a single work goes through a series of distinct editing processes as it passes from craftsman to craftsman and from one space to another. each of these craftsmen works on the painting within their own function, and as the image evolves, its meaning changes. an image created this way thus contains the potential for multiple meanings. section two introduces a textual analysis of the emperor’s writings. i find evidence that the bird referred to as emo is in fact the celebrated cassowary, and that qianlong’s inscription is in fact made up of translated extracts from an anatomical report published between 1671–1676 by claude perrault (1613–1688), a member of the french royal academy of sciences. a comparison of the documents shows how the inscription rewrites and restructures its european source, and what this rewriting means in the context of qianlong’s court. section three places qianlong’s source text in the context of european writing on cassowaries, and discusses its position in the history of science in europe. section four returns to the qing court, and addresses why qianlong selected perrault’s texts out of the many european writings on the cassowary. which natural history books from europe were available to the qing court? and how did qianlong’s selection and editing of european texts create a dialogue with his european counterparts? the first four sections together demonstrate the european origins and the scope of these imperial texts. however, the question remains of how qianlong saw the images that accompany the texts. to address this issue, sections five and six discuss the images, focusing on the two extant images of emo birds: the last two pages of the album of birds, and yang dazhang’s 楊大章 scroll emo niao tu 額摩鳥圖 (emo birds). the addition of the cassowary to the album of birds supported qianlong’s effort to construct a comprehensive reference work encompassing universal knowledge; and this is closely connected to the “western” nature of the emo bird text and image. but there are multiple levels of meaning to qing paintings of emo birds, and yang dazhang’s emo birds reflects another level these images. the final section of this essay locates this painting within the tradition of chinese paintings of auspicious signs. i examine how qianlong created a new narrative of auspicious signs using the imported emo bird texts and the fashionable, western-fusion illusionistic style of painting. by carefully uncovering the details of this specific historical moment, this essay seeks to demonstrate that the court of qianlong had a certain level of understanding of the knowledge and images created in the european age of discovery. the qing court was fully engaged in the flow of global history, and was adept at adapting and integrating european knowledge into its own context, drawing it into a dialogue with the propositions of chinese tradition. painting and writing emo birds in the qing court beginning in the second half of the fourth lunar month of the year qianlong 39 (1774), the qing court began the production of a series of images of emo birds and the compilation of accompanying texts. the emperor himself started this project with an imperial poem. qianlong’s imperial texts are yong emo niao shiyun 詠額摩鳥十韻 (ten rhymes on the emo bird) (below, ten rhymes) and the imperial inscription for the picture of emo birds (below, inscription), both written at approximately the same time. judging from their placement in yuzhi shiji 御製詩集 (collected imperial poetry), they were completed between the 18th and 20th of the 4th month, 1774.[17] qianlong’s emo bird texts were later compiled in the “kunchong caomu lue” 昆蟲草木略 (flora and fauna) volume of the huangchao tongzhi皇朝通志 (comprehensive history of the empire) completed in 1787. the extant pictures of emo birds are the yang dazhang scroll emo birds (fig. 1), now kept in the national palace museum in taipei; and leaves 31–32 of the 12th volume of the album of birds (fig.2), now kept in the palace museum in beijing. both pictures include both the ten rhymes and the inscription texts. these two paintings were not the only images of emo birds produced by the qing court. qianlong seems to have been very interested in this creature, and commanded the production of at least four images of emo birds: one wall painting, album leaf and two hanging scrolls. fig. 1: yang dazhang 楊大章, emo niao tu 額摩鳥圖 (emo birds). scroll, colour, on paper. 149.8 x 101cm. national palace museum, taipei. fig. 2: yu sheng 余省 and zhang weibang 張為邦. album of birds. vol. 12, leaves 31 & 32. 1774. album leaves, colour on silk. 41.1 x 44.1cm. national palace museum, taipei. the following is a reconstruction of the production of emo bird paintings by the court workshops. the most important evidence comes from the archives. in the archives, the first mentions of paintings of emo birds are found on the 16th of the 4th, 1774. the lead painter was the jesuit ignaz sichelbarth (1709–1780, chinese name 艾啟蒙) of bohemia (modern czech republic):[18] received an assignment book from degui, gentleman of the interior, containing an imperial order transmitted on the 16th day of the 4th month by the eunuch hu shijie. artists ignaz sichelbarth and fang cong are to paint an emo bird on white silk as refined as the peacock painted by giuseppe castiglione for xiuqing village. when complete it is to be hung on the west wall of the east hall of the sunset glory sunset glory building. by order of the emperor.[19]接得郎中德魁押帖一件，內開四月十六日太監胡世傑傳旨，著艾啟蒙、方琮用白絹畫額麼鳥一幅，其細緻仿照秀清村、郎世寧孔雀畫一樣，得時貼染霞樓東邊殿內西墻，欽此。 there is a very close coincidence of timing between the imperial writing of the 18th–20th of the 4th, and the order to ignaz sichelbarth for a painting of an emo bird on the 16th. this picture is therefore probably the first painting of an emo bird done at the qing court. the painting was done by ignaz sichelbarth and fang cong on white silk; qianlong also ordered them to make it as detailed and refined as the painting peacock (孔雀畫) done by giuseppe castiglione for xiuqing village (in the gardens of perfect brightness, now known as the old summer palace), and indicated that the painting would be hung on the west wall of the east hall of the sunset glory building (染霞樓). there are two possibilities for the peacock mentioned: qianlong viewing a peacock spreading its tail (乾隆觀孔雀開屏圖), a wall painting now stored in the palace museum in beijing (fig. 3) or the hanging scroll peacocks spreading their tails (孔雀開屏圖) by giuseppe castiglione, stored in the national palace museum in taipei (fig. 4).[20] both the beijing and taipei paintings show two peacocks which were born of birds presented in the annual tribute from hami (哈密). they mark the moment that the chicks grow to maturity and are able to spread their fans in display.[21] fig. 3: giuseppe castiglione et al. qianlong guan kongque kaiping tu 乾隆觀孔雀開屏圖 (qianlong viewing a peacock spreading its tail). tieluo (wall painting). 1758. colour on paper. 340 x 537cm. palace museum, beijing. fig. 4: giuseppe castiglione. kongque kaiping tu 孔雀開屏圖 (peacock spreading its fan). 1758. hanging scroll. colour on silk. 328 x 282cm. national palace museum, taipei. just as the peacock was painted for a building in the garden of perfect brightness, the emo bird wall painting was to be hung in the sunset glory building. this building is one of the highlights of the garden of peaceful ripples (安瀾園) in the garden of perfect brightness.[22] two months after the command issued on the 16th of the 4th, we find a note in the archives on the 27th of the 6th: four pages of “emo bird images and text” (額摩鳥圖說), completed on the 22nd of the 6th, had been added to the album of birds.[23] this is consistent with a note in the shiqu baoji xubian 石渠寶笈續編 (sequel to precious book box of the stone drain), which says that at the end of the 12th volume of the album of birds were “emo birds added in qianlong 39 [1774].”[24] the last two leaves of volume 12 describe the emo bird. the first leaf has a painting of the emo bird on the right hand side, and the inscription on the left. the second leaf contains qianlong’s ten rhymes in both chinese and manchu translation. these four pages match the “four pages of images and text” (圖說四張) described in the archives. the painting of emo birds that qianlong had ordered from sichelbarth on the 16th of the 4th was not completed until the 22nd of the 9th. the archives states: 22nd, storehouse managers side and wude and clerk fuqing came to report: eunuch hu shijie delivered a large painting of emo birds on silk (for garden of peaceful ripples), 12 western paintings on silk (for the back of nine-screens peak in the lower part of star anise building at harmonic pleasures), two paintings of festivals on rice paper by yao wenhan (for palace of double glory). imperial order to western paintings and one yao wenhan painting mounted on paper; other yao wenhan painting to be mounted with silk brocade border and jade decorations and to be hung for chinese new year. by order of the emperor.[25] 二十二日庫掌四德五德筆帖式福慶來說，太監胡世傑交絹畫額摩鳥大畫一張（安瀾園），絹畫西洋畫十二張（諧奇趣西八方樓下九屏峯背面），宣紙姚文瀚節畫二張（重華宮），傳旨將絹畫西洋畫並姚文瀚節畫一張，俱托貼，其餘姚文瀚畫一張，配錦邊璧子，年節掛，欽此。 the archives does not indicate the artist of the “large painting of emo birds on silk” delivered by hu shijie, but there is a note in smaller characters saying that it is for the garden of peaceful ripples. this is the location of the sunset glory building, where qianlong indicated that ignaz sichelbarth’s painting would hang, so it is likely that this large painting was indeed the same one that was ordered from sichelbarth and fang cong on the 16th of the 4th. to this date, there is no record of the painting emo birds by yang dazhang. however, there is more information to come on sichelbarth’s work. on the 14th of the 11th, qianlong 41 (1776), qianlong sent an order to sichelbarth to paint a version of the emo birds in the garden of peaceful ripples for mounting as a hanging scroll. the archives records: 21st, assignment book received from tu aming, gentleman of the interior, containing imperial order transmitted on on the 14th by the eunuch rong shitai, artist ignaz sichelbarth to produce one painting of each of the following: black ape; monkey; mountain cat; sleeping tiger. artist fang cong to draw the background. ape, monkey, cat & tiger to be procured from the palace menagerie. by order of the emperor. order transmitted on this day by the eunuch chang ning, artist ignaz sichelbarth to produce one copy of the emo birds painting in the garden of peaceful ripples for mounting as a hanging scroll. by order of the emperor: 17th, ignaz sichelbarth delivered five paper sketches of black ape, monkey, mountain cat, sleeping tiger, emo bird to be presented to the throne. the emperor ordered the picture of the tiger to be lengthened by 5 inches, broadened by 2 inches, artist yang dazhang to paint a chinese parasol tree, with plenty of flowers on the ground; the painting of the black ape to be lengthened by 1 foot, broadened by 5 inches; artist fang cong to paint trees &rocks on the paintings of the black ape, monkey, mountain cat, emo bird; artist yang dazhang to complete their backgrounds and flowers. by order of the emperor.[26] 二十一日，接得郎中圖明阿押帖，內開十四日太監榮世泰傳旨，著艾啟蒙將黑猿、猴兒、山貓、睡虎各畫一張，著方琮佈景，其猿猴貓虎向養生處要，欽此。 於本日太監常寧傳旨，著艾啟蒙照安瀾園現貼的額摩鳥畫一張，裱掛軸，欽此。 於十七日，艾啟蒙起得黑猿、猴兒、山貓、睡虎、額摩鳥紙稿五張呈覽，奉旨睡虎高添五寸，寬添二寸，著楊大章畫梧桐樹，地景多畫些花卉，黑猿高一尺，寬五寸，黑猿、猴兒、山貓、額摩鳥樹石俱著方琮畫，其他地景並花卉，亦著楊大章畫，欽此。 this entry for the 21st of the 11th says that on the 14th, qianlong ordered sichelbarth to paint a black ape, monkey, mountain cat and a sleeping tiger, and on the same day commissioned him to repaint the emo birds in the garden of peaceful ripples for a hanging scroll. as with the painting of the original, qianlong indicated that sichelbarth should work with fang cong. this record notes particularly that sichelbarth may obtain models for his drawing from the imperial menagerie (養生處, most likely a variant of 養牲處). the guo chao gong shi 國朝宮史 (history of the imperial house and court) records that the menagerie had one director and three eunuchs attached to it. it was responsible for “rearing and keeping livestock, fowl and beasts” (専司畜養禽獸坐更等事).[27] we see that when sichelbarth drew his images of apes, monkeys, cats and tigers, he was able to draw from life. qianlong did not order sichelbarth to obtain an emo bird from the menagerie, perhaps because he had a drawing to work from, and perhaps because the menagerie no longer had the bird. three days later, on the 17th of the 11th, sichelbarth had completed his five drawings. the orders from qianlong give rather precise instructions on changes to the size of the images, and also detail exactly who was to fill in the backgrounds: yang dazhang was to put a chinese parasol tree and flowers in the painting of the sleeping tiger, while fang cong was responsible for the backdrop. this record is the first time we see yang dazhang’s name linked to a painting of an emo bird; in this case, he was responsible only for painting the ground and flowers. this order took about ten months to complete. sichelbarth submitted three paintings on the 22nd of the 9th the following year, 1777: the mountain cat, the tiger and the monkey. about three weeks later, on the 13th of the 10th, he delivered the emo bird and the black ape.[28] there is a note that these paintings were on rice paper, unlike the emo birds in the garden of peaceful ripples, which is on silk. the paper emo birds was then worked on by the other artists for about a month. on the 28th of the 11th, the five complete, mounted scrolls were delivered to the palace for enlightenment on good fortune to be packaged in cases.[29] there is then a break in records mentioning sichelbarth and emo birds. it is not until the 11th month of qianlong 47 (1782) that the archives mentions emo birds again: assignment book received on the 7th from baocheng, gentleman of the interior. dong wujing, staff supervisor, delivered on the 19th of the 10th one upper inscription of imperial poem ten rhymes on the emo bird written by the emperor, and one lower inscription written by liang guozhi. deliver to palace for enlightening on good fortune. when yang dazhang’s one hanging scroll of an emo bird is complete, upper and lower inscriptions to be added to the painting. by order of the emperor.[30] 初七日接得郎中保成押帖，內開十月十九日首領董五經交御筆額摩鳥詠十韻詩堂字一張，梁國治寫下詩堂一張，傳旨交啟祥宮，俟楊大章畫得額摩鳥裱掛軸，安詩堂，欽此。 on the 19th of the 10th, nearly five years after the last reference to sichelbarth and his emo birds, the palace for enlightening on good fortune received a copy of the emperor’s writing of ten rhymes on the emo bird and an inscription written by liang guozhi, and was instructed to await a painting of emo birds from yang dazhang, mounting it as a hanging scroll and attaching the inscriptions. this is the exact arrangement that we find on the extant yang dazhang painting emo birds, so we can assume that the work referred to here in the archives is in fact the emo birds by yang dazhang, held in the national palace museum in taipei.[31] in conclusion, the production of paintings of emo birds probably began with qianlong’s writing the ten rhymes and inscription between the 18th and 20th of the 4th, 1774. a few days earlier, ignaz sichelbarth had been ordered to produce a large painting on silk, for installation in the sunset glory building in the garden of peaceful ripples. this painting was completed on the 22nd of the 9th, and during the intervening six months, four pages on emo birds were completed for inclusion in the album of birds (22nd of the 6th). two years later, on the 14th of the 11th, 1776, qianlong ordered sichelbarth to copy his own painting in the garden of peaceful ripples onto paper for mounting as a hanging scroll. this scroll was completed, with its mounting, on the 28th of the 11th, 1777. yang dazhang’s emo birds appears five years later, with a record of instructions for its mounting on the 19th of the 10th, 1782. the actual painting must have been done around this time. this work is recorded in the sequel to precious book box of the stone drain as being in the “emperor’s library” (御書房), so we can be sure that it had been hung or stored in qianlong’s collection by the date of this work (1791).[32] thus the narrative we see emerging is qianlong writing an imperial poem on emo birds in 1774, then commissioning the production of four images: one wall painting, one album leaf, and two hanging scrolls. it was not uncommon for multiple paintings of the same theme to be created in the qing court,[33] but the relatively large number of works and the level of detailed instruction from the emperor that went into the emo bird paintings are unmatched. in particular, nowhere else do we find qianlong quoting and translating as he does here from “images and writing on the emo bird by westerners” (西洋人所記〈額摩鳥圖說〉). it raises the question: what exactly are these emo birds? why was qianlong so interested in them? and what was the western text which qianlong quoted and translated? qianlong’s emo bird texts: structure and european sources to determine exactly what kind of a bird this was, and its relationship with qianlong, the most direct approach is first to read qianlong’s own writing on the subject, the ten rhymes and the inscription. the ten rhymes tells us that the bird comes from gabala, but that it is rare even there; it was brought to china on the boats of foreigners; and qianlong ordered pictures to be made. the poem says that the people of folangji know about this bird, and have written much about it. an annotation to the text in the version in collected imperial poetry says that the folangji work “records the appearance and the anatomy of this bird in great detail” (載此鳥形質及其臟腑，系說甚詳),[34] and points out that the book was “commissioned by the king of folangji, and subsequently conveyed here” (佛朗機亞國王所命圖，以流傳者也).[35] the poem goes on to describe the habits and appearance of the emo bird. the final passage begins with: “despite having no wings, it has arrived here; does it not have some purpose?” (訝成無翼至，曾匪有心干). qianlong wonders if the coming of a flightless bird to china might not have some deeper meaning. he then proceeds to compare the emo bird with the shile bird (世樂鳥) (bird of worldly happiness) (fig. 5), a mythical bird which is described in the san cai tu hui 三才圖會 (collected illustrations of the three realms) as symbolising peace and plenty. he finds the birds to be similar in appearance because of the emo bird’s crest. however, he thinks that there is no record of the emo bird in ancient literature, and it cannot reproduce in china, so he calls it an unexplainable oddity. though he ends with this apparent dismissal, there are numerous subtleties in his discussion in the last passage. this text will be discussed in more detail below. fig. 5: shile niao 世樂鳥 (bird of worldly happiness). from collected illustrations of the three realms, 2158. the galaba referred to in the poem is probably the same as the “kalaba” (咖喇吧國) found in the illustrated tributaries painted by xie sui in the national palace museum in taipei. the country is described thus: “kalaba, formerly java, colonised by the netherlands, many chinese traders here” (咖喇吧，本爪哇故土，為荷蘭兼併，華人貿易者多流聚於此).[36] kalaba was also written variously as kelaba (噶喇吧) and keliuba (噶留巴). it is a transliteration of the indonesian “kalapa,” which was the name of what is now jakarta. it is therefore fair to assume that galaba refers to indonesia, as it is called today.[37] however, the meaning of folangji is harder to determine. historians have determined that the folangji referred to in the ming shi 明史 (ming history) is portugal.[38] however, in the illustrated tributaries, it is used interchangeably with falanxi, which is more likely to be france.[39] and there are many indications that discussions in the mid-qing of folangji and falanxi often confuse the two countries.[40] therefore we cannot be certain whether the folangji referred to in the poem is portugal or france. further evidence is needed. the poem, simply put, describes that the bird comes from the area that is modern indonesia; that it was brought by ship to china, and that qianlong did not only command pictures to be made of it, he read a book about it made by the french or portuguese. so what was this “western book” that qianlong had seen? the ten rhymes includes the line “[these birds] gathered on great red island, [the western book] contains both pictures and text” (大紅海島攢，具圖還具說). attached to this line is an annotation in the version in collected imperial poetry which reads: “westerners have an illustrated book which describes this bird’s appearance and anatomy in great detail. the king of folangji ordered the creation and circulation of the book, which reads as follows.” (西洋人有圖冊，載此鳥形質及其臟腑，系說甚詳，即佛朗機國王所命圖，以流傳者也，圖說附錄於後). what follows in the text is the inscription, so we may assume that the inscription is in fact extracts from this western book. to give a brief summary of the inscription: first it discusses the records of the bird. emo birds are not recorded in the literature of the west stretching back to antiquity. only in 1597, wanli 25 in the ming dynasty, did the red hairs (i.e. the dutch) find this bird in indonesia, and take it back to the west. six years later, the dutch again caught two emo birds, but were unable to keep them alive in captivity. in kangxi 10, 1671, the chief of the island of sheng laolengzuo (勝老楞佐海島) bought one from an indian vessel, and gave it to the king of folangji. this emo bird survived for four years, and the king ordered his artists to paint it. the paintings subsequently circulated throughout the world. so where exactly is the island of sheng laolengzuo? it appears in giulio aleni’s zhifang waiji 職方外紀 (record of what is beyond the tributaries), published in the late ming dynasty. contemporary researchers believe that it is a transliteration of san laurenzo, which is an old name for madagascar.[41] next, the inscription goes on to describe the appearance of the bird. the emo bird was about five feet, five inches tall. its head was green, the neck jade, and it had a hard crest. under its crop it had two red-purple wattles. its eyes were similar to a lion’s, and bright like diamonds. the tongue extended into the throat. the winds are short, with five large feathers, black like a bear. the legs are like those of a goose, three toed, with strong claws. the description, and the pictures in the album of birds and yang dazhang’s emo birds, suggests that the emo is the cassowary (fig. 6), a large flightless bird similar to the african ostrich, the south american rhea and the australian emu. this bird was only named cassowary in later literature. until the middle of the eighteenth century, it was referred to by europeans using the indonesian word emeu,[42] and that is why qianlong claims in the inscription that “this bird is named emo in galaba,” (此鳥在嘎拉巴名額摩) and used this name in his writings. but what was the western book that qianlong used? a reading of the european writings on the subject of the cassowary indicates that the best fit for qianlong’s text is a collection of reports on animal anatomy published by claude perrault (1613–1688) between 1671 and 1676. perrault was a french architect, anatomist and natural historian.[43] as an architect, perrault is best known for beating the italian gian lorenzo bernini (1598–1680) in the competition to design a new wing of the louvre for louis xiv. the eastern face of the new wing is known as perrault’s colonnade (built between 1667–1670), and is one of the defining works of french classical architecture. as a natural historian, perrault’s major achievement was to introduce anatomy to the study of animals. previous natural historians had concentrated on describing only their external features. perrault was at the forefront of comparative anatomy, examining the organs and internal structures of animals.[44] in his position as a member of the royal academy of sciences, he regularly dissected dead animals from louis xiv’s zoo. he collected his anatomical reports on birds, reptiles, and mammals in a two volume work named mémoires pour servir à l’histoire naturelle des animaux. the first volume contains 34 reports, the second 16. report no. 30 in volume one consists of observations on what he calls a “casoar”: a cassowary. it includes anatomical drawings (fig. 7).[45] the book was included in volume three of mémoires de l’académie royale des sciences, published by the royal academy. this volume consists primarily of reports written by academicians between 1666 and 1699. perrault’s report says that the “casoar” was obtained in 1671 by the governor of madagascar from the east indies, and was later presented to the king of france, the “sun king” louis xiv (1638–1715). louis kept it in the zoo at versailles,[46] but it lived only four years (1671–1675); after its death, perrault dissected it. fig. 6: three cassowaries variants. 1. southern cassowary, casuarius casuarius. 2. dwarf cassowary, casuarius bennetti. 3. northern cassowary/single-wattled cassowary. in josep del hoyo, andrew elliott, jordi sargatal et al., handbook of the birds of the world, plate 3. fig. 7: from académie royale des sciences ed., mémoires de l’académie royale des sciences, vol. tom 3 part 2 (1666–1699), ii partie, pl 56, pag 155 & pl 57, page 156. all of the details in the european records above are consistent with what qianlong writes in the inscription: the first capture of an emo bird by the dutch in 1597; the death of two others while being transported to europe six years later; and most importantly, the giving of the cassowary that perrault would later dissect to the king of france in 1671, and its surviving four years in versailles. a direct comparison of the texts (appendix 1) shows that the text qianlong translated was a part of perrault’s anatomical report. in fact, qianlong’s information about the european history of cassowaries—the passage from the beginning of the essay to “it died after four years” (蓄之四年死)—is a word for word translation of the first paragraph of perrault’s report. thus, it is clear that the folangji referred to in the inscription is not the same as the folangji in ming dynasty literature—portugal. instead, it must be falanxi, france. the king who ordered the drawings of the cassowary is therefore louis xiv. galaba is most likely the island of java. following the background information, perrault’s description of the cassowary begins with its external appearance: height, length of neck, limbs, wings; shape and dimensions of the head, beak, eyes, nostrils, wattles, chest, and legs; etc. the description is exhaustive, and mixed into the text are perrault’s comments on the work of past anatomists: charles de l’écluse (also known as l’escluse or carolus clusius, 1526–1609) of flanders, the most important natural historian of the sixteenth century; and the italian aristocrat ulisse aldrovandi (1522–1605). next, perrault describes the internal organs of the cassowary, including their size, functions, and the relationships between the organs. he covers the oesophagus, the crop, appendix, pyloric sphincter, intestines, liver, spleen, pancreas, kidneys, testes, lungs, heart, tongue, eyes, etc. the observations are comprehensive and exhaustive. they include references to previous research on cassowaries, and comparisons with other birds. most importantly, in perrault’s descriptions of the bird’s organs, he takes pains to note how the organs interacted. for example, he is most proud of having discovered two muscles which control the lungs, which he believes explain the process of breathing. he thought that this discovery would have been much more difficult in a bird of smaller volume. another point of pride for perrault is his explanation of the function of the cassowary’s inner eyelid. he infers that it stops the bird’s corneas drying out. regardless of whether perrault’s conclusions are correct, his reports demonstrate his efforts to go beyond mere description and to use dissection and anatomy to discover the mechanisms of life. so it is interesting to see that qianlong’s inscription limits itself to excerpts from perrault’s account of the history of the cassowary and its external appearance. despite the note in the ten rhymes that the western book “records the appearance and the anatomy of this bird in great detail,” qianlong appears to have been uninterested in perrault’s descriptions of anatomical structures and biological functions. but the inscription does offer a relatively full and faithful translation of the sections which deal with the bird’s history and its appearance. for example, from the phrase “the king ordered his artists to prepare careful drawings of it” (國王命工詳圖其狀) to the section on the emo bird’s dimensions and appearance, the inscription is a close to word-for-word translation of perrault’s text (see comparison in appendix 1). the bird’s height, “five foot and a half” is translated to “髙五尺五寸” (height of five chi and five cun); “the head and neck were a foot and a half together” becomes “自頂至頸一尺五寸” (from neck to head one chi five cun). where the perrault text speaks of half a foot, the inscription converts it to “five cun.” it also translates “it was covered with a crest three inches high” as “冠高三寸” (height of the crest three cun). almost every phrase in the inscription can be traced to a corresponding sentence in perrault’s text. however, it significantly simplifies perrault’s description. for example, perrault’s account of the bird’s colouration is highly complex, but the inscription offers only “the head is green, the neck jade; the place where it adjoins the body and the wattle are purple-red” (頭綠頸翠，其連背處下及嗉皆紅紫色). moreover, the initial phrase, “head is green, the neck jade,” is a formulaic phrase that better describes common chinese waterfowl like mandarin ducks than it does the cassowary. the inscription also adapts the perrault text in several small ways. for example, perrault compares the cassowary to the ostrich several times, and in each case the inscription replaces that comparison with the crane, a more common chinese bird. that is why we find the phrases “凥形如鶴” (tail like the crane) and “似鶴脛” (lower legs like the crane), which do not appear in the perrault text. some small differences may be attributable to the inevitable additions and losses of translation or to misunderstanding of the text. but the most puzzling discrepancy between the texts occurs in the last section, describing observations of the cassowary’s behaviour. this section does not seem to correspond to anything in perrault’s text at all: “very tame in character; when you stroke it, it leans against you.” (性極馴，以手撫之，輙依人而立), followed by. “must raise its head to swallow. cannot take grain with its tongue because the tongue is in its throat.” (飲啄必仰首而吞。蓋以舌在喉間，不能舐取耳). most striking is that the last two lines of the inscription, concerning the cassowary’s diet, are not only not found in the source, they are at odds with the opinions of both perrault and the text of clusius to which he referred. the inscription claims, “will eat anything, but its usual diet is vegetables and grain. it also likes to eat fish” (與以諸物皆就食，而常飼則惟蔬穀，亦愛食魚), while perrault says that it feeds mainly on pulses and bread,[47] and clusius claims its diet to be floury foods or bread.[48] in fact, perrault makes a particular note that “this animal...feeds not on flesh,” quite the opposite of the claim in the inscription. this change, from pulses and bread to vegetables, grain and fish, is unlikely to be simply an artefact of translation. it is not a shade of meaning, but a complete reversal, a replacement of bread, which was unknown in china, with vegetables, grain and fish. the only possible explanation is that this information came not from the european source text, but from first-hand experience of rearing the cassowary in the qing court. structurally, the first section of inscription, up to “it died after four years” (蓄之四年死), and the section about the history of cassowaries in europe, are a sentence by sentence translation of the first paragraph of perrault’s report. the second paragraph of perrault’s report begins with clusius’s account that the bird is called “eme” in india. he goes on to explain that he does not know why the bird is called a “casuel” or “gasuel” in france; then says that among birds, its size and weight are second only to the ostrich; then mentions the four cassowaries previously brought to europe and described by clusius, and that his report concerns the fifth cassowary to be brought to europe. this entire section is omitted by the inscription, which has only a single sentence covering the name issue: “this bird is named emo in gabala; in folangji it is named gesuer” (此鳥在嘠拉巴名額摩，在佛朗機名格素爾). this sentence appears almost at the end of the inscription, followed only by the section on the bird’s temperament, which, as noted above, i believe to be an addition based on observations in china, not a translation. the second paragraph of perrault’s report goes on to describe the size of the bird: height, length of leg, length of neck, thumb, etc., ending with a discussion of the cassowary’s almost vestigial wings. the third paragraph of the report discusses the distinctive features of the cassowary’s plumage. it then devotes one paragraph to each organ or part of its body: neck, wings, head, beak, eyes, colouration on either side of the head, wattle below the neck, chest, thighs; then moves onto a description of the oesophagus and other internal organs. after its translation of the first paragraph, about the history of the bird, the inscription skips over perrault’s discussion of clusius, and most of the second and third paragraphs. it includes only the information on the bird’s size, then moves directly to a condensed version of perrault’s description of the bird’s appearance in the fourth part. this concludes with the description of the cassowary’s leg from the twelfth paragraph. the inscription ignores the subsequent discussion of the internal organs, and significantly alters the order of the information about the bird’s appearance. perrault sees the cassowary’s “double” feathers as being an important feature of this species, and devotes a considerable amount of text to their description. he also places this passage on feathers near the beginning of the description of the bird’s organs, just after the section on its head. however, the inscription follows a roughly top-to-bottom order in its description, and omits passages with names that chinese readers would not know, such as clusius and aldrovandi. the structure of the inscription is therefore as follows. first, it translates perrault’s opening on the history of the cassowary; a revised version of perrault’s description of its appearance; but alters the structure and order of the text so it no longer reflects perrault’s consideration of features distinctive to the species. names which would be meaningless in chinese have been deleted; perrault’s conjectures about the cassowary’s name have been replaced by a single apparently authoritative statement, which is placed at the end of the text, where it functions much like the conclusion that one would expect to find in a chinese essay. finally, some observations made at the qing court are tacked onto the end of the translation. to summarise: qianlong’s imperial poem ten rhymes begins with the arrival of the emo bird; then describes the knowledge that the people of folangji have of the bird, its appearance and behaviour; and finally marvels that a flightless bird could come to china, and compares it with the mythical “bird of worldly happiness” from the collected illustrations of the three realms. the inscription translates extracts from an anatomical report by perrault, detailing the discovery of the cassowary by europeans and its external appearance, adding a little first-hand experience from the rearing of a cassowary at the qing court. it is worth noting that there were in fact already existing chinese records of the cassowary and its cultivation. there are records dating back to the han dynasty (206 bce–220 ce) of a great walking fowl from the seleucid empire (條支國) and the parthian empire (安息國) known as a daque (大雀). from the northern wei dynasty (467–499 ce) through the tang (618–907) and yuan dynasties (1271–1368) there were reports of tuoniao (鴕鳥) (in modern chinese, this word refers to ostriches). in the ming dynasty (1368–1644), tribute from southeast asia included tuoji (駝雞) and huoji (火雞). researchers believe that tuoji were probably ostriches, and huoji may have been cassowaries.[49] had the distinction been drawn between ostriches and cassowaries? the answer to this question is not clear. tuoniao, tuoji, and huoji had become general terms for large birds delivered in tribute. but it is interesting to note that qianlong chose to jettison this tradition and use instead a transliteration of the word found in the european literature, “emeu.” this suggests that he was interested in borrowing the european tradition to frame the production of texts, images and meaning around this bird in the qing court. this choice means that the cassowary links the qing court to the intellectual traditions of europe, and to the european voyages of discovery and the rearing of cassowaries by european royalty (particularly the king of folangji). to better understand the texts which qianlong used, we must recall the history of texts and images of cassowaries in europe. this will also help us to recreate the borrowing of these texts and their use and meaning within the context of the qing court. the cassowary in european natural history the “discovery” of the cassowary, like that of the rhino and the dodo, was one of the major events in the process of eastward exploration by european nations. the first european encounter with the bird was on a dutch expedition to java between 1595 and 1597, which brought back a live cassowary to europe. this voyage was led by the explorer cornelis de houtman (1565–1599). supported by a group of merchants, he took four vessels and made the first contact between holland and the far east. this expedition also laid the foundation for the future trade in spices with the dutch east indies. houtman’s trading fleet left amsterdam in february 1595, and arrived in banten, an important trading port in the northwest of java, on july 27th. from there he went on to madura and to bali. fierce clashes with the portuguese and indonesians meant that by the time they returned to the netherlands in 1597, only 87 people survived of the 249 who had set out on the expedition.[50] the primary objective of the traders was to find spices, but they also picked up a number of other valuable imports, including one large bird known as an “emeu.” the year after their return, one of the dutch members of the expedition, willem lodewycksz, published his diary of the expedition, written in dutch.[51] the book says that on december 4th, 1596, the prince of sidayu, a district of java, gave a bird named “emeu” to schellinger, captain of one of the ships. this bird was said to have come from the island of banda.[52] the book includes 30 pictures, and dramatically describes the cassowary and other exotic birds and animals found in southeast asia. this historic expedition, then, was the first encounter between europe and the cassowary (fig. 8).[53] fig. 8: from g. p. rouffaer and j. w. ijzerman, de eerste schipvaart der nederlanders naar oost-indië onder cornelis de houtman, 1595–1597—journalen, documenten en andere bescheiden, plaat 30, p. 13. the first writer to process the information contained in the diary, and to try to incorporate it into the existing knowledge of ornithology, was the italian nobleman and renowned natural historian ulisse aldrovandi.[54] however, he had never actually seen the cassowary, and drew his information solely from the published diary. he seems to have been working from the picture published by lodewycksz when he made his own description and drawing (fig. 9). in fact, lodewycksz’s diary became well known throughout europe. latin[55] and german[56] editions were published within the same year, and the german edition, by l. hulsius, achieved particularly wide circulation. the german engraver johann sibmacher (c. 1560–1621) made engravings specifically for the hulsius translation (fig. 10).[57] the sibmacher engraving cassowary appears from its posture to be a direct copy of the right-hand bird drawn by lodewycksz. however, this bird does not have the cassowary’s distinctive triangular crest, which has led some to wonder whether the emeu that houtman brought back really was a cassowary. fig. 9: from ulisse aldrovandi, “eme,” ornithologiae, hoc est de avibus historiae, libri xix–xx, p. 541. fig. 10: from donald f. lach, asia in the making of europe, vol. ii, book one, fig. 141. luckily, the bird was bought by count georg eberhard von solms and given to ernest of bavaria, elector of cologne (1554–1612). at cologne, it was observed first-hand by the famous flemish doctor, horticulturalist and natural historian clusius.[58] clusius gave a description and account of his observations of the bird in a book published in 1605 about the marvels of the new world.[59] the book states: “starting from the middle of the crop to the top of the head, there is a horny crest, about three inches high,”[60] which makes it certain that this bird is indeed a cassowary. clusius also includes a drawing of the cassowary in his book (fig. 11). he states that the woodcut was produced by first painting the bird from life in oils, then shrinking the picture for printing.[61] the bird was finally requested by and given to the holy roman emperor rudolf ii (1552–1612). it arrived in rudolf’s court menagerie in prague in august 1601. fortunately two drawings of this cassowary survive in two codices compiled near the end of rudolf ii’s life, the museum and the bestiaire (fig. 12).[62] fig. 11: from carolus clusius, exoticorum libri decem, p. 78. fig. 12: from herbert haupt, eva irblich, manfred staudinger and thea vignau-wilberg, le bestiaire de rodolphe ii, no. 118, 119. because a printed image can be easily reproduced, clusius’s print became much more widely known than the drawings done at the court of rudolf ii. the print became virtually the standard image of a cassowary, known throughout europe. clusius’s account included not just details from the 1598 diary of lodewycksz, but also details of what happened to the bird up till 1605. combined with his careful measurements and description of the bird’s appearance, this text became the authoritative european text on the cassowary for some period of time. for example, the cassowary (under the name emeu) is included in both the natural history written by the spanish jesuit juan eusebio nieremberg (1595–1658)[63] and in the ornithological work published in 1650 by the polish scientist johannes johnstone (or jan jonston, 1603–1675),[64] but in both cases the books simply reproduce clusius’s text without any additions. the images are similarly reproductions: nieremberg reprints clusius’s print, and also includes aldrovandi’s earlier drawing (fig. 13). as noted above, the aldrovandi drawing is a reproduction of a drawing by lodewycksz, but nieremberg fails to note in his book that the second image is by aldrovandi. this caused johnstone, who used the same two images (fig. 14), to assume that there were two cassowaries in europe: one depicted in the 1605 clusius print, the other shown for the first time in the 1635 nieremberg book. he was unaware that the two images both show the single bird retrieved in 1597 by houtman. fig. 13: from juan eusebio nieremberg, historia natvrae, maxime peregrinae, libris xvi. distincta, p. 218. fig. 14: from johannes johnstone, historiae naturalis de avibus libri vi. cum aeneis figuris, tab 56. in order to understand why authors in europe raced to reproduce this information on cassowaries, we must look back over the development of natural history in europe. before the sixteenth century, there was no such thing as zoology or botany in the modern sense in europe. the only works available were aristotle’s zoological treatise historiae animalium and pliny’s naturalis historia.[65] aristotle’s work espouses a natural philosophy which holds that if one can understand the fundamental elements of living entities, then we can understand their myriad nature. pliny was writing at a time when the roman empire was at its height, and is a hugely ambitious work which seeks to give a full history of everything in nature; animals play a very important role in this history. these two traditions form the basis for european zoology and botany. when europe encountered the new world in the sixteenth century, a style of writing emerged which combined the two traditions, aiming to describe both “the natural and moral histories of the new world.”[66] the authors of these new works wanted to comprehend both the human and natural history of the new continents. the exemplar of this approach was konrad gessner (1516–1565), a doctor and natural historian from zurich. his approach to natural history was to comprehensively survey the extant literature. this “philological” approach produced a monumental four-volume work on zoology, the historiae animalium, between 1551 and 1558. this work included practically all that was known about animals at the time, and gave bibliographic references to all kinds of literature, observations, documentation, and images.[67] unfortunately, europe’s first cassowary arrived only in 1597, so it was not included in gessner’s encyclopaedic work. this sixteenth-century outpouring of writing, recording and research into natural history is a part of the same historical movement as the european exploration of the new world, and the competitive collection of curiosities among the european nobility (kunstkammers or cabinets of art and curios). the mid-sixteenth century witnessed a fever for kunstkammers among european nobility. in conceptual terms, kunstkammers represent a desire to recreate the macrocosm through the collection of objects of every type and material. a collection would typically contain two types of object: one was kunst, or art; the other wunder, or curios. one was man-made; the other made by god. curios were natural objects: animals, plants, minerals. art was any artificial object: art, antiquities, scientific instruments, weapons, and anthropological finds. these collections often also included libraries, botanical nurseries, and menageries. they are a part of the encyclopaedic desire for knowledge and the theological natural history of renaissance europe: europeans hoped to gain a clearer understanding of the intentions of the creator by first understanding his creation, every plant and tree, every constant and variant. in this enterprise, knowledge came from explorations of god’s world, and also from explorations of the human world. [68] and that human world was becoming vastly more complex in the age of discovery. new discoveries seemed to be rewriting old frameworks on a regular basis. the objects kept in collections reflected this ever-expanding knowledge. of course, not everyone had access to curios from the new world. curio collections were mostly kept by the royalty of europe. collections were a way of demonstrating control over the new world; they were an integral part of the expression of royal power. the giving and exchange of curios was one of the important mechanisms by which royals and nobility expanded their own collections, built networks and cultivated their reputations. the house of hapsburg, the austrian ruling house of the holy roman empire, was particularly adept at this practice.[69] as the owners of important collections themselves, they were continually appropriating new curios from all over the world. they also sponsored natural history projects: gessner’s four-volume historiae animalium was presented to a famous hapsburg collector, the holy roman emperor ferdinand i (1503–1564). europe’s first cassowary also ended up in the menagerie of a grandson of ferdinand, rudolf ii. rudolf ii was renowned for his encyclopaedic collection of marvels, and was also the most important sponsor of the natural historian clusius. many scholars from around europe travelled to research in his collection. following gessner, the most important encyclopaedia of natural history was probably the historia animalium, edited by ulisse aldrovandi. aldrovandi himself maintained a remarkable museum of animal and plant specimens, paintings and prints. he saw a collection as a “theatre of nature” (teatro ni natura): it was an attempt to recreate all of nature within a confined space. this closed microcosm should reflect the macrocosm—the world—and the animals of the new world were an important part of recreating the world. so it comes as no surprise that aldrovandi should reprint the information on the cassowary from loewycksz.[70] in the seventeenth century, the most important and most comprehensive work of natural history was the historiae naturalis compiled by johannes johnstone. this book represents a continuation of the tradition of gessner and aldrovandi. its images are also the two images from aldrovandi and clusius, even though they are in fact drawings of the same bird. however, even as johnstone’s five-volume work was being published, between 1650 and 1653, european natural history was already taking a new turn. in the second half of the seventeenth century, a new type of text began to emerge. this new genre stressed the importance of first-hand observation and autopsy. the philological approach of gessner was almost completely replaced by the new, observation-based writing. it was a scientific revolution.[71] for the cassowary, this meant that scientists were no longer content to repeat the views of clusius. they believed that close description of an animal’s appearance would enable understanding, and their writing stressed empirical research and observations, including dissection. contemporary with this scientific revolution of anatomy and objective description was a shift in emphasis away from individual scholars studying pieces in private collections. the second half of the seventeenth century saw the establishment of many of the formal research organisations of the modern era.[72] the british royal society was founded in 1666; its french counterpart, the royal academy of sciences, was founded in the same year by louis xiv. incidentally, these institutions very quickly attempted to learn about china. members of the french royal academy of sciences arrived as missionaries in beijing in 1688.[73] jean de fontaney (1643–1710),[74] joachim bouvet (1656–1730), claude de visdelou (1658–1737), louis le comte (or louis-daniel lecomte, 1655–1728), and jean-françois gerbillon (1654–1707) had been appointed “king’s mathematicians” and made rapporteurs to the royal academy before they left for china. they maintained close links with the academy, and in addition to their missionary work in china, they were commissioned by the academy to discover and survey chinese flora and fauna and chinese science and technology.[75] perrault’s dissection of a cassowary for the royal academy of sciences was a product of this new trend in scientific writing. his report was published by a professional research organisation, not supported by a private sponsor; his intention was to dissect the cassowary in order to understand its internal biological functions. however, the sourcing of the cassowary from a royal menagerie, and the history of cassowary studies which perrault recapitulates, are relics of the older form of european natural history and research based on curios. thus we can see that qianlong’s source material is representative of a transition point in the development of european natural history, as it progressed from description of “curiosities” into professional, empirical, modern science. it is interesting to note that european knowledge of the cassowary had not stopped with the findings of perrault. perrault published between 1671–1676; qianlong wrote the inscription in 1774. in the intervening century, a large number of new studies on the cassowary appeared in europe. the most important of these was in the system of classification proposed by linnaeus in 1735. the linnaean system is a milestone in the history of western biology, and it also provided a standardised classification and name to the cassowary. one cannot but be curious as to why qianlong chose a text by perrault as his primary source? to explore this question, we must understand two issues. first, what access did the qing court have to european literature on natural history? second, did qianlong have any real choice in his source? and how did he make his choice? european books in the qing court and qianlong’s choice in terms of access, copies of western works of natural history certainly were available to the qing court. as early as kangxi 17 (1678), the portuguese ambassador bento pereira de faria, introduced by ferdinand verbiest, had presented the emperor with a live african lion.[76] the jesuit missionary ludovico buglio (1606–1682) wrote a text to accompany it titled shizi shuo 獅子說 (on lions), describing the lion’s appearance and temperament. the following year, at the command of the emperor, buglio wrote jincheng ying shuo 進呈鷹說 (treatise on hawks), later renamed ying lun 鷹論 (on hawks) and reproduced in the gujin tushu jicheng 古今圖書集成 (complete collection of illustrations and writings from the earliest to current times), an encyclopaedia completed in 1725, during the reign of yongzheng.[77] both of these works were translations of entries in the historia animalium of aldrovandi.[78] another example will illustrate how european works of natural history came to the qing court, and how they were used there. at the beginning of 1682, the jesuit missionary ferdinand verbiest recorded in a letter his experience of a tour of the eastern provinces with the emperor kangxi. he mentions that on their return journey, as they passed through a city named “xin-jam,” a group of koreans presented the emperor with a live seal. kangxi called for verbiest to examine the animal, and asked if there were any records of such a “fish” in european books? verbiest responded that his library in beijing did indeed contain a book with an image and description very similar to this “fish,” and that the information was gleaned from first-hand observation. kangxi wished to see this book immediately, and sent a messenger by fast horse to retrieve two western books from the jesuit library in beijing. after looking at the book, kangxi agreed that the gift from the koreans was indeed the “seal” recorded in the european books. highly satisfied, he ordered his messengers to take the seal back to beijing with the greatest of care.[79] kangxi’s grandson, qianlong, also turned to missionaries and their libraries for answers when presented with unknown objects. a french missionary, joseph-marie amiot (1718–1793), wrote in a letter back to europe: “...if people bring back some unknown precious object from some country in the world, then he will also instruct us to find out about it, as if being a frenchman or european in the service of his majesty means that one knows everything about everything that comes from a foreign country...”[80] we do not know what european books were in the possession of the qing court itself, but we do know that each of the four large churches in beijing (the church of the saviour (beitang), cathedral of the immaculate conception (nantang), st. joseph’s church (dongtang) and church of our lady of mount carmel (xitang)) had a substantial library. like his grandfather, qianlong could easily have seen, translated and read these books through the agency of the missionaries who served him. to determine what books were available, our most useful resource is the beitang collection held at the national library of china in beijing. the beitang collection is not just the library of the old beitang. it holds books from nantang and dongtang, run by portuguese jesuits; the french jesuit beitang; the lazarist xitang; and other collections from private churches and lesser-known missionaries. the oldest volumes in the collection can be traced back to the late ming, originating in the library of matteo ricci or the collection of 7,000 european books brought to beijing by nicolas trigault (1577–1629).[81] the beitang collection was catalogued in 1949 by h. verhaeren, c. m.; this catalogue is the most complete record presently available of the books in the collection.[82] the beitang catalogue lists several volumes with references to cassowaries. these include clusius’s 1605 exoticorum libri decem[83], and a note by the catalogue entry reads “bibl. trig,” indicating that it was part of the library imported by trigault and kept originally at nantang. there are records of ten works on natural history by aldrovandi,[84] all of them annotated with “p p gallor sj pekin” and stamped with “vicariat apostolique de pekin & tche-ly nord bibliothéque du pé-tang.” the annotation is a contraction of “patrum gallorum societatis jesu pekin,” which is the mark applied to books which were in the library of the old beitang.[85] that collection also housed other works on natural history, including those of johannes johnstone.[86] there is no individual catalogue entry for the perrault dissection reports, but a letter written on september 23, 1732 by the beitang librarian, fr. gaubil, indicates that beitang has a set of the meìmoires de l’acadeìmie royale des sciences. however, he indicates that they do not have the complete series, and requests a fr. souciet to purchase the missing numbers of the meìmoires.[87] perrault’s reports were not printed by the french royal academy of sciences until 1733–1734, so this letter does not offer conclusive evidence, but it is clear that the intention of fr. gaubil was to maintain a complete set of the meìmoires de l’acadeìmie royale des sciences. we can therefore be reasonably certain that even though there is no record of perrault’s own volume, published between 1671 and 1676, the reprint in the meìmoires would have been available to qianlong when he wanted to read about the emo bird in 1774. if we accept that the beitang collection was available to the emperor, then qianlong had access to most of the seventeenth-century european literature on the cassowary. in the second half of the eighteenth century the situation changed somewhat. there was less interest in european countries in sending religious missions to china. in 1760, government of portugal banned the jesuits, and in 1773 the pope dissolved the order. in china, proselytising had been banned since the yongzheng reign (1722–1735), so the activity of missionaries in qianlong’s court inevitably declined.[88] in the 5th month of qianlong 46 (1781), the shilu 實錄 (veritable records) records: there have always been westerners willing to take up positions in the capital, which the responsible official should always report.very few such people have come to the capital in recent years. i have ordered the supervision official that if they encounter a westerner willing to come to the capital, he should report it to me and give them aposition, and place no impediments in their path [89] 向來西洋人有情願赴京當差者，該督隨時奏聞；近年來，此等人到京者絕少，曾經傳諭該督，如遇此等西洋人情願來京，即行奏聞，遣令赴京當差，勿為阻拒. the lack of missionaries was a problem for the qianlong court, and it likely slowed the flow of books from europe to china, so qianlong actually had less access to up-to-date european materials than kangxi. for example, the first edition of linnaeus’s systema naturae was published in 1735, but the copy that appears in the beitang collection catalogue is from the 13th edition, which was not published until 1767–1770. it is marked as being collected by mgr alex. de gouvea, bishop of beijing from 1785–1808. in other words, the book had not yet reached beijing by the time qianlong was writing the inscription in 1774,[90] so it was most likely not available as a reference for qianlong. the second issue we have to consider is how qianlong selected from among the several european books available to him on the cassowary. as the example recounted by verbiest shows, the book most likely came to qianlong through recommendation by one of the missionaries at his court. interestingly, though qianlong may have lacked the knowledge to select for himself among the different texts available, he did make selections and edits within the text. as we have seen, qianlong’s inscription translates extracts only from perrault’s report. it completely omits the sections on the anatomy of the cassowary and the investigations into its biological functions, completely ignoring the scientific importance of these sections. in place of this scientific content, qianlong focuses of the history of the cassowary at european courts and a description of its outward appearance. one could say that perrault’s report contains material of two types: one part is the latest style of new scientific investigation; the other part is in the old renaissance tradition of describing collected curios from the hapsburg troves. qianlong’s editing makes very clear that he is much more interested in the material from the older tradition. this material records how the cassowary’s history brought it into contact with various royal houses each time it appeared in europe. the interest among european collectors in owning this exotic bird was still strong even in the eighteenth century: the renowned french animal painter jean-baptiste oudry (1686–1755) painted portraits of the stars of louis xv’s versailles menagerie. his series of nine life-sized portraits of versailles animals includes one cassowary (fig. 15).[91] this cassowary portrait was later used in a variety of formats: woven into a rug,[92] and even incorporated into building decoration. in 1743, the french architect alexandre-françois desportes (1661–1743) placed the cassowary and other exotic birds in a mural over the lintel of a door in château de choisy, one of the royal family’s residences not far from paris.[93] the cassowary was thus not just a subject for scientific illustrators. it became a motif widely appreciated in europe, and with strong historical connections to royalty. fig. 15: from mary morton ed., oudry’s painted menagerie: portraits of exotic animals in eighteenth-century europe, p. 137. ever since the first cassowary arrived in europe in 1597, it had been an important part of the collections of the greatest european monarchs; and research on the cassowary traces out the course of the major trends in european scientific thinking. the links with royalty did not weaken with the changes in scientific approach: in the eighteenth century the cassowary remained a favourite royal motif. qianlong would have known a certain amount of this history, so bearing this in mind, we cannot but be curious about the relationship between this tradition and the images of the emo bird produced at the qing court: a wall painting, an album leaf and two hanging scrolls. for his text, qianlong chose a european source; so what factors affected his choice of images? was there a connection with europe in the images as well? and what meaning did this connection have in the context of the qing court? the construction of universal scientific knowledge the qing court produced at least four images of cassowaries, but only two remain extant: a two leaf addition to the album of birds, completed on the 22nd of the 6th, 1774, and inserted into the book on the 27th; and the scroll emo birds painted by yang dazhang around the 19th of the 10th, 1782. in this section we address the images themselves: how did the european source materials relate to images produced in a different context? the answer to this question will offer us a window on how knowledge from europe was transformed and used in the qing court. the two leaf insert for the album of birds completed on the 22nd of the 6th, 1774, was the first image of an emo bird produced in the qing court, finished even before the painting by ignaz sichelbarth commissioned on the 16th of the 4th, 1774. in the image, the cassowary is in the foreground, drawn from the side. its feet are slightly parted, clearly showing the two thick legs and claws. its head and body are held almost upright, and there are no additional signs of movement or unusual posture. the cassowary appears calm, rational and orderly—much more so than the riot of flowers on the right and the weeds in the background behind a rock on the left. this choice is very much at odds with all of china’s traditional genres: bird paintings, encyclopaedia figures, and illustrations of herbal materia medica. an example is six cranes (fig. 16),[94] a painting of the six cranes theme created by huang quan, a five dynasties-era painter. this painting is attributed to the song emperor huizong. in order to capture the spirit of the crane, the painting shows it in six separate poses. the second pose, jinglu 警露 (alert for cold weather), is similar to our emo bird in its album of birds entry, but the crane’s head is raised, its beak slightly open, its legs slightly bent. it looks like a bird in motion, quite unlike the feeling of stillness in our emo bird. qianlong compared the cassowary with the shile bird from the collected illustrations of the three realms, so it is also instructive to look at that image. the painter frames a space for the shile bird with a tree on the left and a rock beneath it. these background objects seem very flat and lifeless; the dynamic element in this picture is the shile bird itself, raising its left leg. this mobile, dynamic feel is the focus of the picture. or compare the picture of a tuoniao (fig. 17) in the bencao gangmu 本草綱目 (compendium of materia medica) (reproduced in the four treasuries):[95] the artist has attempted to depict this bird, which he had never seen, by drawing massive legs and a bird’s body. this peculiar creature seems to be an impossible combination of features, but the vivid sketching and the wings apparently just spreading make it feel quite lifelike. this technique of using posture and movement to convey a lifelike feel were typical in the ming-qing tradition of bird paintings. the tradition had started much earlier: from huang quan’s six crane postures to the ming dynasty lingmao pu 翎毛譜 (album of plumage) by gao song, with its birds in eleven postures, songbird in nine postures, sleeping bird in twelve postures, birds feeding in fourteen postures, flocking birds in 23 postures, etc.[96] birds are represented and differentiated not so much by their physical characteristics as by their postures. during the ming-qing, natural history illustrators drew on this painting tradition, so their illustrations shared with the earlier paintings a variety of posture and movement.[97] fig. 16: after song huizong, liu he tu 六鶴圖 (six cranes). hand scroll. reproduced as fig. 4 in ogawa hiromitsu. fig. 17: from compendium of materia medica, p. 291. the calm and closely observed depiction of the cassowary in the album of birds differs from the traditions of bird paintings and illustrations. however, it is not unique among qing court drawings. in fact, this style had already appeared in the album of birds itself. for example, in volume one, the illustrator of the common crane (fig. 18)[98] places the crane in the extreme foreground, and has a stream in the background disappearing into the distance. this composition creates a depth to the picture. the background is also noticeably livelier than the crane itself, with wild flowers and grass sprouting in all directions, while the crane seems relatively still. the focus of the picture is on rendering the texture and physical details of the bird’s body. the common crane and a group of similar “new style” images in the album of birds are very different to the more traditional style images which make up the bulk of the book. the entries for phoenix (fig. 19), luan (another mythical bird), crane and many other birds show their subjects with raised heads and open mouths, or drinking water, or interacting in pairs... these images and their composition mainly follow the format of the bird drawings in the collected illustrations of the three realms (fig. 20) and the compendium of materia medica. despite being in colour, they do little to indicate texture, depth, or light and shade. by contrast, the new style images in the album of birds show the birds in poses reminiscent of the style of zoological illustrations in seventeenth-century europe. for example, perrault reports on a bird named the demoiselle de numidie (fig. 21). the artist draws the bird in the extreme foreground, while the background is greatly shrunken in perspective to create a great sense of depth. the image is monochrome, but the volume and texture of the bird’s body is suggested through use of chiaroscuro, giving the picture a tactile quality, almost to the level of a trompe l’oeil. returning to the cassowary in the album of birds, its rounded crest and hanging wattles remind us of the illustration by clusius. that picture was reprinted in johnstone’s volume on birds, which was very widely circulated. both clusius’s and johnstone’s books were in the beitang library. though there may well have been a live model for some stage of the drawing of the cassowary, the composition and schema of the picture were probably based closely on the picture by clusius. a second notable feature of the qing court’s images of cassowaries is the technique used. all of the new style pictures in the album of birds are painted using the a european fusion technique developed at the qing court under giuseppe castiglione. it is a style that incorporates elements of european painting into chinese practice, characterised by rich and intensive rendering of colour and texture to create a high visual impact. in the picture of the cassowary, the brush marks are almost invisible. the silky white feathers on the bird’s rounded head seem to shine; the wattles are a high-gloss red; the cylindrical neck is a bright blue, speckled with white to represent its sheen; the body is covered in fluffy feathers and its shape closely described. even the legs are precisely drawn, with light and shade indicating the knobbly joints and the roughness of the skin. this “realist” image is highly physical and textured; it has volume; it is even tactile. regardless of whether the image was drawn from life, or whether it is one hundred percent accurate, the level of detail and the use of chiaroscuro mean that the image conveys much more information than would be possible with text alone. for example, the text of the inscription says merely that the “head is green, the neck jade”; the term jade (cui 翠) in chinese is ambiguous between green and blue. but the painting precisely recreates the cassowary’s distinctive cobalt blue neck, even though the artist(s) failed to realise that the bird’s neck is bare, and drew blue feathers rather than the rough skin that actually carries the blue colour. similarly, the bird’s body is described in the text as having feathers “like a bear’s or a boar’s, several inches long” (彷彿熊豕長數寸), but the artist shows them as very realistic down, soft as a child’s toy. this may not be strictly accurate—in reality, cassowaries have long, hard feathers—but it demonstrates that the representation in the painting differs from that in the text. thus the use of “realist” western technique to paint the cassowary means that the picture offers a physical description of the cassowary which goes beyond what the text provides. it makes a reader who has never seen a cassowary in the flesh feel as though they can gain a real sense of its appearance, feel and volume. it makes this creature “real” in a visual way. painting natural history illustrations in this style was revolutionary. a glance at the shile bird in the collected illustrations of the three realms (fig. 5), cited as a comparison byqianlong, reveals the differences. the woodcut of the shile bird shows it in profile, like the cassowary; and it is also placed against a simple background to highlight the appearance of this exotic fowl. however, the image of the shile bird is monochrome; its feathers are represented only symbolically, using a scale pattern; the outcropping on its head is drawn like an auspicious cloud symbol. were it not for the explanatory text (“it is multi-coloured, with a ochre beak and scarlet head, and has a crest” (其狀五色，丹喙赤首，有冠), a reader looking only at the image would never realise that the bird’s beak and head are red, and that the form on its head is a crest. the image here is not an independent medium for conveying information; it is merely an extension or addendum to the text.[99] this observation is consistent with recent conclusions by some historians researching illustrations in traditional medical texts.[100] they argue that traditional natural history illustrations primarily served the purpose of distinguishing between various materia medica. therefore, it did not matter how abstract or how simplified the images were as long as they showed some conventionalised characteristics or easily recognized canonical features. the truth of these kinds of images lies in their philological relationship with the traditional images or texts, rather than their visual relationship with reality.[101] fig. 18: yu sheng 余省 and zhang weibang 張為邦. xiao hui he 小灰鶴 (common crane), album of birds vol. 1, leaf 7. 1761.album leaves, colour on silk. 41.1 x 44.1cm. national palace museum, taipei. fig. 19: yu sheng 余省 and zhang weibang 張為邦. feng 鳳 (phoenix), album of birds vol. 1, leaf 7. 1761.album leaves, colour on silk. 41.1 x 44.1cm. national palace museum, taipei. fig. 20: feng 鳳 (phoenix). from collected illustrations of the three realms, p. 2155. fig. 21: from académie royale des sciences ed., mémoires de l’académie royale des sciences, vol. tom 3 part 2 (1666–1699), ii partie, pl 35, page 1. the new “realist” style natural history illustration took a different stance. the reality this approach references is the text-external real world, not the established textual tradition. of course, illustrators were not always successful at achieving a perfect representation of the real world, but the switch from text-oriented illustration to external reality-oriented illustration brought a change in the information that pictures communicated. realist images have a much greater information density, and this forced illustrators to seek or create further sources of information, which they could then depict and convey through their images. realist images give the reader a sense of seeing the subject with their own eyes, and convey much information that is not, or could not be, encoded in text. thus the images become independent of the text, sources of information in their own right. they became important tools for the construction of knowledge. is the image of the emo bird in the album of birds really a construction of knowledge? to fully understand the image, we must consider not just the features of the image itself, but also the image in its context in the album of birds. when qianlong decided to insert the emo bird into the book, it had been complete for thirteen years. qianlong’s determination to add the emo bird must be connected to the original reasons for compiling the album of birds. therefore, we must understand the purpose of the album of birds before we can properly discuss the nature of the emo bird image. the full title of the album of birds is: yu sheng zhang weibang hemo jiang tingxi niao pu 余省張為邦合摹蔣廷錫鳥譜 (album of birds by yu sheng and zhang weibang after jiang tingxi). it is in 12 volumes, of which the first four are preserved at the national palace museum in taipei, the subsequent eight in beijing. each volume has 30 leaves, except the last, which has 32. each leaf has an image on the right and text on the left, with text in both chinese and manchu. a total of 361 birds are described. however, the original plan for the album of birds included just 360 birds. the book was ordered by qianlong in qianlong 15 (1750), and was completed in 1761 after 11 years of compilation. when qianlong decided in 1774 to insert the cassowary into the book, it became the 361st bird in its contents, and the only addition to the volume since this eleven-year project was completed. the final volume of the album of birds has an afterword signed by several of the senior courtiers of qianlong’s day: fuhen傅恆, liu tongxun 劉統勛, zhaohui兆惠, arigun 阿里袞, liu lun 劉綸, shu hede 舒赫德, agui阿桂, and yu minzhong于敏中.[102] this afterword states that the intention for the album of birds was that it should contain all birds from the highest heavens down to the sea, and that it “groups them by type” (各以類聚). it goes on to say that the bird’s features (shape, feathers, calls, diet, etc.) are identified in order to record the “produce of the tributaries” (職方之產). when complete, the book was to be “a resource for ordering and tending the world; an aid to gathering knowledge” (對時育物之資，博考洽聞之助). the term “tributaries” (zhifang, 職方) comes from a job title named in the offices of summer section of the rites of zhou: “overseer of feudatories” (職方氏). the duties of this position were: responsible for maps of the world under heaven, so that one may better control the world under heaven; identifying the boroughs and townships of its kingdoms and principalities and the four yi peoples, the eight man, the seven min, the nine mo, the five rong, and the six di; and the quantities and importance of their commodities, the nine grains, and six livestock; fully understanding their interests and their threats.[103] 掌天下之圖，以掌天下之地，辨其邦國都鄙四夷、八蠻、七閩、九貉、五戎、六狄之人民，與其財用九穀、六畜之數要，周知其利害 that is to say, the officers of the tributaries were tasked with comprehending all of the information in the “world under heaven” which the son of heaven ruled: its lands, its products, its peoples, its creatures, etc., etc. the album of birds is a record of the “produce of the tributaries”: information was to be collected on all birds found in the world, so that the ruler could “fully understand their needs and their problems,” and to serve as a reference for the “ordering and tending the world” and a tool for “gathering knowledge.” thus, the album of birds is not an arbitrary collection of birds. on some level, its contents were to reflect the scope and the features of the “world under heaven” ruled by qianlong. qianlong needed this information to understand the things in his world, and thus “order and tend the world” and rule as a true sage. the album of birds was based on an older version kept at the court, the album of birds by jiang tingxi. however, “it has been carefully read so that every single error of naming and mistake in the sounds has been found and meticulously corrected, from beginning to end” (凡名之譌者，音之舛者，悉於幾餘，披閱舉示，復詳勘釐說正並，識其始末); and great courtiers such as fuhen were invited to “translate the text into manchu” (以國書譯圖說). it would take a separate monograph to give a full account of the production of qianlong’s album of birds, from the planning, the use of the old album, and the selection and editing of material to the execution and involvement of each court department. however, it is clear that the form of the album of birds represents some notable innovations in terms of the ordering and categorisation of its subjects. these innovations arose out of a critique of the existing chinese tradition of zoological writing. for example, the afterword explicitly criticises the “lacunae” (闕疑莫考) in the chapter on birds in the erya 爾雅, an encyclopaedia dating from the pre-han; it also complains that works such as lu ji’s 陸機 shi shu guangyao 詩疏廣要 (various commentaries on the book of odes)and zhang hua 張華’s annotated qin jing 禽經 (book of fowl) are often simply copies of earlier writings. such copies, it says, are “buried in the mud of antiquity; they cannot be applied in our time” (蓋泥於古，則無以證今). for the editors of the album of birds, these traditional works of natural history “do not capture the likeness” (肖形未備), and reveal a “lack of close observation” (格致無徵).[104] these criticisms demonstrate that empirical examination of real birds is extremely important in the album of birds. this is further backed up by information in the archives on the production of the album of birds. reading the archives, we discover that beginning in qianlong 15 (1750), minister fuhen, scholar of the hall of preserving harmony (保和殿) and grand secretary of the grand council (軍機處), began collecting specimens of birds from around the empire and delivering them to the department of painting (畫院處) “so that their likeness can be painted and included in the album of birds” (照樣畫下入《鳥譜》). fuhen used the authority of the grand council to accomplish this.[105] on the 8th of the 5th, 1753, the archives for the department of painting tells us that the model supplied for a painting is a “bird skin” (鳥皮); this very likely means that the painting was done from life. the album of birds was not the first work to employ this empirical approach, nor was this the first time the machinery of state had been used to collect subjects and specimens. during the tang dynasty, when the emperor gaozong commissioned xu jingzong and others to compile the xin xiu bencao 新修本草 (newly revised materia medica), he commanded them to “collect the medicines produced in all the shires and counties of the world, and draw pictures of them” (徵天下郡縣所出藥物，並書圖之).[106] the bencao tu jing 本草圖經 (book of illustrations of material medica), completed in 1061 by the northern song official su song, was similarly supported: an order was sent from the court for specimens and drawings to be delivered from around the empire to beijing, “to serve as models for materia medica drawings for the compilation of a book of illustrations” (以憑照證，畫成本草圖，並別撰圖經).[107] however, by the ming dynasty, this tradition had petered out. only one book on material medica was produced by the ming court: the yu zuan bencao pinhui jingyao 御纂本草品彙精要 (emperor’s essential categories of materia medica) in 42 volumes, completed in 1505. there was no nationwide call for specimens or images for this book. it was simply a product of collaboration between the court physicians, court pharmacists and court painters. it was produced over the course of just a year and a half by copying and editing the illustrations in the song dynasty book of illustrations of material medica, with the addition of only a few new drawings.[108] thus the album of birds can be seen as a revival of the older, tang-song tradition of using state resources and empirical observation. however, it is important to note that the use of models and life drawing does not necessarily imply that an image will be an independent construction capable of conveying information, like the birds drawn in the “new style” in the album of birds. even when materia medica illustrations were drawn from life, the primary purpose of illustrations was to allow the pharmacist to distinguish between different medicinal plants, so the illustrations tended to focus on only part of the plant; with the result that the proportions of the full plant are often inaccurate. unless the artist possesses a considerable level of draughtsmanship, the drawing inevitably became a mere annex to the text. the only work that bears real comparison with the album of birds are the paintings by huizong’s painting academy documenting auspicious objects and signs: for example, wu se yingwu 五色鸚鵡 (five-coloured parakeet) (fig. 22), xiang long shi 祥龍石 (auspicious dragon rock), and rui he tu 瑞鶴圖 (auspicious cranes). these paintings feel extremely physical, both in their intensive renderings and texture, an effect used here to convey the sense that these auspicious events really did happen.[109] the paintings have no background or text, but the highly memetic technique developed by huizong’s department of painting is sufficient to produce a sense that the objects depicted are “real.” fig. 22: song huizong 宋徽宗. wu se yingwu 五色鸚鵡 (five-coloured parakeet). hand scroll. colour on silk. 53.3 x 125.1cm. museum of fine arts, boston. there are differences between the huizong paintings and the illusionistic style used in the album of birds, but the mechanisms for creating reality in images are extremely similar. what is unusual is that the qing court applied this illusionistic style to the painting of illustrations in a work of natural history. early works of natural history such as the bo wu zhi 博物志 (records of myriad things), written by zhang hua 張華 during the western jin, or book of fowl, attributed to shi kuang 師曠, active in the spring and autumn period, did not have illustrations. li shihen’s compendium of materia medica, written during the ming dynasty, only had illustrations added later and not by the author, but by his publishers, for marketing purposes.[110] unlike those works, the images in the album of birds are given equal space on the page with the text. in combination with the mimetic style of illustration, this means that the images play an unprecedentedly important role in conveying information and constructing the reader’s knowledge of the birds.[111] another important innovation in the album of birds is in its structure. like many other traditional chinese encyclopaedias, the album of birds begins with the phoenix and the luan, two mythical birds symbolising the emperor and his consort, the origin, and the pinnacle of the social hierarchy. but these myths aside, the japanese researcher akira yanagisawa has found that the album of birds categorises real birds by their external appearance and their distinctive features. many related species of bird are grouped together. for example, magpies are shown in two entries: the northern magpie and the (southern) magpie. four different types of crested myna are identified and distinguished from one another by their colouration. this categorisation based on appearance is conceptually very close to the modern scientific practice of labelling animals by species, subspecies and variant.[112] it is not a practice seen in traditional chinese natural histories or leishu reference works, nor is it seen in manuals on bird painting. for example, traditional painting manuals such as the ming dynasty album of plumage by gao song group birds according to their posture. the use of the more objective criteria of the birds’ appearance and distinctive features is referred to in the afterword, which tells us that the book “groups them by type.” the text in the album of birds also gives descriptions of unprecedented length and detail. there are philological references to past literature, but most of the text is devoted to original descriptions of the birds’ external appearance. comparison with traditional natural histories (records of myriad things by zhang hua; book of fowl by zhou shikuang; compendium of materia medica by li shizhen; collected illustrations of the three realms by wang qi) shows that the album of birds presents a better-supported categorisation of its subject; wide ranging quotation of existing literature; and descriptions of some birds which go into far more detail that previous traditional works. the album of birds represents an attempt to adumbrate all birds in the “world under heaven,” so that the sage king could “order and tend” it. the “world under heaven” which the book aimed to cover was not an abstract concept. while the grand council collected specimens from throughout the empire, they also took care to include birds from other countries which had been brought to china by boat or sent as tribute. this was in stark contrast to traditional literature, which shows no interest at all in the barbarian lands beyond the borders of civilisation.[113] recent scholars have suggested that the introduction of western knowledge of geography during the ming and qing rocked the traditional china-centric view of the world; chinese thought underwent a classic transition from seeing a single “world under heaven” (天下) to recognising a “myriad nations” (萬國).[114] this change is reflected in the album of birds: where the collected illustrations of the three realms represents the traditional view of “all the birds under heaven” without attempting to distinguish between different geographical regions, the album of birds presents instead the “birds of the myriad nations.” unlike previous natural histories, this book is not an ethical representation of the world, divided into china and the barbarian; nor is it a random collection of information; rather, it is systematic account of birds, focusing on the birds of china, but also including information on those species which had come to china from other countries. at the same time, it does not uncritically accept all the imaginary birds ascribed to foreign lands in the shanhai jing 山海經 (book of mountains and oceans, an ancient mythic geography). there is no three headed, six legged changfu 𪁺𩿧;[115] no one legged tuofei 橐𩇯 with a bird’s body and a human face.[116] with the exception of the phoenix and the luan 鸞, the information collected in the album of birds emphasises empirical, first-hand description. using images which are independent sources of information gives the reader the sense that these birds exist beyond the textual tradition. the book presents a world of birds which exists in reality, and which can be comprehended. of course, we know today that the number and types of birds listed in the album of birds fall far short of a comprehensive description of our planet’s birds. and it is true that the ultimate purpose of the book was to support the emperor’s ethical goal of perfect rule. but if we look at the album of birds within its context, we see many innovations in its attempt to give a complete account of the “produce of the tributaries.” the categorisation by objective criteria; the images with information independent of the text; the criticism of past literature; the external orientation and use of first-hand observation... these features make the album of birds an attempt to construct knowledge which transcends ethical approaches, and give a systematic overview of the birds of the myriad nations. but what special features did the emo bird have which made it imperative in 1774 to insert it into a book that had been completed thirteen years previously? the album of birds already had several entries similar to the emo bird pages. there are entries in which the style and composition of the illustrations was a strongly western-hybrid; and there are entries describing imported species such as the “foreign green parrot” (洋綠鸚鵡), the “foreign chicken” (洋雞), and the “foreign duck” (洋鴨). the only unique feature of the emo bird entry is its translated text from europe. the other foreign birds, even though from foreign lands, are all described withinformation and knowledge produced in china. if we accept that the purpose of the album of birds was to create comprehensive knowledge of every living bird under a sage king’s rule, then apparently, for the qianlong emperor and his team, not only birds from the west, but also knowledge from the west, played an indispensable part in forming this scope. most importantly, by adding the leaves on the emo bird, even just for one single entry, the knowledge and information produced in the european age of discovery entered the qing chinese court and broadened the scope of qianlong’s “resource for ordering and tending the world” symbolically and significantly to a global level. signs of heaven’s favour: a new narrative if the emo bird entry in the album of birds represents an almost modern, scientific approach to “knowledge,” then the emo birds painted eight years later by yang dazhang is a reintegration of this apparently “objective,” “scientific” construction of reality with the chinese pictorial tradition of paintings and descriptions of auspicious signs—semi-miraculous events that demonstrate heaven’s endorsement of the emperor’s rule. this is the other side of the image of the emo bird. the painting is 149.8cm high, 101cm wide. at the top is a text border of 36.5cm, containing qianlong’s ten rhymes; at the bottom, in a 33.1cm border, is the inscription, written to imperial order by liang guozhi 梁國治. the courtiers involved in the creation of the painting were the leading lights of the day.[117] yang dazhang, the artist, was a court painter. we do not know much about his life,[118] but a note in the archives for the 4th month 1765 tells us that he came from anhui; that qianlong met him on his fourth southern tour, when yang received the emperor in yangzhou,[119] and subsequently awarded him a position in the hall of fulfilment 如意館; and that he was granted the same compensation as jin tingbiao 金廷標, an artist who had entered court service in 1757. jin tingbiao had won plaudits from the emperor in 1763 for integrating chinese and western styles: “developing an unprecedentedly perfect style which combines (giuseppe) castiglione and li (gonglin)” (以郎（世寧）之似合李（公麟）格，爰成絕藝).[120] the order to give yang dazhang the same level of pay as jin tingbiao indicates that the emperor thought very highly of him indeed. thus the decision to use liang guozhi and yang dazhang for the painting of emo birds, and the inclusion of a long imperial poem, demonstrates the importance of this painting to qianlong. this was no less a work than the specially inserted entry on the emo bird in the album of birds. the painting shows two large birds in a garden with magnolia and peonies. the birds have pointed crests, and oval white faces perched on top of brightly-coloured long necks. the necks are blue, decorated with elongated red spots. in the centre of each spot, and along the edge of the necks, white is used to suggest a glossy texture. under the necks hang folds of bright red wattle. the birds’ beaks are pointed, with one of the nares clearly visible. the bodies of both birds are covered by short, brown feathers. the bodies are rounded, with apparently vestigial wings, indicated only by black lines in the wings’ location. these lines represent the flight feathers, one of the cassowary’s defining characteristics. the painting is a riot of colour: red, yellow and purple peonies bloom; the magnolia is in full flower; the rocks are tinged with gold. swallows dart overhead, a sparrow pecks on the ground, and wild flowers are everywhere. it is a sumptuous image. the painter has placed these exotic birds from the jungle in a beautiful chinese garden, with blossoming flowers and skilful rockeries. every bird in the picture is in a pair. the peony and magnolia represent a homophonic pun for wealth and splendour (玉堂富貴); the swallows and sparrows are conventional symbols for advancement and success in the imperial examinations. the picture shows a world full of symbolism and meaning. it is interesting to note that when qianlong wrote the ten rhymes in 1774, he specifically included the phrase “here i will not mention the auspicious meaning of the shile bird” (世樂休徵瑞), and added a note to the line: the collected illustrations of the three realms records a shile bird living on a mountain near the sea. it is multi-coloured, with a ochre beak and scarlet head, and has a crest like clouds. the emo bird has a crest, similar to the shile bird, so the people of guangdong call it the taiping (great peace) bird.”[121] 《三才圖會》載臨海山有世樂鳥，其狀五色，丹喙赤首，有冠雲茲。額摩鳥有冠，頗與世樂鳥仿彿，廣東人因亦以太平鳥名之 the entry on the shile bird in the collected illustrations of the three realms reads: “it is intelligent and will protect and avenge its owner. it is no ordinary bird.” (心聰性辯，護主報主，尤非凡禽). moreover, “when the ruler is virtuous and the world is peaceful, the shile will be seen on the earth.” (王者有明德，天下太平則見). qianlong takes pains to stress in the ten rhymes that he is not going to talk about any cosmological or political implications of the emo bird. it is just a coincidence, he says, that the emo bird has a crest like the shile bird. the problem is that a glance at the pictures of the cassowary and the shile bird reveals that they are quite different in appearance. really, the only similarity between them is the crest, and one wonders if qianlong is not protesting a little too much. his real aim seems to have been mapping the image and connotations of the shile bird to the emo bird. in 1774, when qianlong wrote the ten rhymes and created the cassowary entry for the album of birds, there was a clear move away from the chinese traditions of symbolism and political discourse in images. but in 1782, when he orders yang dazhang to paint emo birds, the cassowaries are pictured in chinese garden fecund with a politicised narrative: a marvellous exotic bird travels to china to confirm the virtue of the ruler. those political symbols which qianlong claimed to abjure with the apparently objective representation 1774’s album of birds blossom in yang dazhang’s painting into a world full of beauty and happiness because of the sage virtue of its ruler. among the many styles in the chinese tradition, the elements and composition of this painting are highly reminiscent of bird and flower paintings of the ming court: the placing of the bird under a central tree in a garden, with branches framing it; the shaped rocks; the symbolic flowers and small animals. an example of a very similar work would be lu ji’s 呂紀 xinhua kongque 杏花孔雀 (peacock and apricot blossoms) (fig. 23). very similar templates were used in ming paintings documenting politically auspicious events, such as the zouyu 騶虞圖 painted during the yongle reign (fig. 24).[122] the zouyu (a mythical tiger) is pictured among vibrant wild flowers; with pairs of birds about it; in a cultivated forest setting; and with rocks picked out in gold. it looks not like the remote part of henan where the zouyu was reportedly seen, but like an exquisitely cultivated imperial garden. despite the striking similarities in composition between the ming dynasty paintings and yang dazhang’s emo birds, there are important differences as well. zouyu claims to depict a real event, and the artist has painstakingly rendered each white hair on the zouyu’s body. however, the picture looks more like a reference to other paintings than to any real animal. it is as if one of the standard tiger templates which were common in the ming has been incorporated wholesale into the painting. by comparison, the bizarre creatures shown in emo birds seem much more “real,” not because the viewer can verify the image against a real animal, but because of the pictorial detail. the artist has painted texture and used chiaroscuro to create volume, with the result that somehow these unbelievable birds seem more likely to exist than the fairly ordinary tiger in the ming painting. this sense of reality is key to the effect of the painting, and key to its political meaning. fig. 23: lu ji 呂記. xinhua kongque 杏花孔雀 (peacock and apricot blossoms). ming dynasty. hanging scroll. colour on silk. 203.4 x 110.6cm. national palace museum, taipei. fig. 24: anonymous. zouyu 騶虞圖. 1404. hand scroll. colour on silk. 51.9 x 125cm. national palace museum, taipei. the tradition of painting auspicious signs goes back a long way in china. as early as the northern song (960–1127), emperor huizong ordered the compilation of the xuanhe ruilan ce 宣和睿覽冊 (album of auspicious events in the xuanhe reign) to document all of the wondrous signs that had been seen during the xuanhe period of his reign. auspicious cranes (fig. 25), now in liaoning provincial museum, is from that album.[123] similarly, the ming dynasty zouyu claims to document a real zouyu which appeared in junzhou, henan, during the yongle reign. the practice continued into the qing dynasty: particularly from the yongzheng period onwards, the provinces would enthusiastically report various ruiying瑞應 (auspicious signs that show heaven’s approval of sage rule by the emperor). the first historical archives has a painting of ruigu tu 瑞榖圖 (auspicious grain) on which the emperor himself has written a commentary (fig. 26). the style of paintings of auspicious events had changed over history, but two features remain constant: first, the subject of the painting must be rare; second, the painting must persuade the viewer that the event really did happen. this second feature is especially important. the exotic or unusual events, objects and creatures were supposed to be signs of enlightened governance by the ruler. if such as sign were to look fake, that would directly threaten the viewer’s confidence in the sign, and would constitute a challenge to the implicit message of the emperor’s virtue. fig. 25: song huizong 宋徽宗. rui he tu 瑞鶴圖 (auspicious cranes). hand scroll. colour on silk. 51 x 138cm. liaoning provincial museum. fig. 26: ruigu tu 瑞殼圖 (auspicious grain). 1727. hand scroll. first historical archives. reproduced from first historical archives, qing history through the emperor’s orders and writings: key documents and records that changed the course of qing history (jinan: shandong jiaoyu chubanshe, 2003), 84–85. this concern is apparent in yongzheng’s inscription on auspicious grain.[124] yongzheng very clearly indicates that the reason this plant is an “auspicious grain” is because it has double or multiple ears, which is extremely “rare” (罕見). this “really is a sign” (確有明徵) that it is a gift from heaven. he called for “a painting to be made to show it to every provincial governor” (著繪圖須示各省督撫等) to prove that he was not merely boasting or “exaggerating it into an auspicious sign” (誇張以為祥瑞也). it is relatively straightforward to determine what characterises an event as “rare.” anything which is not normally seen, or which varies from the normal form would count: albino deer would be an example, or an exotic import like a giraffe, or a crop with multiple heads, as in the example above. these are common themes for paintings of auspicious events. but how could one prove these hard-to-believe sights to be real? the painting auspicious cranes shows the extraordinary sight of a flock of cranes wheeling in the sky above the gate of proclaiming virtue in kaifeng, and it bears an inscription by huizong. peter sturman’s detailed research into the background of this painting concludes that it uses “naturalism” as a stylistic tool, to create a virtual “reality.” it is not an example of “realism,” as previous scholars had suggested. wang cheng-hua has taken the analysis further, and examines how the “visual reality” thus created helped huizong to present the extraordinary and auspicious reports sent from around his empire. they were recreated in a coherent, multi-layered system of symbols that served to affirm the moral and political authority of the emperor.[125] in other words, auspicious cranes uses naturalism to create a “visual reality” which actually displaces “real reality.” the correctness of this visual reality is endorsed by the authority of the imperial inscription, and thus the apparent polar opposites of “extraordinary event” and “reality” are successfully yoked together. for this auspicious narrative to work, the expressive capacity of the visual image is key. huizong’s use of naturalism to communicate the reality of auspicious signs was not typical in the chinese tradition, and by the ming dynasty this style of painting had fallen out of use. zouyu is executed in a meticulous style, but the painting does not carry an inscription by the emperor, and the zouyu itself appears stiff and formalistic. the reality of the beast is established through a long essay giving accounts by many senior officials of witnessing the miraculous event. the essay takes up fifteen times as much space on the page as the image itself. another work in the same genre is the ming ren ruiying tu 明人瑞應圖 (pictures of the auspicious signs of the people of ming) (fig. 27), which describes wondrous things seen at the ming court, and is said to have been written at the commision of zeng qi 曾棨, hanlin expositor-in-waiting and gentleman for fostering virtue (chengde lang sixth-class official). this hand scroll has five sections, each describing a wonder: white elephant, the yellow river running clear, a unicorn (瑞麟), a white deer, and crops with multiple ears. each section has a picture, but these pictures are very simple, almost diagrammatic, on a blank background. the text takes up far more space than the images, and it is the text that serves as the evidence for the reality of the strange event. the visual image plays only a supporting role in this document. fig. 27: anonymous. ming ren ruiying tu 明人瑞應圖 (pictures of the auspicious signs of the people of ming). 1414. hand scroll. colour on paper. 30 x 686.3cm. national palace museum, taipei. by the time of the qing dynasty, the use of images to construct narratives of auspicious signs seems to have re-emerged. for example, we may compare the auspicious grain painted for yongzheng with the section in pictures of the auspicious signs of the people of ming describing the same phenomenon. in auspicious grain, castiglione’s european fusion style gives each ear body and texture. the visual force of the image alone could convince viewers that they are looking at something real, almost without any textual support. the text takes up about as much room on the page as the image, and is devoted to a narrative which expresses the emperor’s authority. this is all in stark contrast to the text-heavy ming dynasty version; in fact one could say that auspicious grain is very similar to auspicious cranes. the only difference is that the chinese naturalist style of the song work has been replaced by a western-influenced painting technique. interestingly, yongzheng makes explicit the point that the picture is evidence of the reality of the auspicious sign, that he has not “exaggerated.” given this context, we may now return to inspect once again the emo birds of yang dazhang. we see the almost perfect ellipses of the cassowaries’ heads; their beaks pointed like a raptor’s; the neon-bright necks, twisted and with a striking contrast of red and blue; the deliberate depiction of a glossy surface on the neck, which is not present on real birds; the fluffy bodies; etc. they seem to be an unnatural combination of body parts stitched together. to a certain extent, the disjointed image of the cassowaries is a product of the highly collaborative court system for producing paintings. however, the image of a cassowary drawn for the album of birds (fig. 2) largely overcomes the problems of this system: artists coordinated to smooth the transitions between their respective contributions. for example, the white of the bird’s head grades smoothly into the blue of its neck, so that the final image is fairly close to the appearance of the actual bird. yang dazhang seems to have deliberately adopted the opposite approach. the colours of each body part seem to be selected for maximum contrast. the red parts of the neck can be seen, on close inspection, to be made up of many tiny beads, each one of them shaded to create the impression of glossiness. the red is surrounded by an outline of blue beads. on the blue part of the neck, the artist has painted very fine rows of small feathers. the painting is full of such detail: close attention to light effects and texture, giving the image a dazzling physicality. what is puzzling is that these effects seem to have the objective of depicting “reality,” yet they do not seem to correspond to any imaginable object in the physical world. for example, the shine on the birds’ necks seems to be conveying to the viewer a clear sense of beaded projections; but why would a bird’s neck be covered with blue and red knobbles? yang dazhang makes use of the western technique of chiaroscuro to create the impression of a wondrous thing that actually exists; however, the result looks like “no ordinary bird” in the same way as the shile bird of the collected illustrations of the three realms. the remarkable appearance of the cassowaries painted by yang dazhang means that they fulfil the first condition of being an auspicious sign: they are certainly out of the ordinary. but how does the picture attempt to persuade us of the “reality” of this extraordinary creature? yang dazhang’s emo birds follows auspicious grain in its use of western-influenced technique to create its visual effect. but it harks back to the ming use of symbolic motifs in the background against which it places its subject. the confluence of these two stylistic approaches means that we have vivid, lively emo birds are placed against an ornate, artificial backdrop. while this backdrop is decorated with many auspicious symbols that thematically support the image, its artificiality perhaps detracts somewhat from the goal of showing the “reality” of the auspicious wonder. unusually, the archives clearly recounts qianlong’s instruction to frame the painting at top and bottom with his ten rhymes and inscription. the ten rhymes is narrated in the voice of qianlong himself, and explains how the cassowary came to the qing court. the inscription also speaks with imperial authority, but gives information about the cassowary drawn mainly from a european source. the european text was more than just another source to be quoted. its objectivity as a third party lends credibility. the source is no longer just a book of mythology like the book of mountains and oceans; nor is it a boastful exaggeration by the emperor. so despite the strange appearance of the emo birds and their highly artificial setting, yang dazhang’s painting represents a convincing pictorial and textual “proof” (明徵) to any who might doubt the reality of this wonder, by using an illusionistic painting technique and also by quoting the information provided entirely by a third party. what we see here is the integration of a european text into the construction of a chinese political discourse. qianlong made use of a european text and european knowledge to construct a new, unassailable narrative of auspicious signs. this was a narrative that comprehended the traditional symbols and the marvellous event; and added scientific evidence from natural history. where extraordinary birds once descended from the heavens, this detailed account has it arriving from a far-off land. this approach brings to mind three scrolls housed in the palace museum in beijing titled wan guo lai chao tu 萬國來朝圖 (myriad nations pay tribute to the court) (fig. 28). in place of the fanciful images in traditional paintings of tributaries, these scrolls present detailed painting from life. the perspective composition shows identifiable real buildings, and the ceremonial details are consistent with records in the qin ding da qing hui dian 欽定大清會典 (imperially endorsed statutes of the great qing). the result is a painting that seems almost like a documentary recording, made on the spot as the emperor sat in state in the hall of supreme harmony (太和殿) on his birthday or some other national event. of course it cannot be a real recording: nowhere in the records can we find mention of so many foreign ambassadors visiting the palace at the same time. there are other indications of artificiality. some of the tributes carried by the ambassadors are in fact mythical animals taken from the tradition of tribute paintings: the expanded detail (fig. 28) shows two ambassadors carrying two aos (獒, a kind of mythical creature), frequently shown in commercial copies of the popular ming painting presenting ao to the throne. so the myriad nations pay tribute to the court presents an invented reality in which elements of reality and invention are blended together. fig. 28: anonymous. wan guo lai chao tu 萬國來朝圖 (myriad nations pay tribute to the court). 1761. hanging scroll. colour on silk. 299 x 207cm. palace museum, beijing. yang dazhang’s emo birds is a similar hybrid. the blending of reality and fiction extends into every detail: there is no binary opposition between the two, simply multiple levels of interrogation. for example: qianlong had indeed owned an emo bird; but did he have two? and were emo birds ever kept in a tended garden as depicted? the answers to these questions may never be known. but we can be sure that the function of the european text and the illusionistic painting style of emo birds, like the architectural accuracy of myriad nations pay tribute to the court, were intended to make viewers believe in the “reality” of what it depicted. thus the emo birds, like the ambassadors in myriad nations pay tribute to the court, have come from afar to pay homage to qianlong’s wise rule. in a ceremonial pair, they visit his imperial garden, where they find blemish-free blossoms, swallows and sparrows, all testament to the perfection of qianlong’s empire. using european fusion painting techniques, the qing court painters created the kind of visual realism that huizong’s academy painters had used; and they deployed a european text in a way that huizong could never have imagined to bolster the effect. the successful conversion of the emo bird into a chinese genre painting created a new kind of political narrative, unique to qianlong. it has been noted by recent historians that the emperors of the northern song would regularly take their courtiers and visiting ambassadors to view the palace’s collections of marvels, tribute objects, images and books.[126] these viewings created a space within which the political meaning of the objects could be communicated. yongzheng’s inscription on auspicious grain also mentions that the painting will be “[show] every provincial governor that the sign has not been exaggerated into an auspicious sign”. clearly yongzheng’s officials were among the audience for auspicious grain. given this context, it is safe to assume that qianlong’s efforts to create a new style of auspicious image were not merely for his own amusement. so who was the intended audience? we do not have any direct information on who had access to emo birds, but we may consider the question on two levels: who saw the birds themselves, and who saw the images of them. the collection and exhibition of exotic fauna occupied a very significant place in the activities of the qing palace. for example, in 1780, the korean ambassador park ji-won 朴趾源, visiting qianlong on the occasion of his 70th birthday, wrote that carriages bearing the word “tribute” jammed the roads of the capital. these carriages were filled with treasures and rare amusements, including “precious and strange beasts from all over the world” (四海萬國奇珍怪獸). there were countless varieties of bear, fox and deer; reindeer as large as horses and russian dogs; and large birds, similar to the emo bird.[127] rare creatures entered the palace as tribute; and the palace’s matchless menagerie was often shown off in the course of diplomacy. during the reign of kangxi, gao shiqi 高士奇 wrote that an aviary was kept next to the purple light pavilion (紫光閣), housing all kind of “strange and exotic beasts and fowls, such as peacocks, jinqianji, five-coloured parakeets, cranes, pheasants, ferrets, shulisun (eurasian lynx),[128] seals...”[129] (奇禽異獸如孔雀、金錢雞、五色鸚鵡、白鶴、文雉、貂鼠、舍貍猻、海豹之類). by qianlong’s time, korean ambassadors saw this aviary as one of the wonders of the palace, and it is frequently mentioned in the various yeonhaeng-rok (燕行錄) histories written by korean missions.[130] qianlong also wrote many poems on his menagerie, many of them still extant. this poetry shows clearly that the collection and exhibition of animals was highly political. in 1751, the mongolian bilig-un dalai lama 蒙古台吉必力滾達賴(a buddhist cleric) presented qianlong with a white roe deer. in his poem on the occasion, qianlong states explicitly that it is a “supernatural animal” (靈獸): “it is not necessary to look it up in the album of beasts, my poem on this beast proves that we are prosperous and peaceful.”[131] (無須稽《獸譜》，永此驗祥經). the presentation of animals to the qing court, and the court’s ownership of them, showed that the empire was happy and that the entire world bowed to the court. when ambassadors were invited to view the menagerie, they also understood the implicit political message. in 1790, at the celebrations of his 80th birthday, qianlong ordered the eunuchs to bring out a large white reindeer (麉) sent to him by songchun, general of mukden. grand councillor agui was instructed to lead each ambassador foward to view the animal, and to ask on behalf of the emperor, “do you have this animal in your country?” the korean ambassador seo ho-su 徐浩修 gave the appropriate diplomatic response: “our marginal bit of coast could not possibly have such a marvellous creature; by the emperor’s grace i am seeing it for the first time” (海隅偏邦，安有如此奇獸，荷皇恩，今始見之).[132] given the political importance of exotic creatures, and qianlong’s disingenuous efforts to connect the emo bird with the auspicious shile bird in the ten rhymes, it is fair to say that the presence of a cassowary at the qing court had high political value. it is highly likely that qianlong exhibited it at major events, as part of his political spectacle to demonstrate his central position in the world. if he did, then the audience for these exhibitions would have included chinese nobility, courtiers, the palace servants and eunuchs; and also, crucially, diplomats from other nations. we can find more support for this inference if we consider the second level of exhibition: exhibition of the image. an image offers a second way for an owner to display his objects. as discussed earlier, the first image of an emo bird ordered by qianlong was a wall painting for the sunset glory building in the garden of perfect brightness. by the reign of qianlong, the garden of perfect brightness was one of the main venues for entertaining visiting missions. yuanmingyuan sishi jing 圓明園四十景 (forty views of the garden of perfect brightness), a book of paintings of the garden of perfect brightness, was completed by 1745, and some of the scenic spots it includes were designed to entertain foreign emissaries.[133] the korean ambassador seo ho-su reports in his record of missions to beijing (燕行記) that he was aware of all the places depicted in the forty views, and had personally visited at least four of them.[134] the sunset glory building is located within the compound of the four seasons library, which happens to be one of the forty views. when qianlong placed his first painting of an emo bird in that building, its expected audience would surely include foreign emissaries. the placement of yang dazhang’s emo birds was rather different. the painting is in the form of a portable hanging scroll, so that the place it was stored did not necessarily determine its target audience. however, we know that it was delivered to one of the palace’s great stores of documents and paintings, the emperor’s library (御書房) in the back building of the palace of great brilliance (景陽宮). we also know that qianlong had gone to significant effort to have a european book translated for the text of the inscription; had had one of his most senior courtiers, liang guozhi, inscribe it; and had ordered it attached above the painting. qianlong often had his senior writers work with him, so it seems likely that the emperor’s immediate advisers were not only the producers of the political message in emo birds, they were also its recipients. this was not unusual. the inner circle of the court was responsible for the actual exercise of imperial authority, and they were often the most immediate target audience for signals concerning the emperor’s status. for example, in kangxi 61 (1722), the aohan lotus in kangxi’s inner gardens flowered, and kangxi commissioned jiang tingxi to paint them (aohan lotus, fig. 29). seven court writers were instructed to write inscriptions. these inscriptions (“shenxian cao” 神仙草 (plant of the immortals); “rui lian” 瑞蓮 (auspicious lotus), etc.) tell us that the court was invited not just to view the marvel of the flowering lotuses themselves, but also that they were instructed to help craft the message that would convey this auspicious sign. sixty-three years later, when the lotuses in qianlong’s garden flowered, he called for this painting. seeing what his grandfather had done, he instructed seven of his courtiers, including his son yongxing, to write new poems on the painting.[135] this was somewhat unusual for qianlong. though he would often invite his courtiers to read and view paintings with him, he wrote most inscriptions himself. emo birds is a typical example, and there are relatively few paintings from qianlong’s collection with inscriptions signed by his courtiers. but whether they were writing in their own name, or copying an imperial inscription, the court’s writers were the primary audience for images of auspicious events; they contributed to the formation of the images; and they helped to spread these images and their message beyond the walls of the palace. fig. 29: jiang tingxi 蔣廷錫. aohan qianyelian 敖漢千葉蓮 (aohan lotus). 1722. hanging scroll. colour on silk. 215.7 x 96.5cm. national palace museum, taipei. conclusion: qianlong’s visual empire did the qing empire play a role in the formation of the globalised world? this essay began with a large question. however, from the minutiae of the day-to-day archives of the workshop of the imperial household department, we traced a single case study through the complex processes of image production in the qing court. qianlong was at the centre of all court activity. he dominated and managed every detail of the painting work: the selection of artists, the procedures, form of the images, reproductions, mounting, etc. the artist-centric approaches of traditional art history cannot adequately describe this process of art production, with its considerations of efficiency and production line-style processes. a piece of work which was claimed to be a document of reality, in a realist style, was not produced by a single individual who observed the reality and attempted to reproduce it. rather, it was produced by assigning individual parts to different artists, and through the use of existing templates, adjusted as necessary and placed against an appropriated backdrop. the resulting visual construction would blend formal elements and reality. at least four images of emo birds were produced at the qing court: a wall painting by ignaz sichelbarth to be hung in the garden of peaceful ripples; a leaf for the album of birds; a reproduction of the garden of peaceful ripples wall painting in hanging scroll form; and yang dazhang’s hanging scroll emo birds. the process started in 1774 with qianlong writing an imperial poem and an inscription for a painting; and was not completed until the finishing of yang dazhang’s emo birds eight years later, in 1782. having examined the images and texts, we find that they describe none other than the cassowary, a bird which intrigued the natural historians and royalty of europe during the age of discovery. qianlong’s text proves to be extracts from an anatomical report published by the french academician claude perrault between 1671 and 1676. the report had been republished by the french royal academy of sciences in the third volume of its proceedings in 1733–1734. the cassowary’s european history began in 1597, when it was brought back from the first dutch expedition to indonesia. it quickly became a much sought-after item among the aristocratic collectors of europe. collections of marvels at european courts symbolised their owners’ understanding and control of the world; they were an important status symbol; and the exchange of art and exotic collectables helped european royalty to establish networks and relationships. the cassowary which perrault dissected was owned by the french king louis xiv, the most image-conscious of european monarchs. the use of a specimen from a royal menagerie places perrault’s work in the seventeenth-century tradition of natural history, but the work itself is representative of a new, scientific trend, whereby scholars attempted to understand the mechanisms of life through dissection. it is important to note that qianlong did not transplant perrault’s text wholesale. he selected extracts from perrault to translate for his inscription. the selection indicates that qianlong was more interested in descriptions of the bird’s appearance and the old european tradition of collecting menageries. finally, qianlong adds an observation from the experience of rearing a cassowary in the qing court menagerie, thus entering into a dialogue with his european royal counterparts. the ability of qianlong to engage directly with this part of the text is echoed in the similarity of cassowary images produced in the older european curio tradition and in china: natural history illustration, wall painting and scrolls in the qing court; scientific illustrations, architectural decorations and oil paintings in europe. by tracing the cassowary through renaissance natural history and through the plentiful information from europe available to the qing court, we discover that qianlong certainly did not cut himself off from the rest of the world. in fact, he had direct knowledge of the voyages of discovery undertaken by european navigators, and of their findings. close reading of these texts suggests a new understanding of how the qing court related to europe. it was not, as the older understanding of qing history had it, “a private affair between the emperors and the western world”, in which europeans served only as “sources of incidental knowledge and pleasure.”[136] nor is the opposite extreme view accurate, exemplified by the new qing historians who see european elements in the qing court as evidence of the qing’s similarity to contemporary european empires. rather, the qing court’s engagement with europe had political meaning and objectives within its own imperial context. one of the clearest examples of this is the emo bird images discussed here. both extant images, the insert to the album of birds and yang dazhang’s emo birds, include qianlong’s inscription, quoting from a european source text. the album of birds was produced to record the “produce of the tributaries” so that the ruler could “fully understand their interests and their threats”; it was a reference to help him “order and tend the world,” which is the core task for a sage king. despite this overtly political rhetoric that defined the objective of the album of birds, the compilation of the book involved several revolutionary new practices. the most important were: first, an emphasis on first-hand collection and observation of specimens; and second, the use of visual images as an important means for transmitting and constructing knowledge. the authority of the grand council, one of the state’s central institutions of government, was used to collect specimens and first-hand images of birds from around the empire. once collected, many birds were depicted using european fusion painting techniques to reproduce texture and volume. where the chinese tradition of natural history limits illustrations to depicting features already described in the text, the revolutionary use of illusionistic painting techniques in the album of birds allowed the images to carry and construct information independently of the text. these two innovative features meant that the book evolved from its original purpose of a symbolic and abstract description of “all the birds under heaven” to geographically mapping the “birds of the myriad nations.” it represents knowledge of the reality of the world beyond china’s borders. the late addition to the book of the emo bird entry, with its imperial inscription adapted from a western text, was an indispensable element for qianlong’s symbolic construction of a universal system of knowledge. with this addition, the album of birds now contained birds both from china and overseas; and texts originating in antiquity, in modern observation, and, most importantly, from foreign countries. this study shows that the use of images to understand and control empires is not unique to europe. the emo bird entry shows us a qianlong who was very much engaged with the world and was adept at using images to construct and represent his imperial image and ambitions. where the album of birds made use of western images and text to help construct a universal, comprehensive framework of knowledge, yang dazhang’s emo birds takes its western source elements and converts them into chinese political narrative: an auspicious sign showing heaven’s endorsement of the emperor. emo birds incorporates into its composition symbolic birds and flowers reminiscent of the ming court style; but it also adopts the european fusion style developed by giuseppe castiglione under yongzheng and seen in paintings such as auspicious grain. the result is similar to the virtual-realist style used by the painters of huizong’s academy. in this sense, the auspicious signs paintings of yongzheng and qianlong represent a break with the ming tradition and a return to that abandoned song dynasty canon. but the use of images was not enough for qianlong. he ordered his poem describing the bird’s arrival and his translated inscription to be added to the top and bottom of the image. the emperor’s personal observations, and knowledge provided by a foreign third party, serve to further guarantee the “reality” of this marvellous, auspicious bird. qianlong thus heads off any suspicion that he might have, in the words of yongzheng, “exaggerated it into an auspicious sign.” qianlong wove both western text and a western-inspired painting style into a traditional narrative of imperial authority; and within that narrative, he visually represented the perfection of his empire. in both qianlong’s construction of universalist knowledge and in his creation of political narrative, we have found images playing key roles. this was common in qianlong’s court. like huizong, qianlong was an innovator in the use of visual technique to recreate or even replace “reality.” in fact qianlong took this practice much farther than huizong, applied it more widely, and displayed even stricter control over objective “reality.” qianlong ordered documentary-style paintings with illusionistic effects to be made of almost all the marvellous creatures sent to the court as auspicious signs. for example, donghai xunlu 東海馴鹿 (northeastern reindeer) (fig. 30)[137] shows a white reindeer sent by general balinga from the deer parks of the northeast in 1745; kuoerka xian xiang ma tu 廓爾喀貢象馬圖 (the tribute of gurkhas) (fig. 31)[138] shows elephants and horses sent by the king of gurkha (nepal) after qianlong conquered the country. the qianlong court was also expert at producing perspective images showing celebrations and achievements befitting a mighty empire: examples include wan shou sheng dian tu 萬壽盛典圖 (imperial birthday celebrations) and pingding huaibu huibu desheng tu 平定準部回部得勝圖 (receiving the surrender of the ili). sometimes qianlong would enter into a dialogue with older texts, and demand first-hand reexamination of ancient sites to demonstrate his greater mastery of reality. in 1790, he sent qin chengen 秦承恩, governor of shaanxi, to personally inspect the confluence of the jing and wei rivers, to check the accuracy of a classical saying: “the wei is clear, the jing muddy” (清渭濁涇). on receiving the governor’s report, he wrote an essay, created a painting to accompany it, and had them mounted as a scroll and reproduced in embroidery.[139] fig. 30: giuseppe castiglione. donghai xunlu 東海馴鹿 (northeastern reindeer). 1745. hanging scroll. colour on silk. 211.8 x 215.4cm. national palace museum, taipei. fig. 31: joseph panzi, louis de poirot. kuoerka xian xiang ma tu 廓爾喀貢象馬圖 (the tribute of gurkhas) (detail). 1793. hand scroll. colour on paper. 40.6 x 318cm. palace museum, beijing. in each of these examples, qianlong introduced objective elements of reality into an artificially constructed world, either through the use of paintings with perspective in a european fusion style, or first-hand observations, or even the deployment of information from europe. he created images which recreated the traditional ideal of sage king rule by incorporating elements of old and new. it would not be going too far to say that qianlong’s empire was built on visual splendour. from the evidence presented here, the qing empire was beyond doubt a constituent part of the early modern world. however, there are many aspects of the qing empire which do not correspond exactly with other empires; and these differences meant that china and europe perceived each other as if refracted through some multi-faceted prism. in the emo bird entry in the album of birds, we see how information and painting techniques from the west are appropriated into the court’s construction of universal knowledge. in yang dazhang’s emo birds, we see how information from the globalized world, manifested in the form of a cassowary, was rewritten into a chinese political narrative; or to look at it from the other perspective, how qianlong viewed the globalized world from within the perspective of the chinese political rhetoric. these exchanges can be viewed either way; what is certain is that the globalized world ironically helped qianlong to develop an unprecedentedly innovative renarration and reconstruction of the most traditional ideals of the chinese world order. references primary literature (chinese) han zheng xuan 鄭玄 (han), jia gongyan 賈公彥 (tang) ed. zhouli zhushu 周禮注疏 (edited commentary on the rites of zhou). in jinyin wenyuange siku quansu 景印文淵閣四庫全書four treasuries (below, four treasuries). vol. 90. taipei: taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1986. jin guo pu 郭璞. shanhai jing 山海經 (book of mountains and oceans). in four treasuries, vol. 1042. taipei: taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1986. song su song 蘇頌 “tu jing bencao zou chi” 圖經本草奏敕 (presentation of the book of illustrations of materia medica). in chongxiu zhenghe jing shi zheng lei beiyong bencao 重修政和經史證類備用本草 vol. 30. taipei: taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1965. wang pu 王溥. tang hui yao 唐會要 (institutional history of tang). in four treasuries, vol. 606–607. taipei: taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1986. zhao rushi 趙汝適. ai rulue 艾儒略. zhu fan zhi jiao yi zhifang waiji jiao yi 諸蕃志校釋 職方外紀校釋 (edited and translated treatises on foreign peoples, record of what is beyond the tributaries). taipei: zhonghua shuju, 2000. ming gao song 高松. lingmao pu 翎毛譜 (album of plumage). in wu shuping 吳樹平ed. zhongguo lidai huapu huibian 中國歷代畫譜匯編 (a collection of albums through chinese history), vol. 13. tianjin: tianjin gudai chubanshe, 1997. li shizhen 李時珍. bencao gangmu 本草綱目 (compendium of materia medica). in four treasuries, vol. 772–774. taipei: taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1986. wang qi 王圻, wang siyi 王思義 eds. sancai tuhui 三才圖會 (collected illustrations of the three realms). shanghai: shanghai guji chubanshe, 1993. qing first historical archives, art museum of the chinese university of hong kong, ed. qinggong neiwufu zaobanchu dangan zonghui 清宮內務府造辦處檔案總匯(workshop archives of the qing imperial household department). beijing: renmin chubanshe, 2005. gao shiqi 高士奇. jinao tuishi biji 金鳌退食筆記 (private jottings of gao shiqi after retirement). in four treasuries, vol. 588. taipei: taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1986. im ki-jung 林基中 임기중 ed. yeonhaeng-rok cheonjip 燕行錄全集 (complete records of missions to beijing). seoul: dongguk university press, 2001. jiang tingxi 蔣廷錫 et al. ed. gujin tushu jicheng 古今圖書集成 (complete collection of illustrations and writings from the earliest to current times). taipei: dingwen shuju, 1976. park ji-won 樸趾源 박지원. yeolha ilgi 熱河日記 :열하일기 (jehol diary). taipei: guoli bianyiguan zhonghua congshu bianshen weiyuanhui, 1982. pfister, louis. zai hua yesuhuishi liezhuan ji shumu在華耶穌會士列傳及書目 (notices biographiques et bibliographiques sur les jésuites de l’ancienne mission de chine). translated by feng chengjun. beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1986. qing gaozong 清高宗. huangchao tongzhi 皇朝通志 (comprehensive history of the empire). in four treasuries, vol. 644–645. taipei: taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1986. ———. yuzhi wenji 御製文集 (collected imperial writings). in four treasuries, vol. 1301. taipei: taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1986. ———. yuzhi shiji 御製詩集 (the collected imperial poetry). in four treasuries, vol. 1302–1311. taipei: taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1986. ruan yuan ed. jingyin midianzhulin shiqu baoji xubian 景印祕殿珠林石渠寶笈續編 (photolithographic reproduction of palace collection of religious painting and calligraphy and sequel to precious book box of the stone drain). taipei: guoli gugong bowuyuan, 1971. yu minzhong 于敏中et al. ed. guochao gongshi 國朝宮史 (history of the imperial house and court). in four treasuries, vol. 657. taipei: taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1986. zhang geng 張庚. guochao huazheng lu 國朝畫徵錄 (collected notes on the painting of our dynasty). in chou chunfu 周駿富 ed. qingdai zhuanji congkan 清代傳記叢刊 (qing dynasty biographies), vol. 71. taipei: mingwen shuju, 1986. qing shilu 清實錄 (veritable records of the qing). beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1986. jingyin wen yuange siku quanshu 景印文淵閣四庫全書 (photolithographic reprint of the complete library of the four treasuries, wen yuan ge edition). taipei: taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1983–1986. primary literature (european) académie royale des sciences ed. mémoires de l’académie royale des sciences. (http://goo.gl/helfg) aldrovandi, ulisse. “eme,” ornithologiae, hoc est de avibus historiae, libri xix–xx. bologna: apud lo bapt. bellagambam, 1603. (http://num-scd-ulp.u-strasbg.fr:8080/243) clusius, carolus (l’écluse, charles de). exoticorum libri decem. antwerp: ex officina plantiniana raphelengii, 1605. (http://num-scd-ulp.u-strasbg.fr:8080/259) diarium nauticum itineris batavorum in indiam orientalem, cursuum, tractuum, variorumque eventuum, qui ipsis contigerunt, diligenter descriptum. his accedunt, narratio historica nationum, regionum, & civitatum, quas adnavigarunt. arnhem: apud ioannem iansonium bibliopolam, 1598. hulsius, levinus. erste schiffahrt in die orientalische indien, so die hollandische schiff, im martio 1595 aussgefahren, und im augusto 1597 widerkommen, verricht. nuremberg: 1598, 1599, 1602, 1606, 1625. johnstone, johannes. historiae naturalis de avibus libri vi. cum aeneis figuris. frankfurt: impensa matthaei meriani, 1650. (http://num-scd-ulp.u-strasbg.fr:8080/468) lodewycksz, willem. d’eerste boeck: historie van indien waer inne verhaelt is de avontueren die de hollandtsche schepen bejeghent zijn. amsterdam: cornelis claesz, 1598. nieremberg, juan eusebio. historia natvrae, maxime peregrinae, libris xvi. distincta. antwerp: ex officina plantiniana b. moreti, 1635. (http://num-scd-ulp.u-strasbg.fr:8080/698) perrault, claude. mémoires pour servir à l’histoire naturelle des animaux, in mémoires de l’académie royale des sciences,1666–1699, tom 3 part 2, edited by académie royale des sciences, 1733–1734. originally published in paris: imprimerie royale, 1671–1676. (http://www.archive.org/details/mmoiresdelacad32pari) ———. memoir’s for a natural history of animals: containing the anatomical descriptions of several creatures dissected by the royal academy of sciences at paris. london: j. streater, 1688. (http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/histscitech/histscitech-idx?type=article& did=histscitech.0014.0327.0003& id=histscitech.perrault& isize=m). rouffaer, g. p. and j. w. ijzerman. de eerste schipvaart der nederlanders naar oost-indie onder cornelis de houtman, 1595–1597: journalen, documenten en andere descheiden. gravenhage: m. nijhoff, 1915. (http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/?/nl/items/konb10:0000000000000064) secondary literature asher, adolph. bibliographical essay on the collection of voyages and travels edited and published by levinus hulsius and his successors, at nuremberg, and francfort from anno 1598 to 1660. london and berlin: a. asher, 1839. asúa, miguel de and roger french. a new world of animals: early modern europeans on creatures of iberian america. alershot, hants, england; burlington, vt.: ashgate publishing limited, 2005. beekman, e. m. troubled pleasures: dutch colonial literature from the east indies, 1600–1950. oxford: oxford university press, 1996. belozerskaya, marina. “menageries as princely necessities and mirrors of their time.” in oudry’s painted menagerie: portraits of exotic animals in eighteenth-century europe, edited by mary morton, 59–73. los angeles: the j. paul getty museum, 2007. bertuccioli, giuliano. “a lion in peking: ludovico buglio and the embassy to china of bento pereira de faria in 1678.” east and west, 26: 1–2 (1976): 223–240. bouvet, joachim 白晉. qing kang qian liangdi yu tianzhujiao chuanjiao shi 清康乾兩帝與天主教傳教史 (history of the qing emperors kangxi and qianlong and catholic missionaries). translated by feng zuoming. taichung: guangqi chubanshe, 1966. bray, francesca, vera dorofeeva-lichtmann, and georges metailie eds. graphics and text in the production of technical knowledge in china: the warp and the weft. leiden, boston: brill, 2007. bredekamp, horst. the lure of antiquity and cult of the machine: the kunstkammer and the evolution of nature, art and technology. translated by allison brown. princeton: marcus wiener publishers, 1995. chen guodong(chen kuo-tung)陳國棟. dongya haiyu yiqian nian 東亞海域一千年 (1,000 years of east asia’s seas). taipei: yuanliu chubanshe, 2005. chen yuanpeng 陳元朋. “chuantong bowu zhishi li de ‘zhenshi’ yu ‘xiangxiang’: yi xijiao yu xiniu wei zhuti de gean yanjiu” 傳統博物知識裡的「真實」與「想像」：以犀角與犀牛為主體的個案研究 (‘reality’ and ‘imagination’ in traditional knowledge of natural history: case studies of rhino horn and the rhino). guoli zhengzhi daxue lishixue bao 33 (2010): p. 1–82. zheng jinsheng 鄭金生. “lun bencao shu zhong de xieshi chatu yu yishu chatu” 論本草書中的寫實插圖與藝術插圖 (on realistic illustrations and artistic illustrations among paintings of material medica). in xingxiang zhongyi: zhongyi lishi tuxiang yanjiu形象中醫：中醫歷史圖像硏究, edited by wang shumin 王淑民 and vivienne lo 羅維前, 83–89. beijing: renmin weisheng chubanshe, 2007. ———. “mingdai huajia caise bencao chatu yanjiu” 明代畫家彩色本草插圖研究 (colour illustrations of materia medica by ming dynasty painters). xin shixue 14, no. 4 (2003): 65–117. ———. yaolin waishi藥林外史 (an unofficial history of the world of medicine). guilin: guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2007. qiu shihua邱士華. “qing gaozong ‘jidacheng’ xunlian kecheng—fuzhi qing yang” 清高宗「集大成」訓練課程──複製青羊 (the practice of “great synthesis” requested by emperor gaozong: reproducing a himalayan goral). gugong wenwu yuekan 268 (2005): 24–35. zhuang jifa 莊吉發 ed. xie sui zhigong tu manwen tushuo jiaozhu 謝遂〈職貢圖〉滿文圖說校注 (annotated manchu text of the xie sui illustrated tributaries). taipei: national palace museum, 1989. zhuang shen 莊申. “folangji kao” 佛郎機考 (on folangji). dalu zazhi 8, no. 5 (1954): 19–21. collani, claudia 柯蘭霓. yesuhuishi bai jin de shengping yu zhuzuo耶穌會士白晉的生平與著作 (joachim bouvet s. j.: sein leben und sein werk). translated by li yan 李岩. zhengzhou: daxiang chubanshe, 2009. cook, harold j. matters of exchange: commerce, medicine, and science in the dutch golden age. new haven, london: yale university press, 2007. crossley, pamela kyle. a translucent mirror: history and identity in qing imperial ideology. berkeley, los angeles, london: university of california press, 1999. daston, lorraine and katharine park. wonders and the order of nature, 1150–1150. new york: zone books, 2001. de bossierre, mme yves de thomaz 伊夫斯．德．托瑪斯．德．博西耶爾夫人. yesuhuishi zhang cheng—luyi shisi pai wang zhongguo de wu wei shuxuejia zhi yi 耶穌會士張誠──路易十四派往中國的五位數學家之一 (jean-françois gerbillon, s.j. (1654–1707): un des cinq mathématiciens envoyés en chine par louis xiv). translated by xin yan. zhengzhou: da xiang chubanshe, 2009. du halde, jean-baptiste 杜赫德. yesuhuishi zhongguo shujian ji 耶穌會士中國書簡集 (lettres édifiantes et curieuses. mémoires de la chine). translated by lu yimin 呂一民, shen jian 沈堅, zheng dedi鄭德弟. zhengzhou: da xiang chubanshe, 2005. elliott, mark c. “review: qing colonial enterprise: ethnography and cartography in early modern china by laura hostetler.” journal of the economic and social history of the orient, 46: 4 (2003): 547–549. ———. the manchu way: the eight banners and ethnic identity in late imperial china. stanford: stanford university press, 2001. fan, fa-ti. british naturalists in qing china: science, empire and cultural encounter. cambridge, london: harvard university press, 2004. fang hao 方豪. “mingji xishu qiqian bu liuru zhongguo kao” 明季西書七千部流入中國考 (tracing the import of 7000 western books into china during the ming dynasty). in fang hao liushi ziding gao方豪六十自定稿, edited by fang hao, 39–54. taipei: fang hao, (1969). originally published in wen shi zazhi 3, no. 1–2 (1944). first historical archives 中國第一歷史檔案館 ed. yubi zhaoling shuo qing shi—yingxiang qingchao lishi jincheng de zhongyao dangan wenxian 御筆詔令說清史──影響清朝歷史進程的重要檔案文獻 (qing history through the emperor’s orders and writings: key documents and records that changed the course of qing history). jinan: shandong jiaoyu chubanshe, 2003. french, roger. ancient natural history. new york: routledge, 1994. ge zhaoguang 葛兆光. “zuowei sixiangshi de gu yutu” 作為思想史的古輿圖 (ancient maps as intellectual history). in dongya lishi >shang de tianxia yu zhongguo gainian 東亞歷史下的天下與中國概念, edited by kan huaichen, 217–254. taipei: guoli taiwan daxue chuban zhongxin, 2007. giersch, c. patterson. “review: qing colonial enterprise: ethnography and cartography in early modern china by laura hostetler.” the journal of asian studies, 61: 2 (2002): 699–700. ———. asian borderlands: the transformation of qing china’s yunnan frontier. cambridge, london: harvard university press, 2006. guo daiheng 郭黛姮. qianlong yupin yuanmingyuan 乾隆御品圓明園 (qianlong’s creation, the garden of perfect brightness). hangzhou: zhejiang guji chubanshe, 2007. han qi 韓琦. “‘ge wu qiong li yuan’ yu mengyang zhai—17, 18 shiji zhi zhong fa kexue jiaoliu” 「格物窮理院」與蒙養齋──17、18世紀之中法科學交流 (the french royal academy of sciences and the mengyang zhai). faguo hanxue 4 (1999): 302–324. ———. “kangxi chao faguo yesuhuishi zai hua de kexue huodong” 康熙朝法國耶穌會士在華的科學活動 (scientific activities of french jesuits in china during the kangxi reign). gugong bowuyuan yuankan 2, (1998): 68–75. han qi 韓琦, wu min 吳旻, ed. xi chao zongzheng ji, xi chao ding an (wai san zhong) 熙朝崇正集，熙朝定案（外三種） (kangxi collection of religious materials, kangxi verdict (and three other texts)). beijing: zhonghua shuju, 2006. haupt, herbert, eva irblich, manfred staudinger and thea vignau-wilberg. le bestiaire de rodolphe ii. paris: citadelle & mazenod, 1990. hazard, j. “claude perrault, famous architect, unknown physician, untiring researcher.” histoire des sciences medicales, 41: 4 (2007): 399–406. herman, john e. amid the clouds and mist: china’s colonization of guizhou, 1200–1700. cambridge: harvard university asia center, 2007. hu side 胡司德 (roel sterckx). “chatu de juxian: cong guo pu dao li shizhen de dongwu chatu” 插圖的局限：從郭璞到李時珍的動物插圖 (the limitations of illustration: animal illustrations from gao pu to li shizhen). in xingxiang zhongyi: zhongguo lishi tuxiang yanjiu, edited by wang shumin 王淑民 and vivienne lo 羅維前, 70–82. beijing: renmin weisheng chubanshe, 2007. huang aiping 黃愛平, huang xingtao 黃興濤. xixue yu qingdai wenhua西學與清代文化 (western studies and qing culture). beijing: zhonghua shuju, 2008. huang qichen 黃啟臣, deng kaisong 鄧開頌. “ming qing shiqi aomen duiwai maoyi de xingshuai” 明清時期澳門對外貿易的興衰 (the rise and fall of foreign trade through macau during the ming and qing periods). zhongguo shi yanjiu 3 (1984): 55–69. huang yinong黃一農. “ming mo qing chu tianzhujiao de ‘di tian shuo’ ji qi suo yinfa de lunzheng” 明末清初天主教的「帝天說」及其所引發的論爭 (the ‘god is heaven’ theory and debates in the late ming/early qing). gugong xueshu jikan 14, no. 2 (1996): 66–74. huxley, robert, ed. the great naturalists. london: the natural history museum, 2007. impey, oliver. and arthur macgregor eds. the origins of museums: the cabinet of curiosities in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century europe. oxford, england: oxford at the clarendon press, 1985. jin guantao 金觀濤, liu qingfeng 劉青峰. “cong ‘tianxia’, ‘wanguo’ dao ‘shijie’: wan qing minzuzhuyi xingcheng de zhongjian huanjie” 從「天下」、「萬國」到「世界」：晚清民族主義形成的中間環節 (from ‘world under heaven’ and ‘myriad nations’ to ‘world’: intermediate stages in the development of late qing nationalism). ershiyi shiji shuangyuekan 94 (2006): 40–53. harold kahn “a matter of taste: the monumental and exotic in the qianlong reign” in chou juhsi, claudia brown, the elegant brush: chinese painting under the qianlong emperor 1735–1798, 288–302.phoenix: phoenix art museum, 1985. gan huaizhen (kan huai-chen) 甘懷真 ed. dongya lishi shang de tianxia yu zhongguo gainian 東亞歷史上的天下與中國概念 (rethinking the east asian historical concepts of the world under heaven and the middle kingdom). taipei: guoli taiwan daxue chuban zhongxin, 2007. kaufmann, thomas dacosta. the mastery of nature: aspects of art, science, and humanism in the renaissance. princeton: princeton university press, 1993. kusukawa, sachiko. “konrad gessner: the beginnings of modern zoology.” in the great naturalists, edited by robert huxley, 71–75. london: the natural history museum, 2007. lach, donald f. asia in the making of europe. chicago and london: the university of chicago press, 1970. lai yuzhi (lai yu-chih) 賴毓芝. “cong yinni dao ouzhou yu qing gong: tan yuancang yang dazhang emo niao tu” 從印尼到歐洲與清宮：談院藏楊大章額摩鳥圖 (from indonesia to europe and the qing court: the npm yang dazhang painting of emo birds). gugong wenwu yuekan 297 (2007): 24–37. lazarist mission, peking. catalogue of the pei-t’ang library. peking: lazarist mission press, 1949. li huachuan 李華川. “qing zhong qian qi guoren dui faguo de renzhi” 清中前期國人對法國的認知 (knowledge of france among chinese of the early–mid qing). in xixue yu qingdai wenhua edited by huang aiping and huang xingtao, 3–9. beijing: zhonghua shuju, 2008. li tiangang 李天綱. zhongguo liyi zhi zheng: lishi, wenxian he yiyi 中國禮儀之爭：歷史、文獻和意義 (the chinese rites controversy: history, literature and meaning). shanghai: shanghai guji chubanshe, 1998. liang jiabin 梁嘉彬. “ming shi folangji zhuan kaozheng” 明史佛郎機傳考證 (an investigation of the ‘commentaries on the portuguese’ in the ming history). wen shi xue yanjiusuo yuekan 2, no. 3–4 (1934): 93–142. liu tuo 劉托, meng bai 孟白, ed. qing dian ban hua huikan 清殿版畫匯刊 (collections of woodcuts and paintings from qing palaces). beijing: xuefan chubanshe, 1998. ma yazhen (ma ya-chen) 馬雅貞. “qingdai gongting hua ma yuhui de zhuanhuan yu yiyi—cong lang shining de bai jun tu tan qi” 清代宮廷畫馬語彙的轉換與意義──從郎世寧的《百駿圖》談起 (transformation and meaning in the records of painting horses in the qing court—giuseppe castiglione’s white horse). gugong xueshu jikan 27, no. 3 (2010): 103–138. mauries, patrick. cabinets of curiosities. new york: thames & hudson, 2002. metailie, georges. “the representation of plants: engravings and paintings.” in graphics and text in the production of technical knowledge in china: the warp and the weft, edited by francesca bray, vera dorofeeva-lichtmann, and georges metailie, 487–520. leiden, boston: brill, 2007. millward, james a. “review: a translucent mirror: history and identity in qing imperial ideology by pamela kyle crossley.” the american history review, 106: 3 (2001): 953–954. ———. “review: qing colonial enterprise: ethnography and cartography in early modern china by laura hostetler.” journal of interdisciplinary history, 33: 2 (2002): 347–348. ———. beyond the pass: economy, ethnicity, and empire in qing central asia, 1759–1864. stanford, california: stanford university press, 1998. mission catholique des lazaristes à pékin. catalogue de la bibliothéque du pé-t’ang. pekin: imprimerie des lazaristes, 1949. morton, mary ed. oudry’s painted menagerie: portraits of exotic animals in eighteenth-century europe. los angeles: the j. paul getty museum, 2007. museu de arte de macau 澳門藝術博物館. haiguo bolan: qingdai gongting xiyang chuanjiaoshi huashi huihua liupai jingpin 海國波瀾 ── 清代宮廷西洋傳教士畫師繪畫流派精品 (the golden exile, pictorial expressions of the school of western missionaries—artworks of the qing dynasty court). macau: museu de arte de macau, 2002. national palace museum 國立故宮博物院. gugong shuhua tulu 故宮書畫圖錄 (illustrated catalogue of paintings and calligraphy in the national palace museum). taipei: national palace museum, 1989–2011. ———. gugong niaopu 故宮鳥譜 (album of birds). taipei: national palace museum, 1997. newby, l. j. “review: qing colonial enterprise: ethnography and cartography in early modern china by laura hostetler.” the journal of the royal anthropological institute, 9:1 (2003): 159–160. nie chongzheng 聶崇正. qing gong huihua yu “xi hua dong jian” 清宮繪畫與「西畫東漸」 (qing court painting and the “eastern march of western painting”). beijing: zijincheng chubanshe, 2008. nie chongzheng聶崇正. gongting yishu de guanghui: qingdai gongting huihua luncong 宮廷藝術的光輝：清代宮廷繪畫論叢 (the glories of qing court art: essays on qing court painting). taipei: dongda tushu gongsi, 1996. ogawa hiromitsu小川裕充. “kô sen rokkakuzu hekiga to sono keifu (ue)—setsu shoku, kô sen, kô kyosai kara ku-ron ichigô ryôbo senkakuzu hekiga o hete kisô, chô hakushuku, mokukei, ô shinhô, setsu ha, sesshu, kano ha made” 黃荃六鶴圖壁畫とその系譜（上）──薛禝 ‧黃荃 ‧黃居寀から庫倫一號遼墓仙鶴圖壁畫を經て徽宗 ‧趙伯驌 ‧牧谿 ‧王振鵬 ‧浙派 ‧雪舟 ‧狩野派まで（上） (wall painting of six cranes by huang quan and its genealogy (i)). kokka, vol. 1165 (1992): 7–22. ———. “kô sen rokkakuzu hekiga to sono keifu (ge)—setsu shoku, kô sen, kô kyosai kara ku-ron ichigô ryôbo senkakuzu hekiga o hete kisô, chô hakushuku, mokukei, ô shinhô, setsu ha, sesshu, kano ha made” 黃荃六鶴圖壁畫とその系譜（下）──薛禝 ‧黃荃 ‧黃居寀から庫倫一號遼墓仙鶴圖壁畫を經て徽宗 ‧趙伯驌 ‧牧谿 ‧王振鵬 ‧浙派 ‧雪舟 ‧狩野派まで（下） (wall painting of six cranes by huang quan and its genealogy (ii)). kokka, vol. 1297 (2003): 7–25 ogilvie, brian w. the science of describing: natural history in renaissance europe. chicago: university of chicago, 2006. orleans, joseph d’. history of the two tartar conquerors of china. rpt. boston: adamant media corporation, 2005. perdue, peter c. china marching west: the qing conquest of central asia. cambridge, london: the belknap press of harvard university press, 2005. rawski, evelyn s. “early modern ethonography in an asian setting.” current anthropology 47: 2 (2006): 389–390. ———. “re-envisioning the qing: the significance of the qing period in chinese history.” the journal of asian studies, 55: 4 (1996): 829–850. ———. “re-imagining the ch’ien-lung emperor: a survey of recent scholarship.” gugong xueshu jikan 21:1 (2003): 1–29. salmon, xavier. “the duke and the cassowary: the animals by jean-baptiste oudry.” fmr: the magazine of franco maria ricci 126 (2004): 69–86. schiebinger, londa, and claudia swan eds. colonial botany: science, commerce, and politics in the early modern world. philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press, 2005. schiebinger, londa. plants and empire: colonial bioprospecting in the atlantic world. cambridge, london: harvard university press, 2004. shi shouqian (shih shou-chien) 石守謙 and feng mingzhu 馮明珠 (fung ming-chu) ed. qianlong huangdi de wenhua daye 乾隆皇帝的文化大業 (emperor qianlong’s grand cultural enterprise). taipei: guoli gugong bowuyuan, 2002. smith, pamela h. and paula findlen eds. merchants and marvels: commerce, science and art in early modern europe. new york, london: routledge, 2002. speake, jennifer. ed. literature of travel and exploration: an encyclopedia. new york: fitzroy dearborn, 2003. sturman, peter. “cranes above kaifeng: the auspicious image at the court of huizong.” ars orientalis, 20, 1990, 37–42. trnek, helmut, and sabine haag eds. exotica: portugals entdeckungen im spiegel furstlicher kunst-und wunderkammern der renainssance. wien: kunsthistorisches museum wien, 2001. tsukamoto maromitsu 塚本麿充. “kaigaisho shôron: hokusô sankan hikaku no bunbutsu shûshû no shiteki igi to mijutsu ni tsuite no ichi kô satsu” 『海外書』小論：北宋三館秘閣の文物收集の史的意義と、美術についての一考察 (on ‘overseas calligraphy’: an investigation into the historical role of fine art diplomacy and the collection of artefacts in the northern song). yamato bunka 115 (2006): 25–40. waley-cohen, joanna. “the new qing history.” radical history review 88 (2004): 193–206. wang shumin 王淑民, and lo, vivienne 羅維前, ed. xingxiang zhongyi: zhongguo lishi tuxiang yanjiu 形象中醫：中國歷史圖像研究 (imagining chinese medicine). beijing: renmin weisheng chubanshe, 2007. wang ting 王頲. xiyu nanhai shi di yanjiu 西域南海史地研究 (research on the history and geography of the western regions and southern oceans). shanghai: shanghai guji chubanshe, 2005. wang zhenghua(wang chenghua) 王正華. “‘tingqin tu’ de zhengzhi yihan: huizong chao yuan hua fengge yu yiyi wangluo” 《聽琴圖》的政治意涵：徽宗朝院畫風格與意義網絡 (the political significance of listening to music: interlacing of style and meaning in court paintings under huizong). guoli taiwan daxue meishushi yanjiu jikan 5 (1998): 77–122. yanagisawa, akira 柳澤明. “kokyūhakubutsuin zō man kan gappeki ‘choufu’ ni tsuite” 故宮博物院藏滿漢合璧《鳥譜》〉について (on the bilingual album of birds in the collection of national palace museum in taipei). manzoku-shi kenkyū滿族史研究, 3 (2004): 18–39 yang boda 楊伯達. qingdai yuanhua 清代院畫 (academy painting in the qing). beijing: zijincheng chubanshe, 1993. yu huamin 于化民. “‘folangji’ minghao yuanliu kaolue” 「佛郎機」名號源流考略 (considerations on the origin and use of the term ‘folangji’). wen shi zazhi 27 (1986). ———. zhong xi jiaotong shi 中西交通史 (a history of exchanges between china and the west). shanghai: shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2008. appendix 1. parallel cassowary texts text 〈御制額摩鳥圖記〉 carolus clusius (l’ écluse, charles de, 1526–1609), exoticorum libri decem: quibus animalium, plantarum, aromatum aliorumque peregrinorum fructuum historiae describuntur (lugduni batavorum, ex officina plantiniana raphelengij, 1605) perrault, claude (1613–1688), memoir’s for a natural history of animals: containing the anatomical descriptions of several creatures dissected by the royal academy of sciences at paris (london: printed by j. streater, and are to be sold by t. basset [etc.], 1688) history 西洋人所記額摩鳥圖説云：額摩鳥古今圖藉未載，西洋舊無此種，於其國一千五百九十七年，當明萬厯二十五年丁酉，紅毛國人始得自嘠拉巴海島，携來西洋，云即彼國亦罕覯也。後六年，紅毛國人復於嘠拉巴得二鳥，皆不能畜。當本朝康熙十年辛亥，有勝老楞佐海島頭目，自印度國估舶購得，獻之佛朗機亞國王，畜之，四年死。 anno nonagesimo septimo supra millesimum et quingentesimum a christi nativitate, batavi amstelredamum reduces e prima navigatione quam biennio ante in indiam orientalem instituebant, admirabilem avem adferebant, in banda insula, moluccarum una, ut aiebant, natam, et ab incolis emeu, sive eme, appellatam, qualem in tota europa ante conspectam non fuisse arbitror. (97) before the year 1579 this bird was never seen in europe; and no author of the ancients, or modernes, has spoken thereof. the hollanders brought one at the return of their first voyage from india. it was given them as a rarity by a prince of the isle of java. six years after (=1603) they brought two others, but they dyed on the way. that here described was sent to the king in 1671, by the governour of madagascar, who had bought it of the marchants which returned from the indies. it lived four years at versailles. (241)   audio porro, illas naves quae anno a christi nativitate millesimo sexecentesimo tertio ex moluccis in hollandiam redibant, binas similes aves quidem attulisse, sed in itinere mortuas, projecisse. (99)   國王命工詳圖其狀     height 鳥髙五尺五寸 haec avis...quatuor pedum et aliquot unciarum altitudinem excedebat. (98) ours (sc. our cassowary) measured five foot and a half in length, from the end of the beak to the extremity of the tallons. (241) neck 自頂至頸一尺五寸 collum a summo capite ad dorsi initium, tredecim paene uncias erat longum. (98) the head and neck were a foot and a half together (241) colour 俱無毛，惟腦後短毛甚稀，頭綠頸翠，其連眷處及嗉皆紅紫色， eius caput... fere glabrum, coloris ex atro caerulei cum colli suprema parte, in quo apparebant rari pili nigri. the neck was without feathers.... the head also had none. (242) wattles 嗉下垂贅肉兩片，長寸二分，廣六分許，下圓如茄袋，亦紅紫色。 anterior colli pars, quatuor paene unciis infra rostrum, bina veluti membranacea palearia, ceu barbulas, propendentia habebat duas uncias longa, coloris miniati. there were two fleshy appendices, like those which hang down at the lower beak of hen’s. they were an inch and a half long, and nine lines broad, being rounded at the end. their colour was like he rest of the neck, partly red and partly blew. (243) 嘴上下畧同他鳥     crest 頂冠髙三寸骨自頂稜起至嘴左右三分如裂形色堅緻若牛角 a cuius medio, ad capitis usque verticem porrectum diadema assurgebat corneae substantiae, tres fere uncias altum. it (sc. the head) was covered with a crest three inches high, like the of a helmet. ... it was every where smooth and shining like horn; its circumference was like an edg, not exceeding three lines in that place. (242) nares 近嘴兩孔為鼻 paulloque supra mucronem binis foraminibus, narium usum praebentibus (p. 98) the interstices on each side (sc. of the beak) had but one membrane, in which were the holes of the nostrills, very near the extremity of the beak. (243). eyes 其目大六七分，睛正圓，外黄暈，類獅子睛，其光色如金剛石也 oculi paullo supra rostri fissuram magni, ardentes et truces, leonis oculis paene similes (98) the eye was large. its iris of a topaze colour, almost as in the lyon. (243) eyebrows 目上眉灣如月   there were likewise a row of black hairs like a demi-circle, at the top of the eye, raised like an eye-brow. (243) ears 兩耳孔大三四分，顯豁呈露其旁，微有黒毛 et meatus illos aurium parvos et detectos (sc. nigri pili cingebant.) (98) the hole of the ear was very great and bare, being only surrounded with black hairs. (243) tongue 舌入喉間，長可五分許   the tongue measured an inch in length and eight lines in breadth. it was indented all round like a cocks combe. (248) wings 翅蔵兩脇毛下，甚小 alas haberet, set sub plumis latera tegentibus latentes. (98) the wing was so little, that it did not appear, being quite hid under the feathers of the back (241) 有大管五，黒色而無翎，排次如人指，長約三四寸 alas ... quatuor maioribus pennis nigris praeditas. (98) and did each (sc. wing) cast forth five great tubes or stems without any beards. ... they were of different length, according to the dispositon, and proportion that the fingers have in the hand. the longest was eleven inches, being three lines diameter towards the root, which was only a little bigger than the extemetiy, which went not pointing but did appearbroken, or ragged. their colour was of a very shining black. (242) feathers 自背至膝上，毛皆麤散作黑絳色，仿彿熊豕 illae plumae, ut a procul aspicientibus non plumis sed villis duntaxat tectum eius avis corium existimari possit, quale ursinum est. (98) those (sc. feathers) which do cover it (sc. the bird), do better resemble the hair of a bear or wild-boar, than feathers, or down; so harsh, long, and thin are the fibres which do compose the beards of these plumes. (241) 毛長數寸，兩毛生一管中，不類他鳥翎羽，故僅足蔽體，無助飛騰也 pennae seu verius plumae ... perpetuo erant geminae, ex eodem parvo brevique tubulo prodeuntes. (98) ... quia hanc avem non esse volucrem, nec a terra tolli posse arbitror. (98) all these plumes were of one sort, different from birds which fly, where there are some feathers for flight, and others only for covering the skin. our cassowar had only the last sort. they were most double, having two long tubes or stems proceeding from another very short one, which was fastened to the skin. (242) 凥形如鶴而不生長翎 nam cauda carebat. (98) there was no tail; the feathers which did cover the rump ... not being different from the others nor otherwise disposed. (242) legs 脛以下皮如鱗甲，圓徑寸許，似鶴脛 crura in ambitu quinque unciarum crassitudinem superabant, crebrisque corticibus seu squamis latis tecta erant. (98) the leggs ... had some scales. ... towards the bottom and fore-part of the leg they contained even an inch. (243) 而大足三趾無距 pedes habebat crassos, duros, tribus crassis digitis preditos. (98) the toes ... were but three in number, having none behind. (243–244) 爪堅實有力，紅毛人言能向後攫物，又言每嵗脱毛時冠亦隨脱，又言無舌無翅，騐之皆不足信也。 pedes adeo firmos et robustos ... . non rostro antrorsum, sed oblique se convertens, aversis retrorsum pedibus eos ... impeterre solebat. (99) quod (sc. diadema) cum plumario defluvio cadere, et cum plumae renascuntur, novum crescere intelligebam. (98) clusius says that this bird has a prodigious strength in his feet, with which it strikes, by running backward, in such fort, that it breaks down truncks of trees of the bigness of ones thigh. those that had the care of ours (sc. our cassowary), observed it not to be so strong nor furious. (244) clusius says that when the bird molts the crest falls off with the feathers: ... we made enquirie after this particularity of those which do look after the animals of versailes who for the space of four years have not seen the crest fallen. (243) aldrovandus ... reports that this bird is chiefly admirable in that it has neither wings nor tongue. in our subject we fount this a falsitie. (241) name 此鳥在嘠拉巴名額摩，在佛朗機名格素爾   clusius says that in the indies it is called eme. we have not yet been able to understand wherefore it is in french called casuel or gasuel. (241) temperament 性極馴，以手撫之，輙依人而立   those that had the care of ours (sc. cassowar), observed it not to be so strong nor furious. (244) diet 與以諸物皆就食，而常飼則惟蔬穀，亦愛食魚 licet vero quaecumque obiciebantur voraret, ut aurantia mala integra, et similia: ordinarius tamen eius cibus erat similagineus, sive primarius panis. (99) this animal, which feeds not on flesh, buet puls and bread. (244)   飲啄必仰首而吞，盖以舌在喉間，不能䑛取耳。     [1] for more on this historiographical movement, see evelyn s. rawski, “re-envisioning the qing: the significance of the qing period in chinese history,” the journal of asian studies 55, no. 4 (november, 1996): 829–850; evelyn s. rawski, “re-imagining the ch’ien-lung emperor: a survey of recent scholarship,” gugong xueshu jikan 21, no. 1 (fall, 2003): 1–29; joanna waley-cohen, “the new qing history,” radical history review 88 (winter, 2004): 193–206. [2] most clearly seen in pamela kyle crossley, a translucent mirror: history and identity in qing imperial ideology, and mark c. elliott, the manchu way: the eight banners and ethnic identity in late imperial china. [3] the history of the qing expansion has become one of the most celebrated topics in the new qing history, but in a break with past historical practice, the new qing historians examine it in the framework of a colonial empire. the work of peter c. perdue places the qing empire in the context of contemporary global history, comparing and contrasting it with recent european empires. see, among others, james a. millward, beyond the pass: economy, ethnicity, and empire in qing central asia, 1759–1864; peter c. perdue, china marching west: the qing conquest of central asia; c. patterson giersch, asian borderlands: the transformation of qing china’s yunnan frontier; john e. herman, amid the clouds and mist: china’s colonization of guizhou, 1200–1700. [4] see crossley, a translucent mirror, particularly ch. 5. [5] crossley, a translucent mirror, 37–38, 276–277, 281–282. [6] for example, james a. millward writes in a review: “the arguments here are ingenious, if complex, and will certainly make a mark on the fields of qing and modern chinese history. however, given that many arguments are based on philology and/or close reading of ideological rhetoric, one would have liked in many places a closer tethering to sources.” millward, “review: a translucent mirror.” see millward, review of a translucent mirror, by crossley, the american history review 106, no. 3 (june, 2001), 953–954. [7] this book is one of the most reviewed works of qing history in recent years, with at least ten reviews published. a few examples include: millward, review of qing colonial enterprise, by laura hostetler, journal of interdisciplinary history 33, no. 2 (autumn, 2002), 347–348; elliott, review of qing colonial enterprise, by laura hostetler, journal of the economic and social history of the orient 46, no.4 (2003), 547–549; rawski, “early modern ethnography in an asian setting,” current anthropology 47, no. 2 (april, 2006), 389–390; giersch, review of qing colonial enterprise, by laura hostetler, the journal of asian studies 61, no. 2 (may, 2002), 699–700; l. j. newby, review of qing colonial enterprise, by laura hostetler, the journal of the royal anthropological institute 9, no 1 (march, 2003), 159–160. [8] giersch, review of qing colonial enterprise. [9] elliott, review of qing colonial enterprise; newby, review of qing colonial enterprise. [10] the album of birds has 12 volumes, of which the first four are in the national palace museum in taipei, and the remaining eight in the palace museum in beijing. [11] preserved at the palace museum in beijing. [12] preserved at the national palace museum in taipei. [13] for more information on western style in the qing court, see yang boda, qingdai yuanhua; nie chongzheng, gong ting yishu de guanghui: qingdai gongting huihua luncong and qing gong huihua yuxi hua dongjian”. [14] e.g. pamela h. smith and paula findlen, merchants and marvels: commerce, science and art in early modern europe; miguel de asúa and roger french, a new world of animals: early modern europeans on creatures of iberian america; harold j. cook, matters of exchange: >commerce, medicine, and science in the dutch golden age. [15] londa schiebinger, plants and empire: colonial bioprospecting in the atlantic world; londa schiebinger and claudia, colonial botany: science, commerce, and politics in the early modern world. [16] related research in china has focused in the past on the history of astronomy and calendars; recent research has also noted connections with europe in the natural history of the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly in the context of imperialist history. see fan fa-ti, british naturalists in qing china: science, empire and cultural encounter. [17] in the collected imperial poetry, in the year “jia wu” (1774), six poems on night rain is marked with the date “18th of the 4th month,” and appears two pages before the ten rhymes; a few pages after the ten rhymes comes the date “20th of the 4th.” assuming that yuzhi shiji is arranged strictly by date, the ten rhymes was composed sometime between the 18th and the 20th. see yuzhi shiji, iv, juan 21, 32a–b, in jingyinwenyuangesikuquanshu (below, siku), vol. 1307, 616. [18] recorded in pfister, zai hua yesuhuishi liezhuan ji shumu, vol. 2, 864–867. [19] “ruyi guan (如意館)” in huojidang (活計檔). see first historical archives, art museum, the chinese university of hong kong, eds. qing gong neiwufu zaobanchudang'an zonghui (below, zonghui), vol. 37, 131. [20] see nie chongzheng, qingdai gongting huihua, 192. [21] see yuzhi shiji, ii, juan 79, 15a–b, in siku, vol. 1304, 461. [22] the old summer palace had had gardens named for famous areas of natural beauty in the south since even before qianlong conducted his tour of the southern provinces, for example, the san tan ying yue (三潭映月), the famous scene of the west lake. see guo daiheng, qianlong yupin yuanmingyuan, 187–189. [23] “ruyi guan” in huojidang, 1774, 27th of the 6th, reprinted in zonghui, vol. 37, 140. [24]ruan yuan, jingyin midian zhulinshiqu baoji xubian, vol. 4, 1891–1893. [25] “xiabiao zuo (匣裱作)” in huojidang, 1774, 22nd of the 9th, in zonghui, vol. 37, 306–307. [26] “ruyi guan” in huojidang, 1776, 21st of the 11th, in zonghui, vol. 39, 802. [27] see yu minzhong et al. ed., guochao gongshi, juan 21, 26a–b, in siku, vol. 657, 444. [28] see “ruyi guan” in huojidang, 1777, 29th of the 9th and 3rd of the 11th, in zonghui, vol. 40, 309. [29] “ruyi guan” in huojidang, 1777, 12th of the 12th, in zonghui, vol. 40, 318–319. [30] “ruyi guan” in huojidang, 1782, 7th of the 11th, in zonghui, vol. 45, 676. [31] this painting itself is undated; it is signed “humbly painted at the order of the emperor by courtier yang da-zhang” (臣楊大章奉勅恭繪) with the seals “yang da-zhang” and “humbly painted.” on the upper inscription, ten rhymes on the emo bird, there is a date: “qianlong jia wu” (1774). this makes the painting easily be mis-dated as being made in 1774, and this date has been cited even in my own previous works. see lai yuzhi (lai yu-chih), “cong yinni dao ouzhou yu qinggong: tan yuancang yang dazhang emo niao tu,” gugong wenwu yuekan, no. 297 (2007): 24–37. [32] ruan yuan, jingyin midian zhulin shiqu baoji xubian, vol. 4, 2254–2255. [33] see qiu shihhua, “qing gaozong ‘ji da cheng’ xunlian kecheng: fuzhi qingyang,” gugong wenwu yuekan, no. 268 (2005): 24–35; ma yazhen (ma ya-chen), “qingdai gongting hua ma yuhui de zhuanhuan yu yiyi: cong lang shining de ‘bai jun tu’ tan qi,” gugong xueshu jikan 27, no. 3 (spring, 2010): 103–138. [34] yuzhi shiji, iv, juan 21, 32a–b, in jingyinwenyuangesikuquanshu (below, siku), vol. 1307, 616. [35] ibid. [36] see zhuang jifa, xie sui ‘ zhigong tu’ manwen tushuo jiaozhu, 107. [37] see chen guodong, “daoyan: jindai chuqi yazhou de haiyang maoyi wangluo” in dongya >haiyu yiqian nian, 15. [38] zhuang shen, “folangji kao,” dalu zazhi 8, no.5 (1954): 19–21; yu huamin, “’folangji’ minghao yuanliu kaolue,” wenshi zazhi 27 (1986): 195–205; liang jiabin, “ming shi folangji zhuan kaozheng,” wen shi xue yanjiusuo yuekan 2, no. 3–4 (1934): 93–142; huang qichen and deng kaisong, “ming qing shiqi aomen duiwai maoyi de xingshuai,” zhongguo shi yanjiu 3 (1984): 55–69. [39] see zhuang jifa, xie sui >‘zhigong tu’ manwen tushuo jiaozhu, 83. [40] during research into the gewu qiongli yuan (i.e. the french royal academy of sciences), han qi found a reference to the gewu qiongli yuan in fulangjiya guo (昔富朗濟亞國之格物窮理院) indicating that by the time of kangxi, the term fulangjiya 富朗濟 was being used for france. however, it is not certain that fulangjiya is the same term as folangji. see li huachuan for discussion of confusion between portugal and france in the mid-qing. see han qi, “‘ge wu qiong li yuan’ yu mengyang zhai: 17, 18 shiji zhi zhong fa kexue jiaoliu,” faguo hanxue 4 (1999): 317; li huachuan, “qing zhong qian qi guoren dui faquo de renzhi,” in huang aiping and huang xingtao, xixue yu qingdai wenhau, 3–9. [41] see zhao rushi, ai rulue (giulio aleni), zhu fan zhi jiao yi zhifang waiji jiao yi, 118. [42] emeu, emu or eme. according to levinus hulsius in his record of a dutch expedition to java, the word comes from an “indian language.” levine hulsius (d. 1606), native of ghent, published a series of travel journals in nuremberg beginning in 1598. the first journal covers a dutch expedition to the east indies in 1595–1597. see donald f. lach, asia in the making of europe, vol. ii, book one, 95, 183. [43] perrault, mémoires pour servir. here i make use of an english translation published in 1688: perrault, memoir's for a natural history of animals. the images are taken from the version printed in académie royale des sciences ed., mémoires de l’académie royale des sciences, 1666–1699, tom. 3, part. 2, ii partie, pl 56, pag 155 &; pl 57, pag 156. [44] hazard j., “claude perrault, famous architect, unknown physician, untiring researcher,” 399–406. [45] see note 43. [46] louis xiv began building his zoo at versailles in 1662. he was able to obtain many rare creatures for it through the portuguese king and the dutch east india company, among other sources. he wanted to provide a spectacle for visitors and his own courtiers, and to provide subjects for observation and study by natural historians and doctors. for a background on european zoos and their appeal to royalty, see marina belozerskaya, “menageries as princely necessities and mirrors of their time,” in mary morton ed., oudry’s painted menagerie: portraits of exotic animals in eighteenth-century europe, 59–73. [47] “[t]his animal, which feeds not on flesh, but pulse and bread...” see perrault, memoir's for a natural history of animals>, 244. [48] see appendix 1. [49] wang ting, “tiaozhi daque: zhongguo zhong jin gu jizai zhong de daxing zouqin,” in xiyu nanhai shi di yanjiu, 39–56 [50] for a reconstruction of this voyage and the literature about it, see e. m. beekman, “the first voyage to the east indies (1595–1597) and the beginning of colonial literature,” in troubled pleasures: dutch colonial literature from the east indies, 1600–1950, 39–79; jennifer speake ed., entry on “lodewycksz, willem (d. 1604),” literature of travel and exploration: an encyclopedia, 734–736. for modern reprints of contemporary records of this expedition, see beekman, “the first voyage to the east indies (1595–1597) and the beginning of colonial literature,” note 1, 75. [51] willem lodewycksz, d’eerste boeck: historie van indien waer inne verhaelt is de avontueren die de hollandtsche schepen bejeghent zijn reprinted in g. p. rouffaer and j. w. ijzerman, de eerste schipvaart der nederlanders naar oost-indië onder cornelis de houtman, 1595–1597—journalen, documenten en andere bescheiden. [52] see lach, asia in the making of europe, vol. ii, book one, 182, 183. [53] rouffaer and ijzerman, de eerste schipvaart der nederlanders naar oost-indië onder cornelis de houtman, 1595–1597, plaat 30, 136; online version, 240. [54] ulisse aldrovandi, “eme,” ornithologiae, hoc est de avibus historiae, libri xix-xx, 541. [55] diarium nauticum itineris batavorum in indiam orientalem, cursuum, tractuum, variorumque eventuum, qui ipsis contigerunt, diligenter descriptum. his accedunt, narratio historica nationum, regionum, & civitatum, quas adnavigarunt. [56] levinus hulsius, erste schiffahrt in die orientalische indien so die holländische schiff, im martio 1595 aussgefahren, und im augusto 1597 widerkommen, verricht for a comprehensive bibliography on hulsius, see adolph asher, bibliographical essay on the collection of voyages and travels edited and published by levinus hulsius and his successors, at nuremberg, and francfort from anno 1598 to 1660 117. i have not seen the original drawings for the hulsius volume, but am working from information given by asher and lach. see next note. [57] see lach, asia in the making of europe, vol. ii, book one, fig. 141. [58] most of the literature on clusius is in dutch; there are very few monographs on him in english. for more information on his life and his contribution, see references in general works on the history of natural history during the renaissance: brian w. ogilvie, the science of describing: natural history in renaissance europe, chapter 2; cook, matters of exchange, chapter 3; de asúa and french, “exotic animal: knowledge and interests. clusius and his exotica,” a new world of animals, 109–114. [59] carolus clusius (lécluse, charles de), exoticorum libri decem, 97–99. [60] see appendix 1. [61] see appendix 1. [62] these codices were created in about 1610, and include 180 gouache drawings on sheepskin. they are kept in the national library vienna, and have been reprinted in herbert haupt et al., le bestiaire de rodolphe ii, no. 118, 119. [63] juan eusebio nieremberg, historia natvrae maxime peregrinae, libris xvi. distincta, 218–219. [64] johannes johnstone, historiae naturalis de avibus libri vi. cum aeneis figuris, 172–174. [65] for more on early european natural history, see roger french, ancient natural history, especially chapter 3; miguel de asúa and roger french, “introduction,” in a new world of animals, xiii–xvi. [66] one of the best examples is natural and moral history of the indies by the jesuit priest josé de acosta (1540–1600). see de asúa and french, “aristotle and the new world. josé de acosta and his natural and moral history of the indies,” and “the natural histories of the new world,” in a new world of animals, 76–84, 88–89. [67] miguel de asúa and roger french, “animals in a jungle of words: gesner’s historiae animalium” in a new world of animals,190–196; sachiko kusukawa, “konrad gessner: the beginnings of modern zoology,” in the great naturalists, 71–75. [68] for the history of collections in europe, seelach, “collections of curiosities,” in asia in the making of europe, vol. ii book one, 7–45; horst bredekamp, trans. allison brown, the lure of antiquity and cult of the machine: the kunstkammer and the evolution of nature, art and technology, particularly ch. 4; oliver impey and arthur macgregor eds., the origins of museums: the cabinet of curiosities in sixteenthand seventeenth-century europe; patrick mauries, cabinets of curiosities; thomas dacosta kaufmann, “from mastery of the world to mastery of nature: the kunstkammer, politics, and science,” in the mastery of nature: aspects of art, science, and humanism in the renaissance, 174–195; lorraine daston and katharine park, wonders and the order of nature, 1150–1150. [69] the most important research on the import of marvels to european collections and exchanges between european royal houses was done for the 2000 exhibition held in kunsthistorisches museum wien “exotica: portugals entdeckungen im spiegel fürstlicher kunstund wunderkammern der renainssance” and the accompanying seminar. see helmut trnek and sabine haag eds., exotica: portugals entdeckungen im spiegel fürstlicher kunstund wunderkammern der renainssance, particularly almudena pérez de tudela and annemarie jordan gschwend, “luxury goods for royal collectors: exotica, princely gifts and rare animals exchanged between the iberian courts and central europe in the renaissance (1560–1612)” (ibid., 1–22). [70] miguel de asúa and roger french, “new world animals play a role in the theatre of nature: aldrovandi and his historia animalium” in a new world of animals, 197–203. [71] the best-known example is edward tyson (1650–1708), the british pioneer of modern comparative anatomy. see miguel de asúa and roger french, “new world animals and the ‘scientific revolution,” in a new world of animals, 209–229. [72] miguel de asúa and roger french, a new world of animals, 209–229. [73] for information on their activities in china, see de bossierre, jean-françois gerbillon; claudia collani, joachim bouvet; mme yves de thomaz, luyi shisi pai wang zhongguo de wu wei shuxuejia zhi yi; claudia collani, yesuhuishi bai jin de shengping yu zhuzuo. [74] scholars often took jean de fontaney’s chinese name as hong ruohan (洪若翰); han qi points out that only the name hong ruo (洪若) appears in the literature from the reign of kangxi. in other words, jean de fontaney’s chinese name should be hong ruo. see han qi, wu min, xi chao zong zheng ji, xi chao ding an (wai san zhong), 381. [75] for information on the activities of the “king’s mathematicians” and the french royal academy of sciences in china, see han qi, “‘gewu qiongli yuan’ yu mengyang zhai 17, 18 shiji zhi zhong fa kexue jiaoliu,” faguo hanxue 4 (1999): 302–324; han qi, “kangxi chao faguo yesuhuishi zai hua de kexue huodong,” gugong bowuyuan yuankan 2 (1998): 68–75. [76] giuliano bertuccioli, “a lion in peking: ludovico buglio and the embassy to china of bento pereira de faria in 1678,” east and west 26: 1–2 (1976): 223–240. [77] see jiang tingxi, gujin tushu jicheng, vol. 63, bow huibian qinchong dian, juan. 12, ying bu, 125–133. [78] see fang hao, zhong xi jiaotong shi, vol. 2, 552–554. fang names the book aldrovandi’s shengwuxue 生物學, which i believe to be the historia animalium, a massive work in 13 volumes. [79] the letter was written in dutch. here i refer to an english version in an appendix to pierre joseph d’ orléans, histoire des deux cconquérants tartares qui ont subjugué la chine （1688). see joseph d’ orléans, history of the two tartar conquerors of china, 111. [80] see “letter from father amiot to father de la tour of this church (beijing, oct. 17, 1754),” in jean-baptiste ed., yesuhuishi zhongguo shujian ji, vol. 2, 52. [81] fang hao, “mingji xi shu qiqian bu liuru zhongguo kao,” in fang hao liushi nan ziding gao, 39–54. [82] there are two extant versions, one in french, kept at national taiwan university, and one in english, kept at the national library of china in beijing. see lazarist mission, peking, catalogue of the pei-t’ang library; mission catholique des lazaristes à pékin, catalogue de la bibliothéque du pé-t’ang. [83] mission catholique des lazaristes à pékin, catalogue de la bibliothéque du pé-t’ang no. 2000, 586. [84] ibid., 209–210. [85] lazarist mission, peking, catalogue of the pei-t’ang library, xvii. [86] mission catholique des lazaristes à pékin, catalogue de la bibliothéque du pé-t’angno.1877, 552. [87] lazarist mission, peking, catalogue of the pei-t’ang library , xiv. [88] see joachim bouvet, “ouzhou yesuhui zhi jiesan dui beijing yesuhui zhi yingxiang” in bouvet, qing kang qian liang di yu tianzhujiao chuanjiao shi; huang yinong, “ming mo qing chu tianzhujiao de ‘di tian shuo ’ ji qi suo yinfa de lunzheng,” gugong xueshu jikan 14, no. 2 (1996): 66–74; li tiangang, zhongguo liyi zhi zheng: lishi, wenxian he yiyi. [89] see qing shilu,juan 1130, 9b–10a, vol. 23, 104. [90] mission catholique des lazaristes à pékin, catalogue de la bibliothéque du pé-t’ang no. 2050, 599. [91] the cassowary kept by louis xiv was dead by this time. it is not known whether oudry drew from a preserved specimen or whether louis xv had obtained another live cassowary. see morton, oudry’s painted menagerie: portraits of exotic animals in eighteenth-century europe, 119–123, 136–137. [92] see morton, oudry’s painted menagerie, 136. [93] xavier salmon, “the duke and the cassowary: the animals by jean-baptiste oudry,” in the magazine of franco maria ricci 126 (2004): 69–86. [94] for more information on the six crane motif, see ogawa hiromitsu 小川裕充. “kō sen rokkakuzu hekiga to sono keifu (ue)(ge)—setsu shoku, kō sen, kō kyosai kara ku-ron ichigō ryōbo senkakuzu hekiga o hete kisō, chō hakushuku, mokukei, ō shinhō, setsu ha, sesshu, kano ha made, kokka, vol. 1165 (1992); 1297 (2003): 7–22; 7–25 [95] see li shizhen, bencao gangmu,juan 2–2, 3a, in siku, vol. 772, 276 [96] gao song, lingmao pu, in wu shuping, zhongguo lidai huapu huibian, vol. 13, 371–484 [97] historians have found that prior to the tang dynasty, there was no clear division between illustrations and artistic paintings. even in the ming-qing, many official writings on materia medica were produced by court painters. they developed a style which has been called “artistic illustration,” and which remained closely linked to prevailing styles of painting. see zheng jinsheng, “bencao chatu de yanbian: jian tan bencao chatu zhong de xieshi yu yishu wenti,” in yao lin waishi, 219–251; zheng jinsheng, “lun bencao shu zhong de xieshi chatu yu yishu chatu’’, in wan shumin and luo weiqian (lo, vivienne), xingxiang zhongyi: zhongguo lishi tuxiang yanjiu, 83–89. [98] album of birds, vol. 1, 30 [99] this is consistent with the findings of hui side. see hu side（(roel sterckx)）, “chatu de juxian: cong guo pu dao li shizhen de dongwu chatu,” in wan shumin, and luo weiqian ed., xingxiang zhongyi, 79. [100] there has been increasing interest in the illustration of materia medica among medical historians in recent years. for information on the development of materia medica illustrations, see zheng jinsheng, “bencao chatu de yanbian,” in yaolin waishi, 219–251;, “lun bencao shu zhong de xieshi chatu yu yishu chatu,” 83–89; zheng jinsheng, “mingdai huajia caise bencao chatu yanjiu,” 65–117; georges métailié, “the representation of plants: engravings and paintings,” in francasca bray, vera dorofeeva-lichtmann, georges métailié eds., graphics and text in the production of technical knowledge in china: the warp and the welf, 487–520. for discussion of the relationship between materia medica illustrations and reality, see hu side, “chatu de juxian,” in wanand luo , xingxiang zhongyi, 70–82; wang shumin, vivienne lo xingxiang zhongyi: jhongguo lishih tusiang yanjiou; chen yuenpeng, “chuantong bowu zhishi li de ‘zhenshih’ yu ‘xiangxiang’: yi xijiao yu xiniu wei zhuti de gean yanjiu,” guoli zhengzhi daxue lishixue bao, no. 33 (may, 2010) 1–82. [101] see chen yuenpeng, “chuantong bowu zhishi li de ‘zhenshih’ yu ‘xiangxiang’,” 50. [102] ruan yuan ed., jingyin midian zhulin shiqu baoji xubian, vol. 4, 1893–1894. [103] zheng xuan (han), jia gongyan (tang) ed., zhou li zhu shu, juan 33, 13a, in siku, vol. 90, 601. [104] see note 102. [105] see “hauyuan chu (畫院處),” huojidang, 1750, 21st of the 4th; 26th of the 6th; 1753, 8th of the 5th; 4th of the 6th. in zonghui, vol. 17, 329, 330, 331; vol. 19, 499, 501. [106] wang pu, tang hui yao, juan 82, 21b–22a, in siku, vol. 607, 253–254. [107] see su song, “tu jing bencao zou chi,” in congxiu zhenghe jing shi zheng lei beiyong bencao, vol. 30, 548. [108] for research on the sources of images in the yu zuan bencao pinhui jingyao (emperor’s essential categories of materia medica), see zheng jingsheng, “mingdai huajia caise bencao chatu yanjiu,” xin shixue 14, no.4 (february, 2003): 65–117. [109] for information on the context of realist painting during the huizong reign, see wang zhenghua (wang chenghua), “tingqin tu de zhengzhi yihan: huizong chao yuanhua fengge yu yiyi wangluo,” guoli taiwan daxue meishushi yanjiu jikan 5 (1998): 77–122. [110] see georges métailié, “the representation of plants: engravings and paintings,” in francesca bray et al. ed., graphics and text in the production of technical knowledge in china: the warp and the welf , 487–520. [111] for discussion of the place of images in construction of knowledge in china, see francesca bray, graphics and text in the production of technical knowledge in china: the warp and the welf. [112] akira yanagisawa, “kokyūhakubutsuin kura mitsuru kan gappeki ‘choufu’ ni tsuite,”manzoku-shi kenkyū 3 (2004): 18–39. [113] for discussion of the traditional chinese cosmology, see gan huaizhen (kan huai-chen) ed. dongya lishi shang de tianxia yu zhongguo gainnian, particularly the introduction. [114] see ge zhaoguang, “zuowei sixiangshi de gu yutu,” particularly the section ‘cong tianxia dao wanguo’, in kan huaichen ed., dongya lishi shang de tianxia yu zhongguo gainnian, 217–254; jin guantao, liu qingfeng, “cong ‘tianxia’, ‘wanguo’ dao ‘shijie’: wan qing minzuzhuyi xingcheng de zhongjian huanjie,” ershiyi shijis huangyuekan 94 (2006): 40–53. [115] guo pu, shanhai jing, juan 1, 3a, in siku, vol. 1042, 5. [116] see note 115. [117] liang guozhi was a scholar of east court and member of the grand council, and was one of qianlong’s chief writers. he had been one of the editors of the four treasuries, and was one of the “three liangs” (with liang tongshu, liang yan), three courtiers of the same surname who worked on many of qianlong’s major literature projects. for example, liang guozhi contributed to the account of the authentication of qianlong’s two copies of the celebrated yuan dynasty painting dwelling in the fuchun mountains, by huang gongwang. his co-authors on that account were other senior courtiers: liu yong, cao wenzhi, peng yuanrui, wang jie, jin shisong, and dong gao. see gugong shuhuatulu, vol. 17, 289–296, [118] in the guochaohuazhenglu, he is listed only as “painting people, objects, flowers, and birds” (工人物花鳥). see zhang geng, guochaohuazhenglu, reprinted in chou chunfu ed., qingdai zhuanji congkan, vol. 71, 281. [119] “jishi lu (記事錄)” in huoji dang, 1765, 23rd of the 4th, zonghui, 29, 449–450. [120] see “ming jin tingbiao mo li gonglin wuma tufa hua aiwuhan sijun yin die qianyun zuo ge” 命金廷標橅李公麟五馬圖法畫愛烏罕四駿因疊前韻作歌 (a poem in the classic style on jin tingbiao’s painting of afghan four steeds in the style of li gonglin’s five horses), yuzhi shiji, juan 31, 10b–11a, in siku, vol. 1305, 722. [121] yuzhi siji, iii, juan 21, 34b, in siku, juan 1307, 617. [122] two copies of this painting are held at the national palace museum in taipei. the ming court probably produced multiple copies of paintings, like the qing, for distribution or for specific functions. [123] for more information see peter sturman, “cranes above kaifeng: the auspicious image at the court of huizong.” ars orientalis, 20 (1990): 37–42. [124] see first historical archives ed., yubi zhaoling shuo qingshi:yingxiang qingchao lishi jincheng de zhongyao dangan wenxian, 84–85 [125] see wang zhenghua (wang cheng-hua), “tingqintu de zhengzhi yihan,” 91–101 [126] tsukamoto maromitsu. “kaigaisho shōron: hokusō sankan hikaku no bunbutsu shūshū no shiteki igi to mijutsu ni tsuite no ichi kō satsu,” yamato bunka 115 (2006): 25–40. [127] park ji-won (樸趾源박지원), yeolha ilgi, 576–577 [128] i would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out. [129] see gao shiqi, jinao uishi biji, juan 1, 17a–b, in siku, vol. 588, 401. [130] for example, when seo ho-su came to beijing in 1790 to congratulate qianlong on his 80th birthday, he wrote that the aviary contained “over 100 pairs of green and white parrots, and more than ten pairs of white rabbits” (綠白鸚鵡百餘雙，白兔十餘雙). he also describes the imperial walkway next to the aviary as being piled high with remarkable and precious objects sent in tribute. see seo hosu, yeonhaeng-gi juan, 2, in im kijung ed. yeonhaeng-rok cheonjip, vol. 51, 138. [131] this painting is now kept at the national palace museum in taipei. for the attached poem, see yuzhi shiji,ii, juan 30, 23a, in siku, vol. 1303, 590. [132] see seo ho-su, yeonhaeng-gi, juan 2, in im ki-jung ed., yeonhaeng-rok cheonjip, vol. 51, 146–147. [133] see yuanmingyuan sishi jing shi tu, shan juan, in liu tuo, meng bai eds., qing dian ban hua hui kan, 150. [134] see seo ho-su, yeonhaeng-gi, juan 2, in yeonhaeng-rok cheonjip, vol. 51, 147–164. [135] see “ti jiang tingxi aohanlian yong tu zhong zhang zhao tiju yun” yuzhishij, v, juan 17, 26a–27b, in siku, vol. 1309, 524 [136] harold kahn “a matter of taste: the monumental and exotic in the qianlong reign” in chou juhsi, claudia brown, the elegant brush: chinese painting under the qianlong emperor 1735–1798 , 301. [137] preserved at the national palace museum in taipei. [138] preserved at the palace museum in beijing. [139] both preserved at the national palace museum in taipei. see yuzhi wenji, iii, juan 14, tzaju, 3b–9a, insiku, 1301, 660–663. global mobility, transcultural literature, and multiple modes of modernity | dagnino | transcultural studies global mobility, transcultural literature, and multiple modes of modernity arianna dagnino, university of south australia introduction at the beginning of the third millennium, we are witnessing the rise in the numbers of deterritorialised citizens who are on the move across cultural and national boundaries. this article discusses how, in this liquid age, patterns of mobility affect cultural orientations, sensibilities, and, consequentially, creative (literary) expressions.[1] it also suggests that the cultural products of the present era, and in particular those transcultural literary works interested in the interactive and dialogic dynamics between and across cultures, need to be analysed through a transcultural perspective. to this end, the term transcultural here is used in two ways: (a) as a mode of reflexive identity and cultural orientation—that is, in mikhail n. epstein's and ellen berry's terms, as “the self-distancing, self-estrangement and self-criticism of one's own cultural identities and assumptions”;[2] and (b) as a critical perspective that sees cultures as relational webs and acknowledges the transitory, confluential, and mutually transforming nature of cultures, as theorised by wolfgang welsch, mikhail n. epstein and others.[3] the article also discusses to what extent transcultural literature belongs to the growing terrain of the literatures of mobility, that is, those literatures that are affected by or deal with travels/exploratory drives, migratory flows, exile/diasporic experiences, expatriate/transnational narratives, and, more recently, neo-nomadic trajectories. the transnational patterns and neonomadic trajectories of transcultural writers physical and virtual mobility has indeed become the main trope of societies characterised by conditions of “super-diversity” and the dynamic interplay of alternative/multiple modernities.[4] constantly increasing migratory flows, together with the pressure of economic globalisation and the development of digital communication technologies, are inciting as well as enabling a whole new range of intercultural interactions, transnational patterns,[5] and neo-nomadic lifestyles.[6] the kind of transformations induced by the present socio-cultural scenario are being expressed in creative ways by those imaginative “transcultural writers”—such as pico iyer, alberto manguel, ilija trojanow,[7] kamila shamsie, or tawada yōko[8]—who have found themselves in the midst of these transformative processes. by being voluntarily “on the move” outside their native cultures and homelands, these writers—more (or less) educated, more (or less) well-off and socially advantaged—seem to be thriving in the freedom obtained and the opportunities acquired through patterns of physical and cultural deterritorialisations and reterritorialisations. while cultures (together with languages and identities) are becoming more fluid and intermingled through their complex permeations,[9] transcultural writers are making these processes particularly manifest in their works. this happens even when, as in the case of the present article, the selected transcultural writers are fairly significant writers who—by writing mainly in english—have negotiated their access to the western, anglo-american dominated, highly competitive and highly concentrated metropolitan arena of publishing houses and reviews. with this scenario in mind, the present article suggests that if, within the discourse of modern human mobility, the twentieth century has been mainly written, read, and studied through a migrant/multicultural and/or postcolonial perspective, the early twenty-first century of neo-nomadic and transnational patterns appears to be marked by a transcultural sensibility. its related literary expressions, namely those works that, together with their authors, are intrinsically border crossers, are able to go beyond the limits of any one culture or national/ethnic landscape. this view is certainly shared by ottomar ette, who in his analysis of travel literature as “the point of departure for examining a bordercrossing literature on the move,” has envisioned that “the literatures of the 21st century will be literatures without a fixed abode, literatures that evade attempts at clear territorialisation.”[10] as i have highlighted in my study on contemporary transcultural writers, these authors are aware that the conventional narratives about nation, allegiance, and belonging firmly rooted in a particular community, location, or tradition no longer work in a world where transnational experiences and neo-nomadic trajectories tend to disrupt the cohesive sense of belonging of clearly defined and homogenised groups.[11] as the writer pico iyer points out, “even the man who never leaves home may feel that home is leaving him, as parents, children, lovers scatter around the map, taking pieces of him wherever they go.”[12] iyer was born in england of indian parents and raised between oxford and california; he is accustomed to travel extensively around the globe as correspondent and is now living in japan. the writer alberto manguel—born in argentina and raised in israel before wandering the globe, becoming a canadian citizen, and then moving to live in france—also expresses this neo-nomadic mode of being and sense of identity. even when declaring allegiance to one place, we seem to be always moving away from it … nationalities, ethnicities, tribal, and religious filiations imply geographical and political definitions of some kind, and yet, partly because of our nomad nature and partly due to the fluctuations of history, our geography is less grounded in a physical than in a phantom landscape. home is always an imaginary place.[13] the literary critic sabrina brancato notes that transcultural writers show “a determination to make a home of any place the self inhabits.”[14] it is clear that these culturally and physically mobile writers tend to acquire an identity mode and express cultural sensibilities that distance them from the traditional categories of the migrant/exile/diasporic/postcolonial writers that have dominated the critical discourse of the second half of the twentieth century. that is why it seems preferable to refer to them, and their related creative outputs, as “transcultural.” as mikhail n. epstein explains, a transcultural orientation is acquired by living “diffused” in a new dimension (a “continuum”), simultaneously “inside and outside of all existing cultures.”[15] when transposed in literary terms, this transcultural sensibility records and expresses the confluential nature of cultures, where the traditional dichotomies—north and south, the west and the rest, coloniser and colonised, dominator and dominated, native and immigrant, national and ethnic—that have thus far characterised multicultural and postcolonial discourses are superseded. it also records the re-shaping of national collective imaginaries in their efforts to adjust to the path laid down in a new age of transnational and supra-national economic, political, social, and cultural processes. the canadian writer of indian origins ven begamudré is one of the most fervent advocates of a transcultural dimension in identity building, creative writing, and critical studies; in an interview with daniel coleman, he suggests. transculturalism assumes that there is a process of change and of evolution which is necessary among … different cultures, and that eventually we stop being indo-canadian or ukrainian-canadian; we simply become human. and i'm much more comfortable with that idea than the idea that you're allowed to hang on to your own culture, because what worries me about multiculturalism is that it fosters divisions among cultures. people try to hang onto their heritage not because it helps them survive but because it's another dusty artifact in a museum that they trot out in order to justify what they do.[16] obviously, acquiring a transcultural orientation does not mean to disown or ignore the culture we are born into and the effects of that particular culture in our cultural make up and sense of identity. as epstein points out, origins “are essential”—as are the deconstructionist attempts to demystify them—but instead of insisting on their affirmation—or their deconstructive demystification—we should let them go, transcend them.[17] epstein concludes his reasoning stating that the main purpose of culture is, through a creative and historical process of “disorigination and liberation," to make us human beings “a river and not a dam”; that is, “culture has any sense only insofar as it makes us dissidents and fugitives from our nature, our sex, or race, or age.”[18] the main defining elements of transcultural literature if we look more closely at the latest works of transcultural authors such as ilija trojanow, brian castro, tim parks, pico iyer, kamila shamsie, or miguel syjuco, we read about characters with diverse cultural backgrounds who live transnational lives and move about multiple foreign settings. let us take for example the novel with the tiger written by inez baranay, who grew up in australia of hungarian parents, lived for extensive periods of time in india, and now resides in istanbul. this work of fiction is an expressed tribute to somerset maugham's novel the razor's edge, published in 1944. in it, elliott, the main character created by maugham and revisited by baranay in the australia of the 1970s,[19] explains himself and his charismatic young companion, larry, in this way: “our communities are not geographically based, we don't live where we are born, we don't have a single workplace, we are global souls.” castro's work the bath fugues is mainly set in australia but his characters then move to and from other countries and have experiences or remember things lived through different linguistic and cultural patterns in shanghai, macao, paris, portugal.[20] in the novel by kamila shamsie burnt shadows, the characters depicted belong to a plethora of seemingly disparate cultures (the japanese, the english, the indian, the pakistani, the afghan, the american) that progressively reveal their shared and interwoven history, while the action shifts—together with the characters' life-trajectories—from nagasaki to new delhi, from karachi to istanbul, from new york to guantánamo.[21]  as the literary critic salil tripathi has remarked while reviewing shamsie's burnt shadows, “at the core of [her] novel is the idea that an individual's identity is not a fixed block that can be slotted into an assigned square, but essentially liquid, evolving as life flows.”[22] constraints of space prevent me from completing a full analysis of the shared elements that characterise a transcultural literary work. what is most important to underline here, though, is that by studying the above-mentioned transcultural fictions one cannot fail to notice that they are written in a way that makes it hard for a reader to understand or infer, without knowing anything about their complex biographies and multiple forms of identities, to what nationality, cultural community, or ethnic group their authors belong. as mark stein has pointed out, these works and their writers tend to undermine the “habitual classification of literary texts in terms of national or regional literatures.”[23] this also happens when reading ilustrado, the novel—winner of the man asian literary prize in 2008—that miguel syjuco set between the united states and the philippines, fiction and nonfiction, biography and autobiography, thus also intertwining different literary genres and blurring the boundaries between them.[24] undoubtedly, the fact that we find it difficult to infer the nationality or cultural sense of belonging of its characters as much as of its author is also, if not mainly, due to the fact that ilustrado was written by a 37-year old man who was born and raised in the philippines, moved to live in new york, wrote his novel as part of his phd thesis at the university of adelaide in australia, and then went to live in canada, thus adding another element to his blend of cultural and imaginary landscapes. if on the one hand we can infer that the modes of narration of transcultural writing are a direct expression of their creators' transcultural realities and sensibilities, then, on the other, what makes this kind of writing different is, most of all, its resistance to being appropriated by one single traditional national canon or being identified with one single, specific cultural/ethnic expression or tradition. speaking about the “new literatures in english,” frank schulze-engler states that. the idea of “locating” culture and literature exclusively in the context of ethnicities or nations is rapidly losing plausibility throughout an “english-speaking world” that has long since been multirather than monolingual […] the new literatures in english themselves have long since become a transcultural field with blurred boundaries.[25] this same assumption might confidently refer to any of those literary expressions in any other language whose features fit into a transcultural paradigm.[26] it is true that in most cases transcultural literature may have its roots in migration as well as in postcolonial, diasporic, exile conditions and in the identity displacement and cultural dislocation that ensues; but then it detaches (or flows out) from them in a process of metamorphosis. this does not imply that these conditions and modes of writing are opposed to each other, nor that they are subject to a linear, temporal pattern of development, with unwanted evolutionist, progressive, or teleological undertones. instead, these specific modes of writing tend to coexist, interact, and often overlap.[27] the presence of transcultural writers, transcultural texts, and transcultural characters is not new in the history of literature. precursors and representatives of a transcultural sensibility may be found in all ages, from ancient times (let us just think of ovid or martial) to the nineteenth and twentieth century (with such forerunners as joseph conrad, marguerite yourcenar, paul bowles), without mentioning the polyglot writers sans patrie of the enlightenment (voltaire, giacomo casanova, carlo goldoni) and pre-enlightenment (daniel defoe, jonathan swift). however, it is only now, the present article argues, that the pattern of modern migrations and globalising phenomena generates new opportunities to undergo transcultural experiences and develop transcultural sensibilities. this translates into an increase in the numbers not only of transcultural writers but also of those scholars and writers who are promoting a transcultural perspective in literary studies[28] and in the humanities in general.[29] the literatures of mobility by modes of modernity and prevailing discourses to better exemplify what has been argued so far, an attempt has been made to visualise in table form the literatures of mobility (to which transcultural literature also belongs) according to the different and often overlapping modes of modernity and prevailing discourses. table 1: literatures of mobility by modes of modernity and prevailing discourses more specifically, the table presents the main political, economic, technological, and social developments in the last century and the first decade of this century, synthetically showing how these developments, supported or ignited by different ideologies, critical approaches, and cultural outlooks, affect and interact with the concomitant literary expressions within the specific context of the “literatures of mobility.” it is important to note that the previous literary configurations/expressions all belonging to the wider terrain of the “literatures of mobility” (i.e. migrant, exile, diasporic, postcolonial literature, etc.) are instrumental in generating a transcultural awareness, thus they do not need to be dismissed or conceived of as outdated and/or superfluous. unfortunately, as with all diagrams applied to social sciences and humanities, this one may also appear too clear-cut and over-simplified, too prescriptive, too schematically structuralist, one might say, especially where the logic of oppositionality appears to emerge too predictably or where a linear evolutionist narrative would seem to be myopically or naively implied. instead, we are all well aware that epochs, ideologies, and political, social, economic, or artistic waves and articulations tend to overlap, intermingle, and converge into one another without a break, without any “progressive or regressive trajectory.”[30]. this synthetic visualisation of the modern human condition mirrors the one that could be captured in the present day by a middle-class denizen of the early twenty-first century secular culture from any of the “decentred” metropolitan centres of the world. as aihwa ong states in flexible citizenship, with the “emergence of a multipolar world” capitalism is now “distributed across a number of global arenas” and “the complex interweaving relations of domination and subordination by transnational capital […] blur the division between ‘core’ and ‘peripheral’ countries.”[31] the table concentrates in a single 8-column and 6-row spreadsheet the essence of roughly a century of human expressions and social transformations within the discursive space of modern “mobility”; that is, factual and theoretical mobility, which includes physical, psychological, and imaginary mobility as subtexts. it should thus be thought of, together with its accompanying commentary, as a work in progress that may be altered in time according to our human transformations, endeavours, defaults, developments, as well as expanded to include other artistic/creative realities, collective practices, and disciplinary dimensions. along the vertical axis of the grid we have the different modes of modernity (a, b, c, d), while its horizontal axis shows the contextual elements, sources of narratives, and prevailing discourses (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), together with the emerging practices—mobility patterns (i) and creative literary expressions (ii)—resulting from and simultaneously affecting the related prevailing discourses, narratives, and contextual elements. as raymond williams has remarked, “the making of the literature is part of the social process itself. the society cannot be said to exist until the literature, like all other activities which are part of what we understand by society, has been written.”[32] specific timeframes have been purposefully omitted, since in most cases they tend to overlap. moreover, often the time reference depends on the part of the world one finds oneself in at a given moment: villagers coming out of africa as refugees, for example, might move within a very short span of time from a condition of pre-modernity (with its economy of subsistence and tribal/feudal social organisations) into one of late modernity and, vice versa, in a matter of hours citizens living in the hypermodernity of a high-rise metropolis could find themselves immersed in a totally different lifescape. instead, the table establishes a different conjunctural periodisation—the one related to those “modes of modernity” meant to represent the core of different societal states and patterns in different parts of the world, even when they happen to co-exist within the same timeframes, geographical regions, and, more often than not, within the same countries or urban areas. in many parts of the world today—including advanced western economies—it is still common to meet in the streets people living in abject poverty, begging, barely surviving on the margins in an economy of mere subsistence, while next door researchers in immaculate white coats are busy working on some sophisticated, futuristic hi-tech or science project. as madeleine herren, martin rüesch, and christiane sibille explain: the introduction of border crossing not limited to national borders also destroys the easiest way of telling stories by following time lines. both could happen—that crossing borders brings objects, concepts, persons in a new “chronoscape,” or that parallel time frames open.[33] moreover, the expression “modes of modernity” seems to resonate with shmuel n. eisenstadt's acknowledgment that modernity is increasingly understood as a diversified range of “multiple modernities.”[34] instead of assuming that globalisation may lead to an ahistorical and westernised homogenisation of different cultures, shmuel n. eisenstadt, jens riedel, and dominic sachsenmaier posit the emergence of a plurality of forms of modernity “shaped by distinct cultural heritages and sociopolitical conditions.”[35] although the western project launched the premise and established the starting and turning points for the processes that gave birth to and transported humanity into the modern era, eisenstadt suggests that “the best way to understand the contemporary world—indeed to explain the history of modernity—is to see it as a story of continual constitution and reconstitution of a multiplicity of cultural programs and cultural patterns of modernity” that goes beyond western-centric models of classification, differentiation, and interpretation.[36] taking a slightly different slant, in his article “modernity as history” arif dirlik maintains that the “efforts to reformulate modernity” and supersede its eurocentric perspective are mainly due to the latter developments of “capitalist modernity” itself: “in its globalisation, [it] has had to interiorise cultural difference as part of its very constitution; one fundamental consequence of which has been to compromise its identification with euroamerican models of modernity, which provided an earlier modernisation discourse with its teleological power.”[37] in other words, as ong remarks, it seems no longer possible “to talk about a single modernity within the west.”[38] rather, it sounds more plausible to talk about “multiple interpretations of modernity”[39] that may lead to multiple developments in different political constitutions and geographical areas, away from the essentialising idea of some “master western prototype.”[40] this way of reasoning resonates with charles taylor's  “cultural theory of modernity” and, more specifically, with his notion of  “alternative modernities.” in taylor's view the changes undergone by different societies under the impact of modernity—with their different cultural “understandings of the person, social relations, states of mind, goods and bads, virtues and vices, and the sacred and the profane”—may lead, through a process of “creative adaptation,” to different outcomes, including divergence, even in the presence of a convergence of certain main factors (i.e., market-driven industrial economies, bureaucratic forms of administration, popular modes of government).[41] what dilip parameshwar gaonkar is keen to emphasise in taylor's reasoning, though, is that “creative adaptation” does not mean naively to be able “to freely choose whatever one likes from the offerings of modernity,” discarding the bad, the ugly, or the unwelcome; rather, it suggests “the manifold ways in which a people question the present.”[42] on the same wavelength, lawrence grossberg states “modernity should be seen as a product of contradictory or [even] conflicting cultural processes” in which the west has lost its centrality:[43] the west can no longer be thought of as a dominant geographical concept structuring the non-west. rather, it must be located, immanently within the temporality of a modernity embracing new cultural forms that have been and are still developing in what used to be the non-west and that now offer an occasion for dialectical encounter.[44] in this light, modernity becomes, in all its modes, negotiations, translations, and declinations, “a commonly shared condition.”[45] as couze venn posits while exploring the possibility of a theoretical debate that is able to go beyond the postcolonial and the postmodern times: “to begin with, we need to disaggregate the discourse of modernity, recognizing the plural character of the lived experience of modernity. then we could repose the question of being and of transfiguration.”[46] the table might appear as a subtle post-enlightenment attempt to categorise historical processes that are both highly complex and made of entangled, often asymmetrical flows of cultural exchange. nonetheless, following what has been argued so far, the table eschews an evolutionist and unilinear notion of modernity; it instead re-elaborates through a transcultural lens the traditional discourse of modernity by presenting its multiple “modes," steps, and transboundary interconnections in a movement towards an ever-greater complexity of views and cultural horizons. following a logic of circularity, the table captures the changes in society, critical perspectives, and artistic/literary expressions that often lead to a renegotiation of cultural values and to the acknowledgment of wider “scapes” of interdependence and interconnectedness.[47] the table also marks the fact that processes of socio-cultural transformation, while being multidirectional and open to the deterritorialised/denationalised nature of cultural flows, are intrinsically embedded in specific historical contexts and localised practices.[48] as monica juneja states. if we proceed on an understanding of culture that is in a condition of being made and remade, historical units and boundaries cannot be taken as given; rather, they have to be constituted as a subject of investigation, as products of spatial and cultural displacements. units of investigation are constituted neither mechanically following the territorial-cum-political logic of modern nation-states nor according to civilisational categories drawn up by the universal histories of the nineteenth century, but are continually defined as participants in and as contingent upon the historical relationships in which they are implicated. this would further mean approaching time and space as non-linear and non-homogeneous, defined through the logic of circulatory practices.[49] the table spans a timeframe from the beginning of the twentieth century to the first decade of the twenty-first century, that is, the period in which subsequent articulations and modes of modernity (as shown in the vertical axis of the grid) created the premise for the recent transition to the “global age.”[50] as previously mentioned, the periodisation adopted by the table is of necessity more clear-cut than is the case in reality. the demarcations are not meant to be exclusive, and considerable overlap between the phases of modernity can be assumed, particularly between developed and developing regions of the world. thus, middle modernity (a, in the table) roughly covers the first half of the twentieth century up to the end of the second world war and the two decades following, when colonial imperialism progressively came to an end. it is the age of the grand narratives, of forced economic mass migrations, of mass-production, and of laissez-faire capitalism.[51] postmodernity (b), as defined by jean-françois lyotard in the postmodern condition, roughly covers the four decades between the late 1950s and the late 1990s and witnesses the advent of the mass market, mass media, and mass car travel, together with the demise of colonial powers, the deconstruction of master narratives (including the concept of history as a unitary and progressive teleological course), the proliferation of alternative worldviews, and the emergence of counterculture. drawing on zygmunt bauman's liquid times, liquid modernity (c)—understood also as high modernity or late modernity (as defined by anthony giddens in modernity and self-identity)—roughly covers the last decade of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century, when personal computers and mobile phones become a fetish commodity, among thousands of other items, and economic globalisation asserts its power and pervasiveness. this is the time in human history when the world witnesses simultaneously the internationalisation of war, the threat of environmental destruction, the ongoing growth of multicultural societies, and the escalation of virulent ethnic conflicts.[52] in his latest book, culture in a liquid modern world, bauman maintains that “what makes modernity ‘liquid’ […] is its self-propelling, self-intensifying, compulsive and obsessive ‘modernisation,’ as a result of which, like liquid, none of the consecutive forms of social life is able to maintain its shape for long.”[53] hypermodernity, transmodernity, global modernity (d) are alternative terms that indicate the present moment (second decade of the twenty-first century). it is a moment in which the general, increasing decentring, and “desembedding”—in terms of deterritorialisation and derootedness[54]—of state and government institutions as well as of national policies, economies, cultures, religions, communities, collective and individual identities calls for a reconfiguration of their theorisations, roles, and interrelations. it is within this context that the transnational religious networks (cfr. d5 in the table) that emerged in the previous decade mark the firm establishment of sectarian entities and fundamentalist movements (such as al qaeda) as alternative forms of “defensive traditionalisms” and essentialising universalisms “not geographically bound” and “globally organized.”[55] more specifically, “hypermodernity” is the term used by french philosopher gilles lipovetski[56] to define the last phase of modernity, characterised by a technocratic revolution, hyper-consumption, and the hypermodern individual (who is at times excessively and narcissistically individualistic but still capable of expressing responsible ethical stances). facing a world stripped of tradition and former stability, the hypermodern individual is often overwhelmed by fear and anxiety towards an uncertain future. with “transmodernity” enrique d. dussel designates a kind of modernity that is able to grant a more symmetrical perspective and to take into account the cultural and transformative richness of those cultures “simultaneously pre-modern (older than modernity), contemporary to modernity and soon trans-modern as well,” which have thus far been considered at the periphery of the western world.[57] “global modernity,” on the other hand, is a term directly drawn from historian arif dirlik's theorisations, culminating in his latest book by the same title. instead of participating in its foretold end, dirlik posits that we bear witness to the fact that modernity “is a global condition”: modernity may no longer be approached as a dialogue internal to europe or euroamerica, but is a global discourse in which many participate, producing different formulations of the modern as lived and envisaged within their local social environments. this in some ways is the fulfillment of modernity, which not only drew all globally into modernity but promised an open-endedness in doing so.[58] from this perspective we might, together with epstein, talk about a protoglobal modernity, where the prefix “proto-” indicates the beginning, the early development of a new phase (but still within the paradigms of modernity) characterised by its open-endedness: “a beginning thus understood as leading to an open future and manifesting possibilities for continuation […] can be designated as ‘proto’.”[59] the horizontal axis of the grid shows the contextual elements, sources of narratives, and prevailing discourses in the global social arena according to the different, overlapping (often concomitant) modes of modernity. the contextual elements may contribute to generate narratives, which under certain conditions turn into prevailing discourses. as the end result of this process, social and cultural practices emerge and consolidate. these practices, in turn, impact on the contextual elements, narratives, and discourses. socio-economic frameworks and turning points (1) refer to the economic structures and the decisive events that marked their breakdowns or their further developments. technological innovations and developments in transportation/communication (2) focus on the main breakthroughs in the technologies that have accompanied humanity in its increased physical mobility (through faster and cheaper means of transport) but also virtual mobility (through more pervasive means of communication and access to knowledge). geo-strategic political processes (3) present an extremely synthetised historical narrative of the political events, movements, and ideas that have contributed to the shaping of a certain mode of modernity. ideological constructs (4) sum up the relevant ideologies and ideological points of reference relative to a certain socio-political and/or historical configuration. dominant cultural/critical discourses (5) refer to the modes of thinking, narratives, and prevailing views that shape—and at the same time are being shaped by—the production of knowledge relative to a certain socio-political and/or historical configuration. in an extended way, we might also refer to them as the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times, with all its manifestations (including the moral and the symbolic). together they constitute what taylor calls “the constellation of background understanding” and collective imaginary through which people make sense of themselves in relation to the world, time, others, and the good.[60] the last two entries in the horizontal axis are conceptually separated, since they relate to the ‘practices’ (‘mobility patterns’ and ‘creative literary expressions’)—meant as experiences, patterns of behaviour, modes of knowledge, and understanding that emanate from and in turn affect, in a dynamic and circular process, those above-mentioned contextual elements, narratives, discourses, or counter-discourses. more specifically, mobility patterns (i) relate to the extent and experience of physical, virtual or, in appadurai's terms, even the “imagined” mobility of increasing numbers of people.[61] creative literary expressions (ii) refer to the cultural forms—and ‘producers' of meaning—within the literatures of mobility. they creatively express and at the same time affect the imaginary, emotional states, and attitudes both of people on the move across (or beyond) nations, languages, cultural borders and of their more sedentary counterparts. like all creative/artistic manifestations, they may have contrasting functions: more or less intentionally they may support or challenge dominant cultural discourses and/or counter-discourses. as forms of cultural practices they function in conjunction with economies and other socio-technological factors/contexts. as paul jay points out, “culture is a set of material practices linked to economies, and economic and material relations are always mediated by cultural factors and forms.”[62] it is clear that the “fuzzy” category of transcultural literature, with its blurred boundaries and fluid nature, tends to overlap—if not at times coincide—with the adjacent categories of postnational, cosmopolitan, transnational, and global/ised writing. it is also clear that transcultural literature is not immune to the competitive dynamics of the international literary scene, characterised, as pascale casanova has highlighted in her book the world republic of letters, by “rivalry, struggle, and inequality.”[63] it is within this scenario that we are also witnessing the emergence of new forms of “pancontinental acculturation” (cfr. d5 in the table), the phenomenon by which the boundaries between different national cultures tend to blur in favour of a broader regional, and possibly continental, picture that contributes to the denationalisation process. the comparativist jan walsh hokenson talks about the increasing globalisation of culture in the third millennium and the process of “pan-continental cultural continuities” not only in europe but also in the united states where, for example, already at present “programs in comparative literature are offering courses in the literatures of the americas, the latina writer, caribbean poetics, east-west aesthetics—blurrings of national boundaries in favor of regional constants or parameters. it is clear that, slowly but surely, national cultures will no longer obtain.”[64] the diagram stresses the significance of growing states of mobility: from train travel to mass air flights, from fixed phone lines to mobile global communications, from 9 to 5 stable jobs to erratic professional careers. it also highlights the cumulative effects of all those increasingly significant “transsocietal” (and, again, often highly mobile) phenomena and processes[65]—migrations flows, diasporic movements, multinational corporations, international nongovernmental organisations, transnational communities, interregional trading organisations—that tend to supersede, erase, or transcend traditionally established national or territorial boundaries. as the historian james clifford remarks: this century has seen a drastic expansion of mobility, including tourism, migrant labor, immigration, urban sprawl. more and more people “dwell” with the help of mass transit, automobiles, airplanes. in cities on six continents foreign populations have come to stay—mixing in but often in partial, specific fashions […] difference is encountered in the adjoining neighborhood.[66] moreover, the table is an attempt to bridge—at least visually—the rift between those (mainly sociologists and economists) who “use a political-economic framework to assess the impact of transmigration on host and home countries” and those (mainly anthropologists and cultural theorists) “that focus almost exclusively on the cultural, imaginative, and subjective aspects of modern travel and interconnections.”[67] what emerges from the table is that—even in their discrepant, opposing manifestations and readings—the different modes of modernity, existential conditions, social structures, ideologies, cultural constructs, and creative (literary) expressions interpreted within the framework of a mobility discourse do not exclude each other but build on each other as sedimented/stratified products and expressions of human activity with a cumulative effect, and in a constant dynamic interrelation between patterned, socio-cultural contexts and competent, individual human agents.[68] as the italian philosopher gianni vattimo has remarked, “there is no single history, only images of the past projected from different points of view.”[69] what is evident from the table, to use edward w. said's term, is the “contrapuntal” perspective and historiography, that is the dynamic and interdependent character of human activity, reasoning and debating.[70] there is no dominant theme (or at least only provisionally), no grand narrative, rather a polyphony of voices—sometimes contradictory—an interplay of points of view that keeps growing and augmenting in richness and complexity. as clifford points out, “to reject a single progressive or entropic metanarrative is not to deny the existence of pervasive global processes unevenly at work. the world is increasingly connected, though not unified, economically and culturally.”[71] only by taking into account all the different situations, perspectives, outlooks, social dimensions, and creative manifestations are we able to catch a glimpse of the whole fluctuating, ever-changing pattern in the global tapestry. that is why we might read even this conjunctural diagram—this succinct form of “text”—expressly in a contrapuntal way, “not to impose a false harmony,” as alissa jones nelson notes explaining said's approach, “but to achieve a counterpoint of various voices that maintains rather than smooths tension.”[72] there appear to be no teleological forces (or theories) at work in the emerging picture, nor plans for large-scale projects of social engineering, only the dialogic interaction of contending, and mutually qualifying, multiple social voices and modes of discourse (in mikhail bakhtin's terms)—what appadurai would call “the everyday cultural practice through which the work of the imagination is transformed.”[73] in this light, it is not difficult to agree with ong when she states, “only by weaving the analysis of cultural politics and political economy into a single framework can we hope to provide a nuanced delineation of the complex relations between transnational phenomena, national regimes, and cultural practices in late modernity.”[74] within this framework of reference, one can more easily acknowledge also the dialectical tension between the autonomy of art and its status as a fait social, a social fact, or as a “social function” previously proposed by theodor w. adorno in aesthetic theory.[75] that is to say, that despite being a cultural/aesthetic product related to a particular society, economic circumstance, political contingency, and despite having a social history attached to it, art—and in the specific case of this study, literature—can still have a degree of autonomy, freedom, and power to affect prevailing discourses, as human social agents do. as adorno has noted: by the inherent tendency of art to cast different lights on the familiar, artworks correspond to the objective need for a transformation of consciousness that could become a transformation of reality.[76] this allows writers and their readers, engaged with the texts as active interpreters, to critically think and creatively imagine in ways that do not correspond to the dominant contemporary understanding of the world with its belief attachments, political agendas, and social conditioning. that is also why, as andrew edgar and peter r. sedgwick explain, a holistic approach tends to become “the default philosophy of most literary criticism,” since literary criticism “is not so much concerned with any truth-claims […] but rather with interpreting [… the texts'] meaning or significance in a broadly contextual and non-assertoric sense.”[77] transcultural comparativism more importantly, what emerges clearly from this open-ended tapestry of human modern conditions is that with the appearance of global modernity onto the scene even the creative (literary) outputs associated with this most recent mode of modernity need to be read, studied, and analysed through a new interpretive lens and its adjoined new vocabulary. as liam connell and nicky marsh point out: one obvious reason why critics have been slow to engage with the theories of globalization as they were being developed in other disciplines is the fact that literary studies seemed to possess, in postcolonialism and postmodernism, two prior modes of thinking about transnationalism […] however, while this kind of approach to globalization is obviously attractive for postcolonial scholars it may cloud our awareness of what is distinctive or new about globalization as a way of organizing international inequalities and a mode of narrating transnational interactions.[78] transculturality offers a new discursive field from which to critically address the cultural impact and creative expressions of global modernity towards “a panoptic view across national and canonical frontiers.…[79] as paul jay makes clear: “we need to find a way to accommodate the transnational and postnational perspectives of globalization studies in our programs and curricula without subordinating the heterogeneous literatures we deal with to outdated critical paradigms.”[80] it is this crystallisation of national paradigms in the study of literatures that, as connell and marsh highlight, “has served as an impediment to the engagement with globalisation as a critical idea.”[81] what has been said so far in regard to the table contributes to the definition of a heuristic model within literary studies that might be called “transcultural comparativism.” if we wanted to represent graphically this specific analytical framework, we would probably end up with a kind of 5d model where the five dimensions are constituted by: “time” (the historical dimension; the past as a serious factor); “context” (in terms of socio-economic realities, technological developments, political processes, geographical locations); “practice” (in terms of lived experience, language, communication, interaction); “meaning” (in terms of dominant ideologies, worldviews, cultural constructs); and “agency” (in terms of self-reflexivity, critical thinking, innovation, imagination, creative outputs). from this perspective, transcultural comparativism shows great affinities with—and might be inscribed within—the “systemic and empirical approach to literature and culture” that steven tötösy de zepetnek has been developing since the 1990s and has first described in 1998 in his book comparative literature: theory, method, application. drawing on existing and emerging theories in the disciplines of comparative literature and cultural studies, tötösy de zepetnek has formulated a theoretical and methodological framework that he refers to as “comparative cultural studies.” in his view, this framework facilitates the pluralistic, all-inclusive, and interdisciplinary study of literature and culture while emphasising the connections and the dialogic realities/practices between cultures, languages, literatures, and disciplines.[82] conclusions as we have seen, the social and economic patterns of early twenty first-century globalisation, people's increased mobility across the planet, and the cultural complexities and interactions that these combined factors generate seem to foster emerging transcultural orientations and transcultural modes of creative (literary but also, more generally, artistic) expression. the most recent theorisations of the transcultural show us new modes of identity-building as well as new models of interpretation that perhaps can, in epstein's words, “open […] a possibility for globalization not as homogenization but, rather, as further differentiation of cultures and their ‘dissemination’ into transcultural individuals.”[83] in this light, we might thus imply that early twenty first-century expressions of transcultural literature—by creating, re-creating, interlacing and, most importantly, negotiating diverse cultural landscapes—contribute to open up new worlds, new modernities connected to the present age of global mobility, and show us the strengths and at the same time the limits and the illusory perception of single bounded cultures/civilisations and monocultural/monological identities. in this regard, the american philosopher richard rorty was particularly convinced that literary texts may help us to find “more resourceful ways for describing [ourselves] or altering [our] vocabularies for a variety of purposes,” and thus give us the chance “to enlarge ourselves by enlarging our sensitivity and our imaginations.”[84] we might thus conclude that in order to advance our understanding of the current literary production, prompted by the present age of global mobility, it seems necessary to acknowledge the presence and identity, the fluid nature and the transforming role of transcultural works. moreover, by examining these works through a transcultural lens we might be able to grasp and interpret in a more profound way what the cultural anthropologist ulf hannerz describes as the inescapable and often unpredictable influence of other cultures in our contemporary.[85] finally, transculturality (or what others, more generically, define as transculturalism) and its creative expressions promote a new understanding of cultural encounters, revealing the often asymmetrical but always multidirectional flows of cultural circulation that are marked by ruptures, disjunctures, and mutual tensions but also by commonalities and shared ventures, affects, or outlooks.[86] the significance of a transcultural 'transforming' approach (and experience) in writing, reading, and critiquing has been highlighted by gilles dupuis when marking the differences between transculturalism and interculturalism within a literary context: transculturalism […] does not limit itself to two cultures facing each other, trying to work out what they assume to be their intrinsic discrepancies. transculturalism takes place when at least two—and sometimes three or more—cultures are not only engaged in dialogue, but partake in a more profound and often contradictory process, in which enlightenment, understanding, and continuous reassessment of identity are at play. the ultimate aim is to transform each other's identity through a long, arduous, and sometimes painful negotiation of otherness.[87] references adorno, theodor w. aesthetic theory [ästhetische theorie, 1970]. translated by robert hullot-kentor. london: continuum, 2004. albrow, martin. the global age: state and society beyond modernity. cambridge: polity press, 1996. appadurai, arjun. “how histories make geographies: circulation and context in a global perspective.” transcultural studies, 1 (2010): 4–13. ———. modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization. minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1996. baranay inez. with the tiger. new delhi: harpercollins publishers india, 2008. barbieri francesco eugenio. “dove comincia l'europa. la scrittura transculturale di tawada yōko.” scritture migranti 4 (2010): 65–88. bauman, zygmunt. culture in a liquid modern world. cambridge: polity in association with the national audiovisual institute, 2011. ———. liquid times: living in an age of uncertainty. cambridge: polity press, 2007. beck, ulrich. “living in the world risk society,” economy and society, 35.2 (august 2006): 329–345. benessaieh afef. “multiculturalism, interculturality, tranculturaliy.” in transcultural americas/amériques transculturelles, edited by afef benessaieh, 11–38. ottawa: university of ottawa press, 2010. berman, marshall. all that is solid melts into air: the experience of modernity. london: verso, 1983. berry, ellen e. and mikhail n. epstein. transcultural experiments: russian and american models of creative communication. new york: st. martin's press, 1999. brancato, sabrina. “transcultural perspectives in caribbean poetry.” in transcultural english studies: theories, fictions, realities, edited by frank schulze-engler and sissy helff, 233–247. amsterdam: rodopi, 2009. ———. “transculturalità e transculturalismo: i nuovi orizzonti dell'identità culturale.” le simplegadi 2.2 (2004): 40–46. http://all.uniud.it/simplegadi/wp-content/uploads/2004/brancato_simplegadi_2.pdf [accessed 19 february 2012]. brosius, christiane and roland wenzlhuemer, eds. transcultural turbulences—towards a multi-sited reading of image flows. springer: berlin, 2011. casanova, pascale. the world republic of letters [la république mondiale des lettres, 1999]. translated by m. b. debevoise. cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 2004. castro, brian. the bath fugues. artarmon, new south wales: giramondo publishing, 2009. clifford, james. the predicament of culture: twentieth-century ethnography, literature, and art. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press, 1988. coleman, daniel. “writing dislocation. transculturalism, gender, immigrant families: a conversation with ven begamudré.” canadian literature 149 (1996): 36–51. connell, liam and nicky marsh. literature and globalization: a reader. new york: routledge, 2011. cresswell, tim. on the move. mobility in the modern western world. new york: routledge, 2006. dagnino, arianna. “transculturalism and transcultural literature in the 21st century.” transcultural studies. a series in interdisciplinary research, 8 (2012): 1–14. ———. “transcultural writers and transcultural literature in the age of global modernity.” transnational literature, 4. 2 (2012): 1–14. ———. 1996. i nuovi nomadi: pionieri della mutazione, culture evolutive, nuove professioni. roma: castelvecchi. d'andrea, anthony. “neo-nomadism: a theory of post-identitarian mobility in the global age.” mobilities 1.1 (2006): 95–119. dirlik, arif. global modernity: modernity in the age of global capitalism. boulder: paradigm publishers, 2007. ———. “modernity as history: post-revolutionary china, globalisation and the question of modernity.” social history 27.1 (2002): 16–39. dupuis, gilles. “transculturalism and écritures migrantes.” in history of literature in canada: english-canadian and french-canadian, edited by reingard m. nischik, 497–508. rochester: camden house, 2008. dussel, enrique. “transmodernity and interculturality: an interpretation from the perspective of philosophy of liberation.” transmodernity: journal of peripheral cultural production of the luso-hispanic world 1, 3 (2012): 28–59. edgar, andrew and peter r. sedgwick, cultural theory: the key concepts. london: routledge, 2002. eisenstadt, shmuel n. “multiple modernities.” daedalus 129.1 (winter 2000): 1–29. ———.  “some observations on multiple modernities.” in reflections on multiple modernities: european, chinese and other interpretations. papers presented at a multiple modernities conference, berlin (20–21 may, 2001), edited by dominic sachsenmaier, jens riedel and shmuel eisenstadt, 27–41. leiden: brill, 2002. eisenstadt, shmuel n., jens riedel, and dominic sachsenmaier, “the context of the multiple modernities paradigm,” in reflections on multiple modernities. european, chinese and other interpretations. papers presented at a multiple modernities conference, berlin (20–21 may, 2001), edited bydominic sachsenmaier, jens riedel and shmuel n. eisenstadt, 1–26 (leiden: brill, 2002). epstein, mikhail n. “transculture: a broad way between globalism and multiculturalism.” american journal of economics & sociology 68.1 (2009): 327–351. ———. after the future: the paradoxes of postmodernism and contemporary russian culture. translated by anesa miller-pogacar. amherst: university of massachusetts press, 1995. ette, ottomar. literature on the move [literatur in bewegung, 2001]. translated by katharina vester. amsterdam: rodopi, 2003. gaonkar, dilip parameshwar. “on alternative modernities.” in alternative modernities, edited by gaonkar, dilip parameshwar, 1–23.durham: duke university press, 2001. giddens, anthony. the constitution of society: outline of the theory of structuration. cambridge: polity press, 1984. ———.em>. modernity and self-identity: self and society in the late modern age. cambridge: polity, 1991. grossberg, lawrence. cultural studies in the future tense. durham: duke university press, 2010. gunew, sneja. “transcultural translations: performative pedagogies.” paper presented at the meeting of the international research project on transculturalism of the international council of canadian studies, 6–7 june, 2002, cd format.  available also online at: http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/sgunew/tt.htm [accessed 3 august 2011]. haberkorn, michaela. “treibeis und weltensammler. konzepte nomadischer identität in den romanen von libuše moníkovà und ilija trojanow.” in von der nationalen zur internationalen literatur. transkulturelle deutchschprachige literatur und kultur im zeitalter globaler migration. amsterdamer beiträge zur neueren germanistik, edited by helmut schmitz, 243–261. amsterdam: rodopi, 2009. hannerz, ulf. “thinking about culture in a global ecumene.” in culture in the communication age, edited by james lull. new york: routledge, 2001. helff, sissy. “the missing link—transculturation, hybridity, and/or transculturality?” in literature for our times. postcolonial studies in the twenty-first century, edited by bill ashcroft, ranjini mendis, julie mcgonegal, and arun mukherjee, 187–202. amsterdam: rodopi, 2012. ———. “shifting perspectives: the transcultural novel.” in transcultural english studies: theories, fictions, realities, edited by frank schulze-engler and sissy helff, 75–89. amsterdam: rodopi, 2009. herren madeleine, martin rüesch, and christiane sibille. transcultural history. theories, methods, sources. heidelberg: springer, 2012. hokenson, jan walsh. “the culture of the context: comparative literature past and future.” in comparative literature and comparative cultural studies, edited by steven tötösy de zepetnek, 58–75. west lafayette: purdue university press, 2003. jay, paul. global matters: the transnational turn in literary studies. ithaca: cornell university press, 2010. iyer, pico. the global soul: jet lag, shopping malls and the search for home. london: bloomsbury, 2001. jay, paul. “beyond discipline? globalisation and the future of english.” pmla (publications of the modern language association of america) 116.1 (2001): 32–47. juneja, monica. “einleitung.” in kulturerbe und denkmalpflege transkulturell. grenzgänge zwischen theorie und praxis, edited by michael falser and monica juneja, 17–34. transcript: bielefeld, 2013. ———. “global art history and the burden of representation” in global studies. mapping contemporary art and culture, edited by hans belting et al., 274–296. hatje cantz: stuttgart, 2012. lipovetsky, gilles. hypermodern times. cambridge: polity press, 2005. lyotard, jean-françois. the postmodern condition: a report on knowledge [la condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir, 1979]. translated by geoff bennington and brian massumi.manchester: manchester university press, 1984. manguel, alberto. the city of words. understanding civilisation through story. london: continuum, 2007. nelson, alissa jones. “contrapuntal hermeneutics: semantics, edward w. said, and a new approach to biblical interpretation.” in thinking toward new horizons, collected communications to the xixth congress of the international organization for the study of the old testament, liubljana 2007, edited by matthias augustin and hermann m. niemann, 203–215. frankfurt am main: peter lang: 2008. ong, aihwa. flexible citizenship: the cultural logics of transnationality. durham: duke university press, 1999. panagiotopoulos, diamantis. “material versus design: a transcultural approach to the two contrasting properties of things,” transcultural studies, 1 (2013): 145–176. parks, tim. 2008. dreams of rivers and seas. london: harvill secker. rodríguez, joaquín barriendos. “global art and politics of mobility: (trans)cultural shifts in the international contemporary art-system.” thamyris/intersecting: place, sex and race 23, no. 1 (2011): 313–334. rorty, richard. take care of freedom and truth will take care of itself: interviews with richard rorty. stanford: stanford university press, 2006. sachsenmaier, dominic, jens riedel, and shmuel n. eisenstadt, eds. reflections on multiple modernities: european, chinese and other interpretations. papers presented at a multiple modernities conference (berlin, 20–21 may 2001), edited by dominic sachsenmaier, jens riedel, and shmuel n. eisenstadt.leiden: brill, 2002. sachsenmaier, dominic. “multiple modernities—the concept and its potential.” in reflections on multiple modernities: european, chinese and other interpretations. papers presented at a multiple modernities conference (berlin, 20–21 may 2001), edited by dominic sachsenmaier, jens riedel, and shmuel n. eisenstadt, 42–67. leiden: brill, 2002. said, edward w. culture and imperialism. london: vintage books, 1994. schulze-engler, frank. “introduction.” in transcultural english studies. theories, fictions, realities, edited by frank schulze-engler and sissy helff, ix–xvi. amsterdam: rodopi, 2009. schulze-engler, frank and sissy helff, eds. transcultural english studies: theories, fictions, realities. amsterdam: rodopi, 2009. sewell, william h. jr. “the concept(s) of culture.” in beyond the cultural turn.new directions in the study of society and culture, edited by victoria e. bonnell and lynn hunt, 35–61. berkeley: university of california press, 1999. sturm-triginakis, elke. “comparative cultural studies and the new weltliteratur.” in companion to comparative literature and comparative cultural studies, edited bysteven tötösy de zepetnek and tutun mukherjee, 93–99. new delhi: cambridge university press india, 2012. syjuco miguel. ilustrado. london: picador, 2010. taylor, charles. “two theories of modernity.” in alternative modernities, edited by dilip parameshwar gaonkar, 172–196. durham, nc: duke university press, 2001. tötösy de zepetnek, steven. comparative literature: theory, method, application. amsterdam: rodopi, 1998. ———. “from comparative literature today toward comparative cultural studies.” clcweb: comparative literature and culture 1.3 (1999): 1–19.http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol1/iss3/2. tripathi salil. “burnt shadows, by kamila shamsie.” the independent, march 13, 2009, para. 1, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/burnt-shadows-by-kamila-shamsie-1643530.html [accessed 3 march 2012]. trojanow ilija. un voyage mystique. paris: buchet chastel, 2009. trojanow, ilija and ranjit hoskoté. confluences. forgotten histories from east and west. new delhi: yoda press, 2012. urry, john. mobilities. cambridge: polity press, 2007. vattimo, gianni. the transparent society. baltimore: johns hopkins university press, 1992. venn, couze. “narrating the postcolonial.” in spaces of culture. city—nation—world, edited by mike featherstone and scott lash, 257–281. london: sage, 1999. vertovec, steven. “super-diversity and its implications.” ethnic and racial studies 30.6 (2007): 1024–1054. welsch, wolfgang. “rethinking identity in the age of globalization—a transcultural perspective.” aesthetics & art science 1 (2002): 85–94. ———. “transculturality: the puzzling form of cultures today.”  in spaces of culture: city—nation—world, edited by mike featherstone and scott lash, 194–213. london: sage, 1999. williams, raymond. “literature in society.” in contemporary approaches to english studies, edited by hilda schiff, 24–37 (new york: barnes & noble, 1977). [1] see in this regard joaquín barriendos rodríguez, “global art and politics of mobility: (trans)cultural shifts in the international contemporary art-system,” thamyris/intersecting: place, sex and race, 23.1 (2011): 313–334; and tim cresswell, on the move. mobility in the modern western world  (new york: routledge, 2006). [2] ellen berry and mikhail n. epstein, transcultural experiments: russian and american models of creative communication (new york: st. martin's press, 1999), 307. see also in this regard, arianna dagnino, “transculturalism and transcultural literature in the 21st century,” transcultural studies. a series in interdisciplinary research, 8 (2012): 1–14. [3] the transcultural approach adopted in the present article draws mainly on the concept of “transculturality” devised by wolfgang welsch, for whom any separatist vision of cultures as distinct, self-enclosed, and self-sufficient units is overcome in view of the contemporary dynamics of cultural transformations and “pure cultural processes”; cfr., wolfgang welsch, “transculturality: the puzzling form of cultures today,” in spaces of culture: city-nation-world, eds. mike featherstone and scott lash (london: sage, 1999) 194–213, 204. it also draws on the theory of the transcultural developed by mikhail n. epstein; cfr. mikhail n. epstein “transculture: a broad way between globalism and multiculturalism,” american journal of economics & sociology 68.1 (2009): 327–351. the notion of “transculturality” has been further developed by the researchers of the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context: the dynamics of transculturality” at heidelberg university, http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/ [accessed  2 may 2013]. see in this regard christiane brosius and roland wenzlhuemer, transcultural turbulences. towards a multi-sited reading of image flows (springer: berlin, 2011); and madeleine herren, martin rüesch, and christiane sibille, transcultural history: theories, methods, sources (springer: berlin, 2012). see also monica juneja, “global art history and the burden of representation,” in global studies. mapping contemporary art and culture, ed. hans belting et al. (stuttgart: hatje cantz, 2012), 274–296; and monica juneja, “einleitung,” in kulturerbe und denkmalpflege transkulturell. grenzgänge zwischen theorie und praxis, ed. michael falser and monica juneja (transcript: bielefeld 2013), 17–34 (esp. 17–27). for an analysis of the different interpretations of the concept of “transculturality" see also afef benessaieh, “multiculturalism, interculturality, tranculturaliy,” in transcultural americas/amériques transculturelles, ed. afef benessaieh (ottawa: university of ottawa press, 2010), 11–38. [4] on the concept of “superdiversity” see, in particular, steven vertovec, “super-diversity and its implications,” ethnic and racial studies 30.6 (2007): 1024–1054. on the confluential and mutually transforming nature of cultures see edward w. said, culture and imperialism (new york: vintage books, 1994); and ilija trojanow and ranjit hoskoté, confluences. forgotten histories from east and west (new delhi: yoda press, 2012). [5] see, for example, arjun appadurai, modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1996); and aihwa ong, flexible citizenship: the cultural logics of transnationality (durham: duke university press, 1999). [6] for a discussion on neonomadism and neonomadic lifestyles, see in particular anthony d'andrea, “neo-nomadism: a theory of post-identitarian mobility in the global age,” mobilities 1.1 (march, 2006): 95–119; and arianna dagnino, i nuovi nomadi. pionieri della mutazione, culture evolutive, nuove professioni (rome: castelvecchi, 1996). [7] cfr. michaela haberkorn, “treibeis und weltensammler. konzepte nomadischer identität in den romanen von libuše moníkovà und ilija trojanow,” in von der nationalen zur internationalen literatur. transkulturelle deutschsprachige literatur und kultur im zeitalter globaler migration, ed.helmut schmitz, vol. 69(amsterdam: rodopi, 2009), 243–261. [8] cfr. francesco eugenio barbieri, “dove comincia l'europa. la scrittura transculturale di tawada yōko,” scritture migranti 4 (2010): 65–88. [9] for a discussion on the permeability and confluential nature of cultures see, in particular, welsch, “transculturality”; ulf hannerz, “thinking about culture in a global ecumene,” in culture in the communication age, ed. james lull (new york: routledge, 2001); and sneja gunew, “transcultural translations: performative pedagogies,” paper presented at the meeting of the international research project on transculturalism of the international council of canadian studies, 6–7 june, 2002, cd format. available also online, http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/sgunew/tt.htm [accessed 3 august 2011]. [10] ottomar ette, literature on the move [literatur in bewegung, 2001], trans. katharina vester (amsterdam: rodopi, 2003), 9, 13. [11] for an analysis of the characteristics of transcultural writers, see the article by arianna dagnino, “transcultural writers and transcultural literature in the age of global modernity,” transnational literature, 4. 2 (2012): 1–14. [12] pico iyer, the global soul: jet lag, shopping malls and the search for home (london: bloomsbury, 2001), 27. [13] alberto manguel, the city of words (london: continuum, 2008), 145. [14] sabrina brancato, “transcultural perspectives in caribbean poetry,” in transcultural english studies, 233–247, 245. [15] epstein, “transculture,” 333. [16] daniel coleman, “writing dislocation. transculturalism, gender, immigrant families: a conversation with ven begamudré,” canadian literature 149 (1996): 36–51, 37. [17] epstein, “transculture,” 342. [18] epstein, “transculture,” 341. [19] inez baranay, with the tiger (new delhi: harpercollins publishers india,2008), 225. [20] brian castro, the bath fugues (artarmon, new south wales: giramondo publishing, 2009). [21] kamila shamsie, burnt shadows (london: bloomsbury, 2009). [22] salil tripathi, “burnt shadows, by kamila shamsie,” the independent, march 13, 2009, para. 1, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/burnt-shadows-by-kamila-shamsie-1643530.html [accessed 3 march 2012]. [23] mark stein, “the location of transculture,“ in transcultural english studies. theories, fictions, realities, ed. frank schulze-engler and sissy helff (amsterdam, new york: rodopi, 2009), 251. [24] miguel syjuco, ilustrado (london: picador, 2010). ilustrado won the man asian literary prize in 2010. [25] schulze-engler, “introduction,” in transcultural english studies, ix–xvi; x, xvi. [26] sissy helff defines a “transcultural novel” as having at least one of the following aspects: (1) “the narrator and/or the narrative challenge(s) the collective identity of a particular community"; (2) “experiences of border crossing and transnational identities characterize the narrators' lifeworld”; (3) “traditional notions of ‘home’ are disputed." cfr. helff, “shifting perspectives: the transcultural novel,” in transcultural english studies, 75–89; 83. [27] cfr. elke sturm-trigonakis, “comparative cultural studies and the new weltliteratur,” in companion to comparative literature and comparative cultural studies, eds.steven tötösy de zepetnek and tutun mukherjee (new delhi: cambridge university press india, 2012), 93–99. [28] see, in particular, schulze-engler, “introduction”; helff, “shifting perspectives”; and brancato, “transcultural perspectives.” [29] see in particular welsch, “transculturality”; epstein, “transculture”; and trojanow and hoskoté, confluences. [30] lawrence grossberg, cultural studies in the future tense (durham: duke university press, 2010), 356, 85. [31] ong, flexible citizenship, 31, 32. [32] raymond williams, “literature in society,” in contemporary approaches to english studies, ed. hilda schiff (new york: barnes & noble, 1977), 25. [33] madeleine herren, martin rüesch, and christiane sibille, transcultural history. theories, methods, sources (heidelberg: springer, 2012), 83. [34] cfr. shmuel n. eisenstadt, “multiple modernities,” daedalus 129.1 (winter 2000): 1–29. [35] shmuel n. eisenstadt, jens riedel, and dominic sachsenmaier, “the context of the multiple modernities paradigm,” in reflections on multiple modernities. european, chinese and other interpretations, eds. dominic sachsenmaier, jens riedel, and shmuel n. eisenstadt, (leiden: brill, 2002), 1. [36] shmuel n. eisenstadt, “some observations on multiple modernities,” in reflections on multiple modernities, 27–41; 27. [37] arif dirlik, “modernity as history: post-revolutionary china, globalisation and the question of modernity.” social history 27.1 (2002): 16–39, 16. [38] ong, flexible citizenship, 31. [39] eisenstadt, “multiple modernities,” 24. [40] ong, flexible citizenship, 31. [41] charles taylor, “two theories of modernity,” in alternative modernities, ed. dilip parameshwar gaonkar (durham: duke university press, 2001), 172, 182, 185. [42] dilip parameshwar gaonkar, “on alternative modernities,” in alternative modernities, 1–23, 18. [43] lawrence grossberg, cultural studies in the future tense (durham: duke universitypress), 86. [44] grossberg, cultural studies, 288. [45] dominic sachsenmaier, “multiple modernities—the concept and its potential,” in reflections on multiple modernities, 42–67; 57. [46] couze venn, "narrating the postcolonial," in spaces of culture. city—nation—world, ed. mike featherstone and scott lash (london: sage, 1999), 264. [47] drawing on the concept of “scapes” outlined by arjun appadurai (2010, 1996), diamantis panagiotopoulos describes them as “virtual, deterritorialised spaces that are shaped and structured by a variety of flows and processes.” cfr. diamantis panagiotopoulos, “material versus design: a transcultural approach to the two contrasting properties of things," transcultural studies, 1 (2013): 145–176; 154. [48] on the dynamics of “cultural flows” see arjun appadurai (1996, 2010). [49] monica juneja, “global art history and the burden of representation,” 8. [50] see, in particular, martin albrow, the global age: state and society beyond modernity (cambridge: polity press, 1996). [51] in the present article, what is called “middle modernity” is distinct from “the early phase of modernity,” which, in marshal berman's view, roughly covers the period between the sixteenth century and the french revolution, “when people are just beginning to experience modern life.” it also differs from what might be called “classical” modernity, which spans through the whole of the nineteenth century after “the great revolutionary wave of the 1790s [when] a great modern public abruptly and dramatically comes to life.” it may be roughly associated with what berman calls “the third […] phase” of modernity, when “the process of modernisation expands to take in virtually the whole world” (although in this definition berman encompasses most of the twentieth century, at least until the 1980s). cfr. marshal berman, all that is solid melts into air: the experience of modernity (london: verso, 1983), 16–17. [52] cfr. also ulrich beck, “living in the world risk society,” economy and society, 35, no. 2 (august, 2006): 329–345. [53] zygmunt bauman, culture in a liquid modern world (cambridge: polity in association with the national audiovisual institute, 2011), 11. [54] liam connell and nicky marsh, literature and globalization: a reader (new york: routledge, 2011), xiv. [55] shmuel sachsenmaier, “multiple modernities,” 51–52. [56] cfr. gilles lipovetsky, hypermodern times (cambridge: polity press, 2005). [57] enrique dussel, “transmodernity and interculturality. an interpretation from the perspective of philosophy of liberation,” transmodernity: journal of peripheral cultural production of the luso-hispanic world 1:3 (2012): 28–59, 42. [58] arif dirlik, “modernity as history,” 24, 17. [59] mikhail n. epstein, after the future: the paradoxes of postmodernism and contemporary russian culture, trans. anesa miller-pogacar (amherst: university of massachusetts press, 1995), 331. [60] charles taylor, “two theories of modernity,” 195. [61] cfr. arjun appadurai, modernity at large. [62] paul jay, global matters: the transnational turn in literary studies (ithaca: cornell university press, 2010), 45. [63] pascale casanova, the world republic of letters, trans. m.b. debevoise [la république mondiale des lettres, 1999] (harvard: harvard university press, 2004), 4. [64] jan walsh hokenson, “the culture of the context: comparative literature past and future,” in comparative literature and comparative cultural studies, ed. steven tötösy de zepetnek(west lafayette: purdue university press, 2003), 61. [65] cfr. william h. sewell jr., “the concept(s) of culture,” in beyond the cultural turn. new directions in the study of society and culture, eds. victoria e. bonnell and lynn a. hunt(berkeley: university of california press, 1999), 35–61. [66] james clifford, the predicament of culture: twentieth-century ethnography, literature, and art. (cambridge: harvard university press, 1988), 14. [67] ong, flexible citizenship, 15. [68] see in this regard, giddens, the constitution of society: outline of the theory of structuration. (cambridge: polity press, 1984). [69] gianni vattimo, the transparent society (baltimore: johns hopkins university press, 1992), 3. [70] edward w. said, culture and imperialism, 36. [71] james clifford, the predicament of culture, 17. [72] alissa jones nelson, “contrapuntal hermeneutics: semantics, edward w. said, and a new approach to biblical interpretation,” in thinking toward new horizons, eds. matthias augustin and hermann m. niemann (frankfurt am main: peter lang: 2008), 206. [73] arjun appadurai, modernity at large, 9. [74] ong, flexible citizenship, 16. in ong's view, political economy goes beyond the classical marxist formulation “as a domain of production and labor that is separate from society and culture” (ong, flexible citizenship, 16). [75] theodor w. adorno, aesthetic theory [ästhetische theorie, 1970], trans. robert hullot-kentor (london: continuum, 2004), 311–314. [76] adorno, aesthetic theory, 317. [77] andrew edgar and peter r. sedgwick, cultural theory: the key concepts (london: routledge, 2002), 178. [78] connell and marsh, literature and globalisation, 94–96. [79] hokenson, “the culture of the context,” 63. [80] paul jay, “beyond discipline? globalization and the future of english,” pmla 116.1 (2001): 32–47, 44. [81] connell and marsh, “literature and globalization,” 97, 98. [82] steven tötösy de zepetnek, “from comparative literature today toward comparative cultural studies,” clcweb: comparative literature and culture 1.3 (1999), http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol1/iss3/2 [accessed 2 january 2012]. [83] epstein, “transculture,” 328. [84] richard rorty, take care of freedom and truth will take care of itself: interviews with richard rorty  (stanford: stanford university press, 2006), 124. [85] hannerz, “thinking about culture.” [86] as afef benessaieh (2010) maintains in “multiculturalism, interculturality, tranculturality,” “[t]he transcultural traverses cultures, bringing to light what is common or alike amid what seems to be different [… it] does not dualize or polarize cultures as essentially different or potentially antagonistic," 18, 19. [87] gilles dupuis, “transculturalism and écritures migrantes,” in history of literature in canada: english-canadian and french-canadian, ed. reingard m. nischik (rochester: camden house, 2008), 497–508. ship newspapers and passenger life aboard transoceanic steamships in the late nineteenth century | wenzelhuemer & offermann | transcultural studies ship newspapers and passenger life aboard transoceanic steamships in the late nineteenth century roland wenzlhuemer and michael offermann, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg introduction: “a striking departure” it was around midday on a sunny day sometime in the late 1880s when a mixed crowd of people had assembled on the pier at brindisi harbour. some were harbour officials, some street vendors. others had come simply to wave goodbye to the steamer that was just about to leave brindisi for england. one of the passengers on the outbound ship described the scene as follows: [t]here was the usual crowd of officials, soldiers, police, etc., resplendent in uniforms all the colours of the rainbow, together with the usual crowd of villainous looking men, all with, apparently, nothing to do but watch the ship go away.[1] the “usual crowd,” however, was in for an unusual surprise. out of the blue, a group of passengers on the steamer started to fire a huge number of oranges at the people on the pier. during the shore excursion, the fruits had been bought (and stocked for precisely this purpose) from the very vendors at the pier who were now under fire. according to the report of the aforementioned passenger—who was delightfully partaking in the business—the […] fire was briskly returned from the shore, and soon the air was thick with yellow oranges. but our ship had a hurricane-deck, and from this high position we aimed our oranges, so we had the crowd to fire into (and though we preferred to hit a fellow with as big a feather in his hat as possible, or one with the most stupendous thing on in uniforms, we were not very particular, as long as we hit someone), we had far the best of the battle.[2] apparently, the passengers gleefully enjoyed themselves and took some pride in the havoc that they wreaked on the shore. but the real climax of the little skirmish was still to come. it was a fine thing to see the helter-skelter and the rushing and shoving to avoid our fire. meantime, another little incident occurred which we enjoyed almost as much as shying at the “natives.”[3] one of the ship’s junior officers was a good-looking fellow. during the passage from the east he had apparently made quite some impression on several of the young ladies on board—and he had enjoyed every minute of it. at brindisi he had to leave the ship to take up a new position. however, he was determined not to simply leave the steamer like any other passenger would do. instead, […] he had planned for a striking departure, and as the vessel gradually hauled off from the shore… he left her in a small boat, with a man to row him. there the fine young fellow stood, in the stern of the boat, his face tanned with many suns, leaving for a new call of duty […]! [w]aving his cap sadly in farewell to the group of girls who, with tear-stained faces and tearful eyes, leaned over the taffrail, waving him back regretful adieux. and so he was slowly being rowed ashore… it was an impressive sight, and a striking and an affecting departure.[4] it is not particularly difficult to guess what happened—what had to happen—next. unfortunately for the young officer, the ship had got almost out of range of the shore, and we had plenty of oranges left. he was a lovely mark… alas for the best laid plans! the heroic departure, so well contrived, was spoiled. instead of the edifying spectacle of the noble young fellow standing erect in the stern of the boat waving his sad farewells, we saw him tumbling about from one end of the boat to the other—dodging oranges![5] this light-hearted little episode has not been recorded in the anonymous author’s memoirs, diaries, or letters, which so often serve as our principal sources regarding the everyday life of historical actors of globalisation. rather, these lines hail from a ship newspaper. the author has written them for the entertainment and distraction of the passengers of the s.s. massilia on her way from london to sydney in the year 1890. while the portrayed incident did not take place during this particular journey, but apparently during an earlier stopover of the author at brindisi, the account of the skirmish was published in the second issue of the massilia gazette on the occasion of leaving brindisi eastbound. it was the general purpose of the piece to add colour and context to one of the landmarks on the steamer’s route. and in the eyes of many of the passengers, brindisi in particular seemed to need some colour and context to make it just that bit more interesting for the traveller. at least, this transpires from another short, anonymous piece in the same issue of the massilia gazette entitled the sleeping beauty: it is stated that brindisi has been asleep for six hundred years, and has only just woke up. it is a pity its slumber was disturbed; or, having disturbed it, it is a pity it was not given a bath when it woke![6] this serves to illustrate that, even if reporting on seemingly unrelated incidents (as in the brindisi article), remote places, or fictional people, ship newspapers were primarily concerned with passenger life on board. while to date there is little information as to how common the production of ship newspapers on board long-distance passenger steamers in the late nineteenth century was, we do know that it was certainly not a rare thing. the passages between great britain and its australasian colonies could last weeks or months at a time and were notorious for their dullness. to fight what jeffrey auerbach has identified as one particularly trying instance of imperial boredom,[7] the passengers on many journeys got organised and elected a committee “for promoting the entertainment of the passengers during the voyage.”[8] besides organising social activities like sports or musical events, such a committee often pushed for the compilation of a ship newspaper, i.e. a newspaper produced by passengers for passengers only with the means available on board—and thus concentrated exclusively on topics that were of interest to the travellers. so far, ship newspapers have been almost completely overlooked by historians—despite the fact that they are unique, almost unsurpassable sources for life on passenger ships in the late nineteenth century. with the help of this particular set of sources, we want to draw the attention of more historians to what happened on such ships and, thus, to ships as historical spaces in their own right. during a long-distance voyage the passengers’ lives were not on stand-by. the people on board continued to be social beings. they went on talking, sharing their experiences, receiving new input, networking, and so on—but they did so within the relatively narrow framework of the ship, within a narrow and somewhat artificial community of travellers. the time that passengers on intercontinental journeys spent on board a steamer, therefore, was not insignificant. rather, it was a time in-transit during which both origin and destination were unreal and hazy places; a time, when the “before” and the “after” were constantly re-imagined through the experiences on board and gained their meaning only through the passage.[9] these experiences, the expectations and anxieties, but also the daily routine of the passengers are mirrored in the ship newspapers. in this article, we seek to demonstrate how these extraordinary publications can serve as lenses not only on shipboard life but actually on historical actors of globalisation in a more general context. first, we seek to highlight why and how ship newspapers played an important role in the shaping of the peculiar social space of the passenger ship. we will then give a brief overview of the context in which these newspapers were produced and what kind of news they contained. in a third step, we will introduce two specific examples of topics discussed in ship newspapers and outline possible fields of research on which ship newspapers can shed new light. the study is based on the exemplary analysis of all issues of two ship newspapers, the massilia gazette (figure 1) and the sutlej gazette (figure 2). they appeared on peninsular and oriental steamers during voyages from london. the massilia (figure 3) travelled to sydney in 1890, the sutlej (figure 4) to bombay in 1892. both ships carried first and second-class passengers only. hence, their gazettes reflect the experiences of a relatively elite group of travellers and only few references are made, for example, to the everyday life of the seamen on board. nevertheless it can clearly be seen how “steam liners indeed represented the british empire in microcosm, with european passengers divided by class and crew divided by both rank and race.”[10] fig. 1: the cover page of the bound and printed massilia gazette fig. 2: the cover page of the bound and printed sutlej gazette fig. 3: the royal mail steamship massilia as depicted in the bound and printed version of the massilia gazette. fig. 4: a poem about the sutlej published in the bombay gazette and reprinted in the sutlej gazette. ships as floating spaces ships and their movements have traditionally been of prime interest to historians involved in imperial, global or economic history, and other such fields. therefore, interest in shipping and maritime history in general is certainly not new. mainly, however, the central focus of maritime history rested on port cities, on ocean littorals, on the routes that people and goods took, and on the people and communities connected by maritime transport. ships have mostly been acknowledged as carriers and facilitators, not as historically relevant arenas in themselves. they have been treated as classic black boxes.[11] only input and output have been considered as relevant. the places of departure have received attention just as the places of arrival have. but the passage itself has largely been ignored (there are, of course, exceptions as shall be seen below). this is all the more surprising as ship journeys often took a substantial amount of time during which the crew and passengers—coming from various social, professional and cultural backgrounds—occupied the same cramped and isolated space. during its journey from port to port, the ship became an isolated space detached from the rest of the world whose movement, however, at the same time co-constituted globality. as michel foucault noted in his 1967 lecture “other spaces,” ships are “heterotopias par excellence”: “[t]he ship is a piece of floating space, a placeless place, that lives by its own devices, that is self-enclosed and, at the same time, delivered over to the boundless expanse of the ocean.”[12] port cities, on the other hand, have for a long time received attention from scholars interested in topics such as trade, migration, colonialism, or empire, to name but a few examples. ports control the transition from land to sea and, thus, channel as well as filter the flows of people, goods, and information to and from a region. in order to facilitate these flows, port cities have developed particular infrastructures and regimes[13]. as “ports of trade” in karl polanyi’s sense of the word[14] they need to provide a privileged and sheltered place for contact and exchange. particular contact zones evolve that work along a set of rules different to those of the rest of the world. these alternative rules can range from an intangible cosmopolitan atmosphere to the very concrete existence of a different (extra-territorial) legal basis. historical interest in port cities has for a long time concentrated mostly on these peculiarities—on the economic role of ports, their function as colonial trading posts and gateways to a particular region, and on the necessary infrastructural features.[15] the discussion of the evolution and function of ports, therefore, has long been embedded in economic and colonial contexts. in such discussions, the role of port cities and coastal areas as contact zones has, of course, been acknowledged but treated mainly from a functional viewpoint. inspired by postmodernist thought and a relational understanding of space, two innovative approaches to the study of maritime communities and their habitats have started to gain hold since the late 1990s. on the one hand, more and more scholars have started to pay attention to “the contact in ports between people of different origin. this contact situation has the potential to put into question one’s concept of the city, the nation, the religious community, civilization, or even time. [it] has the capacity to alter or reaffirm urban and national identities.”[16] applying this approach, historians have begun to look at the conditions, as well as at the consequences of cross-cultural contact and exchange, in port cities as regards the identities and spaces of local actors in this transcultural environment.[17] port cities and other comparable places guarding the exchange between people of different cultural backgrounds have, thus, been identified as prime theatres of cross-cultural encounters and transcultural phenomena. roughly at the same time, another group of scholars proposed to adopt a new notion about the historical geography of the sea[18] and demanded to shift the seas “from the margins to the centre of academic vision.”[19] the seas should no longer be seen as large bodies of water separating the principal scenes of historical action and often hindering and delaying interaction between them. rather it should be acknowledged that in many cases the sea connects its far-flung littorals, enables contact and exchange between them, and, thus, produces a new shared space held together by the sea. the term “seascape”[20] was coined to describe this space and researchers were offered “a prospectus for a version of historical geography that puts the seas and oceans at the centre of its concerns.”[21] especially in case studies on the atlantic[22] and the indian ocean[23] the validity and insightfulness of this approach has been amply demonstrated. it has been shown that the sea could, indeed, connect actors just as it could separate them. ocean littorals have been described as places where cultural identities, economic activities, and social belonging have often been detached from geographic proximity. the concept of translocality has been developed in order to provide a theoretical-methodological framework to study such phenomena.[24] integrating the idea of a “seascape” with that of port cities as cultural contact zones, provides an understanding of maritime communities that is translocal and transcultural at the same time. on the one hand, the sea and the countless connections made by traversing it, create socioeconomic and cultural communities whose members are scattered over a large geographic area. nevertheless they maintain a sense of community and identity, share a set of values and beliefs, and interact actively. on the other hand, port cities are now understood as contested scenes of contact and exchange where members of very different cultures seek to find their place. both approaches share the conviction that traditional understandings of space offer little explanatory power here, as culture has been detached from location. the global has found its way into the local, while at the same time existing local(e)s have been connected in new ways, thus transforming the global. beyond doubt, such a new double-layered understanding of maritime cultures has been overdue and has already proved its usefulness. strictly speaking, however, it has merely pushed for the acknowledgment of a new set of socioeconomic and cultural connections—a set of connections that uses the sea as a carrier rather than being obstructed by it. it has not pushed for a shift of attention regarding the theatres of history, the scenes of action. for instance, in their programmatic article currents, visions and voyages: historical geographies of the sea, david lambert, luciana martins and miles ogborn refer to a tripartite understanding of atlantic history as proposed by david armitage in the late 1990s.[25] armitage suggests thinking of the field in three ways—those of circum-atlantic, trans-atlantic, and cis-atlantic history.[26] the first concept treats the atlantic as a “particular zone of exchange and interchange, circulation and transmission”[27] and is, thus, closely related to lambert’s, martins’ and ogborn’s understanding of a historical geography of the sea. to them, circum-atlantic history is “the history of the people who crossed the atlantic, lived on its shores and participated in the communities it made possible, of their commerce and ideas, the diseases they carried, the flora they transplanted and the fauna they transported.”[28] while such a proposed focus on “circum-ocean” phenomena, and the contacts and exchanges constituting them is most worthwhile, it is important to see that this approach still treats the connections that made such contact possible as a black box. the interest of the new historical geography of the sea still lies on the land, on the ocean littorals, in the liminal places and contact zones arising as a consequence of endless sea-crossings. the historical actors that can be found in these places have either already crossed an ocean or are about to do so. they have either already brought their cargoes (material or “invisible”) with them or are about to do so. they live and act in a transcultural space co-constituted by the sea but located on terra firma. the actual transit itself largely remains a black box in regard to which only input and output are of interest. the theatre of all action remains on land. the local(e)s which, in their interconnectedness, produce the global, remain on land, in the port cities, on the ocean littorals. this is a pity as it fails to acknowledge the considerable amount of time that both mariners and passengers could (and would) spend on board intercontinental ships—in transit between two worlds and for all practical purposes in a state of limbo. such passages lasted weeks, often months at a time, punctuated only by short calls at ports to refuel or pick up new passengers. regular travellers could spend months and even years of their lives on board ships (and we need not speak only of the crew). therefore, we believe that it is time to widen this all too narrow focus by directing scholarly attention to the passage itself. we want to look at what happens during the transit, on the high seas, on board vessels on long-distance routes. we want to shed light on the space of the ship—but also on the space of the ocean itself[29]—as a historical arena, a zone of cultural contact and interaction, and we propose to examine the transcultural phenomena arising as a consequence. in short, we suggest looking into the black box of ocean-travel and ship voyages. while the history of ships and shipping has, of course, been intensively studied in a broad context, only very focused attention has so far been given to the time of the passage itself, let alone to questions of sociocultural interaction on board. only very few studies looked at shipboard life at all.[30] some were concerned with the professional life of the crew on sailing or steam vessels.[31] others were inspired by the recently renewed interest in the history of piracy and pirate life ashore and afloat.[32] the most notable exception, however, can be found in a number of important studies on the atlantic slave trade, convict transport, the migration of indentured labourers, and the so-called middle passages.[33] these look not only at departures and arrivals, but also the passages. the effort that these and other studies make to actually explain what happens during a ship’s passage cannot be overestimated as they face the fact that [i]n many ways, convict ships [just as slave or indentured labour ships—r.w./m.o.] are empty archival spaces. colonial officials recorded their departure and arrival, and enumerated and described convicts on board, often in meticulous details. however, the limitations of these records make the experiences of convict men and women on board transportation vessels more difficult to access.[34] given the scarcity of sources that allow researchers access to the passage itself, it is hardly surprising that to date there are only a handful of studies that have looked at the question of how being in transit aboard a ship also meant being in transit between two regions, two cultures. andrew hassam, for instance, analyzed emigrants’ travels to australia as a particular rite of passage and provided a helpful interpretation of passages as formative periods in emigrants’ lives in the nineteenth century.[35] bill bell studied how such passages to australia were meant to be filled by edifying shipboard reading.[36] in a recent article, tamson pietsch hints at how social and cultural exposition during passages to india and australia could shape perceptions of the self and the other.[37] michael pesek focuses on steamer passages to the german colonies. he analyses nineteen travel accounts of german colonial administrators, soldiers, and tourists for the significance of the journey itself in respect to the imperial project.[38] in another piece, john ryan examines the sea voyages of the wealthy brassey family and the narratives of these journeys. he explores “how lady brassey’s narratives of these grand oceanic tours surveyed and domesticated the world beyond england, and how they were shaped through the construction of the sunbeam [i.e. the ship] as a ‘home’ in which discourses of domesticity, gender and empire were played out.”[39] gopalan balachandran looks at the situation of indian seamen on board mostly british ocean-going vessels in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. balachandran primarily examines “forms of protest and defiance of authority.” he emphasises the “transnational and trans-cultural context of employment of indian seamen” and puts forward that “their encounters with bosses and others in authority invite us to re-examine pervasive notions of cultural difference—‘owned’ as well as attributed.”[40] together with several other contributions to the 2006 special issue of the journal of historical geography,[41] these few articles are among the few pieces of scholarship that try to draw our attention to the role of the ship as a zone of socio-cultural interaction. ship newspapers as source material studying ship newspapers as historical sources can be one way to gain more direct access to such interaction on ship passages at least as far as nineteenthand twentieth-century steamer passages are concerned. but what exactly are ship newspapers? there are different forms of ship newspapers that share only one principal characteristic: namely that they have been produced aboard ships for the exclusive perusal of the people on the ship. the best-known example of a ship newspaper is probably the cunard daily bulletin. it was published for the first time in 1901 on the rms lucania and gave passengers news received by wireless. thus, it was produced by the cunard crew for the passengers in order to give them information about the vessel but also about what was going on in the world. due to its semi-official character and the fact that it has been produced by cunard, many issues of the bulletin survived. its history is reasonably well documented (although not as thoroughly as one might expect) and, thus, the cunard daily bulletin very much shaped our image of ship newspapers. however, it was neither the first ship newspaper nor was it representative regards their role and function. with wireless telegraphy available on board it was the purpose of the cunard daily bulletin to connect the shipboard community with the rest of the world. the ship newspapers that we are dealing with here, however, aimed at making the most out of being totally unconnected to the outside world. they hail from an earlier decade, namely from the 1890s. these were pre-marconi times. no wireless telegrams could be received or sent on the ship. on the high seas there was no international news to be distributed in these papers. rather, these papers were produced by the passengers themselves for entertainment and information. the initiative to start and edit a ship newspaper mostly had to come from the passengers themselves. as pointed out in the introduction, this was often part of a broader set of measures taken against imperial boredom. during the first days at sea the passengers would form committees like the massilia’s “committee for promoting the entertainment of the passengers during the voyage.” this committee divided its duties in activities such as “drama,” “sports and dancing,” and “music,” and raised funds to meet its expenses.[42] a similar “entertainment and games committee” was formed aboard the sutlej, after a general meeting of the passengers convened by the captain.[43] by organising social events like cricket matches, musical events, and dances they tried to amuse the passengers and imitated the social activities on land. consequently, the newspapers devoted much space to report about the committees’ events and took part in the production of a comfortable social life. on some particularly boring days the appearance of a new issue was the main event of the day.[44] ship newspapers, therefore, seem to have been an essential part of the social life of passenger ships in the late nineteenth century[45]—at least as far as the more affluent passengers were concerned. at the moment, our overview of surviving issues of ship newspapers is still too rudimentary as to allow us to make any claims as to the class pervasiveness of shipboard newspaper production. most of the exemplars we have been able to look at seem to have been produced almost exclusively by firstand second-class passengers and, thus, by an elite group among historical actors. this is certainly true for the two particular papers that serve as our main examples in this article—the massilia and the sutlej gazettes. these publications have been selected as case studies due to their comparative breadth and depth. both appeared regularly throughout the journey, filled a remarkable number of pages in every issue, and covered a wide spectrum of topics and genres. hence, they seem to have been able to draw on a very broad basis of relatively well-educated contributors that submitted texts for publication. the entire design as well as the contents of these and many other ship newspapers point to the upper-class passengers as their principal producers and users. we have to keep in mind, however, that in the historical archives mostly such ship newspapers survive that have later been printed and sent to subscribersa practice certainly more likely and widespread among well-to-do passengers. it might well be that a similar form of whiling away transit time by sharing onboard information was also an established practice—but at this time we have next to no dependable evidence for this. just like their counterparts on land, ship newspapers usually had an editor in chief and one or more subeditors who overlooked the production of each issue. the sutlej gazette, for instance, features an imprint that lists its editor “wm. digby, c.i.e.,” its assistant editor “h. g. pearse, i.c.s.,” and “contributors, and others, who have assisted in the literary and caligraphical [sic] production of the gazette.”[46] (figure 5) it is very likely that the sutlej gazette owes its semi-professional appearance to the proficiency of william digby. he edited several newspapers in india and had travelled regularly between england and india since 1871.[47] on board, digby apparently used his journalistic expertise to help while away the time during the passage of the sutlej. fig. 5: the “imprint” of the sutlej gazette. fig. 6: the preface of the bound and printed massilia gazette. however, when it came to filling the many blank pages of an issue the editors’ powers were limited. to produce a ship newspaper was considered to be a “purely mutual undertaking” and, thus, depended on the active contribution of the people on board. the editorial of the massilia gazette explicitly appealed to everyone: “so now, fellow-passengers, send in your ‘copy,’ your sketches, your funny jokes and your advertisements.”[48] the contributions that reached the editors were usually typed out with typewriters, as the massilia gazette explicates in the preface (figure 6).[49] all drawings were done by hand and inserted as pictorial supplements. in this way, only very few copies could be produced on board and these had to be circulated and shared among the passengers. regarding one of its earlier issues, the sutlej gazette states  that “every head was buried in the sutlej gazette and groups of eager readers were looking over the shoulders of the happy possessors of the journal.”[50] the massilia gazette tried to make a pun about the small number of copies in circulation on board and in one issue offered the following made-up dialogue between two passengers: “let me have a gaze at the gazette, old man?” “you must think me sillier (‘massilia,’ d’ye see) than i look! i haven’t finished.”[51] after the ship had reached its destination, the original issues were often taken to a professional printer, typeset there, reprinted, and then sent out to the ship’s former passengers as a souvenir (figure 7). whoever wanted to receive a copy had to subscribe and pay a certain amount of money beforehand. the issues that survive in the archives today are usually such reprinted versions. the massilia gazette, for instance, has been reproduced in sydney at s. t. leigh and co. printers, 155 clarence street. [52] digby’s editorship of the bombay gazette enabled him to print the sutlej gazette at the “‘bombay gazette’ steam printing works.”[53] these print reproductions closely emulated the design and layout of the british broadsheet newspapers of the time. they sported a masthead (sometimes replete with an emblematic drawing and even a motto), gave the number of the issue, and the date and place of publication. the contents were printed in columns and divided in different articles with the help of headings and separating dashes (figures 8 and 9). in their appearance, most ship newspapers tried hard to create the feel of reading a regular british newspaper. the content was ordered under headings that could also be found in the dailies. for instance, every issue of the massila gazette featured an editorial, “latest news,” “advertisements,” or “latest telegrams.” the sutlej gazette sported very similar rubrics (figures 10 and 11). sometimes, a mock “obituary” at the end of the newspaper was dedicated to the passengers who had left the ship at a port between two issues (figure 12).[54] fig. 7: “advertisements” regarding the production of souvenir copies of the massilia gazette. fig. 8: the first page of the first issue of the massilia gazette. fig. 9: the first page of the first issue of the sutlej gazette. fig. 10: the sutlej gazette’s table of contents. fig. 11: a typical page from the sutlej gazette. fig. 12: a mock “obituary” for the passengers that left the massilia at malta. in layout and structure ship newspapers were modelled after regular newspapers published on land.  however, the contents and style of writing often leaned very much towards entirely different genres. ship newspapers often bore a striking resemblance to student newspapers or the satirical journals of the day. many issues mix features of both forms of writing—sometimes more, sometimes less aptly—very much in the style of the satirical issues that many student newspapers would publish at special occasions. among the features that ship newspapers shared with such publications is, first and foremost, its focus on a closed community of both readers and contributors. just as student newspapers exclusively cater to the students of a particular university and address their common experiences, ship newspapers appealed only to the onboard community that, for the time of the journey, shared a very narrow stage with each other. in-jokes and allusions to onboard incidents that would only make sense to a very small group of people are, therefore, the rule and not the exception. they create the feeling of relevance and intimacy—also by offering the opportunity to actively contribute to the publication. basically, the members of a particular community were talking to themselves, thus fuelling their shared experiences and reinforcing the bonds that held them together. at the same time, however, the newspapers themselves often lacked any coherence, as many varying styles and quality were published in every single issue. the actual contents of the papers were in almost all cases somehow related to the journey and, thus, to the one thing that all people on board had in common. within this loose frame, however, the spectrum of subjects covered was immense. it could range from stories about earlier voyages (like the brindisi incident related in the introduction) to reports about the various social activities on board; from the publication of amateur poetry to the indulgence in almost pubescent puns and jokes. at times, the papers also contained reports about shore leaves of the passengers at stops during the voyage which are particularly interesting in regard to the question of how passengers experienced other cultures. especially the sutlej gazette, under the professional editorship of digby, also featured articles about the history and the political and economical development of india—the destination of the sutlej. most of the time, however, the ship newspapers that came to our attention tried to use a light, witty tone on their pages. many openly emulated the satirical writing of the day. much of the contents of, for instance, the massilia or the sutlej gazette were meant to sound like the satirical poems or cartoon captions in punch (or other such journals). one principal purpose of ship newspapers—besides informing about the speed and location of the ship—was to entertain and the entertainment value of satirical writing seems to have been deemed particularly high. most issues offered a collection of jokes (often in-jokes, as pointed out above), witty poems, and puns in all variations. unfortunately, the amateur origins of these humorous contributions were, in most cases, rather obvious. they rarely reached the literary quality of the role models, as the pun on “massilia” or the sutlej gazette’s “ladies page” illustrate. these are examples for the generally good-natured but often rather simple-minded humour that characterises many of the contributions to ship newspapers. many editors seem to have been critically aware of this. in the preface of the massilia gazette, the editor-in-chief edward noyes offered a kind of disclaimer for the unsuspecting reader: but to any who should read the gazette, and who are unacquainted with life at sea, it is desirable to observe that very small things cause great interest in the monotony of a long sea voyage, and that a ship’s newspaper does not lay so much claim to literary merit as the most insignificant sheet published in the smallest and most out-of-the-way settlement on land in the world.[55] despite (or maybe even precisely because of) the literary shortcomings of which many ship newspapers so evidently suffered, compilations such as the massilia or the sutlej gazette offer us rare access to shipboard life, especially but not exclusively to the routines, thoughts, and problems of the passengers on board. first, they constitute such an interesting historical source, because they are—as pointed out above—a “purely mutual undertaking.” many different people who had not gone through any form of journalistic training or experience contributed to the papers. much of what eventually found its way on the pages of the ship gazettes, therefore, did not go through much professional filtering and channelling (the case of william digby acting as the editor of the sutlej gazette may, of course, be considered a rare exception in this regard). second, ship newspapers catered exclusively to the real or perceived needs of the passengers on board. therefore, their composition alone offers a rare glimpse into the concerns of an ephemeral shipboard community. images of the “others” thinking of ships as historical arenas implies thinking of ships as social spaces. hosting an artificial community of different social and cultural backgrounds over a significant amount of time, intercontinental steamers, for instance, were places in which socio-cultural identities were played out. as james ryan points out, a ship in the nineteenth century was important “as a site of modernity, of colonial encounter and of the performance of social and gender identities.”[56] these aspects were not only present in the materiality of the ship itself, but mainly came to life through group-building processes among the passengers and through the interaction between this artificial community and various “others”—aboard and ashore. in the late nineteenth century, the crew and passenger areas on british steamships were clearly demarcated. the crew itself was divided into a higher class of officers, lower ranking european seamen, and asian lascars (from persian lashkar, “army”, and arabic al-askar, “soldier”) at the bottom. this partition entailed different types of work, reserving lower respected jobs for lascars. the crew list of the sutlej gazette,for example, reflects this composition of the ship’s crew.[57] it lists the names of the seamen (and women) on board, ranked after their duties. from the officers down to the stewards every european seamen is named, only the lascars are subsumed under the names of their serang and tindal.[58] the image of the ship was that of a well-managed, hierarchically structured community in which each social group was clearly demarcated and fulfilled neatly delineated duties for the benefit of the entire ship. on the other hand, certain social boundaries were not always as rigid as they seemed. within the limited space of a ship, strict social separation according to ethnicity, class, or gender was not always possible. in transit, forms of contact became possible—sometimes inevitable—that would neither have been possible at the point of origin nor at the destination. the (temporarily) more flexible interpretation of social boundaries was made possible by the special conditions of uprootedness and isolation within the confined environment of a vessel. therefore, the emergence of a group identity—no matter how narrow or wide we might define this term—among the somewhat random community of passengers on such a ship took place in an unusual space whose social borders were rigid and permeable at the same time. for a first-time traveller, it was certainly no easy feat to understand the elusive and ephemeral web of meanings that made up this peculiar social space. in the ship newspapers, this struggle for making sense of the new social environment and the attempt to form a coherent group identity among the passengers comes to life. numbering between 100 and 200 passengers, this community consisted of people with different cultural backgrounds, different experiences, and different expectations—regards their destination, for instance. ship newspapers allow us a glimpse of the communication going on within this group and provide a way to answer the “need to specify the ways in which social and cultural differences were made, negotiated and contested in and through the geographies of ship, shore and ocean.”[59] for the passengers, the newspapers were an excellent forum to appeal to (and, thus, create) a common identity —amongst other things by identifying, discussing, and finding a place for various “others” that did not belong to one’s own group. these “others” could be very close and share the same cramped space of the ship or they could be those ashore. in the following, we will briefly look at how these “others”—both aboard and ashore—were depicted in the massilia and sutlej gazettes and how these depictions contributed to the (re)affirmation of passenger identity. images of the “other” on board passenger ships were (and are) not only means of transport but also cultural contact zones. people from the very different backgrounds shared the limited space of the ship for a considerable amount of time and usually were somehow bound make contact. between some social groups on board, however, practically no contact existed. european passengers and lascars, for instance, occupied entirely different decks of the ship and were kept as separate from each other as at all possible. lascars were asian—mostly indian—seamen doing service on european ships. in the late nineteenth century, so many indian seamen worked on british ships that many of them did not hail from maritime communities but, for instance, from the deccan or other regions far from the sea. accordingly, their duties were often not nautical in the narrower sense of the word, but they were responsible for the most menial jobs on board. lascars spent practically all of their time below deck and had no contact whatsoever with the passengers—unless the passengers decided to do a guided tour through the intestines of the ship. some of the passengers of the massilia undertook such a tour and reported about it with great enthusiasm in the gazette.[60] to be sure, the lascars featured only at the margins of the report as the “busy firemen, always feeding the great furnaces to make steam for the boilers.” however, the short paragraph is instructive as to how the lascars and their role on the ship were perceived by many of the passengers: the engine room and stokehole are roomy, and are tolerably comfortable for those who, unseen by us who walk on the decks, contribute their important share to our journey, and to whose unremitting care and attention is entrusted the great motive power of the “massilia.” [61] in this quote, the lascars are described more like part of the machinery than the crew. they are important for the functioning of the ship and do their part well. and, of course, the situation under deck is styled as at least “tolerably comfortable.” this description of a group of people who were arguably furthest removed, in terms of status from the european passengers, is all the more interesting when contrasted with the image that the passengers had of other members of the crew, such as the stewards. the stewards had direct contact with the passengers and were usually britons or at least of european origin.[62] interestingly, to the european passengers, their lives seemed to be so much harder than that of the lascars below deck. several contributions in the massilia gazette allude to this. for instance, a mock letter to the editor in the gazette’s indian ocean issue of 6 december 1890, reads: sir—can you tell me why it is that the stewards have to take their meals in such an uncomfortable manner? they are, the majority of them, willing, hard-working fellows… and yet they have to take their meals standing, or sitting on the floor, or anyhow. and that after seeing everyone well attended to, or they know it. yours obediently, indigestion.[63] compared to the “tolerably comfortable” situation of the lascars in the engine room, the living conditions of the stewards seemed to be everything but comfortably tolerable for the massilia’s passengers. apparently, the problem had not been adequately addressed until the publication of the next-the equatorial—issue one week later. accordingly, another mock complaint found its way into the gazette: dear sir.—i am glad the question of the accommodation given to stewards on some of the p. and o. ships has been raised in your paper. i have no hesitation in saying that it is the universal feeling on this ship that some proper accommodation should be found for these men. it is highly distasteful to me to have to ask a man to do things for me, when i know that he has to work under the circumstances of no place to take his meals in. i can only say i hope the matter will soon receive the attention of the directors. yours truly, constant traveller.[64] we have little knowledge beyond these short texts to gauge the larger context of this championing the cause of the stewards. while the tone of the complaints suggests at least some degree of real concern, it might just as well have been a private joke among some of the passengers that is not accessible to us anymore. still, the depiction of the lascars and the stewards in the massilia gazette can serve as an excellent example of how ship newspapers provided a forum to position the community of the passengers within the larger social framework of the ship. images of the “other” ashore being in transit and, thus, in transition, the community of passengers not only had to locate itself within the environment of the ship but also in the (imperial) world. how did their position on the isolated, restless vessel relate to the societies ashore? shore leaves provided new input to think about and the ship newspapers offered a way to share such thoughts about other cultures and the colonial order in more general terms. by publishing such stories and reports, the newspapers also held influence over the perceptions of unacquainted travellers and newcomers to the colonial world. interestingly, the perception of cultural difference between “us” and “them” already started at one of the eastbound ships’ first stops in europe. most steamers to australasia made a stop at brindisi to welcome new passengers and collect the latest mails that had been dispatched by train after the ship had left the united kingdom. the introductory episode already hints at a certain dislike that many of the british passengers seemed to have for the italian port city. in a piece entitled “how to spend a happy day in brindisi,” the sutlej gazette declared thatthe brindisi’s surroundingswere “so tropical, that for the moment we almost felt ourselves transported to the wide plains of the deccan or the rolling prairies of the mahratta country.” the text reflects the passengers’ curiosity and puzzlement as they explored the italian town and their feeling of strangeness as “seven p.o. passengers, arrayed in curious and wonderful hats,” in contrast to an italian’s “plumed sombrero.”[65] the passengers of the massilia were even less impressed by the south italian city, which they called “a miserable dirty town, which has been asleep for 500 years, and it is a pity the p. and o. company have awakened it.” some passengers of the massilia also undertook a small sightseeing tour, visiting a “small church, quaint, and filled with tawdry images.” the terminal columns of the via appia also aroused little enthusiasm, being described as “the two columns on a rock just above the quay, which are the most interesting objects in the place.”[66] in both papers, the south italian port—portrayed as a sleepy provincial town in sub-tropical southern europe of very little touristic value—is perceived as strikingly different from the british environment most passengers hailed from. however, while brindisi might have seemed outlandish to some of the travellers, the proper rite of passage from europe to asia only came with the transit of the suez canal. a pun on the word “suez canal” in the massilia gazette still very much followed the style of the depreciative descriptions of brindisi. in a mock “answer to correspondents” a certain “nosey bob” was informed that: it is not pronounced “sewage canal,” but suezzz canal. we are not lost in wonder at your question, however, as both words have somewhat the same sense (scents).[67] apart from this exception, however, the passage through the canal was described in much more elevating words that also convey the self-perception and group identity of the travellers. the suez canal had only been completed in 1869 and constituted a substantial technological accomplishment. upon seeing it, a sense of pride and imperial triumph was evoked in many of the passengers. one particularly impressed contributor to the sutlej gazette waxed lyrical about the significance of the suez canal and its impact on the relationship between asia and europe: this desert of division separates two worlds—the watchful, wakeful conquering, west; the dreamy, brooding, east; the young, the old; the wise-eyed serpent, and the lion bold; the prayerful mystic, waiting on the fates; the warrior, sword in hand, his only test.[68] the comparison between an active and thriving europe and a dormant asia complied with the ideologies of the time. the metaphor of the lion and serpent assigned the continents a particular character and, what is even more significant, a particular place in the imperial order: as the steamer passed from europe to asia, the former is depicted as the conquering warrior who rightfully dominates the latter who is merely “waiting on the fates.” while these lines fit easily into the imperialist discourse of the day and hold little surprise in this respect, they do gain an additional layer of meaning in the context of the ship. they voiced the self-perception but also the expectations of the passengers on board, many of whom were colonial officials, members of the indian civil service, or employees of british firms operating in india.[69] soon, their energetic group—“watchful, wakeful,” “bold,” and “sword in hand”—would be faced with the “dreamy, brooding, east.” for many, the passage of the suez canal doubled as their very own rite de passage. a very similar self-perception transpires in several pieces in the sutlej gazette. although mainly concerned with life on board, ship newspapers occasionally also provided information and advice about the country and culture of the ship’s destination. while acknowledging that “[t]o those who ‘know all about india’ we can offer nothing new,” the sutlej gazette ran a rather practical piece as a “reminder of some of the chief facts concerning country and people.” (figure 13)[70] the article catered to imperial first timers and mainly provided a geographic description of the subcontinent and its impact on the prehistoric migration of different “races” into india. no account is given about “hindu or mahomedan times,”[71] i.e. about indian history between prehistoric times and the arrival of the europeans. until then, india seemed to have been a country without much of a history. now, however, india was “that great country in which many of us have to pass the largest and best portion of our lives, some perhaps to die there because ‘in the bones of the english the english flag is stayed.’”[72] the reference to rudyard kipling’s paean of “the english flag” only emphasises how deeply entrenched the self-perception of the passengers on the sutlej was in the imperialist ideology of the day. almost all of them were somehow involved in matters of imperial administration or commerce. they were in transit to a place so very different from home. in their eyes, life there promised few amenities but many deprivations. in this respect, they literally all seemed to be in the same boat. england’s imperial duty and the ongoing civilising mission provided an ideological framework in which the passengers could locate themselves and make sense of their past, present, and future. fig. 13: “india. a reminder of some of the chief facts concerning country and people” from the sutlej gazette. in other cases, however, the travellers perceived themselves mainly as tourists—at least as long as they were still far from their destination. in the massilia gazette, a report about a shore leave at colombo (figure 14) reads more like a naïve touristic anecdote, noting the “bright dresses and turbans of the cingalese who had come off to take orders for white suits… in fact to do anything for us out of which they could make rupees.”[73] the article in many ways resembles the accounts of modern day tourists in developing countries. it highlighted the salesmanship of the natives, which was seen as an amusing, colourful feature. after buying souvenirs from local vendors, the passengers were wholly satisfied with the transaction—apart, of course, from having spent too much money. “no doubt we were cheated, but one somehow enjoys it.”[74] the experience of cultural difference is transformed into an amusing, light-hearted account that transforms the alien culture into an object of european curiosity. fig. 14: a double page of the massilia gazette giving details and images about a visit to colombo. conclusion the study of seafaring and maritime communities has long been an established field of enquiry in historical research. traditionally, much scholarly focus rested on the military and economic dimensions of shipping. in recent decades, however, more and more attention has rightly been directed to the transcultural dimensions of maritime activities. port cities and other liminal places have been recognised as cultural contact zones par excellence. at the same time, the sea started to be seen more and more as a connecting rather than a separating factor when it comes to the interaction and exchange between maritime communities. it is this gradual shift in focus that informs the justified call for a new historical geography of the sea that we should all heed. apart from only a handful of exceptions, however, the ocean passage itself, and, thus, the ship as a historical space in its own right, has received only fleeting attention. this is especially surprising as long-distance ship voyages could last weeks or months at a time. during this period, the lives of both crew and passengers were not on stand-by. the people on board continued to think, feel, and interact, but they did so within the confined space of the ship. and at least the passengers did so as members of a newly formed, random, and ephemeral group of travellers who often shared little more than origin and destination. we believe that this phase of being in transit should urgently be studied in much more detail as it is intimately connected with the making of a globalised world in the nineteenth century. during such a passage, the ship was one of the most isolated and, thus, “local” places imaginable. at the same time, its very existence and movement between the continents actively contributed to the process of globalisation. the space of the ship and its inhabitants were, therefore, caught between the local and the global in a most peculiar way. studying the space of the ship can, thus, provide a much-needed lens on historical globalisation as a whole. the brief examples presented above illustrate that self-affirmation and community-building featured prominently in ship newspapers. given the very different origins of the passengers and the largely artificial and ephemeral character of their group, these were not easy tasks. besides reporting on shared experiences and common activities (such as concerts, sports events, etc.), such a group identity was mainly created by describing various “others”—both afloat and ashore. in itself, this already provides valuable insights into how european actors of globalisation made sense of themselves and their changing surroundings in a globalising world. however, it gains additional significance by the fact that the producers and consumers of these newspapers were themselves on the move while writing and reading. they were in transit between two cultures and, therefore, partly in suspension between two worlds. ship newspapers in many ways mirror the questions, notions, and anxieties that passengers entertained in the context of this transition. they illustrate that a ship’s passage was also a formative phase during which passengers built, corrected, shared, or jettisoned the images and expectations they had of their destination. the examples discussed in this article only offer a preliminary glance at the possible questions that historians with an interest in cultural contact and exchange will be able to ask and hopefully answer by looking at ship newspapers. ideally, this will complement and expand our knowledge about shipboard life gained from the study of relatively well-researched sources such as travel reports, diaries, and logbooks. we are convinced that the hitherto almost completely overlooked genre of the ship newspaper offers a rare window onto the floating space of the ship and especially on passenger life aboard oceangoing steamers in the late nineteenth century. these newspapers can be seen as a product of the uncertainties to which the passengers were exposed. they offered a feeling of domesticity and a place where experiences and notions of the “other” could be expressed. this helped the passengers to situate themselves in the culturally differentiated world through which they were travelling. references amenda, lars, and malte fuhrmann. “hafenstädte in globaler perspektive. einleitung.” comparativ 17, no. 2 (2007): 7–11. anderson, clare. “‘the ferringees are flying—the ship is ours!’ the convict middle passage in colonial south and southeast asia, 1790–1860.” the indian economic and social history review 42, no. 2 (2005): 143–186. armitage, david. “three concepts of atlantic history.” in the british atlantic world, 1500–1800, edited by david armitage and michael j. braddick, 11–27. basingstoke: palgrave macmillan, 2002. armitage, david, and michael j. braddick, eds. the british atlantic world, 1500–1800. basingstoke: palgrave macmillan, 2002. auerbach, jeffrey. “imperial boredom.” common knowledge 11, no. 2 (2005): 283–305. balachandran, gopalan. “cultures of protest in transnational contexts: indian seamen abroad, 1886–1945.” transforming cultures ejournal 3, no. 2 (2008): 45–75. basu, dilip k., ed. the rise and growth of the colonial port cities in asia. lanham: university press of america, 1985. bentley, jerry h. “sea and ocean basins as frameworks of historical analysis.” geographical review 89, no. 2 (1999): 215–224. bentley, jerry h., renate bridenthal, and kären wigen. seascapes: maritime histories, littoral cultures, and transoceanic exchanges. honolulu: university of hawaii press, 2007. bose, sugata. a hundred horizons: the indian ocean in the age of global empire. cambridge ma: harvard university press, 2006. broeze, frank, ed. brides of the sea: port cities of asia from the 16th-20th centuries. honolulu: university of hawaii press, 1989. ———, ed. gateways of asia: port cities of asia in the 13th-20th centuries. london: routledge, 1997. christopher, emma, cassandra pybus, and marcus rediker, eds. many middle passages. forced migration and the making of the modern world. berkeley: university of california press, 2007. dening, greg. mr bligh’s bad language. passion, power and theatre on the bounty. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1992. diedrich, maria, henry l. gates, and carl pedersen, eds. black imagination and the middle passage. oxford: oxford university press, 1999. ewald, janet j. “crossers of the sea: slaves, freedmen, and other migrants in the nortwestern indian ocean, c. 1750–1914.” the american historical review 105, no. 1 (2000): 69–91. fischer, lewis r., and adrian jarvis, eds. harbours and havens: essays in port history in honour of gordon jackson. st. john’s, newfoundland: international maritime economic history association, 1999. foucault, michael. “different spaces.” in aesthetics, method and epistemology, edited by michel foucault and james d. faubion, 175–185. new york: the new press, 1998. freitag, ulrike, and achim von oppen, eds. translocality. the study of globalising processes from a southern perspective. leiden: brill academic publishers, 2010. gilroy, paul. the black atlantic: modernity and double-consciousness. london: verso, 2002. harms, robert. the diligent. a voyage through the worlds of the slave trade. new york: basic books, 2002. hassam, andrew. sailing to australia. shipboard diaries by nineteenth-century british emigrants. manchester: manchester university press, 1994. hazareesingh, sandip. “interconnected synchronicities: the production of bombay and glasgow as modern global ports c. 1850–1880.” journal of global history 4 (2009): 7–31. hyslop, jonathan. steamship empire: asian, african and british sailors in the merchant marine c. 1880–1945. journal of asian and african studies 44, no. 1 (2009): 49–67. jackson, gordon. “ports, ships and government in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.” in frutta di mare. evolution and revolution in the maritime world in the 19th and 20th centuries. proceedings of the second international congress of maritime history, 5–8 june 1996, amsterdam and rotterdam, the netherlands, edited by paul c. van royen, lewis r. fischer and david m. williams. amsterdam: batavian lion international, 1998. jarvis, adrian. “attempts at reducing the expenditure of the port of liverpool, 1836–1913.” in frutta di mare. evolution and revolution in the maritime world in the 19th and 20th centuries. proceedings of the second international congress of maritime history, 5–8 june 1996, amsterdam and rotterdam, the netherlands, edited by paul c. van royen, lewis r. fischer and david m. williams. amsterdam: batavian lion international, 1998. kempe, michael. “‘even in the remotest corners of the world’: globalized piracy and international law, 1500–1900.” journal of global history 5, no. 3 (2010): 353–372. ———. fluch der weltmeere. piraterie, völkerrecht und internationale beziehungen, 1500–1900. frankfurt a. m., new york: campus, 2010. klein, bernhard, and gesa mackenthun, eds. sea changes. historicizing the ocean. new york: routledge, 2004. lambert, david, luciana martins, and miles ogborn. “currents, visions and voyages: historical geographies of the sea.” journal of historical geography 32 (2006): 479–493. ———. “currents, visions and voyages: historical geographies of the sea.” journal of historical geography 32, no. 3 (2006): 479–493. larson, pier m. ocean of letters: language and creolization in an indian ocean diaspora. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2009. latour, bruno. pandora’s hope: essays on the reality of science studies. cambridge ma, london: harvard university press, 1999. linebaugh, peter, and marcus rediker. the many-headed hydra. sailors, slaves, commoners, and the hidden history of the revolutionary atlantic. boston: beacon, 2000. mcpherson, kenneth. the indian ocean: a history of people and the sea. oxford, new york: oxford university press, 1993. metcalf, thomas r. imperial connections: india in the indian ocean arena, 1860–1920. berkeley: university of california press, 2008. o’rourke, kevin h., and jeffrey g. williamson. globalization and history: the evolution of a nineteenth century atlantic economy. cambridge ma: mit press, 1999. pearson, michael. the indian ocean. london, new york: routledge, 2003. pesek, michael. “von europa nach afrika. deutsche passagiere auf der dampferpassage in die kolonie deutsch-ostafrika.” werkstatt geschichte 53 (2009): 68–88. pietsch, tamson. “a british sea: making sense of global space in the late nineteenth century.” journal of global history 5, no. 3 (2010): 423–446. polanyi, karl. ökonomie und gesellschaft. frankfurt a. m.: suhrkamp, 1979. polanyi, karl ports of trade in early societies. the journal of economic history 23, no. 1 (1963): 30–45. ray, prabha himanshu, and edward a. alpers, eds. cross currents and community networks: the history of the indian ocean world. oxford: oxford university press, 2007. rediker, marcus. between the devil and the deep blue sea: merchant seamen, pirates and the anglo-american maritime world, 1700–1750. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1993. ———. the slave ship: a human history. london: viking penguin, 2007. ———. villains of all nations: atlantic pirates in the golden age. boston: beacon press, 2004. reinwald, brigitte. “space on the move. perspectives on the making of an indian ocean seascape.” in space on the move. transformations of the indian ocean seascape in the nineteenth and twentieth century, edited by brigitte reinwald and jan-georg deutsch, 9–20. berlin: klaus schwarz verlag, 2002. reinwald, brigitte, and jan-georg deutsch, eds. space on the move. transformations of the indian ocean seascape in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. berlin: klaus schwarz verlag, 2002. ryan, james r. “‘our home on the ocean’: lady brassey and the voyages of the sunbeam, 1874–1887.” journal of historical geography 32 (2006): 579–604. satyanarayana, adapa. birds of passage. migration of south indian labour communities to south-east asia, 19–20th centuries, a.d., clara working paper 11. amsterdam2001. shepherd, verene a. maharani’s misery. narratives of a passafe from india to the caribbean. kingston: university of the west indies press, 2002. smallwood, stephanie e. saltwater slavery. a middle passage from africa to american diaspora. cambridge ma: harvard university press, 2007. smith, hance d. “the historical geography of the seas around the british isles.” marine policy 23, no. 4–5 (1999): 275–287. steel, frances. oceania under steam. sea transport and the cultures of colonialism, c. 1870–1914, studies in imperialism. manchester, new york: manchester university press, 2011. ———. “women, men and the southern octopus: shipboard gender relations in the age of steam, 1870s–1910s.” international journal of maritime history 20, no. 2 (2008): 285–306. stover, charles c. “tropical exports.” in tropical development, 1880–1913, edited by w. arthur lewis, 46–63. evanston: northwestern university press, 1970. vink, markus p. m. “indian ocean studies and the ‘new thalassology’.” journal of global history 2, no. 1 (2007): 41–62. wigen, kären, and jessica harland-jacobs. “guest editor’s introduction.” geographical review 89, no. 2 (1999): ii. zitelmann, thomas, and roland wenzlhuemer. “neue paradigmen in der hafenforschung—das projekt ‘hafenregime’ (zmo working paper).” berlin: zentrum moderner orient, 2004. [1] massilia gazette, 17. [2] ibid. [3] ibid. [4] ibid., 18. [5] ibid. [6] ibid., 20. [7] jeffrey auerbach, imperial boredom, common knowledge 11, no. 2 (2005). [8] massilia gazette, 7. [9] this has recently been demonstrated in the case of the scottish ship surgeon james thomas wilson in tamson pietsch, a british sea: making sense of global space in the late nineteenth century, journal of global history 5, no. 3 (2010). [10] janet j. ewald, crossers of the sea: slaves, freedmen, and other migrants in the nortwestern indian ocean, c. 1750–1914, the american historical review 105, no. 1 (2000): 81. [11] for the practice of “blackboxing” see, for instance, bruno latour, pandora’s hope: essays on the reality of science studies (cambridge ma, london: harvard university press, 1999). [12] michael foucault, different spaces, in aesthetics, method and epistemology, ed. michel foucault and james d. faubion (new york: the new press, 1998), 184f. [13] thomas zitelmann and roland wenzlhuemer, neue paradigmen in der hafenforschung—das projekt ‘hafenregime’ (zmo working paper), (berlin: zentrum moderner orient, 2004). [14] karl  polanyi, ports of trade in early societies, the journal of economic history 23, no. 1 (1963). karl polanyi, ökonomie und gesellschaft (frankfurt a. m.: suhrkamp, 1979). [15] see, for instance, dilip k. basu, ed. the rise and growth of the colonial port cities in asia (lanham: university press of america, 1985); frank broeze, ed. brides of the sea: port cities of asia from the 16th–20th centuries (honolulu: university of hawaii press, 1989); frank broeze, ed. gateways of asia: port cities of asia in the 13th–20th centuries (london: routledge, 1997); gordon jackson, ports, ships and government in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in frutta di mare. evolution and revolution in the maritime world in the 19th and 20th centuries. proceedings of the second international congress of maritime history, 5–8 june 1996, amsterdam and rotterdam, the netherlands, ed. paul c. van royen, lewis r. fischer, and david m. williams (amsterdam: batavian lion international, 1998); adrian jarvis, attempts at reducing the expenditure of the port of liverpool, 1836–1913, in frutta di mare. evolution and revolution in the maritime world in the 19th and 20th centuries. proceedings of the second international congress of maritime history, 5–8 june 1996, amsterdam and rotterdam, the netherlands, ed. paul c. van royen, lewis r. fischer, and david m. williams (amsterdam: batavian lion international, 1998);lewis r. fischer and adrian jarvis, eds., harbours and havens: essays in port history in honour of gordon jackson (st. john’s, newfoundland: international maritime economic history association, 1999). [16] lars amenda and malte fuhrmann, hafenstädte in globaler perspektive. einleitung, comparativ 17, no. 2 (2007): 7. [17] see, for instance, the special issue of comparativ 17 (2) 2007 called hafenstädte: mobilität, migration, globalisierung or sandip hazareesingh, interconnected synchronicities: the production of bombay and glasgow as modern global ports c. 1850–1880, journal of global history 4 (2009). [18] jerry h. bentley, sea and ocean basins as frameworks of historical analysis, geographical review 89, no. 2 (1999); hance d. smith, the historical geography of the seas around the british isles, marine policy 23, no. 4–5 (1999); david armitage and michael j. braddick, eds., the british atlantic world, 1500–1800 (basingstoke: palgrave macmillan, 2002); brigitte reinwald and jan-georg deutsch, eds., space on the move. transformations of the indian ocean seascape in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (berlin: klaus schwarz verlag, 2002); david lambert, luciana martins, and miles ogborn, currents, visions and voyages: historical geographies of the sea, journal of historical geography 32, no. 3 (2006). [19] kären wigen and jessica harland-jacobs, guest editor’s introduction, geographical review 89, no. 2 (1999): ii. [20] brigitte reinwald, space on the move. perspectives on the making of an indian ocean seascape, in space on the move. transformations of the indian ocean seascape in the nineteenth and twentieth century, ed. brigitte reinwald and jan-georg deutsch (berlin: klaus schwarz verlag, 2002); jerry h. bentley, renate bridenthal, and kären wigen, seascapes: maritime histories, littoral cultures, and transoceanic exchanges (honolulu: university of hawaii press, 2007). [21] lambert, martins, and ogborn, currents, visions and voyages: historical geographies of the sea, 479. [22] kevin h. o’rourke and jeffrey g. williamson, globalization and history: the evolution of a nineteenth century atlantic economy (cambridge ma: mit press, 1999); peter linebaugh and marcus rediker, the many-headed hydra. sailors, slaves, commoners, and the hidden history of the revolutionary atlantic (boston: beacon, 2000); armitage and braddick, eds., the british atlantic world, 1500–1800; paul gilroy, the black atlantic: modernity and double-consciousness (london: verso, 2002); marcus rediker, villains of all nations: atlantic pirates in the golden age (boston: beacon press, 2004). [23] kenneth mcpherson, the indian ocean: a history of people and the sea (oxford, new york: oxford university press, 1993); reinwald and deutsch, eds., space on the move. transformations of the indian ocean seascape in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; michael pearson, the indian ocean (london, new york: routledge, 2003); sugata bose, a hundred horizons: the indian ocean in the age of global empire (cambridge ma: harvard university press, 2006); prabha himanshu ray and edward a. alpers, eds., cross currents and community networks: the history of the indian ocean world (oxford: oxford university press, 2007); markus p. m. vink, “indian ocean studies and the ‘new thalassology’” journal of global history 2, no. 1 (2007); thomas r. metcalf, imperial connections: india in the indian ocean arena, 1860–1920 (berkeley: university of california press, 2008); pier m. larson, ocean of letters: language and creolization in an indian ocean diaspora (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2009). [24] ulrike freitag and achim von oppen, eds., translocality. the study of globalising processes from a southern perspective (leiden: brill academic publishers, 2010). [25] lambert, martins, and ogborn, currents, visions and voyages: historical geographies of the sea. [26] david armitage, three concepts of atlantic history, in the british atlantic world, 1500–1800, ed. david armitage and michael j. braddick (basingstoke: palgrave macmillan, 2002), 15. [27] ibid., 16; lambert, martins, and ogborn, currents, visions and voyages: historical geographies of the sea, 481. [28] lambert, martins, and ogborn, currents, visions and voyages: historical geographies of the sea, 481. [29] see, for instance, bernhard klein and gesa mackenthun, eds., sea changes. historicizing the ocean (new york: routledge, 2004). [30] among the most insightful (and delightful to read) studies in this regard is still greg dening’s excellent book on the mutiny on the bounty. greg dening, mr bligh’s bad language. passion, power and theatre on the bounty (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1992). [31] see, for instance, linebaugh and rediker, the many-headed hydra. sailors, slaves, commoners, and the hidden history of the revolutionary atlantic; jonathan hyslop, steamship empire: asian, african and british sailors in the merchant marine c. 1880–1945, journal of asian and african studies 44, no. 1 (2009); frances steel, oceania under steam. sea transport and the cultures of colonialism, c. 1870–1914, studies in imperialism (manchester, new york: manchester university press, 2011). [32] see, for instance, marcus rediker, between the devil and the deep blue sea: merchant seamen, pirates and the anglo-american maritime world, 1700–1750 (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1993); rediker, villains of all nations: atlantic pirates in the golden age; michael kempe, fluch der weltmeere. piraterie, völkerrecht und internationale beziehungen, 1500–1900 (frankfurt a. m., new york: campus, 2010); ———, ‘even in the remotest corners of the world’: globalized piracy and international law, 1500–1900, journal of global history 5, no. 3 (2010). [33] see, for instance, emma christopher, cassandra pybus, and marcus rediker, eds., many middle passages. forced migration and the making of the modern world (berkeley: university of california press, 2007); maria diedrich, henry l. gates, and carl pedersen, eds., black imagination and the middle passage (oxford: oxford university press, 1999); robert harms, the diligent. a voyage through the worlds of the slave trade (new york: basic books, 2002); linebaugh and rediker, the many-headed hydra. sailors, slaves, commoners, and the hidden history of the revolutionary atlantic; marcus rediker, the slave ship: a human history (london: viking penguin, 2007); gilroy, the black atlantic: modernity and double-consciousness; stephanie e. smallwood, saltwater slavery. a middle passage from africa to american diaspora (cambridge ma: harvard university press, 2007); clare anderson, ‘the ferringees are flying—the ship is ours!’ the convict middle passage in colonial south and southeast asia, 1790–1860, the indian economic and social history review 42, no. 2 (2005); verene a. shepherd, maharani’s misery. narratives of a passafe from india to the caribbean (kingston: university of the west indies press, 2002); adapa satyanarayana, birds of passage. migration of south indian labour communities to south-east asia, 19–20th centuries, a.d., clara working paper 11 (amsterdam 2001); ewald, crossers of the sea: slaves, freedmen, and other migrants in the nortwestern indian ocean, c. 1750–1914. [34] anderson, ‘the ferringees are flying—the ship is ours!’ the convict middle passage in colonial south and southeast asia, 1790–1860, 143. [35] andrew hassam, sailing to australia. shipboard diaries by nineteenth-century british emigrants (manchester: manchester university press, 1994). [36] bill bell, “bound for australia: shipboard reading in the nineteenth century,” in journeys through the market. travel, travellers and the book trade, ed. robin myers and michael harris (new castle: oak knoll press, 1999). [37] pietsch, a british sea: making sense of global space in the late nineteenth century. [38] michael pesek, “von europa nach afrika. deutsche passagiere auf der dampferpassage in die kolonie deutsch-ostafrika,” werkstattgeschichte 53 (2009). [39] james r. ryan, ‘our home on the ocean’: lady brassey and the voyages of the sunbeam, 1874–1887, journal of historical geography 32 (2006): 579. regarding discourses of gender see also frances steel, women, men and the southern octopus: shipboard gender relations in the age of steam, 1870s–1910s, international journal of maritime history 20, no. 2 (2008). [40] gopalan balachandran, cultures of protest in transnational contexts: indian seamen abroad, 1886–1945, transforming cultures ejournal 3, no. 2 (2008): 45. [41] journal of historical geography 32 (2006). [42] massilia gazette, 7. during some journeys, subcommittees seem to have mushroomed with the intention of attracting the satirical attention of the ship newspaper contributors. the massilia gazette, for instance, features the following short notice in its third issue: “a new sub-committee! passengers will be glad to learn that the committee have appointed a new sub-committee, consisting of captain fraser, messrs. daniel, rogers, cooper, lee, hetherington and bakie, to attend to the navigation of the ship. massilia gazette, p. 30. [43] sutlej gazette, 14. [44] massilia gazette, 18 [45] the first issue of the carthaginian—published aboard the s. s. carthage on its way from london to sydney on 14 novemver 1885—opens with the following words: “the impossibility of any english community existing very long without a newspaper is now so fully admitted that we make no apology to our readers for the appearance of the carthaginian. neither do we purpose to follow the course pursued by some of our contemporaries in indulging in a cackle of congratulations upon the superiority of our ship to all other ships, of our captain and officers to all other captains and all other officers; nor would we dwell upon the fact that our body of passengers excels in geniality, kindness, and all other virtues every other body, equally numerous, that is now afloat. we shall merely take these things for granted[.]” by referring to and making fun of the self-assertion of other bodies afloat, these lines clearly point to how widespread a practice the production of a ship newspaper must have been in the late nineteenth century. the carthaginian, 1. [46] sutlej gazette, 3. [47] brown, frank herbert/kaul, chandrika: art. “digby, william (1849–1904),” in: oxford dictionary of national biography, oxford 2004, accessed may 31, 2012. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/32823. [48] massilia gazette, 7. and when the editors felt that some passengers or a particular group of passengers did not contribute enough to the newspaper, they could revert to “name and shame” tactics as page eighteen of the sutlej gazette illustrates. under the headline “ladies page” it features only the following short editor’s introduction—the rest of the page has been left blank: “when the idea of issuing the gazette was mooted the ladies on board were most eager for its production. ‘oh! yes! most certainly. delighted to do everything we can,’ and so on. this page will show what the journal would have been like if—in this respect—we had trusted to the ladies. of course, in everything else the fair sex on board are wholly to be depended upon.” ibid., 18. [49] massilia gazette, 1. [50] sutlej gazette, 22. [51] massilia gazette, 47. [52] ibid., 1. [53] sutlej gazette, cover page. [54] see, for example, the first issue of the massilia gazette, 7–13. [55] ibid., 1. [56] ryan, ‘our home on the ocean’: lady brassey and the voyages of the sunbeam, 1874–1887, 582. [57] sutlej gazette, 8. [58] ibid; serangs and tindals were the labour gang leaders of the lascars on a particular ship. [59] lambert, martins, and ogborn, currents, visions and voyages: historical geographies of the sea, 487. [60] massilia gazette, 58–60. [61] ibid., 60 [62] generally, there were a good number of so called “native” stewards doing service on steamships as well. however, judging from the names on the crew lists of the massilia and sutlej, the first and second class passengers had dealings only with european stewards. [63] massila gazette, 34. [64] ibid., 48. [65] sutlej gazette, 21. [66] massilia gazette, 19. [67] massilia gazette, 36. [68] sutlej gazette, 27 [69] list of passengers, sutlej gazette, 9f. [70] sutlej gazette, 28 [71] ibid. [72] sutlej gazette, 28 [73] massilia gazette, 56f. [74] ibid. art at the crossroads | safford | transcultural studies art at the crossroads: lacquer painting in french vietnam lisa bixenstine safford, hiram college during the last phase of french occupation in vietnam (1887–1954), a new and unique direction for pictorial arts was inaugurated that continues to inform the country’s art scene to this day.[1] in a culture that lacked a developed painting tradition from which to draw inspiration, painting with lacquer formed a distinctive and novel medium that could be applied to fresh artistic subjects. in 1925 the arts first began to evolve rapidly thanks to the creation of the école superieure de beaux arts d’indochine, a new school in hanoi that was founded by the relatively unknown french painters victor tardieu (1870–1937) and joseph inguimberty (1896–1971).[2] together with other artists such as nguyễn vạn thọ (1890–1973, better known as nam sơn), who was sent to paris for a year of training in 1924 for his new post as an art instructor,[3] they embarked on a mission civilisatrice to educate promising artisans (thợ vẽ) so that they would advance to the status of “artists” (hoạ sĩ) and subsequently sign their works as individual creators.[4] the french colonial view that la france d’asiepossessed no distinctive artistic and cultural identity was central to the school’s inception.[5] thus, the school set about creating a new cultural identity that was grafted from a modernist french pictorial language of art. the students’ training in european artistic styles eventually merged with east asian and indigenous wood-based, folk craft sources, the privileging of which can be read as a rejection of french style. the synthesis of these elements defined an artistic language that was confounded at times by the native ambivalence towards all things foreign and modern, and later, by a demand for propaganda art under the việt mình. the present collection of vietnamese art in the vietnam fine arts museum gives us a clue to the disparaging stance of the french towards traditional vietnamese arts. while rich in historical material culture, much of vietnamese art history appears to connect stylistically with developments and practices that prevailed in other regions of asia and beyond. for example, champa-era stone sculptures, wooden buddhist figures from as early as the tenth century, variously dated ceramics and bronzes, and a large collection of paintings created during the past ninety years, all appear related to one another by way of aesthetic and cultural interactions with artistic production in societies outside of southeast asia during various historical epochs dating as far back as before the common era—india, china, and, in the twentieth century, france.[6] buddhist and ceramic pieces, for instance, derive their appearances and subject matter from the chinese, who ruled vietnam continuously for over a thousand years (c. 111 bce–938 ce).[7] the imposing cham sculptures provide a southeast asian interpretation of mostly indic hindu deities and narratives (although buddhist and islamic themes appear as well), that were the products of a civilization of possibly indonesian origin concentrated in central vietnam (c. 500–1500 ce).[8] in short, this long, narrow stretch of ocean-front land has enjoyed, for millennia, a rich diversity of expressions appearing to parallel those originating elsewhere. this led to a search—from colonial as well nationalist perspectives—for distinct artistic idioms that could be identified as ‘vietnamese’.[9] the hanoi museum’s large collection of paintings from the past century, specifically from the era of late french occupation (1935–1945), comprising those works fashioned by école students out of lacquer that, initially, display the hallmarks of modernist western pictorial aesthetics, attracted my attention. upon closer inspection, however, these works challenge a simple indigenous-foreigner dialectic and invite a more nuanced understanding of vietnamese responses to the ideas that were introduced from afar. vietnam’s dearth of painted arts prior to the twentieth century (one could argue that this was one way that the vietnamese did not emulate the chinese, in particular their ink landscape and genre paintings on silk) has been attributed to climactic or other destructive factors.[10] for inspiration twentieth-century lacquer painters turned instead to pre-colonial native folk arts: anonymous and collectively produced woodblock prints, wood carved water puppets, and communal wooden architectural embellishments, whose artistic properties reveal a native aesthetic that was both embraced and rejected by artists and the political establishment throughout the century, but which remain visible in art today. thus, école student-painters, who were newly trained by french colonial teachers in mostly late nineteenth-century european artistic styles and subjects, began to explore distinctly east asian materials, techniques, and aesthetic features, and drew from native, pre-colonial wood-based craft traditions during an era when all aspects of older vietnamese culture—visual arts, literature, and religions—were discredited in the eyes of both the french colonial power and a section of vietnamese intellectuals intent on modernizing the culture.[11] for example, nguyễn tường tam (better known by his pen name nhất linh), the editor and founder of tự lực văn đoàn (self-strengthening literary group), who was devoted to a modern, french-inspired literary realism, observed in the editorial of 1932 for the newly created, heavily censored, weekly satirical publication, phong hóa (manners and customs), that “when the old civilization is brought out and put into practice before our very eyes, we are dissatisfied with the results. we can only continue to hope in western civilization. where that civilization will lead us, we do not know. but our destiny is to travel into the unknown, to keep changing and progress.”[12] in this educationally liberal, but politically repressive environment, lacquer painting provided a hybrid vocabulary for the pursuit of a distinctive language and artistic voice. to comprehend the trajectory of this pursuit, i will examine three lacquer paintings in three divergent styles that were produced during the embryonic era of experimentation with lacquer as a painting medium at the école from about 1935–1945. i will attempt to discern the blend of western and non-western elements that inform them. these findings will allow us to engage with the political framework and social upheaval that was experienced by the vietnamese artists who were trained during the years before the outbreak of war. these years, together with the immediate aftermath of the war, were marked by artistic turmoil and ideological change. i will end by briefly looking beyond the colonial era to a few post-revolutionary works in order to identify some persistent western features that were combined with radically changing ideologies to shape the pictorial arts after 1945. core questions include why certain features of the works appeared during this brief window of time and what led artists to modify their style afterwards. critical to this examination is identifying and contextualizing the significance of visual borrowings from other cultures as well as from vietnam’s own largely denigrated earlier folk arts and other cultural expressions. this paper employs the art historical practice of examining paintings and utilizing connections to foreign and local material culture in order to identify visual echoes of the latter in subject matter, forms, materials, and styles. it aims at relating these connections to the larger context of a troubling time when questions about indigenous versus foreign identity were paramount. until recently, only a few scholars have specifically addressed the subject of vietnamese lacquer paintings from the early twentieth century. from a general perspective, nora taylor has provided the most comprehensive history of the early modernist period in all painting media, including important historical data regarding the inception of l’école superieure de beaux arts d’indochine, its teachers and pupils, as well as the evolution of modern art throughout the century.[13] another illuminating perspective is offered by boi tran huynh’s unpublished phd dissertation (2005), which draws primarily upon vietnamese art historical researches published since đổi mới (the era of reform begun in 1986) to provide a comprehensive context for all arts (including architecture) of the early twentieth century from a socialist and nationalist perspective. contrasting perspectives that are focused specifically on cross-cultural borrowings can be found in a collection of articles compiled, also at the time of đổi mới, by buu lâm truong (1987). although the emphasis here is upon literature rather than painting, the work indicates which developments in the twentieth century exhibit significant parallels to the fine arts—a topic i will return to later. more recently, phoebe scott (2013) has investigated cross-cultural influences from other asian arts in vietnam; her study focuses less on stylistic or technical interchange in favor of ideological, social, and political identification—that is, on the establishment of the notion of an “asian character” (tính cách á đông) in the arts.[14] kerry nguyen long’s article (2002) and a book by shireen naziree (2013), provide useful data and address specifically, if briefly, the nascent phase of lacquer painting. moreover, panivong norindr’s study (1996) is especially helpful in contextualizing the french attitudes towards occupied indochina that were manifested in architecture, film, and literature. finally, looking beyond the era of colonial control to the vietnamization of the école, kim ngoc bao ninh (2002) provides a helpful overview of conflicting opinions on the role of the arts that emerged under the việt mình in the late 1940s. the sources mentioned above do not undertake a detailed analysis of specific works as a means of identifying critical visual resonances with other non-native and, especially, native artistic and literary forms and the potential meaning embodied therein. my essay will try to address this lacuna by examining the processes and techniques of art making to contextualize the ideological foundations of imagery using a cross-disciplinary model of art historical research. this research draws on materials from scholarly books and journals as well as publications relating to village folk arts, including popular newspapers, e-magazines, or museum and gallery websites and publications. i also engage with resources devoted to contemporary literary affinities, as well as with the evolving theoretical debates on the purpose art making. the era of french colonial art education the brief twenty-year history of the colonial french art school was little studied in the west because, according to taylor, western art historians criticized products of the école students’ efforts as hybridized and having little to do with an authentic, indigenous vietnamese expression.[15] worse, scott asserts, they were perceived as decadent specimens of racial mixing (decadence and metissage) that were antagonistic to the prevailing ideals of artistic purity.[16] thus, until recently, their history was largely ignored. conversely, vietnamese scholars regard this era as the critical naissance of a modern cultural flourishing that was wed, paradoxically, to a “rising nationalism and its corollary need to combat french cultural interference.”[17] they, therefore, tend to minimize the role that the french played in shaping twentieth-century artistic development in vietnam.[18] native writers retrospectively politicized the school’s inception, which had occurred at a critical moment in the rising resistance against french repression. the year marked, in the words of kim khánh huỳnh, a “fundamental disaggregation [of resistance efforts] in vietnam society—one that was to characterize vietnamese politics for several decades.”[19] dozens of new newspapers were created that were devoted to revolutionary publications glorifying the 1911 chinese revolution and sun yat-sen (1866–1925). for example, nam đồng thư xã, the southeast asian publishing house in hanoi, was formed by a group of young western-trained intellectuals who were eager to supplant the earlier confucian generation of scholar-activists, such as the imprisoned phan bội châu (1867–1940), who had led opposition to oppression.[20] following an assassination attempt on the french governor general, martial henri merlin (1860–1935), while visiting guangzhou, china, on june 19, 1924, these new radicals, the “generation of 1925,” joined with other similar groups to form the vietnamese national people’s party, whose mandate was to combat colonial control.[21] concurrently, large protest demonstrations were erupting in saigon and haiphong. thus, to vietnamese historians, the art school’s inception and the art produced by its students marked the beginnings of the independence movement, which was linked to all things modern in arts and literature and was only resolved fifty years later, after the ousting of japanese, french, and finally american occupational forces. since most art historical writing on vietnam was in french, the modernist arts of the early twentieth century were denigrated as derivative and garnered little attention. the paintings produced by école-trained artists were aimed at wealthy western patrons in hanoi and paris, and much of the imagery appealed to the bourgeois taste for “orientalism”—pleasing views of the “exotic” east suiting the french fancy for imaginary “phantasmagoria,” or, in the view of panivong norindr, images of a “perfectly domesticated space and mythified world” that was populated by stereotypically “docile and compliant natives.”[22] in the 1920s the poet and diplomat paul claudel (1868–1955) summarized the french myth that was perpetrated in the face of forced labor, indentured servitude, famines, strikes, rebellions, incarcerations, and torture: never in indochina has the collaboration between the indigenous and the european populations been more intimate and peaceful. we are witnessing the impulse of an entire people whose sole and most profound desire is to adopt our culture and, indeed, our language.[23] the french art teachers tardieu and inguimberty explored other east asian artistic traditions and vietnamese folk arts and endeavored to educate pupils about their own history. however “paternalistic and condescending”[24] their views on education for the vietnamese, the école teachers—whose pedagogy favored the western artistic principles of life drawing, anatomy study, linear perspective, and chiaroscuro, which were incompatible with any indigenous vietnamese and, indeed, virtually all pre-modern east asian arts—nevertheless promoted an interest in learning traditional crafts and in exploring the rural and subaltern vietnamese cultural themes reflected in the lives of 90 percent of the population (farmers, peasant women, villages, rice fields, and temples), rather than themes associated with the french.[25] thus, the teachers were able to breach the occupiers’ long-held and pervasively condescending opinion that indochina was devoid of any current arts worthy of attention.[26] moreover, their pupils ignored the ubiquitous vestiges of modern western material manifestations for their painted themes—trains, bridges, bicycles, automobiles, clothing, furniture, and architecture, including churches, museums, universities, and opera houses, for example—which were widespread, especially in the north of vietnam where the french occupying authority and the school were located. unlike pre-colonial vietnamese pictorial arts—consisting mainly of folk-village produced woodblock prints and chinese ming (1368–1644) and qing (1664–1911) dynasty-inspired, authoritatively rigid, ancestor portraits on silk based on memory and imagination[27]—école artists sketched directly from life,[28] albeit a selectively defined “life” that, instead of being focused on modern and westernized urban spaces—aside from occasional portraits and studio nudes—was saturated with picturesque traditional rural values that more readily appealed to the foreign collectors’ taste for the “authentic” exotic corresponding to modernist directions in europe inspired by paul gauguin (1848–1903), the nabis, the fauves, and others who rejected all things industrial and urban in favor of the natural and “primitive.”[29] a contemporaneous literary discourse among native urban elites in quốc ngữ(the romanized script favored by intellectuals and the colonial authority) regarding the perceived tensions between modern french and traditional vietnamese culture concurrent with the founding of the école, intensified during these years.[30] the clashes between past and present, rural and urban, traditional confucian communalism and modern french individualism, were played out in the popular media and revealed the vietnamese ambivalence to change.[31] undoubtedly, with time, such discourse resulted in growing clarity regarding identity, conflict, and resistance for vietnamese artists and nationalists, although some eventually succumbed to disillusionment and turned away from politics towards more romantic and hedonistic pursuits.[32] at least one école student— nguyễn gia trí (1908–1993)—was so troubled by his foreign training under the aegis of an occupying power that he “wished to drop his art studies as he felt all his teachers should be vietnamese. tardieu persuaded him to stay.”[33] after 1945, when the independence movement commenced in earnest, the école’s early impact upon the development of vietnam’s modern art was regarded—according to quầng phòng—as “a sensitive topic, as vietnamese modern art began as a joint product of french liberalism and vietnamese traditionalism during a period of brutal french colonialism and strong vietnamese patriotism,”[34] and therefore it was a subject rarely discussed in vietnam before đổi mới. thus, vietnamese scholarly attention has only recently addressed the art produced during the twenty years of the école’s infancy when it was directed by occupying foreigners. colonial école-era vietnamese paintings can be categorized by medium—oil paintings on canvas, water-based paintings on silk, and lacquer paintings on wood.[35] although oil painting was the most alien to the students, it was the medium most familiar to, and indeed the only pictorial medium employed by, their colonial teachers. however, upon exposure to village-based crafts and traditional confucian and buddhist temple (chùa, translated as “pagoda”) arts by their teachers, who were seeking “various strategies […] to attempt to preserve the ‘racial personality’ of the vietnamese students,”[36] disciples were encouraged to apply their western training to the two other “new” native-asian media. these media—water-based painting on silk and especially lacquer painting—meld aesthetic features that were familiar in both east asia and europe and display uniquely eclectic vietnamese pictorial qualities. silk had been popular since the eighth century in other regions of east asia—especially japan and china—as a painting surface for hand scrolls and hanging scrolls, and it was also used for vietnamese pre-colonial religious ceremonial scrolls.[37] yet, for école students, this traditional chinese-derived media was a new material particularly suited to an emboldened venture into secular subject matter, and to which they enthusiastically applied recently acquired perspectival spatial knowledge, modeling with light and shadow (chiaroscuro), and studio nude subjects (among others). quầng phòng suggests that silk painting might never have been adopted by modernist painters had nguyễn phan chánh (1892–1984), one of the earliest école students, not found the study of oils difficult and turned instead to emulating chinese tang and song dynasty ink paintings on silk.[38] moreover, water-based paint was a cheaper medium than the scarcer and costlier oils that had to be imported from france.[39] lacquer painting: three examples this study investigates the adoption of lacquer as a medium to paint in a modernist style called sơn mài, a practice that was an audacious departure from any pictorial direction in asia (or, indeed, anywhere). lacquer was traditionally used as a protective covering for wooden furniture, altar sculptures, boards of ancient writing found at chùa, as well as folk art water-puppets. its use by painting students was promoted by professor inguimberty purportedly after a visit to the confucian temple of literature in hanoi in 1927.[40] he invited the master artisan đinh văn thành to teach lacquer technique at the school, though some student-artists may have also traveled to japan to learn of its use there.[41] so serious were the école teachers about the medium’s potential that by 1938 the study of lacquer technique was compulsory for all painting and sculpture students.[42] one of the first and most distinguished école artists to employ lacquer was nguyễn gia trí, a student from 1928 to 1936 (apart from a brief hiatus) whose paintings, many of which are now in the hanoi museum, graced the french governor’s palace in hanoi before 1945.[43] one of the paintings now in the hanoi museum is the large young women in the garden from 1939 (fig. 1), which depicts seven robust and jovial elite women in shapely, modern french re-designed áo dài dresses[44] amid outsized tropical foliage against a gold ground. the smiling, long-haired women stroll arm-in-arm, pick flowers, or sit; in the foreground one reclines against a cushion while enjoying tea (fig. 2). fig. 1: nguyễn gia trí, young women in the garden, 1939. lacquer, 160 x 400 cm. hanoi, fine arts museum. fig. 2: nguyễn gia trí, young women in the garden, detail, 1939. lacquer, 160 x 400 cm. hanoi, fine arts museum. the painting is installed in the center of the gallery so that the luxuriant tropical garden without figures against a dark ground—the lush garden at night—can be seen on the reverse (fig. 3). fig. 3: nguyễn gia trí, young women in the garden, reverse, 1939. lacquer, 160 x 400 cm. hanoi, fine arts museum. there can be no doubt that the inspiration for the subject came from the conservative pedagogy at the école, inspired by the art of mid-nineteenth century french realists, especially eduard manet (1832–1883), and late-century impressionists and postimpressionists. these artists were avidly promoted as exemplars of modernist aesthetics, while the more avant-garde art styles that were contemporaneous with the school—such as cubism or surrealism—were not supported or evinced during these years.[45] for example, claude monet’s (1840–1926) early piece, women in a garden from 1866 (255 × 205 cm, musée d'orsay, paris), or later works by auguste renoir (1841–1919) such as girls picking flowers in a meadow, ca. 1890 (65.1 x 81.0 cm, museum of fine arts, boston), would have been deemed worthy prototypes. visual representations of beautiful, elite, carefree women found a literary counterpart and endorsement in the growing popularity of the morally controversial novels—a new form in vietnam—published in quốc ngữ by members of tự lực văn đoàn, which was founded in 1933. this group, inspired by western values, promoted themes of women’s individualism, urbanism, and romantic love, themes that were antagonistic to confucian ideals of duty and filial piety.[46] these writers found solidarity with a new poetry movement, thơ mới, launched a year earlier by phan khôi (1887–1959), which called for defiance of the traditional rules of poetry derived from chinese tang dynasty prototypes in order “to express the ideas close to one’s heart.”[47] lưu trọng lư (1912–1991), an ardent follower of phan khôi, explained the modern morality of new poetry that was inspired by examples of the nineteenth-century french romantic luminaries victor hugo (1802–1885), alphonse de lamartine (1790–1869), alfred de musset (1810–1857), and alfred de vigny (1797–1863): while it is almost a sin for the traditionalists to simply look at a pretty young woman, to us it is as refreshing an experience as to contemplate a green rice field. their love is conceived only in terms of marriage, but for us love is multifaceted: passionate love, fleeting love, intimate love, love from a distance, sincere love, illusory love, innocent love, mature love, temporary love, eternal love…. as you can see, the emotions of people nowadays are very abundant and complex. is it possible to contain them within a framework of restrictive [chinese] versification rules?[48] in the domain of painting, the example of japan provided further stimuli: the large scale, horizontal format, gold ground, and division of the surface into eight vertical panels echoed the similar effects of ink, paint, and gold leaf employed in the japanese byōbu (folding-screen) paintings of the momoyama and tokugawa eras (c. 1550–1850), works that were also patronized by the power elites of that culture and were promoted as model objects for vietnamese students by their teacher, victor tardeau.[49] however, parallels can also be detected with modern japanese artists such as tsuchida bakusen (1887–1936) in kyoto, who promoted the nihonga movement after 1912 that was based on a revival of earlier arts. he used the stylistic features described above while also emulating the idyllic, albeit eroticized, femininity of bijinga subjects found in the ukiyo-e prints such as those of kitagawa utamaro (ca. 1753–1806) and utagawa kunisada (1796–1865).[50] as the nihonga movement grew into the 1920s, the women in tsuchida bakusen’s paintings became less erotic and assumed greater social and patriotic significance as an expression of the “essence of national polity” that was devoted to ethnic purity.[51] although the theme of rural labor found in many of tsuchida bakusen’s later paintings was absent, a similar patriotic interpretation may be applicable to nguyễn gia trí’s young women in the garden as well. however, for patrons, happy images such as nguyễn gia trí’s young women in the garden reinforced the colonial fiction of the copacetic subjugated—joyful, healthy, and non-confrontational—that norindr cites as a prevailing french illusion. similar ideals of peaceful rule were also propagated in vietnamese literature of the early twentieth century. in the words of kathryn robson and jennifer yee: “for indochina to be seen as a model colony, it was necessary for colonial textual representation to maintain a conscious or subconscious denial of resistance to imperialism,”[52] despite the omnipresence of underground nationalist struggle and guerilla warfare. the museum in the gatehouse of the former hỏa lò prison (called “maison centrale” by the french, and ironically relabeled “hanoi hilton” by the american pows who were detained there in the 1960s and 70s) belies this cheery narrative and attests to the french authorities’ harsh repression of members of the vietnamese resistance, including the active use of the guillotine. by 1931 some 16,000 political activists had been imprisoned.[53] it is evident that young women in the garden conforms to the same brand of romantic fiction and denial supplied by many french and some vietnamese writers. the beauty of nguyễn gia trí’s painting derives from its highly unusual modernist medium. lacquer, a resin made from the extremely toxic sap of the rhus vernicifluatree (or some variation thereof),[54] seems an unlikely material for large-scale painting, and yet it is deeply rooted in the asian aesthetic tradition. expensive, caustic, highly labor intensive—applied in sometimes thirty or more slow-drying layers—it had been used in japanese sculpture production since the eighth century, either as a stand-alone material (reinforced with fabric) or as a means of covering and protecting objects of wood, clay, or plaster, and was later similarly employed in vietnam for centuries. because it magically transformed from liquid to solid, shifting between two states of matter and being, it held sacred significance in china and japan as “literally, a medium for getting in touch with the divine.”[55] the term “lacquerware” refers to utilitarian objects such as bowls, vases, or boxes for writing materials made of lacquer-encased wood or bamboo, which had been created in japan since its most ancient jōmon period (c. 12,000–300 bce) and in china since the shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 bce), as well as in korea and southeast asia.[56] highly sophisticated lacquerware techniques from japan’s momoyama and tokogawa periods reveal processes similar to those in the paintings of nguyễn gia trí. for example, the amsterdam chest (seventeenth-century, rijksmuseum, amsterdam) [57]consisted of of many layers of colors, powdered egg-shells, mother-of-pearl, and precious metal foils or powder, which were applied between layers of clear, amber, red, or black-toned lacquer.[58] beginning in the southern song period and flourishing into the fifteenth century, the chinese developed a form of relief carving into lacquered objects, usually furninshings such as screens or chests. this technique was adapted by vietnamese painters for use in fine art paintings in the modern period. [59] in vietnam, the lacquer that was used for generations to color and protect vividly painted wooden water puppets and statuary on the daises of buddhist chùa or confucian temples was practical in purpose, protecting wood against the elements in a tropical environment and preserving the crisp coloration that vibrantly life-like religious figures still maintain after centuries. as used in the paintings of nguyễn gia trí, however, the material produced a highly polished and multilayered surface of deep, rich colors that yielded a surprisingly painterly “art for art’s sake” effect. a unique feature in the works of nguyễn gia trí and his followers is a pseudo-“craquelure,” which can be seen in the areas of white color created by filling in shapes with fragmented, rather than powdered, duck-egg shells that can also be given a pastel coloration (fig. 2).[60] other effects were created by burnishing the dried colors or metals between layers of lacquer, as well as the lacquer itself, with “fine sandpaper and a mix of charcoal powder and human hair.”[61] the name for lacquer painting— sơn mài, meaning “grinding paint”—may be a reference to this part of the laborious process. experimentation with media and technique was essential; the discovery, for example, of lacquer mixed with pine resin in 1932 formed a turning point in the use of lacquer as a medium because it adhered better and burnished clearer, and thus stimulated new experiments, especially by nguyễn gia trí.[62] a growing confidence with lacquer painting at the school, and perhaps the recognition of its uniqueness among modernist painting worldwide, may have prompted the obligatory training in lacquer for all école students. these techniques created nuanced visual effects that were were raw yet highly sophisticated in style, and allowed for an extraordinary level of individual expression, emulating the expressive potential of oil paint as it was tapped by the impressionists and postimpressionists in europe. the articulation of individual sentiment was advocated as passionately by contemporary vietnamese romantic writers. technically, however, the cumbersome, multiple stages of lacquer application disrupted the original aesthetic intent of late nineteenth-century western art movements, which valorized spontaneous applications of paint to capture ephemeral moments or immediate sensations on canvas. still, the subjects of many lacquer paintings, especially nguyễn gia trí’s young women in the garden, emulated this desired fiction of spontaneity. a different pictorial quality was achieved by the student-artist nguyễn khang (1911–1989), one which demonstrates a more conservative impulse behind the hybrid modernist efforts of these years. nguyễn khang created images with a black ground that were more derivative of the reductive lacquerware style of japan’s celebrated seventeenthand eighteenth-century rimpa school masters, such as the pieces attributed to honami koetsu (1558–1637) or ogata korin (1658–1716), as well as similar examples produced more contemporaneously during a rimpa revival in japan’s meiji and taisho periods (1868–1926).[63] in nguyễn khang’s fishing in the moonlight from 1943 (fig. 4), the black lacquer delineates the night sky and dark water. fig. 4: nguyễn khang, fishing in the moonlight, 1943. lacquer, 79 x 182 cm. hanoi, fine art museum. the colors of the fish, the boat, and the nearly nude peasants, like the cranes and grasses in honami koetsu’s writing box with cranes (fig. 5), are made from metallic gold and silver, lead, or pewter. however, unlike the traditional japanese prototypes, nguyễn khang added patches of a deep red-violet hue as was used, along with other colors, in later rimpa revival models. fig. 5: writing box (suzuribako), early seventeenth century, attributed to honami koetsu. black and gold lacquer on wood, lead, and pewter plates, 8.1 x 21.8 x 23.2 cm. seattle art museum. in contrast to the multilayered sophistication of nguyễn gia trí’s painting, nguyễn khang’s simplistic figural style and subaltern subject matter are more “primitive,” and akin to pre-colonial folk woodblock prints from the đông hồ craft village. relief prints, like the popular đám cưới chuột(wedding of rats) (fig. 6), utilized one block for each of up to six traditional colors (the most typical being green, red, and yellow) on natural-colored dzô (or poonah, unique to the region) tree bark paper that was coated with mother-of-pearl oyster shell (điệp) powder to create a silvery surface effect similar to silk. fig. 6: đám cưới chuột (wedding of rats). đông hồ woodcut print. located on the banks of the đuống river, forty kilometers northeast of hanoi, in bắc ninh province, đông hồ remains one of several craft villages that is engaged with creating prints for household display or to convey wishes for happy and prosperous lives during the tet lunar new year celebrations.[64] the print subjects consist of farm animals, children, festival customs, and “local folktales, historical events, and social mores”[65] that are strongly connected to vietnam’s pastoral, aquatic, and agrarian history. supernatural beings are conspicuously absent from these images, although animals often behave like humans in the prints in order to critique social ills like corruption or adultery.[66] the wedding of rats, for instance, depicts a long procession of standing rodents accompanying the wedding couple (on horseback and in a palanquin); they bring gifts and play music to appease the fat cat located in the upper right, in the hope that he will leave them in peace. the image is understood by some as a parody of sino-vietnamese relations and by others as an exhortation against graft and corruption.[67] upon completion, the prints were covered with a layer of rice paste (hồ nếp) to seal the bright colors, a process which, together with the powdered seashells, produces a shimmering effect.[68] these communally produced, unsigned works emulated the themes and styles of carved printing blocks that were passed down through as many as twenty generations. they were avidly collected by some colonists, including the soldier henri oger (1885–1936?), who published hundreds of examples in a 1908–1910 ethnographic encyclopedia titled technique du peuple annamite (mechanics and crafts of the vietnamese people) on all aspects of vietnamese life.[69] the two boatmen on the left in nguyễn khang’s painting (fig. 7) are clearly very similar to the human figures in đông hồ woodblock prints. fig. 7: nguyễn khang, fishing in the moonlight, detail, 1943. lacquer, 1943, 79 x 182 cm. hanoi, fine art museum hanoi. they strike poses similar to those of the two fish-gatherers on the right (fig. 8), though the latter are seen from different, foreshortened perspectives. fig. 8: nguyễn khang, fishing in the moonlight, detail, 1943. lacquer, 79 x 182 cm. hanoi, fine art museum. this repetition of the active poses of naively outlined, semi-nude figures set against a neutral ground is reminiscent of a popular đông hồ print depicting paired wrestlers (đấu vật, fig. 9), or another representing semi-nude dancing women, both of which are related to rural customs surrounding tet festivals.[70] nguyễn khang emulated the simplification of the print source, which was derived from the two principles applied to all folk imagery: đơn tuyên bình do (single line, simple designs), to demarcate a minimalist black border around areas of color; and thuận tay hay mất (easy to draw and to see), wherein the space of the image is flattened and lacks perspectival depth.[71] fig. 9: wrestlers (đấu vật), đông hồ woodblock print. nguyễn khang’s rendering of the traditional vocabulary of folk prints in a modern idiom also found echoes in the contemporary literary themes of the day, especially the reworking of didactic, moralizing đông hồ woodblock prints into satirical illustrations for the pages of a growing number of newly commercialized journals in the 1930s, including the previously cited phong hóa, which was a product of the tự lực văn đoàn literary group. the iconography of many folk village prints, such as wedding of rats, which, according to george dutton, originally attacked corruption and bribery, was modernized to suit the times or transformed into caricature. this can be seen in the lý toét satirical stories (also appearing in plays) that mocked village elites, confucian elders, and recent arrivals to the city, who were befuddled by the rapid change of their surroundings.[72] that these kinds of folk-related borrowings were found in both lacquer painting and popular parody, demonstrates a continued ambivalence towards the modern and foreign, and confirms a cross-media quest by the vietnamese for an artistic identity within uniquely indigenous visual forms. unlike the contemporary satirical caricaturists, however, none of the école painters demonstrated either an obvious desire for parody or a preoccupation with the ongoing transformations of urban spaces. the portrayals of the fishermen also relate in both subject and style to two other types of wood-based folk art: water puppets (múa rối nước), which may date from as early as the twelfth century, and relief-carved motifs found on upper support beams in the interiors of traditional village communal houses (đình), such as those found in the sixteenth-century đình tây đằng, seventeenth-century đình chủ quyền, or eighteenth-century đình bằng (fig. 10).[73] both sculpted sources represent rural types and activities, “hunting, fishing, harvesting, farming, playing chess, shopping at open markets, or honoring a scholar returning to his village,” and display joyous, lively animation, and commonplace figures with disproportionate, outsized heads (in contrast to the more naturalistic and individualized appearance of chùa statues carved in the round to represent deities, monks, and donors).[74] fig. 10: đình bằng communal house, detail. carving while it is difficult to reconstruct the ephemeral water-puppet performances of the pre-colonial past, many historical wooden puppets do survive, and contemporary performances based on long-established narratives employ similar puppets that, like nguyễn khang’s characters, engage in parallel or mirrored movements and activities. traditional puppets recreated in modern times include dip net fishermen (đồng ngư, fig. 11) of the type found in nguyễn khang’s painted boat, where the man in front with a net wears a red loincloth and his wife sports a red neckerchief or sash, and both wear tied head wraps. these figures represent one of the "four rural occupations" (fisherman, wood cutter, ploughman, and herdsman) most commonly found in puppetry.[75] fig. 11: fishing boat water puppet. boat: 7.5 x 17 in, puppets: 9 in. despite the charm of these pre-colonial wooden figurative models, nguyễn khang’s portrayal of fischermen undoubtedly relates to the deteriorating status of peasants—including aquaculture laborers—and reflects their extreme suffering and exploitation through taxation and usury during the french occupation. this was especially severe in the period following the mid-1930s, as a result of the worldwide economic depression, when communal lands were systematically expropriated. during the late 1930s, up to seventy-five percent of the peasants in some regions were landless (while others held too little land to sustain them),[76] creating a situation that forced many to eke out a living through other means such as fishing in the increasingly contracting littoral zones around hanoi and the red river delta. in pre-colonial times, hanoi (its name meaning “inside the river”)[77] was replete with rivers, marshes, canals, and large lakes, and robust aquaculture formed a significant 14 percent of tax revenue for the nguyễn court.[78] in transforming hanoi into their political capital, however, the french deemed the urban waterways unhygienic and set about expanding the city, “draining and filling the hundreds of swamps and ponds in and around hanoi,” building in their place broad promenades surrounded by villas and gardens and other places for relaxation and amusement.[79] these efforts improved the living conditions and entertainment opportunities for colonial occupiers and urban dwellers, while destroying the natural environment and the means it provided for peasants’ sustenance through rice production and fishing.[80] soon after nguyễn khang created his painting, these already dire conditions further deteriorated, under japanese occupation, into a devastating famine that killed as many as 2 million in the north from 1944–1945.[81] these facts deepen our understanding of the painting, identifying it not only as an homage to traditional pre-colonial culture, but also as an expression of protest against its rapid destruction and the growing impoverishment and marginalization of groups such as fishermen.[82] the desperation of the noticeably gaunt fishermen—who labored covertly on restricted waterways, estuaries, lagoons, bays, coves, and coastal streams—may also be reflected in the nighttime setting of the painting and in the boatmen’s heads, which are thrown back or bent forward expressing distress or fatigue. these images of the fishermen’s suffering are ironically contrasted with the beauty and abundance of fish. another intriguing technique employing lacquer is known as lacquer etching, engraving, or “coromandel lacquer.”[83] the technique derives from the aforementioned song-era chinese carved lacquer process, called kehứi in vietnam (“carved chalk”),[84] which inguimberty first learned of from an imported object encountered in paris.[85] the technique involves coating a wood surface with a thick layer of white chalk that is then lacquered. the image is incised into the surface with a sharp tool[86] and the grooves are filled in with colors, followed by the application of clear layers of lacquer on top. this technique creates a very crisp, linear, and detailed image that provides quite a contrast to the painterly effects of nguyễn gia trí’s paintings, and which again reveals some similarities to another type of traditional vietnamese folk art. one of the earliest and most acclaimed artists to employ this technique was nguyễn văn bài (1912–1999), as seen in procession to the pagoda from 1935 (fig. 12). once commonplace, festivals at temples—some stretching as far back as the sixteenth century and involving a tutelary deity procession, like the one depicted—were suppressed following the outbreak of war in 1945 and unification under communism in 1975; these have only been revived since đổi mới.[87] fig. 12: nguyễn văn bài, procession to the pagoda, 1935. lacquer etching, 148 x 195 cm. hanoi, fine arts museum in the upper left of nguyễn văn bài’s painting a procession of barefoot female celebrants, dressed in pre-french, traditional black áo dài tunics over black trousers adorned with red and green sashes, arrive carrying a kiệu (palanquin) (fig.13) into the garden courtyard of a temple complex, which consists of three distinct enclosed buildings and a two-story open pavilion that is perhaps a bell tower.[88] fig. 13: nguyễn văn bài, procession to the pagoda, detail, 1935. lacquer etching, 148 x 195 cm. hanoi, fine arts museum. a collection of well-dressed male dignitaries in hats can be seen in the center of the image. their unbelted tunics over white trousers are more diverse in color and pattern and they are surrounded by an entourage of honorific umbrella and banner bearers (fig. 14). this assembly probably carries other implements of the ritual parade to be used as offerings at the tutelary deity’s tomb or in a deity-thanking ceremony within the communal house at the site.[89] fig. 14: nguyễn văn bài, procession to the pagoda, detail, 1935. lacquer etching, 148x 195 cm. hanoi, fine arts museum. the precise outlines of forms against a white ground in nguyễn văn bài’s procession to the pagoda are analogous to the linear definitions found in another folk art tradition: the larger and more refined hàng trống woodblock prints, which were hand-painted with colors over printed ink on imported chinese white xuyến chỉ paper that matched the white ground of nguyễn văn bài’s painting. hàng trống art was made in a region of hanoi’s old quarter, and reveals echoes of chinese ink drawings.[90] popular since the lê dynasty in the seventeenth century, these prints, painted in a richer array of colors, mostly pink, blue, green, red, and yellow, have been linked to rituals associated with ancestor worship and are also displayed during tet. commonly evincing more urbane tastes than the đông hồ examples, the themes dealt with aristocrats, supernatural beings like the buddha and taoist saints, three deities symbolizing longevity, prosperity, and happiness, children—with the hope that they will continue the family line—as well as symbolic folk-tale motifs like “five tigers” and the “carp looking at the moon.”[19] the crisp black outlines in hàng trống pieces resulted from a technique unique to vietnamese printers: ink was made from lightly burned bamboo or straw, soaked in a jar with sticky rice paste, which caused it to ferment and turn a dark black; this kept the color from bleeding onto the paper when printed.[92] one example from hàng trống, the ubiquitous tứ bình print-painting, depicts four women musicians formally dressed in traditional, non-french áo dài, whose appearances echo that of the dignitaries in the center of the nguyễn văn bài painting (fig. 15). while ostensibly secular in subject, the four women, and perhaps nguyễn văn bài’s painting as well, resonate with elements that were drawn from the most ancient folk spiritual beliefs of the people known as the mother goddesses religion (đạo mẫu). the belief was popular, especially in the north, long before colonial occupation, and has been resurgent since đổi mới.[93] the faith tradition favors the number four; a mother goddess presides over the four realms, or “palaces,” of the universe (tù phú): heaven, earth, water, and mountain forests, and each is correlated to a cardinal direction and a color—red, white, yellow, and green, respectively. the female mediums in what is also called the four palaces religion (đạo tù phú) wear costumes in these colors when they perform the “spirit possession rituals” (lên đồng) which were embellished with music—of the kind these performers may represent—and dance. the music is essential to the rituals and to their transgendered powers of spirit possession. the instruments employed include those evident in the print: the moon lute (đàn nguyệt), percussive instruments such as bamboo clappers (phách), a cymbal (cảnh), and a bamboo flute (sáo).[94] the number four also appears in goddess rituals when the “four virtues” (tự đức) are invoked, representing ideals of labor, physical appearance, appropriate speech, and proper behavior.[95] through the centuries, goddess worship incorporated elements of buddhism and taoism, and devotions to her could be found at chùa, where the goddess image often shared an altar with the feminized bodhisattva kwan-yin (sk: avelokiteshvara). she was also worshipped at the mother goddess temples found in every region of vietnam.[96] fig. 15: tứ bình (four female musicians). hàng trống hand-painted woodblock. the figures in the hàng trống musician print/painting appear similar in deportment and clothing—shoes, hats, and unbelted áo dài tunics over black pants—to the dignitaries and their attendants in the center of nguyễn văn bài’s composition (fig.14). is the titular temple procession actually being led by women mediums in honor of a mother goddess? the inherent figural similarities to the four musicians print encourage such a reading. the possibility that nguyễn văn bài borrowed a folk art style that was allied to the subject for his lacquer painting, which was similarly borrowed from indigenous folk religion, formed another means of elevating a feature of distinctly vietnamese cultural heritage in contrast to chinese-originating buddhist, confucian, or taoist traditions. this might have even camouflaged an expression of deep-rooted nationalism that the french overlords or art patrons may not have understood. if there was an overt or covert nationalistic appreciation for the region’s pre-colonial folk traditions, as promoted by tardieu and inguimberty and as seems evident in nguyễn văn bài’s and nguyễn khang’s paintings, it was in conflict with all that was touted by intellectuals as modern, and it swiftly disappeared with the revolution. huynh has observed that only after the communist victory of 1975 did historians begin to openly celebrate the purity of anonymous folk art and culture as an expression of the masses that was superior to that of the ruling elite.[97] and likewise, only after đổi mớ i did the mother goddess tradition experience a revival that is avidly followed to this day.[98] considering japanese arts dissimilarities with indigenous folk art style must also be observed, however, because nguyễn văn bài evinces a sophisticated understanding of deep space rendered from an elevated vantage point, the antithesis of the thuận tay hay mất (easy to draw and to see) folk art principle. nguyễn văn bài’s approach may have been learned from perspective studies at the école, but it also exhibits unmistakable similarities to the intuitive spatial delineations that were typical of traditional japanese byōbu, emakimono (horizontal scrolls), and kakemono (hanging scrolls), as well as ukiyo-e woodblock prints. and like nguyễn gia trí’s young women in the garden, nguyễn văn bài’s painting, though smaller, has the same japanese byōbu-inspired surface divisions into vertical panels. japanese art-forms and aesthetics were embraced in vietnam in part because japan was regarded, during the early decades of the twentieth century, as a model for the modernization movement that was so fervently desired by the vietnamese nationalists who promoted a crusade called "đông du: the travel east, eastern study, or exodus to the east movement. begun in 1905 by phan bội châu and the exiled prince cường để (1882–1951), who was living in japan, in the first decade of the century hundreds of young vietnamese people were directed to study at japanese schools with the hope of educating a generation of revolutionaries who would awaken to their rights and rise up in resistance to french rule.[99] đông du represented the first anti-colonial activity that was focused on education and modernization, and where hatred of the french and admiration for all things japanese was diseminated in vietnam. its leader, phan bội châu, was attracted to japan, a “newly rising country of the yellow race,”[100] primarily because of its successful military victories against china and russia in 1895 and 1904, respectively. but he also hailed japan as possessing “the same race, same culture, and same continent” as the vietnamese, and thus he considered a shared culture to be their most significant bond.[101] phan bội châu was further impressed by japan’s example of effecting successful modernization by sending its own citizens abroad to “develop the people’s knowledge and cultivate men of talents.”[102] thus, japanese culture, along with its modern military and industrial might, was an important source of inspiration for militant vietnamese even before l’école superieure de beaux arts d’indochine was established in hanoi. indeed, japanese artistic elements appear in all three of the paintings examined here. momoyama and tokogawa-era folding screen features (as well as their twentieth-century revival in nihonga movement arts) included the flat gold grounds, divisions of the pictorial surface into vertical panels, and the elegant, multilayered lacquerware techniques that figure so prominently in nguyễn gia trí’s young women in the garden. furthermore, reductive lacquerware-style imagery derived from seventeenthand eighteenth-century masters of the rimpa school, and their late nineteenth-century rimpa revivalists, appear in nguyễn khang’s fishing in the moonlight. and the qualities of linear precision combined with elevated perspectival vantage points and vertical surface divisions, reminiscent of folding screens and ukiyo-e woodblock prints, define nguyễn văn bài’s procession to the pagoda. all denote an enthusiastic adoption of japanese pictoral values, which were later rejected following japan’s invasion and occupation of vietnam during world war ii. some knowledge of these stylistic features may have come from one of the earliest students trained in the école’s lacquer studio— trận quầng trần (1900–1969), who explored japanese styles in the early 1930s just as the lacquer studio at the école was forming. later, when japan began their occupation of indochina in 1940, the japanese further promoted artistic knowledge by staging exhibitions of traditional-style art (nihonga) and endorsed japanese books, films, language classes, and other features of cultural propaganda. some vietnamese école students even adopted a woodblock printing style echoing ukiyo-e features.[103] thus, these three vietnamese lacquer paintings display an amalgam of qualities derived from sino-japanese asian arts—including the lacquer medium itself—combined with those inspired by western paintings, especially secular themes, painterly surfaces, and articulated spatial settings. these elements, together with the formal qualities derived from indigenous, pre-colonial folk art—simple, bold, linear outlines and minimal color variations, in crisply delineating forms placed against plain, neutral backgrounds, as found in đông hồ and hàng trống prints, or in đình relief carvings—produced a hybrid artistic language formed through employing training in western pictorial methods to re-interpret east asian sources. the possibility that these asian features were employed simply to appeal to foreign patrons craving the “authentically” and exotically oriental is conceivable, and yet they may have also been a means of asserting a distinctive east asian artistic identity that could articulate a space independent of french colonial art education and the cultural values associated with it. it would seem that, paradoxically, école student-artists were both absorbing as modern, and rejecting as western, the lessons of their french teachers. after the war for independence began and the art school closed in 1945 (later reopened under vietnamese direction as the vietnam college of fine arts, today the hanoi university of fine arts), lacquer and silk paintings were critically reframed as anticolonial because they linked pre-and post-colonial era national forms[104] and built on what was promoted as an “aesthetic nationalism”[105] rooted in pre-colonial vietnamese folk arts, east asian—specifically chinese and japanese—materials and aesthetics, and western “academic,” which is to say relatively conservative, modernism. developments during the anti-french resistance war later efforts to assess this unique, école-induced “aesthetic nationalism” during the anti-french resistance war (1946–1954) were evident in the writings of tô ngọc vân (1906–1954), an early école-trained painter working for the việt mình, who oversaw the establishment of a state school for the arts called the “school of fine arts of the resistance" in the northern resistance zone. the school opened in đại từ in the province of thái nguyên, shortly before tô ngọc vân died in the final battle of the war at điện biên phủ in 1954. prior to the war, he had praised french art education and cultural transformations as having “changed our way of life. we live in a beautiful environment. our lives are more elegant than before.”[106] in a 1949 essay titled “only now do we have vietnamese painting,” tô ngọc vân celebrated that “vietnamese lacquer painting transformed lacquer from a ‘decorative art’ to a ‘pure art,’ something he believed chinese and japanese lacquer have never accomplished.”[107] but tô ngọc vân was also troubled by the turn of art education and production towards ideological propaganda with the advent of the revolution, which he felt produced mediocre works.[108] with the anti-french resistance war, connections and comparisons with other east asian arts previously considered vital were now problematic and colored by anti-colonial sentiments of all shades. the vietnamese adoption of features from these other asian cultural artifacts—given how little of its own painting history there was to build upon—was hailed as a form of “resisting dominating french influences.”[109] but after the independence movement began, artists sought to sever their long-perceived subordinate status to chinese and japanese authority. china, now an allied communist partner, was still feared for its historical tendency to annex its tiny neighbor.[110] in the arts, tô ngọc vân expressly rejected, for example, the sino-japanese tradition of placing calligraphic signatures on the faces of paintings or prints, but he equally rejected vietnamese village folk prints as viable sources for modern painting because they were anonymous products of untrained artists and, thus, inimical to the truly meaningful artistic modernism he so valued.[111] consequently, they fell out of favor; of the 220 đông hồ print artisans that were active before the war only a few remain today, although interest in their output has revived since đổi mới.[112] tô ngọc vân was intent upon effecting a more definitive rupture with the past than earlier french-era école artists had envisioned, but he found it a challenge to define modernism’s new post-colonial ideals. “the artistic change is so difficult,” he wrote, “we feel it is as heavy as moving a mountain.”[113] his own works migrated from oil paintings of idyllic bourgeois women and children—such as girl with lilies from 1943, akin to nguyễn gia trí’s young women in the garden before the war—to militant lacquer painted themes of gun-bearing soldiers and peasants transformed into revolutionaries a decade later, like soldiers and porters resting on a hill from 1953.[114] in the latter, he capitulated to the new demands instigated by the july 1948 second national congress of culture and the subsequent congress on art and literature, where hồ chí minh specifically called for art “to inspire the people’s spirit and nation-building resistance (kháng chiến kiến quốc).”[115] however, tô ngọc vân decried such art as simplistically optimistic propaganda—depicting soldiers, farmers and laborers—that was readily apprehended by the artistically untutored masses.[116] modernism, he hoped, was only temporarily co-opted to serve a public end and would return to the higher artistic calling of individual expression and art for art’s sake pursuits once peace was achieved. “the torment of my soul,” he lamented, is “how to make the self that serves the nation and the masses and the self that serves art—the artist of course cannot forget this responsibility—not to come into conflict or, even worse, betray one another.”[117] in an essay of 1947 titled “propaganda art and art,” tô ngọc vân argued that “propaganda art is not art because it expresses a political purpose, raises political slogans, delineates a political path for the people to follow,” while true art expresses “an individual soul, an attitude of an individual towards things, telling his feelings more than philosophy about any issue.”[118] clearly, he felt the two were incompatible and agonized over the loss of the liberal artistic expression advocated by his french painting masters while still enthusiastically supporting the cause of war against french rule. lacquer painting persisted as the preferred medium of vietnamese rebel art long after the august revolution of 1945, and despite the fact that the war of resistance against the french brought the period of early “fermentation and experimentation,” as well as the western domination of the école, to a close; “artists joined the battle field, and the idyllic themes of the previous decade were eclipsed by those of war, peace, nationalism and ideologies.”[119] evidences of folk art influences were overshadowed by a continuation of the experimentally expressive painterly techniques and figural idealization that nguyễn gia trí had demonstrated previously, but that were now reminiscent of soviet socialist realism, where content superseded formal explorations. experimental individualism in painting was scorned by communist party leadership as a remnant of decadent colonialism, and public displays of nude paintings and abstract art were banned.[120] nguyên hiếm’s (1917–1976) crossing a foot bridge from 1958 (fig. 16, 17), for example, applied the impressionist painterly style of nguyễn gia trí to the dominant themes of the era: the movements of troops and tanks and the scorched-earth battles traversing the jungles as the vietnamese sought the expulsion of foreigners and national unification. he eliminated gold and employed a more limited and earth-toned color palette to emphasize realism and to complement the seriousness of the subject. some artists continued to portray nostalgic themes of women and children in nature settings (the popularity of such images persists to this day); however, nguyễn văn tỵ (1917–1992), a student at the école from 1934–1941, who later taught in the reopened school after 1945,[121] cast idealized feminine figures as elements of a political iconography. an allegorical rendering of the reunification of north and south vietnam features two female forms—a woman with a child in tow—swept by the wind as they rush headlong to embrace in a modern-day visitation by the sea (south and north united, 1961, fig. 18). fig. 16: nguyên hiếm, crossing a foot bridge, 1958. lacquer, 100 x 150 cm. hanoi, fine arts museum. fig. 17: detail of fig. 16 fig. 18: nguyễn văn tỵ, south and north united, 1961. lacquer, 86 x 66 cm. while the christian undertones of the image may at first glance appear unusual, the early french école teachers had indeed imparted to the young artists western art traditions from the renaissance to the late nineteenth century. this form of art history, along with other aspects of their training, persisted when former école students took over instruction at the reopened school after the war for independence.[122] the topos of embracing women—a subject drawn from the renaissance images of the visitation—may have been well suited as a political, visionary allegory of new beginnings through national unification, for which there was no precedent in pre-twentieth-century vietnamese art. conclusion after 1954, over eighty-five vietnamese artists were sent to study in the soviet union, which was generally preferred—its socialist realism being the style of choice—to china.[123] however, in both training sites the ideologically charged language of socialism in art reigned supreme. until đổi mới, the political content of their art determined the fortunes of artists, as is signified by the long-term obscurity of nguyễn sáng (1923–1988), who graduated from the école in 1945 but resisted propagandist themes as well as the realist-impressionist style he learned there. nguyễn sáng turned instead to the abstract styles of the "humanism" (nhân văn) movement>, which were ostensibly allied to the appeal of primitivism among european modernists such as henri matisse (1869–1954), pablo picasso (1881–1973), or jean dubuffet (1901–1985) and were intended to express a “national-modern art.” nguyễn sáng, who died in poverty and only posthumously received the ho chi minh prize in 1996, indicated, however, that it was less western than native arts that had inspired him, declaring, “i prefer our folk paintings to matisse’s work.”[124] he was joined by lacquer painters who thought along similar lines: nguyen tu nghiem (1919–?), for example, frequently portrayed traditional folk dance or print-inspired themes, or bùi xuân phái (1920–1988), who was best known for his melancholy scenes of old hanoi, painted in an abstract manner reminiscent of raoul dufy (1877–1953) and decidedly neither heroic nor victorious. these artists fulfilled the late tô ngọc vân’s passionately expressed yearning to return to a pure art of personal expression, which drew them, as it had done with others before the outbreak of war, to the simplicity, charm, and depth of expressive possibility inherent in pre-colonial wood-based folk arts. these artists suffered greatly in their struggle for artistic freedom unshackled by ideological dogma—known as the nhân văn–giai phẩm movement (named after two journals that were forced to close in 1956 for demanding freedom of speech and other human rights)[125]—with bùi xuân phái even losing his teaching position at the hanoi college of fine arts in 1957 and denied permission to exhibit his art until 1984.[126] these ideological rebels, who explored the purity of the distinctive lacquer medium, the ethnic identity embodied in pre-colonial folk borrowings (consciously or otherwise visually linking their efforts to the folk and primitive elements underlying much european modernism), and freedom of personal expression devoid of propaganda, have had the greatest impact upon the artists that have emerged since đổi mới.[127] a visit to art shops in hanoi, hội an, or ho chi minh city today will reveal countless mass-produced, derivative examples of earlier lacquer-painting themes, as well as cubist, surrealist, and pop art styles for tourist consumption—the ban on abstraction and nudity having been abandoned with đổi mới and the flourishing travel industry it stimulated. craft factories now produce lacquer “paintings” as articles of mass consumption with little hint of the originality and passion for new directions, aesthetics, and identity politics that drove the école students nearly a century ago, both before and after the revolution. some observers refer to them derogatorily as “imitation painting” or “rice paddy art,” which distracts tourists from encountering the real artistic accomplishments of modern and post-modern artists.[128] in spite of the communist government’s open policy towards capital markets, its ministry of culture, sports, and tourism imposes a haphazard form of censorship upon exhibitions of contemporary art, making it even more difficult to encounter artistic works of the present. artists face the challenge to “create artwork with multiple layers of meanings so we can explain it reasonably to different audiences.”[129] despite these challenges, it is important to remember that both the expressions of individual artists as well as the mass production of art objects owe their inception to the establishment of the’école superieure de beaux arts d’indochine. the école gave vietnamese crafts-people the opportunity and incentive to become notable fine artists; it inspired them to modernize and to explore an eclectic blend of western, east-asian, and indigenous sources to create an artistic language, especially in lacquer, that they ultimately regarded as uniquely their own; and it sustained a movement for political and cultural independence. thus, “rice paddy art,” cheaply mass-produced though it may be, is no less a testament to the people’s identification of lacquer painting as an exclusively vietnamese medium in the modern era. a visit to the vietnam fine arts museum—after looking at the city’s street shops—can show the way to discovering the history of this distinctive modernism. list of illustrations: fig. 1: nguyễn gia trí, young women in the garden, 1939. lacquer, 160 x 400 cm. hanoi, fine arts museum. photo by l. safford. fig. 2: nguyễn gia trí, young women in the garden, detail, 1939. lacquer, 160 x 400 cm. hanoi, fine arts museum. photo by l. safford. fig. 3: nguyễn gia trí, young women in the garden, reverse, 1939. lacquer, 160 x 400 cm. hanoi, fine arts museum. photo by l. safford. fig. 4: nguyễn khang, fishing in the moonlight, 1943. lacquer, 79 x 182 cm. hanoi, fine art museum. photo by l. safford. fig. 5: writing box (suzuribako), early 17th century, attributed to honami koetsu. black and gold lacquer on wood, lead and pewter plates, 8.1 x 21.8 x 23.2 cm. seattle art museum, gift of mrs. donald e. frederick, 50.67. photo by paul macapia. fig. 6: đám cưới chuột (wedding of rats). đông hồ woodcut print. photo by daderot, wikimedia commons, cc0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/file:mice%27s_wedding,_dong_ho_picture,_paper_-_vietnam_national_museum_of_fine_arts_-_hanoi,_vietnam_-_dsc05290.jpg [accessed on 27. july 2015]. fig. 7: nguyễn khang, fishing in the moonlight, detail, 1943. lacquer, 79 x 182 cm. hanoi, fine art museum hanoi. photo by l. safford. fig. 8: nguyễn khang fishing in the moonlight, detail, 1943. lacquer, 79 x 182 cm. hanoi, fine art museum. photo by l. safford. fig. 9: wrestlers (đấu vật), đông hồ woodblock print. photo wikipedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/file:%c4%90%e1%ba%a5u_v%e1%ba%adt.jpg. fig. 10: đình bằng communal house, detail. carving. photo by nguyễn hoài nam. [accessed 27. july 2015]. fig. 11: fishing boat water puppet. boat: 7.5 x 17 in, puppets:9 in. photo asia2you. fig. 12: nguyễn văn bài, procession to the pagoda, 1935. lacquer etching, 148 x 195 cm. hanoi, fine arts museum, photo by tu https://www.flickr.com/photos/tuey/2395559972/ [accessed 27. july 2015]. fig. 13: nguyễn văn bài, procession to the pagoda, detail, 1935. lacquer etching, 148 x 195 cm. hanoi, fine arts museum. photo by l. safford. fig. 14: nguyễn văn bài, procession to the pagoda, detail, 1935. lacquer etching, 148 x 195 cm. hanoi, fine arts museum. photo by l. safford. fig. 15: tứ bình (four female musicians). hàng trống hand-painted woodblock. photo wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/h%c3%a0ng_tr%e1%bb%91ng_painting#/media/file:tu_binh.jpg [accessed on 23. july 2015]. fig. 16: nguyên hiếm, crossing a foot bridge, 1958. lacquer, 100 x 150 cm. hanoi, fine arts museum. photo by l. safford. fig. 17: nguyên hiếm, crossing a foot bridge, 1958. detail lacquer, 100 x 150 cm. hanoi, fine arts museum. photo by l. safford. fig. 18: nguyễn văn tỵ, reunification of north and south, 1961, lacquer, 86 x66 cm. photo by l. safford. [1] i am indebted to the asianetwork faculty enhancement program’s (anfep) summer 2013 vietnam seminar, guided by jack harris, for providing a rich encounter with vietnam’s history and culture. [2] neither painter has works in major french museums. tardieu was a pupil at l’école des beaux-arts de lyon, and studied in paris under gustav moreau (1826–1898), who was also famously the teacher of odilon redon (1840–1916) and henri matisse, among others. on the circumstances of his arrival in hanoi in 1923, see nora taylor, “orientalism/occidentalism: the founding of the école des beaux-arts d' indochine and the politics of painting in colonial việt nam, 1925–1945,” crossroads: an interdisciplinary journal of southeast asian studies 11, no. 2 (1997): 4. he won a prize at the salon in 1902 and the indochina prize in 1920, which brought him to vietnam. boi tran huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics from 1925 onwards” (phd diss., university of sydney college of the arts, 2005), 116, http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/633 [accessed on 24. july 2015]. inguimberty attended the école nationale supérieure des arts-décoratifs in paris. he later won the prix blumenthal in 1922 and the prix national for painting in 1924. “joseph inguimberty,” witness collection, http://witnesscollection.org/the_collection/pages/joseph_inguimberty_%281896-1971%29.html [accessed on 10. october 2013]. an earlier french art school was begun in 1913 in gia định, then part of saigon (cochinchina), which is less well known or valued historically. relative to other asian countries, this was a rather late arrival of western artistic trends. in total, 128 students graduated from the école, which was praised as the “school of viet nam.” viettouch, http://www.viettouch.com/art_cont/a1945.htm [accessed on 09. february 2014]. [3] because nam sơn did not join the resistance war in 1946, and was a colonial public servant from 1946–1954, his role in co-founding the école was long overlooked by vietnamese historians.huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics,” 148–149. [4] shireen naziree, from craft to art:vietnamese lacquer painting (bangkok: thavibu gallery co., 2013), 7–8, http://www.thavibu.com/vietnam/thavibu_fromcraftoart.pdf [accessed on 22. july 2015]. huynh provides a summary of the conditions of life and arts under colonialism at the time of the school’s founding. see huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics,” 73–91. [5] panivong norindr, phantasmatic indochina: french colonial ideology in architecture, film, and literature (durham: duke university press, 1996), 4. [6] given vietnam’s over 1500 miles of shoreline, it is reasonable to assume that seafaring outsiders, as well as overland migrants, played a role in shaping her cultural artifacts throughout history. see charles wheeler, “a maritime logic to vietnam’s history? littoral society in hoi an’s trading world, c. 1550–1830,” in american historical association conference proceedings 2003, http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/ebook/p/2005/history_cooperative/www.historycooperative.org/proceedings/seascapes/wheeler.html [accessed on 10. october 2013]. [7] buddhism migrated to vietnam sometime in the first century ce, brought by indian enthusiasts via the indian ocean to the pacific and the gulf of tonkin, and silk road traders traversing china, where it blended with the existing pre-buddhist traditions of ancestor worship. see huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics,” 18; xinyi ou, “the successful integration of buddhism with chinese culture: a summary,” grand vallez journal of history 1, no. 2 (2012): 1–6, http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1023&context=gvjh [accessed on 25. june 2015]. [8] michael vickery, “champa revisited,” in the cham of vietnam: history, society and art, ed. trần kỳ phương, bruce lockhart (singapore: nus press, 2011), 363–420, here 371. their language was “austronesian.” [9] for a more complete description of the history of foreign artistic influences, see huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics,” 10–12; john k. whitmore, “foreign influences and the vietnamese cultural core: a discussion of the premodern period,” in borrowings and adaptations in vietnamese culture, ed. buu lâm truong (honolulu: university of hawaii at manoa, 1987), 1–21. [10] huynh posits the possibility that the absence of pre-colonial painted arts may be due to climate or wars, or to a native expression manifest in other art forms—textiles, gardens, or religious prints. huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics,” 24; see also phoebe scott, “imaging ‘asian’ aesthetics in colonial hanoi: the école des beaux-arts de l’indochine (1925–1945),” in asia through art and anthropology: cultural translation across borders, ed. fuyubi nakamura et al. (london: bloomsbury academic, 2013), 47–61, here 50. [11] many vietnamese who collaborated with their french overlords accepted their inferior status and “considered their fortunes intimately bound with continued colonial presence.” vietnamese communism, 1925–1945 (ithaca: cornell university press, 1982), 39–45. [12] quoted in neil jamieson, “relata, relationships, and context: a perspective on borrowed elements in vietnamese culture,” in buu lâm truong, borrowings and adaptations, 124–140, here 130. jamieson adds, “… under french colonial rule archaeological and historical studies tended to present a distorted and not very flattering picture of the inhabitants of the red river delta and central coastal plain prior to the period of chinese domination. indigenous vietnamese culture has too often been portrayed in the past as an empty vessel of dubious worth into which the merits of superior civilization poured for millennia from china and india, and later from the west.” ibid., 135. it is also wise to remember that all publications during colonial rule, but especially non-fiction ones, were censored; see ngo vinh long, preface to before the revolution: the vietnamese peasants under the french (new york: columbia university press, 1991), xxv–xix, here xxvi–xxvii. [13] nora taylor, painters in hanoi: an ethnography of vietnamese art (honolulu: university of hawaii press, 2004). [14] scott, “imaging ‘asian’ aesthetics,” 48. phoebe scott recently completed her phd dissertation titled “forming and reforming the artist: modernity, agency and the discourse of art in north vietnam, 1925–1954” (phd diss., university of sydney, 2013). [15] taylor, “orientalism/occidentalism,” 1–2. [16] scott, “imaging ‘asian’ aesthetics,” 49, 59n2. western art historians who criticized in this manner included marcel bernanose (1922), albert de pouvourville (1894), henri gourdon (1933), and m.koch (1924). [17] taylor, “orientalism/occidentalism,” 2. [18] nora taylor, review of l'indochine: un lieu d'échange culturel? les peintres français et indochinois (fin xixe–xxesiècle), by nadine andré-pallois, journal of southeast asian studies 30, no. 1 (march 1999): 198–200, here 200. [19] huỳnh, vietnamese communism 38. [20] huỳnh, vietnamese communism 36n4, 37–38, 45. this was one of sixty daily and weekly newspapers published in the 1920s, most from 1923–1928. four of these specialized in political, anti-colonial pamphlets. [21] huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics,” 93–94. much of the most stirring anti-french writing emerged from the 1925–1928 period; see buu lâm truong, colonialism experienced: vietnamese writings on colonialism, 1900–1931 (ann arbor: university of michigan press, 2000), 190–275. other publishing houses involved in producing radical writings were duy tân thos xã (modernization publishing house), tự do thùng fu (freedom collection), tôn viết thư xã (survival of vietnam publishing house), and tân văn hoá từng thứ (new culture collection). ibid., 271. see also trinh van thao, “the 1925 generation of vietnamese intellectuals and their role in the struggle for independence,” in viet nam exposé: french scholarship on twentieth-century vietnamese society, ed. gisèle luce bousquet and pierre brocheux (ann arbor: university of michigan press, 2002), 251–277. [22] norindr, phantasmatic indochina, 30, 34. the international art market prompted “an urge to self-orientalise” among asian artists, according to monica juneja and franziska koch, “multi-centred modernisms—reconfiguring asian art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,” transcultural studies 1 (2010), doi: 10.11588/ts.2010.1.6181 [accessed on 25. june 2015]. [23] quoted in norindr, phantasmatic indochina, 6. [24] taylor, “orientalism/occidentalism,” 7. [25] victor tardeau was impressed by the work of village artisans in all media and is said to have taken students to the countryside to paint the landscapes. taylor, “orientalism/occidentalism,” 3–4. for discussion of the curriculum of the school, including art history of western and asian arts, see scott, “imaging ‘asian’ aesthetics,” 49–50. for literacy data, see trần quốc vượng, “popular culture and high culture in vietnamese history,” in “vietnamese poetry and history,” special issue, crossroads: an interdisciplinary journal of southeast asian studies 7, no. 2 (1992): 5–37, here 31. [26] william stewart logan, hanoi: biography of a city (seattle: university of washington press, 2000), 80; norindr, phantasmatic indochina, 5. [27] chinese ancestor portraits were often copied by later generations, and thus represent an imitative or derivative intent on the part of copyists. see xiangmei gu, yuan-li hou, and valerie gouet, “the treatment of chinese portraits: an introduction to chinese painting conservation technique,” the book and paper group annual 18, last updated augusr 3rd, 2011, http://cool.conservation-us.org/coolaic/sg/bpg/annual/v18/bp18-05.html [accessed on 22. april 2014]. [28] taylor, “orientalism/occidentalism,” 11. [29] see scott, “imaging ‘asian’ aesthetics,” 49. [30] quốc ngữ script was created by missionaries in the seventeenth century as a tool used to combat illiteracy and to evangelize. however, “in the nineteenth century, it was unthinkable for a patriot-writer such as nguyễn đình chiểu to write in any other script than the traditional [chữ] nôm characters. but the twentieth century ushered in the wide use of the quốc ngữ, which was then hailed by everyone in the anticolonial movement as the foremost weapon of patriotism;” buu lâm truong, introduction to borrowings and adaptations, v–xii, here x. see also john defrancis, “vietnamese writing reform in asian perspective,” in buu lâm truong, borrowings and adaptations, 41–51. the period from 1924 to 1939 saw a flood of new publications in quốc ngữ: by 1939 there were 128 dailies and 176 magazines and bulletins in publication; pierre brocheux and daniel hemery, indochina: an ambiguous colonization, 1858–1954, trans. lyn lan dill-klein (oakland: university of california press, 2009), 236. see also huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics,” 92. [31] see george dutton, “lý toét in the city: coming to terms with the modern in 1930s vietnam,” journal of vietnamese studies 2, no. 1 (2007): 80–108, here 81. [32] huynh, vietnamese communism, 126. the tự lực văn đoàn literary group represents one such disillusioned crowd. see note 43. [33] catherine noppe and jean francois hubert, art of vietnam (new york: parkstone press, 2003), 208. [34] quầng phòng et al., “vietnamese modern paintings: the pioneers,” lac hong gallery, http://www.lachonggallery.com/articles/vietnamese_paintings_pioneers.htm [accessed on 10. october 2013]. [35] scott, “imaging ‘asian’ aesthetics,” 50, identifies a different system of grouping at the hanoi museum, which is based on perceived spheres of influence—chinese, japanese, annamite (native), and korean. [36] scott, “imaging ‘asian’ aesthetics,” 47. [37] taylor, painters in hanoi, 35. for examples of some vietnamese pre-colonial shamanic, daoist, hindu, animistic, and confucian scroll paintings, see “how to make the universe right: the art of the shaman in vietnam and southern china,” bates college museum of art, http://www.bates.edu/museum/exhibitions/current/art-of-the-shaman-from-vietnam-and-china/ [accessed on 09. february 2014]; and daniel kany, “‘art of the shaman’ at bates: decidedly non-western, eminently accessible,” art review, portland press herald, march 2nd, 2014, http://www.pressherald.com/2014/03/02/_art_of_the_shaman__at_bates__decidedly_non-western__eminently_accessible_/ [accessed on 06. december 2014]. [38] “nguyễn phan chánh is considered the founder of vietnamese silk painting. he was also the first vietnamese modem painter to be known outside vietnam …. his game of squares was unexpectedly given special attention at a 1931 exhibition in paris;” phong, “vietnamese modern paintings,” 1–2. [39] taylor, painters in hanoi, 35. [40] phong, “vietnamese modern paintings,” 2. lacquer use dates back over 2000 years in haiphong area tombs in vietnam, according to naziree, from craft to art, 8. its use may have ended for a period because records indicated that it was brought back to vietnam from china during the lê dynasty (1443–1460). [41] scott claims that the influence of japanese art occurred mostly in the era of wartime occupation beginning in the early 1940s. see scott, “imaging ‘asian’ aesthetics,” 48. however, pictorial evidence, especially nguyễn gia trí’s paintings in the 1930s pre-dating the japanese invasion, suggests an earlier date. another teacher who encouraged experimentation with lacquer was the second director of the école (1938–1945) after tardieu, evariste jonchère (1892–1956). see sotheby's hong kong, modern and contemporary southeast asian paintings, april 6, 2013. [auction catalog], http:/www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/lot.pdf.hk0457.html/f/296/hk0457-296.pdf [accessed on 15. october 2013]. [42] naziree, from craft to art, 9. [43] “vietnamese lacquerware,” phuong nam fine art and lacquerware, http://www.phuongnam.com/vietnamese_lacquerware.htm [accessed on 20. october 2013]. [44] the traditional áo dài, adopted from chinese sources in the eighteenth century, was loose fitting and worn on ceremonial occasions by both men and women of all classes. in the colonial era, however, a newer designed, form-fitting version was worn by elite women, “who were able by this single act to establish their social status, their modernity, and, perhaps most importantly, their adherence to being vietnamese. wearing of western-style skirts, while perhaps equally suitable for displaying one's commitment to modernity, was left to the socially despised lower-class con gais of the colonial masters…” terry rambo, “black flight suits and white ao-dais: borrowing and adaptation of symbols of vietnamese cultural identity,” in buu lâm truong, borrowings and adaptations, 115–123, here 119. see also huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics,” 112–113. [45] taylor, review of l'indochine, 199. many of the practitioners of these latter avant-garde styles were communists who were unsympathetic to colonial policies. [46] popular novels included in the midst of spring by khái hưng (trần khánh giư) and breaking the ties by nhất linh (real name nguyễn tường tam); huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics,” 91. see also, công huyền tôn nữ nha trang, “the role of french romanticism in the new poetry movement in vietnam,” in buu lâm truong,borrowings and adaptations, 52–62. the first modern novel, tố tâm by hoàng ngọc phách (1925), was controversial because of its morality rather than its introduction of a new form, 52. [47] trang, “the role of french romanticism,” 53. phan khôi’s manifesto article was titled “một lời thơ mới trình giữa làng thổ,” (a new form of poetry presented to the poetic community) in phụ nữ tân văn 122 (march 1932). [48] quoted in trang, “the role of french romanticism,” 55. from a speech given at the association of education in june 1934. [49] scott, “imaging ‘asian’ aesthetics,” 50. [50] see doris croissant, “icons of femininity: japanese national painting and the paradox of modernity,” in gender and power in the japanese visual field, ed. joshua s. mostow et al., (honolulu: university of hawaii press, 2003), 119–139. tsuchida bakusen may have blended ukiyo-e elements with western ideas derived from paul gauguin, fernand hodler, or paul pierre puvis de chavanne, 124. [51] croissant, “icons of femininity,” 129. [52] kathryn robson and jennifer yee, eds., introduction to france and "indochina": cultural representations (lanham: lexington books, 2005), 7. [53] ngo vinh long, before the revolution, xiii. [54] also called poison sumac, related to poison ivy. department of asian art, “lacquerware of east asia,” in heilbrunn timeline of art history (new york: the metropolitan museum of art, 2000), last updated october 2004, http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/elac/hd_elac.htm">http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/elac/hd_elac.htm [accessed on 22. july 2015]. according to trinh tuan, “lacquer is a clear sap coming from any of six species of trees growing in vietnam, the main ones being rhus (or toxicodendron) succedanea in the north and melanorrhoea(or gluta) laccifera in the south, both belonging to the family anacardiaceae.” trinh tuan, “the process of making vietnamese lacquer paintings,” in naziree, from craft to art, 36–38, here 36. [55] christine guth, “out of touch: on the sensorial in the historical interpretation of japanese lacquer,” in east asian lacquer: material culture, science and conservation, ed. shayne rivers et al. (london: archetype publications, 2011),1–4, here 3. [56] use of lacquer in vietnam for household wares dates back 2000 years. see naziree, from craft to art, 8. [57] see, https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/ak-rak-2013-3-1 [accessed on 24. july 2015]. objects like these may have been made specifically for export markets, although kaori hidaka 薫日高 argues that the same types of objects may also have been collected within japan. kaori hidaka, “maritime trade in asia and the circulation of lacquerware,” in east asian lacquer: material culture, science and conservation, ed. shayne rivers et al. (london: archetype publications, 2011), 5–9. [58] “black lacquer stems from a chemical reaction between lacquer and iron, and results from stirring the lacquer with an iron rod for a few days. … several shades of red are extracted from a naturally occurring red mineral, cinnabar (mercuric sulfide).” trinh tuan, “the process of making vietnamese lacquer paintings 36–37. “since east asian lacquer was so aggressive and toxic, there were only a few natural pigments that could be used for coloring it in former times. it was generally not possible to make white lacquer. so as to still be able to produce the color white for designing décor and grounding whole areas, shells from quails’ eggs were broken into small pieces or ground to a powder and then placed on the still-wet lacquer.” “e as in eggshell decoration,” museum für lackkunst münster (museum of lacquer art münster), http://www.museum-fuer-lackkunst.de/en/abc_of_lacquer [accessed on 06. december 2014]. [59] “lacquerware of east asia;” haino akio, “chinese carved lacquerware,” trans. melissa m. rinne, lacquerware stories, museum dictionary, kyoto national museum, http://www.kyohaku.go.jp/eng/dictio/shikki/chou.html [accessed on 10. october 2013]. [60] craquelure refers to the natural pattern of cracking on the surface of oil paintings as they age. “eggs from ducks are used because they have a better structure than hens’ eggs. the eggshells are cleaned and sometimes even burned to obtain a brownish tinge. most bright colors come from artificial dyes.” trinh tuan, “the process of making vietnamese lacquer paintings,” 37. [61] trinh tuan, “the process of making vietnamese lacquer paintings,” 37. [62] kerry nguyen long, “lacquer artists of vietnam,” vietnam artists, last updated february 10, 2002, http://www.vietnamartist.com/lacquer-artists-of-vietnam/ [accessed on 10. october 2013]. [63] jan dees, facing modern times: the revival of japanese lacquer art, 1890–1950 (rotterdam: optima grafische communicatie, 2007), 13–19. [64] “a ‘living treasure’ in đông hồ painting village,” vietnamnet, last updated february 23, 2014, http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/art-entertainment/95910/a--living-treasure--in-dong-ho-painting-village.html [accessed on 06. april 2015]. in march 2013, the craft of making đông hồ folk paintings was recognized as a national intangible cultural heritage. the tradition of villages adopting a particular communal craft is very old and relates to animistic beliefs in gods for every aspect of life: for example a “god of the kitchen (táo quân); god of the land (thổ công, thổ địa); god of the town or village (thần hoàng) and especially gods of the crafts. each profession or craft has a god as the first master and the craft becomes the main business of a community;” some craft practitioners are worshipped as gods, “like trần lư as the founder of lacquer, the monk không lộ as the founder of bronze casting.” huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics,” 22. the adoption of the label “folk art” derives from its anonymity, the fact that it was made by unprofessional masses in their village communal house (đình). ibid., 26. woodblock printing originated in vietnam with the lý dynasty (1010–1225) when printed paper money was introduced. huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics,” 39. other villages producing folk prints include: “hàng trống (hanoi), kim hoàng (hanoi), sinh (central province of thừa thiên-huế), đọc lời (central province of nghệ an), and vụ đi (northern province of vĩnh phúc).” the bac ninh geography archive dates the origination of print arts at this site to the late ninth century: “ancient vietnamese painting is fading,” talk vietnam, last updated november 23, 2012, http://www.talkvietnam.com/2012/11/ancient-vietnamese-painting-is-fading/ [accessed on 22. july 2015]. [65] rachael a. szydlowski, “expansion of the vietnamese handcraft industry: from local to global” (master’s thesis, ohio university, 2008), 13 and 63, https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=ohiou1218497546&disposition=inline [accessed on 22. july 2015]. [66] huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics,” 41–42. [67] andrew forbes and david henley, vietnam past and present: the north (chiang mai, thailand: cognoscenti books, 2011), n.p. [68] “folk woodcut printing awarded national heritage status,” vietnamnet, last updated march 8, 2013, http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/art-entertainment/68179/folk-woodcut-printing-awarded-national-heritage-status.html [accessed on 06. april 2015]. [69] the collection was seven volumes, 4200 drawings; its full title: “the technique of the annamese people by henri oger—an encyclopaedia of all the instruments, of the utensils, of all the gestures of the life and crafts of the tonkin annamese people;” huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics,” 39, 80. see also pierre huard, “le pionnier de la technologie vietnamienne henri oger (1885–1936 ?),” bulletin de l'école française d'extrême-orient 57 (1970): 215–217. [70] gus roe, “vietnamese traditional wrestling: đấu vật,” combat network magazine,(2015): http://www.combatnetworkmagazine.com/2015/03/vietnamese-traditional-wrestling-au-vat.html [accessed on 06. april 2015]. [71] lan nguyen thi, “a glance at vietnamese folk painting,” vietnam beauty, last modified october 1, 2008, http://www.vietnam-beauty.com/vietnamese-culture/vietnam-arts-/18-vietnam-arts/147-a-glance-at-vietnamese-folk-painting.html [accessed on 06. april 2015]. a japanese parallel may be found in the more complex poses and sophisticated drawing of katsushika hokusai’s woodblock manga pages of wrestlers (1817), which offer similar subject and style, with isolated pairs of wrestlers scattered on a page without delineated settings. [72] dutton, “lý toét in the city,” 87–88. see also philippe papin, “who has power in the village? political process and social reality in vietnam,” in viêt nam exposé: french scholarship on twentieth-century vietnamese society, ed. gisèle luce bousquet and pierre brocheux (ann arbor: university of michigan press, 2002), 21–60, here 29–30. [73] scott, “imaging ‘asian’ aesthetics,” 51. students were taken to the đình bằng communal house to make drawings of the architecture. [74] huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics,” 29. all three đình are located near hanoi. many đình were destroyed in the early years of the resistance war, 1946–1947. ibid., 69. see also bertrand de hartingh and anne craven-smith-milnes, vietnam style, (north clarendon, vermont: tuttle publishing, 2007), 66–71; thong diep tu co vat dinh tay dang va nhung an ngu van hoa, youtube video, posted by “vua nguyen,” june 13, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znshb7wsuus [accessed on 22. july 2015]./ on water puppet history, see kathy foley, "the metonymy of art: vietnamese water puppetry as a representation of modern vietnam," tdr: the drama review 45, no. 4 (winter 2001): 129–141, here 131–132; nguyen huy hong, vietnamese traditional water puppetry (hanoi: gioi publishers, 2010), 48. [75] “history of traditional vietnamese water puppetry” viet vision travel, http://www.vietvisiontravel.com/vietnam/guide_81_history_of_traditional_vietnamese_water_puppetry_1757.html [accessed on 06. april 2015]. [76] ngo vinh long, before the revolution, 25–29. long’s book is essentially a catalog of the progressively worsening conditions of vietnam’s peasantry under colonization. ibid., 138–141. [77] the city lies between three rivers: the tô lịcht, kim ngưu, and sông hồng (red river); stein tønnesson, “hanoi’s long century,” in a companion to the vietnam war, ed. marilyn b. young and robert buzzanc (malden: blackwell publishing, 2002),1–16, here 5. [78] among the hanoi waterways were red river, the dam dam lake (the former name of the west lake. see fig. 3), the lục thủy lake (the former name of the hoàn kiếm lake), and the hồ tây lake. see nguyễn thị hoàng liên, “influences of cultures on open space planning for hanoi city of vietnam,” vnu journal of science: earth and environmental sciences 30, no. 2 (2014): 15–30, here 19–20; wheeler, “a maritime logic,” 144. [79] nguyễn thị hoàng liên, “influences of cultures,” 23. [80] nguyễn thị hoàng liên, “influences of cultures,” 23; logan, hanoi: biography of a city, 75. [81] geoffrey gunn, “the great vietnamese famine of 1944–1945 revisited,” the asia-pacific journal: japan focus (n.d.), http://www.japanfocus.org/-geoffrey-gunn/3483/article.html [accessed on 18. april 2015]. among the causes: the japanese demanded compulsory sale of rice to the state at a fraction of market price; even during drought years rice alcohol was used as a substitute for gasoline; and the northern population increased by 36 percent in this time. [82] see wheeler, “a maritime logic,” 143; and bui hoai mai, introduction to two cakes fit for a king: folktales from vietnam, trans. nguyen nguyet cam and dana sachs, ed. dana sachs (honolulu: university of hawaii press, 2003), 1–18, here 4. [83] bettina ebert, “lacquer paintings,” asiarta foundation, http://www.asiarta.org/introduction-to-conservation/lacquer-paintings/ [accessed on 10. october 2013]. “they received their name from india’s coromandel coast, where they were transshipped to europe in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries by merchants of the english and french east india companies;” encyclopedia britannica, s.v. “coromandel screen,” http://www.britannica.com/ebchecked/topic/138167/coromandel-screen [accessed on 11. june 2014]. [84] also called quancai (engraved colorfulness), it was first mentioned in the xiushi lu(on lacquering) treatise that dates back to the late sixteenth century, “b as in bantam work,” museum für lackkunst münster (museum of lacquer art münster), http://www.museum-fuer-lackkunst.de/en/abc_of_lacquer [accessed on 06. april 2015]. [85] scott, “imaging ‘asian’ aesthetics,” 53. in 1949 tô ngọc vân decried all slavish emulation of chinese art. [86] “lacquer,” art conservation handout, bishop museum, last modified 1996, http://www.bishopmuseum.org/research/pdf/cnsv-lacquer.pdf [accessed on 15. october 2013]. [87] lương văn hỷ, “community festivals in rural northern and southern vietnam: a comparative analysis of their different dynamics,” thông báo khoa học số, 28–29 (2010): 135–147, http://legacy.anthropology.utoronto.ca/people/faculty-1/faculty-profiles/hy-van-luong-1/luong-festivals%20in%20north%20-%20south%20vietnam.pdf [accessed on 10. october 2013]. lương văn hỷ estimates that some 8000 festivals occurred in 2006, 145. [88] a typical temple, such as the bút tháp temple, consisted of “the gate; the double story bell-tower with eight roofs; the vestibule; the great hall; the pen-shaped stone tower and a pagoda called ‘gathering the goods,’” huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics,” 31. [89] lương văn hỷ, “community festivals,” 139. [90] the origins of hàng trống printing derive from the establishment in the fifteenth century of printing workshops in hanoi dedicated to reproducing the full “tripitika” of buddhist sutras that had been destroyed in wars against the ming dynasty, 1407–1427. phan cam thuong, “the wooden printers that saved reading,” vietnam heritage 4, no. 5 (june–july 2014): 8–9, http://issuu.com/ngocngo9/docs/vietnam_heritage_so_38_thang_6_for_ [accessed on 06. december 2014]. [91] bui hoai mai, introduction to two cakes fit for a king, 15; “exhibition highlights history of folk painting,” vietnamnet, last updated january 28, 2014, http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/art-entertainment/94752/exhibition-highlights-history-of-folk-paintings.html [accessed on 06. december 2014]. [92] phan cam thuong, “rice ink was the secret to woodblock printing,” vietnam heritage 4, no. 5 (june–july, 2014): 9–12, here 11, http://issuu.com/ngocngo9/docs/vietnam_heritage_so_38_thang_6_for_ [accessed on 06. december 2014]. [93] many of the hàng trống painted themes were associated with đạo mẫu and displayed at temples and shrines, including “five tigers,” “the third prince,” and “the forest and mountain goddess;” “windy day 12: ‘hang trong painting—a fragile destiny,’” hanoi grapevine april 4, 2015, http://hanoigrapevine.com/2015/04/windy-day-12-hang-trong-painting-fragile-destiny/ [accessed on 18. april 2015]. [94] ngo duc thinh, “the mother goddess religion: its history, pantheon, and practices,” in possessed by the spirits: mediumship in contemporary vietnamese communities, ed. karen fjelstad and thị hiền nguyễn (ithaca: seap publications, 2006), 19–30, here 19, 21–22; pham quynh phuong, “tran hung dao and the mother goddess religion,” fjelstad, possessed by the spirits, 31–54, here 32; barley norton, “‘hot-tempered’ women and ‘effeminated’ men: the performance of music and gender in vietnamese mediumship,” fjelstad, possessed by the spirits, 55–76, here 56. other instruments in rituals included a 16-string zither (dân tránh), a 2-stringed fiddle (đàn nhị), a small headed drum (trong), and knobless gong (thành là). [95] norton, “‘hot-tempered’ women and ‘effeminated’ men,” 62. [96] ngo duc thinh, “the mother goddess religion,” 22. [97] huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics,” 23. [98] see vŭ thành tư anh, “worshipping the mother goddess: the đạo mẫu movement in northern vietnam,” explorations in southeast asian studies 6, no. 1 (spring 2006): 27–44; barley norton, songs for the spirits: music and mediums in modern vietnam (champagne-urbana: university of illinois press, 2009). [99] david p. chandler and david joel steinberg, in search of southeast asia: a modern history (honolulu: university of hawaii press, 1987), 315–316. for details about the founding of the movements, see david g. marr, vietnam anticolonialism: 1885–1925 (oakland: university of california press, 1971), 120–155. the unification of vietnam under the nguyễn dynasty in 1803, its adoption of chinese style neo-confucianism, and the prohibition of christianity led the nation, unlike japan and thailand, to be insular and indifferent to western influences and modernization prior to the takeover by the french; huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics,” 7. [100] shiraishi masaya, “phan bội châu in japan,” in phan bội châu and the đông du movement, ed. vinh sinh (new haven: yale center for international and asia studies, 1988), 52–100, here 55–56. for a translation of phan bội châu’s impassioned letters from japan, see george e. dutton et al., eds., sources of vietnamese tradition(new york: columbia university press, 2012), 342–369. [101] shiraishi, “phan bội châu in japan,” 56. [102] shiraishi, “phan bội châu in japan,” 64. [103] scott, “imaging ‘asian’ aesthetics,” 53–54. [104] painters in hanoi, 38–40. [105] scott, “imaging ‘asian’ aesthetics,” 48. [106] quoted in kim ngoc bao ninh, a world transformed: the politics of culture in revolutionary vietnam, 1945–1965 (ann arbor: university of michigan press, 2002), 73. [107] scott, “imaging ‘asian’ aesthetics,” 53. [108] ngoc bao ninh, a world transformed, 74. for a discussion of the ideals of revolutionary period propaganda art, see nora a. taylor, “framing the national spirit: viewing and reviewing painting under the revolution,” in the country of memory: remaking the past in late socialist vietnam, ed. hue-tam ho tai (oakland: university of california press, 2001), 109–134, here 112–120. [109] scott, “imaging ‘asian’ aesthetics,” 50. [110] huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics,” 144. [111] scott, “imaging ‘asian’ aesthetics,” 51–52. this attitude is ironic given the great influence that folk, primitive, and non-western arts had upon the development of early twentieth-century modernism in europe. [112] huynh, “vietnamese aesthetics,” 49. [113] quoted in ngoc bao ninh, a world transformed, 76. [114] naziree, from craft to art,22. [115] quoted in ngoc bao ninh, a world transformed, 83–84. [116] ngoc bao ninh, a world transformed, 79. see also david g. marr, “a passion for modernity: intellectuals and the media,” in postwar vietnam: dynamics of a transforming society, ed. lương văn hỷ (lanham: rowman & littlefield, 2003), 257–295, here 267. “the ultimate arbiters of truth and beauty were the masses, as represented by the party. a special role was delineated for literary and art critics who understood the needs of the revolution, the preferences of the masses, and the principles of socialist realism. according to trong chinh, a good critic was like a whip to make the horse rear up and perform effectively. he warned that no intellectual participating in the resistance struggle would claim to be above politics, beyond the judgment of the masses, creating according to his own values. indeed, to take such a position played into the hands of the enemy.” [117] quoted in kim ngoc bao ninh, a world transformed, 82. [118] quoted in mark philip bradley, “making sense of the french war: the postcolonial moment and the first vietnam war, 1945–1954,” in first vietnam war: colonial conflict and cold war crisis, ed. mark atwood lawrence and fredrik logevall (cambridge: harvard university press, 2007), 16–40, 34. the debate regarding "art for art's sake" (nghệ thuật vì nghệ thuật) and "art for life's sake" (nghệ thuật vì nhân sinh) began in the mid-1930s in art and literature. for a discussion of the latter, see hue tam ho tai, “literature for the people: from soviet policies to vietnamese polemics,” in buu lâm truong, borrowings and adaptations, 63–83. [119] kerry nguyen long, “lacquer artists of vietnam.” [120] naziree, from craft to art, 12; huynh, vietnamese communism, 81. [121] for nguyễn văn tỵ’s biography see “nguyễn văn tỵ,” witness collection, last updated 2012, http://witnesscollection.org/the_collection/pages/nguyen_van_ty_%281917-92%29.html [accessed on 22. july 2015]. [122] naziree, from craft to art, 10. for the evolution of the school after 1945, see taylor, painters in hanoi, 45–46. at the time the école was taken over by the provisional government of the democratic republic of vietnam and reopened as the university of fine arts after 1945, the teachers were former students (who numbered altogether over one hundred). the teachers likely continued much of the western training—including in art history—that they had received. among westernized christian subjects created during the french occupation is nguyễn gia trí’s giáng sinh (the birth of jesus, 1941) and his adoration of the magi, 1960. for giang sinh, see “lacquer christ needs restoration,” viet nam news, last updated august 1, 2013, http://vietnamnews.vn/life-style/242898/lacquer-christ-needs-restoration.html [accessed on 25. june 2015]; and for adoration of the magi, see nguyen quan, “western culture in vietnam,” trans. duong tuong, the journal of decorative and propaganda arts 20 (1994): 224–235, here 226. [123] huynh, vietnamese aesthetic, 147. [124] nguyen quan, “nguyễn sáng —huge and tender,” vietnamart books, http://www.vietnamartbooks.com/articles/article.html?id=14 [accessed on 18. april 2015]. [125] balazs szalontai, “political and economic crisis in north vietnam, 1955–1956,” cold war history 5, no. 4 (november 2005): 395–426, here 419–420; thu-huong nguyen-vo, the ironies of freedom: sex, culture, and neoliberal governance in vietnam (seattle: university of washington press, 2008), 188–190. [126] “bùi xuân phái,” witness collection, http://witnesscollection.org/the_collection/pages/bui_xuan_phai_%281920-88%29.html [accessed on 18. april 2015]. he too, along with the others, won the ho chi minh prize posthumously. [127] taylor, painters in hanoi, 75. [128] see viet le quan, “imitation paintings challenge genuine art,” vietnamnet, last updated september 12, 2011, http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/special-reports/11427/imitation-paintings-challenge-genuine-art.html [accessed 25. june 2015]. see also samantha libby, “the art of censorship in vietnam,” journal of international affairs 65, no. 1 (2011): 209–218, here 211. [129] libby, “the art of censorship,” 209–210, 213. weapon of the discontented? | jeanine dagyeli | transcultural studies weapon of the discontented? trans-river migration as tax avoidance practice and lever in eastern bukhara jeanine dağyeli, leibniz-zentrum moderner orient, berlin but such images of disjuncture and marginality are problematic as they obscure the ways in which the frontier was, and is, not only a space of uncontrolled freedom, but also one that binds, connects and thus helps to forge powerful forms of solidarity, community, and collective identity that endure across time and space (marsden et al. 2011, 4). until the early twentieth century, the border formed between contemporary tajikistan and afghanistan by the panj river and the amu river has been porous at best. rulers repeatedly tried to extend their dominion to the other side and often managed to establish, at least temporarily, cross-river territories. migration from one bank to the other was frequent, and family units in riparian areas would more often than not have members on both sides of the river. migration, especially collective outmigration, however, was in many cases also an act of protest by disgruntled peasants or pastoralists who sought to evade disproportionate or irregular taxes, but the dearth of primary sources from this milieu has hampered historical research on the dynamics involved. evasive migration as a frequent, if not every day, mode of protest was comparatively well documented. outmigration and the trans-river migration to and from afghanistan affected the interests of national and local authorities more intensely than other forms of protest because of its impact on security policies and the economy. taxes from (cash) crops declined due to labour deficits, degradation of lands, and disuse of irrigation structures, and unprotected, depopulated border zones invited trouble from neighbours. in many cases, this migration forced authorities to negotiate terms that encouraged migrants to return. the available documentation—petitions to the bukharan court, travelogues, newspapers, and russian border post reports—covers the official attitude towards migratory practices, but is silent about the perspective of the affected populations. they are equally silent about other evasive practices or acts of resilience that peasants and pastoralists might have resorted to prior to or after their flight. in the absence of sources coming directly from this milieu, we can only carefully attempt to reconstruct the agency, aspirations, and negotiation strategies employed by peasants and pastoralists in the border region from the scattered sources we have concerning their daily life and living conditions in these remote regions. the study of trans-river migratory practices between afghanistan and tajikistan provides us with fresh perspectives in two ways. firstly, it shines a spotlight on the peasant history of the southern and easternmost dominions of the emirate of bukhara (dissolved in 1924). this history is least researched even though these peasants were largely responsible for providing the emirate with grain and rice. the particular features of their multiple trans-border connections have been downplayed to integrate them into modern, national history writing. secondly, it prompts us to overcome certain limitations that come with the delineation of academic fields. following the division of the panj-amu river basin into imperial british and russian zones of influence during the so-called great game at the end of the nineteenth century, tajikistan (together with the other former soviet central asian republics) and afghanistan are usually studied in different university departments. as a consequence, the trans-regional cultural, social, and political ties between central asia, afghanistan, and south asia attract little attention. by re-shifting the focus to a marginal population, we get a deeper understanding of local conceptualisations of this cross-river area, of its importance to them, and of its potential for rural agency beyond the modern perceptions of nation and border. it was james scott who, in 1985, first directed attention towards the less-than-spectacular, non-confrontational, evasive resistance practices of poorer parts of the rural population, and in doing so coined the expression weapons of the weak, which also inspired the title of this article (scott 1990). michael adas (1986) went on to formally distinguish several modes of peasant resistance, while at the same time pointing to the multifarious links between every day, quasi-institutionalised forms of resistance and specific events such as rural riots or rebellions. after a boom of research on peasant resistance and evasive protest practices in the 1970s and 1980s, academics have recently begun to revisit the issue (see adas 1986; scott 1976, 1986, 1990, 2009; mann 2012). however, relevant studies focusing on central asia and trans-border interactions remain rare. generally speaking, studies on central asian everyday forms of protest have been scarce in spite of soviet appreciation of popular forms of resistance against the exploiting classes; only the more spectacular uprisings received wider attention. reluctance to focus on these matters may be grounded in the anti-colonial bias that some (albeit not all) of these rebellions had when, after the consolidation of the soviet union, the former coloniser turned into the brother nation. additionally, many uprisings were chiliastic in nature, with leaders who were regarded as saint-like figures or by preeminent personages of well-established religious, political, or economic provenance; they thus failed to qualify in terms of class-conscious struggle. the surviving primary sources covering these events have normally been written by people from the upper echelons, although they were not always unsympathetic to the peasants’ cause.[1] soviet scholars noted with incredulity that political and religious authority figures who were identified in the sources by their titles were among the participants of peasant uprisings in eastern bukhara (mukhtarov 1988a, 29–30; semënov 1988, 33–34). multiple ties of personal allegiance, (coercive) reciprocity, and kinship worked towards local social cohesion. adas (1986, 66) has maintained that any “[s]erious study of avoidance protest requires that we examine more fully the important links that have existed between ongoing or quasi-institutionalised modes of peasant resistance and specific outbursts of rural riot or rebellion, as well as the connections between peasant movements at different points in time.” in fact, local authorities in bukhara often found themselves caught between the demands of central government executive bodies and local grievances (see mukhsinova 1959). in this paper, i argue that the trans-river character of the evasive migration in the panj-amu river border region added yet a further dimension to the avoidance practice. in comparison with tax evasive migration in the interior parts of the emirate, loss of population in the riparian zones caused heightened anxiety among the central government and local officials of bukhara. both the afghan and bukharan governments were eager to keep their riparian zones populated. to pursue this goal, they constantly vied with each other to attract people from the other side of the river. this opened up spaces of resistance for the border population by allowing them to use migration not only as evasive practice, but also for leverage in negotiating better tax and living conditions. these trans-river migrations apparently resulted in unique infrastructures tailored to the migrants’ needs, with networks and service providers assisting with stream crossing, housing, and logistics. in taking up adas’s (1986) notion of evasive practices as part of the social fabric, i examine how the trans-regionality of the panj and amu river regions provided its rural populations with possibilities that could turn their marginality into an advantage. eastern bukhara: historical and geographical background by the late nineteenth century, the bukharan emirate nominally stretched from a rather vaguely defined desert border at around kukertli[2] (evans 1984, 101) or bossagy (olufsen 1911, 3) in the west to the pamir range in the east and the region of merv in the south (see map).[3] in the south/south-east it previously also included—at least temporarily—parts of today’s afghanistan. in practice, however, the mountainous provinces stretching from the town of urgut (east of samarkand) further to the (south-)east (an area which mostly matches today’s central and southern tajikistan) were mostly independent. they were collectively known to bukharans and outsiders as kūhistān (i.e. land of mountains) or as eastern bukhara, and their inhabitants had the reputation of fiercely resisting central control (manz 1994, 9; wilde 2016, 209–210). in russian, uzbek, and tajik literature, the bukharan provinces are usually called bekstvo (russian), beklik (uzbek), and begī/begīgarī (tajik). these are derivations of the word bek, which means a provincial ruler. although the ubiquitous use of these terms suggests an emic origin, andreas wilde (2013, 279–280) has convincingly shown that they were introduced by russian colonisers who, against the backdrop of european nation state ideology, could not imagine the provinces as anything other than territorially delineated administrative units. in fact, the designation is never used in sources from the emirate itself; in nineteenth-century documents and manuscripts all localities are called either vilāyat (province, principality) or tūmān (district);[4] the terms beklik and begī/begīgarī are retranslations from the russian. to represent the terminology from colonial, soviet, and contemporary central asian writings, the english neologism bekdom is used.[5] political authority was established and maintained through network ties, personal allegiances, the exchange of favours and loyalty. while all of these depended on material resources, they did not rest on notions of territoriality (ibid., 279–280). even if the degree of independence enjoyed temporarily by eastern bukharan provinces was considerable, the clustering of smaller principalities around a local capital city in order to avoid close central control was not unusual in the region, but was also attested for areas under more concentrated direct central control (ibid., 269). the provincial spatial entities in eastern bukhara may be regarded as “little kingdoms” given their semi-autonomous character and their integration into networks of similar little kingdoms.[6] one of these was kūlāb in today’s southern tajikistan. map 1: map of the amu-panj river region eastern bukhara did not have a large city that could act as a regional political and commercial centre of the whole region. given the rugged landscape, the region’s political and economic power was instead concentrated in several secondary cities, the most important being hisār, kūlāb, darvāz, qarātegīn, baljuvān, and qurghānteppa. these formed a network of secondary cities responsible for administrative operations on a local scale. in his delineation of secondary cities, stephen morillo argued that these cities existed simultaneously in two structures, one being networks and the other hierarchies. networks consist of commercial ties linking small cities to other small cities, larger cities, centres, and ultimately to the global economy (morillo 2008, 18–23). this was the situation in eastern bukhara. in morillo’s view, the networks were politically non-hierarchical. while there were smaller and larger nodes in the network, the larger ones did not attempt to exercise direct political power over the smaller ones (ibid., 19). this does not hold for eastern bukhara where—in spite of steady trade and labour relations—secondary cities constantly waged war against each other and vied for supremacy (iskandarov 1962, 32–33). kūlāb had traditionally been the nodal point for routes between shughnān, badakhshān, and qunduz on the one hand, and hisār (and onwards to samarkand), qurghānteppa, termez (and other westerly points in the lowlands) (bartold 2002, 346–47). olufsen (1911, 37), who passed in the late 1890s, called it “a pretty large town” and it was one of the commercial centres of eastern bukhara notable for its considerable trade with afghanistan and india. in the early nineteenth century, kūlāb—like other local, little kingdoms—had been a bone of contention between the rulers of qunduz (afghanistan) and kokand (ferghana valley). the khan of kokand, ālim khan (ruled 1800–1809), recruited large segments of his army from the little mountain kingdoms of qarātegīn, darvāz, kūlāb, badakhshān, and chitral, and appointed his advisors from amongst them (iskandarov 1962, 35). this was possibly done to reduce the political influence of uzbek tribal leaders who had constituted the backbone of the khan’s military until then. p.b. lord (1808–1840), a british medical doctor and advocate of an aggressive british frontier policy, reported in 1832 that the ruler of qunduz, muhammad murād bek, had conquered kūlāb and garrisoned a small contingent of soldiers there. when the city folk rose against him after he left, he returned and brutally extinguished the rebellion. he razed kūlāb to the ground and deported the inhabitants to a place called khānābād in the khazrati shāh mountains north of the city (iskandarov 1962, 42).[7] in 1833–1834, kūlāb was again conquered, together with other eastern bukharan dominions, by an army sent from the khanate of kokand, and madali khan subsequently ruled it. after the assassination of the latter in 1842, the principalities regained their de facto independence. constant wars between the little kingdoms finally served as a pretext for the bukharan army to intervene. their successive submission was at least partly an effort of the bukharan emir, muzaffar, to compensate for his loss of power in other places. the conquest and subsequent firm integration of eastern bukhara into the emirate’s domain took place against the backdrop of the russian colonial advance and the unfolding of the great game. after samarkand, the second city of the emirate, had surrendered to the tsarist army in 1868, the amir of bukhara had to negotiate a treaty that ceded samarkand and the fertile zarafshan river valley to the russian empire. the russian army in turn assisted the amir in consolidating his power and bringing the unruly eastern bukharan regions back under his control. the defeats and the following degradation of status from a quasi-autonomous little kingdom with its own political and economic centre to a principality of secondary order also shifted notions of centre and periphery in kūlāb. like other border regions in the pamir and karakoram region, eastern bukhara and its less important provinces like kūlāb were conceived as marginal from the viewpoint of their respective political and economic centres like bukhara or kabul, yet these regions were spaces in their own right in that they were “inhabited by a diversity of often-fluid communities, as well as shifting identity formations” (marsden et al. 2011, 4). economic and educational ties were oriented more towards secondary cities in today’s afghanistan (e.g. qunduz), pakistan (e.g. peshawar, chitral), and eastern bukhara than towards the nominal political centre bukhara city; these connections informed local identity. by the early twentieth century, kūlāb was a modest town and seat of government for the province of the same name. the traveller r.yu. rozhevic, who visited the town in spring 1906 on a mission for the russian imperial geographic society, noted its large gardens and wooden buildings with ridged roofs, and positively remarked upon its rudimentary pavement as a first step towards civilisation (rozhevic 1908, 620–621). according to visitors’ estimates, the city’s population numbered between twenty-five thousand (iskandarov 1963, 7) and sixty or eighty thousand people (cf. yusupov 1964, 13). the town itself consisted of seventeen residential quarters (guzar) (kolpakov 1954). to its south, the province had swampy soils, which were well suited to rice cultivation but prone to flooding and epidemics like malaria. its rice cultivating peasant population was relatively prosperous and produced a considerable annual surplus, which generated tax revenue for the province. the relative prosperity, as well as the integration of the rice cultivators into long distance trade, may be one reason why the inhabitants of the riparian zones abstained from participating in the great peasant rebellions in this area during the late nineteenth century (iskandarov 1988, 28). the russian traveller varygin, however, who visited kūlāb around 1905, made no effort to hide his disdain for these lowlands, which he described as boring marshlands lost in reed, void of people in the streets because they spent their days up to their knees in rice fields (varygin 1916, 780). he contrasted the rice cultivating villages with those in the northern hills and mountains; houses, fields, and gardens in the uphill regions of kūlāb were more to his liking, with broad, clean streets and well-kept, fenced gardens (ibid., 781–782). other foreign travellers to the region were more attentive to the widespread poverty in the mountainous regions (cf. yusupov 1964, 48, 94; also mukhtarov 1988a, 26). especially in the mountainous regions, cultivable land was scarce and animal husbandry was at subsistence level. cattle were often driven over long distances to adequate pastures, sometimes as far as the obi khingau[8] pastures in the northern principality of darvāz, while the inhabitants of the mountainous regions travelled to kūlāb, kokand, or even bukhara in winter in search of paid work (johnston 1892). it was its geographic position as a node between afghanistan, chitral, and india on the one side and bukhara, samarkand, kokand, and other towns of russian turkestan on the other side that rendered kūlāb important as a trading point. although unremarkable in size, it was a reloading point between afghanistan and hisār (which lay en route to samarkand) with a buzzing bazaar, a geographic asset that aroused interest in neighbouring rulers to control the area (borjian 2005). wolfgang holzwarth even called the trade relations between afghan badakhshān and kūlāb a kind of miniature of the general afghan-bukharan relations (1986, 231). until around 1870, when russia started to dominate trade with eastern bukhara and afghan badakhshān, these regions were predominantly supplied by indian imports; kūlāb’s main exchange trade article was a breed of horses much in demand in india and larger in size than the horses bred there (holzwarth 1986, 239). especially pashtuns from bājaur (today fata territory in north-western pakistan), who were a highly respected local group, dominated the indian trade of the region from the middle of the eighteenth century. a number of pashtuns of various tribal affiliations involved in this trade had settled along the route by the late nineteenth century (holzwarth 1986, 237). on the other hand, the caravanserais that specifically served communities from samarkand, bukhara, and termez prove that traders and intermediaries from the western provinces of bukhara were present in kūlāb (varygin 1916, 775). kūlāb was also of interest as a point of trans-regional transit for migratory workers who often covered considerable distances. for instance, during the summer months, migrant workers from badakhshān would travel as far as samarkand for seasonal work, passing kūlāb on the way (bartold 2002, 347). long-distance trade routes between central asia and the indian subcontinent ran from fayzabad in the afghan badakhshān through zibak, crossed the dorah or nuksan passes to chitral, and continued through bājaur to peshawar, which took a caravan about three to four weeks to complete. other routes continued from afghanistan through kūlāb into the khanate of kokand and the alai-mountains. the population and political alliances along the route were extremely segmented, which meant there were additional risks besides the roads’ geographical dangers. trade in the region deteriorated in the mid-1880s with colonial intervention into borders, routes, trade, and property rights. in 1885, a russian customs post constrained trade between fayzābād and kūlāb. from 1887 onwards, trade through the eastern hindu kush route was almost completely blocked by the afghan side. the relations between the afghan emir and the mehtar of chitral had deteriorated since the latter agreed to the deployment of a british-indian political agent at his court and refused to allow his territory to become part of afghanistan. in fact, the sanctions employed to punish the mehtar of chitral most severely affected the bājaur traders, as well as regions such as badakhshān, qataghān, and kūlāb, since the mehtar already received british subsidies to compensate for the loss. the colonial powers considered the entire panj-amu river as a quasi-natural frontier to demarcate their respective zones of influence. this perspective informed the difficult border negotiations that took place in the 1870s and the 1880s between the british and the russian empire and resulted in the border that, for the most part, is still in place today. as can be deduced from settlement patterns or tribal formations, e.g. in the badakhshān/shughnān or kūlāb/qunduz regions, delimitation along river courses was not an emic conception; historically, the panj-amu river was not perceived as a border among groups of people who considered themselves to be related. it was not uncommon for people who held land or pastures on the opposite river bank to lose property or access once the border was delineated and a border regime was established. the problem had already been addressed in vain by the so-called gilgit mission (1885–86), a reconnaissance expedition following the granville-gorchakov agreement of 1873, which had divided the principalities of darvāz, shughnān, roshān, and wakhān between british indian and russian spheres of influence. the mission report found the agreement to be based on heavily distorted perceptions of existing political entities and stated that “[n]othing could have been more indefinite or ill-conceived than this agreement. [. . .] in no case do we find the people on one bank distinct from those on the other.” (kreutzmann 2015, 218). in 1895, with the advance concurrence of afghanistan and bukhara, britain and russia signed an agreement on “the spheres of influence of the two countries in the region of the pamirs” (becker 1968, 157). in 1896 shughnān, roshān, and northern vakhān were transferred into bukharan dominion, while southern darvāz went to afghanistan. three russian garrisons were established in khorog and vakhān to secure control over bukhara’s easternmost borders (ibid; see also kreutzmann 1996, 101–118). the colonial demarcation and surveillance of the border also blocked traditional trade routes, which had previously always passed kūlāb rather than the difficult mountain terrain further to the north (bartold 2002, 346). kūlāb thus serves as a magnifying lens for recapturing the multi-ethnic, interconnected history of this trans-river region, the use people made of their border space, and the impact of colonialism. the example of this town allows us to access a past that has been pushed to the margins of history in central asia, since it does not easily lend itself to the narrative of nation-building. avoidance protest: rural responses to natural hazards, tax regimes, and repression scott (1976, 1990) and others have pointed to social arrangements such as (coercive) reciprocity, forced generosity, shared work, and communal resource access as means to secure rural subsistence in pre-colonial societies for many people, most of the time. times of past crises provide an especially fruitful observation frame because they probe the validity and resilience of these arrangements. colonial interests and an increasing incorporation of subsistence-oriented communities into export-oriented wage labour, cash crop production, and the global commodity system presented—from a rural point of view—risks to the traditional primacy of food security. if this economic and social reshuffle coincided with natural disasters, the outcome would be devastating (davis 2000; serels 2013). emigration became a political and economic tool employed to negotiate better terms and living conditions (adas 1986, 64–65). in the central asian case, knowledge about these migration movements has partly come down to us in the form of official reports to local or central courts, as well as petitions discussing conditions for return. unfortunately, these documents are sometimes not dated, often anonymous, and the position of the scribe vis-à-vis the petitioners is not always clear. we do not learn whether the grievances voiced in the petitions really represent the whole spectrum of discomfort. the documents also reveal little about the migrants’ social, professional or ethnic background. however, they do provide us with quite clear information about the voiced grievances. given that they were submitted as petitions, we may assume that the authors considered them legitimate concerns. in central asia, the decades of the second half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century were marked by rural crises. changes in climate and natural disasters added to the anthropogenic degradation of the rural landscape, which was further exacerbated by the violent integration of the eastern little kingdoms into the bukhara emirate. the sources available are largely silent about the war-induced consequences of the bukharan conquests in east bukhara for the people, the environment, and the economy. information can only be deduced from scant remarks in the sources, but they point to an enormous setback for the region. varygin talks in rather general terms about the killing of women and children as well as the destruction of towns, irrigation systems, and even large canals that accompanied the conquest of 1870. the final blow to the little kingdoms of darvāz and kūlāb came with the alleged killing of more than half of the population and the displacement of another quarter by the victorious bukharan army, led by the head of the artillery, khudāy-nazar (borjian 2013). he was in turn granted the title of bek of kūlāb in 1870 and thereafter enjoyed considerable autonomy from the emir in bukhara.[9] the former ruler of kūlāb, sary-khan, crossed the panj river with many of his supporters and took refuge in afghanistan (varygin 1916, 741). apparently, recovery was not only impeded by the destruction of agricultural infrastructure, but also by the heavy loss of life. informants told varygin of roughly 2,750 hectares of land suitable for the cultivation of rice or wheat that apparently was lying fallow since the bukharan conquest thirty-five years ago (ibid., 781), possibly resulting both from the lack of manpower to work the land and its unclear legal status. however, the formerly tilled fallow land provided a superb breeding habitat for locusts (especially the migratory locust), which would wreak havoc on the fields and pastures of kūlāb and adjacent regions for years to come. excessive tax demands by authorities were a common source of grief. mīrsacīd maḥmūd, judge of hisār, mentioned in a letter to the bukharan emir cabdulaḥad (reigned 1885–1911) that an array of peasants and tribes (qavm-u qabīla) had fled their dismal circumstances under cabdulaḥad’s unpopular, exploitive brother, cabdulmu’mīn, and settled in the neighbouring districts (nāhiya) of kūlāb, sarijūy, and dehnau. after astanaqul-bek-biy (reigned 1886–1906) was appointed governor of the province, he granted bonuses to would-be returnees and instructed his officials to remain moderate. within a short period, peasants and tribespeople returned and began working the land again (khamraev 1959, 29–30; qushmatov 1996, 212).[10] changes in climate and natural disasters aggravated the war’s impact. several climatologists and geographers have postulated a climate change in central asia whose start they situate around the second half of the nineteenth century. around this time, the humid little ice age in central asia that had determined the weather since the beginning of the sixteenth century was replaced by a drier and hotter climate (berg 1955; esper et al. 2002; chen et al. 2006, 2010; narama et al. n. d.). indeed, east bukhara saw a sequence of weather extremes during these decades. several unusually hard winters in the 1880s decimated animal stocks and after a number of crop failures due to drought and a locust plague originating in afghanistan, 1884 was the single year of relief with a good harvest. the year 1885 and the beginning of 1886 saw another heavy winter, which took its toll on livestock; the following summer was also too cold and wet. the years 1889 and 1893 were very dry; drought in combination with an over-cultivation of cotton and grain led to famine in some areas in 1893 (anonymous 1893). on may 10, 1903, torrential downpours caused large-scale destruction of houses and infrastructure in the town of kūlāb and resulted in the death of six people and numerous livestock (yusupov 1964, 95). between the late 1890s and early 1910s, a locust plague of an enormous scale afflicted peasants in kūlāb and neighbouring provinces. rozhevic (1908, 624) reported in 1906 that the region around kūlāb had suffered from locusts for eight successive years. around the same time, a silkworm disease in kūlāb had seriously affected silk production—one of its main domestic industries (yusupov 1964, 52). the locusts spread without obstruction through the lowlands, ate all the wheat and spared only the flax and rice as it was protected by the water in the paddies (varygin 1916, 760). some areas like hisār and kūlāb were not able to harvest wheat for dozens of years (semënov 1988, 33; varygin 1916, 795); baljuvān had to import rice to make up for the loss of other cereals (varygin 1916, 760). all these factors contributed to an increased vulnerability of the rural population that largely relied on subsistence agriculture. the prevailing system of taxes and revenues was flexible enough in theory to accommodate adaptation to economic crises; a rigidly stratified but paternalistic state could (and indeed did) sometimes intervene in food markets to protect its subjects or at least show lenience when the population struggled to pay their dues.[11] alexander morrison (2008, 179) mentions a petition sent in 1900 by 160 villagers out of gratitude for their local elder, who had taken out a loan in order to see them through a critical period caused by a late rice harvest. two documents published by mukhsinova (1959, 96–98) attest to the intercession of the local judge in the town of denau in 1886 through 1887 on behalf of villagers and townspeople who had protested against unfair tax assessment and fraudulent tax collectors.[12] it seems, however, that at the turn of the twentieth century, local and higher-ranking authorities misjudged the situation in many cases and ran afoul of popular conceptions concerning rights to subsistence and a morally grounded social justice. high taxes in combination with bad harvests and natural disasters quickly threatened the subsistence of the peasants and pastoralists, as most of them had no savings. popular discontentment with deteriorating living conditions took different forms, from evasive practices to open rebellion. usually the visible, violent acts of rebellion are most prominent in history writing as well as in popular memory (madzhlisov 1959, 98–109; mukhtarov 1988a, 27–29, 1988b, 36–41; semënov 1988, 33).[13] much more frequent than demonstrative acts of resistance, however, was avoidance protest, also called the daily routine resistance (scott 1990, 255). besides foot-dragging and the withholding or hiding of harvest and livestock from tax collectors, emigration was a fairly common form of avoidance protest. crop failure and the loss of animal stocks were often not reflected in the rate of taxes, which remained unchanged or even rose. there was, for instance, an annual surcharge called tūl on top of the usual tax on livestock, which was meant to reflect the normal herd increase through lambing (holzwarth 2011, 248, note 142). yet livestock was not necessarily counted each year, which led to heavy distortions of the tax burden. a russian observer noted that a man who had been left with only forty sheep in 1883 due to heavy loss in livestock was still registered and taxed as the owner of 160 sheep (holzwarth 2011, 242, note 110). while pleas for reassessment could be filed, they were not always well received (ibid., 241). if petitioning failed, one strategy that afflicted people resorted to was tax evasive emigration. around 1886, raḥmān-qul, governor of qarātegīn and supervisor of the zakāt collection in east bukhara, reported that many families from kūlāb and baljuvān who had lost animals during the winter, and were overburdened with taxes, had fled across the amu river into afghanistan to evade the bukharan tax collectors.[14] an anonymous plea for reassessment from around that time claimed that while herds had not been counted in about ten years, taxes had risen annually, causing those who had lost their herds to cross the amu river for tax evasion reasons.[15] similarly, motivated outmigration is documented in the wakhān region of the bukharan emirate and afghan badakhshan during the nineteenth century (kreutzmann 1996, 79–118 and 2015, 220–262; see also becker 1968, 215–218). kreutzmann (2015, 248, 250, 252, 254, 256, 260, 262) shows seventy-seven cases of documented pamirian evasions and migrations between 1888 and 1915. roughly half of these named “oppression,” “dissatisfaction,” or tax-related reasons as a catalyst. a further eighteen cases were related to voluntary or forced return, and six additional cases concerned released slaves or otherwise formerly captured individuals.the 1880s and 1890s saw a massive influx of refugees from afghan territories to kūlāb. by mid-1886, nearly seven hundred families were reported to have left badakhshan for kūlāb and another two hundred for yarkand (in east turkestan) or hunza. the report goes on to say that the governors of the latter two places had refused to return the refugees by force, but instead had furnished them with seed grain and houses upon arrival. sardār abdullā jān, then governor of afghan badakhshān and khānabā, accused the bukharan government of luring his subjects away. a report from 1886 states “bokhara officials instigate the people of badakhshan to migrate to bokhara territory.” sardār abdullā jān thus issued strict orders that neither his nor bukharan subordinates were allowed to cross to the other side. (kreutzmann 2015, 220–221). in 1897, more than seven hundred families left south darvāz (on the afghan side) to seek their fortune in north darvāz, kūlāb, and qarātegīn after their home territories had been allotted to the afghan emir in the anglo-russian pamir border agreement of 1895. by july 1898, the number had risen to 1,164 families. in 1897, afghan authorities threatened to expel the remaining relatives of the fugitives if they did not return. this resulted in 103 expatriate individuals finding themselves trapped on an island in the middle of the river because the bukharan authorities refused them entry. only after the russian post at khorog interceded were the expatriates allowed entry into shughnān (becker 1968, 158). in the aftermath, one part of their former pastures in south darvāz was used as state pasture and another part was taken over by arab livestock keepers who had left bukhara around 1870 (kreutzmann 2015, 252, note 20; see also barfield 1981, 24). motivated by this significant emigration, the afghan amir abdur raḥmān khan proclaimed a three-year pause in tax collection in badakhshan, to be followed by moderate taxes in accordance with islamic law. within a month of the announcement, nine thousand people opted to return to afghanistan, setting off a bureaucratic tug-of-war between the local administrations on both sides about the people’s right to choose where they settle. behind this controversy was the deterioration of tax conditions for the local population on the bukharan side. after the russian authorities had taken a full census in wakhan, shughnan, and roshan, bukharan tax collectors started to take the tithe from august 1900 onwards. on top of the taxes, the russian military personnel garrisoned in this geostrategic sensitive area apparently requisitioned livestock and other supplies from the population at nominal prices, thus adding to discontentment. however, the afghan promise of tax exemption was not kept. by october 1900, afghan tax officials were collecting tithes on livestock in wakhan (kreutzmann 2015, 255). in relation to local population numbers, this trans-river migration was a large-scale phenomenon that was only possible thanks to the availability of sufficient plots of uncultivated land on both sides, as mann et al. note (2012, 19). the emigration from bukharan dominions peaked in the years 1902 to 1904, leaving many villages on this side of the panj-amu river deserted (yusupov 1964, 84). often, temporary migrations were spurred by a combination of natural and administrative nuisances. from the perspective of the central government, kūlāb was located in a marginal geographical space, but local people were able to turn this marginality into an asset. after taking refuge on the other side, they bartered with their former authorities about the conditions of their return. the riparian zones in east bukhara were especially an area of intensive bidirectional movement of people, animals, and goods. there were several river crossings along the panj-amu river in that region, the most important ones being beshkapa, chubek, parhār, bakha, and bohorak (varygin 1916, 753).[16] passage was not easy, however, and the riparian zones were prone to flooding in the summer when the snow in the mountains at high altitudes began to melt, making the passage between the boroughs of chubek and parhār impossible.[17] nevertheless, people managed to get to the other side. chubek served as nodal point for migration with either large numbers of immigrants from afghanistan or emigration resulting in deserted villages on the bukharan side, depending on the political situation. a newspaper article from 1904 described the situation as follows: whenever there come hard times of unrest in afghanistan or there happens to be a particularly hard-hearted ruler, masses of people flee across the amu darya and flood chubek; if on the opposite, in bukhara the ruler of the bekdom of kūlāb turns out to be particularly demanding and acquisitive, the inhabitants of chubek are the first to flee to badakhshān and the village will be deserted (s.a. 1904). people migrated with most or all of their belongings. on february 23, 1898, the chief customs officer of the turkestan district noted that during the night between january 26 and 27, thirty men, thirty-three women, and twenty-seven children had crossed the river panj into the bukharan emirate at parhār, together with their domestic belongings, sixty horses, and one hundred horned cattle.[18] although the dispersal of people, livestock, and mobile goods for tax evasion was in no way restricted to border regions proper, it was here that prospects for positive outcomes for dissatisfied peasants and livestock breeders were the most promising. this was first and foremost due to both governments’ fear of empty, uninhabited border zones. consequently, there are examples where local authorities intervened in favour of the angered rural population and thus prevented further unrest. between 1886 and 1888, when peasants in the town of denau gathered to protest against certain tax collectors who demanded excessive extra taxes, the local ruler (hākim) almas-bii stepped in and asked the central government to relieve the population of unjust taxes.[19] the issue was apparently settled without much further ado.[20] holzwarth (2011, 249–250) convincingly argues that the reassessment of tax burdens and interventions on behalf of the population were motivated less by benevolence on the part of local authorities, and more by an instinct for power. in a political environment where military power could partly be secured through militias consisting of local nobilities and tribal units, good relations as established through concessions in tax affairs could be a decisive asset in the hands of local power holders. population policy in the border region generally speaking, population numbers were comparatively low in the border region: records from the years 1914 to 1916 speak of 635 settlements in kūlāb, compared to 1,420 further to the north in neighbouring baljuvān (mukhamedjanov 2001, 5). in order to attract new inhabitants to the border zones, newcomers from afghan badakhshan were granted much more favourable terms of taxation than the autochthonous population of the region; sometimes they paid just a quarter of the dues normally levied per farm (varygin 1916, 792–793). rozhevic noted that some villages close to kūlāb consisted almost exclusively of afghans who had left their country (rozhevic 1908, 619), very probably to escape unfavourable tax terms there. by the early twentieth century, a substantial group (at least 269 villages) of immigrants from afghan badakhshān, qataghān-uzbeks from the area of qunduz, and refugees from kabul (who apparently commuted between kabul and kūlāb) and hazara settled on the south-eastern stretch of the kūlāb principality (varygin 1916, 769–770). they were seemingly granted their own kind of local governance as they could choose their elders (called shāh) from among themselves to decide local issues. kavolo, the name of a quarter on the eastern outskirts of the town of kūlāb, also hinted at the predominance of immigrants from afghanistan. the name kavolo (or kavol) was the denomination of a group of afghan gypsies (lūlī) who conducted trade between kūlāb, samarkand, bukhara, and afghanistan (kolpakov 1954, 75) and had a rather recent immigration history dating to the late nineteenth century as remembered by themselves and their neighbours (oranskii 1983, 23–24). russian observers and the non-kavol local population also referred to them as afghan or indian lūlī. numbering around four hundred individuals, they were strictly set apart from other gypsy immigrants in the same quarter. called marvon (from marv, today mary in turkmenistan), they came from russian turkestan. if—given the numbers above—between 269 and 299 of the 635 settlements in kūlāb had afghan immigrant populations, they would have comprised more than one-third to almost half of all settlements in this province. as depopulated border zones meant a risk for the bukharan government, it repeatedly tried to persuade the refugees to return. yusupov mentions a competition between local governors of the bukharan and the afghan side during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to attract the disgruntled population to their respective territory by promising various privileges—the promises were, however, seldom kept (yusupov 1964, 15; see also kreutzmann 2015, 255). inhabitants of chubek (today moskovskii), a large village on the bukharan side of the amu river, for instance, occasionally migrated to afghan badakhshān, while population figures in kūlāb rose thanks to immigration from russian turkestan and afghanistan (ibid., 16). the ruler of kūlāb, raḥmatullā-bii, for instance, offered inhabitants from the afghan border region who were willing to migrate to the east bukharan side a “place granted by his majesty [i.e. the amir of bukhara], [. . .] land and water.”[21] at least occasionally, formal negotiations and agreements preceded migration. in a document from the qushbegi of the bukharan emirate written in 1898, a certain muḥammad mingbāshi is mentioned, who had asked the bek of kūlāb for permission to immigrate from afghanistan with his people. upon receiving a positive answer, muḥammad mingbāshi crossed the river at parhār with thirty families and settled in the nearby village of shūrtūpa.[22] the fear of permanently losing control over some sparsely populated areas was well founded, as can be seen in a case concerning the island of darkāt. situated amidst a branching of the panj river, the headwater regions of the amu river had been mainly used as pasture by herders from both sides. an undated petition from eastern bukhara complained that individuals from the afghan badakhshān and qataghān provinces had approached the governor of the bukharan province (vilāyat) of kūlāb and demanded that the island be handed over to the afghan state (ba hukūmat-i afghānistān) or it would be taken by military force.[23] the intrusion was eventually successful—the contested island was allotted to afghanistan during the colonial border negotiations and today belongs to afghanistan’s takhār province. besides security concerns for possible outside intrusions into unpopulated areas, fallow lands and neglected irrigation systems were prone to devaluation. untilled fields meant tax loss, but more worrisome were the efforts in terms of work and financial means required to put these lands back into agricultural use. fallow lands whose farmers had fled in the wake of the bolshevik takeover and the ensuing civil war continually troubled the authorities. the fertile riparian cropland was quickly reclaimed by alluvial forest (tūqay) and reed. untilled and unirrigated fields were furthermore an ideal hatchery for locusts, as described above. in continuation of the established practice, a decree was issued by fayzulla khojaev[24] and two other authorities as late as 1925, granting a right to return, restitution of all former lands, a hassle-free life, financial aid to re-cultivate the land, a one-year tax exemption, and other amenities.[25] however, the question of repatriation of peasants who had migrated to afghanistan either before the revolution or in anticipation of the coming soviet rule continued to be discussed in local newspapers throughout the mid-1920s.[26] especially in the border regions of kūlāb and qurghān-tepa, which greatly suffered from the civil war, this emigration continued into the early 1930s (penati 2007, 527–528, 530). the appeals to return, however, seem to have been at least partly successful. the writer and journalist egon erwin kisch, a member and long-time emissary of the communist international, wrote in a report on his visit to the region that the majority of five hundred families from the small ārāl island in the amu river who had fled to afghanistan in 1925 had returned by 1926, attracted by the promise of credit, water allocation, tools, and construction material. they had even brought some afghans along with them (kisch 1946, 57). penati (2007, 530) writes that returnees (ten thousand families in 1925) were not always well received, and were regarded with some suspicion. they were provided with seeds and food, but only half of them received agricultural tools. administrative plans to invite immigrants in order to secure their settlement in the border areas did not always yield the intended results. to achieve better control over borders and migration, kyrgyz tribes were settled at the riverside in 1895 as frontier guards. besides the kyrgyz, 410 families from the afghan part of darvāz were lured into the bukharan border region with the consent of the bek of darvāz and settled there in september 1897. only fifty of the very poorest and landless peasants stayed in the immediate border region, however, while the rest moved on to the lowland swaths of kūlāb. in november, some three hundred families came over from afghanistan but only one hundred of them stayed in bukharan darvāz; the others continued to kūlāb and qarātegīn (yusupov 1964, 16).[27] in spite of all efforts to claim territory by settling peasants and installing border guards, the border remained easily traversable—and people continued to migrate in both directions—until it was sealed following the establishment of soviet power in the area. populations on both sides of the river had lived under and arranged themselves with a “mediated state” which was characterised by a system where local authorities were largely left alone as long as they extracted and remitted taxes, provided military personnel, and did not challenge higher-ranking officials or the ruling elite.[28] the central state had very little means to exert direct power over much of its hinterland. in spite of all the efforts to keep the riparian zones populated, it does not seem that authorities ever seriously attempted to inhibit the flow of people and goods over the panj-amu river; and it is questionable whether they would have been able to do so, had they tried. in border regions like kūlāb, the trans-river orientation created a space of continuously shared culture and economy even under different political regimes. this simultaneous presence of a shared space and separate political entities was the main lever that rendered trans-river avoidance migration more effective than elsewhere. while the migrants had access to and shared family or ethnic bonds with the host communities on the other river side, their refuge was also politically a safe place to make decisions about their future return or integration. only the consolidation of soviet rule and its administrative and military capacity to effectively control the border finally turned kūlāb from a regional centre into a peripheral border region. conclusion the continuous trans-river migration of apparently even larger family units with their flocks and bulk luggage points to the existence of established networks to facilitate journeys and lodging upon arrival. evading excessive taxes and negotiating arrangements for their return were to some degree effective measures in the hands of the poorer population to pressure authorities for better conditions. this implied the involvement of mediators such as community elders, local authorities, recognised prominent individuals, and others, who negotiated on behalf of the different stakeholders (see holzwarth 2011). migration as a recurrent resort was only possible because there was enough unclaimed land available on both sides of the river. this prevented competition or fighting over scarce resources for much of the nineteenth century. the trans-river, trans-border aspect of evasive migration in the panj-amu river riparian region proved to be an additional asset to the migrants. with colonial powers successively encroaching upon spaces like kūlāb, indigenous rulers were likewise pushed to demonstrate their claim to certain territories by stabilising the border and the border population. they were thus more inclined to respond to evasive practices of discontented populations in border regions than in other parts. tax evasive migration in interior parts of the emirate seem by contrast to have provoked little in terms of negotiations for better tax and living terms. sadriddin aini, an eminent writer who was born in 1878 in a village some dozen kilometres away from the city of bukhara, recalled in his commemorations how his rural fellow villagers dispersed into far-off areas to evade ever-increasing tax demands, with some even ending as vagrants in russian turkestan for want of other opportunities (aini 1998, 182–183). burhan sharaf, a tatar newspaper editor travelling to bukhara in 1910, likewise noted deserted lands—predominantly state lands—which tenants had left in the face of excessive tax demands (sharaf 2014, 15). contrary to the situation in the riparian zones, these developments in the heartland of the emirate do not seem to have provoked much official response. migration as evasive practice came with its own risks. abandoned fields and irrigation systems quickly deteriorated and demanded labour-intensive efforts for revaluation. fallow grounds furthermore provided ideal breeding conditions for locusts. the first to suffer from the frequent locust outbreaks during the late nineteenth and into the early twentieth century were again the farmers and pastoralists. concerns that the locusts might travel further into russian lands even reached the russian and later soviet authorities, who usually showed little interest in the internal affairs of the emirate. agreements for tax alleviation were more often than not disregarded after the return of the migrants, which led to a trans-river circle of emigration and repatriation. authorities could furthermore pit different groups of migrating populations against one another by granting alleviation selectively. they could also refuse re-migration if they chose to keep certain populations away. similarly, barring return could be used as a measure of collective punishment (kreutzmann 1996). evasive protest was thus not a weapon exclusively in the hands of the weak, as scott had already noted, but could also be turned against them (scott 1990). this weapon of the weak also increasingly collided with changing concepts and ideas of nation, state sovereignty, and border regimes. the nineteenth and early twentieth-century european conceptions of states and of large rivers as quasi-natural borders, which the british and the russian empires imposed on that region, did not leave any leeway for mobile populations and fluctuating borders. the spread of similar, multi-ethnic riparian populations within a region whose layout facilitated movements gradually came to be seen as an obstacle to nascent nation-building projects. colonial interventions into trade, the installation of new customs and border posts, and trade sanctions cut right through the region’s main network arteries and advanced the gradual political and economic marginalisation of the riparian region from the 1880s onwards. the enforcement of the border regime, however, would eventually demand considerable dedication in terms of finance, manpower, military equipment, and law enforcement from the soviet side. archival material csaruz 1–126, op. 1, d. 101, central state archive of the republic of uzbekistan, tashkent. csaruz 1–126, op. 1, d. 223, central state archive of the republic of uzbekistan, tashkent. csaruz 1–126, op. 1, d. 764, central state archive of the republic of uzbekistan, tashkent. csaruz 1–126, op. 1, d. 985, central state archive of the republic of uzbekistan, tashkent. csaruz 1–126, op. 1, d. 1010, central state archive of the republic of uzbekistan, tashkent. csaruz 1–126, op. 1, d. 1271, central state archive of the republic of uzbekistan, tashkent. csaruz f. 1, op. 29, d. 1104, central state archive of the republic of uzbekistan, tashkent. csaruz f. 1, op. 29, d. 1259, central state archive of the republic of uzbekistan, tashkent. illustrations map 1: map of the amu-panj river region source: “u.s.s.r. central asia,” east pergamon world atlas (poland: pergamon press, ltd., 1967). retrieved from the david rumsey map collection, © 2000 by cartography associates. https://www.davidrumsey.com. [accessed on 20. september 2017]. modified by c. roden, editorial office, transcultural studies. references adas, michael. 1986. “from footdragging to flight: the evasive history of peasant avoidance protest in south and south-east asia.” the journal of peasant studies 13, no. 2: 64–86. aini, sadriddin. 1998. the sands of oxus: boyhood reminiscences of sadriddin aini. edited by john perry and rachel lehr. costa mesa: mazda publishers. anonymous. 1893. “latest: famine in central asia.” boston evening, december 23. ———. 1925. “buxoro, turkiston ham xorazmdan afg‘onistonga ketgan mehnatkash dehqonlar to‘g‘risida qaror.” qizil o‘zbekiston, march 9. ———. 1926. “afg‘onistonga ko‘chib ketgan dehqonlarning o‘z ellariga qaytishlari to‘g‘risida.” qizil o‘zbekiston, december 1. asrorī, v[ohid], r[ajab] amonov. 1980. ejodiyoti dahanakii khalqi tojik. dushanbe: maorif. barfield, thomas. 1981. the central asian arabs of afghanistan: pastoral nomadism in transition. austin: university of texas press. bartold‘, vasilii v. 2002. raboty po istoricheskoi geografii. moscow: vostočnaia literatura. bashir, z. 1925. “chet ellarga sargardon bo‘lib yurgan dehqonlarga (xalq komissarlar sho‘rosining yangidan chiqorg‘on qaroridan).” qizil o‘zbekiston, october 23. becker, seymour. 1968. russia’s protectorates in central asia: bukhara and khiva, 1865–1924. cambridge ma: harvard university press. berg, l.s. 1955. “ledniki turkestanskogo xrebta.” in po ozeram sibiri i srednei azii. puteshestviia l.s. berga (1898–1906 gg.) i p.g. ignatova (1898–1902 gg.), edited by r.l. berg, 262–279. moscow: gos. izd. geograficheskoi literatury. berkemer, georg, and margret frenz. 2003. sharing sovereignty: the little kingdom in south asia. berlin: klaus schwarz verlag. borjian, habib. 2005. “kulāb.” in encyclopaedia iranica. http://www iranicaonline.org/articles/kulab. chen, fa-hu, xiaozhong huang, jiawu zhang, j.a. holmes, and jian-hu chen. 2006. “humid little ice age in arid central asia documented by bosten lake, xinjiang, china.” science in china series d: earth sciences 49, no. 12: 1280–1290. chen, fa-hu, jian-hu chen, j. holmes, i. boomer, p. austin, j.b. gates, n.l. wang, s.j. brooks, and j-w zhang. 2010. “the medieval warm period and little ice age in arid central asia.” quarternary science reviews 29: 1055–1068. chiyuki narama, kicengge, jumpei kubota, vladimir i. shatravin, murataly duishonakunov, geir moholdt, and kanatbek abdrakhmatov. 2010 “the lake level changes in central asia during the last 1000 years based on historical maps.” in proceedings of international workshop on “reconceptualizing cultural and environmental change in central asia: an historical perspective on the future,” edited by watanabe, m. and kubota, j., 11-27. http:// www.chikyu.ac.jp/ilipro/page/18-publication/workshop-book workshopbook_individual%20files/1-2_narama.pdf. [accessed on 7. september, 2017]. davis, mike. 2000. late victorian holocausts: el niño famines and the making of the third world. london and new york: verso. esper, jan, fritz h. schweingruber, and matthias winiger. 2002. “1300 years of climatic history for western central asia inferred from tree rings.” the holocene 12 (3): 267–277. evans, john l. 1984. mission of n.p. ignat’ev to khiva and bukhara, 1858. newtonville: oriental research partners. ghoibov, gholib. 2006. ta’rikhi khatlon. dushanbe: akademy of sciences of the republic of tajikistan. holzwarth, wolfgang. 1986. “sozialgeschichte badakhshans seit 1880.” phd diss., freie universität berlin. ———. 2010. “hujjathoi boygonii amorati bukhoro oid ba holati chorvodorī dar khatlonzamin.” in konferenciya baynalmilalii ilmī-amalī zeri unvoni “mas’alahoi sohai chorvadorī dar jumhurii tojikistondar misoli viloyati khatlon: ta’rikh va muoshirat,” 25–32. danghara: tajik agrarian university. ———. 2011. “community elders and state agents: īlbēgīs in the emirate of bukhara around 1900.” eurasian studies ix (1–2): 213–262. iskandarov, bokhodur i. 1962. vostochnaia bukhara i pamir vo vtoroi polovine xix v. first part. dushanbe: tipografiia izd. an tadzhikskoi ssr. ———. 1963. vostochnaia bukhara i pamir vo vtoroi polovine xix v. second part. dushanbe: izd. an tadzhikskoi ssr. johnston, charles. 1892. “darwaz and karategin: an ethnographical sketch.” the asiatic quarterly review, new series, vol. iii. khamraev, m. 1959. ocherki istorii khissarskogo bekstva konca xix i nachala xxvv. stalinabad: izd. akad. nauk tadzhssr. kisch, egon erwin. 1946. asien gründlich verändert. wien: globus. kreutzmann, hermann. 1996. ethnizität im entwicklungsprozess: die wakhi in hochasien. berlin: reimer. ———. 2015. pamirian crossroads: kirghiz and wakhi of high asia. wiesbaden: harrasowitz. kolpakov, a.p. 1954. “nekotorye svedeniia o kvartalakh dorevoliucionnogo g. kuliaba.” izvestiia otd. obshch. nauk an tadzhikskoi ssr 5: 73–82. madzhlisov, a. 1959. karategin nakanune ustanovleniia sovetskoi vlasti. stalinabad: tad. gos. izd. mann, michael and hans werner tobler, eds. 2012. bauernwiderstand: asien und lateinamerika in der neuzeit. vienna: mandelbaum. manz, beatrice f., ed. 1994. “historical background.” in central asia in historical perspective, 4–22. lahore: vanguard books,. marsden, magnus, and benjamin d. hopkins. 2011. fragments of the afghan frontier. london: hurst. ma‘sumī, n. 1988. “shūrishi vose‘ va surudhoi ta‘rikhī.” in iz istorii narodnykh dvizheniĭ v sredneĭ azii, edited by akhror mukhtarov dushanbe: donish, 67–83. morillo, stephen. 2008. “autonomy and subordination: the cultural dynamics of small cities.” in secondary cities and urban networking in the indian ocean realm c. 1400–1800, edited by kenneth r. hall, 17–37. lanham et al.: lexington. morrison, alexander s. 2008. russian rule in samarkand: 1868–1910. a comparison with british india. oxford: oxford university press. mukhamedjanov, a.r., ed. 2001. naselennye punkty bukharskogo emirata. tashkent: universitet. mukhsinova, k.z. 1959. “k istorii vystuplenii buxarskix krest‘ian protiv nalogogo gneta v konce xix veka.” problemy vostokovedenija 1: 94–99. mukhtarov, akhror m. 1988a. “rasskaz uchastnika vosstaniia vose sabirova davlata (zapis’ 1961 g.)” in iz istorii narodnykh dvizhenii v srednei azii, edited by akhror mukhtarov, 26–31. dushanbe: donish. ———. 1988b. “vosstanie krest‘ian bal‘dzhuvanskogo bekstva v 1916 g.” iz istorii narodnykh dvizhenii v srednei azii, edited by akhror mukhtarov, 35–42. dushanbe: donish. olufsen, o. 1911. the emir of bokhara and his country: journeys and studies in bokhara. london: heinemann. oranskii, iosif m. 1983. tadzhikoiazychnye etnograficheskie gruppy gissarskoi doliny. moscow: nauka. penati, beatrice. 2007. “the reconquest of east bukhara: the struggle against the basmachi as a prelude to sovietization.” central asian survey 26 (4), 521–538. pirumshoev, haydarsho. 2008. ta’rikhi darvoz (az qadim to zamoni muosir). dushanbe: irfon. qushmatov, abduvalī. 1996. dehqononi tojik dar okhiri asri xix va ibtidoi asri xx. dushanbe: irfon. rozhevic, r.yu. 1908. “poezdka v iuzhnuiu i sredniuiu bukharu v 1906 g.” izvestiia russkogo geograficheskogo obshchestva 44/9: 593–656. s.a. 1904. “poezdka v gornuiu bukharu.” turkestanskie vedomosti, no. 134, september 21. scott, james. 1976. the moral economy of the peasant. rebellion and subsistence in southeast asia. new haven: yale university press. ———. 1986. “everyday forms of peasant resistance.” the journal of peasant studies 13 (2): 5–35. ———. 1990. weapons of the weak. everyday forms of peasant resistance. delhi: oxford university press [1985 new haven: yale university]. ———. 2009. the art of not being governed: an anarchist history of upland southeast asia. new haven: yale university press. semënov, a.a. 1988. “vosstaniia protiv pravitel’stva v xix–nachala xx vv.” in iz istorii narodnykh dvizhenii v srednei azii, edited by akhror mukhtarov: 32–34. dushanbe: donish. serels, steven. 2013. starvation and the state. famine, slavery, and power in sudan, 1883–1956. new york: palgrave macmillan. sharaf, burhon. 2014. bukhoro maktublari, edited by g’afur umurzoqov. tashkent: turon zamin ziyo. shermuhammadov, b. 1988. “nazare ba ta‘rikhi girdovarī, nashr va tadqiqi ‘surudhoi shūrishi vose‘.” in iz istorii narodnykh dvizheniĭ v sredneĭ azii, edited by a. mukhtarov, 96–106. dushanbe: donish. varygin, m.a. 1916. “opyt opisaniia kuliabskogo bekstva.” izvestiia russkogo geograficheskogo obshchestva 52 (10): 737–803. wilde, andreas. 2013. “creating the façade of a despotic state: on āqsaqāl in late 19th-century bukhara.” in explorations in the social history of modern central asia (19th–early 20th century), edited by paolo sartori: 267–298. leiden: brill. ———. 2016. what is beyond the river? power, authority, and social order in transoxania 18th–19th centuries. wien: vöaw. yusupov, sharqi. 1964. ocherki istorii kuliabskogo bekstva v konce xix i nachale xx veka. dushanbe: tipografiia izd. an tad. ssr. [1] these are mainly petitions and similar documentation of communication between different levels of authority among bukharan officials. [2] ruins remain close to the modern uzbek settlement of gugurtli on the banks of the amu river. [3] the question of a consistent transcription remained a challenge in this article. i use the scientific transliteration for all names that are mentioned in original sources. if an established english variant exists, it is used. names that come from secondary literature are also reproduced in this simplified version, since not all of them could be traced back to an original spelling. [4] a tūmān was usually a spatial entity administratively organised around the major irrigation canals and fortified settlements (qal‘a) (wilde 2013, 279, note 46). [5] in russian sources, the term is ubiquitous, see for the context of this article e.g. khamraev 1959; yusupov 1964. qushmatov (1996), ghoibov (2006), pirumshoev (2008) and holzwarth (2010, 28) use its tajik equivalents. [6] the term “little kingdom” was introduced by berkemer and frenz (2003) to designate semi-autonomous domains of local rulers. [7] this name occurs several times in central asia. this place is not to be confused with khānābād in northern tajikistan (sughd province) or towns of the same name in the uzbek ferghana valley and the qashqadaryo province in southern uzbekistan. [8] obi khingau, also called khingov or khingob, is one of the main tributaries of the vakhsh river in the tavildara district. the area has long been important for its alpine pastures. [9] the sources present different names for the rulers in kūlāb after the 1870 conquest. the newspaper turkestanskie vedomosti (n° 15 1876) stated that all of the highest officials in eastern bukhara had been replaced by bukharan confidants of the emir. najm ud-dīn khwāja thus became bek of kūlāb, the chief conqueror of the hisār-kūlāb region, and yaqūb qush-begi was appointed ruler of hisār (iskandarov 2012, 133). varygin (1916, 743), however, says that the first post-conquest bek of kūlāb was sadyq khwāja, followed by abdur raḥmān sudur. borjian (2013) claims that khudāy-nazar ataliq was the chief conqueror and first appointed bek of kūlāb. [10] both authors refer to document csaruz 1–126, op. 1, d. 541, fol. 38 which was, unfortunately, not accessible to me. [11] this can be gleaned from, among others, a series of petitions and edicts from 1914 concerning food shortages and food speculation in the chārjūy district, see csaruz 1–126, op. 1, d. 1010. [12] the article refers to csaruz 1–126, op. 1, d.101, fols. 1 and 2. [13] especially the large so-called uprising of vāse‘ in baljuvān and kūlāb (around 1887/1888) inspired a series of heroic poetry and lamentation songs. see ma‘sumī 1988; b. shermuhammadov 1988; and asrorī and amonov 1980, 110–120. [14] see holzwarth 2011, 248. he refers to csaruz 1–126, op. 1, d. 1271, fol. 42. [15] see holzwarth, ibid. he refers to csaruz 1–126, op. 1, d. 764, fol. 2. [16] customs control points were installed at chubek and bohorak as well, see yusupov 1964, 80. [17] csaruz 1–126, op. 1, d. 985. [18] yusupov 1964, 16. [19] injustice is a recurrent theme in the petitions. if we are to trust these sources, the rural population was not averse to paying taxes but objected to those they perceived as not being in line with “traditional proceedings.” there is a strong “moral economy” argumentation in many petitions concerned with this issue. [20] almas-bii was appointed hākim of denau on september 30, 1886 and quit this office on august 9, 1888. the incident must have taken place within this period. see mukhsinova 1959 for a description and a facsimile of the documents. [21] csaruz f. 1, op. 29, d. 1104, fol. 1. [22] csaruz f. 1, op. 29, d. 1259, fol. 54. mingbāshi is the title of a local leader, literally head of one thousand [persons]. [23] csaruz 1–126, op. 1, d. 223. [24] born in bukhara in 1896, he was one of the leading figures of the central asian reform movement. between 1920 and 1937, he held several high posts in the bukharan peoples’ republic and after the integration of its territory into the sssr he held a chair in the uzbek sovnarkom (council of the people‘s commissars). during the stalin purges, he was dismissed from duty in june 1937 and executed as an enemy of the people and counterrevolutionary in 1938 after the great purge trial in moscow. [25] see anonymous 1925 and bashir z. 1925 in the newspaper qizil o‘zbekiston, march 9 and october 23 respectively. cf. also penati 2007, 525 on this issue. [26] cf. anonymous, qizil o‘zbekiston, mar. 9, 1925, bashir, z., qizil o‘zbekiston, oct. 23, 1925, anonymous, qizil o‘zbekiston, dec, 1, 1926. most contributions to these newspapers were written under pseudonyms or anonymously. [27] csaruz f. 1, op. 29, d. 1259, fols. 28 and 34. [28] the term “mediated state” follows wilde (2016, 35). fessler_design_3_12_2016.indd anesaki masaharu’s reception of leo tolstoy and his failed attempt at finding the faith susanna fessler, university at albany most of the british and american newspapers have reprinted tolstoy’s passionate, prophetic, and masterful essay. how odd, then, that although the osaka asahi and heimin shinbun have translated it, japanese critics are largely not noting this great commentary. anesaki masaharu1 the russo–japanese war lasted a relatively short nineteen months, from february 1904 to september 1905. on june 27, 1904, the times of london published an essay by leo tolstoy (1828–1910) titled “count tolstoy on the war: ‘bethink yourselves.’” this was an english translation from russian of an essay of tolstoy’s banned by the russian authorities. it was quickly reprinted in other media, including the washington post and the new york times. in boston, the american peace society reprinted the essay the same year with additional text in bound book form.2 other publishers followed suit, resulting in multiple versions in subsequent years. in short, the essay was widely disseminated and widely read. yet, as anesaki masaharu 姉崎正治 (1873–1949) noted in his essay “torusutoi no daikeikoku” トルストイの大警告 (tolstoy’s great warning), the japanese media paid it little mind. anesaki could have gone further in his statement, because although many western newspapers made note of tolstoy’s essay, they did so in a perfunctory way at best. at worst, they criticized tolstoy for being unreasonable and idealistic. but for anesaki, tolstoy’s essay was a clarion call to mankind to change its ways fundamentally. he recognized in bethink yourselves a sentiment that no other intellectual seemed to notice. in a wartime and political context that forbade direct criticism of the japanese war aims, anesaki used tolstoy’s essay both to promote 1 anesaki masaharu 姉崎正治, “torusutoi to eibei no aidokusha” トルストイと英米の愛 読者 [tolstoy and his british and american readership], in kokuun to shinkō 国運と信仰 [national fate and faith] (tokyo: kōdōkan, 1906), 64. unless otherwise noted, all translations from the japanese are my own. 2 leo tolstoy, “bethink yourselves.” tolstoy’s letter on the russo–japanese war, trans. v. g. chertkov and isabella fyvie mayo (boston: american peace society, 1904). 73the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 his own vision of individual spirituality and to make a public statement against the war. in order to understand anesaki’s response, let us first consider the profile of religion in japan and russia at the turn of the century—in other words, the social contexts in which anesaki and tolstoy operated. then we will return in greater detail to the substance of what each author wrote, and the responses of the japanese and western press. finally, we will explore how anesaki saw in the war an opportunity to criticize the japanese government and advocate for an increased religious awareness worldwide. anesaki and tolstoy in context anesaki was a young professor at tokyo imperial university and actively published in the popular press in addition to scholarly venues. by 1904, he had published seven books and compiled the chogyū zenshū 樗牛全集, a compendium of works by the scholar takayama chogyū 高山樗牛 (1871–1902). he also published over one hundred articles in periodicals such as tetsugaku zasshi 哲学雑誌 (journal of philosophy), published by the society of philosophy at the university of tokyo, and the general magazines kokumin no tomo 国民の友 (nation’s friend), and taiyō 太陽 (the sun), as well as rikugō zasshi 六合雑誌 (journal of the cosmos), published by the first young men’s christian association in tokyo. he had studied abroad in europe for over a year (1901–1902), and actively promoted the new academic discipline of religious studies. he was passionate and vocal about the importance of spirituality in the modern world. in the few years leading up to the russo–japanese war, he had been advocating an approach to religion that focused on spirituality, rather than politics. in 1904, he published a collection of essays titled fukkatsu no shokō 復活の曙光 (dawn of resurrection), which has been characterized as “one of the representative works of the new romanticism in japan, one that included essays with a global focus on the themes of religion, ethics, spirituality, the arts, science, and man’s life.”3 in less than a year, fukkatsu no shokō was already in its fifth printing. the scholar of religious studies hiyane antei 比屋根安定 (1892–1970) commented that “of all anesaki’s many textual spiritual forays, [fukkatsu no shokō] must be commemorated as the one that most exalted spirituality.”4 certainly, anesaki was not the only advocate for framing religion in spiritual and not political terms, but he was one of the most prominent at the time. so when anesaki read tolstoy’s essay and saw parallels with his 3 isomae jun’ichi 磯前順一, kindai nihon ni okeru chishikijin to shūkyō 近代日本における知識人 と宗教 [modern japanese intelligentsia and religion] (tokyo: tōkyōdō shuppan, 2002), 50. 4 isomae, kindai nihon ni okeru chishikijin to shūkyō, 50. 74 anesaki masahuru’s reception of leo tolstoy own arguments, he was inspired. he wrote essays challenging his readership to pay attention to bethink yourselves, to take tolstoy’s argument seriously, and ultimately to oppose the war, but for reasons very different from the political arguments flooding the popular media. anesaki was not fundamentally interested in the political arguments so often posed against the war; he was interested in religious arguments. he did not see the war as pitting buddhists against christians, which was how it was characterized by the russian government.5 instead, he saw the russo–japanese war as a testing ground for universal spirituality, and he understood tolstoy to be of the same mind. near the end of his career by this point, tolstoy was renowned as a fiction writer and cultural critic. by the early twentieth century, he had retreated from the world to his country estate, yasnaya polyana, from where he issued occasional declarations to the world, including bethink yourselves. he was a proponent of christian anarchism, a movement characterized by its rejection of the organization and politicization of christianity, focusing instead on the individual’s relationship with god devoid of other human mediation.”6 tolstoy had previously been excommunicated by the russian orthodox church,7 in part because he advocated a “non-church” faith, leaving the individual free from societal and political pressures. put another way, organized religion ostracized tolstoy because he advocated its demise. this anti-authoritarian approach was indicative of a worldwide trend toward such an approach to religion at the turn of the twentieth century. in his essay, tolstoy railed against the hostilities leading up to the russo–japanese war. he was angry that a christian country and a buddhist country were fighting each other when their respective religions forbid such violence. he fumed that politicians, military men, diplomats, journalists, and even religious leaders could justify these hostilities. he complained that his contemporaries were behaving “as if there had never existed either voltaire, or montaigne, or pascal, or swift, or kant, or spinoza, or hundreds of other writers who have exposed, with great force, the madness and futility of war.”8 in other words, people had forgotten these philosophers’ ideas in the insanity of modern society. 5 see richard wortman, scenarios of power: myth and ceremony in russian monarchy (princeton: princeton university press, 1995), 391. 6 for a history of tolstoy’s religious views and influence, see rosamund bartlett, “sectarian, anarchist, holy fool,” in tolstoy: a russian life (new york: houghton mifflin harcourt, 2011), 294–344. 7 see bartlett, tolstoy, 251–415. 8 tolstoy, bethink yourselves, 8. 75the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 religion and religious studies in meiji japan anesaki is known today as one of the pioneers of religious studies as an academic discipline in japan. when anesaki advocated taking a scholarly approach to religion, he faced not a little incredulity and resistance because scholars and political leaders had already been interrogating it throughout the meiji period, and in many cases had declared that religion was, at best, problematic. although the history of “religion in the meiji” is too large to be dealt with here in detail, some familiarity with it is essential for grasping anesaki’s response to tolstoy. why was religion problematic? because in large part meiji intellectuals saw it as just as much a political entity as it was a spiritual phenomenon. that is to say, those leaders felt that organized religions (in this case, buddhism and christianity) wielded too much political power. in this sense, buddhism and christianity were odd bedfellows. the two religions were based on very different metaphysics and epistemologies, but in the end, they were both marginalized somewhat because of their political power. the other argument against religion was that it was based on intangibles, rather than science. among the critics who took this approach were fukuzawa yukichi 福澤諭吉 (1835–1901), nakae chōmin 中江兆民 (1847–1901), and inoue tetsujirō 井上哲次郎 (1856–1944). fukuzawa saw religion—which in his case included shintoism, buddhism, confucianism, and christianity—as primitive relics of earlier civilizations.9 inoue, a professor of philosophy at tokyo imperial university, was the author of an 1893 essay titled kyōiku to shūkyō no shōtotsu 教育と宗教の衝突 (the collision between education and religion), in which he roundly dismissed theology as a false science borne of superstition.10 nakae chōmin argued that there was no god, and no soul, because there was simply no empirical evidence for either of them.11 while fukuzawa and nakae advocated following western science instead of religion, inoue was a strong proponent of shintoism and confucianism. inoue tied the concept of imperial shinto divinity to confucian hierarchical ethics, supporting the idea that the japanese should be loyal to the emperor and filially pious toward both the imperial family and their own families. such loyalty would be impossible if the adherent were also a loyal christian. as ketelaar notes, “religion in [kyōiku to shūkyō no shōtotsu] 9 fukuzawa yukichi 福沢諭吉, bunmeiron no gairyaku 文明論之概略 [an outline of a theory of civilization] (tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1931), 97. 10 inoue tetsujirō 井上哲次郎, kyōiku to shūkyō no shōtotsu 教育と宗教の衝突 [the conflict between education and religion] (tokyo: keigyōsha, 1893), 54. 11 nakae chōmin 中江兆民, zoku ichinen yūhan 続一年有半 [one year and a half, continued] (tokyo: hakubunkan, 1917), 167–180. this essay was first published in 1901. 76 anesaki masahuru’s reception of leo tolstoy is portrayed as the dark, uncontrolled, and irrational fears of an ignorant people; it is a philosophy of the quotidian providing guidance to the weak-minded; it is the symbol of disunity and chaos.”12 although inoue targets christianity in particular, he characterized other religions similarly. inoue made a signal contribution to the mid-meiji hostility toward religion. adherents of buddhism and christianity persevered in their efforts to fight this anti-religious trend throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. anesaki masaharu was prominent among them. anesaki was raised in the pure land buddhist tradition but by 1904 had turned to nichiren buddhism. as a scholar, he was a universalist, and made great efforts to find synergies between buddhism and christianity.13 he often traveled abroad, and was fluent in english and german. he published widely in those languages and his native japanese. as a scholar of religion, anesaki helped define the concept of “religion” (shūkyō 宗教), and drew an important distinction between it and “faith” (shinkō 信仰). he was also instrumental in defining the discipline of “religious studies” (shūkyōgaku 宗教学) in japan and beyond.14 although often at odds with the likes of inoue tetsujirō, anesaki had one important thing in common with them: he too was suspicious of organized religion and ultimately rejected it. that sentiment was the reason why he had little respect for the vatican, preferring the christian ideal personified by saint francis of assisi, and why he rejected various protestant sects, particularly lutheranism.15 however, his dislike for organized religion was based on something very different from inoue’s rejection of religion qua religion. whereas for inoue all religion was grounded in superstition and thus invalid, anesaki understood that, because religious organizations—temples and churches—were human constructs, they were all too vulnerable to human foibles. in addition, unlike fukuzawa yukichi, who dismissed religion on the grounds that it was subjective and not based on objective reality, anesaki vehemently rejected science as a core component of modern civilization. he criticized scientists as too analytical, too quick to break a question into parts and study it from an objective point of view. he argued that his 12 james edward ketelaar, of heretics and martyrs in meiji japan: buddhism and its persecution (princeton: princeton university press, 1990), 132. 13 see anesaki masaharu, “how christianity appeals to a japanese buddhist,” hibbert journal 4 (october 1905–july 1906), 1–18. 14 of particular note is his treatise shūkyōgaku gairon 宗教学概論 [outline of religious studies] (tokyo: tokyo senmon gakkō shuppanbu, 1900), in which he outlines his definition of religious studies. 15 see anesaki masaharu, hanatsumi nikki 花つみ日記 [flowers of italy] (tokyo: hakubunkan, 1909), in which he compares the work of st. francis of assisi to that of the japanese pure land saint, hōnen 法然 (1133–1212). 77the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 scientific contemporaries avoided asking the difficult questions, such as what is the nature of love?16 anesaki separated religion from politics and focused on what he saw as a crisis: the loss of true, individual faith in modern humanity had led to warfare and potential disaster. in 1906, he published a collection of essays under the title kokuun to shinkō 国運と信仰 (national fate and faith), in which he argued, in part, that the fate of a nation is directly tied to the faith of its citizens. here “faith” most decidedly does not mean a blind adherence to a national church. rather, it means a kind of individual cultivation of spirituality divorced from structural snares, something very close to tolstoy’s “non-church” ideal. although japanese religious communities in the early twentieth century were to some extent still intellectually marginalized (christians and buddhists alike), that did not mean that they were united in their efforts to reduce that marginalization. this much is clear from a consideration of the buddhist thinker inoue enryō 井上円了 (1858–1919), and the christian thinker uchimura kanzō 内村鑑三 (1861–1930). by the turn of the century, the term “religion” had lost its contrast object of “philosophy.” instead, scholars contrasted religion with “superstition” (meishin 迷信). in enryō’s case, he worked toward buddhism being seen as a “religion” and not a “superstition,” in an effort to counter the anti-buddhist movements of the earlier decades.17 enryō argued that buddhism was situated in the realm of religion, in which the inexplicable and superstitious were jettisoned for the logical. categorization as a “religion” brought a legitimacy and an acceptance that was not extended to “superstitions.” uchimura kanzō, known for refusing to bow to the emperor’s signature on the “imperial rescript on education” because of his own loyalty to christ, eventually rejected western-led christianity in favor of a new japanese-led movement. although he called this movement the “nonchurch movement” (mukyōkai 無教会), the antagonism was toward the organizational structure of foreign christianity, not toward the idea that christians could meet for bible study in an organized fashion. in neither inoue’s nor uchimura’s case was there a focus on the concept of individual faith as the cornerstone of a healthy religion, as anesaki held. tolstoy’s message and anesaki’s response tolstoy’s essay bethink yourselves laments the outbreak of hostilities 16 anesaki masaharu, “tatakae, ōi ni tatakae” 戦へ、大に戦へ [to battle, to great battle!], in kokuun to shinkō, 260–261. 17 for a detailed account of this, see jason ānanda josephson, “when buddhism became a ‘religion’: religion and superstition in the writings of inoue enryō,” journal of japanese religious studies 33, no. 1 (2006), 143–168. 78 anesaki masahuru’s reception of leo tolstoy between japan and russia because those hostilities reflected a corruption of christian ideals. tolstoy writes that it is understandable for the uneducated masses to blindly worship icons and go to war as a result: one could yet understand how a poor, uneducated, defrauded japanese, torn from his field and taught that buddhism consists not in compassion to all that lives, but in sacrifices to idols, and how a similar poor illiterate fellow from the neighborhood of toula or nijni novgorod, who has been taught that christianity consists in worshipping christ, the madonna, saints, and their i[c]ons,—one could understand how these unfortunate men, brought by the violence and deceit of centuries to recognize the greatest crime in the world, the murder of one’s brethren, as a virtuous act, can commit these dreadful deeds, without regarding themselves as being guilty in so doing.18 such people are “stupefied by prayers, sermons, exhortations, by processions, pictures, and newspapers.”19 they are “ignorant of the gospel and blindly believing all the prescriptions of the church.”20 tolstoy does not particularly respect them, but he forgives them their ignorance. however, he does not extend that sentiment to the russian aristocracy, which he sees as manipulating the peasantry for its own ends. the former justifies its actions by recourse to christian texts, whether they be military, political, or social. and all those justifications, as tolstoy sees it, are in direct contradiction to christian morals. he writes: every one of these men, to the question why he, so and so, ivan, peter, nicholas, whilst recognizing as binding upon him the christian law which not only forbids the killing of one’s neighbor, but demands that one should love him, serve him,—why he permits himself to participate in war, that is, in violence, loot, murder, will infallibly answer the same thing: that he is thus acting in the name of his fatherland, or faith, or oath, or honor, or civilization, or the future welfare of the whole of mankind, in general, of something abstract and indefinite.21 18 tolstoy, bethink yourselves, 3–4. 19 tolstoy, bethink yourselves, 8. 20 tolstoy, bethink yourselves, 9. 21 tolstoy, bethink yourselves, 13. 79the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 but of course, tolstoy argues, these abstract explanations are invalid, since they do not follow true christianity. true authority lies in the christian god. in sum, tolstoy asks his readers to “bethink themselves,” in reference to mark i:15, and recognize that the kingdom of god is at hand.22 he asks that they not be distracted by the human world around them, because if they are, they are fated to perish. it is important to recognize that tolstoy was not arguing for one particular church, even if he was arguing for one particular faith (christianity).23 tolstoy argued for the overarching superiority and authority of a non-church approach, one that jettisoned “dogmas” and “the fulfillment of rites which afford a pleasant diversion, consolation, [and] stimulant.”24 he was adamant that, for russia to survive and thrive, the aristocracy had to abandon its approach to war and instead recognize that (christian) love and faith were the ultimate authority. tolstoy’s essay was not published in russia. it was, however, translated and published in the times of london, and then reprinted in other newspapers throughout the western world. as one might expect, there were responses in the press, too, but they were not uniform. chronologically, the criticism in the editorial in the times came first, in the form of an essay published in the same edition as tolstoy’s essay. it was absolutely unforgiving in its response to tolstoy’s ideas. according to the unsigned editorial, tolstoy imperfectly assimilated certain disjointed phases of european thought. in no country but russia could a writer of the first rank so incongruously jumble the logical methods of the thirteenth century with the most advanced ideals of modern socialism.25 it goes on to characterize tolstoy’s stance in this way: the want of originality and of breadth which the manifesto displays is characteristic of the slav reformer, but it is instructive to observe how the growing stress of the war brings into ever 22 in this chapter of the new testament, jesus travels to galilee and tells his followers that they should repent and accept the gospel. the word “repent” is rendered as “bethink yourselves” in tolstoy’s essay. 23 tolstoy was amenable to thinking outside of the christian sphere when it came to spirituality, and this was in part what made him attractive to the japanese audience. see sho konishi, “translation and conversion beyond western modernity: tolstoian religion in meiji japan,” in converting cultures: religion, ideology and transformations of modernity, ed. dennis washburn and a. kevin reinhart (leiden: brill, 2007), 235–265. 24 tolstoy, bethink yourselves, 19. 25 “the dissertation upon the war by count leo tolstoy,” the times, june 27, 1904, 11. 80 anesaki masahuru’s reception of leo tolstoy sharper relief his limitations and his defects. his inability to perceive, even dimly, the elementary facts which dominate the social and political order of the world, his intolerance of the men and the institutions upholding that order, and his powerlessness to suggest any working alternative for the system he would overturn become more and more prominent as the news of successive engagements and disasters reaches his ears. he has none of the serene patience which comes of the conviction that in the evolution of mankind it is ordained that good shall triumph over evil.26 in sum, the editorial in the times rejected tolstoy’s suggestions as naïve and disjointed. there was no attempt to consider tolstoy’s essay as a serious argument. the times set the tone for responses around the world. the result is that tolstoy’s admonition—that christians and buddhists should not be at war—fell on deaf ears in japan and in the west. commentators were much more interested in the military and political components of the war than in the spiritual ones. in other words, responses to tolstoy’s essay often took it as a springboard to a larger, unrelated political or economic argument. for example, the editors of the japan weekly mail27 nominally agreed with tolstoy on the point that any form of hostility was wrong, but they also argued that russia had been an aggressor in asia, and that it was japan’s right and responsibility to defend herself and her neighbors. the language is unequivocal: it is our duty to check the aggrandizement of russia, the most inhuman savages, this prematurely evolved race, and so to keep the peace of the east undisturbed by any force, calm as heaven and long as the world lasts. this we are born to do, and nobody but we—the good samaritan.28 six days later, the japan weekly mail reprinted a letter that had originally appeared in the westminster gazette titled “the russian people and the war.”29 the letter conceded that tolstoy had a good point when he declared the war immoral, but then went on to argue that he missed 26 the times, june 27, 1904, 11. 27 although this newspaper was published in japan, it was written in english and its audience was the expatriate community; thus, i have categorized it as part of the western press. 28 japan weekly mail, september 4, 1904. 29 japan weekly mail, september 10, 1904. this piece was reprinted on september 13 in the australian newspaper the west gippsland gazette. 81the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 a larger, more salient point: that the russian people were suffering at the hands of the russian aristocracy. the spiritual side of tolstoy’s argument was ignored. australian newspapers were also quick to mention tolstoy’s essay, although that mention ended up being essentially the same short paragraph reprinted in dozens of different publications. the paraphrase of tolstoy’s argument did not mention spirituality, but rather focused on the political corruption responsible for the hostilities. in some cases this short paragraph was sandwiched in between military and political reporting on the war, but no newspaper delved deeper into the spiritual issues that tolstoy raised. the roman catholic british weekly the tablet ran a commentary on july 2, 1904, supporting the case of japan over russia in the war. as the editors saw it, japan supported freedom of religion and russia did not. this was true to some extent, in that japan extended provisional religious freedom to all and, until april 1905, russia only recognized the russian orthodox church.30 to the editors of the tablet, this difference in religious toleration meant that japan would welcome roman catholic missionaries, whereas russia would not. although the tablet did not comment directly on tolstoy’s essay, one can imagine that the editors would not have been enthusiastic about a “non-church” approach to the situation. an editorial in the new york times stated that “socialist, republican, and monarchist, agnostic, protestant, and roman catholic have all ‘censored’ [tolstoy’s] manifesto.” the editors characterized tolstoy’s manifesto as a document that conjectured “international quarrels will become bloodless and the millennium of universal peace established when one people shall refuse to fight for those personages or officials who have made war inevitable.”31 the new york times also reported that the austrian neues wiener tagblatt deemed tolstoy’s vision of world peace overly optimistic, and that the french la petite république argued religion was on the decline in the world, and thus that tolstoy’s appeal to human spirituality was misplaced.32 in japan, tolstoy’s essay was translated and published twice: first, on august 7, 1904 in heimin shinbun, a socialist newspaper edited by kōtoku shūsui 幸徳秋水 (1871–1911), the radical journalist who was 30 article 28 of the 1889 meiji constitution stated, “japanese subjects shall, within limits not prejudicial to peace and order, and not antagonistic to their duties as subjects, enjoy freedom of religious belief.” translated by ito miyoji. http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/etc/c02.html. 31 new york times, july 17, 1904. 32 new york times, july 17, 1904. 82 anesaki masahuru’s reception of leo tolstoy executed in 1911 on charges of treason. the second translation was by katō naoshi 加藤直士 (1873–1952), a christian philosopher and journalist. a commentary on tolstoy’s piece by kōtoku shūsui appeared in heimin shinbun shortly after the essay’s publication. at the start of his relatively short piece of just over two thousand characters, kōtoku praised tolstoy’s writing, but he later took issue with his message. he disagreed that a proper turn toward religion would be the answer to russia’s woes. he averred that, although he was not anti-religion, man cannot live by religion alone in the same way as he cannot live by bread alone. moreover, a simple exhortation to “bethink yourselves” cannot change a situation that has developed over millennia. he goes on to argue that what has caused the current situation is not, as tolstoy suggests, that people have forgotten “true” christianity; rather, the cause is fierce international economic competition. the way to eliminate war is to eliminate that economic competition and embrace socialism.33 unlike kōtoku shūsui, katō naoshi did not write a response to tolstoy’s essay. rather, his translation of bethink yourselves was published along with a japanese translation of “tolstoï et la guerre,” an article originally published in the french newspaper le figaro on april 5, 1904. “tolstoï et la guerre” also received much attention internationally. it was written by georges bourdon after interviewing tolstoy in french on his country estate, yasnaya polyana. tolstoy’s approach in that interview is much like that in bethink yourselves. he says in part that, “the misfortune is that the war shows how men can forget every idea of duty (devoir), not of duty towards their officers, but duty towards god.”34 by “god,” tolstoy meant “all things” (le tout) in other words, the cosmos. katō saw the interview as confirmation of tolstoy’s position in bethink yourselves and decided to publish them together. when katō translated the interview, he rendered the french “devoir” as honmu 本務 (duty) and “le tout” as uchū 宇宙 (cosmos), thus effectively expressing tolstoy’s rejection of the judeo-christian god. it was this approach that attracted anesaki masaharu’s attention. tolstoy recognized the cosmos as the ultimate object toward which man holds duty, not a particular version of the world as defined by a religious tradition. tolstoy was arguing for all sides to lay down their weapons and reject war in the name of a higher power. in his essay “tolstoy’s great warning” (torusutoi no daikeikoku トルストイの大警告), anesaki says that the only way to understand tolstoy’s lofty ideals is as something that transcends 33 kōtoku shūsui 幸徳秋水, “torusutoi okina no hisenron o hyōsu”トルストイ翁の非戦論を評す [commentary on tolstoy’s anti-war essay], heimin shinbun 40 (august 14, 1904). 34 english translation as it appeared in the sunday times, may 22, 1904. 83the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 the benefits of any group of people and instead appeals to the sincerity of the human heart. he recognizes that, in the current age of warring nation states, most would see tolstoy’s ideal as unattainable. however, he insists, the fighting between countries for economic profit and between classes for authority extends to the realm of individual morals. in the name of imperialism and in defense of fighting for existence, he says that people are actually giving rein to a brutal selfishness. he draws a parallel, asking his reader to consider whether tolstoy’s ideals are too grandiose and silly, or the ideas of current politicians, religious leaders, and scholars—all of which praise modernity—too utilitarian and materialistic? are these people not encouraging the immoral practices of exclusion, perverseness, and selfishness? at the very least, he holds, religious leaders are downplaying the calamity of war. educators and scholars, whose profession it should be to reform the evils that spring forth from international prejudice, are caught up in the craze for war. he rhetorically asks whether they should feel ashamed for simply joining the national trend, praising their country’s deeds as all being wonderful and good. one should follow tolstoy’s example, he writes, and be true to these principles without any hesitation. war brings brutality and evil. even if there were only one person who believed as tolstoy did, it should be cause for celebration, because it is evidence that the light of peace and benevolence have not left the world of man. anesaki goes on to call for an end to the war that japan began. he says that people should not be debating whether war is called for, or whether russia should occupy manchuria; they should not be discussing the fairness or otherwise of japan’s policy toward korea. doing so, he says, would be like analyzing gunpowder that is already lit. he laments that japan justified starting the war by saying that it was doing so for the sake of righteousness and peace, and had rushed madly ahead into hostilities in the name of those objectives. at the very least, he points out, there will be lingering animosities between the two sides even after the war ends. he warns that one should not laugh at tolstoy’s “stupidity,” but instead take his spiritual ideal in all seriousness: “this is why we need to read tolstoy’s gospel, which tells us that if ‘we love our enemy, we will have no enemy.’”35 the language that anesaki uses in this short essay is strident. it is clear that bethink yourselves hit an intellectual nerve with him. “tolstoy’s great warning” was certainly not the first time that anesaki had written on tolstoy, 35 anesaki masaharu, “torusutoi no daikeikoku” トルストイの大警告 [tolstoy’s great warning], in kokuun to shinkō, 44–47. in the last sentence, he uses two words associated with buddhism: mishiki 味識 and shikidoku 色読. i think this was purposeful, in that he is imposing nichiren buddhist ideals on tolstoy’s ideals. 84 anesaki masahuru’s reception of leo tolstoy or on growing hostilities between japan and russia. of note are an essay titled “tatakae, ōi ni tatakae” 戦へ、大に戦へ (to battle, to great battle!, january 1904) and another, “roshiya no kokujō to torusutoi” ロシヤの 国情とトルストイ (russian national sentiment and tolstoy, march 1904). the former certainly sounds like a call to arms, but it is a call to idealism, and to aesthetic awakening. when anesaki writes that the japanese should “decide with conviction” that they were fighting for “peace in east asia and the fate of the yellow race,”36 what he is resisting is not so much the political and military machine of russia, but rather the influence of a country whose religious situation was corrupt. thus, russia could offer no spiritual solace to east asians, and particularly not to the japanese, who were struggling with the concept of “religion” and what role it played in the life of humanity. the opening lines of “tatakae, ōi ni tatakae” quote nietzsche’s “schopenhauer as educator.” the same lines from the german original were translated in 1909 as follows: when the traveler, who had seen many countries and nations and continents, was asked what common attribute he had found everywhere existing among men, he answered, “they have a tendency to sloth.” many may think that the fuller truth would have been, “they are all timid.” they hide themselves behind “manners” and “opinions.” at bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time.37 this appeal to individuality caught anesaki’s eye. he was quite familiar with nietzsche and schopenhauer, the latter of whose die welt als wille und vorstellung (the world as will and representation) he would later translate into japanese.38 the “fight” (tatakae) in the title of the essay refers to fighting for ideals and not fighting on the battlefield. in response to nietzsche, anesaki writes that modern men—politicians, educators, scholars, clerics, artists, etc.—should pursue their vocation as a spiritual one, rather than simply as physical labor. they should be serious and dedicated in their work, because it underlies the spirit of society. he exhorts these societal leaders to reflect on themselves, to be true to themselves, 36 anesaki, “tatakae, ōi ni tatakae,” 272. 37 anesaki, “tatakae, ōi ni tatakae,” 249–250. friedrich nietzsche, “schopenhauer as educator,” in thoughts out of season, trans. adrian collins (edinburgh: t. n. foulis, 1909), 1. 38 arthur schopenhauer, ishi to genshiki to shite no sekai 意志と現識としての世界 [the world as will and representation], trans. anesaki masaharu (tokyo: hakubunkan, 1910). 85the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 and to make sure that their actions are not cowardly or timid. only those leaders who do so can effectively lead a country, he concludes. anesaki’s broadened critical response—russia, japan, and the world in early 1904, the russo–japanese war had not officially begun, but there was certainly already international friction in other quarters of the globe, such as southern africa and western europe.39 consequently, the topic of “peace” was current in the press. months before tolstoy pointed out that russian soldiers were blindly following what the russian leadership told them to do, anesaki wrote that people were jettisoning their selves in a hollow effort to attain peace. he pointed out that such a compromised peace, one that was not connected to the self, meant nothing. what did anesaki mean by “self” (jibun), and how was that connected to tolstoy’s concept of “le tout” (or uchū as katō translated it)? tolstoy held that “le tout” was a kind of cosmic harmony to which the individual was connected by religious spirit. without that direct connection between the individual and the harmony, there was no spirit. anesaki saw the primacy of the self in a similar light; he held that there needed to be a direct connection between the self and conviction. that connection should not be compromised by bending to societal or governmental pressures. in his argument, anesaki smoothly moved from the importance of the self (jibun 自分 or mizukara 自ら) to the importance of personal faith (jishin 自信). although the word jishin is usually understood to mean “self-confidence,” anesaki was using it in a different way. his meaning was “personal faith,” or in other words, jibun no shinkō 自分の信仰, as opposed to faith tied to socially constructed religious dogma. anesaki and tolstoy saw that human construct as an obstruction to true faith, which exists between the individual and the cosmos, or “le tout.” anesaki and tolstoy also shared the idea that idealism was superior to rationalism. in his essay, tolstoy complained that societal leaders—governmental, military, and religious—all managed to justify belligerent acts by reason, which in the end went directly against ideals. fundamentally, he said, christian and buddhist ideals hold that one should not kill. yet, through rationalism, christians and buddhists had brought themselves to do just that. this was precisely the stance for which the editorial in the times of london editorial dismissed tolstoy, when it wrote, “tolstoy applies his dogma of the unmitigated wickedness of all war 39 the creation of the triple entente and the triple alliance led to the first moroccan crisis (1905–1906), the bosnian crisis (1908–1909), the second moroccan crisis (1911), and the balkan wars (1912–1913). 86 anesaki masahuru’s reception of leo tolstoy with the rigid logic which so commonly plunges idealists into palpable absurdities in the real affairs of life.”40 anesaki similarly criticized scientists and scholars who were quick to explain all phenomena in the world. in his essay “roshiya no kokujō to torusutoi,” anesaki wrote that “today’s scientists know nothing besides analysis.”41 he cynically noted that it must drive scientists mad that their logic could not explain a parent’s love for a child, or spouses’ love for each other. these are the mysteries of life, and one cannot but be moved by them. his criticism also extends to philosophers: because the many philosophers and ethicists in the world are quick to analyze, they end up analyzing everything. if they see or hear it, they analyze it. they disregard any question about how to integrate the things they have analyzed. they analyze themselves and their loved ones, and they do so composedly. but they do not consider the question of why their loved ones make their hearts flutter. and because they do not question this, they cannot fully expand and deeply savor that power of the heart. this is but one example, yet today’s scholars are happy to analyze anything. that contentedness becomes idleness, and that idleness becomes incompetence. the lack of robust debate in the academy today is one sign of peace, but the cost of that peace is that it was bought with incompetence.42 the conflict between christianity and science had been ongoing for several decades by the time anesaki wrote these words, fueled in part by the ideas of herbert spencer in his book first principles.43 spencer was more sympathetic to science than to religion, because the former had more practical application than the latter. his ideas on education were quite influential in japan, prompting curricular changes in the schools.44 charles darwin’s theory of evolution was also influential, which helped drive science to a strong position in meiji japan. as robert schwantes points out, the christian missionaries in japan realized that the largest 40 the times july 10, 1904. 41 anesaki masaharu, “torusutoi to roshiya no kokujō” トルストイとロシヤの国情 [tolstoy and russian national sentiment], in kokuun to shinkō, 60. 42 anesaki, “tatakae, ōi ni tatakae,” 260–261. 43 herbert spencer, first principles (new york: d. appleton and company, 1864). 44 herbert spencer, education: intellectual, moral, and physical (new york: d. appleton company, 1861). translated into japanese in 1880 by seki shinpachi 尺 振八 (1839–1886) with the title shi-shi kyōikuron 斯氏教育論 [herbert spencer on education] (tokyo: matsudaira shūhei, meiji 13 [1880]). 87the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 hurdle they had to face was not buddhism or shintoism, but rather western science.45 therefore anesaki, in his biting criticism of scientists, was walking on well-trodden ground. indeed, one might say that he was fighting a fight that most had given up on much earlier, conceding defeat to the scientists. yet he remained tenacious in his convictions. he held that japanese religion was of special concern when considering the future fate of the country. he wrote that in the past buddhists included senile old men, devoted followers, people of high morals, and erudite scholars. “but what of them now?” he asked rhetorically, implying that they are no longer active. he conceded that there were younger religious followers who professed to have a new faith, and who were lively reformers, but he questioned how many among them had what he considered “faith.” anesaki said that their “so-called new faith” is not only not buddhism, it was barely even “faith.” their mealy-mouthed dissertations on religion had made a laughing stock of the concept of faith, he concludes.46 tolstoy argues that individuals (he uses slav peasants in his example) blindly follow orders from military and political leaders, despite the fact that it is clearly not in their individual interests. if they were to follow that self-interest, they would simply lay down their arms and refuse to fight. similarly, anesaki argues that individuals (he is not specifically referring to the japanese) at the turn of the century are living in an environment steeped in competition and, as such, are creatures of battle. the battle is a personal one. individuals fight to gain some benefit (ri 利), but in the process of doing so they jettison their own resolve (mizukara no kakugo 自らの覚悟) and their own character (mizukara no jinkaku 自らの人格). they would “fight like dogs” if it meant gaining a benefit, but if there were no benefit, then they would stifle their voice and become cowards, compromising their personal faith (jishin) 自信.47 for anesaki, faith (shinkō) was paramount in the world. it was directly tied to a country’s fate, as implied by the title of his collected essays, kokuun to shinkō (national fate and faith). this was not a popular stance to hold at the turn of the century. as mentioned earlier, religion (both christianity and buddhism) was seen at best as a collection of superstitions and at worst as a political threat by many bureaucrats in the meiji period. for those like anesaki, arguing for faith was difficult because one was simultaneously countering the imperialist confucianism as embodied in the “imperial rescript on education” and the rational, scientific 45 robert s. schwantes, “i. christianity versus science: a conflict of ideas in meiji japan,” far eastern quarterly 12, no. 2 (1953), 124. 46 anesaki, “tatakae, ōi ni tatakae,” 266. 47 anesaki, “tatakae, ōi ni tatakae,” 274. 88 anesaki masahuru’s reception of leo tolstoy world that had been strongly embraced by the meiji leadership. to add to the difficulty, anesaki advocated a form of religion deracinated from much of its (human-bound) tradition. it was an ideal so lofty that few were willing to listen to it. it was quite similar to the ideal advocated by tolstoy, for which he was excommunicated from the russian orthodox church. the pursuit of a universal truth, one that unified all world religions, certainly did not start with tolstoy or anesaki. there have been a number of individuals and groups that in one way or another focused on such a concept. for anesaki’s generation, one of the events that invigorated that pursuit was the world’s parliament on religions of 1893, held in conjunction with the world’s columbian exposition in chicago. organized largely by christians, its ten goals included an admonition “to show men, in the most impressive way, what and how many important truths the various religions hold and teach in common.”48 five japanese buddhists attended this conference. despite the nominal universalist goal of the conference, it was in truth an attempt to promote christianity as the embodiment of all world religions. all of the japanese buddhists in attendance except one had great difficulty communicating in english, and, in the end, they even disagreed amongst themselves over doctrine. in particular, the one nichiren buddhist among them, kawai yoshijirō, was an outlier, ostracized by his compatriots from other sects.49 thus, a commonality among world religions was not established by the parliament. nonetheless, the participants were greeted warmly upon their return, and the seed of the ideal of unity was sown in the minds of contemporary japanese scholars, including the young anesaki. what then did “faith” (shinkō) mean to anesaki, and what was its role in buddhism and other world religions? anesaki locates the kernel of buddhist faith in the buddha, who was the personification of the dharma. similarly, he locates the kernel of christian faith in christ, who is the personification of the word of god. in his 1905 english-language essay, “how christianity appeals to the japanese buddhist,” he writes: here we see in both cases personal and moral evidence of religion in the persons of the founders. the buddhist nirvana is the outcome of a long course of metaphysical thought, and the christian god is the creator of the world, the father and the king. but in each case the centre of gravity in the religious consciousness falls on the personality of the founder, living among men and 48 john henry barrows, ed., the world’s parliament of religions: an illustrated and popular story of the world’s first parliament of religions, held in chicago in connection with the columbian exposition of 1893, vol. 1 (chicago: george m. hill co., 1893), 18. 49 for details of the parliament, see chapter four of ketelaar, of heretics and martyrs, 136–173. 89the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 leading them to the one who has sent him, or to the ideal which he saw face to face. faith in a person like this means becoming, through him, one with the truth he represents and living with him in love. that all may be one, one with the father, one with the son, and one with them, is not only the kernel of christian faith, but the very essence of buddhist belief.50 thus he brings together two disparate world traditions into one neat and fairly simple package. at the core is being “one with the truth […] and living […] in love.” tolstoy similarly identifies and takes for granted that a “teaching about the unity of the human spirit, the brotherhood of men, love, compassion, the sacredness of human life” lies at the core of christianity and buddhism, implying that humanity shares a common spirit and love, much like what anesaki delineates above.51 the russo–japanese war did not change anesaki’s opinion about the importance of faith on a national scale. in july of 1905, he published an essay titled roshiyajin no shinkō to roshiya kokuun no shōrai ロシヤ人 の信仰とロシヤ国運の将来 (the faith of the russian people and the future of the russian national fate). although the war had not officially ended, russia’s defeat was anticipated by this point, and anesaki was postulating about the future of the country. the essay accepts that russians, regardless of what sect they adhered to, could not easily divorce religion from politics. anesaki characterized the russian spirit—particularly that of the peasants—as fatalistic. they believed fervently in the “final judgement day,” and so suffered in silence in this life content in the knowledge that any injustices endured today would be recompensed in the future. he describes the russians’ faith as one based in ritual and not spirituality.52 tolstoy does not express similar ideas in his essay. anesaki describes for his japanese audience the history of the russian church, and the schism between the old believers and the orthodox church.53 unsurprisingly, anesaki was more sympathetic toward the old believers, for they were at once conservative and to some extent primitive in their faith. his description was largely based on differences in ritual, however, and skirts much of the issue of spirituality. 50 anesaki, “how christianity appeals to a japanese buddhist,” 6. 51 tolstoy, bethink yourselves, 38. 52 anesaki masaharu, “roshiyajin no shinkō to roshiya kokuun no shōrai” ロシヤ人の信仰とロシ ヤ国運の将来 [the faith of the russian people and the future fate of russia], in kokuun to shinkō, 230. 53 the “old believers” were a group that split from the russian orthodox church in the seventeenth century because of reforms instituted by the latter in liturgical practices. 90 anesaki masahuru’s reception of leo tolstoy in his conclusion, anesaki conjectured what the fate of russia would be after the war, particularly in light of the edict of the toleration of religion of april 17, 1905, which granted freedom of religion to the old believers. this edict marked a large change in policy for russia, and effectively eliminated the grounds on which many westerners (particularly missionaries) opposed the russians in the war. western missionaries had seen the restrictions imposed by the orthodox church as an impediment to their proselytizing efforts overseas. however, for anesaki, the edict meant that the old believers who had been oppressed by the romanovs and the russian orthodox church could now exercise political, social, cultural, and religious power with two possible outcomes: either the old believers would jettison their conservative beliefs and embrace a more liberal religious approach, resulting in a unification movement of the people, or the orthodox church would abandon the idea of a theocracy and become faithless. in the latter case, the old believers would participate in such destruction. anesaki averred that there was no way to anticipate which outcome was more likely, but that russia’s future was inexorably connected to the faith of the people. in other words, the only certainty was that russia’s future would be controlled by the ways in which the orthodox church would try to bring church and state together, and how the religions of prognosticators like tolstoy would react. anesaki hoped that the russian people would not lose their faith, as many people in other western civilizations had done in the nineteenth century, in his opinion.54 similarly, anesaki saw the human spirit as core to the future development of japan. during the russo–japanese war and immediately after, his essays often zeroed in on this point, as in this passage from “hyakunen no shukudai hyakunen no taikei” 百年の宿題百年の大計 (a century of tasks, a plan for the century): many people today, when looking at the war, do not see the fundamental international diplomacy therein. those who see the diplomacy do not see the foundational economics strengthening the nation. those who see the economics do not see the education that springs forth from the cultivation of human resources. those who see the education do not see the arts and religion that constitute the wellspring of civilization. those who see the arts and religion in the end do not see the illumination of the human spirit. and what use is national prosperity, military strength, or the wealth of the citizenry in such a case?55 54 anesaki, “roshiyajin no shinkō to roshiya kokuun no shōrai,” 241–242. 55 anesaki masaharu, “hyakunen no shukudai hyakunen no taikei” 百年の宿題百年の大計 [a century of tasks, a plan for the century], in kokuun to shinkō, 8. 91the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 such sentiments are found sprinkled throughout his writings of this period. the underlying message is that war is the result of imperfect individual spirituality, and that religion and politics should not be intertwined. it was easy for anesaki to criticize russia on this account because it was the enemy. for him, the russian tsar and the aristocracy had used the orthodox church as a means of imposing their hegemonic position over the people, and the fate of russia was imperiled because the individual could not nurture his or her own spirit. however, it was difficult and impolitic to draw a direct parallel to what washappening in japan. had anesaki written that the japanese government was similarly building nationalism based on shintoism, he would have been putting himself in a precarious position. instead, he examined in great detail the situation in russia and the rest of europe. in “sensō oyobi gaikō to shūkyō oyobi jinshu mondai” 戦争及外交と宗 教及人種問題 (the problems of war and diplomacy, and religion and race), he discusses the christian church, its history, and its direct involvement in several of the governments of the west. he notes how russian tsar nicholas ii (r. 1894–1917) and german kaiser wilhelm ii (r. 1888–1918) in particular characterized their military activities in east asia as a war between christian countries and buddhist countries. however, for anesaki, wars should not be waged between religions, because, ultimately, human spirituality is universal. he thus dismisses the idea of a “holy war” and instead suggests that japan must rise above such religious divisions and advance toward an ideal both eternal and profound.56 a similar message is found in a speech he gave in september 1904 titled “ōshū no kyōkai” 欧州の教会 (churches of the europe), in which he writes that “each european country is a christian country. but in most cases, the people of those countries are not really faithful to christianity.”57 given the history of the catholic church in particular, anesaki warns his audience that “one worries that the roman catholic pope will in future be able to tie together such-and-such a country and such-and-such a church. when that time comes, we will surely meet with extraordinary failure if we simply respond by mustering arms.”58 instead, he suggests that japan needed a spiritual prophet (seishinjō no yogensha 精神上の 予言者), like tolstoy. such a prognosticator would unite the people’s spirit and consequently channel that spiritual strength to guide the entire world. but that person would absolutely need to have the greatness of tolstoy in order to bring together faith and ideals and bring about world peace 56 anesaki masaharu, “sensō oyobi gaikō to shūkyō oyobi jinshu mondai” 戦争及外交と宗教及 人種問題 [the problems of war and diplomacy, and religion and mankind], in kokuun to shinkō, 21. 57 anesaki masaharu, “ōshū no kyōkai” 欧州の教会 [churches in europe], in kokuun to shinkō, 183. 58 anesaki, “ōshū no kyōkai,” 186. 92 anesaki masahuru’s reception of leo tolstoy without resorting to weaponry. religion and government need to be torn apart; the answer to world peace is not a strong government, army, or church. the answer is a spiritual leader who is committed to individual spiritual development.59 earlier in the same speech, anesaki points out that only a man of tolstoy’s international fame and status could have written what he did without being sent to siberia. even in japan, he notes, such a strident argument would be banned from publication, just as tolstoy’s essay had been banned in russia. the implication, of course, is that such an opinion did exist in japan—indeed, in anesaki’s head—but there was no one like tolstoy who could get it into print. it was a masterful bit of rhetoric, in that it essentially said something through the mouthpiece of tolstoy that otherwise would never have gotten past the japanese government censors. thus, anesaki is indirectly saying that the japanese government was following the same path as russia was by advocating the idea of the “holy” destiny of the emperor and his people. such an approach, irrevocably tied to military action, was doomed. privately, anesaki was pessimistic about his country’s future. in a personal letter written in late 1906 to his friend james haughton woods, a professor at harvard university,60 he wrote: a thing i wish to know is whether there may be any prospect for me to get any position as a teacher in buddhism (or chinese and japanese religions) in your university or in any other. do you think this is not impossible after perhaps one year’s preparation? this i write to you because here in japan a conservative tendency is growing and the kernel of the conservative principle lies in the praise of ancestor-worship. i must fight against it and though i hope to fight successfully i must expect one day to abandon my position because of this fight. this will be unimaginable to you but the conservatives have their stronghold in the government circle and they know how to crush their enemies by the name of the imperial authority. for the fight i must be prepared for the worse case of this issue. in that case i hope i may find my shelter in your country.61 59 anesaki, “ōshū no kyōkai,” 186. 60 james haughton woods (1864–1935) was a scholar of indic philosophy. he and anesaki shared a house briefly while both were studying in india in 1903. they originally met in 1902 through their common association with paul deussen (1845–1919). woods later became professor of philosophical systems of india at harvard, and invited anesaki to be a visiting professor there 1913–1915. 61 anesaki, “letter to james haughton woods” (letters to james haughton woods, 1885–1931 [ms am 2693] houghton library, harvard university). shortly after writing this letter, anesaki received a kahn foundation fellowship that provided him with funding to spend september 1907– october 1908 in the united states and europe. he did not lose his position at tokyo imperial university, as he feared he would. 93the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 this passage demonstrates that anesaki was deeply concerned about the direction that japan was taking. if we compare the tone of this letter to the essays he was publishing at about the same time, we do not see such a direct criticism of the conservatives, undoubtedly because launching such criticism could result in direct reprisals, such as losing his position at tokyo imperial university. therefore, anesaki was bristling at the government’s “conservative tendencies” but was limited in what he could write. in this sense, i think that russia in the russo–japanese war provided anesaki with a convenient foil. when bethink yourselves appeared in 1904, he had recently returned from an extended stay in europe, during which he had become disillusioned with germany in particular.62 that disillusionment was in part the result of kaiser wilhelm ii’s “hun speech” of 1900, in which he exhorted german troops to fight the boxer rebellion in china in the name of the christian god.63 in the russo–japanese war, the tsar told his troops that “god is on our side.” anesaki found such rhetoric distasteful, because it politicized religion and pitted one religious tradition against another, losing sight of the individual, spiritual aspect common to all religions. like tolstoy, he recognized that being “christian” did not necessarily mean having true faith. conclusion did his spotlight on tolstoy accomplish what he wanted to accomplish? did he convince his readers that faith was strongly connected to national fate? reaction in the japanese press to kokuun to shinkō was lukewarm. the widely-read periodical chūō kōron 中央公論 (central review) described it as a work that might be of interest to those who wanted to know more about the issues of the intellectual world, although the writing occasionally lacked energy and tended to be wordy.64 the journal teikoku bungaku 帝国文学 (imperial literature) noted that those who wanted to hear an exhaustive argument would be disappointed in the book, but those who wanted to see one example of an intellectual’s activities and thoughts on the war might bother to read it.65 the reviewers seemed indifferent to his argument. 62 this trip was for study. anesaki arrived in marseilles in april 1900 and left europe in november of 1902. 63 the speech was delivered on july 27, 1900 in bremerhaven. for anesaki’s recollections of this time in germany, see anesaki masaharu, waga shōgai: anesaki masaharu sensei no gyōseki 我が 生涯・姉崎正治先生の業績 [my life: the work of professor anesaki masaharu] (tokyo: ōzorasha, 1993), 82–88. 64 “shinkan hihyō” 新刊批評 [criticism of new publications], chūō kōron 中央公論 (may 1, 1906), 125–126. 65 “hihyō” 批評 [criticism], teikoku bungaku 帝国文学 5 (1906), 114. 94 anesaki masahuru’s reception of leo tolstoy it would seem that anesaki did gain some momentum from his stance, though. he established the chair of religious studies in 1905 at tokyo imperial university, and went on to become a respected leader in the field. isomae jun’ichi 磯前順一 (1961–) notes that, thanks to anesaki, “religiosity was understood as a central quality of human beings” and that religious studies as established by anesaki “handled in a positive spirit the religious issues that […] inoue [tetsujirō] had not addressed. in that sense anesaki’s religious studies was completely different from comparative religion under inoue.”66 anesaki’s strident voice in the popular press faded after this point, perhaps because he realized that he could be much more effective changing minds in academia, and doing so was perhaps more prudent in times of escalating governmental pressures. 66 jun’ichi isomae, religious discourse in modern japan: religion, state, and shintō, trans. galen amstutz and lynne e. riggs (leiden: brill, 2014), 95. 3.2018_front matter.indd 2017.2 editorial note monica juneja, joachim kurtz, and rudolf g. wagner .04 articles fiona siegenthaler to embrace or to contest urban regeneration? ambiguities of artistic and social practice in contemporary johannesburg .07 egas moniz bandeira china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia: non-western influences on constitutional thinking in late imperial china, 1893–1911 .40 takahiro yamamoto privilege and competition: tashiroya in the east asian treaty ports, 1869–1895 .79 steven ivings trade and conflict at the japanese frontier: hakodate as a treaty port, 1854–1884 .103 2 contributors transcultural studies, no 2, 2017 editors: monica juneja, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg joachim kurtz, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg diamantis panagiotopoulos, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg rudolf g. wagner, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg managing editor: russell ó ríagáin editorial board: christiane brosius, antje fluechter, madeleine herren, birgit kellner, axel michaels, barbara mittler, diamantis panagiotopoulos, vladimir tikhonov, and roland wenzlhuemer. transcultural studies is edited at the heidelberg center for transcultural studies (hcts) and published by heidelberg university publishing. the journal is freely available at http://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/ (open access). issn: 2191-6411 contributors to this issue: fiona siegenthaler is a senior lecturer at the institute of social anthropology, university of basel, switzerland, and a research associate at the research centre visual identities in art and design (viad), university of johannesburg. with an ma in art history (2005) and a phd in social anthropology (2012), her interests lie in the intersection of social sciences and the humanities, and contemporary visual and performative arts in particular. she has work experience in academia as well as in art galleries, art education, art criticism, and curatorial practice. egas moniz bandeira is a phd candidate at the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context” at heidelberg university, as well as at the school of law of tohoku university in sendai (japan). he studied 3transcultural studies 2017.2 law and east asian studies at heidelberg university and is licensed to practice law in germany. his research interests include the legal, political, and intellectual history of late imperial china, sino-japanese and sinorussian relations, and theories of the state. takahiro yamamoto received his phd in international history from the london school of economics in 2016. having held postdoctoral fellowships in shanghai and tokyo, he is currently an assistant professor of cultural economic history at the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context” at heidelberg university. steven ivings studied economic history at the london school of economics & political science (lse – university of london) and japanese studies at the school of oriental and african studies (soas – university of london). his phd thesis examined colonial settlement and migratory labor in karafuto (southern sakhalin) from 1905 to 1945. his current research interests include the japanese empire in comparative perspective, colonial migration, migratory labor markets in northern japan, hokkaido in the context of japanese and global history, whaling, and the sports and leisure industries in east asia. engaged ephemeral art: street art and the egyptian arab spring | saphinaz-amal naguib | transcultural studies engaged ephemeral art: street art and the egyptian arab spring saphinaz-amal naguib, university of oslo “…with a box of colours costing three pounds, you draw an idea, you paint a revolution…”[1] introduction the wave of uprisings that swept over the middle east and north africa from december 2010 to early 2013, known as the “arab spring,” was what aleida assmann defines as an “impact event” (assmann 2015, 44–46). i consider it a kairos, a fleeting opportune moment where time and action meet and fates may be changed. it was a promising moment, in which governments were toppled and hopes for changes were high. not only did the arab spring leave its imprint on political and social life in the countries concerned, but it also marked a change in various forms of artistic expression (hamamsy and soliman 2013b, 12–13; 2013c, 252–254; jondot 2013). street art, graffiti, and calligraffiti are perhaps the most striking forms of art from this short period. artists used to record and comment on events and developments in the political situation. they drew upon their people’s cultural memory to impart their messages and express dissent, civil disobedience, and resistance by combining images and scripts. poetry and political songs that previously had mostly been known to underground groups and intellectual elites were widely circulated. verses from the tunisian poet abul qasim al shabbi (1909–1934) and the egyptian poets fouad negm (1929–2013) and abdel rahman al-abnudi (1938–2015) were used as slogans and chanted all over the region (nicoarea 2015; sanders iv and visonà 2012; wahdan 2014). famous quotes from national political and cultural figures were also used, among them mustafa kamel’s (1874–1908) “if i weren’t already an egyptian, i would want to be one” (lau lam akun miṣrīyan la aradtu an akūna miṣrīyan); saad zaghloul’s (1859–1927) “it’s useless” (mafīsh fayda); president gamal abdel nasser’s statement that “the people are the leader and the teacher” (al shaʽb huwa al qaʾid wal muʽallim); and the song “patience has its limits” (lil sabr hudūd), by the famous singer umm kulthum (1904–1975). these slogans were visualised and written on buildings in many cities and circulated worldwide thanks to a plethora of internet platforms and social media. the term “street art,” also referred to as “urban art” and “the art of the subaltern and of political protest,” is used in this essay more generically to encompass various forms of visual arts created in public spaces, graffiti and calligraffiti among them (abdulaziz 2015; arnoldi 2015; zoghbi and karl 2012). before the events of january 2011 in egypt, they were most often found in contained settings and used mainly for advertising purposes (figure 1), or, as the murals on the walls of houses in luxor and nubia show, to narrate the hajj, or pilgrimage to mecca (dawson 2003; naguib 2011; parker and neal 2009). fig. 1: advertising a chicken farm in fayoum, 1976. fayoum. in egypt, street art has its well-known and established artists and writers. most have a formal education from state-funded academies of fine arts, universities, or university colleges. many are members of artists’ associations. there are also autodidact artists who try to make a name for themselves in the streets, and others who choose to remain anonymous. the novelty of the period that concerns us here is the obvious invasion of the public space, the political and social engagement, the defiant satire and critique of the regime that emanates from the creations on the walls of urban spaces. much has been written about the street art and graffiti of the “egyptian revolution” during the last five years; books like revolution graffiti: street art of the new egypt and walls of freedom: street art of the egyptian revolution (gröndahl 2012; hamdy and karl 2014), and scholarly and journalistic articles have documented and analysed the unexpected blossoming of this kind of art, its forms, and contents. i will not review all these publications in the limited space of this essay. suffice it to say that they mostly point to the novelty of the movement and its immediate political and social repercussions. my own approach is situated within cultural history; i address questions of material culture, memory, and heritage studies in the contemporary middle east, and more specifically, egypt (buchli and lucas 2001; gonzales 2008, 2014; naguib and rogan 2011; naguib 2015; olsen 2003; 2010; tilley 2006). i consider the ways an intangible oral heritage of popular sayings and poetry is very briefly transformed into concrete, powerful, politically laden images on the walls of urban public spaces and and how this heritage reflects on the afterlives of these images. i ask whether, in time, the same images that have been erased from the walls and now circulate on various internet platforms will be included as part of the intangible heritage of egypt. to do this, i concentrate on the materiality of visual art and the translation of political contestation into street art, graffiti, and calligraffiti in egypt. i delve into the ways slogans were visualised, drawn, and inscribed on the walls of the urban space in cairo and then disseminated on various internet platforms and social media between january 2011 and june 2015. in my use of the term, materiality refers to the “thingness” of things (olsen 2003), the physical properties of street art, graffiti, and calligraffiti. materiality is a medium through which the meanings and affective relationships with people unfold (ingold 2007, 9–14; olsen 2003; 2010; naguib and rogan 2011; tilley 2006, 61; 2007). as for translation, it is, according to peter burke, a social practice with a focus on context, and as such relates primarily to cultural contacts and exchanges (burke 2009, 56–58). moreover, translation indicates an intersemiotic perspective that entails adaptations and connections between various kinds and forms of cultural expressions, and conveys the interplay between texts, images, and contexts from the vantage point of intermediality (colla 2012). in studying the rebellious street art of the arab spring in egypt, using translation as an analytic approach offers a means of “shaping the space of protest,” according to mona baker, from a variety of theoretical perspectives and fields of research (baker 2016b, 2). taking my lead from mikhail bakhtin’s concepts of chronotope, where time and space merge, and of dialogism, where different forms of communication echo each other in what could be described as “graffiti of anger,” i first discuss the relevance of translation as an analytical approach when dealing with pictorial source material like street art, graffiti, and calligraffiti (bakhtin 1981). i then go on to offer a general outline of street art and graffiti and probe its sudden outburst in the urban landscape of egypt. i limit my analysis to the visualization of four slogans that, in my view, sum up different moments and moods of the uprisings during the period from january 2011 to december 2013.[2] these moments move from hope and calls for change in governance, social and political structures, to a loud, accusatory cry of protest, to distrust, and finally to disenchantment. in the last section of this essay, i reflect on the afterlife of the street art, graffiti, and calligraffiti of the arab spring, or rather, egyptian spring, and their potential transformation into mnemotopoi: sites of collective memory that gradually become part of the intangible cultural heritage of egypt’s recent past. translation, transculturality, and the medium translation is not confined to linguistic and literary studies. it has become one of those blurred nomadic concepts or travelling concepts that move between disciplines and scholars, and change value and connotations during their peregrinations. the dynamics of movement provide fruitful grounds for interand cross-disciplinary study and foster innovation and academic renewal (bal 2002; darbelley 2012; stenghers 1987). at its core, translation combines the ideas of transfer and mediation. it relates to a contextual process of decoding and recoding. it is an act of creation that denotes a search for equivalence rather than sameness. in his seminal essay, on linguistic aspects of translation, roman jakobson distinguished three main types of linguistic translation. the first is an intralingual translation based on rewording. the second is an interlingual translation, or translation proper, between different languages. the third type of translation is the intersemiotic type, or transmutation. it rests on the interpretation of the message that is being conveyed and various approaches for studying multimedial and multimodal transfers. thus, translation between different forms of communication may be seen in terms of intermedial relationships between words, images, music, and dance (jakobson [1959] 2000, 2). eugene nida refined jakobson’s classification and proposed four complementary perspectives to the study of translation (nida 1991). these are the philological perspective, the linguistic perspective, and—more relevant for the study of street art, graffiti, and calligraffiti—the communicative and sociosemiotic perspectives. as the collections of articles gathered in translating egypt’s revolution: the language of tahrir (mehrez 2012) and translating dissent: voices from and with the egyptian revolution (baker 2016a) demonstrate, the sociosemiotic perspectives allow for interdisciplinary approaches and a greater attention to the interaction between texts, various cultural and artistic expressions, and their contexts. for street art, graffiti, and calligraffiti artists during egypt’s arab spring, translation signified a transposition of ideas, hopes, and political activism into images and writings. the process sheds light on what mona baker describes as “the dynamics and complexities of a whole range of translational practices in protest movements” (baker 2016b, 3), and relies on the intentionality of the artists and their agency. seen from this vantage point, translation entails interpretation, creative transposition from one mode of expression to another and communication with a broad and diverse audience. it rests on finding the appropriate locations, choosing the surfaces on which artists will produce their works, and deciding on the genre, style, shape, and colours of their creations. but translation does not stop here. it forms a dialogic space, a contact zone that opens onto the different paths that the reception of the pieces produced and their dissemination generates; that is, onto their resonance among people and how their echoes linger in the mind. a major attribute of translation is going beyond national and cultural boundaries and providing fruitful grounds for transcultural inspiration and borrowings. fernando ortiz coined the term “transculturation” to explicate “different phases of the process of transition from one culture to another” (ortiz [1947] 1995, 102–103). thus, “transculturation,” and affiliated terms such as “transcultural” and “transculturality” entail the convergence and mixing of various cultural influences. the term implies a measure of cross-fertilization and choice in what to adopt and what to reject. applied to street art and graffiti, the notion of transculturality denotes alternative ways of perceiving and seeing hybridity and the mixing of cultural elements that were separate (mirzoeff 1999, 131). it draws attention to the wide-ranging sources of inspiration that are incorporated into local practices and usages. during the egyptian spring, street art and graffiti were important media in the artists’ aim of visualising transculturality, which became apparent for example in the combination of different languages and scripts, such as arabic and arabizi, or arabic for the internet, english and its latin alphabet, and, in some cases, ancient egyptian hieroglyphs (abo bakr 2012). the texts written in arabizi and english, or combining the two, were clearly intended for an international audience. many of the recurrent symbols and motifs that covered the walls of cities during the egyptian spring are familiar to global audiences. among them we find, for instance, marwan shahin’s adaptation of guy fawkes’s mask as anonymous wearing the nemes headdress of the pharaohs in ancient egypt (figure 2), the encircled a, meaning anarchy, and the acronym acab (“all cops are bastards”) (powell 2013). other, more elaborate pieces are, for example, a group production picturing the figure of joker from batman as a puppeteer wearing a military cap and holding the strings of puppets representing central political figures (figure 3), a card displaying president mohamed morsi as the queen of clubs,[3] and artist amr nazeer’s joke posters portraying president abdel fattah el sissi in the style of shepard fairey’s obama (figure 4) fig. 2: marwan shahin, guy fawkes mask anonymous wearing the nemes headdress of pharaohs in ancient egypt, 2013. cairo. fig. 3: mad graffiti week (facebook group), joker as a puppeteer, 2012. cairo. fig. 4: amr nazeer, joke, 2013. cairo. street art, graffiti, and calligraffiti street art and graffiti are rapidly developing arts on the international scene. in western countries, they are tied to hip hop culture, often with underlying social and political messages. as mentioned above, these forms were also practiced in the middle east before the arab spring, but within accepted political frameworks. in egypt, they were used for advertising purposes or to decorate the outer walls of dwellings with scenes inspired by the pilgrimage to mecca. the terms “street art” and “graffiti” are frequently used interchangeably. however, the majority of egyptian artists i interviewed considered themselves street artists, resorting to graffiti and calligraffiti as one of their many modes of expression and techniques. accordingly, they consider street art, which is also referred to as “urban art,” the art of the subaltern, political protest, and one of their many modes of expression and techniques. graffiti includes a great variety of genres and styles and mixes several graphic genres such as calligraphy, poster art, and graphic novels (genin 2013, 22–32). the word “graffiti” combines the notion of writing derived from the greek, graphein, to write, and that of incising, from the italian sgraffiare, to scratch. the term is used in art history and archaeology to designate inscriptions and drawings that have been added to a cave, monument, statue, or painting. graffiti has existed since the most ancient times and several sites and monuments dating from prehistory, pharaonic egypt, ancient greece and the roman empire show the passage of time through the names, words, phrases, and drawings people have inscribed on them while visiting. today, graffiti range from simple words, the artist’s signature or tag, or short phrases to elaborate wall paintings or pieces. the term “calligraffiti” was coined by the dutch graffiti artist niels shoe meulman and denotes the combination of traditional calligraphy, with its strict rules and methods, with the nonconformity and openness of graffiti and its use of varied methods, mediums, and tools (wikipedia, s.v. “niels shoe meulman”; wikipedia, s.v. “calligraffiti”; yoo 2010). in his study of street art and graffiti in western europe and the usa, christophe genin gives it two sources. one is a european practice of contestation that began in the 1950s among artists with formal academic backgrounds and training in visual arts. some other practitioners were non-professionals with anarchist or communist views (genin 2013, 118–122). the other source, according to genin, sprung from the civil rights movement at the end of the 1960s among north-american autodidact artists. the early 1980s witnessed a boom of new forms of street art and graffiti in different parts of the world, including the middle east (zoghbi and karl 2012). generally speaking, street art, and thus graffiti, is a multi-sited, interactive, and ephemeral kind of art. walls in the urban space are its favoured surfaces. common methods and techniques of street art today are stencil and spray-can art, writings, stencils, wheat pasted posters or sticker art, murals, mosaic, street installations, paint lighting, and knitting. in egypt, street artists favour stencils, murals, and posters. intentionality and performance are central characteristics of street art. artists appropriate the public space to convey their messages and the streets become their exhibition space. in this way, they communicate directly with a large and diverse public free from the restrictions imposed by the formal world of art and governmental censorship, especially in totalitarian regimes where freedom of expression is strictly limited. artists in these countries frequently resort to parody and satire as a means to circumvent censorship and, at the same time, share their ideas and political standpoints. performance, spectacle, and the carnavalesque as a form of political activism were salient elements of the “egyptian spring” (mehrez 2012; hamamsy and soliman 2013c, 250–257). mona abaza posits that the satire and irony voiced in the graffiti and murals that flourished on the streets of cairo after january 2011 were indeed persuasive vehicles of resistance (abaza 2013; 2016, 324). the written texts often show great attention to the graphic properties of the letters and a quest for aesthetics rather than legibility. calligraphy has a unique place in all islamic visual arts. as the language of the qur’an, the arabic writing acquired a special status and developed a variety of styles.[4] however, the many political and socio-cultural changes that took place in the middle east and north africa during the twentieth century did have enduring repercussions on the visual arts. art education followed western patterns and criteria, and several artists from the region were influenced by trends in modern western art. one of the consequences of this shift in focus is that the arabic script somehow lost its aura of sacredness and calligraphy was demoted from the status of art to that of traditional craft (shabout 2007, 70–71). the situation began to change with the independence movements of the 1950s. during the decolonization processes in the region and later in the 1970s and 1980s, artists searching for their roots and identity rediscovered the arabic script and calligraphy. they used them in new ways, not only as a symbol of authenticity, identity, and nationalism, but as a novel genre of arab/islamic modern art.[5] calligraphic modernism, to use iftikhar dadi’s expression, leans towards abstraction and emphasizes the forms of the script as well as the textual content. furthermore, modern typography and graphic arts have prompted contemporary artists, including graffiti artists, from the middle east and north africa to explore a kind of freeform calligraphy, by mixing different types of scripts and mediums and to experiment with the array of options offered by calligraffiti (zoghbi and karl 2012, 15–31). genin lists a number of features common to street art in general, and hence, to graffiti and calligraffiti (genin 2013, 123–125). a major characteristic, according to him, isrepetition. the same motif is reproduced, often with small variations and by different people, on different backgrounds. in egypt, texts and images were written, painted, re-written, re-painted, and combined with other texts and pictographs so as to craft new texts and new tableaux that echoed each other. visualizing political protest entails the use of visual topoi and codifying images in such a way that they acquire symbolic properties. in time, the recurrent image becomes, in lina khatib’s words, a “floating image.” a floating image is according to her “a strong image”; one of those images that have “the ability to originate, to multiply, and to distribute themselves” (khatib 2013, 11–12). thus, floating images are copied over and over, each time with alterations here and there to adapt them to changing contexts. meaning is thereby continuously renewed and actualized. the very repetitiveness of the motifs and themes depicted contributes to the transmission and retention of the message. it helps inscribe it more and more deeply in the political discourse of dissent and in the minds of those at the receiving end. it is not a matter of plagiarism, but rather of relaying and broadcasting protest. the thousand nos of bahia shehab, and the series the one who delegates does not die, by omar fathy, aka picasso, were such floating images during the egyptian spring. the second common feature of street art and graffiti is, in genin’s view, that they are simultaneously in situ and ex situ. they may be produced on a solid wall or a movable surface, like the trucks and tuk tuks in south asia and the middle east. they are flexible, many-layered, and not contained within the limits of a frame. rather, they are art forms that flow over borderlines and often glide from one context to another. a third aspect of street art and graffiti in general is their ruggedness. usually, the surface on which the pieces are created is not prepared or smoothed, and this gives the image an uneven texture. additionally, there is a sense of saturation tied to street art and graffiti, which is due to the fact that after some time, the surface is completely covered with other images, scribblings, and tags, giving a feeling of disruption and unruliness to the whole. a fifth shared characteristic of street art and graffiti, growing from the former, is loudness; genin calls it parasitage, in the sense of “interference,” as is found in radio transmissions. here, the noise is produced by colours, motifs, additions, and scripts that criss-cross each other and disturb the “clarity” of the picture, many emphasizing the impression of chaos that emanates from them. in egypt, the wall of the american university in cairo, along mohamed mahmoud street, offered a salient example of saturation and loudness in street art. ephemerality is another common attribute of street art and graffiti. the reasons for this impermanence are many. it may be due to damage caused by people passing, or by weather and erosion. the pieces often hold subversive, provocative, even abusive messages, prompting the building’s owners or the local authorities to whitewash the walls at regular intervals. thus walls bearing murals, drawings, and texts of all kinds act as palimpsests. they present superposed layers of writings and images that shine through the next covering layer and, hence, are never completely wiped out. ephemerality in art has its appeal. rafael schacter observes that several artists he interviewed in london considered the destruction of their works as a condition of the process of creating “for the moment, for the experience, for the freedom.”[6] instead of erasing the artists’ works, the removal may actually emancipate them (schacter 2008, 46). likewise, a number of egyptian street art and graffiti artists, such as ammar abo bakr and bahia shehab, believe that things, even works of art, have their lifespan and are not meant to last forever.[7] nevertheless, the pictures and messages continue to linger in people’s minds long after they have disappeared from public space, and thus they accentuate, in my view, the long-term resonance of the message imparted. the murals are interconnected “ephemeral interventions,” initiated by activist artists and then reproduced and disseminated through different media. the ephemerality of street art and graffiti is thus neutralised by new channels that, according to jeff ferrell, “elongate” in time and space the experience of creating street art and graffiti, and offer new kinds of aesthetic durability (ferrell 2016, xxxiv–xxxv). as kevin d. murphy and sally o’driscoll argue, ephemeral interventions occur in specific moments, in contexts of politically engaged art practices, and they do have a lasting impact (murphy and o’driscoll 2015, 330). digital photography is increasingly used to document the various artists’ creations and the public’s responses. the pictures are published on the internet and circulated on social media. the world wide web has become a global, interactive, virtual art gallery. exhibited online the material properties of the pieces have taken on a more immaterial quality (carle and huguet 2015). in an interview with louisiana channel, bahia shehab says: our work gets erased very quickly on the street. that’s why tv and the internet are very useful tools—you can communicate your messages in the digital sphere. that’s the game-changer now. the government can resist you, it can try to hide what you try to communicate, but it’s a completely different ballgame now (louisiana channel 2014). the aesthetic and economic values of street art, graffiti, and calligraffiti are highly disputed. in most countries, scribbling or painting on private or public property without the consent of the owner(s) is considered defacement, an act of vandalism, and thus a crime. nevertheless, some pieces have become subject to protection and some measures for their preservation are being tried out. in egypt, for instance, there have been calls to save the murals that the artist alaa awad created on the walls of the american university in cairo, but to no avail. the pieces were largely inspired by the tombs of new kingdom nobles on the west bank of luxor (hamdy and karl 2014, 136–137; abaza 2016; untitled 2013). a way of keeping street art from obliteration is to make smaller copies and exhibit them in conventional art galleries. internationally renowned artists like banksy sell posters reproducing their murals, printed on canvas, through the internet.[8] the transfer from the walls in open urban spaces to the interior walls of homes and offices not only changes the texture and size of the pieces, but also their significance. from being accessible to all, they become private commodities and lose their ephemerality. the copy might not be imbued with the same aura as the original, but it keeps it from being forgotten. the afterlife of street art, graffiti, and calligraffiti from the egyptian uprisings is still uncertain. a few photographic exhibitions, such as the recent fighting walls: street art in egypt and iran, are being arranged (seymour 2016). there is, however, no way of knowing at this point whether pictures of some of the pieces from the egyptian spring have been downloaded, printed and framed to adorn the walls of private homes and offices, and what kind of connotations and value they have acquired in the process. as remarked above, the meaning of these artworks is tied to their emplacement. the public space where street art, graffiti, and calligraffiti are created may acquire an emblematic status in future cultural memory. during the arab spring, the streets became the space of civic and cultural manifestations. in cairo, mohamed mahmoud street, off the famous tahrir square, witnessed some of the most violent clashes with police and army forces during the uprisings of 2011. thus, the place has acquired political meaning, and through their creations on the walls of the american university along this street and the adjacent ones, the artists have imbued them with an atmosphere of mutiny. unzipping the lips and freeing the words the first moment of the arab spring entailed what i would describe as “unzipping the lips and liberating the words” (figure 5). a general sense of unexpectedness and familiarity permeated the street art, graffiti, and calligraffiti of the arab spring. reflecting on the spread of graffiti in tunisia, sarra grira underlines their unforeseen dynamics (grira 2013). in her view, three central elements contribute to the impression of unexpectedness. the first is the sudden re-appropriation of the public space. this is followed by the unforeseen engagement of artists, who, seeing themselves as the guardians of history, record and analyse events on the walls of their cities. the third element is political and ideological. artists address socio-political issues and their murals and graffiti question the legitimacy of regimes, governments, and political parties. they get responses from the onlookers, many of whom draw or write in their own comments. according to charles tripp, reclaiming public space with graffiti is an act of defiance against authorities that want to assert their own unchallenged control of such spaces, forcing those who challenge that control to risk paying with their lives or with their freedom. the messages conveyed by the writings on the walls, by the images and symbols, signal alternative sources of authority, disrespect for established power and, implicitly, its loss of control (tripp 2013, 307). fig. 5: freedom painters, 2011. nasr city, cairo. as mentioned earlier, the arab spring witnessed a surge of poems, songs, and slogans that, with small variations in wording, were chanted in the streets and inscribed on the walls of various cities across the whole region. egypt was no exception, and slogans were not only heard but also translated visually on the walls of towns and cities. elliott colla points out that slogans are not literary texts, but rather, part of a performance, and as such belong to what he calls a repertoire of “contentious performance” that are all expressions of ephemeral interventions (colla 2012). the slogans heard in the streets and represented on the walls during the demonstrations in cairo between 2011 and 2013 drew on a wealth of texts that were anchored in people’s cultural memory. they had a strong emotional resonance, that is, a power to evoke images, memories, emotions, and meanings. according to aleida assmann, the notion of resonance implies “the interaction between two separate entities, one located in the foreground, one in the background” (assmann 2015, 45). the elements in the foreground, or the present, are connected to those in the background that make up cultural memory, and that, at an opportune moment, are reactivated. in egypt, the use of the vernacular form of arabic sprinkled with coarse language and references to central cultural and political figures from the past such as mustafa kamel, saad zaghloul and gamal abdel nasser, emphasized the dimension of shared experiences that fashions cultural memory. i will now present the various moments of the uprisings in egypt through some of the most widely used slogans and popular sayings and explicate how they have, in my view, been visualized in compelling images. apart from the works of bahia shehab and omar fathy, who are explicit about the message they convey, the equivalence, or rather, the translation made between the slogans and the images is based on my own interpretation of the murals and graffiti i have selected. the artists who produced them might have chosen other texts to explicate their pieces. the first slogan, al shaʽb yurīd isqāt al niẓām (the people want the fall of the regime), was heard in the early days of the uprisings. the slogan derives from the opening lines of the poem the will to life (idha al shaʽb yauman arād al hayāt), by the tunisian poet abul qasim al shabbi (1909–1934). the slogan affirms the people’s desire for change. it was first heard in rallies in the streets of tunisia and from there it travelled to egypt, syria, jordan, bahrain, and yemen. one of the most powerful visual translations of this slogan, is the chessboard by an egyptian street artist who uses the pseudonym el-teneen, which means “the dragon” in arabic. the chessboard shows all the pawns, representing the people, on one side of the board facing the line of dignitaries. the king is toppled. the pawns are all black and the squares on which they stand are red and white; the red probably symbolizes the blood that has been spilled during the demonstrations (figure 6).the immediacy of this piece derives not from narrating the development of events, but distilling the demands of the people in a very direct way. fig. 6: el-teneen, the king is down, 2011. cairo. the second moment of the revolution is one of sharp protest and a roar: no. bahia shehab’s project, a thousand times no: the visual history of lam-alif (laʽ waʾalf laʽ), denotes a prefiguration of that moment. the project resulted in a 3m x 7m installation exhibited at the haus der kunst in munich in september 2010, that is, in a time of gestation before the arab spring really took off. shehab’s project traces the history and different scripts of the arabic letterform lam-alif (pronounced laʽ, and meaning “no” in arabic), and repeats it in a thousand different forms to illustrate the common arabic expression for total refusal: “no, and a thousand no!” shehab is an artist and art historian who developed the graphic design program at the american university in cairo in 2011. she explains the idea behind her installation as follows: when you want to deny all of the stereotypes that are imposed on you and that try to define your role in the world. when you want to reject almost every aspect of your reality. when you want to decline every political reality you live under. when you want to dismiss all of the options available to you. when you want to negate all the accusations that go hand in hand with your identity. when you want to refuse to be an imitator or follower of the west, yet you also refuse the regressive interpretation of your heritage. ‘a thousand nos’ are not enough. (goethe institute, n.d.). according to shehab, the installation thus represents a rejection of both the conformity and the repression that often stifle the arabic speaking region and islamic cultures. the events that followed the uprisings in egypt prompted shehab to record the memory of these days by taking her nos to the streets of cairo, in the form of a series of calligraffiti placed in different locations of the city (shehab 2014a). she added two new pieces. one visualizes pablo neruda’s famous quote, “you may crush the flowers, but you cannot delay the spring,” translated into arabic.[9] the other recalls the incident of the veiled “blue bra girl” who was stripped and beaten by the police on december 18, 2011 (soueif 2011). in their new context of open urban space, the calligraffiti nos reiterate, in the words of the artist, “no to military rule,” “no to a new pharaoh,” “no to emergency law,” “no to stripping the people,” “no to blinding heroes,” “no to burning books,” “no to violence,” “no to stealing the revolution,” “no to barriers and walls” (shehab 2012; khalil 2014) (figures 7, 8, 9).the third moment of the arab spring in egypt is one of distrust, of a creeping feeling that “the more things change the more they stay the same.” the sense of wariness is conveyed by the recurrence of the popular saying illī kallif mā mātsh, meaning “the one who delegates does not die,” and visualized in a series of murals by the artist omar fathy, also known as picasso. the first murals created after president hosni mubarak resigned on february 11, 2011, showed the slightly superposed half faces of the president and field marshal mohamed tantawi, who was then leading the interim government. at the top of the scene, a white hand holds a red pencil, and beside it, a text asserts that “the revolution goes on” (al thawra mustamira). beneath that is the logo of the “association of the artists of the revolution” (rābita fanānī al thawra). the popular saying in question is written at the bottom. the letters are painted in red, yellow for the negative form mā, and green for kallif (to delegate). the lam (l) in the word is shaped like the joined necks of mubarak and tantawi (figure 10). fig. 7: bahia shehab, no, and a thousand times no, 2011. cairo. calligraffiti. fig. 8: bahia shehab, you may crush the flowers, but you cannot delay the spring (verse by poet pablo neruda), 2011. cairo. calligraffiti. fig. 9: bahia shehab, the blue bra. on top: “no to stripping the people.” the sole of the military boot reads: “long live a peaceful revolution,” 2011. cairo. calligraffiti. fig. 10: omar fathy aka picasso, illi kalif ma matsh (the one who delegates doesn’t die), (first version), 2012. cairo. other pieces in the same spirit but with additional text show the same half faces of mubarak and tantawi joined by the neck. behind them, we see amr moussa, the secretary of the arab league at the time, and ahmed shafik, who was prime minister from january 29 to march 3, 2011. the inscription, in red and black on the left side of the mural, reads, “i will not trust you and you will not rule over me one more day” (mā hadika amān, walla tuhkumnī yūm kamān) (graffiti at muhammad mahmoud street, n.d.). the next pieces in the series depict the half faces of mubarak and tantawi, still joined at the neck in the foreground. slightly to the back is the elected president, mohamed morsi from the muslim brotherhood, almost in full face. the word lissa, meaning “still,” coloured in brown, is added a bit higher up on the right side of the mural. thus, the meaning is “still, the one who delegates doesn’t die” (graffiti outside the presidential palace 2012). another mural portrays the artist, seen from the back, finishing a mural representing mubarak and tantawi, joined at the neck, and mohamed badie, who was then the supreme guide of the muslim brotherhood, in the background. the word bardū, or “nevertheless,” painted in yellow, precedes the slogan written beneath the portraits. on the right, we see a police officer with fangs instead of teeth, brandishing a club at the artist and holding a shield in his left hand. six men, with mubarak’s features, wearing the uniforms of the security police, are standing under the portraits. the ones at either end of the row are holding shields; the one on the left has a skull decorating his shield, while the one on the right holds a baton. each of the remaining four men bears a letter on his chest. together the letters form the acronym acab (all cops are bastards). the ground on which they stand is covered with red paint, indicating that blood has been shed during the demonstrations. beneath the scene, a poem in vernacular egyptian arabic, written in grey letters, tells the beholder: oh! regime you are afraid of the brush and the pen, you oppress and step on those who have been abused. if you were doing right, you would not be afraid of what has been drawn. you are only able to wage war against the walls, play the strong man against lines and colours. but inside you are a coward, you’ll never build up what has been destroyed.[10] (figure 11). fig. 11: omar fathy aka picasso, illi kalif ma matsh (the one who delegates doesn’t die), with the poem “oh! regime you are afraid of the brush and the pen,” 2012. cairo. the last piece in the series shows the half faces of mubarak and tantawi joined at the neck: morsi appears slightly in the background and behind him, the silhouette of a face, painted black with a big white question mark in its middle, wears a military beret (figure 12). above, the inscription on the right says “down with all those who betray” (yisqut kul man khān), and above the portraits we read “mubarak, the military, the brotherhood” (mubarak, ‘askar, ikhwān). here, the artist implies that the military had actually always been in power in egypt and announces their visible takeover. fig. 12: omar fathy aka picasso, illi kalif ma matsh (the one who delegates doesn’t die), (last version), 2013. ittihadiya palace wall, cairo. disenchantment with the results of the uprisings continued to grow. in june 2012, a group of artists expressed their feelings with a mural showing a highly respected figure from the past, the nationalist politician and first prime minister of independent egypt, saad zaghloul (1859–1927), who is considered to be the “father of the nation.” he sits cross-legged in a comfortable chair and wears a black suit, a white shirt, a red bow tie, and the red tarbush or fez. the colours are those of today’s egyptian flag. zaghloul lifts his right arm and raises his middle-finger. the text reads “it’s useless, sons of bitches” (mafīsh fayda ya wilād al mar’a). the phrase refers to the dying saad zaghloul’s famous last words to his wife, safeya: “it’s useless, cover me up, safeya.”[11] these words have been interpreted as zaghloul’s disillusionment with the political situation in egypt at the time of his death[12] (“the presidential election” 2012) (figure 13). fig. 13: saad zaghloul, “it’s useless, sons of bitches,” 2012. cairo. concluding thoughts: from solid walls to intangible heritage? president mohamed morsi was removed from power on july 3, 2013, and the military regime, headed by general abdel fattah al sissi, took over. censorship increased; many activists, intellectuals, and artists were arrested, some disappeared, and some left the country. however, street art, graffiti, and calligraffiti continued to appear, albeit sporadically, on the walls of the main cities, and to circulate on social media. on may 18, 2014, the artist known as keizer posted a graffiti with the question: “do you remember tomorrow that never came?” (fakir bukra illī magāsh) on his facebook page (figure 14). fig. 14: keizer, “do you remember tomorrow that never came?” 2014. unknown location. on september 1, 2014, el-teneen posted a new version of his chessboard on his facebook page. the squares are yellow and red and the pawns are aligned over the whole surface. the king stands alone amongst them and dominates them all. there are no dignitaries around; the king is back (figure 15).[13] fig. 15: el-teneen, the king is back, 2014. cairo. photo: el-teneen. the sense of disillusionment was echoed in early may 2015 with calligraffiti by the artist ahmed naguib on the walls of the greek campus of the american university in cairo (figure 16).[14] the text, composed of interlaced superposed letters and words, reads “taffī al nūr yā bahya…” (switch off the light bahya…). bahya is a girl’s name meaning “beautiful, radiant, splendid”; it is also used as an epithet for egypt. the line is from a song from the 1998 musical, al malik hūwa al malik” (the king is the king), by the composer and singer mohamed mounir (mounir 2011). the musical, in turn, is an adaptation of the play bearing the same title by syrian playwright saadallah wannous (1941–1997). penned in 1977, the play was performed in the late seventies but was subsequently banned from the stage in syria.[15] the rest of the text in the musical, that is not included in the calligraffiti, says: “…switch off the light bahia, all the military are thieves. but in our country not only the military are thieves.” fig. 16: ahmed naguib, “switch off the light bahya,” 2015. cairo. calligraffiti. ephemerality does not mean that the fleeting moment, the kairos, has no lasting effect. street art, graffiti, and calligraffiti of the arab spring blossomed at an opportune time when many options to improve social and political conditions seemed available. kairos has the power of triggering change, of having a long-term resonance and giving way to a sense of shared experiences and memories. in egypt, it has brought about a general awareness of and engagement in politics that had been lacking among the majority of the population. during the egyptian spring, artists resorted to street art, graffiti, and calligraffiti to impart their views to a varied audience both at home and abroad. they translated their dissent and political activism into potent visual images that covered the walls in significant locations of the urban space. in the process, they created a dialogical space where ideas are transposed into images that reach a transnational and transcultural public. in their works, the artists combine originality in giving form to their ideas with familiarity in using the vernacular language and referring to elements of shared cultural memory. the interpretations of the pieces by passers-by in the streets, users on the internet, and members of different social media networks may differ completely from the intentions of the artists. however, this does not mean that the pieces they created lose their affective power and cease to impact the feelings and perceptions of various audiences. although the art is ephemeral, it is still stored and shared on a plethora of internet platforms. these have become the kind of museum without walls accessible to all—at least to those who have access to these technologies—that the french writer and politician andré malraux (1901–1976) envisioned. these developments suggest that the world wide web is developing into an effective tool to store the memory of events and to help shape part of the intangible heritage of the twenty-first century in different countries, egypt included. richard jacquemond posits that the period between 2011 and 2013 in egypt did not merely expose a deep societal and political divide, it also brought to light a significant generation gap in a number of cultural fields (jacquemond 2015). it provided the space for new cultural productions and novel cultural practices. the road to freedom of expression, however, is long and arduous. as mentioned above, in the aftermath of this euphoric period, a number of intellectuals and artists were silenced, put behind bars, subjected to what is euphemistically referred to as “forced” disappearance (i.e. whereabouts are unknown) or chose to leave. some, like ganzeer, who now lives in the usa, produce smaller-sized pieces in studios, exhibit in art galleries, and explore the possibilities offered by different genres such as graphic novels. other internationally known artists, such as ammar abo bakr, bahia shehab, and ahmed naguib, are regularly invited to participate in street art and graffiti festivals and other cultural venues in various countries. street art and graffiti from the egyptian spring attracted attention worldwide, and a vast number of publications appeared. the documentation and literature produced provided fertile grounds for an international market (abaza 2016). it prompted sponsors to provide funds to promote the image of the “post-orientalist, post-2011, rebellious arab artist.” this interest may persuade all involved to find a modus vivendi, according to jacquemond. as often happens in similar political situations, the authorities may become more accommodating towards “rebellious” artists and try to placate them by allowing them to practice their art within certain limits and under the somewhat lenient control from relevant ministries, especially the ministry of interior, ministry of culture, and the ministry of education. a way to do this is by sponsoring street art festivals such as the one that has been held in burullus, a fishing town in egypt’s eastern delta, since 2013. conversely, the artists may agree to conform to some form of censorship and to the images of post-orientalist, rebellious arab artists that circulate in western countries, or at least to negotiate with these representations (jacquemond 2015, 142–143). several produce their new pieces in foreign environments and tend to combine activism with poetry. bahia shehab’s recent series on the poems of the late palestinian poet mahmoud darwish (1941–2008) illustrate this trend well. (figure 17). fig. 17: bahia shehab, those who have no land have no sea (verse by poet mahmoud darwish), august 2016. kefalonia, greece. calligraffiti. another example of this kind of compromise is the anamorphic piece entitled perception by the tunisian-french calligraffiti artist el seed. he created it in cairo’s district of garbage collectors, mansheyat nasser (figure 18). the inhabitants are predominantly copts who are known to have developed an efficient recycling system. el seed spread his calligraffiti on the surfaces of about 50 apartment buildings in the area. the piece, which can only be seen in full from a specific point on the moqattam hill, is a quote dating from the third century patriarch of alexandria, st. athanasius, “anyone who wants to see the sunlight clearly must wipe his eyes first.”[16] fig. 18: el seed, perception, 2016. cairo. the afterlife, or, to use the term coined by aby warburg, the nachleben of the egyptian spring remains unclear.[17] the events are still too recent for mnemohistory or to understand their long-lasting effects. today, most walls bearing murals or stencils have been whitewashed or pulled down and rebuilt; very few pieces of street art survive. nevertheless, some places, such as the area around tahrir square and mohamed mahmoud street, are slowly becoming iconic sites and may gradually acquire the aura of a mnemotopos, that is, a place where collective memories converge. as such, sometime in the future they may represent the material foundation for elaborating the cultural memory of the arab spring in egypt (gonzáles-ruibol, 2008, 256–259; 2014). the digitized pictures of the street art produced in this short time may then constitute a significant documentation on which to elaborate a new kind of intangible heritage. acknowledgements this article was completed during my stay as a member of the research group “after discourse: things, archaeology, and heritage in the 21st century,” at the centre for advanced study (cas) at the norwegian academy of science and letters in oslo during the academic year 2016–2017. earlier drafts were presented in 2014 and 2015 at the interdisciplinary seminars “translating concepts at disciplinary crossroads: time, space, culture, religion and heritage,” department of culture studies and oriental languages, university of oslo. i am grateful to the participants for their valuable comments. i am greatly indebted to artists and colleagues in egypt for taking time to discuss their work with me and answer my queries. very special thanks go to bahia shehab and mona abaza, of the american university in cairo, for being so forthcoming. i would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their useful advice. list of illustrations fig. 1: advertising a chicken farm in fayoum, 1976. fayoum. photo: raymond collet. courtesy raymond collet. fig. 2: marwan shahin, guy fawkes mask anonymous wearing the nemes headdress of pharaohs in ancient egypt, 2013. cairo. photo: alejo santander. http://blogs.infobae.com/street-art/files/2013/09/egipto-v.jpg [accessed on 4. august 2016]. fig. 3: mad graffiti week (facebook group), joker as a puppeteer, 2012. cairo. photo: alejo santander. http://blogs.infobae.com/street-art/files/2013/09/egipto-6.jpg [accessed on 24. march 2014]. fig. 4: amr nazeer, joke, 2013. cairo. graphic: amr nazeer. http://bit.ly/2lwkwqa [accessed on 7. may 2015]. fig. 5: freedom painters, 2011. cairo, nasr city. photo: jano charbel. courtesy of the photographer. https://www.flickr.com/photos/janocharbel/8412367522 [accessed on 7. march 2017]. fig. 6: el-teneen, the king is down, 2011. cairo. http://muftah.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/la-scacchiera-el-teneen.jpg?bd2281 [accessed on 3. may 2015]. fig. 7: bahia shehab, no, and a thousand times no, 2011. cairo. calligraffiti. photo: bahia shehab. courtesy of the photographer. fig. 8: bahia shehab, you may crush the flowers, but you cannot delay the spring (verse by poet pablo neruda), 2011. cairo. calligraffiti. photo: bahia shehab. courtesy of the photographer. fig. 9: bahia shehab, the blue bra. on top: “no to stripping the people.” the sole of the military boot reads: “long live a peaceful revolution [in arabic],” 2011. cairo. calligraffiti. photo: bahia shehab. courtesy of the photographer. http://designandviolence.moma.org/blue-bra-graffiti-bahia-shehab/ [accessed on 28. november 2014]. fig. 10: omar fathy aka picasso, illi kalif ma matsh[the one who delegates doesn’t die], (first version), 2012. cairo. photo: gigi ibrahim. http://www.radiolfc.net/wp-content/uploads/image/image/photos2012/graffitiegypt.jpg [accessed on 4. may 2015]. fig. 11: omar fathy aka picasso, illi kalif ma matsh [the one who delegates doesn’t die], with poem oh! regime you are afraid of the brush and the pen, 2012. cairo. photo: hassan emad hassan. http://www.nae.org.uk/event/walls-of-freedom-street-art-of-the/434 [accessed on 4. may 2015]. fig. 12: omar fathy aka picasso, illi kalif ma matsh [the one who delegates doesn’t die], (last version), 2013. ittihadiya palace wall, cairo. photo: basma hamdy. http://www.artslant.com/9/articles/show/41533 [accessed on 4. may 2015]. fig. 13: saad zaghloul, “it’s useless, sons of bitches,” 2012. cairo. photo: mona abaza. http://www.perspectivia.net/publikationen/orient-institut-studies/2-2013/galerie/abaza_satire/abbildung-14 [accessed on 11. march 2014]. fig. 14: keizer, “do you remember tomorrow that never came?” 2014. unknown location. photo: keizer. https://www.facebook.com/keizerstreetart [accessed on 18. may 2014]. fig. 15: el-teneen, the king is back, 2014. cairo. photo: el-teneen. https://www.facebook.com/revolutiongraffiti.streetartegypt/photos/a.336011806423250.84498.313913465299751/878237052200720/?type=3&theater [accessed on 4. may 2015]. fig. 16: ahmed naguib, “switch off the light bahya,” 2015. cairo. calligraffiti. photo: ahmed naguib. https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/96/5c/36/965c36eac2ed052b36421faa47f074e2.jpg [accessed on 8. may 2015] fig. 17: bahia shehab, those who have no land have no sea (verse of poet: mahmoud darwish), august 2016. kefalonia, greece. calligraffiti. photo: bahia shehab. courtesy of the photographer. fig. 18: el seed, perception, 2016. cairo. photo: el seed. http://english.ahram.org.eg/media/news/2016/3/15/2016-635936624963200459-320.jpg [accessed on 7. april 2016]. references abaza, mona. 2013. “satire, laughter and mourning in cairo’s graffiti.” orient-institut studies 2. http://www.perspectivia.net/content/publikationen/orient-institut-studies/2-2013/abaza_satire [accessed on 30. april 2014]. ———. 2016. “the field of graffiti and street art in post-january 2011 egypt.” in routledge handbook of graffiti and street art, edited by jeffrey ian ross, 318– 333. london: routledge. abdulaziz, ashour. 2015. “the emergence of new forms of libyan public expression: street art in tripoli.” in grigore and sitrau, “graffiti, writing, and street art in the arab world,” 9–16. al-anezi, ali ali ajil naji. 2006. “an analytical study of the theatre of the syrian playwright saadallah wannous, with particular emphasis on the plays written after the 1967 war.” phd diss., university of sheffield. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/3080/1/434995.pdf [accessed on 8. july 2015]. arnoldi, ea. 2015. “renaming shuhada street: palestinian activism, spatial narratives and graffiti in hebron.” in grigore and sitaru, “graffiti, writing and street art in the arab world,” 17–37. assmann, aleida. 2015. “impact and resonance: towards a theory of emotions in cultural memory.” in the formative past and the formation of the future, edited by terje stordalen and saphinaz-amal naguib, 41–69. oslo: novus press. bal, mieke. 2002. travelling concepts in the humanities: a rough guide. toronto: university of toronto press. baker, mona, ed. 2016a. translating dissent: voices from and with the egyptian revolution. new york: routledge. ———. 2016b. “beyond spectacle: translation and solidarity in contemporary protest movements.” in baker, translating dissent, 1–17. bakhtin, michael. 1981. “forms of time and of the chronotope in the novel.” in the dialogic imagination: four essays by m.m. bakhtin, translated by caryl emerson and michael holmquist, 84–258. austin: university of texas press. ———. 1986. speech genres and other late essays, edited by caryl emerson and michael holmquist, austin: university of texas press. buchli, victor, and lucas gavin, eds. 2001. archaeologies of the contemporary past. london: routledge. burke, peter. 2009. cultural hybridity. cambridge: polity press. carle, zoé, and franҫois huguet. 2015. “les graffitis de la rue mohamed mahmoud: dialogisme et dispositifs médiatiques.” égypte/ monde arabe, 3rd ser., 12. http://ema.revues.org/3449 [accessed on 19. april 2015]. colla, elliott. 2012. “the people want.” middle east research and information project. http://www.merip.org/mer/mer263/people-want [accessed on 16. april 2015]. dadi, iftikhar. 2010. “ibrahim el salahi and calligraphic modernism in a comparative perspective.” south atlantic quarterly 109 (3): 555–576. darbellay, frédéric, ed. 2012. la circulation des savoirs: interdisciplinarité, concepts nomades, analogies, métaphores, berne: peter lang. dawson, barry. 2003. streets graphics egypt. london: thames & hudson. ferrell, jeff. 2016. “foreword: graffiti, street art, and the politics of complexity.” in routledge handbook of graffiti and street art, edited by jeffrey ian ross, xxx–xxxviii. london: routledge. genin, christophe. 2013. le street art au tournant: reconnaissances d’un genre. bruxelles: les impressions nouvelles. gonzáles-ruibal, alfredo. 2008. “time to destroy: an archaeology of supermodernity.” current anthropology 49 (2): 247–279. ———. 2014. “archaeology of the contemporary past.” in encyclopedia of global archaeology, edited by claire smith, 1683–1694. new york: springer. grigore, george, and laura sitaru, ed. 2015. “graffiti, writing and street art in the arab world.” special issue, romano-arabica 15. grira, sarra. 2013. l’art de rue à l’heure du «printemps arabe:» les graffiti, ou l’inattendu de l’expression d’une citoyenneté en tunisie et en egypte. http://cle.ens-lyon.fr/arabe/arts/arts-plastiques/arts-plastiques/l-art-de-rue-a-l-heure-du-printemps-arabe-les-graffiti-ou-l-inattendu-de-l-expression-d-une-citoyennete-en-tunisie-et-en-egypte [accessed on 27. november 2014]. gröndahl, mia. 2012. revolution graffiti: street art of the new egypt. cairo: the american university in cairo press. hamdy, basma, and don karl aka stone, eds. 2014. walls of freedom: street art of the egyptian revolution. berlin: from here to fame publishing. hamamsy, walid el, and mounira soliman, eds. 2013a. popular culture in the middle east and north africa. new york: routledge. ———. 2013b. “introduction: popular culture; a site of resistance.” in hamamsy and soliman, popular culture in the middle east and north africa, 1–14. ———. 2013c. “the aesthetics of revolution: popular creativity and the egyptian spring.” in hamamsy and soliman, popular culture in the middle east and north africa, 246–259. jacquemond, richard. 2015. “un mai 68 arabe? la revolution égyptienne au prisme culturel.” revue des mondes musulmans et de la méditerranée: monde contemporain 138 (2): 131–146. jakobson, roman. (1959) 2000. “on linguistic aspects of translation.” in the translation studies reader, edited by laurence venuti, 126–131. london. new york: routledge. jondot, jacqueline. 2013. “des graffiti du caire, janvier 2011 – mars 2013: l’inattendu dans la création littéraire et artistique, à la lumière du ‘printemps arabe.’” atelier nr.3: les modes d’expression inattendus: la clé des langues; cultures et langues étrangères. ens, lyon. http://cle.ens-lyon.fr/arabe/arts/arts-plastiques/arts-plastiques/des-graffiti-du-caire-janvier-2011-mars-2013 [accessed on 30. april 2014]. khatib, lina. 2013. image politics in the middle east: the role of the visual in political struggle. london: i.b. tauris. khalil, nama. 2014. “blue bra graffitti (bahia shehab).” design and violence, september 3. http://designandviolence.moma.org/blue-bra-graffiti-bahia-shehab/ [accessed on 28. november 2014]. lewisholm, cedar. 2008. street art: the graffiti revolution. london: tate publishing. malraux, andré. 1947. le musée imaginaire. paris: gallimard. mehrez, samia, ed. 2012. translating egypt’s revolution: the language of tahrir. cairo: the american university in cairo press. mirzoeff, nicholas. 1999. an introduction to visual culture. london: routledge. murphy, kevin d., and sally o’driscoll. 2015. “the art/history of resistance: visual ephemera in public space.” space and culture 18: 328–357. naguib, saphinaz-amal. 2011. “et blikk på egypt: neo-faraonisme og sekularisering av det offentlige rom.” in materiell kultur og kulturens materialitet, edited by saphinaz-amal naguib and bjarne rogan, 125–144. oslo: novus forlag. ———. 2015. “materializing islam and the imaginary of sacred space.” in objects and imagination: perspectives on materialization and meaning, edited by øyvind fuglerud and leon wainwright, 64–77. new york: berghahn. nicoarea, giorgiana. 2015. “the contentious rhetoric of the cairene walls: when graffiti meets popular poetry.” in grigore and sitaru “graffiti, writing and street art in the arab world,” 99–111. nida, eugene. 1991. “theories of translation.” ttr: traduction, terminologie, redaction 4 (1): 19–32. http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/037079ar [accessed on 4. november 2014]. ortiz, fernando. (1947) 1995. cuban counterpoint: tobacco and sugar. durham: duke university press. olsen, bjørnar. 2003. “material culture after text: re-membering things.” norwegian archaeological review 36 (2): 87–104. parker, ann, and avon neal. 2009. hajj paintings: folk art of the great pilgrimage. cairo: the american university in cairo press. sanders, lewis, iv. 2012. “reclaiming the city: street art of the revolution.” in mehrez, translating egypt’s revolution, 143–182. sanders, lewis, iv, and mark visonà. 2012. “the soul of tahrir: poetics of a revolution.” in mehrez, translating egypt’s revolution, 213–248. schacter, rafael. 2008. “an ethnography of iconoclash: an investigation into the production, consumption, and destruction of street-art in london.” journal of material culture 13: 35–61. seymour, tom. 2016. “street art in iran and egypt on show at new art exchange, nottingham.” british journal of photography, october 3. http://www.bjp-online.com/2016/10/street-art-in-iran-and-egypt-on-show-at-new-art-exchange-nottingham/ [accessed on 15. october 2016]. shabout, nada. 2007. modern arab art: formation of arab aesthetics. gainsville: university press of florida. shehab, bahia. 2014a. “spraying no.” in hamdy and karl, walls of freedom, 117–119. ———. 2016. “translating emotions: graffiti as a tool for change.” in baker, translating dissent, 163–177. soueif, ahdaf. 2011. “image of unknown woman beaten by egypt’s military echoes around world.” the guardian, december 18. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/dec/18/egypt-military-beating-female-protester-tahrir-square [accessed on 18. august 2016]. stenghers, isabelle, ed. 1987. d’une science à l’autre: des concepts nomades. paris: le seuil. tamm, marek. 2015. “introduction: afterlife of events; perspectives on mnemohistory.” in afterlife of events: perspectives on mnemohistory, edited by marek tamm, 1–23. basingstoke: palgrave macmillan. tilley, christopher. 2006. “objectification.” in handbook of material culture, edited by christopher tilley, webb keane, susanne küchler, mike rowlands, and patricia spyers, 60–73. london: sage. ———. 2007. “materiality in materials.” in archaeological dialogues 14 (1): 16–20. tripp, charles. 2013. the power and the people: paths of resistance in the middle east. cambridge: cambridge university press. wahdan, dalia. 2014. “singing the revolution in tahrir square: euphoria, utopia, and revolution.” in the political aesthetics of global protest, edited by pnima werbner, martin webb, and kathryn spellman-poots, 52–66. edinburgh: edinburgh university press. zoghbi, pascal, and don karl. 2012. le graffiti arabe. paris: eyrolles. internet and social media abo bakr, ammar. 2012. “giant serpent has three heads of scaf generals,” cairo, wall of lycee francais school. photograph. suzee in the city (blog), march 25. https://suzeeinthecity.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/jadalya-4.jpg [accessed on 4. august 2016]. goethe institute. n.d. “bahia shehab, art historian, designer, artist.” http://www.goethe.de/ges/prj/rue/ref/en10643294.htm [accessed on 21. november 2014] graffiti outside the presidential palace in cairo, december 8, 2012. photograph: patrick/baz/afp/getty. in “this graffiti art shows how egypt’s revolution came full circle” the world post, november 2, 2014. http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1613985/thumbs/o-tantawi-mubarak-graffiti-cairo-900.jpg?6 [accessed on 10. march 2017]. graffiti at muhammad mahmoud street in cairo. n.d. photograph: daniel berehulak/getty. in “cairo’s superficial clean-up brings graffiti artists out in force,” the guardian, october 9, 2012. http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/guardian/pix/gweekly/2012/10/8/1349714335744/egypt-graffiti-009.jpg [accessed on 10. march 2017]. mounir, mohamed. 2011. “taffī al nūr yā bahya,” youtube video, 3:21. uploaded july 22. https://youtu.be/7fgzwkub0i0 [accessed on 10. march 2017]. powell, megan. “the defining aspects of urban egyptian life (part 1).” made in maadi (blog), september 9, 2013. http://madeinmaadi.blogspot.no/2013/08/the-defining-aspects-of-urban-egyptian.html [accessed on 4. august 2016]. “preserving mohamed mahmoud murals.” 2012. news@auc, march 6. https://archive.fo/cisb [accessed on 14. march 2017]. shehab, bahia. 2012. “bahia shehab: a thousand times no.” filmed june. ted video, 5:56. uploaded september 2012. https://www.ted.com/talks/bahia_shehab_a_thousand_times_no [accessed on 21. november 2014]. “the presidential elections: revolutionary graffiti continue.” 2012. suzee in the city (blog), june 5. http://suzeeinthecity.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/the-presidential-elections-revolutionary-graffiti-continues/?relatedposts_hit=1&relatedposts_origin=816&relatedposts_position=2 [accessed on 11. march 2014]. the palestinian poster project archives, http://palestineposterproject.org/ [accessed on 27. october 2016]. untitled. 2013. photograph. alaa awaad’s facebook page. uploaded december 18. https://www.facebook.com/alaaawadart/photos/a.1495274424031211.1073741827.1495267380698582/1495274294031224/?type=3&theater [accessed on 20. march 2016]. wikipedia, s.v. “calligraffiti.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/calligraffiti [accessed on. 6. may 2016]. wikipedia, s.v. “niels shoe meulman.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/niels_shoe_meulman [accessed on 6. may 2016] yoo, alice. 2010. “calligraffiti: an explosive new art form.” my modern met (blog), november 4. http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/calligraffiti-an-explosive-new [accessed on 6. may 2016]. facebook groups graffiti in egypt. https://www.facebook.com/graffiti.in.egypt/ revolution graffiti – street art of the new egypt. https://www.facebook.com/revolutiongraffiti.street interviews with bahia shehab shehab, bahia. 2014b. “bahia shehab: art as a tool for change,” by marc-christoph wagner for louisiana channel. the huffington post: the blog, march 24. https://player.vimeo.com/video/89910610 [accessed on 28. november 2014]. [1] facebook page graffiti in egypt, posted 8. april 2015. …‘albat alwān bi talata guinih tirsim fikra wa tirsim thawra…. the transliteration from arabic follows the guidelines given by the library of congress aia-lc romanization tables, http://loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/arabic.pdf [accessed on 5. august 2016]. [2] during this period, president hosni mubarak was forced to resign on february 11, 2011, and was replaced by an interim government led by a military officer, field marshal mohamed hussein tantawi. the elections of june 30, 2012, placed mohamed morsi, of the muslim brotherhood, at the head of the government. after a year in power, he was ousted on july 3, 2013, and another military officer, general abdel fattah el sissi, took over as president. [3] http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n2kootl1n2y/u_ct_u6j7di/aaaaaaadht8/g7nrmtfpcjk/s1600/2.jpg; http://venitism.blogspot.no/2014/08/graffiti-artists.html [accessed on 7. may 2015]. [4] arabic script comprises of two major stylistic groups. the first group is the angular kufic that is used on monuments and that branched into plain kufic and ornamental kufic. the second group consists of cursive scripts. the classical tradition counts six major styles of cursive scripts. the most used are the common naskhi or “copy-hand,” the nastaliq, which is originally persian and prevails in iran and south asia, and the hieratical thuluth. the latter is used mainly for ornamental purposes on monuments and for qur’anic inscriptions. [5] master calligrapher and artist samir sayegh underlined this point in his paper, arabic calligraphy and revival, granshan conference, the american university in cairo, 28 october 2016. see also: dadi 2010, 560–571; naguib 2015, 69–74. [6] italics in the original. [7] personal communication. [8] one can buy them on amazon.com. [9] yumkinak tadhass el ward, lakina la tastali’ an tu’akhir al rabīʽ; the original quote: “podrán cortar todas las flores, pero no podrán detener la primavera.” [10] yā niẓām khayif min fursha wa qalam/wa ẓalamt wa bitdus ‘ll itẓalam/law kunt māshī fil salīm/mā kunt khuft millī itrassam/akhrak tuhārib al hitān/titshatar ‘ll khutūt wil alwān/ lakin inta min guwāk gabān/ʽumrak mā tibnī illī ithadam. hamdy and karl 2014, 186. [11] mafīsh fayda, ghatinī ya ṣafeya. [12] however, he may also have meant it as acceptance of his fate. [13] the image was reposted on the facebook page of revolution graffiti—street art of the new egypt on 23 november 2014. the image can also be found here: http://english.ahram.org.eg/newscontent/5/35/118891/arts--culture/stage--street/public-space-negotiations-art-continues-despite-st.aspx [accessed on 4. may 2015]. [14] posted on ahmed naguib’s facebook page and facebook page graffiti in egypt on may 8, 2015. [15] the play draws on the story of “the sleeper and the vigilant” in thousand and one nights. it is about a powerful king who is bored. to amuse himself, he sets up a disguise scheme and installs a drunken henpecked commoner, abu ‘izza, as king for one day. the plan backfires when abu ‘izza easily fills the role and no one from the real king’s entourage, not even the queen, notices the subterfuge. for an analysis of the play see al-anezi 2006, 161–193. [16] in arāda ahad an yabṣur nūr al shams fā in ʽaliyhu an yamsaḥ ʽaynayhu. [17] for a discussion on the afterlife of events see tamm 2015. on the threshold of the “land of marvels:” alexandra david-neel in sikkim and the making of global buddhism | thévoz | transcultural studies on the threshold of the “land of marvels:” alexandra david-neel in sikkim and the making of global buddhism samuel thévoz, fellow, robert h. n. ho family foundation i look around and i see these giant mountains and my hermit hut. all of this is too fantastic to be true. i look into the past and watch things that happened to me and to others; […] i am giving lectures at the sorbonne, i am an artist, a reporter, a writer; images of backstages, newsrooms, boats, railways unfold like in a movie. […] all of this is a show produced by shallow ghosts, all of this is brought into play by the imagination. there is no “self” or “others,” there is only an eternal dream that goes on, giving birth to transient characters, fictional adventures.[1] an icon: alexandra david-neel in the global public sphere alexandra david-neel (paris, 1868–digne-les-bains, 1969)[2] certainly ranks among the most celebrated of the western buddhist pioneers who popularized the modern perception of tibet and tibetan buddhism at large.[3] as is well known, it is her illegal trip from eastern tibet to lhasa in 1924 that made her famous. her global success as an intrepid explorer started with her first published travel narrative, my journey to lhasa, which was published in 1927 in new york.[4] in this widely acclaimed book, she explains how she overcame the difficulties of journeying to a forbidden country and entering its capital city right under the noses of tibetan and british authorities. from this point on, this french traveler was an international hero, and stood out both as an iconic woman adventurer and as a popular authority on tibet and buddhism.[5] as such, generations of readers interested in asia have acknowledged her as a key western figure for spiritual seekers of eastern religion and philosophy. among them were alan watts (1915–1973), who wrote the foreword to the american translation of the secret oral teachings in tibetan buddhist sects,[6] and representatives of the beat generation such as jack kerouac (1922–1969), allen ginsberg (1926–1997) and gary snyder (1930–). in his foreword to the secret oral teachings, watts insisted that it was “the most direct, no-nonsense, and down-to-earth explanation of mahayana buddhism which has thus far been written.” having read david-neel’s book, snyder urged ginsberg to read it cover-to-cover, claiming that it was “a great book, with absolute answers on some questions.”[7] ginsberg later admitted himself that the “blakean imagery in alexandra david-neel’s magic and mystery in tibet [her second bestselling book, translated in 1931] magnetized [him] toward buddhist meditation.”[8] david-neel, the adventurer of the tibetan highlands, eventually became famous as the explorer of the tibetan spiritual world. sara mills accurately describes her authoritative status as a western female writer: it is not unusual to find a woman writing about spirituality, and some of the authority of david-neel’s texts derives from her position within this tradition [of female mysticism].[9] mills more precisely defines david-neel’s religious and literary heterodoxy in the scope of early-twentieth-century western culture: however, it is unusual to find a [western] woman writing authoritatively about a religion other than christianity, and claiming mystical and supernatural powers for herself. this is obviously not easily recuperated within the west’s “regime of truth.”[10] although david-neel was not the only western female buddhist convert during the first “buddhist vogue” in the victorian era,[11] she definitely became a literary writer of her own kind. for this very reason, as mills demonstrates, david-neel’s published books triggered some controversial responses.[12] her specific socio-literary position relies precisely on the very debunking of the “west’s ‘regime of truth’” that she offered in the ambivalent status of reality and fiction she scrupulously maintained in her narratives. this, as i intend to show, is actually the core of what david-neel wanted western readers to learn from tibetan buddhism, and it calls not only for a revised biographical study but for a detailed literary analysis. david-neel and buddhist modernism certainly, david-neel was not the only westerner at the time to head for asia on a spiritual quest. from 1878 onward, russian-born helena p. blavatsky (1831–1891) and american colonel henry steel olcott (1832–1907), co-founders of the theosophical society in new york in 1875, had focused on hinduism and buddhism. both took the vows of lay buddhists in ceylon in 1880.[13] blavatsky even claimed to have studied in tibet with “mahatmas” (great teachers) from whom she then received telepathic messages. these spiritual masters, dwelling in secret places in tibet, kept an ancient wisdom from which all religions had derived.[14] by 1883, the society had already developed into a wide international network and established its headquarters in adyar (close to madras, now chennai). hence, beside its spiritual agenda, the society offered vital contacts to spiritual seekers such as david-neel, who stayed with theosophists in india and was able to benefit from their local connections. david-neel was indeed first introduced to modern buddhism through the theosophical society, notably during an 1889 stay in london that she deliberately initiated with the intention of traveling to india. since the 1890s, buddhism had drawn the attention of westerners as a serious alternative to christianity, both as an arguably “modern” and “rational” religion,[15] and as a potential “world religion.”[16] in the west, it was most notably introduced as such to the first world parliament of religion (chicago, 1893) by prominent asian buddhist representatives such as anagarika dharmapala (born david hewavitarane, 1864–1963) from ceylon (sri lanka) and sôen shaku (1859–1919) from japan. at first supported by henry s. olcott, anagarika dharmapala adhered to the theosophical society’s agenda to revive buddhism in india and became one of the most prominent buddhist reformers worldwide.[17] in 1891, dharmapala and edwin arnold (the author of the famous 1879 epic poem the light of asia) co-founded the maha bodhi society for the restoration and preservation of the ancient buddhist sites of india, and in 1892 dharmapala launched a monthly journal, the maha bodhi and the united buddhist world. invited by paul carus (1852–1919), rinzai zen master sôen shaku, a famous buddhist reformer of the meiji era, represented mahāyāna buddhism before the world parliament.[18] shaku wrote a preface to carus’ acclaimed gospel of buddha, published the following year; his student daisetsu teitarō suzuki (1870–1966) translated it into japanese under the title budda no fukuin.[19] very recently, modern buddhist studies have highlighted how modern buddhism first emerged in asia and how asian buddhist modernism was a response to the “colonial frameworks that were coming to shape their world.”[20] meanwhile, other connected works have shed light on “pioneer” western buddhists in asia—mostly american,[21] british,[22] and irish[23] travellers to ceylon, burma, thailand, and japan.[24] these studies have provided us with a far more complex account of the making of global buddhism than the previous intellectual history of “western buddhism”[25] and bring to the fore the wide array of prospects that buddhism offered at the time to a socially and culturally diverse audience:[26] to “overcome colonialism,” “bring world peace,” “temper the arrogance of the west,” create an “alternative culture and belonging,” and redefine “identity.”[27] indeed, these studies emphasize the fact that modern buddhism was made of a “cacophony of voices” that also included “dissident orientalists,”[28] and show empirical evidence for david mcmahan’s statement that “the modernization of buddhism […] has in no way been an exclusively western project or simply a representation of the eastern other […]. this new form of buddhism [as opposed to traditional forms] […] has been, therefore, a cocreation of asians, europeans, and americans.”[29] as an early western buddhist convert, alexandra david-neel quickly looks for contact with modern buddhist representatives, both asian and western. she must undoubtedly have felt isolated in her own social circles and thus makes an attempt to establish greater “transcontinental sodalities”[30] in the buddhist world. for example, from 1908 onward, david-neel corresponds with d. t. suzuki, whose famous outlines of mahayana buddhism, published in 1907, probably first triggered her future interest in mahāyāna buddhism. she later visits him in japan, and often discusses his approach to (modern) buddhism in her publications. she also most notably corresponds with dharmapala, starting from 1910. she represents him at the congrès de la libre pensée held in brussels. as the spokesperson of modern buddhists, she reads dharmapala’s statement that “the buddha was the first to proclaim the science of human emancipation from ritualism and superstition, created by a despotic clergy” and that, much to his satisfaction, “western promoters of scientific thought worked according to the same principle for the emancipation of and education of the entire human race, without distinction of nationality or race.”[31] the same year, she writes to and is visited at her house in tunis by nyanatiloka mahāthera (german-born anton gueth, 1878–1959), who had left frankfurt in 1902 to study buddhism in india, was ordained as a buddhist monk (bhikkhu), and founded a “forest monastery,” the “island hermitage” of polgasduwa, on an islet of rathgama lake, close to dodanduwa, where david-neel spends time on her arrival in ceylon in september 1911.[32] at the same time, david-neel emphasizes the compatibility of buddhism with modern paradigms of detraditionalization, demythologization, and psychologization.[33] she thus explicitly shares the agenda of “modern buddhism,” which lopez has defined as “an international buddhism that transcends cultural and national boundaries, creating […] a cosmopolitan network of intellectuals, writing most often in english.”[34] modern buddhists generally claim that “ancient buddhism” fundamentally shared modern ideals of “reason, empiricism, science, universalism, individualism, tolerance, freedom and the rejection of religious orthodoxy,” and place meditation at the core of buddhism.[35] whereas this definition embraces only one aspect, one “sect,” of the modernization of buddhism, it fits david-neel’s first agenda, which she makes clear in her first publications on buddhism.[36] while elaborating on this point by way of making david-neel’s background more tangible, in this article i would like to show how her sojourns in sikkim actually caused her own buddhist worldview and imaginaire to change direction, and concretely fashioned her literary career in the long run. in this regard, as i will show, her complex trajectory sheds light both on the history of western buddhism and on the encounter between western and asian buddhists in the modern era. on the one hand, david-neel’s sojourns in sikkim definitely lead her to blur the supposed categories of “victorian buddhism,” defined by thomas tweed as “rationalist” (as in lopez’ definition quoted above), “esoteric” (as in the theosophical trend to which david-neel was indebted), and “romantic” (a third category to which david-neel belongs as an artist and literary writer).[37] on the other hand, as an aspiring eastern scholar, as a buddhist convert and reformer, and as a western woman traveling in asia, david-neel engages in most “elements that we now take to constitute modern buddhism, or the multiple modern buddhisms: the rise of the laity as practitioners and organizers (including meditation movements), new roles for women, for scholars and indeed for monks, the development of national sanghas and ethno-nationalist buddhist discourses, and the association of buddhism with a de-mythologized rationalist and scientific discourse.”[38] in the course of her experience in sikkim, david-neel redefines her own position among modern buddhist proponents and re-imagines the purpose of buddhism in the modern world. although i focus here on a western figure of global buddhism, i intend to highlight not only david-neel’s own agency in the globalization of buddhism per se, but the multifarious patterns that can be ascribed to sikkim and sikkimese agents, although these are sometimes not clearly decipherable in her own writings.[39] however twisted or concealed these voices may seem in david-neel’s final narratives, the story told here is one of “cocreation” and interconnections shedding light on a “global phenomenon with a wide diversity of participants,” a “dynamic, complex, and plural set of historical processes with loose bonds and fuzzy boundaries.”[40] the label “global buddhism” opens up inquiries into the ways modernization “disembeds buddhist discourses from its traditional sites and reembeds them in a wide variety of discourses,”[41] with mounting tensions between global standardization and local idiosyncrasies and traditions. as a literary buddhist writer, david-neel was not only committing to a non-western religion, she was also looking for a distinct discursive form that could prove suitable for the modern world. despite her status as a prominent, if controversial, western buddhist figure, david-neel seems to have been excised from the scholarly narratives of global buddhism.[42] in the light of the recent interest in the globalization of buddhism, david-neel nonetheless deserves to be reconsidered, insofar as the successive stages of her encounter with asia contribute to an understanding of the complexity of the modern history of buddhism. her encounter is a telling example of global and local forces at play in the rise of global buddhism and provides material on rarely referenced aspects such as the role played by western women, french buddhist figures, and sikkimese representatives in the diffusion of buddhism throughout the twentieth century and in the reassessment of tibetan buddhism in the scope of modern buddhism. in fact, david-neel’s encounter with sikkim and its reflections in her writings crucially provide insight into the renewal of the perception of tibet and tibetan buddhism. tibetan buddhism was labeled “lamaism” and was held to be a despicable collection of backward superstitions and barbaric practices maintained by despotic lamas exerting their power over ignorant people. l. a. waddell (1864–1938) famously stated in 1895, for example, that “lamaism is only thinly and imperfectly varnished over with buddhist symbolism, beneath which the sinister growth of poly-demonist superstition darkly appears.”[43] it is generally assumed that the tibetan diaspora in the 1950s was responsible for propelling tibetan buddhism to the forefront of global buddhist trends, as snyder and ginsberg’s quotes above testify, both in popular representations and in the academic field of tibetology.[44] as i argue here, the role of david-neel’s personal engagement and literary agenda in the advent of this renewed perception still need to be carefully retraced. prior to her visits to tibet in 1924, alexandra david-neel had already been acquainted with the himalayas for a long time. in fact, her encounter with tibet and tibetan buddhism took place not in tibet, but in sikkim. ruled by the “dharma kings” (chos rgyal) of the namgyal dynasty, sikkim, a himalayan state on the tibetan border, was politically independent from tibet, although it had adopted tibetan buddhism as a state religion in the seventeenth century. at the time of david-neel’s travels, sikkim was a british protectorate and thus a relatively convenient place to experience himalayan landscapes and observe aspects of tibetan buddhism, without leaving the limits of the british rāj. this invites us to reconsider the construction of alexandra david-neel’s own heroic image of an explorer of what she herself called the “land of marvels.” the lofty images of a spiritual tibet, a “mind’s tibet,”[45] which she has helped create in the west, are firmly rooted in time and space, and need to be connected to concrete encounters with local buddhist representatives and with sikkim’s inspiring scenery. alexandra david-neel as a writer and a committed buddhist david-neel’s trajectory before specializing in asian and buddhist topics from 1909 onward is both strikingly singular and deeply telling of the cultural background from which western buddhism emerged in the nineteenth century’s fin de siècle intellectual circles: she had been a journal writer on feminist and anarchist topics[46] from 1893 onward under the pen names alexandra david and mitra—a mythological name from the vedas—and an opera singer under the stage name alexandra myrial, presumably after victor hugo’s fictional character mr. myriel in les misérables (1862). her initial approach to buddhism had three aspects: it was theosophical, scholarly, and experiential. although david-neel seems to have converted to buddhism without any direct connection with other buddhists,[47] a crucial stage of her interest in buddhism can be identified as her encounter in london in 1889 with members of the theosophical society, who shared their ideas on buddhism with her. she was a frequent visitor to the headquarters of the buddhist society of great britain and ireland, founded in 1907 by thomas w. rhys davids (1843–1922), one of the most prominent scholars of buddhist studies at the time, in anticipation of ananda metteyya’s return from burma.[48] this first encounter with western buddhist circles prompted her to attend sylvain lévi’s (1863–1969)[49] and philippe-édouard foucaux’s (1811–1894) lectures on indian and tibetan buddhism at the collège de france when she went back to paris at the end of the same year. appointed a professor in sanskrit literature and language at the collège de france in 1894, sylvain lévi was the most authoritative french indologist of the time. he welcomed alexandra david-neel on her return to france in 1925 and introduced her to the parisian intellectual milieus. the library of the guimet museum, which had just opened, was where she claimed to have had her “calling.”[50] in 1891, she left europe for her first stay in india (she would return there in 1896 and 1901), where she met famous theosophists, buddhist reformers, and vedānta teachers. at a second stage, through her readings and her own commitment, david-neel developed an understanding of buddhism that tended to depart both from the spiritual syncretism of her theosophical fellows and from the philological rigor of the academic world. at first, she shared the atheistic and nihilistic conception of buddhism as the “cult of nothingness”[51] that was widespread in fin de siècle europe. this pessimistic conception, popular in disenchanted philosophical and artistic milieus, was inspired both by schopenhauer’s philosophy[52] and by philological debates on the notion of nirvāṇa rooted in eugène burnouf’s (1801–1852) pioneering introduction à l’histoire du buddhisme indien (1844).[53] however, two decades later, as a “practicing and militant buddhist,”[54] she came to defend what she herself called “buddhist modernism.” while supporting the “revival of buddhism around and inside india,”[55] she intended to remove western forms of “buddhisms” that in her opinion amounted to “esoteric, spiritualistic, theosophical or occultist nonsensical mixtures of ideas borrowed here and there.”[56] her intention in returning to india in 1911 is best described in her own words in le modernisme bouddhiste et le bouddhisme du bouddha, her first substantial contribution to the popularization of buddhism: one will find here not the buddhism taught by this or that sect, but the buddhism of the buddha himself, as close as the scholars’ research works can bring us to it. it is the very buddhism reformers or “modernists,” if i may use a vivid word that has become common nowadays, are struggling to establish in the east and to spread in the west, which is quite an unprecedented phenomenon.[57] david-neel adds that the practice of buddhism in most of asia amounted to degenerate forms of buddhism, an idea that, as we have seen, was widely shared at the time. while david-neel takes on most of the disparaging assumptions on living forms of buddhism, it is important to note that her book ends with considerations on the modernity of buddhism as regards the role of women in society and, more generally, social inequality. she thus considers european and asian “buddhist modernists” as vanguard thinkers who see buddhism as a rational method of liberation and develop realistic plans of social reforms out of it. in this respect, she evokes in particular anagarika dharmapala and the maha bodhi society in calcutta, but also thomas w. rhys davids, ananda metteyya, the burmese maung nee, and the indian lakshmi narasu: they all propose, she writes, “a rigorously logical method, a continual appeal to our reason.”[58] these aspects of david-neel’s biography help delineate her approach to buddhism at the time when she entered sikkim: not only was she a convert, she was also an active promoter of buddhist modernism, both in the west and in the east. her encounter with buddhist practitioners in sikkim would put her conception of buddhism to the test. it would trigger a shift in her appreciation of tibetan practices and beliefs, and would also nuance her perception of tibet as a whole. sikkim beneath the heroic adventurer’s bestsellers: the traveler’s letters to her husband alexandra david-neel sojourned in sikkim twice, first from april to october 1912 and then again from december 1913 to june 1916. she gives some insights into these two stays very briefly in the opening pages of my journey to lhasa and offers more details in the two first chapters of with mystics and magicians in tibet.[59] in order to highlight the background of the well-known story of her encounter with tibet, i rely on her letters to philippe néel (1861–1941), whom she had married in 1904.[60] mr. néel resided in tunis, where he worked as a railway engineer.[61] he had been rather reluctant to support his wife’s departure to asia for what he called her “growing mysticism.”[62] this may explain why david-neel states that she “only focuses on what is likely to be of concern to [him], leaving aside the philosophical or mystical aspects which prevail here.”[63] one can thus discern in these letters a strategy of persuasion at a time when she was still in need of her husband’s financial support and of social recognition. in this respect, it is striking for the modern reader accustomed to david-neel’s style that the very topics for which she became famous are notably absent or given reduced importance in her letters. these documents, on the other hand, allow us to follow david-neel’s trips and encounters almost day by day. in this way they give us an insight into the more practical aspects of her travels and introduce us to the local agents she met, so we can hear voices that would become muffled or anonymous in her print oeuvre, and see their overall effect on her own agenda. moreover, these letters shed light on the evolution of her perception of the tibetan world. at the edge of the british rāj: the two sojourns in sikkim when she arrived in ceylon on 18 november 1911, david-neel was no longer an opera singer touring french colonies in north africa and south asia. she was now an aspiring eastern scholar traveling across territories of the british empire on an official mission for the french ministry of public education.[64] her one-year journey from southern to northern india made her aware of the specific geopolitical issues linked with recent changes in the british policy regarding tibet, and david-neel writes to her husband time and again that “here the events in tibet are the main topic all the time.”[65] indeed, after francis younghusband (1863–1942) led the infamous frontier commission to lhasa in 1904,[66] regulations negotiated between tibet and the british rāj of india generated what charles sherring called a “british borderland.”[67] they gave rise to new central posts for the british officials—the so-called “frontier cadre” of recent historians[68]—on the eastern border between india and tibet. thus, gangtok in sikkim had been the administrative capital since 1894 and the residence of british political officers since 1868. sikkim itself had been a british protectorate since 1890. yatung, on the nathula pass, and gyantse, further on the trade route into central tibet, became trade agencies in the wake of the younghusband expedition, while the sikkim-tibetan frontier was settled and tibet’s claim over sikkim as a territorial dependency was put to an end. tibet consequently became a strongly restricted area with southern borders supervised both by tibetan and british authorities. this geopolitical situation explains the turn david-neel’s sojourn in sikkim was to take. in order to live near the border, she had to lean on the british colonial economic and administrative structure and local western networks. however, the imperial framework that had enabled her to reach india and the remote slopes of sikkim soon proved to come with restrictions which she would gradually try to loosen or escape—eventually at her own expense. a brief analysis of the places to which david-neel traveled during her two successive sojourns in sikkim indicates how each of them differed in their interactions with the colonial power and with local representatives. david-neel first stayed in sikkim from 14 april to 5 october 1912.[69] after her arrival in darjeeling from calcutta by train, she reached kalimpong and spent one week there before going to gangtok. as the headings of her letters indicate, her entire stay was from then on based in gangtok. from there, david-neel made several trips up north, notably one important journey from 28 may to 11 june to lachen and from there to thangu on the border of tibet, and another shorter excursion from 23 to 30 june on the way to the jelepla pass (eastern sikkim), close to another border point with tibet (see figure 1). in october, she left sikkim for nepal. as i shall explain later, the highlight of david-neel’s first sojourn certainly was her trip to lachen and thangu. there she would both have her first glimpse of the tibetan landscape and meet a buddhist lama who would be of crucial importance to her. fig. 1: alexandra david-neel’s first sojourn in sikkim (april–october 1912) [70] this trip to the border of tibet deeply affected her second stay in sikkim. david-neel came back to the eastern himalayas in december 1913 with the intention of going to bhutan. the trip to bhutan had to be canceled and david-neel then decided to stay once again in sikkim, a stay that ended up lasting almost three years. gangtok was again her “base-camp” during the first nine months (7 december 1913–25 august 1914), limiting her explorations to podang monastery (a few kilometers north). her letter dated 28 september 1914 signals that she was in lonak valley (“high himalayas”), a location whose remoteness accounts for the two-month gap in her correspondence since her last letter in august (she had just received her husband’s letters dated 3 and 22 august).[71] after that, her stay was centered in the area of lachen, where she spent the “winter months” (november 1914–may 1915). she then spent a remarkably long time in high and remote places on the border of tibet, notably in dewa thang between thangu and gyaogang, at an altitude of over 13,000 feet (may 1915–august 1916). there she famously lived in a cave before having a cabin built (“de-chen ashram,” 1 june 1915–2 july 1916 and august 1916).[72] as one can see from this sketch of david-neel’s itineraries in sikkim, her first sojourn relied heavily on the colonial structure, while her second sojourn was more erratic until its center of gravity shifted to the farthest edge of the rāj. the logic of david-neel’s itineraries clearly reflected her endeavor to distance herself from the western world, embodied, as she often writes to philippe, by british authority and colonial community, as well as by missionaries.[73] in order to explain the shift revealed by this brief overview and to understand the growing and somehow unexpected appeal that tibet and “lamaism” suddenly exerted on the “buddhist modernist” she claimed to be, we need to go into more detail about two aspects that had considerable impact on her conception of buddhism and, simultaneously, on her writing practice: firstly, her interactions with some specific figures she met in sikkim, and secondly, her perception of the landscape. the “civilized yogi” between british colonials and asian highnesses the british community of officials and the missionaries of the scandinavian alliance mission stand at the background of the significant daily events that david-neel chooses to highlight in her letters. she first praises her european fellows’ kindness and generosity.[74] however, after her first trip to lachen, she confesses to her husband in a letter dated 27 july 1912 that they perceived her as a “civilized yogi,” violating colonial social codes by establishing personal “links with natives.”[75] she counters by quickly distancing herself from the english middle class and the tea parties held in the bungalows on the himalayan hills: “i did not come here to live among british bourgeois […] pledged to the missionaries. they are all servants of the politics of the white,” she writes to philippe.[76] fiercely anticlerical, she shows no mercy to rev. e. h. owen, whom she considers a poor interpreter of her tibetan-speaking interlocutors. owen is, she feels, too concerned with preaching the gospel in lachen and taking care of the mission house community to understand anything about buddhism.[77] sir charles bell is surprisingly rarely mentioned by david-neel, although his impact on her travel is significant.[78] however, she makes no secret of the fact that he is the one who forbids her to “go beyond the frontier that marks the limit of british domination”[79] at a time when “england is slowly taking hold of tibet”[80] and banishes her from sikkim on her return from her illegal excursion to shigatse in june 1916. she sadly confesses to her husband that her “adventures” are over and that her “dream” has come to an end, giving a unique and matchless retrospective value to her stay in sikkim.[81] the british colonial world and some of its main representatives thus offer support for david-neel’s sojourns in sikkim, but also progressively come to represent the grim side of her encounter with tibet. in contrast, the bright side is represented by encounters with various prestigious figures that embody the tibetan world to her. in her first letter after leaving tunis for colombo, david-neel proudly informs her husband that she is “in friendly relationship with asian highnesses and majesties.”[82] her encounters with tibetan monks and dignitaries in kalimpong, and then in gangtok or lachen monastery, are to be related to her own spiritual quest and conception of buddhism as well as to her scholarly ambitions. she had already mentioned to her husband when writing to him from india that “there is a highly respectable position to take in french orientalisme [eastern studies].”[83] as i will show below, much later, provided with the means to meet her ambitions, she will re-use this exact phrase.[84] one must remember that david-neel had been among the parisian circles as well as the british and german circles of buddhist studies. french scholars supposedly focused on the study of what was then called the school of northern buddhism, or mahāyāna buddhism.[85] the british and the german scholars focused on the so-called orthodox “southern” buddhism and tended to give special emphasis to the historicity of the buddha’s life and teaching: in london in 1910, david-neel met thomas w. rhys davids, already mentioned, and his wife caroline augusta foley (1857–1942),[86] who considered buddhism a “science of mind.”[87] the famous british buddhist scholar had worked in ceylon and founded the pali text society. he viewed the pali buddhist texts that he studied as the most ancient and authentic testimonies on the buddha’s life and message.[88] david-neel also corresponded with hermann oldenberg (1854–1920),[89] who, in the wake of rhys davids’ text discoveries, focused on pali sources for stressing the historicity of the buddha. in his acclaimed 1881 buddha: sein leben, seine lehre, seine gemeinde, he fiercely argued against french indologist émile senart’s (1847–1928) 1875 theory (essai sur la légende du buddha) that buddha was but a historical manifestation of a more universal solar myth. david-neel proudly writes to philippe that oldenberg “praised her” for being the “first in europe” to “see right through the problem” of “nirvana as the suppression of the idea of a distinct, separate and permanent personality.” although david-neel expects to find a place in french buddhist studies, she consistently challenges western academia (and overall philosophy) and its “dry and dead erudition,”[90] taking the perspective of a buddhist practitioner endowed with a unique experience from the inside. at the end of her first sojourn in sikkim, she sums up her position to philippe: “you know my projects: be active as an orientaliste [eastern scholar] in a more learned way than previously. write, teach at la sorbonne. these occupations are in perfect harmony with my position among promoters of the religious reform trend in asia.”[91] as a modern buddhist reformer focusing mainly on “southern” buddhism so far, david-neel definitely took an unusual stand in the french intellectual field and tried to insert her public persona on a more transnational level. in this respect, being allowed to meet tupten gyatso (1876–1933), the thirteenth dalai lama, is a happy coincidence david-neel was eager to see happen when she arrived in darjeeling and heard about the dalai lama’s presence in kalimpong. thanks to the support of charles bell, the dalai lama was offered refuge in sikkim after the chinese warlord zhao erfeng’s (1845–1911) troupes had attacked the tibetan capital in 1909 and forced him to flee to india. after staying in darjeeling, the dalai lama moved his court to kalimpong, then a famous hill station and an important trading outpost, until his return to tibet in june 1912 after the republican revolutionaries had overthrown the qing dynasty. david-neel saw this situation as an opportunity to build an exclusive network for the sake of her own scholarly ambitions. at a time when david-neel was not familiar with the tibetan language and hence, to her own dismay,[92] was dependent on translators (sonam wangfel laden [1876–1936] on this occasion),[93] she was granted an extraordinary audience with “his yellow highness” as a western buddhist, together with two japanese buddhists, one being the famous zen monk and explorer of tibet, ekai kawaguchi (1866–1945). aware of being the first western woman to meet the dalai lama, david-neel gives her husband a long account of the meeting and demonstrates how much she had internalized orientalist stereotypes at this stage, as she writes of the “pope of asia”[94] that “his tibetan brain hardly grasps that one can become a buddhist by studying oriental philosophy on the benches of a european university. that i have not had a guru, a mentor, escapes him. moreover, i understand, from what he says, that he has a poor knowledge of southern buddhism.”[95] david-neel explains on this occasion to the dalai lama that “northern buddhism and tibetan buddhism in particular were not well received in the west probably because they are misunderstood.”[96] this is why she “had thought to speak directly to the head of northern buddhism in order to get some authoritative clarification on the theories of the tibetan school.”[97]the dalai lama, who also prompted her to learn tibetan as soon as possible, would later send written answers to her inquiries through the british resident in sikkim, charles bell. in david-neel’s letters, the episode of her encounter with the dalai lama is described over several pages and clearly appears to be the highlight of her stay at kalimpong as a prestigious gateway to the “threshold of tibet.”[98] on the other hand, she hardly mentions it in her personal diary.[99] she also writes of her encounter with the dalai lama in the famous avant-garde literary periodical mercure de france[100] and gives further expositions to british indian journals at the time.[101] her rhetorical strategy is two-fold: while asserting her own authority over the dalai lama as far as southern buddhism is concerned, she intends to publicly establish her own authority as an exclusive scholar of mahāyāna buddhism. it is thus clear that she expects her meeting with the dalai lama to provide her with a new prestige not only in the eyes of her husband, but also in french scholarly circles and the british official community. in this regard, david-neel dresses like an indian ascetic so as to “dispirit [british] ladies” and “show symbolically that she was welcomed as an outstanding european woman.”[102] although she still feels that her convictions are at odds with lamaism, she confesses to philippe that “coming back [to europe] with a study on lamaism completed by the side of the dalai lama would prove a fabulous ‘orientalist’ piece of work.”[103] this underlines her ambition to provide the west with her personal experience and first-hand knowledge of buddhism, but first and foremost to turn tibetan buddhism into her own “field of investigation.”[104] david-neel’s new and ambivalent position deserves attention here, since it is a sign of a transition in her conception of buddhism. in line with her meeting with the dalai lama, she will make immediate arrangements to learn tibetan and get more familiar with tibetan buddhism in sikkim, while trying to stay true to her reformist spirit. this will be made possible mostly with the help of the maharaja thutob namgyal’s (1860–1914) son, maharajkumar sidkeong tulku namgyal (1879–1914), with whom she develops a close relationship. sidkeong tulku is both the crown prince (maharajkumar) of sikkim and the reincarnated abbot (tulku) of podang monastery. david-neel has long discussions with him on primitive and “authentic” buddhism in his “incongruous cottage-like and chinese-looking bijou private house” in gangtok.[105]after an almost three-year trip through europe and asia, sidkeong tulku is “given an opportunity to influence sikkim’s future” as vice-president of the state council and is “placed in charge of the departments of education and forests, in addition to being given religious control of the monasteries.”[106] while reading the dhammapada[107]and discussing philosophical questions together with sidkeong tulku at lachung, david-neel writes that they “planned several useful reforms regarding the lamas, the religious education, etc.” she then adds: “i think that my coming in this country will not be absolutely useless for the population’s progress and instruction.”[108] with the support of sidkeong tulku, david-neel is invited to preach at the monastery of podang and across sikkim, and also writes a leaflet to be published in tibetan.[109] she explains to philippe that she introduced the western buddhist scholarly studies and the spread of buddhism in the west to the lamas. while lecturing on the doctrines of mahāyāna and the history of tibetan buddhism, notably tsongkhapa’s “reform,” she urged the lamas to “rise above the differences between schools and sects, so as to revive the primitive philosophical doctrine.” she then comments on the buddha’s first sermon, quotes from pali texts, gives details on the first buddhist community and explains what a “true member of the buddhist sangha” ought to be.[110] it is noteworthy that in the same period, sidkeong tulku officially invites another western buddhist convert, j. f. mckechnie, aka silacara bhikku (1871–1952), whom david-neel calls the “scottish orientaliste [eastern scholar]” and a “resolute freethinker and buddhist atheist,”[111] to spend some time in sikkim from february to september 1914. silacara was the disciple of nyanatiloka, the german theravada monk to whom david-neel was already close, as we have seen, and who will also shortly join this small group of buddhist reformers in sikkim.[112]sidkeong’s sudden and premature death in december 1914, just after he had succeeded his father in february as the maharaja of sikkim, brings an end to his plans of educational, moral, and ecclesiastical reform.[113]at this time, david-neel’s views on tibetan buddhism were first beginning to change direction through the encounter with lama kazi dawa samdup (1868–1922), headmaster of the state bhutia boarding school at gangtok and her personal interpreter, appointed by sidkeong tulku at her arrival in sikkim. it is only later that dawa samdup’s name will become famous in the western world through walter y. evans-wentz’s (1878–1965) publications, notably the bestselling the tibetan book of the dead in 1927.[114] through dawa samdup, david-neel discovers many aspects of tibetan literature such as the story of the tibetan hermit and poet milarepa. she plans to collaborate with him on a study on padmasambhava, “tibet’s great apostle,” she says, and an “intriguing character.”[115] but dawa samdup will follow charles bell to be his interpreter during the simla convention and will only reappear at the end of her stay, in march 1916.[116] in the first stage of david-neel’s stay, sikkim appears as a significant cosmopolitan hub of buddhist modernism, in which european and asian buddhists meet. moreover, as indicated by david-neel’s acquaintance with dawa samdup, and as i would like to elaborate now, sikkim became an unforeseen “middle ground,”[117] where buddhism took on unprecedented forms in the process of global modernization and was refashioned as a response to the shifting global situation in the context of the world wars, which put an end to the optimistic impetus of the first wave of modern buddhism. at the edge of the world: a tantric yogi and a huron hut david-neel’s encounters with the dalai lama, sidkeong tulku, and lama dawa samdup on her arrival in sikkim are followed one month later (may 1912) at lachen by an encounter with kunzang ngawang rinchen (1867–1947), best known as “the third gomchen of lachen.” the “gomchen” (“great yogi”) was the abbot of lachen monastery, and was well-known for receiving teachings from a lama in tibet and spending many years as a solitary hermit meditating in remote caves in the mountains. david-neel grasps from her first encounters with the gomchen the central point of his teachings, which she precociously and somewhat clumsily describes as “what mahayana calls sunyata: the great void, void from the illusion of scattered [morcelée] life; infinite, eternal existence.”[118] whereas david-neel translates the basic concept of śūnyatā in terms of western concepts and testifies to western misconceptions of the time (here “void” understood as “immortality” strongly echoes theosophists’ interpretations of buddhist doctrines),[119] she certainly steps away from her former buddhist conceptions based on her understanding of pali texts. nevertheless, she goes on preaching to the local lamas. the unforeseen events of this period seem to take on an essential meaning, since she writes down, almost for the first time, her own future nom de plume in a meaningful transpersonal perspective: the words which i repeat, the ideas which i venture, the feelings which i express are those of the buddhas. […] their wisdom and compassion have come through the ages […] to be heard. […] padmasambhava and so many others preached in this country. […] that which speaks, that which took their names, that is called today alexandra david-néel.[120] the encounter with ngawang rinchen definitely opens up new insights for david-neel, and his role intertwines in a remarkably complex way with her own personal quest and persona. in her letters, ngawang rinchen is paradoxically as much a crucial character as an elusive figure. she plainly calls the gomchen the “yogi,” alternatively the “great yogi” or her “lama-yogi”[121] but, conscious of philippe’s suspicion regarding spiritual matters, she carefully avoids going into the details about their meetings and discussions. however, the lama-yogi’s presence lets itself be felt increasingly in her letters at the time of her second sojourn in sikkim from october 1914 onward, which, as we have seen, was to take a completely new turn. it is at this time that, having left gangtok for lachen, she has a “huron hut”[122] built at the foot of the yogi’s meditation cave at dewa thang, close to the border with tibet. this move appears to be a decisive step forward in her approach to the practice of tibetan buddhism. in april 1914, david-neel had lost her tibetan interpreters because of the simla conference, but she also did not trust the western missionaries whom she had used as middlemen so far. a fifteen-year-old sikkimese boy named aphur yongden (1899–1955) offered, on his own initiative, to remedy this awkward situation. as is well-known, from that moment on yongden and david-neel would travel in asia and around the world together, then settle in france and co-write major studies and novels on tibetan buddhism, such as the secret oral teachings and the lama of the five wisdoms.[123]although david-neel only mentions his name here and there in her letters to her husband at the time,[124] yongden’s role is invaluable in her relationship with ngawang rinchen. in november 1914, she asks the gomchen to teach her tibetan and the study of tibetan philosophical texts in exchange for english lessons, a deal that he “miraculously” accepts.[125] she herself declares that “it is a unique opportunity to learn tibetan quickly and to assimilate doctrines no eastern scholar has ever understood.”[126] the gomchen approves of sidkeong tulku’s reformist plan,[127] and david-neel feels that his teachings are consistent with her own beliefs: “the buddhists renounce what is no longer important to them because they have rationally measured its emptiness and nothingness.”[128] however, the lama-yogi—whom she sometimes describes as a “fantastic” and “frightening” mephisto[129]—introduces her to an understanding of buddhism that is at odds with the supposedly “primitive” tradition of southern buddhism she herself promoted: “my lama-yogi, here, teaches terrifying doctrines and, compared to him, max stirner and nietzsche look like mere babies coming out of the nursery school. […] i have learned more here in fifteen days than in one year in gangtok.”[130] david-neel stops being a proselyte to become the lama’s novice, together with aphur yongden, and she surrenders to him the “absolute obedience that he demands.”[131] as the first western initiate in tibetan buddhism, she is given the name of yishe tönme (lamp of wisdom),[132] and learns to handle the ritual accessories such as the tambourine (damaru) used in meditation[133] and, while reading tibetan texts for several hours daily with ngawang rinchen and benefitting from his deep knowledge, she also gradually adopts the tibetan yogis’ methods of meditation and bodily techniques.[134] as david-neel herself admits, this gives new impulse to her formerly rather fundamentalist conception of buddhism.[135] as it turns out, in the esoteric practices of the ngagpas (tantric practitioners) and in the ritual of chod (gcod),[136] she identifies a deep understanding of buddhist philosophical inquiry: that “all is empty and vain, an illusion and a mirage, and that the ironic performer himself is only a shadow, a ghost devoid of reality.”[137] these practices appear to her as genuine “methods to reach tharpa [supreme liberation], to free oneself from illusion entirely, to erase the mirage of the world as the product of one’s imagination and to liberate one’s mind from fanciful beliefs,” as she will write years later in with mystics and magicians.[138] so as to reconcile these practices with her own convictions, she opposes tantric initiations to the exoteric ritualism of tibetan buddhism, which she calls the “lamaist jumble.”[139] thus re-qualified, tantrism actually becomes the focus of david-neel’s approach to tibet. it is only decades later that western readers will become familiar with this aspect of tibetan buddhism through her later books such as the secret oral teachings in tibetan buddhist sects or initiations and initiates in tibet.[140] in order to fully understand david-neel’s statements about tantric buddhism, we need to take into account a crucial external historical factor: the first world war, about which she has been kept informed by philippe and silacara. in the letters written during her second stay in sikkim, david-neel very often comments on the war and justifies staying away from europe in this critical time.[141] in so doing, she suggests how her stay in sikkim can benefit the desperate situation. she thereby delineates her role as an author-to-be and anticipates the expectations of her potential readership: anticlericalism is out of fashion: it is one result of the war. when men are scared they turn to the gods, to the supernatural, like children that hang to their mother’s skirts. a breeze of spirituality blows over the world alongside with the blast of the cannonballs that rip through the air. vulgar religiosity will turn into longing for philosophy in the larger-scale minds. i have some idea that my books on vedanta and tibetan mysticism are likely to meet the needs of many readers after the storm.[142] the “cult of nothingness” had first proved a solace for her fin de siècle anticlericalism, disillusion, and neurasthenia. the rationalism of buddhist modernism, as she conceived it, then gave an impulse to her conviction that the pristine teachings of the buddha were universally relevant to the modern world and must be spread to east and west indiscriminately. the tantric vision of the gomchen now appears to her as the most relevant solution to the devastating side-effects of internationalization:[143] “now i can only see things, even things as dreadful as this war, as dreams and nightmares. they are only shadows on a cinematographic screen.”[144] “hence, the one who knows the great secret can only smile at the phantasmagoria that the world is, and the great peace will surround them. […] phantasmagoria too is this war.”[145] hence, david-neel’s meditation retreat to the edges of tibet at “de-chen ashram,”[146] at the foot of ngawang rinchen’s own hermitage, becomes paradigmatic for the message of peace and re-enchantment she feels she has to deliver to the four corners of the earth: “after the war, the literate public is going to wish for something else than narratives about conflicts and disaster. people will long to forget, to live, as little as it can be, in company with dream characters [such as milarepa and gesar].”[147] the “land of marvels:” the metamorphoses of tibet’s sacred landscape david-neel’s privileged access to the tibetan esoteric tradition actually finds an echo in the way she starts to consider tibet as a whole from the sikkimese threshold. this will help us understand the extent to which her sojourns in sikkim, especially the second one, are reflected in her future writings, and goes well beyond the mere vulgarization of tibetan buddhist doctrines, beliefs, and practices. at the time, tibetan geography and culture had just started to be discovered in the wake of 1890s western explorers. while british and french explorers alike described the country in terms of “sacred landscape,”[148] their underlying motivations for doing so differed. in the context of the great game, british travelers considered tibet as a “buffer state” between the british rāj and russia. the sacred character ascribed to tibet amounted, in their view, to a protective power for the imperial territory. in contrast, the french travelers insisted either on the geographical[149] or on the cultural[150] dimension of the tibetan landscape. the great game, as is well known, led to a long period when tibet was an officially forbidden country.[151] although explorers had contributed significantly to the knowledge of the country in the last decade of nineteenth century, the perception of tibet remained that of a terra incognita, an unknown territory, both geographically and culturally. as such, the “british image of tibet”[152] seems to have met broader acceptance than the more variegated images of tibet and tibetans that other nations such as france presented at the dawn of the twentieth century.[153] at the first stage of her stay in sikkim, david-neel’s vision of tibet stands out as a transnational representation based on both french and british standards. like european travelers, she distinguishes the “imagined tibet” from the “real tibet” and ascribes a sacred dimension to the country. at odds with her french fellows, she reckons that she shares with the british their appeal for the “other side,” the unknown territory beyond the border of the rāj. after accompanying sidkeong tulku, who was going to gyantse, to thangu in may 1912, she wishes she could go back to the border-pass and cross the frontier. she then admits that she is like all the other europeans in this situation: here, all the europeans are under this strange spell. they say “tibet” almost in a low voice, in a religious way, somewhat fearfully. i shall see it again at another border, but this will be the tibet of chumbi valley. and the resident [i.e. charles bell] warned me that it is a false tibet as green as the sikkimese valleys and without the roughness of the fearful and spellbinding true tibet i have contemplated.[154] while tibet appears in british imperial fantasies as a harsh borderland and a blank “buffer state” and in theosophical projections as an unearthly abode of hidden spiritual masters and supernatural powers, the tibet david-neel dreams of takes on new connotations. in so doing, she not only borrows from previous representations given by travelers but also appropriates these representations. her letters reveal the ambiguous and somewhat distant view she takes of the way her european fellows envision what used to be called the “land beyond.” on a second journey through upper sikkim in august 1912, she realizes that she is the “prisoner of a dream, attracted by who knows what...” she adds: “i wish i could go to the end of my journey and write the books i have dreamed of.”[155] as already noticed in various places, she thus proves quite lucid about the issues she has to raise in order to be acknowledged as a distinct literary writer. indeed, she later envisions exploring the “hazy beyond”156 in a way that stands apart from her predecessors: i have visions of himalaya, of lakes mirroring snowy peaks, of cascades in the woods. […] tibet! tibet! a part of me remained up there in the high steppes, in the barren loneliness of gyao-guwn where, perhaps recklessly, i have proffered the “vow that binds” as do tibetans think. ten years too late! i confess that i was burned by desire in front of this closed door, opened for me. the desire to seize this unique occasion, to go and learn there what none of the few explorers had been able to get in touch with, to do what no european had ever done.[157] david-neel’s dream of tibet is one that gives a twist to the geographical category of the “real tibet:” she gives a spiritual dimension to it, while at the same time the tibet she is bound to is also the promise of self-realization. here and there she insists on himalayas and tibet as a wilderness which “speaks the same language” as the sahara her husband lives close to.[158] she gives it a spiritual meaning that links it to the medieval topos of the desert, but finds new religious models to express it: “it is one of the dreadful and spectacular aspects of what indian philosophers call mâya, an illusion, the mirage of the material world.”[159] in this respect, david-neel believes her link to tibet to be of an ontological nature: “i have been a nomad of central asia in one of my previous lives, as my oriental friends enjoy to say for fun.”[160]this however is a serious matter to her: “indeed, i clearly get recollections of it, remote and deep inside myself, up there in the wide steppes.” she adds that “in [her] veins” she “for sure” has the “atavism of an asiatic nomad” and may have been a “great tibetan lama in the past.”[161] this explains why “she has felt nostalgia for asia before she ever went there” and that although she was “born a parisian” she is “endowed with such a mentality so alien to the one of her native milieu.”[162] david-neel’s letters attest to a heterogeneous set of representations of tibet in the first decades of the twentieth century. first and foremost, her commitment to buddhism and her scholarly ambitions give an unexpected twist to the categories of “real tibet” she inherited from her predecessors and fellows. in this respect, her vision of tibet is not only the transnational product of two different traditions in the history of european representations, but is thoroughly transformed by her actual field experience and personal encounter with sikkimese landscapes and people.[163]in the process, her exploration clearly takes a metaphorical flair that turns the categories of “imagined tibet” and “real tibet” upside down and blurs their conceptual definitions. while the primary meaning of “real tibet” should refer to what one knows of the place once one has come into contact with it—at the time, what the explorers had seen and written about tibet—“imagined tibet” refers to fantasies about it, like those about unknown or utopian lands. through her insight into the tantric tradition of tibetan buddhism, david-neel pictures “real tibet” as the “land of marvels.”[164] in this respect, she suggests that the himalayan landscape is endowed with special qualities that resonate with her own vision of the world. reflecting on her everyday life in the remote mountains beside the lama-yogi she writes to philippe: everything is but a dream! is it not a dream for a parisian woman to be here on this steep mountain slope, sleeping on a camp bed and living in the only company of a prodigious sorcerer who spent more than twenty years of his life isolated in the wilderness, who lived in cemeteries, who ate corpses, what do i know? is it not unlikely? how would i not call it a dream?[165] on the threshold of tibet, the himalayan mountain landscape, as she describes it, encapsulates the tantric visions that she has experienced with the gomchen. “the buddha saw something. [...] my lama-yogi ‘saw’ too. [...] in study and meditation, i seek to see what the buddhas have seen.”[166] the vision develops throughout her perception of the tibetan landscape as a means to unbind her attachment to “the world, the civilization and its conventions” and as an image of impermanence.[167] at this key point in tibetan and european intercultural history, david-neel remarkably reverses the paradigm of geographical discovery into an exploration of a new kind, as she confesses to philippe: “if i can transcribe this vision in a lived and lively way as the [buddhas and the lama-yogi] have, then maybe is it worthwhile for me to write and speak.”[168] ten years before she actually entered tibet and became famous as the first european woman to get to lhasa, on the sikkimese threshold she developed a set of images representative of the “magical tibet,”[169] better known to us from her later travel narratives. these testify to a substantially different approach to buddhism from the reformist conceptions david-neel brought to sikkim and, as we shall see, are a direct reflection of the familiarity with tibetan buddhism that she acquired in contact with actual tibetan buddhistss and the renewed agenda that she had previously revealed in her private letters to philippe. a symbolic birthplace: a retrospective mise-en-scène having succeeded in entering lhasa in 1924, david-neel and aphur yongden return triumphantly to france. right after the success of david-neel’s travel narrative my journey to lhasa in 1927 (the english version was published prior to the french edition), she has a tibetan-style house built at dignes-les-bains, mirroring in some way sidkeong tulku’s partly asian, partly british house in kalimpong. there she writes the well-known bestsellers—more than thirty books—that will reward her with financial security and a wide readership. with mystics and magicians in tibet ranks among her most successful works.[170] the first lines of this book provide a retrospective tribute to sikkim,[171]which gives a good example of the reflection of david-neel’s encounter with mahāyāna buddhism in her writing style. kalimpong, the gateway to sikkim on the border with british india, appears here at the very forefront of the narrative of david-neel’s discovery of “real tibet and its religious world.”[172] the readers familiar with my journey to lhasa now become acquainted with the dream-like tone she had given to her letters from sikkim, which were inspired by the “psychic atmosphere”[173] of the philosophical “fairy tale”[174] she had been steeped in. she thus tells her readers what she had already told her husband seventeen years earlier. but now the dream forms the matrix of the book: in her narrative, the dream is now the beginning of all things concerning asia, while concrete encounters tend to lose importance. the narrative reconstructs the travel as an epiphany in which kalimpong plays the function of the symbolic doorway that gives access to the other side of reality and to ultimate truth. here, the once essential figures that gave her access to tantric buddhism fade out and give way to the core matter of the book: a collection of picturesque and fairy stories on magicians, sorcerers, and tantric ascetics with their supernatural powers and esoteric practices. the accounts are scarcely (or not at all) related to their sources, and the events are only loosely connected to the time and space of the travel experience. her readers proved to be eagerly receptive to these modern fantasy tales on death and the beyond, gathered in a rhapsodic narrative held together by the authoritative “i” of the narrator rather than by a clear distinction between reality and fiction.[175] david-neel had succeeded in finding the right literary style to reconcile her conception of art and her buddhist imaginaire. since david-neel’s early literary attempts, notably so in the unpublished semi-autobiographical novel le grand art, written in 1896 when she was still active as an opera singer under the name of alexandra myrial, she had been developing a literary approach that prepared the ground for her later works: “through art, as a messenger of dream, i could bring to the world the ability to temporarily forget day-to-day trivia […], i could lead souls to the realm of illusion where secret aspirations and repressed desires hide: everything that is beauty and grandeur in the human mind.”[176] nevertheless, as we have seen in her letters, sikkim was the birthplace of her literary agenda as a buddhist writer who, without betraying her former convictions, develops a new strategy, using fiction that allowed her to meet the public’s expectations in the traumatic post-war period, on a global scale.[177] while david-neel’s overall understanding and presentation of buddhism was substantially modified by her encounter with sikkim,[178] her popularizing work on tibet and tibetan buddhism such as with mystics and magicians certainly contributed to the success of her adventure narratives and novels. she thus became a popular writer of a special kind, one who claimed to combine the authority of a buddhist convert and of a scholar floating on the margins of french and british buddhist studies: in the eyes of the public this double aura gave its flair to her books, which were for the most part immediately or rapidly translated into english. it certainly accounts for the international success of “visions of himalaya,”[179] in which the distinction between “real tibet” and “imagined tibet” is blurred even after she actually crossed its geographical perimeter. although tibet was by then no longer uncharted territory, this vision lingers in david-neel’s writings on a metaphorical level. in the post-first-world-war and second-world-war eras, it is this vision, as david-neel herself foresaw in sikkim, that helped turn tibet into one of the most obvious and essential repositories of buddhism. tibet was no longer a repellent “lamaist” country. at a time when tibet as a state remained an “unsolved question in the international arena”[180] and was an indefinitely restricted area, it appeared to david-neel’s readers—as allen ginsberg, reading with mystics and magicians (quoted above in the introduction), clearly testifies—to hide one of the most appealing bodies of spiritual wisdom available to the modern world. conclusion: broadcasting tibet, or the sikkimese ways of global buddhism in with mystics and magicians, david-neel not only credits sikkim with her encounter with tibet, but also uses her stay in sikkim as an introduction to the literary tone and manner that she will become famous for. david-neel’s letters from sikkim give us access to the gradual development of her vision of tibet. in this vision, the beholder—the traveler’s and writer’s pervasive “i”—and the show—the world, the others, the landscape, the beyond—alike are put into perspective, transcended, and eventually delocalized. such a vision was to become a standardized pattern of globalized buddhism in the twentieth century. its roots and emergence in david-neel’s discourse should actually be given a broader perspective if we wish to consider more closely the global issues of her sikkimese experience. an alternative angle from which to look at david-neel’s modernist self-fashioning and worldwide success is found in the way of the white clouds, a famous travel narrative by another western buddhist modernist, anagarika govinda (german-born ernst lothar hoffmann, 1898–1985). he was a theravada bhikku who later turned to tibetan buddhism. he became a disciple of the gomchen of lachen twenty years after david-neel had stayed at the monastery of lachen. in his book, govinda collects the gomchen’s memories of the french pioneer and recalls “the famous french orientalist [eastern scholar] and explorer alexandra david-neel, whose books on tibet were so outstanding that they were translated into all the major languages of the world.” his account of her stay in sikkim deserves attention here: the profound knowledge that informed her books, which for the first time gave an objective account of hitherto unknown spiritual practices and psychic phenomena, were the direct outcome of these three years of study and meditation under the great hermit, who thus—with unfailing certainty—had chosen the right medium for broadcasting his message over the entire world, without himself ever leaving his far-off retreat among the snows of the himalayas. with this “message” i do not mean a message of any personal nature or the propagation of any particular doctrine, but a message which opened the eyes of the world to the hitherto hidden spiritual treasures of tibetan religious culture.[181] govinda’s statement indirectly suggests that one might have to reevaluate the subjective feature of david-neel’s tone and the literary indeterminacy of her adventure narratives.[182] from his perspective, her books are best considered as a collection of quotations of the gomchen of lachen, a crucial figure whom we have seen bound up in a complex way with david-neel’s spiritual quest and public persona. ngawang rinchen, like kazi dawa samdup, was obviously aware of the geopolitical situation of sikkim and of the framework modern buddhism was likely to offer to tibetan buddhism. he definitely had some agency in broadcasting his teachings: david-neel repeatedly makes clear in her letters that he carefully chose the texts they would read together, interpreted for her the rituals she would witness or perform, and gave her permission or forbade her to publish certain tantric texts. had he wished to do so, his coming to europe would have attracted an enthusiastic audience.[183] moreover, david-neel’s books obey a fundamentally global logic, since through them the lama-yogi’s “secret oral teachings” found a transcultural form to meet the modern world and circulate across the translingual networks of twentieth-century written literature.[184] in this respect, it is a fitting reversal of roles that, almost a century after david-neel introduced herself as a buddhist reformer to the thirteenth dalai lama, his holiness the fourteenth dalai lama, a major figure of buddhism today, wrote the foreword to a recent edition of my journey to lhasa, paying homage to “the first to introduce the real tibet to the west” and “to convey the authentic flavor of tibet as she found it.”[185] when david-neel came back to europe, she did not adopt the scheme of transmission perpetuated by many of the contemporary buddhist modernists and leading intellectuals: she did not turn into a buddhist lama (unlike anagarika govinda or more recently matthieu ricard), did not accept any disciples, and no longer preached buddhism. she did not found communities or get involved in buddhist institutional structures. she nonetheless went on writing about buddhism throughout her life. as govinda suggested, sikkim, rather than france or europe, gave birth to and literally produced alexandra david-neel’s authorial voice, offering her a new and lasting career-path. but david-neel implicitly rejected the idea of being a “vessel” merely delivering a message; rather, she chose to be a cultural translator of tantric buddhism and strove to devise an appealing form for the requirements of the modern era through written literature. martin baumann, a social historian of religions, has recently identified a shift in modern buddhism during the interwar period: mainly an intellectual and aesthetic phenomenon before the first world war, modern buddhism was then still a “thin” transnational network, implying dissociated and distant written transactions. in the post-war period, modern buddhism became a “thick” global establishment, implying practical, existential, day-to-day commitment that was focused on meditation both as self-cultivation and physical training.[186] david-neel’s trajectory and work complicate this schematization. as a pivotal figure in the history of global buddhism, david-neel holds a special position among other “western buddhist pioneers” as a committed lay western buddhist story-teller, a cosmopolitan “rhapsodist” similar to the bards who freely adapted the life story of the cultural hero gesar and transmitted this epic cycle across tibet, the himalayas, and mongolia.[187] in the process, did not her own pen name and public persona come to overshadow her guru on the stage of global buddhism in the twentieth century? while david-neel has been widely acclaimed as the “greatest explorer of the twentieth century”[188] and praised for her determination and will power, the multiple and unforeseen encounters in sikkim that had such lasting impact on her trajectory in the long run did manage to create a polyphonic narrative. her lama-yogi’s teachings on the threshold of the “land of marvels” had already prompted her to write to philippe, who had first come to know her as an actress and a novelist: “there is no ‘self’ or ‘others,’ there is only an eternal dream that goes on, giving birth to transient characters, fictional adventures.”[189] in with mystics and magicians, as we have seen, she still maintained that she “hears [her]self as if [she were] listening to some other person.” ultimately, this sûnyavâdin’s (follower of the way of emptiness) understanding of reality and the self[190] fittingly defines the specific way alexandra david-neel’s encounter with the remote sikkimese highlands affected her buddhist modernist views and contributed to the advent of global buddhism. [1] alexandra david-néel, correspondance avec son mari, 1904—1941 (paris: plon, 2000), 392. translations of all quoted letters are mine. [2] this work was supported by the swiss national foundation for scientific research under grant pa00p1_145398: http://p3.snf.ch/project-145398. [3] in a note dated march 18, 1935, david-neel stated to the german editor brockhaus that she wanted her definitive pen name to be written alexandra david-neel, although the correct spelling was néel as in the usual french spelling followed by most french editors and biographers, and she herself pronounced it /nel/ and not /ni:l/ as english speakers would and do. her choice not only denotes her ambivalence toward her husband, but also tends to emphasize her early desire to become a distinct transnational figure through her published works, as can be seen from the publication of my journey to lhasa in english. i shall henceforth respect the international spelling. [4] david-neel, my journey to lhasa (new york: harper & brothers, 1927). it was first published in french under the title souvenirs d’une parisienne au thibet (pékin: unknown publisher, 1925), and later reedited as voyage d’une parisienne à lhassa (paris: plon, 1927). [5] see for example the typical titles of the numerous biographies dedicated to david-neel, such as ruth middleton, alexandra david-neel: portrait of an adventurer (boston: shambhala, 1989) or joëlle désiré-marchand, alexandra david-néel: vie et voyages; itinéraires géographiques et spirituels (paris: arthaud, 2009) and its alternative title de paris à lhassa, de l’aventure à la sagesse (paris: arthaud, 1997). [6] alexandra david-néel and aphur yongden, les enseignements secrets dans les sectes bouddhistes tibétaines (paris: adyar, 1951). translated by h. n. m. hardy as the secret oral teachings in tibetan buddhist sects (san francisco: city lights, 1967). [7] allen ginsberg and gary snyder, the selected letters of allen ginsberg and gary snyder, 1956–1991, ed. bill morgan (berkeley: counterpoint, 2008), 54. [8] quoted in barbara foster and michael foster, the secret lives of alexandra david-neel: a biography of the explorer of tibet and its forbidden practices (new york: overlook, 1998), back cover. [9] sara mills, discourses of difference: an analysis of women’s travel writing and colonialism (london: routledge, 1993), 208. [10] mills, discourses of difference, 208. in her letters, david-neel nonetheless mentions early on that she is acquainted with major western and asian figures of hinduist and buddhist modernism and academia, such as mira alfassa (called “la mère;” david-néel, correspondance, 94), mable bode (ibid., 138), caroline rhys davids (ibid., 76), mrs. narasu (lakshmi pokala narasu’s wife; ibid. 92), sarada devi (shri ramakrishna’s wife; ibid. 117), and ellen woodroffe (ibid. 119). she also evokes sister nivedita (margaret noble; ibid. 118) and had ties with josephine and betty mcleod, lady caithness, and annie besant (see jacques brosse, alexandra david-neel [1978; repr., paris: albin michel, 2013, kindle edition], 31, 35, and 74). [11] thomas tweed, the american encounter with buddhism, 1844–1912: victorian culture and the limits of dissent (chapel hill: university of north carolina, 1992), 48–77. though she (incorrectly) surmised that she might “have been the only buddhist in paris” in the 1890s (david-néel, correspondance, 147), david-neel never formally converted to buddhism, unlike, for example, the american maria desouza canavarro (aka sister sanghamata) in 1897. see thomas tweed, “inclusivism and the spiritual journey of marie de souza canavarro (1849–1933),” religion 24, no. 1 (1994): 43–58. on the role of women in modern buddhism in asia, see for example tessa bartholomeusz, women under the bo tree: buddhist nuns in sri lanka (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1994). [12] most famously, jeanne denys, alexandra david-néel au tibet: une supercherie dévoilée (paris: la pensée universelle, 1972). [13] pioneering and influential theosophical publications on buddhism are henry s. olcott, the buddhist catechism (adyar: the theosophical publishing house, 1881)—which was immediately translated into sinhalese by anagarika dharmapala)—and alfred p. sinnett, esoteric buddhism (london: trübner, 1883). [14] among blavatsky’s publications, see especially her introduction to the secret doctrine, vol. 1 (adyar: the theosophical publishing house, 1888). [15] expanding the field of the encounter of buddhism with the western world—among others, stephen batchelor, the awakening of the west: the encounter of buddhism and the west (london: aquarian, 1994)—recent studies have highlighted the rise of “modern buddhism” at the end of the nineteenth century. see especially donald s. lopez, introduction to a modern buddhist bible: essential readings from east and west (boston: beacon, 2002), i–xlii; david l. mcmahan, the making of buddhist modernism (oxford: oxford university press, 2008). [16] tomoko masuzawa, the invention of world religions or, how european universalism was preserved in the language of pluralism (chicago: chicago university press, 2005), 121–146. [17] for a recent biography and insightful study of dharmapala’s multiple agendas and personas in ceylon, india, and worldwide, see steven kemper, rescued from the nation: anagarika dharmapala and the buddhist world (chicago: university of chicago press, 2015). [18] martin j. verhoeven, “americanizing the buddha: paul carus and the transformation of asian thought,” in the faces of buddhism in america, ed. charles prebish and kenneth tanaka (berkeley: university of california press, 1998), 207–227. [19] judith snodgrass, presenting japanese buddhism to the west: orientalism, occidentalism, and the columbian expedition (chapel hill: university of north carolina press, 2003), 249. [20] alicia turner, saving buddhism: the impermanence of religion in colonial burma (honolulu: university of hawai‘i press, 2014), 2. see also kemper, rescued from the nation; anne blackburn, locations of buddhism: colonialism and modernity in sri lanka (chicago: university of chicago press, 2010); erik braun, the birth of insight: meditation, modern buddhism, and the burmese monk ledi sayadaw (chicago: university of chicago press, 2013). [21] tweed, the american encounter with buddhism. [22] elizabeth harris, theravada buddhism and the british encounter: religious, missionary, and colonial experiences in nineteenth century sri lanka (london: routledge, 2006). [23] laurence cox, buddhism and ireland: from the celts to the counter-culture and beyond (sheffield: equinox, 2013). [24] brian bocking et al., eds., a buddhist crossroads: pioneer western buddhists and asian networks, 1860–1960 (london: routledge, 2015). [25] see brian bocking, laurence cox, and shin‘ichi yoshinaga, “the first buddhist mission to the west: charles pfoundes and the london buddhist mission of 1889–1892,” diskus 16, no. 3 (2014): 1–33. it had long been accepted that the crucial departure point of western buddhism was the ordination of allan bennett (aka ananda metteyya, 1872–1923) as a buddhist monk in 1902 in burma. metteyya then founded the international buddhist society (buddhasasana samagama) in 1903 in rangoon. see heinz bechert, “buddhist revival in east and west,” in the world of buddhism, ed. heinz bechert and richard gombrich (london: thames and hudson, 1984), 273–285 and batchelor, the awakening of the west, 40–41, 307. [26] tweed, the american encounter with buddhism, 48–77. tweed extends the study of early western buddhism beyond its rationalist appropriations and includes “esoterics” and “romantics” in his typology of euro-american buddhist sympathizers and adherents. similarly, franklin pays attention to the “elements of buddhism [which] enter[ed] scholarly, literary, and popular discourses” in victorian europe. j. jeffrey franklin, the lotus and the lion: buddhism and the british empire (ithaca: cornell university press, 2008), 86. [27] bocking et al., introduction to a buddhist crossroads, 4. [28] bocking et al., introduction to a buddhist crossroads, 1 and 7. see also laurence cox, “rethinking early western buddhists: beachcombers, ‘going native,’ and dissident orientalism,” in bocking et al., a buddhist crossroads, 116–133. [29] mcmahan, the making of buddhist modernism, 6. [30] benedict anderson, imagined communities: reflections of the origin and spread of nationalism (london: verso, 1983), 36. as mentioned in note 3 above, her choice of a pen name reflects a similar strategy. as a writer and a thinker, she also took part in international movements such as feminism and anarchism, and as an opera singer, she toured in europe and asia. [31] quoted in brosse, alexandra david-neel,48 (my translation). [32] batchelor, the awakening of the west, 40–41 and 307–308. [33] see mcmahan, the making of buddhist modernism, 27–60. [34] lopez, a modern buddhist bible, xxxix. [35] ibid., x. [36] alexandra david, “quelques écrivains bouddhistes contemporains,” mercure de france 82, no. 300 (16 december 1909): 637–647 and david, le modernisme bouddhiste et le bouddhisme du bouddha (paris: alcan, 1911). she was the first to use the term “buddhist modernism” in a published work. see martin baumann, “culture contact and valuation: early german buddhists and the creation of a ‘buddhism in protestant shape,’” numen 44, no. 3 (1997): 270–295. [37] tweed, the american encounter with buddhism, 48–77. tweed points out that these types are non-exclusive and can coexist in one individual. [38] bocking et al., introduction to a buddhist crossroads, 1. [39] at this stage, further empirical studies are needed to highlight sikkimese perspectives on the french traveler. in this paper, i focus on david-neel’s writings and use available local sources for biographical details. [40] mcmahan, the making of buddhist modernism, 6. [41] ibid., 256. [42] for instance, david-neel is never mentioned in contemporary buddhism or the journal of global buddhism, the most prominent journals in the field of modern buddhism. on this question, see marion dapsance, review of the making of buddhist modernism, by david l. mcmahan, archives de sciences sociales des religions 168 (2015): 247. lopez offers some explanation as to why david-neel belonged to the “great mystifiers” of western buddhist history, alongside helena p. blavatsky and cyril h. hoskin, aka tuesday lobsang rampa; see donald s. lopez, “the image of tibet of the great mystifiers,” in imagining tibet: perceptions, projections, and fantasies, ed. thierry dodin and heinz räther (london: wisdom, 2001), 183–200. this notwithstanding, he does not study david-neel for herself in his own work, although she does feature in lopez, a modern buddhist bible, 59–67. [43] laurence a. waddell, preface to the buddhism of tibet, or lamaism: with its mystic cults, symbolism, and mythology, and in its relation to indian buddhism (london: allen, 1895), ix; see also donald s. lopez, prisoners of shangri-la: tibetan buddhism and the west (chicago: chicago university, 1998), 15–45. [44] lopez, prisoners of shangri-la and jeffrey paine, re-enchantment: tibetan buddhism comes to the west (new york: norton, 2004). [45] patrick french, tibet, tibet: a personal history of a lost land (london: harpercollins, 2003). [46] see alexandra myrial, pour la vie, with a foreword by élisée reclus (bruxelles: les temps nouveaux, 1901). [47] david-néel, correspondance, 146. [48] not to be confused with the later buddhist society founded in 1924 by christmas humphreys (1901–1983). in her letters, david-neel makes fun of the numerous “bums that revolve around the few scholars that founded the buddhist society of england.” david-néel, correspondance, 77. [49] she often refers to him in her letters. david-néel, correspondance, 84, 100, 138 and passim. see désiré-marchand, alexandra david-néel, 467. [50] david-néel, l’inde où j’ai vécu (paris: plon, 1969), 12. [51] see roger-pol droit, the cult of nothingness: the philosophers and the buddha (chapel hill: university of north carolina, 2003). [52] for a discussion of this widespread view of schopenhauer’s buddhism, see urs app, schopenhauers kompass (rorschach: university media, 2011). [53] see alexandra david-néel, la lampe de sagesse [published posthumously] (monaco: le rocher, 1986), 24. [54] david-néel, correspondance, 132. [55] ibid., 206. [56] david, le modernisme bouddhiste, 10; see also her article “is there a secret doctrine?,” in the buddhisst review 9, no. 3 (september –december 1917): 105–112. [57] ibid., 11 (my translation). [58] david, “quelques écrivains bouddhistes contemporains,” 638 (my translation). [59] alexandra david-néel, mystiques et magiciens du tibet (paris: plon, 1929). translated as with mystics and magicians in tibet (london: john lane, 1931). published in the usa as magic and mystery in tibet (new york: kendall, 1932). [60] alexandra david-néel, journal de voyage: lettres à son mari, 2 vols. (paris: plon, 1975). i shall refer here to the later reprint of her letters, correspondance avec son mari. [61] for an analysis of the néels’ marriage from a sociological standpoint, see heidi kasevich, “a civilized yogi: the life of french explorer alexandra david néel, 1868–1969,” ( phd diss., new york university, 2011). [62] david-néel, correspondance, 181. [63] ibid., 84. [64] in her initial agenda, david-neel planned a “buddhist world tour” (brosse, alexandra david-neel, 60), comprising visits to burma and japan, but not tibet and the himalayas (david-néel, correspondance, 132). while this agenda highlights the western imagination of the time on buddhist cultural geography and tibet’s ambiguous position, it also suggests that david-neel’s interest in tibetan buddhism was born while traveling in india as she became more familiar with the geopolitical issues of the british rāj with regard to tibet. simultaneously, her encounter in calcutta with sir john woodroffe (aka arthur avalon), an expert on indian tantrism, yoga, and shaktism, contributed to this game of chance and certainly triggered her interest in undocumented tibetan tantric buddhism. on woodroffe, see kathleen taylor, sir john woodroffe, tantra, and bengal: ‘an indian soul in a european body?’ (london: routledge, 2013). [65] ibid., 199. [66] francis younghusband, india and tibet, 1903–1904 (london: john murray, 1910). [67] charles sherring, western tibet and the british borderland: the sacred country of hindus and buddhists; with an account of the government, religion, and customs of its peoples (london: e. arnold, 1906). [68] alex mckay, tibet and the british raj: the frontier cadre, 1904–1947 (richmond: curzon, 1997). [69] for commented maps of david-neel’s itineraries, see désiré-marchand, alexandra david-néel, 155–231. [70] map courtesy of joëlle désiré-marchand, from her book alexandra david-néel: vie et voyages (paris: arthaud, 2009), 161. [71] david-néel, correspondance, 329. [72] see désiré-marchand, alexandra david-néel, 200, for a map of this sojourn, the probable location of dewa thang (a locality not marked on the maps), and her dwellings in northern sikkim along the tibetan border. for a map of her illegal trip from chörten nyima to shigatse, see ibid., 225. [73] for an analysis of the recurring motif of david-neel’s ever-displaced “home” (she uses the english word) in her letters, see margaret mccolley, “alexandra david-néel’s home in the himalayas: where the heart lies,” in gender, genre, and identity in women’s travel writing, ed. kristel siegel (new york/bern: peter lang, 2004), 279–292. [74] david-néel, correspondance, 153–154 and 165. [75] ibid., 200–201; in english in the original letter. [76] ibid., 201. [77] ibid., 168 and 172. interestingly enough, she never mentions him in mystiques et magiciens du tibet, where owen has been replaced by her sikkimese servant as her interpreter with tibetan lamas at lachen. [78] bell and david-neel obviously had a complex relationship. for instance, bell refused david-neel a gun permit. bell to david-neel, october 1916, foreign department, external, nos. 13–16, part b, national archives of india, delhi. he had also previously opposed the erection of a hermit house in the palace grounds in gangtok, which mahrajkumar sidkeong tulku intended to have built, as it turns out, for david-neel before she returned to sikkim for her second sojourn. letter from bell, n.d., si no. 105, file no. 4/37/1914, department of darbar, sikkim state archives, gangtok. for more details on charles bell in sikkim, see emma martin, “charles bell’s collection of ‘curios:’ negotiating tibetan material culture on the anglo-tibetan borderlands (1900–1945)’ (phd diss., soas, university of london, 2014). i am grateful to emma martin for sharing these sources with me. [79] david-néel, correspondance, 148–149. [80] ibid., 202 and 398. [81] ibid., 426. [82] ibid., 196. [83] ibid., 84. she adds that gaining that position would be all the more difficult since she is both a woman and a buddhist activist (ibid., 132). [84] ibid., 332. [85] sylvain lévi, “les parts respectives des nations occidentales dans les progrès de l’indianisme,” in mémorial sylvain lévi (1924; repr. paris: hartmann, 1937), 116–117. [86] david-néel, correspondance, 76–77. [87] quoted in mcmahan, the making of buddhist modernism, 52. [88] in order to avoid misunderstandings, i would like to make clear that i only intend here to give a brief overview of david-neel and most of her western contemporaries’ representations and scholarly appropriations of what were at the time called “northern” and “southern” buddhisms. such categories have long been discounted by eastern scholars as inaccurate. if many buddhist reformers at the time held “southern” or theravāda buddhism to be more authentic, this construction does not in turn imply an essentialist equation between theravāda and modernist reformism or rationalism. see kate crosby, theravada buddhism: continuity, diversity, and identity (oxford: wiley–blackwell, 2013). moreover, reformism was also led by mahāyāna buddhists, most notably in japan, as we have seen. [89] david-néel, correspondance, 155. [90] ibid., 84. [91] ibid., 208. [92] alexandra david, “auprès du dalaï-lama,” mercure de france 99, no. 367 (1 october 1912): 473–474. [93] although david-neel only mentions laden la briefly in various places, this important sikkimese official personality of british, sikkimese, and tibetan relations also played an important role in the organization of david-neel’s stay. for a useful biography, see nicholas g. rhodes, a man of the frontier: the life and times of sonam wangfel laden la (kolkata: mira bose, 2006). [94] david-néel, correspondance, 144 and 148. [95] ibid., 146. [96] ibid., 147. [97] ibid., 147. [98] ibid., 229. [99] jean chalon, le lumineux destin d’alexandra david-néel (paris: perrin, 1985), 196. [100] alexandra david, “auprès du dalaï-lama,” 466–476. [101] david-néel, correspondance, 160 and 165. [102] ibid., 144–145. [103] ibid.,144. [104] ibid., 132. she had published an article on tibetan theocracy earlier. alexandra myrial, “le pouvoir religieux au thibet, ses origines,” mercure de france 52, no. 180 (december 1904), 599–618. [105] david-néel, correspondance, 154–157. [106] david-neel shamelessly claims that sidkeong tulku “has been educated in europe” and plainly describes him as a modern reformer. ibid., 146–147. on sidkeong tulku’s education and travel around the world (1906–1909), and his relationship with the british colonial framework, see alex mckay, “‘that he may take due pride in the empire to which he belongs:’ the education of maharajah kumar sidkeon namgyal tulku of sikkim,” bulletin of tibetology 39, no. 2 (2003): 27–52, here 43. [107] a collection of sayings attributed to the buddha translated from pali, most famously featured in max müller’s sacred books of the east, vol. x (oxford: clarendon, 1881), 1–95. [108] david-néel, correspondance, 172. [109] ibid., 165. [110] ibid., 194–195, see also 185–186, 211 and 337. [111] ibid., 298, 330, 361, 389. [112] batchelor, the awakening of the west, 307–308. see also david-néel, correspondance, 304, 415. [113] david-néel, correspondance, 349–350, 353. [114] see dasho p. w. samdup, “a brief biography of kazi dawa samdup (1868–1922),” bulletin of tibetology 44, no. 1–2 (2008): 155–158. before translating buddhist texts into english, dawa samdup served as interpreter for the maharaja of sikkim and for charles bell, notably during the dalai lama’s stay and the simla convention. his biographer strikingly states that “kazi dawa samdup wanted to propagate tibetan buddhism to the world, and especially to the english-speaking world. this required extensive translation of difficult buddhist and tantric texts into english and heavy publication expenses, which he could not afford. his opportunity came when the famed orientalist dr w. y. evans-wentz came to see him in gangtok.” (ibid., 157) besides the tibetan book of the dead (oxford: oxford university press, 1927), evans-wentz posthumously published dawa samdup’s other important translations: tibet’s great yogi: a biography (oxford: oxford up, 1928), tibetan yoga and secret doctrines (oxford: oxford university press, 1935), tibetan book of the great liberation (oxford: oxford university press, 1954). for a survey of the reception of the bardo thödol in the west, see donald s. lopez, the tibetan book of the dead: a biography (princeton: princeton university press, 2011). [115] david-néel, correspondance, 148–150, 160, 167. [116] ibid., 412. [117] richard white, the middle ground: indians, empires, and republics in the great lakes region, 1650–1815 (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1991). [118] david-néel, correspondance, 169. [119] franklin, the lotus and the lion, 74–87. in order to define “nirvana,” blavatsky evoked a pantheistic “absorption into the great universal soul” and concluded that “nirvana is the ocean to which all tend.” helena p. blavatsky, isis unveiled: a master-key to the mysteries of ancient and modern science and theology, vol. 2 (new york: bouton, 1877), 116 and 639. this phrase obviously inspired edwin arnold’s last lines of the light of asia, or the great renunciation (mahābhinishkramana): being the life and teaching of gautama, prince of india and founder of buddhism (as told in verse by an indian buddhist (london: trübner, 1879), 238. this idea was more clearly drawn from the hindu “atman” concept than from buddhist doxology. [120] david-néel, correspondance, 186. this passage was omitted in journal de voyage, 165. [121] she only mentions the term “gompchen” in january 1915. david-néel, correspondance, 352. [122] david-néel, correspondance, 381. [123] aphur yongden and alexandra david-néel, le lama aux cinq sagesses: roman tibétain (paris: plon, 1935). translated by percy lloyd and bernard miall as mipam, the lama of the five wisdoms: a tibetan novel (london: john lane, 1938). see also alexandra david-néel and lama [aphur] yongden, la connaissance transcendante (paris: adyar, 1958). aphur yongden will also write a novel of his own, la puissance du néant (paris: plon, 1954). translated by janwillem van de wetering as the power of nothingness (boston: houghton mifflin, 1982). for a short biography of aphur yongden, see désiré-marchand, alexandra david-néel, 562–572. [124] she merely evokes a “servant” in gangtok in may 1914 and at chöten nyima later in november (david-néel, correspondance, 311, 335) and then in kyoto (ibid., 450). in a similar manner, in magic and mystery, she credits lama bermiag and kushog chösdzed, whom she met in gangtok, as her first informants on the conception of death and the beyond in tibetan buddhism. david-néel, magic and mystery, 27–43. however, in her letters, she merely mentions having tea with one “very learned lama” and “member of the state council” at sidkeong tulku’s house. david-néel, correspondance, 154–155. [125] david-néel, correspondance, 333. [126] ibid. [127] ibid., 344 and 395. [128] ibid., 334. this is precisely what she believes to be the modernity of buddhism as compared to the outdated christian tradition. [129] ibid., 337–338. [130] max stirner and friedrich nietzsche were both emblems of the fin de siècle nihilism and anarchism that unsettled and disrupted bourgeois conventions and agendas on a global scale. see benedict anderson, under three flags (london: verso, 2005). before publishing her essay les théories individualistes dans la philosophie chinoise: yang-tchou (paris: giard et brière, 1909), alexandra david had titled an article on the chinese philosopher “un ‘stirner’ chinois,” mercure de france 76, no. 275 (1 december 1908): 445–452. david-neel here links european subversive theories and violent activism to tantric fearsome iconography such as the famous wrathful deities, awe-inspiring ritual practices, and mind-striking formulas and conceptions symbolizing the destruction of the self. see also david-néel, correspondance, 203. kasevich condensed this idea in the subtitle of her dissertation “beyond the adventure heroine; anarcho-buddhism and the search for freedom.” kasevich, “a civilized yogi,” 9. this blend of anarchist ideas and mahāyāna buddhism certainly left its mark on gary snyder’s socially engaged buddhism. see snyder, “anarchist buddhism,” journal for the protection of all beings 1 (1961), 10–12. for a study on david-neel’s conception of vajrayāna buddhism and especially her understanding of prajñāpāramitā [perfection of wisdom], a central collection of texts in mahāyāna and tibetan buddhism, see geneviève james, “la quête mystique d’alexandra david-néel: bouddhiste pratiquante et militante,” in de l’écriture mystique au féminin (laval: presses universitaires de laval, 2005), 97–126. [131] david-néel, correspondance, 334. [132] the name yishe tönme (tibetan yi shes sgron me, sanskrit prajñāpradīpa) comes from madhyamika scholar bhāviveka’s (c. 490–570) commentary on nāgārjuna’s (c. 150–250) verses on the middle way (mūlamadhyamakakārikā). while david-neel writes to philippe that she would never have dared to take such a “grandiloquent” name for herself, she will actually be introduced under this name to the panchen lama in 1916 and will use it again when traveling in asia, thus renouncing, as she writes, her "western personality." aphur yongden will be given the name of snying rje rgya mtsho (ocean of compassion), david-nèel, correspondance, 458 and 477. david-neel also lectured on buddhism in adyar and calcutta under the name of “sunyānanda,” (sanskrit compound meaning “bliss of emptiness”). désiré-marchand, alexandra david-néel, 152. she will later publish under this name while staying in the monastery of kumbum. see e.g. sunyānanda, “buddhist methods of meditation,” the buddhist review 9, no. 3 (september–december 1917): 164–177. she also adds that she is now called an incarnation of dākinīs (female deities) throughout tibet. david-néel, correspondance, 252. [133] david-néel, correspondance, 362. [134] ibid., 297–298. [135] ibid., 252; see also 130. [136] a technique of meditation and set of rituals through which adepts seek to “cut” (gcod) through the ego by generating visions in which the body is sacrificed and which ultimately leads to the realization of the non-existence of the self. [137] david-néel, correspondance, 352. [138] david-néel, mystiques et magiciens, 165. i translate literally from the french, since the english version is less precise: “[…] to blot out the mirage of the imaginary world […].” see also with mystics and magicians, 152. [138] david-néel, correspondance, 235. [140] david-néel, initiations lamaïques (paris: adyar, 1930) translated by fred rothwell as initiations and initiates in tibet (london: rider, 1931). [141] david-néel, correspondance, 322–323, 333–334, 337, 339, 342, 389, 397, 413. [142] ibid., 357. [143] on the paradoxical ties between the rise of nationalism and internationalization, and the modern ideas of peace, happiness, and progress, see anne-marie thiesse, la création des identités nationales (paris: le seuil, 1999) and benedict anderson, imagined communities. [144] david-néel, correspondance, 392. time and again she uses the metaphor of the movie screen to translate the profound teaching of the lama-yogi, see 226, 300–301, 342, 354, 392. [145] ibid., 342. [146] although bde chen literally means “the great bliss” in tibetan, she translates it as “the great peace.” ibid., 377. [147] ibid., 417. [148] peter bishop, the myth of shangri-la: tibet, travel writing, and the western creation of sacred landscape (los angeles: university of california press), 1989, esp. 97–135 and samuel thévoz, “le sacre du paysage tibétain,” géographie et cultures 80 (2011): 169–191, http://gc.revues.org [accessed on 3. june 2016]. [149] see for example fernand grenard, tibet: the country and its inhabitants (london: hutchinson & co., 1904), 91–149. [150] see especially jacques bacot, le tibet révolté: vers népémakö, la terre promise des tibétains (paris: hachette, 1912). [151] peter hopkirk, trespassers on the roof of the world: the secret exploration of tibet (london: john murray, 1982), 5–19 and 220–236. [152] alex mckay, “truth, perception, and politics: the british construction of an image of tibet,” in imagining tibet: perceptions, projections, and fantasies, ed. thierry dodin and heinz räther (london: wisdom, 2001), 67–89. [153] samuel thévoz, “the french for shangri-la: tibetan landscape and french explorers,” french cultural studies 25, no. 2 (may 2014): 103–120. [154] david-néel, correspondance, 180–181 (emphasis mine). [155] ibid., 220–221. [156] ibid., 420. [157] ibid., 261. [158] ibid., 343 and 412–413. [159] ibid., 376. [160] ibid., 343. [161] ibid., 365. [162] ibid., 365–366. [163] in terms of methodological and theoretic issues, these arguments tend to qualify, and to some extent contradict, the making of the “myth of shangri-la” as propounded by bishop, the myth of shangri-la and lopez, prisoners of shangri-la. [164] david-néel, correspondance, 285. the original french expression “pays des prestiges” is ambiguous and refers both to the meaning of “prestige” in a sociological sense and “marvel” in a supernatural sense. the ambiguity appears to be strikingly fruitful here. [165] ibid., 335–336. [166] ibid., 394. [167] ibid., 159, 341, 424–425. [168] ibid., 394. [169] frédéric lenoir, la rencontre du bouddhisme et de l’occident (paris: albin michel, 1999), 211–239. see also martin brauen, traumwelt tibet: westliche trugbilder (haupt: bern, 2000). translated as dreamworld tibet: western illusions (bangkok: orchid press, 2004). [170] on this period of intense publishing and lecturing, see désiré-marchand, alexandra david-néel, 387–404. [171] david-neel, with mystics and magicians, 9. [172] ibid., 27. [173] ibid., 80. [174] ibid., 151. [175] according to denys’ alexandra david-néel au tibet, the editor explicitly asked david-neel to stuff her adventure narratives and novels with such anecdotes. denys, who was her former librarian in digne, accused her of fraud and claimed that her accounts amounted to falsification and pure deception. see mills, discourses of difference, 125–153. i contend here that the questions of authenticity and authority need to be asked in different terms. [176] alexandra myrial, le grand art: mœurs de théâtre; journal d’une actrice [high art: memoirs of an actress], quoted in désiré-marchand, alexandra david-néel, 38. my translation. [177] her works are sustained throughout by her conception of fiction. significantly, she deliberately qualified several of her writings as “novels:” the lama of the five wisdoms is a “tibetan novel,” magie d’amour et magie noire (paris: plon, 1938. translated by vidal l’estrange as tibetan tale of love and magic [jersey: neville spearman, 1983]) takes the form of a novel, although she warns the reader that “the novel has been lived.” aphur yongden also published the power of nothingness as a novel. [178] a telling example is provided by le bouddhisme du bouddha: ses doctrines, ses méthodes et ses développements mahāyānistes et tantriques au tibet (paris: plon, 1936). [translated by h. n. n. hardy and bernard miall as buddhism: its doctrines and its methods, with a foreword by christmas humphreys (london: john lane the bodley head, 1939)]. although the title suggests that it is only a revised edition of her 1911 le bouddhisme du bouddha et le modernisme bouddhiste, the content and argument clearly depart from her previous modern buddhist agenda, as indicated by the french subtitle its doctrines, methods, and mahayanist and tantric developments in tibet. in the first chapter, called “the buddha,” david-neel points out from the start that, contrary to other philosophical doctrines and religions, buddhism is not based on and does not need a biography of its founder. she then revisits the fundamental notions of buddhism (suffering and the four noble truths, the noble eightfold path, the dependent origination, karma, nirvana); while she comments on them from the point of view of tibetan interpreters, she insists throughout that tibetan doctrines are consistent with the buddha’s original teachings. [179] david-néel, correspondance, 261. [180] dibyesh anand, “strategic hypocrisy: the british imperial scripting of tibet’s geopolitical identity,” journal of asian studies 68, no. 1 (2009): 227–252. [181] anagarika govinda, the way of the white clouds (1966; repr., new york: overlook, 2006), 154. [182] for a study of david-neel’s writings as an “exploration of voice” moving toward a “transcendent self,” see robert william ii jones, “of offal, corpses, and others: an examination of self, subjectivity, and authenticity in two works by alexandra david-neel” (phd diss., florida atlantic university, 2010). [183] david-néel, correspondance, 414. [184] arjun appadurai, modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization (minneapolis: university of minnesota, 1996), 27–47; franco moretti, “conjectures on world literature,” new left review 1 (january–february 2000): 55–67. as far as western buddhist literature is concerned, some scholars have recently begun to pay attention to the ties between literature and buddhism: franklin, the lotus and the lion; jeff humphries, reading emptiness: buddhism and literature (albany: state university of new york press, 1999); john whalen-bridge and gary storhoff, eds., writing as enlightenment: buddhist american literature into the twenty-first century (albany: state university of new york press, 2001); lawrence normand and alison winch, encountering buddhism in twentieth-century british and american literature (london: bloomsbury, 2013); heinrich detering, ed., der buddha in der deutschen dichtung: zur rezeption des buddhismus in der frühen moderne (göttingen: wallstein, 2014). [185] tenzin gyatso, foreword to my journey to lhasa, by alexandra david-neel (new york: perennial currents, 2005), i. [186] martin baumann, “modernist interpretations of buddhism in europe,” in david l. mcmahan, ed., buddhism in the modern world (new york: routledge, 2012), 119–135. [187] see her introduction to la vie surhumaine de guésar de ling, le héros thibétain, racontée par les bardes de son pays, co-authored with aphur yongden (paris: adyar, 1931). [188] désiré-marchand, alexandra david-néel, backcover. [189] david-néel, correspondance, 392, epigraph of the present paper. [190] ibid., 342. religious studies and transcultural studies: revealing a cosmos not known before? | esther berg & katja rakow | transcultural studies religious studies and transcultural studies: revealing a cosmos not known before? esther berg, institut für weltkirche und mission, frankfurt katja rakow, universiteit utrecht introduction the notion of the “transcultural,” together with all its possible derivatives, has without doubt become one of the buzzwords of the humanities and social sciences in recent years. in this paper, we set out to explore the relationship between an emerging transcultural paradigm and the academic study of religion by discussing what a transcultural perspective, as we understand it, can bring to the table for those of us studying religions.[1] in doing so, we seek to promote awareness of and critical engagement with such a perspective among our colleagues within and beyond the study of religion, addressing both proponents of the discussion as well as outsiders. in our own research, the notion of the transcultural and its theoretical implications have enabled us to articulate aspects of our research material that we had not seen or had no satisfactory concepts to describe. in this paper, we thus want to share the fruitfulness of a transcultural research perspective. yet, as we have discovered and appropriated the notion of the transcultural for ourselves and our own research, it has also opened our eyes to what daniel g. könig and katja rakow have called the “transcultural component” of our own academic discipline.[2] not only might the academic study of religion itself be described as the product of various “trans-cultural” encounters, but the methodological and theoretical concerns informing our understanding of a transcultural research perspective can also be found in one form or another in already well-established discussions and approaches within and beyond our own discipline. it is this two-fold discovery—the fruitfulness of a transcultural perspective for our own research and the “transcultural component” in our own and related disciplines—that we seek to share with our reader on the following pages. religious studies: a heterogeneous discipline like many academic disciplines, religious studies evolved in nineteenth century europe and america after centuries of colonial expansion and the concomitant encounter with a “non-western other.”[3] since its formation, the academic study of religion has been marked by a multiplicity of approaches and research agendas.[4] it thus seems necessary to first position ourselves within the field of religious studies as such. we understand religious studies not as a theological endeavour, but as a field of critical inquiry. for us, this means adopting a perspective of “methodological agnosticism.”[5] such a perspective does not ask whether the religious actors we engage with are right or wrong about the religious truth claims they make, but acknowledges that such truth claims serve as important reference points in the social practices and imaginative horizons of the religious actors involved; it also acknowledges that these truth claims, and the religious realities that stem from them, engender actual experiences and become a social reality, with consequences not only for the actors who share a belief in them, but also for those who remain undecided or actively deny them (one example is the repercussions of conservative christian realities for lgbt or reproductive rights). these social realities are the stuff of our research. consequently, this perspective takes as its starting point the self-representations of our research interlocutors without critically deconstructing them as “false consciousness” or uncritically affirming them. rather, we critically ask how the religious realities we encounter became what they are for those who live through them (or those who deny them), how people become invested in them, and what “work” such truth claims accomplish in the everyday life of social actors. for us, studying religions also means adopting what richard king has termed “constructivist and/or historicist understandings”[6] of “culture” in general and “religion” in particular, bearing in mind that whatever theories and methods we chose will shape the object we study and the knowledge we produce about it.[7] accordingly, our approach to the study of religion asks “how discourses of religion construct the very object that they seek to explain.”[8] in so doing, it acknowledges the historical contingency of the very category of religion itself, which cannot be separated from the history and formation of the discipline of religious studies.[9] “the appearance of ‘religion’ as a natural object,” as peter harrison writes, “coincided with the development of religionswissenschaft which both defined its object and explicated it.”[10] from religion to religions the invention of the concept of world religions is rooted in nineteenth-century scholarly debates, which were shaped by contemporary theories of language and race.[11] although the emerging discourse of world religions seemingly acknowledged religious diversity, it played a formative role in shaping a new european hegemonic identity that disguised its universalist attitude in the language of pluralism.[12] the term “world religions” was reserved for transregional religious formations that were seen as expressions of human religious experience, and was modelled after and measured against the prototype of the category religion, i.e. christianity.[13] just like the study of religions as a nascent discipline, the pluralising concept of world religions was born out of pre-colonial and colonial encounters through which western thinkers began to re-imagine the world as a patchwork of different western and non-western cultures.[14] post-colonial criticism has since deconstructed these theories and concepts as colonial fantasies rooted in orientalist discourses of “othering” and their inherent assumptions about cultural ideals and norms, as well as the asymmetrical power relations inherent in european imperialism.[15] as a result of these developments, the academic study of religions itself came under increasing scrutiny. queer and feminist criticism, for example, has brought to light biases that arise from the fact that “until recently, women of other cultures have been studied mainly by male scholars whose methods reflect their own cultural biases.”[16] such a concern addresses the still prevalent biases in global scholarship in general, where the voices heard and the publications read for the most part still originate from academic centres in anglophone and european countries. moreover, such a critique raises awareness of the situatedness of knowledge production in general.[17] despite the criticism, however, the concept of world religions can be regarded as a crucial step towards an internal pluralisation of the concept of religion itself. in recent decades, scholars have backed away from conceptualizing religions as singular traditions with one distinct body of ideas, practices, and artefacts, and started to emphasize the internal plurality and heterogeneity of religious traditions. instead of christianity in the singular, implying a homogenous tradition, scholars of religions have begun to speak of christianities, to make visible the plurality of different christian traditions hidden beneath the surface of a unifying signifier.[18] religious history came to be understood as a history of entanglement, exchange, and translation between different religious and cultural traditions, or as re-inventions across time and space.[19] such transformations, syncretisms, or hybrid traditions, once considered exceptions or aberrations of “the one true teaching,” now came to be understood as the historical norm, a typical pattern of the dynamics of religious history in general. in fact, the very idea of one unified and hegemonic tradition is considered to be the outcome of discursive struggles over a religious master narrative, as demonstrated by bernard faure. in the process of such struggles, varied and contested histories become unified through the omission of historical contingencies, disputed forms, and competing developments in canonization processes and religious histories.[20] what is regarded as a specific religious tradition is thus the product of an active and often deliberate social construction, which calls for a thorough historicisation of such traditions.[21] at the same time, such awareness highlights the transcultural history of the very concept of religion itself, which evolved in the wake of colonialism from encounters between christian missionaries, colonial traders, and western scholars and their respective local interlocutors, trading partners, informants, and colonial subjects. through these encounters and the subsequent mutual re-reading, appropriation, and translation of circulating ideas, practices, and artefacts, the modern understanding of the category religion emerged.[22] in this global process of shaping the modern notion of religion, the co-productive role of the “colonized other” was usually neglected. at the same time, these voices have never been only passive recipients, but active agents, and at times have spoken back, challenging established categories of religion or narratives of knowledge production.[23] a transcultural perspective tries to shed light on this polyvocality and the discursive struggles in the histories of religious traditions, as well as the history of the academic study of religions. as such, a transcultural approach opens up spaces for scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds and parts of the world to engage in dialogue, and make the multiplicity of voices count.[24] otherwise, the “transcultural” becomes yet another “european conceptual categor[y]” imposed on a non-western other “in the name of transcultural dialogue,” rightly criticized by daniel p. s. goh as “thinly veiled eurocentrism.”[25] transculturality and the transcultural the “transcultural” as a notion goes back to fernando ortiz’ work on sugar and tobacco cultures in post-colonial cuba, first published in 1940.[26] ortiz sought to establish the term transculturation as an alternative to the idea of acculturation, which was commonly regarded as a process in which cultures are transformed by other, supposedly “superior” cultures, as rudolf wagner writes.[27] in contrast to this concept of acculturation, ortiz understood processes of cultural adaptation as a two-way transformation and conceptualized transculturation accordingly.[28] since then, the term has been used with slightly different implications. in transcultural history: theories, methods, sources, the authors raise the question of “whether the introduction of a new transcultural way of addressing questions to the past [and present, we would like to add] might reveal a cosmos not known before.”[29] to answer this question, it is important to first distinguish between two different understandings of the term “transculturality.” on the one hand, it can be understood as an inevitable condition of culture as hybrid “all the way down.”[30] the signifier “transcultural” thus acts as either status attribute or process description.[31] on the other hand, transculturality might also be understood as a foundational research perspective.[32] here, we use transculturality in the latter sense, as a research perspective that rests on the assumption of cultures as something always in the making.[33] as such, transculturality contests the notion of cultures as bounded, homogeneous entities based on the assumption that cultural difference and identity is never given but always the socially constructed product of relational (although potentially asymmetrical) processes, such as encounters, exchange, and translation. there also is a political dimension in adopting the transcultural approach as a research perspective: although the concept of culture has by now been thoroughly criticized in academic discourse, it is a persistent social reality and produces tangible effects in the life of social actors.[34] didier fassin has shown this for the similar concept of race.[35] just like the concept of culture, the concept of race is highly contested in academic discourse, while at the same time persisting as a troubling social reality. “[c]an we,” fassin asks, “completely abandon the language of race, when people are stigmatized or even killed on this basis all over the globe?”[36] one way of incorporating the critique of the concept without abandoning the term altogether—and thus also losing the chance to intervene in the social reality this term creates and perpetuates—is to take a processual approach. accordingly, fassin focusses on the “processes through which races are embodied and bodies are racialised.”[37] we think of the prefix transin the term trans-culturality as embodying exactly this kind of critical potential to focus on the processuality of culture and to rethink the ways in which social reality (including cultural differences, boundaries, and identities) is constructed.[38] however, the histories, discourses, and practices we encounter in our research are not always best described within the broad framework of trans-culturality. instead, we argue for varied terminologies that allow for different scales and relational horizons in spatial, temporal, and cultural terms. depending on the subject matter and according to epistemological interests and research frames, it might be more fruitful to apply the critical potential of the prefix transto other notions, such as the national, regional, local, or temporal.[39] as thomas a. tweed has suggested in his “translocative analysis,” we might need to expand or contract our temporal span, historical frame, or geographical scope accordingly and move across varying scales.[40] awareness of the need for varying terminologies and scales also draws attention to research and academic projects conducted under other methodological labels that nevertheless share the theoretical concerns of a transcultural perspective. in fact, a variety of scholars have developed and applied similar concepts and approaches in studying religious phenomena past and present, often while working at the margins of established research fields, such as studying the history of african or asian christianities, which are usually not part of the field of traditional church history. here, scholars were often confronted with problems posed by a particular eurocentric perspective that placed european and north american christianities at the centre of their respective academic maps; at the same time they were often met with a certain disregard for or simple omission of seemingly peripheral and heterodox forms of non-western christianities.[41] as a response, scholars of religions have increasingly called for new and different “maps” that take into account the global history, entanglements, and polycentricity of christianities as well as religions in general.[42] klaus koschorke and the munich school of world christianity have developed an approach that includes the polycentric structures and transcontinental links in the history of world christianity from its earliest beginnings. their approach highlights multidirectional processes of exchange and two-way transformations.[43] klaus hock emphasises the processuality and mutual entanglement of cultures and religions and the ways in which religions themselves are “constituted transculturally.”[44] he further highlights the fruitfulness of such a transcultural approach for the analysis of cultural contacts as well as processes of exchange and transformation within and between cultures and religions, especially, but not exclusively, within the context of globalization, migration, and diaspora.[45] the transcultural approach in religious studies: two examples the extent to which a transcultural approach “might reveal a cosmos not known before,” as madeleine herren, martin rüesch, and christiane sibille have suggested, shall now be explored in two examples from the field of pentecostal christianity.[46] by now, it has become commonplace to refer to contemporary pentecostal christianity as a global network comprising a rhizomatic ensemble of actors, organizations, institutions, discourses, practices, materialities, and sensibilities.[47] joel robbins’ apt description of pentecostal and charismatic christians as “a far-flung network of people held together by their publications and other media productions, conferences, revival meetings, and constant travel”[48] echoes simon coleman’s analysis of the globalization of charismatic christianity, whose structure he describes in terms of a “globally dispersed,” “huge and increasingly transnational network of christians, comprising congregations, networks, fellowships, mega-churches and […] so-called para-churches.”[49] he adds that within this network, “there exists an internal market involving the production and consumption of particular goods as well as the promotion of highly mobile preachers who circulate between numerous, widely distributed workshops and conferences.”[50] most scholars agree that pentecostalism is currently the most rapidly growing form of christianities worldwide. the term pentecostalism, as we have seen, acts as an umbrella term for a conglomerate of more or less closely associated christian movements, some of which date back from as late as the turn of the twentieth century.[51] since then, pentecostalism has grown into a major branch of contemporary global christianities, with centres mainly in the global south, i.e. asia, africa, and latin america.[52] some scholars thus speak of a general shift in the landscape of global christianities, as the major centres of gravity migrate from the global north, i.e. europe and north america, to the global south.[53] then and today, “global flows” of pentecostal discourses and practices crisscross the globe and are re-territorialized, appropriated, and “customized” in different local contexts.[54] these ideas and practices are “speaking in tongues, intuitive and experiential spirit-centred devotion, oral liturgy, firm biblical orientation, narrative theology and testimonies, strong lay participation, [and] healing.”[55] however, it is important to note that a seemingly typical pentecostal set of discourses and practices is never essential to pentecostalism as such. such sets of practices and ideas are negotiated as “typically pentecostal” only “within the network” of pentecostalism itself, and thus are subject to change and transformation as well as local and power-dependent differences, as michael bergunder has argued.[56] what holds the discursive pentecostal network together is thus not a range of common characteristics, but the process of negotiation itself, which links the different groups through inclusion and exclusion alike. pentecostalism has also been described as “building a supra-local space” and a “trans-local time.”[57] but in order to demonstrate what a transcultural approach might reveal, we need to scale down this envisioned supra-local space and trans-local time inhabited by pentecostalism. first we will look at the discourse, which locates the historical origins of pentecostalism in north america, and secondly, we will analyse voices that contest the centrality of north america in the current pentecostal genealogies and imaginations of the world. before we proceed, however, a cautionary note on the role and scope of the following examples seems to be in order. we do not claim to cover any of the following examples in full detail and some readers might rightly miss one or another aspect as important dimensions of the material presented. we also do not consider the sketches of our case studies to be conclusive regarding the fruitfulness of a transcultural perspective. rather, we have chosen these examples because we think they show how a transcultural perspective might reveal previously hidden aspects or dimensions. paul gifford once wrote, on the very same topic, “i am fully aware that my examples (sometimes from several years apart) are not ‘conclusive’ in any hard sense, but i’ve selected them, because i think they are revealing of a reality.”[58] the same can be said about our own choice of examples and their coverage here. the depth of the following description flows from this objective. the birth of pentecostalism: an american event or a transcultural moment? the most popular origin narrative of pentecostalism, expounded in early historiographic research and still repeated in contemporary studies, connects global pentecostalism with a revival at asuza street in los angeles beginning in 1906.[59] accordingly, pentecostalism came to be considered a particular “american brand” of christianity that was exported to the rest of the world and has subsequently become a global movement.[60] this account of the history of global pentecostalism has met with considerable criticism.[61] as discussed by allan h. anderson, such accounts of the history of pentecostalism often reflected a bias interpreting history from a predominantly white american perspective, neglecting (if not completely ignoring) the vital and often more significant work of asian, african, african american, caribbean and latino pentecostal pioneers. some of these western histories add the biases of denomination and race […].[62] early attempts to nuance the narrative of the american origin of pentecostalism sought to include black history, i.e. the influence of black culture on pentecostal ideas and practices in the united states.[63] later attempts aimed to rewrite pentecostal history as a “polycentric, transnational religion”[64] or “non-centred global network,”[65] while afe adogame and shobana shankar called for a general “decentering” of the north atlantic that has until now served as a reference frame for writing hegemonic religious history: “in the post-imperial era, we must draw a different map,” a map that takes seriously the “complexity of religious activism in the context of globalization.”[66] according to adogame and shankar, this means allowing “formerly colonized and marginalized peoples to become religious agents not just in the centres of power but throughout the world” and acknowledging the fact that “new religious movements possess their own chronology and ontology, not linked necessarily to the timescale and discourses of empire and postcolonialism.”[67] we believe that a transcultural perspective allows us not only to re-examine the history of early pentecostalism, but to decentre the very birth of pentecostalism, the “american event” at azusa street itself. by doing so, we follow a line of investigation introduced by michael wilkinson, who argues that “even the azusa meetings are not simply a product of the usa.”[68] instead, he highlights the global flows of the slave trade and african religiosities as the “glocal origin” of the azusa event.[69] here we seek to further illuminate this “glocal origin” by returning to the azusa event and addressing the past—and research about that past—in a transcultural way, re-reading existing research through a new lens: [t]ransculturality is by no means limited to as yet undiscovered source material. it starts with a different form of reading, which is aware of inclusion and exclusion processes and thus reflects on what is not mentioned and why. […] the essential condition necessary for shaping new questions is therefore to read existing literature carefully, since new paradigms cannot develop out of an intellectual void.”[70] in so doing, we seek to take the departure from the “out of america”-thesis one step further and suggest that the revival at asuza street was not only “not an american event,” but an inherently transcultural and translocal moment. in april 1906, in a run-down former african methodist episcopal building in azusa street, los angeles, african american preacher william seymour (1870–1922) initiated what would become daily twelve-hour prayer meetings. the institution lasted for three and a half years. at these meetings, attendees claimed to experience the baptism in the holy spirit, which bestowed supernatural gifts upon them, such as the ability to speak in actually existing foreign tongues not known to the person (“xenoglossia”).[71] the azusa event, however, was not confined to its local context. the event was part of an already existing global missionary network. the long nineteenth century is usually considered the heyday of european colonialism, enabled and accompanied by revolutions in communication and transport technologies that made the rise of global trade networks possible. in the wake of these developments, european evangelicals too set out to bring the christian faith to africa, asia, and the rest of the world, thus creating their own global missionary networks.[72] the first world missionary conference in edinburgh in 1910 testifies to the global outreach as well as the euro-american bias of this missionary movement: 509 of the participants were british, 491 north american, 169 from continental europe, 27 from the white colonies in south africa and australia, and only 19 came from the “non-western” world.[73] by the second half of the century, this missionary movement had gained new momentum through the widespread reception of premillennial discourses. such discourses stressed the need to proclaim the gospel to all people and all nations, so as to enable them to convert to christianity before the imminent second coming of christ. many also awaited a great end-time revival, the so-called latter rain, and eagerly looked around for signs that such a revival might finally manifest itself.[74] in this atmosphere, the news of the supernatural happenings at asuza street fell on fertile grounds. the “xenoglossia” claimed by its participants seemed like a heaven-sent alternative to the time-consuming process of teaching missionaries the local languages of their mission fields.[75] at the same time, the participants of the azusa street revival claimed to represent the fulfilment of hopes harboured by the global missionary movement. they saw themselves as the beginning of the long-awaited end time revival, which they intended to bring “to the ends of the earth.”[76] as a result, “azusa street went global from the very start,” as participants channelled their ideas and practices through correspondence and magazines, personal contacts and missionary journeys, into the global missionary network.[77] at the same time, people from all over the world began pouring into azusa street, intrigued by accounts of the supernatural happenings popularised by word-of-mouth and seymour’s journal the apostolic faith—which quickly reached international circulation.[78] these visitors, however, were more than just spectators. many claimed to have been profoundly impacted by what they experienced and left to establish missions and new pentecostal centres in their own countries of origin, or wherever their missionary zeal called them to go.[79] based on this transcultural way of re-reading the azusa event, and following adogame and shankar’s call to “decenter” the north atlantic as a reference frame for the narration of religious histories, we thus suggest that the revival at azusa street was less an “american event” than an inherently transcultural and translocal moment. we argue that from its very beginning, the azusa revival was embedded in and facilitated by various translocal and transnational circuits of exchange, which had been established during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century by various evangelical missionary organizations. these networks channelled people, ideas, and practices through the hub of azusa street, making it a temporary node in the already-existing networks of evangelical and missionary exchange. the circulating ideas, practices, and people transformed the azusa event and were simultaneously transformed by the local forces at play. feeling profoundly changed, people left azusa, taking these ideas and practices with them, and re-injected them into global circuits of exchange, setting them in motion “to the ends of the earth.”[80] although the early examples discussed above seek to complicate the origin story and decentre the history of a global pentecostal movement, most of these approaches still regard the azusa event itself as something inherently american. the transcultural approach, however, allows us to highlight the complexity of the azusa event itself: azusa became a hub for translocative christian networks and circuits of exchange, which extended beyond the national framework. in this case, adopting a transcultural approach means paying attention to specific exchange processes through which ideas, practices, artefacts, and actors emerge or become available in specific local contexts at a certain moment in time. further, it means taking a close look at the transformations that these ideas, practices, artefacts, and actors experienced in azusa. finally, such an approach will ask how the transformed discourses, practices, objects, and people are then re-inserted into conduits of exchange through which they become available in new contexts, to be again adopted, rejected, appropriated, or translated, thus constituting an expanding and dynamic translocative pentecostal network.[81] charismatic christianity in singapore: decentring the west and reimagining the missionary world map the narrative of the american gospel’s export to the “rest” of the world extends not only to religious ideas and practices, but also to forms of christian community organisation, such as megachurches and small groups (e.g. bible study, home fellowship, or prayer groups). megachurches are commonly understood as churches with a weekly attendance of at least 2,000.[82] some of the largest megachurches in singapore reach an attendance of 30,000 per week.[83] the largest megachurch today is yonggi cho’s yoido full gospel church in south korea, with a reported membership of 480,000, whereas lakewood church, the biggest church in the u.s., currently attracts approximately 40,000 weekly attendees. complementing the weekly sunday worship services, most of the megachurches offer religious activities conducted in much smaller settings, usually small groups of a dozen or two. these activities can include bible study, prayer, or physical and recreational activities, and allow for closer contact among members and attendees than the large worship services. despite their varying scales, both—the megachurch and the small group as well as their theologies and practices—are often understood as modelled after american examples or expounding “american-style”[84] religious doctrines and worship forms: while the leaders of the new christian faith come from various nations, the message is predominantly american. when believers enter a church in africa, asia, or latin america, they participate in a form of worship that can be found in memphis or portland or new york city. perhaps it will be pentecostal, or southern baptist, or a ubiquitous charismatic product marketed by bible schools in places such as tulsa and pasadena.[85] while steve brouwer et al. acknowledge that leading voices of the “new christian faith”—referring to the global upsurge in evangelical and charismatic christianity—are to be found in different parts of the world, they characterize the religious content of their practices and beliefs as “predominantly american” and see its worldwide dissemination as an indicator that this “quintessentially american faith” is “in the process of becoming an international religious culture generated by enthusiastic, broad-based movements in dozens of countries.”[86] in a similar way, stephen hunt reaffirms the north american roots of the so-called prosperity gospel (a set of beliefs and practices relating to the promises of god for his believers), which is prominent among contemporary charismatic christians, pointing to the fact that it has made its “way across the atlantic from ‘god’s backyard’ in the usa to europe and beyond.”[87] now being spread worldwide, these new evangelical forms, beliefs, and practices “have come to the fore and increased the global significance of american-style religion.”[88] although brouwer et al., as well as hunt, acknowledge local adaptations and transformations of pentecostal ideas, practices, and organisational forms, the direction of the transfer is clearly described in unidirectional terms as a movement from the west to the “rest.” but this narrative is challenged by pentecostal christians in various ways. taking a closer look at small group practices in singaporean megachurches and how religious actors narrate the history of their own organisations, it becomes obvious that there are various models of small group practice, whose advocates do not necessarily feel indebted to american models. instead, they credit the home cell group-system developed by the south korean pastor yonggi cho, or the g12 cell group-system introduced by the colombian pastor césar castellanos, as their inspiration. in so doing, they resist the hegemonic narrative that accredits a christian small group movement solely or primarily to american christianity. authors and exponents of small group models—whether they locate themselves in the north american, south korean, or latin american lineage—all name the bible as their ultimate reference point and thereby re-claim small groups as the original and thus “authentic” form of christian community formation. this should call attention to questions of hegemony, debates over the “optimal ‘cellular structure’”[89] of small groups, and struggles over power and authority within translocative christian networks. singaporean christians not only contest the narrative of the exclusive american inheritance of the small group model, they reverse the perspective, claiming that the small group with a focus on communality is a typically asian model that is now being exported to and becoming an inspiration for churches in europe.[90] this kind of re-imagining the missionary world map, by positioning oneself not at the receiving end of missionary flows, but at the centre of missionary activities that are spreading out from singapore (or asia in more general terms) to the rest of the world, is also found in the global dissemination of the “gospel revolution” by the singaporean pastor joseph prince. the son of a sikh priest and a chinese mother, joseph prince was born in singapore in 1963 and spent his primary school years in malaysia before returning to singapore, where he converted to christianity at the age of twelve. he started preaching at nineteen and founded new creation church together with friends in 1983/84. in the 1980s, he changed his birth name to joseph prince.[91] the congregation grew rapidly in the 1990s. with approximately 30,000 weekly worship attendees, new creation church currently constitutes the largest independent church in the small southeast-asian city-state.[92] the growth of neo-pentecostal megachurches in singapore coincided with the economic growth in singapore during the 1980s and 1990s and the subsequent emergence of a consumerist middle class.[93] megachurches are especially attractive to “young professionals making the socio-economic transition from working to middle class within an achievement-oriented culture in singapore that is encouraged by these churches,” as terence chong argues.[94] according to a quantitative study conducted among protestant christians in singapore, the demographic attracted to megachurches is usually “[a]ttuned to market logic, centred on personal improvement and consumerist adornment as markers of individuality, and much less focused on socio-political issues or injustice.”[95] one of the crucial factors that makes megachurches attractive for this emerging middle class is the sense of individual agency conveyed by the “achievement-oriented culture” and “‘can do’ spirit” of these churches.[96] all these elements are present in the church culture of new creation church and the grace theology preached by joseph prince. in addition, these elements resonate within the larger transnational network of contemporary pentecostal christianity. joseph prince has achieved influence beyond singapore via his english book publications (printed by american christian publishers such as charisma house and faithwords), his televangelist program with the title destined to reign, which is recorded during his sermons at new creation church and internationally broadcast via the trinity broadcasting network (tbn), and his various speaking engagements across the globe. his televangelist program was originally produced and packaged for the north american evangelical/pentecostal tv market, although today the program is broadcast by cable and satellite networks in europe, africa, asia, australia, and israel as well. prince entered the north american tv market in 2007 with the financial means to establish a tv ministry with high production value, which is crucial for gaining an influential market share in the already crowded us televangelist field.[97] a study from the hartford institute for religion research has shown that many us megachurches that once had a tv ministry have dropped those endeavors.[98] this is mainly due to high costs and the failure to produce enough revenue to buy time on transregional tv stations and national networks. joseph prince ministries had to meet these costs to be able to secure a niche in that market. initially, funds were provided by new creation church, but they are no longer needed, as the us audience seems to generate enough profit to keep the program running, freeing up funds for other missionary endeavors, such as establishing a televangelist presence in asia, and especially in china. the international missionary activities of joseph prince and new creation church, thus align with singapore’s position as “one of the christian hubs of asia”[99] and with singaporean christians’ vision of singapore as a missionary-sending country in the global field of christianities. in november 2013, prince embarked on his first us tour, preaching in sold-out arenas. the tour coincided with the release of his (then) latest book, the power of right believing, published by the us-based christian publishing house faithwords.[100] the preaching tour was a typical example of activating the structures of the contemporary pentecostal network “held together by […] publications and other media productions, conferences, revival meetings, and constant travel” of highly mobile pastors such as joseph prince.[101] his preaching engagements were recorded and broadcast at his home church in singapore and helped to integrate his home congregation into the missionary work at the other end of the world. pastors at home regularly reported from the american missionary front on the success of their senior pastor abroad. that success—measured in terms of book sales and rankings in bestseller lists, number of attendees at his speaking engagements, and guest appearances on the programs of other known pastors within the network—is referred to as the gospel revolution, the successful spread of his grace theology through various media outlets. on november 10, 2013, assistant pastor lim lian neo informed the singaporean congregation that their senior pastor had made it onto the new york times best sellers list with his latest publication.[102] she explained that this was not due to the countless books sold to audiences in singapore, but solely to purchases made in the us. she showed pictures of long lines of people lining up in front of barnes & noble bookstores in the us hours before the book signing session started. after that, she played short video clips of people happily holding up their joseph prince books for the camera, giving testimonies of how much they were impacted by the teaching of grace and how it had transformed their lives. on november 24, 2013, assistant pastor neo told the congregation in singapore that during the last two weeks their senior pastor had preached to more than 65,000 people in the us and asked the audience to give jesus praise for this accomplishment. further, she explained the role of new creation church in singapore in this missionary endeavour: it is just so awesome what the lord is doing. you know, i want you to know that the gospel revolution is happening right across america and the world. glory to jesus! it is happening around the world. and i want you to know that this revolution has its epicenter right here: singapore, new creation church! we are at the epicenter of god’s glorious revelation of his son! amen! (transcript by the authors) here, singapore is visualized as the epicentre of a new gospel revolution, which is rolling like a wave over the entire globe, taking the us and the rest of the world by storm. america is envisioned as a missionary field to be successfully conquered, rather than the source of the gospel revolution. thus, new creation church’s vision is a further example of how religious actors in the global network of pentecostal and charismatic christianity envision alternative missionary world maps, in which the us is an important reference point, one stepping stone in a larger project of global evangelism. further, this vision aligns with the evangelical and pentecostal christian discourse that refers to singapore as a new “antioch of asia”—a new missionary-sending hub that capitalizes on singapore’s socioeconomic and geographical strategic position as a global city and that aspires to become a “christian ‘gateway to asia’.”[103] to summarize, just as in the first historical example, the transcultural approach allows us to depart from popular narratives that envision the world from a singular point of view. the transcultural perspective sensitizes us to a variety of narratives and perspectives that compete with and contest each other. further, it allows us to perceive centre and periphery as relational nodes, which are dynamically reversed by context and the position of social actors. therefore, the transcultural perspective makes audible a multiple voices and narratives, highlighting the complexity of social processes. in addition, the transcultural approach helps to reconstruct the history of religions through a focus on relations, dynamics of re-localization , and what arjun appadurai calls “forms of circulation.”[104] appadurai emphasizes that “transcultural dynamics” are constitutively part of what he calls the “production of locality,”[105] as was the case with joseph prince and his church, who envisioned singapore as the new epicentre of the gospel revolution. appadurai also highlights the role of “transcultural dynamics” in the production of “local subjectivity,” as we saw exemplified in the construction of a specific “asian-ness” inherent in christian small groups. in the case of the “asian-ness” of the small group models or the vision of a gospel revolution spreading from singapore to the rest of the world, a transcultural perspective helps to situate these narratives in relation to other narratives and to analyse how hegemonic positions become contested and agency is re-claimed. in that process, the narrative of a unidirectional flow of missions which “starts historically in the west and expands to cover the globe”[106] and in which religious actors outside “the west” are only seen as passive receivers, adaptors and copyists, is re-examined. as a result, it reveals the inherent multidirectionality and multivocality of the processes and actors involved. ultimately, the aim is not to deny the role of north america as one—but not the only—important reference point in the social practices and in the imaginative horizon of religious actors, either as the point of origin or the goal of missionary activities. rather, the point is to reposition the network of actors, organizations, and discourses involved and make the multicenteredness visible and the many voices audible. conclusion recent debates in the wake of several cultural turns have also left their mark on the academic study of religions.[107] theories, methods, and the very category of religion itself have come under increasing scrutiny and critique. the transcultural approach we discussed in this paper should not be expected to answer all of the many questions that have been raised in these debates. nor are, as we have seen, its theoretical concerns exclusive to the transcultural approach; instead these concerns are often shared by other scholars within the study of religions, even though they may not place their specific discussions within the framework of transculturality. at the same time, we are convinced that the transcultural perspective provides us with an innovative way of rethinking newer and older theoretical concerns and debates in the academic study of religions and may provide us with a suitable terminology to capture the complexity and dynamics of both culture and religion in all their entanglements. religious studies has never developed its own distinctive methodological toolkit. instead, from its beginning, the study of religions has been characterized by an “integrated approach,” where the subject matter, research material, and epistemological frame determine the methods and approaches suitable to answer the questions raised.[108] it is our expressed hope that the reader might consider the transcultural approach discussed here against the background of such a methodological plurality and explore on his or her own, if, for their respective research interests and source material, such a transcultural perspective “might reveal a cosmos not known before.”[109] [1] our subtitle, “revealing a cosmos not known before,” is borrowed from madeleine herren, martin rüesch, and christiane sibille, transcultural history: theories, methods, sources (berlin: springer, 2012), vii. [2] daniel g. könig and katja rakow, “the transcultural approach within a disciplinary framework: an introduction,” transcultural studies 2 (2016): 89–100. [3] luther h. martin and donald wiebe, “religious studies as a scientific discipline: the persistence of a delusion,” journal of the american academy of religion 80, no. 3 (2012): 588–591; richard king, “the copernican turn in the study of religion,” method & theory in the study of religion 25, no. 2 (2013): 145–153. [4] john r. hinnells, ed., the routledge companion to the study of religion, 2nd ed. (london: routledge, 2005); robert a. orsi, ed., the cambridge companion to religious studies, cambridge companions to religion (new york: cambridge university press, 2011). [5] for a discussion of the notion of “methodological agnosticism” in religious studies see russell t. mccutcheon, the insider/outsider problem in the study of religion: a reader (london: continuum, 2005), 213–285. [6] king, “the copernican turn,” 138. [7] craig martin, a critical introduction to the study of religion (sheffield: equinox publishing, 2012); michael bergunder, “what is religion? the unexplained subject matter of religious studies,” method & theory in the study of religion 26, no. 3 (2014): 246–286. we are aware that the concepts of “culture” and “religion” are highly contested in academic discourse. however, both terms persist as social reality within the life worlds we study and the academic discourse in which we participate. we thus continue to use both terms, remaining mindful of their history. to point to this history, we have been using quotation marks, but for the sake of smooth readability, in the following we will forgo the use of such highlighting measures. [8] king, “the copernican turn,” 145. [9] peter harrison, “religion” and the religions in the english enlightenment (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1990), 14; russell t. mccutcheon, manufacturing religion: the discourse on sui generis religion and the politics of nostalgia (new york: oxford university press, 1997); bergunder, “what is religion?” 273. [10] harrison, “religion” and the religions, 14. [11] jonathan z. smith, “religion, religions, religious,” in critical terms for religious studies, ed. mark c. taylor and donald s. lopez (chicago: university of chicago press, 1998), 278; richard king, orientalism and religion: postcolonial theory, india and “the mystic east” (london: routledge, 1999); tomoko masuzawa, the invention of world religions; or, how european universalism was preserved in the language of pluralism (chicago: university of chicago press, 2005); brent nongbri, before religion: a history of a modern concept (new haven: yale university press, 2013). [12] masuzawa, the invention of world religions. [13] timothy fitzgerald, “hinduism and the ‘world religion’ fallacy,” religion 20, no. 2 (1990): 101–118; smith, “religion, religions, religious”; king, orientalism and religion. [14] akhil gupta and james ferguson, “culture, power, place: ethnography at the end of an era,” in culture, power, place: explorations in critical anthropology, ed. akhil gupta and james ferguson (durham: duke university press, 1997), 1–2. andreas reckwitz, “die kontingenzperspektive der ‘kultur’: kulturbegriffe, kulturtheorien und das kulturwissenschaftliche forschungsprogramm,” in unscharfe grenzen: perspektiven der kultursoziologie. (bielefeld: transcript, 2008), 19–23. [15] edward w. said, orientalism (london: routledge and kegan paul, 1978); king, orientalism and religion; morny joy, “beyond a god’s eyeview: alternative perspectives in the study of religion,” method & theory in the study of religion 12, no. 1 (2000): 110–140. [16] joy, “beyond a god’s eyeview,” 118. [17] joy, “beyond a god’s eyeview,” 131; thomas a. tweed, “on moving across: translocative religion and the interpreter’s position,” journal of the american academy of religion 70, no. 2 (2002): 255–260. [18] jonathan z. smith, drudgery divine: on the comparison of early christianities and the religions of late antiquity, jordan lectures in comparative religion 14 (chicago: university of chicago press, 1990); smith, “religion, religions, religious”; peter c. phan, “introduction: asian christianity/christianities,” in christianities in asia, ed. peter c. phan (malden, ma: wiley, 2011), 1–6; james s. bielo, “urban christianities: place-making in late modernity,” religion 43, no. 3 (2013): 1–11. [19] fritz stolz, “austauschprozesse zwischen religiösen gemeinschaften und symbolsystemen,” in im schmelztiegel der religionen: konturen des modernen synkretismus, ed. volker drehsen and walter sparn (gütersloh: gütersloher verlagshaus, 1996), 15–36; michael stausberg, “the invention of a canon: the case of zoroastrianism,” in canonization and decanonization, ed. arie van der kooij and k. van der toorn, studies in the history of religions 82 (leiden: brill, 1998), 257–277; klaus hock, “religion als transkulturelles phänomen: implikationen eines kulturwissenschaftlichen paradigmas in der religionsforschung,” berliner theologische zeitschrift 19, no. 1 (2002): 64–82; katja rakow, transformationen des tibetischen buddhismus im 20. jahrhundert: chögyam trungpa und die entwicklung von shambhala training, critical studies in religion/religionswissenschaft 6 (göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht, 2014). [20] bernard faure, the rhetoric of immediacy: a cultural critique of chan/zen buddhism (princeton: princeton university press, 1991), 12–21. [21] gregory p. grieve and richard weiss, “illuminating the half-life of tradition: legitimation, agency, and counter-hegemonies,” in historicizing “tradition” in the study of religion, ed. steven engler and gregory p. grieve (berlin: de gruyter, 2005), 1–8. [22] today, there exists a variety of understandings of what religion is, but many of these are shaped by the historical processes of the nineteenth century; see nongbri, before religion, 15–24. the notion of the religious and the secular as separate spheres is a dominant trope in the modern understanding of the category of religion. on the relation between religion and science and the conceptualization of specific religious traditions as part of a larger religious history, see michael bergunder, “‘religion’ and ‘science’ within a global religious history,” aries: journal for the study of western esotericism 16, no. 1 (2016): 86–141. on the pairing of the religious and its “siamese twin ‘secularism’,” see talal asad, “reading a modern classic: w. c. smith’s the meaning and end of religion,” history of religions 40, no.3 (2001): 221. [23] bergunder, “‘religion’ and ‘science’,” 110–117. [24] in doing so, a transcultural perspective shares the concerns of many postcolonial approaches. for religious studies, see for example morny joy, “postcolonial reflections: challenges for religious studies,” method & theory in the study of religion 13, no. 2 (2001): 177–195. [25] daniel p. s. goh, review of religion, tradition and the popular: transcultural views from asia and europe, ed. judith schlehe and evamaria sandkühler, journal of contemporary religion 30, no. 1 (2015): 174–175. [26] fernando ortiz, cuban counterpoint: tobacco and sugar, 2nd ed. (new york: alfred a. knopf, 1947; durham: duke university press, 1995). originally published as contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azúcar (havana: jesús montero, 1940). [27] rudolf wagner, “process and construction. transculturality” (unpublished manuscript, december 31, 2010), pdf file. [28] ibid. [29] herren, rüesch, and sibille, transcultural history, vii. [30] renato rosaldo, foreword to hybrid cultures: strategies for entering and leaving modernity, by nestor garcia canclini, ed. (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1995), xv. [31] see wolfgang welsch, “transculturality: the puzzling form of cultures today,” in spaces of culture: city, nation, world, ed. mike featherstone and scott lash (london: sage publications, 1999), 194–213. [32] “understanding transculturalism—monica juneja and christian kravagna in conversation,” in transcultural modernisms, model house research group, publication series of the academy of fine arts vienna 12 (berlin: sternberg press, 2013), 25. [33] richard gabriel fox, lions of the punjab: culture in the making (berkeley: university of california press, 1985), 196–206. [34] gupta and ferguson, “culture, power, place,” 1–5; martin fuchs, “the universality of culture: reflection, interaction and the logic of identity,” thesis eleven 60, no. 1 (february 1, 2000): 11–22. [35] didier fassin, “racialization: how to do races with bodies,” in a companion to the anthropology of the body and embodiment, ed. frances e. mascia-lees (oxford: wiley-blackwell, 2011), 419–434. [36] ibid., 421. [37] ibid. [38] “understanding transculturalism,” 25. [39] tweed, “on moving across”; thomas a. tweed, “theory and method in the study of buddhism: toward ‘translocative’ analysis,” journal of global buddhism 12 (2011): 17–32; manuel a. vásquez, “the global portability of pneumatic christianity: comparing african and latin american pentecostalisms,” african studies 68, no. 2 (2009): 273–286; cristina rocha, “transnational pentecostal connections: an australian megachurch and a brazilian church in australia,” pentecostudies: an interdisciplinary journal for research on the pentecostal and charismatic movements 12, no. 1 (2013): 62–82. [40] thomas a. tweed, “american occultism and japanese buddhism: albert j. edmunds, dt suzuki, and translocative history,” japanese journal of religious studies 32, no. 2 (2005): 249–281; tweed, “theory and method .” [41] philip jenkins, the lost history of christianity: the thousand-year golden age of the church in the middle east, africa, and asia—and how it died (new york: harperone, 2009); ciprian burlacioiu and adrian hermann, “einleitung: veränderte landkarten und polyzentrische strukturen der christentumsgeschichte; zum akademischen wirken klaus koschorkes und dem programm der festschrift,” in veränderte landkarten: auf dem weg zu einer polyzentrischen geschichte des weltchristentums; festschrift für klaus koschorke zum 65. geburtstag (wiesbaden: harrassowitz verlag, 2013), xvi. [42] jenkins, the lost history, 36–39; klaus koschorke, “changing maps of the history of global christianity,” in europäisches und globales christentum: herausforderungen und transformationen im 20. jahrhundert/european and global christianity: challenges and transformations in the 20th century, ed. katharina kunter and jens holger schjørring (göttingen: vandenhoek & ruprecht, 2011), 273–293; karénina kollmar-paulenz, “lamas und schamanen: mongolische wissensordnungen vom frühen 17. bis zum 21. jahrhundert; ein beitrag zur debatte um aussereuropäische religionsbegriffe,” in religion in asien? studien zur anwendbarkeit des religionsbegriffs, ed. peter schalk, historia religionum 32 (uppsala: university of uppsala, 2013), 185–187; bergunder, “‘religion’ and ‘science.’” [43] for an introduction to the substantial work of the munich school of christianity see the recent special issue of the journal of world christianity 6, no. 1 (2016). [44] klaus hock, “religion als transkulturelles phänomen: implikationen eines kulturwissenschaftlichen paradigmas für die religionsforschung,” berliner theologische zeitschrift 19, no. 1 (2002): 64–82. [45] klaus hock, “kulturkontakt und interreligiöse transkulturation: religionswissenschaftliche und missionswissenschaftliche perspektiven,” berliner theologische zeitschrift 24, no. 1 (2007): 5–28; klaus hock, “religion on the move: transcultural perpectives; discourses on diaspora religion between category formation and the quest for religious identity,” in christianity in africa and the african diaspora: the appropriation of a scattered heritage, ed. afe adogame, roswith i. h. gerloff, and klaus hock, continuum religious studies (london: continuum, 2008), 235–247. [46] herren, rüesch, and sibille, transcultural history. [47] we use the term network in a metaphorical sense as established in the field of pentecostal studies by authors such as joel robbins and simon coleman. see joel robbins, “the globalization of pentecostal and charismatic christianity,” annual review of anthropology 33 (2004): 117–143; simon coleman, the globalisation of charismatic christianity (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2000). [48] robbins, “the globalization of pentecostal and charismatic christianity,” 122. [49] coleman, the globalisation of charismatic christianity, 13; 22–23. [50] ibid., 13. [51] joel robbins, “the globalization of pentecostal and charismatic christianity,” 117–143; allan h. anderson, “the origins of pentecostalism and its global spread in the early twentieth century,” transformation: an international journal of holistic mission studies 22, no. 3 (2005): 175–185; michael bergunder, “pfingstbewegung, globalisierung und migration,” in migration und identität: pfingstlich-charismatische migrationsgemeinden in deutschland, ed. michael bergunder and jörg haustein, beihefte der zeitschrift für mission 8 (frankfurt am main: lembeck, 2006): 155–169; michael wilkinson, “the ‘many tongues’ of global pentecostalism,” in global pentecostal movements: migration, mission, and public religion, ed. michael wilkinson, international studies in religion and society 14 (leiden: brill, 2012), 3–14. [52] allan anderson, michael bergunder, andre f. droogers, and cornelis van der laan, eds., introduction to studying global pentecostalism: theories and methods (berkeley: university of california press, 2010), 1; allan h. anderson, to the ends of the earth: pentecostalism and the transformation of world christianity (oxford: oxford university press, 2013). [53] afe adogame, “reconfiguring the global religious economy: the role of african pentecostalism,” in spirit and power, ed. donald e. miller, kimon h. sargeant, and richard flory (oxford: oxford university press, 2013), 185; alister e. mcgrath, the future of christianity, blackwell manifestos (oxford: blackwell, 2002); philip jenkins, the next christendom: the coming of global christianity, 3rd ed. (oxford: oxford university press, 2011). [54] jonathan xavier inda and renato rosaldo, eds., “tracking global flows,” in the anthropology of globalization: a reader, 2nd ed., blackwell readers in anthropology 1 (malden, ma: blackwell, 2002), 16. [55] michael bergunder, “the cultural turn,” in anderson et al., studying global pentecostalism, 55. [56] ibid. [57] vásquez, “the global portability,” 280. [58] paul gifford, christianity, development and modernity in africa (london: hurst & company, 2015), 7. [59] michael bergunder, “constructing indian pentecostalism: on issues of methodology and representation,” in asian and pentecostal: the charismatic face of christianity in asia, ed. allan h. anderson and edmond tang (london: regnum books, 2005), 179–180. [60] paul gifford, the religious right in southern africa (harare: baobab books, 1988); steve brouwer, paul gifford, and susan d. rose, exporting the american gospel: global christian fundamentalism (new york: routledge, 1996), 2–7; stephen hunt, “‘winning ways’: globalisation and the impact of the health and wealth gospel,” journal of contemporary religion 15, no. 3 (october 2000): 331. [61] david martin, tongues of fire: the explosion of pentecostalism in latin america (oxford: blackwell, 1990), 2–3; paul freston, “charismatic evangelicals in latin america: mission and politics on the frontiers of protestant growth,” in charismatic christianity: sociological perspectives, ed. stephen hunt, malcolm b. hamilton, and tony walter (london: macmillan, 1997), 184–204; allan anderson, “varieties, taxonomies, and definitions,” in anderson et al., studying global pentecostalism, 19–20. [62] anderson, “the origins of pentecostalism,” 176. [63] walter j. hollenweger, pentecostalism: origins and developments worldwide (peabody, ma: hendrickson, 1997). [64] anderson, to the ends of the earth, 1; anderson, “the origins of pentecostalism,” 184. [65] j.d.y. peel, “postsocialism, postcolonialism, pentecostalism,” in conversion after socialism: disruptions, modernisms and technologies of faith in the former soviet union, ed. mathijs pelkmans, 183–200 (new york: berghahn books, 2009), 193. [66] afe adogame and shobana shankar, eds., religion on the move! new dynamics of religious expansion in a globalizing world, international studies in religion and society 15 (leiden: brill, 2013), 1–2. [67] ibid., 1. [68] michael wilkinson, “religion and global flows,” in religion, globalization, and culture, ed. peter beyer and lori beaman (leiden: brill, 2007), 386. [69] ibid., 385–387. [70] herren, rüesch, and sibille, transcultural history, 94. [71] anderson, “the origins of pentecostalism.” [72] dana lee robert, christian mission: how christianity became a world religion, blackwell brief histories of religion series (malden, ma: wiley-blackwell, 2009), 48–52. early missionary societies engaged in such worldwide missionary endeavors have been, for example, the methodist missionary society (founded in 1786), the baptist missionary society (founded in 1792), the london missionary society (founded in 1795), the church missionary society (founded 1799), the basler mission (founded in 1815), or the china inland mission (founded in 1865). for an introduction see klaus koschorke, “christliche missionen und religiöse globalisierung im 19. jahrhundert,” in wbg welt-geschichte: eine globale geschichte von den anfängen bis ins 21. jahrhundert, ed. walter demel and hans-ulrich thamer, vol. 5, entstehung der moderne 1700 bis 1914 (darmstadt: wbg, 2010), 195–208. [73] brian stanley, the world missionary conference, edinburgh 1910, studies in the history of christian missions (grand rapids, mi: william b. eerdmans, 2009), 12. [74] bergunder, “constructing indian pentecostalism,” 182. [75] anderson, to the ends of the earth, 48. [76] as michael bergunder points out, not everyone bought into the vision of the azusa street revival as the fulfillment of such missionary hopes right from the start. he quotes frederik henke, a contemporary of the azusa street revival, who saw the events in azusa street as a “small part” of a more encompassing end-time revival already taking place. bergunder suggests that some of the efforts in spreading the news about the azusa street revival were thus also motivated by establishing azusa street as the very center its participants claimed it to be. bergunder, “constructing indian pentecostalism,” 183. [77] ibid. [78] the first edition of the the apostolic faith was published in 1906 with a circulation of 5,000 copies. only half a year later, this number had increased to 40,000 copies. pentecostal magazines in vernacular languages were printed in norway, germany, china, japan, palestine, and brazil. the publication of these magazines was accompanied by flows of letters and correspondences to and from azusa street. bergunder, “constructing indian pentecostalism,” 148. [79] anderson, “the origins of pentecostalism,” 179. [80] anderson, to the ends of the earth. [81] “understanding transculturalism,” 25. [82] scott thumma and dave travis, beyond megachurch myths: what we can learn from america’s largest churches (san francisco: jossey-bass, 2007), xviii. [83] robbie b. h. goh, “hillsong and ‘megachurch’ practice: semiotics, spatial logic and the embodiment of contemporary evangelical protestantism,” material religion: the journal of objects, art and belief 4, no. 3 (2008): 186–187; daniel p. s. goh and terence chong, “asian pentecostalism: revivals, mega-churches, and social engagement,” in routledge handbook on religions in asia, ed. bryan s. turner and oscar salemink (london: routledge, 2015), 407–412; terence chong and yew-foong hui, different under god: a survey of church-going protestants in singapore (singapore: institute of southeast asian studies, 2013); terence chong, “megachurches in singapore: the faith of an emergent middle class,” pacific affairs 88, no. 2 (2015): 215–235. [84] hunt, “‘winning ways,’” 331. [85] brouwer, gifford, and rose, exporting the american gospel, 2. [86] ibid., 6. [87] hunt, “‘winning ways,’” 331. [88] ibid. [89] joshua adam comaroff, “vulgarity and enchantment: religious movements and the space of the state” (phd diss., university of california, los angeles, 2009), 476. proquest (3410362). [90] mcgrath, the future of christianity, 64–68; david harvey, “cell church: its situation in british evangelical culture,” journal of contemporary religion 18, no. 1 (january 2003): 95–109. [91] tan dawn wei, “church pastors like no other,” the straits times, october 5, 2008, 8; jeff chu, “rising stars: joseph prince and the new creation church,” ozy.com, http://www.ozy.com/rising-stars/joseph-prince-and-the-new-creation-church/3515 [accessed on 7. november 2013]; chong, “mega-churches in singapore,” 220. [92] for a database with attendance numbers for various megachurches see http://leadnet.org/world/ [accessed on 17. february 2017]. [93] chong, “megachurches in singapore,” 218–220. [94] ibid., 217. [95] ibid., 219; cf. chong and hui, different under god. [96] chong, “megachurches in singapore,” 225. [97] the financial strength of new creation church is manifest in one of its latest projects. its business arm, together with property developer capitaland, has built a new cultural and civic center in singapore (the star performing arts center at buena vista mrt station), including a state-of-the-art 5,000-seat auditorium, which new creation church rents as a location for its four sunday services. the combined cost of the project was s$880 million, and new creation church, via its business arm, invested s$500 million into the project. most of new creation church’s investment costs came from church surpluses, donations, and revenues from the church’s business arm. fiona chan, “church pumps in $220m more; new creation church’s total stake in lifestyle hub will be $500m,” the straits times (september 16, 2008). [98] in the year 2000, 44 percent of us megachurches had their own radio ministry and 38 percent produced their own tv programs. in 2008, only 24 percent of the megachurches had their own radio program and only 23 percent had their own television ministry. most of the programs were broadcast regionally and only 4–8 percent of the programs were broadcast nationally or internationally. scott thumma and warren bird, “changes in american megachurches,” hartford institute for religion research, 2008, 9, http://hirr.hartsem.edu/megachurch/changes%20in%20american%20megachurches%20sept%2012%202008.pdf [accessed on 16. february 2017]. [99] robbie b. h. goh, “christian capital: singapore, evangelical flows and religious hubs,” asian studies review vol. 40, no. 2 (2016): 254. [100] joseph prince, the power of right believing: 7 keys to freedom from fear, guilt, and addiction (new york: faithwords, 2013). [101] robbins, “the globalization of pentecostal and charismatic christianity,” 122. [102] the power of right believing was listed on the new york times best sellers list in the category “advice, how-to & miscellaneous” for three weeks in november 2013. the book entered the list at #2 (november 10, 2013), dropped to #15 in the second week (november 17, 2012), and to #17 in the third week (november 24, 2013). [103] goh, “christian capital,” 254. [104] arjun appadurai, “how histories make geographies,” transcultural studies 1 (2010): 4–13, doi:10.11588/ts.2010.1.6129. [105] ibid., 6. [106] robbins, “the globalization of pentecostal and charismatic christianity,” 118. [107] doris bachmann-medick, cultural turns: new orientations in the study of culture (berlin: de gruyter, 2016). [108] michael pye, “methodological integration in the study of religions,” in approaching religion: based on papers read at the symposium on methodology in the study of religions held in åbo, finland 1997, ed. tore ahlbäck, scripta instituti donneriani aboensis 17 (stockholm: almqvist & wiksell, 1999), 188–205. [109] herren, rüesch, and sibille, transcultural history, vii. ukiyo-e between pop art and (trans)cultural appropriation | srđan tunić | transcultural studies ukiyo-e between pop art and (trans)cultural appropriation: on the art of muhamed kafedžić (muha) srđan tunić, civil association “artikal” (belgrade), trans-cultural dialogues (barcelona/algiers) introduction “the sun may rise in japan but it certainly goes to bed with muhamed kafedžić every night,” the poet and artist haris rekanović said of the series of paintings 100 views of ukiyo-e.[1] for me, this metaphor illustrates the scope of japanese art and culture’s influence on kafedžić’s work.[2] on several occasions he told me that he has not watched television since 1996, and that he watches at least one episode of anime every day. since 2001, all his paintings have carried a style that he has built from the graphic and thematic techniques of japanese ukiyo-e between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries and american pop art from the twentieth century. i believe that he has managed to meet most fans of japanese popular culture in bosnia and herzegovina, serbia, and croatia, and that the japanese embassy in sarajevo knows about every one of his exhibitions and events; moreover, i believe it is practically impossible to have any artist from japan present in the country without him knowing about it. in a couple of talks with my colleagues i called him a “bosnian japanese.” i have not told him about this yet. for some this may be an obsession, for others an honest dedication, but the truth is that muhamed kafedžić’s artwork is deeply related to the appropriation of themes and techniques from art history, defying an easy categorization in time as well as place. it is my goal in this text to interlink his artistic method, where he creatively interprets his models (of which the old masters of ukiyo-e are most common), with the process of cultural appropriation, as well as the transcultural consequence of this mix (not) belonging to one place. in other words, the goal is to indicate how, by the use of appropriation, the artist constructs his cosmopolitan identity based on a milieu that is (seemingly) distant from his own in time, place, and culture. fig. 1: nanso satomi hakkenden, on the roof of horyoji after toyokuni iii. technique: acrylic on canvas. size: diptych 177 x 240 cm (69.68 x 94.48 inch); each panel 177 x 120 cm (69.68 x 47.24 inch). year: may 2011. availability: in private collection. 100 views of ukiyo-e since 2009, muha has created a series of paintings, using acrylics on large canvases, titled 100 views of ukiyo-e. the first of the series is subtitled volume i: masters, and it is dedicated to selected authors and topics of japanese graphics between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries. it marks a starting review that the artist considers a basis for further series development, mostly regarding everyday life, family, city, and the mythological, cultural, and erotic life of “the floating world.”[3] japanese ukiyo-e graphics are the source and templates for further explorations. the series title is a reference to other graphic print series, such as 100 famous views of edo, by hiroshige, and 100 views (aspects) of the moon, by yoshitoshi. fig. 2: ama and octopus after hokusai. technique: acrylic on canvas. size: 120 x 177 cm (47.24 x 69.68 inch). year: october 2011. ukiyo-e, wood print graphics designed for mass markets, were developed in the edo period (1603–1867, the reign of the tokugawa shogunate) when the cities were attracting merchants and artisans, who augmented their social status by funding the arts. unlike the peasant class, which was tied to the countryside and food production, and the warrior/noble samurai class, with whom they shared the city, the lowest urban class (chōnin) mostly contributed to the development of cultural life in urban zones,[4] in theaters, bordellos, houses, ports, trade routes, and in the streets of yoshiwara (edo’s red light district). this environment was called “the floating world”—the temporary, pleasurable world that disappears with death; a life focused on the current moment, according to the tenets of buddhism.[5] in the past, to an eye trained to european-influenced art, the japanese woodblocks must have seemed strange, foremost because of the “floating” effect—in most cases due to the lack of classical perspective (or their composition with two or three linear perspectives), non-representational/non-naturalistic painting (which today may convey a comic-like effect) and a general approach that made no attempt to trick the eye, as if the image were seen through a window, but rather to emphasize flatness.[6] this emphasis on the current moment and overall hedonism of the city environment was primarily represented via a medium that was both widely available and cheap: graphic prints. this type of mass culture, despite being very popular, was not considered representative of the art of japan, although it had a huge impact in europe (especially on the impressionists), as well as on the future visual identity of japan itself. since then, ukiyo-e has become a true part of japan’s pop-cultural heritage, possibly due to its appeal to a great number of artists from the west,[7] as well as the fact that in this visual and graphic art lie the roots of manga and, consequently, anime. several contemporary artists use japanese artistic heritage in their work, playing with the context and adapting it to contemporary narratives, through the prism of ukiyo-e. in this manner, masami teraoka appropriates the visual code of these graphics in his paintings and woodcuts, enriching them thematically with references to contemporary phenomena (such as an “invasion” of mcdonald’s hamburgers in japan), while gajin fujita also incorporates graffiti art in his work (thus creating a mix of two urban arts). on the other hand, iona rozeal brown uses an ukiyo-e inspired style to show a blend of japanese and african-american hip-hop culture.[8] in the balkans, artists such as ana krstić (young partisan) and nenad kostić (masterpieces i can only copy?) have appropriated manga/anime references in specific works.[9] appropriation: a game between original and copy the appropriation of elements of a visual culture in art history—either physical or conceptual—is one of the most stable traditions of the art world. this may be why an act of appropriation of foreign or historical culture is closely tied to questions of original and copy, imitation, homage, creative interpretation, theft, and plagiarism, as well as reproduction of an artwork via technical means. in our contemporary globalized world, the discussion on originality is becoming more complex, as information becomes more widely available, and it becomes easier to see parallel and similar tendencies in art that were developed independently of one another.[10] furthermore, the invention of printing and photography have radically changed notions of the originality of artwork.[11] the processes of reproduction and appropriation differ, as much as they are interlinked—both take an original as a starting point and introduce smaller or greater changes. a reproduction tends to be something of a look-alike, although it has compromises regarding size, surface, material, location, and print quality, among others. additionally, a reproduction aims to (physically) replace an original, making it directly present to a spectator.[12] an artwork that has appropriation as its goal possesses much more creative potential and a different strategy. primarily, in appropriating certain, e.g. visual elements of a culture or art, artist, or artwork, the artist transforms the original. he or she can contextualize these elements in a completely different manner, to make a creative interpretation, or, on the contrary, to morally and legally problematize the appropriation of someone else’s work. does appropriation expand, change, or erase the cultural and historical knowledge, process of development, meaning, and context of an original artwork? appropriation can treat borrowed narratives as a remix or sampling, a harmonic or conflictive juncture, or simply as a personal interpretation, aspiring toward homage and/or fan culture. to illustrate this process in muha’s oeuvre, i will first outline the technical production of his work and its further transformation via appropriation. fig. 3: masterpiece. technique: acrylic on canvas. size: 147 x 147 cm (57.87 x 57.87 inch). year: february 2014. availability: in private collection. apart from ukiyo-e, another important influence on muha’s artistic method is roy lichtenstein, one of the founding artists of the american pop art movement in the twentieth century. lichtenstein imitated comic panels printed on (mostly) low quality paper and with a reduced color set, but painted them on a much larger scale, with changes, although he kept the graphic recognizability of the originals.[13] by appropriating the style of comics and transferring it to large-scale paintings, lichtenstein confronted visual codes of traditional art and mass culture, merging them into a whole. briefly, the appropriation process in muhamed kafedžić’s work is based on two main sources: ukiyo-e graphic prints and the painting method of roy lichtenstein. this connection was initially noticed by art historian amalija stojsavljević.[14] the respective processes are as follows: ukiyo-e artists created graphic print templates—mostly using line drawings with water colors (most of the originals no longer exist).[15] based on these, wooden panels were made, one per color (as the technique improved, the number of colors increased); the templates changed in the transition to a new medium. there were four participants in this process: the artist (who was not directly involved in the printing process, but sometimes approved the colors used in the printing process), the carver, the printer, and the publisher.[16] each wooden block could print about a thousand copies before the print quality deteriorated. the gradual deterioration of the wooden panels caused characteristic “deviations” during printing that were an expected part of the charm of ukiyo-e. the artworks were further reproduced, depending on demand, and merchandised from the twentieth century onward. authorship in this case is shared: both artists’ and printers’ signatures appeared on the prints.[17] lichtenstein the twentieth century pop art movement relied on appropriation of mass (popular) culture templates, including comics. lichtenstein’s approach consisted of using a printed comic panel as a template for a painting in oil and acrylic.[18] in this process, the original was transformed and introduced to the world of high art, while its non-art narrative had an effect of shock and irony. incorporating the visual elements of printing techniques (such as ben-day dots), the artist also enlarged the scenes and changed the colors, keeping his creator’s touch visible. authorship is solely attributed to lichtenstein. muha muha appropriates narratives, topics, characters, styles, and graphic elements from ukiyo-e, without imitating the woodcut technique, yet enlarges them and introduces several changes. content is reproduced on large-scale acrylic paintings. color traces are visible (dripping); innovation is noticeable in details, colors, and contrasts. instead of comics, muha uses a different visual source (which has become a true pop and cultural visual identity of japan), thus referring to two different pop arts. muha’s approach takes a reproduction as a starting point, since ukiyo-e has been reprinted via mass culture for a long time. as lichtenstein did with mass-produced comic panels, he creates a new, unique painting. by making a “new original,” he is conceptually returning an ukiyo-e graphic print-reproduction to its “start,” the artist-made template that every ukiyo-e was at first, before it was gradually destroyed in the printing process. furthermore, every print was not identical to its original, due to the cumulative damage to the wooden pattern, and so there are notable differences in each printed series, as well as reproductions, with regard to printing surface, age, and quality. while ukiyo-e was losing its original template and entering the triple reproduction process (graphic, technical, and digital), in this context the copies are creating the originals. in appropriating the practice of old masters, muhamed kafedžić is respecting the core templates and referring to the original (scene title, original artist, date, and location), while the differences introduced between ukiyo-e and his paintings are mostly visible in changing color relations, adjustments of certain shapes to contemporary styles, and leaving slightly expressionistic acrylic traces. every artist who references existing phenomena in art history, famous artworks, and artists, does so to make his or her own work more visible. by relying on the heritage of pop art, an artist can tackle visual codes that have their own influence and recognizability, i.e. a piece of borrowed glory. maybe this is the right moment to mention a tendency of creating homage and the phenomena of homage or fan art, related to an object of admiration. both—similar and different—tend to materialize their enjoyment in other’s’ work, by interlinking themselves with it, imitating (imitatio[19]) it, relying on its, e.g., technique, topic, character, or a story. fans have a tendency to copy, because that can bring them closer to their role models; they identify partially with makers and characters (as in the case of cosplay), supplying themselves with the model’s own energy, which is very close to but different from the practice of artists. in the homage process, one is learning (from more experienced creators),improving one’s technique, and incorporating a part of oneself into something that is already present and established. although most fans remain focused on the world developed by the original, artists have more aspirations to create independent scenes and readings, which is the main reason why muha’s oeuvre could not be categorized as fan art. having said this, a partial parallel could be drawn with nemanja kostić’s work, which is situated somewhere between the appropriation of commercial/pop/mass culture (anime) and the fan approach. midžić calls this type of artists “devotees.”[20] appropriation can be assimilative (affirming the template’s value system), dissimilative (establishing differences and critiquing), or neutral (expressing ambivalence).[21] as a devotee (or ronin,[22] in his own words) muhamed kafedžić relies mostly on assimilation. reviewing the same elements from art history is key for appropriation and for understanding the context where a new author infiltrates. i consider this process important from the perspectives of empathy, identification in the psychological sense, and constitution of self, which i will address later in this text. first, however, one question needs to be clarified: the appropriation of “foreign” art/culture, with all its consequences for identity and ethics. in his doctoral dissertation, sretenović concludes that an artist has a discursive role; he or she is questioning his or her own ego and establishing relations with something allegedly foreign.[23] it seems that affectations are at the center of attention (fantasies, desires, obsessions, fascinations, imagination...), which foster a motion through culture. the question is—whose culture? example: the appropriation and reproduction process of 100 great waves the great wave off kanagawa (神奈川沖浪裏 kanagawa oki nami ura), by katsushika hokusai, is one of the most recognizable icons of japan, a visual emblem referring to both ukiyo-e and japanese art in general. the amount of merchandise that reproduces this print is enormous. muha appropriated this print in a painting of the same title in 2009. the whole process was as follows: first, there was a drawing or watercolor sketch by hokusai; then, the first wooden patterns were made (woodblocks) for transferring the image to graphic prints. gradually, more prints were made (of varying quality and similarity to the original); the wave has been reproduced (via photography) and today is also available digitally; reproductions are part of commercial and mass culture.[24] muha created a painting appropriating hokusai’s print, in a conceptual return to the lost original. afterward, he created digital print copies (relating to the old artist-printer system) with a printing office (not anonymous).[25] in 2011, muha started a mural series of conceptual “prints” of the great wave, with the intention to replicate it one hundred times; thus far, versions have appeared in bosnia and herzegovina (banja luka, banovići, petrovo, and poljice), in serbia (pančevo and belgrade), in germany (berlin), and in italy (torino di sangro). the progression of the great wave project is visible in its adaptability to available surfaces and locations, in the context of street art (berlin), as well as in muha’s collaboration with children (and other artists). the great super mario wave of čukarica (2013) in belgrade was painted in a schoolyard (as were all except the one in berlin, which was made at the youth center in marzahn), together with kids, who were also credited. the super mario character appeared in an attempt to adapt to the squared marble surface of đorđe krstić school, a reference to the pixelization of older video games, as well as incorporating another mass culture element.[26] fig. 4: the great super mario wave of čukarica, belgrade. technique: acrylic studio paint on carrara marble mosaic tiles. size: cca. 260 x 362 cm (102.36 x 142.52 inch). year: september 2013. availability: public/street art. fig. 5: lupin iii: leggenda della grande onda or the great wave of torino di sangro. technique: acrylic studio paint on brick wall. size: 260 x 540 cm (660.4 x 1371.6 inch). year: june 2015. availability: public/street art. this process and the question of originality is also complex if we have in mind the original context of hokusai’s art. he was primarily inspired and influenced by both traditional ukiyo-e and european art that came into contact with japan. moreover, during his lifetime, hokusai used about one hundred names to sign his work (an extreme example of a procedure that was fairly common at the time), and therefore did not assign value to unique artistic signatures, which is closely tied to modernistic perceptions of authorship.[27] cultural appropriation: dislocated identity with the term cultural appropriation, i describe the appropriation of elements a culture that is not (predominantly) part of the artist’s “original” cultural sphere, in contrast to geographical, national, and time determinants. i will mention two definitions, by theoreticians richard a. rogers and james o. young, to explain more closely the process of cultural appropriation and link it with muhamed kafedžić’s art. on a more philosophical, aesthetic, and legal level, young offers a detailed system for determining the type and amount of appropriation in an artwork. according to his classification, again with muha in mind, the following fields could be problematized: content appropriation an artist in greater measure appropriates an idea (intangible item) from another artist from a different culture. example: akira kurosawa borrowed plots from shakespeare’s plays for his movies. style appropriation in this case, an artist does not appropriate the whole artistic expression of an artwork, but just a part, like its style. example: non african-american musicians playing jazz and blues. motif appropriation here what is appropriated is an appearance, especially in cases where there is no aspiration to develop works in a style identical to that of the original work’s culture. example: in “les demoiselles d’avignon,” picasso appropriates traditional motifs of african sculptures. subject appropriation this occurs when it is not artworks, but subjects that are appropriated, e.g. the culture itself and its protagonists. this type is also titled “voice appropriation,” particularly when outsiders represent the lives of insiders in the first person. examples: puccini’s “madam butterfly;” most representations of the traditional lives of indigenous north american cultures.[28] young also speaks of the “cultural experience argument,” which maintains that an artist can produce a high-quality artwork while appropriating a different cultural trait, if they possess the required cultural background. if this act is a simple addition, e.g. to traditional content, it is very low in innovation and mostly relies on a previously defined standard. on the other hand, if artists are engaged in “innovative content appropriation,” they can use content, style, and motifs to present a new artwork that does not exist in their original culture.[29] for rogers, cultural appropriation is tightly interwoven with cultural politics, according to the following scheme: cultural exchange: the reciprocal exchange of symbols, artifacts, rituals, genres, and/or technologies between cultures with roughly equal levels of power. cultural dominance: the use of elements of a dominant culture by members of a subordinated culture in a context in which the dominant culture has been imposed on the subordinated culture, including appropriations that enact resistance. cultural exploitation: the appropriation of elements of a subordinated culture by a dominant culture without substantive reciprocity, permission, and/or compensation. transculturation: cultural elements created from and/or by multiple cultures, such that identification of a single originating culture is problematic; for example, multiple cultural appropriations structured in the dynamics of globalization and transnational capitalism, creating hybrid forms.[30] apart from rogers and young, another example illustrates the discussion of cultural appropriation, although it is only partially applicable to muha’s art. writing about the usa, in “understanding cultural appropriation” drew beck states that appropriation has powerful political and racial implications.[31] targeting the white middle class, beck states that this process of identity dislocation (which he calls “outside-ness”) is due to a lack of traditional culture in the local field, but also a rejection of identity as a protest or due to a sense of alienation. one of the most important points is whether a person who undertakes this appropriation has personal, direct contact with the culture in question and its people, or whether we have a certain “cultural imagination,” with a more personal meaning, than sustainable connections with a given target group. what lies here (although unspoken) is the danger of exoticization; tzvetan todorov states that exoticism, like nationalism, is relative, though the two are diametrically opposed: “what is being valued is not a stable content, rather a specific country and culture which are defined exclusively related to the viewer... [in exoticism] we are not talking so much about qualifying someone else, as far as criticizing ourselves, neither describing a reality, as much as formulating an ideal.” the entities “we” and “they” are relative and dependent on local context and viewpoints. nationalism, in this case, positions one’s own country at the top of its value scale, while exoticism glorifies a country that is not one’s own, and the ideal is stronger if the people and cultures are more distant and less known.[32] to conclude, in relying on dick hebdige, beck notes that appropriation, in this social context, is an expression of alienation, non-affiliation as an opposition to or frustration with white (western) culture.[33] in this light, appropriation could be understood as a reaction to one’s own society, displeasure, escape, constructing one’s own uniqueness and expressing non-belonging by searching for an identity in foreign cultures. nevertheless, it is important to draw a line between exoticization and understanding the culture in question, asking how much that culture remains distant or is lived every day, i.e. is it really transcultural. muha can appropriate art models from world art history that are not related to bosnia and herzegovina, which beck sees as losing the local culture; however he also needs to be a good painter (innovation). affiliation, in his case, is not in strictly expected borders, while identity dislocation has its own roots, which will be analyzed in the next chapter. for there is no doubt that imaginative geography and history help the mind to intensify its own sense of itself by dramatizing the distance and difference between what is close to it and what is far away. this is no less true of the feelings we often have that we would have been more “at home” in the sixteenth century or in tahiti.[34] transculturalism and local identity srđan tunić (st): in the creative appropriation of other art, where do you most feel your own contribution? muhamed kafedžić (mk): in appropriation, the key is in the research relationship. a comment i usually hear is “i can do it too,” and to be frank, they can, but nobody actually does it; nobody actually reads books, finds articles, or reads more than wikipedia to research an object of interest. if one is using symbols randomly, one is not saying anything. i will never be a japanese ukiyo-e painter, which is not my goal, but i can recognize certain motifs through which i can send some other message. depicting a homosexual scene from a shunga does not have the same meaning in sarajevo in 2014 as it had in edo in 1760.[35] appropriation today is a direct consequence of total reality—all “now,” “here,” and “everywhere.” there are many expressions (or buzzwords) aiming to contextualize and make sense of the contemporary processes of mixing cultures, fueled by globalization: hybrid cultures, transference of cultures, cultural convergence, melting pot, salad, fusion, cosmopolitanism. i will rely on the term transculturalism because it implies a motion through culture and merging with deeper cultural values. i will also refer to a definition provided by musician and professor huib schippers, who applies this term to musical education as part of so-called “world music,” partly similar to rogers’s structure of culture appropriation.[36] schippers proposes a structure with several levels, gradually increasing in openness and mixing with other cultures: monocultural: focus on one culture, self-centered, without verification from the outside, marginalizing other cultures and other perspectives; multicultural: differences exist, acknowledging other perspectives, but every culture works for itself, separately; intercultural: loose contacts and exchange between cultures, simple forms of fusion and borrowings; transcultural: in-depth exchange of approaches and ideas, “chaotic” from a conservative viewpoint, but new forms are being made while generally accepted ones are questioned, different music and musical approaches are on equal footing, not marginalized. replace “music” with “art” and the definition loses none of its significance. is muha’s work a total or partial process of transculturation? given the level of his acceptance of japanese art, together with its context and exchange of certain japanese-bosnian and herzegovinian topics, i think that the term is applicable. why would an artist choose something like this? in his own words: why are we reaching towards other cultures? because we think that our own is poor, decadent, or in stagnation, and that it needs to be enriched, i.e. we are taking from others what we lack. in yugoslavia, it was coca cola and mcdonald’s, and now that we have those, we see that we are missing far deeper and more powerful things. like tolerance and accepting others and differences.[37] fig. 6: 62% poster boy (cropped)—the young bosniak flautist. technique: acrylic on canvas. size: 100 x 50 cm (39.37 x 19.69 inch). year: october 2012. availability: in the collection of the international art colony počitelj. the main question for me here is trying to understand this “escape” from one’s own environment. this reaction results from a feeling of being an outsider, a certain dislocation of identity, and is affectively and cognitively tied to the local social context and art the author is coming from. approaching the other—japanese art and culture in this case—could be understood by some as withdrawing from under the weight of post-war heritage in the former yugoslavia, or as an alternative to politically-charged and engaged art practices. it is rather dangerous to paste a stereotype on a country or relate an artwork to a couple of events (positive or negative), because it erases the complexity of life and a deeper understanding of the society in question. fig. 7: return to innocence. technique: acrylic on canvas. size: 100 x 268 cm (39.37 x 105.51 inch). year: march 2014. in blackbox gallery, sarajevo 2014. availability: in private collection. maja isović: many b&h [bosnian and herzegovinian] artists are working with political and social themes, especially related to the last war. how important is it to keep dealing with these topics, and are we still chained to the events of the war? mk: i have not been following those artists; i do not like watching our movies, our torment. maybe one day i will gather the strength to face that war. it is important to do anything with an open heart and honesty; negligence and abuse can always be recognized, and that kind of work is always leading to spiritual death. regarding the war, it still lingers on, people are dying, not from bullets, but from hunger, soldiers are not dressed in camouflage uniforms, but in national colors, generals are tycoons of this wild capitalism.[38] st: where do you see yourself on the local scene? mk: at the moment, in sarajevo, while dreaming of tokyo and boston. st: to what extent is contemporary b&h society visible in your art? mk: it can only exist as a contrast, a negative, the other extreme.[39] as a consequence of this distancing from the local context, we can see a development in empathy and devotion to japanese art. muhamed kafedžić’s oeuvre is not devoid of critical attitude and retrospection (civil war, growing nationalisms),[40] yet he refuses to be labeled by that focus. maybe in this case his art could be identified as anti-nationalistic. escape is a personal, artistic, and political attitude. such a position dislocates him as a cultural actor from a recognized network of traditions and identities, which is visible, for example, in the bosnian and herzegovinian contemporary art exhibition “decoding: contemporary art in bosnia and herzegovina.”[41] his art stands out if we are trapped by dominant issues of political, social, or local art, yet at the same time i have the impression that he is not recognized by the art professionals in his home country as speaking about identities, not belonging to dominant categories, and a way of reacting that is based in local-transnational relations. in his case, identity is dislocated, it is an outsider, with a vision that is broader than the local context and creates a meeting point, not exclusiveness. while one can discuss appropriation as a sort of translation of different traditional and contemporary arts and cultures, there is also a sense of untranslatability in muha’s work. on one hand, there is the artist’s personal escapism and cosmopolitanism (present at the same time), paired with the context of his art in bosnia and herzegovina, somehow remaining outside the dominant art discourse in his home country. on the other hand, there is japan, via traditional ukiyo-e, which is not fully translatable, nor imagined to be a translation, given its recontextualization. maybe in muha’s art we can state that japan is a transnational link, a network of ideas and knowledge, instead of national and geographical ties; not a pure translation, but an interpretation. through his japan, he also speaks and avoids speaking about his surroundings. in other words, he established means of self-realization, avoiding local trends, categorizations, topics, and discussions, surrounding himself with his own world: self-consciously, knowingly, with homage and respect, emulating the sources of his inspiration. the best argument for his approach could be émile zola’s words on an age of reception of japanese art in the west: the influence of japonisme was what was needed to deliver us from the (murky) black tradition and show us the bright beauty of nature… there is no doubt that our dark painting, our painting in oils, was greatly impressed, and pursued the study of these transparent horizons, these beautiful, vibrant colors of the japanese.[42] fig. 8: oceans. technique: acrylic on canvas, size: diptych 100 x 250 cm (39.37 x 98.42 inch); each panel 100 x 120 cm (39.37 x 49.21 inch), year: january 2016, availability: in private collection. conclusion: floating identities where do inspiration and borrowing stop, and copying and plagiarism start? how far can cultures mix before arriving at acculturation? in a short text like this, a satisfactory and exhaustive answer cannot be provided. as a result, remaining in geographical and national borders blurs the fact that categorizations exist to be questioned and newly established, as well as that categories without changes and mixing are impossible. st: why are you painting the cultural codes of another culture? mk: because that is my culture too. globally speaking, we are all the same, we have the same desires and dreams. therefore, maybe my insistence on using the visual symbols of the “other” culture is basically a way of enriching or reactivating forgotten symbols of the “first” culture. let us say it is like vitamin b: when you do not get enough from your daily diet, you need to take supplements. i found a very funny title in one newspaper for my solo exhibition in bihać: “japanese art of the twentieth century.” my art is neither japanese, nor are the motifs from the twentieth century. is it based on japanese art? for sure, but is it japanese? certainly not. van gogh did not go to arles to paint france, he was going to paint japan. however, he was creating neither japanese nor french art. when yasumasa morimura is appropriating frida kahlo or eduard manet, is it mexican or french art?[43] the series 100 of ukiyo-e: masters i is broadly conceived as an homage and re-interpretation (both traditional and pop-cultural[44]) of japanese ukiyo-e, while paintings such as the young samurai flautist (history re-painting), japanesque, and 36 odd views of sarajevo apply that visual syncretism to local topics. appropriation is mainly visible through references in impressionist paintings (two ukiyo-e painted by van gogh, plum orchard in kameido and sudden shower, as well as references to manet’s the fifer) and anime culture (dōjinshi, studio ghibli’s totoro character). unusual mixes, fostering transcultural readings, are present in the transposition of situations and stories from ukiyo-e prints to contemporary b&h (počitelj in čapljina municipality, the young bosniaк flautist) and imagined, fictitious scenes with references to art history (such as utamaro lichtenstein—masterpiece). this creative replacement of and playing with content (e.g. japan in bosnia and herzegovina, manet’s le déjeuner sur l'herbe referenced in the luncheon on the grass/le bain after hiroshige/manet), makes a true personal contribution in interpreting role models, where muha for the most part applies what young calls the “argument of cultural innovation” in the appropriation of another culture. one of the factors that makes muha’s paintings accessible, apart from the pop-cultural and art-historical references (flattering our knowledge of visual culture), is its strong emphasis on painting as a traditional art medium. seeing it from the technical side, he relies mostly on modernistic tradition (painting as an object and a surface), while innovating in the subject matter. st: why painting as a medium? mk: because it requires time. in front of a computer an artist can become a machine, while in front of a canvas, that is impossible. in painting you have three phases. first, an idea and creating the painting in your mind (which sometimes can last for an entire lifetime). in this phase you make the first version of the painting. in the second, you are preparing the material, colors, canvases, format etc. and the third stage is the painting itself, where what you make can be different from the initial idea. my favorite example is the 100 great waves series, where literally the whole work depends on its surroundings and the surface of the wall where i am painting. it is always the same motif, but every mural has a different solution.[45] in drawing the scope of cultural appropriation and potential transculturalism, and using the art of muhamed kafedžić as a cornerstone, it is important to understand the skill applied, the quality of the work, and the goal of appropriation itself. after all, a conscious and prudent appropriation also speaks about its (new) author, a (possible) comparison and loading of oneself, a motion through culture,[46] which shows consideration and respect towards its model. whether considering a piece of research or an artwork (and both are present in muha’s work), entering the experience of “other” presents a need to clarify one’s own position and context of operation, as well as crossing borders. if not, we can easily get stuck in projecting the other (which is then nothing but a mirror of ourselves) or exoticization, which, even with good intent, distorts the picture.[47] fig. 9: never let me down again (sakura passage)—unfinished / sakura @ 80%, technique: acrylic studio paint on plaster, size: approx. 1,5x7m (59.05 x 275.59 inch); year: june 2017. availability: public/street art. fig. 10: ceci n’est pas un magritte or the great wave of verviers, belgium. technique: acrylic studio paint on brick wall, size: 290|260 x 550 cm (114.17|102.36 x 216.535 inch), year: october 2015, availability: public/street art. the theory of the politics of (personal) location in feminist studies emphasizes the need to re-examine one’s reasons for conducting research, our assumptions and roles in a given moment, as well as limitations related to e.g. social class, sex and gender, race, and power relations, among others.[48] with an approach like this, the legitimacy of experience is based on strong self-reflection, avoiding essentialism, and allowing us to responsibly perceive our own context and that of the observed, in a given time and space. it has also influenced my own position, as a researcher and a curator, providing valuable grounding and reflection on transculturalism in my work; thus, it was a two-way process. this process requires creative altruism and empathy, enabling us to create physical and metaphorical, imaginary and practical bridges towards understanding. the quest outwards is always the quest inwards. [1] amalija stojsavljević, “pop art i pop art,” in 100 views of ukiyo-e, volume i: masters (bihać: gradska galerija bihać, 2012). muhamed kafedžić, muhamed kafedžić—muha: paintings of the floating world. http://muhaonline.com/ [accessed on 3. august 2017]. [2] original article published in: angelina milosavljević ault and maja stanković, eds., kultura br. 147/2015, kontekst u umetnosti i medijima (beograd: zavod za proučavanje kulturnog razvitka), 168–193. [3] there were six ukiyo-e genres during the edo and meiji periods: yakusha-e (actor prints), bijinga (“beautiful women”), fukeiga (landscape prints), musha-e (warrior prints), kachoga (birds and trees), and shunga (“spring pictures,” or erotica), see chris uhlenbeck, “erotic fantasies of japan: the world of shunga,” in japanese erotic fantasies: sexual imagery of the edo period, eds. chris uhlenbeck and margarita winkel (amsterdam: hotei publishing, 2005), 10. [4] mikiso hane, japan: a historical survey (new york: charles scribner’s sons, 1972), 151–181. [5] donald h. shively, “popular culture,” in the cambridge history of japan, volume 4: early modern japan, ed. john whitney hall (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2006), 756. [6] murakami takashi uses the expression “superflat” to characterize “aesthetic two-dimensional forms, the absence of western notion of perspective.” murakami takashi, in cool japan illustrated. http://www.cool-jp.com/articles/art/superflat.php [accessed on 3 august 2017]. [7] for more, see muhamed kafedžić, “jedan od 100 pogleda,” (master’s thesis, sarajevo: academy of fine arts, 2012) and colta feller ives, the great wave: the influence of japanese woodcuts on french prints (new york: the metropolitan museum of art, 1976). [8] classical postures, clothing, and scenes from ukiyo-e prints are enriched with elements of hip-hop culture (such as music, clothing, hairstyles, situations), while the faces are darkened with makeup (for imitation and homage purposes), illustrating a fashion subculture in japan called ganguro, see kurt andersen, “iona rozeal brown’s afro-japanese mashup,” interview, studio 360 (podcast), june 7, 2013. http://www.wnyc.org/story/296845-iona-rozeal-browns_afro_japanese_mashup/ [accessed on 30 july 2017]. [9] nenad kostić, “masterpieces i can only copy?” https://www.nenadkosticart.com/1 [accessed on 15 january 2015]; ana krstić, “mlada partizanka.” https://anakrstic.wordpress.com/installation/young-partisan/ [accessed on 15 january 2015]. [10] james o. young quotes two artists: “appropriation is what novelists do. whatever we write is, knowingly or unknowingly, a borrowing. nothing comes from nowhere.” (margaret drabble); “bad artists copy. good artists steal.” (pablo picasso). james o. young and susan haley, “nothing comes from nowhere: reflections on cultural appropriation as the representation of other cultures,” in the ethics of cultural appropriation, eds. james o. young and conrad g. brunk, (oxford: wiley-blackwell, 2009), 6. [11] “to an ever-increasing degree, the work reproduced becomes the reproduction of a work designed for reproducibility. from a photographic plate, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the ‘authentic’ print makes no sense.” walter benjamin, “the work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility (second version),” in the work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility, and other writings on media, eds. michael w. jennings, brigid doherty, and thomas y. levin (cambridge: harvard university press, 2008), 25. [12] see dejan sretenović, umetnost prisvajanja. (beograd: orion art, 2013), 123–146. [13] đulio karlo argan and akile bonito oliva, moderna umetnost ii: 1770—1970—2000 (beograd: clio, 2005), 247–249. roy lichtenstein, “šta je pop art,” in likovne sveske 1–2. (beograd: umetnička akademija, 1971). [14] stojsavljević, 2012. [15] artists also painted ukiyo-e, although the printed versions were much more popular and widely available thanks to mass reproduction. [16] a notable exception is yoshitoshi, who printed his own ukiyo-e, developed author prints, and at the same time, marked the end of the ukiyo-e era and the beginning of shin-hanga (“new prints”). there are rare cases of artists being involved in the whole process. this change is mostly tied to the modern art movement sōsaku-hanga (“creative prints”) that emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century. [17] see andreas marks, japanese woodblock prints: artists, publishers and masterworks 1680–1900 (singapore: tuttle publishing, 2010), 10–21. [18] lichtenstein preferred magna acrylics; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/magna_(paint) [accessed on 6 september 2017]. [19] according to aristotle, “imitatio” is conforming to nature, while from the renaissance this term is predominantly used for copying role models from antiquity, with an aim to develop taste and learning from the old masters. dejan sretenović, “imitacija i invencija,” in umetnost prisvajanja (beograd: orion art, 2013), 23–26. [20] “why does anyone neatly copy/translate scenes from the ‘classics’ of the animated genres of the ’80s and ’90s? because that ‘someone’ (let’s not call him the author) feels a strong urge to participate in the production of meanings that pin themselves onto the ‘original,’ through interpretation and translation of an act of creation from one medium into another. that ‘someone’ can only be called a devotee... a devotee who does not realize the interpretation as violence, but sees the original as a call to imitation and copying, a process which inevitably leads to mutation and that provides a radical shift from mere consumption of cultural products into the sphere of production of meaning and personal entries.” svebor midžić, “satori,” nenad kostić fine and visual arts bibliography. https://www.nenadkosticart.com/bibliography [accessed on 5. september 2017]. [21] sretenović, 270. [22] a rōnin was a samurai without a master in feudal japan. hane, japan. 151–181. see also “belonging to no party or school of thought,” in muhamed kafedžić, muhamed kafedžić—muha: paintings of the floating world. http://muhaonline.com/ [accessed on 30. july 2017]. [23] sretenović, 270. [24] for more on the image’s commercial success see the private life of a masterpiece (episode 14): katsushiko hokusai—the great wave, director bob bentley (2004, fulmar television & film, uk). http://www.infocobuild.com/books-and-films/art/privatelifemasterpiece/episode-14.html [accessed on 3 august 2017]. [25] blackbox аrt and print, muhamed kafedžić—muha. http://www.blackbox.ba/art_shop_muhamed_kafedzic_muha.html [accessed on 15 january 2015]. [26] srđan tunić, 100 views of ukiyo-e: belgrade. (belgrade: dom kulture studentski grad, 2013). [27] “in pre-modern japan, people could go by numerous names throughout their lives, their childhood yōmyō personal name different from their zokumyō name as an adult. an artist’s name consisted of a gasei artist surname followed by an azana personal art name. the gasei was most frequently taken from the school the artist belonged to... and the azana normally took a chinese character from the master’s art name.” see andreas marks, japanese woodblock prints: artists, publishers and masterworks: 1680–1900 (singapore: tuttle publishing, 2012). [28] james o. young. cultural appropriation and the arts. (malden: blackwell, 2008), 5–9. [29] ibid., 34–41. [30] richard a. rogers, “from cultural exchange to transculturation: a review and reconceptualization of cultural appropriation,” communication theory 16 (2006): 477. [31] drew beck, understanding cultural appropriation. (amherst: hampshire college, 2003). [32] tzvetan todorov, on human diversity: nationalism, racism, and exoticism in french thought. (cambridge: harvard university press, 1993), 257. [33] beck, 50. [34] edward said, orientalism. (london: penguin books, 1977), 55. [35] srđan tunić. “skype call arlington-sarajevo.” internet portal buka. last modified march 7, 2015. http://www.6yka.com/novost/76359/skype-call-arlington-sarajevo [accessed on 13 september 2017]. [36] huib schippers. facing the music: shaping music education from a global perspective. (oxford: oxford university press, 2010), 30. [37] muhamed kafedžić, e-mail to the author, november 2014. [38] maja isović. “u bih je zaboravljeno šta je normalan život.” internet portal buka, last modified 1 february 2012. http://www.6yka.com/novost/18784/ljudi-u-bih-su-zaboravili-sta-je-normalan-zivot [accessed on 13 september 2017]. [39] tunić, “skype call arlington-sarajevo,” 2015. [40] for example, see: muhamed kafedžić—muha, monumentimotion project. http://muhaonline.com/portfolio-item/monumentimotion/ [accessed on 15 january 2015]. [41] branka vujanović, “aspects of art-working in a bristling reality.” in decoding—contemporary art in bosnia and herzegovina. (cetinje: national museum of montenegro, 2014), 14–15. [42] cited in: muhamed kafedžić, “jedan od 100 pogleda,” (master’s thesis, sarajevo: academy of fine arts, 2012), 55. [43] tunić, “skype call arlington-sarajevo,” 2015. [44] also called “edo pop” by the cool japan website. http://www.cool-jp.com/articles/art/edo_pop.php [accessed on 5 september 2017]. [45] tunić, “skype call arlington-sarajevo,” 2015. [46] sretenović, 270. [47] this is the way edward said explained orientalism, i.e. the colonial attitude of western powers towards the countries of north africa and the near and middle east. more in said, 1977. [48] gesa e. kirsch and joy s. ritchie. “beyond the personal: theorizing a politics of location in composition research.” college composition and communication 46, no. 1 (1995). editorial note | transcultural studies editorial note this issue of our journal presents two individual contributions alongside the first part of a themed section that we plan to continue in our next issue. the individual essays follow the global linkages that shaped the literary and artistic worlds of taishō era japan and sustained the proliferation of street art in post-“arab spring” egypt. while drawing on very different methodological inspirations, both illustrate the vibrancy of a perspective that suspends the focus on preconceived units of investigation and instead allows its material to determine the sites, scales, and pathways of inquiry. as such, they can be read, like many articles in our previous issues, as exemplifying, and at the same time embracing, the potential of transcultural studies. but our journal would miss its purpose if it operated merely as a platform propagating, or cheerleading, what its editors and many contributors regard as an overdue recalibration of the humanities. it needs to probe with equal rigor the limitations and blind spots of transcultural modes of inquiry and the losses their unequivocal endorsement may entail. it is in this spirit that the guest editors of our themed section set out to examine the ambivalent relationship between what they see as an emerging “transcultural paradigm” and established disciplinary practices. the multivocal and partly sobering assessments of this relationship in the four essays in this issue’s themed section, “transcultural studies: areas and disciplines,” highlight—no less than the two individual articles preceding them—that to remain fertile, a transcultural approach can never congeal into a portable set of universally applicable conceptual tools. rather, it must be reinvented on a case by case basis, with as much empathy and ingenuity as one can muster, in critical dialogue with specific local and regional conditions. the article opening this issue is a good illustration of such a dialogue. starting from an apparent anomaly—the unparalleled interest that the collection cubist poems, written by the american painter max weber (1881–1961), attracted in the cultural world of 1910s and 1920s tokyo—pierantonio zanotti recreates subtle shifts in the field of cultural production incited by japan’s increasingly seamless integration in global art circuits. although japan, according to contemporary observers, continued to occupy only a marginal position in the international networks of cultural exchange, many modern urban intellectuals were keenly aware that the study and connoisseurship of european and north american art was one of the fastest and most profitable ways to accrue cultural and symbolic capital. cutting-edge information on the “latest schools” of western literature and art, which was particularly useful to improve one’s standing in the interconnected japanese worlds of literature (bundan), non-traditional poetry (shidan), and painting (gadan), were circulated in a wealth of newly-established periodicals, many of which positioned themselves as supporters of a decidedly modern and globally-orientated avant-garde. zanotti analyzes the unexpected success of weber’s little-known poetry against the background of this conducive climate and disentangles the diverse threads that connect its reception to parallel and related trends. once the appetite for cubist paintings had paved the way for adaptations of weber’s poems, which reached japan amidst a wave of interest in futurist, vitalist, and post-impressionist ideas, his works quickly gained a life of their own and became intertwined with a “double logic of legitimization.” according to this logic, his modestly innovative poems served as widely available material in japanese discourses on new art and literature and as handy references for japanese avant-garde poetry. it is tempting to describe this particular transcultural entanglement in transactional terms: weber’s poetry gained and consolidated its appeal thanks to the continued efforts of his japanese recipients to borrow from it. the success of this mutually beneficial relationship resembles similar associations, not only in the worlds of painting and poetry, but also in the fields of philosophy and science. the same is true for its decline, as the convenient arrangement did not last long. soon, some japanese critics accused weber’s poems of mediocrity, a clear sign, according to zanotti, of how fast they had become full and equal members of an increasingly globalized avant-garde scene. concomitant with transcultural studies’ refusal of the notion of “pure” cultures, critical studies of visuality remind us that all “visual” media are mixed, in that they invariably mobilize other senses, especially tactility and orality, and their memories across time and space. even the most canonical of genres function in relation to language, are contingent on their viewers’ knowledge of a context or a story to understand their message. building on this premise, saphinaz-amal naguib investigates the proliferation of street art in the urban settings of egypt during the political ferment of the “arab spring” as part of a nexus between an oral heritage of vernacular poetry and popular sayings, political slogans, and activist performances. their messages, she argues, translate into material forms of graffiti and calligrafitti; they acquire a specific affective resonance as they reclaim and reshape urban space through their active and transfigured presence. though the artists who created these interventionist works were trained in established institutions of art and continue to build on learnt practices, their projects have charted a place in an expanded field of post-studio engaged or participatory art that connotes the involvement of large numbers of viewers-cum-participants as opposed to a one-to-one relationship between the beholder and the work. the engaged public thus becomes part of the material and medium of such a politicized aesthetic. art practices of this kind do not generally enter the commercial circuits of art, even as, in the examples presented by naguib, they continue to be identified as projects by individual artists. here, however, the artist is conceived of less as a producer of a discrete, portable object, but rather as a producer of a political situation at an “opportune moment where time and action meet,” one mediated through the materiality of the work that, for all its ephemerality, functions as a mnemonic device. yet, as naguib demonstrates, materially ephemeral art acquires a non-material afterlife through digital media, where it circulates globally on internet platforms and can stake a claim to recognition as part of egypt’s intangible heritage. the implications of reinstating a frame that invariably assimilates heritage to a consensual national memory is an aspect that the paper does not problematize, perhaps because it is still too early to envisage the future lives of this corpus. implicit in this study are a further set of questions about contemporary visual practices that consciously work to undermine the boundaries between artistic creativity and knowledge production. the examples of street art studied here sensitize us to the specific, “undisciplined” texture of visual thinking that can spawn forms of knowing which can overlap but not be conflated with mainstream disciplines, even as it draws upon their resources such as texts, writing, archives, and oral traditions. such knowledge acquires a force of its own, unpredictable and incipient in any space—urban or rural, derelict or wasteland—and whose dynamics await exploration. the field of transcultural studies, systematically researched during the past years not only at the heidelberg cluster “asia and europe in a global context,” now resonates in multiple directions. this issue’s themed section, planned in two parts, offers a forum to present and debate the diverse perspectives that inform our young field. the collection focuses on the nexus between transcultural studies, regional expertise, and disciplinary formations to deliberate on the usefulness of a transcultural approach as a critical lens to investigate and question disciplinary as well as institutional practices in the humanities. introducing the essays in this issue, daniel g. könig and katja rakow draw attention to the many uses of the term “transcultural” in a variety of contexts and disciplines: uses that, inevitably, are marked by equally varying degrees of scholarly rigor. the genealogy of the term “transculturation” goes back to the 1940s, with fernando ortiz’s work on sugar and tobacco cultures in colonial and post-colonial cuba. since then the field has integrated more recent theoretical approaches, notably the linguistic-cum-cultural turn and postcolonial studies in general, whose insights it seeks to refine and take forward. könig and rakow point to the possibilities of a transcultural approach but also highlight the exceptional challenges faced by researchers and teachers who seek to engage with transcultural studies’ tenets, an aspect the authors see neglected in more euphoric embraces of the field’s potential. at the same time, the introduction implicitly draws attention to the value of transcultural studies as a locus of criticality that questions the premises and methods of existing disciplines and seeks to open them to new questions, to sharpen their tools rather than dilute their rigor through experiments with an insufficiently defined interdisciplinarity. following from ortiz’s move to disconnect race or ethnicity from culture, transcultural studies takes on a fuller critique of conceptualizations of culture as they have come to be circumscribed by the political and territorial borders of modern nation-states. nation-building processes, in turn, have fundamentally shaped the formation of disciplines in that they have fashioned the building of archives and university curricula, including the disciplinary formations and area studies discussed by the authors of this themed section. one consequence of the creation of such taxonomic fields as pedagogical props of modern nations is that research problems have been largely defined according to individual regions or single disciplines, each treated as a self-contained unit. this leaves us with a host of unasked questions, unstudied relationships, and an equally large number of anomalies that do not fit into existing explanatory patterns. transcultural studies provides us with an analytical mode to describe and theorize processes either overlooked or designated by concepts that are not sufficiently precise or end up as theoretical straightjackets into which a whole range of experiences of circulation and encounter come to be squeezed. while investigations of transcultural processes are about circulation, connectivities, or dealing with plurality and difference, it is the critical potential of the approach, namely to overcome the constraints of methodological nationalism by engaging with the epistemological foundations of disciplines, that makes it a valuable methodological tool. the first part of our themed section exploring the nexus between transcultural studies and the disciplines starts with three essays examining the close but uneasy relationship between transcultural inquiry and area studies. all three examine fields of inquiry that used to be, and in some cases still are, housed in faculties or departments of “oriental studies.” despite these shared and by now much maligned origins, their contributions to and uses of transcultural perspectives display notable differences, rooted in part in their specific disciplinary histories, partly in the distinct social, political, and ideological trajectories of the regions they scrutinize, and also in the changing place of the humanities in the disciplinary pecking order. read in conjunction, the three case studies add a much needed transcultural angle to discussions of an issue recently raised with renewed urgency by sheldon pollock, namely, “the trouble with areas and how to discipline them.”[1] in his investigation of the scholarly field of islamic studies, constituted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, daniel könig draws our attention to the transcultural phenomena—encounters, exchanges, and networks that unfolded in the wake of migration and conquest over several centuries—intrinsic to this geographically vast and culturally diverse domain. such an observation of historical phenomena does not automatically translate into an analytical approach that aims to find appropriate methods to unravel the dynamics of these transcultural processes or evolve a set of concepts to plausibly theorize them. instead, as könig demonstrates, prevailing scholarly paradigms in islamic studies, though they have registered several shifts, display a tendency to congeal into positions overwhelmingly preoccupied with plotting the tensions between identity and alterity, between “islam and the west.” the article zooms into a “transcultural crossfire” between orientalist and occidentalist positions, the latter a blanket term for nationalist-nativist resistance to a putative “western conceptual imperialism” under which, according to könig, a transcultural approach might be subsumed. the account of this “crossfire” turns out to be a demonstration of an appropriation and deployment of similar arguments on both sides that mirror each other, as their modes of othering draw on shared assumptions underpinning concepts of religion, nation, and culture. instead of stopping at this point, it could be argued that the usefulness of a transcultural view lies precisely in its ability to take us beyond this hall of mirrors with its endless, mutually sustaining reflections of the other and reaffirmations of the self, towards comprehending the workings of such complicities between seemingly opposed camps. can these crossfire-like positions that draw on anti-modernist critiques of liberal capitalism that we also encounter globally—among arabs, chinese, japanese, as well as europeans—be studied as a broader transcultural history? can narratives that appear to inhabit disparate domains be placed on a common matrix and be researched as part of a network of circulating knowledge, produced both within and outside of academia, and patterns of argument that different nativist groups across the globe partake of, even as their individual articulations retain a cultural specificity? the logic of these questions can result in framing units of investigation beyond single, sealed entities to examine the formation of a phenomenon by following the thread of accounts that may intersect, converge, and engage with each other. chinese intellectual history, the subject of pablo blitstein’s essay, can be regarded as another branch of the non-european regional studies that has become enmeshed in a close but uneasy relationship with transcultural studies. part of this unease, according to blitstein, may be the result of uncanny affinities. while its roots can be traced back to the polyglot and indeed quite “transcultural” traditions of classical sinology, chinese intellectual history, as it has come to be practiced since the 1980s, is a more immediate heir to a presentist conception of “area studies” that limited its tasks to offering historical explanations for contemporary developments. the institutionalized frame of reference for such explanations and the default unit of investigation was the modern nation. blitstein traces the not always successful efforts to overcome the confines imposed by this methodological nationalism through the various “turns” that have animated intellectual historians over the past two decades (global, material, spatial). many of the arguments they put forward resonate with concerns at the heart of a transcultural agenda, at least if the latter is detached from its own associations with nationalist or culturalist causes in postcolonial latin america or post-communist russia. yet, even if the two fields are beginning to converge, they still have much to learn from each other. transcultural studies can help systematize the scattered critiques of methodological nationalism that intellectual historians have formulated in their works, for example by supporting their rejection of static notions of “nations” or “cultures” with what blitstein calls a kinetic and relational “social ontology,” which sees such formations not as causes but as results of human interaction and exchange. intellectual historians, in turn, can provide hard empirical evidence for the strong claims of this ontology, for example by highlighting the foundational role of relationality for the emergence of medieval chinese literary cultures. the two fields thus appear as natural allies. but as long as their overlapping agendas are not accepted as the default mode of humanistic inquiry, they share a temporary interest in retaining their distinct identities. for the time being, the moniker “transcultural” remains an aspirational marker of an unfulfilled critical purpose. hans-martin krämer’s essay on the history and prospects of a transcultural mode of inquiry in the field of japanese studies takes up several questions raised in slightly different terms by the two previous contributions. while focusing on developments in the second half of the twentieth century, krämer starts out by reminding us that european studies of japan were never burdened with as much “orientalist baggage” as their islamic and chinese counterparts. from the outset, the field was shaped to an unusual degree by co-production. less central to assertions of european identity, it was pioneered by long-term residents of japan who readily acknowledged their debt to local interlocutors. its entry into european universities was also fostered by japanese scholars who already in the late nineteenth century participated in academic conferences throughout europe and regularly published in european languages. one paradoxical effect of this manifestly transcultural beginning was the consequential impression that japan had little in common with its asian neighbors and needed to be understood as an isolated entity. throughout the twentieth century, japanese and european studies of japan—as in the case of islam often mirroring one another’s arguments—contributed to the persistence of this co-produced myth. even scholars who explicitly rejected claims of japan’s uniqueness, krämer argues, often failed to entirely shed its legacy. this holds particularly true for comparative inquiries but extends also to studies highlighting contacts that trace connections as unidirectional flows. works informed by modernization theory confirm it by removing japan from its regional context and measuring it with an allegedly neutral euro-american yardstick. studies inspired by the idea of multiple modernities fortify it by basing their claims on a reified image of “japanese culture.” and explorations of the world system or the “great divergence” revive it by sidelining japan ahistorically and equating (east) asia with an always already dominant china. krämer’s article demonstrates how a transcultural approach can advance a powerful critique of both the myth and its often unrecognized legacy. however, a transcultural perspective can do more than debunk essentialist delusions such as that of japanese uniqueness. as the author shows in his brief outline of the neglected contribution of islam to the formation of japanese pan-asianism, it can also direct our attention to phenomena that have quite literally no place in studies conducted within the confines of conventional cultural and civilizational boundaries. as such, it opens up new spaces of inquiry that call for more varied methodological tools and more precise analytical languages. in the final contribution to this themed section, esther berg and katja rakow observe that the emergence of religious studies as a field of scholarship was, not unlike japanese studies, itself a product of transcultural encounters. such an observation can hardly be contested; indeed it might be regarded as a truism applicable to several disciplines in the humanities and social sciences—history, anthropology, art history, archaeology or philology—that were all constitutively formed or recast within a context of the global entanglements of their times. of greater pertinence, it would seem, is the distinction that needs to be made between what the authors designate as the “transcultural component” of their field and the analytical challenges that it presents for research. berg and rakow demonstrate the uses of a transcultural approach with an account of the formation and global spread of pentecostalism. they argue that such a perspective can bring several lesser-known dimensions to light; for instance, it allows for reinstating different scales of practice that in turn enable an investigation of such points of intersection and negotiation that might get flattened when operating on a single scale, be it global, national, or local. the authors deploy this method to “decentre” the prevalent narrative of origins that situates the birth of the pentecostal movement in a 1906 meeting at azusa street in los angeles, from where it is said to have spread to the rest of the world. instead, they make a case for studying the “glocal origins” of the movement as a step towards dismantling a diffusionist paradigm. in other words, they propose that the meetings at azusa street were already transcultured and must be studied beyond the confines of a purely local context by linking azusa street to a network of christian missions across the globe. circuits of exchange—newspapers, journals, missionary travels, and correspondence—had since the mid-nineteenth century connected christian communities in africa and asia to pentecostal centres, of which azusa street was an important hub, one that developed over a long period, as it partook of circulating ideas and practices. the proposition to “decentre” the “western origins” of pentecostal christianity could be pushed even further to eschew the question of fixing “origins” altogether, because, when viewed through a transcultural lens, such a line of inquiry is perhaps not the most productive agenda. moreover, even as we admit that the ability to navigate multiple scales, thus avoiding simple binaries between the global and the local, gives the transcultural approach an explanatory edge over concepts such as transnationalism, translocality, or methods used in global history, denominations of scale assume a further complexity that needs to be considered. scale frequently forms a field of tension between the perspective of actors and the processes in which they are involved. a region or even a nation can be perceived as a “locality” from the viewpoint of the agents, for whom it may be a site to be recuperated, for instance from an empire, or an anchor against fragility that is seen as resulting from phenomena on a macro-scale. a similar argument can be made for places designated as “centres” or “peripheries”: examples cited by berg and rakow, drawn from individual narratives and re-imagined geographies of pentecostalism, urge us to read the use of such terms as forms of self-positioning and therefore as one more factor to be woven into the web of transcultural relationalities. a transcultural perspective, we may deduce from these evocative essays, is not so much about a received or ready-made procedure, but rather an approach that has to be tested, forged, refined, and recalibrated repeatedly in the course of research. particularly in view of this useful reminder, we hope that the articles of this themed section will invite responses as well as further contributions probing the promises, weaknesses, and side effects of the inevitably diverse transcultural perspectives that they began to highlight here. monica juneja and joachim kurtz [1] sheldon pollock, “areas, disciplines, and the goals of inquiry,” the journal of asian studies 75, no. 4 (november 2016): 913–928. sites of disconnectedness | wakita | transcultural studies sites of “disconnectedness”: the port city of yokohama, souvenir photography, and its audience mio wakita, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg fig. 1: hashimoto sadahide, complete picture of the newly opened port of yokohama, early 1860s, woodblock print, ink and color on paper, 16,2 x 23,4 cm, arthur m. sackler gallery, smithsonian institution, washington, d.c.: bequest of florence leonhart, s2007.5a-j. in the nineteenth century, photography was a vigorous pioneer at the frontiers of changing society.[1] the pervasiveness of photography during the mid-nineteenth century, even in distant places, was recorded by an anonymous author who declared in a review of an exhibition of commercial stereoscopic photographs: “[a]s […] the camera became more common in egypt and the holy land, the more adventurous photographers turned their steps to more distant and less known countries. even the jealously-guarded countries of china and japan cannot shut out the camera.”[2] as the first gateway to remote places, ports formed an inextricably bound relationship with photography during the latter half of the nineteenth century, especially in asia. an increasing interest in the exotic meant that the commercial potential for photography with its overwhelming realism and visual sensation emerged as a popular means of capturing the ‘other.’ the souvenir photography industry in japan was initially established in the mid-nineteenth century by western photographers at treaty ports like yokohama. there it flourished as an industry that provided seemingly ‘authentic,’ and visually convincing pictures. catering to a non-japanese audience, this photographic industry cultivated an alternative image culture to the indigenous photography scene, which had its own distinctive iconographic repertoire and visual languages. these distinct image cultures continued their parallel lives until the decline of the image industry, which was triggered by the fierce price competition against privately produced postcards after the relaxation of postal laws at the beginning of the twentieth century. the desire for and the gaze in the visualization of the “other” changed during the course of the history of japanese souvenir photography. in the case of the souvenir photography industry in the port city of yokohama, for example, the japanese-owned photographic studios had by the 1880s supplanted the dominant western photographers. aided by transport technologies, the profile of the foreign clientele for this image industry was never monolithic, and it experienced a radical shift through the course of its history, especially after the rise of globetrotter tourism in the early 1870s. as a commercial commodity, souvenir photography needed to respond to its changing circumstances. as both a constructed visual object―not a “transparently ‘authentic’ image”[3] of japan―and a commercial commodity intended to meet customers’ expectations, souvenir photography was a complex cultural product. it is this which invites us to question how the shifting gaze of the photographer and his audience transformed the visual imagination. at the same time, the nineteenth-century port city of yokohama held an ambiguous position as both a venue of “connections”―bringing people, goods, and ideas together as well as generating diverse cross-cultural memories―and (almost predestined by its beginning as a treaty port city and later actively promoted by diverse factors) as a symbolic and physical space of cultural “disconnectedness” from the rest of japan. this was realized in a manner that was similar to the relationship between the shanghai international settlement and inland china. it is this very aspect that begs us to consider the following complex issues: to what extent was the ambivalent facet of the city embedded in the visual representation of yokohama? in which ways did the resultant unstable memories and perceptions among audiences with shifting profiles affect image creators? how were the differences in perspective between customers and photographers, that is, between the changing generations of recipients as well as between the photographers active in different phases, negotiated in the image-making processes? using the examples of nineteenth-century yokohama souvenir photography taken by felice beato and kusakabe kimbei, i aim to investigate how photographic images of yokohama could be read as mirroring the dynamics of these shifting relationships and perspectives. a particular focus will be on yokohama as a physical site, on yokohama as a site of transition, and on the corporeality of the onsite experience of the audience. the dynamics of the port city as a place of disconnections/connections will be at the center of my discussion. in the process, i will delineate the changing associations of the port city of yokohama as a site of both image creation and consumption, factors which in their turn led to shifting conditions for yokohama souvenir photography within and beyond the port city. my aim is to specify how these shifting conditions, such as the development of “globetrotter” tourism, shaped the rhetoric of visual representation. in contrast to most discussions of the tourist gaze, in which the main focus is primarily on the techniques of visual representation[4] or the constitution of the gazing subject,[5] this study will highlight the embodied experiences of photography’s audiences, the technological advancements in photographic media and transportation, as well as the changing methods of image acquisition. in this i will build on a suggestion by mike crang that corporeality of experience is a key aspect within the photographic representation of tourist landscape because it “serves to highlight the mediation of visual worlds through technologies and epistemologies.”[6] this paper will thus explore the multifaceted and changing aspects of yokohama photography and its image-making practices in constant dialogue with the changing conditions of the photographers themselves, as well as of the port city, of travel, and of photographic technology.[7] the souvenir photography industry in yokohama after commodore perry’s arrival in 1853 and the subsequent end of japan’s policy of national seclusion, the united states–japan treaty of amity and commerce was signed in 1858 with the stipulation that japan would open five treaty ports for foreign commerce and settlement in the following year. once a sleepy village with no more than eighty to ninety houses (around 400 inhabitants)[8], yokohama―one of the five treaty ports―emerged as the most important of these due to its closeness to the capital city (fig. 1). by 1867 yokohama had grown into “the great centre of foreign traffic in japan […] [due to its] facility of communication from abroad, and […] its position on the seaboard of the central portion of the empire.”[9] by 1864 yokohama was already handling over eighty percent of japan&rsquos total exports and was well on its way to becoming the largest and the most frequented of all open port settlements in japan.[10] the first photographers who were enterprising enough to seek new business opportunities using this western visual technology in the newly opened japan were westerners. most of them were based in china and some had operated photography studios in shanghai or in hong kong where photography had been practiced for seventeen years before japan opened her treaty ports. this geographical proximity may explain their early appearance in japan. because during their first years these japanese treaty ports were considered frontier towns (yokohama had only forty foreign residents at the end of 1859, the first year of trade) it took some time before the first photographers established their commercial studios in these areas. although some western photographers had already visited japan, the first significant wave of western commercial photographers arrived around 1860.[11] pierre joseph rossier, a swiss commercial photographer who was dispatched from his london agency, took the first commercial photographs of japan as early as 1859. orrin erastus freeman (1830–1866), an american professional photographer who was based in shanghai and possibly the first western photographer to establish a permanent residence in japan, opened a studio in yokohama in 1860. william saunders (1832–1892, active in the early 1860s), a british photographer based in shanghai, came to japan in 1862 for several months to expand his portfolio with japanese sights, especially of edo and yokohama. saunders’s british colleague, charles parker, shifted his base from hong kong to yokohama in 1863, where he remained active until 1865. felice beato, a corfu-born british photographer, who was to become one of the most prominent figures in the nineteenth-century souvenir photography industry in japan, arrived in yokohama around june 1863.[12] shimooka renjō, one of the earliest japanese professional photographers, opened his first photography studio in yokohama in 1862; by 1875 it had expanded to three branches in the city. at one of his branch shops on yokohama&rsquos main avenue (honcho street), renjō had a photography studio on the first floor while the ground floor was designated for the sale of souvenir articles, including one of the most popular souvenir articles for foreign visitors, nishikie woodblock prints. the items for sale in renjō’s shop illustrate several important aspects of the yokohama port city culture: the growing importance of photography as a commercial enterprise, and even more significant, the association of photography businesses in yokohama with the city&rsquos growing souvenir industry. the coming of the globetrotter the early customers for japanese souvenir photographs of yokohama were primarily foreign residents of the town. they were a diverse community of long-term dwellers that included missionaries, diplomats,[13] merchants, and members of western military garrisons and naval squadrons who were assigned to treaty ports between 1863 and the mid-1870s in reaction to a series of violent attacks on their citizens by locals. the clientele profile of the yokohama-based photography studios is evident from the advertisements in english-language local newspapers like japan weekly and japan herald, which targeted the expatriate communities in the japanese treaty ports. the texts of these advertisements are explicit. william saunders, for instance, announced his arrival to the “community of yokohama” in an advertisement in japan herald (september 20, 1862), the earliest-known advertisement by a studio in japan.[14] in 1870 the advertisement placed by felice beato in japan weekly announced his sale of photography albums and was also aimed at the local clientele: signor f. beato, begs to announce to the public of yokohama and travellers visiting the east generally, that he has just completed a handsome collection of albums of various sizes, containing views &c., of japan, with descriptions of the scenes, manners and customs of the people; compiled after visiting all the most interesting localities in the country during six years residence. no. 17 on the bund[15] the reference to “(t)ravellers visiting the east” in this advertisement alerts us to  the fact that a new group of customers had made its appearance by the early 1870s, the “globetrotter.”  his emergence greatly expanded the tourist market for the yokohama photographic trade. globetrotter travelling had been greatly facilitated in 1869 by the shortcut from europe to asia that had opened via the suez canal and across the united states through the completion of the trans-american railway. the first scheduled trans-pacific steamship service by the pacific mail steamship company traveling from san francisco via yokohama, kobe, and nagasaki to hong kong began in 1867. in 1874 the occidental and oriental steamship company was launched by the union pacific and central railways to provide a service from the us east coast to asia. furthermore, steamship development drastically shortened the travelling time from europe and north america to east asia, while also making travel more comfortable and convenient. a traveller or business man who, a few years ago, went to san francisco, japan, china, or india, or made the circuit of the globe, arranged his affairs with the expectation that at least a year or two of his life was required to make the journey by land and water. to-day he can start from new york or london, transact important business, and enjoy the pleasures of travel, returning to his home, if desired, within the period of three months; during which time he is in communication with the chief centres of business by telegraph and steam poste-routes.[16] in the 1870s a trip across the pacific by steamship from san francisco to yokohama took twenty-four days; by the mid-1880s it took less than twenty days; and by 1891 it took only ten days to travel between yokohama and vancouver, and less than fifteen days from japan to new york and boston.[17] yokohama advanced as one of the key anchorage ports of the international steamship network. by 1895 a liner from the canadian pacific steamship company called in from vancouver every two weeks and made further port calls at kobe, shanghai, and hong kong. twice a month a trans-atlantic steamship from san francisco made a stop after calling at honolulu. the peninsular and oriental steam navigation company (known as p & o company), the austrian lloyd’s steam navigation company, and the north german lloyd also ran regular services from europe to yokohama. running parallel to the increasing number of travelers to the city was a major shift in the photography market catering to foreigners in both the resident and tourist market. faced with a startling influx of transient visitors, the term “globetrotter” was coined and used by the local community in order to differentiate these visitors from the expatriate community. william elliot griffis mentioned this phenomenon in 1876: “the coming orthodox bridal tour and round-the world-trip will soon be made via japan first, then asia, europe, and america. already the circum-mundane tourists have become so frequent and temporarily numerous in yokohama as to be recognized as a distinct class. in the easy language of the port, they are called ‘globe-trotters.’”[18] however, this differentiation was also intended to distinguish the long-time western residents in japan: hinting at the commercial tours that were the preferred mode of globetrotter travel, the term also connotes the diminished quality of their tourist experience and of their cultural and social encounters. basil hall chamberlain went so far as to refer to them as “globe-trotter locustus the species that travels in swarms, perpetually dragged around the universe by cook, or the likes of cook.”[19] considering that the number of foreign residents in the yokohama settlement in 1868 was counted at 557[20], this globetrotter tourism with its thousands of international visitors every year emerged as a prosperous new field for yokohama souvenir photographers. during the 1880s, many studios sprang up to meet new tourist demands; in 1891 there were ten japanese photographic studios in yokohama, but eleven years later, in 1902, the total number had risen to fifteen.[21] the wide dissemination of photographic images from yokohama is well illustrated in the diary of the czech globetrotter josef kořenský, who visited japan in 1893: [japanese] photographers, whose skill in hand colouring and quick handling are greatly admired by europeans, are settled either in the bay area or in the japanese residential area in yokohama. […] yokohama is the best place to purchase photographs of japanese subjects. the photography studios run by ogawa, suzuki, kimbei, and tamamura cannot fully cope with the overwhelming amount of orders from foreign tourists. they normally send photographs packed in a metal box to their foreign commissioners after receiving orders.[22] the growing number of tourists thus motivated enterprising japanese to seek business opportunities in the photography branch of the flourishing yokohama tourist industry. this sometimes caused frictions between western photographers and their assistants: raimund von stillfried, an austrian souvenir photographer who was active in yokohama in the 1870s, complained bitterly about his difficulties in keeping expertise secure from competition. “at first,” stillfried stated, “he [stillfried] used to show his one assistant all the different photographic manipulations necessary to produce a picture, and the consequence was that he soon left and set up on his own account.”[23] thereafter, stillfried gave instructions to his japanese employees in only one particular area of specialization to ensure that no other part of the production process was observed and that his expertise in photography remained exclusive.[24] however, stillfried&rsquos maneuvers were in vain; they did nothing to stop the japanese influx into his business domain, and the shift from foreign-owned to japanese-owned photography shops offering souvenir photography increased after the 1880s. while people of diverse western nationalities had been instrumental during the early stages of photography in yokohama, at the height of the industry, between the mid-1880s and the end of the nineteenth century, two of the big three players in the industry (tamamura, kimbei, farsari) were japanese. [25] the dominance of the foreign-owned photography studios specializing in souvenir photography had come to an end. shifting images, disconnected place: photographs by beato and kimbei the most prolific western souvenir photographer in japan during the 1860s and the early 1870s was felice beato. he is considered to have set the standard of pictorial motifs from yokohama in souvenir photography for later generations, and he still enjoys great popularity among collectors of nineteenth-century japanese photography. beato’s japan portfolio was established between 1863 and 1868. a great fire that destroyed two-thirds of yokohama in 1866 also damaged his studio and resulted in the destruction of some of his stock of negatives.[26] beato rapidly replenished his portfolio and returned with the album photographic views of japan with historical and descriptive notes, compiled from authentic sources, and personal observation during a residence of several years, which comprised “views” (architectural scenes, landscapes, and cityscapes) aswell as “costumes” (genre scenes).[27] each of the photographs included in beato’s post-1868 album is accompanied by a letterpress text by james william murray, a friend of beato’s who was an assistant commissary general based in yokohama and a noted author of travel guides on japan.[28] photographs were mounted on the recto side of each leaf, and a printed label with an accompanying description was attached on the opposite page. beato’s position as a canonical figure of souvenir photography in yokohama is owed to his distinctive use of motifs. these ranged from the introduction of the categories of views and costumes in his album photographic views of japan to the use of the album format, painted backdrops for studio photographs, and hand-coloring.[29] beato standardized his albums into “complete albums” of one hundred prints or “half-albums” of fifty. the practitioners of the post-beato generation, including stillfried, farsari, and kimbei, inherited a part of beato’s studio negatives and continued to print and sell his images for decades. along with shimooka renjō, whose apprentices later formed the mainstay of the second generation of souvenir photographers, beato is regarded as one of the founders of souvenir photography in yokohama.[30] fig. 2: felice beato, view on the new road, mississippi bay, 1864–1868, albumen silver print, 22.9 x 29.6 cm, the j. paul getty museum (lacoste, felice beato, plate 34). fig. 3: felice beato, racecourse at negishi, yokohama, 1866, 19 x 28 cm, albumen silver print, private collection. fig. 4: felice beato, bridge at meyangoshi 1867?. 22 x 29 cm, albumen silver print, courtesy of special collections, fine arts library, harvard university. fig. 5: felice beato, street in atzungi 1867?. 22 x 29 cm, albumen silver print, courtesy of special collections, fine arts library, harvard university. beato’s yokohama images depict the major sites of the town including locations within the foreign settlement, panoramic views of yokohama, and scenic spots in yokohama and within the treaty port boundary. these images comprise scenic places within the settlement as well as the typical excursion routes taken by foreign residents based in yokohama.[31] for instance, the image of negishi bay, the so-called mississippi bay, which was described as “the most beautiful for varied scenery in the world […] [and] especially at the sunset and twilight hours […] matchlessly lovely,”[32] depicts the new walking path constructed by the japanese in 1864 (fig. 2). passing along the beach and “through several japanese villages, past rice and wheat fields, and through a beautiful valley,”[33] this path—known as the “new road”—was popular among foreign residents for leisurely walks, and they often praised the view of the bay and the idyllic scenery of fishing villages along the coast line below.[34] a large number of teahouses were perched along this “new road,” which was in the 1860s often frequented by soldiers and sailors who were “not always in a very sober condition.”[35] negishi, kamakura, and enoshima are among the other locations frequently visited by foreign residents. these sites were later recommended in a handbook for travellers in central & northern japan written by ernest satow and a.g.s. hawes (1884), and remained classic destinations for excursions among foreigners for many years.[36] kusakabe kimbei, beato’s former assistant and one of the most prolific japanese souvenir photographers of the 1880s and 1890s, also adopted these motifs, which beato already had included into his repertoire.[37] popular tourist spots within the treaty boundary of yokohama, such as kamakura with its famous bronze buddha and enoshima island, were first captured by beato’s camera for his customers. these images in turn continued to boost the popularity of these sites among visiting foreigners throughout the nineteenth century (and even to this day), as is evidenced by their regular appearance in foreign-language guidebooks and their inclusion in kimbei’s portfolio. however, a closer look at the details of beato’s souvenir photographs reveals a number of time-specific peculiarities. the selection of venues for landscapes not only shows beato’s impressively wide range of sites, it also reveals his concern with producing memorable images of sites that held special significance for the primary customers of his early years—namely, the foreign expatriates in yokohama. these sites include, for example, the race-course near yokohama settlement (fig. 3) and depictions of sports like hunting, shooting, and boating. these were only a few of the pastimes enjoyed by the expatriates in yokohama. although the yokohama bay provided a good location for regattas, racing seems to have been the most popular sport in the area. occasional race-meets were held on the garrison parade ground or on the rifle range until the japanese government leased farming land near mississippi bay to the games committee of the settlement in 1866; however, kusakabe kimbei did not include this particular place in his portfolio when he began his own business in the 1880s. considering the fact that horse-racing was still going strong in the 1880s and was regarded as a highlight of the social life of the yokohama settlement, kimbei&rsquos removal of the race-meeting image from his repertoire is a clear indication that he felt the interests of photography’s consumers were shifting. similarly, large numbers of scenic venues along the popular excursion routes from yokohama also disappeared from his repertoire. one such example is miyagase, a place located 35 miles west of yokohama, which used to be a popular destination in the 1860s for summer day-trip outings to the mountain areas (fig. 4).[38] another example is atsugi, a post town some 20 miles from yokohama, which was included on several day-trip itineraries and was popular among foreigners (fig. 5). until the early 1870s foreign travel and excursion was limited to the treaty ports and their immediate environs. only diplomats, official employees, and those who could take advantage of diplomatic connections managed to enter the interior. during the 1870s travel restrictions were relaxed. in may 1874 the regulations on foreigners travels outside the treaty ports (gaikokujin naichi ryokō injun jōrei) were promulgated and the government began issuing special passes to foreign residents and visitors who wanted to travel to the interior.[39] by the 1880s and the 1890s sites like miyagase and atsugi had been supplanted by other historic tourist spots outside the treaty boundary that had now become accessible. tourists abandoned these small mountain villages in favor of more grand and scenic tourist locations like kyoto and the ruins of osaka castle, which were recommended in guidebooks. fig. 6: kusakabe kimbei, 553. grand hotel, yokohama. 1890s, 19 x 27 cm, hand-colored albumen silver print, yokohama archives of history (yokohama kaiko shiryokan and yokohama kaiko shiryo fukyu kyokai, meiji no nihon, 7). fig. 7: kusakabe kimbei, 544. railway station, yokohama 1880s, 19 x 27 cm, hand-colored albumen silver print, yokohama archives of history (yokohama kaiko shiryokan and yokohama kaiko shiryo fukyu kyokai, meiji no nihon, 26). fig. 8: kusakabe kimbei, 520. festival lanterns, bentendori, yokohama, 1880s, 20 x 28 cm, hand-colored albumen silver print, yokohama archives of history (yokohama kaiko shiryokan and yokohama kaiko shiryo fukyu kyokai, meiji no nihon, 28). fig. 9: kusakabe kimbei, 517. honcho dori, yokohama, 1880s, 20 x 27 cm, hand-colored albumen silver print. (campione, francesco paolo and marco fagioli eds. ineffabile perfezione: la fotografia del giappone 1860-1910 firenze, milano: giunti, 2010, 24). while adopting beato’s core images of yokohama for use as one of his major motifs, kimbei’s expansion of his yokohama repertoire in the 1880s is notable in that the new images were primarily key tourist venues. these new topics not only included post-1868 institutions like the grand hotel (1870–1923) (fig. 6), the most prestigious place to stay in the settlement, but also the railway station for steam train service between yokohama and shinbashi/tokyo (fig. 7), which was built in 1872 and was indispensable as a means of quick transport to the capital city (taking 53 minutes instead of the usual 10 hours on foot). the images in kimbei’s repertoire of honchō and benten dōri, yokohama’s main streets and center of globetrotter shopping during the 1880s, are of particular interest, and provide a remarkable contrast to beato’s earlier 1860s-portfolio where they are notably absent (fig. 8).[40] shopping was the chief amusement for tourists in yokohama.[41] a whole array of stores catering to tourist tastes and targeting western globetrotters was established. their wares ranged from embroidery, lacquer ware for interior furnishing, and ivory carving to western-style dresses for women, porcelains, and oil paintings as well as aquarelles, photographs, and postcards.[42] for many visitors to japan during the nineteenth century, photography was an irresistible attraction. a retired officer and a welsh tourist left an account of his tempting encounter with japanese souvenir photography on arrival at the bustling port of yokohama: “passing the studio of messrs. stillfield and anderson [sic], whose photos (as i hurriedly glanced at them) made my mouth water […]”[43] a visit to a photography studio was a significant part of the foreign tourists’ shopping binge and search for exotic ‘curios’. various images of benten and honcho streets were available at kimbei studio during its more than thirty years of business operation. notably, those images showing honcho street on sale from the 1890s often include his own photographic studio as a part of the streetscape of yokohama’s prospering avenue (fig. 9). in view of this, it is obvious that the primary incentive for creating shots of benten and honcho streets was more than simply offering a memorable collectible for tourists within the context of nineteenth-century yokohama tourism and the typical behavioral pattern of western globetrotters. kimbei studio not only provided a visual reminder to purchasers of their curio hunting in yokohama, but also to the inextricable liaison between the tourist industry in nineteenth-century yokohama and the souvenir photography studio itself. between fascination and disenchantment: yokohama in the early age of globetrotter tourism and souvenir photograph in the mind of both japanese and non-japanese, yokohama had special status as a multi-national space that symbolically embodied the otherness within the country. nonetheless, the perceptions diverged according to perspective. the rise of the globetrotter as the major group of visitors to yokohama complicated the non-japanese view of nineteenth-century yokohama even more. as a thriving and energetic trading community, nineteenth-century yokohama attracted both native and non-native merchant-adventurers. the early long-term foreign residents of yokohama were ambitious young entrepreneurs afflicted with gold rush fever. large-scale foreign trading companies set up branches in yokohama and profited from the flourishing trade in raw silk and tea.[44] the headquarters of the leading japanese silk traders were located on benten street, an area filled with shops selling fur, ivory, exclusive porcelain, and lacquer items for foreign customers, and a venue for luxury-class retail shops catering to the local nouveau riche.[45] its international flair also attracted affluent japanese celebrities. the foreign settlement in yokohama, protected by gates and guardhouses until 1872, was built entirely in a “european” style, and pigeon-english was the business language in yokohama’s benten street, where a pigeon-english signboard was perched over every door.[46] japan’s first european restaurant run by a japanese was opened in yokohama in 1867; this was followed by two others within the next few years, which were frequented by intellectuals and celebrities from tokyo.[47] as a site where such items could be bought, the port city of yokohama also appeared to subsist on its “otherness” from the rest of japan. a yokohama print by utagawa hiroshige iii (fig. 10) depicting a bustling street in yokohama’s foreign settlement documents the fascination felt by local japanese. it was not just the distinctive, foreign-style architecture of the street like the tenshudō (“temple of the heavenly lord” or the church of the sacred heart of jesus) that was deemed worthy of depiction, the japanese were also gripped by the casual juxtaposition of foreigners and locals in the same japanese venue, which was symbolically marked by the familiar view of mount fuji. fig. 10: utagawa hiroshige iii, picture of yokohama trading firms and the tenshudō. 1870. the metropolitan museum of art, gift of lincoln kirstein, 1959 (meech-pekarik, the world of the meiji print, fig. 39). fig. 11: hashimoto sadahide. foreigners buying lacquer in honcho (ijin honcho nite nurimono o kaiire no zu), record of things seen and heard at the open port of yokohama. 6 vols., 1862–65, vol. 1, images 4 (meech-pekarik, the world of the meiji print, 41, fig. 33). fig. 12: utagawa sadahide: americans enjoying sunday in yokohama. 1861, 36 x 24.2 cm. library of congress, washington, d.c. for the locals, yokohama―both imagined and experienced―often projected its essentially foreign features. from the end of the 1850s to the early 1870s, during the period immediately after the opening of the treaty ports, sensational images of “foreign things in yokohama” were published as woodblock prints and books targeted at a japanese audience. the overwhelming popularity of these yokohama prints, or yokohama ukiyoe, which sold as many as 250,000 copies between 1859 and 1862,[48] bears witness to the insatiable demand for this inexpensive, traditional news media featuring the latest, topical subjects. these yokohama ukiyoe were seldom created from first-hand observation and often relied heavily on illustrations from foreign newspapers like the illustrated london news. these illustrations weremingled with existing visual rhetoric borrowed from mid-eighteenth century nagasaki-e and other contemporary yokohama prints, as well as with invented motifs.[49] claiming the artist’s direct observation as one of his sources, the yokohama-based artist, hashimoto sadahide, underscored the authenticity of the illustrations and texts in his three-volume bestseller record of things seen and heard at the open port of yokohama (yokohama kaikō kembun shi, first published in 1862, with an additional three volumes in 1865) (fig. 11). interestingly, all the yokohama prints, including sadahide’s work, were silent about the more realistic aspects of the encounter with the west. they say nothing, for instance, about the series of bloody conflicts that occurred during the first decade after the opening of the port.[50] instead they focused largely on the curious “peculiarities” brought by the westerners to yokohama―their customs, vessels, commodities, and even their bodies. in effect this visual media helped to tame xenophobic sentiments and acted as de facto "public relations agents for the foreigners,"[51] fuelling japanese popular imagination of the exotic (fig. 12). yokohama was designated as a treaty port because it was believed that its physical remoteness to any large village would deter foreigners from making contact with locals; the yokohama prints reveal how yokohama was fated to embody this “disconnectedness” from the rest of japan. the multiculturalism characteristic of nineteenth-century yokohama, in turn, caused frustration among visiting globetrotters. yokohama seemed to them to be a “lie-european town.”[52] the emerging flux of tourists to the port city promoted the gap between visitors’ expectations of imagined yokohama as the gateway to japan and the actual physical, social, cultural entity of yokohama in reality. it is no surprise that the town quickly became a mere stepping-stone for globetrotters who were on their way to somewhere else. indeed, western visitors on tour often had an ambivalent relationship with the city. disparaged as “gloomy, spiritless, and depressing,”[53] many tourists left yokohama for tokyo after only a short stay. after viewing lovely “fusiyama” on board before anchoring at yokohama, the first disappointment often began with the first glimpse of the port: an englishman arriving in yokohama, looking at the town from a ship in the bay, will have some difficulty at first in discovering any very novel feature in its appearance. to the left on a hill he sees european houses in abundance; all along the shore are large stone buildings, hotels, store-houses, and clubs such as may be seen in any seaport town at home; and with a score or two of steamers of every kind in the foreground, it is indeed hard to realize that he is face to face with the land of the mikados.[54] henry adams, a new england intellectual and an influential historian who visited japan in 1886 as the travel companion of american painter john la farge, complained that the architecture in yokohama seemed doll-like.[55] in japan, travelers were lodged in western-style hotels like the grand hotel at no. 20 in yokohama’s foreign settlement, which was described as “a thoroughly english hotel”[56] and was one of the most popular places to stay for merchants and travelers from around the world. the staff line-up was thoroughly cosmopolitan: english or american landlords, french cooks, japanese servants, a french-speaking chinese steward, a portuguese clerk, and a wallachian night watchman.[57] a welsh tourist, s.h. jones-parry, noted his disappointment in missing the “real” “japaneseness” in yokohama: “it seemed very strange to be suddenly surrounded by japanese, and i could not help feeling sorry that so many had donned our ugly and unbecoming garments; but it was glorious fun being beset by real jinricksha men in real japanese costume (little of it though there was), and being crushed upon by real jinrickshas, which looked like leggy bath-chairs.”[58] likewise, the french art critic and collector théodore duret found too much of europe upon his arrival in yokohama.[59] and isabella stewart gardner, a philanthropist and wealthy art collector who visited japan in 1883 during her two year-long round-the-world trip noted that “yokohama is given over to many foreigners who live here charmingly, but without local atmosphere, and who are here for money-getting.”[60] in the age of the globetrotter, yokohama remained a vital center for prospering foreign trades, but its significance as a gateway to japan was increasingly reduced to a short pit-stop for western tourists who were enroute to the rest of japan. on its benten and honcho streets, yokohama―a rectangular slip of land surrounded by the sea on the north, by an extensive swamp on the south, and by a gulf on the west―offered the first opportunity for “curio shopping” and provided the visitor’s first encounter with indigenous people. still, the city’s western flair appeared to many a physical extension of the westerner’s own cultural sphere. in his search for alterity, duret, for instance, found his encounter with the religious monuments in tokyo a great relief: “we encountered an absolutely new architecture which owed nothing to the greek nor to the gothic. we finally felt that we were in asia […]”[61] rather than enjoying an extensive stay in yokohama, globetrotters commonly embarked on short one-day excursions to kamakura and tokyo in search of “otherness.” in the visiting westerner’s perception, yokohama was a space disconnected from the “real” japan. fig. 13: felice beato, curio shop, 1868, 23.5 x 27 cm, hand-tinted albumen silver print, the j. paul getty museum (lacoste, felice beato, plate 67). fig. 14: anonymous. “[curio shop]”, 1870s–1880s?, albumen silver print, isabella stewart gardner museum, album 4.6 (chong and murai, journeys east, 119). fig. 15: kusakabe kimbei, 102. curio merchant, 1880s, 20 x 27cm, hand-tinted albumen silver print, private collection. the creators of souvenir photographs of yokohama attempted to address the frustration felt among westerners about the cultural detachment of the city from what was believed to be typically “japanese.” even before the rise of globetrotting tourism, the benten dōri, also called “curio street,” served this purpose and was much frequented by foreign expatriates during the 1860s; it was introduced to the japanese audience in a guidebook as one of the exotic spectacles of yokohama (fig. 11).[62] beato and kimbei also sought to enhance the “otherness” of their visual products so that they could be marketed as images of japan. however, their approaches were quite different. in beato’s photograph of a curio shop the camera focuses primarily on conveying the domestic mode of shop display (fig. 13). the curio or souvenir shops in the main streets, with their typical display in the shop front of tourist commodities for curio hunters, were among the venues through which yokohama “reestablished” its “japaneseness” in the eyes of foreigners. the light effect and the uncovered soil at the shop front in beato’s curio shop reveal that the photograph is an outdoor shot. considering that an anonymous outdoor photograph of a related motif taken around 1883 shows a similarly dense arrangement of metal works, ceramics, lacquer wares, and household items (fig. 14), beato’s version was most probably less staged than kimbei’s studio work on the same subject 102. curio merchant (fig. 15). in his photograph, kimbei stages the local type of shop display in his studio; however, he tidies up the mise-on-scène by limiting the quantity and the variety of props and by arranging them in front of the camera to establish an impression of order. the final image presents a stark contrast to the chaotic assemblage captured by beato: kimbei’s abandonment of popular curios like porcelain and bronze wares in favor of light-reflecting shining lacquer props under the controlled light condition of a studio enhances the impression of exclusivity and demonstrates his careful attention to making a favorable visual impression. the repeated appearance of meticulously hand-colored bird and flower motifs―ranging from small lacquer wares to bamboo blinds flanking the scene, as well as japanese fans floating above―underscores kimbei’s intention to amplify the image’s decorative character. at the same time, this image could also be viewed as a subtle nod to the aesthetic elegance and refinement of his own photography products, which included a lacquered album richly decorated with elaborate inlays of ivory and mother of pearl (fig. 16).[63] kimbei was not only one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the photographic business in yokohama and tokyo (boasting the best sales record in 1898[64]), he was also possibly the first to introduce lacquered albums to the market, an innovation that became the most prominent feature of souvenir photography of yokohama in the early 1880s.[65] kimbei’s highly artificial staging is heightened by the performance of two young boys who, facing each other, assume the roles of cashier and apprentice in the picture. while beato was more concerned with visual documentation and relied heavily on photography’s evidentiary imaging power, kimbei’s constructed images clearly reveal an ideological use of the deceptive guise of photographic realism. kimbei’s personal concern for aestheticized representation was surely motivated by a desire to sell an appealingly “commodified” yokohama to his foreign customers―a far different approach from beato decades earlier. this also underpins the changing circumstances of and expectations from souvenir photography. the fleeting encounter between globetrotting customers with japan and the japanese, or even the imagined encounter of armchair travelers, almost predetermined the ideological staging of the image, bringing about an additional facet of disconnectedness to yokohama as a visual commodity. fig. 16: kusakabe kimbei souvenir album with lacquered and inlayed board, ca. 1880s, terry bennett collection (bennett, photography in japan, fig. 277). disconnected memories the emergence of the globetrotter as the main target group for japanese souvenir photography in yokohama brought dissonant memories to the surface. beato’s active period as a photographer in japan from 1863 to circa 1872[66] coincided with tumultuous political changes in japan, including the opening of the country to the world in 1854, the overthrow of the tokugawa government, and the meiji restoration in 1868. the early 1860s in japan was a time of extreme xenophobia. there remained a strong anti-foreign sentiment (jōi) both in the bakufu government and among the daimyō and samurai throughout the domains, especially in satsuma on the island of kyushu, tosa on the island of shikoku, chōshū in the south of honshu island, and mito north of the capital city.[67] both pro-western japanese and foreign officials became the targets of this anti-foreign movement, sonnō jōi (“revere the emperor and expel the barbarian”). a number of westerners were even murdered. as early as 1856 an assault on the american consul, townsend harris, was planned; in 1859 some russian naval officers were attacked in the street and one of them was murdered. in january 1861, henry heusken (1832–1861), the dutch language interpreter and secretary of the american consul-general, became the seventh foreigner murdered in eighteen months.[68] five months later in the same year, rōnin attacked the british legation in edo, wounding laurence oliphant, the legation secretary, and george morrison, the british consul from nagasaki. a year later, there was a further attack on the legation in edo, leading to the death of two men from the british guard.[69] in 1862 richardson, a british merchant from shanghai, was killed and two others were wounded because they had failed to show proper respect to the daimyo of satsuma when they crossed paths with his entourage while travelling the tōkaidō and passing through namamugi village near yokohama. this so-called namamugi incident escalated into a retaliatory british bombardment of kagoshima in the following year and also resulted in the dispatch of british and french garrisons to yokohama to protect the community (stationed from 1863 until 1875). this incident enraged the expatriates in yokohama―according to the british diplomat ernest satow―to the degree that, had british diplomats not intervened, they would have almost certainly lynched lord shimazu.[70] beato’s arrival in yokohama in 1863 coincided with this series of xenophobic attacks. fig. 17: felice beato, view on the tokaido, 1863, 20 x 26 cm, albumen silver print, yokohama archives of history. (yokohama kaikoshiryokan ed., felikkusu beato shashishū: bakumatsu nihon no fūkei to hitobito tokyo: akashi shoten, 1987, fig. 58). as mentioned, beato first came to japan in 1863. his photographs of the site where the sensational richardson affair of august 1862 occurred were released at least one year after the incident (fig. 17). they highlight the huge impact this event had on the emotional and social state of the yokohama foreign community.[71] a barricade formed by three japanese male figures standing on the tokaido road, one of them wearing a sword (possibly a samurai charged with watching beato and his assistants), also hints that the presence of foreigners was only barely tolerated. such circumstances resulted in foreign residents’ hiring armed guards called betté when going out. the image of the armed man touching his sword evokes the atmosphere of hysteria and horror that prevailed among foreign expatriates in yokohama during the 1860s. the constant alertness to danger on the part of resident westerners was still very intense in the 1870s, so much so that few non-japanese residents ever went far from their houses unarmed. after an attack on two american teachers walking down the street in tokyo during the early 1870s, william e. griffis recorded that “a certain consul posted up a notice in a public place (…) authorizing any citizen of his nationality, should any japanese be seen laying his hand on his sword, ‘to shoot him on the spot.’”[72] the confrontational and non-peripheral position of the inhabitants in beato’s japanese landscapes―in contrast to the absence of the locals in the majority of his photographs of china and india―certainly mirrors the real circumstances of his field work and perfectly responds to the lived experience of the foreign expatriates based in yokohama at that time.[73] fig. 18: felice beato, view near kamakura where major baldwin and lieut. bird were murdered, 1864, 20 x 26 cm, albumen silver print, yokohama archives of history. (yokohama kaikoshiryokan, ed., felikkusu beato shashishū: bakumatsu nihon no fūkei to hitobito tokyo: akashi shoten, 1987, fig. 49). fig. 19: felice beato, site of the murder of 2 officers of the 2nd 20 regt, 1864, 20 x 26 cm, albumen silver print, yokohama archives of history. (yokohama kaikoshiryokan ed., felikkusu beato shashishū: bakumatsu nihon no fūkei to hitobito tokyo: akashi shoten, 1987, fig. 50). a group of beato’s outdoor shots of kamakura were created under the same atmosphere of emotional unrest felt by beato and the whole expatriate community in yokohama at that time (figs. 18 and 19). ernest satow described the shock, panic, and fear prevalent among the foreign community in yokohama as a “horror […] more easily imagined than described.”[74] a set of photographs from kamakura capture the site where major george w. baldwin and lieutenant robert n. bird of the 20th regiment of foot, two englishmen serving in the british garrison in yokohama, were murdered on october 1864 by shimizu seiji as they traveled from yokohama to kamakura. coincidently, according to charles wirgman’s own account in the illustrated london news, beato and his business partner wirgman had met the englishmen for breakfast in enoshima shortly before they became victims of the anti-western terrorist attack.[75] as one of the last people to see the victims of anti-foreign zealots alive and having narrowly escaped the same fate, it is extraordinary that beato found the composure to take the kamakura images immediately after the attack.[76] these photographs are both personal and commercially minded documents of the incident, but they are oddly deprived of the sense of control over composition that is characteristic of beato’s photographs. in beato’s photographs of china and india, the westerners were typically a central part of the pictures and were often depicted as triumphant figures in the armed forces (fig. 20); other architectural views were faithful to the nineteenth-century practice of careful staging and contained posing indigenous people and sometimes even beato himself (fig. 21).[77] however, the rather rough and scattered composition of the figures in beato’s kamakura picture and the spatial relationship within the frame of this photograph are atypical of his oeuvre and less organized than usual. this is perhaps a visual echo of the community’s emotional sensitivity. the confrontational configuration of the group of japanese on the right facing a few westerners standing alone seems symbolic of the hostility that might have been felt on site (fig. 19). the strong eye-witness quality of this photograph is a great contrast to the illustration by charles wirgman allegedly depicting the site of the attack, which was published in an issue of the illustrated london news. wirgman’s image is astonishingly inattentive to the immediacy of representation and weak in making any convincing visual reference to the brutal incident (fig. 22).[78] fig. 20: felice beato, head-quarter staff, pehtung fort, august 1st 1860, 1860, 25.5 x 30 cm, albumen silver print, the j. paul getty museum (lacoste, felice beato, plate 99). fig. 21: felice beato, the bronze statue of dai-bouts, 1863, 22.9 x 29.4cm, albumen silver print, the j. paul getty museum (lacoste, felice beato, figure 1). fig. 22: charles wirgman, avenue leading to the temple of kakamura, near the scene of the murder of the two british officers in japan―from a sketch by our special artist [feb. 11, 1865], illustrated london news. feb 11, 1865 (bennett, japan and the illustrated london news, 154). fig. 23: felice beato, the executioner, late 1860s, 27 x 19 cm, hand-tinted albumen silver print, smith college museum of art (mit, visualizing cultures, http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/beato_people/beato_people_gal_small/pages/bjs49_executioner.htm). fig. 24: felice beato, interior of the angle of north fort immediately after its capture, august 21st, 1860, 1860, 22.3 x 30cm, albumen silver print, the j. paul getty museum (lacoste, felice beato, fig. 3). in this context, a series of punitive images in beato’s portfolio deserve special attention. after the kamakura incident of 1864 (the murderer was executed in december the same year) beato re-staged an execution scene in his studio (fig. 23). the staged scene captures the moment immediately before the execution. this photograph does not claim to be an authentic re-creation of the japanese method of execution, but the focal point is placed on the tension between the edge of the executioner’s sword and the neck of the criminal. the blindness and total passivity of the criminal provides a sharp contrast to our informed gaze as onlooker and witness to an (hypothetical) act of capital punishment, and it creates an oppressive tension. the painted image of mount fuji on the backdrop dominates the central picture plane, clearly locating—or “localizing”—this scene of cruelty. beato and his business customers—mostly european and north-american expatriates living in japan―were highly susceptible to punitive images connected with death. as an image creator, beato’s professional roots had a marked connection with photography capturing war conflicts. beato’s first apprenticeship as a photographer was during the crimean war (1853–1856), the first war ever to be photographed. during the course of his career, he covered an unprecedented number of battles while accompanying the british armed forces, including the sepoy rebellion (1857–1858), the second opium war in china (1856–1860, see fig. 24), as well as the american expedition in korea in 1871, and the sudanese colonial wars in 1885. his war photographs of the second opium war are the first series of photographs to document a military campaign. for the first time the camera enabled non-combatant viewers to become voyeuristic witnesses of war from a safe distance. given the technical restrictions―long exposures, a bulky large-format camera on a tripod, and the transportation of chemicals necessary to process glass plate negatives immediately after exposure—nineteenth-century war photography was incapable of creating action shots of battle[79]; the camera was necessarily used to capture the aftermath of violent conflicts and gruesome images of morbid corpses left in the battle field. one eyewitness of beato’s work as a war photographer gave a vivid description of his working circumstances: “i walked round the ramparts on the west side. they were thickly strewn with dead―in the north-west angle thirteen were lying in one group round a gun. signor beato was there in great excitement, characterizing the group as “beautiful” and begging that it might not be interfered with until perpetuated by his photographic apparatus, which was done a few minutes afterward.”[80] beato’s fascination with abject bodies[81] (of the enemy) was the logical result of market demand. the visual sensation provided by the evidentiary capacity of photographic image-making was dramatic to a nineteenth-century audience. “these admirable views,” declared the author of the journal of the photographic society of london, commenting on beato’s photographs from lucknow, india, “give us, in fact, the pictorial romance of this terrible war.”[82] an unusual quantity of such images captured by his camera, bear witness to his understanding of the intuitive and commercial power of photos of the grotesque. beato’s work is filtered through the viewer’s own fascination with the nearness of the violence seized by his camera. the extent to which the notorious “wild west” atmosphere of the yokohama settlement and the semi-normative “culture of punishment”[83] in treaty port cities in japan and china created a wide acceptance of images of cruelty remains uncertain.[84] however, it is clear that the western fascination with the subject of criminal justice practiced in japan provided an important backdrop for beato’s images. since the late sixteenth century, western accounts of japan breathlessly describe harakiri beheadings and the japanese mode of crucifixions. accounts in mid-nineteenth-century writings on japan were the de facto result of a succession of repetitive quotations from earlier materials and editorializations by the dutch publications on japan. indeed, westerners had already formed a preconception and particular “taste” for the region even before the opening of japan in 1859 and before the members of perry’s mission took the opportunity to ask a series of questions about the japanese modes of punitive measures at a social event on perry’s flagship attended by japanese guests.[85] supported by these preconditions, the shudder of horror experienced by the whole foreign community in yokohama and by beato´s potential customers at the news of the assassination almost certainly fuelled the production of photographic images focusing on these issues. seen against this backdrop, beato’s issuing of photographic albums with explicatory captions in 1868 could be viewed as a first indication of the shifting profile of his audience. it reveals beato’s concern over the fading of this shared legacy within the community and, in turn, underpins the significance of this semantic framing, which was also felt by the photographer in creating and viewing these images. the descriptive captions provided for each photograph in beato’s lavish album photographic views of japan, issued after 1868, refreshed the toxic legacy left by the series of xenophobic attacks and guaranteed that the images would be linked to it. in beato’s post-1868 albums, two photographs relating to the topic, view near kamakura where major baldwin and lieut. bird were murdered (fig. 18) and the executioner (fig. 23), were included. their captions convey the sensational quality of these images, which were intended for an audience that no longer shared the first-hand emotional experience.[86] for instance, the text for the executioner,[86] one of the lengthiest captions, describes in the first and last sections the method of execution and the executioner’s social conditions. this is a direct indication of its roots in a western fascination with the modes of punishment in japan. the middle part of the caption, however, makes reference to the image’s connection to the incident in the photograph, the execution of shimizu seiji, the murderer of major baldwin and lieut. bird. together with the landscape photograph view near kamakura where major baldwin and lieut. bird were murdered, showing the site of shimizu’s attack, beato established the meaning of his album images. they aimed at narrowing the growing emotional and social gaps between the photographer and the western non-resident tourists who increasingly formed the primary audience for souvenir photography from yokohama. fig. 25: kusakabe kimbei, 75. execution ground, 1880s, 27 x 19 cm, hand-tinted albumen silver print, private collection. fig. 26: kusakabe kimbei, 133. harakiri, 1880s, 20 x 27 cm, hand-tinted albumen silver print, private collection. fig. 27: kusakabe kimbei, 134. harakiri 1880s, 20 x 27 cm, hand-tinted albumen silver print, private collection. around twenty years later, kusakabe kimbei seemed to have no reason to include the sites of past xenophobic attacks in his work. landscapes featuring these sites disappeared altogether from his portfolio, despite the fact that globetrotters commonly undertook a day-trip from yokohama to kamakura and that kimbei’s portfolio featured as many as twenty kamakura-related landscapes.[88] in turn, the images of cruelty and of japanese punishment emancipated themselves from the historically charged context of interaction between japanese and westerners in yokohama. instead, they were established as a historically decontextualized, and disembodied standard subject in japanese souvenir photography, a subject topic that is still often discussed in major nineteenth-century publications on japan.[89] in the 1880s and the 1890s the viewer of this kind of image (fig. 25) had changed. by this time kimbei’s customers were mostly western globetrotters who no longer experienced the violence that had shadowed the lives of resident foreigners based in japan during the 1860s. since crucifixion was abolished by the meiji government soon after the restoration, it is likely that kimbei inherited beato’s shot capturing the public display of a real execution and continued to sell it without any accompanying commentary text for historical contextualization.[90] although it had once acted as a vivid visual reminder of the hostility and risk of life experienced by expatriates in yokohama, this image subject was now transformed into a popular-anthropological visual sample, parading a japanese mode of capital punishment that no longer conformed to the government’s modernization agenda. kimbei’s original photographs contained staged harakiri scenes that were entirely played out in his photography studio. these images were inaccurately staged and featured actors playing the roles of retrospective samurai figures. they were fully devoid of any direct association with particular anecdotes and by this time had become merely symbolic images of the disconnected memories of yokohama (figs. 26 and 27). the recent flood of publications by authorities, including “foreign employees” like william e. griffis and basil h. chamberlain, who were equipped with the language skills, personal experience, and contacts with educated japanese, as well as travel accounts on japan written by western globetrotters, made the lengthy descriptions that had once accompanied beato’s photographs redundant. this change reflects more than merely the attention to visual primacy that has been attributed to kimbei. it also facilitated the viewers’ own reading and represents a detachment from the earlier practice of pre-conceived semantic designation that was popular during beato’s active period. the virtual tour and the emergence of the tourist gaze the irreversible trend of the increasing detachment of souvenir photography from its customers’ experience was further accelerated by the circumstances around the purchase of such photographs in yokohama and the technical advances of photography. souvenir photography had long formed an integral part of the tourism industry. customers would walk into a souvenir photography studio in yokohama and browse the studio’s portfolio before placing orders of selected works and having them bound into a single deluxe volume. while a study of kusakabe kimbei’s photography albums indicates the possibility of a sample set of photography at the studio from which customers could have selected from more than 2,000 works, souvenir photography albums sold in yokohama were most likely to be custom-made.[91] what is still more striking in relation to purchase behavior is that it did not seem to be uncommon for tourists to stop at a photography studio immediately after their arrival in order to select photographs of locations they had not yet seen. for example, a new york doctor who landed in yokohama in july 1881 went to a photographer and a bookseller directly after checking into his rooms at the grand hotel.[92] indeed, douglas sladen recommended that readers of his travel guide club hotel guide to japan (1892) begin their visit with a stop at a photography studio.[93] placing an order for a photography album upon arrival in japan meant that the album would be completed by the time the visitors had finished their tour and were ready to leave for their next destination. in kusakabe kimbei’s photographic studio, sales catalogs were issued, presumably in 1893, for free distribution.[94] customers arriving in a port city probably picked out the numbers of photographs they wanted to order before they embarked on their actual travels in japan. this method of ordering souvenir photography practiced by nineteenth-century globe-trotting tourists highlights the fading authority of first-hand experience, which had formed the central role in souvenir photography from yokohama until the popularization of the world-touring tourism in the 1870s. instead, the discourses on japan were mediated by wide-ranging publications—tourist guides, tourists accounts, and “authoritative” books on japan—which emerged as the preeminent agents in determining the venues worth visiting, in selecting the photographs worth collecting, and in directing the reading of photographic images.[95] here we can clearly locate the emergence of tourist gaze within yokohama souvenir photography: nineteenth-century discourses constructed japan as a cultural, imaginative other, and pre-shaped the mind for visual consumption of souvenir photographic images. the emergence of the amateur photographer among globetrotters further complicates the shifting agencies of yokohama souvenir photography. the invention of kodak #1 in 1888 transformed photography from a technically demanding and messy practice to a more accessible one. during beato’s active period the wet collodion process was in use. in this complicated process, the glass plate, treated with chemicals immediately before use in a darkroom, was still wet during its exposure in a camera. while this process made the advent of commercial photography possible by virtue of its ability to produce a negative image on a transparent photographic medium, it also entailed many logistic and technical difficulties. after 1883 the pre-sensitized gelatin dry plate process was implemented in japan.[96] a radical reduction in exposure time and its relatively easy use simplified the whole process, and yet this advanced process still required special skills. thus, the development of the cheap kodak camera, a simple lightweight box camera loaded with a 100/exposure roll of film, presented a great technical leap. as a result of this important milestone in photographic technologies, kodak cameras were already common among european tourists in egypt as early as 1890.[97] the subsequent advent of the amateur photographer had a significant impact on the souvenir photography industry in yokohama. meiklejohn’s japan directory of 1892 contains advertising by cocking & co. in yokohama announcing that they stocked kodak cameras, films, and further photographic materials for amateur photographers on globetrotting tour.[98] a significant indication of their emergence is adolfo farsari’s estimate in 1889 that about one half of the visitors to yokohama were amateur photographers.[99] these changing circumstances forced yokohama-based souvenir photography studios to initiate new strategies. for instance, adolfo farsari & co. in yokohama offered the free usage of its darkroom for amateur photographers: notice to amateur photographers. we have a dark room free of charge at the disposal of amateur photographers. developing negatives taken by amateurs on plates or film, and printing promptly done at moderate prices. […] a. farsari & co., no. 16, bund.[100] furthermore, the kodak phenomenon initiated a crucial turning point and triggered a distinctive shift from the expatriate’s informed gaze to the globetrotting tourist’s gaze as a crucial agent in shaping nineteenth-century souvenir photography in yokohama. analogous to this kodak effect on the image industry in nineteenth-century yokohama was the fact that eighty percent of the total amount of tax paid by one of the yokohama-based leading souvenir photography studios in 1898 was on sales of photographic supplies.[101] kimbei’s expansions of his commercial goods to include silk photo fans and “photographic jewelleries” after 1900―ranging from gold photo buttons, photo scarf pins, photo cuff buttons, photo lockets and charms―as well as his manufacturing of metal fittings and accessories for camera by the mid-1900s was a necessary reaction to market transformations.[102] the primacy of discourses over physical experiences for the reception of yokohama souvenir photography in the age of globetrotter tourism was underpinned by the growing economic impact of its export. some evidence indicates that from the mid-1880s the sales of yokohama souvenir photographs through overseas mail orders from private and business customers came into practice.[103] the volume of exports increased continuously after around 1886 and reached its peak around 1897.[104] prints and photography albums were stocked by western dealers and sold to people who had never even visited japan. souvenir photographs from yokohama were one of the booming export items during the midand late meiji period: the export value of souvenir photographs in the year 1896 alone amounted to 24,923 japanese yen in total (24,077 yen from the port of yokohama; 693 yen from kobe; and 114 yen from nagasaki), which corresponds to around 63,730 colored photographs (at 29 cent a piece) or 87,650 un-tinted photographs (at 15 cent a piece).[105] around ninety-six percent of the total export volume was shipped from yokohama.[106] one emblematic instance of this vanishing physical experience in late yokohama souvenir photography took place in 1896: the mainichi shinbun (dated july 19, 1896), a japanese daily newspaper, reported that the tamamura studio in yokohama received an order from the j.b. millet company in boston for one million photographs of landscapes and people of japan.[107] these original albumen prints were to be used in a multivolume publication entitled japan: described and illustrated by the japanese published between 1897 and 1898 in sixteen different editions. souvenir photographs of yokohama-based japanese studios were (most were identical to ones available for sale at their studios on site) mass-reproduced to cater to foreign armchair travelers. notably, this ambitious venture of producing selective pictures of japan received generous financial support from the japanese government and thus assumed the role of a semiofficial photography designated to market japan. here we witness a further rupture within which the lived experience—or ‘the real’—lost agency, and the gaze of the cultural self became involved in shaping the “imaginative geography“ of japan. a site of “disconnectedness” globetrotter tourism heralded a disentanglement from the lived experiences that had once formed a strong incentive to create specific souvenir photographs; the emergence of a substantial export market for japanese souvenir photography and the transfiguration of souvenir photography to “kodaking” tourist photography after the late 1880s promoted both the virtual globetrotting of armchair travelers and the tourist gaze as a powerful agent of image-making practices. the growing disembodiment of travel and experience as well as the “kodakisation” of place by the tourist gaze, informed by clichés and popular discourses, were the phenomenon of the post-beato era of yokohama souvenir photography. they represent a radical breach with the intrinsic interrelatedness of beato’s photographs, his audience, and the physical place of yokohama. in a general discussion on photography and tourism, the modern tourist gaze―looking upon the world through ethnocentric filters to create imaginative geographies―appeared around 1840, when the means of collective travel and the photographic technology of image making became available and established new patterns of gaze.[108] as this article has shown, this concept of the modern tourist gaze might be too generalized. for instance, it does not address the multifaceted and often complex relationships between tourists’ mobility and their proximity to the “real” at the early, transitory stages of modern tourism, as seen in the case of souvenir photography from yokohama. the detailed analysis of technological advancements in the image-making device and its link to the shifting means of tourist access to photographic images also reveals a much more complex picture, which contained many layers of transformative process affecting the relationship between port city, souvenir photography, and audience. my discussion of yokohama souvenir photography demonstrates that the nineteenth-century port city of yokohama as well as nineteenth-century souvenir photography from yokohama were marked by “disconnectedness” on several levels, both in factual and metaphorical terms. because of the status of the settlement after treaty limits were imposed during the 1860s, and because of its transcultural circumstances as the major gateway for foreign influence in japan, yokohama was perceived as being culturally detached from the “real japan” by foreign residents, travelling westerners, and by japanese locals. the rise in globetrotter tourism in the 1870s increasingly shaped yokohama as a site of “transitions.” with a growing number of short-term western visitors, the collective memories previously shared by the long-term dwellers of the foreign settlement also broke apart. there was a major disparity between photographers as entrepreneurs (vital) and their audiences (neutral-irrelevant) in the perceived significance of yokohama. this phenomenon of “disconnectedness” turns out to have been the extreme antithesis to the increasing “connectedness” between japan and the rest of the world, which had been fostered at the same time by better transport technologies. souvenir photography from yokohama was used to connect the shared memory of foreign expatriates in yokohama, including that of its image creator. souvenir photography later documented how the shifting profile of its audiences subsumed resident knowledge and their lived experiences into a general cataloguing of the “other.” reflecting the shifting conditions both in yokohama and within the souvenir photography industry, souvenir photography images reveal themselves to be witnesses of these disparities and of the discrepancies in physical “connectedness” that were taking place in the port city of yokohama and within its visual practices during the second half of the nineteenth century. bibliography across the continent and around the world: disturnell’s railroad and steamship guide: giving the great lines of travel around the world, by land and water; also containing a list of all the railroads in the united states and canada, and other useful information relating to steamship lines, telegraph lines, etc. philadelphia. w. b. zieber, 1872. bennett, terry. old japanese photographs: collectors’ data guide. london: quaritch, 2006. ———. photography in japan, 1853–1912.boston: tuttle, 2006. ———. japan and the illustrated london news. complete record of reported events 1853-1899. kent: global oriental, 2006. ———. history of photography in china 1842–1860. london: quaritch, 2009. chamberlain, basil hall. things japanese: being notes on various subjects connected with japan. london: k. paul, trench; trubner; hakubunsha, 1890. chong, alan and noriko murai. journeys east: isabella stewart gardner and asia. boston: isabella gardner museum, 2009. city of yokohama. yokohama nakaku shi. yokohama: nakaku kusei gojusshūnen kinenjigyō jikkō iinkai, 1985. cortazzi, hugh. victorians in japan: in and around the treaty ports.london: athlone, 1987. crang, mike. “picturing practices: research through the tourist gaze.” progress in human geography 21:3 (1997): 359–373. dennys, nicholas belfield, ed. the treaty ports of china and japan, a complete guide to the open ports of those countries, together with peking, yedo, hongkong and macao. forming guide book & vade macum for travellers, merchants, and residents in general. hong kong: a. shortrede and co., 1867. dobson, sebastian. ““i been to keep up my position’: felice beato in japan, 1863–1877.” in reflecting truth: japanese photography in the nineteenth century, edited by nicole coolidge rousmaniere and mikiko hirayama, 30–39 .amsterdam: hotei, 2004. ———. “yokohama shashin.” in art and artifice: japanese photographs of the meiji era: selections from the jean s. and frederic a. sharf collection at the museum of fine arts, boston, edited by sebastian dobson, anne nishimura morse, and frederic sharf, 15–39. boston: museum of fine arts, 2004. dower, john w. “yokohama boomtown.” visualising cultures, 2008. http://visualizingcultures.mit.edu (accessed april 2, 2012) duret, théodore. voyage en asie. paris: michel lévy frères, 1874. east, alfred, sir. a british artist in meiji japan. edited and introduced by sir hugh cortazzi. brighton: in print, 1991. fraser, sarah e. “the face of china: photography’s role in shaping image, 1860–1920.” getty research journal 2 (2010): 39–52. gartlan, luke. “changing views: the early topographical photographs of stillfried & company.” in reflecting truth: japanese photography in the nineteenth century, edited by nicole coolidge rousmaniere and mikiko hirayama, 40–65. amsterdam: hotei, 2004. ———. “views and costumes of japan: a photograph album by baron raimund von stillfried-ratenicz.” the la trobe journal 76 (spring 2005): 5–26. gordon, andrew. modern history of japan: from tokugawa times to the present. oxford: oxford university press, 2003. gregory, derek. “emperors of the gaze: photographic practices and productions of space in egypt, 1839–1914.” in picturing place: photography and the geographical imagination, edited byjoan schwartz and james ryan, 195–225. london: i. b. tauris, 2003. griffis, william elliot. the mikado’s empire: book ii, personal experiences, observations, and studies in japan, 1870–1875. new york: harper, 1876. hannavy, john, ed. encyclopedia of nineteenth-century photography. london: routledge, 2007. harris, david. “imperial ideology and felice beato’s photographs of the second opium war in china.” in of battle and beauty: felice beato’s photographs of china, edited by david harris,15–41. santa barbara: santa barbara museum of art, 1999. hawks, francis l. narrative of the expedition of an american squadron to the china seas and japan. new york: d. appleton and company, 1896. hesselink, reinier h. “the assassination of henry heusken,” monumenta nipponica. 49:3 (autumn, 1994): 331–351 hockley, allen. “packaged tours: photo albums and their implications for the study of early japanese photography.” in reflecting truth: photography in nineteenth-century japan, edited by nicole co. rousmaniere and mikiko hirayama, 66–85. amsterdam: hotei publishing, 2004. ———. “expectation and authenticity in meiji tourist photography.” in challenging past and present: the metamorphosis of nineteenth-century japanese art, edited by ellen p. conant, 114–132. honolulu: university of hawaii press, 2006. ———. “felice beato’s japan: places.” accessed november 2, 2008. http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/beato_places/fb1_essay01.html ———.“globetrotters’ japan: places. foreigners on the tourist circuit in meiji japan.” accessed december 14, 2010. http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/gt_japan_places/index.html huffman, james l. a yankee in meiji japan: the crusading journalist edward h. house. lanham md.: rowman & littlefield, 2003. iwakabe, yoshimitsu. “yokohama shōnin to sono shōchō.” [the fortunes of yokohama traders] in yokohama dôhnga: bunmei kaikaki no kenchiku, edited by kanagawa kenritsu hakubutsukan, 203–212. yokohama: yûrindô, 1982. jones-parry, s.h. my journey round the world, via ceylon, new zealand, australia, torres straits, china, japan, and the united states. vol. 1. london: hurst and blackett, 1881. katō, yūzō. “from enlightment to urbanization.” in yokohama. past and present. 100th anniversary of yokohama’s incorporation, 130th anniversary of the port of yokohama, edited by yūzō kato, 71–73. yokohama: yokohama city university, 1990. ———. yokohama. past and present. 100th anniversary of yokohama’s incorporation, 130th anniversary of the port of yokohama. edited by yūzō kato. yokohama: yokohama city university, 1990. keeling, w.e.l. keeling’s tourists’ guide to yokohama, tokio, hakone, fujiyama, kamakura, yokoska, kanozan, narita, nikko, kioto, osaka, etc., etc. tokio: farsari & co., 1880. kinoshita, naoyuki. “shashin ha dekigoto o donoyōni toraetekita ka” daiikkai kokusai shinpojiumu pure shinpojiumu: hanga to shashin. jyūkyū seiki kōhan dekigoto to imēji no sōshutsu, 1–14.yokohama: kanagawa university, 2006. kořenský, josef. japonsuko: bohemiajin ryokōka ga mita 1893-nen no nihon [japonsko. japan of 1893 seen by a bohemian traveller]. translated by suzuki fumihiko. tokyo: asahi shinbunsha 2001 [prague 1895]. lacoste, anne. felice beato: a photographer on the eastern road. los angeles: getty publications, 2010. mcquire, scott. visions of modernity: representation, memory, time and space in the age of the camera. london: sage, 1998. meech-pekarik, julia. the world of the meiji print: impressions of a new civilization. new york: weatherhill, 1986. meiklejohn’s japan directory 1892. containing lists of firms, etc., in japan, corea, and wladivostock; japanese government departments; the peerage of japan; an alphabetical list of foreign residents in japan, corea, and wladivostock, and an appendix of useful information, with lithographed plan of yokohama.yokohama: r. meiklejohn & co, 1892. mit visualizing cultures. “felice beato’s japan: places.” accessed august 1, 2009. http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/beato_places/fb1_visnav01.html ———.  “felice beato’s japan: people.” accessed august 1, 2009. http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/beato_people/fb2_visnav01.html. nakaku wagmachi kankō iinkai, ed. nakaku waga machi: nakaku chiku enkaku gaishi. yokohama: city of yokohama, 1986. nakamura, hirotoshi. kusakabe kinbei: meiji jidai karā shashin no kyojin [kusakabe kinbei: giant of meiji colour photography]. tokyo: kokusho kankōkai, 2006. nakashima, yasuko “bakumatsuki beato arubamu ni okeru hyōshō kūkan no fukusōsei: shashin gazō to moji jōhō no kontekisuto,” nihon shashin geijutsu gakkaishi 19: 2 (2010): 69–85. nash, catherine. “reclaiming vision: looking at landscape and the body.” gender, place and culture 3 (1993): 149–169.  paske-smith, m. western barbarians in japan and formosa in tokugawa days, 1603–1868. kobe: j.t. thompson and co. ltd., 1930. “photographs from the philippine islands,” photographic news, no. 61 (november 4, 1859): 99 reed, edward j. japan: its history, traditions, and religions with the narrative of a visit in 1879. london: john murray, 1880. ritchin, fred. “felice beato and the photography of war.” in felice beato: a photographer on the eastern road, edited by anne lacoste, 119–132. los angeles: the j. paul getty museum, 2010. rose, gillian. feminism and geography. london: routledge, 1993. “saishoku shashin to yokohama” [hand-coloured photographs and yokohama]. in meiji no nihon: yokohama shashin no sekai saishoku arubamu, edited by yokohama kaikō shiryōkan and yokohama kaikō shiryō fukyū kyōkai. vols. 6–8. yokohama: yūrindō, 1990. saitō, kunizō. yokohama annai [yokohama guide].yokohama: benkyōdō, 1910. saitō, takio. “yokohama shashin no sekai.” in meiji no nihon: saishoku arubamu yokohama shashin no sekai, edited by yokohama kaikō shiryōkan and yokohama kaikō shiryō fukyū kyōkai, 233–251. yokohama: yūrindō, 1990. ———. bakumatsu meiji yokohama shashinkan monogatari. tokyo: yoshikawa kōbunkan, 2004. satow, ernest mason and a.g.s. hawes. a handbook for travellers in central & northern japan: being a guide to tōkiō, kiōto, ōsaka, hakodate, nagasaki and other cities; the most interesting parts of the main island; ascents of the principal mountains; descriptions of temples,; and historical notes and legends. london: murray, 1884. satow, ernest mason. a diplomat in japan. an inner history of the japanese reformation. london: seeley service, 1921. sharf, frederick a. “a traveler’s guide.” in art and artifice: japanese photographs of the meiji era: selections from the jean s. and frederic a. sharf collection at the museum of fine arts, boston, edited by sebastian dobson, anne nishimura morse, and frederic sharf, 7–14.boston: museum of fine arts, 2004. “shashin yonman-mai no yushutsu,” mainichi shinbun, 7682 (19/7/1896): 5. sidmore, eliza ruhamah. westward to the far east. a guide to the principal cities in china & japan. montreal: the canadian pacific railway company, 1891. sladen, douglas. club hotel guide to japan. n.p., 1892. ———. the japs at home, 5th edition. london: ward , lock & co., 1895. stern, harold p. “america: a view from the east,” antiques 79:2 (1961): 166–169. stern, simon adler. jottings of travel in china and japan. philadelphia: porter & coates, 1888. sterry, lorraine. victorian women travellers in meiji japan: discovering a “new” land. folkestone: global oriental, 2009. suzuki, kihachi, and seki itarō, eds. nihon zenkoku shōkō jinmeiroku [directory of merchants and artisants in japan]. 2 vols. tokyo: nihon zenkoku shōkō jinmeiroku hakkōjo, 1898. tai, reiko. “yokohama no shashinshi kusakabe kimbei to kōbe fūkei 1” [yokohama-based photographer kusakabe kimbei and his photographs of kobe 1]. kōbe shiritsu hakubutsukan kenkyū kiyō 25 (2009): 108–180. urry, john and jonas larsen. tourist gaze.london: sage, 2011. wakita, mio. “meiji-ki ni okeru shashin gainen to ‘shashinteki na mono’: shashin no shikakusei to mediasei konseputo o chūshin ni” [meiji-concepts of photography and the photographic: focusing on the visuality and mediality of photography], kajima bijutsu kenkyu 29 (november 2012): 195–205. ———. “made in japan: nineteenth-century souvenir photography from yokohama.” in the photograph and the collection: create, preserve, analyze, present, edited by graeme farnell, 472–507. boston: museumsetc, 2013. ———. staging desires: japanese femininity in kusakabe kimbei’s nineteenth-century souvenir photography. berlin: reimer, 2013. worswick, clark. japan: photographs 1854–1905. new york: pennick publishing, 1979. yarnall, james l. john la farge, a biographical and critical study. surrey and burlington: ashgate, 2012. yokohama kaikō shiryōkan, ed. ferikkusu beato shashinshū, bakumatsu nihon no fūkei to hitobito. tokyo: akashi shoten, 1987. yokohama kaikō shiryōkan and yokohama kaikō shiryō fukyū kyōkai, eds. meiji no nihon “yokohama shashin” no sekai: saishoku arubamu [colour album: meiji japan. the world of “yokohama photography”]. yokohama: yūrindō, 1990. yokohamashi sōmukyoku shishi henshūshitsu yokohamashi shi, vol. 3, jō, yokohama: yokohamashi, 1961. yokoyama, toshio. japan in the victorian mind. a study of stereotyped images of a nation 1850–80. london: macmillan, 1987. [1] the author would like to thank volker elis, martin dusinberre, harald fuess, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. [2] “photographs from the philippine islands,” photographic news, no. 61 (november 4, 1859): 99. [3] allen hockley, “expectation and authenticity in meiji tourist photography,” challenging past and present: the metamorphosis of nineteenth-century japanese art, ed. ellen p. conant (honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 2006), 116. for the problematic of reducing photography’s potential entirely to a historical resource, see this article by hockley and my monograph on kusakabe kimbei’s female imagery. mio wakita, staging desires: japanese femininity in kusakabe kimbei’s nineteenth-century souvenir photography (berlin: reimer, 2013), esp. 7–18. [4] see, for instance, catherine nash, “reclaiming vision: looking at landscape and the body,” gender, place and culture 3 (1993), 149-169. [5] see, for instance, gillian rose, feminism and geography (london: routledge, 1993); john urry, the tourist gaze (london: sage, 1990). [6] mike crang, “picturing practices: research through the tourist gaze,” progress in human geography 21:3 (1997), 359. [7] in her article on the representation of the city of nagasaki both in beato’s images and in the accompanying caption texts, nakashima yasuko shares the same concern that the previous scholarship on beato landscape photographs seldom analyzes them within a larger transcultural framework. focusing on the subjects represented in both image and caption text, nakashima’s analysis takes a comparative approach and reveals the dissonant messages conveyed by the photographic medium itself and the multi-layered semantic construction of beato’s nagasaki landscapes. nevertheless, nakashima’s study misses some vital aspects, including beato’s visual strategies and the historical, cultural, and social backgrounds for beato’s capturing particular venues. yasuko nakashima, “bakumatsuki beato arubamu ni okeru hyōshō kūkan no fukusōsei: shashin gazō to moji jōhō no kontekisuto,” nihon shashin geijutsu gakkaishi 19:2 (2010): 69–85. [8] see katō yūzō, “from enlightenment to urbanization”, yokohama. past and present, ed. kato yūzō (yokohama: yokohama city university, 1990), 72. [9] nicholas belfield dennys, ed. the treaty ports of china and japan, a complete guide to the open ports of those countries, together with peking, yedo, hongkong and macao. forming guide book & vade macum for travellers, merchants, and residents in general (hong kong: a. shortrede and co., 1867), 580–581. [10] see katō, yokohama. past and present. 31, 36; w.e.l. keeling, keeling’s tourists’ guide to yokohama, tokio, hakone, fujiyama, kamakura, yokoska, kanozan, narita, nikko, kioto, osaka, etc., etc. (tokio: farsari & co., 1880), 26. [11] see john hannavy, ed. encyclopedia of nineteenth-century photography (london: routledge, 2007), 770. see also terry bennett, photography in japan, 1853–1912 (boston: tuttle, 2006). [12] see takio saitō, bakumatsu meiji yokohama shashinkan monogatari (tokyo: yoshikawa kōbunkan, 2004), 56–68. [13] instead of residing in tokyo, foreign diplomats lived in yokohama, “preferring society to the doubtful charms of the japanese capital.” see, for instance, william elliot griffis, the mikado’s empire: book ii, personal experiences, observations, and studies in japan, 1870–1875 (new york: harper, 1876), 339. [14] “photography. w. saunders begs to inform the community of yokohama that on monday next and five following days he will be prepared to take portraits, & c., in the newest and most approved styles. also for sale and on view a collection of photographs to which inspection is invited. 51 english. yokohama, 18th september, 1862.” the text of this ad is reprinted in terry bennett, old japanese photographs: collectors’ data guide (london: quaritch, 2006), 223. it should be noted, however, that saunders only stayed in japan for several months. [15] felice beato, japan weekly mail february 12th, 1870, reprinted in bennett, old japanese photographs, 226. [16] across the continent and around the world: disturnell’s railroad and steamship guide: giving the great lines of travel around the world, by land and water; also containing a list of all the railroads in the united states and canada, and other useful information relating to steamship lines, telegraph lines, etc. (philadelphia. w.b. zieber, 1872), 113. [17] eliza ruhamah sidmore, westward to the far east. a guide to the principal cities in china & japan (montreal: the canadian pacific railway company, 1891), 6. [18] griffis, the mikado’s empire, 339. [19] basil hall chamberlain, things japanese: being notes on various subjects connected with japan (london: k. paul, trench; trubner; hakubunsha,1890), 215. for the globetrotter phenomenon in japan, see luke gartlan, “changing views: the early topographical photographs of stillfried & companym,” in reflecting truth: japanese photography in the nineteenth century, ed. nicole coolidge rousmaniere and mikiko hirayama (amsterdam: hotei, 2004), 56; allen hockley, “globetrotters’ japan: places. foreigners on the tourist circuit in meiji japan.” accessed december 14, 2010. http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/gt_japan_places/index.html. gartlan points out that the first possible usage of the term was in the yokohama port, in an article in the yokohama press. “globe trotters.” the japan mail, august 22,1873, 540–541. see gartlan, “changing views,” footnote 56. [20] out of a total of 557: 200 (great britain), 95 (us), 90 (france), 66 (prussia), 37 (the netherlands), 26 (switzerland), 20 (italy), 19 (portugal), 4 (others). yokohamashi sōmukyoku shishi henshūshitsu yokohamashi shi, vol. 3, jō (yokohama: yokohamashi, 1961,) 394. [21] sebastian dobson, “yokohama shashin,” in art and artifice: japanese photographs of the meiji era: selections from the jean s. and frederic a. sharf collection at the museum of fine arts, boston, sebastian dobson, anne nishimura morse, and frederic sharf (boston: mfa, 2004), 28. [22] josef kořenský, japonsuko: bohemiajin ryokōka ga mita 1893-nen no nihon [japonsko. japan of 1893 seen by a bohemian traveler], trans. suzuki fumihiko (tokyo: asahi shinbunsha 2001 [prague 1895]), 42. [23] british journal of photography, 24 (november 1877): 914; 536. cited in dobson, “yokohama shashin,” 30. [24] dobson, “yokohama shashin,” 30–31. [25] saitō. bakumatsu meiji yokohama shashinkan monogatari, 152. [26] there was a report in the japan times overland mail confirming this. it stated that “[a commendation] under captain cardew, saved a great deal of mr. beato’s property.” cited in bennett photography in japan, 94–95. [27] one of beato’s photographic views of japan albums can be viewed on the web sites of mit visualizing cultures. mit visualizing cultures. “felice beato’s japan: places.” accessed august 1, 2009. http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/beato_places/fb1_visnav01.html ; mit visualizing cultures. “felice beato’s japan: people.” accessed august 1, 2009. http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/beato_people/fb2_visnav01.html. [28] saitō. bakumatsu meiji yokohama shashinkan monogatari, 82. hockley argues that other members of yokohama community, such as charles wirgman and john l. black of the japan gazette, could have also been involved as the authors of the caption texts. allen hockley, “felice beato’s japan: places,” accessed november 2, 2008. http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/beato_places/fb1_essay01.html [29] see luke gartlan, “views and costumes of japan: a photograph album by baron raimund von stillfried-ratenicz.” the la trobe journal 76 (spring 2005), 7. hockley indicates that the concept of views and costume that beato possibly introduced to japan can be traced back to his early career in the mediterranean where this categorical dichotomy was commonly used in the commercial photography business. see allen hockley, “packaged tours: photo albums and their implications for the study of early japanese photography.” in reflecting truth: photography in nineteenth-century japan, ed. nicole co. rousmaniere and mikiko hirayama (amsterdam: hotei publishing, 2004), footnote 16. [30] see “saishoku shashin to yokohama,” in meiji no nihon: yokohama shashin no sekai saishoku arubamu, ed. yokohama kaikō and yokohama kaikō shiryō fukyū kyōkai (yokohama: yūrindō, 1990), vii. [31] yokohama kaikō shiryōkan, ed., bakumatsu nihon no fūkei to hitobito. ferikkusu beato shashinshū (tokyo: akashi shoten, 1987), 28. [32] griffis, the mikado’s empire, 340. [33] ibid. [34] see yokohama kaikō shiryōkan, ferikkusu beato shashinshū, 24. [35] dennys, the treaty ports of china and japan, 586. [36] ernest mason satow and a.g.s. hawes, a handbook for travellers in central & northern japan: being a guide to tōkiō, kiōto, ōsaka, hakodate, nagasaki and other cities; the most interesting parts of the main island; ascents of the principal mountains; descriptions of temples,; and historical notes and legends (london: murray, 1884). [37] for a detailed analysis of motifs by beato which served as direct prototypes for kimbei’s catalogue of subjects, see wakita, staging desires, 93–131. for a similar process concerning the students of raimund stillfried, see gartlan, “changing views,” 51. [38] in the captions of beato’s photography, miyagase was written as “mayonashi.” [39] see toshio yokoyama, japan in the victorian mind. a study of stereotyped images of a nation 1850–80 (houndmills: macmillan, 1987), 151. according to the keeling’s tourists’ guide of 1880, tourists could obtain a passport within a few days of application to their consuls and the payment of a trifling fee. keeling, keeling’s tourists’ guide, 4. [40] according to douglas sladen, benten dori is “one of the two native streets in which europeans do most of their shopping, the honcho dori being the principal.” douglas sladen, the japs at home, 5th edition (london: ward , lock & co., 1895), 2. [41] douglas sladen gives a lively account on this shopping quarter. sladen, the japs at home, 8; 14–15. see also sidmore, westward to the far east, 21ff.. [42] kunizō saitō, yokohama annai (yokohama: benkyōdō, 1910), 9. [43] s.h. jones-parry, my journey round the world, via ceylon, new zealand, australia, torres straits, china, japan, and the united states, vol. 1 (hurst and blackett, london,1881), 182. [44] see katō, yokohama. past and present. 31; yoshimitsu iwakabe, “yokohama shōnin to sono shōchō.” in kanagawa kenritsu hakubutsukan, ed. yokohama dôhanga: bunmei kaikaki no kenchiku (yokohama: yûrindô, 1982), 203–212. [45] nakaku wagmachi kankō iinkai, ed. nakaku waga machi: nakaku chiku enkaku gaishi (yokohama: city of yokohama, 1986), 3. [46] see sladen, the japs at home, 8. [47] see city of yokohama. yokohama nakaku shi (yokohama: nakaku kusei gojusshūnen kinenjigyō jikkō iinkai, 1985), 377; yokohama kaikō shiryōkan and yokohama kaikō shiryō fukyū kyōkai, eds. saishoku arubamu: meiji no nihon “yokohama shashin” no sekai (yokohama: yūrindō, 1990), 17. [48] see john w. dower. “yokohama boomtown.” visualising cultures, 2008, 4–1. http://visualizingcultures.mit.edu (accessed april 2, 2012) [49] see julia meech-pekarik, the world of the meiji print: impressions of a new civilization (new york and tokyo: weatherhill, 1986), 17–22. [50] see meech-pekarik, the world of the meiji print, 58–60. [51] harold stern, “america: a view from the east,” antiques 79:2 (1961): 167. [52] sladen, the japs at home, 14. [53] major henry knolly sketches of life in japan in the 1880s, cited in hugh cortazzi, victorians in japan: in and around the treaty ports (london et al.: athlone, 1987), 89. [54] edward j. reed, japan: its history, traditions, and religions with the narrative of a visit in 1879 (london: john murray, 1880), 4. [55] see james l. yarnall, john la farge, a biographical and critical study (surrey and burlington: ashgate, 2012), 138. [56] lorraine sterry, victorian women travellers in meiji japan: discovering a “new” land (folkestone: global oriental, 2009), 123. [57] see simon adler stern, jottings of travel in china and japan (philadelphia: porter & coates, 1888), 45; sidmore, westward to the far east, 17. [58] jones-parry, my journey round the world, 1: 280. [59] théodore duret, voyage en asie (michel lévy frères: paris, 1874), 3–4. [60] isabella s. gardner’s letter to maud howe on june 30, 1883. reprinted in alan chong and noriko murai, journeys east: isabella stewart gardner and asia (boston: isabella gardner museum, 2009), 123. [61] duret, voyage en asie, 14. “[in edo] on se trouve en présence d’une architecture absolument nouvelle, ignorant également le grec e le gothique. on se sent enfin en asie […]” [62] for episodes, see cortazzi, victorians in japan, 66–68. [63] for a detailed discussion on lacquered album covers, see mio wakita, “made in japan: nineteenth-century souvenir photography from yokohama,” in the photograph and the collection: create, preserve, analyze, present, ed. graeme farnell (boston and edinburgh: museumsetc, 2013), 472–507. [64] see kihachi suzuki and seki itarō, eds. nihon zenkoku shōkō jinmeiroku (tokyo: nihon zenkoku shōkō jinmeiroku hakkōjo, 1898), 2: 19. [65] saitō, bakumatsu meiji yokohama shashinkan monogatari, 124; 184. [66] although beato formally retired from the photography business in 1877 when he sold his studio to stillfried and andersen, after 1872 his photographic activities took a backseat to the pursuit of speculations and property business. [67] see andrew gordon, modern history of japan: from tokugawa times to the present (new york and oxford: oxford university press, 2003), 52–56. [68] for details, see for instance reinier h. hesselink, “the assassination of henry heusken,” monumenta nipponica. 49:3 (autumn, 1994), 331–351. [69] m. paske-smith, western barbarians in japan and formosa in tokugawa days, 1603–1868 (kobe: j.t. thompson and co.ltd., 1930), 238. [70] see james l. huffman, a yankee in meiji japan: the crusading journalist edward h. house (lanham et al.: rowman & littlefield, 2003), 100. [71] still in griffis’s publication, an account on the tokaido did not omit mentioning richardson’s killing. griffis, the mikado’s empire, 359. [72] griffis, the mikado’s empire, 376. [73] see sebastian dobson, “‘i been to keep up my position’: felice beato in japan, 1863–1877.‘ in nicole coolidge rousmaniere and mikiko hirayama eds. reflecting truth: japanese photography in the nineteenth century. (amsterdam: hotei, 2004), 34; david harris, “imperial ideology and felice beato’s photographs of the second opium war in china” in of battle and beauty: felice beato’s photographs of china, ed. david harris.(santa barbara: santa barbara museum of art, 1999), 27. an interesting episode outlining beato’s working conditions in edo in 1863 indicates that beato’s work was permanently accompanied by conflicts: “on our right extended the magnificent shade of the park of the prince of satsouma [sic]…on our left the wall of enclosure of a palace of the prince of arima…mr. beato set to work to procure a photograph of this peaceful picture when two officers of the prince hastily approached him, and insisted he should desist from the operation. metman [the group|s interpreter] begged them to go first and ascertain the commands of their master…returning in a few minutes, they declared that the prince absolutely refused to permit that any view whatever of his palace should be taken. beato bowed respectfully, and ordered the porters to carry away the instrument. the officers withdrew, satisfied, not suspecting that the artist had time to expose two negatives during their absence. the guards of the escort, impassive witnesses of the scene, were unanimous in applauding the success of the stratagem.” aimé humbert, le japon illustré, quoted in clark worswick, japan: photographs 1854–1905 (new york: pennick publishing, 1979), 132–133. [74] ernest satow, a diplomat in japan. an inner history of the japanese reformation (london: seeley service, 1921), 135. [75] “the murder of two british officers in japan” illustrated london news (feb. 4, 1865). reprinted in terry bennett. japan and the illustrated london news. complete record of reported events 1853–1899 (kent: global oriental, 2006), 153. [76] according to dobson these photographs were taken in november 1864. dobson, “i been to keep up my position,” 35. see also kinoshita naoyuki. “shashin ha dekigoto o donoyōni toraetekita ka” daiikkai kokusai shinpojiumu pure shinpojiumu: hanga to shashin. jyūkyū seiki kōhan dekigoto to imēji no sōshutsu (yokohama: kanagawa university, 2006), 9. [77] harris, “imperial ideology,” 27. see also an essay by fred ritchin on the strong mise-en-scène character of beato’s war photographs and their connection to the general theatrical trend in nineteenth-century war photography. fred ritchin, “felice beato and the photography of war,” in felice beato: a photographer on the eastern road, ed. anne lacoste (los angeles: the j. paul getty museum, 2010), esp. 123–126. [78] the image depicts the terrain of the neighbouring tsuruoka-hachimangu shrine. “avenue leading to the temple of kakamura, near the scene of the murder of the two british officers in japan―from a sketch by our special artist [feb. 11, 1865]” the illustrated london news (feb. 11, 1865). reprinted in bennett. japan and the illustrated london news, 154. [79] for some first-hand accounts of photographic difficulties during the 1860s, see bennett, old japanese photographs, 40–43. a concise, yet detailed description on this topic is available in anne lacoste, felice beato: a photographer on the eastern road (los angeles: getty publications, 2010), 24–25. [80] david field rennie, the british arms in northern china and japan: pekin, 1860; kagoshima, 1862 (london: john murray, 1864), 112. cited in terry bennett, history of photography in china 1842-1860 (london: quaritch, 2009), 147. [81] his reputation as a war photographer was largely ascribed to this. see harris, “imperial ideology,” 15–41. [82] cited in ritchin, “felice beato and the photography of war,” 119. [83] sarah e. fraser, “the face of china: photography’s role in shaping image, 1860–1920,” getty research journal 2 (2010): 46. [84] in its early years the foreign settlement in yokohama accommodated five hotels, twenty-five grog shops, and an unrecorded number of brothels as well as gambling dens and a particularly shabby neighbourhood nicknamed “blood town.” griffis also noted: “yokohama is fervently believed by many new-comers, especially those who are soon discovered to be either verdant or genuine fools, to be the very worst place in the world for iniquity, gossip, and all manner of rascality.” griffis, the mikado’s empire, 344. for a lively account of the early years of yokohama as “a wild west type of town,” see dower. “yokohama boomtown,” 2–1; 2–2. see also fraser, the face of china, 46. [85] see hockley,“expectation and authenticity,” 119–121; francis l. hawks, narrative of the expedition of an american squadron to the china seas and japan (new york: d. appleton and company, 1896), 558–559. [86] the caption view near kamakura where major maldwin and lieut. bird were murdered reads: “about half way down the centre of the long avenue, called the “path of the gods” which runs in a straight line from the sea to the gate of the temple of hatchiman; ―is a spot which has obtained a melancholy celebrity to foreigners, from its having been the scene of the murder of two english officers. on the 21st november 1864, major george walter baldwin and lieutenant robert nicholas bird―both of the 2nd battalion h.b.m. xx regiment, left yokohama on horseback for a visit to kamakura and its neighbourhood. after going as far as inosima, where they breakfasted with mr. beato and some other excursionists, they left about noon with the intention of visiting daiboots; while crossing the little stone bridge shewn in the picture opposite, they were attacked from behind, and cut down before they had an opportunity of defending themselves, or drawing the revolvers with which they were both armed. information having been sent the same night, by the district authorities, to the governor of kanagawa and by him communicated to the foreign consuls; several parties of foreigners, and a detachment of mounted artillery, at once proceeded to the spot; and found the bodies of the unfortunate officers under a small shed covered with mats―the only information that could be elicited from the natives was, that the younger officer had lived for some hours after being cut down, and the elder, major baldwin, had been killed at once. the remains of the two officers were brought in and buried with military honours in the cemetery at yokohama. owing to the vigorous measures adopted by sir rutherford alckock, two men said to be concerned in this murder, were executed in the presence of numerous foreigners on the 16th december―the real perpetrator of the crime however, a leading lonin, a man of considerable standing, education and acquaintance, also of great strength and powerful build, being afterwards captured, was publicly beheaded at tobe, in presence of the english troops on the morning of 28th december 1864. this man’s name was shimadzo seyee. he had been a samourai of some influence, but voluntarily became a lonin, and confessed that it was his great desire to kill a foreigner―he thought that the two officers, whom he and another had attacked at kamakura were consuls, and described so minutely the manner of attack, that it left no doubt in anyone’s mind that he was the principal murderer. his coolness and courage at the time of execution were remarkable―worthy of a better cause. his head was exposed to view for three days near the principal bridge leading into yokohama. ―”  [87] “the executioner. decapitation by means of a sword is the most common form of capital punishment in japan. […] the view represents the execution ground, about a couple of miles from yokohama, where the murderer of major baldwin and lieut. bird―the notorious shimidzu seiji―was executed in december 1864. the executioner is a well-known old practitioner, who, by his own account, has, in a year when business is brisk, a very tolerable income. he receives some 7 ichiboos (about $2.30) per head, and has taken off as many 350 heads in a twelvemonth. his office, however, is a despised one.” [88] the xerox copy of the kimbei studio catalog in the kobe city museum collection is reprinted in hirotoshi nakamura, kusakabe kinbei: meiji jidai karā shashin no kyojin  (tokyo: kokusho kankōkai, 2006), 173–184. bennett also reprints the catalog list. for the list of kamakura-related images, see bennett, old japanese photographs, 140. [89] among them, basil hall chamberlain’s things japanese (first edition published in 1889), regarded as a “bible” among japan-related publications, discusses the topic at length. [90] although the authorship of this photograph is not entirely clear, the criminal shown both in beato’s photograph of a public display of crucifixion and kimbei’s photograph seems to be identical, in spite of the different camera angles; thus it can be assumed that beato took both images and that kimbei inherited one of them for his portfolio. [91] see wakita, staging desires, 31.  [92] quoted in frederick a. sharf, “a traveler’s guide,” in art and artifice: japanese photographs of the meiji era: selections from the jean s. and frederic a. sharf collection at the museum of fine arts, boston,eds. sebastian dobson, anne nishimura morse, and frederic sharf (boston: mfa, 2004), 11. [93] see douglas sladen, club hotel guide to japan (n.p., 1892), 12–13. [94] tai suggests that the catalog was published between the late meiji 20s to the meiji 30s (ca. 1892–ca.1897). tai, reiko. “yokohama no shashinshi kusakabe kimbei to kōbe fūkei 1,” kōbe shiritsu hakubutsukan kenkyū kiyō 25 (2009): 104–105. bennett assumes 1893 to be the year of publication. bennett. old japanese photographs, 135. the extant sales catalogs are in the following collections: kobe city museum, freer gallery of art and arthur m. sackler gallery, and private collection. [95] though not dealing directly with the circumstances around buying souvenir photographs and the diminishing significance of lived experience for souvenir photography from yokohama, hockley’s discussions reveal western accounts of japan as a decisive factor in shaping japanese souvenir photography. see hockley “packaged tours,” 66–85 and hockley “expectation and authenticity,” 114–132. [96] the wide implementation of this photographic process, however, took some time in japan. i discussed why japanese professional photographers were reluctant to utilise gelatine dry plates. see mio wakita, “meiji-ki ni okeru shashin gainen to ‘shashinteki na mono’: shashin no shikakusei to mediasei konseputo o chūshin ni,” kajima bijutsu kenkyu 29 (november 2012), 197–198. [97] see derek gregory, “emperors of the gaze: photographic practices and productions of space in egypt, 1839–1914,” in. picturing place: photography and the geographical imagination eds.joan schwartz and james ryan (london: i. b. tauris, 2003), 211. [98] meiklejohn’s japan directory 1892. containing lists of firms, etc., in japan, corea, and wladivostock; japanese government departments; the peerage of japan; an alphabetical list of foreign residents in japan, corea, and wladivostock, and an appendix of useful information, with lithographed plan of yokohama (yokohama: r. meiklejohn & co, 1892), adv. section, unpaginated [18]. [99] see dobson, “yokohama shashin,” 36. [100] murray’s handbook 1893. reprinted in bennett, old japanese photographs, 250. see also sir alfred east’s account. sir alfred east, a british artist in meiji japan, ed. sir hugh cortazzi (brighton: in print, 1991), 18. [101] see dobson, “yokohama shashin,” 36. [102] “k. kimbei, 7. honcho-dori, yokohama, japan,” in watanabe, genjiro. guide book for tourists in japan. yokohama: watanabe genjiro, 1900, unpaginated; “yokohama meibutsu tokeidai no shôshitsu” in yokohama bôeki shimpô (december 5, 1906). quoted in nakamura, kusakabe kinbei, 75. [103] see wakita, staging desires, 34–35. [104] see takio saitō, “yokohama shashin no sekai” [the world of yokohama photography] in. meiji no nihon: saishoku arubamu yokohama shashin no sekai, eds. yokohama kaikō shiryōkan and yokohama kaikō shiryō fukyū kyōkai(yokohama: yūrindō, 1990), 233–251; wakita, staging desires, 170–171; 174. the destination countries for export constantly shifted: in the 1860s a small volume of souvenir photographs from yokohama were exported to china (hong kong). during the time between the 1870s and the early 1880s china was overtaken by great britain, and later by the united states. [105] saitō, bakumatsu meiji yokohama shashinkan monogatari, 171. [106] see saitō, “yokohama shashin no sekai,” 244–245. [107] “shashin yonman-mai no yushutsu,” mainichi shinbun, 7682 (19/7/1896), 5. [108] scott mcquire, visions of modernity: representation, memory, time and space in the age of the camera (london: sage, 1998) 39; john urry and jonas larsen, tourist gaze (london: sage, 2011), 165, 170. trajectories of meaning | macgregor | transcultural studies trajectories of meaning: the shifting power of things neil macgregor, british museum, london the following podcast is based on a keynote lecture given by neil macgregor on october 10th, 2012. it opened the fourth annual conference of the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context,” titled “things that connect—pathways of materiality and practice.” the conference was organized by research area d “historicities and heritage” in cooperation with the crc 933 “material text cultures.” fig. 1: neil macgregor during his lecture in the alte aula of the ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg the reception of max weber's cubist poems (1914) in taishō japan | pierantonio zanotti | transcultural studies the reception of max weber’s cubist poems (1914) in taishō japan pierantonio zanotti, ca’ foscari university of venice in this paper,[1] i analyse the japanese reception of cubist poems, a collection of experimental poetry published in 1914 by the american painter max weber (1881‒1961).[2] first, i provide information on this little-known collection and its author, before offering a general description of the field of cultural production in 1910s and 1920s tokyo, a period that roughly corresponds to the reign of emperor taishō (1912‒1926). i employ a number of theoretical tools drawn from the works of pierre bourdieu. part 2 of the paper is structured as a historical survey of the presentation of cubist poems in 1914‒1925 japan. in the japanese cultural world, weber’s collection attracted an interest that was unparalleled in any other country, perhaps even in the english-speaking world. finally, i offer interpretations of the causes and characteristics of this reception. 1. cubist poems a brief account of the life of max weber was provided by his friend, american photographer alvin langdon coburn (1882‒1966), in his short foreword to cubist poems: max weber is an american of russian descent. he received his first art training at the pratt institute of brooklyn, new york, became a teacher of art for several years, and on his savings went to paris to study. here he came in touch with matisse, and became one of his first pupils. el greco, cezanne [sic], henri rousseau, and picasso, are the painters with whose work he is most in sympathy; but best of all he likes to study the art of primitive peoples, the sculptures of egypt and assyria, the great simple things that have come down to us in stone from the past. recently, within the last year or so, he has written poetry, and this is his first published collection.[3] weber was born in 1881 into a jewish family in białystok, a polish city that was then a part of the russian empire. he immigrated to the united states in 1891.[4] the parisian sojourn noted by coburn took place between 1905 and 1908. back in the united states, weber became one of the pioneers of american avant-garde painting, a role for which he is widely recognized today. in the first years after his return to new york, he established his reputation as “an important—if controversial—artist,” and by 1912, he was “interchangeably referred to as a cubist, a futurist, and a post-impressionist” by american critics.[5] according to percy north, by 1915, weber “had developed a distinctly personal form of cubism informed by a dynamism and spirituality that reflected a particularly american consciousness.”[6] while weber’s position in the canon of modern american painting is well-established today, his poetic oeuvre appears to have received very little attention. with the help of coburn, weber’s debut collection, cubist poems, was published in 1914 in london by elkin mathews—who also published w. b. yeats, ezra pound, and noguchi yonejirō (1875‒1947).[7] not all of the thirty-eight poems collected in this book are “cubist,” in the sense that they implement some kind of “ekphrasis” of cubist painting “at the level of methodology.”[8] in fact, traditional syntax and constructions are prevalent in many of them. some of the themes, such as the representation of speed or the exaltation of life force and energy, may be considered possessing an avant-garde flavour, and the poems’ diction often draws on the domains of science and technology, in a way similar to futurist poetry. however, many of the poems are permeated by an optimistic and at times exotic spiritualism. some present african, pre-columbian, and orientalist motifs and other allusions to what coburn calls “the art of primitive peoples.” only a minority of poems, like the two printed below, are characterized by techniques that may somehow be associated with cubism, such as asyndetic accumulation (omitting the usual conjunctions in a series of words); iteration, often with anadiplosis (repetition of the last word of the preceding clause); or verbal ellipsis (omitting verbs or verb phrases). haze haze, haze, haze, warmed, heated, dried, burnt blurred by wind-mist seething the air, air hanging air wet over the hills, air moist, damp, pressing air, gray molten hills and valleys contours, masses, finesses, gone, haze, haze, haze.[9] weather report swaying breezes earlier hours, hazed, pressed, sweated, breezes cooling the air, nature’s ambition waiting, breezes, breezes, cooler, breezes, wind mist, contours distinct, cooler, delightful, sun struggling and appearing, growing pale, faint, fainter, life easier delightful.[10] these techniques may have something in common with gertrude stein’s experiments in prose, such as those presented in tender buttons (1914),[11] and with futurist “words-in-freedom.” in this respect, the single most famous piece in the collection is probably “the eye moment,” a poem which, according to susan krane, reveals weber’s tendency to “anthropomorphiz[e] the city in his writings: windows become eyes, chimneys the nostrils of the metropolis.”[12] as the most radical poem in the collection, it may have been intentionally placed at the book’s opening. the eye moment cubes, cubes, cubes, cubes, high, low, and high, and higher, higher, far, far out, out, out, far, planes, planes, planes, colours, lights, signs, whistles, bells, signals, colours, planes, planes, planes, eyes, eyes, window eyes, eyes, eyes, nostrils, nostrils, chimney nostrils, breathing, burning, puffing, thrilling, puffing, breathing, puffing, millions of things upon things, billions of things upon things this for the eye, the eye of being, at the edge of the hudson, flowing timeless, endless, on, on, on, on….[13] elaborating on the title of this collection by a “more impressive painter than poet”[14] and on this “pretty terrible poem,” leonard diepeveen writes: through its title, cubist poems announces itself not just as poetry but as a project, one that conducted itself theoretically, analogically: words understood through the medium of paint. cubist poems’ ekphrasis has a peculiarly modernist focus. not directed at a specific artwork, this is ekphrasis at the level of methodology, directed toward a contemporary genre or movement. “cubism,” the book announces, isn’t just for painters. and with that assertion comes the implication that “the eye moment” recreates not just a depicted art form, but its methodology, and in so doing points to painting and poetry as a shared project, with a shared sense of the new. the poem also implies a common stance toward subject matter, an attempt to recreate the visual immediacy of urban life, as many early cubist painters were doing. the repetitions, the listing, the present progressive verbs, the ending ellipsis, the fact that the poem is not a sentence—these are all ways of removing hierarchies, of creating immediacy and representing the visual excess of the city. in so doing, the poem both dissolves and exalts the observer and ego.[15] however, the experimental flair of “the eye moment” is not so apparent in the rest of the collection. in general, we can subscribe to percy north’s judgment: “his cubist poems of 1914 reflect weber’s painterly interests, although the language of the poems is archaic and the forms are not particularly progressive. gertrude stein’s cubist writings were more adventurous, if less readable, than weber’s dreamy, evocatively personal poems.”[16] this evaluation was echoed by susan krane, who describes the language as “surprisingly archaic.”[17] weber’s debut effort was followed by a second collection, primitives: poems and woodcuts, which was published in new york in 1926. however, it seems that this work did not attract the kind of interest in japan that its predecessor had, and the same seems to have happened to weber’s essays on art (1916). 2. translation and discussion of cubist poems in japan (1914‒1925) articles and translations of selected pieces from cubist poems appeared in tokyo literary and art magazines as early as 1914‒1915, shortly after the publication of the original collection in london.[18] in 1914 and 1915, nakada katsunosuke (1886‒1945), kawaji ryūkō (1888‒1959), shirotori seigo (1890‒1973), and an anonymous contributor to the art magazine kensei bijutsu (detailed studies of fine art) known as “keitarō” published a dozen translated poems in total. the english literature scholar and literary theorist matsuura hajime (1881‒1966) discussed cubist poems in his 1915 book bungaku no honshitsu (the essence of literature; 1915), and provided influential translations of three poems: “the eye moment,” “buddhas,” and “silence.”[19] weber’s poems continued to be unsystematically translated in the later years of the 1910s by sangū makoto (1890‒1967)[20] and in the early 1920s by urase haku’u (1880‒1946)[21], so that by 1923 more than half of the collection was already available in japanese, though not in collected form. finally, in a span of less than two years, not one but two complete translations were published. the first was by nogawa takashi (1901‒1944), published as a special issue (march 1923) of the tokyo art and literary review epokku (epoch). the second was by shinozaki hatsutarō (dates unknown), published in osaka in august 1924 as a volume entitled zen’yaku rittaiha no shi (cubist poems: complete translation).[22] the japanese cultural field’s interest in weber’s collection is particularly striking.[23] why did a collection so neglected elsewhere enjoy such an active reception in japan? in addressing this question, i provide a description of some of the dynamics at work in the japanese cultural field, followed by an account of the discourses on cubism and the characteristics of the agents involved in the introduction of weber’s poems to japan. 2.1 the field of cultural production in tokyo (1910s‒1920s) to describe the japanese context into which cubist poems was introduced, i use a combination of established descriptive categories in japanese cultural historiography and a number of theoretical tools that draw on pierre bourdieu’s research on cultural production. in self-representations articulated by individuals and groups of the tokyo cultural scenes, as well as in the japanese academic tradition of cultural historiography,[24] cultural and artistic activities are usually conceived of as being divided into different domains that are centred on a specific art or discipline. among the best-established categories are the bundan (variously translated as the “field/scene/world of letters,” either seen in their totality or, in a narrow sense, as focused on narrative prose, which was the dominant genre in modern japanese literary discourse) and the gadan (literally, the “field/scene/world of painting,” which was the most visible and widely debated category of the pictorial arts, but often included all visual arts). these fields can be further divided into subfields. in this paper, i take into account two such subfields: the shidan, a part of the world of letters corresponding to the field of shi (a term that includes all modern poetry in non-traditional forms, often in free verse), and part of the gadan that specialized in the broad genre of “western-style painting” (yōga); this included paintings in forms and techniques inspired by european models, which were taxonomically distinct from “japanese-style painting” (nihonga). william gardner succinctly summarized these fields: the hierarchical system of prose writers referred to as [in its narrow sense] the bundan (which might be translated as the “literary world,” “literary circles,” or the “literary establishment”) was an imagined community governed by the editors and senior writers of major literary journals. the institutions collectively referred to as the bundan, almost exclusively based in tokyo, were another aspect of the metropole’s domination of modern japanese literature… the japanese poetry world, though it operated on a smaller scale, was also governed by centralizing institutions perceived as the shidan (the haidan, or haiku world, and kadan, or tanka world, were for the most part separate entities)… in a parallel fashion, the japanese art world was referred to as the gadan and, by the 1920s, had its own journals… and its own regulating institutions, such as the semi-governmental imperial academy of fine arts exhibition (teikoku bijutsuin tenrankai, or teiten) and the independent nikakai’s nikaten exhibition.[25] such distinctions served as tools for defining one’s own activities and produced effects of collective identification with an imagined community that shared a “tacit recognition of the value of the stakes of the game” (illusio)[26] that were implied in the socialized practice of a certain art. at the same time, they reflected empirical networks of relations, which were more or less formal, institutional, and hierarchical, between cultural producers, critics, magazine editors, cultural journalists, publishing houses, cultural institutions, and so forth, each of whom was involved (according to its position in the field) in the administration of the various forms of capital―cultural, social, economic, symbolic―that were connected to the production of specific genres like novels, shi, poetry in traditional forms (tanka and haiku), western-style painting, etc. the general, non-connotative meaning of bundan and gadan as the whole of the “world of letters/art” is intended in categorizations―disseminated in contemporary cultural journalism as well as in later literary historiography―such as chūō bundan (“central bundan,” or tokyo’s literary scene), a label generally opposed to chihō bundan (“provincial/regional bundan,” or the local literary scenes of less important centres), and in expressions such as doitsu bundan (“german literary world”), furansu gadan (“french art world”), etc., which were used to designate the broad national literary or artistic fields of other countries. in addition to this general meaning, in which concepts such as bundan and gadan tended to coincide with the entire field of the agents involved in a certain creative activity, those terms could also be understood in a more polemical sense—especially by the new entrants into such fields and those who occupied marginal positions in them—as the “entrenched, exclusive, and hierarchical”[27] establishments for each art form; they represented, in other words, the status quo of the power relations within each specific scene. accordingly, they could become the target of the polemical discourses of those who occupied “avant-garde” positions in the field. in this paper, i attempt to juxtapose the concept of dan with that of “fields” as theorized by pierre bourdieu:[28] “relatively autonomous social microcosms, i.e., spaces of objective relations that are the site of a logic and a necessity that are specific and irreducible to those that regulate other fields.”[29] as analytical pertinentizations of social activities, bourdieu’s fields are characterized by higher or lower levels of “autonomy” and by the existence of internal “logics” that are not necessarily acknowledged outside of them (in fact, they may even lose any validity outside those fields). similarly, a given dan is delimited by the effects of its internal logic. for instance, the limits of the shidan exist where the material and symbolic profits connected to the production, distribution, and circulation of shi cease to be meaningful or relevant. as noted by gennifer weisenfeld, however, the categories of bundan and gadan “were applied to amorphous, highly porous communities that were not nearly as monolithic as their critics implied.”[30] though perceived as distinct cultural spaces, they in fact shared a number of what bourdieu calls “principles of vision and division” of artistic practice, and were also characterized by mutual exchange and overlapping. drawing on this “highly porous” reality, i demonstrate that the reception of a cultural object like weber’s cubist poems―a collection of poetry allegedly connected to one of the most discussed trends in the fine arts―did involve the gadan, even though it largely took place within the shidan, and activated exchanges between the two fields. as the argument below makes clear, since they were a collection of modern poetry (shi), weber’s poems primarily provoked the interest of those involved in the shidan. at the same time, the category of “cubism” that was attached to them made them an object of interest for agents who were also active in the gadan, or who were able to appropriate and mobilize the gadan’s specific cultural and symbolic capital. my reconstruction of the reception of cubist poems will help illuminate the connections between the two fields and the significant role played by individuals, periodicals, and groups who were active in both. proceeding further in adopting a bourdieuian framework, i postulate that, despite the fact that the internal logic in the japanese cultural field might be described as more “static” and “sectionalized”[31] than the french cultural field that he analysed in the rules of art, by the early 1910s there were sectors in the field of cultural production in tokyo that had already attained a stage in which the “idea of a party of novelty which would come to be called the avant-garde,” and the inherent “logic of permanent revolution”[32] were increasingly operative. signs of the establishment of such logic included the following: the 1914 secession of the most advanced painters from the state-sponsored imperial academy of fine arts exhibition (an event that marked the birth of the nikakai, or second division society of painting); the gradual spread of the works and theories of the so-called “historical avant-gardes”; and the consolidation of a generation of well-educated, urban intellectuals who were not only conversant with the intricacies of the latest european and north american trends, but also progressively inclined to embrace their most radical achievements and make available and occupy avant-garde positions in relation to what they perceived as mainstream japanese art and literature. in addition to these similarities with the fields of cultural production in other contemporary capitalist countries, the japanese field of cultural production was characterized by the implementation of a double logic of legitimization, local and foreign. japan was perceived by many of its own intellectuals as occupying an increasingly integrated but still marginal position within the international networks of cultural exchanges (this view was empirically supported by an asymmetrical flow of information in which the japanese cultural press was extremely eager to register, present, or translate the latest developments from europe’s cultural fields, while the converse was not true). accordingly, a certain amount of symbolic capital could be attached to products perceived as both “western” and “new.” obviously, this was not always and automatically true, but it is hard to deny that modern urban intellectuals in tokyo were inclined to accumulate cultural capital connected to the latest trends in “western” culture and that this cultural capital, along with the material and symbolic profits related to its appropriation and use, could be employed to propel one’s own trajectory into the field. finally, it must be noted that, in the years on which this paper is focused, the different subfields of cultural production in tokyo were not all at the same level. for many historical and social reasons, some of them were endowed with more symbolic legitimacy and prestige than others. this was certainly true of sectors in the literary field centred on narrative prose. their importance was such that, as noted above, they were often designated as the bundan (“world of letters”) as such. this was likely due to the following factors: the established centrality of the novel (shōsetsu) as the modern genre par excellence; the focus of critical discourse on narrative genres; the size of the publishing market; and the connections of practitioners with the major university, publishing, and newspaper milieus. these sectors were more relevant than the shidan both empirically and in the perception of the agents involved in the field. the relatively marginal position of the practitioners of poetry in modern forms likely explains their interest in new and not yet established literary practices; when compared with authors of narrative prose, who administered a larger amount of consecrated and recognized genres and styles, they tended to study and adopt riskier experimental, non-established positions more frequently, including those represented by the “historical avant-gardes.” the established narratives about the avant-gardes in japan generally report that such movements dramatically developed after―and, to a certain degree, as a consequence of―the great kantō earthquake and fire that devastated tokyo in september 1923 because it opened new spaces for the reconfiguration and further modernization of the city.[33] however, some japanese poets who proclaimed themselves to be futurist and dadaist or who consciously experimented with techniques and tropes deriving from cubism and expressionism had already appeared in the shidan before the earthquake struck.[34] according to most histories of modern japanese literature, the same process was significantly slower in prose genres, where the first avant-garde current is canonically considered to be the shinkankakuha (the neo-sensationalist school, active from late 1924 onwards). if the shidan tended to be the most “avant-garde” sector in the literary field, its reputation as cutting-edge paled in comparison to what was happening in the gadan, where young generations of painters had begun to experiment with radical post-impressionist, futurist, and cubist styles as early as the 1910s. milestones of japanese avant-garde painting, such as yorozu tetsugorō’s (1885‒1927) akai me no jigazō (self-portrait with red eyes; 1912‒1913) and motarete tatsu hito (leaning woman; 1917) and tōgō seiji’s (1897‒1978) parasoru saseru onna (woman with a parasol; 1916), functioned, in many respects, as pioneering models for the appropriation of avant-garde materials in other local fields of cultural production. fig. 1: yorozu tetsugoro, motarete tatsu hito (leaning woman), 1917 the primacy of the gadan in avant-garde matters, both in terms of theoretical discourse and creative practices, was further established as the taishō period progressed, when a flow of information related to early twentieth-century avant-gardes reached japan. the fact that the gadan was more advanced than other fields in its localization and elaboration of avant-garde poetics and practices is confirmed by the numbers of articles, translations, and essays dealing with futurist, cubist, or expressionist visual arts that were published during the early taishō period, which were far more numerous than those dealing with products of the same movements in the domains of prose or poetry.[35] similarly, the activities of groupuscules and associations of visual artists engaged in the production of avant-garde “modern art” (shinkō bijutsu) became more and more conspicuous during the taishō period. the avant-garde nature of the gadan was also perceived by members of the shidan, who came to see it as an attribute that connoted risky perspectives and potential gains of symbolic legitimization for those who tried to appropriate it in their own works. for instance, hagiwara sakutarō (1886‒1942), today considered one of the most important japanese shi poets, lamented in a 1916 article that “in japan, painting is one step ahead of the other arts. at least, the minds of those who paint are more perceptive than the minds of those who write poetry, and understand new things better.”[36] this statement is particularly revealing when one considers that in the same article, hagiwara undertook a polemical defence of his colleague yamamura bochō (1884‒1924), the author of seisanryōhari (the holy prism; 1915), a collection of verses that, though widely ignored or panned by his contemporaries, is today considered among the first experiments in japanese avant-garde poetry, as the following excerpt attests:[37] rape-flowers everywhere rape-flowers everywhere rape-flowers everywhere rape-flowers everywhere rape-flowers everywhere rape-flowers everywhere rape-flowers everywhere faint fluting with a wheat-blade rape-flowers everywhere.[38] 2.2 the reception of pictorial cubism in japan the reception of pictorial cubism in the japanese cultural field set the stage for the reception of weber’s collection.[39] the flow of information on this subject was not limited to periodicals and authors that specialized in the fine arts, but also involved the literary world (bundan). it must be remembered that, dating from the establishment of anti-naturalist groups in japan in the last years of the meiji period (1905‒1912), a demonstrated capacity among writers to be knowledgeable about the latest trends in modern european art had become an important asset in terms of cultural and symbolic capital. meditations on art, conducted in the context of a solid knowledge of european aesthetics and art history, can be found in novels such as kusamakura (grass pillow; 1906) and sanshirō (1908) by the major meiji writer natsume sōseki (1867‒1916). gatherings of aesthetes and “decadent” authors, such as the pan no kai (pan society, established in 1908 in tokyo), were inaugurated on the premise that the cooperation and exchange between writers and artists, as exemplified by the café scene in paris, was an essential prerequisite for authentically modern cultural production. following that same logic, the literary magazine shirakaba (white birch, 1910‒1923) was tremendously influential, especially among urban bourgeois youth, in implanting the idea that the study and connoisseurship of western art was vital for gaining access to a modern sensibility. in its early years, shirakaba featured important articles, translations, and reproductions of the works of van gogh, gauguin, cézanne, and rodin, who became virtual deities in the japanese post-impressionist canon. books such as richard muther’s the history of modern painting (revised english edition, 1907) and c. lewis hind’s the post impressionists (1911) became popular among urban literary youth (bungaku seinen) and a certain amount of competence in contemporary art trends became de rigueur for even minor and peripheral authors. partly stimulated by the example of shirakaba, other major literary journals devoted increasing space to the discussion of the new trends in art, while the editorial boards of a number of coterie magazines and small cultural periodicals established in those years included both visual artists and writers.[40] painters and printers trained in the major schools of art increasingly cooperated with literary periodicals as illustrators and contributors, as well as in the creation of book and cover designs, often for poetry collections.[41] the introduction of pictorial cubism was inserted in these interrelations between the gadan and the bundan.[42] ishii hakutei (1882‒1958), a pan no kai and nikakai member who sojourned in europe between 1911 and 1912, is generally recognized as the first presenter of pictorial cubism in japan, with his articles covering the 1911 salon d’automne and the 1911 and 1912 salon des indépendants, published in tokyo’s asahi newspaper and in waseda bungaku (waseda literature), a major literary journal.[43] the poet and art connoisseur kinoshita mokutarō (1885‒1945), another pan no kai member, also disseminated his influential insights on the new school in both art and literary journals.[44] in december 1913, kimura shōhachi (1893‒1958), a post-impressionist painter and critic, published a timely translation (itself from an english translation) of jean metzinger and albert gleizes’s du “cubisme” in waseda bungaku and in the same month unsympathetically discussed cubism in another literary magazine, sōzō (creation).[45] beyond those reproduced in literary and art periodicals, a small contingent of cubist works or reproductions (by lhote, metzinger, laurencin, and léger) are reported to have been on display in tokyo in the 1913 shirakaba annual fine art exhibition,[46] and in the 1914 “der sturm mokuhanga tenrankai” (exhibition of der sturm woodblock prints), also known as “miraiha, rittaiha, hyōgenha mokuhanga tenrankai” (exhibition of futurist, cubist, and expressionist woodblock prints). both exhibitions reportedly attracted visitors from the ranks of the tokyo literary world, including shirakaba associates.[47] the painter, critic, and writer arishima ikuma (1882‒1974), a shirakaba and nikakai member, translated a chapter from umberto boccioni’s pittura scultura futuriste: dinamismo plastico (1914) as early as 1915 and provided a complete translation of léonce rosenberg’s cubisme et empirisme (1921) in 1922.[48] cubism consolidated its position as a major topic in discourses on modern art as the japanese debate on it progressed in the 1920s with translations and contributions, often book-length studies, by art historians, critics, and painters such as moriguchi tari (1892‒1984), ichiuji yoshinaga (1888‒1952), kuroda jūtarō (1887‒1970), nakagawa kigen (1892‒1972), and kanbara tai (1898‒1997).[49] starting with a special section in 1923 featuring works by picasso, dufy, braque, lhote, and others, the nikakai annual exhibition also began to host works by french cubist painters. 2.3 cubist poems as material in the japanese discourse on new art and new poetry as noted above, matsuuura hajime (1881‒1966), associate professor (jokyōju)[50] at the prestigious tokyo imperial university, from whose english department he had graduated in 1905, discussed cubist poems in his magnum opus bungaku no honshitsu (the essence of literature; 1915). he linked weber’s poetry to creation: post-impressionist poems (1914) by horace holley (1887‒1960), an even more conventional (and little-known) collection with a strongly suggestive title, and discussed both collections providing an interpretation resonating with bergsonian and vitalist ideas.[51] “while presenting max weber’s cubist poems,” omuka toshiharu notes, “matsuura analyzed the world of new art using an interpretive framework based on the concepts of ‘life’ (seimei) and ‘flow’ (ryūdō),”[52] two keywords that punctuated the japanese reception of bergson and other exponents of european lebensphilosophie. even though his readings significantly influenced the interpretation of cubist poems in japan, matsuura hajime can be considered the only translator and commentator of this collection who was organically and primarily part of the academic world. it seems, in fact, that the remainder of those involved in the reception of weber’s poetry were exponents of the shidan, the gadan, or figures who were active in both. this is retrospectively confirmed by the way in which they are qualified in the nihon kindai bungaku daijiten (great dictionary of modern japanese literature; 1977‒1978), an authoritative compilation of biographical data on japanese authors. matsuura hajime appears as a “scholar of english literature” (eibungakusha); nakada katsunosuke as an “art historian” (bijutsushika); kawaji ryūkō as a “shi poet” (shijin) and “art critic” (bijutsu hyōronka); and sangū makoto as a “shi poet” and “scholar of english literature.” noguchi yonejirō, shirotori seigo, and nogawa takashi are all presented as “shi poets,” while kanbara tai appears as a “shi poet,” “painter” (gaka), and “art theorist” (geijutsu rironka).[53] the biographical information on these authors presented below provides a description of their positions in the japanese cultural field and indications of the reasons for their involvement with the introduction of max weber’s poetry to their country. these details offer a starting point to account for the “objective relations between positions occupied by individuals and groups placed in a situation of compe­tition for legitimacy,” and contain elements for “the analysis [of] the genesis of the habitus of occupants of these positions, that is, the systems of dispositions which, being the product of a social trajectory and of a position within the literary (etc.) field, find in this position a more or less favourable opportunity to be realized.”[54] nakada katsunosuke (1886‒1945) published the earliest known translation of a poem by weber (“i wonder”) in the may 1914 issue of the literary journal seikatsu to geijutsu (life and art).[55] born in tokyo, nakada graduated from the english department of waseda university and the aesthetics and art history department of tokyo imperial university. a prominent figure in cultural journalism with strong ties to both the literary and fine arts scenes in tokyo, in 1914 he was a columnist for the yomiuri shinbun, a major daily newspaper, and covered both traditional arts and the latest european trends. he later moved to another major newspaper, the asahi shinbun, and reported on some of the avant-garde painting exhibitions that were held in japan in the early 1920s. a number of his articles published in the 1910s in the yomiuri and various art and literary journals introduced the european avant-gardes to japanese readers; they are also noteworthy because of his sympathetic attitude.[56] for instance, in a mix of uncredited translations and personal additions that was characteristic of japanese cultural journalism in those years, nakada discussed cubism and other “most recent painterly schools” (saishin gaha) in his free adaptation of gelett burgess’s “the wild men of paris” (originally published in the architectural record in may 1910), a semi-serious reportage on the paris art scene that had a certain resonance in the united states.[57] titled “futsukoku saishin gaha” (the most recent painterly schools in france), nakada’s article was published in january 1912 in zanboa (pomelo), a literary journal with a strong focus on shi poetry, run by former pan no kai associate and poet kitahara hakushū (1885‒1942). nakada was also the elder brother of nakada sadanosuke (1888‒1970), an art critic and member of the tokyo avant-garde scene who, after his stay in germany from 1922 to 1924, contributed to the japanese presentation of bauhaus and other new german trends.[58] shirotori seigo (1890‒1973) discussed cubist poems in a february 1915 article in the magazine shiika (poetry), where he also presented his translations of “oh sun,” “sun rhythm,” “to a butterfly,” “love refreshed,” and “the summer moon.”[59] shirotori came from a family of farmers from miyazaki prefecture in kyushu. he moved to tokyo to study english literature at waseda university and graduated in 1913. he was active in the lateand post-naturalist literary coteries in tokyo. his debut collection of shi, sekai no hitori (a man in the world; 1914), established his reputation as a practitioner of what was called “poetry in free verse and colloquial language” (kōgo jiyūshi). he became one of the leading figures in what was known as the “populist current” (minshūshiha), which became prominent in the shidan in the late 1910s. in 1919, he published an influential selection of poems by walt whitman, one of that school’s leading foreign models. despite his interest in the latest trends (a trait structurally shared by many modern poetry practitioners, as seen above), shirotori is not considered a part of the canon of japanese avant-garde poetry because of his involvement with “populist poetry.” kawaji ryūkō (1888‒1959) is among those who best represent the permeability between the gadan and the shidan. he was born in tokyo into a notable family of samurai origin but spent his early years away from the capital, following the appointments of his father who, before becoming an educator, school manager, and scholar specializing in western culture, had worked as a public servant. in 1907, kawaji attracted the attention of the tokyo shidan because of his experiments in free verse and modern diction, which also marked the beginning of his career as a shi poet. however, kawaji was an artist by education. he studied at the kyōto bijutsu kōgei gakkō (school of fine and applied arts, present day kyoto city university of arts) and later at the tōkyō bijutsu gakkō (tokyo school of fine arts, today’s tokyo university of the arts), graduating from the latter’s japanese-style painting section (nihongaka) in 1913.[60] he published several collections of shi, but his primary influence on the shidan was as a cultural journalist, critic, and translator, especially of french poetry. as a leading figure in the taishō shidan, he organized groups and coteries, founded new journals, such as bansō (accompaniment, 1916‒1917), gendai shiika (contemporary poetry, 1918‒1921), and taimatsu (torchlight, 1921‒1923), and discovered new talents, such as the futurist poet hirato renkichi. kawaji’s activities as a painter were practically nil, but he maintained a strong interest in the latest art trends, which he often discussed by combining the domains of literature and art. books such as gendai geijutsu kōwa (lectures on contemporary art; 1924) and machisu igo: furansu kaiga no shinseiki (after matisse: the new century in french painting; 1930) are among his most notable efforts in this field. kawaji was one of the first japanese presenters of weber. his translations of “the eye moment,” “winter’s come,” “oh sun,” and “who is there?” were all published in the february 1915 issue of the literary journal bunshō sekai (the world of texts).[61] in those years, like many other literary magazines, bunshō sekai’s pages also hosted contributions by art critics and experts on the latest european trends: for instance, in june 1916, kinoshita mokutarō discussed cubist painting, with guillaume apollinaire’s influential book les peintres cubistes: méditations esthétiques (1913) among his sources. years later, kawaji was also among the first to discuss the “cubist” poetry of guillaume apollinaire and other french poets in two articles; each was extremely rich in original insights. the first, “miraiha oyobi rittaiha to sono shiika: marinettī to aporinēru ni tsuite” (the poetry of futurism and cubism: on marinetti and apollinaire), appeared in the april 1922 issue of nihon shijin (the japanese poet), which was probably then the most authoritative magazine in the shidan. the second, “toppi-naru shiha ni tsuite: miraiha, rittaiha, dadaha, shashōha no shi” (on the eccentric poetic schools: the poetry of futurism, cubism, dada, imagism), was published in the july 1922 issue of waseda bungaku.[62] ironically, it was kawaji’s articles on apollinaire and other french “cubist” poets such as jean cocteau that contributed to the eclipsing of weber’s position in the japanese cultural world as the leading representative of cubist poetry. kawaji, like nakada katsunosuke, mobilized his cultural and symbolic capital on the latest european trends to address a general readership along with the gadan and the bundan. nakada and kawaji’s articles on cubist poems appeared in literary journals. this does not mean that they were below the radar of the gadan, because, as seen above, these were literary journals with a strong tradition of interconnectedness with the world of fine arts. most contributions to the knowledge of weber’s poetry appeared in similar periodicals. one remarkable exception is keitarō’s translations of six of weber’s poems that were published in june 1915 in the art magazine kensei bijutsu.[63] keitarō’s real identity is not known, but his remarks on the necessity of “seriously studying” cubism and futurism, despite the controversy they raised and their reputation for “folly” (kichigai), denote a neutral or even mildly sympathetic attitude.[64] sangū makoto and urase haku’u, two scholars of english literature, provided a more academic approach to weber’s poems. however, their contributions also reflect the aesthetic and technical issues raised by cubist poems in japan, and appear to be part of the contemporary network of informational exchange between the gadan and the shidan. a native of yamagata, sangū makoto (1890‒1967) graduated in english literature from tokyo imperial university in 1915. around the time that he first translated five of weber’s poems, published in shiika (january 1917), he was also establishing his reputation as a translator and scholar of english literature. in the late 1910s, he started a teaching and academic career that later culminated in his appointment as a professor at hōsei university, tokyo. sangū also published his own poetry, which was influenced by the post-symbolist school of miki rofū (1889‒1964), with whom he and kawaji were both associated. he translated blake and yeats, among many others, and played an important role in the presentation of imagist poetry in japan. his interpretive approach to weber’s poems, expounded in the notes that accompany his translations, appears to be strongly influenced by matsuura’s writings on the subject. sangū also contributed to the canonization of weber in japan as a representative english-language poet, as he regularly reprinted these translations in the collections and handbooks of english verse that he published during the 1920s. like sangū, urase haku’u (1880‒1946) also had professional connections with the academic world. he came from a kyushu samurai family that had started a mining business. after graduating (1907) from the english department of tokyo imperial university, he held teaching positions at a number of provincial schools and universities while maintaining his contacts with the literary coteries of his alma mater. he emerged mainly as a translator of english poetry. like sangū, he is often remembered for his role in the presentation of imagism in japan.[65] his translations of cubist poems were featured between 1921 and 1923 in a number of tokyo literary journals (shinbungei, nihon shijin, shisei, shi to ongaku, and myōjō).[66] none of these are considered avant-garde magazines today, but they not infrequently featured “avant-garde” material in their pages in that period. the original myōjō (morning star, 1900‒1908) in particular was one of the most influential literary magazines in early twentieth-century japan, and had an important role in the dissemination of neo-romantic and art nouveau tastes in the japanese bundan. its second series (1921‒1927) maintained this tradition of collaboration and exchange between gadan and bundan members,[67] as attested for instance by tōgō seiji’s contributions. during 1922, tōgō, whose reputation in japan at the time was that of a futurist/cubist painter, published his accounts from the parisian avant-garde scene in myōjō, including the chronicles of his interactions with f. t. marinetti and the french dadaists, and even two “futurist poems” (miraihashi).[68] 2.4 cubist poems as a reference for avant-garde poetry in japan while the authors discussed above were all members of the generation born between 1880 and 1890, the early 1920s in japan saw the emergence of a younger generation of artists and poets who were inspired by european avant-garde movements, especially in the fields of western-style painting and shi. two authors actively involved in the reception of weber’s poetry, nogawa takashi and kanbara tai, can be considered as full-fledged members of a “notional community of self-consciously aesthetically radical artists”[69] in 1920s tokyo, and are today part of the japanese avant-garde canon. little is known about shinozaki hatsutarō, who published a complete translation of cubist poems in 1924. unlike the other presenters of weber’s poetry, he was active in the relatively peripheral city of osaka. the information available on him suggests that he too was interested in the avant-garde, but it is not known if he was part of a larger network.[70] nogawa takashi (1901‒1944), also known as ryū, emerged in the early 1920s as an avant-garde poet with dadaist leanings. the son of a physician, he was born in chiba and attended tōyō university in tokyo, though he did not complete his studies. together with his elder brother hajime (dates unknown) and tamamura zennosuke (1893‒1951), a nihonga painter who, as noted by omuka toshiharu, “later became one of the most radical members of the modern art movement in the taishō period,”[71] he was one of the core figures in the epokku-sha (epoch society). they published the eponymous epokku, an avant-garde magazine that ran from october 1922 to march 1923. epokku and the next magazine published by the epokku-sha, ge•gjmgjgam•prrr•gjmgem (june 1924–january 1926), which saw the addition of the leading figure of kitasono katsue (1902–1978) to its editorial team, are regarded as among the most representative magazines of a camp in the tokyo avant-garde scene whose members were influenced to greater or lesser degrees by dadaist tendencies.[72] during its run, epokku printed articles, reproductions, and translations dealing with the historical avant-gardes, including german dada and german expressionism,[73] and ended with an issue devoted entirely to nogawa’s complete translation of cubist poems. in the previous issue (february 1923), which focused on the “latest art trends,” nogawa’s brother had published an essay entitled “rittaiha igo no geijutsu” (art after cubism). it appears therefore that nogawa’s translation of weber’s poems dovetailed with the editorial line of the journal,[74] which, in nogawa’s own words, “put [its] efforts into introducing the latest artistic trends from abroad.”[75] nogawa’s connection with tamamura and an interest in creative interactions between different arts, an interest that was shared at that time by the tokyo avant-garde sectors in the shidan and the gadan, may explain his decision to translate weber’s collection. despite his efforts in translation, however, it is not clear whether cubist poems influenced nogawa’s own poetry to any extent. in fact, having absorbed almost ten years of further avant-garde experiments, nogawa’s most representative poems make weber’s verses look rather conventional and tame in comparison: crustacean construction [kōkakurui kenchiku][76] crustaceans are logarithmic something like sin π/2 sina? since π is a circle will it be 33? no isosceles is a battle monad of wire and steel cable the external combustion engine is heavy on the barometer heavy on the winter solstice nothing to do with the circle a + b = a + 1 + π. according to scholars of modern japanese poetry, weber’s poems (especially as read along the interpretive lines of matsuura hajime in bungaku no honshitsu) actually influenced two other earlier experimenters in avant-garde poetry: hirato renkichi (1893‒1922)[77] and, to a greater degree, kanbara tai.[78] a full analysis of hirato’s poetry is well beyond the scope of this paper,[79] but even though he pledged allegiance to futurism with a manifesto distributed in late 1921, hirato also wrote two poems that he himself labelled as “cubist.” they are included in the mini-anthology “1921nen ni okeru waga shinshi undō no yonshu no tenkai” (the four developments of my movement for new poetry in 1921) that was included in the 1922 collection nihon shishū (anthology of japanese poetry).[80] as a contributor to tokyo’s chūō bijutsu (central art), one of the major art journals of the taishō period, hirato was also well-informed about the latest trends in both local and international fine arts. hirato probably knew weber’s collection (or at least the poems available in japanese, especially matsuura’s versions), but his most famous “spatial cubist poem” (kūkanteki rittaishi) is also tinged with suggestions from futurist “words-in-freedom” and apollinaire’s calligrammes:[81] flying birds [hichō][82] bird flies their hearts their shapes                                            dark black birds frail and thin they fly!        in a swastika-like whirl all mixed up above the chasms of magnetism                        swallowed by the vortex they dance!                  they dance! their wings, waterwheels after one bird                               one bird                                         one bird                               one bird                     one bird rotation ───              inclination ───                              veer ─── every one             the tip of their arc taken into the vortex while hirato’s strong connection with futurism might have eclipsed weber’s influence on his poetry, kanbara tai’s case is more relevant, since his interaction with cubist poems is better documented and marked by a more peculiar approach to his foreign model. kanbara tai was deeply involved in the japanese avant-garde scene. as an artist, he was among the first in japan to experiment with abstract painting. a full-fledged member of the gadan, during the 1920s he participated in or supported a number of avant-garde art groups in tokyo (nikakai, akushon, sanka, zōkei). he was a translator, art critic, and populariser: he wrote extensively and with exceptional competence on italian futurism, even corresponding with f. t. marinetti, and cubism, especially on picasso and marie laurencin.[83] kanbara played a major role in the presentation of pictorial cubism in japan. he devoted substantial sections to this trend in his monographs on new art. the book atarashiki jidai no seishin ni okuru (dedicated to the spirit of our new age; 1923) collects his contributions on cubism published in magazines over the previous years and features translations from gino severini’s du cubisme au classicisme (1921). geijutsu no rikai (understanding art; 1924) reprints much material already featured in atarashiki jidai no seishin and comprises translated excerpts from the famous article “picasso speaks” (originally in the arts, new york, may 1923).[84] among the issues characteristically tackled by kanbara in his writings on cubism are the origins of the school and the supposed differences between “cubism” and “picassism.” as in other countries, picasso’s works quickly became a major topic in the japanese discussions of cubism. kanbara himself was to devote a book to the spanish artist in 1925, titled simply pikaso. his friend and fellow painter nakagawa kigen (1892‒1972) did the same; he published a monographic study on picasso in 1922, pikaso to rittaiha (picasso and cubism), shortly after his return from france, in the same period in which he and kanbara briefly intensified their interactions with hirato renkichi.[85] despite his involvement in the tokyo art scene, kanbara was, technically speaking, a dilettante and a largely self-taught painter. he came from a well-to-do family: his father was a graduate of the imperial college of engineering and had worked for the ministry of finance and the nippon railway, and his mother was of aristocratic descent. kanbara studied commerce at tokyo chūō university and began working in an oil company in 1920.[86] in 1917, before his debut as a critic, kanbara published a series of poems that he labelled as “post-cubist” (kōki rittaishi) in two tokyo literary journals.[87] kanbara certainly knew weber’s poems, as he recollects in his autobiographical writings, which regularly associate them with matsuura’s bungaku no honshitsu and horace holley’s poems.[88] the label “post-cubist poems” signals both an intertextual relationship with cubist poems and the ambition to go beyond them. according to hatori tetsuya, kanbara may have been inspired by a passage in the 1916 japanese translation of arthur jerome eddy’s cubists and post-impressionism (1914), where “post-cubism” is associated with authors such as francis picabia. “perhaps,” hatori elaborates, “kanbara attributed to the words ‘post-cubist poems’ the meaning of going beyond cubism after destroying all expressive conventions.”[89] “mahiru no shigai” (city street in broad daylight), which was originally published in the magazine waruto in september 1917, is one of the best-known poems in the series, and one in which the intertextual connection with “the eye moment” is clear; both poems resort to a string of nouns and verbal ellipsis in order to express the impressions of an urban landscape as captured by the poet’s subjectivity. city street in broad daylight red, black, yellow, indigo, green automobiles, cafés, parasols colours, lights, rhythms, noises — o all these egoist’s splendours! flowing, fusing, rotating now — in broad daylight[90] according to japanese scholarship, kanbara’s post-cubist poems derive from an amalgamation of cubist, vitalist, and futurist elements,[91] respectively detectable in the way in which the objects of perception are analyzed, broken up, and then reassembled, in the emphasis on individual and universal life force (frequently expressed through the image of the sun), and in the appearance of motifs related to modern urban life, technology, and dynamism, such as cars, city streets, scientific terms, etc. matsuura’s bungaku no honshitsu is thought to have influenced kanbara’s understanding of avant-garde poetry. as omuka notes, “kanbara was elaborating on his own original vision of life by receiving important theoretical stimuli not only from the reception of italian futurism, but also from matsuura.”[92] the new art, according to matsuura, was able to grasp the musical and painterly essence of reality, which he saw as a holistic symphony of all living things, resonating with mechanical and inorganic matter (hence the emphasis on rhythm and dance that can also be found in the post-cubist poems). this peculiar blend of suggestions coming from futurist dynamism, bergson’s theory of élan vital, and optimistic individualism (which matsuura also applied to weber’s poems) can also be found in kanbara’s poems. accordingly, in the treatment of their subjects, they show a coexistence of analytical and synthetic compositional methods, as well as a lingering persistence of sentimental and spiritualistic tones. their heterogeneous nature can be grasped in another post-cubist poem, manatsu (mid-summer), which was originally published in the magazine shinchō (new tide) in august 1917. mid-summer (post-cubist poem) oxygen, nitrogen, argon the trembling of the atoms who dance frantically and in disarray air, factories, plants, and roads too come together, unify, then separate to dance to the rhythm of the sun now every colour, every light, every moment infused with life the suffering life of automobiles, cars, airplanes, and bombs all become ours. oh mid-summer, oh mid-summer, oh the midday of mid-summer thus, oh sun now, every living thing, every breathing thing, every moment that will be filled listen to my humble plea and drink them all up.[93] as typical of the “post-cubist poems,” kanbara’s verses show a certain amount of formal experimentalism (in this case, the fragmentation of syntax and the accumulations and iterations of nouns, all expressive devices that might well have been inspired by cubist poems). at the same time, this experimentalism appears to be counterbalanced by an order-restoring principle, a confidence in the ultimate, quasi-mystical fusion of “every living thing, every breathing thing.” similar tones are also present in some poems by weber, like “buddhas,” which was discussed and translated by matsuura hajime as a poem that “sings the praises of the buddha, who is one with the spirit of the universe (uchū no rei):”[94] buddhas buddhas, buddhas, buddhas buddhas of hell, buddhas of fire, buddhas of heaven, buddhas of every abode, your attitude, your innerness, your absoluteness, binds time and mood to no end. stillness, super stillness, innerness deep, deep innerness, of rhythm of energy, invisible without, living stirring within. buddhas, buddhas you eliminate, to make peace more than it is, to make stillness and rest more than it is. what is this mood? what is this placid sweetness? what is this silence? what is this awe? will i know when i am a buddha?[95] 3. features of the japanese reception of cubist poems in what follows, i recapitulate and analyse the features that characterized the reception of cubist poems in japan, with particular focus on indicators that are useful in explaining the interest of the japanese cultural world in this collection. first, japanese cultural journalism was particularly eager to chronicle and map out all recent trends coming from “western” fields of cultural production. this eagerness may partly be explained as a manifestation of the logic of the field (discussed above), where cultural products coming from the “west” were the object of practices of accumulation of cultural capital and also potentially rich in intrinsic symbolic capital. accordingly, the discussion and presentation of cubist poems in japanese periodicals can be at least partially explained as the result of an encyclopaedic and taxonomic attitude toward the mass of materials continually coming from europe and north america. in other words, it responded to a structural need to examine, catalogue, and classify an immense amount of cultural capital of foreign origin. this may also explain why cubist poems attracted the attention of academically qualified experts and translators of anglophone poetry, such as matsuura, sangū, and urase. second, the effects of the circulation and dissemination of discourses and representations of the new art movements must be taken into account. the year 1909, which saw the first translation of marinetti’s inaugural manifesto of futurism by mori ōgai, traditionally marks the beginning of the discourse on the “historical avant-gardes” in japan. as seen above, the presentation of pictorial cubism had begun in japan in 1911 with ishii hakutei’s reports from that year’s paris salons. in 1914‒1915, when the first japanese translations of weber’s poems were published, the local debate on cubism had already developed. it had been fuelled by a number of translations and original contributions by japanese artists and critics. in a parallel fashion, as documented by research conducted on primary sources and materials (for instance, collected in the kaigai shinkō geijutsuron sōsho [collection of works on the new foreign art] series), other avant-garde movements, such as futurism and expressionism, had been presented and discussed in the same years via a number of translations, articles, and books. multidisciplinarity among the arts was one of the elements that likely emerged from the growing acquaintance of japanese intellectuals with futurism and expressionism. in the case of futurism, this aspect had been discussed in those articles that, starting in 1912, had presented to japanese audiences the painting, poetry, theatre, architecture, and music produced by marinetti and his associates, though the same amount of space or emphasis was not necessarily devoted to every single branch of the futurist enterprise.[96] though in a less organic way, the same thing happened with german expressionism, which stirred the interest of japanese intellectuals not only in the visual arts but also in literature, theatre, music, and, especially during the 1920s, film. i argue that a multidisciplinary paradigm according to which the general principles of a certain movement could be equally embodied by works produced by working with different media, or extrapolated from a certain art form (e.g., painting) and transitively applied to another (e.g., poetry), was therefore firmly established in japanese representations of european avant-garde movements. accordingly, in the same way that futurist or expressionist painting and literature were already known, expectations of cubist poetry to go along with cubist painting must have looked like a logical consequence to many. these elements suggest that japanese expectations related to the interdisciplinary nature of the various “isms” were combined with an objective lack of available models of actual cubist poetry. to quote noguchi yonejirō’s mention of weber’s collection found in one of his 1915 correspondences on the art scene in london, cubist poems were eminently perceived in japan as “poems in a sort of cubist-school style” (isshu no rippōhashiki no shi).[97] this produced a peculiar interest in this collection, which was the only available instantiation at that time of an application of the principles of cubism to literature. this happened independently from the orthodoxy or pertinence of the “cubist” label that was attached to weber’s collection. it was likely due to their being qualified as “cubist” that cubist poems sparked the interest of educated japanese readers in the first place. this is also indirectly corroborated by the fact that weber and cubist poems practically disappeared from the japanese cultural debate after 1925, once a new canon of “french cubist poets” (comprising jean cocteau, guillaume apollinaire, andré salmon, and max jacob) was established, effectively displacing weber’s collection from its formerly prominent position.[98] cubist poems attracted the attention of those who wondered what cubist poetry would be like. it is reasonable to assume that matsuura hajime, who intended to provide an exhaustive survey of the different ways to conceive literature in his bungaku no honshitsu, was attracted to cubist poems (and to holley’s post-impressionist poems) because their titles signalled that they were embodiments of the new schools’ ideas on literature.[99] similarly, in 1917, sangū makoto wrote in the commentary to his translations of cubist poems that “rossetti transplanted the pre-raphaelite artistic style into english poetry before, and now we have this new attempt by the painter weber. let us see how his pictorial techniques are applied to poetry and what effects they produce.”[100] shirotori seigo opened his 1915 review with an allusion to potential comparisons with the experiments of the new movements in the field of painting: “when i read max weber’s collection titled cubist poems, i had in mind the painting of cubism, post-impressionism and futurism, which are the latest trends in the art world (gakai saishin no keikō); so, i had the presentiment that weber’s poetry too, in its content and expression, might have some novelty.”[101] however, cubist poems did not live up to shirotori’s expectations. widespread interest in the applications of the principles of cubist painting to a piece of poetry is further suggested by the recurring presence of “the eye moment,” the most radical among weber’s poems, in the discussions and translations of cubist poems. eight of the ten individuals who introduced cubist poems to japan commented on or translated this poem, which, in sangū’s words, “sings the instantaneous impressions of seeing at a glance the city of new york from the banks of the hudson river.”[102] kawaji, matsuura, keitarō, sangū, urase, and, obviously, nogawa and shinozaki provided translations; noguchi, matsuura, and sangū each transcribed the original text. within that framework, discussing cubist poems called for the mobilization of competences specific to the gadan and the shidan and required by the nature of the collection, which participated simultaneously in the domains of pictorial cubism and modern poetry. be they painters-turned-poets (kawaji), art critic-journalists (nakada), literary theorists with an interest in new art (matsuura), poets with a shirakaba-like attitude towards the pictorial arts (shirotori, sangū), or self-conscious avant-gardists involved in a multidisciplinary project of artistic renewal (kanbara, nogawa, shinozaki), nearly all of those who introduced cubist poems to japan possessed such competences, if to different degrees, or at least tried to present such credentials in their writing. in doing so, they contributed to reinforcing the conceptual reception of cubist poems as a hybrid object, whose complete understanding and appreciation required similarly combined competences. therefore, to speak about such an object, or even just linguistically localize it through competent translations, became tantamount to occupying a position in the cultural field in which the two subfields of the gadan and the shidan intersected. the reception of cubist poems also showed that the japanese cultural field already possessed a certain degree of autonomy with respect to the “west.” despite the interest provoked by weber’s collection and a number of favourable comments, such as those by matsuura and shinozaki, some japanese presenters articulated reservations about the value of cubist poems, not only in pure aesthetic terms, as shirotori did when he accused some poems of being plainly “mediocre” (heibon),[103] but also through claims that cubist poems was not, in the end, sufficiently “cubist,” or at least innovative. after remarking that weber’s poems were more moderate than both “futurist poetry” (miraiha no shi) and emile verhaeren’s les villes tentaculaires (1895), shirotori concludes: “to sum up, this collection lacks boldness in its contents and shows no particular inventiveness in its expression. even though it is called ‘cubist poems,’ if we had to find out its merits, they would be its simple descriptions and lively rhythms. it is undeniable that it is the collection of a dilettante, lacking seriousness somehow.”[104] on the same note, kawaji ryūkō, who possessed a solid knowledge of the latest european trends, obliquely expressed his scepticism about weber’s soi-disant “cubist poems” by pointing out that “the very fact that this collection is called cubist poems is less to designate a school of poetry, than the poems of a cubist painter.”[105] not only is weber not a representative of an organized school of poetry, kawaji seems to argue, but the “cubist” attribute of his poems descends solely from their circumstances: they are the product of a poet who also happens to be a cubist painter. matsuura hajime, discussing “the eye moment,” even pointed out some possible methodological contradictions in weber’s poetry. if it were not for the fact, he wrote, that the cubists—as gleizes and metzinger stated in their theoretical works—had rejected the impressionists’ pretence of realism, it would perhaps be more appropriate to define this poem as an “impressionist poem,” for it expresses “the impressions gathered by the poet just as they are.”[106] finally, kanbara tai’s intention of going beyond the instances of “cubist poetry” that were known at the time with his “post-cubist poems” of 1917 can be interpreted as a manifestation of the same critical autonomy. japanese reviewers thus felt confident enough to criticize a “western” cultural product in the name of theoretical orthodoxy and in compliance with a logic of the “party of novelty,” known as the avant-garde, that was shared by the most advanced sectors of the gadan and the shidan. in a parallel fashion, japanese poets, such as kanbara, could also propound something more advanced than their supposed “western models.” it is noteworthy that in the case of cubist poems, no japanese critics explicitly resorted to arguments against this collection that had been previously produced (and therefore authenticated) in the “west,” or chose to counterpoise a set of “oriental” or “japanese” values to weber’s work. this reveals the fact that the japanese cultural field was already representing itself as on a par with an international network in which it could participate as an increasingly equal and autonomous player. 4. conclusions the attention that cubist poems received in japan was unparalleled in any other country, even in the anglophone world. to explain this phenomenon, i have provided a reconstruction of the key dynamics at work in the cultural field centred around tokyo during the taishō period. this field was marked by a cultural logic of the reception and classification of information―a widespread taxonomic and encyclopaedic attitude of local cultural journalism―on the latest products coming from the “west,” which constituted a powerful form of cultural capital. this cultural capital could also be endowed with symbolic capital, as its appropriation could be used by agents in the field to establish legitimacy and propel their own careers. this process partly explains why an object connoted as one of the products of the foreign “latest schools” (as the foreign avant-gardes were often called) received such substantial attention in japanese literary and art periodicals. cubist poems was configured as an object that simultaneously mobilized competences administered in the two subfields of pictorial arts (gadan) and modern poetry (shidan), two subfields that, historically and structurally, were oriented to localize, implement, and produce “avant-garde” positions and practices. my overview on the introduction of cubist poems in japan confirms that this process principally involved individuals that, as confirmed by their biographies, were active in the shidan, in the gadan, or in both, and that it did not involve other more established and dominant areas in the cultural field, such as the sectors centred on narrative prose. another factor that stimulated the japanese discourse around cubist poems was the fact that, within the paradigm of the “new movements” in art that stressed multidisciplinarity among the arts—a paradigm that was largely established by the journalistic reception of the historical avant-gardes in japan—cubist poems constituted in those years an almost unique opportunity to clarify what was at the time the relatively urgent formal question of what cubism applied to poetry could be like. the emergence of this topic in itself illuminates the interactions between the gadan and the shidan, as its articulation required competences from both fields and subscription to the logic of “permanent revolution” and innovation that pierre bourdieu associates with the avant-garde sectors of the cultural field. we might argue that the discursive and symbolic hegemony of the gadan, which was perceived as more advanced in the discussion and research of the newest trends and provided many discursive tools to examine them, was confirmed in this process, because the chronological and theoretical primacy of painterly cubism (to which cubist poems was judged as indebted, to various degrees) was never seriously challenged. in japan as elsewhere, then, pictorial cubism―as confused and vague this category might be―could be invoked as the model against which to judge or explain cubist poetry, but not the opposite. the japanese reception of cubist poems also revealed a certain amount of autonomy in the japanese field of cultural production. despite being affected by the hegemony of the modernist “west,” the japanese field was able to articulate both a critical reception to a “western” product like cubist poems (as in the comments by shirotori and others), and the confidence (expressed by kanbara’s “post-cubist poems”) in japanese writers’ ability to go beyond “western” cultural products as equal members of an international network of modern art scenes. appendix: timeline of the translation and discussion of weber’s cubist poems in japan besides primary sources, the timeline offered below is based on the following secondary sources: chiba, sen’ichi. gendai bungaku no hikakubungakuteki kenkyū [comparative literary studies on comtemporary literature]. tōkyō: yagi shoten, 1978. gonda, hiromi. “tenkai suru dai yojigen: hirato renkichi no gendaisei to saihyōka” [developing the fourth dimension: ‘re-evaluating the modernity of hirato renkichi]. nihon kindai bungaku [modern japanese literature] 78 (may 2008): 165‒179. hackner, thomas. dada und futurismus in japan: die rezeption der historischen avantgarden. munich: iudicium, 2001. hidaka, shōji, and omuka toshiharu, eds. kaigai shinkō geijutsuron sōsho. shinbun zasshi hen [collection of works on the new foreign art: newspapers and magazines series]. vol. 1, 1909‒1915. tōkyō: yumani shobō, 2005. hikita, masaaki. “makkusu webā-cho nogawa takashi-yaku rittaiha shishū” [max weber’s cubist poems, translated by nogawa takashi]. in nihon no avangyarudo [the avant-garde in japan], edited by wada hirofumi, 40. kyōto: sekai shisōsha, 2005. ishida, hitoshi, ed. miraishugi to rittaishugi [futurism and cubism]. “korekushon modan toshi bunka” [collection: modern city culture], 27. tōkyō: yumani shobō, 2007, 768‒770. itō, yuki. “hyōden urase haku’u: imajizumu shi no hon’yaku shōkai no kōseki o chūshin ni” [urase haku’u: a critical biography of an early translator of imagist poets]. hikaku bungaku—bunka ronshū [comparative literature and culture] 24 (march 2007): 22‒47. nakamura, fujio. yamamura bochō ron. tōkyō: yūseidō shuppan, 1995. omuka, toshiharu. “futurism in japan, 1909‒1920.” in international futurism in arts and literature, edited by günter berghaus, 244‒270. berlin and new york: de gruyter, 2000. tanaka, seikō. yamamura bochō [study on yamamura bochō]. tōkyō: chikuma shobō, 1988. urase, haku’u. watakushi no kokoro to sono kankyō [my heart and its ambiance]. tōkyō: ryūbunkan, 1922. i have not personally examined the items marked by (*). 1914 may: nakada katsunosuke, “kyubisuto no shi: makkusu wēbā” [cubist poems: max weber], seikatsu to geijutsu [life and art] 1 (9): 26‒27. features one poem in translation: “i wonder.” 1915 february: shirotori seigo, “rittaiha no shi” [cubist poems], shiika [poetry] 5 (2): 1‒8. features coburn’s foreword, five poems in translation (“oh sun,” “sun rhythm,” “to a butterfly,” “love refreshed,” and “the summer moon”), and excerpts from two others: “winter’s come” and “a frozen universe.” february: kawaji ryūkō, “rittaiha no shi (makkusu wībā)” [cubist poems (max weber)], bunshō sekai [the world of texts] 10 (2): 46‒49. features four poems in translation: “the eye moment,” “winter’s come,” “oh sun,” and “who is there?” and a rough translation of coburn’s foreword. march: noguchi yonejirō, “rondon de mita shinpa no kaiga” [paintings of the new schools i have seen in london], mita bungaku [mita literature] 6 (3): 175‒186. features the english text of “the eye moment.” june: keitarō (pseud.), “kyūbisuto-ha no shi” [poetry of the cubist school], kensei bijutsu [detailed studies of fine art] 98: 26‒30. features six poems in translation: “the eye moment,” “the signal,” “timelessly more,” “the summer moon,” “namelessness,” and “the prophetic call.” november: matsuura hajime, bungaku no honshitsu [the essence of literature] (tōkyō: dai nihon tosho kabushiki kaisha). features three poems—both original texts and translations: “the eye moment,” “buddhas,” and “silence.” 1916 january: sangū makoto, “taishō yonen no shidan” [the poetry scene in the fourth year of the taishō era (1915)], shiika 6 (1): 2‒9. reviews kawaji’s and matsuura’s translations of weber’s poems published in 1915; criticizes kawaji’s translations and praises those by matsuura. 1917 january: sangū makoto, “rittaiha no shi yori” [from cubist poems], shiika 7 (1): 44‒46. features five poems in translation: “the eye moment,” “buddhas,” “to a butterfly,” “night,” and “the spider.” reprinted in the same year in sangū makoto, gendai eishishō: yakuchū [contemporary english poetry: annotated translations] (tōkyō: yūhōkan shoten), 81‒98, with the addition of a rough translation of coburn’s foreword, one more poem (“silence”), and the original texts of the poems. 1921 january: sangū makoto, an anthology of new english verse = gendai eishi senshū (ōsaka: suzuya), 179‒188, 221. an anthology in english featuring the original texts of the poems previously translated by sangū, with the exception of “to a butterfly.” march: urase haku’u, “kyūbisuto pōemuzu” [cubist poems], shinbungei [new literature] 1 (6). features six poems in translation: “the eye moment,” “the signal,” “to a butterfly,” “the old and the new me,” “buddhas,” and “the dead bird.” (*) december: shirotori seigo, “rittaiha no shi” [cubist poems], in shi ni tessuru michi [the way of devotion to poetry] (tōkyō: nihon hyōronsha shuppanbu), 150‒160. reprint of the article published in 1915. 1922 february: urase haku’u, “kyūbisuto pōemuzu” [cubist poems], in watakushi no kokoro to sono kankyō [my heart and its ambiance] (tōkyō: ryūbunkan), 305‒317. collects the six poems previously published in 1921. 1923 january: urase haku’u, “makkusu wibā” [max weber], in gendai eibei shisen [selection of contemporary english and american poetry] (tōkyō: kōgyokudō), 29‒40. features seven poems and coburn’s foreword in translation: “the silhouette,” “weather report,” “sun rhythm,” “night,” “no end, no beginning,” “haze,” and “i am drinking tea.” february: urase haku’u, “gendai eibei shika” [contemporary english and american poems], nihon shijin [the japanese poet] 3 (2): 79‒82. features “silence” in translation. march: urase haku’u, “kyubisuto shishō” [cubist poems], shisei [great masters of poetry] 18. features two poems in translation: “who is there?” and “suffering to sleep.” (*) march: max weber, “rittaiha shishū” [cubist poems], translated by nogawa takashi, epokku [epoch] 6. first complete translation in a literary journal. may: urase haku’u, “imajisuto no shi to kyūbisuto no shi” [imagist poetry and cubist poetry], shi to ongaku [poetry and music] 2 (5): 37‒39. features two poems in translation: “the prophetic call” and “timelessly more.” september: urase haku’u, “kyūbisuto no shi” [cubist poem], myōjō [morning star] 4 (3): 410‒411. features “winter’s come” in translation. 1924 august: max weber, zen’yaku rittaiha no shi [cubist poems: complete translation], translated by shinozaki hatsutarō (ōsaka: itansha). first complete translation published as a book. 1925 february: sangū makoto, eibei shinshisen: yakuchū [new selection of english and american poetry: annotated translations] (tōkyō: hōbunkan), 195‒210. collects the six poems previously translated in 1917, along with the original texts. april: sangū makoto, benisuzume [strawberry finch] (kyōto: naigai shuppan), 191‒205, 279‒280. collects the six poems previously translated in 1917. [1] i would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions and comments. [2] max weber, cubist poems (london: elkin mathews, 1914). [3] alvin langdon coburn, “foreword,” in cubist poems, 7. [4] biographical sources on weber include alfred werner, max weber (new york: abrams, 1975) and the catalogue of the exhibition max weber: the cubist decade 1910‒1920 (atlanta: high museum of art, 1991). a sourcebook is available in r. scott harnsberger, four artists of the stieglitz circle: a sourcebook on arthur dove, marsden hartley, john marin, and max weber (westport, ct: greenwood press, 2002), 223‒276. for weber’s involvement with the american avant-garde, see john r. lane, “the sources of max weber’s cubism,” art journal 35, no. 3 (spring 1976): 231‒236; dominic ricciotti, “the revolution in urban transport: max weber and italian futurism,” american art journal 16, no. 1 (1984): 47‒64; margaret burke, “futurism in america 1910‒1917” (phd diss., university of delaware, 1986), 149‒171; and lisa panzera, “italianfuturism and avant-garde painting in the united states,” in international futurism in arts and literature, ed. günter berghaus (berlin and new york: de gruyter, 2000), 235‒238. [5] percy north, “max weber: the cubist decade,” in max weber: the cubist decade 1910‒1920 (atlanta: high museum of art, 1991), 25. [6] ibid., 21. [7] noguchi, who is now considered a significant biliterate (english/japanese) poet, occupied at that time a somewhat eccentric position with respect to the japanese world of letters. he briefly discussed max weber’s works and poetry in “rondon de mita shinpa no kaiga” [paintings of the new schools i have seen in london], an article in the march 1915 issue of the tokyo literary journal mita bungaku [mita literature]. like weber, noguchi was also acquainted with coburn. for details of noguchi’s second english sojourn (1913‒1914), see omuka toshiharu, “futurism in japan, 1909‒1920,” in international futurism in arts and literature, ed. günter berghaus (berlin and new york: de gruyter, 2000), 257. [8] leonard diepeveen, “the visual arts,” in a companion to modernist poetry, ed. david e. chinitz and gail mcdonald (oxford: wiley & sons, 2014), 35. it must be noted that john r. lane reports that “in his memoirs weber disclaims any responsibility for the title of cubist poems” (lane, “sources of max weber’s cubism,” 236n14). [9] weber, cubist poems, 27, lines 1‒8. [10] ibid., 32. [11] e.g., “pot, tea-pot, chinese tea-pot, / chinese, red sienna clay tea-pot, / i love thee so!” (“the chinese tea-pot,” in ibid., 33, lines 1‒3). [12] susan krane, “introduction,” in max weber: the cubist decade, 16. [13] weber, cubist poems, 11. [14] diepeveen, “the visual arts,” 34. [15] ibid., 35. [16] north, “the cubist decade,” 29. [17] krane, “introduction,” 16. [18] a general outline of the reception of cubist poems in japan can be found in the timeline that appears as an appendix in this paper. [19] matsuura hajime, bungaku no honshitsu (tōkyō: dai nihon tosho kabushiki kaisha, 1915). [20] i follow sangū’s virtual international authority file (viaf). a number of sources, including kōdansha’s nihon kindai bungaku daijiten [great dictionary of modern japanese literature], report 1892 as sangū’s year of birth. [21] see appendix. [22] shinozaki hatsutarō, zen’yaku rittaiha no shi [cubist poems: complete translation] (ōsaka: itansha, 1924). in the frontispiece of the book, the furigana reading “kyūpizumu” is placed above “rittaiha.” [23] on the other hand, the evidence suggests that weber’s painterly production remained ignored in japan. apart from the information reported in coburn’s introduction to cubist poems (duly translated or reprised by a number of japanese commentators), and noguchi yonejirō’s sparse notes on the paintings he saw at coburn’s home in london, i have no knowledge of any other discussions of weber’s painting in japan. this is perhaps due to the fact that while weber’s poetry offered possible answers to technical questions pertaining to avant-garde poetry, the reception of his visual works reproduced the dominant eurocentric discourse on the new art, in which weber occupied a marginal, if not negligible, position. it may also be that the japanese commentators simply lacked access to the reproductions of weber’s works that would have been necessary to express their opinions. the only work known to have been reproduced in japan in those years seems to be the stylized drawing of a tree on the cover of the original cubist poems. a reproduction of this work accompanied nogawa takashi’s translation. [24] for instance, this tradition is well represented by the monumental 24-volume nihon bundan shi [history of the japanese literary world; 1953‒1978], edited by itō sei and senuma shigeki. [25] william o. gardner, advertising tower: japanese modernism and modernity in the 1920s (cambridge: harvard university asia center, 2006), 20‒21. [26] pierre bourdieu and loïc j. d. wacquant, an invitation to reflexive sociology (chicago: university of chicago press, 1992), 117. [27] gennifer s. weisenfeld, mavo: japanese artists and the avant-garde, 1905‒1931 (berkeley: university of california press, 2002), 2. [28] attempts to use bourdieu’s field theory in the study of cultural production in twentieth-century japan include joseph murphy, “economies of culture: the taishō bundan dallies with the movies,” japan forum 11, no. 1 (1999): 5‒22, and morishita masaaki, the empty museum: western cultures and the artistic field in modern japan (farnham: ashgate, 2010). while not introducing the specific issue of subfields, murphy provides an accurate reconstruction of some of the general dynamics within the taishō cultural field. morishita approaches his subject with a combination of field theory and transculturation theory (21‒29). [29] bourdieu and wacquant, an invitation, 97; italics in the original. [30] weisenfeld, mavo, 2. [31] morishita, the empty museum, 69. [32] pierre bourdieu, the rules of art: genesis and structure of the literary field (stanford: stanford university press, 1996), 91, 124. [33] on this point, see seiji m. lippit, topographies of japanese modernism (new york: columbia university press, 2002), 22‒25. [34] a concise presentation of the avant-garde trends of taishō-era poetry is provided in hosea hirata, the poetry and poetics of nishiwaki junzaburō: modernism in translation (princeton: princeton university press, 1993), 131‒148. [35] this can be seen in two collections: kaigai shinkō geijutsuron sōsho kanpon hen and kaigai shinkō geijutsuron sōsho shinbun zasshi hen (hereafter ksgs-sz) [collection of works on the new foreign art, books/newspapers and magazines series], ed. hidaka shōji and omuka toshiharu (tōkyō: yumani shobō, 2003 and 2005), which contain reprinted pre-war books and articles devoted to the presentation of the historical avant-gardes in japan. [36] hagiwara sakutarō, “nihon ni okeru miraiha no shi to sono kaisetsu” [futurist poetry in japan and its explanation], kanjō [sentiment] 5 (november 1916): 27. reprinted in ksgs-sz, vol. 2, 1916‒1921, 26. [37] for the circumstances surrounding hagiwara’s article, see omuka, “futurism in japan,” 253‒254. in his 1916 article, hagiwara argued that yamamura’s poetry was an example of “futurism” (miraiha). in a commemorative article on yamamura published in 1926, when a fuller knowledge of cubist poetry had established itself in the shidan, he changed his judgement by labelling yamamura the “father of the japanese school of cubist poetry (rittaishiha).” in these discussions of yamamura’s work, hagiwara never mentions max weber. hagiwara sakutarō, “yamamura bochō no koto” [on yamamura bochō], nihon shijin [the japanese poet] 6, no. 2 (february 1926): 18‒31. [38] yamamura bochō, “fūkei” [landscape; 1914], lines 1‒9, as translated in graeme wilson and ikuko atsumi, “the poetry of yamamura bochō,” japan quarterly 19, no. 4 (oct./dec. 1972): 466. see also pierantonio zanotti, “aborted modernism: the semantics of the avant-garde in yamamura bochō’s ‘prismism’,” in rethinking japanese modernism, ed. roy starrs (leiden: global oriental, 2011), 286–309. it might be that yamamura, as an active member of the shidan, was aware of weber’s collection or at least of the early translations of some of its poems. however, the possible influence of cubist poems on his seisanryōhari [the holy prism], a collection that some of his peers occasionally labelled “cubist,” has not been fully investigated. [39] concise overviews of the reception of pictorial cubism in japan are available in asano tōru, “nihon to kyubisumu [japan and cubism],” kindai bijutsu [modern art] 56 (january 1980): 75‒88, and ōtani shōgo, “cubism and japan,” in cubism in asia: unbounded dialogues, ed. miwa kenjin et al. (tōkyō: the national museum of modern art, tokyo, and the japan foundation, 2005), 254‒256. [40] examples include tokyo’s mozaiku [mosaic; 1912‒1914], seihai [holy chalice; 1912‒1913)] kamen [the mask; 1913‒1915], and takujō [tabletop; 1914‒1915]. see also teraguchi junji and inoue yoshiko, “taishō shoki no zasshi ni okeru hanhyōgen: tsukuhae tanjō no haikei o sagutte [the art of priting in early taishō journals: investigating the context behind the birth of tsukuhae],” in taishōki bijutsu tenrankai no kenkyū [study on the art exhibitions of the taishō period], ed. tōkyō bunkazai kenkyūjo bijutsubu (tōkyō: chūō kōron bijutsu shuppan, 2005), 689‒740. [41] the classic study on this subject is takumi hideo, kindai nihon no bijutsu to bungaku: meiji taishō shōwa no sashie [fine arts and literature in modern japan: illustration in meiji, taishō, and shōwa] (tōkyō: mokujisha, 1979). a well-studied case is the collaboration between hagiwara sakutarō and the artists gathered around the coterie magazine tsukuhae [moonglow; 1914‒1915], tanaka kyōkichi (1892‒1915) and onchi kōshirō (1891‒1955), who are today often considered part of the canon of japanese avant-garde painting. see tanaka seikō, tsukuhae no gakatachi: tanaka kyōkichi, onchi kōshirō no seishun [the tsukuhae painters: the youth of tanaka kyōkichi and onchi kōshirō] (tōkyō: chikuma shobō, 1990), 184‒198, 227‒261. [42] on the early reception of cubism in japan see asano tōru, “rittaiha miraiha to taishōki no kaiga [cubism, futurism, and taishōo era painting],” shōwa 51 nendo tōkyō kokuritsu kindai bijutsukan nenpō [annual report of the national museum of modern art, tōkyō] (1978): 85‒107, ōtani shōgo, “itaria miraiha no shōkai to nihon kindai yōga: 1912nen zengo no dōkō” [the presentation of italian futurism and japanese modern painting: trends around 1912], geisō: bulletin of the study on philosophy and history of art in university of tsukuba 9 (1992): 105‒126, and ijiri raku, “kandinsukī juyō saishoki no kōsatsu: 1912/taishō gannen koro no uchi to soto” [on the early period of kandinsky’s reception: inner and outer aspects of around 1912], kyōto sangyō daigaku ronshū—jinbunkagaku keiretsu [acta humanistica et scientifica, kyōto sangyō university] 36 (march 2007): 62‒92. [43] ishii hakutei, “andepandan no tenrankai to fan dongen no shosaku” [the salon des indépendants and van dongen’s works], tōkyō asahi shinbun, 21‒22 july 1911; ishii hakutei, “saron dōtonnu o miru” [visiting the salon d’automne], tōkyō asahi shinbun, 9‒11 november 1911; ishii hakutei, “fōvizumu to anchinachurarizumu” [fauvism and anti-naturalism], waseda bungaku 85 (december 1912): 2‒16. [44] kinoshita mokutarō, “yōga ni okeru hishizenshugiteki keikō” [anti-naturalist trends in western-style painting], bijutsu shinpō [art journal], february, march, and june 1913; kinoshita mokutarō, “rittaiha no ga” [cubist painting], bunshō sekai [the world of texts], june 1916. reprinted in ksgs-sz, vol. 1, 1909‒1915, 93‒107; vol. 2, 1916‒1921, 4‒14. [45] kimura shōhachi, “rippōha” [cubism], waseda bungaku, december 1913; kimura shōhachi, “rippōha ni tsuite” [on cubism], sōzō, december 1913. reprinted in ksgs-sz, vol. 1, 1909‒1915, 133‒146, 147‒155. [46] asano, “rittaiha miraiha,” 93. [47] for more information on this exhibition see omuka toshiharu, taishōki shinkō bijutsu undō no kenkyū [study on the modern art movement of the taishō era] (tōkyō: sukaidoa, 1998), 67‒73. [48] arishima ikuma, “inshōsha tai miraiha” [impressionism versus futurism], bijutsu shinpō, april 1915; arishima ikuma, “byakuya ukō [white nights and rain] (2–3),” shinchō, july-august 1922. reprinted in ksgs-sz, vol. 1, 1909‒1915, 312‒319; vol. 3, 1922, 139‒150. [49] see note 33. [50] kanbara tai, “miraiha ya rittaiha ga torai shita jidai” [the period when futurism and cubism were introduced], hon no techō [books cahier] 5 (may 1963): 137. [51] matsuura hajime, bungaku no honshitsu, 15‒53. [52] omuka, taishōki shinkō bijutsu undō, 335. [53] nihon kindai bungakukan, ed., nihon kindai bungaku daijiten [great dictionary of modern japanese literature] (tōkyō: kōdansha, 1977‒1978), ad vocem. most of the information on these authors presented below is based on this source. [54] bourdieu, rules of art, 214. [55] nakada katsunosuke, “kyubisuto no shi: makkusu wēbā” [cubist poems: max weber] seikatsu to geijutsu 1, no. 9 (may 1914): 26‒27. nakada did not add any comments. nakada’s source may have been bernard lintot, “at number 1, grub street,” t. p.’s weekly xxiii, no. 586 (30 january 1914): 137, in which the same poem is featured. [56] some of these are available in ksgs-sz, vol. 1, 1909‒1915. [57] gelett burgess’s article and the illustrations that accompanied it may have played some role in awakening max weber’s interest in cubism (north, “the cubist decade,” 23‒24). [58] omuka, taishōki shinkō bijutsu undō, 868. [59] shirotori seigo, “rittaiha no shi” [cubist poems], shiika 5, no. 2 (february 1915): 1‒8; reprinted in ksgs-sz, vol. 1, 1909‒1915, 297‒304. [60] it was not uncommon for the students who were not accepted to the “western painting” (seiyōga) section of the tokyo school of fine arts to enrol in the nihonga section, as kawaji did; information on his early life and activities as an art student can be found in tanaka atsushi, “kōki inshōha—kō— 1912nen zengo o chūshin ni (jō)” [considerations on post-impressionism: focus on 1912, part 2], bijutsu kenkyū [art studies] 368 (december 1997): 160‒172. [61] kawaji ryūkō, “rittaiha no shi (makkusu wībā)” [cubist poems (max weber)], bunshō sekai 10, no. 2 (february 1915): 46‒49. [62] both articles are now available in ksgs-sz, vol. 3, 1922, 31‒53, 251‒259. the second article was also reprinted in gendai geijutsu kōwa. [63] keitarō (pseud.), “kyūbisuto-ha no shi” [poetry of the cubist school], kensei bijutsu 98 (june 1915): 26‒30. kensei bijutsu acquired its name in 1913 after beginning publication in 1902 as kensei gashi [review for the detailed study of painting], and was the organ of the bijutsu kensei kai [society for the detailed study of art]. [64] ibid., 26. [65] for more on urase’s life and career, see itō yuki, “hyōden urase haku’u: imajizumu shi no hon’yaku shōkai no kōseki o chūshin ni” [urase haku’u: a critical biography of an early translator of imagist poets], hikaku bungaku—bunka ronshū [comparative literature and culture] 24 (march 2007): 22‒47. this article also features a synoptic table of urase’s translations. [66] nihon shijin [the japanese poet; 1921‒1926] was by all accounts the most institutional among the shidan magazines of those years. kawaji ryūkō was a major force in its foundation and management. this explains why the most significant poems and futurist writings by hirato renkichi (one of kawaji’s protégés) appeared there in 1921‒1922. shi to ongaku [poetry and music; 1922‒1923] was edited by kitahara hakushū. [67] the inaugural number of myōjō’s second series (november 1921) featured a quasi-integral translation of f. t. marinetti’s manifesto of “futurist dance” (1917) by hirano banri (1885‒1947). tanaka kisaku (1885‒1945) provided a translation of andré lhote’s “ingres vu par un peintre” (1921), in the september and november 1922 issues, now in ksgs-sz, vol. 2, 1916‒1921, 319‒323; vol. 3, 1922, 292‒308. the art historian tanaka had studied at the tokyo school of fine arts with kawaji ryūkō (tanaka, “kōki inshōha,” 161). [68] omuka, taishōki shinkō bijutsu undō, 103‒128. [69] david cottington, the avant-garde: a very short introduction (oxford: oxford university press, 2013), 4. [70] given shinozaki hatsutarō’s (dates unknown) physical distance from the tokyo cultural field that is the focus of my discussion, i will provide the available information on him in this note. most of it is summarized by ishida hitoshi in a short profile accompanying the reprint of shinozaki’s translation of cubist poems: ishida hitoshi, ed., miraishugi to rittaishugi [futurism and cubism] (tōkyō: yumani shobō, 2007), 769‒770. shinozaki is credited with yume no kenkyū (1925), a translation of bergson’s essay dreams (from an english version published in new york in 1914). he also published a personal collection of shi, haito o yuku [walking through a deserted capital; 1923], and a collection of three expressionism-tinged plays entitled senkōtei [the submarine; 1925]. three upcoming books by shinozaki were announced at the ending of the latter book: another personal collection of shi, an anthology of belgian poetry in translation, and a translation of oskar pfister’s expressionism in art, presumably from its 1922 english translation. however, it seems that none of these works was ever published. ishida reports that in 1927‒1928 shinozaki translated and published some excerpts from francis picabia’s unique eunuque and jean cocteau’s le coq et l’arlequin in kindai fūkei [modern landscape], a tokyo literary journal edited by kitahara hakushū. in his afterword to cubist poems (ibid., 709‒711), shinozaki states that he has not yet attained a sufficient grasp of cubism. this might be a display of modesty, but in any case he seems to favour a bergsonian and vitalist reading of the collection (not unlike matsuura’s reading), as testified by his usage of categories such as “spiritual revolution” (tamashii no kakumei), “cry of renewal” (kōshin no sakebi), and “rhythm” (inritsu) in the afterword. [71] omuka toshiharu, “tada=dada (devotedly dada) for the stage: the japanese dada movement 1920–1925,” in the eastern dada orbit: russia, georgia, ukraine, central europe, and japan, ed. gerald janecek and toshiharu omuka (new york: g. k. hall, 1998), 232. [72] omuka, “tada dada,” 275‒277. see also john solt, shredding the tapestry of meaning: the poetry and poetics of kitasono katue (1902–1978) (cambridge: harvard university asia center, 1999), 23‒45. [73] omuka, “tada dada,” 232‒233. [74] wada hirofumi, “toshi no hakai to, seishin no kaihōku: 1920nendai no avangyarudo” [destruction of the city and liberated zones of the spirit: the avant-garde in the 1920s], in nihon no avangyarudo [the avant-garde in japan], ed. wada hirofumi (kyōto: sekai shisōsha, 2005), 9. [75] from nogawa takashi’s editorial statement in the first issue of ge•gjmgjgam•prrr•gjmgem, translated in solt, shredding the tapestry, 26, 28. [76] lines 1‒10, as translated by dennis keene in yokomitsu riichi, modernist (new york: columbia university press, 1980), 66. keene’s translation is based on the text in onchi terutake’s gendai nihonshi shi [history of contemporary japanese poetry; 1958]. however, it appears that this text differs slightly from the original, first published in august 1925 in the first issue of sekai shijin [world poet], a tokyo dada journal. [77] chiba sen’ichi, gendai bungaku no hikakubungakuteki kenkyū [comparative literary studies on comtemporary literature] (tōkyō: yagi shoten, 1978), 71, 119. [78] hatori tetsuya, “kanbara tai no kōki rittaishi” [the post-cubist poems of kanbara tai], seikei daigaku bungakubu kiyō [bulletin of the faculty of humanities, seikei university] 26 (1990): 37‒50; omuka, taishōki shinkō bijutsu undō, 332‒339; ikeda makoto, “kanbara tai no shi to shisō” [kanbara tai’s poetry and poetics], shōwa bungaku kenkyū [studies on shōwa literature] 40 (march 2000): 13‒23; and thomas hackner, dada und futurismus in japan: die rezeption der historischen avantgarden (munich: iudicium, 2001), 46‒48, 59‒70. [79] see hatori tetsuya, “hirato renkichi, shi no tenkai” [hirato renikchi, the evolution of his poetry], seikei daigaku bungakubu kiyō 34 (march 1999): 33–61. [80] in “yonshu no tenkai,” hirato provided seven exemplary poems that he deemed represented: 1) “temporal futurist poetry”; 2) “spatial cubist poetry”; 3) “four-dimensional” or “dadaist” or “expressionist” poetry; 4) “post-expressionist” or “analogistic” poetry. see hackner, dada und futurismus, 70‒76, for a complete translation and discussion of these seven pieces. the annual collective anthologies nihon shishū were published by the shiwakai (poetry discussion association), the same society that presided over the journal nihon shijin and one of the most powerful institutions in the taishō shidan. [81] i am inclined to disagree with chiba’s claim that this poem is more indebted to weber’s “the eye moment” than to apollinaire’s calligrammes (chiba, hikakubungakuteki kenkyū, 119). the repetition of words in “hichō” may well be reminiscent of weber’s most famous poem, but their mimetic arrangement, which represents the trajectory of flying birds, suggests the influence of apollinaire’s visual poetry. articles on apollinaire published in the months before and after by hirato’s acquaintances kawaji ryūkō and komaki ōmi (1894‒1978) suggest a strong interest in the french poet. hirato himself published a translation of a poem by apollinaire (“salomé,” in the march 1922 issue of chūō bijutsu), though that appears in apollinaire’s earlier collection, alcools (1913). [82] my translation. original text in nihon shijin 1, no. 2 (november 1921): 40‒41. an early french translation of this poem, titled oiseau volant, appeared in the 1939 anthologie des poètes japonais contemporains edited by matsuo kuni[nosuke] and emile steinilber-oberlin. [83] studies on kanbara available in european languages remain scarce; see barbara bertozzi, “un incontro con l’artista ultranovantenne: il futurista tai kanbara,” art e dossier 4, no. 41 (december 1989): 17‒19, and hackner, dada und futurismus, 59‒66 (also featuring a translation of two “post-cubist poems,” including “mahiru no shigai”). [84] reprints of kanbara’s major books and articles are available in the ksgs collection and in ishida, miraishugi to rittaishugi. [85] omuka, taishōki shinkō bijutsu undō, 275. [86] biographical information on kanbara is taken from kanbara tai, “kanbara tai, oitachi to taishōki shinkō biijutsu undō o kataru” [kanbara tai talks about his life and the taishō modern art movement], interview conducted and edited by asano tōru and omuka toshiharu, in akushon ten: taishō shinkō bijutsu no ibuki [exhibition of the group akushon: the breath of taishō modern art], exhibition catalogue (tōkyō: asahi shinbunsha, 1989), 5‒11, and ishida, miraishugi to rittaishugi, 755‒756. [87] the number of “post-cubist poems” may vary slightly in primary and secondary sources (hatori, “kanbara tai,” 50n1). kanbara says there are eight, “oitachi,” 7. [88] for instance, in kanbara, “miraiha ya rittaiha,” 136‒137. matsuura’s brother kaname (1889‒?), an economist at chūō university, was one of the founders of waruto, one of the two journals in which kanbara’s “post-cubist poems” were originally published. [89] hatori, “kanbara tai,” 39. “cubism will pass away, but the spirit of change will not pass away. one enthusiasm will follow another enthusiasm so long as men possess ambition. already there are signs that cubism is passing. some of the men are calling themselves neo-cubists and post-cubists, and they are painting in very different manner” (arthur j. eddy, cubists and post-impressionism (chicago: mcclurg, 1914), 67). “therefore, he [the painter] has cut loose from cubism, and is what …may perhaps best be called ‘post-cubist’” (picabia’s reported words, in ibid., 82). [90] lines 1‒4, my translation. original text in hatori, “kanbara tai,” 44. in august 1923, this poem was published with a slightly different title (“mahiru no gaidȏ—poème musical”) in noi, an italian futurist magazine edited by enrico prampolini. there, the text appears untranslated but transliterated into the latin alphabet. [91] ikeda, “kanbara tai,” 19‒21. [92] omuka, taishōki shinkō bijutsu undō, 336. [93] quoted in suzuki sadami, “rewriting the literary history of japanese modernism,” trans. miri nakamura, in pacific rim modernisms, ed. helen sword, mary ann gillies, and steven g. yao (toronto: university of toronto press, 2009), 81‒82. [94] matsuura, bungaku no honshitsu, 35. [95] weber, cubist poems, 16. [96] see, in european languages: omuka, “futurism in japan,” 244‒270, hackner, dada und futurismus, 38‒50, and nishino yoshiaki, “f. t. marinetti and japan the futurist,” in f. t. marinetti = futurismo, ed. luigi sansone (milan: motta, 2009), 326‒331. [97] noguchi yonejirō, “rondon de mita shinpa no kaiga” [paintings of the new schools i have seen in london], mita bungaku 6, no. 3 (march 1915): 185. this article is briefly presented in omuka, “futurism in japan,” 257 and is mentioned in hackner, dada und futurismus, 48n44. in this article, which also features the english text of “the eye moment,” noguchi mentions having seen weber’s paintings (many of which “could be called cubist or futurist”) while visiting coburn’s home in london. [98] a landmark moment in this process was the publication of gekka no ichigun [a moonlit gathering; 1925], an influential anthology of recent french poetry in translation edited by horiguchi daigaku (1892‒1981). it was followed by aporinēru shishō [poems of apollinaire, trans. horiguchi daigaku; 1927)] jan kokutō shishō [poems of jean cocteau, trans. horiguchi daigaku; 1929], saikorozutsu [a translation of jacob’s le cornet à dés by kitagawa fuyuhiko; 1929], and sandorarusu shō [selection of cendrars, trans. iijima tadashi; 1929]. [99] in fact, in the same chapter, matsuura also briefly discusses futurism, listing huntly carter’s the new spirit in drama and art (1912) among his sources. [100] sangū makoto, gendai eishishō: yakuchū [contemporary english poetry: annotated translations] (tōkyō: yūhōkan shoten, 1917), 98. in the 1925 revised edition of this anthology, sangū reformulates his judgment more explicitly: “weber has extended the spirit of the modern currents of painting (shinkō gaha) to english poetry.” sangū makoto, eibei shinshisen: yakuchū [new selection of english and american poetry: annotated translations] (tōkyō: hōbunkan, 1925), 210. [101] shirotori, “rittaiha no shi,” 1; ksgs-sz, vol. 1, 1909‒1915, 297. [102] sangū, gendai eishishō, 82. [103] shirotori, “rittaiha no shi,” 3; ksgs-sz, vol. 1, 1909‒1915, 299. [104] shirotori, “rittaiha no shi,” 8. ksgs-sz, vol. 1, 1909‒1915, 304. for a summary of shirotori’s article, see also hikita masaaki, “makkusu webā-cho nogawa takashi-yaku rittaiha shishū” [max weber’s cubist poems, translated by nogawa takashi], in nihon no avangyarudo, 40. [105] kawaji, “rittaiha no shi,” 49. [106] matsuura, bungaku no honshitsu, 33‒34. mediating mobile traditions | dietrich reetz | transcultural studies mediating mobile traditions: the tablighi jama‘at and the international islamic university between pakistan and central asia (kyrgyzstan, tajikistan) dietrich reetz, leibniz-zentrum moderner orient, berlin this paper discusses how muslim networks from south asia contributed to the reconstruction of religious, cultural, and social belonging by creating new modes and formats[1] of regional interaction and connectivity[2] with actors and institutions in post-soviet central asia. this is shown by using examples of the activities of the muslim missionary movement’s conservative preaching groups, such as the tablighi jama’at (tj) and related deoband traditions of sunni islam, as well as the activities of the comparatively modern international islamic university in islamabad, pakistan (iiui) and its graduates. after providing background for these institutions and their perspectives on central asia—kyrgyzstan for the tablighis and tajikistan for the iiui—this paper discusses forms of expansion and local adaptation of their networks, practices, and concepts. the religious actors and institutions from south asia are presented here in their social, cultural, and political context as part of a larger process of the transformation of neighbouring regions. the growing number of south asian students studying in central asia is also part of this larger interaction, where they add a secular dimension to social mobility in both directions. religious actors and institutions merge with new opportunity structures[3] of social and economic interaction, representing educational institutions, formats of knowledge transfer, and business networks, but also rely on social mobilisation. in the process of such interaction, these religious actors and institutions form translocal and transregional networks or arrangements in what elias (1978) called “figurations.” here, local dynamics of translation, adaptation, and transfer acquire new meaning and importance. religious networks from south asia operating in the “neighbourhood” if we follow bourdieu’s understanding of the formation and distribution of cultural, religious, or sacred capital (1991, 23), religious networks emerging out of south asia have become an influential factor in the globalising “islamic field.” those religious networks are understood here as a relationship of connectivity and mobility among religious actors through shared religious practices, ideologies, and institutions (see leutloff-grandits, peleikis, and thelen 2009, 5). they are marked by a particular level of density and regularity of communication (see mitchell 1961). however, the current essay deals less with the density of their mutual interaction than with the ability of connected religious actors to translate their shared symbolic capital from one context to another. the emphasis is therefore less on the mutual interaction than on the shared values, concepts, and practices. thus it is more productive to analyse how the religious networks established a translocal and transnational religious field as discussed by bourdieu. following his work, the religious actors and institutions are understood to trade in symbolic goods or sacred capital, the distribution of which instantly creates power and facilitates political relations among them (bourdieu 1991, 3). the religious aspect of those networks can therefore be imagined as religious capital, constituted by knowledge about and the practice of religious norms and concepts. while bourdieu understood the actors involved as constituting a mainly local community of religious specialists and laymen, this perspective is expanded here beyond national and regional borders as encompassing translocal and transregional networks. following bourdieu, who regarded religious knowledge and practice as a form of social capital for manifesting and negotiating positions of social power and control over resources, these networks are presented here in its social capacity. through these networks, religious actors and institutions engage with issues of shared sociability, economy, or cultural and ethnic identity.[4] as the variety of these dimensions of interaction increases, the religious factor, while never absent, does not always dominate. the increasing impact of such religious networks is an important marker of today’s world. while sociologists view globalisation differently, with some arguing that it creates social and cultural homogenisation while others see an emergence of more differentiation and diversification,[5] it is argued here that both directions of globalisation cannot be neatly separated and instead belong together, where one becomes more visible than the other depending on the perspective taken. while the religious networks contribute to the emergence of some form of homogenisation across national borders and regions among their potential constituencies, the fact that various networks get the chance to operate side-by-side, in places where previously only one or the other was dominant, speaks to an increase of differentiation.[6] by differentiation, we refer to both geographic and denominational diversification. the geographic expansion of south asian muslim groups can be understood as a tendency of such variation. muslim groups are spreading beyond their original centres of formation to other parts of the world, not only from the historical centres of islam in the arabian peninsula, but also from regions such as south asia. to some extent, south asia occupies a strong position to compete with the arabian peninsula. most groups, denominations, and interpretations of islam that emerged in south asia managed to expand beyond their home regions into the wider muslim world. this applies to the purists (deobandis, ahl-i hadith), the sufi-oriented groups (barelwi), the shia minority, and the ahmadiyya (considered heterodox by most sunni muslims) (reetz 2010a). they did so not only by relying on their shared religious identities, but also by using cultural and social connections that had formed in the course of history and strengthened in recent years. between central and south asia, these connections emerged under the mughal empire, which had its roots in central asia (balabanlilar 2012). its emperors ruled over south asia in the name of islam from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. for other parts of the world, such expansion beyond south asia was partly due to the global expanses of the former british colonial empire. today, following the tracks of globalisation, the strong and vibrant modern south asian diaspora has travelled beyond territories formerly under british rule, with south asian muslims active in north america, north africa (maghreb), and southern europe (france, spain). it was through these different trajectories that the geographic expansion expressed itself in social and cultural diversity as well, which marked the conditions of local followers of the tablighi jama’at, or the more political jamaat-i islami, in different parts of the world. this differentiation also applies to denominational variety among muslims from south asia, where it is a particularly striking feature. there we can conditionally distinguish groups following islamic reformism (islah), such as the groups under the influence of the islamic seminary in deoband (north india) or the south asian ahl-i hadith (people of the tradition); groups emphasising sufism (tasawwuf), as practiced by sufi orders, or by barelwi groups affiliated with institutions in the north indian town of bareli; and those applying modernist interpretations as embodied by the jama’at-i islami (islamic party, see also reetz 2009). while such differentiation is not unique to south asia, it acquires a specific profile in the south asian context where these groups project their diverse interpretations and practices. if we understand modernity as a process of social differentiation,[7] the expanding and discerning influence of south asian muslim groups can be traced back to the nineteenth century (reetz 2006). in that sense, the expansion of these groups was part of the differentiation process, and therefore a reflection of modernisation (see also turner 2014). central and south asia share a long history of related muslim institutions, cultural traditions, and religious practices. those historical links gained new strength in the early twentieth century when central asian scholars—who had graduated from deobandi or barelwi institutions in british india—returned and established like-minded networks of friends and institutions in central asia. they laid the foundations of regular connectivity, opening channels through which cultural and religious capital of islamic reference or provenance circulated. however, such flows and transfers often changed the reference and context environment for the acquired knowledge or learnt practices.[8] i have discussed those dynamics as alternate forms of globalisation by religious actors and institutions from south asia for other geographic contexts (reetz 2010a, 2007, 2013a, 2010, 2011). those actors and institutions engaged in various ways of world-making by establishing their own modes of regional interaction. they went beyond translocality[9]—characterising the spatial interaction of different muslim networks—and moved into transregionalism. in the process, they crossed the boundaries of regions with their particular cultural, linguistic, and political characteristics. with their normative value system, these muslim actors and institutions challenge the dominant western concepts of globalisation, examples being the critical take on globalisation by the indian ahl-i hadith scholar maulana abdul ghaffar salafi (2014), or the deobandi scholar maulana yasir nadeem (2003). at the same time, muslim actors and institutions continued to partake in many mainstream economic and social forms of global exchange and connectivity. in particular, the religious networks retained close relations with muslim trading groups from south asia, which in their turn had established transregional connections well before the advent of british colonial rule, particularly with east africa and southeast asia. the current paper looks at the specifics of those exchange dynamics between south asia and post-soviet central asia to understand the modes of engagement of select religious actors and institutions as well as the dynamics of their local adaptation. the purpose is to understand how religious capital translated into the social and spatial mobility that was cutting across the political, cultural, ethnic, and religious divides between the two regions. for this purpose, qualitative interviews were conducted with members of the muslim networks as well as representatives of state institutions in kyrgyzstan and tajikistan during several trips to the region in the years 2012–15. the study builds on additional research and interviews at the international islamic university in islamabad during the same period. the focus was on the transregional impact of two networks, the missionary movement of the tablighi jama’at and its related deobandi madrasa system on the one side, and the modernist international islamic university of islamabad (iiui) and its graduates on the other. both networks are historically rooted in south asia. the deobandi doctrine and the system of deobandi madrasas goes back to the darul ulum deoband (islamic university of deoband),[10] which was opened in 1866. the lay preaching movement of the tablighi jama’at was founded by muhammad ilyas (1885–1944) in north india in 1926, primarily as an internal missionary movement to re-awaken faith among muslims. the international islamic university islamabad (iiui)[11] was inaugurated in 1980. although the tablighi and deobandi movements were highly innovative in their own time, they were later seen as conservative and more or less orthodox. the founding of the iiui, on the other hand, resulted from the modern islamist project of the “islamization of knowledge” in the 1970s.[12] while it was founded around a core of strong departments devoted to orthodox islamic studies (usul-ud-din, lit. rules of religion) and missionary activity (da’wa), it has since gravitated towards secular education with major fee-earning faculties like management sciences, applied sciences, engineering technology, law, and social sciences (reetz 2010b). both institutions and networks attracted a steady number of foreign students, not least from central asia. as will be shown here, using the examples of kyrgyzstan and tajikistan, the exchange processes outside south asia followed different dynamics for every region or even country. those dynamics were influenced by the host institutions in south asia as much as by the recipient networks and institutions in central asia. the latter interpreted, selected, and adapted the knowledge, practices, and experiences acquired in the light of their own needs, values, and capacities. while the flows of religious connectivity between south and central asia were disrupted or curtailed during the soviet era, they were never fully cut. a small number of students from russia and central asia continued to graduate from darul ulum deoband and the international islamic university even during this period.[13] after the dissolution of the soviet union, pakistani leaders—based on ideological islamist assumptions—entertained high hopes about the potential of re-uniting the islamic republic of pakistan with the muslim brother states of central asia. in 1991–92, pakistan’s president ghulam ishaq khan, prime minister nawaz sharif, and key ministers repeatedly visited central asia, while leaders from uzbekistan, kazakhstan, and tajikistan paid return visits as well (reetz 1993). pakistan’s hopes were not only driven by historic nostalgia but also by strategic expectations that these states would, because of their muslim identity, support pakistan in its confrontation with india and provide a “strategic hinterland” (reetz 1993). in this way, they would make up for what was felt to be a lack of “geographic depth” in the event of a military confrontation with india. simultaneously, religious actors such as the jama’at-i islami invested heavily in spreading religious material in post-soviet central asia, sponsoring translations of (largely historical) religious tracts into russian and central asian languages. they sought to assist in the revival of religious thought and practice after what they perceived as the end of the atheist era there. however, because both the pakistani government and the religious actors underestimated the closeness of the secular former soviet elites to india, these hopes did not materialise. the influence of the pakistani government in the region ran into many obstacles as there was only limited response during the early nineties to the overtures of the south asian religious networks with their hopes for proselytization, muslim religious bonding, and political solidarity in central asia. india, on the other hand, continued to benefit from the existing networks and institutional links as well as the cultural affinity and economic connections created during the soviet era. central asia rediscovers south asia and its muslim networks from the perspective of central asia, the dissolution of the soviet union in 1991 was also the strategic watershed event for relations with south asia. most of the respondents interviewed for this study twenty-five years later remembered it only as “collapse” (russian: razval). the dissolution of the soviet union caught many central asian states such as kyrgyzstan and tajikistan by surprise, as they were unexpectedly confronted with the demands of their own nation building. their soviet-trained central asian elites had not pushed for national sovereignty because they feared it would lead to a loss in resources, connectivity, and international political standing. the dissolution process accelerated the elevation of ethnic and religious references in the articulation of their re-asserted nation state identities, a process that had already begun during the late soviet period when ethnic cultural markers enjoyed growing popularity. meanwhile, the interest in islam, its practices, festivals, and religious doctrine had grown significantly (see olimov and olimova 2003; stephan 2010). making use of the new liberties granted during perestroika, an all-union islamic renaissance party was founded in astrakhan, muslim russia, on july 9, 1990 (babak, vaisman, and wasserman 2000; khalid 2007). it quickly developed branches in other parts of the soviet union and it was the precursor of the only legal islamic political party in the post-soviet era, the islamic renaissance party (irp) of tajikistan, which has now been banned (see below). after the afghan civil war against the islamist mujahidin insurgency of the eighties, post-soviet state elites in central asia were fearful of the revival of religious practices. the soviet union had to withdraw in defeat from afghanistan while the central asian states, which had been heavily involved in this struggle, continued to suffer from its consequences. yet islamic practice reasserted itself partly from the grassroots, partly through opportunistic government policies designed to exploit muslim cultural references, and partly through interaction with the muslim world (louw 2007; khalid 2007). governments responded with a mix of tight state regulations and repression, which also led to civil war in tajikistan and flashes of violence in uzbekistan and kyrgyzstan. muslim actors in post-soviet central asia engaged with various transnational islamic movements that arrived to promote their concepts and formats in a growing competition over defining true islam and gaining the support of central asian muslims. these transnational movements included influential players from saudi arabia, the gulf states, turkey, and iran (lenz-raymann 2014). at the same time, post-soviet central asia re-discovered south asia by taking advantage of the geographic proximity and reviving historical bonds. some actors in these states also responded to the charm offensive by pakistan religious actors and institutions,[14] often seeking support in their political contestation with the post-soviet bureaucratic elite, the nomenklatura. after violent clashes with government forces, islamic opposition forces crossed the border from uzbekistan and tajikistan to afghanistan and moved further into pakistan in the early nineties.[15] a significant number of central asian muslim activists also availed themselves of scholarships offered to study at local islamic schools in pakistan, such as the syed maudoodi international islamic educational institute[16] of the jama’at-i islami in lahore, the international islamic university, and also at both local and foreign madrasas—including those set up or funded in pakistan by saudi arabia and other gulf states in the aftermath of the afghan jihad of the 1980s. twenty years later, central asian graduates of “traditional” and “modern” islamic schools (madrasas, colleges, universities) in pakistan and india, as well as followers of missionary networks who had returned to their countries of origin, were engaged in reshaping the environment there in different ways. adding another dimension to the transregional mobility beyond the religious aspect, secular students from pakistan and india at universities and institutes in central asia and other post-soviet states have slowly extended their own diaspora networks within central asia.[17] at the same time, pakistan and india were developing their political and economic relations with the new central asian states with varying degrees of success. these relations were shaped by their own evolving capacities and needs as well as the opportunities offered by central asia, especially the latter’s natural and energy resources. china’s appearance on the regional scene and a re-emerging russia further added to the complexity of the situation. against this background, this paper looks at the dynamics of the connections between the two regions through the example of tablighi and deobandi activists in kyrgyzstan and of iiui graduates in tajikistan. these selections have been made without claiming to cover the whole range of islamist activism in central asia. of particular interest are the ways in which these activists and graduates embedded themselves in the local “islamic field” in both countries and reconciled their transregional connectivity with their local life-worlds.[18] the tablighi jama’at between south asia and kyrgyzstan since the tablighi jama’at established itself as a global actor in the mid-1950s (reetz 2008), it has directed its international activities from its global headquarters in the nizamuddin district of delhi, india. in comparison, the national tj centre in raiwind, near lahore, pakistan, became a “second-among-equals” global actor of the tablighi system. this was partly due to the madrasa in raiwind (madrasa arabiyya islamiyya), which was one of the few madrasa institutions in south asia officially aligned with the tj movement. the curriculum taught at this madrasa largely followed the teaching programme of the islamic university (dar-ul-ulum) in deoband, india, which was affiliated with several hundred deobandi madrasas across south asia and beyond. this teaching programme was based on the seventeenth century dars-e nizami curriculum, originally developed by the islamic scholar mulla nizamuddin (d. 1748). it privileged the study of the prophetic traditions (hadith) in addition to the quran (robinson 1974).the raiwind madrasa developed a tradition of hosting a large number of international students, either for the whole eight-year ‘alim course of a religious scholar (‘alimiyya), or for the final year (daura-i hadith) after attending other deobandi madrasas in pakistan. foreign students usually benefitted from local scholarships, which would cover a frugal lifestyle in line with rural conditions.the madrasa system was traditionally funded by local donations, foundations (waqf), and a religious tax (zakat). central asian students formed a visible and continuous, albeit small, component of those students. the author learnt from respondents that central asian madrasa and iiui students in pakistan would meet on the sidelines of the traditional annual tj congregations (ijtima) in some sort of regional community bonding effort. the tj expanded to central asia during the mid-nineties in the post-soviet era (ismailbekova and nasritdinov 2012; balci 2015). former soviet elite representatives with authoritarian reflexes, who dominated several governments there, were suspicious of islamic groups arriving from abroad. they remembered only too well the violent and humiliating experience of confronting orthodox islamic fighters in afghanistan—the by now famous mujahidin—after the soviet union had militarily and politically intervened there in the eighties. however, some local politicians toyed with the idea of using the ostensibly peaceful tablighi missionaries for their own internal religious politics. but growing competition in the islamic field, specifically a perceived challenge of authority in tajikistan and uzbekistan, made them change their minds. as a consequence, tj was banned in all central asian republics except kyrgyzstan, where, however, it was also not formally registered (toktogulova 2014). these prohibitions did not prevent the tj from conducting their preaching missions in almost every central asian country as well as in russia. we will focus here on kyrgyzstan, where their presence also manifested itself structurally in society and in the administration. during the last five years, the tj has had a remarkable impact on the islamic field in kyrgyzstan. this fact and the relative liberalism of the local political system in comparison to its neighbours apparently allowed more freedom of action and contributed to the growing popularity of the movement in kyrgyzstan. this development led to a flurry of new studies of its activities by both local and international scholars.[19] looking at the global system of branches and institutions run by the tj in almost every country where muslims live, the kyrgyz tj was one of those remarkable units that managed to go beyond the cultural and ethnic confines of the south asian muslim diaspora. it was run almost entirely by natives, mostly kyrgyz, and a few representatives of the uzbek minority. kyrgyz tablighis share this feature of endogeneity with their counterparts in countries such as malaysia, indonesia, france, and those from the arab maghreb (algeria, morocco, and tunisia). in contrast, tj activities in the uk, the us, canada, south africa, as well as countries in east africa, still rely heavily, though to a varying degree, on diaspora muslims of south asian descent. this endogenous character demonstrates the remarkable adaptability of the tj, as it managed to become an accepted normative actor of islam despite its south asian roots and in effect turned itself into a global religious service provider. their endogeneity in countries such as kyrgyzstan provided cultural and religious space for moulding, reading, and interpreting tj values and practices according to local demands, needs, and expectations. social cohesion and networks that were seen as being under threat by the advancing market economy and the restructuring of the post-soviet administration, were being revived—partially through tablighi formats—in local communities for both young men and women. the supposed lack of ethical values under the current market conditions made preaching and religious learning more attractive again. as a consequence, the kyrgyz tj branches—like other tj units in similar conditions—became effective local actors and institutions. its activists managed to claim not only the sacred capital (bourdieu 1991) of global islamic norms in a heavily contested field, but also stood for the local representation of such normativity. the tj programme in kyrgyzstan was almost identical to practices in other tj branches. the local tablighis convened weekly thursday night meetings at local mosques, such as the main mosque in bishkek or the mosque in the ninth microrayon of the town (fig. 1). there they called for the formation of voluntary preaching groups, which in turn moved to other towns or areas to spread their message among the local muslim communities.[20] the missionary trips for the kyrgyz tablighis, who in local parlance are called daavatchi or daavatisty—the russian adaptation of a practitioner of da’wa (islamic mission)—also extended to india and pakistan. they would go from door to door to invite muslims to prayer sessions at the local mosque. the idea was to involve a larger number of (supposedly secularised) muslims in preaching and praying to revive regular religious practice among them. the new recruits would study the faza’il-e ‘amal, the collection of hadith (prophetic traditions) compiled by one of the founders of the movement, which was supposed to help them transmit more formal religious knowledge through the tj’s six-point programme of action, which was said to capture key elements of islam.[21] separate gatherings were organised to address women, together with their spouses or close male relatives.[22] fig. 1: mosque in the 9th microrayon in bishkek where the tablighi jama‘at regularly convenes local roles and impact formats of the tablighis this broadly based interaction with local society turned the tj activists into a local power broker of religious, cultural, and social norms and behaviour without claiming or directly exercising political power. yet critics from among the post-soviet security elites feared that this local involvement of the tablighis prepared the ground for a more observant and potentially radical islamic activism to emerge. parts of the local population resented the tj’s interventions, which they saw as moral pressure to change inherited and customary practices of religious observance. these reservations revealed the internal tensions and contradictions of the tj programme; the local preaching engagement of the tablighis was a key condition of their success but also set them apart from the local population. local elites could not directly use them for political purposes, since the scope of their preaching was strictly circumscribed by procedural rules, which discouraged them from involvement in any form of activism—religious or non-religious—on behalf of the tj (see reetz 2008). at the same time, the tj’s aim to integrate the common believers and the governance system also showed in kyrgyzstan.[23] if we trace the activities of the tablighis in kyrgyzstan, we can see that they made an impact through particular forms of engagement. the tj’s activism in kyrgyzstan particularly benefited from the perceived need for a rebirth of religious knowledge and practice after living under the official atheism and secularism of the soviet era.[24] tablighi preaching questioned whether local traditional religious practices modelled on the ways of their forefathers were “truly” following the right guidance of islam. the tj argued that local muslims were in need of more structured and formal normative knowledge and practice,[25] as brought and taught by the tablighi missionaries. the tablighis introduced different styles of clothing, even a different style of sitting—one respondent observed that he had to re-learn the squatted style of “muslim sitting.” tj followers saw this as a recovery of genuine islamic practices that had been forgotten, but critics saw it as an imposition of alien innovations that struck at the heart of kyrgyz culture and identity.[26] in the process, however, tj activists were also making compromises, such as allowing the traditional ankle-length trousers to be embroidered with kyrgyz folklore motives to increase their acceptability (toktogulova 2014). the local preaching department of the state muftiyat even passed rules that made such considerations mandatory for the preaching missions, so that they would raise less concern.[27] the tj also responded to local demands for more formal religious education, filling a gap left by the secular state education system. as in similar contexts in the uk, the us, indonesia, malaysia, and south africa, tj activists started influencing the teaching of religion in madrasas in kyrgyzstan. in bishkek, they helped create a deobandi-style madrasa, which they adapted to the local format. respondents confirmed that this madrasa taught the regular eight-year curriculum of ‘alimiyya, followed the same sequence of subjects, and used similar books as in south asia.[28] there was, however, a minor adaptation in the selection of reference books, although central asia shares the hanafi legal code of south asia and was therefore legally compatible with the curriculumfrom deoband.[29] the tablighis also translated their reference collection of hadith, known by its original urdu title as faza’il-e ‘amal, into kyrgyz and tajik (figs. 2 and 3).[30] fig. 2: hadith collection of the tablighi jama‘at, fazail-e amal, in kirghyz, in islamic bookstall in bishkek (2nd row, 3rd from right). fig. 3: fazail-e amal in tajik, dushanbe the ambivalence of impact and influence on both religious behaviour and social life became clearer when talking to some respondents. the tablighi role of social broker[31] emerged from accounts of tj followers who emphasised the advantages of the movement for the restoration of social harmony in kyrgyz society and especially in rural communities. by various accounts, tj practices, such as sending a group of lay preachers door to door to invite muslim neighbours to pray at the local mosque and listen to inspirational religious talks, had a healing social effect. repeated narratives of respondents emphasised how young men in a particular village who used to drink and neglect “religious and social duties” after being out of work in the aftermath of the collapse of the soviet system, started modifying their behaviour and attending religious services at local mosques after they had joined tj activities.[32] metaphorically, tj activism could be seen as re-appearance of a social bond amongst young people that had previously been fostered by organisations like the komsomol, whose rituals and practices were destroyed by the social upheaval following the end of the soviet era and the introduction of the market economy. such an understanding would be in line with the thinking of religious sociologists such as emile durkheim, who “argued that religion is functional for society because it reaffirms the social bonds that people have with each other, creating social cohesion and integration” (andersen and taylor 2008, 452–53; durkheim 2012 [1915]). this phenomenon can also be observed in other similar endogenous settings of the tablighis. in france, for instance, the tj was the second-most influential islamic movement, providing muslims with an arabian or african migration background with social pride and confidence. social activists often expressed hopes that the tj could potentially heal many social or even economic wounds in society (see reetz 2010c). in kyrgyzstan, a young activist named muhammad azam, who was also a local preacher on television and at times a government consultant, expressed enthusiasm about the potential of the movement to contribute to peace and social or even ethnic harmony, which in 2010 had been disrupted by clashes with the uzbek minority.[33] yet the tj global organisation was very cautious and circumspect about such expectations from tablighi activism. being in close and direct contact with the kyrgyz unit, tablighi leaders from raiwind and nizamuddin gave advice both in writing and through personal consultations when they visited the country or kyrgyz preachers visited them. they strongly advised the local kyrgyz activists to stay within the limits of its ritualised practice, which focused exclusively on re-activating religious practice and knowledge of the individual and the family.[34] female participation in tj activities, which was traditionally conducted through groups where the females were accompanied by the husband or a trusted male relative (masturat jama’at), had also taken on its own character in kyrgyzstan. given strong female self-respect and emancipation in the tradition of the soviet system, women’s participation in these activities opened other contested binaries: what was meant to re-introduce traditional islamic gender segregation, echoed for local muslim women the social activities of women in soviet times. women who participated in all-female education sessions (ta’lim) recreated female traditions of social life that they fondly remembered from the activities of branches of the soviet women’s committee. yet kyrgyz opponents of the tablighi activities found it difficult to accept changes among female tj followers in demeanour, behaviour, and dress that signified gender segregation (see toktogulova 2014). in kyrgyzstan, as hinted above by azam, tj activism was increasingly tested as a possible means for diffusing ethnic tensions between kyrgyz and uzbek muslims. according to evidence from several tj activist respondents and local researchers, local tj units and activists played a key role in several uzbek communities in the south when riots broke out in 2010,[35] trying to keep tempers down by reminding everyone of their shared muslim identity.[36] however, the hopes of local government and ngo representatives to expand the peace-building role of the tj were not fulfilled. the reason was not only the persistent refusal of tj organisers to engage in local or other politics, but also the fact that uzbeks so far had abstained from joining the tj ranks in larger numbers. their refusal to join followed local stereotypes that saw traditional kyrgyz families in need of expanding their formal religious knowledge, while uzbek muslims considered themselves, or were considered to be, strongly observant of the rules of islam. yet the social fabric was dynamic and the tj’s emphasis on common religious identity led to greater interaction between uzbeks and kyrgyz within its ranks.[37] the tj also connected with the local political systems that governed religion.[38] as discussed by toktogulova (2014) and experienced by the author, the department of the muftiyat, the state administration of islam in kyrgyzstan, an institution inherited from soviet times, was strongly influenced by tablighi activists. in 2012, the section officer in charge of missionary activities in foreign countries was djigit ali, a bureaucrat who was a tablighi activist himself and who had graduated from a madrasa in pakistan.[39] the muftiyat responded to local criticism of tj activities by codifying rules that local tj followers must observe. these mandated that their clothing must be in line with kyrgyz tradition and that tj groups visiting villages must register and get documentation. there were also provisions for training and self-education, since sermons and talks given by tablighi activists about what is correct islamic behaviour frequently provoked controversy.[40] it is remarkable how religiosity and secularity became intertwined in the case of this official. the exercise of secular duties was not seen as preventing muslims from practicing islam and participating in tj activities. such understanding of secularism came close to the interpretation in india, where secularism was seen as a strategy of managing the diversity of religion and protecting its followers from each other. religiosity was seen here as a basic and indispensable moral value of society, a concept that in the west is perhaps most closely followed and lived in the us only. with opponents of tablighi influence increasingly demanding a formal proscription of tj activities in kyrgyzstan in line with other central asian states, its defenders also publicly articulated its benefits for society from a global perspective, citing the unique public engagement of tj followers (schenkkan 2011). within the local political configuration, the opponents of the tj found themselves in the same camp with new radical kyrgyz nationalists who preached ethnic segregation. the tj, which was perceived as conservative in many other countries, or more precisely by their elites, in this way found itself in kyrgyzstan on the side of political liberalism, tolerance, and inter-ethnic peace. the international islamic university islamabad and central asia the international islamic university (iiui), as mentioned above, emerged from the larger project of “islamization of knowledge,” which set out to find islamic answers to academic inquiries not only related to religion but also with regard to the humanities and social sciences. it was championed by scholars like muhammad naguib syed al-attas (b. 1931) and isma‘il raji al-faruqi (1921–1986). the latter had established the international institute of islamic thought (iiit) in virginia, usa in 1981, while al-attas had established the international institute of islamic thought and civilisation (istac) in kuala lumpur in 1987. the idea was to islamize (western) secular sciences so that muslims could regain their identity (al-attas 1998 [1978]; moten 2004). the university in islamabad continued its close relationship with its sister university in kuala lumpur, which had been established around the same time (1983). but the iiui had less intense contacts with other islamic universities that followed a similar model in indonesia, india, or the muslim regions of africa (see reetz 2010b). right from the beginning, the “islamization of knowledge” project also had an internationalist side to it, as it aimed at strengthening solidarity among students from the global muslim umma and providing them with equal access to “islamized” knowledge. the universities in islamabad and kuala lumpur have since evolved into primarily national universities that provide access to secular knowledge in an environment marked by muslim ethics. at the same time, the departments of usul-ud-din and da’wa retained their religious importance, particularly in islamabad. while originally relying on substantial financial contributions from donors in the gulf region, since the september 11 attacks, the iiui in pakistan is a state institution primarily financed with public money.[41] as part of its internationalist calling, the iiui has opened its doors to foreign students since the 1990s. although the number of foreign students nearly doubled between 1988–89 and again in 2003–04, their share of the total enrolment actually fell from forty-eight to twelve percent, as overall enrolment increased faster than the number of foreign students rose. within this period, there was significant fluctuation and the number of foreign students was temporarily much higher: the peak years of foreign student enrolment were 1995–96 to 1998–99, with numbers fluctuating between nine hundred and one thousand foreign students. those were the years of increasingly active internationalist ambitions amongst many of its foreign students, as the islamic resistance movements in afghanistan, tajikistan and uzbekistan gained momentum, partly through and from pakistani territory (reetz 1999). after the islamic renaissance party was legalised in tajikistanand participated in the government in 1997–99, students from tajikistan were sent to the iiu islamabad on the official tajikistan state quota—with state consent but not on state funding. the pakistani government provided scholarships for international students, partly relying on international donors. haji akbar turajonzodah (b. 1954), a prominent religious scholar associated with the islamic opposition,[42] was on the advisory board of the iiui while he held different public offices in tajikistan in the 1990s.[43] within the international student body at the iiui, student groups from the post-soviet central asian states and muslim territories reached their peak numbers between the late 1990s and the early 2000s, declining afterwards: from tajikistan in 2002–03 (62), kazakhstan in 1997–98 (30), uzbekistan in 1994–95 (5), and chechnya in 1997–98 (19).[44] however, it was not islamic activism but religious knowledge transfer that had the most enduring impact. from the data for 2001–02, we know that the students from kazakhstan, tajikistan, and chechnya, who formed the largest groups at the iiui from post-soviet muslim territories, primarily enrolled in the faculties of usul-ud-din, sharia and law, and arabic, with only a few taking courses at the faculties of english, computer sciences, and social studies (ibid.). once back home in tajikistan, the returning iiui graduates struggled to gain wider social recognition of their education so as to turn it into employment opportunities.[45] the tajik government increasingly asserted itself in efforts to fully control islamic studies and the public activities of muslim activists. in 2010, it recalled all tajik students from foreign islamic schools (asia-plus 2011). the iiui as a state institution presented an ambiguous case for tajik state regulation as many of the tajik students had enjoyed state support in both tajikistan and pakistan in their time. still, most tajik students chose to comply with the demands of their government and return home. in spite of existing political limitations, several graduates of the iiui took up prestigious positions in the religious bureaucracy of tajikistan. they not only included the mufti of the country, saidmukarram abdulkodirzoda,[46] but also sulaiman davlatov, the former rector of the abu hanifa state islamic institute in dushanbe, and some of the teachers at that institute, the only one of its kind.[47] table 1: composition of international student body at international islamic university islamabad (iiui) by place of origin, for wider central asia source: administrative reports of the international islamic university for the respective years, provided to the author. listing follows the iiui administration procedures where post-soviet muslim territories and autonomous republics have been listed according to the self-identification by the students even if they belonged to another state, as daghestan, chechnya or ingushetia belong to russia. these country names are abbreviated according to the standards of iso 3166-1 numeric 3 country codes. other abbreviations are as follows: chechnya (che), daghestan (dag), ingushetia (ing), kashmir (india) (ksh(ind)); also post-soviet central asia (psca) and post-soviet muslim territories (psmt). the dushanbe islamic institute had originally been named after imam tirmizi (824–892), a famous scholar of classical islam, which in itself was an important and programmatic reference because tirmizi was a persian scholar of sunni islam. that helped create a symbolic connection with iran, with which tajikistan shared a strong linguistic and cultural affinity. tirmizi had compiled one of the six classical collections of hadith, the traditions or narrations of the way of life of the prophet and his companions, which serve as the second-most important reference of islamic knowledge and practice after the quran. at the time of its founding, the university thus emphasised its commitment to both its persian traditions and to conservative sunni theology—clearly separating itself from shia theology while highlighting regional belonging and cultural connectivity with iran. the school started as a private institution in 1991 after tajikistan had become independent. it was transformed into the tajik state islamic institute in 2007 when the government forcibly took over control of the school.[48] in 2009, in line with government initiatives to commemorate abu hanifa, the founder of the hanafi legal school and doctrine, the islamic institute was renamed after him (fig. 4).[49] that name change put more emphasis on the mainstream sunni islam popular in the arab gulf countries, which became a significant source of funding for religious institutions in tajikistan. at the same time, references to the persian heritage were withdrawn. fig. 4: entrance to the tajikistan islamic institute abu hanifa, dushanbe. as a member of the federation of the universities of the islamic world (fuiw), the institute appeared to follow the model of the iiui and other sister schools. after taking over the institute, the tajik government converted the religious courses to the internationally recognised bachelor of arts and master of arts format. the authorities’ concern was to provide religious education in a format that would get its graduates into reliable regular employment.[50] this emphasis was apparently meant to clearly distinguish the institute from religious schools belonging to the south asian madrasa system. the political backdrop to this argument was the assumption that the perceived lack of employment opportunities for madrasa graduates provided incentives for them to join radical or militant movements. following this line of thinking, structural and systemic changes mandated by the tajik state ensured that the teachers as well as the islamic institute itself—as much as the only islamic high school—would form inalienable parts of the unified public education system and its administration, which had been formed during the soviet era. yet the tajik institute’s involvement in secular education subjects remained limited—contrary to the international islamic universities in pakistan and malaysia, and in spite of wide-ranging government intervention, though that was largely limited to the administrative and educational formats and procedures (tables 2 and 3). table 2: courses offered in the abu hanifa islamic institute in dushanbe, tajikistan, for 2014-15. source: applicant's guide. tajikistan islamic institute. (dushanbe, 2014, tajik, translated by umedjon majidi). the role of the pakistan-trained religious teachers had primarily been to teach the sanctioned religious curriculum, such as arabic and the prophetic traditions of hadith, tafsir, fiqh, etc.[51] the institute deliberately drew on the education and teaching experience gained by the tajik graduates at the iiui in pakistan. this gave their input a more professional dimension, rather than a purely theological perspective: they were seen more as offering a structured and professional approach to the teaching of religion than as inculcating a particular religious understanding. table 3: faculties at the international islamic university in 2016 source: iiui website, http://www.iiu.edu.pk/ [accessed on 20. january 2016]. intervention options and constraints for tajik graduates interviews with select graduates of the international islamic university and the lahore-based maududi institute of the jama’at-i islami, conducted in april 2014 and may 2015 in dushanbe, suggested that their impact in tajikistan followed a pattern of cultural and social mobility that was similar to that observed among the tablighi followers in kyrgyzstan. for example, the knowledge they had obtained in pakistan allowed them to intervene not only in religious but also in secular affairs. at the same time, the impact of their graduation from the iiui on their religious positioning was less visible or pronounced than in the cases of the tablighis. they also faced a much more constrained environment in tajikistan. their greatest asset proved to be the formal educational credentials they brought back. they managed to use them in different capacities and at various levels. those opportunities ranged from the religious bureaucracy of the state to independent religious institutes, academic teaching positions (mainly of languages like arabic and urdu), international ngos, and media positions where they could use their english-language proficiency. for some of them, the structured religious knowledge they had obtained in different institutes in pakistan enabled them to occupy positions of authority in the public religious administration of the state. the most prominent of them were the mufti of tajikistan, saidmukkaram abdulkodirzoda, who was also the head of the ulama council of the islamic centre of tajikistan,[52] and sulaiman davlatov, who was the rector of the above-mentioned state islamic institute from 2012 until he was promoted to the position of chairman of the influential committee of religious affairs under the president’s office in early 2015.[53] they both used the religious knowledge, political understanding, and international experience in administration and governance that they had obtained while studying at the iiui, albeit in different ways. the mufti, as head of the national tajik ulama council, also oversaw the religious instruction programmes at the islamic institute. moreover, he headed the fatwa administration of the central mosque. at times, he took on a political role when making arguments in public about various government policies concerning believers and the regulation of religious institutions and practices.[54] he also publicly joined the critique of the leader of the recently proscribed islamic renaissance party, muhiddin kabiri.[55] davlatov, on the other hand, as head of the islamic institute, was deeply involved in issues of state administration. the challenge he faced was to reconcile the demands of his state functions regarding religious knowledge with the administrative traditions of the secular education system of post-soviet tajikistan. he also had to accommodate the apprehensions of the political elite about the potential radicalisation of muslims, which increasingly drove government policies. the traditional religious instruction courses also had to be adjusted to the demands of the european bologna education system, with regular bachelor’s and master’s degree courses. the government’s aspiration was not only to retain full control over religious education, but also to ensure graduate access to regular jobs, not restricted to the religious sector. yet after the government had restricted the access of minors and under-aged students to institutionalised religious education, the islamic institute found it difficult to get applicants sufficiently well-versed in religious knowledge. even more, they could not be tested in this field because they had to go through standard testing procedures at secular national testing centres, which were only allowed to test mainstream subjects such as literature, history, and foreign languages.[56] the only islamic high school in the country that provided religious education for secondary-level students faced institutional and regulatory problems, resulting in its supposedly temporary closure in 2015 (asia-plus 2015). however, what appeared to be important for the tajik graduates of the iiui was that their education enabled them to pursue a career in religious administration both in the state and the private sector, with the latter relating to mosques and other religious institutions. their studies put them in a somewhat privileged position compared to their compatriots: they had not only completed structured courses on islamic studies and arabic, but had also gained international experience outside their home country and outside the post-soviet area. central asian respondents at the iiui confirmed that their access to an english-speaking environment and western knowledge both at the university and in pakistan helped them in their individual adaptation to the rapid changes in the society and economy of their home countries. they acquired first-hand experience of the conditions of a market economy and of relative freedom of operation for political forces and the media, which was common in pakistan yet was only gradually taking root in post-soviet central asia, where it is now being reversed again. the knowledge transfer thus provided several dimensions of structured knowledge, with islam occupying a place of prime importance, while knowledge in secular areas such as english, business management, and computers was complementary. the secular knowledge obtained during their studies at the iiui in pakistan benefitted graduates with degrees in religious or arabic studies who now worked in public ngos or as media and public relations officers. one of them, mustafo surkhov, who had studied arabic for his bachelor’s degree and international relations for his ma at the iiui, was working with the us ngo creative associates international.[57] this organisation, which had international funding, worked on programmes to reduce the number of high school dropouts in countries such as tajikistan, india, cambodia, and east timor. in tajikistan, creative associates international was engaged in a pilot programme in the eastern district of khatlon.[58] another graduate, saadi yusuf, became a media person at the qatar embassy after working for several years as a journalist covering religious topics.[59] yet not all iiui graduates managed to secure such stable and privileged positions. some were precariously self-employed as arabic interpreters, or part-time language teachers in academia. some of the difficulties the graduates faced were related to clichés associated with pakistan as the source of radical islam. other obstacles were connected with the reasons that had prompted them to go to pakistan in the first place, such as being members of the islamic opposition in defiance of state authority, which for some of them in the past had also led to temporary persecution and confinement.[60] the pakistan factor and the securitization of islam the roots of their studies in pakistan were often related to the painful events of the past; during the civil war in tajikistan between 1992–97, substantial numbers of refugee migrants had settled in pakistan and afghanistan for several years. the islamic opposition represented the project of a new life with secured rights for believers. several of those students had studied in smaller religious schools in pakistan, not only in madrasas with a complete curriculum to become a religious scholar (‘alim), but also at schools established by international private funding from countries such as saudi arabia. among them was the ma’had-e sharā’i al-’ala al-darāshāt (school of higher learning of the islamic law sharia) in peshawar which existed until 1996. these schools taught arabic and provided instruction in selected religious subjects, but offered no degree programs.[61] several students had to adjust their biographies to the changing political circumstances, institutional histories, and religious concepts. there was strong informal pressure on the tajik students to legitimise their education by acquiring a second degree in islamic studies from institutions in countries like saudi arabia or egypt. several of them opted for an additional master’s degree in tajikistan, like davlatov.[62] interviews conducted in 2015 suggested that the environment for them to employ their skills had become more precarious. the tajik state perceived developments in pakistan and afghanistan as a growing threat. the only legal islamic party in the post-soviet area, the islamic renaissance party, lost all its seats in the march 2015 parliamentary elections, which critics claimed were rigged. as a follow-up, the party was gradually disenfranchised. first, it was denied its all-republican status as a national party. after several of its branches and connected offices had been forcibly closed down, the ministry of justice argued that the party was no longer present in the majority of cities and districts and therefore did not qualify as a valid national party. this seemed to be a pretext for the government to take further action against the party (radio ozodi 2015). after a violent clash between security forces and a reported group of three hundred activists, the irp was blamed for supposedly funding them. the party was banned on september 29, 2015 (radio ozodi 2015a) and was ultimately declared to be an illegal extremist group (radio ozodi 2016). at the same time, the government maintained some degree of ambivalence. it criticised iran for inviting the irp leader kabiri for a conference in tehran in december 2015, while it was reported that its own representatives personally communicated with kabiri during this meeting, where the mufti of tajikistan, abdulkodirzoda (mentioned above), sat next to kabiri (asia-plus 2015a; qishloq ovozi 2016). those were the signs of the growing tension and fear among the political elites of post-soviet central asia, where only kyrgyzstan adhered to some form of political pluralism. this fear was partly fuelled by the rise of militant islam in the larger muslim world, and in particular on the southern borders of turkmenistan, tajikistan, and uzbekistan. after the gradual withdrawal of international forces from afghanistan at the end of 2014, it was feared that the taliban or the islamic state might gradually gain control, which would also impact the situation in tajikistan. fighting moved near the afghan borders with turkmenistan and tajikistan, where the provincial capital of kunduz, which is in close proximity to tajikistan, was briefly held by the taliban for two weeks in october 2015 (nordland, 2015). at the same time, there was concern that the post-soviet political system might be challenged by more “colour revolutions,” a concern particularly nourished by the russian leadership after the orange revolution in the ukraine in 2004. not only did the cadres of the past see their positions threatened, but they also believed that the “colour revolutions” were engineered by the west to weaken the post-soviet states and russia in particular, bringing nothing but destruction. internally, any resumption of religious practices going beyond traditional home-grown ethical beliefs and rituals was viewed with suspicion as radicalisation. any public articulation of structured religious beliefs was viewed as “salafi” and externally-induced (radio ozodi 2015b).[63] the designation “salafi” commonly refers to the religious practice of the founding generations of islam and the pious ancestors (as-salaf). yet the term is contested because it is also widely used for competing claims to an assumed purity of doctrine to justify politics and even warfare (jihad) in the name of religion. often for political reasons, various critics in both kyrgyzstan and tajikistan saw the islamic education and knowledge obtained in pakistan as radical or “salafi”-oriented. some local muslim activists in those countries expressed such reservations in interviews with the author about the character of islamic education in pakistan and the iiui, thus partly identifying with the post-soviet discourse on radical islam. they rarely referred to the additional local meaning of “salafi” in the south asian context, where it describes adherence to a specific doctrine established by the local ahl-i hadith group in south asia (see reetz 2006). in kyrgyzstan, the tj influence on ritual, behaviour, and dress was viewed with suspicion, with critics frequently referencing their pakistani and indian origins (kabar 2015). the contestation about their idea of real islam and its radical potential was widely echoed by the public and the administration. at the same time, sections of the public and also some decision-makers in kyrgyzstan appeared ready to consider the tj influence not as a burden but as an inspiration, which clearly distinguished the local situation from that of the neighbouring countries.[64] in the larger region of post-soviet central asia, the governing elites became increasingly wary of pakistan’s role as a source of islamic education and mobilisation. yet the official position of tajikistan towards pakistan remained neutral and at times friendly, with the hope for increased economic exchange within the wider central and south asian region.[65] the same applied to kyrgyzstan, particularly with reference to the shanghai cooperation organisation (sco), where the membership applications of both india and pakistan were endorsed at the sco summit in astana in june 2017 (bhuyan 2017). nevertheless, the governing elites of the states bordering afghanistan consider pakistan ultimately responsible for the continuing unrest in the region.[66] given the prevailing ambivalence towards pakistan, one can see that the multi-level mobility between central and south asia, which also manifested in islamic mobilisation, constituted both a threat perception and an opportunity structure. to the chagrin of the elites, the increased mobility coming with the widening of the public sphere through transregional interaction, migration, and the new border-crossing medium of the internet was increasingly difficult to control (see nozimova and epkenhans 2013). in interviews, the iiui graduates in tajikistan, as well as the tj activists in kyrgyzstan, continued to stress the opportunities and benefits of their previous and current interaction with pakistan. graduates and others familiar with conditions in pakistan spoke highly of the professionalism of the iiui, which they compared favourably with the tajik islamic institute.[67] when the pakistani embassy officially offered a new quota for tajik students at the iiiui in 2015, the tajik government seemed at least ready to consider it.[68] in kyrgyzstan, on the other hand, the government consulted with tj activists and engaged them to use their religious capital to defuse ethnic and religious tension.[69] while the social side of the muslim actors’ religious capital was mobilised, addressed, and harnessed, it is useful to take a separate look at streams of secular capital along the same trajectories between south and central asia to understand how those compared with and were linked to religious mobility. flows of secular and sacred capital the religious actors mentioned above had established their own modes of connectivity. however, those modes were not necessarily confined to religious knowledge and practice. they fed into wider regional transformation processes, which will be briefly introduced here. those secular exchanges were rebuilding older historical connections between the two regions that go back to the silk road era.[70] my field studies in kyrgyzstan and tajikistan showed a secular stream of interactions between south and central asia that was generated by indian and pakistani students attending central asian medical institutions. this secular stream was not isolated from the religious connectivity discussed above. two kyrgyzstan institutions, the international school of medicine (ism) in bishkek (opened in 2003)[71] and the asian medical institute (ami) in kant (fifteen kilometres away from bishkek and established in 2004),[72] were nodal points in the secular interaction. both significantly focused on the south asian market. the ism offered fee-based medical training to candidates from the subcontinent. at us$1250 per semester, compared to as much as us$6000 per semester at top private pakistani medical colleges, it catered to the lower end of the emerging middle class in south asia. out of the over one thousand students enrolled at the ism in 2012, two-thirds came from india and the remaining third came from pakistan. the avicenna state medical university of dushanbe in tajikistan followed a similar strategy, attracting many students from india and a smaller number from pakistan. this university[73] consciously marketed itself not only as the erstwhile second-best medical institute in the entire soviet union, but also had separate websites for international applicants, particularly from south asia.[74] in an interview, sanjay chowdhry, a student from rajasthan who wanted to specialise in cardio-vascular medicine, explained that in the last two batches there had been 250 students from different parts of india (he mentioned bihar, punjab, haryana, and uttar pradesh) and also some students from pakistan, iran, and afghanistan. tuition ranged around us$3500 dollars per year, which was higher than in kyrgyzstan, but still far below that of the prestigious private institutes in south asia.[75] here in kyrgyzstan and tajikistan, social and economic capital flowed in reverse to south asia. the south asian students from india and pakistan lived together in one hostel, ignoring the constraints and polarities of the tense political relationship between their home countries. in bishkek, they even had joint student representation. their presence created a small south asian world near the bishkek medical institute hostel, with a separate student restaurant named “bollywood” that served indian food (fig. 5) and a local business established by one of the pakistani students that produced and traded south asian food and sweets. the ism tried to make the town attractive for south asian students by highlighting on its website that “bishkek is also a centre for several indian and pakistani restaurants (like the host, indian village, pizza one, mac burger, begemot etc.) giving several options for students to dine and hang out.”[76] in the same vein, dushanbe city hosted several indian and south asian eating places, adding to the feeling of home for south asian students. fig. 5: student restaurant “bollywood” in bishkek offering indian food. those two life-worlds of secular and religious interaction between central and south asia were not mutually exclusive. they had some shared nodal points. respondents confirmed that some of the pakistani students occasionally participated in the tablighi missionary tours in kyrgyzstan. on the other hand, kyrgyz and tajik respondents who had been to pakistan confirmed that some combined their studies at madrasas and the iiui with business activities both at home and in pakistan.[77] the flows of religious and cultural capital connecting pakistan and india with kyrgyzstan and tajikistan in these cases show how connectivity within the wider region operated on different yet related levels and in several intertwined directions. together they formed what one might call opportunity structures. religious as well as secular actors and institutions used spaces provided by new forms of connectivity and mobility. this was an outcome of the re-ordering of the region after the collapse of the soviet system and the end of the cold war. citizens of both central and south asia now went where they could not go before and received services and knowledge from sources previously closed to them. they were not passive recipients, but active agents in the process—bringing with them their own objectives and programmes, both religious and secular, which in turn structured their selection and application. regional mobility and connectivity as this paper primarily focused on the ways in which islamic actors and institutions fit into transregional patterns of social interaction, it is important to understand the different dimensions of this process. while primarily engaged in the acquisition and re-distribution of sacred capital, these actors and institutions were also involved in the circulation of wider social capital. and, as the case of the medical students shows, the religious actors were not separate from similar secular network flows. the examples of the medical students taking part in missionary work and of the tj activists being involved in mediating inter-ethnic conflict show that sacred and secular actors were engaged in activities that could not be neatly categorized as political or pertaining to security. while the religious actors might be value-driven, they might also pursue career opportunities, and while secular actors might be career-driven, they might also be conscious of the value dimensions embedded in their culture and religion. religious actors appeared here as self-conscious agents of change who not only pursued religious agendas but also contributed to social interaction in all its facets. it is argued here that the formats of their religious networking were entangled with their local engagements, which formed a dynamic figuration in line with the analytical frames of norbert elias’s concept of figurations (1978). he investigated the mutual dynamics of connectivity in what he called “groupings of people” who, “through their basic dispositions and inclinations, are directed towards and linked with each other in the most diverse ways” (ibid., 14–15). the interaction of discourse and practice of tj activities from south asia with central asian traditions and values produced a rich diversity of polarities that reflected on the burning issues of social, cultural, and political contestation in kyrgyzstan. the preaching activities were seen and practiced by their supporters as religious interventions for the re-building of social harmony and cohesion in the face of the dramatic socio-economic changes that followed the introduction of a market economy. yet their claims to a true islamic knowledge and education were frequently challenged by the locals. local muslims often engaged in debates with tj followers, since tj practices were resented as controversial and interpreted as pressure to change local lifestyles in accordance with tablighi preferences. in the process, the local tablighis engaged with personal lives, community conditions, and the functions of state institutions in often ambivalent ways. the central asian graduates of the iiui recreated modes of intervention in terms of knowledge and practice that were partly similar to those of the tablighi activists. while they also put prime emphasis on structured knowledge and practice of religion as opposed to inherited popular knowledge and practices of islam, their input was less on a personal level than through interaction with state and private (including religious) institutions. that also reflected the nature of their education and of the iiui institutional format, which was more focused on a synthesis of religious knowledge and practice, with both its public and political meaning. this figuration involved them to a greater degree in the post-soviet political and security discourse of tajikistan and other post-soviet central asian states, which in turn made the social positions they acquired much more vulnerable to political pressures. at the same time, the iiui graduates derived additional benefits from acquiring knowledge and training in the market economy and related political and public institutions in pakistan, most of which came with english language training. their increased adaptability helped improve their chances back home and opened new spaces for them in the private sector. these different forms of benefits that graduates and followers of religious institutions brought back to their home countries equally demonstrate the limits of practices and discourse aimed at a securitisation of islam. they also showed the limits of state control over religion in times of globalisation and expanding market economies, even more so as the governing elites pushing for more state control also retained high stakes in those market economies. the new forms of mobility after the end of soviet-era travel restrictions created and recreated transregional mobile flows of values, practices, and institutional modes, which were adapted and re-appropriated locally. the new mobility across vast distances became operative and effective only through local adaptation. it transported and reshaped the distance-locale binary—between south and central asia—to local polarities of contestations between the state and religious mobilisation. but while the connectivity across distance could only come about when anchored in a local perspective, the contestations it produced were strictly local in nature, even when post-soviet elites blamed them on outside intervention. at the other end of the spectrum, the transregional mobility and connectivity might help negotiate local processes of change and adaptation. at the same time, the originalformats of islamic knowledge and practice—here the tj activities and the “islamization of knowledge” concept of the iiui—underwent adaptive interpretation. the religious capital, in order to reap benefits, had to be re-invested locally. the newly opened mobility facilitated flows, but the flows studied here were structured by the type of religious engagement students chose to pursue. their preferences connected discourses and practices moving across space and time, what one might figuratively call “floating projects”: the tablighi jama’at mission of re-conversion and the iiui’s concept of the “islamization of knowledge.” each of them was preconfigured by the nominal centres and reference points of those engagements, but their mobility was only successful where they took into full consideration the local conditions at the other end of those mobility flows. in this sense, the original figurations of the tablighi followers and the iiui graduates, the specific ways by which members of those networks were connected—speaking with elias—were re-configured through their local adaptation. such local appropriation appeared to be a pre-condition of their own mobility, extending the “grouping of people” across national borders. elias, in his time, was less concerned with connectivity across borders as “nations [were] as yet unable to see themselves as integral components of a figuration, the dynamics of which [were] compelling them to make these efforts” (ibid., 30). one could therefore argue that only those islamic projects whose figurations were able to adapt, and ready to undergo modification for this purpose, could be successfully transmitted across the cultural and political divides of different regions. for elias, to interpret social relations and concepts as figurations meant emphasising that they do not represent something alien, outside human behaviour, but “the kind of forces which people exert over each other” (ibid., 21). applying his perspective to the tablighi and iiui networks could help to understand that it was individual human beings, with all their manifold interests and concurrent activities, who created those figurations by exerting influence and command over each other. it would then help to see them in their different capacities alternatively as social, political, or cultural actors—beyond their religious positioning in those figurations. as for elias, the power differentials between those individuals determined the kind of figurations they formed; significant changes in those power differentials modified the whole figuration (ibid., 15). the interaction of local followers of the tablighi jama’at in kyrgyzstan or the tajik graduates of the iiui followed and created different power differentials between those individuals. this is where the figurations acquired their adaptability, in addition to the changing regional dynamics discussed above. and this is where the identity of these networks and the self-identification of its members could be understood as the product of social interaction, both in the localities and across regional spatial, social, political, or cultural divides. connectivity, therefore, included not only the ability to connect, but also the direction and intensity of flows, as much as their changing and modulating character.[78] where connectivity was mutual and enduring, it produced networks. while the networks represented changing figurations in themselves, they triggered and fed on local figurations, raising the question of scale. mobility is therefore understood here as a multilevel process where a lens was required to distinguish the different scales. in reverse, it was the issue of scale that allowed us to learn about the nature, direction, and stability of mobility. where connections between the two regions opened new opportunity structures, their meaning and usage could only be understood if scale was considered and applied, revealing how the locale-distance binary was translated to local polarities. therefore, it was impossible to judge the effect or impact of such connectivity by only knowing the source and format of that mobility; it was not enough to know that we are analysing tablighis and iiui graduates coming from pakistan in south asia. we also had to look at the local translation and adaptation at the receiving end, which could feed into the source mode or what we know about the “original” formats of these networks in pakistan. it could also differ significantly in adjusting to needs, requirements, and opportunity spaces. the dynamism of transregional interaction was therefore primarily driven by the dynamism of local interaction, the ability of local societies to absorb such interaction, to participate in it, and contribute to it. references abenante, paola, and daniele cantini. 2015. life-worlds and religious commitment: ethnographic perspectives on subjectivity and islam san zeno naviglio (bs): grafo edizioni. al-attas, muhammad naguib syed. 1998 [1978]. islam and secularism. with a foreword by the author to the second edition. lahore: suhail academy. andersen, margaret l., and howard francis taylor. 2008. sociology: understanding a diverse society. belmont: thomson/wadsworth. “асомуддинзода: деятельность исламской гимназии полностью не остановлена” [asomuddinzoda: activities of islamic gymnasium not fully stopped]. asia-plus, (june 2015). http://news.tj/ru/news/asomuddinzoda-deyatelnost-islamskoi-gimnazii-polnostyu-ne-ostanovlena[accessed on 11. january 2016]. “tajikistan concerned over iran’s decision to invite leader of banned irp to conference.” asia-plus, (december 2015). http://news.tj/en/news/tajikistan-concerned-over-iran-s-decision-invite-leader-banned-irp-conference [accessed on 20. may 2017]. “муфтий таджикистана на пятничной молитве назвал иран «пособником предателей»” [mufti of tajikistan called iran “an accomplice of traitors” in friday prayer]. asia-plus, (january 2016). http://news.tj/ru/node/219890 [accessed on 29. june 2016]. babak, vladimir, demian vaisman, and aryeh wasserman. 2000. political organization in central asia and azerbaijan sources and documents. hoboken: taylor & francis. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=214537 [accessed on 7 september 2017]. balabanlilar, lisa. 2012. imperial identity in the mughal empire: memory and dynastic politics in early modern south and central asia. london: i.b. tauris. balci, bayram. 2015. “reviving central asia’s religious ties with the indian subcontinent? the jama’at al tabligh.” religion, state and society, 43(1): 20–34. bourdieu, pierre. 1991. “genesis and structure of the religious field.” comparative social research 13: 1–44. bhuyan, manash pratim. 2017. “sco astana summit 2017: india, pakistan become full members,” live-mint, june 09, 2017. http://www.livemint.com/politics/okjzmgrzn8gvbcjduzujfn/sco-astana-summit-2017-india-pakistan-become-full-members.html [accessed on 14. july 2017]. durkheim, emile. 2012 (1912). the elementary forms of the religious life. mineola: dover. elias, norbert. 1978. what is sociology? new york: columbia university press. epkenhans, tim. 2010. “muslims without learning, clergy without faith: institutions of islamic learning in the republic of tajikistan.” in islamic education in the soviet union and its successor states, edited by michael kemper, raoul motika, and stefan reichmuth, 313–348. london/new york: routledge. faist, thomas. 1997. “the crucial meso-level.” in international migration, immobility, and development: multidisciplinary perspectives, edited by tomas hammar, grete brochmann, kristof tamas, and thomas faist, 187–218. new york: berg publishers. al-faruqi, isma‘il raji. 1983. al tawhid: its implications for thought and life, kuala lumpur: international islamic federation of students organization. fleming, lee, and david m. waguespack. 2007. “brokerage, boundary spanning, and leadership in open innovation communities.” organization science 18, no. 2: 165–80. freitag, ulrike, and achim von oppen. 2010. “‘translocality’: an approach to connection and transfer in area studies.” in translocality: the study of globalising processes from a southern perspective, edited by freitag and von oppen, 1–24. leiden: brill. heathershaw, john, and edmund herzig. 2013. the transformation of tajikistan: the sources of statehood. london: routledge. heathershaw, john, and sophie roche. 2011. “islam and political violence in tajikistan: an ethnographic perspective on the causes and consequences of the 2010 armed conflict in the kamarob gorge”. ethnopolitics papers 8: 1–21. ismailbekova, aksana, and emil nasritdinov. 2012. “transnational social networks and trajectories of religious practices and discourses of kyrgyz dawatchis.” transnational social review 3: 177–195. jain, ravi. 1979. soviet south asian relations, 1947–1978. 2 vols. oxford: martin robertson. kabar. “b бишкеке, прикрываясь движением “таблиги джамаат,” свою пропаганду ведут религиозные радикалы—о.молдалиев” [moldaliev: under the cover of the movement “tablighi jama’at,” religious radicals spread their propaganda in bishkek]. kabar, (january 2015). http://www.kabar.kg/rus/society/full/88916 [accessed on 12. january 2016]. khalid, adeeb. 2007. islam after communism: religion and politics in central asia. berkeley: university of california press. kholikov, abdurrahim. “не стоит создавать стереотипы, что в таджикистане все запрещено” [no need to create the stereotype that everything is prohibited in tajikistan]. asia-plus, (july 2011), http://www news.tj/ru/news/ne-stoit-sozdavat-stereotipy-chto-v-tadzhikistane vse-zapreshcheno [accessed on 12. january 2016]. kooiman, jan. 2003. governing as governance. london: sage. lenz-raymann, kathrin. 2014. securitization of islam: a vicious circle. counter-terrorism and freedom of religion in central asia. bielefeld: transcript. leutloff-grandits, carolin, anja peleikis, and tatjana thelen. 2009. social security in religious networks: anthropological perspectives on new risks and ambivalences. new york: berghahn books. lonkila, markku. 1998. “the social meaning of work: aspects of the teaching profession in post-soviet russia.” europe-asia studies 50, no. 4: 699–712. louw, maria elisabeth. 2007. everyday islam in post-soviet central asia. london: routledge. merton, robert king, and piotr sztompka. 1996. on social structure and science. chicago: university of chicago press. mielke, katja, and anna-katharina. hornidge, eds. 2017. area studies at the crossroads. knowledge production after the mobility turn, new york: palgrave macmillan. mitchell, james clyde. 1969. “the concept and use of social networks.” in social networks in urban situations: analyses and personal relationships in central african towns, edited by james clyde mitchell, 1–50. manchester: manchester university press. moten, abdul rashid. 2004. “islamization of knowledge in theory and practice: the contribution of sayyid abul a‘la mawdudi.” islamic studies 43, no. 2: 247–272. nadeem, yasir. 2003. globalization aor islam [globalization and islam] deoband: darul kitab. nasritdinov, emil, and kevin o’connor. 2010. regional change in kyrgyzstan: bazaars, cross-border trade and social networks. saarbrücken: lambert academic publishing. nederveen pieterse, jan. 2008. globalization and culture: global mélange. 3rd ed. lanham: rowman & littlefield. netton, ian richard. 2008. encyclopedia of islamic civilisation and religion. london: routledge. nordland, rod. 2015. “taliban end takeover of kunduz after 15 days.” new york times, (october 2015). http://www.nytimes com/2015/10/14world/asia/taliban-afghanistan-kunduz.html [accessed on 12. january 2016]. nourzhanov, kirill, and christian bleuer. 2013. tajikistan: a political and social history, canberra: anu e press. nozimova, shahnoza, and epkenhans, tim. 2013. “negotiating islam in emerging public spheres in contemporary tajikistan.” asiatische studien 67, no. 3: 965-990. zürich: peter lang. olimov, muzaffar, and olimova, saodat. 2003. musulmanskie lideri: sotsialnaya rol’ i avtoritet [muslim leaders: social role and legitimacy]. dushanbe: sharq research center. olimov, shokhumorov 2008. islamskiye intellektualy v central’noy azii xx v. zhizn’ i bor’ba mavlavi khindustoni [islamic intellectuals in twentieth century—central asia—the life and struggle of mawlawi hindustani]. vostok-orient, 2008 no. 6: 33–47. pelkmans, mathijs, and julie mcbrien. 2008. “turning marx on his head: missionaries, ‘extremists,’ and archaic secularists in post-soviet kyrgyzstan.” critique of anthropology 28, no. 1: 87–103. qishloq ovozi (blog); “the tajik president’s blunt attempt at entering middle east politics,” posted january 5, 2016. https://www.rferl.org/a tajik-president-blunt-attempt-entering-middle-east politics/27468877.html [accessed on 20. may 2017]. radford, david. 2014. “contesting and negotiating religion and ethnicidentity in post-soviet kyrgyzstan.” central asian survey 33, no. 1: 15–28. radio ozodi. 2015. “минюст рт потребовал прекратить “незаконную” деятельность пивт” [ministry of justice of the republic of tajikistan demanded to stop the ‘illegal’ activity of the party of islamic renaissance of tajikistan pirt]. radio ozodi, (august 2015). http://rus.ozodi.org/content/article/27213715.html [accessed on 12. january 2016]. radio ozodi. 2015a. “пивт учредила исполнительный совет за рубежом” [pirt established its executive board outside the country]. radio ozodi, (october 2015). http://rus.ozodi.org/content/news/27303892 html [accessed on 12. january 2016]. radio ozodi. 2015b. “радикализм в ца: проблема общая, подходы разные” [radicalism in central asia: same problem, different approaches]. radio ozodi, (december 2015). http://rus.ozodi.org content/article/27413716.html [accessed on 12. january 16]. radio ozodi. 2016. “2015-й – непростой год для центральной азии” [2015 was not an easy year for central asia]. radio ozodi, (january 2016). http://rus.ozodi.org/content/centralnaya-azia-2015-god/27460925 html [accessed on 12. january 2016]. rasch, william. 2000. niklas luhmann‘s modernity: the paradoxes of differentiation. stanford: stanford university press. reetz, dietrich. 1999. “islamic activism in central asia and the pakistan factor.” journal of south asian and middle eastern studies 23, no. 1: 1–37. ———. 2006. islam in the public sphere: religious groups in india (1900–1947). delhi: oxford university press. ———. 2007. “the deoband universe: what makes a transcultural and transnational educational movement of islam?” contemporary studies of south asia, africa and the middle east 27, no. 1: 139–159. ———. 2008. “the ‘faith bureaucracy’ of the tablīghī jamā‘at: an insight into their system of self-organisation (intiẓ̣ām).” in colonialism, modernity, and religious identities: religious reform movements in south asia, edited by gwilym beckerlegge, 98–124. delhi: oxford university press. ———. 2009. “conflitti nell’islam della ‘periferia’ asiatica e africana: dottrine, culture e politica” [conflicts in islam on the asian and african ‘periphery’: doctrines, cultures, and politics]. in le religioni e il mondo moderno iii: islam, edited by giovanni filoramo and roberto tottoli, 478–513. torino: einaudi. in english at https://www:academia edu/2401344/conflicts_in_islam_on_the_asian_and_african_periphery_ doctrines_cultures_and_politics) [accessed on 7. september 2017]. ———. 2010. “‘alternate globalities?’ on the cultures and formats of transnational muslim networks from south asia.” in translocality: the study of globalising processes from a southern perspective, edited by ulrike freitag and achim von oppen, 293–334. leiden: brill. ———. 2010. “from madrasa to university: the challenges and formats of islamic education.” in the sage handbook of islamic studies, edited by akbar ahmed and tamara sonn, 106–139. london: sage. ———, ed. 2010. islam in europa: religiöses leben heute [islam in europe: religious life today]. münster: waxmann. ———. 2011. “the tablighi madrasas in lenasia and azaadville: local players in the global ‘islamic field.’” in muslim schools and education in europe and south africa, edited by abdulkader tayob, i. niehaus, & w. weisse, 85–104. münster: waxmann. ———. 2013. “travelling islam: madrasa graduates from india and pakistan in the malay archipelago.” zmo working papers 8. berlin: leibnizzentrum moderner orient (zmo). reynard, lesley. 2014. “political information opportunity structures.” in encyclopedia of social media and politics, edited by kerric harvey. thousand oaks: sage. http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/ download/encyclopedia-of-social-media-and-politics/n412.pdf [accessed on 10. may 2017]. roche, sophie, dina wilkowsky, and jeanne féaux de la croix. 2014. central asian intellectuals on islam: between scholarship, politics and identity. berlin: klaus schwarz. salafī, ʻabdurrazzāq ʻabdulg̲h̲affār. 2014. globalāʼizeshan aur ʻālam-i islām [globalization and the world of islam]. maʼū nāth bhanjan: maktabah al-fahīm. schenkkan, nate. “kyrgyzstan: islamic revivalist movement quietly flourishing.” eurasianet.org (october 2011). http://www.eurasianet org/node/64378 [accessed on 12. january 2016]. schmitz, andrea. 2015. “islam in tadschikistan: akteure. diskurse. konflikte.” swp-studien s 6, berlin: stiftung wissenschaft und politik. stephan, manja. 2010. das bedürfnis nach ausgewogenheit moralerziehung, islam und muslimsein in tadschikistan zwischen säkularisierung und religiöser rückbesinnung. würzburg: ergon-verlag. swami, praveen. “the distant war in the neighbourhood.” the hindu, (march 2008). http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/the-dis tant-war-in-the-neighbourhood/article15188297.ece [accessed on 30. august 2017]. toktogulova, mukaram. 2014. “the localization of the transnational tablighi jama’at in kyrgyzstan: structures, concepts, practices, metaphors.” in crossroads asia working paper series, no. 17. tomlinson, j. 1999. globalization and culture. cambridge: polity press. tsagarousianou, r. 2004. “rethinking the concept of diaspora: mobility, connectivity and communication in a globalised world.” westminster papers in communication and culture. 1, no. 1: 52–65. turner, bryan s. 2010. the routledge international handbook of globalization studies. abingdon: routledge. turner, bryan s. 2014. “religion and contemporary sociological theories.” current sociology 62, no. 6: 771–788. wilkinson, cai. 2015. “imagining kyrgyzstan’s nationhood and statehood: reactions to the 2010 osh violence.” nationalities papers 43, no. 3: 417–436. zakariyya, muhammad. 1994. fazai‘l-e a‘mal [on the virtue of good deeds]. new delhi: idara isha’at-e diniyat. illustrations fig. 1: mosque in 9th microrayon in bishkek where the tablighi jama’at regularly convenes, 23.10.2012. fig. 2: hadith collection of the tablighi jama’at, fazail-e amal, in kirghyz, in islamic bookstall in bishkek, 2nd row, 3rd from right, 22.10.2012. fig. 3: fazail-e amal in tajik, dushanbe, 13.04.2014. fig. 4: entrance to the tajikistan islamic institute abu hanifa, dushanbe, 09.04.2014. fig. 5: student restaurant “bollywood” in bishkek offering indian food, 27.10.2012. [1] formats are seen here as stable and usually organised forms of social connectivity. see also reetz 2010a: 323. [2] connectivity is used here as a state of connectedness of members of a transnational social network that has also been classified as a new, more advanced stage of mobility in transnational globalisation, notably in diaspora research. see also tsagarousianou 2004; tomlinson 1999. [3] “opportunity structures” is used here as a concept to “examine factors external to the movement or individuals within it that inhibit or facilitate the viability of a particular movement in a particular time and place” (reynard 2014, 2–3). regarding muslim networks from south asia, the concept refers to social and economic factors that are external to the religious movements while still being relevant and sometimes crucial to explain their mobilisation and impact. [4] see, for instance, the distinctions in social networks between those based on social and symbolic ties highlighted by faist (1997, 218). social ties imply personal relations and acquaintance, such as those that exist in the household, family and kinship, friendship, or village networks. symbolic ties in turn rest on collective identities and representations, as is the case in networks based on religion, ethnicity, or nationality. [5] see turner 2010, especially the introduction. [6] this is also argued by sociologists who contend that the homogenizing effects of capitalist globalisation are linked to the differentiation of markets, resources, consumption, and production (nederveen pieterse 2015, ch. 3). [7] see the interview with niklas luhman, “what is modernity?” where he discusses different forms and modes of differentiation (rasch 2000, 195). [8] a good example is the religious scholar mullah hindustani (1892–1989) from tajikistan, whom scholars and analysts wrongly assumed to be a salafi and deobandi, because of his strong orthodox views and influence. he actually graduated from the madrasa usmaniya in ajmer, india (darul uloom moinia usmania dargah shareef), a barelwi madrasa of sufi-oriented islam. the deoband connection is assumed by tim epkenhans (2010, 318), kirill nourzhanov and christian bleuer (2013, 258), and praveen swami (2008).the ajmer reference is based on hindustani’s autobiography, quoted in olimov (2008). [9] for the concept of translocality as a research perspective, see freitag and von oppen 2010. for its application to muslim actors from south asia, see reetz 2010a, 296. [10] http://www.darululoom-deoband.com/ [accessed on 12. january 2016]; see reetz 2007; metcalf 1982. [11] http://www.iiu.edu.pk/ [accessed on 12. january 2016]; see reetz 2010b. [12] for more on this see the international islamic university islamabad and central asia in this article. [13] from the statistics of the darul ulum deoband, we know that about seventy students from russia and about twenty from central asia graduated between 1866 and 1994 (reetz 2007, 145). for the iiui, see below. [14] several of pakistan’s religious actors and institutions made overtures in central asia during the nineties. these included fellowship offers from the international islamic university, which registered the highest number of central asian students during those years (see the international islamic university islamabad and central asia in this article). the jama’at-i islami translated numerous religious tracts into central asian languages and distributed them there; deobandi madrasas in both india and pakistan, as well as tablighi activism, attracted a growing number of central asian students and lay preachers. islamic leaders from central asia visited pakistan and secured financial support for the revival of islam, partly through the pakistani government and partly through the international organisation motamar al-alam al-islami, the world muslim congress, with its headquarters in karachi. see reetz 1993, 1999. [15] uzbek and tajik civil war fighters used the tribal regions of pakistan as “safe havens,” where some tajik participants stayed on to attend madrasas and other schools like the iiui or jama’at-i islami maududi institute in lahore (see table 3). uzbek fighters settled with their families; some continue to be involved in local militant activities inside pakistan in the border regions with afghanistan. (interviews with respondents in islamabad, peshawar, and dushanbe). [16] https://www.facebook.com/institute.official [accessed on 12. january 2016]. [17] see the cases of medical institutes in both kyrgyzstan and tajikistan as shown in the section flows of secular and sacred capital in this article. [18] for a discussion of the concept of life-worlds in relation to religious commitment and specifically islam, see abenante and cantini 2015, which treats life-worlds as the subjectivities of social experience. [19] those studies mainly focused on the local conditions, with little reference to the south asian origins and sources of the tablighis. see toktoguova 2014; ismailbekova and nasritdinov 2012; nasritdinov and o’connor 2010; balci 2010. [20] for a detailed and balanced description of the tablighi programme in kyrgyzstan by a local analyst, see aman saliev, “jama’at tabligh v kyrgyzii” (n.d.), at the information portal materik, http://materik.ru/problem/detail.php?id=10769 [accessed on 12. january 2016]. [21] see below, note 28. [22] for a detailed description of the tablighis’ practice and their internal rules and administration, see reetz 2008. [23] see, for instance, the tj’s interaction with the local administration, in the section local roles and impact formats of the tablighis in this article. [24] there are several studies on other conversion movements in kyrgyzstan showing the widespread interest in new religious orientations, see for example pelkmans and mcbrien 2008. i am grateful for this reference to aksana ismailbekova. [25] structured knowledge and practice of islam are understood here as knowing about and following the explicit formalised demands of the quran, and the prophetic traditions (hadith), notably from the founding generations of islam-as-salaf. [26] interviews in bishkek on 22. october 2012. [27] guidelines for local preaching received at the muftiyat, see below, note 38. [28] interview in bishkek on 27. october 2012. [29] other local curricula that are based on adaptations from soviet times, like sadum, the state institution regulating islam, the spiritual administration of the muslims of central asia and kazakhstan, are much closer to the modernist tajdid tradition than to the hanafi code (khalid 2007). the hanafi code, named after abu hanifa (699–767), is one of four major legal doctrines of islam, see also the international islamic university islamabad and central asia in this article. [30] the co-founder of the tablighi jama’at, muhammad zakariyya, compiled the hadith collection faza’il-e ‘amal [on the virtue of good deeds], which became the single most important reference book for religious knowledge in tablighi activism (zakariyya 1994). editions in kyrgyz and tajik were published in bishkek and dushanbe and are available at local islamic book stalls (field research in 2012 and 2014). [31] a social broker is a social network position, seen here as someone integrating different norms of behaviour. see also fleming and waguespack 2007. [32] interviews with several respondents in bishkek in october 2012. [33] interview in bishkek on 25. october 2012. [34] interview in bishkek on 24. october 2012. [35] in june 2010, a fight among youth gangs in a city club in osh in the ferghana valley sparked violent clashes with the country’s uzbek minority, which accounts for about fifteen percent of kyrgyzstan’s population of roughly five million. while ethnic tensions had mounted over the years of asserting kyrgyz nationalism in line with post-soviet power dynamics, areas where the uzbek minority was concentrated felt particularly volatile after major clashes in 1990. the uzbek population often feels discriminated against, while the kyrgyz feel that their nationalist identity claims are challenged by the strong religious commitments of uzbek families. see also wilkinson 2015. [36] interviews in bishkek in october 2012. [37] as witnessed by local tj kyrgyz respondents mentioned above, interviews in bishkek in october 2012. [38] governance of religion is treated here as a political sciences perspective focusing on actors, institutions, and their interaction. see also kooiman 2003. [39] the da’wa department in the muftiyat was run by ravshanbek eratov, who was away on hajj during those days. interview in bishkek on 25. october 2012. [40] “кыргызстан мусулмандарынын дин башкармасынын даават (угут-насаат) болумунуи иш жургутуу боюнча жобосу” [instructions of the da’wa department—preaching and mission—of the spiritual administration of muslims of kyrgyzstan regarding procedures to be followed], bishkek, 13 september 2011. the document was received during the interviews in 2012 (and translated by aksana ismailbekova). in this document, the department of da’wa under the spiritual administration of muslims of kyrgyzstan had approved certain requirements for those who pursue missionary preaching (in kyrgyz daavat), which foremost applies to the tablighi jana’at. point 4.5 of the instructions specifically requires “a person, who is intending to do daavat, should keep his appearance clean and tidy as well as wear local clothing, which does not contradict religious norms (sunnah).” [41] interviews with iiui administration representatives in islamabad in septemer 2011 and october 2012. [42] while he sympathised with the islamic opposition, he did not identify with the party politics of the irp. [43] interview in dushanbe on 3. april 2014. [44] these figures are from administrative reports of the international islamic university for the respective years, provided to the author, see also table 1. [45] interviews in dushanbe in april 2014. [46] interview in dushanbe on 10. april 2014. [47] interviews in dushanbe in april 2014. [48] the tajik state islamic institute was also a member of the federation of the universities of the islamic world (fuiw), which is an organisation working within the framework of the islamic educational, scientific and cultural organization (isesco) to support universities and higher education institutions in the islamic world. https://www.isesco.org.ma/fuiw.org/en/ [accessed on 4. september 2017]. [49] applicant’s guide, tajikistan islamic institute. (dushanbe, 2014, tajik, translated by umedjon majidi). [50] informal talks with university teachers in april 2014 and may 2015. [51] interviews in dushanbe in april 2014. [52] for the structure of state religious institutions of islam, see schmitz 2015. [53] interviews in dushanbe on 9. april 2014 and 30. may 2015. [54] interview in dushanbe on 10. april 2014. [55] after briefly meeting kabiri at an international islamic conference at teheran (27.–29. december 2015), he called him a “traitor” in his new year’s prayer on 1. january 2016, as reported in asia-plus 2016. [56] interview in dushanbe on 30. may 2015. [57] interview in dushanbe on 6. april 2014. [58] for more information on the project, see http://www.creativeassociatesinternational.com/projects/tajikistan-school-dropout-prevention-pilot-program/ [accessed on 11. january 2016]. [59] interview in dushanbe on 7. april 2014. [60] interviews in dushanbe in april 2014. [61] interview in dushanbe on 21. may 2015. see also earlier interviews with tajik religious students in peshawar in 1997 (reetz 1999, 17). [62] see note 51. [63] interview with davlatov on 30. may 2015. for the larger trajectory of political and discursive developments in relation to islam, in the case of central asia, see roche, wilkowsky, and féaux de la croix 2014; for tajikistan, heathershaw and herzig 2013; heathershaw and roche 2011; and for kyrgyzstan, radford 2014. [64] interviews in bishkek in 2012; see also ismailbekova and nasritdinov 2012; toktogulova 2014. [65] interviews at the centre for strategic studies under the president of tajikistan on 9. april 2014 and 29. may 2015. [66] conference on afghanistan in dushanbe at the oriental institute of the academy of sciences, 26. may 2015, participants’ discussion. [67] interview with mufti mukarram in dushanbe on 10. april 2014. [68] interview with davlatov on 30. may 2015. [69] interview in bishkek on 25 october 2012. [70] during the soviet era, exchanges between kyrgyzstan and south asia had been limited, although rajiv gandhi visited bishkek in 1985 as part of a trip to the soviet union. tajikistan also had extensive connections with south asia at that time. see also jain 1979. [71] http://ism.edu.kg [accessed on 12. january 2016]. [72] http://www.asmi.edu.kg/ [accessed on 12. january 2016]. [73] http://tajmedun.tj/ [accessed on 12. january 2016]. [74] for the website catering to the international market and indian applicants in particular, see their web presentations on facebook (https://www.facebook.com/avicenna-tajik-state-medical-university-dushanbe-tajikistan-266671463441921/), blogspot (http://avicennatsmu.blogspot.in/), and hpage (http://medicaluniversity.hpage.com/). [75] interviews with medical students from india and pakistan in dushanbe on 15 april 2014. [76] http://ism.edu.kg/?s_id=631 [accessed on 12. january 2016]. [77] interviews in bishkek in october 2012; dushanbe 2014 and 2015; islamabad 2012. [78] see mielke and hornidge (2017) discussing the conceptual approach of the crossroads asia research network and its take on area studies after the “mobility turn” and in the context of the “figuration” approach by elias, esp. pp. 14 and 68. sub-national movements, cultural flow, the modern state and the malleability of political space | mitra | transcultural studies sub-national movements, cultural flow, the modern state and the malleability of political space: from rational choice to transcultural perspective and back again subrata mitra, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg introduction using the telengana movement in south india as a template, this article juxtaposes two methods of analysing the phenomenon of sub-national movements (a special type of ethno-national movement) within the larger framework of the challenge of state-formation and nation-building in multi-ethnic, post-colonial states.[1] the methods are as follows: first, explanatory models based on conventional tools of comparative politics such as conflicts of interest, fixed national and regional boundaries, and the strategic manoeuvres of political leaders and their followers. second, a transcultural approach that draws on political perceptions and behaviour influenced by deep memory, cultural flow, and the hybridisation of indigenous and imported categories. this article applies these methods to the telengana movement in south india, first, within the theoretical perspective of the rational politics of cultural nationalism, and then extending the method to introduce explanatory phenomena that belong more broadly to the transcultural approach. though the empirical exemplars are drawn mostly from india, the mthod is applicable to the wider world of sub-national challenges to the modern state. sub-national movements belong to the generic category of collective efforts used to assert cultural nationalism in a territorial space that corresponds to a homeland that its advocates strongly believe to be legitimately theirs. typically, these movements question the fixed character of nations and central states as they strike out into their own living space. they draw their support from the affinity that their supporters feel with a particular language, religion, ethnicity, region, or a deeply felt sense of collective grievance. the standard approach of comparative politics is to depict sub-national movements as political movements that arise typically from a conflation of identity and material interests. such movements gather force when the leading initiators succeed in attracting sympathisers from the “imagined community” that corresponds to the cultural catchment. central states resist the growth and contest the claims to legitimacy of such movements in the name of what sub-nationalists see as outmoded nationalism, but eventually, when they cannot be subdued, central states negotiate with the leadership of the sub-nationalist movement. once sub-nationalists succeed in gaining power (through democratic elections or a negotiated transfer of power) banalisation of the original idea that generated the movement sets in. in india, this phase usually takes the form of the creation of new federal states where the leaders of the movement become office-holders in a new territorial unit. this ‘rational politics of cultural nationalism’ approach within contemporary indian politics is partially challenged by the emergence of new movements that arise, phoenix-like, from the debris of previous sub-nationalist movements that have already gone through a full life cycle. the agitation for a separate telengana state, which its proponents wish to be carved out of andhra pradesh, the outcome of one of the first sub-national movements in india, thus forms a counter-factual that challenges established positivist methods of explanation and points toward a transcultural approach.[2] the puzzle since decolonisation and the transfer of power to modern post-colonial states, south asia has seen a frequent occurrence of separatist movement, which has resulted in violent struggles to assert control over parts of the existing state territory in the name of a separate and unique identity. the main driving force behind these movements originates from the shared belief in a unique and distinct cultural identity, which justifies the right to an exclusive homeland. the precise moment when such movements break out is influenced by their leaders’ perception of the structures of available opportunity as well as the central state’s capacity to contain them. in this sense these sub-national movements are a special form of cultural nationalism that embodies the dynamism of identity-formation and, consequently, questions the rigidity of the existing political boundaries staunchly defended by the central state in the name of modernity and rational administration.[3] in a previous article[4] i attempted to explain the origin and evolution of sub-national movements within the framework of the ‘rational politics’ of cultural nationalism. i argued that the cause and unfolding of such movements can be modelled on the critical nodal points of their life-cycles with the rational (instrumental) manipulation of sentiments and interests by the proponents of sub-nationalism and the reaction of the central state leading to the evolution of the movement from one stage to another (see figure 1, below). depending on the ability of the central state to combine violent suppression with an electoral alternative and the potential offer of carving out a territorial niche for the concerned population, the article predicted that sub-national movements eventually subside or become banalised,[5] leaving behind only a residual memory of struggle. once successfully inducted into office, rebels become stakeholders and the transcendental politics of blood, sweat, and tears is replaced by more banal transactions around who should hold office, for how long, and what kind of deals can be brokered to transform electoral power into material rewards.[6] while the predictions of this model have held true for some of india’s major sub-national movements such as those leading to the creation of tamil nadu, maharashtra, gujarat, and orissa, just to name a few, the currently raging telengana movement, seeking to carve out a state of telengana (see map 1 below) is a conspicuous challenge to the predictive capacity of the model. students of the comparative politics of cultural nationalism, and those specialising in state formation in post-colonial societies, need to pay special attention to the ongoing movement for a separate telengana state (see table 2 for the chronology of the telengana movement) because this is a case of sub-nationalism that has arisen, to all appearances, with renewed vigour, from the ashes of its predecessors and from within a space that already witnessed a similar struggle to create the telugu speaking state of andhra pradesh.[7] some of the scenes of intense rhetoric and violent action that mark the telengana movement are reminiscent of the original telugu movement for the creation of a telugu speaking state (see table 2 below). why has the genie been let out of the bottle again? what are the implications of this phenomenon for the ‘theory’ of the ‘rational’ politics of cultural nationalism? what policy can one recommend to the modern nation-state besieged by the challenge of sub-nationalism? what are the implications of the resurrection of this past political agenda for the conventional theory that predicted the dissolution of such movements within the modern state once an appropriate deal was struck? does the theory need to be junked in light of this counter-example, or is it possible to salvage it by adding some additional parameters to the original explanatory model? which additional insights or variables do the theatrics of telengana (see fig. 1 again) likerail roko,[8] showcasing old grievances and memories as a spectacular act of re-use,[9] provide? does the telengana exemplar contribute to a revised theory of sub-nationalist movements in a post-colonial context? and finally, what policy implications can we glean from the telengana movement with regard to the indian state that will make the rise of telengana-like movements either unlikely or at least negotiable within the framework of the modern, liberal democratic state? map 1: contours of a prospective state of telengana the ‘rational’ politics of cultural nationalism the tactics of leaders of sub-nationalist movements typically consist of drawing on a dormant yearning for a separate identity backed by a specific political space—either exclusive or at least dedicated—that they can call their own, and the strategies they follow to reach these goals. these political actors (political entrepreneurs par excellence) combine rational protest with channels of participation that are open to all such as voting, lobbying, contacting, and campaign contributions for maximum effect. their mixed strategy thus resembles the efforts of fund managers who seek to diversify their portfolios as they mix low-risk, low-yield and high-risk, high-yield investments.[10] in this game between the central state and the sub-nationalists to gain the upper hand, both nationalist entrepreneurs and the state tend to manipulate the subjective perception of probabilities by using identity formation and constitution-making as political resources. using these notions and the evidence gleaned from concrete examples, my earlier work on this problem has postulated the following hypotheses: (1) the greater the ideological distance between the position of the central state or the dominant social group identified with the position of the state and the values salient for the sub-nationalists, the more intense the attachment to their own identity and values and to the desire for an autonomous homeland where those values can be actualised. (2) the greater the disparity in the levels of material affluence between an area with a culturally cohesive population and the rest of the population of the state, the greater the sentiments against those forms of political discrimination that are seen as responsible for the difference. (3) the greater the exclusion of sub-regional social elites from the ranks of the national ruling elite, the greater the likelihood of the outbreak of sub-nationalism. in the presence of any of the above conditions, the following factors are sufficient to help transform the sentiments of cultural nationalism into a political movement for a separate homeland: (4) weakening central rule. (5) geopolitical conditions helpful to separatists such as the expression of symbolic or material support by neighbouring countries and an international climate favourable to their cause. (6) a social network that can be transformed into a political organisation capable of facilitating co-ordination among sub-nationalist leaders, generating symbolic and material support for the ‘cause’ and acting as a vigilante organisation to punish defectors. these factors are additive; that is, the probability of growth in sub-nationalism is highest when several factors cumulate, whereas the probability is lower when some of the factors are absent. in an ideal type scenario (a sub-national movement drawing on the six conditions given above), the unfolding of sub-national movements is conceptualised in terms of five stages (see figure 1). this five-stage life cycle starts (time t1) with a few highly motivated leaders in the movement (more a cultural initiative than a social movement at the outset) who are willing in their rhetoric to “risk their lives for the cause,” and who seek to mobilise the “imagined community” that underpins the homeland they aspire to. as their numbers grow, and by the time the originators have moulded the cultural impulses to a social movement (time t2), average intensity has declined because not all are willing to “kill or die.” the distinguishing feature of this stage is that there is the semblance of an organisation to sustain the momentum. time t3 is yet another critical moment when the movement is on the threshold of electoral/political recognition as a contender for power. by the time numbers climb higher and the movement has turned into a party or an organised group engaged in electoral competition or some form of power-sharing arrangement (time t4), it has acquired the paraphernalia of an organisation, including the funds and the rituals of office. in the final stage (t5), the movement is a thing of the past that the office-holding leaders evoke as they continue the task of transforming power into policy and rewards, all the while remaining ensconced within a new territorial unit that is the home of the imagined community. fig. 1: an ideal type life cycle of sub-national movements the political landscape of south asia is rife with examples that illustrate this ideal type, which can manifest itself in different forms depending on the context. thus, sri lankan tamils responded to the growing sinhala self-assertion and discriminatory legislation through a violent sub-nationalist movement in favour of a tamil homeland. that movement led by the ltte, came to an abrupt end at time t3, when the central state changed its strategy from ‘fight and talk’ to full-scale warfare. in contrast, the indian tamils, similarly concerned about the status of their language and culture vis-à-vis the nationally dominant status of hindi, have successfully achieved the hegemonic status of tamil in the indian state of tamil nadu. the hypotheses (4) and (5) suggest facilitating conditions that affect the strategic thinking of sub-nationalist leaders. the perceived strength or weakness of the regimes in colombo or new delhi was a crucial factor in the calculation of militant tamils and sikhs: the help they could expect from public opinion and sanctuaries in india and pakistan respectively were important for their activities.[11] the sixth hypothesis identifies organisational resources like social networks that can help in self-policing and punishing defectors in a number of a ways that range from social boycotts to more extreme forms, including execution. the focus of the ideological battle between the national government and sub-nationalists centres on how a ‘mere threat to law and order’ acquires the more dignified title of a sub-nationalist movement. in order to understand how this crucial transformation in the perceptions of a movement’s followers and adversaries comes about we must take into consideration two important factors—namely, the material factors that influence the trajectories of the sub-nationalist movement, and the price their protagonists are obliged to pay for their eventual political success. political leaders, acting in the name of sub-nationalism, draw on both nationalist sentiments and material interests to generate a movement for a separate homeland. the precise mix of these two sets of motives depends on the political context. factors that influence the evolution of the movement include the degree of resentment against central rule, the salience attached to a separate and distinct cultural identity, and the availability of a geo-strategic window of opportunity for the leaders to put these political resources to effective use. this appearance of shared political ideals enhances the perception of sub-nationalism as a legitimate tactic; that it is simply one option among many that are open to political entrepreneurs —a politically convenient self-classification to obtain material resources rather than a social movement with an intrinsic and unique cultural substance. as long as the forces of an occupying foreign power were visibly in control, these local and regional forces were accorded a position of dignity by nationalist leaders within the broad church of the anti-colonial struggle. however, once the foreign colonial rulers left and power passed to the hands of the national leaders, a struggle broke out between the new central authorities and their regional adversaries (a selected set of cases is presented in table 1). table 1: social anchors of sub-national movements: selected examples from south asia transcendental objective territorial aspiration social bases and markers of identity tamil nationalism sovereign tamil elam (sri lanka/current) autonomous tamil nadu (india/achieved) tamil popular culture sikh identity sovereign khalistan (dormant) sikh religion, punjabi language, gurmukhi script, gurdwaras, overseas sikh communities kashmiri identity undivided kashmir (current) kashmiriyat, islam naga nationalism autonomous nagaland (achieved) tribal network, christian missionaries mizo nationalism autonomous mizoram (achieved) tribal network, missionaries gorkha identity autonomous gorkhaland (achieved) tribal network jharkhand culture and interests autonomous jharkhand tribal network the forms this struggle has taken have varied over time. sometimes, certain activists sought to further their material interests and political careers; at other times, activism ‘within the movement’ has been perceived as a valued objective in its own right. the former motive is instrumental, the normal tool of trade in transactional politics. the latter is transcendental in the sense that the promotion of and identification with values such as language, religion, ethnic bonds of community, and tribe present a compelling basis of identification and political action that overrides all other considerations. the typical sub-nationalist movement combines both transactional and transcendental elements in a complex repertoire, the composition of which is influenced by a range of factors that are explored below. the cases presented in table 1 do not constitute an exhaustive list of sub-national movements in south asia. rather, they are intended to illustrate the main types of movements based on the variations in their principal objectives, territorial aspirations, social anchors, and political trajectories.[12] thus, tamil nationalism is content to confine its territorial aspiration to the status of an autonomous region in india but is also engaged in fighting a violent secessionist war against the state in sri lanka. in contrast, the violent struggle for an independent kashmir aspires to unite the two parts of kashmir in india and pakistan respectively, embodying the spirit of kashmiriyat—the unique kashmiri identity—that is putatively the basis of kashmiri sub-nationalism. the naga, mizo, and gorkha struggles have found territorial solutions to their aspiration for cultural identity within the indian union as constituent states, and the jharkhand movement has mobilised agitation amongst tribal groups to reach a similar objective. the precursors to these contemporary movements can be found in the rise of telugu and tamil nationalism in india during the 1950s; in the growth of bengali separatism in pakistan during the late 1960s; and in the movement for elam in northern sri lanka during the 1970s. in each case, the movements established their initial raison d’être by successfully supplanting the transactional basis of politics with the transcendental value of cultural identity.[13] the central focus of these disparate movements is their assertion of a collective cultural identity within a territorial state. however, their social bases, agendas, and political strategies changed in reaction to the results they achieved—or failed to deliver. the significant difference to note between the telengana movement and the category of sub-national movements is that it seeks to emerge from a space that had been claimed earlier by the advocates of telugu-speaking people, a language shared with the supporters of telengana. a brief chronology of the telengana movement (table 2) will help put the current developments into context. table 2: chronology of the telengana movement date political development comment december 1952 potti sriraulu died due to a political motivated fasting hartals and disturbance reach climax 1st oct. 1953 inauguration of new stateandhra pradesh “one language one state policy” prepared by the state reorganization commission 1956 “gentlemen’s agreement of andhra pradesh (1956)” signed by leaders from andhra and telengana which provides guarantees for telengana agreement shall provide guarantees for telengana. agreement not honoured 1969 students agitations for a separate state impetus and leadership for separatist agitations comes from ‘dissident’ factions of congressnot from opposition parties![14] may-june 1969 ngos went on an indefinite strike, paralyzing district administration; students boycotted colleges and universities in telengana initially no professional politicians involved in agitation (movement character) 1969 and 1973 agitations for separate states impetus and leadership for separatist agitations comes from ‘dissident’ factions of congress—not from opposition parties! 1969: telengana praja samithi (tps). party formed by young lawyers, teachers and journalists. chenna reddy becomes leader purpose: coordinating activities of students and non-gazette officers (ngos) august 1969 agitation begins to wear out fears of some in the tps that professional politicians, who took over leadership, would use the movement in their factional struggles came true. oct. 1972 supreme court judgement‘mukti rules legally valid’ while welcomed in the telengana region, andhra students reacted swiftly to the judgment by organizing meetings and strikes urging that the mulki rules should be scrapped if the integrity of the state should be preserved 1973 in the aftermath of the jai andhra movement . p. v. narasimha rao resigns as chief minister of andhra pradesh on january 10, 1973. president’s rule was declared in the state.[15] sept. 21st 1973 “six point formula” purpose: rendering the continuance of mulki rules and regional committee for telengana unnecessary 1973 constitutional amendment (art 317d, 317e) give effect to the six point formula 1983 telugu desam party comes to power. tdp pro united andra pradesh (telugu pride and unity of teluguspeaking people) 1988 bjp’s campaign in lok sabja election for a separate telengana state ‘give one vote and take two states’ 1990s after a long pause the “movement” comes to life again re-animated not from bottom but by a initiative of central leadership  (independence day address in 1996deve gowda announced formation of uttaranchal) 1996 left-minded intellectuals and social activists come together to renew the work for a separate state bottom up character re-activated 2000 creation of jharkand, chhattisgarh and uttarkhand developments revitalise separatist telengana movement[16] 2001 formation of a new party: telengana rashra samiti (trs) lead by k. chandrashekhar rao (kcr) kcr left tdp for creating trs with a single point agenda: securing separate state. 2004 congress forms electoral alliance with trs for assembly and parliament elections promise of a separate telengana state 2006 trs withdraws from congress support reason: alleged indecision by the government over the delivery of electoral promise. oct. 9th 2008 historical turnaround from its 26-year history tdp announces support for the creation of telengana feb. 2009 declaration by state government: no objections to the formation of separate telengana. “time had come to move forward decisively in this issue.” 2009 all major parties in andhra pradesh support the formation of telengana general elections scheduled for 2009 nov. 29th 2009 trs president k. chandrashekar rao (kcr) starts fast-unto-death purpose: congress shall introduce a telengana bill in the parliament dec. 6th, 7th 2009 telengana strikes shut down dec. 9th 2009 p. chidambaram (union minister of home affairs) announces that the indian government would start the process of forming a separate state. kcr thus ends his 11 day fast. dec. 23rd 2009 government of india: no action on telengana until a formal consensus is reached by all parties jan. 5th 2010 home minister invites for an all-party meeting to elicit views of all parties in the state. rallies, hunger strikes, suicides continue, sometimes turning violent. jan 28th 2010 the all-party telengan joint action committee (jac) starts relay hunger strikes. feb. 12th 2010 central government announces terms of reference to b.n. srikrishna committee with a deadline of dec. 31. 2010 telenganjac rejects the terms of reference, saying that it ‘undid’ union home minister’s statement in new delhi on dec. 9th, 2009 feb. 16th 2010 congress legislators from the telengana region resign from the jac due to ‘unilateral actions by kcr’ feb. 21st 2010 sri krishna committee solicits suggestions/views from the political parties, social organisations and other stakeholders feb. 22nd 2010 more than 25 telengan people commit suicide over the delay in the formation of telengana state april 10th 2010 over 60.000 petitions are received by committee committee begins to personal interactions with the various stakeholders dec. 30th 2010 the srikrishna committee on telengana submits its report in two volumes to the home ministry of india [17] jan. 6th 2011 publication of srikishan committee report by home ministry[18] telengana re-dux: the rise, decline, and return of the telengana movement because andhra pradesh was the first example of a successful cultural nationalist movement in india driven by the collective urge of telugu-speaking people to see their identity enshrined in a territorial state where it would acquire the status of a hegemonic, official language, there is a sense of déjà vu about the telengana movement. the principle of language as the basis of a territorial unit—as opposed to something rational and useful like natural resources—was reluctantly conceded by the modernist nehru who saw language and all aspects of identity as a reactionary move once they became the basis of political demands. however, the fait accompli of the creation of a linguistic state established the legitimacy of such demands and the idea was thereafter institutionalised in a three-language formula[19] and in the reorganisation of india’s internal boundaries. the highlights of the srikrishna committee (appointed by the government of india) report (see below), which outlines six different solutions for the resolution of the telengana issue, appears to have continued in the same transcultural vein as the original state reorganisation commission.[20] maintain status quo bifurcation of the state into seemandhra and telengana with hyderabad as a union territory and the two states developing their own capitals in due course bifurcation of state into rayala–telengana and coastal andhra regions with hyderabad as an integral part of rayala–telengana bifurcation of andhra pradesh into seemandhra and telengana with enlarged hyderabad metropolis as a separate union territory bifurcation of the state into telengana and seemandhra as per existing boundaries, with hyderabad as the capital of telengana and seemandhra to have a new capital keeping the state united by simultaneously providing certain definite constitutional/statutory measures for the socio-economic development and political empowerment of telengana region; creation of a statutorily empowered telengana regional council.[21] the main focus of the culture nationalist leaders of the telengana movement is to the show that their identity is linked to a variation of the telugu language. in the heat of the rhetoric typical of cultural nationalist movements, facts that were buried during the telugu euphoria of the earlier phases have been revealed. thus, we learn that the telugu spoken in telengana is different from the telugu of coastal andhra; that the people of telengana have long chafed under coastal domination; and that the 150 years of rule by the nizam of hyderabad has led to institutions that are different from those prevailing in coastal andhra. however, from a comparative angle these arguments are not sufficiently convincing, since one finds comparable differences between the hill and coastal regions of orissa that have not incited a comparable demand for a new territorial unit. nor does the mere fact of difference between telengana and the coastal regions of andhra explain the on-again, off-again character of the movement for a separate state. the non-banalisation of andhra/telugu political space: what previous theory has ignored the continued existence of a subaltern telugu identity in the shadow of the established high telugu culture (based mostly on the fertile coastal region of the state of andhara) is important empirical evidence for the relevance of the transcultural approach (refer to footnote 2 above). a brief examination of the events in telengana reveal the excitement, reminiscent of similar movements in other parts of india, of students, teachers, traders, ordinary folk and professional politicians about the need for and imperative of a territorial state that would be home to the imagined community. the movement is ongoing and we have not yet seen the final plays of this round. one thing is abundantly clear, however: the identity that has been swept under the carpet of omnibus telugu identity, in the way the tamil or oriya identities are banalised and ensconced within the territorial bounds of tamil nadu and orissa, is far from recognised.the analysis below draws on the concepts of memory and relative time as variables that are supplementary to those invoked in the ‘rational politics of cultural nationalism model,’ which has helped to explain the resurgence of the telengana movement. the persistence of memory: reminiscence of a pre-modern telengana political entity telengana re-dux is a signal to the political analyst that quite a few of the assumptions about time, memory, and endogeneity that went into conceptualising the model of the rational politics of cultural nationalism are ripe for revision. in the first place, if we stretch the temporal domain of the problem to the era before independence then we can see that the existence of a ‘telengana identity’ is bolstered by firm cartographic evidence, whereas no such marker can be found for the andhra state (see map 4 and 5). in other words, the all-encompassing andhra–telugu identity is of comparatively recent vintage compared to telengana. in terms of history and institutions, this deep memory has been shaped differently, both historically and institutionally, from the coastal andhra identity during the century and a half of separate political order. this has registered itself among the advocates of the telengana state who gleefully point to the separate identity of ‘their’ telugu as compared to that of the coastal people (see map 2 and 3). map 2: british india prior to 1947 map 3: british india in 1947 map 4: india in 1022 ce map 5: india in 1398 ce as we look outside the fixed space that the modern state—firmly ensconced in the world of here and now—occupies in our political landscape, we must take into account the everyday life of ordinary folks. we must also notice the role that the past continues to play in the present, and how memory persists within the interstices of a firm and dense modernity that often does all it can to deny its existence. a famous painting by dali gives visual shape to this idea of non-linear time, where the past, rather than being buried under the weight of the present, might metamorphose into the future. despite its appearance of spontaneity, the emergence of an endogenous modernity that strategically re-uses the past by incorporating selected elements with the categories exogenous to the local context is neither automatic nor inevitable. its appearance and form are contingent upon the manipulation of events by the particular leadership and the availability of the specific memories of separate existence as a political unit (strong in kashmir, punjab, and telengana but weak in western orissa). time as non-linear and heterogeneous the concept of objective, homogeneous time-space coordinates played a crucial role in the conventional model. however, the counter-factual of telengana—which questions the prediction of the ‘rational politics of cultural nationalism model’—alerts us that there may be further multiplicity in the voices, strategies, and trajectories of any given time or space than the conventional model assumes. anderson makes the same point in his assertion about the social and political construction of time and shows how, in a given time-space context, different actors who are connected and yet widely different in terms of their interests, identities, and sense of time might co-exist; despite being totally unaware of one another they nonetheless form part of an apparently homogenous “imagined community.” a close reading of anderson reveals his use of the non-linearity of time to explain the messiness that marks the rise of cultural nationalist movements. the example he gives of a love quadrangle is revealing (see figure 2). fig. 2: benedict anderson’s heterogeneous, multiple, and non-linear time within the ‘imagined community.’ anderson demonstrates through this example how the linear, homogeneous, objective time of the observer differs from the subjective times of the actors. notice that during this sequence a and d never meet, indeed may not even be aware of each other’s existence if c has played her cards right. what then actually links a to d? two complementary conceptions: first, that they are embedded in ‘societies’ (wessex, luebeck, los angeles). these societies are sociological entities of such firm and stable reality that their members (a and d) can even be described as passing each other on the street, without ever becoming acquainted and still be connected. second, that a and d are embedded in the minds of the omniscient readers. only they, like god watch a telephoning c, b shopping and d playing pool all at once. that all these acts are performed at the same clocked, calendrical time but by actors, who may be largely unaware of one another, shows the novelty of this imagined world conjured up by the author in his readers’ minds.[22] anderson alerts us to the possibility that in a given time and place, there may exist people with a different sense of time and space, for time is not homogeneous, linear and irreversible but individual and imaginary and as such, susceptible to strategic use as any other resource. in anderson’s story, the man is back with his wife in the third tranche of time, whereas the mistress is skipping over the present to conflate the past and the future in an ‘ominous’ dream. in its fullness, time is heterogeneous, multiple, and non-linear; and it is conceptualised differently by the actors who operate in their own concepts of time and space. given the choice and institutional room to manoeuvre, the heterogeneity of the actors might surface in the shape of different agencies. in other words, even as the model talked about time in terms of points in time t1------t5 at a macro level, in the micro worlds of the actors some might not follow the same sequence.[23] in addition to the implications of agency variables like the conception of time and space, structural variables like parties, interest groups, civil society, and networks that link the local arena with the wider world are also important factors, acting as catalysts or conveyors for the flow of ideas. whereas the earlier model conceptualised the sub-nationalist in time t1 in a very much us-against-them mode, in a situation (for instance, that which, at the time of writing, prevails in telengana/andhra pradesh) where the adversary is itself divided into coalition partners with separate agendas, where political parties are happy to move in proactively hoping to make political capital out of the conflict, and where the media, judiciary, and the globalised world are conscious of issues relating to minorities and their desperate search to assert and sustain their unique identity, the national state is comparatively enfeebled and sub-nationalists are relatively empowered. this certainly has implications for the dynamism of a given movement. the endogenous development is very much influenced by exogenous forces.[24] the conventional model had cast an imagined community, which formed the domain of a given sub-national movement, as a fixed space that remains static as the movement progresses from t1 to t5. in retrospect, this does not appear to have been the case in andhra or in any other movements, for telengana is not the only movement of its kind in india. there are others (kashmir being an extreme but not the only example; gorkhaland runs a close parallel) that question the exclusive claims of a national, homogenising state. also, the people staking a claim to an imaginary homeland are themselves not homogeneous and do not stay together until the movement reaches its goal. the section below discusses how responsive and accountable elites cope with—and instigate—the challenge of sub-nationalism. the challenge of nation-building in post-colonial, multi-ethnic societies: the dynamism of identities and the maleability of political space we discuss in this section the significance of the transcultural approach to the problem of legitimacy and resilience of the modern state in postcolonial, multi-ethnic societies. the growing salience of ethnic identity, particularly in the context of diverse societies, has emerged as a challenge in contemporary post-colonial nations. ethnicity challenges the classic bonding factors of territory and class. the ethnic challenge has rendered the evolution and sustainability of mono-cultural nations, ensconced within specific national territories, on the pattern of nineteenth-century nationalism, with its ‘rule of one’—one territory, one language, one religion, and one nation faced with an adversary—into a contested issue. the electoral articulation of ethnic assertion and—sporadic but extremely violent—inter-community conflict over the past years have added an extra poignant twist to this question in india’s case, particularly in view of the country’s long tradition of accommodation of diversity within a common space. for many, this raises a general question about the nature of community and legitimacy in the world’s “largest democracy.” the relevance and urgency of this issue for contemporary india can hardly be over-stated. since the 1980s indian politics has moved beyond the point where usefully fuzzy concepts like “unity in diversity” as the cultural basis of a tolerant pluralism in india, or the congress system based on consensus and accommodation could be seen as sufficient guarantees of india’s national unity and integrity as a state.[25] the questions at the heart of the issue today are: what kind of nation underpins the state in india?  which resources do the post-colonial state and society possess in order to sustain multicultural nationhood? and most important for this article, why does telengana remain the exception rather than the rule that makes india’s innovative use of federalism as part of the strategy of state formation an effective solution to sub-nationalism? because the bark of the sub-nationalist can be much louder than his bite, the mere existence of a subaltern identity—despite its importance for the transcultural approach—is necessary but not sufficient to spur actual political action. a lot depends on the room to manoeuvre available to the established leadership who might naturally be resistant to the kind of change that entails a diminution of their power. on the other hand, they might spot an opportunity to enhance their legitimacy through a revision of territorial boundaries. indeed, they might calculate that an appropriate negotiation with these political actors can actually enhance the legitimacy of the state.[26] in india’s political space it is possible today for communities to form and dissolve in order to re-emerge as parts of other communities. seen from a distance and over time, political transaction has taken manifold forms, ranging from voting and lobbying to protest movements and, ultimately, violent conflict. these have in turn produced an understanding of what leads to violence, instilling in the process a greater accommodation of cultural and religious differences; castes, religious communities, and ethnic groups are all impregnated by the spirit of transaction and coalition building and the result is a significant empowerment of minorities.[27] in india’s multicultural society, the members of different communities, castes, and language groups have risen to the highest levels in public office as well as in sports, films, and academia.[28] thanks to the salience of coalition politics rather than party competition, the structure and process of indian politics in the 1990s should have a familiar ring for those conversant with the politics of continental europe. as a consequence of and compared to previous situations the moderation of shrill ideological overtones in the search for a winning formula based on governance has become the new mantra of indian politics. having come into their own, the regional parties are increasingly self-confident when working out deals with one another as well as with national parties. the congress is still suspect, but that may change once the afterglow of congress hegemony has completely burnt out, leaving the congress to behave much as any other political party. one sure sign of this is that the terms of political discourse are no longer mediated by the salient values that once defined the core of india’s high politics. the regionalists—which as a group draws people from india’s periphery in terms of religion, elite caste-status, or geographic distance from the centre—are able to generate a different construction of the nation state that is in sync with the times as well as market-friendly and with a humane face. when speaking in the national mode, the regionalists do not count out the need to be well-informed and decisive in defence of the security and integrity of the nation but in terms of the actual policies of the state, they are much more willing and—in view of its social base—able to listen to the minorities, to regions with historical grievances, and to sections of society that entered post-independence politics with unsolved pre-independence (in some cases, pre-modern) grievances. it is thanks to these regionalists that the emerging multi-party democracy of india is not merely an anomic battle for power and short-term gain but the releasing of pent-up creativity and visions that provide a fertile and cohesive backdrop to the realignment of social forces. far from being its antithesis, region has actually emerged as the nursery of the nation. the constitution of india conceptualised citizenship as necessarily multicultural and complex—comprising both political edge and moral stretch. the political cutting edge entitles the citizen—as opposed to the alien and the subject—to certain rights that are to be shared in common with others. the moral depth binds citizens in empathy and solidarity with those who differ culturally and ties them together through the bond of common citizenship (see figure 3). although language and tribe are not explicitly accorded any legitimacy by the indian state in defining national identiy, they are accepted as the basis for politico-administrative units. this results in two basic contradictions: first, it militates against the notion of single citizenship, since domiciliary requirements are often prescribed by these units for availing some of the civil and social citizenship entitlements. second, such prescriptions often render as outsiders those who do not share the relevant linguistic and tribal identities. thus, a second category of ethnic groups emerge—those who are nationals in their respective homeland (e.g. maharashtrians in maharashtra and nagas in nagaland) but ethnic groups elsewhere in the territory of the indian state. full citizenship entitlements granted to all members of the polity irrespective of their spatial locations can partly moderate the tensions and conflicts between nationals and ethnic groups. fig. 3: overlapping circles of state and society the indian constitution has taken this on board through the concept of “differentiated citizenship.” and a toolkit has evolved over the past decades (see figure 4) that underpins the efforts of india’s elite decision-makers to combine law and order management, strategic reform, and accommodation of values in order to generate a level playing field that can sustain multicultural citizenship. the core idea behind the toolkit of citizenship is to identify concrete levels of action that can transform rebels or the alienated into citizens. with this intention, the design of the toolkit seeks to explore the room to manoeuvre within the structure of the state. the indian record of successfully turning subjects into citizens has cross-national significance because, rather than being a unique attribute of indian culture, it is based on an institutional arrangement containing several important parameters. the first of these are the legal sources of citizenship as formulated in the indian constitution (articles 5–11), the constituent assembly debates (which provide insights into the controversy surrounding specific articles), and the legislation undertaken by the national parliament to enable and amend, depending on the case, the original provisions of the constitution. “judicialisation” of citizenship is yet another method of synchronising the provisions of the law and the new demands emerging from society. in addition to birth and residence, the assertion of identity and linkage to india has emerged as a supplementary basis of indian citizenship. property and citizenship have been constantly interwoven and the question of who can own property and how much have had fluid answers. in the case of kashmir, the laws have always had a slightly different tinge due to the special agreement declaring that the indian acts are not normally applicable in kashmir. in the last decade, case law has tended towards a more flexible and all-encompassing understanding of indian stipulations in relation to property, and, of course, the onset of economic liberalisation has given wings to an even further judicial liberalisation of these concepts. similarly, recent laws allowing nris (non-resident indians) to own property have already been registered in case law. a brief perusal of indian politics shows how india uses a mix of federalism and consociationalism to produce what the state hopes the actors will see as a level playing field despite some manifest institutional or political inequalities. the standard procedure has been to carve out federal states for linguistically homogeneous groups so that, for the bulk of their transactions, people living in them will not feel discriminated against because of the dominance of other larger linguistic groups. at the same time, a host of measures, like the independent finance commission, devise means of differential allocation to balance the needs of equity, growth, and entrepreneurial incentives. the problem arises when it comes to smaller groups that are cohesive and different from the larger groups but are nonetheless nested in the territory allocated to the larger group. here, innovative, hybrid categories like ‘sub-states’ offer a means of top-slicing the resources allocated to the larger units to feed the special needs of the smaller nested minorities.[29] fig. 4: culture, context and strategy in turning subjects into citizens: a dynamic neo-institutional model. india’s relative success with regard to solving identity-based conflict can be attributed to the fact that constitutional and political tools are used with unusual vigour and imagination by the political decision-makers in an environment that is democratic, relatively transparent, and generally accountable. the typical strategy forms a three-prong attack on conflict that issues out of the hiatus between the general legal norms of the state and the assertion of political identity contesting the state. india makes stakeholders out of rebels by adroitly combining reform, repression, and a selective recruitment of rebels into the privileged circle of new elites. (see figure 4 again) this model weaves together several insights that we have gained from the indian attempt to turn subjects into citizens in a form that can be used as the basis of comparison across countries. foremost among these is the fact that in the indian discourse and public policy citizenship is conceptualised both as a ‘product’ and a ‘process,’ which is tantamount to saying that citizen-making is the primary objective of the constitution, modern institutions, and the public policy of the state. on the other hand, the three processes are reinforced by the momentum generated from below as people assert their citizen-rights and articulate them through a complex repertoire that effectively combines political participation with strategic protest. both the state and the janata—india’s generic category for politically conscious and articulate participants in everyday politics—draw on categories that are indigenous as well as imported.[30] the process stretches out into the memory of self-hood and rights, and of empowerment through a chain of associations that links people in one part of the country to another. one consequence is the emergence of the hybrid multicultural citizen—a liminal category that joins the protester and the participant together, stretching the accommodating capacity of the political system and blunting the sharp edges of anti-system behaviour. the model of multicultural ‘citizen making’ and space-re-designing (see figure 4) highlights the role of elites and of strategies of reform. it also explains india’s attempts at generating differentiated and multi-level citizenship (new conceptual tools with relevance for policy-making) as categories germane to its politics. that makes citizenship in india a significant case study of “conceptual flow” where practices, notions, and institutions of citizenship have been transferred, imported, emulated, and adapted to successfully, but sometimes meet local needs and constraints unsuccessfully.[31] towards a synthesis: the model of ‘rational’ politics of cultural nationalism re-formulated in light of its implications for the ‘rational politics of cultural nationalism,’ ‘telengana re-dux’ is located mid-way between a kuhnian puzzle and an anomaly.[32] the analytical issues that it has raised have helped us to reconsider the main premises of the model, expand its domain by including new variables, and reconsider previous evidence, leading to a reformulation of the conventional model. the process of reformulating a coherent rational politics for the cultural nationalism model should begin with the recognition that the real world does not always conform to the ideal type life cycle of a sub-national movement as discussed above. as one can see in figure 5, the course of the movement might lead to fragmentation of the imagined community, which leads in turn to the creation of a plethora of splinter movements, some prepared to negotiate (‘sell out’) and others obstinately holding on to the myth of the founding fathers. in nagaland, as in kashmir, one finds a situation where a part of the imagined community has followed the ideal type life cycle and its leaders now hold power as elected chief ministers. however, some other sections have continued the agitation with varying degrees of violence. the result is a fractured imagined community that still defines naga or kashmiri despite the radically different courses taken by their political destinies. the other scenario is seen in tamil nadu where practically the entire imagined community has become part of democratic governance and indian citizenship. of course, the fate of their tamil brethren in sri lanka still remains topical and the line that india should pursue in this regard has become a point of division among different tamil parties. but these differences do not spill over into violence as in kashmir or in nagaland. the post-operation blue star politics of punjab is a good example of the co-existence of a negotiated settlement ushering in normal politics led by the akali dal, while some extremist elements of the sgpc continues to exist underground, (see the reference to ‘dormant’ in table 1) and to commit sporadic acts of terrorism.[33] in light of the telengana movement, andhra pradesh can be seen to exist between these two polar opposite types. fig. 5: a fragmented imagined community. anti-system dimension. the figure represents a situation where the imagined community has been fragmented between groups in terms of their attitudes towards negotiation with the central authorities. the pro-system group finds a place for itself within the central state and its ideological fervour is banalised, whereas the splinter groups continue to agitate with various degrees of intensity. in my view, a proper understanding of sub-nationalist movements not only requires both the instrumental and primordial approaches for a fuller analysis, but also the effects of memory, flow, and heterogeneous, multiple, and non-linear time. the movement for khalistan, the desired homeland of sikh separatists, for example, would not exist but for the sentiments of sacrifice, honour, dignity, and pride inspired by the memories of the sikh gurus—spiritual leaders of the community who in past centuries provided a focus of resistance against muslim rulers. at the same time, it also required the political skills of bhindranwale (the leader of akali dal’s most intransigent faction who was killed in the army action against the golden temple of amritsar in 1984) to draw all the strands together into a powerful movement for khalistan.[34] however, it is important to remember that stability and banalisation require the perception on both sides that there is nothing more to be lost or gained; the sub-nationalist leadership might split over this issue, leading to new imagined communities and a new spiral of violence. this partially explains what keeps the kashmir imbroglio contained but also unresolvable within the structure of india’s liberal democratic central state, which is committed both to liberty and to the sacredness of the frontiers inherited from the british colonial rulers. the basic premises of the conventional model hold also in the case of the reformulated model, which retains the six explanatory variables of the conventional model—namely, the value dissonance between the state and the sub-national group, difference in material affluence, exclusion of sub-national elites from high office, the perception of weakening central rule, helpful geo-political conditions such as sanctuary, and the availability of a social network capable of transformation into political alliances. thanks to the counter-factual of the telengana movement we can now add fresh insights to this, including the memory of a separate political being, personal time trajectories, and the emergence of new imagined communities. yet another variable that we have not explored fully is the reasons behind the failure of the federal-consociational measure, which was originally meant to bolster the territorial unit carved out for the initial sub-national movement with guarantees for nested minorities. the failure of this measure was perhaps the result of the lack of a policing mechanism or, where one existed, its decay over time. the political process through which sub-nationalist movements are able to draw on the instrumental and primordial aspects of cultural nationalism in order to assemble a strategic repertoire is of crucial significance. in this context, the notion of an “imagined political community—imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign”[35] is of central importance as it provides an empirical link between the instrumental and primordial approaches. a sub-nationalist movement is a political creation based on a cultural foundation that is ‘imagined’ “because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.”[36] the appeal to cultural nationalism made by political actors challenging the authority of a territorial state seeks to transform the link between the imagined community and its social anchors from an implicit to an explicit one. it also claims to use that process in order to generate the necessary political power to give concrete, territorial expression to demands for a homeland. as the examples given in table 1 suggest, the crucial variables that underpin these movements vary from one context to another. subsequent analysis will show that this variation also affects their political fortunes. the rational politics of coping with sub-nationalism can draw on the political culture and tradition of multiple identities, which are stacked hierarchically by the actor in the light of his own value system. looking back, one can find a long genealogy of precedents for this particular mode of articulating multiple identities, with all the implications they have for re-designing space that was once considered rigid and immutable. two citations, one from an oriya member of the parliament in the first lok sabha over five decades and another from parkash singh badal, an akali politician from punjab, reveal the early penchant for an inclusive, multicultural nationalism of india: “my first ambition,” the oriya m.p. said, “is the glory of mother india. i know it in my heart of hearts that i am an indian first and an indian last. but when you say you are a bihari, i say i am an oriya. when you say you are a bengali, i say i am an oriya. otherwise, i am an indian.”[37] the same sentiments were expressed by parkash singh badalon the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the akali faction led by him: shiromani akali dal is a symbol of the aspirations and hopes of punjab. the dal has always struggled for human rights, punjab, punjabi and the rights of sikhs. for this the akali dal has made innumerable sacrifices....we are committed to peace and shall not allow it to be disturbed at any cost. we have full faith in the constitutional method. we shall curb corruption and shall strive to give a clean government... when today we are celebrating our 75th anniversary we reaffirm our commitment to our goals.... now regional parties and national parties who believe in internal autonomy for states are coming together. akali dal is very keen to co-operate with them.[38] form and content: context, flow, and agency in the shaping of sub-national movements while sub-national movements as a genre share some common features, the specific form they take (contrast the largely peaceful rail roko type of protest movement discussed above with the violent frenzy of kashmiri mobs engaging the forces of law and order in violent battles) varies from one context to another. here, the political scientist gleans insight from the sculpture of brancusi “who saw the artist as an intercessor who reveals the ‘cosmic essence of the material’ lying at the very heart of the medium he uses” for inspiration. [39] brancusi “considered the material to have a life of its own, a uniqueness that he had to seek out and understand in order to achieve unity with the form, believing that the sculpture was already contained in the material chosen and his task was to reveal it.” just as a solid block of stone contains the unique form that the artist alone sees[40] and seeks to make public to the world, so too do the initiators of a sub-nationalist movement perceive in the raw material—a shared grievance, a specific memory, and a regional space to act as the basis of a homeland—the opportunity to launch a movement. the form that the movement might take is not pre-ordained or pre-designed but evolves out of the specific context. the form emerges out of the matter, for the stone-throwing mobs of the kashmiri intifada and the train-stopping squatters of telengana are communicating the same political message.  the second theme that the student of comparative politics might garner from the oeuvre of brancusi is the notion of metamorphosis, which is brilliantly put to effect in his transformation of leda from the hunted to the hunter. besides being imaginative and innovative in designing the form of their movement, sub-nationalists can also be strategically skilful in inverting the relations of power in the david and goliath battle between unequal adversaries. the hunted, as much in kashmir as in telengana, can become the hunter. as the greek myth has it, “zeus changed into a swan in order to seduce leda but it seems that for brancusi it is leda who is transformed. in leda he saw a form ‘ceaselessly creating a new life, a new rhythm,’ aiming to show that ‘life is fermentation and must be transformed in order to remain alive.’”[41] the original greek myth—in a straightforward narrative—is given visual shape by rubens, where one clearly sees zeus in disguise taking possession of the object of his desire in much the same way that the proponents of telengana might fret about the intentions of the central indian state and their allies in coastal andhra. but the lesson of brancusi’s leda metamorphosis is that politics is a game that two can play, and that the last move is not the unique prerogative of either party. in a global world of constant, ceaseless, and multifaceted flow, politics has become increasingly full of possibilities. however, that apparent chaos need not transform comparative politics into solipsistic, inchoate introspection. the analysis undertaken in this paper is meant to expand the toolkit of comparative politics to include some new variables—in this case, memory, flow, and multiple and non-linear time—in its efforts to make sense of apparent disorder. conclusion: flow, endogenous modernity, and the maleability of political space transcultural studies or, for that matter, the concept of cultural flow do not necessarily reject the concept of rational choice. political actors now, as indeed political persons at all times, think strategically and make choices that, depending on the context, involve voting, lobbying, paying a bribe, throwing stones, or more extreme methods like trading one’s life against that of the adversary. the fact remains that all models of human behaviour today, including those drawing on rational choice, need to build some extra assumptions into the empirical specification of abstract models. to begin with one must think beyond the national state, taking into serious consideration the politics above and below the state and beyond the world of the here and now, since memory and non-linear time is where the distant past skips over the immediate past in order to become a part of the argument about the present. just as important is the asymetrical nature of power; as we learn from brancusi, the hunter can become the hunted! based on the case of telengana, this article has attempted to illustrate some of these points through trans-disciplinary excursions into the lessons of anderson, dali, and brancusi for additional insights into the causes of the resurgent movement for a separate state.this essay is thus a reappraisal of the models of sub-national movements based on rational choice theory in light of counter-factuals like the reappearance of a movement that conventional theory did not predict. the general intention that underpins the detailed case study of the telengana movement is to develop a new explanation of sub-national movements belonging to the general category of ethno-national movements. this new explanation adds concepts based on the transcultural approach, including the re-use of collective memory, the non-linearity of time, the dynamism of imagined communities, and cultural and conceptual ‘flow’ to the conventional arguments of politics driven by power and interests.[42] instead of predicting a once-and-for-all state-formation and fixed national and regional boundaries based on what this article calls the “illusion of permanence,” the revised model presented here is more circumspect about the future, which it conceptualises in terms of probabilities that are contingent on a larger cluster of factors instead of the conventional model of rational politics in cultural nationalism. sub-nationalism has long been considered an anomaly for both liberal and marxist social theorists, who concede its existence but cannot explain it adequately. the analysis undertaken here moves beyond the sociological and historical accounts of the origins and evolution of sub-nationalism by formulating a new explanation that draws on theories of rational choice and collective action as well as on elements from the transcultural approach. in making this argument this article seeks to go beyond conventional models of comparative politics, which assert that (a) leaders of sub-nationalist movements draw on both sentiments and interest, and (b) the direction and pace of these movements are influenced by the political resources that they are able to mobilise. these separatist movements are seen by governments as fissiparous tendencies and threats to law and order. however, the ‘sub-nationalists’ themselves contest the authority of the successor ‘nation’ states and consider their claims justified by their unique identities, which are derived from their affinity with a particular language, religion, ethnicity, or region. watching closely the unfolding of the current spate of agitation for telengana, this article argues that one can see the depth of intensity some of the activists feel, particularly from their desecration of the statues of heroes from the previous movement for a telugu-speaking andhra state (see footnote 7 above). to achieve a fuller understanding of the telengana movement, and indeed ethno-national movements as a whole, this article proposes looking beyond the ‘rational politics of cultural nationalism model’ and taking into account some additional variables that give specific sub-national movements their singularity. while the transcultural approach helps us to understand the factors behind the emergence or re-emergence of certain ethno-national movements, it does not necessarily predict a successful resolution leading to the creation of exclusive homelands. the power of the central state to hold on to existing boundaries is a fact that sub-nationalists ignore at their peril, as the kurds have discovered to their dismay.[43] the reformulated model thus helps explain both the resilience of the federal, liberal, and democratic central state of india and the persistence of some sub-national movements like that in telengana. it also explains why every time a group decides that it has to have its own ‘homeland’ the state does not necessarily concede its demands. the creation of new spaces is conditional on a state-society ‘lock-in’ that is legitimated through its anchor in the deep memory of an autonomous existence. the resultant structure might actually be a novelty—the outcome of a synthesis of demands by the contending parties, drawing on the symbiosis of the decision-making elites and their contestants. the original model meant to capture the evolution of sub-national movements that had conceptualised the “imagined community” as a fixed and homogenous entity. the revised model treats it as more complex, dynamic, and malleable. the quest for legitimacy in the age of the global flow of concepts and objects makes it imperative for unreconstructed modernisers to think beyond rigid structures, uniformity (of the one-size-fits-all school), and permanence (of the once-and-for-all type of solutions). the lesson we may draw from the collapse of apparently solid regimes in north africa in the wake of the arab spring is clear—adapt or die! the time has come for the designers of india’s political space to move beyond the orthodoxy of 1947—a great improvement in its time over the rigid practices of pakistan and sri lanka—and to reach out in readiness to embrace policies other than language as the exclusive basis of regional state formation. the lessons of this article are of cross-national significance. although we have primarily addressed developments specific to the indian case, the problem it is concerned with has deep implications for stable democracies in the west as well, especially considering that the recent ban on use of the islamic headscarf in the public sphere in france and the swiss plebiscite against building new minarets remain open issues. on the other hand, despite india’s success in developing “a citizenship that can exist with manifold cultural tinges” there are limits to the capacity of the state to accommodate ethno-national demands. although the combination of federalism and consociationalism has produced a largely successful solution to the problem of integrating different identities within a common structure in india, the issue of a common legal basis as the sine qua non of citizenship as opposed to separate personal laws for different communities (e.g. the use of the sharia for muslims in matters of marriage, divorce, succession, and adoption) is still a live issue on the political agenda. one general lesson of this essay is that in india, as indeed in the wider expanse of transitional societies where the modern state is not exclusively endogenous in origin, sub-national movements are a “product of the ‘transcultural’ pasts of the regions which exist in a tense relationship with the homogenising compulsions of the nation states.”[44] how the central state engages with them depends on the very nature of the state as well as the context and conjuncture. two important points emerge here: first, the indian state, combining the legacies of the british solicitude for the rule of law and indirect rule and the firm suppression of secession with an accommodation of the pliable elements of the middle class and the democratic aspirations of the indian national movement, is a site of cultural flow[45]; hence, it is more likely to engage in negotiations than, for example, the chinese state, which has handled the tibetan demand for autonomy rather differently! second—context matters. in the case of telengana, both deep memory and the dynamics of identity are very much in evidence. however, without the deep memories of pre-modern, autonomous political identities (other than in areas such as western orissa, which has some objective similarities in terms of relative under-development) one is more likely to see maoist violence rather than sub-national movements as the chosen vehicle of collective self-assertion.  one of the main paradoxes of our globalised era is the simultaneous dissolution of boundaries, the free flow of information, and the border-crossing of transnational corporations and travellers, on the one hand and the intensity of localised ethnic conflicts, often backed by homogenising fundamentalist movements, on the other. india is no exception to this worldwide trend. despite its ontological appeal, transcultural theory is not as yet ready to provide a firm predictive response to the question of india’s chances of arriving at a peaceful solution in kashmir or telengana. this article has argued that transculturality as an approach and a heuristic argument can be a poor predictor of actual behaviour because the strategic aspects of complex decisions and current politics, power, and conflict of interests are not yet sufficiently integrated into what one might call a composite model combining the key arguments of the conventional and the transcultural approaches. the failure to understand the strategic configurations of power can be fatal and can reduce transculturality—postulated as a predictor of behaviour in the real world—to a neo-liberal pipe dream on a global scale.[46] ultimately, contemporary political analysis, like other social sciences, needs to make common cause with transcultural studies and to develop the methodological competence to add memory, non-linear time, and the re-use of the toolkit of rational choice-inspired methods in order to make sense of our fast changing world.[47] by taking on board the variables of memory, relative time, and flow, and re-thinking the conventional tools of power, interest, and values, one can aspire to both understand and explain by drawing on max weber and emile durkheim in equal measure.[48] this toolkit based on multiple methods might be the best way forward in developing a fuller understanding of the resilience of sub-national movements in kashmir, chechnya, or kurdistan than one finds in the strategic thinking of global powers. references the constitution of india. with short comments and a forward by m. p. singh, 2006. delhi: delhi law house. anderson, benedict r. imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. london: verso, 1983. beyme, klaus von. “political theory: empirical political theory.”in a new handbook of political science edited by robert e. goodin and hans-dieter klingemann, 519–531. new york: oxford university press, 1998. billig, michael. banal nationalism. london: sage. 1995. chum, b. k. “akali dal goes for mainstream politics.”deccan herald, february27, 1996. harrison, selig s. india: the most dangerous decades. princeton: princeton university press, 1960. hegewald julia and subrata mitra, eds. re-use: the art and politics of integration and anxiety. delhi: sage, 2012. jeffrey, robin. what’s happening to india?: punjab, ethnic conflict and the test for federalism. basingstoke: macmillan,1986. joppen, charles. historical atlas of india: for the use of high schools, colleges, and private students.london:longmans, green & co.,1914. kuhn, thomas s. the structure of scientific revolutions. chicago: the university of chicago press, 1962. lijphart, arend. “the puzzle of indian democracy: a consociational interpretation.”american political science review, 90 no.2 (1996):258–268. mitra, subrata k. “between transaction and transcendence: the state and the institutionalisation of authority in india.” in the post-colonial state in asia: the dialectics of politics and culture edited by subrata k. mitra,73–99. london: harvester, 1990. mitra, subrata k. “rational politics of cultural nationalism.”the british journal of political science, vol. 25, no. 1 (january 1995): 57–77. mitra, subrata k. and r. alison lewis eds. subnational movements in south asia. boulder: westview press, 1996. mitra, subrata k., & nation and region in indian politics: results of a post-poll survey, 1996.& asien afrika lateinamerika, 25 (1996): 499–519. mitra, subrata k. and v. b. singh. when rebels become stakeholders: democracy, agency and social change in india. delhi: sage, 2009. mitra, subrata k.politics in india: structure, process and policy. london: routledge, 2011. singh, gurharpal. “the punjab crisis since 1984: a re-assessment.” in sub-national movements in south asia, edited by subratak. mitra and r. alison lewis, 104-123 boulder: westview press, 1996. smith, anthony d. theories of nationalism. london: duckworth, 1971. suri, k.c.“demand for separate telangana.” paper presented at the seminar on ‘contextualizing maharashtra: a comparative perspective,’ department of political science, university of pune, pune, december 21–22, 2009. welsch, wolfgang, “transculturality—the puzzling form of cultures today.” in spaces of culture: city, nation, world, edited by mike featherstone and scott lash london: sage; 1999. internet sources ‘atelier brancusi,’ centre pompidou (paris). http://www.centrepompidou.fr/education/ressources/ens-brancusi/ens-brancusi.htm srikrishna report on telangana. http://ibnlive.in.com/news/full-text-srikrishna-report-on-telangana/139632-53.html telangana issue. http://www.theindiadaily.com/telangana-issue summary of the srikrishna committee report. http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/summary-of-the-srikrishna-committee-report-77492?cp the hindu. “million march turns violent in hyderabad: pro-telengana agitators go berserk, vandalise statues.” march 11, 2011. http://www.hindu.com/2011/03/11/stories/2011031 images: figure 1: an ideal type life cycle of sub-national movements source: subrata k. mitra and r. alison lewis eds., subnational movements in south asia, (boulder: westview 1996) 27. figure 2: benedict anderson’s heterogeneous, multiple, and non-linear time within the ‘imagined community’. source: benedict anderson, imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. london: verso, 1983. 25. figure 3: overlapping circles of state and society drawn by author figure 4: culture, context and strategy in turning subjects into citizens: a dynamic neo-institutional model drawn by author figure 5: a fragmented imagined community. anti-system dimension. drawn by author maps: map 1: contours of a prospective state of telengana source: suri, k. c., “demand for separate telengana” (paper, ‘contextualizing maharashtra: a comparative perspective,’ department of political science, university of pune, pune, december 21–22, 2009). map 2: british india prior to 1947 source: subrata k. mitra, politics in india-structure, process and policy (london; new york, 2011), 2. map 3: british india, 1947 source: subrata k. mitra, politics in india structure, process and policy (london; new york, 2011), 32. map 4: india in 1022 ce. source: charles joppen, historical atlas of india: for the use of high schools, colleges, and private students (london: longmans, green & co., 1914), appendix, map.10. map 5: india in 1398 ce. source: joppen, charles. historical atlas of india: for the use of high schools, colleges, and private students (london: longmans, green & co., 1914), appendix, map.13. tables: table 1: social anchors of sub national movements: selected examples from south asia drawn by author table 2: chronology of the telengana movement source: if not indicated differently: 1) all details from december 1952 to 1996 are taken from suri, “demand for separate telengana”; 2) details from 2000 to 10 april 2010 are taken from: telengana issue. http://www.theindiadaily.com/telengana-issue/ accessed on 12.03.2011. [1] an earlier version of this article was presented at the annual conference of the association for asian studies, honolulu, march 31–april 3, 2011. i would like to thank the ‘excellence cluster: asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows,’ heidelberg, for a grant to participate in the conference; lion koenig, radu carciumaru, and dominik frommherz for their valuable research assistance, philipp stockhammer, christine sanchez-stockhammer, and two anonymous referees for transcultural studies for their critical engagement with an earlier draft, and to andrea hacker for her meticulous attention to style and syntax. however, since i have been selective in the incorporation of comments, i alone am responsible for the opinions expressed here. [2] the concept of “transculturality” is owed largely to the work of wolfgang welsch (1999), who sees it as the only conceptual means of describing the inner differentiation and complexity of modern cultures. as opposed to what welsch refers to as “the old concept of culture,” transculturality—which is by no means a historically new phenomenon—draws a picture of the relationship between cultures that is marked by “entanglement, intermixing, and commonness” arising from increased contact and cultural exchange. this approach has been further developed by the members of the cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context.” the cluster’s current approach differs from welsch in three crucial points: phenomena such as border-crossings and cultural mixing are not understood as unique attributes of modernity, but as intrinsic to culture whose historical dimensions go as far back as recorded history; the focus of the analytical approach lies on issues of processuality, and, lastly, there is no assumption of an automatic equivalence between the transcultural and the syncretic/cosmopolitan”. see monica juneja, “key term: transculturality” (unpublished manuscript, december 6, 2011). [3] there is a fine line between cultural nationalism as a genre and sub-nationalism as a specific type within this broader category. whereas cultural nationalism questions the totality of a given concept of nationalism and postulates its own, distinct and different concept, sub-nationalists do not necessarily question the idea of the nation but wish instead to find a more just and honourable position for themselves within the national space that involves having distinct political and territorial autonomy. thus, whereas cultural nationalism might lead to a split of the existing nation state, sub-nationalism can be very well resolved within a federal arrangement. in practice, this distinction sometimes breaks down. thus, the sub-nationalist bengali language movement of the 1950s in east pakistan eventually became a full-fledged cultural nationalist movement leading to the breakdown of pakistan in 1971. a similar situation can be seen in the eelam movement for a tamil homeland in sri lanka. which course a movement takes depends on a large cluster of factors, discussed below. [4] see subrata k. mitra, “rational politics of cultural nationalism,” the british journal of political science vol. 25 no.1 (jan 1995): 57–77. [5] this is a concept that michael billig uses to stretch the concept of nationalism, “so that it can cover the ideological means by which nation-states are reproduced. to stretch the term ‘nationalism’ indiscriminately would invite confusion: surely, there is a distinction between the flag waved by serbian ethnic cleansers and that handing unobtrusively outside the us post office; or between the policy of the front national and the support given by the leader of the opposition to the british government’s falkland policy. for this reason, the term banal nationalism is introduced to cover the ideological habits which enable the established nations of the west to be reproduced. it is argued that these habits are not removed from everyday life, as some observers have supposed. daily, the nation is indicated, or ‘flagged,’ in the lives of its citizenry. nationalism, far from being an intermittent mood in established nations, is the endemic condition.” michael billig, banal nationalism, (london: sage, 1995), 6. [6] see figure 1 below for the stages of the development of sub-national movements. [7] the following report in the press gives one a sense of the agitation. “the ‘million march’ to hyderabad, called by pro-telengana groups and supported by political parties on thursday, turned violent as thousands of agitators broke through police barricades to reach the tank bund here, where they went berserk. the crowds set fire to an ob ban of a telugu news channel and a police jeep and damaged windscreens of two other police vehicles. eight policemen were injured in stone throwing. the mobs singled out congress mps k. keshavarao and madhuyashkigoud for attack and hurled footwear, water bottles and food sachets at them. [...] seven statues of eminent telugu personalities erected on the tank bund when n.t.rama rao was chief minister were vandalised and one uprooted statue was thrown into the hussain sagar lake.” see “‘million march’ turns violent in hyderabad: pro-telengana agitators go berserk, vandalise statues,”the hindu, march 11, 2011,  http://www.hindu.com/2011/03/11/stories/2011031 [8] literally means “stop trains.” this is an innovative and mostly peaceful method of putting pressure on the government by obstructing the movement of trains. rasta roko—stop traffic on highways—is a variation of the same method. [9] re-use refers to a form of relationship between the past and the present wherein elements from the past are strategically adapted for the present, and thus become part of a new modernity. re-use, in this sense, is a heuristic tool for analysing and interpreting cultural and political changes and the transnational flow of ideas, concepts, and objects. by not treating artistic, political, religious, and cultural developments as linear evolution, re-use as concept and method encourages readers to understand history as a continuous modification of the past and a periodic return to earlier forms. see julia hegewald and subrata mitra, eds. re-use: the art and politics of integration and anxiety (delhi: sage, 2012). [10] field data from india reveals the tendency on the part of local elites to combine strategies of contacting civil servants and putting pressure on them by taking recourse to protest action in their attempts to maximise their share of developmental benefits. although it is risky to engage in protest action, when it is effective it can quickly mobilise the media, higher level political leaders, and civil servants and lead to prompt action. [11] see gurharpal singh, “the punjab crisis since 1984: a re-assessment,” in sub-national movements in south asia eds. subrata k. mitra and alison lewis (boulder: westview press, 1996) for the strategic aspects of the movement for khalistan. [12] see anthony d. smith, theories of nationalism, (london: duckworth, 1971), 214, 226 and 228–229 for typologies of nationalist movements. [13] for a distinction between transactional and transcendental factors in indian politics, see subrata mitra, “between transaction and transcendence: the state and the institutionalisation of authority in india,” in the post-colonial state in asia: the dialectics of politics and culture, ed. subrata mitra, (london: harvester wheatsheaf, 1990). [14] suri, 2009, p. 10. [15] http://www.theindiadaily.com/telangana-issue/ [16] http://www.theindiadaily.com/telangana-issue/ [17] telangana report on pc table, talks on jan 6, retrieved 2011-03-12.  http://www.hindustantimes.com/telangana-report-on-pc-table-talks-on-jan-6/article1-644744.aspx [18] full text: srikrishna report on telangana resources news ibnlive; ibnlive.in.com 2010-02-03. retrieved 2011-03-12. http://ibnlive.in.com/news/full-text-srikrishna-report-on-telangana/139632-53.html [19] faced with language movements agitating for the creation of states based on the mother tongue spoken by the majority of the people of the area, the states reorganisation commission of 1957 came up with the “three-language formula”. this formula suggested that the main regional language should be the official language of the area, but also that english and hindi should be retained as national link languages and that a third language (if hindi is the main language of the area) should be encouraged. the recommendations of this commission, which ultimately led to the creation of largely homogenous linguistic states, nevertheless recognised the variable and negotiable links between language, area, and people, testifying to the transcultural character of the language regime. [20] for a commented summary of the report, please follow the link below: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/summary-of-the-srikrishna-committee-report-77492?cp [21] source: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/summary-of-the-srikrishna-committee-report-77492?cp [22] benedict anderson. imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism (london: verso,1983), 25–27. [24] witness the pitched battles that led to the breakup of yugoslavia, the ongoing struggles in kashmir and bodoland, and the ‘velvet revolutions’ that led to the creation of the czech and the slovak republics or, for that matter, the creation of jharkhand, chhattisgarh, and uttarchanchal. [25] of the two mainstays of the fuzzy indian nationalist notion of ‘unity in diversity,’ the main ideological device, lies amongst the rubble of the babri mosque. the second, the congress system, which served as its institutional base, now firmly belongs to india’s recent past after successive electoral defeats. [26] these calculations led to the creation of three new states—uttarakhand, chhatisgarh, and jharkhand—during the rule of the nda. remarkably, these states were not formed on the basis of language, but ethnic and economic considerations played a role. [27] when asked, “suppose there were no parties or assemblies and elections were not held—do you think that the government in this country can be run better?” 69 p contemporary per cent of indians argued the contrary. but at 72 per cent, the number of muslims making the same argument in favour of retaining the democratic structure is even higher than the average (see subrata k mitra and v.b. singh. when rebels become stakeholders: democracy, agency and social change in india (delhi: sage, 2009), 107. [28] the percentage of india’s largest minority, the muslims, has actually grown since independence. this is more than india’s south asian neighbours can claim. ayodhya was, of course, the most tragic instance failure in the communal accommodation process, which is all the more reason to take into account what has happened since. the nature of national reaction against the destruction of the babri mosque by hindu fanatics in 1992 has significantly altered the strategic thinking of the main protagonists and has helped moderate opinion (on both sides) prevail enough to revive the process of communal accommodation through transaction and judicialisation. [29] see arendt lijphart, “the puzzle of indian democracy,” american political science review, 90 no. 2 (1996): 258–268 for a detailed discussion of india’s efforts at combining federalism and consociationalism as a means of sustaining its democracy. [30] the etymology and genealogy of hybrid terms like satyagraha—the iconic blending of the imported notion of the right to participation and the indigenous concept of truth—developed by gandhi to great effect, or rail roko are examples of this form of hybridising political categories. [31] a good case in point for the complex and contradictory nature of cultural and conceptual flow is the volte face of women’s rights in kashmir under the contradictory pulls of the struggle for independence (azadi) on the one hand and the use of islam of the wahabi variant to press these rights (which as a corollary relegate women to the background) on the other. . [32] a puzzle is a problem, solvable within the framework of the existing framework of knowledge that kuhn (1962) calls a scientific paradigm. anomalies are issues where the solution would require a new paradigm. [33] even politics in tamil nadu, the most successful case of the ideal type explanation, show a splintering of the original movement and several tamil parties with different takes on the tamil problem in sri lanka. [34] robin jeffrey,what’s happening to india?: punjab, ethnic conflict and the test for federalism (basingstoke: macmillan 1986), 9. [35] benedict anderson, imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism, (london: verso 1983),15. [36] anderson, imagined communities, 15. [37] lokenath misra, m.p., debates on the report of the states reorganization commission, lok sabha secretariat, new delhi, (december 1955) vol. 1, col. 647, cited in selig harrison, india: the most dangerous decades(princeton university press,1960), 11. [38] b. k. chum, “akali dal goes for mainstream politics,” deccan herald, february 27, 1996. see also subrata mitra, “nation and region in indian politics: results of a post-poll survey, 1996,” asienafrikalateinamerika, 25 (1997): 514–515 for a further discussion of this point. [39] the citations are from ‘atelier brancusi,’ centre pompidou (paris), www.centrepompidou.fr [41] ‘atelier brancusi,’ centre pompidou (paris), www.centrepompidou.fr [42] telengana is no exception and it has strong parallels withother incompletely resolved ethno-national movements like kashmir. the kashmir issue, like telengana, also “seemed to have been ‘settled’ by india’s de facto acceptance of the loc [line of control] and creation of the state of jammu and kahmir accompanied by exceptions in the indian constitution.... today the kashmir issue is far more nuanced than in 1948–1949 with several identifiable nationalist strategies associated with different imagined versions of the kashmiriyat.” comment, referee b. [43] the political character of the central state is a boundary condition for generalisations to be drawn from the specific analysis of telengana. thus, in the context of a different state like china, the cost-benefit calculations of the sub-national actors and their international supporters (e.g. tibet) will be necessarily different. “the international standing of india as a civilised democratic nation... comes with a double challenge: its capacity to maintain social stability, and its ability to avoid violent social conflict, all the while abiding by standards of civilised societies [is an important factor that influences the calculations of both the state and its adversaries. inconsequence] both sides, as a rule, look as much for outside support and legitimacy as for support and legitimacy within their own environment.” referee a. [44] i am grateful to anonymous referee b for pointing this out. [45] for the cultural flow of colonial rules to the modern, post-colonial state in india, see my essay “from comparative politics to cultural flow: the hybrid state, and resilience of the political system in india,” in conceptualising cultural hybridization: a trans-disciplinary approach, ed. phillip stockhammer, vol. 1. transcultural research. heidelberg studies on asia and europe in a global context (heidelberg: springer verlag, 2011). similar arguments can be found in david potter, india’s political administrators: from ics to ias (delhi: oxford, 1996). [46] welsch believes “the concept of transculturality to be the most adequate concept of cultures today—for both descriptive and normative reasons” [wolfgang welsch, “transculturality—the puzzling form of cultures today,” in spaces of culture: city, nation, world, eds. mike featherstone and scott lash  (london: sage, 1999) emphasis added]. he concludes his landmark essay with the following: “the concept of transculturality sketches a different picture of the relation between cultures. not one of isolation and of conflict, but one of entanglement, intermixing, and commonness. it promotes not separation, but exchange and interaction. if the diagnosis given applies to some extent, then tasks of the future—in political and social, scientific and educational, artistic and design-related respects—ought only to be solvable through a decisive turn towards this transculturality.” these are brave and optimistic sentiments, but for those familiar with the everyday politics of kashmir or chechnya these transcultural sentiments might come across as quaint and idealistic. over the course of the last five years, the cluster of excellence “asia and europe” has pushed these concepts and further reframed it in a way that allows for analyzing conflicts, political violence, fundamentalism, xenophobia, and discourses of radical alterity through the transcultural lens. andrea hacker, personal communication, dec 10, 2012. [47] the value-added character of the synthesis of methods suggested here can be seen by contrasting figures 1 and 5; the latter reveals the complex nature of the flow of cultures in terms of an additional dimension showing how high intensity dissident movements can co-exist with a largely banalised former movement ensconced in office, as is the case for kashmir. [48] see klaus von beyme, “political theory: empirical political theory,” in a new handbook of political science eds. robert e. goodin and hans-dieter klingemann (new york: oxford university press, 1998), 519–531. sinology: chinese intellectual history and transcultural studies | pablo a. blitstein | transcultural studies sinology: chinese intellectual history and transcultural studies pablo a. blitstein, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg the guest editors of this journal issue have kindly asked me to provide a short overview of the relation between transcultural studies and chinese intellectual history in euro-american academia. there was a certain risk in accepting this request, as it might be either too small or too big a task. it would be too small if i narrowed it down to a review of explicit references to transcultural studies within chinese intellectual history; but it would be too big if i extended it to a study of all the questions, approaches, and methods that the two fields have developed in the last few decades. to overcome these difficulties, i decided to focus on the legacy of one shared methodological point: the critique of so-called “methodological nationalism,” that is, of the assumption (explicit or not) that the nation is the ultimate framework of research.[1] this critique has become a constitutive principle of transcultural studies, while it came to represent only a particular approach within chinese intellectual history. still, the two fields have developed a shared agenda in this regard. this essay limits itself to pointing out the presence of this critique in both fields—which might be as much a sign of open scholarly exchanges as evidence of the parallel adoption of common references—and offers an illustration of the complex relations that exist between institutional labels, methodological agendas, scientific communication, and actual scholarly practice. chinese intellectual history and transcultural studies have resulted from a specific division of intellectual labor within the euro-american academic world. transcultural studies, a relatively new research field, has only taken institutional shape in the last few decades; it represents a critical response to the abuses of the concept of culture as a heuristic tool, and attempts, among other things, to overcome the institutional partitions and conceptual biases that area studies have fostered in the humanities and social sciences (although transcultural studies are, to a large extent, grounded in the findings of area-based research). chinese intellectual history is an older field. a particular branch of chinese history, it has inherited many of its basic approaches and methodologies from a long tradition of area studies—chinese studies—and from its immediate ancestors, “history of chinese philosophy” and “history of chinese thought.” the respective scientific habitus of transcultural studies and chinese intellectual history have been the ground of sympathetic but uneasy relations. transcultural studies scholars find in chinese intellectual history the necessary expertise on china-related questions, and have actually taken from it some of its debates and approaches (many transcultural studies scholars actually come from chinese studies); but they do not feel at ease with the area-based definition of the latter’s research objects. chinese intellectual history sees in transcultural studies an attentive interlocutor and is in certain cases tempted to merge with it; but some of its practitioners fear that if they fully adopt transcultural methods, they might lose the institutional prerogatives they enjoy within area studies. the two fields therefore view each other with both interest and a certain mistrust. in order to explain these tensions and convergences, and according to the guidelines of this themed section, i will first offer a historical overview of the two fields. after that, i will explain their respective attitudes towards methodological nationalism and give evidence from their recent history of some intersecting points in this regard.[2] this essay was originally supposed to encompass chinese academia, but when i started, i soon realized that such a task demanded a different and longer text. for that reason, the picture i give below sets aside the interconnections between euro-american and east asian scholarship; neither does it explore the fundamental role that chinese scholarship (and in many instances japanese scholarship as well) has played in shaping the agenda of euro-american chinese studies; nor does it show how many methodological and theoretical approaches coming from europe and america—transcultural studies included—have contributed to shape the agenda of chinese historiography. a more complete picture should take this shared history into account. as a necessarily unsatisfactory compensation, i will, in some cases, refer to the way chinese-speaking debates conditioned the development of a particular approach or advanced the study of a particular object within euro-american scholarship. paradoxes of the transcultural approach and the latin american origins of the field as contributors to this themed section on transcultural studies, we were asked to explain, in the first place, what transcultural studies means for us—not as practitioners (i would not necessarily consider myself to be one), but as observers. this request is a highly relevant one because the term “transcultural” has multiple meanings. its relatively recent consolidation as an institutional label, as well as the multiple uses it has been given in the second half of the twentieth century, make it necessary to clarify the sort of transcultural studies we have in mind.[3] i will thus start with a definition: transcultural studies is a methodological approach. this approach attempts, on the one hand, to overcome the idea, common in the humanities and social sciences, that cultures (or “civilizations”) are homogeneous, well-bounded, self-engendered entities; on the other, it proposes research methods that shed a light not only on connections between supposedly disconnected human groups, but also on disconnections within supposedly homogeneous communities. in other words, transcultural studies sets out to study, as monica juneja suggests, “processes of relationality,” that is, the ways in which human relations (mostly asymmetric relations) are constantly changing beneath, beyond, and across presumably fixed group boundaries.[4] a transcultural critique of methodological nationalism is related to this scientific agenda. for transcultural studies, the concepts of “nations” and “cultures”—not as legitimate objects of scientific inquiry, but as naturalized frameworks of research—are among the main obstacles to understanding the actual processes of group formation. in this sense, it might be worth giving a short explanation of the (not necessarily explicit) social ontology that characterizes transcultural studies. this social ontology could be labelled both relational and kinetic. relational, because it assumes that relations precede isolation; it takes for granted that even the most seemingly isolated culture is constituted by constantly changing relations that either endanger or simply make impossible any pretended insularity. kinetic, because it assumes that everything moves and changes; it posits that stasis is only the momentary interruption of motion, and that the actual flows of persons, things, and ideas across the world prevent the definitive consolidation of any boundaries. against an understanding of cultures that is built on the image of a world of juxtaposed, self-sustained, territorially bounded communities, and that consequently emphasizes the relative immobility of cultures in space and their self-engendering powers in time, transcultural studies focuses on those phenomena that show that even the strictest boundaries need the active collaboration of those within and those outside these boundaries, and that the creation of a closed space presupposes the (necessarily transitory) enforcement of limitations on human movement. in other words, transcultural studies presupposes that people are naturally inclined to move, even if it is from one room to another of their own house. its question is how that movement is motivated, situated, oriented, and conditioned. in the relational and kinetic ontology of transcultural studies, what is usually called a “cultural” boundary—based on social relations, linguistic exchange, shared symbols, etc.—is seen not as the ultimate cause, but as the result of human activity, of a constant struggle to preserve and dissolve social configurations, and to shape the movement of persons and objects across the world. this approach has brought together trends that have developed in anthropology, sociology, and history;[5] it is on its basis that transcultural studies has developed its critique of methodological nationalism and its means to overcome it. the name of this field, “transcultural studies,” might contradict its fundamental approach. indeed, the literal interpretation of the signifier “transcultural,” along with “transculturality” (as a property of a phenomenon) and “transculturation” (as a process), does not necessarily suggest its kinetic and relational social ontology. this is due to the inevitable coexistence between older uses of the word and the meaning it was given by transcultural studies. in the 1940s, when cuban cultural anthropologist fernando ortiz introduced the term “transculturation” to the humanities and social sciences, the term was actually complicit with a particular form of methodological nationalism. ortiz’s intention was to substitute the term “acculturation,” which dominated english-speaking anthropology in the 1930s and 1940s. in his opinion, “acculturation” was an unsuccessful term because it suggested a process of acquiring a new (superior) culture and substituting an old (inferior) one, and thus stood for cultural replacement. on the contrary, “transculturation” supposed cultural loss, cultural mixture, and cultural creation, that is, the fusion of elements from several cultures into a new one.[6] in a context of deep reflection about “national cultures” in cuba and, more generally, latin america—indeed, a strong methodological nationalism pervades the latin american cultural anthropology of those years—many latin american scholars embraced the concept of “transculturation” to think about “national cultures” in their societies, which consisted of aboriginal populations, migrants from different parts of europe, and descendants of african slaves as well as spanish and portuguese colonizers. the new concept certainly changed the perception of national cultures in latin america, but it did not entail a rejection of essentializing definitions of cultures. “transculturation” was intended to conceptualize a transformation from a particular culture to another through the interaction of different traditions; it was the name of a process which did not happen to all the cultures of the world, and which ideally presupposed the existence of a bounded nation (such as cuba) both at the beginning and at the end of the transformation.[7] in this sense, the word “transcultural,” in its original sense, contradicts the border-crossing kinetic and relational ontology of transcultural studies. the morphology of this word requires our capacity to imagine stable cultures before we can conceive them in motion through the prefix “trans-,” and it is perfectly compatible with an idea that present-day transcultural studies strongly contests: that the world is populated with contiguously set homogeneous cultures which in some cases, and only some, develop intersections between them or influence each other.[8] this is, so to speak, the “old regime” of the word, and it coincides with the use of terms like “cross-cultural.” three important figures—ángel rama in latin america, and wolfgang welsch and mary louise pratt in the euro-american world[9]—have, to a certain extent and in various ways, followed this definition and contributed to the consolidation of this term in literary studies and philosophy. in the last few decades, however, the word “transcultural” has been given a new meaning and used to label the kinetic and relational agenda of transcultural studies. the practitioners of transcultural studies claim that every human phenomenon is transcultural, and that there is only one reality, not two: there is nothing cultural that is not at the same time transcultural. in this new use—the one that characterizes the “new regime” of transcultural studies—a literal interpretation of “transcultural” as “trans…culture” would be misleading: transcultural studies does not focus on cultural intersections or—as mary louise pratt put it—on “contact zones,” because all human relations are themselves a zone of contact and a cultural intersection. transcultural studies focuses on the processes of formation and dissolution of human configurations that create the moving boundaries of what we see as self-sustained cultures. this new use of “transcultural” has not yet been generally accepted. indeed, the inevitable coexistence of the new and the old meaning, together with the ambiguity motivated by the literal composition of this word (coined, as we saw, in an anthropological debate in the 1940s), make it difficult for transcultural studies to prevent misunderstandings: for even if the practitioners of transcultural studies claim that the transcultural should ontologically precede the cultural, other scholars can still use the same word to claim that the cultural logically precedes the transcultural.[10] if transcultural studies, despite this inevitable semantic ambiguity, still sticks to this word, it is because they see in it the possibility of imposing their agenda through a rhetorical strategy. instead of finding a new word, they employ this prestigious old term to improve rhetorical effectiveness; they use it as a device for intervention, and not necessarily for conceptual description. by evoking a tradition with the purpose of enhancing rhetorical efficacy, and by claiming that the transcultural precedes the cultural, the field assumes the contradiction inherent to the literal interpretation of the term, as if it intended to produce perplexity through aporia. this rhetorical procedure, which simultaneously puts into crisis the concepts “cultural” and “transcultural,” should eventually lead to the abolition of both concepts as heuristic tools—and therefore questions the idea that practices and concepts are shaped by one single belonging.[11] in this sense, although the label “transcultural studies” might not be fully appropriate from a conceptual point of view, and although the ambiguities of this label might lead to some premises that contradict the agenda they encompass, the practitioners of this field use it to take part in more general endeavors in the humanities and social sciences to overcome the limitations of the concept of culture as a self-engendered and tightly bounded entity.[12] indeed, the critique of the limitations of the concept of culture is not an exclusive feature of transcultural studies. actually, this field seems to have combined existing approaches and methods taken from other fields in the humanities and social sciences combined in a new way. many of these approaches and methods were produced with the explicit purpose of overcoming insular understandings of culture; others were developed for different purposes but nevertheless found a new life within this field. in the following, i will only mention those tools that have been mobilized by transcultural studies with the sole aim of critiquing methodological nationalism. in this regard, transcultural studies has developed a twofold imbrication with the rest of the humanities and social sciences. from the point of view of its connection with other fields, transcultural studies shares some concerns with transfergeschichte, global history, connected history, and histoire croisée, all of which feature approaches to overcome nation-based historical narratives;[13] from a methodological point of view, they have been strongly influenced by actor-network theory, network sociology, and microhistory—though the influence is not always apparent. the connection with the neighboring fields is clear enough: in most of them, the critique of methodological nationalism is a constitutive task. the relation with actor-network theory, network sociology, or microhistory, however, deserves an explanation. these three approaches could actually be perfectly compatible with methodological nationalism; however, when used against it, they become powerful tools to deconstruct it. scholars in transcultural studies have indeed employed them to “denationalize” their objects of inquiry; their analyses stick to the actual relations, networks, or associations (also “assemblages”) that constitute their objects, no matter whether they go beyond or remain within national boundaries, and mobilize different scales of observation to trace evidence of long-distance and short-distance relations.[14] in other words, although transcultural studies employs network sociology, actor-network theories, and microhistorical tools in different ways, there usually is a clear purpose: when applied to the strongly nationalized societies of the contemporary world, these tools disclose the internal disconnections and external connections that denaturalize national boundaries, and show how national institutions are shaped by larger, non-national relations across the world. when applied to the non-nationalized societies in both the contemporary and the non-contemporary world, they reveal alternative patterns of group and institutional formation—thus questioning the applicability of nation-based narratives to societies which have not needed the nation to build their own institutions.[15] chinese intellectual history, its ancestors, and the spectre of methodological nationalism this subchapter offers a brief historical outline of the study of pre-1911 chinese intellectual history and, more generally, of chinese studies. it is a necessary step before we can identify the convergences and divergences of this field with transcultural studies. schematically speaking, chinese intellectual history has had to deal with three traditions within chinese studies. two of these emerged from the nineteenth-century discipline of classical sinology: the first is characterized by a strong textual and philological approach (in the restricted sense that it seeks to establish the meaning of texts, mostly with translation purposes), the second by the incorporation of analytical tools from the social sciences and humanities. despite recurrent tensions, the two traditions have kept fluid relations, probably because they grew from the same roots. the philological tradition is the older of the two; philology and textual analysis were one of the main features of sinology when the discipline was founded in the first half of the nineteenth century. indeed, although sinology inherited the philosophical, religious, and literary discussions about china among enlightenment philosophers and catholic (mostly jesuit) missionaries, its constitution as a discipline had strong philological roots.[16] this almost exclusively philological orientation of sinology, which extended from the french sinologues de chambre and the altertumswissenschaft-inspired german sinologists to many of the american and british missionaries who marked the english-speaking sinological agenda,[17] was questioned in the first half of the twentieth century. some sinologists, though not necessarily against philology, attempted to bring the discipline closer to other social sciences, and therefore subordinated philological studies to wider methodological discussions and to new research questions. this was the beginning of a second tradition in euro-american sinology. edouard chavannes, for example, renewed the sinological agenda with methods from european history and archeology; marcel granet, with methods from durkheimian sociology; otto franke, with methods taken from german historiography (he studied with j. g. droysen). this second tradition, though sometimes critical of the philological orientation of the first professional sinologists, did not dispute philology’s right to exist; on the contrary, it often resorted to its tools in order to better understand the textual corpus on the basis of which it raised its hypotheses. a remarkable feature is the unassuming attitude many of its practitioners had toward china as an object of inquiry; although they considered themselves, like classical sinologists, specialists on china, they often defined themselves in disciplinary terms, as sociologists or historians.[18] the strongest break with the philological bias, which paved the way to a third tradition in chinese studies, came from the united states: it was the creation of “area studies.” after world war ii, during the cold war period, figures like john king fairbank openly dismissed the philological concerns of traditional sinology and worked to develop an approach based on area expertise.[19] this expertise certainly included language training, but it also required a combination of other social sciences in order to obtain an accurate knowledge of modern china. the new orientation was marked by a strong modernist bias; the chinese imperial past, though certainly not rejected, was only taken into account as either the germ of modern china or as the tradition to be overcome.[20] the difference between this area expertise and the second sinological tradition mentioned above lay in the use it made of scientific methods: while someone like marcel granet would see himself as a durkheimian sociologist whose research object only happened to be in china,[21] the area specialist privileged the figure of the “china expert” and pragmatically subordinated the use of scientific methods to the general purpose of understanding the “area.”[22] the success of this tradition has led to the definitive consolidation of “chinese studies” as the general name for the discipline. and although the labels “sinology” and “chinese studies” can now be used interchangeably to refer to the study of china, “sinology” is sometimes used as a pejorative term for the old philological approach.[23] chinese studies—its three traditions confounded—offers both strict limitations and some generous privileges to its practitioners. of its limitations, i will only mention two. the first is that the scholars of the three traditions, though often members of the same departments, have sometimes lived in separate worlds. since they often (not always) differ in their interests, theoretical frameworks, and methods of inquiry, they have trouble establishing scientific communication with each other. the second limitation, a more relevant one for the purpose of this essay, is related to the delimitation of the area, whether or not it is the individual scholar’s primary concern. the area, in principle, is china. but what is china? what languages, groups, or practices should be included? and how much can the study of china be kept apart from the study of east asia, south asia, or, in modern times, europe and america, which have all contributed to shape the “chinese world” as we know it today? it is true that few china scholars would claim that the “china” they study is an isolated, self-sustained object. the area studies tradition, grounded to a large extent in modernization theory, pointed out supposedly universal tendencies that downplay chinese singularity; it also resorted, like the philological tradition, to comparative history, precisely with the intention of identifying not only differences and shared features, but also relations between areas; and, more importantly, it was largely based on the now obsolete “impact-response” theory, which assumes that chinese history has been shaped by external influences and that, in paul cohen’s words, “the confrontation with the west was the most significant influence on events in china.”[24] in short, area studies, like the philological tradition, did not entail parochialism; it studied china in a global perspective. but methodological nationalism was precisely rooted in this perspective, whether in practice or in theory. each area, usually a nation, was considered as the fundamental unit of research; the impact-response theory, which pointed to cross-border interactions, assumed that area boundaries were the fundamental borders where the endogenous ended and external influence started. area studies, in this sense, have inscribed methodological nationalism in the institutional division of academic labor. this might have been one of the reasons why many practitioners, generally aware of the existence of transregional dynamics, feel a tension between the institutional constraints their departments impose on their work and the inherent non-national dynamics of their research objects—and, perhaps, one of the reasons why a significant number of transculturalists are area studies scholars who decide to overcome these limitations. i will come back to this complicity between “arealized” research and institutionalized methodological nationalism. but before i do, i would like to mention a positive dimension of area studies that might have opened the door not only to transcultural studies, but to very different methods and approaches: the tendency to dissolve disciplinary compartmentalization. although the area focus has sometimes imposed artificial limits on the objects of enquiry, it has granted the scholar, especially in europe, much freedom to overcome disciplinary boundaries. the area-based studies, and chinese studies in particular, often stay away from interdisciplinary disputes in the humanities and social sciences, or only take a small part in them. precisely because chinese studies do not have a clear disciplinary identity, but mostly an “area” identity (even when they reject it), sinologists feel free to draw on methods and questions from the wider humanities and social sciences. although they may appropriate them in a somewhat unruly way, and may sometimes be unaware of the specific debates and traditions that ground each discipline, they enjoy a higher degree of disciplinary flexibility and can therefore concentrate on how productive a particular question, approach, or method proves to be when applied to their area-defined objects of inquiry. in this sense, if chinese studies might sometimes develop their own “disciplinary ethnocentrism”—that is, a parochial defense of their own traditions and approaches—they do not force it to coincide with the sort of disciplinary ethnocentrism sometimes developed within sociology, anthropology, philosophy, history, or economics.[25] paul cohen’s “china-centered” approach was an attempt at developing this positive dimension of chinese studies; although it was later associated with methodological (and not only methodological) nationalism, its starting point was to deliver research from the deductive universalism of modernization and impact-response theories.[26] intellectual history, like transcultural studies, has penetrated sinology through these interstices of disciplinary freedom. it is hard to ascertain when exactly the label “intellectual history” was first used in the humanities, or when it came to designate a distinct research field. the expression can be traced as far back as the nineteenth century. what is important for the purpose of this essay is that in the 1980s, when the expression was increasingly used in the english-speaking world and was consolidated by academic journals, book titles, and university chairs and departments, the term “intellectual history” was often used to indicate something other than the more traditional “history of ideas” and “history of thought.” after a decade of relative marginalization during the 1970s (at least in the english-speaking world),[27] intellectual history revived with a methodological critique of these traditional associates; it claimed that ideas and thought could not be studied independently from the practices, institutions, and social relations that embodied them. the label “intellectual history” was therefore associated, on the one hand, with the endeavor to overcome unhistorical histories of thought, and, on the other, with the attempts to study the material and social conditions in which intellectually active persons, in different social and historical circumstances, developed and transmitted their ideas.[28] the use of the label “intellectual history” in chinese studies seems to be related to the same scientific endeavors. it is true that, in the field of chinese studies, the expression “intellectual history” has been used since at least the 1940s, and that some major figures in chinese intellectual history, like benjamin schwartz and joseph levenson, employed and sometimes even thoroughly defined this expression to characterize what they were doing.[29] however, it was most likely during the 1980s and 1990s, when intellectual history regained vitality in the humanities and social sciences in general, that chinese intellectual history started marginalizing the more traditional “history of chinese thought” and “history of chinese philosophy.” actually, the scholars who, like in the older history of ideas, only present the internal logic of a discourse without historical context have been a minority in the field; in the united states, they seem to have been even rarer than in other places. this has facilitated the convergence between chinese studies and recent developments in intellectual history—even if there does not seem to be a direct dialogue between the two. conferences, book titles, and university chairs have given chinese intellectual history relative autonomy as a research field, and although it has sometimes overlapped with cultural history (as was also the case beyond chinese studies), its methodological lineage, indebted to the schwartzian or levensonian histories, seems to have given it a recognizable identity.[30] in this sense, chinese intellectual history lies at the crossroads of two fields. as part of intellectual history, it focuses on the history of intellectual procedures and activities without dissociating them from social and historical circumstances; this made it very receptive to approaches and methodologies from different fields and disciplines—transcultural studies among them. as part of chinese studies, it focuses on the specific features of china, whatever groups, practices, and institutions that area may label. through this area-based heritage methodological nationalism—though not always manifest—constantly threatens to shape the field. methodological nationalism has not always been a threat within chinese studies, at least not in scholarly practice. sinology came about and evolved during the nineteenth century, a time when the concept of nation, like the concepts of proto-national “cultures” and “civilizations,” shaped european political and historiographical discourse.[31] nevertheless, like new qing historians today, the founding fathers of sinology, including jean-pierre abel-rémusat and stanislas julien, knew that to understand qing china it was necessary to have a working knowledge of manchu or mongol and not only classical and vernacular chinese. their discourse on china was strongly marked by a national perspective,[32] but, in practice, they recognized the multi-ethnic dimensions of the qing dynasty and, more generally, imperial chinese history. the national perspective within chinese studies became increasingly important during the second half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century, and it arguably culminated in the development of area studies.[33] this nation-based approach might look somewhat suitable for the nation-state called “china” in the twenty-first century (although pamela crossley has already pointed out the complexity of this issue)[34]; however, when applied to qing china, it inevitably shows its limitations. how could the “chinese nation” be the framework to study the empire if, at least as an institutionally accepted name, it was only used in the early twentieth century? before then, there was only a series of non-national processes of group formation and institutional framing, ranging from the imperial court to tibetan populations, or from peasant villages to foreign concessions in nineteenth-century ports. the same applies to the term “chinese culture.” where was that “chinese” culture in this heterogeneous empire, where was that proto-national culture that justified the creation of the modern nation called “china”?[35] the connections between the different constituencies of the empire, only sometimes guaranteed by the institutional framework of the qing, could only be subsumed under the label “china” when they were reinterpreted either by chinese nationalist historiography in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century or by nation-oriented euro-american narratives of chinese history. since then, the area framework, and with it methodological nationalism, continues to shape the institutional constraints of the field and is sometimes explicitly justified by some practitioners, regardless of the historical evidence of the empire’s non-national nature, which a great number of sinologists have pointed out.[36] methodological nationalism is not only strong in chinese intellectual history and chinese studies overall: it has affected most of the field of area studies, which were institutionally built on the implicit assumption that their respective geographical areas of expertise only contain area-bounded histories. the area framework does not itself produce methodological nationalism, but facilitates its development. a well-known debate will illustrate the high level of consensus that such an approach still enjoys in area-based intellectual history. there is an exchange between j. g. a. pocock and reinhart koselleck, the former a prominent representative of the cambridge school of intellectual history, the latter a founder of the german begriffsgeschichte. in their debate, the two scholars, despite the differences in their methodologies, agreed on a significant point: social and political concepts or languages are “nationally specific.”[37] this assertion looks all the more paradoxical because in their works, these two scholars show that “english” and “german” ideas are intimately connected with “french” and “italian” ones; they also show that the assumptions of the actors are in some cases radically different, or even disconnected, from the assumptions of their spatially close neighbors, and are in some other cases astonishingly similar to—because often connected with—those of people living thousands of kilometers away.[38] in this debate, pocock and koselleck stick to methodological nationalism; in their historiographical practice, they usually contradict it. chinese intellectual history has remained largely unaware of this debate; however, its stakes are similar: since a contradiction between an institutionalized methodological nationalism and their actual “transcultural” practice is pervasive among its practitioners, transcultural studies has provided, and probably will continue to provide, important means of methodological clarification. chinese intellectual history and the transcultural agenda if chinese intellectual history now shares some elements with transcultural studies, it is because the two fields have developed intersecting points in the last few decades. there are at least two reasons for these intersections. first, transcultural studies put a strong emphasis on the non-european world, and maintained that, in order to study it, the research and institutional training of area studies—in this case, chinese studies— is indispensable. secondly, and perhaps more importantly, many discussions in transcultural studies seem to have taken up arguments already developed by intellectual historians of china. transcultural studies certainly owe many of their assumptions to the methodological discussions in global history, microhistory, and the other fields mentioned above; but they also owe them to the critical reflections produced by area scholars themselves, who have the necessary expertise to study documents from outside the euro-american world. it is therefore unsurprising to find, among the main practitioners of transcultural studies, many historians of china or scholars who were originally trained as china specialists: they brought to transcultural studies their “area” expertise and the critiques addressed to their field from within. nourished by the same debates in the humanities and social sciences that gave birth to transcultural studies, these specialists have produced historically grounded arguments that transcultural studies took as their constitutive principles. what were scattered critiques in area studies became systematic methodology in transcultural studies. since at least the 1980s, chinese intellectual history has been very sensitive to the “turns” that have helped establish transcultural studies as a field. this sensitivity did not mean passive reception; chinese intellectual history not only made a selective appropriation of the new methods and approaches, but in some cases actually helped produce these “turns.”[39] the first is the “global turn,” which must be understood as a methodological agenda—that is, including even those scholars who criticize the use of the term “global” or refrain from using it at all. as frederick cooper suggests, the key issue for a “global” intellectual history is “who talks to whom”[40]—or, more precisely, what is connected to what, and how it is connected, in the world. the underlying idea is that the historian should follow evidence no matter where it leads her or him, and fully assume the implications of this methodology. such an approach to global history, explicitly or not, has had a definite impact in chinese history at large, and chinese intellectual history is no exception.[41] the idea of “who talks to whom” is a point of methodological convergence with transcultural studies: it pushes the historian of china to analyze intellectual phenomena both beyond the nation, sometimes on a transcontinental scale, and within the nation, by pointing out the internal phenomena that contradict the presumed homogeneity of chinese culture. the dialogue with the history of empires, a close ally of global history in its enterprise to denationalize history, has made it easier for chinese studies to conceptualize their objects of inquiry in a non-national way. other turns have predisposed the field to focus on the processes of relationality that constitute the basis of transcultural studies. the material turn, which focuses on material culture and on practices of reading and writing, has drawn scholarly attention to the physical mobility of ideas or, more precisely, to the physical supports of ideas, be it books, pictures, or brains.[42] the history of the book, quite successful in chinese studies, is part of a general endeavor to reconstruct the material supports of ideas; the reconstruction of book circulation, translation, and reception beyond national boundaries has been one of the major tools mobilized in chinese intellectual history against methodological nationalism. the impactful spatial turn has brought to the fore the spatial embeddedness of knowledge and therefore sensitized the china scholar to the particular features of the physical places involved in the production of ideas—whether those places lie within or outside of china.[43] the study of the “spaces of daily life” and of “sites of knowledge” are examples of this approach. the material and spatial turns have therefore brought resources into chinese intellectual history to escape the deductive rhetoric of methodological nationalism (deductive, because it takes for granted that all intellectual exchanges are nationally bounded)[44] and has incited it to focus on the actual spatial and material circuits of intellectual transmission without assuming any national belonging. finally, it must be noted that chinese intellectual history was fed by the post-structuralist and postmodern waves that, since the 1970s, have dissolved unquestioned boundaries, approaches, and methods in the humanities and social sciences, with varying degrees of success. if chinese intellectual history shares many points with the transcultural agenda, this is partly related to the fact that both have been fed by the same intellectual atmosphere since the 1980s.[45] there are several representative works of chinese intellectual history that have addressed transcultural questions and deserve mention. there are, first of all, some authors who conduct research on late nineteenthand early twentieth-century china. for example, lydia liu’s translingual practices, which has had a lasting impact on chinese intellectual history, attempts to place the transformations of early twentieth-century chinese literature in the context of linguistic interactions between china, europe, and japan.[46] rebecca karl’s staging the world, theodor huters’s bringing the world home, tang xiaobing’s global space and the nationalist discourse of modernity, prasenjit duara’s rescuing history from the nation, and the china-related works of douglas howland also offer many examples of a transcultural approach in chinese intellectual history.[47] these authors mostly work in american academia. as for european authors, two explicitly subscribe to the transcultural approach: joachim kurtz, especially in his the discovery of chinese logic, and rudolf wagner, both in his works on the chinese press and in his most recent research on the circulation of images and metaphors.[48] these two intellectual historians of china have played an important role in establishing a center of transcultural studies at heidelberg university.[49] all of these authors represent, explicitly or not, a larger institutional impulse in the euro-american academic world to develop a transcultural approach to chinese intellectual history. it is not by accident that many elements of the transcultural agenda are particularly prominent in the historiography of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: it would indeed be impossible to understand this period of chinese history without taking into account its tight relations with its japanese, european, and american counterparts. the intellectual history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century has also converged with so-called “diaspora studies” because many important intellectuals in late nineteenthand early twentieth-century china shaped their ideas in the chinese neighborhoods of southeast asia, europe, oceania, and the americas.[50] some research on this period is therefore unintentionally transcultural. although, in many cases, the relational approach of transcultural studies is absent. instead, trans-national history is much more wide-spread, in the sense that many studies keep the nation as the basic unit of research. nevertheless, the works mentioned above, like many others, deal in explicitly relational terms with chinese intellectual history and, in so doing, often converge with transcultural studies. not all the quasi-transcultural works on chinese intellectual history focus on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. for example, anne cheng, who holds the chaire d’histoire intellectuelle de la chine at the collège de france, the only chair in western europe to have adopted the label “chinese intellectual history,” has been moving in a transcultural direction in her courses on what could be called the “global lineages” of confucius between the sixteenth and the twenty-first centuries. somewhat earlier but also in the french-speaking world (and beyond), denys lombard, a specialist of east and southeast asia, has followed a transcultural direction as well. although he has used the label “global history” for his own work on east and southeast asia since the sixteenth century, and although his major book, le carrefour javanais, focuses on java, his research has opened chinese studies, and asian studies in general, to many issues of the transcultural agenda, intellectual history included.[51] in the united states, the new qing history, concerned with the relation between manchus and han, provides many examples of a transcultural approach in different domains of chinese history since the seventeenth century. because it conceives the qing empire as a multicultural polity shaped by the jurchen/manchu emperors, it is compelled to question methodological nationalism—especially the sinocentric one—and to adopt a relational approach that enables it to understand the circulation of languages and practices through the different constituencies of the empire, be they manchu, han, mongol, uyghur, or tibetan populations. from this perspective, chinese intellectual history is compelled to take into account the way the qing combined linguistic and ritual elements from the different groups of imperial subjects in order to define their own institutions.[52] moving backwards in time to the historiography on the mongol empire in china or the history of intellectual networks (especially buddhist) between india, central asia, and china since the third century, we also find many examples of a transculturally-minded approach. valerie hansen’s the open empire, which covers different aspects of chinese imperial history, and liu xinru’s works on religious exchanges along the silk road, contain many examples of how a transcultural intellectual history could be extended to these earlier periods.[53] the intellectual history of the relationship between buddhism, taoism, and confucianism in early medieval china is particularly rich for a transcultural approach. buddhism and taoism have mutually defined each other to the extent that the history of one cannot be separated from that of the other.[54] another example is the relationship between buddhism and “confucianism.”[55] although the fusion between buddhist and confucian language started taking place in the late eighth century, buddhism had managed to shape the social life of the empire, especially its intellectual life, since the early medieval period. educated early medieval confucian literati[56] would sometimes become monks, adopt rituals and languages from their buddhist fellows, and engage in critical or friendly exchanges with them.[57] some commentarial practices among the medieval literati might have been inspired by buddhist exegesis.[58] even though the traditions of the medieval literati had not yet incorporated buddhism in the way neo-confucianism (though usually in an unassuming way) would do in the song dynasty, this convergence between south asian and east asian traditions led the intellectual history of these earlier periods to adopt some elements of the transcultural approach. the historiography of the early modern period has played an important role in introducing transcultural elements into chinese intellectual history, especially through the history of the society of jesus in china. between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries, the jesuits built a strong network that extended through different continents, east and west, and constituted an important channel of intellectual transmission between china and other parts of the world. many works have focused on how the society of jesus facilitated the circulation of ideas between europe and east asia, particularly china; research on this period has also attempted to include possible intellectual circulations between china and latin america.[59] the writings of the jesuits in china have become essential for those who want to understand the circulation of ideas between east asia, europe, and the americas in the early modern world. this is why many intellectual historians of china (especially those who work on the history of science), even if they are not specialists of the society, usually attest to the importance of jesuit writings. research on the society of jesus has thus made important (though not always explicit) contributions to the development of a transcultural approach in the intellectual history of religion, science, literature, arts, politics, and ethics in china. to a lesser extent, but with a similar approach, the history of protestant and catholic missionaries in nineteenth-century china, which is sometimes part of larger historical pictures (as in the history of the press and of modern science), became the subject of monographs,[60] and thus helped push chinese intellectual history in a transcultural direction.[61] these examples evidence deliberate differences and convergences between chinese intellectual history and transcultural studies. in conclusion it is worth pointing out a paradoxical fact: although these transcultural tendencies represent a reaction against methodological nationalism, some of the latter’s key assumptions have actually helped chinese intellectual history to move in a transcultural direction. indeed, some adepts of methodological nationalism share an important premise with the transcultural approach: they stand on a historicist foundation; they assume that everything taking place in history possesses an irreducible singularity, that each time and each place has to be understood on its own terms. for the transcultural approach, the implicit scale of this historicism is human history as a whole; it supposes that, since everything moves, boundaries never remain stable—neither those created by practices and institutions, nor those created by representations and feelings of belonging. the historicist adepts of methodological nationalism have a similar approach, but the scale of their historicism is defined by nations or by nation-like cultures; they focus on national singularities, on anomalies, on everything that does not fit pre-established schemes developed for other nations or cultural areas; they understand national histories as the containers of ever-changing relations between individuals and groups. this form of methodological nationalism held, long before the transcultural approach, that the intrinsic instability of relations in time and space constantly creates new and unique historical configurations; in this sense, at least within the limits imposed by national boundaries, it has created or refined research tools that transcultural studies still embrace. this being said, methodological nationalism forsakes historicism in one particular point: national boundaries themselves. explicitly or not, these boundaries are kept intact as transcendental boundaries of research and are consequently deprived of their historical character. for this reason, methodological nationalism represents a partial historicism, because it views the boundaries of nations and of nationally conceived cultures sub specie aeternitatis, that is, as if these boundaries had no history.[62] transcultural studies, on the other hand, is built on pure historicism, because no historical boundary is taken as definitive and transcendent.[63] two examples the editors of this themed section requested examples from the authors’ current research to show how transcultural studies impacts their work. in what follows i offer two cases, neither of which should be taken as an illustration of how to apply transcultural studies to chinese intellectual history. if it is true that i share many concerns with transcultural studies, at least regarding the relational, non-nation-oriented sense of my approach, it is also true that i also borrow from microhistory, connected history, and from other fields in the humanitites and social sciences. in this sense, i would hesitate to call my own approach “transcultural.” actually, i would even hesitate to call it “intellectual history”; although i work with the objects of this field, i am not sure whether this label really describes the sort of historiography i practice.[64] this being said, i must acknowledge that many methods and approaches of both intellectual history and transcultural studies are undoubtedly present in my work. i have worked on both medieval and late imperial china. in my work on medieval china, i focus on the rationalization of writing in fifthand sixth-century jiankang (nanjing), and more specifically on the ways in which a single generation of ministers, active at the imperial and princely courts of the southern dynasties (420–589), produced texts and rationalized writing techniques in imperial institutions. my purpose is to show that the early medieval courts did not distinguish between the literary and the political, and that writing practices, along with the rationales to explain them, were closely interconnected with conflicting perceptions of what good writing meant for a good minister and a good official. through this focus on conflicting views, which were at the same time literary, ethical, political, and religious, i employ certain tools from the methodological agenda of transcultural studies to show that what we tend to see as a single literati culture in the chinese middle ages becomes two different cultures once we focus on the splits among factions of officials. each group of ministers, often with powerful family backgrounds, held their particular conceptions and practices of writing; they used the same languages and conceptual resources, but they gave texts different roles, different forms, and, accordingly, different rationales. some of them, for example, saw highly ornamented forms of writing as a sign of virtue; others, as a sign of moral weakness. the boundaries between these factions were constantly moving and with them social and institutional configurations; seen through this particular scale of analysis, the concept of “culture” itself, which might be useful in other contexts, loses its heuristic value—especially to analyze how seemingly insignificant divergences could become the cause of a great divergence in space and time. in this sense, i happened to deal with so-called literati culture from a transcultural perspective, albeit not deliberately: my point was to prove that, at a particular scale of analysis, the concept of culture hides more than it reveals, and that the focus on situated relations is more productive for understanding the historical process. the transformation in the relation between confucian and buddhist scriptural traditions will serve as an example. in late fifth-century jiankang, many officials were interested in buddhism, but not all of them in the same way. for some time during the late fifth century, buddhism played an important role in some princely courts, while the imperial court, though not necessarily against it, was more concerned with confucian or classicist traditions. when a new dynasty was founded in the sixth century, the new emperor, emperor wu of liang, declared himself a boddhisattva, and buddhism played a substantial role in the reorganization of some imperial institutions. this brought buddhist sympathizers into better positions and compelled officials to obtain new textual knowledge, cover new writing topics, and produce new polemical texts. in other words, the buddhist inclinations of the princely court in the late fifth century finally became a major pillar of the empire in the sixth. if we depart from the notion that two stable, enclosed cultures existed—buddhist and confucian—and if we consider that the former replaced the latter, we are unable to understand the historical process. we also cannot see that buddhist and confucian elements already commingled in the fifth century and emperor wu merely reconfigured the hierarchy between the two in the new institutions he created—to the extent that even the labels “buddhism” and “confucianism” lose their value as concepts of two distinct intellectual configurations. the sometimes silent, sometimes more explicit presence of buddhist texts at court also prevents me from understanding literati culture as a chinese phenomenon. the importance of buddhism among fifthand sixth-century literati was a sign of the increasing power and intellectual attractiveness of the buddhist monastery, and, in a wider context, of the role played by larger social and intellectual networks between south, central, and east asia. that is why i have attempted to describe the processes of relationality that shaped literati controversies, and why i have avoided an a priori definition of literati “culture.”[65] in my research, i also investigate issues of intellectual history and transcultural studies that concern the networks of reform-minded scholar-officials of the late qing period, from the aftermath of the taiping wars in the 1860s to the new policies (or “reform of governance”)[66] and the constitutionalist movement before the fall of the empire in 1911–1912. various reasons led me to focus on this period. from the point of view of historiography, many of the categories modern scholars use to talk about the chinese middle ages emerged during this time. when i started researching the chinese middle ages, i became aware of how deeply late qing categories had shaped studies of medieval china, and how, for that reason, historiography in late imperial china was sometimes more related to the immediate concerns of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries than a scholarly-mediated interpretation of the middle ages. i therefore decided to historicize modern chinese historiography, that is, explain the specific historical motives of its categories and tools in both late imperial literati discourse and modern sinology. this object of inquiry did not divert me from my studies of the imperial literati. on the contrary, after having analyzed in my previous work what a major japanese scholar, miyazaki ichisada, called the “prehistory” (zenshi) of the examination system (which turned the old, literati aristocracy into a bureaucracy of degree-holders),[67] i now was interested in the same class of people, the imperial literati, who were largely responsible for our received ideas about the imperial past. they were not the only ones to shape our reception of the chinese middle ages, but they played an important role. the late qing period was indeed the last stand of the celestial bureaucracy: in 1912, degree-holding officials disappeared as an institutionally recognized class. the study of medieval historiography thus led me to understand the features, practices, and discourses of this class in the longue durée. another, more fundamental reason to focus on the late imperial period was that it offered a decentering perspective on modern institutions. this perspective was decentering in two respects. first, it decentered euro-american history—usually taken as the implicit model for any “modernity.” the late imperial literati were an example of what modernity looked like when embodied in groups and institutions from outside the euro-american world. second, it decentered modern history itself, because it showed how modernity was embodied in a class that ultimately did not survive in the modern world. i had already intended to produce this decentralizing effect by studying a world, the medieval court, which had not known euro-american (“modern”)-inspired institutions. now i had access to a world that was not only in touch with these institutions, but had used them as models when they transformed the empire. it was in this context that transcultural questions arose. i was interested in two research objects: the lexical and discursive resources that the late imperial literati devised to rationalize writing and imperial institutions (a question that enabled me to see differences, but also continuities, with the medieval “prehistory” of this class of degree-holders and office-seekers), and the socio-political institutions of the empire between the 1860s and 1912 (the fall of the empire). in both cases, i found that imperial literati and officials mobilized intellectual resources not only from the imperial past, but also from many other places and periods of world history. in other words, analyzing transcultural concerns in my research showed that the languages and institutions created by the late qing literati cannot be ascribed to a single “culture.” this research project gave me the opportunity to address fundamental problems in transcultural studies. my leading question was (and still is): what was the relationship between language transformations and institutional reconfiguration in late qing china? as a general hypothesis, i assumed that the former was necessary to facilitate the latter, and that the latter in turn fostered the former. to prove this, i had to reconstruct not only “who talked to whom,” but also where, when, and how they “talked.” i therefore focused on the connections and disconnections, conflicts and agreements, impositions and resistances, geographical locations and social positions of groups of scholar-officials—that is, on social, institutional, and spatial channels of intellectual activity. as in my book, i adopted microhistorical methods to explore how socially and spatially “close” and “distant” elements interacted among scholar-officials; how texts and practices from different periods and places in the history of this class, as well as from different geographies, groups, and institutions, were recombined to justify or transform political institutions. one of those elements was the concept of nation itself. this concept was a fundamental concern among late qing nationalist scholar-officials, precisely because the nation was not a given entity, but a concept that needed to be produced and a set of institutions that needed to be built. thanks to my focus on the nation as a historically situated concept, i was able to avoid the widespread bias inherent in the modernist foundations of methodological nationalism: the anachronistic projection of national representations onto the older institutions of the imperial polity. this does not mean a disregard for the continuities between the concept of nation and previous social and institutional concepts during the qing dynasty. instead i intended to point out the plural dimensions of the language of political cohesion that the new concept of nation conveyed in late imperial china—a concept which, in itself, resulted from the increasingly interconnected history of east asian and euro-american languages since the late nineteenth century. one particular debate on chinese modernity seemed to require a transcultural solution: were the chinese scholar-officials “westernized” or were western institutions “sinicized” by chinese scholar-officials? the transcultural solution was to drop “sinicization” and “westernization” as research tools. these concepts are harmless, and even useful, when it is necessary to summarize the complex process that led to the formation of modern chinese institutions. as long as these terms are only used to describe, for example, how a european institution or practice served as a model in china, speaking of “sinicization” or “westernization” is perfectly plausible; if we refuse these terms their right to exist, we should also refuse many others, including—for reasons mentioned above—the word “china.” a problem arises when the terms “sinicization” or “westernization” (just like “china” as a name of a transhistorical nation) become the conceptual pillar of more developed historical narratives. the idea that both “chinese” and “western” cultures are clearly-definable entities, and that each of these areas contain self-engendered histories, contradicts historical evidence. when one studies the networks of chinese reformers in the early twentieth century and traces intellectual exchanges and concept production, it is not difficult to see that contemporary chinese intellectual history did not only happen in china. many important reform-minded bureaucrats elaborated many of their ideas in cities like tokyo, paris, san francisco, or even mexico city. one could even say that chinese national concepts and institutions (with all the different meanings the word “national” conveys) were not the cause, but, at least in part, the result of ideas and practices that some leading reform-minded literati elaborated or developed either in places within the nation—for example in literati circles in canton or in the treaty ports—or beyond the nation—for example in business circles in the americas. after all, “nation” and “culture” were late nineteenth-century neologisms in chinese (though these neologisms were built with ancient notions), and, at least in their modern meanings, they were not that old in european languages either. conclusion to sum up, any intellectual history of “chinese” literati in medieval or late imperial china must take into account that their discourses and social experiences were shaped by forces from both within and beyond china. “china” as a national entity was as much a fiction as any other supposedly homogeneous culture. this fiction has certainly produced strong, cohesive institutions in contemporary history, but in the late qing dynasty the national community was only beginning to be imagined. the transcultural approach can ill afford to hide the powerful effects of the concepts of nation or of a (nationally defined) culture on social life, especially when they are adopted by large groups or given legal status, and cannot ignore the cohesive social devices, institutions, and boundaries that are created in the name of nations and nationally-defined cultures. however, transcultural studies should maintain, as other neighboring fields do, that these devices and institutions depend on political and social relations between groups inhabiting different places of the world, and that the boundaries of those groups, especially of the nation-builders, are not themselves necessarily national or “cultural.” if this transcultural approach is systematically applied to chinese intellectual history, we can imagine that two sorts of boundaries will be gradually erased: on the one hand, the national boundaries as a natural framework for research on phenomena that have taken place in the present chinese territory; on the other, the disciplinary boundaries between intellectual history and other branches of the humanities and social sciences. this is a natural consequence of the transcultural approach. national boundaries, even when they take the form of political borders, necessarily fade away when we analyze the shifting relations that produce social and political institutions; and intellectual history loses its autonomy when we study the multiple objects, social relations, and spaces that are involved in intellectual activity, because it is difficult to understand intellectual processes without understanding the social, linguistic, iconographic, material, and spatial processes that make them possible. in other words: “chinese studies” and “intellectual history” will become just “studies”; and if other “area studies” become “studies” as well, “transcultural studies” should in principle come to coincide with them and therefore disappear as an autonomous field. this does not mean that the institutional labels will disappear (though they might, or might at least be reconfigured) or that the particular expertise transmitted in area studies (such as language training) will be abolished. on the contrary, institutional labels might become the names of entry points to old or new sets of problems, and the old area training, now delivered from institutionally imposed boundaries, will multiply its research possibilities. this is hopefully the direction of chinese intellectual history: a strict adherence to a relational approach in the study of intellectual phenomena, a rigorous pursuit of evidence from one place to another, from one time to another, without presupposing or deducting the boundaries of intellectual transmission. the risk of going backwards, to return to the idea that nations are self-engendered and self-sustained entities, has not disappeared from the landscape of this research field. but if the strictly relational approach is successful, and if chinese intellectual history takes this approach as a constitutive methodological procedure, we can be certain that we will have a deeper understanding of historical processes that still, in some cases, are lazily ascribed to the magical powers of national cultures. [1] this concept, undoubtedly inspired by “methodological individualism,” seems to have first been used in the 1970s. the term has become more widespread in the last few decades, partly because of its critical use in global history and transcultural studies. for a discussion of this methodological assumption and a brief history of the expression, see andreas wimmer and nina glick schiller, “methodological nationalism and beyond: nation-state building, migration and the social sciences,” global networks 4, no. 4 (2002): 301–334. [2] for chinese intellectual history, i will only address research on imperial china (from the third century bc to the twentieth century), mostly because of its traditional association with classical sinology. although the research on the empire increasingly shares its methods of inquiry with the study of contemporary china, it seems to me that the tradition of classical sinology has bequeathed to the study of imperial history particular features that justify this separate treatment. for lack of space, i also leave aside the studies on pre-imperial china. [3] an old example of these institutional uses (at least in english) is the section of transcultural psychiatric studies at mcgill university, created in 1955. “transcultural” was at the time used for the field of psychiatry. later on, the expression “transcultural studies” appeared in anthropology and literary studies, and, slightly later, throughout the humanities and social sciences. recent examples are the different centers of transcultural studies at the university of chicago, the university of pennsylvania, and heidelberg university. for the migration of the word “transcultural” among disciplines and fields, see könig and rakow’s “the transcultural approach within a disciplinary framework” in this journal issue. [4] monica juneja and christian kravagna, “understanding transculturalism,” in transcultural modernisms, eds. fahim amir (vienna: sternberg press), 32. for some contributions to this field, see the overview by christiane brosius and roland wenzlhuemer, “introduction—transcultural turbulences: towards a multi-sited reading of image flows,” in transcultural turbulences: towards a multi-sited reading of image flows, ed. christiane brosius and roland wenzlhuemer (heidelberg: springer, 2011), 3–25; see also königs and rakow, “the transcultural approach within a disciplinary framework.” [5] among the anthropological ancestors of this approach is fredrik barth’s ethnic groups and boundaries: the social organization of culture difference (long grove: waveland press, 1969); ulf hannerz, cultural complexity: studies in the social organization of meaning (new york: columbia university press, 1992); arjun appadurai, modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1996). [6] there was a transatlantic debate on the term “acculturation.” even though malinowski used it in his work, he thought it had ethnocentric and colonialist implications: the word suggested the idea that a supposedly “primitive” group had to leave its own “inferior” culture to assimilate the “superior” one of the colonizer. on the contrary, for melville herskovits (one of the three authors of the 1936 memorandum for the study of acculturation), who actually shared malinowski’s and ortiz’s positions, the term “acculturation” did not necessarily suppose that one of the two cultures in contact is superior to the other. on this debate, see armando martí carvajal, “contrapunteo etnológico: el debate aculturación o transculturación desde fernando ortiz hasta nuestros días,” kálathos 4, no. 2 (2010–2011): 1–22; on fernando ortiz, the concept of transculturación, and reflections on culture and national cultures in latin america around the 1940s, see enrique rodríguez larreta, “cultura e hibridación: sobre algunas fuentes latinoamericanas [culture and hybridization: on some latin american sources],” in “la batalla conceptual en américa latina: hacia una historia conceptual de los discursos políticos,” anales-instituto ibero americano 7–8 (2005): 107–123. [7] fernando ortiz, contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azúcar (1940; repr., havana: editorial de ciencias sociales, 1983), 90. this is the paragraph where ortiz explains the virtues of the neologism “transculturation” to describe the complexities of cultural transformation in cuba: “entendemos que el vocablo transculturación expresa mejor las diferentes fases del proceso transitivo de una cultura a otra, porque éste no consiste solamente en adquirir una distinta cultura, que es lo que en rigor indica la voz angloamericana acculturation, sino que el proceso implica también necesariamente la pérdida o desarraigo de una cultura precedente, lo que pudiera decirse una parcial desculturación, y, además, significa la consiguiente creación de fenómenos culturales que pudieran denominarse de neoculturación. al fin, como bien sostiene la escuela de malinowski, en todo abrazo de culturas sucede lo que en la cópula genética de los individuos: la criatura siempre tiene algo de ambos progenitores, pero también siempre es distinta de cada uno de los dos. en conjunto, el proceso es una transculturación, y este vocablo comprende todas las fases de su parábola.” ortiz, contrapunteo, 102–103. (“i am of the opinion that the word transculturation better expresses the different phases of the process of transition from one culture to another because this does not consist merely in acquiring another culture, which is what the english word acculturation really implies, but the process also necessarily involves the loss or uprooting of a previous culture, which could be defined as a deculturation. in addition it carries the idea of the consequent creation of new cultural phenomena, which could be called neoculturation. in the end, as the school of malinowski’s followers maintains, the result of every union of cultures is similar to that of the reproductive process between individuals: the offspring always has something of both parents but is always different from each of them.” fernando ortiz, cuban counterpoint: tobacco and sugar, 2nd ed. [new york: alfred a. knopf, 1947; durham: duke university press, 1995].) the 1995 republication of the 1947 english version of ortiz’s work (which had little impact at the time) was the product of and fed into a resurging interest in transcultural interaction beyond cuba and latin america. [8] it is indeed on the basis of this old use of the word “transcultural” that umberto eco and alain le pichon founded the institut international transcultura in 1988. see the presentation on the institute’s website: http://transcultura.org/?q=node/2 [accessed on 17. august 2016]. in wolfgang welsch, “transculturality: the puzzling form of cultures today,” in spaces of culture: city, nation, world, ed. mike featherstone and scott lash (london: sage, 1999), 194–213, the author claims that transculturality is a more appropriate concept than culture to describe modern societies, and in this sense he shares an approach with transcultural studies. however, he is closer to fernando ortiz than to the later developments of transcultural studies, because in his view some societies are “transcultural” and others are not. in this sense, transculturality is for him a historical phenomenon, not an ontological assumption. [9] ángel rama, transculturación narrativa en américa latina [narrative transculturation in latin america] (buenos aires: ediciones el andariego, 2007); welsch, “transculturality,” 194–213; mary louise pratt, “arts of the contact zone,” in ways of reading, ed. david bartholomae and anthony petrosky, 4th ed. (boston: st. martin’s press, 1996), 528–542; pratt, imperial eyes: travel writing and transculturation (london: routledge, 1992). [10] for the coexistence of this new approach with previous ones, see afef benessaieh and patrick imbert, “conclusion: la transculturalité relationnelle,” in transcultural americas/amériques transculturelles, ed. afef benessaieh (ottawa: university of ottawa press, 2010), 231–242. [11] another important aspect of the label is the word “studies.” the choice of this word is probably related to the fact that strong disciplinary names like “history,” “sociology,” or “anthropology” would favor some approaches and questions over others. but it might also be meant to mirror area studies: instead of the national or regional labels of the “areas” (which, as i mention below, also enjoy some disciplinary flexibility), we find a processual and relational label, “transculturality,” as the single object of research. [12] for some examples of this transcultural approach, see könig and rakow, “the transcultural approach within a disciplinary framework.” [13] for these similar agendas, see for example daniel rodgers, bhavani raman, and helmut reimitz, eds., cultures in motion (princeton: princeton university press, 2014); samuel moyn and andrew sartori, eds., global intellectual history (new york: columbia university press, 2013); caroline douki and philippe minard, “histoire globale, histoires connectées: un changement d’échelle historiographique? introduction,” in “histoire globale, histoires connectées,” special issue, revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 54–4bis (2007): 7–21; sanjay subrahmanyam, “connected histories: notes towards a reconfiguration of early modern eurasia,” modern asian studies 31, no. 3 (1997): 735–762; carol gluck and anna lowenhaupt tsing, words in motion: towards a global lexicon (durham: duke university press, 2009); roger chartier, “la conscience de la globalité,” annales 56 (2001): 119–123; michael werner and bénédicte zimmermann, “beyond comparison: histoire croisée and the challenge of reflexivity,” history and theory 45, no. 1 (2006): 30–50. global history and anthropology have undoubtedly played a key role in developing the transcultural agenda. for a review of some of these shared debates, see laurent berger, “la place de l’ethnologie en histoire globale,” monde(s), 3 (2013): 193–212. [14] on actor-network analysis, see for example michel callon and bruno latour, “unscrewing the big leviathan: how actors macro-structure reality and how sociologists help them to do so,” in advances in social theory and methodology, ed. karin knorr-cetina and aaron cicourel (london: routledge and kegan paul, 1981), 277–303. for an introduction to the different approaches in network sociology, see pierre mercklé, sociologie des réseaux sociaux (paris: la découverte, 2011). on microhistory, see carlo ginzburg, “microhistory: two or three things that i know about it,” in threads and traces: true false fictive (berkeley: university of california press, 2012), 193–214; jacques revel, “micro-analyse et construction du social,” in jeux d’échelles: la micro-analyse à l’expérience, ed. jacques revel, (paris: seuil/gallimard, 1996), 15–36. [15] for the presence of these methodological tools within transcultural studies, see the above quoted interview between christian kravagna and monica juneja, “understanding transculturalism,” 23–33; and monica juneja, “global art history and the ‘burden of representation’,” in global studies: mapping contemporary art and culture, ed. hans belting, jakob birken, and andrea buddensieg (stuttgart: hatje cantz, 2011), 274–297; see also könig and rakow, “the transcultural approach within a disciplinary framework” in this journal issue (especially definition 4 of their different meanings of “transcultural”). [16] david honey, incense at the altar: pioneering sinologists and the development of classical chinese philology (new haven: american oriental society, 2001), xi. [17] an exception should be made regarding what david honey calls “sinological orientalism,” a thorough examination of which would go beyond the scope of this essay. i will only mention that sinology, since its foundation, has had an ambiguous relation with sinological orientalism. the tensions between the two did not emerge from the more general attack on orientalism inspired by edward said’s book; they probably existed already in the nineteenth century. when sinological orientalism was represented by a parallel field, for example among philosophers, the tensions with sinology did not spring from ideological and cultural critiques, but mostly from the opposition between “scientific” and “non-scientific” methods of inquiry. from a historical perspective, however, we can say that some orientalist perceptions were common to both sinology and non-sinological inquiries about china. these ambiguous relations within and beyond the discipline are actually part of the history of both chinese studies and sinological orientalism. indeed, we should not ignore the fact that even the sometimes silent, sometimes open tensions between the two have to a certain extent determined each other’s agendas, even when the two have seemed to follow separate paths. on sinological orientalism, see honey, incense, 35–39. [18] for franke, see honey, incense, 139; for granet, see below. [19] fairbank had an explicitly anti-philological approach, and he wrote a history of chinese studies. see honey, incense, 269–273. the turning point in this regard was probably the launch of sputnik in 1957; thereafter, russian and chinese area studies departments were established in many institutions. [20] for modernization theory in east asian history (mainly in japanese studies), see krämer’s contribution in this issue. [21] maurice freedman, “marcel granet, 1844–1940, sociologist,” in the religion of the chinese people, ed. and trans. maurice freedman (new york: harper torchbooks, 1977). [22] these two poles of the relation between area studies and “systematic disciplines,” with examples taken from sinology, are well explained and put into historical perspective in michael lackner and michael werner, der cultural turn in den humanwissenschaften: area studies im aufoder abwind des kulturalismus? (bad homburg: programmbeirat der werner reimers konferenzen, 1999), 51–54. [23] in the next few pages, unless otherwise specified, we will use both “sinology” and “chinese studies” for the same discipline. [24] see paul cohen, discovering history in china: american historical writing on the recent chinese past (new york: columbia university press, 1984), 9. cohen gives as an example john k. fairbank’s china’s response to the west (cambridge: harvard university press, 1954). this focus on the relation with the west might have been an effect of the scant archival materials available at the time, most of them related to foreigners and missionaries. [25] see bernard lahire, “des effets délétères de la division scientifique du travail sur l’évolution de la sociologie,” sociologies, discussion, la situation actuelle de la sociologie, http://sociologies.revues.org/3799 [accessed on 28. july 2016]. the expression “disciplinary ethnocentrism” is taken from norbert elias. for the relation between disciplinary labels and methodological traditions in social and human sciences, see jean-claude passeron, le raisonnement sociologique (paris: albin michel, 2006), 73–85. [26] see cohen, discovering history in china. [27] for the general decline of intellectual history in this period, see anthony grafton, worlds made by words: scholarship and community in the modern west (cambridge: harvard university press, 2009), 205. [28] for how leading historians understood “intellectual history” in the 1980s, see stefan collini’s discussion in history today 35, no. 10 (1985), with opinions given by himself, michael biddiss, quentin skinner, j. g. a. pocock, and bruce kuklick. for earlier discussions on intellectual history and on different historiographical trends, see samuel h. beer, lee benson, felix gilbert, stephen r. graubard, david j. herlihy, stanley hoffmann, carl kaysen, leonard krieger, thomas s. kuhn, david landes, joseph levenson, frank e. manuel, j. g. a. pocock, david j. rothman, carl e. schorske, lawrence stone, and charles tilly, “new trends in history,” daedalus 98, no. 4 (fall 1969): 888–976. [29] see for example benjamin schwartz, “a brief defense of political and intellectual history…with particular reference to non-western cultures,” daedalus 100, no. 1 (1971): 98–112. [30] see benjamin elman, “the failures of contemporary chinese intellectual history,” eighteenth-century studies 43, no. 3 (2010): 371–391, esp. 380. [31] jörg fisch, “zivilization, kultur,” in geschichtliche grundbegriffe: historisches lexikon zur politisch-sozialen sprache in deutschland, ed. otto brunner, werner conze, and reinhart koselleck, vol. 5 (stuttgart: klett-cotta, 1992), 679–774, esp. 705–774. [32] see abel-rémusat’s first lecture at the collège de france (16 january 1816) in jean-pierre abel-rémusat, “sur l’état et les progrès de la littérature chinoise en europe,” in mélanges asiatiques, vol. 2 (paris: librairie orientale de dondey-dupré père et fils, 1825), 295–307. [33] see honey, incense, 269–277. chinese historiography certainly played an important role in the consolidation of this nation-based perspective. as i say above, i leave the complex relations between euro-american chinese studies and sinology for a future article. [34] pamela crossley, “nationality and difference in china: the post-imperial dilemma,” in the teleology of the modern state: japan and china, ed. joshua fogel (philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press, 2005), 138–158. [35] this was not only pointed out by new qing historians, who showed how the qing emperors used different languages and practices to communicate with “nationally” different subjects. as we show in the following section, many intellectual historians of china have held that the boundaries of intellectual activity do not coincide with national boundaries even after the creation of the modern chinese nation-state. [36] this is the case for some (not all) defenses of the concept of “sinicization,” which can refer to different phenomena according to the period of chinese history in question. for a criticism of the sinicization approach in qing studies, see pamela crossley’s a translucent mirror: history and identity in qing imperial ideology (berkeley: university of california press, 1999), 1–9; and evelyn rawski, the last emperors: a social history of chinese imperial institutions (berkeley: university of california press, 1998), 1–13. [37] see j. g. a. pocock, “concepts and discourses: a difference in culture?” in the meaning of historical terms and concepts: new studies on begriffsgeschichte, ed. hartmut lehmann and melvin richter (washington: german historical institute, 1986), 58. the critical analysis of this debate and, more largely, of the methods of conceptual history at large, has been the starting point of a three-year project “towards a global history of concepts” at heidelberg university. [38] the early modern “republic of letters” is an early example of intellectual circulation on a non-national basis. see david mervart, “the republic of letters comes to nagasaki: record of a translator’s struggle,” transcultural studies 2 (2015): 8–37. [39] grafton, worlds made by words, 212 [40] frederick cooper, “how global do we want our intellectual history to be?” in moyn and sartori, global intellectual history, 283–294, esp. 292. in this sense, microhistory is not the opposite of global history: indeed, it is a necessary tool. see for example carlo ginzburg’s recent essay, “microhistory and world history” in the cambridge world history, vol. 4, a world with states, empires, and networks, 1200 bce–900ce (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2015), 446–473. [41] for examples of global history in chinese and western historiography on china, see for example liu xincheng, “the global view of history in china,” journal of world history 23, no. 3 (2012): 491–511 (though not all the examples in this article correspond to the same conceptions of global history). for more examples, see below. [42] for an overview of different trends in the history of the book, see cynthia j. brokaw, “on the history of the book in china,” in printing and book culture in late imperial china, ed. cynthia j. brokaw and kai-wing chow (berkeley: university of california press, 2005), 3–54. [43] for a review of this bibliography, see yves chevrier, “en introduction: de la cité problématique à la ville habitée; histoire et historiographie de la société urbaine chinoise au xxe siècle,” in citadins et citoyens dans la chine du xxe siècle, ed. yves chevrier, alain roux, and xiaohong xiao-planes (paris: éditions de la msh, 2011), 59–67. the “spatial history” in chinese history, especially republican, is represented by christian henriot and yeh wen-hsin; in intellectual history, a recent example of the spatial approach can be found in marc andré matten’s works. for an overview of the “spatial turn” in the humanities and social sciences, see christian jacob, qu’est-ce qu’un lieu de savoir (marseille: open edition press, 2014), esp. 43–57. it should therefore not be surprising to see that christian jacob’s lieux de savoir contains some chapters about chinese history. finally, although it does not belong to intellectual history, william skinner’s regional approach is worth mentioning, as it showed that the “nation” cannot be a research unit in late imperial chinese economic and urban geography, because imperial society was organized in autonomous core macro-regions. see william skinner, “marketing and social structure in rural china,” pts. 1–3, journal of east asian studies 24, no. 1 (1964): 3–44; no. 2 (1965): 195–228; no. 3 (1965): 363–399; and william skinner, ed., the city in late imperial china (stanford: stanford university press, 1977). [44] on deductive rhetoric, see maurizio gribaudi, “échelle, pertinence, configuration,” in revel, jeux d’échelles, 113–139. [45] we are not going to deal with the complex role of postcolonial studies. in the case of chinese history, the postcolonial approach, though indebted to poststructuralist radicalism, has sometimes reinforced methodological nationalism: its critique of eurocentrism and its attempts at “provincializing” the euro-american world are perfectly compatible with the idea that the ultimate form of human organization is a nation or a nation-like culture. for transcultural studies, however, postcolonial studies represents an early attempt to revalorize the study of the non-european and non-modern world. [46] lydia h. liu, translingual practice: literature, national culture, and translated modernity; china, 1900–1937 (stanford: stanford university press, 1995). [47] rebecca karl, staging the world: chinese nationalism at the turn of the twentieth century (durham: duke university press, 2002); theodor huters, bringing the world home: appropriating the west in late qing and early republican china (honolulu: hawai’i university press, 2005); tang xiaobing, global space and the nationalist discourse of modernity (stanford: stanford university press, 1996); douglas howland, borders of chinese civilization: geography and history at empire’s end (durham: duke university press, 1996); prasenjit duara, rescuing history from the nation (chicago: chicago university press, 1995). this is of course only a limited selection of some representative works. [48] joachim kurtz, the discovery of chinese logic (leiden: brill, 2011); rudolf wagner, “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening’: a study in conceptualizing asymmetry and coping with it,” transcultural studies 1 (2011): 4–139. the latter’s works on the chinese press can also be included in the transcultural approach. [49] many scholars directly or indirectly related to this center, like barbara mittler in her work on the shenbao and gotelind müller-saini on chinese anarchism, approach chinese intellectual history from the perspective of transcultural studies. see barbara mittler, a newspaper for china? power, identity, and change in shanghai’s new media, 1872–1912, harvard east asian studies monographs 226 (cambridge: harvard university press, 2004); gotelind müller-saini, china, kropotkin und der anarchismus (wiesbaden: harrassowitz, 2001). [50] see, for example, gloria davies, “liang qichao in australia: a sojourn of no significance?” east asian history 21 (june 2001): 65–111. [51] le carrefour javanais certainly focuses on java, but lombard also analyses “la question chinoise,” which approaches the question of “sinicization” from a different point of view. the book, which touches on many questions of intellectual history, goes far beyond the boundaries of this field. denys lombard, le carrefour javanais: essai d’histoire globale, 3 vols. (paris: édition de l’école des hautes études en sciences sociales, 1990). [52] see pamela crossley’s a translucent mirror, a major work in new qing historiography. [53] valerie hansen, an open empire: a history of china through 1600 (new york: w. w. norton, 2000); liu xinru, ancient india and ancient china: trade and religious exchanges (delhi: oxford university press, 1988); liu xinru and lynda norene shaffer, connections across eurasia: transportation, communication, and cultural exchange on the silk roads (boston: mcgraw hill, 2007). as these works show, intellectual history can also take into account groups that are not part of a predefined intellectual canon. see also the reconstruction of the life of sogdians in medieval china in étienne de la vaissière, sogdian traders: a history (leiden: brill, 2005). [54] see, for example, christine mollier, buddhism and taoism face to face: scripture, ritual, and iconographic exchange in medieval china (honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 2008). [55] in the last few decades, the label “confucianism” has been called into question. a more accurate term for this ideological phenomenon is “classicism,” because the common reference was not the figure of confucius, but the classical books inherited from ancient times. since the word “classicism” might be confusing for a reader who is not familiar with the discussions in chinese studies, in this essay i will stick to the more traditional words “confucianism” and “confucian.” [56] this class had a name of its own, shi 士, which was used throughout pre-imperial and imperial history until 1911. shi certainly changed meaning many times, but the sort of scholar-gentry, degree-holders, and imperial officials that the name shi came to designate in late imperial times started taking shape by the end of the early medieval period. for this reason, this essay uses the more neutral term “literati” for the early medieval period. the abolition of the imperial examinations ended with one important self-defining institutional product of this class, and the fall of the empire dealt the final blow to its institutional role (though not, of course, to its social codes, which persisted well into the twentieth century). [57] for the intimate relationship between literary culture and buddhism, see for example tian xiaofei, beacon fire and shooting star: the literary culture of the liang (cambridge: harvard university press, 2007); thomas jansen, höfische öffentlichkeit im frühmittelalterlichen china (freiburg im breisgau: rombach, 2000); françois martin, “les joutes poétiques dans la chine médiévale,” extrême orient—extrême occident 20 (1998): 87–108. [58] see for example john makeham, transmitters and creators: chinese commentators and commentaries on the analects (cambridge: harvard university press, 2003), 148–168. [59] regarding the jesuit networks, here are a few examples from a long list: catherine jami, the emperor’s new mathematics: western learning and imperial authority during the kangxi reign (oxford: oxford university press, 2012); david mungello, the great encounter of china and the west, 1500–1800 (lanham: rowman and littlefield, 2009); urs app, the cult of emptiness: the western discovery of buddhist thought and the invention of oriental philosophy (rorschach: universitymedia, 2012); jonathan spence, the memory palace of matteo ricci (new york: viking penguin, 1984); liam brockey, journey to the east: the jesuit mission to china, 1579–1724 (cambridge: harvard university press, 2008); nicolas standaert, funerals in the cultural exchange between china and europe (seattle: university of washington press, 2008); see also the contributions by catherine jami and antonella romano in laszlo kontler, antonella romano, silvia sebastiani, and borbala zsuzsana török, eds., negotiating knowledge in early modern empires: a decentred view (new york: palgrave mcmillan, 2014); for the connections between china and latin america, see ana c. hosne, the jesuit missions to china and peru: expectations and appraisals of expansionism (new york: routledge, 2013), and antonella romano’s contribution in negotiating knowledge. for chinese intellectual history, jacques gernet’s book, chine et christianisme: action et réaction (paris: gallimard, 1982), translated into english, german, and spanish, has been highly influential, and even though it cannot be included in a transcultural approach, it has raised questions of intellectual history which are discussed in transcultural studies. to contextualize this book in a more transcultural problematic, see two reviews: michael lackner, “‘kultur chinas’, ‘kultur des christentums’: wie vereinbar sind sie? gedanken zu jacques gernets chinas begegnung mit dem christentum,” china heute 32, no. 2 (2013): 104–109; denys lombard, “chine et christianisme: action et réaction,” annales 38, no. 2 (1983): 317–320. [60] see, for example, alvyn austin, china’s millions: the china inland mission and the late qing dynasty (grand rapids: eerdmans 2007). for a larger overview of the christian presence in china, see daniel bays, a new history of christianity in china (malden: wiley-blackwell, 2012). paul cohen’s early works on missionaries in nineteenth-century china (such as china and christianity: the missionary movement and the growth of chinese antiforeignism, 1860–1870 [cambridge: harvard university press, 1978]) remains highly influential in this field. [61] the field of “transcultural studies” exists in china as well (kua wenhua yanjiu 跨文化研究), particularly in the intellectual history of china, although its approaches are very different from the one explained in this article—the same phrase could be translated as “cross-cultural studies.” in china, “culture” is usually understood as a self-sustained, internally coherent entity, and the prefixes “trans-” (or “cross-”) as the entanglement of two such predefined entities. the academic situation in china is different from those of western europe and the united states; the weight of methodological nationalism in chinese academia, for reasons related to twentieth-century chinese history, has been bigger than america and in post-world war ii western europe. this fact, however, has not prevented “transcultural” research from developing in the field of intellectual history in china. to mention once again works on late nineteenthand early twentieth-century china, liu dengge and zhou yunfang’s works have attempted to show the “mutual influence” between east asia and europe, and major historians like luo zhitian and sang bing have been working with this approach as well. see liu dengge 劉登閣 and zhou yunfang 周雲芳 eds., xixue dongjian yu dongxue xijian 西學東漸與東學西漸 [the eastern dissemination of western knowledge and the western dissemination of eastern knowledge] (beijing: zhongguo shehui kexue yuan, 2000). for a review of this bibliography, see sun qing 孫青, wan qing zhi “xizheng dongjian” ji bentu huiying 晚清之西政東漸及本土回應 [the eastern dissemination of western political science and the local responses] (shanghai: shanghai shudian chubanshe, 2009), 1–37, esp. 3–15. [62] a clever essay by ge zhaoguang tries to defend this projection of the nation on earlier periods of chinese history and makes a critical assessment of englishand japanese-speaking bibliographies on this question. see ge zhaoguang 葛兆光, zhaizi zhongguo. chongjian youguan zhonguo de lishi lunshu 宅茲中國. 重建有關中國的歷史論述 [dwelling here in the central kingdom: reconstructing the historical narrative about “china”] (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 2011). [63] xu jilin wrote an article to criticize the “historicist” trends in china in the last ten years, which, in the name of “chinese values,” go against universalism and strengthen nationalism. he refers to nineteenth-century german historicism, which was indeed intimately related to nationalism. but, as we say here, this was only a partial historicism, based on a relativist conception of the historical development of national cultures. see xu jilin 許紀霖, “pushi wenming, hai shi zhongguo jiazhi—jin shi nian zhongguo de lishi zhuyi sichao zhi pipan,” 普世文明, 還是中國價值—近十年中國的歷史主義思潮之批判 [universal civilization or chinese values? a critique of chinese historicist trends of the last decade] kaifang shidai, 5 (2010): 66–82. [64] this is exactly what j. g. a. pocock, who would sometimes characterize himself as an intellectual historian, said regarding this label. see pocock’s text in history today 35, no. 10 (1985). [65] for an analysis of the emperor wu of liang, see andreas janousch, “the emperor as boddhisattva,” in state and court ritual in china, ed. joseph mcdermott (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1999), 112–149. [66] new policies is a standard translation of xinzheng, but since xin is actually a verb, “reform of governance” seems to better convey its meaning. see milena dolezelová-velingerová and rudolf wagner, “chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge (1870–1930): changing ways of thought,” in chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge (1870–1930). changing ways of thought, ed. milena dolezelová-velingerová and rudolf wagner. (berlin: springer, 2014), 14. [67] miyazaki ichisada 宮崎市定, kyûhin kanjinhô no kenkyû: kakyo zenshi 九品官人法の研究: 科挙前史 [studies on the rule of appointing officials according to the nine ranks: a prehistory of the examination system] (kyoto: tôyôshi kenkyûkai, 1956). editorial note | rudolf wagner and diamantis panagiotopouos | transcultural studies editorial note since its beginning in 2010, transcultural studies has developed into an interdisciplinary voice for the broad field of transcultural research, welcoming articles with new theoretical and methodological openings and exploring novel formats for the dissemination of cutting-edge knowledge. this issue continues our exploration by featuring five essays, and—as a new feature—our first “report from the field.” the issue opens with rudolf wagner’s study of the history of the chinese term guafen 瓜分 (cutting up like a melon). having studied the translingual and transcultural migration of the conceptual metaphor of china as a nation “asleep” and “awakened” in issue 2011.1 of our journal, the author now turns his attention to the genealogy and the use(s) of a metaphor that stands for the cutting up of china by foreign powers. the essay follows guafen’s startling semantic trajectory from a rather “dead” metaphor in the pre-modern era to the rediscovery of its metaphorical value as a translation of the western legal concept of partition in the mid-nineteenth century, and finally to its development into a highly articulate concept to express a foreign threat to the chinese nation. wagner leads the reader through a vast body of chinese and foreign printed media pertinent to the partition discourse, revealing the significance of poland’s fate as the origin of the chinese partition narrative. in a next step, he shows why the intrinsically neutral term guafen acquired negative connotations as the chinese equivalent of a foreign legal concept and how it was later (ab)used first by the reformers and revolutionaries in the political discourse on the danger of china’s partition by the powers, and most recently in the prc’s foreign propaganda. by demonstrating the virulent power of transcultural and transmedial flows for the different platforms of conceptual expression, the article makes a strong argument against a nation-and-language-bound history of concepts as proposed by reinhart kosseleck and other scholars who limit the study of concepts to a single-language environment. the next four essays are closely related and based on contributions to the workshop “transregional crossroads of social interaction” of the bmbf-funded crossroads asia competence network that took place at leibniz-zentrum moderner orient, berlin, on march 21, 2014. they explore emerging notions of identity and belonging in south-central asian borderlands. their topics cover the activities of south asian muslim networks in the context of transregional interaction with actors and institutions from post-soviet central asia (reetz); the transregional character of the panj and amu river regions in eastern bukhara and the increased leeway coming with marginality (dağyeli); processes of territorialisation in gilgit-baltistan by the pakistani state and the counter-force of local responses (bouzas); and the history of the soviet union’s engagement in northern afghanistan as a turn of the region from a socialist borderscape to a “postcolony” (nunan). the study by dietrich reetz, “mediating mobile traditions: the tablighi jama’at and the international islamic university between pakistan and central asia” explores connections between south and central asia in an alternative to or contestation of globalization. these connections, argues reetz, are an attempt to revive or maintain islamic practices and values while accepting the market economy and the political changes of the post-soviet environment. reetz supports his argument with two case studies based on qualitative interviews and written records of the institutions involved while drawing methodological inspiration from norbert elias’s concept of “figurations.” the article shows how the original agendas of the tablighi and the international islamic university in islamabad were re-configured through their local adaptation, their adaptability being the condition for their mobility. the actors and institutions studied here operated on both a transregional and a local scale. they did so in an environment characterized by dramatic change, which reframed inter-state relations as much as it impacted local governments and communities: the dissolution of the soviet union, the re-emergence of older connections between south and central asia, the introduction of market economies, and the rising concerns about radical islam. as new challenges and opportunities emerged, with shifting power asymmetries influencing the depths of the former and the range of the latter, the religious actors and institutions in reetz’ study adjusted their strategies. at the same time, they all claimed to represent the only true islam, rejected other teachings, kept a distance from governments with their security and stability concerns, and remained critical of local communities with their traditions and ethnic tensions. the globalization that went with this environmental shift in terms of the economy, secular government, and new values called forth the defensive efforts traced by the author. these were to secure a different type of globalization that would—in its moderate forms—accept the shifts in the economy and state administration, but try to anchor knowledge, values, and behaviour in a revivalist brand of islam. jeanine dağyeli’s study, “weapon of the discontented? trans-river migration as tax avoidance practice and lever in eastern bukhara,” challenges the nation state historiography with its focus on the political center and its fiction of hard territorial borders. it does so by studying the way in which populations on both sides of the afghanistan-tajikistan border crossed to the other side to avoid what they saw as excessively burdensome state exactions or deterioration of their agricultural environment. largely based on archival records surviving in tashkent, on travelogues, historical geographical, and climate records, while for methodology drawing on studies of low-level peasant resistance in the wake of james scott’s work on southeast asia, the author redefines the border. as in this case the border does not coincide with a language, religious, natural, or ethnic cleavage, both sides appear to the locals as a contiguous area divided by borders that neither state is able to police. at the same time, the local state authorities contribute to the weakening of these borders by trying to attract settlers from the other side to secure a sustainable population density required for reasons of security and taxation. the study not only offers an important and well-documented historical exploration that brings central asia into the discussion of the complex dynamics of borderlands, but also poses a wider, implicit challenge to the border narrative even of highly developed and densely policed nation states; the examples that immediately spring to mind are the berlin wall and the iron curtain. in another micro-study of the complex dynamics of borderlands, “territorialisation, ambivalence, and representational spaces in gilgit-baltistan,” antía mato bouzas investigates the ways in which the local inhabitants in an area contested between india and pakistan cope with a recent, heavily militarized border, which separates them from their relatives while keeping them in limbo as to their citizenship. they are pakistanis when traveling abroad but remain deprived of full citizen rights when at home because of the territory’s open status. the ensuing disputes play out on maps, laws, and administrative practices on the state side, and in cultural strategies of securing identity on the side of local activists. based on interviews with locals and government officials on both sides of the border controlled by pakistan and india, and drawing on an approach opened by henri lefebvre’s discussion of the frontier as a “space lived through its associated images and symbols,” the author documents different strategies to fix these images and symbols. on the state side, this takes the form of marking on official maps the fact that the area is not, constitutionally, a part of pakistan, while developing a strategy of attracting tourists to this peaceful “jewel of pakistan.” on the side of the locals, it takes the form of drawing benefits from the massive presence of pakistani military in conjunction with efforts by local activists to culturally redefine muslim baltistan by reviving historical connections with tibetan buddhism. the side-connections are, for the time being, reduced to occasional visits that involve many detours, but, as the cultural permeability of the berlin wall or the explosion of ethnic and religious strife between closely intermarried groups in former yugoslavia have shown, hidden in these cross-border linkages lie historical forces of considerable strength. in his essay “the violence curtain: occupied afghan turkestan and the making of a central asian borderscape,” timothy nunan focuses on afghanistan’s northern border as an arena of transcultural mobility and interaction during the soviet union’s military occupation of afghanistan. the article explores the forms, the impact, and the aftermath of the soviet intervention in the context of a strategy that sought not only to protect the soviet border but also to realize a soviet model of state building abroad. on the one hand, the soviet intervention involved as a massive “informal” military presence through the stationing of sixty-two thousand soviet border guards whose main task was to extend the actual soviet border over a hundred kilometres south. on the other hand, it had the character of a mission with the aim of integrating the borderlands into a socialist project by the engagement of soviet komsomol advisers who were responsible for educating afghan youth. despite the fact that the article—unavoidably—drawson soviet sources exclusively, the author challenges previous approaches by shifting the focus from the soviet actors to different forms of trans-regional encounters and highlighting the active role of the afghan side. in doing so, he employs the dynamic concept of borderscapes as a suitable analytical tool for exploring the role of political and social structures as well as human agency within and beyond a border zone. with the rise of mikhail gorbachev and the abandonment of the socialist project to forge a soviet-afghan world in this borderland, northern afghanistan moved to a “postcolonial” condition which was cemented when the soviet army and the border forces withdrew from the region in the late 1980s. for evaluating the severe effects of this development, the author refers to typical “postcolonies,” in which similar processes have been thoroughly studied. in doing so, he shows that the turn from socialist borderscape to postcolony was marked by the common process of glorifying the market economy, which the local authorities and population regarded as the only way out of a dramatic crisis. our journal’s first “report from the field” is written by srđan tunić and is dedicated to the oeuvre of muhamed kafedžić, a sarajevo-based artist with an extraordinary hybrid style which absorbs japanese ukiyo-e woodblock printing (seventeenth through nineteenth centuries) as well as american pop art (twentieth century), predominantly by roy lichtenstein. tunić, who collaborated with the artist between 2012 and 2015, provides a vivid analysis of the paintings focusing on the intentions behind them rather than their impact. excerpts from discussions with the artist are complemented by the author’s thoughtful analysis, which demonstrates how kafedžić’s paintings are a reaction to his own society and its visual tradition. the artist himself, an absolute outsider in his local milieu, explains that by appropriating alien images he had no ambition to become a japanese ukiyo-e painter but to use specific “exotic” motifs in order to articulate his own messages more effectively. he understands this artistic escape not in negative terms but as a creative response to his environment, being convinced that a transcultural attitude can enrich his own culture. it becomes apparent that the raison d’être of reproducing japanese prints and american pop art in modern bosnia and herzegovina is firmly situated not in an international milieu but in a local context. taking this oeuvre as a case study for complex transcultural processes, the author discusses different types of appropriation. he concludes that kafedžić’s work is an example of assimilative appropriation that affirms the value system of the original. we hope this issue of the journal makes for stimulating reading and look forward to your feedback and contributions. diamantis panagiotopoulos with rudolf wagner global encounters, local places | harris, holmes-tagchungdarpa, sharma, viehbeck | transcultural studies global encounters, local places: connected histories of darjeeling, kalimpong, and the himalayas—an introduction tina harris, university of amsterdam amy holmes-tagchungdarpa, grinnell college jayeeta sharma, university of toronto markus viehbeck, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg majestic himalayan landscapes and colonial-era attractions continue to entice domestic and global tourists to the picturesque mountain towns of darjeeling and kalimpong. occasionally, a travel writer gushes over their quaint charms, but national and international media highlight them only when beset by natural disasters or political turmoil. local inhabitants fret about the inadequate infrastructure and indian state neglect that drives their youngsters away to global mega-cities such as mumbai, hong kong, or london. this present marginality stands in sharp contrast to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when darjeeling and kalimpong were internationally notable hubs for mountain exploration, commodity trade, religious innovation, and great game politics. until the mid-twentieth century, readers of international publications such as the times of india, the scotsman, the new york times, harper’s magazine, south african outlook, and the berliner volkszeitung regularly encountered darjeeling as a bucolic tea-growing destination and a colourful mart on the edge of the world’s highest mountains, or its neighbour kalimpong as the embarkation point for everest expeditions and the headquarters of the wool trade from tibet to the united states. fig. 1: the eastern himalayas as a contact zone of different nation states. map created by uva-kaartenmakers. this themed section historicises and recovers the complex histories of these recently marginalised himalayan places by connecting them to larger transcultural narratives and global processes of economic, religious, and social exchange. it is largely inspired by sanjay subrahmanyam’s call for “connected histories” that explore how local and regional places, transactions, and encounters constitute global histories through the circulation of people, ideas, and commodities into and across such spaces.[1] contributors seek to develop this model as an alternative to the dominant historiographies and area studies scholarship that privileged nation state-centred histories and cold war political formations over connective and transnational ones. global processual histories, such as those by eric wolf, sidney mintz, and fernand braudel, have demonstrated from a macro-level, material culture perspective that the circulation of people, goods, and things transcends nation states.[2] the recent turn to scholarship on maritime networks is a significant contribution to connected histories, but privileges coastal cities rather than inland ones, not to mention those in seemingly more remote areas.[3] this themed section’s emphasis on borderland histories and their transcultural connections across asia and the globe is also inspired by north american scholars such as richard white, who called for careful historical interrogation of the shifting power dynamics that characterised spaces between states which functioned as a “middle ground” for different cultures and ethnicities.[4] an important impetus is the call for “zomia” from willem van schendel and james scott as a heuristic area for study that comprises the linguistically, culturally, and economically connected asian borderlands of bhutan, bangladesh, china, nepal, india, thailand, laos, vietnam, and burma. this call serves to further de-centre the nation state as a sealed “container” of history and allows contributors to re-imagine himalayan place histories from connected local-global perspectives that move beyond nation states, area studies, and regions such as south asia or east asia.[5] we recognize that writing connected histories of such borderland and transnational spaces poses large and specific challenges. himalayan archives, for instance, are dispersed across many local and national collections in numerous languages, often in a perilous state of preservation, with only scanty historical materials to illuminate subaltern and mobile subjectivities. partly for these reasons, anthropologists, linguists, and specialists of religious studies who undertake ethnographic or purely textual research have managed to study this region much more than historians. this themed section emerges from a collaborative academic network aimed at promoting historically nuanced conversations and interdisciplinary initiatives that recognize and challenge such a lacuna.[6] our hope is that it will inspire scholars who face similar challenges to advance dialogue about how connected and collaborative approaches to humanities and social science research across national and disciplinary boundaries might thrive and, in turn, encourage public engagement for such under-studied areas. for centuries, the himalayas were of spiritual and commercial significance, but mainly to the inhabitants of asia. from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, medical theories, plantation capitalism, commodity commerce, migrations, and strategic machinations brought these mountain localities and habitats to imperial and global attention.[7] an important impulse behind the geo-political manoeuvring to control these spaces followed from the bio-political theories that encouraged imperial territorial expansion into mountain zones. nineteenth-century euro-american medical science was steeped in climatic thinking, which held that tropical colonies posed great dangers for white races. periodic bodily recuperation seemed essential to preserve white racial health in hot climates, but this depended on european colonisers having access to the temperate climes of high-altitude spaces. this in turn inspired the english east india company to annex a remote mountain hamlet named dorjéling (rdo rje gling) from the kingdom of sikkim in 1835. the company’s new british settlement of darjeeling was planned as a high-altitude sanitarium that would provide refuge for white troops and administrators from the ravages of the indian plains.[8] similar bio-political thinking based on climatic theories and race science inspired the creation of dalat, bukittinggi, and baguio—other hill station resorts across asia—when dutch, french, and american empire-builders adopted the british strategy of periodic high-altitude recuperation.[9] british darjeeling acquired additional economic and political cachet when colonial experiments to grow transplanted tea-plants along its mountain slopes proved successful. after the portuguese introduced this chinese beverage into seventeenth-century europe, tea had become hugely popular. by the mid-nineteenth century, tea-drinking became inseparable from genteel ladies’ parlours as well as workers’ canteens on the british isles. until that time, china was the sole supplier of tea to the globe. this gave the chinese qing empire a crucial commercial monopoly that european statesmen and scientists attempted to contest. such attempts were fruitless until the british succeeded in cultivating tea in their colonial acquisitions.[10] in the 1860s, when colonial tea plantations in darjeeling, assam, and ceylon started to challenge the chinese monopoly, this was hailed as a key political and scientific achievement of the british empire. over the next few decades, darjeeling tea acquired a reputation and fame that spanned the globe.[11] the town’s growing popularity as a picturesque mountain destination and the main producer of a global beverage intensified when it became the summer capital of the bengal presidency, with a rail connection to the port-city of calcutta that largely mitigated the rigors of high-altitude travel. a few hours from darjeeling, across the teesta river, lies the hamlet of kalimpong, which the british acquired in 1865 from the kingdom of bhutan. already home to a lively market that connected dispersed himalayan localities with the long-distance salt and brick-tea trades, kalimpong became particularly popular with european missionaries and explorers, above all as a window into buddhist-ruled tibet, which was not accessible to most foreigners at that time. the two mountain towns developed into crucial economic and cultural crossroads between the eastern himalayas and the world, especially in the wake of the younghusband mission’s forcible opening of tibet in 1904. they gained their hub status at the expense of the historic cities of kathmandu and lhasa, whose nepali and tibetan rulers, hoping to evade european territorial ambitions, imposed severe restrictions on cross-border travel and commerce. in their place, darjeeling and kalimpong, positioned between the qing and british empires, the kingdoms of bhutan, nepal, sikkim, and tibet, attracted settlers of diverse asian and himalayan ethnicities, as well as british, german, french, and scandinavian sojourners. in these british-ruled towns, colonial administrators, planters, and missionaries dominated social hierarchies, but asian traders were the key economic actors. marwari, tibetan, nepali, and chinese traders dispatched consumer goods ranging from rice to rolex watches to and from these hill stations, into territories such as tibet, which had only recently become accessible to the global circulation of goods. in turn, trading partners located across the himalayas assisted darjeeling and kalimpong agents in transmitting locally produced commodities to the rest of the world.[12] darjeeling tea was the best known of these himalayan products. by 1896, darjeeling and its surroundings had 175 tea plantations owned by british firms that employed approximately 70,000 local workers, to grow a crop worth well over ten million pounds.[13] other, less widely-known himalayan commodities were tibetan sheep wool and yak tails. these crossed the himalayas on mule and yak into kalimpong, from whence powerful traders such as the tibetan pangdatsang syndicate sent them across the oceans into north american factories and department stores. few global consumers realized that ubiquitous modern artefacts such as santa claus beards were manufactured from yak-tail hair. wool trade figures fluctuated wildly due to global economic and geopolitical conflicts; at the height of its post-war boom during the 1940s, the trade generated between one and a half and two million us dollars.[14] as colonial darjeeling and kalimpong expanded into hubs for commerce across british india, sikkim, nepal, bhutan, tibet, and china, they flourished as fluid contact zones characterized by economic mobility, urban socialization, and cross-cultural encounters.[15] a substantial mobile population was drawn in from a wide swathe of economically marginal lands such as the himalayan territories of nepal, sikkim, bhutan, tibet, and china, as well as parts of northern, eastern, and western india. at the upper reaches of the hill station labour pyramid were the men and women who found employment in the military, on plantations, and in households; at the lower end were porters and other types of manual workers. the anthropologist tanka subba estimates that the darjeeling hinterland’s population increased from around one hundred at the time of british annexation, to 10,000 by 1849, 22,000 by 1850, and that it had jumped to over 90,000 by 1872.[16] a large proportion of this population arrived from nepal, and found new employment opportunities in the colonial economy as gurkha soldiers and tea plantation labourers.[17] in 1895, there were roughly 160,000 nepali workers in the darjeeling area, of whom 88,021 had been born in nepal. away from the repressive rana regime that ruled their homeland, these darjeeling and kalimpong migrants played a prominent role in the creation of nepali as a literary language, establishing some of the earliest nepali print periodicals, such as the gorkha khabar kagat (1885) and chandrika (1914). these towns provided a safe home for newar buddhists from the kathmandu valley who faced religious persecution in nepal. settling in kalimpong and darjeeling, these families found not just religious refuge but a suitable base to conduct commerce that spanned india, sikkim, nepal, and tibet.[18] assisted by such wealthy patrons, the two towns became vital centres for the creation and dissemination of buddhist knowledge that were connected to other asian centres such as ceylon and burma, but also generated secular information, especially on tibet, that spread across the world.[19] a key figure in such information circulation was an ethnic tibetan migrant from the western himalayas, dorje tharchin, who earned his living at kalimpong as a translator and language instructor for the scottish foreign mission, but became famous as the creator of the world’s first tibetan newspaper with a wider distribution network, the mélong or tibet mirror, which was published from 1925 to 1963.[20] its subscribers ranged from the thirteenth and fourteenth dalai lamas to traders from tibet, nepal, and surrounding areas. this newspaper was also read by an emerging global network of intellectuals and academics interested in tibetan issues, including jacques bacot (france), marco pallis (uk), johan van manen (netherlands), and johannes schubert (germany). during the 1840s, the british botanist joseph hooker was the first well-known figure to bring darjeeling into the public eye. he lived there for three years, making it his base for naturalist collecting activity. through private letters and published journals, hooker engaged an influential scientific community and a wider european readership with his himalayan findings.[21] those ranged from the rhododendrons that began to bloom in gardens across the globe to natural observations incorporated by charles darwin into his influential on the origin of species. in the century after hooker’s visit, darjeeling and kalimpong played host to other sojourners and settlers from across the globe, who pursued a wide variety of interests. they included the nepali christian preacher gangaprasad pradhan, the belgian-french mystical writer alexandra david-néel, the scottish missionary and child welfare reformer john anderson graham, the british administrator and tibet scholar charles bell, the bengali nobel laureate litterateur rabindranath tagore, the newar buddhist businessman bhajuratna kansakar, the danish anthropologist prince peter, the thirteenth dalai lama, the japanese buddhist pilgrim ekai kawaguchi, and the mountain porter-turned-everest-conqueror tenzing norgay. throughout the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, their travels, experiences, and narratives further tied the himalayas to larger histories of modernity and cross-cultural encounters. this themed section of the journal transcultural studies engages with such multiple journeys and crossings around darjeeling and kalimpong and offers alternative approaches which connect and intersect the history of local places and spaces with broader narratives of global history. the contributors to this section draw upon a range of perspectives and archives to frame their explorations of darjeeling, kalimpong, and the eastern himalayas as hubs for local, regional, and global circulation, transnational and transcultural encounters. an important aspect of these articles is their wide-ranging exploration of textual, oral, and visual source materials in multiple languages and locations across the world, from the colonial modern to the contemporary era. jayeeta sharma places darjeeling within the historical context of hill station sanatorium urbanity that was a key feature of british imperial culture. she explores how a strategic eastern himalayan location at the crossroads of transnational circulations of bodies, commodities, and ideas shaped the transcultural character of the town and gave it a distinctive global presence. the article examines darjeeling as a colonial space that was laboured upon and constituted by mobile historical actors from across the himalayas and beyond, including lepcha cultivators, nepali labourers, sherpa porters, gurkha soldiers, sikkim landholders, bengali clerks, scottish missionaries, and british planters. the circulation, migration, and representation of himalayan labouring bodies, the economic and social transactions of capitalism around commodities such as tea, salt, and wool, and the local and global journeys of euro-american sojourners became the key transcultural elements that transformed british darjeeling into a place famed across the himalayas and the world. emma martin’s article takes the production of the british administrator charles bell’s influential tibetan dictionary (1905) as a thread to investigate scholarly encounters and interactions in the himalayan borderlands. she explores how bell spent his years as a colonial government functionary between sikkim, tibet, darjeeling, and kalimpong, consolidating the skills that made him a leading tibetologist of that era. in so doing, she illustrates how bell’s much-vaunted global reputation as a tibet scholar was largely based on his access to local intermediaries from darjeeling, tibet, and sikkim. reading between the lines of the british state’s official archive and bell’s own correspondence, she shows how a landmark of imperial knowledge like bell’s dictionary was predicated on the “knife edge of colonialism” and its inequalities of power. this article deconstructs the expertise of an imperial functionary to delineate the “hidden histories” of local and indigenous agency that helped create an ostensibly western canon of himalayan knowledge. kalzang dorjee bhutia explores different perspectives on the importance of darjeeling and kalimpong as hubs of cultural hybridity where local intellectuals and global visitors were able to exchange and cross-fertilize ideas unhampered by the repressive political environments of other himalayan polities. this article focuses on the young men’s buddhist association, which devoted its energies to public education and, by taking the ymca as both inspiration and challenge, countered christian missionary efforts to convert locals by presenting modernized buddhism as an alternative. his sources include a little-known oral archive narrated in the bhutia, lepcha, and nepali languages about the theravada monk s. k. jinorasa and his wide-ranging social justice initiatives, as well as the self-consciously penned and self-published memoirs of the british-born buddhist philosopher sangharakshita. samuel thévoz investigates global forms of buddhism inspired by the representation of local cultures of tibet and sikkim in western scholarship, with a focus on the life of alexandra david-néel, the early twentieth-century belgian-french explorer, spiritualist, and new york times best-selling author who was to have a profound and long-lasting influence on beat culture and western esotericism. his examination of david-néel’s encounters with tibetans in darjeeling and kalimpong adds a new dimension to the crucial role played by these mountain towns located at the borderland junction of cross-cultural currents in the creation of global intellectual and cultural networks that derived inspiration from buddhism and orientalism. the shifting perspectives employed in these articles tie these localities to larger histories of enormous relevance to our understanding of the global history of intellectual and commercial exchange. they are also of great import for a fuller understanding of twenty-first century geo-politics, where, as china and india consolidated their global position, smaller himalayan entities such as nepal, bhutan, sikkim, and tibet as well as indian and chinese borderland spaces became embroiled within—and perhaps even central to—those territorialising ambitions. by the late twentieth century, a broad constellation of economic and political forces made localities such as darjeeling and kalimpong marginal to the media and to area studies scholarship that focused on the rising asian nation states of china and india. china’s increasing post-war grip on tibet had mixed effects on the inhabitants of these borderland towns. on one hand, the increase in chinese soldiers and demand for commodities in tibet brought significant prosperity for some traders in darjeeling and kalimpong. on the other hand, many felt the impact of commercial restrictions, as well as heavy losses (in the case of the wealthy trading families) as the chinese state began to take over the tibetan economy. combined with the us export control act limiting goods from china, global trading connections with the now-indian towns of darjeeling and kalimpong began to visibly chill. in the late 1950s, refugees from tibet into india initially used kalimpong as a base, but later left for other places with better opportunities. the build-up of animosity between india and china culminated in significant border conflicts and eventually the sino-indian war of 1962. chinese families based on the indian side were accused of spying and were repatriated to china despite the fact that they had not lived there for several generations. the 1962 war essentially sealed off all borders between china and india. whatever was left of small-scale tibet-india trade was rerouted through nepal, rather than via kalimpong. neighbouring darjeeling largely retained the cachet of its tea, which in 2005 acquired the status of india’s first gi commodity, along the lines of french champagne and italian parmesan. however, its share in the global market dipped, partly due to strong competition from lower-end teas from kenya and elsewhere, and partly due to the political turmoil associated with the sub-nationalist gorkhaland movement, which protested the distant west bengal state government’s political neglect of these mountain spaces. in the eastern himalayas, images of these connected histories—tea and yak tails, spies and missionaries, administrators and monks—still remain central to negotiations of identity, albeit in a new globalized idiom. this is illustrated by the recent installation of a giant lcd screen at the chowrastra pedestrian square, known to any connoisseur of darjeeling’s picturesque vistas. once an exclusive social space reserved for the white elites of empire, today’s chowrastra is pleasantly chaotic in the daytime hours, with euro-american backpackers, israeli tourists, and indo-nepali, tibetan, and bengali locals milling around. bellowing over their voices is the soundtrack of television shows from the giant screen. the television images appear to mirror postcards at nearby bookshops: photographic images of soaring peaks and bucolic villages whose inspiration goes back to the colonial-era tourist trade. closer attention reveals that the soundtrack that accompanies those images is not the locally dominant nepali or english languages, but mandarin. this linguistic detail evokes an even older connected history, one where mountain spaces controlled today by bhutan, china, india, nepal, and russia formed part of the ancient trade route that transported tea and silks from yunnan into eurasia. such entanglements represent the complex and connected histories that thread through darjeeling and kalimpong, and demonstrate how ostensibly marginal borderland places continue to perform as gateways to the world that connect diverse spaces, peoples, objects, and representations. [1] sanjay subrahmanyam, “connected histories: notes towards a reconfiguration of early modern eurasia,” in “the eurasian context of the early modern history of mainland south east asia, 1400–1800,” special issue, modern asian studies 31, no. 3 (july 1997): 735–762. [2] fernand braudel, afterthoughts on material civilisation and capitalism (baltimore: johns hopkins university press, 1977); sidney mintz, sweetness and power: the place of sugar in modern history (new york: viking press, 1985); eric wolf, europe and the people without history  (berkeley: university of california press, 1982). [3] an excellent example of a maritime history is nile green, bombay islam: the religious economy of the west indian ocean, 1840–1915 (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2011). [4] richard white, the middle ground: indians, empires, and republics in the great lakes region, 1650–1815 (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1991). white’s theoretical model for understanding borderland history has inspired scholarship on asia with works such as c. patterson giersch, asian borderlands: the transformation of qing china’s yunnan frontier (harvard: harvard university press, 2006) and yudru tsomu, the rise of gönpo namgyel in kham: the blind warrior of nyarong (lanham: lexington, 2014). [5] see willem van schendel, “geographies of knowing, geographies of ignorance: jumping scale in southeast asia,” environment and planning d: society and space 20 (2002): 647–668 and james scott, the art of not being governed: an anarchist history of upland southeast asia (new haven: yale university press, 2009). for more on zomia and the himalayas, see sara shneiderman, “are the central himalayas in zomia? some scholarly and political considerations across time and space,” political geography 5 (2010): 289–312. [6] the eastern himalaya research network is an international network of scholars that focuses on historically nuanced cultural studies of the eastern himalayas and their borderlands. we promote collaboration in digital scholarship and pedagogy, archival preservation and dissemination, and nurture research partnerships involving university academics, public intellectuals, young researchers, and institutions across the himalayas and beyond: https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/digitalscholarship/ehrn/home [accessed on 24. june 2016]. [7] relevant works across a variety of disciplines include toni huber and stuart blackburn, eds., origins and migrations in the extended eastern himalayas (leiden: brill, 2012); alex mckay, their footprints remain: biomedical beginnings across the indo-tibetan frontier (amsterdam: amsterdam university press, 2007); saul mullard, opening the hidden land: state formation and the construction of sikkimese history (leiden: brill, 2011); karma phuntsho, a history of bhutan (delhi: random house, 2013); sara shneiderman, rituals of ethnicity: thangmi identities between nepal and india (philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press, 2015); amy holmes-tagchungdarpa, the social life of tibetan biography: textuality, community, and authority in the lineage of tokden shakya shri (lanham: lexington, van spengen, tibetan border worlds: a geo-historical analysis of trade and traders (london: kegan paul international, 2000). [8] judith t. kenny, “climate, race, and imperial authority: the symbolic landscape of the british hill station in india,” annals of the association of american geographers 85, no. 4 (1995): 694–714. [9] other works on hill stations include nandini bhattacharya, “leisure, economy, and colonial urbanism: darjeeling, 1835–1930,” urban history 40, no. 3 (2013): 442–461; aditi chatterji, landscapes of power: the colonial hill stations, research papers 59 (oxford: school of geography, university of oxford, 2003); pamela kanwar, imperial simla: the political culture of the raj (delhi: oxford university press, 1990); dane k. kennedy, the magic mountains: hill stations and the british raj (berkeley: university of california press, 1996); queeny pradhan, “empire in the hills: the making of hill stations in colonial india,” studies in history 23, no. 1 (2007): 33–91. [10] jayeeta sharma, empire’s garden: assam and the making of india (durham: duke university press, 2011). [11] sarah besky, the darjeeling distinction: labor and justice on fair-trade tea plantations in india (berkeley: university of california press, 2014). [12] jayeeta sharma, “producing himalayan darjeeling: mobile people and mountain encounters,” himalaya: the journal of the association for nepal and himalayan studies 34, no. 2 (fall 2014):1–15. [13] g. w. christison, “tea planting in darjeeling,” society of arts journal 44 (1895–96): 623–644. [14] tina harris, geographical diversions: tibetan trade, global transactions (athens: university of georgia press, 2013). [15] mary louise pratt, imperial eyes: travel writing and transculturation (london: routledge, 1992). [16] tanka subba, “living the nepali diaspora: an autobiographical essay,” zeitschrift für ethnologie 133, no. 2 (2008): 213–232. [17] catherine warner, “flighty subjects: sovereignty, shifting cultivators, and the state in darjeeling, 1830–1856,” himalaya: the journal of the association for nepal and himalayan studies 34, no. 1 (2014). [18] an interesting biography of a transnational newar buddhist trading family is d. s. kansakar hilker, syamukapu: the lhasa newars of kalimpong and kathmandu (kathmandu: vajra publications, 2005). [19] another transnational study where kalimpong networks play a crucial role is paul g. hackett’s theos bernard, the white lama: tibet, yoga, and american religious life (new york: columbia university press, 2012). [20] see digital collections on the tibet mirror from columbia university: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/digital/collections/cul/texts/ldpd_6981643_000/ [accessed on 24. june 2016]. [21] joseph dalton hooker, himalayan journals: notes of a naturalist in bengal, the sikkim and nepal himalayas, the khasia mountains, &c (london: john murray, 1855); see also the newly available database of his correspondence on the website of the royal botanic gardens, kew: http://www.kew.org/science-conservation/collections/joseph-hooker/correspondence [accessed on 24. june 2016]. yamamoto_3.2018_galley.indd 79transcultural studies 2017.2 privilege and competition: tashiroya in the east asian treaty ports, 1860–1895 takahiro yamamoto, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg introduction porcelain products comprised an important part of japan’s economic and cultural exports in the late nineteenth century. the majority of these products came from a town called arita, in today’s saga prefecture (the saga domain until 1871), tucked in a valley some fifty kilometres north of nagasaki. even today, arita’s streets are filled with porcelain shops and kilns, and many residential houses boast a large front window that showcases the occupants’ collection. this paper traces some of the transcultural flows of people, information, and materials that ran through the network of east asian ports in the late nineteenth century, through the case study of a family of porcelain producers and wholesalers from arita named tashiro, and their shop, tashiroya. during the four decades after japan’s signing of commercial treaties with the european states and the united states in 1858, which involved the opening of ports for free trade, tashiroya placed employees, many of them family members, in numerous ports, including yokohama, kobe, nagasaki, shanghai, chefoo, tianjin, and hong kong, while also exporting to the united states and europe.1 several nineteenth-century accounts of the japanese community in shanghai have made a passing mention of the activities of tashiroya’s branch there.2 tashiro genpei (originally tomonari genpei), an adopted son of tashiro keiemon, opened the first private japanese shop in shanghai’s suzhou street in august 1868. it sold porcelain and lacquerware to the residents 1 tashiroya appears in some sources as tashiro shōten. the branch based in new york was called tashiro-gumi. in government documents and newspaper advertisements, tashiroya in china was sometimes referred to as tashiro yōkō. for the sake of simplicity, i refer to them as tashiroya throughout the paper. 2 hideo yonezawa, shanghai shiwa 上海史話 (tokyo: unebi shobō, 1942); kagenao tōyama, shanghai 上海 (tokyo: kokubunsha, 1907). 80 privilege and competition: tashiroya in east asian treaty ports, 1860–1895 of shanghai, and general merchandise that catered to the demand of female japanese residents—an increasingly noticeable group in the entertainment sector of that port. genpei soon began running a hotel for japanese visitors. in 1885, the shanghai branch was entrusted to a man named kaneko kenjirō, who shuttled across east asian ports in collaboration with his brother, kantarō, also a tashiro employee. kenjirō briefly tried selling sweets at sima street, before switching back to selling general merchandise. as kenjirō took over the porcelain business, the hotel was run by another employee, furutate yōzō. the employees of tashiroya were frequent travellers across the china seas, sometimes crossing borders several times in the span of a few weeks. japan introduced passports in 1866, and even though the passport system’s enforcement was incomplete at the waterfront, the application records for passports in nagasaki give us snippets of the extent and frequency of tashiroya’s travels. between 1868 and 1890, genpei applied for passports five times. the name of tashiro gōsaku, genpei’s brother, appears three times. sukesaku, a cousin of genpei and gōsaku, shows up three times, and so does kenjirō. monzaemon and keiemon, sukesaku’s father and uncle, both appear once.3 these numbers almost certainly provide only a partial indication of the frequency of their travels, for, after 1878, japanese travellers were allowed to make multiple trips between china, korea, and japan with a single passport. by the 1880s, the regular shipping service of nihon yūsen kaisha (nyk) through japanese, korean, and chinese ports rendered it possible to fathom an integrated east asian market. the tashiros were among the tens of thousands of people who crossed the sea annually—a hundred-fold increase from the figure at the beginning of the system of open ports.4 since the late 1980s, the work of hamashita takeshi and others has encouraged historians to view the seas around east asia as a route or a zone to be analysed in its own right, and to understand the nineteenth century as “the era of negotiations” that brought about the expansion of 3 diplomatic archive of japan (dajp), 3.8.5.8. reel 1 and 2. 4 for instance, 39,611 and 37,329 passengers went from japan to shanghai in the years 1889 and 1890 respectively on nyk’s ships. in the same two years, 26,513 and 26,554 people crossed the sea from shanghai to japan. nihon keieishi kenkyūjo, ed., nihon yūsen kabushiki kaisha hyakunenshi 日本郵船株式会社百年史 (tokyo: nihon yūsen, 1988), 64. 81transcultural studies 2017.2 migrant merchants into the treaty ports.5 tashiroya were the pioneers of exporting arita ceramics to the chinese market during this era of treaty port networks. yet today their names are largely omitted from mainstream historical narratives of japan’s economic modernization or of sino–japanese interactions, with the exception of the specific context of arita’s local history.6 when any reference is made to porcelain, it is the rival company kōransha that receives most of the attention. kōransha has been a major producer of arita porcelain since its establishment in 1875, and its records from the earliest stages of operation are decorated with recognitions and awards from across the western world, including the gold medals received in the paris exhibitions in 1878 and 1900, the barcelona exhibition in 1888, and the japanese-english exposition in 1910.7 where did the tashiros go? business historian yamada takehisa has pointed out that tashiroya’s strategy involved the direct export of daily-use porcelain, such as teacups with simple red paintings, to the chinese market. this was in contrast to other producers from arita, most notably kōransha, who focused on the luxury markets in the united states and europe through participation in international exhibitions, as noted above.8 yet the full extent of tashiroya’s activities, especially the way in which their business declined, has not been studied. the following micro-historical analysis of tashiroya’s business provides 5 takeshi hamashita, “tributes and treaties,” in the resurgence of east asia: 500, 150 and 50 year perspectives, eds. giovanni arrighi, takeshi hamashita, and mark selden (abingdon: routledge, 2003), 17–51. for a collection of his writing in english, see takeshi hamashita, china, east asia and the global economy: regional and historical perspectives, ed. linda grove and mark selden (abingdon: new york: routledge, 2008). 6 for japan’s treaty ports, classical works include azusa ōyama, kyūjōyakuka ni okeru kaishi kaikō no kenkyū 旧条約下における開市開港の研究 (tokyo: ōtori shobō, 1967); james hoare, japan’s treaty ports and foreign settlements: the uninvited guests, 1858-1899 (folkestone: japan library, 1994); shinya sugiyama and linda glove, eds., kindai ajia no ryūtsū nettowāku 近代アジアの流通ネットワーク (tokyo: sōbunsha, 1999). for a detailed study of the impact of japanese ports outside the treaty system in japan’s economic rise, see catherine phipps, empires on the waterfront: japan’s ports and power, 1858-1899 (cambridge, ma: harvard university asia center, 2015). for the legal impact of the treaty port network, see par cassel, grounds of judgment: extraterritoriality and imperial power in nineteenth-century china and japan (new york: oxford university press, 2012). see also jianhui liu, demon capital shanghai: the “modern” experience of japanese intellectuals, trans. joshua fogel (portland, maine: merwinasia, 2012); zu’en chen, shanhai ni ikita nihonjin 上海に生きた日本人 (tokyo: daishūkan shoten, 2010). 7 kōransha, “company profile,” https://www.koransha.co.jp/koransha/koransha_english.html. [accessed on february 15, 2018]. 8 takehisa yamada, “meiji zenki ni okeru hizen tōjikigyō no yushutsu senryaku” 明治前期における肥前陶磁器業の輸出戦略. keiei shigaku 経営史学 30, no. 4 (1996): 32–58. 82 privilege and competition: tashiroya in east asian treaty ports, 1860–1895 a ground-level view of the workings of trade in the treaty ports, and the transcultural dynamisms across the east asian waters in the late nineteenth century. it adds to the historiography of east asian treaty ports by describing a japanese business’s endeavour to survive in a shifting commercial environment, entangled with local and international politics.9 the paper argues that tashiroya’s decline towards the end of the nineteenth century reflected its loss of close relationships with, and preferential treatment by, the japanese government. the crucial part of the following account relies on the tashiro family’s papers, deposited in the arita history and folklore museum (arita rekishi minzoku shiryōkan). these papers are supplemented by official and semi-official documents held in nagasaki, tokyo, and seoul. the extent of the surviving records varies across the late nineteenth century, and it is generally better for the late 1880s and the early 1890s than for other periods. most of the documents are communications involving tashiro monzaemon and his son sukesaku, who took charge of the nagasaki branch for most of his working life (although he made visits to shanghai, tianjin, and chefoo) until his premature death in 1890. perhaps because the family documents came to the archive from a descendant of sukesaku, the papers relating to his uncle keiemon and his three sons—gōsaku, genpei, and ichirōji, who ran the yokohama branch—are much less extensive. the following sections will divide the history of tashiroya into three parts: tashiroya’s rise, led by monzaemon from 1856 to the late 1870s; competition in the chinese treaty ports during the 1880s, when sukesaku played a central role; and the firm’s decline in the 1890s, when the employees made a risky decision to expand the business into korea in an attempt to revive the firm’s fortunes. 9 recent works on merchants in east asian treaty ports include simon partner, the merchant’s tale: yokohama and the transformation of japan (new york: columbia university press, 2017); harald fuess, “e. meyer & co. at the eastern frontiers of capitalism: the leading western merchant house in korea, 1884 to 1914,” journal of business history 62, no. 1 (2016): 3–30; robert hellyer, “1874: tea and japan’s new trading regime,” in asia inside out: trading empires of the south china coast, south asia, & the gulf region volume 1: critical times, eds. helen siu, peter perdue, and eric tagliacozzo (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 2015), 186–206; robert bickers and isabella jackson, eds., treaty ports in modern china: law, land and power (london: palgrave, 2016). for a european merchant’s perspective of the earliest years of yokohama, see c. t. assendelft de coningh, ed., a pioneer in yokohama: a dutchman’s adventures in the new treaty port, trans. martha chaiklin (indianapolis: hackett publishing company, 2012). 83transcultural studies 2017.2 monzaemon and the rise of tashiroya, 1856–80 the emergence of arita as a porcelain-producing town stemmed from political, geological, and economic factors closely tied to major historical events in east asia. the technical expertise necessary for the production of porcelain, unavailable in japan until the end of the sixteenth century, came to the archipelago because of the imjin war (1592–1598), staged by toyotomi hideyoshi. nabeshima naoshige, the warlord based in saga who took part in hideyoshi’s campaign to invade korea, brought korean potters back to his fief. in a mountain near arita, the potters discovered a fine deposit of kaolinite, a clay mineral used for porcelain, and began production in the early seventeenth century. the potters imitated the chinese style, and the expansion of porcelain production in arita partly resulted from the decline of imports from china due to the political turmoil occurring there towards the end of the ming dynasty. the result was the development of a porcelain industry in japan, including arita.10 the story of the tashiro family as overseas merchants begins in 1856. in that year, tashiro monzaemon, an honorary samurai permitted to use surnames and carry swords for having made donations to the saga domain,11 received the exclusive privilege from the lord of saga to export porcelain from nagasaki.12 monzaemon’s rise was fortuitous in the short run, as it coincided with the tokugawa shogunate’s signing of commercial treaties with four european countries and the united states in 1858 and thus the beginning of free trade between nagasaki and the east asian treaty ports. between 1861 and 1868, tashiro held a monopoly over the export of porcelain to “america, england, and other countries,” which in effect included all countries except the netherlands and korea.13 10 barbara seyock, “trade ceramics from selected sites in western japan, late 14th to 17th centuries,” bulletin of the indo-pacific prehistory association 26 (2006): 131–139; takenori nogami, “on hizen porcelain and the manila-acapulco galleon trade,” bulletin of the indo-pacific prehistory association 26 (2006): 124–130. 11 the business was carried out in the name of his son, sukesaku, because those with the samurai status were barred from trading activities. hiroki nakajima, hizen tōjiki shi kō 肥前陶磁器史考 (kumamoto: seichōsha, 1985 [1936]), 539. 12 takehisa yamada, “meiji zenki tōjiki sanchi ni okeru kikai dōnyū” 明治前期陶磁器産地における機械導入, ōsaka daigaku keizaigaku 大阪大学経済学 45, no. 1 (1995): 33–47. 13 arita history and folklore museum tashiroke monjo (ahfmtm) 0132. the domain issued separate exclusive licenses for these two countries to different merchants. mariko yamagata, “bakumatsuki sagahan fukokusaku no tenkai to kokunaigai shijō” 幕末期佐賀藩富国策の展開と国内外市場, shakai keizai shigaku 社会経済史学 69, no. 3 (2003): 47–71, here 67. 84 privilege and competition: tashiroya in east asian treaty ports, 1860–1895 annual sales exceeded ten thousand ryō.14 monzaemon’s privileged position and business strategies invited local controversy, for he was known to bring in thinner porcelain objects from another town, have them painted in arita, and then sell them overseas. even though he could claim that this was done in order to tailor the products to the taste of european consumers, procuring and exporting goods from another domain was not only considered an affront to the local potters, but also a breach of the domain’s law.15 however, the nagasaki magistrate acquiesced to this practice, and so did the local magistrate in charge of the porcelain industry. under the order of the tokugawa shogunate, the saga domain took turns with the neighbouring fukuoka domain for the defence of nagasaki and therefore paid close attention to regional events. convinced of the necessity of modernizing its military and keen on exploring further commercial interactions with the world, the domain dispatched two officials to shanghai on the senzaimaru, to accompany the shogunate’s observation mission in 1862. five years later, the domain sent its own trade mission, which included monzaemon, to shanghai.16 this was one of the earliest domain-led overseas missions after the tokugawa shogunate had legalized overseas travel by japanese residents the previous year. the domain set up a branch of its own trading house in shanghai with the help of the dutch consul, p. theodore kroes.17 soon afterwards, keiemon’s stepson genpei opened a shop, but sources are not clear about its connection with the domain’s shop. one source says that the tashiro family took over the domain’s enterprise after the abolition of domains in 1871.18 other sources claim that genpei had already moved to shanghai in 1868 and opened 14 yamada, “meiji zenki.” in comparison, the saga domain in 1858 purchased its first steamship for seventy thousand ryō, or approximately one hundred thousand dollars. see yamagata, “bakumatsuki sagahan fukokusaku no tenkai to kokunaigai shijō.” 15 for the discussion on the development of mercantilist economic policy at the domain level during the edo period, and its relationship with the concept of kokueki (countries’ interest), see luke roberts, mercantilism in a japanese domain (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1998). 16 yamagata, “bakumatsuki sagahan,” 67–68. on the voyage of the senzaimaru, see joshua a. fogel, maiden voyage: the senzaimaru and the creation of modern sino-japanese relations (berkeley, ca: university of california press, 2014). 17 rongguang huang, “bakumatsuki senzaimaru kenjunmaru no shanhai haken nado ni kansuru shinkoku gaikō bunsho ni tsuite” 幕末期千歳丸・健順丸の上海派遣等に関する清国 外交文書について, tōkyō daigaku shiryō hensanjo kiyō 13 (2003): 176–200; yosuke iwamatsu, “bakumatsu saga hanshi ga mita chūgoku 幕末佐賀藩士が見た中国,” in proceedings of the 2nd international symposium on the history of indigenous knowledge (saga daigaku chiikigaku rekishi bunka kenkyū sentā, 2012), 88–93. 18 nakajima, hizen tōjiki shi kō, 539–541. 85transcultural studies 2017.2 his business in august of that year.19 a local history of arita claims that the domain’s shop was inherited by monzaemon, who then changed its name to tashiro shōkai.20 there is agreement, however, that genpei’s premises, located at the corner of suzhou street and yuanmingyuan street in hongkou, was the first private japanese shop in shanghai.21 it reflected the saga domain’s attempt to expand the export of porcelain to china, at a time when the chinese domestic supply was severely disrupted due to the taiping rebellion. back in arita, monzaemon’s aggressive business practices met opposition from other potters, who lacked access to this seemingly excellent commercial opportunity. in 1868, monzaemon’s deputy was punished and the license for export was extended to ten additional potters.22 the consequence was the creation of a level playing field for japanese porcelain producers across east asia, where treaty ports were opening in quick succession. this incident marked the end of tashiroya’s monopoly within the system of highly regulated trade under the tokugawa regime. monzaemon and his family faced a new commercial environment with domestic competition, but for the time being, they remained closely associated with the saga domain’s zeal for economic modernization. as the biggest export commodity, porcelain sat at the centre of saga’s strategy for economic regeneration. it was probably in shanghai that tashiroya enjoyed the closest connection with the leaders of the meiji government. it was a natural gathering spot for japanese travellers to the port, although their numbers were still small at this point. in the tumultuous year of 1868, the meiji government issued thirty passports for travellers going to china.23 the number hovered around a few hundred per year throughout the 1870s, but among them were some prominent men who made a stop at tashiroya in the middle 19 for instance, chen, shanhai ni ikita nihonjin, 23–24. 20 arita chōshi hensan iinkai (ed.), aritachōshi shōgyōhen 有田町史商業編 vol. 2 (aritamachi: aritamachi, 1988), 88–89. 21 chen, shanhai ni ikita nihonjin, 23–24; nakajima, hizen tōjiki shi kō, 540–541; joshua fogel, “japanese travelers to shanghai in the 1860s,” in joshua fogel and james baxter, eds., historiography and japanese consciousness of values and norms (international research center for japanese studies, kyoto, japan, 2002), 79–99. 22 arita, aritachōshi shōgyōhen, 88–89; “tashiro monzaemon,” in tōki jiten 陶器事典, ed. tōkurō katō (tokyo: shima shobō, 1954), 583–584. 23 minoru ishizuki, kindai nihon no kaigai ryūgakushi 近代日本の海外留学史 (kyoto: minerva shobō, 1972), 154. 86 privilege and competition: tashiroya in east asian treaty ports, 1860–1895 of their official travels, such as interim foreign minister soejima taneomi, originally from the saga domain, and ōkubo toshimichi, one of the most prominent figures in the early meiji regime. shinagawa tadamichi, the first japanese consul in shanghai, also spent his first days in the city at tashiroya.24 tashiroya maintained a close connection with the central government in the 1870s. this was perhaps partly thanks to hosting these meiji leaders and the firm’s pre-existing relations with the saga domain’s former samurai class, many of whom now worked for the meiji government even after the dissolution of domains in 1871. in the early 1870s, tashiroya carried over the project that the saga domain had started, namely the export of porcelain to the global market, which the domain had hoped would provide a means of financing domestic reforms. unlike the later period, judging from its participation in the international exhibition in vienna in 1873 it was still eyeing the luxury market in europe. responding to a request from the meiji government, tashiroya, under the name of keiemon, submitted to the exhibition a pair of vases that were over 160 centimetres tall. even though no member of tashiroya joined the mission to vienna led by ōkuma shigenobu, the finance minister and a saga native, these towering vases signified to the meiji government tashiroya’s worth as an advertiser of japan’s cultural sophistication.25 in shanghai, genpei was a useful commercial agent upon whom the government could rely when only a handful of japanese lived in the city. for instance, in july 1874, the navy ministry purchased a piece of land from a british trading house in the pudong area on the eastern outskirts of the city’s international settlement.26 the ministry used this location primarily to store coal, and tashiroya leased the land as a designated commercial agent of the ministry.27 24 rongguang huang, “meijiki ni okeru yushutsu tōjiki sangyō no hensen” 明治期における輸出陶磁器産業の変遷, proceedings of the international symposium “new vistas: japanese studies for the next generation” (kyoto: international research center of japanese studies, 2014), 137–153. 25 aritachōshi tōgyōhen 有田町史陶業編 vol. 2, 137–138. ōkuma was a nominal head and did not travel to vienna. 26 enclosed document attached to letter from foreign ministry to navy ministry, august 8, 1874. dajp 3.12.1.52. 27 tashiro monzaemon to navy ministry, march 5, 1879. national archive of japan (najp), meiji 12 kōbun ruisan zenpen vol. 15 dobokubu 1. japan center for asian historical records (jacar) ref.c09113287100. 87transcultural studies 2017.2 this land lease in pudong led to unforeseen bureaucratic complications a few years later. the agricultural division of the interior ministry (naimushō kangyōkyoku) decided to develop a wool industry in japan, and imported sheep through kamohara yahei, an employee of tashiroya’s shanghai branch, purchasing several hundred sheep from mongolia once in the winter of 1877 and once in 1878. the sheep were transferred from tianjin and made a stop at shanghai, taking up a temporary residence in the navy’s coal depot. the navy complained that it made the place “extremely unhygienic,” but had to acquiesce after requests from kamohara and the agricultural division.28 kamohara was responsible for looking after the sheep, but he seems to have mismanaged the warehouse: the smell of sheep remained in the building for several months after their departure, and there was even a theft of twenty-seven sheep at one point.29 when shinagawa tadamichi, the japanese consul in shanghai, inspected the warehouse in march 1878, he found it all but dilapidated: […] as for the warehouse, it is not even properly built, with only the pillars made with bricks. between these pillars are pieces of wooden board covered with plaster. it has peeled off because of wind and rain. the outer surface of the board is all rotten, and water is permeating it. overall, it looks like it is on the verge of collapse.30 a navy officer carried out another inspection in november 1878, and found that “the place was dirty and was being managed very poorly.” he recommended that the ministry consider not renewing the lease to tashiroya.31 shortly before the lease contract between the navy ministry and tashiroya expired in december 1878, a public-private trading company based in hokkaido, kōgyō shōkai, applied for the lease, in order to 28 sone toshitora (lieutenant) to navy ministry, november 13, 1877; kamohara yahei to navy ministry, december 11, 1877. kōbun ruisan meiji 10 kōhen vol. 43 honshō kōbun hōritsubu vol. 2. jacar ref. 09112749000. 29 sone toshitora to navy ministry, november 1877. najp, kobun ruisan meiji 10 kōhen vol. 43 honshō kōbun hōritsubu vol. 2. jacar ref. c09112746500. 30 shinagawa tadamichi (shanghai consul) to kawamura sumiyoshi (navy minister), march 19, 1878. kōbun ruisan meiji 11 zenpen vol. 22 honshō kōbun dobokubu vol. 3. jacar ref. c09112827000. author’s translation. all other quotations in this paper are also translated by the author, unless otherwise indicated. 31 ishikawa toshiyuki (navy ministry secretary) to kawamura sumiyoshi (navy minister), november 17, 1878. national archives of japan (najp) kōbun ruisan meiji 11 kōhen vol. 21 dobokubu vol. 1. jacar ref.c09113016000. 88 privilege and competition: tashiroya in east asian treaty ports, 1860–1895 acquire storage for exporting goods to the shanghai market. the navy made a decision to give the space to kōgyō shōkai in january 1879, but the tashiros did not give up. hoping to reverse the decision and renew the lease for another three years, they used all their political connections. in addition to sending three separate petitions to the navy ministry, written by monzaemon, genpei, and kaneko kenjirō, they also obtained a recommendation from utsumi tadakatsu, the governor of nagasaki. however, the navy ministry flatly rejected the plea and signed the lease with kōgyō syōkai on april 28.32 the favourable conditions for tashiroya had certainly begun to shift away from the days of exclusive trade licenses. the reason for tashiroya’s persistence is not entirely clear. even though the lease price of thirty-six to thirty-seven mexican silver dollars per year was probably cheap, the place seemed of little use to them.33 one possible explanation is that it was a way of maintaining a relationship with the navy. regardless of the aim, the end of the lease was unfortunate for tashiroya, since, if properly cultivated, this kind of close relationship with the state could have made a major contribution to the growth of the firm. affinity with government officials was a key to success for many of the prominent entrepreneurs of meiji japan, such as iwasaki yatarō of mitsubishi, whose shipping service was able to overcome stiff competition from the peninsular & oriental co. of britain and the pacific mail steamship company of the united states due to a heavy dose of government subsidies.34 this loss of its cosy relationship with government officials in shanghai proved to be a bad omen for tashiroya. sukesaku’s struggle, 1879–90 sometime before 1878, sukesaku replaced monzaemon as the head of the tashiro’s main household (honke), and in march 1879 his cousin, gōsaku, became the head of the branch household (bunke). on this occasion, gōsaku jotted down a note in which he thanked monzaemon for the care he had received from the latter despite his wild (hōratsu) demeanour 32 utsumi to kawamura sumiyoshi (navy minister), march 8, 1879. national archive of japan, meiji 12 kōbun ruisan zenpen vol. 15 dobokubu vol. 1. jacar ref.c09113287100. 33 for comparison, in 1886, tashiroya rented the house for its shanghai branch at the monthly price of 60.75 dollars. furutate to sukesaku, february 24, 1886. ahfmtm 0739. 34 for the development of nyk, see william d. wray, mitsubishi and the n.y.k., 1870–1914: business strategy in the japanese shipping industry (cambridge, ma: council on east asian studies, harvard university), 1984. 89transcultural studies 2017.2 after his marriage, which he now regretted. he then pledged that he would “work hard by putting the business first,” and that monzaemon and sukesaku could have his house and land in nagasaki as collateral if he got into financial trouble.35 in the 1880s, sukesaku’s generation sat at the centre of tashiroya’s operations. shortly afterwards, gōsaku collaborated with mitsui bussan kaisha, one of japan’s biggest financiers, in the export of porcelain to the united states. leading the new york branch of tashiroya, he accepted mitsui’s investment between 1880 and 1882, and relied on the company’s ships for carrying goods across the pacific. the investment was 22,622 yen in 1881 for export to the united states, but sales did not live up to expectations. the following year, gōsaku only managed to repay 14,125 yen and mitsui’s records do not show any further transactions involving him.36 yamada takehisa has noted that, because of this low performance in the american market, tashiroya and other porcelain sellers began to reorient their export towards the chinese market. by december 1883, gōsaku was back in nagasaki, applying for a passport to go to singapore, and hinting that the family’s attention was turning from the north-american to the southeast-asian market.37 around the same time, it became clear that tashiroya’s strengths no longer lay in luxury products. in 1881, monzaemon and sukesaku submitted twenty-six pieces of porcelain, including vases, lamp holders, and bowls, to the second imperial japanese domestic industrial exposition (naikoku kangyō hakurankai), held in ueno park in tokyo. three other groups from arita submitted porcelain objects: kōransha, seiji kaisha, and shirakawa elementary school (where pottery was part of the pupils’ education). it was most likely an embarrassing moment for tashiroya when all of the other arita participants received a prize from the government, while they had to go home empty-handed.38 from the next round of the exposition onward, the tashiros did not even enter submissions. 35 gosaku to monzaemon, april 15, 1878; gosaku to monzaemon, march 28 and 30, 1879. ahfmtm 0667. 36 shōichi asajima, “sōgyōki mitsui bussan no shotōshi: meiji 9 nen–25 nen no kōsatsu” 創業期三井物産の諸投資--明治9年～25年の考察, senshū daigaku shakai kagaku kenkyūjo geppō 専修大学社会科学研究所月報 565 (2010), 1–59. note that the japanese currency switched from ryō, used under the tokugawa shogunate, to yen, in 1871. see marius jansen, ed., the cambridge history of japan vol. 5: the nineteenth century (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1996), 606. 37 dajp 3.8.5.8. reel 2. 38 aritachōshi tōgyōhen vol. 2, 168–178. 90 privilege and competition: tashiroya in east asian treaty ports, 1860–1895 losing the edge for high-end products meant that they had to concentrate on daily-use or industrial porcelain for the east asian market. nevertheless, the general market environment for porcelain in the 1880s was difficult. in tianjin, the import of foreign porcelain (which effectively meant japanese porcelain) surged tenfold in 1885 from the previous year (chart 1).39 however, this boom lasted for just two years. the japanese consul in tianjin explained the rising demand as being due to the novelty of the japanese products, which were assessed at the same tax rate as chinese products, and the dealers’ decision to import large quantities. arakawa minoji, the acting consul at tianjin, pointed out that most of the porcelain bought during the two-year boom was put into stock and did not reach consumers. worse, the japanese products proved to be less durable than the chinese competition, and their colour and design were not sufficiently standardized, which made it difficult, for instance, to buy a pair of teacups that matched each other exactly. facing these difficulties, it was not long before some companies began dumping their stored products, dragging down the retail price. arakawa noted that the price for a large teacup went from twenty sen (one fifth of a yen) to two or three sen by 1885 and 1886. the rise in the import tax for japanese porcelain in 1887 was another blow to the trade.40 japan’s treaty with the qing government had no most-favoured-nation clause, and therefore had no way of circumventing the change in the qing’s tax rates. tashiroya tried to turn things around by developing a new product: electric insulators for telegraph poles. in japan, the production of insulators using porcelain started soon after 1869, following the installation of a telegraph line between tokyo and yokohama. a year later, the telegraph office (denshinryō) asked fukagawa eizaemon, who would become one of the founding members of kōransha, to produce electric insulators made of porcelain.41 in trying to export insulators to china, tashiroya faced competition from this local rival.42 both companies wanted the chinese market to themselves, and each filed a 39 made by the author. data includes only the goods that went through customs and not junk trade. retrieved from a memo by the japanese consulate in tianjin, september 12, 1892. enclosed in arakawa minoji (acting consul in tianjin) to hayashi tadasu (deputy foreign minister), september 14, 1892. dajp 3.5.4.27. 40 memo by japanese consulate in tianjin, september 12, 1892. enclosed in arakawa minoji (acting consul in tianjin) to hayashi tadasu (deputy foreign minister), september 14, 1892. dajp 3.5.4.27. 41 seiki nakayama, arita yōgyōno nagare to sono ashioto: kōransha 100 nen no ayumi 有田窯業の流れとその足おと: 香蘭社百年の歩み (aritamachi: kōransha, 1980), 6. 42 aritachōshi shōgyōhen vol. 2, 220–221. 91transcultural studies 2017.2 competing patent.43 the japanese government approved neither and instead contemplated a division of labour—kōransha for japan’s domestic market and tashiroya for china—but this did not materialize. sukesaku got his first order of fifty thousand insulators at twenty-eight sen per unit from the chefoo daotai (circuit intendant) in 1887 and tashiroya completed the delivery by winter of that year.44 when sukesaku came back the next year to negotiate another round of orders, the chefoo daotai demanded a reduced price of twenty sen. this was because kōransha had sold ten thousand units at twenty sen earlier in 1888. sukesaku had no choice but to match the reduced price to sign the deal.45 the entry of tashiroya into the insulator business in china unleashed a price war among the japanese suppliers there, an “utter stupidity” in the words of hayashi gonsuke, the japanese vice consul of chefoo.46 as a result, 43 for tashiroya’s patent application, see sukesaku to yamagata aritomo (agricultural and commercial minister), september 21, 1886. ahfmtm 0573. 44 daotai 道台 referred to the administrative units below the governors-general in the provincial governments in the qing empire. there were around one hundred of them, though the number fluctuated throughout the dynasty’s reign. the holder of this position took charge of a range of civil and military affairs in a given region (dao), which usually consisted of two to three prefectures within a province. see yuansheng liang, the shanghai taotai: linkage man in a changing society, 1843–90 (singapore: nus press, 1990), 5–7. 45 dajp 3.5.4.26. 46 hayashi gonsuke to asada tokunori (foreign ministry, commerce division chief), june 25, 1887. dajp 3.5.4.26. chart 1: values of domestic and foreign porcelain arriving at tianjin (in taels). 92 privilege and competition: tashiroya in east asian treaty ports, 1860–1895 the japanese government decided that it needed to implement measures in order to stabilize the price. under the initiative of takahira kogorō, the japanese consul in shanghai, three arita companies, namely kōransha, tashiroya, and higuchi haruzane, signed a price-maintenance agreement on july 28, 1888. their pact required the registration of all exporters of insulators at the japanese consulate of each of the respective cities; prior price consultation with other companies; the prevention of major price deviation between cities; and an agreement to avoid monopoly.47 the agreement proved ineffective. in 1889, the chefoo daotai, having heard that sukesaku was in shanghai, invited him to chefoo to place another order. when sukesaku showed up, the chefoo daotai demanded a price of nineteen sen, noting that someone had sold 4,200 insulators at that price in shanghai earlier that year. alarmed by this potential loss of bargaining power, the acting japanese consul at chefoo, nose tatsugorō, urged sukesaku to stand firm. after several rounds of negotiations, sukesaku managed to sell fifty thousand units at twenty sen. nose reported to tokyo that the cause of the difficulties in maintaining prices might be attempts by one of the insiders to squeeze out the competitors.48 as sukesaku struggled for the sale of insulators across the chinese coast, the hotel business in shanghai performed no better. once the population of japanese residents in shanghai began to increase and various types of accommodations sprang up, tashiroya as a hotel was no longer as popular as before. astor house, kaiyōgō, and kiyōgō were the hotels that people with more money frequented. soon after taking charge of the hotel in 1885, furutate yōzō reported to sukesaku in nagasaki that the hotel was hardly making any profit. for example, in 1885, the shanghai branch was narrowly covering the loss in the hotel business with the sales of porcelain. furutate lamented that “hardly any of our guests pay the rent without delay; people who come to this port are usually in debt.”49 thus, furutate wrote to sukesaku to ask the guests’ parents, back in japan, to pay on their sons’ behalf. some of the parents, upon request, indeed sent money to sukesaku in nagasaki.50 47 hayasi gonsuke (vice consul of chefoo) to asada tokunori (commerce division chief, foreign ministry), june 25, 1887. dajp 3.5.4.26. 48 nose tatsujirō (acting vice consul of chefoo) to aoki shūzō (deputy foreign minister), august 27, 1889. dajp 3.5.4.26. 49 furutate to sukesaku, february 24, 1887, ahfmtm 0739. 50 ahfmtm 0735. 93transcultural studies 2017.2 by 1888, furutate’s report showed his uneasiness about tashiroya’s worsening standing in shanghai: […] as you know, if i stay with the management of the hotel and do not interact with the high society in this port, there is a risk of being excluded [haiseki] […] if i suddenly pretend to be upper class, that is also quite improper and will not win respect.51 by the late 1880s, tashiroya was trying to save money wherever it could. it is clear that the managers took full advantage of the emerging connectivity that accompanied the expanding japanese steamship services offered by vessels of mitsubishi mail, which started a regular service between shanghai and nagasaki in 1875. tashiroya employees smuggled merchandise in order to circumvent customs at chinese ports by carrying goods in their hand luggage, and by asking the steamship’s staff to do so too. although it is impossible to confirm the extent of this tax avoidance, furutate’s letter quoted below provides a sufficiently clear picture of their plan. he bemoaned that, after the creation of nyk following the merger of mitsubishi mail and kyōdō unyu in 1885, the inspection of luggage had become stricter. he pointed out, however, that ships’ servants could still avoid on-board inspections. the problems arose when they got off at shanghai, because “the customs’ checks are thorough these days.” yet the risk was worth taking, because, even if the boys were caught, “it is just the matter of paying some fines.”52 furutate named three individuals, each serving on three different ships of the nyk, with whom they were friendly. one of them, who went by the name matsuno (no first name mentioned) and worked on the yokohama maru, was to be the first to undertake the smuggling operation in february 1886. prior to his departure furutate explained the plan: from now on, i will be asking a man named matsuno who is a boy in the lower [cabin] of yokohama maru to carry goods. when the ship arrives at your port [nagasaki], he will visit your house. if you have anything to send [to shanghai], feel free to give it to him. i will give him a letter addressed to you and he will be taking this round of upbound service, so please bear that in mind. for the transportation fee, i will give it to him at 51 furutate to sukesaku, may 18, 1888. ahfntm 0741. 52 furutate to sukesaku, january 20, 1886. ahfmtm 0739. 94 privilege and competition: tashiroya in east asian treaty ports, 1860–1895 this port for those goods only. please note that too. you can also ask him [to carry] goods from your place to kobe or yokohama. he is from yokohama, and is well-known to our customer mr. muraoka. so i will ask him about [matsuno’s] background and will report that in future correspondence.53 judging from the letter it is highly probable that furutate and sukesaku’s tax-dodging started with the yokohama maru, and their intention was to make it a regular habit. indeed, it was not limited to the boys who covertly carried tashiroya’s merchandise. sukesaku and his employee nakamura yūsuke were once caught carrying a large quantity of porcelain on their way to shanghai. below is what sukesaku wrote soon after this ill-fated arrival in shanghai in october 1886 to his father, monzaemon, back in nagasaki: at six p.m. on the second, as we departed, a police officer came and checked all of the passengers’ passports. on the next day, around nine p.m., a westerner on the ship in charge of cargo came and began to check chinese passengers’ hand luggage. he made unreasonable claims and exacted the transportation fee of fifty sen or eighty sen. [then] he checked my bags. i told him it was for two people. the cargo man said it was too much even for two people, and i should pay a fee of two dollars. i told him that would be too much. the cargo man said, if it was all clothes i may be excused, but the weight [of these bags] is heavy and the inside needs to be checked. i said the content was porcelain to be given as a souvenir. then another western man came and told me discreetly that i should pay him one dollar. later on, the accounting officer came and gave me the payment receipt.54 this was not the end of the story. when sukesaku was disembarking, he was afraid that the volume of his luggage might cause further problems. he therefore left nakamura on board, disembarked alone, and sought furutate to ask what he should do. however: a couple of western officers from customs came and boarded the ship. they inspected goods even in the servants’ room, not to speak of the cooks’ room (apparently they are conducting a 53 furutate to sukesaku, february 17, 1886. ahfmtm 0739. 54 ahfmtm 0741. 95transcultural studies 2017.2 thorough inspection, due to the recent cases in which people smuggled a large amount of sulphur, salt, and other items into china in their hand luggage). [the inspectors] came to my bags and asked if they were hand luggage. i said they are, but apart from the clothes there were souvenirs to be taken to tianjin. the inspectors then immediately opened my bag, seized them […] and took them to customs.55 the seized goods were five pieces of porcelain. sukesaku protested through a japanese interpreter, but the inspectors took sukesaku’s porcelain objects to customs office. sukesaku was able to recover them only after getting help from the japanese consul and paying the tax (1.82 dollars) and the fine (7.86 dollars). sukesaku warned monzaemon that they should avoid sending excessive amounts of goods as hand luggage, because “it was a real nuisance.”56 sukesaku’s account is interesting in a number of ways. the fact that he reported this “incident” to his father suggests that, to begin with, the passport check and on-board luggage inspection were not standard procedure, at least in their understanding at the time. sukesaku did not say whether he had a passport, but the application record kept at nagasaki around this time has no corresponding entry on him. nevertheless, if he was indeed fined for undocumented travel, he would most likely have reported that to monzaemon. thus, the likelihood is that he was carrying an old passport from a previous trip. multiple entries on a single passport had been allowed since 1878 between china and japan, specifically for the convenience of people like tashiroya employees.57 it is also interesting that he was able to negotiate the fee with two officers (who, presumably, worked for the chinese maritime customs) and there does not appear to have been a standardized rule with which to determine the payable amount. yet, most importantly, their attempt to haggle over taxes and fines amounting to only a few dollars speaks to the shop’s general financial standing of the time. 55 sukesaku to monzaemon, october 8, 1886. ahfmtm 0741. 56 sukesaku to monzaemon, october 8, 1886. ahfmtm 0741. 57 najp, dajō ruiten 3, vol. 19. notice from the foreign ministry, march 22, 1878. jacar ref. da00623100. on the development of japan’s passport system, see takahiro yamamoto, “japan’s passport system and the opening of borders, 1866–1878,” historical journal 60, no. 4 (2017): 997–1021. 96 privilege and competition: tashiroya in east asian treaty ports, 1860–1895 a recovery shot in seoul in the 1890s compared with the relative privilege that it had enjoyed in the 1860s and the early 1870s, by the beginning of the 1890s, tashiroya struggled to make ends meet. the general condition of the market was no longer favourable. in april 1889, the tax for japanese porcelain imported to china was increased, which had the effect of reducing japanese exports to china. in the following year, the porcelain dealers in arita conducted hardly any business and many left the town to find seasonal work.58 in the nearby village of kuma, the number of active kilns decreased from about sixty to around ten.59 in this difficult period, sukesaku, who sat at the centre of business operations in the nagasaki branch, died in 1890 in his early forties.60 the remaining members of the family seem to have had no clear strategy for going forward, but the sale of insulators to the qing led them to stumble upon another business opportunity. nakamura yūsuke, who was shuttling between the shanghai and chefoo branches, learnt about the plan to renovate gyeongbokgung, the korean royal palace in seoul. nakamura and kaneko kantarō, both agents of tashiroya in china, jumped on the news, immediately visiting the japanese consulate in chefoo with samples of roof tiles. after obtaining a letter of introduction from a consular officer, the two agents headed to the japanese legation in seoul and met kokubu shōtarō, the legation secretary.61 kokubu recommended them to kim changhyun, a senior member of the korean court who oversaw the palace renovation project directed by the ruler, the daewongun. the approach from tashiroya was well-timed because the koreans had not been able to find a company able to produce the palace’s signature feature: blue roof tiles. in the past, they had been provided by qing artisans, but this time kim had not found anyone suitable. after consultation between kim and the tashiroya agents, tile samples were introduced to the daewongun, who liked the product and decided to procure thirty thousand roof tiles from a company that had hitherto been unknown to them. kim changhyun 58 saga shinbun 佐賀新聞, march 6, 1890. cited in aritachōshi shōgyōhen vol. 2, 108. 59 saga shinbun, june 6, 1891. cited in aritachōshi shōgyōhen vol. 2, 108. 60 yamada, “meiji zenki,” 50. sukesaku’s age is calculated by his passport application record from 1884, which noted his age as “thirty-seven years and eight months.” according to the common practice of counting one’s age in the lunar calendar, he would have turned forty-three on january 1, 1890. dajp 3.8.5.5.–1 vol. 5. 61 this part of the account is derived from ōtori to mutsu, january 5, 1894, dajp 3.3.17.6. 97transcultural studies 2017.2 and kaneko kantarō signed a contract in the summer of 1891, with the advance payment of 1,378 yen, including the initial purchase of 1,000 tiles for 117 yen.62 while tashiroya had little record of producing roof tiles, landing this contract was nonetheless a major achievement and could have paved the way for tashiroya’s financial recovery. nakamura and kantarō took kim to arita, and expanded tashiroya’s factory buildings in order to enhance its production capacity. the advance money from korea funded all of these additional economic activities. when kim was still in arita, a strong storm hit the town, destroying the raw tiles already under production and badly damaging the newly built factory. tashiroya managed to manufacture the initially promised one thousand tiles, but the contract for the entire order needed renegotiation. with the pilot products finished, therefore, the party decided to go back to seoul. nakamura, kantarō, and kim left arita in the middle of november, and boarded nyk’s genkai maru from nagasaki.63 in accordance with the original contract, kim had arranged with korean officials at the port that the tiles would be tax-free.64 they arrived in seoul in early december, and kim and kantarō signed a revised contract with a new deadline at the end of the second month of 1892 (lunar calendar) for the delivery of thirty thousand tiles. tashiroya had less than four months to regroup and resume production. another problem emerged when kim inspected the tiles that he had brought back. it turned out that out of the one thousand tiles, three hundred had broken during transport. indeed, the remaining tiles fared no better, as they proved to be far from durable enough to endure the korean winter, and many of them had cracked.65 since the amended contract of december 1891 included no references to these broken or cracking tiles, it is likely that kim found out about the problem only after the tashiroya agents had departed. the deadline of early 1892 passed without the arrival of the tiles at inchon. in spite of repeated requests for explanation from kim through 62 ahfmtm 0661. 63 the departure of nakamura and kaneko can be crosschecked with the fact that they received passports in nagasaki on november 20, declaring seoul their destination. the application record has a slightly different first name for nakamura, but that is most likely a copying error. dajp 3.8.5.8 reel 8. 64 chongkwan kongmun 總關公文 vol. 5, december 2, 1891. http://db.history.go.kr/id/ mk_073_0050_0720. [accessed on october 29, 2016]. 65 note by kim changhyun, dated may 24, 1892. dajp 3.3.7.16. 98 privilege and competition: tashiroya in east asian treaty ports, 1860–1895 the japanese consulate in seoul, neither kantarō nor the tashiro family in arita responded. as the problem dragged on, sugimura fukashi, the japanese consul in seoul who was transmitting the message back to japan, eventually got the attention of tokyo. the foreign ministry began to urge the officials of saga prefecture, which encompassed arita, to take the initiative in ensuring tashiroya’s implementation of the contract. given the potential stakes involved in the problem, the response from both the meiji government and tashiroya was remarkably slow. it took the japanese government more than a year to take any substantive action that would elicit a response from tashiroya. in september 1893, a saga prefectural officer visited tashiro’s house in arita, but was unable to find either of those responsible for the deal—kantarō and nakamura. the officer talked to monzaemon, who was in his late seventies and looked “senile,” and sato, the widow of sukesaku, but found neither to be capable of handling the problem. the two did, however, produce a petition to explain their position to kim changhyun and the korean court. the tone of the letter was to defend the actions of tashiroya and to resist taking full responsibility. after making apologies for the delay in replying to the repeated inquiries, the tashiros suggested that kim might bear part of the responsibility for the quality of the tiles, given that he himself had visited arita to examine the soil quality. the company, monzaemon and sato argued, considered his opinion in producing the tiles, and therefore the sixty-five hundred tiles that they had produced so far should be accepted in lieu of returning the advance money. “if we were to pay the remaining amount in cash, we could do it only through a ten-year loan,” they added.66 upon receiving this petition in seoul, kim rejected the idea that he was partially responsible and insisted that tashiroya should compensate him in cash. the two sides disagreed over the exchange rate between the korean and japanese currencies, and the deduction of kim’s travel and “souvenir” costs from the advance money. eventually the debate among the japanese officers in tokyo, saga, and seoul moved on to whether an agent from tashiroya needed to make another visit to seoul in order to negotiate directly with kim so as to settle the issue. the japanese officers in seoul who were relaying the messages were sympathetic to kim, who “almost looked like he was fainting.”67 66 monzaemon and sato to nagamine yakichi (governor of saga), september 7, 1893. dajp 3.3.7.16. 67 sugimura to hayashi, october 20, 1893. dajp 3.3.7.16. 99transcultural studies 2017.2 sugimura, the japanese consul, suggested that nakamura should make a stop at seoul while he travelled between japan and china—a reasonable suggestion given that the genkai maru connecting tianjin and nagasaki went through inchon. this proposal received support from hara takashi, the chief of the commerce division (tsūshōkyoku) of the foreign ministry in tokyo. the japanese officers were alarmed by kim’s suggestion that he might file a lawsuit against tashiroya. ōtori keisuke, the plenipotentiary minister to korea, hesitated to consider this “a normal lawsuit” because of the involvement of the governmented bodies. he was also beginning to worry that this quarrel might have wider repercussions and lead to a general hostility among korean diplomats towards japan. ōtori thus proposed to mutsu munemitsu, the foreign minister, that tashiroya should the affair to a quick end by paying back a part of the advance immediately and the rest in instalments.68 in clear contrast to monzamon’s relations with the saga domain, tashiroya at the end of the nineteenth century was unable to draw on the support of the meiji government. after repeated requests, the tashiro family finally agreed to send nakamura to seoul in march 1894, but he may have failed to show up in person. the person who did meet kim in seoul in early april was a man by the name of tashiro shōzaburō, representing tashiroya in what was apparently his first visit from nagasaki to seoul.69 it is unclear whether nakamura accompanied shōzaburō.70 whether nakamura was present or not, shōzaburō and kim concluded a new agreement on april 30, 1894, witnessed by a japanese consular officer, as can be confirmed by the sealed original document that survives in a korean archive.71 68 ōtori to mutsu, january 5, 1894. dajp 3.3.7.16. 69 dajp 3.8.5.8 reel 10. this is his first appearance on the passport application record in nagasaki. he is listed as thirty-two years and six months old, and heading for china for commercial purposes. it is curious that he put china, rather than korea, as the destination. one possible explanation is that he was going to visit tashiroya’s branches in china after negotiating with kim, but this cannot be confirmed from the available sources. 70 the passport records in nagasaki in the corresponding period only have an entry for “nakamura yū,” coming from the same town as tashiroya’s nagasaki branch, but stating that he was going to pusan for fishery. this might have been tashiroya’s nakamura using a false identity, or he might have come directly from china, as suggested by sugimura, in which case the trip would not appear in the japanese archive. dajp 3.8.5.8. reel 10. 71 chūkan nihon kōshikan kiroku 駐韓日本公使館記録 vol. 11, 4. this might have been his first overseas trip, as his name had not appeared in the passport applications record in nagasaki in the previous years. 100 privilege and competition: tashiroya in east asian treaty ports, 1860–1895 considering tashiroya’s shortcomings, kim seemed surprisingly gracious in concluding this new agreement with shōzaburō.72 instead of getting back the advance money at once, he agreed to receive 235.46 yen within five months, and the remaining 1,000 yen, with his personal travel costs deducted, in instalments over the next two years. the matter remained unsolved even after the sino–japanese war (which shōzaburō mentioned in one letter addressed to a municipal officer of saga as an excuse for not “bothering the officers with this trivial matter”).73 shōzaburō promised to go to korea again, but it is unlikely that he ever did. well into 1896, the foreign ministries of the two countries were discussing the possibility of civil litigation, though by this point it would have been very low on the agenda of both governments. tashiroya’s general lack of revenue from other sources and the drastic fall of what was once the saga domain’s most powerful porcelain dealer must have been the core reason for the company’s refusal to refund down payments, thereby also forfeiting further business opportunities in korea. conclusion the emergence of tashiroya, an arita porcelain wholesaler in the east asian market, was a product of the saga domain’s need to finance military and economic reform in the 1850s. perceived external pressure and the need to tap into the overseas market fostered the development of tashiroya’s enterprise. in the subsequent decades, tashiroya’s success or failure in the treaty port trade depended heavily on its relationship with the authorities. japanese ministries, qing city magistrates, and the korean royal court all impacted the fate of the family in one way or another. before 1868, the saga domain’s licence system had protected tashiroya’s overseas export, but afterwards, tashiroya received less and less political favour. it tried out new products, such as electric insulators and roof tiles, but ultimately neither was able to secure the company’s future. especially consequential in hindsight were the failure of a patent application for the insulator, which led them into a price war in china, and the order of roof tiles from the korean court, which brought down the east asian operations of the family. among the tashiros, the only one who came out of these tumultuous decades in fine shape and achieved some fame and fortune was 72 uchida (seoul consulate) to hayashi, february 15, 1895. dajp 3.3.7.16. 73 shōzaburō to takasu kin (nishimatsuura country), april 3, 1895. dajp 3.3.7.16. 101transcultural studies 2017.2 ichirōji, another adopted son of keiemon, and a brother of genpei and gōsaku. in contrast to the rest of the family, all of whom relied on the east asian market, ichirōji, operating from his yokohama branch after 1867, successfully tapped into the japonisme boom in the western world. by the time he died in 1902, ichirōji was a well-respected figure in the local business community. a japanese commemorative publication celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of yokohama lauded him for his contribution to japanese porcelain. the book extolled his efforts in touring around japan encouraging the export of porcelain. he studied the western market and accumulated years of experience, to the point that “foreign visitors would normally go to his nagoya branch to observe the production, and our nation’s exporters asked him about market trends, amounting to what has to be called a great impact.”74 yet the archival records in arita are strangely silent about this man, who could have offered support to the rest of the family in the trying times of the 1890s. other members of the family faded away unnoticed. sukesaku died in 1890. genpei died in shanghai in 1893. monzaemon, already frail and unfit for taking up difficult negotiations with kim, passed away in 1900. the shanghai branch lasted into the twentieth century, but it lost the significance of days past. when, in 1942, the japanese settler association (kyoryūmindan) in shanghai celebrated its thirty-fifth anniversary, its commemorative publication of thirteen hundred pages made only one passing reference to tashiroya, without giving any individual names.75 also telling is the entry for tashiro shōten in the encyclopedia of japanese ceramics, published in 2002. it introduces the shop as “based in yokohama city, kanagawa.” the rest of the entry focuses on this yokohama branch, as well as the nagoya branch that became the headquarters around the end of the nineteenth century. there is no mention at all of monzaemon, genpei, sukesaku, or their business in china or korea.76 there is one place, however, where monzaemon’s name is alive today. it is within the circle of antique porcelain collectors. elaborate arita pottery marked at the bottom “hichōzan shinpo 肥碟山信甫,” denoting 74 tadakichi morita, kaikō gojūnen kinen yokohama seikō meiyokan 開港五十年記念横浜成功名誉鑑 (yokohama: yokohama shōkyō shinpōsha, 1909), 198–199. 75 shanhai kyoryūmindan, ed., shanhai kyoryūmindan 35 shūnen kinenshi 上海居留民団35周年記念誌 (shanghai: shanhai kyoryūmindan, 1942), 42. 76 “tashiro shōten,” the encyclopedia of japanese ceramics (tokyo: kadokawa shoten, 2002), 853. 102 privilege and competition: tashiroya in east asian treaty ports, 1860–1895 a commission by monzaemon, appears in the collections of several western museums, including the metropolitan museum in new york and the victoria museum in melbourne, australia, as well as numerous auctioneers.77 these items serve as a reminder of the short-lived foray he had made into the western market, before his focus turned to the east asian ports. the economic and cultural background of tashiroya’s story in the late nineteenth century developed during the previous two centuries, with korean potters and the tokugawa’s trade in nagasaki. once japan opened the treaty ports, the ensuing network of ships and merchants accelerated the flow of goods across the east asian waters and provided the direction for businesses like tashiroya, keen to explore and adapt to overseas markets. arita porcelain, and the tashiro family who brought it to the east asian treaty ports, therefore embodied the transcultural flow of people, capital, material, and information.78 77 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/52363 [accessed on february 16, 2018]; https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/1453409 [accessed on february 16, 2018]. 78 i would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments to the earlier version of this article, as well as to ozaki yōko, the head of arita history and folklore museum for her support in locating the sources. the crucial part of this research was funded by japan society for the promotion of science, mext/jsps kakenhi grant number jp 16j07860. the ideological antecedents of the first-series renminbi worker-and-peasant banknote | schwartz | transcultural studies the ideological antecedents of the first-series renminbi worker-and-peasant banknote or what mao tse-tung may have owed to dziga vertov peter j. schwartz, boston university ce qui compte ce ne sont pas les images mais ce qu'il y a entre les images.[1] as eugene wang has pointed out in an unpublished paper,[2] the worker-and-peasant design on the one-, tenand fifty-yuan notes in the first renminbi series of 1949 (figure 1) is an iconographic anomaly with important consequences. this design is derived in several steps, as wang has shown, from a soviet three-ruble note of 1938 (figure 2), and, like it, is a stock example of the canonical socialist realist icon of the worker, peasant, soldier, or leader viewed from below whilst gazing heroically into the symbolic dawn of a socialist future.[3] it departs from earlier chinese banknote imagery in a number of ways, informs the design of many subsequent prc banknotes, and has recently become an object of iconic appropriation in chinese art (figure 3).[4] to a degree, its novelty is one of content, although, as we shall see, it is equally one of form. fig. 1: renminbi (first series), ten-yuan note, 1949. fig. 2: soviet three-ruble note, 1938. fig. 3: first renminbi (2010). oil on canvas. 250 cm x 150 cm. to speak first of content: we have here a portrait, not of a leader or a historical or legendary figure, but of two characteristic citizens—a worker and peasant idealized in their pose, albeit with individual physiognomies. in china, numismatic portraits of any sort are a recent innovation. unlike in the greco-roman tradition of the west, portraits of leaders dead or living did not appear on chinese currency until the turn of the twentieth century (when pictures of ministers and living leaders, including the emperor, began to figure sporadically alongside idealized portraits of ancient emperors and sages), and realistic portraits of any sort are rare before the appearance of sun-yatsen's portrait on republican banknotes in 1923.[5] otherwise, landscapes, government buildings, and monuments are the usual images sharing pictorial fields on money cluttered with the ramified ornamentation and lettering of nineteenth-century steel engraving styles. from 1923 to 1948 on the mainland (and in taiwan up to the present), sun yat-sen gazes directly out from many state-issued bills (figure 4), while between 1945 and 1949 regional banks under communist control issued notes adorned with a formally similar frontal portrait of mao (figure 5)[6]—a practice discontinued with the centralized first-series renminbi issues of 1949 by the people's bank of china, for reasons that we shall explore. in prc currency too, portraits remained for a time rather more the exception than the rule, though from firstto fifth-series renminbi one can chart a progression in their favor. aside from a ten-yuan note with another, brighter worker-and-peasant two-shot (figure 6), the second series (1955–1962) avoids portraits entirely. they become more prominent in third-series renminbi (1962–1974), with one-, two-, and five-yuan notes showing a female tractor driver, a lathe operator, and a foundry worker, respectively (figures 7, 8, 9), while oneand ten-jiao notes multiply the heroically forward-gazing and -marching populace into small crowds of mixed vocational composition (“education and productive labor”) (figures 10, 11). the fourth series of 1987–1997, however, consists almost entirely of portraits in fullor three-quarter profile, most of them double and hence recalling the first-series worker-and-peasant device, yet representing ethnic rather than class physiognomies (exceptionally, the fifty-yuan note, in what seems a post-cultural revolution reparative move, supplements a worker and a peasant with an intellectual—identifiable as such from his spectacles) (figures 12, 13, 14). mao's first appearance on prc currency occurs on a note in this series: on the 100-yuan note he is aligned, in medallic low-relief profile, with zhou enlai, zhu de, and—another deng-era recuperative move—liu shaoqi (figure 15). most recently, the fifth series of 1999 reproduces the same three-quarter headshot of a faintly smiling mao on every denomination, thus standardizing a formerly eclectic iconography (figure 16).[7] fig. 4: kwangtung provincial bank, one-dollar note, 1931. fig. 5: tung pei bank of china, 500-yuan note, 1947. fig. 6: renminbi (second series), ten-yuan note, 1957. fig. 7: renminbi (third series), one-yuan note, 1969. fig. 8: renminbi (third series), two-yuan note, 1964. fig. 9: renminbi (third series), five-yuan note, 1969. fig. 10: renminbi (third series), one-jiao note, 1967. fig. 11: 11: renminbi (third series), ten-jiao note, 1966. fig. 12: renminbi (fourth series), ten-yuan note, 1988. fig. 13: renminbi (fourth series), two-yuan note, 1988. fig. 14: renminbi (fourth series), fifty-yuan note, 1987. fig. 15: renminbi (fourth series), 100-yuan note, 1988. fig. 16: renminbi (fourth series), 100-yuan note, 1999. from the perspective of genre the first-series worker-and-peasant design thus looks like something of an exception. yet its demotic subject matter participates in a program depicting symmetry in agricultural and industrial production that governs the entire series and is carried through on other notes with landscapes that include factories and shepherds, weavers and irrigation procedures, trains and bridges, electrification projects, railway stations, and harrowing, threshing and fertilization scenes. on the formal side, most of these landscapes share with the worker-and-peasant two-shot a characteristically socialist realist deployment of heroic foreshortening and utopian out-of-frame space: the revolutionary pathos of our worker and peasant is matched elsewhere in the series by landscapes that extend railway tracks, furrows, bridges, electrical transmission lines, and horizons of land and sea, not only into the implied utopian spaces of deep horizons or invisible areas to the right and left, but also into the viewer's own implied space (figures 17, 18). the future to which they are looking would seem to be the future to which these lines and paths lead, and, in a manner native to film since auguste and louis lumière first shocked spectators with a train's movement toward the camera in 1895, this utopian future implicitly includes the space from which the viewer regards the image -as the soviet filmmaker dziga vertov's recurrent use of an onrushing train as a trope for the revolution makes clear (figure 19).[8] in this broader context the worker-and-peasant note is not an anomaly within the series, but rather an emblem of the issue's iconographic program as a whole, a program conceived—so wang notes—as an alternative to designs initially featuring mao, which the chairman is supposed to have rejected. the real novelty and lasting contribution of this image to chinese numismatic iconography is therefore not that it is a portrait, nor even simply that it is a double portrait of laborers in a tradition slightly more accustomed to headshots of leaders, but, first, that it replaces the numismatically omnipresent portrait of sun yat-sen that had transfixed chinese with its fierce frontal gaze for a quarter century with a quasi-photographic low-angle shot of two men looking not directly at us but so to speak off-screen top right and ahead into utopian space, a formal device repeated or varied in every renminbi issue afterward; and, second, that this kind of portrait—and remarkably not the otherwise ubiquitous visage of mao—are what supplant the republican image of sun yat-sen on chinese currency.[9] fig. 17: renminbi (first series), 100-yuan note, 1949. fig. 18: renminbi (first series), fifty-yuan note, 1949. fig. 19: louis and auguste lumiére, arrival of a train, 1895; dziga vertov, kino-eye, 1924; the man with the movie camera, 1929. why does mao’s image not appear on renminbi during his lifetime? in retrospect, mao's stated reasons for keeping his portrait off renminbi—that as chairman of the party and not head of state it was inappropriate for him to figure there, and that the achievements of individuals should not be glorified[10]—seem disingenuous given its eventual ubiquity in all media but the numismatic. this apparent paradox has led scholars to seek other reasons for the omission. the results have been remarkably inconclusive, as perhaps they must be, given that the conditions of numismatic production are complex, politically sensitive, and rarely well documented. helen wang supposes that mao's choice may reflect the conflicted status of money in communist ideology; eugene wang wonders if the chairman shied from appearing, like sun yat-sen, on paper money at risk of inflationary devaluation.[11] one could also construe a return to the imperial poetics of absence from which—as rudolf wagner has shown—sun yat-sen's numismatic iconography constituted a radical departure.[12] although all these hypotheses have their merits and may be accurate to some degree, none of them is quite adequate on its own, if only because they neglect certain qualities of the images in question. building upon the mere fact of presence or absence, they fail to take into account the images' formal rhetoric; focusing on the what, they neglect to ask how. my own aim is to extrapolate the logic of mao's omission on prc currency from the iconographic history of the now cliché socialist realist type deployed in his stead, a history dependent as much upon matters of aesthetic form and media syntax as upon considerations of content. in any event, the incongruity may not be quite as large as it seems. to be sure—as daniel leese notes—in the late 1940s and early ’50s the massive leader cult that had been fostered around mao in the mid-1940s “in order to prevent factionalism within the ccp and to compete with the publicity campaigns of chiang kai-shek as ‘national leader’ did not find expression in mao statues or other monuments at this point,” while mao is on record as having intervened personally against certain manifestations of leader cult. yet as leese also observes, “mao's seemingly contradictory behavior, from fostering a leader cult in yan'an to interdicting cult symbols in the early prc and then again allowing for a most exuberant leader cult during the cultural revolution,” betrays the inner consistency of mao the tactician: he clearly understood the instrumental value of a personality cult to fend off competitors and to establish a noninstitutional link with the masses. as long as mao's position and political aims remained uncontested, he expressed contempt for the outer forms of worship that he later linked to 'feudal remnants' in the superstructure. in times of crisis, however, this criticism did not prevent mao from relying on his public prestige and supposed proximity to the masses to circumvent the institutional restrictions posed by his office, even at the cost of destroying the party itself.[13] if mao was intent on reserving leader cult for strategic use as a non-institutional propaganda channel, then keeping his face off central bank issues makes sense: it is hard to dissociate oneself rhetorically from a state whose currency bears one's portrait. i believe however that the omission may also be understood in the light of particular qualities of the images chosen instead to grace chinese banknotes, and in relation to images of mao concurrently in circulation elsewhere within the culture. the unifying thesis of my exposition will be that the pictorial program of chinese communist paper currency—both early and late, from the first series on through to the fifth—engages in manipulations of visual perception of a kind linked by media theorists to the interdependent emergence of new media and of new technologies of social and political control in the modern era.[14] as i shall show, our worker-and-peasant icon uses techniques first developed in cinema to locate the viewer within a network of politically meaningful sight lines that imply a specific relationship not only to mao, but also to other media in which his image (or voice) does appear: painting, posters, film, still photography, sculpture, radio, public announcement systems. in other words, the propagandistic function of the numismatic image derives not only from its own content, form, and medium, but also from its location within the complex imbrication of media channels characteristic of modern state propaganda. soviet and other iconographic sources if in this essay i trace the techniques in question back to mid-1920s soviet russia, it is because these are the years in which we find all the modernist arts—photography, cinema, poster art, radio—first enlisted in concert to serve conflicting power positions in a revolutionary succession crisis; our worker-and-peasant type, it seems, is one of the images they conspire to produce. although this iconic type—familiar not only from stalinist but also from italian fascist and german national socialist imagery—has complex historical origins, integrating elements of hellenistic, roman, and christian visual tradition, the proximate cause of its invention as a distinct type would seem to have been lenin's death in january 1924. as nina tumarkin has shown, the secular cult developed that year and thereafter around the dead leader, rooted as it may have been in longstanding russian cultural habits, arose as a consequence of his epigones' need to consolidate their own power as his legitimate inheritors—a pattern deliberately replicated in china the next year with the funeral of sun yat-sen, a matter to which i shall return.[15] the soviet politburo's maneuvers in this direction were first provoked by lenin's failing health after a stroke he endured in march 1923, and then systematized during and after the funeral exequies of late january 1924, amidst conflict between a stalin concerned to tout his (in fact somewhat tense) connection to lenin through sacral imagery, and a trotsky-bukharin-kamenev faction suspicious of this strategy and at least initially opposed to it.[16] the following year brought the perception, on the part of soviet avant-garde artists, of a need to politicize art so as to help stabilize the regime, an effort to which the development of a standardized iconography of the dead leader in the service of a developing “lenin cult” would be crucial.[17] this involved not only a consolidation of gestural tropes attaching traditionally to western images of the leader—the divinely inspired “melting gaze” upward derived from the hellenistic type of what has been called the “heavenward-gazing alexander” (figure 20),[18] the commanding raised arm of the vatican augustus (figure 21), and the hortatory raised arm, elevated position and crowd-encompassing gaze of the soapbox or podium speaker (figure 23), a late nineteenth-century complex with roots in ancient roman gestural rhetoric (figure 22)[19]—but also their adaptation to the new expressive modalities of the photographic and cinematic arts by prominent soviet artists such as dziga vertov and sergei eisenstein, valentina kulagina, gustav klutsis, and alexander rodchenko. a further significant factor was the element of political, technological, and media pedagogy encoded in the figure's visual syntax. true to its origins in the very moment when russia began a concerted effort to form the “new soviet man,” not least by means of new media (radio, film, poster art, photojournalism), this is an image meant to teach viewers how to enter into new modes of relation with certain objects (lathes, tractors, radio loudspeakers, leaders) as well as to see in new ways—to read precisely images such as this, while internalizing new and politically useful modes of media reception.[20] by 1929, the composite icon thus produced is fully codified as a visual idiom across several media, ready for regular use in the poster and film and sculptural and cinematic propaganda supporting stalin's first five-year plan. with stalin's imposition of socialist realist orthodoxy in 1934,[21] the aesthetic vibrancy of the type's early deployment in the films of vertov and eisenstein, the photomontages of klutsis and kulagina or the photography of rodchenko turns into the arid cliché that would pepper the visual landscape of eastern europe until 1989, and from which chinese moneyers adapted the type in 1948–1949. as we shall see, its export to china required the mediation of european with east asian aesthetic and iconographic traditions within a particular set of local constraints,[22] not the least of which was a need to position mao with respect both to his ambivalent ally stalin and to the delicate legacy of sun yat-sen's emphatic identifications–living and posthumous–with lenin. fig. 20: alexander the great, gold medallion from abu qir, 220–225 ad, obverse. 56 mm. berlin, staatliche museeum, münzkabinett, 1907/230. fig. 21 (left) and 22 (right): augustus of primaporta, marble, first century ad, rome, vatican museums. "l'arringatore", romano-etruscan bronze, second or first century bc. florence, national archaeological museum. fig. 23: soapbox speaker, san diego, 1912. the gaze relay: viewer→ worker→ leader→ utopia at this point a distinction should be made between low-angle shots of the worker, peasant, or soldier and low-angle shots of the leader. in soviet silent cinema, the two types may overlap in the typical worker or peasant firebrand haranguing his less dedicated cohorts to strike or mutiny or read party papers or acquire a tractor for use by the kolkhoz. this double type—which i will discuss with reference to alexander dovzhenko's film earth (1930)—is clearly modeled on lenin. like lenin, dovzhenko's komsomol activist hero vasyl trubenko (symon svashenko) can see beyond the screen frame to a dawning future still invisible to his fellow peasants, whom he exhorts with gestures modeled on lenin's (figure 24)—an oratorical gestural code diffused to the soviet populace above all by film, as oksana bulgakowa has shown[23]—to accept stalin's collectivization of soviet agriculture, just then beginning, in the classic metonym of a new tractor. (the gestural affinity to the type of the orating lenin is even more obvious in the stenberg brothers' poster for the film, which echoes a shot of svashenko in dovzhenko's arsenal (1928) (figures 25, 26) rather more than any in earth.) when vasyl is killed by khoma bilokin, a kulak landowner's son opposed to collectivization, the film transmutes the pathos of his martyrdom into a communal desire to unite behind the program. in a shot very clearly echoing their initial wait for the tractor, we see the peasants moved in the end to direct their collective gaze to a utopian source of light above and behind our point of view (figure 27). we are thus invited to see with their eyes and to desire what they desire: the collectivized, mechanized future that vasyl had seen and desired. yet the peasants attain such vision only once vasyl has died a martyr's death at the hands of the kulak—indeed, as a consequence of his death. the peasants' awakened vision—which cues ours—flows from the fact that vasyl, like lenin, is dead. (both the kulak bilokhin and a priest allied with him appear now in high-angle shots, bilokhin's head ostrich-like in the ground and the priest's heavenward gaze clearly blind, figure 28). the film thus inserts us, its viewers, into an affectively charged chain or relay of gazes that ends by returning us to lenin, the original visionary, but to a lenin marked absent. its final scenes show the peasant mass beatifically harangued by a young party cell leader, vasyl's successor (figure 29).[24] this overall pattern obeys the logic of the cult fostered by lenin's successors after his death in january 1924. vasyl's easy leadership is plainly consonant with lenin's own doctrine of the revolutionary avant-garde, which invests with special foresight a leadership thereby exalted, yet in principle equal to the led. his martyrdom echoes the equation with the christ-like type of the martyred hero that the cult, exploiting deep-set russian habits of thought, imputed to lenin,[25] and in him collectivization is legitimated: through an implicit identification of stalin's vision with that of a lenin whose guiding presence is only intensified by his absence. fig. 24 : alexander dovzhenko, earth, 1930: vasyl exhorting the peasants. fig. 25 (left) and 26 (right): alexander dovzhenko, arsenal, 1928. georgii and vladimir stenberg, poster for dovzhenko’s earth, 1930. kamakura & hayama, ruki matsumoto collection board/the museum of modern art. fig. 27: alexander dovzhenko, earth, 1930. peasants awaiting the tractor's arrival; peasants “singing new songs.” fig. 28: alexander dovzhenko, earth, 1930. khoma bilokin with his head in the earth; priest condemning collectivization. fig. 29: dovzhenko, earth, 1930. vasyl and his successor haranguing the crowd. when the worker, peasant, or soldier are not thus conflated with the leader, we typically see him or her gazing heroically, joyfully, fanatically at an object invisible to the viewer—often enough, a source of light whose identity both with the leader and with his utopia is clearly suggested (figures 30, 31, 32).[26] in cinematic reverse shots or in separate still images, we find the leader in an attitude remarkably like that of his followers, regarding the same off-screen utopian object, but with what seems a higher sort of vision. (in eisenstein's october (1928), by contrast, the demonized government minister kerensky—like dovzhenko's kulak and priest—is shot from above, his gaze directed low, in a trope of restricted vision, figure 33). whereas what the mass gazes upon is the leader and through and in him the future he guarantees, the leader alone sees this future directly and calmly, without manifest signs of desire. fig. 30: dziga vertov, kino-eye, 1924; alexander dovzhenko, earth, 1930; sergei eisenstein, old and new, 1929. fig. 31: leni riefenstahl, triumph of the will, 1935. fig. 32: resolutely protect the policy of the revolutionary three-in-one combination! 1967. ink on paper, 78 x 54 cm. stefan r. landsberger collection. fig. 33: alexander kerensky. sergei eisenstein, october, 1928. the utopian future is thus figured both as the object of the leader's privileged vision and purpose and as his symbolic equivalent; his very person becomes both its metonym and its warrant, and hence a legitimate object of mass revolutionary desire. and the relay does not stop there, for its purpose is not just to represent such desire, but to elicit it in us, the viewers, by inviting us to want what we see others wanting—that is, by integrating us into the relay. in the chinese context, a 1937 woodcut portrait of mao in the communist party newspaper liberation weekly (jiefang zhoukan)—whose use of later cult motifs ("moving masses, flags, and sunrays") daniel leese cites as evidence of the early growth of a mao cult-does something similar not only with its sun-ray and rifle diagonals symbolically relaying power from the sun down to mao and from the red army up to him, but also with our own low-angle perspective on the leader looking paternally at us. we gaze up to mao, while his confident gaze, endowed with the force of the sun, enjoins us to march with his troops to a utopia as yet invisible to us out of frame right, but clearly illuminated by the dawn of the revolution (figure 34).[27] this configuration becomes thoroughly idiomatic in poster art of the cultural revolution (figures 35, 36). fig. 34: mao woodcut in the party newspaper liberation weekly, 22 june 1937. collection of daniel leese. fig. 35: boundlessly loyal to the great leader chairman mao, boundlessly loyal to the great mao zedong thought, boundlessly loyal to chairman mao's revolutionary line. 1966. ink on paper, 76 x 53 cm. stefan r. landsberger collection. fig. 36: advance victoriously while following chairman mao's revolutionary line in literature and the arts. ca. 1968. ink on paper, 76.5 x 154 cm. stefan r. landsberger collection. fig. 37: sergei eisenstein, strike!, 1925. fig. 38: sergei eisenstein, strike!, 1925; the battleship potemkin, 1926. such effects are achieved as much via modernist formal devices as through an equally modernist pastiche of traditional iconographic content. the propagandistic force of the image resides above all in the way it directs the gaze and implies the position of the viewer, and these techniques of direction—the "how" of the image—are distinctly products of mid-1920s european visual culture, both in practice and in theory. thus, for example, the sense these pictures give us that we are viewing their subject from a low-angle perspective is achieved with a version of what in cinema would be called an objective (non-point-of-view) low-angle medium shot—a device that first entered film language and photography in the early to mid-1920s, without ever having been idiomatic in the older arts.[28] soviet filmmakers' use of expressively angled shots has sometimes been traced to eisenstein's 1925 film strike!, which does use them often. yet in fact examples of the "heroic" low-angle shot type are rare, though present, in strike! (figure 37); in this film, eisenstein more often angles shots to general comic, pathetic, or compositional effect, or—as in the battleship potemkin (1926)—to articulate unequal power relationships (figure 38). i shall argue below that it is to eisenstein's rival vertov (who thought himself plagiarized in strike!)[29] that we must look for the origin of our image, for vertov's work reflects more clearly than most the peculiar convergence of historical factors informing the image type: the legitimation crisis following lenin's death, to which vertov responded in groundbreaking ways with his commemorative lenin kino-pravda newsreel of january 1925. the codification of new visual idioms for expressing relationships between political authority and the masses.[30] improvement in the conditions of soviet film production following major institutional changes in 1924–1925.[31] the rise to cultural dominance of a technocratic enthusiasm for social engineering and scientific management of industry that vertov found very congenial, inspired by the thinking of frederick winslow taylor and promoted in russia initially by lenin and then above all by alexei gastev, whose program achieved institutional form, with lenin's help, between 1920 and 1924. a new understanding of film editing as a matter of constructing meaning in the viewer's mind by guiding attention and response through careful juxtaposition of shots ("the kuleshov effect," first theorized between 1919 and 1924),[32] a conception easily compatible with technocratic fantasies of social engineering and from then to the end of the decade a hallmark of soviet filmmaking. the rise of the public radio loudspeaker as a significant conduit for propaganda in the early to mid-1920s.[33] origins of the heroic low-angle shot cinematic low-angle shots are a datable import, entering russia along with the films from the west to which lenin's "directive on cinema affairs" of january 1922 opened the ussr.[34] as barry salt notes, in the early 1920s there was a move in french and german cinema from using highand low-angle shots "as distant pov shots, which was the only way they had been consistently used before, to shooting them without such motivation, and from closer in as well." in german expressionist films especially, "there was some tendency to associate low-angle shots with the creation of an imposing impression in the figures so treated, despite the fact that they were never presented as the point of view of a character in the film."[35] we can trace possible sources of influence on soviet practice in films circulated in russia in the early 1920s. one of the earliest german films to use low-angle shots, arthur von gerlach's revolutionary drama vanina (1922), was part of a package of imports in 1922;[36] there are notable low-angle shots in murnau's nosferatu (1922) and fritz lang's dr. mabuse, the gambler (1922), a film eisenstein and esfir shub edited for the soviet market before becoming filmmakers themselves (figure 39),[37] the "ivan the terrible" segment of paul leni's three-part anthology film waxworks (1924)—from which eisenstein would later copy the makeup for his own ivan the terrible (1944/46)—is shot entirely from low angles that routinely identify the despot with orthodox icons, a visual comment on power that may well have caught early soviet filmmakers' notice (figure 40);[38] and in lang's two-part epic die nibelungen (1924), we find a shot from below of heralding trumpets that would enjoy a long afterlife in both nazi and communist propaganda (figure 41). as the french and american "apparatus theorists" of cinema perceived in the mid-1970s, like the renaissance invention of single-point perspective in painting, such camera positioning assigns a position to the viewer in ways that support specific articulations of selfhood and social power.[39] moving further back in the western tradition, we find antecedents of such viewer positioning in classic herrscherand reiterbilder of alexander, augustus (figure 21) and marcus aurelius, and, imitating them, ones of louis xiv, peter the great and napoleon (figure 42)—a model repeated in vasily iakovlev's 1945–1946 equestrian portrait of marshal zhukov (figure 43).[40] fig. 39: f.w. murnau, nosferatu, a symphony of horror, 1922; fritz lang, dr. mabuse, the gambler, 1922. fig. 40: paul leni, waxworks, 1922. fig. 41: fritz lang, die nibelungen, 1924; leni riefenstahl, triumph of the will, 1935; east german young pioneers, 1953, from wolfgang kissel, kinder, kader, kommandeure (strictly propaganda), 1991. fig. 42 (left) and 43 (right): jacques-louis david, bonaparte crossing the great saint bernard pass, 1801. chateaux de malmaison et bois-preau, reuil-malmaison, france. oil on canvas. vasily iakovklev, victory (portrait of marshal zhukov), 1945–46. oil on canvas. state tretyakov gallery, moscow. ustanovka and viewer positioning if the upraised arm of the orating lenin (which mao would also adapt, also incorporating what looks to be a sinified version of what has been called the ancient "cosmocrator's sign" (figures 44, 45))[41] echoes that of surviving statues of augustus, this is thus an echo amplified in the resonance chambers of several historical strata of media practice. the mid-1920s add to an older semantics of leadership the visual geometries of a taylorist program of biomechanical positioning (gastev's term: установка, ustanovka; the equivalent term in german is einstellung). this program and its techniques of directing attention, designed initially to train workers in workplace efficiency, were soon extended to political pedagogy, where methods originally developed to position workers in relation to their machines were used also to orient them to the media channels of state authority.[42] we see the beginnings of a new aesthetic of attention in illustrations to gastev's 1923 book kak nado rabotat' (how to work, 1923), in designs by gustav klutsis for combined public radio stands and projection screens (1922),[43] and in el lissitzky's "lenin tribune," designed for a square in smolensk (1924) (figures 46, 47, 48). the way the joyful gaze of our renminbi worker and peasant signal a willingness to follow and work would thus reflect their origin in the intentions of the aesthetics of ustanovka: for mao's goal, like gastev's, is to integrate the "new man" by "training through drills" (тренаж, trenazh), within a mechanized and militarized collectivism attached to authority and to work. taylorism's affinity with the war machines of the late 1930s is clearly visible in the soviet three-ruble note of 1938, our chinese banknote's immediate model (figure 2). this transposition from the soviet to the chinese design is consistent with mao's original conception of the red army as a workers' and peasants' militia. beginning in 1955, two years into mao's first five-year plan, the third series of renminbi returns emphatically to the technocratic roots of the ustanovka aesthetic with its stalinist images of a female tractor driver, a lathe operator, and a foundry worker (figures 7, 8, 9). fig. 44 (left) and 45 (right): gold solidus of valens(364–378 ad), reverse: valens and valentinian, with haloes, frontally seated on thrones, right arms raised, with globes; the inscription reads gloria romanorum. 73 mm. vienna, kunsthistorisches museum. mao reviewing the chinese army at tiananmen, 1966. fig. 46: alexei gastev, kak nado rabotat' (how to work), 2nd ed. moscow: tsentral'nyi institut truda, 1923. fig. 47 (left) and 48 (right): gustav klutsis, ekran (screen), 1922. linocut, 23 x 9.3 cm. merrill c. berman collection. el lissitzky, lenin tribune, 1924. gouache, india ink, and photomontage on cardboard, 63.8 x 48 cm. moscow, state tretyakov gallery. we can attribute a similar orientating function to the upward gaze of our subjects, which enlists a reflex essential to human cognitive development—the response known to psychologists as "gaze following" whereby one is cued by the gaze of another to seek out with one's own eyes what he may be looking at—in the service of a legitimation strategy that depends paradoxically on the absence of the thing looked at, a point to which i shall return. (pointing gestures, also plentiful in propaganda, have been classed, with gaze following, as a form of "joint attention," a phenomenon thought to be a sine qua non of human forms of cognition and social interaction, including language acquisition.)[44] the earliest known political use of such a device may be seen in the type of the "heavenward-gazing alexander," derived from a sculptural type of lysippos proclaiming what has been variously interpreted as the macedonian's pothos or "perpetual desire to do something new and extraordinary" (arrian, indica 20. 1–3) or his divinely inspired right to rule, and widely disseminated on coins and in statuary throughout the hellenistic period.[45] from the greek east, the type migrates to rome, where it informs late republican images of scipio and pompey and (skipping caesar and augustus, whose legitimation strategies worked differently)[46] imperial iconography from nero onward, continuing into the christian era, in which "the inspired relation of the emperor to christ [took] the place of the emperor's relation to the gods of antiquity."[47] the leader's pothos and/or his relation to the divine, as intimated by his look upward to objects unseen by the rest of us, has remained part of the iconography even of democratic leadership, as shepard fairey's iconic obama hope poster for the 2008 us presidential campaign demonstrates (figure 49). the delight of conservative bloggers in discovering a debt to socialist propaganda that fairey has never denied attests to the continuity and versatility of this iconographic tradition: as a google search of the phrase "communist obama" will demonstrate, the genealogy of fairey's image passes quite clearly through lenin. fig. 49: shepard fairey, obama hope, 2006. décadrage and the kuleshov effect if these two devices (low-angle heroic perspective and visionary gaze upward) have their ultimate origins in antiquity, two other techniques informing our banknote seem properly modern—indeed, datable fairly precisely to the early to mid-1920s, and initially rooted in cinematic rather than still photographic practice. one of these is what the film theorist pascal bonitzer has called deframing or décadrage: the use of "out-of-field" (out-of-frame, off-screen, hors-cadre) spaces (or, later, sounds) not "pragmatically" justified by subsequent shots or by context to indicate referents that do not belong to the realm of the visible, or to the normal order of space and time.[48] the horrified stares off-screen of the doomed first mate and captain in nosferatu (figure 50) or murnau's telepathic eyeline matches between a hyena and the horses and peasants spooked by it, or between the vampire in transylvania and his distant eventual victim ellen (figure 52), can stand as classic early examples of the practice, which spawned an eternal cliché of the horror genre (figure 51). the other is the psychological understanding of film editing as a matter of constructing meaning in the viewer's mind by guiding attention and response through careful juxtaposition of shots, developed theoretically by lev kuleshov between 1919 and 1924 and thereafter a hallmark of soviet silent filmmakers. fig. 50: f. w. murnau, nosferatu, a symphony of horror, 1922. fig. 51: alfred hitchcock, psycho, 1960. fig. 52: f.w. murnau, nosferatu, a symphony of horror, 1922. dziga vertov's amusing integration of show window mannequins into kuleshov-style reaction sequences in the "morning" sequence of the man with the movie camera (1929) characteristically exploits the utopian potential of combining hors-cadre shots with the kuleshov effect: we see the mannequins gaze off-screen, presumably at the still sleeping city; reverse shots pick out objects and sites that will awaken to figure significantly in the film (figure 53). located as they are in shop windows—a favored interwar cinematic locus for tropes of commercial and scopic desire, access and unobtainability, transpicuity and reflection—vertov’s models imply a relay of gazes (film viewer to mannequins to city) that implicitly places us, as viewers, within the metropolis while prompting our affective involvement. we become interested denizens of the new soviet city; its utopian story, it is suggested, will include us. in triumph of the will (1935), a seminal work of nazi propaganda whose stylistic debt to soviet cinema is obvious if unavowed, leni riefenstahl deploys a similar technique to show nuremberg's medieval architecture, public statuary, children, and even cats greeting hitler (figure 54).[49] these reaction sequences direct the gaze of the nazi faithful to a blind spot somewhere above and behind the viewer; the gaze relay (film viewer to devotee to leader) ends with us always already located in the leader's utopian space, our affection primed by what rené girard calls triangular or mimetic desire.[50] fig. 53: dziga vertov, the man with the movie camera, 1929. fig. 54: leni riefenstahl, triumph of the will, 1935. here we may recognize an effect for which film theory has coined the word "suture." this somewhat contested term is used to describe a mode of viewer identification structured by the shot/reverse shot editing pattern typical of classical narrative cinema (but whose utility to propagandists is manifest), in which we see in one shot an actor looking off-screen at an undisclosed object or view and in the next that object or view (or, alternatively, first the view and then the actor presumed to be viewing it). such sequences prompt an identification with the actor flowing from reflexive mimesis of his desire for, and ability to see, the (to us) invisible object of his gaze. although suture theory construes as this effect's motive force the capacity of film editing alternately to provoke and assuage the unending sense of lack and desire for "being" that jacques lacan named as the price of man's life in the realm of the symbolic, for our purposes it may be adequate to remark that people will generally want to see what they see others seeing and want what they see others wanting, especially if such seeing or wanting is marked with affect. every shot in a film both shows what it shows and makes us want to see what it omits. if what it shows is a figure looking off screen, then what we long to see is the object of its gaze, which is what the classic reverse-angle shot in narrative cinema will normally give us. as viewers, we have thus been subtly stitched or "sutured" into a relay of gazes, identifications, and desires organized by the film's editing patterns. the relay is unending because "every attachment of a shot to its reverse shot compensates for an absence but at the same time evokes the void it is trying to fill once again. [...] suture refers to the ongoing process of supplementation in which each reverse shot presents itself as an answer to a missing perspective while at the same time summoning a new absence. in this way, films become an endless chain of images that can end only with rather arbitrary statements like 'the end'."[51] of course, if what is to fill such narrative absence is a utopia, the propagandist has a problem. utopian futures are always, by definition, the product of progress as yet unrealized. unachieved futures are hard to describe concretely, especially in volatile political situations, and as a consequence revolutionary propaganda typically points out directions—indicates vectors of vision—without presuming to represent in detail just what is envisioned. the efficacy of shepard fairey's obama hope poster (2006) relied in precisely this way on the semantic open-endedness of both image and text, as fairey, an astute student of socialist propaganda, freely admitted: "the american public is generally pretty superficial, so an image like that just allows them to project whatever limited idea they have onto it."[52] in this image as in its precursors, the icon of the leader becomes a placeholder for the utopia, his visible envisioning of the invisible a symbolic warrant for its possibility, its vague description an ecumenical commonplace on which all can in principle agree.[53] the serviceability to propagandists of such patterning through point-of-view sequences—actual, as in film, or implied, as in paintings, medals, posters, banknotes, and still photography—is readily evident, and indeed ideological manipulation by levers of scopic desire is a major focus of the broader field of "apparatus theory" to which the notion of suture belongs, as is the idea that the lens of the movie camera positions (and thus defines or constructs) the viewing subject in ideologically determinate ways.[54] despite fundamental differences between the editing styles and aims of the classical hollywood films mainly theorized by apparatus theorists and those of leni riefenstahl or the soviet avant-garde, in all of these styles it is in point-of-view shot/reverse shot sequences that we find special propagandistic value—a convergence that may partly be explained by a common debt to the editing practices of d.w. griffith.[55] if weimar germany's approach to the legacy of griffith is distinguished by a peculiar relation of onto off-screen space, as thomas elsaesser observes—"while motivated views are very frequent, the reverse-field shot is in fact rather rare, and off-screen space retains its powers of suggestion, menace, dread"—and if fritz lang's version of this in mabuse associates such off-screen space with a personified source of control whose power resides in its vision—"what typifies this cinema is that power is equated with vision, and vision with knowledge, and knowledge with control, and control with anxiety in a power/anxiety/knowledge nexus almost entirely mapped on the axis seeing/unseen/being seen"[56]—then we may also observe that leni riefenstahl's editing installs hitler at the locus of power where lang placed mabuse. she reverses, however, the valence: where mabuse was a source of the chaos troubling weimar germany, hitler is the antidote to that chaos—an effect anticipated in a nazi poster for the 1932 elections, which, echoing lang, implicitly equates hitler's vision with hypnotic control (figures 55, 56).[57] fig. 55 (left) and 56 (right): fritz lang, dr. mabuse, the gambler, 1922. hitler election poster, 1932. washington dc, u.s. holocaust memorial museum/photo by heinrich hoffmann. fig. 57: heinrich knirr, portrait of adolf hitler, 1939. fort mcnair, u.s. army center of military history. courtesy of the army art collection. fig. 58: fedor shurpin, the morning of our fatherland, 1946–1948. moscow, state tretyakov gallery. fig. 59: liu chunhua, chairman mao goes to anyuan, original painting 1967; poster, 1968. ink on paper, 106 x 76 cm. iish collection. fig. 60 a–c: leni riefenstahl, triumph of the will, 1935. what nazi and communist film propaganda achieve with such sequences is to amplify the suggestiveness of the hors-cadre—its implication that answers to questions posed on screen may be found off-screen—with the self-conscious didactic potential of soviet-style montage. if in one shot a gaze off-screen appears to ask: "who is (or should be) in charge here?" the next shot will answer the question, so to speak catechistically. yet whereas in the nazi case the answer is dictatorial, clear and direct—the hors-cadre is quickly occupied by the führer—soviet cinema's articulation of meaning is by necessity rather more subtle, at least initially. after lenin's death, the symbolic construction of communist authority necessarily reflected complex and changing relations among 1) an official source of state legitimacy in workers and peasants already in theoretical tension with lenin's idea of the party as a political vanguard; 2) a developing leader cult begun shortly before lenin's death and advanced with great energy thereafter by party cadres concerned with the transfer of power, and 3) stalin's increasing subordination of the cult's symbolism to his own goals.[58] in vertov's films of 1924–1929, political authority is identified with orators, flags, posted party directives, radio loudspeakers, and the legacies of marx and—especially—lenin. not until around 1930 does the figure of stalin become the requisite answer to every question (a requirement vertov failed to meet in three songs of lenin, 1934, displeasing stalin)[59]—as for example in posters of 1930 by klutsis and kulagina whose visual hierarchies would later be echoed in china. now we have the solitary leader gazing at a future whose visibility to him justifies his leadership (figures 57, 58, 59, 60a);[60] we have him exhorting the masses to follow him into this future, his eyes surveying them from above while also fixed beyond them upon his utopian vision (figures 60b, 60c, 61).[61] in stalinist imagery—including mao's—the leader may march with the workers and peasants, but he is larger than them and noticeably in their vanguard (figures 62, 63).[62] unlike hitler, however, the communist leader cannot dispense with a quasi-egalitarian nod to the people as the ultimate source of his authority, and some form of pietas with regard to his revolutionary predecessors: while the nazi relay stops short at hitler, the communist one must negotiate a longer chain of identifications. this can be seen in the difference between the medallic low-relief image known in china as the "five immortals" (marx-engels-lenin-stalin-mao, figure 64) and a nazi plaquette showing goebbels, goering, and hitler in similar formation (figure 65): whereas the communist image legitimates mao by locating him at the vanguard of a genealogical sequence, the nazi medal indicates hitler's supremacy by placing him at the forefront of his ruling clique.[63] (the posthumous relief image of mao, zhou enlai, zhu de, and liu shaoqi on the fourth-series 100-yuan note of 1988, mentioned above, strangely mixes these modes, figure 15). if we compare such images with, for example, napoleon's triple portrait with alexander i and friedrich wilhelm iii on a medal commemorating the treaty of tilsit (1807, figure 66), we perceive not only that hitler emulates napoleon by letting juxtaposition signify as alliance and not pedigree, but also that even in medallic art the hors-cadre has a newly acquired utopian function: mao and company, the "five immortals" and hitler's men seem to gaze past the edge of the portrait at an object of common vision in a way that napoleon and his allies do not.[64] fig. 61: dong xiwen, the founding ceremony of the nation, original painting 1953; modified poster version 1964. ink on paper, 53 x 77 cm. stefan r. landsberger collection. fig. 62: gustav klutsis, real'nost' nashei programmy (reality group), maquette, 1931. collage with vintage gelatin silver prints and gouache, 22.5 x 17 cm. merrill c. berman collection. fig. 63: chen yanning, chairman mao visits guandong country, 1972. shanghai, long museum. fig. 64 (left) and 65 (right): long live marxism-leninism-mao zedong thought! ca. 1968. ink on paper, 77 x 109 cm. private collection. leben heisst kämpfen (to live is to struggle), c. 1935. bronze, 15 x 9.5 cm. collection of peter j. schwartz. fig. 66: bernard andrieu, vivant denon and jean pierre droz, the treaty of tilsit, 1807. bronze, 40.2 mm. the idioms of soviet montage differ from german editing as well as from soviet filmmaker to soviet filmmaker—vertov and eisenstein, for instance, spilled a great deal of ink attacking each other's technique, while eisenstein took issue with certain sequences from dovzhenko[65]—but among these three filmmakers, at least, such debates obscure a common dependence on the (often utopian) semantic potential of off-screen or out-of-frame space. the semantic openness of such off-screen space is however severely curtailed under stalin. as margarita tupitsyn has shown with help from film theory, after about 1930 soviet photography—encouraged and intimidated by official criticism—tends rather to frame determinate realities as desirable than to deframe given reality with an eye to utopia; indeed, one can say much the same of soviet film.[66] there is in fact an argument to be made for the primacy of cinema in the invention of décadrage: after all, was it not cinema that invented empty shots, strange angles, bodies alluringly fragmented or shot in close-up? the fragmentation of figures is a well-known cinematic device, and there has been much analysis of the monstrosity of the close-up. deframing is a less widespread effect, in spite of movement of the camera. but if deframing is an exemplary cinematic effect, it is precisely because of movement and the diachronic progress of the film's images, which allow for its absorption into the film as much as for the deployment of its 'emptiness effect.'[67] it may be true generally, as jean mitry argues, that unlike in still photography, in film the meaning of camera angles depends to a large degree on how shots are edited together—that is, on montage; much the same can be said of the use of off-screen space.[68] nonetheless, our peasant-and-worker two-shot does seem somehow to prompt expectation of, desire for, a reverse shot, just as their gaze into out-of-frame space makes us want to know what they are looking at. to the extent that they thus imply their own position within a sequence one could perhaps call such still images cinematic. in any event, it appears that the earliest objective low-angle shots in soviet photography that show figures gazing into utopian space are used in photomontages of 1924 to articulate in space relations articulated in space and time by soviet filmmakers the same year. this development may perhaps be dated by comparing gustav klutsis' poster electrification of the entire country (1920) (figure 67) with his photomontages of 1924 for the periodical young guard (figure 68).[69] whereas the image of 1920 already conjoins angled perspectives with a heroic image of the still-living lenin, this is not yet the heroism of the visionary, but of the acting leader achieving particular tasks. despite the picture's split perspective, our view of lenin is frontal, and his gaze, with the viewer as its clear object, remains contained within its frame. by contrast, the photomontages of 1924 repeatedly show lenin gazing (and sometimes speaking) with unspecified intent into an out-of-frame space with unspecified content. worth noting beyond this is the shift from a live, active lenin who looks at us with a certain humor in 1920 to a dead, absent one whose gaze and activity are directed out-of-frame, with a pathos quite lacking in humor, at an indeterminate object. although rodchenko's photomontages of 1923 for mayakovsky's poetry volume pro eto (for this) employ photographic angles and gazes directed to unseen objects, they do so only irregularly and with no consistent significance.[70] by contrast, rodchenko's 1924 cover for the book toward the living ilyich, using the same photograph as klutsis of lenin making a speech in red square on 1 may 1919, articulates a clear message: "lenin speaks from all sides to the communist world" (figures 69, 70).[71] the photograph also recurs on a poster in footage of a german communist parade used by vertov toward the end of three songs of lenin (1934) (figure 71). it may not be an exaggeration to see in this photograph of 1919 a seed kernel of our image type, which then required the sequential syntax of cinema as a seedbed for hybridization with a new visual rhetoric of inspiration and mass response. indeed, despite the broad dissemination of this raised-hand gesture in lenin's posthumous iconography—including scenes in two feature films widely viewed in china, mikhael romm's lenin in october (1937), in the last scene of which the gesture is quite emphatically repeated (figure 72), and lenin in 1918 (1939)[72]—the extant photographic and documentary corpus includes relatively few images of lenin with his arm upraised.[73] in any event, by the time chinese moneyers adapted their worker-and-peasant device from stalin's currency, this sort of sequence had had twenty years to become formulaic, not only in film—where, in the mid-1930s, it easily jumped from soviet cinema to riefenstahl's seminal triumph of the will (1935)—but also in posters, photomontages, still photographs, and, in the nazi case, books incorporating collectible stills from riefenstahl's film.[74] the propagandistic effect of the image type thus relies on accumulated cultural knowledge of the sequential filmic formula from which it migrated. thanks to this codified visual idiom, the viewer of the single image already knows what the sequence implies: lenin, stalin, hitler, or mao—the state's central legitimating icon or transcendental signifier, its significance only intensified by delay, deferral, and absence.[75] fig. 67: gustav klutsis, elektrifikatsiia vsei strany (toward the electrification of the entire country) 1920. ink, gouache, continuous tone photographs, colored paper, pencil, printed letters, paste, 46 x 27 cm. merrill c. berman collection. fig. 68 (left) and 69 (right): gustav klutsis, photomontage from molodaia gvardiia. leninu (young guard: lenin), 1924. ink on paper, 26 x 17 cm. new york, the museum of modern art. alexander rodchenko, cover for toward the living ilyich, 1924. fig. 70: grigori petrovich goldshtein, lenin in red square, 1 may 1919. fig. 71 (left) and 72 (right): dziga vertov, three songs of lenin, 1934. mikhail romm, lenin in october, 1937. cinematic origins of the gaze relay: dziga vertov it is difficult to say whether this type of relay began in film and moved from there to poster and book art or vice versa, or whether it developed simultaneously in several media. (one could perhaps also relate the still images' synchronic articulation of sequential events to techniques of continuous narration used in visual art since antiquity, including their use in orthodox icons.)[76] vertov's interest in "typically constructivist" angles of perspective has sometimes been attributed to his association with rodchenko, whose sculptures of the early 1920s explore eccentric angles of vision, but whose photographs using such angles (eventually named "rodchenko angles") in fact date mostly from the later 1920s (figure 73).[77] certainly, there were constructivist angles in constructivism before they were applied photographically to the human figure or the human face—vertov's heroic low-angle shots of soviet bridges and factories have clear aesthetic antecedents in earlier futuristand cubist-inspired painterly and sculptural work by tatlin, malevich, rodchenko, naum gabo, and gustav klutsis.[78] yet it appears that this application did not occur before 1924, and when it did, it did so in contexts that gave such angles new meaning. the new context was that of modernist photomontage[79] and of the post-lenin power vacuum, which seems to have encouraged a focus on leader figures and their correlation with representations of mass response. in any event, i have seen no clearly heroic low-angle photographs, still or moving, antedating 1924, the year in which vertov composed his first systematically articulated montages of agitation and crowd response in the feature-length newsreel compilation kino-eye, while klutsis and rodchenko produced comparable images in the medium of photo collage (including rodchenko's poster for vertov's kino-eye, a film for which rodchenko also designed the intertitles) (figure 74).[80] nor are such angles in evidence in vertov's earlier newsreel series kino-nedelia (film week, 1918–1919),[81] though they are already to be seen in the earliest issues of kino-pravda that i have had access to: tentatively in kino-pravda #5 (july 1922), and emphatically in kino-pravda #18 (march 1924), though without clear utopian overtones.[82] fig. 73: alexander rodchenko, pioneer girl, 1930. moscow house of photography. fig. 74: alexander rodchenko, poster for dziga vertov, kinoglaz (kino-eye), 1924. lithograph on paper, 93 x 70 cm. merrill c. berman collection. in kino-eye, released in october 1924, no political leader in fact appears as such: all the film's low-angle sequences route crowd response not to the figure of lenin, but to a disembodied party authority whose communications media are as much vertov's focus as is their message. (we do see hints at an integration of the ustanovka aesthetic with coaching in media use and a relay to lenin in kino-pravda #18 (figure 75).) thus one segment in kino-eye intercuts low-angle shots of young pioneers posting on a wall a broadside with high-angle shots of reclining workers and peasants apparently looking up to it (figure 76); a directive to buy groceries at the cooperative market elicits similar reaction shots from a female shopper (figure 77), while attentiveness to the party message is modeled with pioneers' reaction shots to their troop flag (figure 78).[83] there is also a low-angle sequence in which a youth leader demonstrates to a crowd of young leninists (and a somewhat confused-looking toddler) how to read the new communist youth journal pioneer (figure 79). beginning with the commemorative leninskaia kino-pravda newsreel of january 1925 (kino-pravda #21), however,[84] vertov regularly models mass receptiveness to party communications in low-angle reaction sequences that relay the viewer's gaze eventually to the dead father of the revolution.[85] fig. 75: dziga vertov, kino-pravda #18, march 1924. fig. 76: dziga vertov, kino-eye, 1924. fig. 77: dziga vertov, kino-eye, 1924. fig. 78: dziga vertov, kino-eye, 1924. fig. 79: dziga vertov, kino-eye, 1924. the leninskaia kino-pravda anchors its only such sequence to lenin via the story of russia's electrification—two themes linked a priori by lenin's dictum of 1920 "communism is soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country."[86] we see newsreel footage of ilyich signing instructions to bring electricity to the soviet countryside; then a shot of a rural couple's hut, followed by a low-angle close-up of electrical wires attached to an insulator under its eaves. cable is spooled from a truck, and then from below we see a man up a pole hanging wires. the wires are attached by another man to one wall of the hut; there is a low-angle shot of one insulator above a window, and then the camera follows the current into the house with a slight low-angle close-up of a single light bulb. from outside we see a window lit from within, and then, in a medium shot, an old woman seated indoors before the same window, sharply illuminated by a light source off-screen left and looking intently at an undisclosed off-screen object top right. now we have what initially seems a reverse shot, from below, of an icon of the madonna, also lit from the left: our peasant woman—so it seems—has been praying. but the next shot reveals her wearing radio headphones and smiling at us, bemused; we see we've been tricked by our own assumptions, and that, thanks to lenin, the russian peasantry may be farther along than we'd thought on the path to successful modernization (figure 80). the sequence finishes with a return to the single light bulb—an icon of electrification—and with the glow of electric-cum-media enlightenment spilling out through the windows onto snow outside. a similar conjunction of metaphors is to be found in seventeenth-century portraits of faust and nostradamus, which figure the utopian vision offered by a relatively new medium, the printed book, with a gaze upward through windows to light (figures 81, 82). fig. 80: dziga vertov, leninskaia kino-pravda (kino-pravda #21), january 1925. 35 mm projection print. cambridge, harvard film archive. fig. 81 (left) and 82 (right): rembrandt van rijn, faust, ca. 1652. engraving, ink on paper, 212 x 162 mm. portrait of nostradamus, from the frontispiece of a volume of his prophecies published in 1666. vertov's stride, soviet! (1926) ends its catalogue of soviet accomplishments with an attention-modeling sequence that includes members of a workers' club gathered around a radio loudspeaker and then workers and peasants gazing attentively off-screen at an orator's recollection of lenin's "vow of electrification" being fulfilled in a row of bulbs lighting up (we see these from below) and in lenin's name written in lights on the side of the building of the moscow soviet (figure 83); this is followed by the intertitle comment "unforgettable," a soldier standing sorrowfully at attention, and a shot of the corpse he guards—lenin's (figure 84). fig. 83: dziga vertov, stride, soviet!, 1926. fig. 84: dziga vertov, stride, soviet!, 1926. in a sixth part of the world (1926), not lowbut high-angle shots predominate, perhaps as a consequence of the work's somewhat condescending ethnographic intention as a paean to ethnic diversity in the ussr. near the end of the film, however, we have a sequence of mostly low-angle shots that function similarly to those in the other films. first suggesting the retrograde nature of religion by alternating footage of ethnic religious practices with shots of a ship stuck in arctic ice, vertov intercuts a proudly advancing "icebreaker lenin" with evidence of soviet economic, technological, and intellectual advancement, much of it shot from below (figure 85). this is followed by a low-angle shot of a radio loudspeaker intercut with reverse high-angle views of listening multitudes and happy children (figure 86). we then have an expository relay from the loudspeaker via overhead wires (conduits, the montage suggests, of radio signals and current) to the dniepr dam, to factories powered by it, and to their products; the sequence is capped with a low-angle shot of the enormous portrait of the dead leader suspended above lenin's tomb in red square in 1924 (figure 87). in a further scene modeling media reception, we see russian sailors play lenin's voice on a gramophone to doubtful-looking samoyeds (figure 88). fig. 85: dziga vertov, a sixth part of the world, 1926. fig. 86: dziga vertov, a sixth part of the world, 1926. fig. 87: dziga vertov, a sixth part of the world, 1926. fig. 88: dziga vertov, a sixth part of the world, 1926. vertov's first sound film, entuziasm (1930), refers in its opening sequence not to lenin but to leningrad: here a female radio listener (shot from below, gazing over our heads) fights the aural and visual (implicitly ideological) cacophony of church bells and icons to catch the enlightening strains of nikolai timofeyev's symphony of the don basin (figure 89). like the radio peasant woman's grin, her mimic expressions alternately of annoyance and pleasure indicate the correct source of truth, not in a light bulb, but in the line to radio leningrad. fig. 89: dziga vertov, entuziazm (symphony of the don basin), 1930. similarly, a sequence in the man with the movie camera (1929), in which the camera drunkenly sways when aimed up at a church but then rights itself on discovering lenin's portrait over the door of a workers' club, conveys the same message, while in three songs of lenin (1934), nearly every close-up on a person functions implicitly or explicitly as a reverse-angle reaction shot to lenin or to some aspect of his significance. the dead lenin thus symbolically anchors each sequence as alpha and omega, as the ideal source and goal of all revolutionary effort. these films of vertov's show with special clarity how the political and aesthetic constraints of communist life after lenin could lead to visual strategies involving symbolic deferral or relay. the logic of lenin's cult built the legitimacy of his successors on incessant reminders of his absence, on a repeatedly emphasized lack for which they, and stalin in particular, were implicitly the supplement.[87] the proliferation of lenin-linked relays that i have described—their enchaining of images in an "ongoing process of supplementation in which each reverse shot presents itself as an answer to a missing perspective while at the same time summoning a new absence,"[88] stitching or suturing the viewer into the narrative via affective identification encouraged by several kinds of pathos (revolutionary pathos, mourning, the pathos of the direct gaze at the viewer or of the gaze beyond him)—may thus be understood as a consequence of a mid-1920s legitimation crisis that would stabilize with stalin's consolidation of power, yet remain endemic to this and other communist systems thanks to ambiguities in defining the sources of communist legitimacy and a related lack of clearly defined succession mechanisms.[89] mao's omission from renminbi and his posthumous reappearance the lenin cult's strategy of anchoring unstable present claims to authority in iconic, mythologized memories of an undisputed dead leader may have its earliest precedent in the coinage of the diadochi of alexander the great. despite early development in sculpture, alexander's image (including the "heavenward-gazing" iconic type noted above) may not have appeared at all on coins in his lifetime, and it is certain that its proliferation after that was meant primarily to support his successors' claims to legitimacy.[90] in this respect its legitimating function (both political and economic) may be compared with that of lenin in soviet visual culture after —illich's image does not appear on currency until 1936, on the three-ruble note-or to mao's posthumous appearance on fifth-series renminbi, in 1999.[91] both of these dates connote moments of economic and political flux. in china, 1999 marked not only the eightieth year since the may fourth movement, the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the prc, and the tenth of the protests in tiananmen square—occasions "more than merely commemorative" in their liability "to remind people of unresolved issues and new tensions in the country"—but also a phase of transition in party leadership and in economic behaviors, both international and domestic.[92] 1937, the worst year of stalin's purges, saw lenin's face on a new issue of the alternative chervonets currency whose notorious instability is acidly satirized in bulgakov's master and margarita (figure 90);[93] additionally, this issue included language vaguely tethering its value to the assets of the state bank rather than to a gold standard, as heretofore. these bills were withdrawn from circulation in 1947 as part of a soviet effort to curb postwar inflation;[94] mao's decision shortly thereafter to keep his portrait off the new centrally-issued banknotes[95] may thus have had as much to do with this russian precedent as with avoiding association with sun yat-sen's unstable currency. fig. 90: soviet chervonets, 1937. for mao in 1949, the matter was doubtless complicated by chiang kai-shek's prior claim to the political and iconographic heritage of sun yat-sen. rudolf wagner has demonstrated how closely sun yat-sen's funeral exequies of 1925 were modeled on lenin's mummification, glass-lidded coffin, mausoleum, and much of the ritual of the corpse's display were adapted directly from strategies developed in russia the year before at a comparable moment of crisis and perhaps transmitted partly through limited chinese screenings, in march and april 1924, of the six-reel memorial film похороны ленина (pokhorony lenina, "lenin's funeral,"which included footage later used by vertov in his own lenin kino-pravda) to a government elite. (this was not the only soviet film shown in china at this juncture: eisenstein's potemkin was a great favorite with the revolutionary elite in 1926. the pronounced influence of soviet cinema style on chinese cinema in the early 1950s was however a consequence not of memories of the 1920s, but of the flood of soviet films into china following the sino-soviet treaty of 14 february 1950.)[96] just as the lenin cult originated in factional conflict within the politburo he left behind, so too did the sun cult spring from a power struggle between several factions in the remaining chinese government.[97] yet however useful sun's image may have seemed to chinese communists in 1925, by the late 1940s (indeed, by the late 1920s) too many symbolic markers had shifted for this association to serve them well. firmly claiming political continuity with sun yat-sen and lodging his portrait on its paper currency, from 1927 on chiang kai-shek's guomindang would tap much of the symbolic value of identification with sun (and of sun's identification with lenin). this would reduce the symbolic value of both lenin and sun for chinese communists, who continued to claim descent but also distanced themselves from sun's "bourgeois" revolution, while rather restricting his visual presence. although a party directive of 7 october 1949 instructs placement of portraits of mao and sun in state buildings, sun's portrait was not mandatory,[98] and sun's image appears only rarely on posters alongside mao's. (the only one i have found, from 1950, represents banners of mao and sun being carried together in a national day parade; an exception that perhaps proves the rule, in that it demonstrates sun's special function as one of two fathers of the nation (figure 91).)[99] mao also follows stalin's lead in relegating lenin to the status of a legitimating ancestor of his own cult: when lenin is aligned with mao in chinese propaganda, it is most often simply as one of the "five immortals" of marxism-leninism.[100] fig. 91: su guojing, celebrating the people's republic of china's national day, december, 1950. ink on paper, 42 x 57 cm. iish collection. the history of the great portrait of mao that has hung in tiananmen square since 12 february 1949 suggests both the necessity of negotiating this iconographic legacy and the significance of the problem of gaze direction. as wu hung has shown, five different versions of this painted image were produced between 1949 and 1967. the first, unofficial image, replacing a full-frontal portrait of chiang kai-shek (1945–1949), itself a replacement of one of sun (1929–1945), showed mao gazing frontally out at the viewer, much as he does on the pre-renminbi local currency issues of the mid-1940s.[101] a second image—the first official portrait, hung 1 october 1949—reproduced a low-angle photograph of the chairman looking upward in three-quarter profile. a third image, presented on 1 may 1950, did likewise. significantly, it drew criticism for avoiding eye contact with the people: "with his eyes turned upward the chairman seems to disregard the masses."[102] the fact that the painter xin mang and his colleagues at the beijing fine arts academy responded to this critique by only slightly lowering mao's gaze in a fourth version (1 october 1950), without quite detaching it from out-of-frame space, implies a certain investment in mao's line of sight that cannot be explained in terms of disregard for the masses; its utopian charge—or a certain aversion to replicating the full frontality of prior portraits of sun and (especially) of chiang, whose portrait had been a target of protest as recently as may 1947—may have been at issue. this version was followed by three very similar variations on a fully frontal portrait with eyes staring straight at the viewer (1952, 1963, 1967).[103] in this context, how are we to interpret the fact that the portrait of 1950 is the basis for mao's image on fifth-series renminbi (figures 92, 93)? the moneyers' modifications to the portrait suggest an answer. mao's oft-noted slight mona lisa smile on the currency, coupled with what appears a reduced attentiveness in the eyes to the usual out-of-frame space, make for a benign, non-activist mao more or less consonant with the denatured pop-culture icon of the early 1990s "maocraze,"[104] while the recursion to an image of 1950 turns back the iconographic clock to a moment safely preceding the cultural revolution. fig. 92 (left) and 93 (right): xin mang, zuo hui, zhang songhe, chairman mao zedong, 1951 (printed reproduction of the tiananmen portrait of october 1950). ink on paper, 39 x 27 cm. stefan r. landsberger collection. renminbi (fifth series), 100-yuan note, 1999. as noted above, the fourth renminbi series of 1987&ndasdh;1997, which includes mao's first posthumous numismatic portrait on the 100-yuan note, already undertakes a significant departure from prior iconographic practice: although its double portraits initially recall the first-series worker-and-peasant device, with one exception (the fifty-yuan note) they represent ethnic and not class pairings of gaoshan and manchu men, buyei and korean women, and so on (figures 12, 13, 94, 95). what is more, the fourth-series ethnic pairs gaze not so much upward as outward, while our point of view is placed not below them but at their level; even the class-indexed group on the fifty-yuan note in this series gazes rather more forward than up. these differences cast a suggestive light on the canons they modify. one can certainly take the change from class to ethnic figurations as a reflection of the minority cultural revival of the 1980s, which susan mccarthy has read as a way of repudiating the maoist politics of class struggle,[105] but i would suggest in addition that this newly lateral gaze network may reflect both the deng regime's shift from a hieratic semantics of charismatic legitimation to a more sober strategy of legitimation by political and economic rationalization and legalization (in a delayed chinese version of the switch from "red" to "expert" that followed the second de-stalinization of communist europe in 1961),[106] and television's eclipsing radio and pa loudspeaker announcements as a dominant propaganda channel in mid-1980s china. fig. 94: renminbi (fourth series), one-jiao note, 1988. fig. 95: renminbi (fourth series), two-jiao note, 1988. as rudolf wagner has noted, traces of a similar transition may be found in plans of 1976–1977 for the architectural and sculptural program for the chairman mao memorial hall in beijing. the hall's central statue represents mao sitting in an armchair at our eye level, book in hand, legs crossed, with a benign smile on his face. the rejected option is telling: "down to the last round of discussions about the hall, there had been several proposals to sculpt mao in [his usual] stern position," standing and pointing ahead. "the relaxed mao decided on instead symbolizes the words of the 1978 constitution that people should 'feel both unity and ease of mind and liveliness,' implying a promise by (or a compromise of) the hua kuo-feng leadership that the tension and the hectic activity of the cultural revolution with its feverish adoration of mao and its persecutions were over."[107] this choice was accompanied by a redirection of the viewer's attention from a concept identifying mao with the red sun in the revolutionary style to a more distributed image of the sources of state legitimacy. this was effected first with a somewhat conflicted decoupling of mao's legacy from its former location in his charismatic physical presence (the product of evolving tensions within china's ruling cadres, as wagner has shown), and then with the dedication in 1983 of four new memorial rooms to mao, liu shaoqi, zhou enlai, and zhu de, the quadrumvirate represented as well on the fourth-series 100-yuan note of 1988—a progression that clearly tracks deng xiaoping's consolidation of power while reflecting his reorientation of china's structures of government away from mao's charismatic model. fig. 96: kim jong-il and kim jong-un looking at things. shepard fairey's obama hope poster (figure 49) can remind us of the degree to which the "what" of the socialist realist image is always qualified by its optical "how": obama's image differs from lenin's in that we are not emphatically placed by it in such a way as to make us feel we are looking upward at him. set as he is so to speak democratically at our level, he is not divinized, nor was this image accompanied, in its cultural moment, by representations of mass adulation. it is therefore worth noting that the portrait of the great helmsman on fifth-series renminbi not only tweaks mao's smile and turns his gaze inward, it also places us at eye level with him—or, at least, not quite as much below him as with the portrait of 1950 on which it is based. even in north korean propaganda photographs today, the gaze of kim jong-un (like that of his father kim jong-il) is more often directed downward or laterally to industrial products at factories than upward, and the habitual sunglasses of both men suggest a disregard for the traditional auroral iconography (figure 96).[108] thus it would seem that by the end of the 1990s, the visual idiom transferred in 1949 from soviet to chinese money was finally superseded. list of illustrations fig. 1: renminbi (first series), ten-yuan note, 1949. wikimedia commons. fig. 2: soviet three-ruble note, 1938. wikimedia commons. fig. 3: xu weixin, first renminbi (2010). oil on canvas. 250 cm x 150 cm. private collection; photograph courtesy of eugene wang. fig. 4: kwangtung provincial bank, one-dollar note, 1931. www.banknotes.com. fig. 5: tung pei bank of china, 500-yuan note, 1947. www.sinobanknote.com. fig. 6: renminbi (second series), ten-yuan note, 1957. www.sinobanknote.com. fig. 7: renminbi (third series), one-yuan note, 1969. www.sinobanknote.com. fig. 8: renminbi (third series), two-yuan note, 1964. www.sinobanknote.com. fig. 9: renminbi (third series), five-yuan note, 1969. www.sinobanknote.com. fig. 10: renminbi (third series), one-jiao note, 1967. www.sinobanknote.com. fig. 11: renminbi (third series), ten-jiao note, 1966. www.sinobanknote.com. fig. 12: renminbi (fourth series), ten-yuan note, 1988.www.sinobanknote.com . fig. 13: renminbi (fourth series), two-yuan note, 1988. www.sinobanknote.com. fig. 14: renminbi (fourth series), fifty-yuan note, 1987. www.sinobanknote.com. fig. 15: renminbi (fourth series), 100-yuan note, 1988. www.sinobanknote.com. fig. 16: renminbi (fourth series), 100-yuan note, 1999. www.sinobanknote.com. fig. 17: renminbi (first series), 100-yuan note, 1949. www.sinobanknote.com. fig. 18: renminbi (first series), fifty-yuan note, 1949. www.sinobanknote.com. fig. 19: louis and auguste lumière, arrival of a train, 1895. in the movies begin. a treasury of early cinema, 1894–1913. volume 1: the european pioneers. new york: kino video, 2002. dvd, 58 min; dziga vertov, kino-eye, 1924. kino eye and three songs about lenin, 1934. chatsworth: image entertainment, 1999. dvd, 78 and 59 min.; dziga vertov, the man with the movie camera, 1929. chatsworth: image entertainment, 1998. dvd, 68 min. fig. 20: alexander the great, gold medallion from abu qir, 220–25 ad, obverse. 56 mm. berlin, staatliche museen, münzkabinett, 1907/230. photo by lutz-jürgen lübke. http://ww2.smb.museum/ikmk/object.php?id=18200016. fig. 21: augustus of primaporta, 1st century ad, rome, vatican museums. wikimedia commons. fig. 22: “l’arringatore,” romano-etruscan bronze, second or first century bc, florence, national archaeological museum. wikimedia commons. fig. 23: soapbox speaker, san diego, 1912. image courtesy of the aft guild local 1931, san diego. fig. 24: alexander dovzhenko, earth, 1930. with vsevolod pudovkin, the end of st. petersburg and chess fever. new york: kino on video, 2003. dvd, 186 min. fig. 25: alexander dovzhenko, arsenal, 1928. new york: kino on video, 1999. vhs, 75 min. fig. 26: georgi and vladimir stenberg, poster for dovzhenko’s earth, 1930. kamakura & hayama, ruki matsumoto collection board/the museum of modern art. art © estate of vladimir and georgii stenberg /rao, moscow/vaga, new york, ny. fig. 27: dovzhenko, earth, 1930. with vsevolod pudovkin, the end of st. petersburg and chess fever. new york: kino on video, 2003. dvd, 186 min. fig. 28: dovzhenko, earth, 1930. with vsevolod pudovkin, the end of st. petersburg and chess fever. new york: kino on video, 2003. dvd, 186 min. fig. 29: dovzhenko, earth, 1930. with vsevolod pudovkin, the end of st. petersburg and chess fever. new york: kino on video, 2003. dvd, 186 min. fig. 30: dziga vertov, kino-eye, 1924. kino eye and three songs about lenin, 1934. chatsworth: image entertainment, 1999. dvd, 78 and 59 min.; alexander dovzhenko, arsenal, 1928. new york: kino on video, 1999. dvd, 75 min; sergei eisenstein, old and new, 1929. disc 1 of landmarks of early soviet film. los angeles: flicker alley, 2011. dvd, 120 min. fig. 31: leni riefenstahl, triumph of the will, 1935. bloomington: synapse films, 2006. dvd, 120 min. fig. 32: resolutely protect the policy of the revolutionary three-in-one combination!, 1967. ink on paper, 78 x 54 cm. stefan r. landsberger collection. www.chineseposters.net. fig. 33: sergei eisenstein, october 1917, 1928. chatsworth: image entertainment, 1998. dvd, 103 min. fig. 34: mao woodcut in the party newspaper liberation weekly, 22 june 1937. collection of daniel leese. used by kind permission. fig. 35: boundlessly loyal to the great leader chairman mao, boundlessly loyal to the great mao zedong thought, boundlessly loyal to chairman mao's revolutionary line , 1966. ink on paper, 76 x 53 cm. stefan r. landsberger collection. www.chineseposters.net. fig. 36: advance victoriously while following chairman mao's revolutionary line in literature and the arts, ca. 1968. ink on paper, 76.5 x 154 cm. stefan r. landsberger collection. www.chineseposters.net. fig. 37: sergei eisenstein, strike!, 1925. chatsworth: image entertainment, 1999. dvd, 94 min. fig. 38: sergei eisenstein, strike!, 1925. chatsworth: image entertainment, 1999. dvd, 94 min.; sergei eisenstein, the battleship potemkin, 1926. chatsworth: image entertainment, 1988. dvd, 74 min. fig. 39: friedrich wilhelm murnau, nosferatu, a symphony of horror, 1922. new york: kino international, 2009. dvd, 94 min.; fritz lang, dr. mabuse, the gambler, 1922. new york: kino international, 2006. dvd, 270 min. fig. 40: paul leni, waxworks, 1924. new york: kino on video, 2002. dvd, 83 min. fig. 41: fritz lang, die nibelungen, 1924/1925. new york: kino lorber, 2012. dvd, 281 min; leni riefenstahl, triumph of the will, 1935. bloomington: synapse films, 2006. dvd, 120 min; wolfgang kissel, kinder, kader, kommandeure (strictly propaganda). defa-studio für dokumentarfilme berlin und wesnigk/kissel filmproduktion, hamburg, 1991. vhs, 94 min. fig. 42: jacques-louis david, bonaparte crossing the great saint bernard pass, 1801. reuil-malmaison, chateaux de malmaison et bois-preau. oil on canvas. wikimedia commons. fig. 43: vasily iakovklev, victory (portrait of marshal zhukov), 1945–1946. oil on canvas. moscow, state tretyakov gallery. hip/art resource, ny. fig. 44: gold solidus of valens (364–378 ad), reverse. 73 mm. viennam, kunsthistorisches museum, ro 32473. photograph from francesco gnecchi, i medaglioni romani, volume 1: oro ed argento (milan: hoepli, 1912). fig. 45: mao reviewing the chinese army at tiananmen, 1966. www.marxists.org. fig. 46: alexei gastev, kak nado rabotat' (how to work), 2nd ed. moscow: tsentral'nyi institut truda, 1923. thecharnelhouse.org. fig. 47: gustav klutsis's, ekran (screen), 1922. linocut, 23 x 9.3 cm. merrill c. berman collection. art © ars. reproduction, including downloading of gustav klutsis' works is prohibited by copyright laws and international conventions without the express written permission of artists rights society (ars), new york. fig. 48: el lissitzky, lenin tribune, 1924. gouache, india ink, and photomontage on cardboard, 63.8 x 48 cm. moscow, state tretyakov gallery. wikimedia commons. fig. 49: shepard fairey, obama hope, 2006. used by kind permission. fig. 50: friedrich wilhelm murnau, nosferatu, a symphony of horror, 1922. new york: kino international, 2009. dvd, 94 min. fig. 51: alfred hitchcock, psycho, 1960. universal city: universal studios home entertainment, 2008. dvd, 109 min. fig. 52: friedrich wilhelm murnau, nosferatu, a symphony of horror, 1922. new york: kino international, 2009. dvd, 94 min. fig. 53: dziga vertov, the man with the movie camera, 1929. music by the alloy orchestra. chatsworth: image entertainment, 1998. dvd, 68 min. fig. 54: leni riefenstahl, triumph of the will, 1935. bloomington: synapse films, 2006. dvd, 120 min. fig. 55: fritz lang, dr. mabuse, the gambler, 1922. new york: kino international, 2006. dvd. fig. 56: hitler election poster, 1932. washington dc, u.s. holocaust memorial museum. photo by heinrich hoffmann. fig. 57: heinrich knirr, portrait of adolf hitler, 1939. fort mcnair, u.s. army center of military history. courtesy of the army art collection. fig. 58: fedor shurpin, the morning of our fatherland, 1946–1948. moscow, state tretyakov gallery. hip/art resource, ny. art © estate of fedor savvich shurpin/rao, moscow, vaga, new york, ny. fig. 59: liu chunhua, chairman mao goes to anyuan, original painting 1967; poster, 1968. ink on paper, 106 x 76 cm. iish collection. www.chineseposters.net fig. 60: leni riefenstahl, triumph of the will, 1935. bloomington: synapse films, 2006. dvd. fig. 61: dong xiwen, the founding ceremony of the nation, original painting 1953; modified poster version 1964. ink on paper, 53 x 77 cm. stefan r. landsberger collection. www.chineseposters.net. fig. 62: gustav klutsis's, real’nost’ nashei programmy (reality group), maquette, 1931. collage with vintage gelatin silver prints and gouache, 22.5 x 17 cm. merrill c. berman collection. art © ars. reproduction, including downloading of gustav klutsis` works is prohibited by copyright laws and international conventions without the express written permission of artists rights society (ars), new york. fig. 63: chen yanning, chairman mao visits guandong country, 1972. shanghai, long museum. fig. 64: long live marxism-leninism-mao zedong thought!, ca. 1968. ink on paper, 77 x 109 cm. private collection. www.chineseposters.net fig. 65: leben heisst kämpfen (to live is to struggle), ca. 1935. bronze, 15 x 9.5 cm. collection of peter j. schwartz; photograph by stefan knust. fig. 66: bernard andrieu, vivant denon and jean pierre droz, the treaty of tilsit, 1807. bronze, 40.2 mm. www.vcoins.com. fig. 67: gustav klutsis's, elektrifikatsiia vsei strany (toward the electrification of the entire country), 1920. ink, gouache, continuous tone photographs, colored paper, pencil, printed letters, paste, 46 x 27 cm. merrill c. berman collection. art © ars. reproduction, including downloading of gustav klutsis' works is prohibited by copyright laws and international conventions without the express written permission of artists rights society (ars), new york. fig. 68: gustav klutsis's, molodaia gvardiia. leninu, 1924. cover with letterpress photomontage illustration by klutsis on front; 17 letterpress photomontage illustrations (10 by klutsis, 6 by sen'kin, and 1 by rodchenko), page: 10 1/4 x 6 13/16" (26 x 17.3 cm). publisher: molodaia gvardiia, moscow. edition: 20,000. gift of the judith rothschild foundation (401.2001.11). digital image © the museum of modern art/licensed by scala / art resource, ny. art © ars. reproduction, including downloading of gustav klutsis' works is prohibited by copyright laws and international conventions without the express written permission of artists rights society (ars), new york. fig. 69: alexander rodchenko, cover for toward the living ilyich, 1924. art © estate of alexander rodchenko/rao, moscow/vaga, new york, ny. fig. 70: grigori petrovich goldshtein, lenin in red square, 1 may 1919. wikimedia commons. fig. 71: dziga vertov, three songs of lenin, 1934. kino eye and three songs about lenin. chatsworth: image entertainment, 1999. dvd, 59 min. fig. 72: mikhail romm, lenin in october, 1937. chicago: international historic films, 1985. dvd, 101 min. fig. 73: alexander rodchenko, pioneer girl, 1930. gelatin silver photograph. moscow house of photography. hip/art resource, ny. art © estate of alexander rodchenko/rao, moscow/vaga, new york, ny. fig. 74: alexander rodchenko, poster for dziga vertov, kinoglaz (kino-eye), 1924. lithograph on paper, 93 x 70 cm. merrill c. berman collection. art © estate of alexander rodchenko/rao, moscow/vaga, new york, ny. fig. 75: dziga vertov, kino-pravda #18, march 1924. fig. 76: dziga vertov, kino-eye, 1924. kino eye and three songs about lenin. chatsworth: image entertainment, 1999. dvd, 78 min. fig. 77: dziga vertov, kino-eye, 1924. kino eye and three songs about lenin. chatsworth: image entertainment, 1999. dvd, 78 min. fig. 78: dziga vertov, kino-eye, 1924. kino eye and three songs about lenin. chatsworth: image entertainment, 1999. dvd, 78 min. fig. 79: dziga vertov, kino-eye, 1924. kino eye and three songs about lenin. chatsworth: image entertainment, 1999. dvd, 78 min. fig. 80: dziga vertov, leninskaia kino-pravda (kino-pravda #21), 1925. 35 mm projection print. cambridge, harvard film archive. stills courtesy of the harvard film archive. fig. 81: rembrandt van rijn, faust, ca. 1652. engraving, ink on paper, 212 x 162 mm. www.wikipaintings.org. fig. 82: portrait of nostradamus, from the frontispiece of a volume of his prophecies published in 1666. image from charles mackay, memoirs of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds (london: office of the national illustrated library, 1852), volume 1, p. 242. wikimedia commons. fig. 83: dziga vertov, stride, soviet!, 1926. disc 3 of landmarks of early soviet film. los angeles: flicker alley, 2011. dvd, 69 min. fig. 84: dziga vertov, stride, soviet!, 1926. disc 3 of landmarks of early soviet film. los angeles: flicker alley, 2011. dvd, 69 min. fig. 85: dziga vertov, a sixth part of the world, 1926. dziga vertov, šestaja cast' mira/odinnadcatj (a sixth part of the world/the eleventh year). music by michael nyman. vienna: österreichisches filmmuseum, 2009. dvd, 73 min. fig. 86: dziga vertov, a sixth part of the world, 1926. dziga vertov, šestaja cast' mira/odinnadcatj (a sixth part of the world/the eleventh year). music by michael nyman. vienna: österreichisches filmmuseum, 2009. dvd, 73 min. fig. 87: dziga vertov, a sixth part of the world, 1926. dziga vertov, šestaja cast' mira/odinnadcatj (a sixth part of the world/the eleventh year). music by michael nyman. vienna: österreichisches filmmuseum, 2009. dvd, 73 min. fig. 88: dziga vertov, a sixth part of the world, 1926. dziga vertov, šestaja cast' mira/odinnadcatj (a sixth part of the world/the eleventh year). music by michael nyman. vienna: österreichisches filmmuseum, 2009. dvd, 73 min. fig. 89: dziga vertov, entuziazm (simfonija donbassa), 1930. restored by peter kubelka. vienna: österreichisches filmmuseum, 2005. dvd, 65 min. fig. 90: soviet chervonets, 1937. image courtesy of www.masterandmargarita.eu. fig. 91: su guojing, celebrating the people's republic of china's national day, december 1950. ink on paper, 42 x 57 cm. iish collection. www.chineseposters.net fig. 92: xin mang, zuo hui, zhang songhe, chairman mao zedong, 1951 (printed reproduction of the tiananmen portrait of october 1950). ink on paper, 39 x 27 cm. stefan r. landsberger collection. www.chineseposters.net. fig. 93: renminbi (fifth series), 100-yuan note, 1999. www.sinobanknote.com. fig. 94: renminbi (fourth series), one-jiao note, 1988. www.sinobanknote.com . fig. 95: renminbi (fourth series), two-jiao note, 1988. www.sinobanknote.com. fig. 96: kim jong-il and kim jong-un looking at things. images courtesy of kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com. bibliography adolf hitler: bilder aus dem leben des führers (hamburg/bahrenfeld: cigaretten/bilderdienst, 1936). aldrete, gregory s. gestures and acclamations in ancient rome. baltimore: johns hopkins university press, 1999. alexandrov, b. "the soviet currency reform." russian review 8, no. 1 (january 1949): 56–61. andriopoulos, stefan. possessed: hypnotic crimes, corporate fiction, and the invention of cinema, trans. peter jansen and stefan andriopoulos. chicago: university of chicago press, 2008. arnold-biucchi, carmen. alexander's coins and alexander's image. cambridge: harvard university art museums, 2006. bailes, kendall e. "alexei gastev and the soviet controversy over taylorism, 1918–24." soviet studies 29, no. 3 (july, 1977): 373–394. barris, roann. "the constructivist engaged spectator: a politics of reception." design issues 15, no. 1 (spring, 1999): 31–48. baudry, jean-louis. "ideological effects of the basic cinematographic apparatus." in narrative, apparatus, ideology: a film theory reader, edited by philip rosen, 286–298. new york: columbia university press 1986. bazin, andré. "montage interdit." in qu'est-ce que le cinema. 48–61. paris: les éditions du cerf, 2000. ——— "peinture et cinema." in qu'est-ce que le cinema. 187–192 paris: les éditions du cerf, 2000. beissinger, mark r. scientific management, socialist discipline, and soviet power. cambridge: harvard university press, 1988. bergére, marie-claire. sun yat-sen, trans. janet lloyd. stanford: stanford university press, 1998. bonitzer, pascal. "deframings." in cahiers du cinéma: volume 4, 1973–1978; history, ideology, cultural struggle, edited by david wilson, 197–203. london: routledge, 2000. bordwell, david. "the idea of montage in soviet art and film," cinema journal 11, no. 2 (spring, 1972): 9–17. brilliant, richard. gesture and rank in roman art: the use of gestures to denote status in roman art and coinage. new haven: the academy, 1963. brilliant, richard. visual narratives: storytelling in etruscan and roman art. ithaca: cornell university press, 1984. brookner, anita. jacques-louis david. new york: harper & row, 1980. bulgakowa, oksana. "der mann mit der pfeife oder das leben ist ein traum. studien zum stalinbild im film." in führerbilder: hitler, mussolini, roosevelt, stalin in fotografie und film, edited by martin loiperdinger, rudolf herz, and ulrich pohlmann, 210–231. munich: piper, 1995. ———fabrika zhestov [the factory of gestures]. moscow: novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2005. ———with dietmar hochmuth and gregor hochmuth. the factory of gestures: body language in film. berlin: pp media/stanford: stanford humanities lab, 2008 [dvd]. 160 min. burke, peter. the fabrication of louis xiv. new haven: yale university press, 1992. carpendale, jeremy i.m., charlie lewis, ulrich müller, and timothy p. racine, "constructing perspectives in the social making of minds." in making minds: the shaping of human minds through social context, edited by petra hauf and friedrich försterling, 163–178.. amsterdam: john benjamins, 2007. chen, tina mai. "socialist geographies, internationalist temporalities, and traveling film technologies: sino-soviet film exchange in the 1950s and 1960s," in futures of chinese cinemas: technologies and temporalities in chinese screen cultures, edited by olivia khoo and sean metzger, 73–93. bristol: intellect books, 2009 cheng, jihua. zhongguo dianying fazhan shi (history of chinese cinema). beijing: dianying chubanshe, 1963. cheng, li. "china in 1999: seeking common ground at a time of tension and conflict." asian survey 40, no. 1 (jan.–feb. 2000): 112–129. chiu, melissa, and zheng shengtian, eds. art and china's revolution.new york: asia society, 2008. chlochowa, yekaterina. "eisensteins erste arbeit für den film-die ummontage des 'dr. mabuse, der spieler' von fritz lang." in eisenstein und deutschland: texte, dokumente, briefe, edited by oksana bulgakowa, 115–122. berlin: akademie der künste/henschel verlag, 1998. comolli, jean-louis. "technique and ideology: camera, perspective, depth of field," film reader 2 (1977): 132–138. cook, david a. a history of narrative film, third edition. new york: norton, 1996. coopersmith, jonathan. the electrification of russia, 1880–1926. ithaca: cornell university press, 1992. crary, jonathan. suspensions of perception: attention, spectacle, and modern culture. cambridge: mit press, 1999. croisille, j. m., ed., neronia iv: alejandro magno, modelo de los emperadores romanos; actes du iv e colloque international de la sien. brussels: latomus, 1990. del lago, francesca. "personal mao: reshaping an icon in contemporary chinese art," art journal, no. 2 (summer, 1999): 46–59. deleuze, gilles. cinema 1: the movement-image. translated by hugh tomlinson and barbara habberjam. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. 1986. dickerman, leah. ed. building the collective: soviet graphic design 1917–1937; selections from the merrill c. berman collection.princeton: princeton university press, 1996. dolezel, stephan, and martin loiperdinger. "hitler in parteitagsfilm und wochenschau." in führerbilder: hitler, mussolini, roosevelt, stalin in fotografie und film , edited by martin loiperdinger, rudolf herz, and ulrich pohlmann, 77–100. munich: piper, 1995. dovzhenko, alexander. arsenal, 1928. new york: kino on video,1999. dvd, 75 min. dovzhenko, alexander. earth, 1930. with vsevolod pudovkin, the end of st. petersburg and chess fever. new york: kino on video, 2003. dvd, 186 min. eilan, naomi, christoph hoerl, teresa mccormack, and johannes roessler, eds. joint attention: communication and other minds; issues in philosophy and psychology. oxford: oxford university press, 2005. eisenstein, sergei. the battleship potemkin, 1925. chatsworth: image entertainment, 1988. dvd, 74 min. ———. “dickens, griffith and the film today.” in film form: essays in film theory and the film sense, edited and translated by jay leyda, 195–255. cleveland: meridian/world publishing, 1957. ———. october 1917, 1927. chatsworth: image entertainment, 1998. dvd, 103 min. ———. old and new, 1929. disc 1 of landmarks of early soviet film. los angeles: flicker alley, 2011. dvd, 120 min. ———. strike!, 1924. chatsworth: image entertainment, 1999. dvd, 94 min. elsaesser, thomas. “caligari’s family: expressionism, frame-tales and master narratives.” in weimar cinema and after: germany’s historical imaginary, 61–105. london: routledge, 2000. ———. “fritz lang’s traps for the mind and eye: dr mabuse the gambler and other disguise artists.” in weimar cinema and after: germany’s historical imaginary, 145–194. london: routledge, 2000. ———. “time, space and causality: joe may, fritz lang and the modernism of german detective film.” modernist cultures 5, no. 1 (2010): 79–105. ———, and adam barker, “introduction.” in early cinema: space, frame, narrative, edited by  thomas elsaesser, 293–317. london: bfi, publishing, 1990. the european pioneers. vol. 1 of the movies begin. a treasury of early cinema, 1894–1913. new york: kino on video, 2002. dvd, 58 min. fagen, morton d., ed., a history of engineering and science in the bell system: the early years (1875–1925). new york: bell telephone laboratories, 1975. fulińska, agnieszka. "the god alexander and his imitators: alexander the great's 'afterlife' in art and propaganda." classica cracoviensa xiv (2011): 125–135. gastev, alexei. kak nado rabotat' [how to work], 2nd ed. moscow: tsentral'nyi institut truda, 1923. girard, rené. deceit, desire, and the novel. translated by yvonne freccero. baltimore: johns hopkins university press, 1965. gnecchi, francesco. i medaglioni romani, volume 1: oro ed argento. milan: hoepli, 1912. golomstock, igor. totalitarian art in the soviet union, the third reich, fascist italy and the people’s republic of china. translated by robert chandler. new york: harper collins, 1990. the great utopia: the russian and soviet avant-garde, 1915–1932. new york: the guggenheim museum/state tret'iakov gallery/state russian museum/schirn kunsthalle frankfurt, 1992. hicks, jeremy. dziga vertov: defining documentary film. london: i. b. tauris, 2007. a history of chinese currency (16th century bc-20th> century ad). n.p. [beijing]: xinhua [new china] publishing house, 1983. hitchcock, alfred. psycho, 1960. universal city: universal studios home entertainment, 2008. dvd, 109 min. hung, wu. "face of authority: tiananmen and mao's tiananmen portrait," in remaking beijing: tiananmen square and the creation of a political space, 68–84. chicago: university of chicago press, 2005. iakovlev, a.n., ed. georgii zhukov: stenogramma oktiabr`skogo (1957 g.) plenuma tsk kpss i drugie dokumenty [georgii zhukov: minutes of the october 1957 plenum of the cpsu and other documents]. moscow: mfd, 2011. kael, pauline. 5001 nights at the movies. new york: henry holt, 1985. kalat, david. the strange case of dr. mabuse: a study of the twelve films and five novels. jefferson, nc: mcfarland, 2001. kelly, catriona. refining russia: advice literature, polite culture, and gender from catherine to yeltsin. oxford: oxford, university press, 2001. kenez, peter. "the golden age of the soviet cinema." the birth of the propaganda state: soviet methods of mass mobilization, 1917–1929. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1985. khan-magomedov, selim o. rodchenko: the complete work. cambridge: mit press, 1987. kissel, wolfgang. kinder, kader, kommandeure. (strictly propaganda). defa-studio für dokumentarfilme berlin und wesnigk/kissel filmproduktion, hamburg, 1991.vhs, 94 min. kleiner, diana e. e. cleopatra and rome. cambridge: harvard university press, 2005. ———. roman sculpture. new haven: yale university press, 1992. koch, gertrud. "face and mass: towards an aesthetic of the cross-cut in film," new german critique 95 (spring-summer 2005): 139–148. kracauer, siegfried. "the mass ornament," the mass ornament: weimar essays. translated by thomas y. levin. cambridge: harvard university press, 1995. ———. from caligari to hitler: a psychological study of the german film. new york: the noonday press, 1959. lampton, david m. following the leader: ruling china, from deng xiaoping to xi jinping. berkeley: university of california press, 2014. lang, fritz. dr. mabuse, the gambler, 1922. new york: kino international, 2006. dvd, 270 min. ———. die nibelungen, 1924/25. new york: kino lorber, 2012. dvd, 281 min. lawton, anna m. the red screen: politics, society, art in soviet cinema. london: routledge, 1993. leese, daniel. “mao the man and mao the icon.” in a critical introduction to mao, edited by timothy cheek, 219–39. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2010. ———.mao cult: rhetoric and ritual in china's cultural revolution. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2011. leni, paul. waxworks, 1924. new york: kino on video, 2002. dvd, 83 min. leyda, jay. dianying/electric shadows: an account of films and the film audience in china. cambridge: mit press, 1972. ———. kino: a history of russian and soviet film. new york: george allen and unwin, 1960. liber, george o. alexander dovzhenko: a life in soviet film. london: bfi publishing, 2002, 102–113. l'orange, hans p. apotheosis in ancient portraiture. oslo: aschehoug, 1947; reprinted new rochelle, ny: caratzas, 1982. ——— "the gesture of power. cosmocrator's sign." in studies on the iconography of cosmic kingship in the ancient world. oslo: h. aschehoug & co., 1953, 140–170. lovell, stephen. "how russia learned to listen: radio and the making of soviet culture." kritika: explorations in russian and eurasian history 12, no. 3 (summer 2011) [new series]: 591–615. mackay, charles. memoirs of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds. london: office of the national illustrated library, 1852. mackay, john. “built on a lie: propaganda, pedagogy, and the origins of the kuleshov effect.” in the oxford handbook of propaganda studies, edited by jonathan auerbach, and russ castronovo 215–232. oxford: oxford university press, 2014. maier, charles s. "between taylorism and technocracy: european ideologies and the vision of industrial productivity in the 1920s." journal of contemporary history 5, no. 1 (1970): 27–61. marbe, karl. "über persönlichkeit, einstellung, suggestion, und hypnose." zeitschrift für die gesamte neurologie und psychiatrie 94, no. 1 (1925): 359–366. mayakovsky, vladimir. pro eto/it/das bewusste thema. berlin: ars nicolai, 1994. mccarthy, susan. "gods of wealth, temples of prosperity: party-state participation in the minority cultural revival." china: an international journal 2, no. 1 (march 2004): 28–52. mcdonald, david. “unspeakable justice: david hare’s fanshen.” in critical theory and performance, edited by janelle g. reinelt and joseph r. roach, 129–145. ann arbor: university of michigan press, 1992. michelson, annette. "the kinetic icon in the work of mourning: prolegomena to the analysis of a textual system." october 52 (spring 1990): 16–39. mitry, jean. la sémiologie en question: langage et cinéma.paris: éditions du cerf, 1987. ———. the aesthetics and psychology of the cinema, trans. christopher king. bloomington: indiana university press, 1997. murnau, friedrich wilhelm. nosferatu: a symphony of horror. 1922. new york: kino international, 2009. dvd, 94 min. nebeker, frederik. dawn of the electronic age: electrical technologies in the shaping of the modern world, 1914 to 1945. hoboken, nj: wiley, 2009. notar, beth. “ties that dissolve and bind: competing currencies, prestige and politics in early twentieth-century china.” in value and valuables: from the sacred to the symbolic, edited by duran bell and cynthia werner, 127–158. society of economic anthropology monograph, vol. 21. walnut creek: alta mira press, 2003. österreichisches filmmuseum, thomas tode, and barbara wurm, eds. dziga vertov: die vertov-sammlung im österreichischen filmmuseum/the vertov collection at the austrian film museum. vienna: österreichisches filmmuseum, 2006. "pinganyue guan liening chubin yingpian" (film about lenin's burial in the pinganyue), dianying zhoukan (tianjin) 4 (1924). phillips, christopher, ed., photography in the modern era: european documents and critical writings, 1913–1940. new york: the metropolitan museum of art/aperture, 1989. plutarch. plutarch's lives. with an english translation by bernadotte perrin. cambridge: harvard university press, 1919. razumnyi, aleksandr. u istokov... vospominaniia kinorezhissera (at the source...memories of a filmmaker). moscow: "iskusstvo," 1975. riefenstahl, leni. triumph of the will, 1935. bloomington: synapse films, 2006. dvd, 120 min. romm, mikhail. lenin in october, 1937. chicago: international historic films, 2007. dvd, 101 min. sadoul, georges. dziga vertov, with a preface by jean rouch. paris: éditions champ libre, 1971. salt, barry. film style and technology: history and analysis. 2nd ed. london: starword, 1992. sandrock, john e. “the money of communist china (1927–1949): part i.” the currency collector. http://www.thecurrencycollector.com/pdfs/the_money_of_communist_china_1927–1949_-part_i.pdf ———. “the money of communist china (1927–1949): part iii.” the currency collector http://www.thecurrencycollector.com/pdfs/the_money_of_communist_china_1927–1949_-part_iii.pdf schenker, alexander m. the bronze horseman: falconet's monument to peter the great. new haven: yale university press, 2003. schnitzer, luda, john schnitzer, and marcel martin, eds. cinema in revolution: the heroic era of the soviet film. translated with additional material by david robinson. london: secker & warburg, 1973. schwartz, peter j. after jena: goethe's elective affinities and the end of the old regime. lewisburg: bucknell university press, 2010. singer, ben. “marketing melodrama: serials and intertextuality.” in melodrama and modernity: early sensational cinema and its contexts, 263–287. new york: columbia university press, 2001. small, jocelyn penny. “time in space: narrative in classical art.” the art bulletin 81, no. 4 (dec. 1999): 562–75. stewart, andrew f. faces of power: alexander’s image and hellenistic politics. berkeley: university of california press, 1993. stites, richard p. revolutionary dreams: utopian vision and experimental life in the russian revolution. new york: oxford university press, 1989. taylor, richard, and ian christie, eds., the film factory: russian and soviet cinema in documents. cambridge: harvard university press, 1988. teitelbaum, matthew, ed., montage and modern life, 1919–1942. cambridge: mit press, 1992. tsivian, yuri, ed. lines of resistance: dziga vertov and the twenties. pordenone: le giornate del cinema muto, 2006. ——— “turning objects, toppled pictures: give and take between vertov’s films and constructivist art.” october 121 (summer, 2007): 92–110. tucker, robert c. stalin as revolutionary, 1879–1929: a study in history and personality. new york: norton, 1973. tumarkin, nina. lenin lives! the lenin cult in soviet russia, enlarged edition. cambridge: harvard university press, 1997. tupitsyn, margarita. the soviet photograph, 1924–1937. new haven: yale university press, 1996. ———. gustav klutsis and valentina kulagina: photography and montage after constructivism. new york: international center of photography/göttingen: steidl, 2004. verstraten, peter. film narratology translated by stefan van der lecq. toronto: university of toronto press, 2009. vertov, dziga. entuziazm (simfonija donbassa), 1930. restored by peter kubelka. vienna: österreichisches filmmuseum, 2005. dvd, 65 min. ———. kino eye, 1924, and three songs about lenin, 1934. chatsworth: image entertainment, 1999. dvd, 78 and 59 min. ———. leninskaia kino-pravda (kino-pravda #21), 1925. 35 mm projection print. harvard film archive. ———. the man with the movie camera, 1929. music by the alloy orchestra. chatsworth: image entertainment, 1998. dvd, 68 min. ———. šestaja čast’ mira/odinnadcatj (a sixth part of the world/the eleventh year), 1926/1928. music by michael nyman. vienna: österreichisches filmmuseum, 2009. dvd, 73 min. and 53min. ———. stride, soviet! 1926. disc 3 of landmarks of early soviet film. los angeles: flicker alley, 2011. dvd, 69 min. vilinbachova, tat’jana. “alpha and omega: from icon-painting to malevich” in kazimir malevich e le sacre icone russe: avanguardia e tradizioni, edited by giorgio cortenova, and evgenija petrova, 94–101. milan: electa, 2000. wagner, rudolf g. "the image of the public leader out of the chinese crisis" unpublished talk delivered 18 april 2012 at boston university. ———."reading the chairman mao memorial hall in peking: the tribulations of the implied pilgrim." in pilgrims and sacred sites in china, edited by susan naquin and chün-fang yü. 378/424. berkeley: university of california press, 1982. ———."ritual, architecture, politics and publicity during the republic: enshrining sun yat-sen." in chinese architecture and the beaux-arts , edited by jeffrey w. cody, nancy s. steinhardt, and tony atkin, 223–278. honolulu: university of hawai'i press, 2011. walker, thomas u. "mounting the soapbox: poetics, rhetoric and laborlore at the scene of speaking." western folklore 65, no. 1/2 (winter-spring 2006): 65–98. wang, eugene. "the first reminbi as currency of images: socialist subjectivity and post-socialist mediality." paper delivered at boston university, 16 june 2012. wang, helen. "mao on money," east asia journal 1, no. 2 (2003): 87–97. white, stephen, john gardner and george schöpflin. communist political systems: an introduction. 2nd ed. new york: st. martin's press, 1987. widdis, emma. "socialist senses: film and the creation of soviet subjectivity." slavic review71, no. 3 (fall 2012): 590–618. widdis, emma. visions of a new land: soviet film from the revolution to the second world war. new haven: yale university press, 2003. woodall, dena marie. sharing space: double portraiture in renaissance italy. ph.d diss., case western, 2008. http://etd.ohiolink.edu/sendpdf.cgi/woodall%20dena%20marie.pdf?case1214411123 wurm, barbara. "gastevs medien: das 'foto-kino-labor' des cit," in laien, lektüren, laboratorien: wissenschaften und künste in russland 1850–1960, edited by matthias schwartz, wladimir velminski, and torben philipp, 347–390. peter lang: frankfurt am main, 2008. zanker, paul. the power of images in the age of augustus. translated by alan shapiro. ann arbor: university of michigan press, 1988. zeitz, lisa, and joachim zeitz, napoleons medaillen. petersberg: imhof, 2003. zhang, yongjing. "the successor's dilemma in china's single party political system," european journal of political economy 27 (2011): 674–680. zhong, yang. "legitimacy crisis and legitimation in china," journal of contemporary asia 26, no. 2 (1996): 201–220. zhongguo renmin yinhang huobi faxing si, ed. renminbi tu ce (picture album of renminbi). beijing: zhongguo jinrong chubanshe, 1988. [1] "what counts is not the images but what is between the images." abel gance, cited in jean mitry, la sémiologie en question: langage et cinéma (paris: éditions du cerf, 1987), 19. [2] the present paper began as in a response to wang's conference presentation "the first reminbi as currency of images: socialist subjectivity and post-socialist mediality," delivered at boston university, 16 june 2012. for the conference program, see http://blogs.bu.edu/leisureproject/program/ [accessed on 20. june 2014]. my thanks to the conference organizers, cathy yeh and rob weller, for allowing me to participate, and to rudolf wagner for asking me to make an article from my response, to liz coffey and amy sloper at the harvard film archive for access to vertov prints, to yuri corrigan for help with russian sources, to andrea hacker for being a fine editor, and to mary ellen alonso, tarryn chun, wiebke denecke, sarah frederick, maria gapotchenko, aaron garrett, gisela höcherl-alden, tim humphrey, wu hung, beth notar, klaus vondrovec, rudolf wagner, cathy yeh, jonathan zatlin, and two anonymous readers for useful comments and translation help. i am grateful to merrill c. berman, daniel leese, eugene wang, the harvard film archive, the münzkabinett of the staatlichen museen zu berlin, the museum of modern art, kamakura & hayama, the u.s. holocaust memorial museum, the aft guild local 1931 in san diego, the army art collection of the us army center of military history, art resource ny, artists rights society, vaga new york, www.banknotes.com, www.chineseposters.com, kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com, kimjongunlookingatthings.tumblr.com, http://www.masterandmargarita.eu, www.sinobanknote.com, www.vcoins.com, and www.worldmoneyshop.com for images and permission to reproduce them, and to the boston university center for the humanities for generous funding to support their publication. [3] the 1946 issue of the bank of inner chiang featured two red army soldiers in several denominations; the 1948 1000-yuan note issued by of the tung pei bank of china converts these to the worker and peasant who then reappear in the first-series renminbi. both of these earlier issues were authorized by the communist party for use in the northeast china liberated area; see john e. sandrock, "the money of communist china (1927–1949)," part iii, http://www.thecurrencycollector.com/pdfs/the_money_of_communist_china_1927-1949_-part_iii.pdf [accessed on 20. june 2014]. [4] xu weixin, http://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/event/renminbi-faces-china-and-currency-images [accessed on 20. june 2014]. admittedly, this painting was commissioned by eugene wang, which may rather compromise its indexical value. eugene wang, personal communication, 7 march 2014. [5] see beth notar, "ties that dissolve and bind: competing currencies, prestige and politics in early twentieth-century china," in value and valuables: from the sacred to the symbolic. society of economic anthropology monograph, vol. 21, ed. duran bell and cynthia werner (walnut creek: alta mira press, 2003), 127–158, here 140; also rudolf g. wagner, "the image of the public leader out of the chinese crisis," unpublished talk delivered 18 april 2012 at boston university (cited by kind permission). compare the portraits of ministers on notes issued by the qing government during the reigns of xian feng (p. 60) and guang xu (pp. 67, 70), the 1912 five-yuan note featuring commander in chief chen jiongming issued in 1912 by the guangdong provincial military government of the republic of china (p. 77), and the portrait of general yuan shikai, as president, on an unissued one-yuan commemorative banknote of 1916 (p. 78), in a history of chinese currency (16th century bc-20th century ad) (n.p. [beijing]: xinhua [new china] publishing house, 1983). [6] helen wang, "mao on money," east asia journal 1, no. 2(2003): 87–97, here 89–91; also sandrock, "the money of communist china (1927–1949)," part iii. [7] for color images of the first four renminbi series, see zhonguo ren min yin hang and huo bi fa xing si bian, ren min bi tu ce/picture album of renminbi (beijing: zhongguo jin rong chu ban she,& 1988); also http://www.sinobanknote.com/ [accessed on 20. june 2014]. all dates given are dates of issue. [8] on the origins of this trope in a drawing of january 1925 by the cartoonist viktor deni featuring a train with the slogan "full steam along the rails of leninism" written on its engine, see yuri tsivian, ed., lines of resistance: dziga vertov and the twenties (pordenone: le giornate del cinema muto, 2006), 48–49. trains appear before this in kino-eye (1924) in a way that suggests a link with the notion of communist progress, but the symbolism is not overt and the reference to lenin is missing. [9] eugene wang, "the first reminbi." helen wang likewise notes this incongruity, describing as well the deliberate omission from representations of tiananmen on chinese paper currency of the portrait of mao that has adorned tiananmen square since 1949. helen wang, "mao on money," 93–94. on mao's tiananmen portrait, see wu hung, "face of authority: tiananmen and mao's tiananmen portrait," remaking beijing: tiananmen square and the creation of a political space (chicago: university of chicago press, 2005), 68–84. [10] helen wang, "mao on money," 96. [11] see john e. sandrock, "the money of communist china (1927–1949)," part i, on the relative reliability of chinese communist currency, http://www.thecurrencycollector.com/pdfs/the_money_of_communist_china_1927–1949_part_i.pdf [accessed on 20. june 2014], and part iii on the postwar inflation; also notar, "ties that dissolve and bind." [12] helen wang, "mao on money," 96; eugene wang, "the first reminbi"; wagner, "image of the public leader." [13] daniel leese, "mao the man and mao the icon," in a critical introduction to mao, ed. timothy cheek (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2010), 219–239, here 228–229; also leese, mao cult: rhetoric and ritual in china's cultural revolution (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2011), 7–12. [14] see for example jean-louis baudry, "ideological effects of the basic cinematographic apparatus," in narrative, apparatus, ideology: a film theory reader, ed. philip rosen (new york: columbia university 1986), 286–298; also jonathan crary, suspensions of perception: attention, spectacle, and modern culture (cambridge, ma: mit press, 1999), and peter j. schwartz, after jena: goethe's elective affinities and the end of the old regime (lewisburg: bucknell university press, 2010), 305n167. [15] rudolf g. wagner, "ritual, architecture, politics and publicity during the republic: enshrining sun yat-sen," in chinese architecture and the beaux-arts (honolulu: university of hawai'i press, 2011), 223–278. [16] nina tumarkin, lenin lives! the lenin cult in soviet russia, enlarged edition (cambridge: harvard university press, 1997), 112–206; on stalin vs. trotsky et al. concerning lenin's embalming, see 174–175. margarita tupitsyn, the soviet photograph, 1924–1937 (new haven: yale university press, 1996), 9–34. cf. alexander rodchenko, "against the synthetic portrait, for the snapshot" (novyi lef 4, 1928, pp. 14–16), trans. john e. bowlt, in photography in the modern era: european documents and critical writings, 1913–1940, ed. christopher phillips (new york: the metropolitan museum of art/aperture, 1989), 238–242. [17] margarita tupitsyn, the soviet photograph, 1924–1937 (new haven: yale university press, 1996), 9–34. cf. alexander rodchenko, "against the synthetic portrait, for the snapshot" (novyi lef 4, 1928, pp. 14–16), trans. john e. bowlt, in christopher phillips, ed., photography in the modern era: european documents and critical writings, 1913–1940, ed. christopher phillips (new york: the metropolitan museum of art/aperture, 1989), 238–242. [18] the nature of the inspiration (and the consistency of the type) has been a matter of some debate. the term "heavenward-gazing alexander" is from h.p. l'orange, apotheosis in ancient portraiture (oslo: aschehoug, 1947; reprinted new rochelle, ny: caratzas, 1982), 19–27; alexander's "melting gaze" is reported by plutarch (alexander 4.1): "the outward appearance of alexander is best represented by the statues of him which lysippos made, and it was by this artist alone that alexander himself thought it fit that he should be modelled. for those peculiarities which many of his successors and friends afterwards tried to imitate, namely, the poise of the neck, which was bent slightly to the left, and the melting glance of his eyes, this artist has accurately observed. plutarch's lives, with an english translation by bernadotte perrin (cambridge: harvard university press, 1919), 7:233. on alexander's upward gaze as an expression of his pothos or "perpetual desire to do something new and extraordinary" (arrian, indica 20. 1–3), see andrew f. stewart, faces of power: alexander's image and hellenistic politics (berkeley: university of california press, 1993), 13, 84–86, 118–120, 141, 333–334. [19] on the history of soapbox oratory, see thomas u. walker, "mounting the soapbox: poetics, rhetoric and laborlore at the scene of speaking." western folklore 65, no. 1/2 (winter-spring 2006): 65–98. "one of the earliest artistic depictions of a gesticulating orator is the famous statue now in florence, the 'arringatore,' a bronze statue of a togate magistrate with an uplifted right arm, which is dated to the late second century or early first century b.c." gregory s. aldrete, gestures and acclamations in ancient rome (baltimore: johns hopkins up, 1999). on roman gestural rhetoric see, besides aldrete, richard brilliant, gesture and rank in roman art: the use of gestures to denote status in roman art and coinage (new haven: the academy, 1963). [20] catriona kelly, refining russia: advice literature, polite culture, and gender from catherine to yeltsin(oxford: oxford, university press, 2001), 230–311; emma widdis, "socialist senses: film and the creation of soviet subjectivity," slavic review 71, no. 3 (fall 2012): 590–618; roann barris, "the constructivist engaged spectator: a politics of reception," design issues 15, no. 1 (spring, 1999): 31–48; oksana bulgakowa, with dietmar hochmuth and gregor hochmuth, the factory of gestures: body language in film (berlin: pp media/stanford: stanford humanities lab, 2008), dvd; oksana bulgakowa, fabrika zhestov [the factory of gestures] (moscow: novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2005), 44–52. [21] august 1934 marked the official declaration of socialist realism as an aesthetic orthodoxy in the ussr, though its principles were decided by stalin in a secret meeting with soviet writers in october 1932. igor golomstock, totalitarian art in the soviet union, the third reich, fascist italy and the people's republic of china, trans. robert chandler (new york: harper collins, 1990), 84–86. [22] leese, mao cult, 7–12 [23] bulgakowa, "public speakers," the factory of gestures (dvd); bulgakowa, fabrika zhestov, 222. [24] on earth, see george o. liber, alexander dovzhenko: a life in soviet film (london: bfi publishing, 2002), 102–113. [25] tumarkin, lenin lives!, 12–18, 83–84. [26] golomstock, totalitarian art, 206–207 (nazi paintings); 212 (stakhanov). [27] leese, mao cult, 8–10. [28] the one major exception-anamorphic imagery-develops in tandem with post-renaissance interest in optical technology, often relying upon it as a means of construction. in recent scholarship, the quasi-photographic qualities sometimes apparent in dutch seventeenth-century painting, above all in the work of johannes vermeer (views oddly sectioned by the picture's edge, composition in depth, clearly defined perspectives, a certain realism), have been linked both to use of the camera obscura as a painter's tool and to new models of subjectivity for which the camera obscura provided a popular trope. [29] tsivian, lines of resistance, 133–134. [30] siegfried kracauer's essay "the mass ornament" (1927) is the classic formulation of this problem in its relation to cinema. kracauer, the mass ornament: weimar essays trans. thomas y. levin (cambridge: harvard university press, 1995), 75–86. see also gertrud koch, "face and mass: towards an aesthetic of the cross-cut in film," new german critique 95 (spring-summer 2005): 139–148. [31] peter kenez, "the golden age of the soviet cinema," in the birth of the propaganda state: soviet methods of mass mobilization, 1917–1929 (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1985), 195–223, esp. 205–206. [32] "the origins of montage," in cinema in revolution: the heroic era of the soviet film, ed. luda schnitzer, john schnitzer and marcel martinl, trans. with additional material by david robinson (london: secker & warburg, 1973), 66–75; david bordwell, "the idea of montage in soviet art and film," cinema journal 11, no. 2 (spring, 1972): 9–17; john mackay, "built on a lie: propaganda, pedagogy, and the origins of the kuleshov effect," in the oxford handbook of propaganda studies, ed. jonathan auerbach and russ castronovo (oxford: oxford university press, 2014), 215–232. bordwell and mackay both note that although kuleshov normally receives credit for the "invention" of montage, vertov was engaged in similar experiments at the same time; according to mackay, both filmmakers were involved in the earliest film known to use the effect, an agitprop strip of early 1919 entitled exposure of the relics of tikhon of zadonsk. [33] on soviet radio propaganda, see stephen lovell, "how russia learned to listen: radio and the making of soviet culture," kritika: explorations in russian and eurasian history 12, no. 3 (summer 2011) [new series]: 591–615. lovell observes that the practical efficacy of soviet radio propaganda fell some way short of the theoretical efficacy imagined by such advocates as vertov (592). it is worth noting that vertov was an early and lifelong radio enthusiast, having begun his montage experiments in the medium of sound as early as 1916; see georges sadoul, dziga vertov, with a preface by jean rouch (paris: éditions champ libre, 1971), 15–46. on the history of public address systems, see http://www.historyofpa.co.uk/launch.asp [accessed on 20. june 2014]; also frederik nebeker, dawn of the electronic age: electrical technologies in the shaping of the modern world, 1914 to 1945 (hoboken, nj: wiley, 2009), 315, and morton d. fagen, ed., a history of engineering and science in the bell system: the early years (1875–1925) (new york: bell telephone laboratories, 1975), 185–190, 292–295, 425. [34] richard taylor and ian christie, eds., the film factory: russian and soviet cinema in documents (cambridge: harvard university press, 1988), 56. [35] barry salt, film style and technology: history and analysis, 2nd ed. (london: starword, 1992), 159; see also jean mitry, the aesthetics and psychology of the cinema, trans. christopher king (bloomington: indiana university press, 1997), 60–61 on abel gance (la roue, 1923) and jean epstein (l'auberge rouge, 1923; coeur fidèle, 1923). [36] anna m. lawton, the red screen: politics, society, art in soviet cinema (london: routledge, 1993), 33. [37]on eisenstein, shub and lang, see david a. cook, a history of narrative film, third edition (new york: norton, 1996), 145; david kalat, the strange case of dr. mabuse: a study of the twelve films and five novels (jefferson: mcfarland, 2001), 60; yekaterina chlochowa, "eisensteins erste arbeit für den film-die ummontage des 'dr. mabuse, der spieler' von fritz lang," in oksana bulgakowa, ed., eisenstein und deutschland: texte, dokumente, briefe (berlin: akademie der künste/henschel verlag, 1998), 115–122. on german imports to russia in the early to mid-1920s, see sergei eisenstein, "dickens, griffith and the film today," 202; also jay leyda, kino: a history of russian and soviet film (new york: george allen and unwin, 1960), 200–201, and siegfried kracauer, from caligari to hitler: a psychological study of the german film (new york: the noonday press, 1959), 94–95, 272. [38] although eisenstein is not known to have commented on the camerawork, pauline kael observes that he seems to have modeled the makeup for his ivan the terrible (1946) on conrad veidt's, and that the film's decor and camerawork somewhat recall leni's. pauline kael, 5001 nights at the movies (new york: henry holt, 1985), 375, 824. on the possible relationship of vertov's imagery of lenin to the semantics of russian icons, see annette michelson, "the kinetic icon in the work of mourning: prolegomena to the analysis of a textual system," october 52 (spring 1990), 16–39. [39] e.g. baudry, "ideological effects of the basic cinematographic apparatus"; jean-louis comolli, "technique and ideology: camera, perspective, depth of field," film reader 2 (1977), 132–138. cf. schwartz, after jena, 305n167. [40] stewart, faces of power, plates 21–23 and text pp. 123–130 (alexander on horseback); diana e. e. kleiner, roman sculpture (new haven: yale university press, 1992), fig. 42 (augustus of primaporta, vatican museums) and 236 (bronze equestrian statue of marcus aurelius in the museo del palazzo dei conservatori, rome); peter burke, the fabrication of louis xiv (new haven: yale university press, 1992), figures 50–53 and text p. 115 (equestrian bronze statue of louis xiv by girardon); anita brookner, jacques-louis david (new york: harper & row, 1980), fig. 74 (napoleon crossing the saint-bernard, 1801); brookner, 147 on this painting's debt to falconet's bronze equestrian statue of peter the great in st. petersburg (1782)-which would later figure as pushkin's "bronze horseman"-see alexander m. schenker, the bronze horseman: falconet's monument to peter the great (new haven: yale university press, 2003), 298–304; 66–69 on the place of falconet's statue in the tradition of equestrian leader portraits. oksana bulgakowa observes that "the statues of the new [soviet] leaders adopt the imperial language of the statues of tsars. the statue of lenin in leningrad [in a significant scene in friedrich ermler's film a fragment of an empire, 1929], is given a distinctly pointing (horizontal) hand gesture-correcting the hand of the bronze horseman, which is raised vertically toward the sky, an emblem of old petersburg." bulgakowa, fabrika zhestov [the factory of gestures], 177. significantly, iakovlev's portrait of zhukov (now in the state tretyakov gallery, moscow) was used by khrushchev and others at a central committee plenum in 1957 to take zhukov to task for his "napoleonic ambitions." see a.n. iakovlev, ed., georgii zhukov: stenogramma oktiabr`skogo (1957 g.) plenuma tsk kpss i drugie dokumenty [georgii zhukov: minutes of the october 1957 plenum of the cpsu and other documents] (moscow: mfd, 2011), 637. [41] h.p. l'orange, "the gesture of power. cosmocrator's sign," studies on the iconography of cosmic kingship in the ancient world (oslo: h. aschehoug & co., 1953), 140–170. [42] on gastev and soviet taylorism, see charles s. maier, "between taylorism and technocracy: european ideologies and the vision of industrial productivity in the 1920s," journal of contemporary history 5, no. 1 (1970): 27–61; kendall e. bailes, "alexei gastev and the soviet controversy over taylorism, 1918–1924," soviet studies 29, no. 3 (july, 1977): 373–394; mark r. beissinger, scientific management, socialist discipline, and soviet power (cambridge: harvard university press, 1988), 19–90. on the aesthetic consequences, see leah dickerman, ed., building the collective: soviet graphic design 1917–1937; selections from the merrill c. berman collection (princeton: princeton university press, 1996), 47–51; richard p. stites, revolutionary dreams: utopian vision and experimental life in the russian revolution (new york: oxford university press, 1989), 145–164; and barbara wurm, "gastevs medien: das 'foto-kino-labor' des cit," in laien, lektüren, laboratorien: wissenschaften und künste in russland 1850–1960 , ed. matthias schwartz, wladimir velminski and torben philipp (peter lang: frankfurt am main, 2008), 347–390. for intimations of how the proto-cybernetic notion of einstellung current in the mid-1920s could become a component of propaganda per se, see karl marbe, "über persönlichkeit, einstellung, suggestion, und hypnose," zeitschrift für die gesamte neurologie und psychiatrie 94, no. 1 (1925): 359–366. [43] the great utopia: the russian and soviet avant-garde, 1915–1932 (new york: the guggenheim museum/state tret'iakov gallery/state russian museum/schirn kunsthalle frankfurt, 1992), plates 111–113 and 142. [44] jeremy i.m. carpendale, charlie lewis, ulrich müller, and timothy p. racine, "constructing perspectives in the social making of minds," in petra hauf and friedrich försterling, eds., making minds: the shaping of human minds through social context (amsterdam: john benjamins, 2007), 163–178, here 164. see also the essays in naomi eilan, christoph hoerl, teresa mccormack, and johannes roessler, eds., joint attention: communication and other minds; issues in philosophy and psychology (oxford: oxford university press, 2005). [45] on alexander's upward gaze as an expression of divine inspiration, see l'orange, apotheosis, 19–27; as an expression of his pothos, see stewart, faces of power, 13, 84–86, 118–20, 141, 333–334. [46] l'orange, apotheosis, 52–56. on caesar's rejection of alexander's "melting gaze" in his own iconography, see diana e.e. kleiner, cleopatra and rome (cambridge: harvard university press, 2005), 126–128. on augustus, see dietmar kienast, "alexander und augustus," gymnasium 76 (1969) 431–456; on the propaganda strategies of augustus generally see paul zanker, the power of images in the age of augustus, trans. alan shapiro (ann arbor: university of michigan press, 1988). [47] l'orange, apotheosis, 119. the problem of long-term influence here is naturally complex and controversial. see for example agnieszka fulińska, "the god alexander and his imitators: alexander the great's 'afterlife' in art and propaganda," classica cracoviensa xiv (2011): 125–135, and the essays in j.m. croisille, ed., neronia iv: alejandro magno, modelo de los emperadores romanos; actes du ive colloque international de la sien (brussels: latomus, 1990). [48] tupitsyn, soviet photography, 70–74; pascal bonitzer, "deframings," in david wilson, ed., cahiers du cinéma: volume 4, 1973–1978; history, ideology, cultural struggle (london: routledge, 2000), 197–203; gilles deleuze, cinema 1: the movement-image, trans. hugh tomlinson and barbara habberjam (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1986), 16–17. although it is probably first with photography that the frame in western visual culture begins to dissolve outward, to become (in andré bazin's terms) less centripetal and more centrifugal, still there is little emphatic investment of the photographic (or painterly) hors-cadre with legible meaning until the 1920s, and then it is film that takes the lead. "le cadre est centripéte, l'écran centrifuge" (a frame is centripetal, the screen centrifugal"). andré bazin, "peinture et cinéma," qu'est-ce que le cinéma (paris: les éditions du cerf, 2000), 187–192, here 188. [49] on the place of triumph of the will in nazi film propaganda as a whole, see stephan dolezel and martin loiperdinger, "hitler in parteitagsfilm und wochenschau," in in martin loiperdinger, rudolf herz and ulrich pohlmann, ed., führerbilder: hitler, mussolini, roosevelt, stalin in fotografie und film (munich: piper, 1995), 77–100. [50]rené girard, deceit, desire, and the novel, trans. yvonne freccero (baltimore: johns hopkins universitz press, 1965), 1–52. [51] peter verstraten, film narratology, trans. stefan van der lecq (toronto: university of toronto press, 2009), 89. [52] http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/shepard-fairey/#_ [accessed on 20. june 2014]. fairey on his choice of the word "hope": "i actually initially used the word progress." [53] cf. schwartz, after jena, 206. [54] see also andré bazin, "montage interdit," qu'est-ce que le cinéma (paris: les éditions du cerf, 2000), 48–61. [55] thomas elsaesser, "fritz lang's traps for the mind and eye: dr mabuse the gambler and other disguise artists," weimar cinema and after: germany's historical imaginary (london: routledge, 2000), 145–194, here 175–176; thomas elsaesser and adam barker, "introduction," in thomas elsaesser, ed., early cinema: space, frame, narrative (london: bfi publishing, 1990), 293–317; sergei eisenstein, "dickens, griffith and the film today," film form: essays in film theory and the film sense, ed. and trans. jay leyda (cleveland: meridian/world publishing, 1957), 195–255. [56] thomas elsaesser, "caligari's family: expressionism, frame-tales and master narratives," weimar cinema and after: germany's historical imaginary (london: routledge, 2000), 61–105, here 61. [57] on mabuse and the theme of hypnosis in weimar cinema, see stefan andriopoulos, possessed: hypnotic crimes, corporate fiction, and the invention of cinema, trans. peter jansen and stefan andriopoulos (chicago: university of chicago press, 2008), 91–127. [58] tumarkin, lenin lives!, 207–251. [59] jeremy hicks, dziga vertov: defining documentary film (london: i.b. tauris, 2007), 91–92. oksana bulgakowa observes that stalin's image in documentary film involved a complex dialectic of absence and presence that she compares with the islamic cultural tradition "in which the prophet may not be shown, and thus remains invisible, yet is everywhere present and alluded to through a series of substitutes," while his presence in fiction films tends to be mediated non-photographically-e.g., through oral report, telephonic communication, or images of his name, or of plastic representations of him. oksana bulgakowa, "der mann mit der pfeife oder das leben ist ein traum. studien zum stalinbild im film," in martin loiperdinger, rudolf herz and ulrich pohlmann, ed., führerbilder: hitler, mussolini, roosevelt, stalin in fotografie und film (munich: piper, 1995), 210–231, here 213 and passim; on vertov, see 215–216. [60] see for example the paintings chairman mao goes to anyuan (1967) and man's whole world is mutable, seas become mulberry fields: chairman mao inspects areas south and north of the yangtze river (1968), in melissa chiu and zheng shengtian, eds., art and china's revolution (new york: asia society, 2008), plates 19 and 78. [61] margaret tupitsyn, gustav klutsis and valentina kulagina: photography and montage after constructivism (new york: international center of photography/göttingen: steidl, 2004), plates 102, 104, 108 (lenin), plates 114, 117, 120 and figures 76 and 77, p. 63 (stalin); chiu and shengtian, art and china's revolution, plates 1, 33, 52. [62] tupitsyn, gustav klutsis and valentina kulagina, plate 112; dickerman, building the collective, plates 92–93; chiu and shengtian, art and china's revolution, plates 8, 56, 57, 131. [63] and, perhaps not incidentally, above the word "leben" (life). [64] medallic reliefs depicting multiple aligned figures in profile would seem to derive originally from ancient cameos and the portrait medals of the renaissance whose idiom cameos influenced; the form becomes clearly propagandistic with the histoire métallique of louis xiv, which napoleon imitated.dena marie woodall, sharing space: double portraiture in renaissance italy. diss., case western, 2008. https://etd.ohiolink.edu/ap/6?3428812136358:p0_search:no [accessed on 20. june 2014]. on napoleon's histoire métallique, see lisa zeitz and joachim zeitz, napoleons medaillen (petersberg: imhof, & 2003); this medal, pp. 174–175. [65] eisenstein, "dickens, griffith and the film today," 241–242. [66] tupitsyn, the soviet photograph, 66–98; also dickerman, ed., building the collective, 35. for a nuanced though admittedly incomplete account of the relationship of german and soviet filmmakers' use of off-screen space in the 1920s to the legacy of griffith, see thomas elsaesser, "time, space and causality: joe may, fritz lang and the modernism of german detective film," modernist cultures 5.1 (2010): 79–105. [67] pascal bonitzer, "deframings," 199. [68] salt, film style and technology, 85. [69] for other images from the series, see tupitsyn, gustav klutsis and valentina kulagina, plates 4–12. [70] vladimir mayakovsky, pro eto/it/das bewusste thema (berlin: ars nicolai, 1994), 79–93; selim o. khan-magomedov, rodchenko: the complete work (cambridge: mit press, 1987), 120–122. [71] cf. dickerman, ed., building the collective, plate 25; magomedov, rodchenko, 118–145; also tupitsyn, gustav klutsis and valentina kulagina, plates 9, 105, 106, and figures 71–73, pp. 61–62. [72] on showings of romm's films in china by the yenan film-projection team in 1939, see leyda, dianying, 295; on the distribution of soviet films (including romm's) in china more generally, see tina mai chen, "socialist geographies, internationalist temporalities, and traveling film technologies: sino-soviet film exchange in the 1950s and 1960s," in olivia khoo and sean metzger, ed., futures of chinese cinemas: technologies and temporalities in chinese screen cultures (bristol: intellect books, 2009), 73–93, here 77–80. thanks to cathy yeh for alerting me to the relevance of these films. [73] even among the few extant images of lenin with his arm upraised, this precise gesture is never repeated. to judge from the photographs, he seems to have preferred to prop both hands on the podium while speaking. see the following plates in a.m. gak, a.i. petrov, and l.n. fomicheva, ed., lenin: sobranie fotografiĭ i kinokadrov [lenin: collection of photographs and stills], (moscow: ikusstvo, 1980), volume 1 (photographs): 137 (right arm upraised; this is the photograph used by klutsis and mayakovsky); 281 (left arm upraised); 152–154 (right hand outstretched, grasping cap); 156 (left hand outstretched, palm up, fingers splayed); 39 (both hands raised); 68–72 (hands in pockets, apparently on a cold november day); 121 (hands in pockets); 24, 38, 40, 85–88, 129–134, 186, 198, 202, 203–205 (hands on podium); 264, 275–277 (holding a manuscript with one or both hands); 273 (hands clasped behind back); 136, 138, 139, 274, 278 (hands at sides); 279 (hands touching at chest); 280 (arms crossed [?]). the corpus of film stills (volume 2) shows gesticulation with the right arm on two occasions (film 3, shot 2, stills 5–14, fist clenched; film 10, shot 18, stills 11–14; film 10, shot 20, stills 1–6; film 10, shot 21, stills 5–9); compare however film 14, shot 2; film 15; and film 16, shot 10. [74] see the album adolf hitler: bilder aus dem leben des führers (hamburg/bahrenfeld: cigaretten/bilderdienst, 1936), which required the reader to collect the photographs illustrating it by sending in coupons from cigarette packages. many of these photographs are from leni riefenstahl's triumph of the will (1935), suggesting a propaganda strategy not unlike that of movie tie-ins, which were already established practice in the movie industry by the mid-1910s. cf. ben singer, "marketing melodrama: serials and intertextuality," melodrama and modernity: early sensational cinema and its contexts (new york: columbia university press, 2001), 263–287. [75] compare david mcdonald's analysis of david hare's 1975 drama of the chinese revolution, fanshen: "secretary ch'en appears as a representative for the one transcendental signifier (unutterable referent) whose name is omitted from the play, chairman mao. hare carefully omits any reference to mao in the entire play. in the summary speech he even performs a slight but telling misrepresentation by omitting a reference to the authority of mao included in hinton's record of the speech. hinton records ch'en citing mao along with lenin, marx, and stalin, as icons whose words should be faithfully followed, copied to the letter as sources for the ultimate truth." david mcdonald, "unspeakable justice: david hare's fanshen," in janelle g. reinelt and joseph r. roach, eds., critical theory and performance (ann arbor: university of michigan press, 1992), 129–145, here 139. [76] on tatlin and russian icons, see christina lodder, russian constructivism (new haven: yale up, 1983), 11; on malevich and icons, tat'jana vilinbachova, "alpha and omega: from icon-painting to malevich," in giorgio cortenova and evgenija petrova, eds., kazimir malevich e le sacre icone russe: avanguardia e tradizioni (milan: electa, 2000), 94–101; on continuous narration in ancient visual art see jocelyn penny small, "time in space: narrative in classical art," the art bulletin 81.4 (dec. 1999): 562–75, and richard brilliant, visual narratives: storytelling in etruscan and roman art (ithaca: cornell university press, 1984). the term "continuous narrative" is from franz wickhoff, die wiener genesis (1895); see small, p. 568, at note 54. [77] see for example the great utopia, plates 453–458. on rodchenko's interactions with vertov, see yuri tsivian, "turning objects, toppled pictures: give and take between vertov's films and constructivist art," october 121 (summer, 2007), 92–110; on rodchenko's high-and low-angle shots, see the documents of the debate of 1928 in novye lef between rodchenko, boris kushner and sergei tret'iakov translated in phillips, ed., photography in the modern era, 243–272. [78] christina lodder, russian constructivism, 7–46. [79] see matthew teitelbaum, ed., montage and modern life, 1919–1942 (cambridge: mit press, 1992); also bordwell, "idea of montage." [80] the great utopia, plate 416. [81] nearly the entire series can be streamed at: https://www.filmmuseum.at/en/collections/dziga_vertov_collection/kinonedelja__online_edition [accessed on 20. june 2014]. [82] the longer film kino-eye reuses footage from both of these newsreels. georges sadoul notes that vertov's brother mikhail kaufman did not become the project's principal camera operator until kino-pravda #6. sadoul, dziga vertov, 154. [83] http://www.followthethings.com/kinoeye.shtml [accessed on 20. june 2014]. [84] sadoul, dziga vertov, 160. [85] on lenin's importance to vertov generally, see §120 of vertov's "artistic calling card," in dziga vertov: die vertov-sammlung im österreichischen filmmuseum/the vertov collection at the austrian film museum, ed. österreichisches filmmuseum, thomas tode, barbara wurm (vienna: österreichisches filmmuseum, 2006), 148–150. on the lenin kino-pravda, see especially annette michelson, "the kinetic icon." [86] on soviet electrification, see jonathan coopersmith, the electrification of russia, 1880–1926 (ithaca: cornell university press, 1992), esp. 192–257; on the accelerated progress of rural electrification during the years 1924–1926, see 236–244. on the representation of electrification in soviet film, see emma widdis, visions of a new land: soviet film from the revolution to the second world war (new haven: yale university press, 2003), 21–29. [87] tumarkin, lenin lives!, 112–206. [88] verstraten, film narratology, 89. [89]tumarkin, lenin lives!, 208–212, citing robert c. tucker, stalin as revolutionary, 1879–1929: a study in history and personality (new york: norton, 1973), 304–324. on china, see yongjing zhang, "the successor's dilemma in china's single party political system," european journal of political economy 27 (2011) 674–680. [90] see stewart, faces of power ; carmen arnold-biucchi, alexander's coins and alexander's image (cambridge: harvard university art museums, 2006); fulińska, "the god alexander"; also http://alexanderthegreatcoins.reidgold.com/portrait.html [accessed on 20. june 2014]. [91] this is his first solo appearance; as noted above, he appears alongside zhou enlai, zhu de, and liu shaoqi on the fourth-series 100-yuan note of 1988. [92] li cheng, "china in 1999: seeking common ground at a time of tension and conflict," asian survey 40/1 (jan.-feb. 2000): 112–129, here 112. [93] http://www.masterandmargarita.eu/en/09context/chervonets.html [accessed on 20. june 2014]. [94] b. alexandrov, "the soviet currency reform," russian review 8.1 (january 1949), 56–61. [95] as helen wang notes, mao made the same decision as early as a banknote issue of 1932; a portrait of lenin was used instead. wang, "mao on money," 88–89. [96] wagner, "ritual, architecture, politics and publicity," 234; jay leyda, dianying/electric shadows: an account of films and the film audience in china (cambridge: mit press, 1972), 56. both leyda and wagner assume that a documentary on lenin's burial that was shown in china in 1924 was vertov's, but this is impossible, as vertov's film was not released until january 1925 (sadoul, dziga vertov, 160). the chinese film journal dianying zhoukan 4 (1924) reported public and private screenings of a six-chapter soviet documentary film, lenin's burial, in tianjin and beijing in late march and early april 1924, on the occasion of chinese mourning ceremonies following lenin's death; cf. jihua chen, zhongguo dianying fazhan shi (history of chinese cinema) (beijing: dianying chubanshe, 1994) 137–139. this will have been the film похороны ленина (pokhorony lenina, "lenin's funeral"), a collective effort commissioned by the central presidium of the ussr and released by goskino on 5 february 1924. according to a memoir by one of the cameramen, aleksandr razumnyi, the film incorporated footage by a total of eighteen cameramen, including eisenstein's cameraman eduard tisse and possibly vertov's brother mikhail kaufman (if so, his name is misspelled "каумфан" in the memoir); see aleksandr razumnyi, u istokov... vospominaniia kinorezhissera (at the source...memories of a filmmaker) (moscow: "iskusstvo," 1975), 94–101. in the leninskaia kino-pravda vertov does credit several of this film's cameramen (see sadoul, dziga vertov, 160; tsivian, lines of resistance, 405), which suggests that some of the footage was likely the same; visual comparison of vertov's work with a clip of the collective film available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igts5ofr5na and with portions available here: http://yroslav1985.livejournal.com/127980.html [accessed on 20. june 2014] shows that this is indeed the case. see also http://www.strana-oz.ru/2007/2/proshchanie-s-mertvym-telom [accessed on 20. june 2014]. on the influx of soviet films into china in 1950 see leyda, dianying, 191. my thanks to cathy yeh and rudolf wagner for help with the chinese sources, and to yuri corrigan for aid with the russian ones. [97] tumarkin, lenin lives!, 112–206; wagner, "ritual, architecture, politics and publicity," 223–278, esp. 227–235. [98] leese, mao cult, 38 [99] on the revival of attention to sun in mainland china in 1979, see marie-claire bergére, sun yat-sen, trans. janet lloyd (stanford: stanford university press, 1998), 1. [100] on stalin and the waning of the lenin cult, see tumarkin, lenin lives!, 244–251. [101] see especially helen wang, "mao on money," 89–91. [102] wu hung, "face of authority," 76. [103] on the tiananmen portraits of sun and chiang, see hung, "face of authority," 69–72; on the mao portrait sequence, 68–84. [104] on the "maocraze," see francesca del lago, "personal mao: reshaping an icon in contemporary chinese art," art journal, vol. 58, no. 2 (summer, 1999): 46–59. [105] on the politics of the minority cultural revival see susan mccarthy, "gods of wealth, temples of prosperity: party-state participation in the minority cultural revival," china: an international journal 2.1 (march 2004): 28–52. [106] yang zhong, "legitimacy crisis and legitimation in china," journal of contemporary asia 26.2 (1996): 201–220; david m. lampton, following the leader: ruling china, from deng xiaoping to xi jinping (berkeley: university of california press, 2014), 13–44; stephen white, john gardner and george schöpflin, communist political systems: an introduction, second edition (new york: st. martin's press, 1987), 152. [107] rudolf g. wagner, "reading the chairman mao memorial hall in peking: the tribulations of the implied pilgrim," in susan naquin and chün-fang yü, eds., pilgrims and sacred sites in china (berkeley: university of california press, 1982), 378–424, here 405–406. thanks to rudolf wagner for spotting this analogy. [109]kim jong-il and kim jong-un looking at things. images courtesy of kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com and http://kimjongunlookingatthings.tumblr.com, [accessed on 20. june 2014]. the republic of letters comes to nagasaki | mervart | transcultural studies the republic of letters comes to nagasaki: record of a translator’s struggle david mervart, universidad autónoma de madrid the narrative frame of this paper is supplied by the story of what was probably the first recorded translation of the peculiar and difficult metaphor of the “republic of letters” into an east asian language.[*] this microscopic case study in the intellectual history of a conceptual translation is then plotted onto the larger background of the history of knowledge transmission and formation that had, by the eighteenth century, assumed a global character. it thus provides an occasion for a detailed enquiry into the complex conditions of the possibility—material and logistical as well as social, cultural, and intellectual—of such transcultural mediation. at the same time, the story of the translation of the expression “republic of letters” itself is presented as an example of the ongoing processes of communication that, already by the eighteenth century, had arguably brought into existence something like a republic of letters on a eurasia-wide, if not global scale. in other words, the story, along with the other episodes mentioned, reflects a situation where some conversations were already drawing simultaneously on sources derived from a variety of spatially, linguistically, and conceptually disparate milieus. in pursuing this enquiry, therefore, the paper also offers an implicit commentary on what some have called “global intellectual history”[1] in that it poses a situated objection to the reductionist notions of occidental “influence” and the “diffusion” of western knowledge in non-western worlds. such notions appear skewed and unhelpful for the purpose of sketching the outlines of the picture emerging from a case study as the one presented below. any plausible general account of how our world has historically become a place of globally shared conversations, imaginaries, and conceptual vocabularies should be able to accommodate well-documented cases like the nagasaki encounter with the “republic of letters” traced here. i. sometime around the mid-1790s, a man in nagasaki was struggling with a translation. the dutch expression that he had been commissioned to render into japanese read “het republyk der geleerden”[2] and although, given the breadth of his reading, the term “republic” cannot have been unknown to him, the usual meaning did not readily fit the context here. the geleerden, on the other hand, did not present any problem. he knew quite intimately who “the learned” were; he could readily count himself as one, a gakusha 学者, or xuezhe, in the standard chinese reading of the characters, a “person of learning.” shizuki tadao 志筑忠雄 (1760–1806)—for that is the name under which he is best known today—was, in fact, a man of considerable learning and understood the trickiness of translation well. he had already struggled with the dutch cognates of terms like “force of gravity” or “adverb.”[3] such rudimentary reference resources as they existed then—like the brand new haruma wage, literally, “japanese rendering of halma,” i.e., françois halma’s dictionary—were of no use here.[4] they at best accurately listed known or readily ascertainable equivalences between dutch and japanese vocabulary items. but they offered little help with idiomatic collocations and none at all in the case of complex concepts for which not even tentative equivalents existed in the first place. a younger contemporary by name of shingū ryōtei 新宮凉庭 (1787–1854), a dedicated student of what was then called “dutch medicine,” composed later in his life a poem expressive of the difficulties similar to those our translator was facing. a poem, it bears emphasising, set in classical chinese, in four phrases, each seven characters in length, emulating models from the high tang dynasty some thousand years earlier. 蘭書ヲ譯ス 論括乾坤理析釐 苦心讀得下毫遲 自咍五十餘年苦 只有窓前夜雨知[5] translating a dutch text grasping for the overall sense of the argument, scrutinising the pattern of the text; with great pains, i finally make sense of what i have read and lay down the brush this late. i laugh at myself: over fifty years of toil and only the night rain outside the window knows. it is telling of the nature of the struggles with the translation of difficult dutch phrases that the men who faced them were typically also men who could dash off a few stanzas of tang-style classical poetry and recite from memory passages from canonical texts like the analects or the mencius. it was these accomplishments, after all, that primarily identified one as a man of letters within the broader sinosphere. a reader of dutch texts in eighteenth-century japan was with his labours mostly alone—apart from the night rain. in his time, shizuki tadao almost certainly was the most accomplished reader of dutch among his compatriots, however that also meant he had hardly anyone else to turn to. in this case, too, he had to find his own solution. het republyk der geleerden—he saw from the form and contents of the four consecutive volumes dating from the years 1710 to 1712 that he had in front of him[6]—was a publication of the learned from what his contemporaries called oranda, holland, shorthand for the united provinces of the dutch netherlands. from the vantage point of today, we can tell it was a representative of that mushrooming new medium, the journal for book reviews and original scholarship, a follower, for example, of the famous nouvelles de la république des lettres, edited from the 1680s by pierre bayle in rotterdam. the histoire critique de la république des lettres, tant ancienne que moderne appeared regularly in nearby utrecht at the same time that the wetstein brothers, printers and booksellers in amsterdam, brought out the first issues of het republyk der geleerden. the same wetstein brothers, incidentally, would in 1729 publish the abovementioned french and dutch dictionary by françois halma, whose name by the end of the century became a synonym for “dictionary” in japanese. the genre was not limited to the united provinces, of course. among its flagships were the parisian journal des sçavans—which in its inaugural issue in 1665 had advertised its scope to be “the coverage of what news transpires in the republic of letters”[7]—the philosophical transactions of the royal society in london (published from 1665), or the acta eruditorum in leipzig (from 1682). these journals were the organs of a dense communicative network that encompassed a whole virtual parallel continent—as anthony grafton has described it—a community of conversations, authors, publishers, critics, reviewers, books, journals and innumerable letters, cafés and salons, universities, libraries, collectors and collections, learned societies, and royally sanctioned academies of arts and sciences.[8] a community, of sorts, we should recall, that thrived despite, or at least talked across, bitter confessional divisions and frontlines in the wars of succession that rent the real continent apart. a book written in naples by a catholic subject of the spanish king and published in italian in 1710 could, within a few years, be extensively reviewed by a former genevan calvinist working in amsterdam and the review, in french, carried by one of the new journals would bring it to the attention of other readers in edinburgh or strasbourg or st petersburg.[9] edifying reports dispatched by the members of the jesuit order to update their superordinates on the state of their overseas missions were translated, printed, and attentively perused in england during the very period that saw the ousting of a king who was seen as dangerously sympathetic to the papist, catholic cause.[10] a treatise composed in latin by a westphalian physician, a former employee of the swedish crown and of the dutch east india company, could be acquired by an english collector, translated into english by a swiss medic based in london, and republished in several french and dutch editions, the latter pre-advertised in a holstein newspaper, all within less than two decades.[11] the european republic of letters had self-consciously called itself so for some time and, acting on that metaphor, had conjured into existence a real continent-wide community of shared conversations, practices, and standards, many of which centred on periodical publications, latin or vernacular, like het republyk der geleerden. but the nagasaki translator possessed none of that background knowledge to help him. ii. let us pause for a moment before we follow the translator’s struggles. how would someone in 1790s nagasaki come to grapple with the notion of a “republic of letters” in the first place? there are several different levels at which such a question can be raised and different angles from which an answer may be attempted, each capturing a facet of the story. at the most global level, the conspicuous presence of products of dutch printing presses in nagasaki was no accident, but an outcome of very real constellations of the geopolitical balance of power and commercial interest. this is the familiar history of the european overseas expansion, the rush for spices, gold, silver, silk, and porcelain that turned into an all out scramble for colonial empire; of how, between the seventeenth and nineteenth century, in a major turn of fortunes, the “far west” came to rule, or at least dictate its terms to, the rest and how other societies supposedly either succumbed to the domination or managed to scrape through by acceding to the new standards and adopting the ways of the occidentals as best they could, from ballistics to constitutionalism. but although this is how the story is still often told, or tacitly assumed, it has many discontents. for one, it seems to rest on a strange dichotomy that postulates that, when a european undertakes a translation from chinese or sanskrit, he is engaged in the scientific cognition of a different culture, whereas when a japanese, manchu, or turkish author translates a text from a european language, he is becoming a conduit of western influence. perhaps this is neither the right nor the most helpful way to answer our question. and perhaps answering our question requires us to reconsider the conventional terms of the story of the inexorable diffusion of western knowledge on the wings of the west’s global hegemony. but adjusting the zoom to be more precise, this is still the history of how, from the sixteenth century on, small bands of europeans started arriving in east and southeast asian ports to wedge themselves into the bustling and lucrative regional trade there; how the novel joint stock trading monopolies of the north, the dutch and english east indies companies, gradually displaced the portuguese and spanish competitors in the region; and how, by the end of the seventeenth century, the dutch vereenigde oostindische compagnie (voc) operated an extensive network of intra-asian trade with its centre in batavia on java and trading outposts in places as far out as nagasaki. after the catholic spaniards and portuguese were banished from the japanese archipelago by the now stabilised tokugawa regime, as the assumed threat of christian subversion outweighed the prospect of gain from commerce, and the english withdrew after having failed to find a viable business model for trade there, the dutch company’s tiny trading station in the nagasaki harbour, on the fan-shaped manmade island of dejima, remained the only official european foothold on japanese soil. it was definitely on board a dutch east indiaman that the copies of het republyk der geleerden reached nagasaki. they would have been offloaded in a crate or chest onto a small local boat and one of the hired indigenous labourers making his wages from the annual ebb and flow of global commerce in nagasaki harbour would have carried them on his shoulder through the west gate in the dejima palisade, the sea entrance through which every western book that was legally imported between the mid-seventeenth and mid-nineteenth centuries would have inevitably passed.[12] however, a different way to attempt an answer to the question is to shift the sight from the supposed global spread of western ways, both geopolitical and intellectual, to the local conditions of communication. for struggling with the translation of a strange concept is surely better understood in terms of a communicative situation rather than as an instance of coming under influence. this is therefore also the history of the establishment of an intellectual milieu and the discipline of the reading of dutch texts as a means of posing one’s own questions to sources of knowledge not accessible through other channels. it was the relatively contingent circumstance of the dutch east india company’s presence in nagasaki that, from the seventeenth century onwards, called into existence and officially sanctioned the skill in a western vernacular among some subjects of the united states of the tokugawa. the tight control the tokugawa authorities decided to keep over all commerce with the western barbarians meant that the communication was not left to spontaneous improvisation by the parties involved, like in many other port cities of early modern eurasia, where such a situation typically gave rise to simplified purpose-driven language registers known as pidgin (the word itself an alteration of “business”) and creole. in nagasaki, unlike in canton or batavia, the acts and means of communication themselves were placed under a regime of meticulous regulation. all the trade was channelled through a government-run clearing house, the voc employees in residence were kept as much as possible from learning any japanese or mingling with local commoners, and the dealings between them and the authorities were mediated by the members of a hierarchically organised college of official interpreters, tsūji 通事, who were placed directly under the jurisdiction of the chief magistrate, nagasaki bugyō.[13] like most professions in tokugawa, japan, that of the interpreters, too, pertained to corporate families, i.e. 家, rather than individuals, although allowance must be made for the fairly loose sense of “family” where heredity frequently meant the adoption of a suitable successor to the headship of the house as a professional corporation, not just in the absence of, but sometimes even in preference to one’s own offspring.[14] the unintended consequence of all of these measures was, however, that a group of professionals qualified in a european vernacular became, in time, an addition to the intellectual landscape of tokugawa japan. every now and again, one of the corporate families that habitually supplied official interpreters, like the shizukis, produced a man with scholarly instincts and intellectual curiosity going beyond the business at hand.[15] and with time, even outside of the circle of the nagasaki interpreters, a mixture of curiosity and utility brought others into the orbit of what was by then self-consciously called “dutch learning.”[16] this term is usually taken to broadly mean applied western sciences, from surgery and botany to cartography and metallurgy. the availability of that channel, however, always depended on basic qualifications of a philological nature. dutch texts—like chinese, but unlike, say, latin, persian, manchu, or french texts—could be read, comprehended, debated, and put to use for domestic purposes and tested against local agendas. it was dutch books, which often meant dutch translations from other european vernaculars or latin, that provided japan’s own community of the learned with snippets of not only newton and kepler, but also grotius, justinian, and virgil. iii. this is all very well, but while we have the translator, shizuki tadao, we still do not have him sitting over our text. that requires telling yet another story of how a scion of a kyūshū warlord house became a peacetime collector of curiosities ranging from tribal ainu spearheads and old roof tiles, to illustrated dutch books. enter matsura kiyoshi 松浦清 (1760–1841), the heir of the hirado domain and one of the scores of daimyō, or what european observers called “petty kings.” his small principality on the western coast of kyūshū had once, back in the early seventeenth century, been a genuine global entrepôt, a bustling main port of call for overseas merchant (and pirate) ships, including the monopoly trading companies of the dutch and, for some time, even the english.[17] as the rough age of intermittent internal warfare of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had given way to the great peace under the tokugawa hegemony, the immediate relevance of battlefield virtues receded a bit and opened up room for more polite pursuits. indeed, matsura kiyoshi is better known by his chinese-style studio name (gō号) seizan 静山, and it was under this penname that he kept one of the longest extant diary-like collections of occasional jottings and reminiscences, the kasshi yawa 甲子夜話,or tales commenced on the night of the wooden rat.[18] born in 1760, in other words well over a century since japan had seen any serious military conflict, seizan—like most other members of the warrior class—kept all the appearances of taking his duties as an armed vassal with utmost seriousness despite the enduring conditions of commercialised and leisured peacetime. he continued to stamp his book acquisitions—like a dutch translation of the complete works of ovidius—with a big red ex libris seal, seihan no chin 西藩之鎮 (c: xifan zhi zhen), “the military outpost for quelling the tribes off the western border.”[19] his role in performing the great peace[20] as a notional vassal to the tokugawa house did indeed involve security inspection tours of the contact zone with the western tribes in nagasaki. but whenever there, curious about novelties and hunting for acquisitions, he spent his time associating with the official interpreters, scholars, and occasionally even with some of the dutch company representatives. symptomatic of the new age of peace and commerce, some of the money for the purchase of the expensive imported books came from the windfall dividends on the profitable whaling operation run from hirado by the masutomi-gumi corporation.[21] by the early 1800s, seizan was the owner of one of the largest collections of “dutch” (i.e., western) texts in japan, likely rivalled only by the momijiyama library at the shogun’s castle in edo.[22] so this is, too, a significant part of the story of how het republyk der geleerden found its way to the desk of our translator: by entering the possession of a warlord collector, most likely as a result of a purchase with whaler money and through the good offices of some of the nagasaki interpreters, of printed materials privately brought there by one of the voc staff who aspired to stay in touch with the republic of letters back on the distant shores of the far west. this is also what dates our translator’s own encounter with the “republic of letters,” most likely the first recorded attempt to translate the notion into an east asian language. for while the catalogue of the “barbarian writings” section of seizan’s extensive library is prefaced in the twelfth year of kansei (1800), it also records the ninth lunar month of the first year of kansei (1789) as the moment of the acquisition of the journal issues in nagasaki. it is an entry in this same catalogue that is our sole record of the struggles with this early translation of the peculiar phrase.[23] seizan would have approached the shizuki—either tadao or his adoptive father zenjirō—sometime between those dates, possibly sooner rather than later, considering an avid collector’s impatience to file away his new acquisitions. for inquisitive as he was, and greatly intrigued by dutch books, seizan himself never acquired the linguistic facility to read any of them. in this he was not unlike many librarians and collectors around the european republic of letters at the time, who also eagerly collected texts in manchu, chinese, or japanese, even though the ability to make any sense of them was even scarcer in paris or london than the ability to read dutch was in nagasaki or edo.[24] that must be why seizan appreciated the visual element of copperplate illustrations, tables, and maps, whose captions are frequently accompanied by japanese translations carefully written into the margins of his acquisitions. but to make sense of even the titles of his western books, let alone the captions, seizan had to rely on the help of others. most of the corporate families of the licensed official interpreters originally hailed from hirado, from where they followed westerners who were herded to nagasaki in the seventeenth century. as the lord of hirado, seizan could still informally call on their services invoking the old ties of vassal loyalty that bound their corporate forefathers to his own ancestors. the shizuki were one of these families and it is probably also by virtue of this connection that the more scholarly minded among them were able, in turn, to draw on seizan’s growing book collection. thus, to account for how a few issues of an amsterdam-published newsletter of the dutch branch of the republic of letters turned up in nagasaki requires answering some basic questions about the generation, processing, and circulation of knowledge on a scale that was undeniably global. yet, at a time when no text could travel faster than its human carrier, assisted at best by animal power on land and the power of wind and drift on the water, this question can only be answered at a level that is quite literally pedestrian. we are concerned not with influences and diffusions, but with people who wrote, read, sold, owned, lent, translated, and transported books, pamphlets, journals, and letters. and we also look for social environments or institutional and intellectual networks that enabled or encouraged or required them to do so, for the value attached to having texts, for the practices of dealing with them, sharing, copying, and storing them, both as a source of knowledge and as a marketable and collectible commodity. we know that some remarkable books changed hands in nagasaki from the second half of the eighteenth century and not only books on medicine and astronomy. in the eighth month of kansei 12 (1800), for example, a not too well advertised sale took place at dejima. it disposed of some of the effects of the voc chief representative, one gijsbert hemmij, who had died suddenly on the way to the regular audience in edo. the auctioned estate included a collection of books, 77 titles, comprising in total 195 physical volumes. the list gives one an idea of what a relatively prominent dutch business executive, a man aspiring to a certain status and decorum, though by no means a professional academician, might have had on his bookshelves. and in both the array of languages and the diversity of the places of provenience, it is a telling cross-section of the eighteenth-century european republic of letters.[25] it included, for instance, hugo grotius’s introduction to dutch jurisprudence, inleiding tot de hollandsche rechtsgeleerdeheit, in a den haag edition of 1776; a 1664 amsterdam edition of justinian’s corpus iuris civilis; a 1776 dublin edition of adam smith’s an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations; a 1730 london edition of james thomson’s poem the seasons; the first edition of encyclopædia britannica in three volumes (edinburgh, 1771); mary wollstonecraft’s an historical and moral view of the origin and progress of the french revolution (london, 1794); jacques necker’s an essay on the true principles of executive power in great states (london, 1792); abbé raynal’s histoire philosophique et politique des établissement et du commerce des européens dans les deux indes (a geneva edition in ten octavo volumes from 1780); 21 quarto volumes of buffon’s (at that point still unfinished) histoire naturelle (paris, 1749–1804); the dutch translations of françois fénelon’s aventures de télemaque (amsterdam, 1720) and defoe’s robinson crusoe (amsterdam, 1720–22); an english version of a thousand and one nights from galland’s french translation-fabrication (dublin, 1776); plus a dutch version of the records of bougainville’s travels (dordrecht, 1766–69) and a french version (paris, 1795) of cook’s journeys of discovery. this sale, however, went on unbeknownst to the interpreters and dutch studies enthusiasts alike, and most of the buyers seem to have been other dejima staff or the captain and officers of the american ship massachusetts, commissioned under disguise as a voc vessel to ferry in the new director from batavia. only a handful of the books can be traced beyond the sale. raynal found its way to the holdings of the date clan of the principality of sendai, and the corpus iuris civilis ended up in the shogunal library.[26] but there is no trace of either being referred to or put to any substantial use. the mere presence of information obviously does not constitute knowledge, and there was hardly anybody in the kansei era (around the year 1800 by western counting) that could make much sense of any latin or french. iv. so when shizuki tadao came across a latin verse in one of his translations, he was at a loss. this happened in a text by engelbert kaempfer, the treatise that was to establish the “closed country” trope as a defining characteristic of tokugawa japan.[27] based on his observations of japan a century before, in the early 1690s, when he stayed in nagasaki as a doctor hired by the voc, kaempfer penned this treatise, in latin, after his return to europe and first published it at the author’s expense in his home town of lemgo.[28] only after his death was it appended to his previously unpublished manuscript, das heutige japan, as edited and translated into english at hans sloane’s behest in london. the result, kaempfer’s comprehensive history of japan, became the default source of information on the tokugawa polity in the european and atlantic republic of letters. montesquieu, rousseau, kant, and the prolific encyclopedist louis de jaucourt were not the only ones who drew solely on kaempfer whenever they discussed the example of japan.[29] even much later, in 1853, when u.s. commodore matthew perry led his fleet to japan’s shores and townsend harris set up the first western consulate on japanese soil, both still relied on kaempfer’s history for their basic grasp of the land and polity in their mission, to talk or bully its rulers into establishing diplomatic and trade relations, thus “opening” the “closed” country.[30] but long before that, in the 1770s, a copy of the dutch version of the text found its way back to nagasaki—presumably as a japan guidebook in the luggage of one of the voc officials—thereby closing the circle some eighty years after its author had departed through the same sea-facing west gate of dejima. there it quickly entered another debate, that of japan’s self-conscious articulation of its place in an insistently connecting world.[31] it was circuits like these that were transforming the local republics of letters into a world wide web. once in nagasaki, the treatise did not fail to catch the attention of scholars and collectors alike. indeed, the dutch edition of kaempfer’s history was apparently matsura seizan’s first western book acquisition ever.[32] it was seizan’s copy that was used for the translation, and it is duly listed in the same annotated library catalogue of his that contains the sole record of our translator’s struggles with the “republic of letters.”[33] shizuki tadao is believed to have perused the copy early on, at least a decade before 1801, when he famously chose to translate this particular short appendix, coining the neologism sakoku 鎖国 that corresponded to the regnum clausum, or “closed kingdom,” of kaempfer’s description.[34] the latin verse in question appeared near the opening of the text and went: hic segetes, illic veniunt felicius uvae: india mittit ebur, molles sua thura sabæi.[35] it was kaempfer’s wink towards hugo grotius and the latinate erudition they both shared. the young lawyer grotius had cited the same locus classicus from virgil’s georgica in his mare liberum in support of his client’s claim that free commercial exchange was providentially ordained as evidenced by the sheer fact of unequal distribution of resources over the face of the earth: “here corn, there grapes come more prosperously…” protesting the portuguese exclusion of other european nations from the lucrative east indies trade, grotius, on behalf of his employer voc, invoked the creator’s universal natural order—which, at the hands of a jurist and in a debate that took a legal twist, came to be phrased as “natural law”—to defend the company’s right to freely sail to places like the molucca islands, canton, or nagasaki, and contribute to the peaceful exchange of necessities among differently endowed regions. kaempfer, also a voc employee though no lawyer, gave a summary of the grotian position before moving to demolish it with the counterexample of a flourishing empire of japan, happily closed from nearly all intercourse with foreigners.[36] but both kaempfer’s presence in nagasaki in the 1690s and shizuki tadao’s struggles with the virgil quotes and the republics of letters a century later were proof that some parts of the japanese archipelago were always more involved in the global traffic of texts and ideas than any “closed country” trope that became so established in subsequent historiography would warrant. the entrance of kaempfer’s apology of a happily closed country—supported by the example of japan—onto the stage of the eighteenth century european debate, as well as the articulation of a “closed country” policy in japan that took its key concept from a neologism adapted via latin, english, and dutch, were symptomatic of the production, transmission, and translation of texts passed along the synapses of commerce that spanned the whole of eurasia. linguistically at his wits’ end, shizuki tadao must have first somehow managed to identify the language of the mysterious quote in his kaempfer text as latin, probably by visually comparing it with other samples (the quote was typographically distinguished by italics) and by drawing on his previous rich experience with the conventions of similar western texts. then, he would rummage through the collection of western books available to him—the same hirado library whose catalogues he had helped to annotate—and manage to locate a latin-dutch handbook that gave vernacular translations of famous passages from the ancient classics, benjamin jacques and samuel hannot’s dictionarium latino-belgicum.[37] he probably tried looking up individual words from the latin quote one by one. hic did not help, but he was lucky, for the second word returned a positive result. the entry seges conveniently offered as an example occurrence virgil’s oft-cited line and duly provided the dutch rendering that he needed. kaempfer himself had written in latin, and both his english and dutch translators operated in a world where latin classics were naturally kept in their original. the seventeenth-century republic of letters, to an important extent, represented a community of the culture of neo-latin learning.[38] but, at the same time, latin proficiency was by no means a universal skill and there were sufficient numbers of aspiring citizens of the various post-roman european polities who wished to appear cultured and respectable, even without possessing all the necessary classical erudition. this type of demand spawned a commercially viable market for vernacular reference books like the one shizuki tadao was able to consult, improbably, in nagasaki. shizuki tadao must have felt rather smug having solved this riddle, but he leaves no trace of that in his own text.[39] the language is lucid, measured, and matter-of-fact. in his clearly marked translator’s interlinear commentary—the equivalent of footnote in his tradition of textual scholarship—he provides the minimum necessary background on what that difficult language is (latin) and who virgil was (an ancient poet), identifies his sources (citing the latin dictionary by the stated name of its rotterdam publisher, pieter van der slaart), and acknowledges that he can only provide the apparent general meaning of the verse based on his reference handbook. yet, in recognition of the conventional understanding of the status of ancient poets in his own culture, he renders the latin of virgil not into japanese, as he does with the vernacular dutch of the rest of the treatise, but rather to the elevated register of kanbun, or classical chinese, proposing something of a functional parallel between the two bodies of authoritative classics. then, he explains the function of the quote and the preceding passage in the structure of kaempfer’s overall argument and moves on. surely this was an embodiment of the best of the learned standards of his time and place. and all this serious commitment and intellectual energy, all the lonely late hours of struggle guided by the best scholarly ethos of the day, went into decoding and making accessible not an adam smith, a montesquieu, a hugo grotius, or some such looming classic of early modern europe—even where such alternatives may have been, in principle, available—but a minor appended treatise by an author all but unknown to anyone occupied today with the history of europe’s republic of letters. it was often precisely texts which were not major classics that travelled and attracted attention most easily and tied the threads of the world wide web of knowledge. fig. 1: a page from the appendix to the 1733 dutch edition of kaempfer’s history of japan with virgil’s hic segetes quote at the top left. (doshisha university digital library: https://doors.doshisha.ac.jp/duar/repository/ir/22456/211_057.jpg [accessed on dec 10, 2015]). v. one could regard such tales of late night struggles with strange foreign keywords as a pedantic footnote to the stride of global modernity and dismiss them as mostly irrelevant and rightly forgotten. except that, in the world we have come to inhabit since the eighteenth century, the very shapes of social and political lives of a large portion of humanity have reconstituted themselves around conceptual vocabularies that were precisely the product of such contingent and seemingly irrelevant struggles with translation as transcultural mediation. today, most people in most parts of world live, for example, quite inescapably in formations that define themselves as “states”—often indeed even as “republics.” many take for granted that states have “constitutions,” supposed safeguards of “rights” and “liberties;” many accept that the relations among polities defined as “states,” the sole holders of territorial “sovereignty,” can be usefully and legitimately captured by the metaphor of “law” as in “international law,” whose foundations are commonly assumed to have been laid by the jurisprudential opinions of the likes of hugo grotius. however, as recently as the turn of the nineteenth century, the language of “states,” “constitutions,” “laws,” “sovereignty,” “rights,” or “liberty” was very far from representing common sense. so far from it, in fact, that in many parts of the world, including canton or nagasaki, it would have sounded like a local idiom peculiar to distant barbarians, irrelevant to most, and difficult to comprehend; whose claim to universal validity was no more plausible or inherently convincing than the lore of any other remote tribe. and yet, the efforts to understand these peculiar foreign terms often preceded the actual hard geopolitical necessity that at last made facing them unavoidable. in the case of tokugawa japan, around the end of the eighteenth century, there was not much in the air that would presage the full-blown crisis over half a century later, when the insistent occidentals equipped with indisputably superior military and organisational knowhow forced the opening of new forms of diplomatic and commercial relations, and on terms mostly of their own choosing.[40]still, decades earlier—and for a variety of reasons, including whaling money and collectorship of curious dutch books—someone was puzzling over the transposition of some of these unfamiliar bits of knowledge from the western tribes into something that made sense.in order to understand how this world of ours has come about, we need to take into account both the impersonal large-scale processes that spun the webs of communication and the individual struggles of the people who actually inhabited the nodal points of this web, and who sought to make sense of those processes and articulate the experience of coming to terms with them. in all of these cases, the process of arriving at a translation is more interesting and more telling than the resulting translation itself, the term that stabilises as the conventional equivalent of the original word or phrase. the struggles with translations are telling of the ways in which humans endow their worlds with meaning and navigate their lives along the paths they chart on the landscapes thus created. the resulting translated vocabularies themselves, on the other hand, while often the only trace we have of the struggles, more often than not become established for quite accidental reasons. vi. in modern japanese and chinese, the translation for “republic” ultimately settled into an expression altogether different from any that shizuki tadao had ever considered, although with no less intriguingly complex a pedigree. when, some four decades later, the young dutch studies prodigy mitsukuri shōgo 箕作省吾　 (1821–1846) was in turn struggling with the term in its expressly political sense, a senior colleague suggested a solution.[41] ōtsuki bankei 大槻磐渓 (1801–1878) allegedly brought to his attention the compound kyōwa 共和 (c: gonghe). among their contemporaries, both men were possessed of an extraordinary amount of knowledge about western legal and political institutions, knowledge that they were capable of obtaining thanks to their competence in the dutch language, an heirloom of their corporate families. but both also inhabited a world in which the frustrations of decoding difficult dutch terms lent themselves to expression in the form of the classical stanzas of tang-period poetry. and both shared with shizuki tadao and other learned members of the east asian version of the république des lettrés the intimate philological and historical grasp on those classics that we cannot help but name “chinese,” although they were no more “chinese” to them than virgil or tacitus were “italian” to their european counterparts, and no less universal. true, a backlash against the foreign “chinese intellectualism” in the name of pure and uncorrupted indigenous japanese essence had just been launched by the so-called “nativist studies” 国学 of the likes of motoori norinaga 本居宣長 (1730–1801).[42] but it was the very novelty of this attack that confirmed the universalist understanding of classical china as the default position. the term kyōwa was picked directly from the ancient histories, in fact from the most classic of them, sima qian’s records of the grand historian (shiji). it echoed an episode from the twilight of the classical period, the last days of the western zhou, when the corrupt and oppressive king li, through his tyrannical ways, forfeited the trust and loyalty of his subjects. when their patience ran out, he was ousted in an open uprising (dated by tradition, for whatever it is worth, to the year 841 bce) and fled to end his life in exile. after his departure, his morally upright ministers carried on the government together in peaceful cooperation for fourteen years without appointing another supreme ruler or trying to usurp the kingship themselves. the era was therefore named gonghe 共和 (j: kyōwa), “mutually in unison” or “agreeing together,” to reflect this situation. shōgo liked the term, which captured, by familiar reference, the salient features of a kingless political arrangement and rendered “republic” accordingly as “kyōwa seijishū” 共和政治州, “the land [practicing] the government of agreeing together.” he wrote it down, and since he wrote it in a book that happened to go on to serve as the standard mid-nineteenth century textbook summarizing japan’s knowledge of the west, kon’yo zushiki 坤輿図識 (the comprehensive survey of the world) (1845-1847), it stuck.[43] at some point, shizuki tadao also had had to face a cognate of “republic” as a designation of a form of polity. like mitsukuri shōgo’s later solution, his was equally suggestive of the world wide web of connections that at once required and inspired the co-productive constitution of new conceptual vocabularies. in his translation of the aforementioned “discourse on the closed country” by engelbert kaempfer, shizuki had to deal with the complementary terms contrasting monarchy with a kingless form of government. his dutch original juxtaposed a “kingdom,” koninkryk, with a “commonwealth,” gemeenebest, the standard seventeenth-century term for such polities that, like the people of zhou, the dutch estates, or the parliamentarians of england, ousted or beheaded their kings and chose not to elevate any new ones.[44] the solution needed to be equally novel here. the “land of a king,” ōkoku 王国 (c: wangguo), was easy. but to conceive of a polity without a prince at its top, a “commonwealth” or “republic,” was a major terminological as well as conceptual challenge. shizuki opted for a four-character phrase, dōkō gōitsu 同好合一(c: tonghao heyi), combining the term for “accord of purpose,” or even “friendly communion,” dōkō,[45] with a relatively commonplace compound, gōitsu, designating “unity” or “union,” which had no particularly political valence in its previous usage.[46] in a gloss on the translated terms, shizuki explained that the newly coined compound phrase designated a situation when “various localities, although distinct, ally together and appoint a common leadership to serve; such a leader does not hold the land in possession.”[47] this was a neat sum of his best understanding of the actual workings of the one republic that he did know more about, namely the dutch republic of the seven united provinces (republiek der zeven verenigde nederlanden), with their representative states general and elected stadtholder. and it was indeed the most ready way to embed the logic of the elected government in the available normative cultural framework. a polity without a ruler seemed like a contradiction. but for a non-hereditary leadership confirmed by common consensus, for sovereignty as an entrusted mandate and not a private possession, there existed well-established references. for, at least according to the account of those same universal (“chinese”) classics, it was during the time of the earliest legendary rulers and founders of civilisation, the ancient sage kings, that the kingship was not bequeathed as private property to progeny, but rather passed on as heaven-entrusted stewardship to the man of greatest virtue. thus, at the pre-dynastic dawn of historical time, the sage yao bypassed his kin and handed the rule over to his minister shun, who in turn chose for his successor the great yu, the tamer of floods and inventor of wet field cultivation. only after yu’s son took over from his father did the dynastic cycle commence, with all the inevitable dangers of corruption inherent in it and abundantly manifested by subsequent history. so while the practiced standard for the handover of government throughout most of ancient and modern history has been dynastic heredity, the cultural imaginary of the non-hereditary elevation of the most virtuous person into the position of kingship always retained a high prestige. neither were the criteria for the selection of such a supremely virtuous successor meant to be the arbitrary preferences of the previous king, regardless of how superhumanly wise and provident he was. the virtue had a demonstrable, sociological dimension, so to speak, in that the populace would spontaneously flock to the feet of the man of such radiance. when, mindful of yao’s own offspring, shun tried to renounce the kingship in their favour, the people would not allow him to do so and refused to follow any other prince. in the nineteenth century, when the early reports of an elected presidency in the other emergent republic of united provinces, the newly formed united states of america, reached chinese and japanese audiences, the startling phenomenon was without hesitation filed away under the same rubric of the selfless handover of rulership practised by the ancient sage kings.[48] most attempts to come to terms with the new concepts and institutions involved similar creative equations, subsumptions, and appropriations. in today’s japanese and chinese, even the “republic” in “the republic of letters” translates quite mechanically into kyōwakoku 共和国, “the polity of agreeing together,” which the above anecdote links to mitsukuri shōgo’s 1840s coinage. the new name for a peculiar political order has long since passed into common usage, its self-consciously classicising reference to the “chinese” (universal) histories has been forgotten, and it has become capable of carrying many of the metaphoric connotations that the original term “republic” acquired in the latinate languages. in the 1790s, however, shizuki tadao obviously could not assume that whatever translation he may have devised for kingless federative political formations would also fit this peculiar phrase. he would have realised that “republic of the learned” was being employed as a metaphor of sorts, but a metaphor for what? and how to render the “republic” of the learned, of the gakusha, into something similarly metaphorically suggestive to the contemporary learned readers of japanese? vii. eventually, as our page from the library catalogue tells us, the term he settled on was kaidoku 会読.[49] in shizuki tadao’s world, kaidoku designated an extant form of learned sociability, a semi-institutionalised pattern of intellectual interaction in the academies of “chinese” (universal) scholarship. it was a relatively recent, domestically coined neologism, though this time not a translation. certainly the combination of the two chinese characters that designate encounter (c: hui) and reading (c: du) had not been in evidence in the authoritative classical layer of the language of the learned, which here meant of course neither dutch nor latin, but classical chinese which, until the end of the nineteenth century, provided the shared cosmopolitan idiom for the wider eastand south-east asian sinosphere. in antiquity, kongzi, or master kong, who has come down to us transcribed by the jesuit missionaries as confucius, may have held polemical discussions with his disciples over passages of the revered texts that the tradition ascribes to him as having preserved and edited, the “confucian” classics. yet even if he had, it did not occur to anybody then to single out such disputations as a distinct format of a learned association. by the eighteenth century, in tokugawa japan, however, a host of institutions of higher instruction advertised standardised curricula built around the canonical (“confucian”) texts and consisting of a few basic modes of schooling, including the kōshaku 講釈, or lecture, and the kaidoku, which might be compared to the seminar in the modern university, and which was typically oriented towards the more advanced students. in contrast to a lecture, a “reading-together” (kaidoku) session did not have a single appointed speaker. participants would assemble over assigned passages of a text and take turns, often by drawing lots, to read and expound their meaning. the others would seek to improve, correct, or discredit the interpretation, giving rise to much argument and contestation. a lecturer would supervise the interpretive efforts and the ensuing debates, but would normally not intervene unless arbitration was required.[50] the rise of the kaidoku is ascribed to the early eighteenth-century wave of popularity of some private academies that made this novel form of instruction their selling point. but by the century’s end, it spread increasingly even to the many emergent schools of higher learning sponsored by the numerous local principalities and by the tokugawa government in edo.[51] as it stabilised as a class format, it also transgressed the boundary of the subject of instruction. the seminar-like reading groups were originally instituted to study and expound the difficult and ambiguous texts of the universal (“chinese”) ancient classics and their commentaries. but when the first academies of “dutch studies” sprang into existence, the philological struggle with yet another set of difficult texts, this time dutch, readily lent itself to the same collective and competitive form of learning. the memoirs of some famous graduates of such curricula, like fukuzawa yukichi 福沢諭吉 (1834–1901), who attended the dutch studies academy tekijuku in osaka, give one a sense of the thrill and pressure as the weekly kaidoku session approached. we also know that students’ achievements in the reading sessions were reflected in the ranking of the seating order and other symbolical privileges.[52] historical woodblock print illustrations of the two types of class make the distinction very clear.[53] to the modern sensibility, the salient feature of the kaidoku scene—especially as contrasted with the hierarchical and sermon-like arrangement of the lecture—is the informally open, conversational, and multipolar nature of the interaction, what we would probably be tempted to describe as its “democratic” character, although that notion would be as incomprehensible to an eighteenth-century nagasaki reader as that of a “republic,” “force of gravity,” or “adverb.” because of this assumed potential for open-ended discussion and a sort of democratic equality of participants, the kaidoku has recently received increased attention from scholars of japanese intellectual history.[54] it seemed to promise an indigenous sprout of a discursive public sphere, a home-grown historical source of a future liberal and pluralist modernity, or at least the potential thereof, which was trampled underfoot in the subsequent march of militarist nationalism. that may be. but that may not have been its most salient feature to our translator. after all, although the kaidoku seminar made its steady headway from private academies into the curricula of the domainal schools, and even to the official school sponsored by the tokugawa government, at shōheizaka, to the north of the edo castle’s outer moat, it never entirely escaped misgivings and criticism. it was prone to being denounced as engendering a quarrelsome disposition and ambitious cleverness at the expense of the search for truth; or as institutionally endorsing personal vanity at excelling over others at the expense of commitment to the study and practice of the way as moral uprightness. it served well to “show clearly who the bright ones were and who the dull, and made people defer to the former,” in the words of a contemporary observer and practitioner, kamei shōyō 亀井昭陽 (1773–1836),[55] but showing off personal intelligence and argumentative skill was quite distinct from a shared pursuit of the truth in joint humility. unlike in plato’s dialogues, in real life a skilled sophist would probably often outshine a socrates. was this the proper way of the learned? “but when group readings (kaidoku) and discussions are held,” the regulations of one of the academies stated in 1839, “harmony and peace of heart must be placed above everything, and fairness must be sought. if someone insists on their biased opinion […], then at the beginning of his studies he is the first to fall in with what is wrong, and thus it becomes a habit and later, when he enters public office, the harm he causes is significant.”[56] viii. some years later, after shizuki tadao’s premature death in 1806, matsura seizan asked another reader of dutch to have a look at the four issues of het republyk der geleerden and expand the catalogue entry beyond the bare translation of the title. the daimyō of hirado was a conscientious bibliophile. like shizuki tadao, ishibashi sukezaemon 石橋助左衛門 (1757–1837) was, by his family’s corporate profession, also a dutch interpreter in nagasaki and, in fact, one of the two senior head interpreters among the body of well over a hundred official language professionals and apprentices.[57] and, like the shizukis, the ishibashi family traced their corporate origins to hirado, so that matsura seizan felt entitled to turn to sukezaemon for assistance. the expanded annotation, dated 1808, is copied out in the same neat hand as in the rakusaidō library’s catalogue of barbarian books, following right after shizuki tadao’s translation of the title.[58] cautiously, ishibashi sukezaemon noted that, without close perusal of the actual contents, it was impossible to say anything conclusive, but that the four volumes of the dutch newsletter of the republyk der geleerden appeared to be the records of collective deliberations of the men of learning gathered in amsterdam to decide questions of all branches of learning, from medicine through religion to statecraft. even in the brief description, ishibashi’s choice of words betrays that, to him, the purpose of pooling the erudition and wisdom of many was not to accommodate or even enhance a plurality of opinions, but to assert the truth and rule out falsehood. plurality in itself was not a recognised value, neither a goal nor a means to anything inherently worthwhile. what was appreciated was rather the ability to overcome the bias of private and arbitrary opinion, to collectively reach a consensus on truth, to weigh the advantages and shortcomings of arguments and positions, and to rule out mistaken views and adopt the right ones—the underlying meaning of the verb rontei 論定 (c: lunding), i.e., “to conclusively settle and pass comprehensive judgment by discourse,” by which ishibashi described the proceedings of the gathering of the learned of holland.[59] this was a goal widely acknowledged as valid by the east asian learned ecumene and ishibashi’s annotation may be a hint that the european republic of letters could appear to have mechanisms for generating such a consensus. this could salvage it from the barbarism of diversity and arbitrariness of mere private opinions, and render its efforts respectable under the shared pursuit of the universal order of things, both moral and cosmological—the same order of which the ancient sage kings yao, shun, and yu were paragons. to at least some readers of dutch texts in japan, it seemed that the best contemporary embodiment of the classical universal china might not be the qing empire across the sea, but precisely the distant countries of the far west. [60] as metaphors go, shizuki tadao could do worse than this. gakusha no kaidoku 学者之会読, “the collective reading session of the learned,” as a translation of the republyk der geleerden, would have made sense to many of his european counterparts, had they had a chance to hear of it. his chosen term evoked the concern with a body of texts and philological practices as the means of attaining the truth: a concern certainly shared by the members of the european republic of letters. it conjured up the memory of those long hours of poring over difficult passages filled with mysterious idiomatic expressions in old or foreign tongues, the lonely labour witnessed only as shingū ryōtei’s poem would have it, by the night rain. it resonated with the intense interaction within a peer group of fellow-students, at once competitors and the ultimate judges of one’s efforts to understand and articulate, a community of practitioners who shared certain standards and values that supported the notions of what counts as correct, legitimate, and valid. it echoed the cacophony of voices striving to out-argue each other and gain recognition and respect among their peers for their erudition or cleverness or depth of insight, often the only worldly reward to be gained for all their efforts. the republic of letters as an imaginary seminar reading room. it is a passable portrait. we may declare our translator qualified for membership. epilogue: a note on global intellectual history to refer to the classical chinese histories while puzzling over a suitable japanese translation of a tricky metaphor encountered via latin and dutch, or to fetch, from japan, evidence for making, in europe, a general case for closing off a country from international trade, and then to pick from a dutch book that very same argument as ammunition for actual foreign policy debate back in japan, are examples of a complex sort of conversations. conversations which were carried on over considerable distances and despite logistical odds, where two or more different linguistic registers were involved at every stage. our disciplines, as well as our habits of mind, typically lead us to posit, on the one hand, a natural and necessary continuity among conversations that take place in japanese and within the bounds of the japanese archipelago and, on the other hand, their fundamental discontinuity with other conversations that take place in other idioms and other places. such assumed continuity subsequently and naturally presents to our disciplinary sight a contiguous field of “japanese thought.” by the same token, french or chinese conversations effortlessly blend into the respective landscapes of french and chinese thought, as in “french enlightenment thought” or “chinese thought of the ming period,” that are marked by inner contiguity and external difference. these continua then constitute intuitive venues for primary research and are the stuff of readily generalisable accounts. by contrast, other instances of conversations, those consisting of, say, latin texts in dutch translations entering japanese debates, or chinese texts in french translations entering english debates, are kept out of the range of what is supposed to be typical or representative. we have hardly begun to uncover such examples and it will take a certain critical mass of these before useful generalisations may be attempted. but we can venture some preliminary observations. these complex conversations take on a dimension that we can plausibly call “global.” but calling them “global” partly runs the risk of evoking mistaken motivations and misplaced expectations. these conversations do not necessarily or even usually take the globe as their subject matter, nor does investigating them require us to discard the rigorous, microscopic approach of a historian or philologist and adopt some macroscopic vision of a synthetic generalist. to trace the transcontinental synapses that have made these conversations possible is certainly crucial for recovering and understanding them in all their particular materiality and contingency. but they are perfectly amenable to the standard toolkit of philologically informed historical humanities that only can unlock for us the moment when an incident of mere mechanical transmission becomes a purposeful act of selective and interpretive appropriation. to single out these complex communicative acts as something of a peculiar sort and taking place at a different level, and to file them away as material for “global intellectual history,” working by different methods distinct from other intellectual histories that are not global, would be to excuse ourselves from questioning the assumed natural continuity of the fields of “japanese thought” or “chinese thought of the ming period” or “french enlightenment thought.” and yet, to question that assumed natural continuity seems to be one of the main effects of reconstructing these complex, multilingual, long-distance conversations in the first place. there is no reason why we should consider them less representative of “cultures” or less formative of “traditions” than instances of conversations conducted in the same language, at the same location, and by people of the same ethnic group. fig. 2: entry with shizuki tadao’s translation of the title het republyk der geleerden. shinzō shomoku, gaihen: bansho [the new expanded catalogue (of the rakusaidō library), outer part: barbarian writings], matsura shiryō hakubutsukan, hirado, ms. vii-1 (i) 3. (courtesy of the matsura historical museum; photo by the author.) fig. 3: continued from previous page. ishibashi sukezaemon’s annotation of the title het republyk der geleerden. ibid. [*] while working on this paper, i greatly benefitted from comments and suggestions provided by pablo blitstein, fabian drixler, martin dusinberre, enno giele, carol gluck and my wife, ana maria goy. monica juneja and joachim kurtz have been the best of editors and have dedicated an extraordinary amount of time and effort to helping improve the manuscript. the responsibility for all the remaining shortcomings is entirely mine. special thanks belong to kuga takashi, of the matsura historical museum in hirado, who amid a busy schedule made time for an unannounced visitor and went out of his way to make available to me the material without which this essay would have never been even conceived. the archival research was possible thanks to the generous support by the heidelberg university cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context” under the dfg excellence initiative framework. [1] samuel moyn and andrew sartori, eds., global intellectual history (new york: columbia university press, 2013); stefanie gänger and sun lin lewis, “forum: a world of ideas: new pathways in global intellectual history, c. 1880–1930,” modern intellectual history 10, no. 2 (2013): 347–351. [2] this should be understood as “the republic of the learned,” one of the vernacular cognates of the phrase res publica litterarum. “republic of letters” is the wording followed in the present text as the established english equivalent. the vernacular usage fluctuated quite freely. in french, which came very close to serving as the lingua franca of the europe-wide scholarly community in the eighteenth century, the only difference between the “republic of letters” (république des lettres) and, literally, the “republic of the lettered” (république des lettrés) was the typographically unstable accent over the final vowel. [3] see w. boot and w. g. j. remmelink, eds., the patriarch of dutch learning shizuki tadao (1760–1806) (tokyo: japan-netherlands institute, 2008); scott l. montgomery, science in translation: movements of knowledge through cultures and time (chicago: university of chicago press, 2002), 229–32. [4]françois halma, woordenboek der nederduitsche en fransche taalen—dictionnaire flamand et françois, 2nd ed. (amsterdam: de wetsteins en smith, 1729). the reprint of the 1796 japanese version by inamura sanpaku 稲村三伯 is matsumura akira 松村明, ed., haruma wage 波留麻和解, 9 vols. (tokyo: yumani shobō, 1997). [5] nakamura shin’ichirō 中村真一郎, rai san’yō to sono jidai 頼山陽とその時代 [rai san’yō and his epoch] (tokyo: chūō kōronsha, 1971), 208. [6] these were the four bound volumes that each collected a half-year’s worth of the first two years of the bi-monthly journal republyk der geleerden, of kort begryp van europa’s letternieuws tot hervorminge der wetenschappen, voor den konst en letterminnaars dezer dagen opgemaakt en verbetert (amsterdam: r. en g. wetstein, 1710–1712). the first four issues (collected in volume 1 and 2) give the name of johan ruyter as the editor. only the first two issues (vol. 1) use the title “het republyk der geleerden,” while the subsequent ones drop the initial definitive article. [7] “l’imprimeur au lecteur,” le journal des sçavans (paris: académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres) (january 1665). [8] anthony grafton, “a sketch map of a lost continent: the republic of letters,” republics of letters: a journal for the study of knowledge, politics, and the arts 1, no. 1 (2008): 1–18; also in anthony grafton, worlds made by words: scholarship and community in the modern west (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 2009), 9–34. [9] this is paolo mattia doria’s la vita civile, 2nd ed. (augusta: daniel höpper, 1710) and jean leclerc’s review of it. jean leclerc, review of la vita civile, by paolo mattia doria, bibliothèque ancienne et moderne 5, no. 1 (amsterdam: david mortier, 1716): 54–125. [10] see william temple, “of ancient and modern learning,” in miscellanea: the second part, 5th ed. (london: simpson and simpson, 1705), 21–22; or “of heroick virtue,” ibid., 185–186. there are also numerous reviews of jesuit writings in the early years of philosophical transactions of the royal society. [11] johannes caspar scheuchzer’s translation of excerpts from engelbert kaempfer’s amœnitatum exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum fasciculi v was published as an appendix to the history of japan commissioned by hans sloane; the forthcoming dutch (i.e., nederduytsch) publication was mentioned in staatsund gelehrte zeitung des hollsteinischen unpartheyischen correspondenten 42 (march 13, 1728). see engelbert kaempfer, amœnitatum exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum fasciculi v, quibus continentur variae relationes, observationes & descriptiones rerum persicarum & ulterioris asiae, multâ attentione, in peregrinationibus per universum orientum, collecta, ab auctore engelberto kaempfero (lemgo: h. w. meyer, 1712); engelbert kaempfer, the history of japan, giving an account of the ancient and present state and government of that empire; of its temples, palaces, castles and other buildings; of its metals, minerals, trees, plants, animals, birds and fishes; of the chronology and succession of the emperors, ecclesiastical and secular; of the original descent, religions, customs, and manufactures of the natives, and of their trade and commerce with the dutch and chinese. together with a description of the kingdom of siam, trans. and ed. by j. g. scheuchzer, 2 vols. (london: printed for the translator, 1727). [12] see w. j. boot, “transfer of learning: import of chinese and dutch books in tokugawa japan,” itinerario 37, no. 3 (2013): 188–206. [13] the standard study of the nagasaki interpreters is katagiri kazuo 片桐一男, oranda tsūji no kenkyū 阿蘭陀通事の研究 [the study of dutch interpreters] (tokyo: yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1985). for a comparison with other major port cities, see leonard blussé, visible cities (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 2008) and “canton and nagasaki compared,” special issue, itinerario 37, no. 3 (2013), especially yao keisuke, “fundamentally different roles of interpreters in the ports of canton and nagasaki,” 105–115; matsui yoko, “the factory and the people of nagasaki: otona, tolk, compradoor,” 139–52. [14] on the other hand, hereditary lineages of professional interpreters may not be such a historical peculiarity. noel malcolm reports that in sixteenthand seventeenth-century istanbul the professional interpreters, “dragomans,” working for the venetian or spanish diplomats at the ottoman court were often recruited from the same families, the job becoming effectively if not institutionally hereditary. noel malcolm, “cristoforo bruti and the dragoman dynasty,” in agents of empire: knights, corsairs, jesuits and spies in the sixteenth-century mediterranean world (london: allen lane, penguin books, 2015), 362–78. in china, translator posts under the ming and qing governmental office of the four barbarians also became practically hereditary; see pamela k. crossley, “structure and symbol in the ming-ch’ing translators’ bureaus (ssu-i kuan),” central and inner asian studies 5 (1991): 38–70. [15] see isabel tanaka-van daalen, “the shizuki family of nagasaki interpreters in dutch sources,” in boot and remmelink, the patriarch of dutch learning, 148–72; harada hiroji, “the shizuki as a family of interpreters,” ibid., 173–189. [16] the term rangaku 蘭学 was established as a brand name to carve out a distinct niche in the crowded and competitive intellectual marketplace of the later edo period and was diligently flagged in titles of works like ōtsuki gentaku’s 大槻玄沢 (1757–1827) rangaku kaitei 蘭学階梯 (the ladder of dutch learning) of 1783 or sugita genpaku’s 杉田玄白 (1733–1817) rangaku kotohajime 蘭学事始 (the origin of dutch learning) of 1814–15. this latter work in particular went on to exercise a considerable influence by retrospectively canonising the pedigree of the “dutch studies” (and the sugita family’s central place in this pedigree) as well as establishing the discipline’s privileged position as a precursor of japan’s national modernity. as such, the label “dutch learning” tells us more about how practitioners sought to sell their expertise than how they went about their scholarship. for a standard overview, which tends to accept the sharp contrast between “chinese” and “dutch” studies as if it were a fact and not a marketing move, see grant k. goodman, japan and the dutch: 1600–1853 (richmond: curzon, 2000). [17] adam clulow, “from global entrepôt to early modern domain: hirado, 1609–1641,” monumenta nipponica 65, no. 1 (2010): 1–35. [18] nakamura yukihiko 中村幸彦 and nakano mitsutoshi 中野三敏, eds., kasshi yawa 甲子夜話 [tales commenced on the night of the wooden rat], 20 vols (tokyo: heibonsha, 1977–1983). [19] matsuda kiyoshi 松田清, yōgaku no shoshiteki kenkyū 洋学の書誌的研究 [the bibliographical research on western learning] (kyoto: rinsen shoten, 1998), 541. [20] luke s. roberts, performing the great peace: political space and open secrets in tokugawa japan (honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 2012). [21] matsuda kiyoshi 松田清, “matsura seizan—ranpeki daimyō 松浦静山－蘭癖大名” [matsura seizan: the dutch-crazed daimyo], in kyūshū no rangaku 九州の蘭学 [dutch studies in kyūshū], ed. wolfgang michel, kawashima mahito, and torii yumiko (kyoto: shibunkaku shuppan, 2009), 96. [22] see fukui tamotsu 福井保, edo bakufu no sankō toshokan: momijiyama bunko 江戸幕府の参考図書館：紅葉山文庫 [the reference library of the edo shogunate: the momijiyama collection] (tokyo: kyōgakusha, 1980); tokugawa kinen zaidan 徳川記念財団, eds., tokugawa shōgunke no gakumon: momijiyama bunko to shōheizaka gakumonjo 徳川将軍家の学問：紅葉山文庫と昌平坂学問所 [scholarship of the tokugawa house: the momijiyama library and the shōheizaka academy (tokyo: tokugawa kinen zaidan, 2006). [23] shinzō shomoku, gaihen: bansho 新増書目 外篇 蛮書 [the new expanded catalogue (of the rakusaidō library), outer part: barbarian writings], matsura shiryō hakubutsukan, hirado, ms. vii-1 (i) 3. see figure 2 below. [24] see timothy brook, mr. selden’s map of china (new york: bloomsbury press, 2013), 56. [25] matsuda kiyoshi, yōgaku no shoshiteki kenkyū,, 354–368. matsuda established the identity and probable provenience of the items from the auction list. the list itself contains only abbreviated versions of the titles and number of volumes. some of the editions may not be established with certainty; nevertheless, it is clear that many of the titles appeared in nagasaki within a decade or two of their publication in paris, geneva, or london. [26] ibid. [27] engelbert kaempfer, the history of japan. this was the first published edition ever, based on kaempfer’s original german manuscript acquired by sir hans sloane along with the rest of kaempfer’s literary inheritance between 1723–25. the english edition was further augmented by a set of appendices translated from the author’s latin (see the following note); subsequent dutch and french retranslations were both made from this edition. shizuki tadao was working with a dutch version: engelbert kaempfer, de beschryving van japan, behelsende een verhaal van den ouden en tegenwoordingen staat en regeering van dat ryk, [...] uyt het oorspronkelyk hoogduytsch handschrift nooit de vooren gedrukt in het engelsch overgezet, door j. g. scheuchzer, lidt van de koninklyke maatschappy, en van de geneesheeren in london. die daar by gevoegt heeft het leven van den schreyver. vorzien met kunstige kopere platen onder het opzicht van den ridder hans sloane uytgegeven, en uyt het engelsch in’t nederduytsch vertaalt (amsterdam: arendt van huysteen, 1733).for more see engelbert kaempfer, kaempfer’s japan: tokugawa culture observed, ed. and trans. beatrice m. bodart-bailey (honolulu: university of hawaii press, 1999). [28] engelbert kaempfer, amoenitatum exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum fasciculi v. see j. w. carrubba, ed. and trans., engelbert kaempfer: exotic pleasures (carbondale: southern illinois university press, 1996). [29] peter kapitza, “engelbert kaempfer und die europäische aufklärung: zur wirkungsgeschichte seines japanwerks im 18. jahrhundert,” in engelbert kaempfers geschichte und beschreibung von japan: beiträge und kommentar, ed. deutsche gesellschaft für naturund völkerkunde ostasiens (berlin: springer, 1980), 41–63. [30] beatrice bodart-bailey and derek massarella, eds., the furthest goal: engelbert kaempfer’s encounter with tokugawa japan (folkestone: japan library, 1995), 1. [31] see w. j. boot, “shizuki tadao’s sakoku-ron,” in boot and remmelink, the patriarch of dutch learning, 88–106. from the japanese literature on this topic, see a comprehensive reception history of the “closed country” notion in ōshima akihide 大島明秀, “sakoku” to iu gensetsu 「鎖国」という言説 [the discourse of “closed country”] (tokyo: minerva shobō, 2009). [32] engelbert kaempfer, de beschryving van japan, behelsende een verhaal van den ouden en tegenwoordingen staat en regeering van dat ryk, [...] uyt het oorspronkelyk hoogduytsch handschrift nooit de vooren gedrukt in het engelsch overgezet, door j. g. scheuchzer, lidt van de koninklyke maatschappy, en van de geneesheeren in london. die daar by gevoegt heeft het leven van den schreyver. vorzien met kunstige kopere platen onder het opzicht van den ridder hans sloane uytgegeven, en uyt het engelsch in’t nederduytsch vertaalt (amsterdam: arendt van huysteen, 1733). [33] matsuda kiyoshi, yōgaku no shoshiteki kenkyū, 486–493; boot, “shizuki tadao’s sakoku-ron,” 90. [34] the relevant appendix is “vi. onderzoek, of het vanbelang is voor ’t ryk van japan om het zelve geslooten te houden, gelyk het nu is, en aan desselfs inwooners niet toe te laaten koophandel te dryven met uytheemsche natien ’t zy binnen of buyten ’s lands,” in de beschryving van japan, 476–494. [35] georgicorum, i: 54–61. in a historical translation, the full quotation reads: “here corn, there grapes come more prosperously; yonder the tree drops her seedlings, and unbidden grasses kindle into green. seest thou not how tmolus sends scent of saffron, india ivory, the soft sabaeans their spice; but the naked chalybes steel, and pontus the castor drug, epirus mares for elean palms? from of old nature laid such laws upon certain regions.” eclogues and georgics of virgil: translated from the latin by j. w. mackail (london: longman and green, 1905), 41. [36] see david mervart, “closed country in the open seas—engelbert kaempfer’s japanese solution for european modernity’s predicament,” history of european ideas 35, no. 3 (2009): 321–339. [37] benjamin jacques and samuel hannot, dictionarium latino-belgicum (rotterdam: pieter van der slaart, 1699). [38] april g. shelford, transforming the republic of letters: pierre-daniel huet and european intellectual life; 1650–1720 (new york: university of rochester press, 2007), 5. [39] shizuki tadao, sakoku-ron 鎖国論 [discourse on the closed country], quoted from kurosawa okinamaro’s 黒沢翁満 printed edition ijin kyōfuden 異人恐怖伝 [of dread of foreigners] (tokyo, 1850), fascicle 1, folio 7, recto. see sugimoto tsutomu 杉本つとむ, ed., shizuki tadao-yaku sakoku-ron: keiin, honkoku, kōchū 志筑忠雄訳「鎖国論」影印 翻刻 校注 [shizuki tadao’s sakoku-ron: facsimile, transcription, critical annotation] (tokyo: yasaka shobō, 2015), 22. [40] mitani hiroshi, escaping the impasse (tokyo: international house of japan, 2006). [41] see saitō kowashi 齋藤毅, meiji no kotoba—bunmei kaika to nihongo 明治のことばー文明開化と日本語 [meiji words: progress of civilisation and japanese language] (1977; repr., tokyo: kōdansha, 2005), 118–120. [42] see watanabe hiroshi 渡辺浩, nihon seiji shisōshi, 17–19 seiki 日本政治思想史：十七–十九世紀 (tokyo: university of tokyo press, 2010), 260–273. translated by david noble; as a history of japanese political thought, 1600–1901 (tokyo: international house of japan, 2012), 238–252. [43] the kyōwa translation appears on mitsukuri shōgo’s map of the world as a tag for the north american united states and in the accompanying volume 3 of the 1845 edition of the kon’yo zushiki. kon’yo zushiki 坤輿図識 [the comprehensive survey of the world] (1845–47), (fascicle 4, part 2, folio 3, verso). [44] engelbert kaempfer, de beschryving van japan, 477. [45] the same term dōkō 同好 was also used on the same page to translate the dutch vriendsapt en gemeenzaamheid, which was the translation of the english friendship and communication which in its turn rendered kaempfer’s original latin societas humana, the providentially ordained universal communion of mutual dependence and exchange. [46] shizuki tadao, sakoku-ron, fascicle 1, folio 6, recto; matsumoto tsutomu, sakoku-ron, 25. [47] ibid. [48] see yokoi shōnan 横井小楠, kokuze sanron 国是三論 [three essays on national policy] [1860], in watanabe kazan, takano chōei, sakuma shōzan, yokoi shōnan, hashimoto sanai 渡辺崋山 高野長英 佐久間象山 横井小楠 橋本左内 [watanabe kazan, takano chōei, sakuma shōzan, yokoi shōnan, hashimoto sanai], nihon shisō taikei 日本思想大系 [systematic collection of sources in japanese thought] 55, ed. satō shōsuke 佐藤昌介 et al. (tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1971), 448; or katō hiroyuki 加藤弘之, tonarigusa 隣草 [jottings on a neighbouring land] [1861], in meiji bunka zenshū 明治文化全集 [collected works of meiji culture], ed. yoshino sakuzō 吉野作造, (tokyo: nihon hyōronsha, 1992), 8:8. [49] shinzō shomoku, gaihen: bansho. see figure 2 below. [50] see maeda tsutomu 前田勉, edo kōki no shisō kūkan 江戸後期の思想と空間 [the intellectual space of the later edo period] (tokyo: perikansha, 2009) and most recently maeda tsutomu, edo no dokushokai: kaidoku no shisōshi 江戸の読書会:会読の思想史 [edo-period reading groups: an intellectual history of kaidoku], (tokyo: heibonsha, 2012). see also makabe jin 眞壁仁, tokugawa kōki no gakumon to seiji: shōheizaka gakumonjo jusha to bakumatsu gaikō henyō 徳川後期の学問と政治：昌平坂学問所儒者と幕末外交変容 [scholarship and politics in the late tokugawa period: confucians of the shōheizaka academy and transformation of bakumatsu diplomacy] (nagoya: nagoya daigaku shuppankai, 2007). in english, see margaret mehl, private academies of chinese learning in meiji japan: the decline and transformation of the kangaku juku (copenhagen: nordic institute of asian studies press, 2003), 128–135. [51] see wajima yoshio 和島芳男, shōheikō to hangaku 昌平校と藩学 [shōheizaka academy and domain schools] (tokyo: shibundō, 1962). [52] fukuzawa yukichi 福沢諭吉, fukuō jiden 福翁自伝 [the memoirs of old man fukuzawa] (tokyo: iwanami bunko, 1978), 83–84. [53] see illustrations 2-4 “seidō kōshaku-zu” 聖堂講釈図 [illustration of a lecture at the shōheizaka academy] and 2-5 “seidō kaidoku-zu,” 聖堂会読図 [illustration of a reading group session at the shōheizaka academy] in makabe jin, tokugawa kōki no gakumon to seiji, 117–8 (images credited to tokyo university historiographical institute: shiryō hensanjo). [54] see maeda tsutomu, edo kōki no shisō kūkan and edo no dokushokai: kaidoku no shisōshi. [55] kamei shōyō 亀井昭陽, quoted in maeda tsutomu, edo kōki no shisō kūkan, 25. [56] yasui sokken 安井息軒, sankei juku gakuki 三溪塾学記 [regulations of the sankei academy], quoted and translated in mehl, private academies of chinese learning in meiji japan, 65. [57] torii yumiko, “ ‘dutch studies’: interpreters, language, geography, and world history,” in bridging the divide: 400 years the netherlands–japan, ed. leonard blussé et al. (leiden: hotei, 2000), 117–118. [58] shinzō shomoku, gaihen: bansho. see figure 3 below. [59] ibid. [60] see watanabe hiroshi, “ ‘they are almost the same as the ancient three dynasties:’ the west as seen through confucian eyes in nineteenth-century japan,” in confucian traditions in east asian modernity, ed. wei-ming tu (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1996), 119–131. china “asleep” and “awakening.” | wagner | transcultural studies china “asleep” and “awakening.” a study in conceptualizing asymmetry and coping with it. rudolf g. wagner, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg introduction: concept, word, metaphor, and image basic political concepts such as “state,” “nation,” or “people” are highly complex. a clear understanding is hard to pin down, and it is even harder to extract from them a specific course of action to pursue at a given time and place.[1] this is true for most of the key concepts, which are shared among the recast modern languages the world over and structure our perception of the world. the reason for their lack of concreteness is that these concepts frame experience rather than being framed by it. their manifestations are as manifold and changing over time as are the efforts to define their core. thus, these concepts are the topic of discussion and the objects of exploration rather than providing neat, generally accepted definitions. such basic concepts are expressed in many ways. “state” may serve as an example. it might come in the form of: words such as state, nation, government, dynasty, polis, court, or, to use chinese examples guo 國, bang 邦, or chao 朝. these abstract words are themselves often just forgotten metaphors. an example is “government,” which is taken from latin gubernare, and greek κυβερνει̃ν, both of which mean “steering a ship;”[2] metaphors or complex dynamic similes such as body, ship, stage, island, house, farm; allegorical figures such as human or animal figures (dragon, eagle, lion, marianne, john bull); allegorical narratives such as mandeville’s fable of the bees. it might be expressed: in the medium of image. as the “words” are not easily translated into images, the images would rather take their material from – and feed into – the reservoir of metaphor/simile and allegory. political cartoons, allegorical depictions, and graphic representations of structures (on the “house” analogy) come to mind. in silent structures such as state bodies with their responsibilities and legal institutions, or in architectural constellations as we see them in the washington mall or the new delhi. in equally silent practices of exercising and checking state authority, which may or may not be sanctioned by formal institutions, and may receive their legitimacy from past habituation on the sides of both the administrators of the state and the subjects. tax dodging on the one side and mandatory inoculation or school attendance on the other, are examples. through the structure of a musical piece or a game and the unverbalized interaction among its segments. the symphony’s form has been read in this manner, and chinese discussions on the political implications of the prevalence of “correct” zheng 正 music and the “heterodox” tunes from the state of zheng may serve as a similar example. these concepts are part of a vast transcultural and translingual flow and exchange in a process through which cultures constantly constitute and transform themselves. this takes place on all the levels indicated. the cultural adaptation processes needed to turn such a concept into a genuine part of the intellectual tools available to a community differ for various media. at the level of the word, neologisms have to be formed, which then exist in a tense relationship with older conceptual and linguistic material.[3] at the level of metaphor, the material environment upon which the metaphor draws might be unfamiliar to the new environment and thus be itself in need of explanation to enable it to become meaningful. the originally more or less homogenous relations between the different media through which an issue is being discussed in one community gets very messy, once these different media migrate across linguistic and cultural borders. the study of conceptual history (begriffsgeschichte) has largely remained fixed on the study of words in a single language (or in what was conceived as a “homogenous” cultural environment, such as europe or east asia), and has eschewed other media such as metaphors, similes or images. in turn, studies of metaphors have focused on their linguistic and philosophical aspects,[4] or on the history of their use with only marginal reference to the history of ideas and concepts of which they are a part.[5]  among the group that produced the seminal historische grundbegriffe, hans blumenberg has paid most attention to the decisive role of metaphor in conceptual history.[6] in ancient greece, he originally claimed, no deep chasm separated logos from kosmos, and there was an assumption that the logos could fully define the structures and processes of the kosmos in a manner freed from the vagaries of historical, linguistic, or cultural diversity and change.[7] as a consequence, the rich array of verbalized, visualized, built, or practiced articulations listed above, would be marginal to the definitory core, at least in this greek perspective. blumenberg saw “the relationship of metaphorology to conceptual history as being one of subservience.”[8] the available evidence does not support this claim. when in book vi of plato‘s republic socrates tries to convince an interlocutor of a polis’ absolute need for a qualified leader, socrates claims he can make his argument “only with the help of a parable.” he then proceeds to show that a ship is doomed if everybody on that ship claims to be qualified to steer and struggles for control. only a qualified navigator, who stands in metaphorically for the philosopher-king, will secure safe passage.[9] socrates underlines the crucial role of metaphor to produce an environment where not only a complex structure becomes understandable, but practical conclusions can be deduced. there is ample evidence of this metaphor’s further use by plato’s contemporaries and writers in europe to this day.[10] after several more years’ study, blumenberg changed his take on the functions of metaphor. he now described it as “an authentic manner of grasping connections (eine authentische leistungsart der erfassung von zusammenhängen).”[11] even this much-enlarged definition falls short. concepts are notoriously open-ended with regard to practical steps that have to be taken at a given moment and place. while the situation described by plato’s socrates involves concepts such as “state,” “authority,” “social order,” “division of labor,” “crisis” and more, this metaphor, which has been developed into a full simile, provides a parallel dynamic, namely to associate a set of concepts with a particular time and place for which it suggests and justifies a particular course of action. this bridge to applicability makes metaphors not just an “authentic manner of grasping connections” but also an authentic manner to proceed from concept to action. thus, we can be more precise in the questions we ask. metaphor, simile, and image do not simply illustrate existing concepts, but, given the primacy of the pragmatics involved in taking a particular course of action over the purely analytical effort,[12] they can be crucial elements of historical experience that enter into the constitution of these concepts. if this is so, then they not merely illustrate their subject matter without impact; they are, or can be, the primary and highly structured material with which these concepts are discussed. these metaphorical discussions would therefore impact on the theoretical definitions of concepts to the point that the latter become, to a large extent, just efforts to articulate in abstract terms outside of space and time what the metaphors, similes and images have long before and on their own planes explored in concrete terms and in their implied courses of action. the dream of a clean slate of hard definitions has not died out, but has been driving efforts of generations of philosophers and political scientists. even they, however, have never been able to omit the concrete forms of expression that lie beyond abstracts. various stories have been told that account for the palpable inability of human beings to develop succinct and reliable definitions of complex structures and processes that also take care of their specification in concrete action. god, says a christian story, has created the world, and he alone understands all of its workings. he has given man, however, enough brains to grasp the regularities of nature so as to make him feel basically secure in a largely predictable environment, and he has given him enough variety of articulation to touch on some key features. the sage kings, so says a chinese story, were great and rare “events” of the deep past. they were “naturally” endowed with a complete understanding of the universe and society. this allowed them to infer the steps needed at any given moment to keep the volatile part in this universe—state and society—in conformity with the order of the whole universe. their nature cannot be inherited by historical man, but they left behind a record that would allow later-born rulers to at least have a general orientation in their management of the state and their personal affairs. this record is thought to show the sages fully aware of the weaknesses of definitory language. their bequests, which are the chinese “classics,” used the whole range of non-abstract articulation, from dreary annals (spring and autumn annals, chunqiu) to poetic songs (book of songs, shijing); from mantic handbooks (changes, zhouyi) to government organigrams (ritual of zhou, zhouli) and even “drumming and dancing,” to provide operable guidelines for action for the later-born. the common element in these stories is the primordial importance of using concrete forms of articulation to explore complex and dynamic structures and processes. at the same time, metaphors in language as well as in images are an anomaly. they are a challenge to the mind that is forever trying to construct a homogenous world, because metaphors state something to be relevant and true that is most certainly not. the state is not a ship and to say a governor is steering the state requires the reader who reads this for the first time to undertake a complex decoding operation. as these metaphors, similes and associated images become more widely used and familiar, the shock of the first encounter wears off and they become what has been called, in the german discussion on newspaper language and imagery, kollektivsymbole (collectively shared symbols), a shared canon of expressions and images upon which a writer or illustrator can draw, as he can with common words or image associations.[13] the process restarts once the metaphor crosses linguistic, cultural and even historical borders.[14] if the reader in the new environment is unfamiliar with the real-world object or process adduced in the metaphor, or is unaware of their metaphorical potential (which is the case, for example, in pre-modern china with the simile of a ship on the high seas, or, in medieval europe, with the emblems woven into imported chinese silks), the text or image remains incomprehensible. the metaphor or image is therefore in dire need of text to explain and “translate” it. text allows the mind to re-homogenize the world after the irruption of the metaphorical oddity by explicitly linking the image or metaphor to the more or less abstract concepts and it does so with a more or less substantial enrichment of insight or information.[15] we are not interested here in providing the one and only authoritative definition of a concept such as “the state”; instead we are studying efforts all over the world to grasp the structures and dynamics of this “thing”—if indeed it is that—and to develop strategies to operate, change, or abolish it. our focus is on the historically concrete practice of dealing with this “thing.” we are therefore well-advised not to marginalize a priori the “other” non-verbal forms of articulating concepts by treating them, for example, as cheap and subsidiary ways of instructing the great unwashed. instead, we need to test the evidence for the interaction of these different forms, and their impact on each other as well as on the overall understanding of the concepts they articulate. the case study chosen for this article fulfils the following criteria: the conceptual discussion is articulated on different levels, in this case word, metaphor, and image. the relevant material is relatively small in volume to allow for economy of research and presentation. the circumstances are seen as pressing enough to prompt a great many players with different perspectives to join the discussion on a variety of media platforms. obviously, there is no proof that such a test case is “typical.” consequently, any drawn conclusions will be hypotheses that need further testing. the metaphor and the image of asymmetry in agency and power: the cartoon “the situation in the far east” shiju (quan) tu 時局(全)圖 on july 19, 1899, a political cartoon appeared in hong kong (figure 1). it was called “the situation in the far east” in english and shiju quantu 時局全圖 (complete illustration of the contemporary situation) in chinese. as a political cartoon it signals a pressing political issue; as a cartoon describing the situation of china vis-a-vis the world powers it deals with an issue considered pressing not just by people with a china-centered perspective, but also by the powers. the focus of this cartoon on the asymmetries in agency and power between china and the powers will allow us to address the abstract issue of the relationship between concept, metaphor and image in the very specific context of a debate that has shaped chinese political imagery to this day. fig. 1: tse tsan tai 謝纘泰 (1872–1937), shiju quantu 時局全圖 the situation in the far east, hong kong, july 1899. the cartoon shows the powers, symbolized by animals such as the bear, the bulldog, the frog, and the eagle, taking control of parts of chinese territory. the chinese text on top is a key to identify the animals with the countries; the chinese text at the bottom describes the powers’ respective aims and strategies. these explanations signal that at least parts of the envisaged audience were still in need of a key for such drawings. the animals on the shiju quantu are inscribed with english language statements of purpose, which are summarized in the chinese text at the bottom.[16] all the statements deal with the powers’ interaction with each other in regard to their china policy: the russian bear is out for “conquest” in the north, that is, manchuria, mongolia, and korea. its ambition is not simply to have a sphere of influence or a colony there, but to expand its own territory through hegemonial and humiliating control. the british bulldog (‘john bull’) sits in the rich yangtse valley where british influence is dominant, and favors an “open door” policy for china that gives equal commercial access to all; the british also wish to keep the “territorial integrity of china” to prevent other countries from establishing exclusive colonies there.[17] the bulldog looks threateningly to the south, where the french are represented in the form of a frog.[18] the frog suffers from the “fashoda” syndrome, which it caught from the british in the sudanese town of that name, where the british efforts to establish a south/north axis from kapstadt to cairo clashed with the french efforts to get an east/west continuum of control across africa, and the french were forced to cede. france seeks “colonial expansion,” stretching out its arms towards south china and hainan island. the american eagle has just turned the philippines into its protectorate after the war with spain in 1898, and is already showing a keen interest in china. inscribed on its neck is the motto “blood is thicker than water”—quoting the american admiral josiah tattnall, when, in 1859, he broke american neutrality during the second opium war to give logistic support to england—suggesting that the us will side with john bull in its china policy. japan, like the us represented by its official symbol, in this case the sun, has its rays reaching taiwan in the south and, via taiwan, fujian on the mainland, while in the north they are directed towards the former chinese tributary state of korea. its motto “john bull and i will watch the bear” is also signaling an alliance with the british position, but with an exclusive emphasis on russia. finally, a small snake inscribed “germany” is curling around the shandong peninsula.[19] the size of the animals reflects their power. the image depicts the political developments during the previous two years, during which russia, france, germany, japan (and even england, although this does not appear here) secured long-term leases and other privileges on chinese soil, while england opposed russia’s, france’s, and germany’s outright colonial appropriation of china.[20] the difference between the implied audiences is evident from the difference between the english and chinese texts. the english language reader no longer needs a key to identify the animals with nations, but the chinese language reader does need one. the english language reader is expected to be able to identify the inscriptions on the animals as allusions to official policies, although the allusions are often indirect. to decode “fashoda” on the french frog presupposes as much english language newspaper familiarity over a considerable span of time as does the inscription on the american eagle and even the bulldog. in the chinese decoding, none of these allusions are adopted, implying that they would be unfamiliar to a chinese language reader. china itself is the dead territory in the middle, the inert object of the powers’ stratagems. while all the other nations—russia, france, england, japan, and the us—have a “national agency” that enables them to act with a unified will like a single being, china is a blank space reduced to being the object of their desires. it is devoid of all national agency to defend its sovereignty and is not represented by a living being endowed with a will. thus, the image optically and symbolically represents an asymmetry in agency as perceived by its “chinese” author, tse tsan tai (xie zuantai 謝纘泰) (1872–1937): from his perspective, all agency concerning china lies with the foreign powers, and none with “china” itself. in this respect the cartoon reflects an assessment of china that was shared by many commentators including chinese reformers. demetrius boulger, a man with great china sympathies, who was the editor of the asiatic quarterly review at the time, summarized this asymmetry in agency through a different metaphor.  in 1897 he published a programmatic article titled “the sick man of the far east”, where he writes: the general view of china, now, it would be scarcely going too far to say, is not merely that she is a quantité negligeable,[21] but that she will have to obey the dictates of others and thus surrender the power to work out her own destiny. unless the chinese awake to the gravity of their situation there will be no resisting the accuracy of that conclusion.[22] going back to “the situation in the far east,” we find on the upper left side a text in chinese without an english counterpart, which solely addresses chinese readers. while the image and the inscribed texts defined the “situation in the far east,” this text spells out the message of the cartoon for readers identifying with “our china.” 沉沉酣睡我中華 那知愛國即愛家 國民知醒宜今醒 莫待土分裂似瓜 deep in sleep is our china, how should they know that loving one’s country is as natural as loving one’s family! [you] citizens/the nation[23] should know that as to waking up you have to wake up now and not wait until the land is carved up like a melon! this text presents a mixture of abstract concepts such as “citizen,” “state,” “family,” and “china”, and metaphors such as “being asleep” and “cutting up a melon.” the image and the text interact. the text shows that the purpose of the image is anything but a neutral assessment of the power and agency relationships between china and the powers, but is, in fact, a call for action. it translates the scene in the image into the notion of china being divided up by the powers “like a melon,” but above all it translates china’s depicted lack of agency and “organic” national identity into the notion that “our china” is “asleep”, and then comes up with the urgent appeal that to prevent “our china” from being cut up in its sleep, “citizens have to wake up now” to care for their china with the same intensity as for their family. chinese citizens are to feel ashamed of their lack of patriotic commitment, the consequence of which is the absence of china on the map as a nation. in short: the cartoon uses its depiction of a glaring asymmetry in agency at this critical juncture as a tool to shame “our china” into becoming a true nation.[24] the notions of sleep and awakening do have religious overtones both in buddhism and christianity. many of the late qing reformers, such as kang youwei and liang qichao, had close connections to the lay buddhist revival led by yang wenhui (1837–1911) in nanjing[25] and some of the terminology they used to describe the social reformer is taken from descriptions of the bodhisattva with his commitment to “save all sentient beings”. they also had close connections with christian missionaries such as timothy richard (1845–1919) and young john allen (1836–1907), who had decided to focus on the reform of the chinese polity rather than conversion. the terms used for awakening in buddhist and christian chinese terminology, however, are not the same as those used for china asleep or awoken. the cartoon shows some signs of political compromise as any verbalized statement might. by the time it was published, great britain had joined the race to acquire long-term leases; only later in the year did it cede to us pressure and returned to its original stance, without, however, abandoning the leases. the reason why this fact is omitted and british commitment to the “territorial integrity” of china is highlighted, may be because tse tsan tai was a public servant in the colonial administration and thus probably reacting to the hong kong’s particular political situation. the depiction of japan is also guarded. it is not an animal, and its insistence at the time that no other power should be allowed to include the province of fujian (opposite the new japanese territory of taiwan) into its zone of influence is likewise not illustrated. the background might be the close connection of the hong kong revolutionaries in tse tsan tai’s environment to the japanese consulate, which, as tse himself explicitly noted, was supporting their actions.[26] the purpose of the cartoon is confirmed in a later memoir by its creator: “this cartoon was designed to arouse the chinese nation and to warn the people of the impending danger of the partitioning of the empire by the foreign powers.” in other words, it was to appeal to chinese citizens to wake up and cope with the asymmetry in agency and the resulting asymmetry in power. the addressee is someone who would be speaking of “our china.”[27] the bilingual nature of the cartoon and the difference between the chinese and the english texts needs further exploration. the study of images and metaphors, as part of conceptual history in a broader sense, must match requirements similar in their core features to those established for the study of concepts and words, while being adjusted to the particulars of a different medium. at the level of metaphor and simile, the logic of the metaphor, the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of its actual use, its functions, and its relationship with concepts and images need to be explored. at the image level, the same criteria apply. because the emphasis on text in historical studies (and the ensuing development of databases featuring large bodies of text) vicariously also includes metaphor and simile, research in these fields is greatly facilitated. with images the situation is different. it will not suffice to point out that “the situation in the far east” cartoon was meant for the public and publicly available, if we wish to support a statement about the cartoon’s actual impact on framing perceptions of the situation in the far east and on steps chinese patriots-to-be were encouraged to take. given the difficulty of documenting print runs, distribution patterns, and reactions to such a cartoon, we have to make the best of scattered pieces of evidence. luckily enough, there is a relatively rich record. unfortunately, the burden of assembling and documenting this record is on this essay, which has contributed to its undue length. tse tsan tai claimed that his cartoon “appeared in many foreign illustrated newspapers.”[28] as most information in his memoir can be verified, he is generally credible in his factual statements. i have, however, not been able to find any of these reprints. tse also wrote that he “allowed yeung ku-wan to publish in japan a coloured travesty of my cartoon, which led to my being questioned by the colonial secretary of hongkong.”[29] indeed, a greatly altered color version of tse’s cartoon survives (figure 2)[30] and the graphic as well as its political elements seem to suggest that this might be the japanese version he alluded to. a copy of this color print was found by zhu shijia 朱士嘉, the historian of geography, during his search for historical maps of china in the us national archives in 1940. it came with a detailed key in cantonese.[31] in this form, but without the key, the image has found its way into countless prc schoolbooks as an illustration of the evil plans of the imperialists. fig. 2: shiju tu, 1899 or 1900, probably japan. this version follows the older, black and white one in the general layout—symbolism, and slogans on the animals—but relies much more on visualization. it does so explicitly, promising in the slogan on two sides that “being an indirect expression without words [this image] makes all things clear at a single glance 不言而喻,一目了然.” [32] the use of the term yu 喻, which in the modern vernacular translates as “metaphor,” shows the close link between metaphor and image. the cartoon replaces the chinese texts of the first version with a lengthy key in cantonese for deciphering the symbolism.[33] it adds national flags to the animals for easier identification. it changes the british bulldog into a veritable tiger, and has the tiger’s tale inscribed “germany.” this is comprehensible only with the key, which claims that britain got hold of the port of weihaiwei to offset the strong position that germany acquired in shandong. the cantonese key goes into great detail about the areas claimed by the powers as their spheres of influence. the denunciation of russia is especially harsh. if its plans succeed, the entire north, including manchuria, mongolia, and korea, will be under its heel. “when they see people they just slaughter them, and when they come upon villages they burn them, treating the lives of you chinese as cheaper than sand and mud.”[34] the sequence is reset here according to the threat the power posed to china with russia coming first, followed by france, england, and japan. france might be making a deal with russia, and great britain is mostly occupied with preventing france from establishing itself in the southern provinces. the japanese sun now extends its rays into china itself to the man resting in the middle, and the key denounces japan’s babbling about having the “same writing, being of the same race and being of mutual support,” while grabbing taiwan. germany is treated as a minor understudy of england. the fine satirical drawing at the bottom shows the minor powers—including a little toad with a top hat rushing in from the left—crowding in to get some of the spoils. but they are reduced to being onlookers behind a fence. italy, for example, is already raising its flag for a bid, yet it remains behind the barrier—its bid, for the support of which it sent a lone cruiser, was turned down. austria, standing to its right, is pondering whether it, too, should join the hunt. while eliminating the chinese text that begins “deep in sleep is our china,” this cartoon version fills the chinese map with a visual reading of what “china asleep” might signify. the key figure on the map, the man in the center with the “sour mien,” is a manchu official.[35] he is described in the key as “altogether not caring for the things that need doing,” “in big sleep and endless slumber without getting up” in the central plains. [36] the net he casts towards the figures in the top left corner traps the chinese in the pursuit of official civilian or military careers, which makes them “confused 迷住” through endless study of empty writings, and “vicious 頑皮” through the study of antiquated military arts; they end up as corrupt and gluttonous officials.[37] at the same time, this manchu government is touched by the rays of the japanese “sun”. this would suggest a time when japanese influence markedly increased. the cartoon offers a different reading of “china asleep” to a different audience. while the threat to china still comes from the powers and especially from russia and france, the image shows the manchu officials as being “asleep” with regard to the national crisis, trapping the han-chinese into wasting their energies on governmental examinations and then squandering the country’s wealth with their debauchery, corruption, and oppression. china is not simply asleep; its government is indifferent to the national danger. the cartoon is not trying to mobilize the sleeping manchu, but is directed at the trapped chinese—not just the cantonese. the key ends with the words: “how long are you chinese 華人 still going to wait until you do something?” there is no hope here that the manchu court and the trapped chinese elite can be shamed into waking up to the nation and its needs. the only group that can be shamed into “doing something” about the nation are the “chinese.” unlike the first version, this cartoon is aimed at cantonese readers who are less experienced at deciphering the new medium of the cartoon, have little familiarity with the new concepts such as “citizen” and “state” or metaphors such as “cutting up the melon” (both of which were used in the earlier version, but are not used here), and are only marginally chinese/english bilingual. the two cartoons suggest different kinds of action. the first offered itself as information regarding the current situation with a stronger emphasis on the threat from russia in the hope that people will “wake up” once they see the cartoon. however, it remains unspecific as to the steps to be taken once this awakening has happened. the second cartoon seems to direct the awakening anger against the manchu court. the more critical stance concerning japan, as well as britain, was not lost on the hong kong authorities. they were probably not the intended addressees, but they definitely took notice. since tse tsan tai was the creator of the original draft and lived in hong kong, he was reprimanded by the british colonial secretary, which explains why he refers to this print as a “travesty.” the colonial secretary’s reaction is an indicator of the british (and perhaps the japanese) authorities’ assessment of the potential impact such a print may have. this second version also survives in some variants. for example, it appeared as a colored postcard (figure 3).[38] fig. 3: the situation in the far east, postcard, 1899 or 1900 this postcard reproduces the color version, but all sides are cut off and it comes without a key. no printer’s name is preserved. this kind of postcard featuring political cartoons about pressing current events (such as war) had been spreading since the 1890s in europe, the us, and japan.[39] the genre became instrumental in spreading familiarity with a code of imagery used in political cartoons beyond high-brow readers of the prominent papers. the postcard reproduced here might be one of, or even the first of its genre, addressing readers of chinese. its existence implies a market as well as a new medium for disseminating the implied message among acquaintances or relations (in china or abroad) by sending them the postcard. a chinese language newspaper set up by cai yuanpei 蔡元培 (1868–1940) in 1903 to warn against the “russian threat” throws further light on the dispersion process. introducing another variant of this later cartoon version it states: “this image is referred to as the image of dividing up china like a melon 這一張圖叫做瓜分中國圖.” obviously, the cartoon was widely known and had acquired a name that was different from its original chinese or english title. the text continues: “some years ago it was put together by someone translating from english newspapers.” this seems not to refer to the image, but to the textual information. in the end, the report comes back to this: “the man translating this image has xie (tse) as his family name. it was printed in hong kong in a fine color print. it is on sale in shanghai at [the bookstore] kelly and walsh. you all might want to buy a sheet and take it home to show to your children. probably after explaining a bit, even a six or seven year old kid will have its indignation raised. given that you [readers] are already so grown-up, this should make you think.”[40] obviously, the information available to cai yuanpei was hazy about the origins of the cartoon—which is not tse tsan tai’s version—and about the full name of tse tsan tai, but precise regarding the fact that a colored print version from hong kong was on sale in shanghai, and that readers in that city were familiar with the print. kelly and walsh (別發洋行) is a shanghai publisher and bookstore (founded in 1876) specializing in english or bilingual chinese-english books about china.[41] the implied reader was obviously familiar with this bookstore, which offered a large selection of western books about china, and he was not surprised that the most patriotic chinese poster available could only be found in a western-run bookstore. referred to in chinese as the image of “china carved up like a melon” instead of the original “the situation in the world”, this version spread to japan, shanghai, and hong kong. different readers in different places felt free to attach their own interpretations and to change the drawing accordingly. a source from 1900 gives us a glimpse at the ways audiences interacted with the print, when the poet huang zunxian 黃遵憲 (1848–1905), who had been instrumental in making detailed  information about the japanese meiji reforms available in china,[42] referred to the cartoon in two of his poems. huang, we should add, had been sidelined after the coup that ended the ‘hundred days reform’ in 1898, and had retreated to his home near meizhou, east of guangzhou in guangdong province. the first poem, “yang tian” 仰天 (raising the eyes to heaven [in frustration]) (1900), which is studded with classical allusions, begins with an angry “eyes to heaven, hands flying, i howl wuwu/hitting at random, i smash the spittle pot.” it ends with the defiant: “hidden in the box the incriminated works of the famous scholars [kang youwei and liang qichao]/ [but] mounted on the wall the image of the powers dividing up the pie” 篋藏名士株連籍，壁掛群雄豆剖圖.[43] interestingly, the term translated as “mighty powers” is in the original chinese closer to “the group of heroes”, i.e. a positive term. in other words, the anger is not directed against the powers. the name given to the cartoon on the wall uses a variant of “dividing up the melon.”[44] in the second poem from the same year, huang returns again to the cartoon, which he had mounted on his wall. entitled “while sick, i noted down a dream that i sent to liang qichao,” huang dreams about liang coming with his head under his arm while being pursued by qing assassins. two spirits or souls of reformers, who had been executed after 1898, transport liang to heaven. in a reference to people associated with sun yat-sen, liang then proceeds to outline the young revolutionists’ criticism of his continued support for the dynasty. the poem ends as huang suddenly sees an image of liang on his wall: your head was against my wall, covering the wall with diffuse red. sitting up i rubbed my eyes to see, alas—it was the image of dividing up the melon 瓜分圖[45] this second reference to a picture on the wall features the same elements as the quotation about the print on sale in shanghai. for the author, the cartoon has become short-hand for the situation of china, and the implied reader of the poems is expected to catch the reference. while the available editions do not make it clear whether either of the two poems were published in a paper or journal—that would have publicly linked huang to the cartoon—there is an early record of the second poem in liang qichao’s own publication of his works. the association of liang qichao with the name of the cartoon comes from a highly influential article liang published in august 1899 entitled “words of alarm about being divided up like a melon,” 瓜分危言, which did much to popularize the metaphor in chinese-writing circles.[46]  by chance, the image hanging on huang’s wall seems to have survived in huang’s home, which has now become a cultural preservation site (figure 4):[47] fig. 4: shiju tu, [water?] colored hand drawing. photograph taken in former home of huang zunxian by hon kwong. inscription below has been added by the administrators of huang’s home. this cartoon draws on both tse tsan tai’s original and the later changed version. it has the chinese text on the left side, which is only in tse’s, and it has part of the motto from the later color version on the right side. it also borrows the smaller nations looking on at the bottom and the shorter title from this later version, and introduces its own elements and priorities. all of the explanatory matter is gone, and this version requires the spectator to do his own decoding, for example of the snake in front of the lion. most significant, however, is the change in the animals. the bear, frog and eagle remain iconographically close to the earlier version, but japan is now simply a bright sun without any visible designs on china. the bulldog, or tiger (england), as well as the manchu official, are no longer in the center. the tiger reappears instead in the top left corner in europe, while the center is now occupied by china in the form of a sleeping lion, blissfully unaware of the threats to its territory. from what can be recognized on this photograph, the object is likely to be a watercolor done by someone familiar with both versions. as huang refers twice to this image—if indeed this was his image—in poems written in 1900 and the first version of the cartoon itself is dated july 1899, the dating of this image has a terminus post quem of july 1899, and a terminus ante quem between july 1899 and the end of 1900. furthermore, neither poem refers to the boxer disturbance or the foreign intervention, which means that the likely terminus ante quem lies in the middle of 1900. finally, the fact that this image in huang’s home draws on the colored version with the key in cantonese, this latter version can also be confidently dated to between july 1899 and the middle of 1900. the changes in the image seem to match huang’s attitude as well as the chinese political environment. his very positive experiences in japan fit the country’s representation in the cartoon. and given the continuing crackdown against associates and sympathizers of liang qichao and kang youwei, caution probably advised against displaying a direct attack on the manchu court on the living room wall. as a privately displayed image, it expressed huang’s personal concern about the threats to the country, and signalled it to his visitors. the image sees the crisis not in differences in potential strength—a lion certainly is potentially strong—but in actualized agency. circumspect, it carefully avoids any specific suggestion about the actions that have to be taken. the sleeping lion suggests a china that potentially equals or exceeds the other nations’ power and fierceness. being a lion, but asleep, china is unable to translate its potential into actual agency. while retaining the other versions’ strategy of shaming the audience into nation building, huang zunxian’s image has a much higher appreciation of china’s potential lion-like organic unity and power. this “sleeping lion” image obviously engages in a branch of the discussion about symbolical representations of china, which we will have occasion to explore. a third variant of our second cartoon, which has no text in either chinese or english, but is accompanied by a very lengthy explanation, appeared in the first issue of the shanghai paper e shi jingwen 俄事警聞 (alarming news about russian actions), which has already been mentioned (figure 5).[48] run by cai yuanpei 蔡元培 (1868–1940), the paper began publication in december 1903 during the months leading up to the russian-japanese war in china’s northeast. its intention was, to quote the opening announcement, to “arouse 喚起 citizens and to prompt them to jointly make sure to resist the [chinese] policies in this affair,” namely the russian occupation of the chinese northeast.[49] like liang qichao and kang youwei, cai belonged to the first generation of chinese reformers who still had a full classical education and only later in their careers became interested in exploring new offerings from the west and japan. cai had been appointed to the prestigious hanlin academy in 1898, and it was his exposure to chinese translations of western works, which in 1903 prompted him to set up and join revolutionary organizations, and in 1907 to go to europe where he studied psychology and art history in leipzig. his journal pioneered the use of the western genre of political cartoons in the chinese language press. fig. 5: guafen zhongguo tu 瓜分中國圖 (carving china up like a melon) the title is only given within the accompanying explanatory text, which itself is entitled xianshi 現勢 (the present situation). the journal’s opening editorial, “a general appeal to citizens” 普告國民, which precedes the image, starts with the words: woe! the country is going under! the country is going under! but our compatriots are still in deep slumber and do not wake up! 嗚呼！國亡矣！國亡矣！我同胞猶酣睡而不覺耶[50] the “citizens” (or “nation”) of the cartoon’s first version reappear here in the “compatriots,” which also includes those chinese living overseas. the immediate danger depicted now comes from russia, rather than from all the powers. england has reverted to being a bulldog, fiercely staring at the viewer, but preserving the status quo by sitting and not moving to change anything; japan is not radiating on a declining manchu official, but now exerts influence via taiwan to fujian province on the mainland. germany has developed into a veritable little snake that reaches inland from shandong, and down the coast towards shanghai. the detailed commentary on the cartoon entitled “the present situation” explains the image step by step to an implied reader who is unequipped to decode it (and is harangued as having less patriotic fervor than a six-year-old child). the complicated relations between the powers and russia are confusing the chinese state leaders, who are afraid of the popular reaction if they sell out, which results in “millions of people being as muddle-headed as the state leaders” and the need for both to be awakened by this newspaper. the “resistance”, to which the paper’s call tries to awaken the “compatriots” and “citizens”, is directed against the chinese government’s eagerness to accommodate the russians by giving in to their demands. while this paper was published in the chinese media capital of shanghai (where readers would be familiar with this type of communication and, as we learned, people could buy the colored poster in a foreign bookstore) this commentary and its simple language suggest that the paper primarily tried to reach and mobilize people from “the entire country,” i.e. beyond shanghai, who were not bilingual.[51] the paper took this aim to reach “the entire country” seriously,[52] which shows the difficulties of crossing the divide between places such as shanghai and the rest of the country. we will have to discuss the non-homogeneity of the public sphere, the significant imbalance between the contact zones in the foreign settlements and the chinese hinterland, and the relationship of the public sphere to the “national” territory.[53] in combining the impending threat—the powers dividing up the melon, the problem of china being asleep—and the appeal for action, this cartoon and its accompanying texts share the agenda of the earlier versions. but the commentary is particular, first in its single-minded concentration on russia’s administrative integration of china’s northern provinces into its state administration and, secondly, in designing a strategy that sees the key for thwarting russia’s designs in fostering popular resistance to the government’s sell-out to russia.  the short foray to the shiju tu has shown that abstract words are neither the only nor the most effective method of communication. far from being merely the “hand maiden” of concepts, restricted to introducing abstract matters to a wider audience, metaphors and images offer a genuine path to specific understanding and legitimized action. they offer a platform for a focused and controversial debate. concepts are in need of metaphors and similes for their integration with other concepts in a manner specific enough to suggest a course of action. metaphors and similes cry out for images to make explicit the complex envisaged scenario. as we shall see, they even offer the wherewithal for allegorical narratives that, in the form of fiction, spell out the implications of a metaphorical characterization of the present. such narratives in turn might be illustrated and commented on with a different verbiage. the images are, however, not self-explanatory. instead, they beckon the creation of text with concepts and metaphors to explain them, or a verbal pun that will highlight the issue at stake through the medium of language. the nation “asleep”: transcultural archaeology of a metaphor and image out of the rich array of concepts, words, metaphors, images and scenes presented in the single cartoon shiju tu, i will now select one element for closer study: china asleep. this selection will make for an economic as well as detailed analysis. the notion that a collectivity such as a nation, class, or gender could be “asleep” presupposes a violent operation, namely the transformation of this collectivity into a living entity with a potentially unified will, a will that is for the duration of the sleep out of practical operation. the sleep metaphor defines an asymmetry in agency either between the sleeping and waking state of the same organism, or between one sleeping organism and others that are awake. this form of sleep metaphor spread in the chinese language after the 1880s.  searching a large chinese language database, that is particularly rich in texts associated with reform, yields the following graph for the use of the sleep metaphor between 1820 and 1930: fig. 6: graph for the use of the “sleep” metaphor. this graph illustrates the use of the “sleep” metaphor for nations or peoples—mostly china—in chinese language articles contained in the database zhongguo jinxiandai sixiang shi zhuanye shujuku 中國近現代思想史專業數據庫 for the years 1884–1920.[54] it is noteworthy, that there are no hits before 1884. the sequential steps for 1884–1900 are given in single years, then in five-year steps. the earliest chinese language use of the metaphor that i was able to locate occurred in an 1884 record of the sino-french confrontation in vietnam. it was put together by a group of authors including the japanese sone shōun 曾根嘯雲 (1848–1910) as the compiler who also added japanese reading marks to this chinese language text; wang tao 王韜 (1828–1897), the editor of the xunhuan ribao 循環日報 (global daily) in hong kong, who was responsible for selecting the excerpts; and the vietnamese ruan heting, who proofread the result: when westerners invaded china recently, they came upon qing officials who were slumbering in their dreams, and the qing people were also not yet aware of their own potential. now, however, the qing officials have awoken from their slumber and have prepared [for a confrontation] for over twenty years. they harbor deep anger and grind their teeth in enmity towards the french.[55] 前者西人之侵清國，適值清國官員睡在夢中，而清人又未悉清人伎倆。今清官既已夢醒，又預備二十餘年，含憤已甚，皆切齒而仇法。 the graph shows occasional references, and then a sudden steep rise after 1896. these incidences occur in a very restricted number of publications, nearly all of which are connected to reformers such as kang youwei, yan fu, liang qichao, ho kai, and tang caichang.[56] the leading newspaper of the time, the shenbao,which is not in the database consulted, but for which a digital full text version exists for the years 1872 to 1893, shows very limited use of the sleep metaphor for china around 1887, and no further incidences in the years up to 1893. a cursory check in other chinese language reform writings of the late nineteenth century confirms that the metaphor was, for a long while, primarily used in the small circle of authors mentioned above and became influential mainly due to their profuse newspaper and periodical publishing. only after 1900 the sleep-metaphor spread to a greater variety of publications.[57] in short: the metaphor was initially shared and spread by a very small group of chinese reformers, yet amply used in their influential writings. its time of peak usage is defined by the aftermath of the quick chinese defeat in the war with japan in 1894–1895, as well as the court’s push for a major reform effort that culminated in the ‘hundred days reform’ of 1898. as far as images are concerned, representations of china asleep and variations thereof had become understandable enough to be included in cartoons in vernacular chinese newspapers only after 1900.[58] one might think of the spread of metaphor as an anonymous and collective process. the creativity and counter-intuitiveness involved in the development of a metaphor, however, often point to individual actors who either created the metaphor in a widely read and used text, or were instrumental in introducing it in a different cultural context. the very uneven use of the sleep metaphor in a restricted set of chinese language journals in a narrow time window suggests that the above-mentioned group of authors played a crucial role in the metaphor’s distribution and popularization. on closer inspection of the actual texts, however, it turns out that they were only reviving an earlier chinese debate. by 1897, writers such as tang caichang (1867–1900) were explicitly and disapprovingly referring to an 1887 essay by zeng jize 曾紀澤 (1839–1890), the then chinese ambassador to london, paris and petersburg, entitled “china: the sleep and the awakening.”  it was written in english and published in london’s asiatic quarterly review in january 1887. a large number of the articles that used the sleep metaphor for china between 1897 and 1910 referred to this source. while they agreed with zeng jize that china had been asleep, the chinese defeat in the war with japan caused them to reject his claim that with the recent development of the chinese navy and coastal fortifications during the 1870s and 1880s, china had finally awoken, was able to defend her claims even concerning her tributary states, and had created the conditions for a brisk internal development without foreign interference. at this point, the anomalies pile up to such a degree that we are forced to seriously reconsider the viability of our approach. zeng jize’s article in english alerts us to the simple fact that the entire process analyzed here is part of a transcultural exchange with its particular dynamics. so far, we have traced the spread of a metaphor and its graphic representation, which deals with an asymmetry of agency in mutual relations, as well as an asymmetry of power. we have seen  how cartoons were used to mobilize people to cope with the resulting crisis. however, this approach has followed the old routine of using the nation state as the default mode of analysis. this routine has its origins in the obsessive focus on the “nation” during the nineteenth century, a focus that has had a lasting impact on the division of labor in the humanities. it has led to odd creations such as a “german,” “chinese” or “croatian” history, literature, art, or music with the increasingly silent and self-understood assumption that there is such as thing as a cultural process that can be sufficiently circumscribed by what is fashionably called  an “imagined community” of language and image held together by print media. to tell the story as we have done up to now, we had to sideline the vast evidence for the prevalence of transcultural flow in every single aspect of our endeavor. i will now reexamine the issue with the basic premise that transcultural flows are normal and relevant, in other words, from a “default mode” of transculturality. this, however, cannot be simply a matter of belief. the viability and scholarly productivity of this approach has to manifest itself in a substantially enriched analysis of the sources. the metaphor “asleep” or “awakened” for nations, states, societies, governments or classes is part of the overall use of the body as a complex and dynamic structure that can serve to conceptualize and discuss the complex operations of such collectivities. in this conceptualization, physical and temporary features of the body, such as disease, were often used to discuss the ailments of the other “body”, as well as the remedies needed. the body metaphor has been in use throughout eurasia since at least the sixth or fifth century b.c.e.[59] since the european renaissance, continents such as europe, asia, or africa were often represented allegorically in word and image.[60] but while these images might go as far as depicting the “rape of europe” against the background of the 30-years war,[61] or allegorize their view of a cultural hierarchy between the continents,[62] they do not describe this entity’s state of mind at a given time. in other words, states of mind of such collectivities—whether asleep or awake—had not yet become a regular part of this metaphorical system. still, on the verbal level, its use goes back at least to the early renaissance works of petrarch (1304–1374). in one of his poems he called upon the spirit of ancient rome to wake up “italy that is not even feeling its misfortune. old, lazy, and slow, will she sleep forever, without anyone waking her up?”[63] interestingly enough, no “italy” existed at the time beyond a geographical name. here we have a collectivity sleeping and unaware of itself and its own misfortune, and a poet “in tears” calls on the “spirit” of ancient rome to “shake her mightily” (scuoter forte). nearly all the elements we have observed in the use of the sleep metaphor for china are already present. while foreign powers are not explicitly mentioned here, the contention of various forces for power in this region at the time is notorious. however, the focus and blame is on the internal condition of the country, not on some overpowering foreign intrusion. the implication is that such intrusions become only possible because the country is asleep. as a consequence, the critique deals with this state of internal affairs, and the appeal is for the country to wake up. only since the late 18th century have nations and classes become categories that were regularly assigned a state of mind and a specific historical agency.[64] this endowment seems to be connected to the revolutionary changes in north america and france with their recent discovery of public opinion as a relevant and articulate player, and with the wider involvement of the population in socio-political affairs through the expansion of the printed word and image. a fine early example is a british 1778 print about the “state of the nation”, which concerns the american war and the international situation (figure 7).[65] it was critical of lord north’s “conciliatory propositions” to north america and came with an explanatory key. the image not only features the british lion asleep, but also the two british commanders, the howe brothers, shown against a background of philadelphia without either an operative fleet or army. fig. 7: view of the state of the nation for february 1778, etching. text in french. america, represented by a native american, is cutting off the horns with which the “poor tame cow” of british commerce could defend itself—a reference to the defunct british army and navy in the background. a dutchman is milking the cow and a spaniard and frenchman happily walk off, each with a bowl of milk. the sleeping british lion is oblivious to this plunder of the nation’s “natural defense and strength”. he is so soundly asleep that a (dutch) pug dog brazenly urinates on him without him noticing. a “free englishman in mourning” cries out to the viewer in frustration. he is not in this poster, nor does he interact with the other figures; he is the poster itself, calling out to the viewer, who will find himself reflected in the sleeping lion. only an awakening lion of british public opinion can force a rectification of this situation. the metaphorical meta-language has, furthermore, developed its own meta-consistency, where a “lion” can be called upon to come to the rescue of a “cow,” whose ‘natural’ defenses–the horns–have been cut off. the centerpiece of this cartoon is the dairy cow of british commerce. the cow is a symbol of a rich source of goods with commercial value that passively accepts exploitation. it has a long history as an emblem of a country’s tolerating exploitation by others.[66] here the cow is surrounded by the representatives of different nations who feast on her. we see the already fully developed strategy of using image and language to instill guilt in the public compelling them to patriotism and the formation of a national will. the nations surrounding the cow just exploit england’s internal weakness, rather than violently imposing their will. therefore, the protest is not directed against them. this is an iconographic model, which, as we shall see, was widely used with many variants throughout the nineteenth century.[67] it is also the model underlying the shiju tu. while the sleep/awakening metaphor was most widely used for nations, it was also used for other collectivities. an example is a 1789 french cartoon that prompts the lower classes to awaken and shows the potential benefits of such an awakening (figure 8). fig. 8: reveil du tiers état (the awakening of the third estate), hand-colored etching, 1789. text below: “ma feinte, il étoit tens que je me réveillisse, car l'opression de mes fers me donnions le cochemar un peu trop fort.” (my golly, it was time for me to wake up, because the pressure from the irons had given me too much of a nightmare). in the background is the stormed bastille and decapitated heads swing above the crowd. nobility and clergy are both in shock. sympathizers of the french revolution’s anti-feudal agenda in other european countries were noting the asymmetry between the awakened french and their own slumbering populations. events in france were depicted as a wake-up call for both ideals of liberty and active defense of the nation. a swiss example may illustrate this (figure 9).[68] fig. 9: laurent midart (switzerland, 1733?–1800), the awakening of the swiss, the french text reads: “after its victories the swiss rested on his laurels for such a long time that he fell asleep. during his sleep his weapons deteriorated and his strength waned. the rooster’s call wakes him, the sun gives him clarity, and freedom gives him new weapons with which he will show the universe that he still has the virtues and valor of his ancestors. dedicated to the executive directorate of the helvetic republic by laurent midart, citizen of soleure (solothurn).” the combination of french revolutionary ideals and napoleon’s expansionist policies in europe and north africa eventually led to “nationalist” polemics that focused on the nation’s state of mind rather than that of class. good examples are james gillray’s (1757–1815) cartoons against the french and their british “sympathizers”, who try to keep britannia asleep rather than awaken her (figure 10). fig. 10: james gillray (great britain, 1757–1815), the nursery—with britannia reposing in peace, 1802. britain is put to sleep by crafty british “jacobin” sympathizers of the french revolution. the head nurse, prime minister addington, is supported by lord hawkesbury and charles james fox. peace refers to the treaty of amiens with napoleon, in which gillray thought the british government had accepted humiliating conditions. the shield and arms to defend national interest are idly lying on the bed.[69] britannia, who is actually a lively-enough “baby” with her outsized body and her armory and weapons, needs three nurses to prevent her from becoming active. these nurses do not just put her to sleep with the help of french pie, the opiate on the chimney sill, and the peaceful lullaby; the inscription above the crib “requiescat in pace” is normally found above a tomb, an insinuation that the nurses are trying to make sure that britannia will never again wake up.[70] again, britannia herself is the problem, she is asleep, and british politicians try to make sure that she stays this way. after the defeat of napoleon, the congress of vienna started a far-reaching crackdown on liberal opinion. the conflicts between the different european nation states, however, became exacerbated. a fine and exceedingly popular german print from the few months between 1842 and 1843, when the prussian king frederic wilhelm iv temporarily suspended the ban on pictures (“bilderverbot”), plays on the these themes (figure 11). fig. 11: r. sabatky (germany), der deutsche michel, chalk lithography, 1843. the “deutsche michel,” who had long become an emblem of “germany,” is deeply asleep. the cartoon called for a detailed explanation, which was offered in a fine 1843 booklet. the text was delivered in the form of a bystander’s comment to berliners, who are standing in front of a berlin cartoon shop wondering about the meaning of the figures.[71] michel’s sleep allows foreign powers—represented by what is by now standard iconography—to get the better of him. his mouth is locked by the karlsbad decrees, which had introduced rigorous censorship in the 38 german states; these states make up the patchwork of his shirt. the austrian chancellor metternich, who engineered the karlsbad decrees, holds the little key for the lock, and is busy bleeding michel, whose blood turns into gold.[72] john bull, who is depicted as a bulldog, is pulling michel’s purse out of his pocket, a reference to the trade deficit between the german states and england. the french soldier is cutting off the sleeve of michel’s jacket, a reference to territorial claims on the rhine. on the left, the nightmare of the pope riding on the clouds of eternity with his huge key is described in the booklet as the night watchman of europe. in the background we see the military of the german states with their officer disregarding michel’s plight while maintaining perfect military posture. michel is not the government, but the control and exploitation of michel’s land and goods by the neighbouring nations hinges on his innate drowsiness. they do not put him to sleep, but try to make sure that he stays this way. a 1843 article in the berlinische zeitung had this to say about the cartoon: around “one single figure, which alone is in total passivity, all the others are engaged in the most lively activity, which has no other purpose than to make sure this poor figure remains passive.”[73] in other words, the double meaning of michel’s sleepiness and the powers’ efforts to prevent him from waking up was well understood.[74] the cartoon is far from being simply descriptive. addressed to an audience that was to find itself satirized and shamed for its sleepy absence of patriotic energy required to defend the burgeoning german nation, the image’s purpose was to prompt michel’s awakening. during the same months when sabatky drew the cartoon, he also produced a science fantasy counterpart (figure 31), in which michel is waking up with a club in his hand. the prussian eagle on his breast replaces the shirt with the checkered german states. he takes on the powers, which are represented in an iconographic quotation from the other print.[75] in another science fantasy answer to the michel asleep, w. winckler, a koenigsberg artist with a lithography shop, likewise drew a cartoon of the awakened michel. these cartoons highlight the fact that the depiction of michel asleep was never a simple analytical statement, but an appeal to overcome the asymmetry in agency between sleeping michel and the alert powers by shaming german compatriots into waking up to a nationalist commitment (figure 12).[76] fig. 12: w. winckler, no title (michel awakened), lithograph, 1843. while the cross-references to sabatky’s print and iconographic arrangement explain most of the allusions, winckler adds a new element. michel’s proverbial nightcap (the german schlafmütze, which also means sleepyhead) has flown off and shows michel’s former dreams: a church procession, a carriage full of war decorations, the prussian royal couple, “father rhine” taken prisoner by the french, cologne cathedral (that was still being built) walking on human legs, etc. in this case sleep is not just empty absence of conscious perception and action, but it is filled with “backward” dreams. these dreams are michel’s own and not induced by others. while the cartoon marks the “traditional” dreams that held michel back, it does not show a reason why michel should wake up. there is no reason, only hope. we will return to these projections of hope in a while. by the mid-nineteenth century, the notion of a “nation” being asleep—either due to its own inertia or with a little help—while being threatened by outside actors, who may be in cahoots with internal agents such as the manchu, the british jacobins or the german military, had become fairly routine in writing and creating images. german authors such as august von platen, emanuel geibel or heinrich heine would routinely refer to germans being “asleep” and being oblivious to their national crisis.[77] for example, the second stanza of heine’s 1844 poem “doktrin” goes: trommle die leute aus dem schlaf, (drum the people out of their sleep) trommle reveille mit jugendkraft, (drum the wake-up call with youthful vigor) marschire trommelnd immer voran, (always march ahead drumming) das ist die ganze wissenschaft.[78] (that is what scholarship is all about) the drum and bell, which we will meet again in east asia later in this essay, are natural enrichments of the sleep/awakening metaphoric field. german republicans were even dreaming about the potential for agency through the legend of emperor barbarossa. sleeping for centuries deep in a mountain with a fully equipped army that even included sleeping horses, he was waiting for the right moment to wake up, burst forth, and make germany strong.[79]  already in the european context the sleep/awakening contrast was linked to a time delay. the french rooster is already crowing and the sun of reason and liberty is rising, but the swiss and, even later, the germans are just waking up. in the master narrative of modernization, this time delay was exacerbated by the cultural and physical distance of asian nations. they had not been constant witnesses of developments unfolding in france or england, but were confronted rather suddenly with the results of a decade-long development that had gone on beyond their horizon of awareness. this double distance and the accompanying lack of information and familiarity made for a deeper sleep and the need for a greater shock. by the end of the 19th century, the metaphoric transition from sleep to awakening was used in japan to frame a general master narrative that described the sudden and shocking transition from traditional ways to modernity in nations that were characterized by this double distance, which they had further increased by a conscious policy of closing themselves off from the rest of the world. what in europe had developed as “modernity” in a gradual, contentious and messy way with many variants, now appeared in asia as a finished package deal that could be rejected only at great cost. an 1897 japanese narrative, which was also translated into chinese in the reform journal shiwu bao, put it this way: the [japanese, r.w.] people slumbered in peace and although during the bunka bunsei period (1800–1826) there were warnings from the borders, they remained in dreams without waking up. when, however, the american admiral perry came to edo [in 1853], the long sleep was interrupted for the first time, and from this moment on, the patriotic feeling of people rose mightily and theories about saving throne and country spread in the country and the habits of hundreds of years [stopped].[80] the text is not a protest against foreign intrusion; it even accepts that the “awakening” of japan occurred when admiral perry’s black ships entered the tokyo harbor, and then shows how the awakened japan got hold of itself by vigorously pushing for reforms along western lines. the main argument of the article, however, is the absence of a similar chinese reaction to the western forays. for india, robert mackenzie used the metaphor in much the same way in his the nineteenth century, a history (1880), the chinese translation of which (1898) served as a blueprint for china’s modernization. after a chapter on christian missions that detailed the development of english language education in india and its impact on the position of women especially, mackenzie sums up: through the open gateway of the english language, english knowledge and ideas and principles are being poured into india. the educational progress already made is large, and the desire for education steadily increases. the hindu mind is awakening from its sleep of ages.[81] gandhi used the metaphor in 1909 and saw the partition as the shock that produced the awakening.  he even referred to the mental state of india. answering the question “when and how did the real awakening [of india, r.w.] take place,” gandhi answered, “we have to be thankful to lord curzon” [for the partition of bengal in 1905, which was at the origin of much unrest and led to the founding of the congress party, r.w.]. upon the question “then you consider the partition to be a cause of the awakening? do you welcome the unrest which has resulted from it,” gandhi answered: when a man rises from sleep he twists his limbs and is restless. it takes some time before he is entirely awakened. similarly, although the partition has caused an awakening, the comatose condition has not yet disappeared. we are still twisting our limbs and are still restless, and just as the state between sleep and awakening must be considered to be necessary, so may the present unrest in india be considered a necessary, and therefore proper, state…rising from sleep, we do not continue in a comatose state, but according to our ability, sooner or later, we are completely restored to our senses. [82] the story of the awakening from sleep eventually became part of a master narrative that was even valid for describing england from the vantage point of east asia. the article “the immediate future of chinese education” in the north china herald in october 1897 does not deal with the very recent british reforms of the public service or the educational system, but with england in the renaissance. the translation of the relevant section in the shiwu bao reads:  the situation of china today is like that of england at the beginning of the reforms [note of chinese translator: after 1500]. of dark times england certainly has the experience. the english were in deep sleep, but when they suddenly woke up, they saw that education was in the hands of priests, and these priests again had to get their information from latin and greek texts. thereupon [the english] threw themselves into education, and built schools everywhere. however, though the english at the time were capable of being learned, they also still were like chinese scholars today, reading ten thousand chapters, but being ignorant of foreign affairs, talking in their seats, but unable to get up and act. [83] china, the article notes, is second to none in the world with regard to emphasizing education. the danger described here is that china will try to spread its inherited learning to the wider populace in a way similar to england during the renaissance, which was an awakening of sorts, but not one that would work today. the article argues for an education of the “masses” in vernacular chinese, and the use of english for the “elite.” the metaphor of china and other nations asleep (or worse) already crops up as an image in the contact zone environments by the 1870s.  for china, we see it in an 1872 sketch from the first foreign journal of satirical cartoons appearing in shanghai, puck, or the shanghai charivari (figure 13). fig. 13: puck, or the shanghai charivari, shanghai, feb 1, 1872. in the “past,” china was asleep and mired in tradition, as can be seen by the clothing. in the “present” it is just waking up. in the “future,” however, reading puck will give china a fresh perspective, enabling it to understand foreign cartoons and their texts, while wearing “modern”, foreign garb, including hat and tie. the metaphor also surfaced in egypt when the bilingual french-arabic satirical journal abou naddara, published by an egyptian in paris, used it in 1882 (figure 14). fig. 14: first act of the people of egypt … the punishment… the genius of egypt awakens from its long sleep and drives out the evil government officials, tewfik and his courtiers flee, paris, 1882. the “genius of egypt” is embodied by the members of the chamber of delegates on the right, which was installed after british-sponsored reforms. the tewfik pasha (1852–1892) government is sent to exile (and an effort is made to install hakim pasha, who had been sidelined). the abbu naddara (أبو نظارة), sometimes with the subtitle “organe de la jeunesse d’egypte” (organ of young egypt), was a bilingual arab-french satirical journal published in paris by james sanua (ṣannū’, ya’qūb ibn rāfā’īl, 1839–1912).[84]  the circumstances of this cartoon reflect the same process as our initial examples from china: from the bilingualism of the cultural broker, to the import of the cartoon form, to the place of publication outside of the country, to the publication’s audience of exiles and citizens within the country. in turkey, international perceptions had made use of the metaphor as early as the 1850s. by the late 1890s, the country’s dismemberment had become a warning to chinese reformers about the possible fate of china. during the “hundred days” in 1898, kang youwei wrote that while england’s “steamships, railways, electrical lines and gas bulbs swept the globe, and the europeans used them to envelop the world and cover the universe without a place being left out,” turkey “trusted its size and snored in sleep for centuries right next door.”[85] in 1920, the eastern miscellany (dongfang zazhi) the leading chinese opinion journal of the time, reproduced a western cartoon entitled “turkey today.” here, the sleep metaphor is pushed towards the extreme of disease, debility, and old age (figure 15). fig. 15: jacques rawson (?)the state [of turkey], a sick man who is just barely breathing, 1920. the gestures of the foreign powers—recognizable from the emblems on their uniforms—are a mixture of helping and grabbing. the cartoon was reprinted as a warning against the extreme chinese reliance on foreign credits. the sleeping giant as the above survey of examples shows, the sleep metaphor was increasingly used to describe those big empires (ottoman empire, china), which were gradually pulled into the orbit of international diplomacy, law, and power politics. however, political essayists felt a particular variant of the sleep metaphor to be more appropriate: the “sleeping giant.” it had been widely used since the late eighteenth century in english language publications to describe something with a vast and unsettling potential that is as yet untapped and dormant. examples include the irish government (1797),[86] the british fleet (1876),[87] or texas (1881),[88] but also “conscience” (1850)[89] or medical salaries in ireland (1857).[90] the metaphor of the sleeping giant probably owes its ascendancy to jonathan swift’s gulliver’s travels, a novel that was very widely read by the educated classes in the 18th and 19th centuries (figure 16). fig. 16: gulliver the giant among lilliputians, 1727. a shipwrecked, sleeping gulliver is put into fetters by the minute lilliputians, but since both sides abide by civilized manners, he eventually becomes their ally and serves them with his mighty powers. gulliver provided a good potential image for the relations between the small european countries and the huge ottoman and chinese empires, and it was routinely used to describe both.[91] at the same time, the “sleep” metaphor signaled that these big empires had not “awoken” to modernity in their institutions, customs, or industry. china and the ottoman empire later shared the metaphor of being the “sick man” of east asia and the bosporus respectively, or of “decaying” and even “dying.” these metaphors resort to a different image to describe and discuss the asymmetry in agency between these countries and the west. at the same time, both the ottoman empire and china had their land “carved up” like a melon or cake into spheres of influence or colonies by the powers.[92] the notion of china being “sick,” “dying,” or a “sleeping giant” became widely shared in western writings about china after the opium war.  in summary: the conceptual framework of the nation state, the metaphor of the nation asleep, and the imagery that went with it, developed in europe from the early renaissance. it has been widely used to characterize national attitudes of european nations since the late eighteenth century, and eventually became part of the shared metaphorical code used to define the lack of modernity and the inability to mobilize the energies of the people for national interests, both of which seemed to characterize turkey and china in western sources. the chinese giant asleep, for which we will provide documentation below, is therefore a simile for the asymmetry in agency in the relations between china and the west as it was developed by westerners in the context of an increasingly linked world. with its open timeline—the giant may wake up at some point—it signals the west’s (and japan’s?) anxiety about the viability of the present order of things. their comfortable superiority could be in jeopardy because it is a potentially vicious giant, not a meek little mouse that will wake up. incidentally, much of the imagery used to describe china’s economic ascent since the 1990s evinces similar anxiety in the sometimes hysterical language used. the chinese language discussion, with which this essay started, thus interacts with a western discussion. the latter in turn receives its daily input from the profuse volume of western language writings about china that was produced by people with experience of the country: diplomats, missionaries, military men, naturalists, and merchants. in terms of location, these western writings about china were available in china itself to an increasing number of bilingual chinese readers in the form of western language newspapers in shanghai and hong kong; others were translated into chinese. the methodological flaw of our earlier statistical table charting the use of the sleep metaphor is now evident: it operates on the assumption that there is a chinese language public sphere that is coterminous with the qing territory and a few emigrants in japan. to study the development and use of the “china asleep” metaphor in a chinese language context, we therefore have to redefine the framework within which this discussion takes place. china related books, articles, and newspapers in languages other than chinese, as well as their translations into chinese, which were published both in china and abroad, must be included along with sources in whatever language, relating to the use of this metaphor.[93] zeng jize: “china. the sleep and the awakening” as mentioned above, the first and most important chinese person to join in this western debate about china asleep was zeng jize (tseng chi-tse, marquis tseng), the chinese ambassador in london, paris, and st. petersburg. his 1887 article “china: the sleep, and the awakening” was written in english so as to reach and reply to those who were discussing this question; its publication marked a seminal point of transition in the chinese and chinese language debate.[94] the simile of china asleep had by then become western shorthand for a complex assessment of relations with china. this assessment included a definition of the present state of the chinese polity, which was directly linked to foreign political attitudes towards china, as well as chinese potential policies for coping with the manifest asymmetry. while these foreign policies ranged from the british defense of “open access to china,” and the protection of the “territorial integrity of china”, to more predatory moves of acquiring zones of influence or even colonial pockets, these deliberations took place exclusively among the western powers and japan; that china was not even part of the discussion until zeng jize’s article appeared, is evidence for its sleep. an early japanese cartoon about the western perception of china (figure 17) illustrates this: fig. 17: the foreigner talks in his sleep, 1884. the action takes place in the dream of a foreigner, not a chinese. the foreign powers, which are identified through the initial letters of their names, are sitting around a table to feast on china, which is the roasted pig in their midst. the iconographical arrangement is already familiar from other images. japan is missing in this group and the caption emphasizes that it is foreigners who have such dreams. china is not just asleep here; it is the inanimate (dead) but big and succulent object of foreign appetites.  zeng jize’s reply in english to this perception becomes one of the symptoms of china’s awakening, which he claims has begun. there is no chinese text of his article. zeng, who was one of the very few chinese officials to have acquired a relatively good knowledge of english, outlined the content to his secretary halliday macartney, who seems to have written a draft “in concert with his chief”.[95] zeng’s article engages directly with the western discussion, which is represented by an essay by one of the westerners most familiar with chinese language, culture and institutions, thomas wade, later to become british ambassador to china. in 1849 wade had written an overview of the “condition and government of the chinese empire in 1849” that was based on one year’s reading of the chinese government periodical, the peking gazette. in language closely matching the terms used at that time to describe the ottoman empire wade wrote: with a fair seeming of immunity from invasion, sedition, or revolt, leave is taken to regard this vast empire as surely, though it may be slowly, decaying.[96] by 1887, this had become an ironical quote. wade predicts a “fair immunity from invasion, sedition, or revolt” at the very moment when the largest series of revolts (by the taiping heavenly kingdom in the south, the nian in the north, and the muslims in the southwest) was about to start, and only ten years before the invasion of northern china by western powers during the second opium war. perhaps ironically, zeng compliments “a writer whose knowledge of china and its literature is perhaps unequalled, and certainly not surpassed”[97], because he concludes drily: “as events have shown, they who reasoned thus were mistaken”. but zeng also concedes that china might have been “asleep” while rejecting the option that she was “decaying” and “dying”: china was asleep, but she was not about to die. perhaps she had mistaken her way, or, what is just the same, had failed to see that the old familiar paths which many centuries had made dear to her did not conduct to the goal to which the world was marching. we see the content of michel’s nightcap in its chinese variant of the “familiar paths.” china, zeng claimed, had been woken up by exactly those events that wade had claimed were unlikely to happen: it required the fire of the summer palace [started by british and french troops, r.w.] to singe her [china’s, r.w.] eyebrows, the advance of the russian in kuldja and the frenchman in tonquin [=north vietnam, r.w.], to enable her to realize the situation in which she was being placed by the ever-contracting circle that was being drawn around her by the europeans. by the light of the burning palace which had been the pride and the delight of her emperors, she commenced to see that she had been asleep whilst all the world was up and doing; that she had been sleeping in the vacuous vortex of the storm of forces wildly whirling around her. after this fine picture of the situation of china, which foreshadows the graphic arrangement of the cartoon discussed at the beginning of this study, zeng argues that the efforts to “wake up china” and secure china’s sovereignty had to concentrate on developing coastal defenses and a navy, rather than political and educational reform and industrial development.[98] this argument is too close to the one quoted above from the record of the french-vietnamese military encounter about the “more than twenty years” which the qing officials had used to prepare coastal defenses after “waking up from the slumber” in which the westerners had found them when they first attacked. going back to the source, the quotation is from the “assessment of the guangdong defenses from a westerner at the time” (此時西人論粵防云), which, as mentioned before, was translated by sone shōun and wang tao for their own compilation.[99] zeng was familiar with this volume, which had been published in 1886, because as ambassador to london and paris, he had been directly involved in the negotiations with the french to end this war and was furthermore extensively quoted in the documentation. zeng’s own 1887 article thus silently agrees with a foreign assessment of the improved state of the chinese defenses that had been brought about by qing officials, who indeed had been formerly “asleep” but were now, so zeng, awakened. this improvement, which zeng attributes to the efforts of people (such as him and his father) at chinese self-strengthening, had been so marked that in 1884 china was able to turn down a french request for indemnity after the sino-french confrontation over annam. in a further and amazing claim—given the loss of annam to france just two years prior—zeng announces that china was now willing and able to defend her rights even with regard to her “outlying provinces.” among them, korea is mentioned first. but zeng then also placates the anxieties concerning the behavior of the “sleeping giant”, should he wake up: we have seen the sleep; we come now to the awakening. what will be the result of it? will the awakening of 300 million who become aware of their strength not be dangerous to the continuance of friendly relations with the west? will the memory of their defeats and the awareness of their newly discovered power not make them aggressive? no; the chinese have never been an aggressive race.[100] as a unique and strategic “state paper” (new york times) on chinese domestic and foreign policy, zeng’s article, written in english, was an international media event.[101] he was a man reputed to be a likely candidate to succeed the supreme li hongzhang, and directly engaged with the international assessments and apprehensions about china.  the article was widely read, quoted in newspapers and in diplomatic circles,[102] reprinted in hong kong (china mail), shanghai (north china daily news and herald), and tianjin (china times), even before the issue of the asiatic quarterly review featuring the article had arrived there—an indication that the editor demetrius boulger had made sure it would get maximum coverage. in short: the article was widely familiar to westerners in and concerned with china.[103] a small but important segment of chinese society, consisting of many chinese high officials, who had dealings with westerners and employed western secretaries to go through the papers and correspondence for them, and an increasing number of readers of english among chinese merchants, officials and men-of-letters, was informed about zeng’s essay even before the first chinese translation appeared in shanghai’s shenbao in mid-june 1887.[104] interestingly, the shenbao, the most important and respected chinese language newspaper at the time, was owned by a consortium of englishmen and scots, and run by ernest major (1841–1909): even the chinese translation of zeng’s article was organized by a foreigner and appeared in a foreign-owned paper. western reactions were friendly but often also critical. allegedly, the russian foreign minister, alexander guchkov, was so stunned by zeng’s assertions about an awake china that he accepted zeng’s demand for a return of chinese territory.[105] china specialists in britain, such as sir rutherford alcock, felt, however, that zeng overstated his case, that there were actually very few signs of china’s “awakening”, and that the priorities of first developing coastal defenses without political and institutional reform overrated the power of technical devices.[106] “the sleep, if sleep it was,” writes sir alcock, “must certainly have been very profound, more resembling the hypnotic state induced by mesmeric experiments than any normal state of conscious existence and vitality”.   but he concedes that during the war with france china discovered an unexpected source of strength—its sheer size: that the chinese did learn much in the conflict forced upon them by events in tonquin, i have no doubt. especially in perceiving the strength derived from her size in the capacity for bearing punishment which is only given to some nations, and to them a power of passive resistance to any attacking force where more active means are wanting. the french were enabled to inflict, with little active resistance on the part of the chinese, a vast amount of injury, and great loss in life and property and trade, in addition to the destruction of one of their great dockyards only created after many years of lavish expenditure. but neither on the bulk of the population, nor on the government at peking, did this make any serious impression; or in any way advance the french cause. nor did they in the end succeed in imposing upon the chinese government the terms on which they first insisted. the exhaustion caused after two or three years of active hostility was much more with the french than with the chinese. and the ultimate victory rested in consequence with these, and not with their enemy.[107] reviewers in china’s western language press were more critical. speaking of zeng’s depiction of china “as if she were a rejuvenated, reformed state of great power,” the north china herald qualified this as “merely the old boasting relacquered to suit the times. but it is different when english papers adopt all the ignorance of the marquis as to the condition of his own country, and seriously consider his speculations as to her future.” the paper approvingly quoted the french premier jules f. ferry saying that china was not only continuing in her sleep, but on the verge of death and an altogether quantité négligeable.[108] it makes little sense to characterize these articles as reflections of western “imperialist” interests, because very similar criticisms were proffered by chinese reformers. once it was read as a part of the chinese discussion about the state of the nation and the way forward, the question was not simply whether zeng’s assessment was correct, but whether opting for the yangwu approach, i.e. to prop up defenses, sidelined and delegitimized proposals for a deeper structural change in the polity and thus were not simply ineffective, but positively damaging to the interests of the country. the most detailed and important critique of the article was written by ho kai (he qi 何啟) (1859–1914) under the pseudonym sinensis, published in the china mail in hong kong a few days after the reprint of zeng’s article in the same paper.[109] ho kai was a christian with a hong kong english education. he had studied law and medicine in aberdeen, married an english woman and wrote in english. he rose to high stature in hong kong, where he founded a hospital which he named in honor of his recently deceased wife (and where sun yat-sen received his medical education). he played an important role in the founding of hong kong university, an english language university for chinese students. at the same time, he became indirectly involved with other english speaking and english writing chinese, who partook in underground “revolutionary” activities designed to establish a separate state in guangdong province and bring about faster reforms.[110] ho kai wrote extensively in hong kong’s english language papers about the reforms he thought were needed in china.[111] he was also in close contact with the liberal british editors of the english language newspapers china mail and hong kong telegraph, where his essays were published and supported in editorials.  many of these writings were translated into chinese by a friend and a book-length collection of them became a key ingredient in the discussions surrounding the “reform of governance” pursued by the qing court since 1901.[112] eventually, he was made sir ho kai. ho kai’s english language article took zeng to task for a basic mis-assessment of the chinese situation and a flawed approach to coping with the prevailing asymmetry in agency and power. ho kai instead offered a blueprint for renovating the chinese polity by focusing on transparent and equitable political institutions and education, rather than on imported technical equipment. he agrees with the assessment of china being “asleep” and with the hope that it might wake up. “i have long looked forward to her [china’s, r.w.] awakening from her lethargic slumber of centuries.” however, he sees no signs of it: “until i see china earnestly at work pushing on her internal reforms, and thus striking at the root of these evils that have beset her for ages—evils which have made her what she is—so weak and unmanly—and which were the frequent and sole causes of her numerous humiliations, i shall not believe that she is really awake, in spite of her improvements in her coast defense, her army and her navy.” the basis of a viable chinese polity would be: equitable rule and right government. china can never be what her many well-wishers fondly desire her to be unless she will first cast aside all her unjust dealings with her own children and learn to dispense justice with an impartial hand, to discountenance official corruption in every form and to secure the unity and happiness of her people by a just and liberal policy.[113] the ideas put forth by ho kai show his exposure to, and espousal of, western notions and standards. for men like ho kai or tse tsan tai, hong kong and the treaty ports offered an excellent environment conducive to translingual and transcultural information and opinion exchange, as well as public articulation. not only were the major journals, papers and books from the west available here, the local english language press, and eventually much of the chinese language reform press, saw it as their duty to keep their readers abreast of important international discussion and information. this was done through weekly detailed summaries of the contents of important journals and newspaper editorials, as well as discussions in the emerging chinese language press and memorials from the peking gazette. these were a part of the regular content of these papers. some, such as the london and china express, focused almost entirely on gathering opinion and information related to china and its interaction with britain from the most diverse western sources.[114]  ho kai ends his critique of the mismanagement of the sino-french war in 1884 and his suggestions for a reorganization of the army with the following statement, which today to both chinese and many foreign ears would be highly politically incorrect: “i cannot leave this topic without calling to mind the achievements of the ever-victorious army when under the distinguished leadership of that renowned chief, the late lamented general c.g. gordon.” the notion that a foreign military leader might be needed to bring out the best in chinese troops had been suggested two years before by the chief of staff of the british army, viscount wolseley, but that someone like ho kai would latch on to this highlights the helpless irritation felt by these elite reformers in the face of what they now perceived as the sleepy lethargy of the chinese masses.[115] although we do not have a reply from zeng jize, it is quite clear that he was closely following the impact of his essay, and that included reading the western language papers appearing in hong kong, shanghai, and tianjin.[116] thus we see the unfolding of communication and debate, in english, between high qing officials, and newly emerging public intellectuals in the contact zones. far from restricting debate about the state of china to a single scenario, the range of the metaphor “china asleep” reaches from a dying china to the notion that china is fast asleep and needs a fundamental internal remake of its polity, to zeng jize’s sunny assessment that it is already fully awake and able to take on the foreign powers. as we shall see, for some the sleep metaphor proved unable to fully express their thought, and they further explored adjacent metaphorical concepts such as death, debility, and old age. already in ho kai’s “weak and unmanly” we see this process beginning. as it turns out, the “china asleep” discussion develops in english in 1887 in the key contact zones between china and the foreign powers, namely hong kong, shanghai, and tianjin. politicians and public intellectuals such as zeng jize and ho kai, who have a political commitment to china, are of chinese origin, but also conversant in foreign languages, join in what starts as an english language discussion. they are the cultural brokers bringing this discussion into the chinese language orbit and articulating opinions from their china-focused perspective. the new media subsequently turn this discussion into a public and international event, even though their audience is initially restricted to people with access to english language writings. with these conditions in place, the diffusion and diverse appropriation of the “china asleep” metaphor in the chinese language environment was the next step. the process of trancultural flow is anything but a foggy abstract notion. we see in our modest example the very specific directions it takes. the first step in the diffusion of the “china asleep” metaphor in the chinese language world is, of course, translation. by may 1887, zeng jize’s essay had appeared in chinese in shanghai’s shenbao newspaper; another translation followed, this time by the official translator school of the chinese foreign office, the zongli yamen, which was then headed by another foreigner, w.a.p. martin.[117] a translation of ho kai’s critical essay came out in the chinese language version of the china mail in may 1887.[118] our diagram above, which had been based on a strictly chinese language database, had shown only one instance of using the “china asleep” metaphor before 1887, namely a reference in the volume compiled by sone shōun and wang tao that was published in hong kong. permitting the inclusion of the foreign language press appearing in hong kong, shanghai, and tianjin as well as china-related or -focused publications, such as boulger’s asiatic quarterly review or the chinese recorder and missionary journal, corrects this image and shows that we are dealing with the gradual spread of a translingual and transcultural discussion. any facile and fashionable associations of ethnic, national, or linguistic appurtenance with a particular opinion turn out to be solidly unsupported by the sources. the chinese language discussion was initiated by the translations of zeng jize’s essay, ho kai’s critiques, and an editorial comment in shenbao in june 1887.[119] at that time, chinese participation in such strategic public debates was just beginning. it seems that it died down quickly, but resurfaced after the shocking chinese defeat in the sino-japanese war of 1894–1895, which delivered the ultimate blow to zeng jize’s assertion about awakened china’s coastal defenses and the new chinese navy. the revival of this discussion after 1895 followed frequent references to zeng jize’s earlier assertion in the foreign press. the majority of the chinese references reflected in the statistical graph for 1896 and 1897 came from translations of western language and japanese articles into chinese. in other words, the discussion in the chinese language press continues to interact closely with the international discussion and is not confined to one language. this coincides with observations on the translingual flow of concepts and practices. in my own studies of the “movement” as a form of social action, the various local enactments of such “movements” continue to talk to each other, copy forms and contentions from each other, and seek to enhance their legitimacy by consciously evoking association with other or earlier “movements” that were marked by a high public and/or international approval rate.[120] the translations of foreign articles on “china asleep” after 1895, however, already signaled a shift: they were selected and published by new press organs set up by chinese reformers to become part of the chinese language debate. as we shall see, the people doing the selecting are the same who now increasingly used the metaphor in their own writings to describe china. in the wake of the war with france in 1884, expectations that china would now finally wake up were once again expressed. but with the disaster in the war with japan in 1895, the notion gained wide currency that not only the political structure as a whole had to be remade, but that without foreign pressure this was unlikely to happen. china, in terms of our metaphor, would not wake up on its own: it needed massive foreign pressure. this argument is again first articulated in the english language press in 1897, and is brought into the chinese language discussion by the translation of a dialogue from a london paper published in liang qichao’s advocacy newspaper shiwu bao. a blunt answer was given here to a question about whether china could not succeed by simply accepting the harsh words of the west and follow the western model on its own initiative: no. this would be a failure. china at present is in the midst of a dream; even if it occasionally tosses about, it definitely will not suddenly wake up. as to reform, if there is no foreign pressure on it to get aroused and get things going, nothing will come about. [121] the selection and inclusion of this article without commentary into a leading reform journal signals a basic acceptance of its premises. in a similar vein, we see a new variant of the “giant asleep and awakening” theme emerging. the article on education in china from the north china herald, quoted above,[122] also offered an outline of missionary schools in china that ended on an upbeat note: now, after the defeat by japan, the giant might finally stir and, hopefully, the foreign and domestic creditors will not let it fall asleep again. “they [the schools] have done admirable work, but the nation has never arisen to welcome them or to show that it appreciated their labors. but the scene has changed. the sleepy giant has at last awoken, and we may leave it to his creditors to see that he does not go to sleep again.”[123] the chinese translation, for the moment, left out the giant: “however, as china’s millions have all regarded these western methods as irrelevant affairs and nothing to pursue enthusiastically, the missionaries and the educational association have done one thing, but the interests of the chinese have not been on this one thing. although what [the missionaries] have done is good, it did not help. however, china most recently is about to change; [chinese translator’s note: this refers to the sino-japanese military confrontation] she is like someone who first awakens from a long sleep and we deeply hope that china, once awoken, will not fall asleep again.” possibly the notion of the “sleeping giant” had not yet made it from english into the chinese language metaphorical canon and therefore the chinese readers of the translation were spared the giant because without further explanation it would have been incomprehensible. just before the famous “100 days” of reform started in 1898, the guowen bao 國聞報 (national news) published a chinese translation from an english language article in a london newspaper on january 1st of the same year, which i have not been able to identify.[124] the editor of the guowen bao was yan fu 嚴復 (1853–1921), a man mostly known for his influential translations of english language works of political and social philosophy. the article is a classical example of the deep ambivalence in the perception of the instability of asymmetries in power and in cultural exchanges, an ambivalence heightened by translating the article into chinese and by a commentary penned by the editor yan fu himself. after referring to the difference between the peace message of the christmas season and the concurrent efforts by the powers germany, russia, england, france and japan to “divide up china,” the english paper continued according to this chinese translation, which i retranslate here: a few years ago, our present british commander-in-chief of the army [lord wolseley, r.w.] said in an article on chinese affairs that the 400 million chinese were of the highest quality [“equal to heaven”]. if from their midst they brought forth a napoleon who would arouse their talents and courage, become their leader and develop a long-term plan to impose their will on the world, the europeans would, after a few years, be turned out of the places in the far east [now] controlled by western nations. these words were quite unexpected. the quote refers to an 1895 article in which lord wolseley had been dealing with the china’s prospects just as news of its loss to japan spread. wolseley had been an active officer during, and written a memoir about, the so-called second opium war (1859–1860).[125] wolseley’s promotion to chief of staff of the british army in 1895 greatly added to his stance, —as did his frequent contributions to widely-read journals. the 1895 article referred to in the guowen bao translation was published in the cosmopolitan in the us. just as china experienced another strategic defeat, he repeated his basic assessment: regardless of china’s present weakness, it has tremendous strategic potential if a leader emerges who can galvanize the nation like peter had done in russia or napoleon in france. this hardy, clever race, whose numbers are to be counted in hundreds of millions, needs only the quickening, guiding, controlling hand and mind of a napoleon to be converted into the greatest and most powerful nation that has ever dictated terms to the world! but a napoleon does not always appear when wanted.[126] wolseley sees no such figure in china, but knows what kind of person is needed: at this moment we all know of englishmen whose services would be worth a prince's ransom to china, and who, if trusted, as general gordon was, would soon provide the emperor with another "ever-victorious army," and with a first-rate fleet. what china stands most in need of at this moment is the help of another gordon. the chinese had experience with one such leader. wolseley refers not to hong xiuquan, the christian leader of the taiping heavenly kingdom, but to the englishman who helped the qing dynasty to eventually prevail against the taiping, “general” gordon (1833–1885). wolseley also gives voice to the anxiety of other powers who would want china dismembered rather than a china that might reform and then threaten them. are we justified in assuming, that it would be in the interests of japan and of some other nations to render china as weak as possible for the future, if not, indeed, to split her up into several independent states? a very strong china would doubtless be a new, and, to some, a startling factor in the great politics of asia. speculation upon these points opens out a vast vista of possible contingencies great in their bearing, not only upon japan, but upon all european and american interests in asia. being a military man, wolseley sees things in a sober manner. britain as a trading nation would be the ideal partner for a strengthened china. i mention my own countrymen as the best suited for the present emergency because i believe that no other nation has so great an interest in preventing china from being broken up into several states. it is commonly said that some nations desire this disintegration of china, but if this be the case, england, at least, is not one of them. most englishmen who have studied the chinese question wish to see china strong for english reasons, if for no other reasons. wolseley also dealt with the strange british quandary of having to worry about the break-up of the defeated opponent and therefore having to refrain from excessive demands.  [in 1860, r.w.] we were met by a novel difficulty, namely, the inherent weakness of the emperor's government and the frail nature of his hold upon china. those who were best acquainted with the condition of the empire assured us that any very serious blow, any overwhelming defeat inflicted upon his so-called military power, would certainly lead to revolution and anarchy, and very probably to the overthrow of his dynasty. this would leave us with no constituted government or recognized authority to treat with when we had taken peking or overcome the chinese army. i analyzed wolseley’s article in some detail because the quoted passages not only had an immediate impact but remained a frequent point of reference in the china discussion over the next decades.[127] the article translated in the guowen bao quotes wolseley because it shares his assessment, as well as his anxiety and ambivalence about the consequences of china’s possible awakening. the chinese translation of the english article continues: during the 1895 war [with japan], the chinese army was defeated and tiny japan pressed on with overwhelming force; had not the european states resisted, japan would have put china under its full control. at this moment, china’s true situation was exposed and its agency was at an end. this awakened appetites and the powers plotted the partition [of china]. earlier, we called turkey europe’s ‘sick man’, and now we call china by this name. however, the situation of these two countries is utterly different and should not be regarded in the same way. luckily, the politicians in charge took notice of this. it is a well-established fact that europeans had long determined a partition of turkey[…] [turkey] does not have millions of people waiting for instruction about who might reform a policy, and it does not have thousands of miles of uncultivated land that might be profitably exploited. […]  but china has hundreds of millions of hard working, intelligent people; has thousands of miles of uncultivated land, and if it makes use of the methods of western civilization to take advantage of what nature has given her, i am afraid the result might not be what we wish to hear. if the europeans regard the chinese as marionettes—fun to look at, but unable to do anything—this is another fallacy. it is a general truth that the chinese disease is a governmental disease, not a disease of the people. if they have not been able to make great advances towards civilization, the blame lies with those who hold political power. these men have known one thing, and that is to stubbornly hold on to the old and block in every way the new western european methods with the consequence that they have brought about the present crisis situation. but the much-blamed europeans will also have to wake up. while china certainly relishes its slumber, and the europeans will have to rouse it to wake up, once awakened, china will become a frankenstein monster. this monster will be calm and do nothing as long as it is left to sleep, but once woken it will fight tooth and claw and will be a plague for others. the millions of chinese are unsurpassed in their hard work and thrift and whatever they are put to, they will be up to it. once the people in the entire nation will enjoy the benefits of western learning for fine engineering, quality production, and agriculture, they will—with the cheapest manpower—get the wondrous effects of machinery to open up rivers and build railroads to connect their internal and external [markets]—and then the benefits of train and steamship transport will carry their goods to fill the european and american capitals. their prices will be cheap and their goods pretty so that they can compete with european products—and the result will be that the chinese goods sell well, while sales for european goods will be sluggish. once things have come to this, the european workmen will have nothing to do with their feet and hands and the resulting disaster will be worse than even knowledgeable people are able to anticipate. nowadays, the europeans are talking about getting equal commercial rights and [passing?] laws. they struggle for the eight hour day and demand eight shilling hourly wages. but once this day comes, what will they have to live on? woe! china’s disease cannot be compared to that of turkey. a governmental disease can be handled. but the disease of a people that is intelligent, thrifty and decent cannot be handled at all! how could something be more grievous than all states wanting to divide up china’s land to fatten themselves? but even if the powers all slander china, it still dwarves slandering [a giant] from longbo. do not overestimate yourselves. if one trusts that he [the giant, r.w.] is asleep and one disturbs him, it is only appropriate that one draws disaster upon oneself. from that moment on, before our children and grandchildren have grown up, the commerce of different european states will already have shrunk, the common folk will be in dire straits and the bitter complaints that their show of virtue [sharing technology and knowledge with china, r.w] was the beginning of disaster will come too late. alas, such a frankenstein monster is a most sophisticated machine. if one is aware of this, there is nothing to be afraid of. if, however, china with its rich resources and masses of people makes use of western methods to make trouble for the people in the west, the damage it will do to europe will be truly something to be afraid of, quite incomparable even to a frankenstein monster.[128] frankenstein’s monster was a common rhetorical trope in the 19th century english-speaking world. the creator of this artificial human giant was its first victim and he eventually set out in pursuit of his creation to put an end to it. in time, the frankenstein metaphor became an analytical tool to discuss self-regulatory systems (such as organisms) that maximize their own impulses (such as the killing instincts dr. frankenstein implanted into his creation by giving it the head of an executed murderer). these “monsters” usually lacked any regard for consequences of their actions, although dr. frankenstein did try to instill some civilizational elements into his creation by making him read goethe’s sufferings of young werther. this complex and powerful simile was used to analyze the workings of political entities, markets, and, above all, of science, all of which have no in-built civilizational restraint. soon after its publication, wolseley’s assessment of the chinese potential evoked direct critical responses. the summary of the cosmopolitan article in the sun (baltimore) in 1895 ended on an ominous note. the author argued that given british commercial interests in china, which wolseley had highlighted, britain might ultimately contribute to its own demise: the drift of english feeling on this subject is clearly revealed in lord wolseley’s article, and it seems pretty certain that china would not have to call very loudly to secure the good offices of englishmen in developing her military strength. but after all, might it not prove a dangerous undertaking and result in the end in the creation of a national frankenstein, carrying ruin to the interests of its creator, as well as to those of others?[129] in great britain, the china/frankenstein link was far from unique to the article translated in the guowen bao. in september 1898, the london times reported in an article on the annual meeting of the british association. after a lecture about the wealth of mineral resources in china, which could—the low cost of labor notwithstanding—be extracted at an acceptable cost only by greatly developing river transport, the president of the section—possibly in an indirect reference to the article from january of the same year—pointed out: but there was another point in connexion with the development of china, and that was by urging on the development of that country, we might, perhaps, be raising a frankenstein. china might become the great manufacturer of the world, and we might take the place of china, so that they would supply us instead of our supplying them.[130] wolseley’s “china and japan” and the nervous reactions quoted here are fine examples of the mix of the west’s self-confident superiority and the anxious helplessness felt even in britain that its asymmetric advantages were finite and that there was nothing much that could be done about a coming shift in their balance. this helplessness is visible in the course of action proposed. neither wolseley nor the authors of the other articles advocate a colonization of china; at best they caution of the possible effects of chinese access to modern knowledge. wolseley comes out in favor of britain supporting china’s modernization, including its military modernization. the american voice from the baltimore sun, however, sees a blunt british interest at work that disregards the possible outcome not only for itself but also for others. the article translated in yan fu’s paper, and the comment quoted by the times, strongly and helplessly warn of the possible marginalization of britain and a host of domestic problems to boot. at the same time, they are all intensely aware that the british competitors might draw other benefits from china’s sleep. a jocular remark by the german kaiser about his future title of emperor of china led to floods of nervous commentary about a china that would become the “india of germany”.[131] the anticipated japanese victory in the 1894 war with china led the new york times—with ample references to wolseley—to speculate about china as a well-organized province of the japanese empire that would in turn be a matchless power in the world and take over the rest of eurasia, including europe.[132] all these publications and statements show a clear understanding of the different and interlaced dynamics of an asymmetry of power as well as an asymmetry in cultural flows. at the core of the anxiousness about the potential effects on the existing asymmetry of power lies the expectation that china would wake up and capitalize on the huge boost, which a large-scale, mostly asymmetrical import of western concepts, institutions and practices could give to the country’s wealth and power. it would lead to china’s renewal, like japan’s before it. frankenstein’s monster is the image that best captures the way informed westerners see this dialectic and their anxiety about the possible outcome of their actions. the implied assumptions that a modernized china would be as much the product of the west as the monster was frankenstein’s; that such a modernized china would be an ‘unnatural’ oddity because its modernization would not have grown out of its own traditions; and that this monster would therefore be unable to control itself in a civilized manner naively translates power asymmetry into the capacity for imposing far-reaching changes. it loses sight of the fact that agency in such appropriations and adaptations lies in the pull and not the push—although the us and british narratives are also dimly aware of the seat of agency because they do not propose an imposed solution, but wait for the chinese to “wake up.” the british defense of china’s integrity was not a way to cope with the existing asymmetry of power, which was easy for the british to accommodate, but to grapple with the unsettling potential of a reversal in fortunes. needless to say, the echo in some of today’s nervous commentary on china’s rise is deafening.[133] yan fu added a comment to his translation. this comment shows how this text is read from the perspective of a chinese who has been one of the key figures to develop the agency of a chinese pull for modernization and prompt others to do the same. he introduces the metaphor of frankenstein to his readers with a reference to mary shelley’s novel, of which no chinese translation had yet been made.[134] the monster would, he wrote, when set in motion jump up and kill people with no one daring to stand up to him, but when left asleep he would not do anything. writers compare this with china, saying in other words that our latent strength is truly great. the reason why the europeans can hold sway over the world is exactly that we are still asleep and have not woken up. the statement that china is richly endowed by nature is a fact and not empty chatter. if she got someone capable to rely on for an upsurge, she would indeed be awesome! yan fu identifies the “chief of staff” as lord wolseley “who often argued in the same way about china’s great need, [saying] she might get it from a gordon.”[135] yan fu emphasizes that underlying the monster image is the western recognition that china had tremendous but unawakened strength. he is neither interested in the self-congratulatory western vanity implied in the artificiality of the monster’s genesis and the impact this unnatural origin had on its uncontrollably violent behavior, nor in the critical take on the frankenstein image in scientific forays with unpredictable and possibly terrible consequences. for yan fu, china’s strength and the promise of western modernity to enhance it were issues that neither needed nor would tolerate critical reflection. in an indirect way, however, he picks up the deprecatory aspect of the frankenstein image that implies a chinese modernity would be a foreign-generated unnatural monster: as to methods of governance, in the past they went from asia to europe; from europe they went to america; and now again they go further west from america and come into asia. this is what is called [in newton’s third law] “every movement will by necessity have a counter movement.”[136] during the last two hundred years, natural and human affairs were all [moving towards] linking up, not towards sealing off. since the steam engine and electricity have come into use, the earth definitely has become a small ball…to say that on these five continents a place as fertile as china could seal itself off to preserve its old customs from the last four thousand years—even a dimwit will recognize that this will be impossible.[137] 可治化之事, 往者由亞而歐, 由歐而墨,今者由墨而復西行入亞，此所謂凡動必復者也。二百年來之天運人事,皆為其通，而不爲其塞， 汽機電氣既用,地球固彈丸耳。夫… 謂五洲上腴如中國者可深閉固距以守其四千年舊俗, 雖至愚者知其不然矣。 in the long historical view, yan fu argues, these great cultural flows are the rule and not the exception. europe’s initial installment of its culture with the “neolithic package” —from domesticated plants, agricultural implements to governance patterns—was based on the near east before developing it in its own way. the initial instalment of european settlers’ culture in north america was based on europe before they developed it further. and now modernity continues its journey further west and across the pacific ocean to reach asia in the far east. in this sense, everybody has at some moment started off as somebody else’s frankenstein monster, depending only on the time span one is willing to take into account. the implications of the frankenstein story even apply, because, as the monster attacked its creator, europe turned around and started to dominate much of asia, while america eventually sidelined great britain and europe altogether. yan fu applies newton’s third law to the dynamics of social evolutionism[138] to show that starting off as someone else’s frankenstein monster is the way in which history progresses. eventually, yan fu implies, asia will turn around and sideline the us.   just a week after yan fu’s article appeared in the guowen bao, liang qichao developed the story further in a speech he gave in peking. after complaining about the stubborn complacency and opportunism of the officials who had “the entire country stalled, waiting for it to be cut up”, he continued:  “alas! years ago marquis zeng had a theory of china asleep and then awakening. the englishman wolseley said that china was like a frankenstein monster; letting it sleep, it would be calm and do nothing, but waking it up would have it stretch out its claws and fangs. they [zeng and wolseley] still had some leftover hope for china.”[139] but these expectations, liang argued, were only due to these men’s ignorance of china’s real weakness. after the coup of empress dowager cixi, which ended the “100 days” in fall 1898, the reformers’ hope evaporated completely from the metaphorical fate of china. in 1899, liang qichao, now in exile in yokohama, returned to the theme. distressed-about-the-times (=new pen name of liang qichao) was resting; in the next room four people were talking in whispers about animals.... the fourth said: “i was once in the british museum where someone had manufactured a strange monster which looked like a lion, but it was lying there without a spark of life. someone told me: ‘don’t take this thing lightly, there is a mechanism inside, once triggered it bares its teeth and stretches out its claws to grab and bite, and even a thousand people are not its match.’ i asked what it was called, and he said: ‘in english it is called “frankenstein.” some time ago, the chinese ambassador to britain, marquis zeng, translated this into “sleeping lion” and also said it was a giant who was formerly asleep and then awake.’[140] i tried to start this mechanism; it did not react, but suddenly something cracked and stung my hand. however, this mechanism had been broken already for a long time, it had corroded and it had been something else that had stung. if it does not get a new mechanism, then this frankenstein will sleep long without ever waking up. how sad.” distressed-about-the-times had heard all this very clearly. he silently thought about it and then, alarmed and excited, he exclaimed: “this might be said about our 400 million people!”[141] china only looks like a lion that might wake up, but its people are internally so “corroded” that there is no hope that this will ever happen. even in exile, liang maintained a public posture of supporting the qing dynasty and asked for the reinstatement of the emperor rather than the overthrow of the dynasty. in his reading, the corroded lion is not the government, but the people. taking up the same issue shortly thereafter in the same year in an essay about china being in danger of being cut up like a melon, liang added: “once marquis zeng made big words towards the english, saying china was a giant who was earlier asleep and now has awoken. that is why the english have this comparison with frankenstein."[142] the english misjudge china in their fear of producing a frankenstein. there is no danger of this, and liang asserts that actually it is not the foreign powers who do the “cutting up of china like a melon,” but the chinese government officials themselves.[143] the above-mentioned sleeping lion depicted on the version of the shiju tu in huang zunxian’s house reflected this discussion. the conceptual discussion of the state as an organism we have hitherto focused on tracing and documenting the discussion on the platforms of metaphor and illustration. we see the emergence of a conceptual discussion on the agency of the state using many of the same components, but a different register. interestingly enough, all the efforts notwithstanding, in this more conceptual discussion neither the western nor the far eastern discussions can deny their indebtedness to metaphor and image. in february 1900, liang qichao published his seminal essay “shaonian zhongguo shuo” (on young china), which addressed the nature of the chinese state: is our ‘state in the center’ (china, zhongguo) indeed old (=outdated, laoda 老大)?[144] today, this is one of the big questions of the entire globe. if it is, then the ‘state in the center’ is a state of the past—such states existed all over the world in antiquity, but nowadays they are gradually going under, and soon their fate will come to an end. if [china is] not [antiquated] then the ‘state in the center’ is a state of the future, a state such as it has never appeared on the earth in the past, but which is now gradually emerging and will be further expanding in the future. to judge whether today’s ‘state in the center’ is antiquated or young, we first have to clarify the meaning of the word ‘state’. 我中国其果老大矣乎？是今日全地球之一大问题也。如其老大也，则是中国为过去之国，即地球上昔本有此国，而今渐澌灭，他日之命运殆将尽 也。如其非老大也，则是中国为未来之国，即地球上昔未现此国，而今渐发达，他日之前程且方长也。欲断今日之中国为老大耶？为少年耶？则不可不先明“国”字 之意义。 the term “zhongguo” (china) has two components, “middle” and “state.” in antiquity, this referred to the “states in the center”, that is the north china plain. in the late nineteenth century, it was rarely used for “china.” china was either referred to by the name of the qing dynasty, or a newer term with cultural overtones, zhonghua (flowery center), from which we get the many references to the “flowery kingdom”. the “antiquated” or “old” empires would primarily refer to the international discussion about china and the ottoman empire of the time. liang asks in the essay, whether there is still hope for the rejuvenation of this decaying body: what, in general terms, is a state? it has a territory, and it has a people. to regulate matters of the people living in this territory and the territory in which they live, it sets up laws, and gets them accepted; it has sovereignty and law abeyance, every single one of its citizens [supports] sovereignty, and every single citizen abides [by its laws]. as a matter of general principle, only if all these conditions are fulfilled, can we speak of a fully established state. fully established states have existed on this globe only in the last hundred years. to be ‘fully established’ is associated with the prime of life. not yet being fully established, but gradually nearing it is associated with youth. this is why i declare in one phrase: the european states today are states in the prime of life, while our ‘state of the center’ is a young one. 夫国也者，何物也？有土地，有人民，以居于其土地之人民，而治其所居之土地之事，自制法律而自守之；有主权，有服从，人人皆主权者，人人皆服从 者。夫如是，斯谓之完全成立之国。地球上之有完全成立之国也，自百年以来也。完全成立者，壮年之事也。未能完全成立而渐进于完全成立者，少年之事也。故吾 得一言以断之曰：欧洲列邦在今日为壮年国，而我中国在今日为少年国。 the “young china”, which liang represents as the “youth of young china”, will replace the old and outdated empire. china never actually was a state. generally speaking, although in olden times the state in the center [-china-] had the name of a state, it had not completed the form of a state. at times, it was the state of a clan, sometimes that of a tribal chief, of fiefs, feudal lords or an autocratic ruler, and although these are all variants, most important is that as far as the essence of a state is concerned, if they had one part, they lacked another. […] how then could our ‘state in the center’ have ever had a state? it only had dynasties![145] 夫古昔之中国者，虽有国之名，而未成国之形也。或为家族之国，或为酋长之国，或为诸侯封建之国，或为一王专制之国。虽种类不一，要之，其于国家 之体质也，有其一部而缺其一部…且我中国畴昔，岂尝有国家哉？不过有朝廷耳！ in other segments of this article, he develops the state/body metaphor in an evolutionist context, comparing historical stages with stages of the body’s growth. in short: issues debated in cartoons and similes were paralleled and followed by discussions on a more conceptual level, often by the same authors. by 1900, liang qichao became interested in the work of johan kaspar bluntschli (1808–1881), whose relevant works were available in translation in japan. bluntschli’s theory of the “organic unity” of the “state” conceptualizes and systematizes approaches that were available in europe, and in particular in the german-speaking world, since the beginning of the nineteenth century. bluntschli’s doctrine saw the state’s “organic” nature, which went hand in hand with a critique of rousseau’s notion of a contrat social, in the people’s patriotic subordination to the overall goals of the state. [146] while bluntschli was willing to accept some entities as states that lacked such a unity of will among the citizens, liang went further. china was not a state and only might become one if the demands of the young china activists were met. the liang passage quoted above, bluntschli’s doctrine, and the tse tsan tai cartoon in its various transformations— all address the question of the state’s organic agency and the impersonation of this agency—or its absence. the litmus test for the existence of a true chinese state is the mindset of the people. if they are asleep and lack patriotic commitment, there is no chinese state with an organic agency. bluntschli is clearly the author with the deepest impact on the formation of the concept of the state in east asia between 1880 and 1910.[147] after 1902, liang switched completely to bluntschli’s etatist model and from then on, various reform media outlets published articles using the conceptual framework he offered. in a fine summary of bluntschli’s “organic theory of the state”, one of the early and most influential reform papers published by chinese students in japan, the zhejiang chao 浙江潮 (zhejiang upsurge), introduced its readers to this new theory: however, one may say that a state is similar to an organism in these [above-mentioned characteristics], but to think it is a full organism is completely inadmissible in this time of advanced thinking about the state. why? because the state’s existence and development depends completely on the agency of human beings (全賴人類之作用); it is not able to exist and develop like other organisms by means of its internal powers. therefore it is acceptable to say that some aspects of the state are similar to those of an organism, which does not mean that one can take [the state] altogether as an organism. in summary, the most appropriate and reasonable explanation is that the state is not an aggregate of constituent elements; it is not an organism, but merely similar to an organism and it has organic characteristics.[148] 雖然，以國家有此等性質而似有集體，則可。若以爲全然之有機體， 則在近日國家思想發達之時代， 所必不認也。何則？ 該國家之生存發達， 全賴人類之作用， 非若有機之物能以自己固有之力生存而發達也。故謂國家之或點似有機之或點， 則可， 非能全以此爲有機體也。 要之， 國家者非分子集合体， 非有機體， 惟似有集體， 具有有機的性質， 是實最適當最合理之說。 the organism metaphor is also much present in the social-darwinist writings of sociologist herbert spencer (1820–1903), who was crucial for the formation of evolutionary thinking in east asian politics.  state and evolutionism, are merged in this image. in 1906, liang qichao summarized his thinking about the state in a terse formula, which combines the state-as-organism and social-darwinism by placing the state into the jungle: the state is an organism. (note 2:) that is, as an organism, it cannot but follow the general rule of living matter and exist in the jungle of the survival of the fittest. 國家者，有機體也。（注二）即為有機體，則不得不循生物質公例，以竟生存於優勝劣敗之林。[149] while bluntschli was very explicit in saying that this explanation used a metaphor with limited applicability, as opposed to an organism or the collective organisms of bees and ants explored by some of his contemporaries, the state’s organic quality hinged on the quality of its citizens (including its officials) as visible in their conscious patriotic subordination of their personal interests to that of the state. in a pragmatic turn, he also accepted states that did not really fulfill this criterion. for liang qichao, however, a state is an organism only if this criterion is met. liang’s state is not protected by bluntschli’s international law, but has to survive in the jungle where only the fittest survive. as we see from both bluntschli and liang qichao, the conceptual discussion on the nature of the state remains much indebted to the discussions on the other platforms of metaphor and image. as a general rule, the conceptual discussion would seem to follow, rather than precede them, and borrow their language and metaphors. this would suggest that the main platform for a public discussion of such an important body as the state is indeed the action-oriented metaphor and the cartoon, and that their parameters become the framework for a more conceptual discussion. the use of the body metaphor to discuss the state has several chinese antecedents. however, traditionally, the metaphor focused on the division of labor between the ruler and his ministers, which was likened to that of the head or heart to the organs of the body. only rarely did it address the organic agency of the state body.[150] however, no trace of a conscious and direct link with this familiar metaphor can be seen in the writings by the china-focused authors studied here. as in many other areas, the promise and authority of the foreign dispensation was such that it prompted a wholesale adoption of the new, rather than a mix of inherited and new features. the shiju tu, cultural brokers and contact zones we finally return to the 1899 cartoon with which we started. alerted to the transcultural flow of the metaphor and imagery of a “nation asleep,” we will now explore the background of the author, tse tsan tai, in an effort to understand his qualification and role in this exchange. tse tsan tai was a christian australian of chinese descent. his father had been active since the 1850s in a strongly anti-manchu organization—later referred to by tse as the “chinese independence party of australia”[151]—and a member of the chinese masonic society.[152] tse tsan tai seems also to have been active in both associations. after his family moved to hong kong in 1887, tse was educated at the english language queens college and, after graduation, entered the colonial government service. the language of his written communication was english, but he could communicate orally in cantonese. tse developed close links to other hong kong figures with foreign educations, english as their primary language, and revolutionary propensities. one such figure was ho kai (he qi, 何啓), whose critique of marquis zeng’s article was discussed above. tse tsan tai was also in close contact with foreigners known for their strong commitment to reform in china, such as the protestant missionary and journalist timothy richard, the london times correspondent g. e. morrison, thomas reid, the editor of the china mail, and chesney duncan, the editor of the hong kong telegraph. both hong kong papers published tse’s manifestoes and letters.[153] tse also maintained close contact to japanese government officials,[154] as well as southern chinese revolutionaries in japan, such as liang qichao. together with yeung ku-wan (yang quyun 楊衢雲) (1861–1901), also an english-speaking chinese with missionary education,[155] tse had been instrumental in setting up a revolutionary association with the cover name furen wen she 輔仁文社 (society for the promotion of benevolence). the group operated in hong kong and counted some sixteen members in 1890. when, in 1895, sun yat-sen created the xingzhong hui 興中會 (revive china society), the furen wen she joined forces with it. tse and yeung set up secret headquarters for this new organization. when a chairman was to be elected, yeung—to sun’s irritation—became chairman, but had to flee to south africa after the failed canton uprising of 1895. after another failed canton uprising, this time in 1902, tse also left the ranks of active revolutionaries and co-founded the english language newspaper that to this day is the main source of information for chinese members of the hong kong elite, the south china morning post. for some years, tse was the paper’s co-editor. he later wrote a very informative memoir of his days as a revolutionary that also details the background of his growing animosity toward sun yat-sen.[156] feng ziyou, whose memoir is one of the main sources for these early revolutionary groups, describes tse’s activities in some detail. from this brief biographical sketch, which includes tse’s transcultural and translingual entanglements, it is evident that tse, as well as his closest associates, not only spoke cantonese and english, but also read and wrote mostly in english; tse lived in an important “contact zone” in hong kong, where a strong physical, political and media presence of foreigners brought everyday exposure to and interaction with foreign ideas, institutions and practices. tse himself and his associates from different “western” and “chinese” backgrounds can be described as “cultural brokers”.[157] through their upbringing and education these cultural brokers were familiar with the international discussion about china, the metaphors used to pinpoint her actual situation, and the imagery in which it was presented. they—and this includes people such as boulger, reid, richards, duncan or morrison—felt a strong commitment to china and wished to contribute to a speedy reform of the chinese political system, be it through writings, organizational activities or even underground actions. their cultural mediation was not reduced to words and ideas; they also drew on their intense transcultural exposure and competence to make available in the chinese context foreign forms of organization (mostly emulating anarchist models) and political propaganda (such as the shiju tu).[158] while in a sense these cultural brokers were outsiders both in china and in foreign communities, their strong identification with china’s progress, their background and their language skills secured them an inordinately large impact in both directions. those with a chinese background like tse tsan tai could bank on a shared and strong commitment to china with many–and often wealthy–overseas chinese. their role as cultural brokers who were active on the fringes of chinese society allowed them to mediate between these overseas chinese communities and the chinese reforms. their western friends networked similarly among people critical of official china policies in their home countries. in very practical terms, a large part of the “revolutionary” activities in china were financed with contributions from overseas chinese and supported by westerners with a strong commitment to china. the term “cultural broker” draws on elements from the discussion of cultural contact, but, most importantly, offers an alternative to other terms while challenging their implications as simplistic. two different sets of terms have been used for the type of persons described here depending on their appurtenance.  in the chinese case, “comprador”, with its derivatives of “comprador ideology,” “comprador patriotism” and the like were widely used to describe/denounce the “native” actively interacting with the foreigner and his/her presumable lack of revolutionary or patriotic fervor. in the context of the indian subcontinent, however, various compounds containing “colonial” or “anglo” were used.[159] for the foreigners engaged in the reform of the polities of east or south asia, education, translation or other cultural work, the standard terms derive from “imperialism” such as in “cultural imperialism.”[160] both are derived from a linear reductionism that is based on a basic imperialism/nation state dichotomy. in this logic the citizen of an “imperialist” state is defined as an imperialist whatever he or she thinks or does—with the exception of card-carrying revolutionaries who are praised for “betraying” the (bourgeois) class and (imperialist) state of their origin. the true “native” is anti-imperialist, revolutionary and patriotic. otherwise, he is bought or brainwashed into becoming a traitor to these lofty aspirations. these closed constructs need elaborate explicatory schemes to explain the overwhelming evidence against their analytical viability and explanatory power. they are utterly inappropriate for a description of, for example, central asian buddhist monks coming to china as transmitters of buddhist ideas and practices. both “native” and “foreign” cultural brokers, however, have to deal with suspicions among contemporaries as to their loyalty. the economic metaphor of “broker” is chosen because the life (and often livelihood) of a broker hinges on the willingness of one side to “sell” and the other side to “buy” without instruments of power being wielded and, in the case of cultural goods, even money often being of marginal importance. the broker must know both sides well enough to see what is available on the one side that might be of interest to the other. the group discussed in this paper enjoyed the advantages of high information access through newspapers, letters, and travelers; dense contacts with media in different languages, political activists from different countries, and state officials from different nations; and, last but not least, the protection offered by the fact that hong kong (and, to a large degree, shanghai) were outside the jurisdiction of the qing court. places such as hong kong, shanghai, or yokohama are properly qualified as cultural contact zones for the chinese-speaking world. these cultural brokers themselves might be described as living, breathing contact zones. the notion of the “contact zone” has originally been suggested by anthropologist mary louise pratt to describe “social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today.”[161] her centerpiece was the letter written in spanish in 1613 to king philip iii of spain by an andean convert to christianity, who might have been an employee of the colonial administration. the contacts are there in terms of language, religion, position and addressee. contact zones such as hong kong or shanghai between the 1860s and 1930s have important additional features. they differ from other places in the extreme imbalance between them and the hinterland. this pertains particularly to media being published and distributed from there; to foreign media in many languages available for sale or subscription; to journalists, authors, translators, editors, and readers with multilingual qualifications and multicultural exposure; to entertainments that made them attractive for merchants to live, trade, and spend money there; to institutions that provide a modicum of “modern” platforms of political and cultural articulation and legal guarantees. openly accessible to people living in the hinterland, they become the sites where one can experience the west in the safe environment of a chinese-speaking community; and, being openly accessible to trade, tourism, knowledge and information from overseas, they become the key link to the “world”. these contact zones present a challenge to the popular notion of the “imagined community” that suggests a nation held together by simultaneous reading of the same papers. the public sphere, these contact zones show, is not of homogenous density, but is characterized by a deep split between mostly coastal urban centers and the hinterland. recalling the “dual economy” prevalent in many developing countries,[162] the platforms of public articulation in the chinese territory between 1860 and 1949, as well as contributors or recipients making use of these platforms, were to an extreme degree concentrated in shanghai, and to a smaller extent in hong kong and tientsin. even after the explosive development of print media in the 1910s and 1920s in china, more than three quarters of all newspapers, journals and books appeared in shanghai. these contact zones also signal that the public sphere is not coterminous with the national space. in the chinese case, the contact zones deftly straddle not the borders between two states but the border between china and the “world.” as port cities, they are connected to international communication lines (ships, cables) and are the place where information and opinion between the chinese territory and the world is exchanged. their populations largely consist of chinese immigrants (like tse tsan tai), and to a smaller degree immigrants from other countries that also speak and read other languages.[163] the platforms of articulation in these contact zones come in different languages, and the contributors and readers have different principal languages. these sub-communities might each have a higher level of inside rather than outside communication. however, multilingualism on different levels is the rule in these contact zones, which makes it possible for the multilingual and multiethnic communities within them to communicate with each other and form a public sphere in which they all participate, albeit to different degrees and intensity. into the public sphere of these contact zones flow opinions and information from all over the world as well as from different parts of the hinterland. in turn, media products from these contact zones recycle this condensed information and opinion (as well as entertainment matter) and send it to the hinterland, but also, increasingly, to a wide network of overseas contacts. at any given moment these flows are asymmetrical, in this particular case with a vastly larger flow coming in from abroad than going out. the shiju tu is a good example. it was produced in hong kong, but was conceptually and iconographically linked to discussions and illustrations in europe, the us, the english language media in hong kong and the treaty ports. the shiju tu cartoon draws on a translingual and transcultural arsenal of concepts, metaphors, and images that, over the course of the nineteenth century, had become a shared global rhetoric. the cartoon makes this amply clear. its allegorical expressions are strongly integrated into what was already at that time a widely shared transcultural imagery in the west and japan. tse tsan tai applied this imagery to china, while others used it for places such as germany, the ottoman empire, or india. the inscriptions on the animals are only in english and they presuppose a familiarity with political events and their articulation by political leaders that could only be gained by regularly reading the english language press. the implied reader, who was to make sense of this and other similar allusions, was a person sharing the translingual and transcultural experience of tse tsan tai. the recasting, elimination of bilingualism, and addition of commentary in later editions show the efforts to expand the implied audience. in other words, our cartoon fits the model of a transcultural diffusion: it is published in one of the key contact zones; it makes use of the new media of the newspaper, and even the printed image; its author is a model of a cultural broker, someone committed to the betterment of china, who is at the same time fully at home in the international discussion about china; it addresses the asymmetry in agency and power and tries to energize people to cope with it; and it appears at a moment that is critical for the country, when such an image could have sizeable impact on forming people’s mental image of their nation’s perilous state . tse tsan tai’s cartoon and the flurry of references to china being asleep and divided up like a melon had been published outside the qing court’s jurisdiction after the debacle that ended the 1898 ‘hundred days reform.’ it adopted the iconography of depicting international politics that had been developing in europe during the nineteenth century and applied it to china. another example, which addresses the same theme and was published within a month of the shiju tu, comes from the satirical journal puck in new york. published in august 1899, it shows uncle sam holding a trade treaty with china in his hand whilst blocking the powers who are, scissors in hands, ready to divide up china. the powers are england, russia, france, italy, and germany with austria in the background. japan, however, is not part of the group (figure 18).[164] fig. 18: j. s. pughe (1870–1909), putting his foot down. uncle sam (to the powers): gentlemen, you may cut up this map as much as you like; but remember, i’m here to stay. and that you can’t divide me up into spheres of influence, colored lithograph, 1899. in this line-up, china is just the dead map to be cut up by the powers; it has no agency of its own. the us commands center stage and establishes a new obstacle for the powers: its new trade treaty with the qing dynasty secured the right to trade over the entire qing territory. the us now had a vested commercial interest in preventing china from being cut up. in this moment of ultimate weakness, the territorial integrity of china is maintained by the antagonism between the powers and the americans. this was to play a significant role in a mechanism that the qing were able to use skillfully and very successfully. following the foreign military intervention in 1900 to lift the siege of the peking legations by the boxers and muslim rebels, the court, which had supported the anti-foreign action, fled peking. in a dramatic reversal, it accepted the proposal from a number of high han chinese officials to implement a wide-ranging “reform of governance” xinzheng. this included the reform (1902) and later abolishment (1905) of the imperial examination system 科舉 (keju); reforms in the schools and the military; a fully-fledged ministry of foreign affairs; and eventually, the first steps toward a constitution and a parliament. while the government tried hard to keep the public discussion under control, it had no control over the key transcultural contact zones such as hong kong, shanghai or yokohama, where, since 1901, a veritable media explosion had been taking place that swept newspapers, periodicals and even images into those areas of china that were furthest from these centers. these media quickly abandoned the reluctance still visible in tse tsan tai’s cartoon and took on the court directly. we will now follow the spread of the discussion of “china asleep” and “china awakening” in the chinese language press after 1900. compared to texts using the metaphor, images of political cartoons were perceived by authorities, as well as activists, as having the greater virulence and public accessibility. as a consequence more efforts were made to control them, but also to distribute them. in 1904, the alarming bell news´警鐘日報 (jingzhong ribao), the paper that succeeded the aforementioned alarming news about russian actions, followed its predecessor in its political focus as well as its use of cartoons. edited also by cai yuanpei, the paper likewise alerted its readers to the russian threat to the north, and the attitude of both china’s government and people towards this threat (figure 19). fig. 19: taking a neutral stance 局外中立, 1904. russia (on the right) walks off with a preciously adorned horse (manchuria, part of china’s territory), while japan (in the middle) looks on in irritation. the chinese manchu official kneels in front of the foreign powers with an assurance that he will take a neutral stance in this conflict, which was heading towards war.[165] the chinese “nation/citizens”, guomin, in the left lower corner are firmly asleep while russia walks away with their property. during the “reform of governance” period from 1901 through 1909, the metaphor and image of “china asleep” spread further into mainstream media.  to deal with the precipitous political changes and accommodate the growing public interest in them these media started absorbing much of the rhetoric, as well as the earlier reform papers’ mix of image and text. the shishibao 時事報 (china times) was among the first of these “big” newspapers to make use of cartoons beginning with a cartoon supplement.[166] in one of the early issues, it published a cartoon about the sleep disease among the people of a sub-saharan state which contained a harsh pun on the contemporary situation in china (figure 20). fig. 20: are they awaking from their deep slumber or are they not? 睡魔醒未, 1907. the text reads: "the people of the state of congo (kongke) in africa are asleep all day and never get anything done to the point that the race is deteriorating and about to come to an end. a european doctor found a method to cure this and now has already cured several dozen people. note: in the east of asia there is also a state, the people of which are asleep all day as if drunk or in a dream. recently, as they suddenly started  to come to their senses, they were suppressed by an autocratic faction [in government]. their anger cannot find expression and they get depressed. now there are six medical specialists of the highest caliber curing [the sleep disease], but it is unknown whether they will be able to achieve their goal."[167] the “note” is a comment on a news story that featured in the illustrated news. the illustration shows a very chinese environment with a kang brick bed and even some chinese physical features and dress. the sleepers are in various stages of sleeping and awakening: from the sleeping pair at the far end to the chirpy fellow sitting on the bed and waving near the bottom of the image. the doctor is european in dress and physical features. the “note’s” pun alludes to the efforts of a group of five high officials, who toured europe in search for a possible model for a chinese constitution, for which there was a rising clamor. their report had just been made public with wu tingfang, who had edited it, perhaps as a sixth contributor.[168] the persons “suddenly” waking up, only to find themselves suppressed, are a probable reference to 1898 reformers such as liang qichao and kang youwei. the association of the “country in the east of asia” with a country in sub-saharan africa, such as the congo, which is considered “backward”, suggests that china is just as “backward. the most important among these “big”, “revolutionary” papers was the shenzhou ribao 神州日報 (national herald), which began publishing in shanghai in 1907.[169] its extensive advertising section shows a substantial commercial viability that was further buttressed by sales of over 10 000 copies a day. its founding editor was yu youren于右任 (1879–1964), one of the most politically active journalists at the time, who was also a member of sun yat-sen’s political organization, the aforementioned tongmeng hui. resisting efforts by sun yat-sen to turn national herald into a party organ from the outset the paper retained an independent but quite “revolutionary” position in strong opposition to the qing court, and picked up the use of political cartoons from the advocacy papers of cai yuanpei and others. the national herald’s main cartoonist, who in 1910 also became editor of the shenzhou huabao (the national herald illustrated), was ma xingchi 馬星馳 (1873–1934). a man from the (largely muslim) hui community in jining, shandong province, ma xinchi moved to shanghai in 1893 to earn a living by selling paintings. a year later he was busy in canton helping to prepare the uprising against the manchu, which tse tsan tai and his friends were planning with sun yat-sen. it is likely that he met tse tsan tai, but we have no direct evidence. when their plan was leaked to the qing governor and the arrests started, he left china with sun yat-sen. ma seems to have spent most of the following years in europe. it is reported that he became the representative of chinese painting at the paris world fair in 1900, and it is likely that he used this opportunity to familiarize himself with western painting technique in general, and with the coding and drawing techniques of political cartoons in particular. when he returned to shanghai around 1904, his experience and revolutionary credentials made him one of the first chinese professional cartoonists. he had a strong impact on the viewing habits of newspaper readers and the next generation of cartoonists.[170] he kept abreast of developments in the cartoon world, as can be seen from his many cartoons for the shenzhou huabao, which are explicitly said to have been done “after” a western model. for the first anniversary of the national herald, ma xingchi drew a programmatic cartoon about the contemporary situation: china in the world, the chinese government, the foreign powers, the chinese people, and the newspaper itself (figure 21). fig. 21: [ma] xingchi 馬星馳, the first to awaken from the great dream 大夢先覺. in commemoration of the first anniversary of the shenzhou ribao, 1908. the action takes place on “sacred” chinese soil, shenzhou, and under the brilliant sun of “civilization,” wenming, that shines on the present. the westerner on the left is entering the sacred place with a “greedy look” on his face, while the manchu official on the right is just “idly standing by.” the actual owners of the place, the chinese citizens in the middle, guomin, are deeply asleep and quite oblivious to both, the threat to their land and the light of civilization. the first to awaken to this light and the country’s situation is the press, particularly the shenzou ribao. the journalist with the writing brush inscribed “newspaper” is sitting next to the citizen “loudly appealing” to him to wake up and do something. the critique of the paper, as seen from the tip of the writing brush, is directed against the manchu government rather than the foreigners. shortly after this cartoon’s publication, ma xinchi drew a series of small cartoons illustrating china’s crisis. in the middle, under the heading “all day dozing in confused dreams” sits a man in deep sleep (figure 22). fig. 22: ma xingchi 馬星馳, all day dozing in confused dreams, 1908. the sleeping man is defined as “the “organizations of china.” the first organizations of teachers and students had just formed, but even these potential nuclei of concerted social action did not live up to their promise. ma routinely used the sleep metaphor to illustrate the lack of popular resistance to the railway concessions that foreigners sought in china. in the following version, he combined the notions of “old”, “big [giant]”, “manchu official,” and “sleep” (figure 23). fig. 23: ma xingchi 馬星馳, the danger of foreigners using railways to invade china, 1908. foreigners use railway lines to get into the chinese “melon” (= territory) while “the old [=outdated] empire” is asleep on top of it. russia, japan and england already have control over railways, and england as the biggest and most powerful holds the knife with which to divide up the melon. russia on the left is defiant and stared down by both england (with top hat) and japan on the right. the same theme is treated in a different cartoon, with “giant”, “manchu official” and “sleep” in prominence (figure 24). fig. 24: ma xingchi 馬星馳, the expansion of railways (across the body of a manchu offical), 1910. although much of the popular anger, which eventually led to the dissolution of the qing dynasty in 1911, focused on the court’s handling of railway concessions, critics continued to claim that the nation was asleep. the next example stems from one of the flurry of political advocacy papers that sprang up during the transition period between 1910 and 1912, most of which made ample use of the newly discovered propaganda tool—the political cartoon—by adding illustrated supplements or by separately publishing an  illustrated paper (figure 25). fig. 25: qian binghe 錢病鶴 (1879—1944), melon theater, 1912. the sleep metaphor still comes with the promise of and the potential for waking up. although the link of temporary and eternal sleep had already been explored by gillray in the text accompanying his “britannia asleep” cartoon, and liang qichao had played with the idea in his comment on the rotting frankenstein lion, death is a very radical and hopeless variant of sleep and carries a different metaphorical meaning. in gillray’s cartoon britannia is to be put to eternal sleep, meaning that the amiens treaty with france was the first step in a threatened invasion of england by napoleon and the end of the sovereign british state. in his depressive and well-hidden comment quoted above, liang qichao did not identify the decrepit frankenstein lion with the manchu dynasty, but with the 300 million chinese people. they lacked the wherewithal to ever wake up. this line of thinking rendered any further “revolutionary” action meaningless, and therefore ended up with little traction among reformers and revolutionists. the notion that the chinese state might be, for all practical purposes, considered dead, held more potential. again, it was ma xingchi who explored this option by looking once more at the spheres of influence that foreign powers carved out of the gigantic chinese territory (figure 26). fig. 26: ma xingchi 馬星馳, the situation of the world, 1908. china is the gigantic dead fly in the middle, and the ants—russia and japan—are nibbling away at the head in the north; england is at the fat middle of the yang-tse valley; france, italy and germany are in the southern parts, while the us and austria are on their way to join in the feast with some smaller ants following. if the fly were alive, it would have no trouble from the ants, nor would it pose any threat to them. on the other hand, the ants have no way of catching and killing a live fly. the fly died  from internal causes. newspapers have a short shelf life and little of them remains in the memory of the readers. three years after the previous cartoon, ma felt free to use the same harrowing iconographic constellation in another more general cartoon on the social-darwinist notion of the survival of the fittest nation (figure 27). fig. 27: ma xingchi 馬星馳, the weak are the flesh, the strong eat it. 弱肉強食, 1911. a dead “mole cricket” is being cut apart by “ants.” the cricket died from internal causes, not because the ants killed it. alive, this mole cricket would be out of the ants’ reach and they would not pose a threat to it. the same paper used another potential emblem for china, the tiger, in a cartoon that offered a historical narrative of china’s past strength and present weakness (figure 28). fig. 28: a look at china now and in the past, shenzhou ribao 神州日報, march 5, 1911. the first image in the upper right corner, “china during the kangxi and qianlong emperors [17th and 18th century],” shows a roaring chinese tiger rushing at the foreigners as they run. in the second image on the lower right side, “china during the reign of emperors xianfeng and tongzhi [first half of the 19th century]” the tiger sits immobile, and the unarmed foreigners are approaching it like children taunting him; in the third image on the top left side, “china of today”, the tiger still looks big, but the foreigners now treat it like the frankenstein lion in the british museum with its dead internal mechanism; the fourth image on the lower left side, “china in the future” shows each gleeful foreigner marching off with a part of the dead tiger. the cartoon suggests that china was not always passive and immobile; during the 18th century it was still dynamic and strong and easily kept the foreigners at bay. for unexplained but completely internal reasons, it then corroded from the inside and lost all agency. this memory of a different asymmetry in agency that favored china in the past exacerbates the criticism of china’s present-day internal conditions. we observed earlier that the channels through which the ‘china asleep’ metaphor entered the chinese language domain were a very small number of journals linked to liang qichao. the related depictions underwent a similar process. again, an individual’s, namely ma xingchi’s, repeated use of this image in the very widely read shenzhou ribao was crucial in adding this image to the canon of symbolic images that were familiar at least to the politically articulate class of the few abovementioned contact zones and their surrounding areas. in all of these depictions, china’s weakness is self-inflicted. this is a widely shared assumption among chinese reformers. china is a big country and no foreign power is honored with the credit of bringing about its present abysmal state. china’s crisis is caused by the lethargy of a people disinterested in “national” issues, and a government (consisting mostly of officials who see it as their job to line their own pockets) afraid to confront foreign demands. this line of reasoning was one way of coping with the asymmetry of power between china and the powers. according to it, the crisis was not caused by foreign powers that were intrinsically stronger than china, but by the corrosion of china’s internal structures, which made the country easy prey for outsiders. chinese descriptions attribute the same kind of internal cause to great britain’s colonization of india. although not yet articulated in this manner, the argument fits the later stalinist mantra of chinese marxist historiography, which claims that external factors can only become effective if certain internal conditions are in place. at the same time, this line of reasoning opens a field of meaningful action for reformers and revolutionists who may dare to take on their own enfeebled government, but shy away from taking on the powers, especially because the latter are also the source of the “civilization” towards which these rebels are trying to push their own polity. as mentioned previously, the spectrum of interpretations of metaphors and images in the chinese environment, as well as that of the  envisaged or actually pursued action, remained largely within the broad parameters of the international debate and continuously interacted with it. this continuous interaction is not a particularly modern phenomenon, but can also be observed, for example, in the historical spread of buddhist concepts, metaphors and iconic traditions (as well as practices) into the central, southern, southeastern, and east asian regions. the interpretation that the nation’s sleep is not just prolonged by foreign interests—which we saw in gillray and sabatky—but foreign-induced is not part of the canon. only during the last years of the qing dynasty do a few examples emerge that deviate from the canonical framework of the nation asleep metaphor and consensus that “china’s sleep is self-inflicted” and engage with the “induced sleep” narratives. the reasons for this deviation are twofold: during the 1910s china took out massive foreign loans; it also increasingly emulated the foreign anti-opium movement, which eventually led to the chinese ban on opium consumption in 1906. this presented commentators and cartoonists with an opportunity to treat the foreign loans, or opium, which was associated with foreign imports from india and the opium war, or both together, as foreign ways to keep the chinese lion asleep. i was able to locate only one example for such a charge, and it is nicely hidden in a story about a circus, which was published in the short-lived paper zouyan bao in 1910:[171] the westerners say china is a sleeping lion. saying a lion is asleep implies that the time will eventually come when it will wake up. when i confronted westerners with this implication, they grinned and did not reply, and thus no one knows what is on their mind. later i asked a lion trainer [for a western circus, r.w.] for an explanation. this trainer, himself a foreigner, then explains to the chinese author that circus lion pups are given to a “mother dog” for feeding so that when they grew up, they “looked like lions but had the character of dogs, and it was very easy to train them to perform.” but for more daring experiments, like a man putting his head into such a lion’s mouth, the trainer would put a little opium into the lion’s food.  this was gradually increased until, as the trainer explained: …the lion was in a daze as if asleep, and would do all that was asked of him. if he would open his mouth and roar, it was only like talking in a dream, and he was quite unable to bite. he still looked like a lion, but no longer had the character of one; even the dog nature he had once acquired was gone. in this way, the lion sleeps forever and never wakes up. your great country is certainly much bigger than a lion, but as to the extent to which you are willing to take poison, how would this be restricted to just taking opium?” this parable gets close to explaining [what the westerners have in mind]. ai, how shocking. i only wished the chinese would awaken to this insight! the perception of a china asleep is not spontaneous but derived from a reading of western assessments. “the westerners all say china is asleep.” but, as this conspiratorial story has it, they also try to make sure that it stays this way. they do so cunningly: china looks like a lion, and it even roars like one, but inside it is in deep sleep, drugged with opium. this is one of the few texts to put the blame for china’s deplorable state on the secret action of foreigners. this, still rather indirect, claim adds a new twist to different strategies of coping with the asymmetry in agency, which we have extracted from earlier utterances and images.   there are many ways of coping with asymmetry, but while all sides have to deal with it in one way or the other, a basic difference remains between those on the opposing ends of the exchange or the relationship. developing a strategy to deal with a sleeping china was not just a challenge for those committed to the country’s betterment, but also for the powers, because the newcomers, russia, japan, germany and italy, all rushed to the table thinking in traditional colonial terms. the option of a partition of china was considered far too risky and too costly for the dominant british and their american allies. a flurry of conferences between 1898 and 1900 was designed to find a consensus for the powers or to impose certain rules how to deal with china. the inscriptions on tse’s animals, with which we began this study, were taken from these negotiations. again, this western perception of the prevailing asymmetry and of the options for coping with it finds its way into images. an american cartoon from 1900 may serve as an example (figure 29). fig. 29: the real trouble will come with the ‘wake’, 1900. this cartoon has a tight timeline. the boxers and their muslim allies had started the siege of the peking legations in june. after heavy fighting, a relief contingent consisting of units from different western countries broke through to the city and eventually overcame the boxer resistance on august 14. the manchu court had already fled. this news did not make it into the august 15 issue of puck, but the defeat of the boxers, who had the support from the court, had been palpable. for all practical purposes, peking was occupied, the court was on the run and china was as “dead” as the dragon in this image. the title of the cartoon contains a pun. there had been much talk in the past about the sleeping and awakening of china. now with the death of the dragon, a “wake” ceremony is called for, but instead of the wake’s participants being in silent mourning, they confront each other fully armed, especially russia (the bear) and england (the lion). the real problem that these powers face is not the awakening of china—this is a threat from the past—but what will happen during the “wake” after its death. the powers will try to stop each other from taking a chunk of the dragon. the inscription shows the double nervousness about the awakening and the wake. the face of the dragon is reminiscent of contemporary american posters that denounced chinese immigrants.[172] the perspective of both image and text is that of the foreign powers—in this case that of the us eagle—sternly looking on this scene from the top left. there is a danger that the powers will go to war over this dead giant. somewhat later, another reading of the boxers’ relation to the “china asleep” metaphor made it into one of the most popular western mediums of the time, opera. in turandot, which puccini left unfinished when he died in 1924, one of the comic ministers, ping, wonders about the turmoil brought about by the chinese princess turandot’s refusal to marry a foreign prince. he sings: o china. o china now astounded and confoundedly restless! how peacefully thou hast slept culled in thy seven thousand centuries![173] there is no equivalent of this passage in either carlo gozzi’s 1762 drama, from which much of the language was taken, nor in the 1801 adaptation by friedrich schiller, which informed the character of turandot in puccini’s opera. in the overall story, china asleep is stirred to “restlessness” when the chinese princess turandot goes on a spree of slaughtering her foreign suitors who fail to solve the riddles with which she challenges them. this is reminiscent of the anti-foreignism of the boxers in 1900. eventually, turandot, torn between her desire to be free of foreign/male domination and her secret love for an unknown prince, gives in to his forceful wooing as he tears off her veil and kisses her. as she yields, he sings, “it is dawn, it is dawn and love awakens with the sun”. in a triple metaphor of dawn, awakening, and civilization (the sun), love with the foreign prince can finally blossom.[174] in ping’s song, china asleep is still peaceful and non-threatening. “astounded and confoundedly restless” because of the anxiety brought about by foreign princes incessantly wooing her, china reacts with a collective flash of hostility once she wakes up, an echo of the frankenstein theme. but this will not last and love triumphs in the end. puccini’s intriguing take on china’s mysterious beauty, hysterical anti-foreignism and secret love for the unknown foreigner coupled with the adamant, but caring insistence of the prince to win the princess’ hand was long banned in china. only in 2003 was the opera eventually performed—in great pomp—in beijing’s imperial palace as a sign of china’s active and positive engagement with the “foreign prince.”   the same speed with which foreign journalists declared the chinese giant dragon dead led them to pronounce it resurrected when the qing court’s “reform of governance” produced first results. in 1906, just a few years after the puck cartoon, the frankenstein image resurfaced. the illustrated london news reprinted a french cartoon, which was in turn reprinted and commented upon in britain (figure 30).[175] fig. 30: charles garabed atamian (turkey, 1872–1947), the chinese giant rouses himself and shakes the other nations off the counterpane of the world. a french artist’s idea, 1906. lying “asleep” under the map of china, the “giant” is waking up; his facial expression suggests that he is alert and even angry, which can be seen as an iconographic link to the frankenstein illustrations. the symbolical representations of russia (top left with knout and vodka bottle, thrown out of manchuria and mongolia), england (left, slipping from tibet into india), france (bottom left, restricted to indochina), and japan (right, stuck on its knees in korea) are all shaken off the counterpane. germany (middle) has not yet noticed what happened behind its back and stands in pompous arrogance on its kiautschou concession. the accompanying article emphasizes chinese modern military drills, modern dress, a modern press and modern contraptions, such as telephones, as signs of china changing. it starts with a dire warning: at last western ideas have penetrated the chinese mind and the awakening is likely to be swift and of extraordinary importance to the world. the sleeping giant is rousing himself, and when he shakes the counterpane of the world, the nations will do well to look to their supremacy. for behind the exclusiveness of ages lie forces that need only be set in motion to become overwhelming. while the drawing shows china shaking the powers from its own territory, the english text insists that china is shaking the powers from the “counterpane of the world”. the nervousness is exacerbated by the fact that, unlike the chinese images that generally supported a particular course of action, there is no suggestion that china’s awakening could or even should be prevented. there is only an ominous premonition that the “supremacy” of the powers—the asymmetry of power relations between china and the leading nations of the world—is not going to last. at the same time, china’s awakening is a “great awakening to western ideas.” this asymmetry in cultural flows results from a growing chinese awareness of the usefulness of these western ideas and the chinese energies invested in making them work in china. to put it bluntly, the broad asymmetry in cultural flows is the key factor in reversing the asymmetries in power relations and the human agency in this reversal lies entirely on the chinese side. in the words of this cartoon “the chinese giant rouses himself.”  the fantasy of a future awoken on the chinese side, the vocabulary and imagery of china asleep was part of recognizing the prevailing asymmetries of agency and power. this perception of asymmetry is not a simple process of cognition, but it releases substantial historical energies to deal or cope with this asymmetry and overcome or even reverse it. tse tsan tai’s cartoon, as well as the many articles by chinese authors, but above all the unending efforts to reverse the declining fortune of the country, to deny the problem, to assign the blame to someone else, to treat it as a blessing and an enrichment etc. are all fuelled by this release of historical energy. one more option remains to be explored: public utopian dreams. gradually, chinese reformers started to claim their own primary agency in “awakening” china, although the purpose remained largely tied to prompting china into adopting “western” (then the word for “modern”) ways. cursing their countrymen for failing to awaken to patriotism was not enough, they had to be shown the promise of what would happen if indeed they would wake up.  this development can be observed elsewhere, for example in germany. we have already seen that together with the harsh print of the german michel asleep there also appeared daydreams of michel awake, sometimes done in the same year and by the same artist. in writing we find the same, hard-hitting satires about michel in slumber paralleled by glowing fantasies about a future germany that has woken up (figure 31). fig. 31: r. sabatky, 1942, colored chalk lithograph, 1842. an oversized german urmensch joyously lifts his oak cudgel crowned with a prussian helmet. he has dropped his weapons and made peace with elegant france over the contested rhine amid general celebration. the cologne dome is finally being demolished and french and germans are dancing around a liberty tree full of wreaths. the cartoon’s agenda is anti-clerical and focuses on the “national” territory. no element of social or technological utopia is visible, but there is a strong hope for peaceful relations with france. in the chinese context, the most elaborate fantasies about a china awoken, which were created during the first decade of the twentieth century, can be found in the flurry of political novels published at this time. emulating a genre first employed by benjamin disraeli in the 1840s and supposedly instrumental in reforming the english polity,[176] chinese political novels were serialized in newspapers and offered up-to-date allegorical narratives of china’s present dismal situation, the way out of it, and the glories of the future. in the political novels of the “reform of governance” (xinzheng 新政) period (1901–1909), which began with the qing court’s xinzheng edict in 1901, a preferred placement of symbolical, allegorical or metaphorical coding was in a “wedge” 楔子 chapter at the start. such wedge chapters cannot be found in english or japanese political novels of the time. as catherine yeh has shown, they are a chinese innovation designed to curb the unpredictability of the novel form by sketching out the entire story at the beginning. chen tianhua’s 陳天華 novel “the roar of the lion”, (shizi hou 狮子吼, 1906) may serve as one such example.[177] the wedge-chapter is told by a first-person narrator deeply worried about his country’s ability to survive amid the fierce competition between contemporary nations. at stake is the “survival” or “demise” of the country, xing wang 興亡. the narrative is set in the present time. social evolution is discussed in terms of natural evolution. as the narrator/implied author tries to comfort himself by wandering in nature, he observes that nature operates on the same principle that prevails among nations: “the weak are the meat, and the strong eat it” (ruo rou qiang shi 弱肉強食). at this point, he finds a book. it takes him a few days to decipher the text until he realizes that it is a book about the demise of an “ignorant and dumb, or hundun, race,” (hundun renzhong 混沌人種). in this book, the wedge chapter seems to start over again, albeit with the past as its time frame. it tells of events that took place 4,500 years ago. the hundun, once a great civilization, were conquered by “the barbarians,” (yeman zu 野蠻族), a small neighboring tribe. the barbarians took away the livelihood of the hundun people, and imposed celibacy on them. as a consequence, the hundun race was on the verge of extinction. those who managed to survive were gradually reduced to being semi-barbaric, then to complete barbarians, and finally to mere “low class animals without any self-consciousness,” (wu zhijue de xiadeng dongwu 無知覺的下等動物). whenever a country needed laborers for construction or human shields in wars, these people were the natural candidates. thus, over the course of three hundred years, the race completely disappeared. this past stands for one of the possible futures of china. after this allegorical treatment of china’s conquest by the manchu 300 years ago, and the worldwide use of chinese “coolie labor,” the wedge chapter seems to start yet again with the first-person narrator re-entering and bringing the reader back to the present. alarming reports of russia’s encroachment on china’s northern provinces and the english navy entering the wusong port have reached the narrator and prompt him to join the fight against the foreign invaders. the enemy soon overwhelms any chinese resistance and the narrator must flee into the mountains; his pursuers turn into a pack of tigers and wolves. as they rush at him, pushing him to the ground, one of the beasts bites his right arm; the excruciating pain makes him cry out in despair. this cry produces a dramatic result. a lion, which has been asleep for many years, is awoken and lets out a roar that shakes heaven and earth. the book’s author himself comments: “this loud cry of despair [by the narrator] indeed achieved great effect!”[178] at this point, a third timeframe appears. it unfolds when the narrator has a vision of future china, an obvious reference to the first chinese political novel, a future record of new china written in 1902 by none other than liang qichao.[179] in this future, the first-person narrator does not recognize where he is. to him, a person from the “past”, the great urban center in which he finds himself is utterly unfamiliar and its prosperity overwhelms him.  [its ]streets [are] ten zhang (about 30 meters, r. w.) wide, made of white stones, without a trace of dust. all buildings are seven stories high and defy any description of their luxury and beauty. the streets are busy with electrical cars moving like weaving shuttles. up in the sky, trains are traveling over iron bridges, and deep under the earth underground trains rush by. [in short,] this is a scene of prosperity and wealth adorned with extraordinary ingenuity and workmanship.[180] for the first-person narrator this could only be london or paris. but, as he enters into a great hall, a placard announces in chinese the “celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the glorious renaissance [of china]” (光復五十年紀念會), which is another cross-reference to liang qichao. china now has a national flag with the lion in the middle. an opera performance with the leading male role sung by a character called “the youth of new china” (新中國之少年) evokes in detail the history of the revolutionary wars through which the renovated china was created. much impressed by this opera, the first-person narrator finds yet another book with the title the history of the glorious renaissance [of china]. needless to say, on its cover is the roaring lion. the reader is told that the book has two parts, the first dealing with the struggles to recover china, and the second with the country’s regaining sovereignty and independence from foreign domination. this second book is the very novel the reader now has in his hands. it represents an alternative future to the hundun fate described in the book he found first. this second part is the possible future of china’s awakening and rise. we see here, in the form of allegorical fiction, the same arsenal of references at work as in our cartoons. the chinese lion is “asleep” and the pained cry of the person who has awoken to the true state of the country wakes him up, and we march into a glorious future. the allegorical language has fully absorbed a global imagery that includes the understanding that the culprit of the crisis is to be found in the country itself, rather than among the foreign powers. at this point, the implied reader no longer needs a guiding hand to decipher the information. metaphor, image, and crisis similes and images, such as the ones discussed here, have a timeline. for readers today this becomes apparent in the dense references to actualities that were familiar to the implied reader then, but are unfamiliar to us now. the use of metaphor, simile and image is in itself a statement on the extreme urgency of the problem addressed, especially before the use of cartoons became a routine part of newspaper sensationalism. these rhetorical devices and images are forms of public communication that largely hinge on what might be called a high temperature problem, or, in common parlance, a crisis. they appear naturally when the community experiences a crisis that is perceived by some who feel it urgently needs to be perceived by the public—including the state authorities. only then will the energies needed to cope with the crisis be mobilized and the proposed course of action be followed. in other words, the images that arise in such a situation combine a pointed depiction of a crisis’ key factors in a manner accessible to a larger public with the dissemination via print, or other means of mass reproduction, and the suggestion of a course of action. the simile and image offer a platform for situationand action-oriented thinking by linking many different concepts to practical steps in a concrete manner, which an abstract concept alone cannot achieve. i suggest the hypothesis that it is the manifold specific analyses contained in these publicly traded similes and images that are in turn the material on the basis of which abstract concepts are formed in the first place. similes, metaphors, images and narratives do not merely serve as illustrations of these concepts. they are the concrete material upon which the concepts draw and they offer an independent platform of discussion that allows for the exploration of a wide array of interpretive options. in the chinese texts and images, the urgency of the crisis is articulated in manifold ways. they appear in the titles of essays, such as liang qichao’s “a crisis warning about being cut up like a melon,” which itself can become a simile. in 1898, wang kangnian wrote an essay in which he complained about the foot-dragging of the officials and their insistence on due bureaucratic process and decorum in the face of germany’s demand for territory in shandong: this is like a fire breaking out in a house and these befuddled people still sweetly sleep in their rooms. even if one urgently calls on them, i am afraid they still will not wake up—are you saying that one should still proceed decorously to get them out of there?[181] in such a crisis situation fast and unconventional means are needed to wake up the chinese, but they are blocked by officials. even the names chosen by the chinese language reform press of the “reform of governance” period after 1900 signaled the commitment to awaken “the people”. newspaper or journal names, such as the abovementioned “alarming bell daily” (警鐘日報, 1904) or “the awakening lion” (興獅, 1905), are as indicative of this as the cover images on reform journals. an example is the cover of a journal edited, needless to say, by liang qichao (figure 32): fig. 32: new cover for liang qichao’s paper xinmin congbao, 新民叢報 (reform the people collectanea), yokohama, 1903. this utopian lion, itself an avatar of the lion representing the state in england, takes on the entire world with a leap and a mighty roar. against the assumption that china was “old” and in decay—which was also articulated in some of the cartoons reproduced above—many of the journals, revolutionaries’ pen names, or fictional characters also used the image of youth’s vitality, strength, and the willingness to go new ways, which match this bold lion image very well. for the imagery of youthful vigor, a vast transcultural arsenal was available in translation, which drew on european national reform movements since giuseppe mazzini’s giovine italia (young italy) and disraeli’s young england. even someone seeing china as an “awakened lion” after the founding of the republic in 1912, however, would be able to use the lion image to also express the ongoing difficulties and suggest solutions. the following 1912 cartoon is by “valdar”, the pen-name of the man who drew most of the cartoons for the english language national review in shanghai during the last years of the empire and the first years of the republic (figure 33).[182] fig. 33: valdar, no title, 新民叢報 cover page, 1912. the china lion—who just a few months after the founding of the republic was very much awake—is tied down by (from the left) “procrastination,” “faulty administration,” “financial difficulties,” “antiquated methods,” and “red tape.” all its power cannot break these strings. only a mouse—“foreign experts” with their own bellies in mind perhaps, rather that the desire to help—can gnaw through the string representing the most pressing financial difficulties. the aesopian fable of the lion and the rat—albeit with a different meaning—had been copied into chinese illustrated papers decades earlier from an advertisement for a western product.[183]  unsurprisingly, it was the then budding writer lu xun, who remembered—if briefly—that things might go awry and that the young hotheads carried a huge responsibility. in a direct reply to wang kangnian’s story about the burning house, lu xun drew on a buddhist metaphor of people being trapped in the prison house of their senses. he voiced his jarring, if momentary, doubt about the great hopes of the republican awakening in the 1922 preface to his collection of stories with the vigorous title nahan, which is often translated as “a call to arms.”  asked in 1915 whether he would be willing to contribute a story to the new progressive journal programmatically called new youth (xin qingnian), he answered: imagine an iron house without windows, absolutely indestructible, with many people fast asleep inside who will soon die of suffocation. but you know, since they will die in their sleep, they will not feel the pain of death. now if you cry aloud to wake a few of the lighter sleepers, making those unfortunate few suffer the agony of irrevocable death, do you think you are doing them a good turn? but if a few are awake, you can't say there is no hope of destroying the iron house. true, in spite of my own conviction, i could not blot out hope, for hope lies in the future.[184] the same new youth for which lu xun was asked to write, also explored the philosophical dimensions of what it saw as the somnambulistic state of the chinese nation. this state was linked to the claim by cheng yichuan (1033–1107), one of the founding fathers of the neo-confucian revival, that man’s basic nature is “pure and tranquil.” this was read in 1915 as a normative statement promoting tranquility or calmness, which led men to become “cripples”, “weak and fearful” and “unable to live out [their] human character.” in a counterargument the journal claimed that “the basic character of man is definitely movement,” because everything in the “cosmos started with movement and will end with it.” the chinese neologism “movement”, yundong 運動, was derived from the japanese and had already been used in china for physics and as the word for “sports”, but was now transposed to describe political and social “movements.”[185] after the may 4th movement in 1919 , in which the new youth journal played a decisive role, chinese activists and/or the state have promoted an unending series of such “movements” to awaken the populace. the republican state eventually laid claim to the duty and capacity to awaken the chinese people and to guide them with stern supervision into a bright future. it inherited much of the imagery from the late qing reformers and revolutionaries, but maintained that with its arrival the times of emphasizing the tragedy of china asleep were now over. to awaken the nation, it proceeded to fully use the instruments of state for purposes of propaganda in a manner similar to the soviet union, italy, and eventually germany. some fine studies have appeared that deal with this new situation.[186] when sun yat-sen was buried in nanjing in 1929, the kuomintang government commissioned, in the form of a huge bell, a landscape architecture for the grounds of the mausoleum to represent sun yat-sen’s thought which would awaken the chinese (figure 34). fig. 34: li yanzhi, master plan for layout of zhongshan ling sun yat-sen mausoleum, 1925. from feng’an shilu, nanjing, 1928. the original plan had been to build a new capital below the mausoleum, which would have visually transformed the entire government machine into what it set out to do with its policies, namely to “awaken” china’s masses to modernity.[187] needless to say, the communist party, which had been challenging the kuomintang republic with sundry “movements”, eventually won out. it inherited, however, the basic notion that the chinese were a people that needed mobilization to wake up. all the tumultuous movements of china notwithstanding, the idea that the people or the country might wake up or needed to be “awoken” has remained a key element in the conceptualization of the state of the chinese polity and the legitimization of political action to this day. alain peyrefitte is one among the many to have played with the metaphor of china awakening in the titles of his widely-read and -translated narratives about china, confronting “l’empire immobile” of the pre-modern period with the disquieting “napoleonic” quote, “when china awakes, the world will tremble”[188] in the title of his book about the post-1949 period. but even in 2011, the “awakening of china” is still not completed.[189] in the prc itself, the basic assumptions underlying the metaphor about an asymmetry between those asleep as the nation faces grave danger, compared to those who are awake, have also remained alive. however, the asymmetry is now less defined as one of agency vis-a-vis foreign powers; it now is marked by enlightened or progressive consciousness and action. the soldiers who were sent to clear tiananmen square on june 3, 1989, were ordered to take the following oath before setting off: if i can wake up the people with my blood, then i am willing to let my blood run dry; if i can wake up the people [by giving] my life, then i will happily go to my death.[190] 如果能以血醒民，我愿把血流干；如果能以命醒民，我愿慷慨赴死 their action would be the wake-up call for the sleeping and deluded populace to realize that the danger for the nation and its future was coming from the demonstrators. on the opposite end, we see the same imagery in a congratulatory note for the 2010 nobel peace prize to liu xiaobo, who was incarcerated first for his being a “black hand” behind the scene in 1989, and then for having been involved in drafting the charter 08. the nobel prize is a call on governments to turn to the good, using the strength of reason and justice through western civilisation, to rouse the people of the nation from their slumber and discover their good nature, to liberate the spirit from material restraints and seek to break down obstacles on the road. awarded a year ahead of the 100th anniversary of the xinhai revolution that ended the imperial system, the prize relights the flame of the first republic in asia and washes clean the shame of a dictatorship. this prize is a milestone in the march of the chinese race towards democracy.[191] conclusions as a conclusion i will offer a series of propositions that include, but go beyond the case analyzed above. these are formulated as falsifiable hypotheses. they will deal with three elements: the relationship between political concept, metaphor, and image; the translingual flow of political metaphors and the transcultural flow of political images; and the dynamics of perceiving asymmetries and coping with them. a) political concept, metaphor and image metaphor and image are instrumental for thinking and for communicating the links between concepts and space, time and action. metaphor and image form a platform sui generis to deal with complex and dynamic situations in a manner leading to and legitimizing a particular course of action. they loosely interact with concepts, especially in the keys attached, but more easily cross to other related metaphors (such as crossing from “sleep” to “debility” or “death”), if the author or artist feels that the actual situation has gone beyond the spectrum covered by the metaphor/image. metaphor cries out for illustration, cartoon illustration cries out for a textual key. the illustration might pick up the image implied in the metaphor, and the key for the illustration might use metaphors or concepts to unlock the meaning. the pool of collectively shared metaphors and, in the age of print, images that characterize situations and suggest courses of action forms as a sizeable part of the material and experience on the basis of which abstract concepts are synthesized; these concrete forms of presentation turn abstract concepts into potentially powerful political engines. this translates into a hypothesis that conceptual generalizations succeed rather than precede metaphorical or visual articulations, and that the conceptual discussions retain traces of these origins. metaphor and image focus on situations in specific and often critical situations in a given time and place. they impact the audience by suggesting an urgently needed practical action. in the case studied here, the agenda was to awaken nationalist commitment, and the strategy was a combination of shaming the audience/onlookers into such a commitment, and showing the potential utopian result. metaphor, simile and image operate with an iconographic (rather than semantic) field. this presets argumentative parameters for defining the problem’s location (in our case this is in the state of mind of the nation/government/elite/dynasty rather than the foreign powers) and what action would be needed. b) translingual and transcultural flow concepts, metaphors, and images all migrate across linguistic and cultural borders. for the political concepts, metaphors, and images the developments of the nineteenth century led to an increasingly shared canon across languages and cultures, an underground esperanto, or, to put it less provocatively, an underlying translingual code—underlying/underground because the surface textual expressions, metaphorical features and images might and often do differ by using local codes. this translingual and transcultural flow is mediated by the global spread of text and image media; by cultural brokers who are doubly familiar with a place they would call “our” country, and globalized public discourses in text and image occurring in the “world”; by the options of translingual and transcultural contact available in contact zones such as ports, or, as so often in the past, royal courts or religious centers. the speed, focus, and intensity of translingual and transcultural flows in a given field and region hinges on the “temperature” of the issue involved at a given time. in high-temperature crisis moments, their speed, focus and intensity tends to peak. these peak times might be termed periods of massive transcultural flow. massive transcultural flow periods are characterized by not simply “translating” foreign concepts, metaphors and images into a vernacular of words and images that have a stable and firmly implanted grammatical, rhetorical and iconological canon of its own. rather, the harvested linguistic, rhetorical and visual material completely recasts the vernacular language, rhetoric and imagery. such massive transcultural flows presuppose an external resource (such as texts, images, sets of ideas, institutions, and practices) that had enough time to mature to provide enough, and sufficiently consistent, material for such a massive flow. the dominant agency driving the flows is not in the push or imposition by an external power, but in the pull exerted by people who assume the role of cultural brokers. in any given context, these brokers come from different ethnic groups, nationalities, and linguistic background. they act for reasons of personal preference, political or religious commitment, social and political standing, to secure their livelihood, or a combination of these. the agency of these brokers hinges on a “market bet”, namely that their cultural products (translations, images etc.) will find buyers or followers. this means that an ultimate and passive agency pulling the flow is in the hands of an anonymous and silent group of people who are potentially interested. the eventual interest evoked, or the failure to evoke it, is the test for these “bets.” the material carried in translingual and transcultural flows consists of media content and practices, which, if successful, will spread further inland from the brokers and the contact zones through print or other media and human examples. this spread highlights the pervasiveness of a highly uneven density of the public sphere to the point of a dual public sphere with one part integrated in the global flow, while the other, the hinterland, is very much cut off and only thinly fed by the contact zones. c) dynamics of perceiving asymmetries and coping with them at any given moment flows of concepts, metaphors, and images are  characterized by an asymmetry with an unequal quantity and quality of exchanges. in the case under consideration, the concepts, metaphors and images are part of the transcultural flow, while at the same time thematizing its asymmetry. this asymmetry in exchanges or flows in both directions might, and might not, parallel an asymmetry in power relations. asymmetrical flows between cultures, once perceived as such, will release vast energies to cope and deal with them. these might range on the one hand from emigration to the ‘other’ place, learning foreign languages and befriending foreigners to denying the existence of asymmetry and xenophobia, and, on the other hand, from imperial disdain and efforts to use an asymmetry in power to defend an asymmetry in cultural flows, to efforts at contributing to the “other” side’s betterment, to identifying with the underdog. to be specific, the metaphor of “china asleep”, and more so of china the sleeping giant or lion, is an effort to conceptually grasp the instability of a complex asymmetry in agency and power vis-à-vis the powers. the perception of this asymmetry and the resulting historical energy differs depending on which side one identifies with. for the speaker/artist/onlooker identifying with the “sleeping china” in this critical environment, the scenario suggests an anxiety, which might end up mobilizing his or her energies to “wake” up and, depending on the reading, realize the potential buried in the sleeping giant, level or inverse the asymmetry in agency and power, or to avoid the issue. for the speaker/artist/onlooker identifying with the surrounding powers, the scenario presented in the metaphor and image suggests an anxiety, which might prompt efforts to keep china asleep so as to maintain the asymmetry in power and flows, to prepare for a confrontation over the spoils should china not wake up at all, or, to the contrary, follow an utopian path by actively contributing to a leveling of the prevailing asymmetries. the asymmetries in relations, such as power, and in flows, such as concepts, institutions and practices, are not functions of one another. they often have inverse dominant directionalities, but they will always interact. in the chinese and japanese cases, the energies invested in the pull to select, translate, and adapt western concepts, institutions, practices and images are released by a perception of an asymmetry in power relations that results from an asymmetry in national agency. this weakness of agency in turn is to be overcome through the massive translation of those concepts, institutions and practices, which are seen as being at the root of the stronger agency of the other side and the resulting power. in the inverse case, where a conqueror, who is superior in power, opts for (or was attracted in the first place by) a culture seen as superior (such as the roman elite’s attitude towards greek language and culture, or manchu attitudes towards chinese language and culture), efforts are made to assign a place to the other culture and its best agents (such as artists, poets or scholars) that makes the best of its enhancement of the quality of life, while not threatening the asymmetry in power relations. list of illustrations figure 1: tse tsan tai 謝纘泰 (1872–1937), shiju quantu 時局全圖 the situation in the far east, hong kong, july 1899. source: http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/file:politcal_map_of_19th_century_china%ef%bc%88%e6%99%82%e5%b1%80%e5%85%a8%e5%9c%96%ef%bc%89.jpg. accessed april 4, 2011. figure 2: shiju tu, 1899 or 1900, probably japan. us national archives. source: http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/file:%e6%97%b6%e5%b1%80%e5%9b%be.jpg. accessed april 04, 2011. figure 3: “the situation in the far east”, postcard, 1899 or 1900. private collection, hong kong. figure 4: shiju tu, [water?] colored hand drawing. photograph taken in former home of huang zunxian by hon kwong. private collection. figure 5: guafen zhongguo tu 瓜分中國圖 (carving china up like a melon). from e shi jing wen 俄事警聞 1 (dec 15, 1903), 8. library of the institute of chinese studies, heidelberg. figure 6: graph. figure 7: [view of the state of the nation for february 1778], etching. text in french. library of congress. title taken from earliest reprint in westminster magazine, march 1778. digital id: cph 3a17996 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a17996. accessed april 04, 2011. figure 8: reveil du tiers état (the awakening of the third estate), hand-colored etching, 1789. library of congress. source: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2009633461/ accessed january 30, 2011. figure 9: laurent midart, the awakening of the swiss. source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/file:midart_r%c3%a9veil_1798.jpg accessed jan 25, 2011. figure 10: james gillray, the nursery–with britannia reposing in peace, 1802. from the hand-colored recut version in london und paris 10, 1802. library of georg-august university, goettingen. figure 11: r. sabatky, der deutsche michel, chalk lithography, berlin: julius springer, 1843. copy of the herrmann von helmholtz zentrum fuer kulturtechnik. source: http://www2.hu-berlin.de/kulturtechnik/kabinette.php?show=odm&month=200703. accessed january 25, 2011. figure 12: w. winckler, no title (michel awakened). lithograph, königsberg 1843. rheinisches bildarchiv, köln. www.museenkoeln.de/rba.de. figure 13: china. puck, or the shanghai charivari (shanghai), february 1, 1872. library of the institute of chinese studies, heidelberg. figure 14: first act of the people of egypt … the punishment…. the genius of egypt awakens from its long sleep and drives out the evil government officials, tewfik and his courtiers flee. abou naddara 6, no. 2 (1882). library of the cluster of excellence "asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows" at heidelberg university. figure 15: jacques rawson (?), the state [of turkey], a sick man who is just barely breathing. reproduced from a western source in dongfang zazhi 17:15 (august 15, 1920), p. 33. library of the harvard yenching institute. figure 16: gulliver the giant among lilliputians. illustration from the 1727 edition of jonathan swift, travels into several remote nations of the world, by lemuel gulliver, london: printed for benj. motte, at the middle temple gate in fleet-street, 30. figure 17: the foreigner talks in his sleep. from the japanese cartoon journal marumaru chinbun, 1884. library of the institute of chinese studies, heidelberg. figure 18: j. s. pughe (1870–1909), putting his foot down. uncle sam (to the powers): gentlemen, you may cut up this map as much as you like; but remember, i’m here to stay. and that you can’t divide me up into spheres of influence. colored lithograph. puck xlvi no. 1172, august 23, 1899. widener library, harvard university. figure 19: taking a neutral stance 局外中立, jingzhong ribao, 警鐘日報 (alarming bell daily news) march 19,1904. library of the institute of chinese studies, heidelberg. figure 20: lu shuhan 李樹函 (?), are they awaking from their deep slumber or are they not? 睡魔醒未, tuhua xinwen 圖畫新聞, 1907, 11th month. from liu jingmin shoucang guangxu lao huekan–wan qing shehui de《tuhua xinwen〉 劉精民收藏光緒老畫刊-晚清社會的《圖畫新聞〉, beijing: zhongguo wenlian, 2005. figure 21: [ma] xingchi 馬星馳, the first to awaken from the great dream 大夢先覺. in commemoration of the first anniversary of the shenzhou ribao, shenzhou ribao 神州日報, march 1, 1908. library of the harvard yenching institute. figure 22: ma xingchi 馬星馳, all day dozing in confused dreams. the sleeping man is defined as “the “organizations of china.” shenzhou huabao 3, july 1908. library of the harvard yenching institute. figure 23: ma xingchi 馬星馳, the danger of foreigners using railways to invade china. shenzhou ribao 神州日報, april 14, 1908. library of the harvard yenching institute. figure 24: ma xingchi馬星馳, the expansion of railways across the body of a sleeping manchu official. shenzhou huabao, 1910. library of the harvard yenching institute. figure 25: qian binghe 錢病鶴 (1879—1944), melon theater. minquan huabao 民權畫報 (the popular rights illustrated), 1912. reprint in qingdai baokan tuhua jicheng 清代報刊圖畫集成, beijing: quanguo tushuguan wenxian suowei fuzhizhongxin, 2001. figure 26: ma xingchi 馬星馳, the situation of the world. shenzhou ribao 神州日報, sep. 22, 1908. library of the harvard yenching institute. figure 27: ma xingchi 馬星馳, the weak are the flesh, the strong eat it 弱肉強食. shenzhou ribao 神州日報, 1911. library of the harvard yenching institute. figure 28: a look at china now and in the past, shenzhou ribao 神州日報, march 5, 1911. library of the harvard yenching institute. figure 29: the real trouble will come with the ‘wake’. puck (new york), august 15, 1900. beinecke rare book and manuscript library, yale university. figure 30: charles garabed atamian (1872–1947), the chinese giant rouses himself and shakes the other nations off the counterpane of the world. a french artist’s idea. reproduced from a french illustrated periodical for an article called “china’s great awakening to western ideas” in the illustrated london news, dec. 8, 1906, p.858.widener library, harvard university. figure 31: r. sabatky, 1942, colored chalk lithograph, berlin: julius springer, 1842. reprinted with permission of rheinisches stadtarchiv. figure 32: new cover for liang qichao’s paper xinmin congbao 新民叢報 (reform the people collectanea), yokohama, 1903. library of harvard yenching institute. figure 33: valdar, no title. national review (shanghai) june 1, 1912, cover page. from the library of the institute of chinese studies, heidelberg. figure 34: li yanzhi, master plan for layout of zhongshan ling sun yat-sen mausoleum, 1925. feng’an shilu, nanjing 1928. library of the institute of chinese studies, heidelberg. figure fn 1: die khue auß nider landt (the cow from the low countries), 1587. reproduced in robert philippe, political graphics. art as a weapon. new york: abbeville press, 1980, 65. figure fn 2: the frenchman says to riaz, ‘the cow is meagre, you and the british have not left any milk in it. from le flutiste (=le journal d’abou naddara), 1880. library of the cluster of excellence "asia and europe in a global context: shifting asymmetries in cultural flows" at heidelberg university. figure fn 3: ‘balsam aniseed’ cough medicine, advertisement, (see, for example, illustrated london news, nov. 1886). library of the institute of chinese studies, heidelberg. figure fn 4: wu youru 吳友如, a smart way to tame a lion 制獅法, dianshizhai huabao 點石齋畫報, 己集, march 1886. library of the institute of chinese studies, heidelberg. [1] key points of this article were presented as the hume memorial lecture at yale university in january 2011 and at the john k. fairbank center at harvard in march 2011. i am grateful for the input i received during the discussion. christoph harbsmeier made many valuable suggestions for improving and clarifying this essay. andrea hacker was of great and critical editorial help.  mareike ohlberg has shouldered the burden of helping with image copyright clearance. profs. jin guantao and liu qingfeng have been kind enough to give me access to their rich database of chinese works of the crucial period between 1850 and 1930. many colleagues have contributed valuable references, to wit prof. peil (munich) a reference on the use of the sleep metaphor in european political thought, prof. maissen (heidelberg) the reference to the swiss asleep, prof. sinn (hong kong) a shiju tu postcard in her possession, prof. higonnet (harvard) a reference to the tiers état asleep, prof. geyer (bonn) a reference on the petrarch reception, and prof. parel (calgary) a reference on gandhi. i am deeply grateful for this help, which in this kind of enterprise, that actually should be a collective work from the outset, is indispensable. [2] in the chinese case, the metaphorical nature is more deeply hidden. the study of chinese word families, based on the phoneme of the word, is not yet advanced enough to allow precise statements. the “etymology” traditionally used in china probes the written character as the etymon, although it may best be read as an effort to represent the content of the word. given the difficulty in representing abstract concepts such as “state” or “family” this approach yields little. in the case of the state, this “etymological” reading of the character guo 國—, which is a character composed of a square 囗that could be read as representing an enclosed realm or a walled capital, and the character huo 或, which is the phonetic indicator leading to the reading guo, inside this square, and has a meaning of “perhaps,” “or,” or “some”, led to a rejection of this form in the writings of the taiping heavenly kingdom in the midnineteenth century. they wrote the character in the form 囯, replacing the “perhaps” huo 或with “king” wang 王 to emphasize the hoped-for permanency of their kingdom. in this form it has been incorporated by the chinese communist party into the modern chinese standard script for both the complex and simple characters. [3] even when extant older terms are used to express newly imported items, such as 革命 geming for revolution in chinese, these are new words in the sense that their old content is replaced with the implications of the word they translate. [4] see, for example, hedwig konrad, étude sur la métaphore (paris: librairie philosophique j. vrin, 1958); max black, models and metaphors. studies in the philosophy of language (ithaca: cornell university press, 1962). george lakoff and mark johnson, metaphors we live by (chicago: university of chicago press, 1980). [5] nevertheless there are some very fine studies of this type such as alexander demandt, metaphern für geschichte. sprachbilder und gleichnisse im historisch-politischen denken [metaphors for history. images and parables in the language of historical-political thinking](munich: beck, 1978); and dietmar peil, untersuchungen zur staatsund herrschaftsmetaphorik in literarischen zeugnissen von der antike bis zur gegenwart [studies for metaphors of state and governance in literary sources from antiquity to the present time] (munich: fink, 1983). peil offers an appendix with images that illustrate the similes he studied. my own study of the globalization of the notion of “movement” as a form of social action has not explored the metaphorical aspect of this term in any detail. r. wagner, “the canonization of may fourth,” in the appropriation of cultural capital. china's may fourth project, ed. milena doleželová-velingerová (cambridge: harvard east asia center, 2002), 66–122. [6] otto brunner, werner conze, and reinhart koselleck eds., geschichtliche grundbegriffe: historisches lexikon zur politisch-sozialen sprache in deutschland (stuttgart: e. klett, 1972–1997). [7] hans blumenberg, paradigmen zu einer metaphorologie (frankfurt: suhrkamp publishers, 1998), 8. an english translation of this work was published by cornell university press in 2010. [8] “das verhältnis der metaphorologie zur begriffsgeschichte (im engeren terminologischen sinne) als ein solches der dienstbarkeit,” ibid., 11. [9] plato, republic, trans. benjamin jowett (oxford: clarendon press, 1871), 233. [10] see c.w. mendell, “horace i .1,” classical philology 33, no. 2 (apr. 1938):147. the interpretation of horace 1.14 as referring to a “ship of state,” which is an old reading quoted by blumenberg as the origin of the state/ship metaphor, has been abandoned as implausible. for the history of the state/ship metaphor in europe, see helmut quaritsch, “das schiff als gleichnis,” in recht über see. festschrift rolf stödter zum 70. geburtstag, ed. hans peter ipsen and karl-hartmann necker (hamburg: r. v. decker’s verlag, g. schenck), 250–286. [11] hans blumenberg, “ausblick auf eine theorie der unbegreiflichkeit,” in  schiffbruch mit zuschauer. paradigma einer daseinsmetapher (frankfurt: suhrkamp, 1979), 87. [12] jerry fodor, the language of thought (new york: crowell, 1975) argued for the primacy of concepts innate in human thought. i can see no evidence supporting such a claim. it would strip concepts of their linguistic, rhetorical, cultural and pragmatic contexts. [13] for this concept, see jürgen link, die struktur des symbols in der sprache des journalismus. zum verhältnis literarischer und pragmatischer symbole [the structure of the symbol in the language of journalism. the relationship between literary and pragmatic symbols] (munich: fink, 1978). [14] the metaphor of the state as a ship was not used in premodern chinese political debates. it was first used in the early twentieth century. for an example see the first chapter of liu e’s 劉鶚 1904–1907 novel laocan youji 老殘遊記 [the travels of laocan] (beijing: renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1987). at the same time, even in europe, it is a petrified artifact frozen in time and space and has never been modernized. perennially, it is the ancient greek vessel, transporting goods and men around the mediterranean.  the storms that howl around it, and the rocks, gods and monsters that threaten it, highlight the urgency for everyone on board to abide by the orders of the captain, even if he is not a sage. [15] see hans blumenberg, “ausblick auf eine theorie der unbegrifflichkeit,” in schiffbruch mit zuschauer (frankfurt: suhrkamp, 1979), 87–91. historical cartoons from britain, or texts, for example, in chinese, which employ images, allusions, or metaphors from sources now lost or forgotten, highlight the fact that the “past is a foreign country” and the need for such explanatory text. gillray’s cartoons from the early nineteenth century, to give one example, are largely incomprehensible to the modern, including british, reader. to cross the historical distance, scholars now draw on german explanations given at the time of the cartoons’ original publication in the weimar journal london und paris since 1798. christiane banerji and diana donald, eds., gillray observed: the earliest account of his caricatures in london and paris (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1999). [16] the chinese text is hard to read, but i deciphered what i could: russia 俄妥霸篡恥: striving for hegemony, imposing humiliation; england: 英保同(?)通商 maintaining [china’s] territorial integrity, securing trade; france: 法志拓已屬 striving to expand what it already controls; united states: 美念親助英 in consideration of family connections, supporting england; japan: 日助英拒霸 supporting england in warding off hegemonic control [by russia]; germany: 德(?)量大欲. insatiable, great greed. [17] this is a policy articulated by britain against russian and german claims following the chinese defeat in the sino–japanese war of 1894–1895. when the poster was printed, britain had partially retreated from this position by getting 99-year leases on kowloon opposite hong kong island, and the sea port of weihaiwei. [18] this might go back to a common english language slur for the french, the inclusion of frog legs in the french diet, or both. [19] there is some scholarship on animal imagery in the late qing. john fitzgerald, who had dealt with the imagery of “awakening” and the “lion” in his awakening china, went back to the origins of the “awakening” metaphor in his “‘lands of the east awake!’ christian motifs in early chinese nationalism,” in 公與私：近代中國個體與群體之重建 [gong and si: reconstructing individual and collective bodies in modern china], ed. huang kewu 黃克武, zheng zhejia 張哲嘉, (nankang: academia sinica, institute of modern history, 2000), 362–410. the article details some of the western, including australian, reception of marquis zeng’s piece to be discussed later, and traces the metaphors used in the debate back to their christian origins. dr. a. hacker was kind enough to alert me to the origin in st. paul’s “letter to the romans”, “do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed.” (romans 13:11). sin kiong wong and jeffrey n. wasserstrom, “animal imagery and political conflict in modern china,” in hanxue congheng – excursions in sinology, ed. james st. andré, (hong kong: commercial press, 2002), 233–275, focus on the use of animal imagery for slander. dan zhengping 單正平, 近代思想文化语境中的醒狮形象 [the image of the awakening lion in the cultural concepts of modern thinking], nankai daxue xuebao (zhexue shehuikexue ban) 4 (2006): 29–36, traces the use of the “sleeping lion” image especially after 1902 and adds information about the shifting chinese associations of the “lion.” a more extensive version is in his 晚清民族主義與文學轉型 [late qing nationalism and the literary transformation] (beijing: renmin chubanshe, 2006), 113–145. yang ruisong 楊瑞松，“睡獅將興？近代中國國族共同體論述中的’睡’與  ’獅’意象” [will the sleeping lion awaken? the images of “sleeping” and “lion” in debates about the common essence of the national race in modern china], guoli zhengzhi daxue lishi xuebao 30 (2008): 87–118, deals with the different images of china asleep in the chinese discussion. yang ruisong had access to the same database used in the present article. ishikawa yoshihiro 石川祯浩, “wan qing ‘shui shi’ xingxiang tanyuan,” 晚清“睡狮”形象探源 [exploring the “sleeping lion” image during the late qing], in zhongshan daxue xuebao (shehuikexue ban) 5 (2009): 49, 88–96, is tracing the use of the “sleeping lion” and its association with “frankenstein” further than did dan zhengping. [20] a dry and factual account that reads like a textual key for the map can be found in appleton’s cyclopaedia for 1900: “in 1897 russia, having intervened after the japanese victories to preserve manchuria for china, obtained, in connection with the privilege of building a branch of the siberian railroad through manchuria to a seaport on the gulf of pechili, a lease for ninety-nine years of the seaport of talienwan to serve as the terminus of the railroad and also of the military harbor of port arthur. germany, in the guise of retributory damages for the murder of two missionaries by a mob, demanded and obtained the port of kiao-chau, after landing troops there in the spring of 1898, and preferential commercial and political rights throughout the peninsula of shantung, thus establishing a claim to a sphere of influence in china. the british government, receding from the position of the open door which it had first taken in opposition to the russian and german claims to exclusive spheres, acquired a lease of wei-hai-wei, a naval port on the gulf of pechili, on the identical terms of the lease of port arthur to russia, and an agreement by the chinese government never to alienate any of the territories in the provinces adjoining the yangtse kiang to any other power, whether under lease, mortgage, or any other designation. the french government, which as protector of roman catholic missionaries and as an active and important military power formerly had more frequent diplomatic dealings with china than any other, though french trade in the country was comparatively small, and which had engaged in hostilities with china on account of the participation of the black flags in the tonquinese rebellion, now demanded and obtained a coaling station on the mainland opposite the island of hainan, also on a ninety-nine-year lease. the nonalienation assurances which had already been obtained regarding hai· nan were extended to the chinese provinces adjoining tonquin. great britain, asserting that parts of these provinces of kwangtung, kwangsi, and honan lie in the yangtse valley, and unwilling to concede to france preferential treatment in the trade of the west river or in territory adjacent to burma as well as to tonquin, demanded compensation in the shape of an extension of the kaulung settlement opposite hong-kong, and an assurance, identical in terms with that given to france, that two of the provinces would not be alienated. japan, which after the victorious war of 1895 had been forced by european intervention to be content with the cession of formosa, secured the promise now that the provinces opposite that island would never be alienated to any other nation, but did not seek any preferential economical advantages in those provinces. italy put forward a demand for a coaling station on lease, and this, though formally supported by great britain, was contemptuously refused. thirteen out of the 18 provinces of china have thus been marked out as spheres of influence by various european powers, and innumerable mining, railroad, and commercial concessions have been granted to foreigners. the number of treaty ports has gradually been increased to 32, some of them situated far in the interior, where the people have never yet come into contact with europeans.” appleton’s annual cyclopedia and register of important events of the year 1900 (new york: d. appleton and co., 1901), 90. [21] a reference to a much-quoted statement by the french prime minister jules f. ferry. [22] demetrius boulger, “the sick man of the far east,” the new century review 10 (october 1897): 258. [23] the term guomin also served to translate bluntschli’s “staatsvolk”, which in the english edition became “nation.” [24] the understanding that chinese nationalism was promoted through such shaming rather than a spontaneous commitment to the country was first suggested by paul cohen in his fine study on wang tao, "wang t'ao and incipient chinese nationalism," journal of asian studies 26, no.4 (1967): 559–574. it was further developed by kathryn edgerton-tarpley, tears from iron: cultural responses to famine in nineteenth century china (berkeley: university of california press, 2008). [25] gabriele goldfuss, vers un bouddhisme du xxe siècle: yang wenhui (1837–1911), réformateur laïque et imprimeur (paris: de boccard, 2001). [26] tse tsan tai, the chinese republic: secret history of the revolution. (hong kong: south china morning post, 1924), 9: “we obtained the secret support of the japanese government through the japanese consul.” [27] tse, chinese republic, 15. [28] tse, chinese republic, 15.  yang quyun 楊衢雲 (=yeong ku-wan) (1861–1901) had been involved with tse tsan tai in the founding of an underground anti-manchu revolutionary organization in hong kong in the early 1890s. when this group merged with sun yat-sen’s organization xing zhong hui, he became the first president. [29] ibid. [30] the images can be found on many web-sites; they are copied from wikipedia, accessed march 31, 2011, http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/file:%e6%97%b6%e5%b1%80%e5%9b%be.jpg. [31] shiju tu 時局圖 and anon, “shiju tu tici” 時局圖題詞 [the situation in the far east with explanatory notes], jindai shi ziliao 近代史資料 1 (1954): 6–12. the cantonese text in this reprint is annotated to allow for mandarin reading, and the notes have been merged with the text to produce a readable version for non-cantonese readers in wang yunhong 王雲虹, “youguan <shiju tu> de jige wenti” 有關<時局圖>的幾個問題, lishi jiaoxue 歷史教學 9 (2005): 74 n. 1. in a letter dated oct. 26, 2010, mr. d. bottoms from the cartographic section of the special media archives division of the national archives wrote that “the map specified has not been identified among the holdings of this office.” localizing a better copy would allow decipherment of the inscription in the bottom line, which probably would be that of a publisher traceable to either japan or hong kong. tse mentions the japanese print with his record of 1899, which could suggest a publication date in or close to this year. [32] this is a combination of two colloquial expressions. the first half goes back to the mengzi vii.i.21. there it is used for the gentleman who embodies virtue in such a manner that his entire body, mien and movements exude it without it having to be spelled out. the second is attested in the sayings of zhu xi, zhuzi yulei 朱子語類, ed. li jingde 黎靖德 and satô hitoshi 佐藤仁 (kyôto: chûbun shuppansha, 1984), 137. [33] anon, “shiju tu tici” 時局圖題詞 [the situation in the far east with explanatory notes], jindai shi ziliao 近代史資料 1 (1954): 6–12. a transcription into mandarin chinese can be found in wang yunhong 王云虹, “youguan <shiju tu> de jige wenti” 有關<時局圖>的幾個問題, lishi jiaoxue 歷史教學, 9(2005): 74 n. 1. [34] this phrase has led some commentators to assume that this cartoon and its key must be dated between 1900 and the russian-japanese war. there were, however, polemics against russia already before 1900 in japan and no political development of 1900 (boxers or foreign intervention) is alluded to. if this is indeed the japanese print, tse tsan tai’s chronology would place it in 1899. [35] “ai, what a funny teaser we have there in this ‘eldest son’ (=manchu)/…./ look how he is lying there all asleep and drowsy like this without bestirring himself.” ibid., 11. [36] the key refers to him with some subterfuge as a 蝦仔, a cantonese term for “eldest son.” as opposed to kang youwei and liang qichao, who maintained a—probably tactical—loyalty to the manchu dynasty, tse tsan tai and his group were strongly and explicitly anti-manchu. [37] the emptiness of traditional education is symbolized through the “empty” chinese characters 者, 也, 之 and 乎, which are in the text, but probably also on the old man’s book. the age of the old man shows how long it takes to even get a basic understanding of classical chinese. the antiquated weapons are the bow, the sword and the big stone in the text, and on the image the helbard, the horse, and the big stone (for lifting). the man in military training also seems beyond his prime. [38] i have only had access to this black and white copy of the colored original. [39] a selection of western war postcards dealing with japan and, marginally, china, was published by sepp linhart, “niedliche japaner” oder gelbe gefahr? “dainty japanese” or yellow peril? (vienna: lit verlag), 2005. [40] “xianshi” 現勢 [the present situation], e shi jing wen 俄事警聞 [alarming news on russian actions] 1 (dec. 1903), reprinted in zhonghua minguo shiliao congbian a12, (taipei: zhongguo guomindang zhongyang weiyuanhui dangshi shiliao bianzuan weiyuanhui, 1983), 7–9. [41] a list of kelly and walsh publications has been compiled by the firm, which still survives in hong kong. it can be found at http://www.defyse.com/kelly__walsh_publications.htm. accessed oct. 20, 2010. [42] huang zunxian 黄遵憲, riben guozhi 日本國志 [a record of japan], (yangcheng: fuwenzhai, 1890). see kamachi, noriko, reform in china: huang tsun-hsien and the japanese model (cambridge, ma: council on east asian studies, 1981). [43] huang zunxian 黄遵憲, “yang tian” 仰天 [raising the eyes to heaven], in renjing lu shi cao qianzhu 人境廬詩草箋注, ed. huang zunxian, with annotations by qian zhonglian 錢仲聯 (shanghai: shanghai guji, 1981), 797. thanks to mr. li man for his correction. [44] the full phrase for “dividing up the melon” is 豆剖瓜分 or 豆分瓜剖, “the doufu split up, and the melon divided.” in this case only the first half is used. [45] huang zunxian 黄遵憲, “bing zhong ji meng, shu ji liang renfu” 病中紀夢述寄梁任父 [while sick, i noted down a dream that i sent to liang qichao], in huang zunxian, renjing lu, 1071. for a translation with a different strategy, see j. d. schmidt, within the human realm: the poetry of huang zunxian 1848–1905 (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1994), 301–302. [46] i am preparing a study on this metaphor. for some details, see further down. [47] douglas reynolds was kind enough to inquire about details for this image during a visit to huang’s old home in 2010. a photograph of the image is still on display; the original is stored elsewhere and has not been made available to him. [48] “xianshi” 現勢 [the present situation], in e shi jing wen 1 (1903): 7–9. [49] “benshe guanggao” 本社廣告 [announcement from our publishing company], in e shi jing wen 1 (1903): 2. [50] editorial sheshuo 社說 “pugao guomin” 普告國民 [a general announcement to the citizens/nation] e shi jing wen 1 (1903): 3–4. [51] in its first issue the paper announced that the articles would even use different language registers according to the implied readers. the basic registers were documentary chinese, wen 文, and vernacular, bai 白; the language for itinerant practitioners and craftsmen, as well as settlers in the three northern provinces would be mandarin guanhua 官話; for examination candidates and peking residents, peking dialect 京話, and for hunanese, it would be the hunan vernacular 湖南白. e shi jing wen 1 (1903): 3. it would be an interesting exercise to check this announcement against the actual articles. [52] ibid.,  2. [53] both jürgen habermas and benedict anderson fail to take into account the extreme chasm between a media capital like shanghai and the rest of china, as well as the close links between these centers and similar centers in other countries. for further development of this argument, see below. [54] i am much obliged to profs. jin guantao and liu qingfeng for having granted me permission to make use of this database, to prof. zheng wenhui for having introduced the database to me and for transferring my queries to her graduate student mr. zhang jingyi 張靖怡, who extracted the data. [55] sone shōun 曾根嘯雲, wang tao王韜 et al. eds., fa yue jiaobing ji 法越交兵记 [record of the french-vietnamese military confrontation], (1886) repr. in jindai zhongguo shiliao congkan, (taipei: wenhai, 1971), vol. 615, chapter 4, 439. [56] these would be shiwu bao 時務報, zhixin bao 知新報, qingyi bao 清議報, guowen bao 國聞報, xiangxue bao 湘學報, wanguo gongbao 萬國公報 as well as collected essays by kang youwei, he qi, and tang caichang.  [57] as of march 2011, the shenbao database was not yet accessible for the period between 1893 and 1937. [58] the documentation will be provided further down in this study. [59] dietmar peil, “der staatskörper,” chap. c in untersuchungen zur staatsund herrschaftsmetaphorik in literarischen zeugnissen von der antike bis zur gegenwart (munich: wilhelm fink, 1983). gerhard dohrn-van rossum, “politischer körper, organismus, organisation. zur geschichte naturaler metaphorik und begrifflichkeit in der politischen sprache,” (ph.d. dissertation, bielefeld university, 1977). [60] examples are jan van kessel, allegories of the continents, 1664–1666. see http://cgfa.acropolisinc.com/k/k-2.htm#kessel and http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/k/kessel/index.html, or giovanni tiepolo’s depiction of the continents in the staircase of the würzburg palace. [61] peter paul rubens, “the rape of europe,” ca. 1630, accessed march 31, 2011, http://www.peterpaulrubens.org/the-rape-of-europa-c.-1630.html. this reading is questionable since the picture is a close copy of titian’s painting on the same theme in the gardner museum, boston, which is dated 1559–1562, and which rubens had seen in the collection of philip ii of spain. [62] see joachim von sandrart in his newe archontologia cosmica, 1638. for the iconography of the continents see sabine poeschel, “studien zur ikonographie der erdteile in der kunst des 16. bis 18. jahrhunderts,” (ph.d. dissertation, muenster 1985). [63] francesco petrarca, rerum vulgarum fragmenta, ed. rosanna bettarini (torino: einaudi, 2005), 1:53. “italia che suoi guai non par che senta./ vecchia otiosa et lenta/dormirà sempre, et non chia fi la svegli.” i am grateful to prof. dietmar peil for alerting me to the helpful entry on sleep in the metzler lexikon literarischer symbole, ed. günter butzer and joachim jacob (stuttgart: metzler, 2008), 322–324. petrarch was greatly denounced as a stalwart of the old order by the italian risorgimento. this might be the reason why mazzini, garibaldi, ruffini and others did not pick up this potentially “patriotic” quote. see amadeo quondam, “a proposito di identità nazionale, di petrarca e di dante” in his petrarca, l’italiano dimenticato (milano:rizzoli, 2004), 35–92. i am grateful to prof. geyer (bonn) for helping me locate this study on the petrarch reception during the nineteenth century. at the same time, satirical journals published during the risorgimento of 1848–1849 depicted italy routinely as being “asleep.” see ilaria torelli with antonello negri, “die jahre 1848–1848 in den italienischen satirezeitschriften—ein überblick,” in politik porträt, physiologie. facetten der europäischen karikatur im vorund nachmärz, ed. hubertus fischer and florian vaßen (bielefeld: aisthesis, 2010), 279. [64] the use of the sleep/awakening metaphor for christian religious awakenings refers to other values, but also refers to collective events. here sleep is associated with the dark night of sin and the “awakening”—such as the mass events in germany, the netherlands, the british isles and north america in the 1730s to 1750s, or the second great awakening in the same protestant areas since 1800—refers to the collective awakening of the faith. these awakenings contain a critique of the rationalist enlightenment agenda and its associated theology of virtue. for background, see my reenacting the heavenly vision. the role of religion in the taiping rebellion (berkeley: center for chinese studies, university of california, 1982), 10–18. in the buddhist context relevant for south, southeast and east asia, the sleep/awakening metaphor refers to the state of mind of individuals. [65] for the background on this print, see m. dorothy george, english political caricature to 1792. a study of opinion and propaganda (oxford: clarendon press, 1959), 152–153. [66] the 1587 engraving “die khue auß nider landt” [the cow from the netherlands] is an example of the early use of this iconographic ensemble with the cow in the center. the “feiste khue” (fat cow) of the “volckreich” (populous) netherlands, which is fat, peaceful, and non-militant, is the object of “grosse muhe” (great efforts) of four armed men who are identified by inscriptions as representatives of spain, france, germany and scotland. each is trying to appropriate and milk the cow. fig. fn 1: die khue auß nider landt (the cow from the low countries), 1587. the image of a country as a passive cow being milked by others also migrated. an example of egypt as the cow from an egyptian satirical journal: fig. fn 2: the frenchman says to riaz, ‘the cow is meagre, you and the british have not left any milk in it,’ 1880. [67] another early example of this iconographic model is a 1780 print entitled “argus.” it has george iii sleeping on the throne while royal advisors try to take his crown (to give to charles edward stuart, the young pretender). on the right side of the image, the british lion is asleep. britannia sits next to him with a gesture that might be either despair or sleep, but she has her shield lying idly beside her, which suggests the latter. reproduced in tamara hunt, defining john bull. political caricature and national identity in late georgian england (aldershot: ashgate, 2003), 127. [68] the role of the french revolution in “awakening” other nations from their slumber is emphasized by robert mackenzie in his the nineteenth century, a history (london: nelson and son, 1880). he writes on page 62 that it was napoleon “who roused italy from her sleep of centuries, and led her toward that free and united national life which she at length enjoys.” i am much obliged to my heidelberg colleague thomas maissen for introducing me to this swiss image, which he discussed in his “der freiheitshut. ikonographische annäherungen an das republikanische freiheitsverständnis in der frühneuzeitlichen eidgenossenschaft,” in kollektive freiheitsvorstellungen im frühneuzeitlichen europa (1400 bis 1850), jenaer beiträge zur geschichte 8, ed. georg schmidt, martin van gelderen and christopher snigula (frankfurt am main: lang, 2006), 133–145. [69] a superb and knowledgeable decipherment of every item in this cartoon for people in a different country not familiar with many of the characters can be found in the german language journal london und paris 15 (1802): 331–343. the illustration here is taken from the copy made for reproduction in this journal. [70] gillray, an inveterate supporter of pitt’s radical measures against “republican” articulations, also used the same theme in another print about the amiens peace treaty. james gillray, “political dreaming: visions of peace! perspective horrors,” 1802. [71] der deutsche michel, erläutert von einem seiner freunde und leidensgenossen (leipzig: renger’sche buchhandlung, 1843). [72] while in many aspects exceedingly knowledgeable, the identification by the key of this figure with karl august varnhagen von ense (1785–1858) is not convincing (p. 18). von ense was editor of a romantic journal before embarking on a military and diplomatic career during which he was in austrian, russian and prussian service. [73] “abermals eine berliner carrikatur,” reprinted from berlinische zeitung in politische karikaturen des vormärz (1815–1848), ed. remigius brückmann (karlsruhe: badischer kunstverein, 1984), 85. [74] the theme of michel asleep was repeated in other prints of the time. in 1842, anton klaus, obviously aware of the gillray print, drew michel as a huge infant tied to a crib, his mouth stuffed with a sugar bag inscribed “politisches selbstbewusstsein [political self-awareness]” with the powers led by metternich surrounding him singing a lullaby. it combines words with images: “sleep, michael, sleep, you were and are a (image:) sheep, sleep on a little while, as you don’t know any (image:) owl,” (a pun on the similar pronunciation of the german word for owl—eule and hurry—eile). reproduced in politische karikaturen, ed. brückmann,  83. [75] r. sabatky, without title; chalk lithography (berlin: julius springer 1843), reprinted in brückmann, politische karikaturen, 86. [76] city museum, cologne, rm 1928/91. reproduced in brückmann, politische karikaturen, 88. [77] heinrich heine, sämtliche schriften, ed. klaus briegleb (munich: hanser, 1974), 5:210. this discussion about sleep differs from that about dream, which operates on another register. for a discussion see bernard dieterle and manfred engel eds., the dream and the enlightenment. le rêve et les lumières, international eighteenth century studies 7 (paris: honoré champion, 2003), and peter andré alt, der schlaf der vernunft. literatur und traum in der kulturgeschichte der neuzeit (munich: beck, 2002). [78] heinrich heine, “doktrin,” vorwärts! pariser deutsche zeitschrift 48(july 20, 1844):1. [79] see emanuel geibel, “barbarossas erwachen” [the awakening of barbarossa], in geibels werke, ed. wolfgang stammler  (leipzig: bibliographisches institut, 1918), 1:183–186. heinrich heine poked fun at these fantasies. see his deutschland, ein wintermärchen, ed. ursula roth and heidemarie vahl (stuttgart: metzler, 1995), 98–120, sections xiv to xvii. [80] “ji dongbang xuehui shi” 記東邦學會事 [report about the study society of japan], translated into chinese by zhenji 貞吉, in shiwu bao 時務報 17 (january 13, 1897). [81] robert mackenzie, the nineteenth century, a history (london: t. nelson and sons, 1880), 217. [82] m. k. gandhi, hind swaraj or indian home rule, originally published in the gujarat columns of indian opinion (11th and 18th dec., 1909). translated by the author. accessed march 31, 2011, http://www.mkgandhi.org/swarajya/coverpage.htm. this text has been described as a transcultural exchange, namely a reaction to the weekly “our notebook” entry by g. k. chesterton in the illustrated london news (sept. 18, 1909), 387. see, martin b. green, gandhi: voice of a new age revolution (new york: axios, 2009), 266; ramachandra guha, “a prophet announces himself. mahatma gandhi's 'hind swaraj' a hundred years on,“ times literary supplement (sept. 4, 2009), 14–15. gandhi had substantial parts of this chesterton article translated into gujarati and published it in his journal indian opinion on jan. 8, 1910. from there it has been retranslated to be included in the collected works of mahatma gandhi (ahmedabad: the publications division, ministry of information and broadcasting, government of india, 1963), 9:425–427 under the title “white’s views on indian awakening.” [83] “zhongguo jiaoyang” 中國教養 [chinese education], shiwu bao 時務報45 (november 15, 1897), trans. sun zhao 孙超 and wang shi 王史. this is a translation of “the immediate future of chinese education,” north china herald, oct. 29, 1897, 776–777. in the original, this section read: “educationally the present position is not unlike that of england at the period of the renaissance. in common with other lands, england had passed the dark ages in a state of intellectual torpor. she woke to find that not only all knowledge was in the hands of priests, but that even for them the search for it had to be through the secret syllables of unspoken tongues. to gain knowledge of these hidden mysteries became the aim of every thinking man of means. the grammar schools of edward vi were the result, and the english “scholar” soon became what the chinese “scholar” is today, literally a reading man and no more.” [84] a reprint is abū nazzarah (beirut: dār ṣādir, 1974). [85] kang youwei 康有爲, “進程突厥削弱記序” [preface to the record of the weakening of turkey], chap. 1 in kang youwei zhenglun ji 康有爲政論集, (repr. beijing: zhonghua, 1981). [86] “letters from the mountains. letter vii,”the press 3 (1797). [87] editorial, freeman's journal and daily commercial advertiser (dublin, ireland), friday, november 24, 1876. [88] “letters to the editors ,” liverpool mercury (liverpool, england), tuesday, august 30, 1881; issue 10495. [89] “varieties,” the derby mercury (derby, england), wednesday, may 1, 1850; issue 7046. [90] “the dispensary doctors,” freeman's journal and daily commercial advertiser (dublin, ireland), wednesday, august 26, 1857. [91] at the end of the crimean war in 1856, turkey became a full member of the group of “civilized” states for whom “international law” was to provide guidelines. in a sermon on peace given on april 6, 1856 in dublin, the preacher is quoted as saying: “turkey has been called a ‘sick man dying’, perhaps it ought rather be called a sleeping giant. we must no longer suffer it to be drugged with its own drought. the nation must be regenerated, or un-done.” “the peace,” in the belfast news-letter (belfast, ireland), monday, april 14, 1856; issue 123819. [92] i am working on a study of this rhetorical feature, its transcultural migration, and its reconfiguration. napoleon is credited with being the first to have called china a “giant asleep” in a conversation with lord amherst on st. helena in 1816. see, william safire, safire’s new political dictionary. the definitive guide to the new language of politics, 3rd ed. (new york: random house, 1993), 715. however, i have seen no references to this in nineteenth century sources, and was unable to find a record of lord amherst’s conversation. [93] sadly, we cannot substantiate the result of this with a new and inclusive statistical curve. it is one of the unhappy consequences of an approach using a “nation state default mode” for database development that it excludes the ample multilingual resources available to show the transcultural and translingual connections in all realms of life. the database used for the statistics above contains exclusively chinese sources and none of the treasure trove of english or other foreign language publications coming out in china.   [94] tseng chi-tse, “china: the sleep, and the awakening,” asiatic quarterly review 3, no.1 (1887): 1–12. [95] demetrius boulger, the life of sir halliday macartney (london: john lane the bodley head, 1908), 431. [96] tseng, “china,” 2. thomas wade, note on the condition and government of the chinese empire in 1849 (hong kong: printed at the china mail office, 1850), 83. [97] tseng, “china,” 2. [98] zeng jize’s late father, as well as li hongzhang, who was dominating chinese foreign policy when the article was written, were the key figures in the “foreign learning”(yangwu) current that had been pushing for some self-strengthening reforms since the 1860s. [99] the quotation begins on page 436, line 9. [100] tseng, “china,” 4. [101] the north china herald notes on march 2, 1887, that “the article…attributed to the marquis tseng continues to attract, as is only natural, considerable attention.” the paper assumed the article was an official policy peace vetted by the court in peking. [102] zeng rejoiced in the echo. he wrote about it and about translations into german and russian being under way in a letter to halliday macartney, his secretary, who had drafted the article. demetrius boulger, the life of sir halliday macartney (london: john lane the bodley head, 1908), 431–437. the british reaction can be found in the reviews of zeng’s article by sir rutherford alcock and w. lockhart under the title “china and its foreign relations,” in asiatic quarterly review 3 (1887): 443–466 and in the spectator. the american reaction is detailed in chiu ling-yeong, “debate on national salvation: ho kai versus tseng chi-tse,” journal of the hong kong branch of the royal asiatic society 11 (1971): 38–40. see also lee en-han 李恩涵, zeng jize de waijiao 曾紀澤的外交, zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo zhuankan 15 (1966), chap. 5.3. an anonymous reader kindly pointed out that copies of the shiju tu are in the french foreign ministry archives, and that others could most likely be found in the corresponding archives of the other powers. i have not followed up on this important suggestion, which might also lead to comments by diplomats on the cartoon. i might convey the results of further researches in this field in a later “addendum”. [103] prints of the english language article are in the (hong kong) china mail, feb. 8, 1887, the north china herald in shanghai, feb. 16, 1887, 181–182, the china times (tianjin), and the chinese recorder and missionary journal 18, no.4 (april 1887). on feb. 18, 1887, the new york times printed a lengthy summary of the main points that were of interest to the us together with an encomium of the man and the document itself, which was seen as “practically a manifesto of the future aims and policies of his government.” the asiatic quarterly review was widely read in the asian community and reviewed in the british periodical press. [104] zeng jiegang, 曾劼剛 (=zeng jize), “zhongguo xian shui hou xing lun” 中國先睡後醒論, shenbao, june 14 and 15, 1887. [105] a 1905 japanese article claimed that zeng’s article “made quite the round in diplomatic circles at the time. the russian foreign minister guchkov was so stunned by it that he accepted zeng’s demands.” “lun zhongguo waijiao benlun,” 論中國外交本原 [on the foundations of chinese foreign policy], translated into chinese in waijiao bao 外交報 130 from the fourth part of the article 清囯外交の活歷史 [the history of chinese foreign policy], tōkyō nichinichi shinbun, nov. 5, 1905, 6. the time sequence is wrong here: the negotiations in st. petersburg were concluded in 1881. [106] sir rutherford alcock, “china and its foreign relations,” asiatic quarterly review 3 (1887): 443–460. this is a detailed review of marquis tseng’s arguments. a critical summary can be found in the north china herald 38, may 27, 1887, 569.  similar criticism was voiced by the spectator in london, quoted in chiu, “debate on national salvation”, 37, in the same issue of the asiatic quarterly review. in his article “china and its foreign relations”, w. lockart challenges tseng on the issues of labor emigration, extraterritoriality, and navy leadership . [107] alcock, “china and its foreign relations,” 449. [108] north china herald, march 2, 1887. [109] sinensis (he qi), “letter to the editor of the china mail,” prefaced by a short introduction to zeng jize’s article “china: the sleep and awakening,” the china mail, feb. 16, 1887, 2. [110] gerald h. choa, the life and times of sir ho kai: a prominent figure in nineteenth century hong kong (hong kong: chinese university press, 1981). on he qi, see also woo sing lim, the prominent chinese in hongkong (wanchai: five continents book , 1937), and lin qiyan 林啓彥, “yan fu yu he qi–liangwei liu ying xuesheng jindai sixiang moshi de tantao” 嚴復與何啓-兩位留英學生近代思想模式的探討, jindaishi yanjiu 近代史研究 3 (2004): 1–21. [111] anon. [he qi], editorial, in the china mail, march 12, 1895. the supporting editorial was published on march 18 in the same paper. [112] he qi 何啓, xinzheng zhenquan 新政真詮 [a true exposition of the reform of the polity] (1898, 1900) (shenyang: liaoning renmin chubanshe, 1994). according to tse, ho kai is the author of an important program for a reform that involved replacement of the manchu dynasty. it was anonymously published in lieu of an editorial in the china mail on march 12, 1895, 2. [113] sinensis (he qi), “letter to the editor of the china mail,” the china mail, feb. 16, 1887, 2. [114] three issues of the north china herald in shanghai in january and early february 1898 brought out summaries and excerpts of articles from no less than 83 newspapers and periodicals from more than 18 countries and territories (great britain 27, united states 9, china 8, japan 7, germany 6, hong kong 5, russia 4, france 3, singapore 3, korea 2, ceylon 2, denmark 1, spain 1, thailand 1, burma 1, vietnam 1, canada 1, and south africa 1). all eight papers from “china” came out in the treaty ports. it was widespread practice in the british press at the time to provide an overview of the recent papers and journals, and some of them, such as the review of reviews, did nothing else. [115] see note 128. at the time such thoughts were far from uncommon, because the initial reorganization of the chinese navy was entrusted to a british naval officer by the qing court. [116] we know this from a curious letter written by zeng’s physician dr. dudgeon to the chinese times in tianjin. dudgeon complained of unfair insinuations against the marquis in a report that accused the latter of associating with foreigners who were no better than “the scum of the earth”. claiming that “h.e. the marquis tseng having wisely resolved never to take any notice of newspapers articles,” dr. dudgeon wrote to the chinese times in tianjin to protest against this “flagrant,” “coarse” and “libellous” accusation that was, he said, without foundation. part of this letter was reproduced in the china mail, sept. 9, 1899, 3, which had carried the news from the chinese times. [117] the chinese translation, done orally by yan yongjing 顏詠經 and written down by yuan zhuyi 袁竹一, was included under the title 中国先睡后醒論 into the shenbao, 申报on june 14–15,1887.  eventually, the zongli yamen version was also included into the huangchao xu’ai wenbian 皇朝蓄艾文編 (shanghai: guanshuju, 1903), chap. 1. [118] anon. (he qi), “shu zeng gong hou zhongguo xian shui hou xing lun hou” 書曾襲侯中國先睡後興論後 (written after reading marquis zeng’s ‘china: the sleep and the awakening’), translated by hu liyuan 胡禮垣 (1848–1916), huazi ribao 華字日報, 11 may, 1887. the information about the huazi ribao translation is from chiu ling-yeong, “debate on national salvation.” i am not aware whether a copy of this paper still exists for this period. [119] “shu ‘zhongguo xian shui hou xing lun’ hou” 書中國先睡後醒論後 [writing after ‘china. the sleep and the awakening’], shenbao, june 19, 1887, 1. we are unable to document the oral discussion of the time in any detail. however, the revival of the discussion about zeng’s article a decade later shows that it did leave a lasting memory among the then still very young chinese reformers. [120] wagner, “canonization,” 69–95. see also rudolf wagner, “political institutions, discourse and imagination in china at tiananmen,” in rethinking third world politics, ed. james manor (london: longman, 1991), 131. [121] “lun zhongguo jianglai qingxing” 論中國將來情形 [on the future situation of china], shiwu bao 時務報 6 (june 29, 1896), translated from the london dongfang bao. this assessment of a need for foreign pressure was shared by li hongzhang and prince qing. in the wake of the boxer rebellion and the foreign intervention the powers established a committee to draft demands for a reorganization of china’s foreign relations establishment and the upgrading of the tsung-li yamen into a ministry of foreign affairs. li hongzhang submitted a proposal for this reorganization with the explicit oral request that it be presented, if acceptable, to the qing court as a foreign demand and not as his proposal.  see fabian münter, “das waiwu bu 外務部–reform des chinesischen außenministeriums 1901–1911,” (m.a. dissertation, university of heidelberg, 2009), 27, quoting a confidential memorandum of the german ministry of foreign affairs of april 1901 about this discussion. in chinese historiography, the reorganization of the chinese ministry of foreign affairs has been routinely described as an imperialist imposition, that therefore carried the “mark of shame.” see wang licheng 王立誠, zhongguo jindai waijiao zhidu shi 中國近代外交制度史 [history of the modern chinese foreign policy establishment] (lanzhou: gansu renmin chubanshe, 1991), 175. [122] north china herald, oct. 29, 1897, 776–777. see note 83. [123] “zhongguo jiaoyang,” 11. [124] the article is said to come from an english language paper the title of which is translated as guoyun bao 國運報. unfortunately, my searches for relevant key words from the chinese translation in databases of contemporary british newspapers and journals were unsuccessful. [125] garnet wolseley, narrative of the war with china in 1860 (london: longman, green, longman and robert, 1862). [126] viscount wolseley, “china and japan,” the cosmopolitan; a monthly illustrated magazine, february 1895, 417–423. in 1904, wolseley elaborated on this assessment with an even stronger, but also more ominous statement. “there is no nation, numerically as great as china, whose customs and modes of life are so generally common to all parts of their vast empire. to me they are the most remarkable race on earth, and i have always thought and still believe them to be the great coming rulers of the world. they only want a chinese peter the great or napoleon to make them so. they have every quality required for the good soldier and the good sailor, and in my idle speculation upon this world's future i have long selected them as the combatants on one side at the great battle of armageddon, the people of the united states of america being their opponents.” field-marshal viscount wolseley, the story of a soldier’s life (toronto: the book supply company limited, 1904), 2:2. [127] the article was summarized in the british review of reviews, march 1895, 237; the british article translated in the guowen bao assumes readers’ familiarity with its argument; and the english language national review (shanghai) again referred to it as late as 1912. “what lord wolseley thought,” national review, nov. 12, 1912, 411. [128] “ruhou huan he 如後患何 [what future trouble], translated by wang xuelian 王學廉, guowen bao 國聞報, march 22, 1898, 2. it quotes the jan 1, 1898 edition of the english paper translated as guoyun bao 國運報, which i have not been able to identify. [129] “lord wolseley on the war between china and japan,” the sun (baltimore), feb. 8, 1895, 4. [130] “british association,” the times, sept. 14, 1898, 8, col. 3, quoting colonel g. l. church. [131] “the german emperor’s joke,” an article purporting to report about a dream of the kaiser in the spectator, was extensively summarized and discussed in the north china herald, feb. 7, 1898, 162. “of course, “[china] may wake up; but germany has a good and large base in kiaochou…; it can raise a force of malays officered by europeans, and have a quarrel any time with peking,” comments the north china herald and ends with a quote from the article: “china is dead; there are no princes in china with standing armies; there is no trustworthy militia; the population is wholly unaccustomed to battle; and the mandarins could not even resist the japanese.” [132] “looking forward,” new york times, dec. 9, 1894. [133] this even includes references to a china/frankenstein link. in a debate on china in the house of representatives in 2007, the republican house member dana rohrabacher is quoted as saying that the consequence of the us giving china access to advanced technology of military uses was that “we have built up a frankenstein that now threatens us.” “china 'frankenstein threat' to us,” in aljazeera news, may 2, 2007, accessed jan 20, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2007/05/2008525125941866484.html. a keyword search on google news for “china” and “frankenstein” yields a plethora of references to the trope made during world war ii and the cold war. [134] yan fu also refers to wolseley’s statement about a “gordon” being needed to develop the chinese army. as the translated article does not include such a reference, yan fu must have read the wolseley article in the cosmopolitan. [135] guowen bao 國聞報, march 22, 1898, translated from the guoyun bao 國運報 in england, jan 1, 1898. see also ishikawa yoshihiro 石川祯浩, “wan qing ‘shui shi’ xingxiang tanyuan,” 晚清‘睡狮’形象探源 [exploring the image of the “sleeping lion” during the late qing], zhongshan daxue xuebao (shehuikexue ban) 5 (2009): 49, 88–96. [136] the actual formula is “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” [137] guowen bao 國聞報, march 22, 1898, translated from the guoyun bao 國運報 in england, jan 1, 1898. [138] yan fu used the same expression, 凡動必復, in the preface to his translation of huxley’s evolution and ethics, where he set out to prove that ancient chinese works, especially the zhouyi [book of changes], had long before developed newton’s and spencer’s core arguments. see yan fu 嚴復, “tianyan lun zixu” 天演論自序 [preface to evolution and ethics], in yan fu ji 嚴復集 (beijing: xinhua shuju, 1984), 5:1319. [139] liang qichao 梁啟超, “baoguo hui yanshuo[run sanyua chuyi ri di er ci yanshuo] xinhui” 保國會演説 [閏三月初一日第二次集說]新會 [second speech at the meeting of the association for saving the nation 保國會, peking, (april 21, 1898)], published with some alterations in zhixin bao 知新報 55, june 9, 1898. liang obviously had not carefully read the article in the guowen bao, which does not attribute the frankenstein monster reference to wolseley. [140] dan zhengping misquotes and then misreads this phrase. he quotes the 曾侯紀澤譯其名謂之睡獅 without the 謂 and then reads it as “translated its name sleeping lion” [into frankenstein], wan qing minzuzhuyi yu wenxue zhuanxing, 126. [141] anon. (liang qichao 梁啟超), “dongwu tan” 動物談 [talking about animals], pt. 4, qingyi bao 4, april 1899. [142] liang qichao, “guafen weiyan”瓜分危言, pt. 4, qingyi bao 33. [143] liang, “guafen,” pt. 4, 1469. [144] the term, also used for china as the “old empire” in figure 20, refers to western discussions about the modern fate of old empires such as the ottoman empire and china. [145] liang qichao, “shaonian zhongguo shuo” 少年中国说 [on young china], (feb. 10, 1900), in liang qichao quanji 梁啟超全集 [collected works of liang qichao], ed. zhang pinxing 張品興 (beijing: beijing chubanshe 1999), 1:410. [146] yong lei, auf der suche nach dem modernen staat: die einflüsse der allgemeinen staatslehre johann caspar bluntschlis auf das staatsdenken liang qichaos, [in search of the modern state: the influence of johan caspar bluntschli’s theory of the state] (frankfurt: peter lang, 2010), chap. 2, 95–116. [147] cheng kuangmin 鄭匡民, liang qichao qimeng sixiang de dongxue beijing 梁啟超啟蒙思想的東學背景 [the japanese learning background to liang qichao’s enlightenment thought] (shanghai: shanghai shudian, 2003), chapter 3. [148] “organic theary [sic] of the state” 國家有機體說, in zhen kui 斟葵 “xin mingci shiyi” 新名詞釋義 [new concepts explained], zhejiang chao 浙江潮 2 (march 18, 1903). see pan guangzhe 潘光哲, “bolunzhili yu liang qichao: sixiang mailuo de kaocha” 伯倫知理與梁啟超：思想脈絡的考察 [bluntschli and liang qichao: an investigation of hidden intellectual connections], in liang qichao yu jindai zhongguo shehui wenhua 梁啟超與近代中國社會文化 [liang qichao and society and culture in modern china], ed. li xisuo 李喜所 (tianjin: tianjin guji chubanshe, 2005), 295–301. [149] liang qichao, 梁啟超. “kaiming zhuanzhi lun” 開明專制論 [on enlightened despotism], in xinmin congbao 新民叢報 [reform of the citizen miscellany] 74–75, 1906. reprint in liang qichao quanji 梁啟超全集 [complete works of liang qichao], vol. 2 (beijing: beijing chubanshe, 1999),  1451–1486. [150] in the military context, the dependency on the “people” being of one mind is sometimes stressed. advising the king against a military strategy that relied on finding the right moment, knowing the terrain and observing the opponents manoeuvres, xunzi said: “no. the general rule in antiquity as i have heard it is that the basis of using soldiers for warfare lies in unifying the people. […]if the six horses [in front of the imperial carriage, r.w.] are not in harmony, [even a charioteer as capable as] caofu will not be able to get far. when gentry and people are not closely knit [even sage rulers such as] tang and wu will not be sure of their victory.” xunzi, chapter “yi bing” 議兵 [discussing the military], xunzi jijie 荀子集解 (beijing: zhonghua, 1988), 265–266. according to xunzi, military strength depends on the people being “closely knit” for a common goal, but our late qing discussions do not take this option of linking with past discussions. for a study of early chinese state metaphor, see rudolf g. wagner, “treating the body politic. political aspects of the medical metaphor in china,” in the body metaphor, ed. susan richter (heidelberg: springer, forthcoming). [151] tse tsan tai, the chinese republic: secret history of the revolution (hong kong: south china morning post), 1924, 7. [152] rodney noonan, “grafton to guangzhou: the revolutionary journey of tse tsan tai,” journal of intercultural studies 27, no. 1–2 (2006): 103. on the chinese freemasons in australia, see john fitzgerald, “revolution and respectability: chinese masons in australian history,” in connected worlds. history in transnational perspective, ed. ann curthoys and marilyn lake (canberra: australian national university e-press, 2005), 89–110. [153] a chinese sufferer (= tse tsan tai), “manifesto of the people to the emperor of china,” hong kong telegraph, may 30, 1895, 2. tse tsan tai, “a chinese protest,” hong kong telegraph may 30, 1894, 2. duncan wrote a biographical sketch of tse. chesney duncan, “tse tsan tai: his political & journalistic career: a brief record,” (london: globe encyclopaedia co., 1917). [154] in his memoir about his revolutionary activities, tse claimed that he enjoyed the “secret support of the japanese government through the japanese consul” for their attempted uprising in canton in 1895. tse, chinese republic, 9.  [155] hsueh, c., “sun yat-sen, yang ch’ü-yün, and the early revolutionary movement in china,” journal of asian studies 19, no.3 (1960): 307. [156] see tsan tai tse (xie zuantai) 謝纘泰, the chinese republic. secret history of the revolution (hongkong: south china, morning post, ltd.,1924), 15. dates advanced in prc studies are ignorant of the information provided by tse himself and are based on feng ziyou 馮自由, geming yishi 革命逸史 [reminiscences of the revolution] (taibei: taiwan commercial press, 1977), 62. feng reprints the cartoon and claims it was drafted in july, 1898, that is, before the coup that ended the hundred days of 1898. the date on the print itself confirms tse’s own dating. see, for example, wang yunhong 王雲紅, “youguan “shiju tu” de jige wenti 有關<時局圖>的幾個問題, lishi jiaoxue 历史教学 9(2005): 71. [157] the term has been coined to describe the role of “natives” familiar with “white” culture that allowed them to help with the communication between the two. it is here used without the random ethnic marker for people who fulfil this role, independent of their ethnic and linguistic background. [158] at the time, this term was still exclusively used for christian missionary work. however, the shiju tu, together with its inscriptions, must in substance be clearly be defined as propaganda. [159] jung-fang tsai, “the predicament of the comprador ideologists: he qi (ho kai, 1859–1914) and hu liyuan (1847–1916),” modern china 7, no. 2 (april 1981), 191–197. [160] this has been for many years the standard term used, for example, for the founder and editor of china’s most important early newspaper, ernest major, in prc publications. [161] mary louise pratt, “arts of the contact zone,” profession 91 (1991): 33–40, and since reprinted many times. [162] for a short overview of this concept and its history, see gary fields, “dual economy,” (working papers 17, cornell university ilr school, 2007), accessed feb. 28, 2011, http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=workingpapers. [163] both hong kong island and the area where the shanghai international settlement developed were uninhabited before the opium war, after which they became colony and treaty port respectively. in this sense, the chinese moving there were as much immigrants as those coming from elsewhere. [164] j. s. pughe, “putting his foot down,” puck xlvi no. 1172, aug. 23, 1899. [165] the term on the writ in the hands of the qing official, 局外中立, is a translation for “neutrality” that japanese scholars of dutch learning had produced by the 1860s. it is made up of two character pairs, each of which had been used as a translation for different aspects of “neutrality”. the first is from w.a.p. martin’s translation of wheaton’s elements of international law, the second from nishi amane’s 1868 summary of the lectures on international law of his leiden teacher vissering, fisuserinku-shi bankoku kōhō. for details, see douglas howland, “japanese neutrality in the nineteenth century: international law and trans-cultural process,” transcultural studies 1, 2010, 4–7. [166] the china times had been published in shanghai since the end of 1907. the supplement was first called shishibao tuhua xunbao 時事報圖畫旬報 [china times illustrated weekly], and was soon renamed tuhua xinwen 圖畫新聞 [illustrated news]. [167] for more on this cartoon, see yu shiling 俞士玲, “wan qing <tuhua xinwen>zhong 1907 nian de zhengti gaige” 晚清《图画新闻》中一九○七年的政体改革(图) [reform of the political system in the late qing illustrated news], accessed feb 20, 2011, http://cathay.ce.cn/history/200908/17/t20090817_19799922.shtml. prof. yu was kind enough to share a copy of the image with me. [168] see zhu jinyuan 朱金元, “shilun qing mo wu dachen chuyang” 試論清末五大臣出洋 [a study on the political investigation abroad of five ministers in the late qing dynasty], xueshu yuekan 學術月刊5(1987), 68–75. [169] it was published until 1947. its revolutionary credentials and credibility made it a take-over target for yuan shikai, and later for the japanese occupation force. [170] this sketch is largely based on the information provided on “jining personalities” in the shandong sheng ziliaoku [materials on shandong province], an official provincial website, accessed on nov. 17, 2010, http://sd.infobase.gov.cn/bin/mse.exe?seachword=&k=a&a=84&rec=1350&run=13. while information is given there on his involvement in the preparations for the canton uprising and his close contacts with sun yat-sen, no connection with tse tsan tai is mentioned. i have not verified the information on his role in paris. [171] originally in the zouyan bao 鄒言報 newspaper, which wang kangnian edited between november 1910 and november 1911. quoted in shan zhengping 單正平, “jindai sixiang wenhua yujingde xingshi xingxiang” 近代思想文化語境中的醒獅形象 [the awaken lion image in modern cultural context],” nankai daxue xuebao (zhexue shehuikexue ban) 4 (2006): 32–33. [172] they have been assembled from late nineteenth century and early twentieth century issues of us cartoon papers in philip p. choy, lorraine dong, marlon k. hom, coming man: 19th century perceptions of the chinese (hong kong: joint publishing, 1994). [173] giacomo puccini, turandot, libretto by giuseppe adami and renato simoni (new york: ricordi, 1926), 36. the italian text is: “o china, o china/che or sussulti e trasecoli/inquieta/ come dormivi lieta/gonfia dei tuoi settantamila secoli!” thanks to franco moretti for alerting me to this passage. the scene may be seen and listened to on youtube in a performance of the teatro civico in vercelli in april 17, 2009 with valerio garzo singing the role of ping. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xhopnsxymg&feature=related. accessed april 3, 2011. [174] ibid., 82. [175] charles atamian was an artist of armenian origin. while mostly known for his book illustrations and sunny images of women and children on the deauville beach in the 1920s and 1930s, he produced quite a few illustrations and images of political propaganda, particularly during world war i. [176] catherine v. yeh, a literary fashion goes global: the political novel in late qing china (cambridge: harvard council of east asian studies, forthcoming). i am grateful to have had access to a draft of this study, from which i have culled the references. similar stories about china’s sleep and awakening abound in this genre. [177] chen tianhua 陳天華, shizi hou 獅子吼 [the roar of the lion]. (originally serialized in minbao, issues 2–5, 7–9, 1906; repr. nanchang: jiangxi renmin chubanshe, 1988). [178] chen jihua, shizi hou, 1988, 31–32. [179] liang qichao, “xin zhongguo weilai ji” 新中國未來記 [the future of new china], xin xiaoshuo (nov. 1902–sep. 1903). [180] chen jihua, shizi hou, 1988, 32–33. [181] wang kangnian 汪康年, “lun jiaozhou beizhan shi” 論膠州被占事 [on the occupation of jiaozhou], shiwu bao 時務報 52 (february 21,1898). [182] this journal had close connections to yuan shikai who had become president of the young republic. [183] j. henningsmeier, “the foreign sources of dianshizhai huabao, a nineteenth century shanghai illustrated magazine,” ming qing yanjiu (1998): 74–76. the aesopian fable was continuously used in powell’s advertisements in the london press as the trademark for its “balsam aniseed” cough medicine fig. fn 3: ‘balsam aniseed’ cough medicine, advertisement, 1886. the message for the consumer was that a small capsule of powell's balsam (the mouse) would liberate the entire big body (the lion, tied down by strings) from the pain of the cough that was tying it down. the dianshizhai huabao used the image to illustrate a story entitled “a smart way to tame a lion.” it refers to the wife of the song dynasty official and poet su shi, who would roar like a lion if he brought guests, but, tied by the strings of marriage, as she was, there was little else she could do. in the dianshizhai image by wu youru, three mice (su shi and friends) are happily eating the helpless lion’s food. fig. fn 4: wu youru 吳友如, a smart way to tame a lion 制獅法, 1886. [184] lu xun, preface to the collection nahan (december 1922), in selected stories of lu hsun, trans. yang hsien-i and gladys yang (peking: foreign languages press, 1960). this is a reference to the buddhist story of the burning house in the lotus sūtra. [185] for details see rudolf wagner, “canonization,” 74–76. [186] john fitzgerald, awakening china: politics, culture, and class in the nationalist revolution (stanford: stanford university press, 1996). henrietta harrison, the making of the republican citizen: political ceremonies and symbols in china, 1911–1929 (oxford: oxford university press, 2000). [187] on this building and the symbolism involved in the landscape design see my “ritual, architecture, politics, and publicity during the republic: enshrining sun yat-sen,” in chinese architecture and the beaux-arts, ed. jeffrey w. cody, nancy s. steinhardt, and tony atkin (honululu: university of hawai’i press, 2011). [188] alain peyrefitte, l’empire immobile, ou le choc des mondes. reçit historique (paris: fayard, 1989). alain peyrefitte, quand la chine s’éveillera—le monde tremblera: regards sur la voie chinoise (paris: fayard 1973). [189] see, minxin pei, “china’s political awakening,” the diplomat, july 14, 2010, accessed february 10, 2011, http://the-diplomat.com/2010/07/14/china%e2%80%99s-political-awakening. [190] jie chi 解犀 and shi lu 施路, “ping bao <beiwang lu>—jian da ‘jieyanbudui buru cheng shifu hui fasheng fangeming baoluan’ deng yiwen” 平暴“备忘录”—兼答“戒严部队不入城是否会发生反革命暴乱”等疑问 [a memoir on pacifying the disturbance–also answering doubts whether without the martial law troops entering the city [of beijing] a counterrevolutionary disturbance would have occurred], renmin ribao july 26, 1989, 1. [191] jin zhong (editor of kaifang journal, hong kong), translation of an article in kaifang, in “medal contention,” south china morning post, oct. 12, 2010. in taiwan, the sleep and awakening pair have been used in dpp critiques against ma yingjiu’s policy towards the mainland. see, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubwyecgxzda&feature=related. accessed march 31, 2011. indigenous knowledge in the production of early twentieth century american popular culture | bender | transcultural studies indigenous knowledge in the production of early twentieth century american popular culture: distributed creativity between “frontier” and “middle ground” cora bender, university of siegen 1. introduction “distributed creativity” is a complex term that can be used to explore a whole range of different cultural and social settings, from global art to changing workplace environments and transcultural mediaspheres (schüttpelz and giessmann 2015).[*] for an anthropologist like myself, applying a term like this to a set of empirical data always bears the risk of coercing an abstract academic cover over highly contextualized and “messy” material for the sake of the concept, not the material, and much less for the people whose lives we as anthropologists explore in our research. however, distributed creativity seems an interesting exception in that it can be applied not only to different cultural settings in the present but also to historical cultures of the past. therefore, it enables us to reflect on the present by mirroring it in the past. in my view, distributed creativity is not a feature unique to media culture in the present, even though the latest wave of globalization has accelerated it considerably. by analyzing the ways in which native americans participated in and actively contributed to the shaping of post-frontier american culture at the turn of the twentieth century, i argue that present forms of distributed creativity, such as modern indigenous media and indigenous art, are preceded and pre-shaped by earlier forms. in my view, a nuanced analysis of the past is crucial for an understanding of present forms of distributed creativity across global cultural spheres. appropriation, collaboration in my special field of inquiry, the media anthropology of native north america, distributed creativity, first of all invokes ambiguous concepts that reflect the colonial history of all cultural exchange between native and non-native groups: appropriation and collaboration. the concept of appropriation has a long history in european philosophy, pedagogy, and art history, which i am not going to review here.[1] in present-day native north america, appropriation has an eminently political dimension. it is used to denote the imitation without permission of native culture by non-natives, such as printing navajo design styles on underwear and liquor flasks, or using fake “indians” as sports teams’ mascots. likewise, certain types of “collaboration” of indigenous and minority groups in the production of mainstream popular culture such as music, films, dance shows, and arts and crafts, is seen by many as a type of cultural performance that ultimately reproduces the debilitating stereotypes the dominant society forces onto the subaltern, and colonialism forces onto the colonized. however, reality is more complex. two recent publications, among others, provide thoughtful reflections on this issue. one offers ethnographic case studies of transnational romani music, the other a joint indigenous/non-indigenous discussion of australian indigenous involvement in cinema. referring to judith butler’s work on gender performativity (1990, 1993), and to judith okeley’s article “trading stereotypes” (1979), carol silverman’s romani routes: cultural politics and balkan music in diaspora discusses the meaning of romani engagement in non-romani popular culture: “(…) when roma play the part of gypsy musicians, that is, deliver the stereotype that is expected, are they reinscribing ethnic and racial norms or subverting them?” (silverman 2013: 5). huijser and collins-gearing’s representing indigenous stories in the cinema: between collaboration and appropriation (2007), also distinguishes between two forms of collaboration: “colonial collaboration is the white person’s power to work with indigenous peoples and knowledges. non-colonising collaboration would not be dependent on the power of one white man, but on the sharing, reframing and renewal of australian stories and experiences.“ (huijser and collins-gearing 2007: 1). in the present article, i am concerned with a related field—that of indigenous collaboration in the post-frontier american popular culture of the two decades flanking the turn of the twentieth century. i am using data from my long-term fieldwork and archival research concerning the knowledge culture of a particular reservation, the ojibwe community lac courte oreilles in northwestern wisconsin (see also bender 2011). my aim is to develop a differentiated view of native engagement with media and popular culture by focusing on the historical period between the 1880s and the 1930s, which is generally characterized as a time of serious native population decline and cultural loss under american domination. such loss is acutely felt, for instance, in the disappearance of native languages and ceremonies, and the concurrent appropriation of native arts, decorative styles, and modes of performance into the non-native mainstream, e.g. the art market and the emerging american kulturindustrie. focusing on the strategies of the indigenous actors rather than on those of their white counterparts, and using thick data from my in-depth case study in lac courte oreilles i seek to reconstruct native agency under such difficult conditions in all its complexity. however, in the course of my work with the data and against the backdrop of my research into present-day native media activism, i came to find it increasingly hard to separate between what could be clearly identified as practices of re-inscription of power and practices of its subversion. quite to the contrary, as i have sought to demonstrate in an earlier article on media-ethnographic research in the context of indigenous sovereignty in the u.s. (bender 2015), framing what actors do or do not do as either/or-dilemmas can become problematic in itself. i agree with huijser and collins-gearing that not all cultural collaborations that white people consider to be politically correct are in reality taking place on anything resembling an equal footing. i also agree that there may be a vast difference in how a certain collaborative project is seen by the native and the non-native collaborators, respectively (see, for instance, the documentary “weaving worlds” about the marketing of navajo rugs by local businessmen in the american southwest (klain 2008)). but i differ in that i doubt the usefulness of representing the positions, motivations, and strategies of the actors in the framework of a dichotomy. if a certain collaborative media project is branded as “colonial collaboration” (as has been, for instance, the film “nanook of the north”), then how do we account for and make sense of the native actors’ decisions to get involved? silverman asserts that “resistance is neither singular nor pure; as ortner (1995) points out, it is always paired with collaboration.” (silverman 2013: 145) “roma embrace a surprisingly modern cosmopolitan sensibility while dutifully fulfilling their multiple roles: either as europe’s last bastion of tradition or as new york’s vanguard of punk fusion.” (silverman 2013: 268) huijser and collins-gearing see the problem of morality, too: “it is not the intention here to raise questions about morality, ethics, guilt, and rightness.” (2) still, the problem remains crucial: in what ways do we, by branding certain types of collaborations “colonial,” implicitly portray the native actors that participate in them as too weak to make other choices? in my view, the question whether indigenous performance re-inscribes stereotypes or subverts them, or whether collaboration is colonizing or non-colonizing, can actually block the view on collaboration from the perspective of the native people involved. as an anthropologist researching popular culture, it is my aim to reconstruct their perspective (even though that might prove difficult for scarcity of historical documentation). in order to do this, i think it is necessary to try and depart from the either/or-dilemma haunting so many articles on the native condition, and seek a different route in discussing native self-representation. the concept of distributed creativity can assist in this effort to identify cases that do not conform to the dichotomy. analyzing my historical and ethnographic data in the light of distributed creativity, i found native cultural strategies to be transcending or cutting across the criteria that we use to characterize something as stereotypical. for instance, as i will reconstruct in more detail below, in the 1920s, the people of lac courte oreilles used the stages and props of buffalo bill’s wild west and other shows they participated in as actors, to revitalize and continue ceremonies that were outlawed and prosecuted under the 1883 religious crimes code. many years later, they bought an old cook-shanty formerly used in historyland, an open-air exhibit of lumberjack days in the vicinity of hayward, wisconsin, in which their parents and grandparents had staged tourist dances. they brought it to the reservation and used it as a hall for communal ceremonies. practices like these, in my view, challenge our idea of what makes a stereotype, of dichotomies of collaboration vs. subversion as well as compartmentalizing and separating between the domains of ceremony, pop culture, and politics. i argue that by participating in popular representations of the frontier (turner 1894), native people sought to recreate what historian richard white has termed the “middle ground” (white 1991), a historical period and geographical space of collaboration from the mid-seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries, not devoid of power, but open for negotiation and practices of distributed creativity. by focusing on collaboration from this point of view, i mean to shift attention from political and economic structures that victimize native people to a practice-centered understanding of how native people succeeded in maneuvering such a difficult terrain in the past, and how they laid the groundwork for continuing to do so today. outline in order to make my point i have to approach the subject in a somewhat circular manner. i would like to ask those readers who are not familiar with the history of native north america or with the history of anthropology, to bear with me while i highlight some key context to my argument. in my first section i provide a short overview of some of the meanings of aesthetic practices in historical cultures of native north america and show how a concept of distributed creativity can apply in these settings, some of which differ vastly from our own. i will recapitulate how native artistic practices changed in the course of european encroachment and colonial domination. in doing so, i will be careful not to reinforce the old western stereotype of native people as hapless victims of a radical historical change over which, according to the colonial ideology of the time, they had no control. instead, i wish to argue that by participating in popular representations of the frontier (turner 1894), native people sought to transgress the dichotomies of frontier society, and instead recreate an earlier historical period in which stages were open for negotiation (white 1991). the frontier is a key concept in american white identity. the historian frederick jackson turner, born in portage, wisconsin, advanced the idea that american society was formed by the american frontier, that is, through the process of conquering a continent presumably free for the taking: “american democracy was born of no theorist’s dream (…). it came out of the american forest, and it gained new strength each time it touched a new frontier.” (turner 1894: 293). in this view, the frontier is what shaped the progressiveness, egalitarianism, and violence of american society. however, turner’s text, which became the basis for theorizing american history for decades to follow, is also the founding document of the deliberate omission of the role of native people in shaping frontier culture. in turner’s view, america struggled to win an empty continent seen as terra nullius, and ultimately, america struggled with itself. that conflict is the foundational narrative of mainstream frontier-histories. in contrast, white’s the middle ground describes entirely different processes. first of all, it outlines a geographical location: that of the multicultural encounter of different native and european groups in the fringe area between the great lakes and the great plains; secondly it outlines a certain time period, the years from the mid-seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries, which represents a historical backdrop against which i interpret my own data. thirdly, it describes the historical emergence of a stage for interaction between different native and non-native cultures: on the middle ground diverse people adjust their differences through what amounts to a process of creative, and often expedient, misunderstandings. (…) they often misinterpret and distort both the values and practices they deal with, but from these misunderstandings arise new meanings and through them new practices—the shared meanings and practices of the middle ground. (white 1991: xxvi). a certain protocol enabled the parties involved to interpret their respective actions in a whole range of often contradictory ways without, however, evoking the threat of war and cultural annihilation which later came to dominate indian-white relations at the frontier. my point is that native involvement in post-frontier popular culture evokes the interpretive practices of this middle ground and should therefore be seen as an array of collaborative strategies rather than a case of cultural decline and appropriation of native culture by non-natives. in my second section, i will situate native artistic practices historically in the context of what media scholar erhard schüttpelz has termed “the five waves of globalization” (schüttpelz 2009). my case study highlights some key features specific to the era of imperial globalization around the turn of the twentieth century that was, like our present wave, characterized by the emergence of new media technology such as photography, film, and new forms of exhibitions. anthropology, established around this time as an academic discipline, responds to these deep-running shifts in aesthetic practices by developing a new system to arrange and represent cultures as “culture areas” (kroeber 1939) on maps and in visually attractive exhibits. this conceptual shift from evolutionist stepladder models to diffusionist area models corresponded to an increase in leisure travel and a growing tourist industry. in the third section, i will substantiate my argument by looking closer at some of the rich archival and ethnographic data i was able to collect over many years of fieldwork with the lac courte oreilles band of lake superior chippewa indians, an ojibwe community of some seven thousand members located in the woodlands seventy miles south of the shores of gichi gami, i.e. lake superior. lac courte oreilles has always been a hotbed of political activity and can boast a long history of native media use. we will get to see an intertribal peace conference in the backstage area of buffalo bill’s wild west show (loew 1998), an outlawed native ceremony in the disguise of an “indian dance”, and a revitalization cult in the context of a seemingly all-american patriotic post-world war i homecoming celebration. in the fourth section, i discuss the historical repercussions of the “middle ground.” participating in tourist dances and fairs, native people trained themselves in the arts of confident self-representation on stage, which, from the late 1960s on, fed into the self-confidence of native political activism, the founding of native owned and operated media, and the fight for indigenous political sovereignty. in my fifth and final section, i will sum up how the story comes full circle. media—as in latin: “the middle”—can be seen as the new “middle ground,” the stage on which native people of the past and present appear in order to express their values, enter relationships of exchange, and assert their rights. at this point, appropriation comes back into the picture, but this time we encounter it as a highly contested practice: using their own as well as mainstream media enables indigenous activists to criticize and in many cases also file law suits against the theft of cultural styles in the production of clothes, jewelry, and furniture, the featuring of fantasy “indians” as sports team mascots, and the use of team names reminiscent of the 19th century indian wars (berman 2008; fonseca 2011). from this perspective, it is ultimately the practices of distributed creativity that provide the platform to criticize and demand the discontinuation of appropriation. 2. native american artistic expression “none of the native languages of north america seem to contain a word that can be regarded as synonymous with the western concept for art, which is usually seen as something separable from the rest of daily life.” (feest 1992: 9). north american traditional tribal art was an aesthetic practice closely connected to everyday life.[2] people decorated their clothes, houses, cooking utensils, tools, weapons, ceremonial paraphernalia, and bodies in accordance with their religious beliefs, social position, status, age, gender, and personal preferences. artistic specialization was common in certain geographical areas, for instance the north west coast or the southwest. taking my cue from ginsburg, i argue most native groups in north america did not need professional artistic performers, with the exception of religious specialists with their elaborate ceremonial knowledge. how to make and decorate the sacred objects used in a ceremony, how to conduct the ritual, which songs to sing, or how to dance was artistic knowledge crucial to the maintenance of society and was in many cases the result of years of training, fasting, and dreaming. in many instances, this kind of knowledge cut across domains that in modernity are kept in distinct compartments: science, sociality, and interpretation (latour 1993). by way of the aesthetic practices of ritual, native religious performers manipulated natural surroundings that were also the habitat of numerous supernatural forces. but artistic practice was not limited to ritual. even in the everyday aesthetic practice of making clay pots, sewing moccasins, or painting hides, certain ritual precautions had to be observed; and the decoration of things was held to endow them with spiritual power. artistic practice can thus be seen as a form of distributed creativity, in that creativity was a joint endeavor of a human being and a supernatural guide or helper. on the other hand, many groups regarded this kind of religio-artistic knowledge as the property of certain individuals, secret societies, or kin groups that had received it exclusively from the supernatural agent with whom they were connected. they limited access to the products of this artistic collaboration, because the knowledge of the supernatural in many cases was considered dangerous and therefore only safe in the care of people who were rightfully entitled to it. european encroachment brought new—and sometimes destructive—dynamics into the artistic sphere of native cultures. first it changed the things and the practices and then separated them from each other. as native american things (clothing, pottery, beadwork, etc.) became objects of euro-american collecting, and eventually made their way into the curiosity cabinets and museums of the world, native american religious performance went underground for many decades, threatened by laws, missionaries, and government agents determined to “civilize” the people they regarded as their fosterlings. next to the inhumane boarding school policy, probably the most serious blow in this context was the u.s. religious crimes code of 1883, which outlawed religious ceremonies of all native people, especially dancing and shamanistic practices of any kind, on the territory of the united states. this legislation was in force until the 1934 indian reorganization act abolished the concept of forced assimilation altogether and replaced it with more progressive ideas of indian self-governance. the formal revocation happened as recently as 1978 when the american indian religious freedom act was passed under president carter (irwin 2000). between the early 1880s and the mid-1930s, however, native religious practice had to go underground to survive. the objects and their proper use were thus separated; while the objects were dis-integrated and subsequently re-integrated into the euro-american arts and crafts discourse of the 20th century, the cultural practice of their original makers and users became invisible, obfuscated, and prosecuted during the same period—a matter of import only, it seemed, for a handful of salvage anthropologists interested in the memories of old people. later, the split between anthropologists who focused on what until the 1970s was considered “real tradition” and those concerned with the victimizing effects of acculturation, especially christianization, pauperization, and cultural loss, contributed to the pervasive perception that native american cultures underwent a serious break, if not complete extinction, around the turn of the 20th century. this split vision, ultimately a negligence, is one of the factors that makes research into native cultures around the turn of the twentieth century difficult. during this time many native groups struggled with european diseases and abject poverty. tuberculosis, trachoma, and whooping cough were rampant on the reservations and caused their population to decline dramatically. many converted to christianity. they had easy access to missionaries but rarely to modern health care. therefore, traditional curing knowledge—songs, dances, medicinal plants—remained widely current for many decades among christian as well as non-christian indians, often carefully hidden from euro-american eyes so as not be ridiculed and rendered powerless by exposure. visibility in general was dangerous. however, in this bleak historical moment native cultural productivity was far from disintegrating altogether. the symptoms of “decline” diagnosed by researchers, such as the use of a sacred dance drum in a tourist show, the abbreviation of ceremonial cycles in order to conform to the demands of wage-labor, or the christian conversion of a ritual specialist who subsequently decries his former belief as “evil”, may have in many cases actually taken place over the course of fifty, sixty years. but the use of the term “decline” to delineate changes in practice and style is problematic because it also implies that an indian person appearing on a show stage, taking christian baptism, or working a sixty hour work week in a lumber mill ceases to be native, and therefore is no longer of interest to anthropology. contemporary anthropology, especially the sub-disciplines of media anthropology (dracklé 1999) and the anthropology of art (morphy and perkins 2006), takes a different stance. our research consultants teach us what it means to live their lives at a certain historical moment in time. what they do or do not do we discuss with them in the light of their own basic concepts, values, and goals. some of our informants, especially when they are older, may speak of a decline when commenting on the change of certain cultural practices they remember from their youth; but this does not induce us to place their whole group on a slanting scale. rather, we want to understand why it makes sense to our informants to actualize and re-actualize certain cultural strategies while abandoning others, especially in times of rapid economic or political change. we look at them as makers, agents, and commentators on culture, especially media culture, not as its victims.[3] from this point of view, it is safe to say that poverty and economic stress notwithstanding, native people from diverse cultural backgrounds all over north america at different periods in their historical encounter with euro-americans developed myriad new objects and new styles to decorate them—from beadwork with patriotic american motifs to christian wigwam tabernacles to intertribal, pan-indian powwow songs and dances, to name but a few. there are a number of ways to reconstruct and find a framework for these cultural performances around the turn of the twentieth century. one way is to conduct archival research into mainstream media for the traces of these performances (loew 1998). another way is to draw parallels between the things collected in museums and the various dimensions of cultural performance. expanding christian feest’s 1992 seminal definition of four basic kinds of native american art—“tribal, ethnic, pan-indian, and indian mainstream art” (feest 1992: 14)—we can speak of a native american art history that includes both objects and performances in at least four spheres of meaning-making and social interaction: first, a local tribal community or network with its own life-world and systems of culture-specific knowledge (bender 2011); second, a sphere of inter-cultural exchange with so-called “white people” (the native term for people with euro-american ancestry) and people from other tribes that takes place in public ceremonies, tourism, and related activities (bender, hensel, schüttpelz 2008); third, a pan-indian sphere that merges elements from different tribal traditions into a new native american style and has become most apparent in the intertribal powwow dance feasts (bender 2003), and fourth, native artistic practice within a transcultural global art sphere (“artists who happen to be indians” [feest 1992: 16]). to this might be added a fifth sphere of what is called non-european or, more specifically, indigenous art produced locally and marketed globally,[4] such as australian aboriginal art (myers 2002). the emergence of indigenous art on a global scale is closely connected with indigenous media activities such as film, video, radio, and newspapers (ginsburg 2002). native visibility in the non-indian mainstream and the emergence of a global indigenous cultural and political sphere of action are unthinkable without the means of native self-representation: native media, native sovereignty movements, and native political representation (strong 2008). these different spheres—or scapes (appadurai 1990)—may or may not overlap as native people develop and employ different kinds of knowledges to maneuver through them in the course of their daily lives. in fact, the socioscapes of a local tribal community and that of its white mainstream neighbor, for instance, can be shown to be separated by powerful boundaries working in two directions, while the second and third spheres—as defined above—are usually more permeable and accessible from more than one direction. in the following, i address the issue of how modern native american self-representation, that is nowadays so strongly present in native media and native institutions, emerged in the course of an active engagement of native people with post-frontier american popular culture. in doing so, i refer to some key thoughts in the media anthropological scholarship of eric michaels and faye ginsburg. in his work on australian aboriginal media activities, michaels points out that we are used to naturalize western media history—from oral to print to electronic media—as universal. we assign respectability to certain cultural forms. literacy, for instance, is in the popular view, “a pro-social, pro-development medium” whereas video and television are regarded as “antisocial and repressive” (michaels 1994: 311). the same is true for certain cultural performances. cultural performances of the aforementioned first and the fourth kind—tribal and fine arts—are considered respectable, whereas artistic expressions of the second and the third kind—such as tourist art and pan-indian art—seem inauthentic and shaped by outside expectations about and commercial interests in “indian style.” steeped in the colonial discourse underlying early tourism in america and a product of the commodification of culture, they seem, ultimately apolitical, conformist, and conservative in their social content, as well as placatory rather than disruptive of dominant cultural paradigms. however, michaels argues, aboriginal and other non-western cultures do not conform to the historical sequence of media or the accompanying moral verdict of this construction. aboriginal cultures produce media and art histories quite different from that underlying the western view. in her analysis of inuit work in film, especially in the shooting of “nanook of the north” (1922), faye ginsburg points out that the turn-of-the-century media engagement of native people is often obfuscated (ginsburg 2002). traces of their agency are eliminated from the documentation on which mainstream media history relies (see also nicks and phillips 2007). therefore, it appears as if there were no continuity in native media history—no history of present-day native media activities that could be traced back into the past beyond thirty years or so—as if all native media activities suddenly sprang into life in the course of the native political activism of late 1960s and early 1970s. in fact, the red power movement[5] is usually credited with being the first successful native use of modern media for their own purposes of representation (champagne et al. 1997; johnson 1996; mcdonald 2010; nagel 1996). however, i argue that native media activities have a much longer history that reaches back well into the nineteenth and early twentieth century. an in-depth historical case study into the media history of a single ojibwe community suggests that a collective native understanding of the importance of self-representation emerged much earlier—in the context of the second and third spheres of inter-cultural indian-white and pan-indian exchange that took form in the post-frontier american culture of the wild west shows, indian fairs and pageants. this was, i argue, the first arena in which native representational agency appeared center stage and from then on, it emerged into what later became known as political and cultural revitalization of the 1970s, the political treaty rights campaigns of the 1980s, and, ultimately, the indigenous media professionalism of the present. 3. anthropology and globalization at the turn of the twentieth centurz as media scholar erhard schüttpelz noted, the present globalization—that is, the present mobilization of people, signs, and things—is not the only global turn the world has experienced so far. in his view, there have been five global turns altogether: first, the “out of africa” period, the primordial global dispersal of humanity; second, the emergence and longue durée of part-world systems such as the meso-american empires or the silk route; third, the european globalization beginning with the sixteenth century; fourth, the age of imperialism from approximately 1880 until world war i, and fifth, the present global turn that originated with the end of the cold war, the deregulation of the global economy, and the advent of digitalization and the internet. with the exception of the first, the “out of africa” dispersal of humanity, each turn had an earlier predecessor that, in some ways, provides a template for its characteristic forms of transformation. the present global turn shares some distinct features with its predecessor, the global turn towards the age of imperialism at the beginning of the twentieth century, especially the fact that a revolution in media technology was one of its driving forces (schüttpelz 2009). according to schüttpelz, the new media emerging in the course of the second half of the nineteenth century generated spirited debates in europe about modernity and the “modernization” of trance practices in the west, such as spiritism and the emergence of modern esoteric religious movements around 1900 (schüttpelz and hahn 2009: 7). in this context, non-western cultures, especially india and egypt, became important sources (some would say: quarries) for the renewed strong interest of the moderns in the supernatural after the colonial conquest of the north american continent seemed accomplished and modernity in conjunction with industrialization, mechanization, urbanization, had destroyed pre-modern social structure in europe and coastal north america. in the united states, people started to look toward those native american groups that, like the hopi in arizona, had survived centuries of colonization, war, and diseases with their social and religious systems relatively intact, and to those plains groups that had been depicted for decades by painters such as karl bodmer, george catlin, and seth eastman. photography followed in the footprints of the painting tradition, but it was much more widely available. tourists in large numbers began to travel to places far in the interior of the north american continent to witness, for instance, the hopi ritual tsu’ti’kive that became known as the snake dance (bender, schüttpelz und hensel 2008). these events even acquired a distinct patriotic tone. the new media, especially photography and film, seem to reflect this. two of the most prominent subjects of early cinema were all things urban—lights, movement, masses of people—and all things exotic and “other” (mclane 2011). the invention of leisure for the urban masses coincided with the closing of the frontier and a profound political and cultural reorientation. national identity became a dominant discourse not only in education, but also at fairs, exhibitions, rodeos, pageants, wild west shows, and other events ranging from the 1893 world’s columbian exposition in chicago to the 4th of july fair in waukesha, wisconsin. this opening of boundaries was followed by a thorough conceptual remapping of america. this was also the time when cultural evolutionism gave way to diffusionist models in anthropology, and the concept of the culture area replaced older, hierarchical stepladder models of cultural evolution. a culture area in anthropology usually denotes a large geographical region whose inhabitants share similar or related culture traits, such as locally specific subsistence patterns, material culture, social organization, and religion.[6] the concept emerged in the course of american anthropology’s search for spatial representations of the indigenous cultures of north america in exhibition spaces after the closing of the frontier (boas 1887a, 1887b, 1887c, 1893, mason 1887, 1894, 1896). the dominant model of native north america with ten distinct culture areas goes back to alfred kroeber (1931; 1939), a student of franz boas and professor of anthropology at berkeley. the concern of anthropologists around the turn of the twentieth century and into the next two decades was to move anthropology away from evolutionist armchair speculation and turn it into an academic discipline firmly positioned in universities and museums: […] modern anthropology is an inductive science with a minimum of speculation; […] it aims at truly historical reconstructions and is beginning to achieve them; and […] it lies in the nature of its tasks to distinguish and analyze the several native culture-areas or local types of indians before proceeding to conclusions based on combinations. (kroeber 1922: 10). a second concern, related to the professionalization of the discipline, was to popularize its findings. anthropologists sought to educate the public and replace both the european romanticisms of the noble indian and the american wartime stereotypes of the fierce, cruel, blood-thirsty savage with more sober and differentiated images and knowledge about the native tribes of north america: [a generation ago] few anthropological monographs on indian tribes had been written, but it is doubtful if such publications are to be found in new england village libraries even today, and it is more than doubtful that if they were in the libraries anybody would read them; anthropologists themselves have been known not to read them. between these forbidding monographs and the legends of fenimore cooper, what is there then to read […] for anyone who just wants to know more about indians? (parsons 1922: 1) from there, the culture area concept quickly made it into popular science literature, especially books about “indians” written for children and young adults. today, the culture area mainly surfaces as a convention of representing cultures in maps in the context of museum and historical representations. fig. 1: typical example for an image of native american culture areas the culture area was a dominant culture concept and an ambitious intellectual endeavor. it is relevant for the issues discussed in this article because it reflects the contradictory situation wherein anthropology as a discipline benefitted from and yet challenged the legitimacy of conquest and colonialism. mapping cultures in geographic synchronicity rather than placing them on an evolutionary stepladder means to assign each culture an “original” territory. it is an ambivalent reconceptualization of the relation between culture, time, and space. it suggests an isomorphism of culture and location and a bounded coexistence of cultures—a concept strangely out of sync with the blend and mixture of people, practices, and objects that were the cultural reality in turn-of-the-century america. by now the culture area concept has been thoroughly criticized in the course of the self-reflexive turn in anthropology (gupta and ferguson 1992 and 1997). at the time, however, it was the wrong concept to represent the right idea: talking to the american public and to a globalizing scientific community, not to the indigenous people it sought to represent, it made an important departure from the evolutionist legitimization of conquest and colonization. the culture area concept demonstrated visibly that the north american continent prior to the conquest was not a terra nullius, a land belonging to no-one. quite to the contrary, it was still inhabited by people who had been there before the advent of europeans, and contrary to contemporary stereotypes, it proved that these people had been using the land successfully in accordance with its natural features for a very long time. paradoxically, at the same time as this concept gained its foothold in anthropology, many indigenous people had been displaced coercively, or they started to dislocate. for a whole array of reasons, many left their homelands and traveled to the urban coastal centers or to europe as performers in wild west shows, fairs, and “völkerschauen” (ethnic exhibits). others, such as the inuit hunter allakariallak, performed in films such as nanook (1922) directed by robert flaherty, or in the land of the headhunters (1914) directed by the famous photographer edward sherriff curtis. the exploitation of native people in the production of their own representations in the context of american post-frontier popular culture has been thoroughly criticized in recent years: representations of native americans in turn-of-the-century new media reinforced the colonial gaze and founded a tradition in the western media of commodifying native people and their culture, turning them into victims of distorted images (dilworth 1997; francis 1992; hirschfelder 1999; howard and pardue 1997; wrobel et al. 2001; weston 1996). however, beyond what most authors assume to be the prime motivating factor, namely the economic pressure on the poverty-stricken indian reservations, this tells us very little about the motives that induced native people to engage in these popular stagings. with the following case study i aim to provide a “thicker description” (geertz 1973) of native engagement in american post-frontier culture. i want to show that despite the adverse conditions, native people were far from disappearing or breaking down culturally during the reservation period and the globalization wave around 1900. instead, they participated in the staging of american pop culture and infused it with their own agency. 4. lac courte oreilles: an alternative media history ojibwe-dakota contact and conflict and the forced pacification of the “middle ground” in terms of the culture area concept, the ojibwe, chippewa, or anishinaabe indians of what today is the u.s. state of wisconsin can be said to inhabit a fringe area, a historical and cultural “middle ground” on the border between the “northeast” (also called „eastern woodlands“) and the adjacent western “plains.” as already outlined in the introduction, by “middle ground”, richard white means a certain space, the great lakes area of the united states, as well as a certain period of time, roughly between 1650 and 1815, in which europeans and indians met and, in the course of the all-encompassing fur trade, and against the odds of alienness and non-understanding, constructed a common, mutually comprehensible, and, more importantly, mutually accommodating world. the “middle ground” consisted of creative misunderstandings in which indians and europeans attempted to build a set of mutually understandable practices. following this phase, white asserts, accommodation and shared meaning broke down and the indians were recreated as alien and exotic (white 1991). the native people living in the woodland area of the great lakes traditionally hunted, fished, gathered wild rice, and cultivated small gardens. they made skilled use of birch bark (“wigwass”) to construct lightweight containers (“wigwassi-makak”), frame boats (“wigwass-tchiman”), and characteristic dome-shaped houses (“wigwassiwigamigon”), today known as “wigwam.” in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the algonquian-speaking ojibwe located around sault ste. marie acted as middlemen, traders, and brokers between the french colonists in the east and the siouan-speaking dakota in the west, acquiring for themselves a comfortable position in the trans-regional fur trade. the dakota were at that time economically adapted to the woodlands, hunting, fishing, and gathering wild rice just as their eastern ojibwe neighbors did in the area of wisconsin and minnesota. however, when the french by-passed the ojibwe in the course of the mid-eighteenth century and started trading directly with the dakota, the cooperation between the groups came to a screeching halt and the region west and south of the western tip of lake superior became a contested territory in a long-lasting guerilla war between ojibwe and dakota hunters. as the dakota were driven west, their culture changed. they adopted the characteristic plains culture of specialized bison hunters that had evolved after the introduction of horses by the spanish in the seventeenth century. in the course of the eighteenth century, the ojibwe extended their hunting and trapping range into the interior of the woodland south of lake superior, which the dakota had been driven out of, and around 1745, a group of ojibwe hunters formed a settlement at the lake known to the french as lac courte oreilles.[7] this settlement became permanent and grew in size after the french trader michel cadotte, who had married into an influential ojibwe family, established a trading post at lac courte oreilles. in 1825, the united states invited the ojibwe, dakota, and other indian groups to meet at prairie du chien to negotiate a treaty of “peace and friendship.” in actuality, the federal government was interested in stabilizing the area for western expansion and acquiring land from the ojibwe. however, before it could begin cession treaties, it first had to establish tribal boundaries. ojibwe-dakota enmity was a convenient pretext. (loew 2001: 58). in ensuing treaties of 1837 and 1842, the ojibwe were forced into surrendering a vast territory, “almost two-thirds of present-day northern wisconsin, a portion of central minnesota, and much of michigan’s upper peninsula” (loew 2001: 60). another treaty signed in 1854 established four ojibwe reservations in wisconsin,[8] among them lac courte oreilles with its rich hunting grounds, hundreds of little lakes, and ample wild rice beds. however, the fur trade which had contributed to the expansion of the ojibwe into wisconsin and to their acquiring european goods such as wool blankets, metal axes, knives, kettles, firearms, and alcohol, did not last forever. after the boom years: tourism in the former cut-over district soon after the establishment of reservations, timber companies began “harvesting” the forest in northwestern wisconsin, resulting in what today is known as an almost complete cut-over at the close of the nineteenth century. after unsuccessful attempts to farm the so-called “cut-over district,” local business began to look at other sources of income, mainly tourism.[9] forest regeneration was an important context to this new development (kates 2001). the former stopping posts used by lumberjacks on their way to work were turned into vacation cabins. situated in scenic spots, they had sufficient infrastructure to appeal to the many dayand weekend trippers that were drawn to the area by railway from the 1890s onwards. the main attraction were the many little lakes with their large population of muskellunge and walleye, large predatory fish which were (and still are) particularly attractive to sport fishermen. even chicago mobster al capone had a vacation home in the backwoods of the lac courte oreilles ojibwe indian reservation in wisconsin, and his hit men went on outdoor trips hunting deer with machine guns (bender 2011: 85; swift 1953: 1). the people of lac courte oreilles who participated in the newly emerging, post-frontier culture like everybody else. they went to the movies, played basketball and organized dance nights (loew 1998). they also tried to gain a foothold in the new tourism business and worked as tour and fishing guides, rented out cabins, and engaged in “indian dances” staged specifically for tourists (rasmussen 1998). they also made some money by selling deer to sport hunters who had spent their weekend drinking and partying with their buddies, and, come sunday afternoon, were pressed to obtain a deer or two to take home to their wives as evidence for their actually having gone hunting (gaiashkibos, personal communication, september 2013). as tourism became the most important source of revenue in northwest wisconsin, local business succeeded in organizing bigger events, such as large wild west shows and indian fairs, in order to draw tourists. the “middle ground” and cultures of feasting in the native cultures of the great lakes area, feasting traditionally accompanied (and still accompanies) the main stages of life: the naming of a baby, the coming of age of young people (especially first-kill ceremonies for boys), marriage, and death (densmore 1910–1913; ritzenthaler and ritzenthaler 1970; ritzenthaler 1978; vennum 1982). the seasonal ceremonies of the big drum society and the passing of individuals through the different hierarchical stages of the midewin healing society are also accompanied by feasts, i.e. drumming, singing, dancing, and the preparation and communal consumption of traditional food such as wild rice and venison. this culture of native feasting came in touch with and fed into tourism and american popular culture; the native strategy of dealing with this seems to have been a compartmentalization. while some types of feasts went out of sight, others changed and came to allow for the encounter with different cultural influences that had been present in the area since the years of early colonization. in the arenas of these public celebrations, the “middle ground” was revived. making peace during the war game an important model for big shows in this area was buffalo bill’s wild west show, a kind of traveling circus which came to the southern shore of lake superior in 1896, 1898, and 1900. “buffalo bill,” whose real name was william frederick cody (1846–1917), was an u.s. army scout, professional bison killer, and show man who became famous for the wild west shows he organized. cody drew the largest crowds and seeing himself as an “instant popular historian of the american west and a conciliator between the old enemies” (christian f. feest, personal communication, november 2015), he enlisted native people in large numbers to participate on stage even though indian commissioner cato sells did not approve of it because he found the practice “dangerous” and detrimental to his ambitions to turn them into regular u.s. citizens (loew 1998: 203–206). the show’s program usually consisted of re-enactments of frontier wars. however, buffalo bill’s wild west was not only a “show” or “fake” in the sense that theodor adorno would use the term “schein” in his critique of the kulturindustrie. cody himself had been an army scout and seen combat, just like some of the people appearing on stage, both indian and white, had really participated in historic battles, such as the famous lakota leader sitting bull or the cavalry officer captain john gregory bourke, an early anthropologist who wrote the first account of the hopi snake dance (bourke 1884). also, as the ojibwe historian and journalist patricia loew reconstructed from old newspaper publications, in 1896 the native people used buffalo bill’s stage for an important historic reconciliation. they induced cody to facilitate “an historic ‘peace treaty’ between the [ojibwe] and representatives of the sioux […] who were traveling with him.” (loew 1998: 206–207) this peace ceremony concluded approximately two hundred years of intermittent war over land and resources between the dakota and the ojibwe. a reporter who had been invited by cody described the proceedings in detail: the sioux chiefs repaired to their tepees, put on their (face) paint and feathers, produced their pipes and other paraphernalia and awaited their guests. the chippewa similarly prepared, marched into the space reserved for the meeting, several hundred strong, and the representations of the two great tribes met face to face (…).(loew 1998: 206–207). the indians formalized the peace agreement not with a written document but with the presentation and exchange of sacred pipes. there was no levity, no laughter. every chippewa and sioux listened intently, with solemn faces (…). the ceremonies were as formal and impressive as a meeting between the representatives of foreign governments. (loew 1998: 206–207). fig. 2: photographic image, probably cut-and-pasted from other photos, reconstructing the peace conference between the ojibwe and the dakota as a postcard motif, first peace council ever held between chippewas and siouxs, ca. 1896. postcard, photographic print, 5.5 x 3.5 in. madison, wisconsin historical society, whi-95716. indian fairs: patriotism and native ritual in disguise another public arena that native people redefined for themselves in the early decades of the twentieth century were so-called indian fairs, which took place in many reservations all over the country. serving exactly the opposite purpose of the wild west shows with their celebration of a glorious past, an indian fair was a kind of local agricultural and industrial show, usually organized by an indian agent in cooperation with his network, i.e. the government farmer, in order to demonstrate to the outside world and the native people alike the latters’ progress on their way to “civilization” by becoming farmers after abandoning their traditional hunting and gathering activities. however, most native people in the great lakes area did not see themselves as passive wards and pupils of a “civilized” lifestyle. they maintained (some even well into the present) a mixed economy combining wage labor, hunting, fishing, gathering wild rice, and selling bead work, birch bark products, and maple sugar to tourists. this agency translates into how they presented themselves at indian fairs. the reporting in the sawyer county record (scr), the local newspaper of the hayward-lac courte oreilles area since the early 1900s, demonstrates that it took lac courte oreilles-people only a couple of years to get the indian fair into their own hands and re-define it into a well-known lac courte oreilles arts and crafts show. indian fairs in lac courte oreilles the first lac courte oreilles indian fair took place on october 14 and 15, 1914 in the village of reserve. the voice of the local news report is patronizing, and the native people seem more or less the objects of this event. that the indians on the court oreilles reservation can accomplish as much as their white brothers in the agricultural line is evident from the first annual fair. (hayward republican, 15.10.1914) the center of attention is the indian commissioner mentioned earlier, cato sells, who appears as the prime agent of the show: the interest taken by the indians is a gratifying indication of the responsive sentiment among the indians to the appeal of commissioner cato sells, looking toward the industrial advancement and self-support. (hayward republican, 15.10.1914) over the years, the news reporting became more extensive as well as more enthusiastic in tone. in 1916, the sawyer county record devoted three front-page columns and two-thirds of a page in the inner section of the paper to the indian fair, which took place on september 29 and 30. the report offers an impression of the events and atmosphere. the fair program started each morning at 10 am and went on until 4 pm. after a morning “parade by indians headed by band,” the first day was devoted to funny games or tournaments such as “climbing greasy pole by boys,” “sack race, potato race, elephant race, tug of war,” and also footraces and boat races. on the second day, the parade was followed by an agricultural exhibit and the presentation of awards, a parade of the prize-winning livestock, a game of the indian ball sport lacrosse, a game of baseball “reservation indians vs. school” and a “toggle game between women.” the fair committee and the award jury consisted, with only a few exceptions, of people from lac courte oreilles as can be inferred from their last names such as gokey, billyboy, cloud (anakwad) and others. the sawyer county record also provides a long list of the winners in competition categories specially referring to native arts and crafts such as “best pair beaded moccasins,” “best beaded belts,” “best hand made reed mat,” and “best indian costume” for men and women. a school demonstration (“best 20 sentences about the horse”) and a “baby show” granting an award to the prettiest, best-nourished baby completed the agricultural show in 1916. in 1917, the fair was advertised by the first ever photographic picture printed in the sawyer county record, an image that must have met ojibwe approval: it shows an ojibwe man of middle age in a self-assured, confident posture wearing traditional ojibwe clothing with floral embroidery and moccasins. a 1919 soldier’s homecoming celebration the biggest indian fair in lac courte oreilles took place after the end of world war i on june 19, 1919, honoring forty-six homecoming soldiers. “the committees in charge are completing the plans for this big event which will draw large crowds from various places in northern wisconsin,” the sawyer county record announced. a catholic mass by reverend doherty from st. paul was followed by a procession and a big feast for all the indian soldiers. afterwards, speeches were given by billy boy from lac courte oreilles, and by guests from other reservations: horace greeley from bad river, frank bressette from redcliff, and frank wishcob from lac du flambeau. the speeches were then responded to by addresses by the senator of the state of wisconsin, the sawyer county sheriff, and the indian commissioner. finally, even the governor of wisconsin, who had already welcomed a delegation from lac courte oreilles in 1915, spoke.[10] the speeches were followed by “indian victory dances and indian games” and music by the hayward city band. pictures taken at the event capture the spirit of the occasion as a multi-layered event between solemn ceremony and cheerful festivity. on one picture, the young world war i soldiers can be seen standing in a half circle around a group of elderly men in festive dress. some of them wear plains-style feather headdresses. in the center foreground, ira o. isham, the ojibwe-english interpreter of lac courte oreilles, presents himself, reclining to one side like a roman patriarch. other, more snapshot-like pictures show people from lac courte oreilles and non-indians enjoying the outdoor party, the nice weather, and the crowd. although they are monochromes, the images suggest the brightness of the native regalia, some of which look not at all “traditional.” a group of five women, for instance, present themselves in flashy dresses and face the photographer with confident smiles while in the background an american flag is flying in the wind. fig. 3: snapshots from the 1919 homecoming celebration honoring lac courte oreilles soldiers who participated in world war i. madison, wisconsin historical society, gw 902 r43–12. photographs of important chippewa spokespersons, such as johnny frogg who is introduced as “chippewa dancer,” and billy boy, introduced as “chippewa speaker,” show the mixing of styles. billy boy is wearing an outfit that features a mix of western, ojibwe, and plains-style elements: a plains-style straight-up feather headdress and an ojibwe-style, richly beaded bandoleer bag with floral pattern on a bright background. even the corpulent governor, who was, on this occasion, adopted into the tribe, wears a feather headdress. last thursday was the biggest day ever experienced on the court o’reilles [sic] reservation when on that day 2.500 people assembled in a victory celebration in honor of the indian boys who served in the world war. the indian village was tastefully decorated for the occasion […]. chief billy boy, who was master of ceremonies held by the indians, made our governor one of the chiefs of the chippewa tribe, giving him the name of pug-o-ne-gi-zik, meaning, hole in the day.[11] three moving picture machines were busy throughout the day making films of this unique celebration.[12] (scr 26.06.1919) but the solemn patriotism and the carnival party atmosphere were only two layers of an event that seems to have been even more complex. in the background, unbeknownst to the indian commissioner and the governor, an important revitalization cult, a ceremony fostering peace and regeneration, took place: lac courte oreilles received a sacred instrument, a drum that would be used in a kind of ceremony called either dream dance or drum dance. gaiashkibos, grandson of one of the world war i-veterans, recalls: my grandfather, alec james, was one of the soldiers honored at that occasion. he was in that war. and at the time of that victory celebration, a dream drum was given to us. that’s where that soldier’s drum came from. (gaiashkibos, personal communication, april 2014). the dream or drum dance is a religious complex or cult that originated on the plains and was brought to the ojibwe of wisconsin by their western neighbors, the dakota, in the 1870s. it is based on the story of a young dakota girl who tried to flee white soldiers after a battle but was trapped in a lake. this story is also illustrative of the traditional ojibwe concept of distributed creativity in human-spirit interaction in the creation of a new ritual performance: there she stayed for 6 to 10 days, hidden by lily pads, neither eating nor drinking. finally, the spirit took her up to the sky, where he told her about the drum dance. he explained how the ceremony was to be carried on and gave certain ethical instructions; he told her that peace would occur between all indians and whites if she induced her people to perform this ritual. although she had been close to death, when she awoke, she was cured. (ritzenthaler 1978: 755–756) the ceremony itself revolves around a number of sacred drums. these drums have a long and partly legendary history of migration, a trans-tribal ritual circulation throughout the upper midwest: tailfeather woman’s revelation was explicit in its instructions for the future: the drum was to be passed on to establish intertribal peace and brotherhood. in accordance with the wishes of the great spirit, then, the drum dance was actively disseminated from the ojibwa to other tribes and within the next fifty years the proliferation of drums would be great. as drum members describe it: ‘them drums, they keep travelling, keep travelling. they got to keep them so long; maybe four years. after four years come, you know, you got to pass them on.’ (vennum 1982: 70) with the help of his interlocutor john bisonette, ethnomusicologist thomas vennum reconstructed the path of the drum throughout the midwest: since the sioux presented the first drum to the ojibwa, its travel was set in motion from west to east. once the wisconsin ojibwa, menominee, and potawatomi had been reached circa 1875–1880, the line of travel turned to the south, toward the winnebago, and then west. the fox in iowa, who had received it from the wisconsin potawatomi, in turn transferred it to the potawatomi in kansas, who then brought it to oklahoma, and so on. (vennum 1982: 73) among the drums that appeared in lac courte oreilles was the soldiers’ drum, the veterans or warriors’ drum: many tribal people ask about the drum as it makes its way through the indian community. the drum itself was constructed in the early 1900’s about a year before the end of world war i. as the story goes, an indian woman named ‘nazhinequay’ had re-occurring dreams and had approached a tribal elder for interpretation of the dream. she was told that one of the servicemen would not return from overseas, and did not want people to forget about those soldiers who would not return. so this drum was constructed for those who had given their lives to preserve freedom. (honor the earth powwow committee 1991). according to the memories of lac courte oreilles tribal member donald wolf, it was his grandmother angeline wolf (maingan) whose dreams initiated the construction of the drum; therefore her family kept the watch over the drum as it was passed around: the wolf family has taken care of the drum ever since but the veterans have a say as to where it will go and for what purpose. (history comes alive n.d.) fig. 4: sketch of an ojibwe dance drum on the cover of thomas vennum’s classic on ojibwe drums (vennum 1982). the drums are characteristically supported off the ground with four stakes and decorated with symbolic paintings, beadwork, and, on ceremonial occasions, also with eagle feathers. the appearance of dances accompanied by large drums worried the local whites, especially reservation personnel, because they sounded like rebellion and war. many confused these new circulating dances with the ghost dance, the messianic pan-indian movement that swept the reservations in the late 1880s until it was suppressed in the massacre at wounded knee (mooney 1896). moving the ceremony away from the public and making sure that whites had no access to it, ensured its survival through the decades. today, the ceremony formerly known as dream dance is called big drum and takes place four times a year at the changes of the seasons. like many religious activities in native communities, big drum, even though attended by many people, is not open to the public in the same way that a catholic mass is. in part, this secrecy serves to protect the ceremony from people, be they indian or white, who attend without the proper attitude of peace, responsibility, and mutual help. however, the anxiety with which these ceremonies are kept out of sight is also a result of the legislation that outlawed indian ceremonial activities under the pain of imprisonment in the 1880s. the apostle island indian pageant (1924–1928) sacred drums similar to the one that was at the center of the hidden ceremony on june 19, 1919, also appear in the context of another big public event that was staged on the shores of lake superior between 1924 and 1928: the so-called apostle island indian pageant. madeline island, located approximately three miles off the southern coast of lake superior, is the largest of the apostle islands and a sacred place for the ojibwe. according to one of their most important legends, they were led to this place in ancient times and shown to the ample rice beds of the adjacent chequamegon bay. the history museum on madeline island, which is operated by the state historical society of wisconsin,[13] provides documentation of a series of big shows staged in the area between 1924 and 1928, the apostle island indian pageant. it began as an event to attract motoring tourists to the bayfield area. pageant officials in cooperation with steamship companies, railroads, and tourism bureaus organized what they advertised as the “number one tourist entertainment of america for 1924” at red cliff bay: seven hundred members of the ojibwe tribe from the four northern wisconsin reservations built scenery, handcrafted props, made costumes and performed in the pageant. in 1924, pageant promoters predicted the audience for the event at over 200,000 people, sparking a flurry of campground and hotel development. crowds fell well short of that goal, numbering around 15,000 and leaving the corporation in debt. the pageant recovered temporarily, staging its final performances in 1928. (madeline island museum text) ojibwe people from all reservations participated in these events. at the time of my ethnographic research between 1997 and 2007, of course, most of the original participants had already passed away. still, in 2001, i talked to alex gokey, an aged ojibwe gentleman from redcliff, the small ojibwe reservation on the southern shore of lake superior. alex gokey recalled that as a child, he participated in a big indian pageant in ashland, where hundreds of indians in splendid native regalia performed dances for tourists. the most important event he recalled, however, was that he got to witness several religious rituals that were under criminal prosecution of the religious crimes act, but were on this occasion conducted safely in the disguise of “indian dancing.” some pictures taken during the pageant show a group of ojibwe in traditional regalia gathered around a ceremonial drum. its proper use, however, was outlawed by the patronizing indian administrators, who feared that indian dancing could revive defiant practices such as preparation for war or shamanistic rituals. i can see & understand how our people would hold a ceremony right under the nose of the indian agent. bill baker [14] and my dad told me they used to put blankets over the windows & have ceremonies in the dead of night! (gaiashkibos, personal communication june 2014) fig. 5: pfefferkorn studio, men in native dress posed around sacred drum at apostle island pageant [caption on the back: official apostle island indian pageant photo], probably 1924. postcard, 8.8 x 13.9 cm. milwaukee, marquette university, raynor memorial libraries, bcim image 00885. staging myth: the 1949 mammoth pageant in lac courte oreilles over the years, native leaders and organizers overtook the organization and successfully staged indian pageants themselves. among the participants appearing on the stages of these indian-organized shows and dances are some who later became important in the political history of lac courte oreilles of indian country as a whole. in fact, some of the leaders, activists, and spokespeople who engaged themselves in the american indian movement of the 1970s and in the seminal legal battle known as treaty rights struggle or “walleye war” (nesper 2002), first trained their attitude and demeanor in the context of touristic presentations. the 1949 mammoth pageant in lac courte oreilles can be seen as one of these events. it also throws light on the important role of native women as organizers and contributors to these events. in 1949, the local newspaper sawyer county record announced in its first july issue the beginning of the seasonal indian powwow dances on thursday night. this year, the paper promised, the indians would stage a special event, a “mammoth pageant,” a big narrative show that was going to be staged every saturday and sunday on the big fair grounds in hayward.[15] the newspaper report is unusually wordy: the pageant opens with an indian powwow as one sees in modern times. sam frogg, narrator, leads his grandson, one of the solo dancers, to a hill where he relates to him the legend of the tribe from the time previous to the coming of the white man up to the present. the dancers immediately change back in character to those of their forefathers and the action of the story begins. throughout the story many beautiful ceremonies are enacted. richard denomie, who plays the part of the chief, tells many stories in sign language. (scr, 07.07.1949). among others, we find the name of a young boy who would later grow into the prominent ojibwe medicine man, political activist, and cultural educator, edward benton-benai: edward benton is the star dancer. he gives the audience an eagle dance of the southwest and a hoop dance. it took a little 3-year-old boy in indian costume to steal the show from an array of excellent dancers. the small boy dances with the men and uses a hoop in a solo dance. after the narrator carries us from early history to the present time, the pageant ends with the same powwow of modern times that one saw at the beginning of the evening. (scr, 21.07.1949). edward benton-banai is one of the founders of the american indian movement, arguably the most influential movement that has led to self-identity, pride, and revival of american indian culture for the last generation of anishinabe people,[16] and acted as its spiritual leader. he is the presiding grand chief of the three fires midewiwin lodge, a healing society with its own homepage. he is also active in education: he holds a master’s degree in education from the university of minnesota and founded the red school house, an indian-controlled school for children from kindergarten to high school diploma located in minneapolis (davies 2013). he published a children’s book series about traditional ojibwe culture, the mishomis book, mishomis meaning “grandfather” in ojibwe (benton-banai 1979). usually, the sawyer county record did not mention the name of the organizer of the indian dances, unless he was a white person. it seemed that the indian dances just took place without any considerable organizational expertise to get them on stage. however, in this article we find the name of the organizer, saxon grace benjamin, “a member of the local tribe who has directed other pageants in north dakota and oklahoma.” (scr, 07.07.1949). i spent a considerable amount of time researching this name in the archives, until i found it by accident—in my own ethnographic interviews. in the year of 2000, i had interviewed saxon st. germaine, the mother of former lac courte oreilles tribal chairman and university of wisconsin professor of native american history, rick st. germaine. i had become aware of her as the co-editor of a couple of small activist newsletters, we-sa-mi-dong and bimikawe, produced in lac courte oreilles in the 1990s. in the notes to my interview, i read that her father’s name had been ernest benjamin. at this point, it dawned on me that i had spoken to the woman who was the organizer of the lac courte oreilles-mammoth pageant. in the interview she mentioned that her father, who was of scottish descent, had run one of the first self-organized day schools for indian children in lac courte oreilles. her mother, an ojibwe woman born in redcliff on the shores of lake superior in 1914, had been a gifted crafts person, determined to get herself an education: my mother […] was always determined that she was gonna be educated. she bought a book called ‘high school self-taught’ […] and i would sit there and explain it and she would ask questions and finally she’d say, ‘i got it!’ and she had it. and she wouldn’t forget it, either. she was always reading the newspaper. she could do anything. they’d always get a ‘first’ at the fair, they’d set up a booth and she’d decorate it [she smiles]. she just surprised a lot of people because she was very dark, you know. (interview saxon st. germaine 2001) the last remark of saxon st. germaine about her accomplished, gifted, self-taught mother who “surprised a lot of people, because she was very dark,” illustrates the everyday racism of the time. “dark” meant “dark-skinned,” i.e. a person without or with only little euro-american ancestry. such “full-bloods” were construed to be more traditional, withdrawn from outside contact, and inclined to cling to the “old ways.” however, in the case of lac courte oreilles’ engagement with local tourism we can see not only saxon benjamin-st. germaine’s mother but also other traditional people, especially some known as “medicine men,” act as agents and brokers of cultural representations on public stage. thursday powwows in historyland an important broker cooperating with the ojibwe people from lac courte oreilles was the local italian businessman and entrepreneur anthony wise. wise founded the vacation park telemark in 1947, and in 1973 brought the international birkebeiner cross country ski race to the hayward area. together with elders and medicine people from lac courte oreilles, among them the well-known and widely respected james “pipe” mustache, wise designed historyland, a culture center on the outskirts of hayward where lac courte oreilles-people sold arts and crafts and staged dances for tourists (scr, 21.11.1974). many people who later became leaders and political representatives of lac courte oreilles, earned their first money and received their first training in self-confident representation on this stage, among them, for example, gaiashkibos, who later was to become tribal chairman and president of the national congress of american indians, the oldest and most important national political representation of native people in the united states. after historyland was abandoned, gaiashkibos initiated the purchase of one of the buildings from historyland, the reconstruction of a lumber cook shanty. for years, the “show building” served an important spiritual purpose: it was used as a big drum hall, an assembly house for the ceremonies of the big drum society until it was destroyed by arson by a tribal member in june 2012. the assault caused heated emotional debates within the reservation public about the motifs of the perpetrator and those that were purportedly “behind” his action, but the circumstances remain too mysterious to comment from the perspective of anthropological research at this point. pipe mustache, one of the medicine people who had been instrumental in the development of historyland, was an important mentor and spiritual guide for paul demain, the ojibwe-oneida ceo and managing editor of indiancountrytv.com and the national bi-monthly newspaper news from indian country. before he started his own media business in 1986, paul demain was the editor of the tribal newsletter of lac courte oreilles and served as the first state of wisconsin policy advisor on indian affairs of then governor anthony s. earl. in order to support demain spiritually in this key position in the political communication between the tribes and the political establishment of wisconsin, pipe mustache gave him the spiritual name “skabewis,” meaning “messenger.” this term is also the designation for the assistant and apprentice of a main ritual specialist during a ceremony. for many years, a portrait of pipe mustache wearing a plains-style feather headdress was part of the newspaper logo of one of paul demain’s publications, the regional paper ojibwe akiing (bender 2011). fig. 6: a 2004 front page of the native newspaper ojibwe akiing, featurting, in the upper left corner, a picture of the ojibwe medicine man and spiritual advisor of editor paul demain, james “pipe” mustache wearing a plains style feather headdress. photo: cora bender, 2010. 5. traditions of self-representation: continuities into the present the continuities from tourism to political representation and the circulation of elements between tourism, native religious practice, and politics are not accidental. in the 1970s and 1980s, lac courte oreilles became an important site of indigenous political activism and, together with other ojibwe communities, spearheaded the treaty rights movement that resulted in a partial restoration of indigenous rights to the use of resources on the vast lands ceded in a series of treaties made with the u.s. government in the course of the nineteenth century. the native media that emerged in the course of this native self-affirmation, especially the community radio station wojb, the print and online media of news from indian country, the works of editor paul demain, and several official tribal newsletters and tribal online representations, continue to present a native voice in the canon of mainstream media of the upper midwest. the cultural revitalization movement that accompanied the political activism resulted, ultimately, in a tribally controlled and operated education system offering education from kindergarten to a college diploma. in the regional tourism business, the main imagery employed until today is that of the by-gone golden age of the lumber boom celebrated for instance in the annual “lumberjack festival.” sport fishing is represented in grand style by the hayward freshwater fishing hall of fame, a museum of fishing housed in a giant muskellunge-fish. fig. 7: hayward fresh water fishing hall of fame and museum, the museum of sport fishing, housed in a giant replica of a muskellunge fish, hayward, wi. photo: cora bender, 2001. however, with the opening of its casino the reservation became the central factor in regional tourism. under the reagan-administration of 1981–1989, social benefits in general and financial allocations to native communities in particular were severely reduced. to cover the financial losses, some tribes decided to establish gaming facilities to generate revenue. the indian gaming regulatory act of 1988 empowered tribes to run gaming operations, provided the respective federal states permitted gaming. under the chairmanship of a then-member of the republican party, gaiashkibos, lac courte oreilles was among the first tribes to seize the opportunity and to open its casino facilities in 1995. by 2001, the casino already employed a workforce of 340 indian and non-indian workers and payed wages of about $ 7 million annually (scr 25.04.2001). the casino also stages cultural events, such as concerts and dances, and provides space for all kinds of tribal meetings, from political conferences to diabetes education and crime prevention. 6. native american media and distributed creativity powwows are originally from buffalo bill [he smiles]. […] the indians would […] get in their regalia and put on their feathers and they’d put on a good show for the people that were watching. that’s where today’s powwows came from. during a time when to practice any other type of ceremony could mean imprisonment […], these wild west shows became the only place the drum beat could be heard. (interview joe martineau, fond du lac, 2001) the historic case studies in the present article illustrate my concept of distributed creativity. artistic practices of the four different categories listed at the beginning of this article —“tribal, ethnic, pan-indian, and indian mainstream art” (feest 1992: 14)—co-existed simultaneously as a cultural repertoire to which individuals and groups had different degrees of access. distributed creativity does not mean that this kind of cultural production took place in a field devoid of power. to the contrary, power was always one of the forces driving circulation and exchange. however, people rarely conformed to the images produced by stereotypical, power-fuelled dichotomies such as “christian vs. pagan” or “traditional vs. progressive.” instead, they chose among different cultural strategies aimed at participation in the staging of a culture of the “middle ground:” culture-specific rituals, pan-indian ceremonies, educational efforts, and native engagement in the post-frontier culture. they infused this “middle ground” with their own agency. in the backstage of buffalo bill’s wild west show—the touristic indian representation par excellence—they conducted a pan-indian political peace conference. in the backstage area of a patriotic post-world war i homecoming ceremony, they conducted an important revitalization ceremony. they also inserted themselves into the american discourse of patriotism and sought their own, native version of it. they sidestepped religious prosecution by disguising their own tribal ceremonies as “indian dances.” participating in tourist dances and fairs, native people trained themselves in the arts of self-confident self-representation on stage which later fed into the self-confidence of political activism and the fight for indigenous political sovereignty. the fifth artistic strategy, “indigeneity” as the material manifestation of a conscious global commonality of indigenous people, is ultimately a result of this distributed creativity. “indigeneity” is the modus in which native people appear in the global media sphere. currently most prominent is the recent movement idle no more that originated in canada in 2012 in opposition to new environmental legislation affecting native sovereignty. it quickly spread to reservations and urban indian communities in the us. in the course of its political action, idle no more has brought the native hand drum to public attention through a series of strong-voiced flash mobs performing native drumming and singing in urban shopping malls in order to make native claims heard.[17] fig. 8: idle no more: native flash mob protesting in ottawa shopping mall, december 2012. photo: aloys neil mark fleischman, huffington post. however, the global indigenous movement is aware that distributed creativity also has its perils. indigenous artists and culture conservation specialists reinforce the concept of cultural authorship and cultural property in order to battle appropriation and limit the “almost exclusive one-way flow of indigenous cultural property into western civilizations” and alleviate the effects of decades and centuries of dispossessing native communities of their objects (kuprecht 2014: 5). designers copy native designs, such as navajo rugs, to produce bed-linens, table-cloths, and curtains, while life style magazines advertise these products with stereotypical descriptions. one example can be found in a german magazine, where such items are referred to as “wild und stark” (wild and strong), evoking “abenteuerlust” (“longing for adventure”) and “träume von freiheit” (“dreams of freedom”) (schöner wohnen 2014: 24–30). the media circulation of images also enables native protest against cultural appropriation. digital media can help facilitate native access to objects, images, and sounds stored in university archives and museums. however, the general availability of digital images and music recordings becomes problematic when indigenous communities or indigenous cultural professionals decide that the content—rituals, or sacred songs, magic objects—is not suitable for public access. since these media are usually not controlled by native communities themselves but by powerful institutions of knowledge, cultural property rights are sometimes a disputed matter between unequal partners. again, indigenous media engagement is a crucial factor in making these claims visible and audible and strengthening the native voice in the international museumscape (lonetree and cobb 2008; shannon 2014). in the view of ojibwe media professional and historian patty loew, the ojibwe-dakota peace ceremony in the backstage area of buffalo bill’s wild west show underlines claims to indigenous cultural and political sovereignty: “in the minds of the chippewa, the tribe retained not only a government-to-government relationship, but a separate identity from the united states.” (loew 1998: 212). from the point of view of media anthropology, it is important to stress the fact that native people around 1900 were not latecomers from an isolated american interior that struggled to understand media. they were there when media first happened and collaborated in making them happen. in this, they used their technical ingenuity, their stories, and sense of humor. thus, it does not suffice to speak of an appropriation of western media through indigenous use. rather, turn of the century american media and popular culture has to be seen as the result of a cultural collaboration of native and non-native actors in the context of power relations—a form of distributed creativity. list of images fig. 1: nikater, classification of indigenous peoples of north america according to alfred kroeber, 2007.vector graphic. wikimedia commons, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/nordamerikanische_kulturareale_en.png [accessed on 19. june 2014]. fig. 2: first peace council ever held between chippewas and siouxs, ca. 1896. postcard, photographic print, 5.5 x 3.5 in. madison, wisconsin historical society, whi-95716. fig. 3: snapshots from the 1919 homecoming celebration honoring lac courte oreilles soldiers who participated in world war i. madison, wisconsin historical society, gw 902 r43-12. fig. 4: thomas vennum, cover of the ojibwa dance drum, 1982. http://www.sil.si.edu/smithsoniancontributions/folklife/pdf_lo/scfs-0002.pdf [accessed on 16. december 2015]. fig. 5: pfefferkorn studio, men in native dress posed around sacred drum at apostle island pageant [caption on the back: official apostle island indian pageant photo], probably 1924. postcard, 8.8 x 13.9 cm. milwaukee, marquette university, raynor memorial libraries, bcim image 00885. fig. 6: a 2004 front page of the native newspaper ojibwe akiing, featurting, in the upper left corner, a picture of the ojibwe medicine man and spiritual advisor of editor paul demain, james “pipe” mustache wearing a plains style feather headdress. photo by cora bender, 2010. fig. 7: hayward fresh water fishing hall of fame and museum, the museum of sport fishing, housed in a giant replica of a muskellunge fish, hayward, wi. photo by cora bender, 2001. fig. 8: idle no more: native flash mob protesting in ottawa shopping mall, december 2012. photo by aloys neil mark fleischman, huffington post. references history comes alive: reserve/north reserve and wolf point, n.d. lac courte oreilles community college library. “wild und stark: die stoffmuster der navajo-indianer wecken abenteuerlust und lassen uns von freiheit träumen,” 2014. schöner wohnen, juli, 24–30. appadurai, arjun. 1990. “disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy.” theory, culture and society 7 (2): 295–310. bender, cora. 2003. “performing patriotism in native north america: ojibwa powwow sounds and the paradoxes of identity.” in into sound: a reader in auditory cultures, edited by les back and michael bull, 241–264. london: berg publishers. ———. 2011. die entdeckung der indigenen moderne: indianische medienwelten und wissenskulturen in den usa. bielefeld: transcript. ———. 2015. “indigene medien, ethnographie und souveränität.” in medienethnographie, edited by cora bender and martin zillinger, 279–300. berlin: reimer. ———, thomas hensel, and erhard schüttpelz, eds. 2008. schlangenritual: der transfer der wissensformen vom tsu’ti’kive der hopi bis zu aby warburgs kreuzlinger vortrag. berlin: akademie. benton-banai, edward. 1979. the mishomis book: the voice of the ojibway. st. paul: indian country press. berlo, janet c., and ruth b. phillips. 2014. native north american art. oxford: oxford university press. berman, tressa. 2008. “cultural appropriation.” in a companion to the anthropology of american indians, edited by thomas biolsi, 383–397. oxford: blackwell. blume, judith et al. 2013. “aneignung | appropriation 1960–1990—materialien, programme, verfahren.” in kultur_kultur: denken. forschen. darstellen; 38. kongress der deutschen gesellschaft für volkskunde, edited by reinhard johler et al., 152–159. münster: waxmann. boas, franz. 1887a. “the occurrence of similar inventions in areas widely apart.” science 9 (228): 485–486. ———. 1887b. “museums of ethnology and their classification.” science 9 (229): 587–589. ———. 1887c. “reply.” science 9 (229): 614. ———. 1893. “ethnology at the exposition.” cosmopolitan 15: 7. bourke, john gregory. 1884. the snake dance of the moquis of arizona. london: sampson low, marston, and co. butler, judith. 1990. gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity. new york: routledge. ———. 1993. bodies that matter: on the discursive limits of sex. new york: routledge. champagne, duane et al., eds. 1997. american indian activism: alcatraz to the longest walk. urbana: university of illinois press. darnell, regna. 2004. “linguistic change and indian languages.” in a companion to american indian history, edited by philip j. deloria and neal salisbury, 175–192. oxford: blackwell. davies, julie l. 2013. survival schools: the american indian movement and community education in the twin cities. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. densmore, frances. (1910–1913) 1973. chippewa music. reprint, minneapolis: ross and haines. (orig. bureau of american ethnology bulletin 45.) dilworth, leah. 1997. imagining indians in the southwest: persistent visions of a primitive past. washington, dc: smithsonian institution scholarly press. dockstader, frederick j. 1961. indian art in america: the arts and crafts of the north american indian. greenwich: new york graphic society. dracklé, dorle. 1999. “medienethnologie: eine option auf die zukunft.” in wozu ethnologie?, edited by waltraud kokot and dorle dracklé, 261–290. berlin: dietrich reimer. feder, norman. 1965. american indian art. new york: abrams. feest, christian. 1987. “pride and prejudice: the pocahontas myth and the pamunkey.” european review of native american studies 1 (1): 1–8. ———. 1992. native art of north america. london: thames and hudson. ———, and j.c.h. king, eds. 2007. three centuries of woodlands indian art: a collection of essays. european review of native american studies monographs 3. altenstadt: zkf publishers. fonseca, felicia. 2011. “urban outfitters line sparks protest from navajo: native american government charges trademark violations — and bad taste.” today, october 17. http://www.today.com/id/44929941/ns/today-today_style/t/urban-outfitters-line-sparks-protest-navajo/#.vl7ha3artme. francis, daniel. 1992. the imaginary indian: the image of the indian in canadian culture. vancouver: arsenal pulp press. geertz, clifford. 1973. “thick description: toward an interpretive theory of culture.” in the interpretation of cultures: selected essays, 3–30. new york: basic books. ginsburg, faye. 1994. “embedded aesthetics: creating a discursive space for indigenous media.” cultural anthropology 9 (3): 365–382. ———. 2002. “screen memories: resignifying the past.” in media worlds: anthropology on new terrain, edited by faye ginsburg, et al., 39–57. berkeley: university of california press. gupta, akhil and james ferguson. 1992. “beyond culture: space, identity and the politics of difference.” cultural anthropology 7 (1): 6–23. ———. 1997. culture, power, place: explorations in critical anthropology. durham, nc: duke university press. hahn, hans-peter. 2011. “antinomien kultureller aneignung.” zeitschrift für ethnologie 136: 11–26. hirschfelder, arlene. 1999. american indian stereotypes in the world of children. lanham: scarecrow press. holm, bill. 2014. northwest coast indian art: an analysis of form; 50th anniversary edition. seattle: university of washington press. honor the earth powwow committee. 1991. honor the earth pamphlet. lac courte oreilles community college library. howard, kathleen l. and diana f. pardue. 1996. inventing the southwest: the fred harvey company and native american art. flagstaff: northland publishing. huijser, henk and brooke collins-gearing. 2007. “representing indigenous stories in the cinema: between collaboration and approrpiation.” international journal of diversity in organisations, communities and nations 7 (3): 1–9. irwin, lee. 2000. “freedom, law, and prophecy: a brief history of native american religious resistance.” in native american spirituality: a critical reader, edited by lee irwin, 295–316. lincoln: university of nebraska press. johnson, troy r. 1996. the occupation of alcatraz island: indian self-determination and the rise of indian activism. urbana: university of illinois press. kates, james. 2001. planning a wilderness: regenerating the great lakes cutover region. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. kroeber, alfred r. 1922. introduction to american indian life, edited by elsie clews parsons, 5–16. new york: viking press. kroeber, alfred l. 1931. “the cultural area and age area concepts of clark wissler.” in methods in social science, edited by stuart rice, 248–265. chicago: university of chicago press. ———. 1939. cultural and natural areas of native north america. american archaeology and ethnology 38. berkeley: university of california press. kuprecht, karolina. 2014. indigenous peoples’ cultural property claims: repatriation and beyond. berlin: springer. latour, bruno. 1993. we have never been modern. cambridge: harvard university press. lavie, smadar, kirin narayan, and renato rosaldo, eds. 1993. creativity/anthropology. ithaca: cornell university press. liep, john. 2001. locating cultural creativity. london: pluto. lindner, markus. 2013. “sharing and protecting: der umgang mit chancen und risiken des tourismus in nordamerikanischen indianerreservationen.” in kultur all inclusive: identität, tradition und kulturerbe im zeitalter des massentourismus, edited by burkhard schnepel et al., 245–273. bielefeld: transcript. loew, patricia. 1998. “newspapers and the lake superior chippewa in the ‘unprogressive’ era.” phd diss., university of wisconsin. ———. 2001. indian nations of wisconsin. madison: historical society press. lonetree, amy and amanda j. cobb, eds. 2008. the national museum of the american indian: critical conversations. lincoln: university of nebraska press. lurie, nancy o. 2002. wisconsin indians. madison: state historical society of wisconsin. mason, otis t. 1887. “the occurrence of similar inventions in areas widely apart.” science 9 (226): 534 – 535. ———. 1894. “ethnological exhibit of the smithsonian institution at the world’s columbian exposition.” in: memoirs of the international congress of anthropology, edited by charles staniland wake, 208 – 214. chicago: schulte. ———. 1896. “influence of environment upon human industries and arts.” in annual report of the smithsonian institution for 1895, 639–665. washington, dc: g.p.o. mcdonald, marilyn catherine. 2010. alert the media: how the american indian movement used the mass media. distributed by createspace independent publishing platform. mclane, betsy a. 2011. a new history of documentary film. new york: continuum. michaels, eric. 1994. bad aboriginal art, and other essays. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. mooney, james. 1896. “the ghost-dance religion and the sioux outbreak of 1890.” bureau of american ethnology, fourteenth annual report, 1892–93. washington, dc: g.p.o. morphy, howard and morgan perkins, eds. 2006. the anthropology of art: a reader. malden, ma: blackwell publishing myers, fred. 2002. painting culture: the making of an aboriginal art. durham: duke university press. nagel, joanne. 1996. american indian ethnic renewal: red power and the resurgence of identity and culture. new york: oxford university press. nesper, larry. 2002. the walleye war: the struggle for ojibwe spearfishing and treaty rights. lincoln: university of nebraska press. nicks, trudy and ruth b. phillips. 2007. “‘from wigwam to white lights:’ princess white deer’s indian acts.” in three centuries of woodlands indian art, edited by jonathan king and christian f. feest, 144–160. european review of native american studies monographs 3. altenstadt: zkf publishers. okely, judith. 1979. “trading stereotypes: the case of english gypsies.” in: ethnicity at work, edited by sandra wallman, 17–34. london: macmillan. ortner, sherry b. 1995. “resistance and the problem of ethnographic refusal.” comparative studies in society and history 37: 173–193. parsons, elsie clews, ed. 1922. american indian life. new york: viking press. penney, david w. 2004. north american indian art. london: thames and hudson. phillips, ruth. 1998. trading identities: the souvenir in native north american art from the northeast, 1700–1900. seattle: university of washington press. rasmussen, charlie otto. 1998. where the river is wide: pahquahwong and the chippewa flowage. odanah: great lakes indian fish and wildlife commission press. ritzenthaler, robert e. 1978. “southwestern chippewa.” in northeast, edited by bruce g. trigger. vol. 15 of handbook of north american indians, edited by william c. sturtevant, 743–759. washington: smithsonian institution. ———, and pat ritzenthaler. 1970. the woodland indians of the western great lakes. garden city, ny: natural history press. ryan, chris and michelle aitken, eds. 2005. indigenous tourism: the commodification and management of culture. advances in tourism research. oxford: elsevier. schüttpelz, erhard. 2009. “weltliteratur in der perspektive einer longue durée i: die fünf zeitschichten der globalisierung.” in wider den kulturenzwang: migration, kulturalisierung und weltliteratur, edited by özkan ezli, dorothee kimmich, and annette werberger, 339–360. bielefeld: transcript. ——— and marcus hahn, eds. 2009. trancemedien und neue medien um 1900: ein anderer blick auf die moderne. bielefeld: transcript. ——— and sebastian giessmann. 2015. “medien der kooperation: überlegungen zum forschungsstand.” navigationen 15 (1): 7–56. silverman, carol. 2013. romani routes: cultural politics and balkan music in diaspora. oxford: oxford university press. silverstone, roger and eric hirsch eds. 1992. consuming technologies: media and information in domestic spaces. london: routledge. shannon, jennifer. 2014. our lives: collaboration, native voice, and the making of the national museum of the american indian. santa fe: school of advanced research press. strong, pauline t. 2008. “representational practices.” in a companion to the anthropology of american indians, edited by thomas biolsi, 341–359. oxford: blackwell. swift, ernie. 1953. “early indian and fur trade history.” sawyer county historical review 1 (1): 1. hayward, wi: carnegie library. thomas, nicholas. 1991. entangled objects: exchange, material culture, and colonialism in the pacific. princeton: harvard university press. turner, frederick jackson. 1894. “the significance of the frontier in american history.” annual report of the american historical association, 119–227. washington: american historical association. vennum, thomas. 1982. the ojibwa dance drum: its history and construction. smithsonian folklife studies 2. washington: smithsonian institution press. wade, edwin l., ed. 1986. the arts of the north american indian: native traditions in evolution. new york: hudson hill press. warren, william w. (1885) 1970. history of the ojibway nation. minneapolis: ross and haines. originally published as “history of the ojibways: based upon traditions and oral statements.” collections of the minnesota historical society 5: 29–394. west, patsy. 1998. the enduring seminoles: from alligator wrestling to casino gaming. the florida history and culture series. gainesville: university press of florida. weston, mary ann. 1996. native americans in the news: images of indians in the twentieth century press. westport: greenwood press. white, richard. 1991. the middle ground: indians, empires, and republics in the great lakes region, 1650–1815. cambridge: cambridge university press. wrobel, david m., patrick t. long, and earl pomeroy, eds. 2001. seeing and being seen: tourism in the american west. lawrence: university press of kansas. films curtis, edward sherriff, dir. 1914. in the land of the headhunters. 47 min. usa/canada. flaherty, robert, dir. 1922. nanook. 79 min. usa. klain, bennie, dir. 2008. weaving worlds. 57 min. usa. [*] an earlier version of this article was presented at “re-thinking artistic knowledge production: distributed creativity–global media cultures,” a symposium of the dfg-network “media of collective intelligence” in co-operation with the cluster professorship of global art history, cluster of excellence “asia and europe in a global context: the dynamics of transculturality,” university of heidelberg, 23.–24. may 2013. i wish to thank the organizers, especially franziska koch, for inviting me to this inspiring event, and the editors of transcultural studies for their patience and kindness during the time it took to finalize my article. i also would like to express my sincerest thanks to my anonymous reviewers, to pauline strong and christian f. feest for helpful critical comments. and last but not least, i am indebted to my husband for his feedback and support. ultimately, it is your poise, autonomy, sincerity, and sense of humor that inspired me to the main idea guiding this piece. [1] see, for instance, silverstone and hirsch 1992; blume 2013; hahn 2011; thomas 1991. [2] literature about native north american art is abundant. for a first overview, i recommend, for example, dockstader 1961; feder 1965; wade 1986; penney 2004; feest and king 2007; berlo and phillips 2014; holm 2014, and, in general, the american indian art magazine. [3] see, for example, lavie, narayan and rosaldo (1993); liep (2001); or the themes of recent anthropological conferences such as “freedom, creativity, and decision: towards an anthropology of the human subject,” cambridge 2.–4. april 2012. [4] see, for instance, the 2013 exhibition “sakahàn” featuring international indigenous art with more than 150 recent works by over eighty artists from sixteen countries in the national gallery of canada in ottawa. http://www.gallery.ca/sakahan/en/ [accessed on 25. april 2014]. [5] red power is a blanket term used for the political movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s among native people living in the big urban areas of minneapolis/st. paul, chicago, and san francisco. especially native soldiers returning from vietnam and korea were no longer willing to tolerate the ever-present mainstream racism and systematic discrimination by the people for whose “freedom” they had fought. part of the red power movement was the american indian movement (aim), a radical political organization founded in minneapolis/st. paul in 1968. originally established to combat anti-indian police harassment, aim soon took to more visible political actions such as the occupation of alcatraz island in 1968, the trail of broken treaties protest march, and the ensuing occupation of the bureau of indian affairs in washington, d.c. in 1972. [6] language, however, is not a part of the culture area concept. in some areas, such as the northwest coast, societies with very similar economies and social organization spoke totally unrelated languages, whereas in other cases, societies as diverse as the foraging bands of ute and the aztec empire spoke languages belonging to the same stock (darnell 2004). [7] the term “lac courte oreilles,” (lake of the short ears), goes back to the french name for the ottawa who they called courte oreilles, short ears, because they did not adhere to the custom of wearing long, heavy earrings like other native groups and, therefore, did not have long earlobes. [8] at the time, two ojibwe groups, the bands at sokoagon (mole lake) and st. croix, were left out because they did not sign the treaty of 1854. they remained landless until the mid-1930’s when small reservations were parceled out for them under presidential executive order (lurie 2002; loew 2001: 78). [9] for accounts of contemporary native tourism engagement, see, for example, lindner 2013; ryan and aitken 2005; west 1998; and, closest to the point i am trying to make, phillips 1998. [10] photograph “gov. phillipp & chippewa in conference (nov, 1915 – 21),” state historical society of wisconsin, madison: whi (w6) 6329. [11] hole-in-the-day seems to be an ambivalent name in ojibwe historical context. it means “solar eclipse” as well as “rays of sunlight shining through a round hole in the clouds.” it is also the name of an important historical leader of the leech lake ojibwe in minnesota who had pleaded that his people join the dakota uprising in minnesota, the so-called “sioux wars” in 1862 (warren 1885: 504). [12] i researched the films in the state historical society of wisconsin, but unfortunately, it seems that the film reels have not survived. [13] the website of the madeline island museum, a wisconsin historic site, http://madelineislandmuseum.wisconsinhistory.org/ [accessed on 14. december 2015]. [14] william bineshi baker, sr., was also tom vennum’s most important consultant (vennum 1982). [15] it seems that staging myths as plays was not an uncommon means used by native groups who attempted to make the native point of view understood by a non-native audience. feest, for instance, reconstructs the adoption of the pocahontas myth in a play staged annually between 1881 and 1915 by pamunkey indians of virginia (feest 1987). [16] http://www.three-fires.net/tfn/leadership.htm [accessed on 25. april 2014]. [17] see, for instance, cell phone videos posted on youtube and facebook: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy-vp_ddgrw [accessed on 24. june 2014]. translating tibet in the borderlands | emma martin | transcultural studies translating tibet in the borderlands: networks, dictionaries, and knowledge production in himalayan hill stations emma martin, university of manchester borderland texts no country in the world has exercised a more potent influence on the imagination of men or presented such fascinating problems for solution to the explorer as tibet; and this influence has been active amongst all the generations which have exploited the byways of the earth from the days of herodotus to those of younghusband. — thomas holdich[1] introducing his account on tibet and exploration, thomas holdich (1843–1929), a british india government geographer decorated for his map and boundary making, pinpointed a problem that has troubled those wanting to know something of tibet since the first accounts of giant gold-digging ants appeared in the pages of herodotus’ the histories.[2] concrete facts had always been hard to come by. this was still the case during the decades that spanned the turn of the twentieth century. even claims that the veil over this once mysterious place had been lifted, made by members of the francis younghusband-led mission to lhasa in 1903–1904, were short-lived.[3] once british indian troops and their loot left lhasa in september 1904, access to central tibet’s capital yet again became a thing of dreams. therefore, all kinds of information relating to tibet, its culture, political systems, and language, needed to be made somewhere else. in many cases, those seeking such things came to darjeeling and kalimpong, the british hill stations of north-eastern india. despite the diminutive size of darjeeling and kalimpong, these borderland towns have recently been reconsidered using mary louise pratt’s definition of a “contact zone.”[4] pratt highlights the phenomenon of transculturation in such places, using contact zones to explode the myth of the lone traveller and, more widely, colonial travel writing, something she calls “imperial meaning-making.”[5] taking this concept into the himalayas, i will show that colonial officers did not have control over knowledge production, especially in relation to tibet. instead, using the texts produced in the hill stations, and their acknowledgements, silences, and contested claims of authorship, i will show that despite citing the colonial officer’s name as author, no such monopoly over scholarly understanding existed. as pratt also notes, “people on the receiving end of european imperialism did their own knowing and interpretation…using european tools.”[6] transculturation, here understood as a process of selecting, contesting, and inventing from materials transmitted by colonialism, provides a useful framework for working out how those tools could be used to one’s own advantage, whilst also being used to suppress. yet darjeeling and kalimpong and their borderland position in the british empire present the opportunity to think not just about transculturation, but also transculturality, a subtle but crucial difference. mobility plays an important role in himalayan hill stations and such connectivity occupies an important place for bennesaieh when she defines the separation between transculturation and transculturality. the difference for her comes from “the sense of movement and the complex mixedness of cultures in close contact,” and “the embodied situation of cultural plurality lived by many individuals and communities of mixed heritage and/or experience...” these dynamic qualities produce a subtle shift in the colonial makeup of specific locations, especially those on the edges.[7] this definition speaks very pointedly to darjeeling and kalimpong, places that were home not only to diverse local populations, but also to continually shifting groups of people. from the plains came british colonial officers, scottish tea planters, missionaries, and both european and bengali tourists. these groups were then knitted to those who came from beyond india’s british-controlled borderlands; nepali settlers, bhutanese commercial agents, tibetan, kashmiri, and ladakhi traders and pilgrims, tibetan buddhist scholars, and not forgetting a host of spies and intelligence gatherers from russia and china. as transcultural alliances were so obvious here, i want to propose that darjeeling and kalimpong also had features of a particular kind of cosmopolitanism. a useful way of assessing the himalayan hill station as a potential cosmopolitan centre is to compare its characteristics to a better studied and generally recognised site of cosmopolitanism, the early modern mediterranean port city. the checklist offered by henk driessen for port city cosmopolitanism includes “[t]he substantial presence of ethnic trading minorities; a general enterprising atmosphere; linguistic and religious plurality; openness and tolerance; considerable economic growth; common interests across ethnic boundaries; a basic education system modelled after the [...] english systems; and vast commercial, social, and cultural networks.”[8] i believe that darjeeling and kalimpong were the borderland equivalent of the early modern mediterranean port because of, rather than despite, their colonial foundations. for those who travelled to these hill stations to learn, trade, and explore, they became land-locked entrepôts, which also acted as proxies for tibet. although trade fostered a sense of cosmopolitanism in the port cities discussed by driessen, it is late nineteenthand early twentieth-century colonial anxieties and the products of these uncertainties that dictated both the types of cultural and intellectual exchange that took place there and the agents that facilitated it. the mission to lhasa represented the culmination of british anxieties in tibet’s borderlands.[9] yet, these anxieties emerged already in 1835 as the british extended their colonial reach and interest in tibet, beginning with the annexation of darjeeling from the chögyal (tibetan chos rgyal), or king of sikkim. this upward movement into the hills pushed back existing frontiers and entangled the british in very different encounters from those they were familiar with on the indian plains. not only were the politics and power-bases different, ensuring that the british became embroiled in regional struggles with bhutan, nepal, sikkim, and tibet over fluid and often contested boundaries, but so too was the language. the british now had to make sense of new intelligence and new sources and this need to know was heightened by british concerns about influences at play beyond the himalayas. looking out from the newly created hill stations of british india, the british could only speculate on the persuasive powers of other empires that had influence in tibet, namely china, but increasingly also russia. with tibet soon to be identified as a british india “buffer zone,” collating sources on this place and finding cultural brokers who could decipher them suddenly became paramount. as mantena lays out in her work on indian historiography, the production of colonial dictionaries and grammars in local languages, aimed specifically at colonial officers rather than native speakers, was often the first sign that a potential colonizer intended to know or control knowledge over a place or people.[10] furthermore, travelogues, especially those written as a part of diplomatic or missionary practices, acted as proto-ethnographies providing information on local practices that new recruits could expect to encounter. as mantena shows in her treatment of the first surveyor general of india, colin mackenzie (1754–1821), and as pratt asserts in imperial eyes, travelling to familiarize oneself with places was a powerful practice. it brought distinction and occasionally fame to those who surveyed previously unmapped lands. but in many cases, access to specific sites of cultural and political interest was restricted. for a localised context, mantena shows that the british did not have the knowledge necessary to gain access to villages in south india; they needed cultural brokers, or as she calls them, local intellectuals, to do that. she also shows the colonial context of these obstacles when she says, “it would have been virtually impossible to gain entry into localities without inducing fear and, potentially, anger at the blatant intrusion into their inner cultural worlds.”[11] in the tibetan context the barriers were not just at the village level; they prevented access to a large part of a country that was perched right on the colonial doorstep. tibet enforced tight boundary controls and, as the return of an unopened letter from the viceroy of india to tibet’s dalai lama in 1899 illustrates, tibet had no interest in building links with the british prior to 1903–1904. the idea that darjeeling and kalimpong acted as proxies for tibet is very real here, as these closed borders created intellectual bottlenecks in the hill stations. although those from himalayan worlds could travel freely into british india, those arriving from the plains did not have such freedom to travel into tibet. yet these physical barriers did not prevent the writing of histories, ethnographic studies, travelogues, and dictionaries on the subject of tibet. it simply meant that the british collected information in different ways. unlike the dragoman of the mediterranean, who may be understood as a locally fixed resource for traders who relied on them in port cities (although of course many dragomans travelled), the local intellectuals of the himalaya were highly mobile. they brought the sources and the cultural savoir-faire to the borderlands, sometimes covertly. the only alternative for the british was to collect information in the tibetan spaces that were part of the hill station’s cosmopolitan make-up—a practice that was employed on a regular basis. by the 1880s, scholars working on tibetan subjects from sikkim, the bengal plains, mongolia, norway, germany, moravia, and tibet were living and working in darjeeling and kalimpong alongside scholar-administrators from british india. their presence was noticed by a somewhat motley group of spiritual seekers, explorers, spies, museum curators, and future tibetologists from the ukraine, japan, russia, scotland, germany, the united states, france, and england. these individuals sought out the hill stations and their resident scholars in the hope of learning the tibetan language, of collecting texts and objects for their museums and libraries, or for the purpose of gaining secret or privileged knowledge about political, religious, or geographical matters. the period from the 1880s to the 1920s was a fertile time for knowledge production in the eastern himalayas. it saw many breakthrough publications about tibet and its language, many of which are still referenced to this day. this makes the decades preceding and following the mission to lhasa a productive site for thinking about networks of knowledge production in the hill stations of the eastern himalayas. none of this was unique to darjeeling and kalimpong. similar communities were at work in tibetan borderland sites separated by vast distances, each with its own specific network and raison d’être. in lahul, on india’s north-western border with tibet, the moravian christian missionaries were particularly visible through their publications. heinrich august jäschke (1817–1883) compiled a romanized tibetan and english dictionary in 1866, followed by a number of grammars and word books as well as his acclaimed a tibetan-english dictionary, with special reference to the prevailing dialects in 1881. along tibet’s eastern border with china, anthropologists and missionaries of german descent from north america established themselves as pioneers of tibetan scholarship through proto-ethnographies and field-collecting for museums. again, early missionary networks are most visible in these areas, where the canadian dr. susie rijnhart wrote up her ill-fated travels across the borderlands between 1895 and 1899.[12] the anthropologist berthold laufer, working in the same area, collected more than four thousand objects in northern kham (tibetan khams) for the chicago field museum. on his arrival in 1909, he met the american albert shelton (1875–1922), rijnhart’s colleague in the foreign christian missionary society. shelton was based in the frontier towns of tachienlu (also known as dartsedo, tibetan dar rtse mdo) and batang (tibetan ’ba’ thang). on periodic furloughs in the united states he lectured widely to potential missionary recruits on tibetan subjects. he also wrote journal articles and travelogues, and amassed an unprecedented collection of objects for the newark museum in new jersey, leaving the museum with one of the world’s great tibet collections.[13] diplomatic networks were also present on tibet’s eastern edges. notable amongst them was william woodville rockhill (1854–1914), america’s first tibetologist, who learnt tibetan in europe, took up a position at the u.s. legation in peking in 1883, and from there undertook trips to tibetan and mongolian cultural areas. fig. 1: walter yeeling evan-wentz and kazi dawa samdup, taken in gantok around 1919. courtesy of the university of manchester. it is clear that while tibet was off-limits, colonial and missionary agencies of various kinds and sizes believed that its borderlands and especially its centres of trade, with many people passing through, were valuable sites for conducting tibet-related research. the associated individuals might appear isolated from each other, stationed as they were in such remote locations across the tibetan borderlands, be it in ladakh, batang, darjeeling, or kalimpong. their publications, however, show that they collaborated, corrected, edited, and exchanged their work, revealing extended networks of knowledge production on tibet’s borderlands. contested forms of colonial knowledge in times of old it was not considered that the mere knowledge of language sufficed to make a man a “translator” in any serious sense of the word; no one would have undertaken to translate a text who had not studied it for long years at the feet of a traditional and authoritative exponent of its teaching [...]. — lama anagarika govinda[14] in his introduction to the tibetan book of the dead, lama anagarika govinda, a german-born devotee and teacher of tibetan buddhism and meditation, uses a passage from hindusim and buddhism by the sri lankan philosopher and historian ananda kentish coomaraswamy (1877–1947) to articulate the complexities and pitfalls of doing research and writing on a culture that was not one’s own.[15] he voiced his disquiet over the production of orientalist knowledge, “especially [...] in the realm of tibetology, which such scholars have approached with an air of their own superiority.”[16] the lama was openly critical of european men trying to produce reputable tomes, as his experiences showed him that they were often ill-equipped to do so. he further believed that these men had written their books using knowledge of others without acknowledging their contribution. kazi dawa samdup (dousandup, 1868–1923) (figure 1), the sikkim school headmaster and later university lecturer, was the actual and acknowledged translator of the tibetan book of the dead that was published under the name of evans-wentz. if he had lived to see its publication he would have easily recognised the sentiments behind the lama’s criticism. when he reflected upon his own philological project, an english-tibetan dictionary, which was published in 1919, he felt, “the work could only be undertaken by a person whose mother tongue was tibetan, or a dialect of tibetan—in short, one who thought in tibetan.”[17] driessen thought it unlikely that one would finda dragoman equivalent, “in mountains or inland towns,”[18] but in darjeeling and kalimpong they were highly visible. despite their critical role in the colonial cosmopolitanism of the eastern himalayas, they have received little scholarly attention beyond a general acknowledgement of their importance. while a wide body of research has been devoted to the contributions of pre-colonial and early modern cultural brokers, there has been little interest in those who continued to work with the british at the height of empire. this article addresses this imbalance, highlighting the continuing reliance of colonial officers on local intellectuals and the multiple ways that their contributions were used and then mostly passed over in silence. i will study the interaction between those who thought in tibetan (and, just as importantly, in colonial english) and those europeans who needed their site-specific expertise. focusing on certain darjeeling-based partnerships, i also offer insights into the recurring patterns of knowledge production. alliances between british officers and european and american scholars on the one side, and families of local intellectuals on the other, were continually renewed from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. they enabled europeans to produce reliable and trustworthy publications and reports for colonial agencies and the general public, but also to make a name for themselves as tibetan scholars.[19] such a charting of scholarly practice is understood by tibetans as a “genealogy of knowledge”. returning to mantena, she has noted that it is often difficult to trace these intellectual relationships back across generations to their origins.[20] yet, while these tracings are problematic and scant, they are nevertheless useful as they lead us to question what we think we know about imperial knowledge production and its processes. these scholarly relationships, often portrayed as serendipitous or singular, as a product of a moment in time, were nothing of the sort in this himalayan context. instead, certain families were targeted generation after generation by colonial officers and “rewarded”—within heavy colonial constraints—for the research skills they made available. these intellectual relationships, which reflect the “soft” power of colonialism, not only sustained and maintained both himalayan and colonial power structures, but they also secured personal prestige and future mobility for the individuals involved. these scholarly abilities offered many complex benefits, inasmuch as both colonial officers and local intellectuals had something to gain from working with each other. genealogies of knowledge: dictionaries in darjeeling and kalimpong as for the language, though there have been several gallant attempts to plunge into the labyrinthine obscurities of its construction—notably on the part of alexander csoma de körös in 1834 and subsequently of h. a. jäschke—that also, it must be confessed, remains more or less a mystery; for no one, i take it, is likely to aver that the present state of our knowledge on the subject is at all satisfactory. — h. b. hannah[21] almost eighty years after the hungarian alexander csoma de körös (1784–1842) had completed his tibetan-english dictionary in ladakh (he would die of malaria in darjeeling in 1842 as he waited to travel to lhasa),[22] and three decades after jäschke had completed his dictionary in 1881, herbert bruce hannah, a calcutta high court judge, felt that foreigners were still scrambling in the dark when it came to the tibetan language.[23] he had some authority to speak on the matter as he had just published his own tibetan grammar. despite authoring this volume he did not claim that his work was definitive, but instead modestly explained in his grammar’s preface that this was merely a compilation of his classroom notes, scribbled down as his tutor, the “intelligent and scholarly tibetan,” kazi dawa samdup, taught him the basics of the tibetan language.[24] in the preface to his own work, the aforementioned an english-tibetan dictionary, samdup notes that this was a pupil-teacher relationship that had lasted for more than a decade.[25] hannah validated his own small contribution to tibetan language translations by outlining his own genealogy of knowledge, in order to give his readers an intellectual lineage or scholarly framework for this new publication. he listed those whose work he had studied and from whom he had borrowed; those who had personally taught him; and those who had sponsored him, edited his work, and encouraged him. hannah clearly considered himself part of a global network of scholars who were attempting to provide access to the tibetan language. alongside csoma de körös and the moravian jäschke, hannah would also cite the tibetan dictionaries, grammars, and manuals of the irishman vincent henderson (1873–n.d.), who worked for the chinese maritime customs office and was stationed in tibet; the bengali rai bahadur sarat chandra das (1849–1917); and the british reverend graham sandberg (1851–1905), who worked with das on his monumental dictionary project (see below); and finally, the norwegian missionary edvard amundsen (1873–1928) from the china inland mission, who, like das and sandberg, was stationed in darjeeling. his sponsors, who also supported his tutor’s publication seven years later, were the bengali vice-chancellor of calcutta university, sir ashutosh mukerjee (1864–1924) and the english orientalist and linguist sir edward denison ross (1871–1940), who had not only established the first tibetan language department in india at calcutta university, but was to become the first director of the school of oriental studies (later renamed the soas) in london in 1916.[26] for hannah, this genealogy not only embedded him in an emerging community of tibetan studies scholars, but by citing the names of two of darjeeling’s preeminent academics, kazi dawa samdup and the scottish-sikkimese david macdonald (1870–1962), he was also authenticating the intellectual worth of his publication for this growing network. previously, csoma de körös had acknowledged the work of sangye phuntsog, a lama from zangla monastery in ladakh, whose contribution had been critical for the completion of his 1834 dictionary, while jäschke had entrusted the editing of his tibetan translation of the new testament to none other than macdonald, whom hannah described as “probably the first tibetan scholar in india.”[27] in hannah’s case the names of the two men he acknowledged would have been recognisable to many of his readers, as both not only had distinctive careers, but would be instrumental for the intellectual progress of several early tibetologists. it was no coincidence that macdonald, samdup, and hannah were active in darjeeling at this time. there had certainly been more than a few gallant attempts to dispel the fairy tales circulating about the tibetan language since the middle of the nineteenth century by an emerging and closely connected group of scholars. looking closely at who was doing the dispelling, it is possible to trace these genealogies back into the nineteenth century and see them continued by a further generation of darjeeling scholars in the twentieth century. while certainly incomplete, this genealogy still provides important insights into the significant part certain local families played in the imperial project. the 1879 a manual of tibetan by thomas herbert lewin (1839–1916) is a useful place to start this mapping process as its title page gives us the name of the man at the root of this darjeeling-based intellectual family tree.[28] when lewin arrived in darjeeling as deputy commissioner in october 1877, he had served as a british indian army officer for more than a decade in several hill tracts of north-eastern india. he compiled this manual using the same procedure as that used for his progressive colloquial exercises in the lushai dialect of the “dzo” or kúki language, which he had compiled for the lushai hills in 1874. it consists of a series of increasingly complex dialogues to develop the skills necessary to speak colloquial tibetan. while the lushai hills manual did not mention the people who helped in the compilation, a manual of tibetan claimed the authority and help of “yapa uygen gyatsho, a learned lama of the monastery of pemiongchi.” lama ugyen gyatso (1851–c.1915) was a well-known and respected monk in darjeeling, who had come from pemayangtse (tibetan padma g.yang tse) monastery in sikkim. his family owned estates in southern sikkim and had served the sikkim chögyals for several generations.[29] he had just completed twelve years of study at pemayangtse when in 1873 he travelled with the eighth chögyal, sidkeong namgyal (1819–1874), to darjeeling. in discussions with british officers the chögyal personally recommended ugyen gyatso for the post of tibetan language teacher at a new british india enterprise, the bhutia boarding school that was to open in darjeeling in the following year (figure 2). fig. 2: staff and students of the bhutia boarding school, darjeeling, 1888. private collection. sarat chandra das is standing, third from the left, and ugyen gyatso is seated in the back row, fifth from the right. the school’s proclaimed aim was to provide an education in both tibetan and english, as well as in religion and subjects such as mathematics, preparing the boys for work in british india’s government institutions. tacitly, it was also considered a finishing school for potential pundits, the covert surveyors of tibet. the pundits, a small elite group of indian and himalayan men (chosen because they could pass as tibetans), were trained by officers from the great trigonometrical survey of india to map territories beyond the indian borders. using their paces to measure distance, and modified tibetan religious objects as surveying equipment, they mapped previously uncharted lands and collected texts and objects that could help decipher the cultural and political features of the area.[30] ugyen gyatso and the school’s young bengali headmaster sarat chandra das would lead by example, cooperating as pundits. ugyen gyatso’s own monastic mission as pemayangtse envoy to tashi lhunpo monastery in southern tibet in 1878 paved the way for das’s covert travels to tibet, first in 1879 and again in 1881–1882. ugyen gyatso accompanied das on both these expeditions acting as “secretary, collector, and surveyor.”[31] his survey work in tibet would be confirmed by the topographical drawings made by the british officer laurence austine waddell (1854–1938) in 1904 (see below), and when the swedish explorer and collector sven hedin (1865–1952) perused the survey, he concluded that ugyen gyatso was “exceptionally intelligent and a conscientious topographer.”[32] the more than two hundred manuscripts ugyen gyatso collected for das would form the basis for das’s highly confidential government reports;[33] for his descriptive account of his second mission, journey to lhasa and central tibet (1902)—which would coincidentally fall victim to the american diplomat and tibetologist william woodville rockhill’s heavy-handed editing;[34] and, of particular interest here, his much referenced 1902 a tibetan-english dictionary with sanskrit synonyms. das hoped that his dictionary would “assist european scholars in the thorough exploration of the vast literature of tibet,”[35] perhaps a reference to the events that had secured funding for his publication. to gain support for the expected substantial costs of developing this dictionary, das asked sir alfred croft (1841–1925), the director of public instruction in british india at the time, for support. he approached croft, a long-time supporter of das as well as a member of the team that edited and prepared the pundit reports for the government, at the perfect moment. shortly before, the german philologist and orientalist max müller (1823–1900) had written to croft in calcutta from his new base in scotland that there was a need for an english translation of a sanskrit-tibetan work on buddhist terminology.[36] as a result, das’s tri-lingual translation project was approved. thirteen years later, as das sat down to write his preface in his darjeeling home, “lhasa villas,” he quoted at length from the 1834 preface to csoma de körös dictionary to establish his own scholarly lineage for his growing audience. das’s acknowledgements of his own intellectual debts, however, are more important as they both reveal and withhold the details of the entangled colonial networks responsible for the dictionary’s production. the group of men das credited in his preface reflect the range of european agencies working on dictionaries in darjeeling. it also becomes clear that several contributors had moved to darjeeling, creating a critical mass of colonial scholarly knowledge. the aforementioned clergyman and scholar sandberg was a chaplain in calcutta, but he also worked on tibetan translations for the british india government. it was he who wrote the translation of the then viceroy curzon‘s ill-fated letter to the thirteenth dalai lama in 1900, which was returned unopened.[37] the moravian scholar-missionary reverend augustine william (wilhelm) heyde (1825–1907) moved to darjeeling in 1898 specifically to work on das’s dictionary after having spent fifty years at the mission in kyelang, lahul.[38] working alongside both these men was sanskrit specialist professor satish chandra acharya from a college in krishnagar, west bengal. he had met das while translating pali texts for the buddhist text society.[39] there were also several other scholars whom das chose not to acknowledge, but who worked with him throughout or for extended periods. these included the already-noted ugyen gyatso and the darjeeling-based mongolian scholar lama sherab gyatso (c. 1820–after 1902).[40] we can see the web of connections that led back to ugyen gyatso and the effect of his expertise on his colonial contemporaries, but what impact did he have on future generations of local scholarship? a third unacknowledged contributor to das’s dictionary was a young bhutia scholar, sonam wangfel laden la (1876–1936), who had his first posting for the british india government in darjeeling as an apprentice compositor in the government press. this was an enterprise set up solely to support das’s dictionary project, and laden la worked under the supervision of sherab gyatso. laden la had been groomed for empire from his school days. trained as an imperial cultural and diplomatic broker, he had the ability to bridge the gaps between local and colonial ways of knowing. he was also ugyen gyatso’s nephew. laden la was chosen to carry on the relationship already established between his pro-british family and the colonial officers stationed there.[41] he held several posts in the imperial police service, for which he became well known to future researchers of anglo-tibetan relations.[42] but he was also a gifted translator who, like david macdonald, would become an examiner in the tibetan language for the british india government. as a bhutia boarding school pupil, macdonald had also studied under ugyen gyatso. thus his influence continued as laden la and macdonald began editing dictionaries with a new generation of colonial officers. filed in amongst a collection of laden la’s private papers is a “tentative edition” of a twenty-four page booklet authored by sikkim’s then assistant political officer, (later sir) charles bell (1870–1945), entitled tibetan glossary and rules for transliteration from tibetan into roman characters. published in 1904, this was bell’s first attempt at making the tibetan language comprehensible for himself and his future fellow officers. its publication would also signal bell’s intention to make a name for himself as someone knowledgeable in tibetan-related affairs. bell had arrived in darjeeling in 1900 and, as he recalled much later, “i saw much, yet understood but little (at first).”[43] this rather unassuming start would lead to an illustrious diplomatic career in the borderlands, coupled with a reputation for tibetan scholarship. bell’s direct superior and mentor, ernest herbert cooper walsh (1865–1952), the new deputy commissioner for darjeeling, was quick to introduce his assistant to the scholarly landscape of darjeeling. by late 1904 both men were stationed in yatung, chumbi valley, in the new british trade agency that had been created by the british following the pressurised treaty negotiations conducted by younghusband in lhasa. walsh had just returned from lhasa with his designated translator and assistant, laden la, and was passing the time by working on a vocabulary of the tromowa dialect of tibetan spoken in the chumbi valley, which was published in 1905. before walsh submitted his manuscript, the vocabulary was edited by macdonald, while laden la compiled the sikkimese words that featured in a separate glossary. as dictionary writing was clearly in the air, bell shared a copy of his “tentative edition” with laden la, who in turn “scribbled notes which bell used in subsequent editions.”[44] although this small effort did not make it to full publication, bell’s enlarged and corrected version developed into a more ambitious project, the 1905 manual of colloquial tibetan, for which hannah reserved his most effusive praise in his 1912 preface. this, like walsh’s vocabulary, not only took into account laden la’s comments, but was shaped to a great extent by macdonald.[45] a now familiar practice shows bell establishing his credentials by referring in his acknowledgements to the community of scholars with whom he had studied and worked. macdonald featured prominently. “[m]y thanks are due to mr. david macdonald, who has revised this book throughout, and to whose unrivalled knowledge of both colloquial and literary tibetan are largely due whatever merits the work may possess.”[46] the intellectual fingerprints of ugyen gyatso are clear to see. as already noted, this sudden rise in the production of dictionaries in darjeeling was part of a wider information gathering project that occupied the british india government at the turn of the twentieth century. as british india pushed its frontiers further outwards, the large number of government-sponsored publications rolling off the printing presses made its very particular interest in tibet visible. the political basis for this need to understand the tibetan language is further illustrated by the last dictionary briefly under discussion. fig. 3: johnston and hoffman, tibetan delegation at hastings house, calcutta, 16 march 1910. photograph, 350 x 495mm. liverpool, national museums, charles alfred bell collection, 50.31.133. laden la (far left, standing), tashi wangdi (second from left, standing), charles bell (third from left, seated next to the dalai lama), gungthang shapé (seated, far right). tashi wangdi’s 1909 tibetan-english-hindi guide was sponsored by the bengal government and was conceived during a crucial moment in the diplomatic contact between china, tibet, and british india.[47] the 1908 conference held in calcutta brought the three parties together in order to rework the unilateral treaty signed in 1904 in the potala by younghusband and the tibetan representative, the ganden tripa (tibetan dga‘ ldan khri pa). tashi wangdi was appointed as translator for the conference, but the difficulties in defining specific words and their significance led the chinese representative, chang yin-tang, the high commissioner of the imperial chinese mission to india, and his tibetan counterpart, tsarong shapé (born wangchuk gyalpo, d.1911 in lhasa), one of the chief ministers of tibet, to co-commission this guide to facilitate future diplomatic encounters. while wangdi continued the practice of acknowledging his influences by naming bell as part of its genealogy, he had his own intermediary on whom he relied for editing and proofing. this was a tibetan from lhasa, gungthang shapé (born, tenzin wangpo, d.1911 in darjeeling), who was later described as “a sort of confidential agent of the dalai lama” and who by 1908 already had more than a decade’s worth of experience in anglo-tibetan borderland talks (figure 3).[48] in his dictionary’s preface, wangdi makes another requirement for scholarly authority visible. it was not enough to produce tibetan-related research in the borderlands. it was even more highly regarded if it could be authenticated by somebody from lhasa. lhasa vs. local: the authenticity of knowledge the previous attempts at the systematic exploration of the subject of lamaism had been made by writers who had not themselves been in personal contact with tibet and tibetan lamas. they were mere compilers at second hand of miscellaneous notes and tales of travellers, who themselves had visited mostly mere outlying provinces of “the closed land.” — laurence austine waddell[49] one might be forgiven for thinking that the author of the buddhism of tibet; or, lamaism, laurence austine waddell, the “sanitary commissioner” for darjeeling and later “antiquarian to the force” during the mission to lhasa, had spent an extended and rare period of research in tibet in the latter stages of the nineteenth century. although waddell tells us he made three attempts to “evade the tibetan frontier guards and penetrate some distance into ‘the closed land’ itself,”[50] he nevertheless ended up finding his research site much closer to home. despite his bombastic claims, his personal collecting sites were not in tibet, but in the tibetan buddhist monasteries of darjeeling and sikkim. these places were clearly not closed lands; their contents could be surveyed and collected at a more considered pace because these, as waddell himself tells us, “were freely accessible to european sight-seers.”[51] waddell, like many of his colonial contemporaries, also wrote a dictionary soon after his arrival in darjeeling,[52] but my interest here is not in his philological studies, but in how he chose to authenticate his scholarly work. like das, waddell was at the front line of collecting and recording in darjeeling, acting as “the man on the spot” for some of britain’s leading anthropologists. as a member of the royal anthropological institute in london, his networks connected him to men prominent during the “museum period” in the burgeoning professionalization of anthropology in the late nineteenth century.[53] as a result, his research formed a significant portion of the gazetteer of sikhim (1894), a volume edited by herbert hope risley, british india’s leading anthropologist. this, was soon followed by waddell’s own influential work, the buddhism of tibet or lamaism (1895), for which he made extensive use of the manuscripts and religious objects in his collection.[54] having established his own position as an authority on “lamaism,” he briefly took up a professorship of tibetan at university college london (1906–1908) upon his return to england a decade later. waddell felt that the speculations about buddhism by philosophers such as arthur schopenhauer (1788–1860) warranted the publication of a book like the buddhism of tibet. there was little competition. in fact, waddell could only think of works on the subject by karl friedrich köppen (1808–1863) and the explorer emil schlagintweit (1835–1904), that were long out of print. proclaiming that his own publication now filled a gaping void in the world’s knowledge on tibetan buddhism, he was particularly patronising towards schlagintweit, writing that his work, “however admirable with respect to the time of its appearance, was admittedly fragmentary, as its author had never been in contact with tibetans.”[55] how did waddell convince his own readership that his new publication on tibet was a significant advance, that it was not based on peripheral knowledge, but that it offered informed research rather than speculation? how did he do this when, despite his unauthorised attempts, he had not managed to stay in tibet for any considerable amount of time? waddell chose to anchor the authenticity of his information to central tibet. in carefully explaining his research methodologies he stressed that those who sourced and translated texts for him came directly from lhasa and tashi lhunpo monastery in shigatse and not from the himalayan hill stations to which he was restricted. [by] engaging a small staff of lamas in the work of copying manuscripts, and searching for texts bearing upon my researches. enjoying in these ways special facilities for penetrating the reserve of tibetan ritual, and obtaining direct from lhasa and tashi-lhunpo most of the objects and explanatory material needed, i have elicited much information on lamaist theory and practice which is altogether new.[56] in short, if he could not go to lhasa, then lhasa would come to him. rather than travelling to build knowledge and cultural understanding on a subject waddell instead relied upon the mobility of the material, textual and oral sources to do the travelling for him. the men who travelled specifically for waddell and those who arrived to darjeeling and became sources for waddell illustrate the entangled reasons for their presence in darjeeling. waddell noted in his book’s preface that he was greatly assisted by “the learned tibetan lama, padma chhö phél; by that venerable scholar the mongolian lama she-rab gya-ts'ö; by the ñin-ma lama, ur-gyän gya-ts’ö, head of the yang-gang monastery of sikhim and a noted explorer of tibet; by tun-yig wang-dan and mr. dor-je ts'e-ring; by s'ad-sgra s'ab-pe, one of the tibetan governors of lhasa.”[57] besides the now familiar names of ugyen gyatso and sherab gyatso, the lamas resident in darjeeling and working for the british government, there is a chief minister of tibet and his secretary sent to darjeeling for treaty negotiations with the british and a further “tibetan lama” who waddell forgets to note is also a teacher at the bhutia boarding school in darjeeling.[58] while waddell’s authentic sources may well have come from lhasa and shigatse, the list of names demonstrates that it was still the responsibility of those stationed in darjeeling to make them accessible. waddell shows how critical it was to give knowledge credence by suggesting that it came from lhasa, especially for those wanting to establish their credentials as burgeoning scholars of tibet. the scholarship of decades past had, to waddell’s mind, been characterised by recycled and repackaged fragmentary facts on tibet garnered from a range of sources. like those in the process of producing dictionaries, waddell realised that to make one’s reputation there must instead be a claim to new information from an untapped and inaccessible place, in this case a fabled “closed land” like tibet, and more specifically, lhasa. the snag here was that the number of people who had made it to lhasa could be counted on one hand. if one could not reach lhasa oneself, connections to knowledgeable people who had were vital if the author wanted to have any hope of validating his claims to be a tibetan expert. waddell typified the thinking of those stationed in the eastern himalayas. there were vast tracts of tibet still unknown to europeans based in india, but the focus was firmly on lhasa, a place that charles bell, when he finally arrived there in 1920, would describe as “the heart of it all.”[59] after bell’s move to kalimpong in 1901 to take up the post of settlement officer,[60], he made it clear that colonial officers were well aware of the value of knowledge from and about lhasa. opinions and practices from the borderlands may be valuable for the colonial officers stationed there, but they also considered them a product of a transcultural colonial encounter that lacked authenticity, and was somehow less tibetan. rai bahadur achuk tsering (1877–1920) and dewan bahadur phalha se sonam wangyal, or palhese for short (c.1870–c.1936) (figure 4), came from two contrasting himalayan worlds and they had cultural knowledge that bell valued differently. achuk tsering, like macdonald and samdup, was a graduate of the bhutia boarding school system, sent there by his “respectable bhutia family,” who owned estates in southern sikkim and who seems to have helped the british during the 1888 sikkim border disputes with tibet.[61] on completing his studies in darjeeling he was recruited into the service of the british in 1896, where bell recalled much later in retirement that, “he was one of several clerks in a small countrified government office.”[62] his family connections within sikkim society are made obvious by his first marriage into sikkim’s most influential family, the barmioks, who had provided council to sikkim’s chögyals for generations. despite this prestigious union, the marriage failed to produce children and achuk tsering married again.[63] with his second family he settled in kalimpong, becoming an expert in diplomatic negotiations, especially those concerning bhutan. he travelled with bell on his first government survey of bhutan and the ammo chu valley in 1904, and then acted as bell’s “confidential clerk” during the signing of the punakha treaty in bhutan in 1910. in the same year, during the thirteenth dalai lama’s meeting with the viceroy of india in calcutta, he worked as a clerk and translator, a role he would take on again for the sikkim delegation at the 1911 delhi durbar. he was also a valued translator and go-between at the simla convention of 1913–1914. achuk tsering’s diplomatic value to bell is obvious, as his name appeared first on bell’s staff list for his mission party to lhasa, where, tragically, he died in december 1920. fig. 4: achuk tsering (left) and palhese (right), gangtok residency, before 1920. private collection. after his death, a deeply distressed bell said of achuk tsering, “he was a man of great political acumen, my right hand man in tibetan, bhutanese and sikkimese politics.”[64] there is no question that bell valued achuk tsering’s trans-himalayan knowledge, but it is also clear that bell did not see achuk tsering’s knowledge as purely sikkimese, bhutanese, or even for that matter tibetan, but considered it tainted by the colonial experience. bell makes this explicit when recalling his borderland experiences. “the tibetans who live in indian territory, even those on the tibetan frontier in darjeeling and kalimpong, gain only a partial knowledge of tibet and tibetan life, religious, domestic or political, for they are heavily influenced by western ideas.”[65] bell evidently differentiated between the knowledge and skills he gathered from those who lived in the borderlands as opposed to those whom he saw as occupying a “purer,” more tibetan space. palhese was a man who, in bell’s mind, epitomised the features of a tibetan cultural broker. unlike most of the men discussed in this paper, palhese neither spoke nor wrote in english, and he often baffled bell with the poetic, almost incomprehensible, rhymes and idioms of the tibetan language. for bell, he was a “veritable encyclopedia [sic] of things tibetan, high and low, especially on the secular side,” and he gave bell access to intellectual and aristocratic expertise that, to bell, was “a close preserve.”[66] he taught bell to speak honorific tibetan, the language of the lhasa aristocrats; he selected objects coveted by the lhasa elites for bell’s collection; and he advised him on every detail of lhasan etiquette. he held a unique position as the only tibetan aristocrat directly employed by the british india government,[67] and his standing was more exclusive still as he worked solely for bell. the two men worked together for more than thirty years. yet this rarefied picture does not stand up to scrutiny, as bell only had access to palhese’s cultural capital because of the latter’s exile in the himalayan borderlands. palhese belonged to the phalha, a wealthy and politically influential family of southern tibet, who owned estates near gyantse as well as large properties in lhasa. but das’s covert visit in 1881–1882 had cost the phalha family its security and status. palhese’s mother and father had supported das during his visit, unaware that he was a colonial spy. there are conflicting reports about torture, death, and banishment for palhese’s parents, but what is certain is that several of the family estates were sealed. palhese met das when he was just thirteen years of age, and we are unsure of his position in tibet in the ensuing years, but in 1903 he was posted to yatung as a low-level officer by the tibetan government. here he must have met bell and other british officers, and it was most likely here that he decided (or was coerced) to work for the british.[68] his work with bell (who later developed a pro-tibetan stance) led the dalai lama to reinstate the phalha estates and palhese was given high honorific titles by both the british and the tibetans. his knowledge and communicative abilities allowed him to recover something of his wealth, status, and power, along with a partial reintegration into tibetan society. bell, like waddell, privileged southern tibet and especially lhasa, which he saw as “the nerve-centre of these mountain lands.”[69] those in the borderlands involved in developing a scholarly picture of tibet looked to lhasa to authenticate the publications they produced. knowledge of lhasa was highly prized, with those writing on tibet hoping to raise their authoritative status by working with those who knew lhasa—its monasteries, its language, it etiquette, and its culture. but in reality knowledge production in the borderlands was impossible to label or compartmentalise. this was also true for the men who produced it; they too had multiple agendas and just as many loyalties, sometimes to forces well outside the control of british india. ghum monastery: dictionaries in a contact zone the ghum monastery was founded in 1875 by llama [sic] sherabgyatsa, one of the yellow-sect geylukpa [sic], and was intended primarily as a place for political meetings more than as a monastery. it receives a grant of rs. 60/per mensem from the government, is managed by a secretary and a committee, and has some fifty monks in residence. — e. c. dozey[70] by the time englishman eric collin dozey, a long-time darjeeling resident, journalist and author, published his tourist guide to darjeeling and sikkim in 1917, it was already an open secret that ghum or ghoom monastery (figure 5) was a meeting place for many of those with an interest in tibet. fig. 5: tinted postcard of ghum monastery, photograph taken after its restoration (paid for by laden la) following the 1934 earthquake. courtesy of emma martin. fig. 6: postcard of a staged photograph featuring the “darjeeling lamas,” including lama sherab gyatso (second from left), taken around 1890–1900. courtesy of emma martin. as waddell’s collecting practices show, monasteries in the borderlands were critical sites for access to different kinds of primary sources, but religion and scholarship were only part of a complex story unfolding in darjeeling. in ghum, lamas, officers and explorers blurred the lines between scholarly pursuits and information gathering for the purposes of colonial security. sherab gyatso, the dictionary compiler for das and the lama who worked with waddell, was the head lama of ghum monastery, which still stands on the outskirts of darjeeling (figure 6). he was mongolian by birth, but served an astrologer to the eighth panchen lama, lobsang chökyi wangchuk (1855–1882), at tashi lhunpo monastery. from the account sherab gyatso gave to ugyen gyatso, the lama left china in 1856, spending twelve years living as a prominent monastic figure in kongbu, now kongpo (tibetan kong po) and then pemakoichhen, now pémakö (tibetan pad ma bkhod) in south-eastern tibet’s lower tsangpo valley—a distance of more than 300 kilometres from lhasa—before making his way to darjeeling.[71] while not, strictly speaking, a pundit for the survey of india, on arrival in darjeeling he offered what he knew to ugyen gyatso, allowing the survey to make the first sketch map of the region in which he had lived. when croft compiled his 1895 report on the progress of the dictionaries and translations currently in production at the darjeeling press, he noted of sherab gyatso that “the lama has hardly an equal in tibetan scholarship on this side of the himalayas; and as he is approaching eighty years of age, though still a man of remarkable energy, it is desirable to utilise his great erudition while it is still at our disposal.”[72] he continued his dual monastic and intelligence roles at ghum, searching out illustrative passages of tibetan text for das’s dictionary project, while teaching at the bhutia boarding school.[73] after the construction of ghum monastery, the british would send many notable future translators/cultural brokers to ghum for tibetan language training, including laden la, the teacher and translator lobzang mingyur dorje (n.d.), and the british india officer and interpreter karma sumdhon paul (1877–c.1935).[74] the lama’s scholarship also made ghum monastery an important address for a number of international travellers. the ukrainian helena blavatsky (1831–1891), a founding member of the theosophical society found refuge there during her stay in darjeeling in 1882,[75] and the lama could also name amongst his pupils ekai kawaguchi (1846–1945),[76] the japanese monk who came to darjeeling in 1898 to prepare for his trip to lhasa disguised as a chinese pilgrim. ekai kawaguchi’s second darjeeling-based tutor also found refuge with sherab gyatso at ghum monastery. the considerable sum of sixty rupees given by the british india government to ghum monastery for intelligence services rendered must in part have been warranted by the activities of the buryat monk, kachen lobsang tsering (also known as sherab gyatso, d.1909),[77] who was better known to the british as shabdung lama.[78] his life, like palhese’s, was deeply affected by the clandestine mission of das and ugyen gyatso.[79] das had met shabdung lama in 1882 when he stayed in drongtse, near gyantse, during his 1881–1882 trip. he described him as a “boy-monk,” who “fetch[ed] water from the wells for my use.”[80] he was in fact the attendant of a revered gelukpa (tibetan dge lugs pa) lama known to the british as sengchen lama, who also had ties to tashi lhunpo and ghum monasteries.[81] sengchen lama met his end when the tibetan government ordered his execution by drowning for giving das a safe haven during his covert expedition. on his master’s execution in 1887, shabdung lama was force-marched to lhasa and imprisoned there, but escaped, through bhutan, to darjeeling and finally to ghum monastery.[82] he was well established in ghum by the early 1890s, working for das as a clerk on his dictionary project in 1894 (perhaps as compensation). despite shabdung lama’s participation in british india’s dictionary projects, the british, their colonial anxieties heightened, watched the activities of the lama’s guests at ghum monastery with some interest. this is hardly surprising as they included several russian “bogey men,” most significantly the russian-trained kalmykian explorer ovshe norzunov (n.d.) and later his monastic teacher, the buryat lama agvan dorzhiev (1854–1938),[83] whom the british suspected of brokering diplomatic ties between the thirteenth dalai lama and tsar nicholas ii.[84] despite their suspicions, the british continued to employ shabdung lama as a tibetan teacher, translator, and colonial intelligence gatherer. captain (later colonel) william frederick travers o’connor (1870–1943), who wrote his own dictionary and who co-wrote government guidelines on tibetan transliteration with bell in 1904,[85] employed the lama not only as his tibetan tutor, but also as an intelligence gatherer in the darjeeling bazaar.[86] bell was also likely to have been a pupil of shabdung lama, as he recalls that his first tibetan teacher was “a gifted monk, who was born in tibet and had worked for many years in a monastery not far from gyangtse[sic].”[87] the position of ghum vividly illustrates the wider necessity for bringing those with pertinent information together in darjeeling. the monastery was multi-faceted in its purpose and a perfect site for producing the entangled forms of colonial knowledge necessary to develop a comprehensive picture of tibet. this monastic contact zone, built by a mongolian and sponsored by the british, acted as a transitory home for a global community of spiritual seekers, monastic spies, and covert explorers. it also played a central role in training those who went on to become some of the most recognisable (if often hidden) names in early tibetan studies scholarship. ghum, then, was a place where even perceived multiple allegiances—on occasion with russia, one of british india’s most feared colonial opponents—were tolerated by british india officers. such a pivotal position made sherab gyatso and shabdung lama powerful, inasmuch as they were able to operate outside the authority of accepted colonial networks. this was not the case for most. many of the men discussed here gained positions of power and in some cases significant wealth, but in tracing the processes of knowledge production it is clear that colonial barriers were often present. it is already obvious that british officers did not always acknowledge the men who made their publications possible, and there were considerable hurdles for those outside the core colonial networks. despite this, there is an alternate reading of this transcultural encounter to be explored, as colonial officers did not always get exactly what they wanted, because access to valuable expertise was a matter of negotiation. the boundaries of knowledge i would add sir charles bell should in due courtesy have mentioned in his books about the role i played specially when for that purpose he sent for me and sought my advice and help. — david macdonald[88] making a name was not always easy for the men who worked in darjeeling and kalimpong. geographical boundaries placed limits on what was known and what was privileged, but there were other kinds of boundaries. the frustrated note written by macdonald and quoted above can be read as articulating a much wider and long-suppressed disappointment in the value of knowledge production. as already noted, bell and hannah, amongst others, did to some extent acknowledge macdonald, but macdonald still felt it necessary to write himself back into the making of some of the most significant publications of the late nineteenth century (figure 7). a man with whom macdonald had good reason to be frustrated was waddell, who failed to acknowledge that macdonald spent close to a decade working with him on textual translations. fig. 7: david macdonald (centre, seated) with gyantse trade agency staff, 1921. private collection. when macdonald left the bhutia boarding school at the age of nineteen, he received a posting at the vaccination department, on waddell’s recommendation, spending most of his time at the depot headquarters in ghum.[89] only a few years older than his pupils, he filled his evenings by teaching english to several boys attending sherab gyatso’s tibetan classes at ghum monastery.[90] yet the majority of his spare time was occupied with bringing some of waddell’s best-known publications to fruition, including the buddhism of tibet and waddell’s significant contribution to risley’s the sikhim gazetteer. it is left to macdonald to tell us that, “for some years i assisted this officer in the preparation of his works on the then little known religion of tibet and sikkim, lamaism, and in some portions of his contribution to the sikkim gazetteer and the linguistic survey of india.”[91] when surveying macdonald’s standing within this scholarly network, one perhaps understands his career progression as an anglo-indian as exceptional. he did indeed break several employment barriers, securing appointments to posts previously given only to british officers, but he also had to push past boundaries that seem to have had the sole aim of excluding him from the recognition he deserved as a scholar and instructor. in 1924, now close to retirement, macdonald was forced to take the higher proficiency test in tibetan by his new supervisor, political officer frederick marshman “eric” bailey (1882–1967) and his memoir does not hide his frustration over the incident. i passed with ease, receiving a reward of two thousand rupees from government. in a way, this test was a farce, for i had been appointed an examiner in the degree of honour test in that language as far back as 1906. this is a higher examination than that for which i was allowed to appear. however, the rules admitted of my appearing, and so i did.[92] those who set the rules and demanded his attendance also seemingly wished to put macdonald in his “colonial” place. in 1921, bailey took over the post of political officer not from his official predecessor, bell, but from macdonald, who had been acting in the role until bailey’s arrival. mckay notes that bailey “found it demeaning to his prestige to take over sikkim from an anglo-sikkimese.”[93] bailey, it seems, wanted to assert his authority over those whom he thought of as his imperial inferiors. macdonald was not the only man to suffer from being passed over in silence in the pages of darjeeling-based scholarship—i have noted several others in this article. kazi dawa samdup, with whom i began this article, also found complex and uneven hurdles as he pursued his philological activities.[94] family pressures meant that samdup became a british india employee rather than a monk, as he hoped, but he nevertheless became a tibetan buddhist teacher to walter yeeling evan-wentz (1878–1965), the american “author” of the tibetan book of the dead, who could neither speak nor read tibetan,[95] as well as to hannah and the french explorer and scholar alexandra david neel (1868–1969).[96] his expertise was called upon for several anglo-sikkimese projects, including the translating and annotation of the history of sikkim,[97] a project undertaken at the behest of john claude white (1953–1919), bell’s predecessor as political officer. he also acted as chief translator for the british during white’s and the sikkim delegation’s trip to calcutta in 1905–1906 for the ninth panchen lama’s visit to the viceroy of india, and under bell’s tenure he acted as the chögyal’s interpreter during the delhi durbar of 1911. he also played a critical role at the simla convention of 1913–1914, translating many of the documents the tibetans brought with them to establish their claim to independence.[98] he became a renowned scholar in his own right following the publication of his acclaimed an english-tibetan dictionary in 1919, which both hannah and macdonald had urged him to finish. in the same year, he moved to calcutta university to take up a professorship in tibetan. despite his seemingly smooth rise, it had been an eventful intellectual journey for samdup. from the preface to his dictionary it is clear that his position as a local scholar, who began his work outside of approved colonial structures, limited his abilities to gather the necessary information. samdup began compiling his dictionary in 1902 in darjeeling, but despite the hill station’s philological heritage, until 1906 the only books of reference which i wished to consult—viz. (1) csoma de körös’s and (2) jäschkes’ tibetan-english dictionaries, and that masterpiece of work, the late rai sarat chandra das bahadur’s tibetan-english dictionary—were all beyond my means of purchase and could not be borrowed, and i often despaired of being able to complete my self-imposed task.[99] sponsorship, and specifically colonial sponsorship, was evidently critical here, and without it scholarship proved difficult to pursue. following his move to gangtok in 1905 as headmaster of the bhutia boarding school outpost, white became samdup’s sponsor and only then did he receive the dictionaries he needed to complete his work. when white retired from service in 1908, samdup faced new challenges. he assumed that his sponsor would continue to support his complex philological work, but when white retired he left his scholarly responsibilities behind. samdup had to wait until a further opportunity presented itself in 1911 at the delhi durbar. there he met denison ross, who recommended his work to sir ashutosh mukerjee, and as a result samdup (and by extension his pupil, hannah) found a new sponsor in the form of calcutta university. samdup came to the realisation that research and publishing one’s work was only possible if sanctioned and supported by a colonial infrastructure. however, i do not wish to present a picture of victimhood here, as samdup, an established intellectual, was also more than willing and able to create barriers to his knowledge for the colonial officers he worked with. when white retired in november 1908, he wrote to samdup and noted of his successor that “i think you will like mr bell.”[100] bell was now political officer for sikkim, bhutan, and tibet, based at the gangtok residency, and samdup was an established headmaster. the two men developed a scholarly relationship around 1912 that lasted until bell’s retirement in 1918. they regularly spent their saturday afternoons together discussing texts that samdup translated for bell. by 1916 bell and samdup had worked together on numerous translation projects, but it is all too clear that bell was still wholly reliant on samdup for his authoritative translation skills. in june, bell sent samdup a letter asking him to estimate the cost of a new translation: “[w]hat would [be] your charge for translating this history of tibet by the 5th dalai lama (113 sheets)? a typed translation would be preferred. the translation should be [a] simple one, i.e. not ornate.”[101] it seems that their scholarly relationship was agreed on a “pay as you go” basis. bell needed to buy his access to tibetan culture, for even with unequal colonial power balances, samdup’s knowledge was not available to him free of charge. samdup was more than willing to drive a hard bargain, and after he named his price, which was beyond the means available, bell wrote that he could not afford it, and offered changed terms. please return the history by the 5th dalai lama unless you are willing to reduce your terms. i’m sorry that i cannot afford your price. i can offer only two rupees per sheet, the dedication + poetry being omitted, + only the plain history part translated. i should of course provide the paper. the translation need not be typed. if these terms suit you, please keep the history + let me know, + i will send you the paper.[102] samdup knew that such a project needed a translator who thought in tibetan. he knew the outer limits of this colonial officer’s scholarly abilities, and as a result he placed a solid value on his own scholarly worth. there are no further letters on how the negotiations were resolved, but obviously an agreement was reached on the new terms and the translations found their way into bell’s religion of tibet, where samdup is acknowledged in a chapter bell called “sources”. relevant portions of the leading histories so received have been translated for me by mr negi amar chand, mr david macdonald—who speaks and writes tibetan more easily than english—and rai bahadur nor-bu dhon-dup. a great deal has been done by mr tse-ring pün-tso and most of all by that tower of learning, the late kazi da-wa sam-trup.[103] bell’s and samdup’s experiences bring into sharp focus the lived realities of scholarly networks in colonial hill stations. one’s own expertise was controlled, haggled over, and promoted. sponsors could open many doors, but many more opportunities could be lost if those who claimed to be knowledgeable omitted to mention with whom they had produced their publications. knowledge production was not a genteel profession here in the hill stations of eastern india; it was a decidedly contentious process of negotiation under the complex asymmetrical conditions of colonialism. conclusion darjeeling and kalimpong were transcultural scholarly spaces that, by their very nature, were dynamic and continually reconfigured by local and colonial politics, by trade and by the highly mobile people that lived and worked there. borderlands are often conceptualised as peripheries, delineating the boundaries of what is known about places and peoples beyond frontiers. but these hill stations on the boundaries figured as central hubs, with information flowing in from both sides of the border. modern forms of knowledge production about tibet developed here, especially in the realms of language and ethnography. colonial scholars looked towards darjeeling to find the best-informed and most accessible local intellectuals to help them establish themselves in contemporary tibetan studies. this is where they found people with the necessary language and cultural background, who had access to sources and areas in tibet that were off limits. this notion of the himalayan hill station as a peripheral site can be turned on its head in darjeeling and kalimpong. the scholars who worked here were at the centre of tibet-related knowledge production, feeding those at the peripheries—the museums, libraries, and universities of europe and north america—with new publications and specimens. approaching this knowledge production from a local himalayan perspective shows the complexity of the scholarly, social, and political processes of information collection and publication. local expertise was grappled with and negotiated in a way that gave considerable agency to select local intellectuals and never simply reproduced the asymmetry of colonial settings. several genealogies came together here. colonial genealogies anchored in successions to the same administrative position merged with lineages anchored in teacher-student relations and local family lineages to produce site-specific knowledge. colonial knowledge was then fundamentally informed by multiple ways of reading the tibetan world. the final products of these encounters, the dictionaries, grammars, and manuals, with their partial acknowledgements of local contributors, represent a highly visible transcultural interaction while clearly retaining their distinctly colonial flair. these hybrid texts allow us to trace the scholarly discussions, ambitions, disappointments, and uncertainties that made new ways of reading tibet possible in the hill stations of the himalayas. [1] thomas holdich, the story of exploration: tibet, the mysterious (london: alston rivers ltd, 1906). [2] herodotus, the histories (oxford: oxford university press, 1998), 212–213. [3] the british mission to tibet was sanctioned by then viceroy curzon and led by colonel (later sir) francis younghusband. its initial aim was to sign a trade agreement with tibet. however, the mission turned into a punitive expedition and many tibetans were killed and monasteries and homes were looted. a unilateral agreement was signed in the potala in lhasa in september 1904 by a proxy head of state, as the dalai lama had fled to mongolia. [4] see http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/research/d-historicities-heritage/d19-kalimpong.html [accessed on 2. july 2016]. [5] mary louise pratt, imperial eyes: travel writing and transculturation, 2nd ed. (london: routledge, 2008), 7. [6] ibid., 7. [7] afef bennesaieh, ed., amériques transculutrelles / transcultural americas (ottawa: university of ottawa press, 2010), 16. [8] henk driessen, “mediterranean divides and connections: the role of dragomans as cultural brokers,” in agents of transculturation, ed. sebastian jobs and gesa mackenthun (münster: waxmann, 2013), 30. [9] viceroy curzon believed that russian guns were stockpiled in tibet and he was disturbed by accounts of tibetan delegations to russia. the mission to lhasa was conceived based on this intelligence. sam van schaik, tibet: a history (new haven: yale university press, 2011), 171. [10] rama sundari mantena, the origins of modern historiography in india (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2012), 151–177. [11] ibid., 54. [12] susie rijnhart, with the tibetans in tent and temple (ohio: foreign christian missionary society, 1901). [13] see douglas a. wissing, pioneer in tibet: the life and perils of dr. albert shelton (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2004). [14] w. y. evan-wentz, the tibetan book of the dead (1927; repr., london: oxford university press, 1957), 1xiii. [15] ananda k. coomaraswamy, hinduism and buddhism (new york: philosophical library, 1943), 49. [16] evan-wentz, the tibetan book of the dead, 1xiii. [17] lama kazi dawasamdup, an english-tibetan dictionary (calcutta: baptist mission press, 1919), vi. [18] driessen, “mediterranean divides and connections,” 30. [19] for a discussion on the production of reliable legal knowledge, see kapil raj, relocating modern science: circulation and the construction of knowledge in south asia and europe, 1650–1900 (basingstoke: palgrave macmillan, 2007), 95–138. [20] mantena, the origins of modern historiography, 54. [21] herbert bruce hannah, grammar of the tibetan language, literary and colloquial (calcutta: baptist mission press, 1912), iii. the baptist (or serampore) mission press played a significant role in the publication and global circulation of resources on the tibetan language. see john bray, “missionaries, officials and the making of the dictionary of bhotanta, or boutan language,” zentralasiatische studien 37 (2008): 33–75. [22] alexander csoma de kőrös, essay towards a dictionary, tibetan and english, with the assistance of bandé sangs-rgyas phuntshogs (calcutta: baptist mission press, 1834). [23] his exact words were, “wherever he gropes there is something that seems ever to elude him; and amid the weird philological phantoms that flit uncertainly around in the prevailing gloom, his constant cry, i feel very sure, is still one for more light.” hannah, grammar of the tibetan language, iii. [24] hannah describes samdup as “my münshi,” a persian word for interpreter or secretary. hannah, grammar of the tibetan language, x. [25] dawasamdup, an english-tibetan dictionary, vii. [26] denison ross also catalogued the collection of the hungarian explorer m. aurel stein at the british museum. see imre galambos, “touched a nation’s heart: sir e. denison ross and alexander csoma de körös,” journal of the royal asiatic society 21, no. 3 (2011): 361–375. [27] hannah, grammar of the tibetan language, x. [28] thomas herbert lewin, a manual of tibetan, being a guide to the colloquial speech of tibet, in a series of progressive exercises, prepared with the assistance of yapa uygen gyastho, a learned lama of the monastery of pemiongchi (calcutta: baptist mission press, 1879). [29] nicholas rhodes and deki rhodes, a man of the frontier: s. w. laden la (kolkata: mira bose, 2006), 8. for further details on the wealth and status he would accrue later in life, see peter richardus, ed., tibetan lives: three himalayan autobiographies (richmond: curzon, 1998), 25–26. [30] for the recruitment, training, and expeditions undertaken by these men see, derek j. waller, the pundits: british exploration of tibet and central asia (lexington: university press of kentucky, 2004). [31] see sarat chandra das, journal to lhasa and central tibet (london: john murray, 1902), vii. see also page xi for das’s short biographical account of ugyen gyatso. [32] sven hedin, scientific results of a journey in central asia, 1899–1902 (stockholm: lithographic institute of the general staff of the swedish army, 1907), 4:526. [33] the wider significance of what was happening in darjeeling is clear from the circulation of the supposedly confidential reports produced by das. waller notes that they “were actually to be purchased in the open market in st. petersburg soon after it was [they were] printed.” see waller, the pundits, 293n40. [34] das had met rockhill in 1885 in peking, when he accompanied the british diplomat colman macaulay to china. macaulay’s visit failed to secure permission from the qing empire for a political and scientific mission to tibet. sarat chandra das, autobiography: narrative of the incidents of my early life (calcutta: past & present, 1969), v. [35] sarat chandra das, a tibetan-english dictionary with sanskrit synonyms (calcutta: bengal secretariat book depot, 1902), i. scholarship was often described in terms of exploration by the authors of these early works. [36] das, a tibetan-english dictionary, iii. [37] see, f. w. thomas, “sandberg, samuel louis graham (1851–1905),” rev. schuyler jones, in oxford dictionary of national biography (oxford: oxford university press, 2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/35932 [accessed on 2. november 2013]. [38] bray, “a history of the moravian church in india,” in the himalayan mission: moravian church centenary, leh, ladakh, india, 1885–1985, ed. moravian church (leh: moravian church, 1985), 27–75 and j. e. hutton, a history of moravian missions (london: moravian publication office, 1922), 861. the revisors’ preface written by sandberg and heyde and included at the beginning of the dictionary, suggests that the project suffered from immense difficulties and that sandberg’s and heyde’s revisions were considerable. das, a tibetan-english dictionary, xi–xvi. [39] many thanks to amy holmes-tagchungdarpa for pointing out acharya’s colonial connections. having learnt the tibetan language in darjeeling, he became a translator for the british, most notably during the ninth panchen lama’s visit to calcutta in 1905. see satish chandra vidyabhusana, a history of indian logic (calcutta: university of calcutta, 1921), xviii. [40] lopez jr., citing tibetologist dan martin, points out that “it was sherab gyatso who was the true author of sarat chandra das’s tibetan-english dictionary, a fact only acknowledged on the tibetan title page of this work.” see donald s. lopez jr., “the tibetan book of the dead:” a biography (new jersey: princeton university press, 2011), 159n4. [41] a second uncle of laden la’s was also a pundit. rinzin namgyal (rn) made covert explorations in sikkim and tibet, leading the 1884–1885 survey team that completed the first tour around kangchenjunga in sikkim. see indra singh rawat, indian explorers of the nineteenth century (new delhi: ministry of information, 1973), xviii. [42] see, alex mckay, tibet and the british raj (richmond: curzon press, 1997), 111; nicholas rhodes and deki rhodes, “sonam wangfel laden la—tibet 1924 and 1930,” the tibet journal 28, no. 4 (winter 2003): 77–90. [43] “type copy of book vi,” eur mss f80/218, ch. 1, 2, india office records (hereafter ior), british library. [44] rhodes and rhodes, a man of the frontier, 17. [45] david macdonald, twenty years in tibet (1932; repr., varanasi: pilgrim publishing, 2005), 40. [46] charles alfred bell, manual of colloquial tibetan (calcutta: baptist mission press, 1905). [47] i am grateful to mr tashi tsering, director of amnye machen institute, dharamshala, who shared his rare copy of this dictionary with me. [48] for a brief biographical account, see luciano petech, aristocracy and government of tibet (rome: instituto italiano per il medio ed estremo oriente, 1973), 224. gungthang’s work on the thirteenth dalai lama was a mandatory text for the high proficiency exam in tibetan taken by colonial officers. sarat chandra das, an introduction to the grammar of the tibetan language (1915; repr., delhi: motilal banarsidass, 1972), ii. [49] l. austine waddell, the buddhism of tibet; or, lamaism, 2nd ed. (cambridge: w. heffer & sons ltd, 1939), viii. [50] ibid., xii. [51] ibid., x. [52] ibid., xii [53] see clare e. harris, museum on the roof of the world, (chicago: university of chicago press, 2012), 38–47 for discussions on waddell and museological networks in the late nineteenth century. [54] waddell would also cite das’s still supposedly confidential reports as a source for his own work. [55] waddell, the buddhism of tibet, vii. it seems that schlagintweit’s brothers did have tibetan connections. see moritz von brescius, “empires of opportunities: the role of german travelling scholars in europe’s overseas empires, ca. 1830–1880,” (phd thesis, european university institute/cambridge university, 2015). [56] l. austine waddell, the buddhism of tibet, or lamaism: with its mystic cults, symbolism and mythology, and in its relation to indian buddhism, (london: w. h. allen & co., 1895), xi. [57] ibid., xii. [58] this interesting example of a cultural broker (achuk tsering, see next section) dismissing the work of a rival also identifies waddell’s tibetan lama. “r[ai] b[ahadur] achuk tshering [sic] tells me that col. waddell’s lama (who worked with him for a long time + told achuk tshering [sic] that he, col. waddell was compiling a book), was not very learned. his name was lama pema chöphel + he was tibetan teacher at the bhutia boarding school at darjeeling. he did not know much tibetan literature.” charles alfred bell, diary volume vi, february 23, 1918, private collection. [59] charles alfred bell, portrait of a dalai lama: the life and times of the great thirteenth (1946; repr., london: wisdom publications, 1987), 263. [60] charles alfred bell, settlement officer, final report on the survey and settlement of the kalimpong government estate in the district of darjeeling 1901–1903 [published 1905], eur mss f80/239, rs 5 7s. 6.d, ior, british library. ugyen gyatso was now the estate’s manager. [61] an 1888 campaign medal, still with the family in kalimpong, provides this thread of evidence. i am indebted to achuk tsering’s family for our discussions. [62] bell, portrait of a dalai lama, 245. [63] thanks to mr tashi densapa for this information. tashi tsering, personal communication with the author, april 10, 2013. [64] charles alfred bell, tibet notebook ii, 91, private collection. [65] bell, portrait of a dalai lama, 25. [66] ibid., 25. [67] mckay, tibet and the british raj, 124. [68] darjeeling confidential frontier reports, november 1903, nos. 40–80, secret external, foreign department, national archives of india, delhi. [69] charles alfred bell, religion of tibet (1931; repr., new delhi: motilal banarsidass publishers, 2000), 49. [70] e. c. dozey, a concise history of the darjeeling district since 1835, 3rd ed. (darjeeling: gurkha press, 1922), 80. [71] g. strahan, report on the explorations of lama sherap gyatsho, 1856–68, explorer k-p, 1880–84, lama ug [this is ugyen gyatso.] 1883, explorer rn 1885–86, explorer pa 1885–86, in sikkim, bhutan and tibet, 1889, dehra dun, v/27/69/26, ior, british library. in darjeeling sherab gyatso posed as a tibetan lama in a series of staged photographs commissioned and used by das and waddell. see harris, museum on the roof of the world, 89–103. [72] g. strahan, report on the explorations of […], v/27/69/26, ior. [73] das, autobiography, 31. [74] see richardus, ed., tibetan lives, 79, for a vignette of sherab gyatso’s teaching practice, provided by karma sumdhon paul. all three would work for das, but would go unacknowledged. [75] das would also provide her with texts for her writings. see k. paul johnson, initiates of theosophical masters (albany: state university of new york press, 1995), 24–25. [76] on das’s recommendation, see ekai kawaguchi, three years in tibet (benares: theosophical printing press, 1909), 11. das died in 1917, shortly after travelling with kawaguchi to japan to study buddhism. see das, autobiography, vi. [77] see sle zur ‘jigs med dbang phyug et al. bod kyi rig gnas lo rgyus dpyad gzhi’i rgyu cha bdams bsgrigs, ‘don thengs bdun pa (lhasa: bod rang skyong ljongs par ‘debs bzo grwa nas par lha sa, 1985), 7:9–11. [78] the biographies of the mongolian sherab gyatso and the buryat shabdung lama have been conflated to create one man by harris, lopez jr., and toni huber. harris, museum on the roof of the world; toni huber, the holy land reborn: pilgrimage and the tibetan reinvention of buddhist india (chicago: university of chicago press, 2008), donald s. lopez jr., prisoners of shangri-la: tibetan buddhism and the west (chicago: university of chicago press, 1999). i align myself with mckay, because sources, some cited here for the first time, clearly refer to two separate men. mckay, "the drowning of lama sengchen kyabying: a preliminary enquiry from british sources," in proceedings of the ninth seminar of the iats, 2000, vol. 1, tibet: past and present, tibetan studies 1, ed. henk blezer (leiden: brill, 2002), 263-280. [79] see mckay, “the drowning of lama sengchen kyabying.” [80] das, autobiography, 60. [81] the phalha family were in a “priest-patron” relationship with the sengchen lama. [82] ‘jigs med dbang phyug, bod kyi rig gnas lo rgyus […], 10. [83] for detailed accounts of dorzhiev’s life see john snelling, the story of agvan dorzhiev, lhasa’s emissary to the tzar (shaftsbury: element books ltd, 1993) and alexandre andreyev, soviet russia and tibet: the debacle of secret diplomacy, 1918–1930s (leiden: brill, 2003). [84] in 1901, laden la would inform walsh about these uninvited visitors and norzunov would be placed under surveillance and interviewed on several occasions. see snelling, the story of agvan dorzhiev, 67–68. they were right to suspect him, see jampa samten and nikolay tsyrempilov, from tibet confidentially (dharamshala: library of tibetan works & archives, 2012). [85] charles alfred bell and frederick o’connor, rules for the phonetic transcription into english of tibetan words (darjeeling, 1904). [86] mckay, “the drowning of lama sengchen kyabying,” 270. [87] bell, portrait of a dalai lama, 24. [88] david macdonald, untitled and undated note on the subject of china and tibet, 1921, private collection. [89] macdonald, twenty years in tibet, 12. [90] richardus, tibetan lives, 80. [91] macdonald, twenty years in tibet, 12. [92] macdonald, twenty years in tibet, 311. [93] mckay, tibet and the british raj, 103. [94] kazi dawa samdup’s name appeared in the acknowledgements of several publications, but he was not necessarily given the substantial credit he deserved. see ken winkler, pilgrim of clear light: the biography of dr. walter evan wentz (1982; repr., bangkok: booksmango, 2013); kathleen taylor, sir john woodroffe, tantra, and bengal (2001; repr., abingdon: routledge, 2013). [95] see, dasho p. w. samdup, “a brief biography of kazi dawa samdup (1868–1922),” bulletin of tibetology 44, nos. 1–2 (2008): 155–158. laden la recommended samdup to evan-wentz in 1919 when the two met in darjeeling. laden la also worked on translations for evan-wentz’s the tibetan book of the great liberation, finally published in 1954. [96] david-neel travelled in disguise overland from china to lhasa in 1924. her inspiration came during a meeting in 1917 in japan, with ekai kawaguchi. see samuel thévoz, “on the threshold of the ‘land of marvels:’ alexandra david-neel in sikkim and the making of global buddhism,” transcultural studies 1 (2016): 168. [97] see tashi tsering, “a short communication about the 1908 ‘bras ljongs rgyal rabs,’ bulletin of tibetology 48, no. 1 (2012): 33–60. [98] ryosuke kobayashi, “an analytical study of the tibetan record of the simla conference, 1913–1914: shing stag rgya gar ‘phags pa’i yul du dbyin bod rgya gsum chings mol mdzad lugs kun gsal me long,” in current issues and progress in tibetan studies: proceedings of the third international seminar of young tibetologists, ed. tsughito takeuchi et al. (kobe: university of foreign studies, 2013), 183–200. [99] dawasamdup, an english-tibetan dictionary, 2. [100] white to samdup, 1 november 1908. kazi dawa samdup papers, l/ps/10/c909, ior, british library. [101] bell to samdup, 30 june 1916, kazi dawa samdup papers, l/ps/10/c909. [102] bell to samdup, 7 july 1916, kazi dawa samdup papers, l/ps/10/c909. [103] bell, religion of tibet, 199–200. local agency in global movements | kalzang dorjee bhutia | transcultural studies local agency in global movements: negotiating forms of buddhist cosmopolitanism in the young men’s buddhist associations of darjeeling and kalimpong kalzang dorjee bhutia, grinnell college introduction darjeeling and kalimpong have long played important roles in the development of global knowledge about tibetan and himalayan religions.[1] while both trade centres became known throughout the british empire for their recreational opportunities, favourable climate, and their famous respective exports of darjeeling tea and kalimpong wool, they were both the centres of a rich, dynamic, and as time went on, increasingly hybrid cultural life. positioned as they were on the frontier between the multiple states of india, bhutan, sikkim, tibet, and nepal, as well as the british and chinese empires, darjeeling and kalimpong were also both home to multiple religious traditions. from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, christian missionaries from britain developed churches and educational institutions there in an attempt to gain a foothold in the hills. their task was not an easy one, due to the strength of local traditions and the political and economic dominance of local tibetan-derived buddhist monastic institutions, which functioned as satellite institutions and commodity brokers for the nearby buddhist states of tibet, sikkim, and bhutan. british colonial administrators and scholars from around the world took advantage of the easy proximity of these urban centres for their explorations, and considered them as museums of living buddhism. while tibet remained closed for all but a lucky few, other explorers, orientalist scholars, and administrators considered darjeeling and kalimpong as micro-versions of tibet. as a consequence, their religious institutions, and more notably, the individuals linked to them, became convenient centres for the study of buddhism as it was constructed by global intellectual networks.[2] however, the representation of the buddhism in this area as a form of diluted tibetan buddhism by orientalist scholars and colonial administrators is problematic, and obscures the far more complex cosmopolitan interactions that were taking place under the surface between different traditions. not only did a number of the sikkimese and bhutanese residents of these towns practice their own unique forms of buddhism, but other ethno-cultural groups, including the newars from nepal, were part of broader global buddhist movements of reform and revival. this paper seeks to validate the important place that both darjeeling and kalimpong played in the cosmopolitan networks of the modern buddhist revival taking place in the twentieth century throughout asia and further afield in europe, america, and burgeoning communities in colonial states in the pacific. it will do so by focusing on the activities of two branches of the young men’s buddhist association, based in darjeeling and kalimpong, respectively, between the 1930s and 1960s. while the name of these organisations suggests that they were both affiliated to an association founded in colombo, ceylon[3] in 1898, their local histories were far more complex and show the importance of local agency in global movements. the identities of the respective founders of these associations represent the abundance of global interactions and the diversity of forms of buddhist cosmopolitanism characteristic of this period. the darjeeling branch was established by a sikkimese aristocrat turned ceylon-educated theravadin monk and educational reformer named kazi pak tséring (‘phags tshe ring,[4] also known as s. k. jinorasa, 1895/6?–1943). the founder of the kalimpong branch was dennis lingwood (born 1925), an ambitious british army deserter and poet, who converted to buddhism in his late teens and, after ordination in asia, took the name sangharakshita. both of these figures also had distinctive visions for their organisations, and both have left different legacies that reflect the fate of civil societies, social clubs, and other global networks in the era of post-world war nationalism. one thing they did have in common, though, was the use of forms of colonial social organisation in order to reimagine buddhism as the source of an alternative modernity beyond the state in the modern world. the local histories of these very different characters place darjeeling and kalimpong into broader trends of organisations, associations, and societies that asserted the potential of religion to function as a source of translocal political affiliation that could counter colonial critiques of indigenous traditions and identity. however, with the events of the mid-twentieth century, including decolonisation in south asia, the rise of communism in china, and the triumph of nationalism, these religious networks and forms of buddhist cosmopolitanism were considerably changed. while different buddhist traditions and their respective cultures became further globalised, this took place in a new marketplace of spiritual consumption, where religious traditions were also commodified and, in some ways, homogenised to facilitate their expansion. the kind of hybridity that characterised the inter-cultural and inter-traditional exchange facilitated by global cultural and social associations during the early twentieth century disappeared. the result was that the local histories of movements such as the young men’s buddhist association, which historically played an important role in these global movements, have often become obscured. buddhist modernity as an alternative modernity: the young men’s buddhist association as a global movement the young men’s buddhist association was by no means a unique organisation for its time. a common form of social organisation in colonial societies was the establishment of new associations in colonial centers from where they radiated outwards, bringing together otherwise disparate racial and caste communities in groups with shared social goals. these associations were significant due to their similar outward form as they spread across different communities, and to their role in encouraging the adoption of ideal colonial behaviours among local elites and anglophiles. the rotary association is a pertinent example of a socially-minded organisation that required its local members to adopt a british upper-class sense of propriety which bound together colonial and local elites in different environments.[5] religious associations were another form of these groups, with the added motivation of evangelisation and conversion. these associations were distinct from missionary organisations that were often limited in their goals. the foundation of the young men’s christian association (known more popularly as the ymca) in 1844 challenged the usual focus on conversion and responded to the needs of industrialising societies by providing recreational as well as religious activities for young people moving into urban centres. these activities included the founding of educational and athletic institutions which would encourage the development of a healthy “mind, body, and spirit.”[6] as the ymca opened in the cities of colonial latin america, asia, and africa, these institutions became part of an informal colonial structure, whereby local members of the community were inculcated with colonial attitudes and ideas regarding religion, the mind, and the body through informal interaction and activity.[7] however, these were not merely unidirectional movements established by colonial elites. local agents and groups interacted with the ideas propagated by these groups and utilised these forms of social organisation in different ways for anti-colonial purposes as well. importantly, associations connected with asian religions also began to appear alongside religious revival movements. mark frost has outlined how, in indian ocean port cities, movements and associations developed through the use of new technologies, such as newspapers, periodicals, and the telegram, and educational facilities including schools and universities were established as part of the consolidation of the colonial state. these associations were founded by members of “a non-european, western-educated professional class that serviced the requirements of expanding international commercial interests and the simultaneous growth of the imperial state.” their establishment was motivated partly in response to pressures that colonialism exerted on traditional social practices, as well as in response to the development of orientalist depictions that dismissed their cultural heritage. these networks saw local intellectuals draw on modernized forms of their own traditions for social, political, and educational change in response to these critiques. these activities often fed into the rise of nationalist movements, as among hindu groups in india and the south asian diaspora, who used religion and culture as central elements in the creation of discrete identities that could act as social binders.[8] the ymca in india represented one such association.[9] while it took several attempts for it to be firmly established, the current association, organised in 1875, began as a missionary forum for inculcating christian values through bible study and prayer meetings. however, it was not synonymous with the colonial state, as many of the early foreign participants and founders were americans, who had travelled to india as part of the set of broader american christian activities that ian tyrell has named “america’s moral empire” that aimed to spread american ideals of democracy and freedom (including support of indian independence), but without state interests.[10] the ymca india quickly developed from a foreign-dominated group into a more complex organisation where indian leaders worked to respond to local social issues, especially related to education and politics, and took part in global christian networks.[11] other religious communities then replicated elements of the ymca’s organisational success, with hindu, muslim, and sikh communities establishing similar associations in the late nineteenth century around their own concerns. buddhism was noteworthy in this context because, like islam, its historical presence in a number of asian countries could be used as a platform for both cosmopolitanism and nationalism. it was also interesting due to its popularity and sympathetic representation in european and american intellectual cultures, where it was presented as an asian tradition whose rationalism, empiricism, democratic tendencies, and philosophical tradition made it compatible with modernity.[12] conveniently, it had largely died out in india, which left its contemporary status there open for interpretation by colonial scholars and administrators as well as local intellectuals, while ceylon and burma, two of the places where it was still active, were both british colonies, allowing easy access for western scholars and spiritual seekers. ceylon was the locus of several important buddhist revival movements and was cited in anti-colonial discourse as a prominent site of local identity. this prominence had developed out of the famous buddhist-christian debates of the late nineteenth century, particularly the 1873 debates at panadura, in which buddhist intellectuals took on christian missionaries, using their same rhetoric and technologies to triumph in public reassertions of buddhist superiority. these successes were widely celebrated in both english and sinhala newspapers at home and abroad. they were key moments in overcoming missionary hegemony, long connected with the control exercised by foreign political and economic establishments. the theosophists, another influential global movement, took an interest in ceylonese buddhism and played a key role in the dissemination of news regarding the triumph of buddhism over christian missionaries. the leaders of the movement, madame helena blavatsky (1831–1891) and colonel henry olcott (1832–1907), travelled to ceylon in 1880 after reading about the panadura debates, and promoted their own understanding of buddhism through public rituals and the creation of the buddhist theosophical society in colombo.[13] olcott’s experiences in ceylon led him to write the influential explanatory text the buddhist catechism, in which he promoted his own american and protestant version of buddhism with its emphasis on textualisation, rationalism, and demystification.[14] the buddhist catechism was widely circulated in ceylon and further afield, consolidating buddhist movements both locally and globally with its clear, accessible, and modernist interpretations of buddhist lore and philosophy. the interest in ceylon as a site for buddhist revival was not limited to westerners. one of modern buddhism’s most famous transnational activists, anagarika dharmapala (1864–1933), was originally from colombo. while he is remembered for promoting meditation, sunday schools, and other elements of buddhist modernism among the bilingual elites of ceylon and further afield,[15] his motivations and viewpoints were complex; he was also known for articulating communalist ideas, and is remembered as an early nationalist. outside of ceylon he was a widely known lecturer and participant in high-profile meetings, including the world parliament of religions in chicago in 1892, and was also the leader of the maha bodhi society, which aimed to rejuvenate bodh gaya as a transnational centre for buddhist communities.[16] while the maha bodhi society had perhaps the greatest visibility among these global buddhist associations, other organisations had their own agendas. the young men’s buddhist association (ymba) was originally founded in colombo, ceylon, in 1898 by a group of english-language educated elites. while materials related to its founding do not cite the ymca as an influence,[17] the name of the organisation and its goals can be seen as mirroring the ymca. according to the founders of the movement, the purpose of the ymba was to promote the study and encourage the practice of buddhism, and to provide a forum for the discussion of related subjects.[18] in its actual activities, the ymba very consciously mirrored christian missionary organisations. it held sunday schools, where buddhist children dressed in white sang hymns to the buddha. it helped to disseminate olcott’s buddhist catechism. its additional activities included the foundation of educational institutions, including groups providing free coaching and tuition in academic topics, and recreational facilities for young men. it published the buddhist, which functioned as a site for the dissemination of modern buddhist ideology as well as news and opinions that would help to build a community.[19] like the ymca, it spread to other southeast asian colonial cities such as rangoon and singaporein the early twentieth century, and eventually as far afield as japan and england. the buddhist was also widely disseminated within the broader networks of buddhist sympathisers of the day. as with many christian missionary organisations, the ymba did not have a consistent ideology as it travelled. while many buddhist leaders at the time, such as olcott and charles pfoundes (1840–1907), attempted to found global buddhist movements with strong central ideologies and activities,[20] the ymbas that appeared around the world were often quite separate from the ceylon ymba, with activities that were guided by local interests and agency. an example of this is the ymba established in burma in the first decade of the twentieth century. alicia turner argues that this ymba was representative of other social organisations in colonial burma that functioned to bring burmese people into a “moral community” dedicated to promoting and “saving” buddhism in a time of rapid change.[21] it came to be regarded as an important early nationalist organisation, as its founders had promoted the phrase “to be burmese is to be buddhist” in order to define a religious and national identity for themselves and others in their local western-educated, cosmopolitan circles.[22] the ymba as a movement was thus far from centralised, but the continued invocation of the ymba “brand” was important for the legitimacy of the organization, and for reinforcing the idea of a global community of buddhists. this local autonomy was particularly important in the case of the ymba, for it allowed for the assertion of local agency in reaction to different political situations. the lack of a centralised administration means that tracing the genealogy and interconnected history of these local organisations can be difficult. however, the fact that the same “brand” was adopted locally remains significant for understanding the development of international and inter-traditional buddhist links during this period, leading to the creation of an imagined, if not actual, buddhist cosmopolitanism. this cosmopolitanism provided its members with a sense of shared identity, and a platform for the assertion of buddhism as a modern ideology in the face of missionary and colonial critiques of local traditions. studying the local adaptations of the ymba brand also allows for an understanding of just how widely the idea of buddhist modernism was accepted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a crucial moment for global networking and anti-colonial organising. reassessing buddhist modernism in the himalayas: buddhist institutions and colonialism in darjeeling and kalimpong the establishment of ymbas in darjeeling and kalimpong marked salient moments in the local adaptation of these global movements. these branches were among the most remote of the organisation, but were to have significant influence on their local environments and later, particularly in the case of kalimpong, on a global level. historically, darjeeling and kalimpong had been part of the buddhist kingdoms of sikkim and bhutan. british trade interests had led to the annexation of darjeeling by the east india company in 1835. originally it had been a small village, centred around a monastery founded in the 1740s as a summer residence by the eighteenth century sikkimese buddhist savant dzokchen khenchen rölpé dorjé (rdzogs chen mkhan chen rol pa’i rdo rje).[23] other monasteries in the area had different institutional affiliations. ging monastery, the most venerable one, was part of the sikkimese royal monastery pemayangtsé’s estate, and as a consequence darjeeling was under the nominal political control of the royal lamas. the annexation of darjeeling by the british therefore had significant religious as well as political consequences. while monasteries and temples continued to operate, those that had been satellite institutions of sikkimese monasteries saw a decline in patronage. this decline was exacerbated by the arrival of new forms of religiosity. the process of conflict and accommodation between buddhism and christianity is powerfully represented in the story of observatory hill. observatory hill had originally been the site of a mahakala shrine patronised by diverse buddhist and hindu cultural groups. the original pemayangtse satellite monastery was situated here as well. when in the 1850s the british built a church here, the local congregants complained to the authorities that the rituals in the monastery were too loud and disruptive. to accommodate british requests, the monastery was thus forced to move, losing its cosmologically significant position at the centre of darjeeling.[24] this loss of position symbolised the loss of local agency more generally in darjeeling. the arrival of more christian congregations and missionaries further marginalised local religions and cultural communities. in contrast to darjeeling’s religious foundations, before the arrival of the british, kalimpong was already an important trade centre for the exchange of yak wool and musk in himalayan trade networks, particularly between tibet, bhutan, and sikkim. originally a part of sikkim, it was absorbed into bhutan in 1700 during bhutan’s occupation of sikkim (1700 and 1708). it became part of bengal when the british invaded bhutan in 1864 and captured the dooars in early 1865. later in the year, a formal treaty fixed the new border, and most of the bhutanese territory in the plains was ceded to the british, along with the sliver of hill tract that included kalimpong.[25] in 1866 the tract was added to the administrative district of darjeeling. it was home to a number of different trans-himalayan cultural groups, who established their own places of worship around the central bazaar. as with darjeeling, the arrival of christian missionaries led to the development of a shared religious and cultural space in kalimpong, though due to its position as an important trade and economic centre between empires, buddhism was not as marginalised. the appearance and gradual dominance of christian missionary schools did, however, produce a new form of local identity. the local elites who sent their children there, including the royal families of sikkim and bhutan, did so in order to provide their children with what was considered a “modern” education, which would presumably provide them with more awareness of colonial society, thereby creating a more even standing with the british. the missionaries, for their part, believed they were leading a civilising mission in the hills. the power dynamics produced by these missionary institutions in kalimpong were complex, and rather than creating a ground for asserting colonial authority and mind-set, local agents used this mind-set to their own economic and political advantage. educational experiments with local students in darjeeling were similarly ambiguous in their outcome. while the darjeeling government high school was created in 1891 by the british authorities to train indigenous collaborators, particularly for surveillance work in tibet, only some of the pandits that were trained ended up collecting materials in tibet, while others took part in local modernisation and anti-colonial movements. as a consequence, the school’s program was discontinued.[26] the appearance of the ymba and buddhist organisations is another example of how a global movement, with its beginnings as a mirror organization of a colonial association, was modified to fit local needs. the appearance of the ymba in the eastern himalayas contradicts widely held assumptions regarding the absence of modern forms of buddhism in tibetan communities throughout the himalayas, articulated among others by donald s. lopez, jr. when he wrote, modern buddhism did not come to tibet. there were no movements to ordain women, no publication of buddhist magazines, no formation of lay buddhist societies, no establishment of orphanages, no liberal critique of buddhism as contrary to scientific progress, no tibetan delegates to the 1893 world’s parliament of religions in chicago, no efforts by tibetans to found world buddhist organizations.[27] in light of more recent research, the “modern buddhism” characterized in this list might be too narrowly defined. the tibetan state and other practitioners of tibetan-derived buddhism elsewhere in the himalayas were not as isolated as this quote might suggest. the thirteenth dalai lama, for example, was very interested in reform, and was a member of the international maha bodhi society. the oxford-educated sikkimese prince (and later king) sidkeong tulku was also deeply interested in modern buddhist organisations and in buddhist reform in sikkim.[28] the eastern himalayas were also a crucial link in broader scholarly debate about buddhism, as much of the scholarly and popular information regarding tibetan buddhism was transferred through the same trade networks that linked darjeeling and kalimpong with the rest of the british empire via the european and american scholars visiting the area. these included the british civil servant/scholar l. a. waddell (1854–1938), the belgian-french author-explorer alexandra david-neel (1868–1969), the italian author marco pallis (1895–1989), and american self-styled mystical seeker theos bernard (1908–1947).[29] the appearance of the ymba in these areas, linked as they were by the circulation of people, commodities, and ideas facilitated by empire, is not surprising. however, the personalities that founded these associations, and their relationships with colonial authorities and broader global networks, reveal the very different ways buddhism could be used for social organization. the founder of the darjeeling ymba, kazi pak tséring, and the kalimpong branch, sangharakshita, both had complex and differing attitudes towards buddhism as a cultural artefact and device for social and political change. the darjeeling ymba (founded c. 1930): education and theravada anti-colonialism in the activities of kazi pak tséring in 1938 a new school was constructed on the road leading to lower bhutia basti, down the path from chowrastra, the bustling centre of darjeeling. it was prominent due to its distinctive gate, next to a large stupa that enclosed a white burmese buddha statue. beneath the shrine large letters read: “young men’s buddhist association head-office.school.&c” [sic]. at 9am every morning, children in smart pressed school uniforms streamed through the gate into the simple white-washed two-floored school to begin the day in a unique way. rather than reciting a christian or even tibetan prayer, the sound of pali would instead echo from the school room, as the children “took refuge” in the three jewels: the buddha, the dhamma, and the sangha. how did such an institution come to appear in the environment of darjeeling? and who was the yellow-robed figure bustling about the premises who lived in one of the rooms downstairs? this figure was no other than kazi pak tséring, a lepcha from sikkim and a theravada monk who went by the pali name s. k. jinorasa. the story of kazi pak tséring and how he came to establish the ymba darjeeling is a complex one, which speaks to the complexities of adapting colonial rule to local culture in the eastern himalayas, as well as forms of local response. more generally, this figure represents how traditions such as buddhism could be modified and renegotiated to represent an alternative form of modernity and social change for individual agents and intellectuals, who cannot be categorised simply as either pro-british anglophiles or rebellious nationalists.[30] the parts of his life story that can be documented suggest a different approach for understanding such figures, and the attempt to string them together here takes as its model alicia turner, laurence cox, and brian bocking’s work on the mysterious monk dhammaloka, who was also a key figure in a number of transnational buddhist networks.[31] pak tséring’s life also highlights the ways in which colonial authorities were beginning to interfere with everyday life in sikkim. kazi pak tséring was born in pakyong in 1895 or 1896, into the family of the famous sikkimese phodrang lama karma tenkyong (pho drang bla ma kar ma bstan skyong) of the aristocratic khangsarpa clan. the phodrang lamas had risen to power during the reign of the sixth sikkimese king, tendzin namgyel (bstan ’dzin rnam rgyal, c. nineteenth century).[32] by the late nineteenth century, phodrang lama was one of the most powerful men in sikkim, particularly due to his close relationship with the british authorities. he died around the turn of the century, leaving two young sons, one of whom was pak tséring. pak tséring received an education under the patronage of sidkeong tulku, the crown prince of sikkim, who had become interested in modernizing sikkim. sidkeong was interested in educating the children of sikkimese elites, especially kazis, or landlords, so that they could take part in the colonial state, with a view to eventually gaining more authority. in order to do this, in 1905 he proposed the founding of a school, which came to be known as bhutia boarding school. pak tséring was part of the original bhutia boarding school class of 1906. in 1912, the powerful land holder jeerung dewan karma drugyü (kar ma grub rgyud, ?–1912) passed away at his estate at chakung in western sikkim. he left behind two wives and vast estates in darjeeling and chakung. he also left behind a complex legal situation, as he had no heir and therefore, according to sikkimese law, his estates were to revert to state management. in order to counter the state’s claims to the land, his family claimed to have adopted the seventeen-year-old kazi pak tséring.[33] charles bell, the british political officer in charge of the sikkimese state, was skeptical of these claims, and so began a drawn-out series of court cases. though pak tséring was involved in these cases for several years, it appears that by 1919 he wanted to escape from the bureaucratic entanglements, and signed over his legal rights and representation to his cousin yishay wangchuk.[34] his next destination was far from conventional. at around this time (no exact dates are available), pak tséring travelled to ceylon. as no official records of his travels remain in sikkimese or in sri lankan archives, he must have done so independently, without state sanction. it remains unclear why he decided to travel to ceylon and what he did there, but when he returned to sikkim in the 1920s, he had taken ordination in the theravada tradition and was now calling himself d. s. (later s. k.) jinorasa.[35] he was not the only sikkimese vajrayana buddhist to convert to theravada at this time. pemba tendup (pad ma bstan sgrub), or as he became known, s. mahinda thero, was another student who had received educational patronage from sidkeong. he lived in ceylon for more than three decades, and became a famous poet and supporter of sri lankan independence.[36] had pak tséring been influenced by mahinda’s story? perhaps. it is also rumoured that he spent time studying in burma; in sikkim in the 1930s he was nicknamed “burma gélong” (burma bhikkhu) in recognition of his time abroad and his unique form of buddhism.[37] after pak tséring returned to darjeeling and chakung he quickly emerged as an important buddhist figure through his establishment of a darjeeling branch of the young men’s buddhist association. while the exact date of establishment is not clear, it was certainly already active before the founding of a similar initiative in gangtok, which pak tséring may have been involved with as well. in july 1928, sonam tséring (bsod nams tshe ring) submitted an application to the eleventh king of sikkim, tashi namgyal (bkra shis rnam rgyal), to be allowed to establish a ymba in gangtok, claiming that such an organization would “improve the welfare and social interest” of the sikkimese.[38] the purposes of the group were very general, and “[a]ny buddhist having sympathy for the movement” was eligible to join. despite the english language rules set out in the document and its formal tone, to the ymba enthusiasts in gangtok, the organisation appeared to be an excuse to continue with other pre-established forms of local practice. for example, on the submitted list of compulsory group activities, a number of sikkimese practices were included, such as donations for ill members, “khimsar trashi” (khim gsar bkra shis) for new house consecrations in the group, and “thoongton” for new births in their families. more noteworthy was the provision that “no members shall be allowed to bring any kind of intoxicating drink wherever the meeting takes place.”[39] the king approved the application, noting that the organization had been successful elsewhere, including in darjeeling.[40] the political officer asked for more information related to the size and purpose of the organization, but the ultimate fate of the proposal is not available in the sikkim state archives. the ymba in sikkim never held any prominent public office or organised events, and it thus appears to have been founded for the purposes of admiration and imitation of the darjeeling branch, rather than to contribute to the broader local social life or the transnational movement. in contrast, pak tséring’s namesake organization in darjeeling was to become very active and influential. one of the earliest mentions we find of the ymba in any official record is in a letter that he wrote to the ymba in ceylon, which was published in the buddhist in 1931: our friend mr. phagtsring [i.e. pak tséring] of darjeeling writes, “i am building a small family boarding at bhutia basty to give native education to boys and girls. i have now nearly completed the building, and i hope i can open the school in july. i am also having a small vihara and rooms for bhikkhus on the top floor so i can give accommodation to the bhikkhus.”[41] this small note remains as the only official correspondence related to the ymba in darjeeling. however, the ymba darjeeling became locally well known, particularly as an educational institution, but also for its connection with other religious and educational groups. it was based in bhutia busti, an area to which pak tséring had links through his phodong lama ancestry. originally housed in a simple shed, a large two-storied school building was eventually constructed. it received sponsorship from the sons of raja seth baldeo das birla “for the followers of arya dharma (buddhists and hindus),” and was consolidated in 1938 under a group of trustees, made up of elite members from the local community.[42] although pak tséring had planned to open the ymba in 1931, the first official class was only enrolled on april 24th, 1935. from the beginning, the students at the school were a mixed bunch from different classes, castes, and ethnicities. while many of the bhutia children were the offspring of the local lamas, the lepchas and “kami” caste members from different nepali-speaking communities were from families connected with a variety of vocations, including, according to the log book, meat sellers, rickshaw-sardars, clerks, tailors, gold-smiths, and electricians.[43] while most schools in the area had many different ethnic communities in attendance, the ymba school was unique due to its representation of diverse economic groups and vocations. with its robust curriculum, it soon made a name for itself, as its junior students gained admission to some of the most prestigious higher educational institutions in the darjeeling and kalimpong area, and also due to its excellent english language tuition. many students from the school went on to have distinguished civil service careers.[44] another point in which the ymba school differed from other local schools was its distinctly buddhist character. unlike the prestigious local missionary schools, religious proselytisation was not a major goal for the school, although buddhist festivals were observed and there were daily prayers. as has been said, these were in pali, reflecting pak tséring’s dedication to his status as a theravada monk. the buddhist element of the school was emphasised more in its secondary purpose, as a research institute. while records of activities related to this element of the ymba are sparse, there are letters between pak tséring (alias jinorasa) and well-known scholars and explorers who passed through darjeeling in the 1930s and early 1940s. the famous modern tibetan scholar gendün chöpel (dge ’dun chos ’phel, 1903–1951?) lived at the school for eighteen months from 1935, and taught tibetan there in exchange for food, lodging, and english tutorials.[45] he also gave much assistance to theos bernard, the american explorer and yoga enthusiast who later visited tibet and had planned to start a tibetan studies institution in the united states with gendün chöpel acting as the main translator. bernard met pak tséring (whom he knew as jinorasa) around 1936, and found him to be enormously well-connected and knowledgeable.[46] letters exchanged between them show shared interests in buddhist studies. pak tséring informed bernard of his plans to translate major tibetan texts,[47] which was noteworthy given pak tséring’s status as a theravada monk. pak tséring did not render this assistance without expectation of return. in 1940 and 1941, pak tséring wrote to bernard three times, each time requesting donations for the school and the association. he justified his requests, saying that, america is a very rich country so please try to give me some financial help and induce your friends to help the association by sending some substantial contributions. the money spent on this association will not go in vain and it will help the association in doing more useful works for the humanity. today the world is being ruined by wars. this is nothing but [the] outcome of hatred, ignorance, and greed among the people and nations. we must therefore, try to contribute some very useful thing to the world so that the world will be free from the useless bloodshed and will enjoy peace and universal brotherhood.[48] in other letters, he appealed to bernard and promised research assistance in return. not at all a passive local informant, pak tséring was aware that without local guidance and assistance, scholars such as bernard would not be able to realize their ambitions, and he used this reasoning with potential donors for well-argued pleas for assistance. it appears, however, that bernard’s assistance to the ymba was never substantial. the main reason why pak tséring was in need of financial assistance was due to the ymba’s activities beyond darjeeling in west sikkim, particularly around chakung. today, his major legacy is his founding of several secular schools for children of all backgrounds in west sikkim. the first of these schools was established in 1934 in chakung, even before the darjeeling school was completed. this suggests that the court cases had eventually been resolved and provided him with at least a small home. while local oral tradition states that as early as 1915 pak tséring was providing education for children of the chakung estate in his own house, a formal school was established in 1934 with around thirty local village children attending.[49] this was the first school of its kind in sikkim. previously, secular schools had been established only for sons of the landholding elite and civil servants, while all other schools were run by missionaries. therefore, establishing schools for all children was considered very new and quite radical. this demonstrated pak tséring’s continued ties with the area and commitment to the school, and his name continued to appear in meeting minutes until 1939. the school at chakung quickly established a reputation for its unique mission and excellence, despite its fiscal problems, and even the king of sikkim praised its work on tours in the 1930s.[50] pak tséring also presided over the establishment of schools at kaluk, hee-gaon, mangalbarey, soring, namchi, gezing, and timboorbong.[51] graduates were often sent to be teachers elsewhere, and despite the enormous challenges faced in raising money for the schools and their infrastructure, they had a huge impact on sikkimese society, and many have become government schools today. how did pak tséring go from being a disenfranchised young kazi railing against the political officer to a theravadin bhikkhu establishing schools throughout the state? the connection between these different periods of his life remains unclear. one possible explanation is that he was inspired by the ymba, since the association was active elsewhere in asia in promoting non-missionary education. his personal background might provide another explanation. as a child of privilege, pak tséring had gained the favour of sidkeong tulku and had received a modern education. however, unlike his peers, he lost some of his privilege when the state complicated the recognition of his adoption and he lost his family lands. a number of students who benefited from his educational ventures posit that his difficult circumstances made him sympathetic to the suffering of commoners, and that he felt education could provide them with alternatives to both british colonialism and the sikkimese monarchy, which had been significantly weakened by british governance.[52] unlike his father and uncle, pak tséring did not benefit from his association with the british administration, which might explain why he was critical of both the colonial administration and the monarchy. his vision for the future, which included free education for all, suggested a third, alternate trajectory beyond either colonialism or a return to the monarchy. this vision was never realised. on the 24th of february, 1943, pak tséring jumped from a bridge on the road between darjeeling and chakung, his body carried away by the rapid currents of a river near nayabazaar. as with many suicides, the reasons remain unclear. the news shocked his colleagues. he had appeared happy and successful, at peace with his situation in life. oral narratives suggest that his decision may have been linked to a family feud, or to deeper anguish regarding the lack of support for his initiatives from the state and from society in general.[53] this latter narrative seems to fit with the continued financial problems faced by the ymba. in his last correspondence with theos bernard in december 1941, he again requested funds, suggesting that keeping his dreams intact was an ongoing challenge. while it is impossible to know what really happened to pak tséring that day on the bridge, we can get a glimpse of the impact of his experiences on his motivations in this same letter to bernard, where he describes himself as a kindred spirit with gendün chöpel. both of us [i.e., pak tséring and gendün chöpel] have no desire for worldly fame and wealth. we have seen and enjoyed them and we find it utterly useless thing [sic] to run after such mirage. today you see quite clearly what worldly fame and wealth mean. but if we can do some useful works for the human beings we are ever ready to do it. ignorance is bad and today the world suffers from ignorance. wisdom is strength but the strength should be supported by selfless motives and then only the wisdom can be used for happiness of the human beings.[54] this letter is rendered all the more tragic by an awareness of the fates of both of these individuals, as chöpel died an alcoholic after a long imprisonment in lhasa around 1951. as carole mcgranahan has stated, unfulfilled endings were all too common among himalayan intellectuals of the period, who sought alternate modernities for their people and whose lives reveal the limits of cosmopolitan affiliation as a practicality in local settings.[55] pak tséring did leave a lasting legacy, despite this ending. his cousin (who is often referred to as his brother), lhendrup dorje, known more widely as l. d. kazi, later assumed responsibility for the schools. he was to have a long lasting impact on sikkimese society; after years as an advocate for equal access to education, he was a key figure in the revolution that led to the beginnings of political democracy for sikkim in 1975, and became sikkim’s first chief minister in the indian union.[56] the kalimpong ymba (1950–c. 1957): print, education, popular worship, and global buddhist modernism in the activities of sangharakshita the ymba in kalimpong started, under quite different auspices from that in darjeeling, when a young british bhikkhu arrived with his bengali buddhist teacher in 1950. originally invited by gyan jyoti, a scion of an influential local newar trading family, to help revive theravada buddhism among the newars of the area,[57] sangharakshita remained in kalimpong for another fourteen years, and developed a formidable set of very different global networks around his base. unlike pak tséring’s association, the kalimpong ymba has a very rich, albeit one-sided, set of archival materials in the form of sangharakshita’s published memoirs.[58] born dennis lingwood in south london in 1925, sangharakshita’s story was in many ways representative of the growing western fascination with buddhism in the twentieth century. sangharakshita was a bookish child with an orientalist fascination with the east. he was sent to india for military service during the second world war, and used his time in ceylon and singapore to participate in local religious networks and associations, including branches of the theosophical society. after the war he decided to remain in india, and spent time in hindu ashrams and as an ascetic before deciding to become ordained in the theravada tradition in 1949. following his ordination, he travelled to nepal, where buddhism was still heavily restricted, but was undergoing a revival led by theravada monks from burma.[59] after spending time there and studying at benares hindu university with the influential pali scholar bhikkhu jagdish kashyap, who was a key figure in buddhist revival movements in india, he ended up in kalimpong. while kashyap and sangharakshita had originally been invited to kalimpong as guests of gyan jyoti and family, according to sangharakshita’s memoirs they found the local situation complex. the theravada revival group dharmodaya was active among the local newars, but finding sustained patronage was a challenge, and the initial invitation they had received did not guarantee support. kashyap decided to move on, but instructed his student to remain, to “serve buddhism.” he did so, making connections in the local community and eventually developing an “informal network of english-knowing people who, for one reason or another, had some kind of interest in, or sympathy for, buddhism”[60] and, with some friends from this network, decided to establish a formal group for organizing activities. this group was to be a kalimpong branch of the young men’s buddhist association. sangharakshita was aware of the original ceylon association, and particularly its print organ, the buddhist, where he had published articles.[61] it appears that branding was primary in this decision, as it helped lend formality to the establishment of the group. he describes the founding by quoting from an article written at the time: on sunday 6th may, 1950, the young men of kalimpong assembled in the dharmodaya vihara under the chairmanship of rev. sangharakshita with the object of establishing a young men’s buddhist association. after preliminary discussion resolutions concerning the objects and activities of the association were unanimously passed, and office-bearers elected. it was decided to open a recreation room for the use of members as soon as possible and to inaugurate a series of weekly public lectures and debates. at the end of the meeting about thirty young men enrolled themselves as members of the association. he goes on to explain that “the ‘objects’ adopted at the meeting were (1) to unite the young men of kalimpong and (2) to propagate the teachings of buddhism by means of social, educational, and religious activities.”[62] the office bearers represented a number of different communities, including newars and darjeeling-born tibetans. the group was quick to begin organizing activities. weekly lectures began on sundays, and speakers included both residents and visitors to kalimpong who had interests in buddhism. the line-up appeared random, and depended on who was passing through at the time, irrespective of their qualifications and affiliation with buddhism, though some of the more high-profile speakers included the russian scholar dr. george roerich, who became an advisor to the organization during his residence in kalimpong, as well as prince peter of greece and denmark, a european aristocrat and anthropologist of tibetan societies.[63] lectures were an important part of intellectual life in the town during the mid-twentieth century, and sangharakshita’s own activities included giving lectures for various associations and at local institutions such as the hill view hotel.[64] many of these lectures provided the material for stepping-stones, a small magazine edited by sangharakshita over twenty months between 1950 and 1951. the magazine included articles on buddhism, poetry, short stories, and local news, as well as advertising by sponsors, such as the jyoti family, the himalayan times newspaper, various trading houses and other affiliate buddhist groups and publications. while the selection of articles appears somewhat random, and many seem to have been included because their authors were in kalimpong, stepping-stones occupies a unique moment in print history. parasmani pradhan was a colleague and friend of sangharakshita, and while he was responsible for printing the early editions of this journal at his mani printing press in darjeeling, he also sponsored the inclusion of a nepali language section, edited by local literary luminary bhaichand pradhan. sangharakshita’s excitement regarding this venture was largely due to its ability to contribute to the dissemination of knowledge about buddhism among nepali language communities, as he commented that nothing else was available in nepali at the time. due to its inclusion of modern literary forms and new genres, this section had significance for nepali language communities well beyond buddhism-focused topics.[65] the magazine began modestly, but as circulation took off, the ymba kalimpong became increasingly well known, and sangharakshita was invited to start ymba branches at gangtok, darjeeling, and ajmer.[66] the association did more than host intellectual activities. it organised full moon rituals and pujas in commemoration of buddhist holy days, as well as other public events. in march 1951, sangharakshita and the ymba also did much to insert kalimpong into the pan-asian tour of the sacred relics of two of the buddha’s students, shariputra and maudgalyayana. the visit was an inter-traditional affair, involving the newar dharmodaya vihara and local tibetan monasteries, most notably the large monastery tharpa choling gompa that was under the supervision of the popular local lama tomo geshe rinpoche. together with more serious religious activities, the association also had an active recreation room, which was managed by an activities committee. it was centred around a ping-pong table and carrom-board, and patronised by young local men who paid fees every month. sangharakshita and several of his expat colleagues also started a free tutoring class for high school students in order to help them prepare for exams.[67] aside from these daily sessions, sangharakshita also offered private english language tuition to support himself. the free tutoring seems to have raised public awareness of the ymba in kalimpong more than any of its other activities. however, along with the recreation centre, it also caused the most problems in finding a permanent home for the association. after several months, sangharakshita was asked to move out of the dharmodaya vihara due to concerns among the more orthodox newars that ymba activities were leading to caste intermingling.[68] the democratic nature of the gatherings, in which members of all communities were welcome, was a hallmark of buddhist modernist discourses of democracy and social justice. however, securing patronage for such ventures was more complicated, and like the darjeeling ymba, the kalimpong association struggled to find forms of income. by 1951, not even two years after its start, stepping-stones ceased publication. the association changed premises a number of times, from a warehouse in the bazaar to a cottage, and then to another residence, before eventually gaining a permanent setting in 1957 after sangharakshita had received donations from visiting scholars and others to purchase a headquarters, named the triyana vardhana vihara, on the town's outskirts.[69] by this point, however, the ymba was defunct. due to continued funding problems, in the late 1950s the ymba kalimpong became the kalimpong branch of the maha bodhi society. sangharakshita had been associated with the society in calcutta for a number of years, and had eventually become a member of the editorial board and the main editor for the maha bodhi journal, which he edited from the calcutta office. the promise of a monthly donation of fifty rupees meant financial stability for sangharakshita’s efforts, and despite his initial reluctance to be affiliated with the maha bodhi society, which often had hindu brahmin presidents, he ultimately decided the affiliation would further the goals he shared with its founder, dharmapala.[70] was sangharakshita aware of the ymba’s namesake in darjeeling, where not even two decades before, another theravada monk had struggled with similar challenges in securing patronage? on one occasion in the late 1950s, he acknowledges pak tséring: the bhutia busti ymba, as it was known, had no connection with its now defunct kalimpong counterpart. it had been founded about twenty-five years earlier by bhikkhu jinorasa, a sikkimese monk of noble family who had received ordination in ceylon. after his death in 1931 the association’s religious activities had come to an end, except for the celebration of vaishakha purnima, and it was in the hope of my being able to revive these that i had agreed to stay in bhutia busti that autumn, at the ymba’s spacious but run-down premises. besides giving a public lecture on the three refuges and five precepts, and presiding at the mahatma gandhi birth anniversary celebrations, during my stay there i took every opportunity of pointing out to the people of the locality, many of whom were buddhists, the need for taking a more active interest in the dharma.[71] it seems curious that sangharakshita knew so little about the specifics of pak tséring’s activities, and even mistook the date of establishment, considering his claim to have been a close friend of pak tséring’s cousin, l. d. kazi, and his wife, the mysterious kazini elisa maria dorji khangsarpa.[72] however, it also appears to be representative of sangharakshita’s character to overlook pak tséring’s efforts, as he was often critical of local traditions. with the exception of the remarkable nepali column, described above, stepping-stones included few local authors, and his own negative characterization of local forms of buddhism are found throughout his memoirs. for example, he described the tamang community as “divorced from understanding [their religion] to an alarming degree. english-educated tamangs were, in fact, alienated from the ethnic cult into which it had degenerated, and spoke disparagingly of ‘lamaism’ as a corruption of buddhism.”[73] while visiting sikkim, he referred to the “disastrous decline in respect of doctrinal knowledge that had overtaken sikkimese buddhism in recent years,” and called for an “urgent” revival of buddhism, in which perhaps the ymba could assist.[74] sangharakshita’s depiction of himalayan buddhism is indeed characteristic of the discourse of a buddhist modernist, emphasizing textual knowledge and rationalism, and critiquing the “superstition” of local tradition. this may be why he struggled to find patronage, dismissive as he was of participating in “domestic rites.”[75] as time passed in kalimpong, sangharakshita’s activities changed in accordance with local events. the lack of patronage opportunities by the late 1950s reflected the general pressure that many of the town’s local elite were under, due to changes in the trade route following the chinese occupation of tibet. this led monks and religious specialists to pursue alternative forms of income, including bartending and working in local cinemas as well as providing language and other forms of academic tuition, just as sangharakshita had done.[76] similarly, the headquarters of the ymba shifted a number of times, as wealthy tibetan refugees were buying up property as quickly as possible in preparation for moving to india permanently. his position as a foreigner in post-independence india also led to complications, and over the years he was accused of being a spy and a communist, and many of his foreign friends also left. he describes the situation at the beginning of the 1960s thus: kalimpong had indeed changed in the course of the last few years. the fresh influx of tibetan refugees, the rumours of impending invasion by the chinese, and the presence of troops and tanks on the streets, had all affected the atmosphere of the town. what was more, the authorities had become more suspicious of foreign visitors, especially europeans and americans, seemingly finding it difficult to believe that anybody could come to kalimpong simply for the sake of the view. this meant that one’s movements were watched, one’s letters were intercepted, and though personally i had nothing to fear i was glad that i now had a british passport.[77] this situation, along with an invitation to teach in england and ambitions to start a new buddhist movement in the west, were behind his decision to return to england in 1964, where he founded the friends of the western buddhist order (now the triratna buddhist community), a new buddhist tradition that now has centres in over sixty countries.[78] while his local activities are now largely forgotten, his time in kalimpong set the stage for his further activities and contributed to the intellectual, social, and even economic networks that facilitated the development of his reputation as a teacher on a global scale. conclusion the ymbas of darjeeling and kalimpong represent an important link in the global history of modern buddhism, where attempts to create translocal, inter-traditional identities and forms of buddhist cosmopolitanism were part of multiple intellectual networks and projects. these networks and projects were inspired by the cracks that had appeared in colonial hegemonies with the assertion of local agency and by intellectuals and local elites who longed for agency in their societies. these local branches were therefore often tied to anti-colonial activity while they reasserted reformed local identities and practices. while figures such as pak tséring and sangharakshita were determined to create new global forms of affiliation by invoking connections between buddhist practitioners, newly forming national “imagined communities” loomed large over their efforts.[79] just as many asian countries gained their independence, new forms of control and empire appeared. communist china had little space for buddhism as an ideology compatible with marxist modernity, and a nervous india sought to consolidate its boundaries, while buddhism was co-opted by new political movements that sought to actualise citizenship rights for all members of the new nation, most notably the dalits. despite two world wars, new boundaries were drawn up during the cold war, and darjeeling and kalimpong, which had flourished on the boundaries between empires, saw a sharp decline due to the loss of trade and the closing of the border with china.[80] this also affected the transnational communities found in these cities. many new tibetan monasteries in exile were set up in the late 1950s, but these institutions did not have the same cosmopolitan aims as earlier buddhist institutions in the area, which had emphasized social and economic connections across borders even from an early period. instead, these new monasteries concentrated on survival and the preservation of cultural heritage, and were often used to reassert group identity rather than destabilise it. buddhism became a powerful component of different forms of nationalism that developed throughout asia at this time, and the opportunities presented by earlier associations with global goals, such as the ymbas in the eastern himalayas, no longer seemed as relevant or desirable. these forms of buddhist cosmopolitanism, predicated on networks facilitated by movement and exchange, were limited by the drawing of boundaries, and ironically, by political independence in india and the new people’s republic of china. this does not mean that the legacies of kazi pak tséring and sangharakshita have been altogether forgotten. their inter-traditional and global connections continue to be present in some limited ways. sangharakshita has become an internationally known teacher. on a smaller scale, the darjeeling ymba school continues to provide education to junior students from some of the most economically marginalised sections of society at the site of its original home in bhutia busti. its influence is felt beyond north bengal as well. a few hours up the road and over the border in western sikkim, the historical home of pak tséring, chakung remains a booming small town, responsible for much of the ginger production in the state. beyond the bazaar, up on a hill, there is a large government senior secondary school. behind this school, up a narrow lane, are two buildings that were once home to the ymba and now form the rev. jinarasa memorial atis dipankar destitute home. the home is now managed by the kripasaran buddhist mission, based in bangladesh, which grew out of the bengal buddhist association founded in 1892. today it is affiliated with the branch of the mission in darjeeling that was established in 1919 and is managed by a himalayan theravada monk named pema wangdi sherpa.[81] in the mornings and afternoons, children swarm into the buildings for breakfast and dinner, and play football on the high school grounds next door. distinct among these children are several who wear the bright orange robes of theravada monks. these monks are from bangladesh, and their presence at the humble orphanage remains as a vivid reminder of its unique transnational heritage, and the potentialities provided by a distinct moment in global buddhist history. [1] i would like to thank the many people who contributed to this article, especially pak tséring’s family and members of past and present ymba communities and their families in darjeeling, kalimpong, and sikkim; l. n. sharma at the sikkim state archives and t. t. gyatso, the joint director of the cultural affairs and heritage department of the government of sikkim, for their assistance in the archives; ramani herriarachchi, lucky, and the librarians at the ymba in sri lanka for their support locating jinorasa in colombo; paul g. hackett for generously sharing his findings on jinorasa with me; the editors and reviewers who provided invaluable recommendations and suggestions; and my family for their assistance and advice. [2] clare harris has discussed how the eastern himalayas functioned as a museum for the study of the material culture of tibet in the museum on the roof of the world: art, politics and the representation of tibet (chicago: university of chicago press, 2012). [3] “ceylon” was the name used for sri lanka up until the 1940s; in this paper i will use ceylon for consistency, as it is the name used by the individuals discussed in the paper. [4] in this paper, all tibetan words are rendered in a phonetic transcription (using the thl simplified phonetic transcription system, see http://www.thlib.org/reference/transliteration/#!essay=/thl/phonetics/ [accessed on 21. july 2016]), except when referring to individuals who preferred a different spelling. this standardisation is necessary since there is still no universally accepted system for spelling tibetan and sikkimese bhutia terms. during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, after europeans made contact, this was all the more problematic as many different transliterations were used for one person. for example, in archival materials, pak tséring is also referred to fak tsering, phags tshering, and sometimes only as jinorasa, though local people did not use that name for him. [5] for an overview of the international reach of the rotary club, see brendan m. goff, “the heartland abroad: the rotary club’s mission of civic internationalism,” (phd diss., university of michigan, 2008), http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/60765 [accessed on 27. june 2016]. for a discussion of rotary and its adaptation to and influence in southeast asia, see su lin lewis, “rotary international’s ‘acid test:’ multi-ethnic associational life in 1930s southeast asia,” journal of global history 7, no. 2 (2012): 302–324. [6] for more on foundations and functions of the ymca, see nina mjagkji and margaret spratt, eds., men and women adrift: the ymca and the ywca in the city (new york: new york university press, 1997). [7] on the ymca in africa, see david anthony, “unwritten history: african work in the ymca of south africa,” history in africa 32, no. 1 (2005): 435–444. the ymca also played an important role in parts of asia that were not colonies, where local branches were set up by students returning from study in the us. on the ymca in republican china, see charles a. keller, “the christian student movement, ymcas, and transnationalism in republican china,” the journal of american-east asian relations 13, no. 1 (2004): 55–80. regarding the ymca and its links with local forms of imperialism, see jon davidann, “japanese ymca cultural imperialism in korea and manchuria after the russo-japanese war,” the journal of american-east asian relations 5, nos. 3–4 (1996): 255–276. [8] mark frost, “‘wider opportunities:’ religious revival, nationalist awakening, and the global dimension in colombo,” modern asian studies 36, no. 4 (2002): 937–938. [9] for a general history, see m. d. david, the ymca and the making of modern india: a centenary history (new delhi: national council of ymcas of india, 1992). [10] the ymca serves as an important case study of american evangelical activity in ian tyrell, reforming the world: the creation of america’s moral empire (princeton: princeton university press, 2010). [11] chandra mallampalli explores these local motives in christians and public life in colonial south asia, 1863–1937 (london: routledgecurzon, 2004). for a biography of a prominent indian ymca leader, see susan billington harper, in the shadow of the mahatma: bishop v. s. azariah and the travails of christianity in british india (grand rapids: eerdmans, 1999). [12] a number of important studies outline the construction of modern buddhism. these include, more generally, david mcmahan, the making of buddhist modernism (new york: oxford university press, 2008); and, more specifically related to colonial constructions of buddhism, philip c. almond, the british discovery of buddhism (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1988); jeffrey franklin, the lotus and the lion: buddhism and the british empire (cornell: cornell university press, 2008). on asian responses to these constructions, see anne blackburn, locations of buddhism: colonialism and modernity in sri lanka (chicago: university of chicago press, 2010) and richard jaffe, “seeking shakyamuni: travel and the reconstruction of japanese buddhism,” journal of japanese studies 30, no. 1 (2004) 65–96. [13] frost, “‘wider opportunities,’” 944. [14] stephen prothero focuses on the life of olcott in the white buddhist: the asian odyssey of henry steel olcott (bloomington: indiana university press, 1996). [15] frost, “‘wider opportunities,’” 956. [16] for more on the life of dharmapala and his complex position, see steven kemper, rescued from the nation: anagarika dharmapala and the buddhist world (chicago: university of chicago press, 2015). [17] see, for example, mallika wanigasundera, “a story of struggle and achievement,” the buddhist 68, nos. 3–4, (1997): 35–37. [18] wanigasundera, “a story of struggle and achievement,” 35. [19] sumana saparamadu provides a history of the publication in “the buddhist,” in the buddhist 68, nos. 3–4 (1997): 70–79. [20] for a discussion of such an attempt, see brian bocking, “flagging up buddhism: charles pfoundes (omoie tetzunostzuke) among the international congresses and expositions, 1893–1905,” contemporary buddhism [14, no. 1 (2013): 17–37. [21] alicia turner, saving buddhism (honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 2015). [22] juliane schober, modern buddhist conjunctures in myanmar (honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 2011), 66–67, 73–75. for more on the political elements of the burma ymba, see myo oo, “the covert objective of ymba (1906–1920) and its activities,” the boundaries of history [korea] 81 (2011): 107–128. [23] maharaja thuthop namgyel and maharani yeshe dolma, “the history of sikkim,” trans. kazi dawa samdrup, 1908, mss eur e78, india office records and private papers, british library, london. for more information on sikkimese buddhism and history, see saul mullard, opening the hidden land: state formation and the construction of sikkimese history (leiden: brill, 2011); pranab kumar jha, history of sikkim, 1817–1904: analysis of british policy and activities (calcutta: ops publishers, 1985); sonam b. wangyal, sikkim and darjeeling: division and deception (jaigon: sonam wangyal, 2002); and anna balikci, lamas, shamans, and ancestors: village religion in sikkim (leiden: brill, 2008). [24] thierry dodin, “the observatory hill in darjeeling: some remarks on space, time, power, and religions,” in tibetan studies: conference proceedings from the 7th international association of tibetan studies conference, ed. helmut krasser et al. (wien: verlag der österreichischen akademie der wissenschaften, 1997), 213–235. [25] v. h. coelho, sikkim and bhutan (delhi: indian council for cultural relations, 1970), 67. [26] derek waller, the pundits: british exploration of tibet and central asia, 2nd ed. (louisville: university of kentucky) 193–194. [27] donald s. lopez jr., the madman’s middle way: reflections on reality of the tibetan monk gendun chopel (chicago: university of chicago press, 2005), 250. [28] for more on sidkeong tulku and his buddhist reforms see toni huber, the holy land reborn: pilgrimage and the tibetan reinvention of india (chicago: university of chicago press, 2008), 281–282; and berthe jansen, “monastic guidelines (bca’ yig) by sidkeong tulku: monasteries, sex, and reform in sikkim,” journal of the royal asiatic society [24, no. 4 (2014): 597–622. [29] see other articles in this volume for more on these networks, as well as clare harris, museum on the roof of the world. [30] for a broader discussion of such intellectuals, see carole mcgranahan, “in rapga’s library: the texts and times of a rebel tibetan intellectual,” cahiers d’extreme-asie 15 (2005): 253–274. [31] on dhammaloka, see alicia turner, laurence cox, and brian bocking, “beachcombing, going native, and freethinking: rewriting the history of early western buddhist monastics,” contemporary buddhism 11, no. 2 (2010): 125–147. [32] for more on this period, see mthu stobs rnam rgyal and ye shes sgrol ma, ’bras ljongs rgyal rabs (gangtok: tsuklhakhang trust, 2003), 117–118. [33] petition for adoption from pemba dichen to political officer, “adoption of kazi phag tsering by jeerung dewan of chakung estate/ subsequent rejection of the adoption deed,” 10 august 1912, file no. 86 of 1912, general section, sikkim state archives, gangtok. [34] affidavit signed by kazi pak tséring on 30 january 1919, private collection. [35] there are no documents to provide information on what these abbreviations stand for, or where the name came from. [36] for more on s. mahinda thero, see pema wangchuck dorjee, “s. mahinda thero: the sikkimese who gave lankans their freedom song,” bulletin of tibetology 44, nos. 1–2 (2008): 139–145. [37] these recollections were gathered during interviews in darjeeling, kalimpong, and sikkim in july 2013. [38] application submitted to maharaja by sonam tshering, etc. related to formation of the young men’s buddhist association, 12 july 1928, file no. 15 of 1924, serial 3, general section, government of sikkim general department, sikkim state archives, gangtok. signatories included sonam tséring bhutia, rinzing dorjee bhutia, yonten gyatso kazi, and passang namgyal kazi, among others. [39] ibid. [40] ibid. [41] pak tséring, “news from india,” the buddhist (august 1931): 84. [42] this information appears on plaques in hindi and english on the front of the building. they are dated 1995 bikram samvat, which corresponds to 1938 in several nepali calendars. [43] log book, young men’s buddhist association school, darjeeling, india, 1935, young men’s buddhist association darjeeling archives, darjeeling, north bengal. [44] one example of such a student was b. b. gurung, now in his eighties, who served the last king of sikkim as well as two successive democratic sikkimese governments, and now acts as an advisor to the chief minister of sikkim. b. b. gurung, interview, july 2013. [45] heather stoddard discusses this period of chöpel’s life in le mendiant de l’amdo (paris: société d’ethnographie, 1985). she mentions pak tséring on page 173, calling him ‘gelong pel ji norasa’ after kirti rin po che, dge ‘dun chos ‘phel gyi rab byed shabs btags ma (dharamsala, india: kirti byes pa grwa tshang, 1983), 61. [46] paul hackett discusses bernard’s mentions of and correspondence with the man he knew as jinorasa in theos bernard, the white lama: tibet, yoga, and american religions life (new york: columbia university press, 2012). [47] s. k. jinorasa to theos bernard, 26 january 1940, theos bernard collection, bancroft library, university of california, berkeley. [48] ibid. [49] this is based on popular knowledge in chakung, and was repeated to me by numerous members of the public as well as members of staff at the present school. [50] chakung school log book, chakung senior secondary school archives, chakung, west sikkim. [51] dick dewan, education in sikkim: an historical retrospect, pre-merger, and post-merger period (kalimpong: tender buds’ society, 2012), 200. in his final letter to theos bernard in december 1941, pak tséring writes that at that time the ymba was managing thirteen schools. the exact locations of these schools is not provided, though the letterhead of the ymba lists darjeeling, kalimpong town school, chakung school, geyzing school, rinchenpong kaluk school, the buddhist girls’ school, darjeeling, and the orphans home, darjeeling. s. k. jinorasa to theos bernard, 24 december 1941, theos bernard collection, bancroft library, university of california, berkeley. [52] these suggestions were made by various members of the public in chakung during interviews in july 2013. [53] these narratives come from interviews carried out in darjeeling and sikkim, july 2013. i have kept the interviewees anonymous at their request, due to the sensitive nature of his death and political elements of his reputation. [54] s. k. jinorasa to theos bernard, 24 december 1941, theos bernard collection, bancroft library, the university of california, berkeley. [55] mcgranahan, “in rapga’s library,” 274. [56] the classic study of the events around this period and the beginning of democracy in sikkim remains sundanda k. datta-ray, smash and grab: annexation of sikkim (delhi: vikas, 1984). [57] sangharakshita, facing mount kanchenjunga: an english buddhist in the eastern himalayas (birmingham: windhorse publications, 1991), 8. [58] sangharakshita has published multiple memoirs. the one that features his time in kalimpong most prominently is facing mount kanchenjunga (glasgow: windhorse publications, 1991). [59] for more on the revival of buddhism in nepal, see sarah levine and david n. gellner, rebuilding buddhism: the theravada movement in twentieth-century nepal (cambridge: harvard university press, 2005). [60] sangharakshita, facing mount kanchenjunga, 37. [61] sangharakshita, facing mount kanchenjunga, 38. [62] sangharakshita, facing mount kanchenjunga, 38–39. [63] for more on these figures and the buddhist intellectual scene in kalimpong, see hackett, theos bernard, white lama. [64] a summary of sangharakshita’s activities during this period can be found in his memoirs, which include five volumes. the volumes most pertinent to his time in kalimpong are facing mount kanchenjunga, in the sign of the golden wheel: indian memoirs of an english buddhist (birmingham: windhorse publications, 1996), and precious teachers: indian memoirs of an english buddhist (birmingham: windhorse publications, 2007). while these volumes provide a fascinating overview of his life and interactions in kalimpong, the information in them must be treated critically due to their genre, sangharakshita’s privileged position as a white buddhist in a newly post-colonial society, and the lack of other sources to confirm or challenge some of his arguments and representations. the information used in the sketch of his life and activities below is therefore information that has been backed up by popular records and local sources, including issues of the magazine stepping-stone and the newspapers the tibet mirror and the himalayan times. [65] sangharakshita, facing mount kanchenjunga, 254–257. [66] sangharakshita laments that nothing came of these branches. despite his best efforts to visit and organise lectures, he claims that once he left the area, local collaborators would not continue the work without him. eventually, the ajmer branch chose to become affiliated with the local bengal buddhist association. [67] sangharakshita, facing mount kanchenjunga, 63 [68] sangharakshita, facing mount kanchenjunga, 123–124. [69] these events are outlined in sangharakshita, precious teachers. [70] sangharakshita, facing mount kanchenjunga, 463–464. [71] sangharakshita, in the sign of the golden wheel, 183–184. [72] this friendship was detailed in sangharakshita, precious teachers. [73] sangharakshita, facing mount kanchenjunga, 32. [74] sangharakshita, facing mount kanchenjunga, 213 [75] sangharakshita, moving against the stream: the birth of a new buddhist movement (birmingham: windhorse publications, 2003), 128. [76] i thank the anonymous reviewer for providing me with a broader reference of these activities found in beatrice d. miller, “lamas and laymen: a historico-functional study of the secular integration of monastery and community,” (phd diss., university of washington, seattle, 1958), 224, http://search.proquest.com/docview/301892426 [accessed on 27. june 2016]. [77] sangharakshita, precious teachers, 169. [78] regarding sangharakshita’s activities after he left kalimpong, see sangharakshita, moving against the stream; alan sponberg, “tbmsg: a dhamma revolution in contemporary india,” in engaged buddhism: buddhist liberation movements in asia, ed. christopher s. queen and sallie b. king (albany: state university of new york press, 1996), 73–112; and martin baumann, “work as dharma practice: right livelihood cooperatives of the fwbo,” in engaged buddhism in the west, ed. christopher s. queen (boston: wisdom publications, 2000), 372–393. [79] the nation as an imagined community here is adopted from benedict anderson, imagined communities (london: verso, 2006). [80] the impact of the loss of trade on kalimpong in particular is discussed in tina harris, geographical diversions (athens: university of georgia press, 2013). [81] more on the bengal buddhist association can be found in rama kundu, “‘in thine immeasurable mercy and goodness:’ buddha in tagore’s imagination,” in studies on rabindranath tagore, vol. 1., ed. mohit kumar ray (new delhi: atlantic publishers and distributors, 2004), 215. the current mission’s website is at http://kbm1.wordpress.com/about-us/ [accessed on 3. july 2015]. roche_design_3_12_2016.indd knowledge production on central asia: transcultural approaches in central asian studies sophie roche, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg central asian studies is a relatively young discipline, though the region that it demarcates has been of interest to various disciplines for many years. cengiz sürücü1 dates the demarcation of central asia as a region of study to when it became part of the great game between russia and britain in the nineteenth century. in the writings of administrative officers, spies, scientists, linguists, and military officers of the day, the region was described as a dangerous, dark, empty, and wild space. sürücü writes: “it is in this period that central asia became a subject of systematic knowledge production.”2 the two main bodies interested in the region were the royal british geographical society and its russian counterpart, the russian geographical society, both of which shared “an impressive level of communication and exchange of information through a pool of information-sharing networks.”3 this perception of central asia as terra incognita, mysterious, exotic, enigmatic, and attractive, remained even beyond the collapse of the soviet union and was still found in scholarship as late as the 1990s.4 the editors manfred sapper, volker weichsel, and andrea huterer open their collection of articles on central asia with the words “das heutige zentralasien ist weitgehend terra incognita” (the territory of central asia today is by and large terra incognita).5 with this characterization, however, these editors are less interested in mystification and exoticization than in urging researchers to work on the region and its contemporary complexity. unlike historical central asia, contemporary developments appear particularly challenging to research. the reason lies in the recent history 1 cengiz sürücü, “exploring terra incognita: a reading on the pre-history of central asian studies,” alternatives: turkish journal of international relations 3, no. 1 (spring 2004): 75–100. 2 sürücü, “exploring terra incognita,” 77. 3 sürücü, “exploring terra incognita,” 83. 4 sürücü mentions the cambridge history of inner asia by denis sinor (1990) as an example of when the region was opposed to a civilized world. 5 manfred sapper, volker weichsel, and andrea huterer, “editorial: mosaiksteine,” in machtmosaik zentralasien: traditionen, restriktionen, aspirationen, ed. manfred sapper et al. (bonn: bundeszentrale für politische bildung, 2007), 7. 96 knowledge production on central asia of the region and the necessary re-orientation of scholars after the former soviet socialist republics gained their independence. german academia presents a particularly useful example for approaching the complexities of central asia and how they have been studied. german scholars today consider central asia to include the area from afghanistan to mongolia, and from xinjiang to the black sea. some academic departments, however, limit central asia to the five post-soviet republics of kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, tajikistan, turkmenistan, and uzbekistan, at times including afghanistan. scholars may also include the caucasus and hence use the soviet period as a point of departure and direction from which to examine the region. this is particularly the case for eastern european studies (osteuropastudien), eurasian studies, or inner asian studies (in the anglophone world) that look at the region from the perspective of historical russia and the soviet union. a different perspective is adopted by ottoman studies and persian studies, both based on cultural and linguistic similarities (kazakh, kyrgyz, turkmen, and uzbek are turkic languages, while tajik is an iranian language) and political interests. sinology, buddhist studies, russian ethnography, and islamic studies have equally been interested in the region as the periphery of well-established disciplines. in this “mental map,” central asia is a negative concept: “es beginnt jeweils dort, wo der eigene kulturelle einflussbereich nicht mehr greift” (it begins where one’s own cultural influence zone stops working).6 bert fragner criticizes conceptions of central asia as a continental mass that lacks culture, a space of cultural emptiness, a culturally unoccupied space. academic centres like cambridge, soas in london, or harvard—just to name a few—have, however, dedicated programmes to the region for decades, whereas the humboldt university in berlin merged the only central asian seminar in germany into a subsection of the african-asian institute, despite the efforts invested by its leadership in promoting central asian studies. the duty of central asian studies is hence to turn the periphery into a centre and focus on the people, their history, culture, practices, and politics. authorities like al-bukhari, one of the major hadith collectors of sunni islam, and philosopher-scientists like ibn sina (avicenna), as well as empires and civilizations, have emerged in the region connecting northern and southern asia, the east, and the west as far as europe. there is no reason why central asia should be treated as a periphery by more established disciplines; to do so is to ignore its internal complexity, language diversity, history, politically-distinct paths, global relationships, and cultural productions. 6 bert g. fragner, “zentralasien—begriff und historischer raum,” in zentralasien: 13. bis 20. jahrhundert. geschichte und gesellschaft, ed. bert fragner and andreas kappeler (wien: promedia 2006), 12. 97the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 transcultural approaches have criticized area studies as regional containers and suggested looking for relationships, interconnectivities, and entanglements across regions. however, this demands a solid knowledge of several languages, as well as social and political contexts. the field of central asian studies offers itself to a transcultural approach through its interdisciplinary knowledge production and recent disciplinary history. this paper will trace the history of central asian studies and argues that the peripherization of the region in academic disciplines and in politics has hindered the region and its people from being acknowledged as key players in asia’s historical and contemporary development. central asia does not represent the further development of an empire and hence its disciplinary grounding has been slow. furthermore, since the 1990s, its various countries have taken diverse paths, from turkmenistan’s closed dictatorship to the democratic efforts in kyrgyzstan. the region hosts populations from various linguistic groups and a variety of religious orientations, which makes generalization difficult and risky. in order to serve the world market in the 1990s, books with “central asia” in their titles often focused on only one country but were marketed as if the book’s observations could be applied to the whole region. too much plurality in a relatively small space seems to cause problems for establishing central asian studies as a discipline; for example, a linguistic teaching staff of five to ten specialists would be required to cover only the most important languages. it is particularly this complexity of emerging and disappearing ethnic groups, linguistic groups, religious movements, intellectual traditions, and political orientations that makes the region a challenging and fascinating transcultural subject for research. the task of central asian studies is, however, not to serve as a substitute discipline that provides missing information to more established (post-colonial) disciplines. instead, this article understands central asian studies to be a serious engagement with questions that are relevant to the people living in the region, which necessarily stretches beyond and across asia. this change of perception is necessary to move away from communication about the region, which, among specialists in the nineteenth century, mystified the region in orientalist ways; rather, we wish to adopt a multi-perspectival approach. any ambition to present a full review of its academic history would necessarily fail, as the study of central asia in europe is far too diverse. central asia as a field of study has been shaped by ural and altaic language specialists such as denis sinor and alexandre bennigsen, both active in paris, and their students; the term has also been framed by various specialists in historical disciplines. in russia, the study of the soviet union’s southern tiers was shaped by oriental studies until the 1930s, and then was taken over by ethnographers and archaeologists. thus, the aim in this article cannot 98 knowledge production on central asia be to isolate one discipline but instead investigate how academic knowledge production has helped shape a region that is today referred to as central asia or eurasia, and how central asian studies can contribute to a transcultural approach. the discipline of central asian studies draws from ethnography, oriental studies, and disciplines focusing on russia (eastern european studies, eurasian studies, inner-asian studies, slavic studies, etc.), and its history cannot be treated in isolation. this multi-disciplinary approach to the region has led, on the one hand, to research fields that, at times, communicate little with one another but, on the other hand, has saved the region from the dilemma of area studies, namely, to isolate the history, culture, and politics from neighbouring countries/regions, thus creating regional containers that are products of university policies and regional politics rather than historical reality. cold war approaches: sovietology since it is of little interest to europe and the united states, central asia has remained a marginal region, one that comes into focus only when violence and war make it globally relevant, for example when groups such as al-qaeda carry out an attack.7 this biased interest in the region is rooted in cold war academic approaches, which devin deweese has called “sovietology.”8 with this, he draws attention to the ideologically driven approaches to studying central eurasia and more specifically islam in central asia. until the 1990s, studies on central asia were divided sharply between research inside the soviet union and studies from outside the region, which were both marked by cold war ideologies. access to the region was restricted for western scholars. therefore, many were forced to rely solely on documents produced by the soviet union as well as visits to academic institutions. some francophone and anglophone researchers had a particular interest in the islamic part of the soviet union, among them alexandre bennigsen, chantal lemercier-quelquejay, marie broxup, hélène carrère d’encausse, enders wimbush, and shirin akiner. deweese refers to the bennigsen school to exemplify a sovietological approach that is not only embedded in russocentric research contexts, but uses sources uncritically: plagued by inadequate data and problematic sources, and thus rife with methodological problems that have never been seriously 7 in contrast, the civil war in tajikistan between 1992 and 1997 passed almost completely unnoticed. 8 devin deweese, “islam and the legacy of sovietology: a review essay on yaacov ro’i’s islam in the soviet union,” journal of islamic studies 13, no. 3 (september 2002): 298–330. 99the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 explored, either by bennigsen’s disciples or by his school’s critics, the bennigsen approach was in some respects pioneering in that it raised the profile of peoples and issues that were largely ignored by the wider community of russocentric sovietologists; yet, although its scholarly limitations should have been apparent, it has exerted a stultifying and even pernicious influence on the study of islam in the soviet environment, as its conclusions and approaches prompted repetition and imitation rather than serious critical discussion and challenge.9 in his critique of yaacov ro’i’s book islam in the soviet union, de weese writes “despite the collapse of the soviet state, the study of religious life among the traditionally muslim peoples of the former ussr has continued to be dominated by an academic ‘tradition’ that may be termed ‘sovietological islamology’.”10 particularly problematic is the terminology with which islam is described since the standard vocabulary was introduced by bennigsen and his students. “what it presents is certain aspects of islam in the ussr as viewed through the (often quite murky) lens of government documents prepared by those soviet officials charged with finding the best means to curtail religious practice and hasten the disappearance of religious belief.”11 this sovietologically informed disciplinary tradition created an image of islam in central asia that deweese identifies as not being useful to understanding development on the ground. security studies built on this approach, while considering economic processes relevant for the region, still accept the government’s claim that islam is the main source of insecurity. in europe and the united states, the anti-soviet agenda dictated the path of research in the 1960s and 1970s to a large degree, which primarily meant that soviet texts were read in reverse.12 this was certainly true for islam, which became identified as the core element of anti-soviet resistance 9 deweese, “islam and the legacy of sovietology,” 299. 10 deweese, “islam and the legacy of sovietology,” 298. 11 deweese, “islam and the legacy of sovietology,” 301. 12 “reading in reverse” means to interpret a comment in soviet sources in a specific way: if, for instance, a source states that some people still fast during ramadan, then a sovietological way of reading would see fasting as resistance to the soviet union. in soviet discourses of the 1970s, fasting was a traditional “survival” of the past and signal of a not yet perfect socialist society and, read in reverse, for western scholars, it was a sign of active resistance. 100 knowledge production on central asia through a reverse reading of soviet texts.13 alternative perspectives have been appearing since the 1980s, when several ethnographers from western europe and the united states managed to conduct research in the soviet union and contact became more frequent and open.14 among these ethnographers, tamara dragaze must be mentioned for her work in the caucasus and tajikistan.15 her many publications provide a solid reflection on the research environment and the manner of conducting research, as well as the larger academic context. the view that islam had served as opposition was redressed after the 1990s, when it became clear that islam had not only existed throughout the soviet period, but had been integrated, tolerated, and accepted by the authorities. these sovietological approaches were increasingly deconstructed and rejected by younger generations, for whom travel to the region, and thus access to local archives and people, became possible. while most social anthropologists and historians have moved beyond the cold-war approach, security studies have not only missed reflecting upon past research paradigms but maintained a discourse that characterizes islam in central asia as a risk to stability. such an approach dominates views in political research centres and international organizations such as the osce. security studies have nourished a narrative on terrorism and security threats that dominates all public discourse.16 this narrative certainly informs the politics of international development organizations, and the existence of terrorists has become the most lucrative 13 see for example alexandre bennigsen and chantal lemercier-quelquejay, islam in the soviet union (london: pall mall, 1967); alexandre bennigsen and marie broxup, the islamic threat to the soviet state (london: taylor & francis, 1983); alexandre bennigsen and s. enders wimbush, mystics and commissars, sufism in the soviet union (london: hurst, 1985); alexandre bennigsen and s. enders wimbush, muslims of the soviet empire (bloomington: indiana university, 1986); yaacov ro’i, islam in the soviet union: from the second world war to gorbachev (london: hurst, 2000). 14 ernest gellner, ed., soviet and western anthropology (new york: columbia university, 1980). 15 tamara dragadze, “anthropological fieldwork in the ussr,” journal of the anthropological society of oxford 9, no. 1 (1978): 61–70; tamara dragadze, “soviet ethnography: structure and sentiment,” in exploring the edge of empire: soviet era anthropology in the caucasus and central asia, ed. florian mühlfried and sergey sokolovskiy (münster: lit, 2011), 21–34. 16 see for instance martha brill olcott, “islam and fundamentalism in independent central asia,” in muslim eurasia: conflicting legacies, ed. yaacov ro’i (london: frank cass, 1995), 21–39; martha brill olcott, “roots of radical islam in central asia,” carnegie endowment for international peace, http://carnegieendowment.org/2007/01/17/roots-of-radical-islam-in-central-asia/35w9, january 17, 2007; mariya y. omelicheva, “counterterrorism and human rights: explaining differences in the scope and brutality of states’ responses to terrorism” (phd diss., university of michigan, 2007); mariya y. omelicheva, counterterrorism policies in central asia (abingdon: routledge, 2011); l. r. polonskaya and a. v. malashenko, islam in central asia (reading: ithaca, 2008); v. v. naumkin, central asia: state, religion, society (reading: ithaca press, 1993); v. v. naumkin, radical islam in central asia: between pen and rifle (oxford: rowman & littlefield, 2005). 101the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 financial resource for states in central asia, which identify terrorists and security threats on a regular basis, a prerequisite for the massive financial help they receive from the west. the division between policy makers and academics has increased in this domain.17 the question of the relationship between culture and religion has hence split the academic community and policy makers. one of the reasons for these conflicting approaches is the lack of research institutes that fund and investigate the diversity of contemporary central asia, and that would provide not only a solid linguistic education, but research into historical and contemporary research independent of political interests. with one department of central asian studies in all of germany, the structural conditions for a more detailed view on the region are more than limited. instead, much politically driven research ignores the region’s transcultural entanglements and its historically central position by applying global security paradigms.18 this politicization and securitization of central asia has also isolated the five central asian republics in academia and hindered them from gaining a more diverse and fine-grained view of their societies, particularly in their new engagements with neighbouring societies and the wider world. many of the post-soviet states developed into solid autocratic regimes that, as the money flows for security issues, increase their security apparatus rather than the quality of education and academia. without exception, all five post-soviet countries struggle with recovering from a past that coincides with their birth as republics, with their more or less clearly defined contemporary borders, and the ideological barrier to a broader interconnected history. academics are asked to write books with titles such as “the history of the kyrgyz people,” “history of the tajiks,” etc., and in so doing apply only one ethnically defined angle to history. in some of the republics, history became solidly merged with ideology to the degree that, for instance, in 2015, the rector of the university of khujand in tajikistan suggested cutbacks in the department of history that would only leave enough teachers to meet the needs of schools. in turkmenistan, the last history book employed in schools from the soviet period was forbidden per decree in september 17 “understanding islamic radicalization in central asia. an open letter from central asia scholars to the international crisis group,” the diplomat, january 20, 2017. http://thediplomat.com/2017/01/ understanding-islamic-radicalization-in-central-asia/. 18 for a critique of these securitization approaches, see john heathershaw and david w. montgomery, the myth of post-soviet muslim radicalization in the central asia republics (london: royal institute of international affairs [chatham house], 2014); john heathershaw and nick s. megoran, “contesting danger: a new agenda for policy and scholarship on central asia,” international affairs 87, no. 3 (may 2011): 589–612; john heathershaw and chad d. thompson, “introduction: discourses of danger in central asia,” central asian survey 24, no. 1 (march 2005): 1–4. 102 knowledge production on central asia 2000, and the teachers now have to rely solely on the president’s guide book, ruhnama, for their lessons.19 in other words, history and ethnography, as well as other subjects such as music, art, etc., that were an integral part of soviet universities are increasingly considered irrelevant or a matter of ideology that primarily serves political interests. we may consider this development as a reaction to the peripherization of the region by more established disciplines, which limit the scope of questions to the concerned disciplines’ interests. central asian societies invest in participating in the world and believe the best way to do so is with a strong national narrative20 and modern technology. while the process of nationalization has been considered necessary after the collapse of the soviet union, the form this identity formation takes leads to disintegration rather than to an understanding of and reflection on the past. right now, we can observe a nationalizing of history that passes unnoticed by europe’s wider academic community, but which is followed with great concern by researchers specializing in central asian history. transcultural approaches, particularly to historiography, ethnography, and archaeology could encourage one to think of history as a series of interconnected processes that do not necessarily result in a national product. the history of the interdependencies of nomadic and sedentary populations, a history of the mobility of linguistic groups, economic exchanges, various religious encounters, family formations, notions of culture and civilization, urban developments, and many other subjects would both show the strong links between the various countries and neighbours in asia and beyond, as well as root the different republics as political entities in a world of nation-states without questioning their integrity. academic research in eurasian studies or central asian studies originating outside the region have approached their subject through cross-cutting topics, and to name them all would fill a book. however, many works have been collected in critical bibliographies.21 it is worth mentioning 19 marlène laruelle, “wiedergeburt per dekret,” in sapper et al., 153. 20 central asian researchers are usually employed to work on their own country and society and promote their “own culture” rather than for theoretical considerations, a fact that muhiddin faizulloev seriously criticized as early as the soviet period as a pattern of recruitment. see sophie roche and muhiddin faizulloev, “the faithful assistant. muhiddin faizulloev‘s life and work in the light of russian ethnography,” in working paper of fmsh http://www.fmsh.fr/en/c/6540 [accessed november 24, 2014]. 21 stéphane a. dudoignon and komatsu hisao, eds., research trends in modern central eurasian studies (18th–20th century): a selective and critical bibliography of works published between 1985 and 2000, vols. 1–2 (tokyo: the toyo bunko, 2003–2006); stéphane a. dudoignon, ed., central eurasian reader, vols. 1–2. (berlin: klaus schwarz, 2008 and 2010). 103the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 bert fragner’s suggestion to look at the role of the persian language in shaping education, empires, religious orientations, and economic dynamics.22 soviet document-based approaches such as the book by yaacov ro’i23 are also valuable if the documents are properly contextualized, and even the much-criticized notion of the “silk road” can be productive for the research of cultural transfers, as demonstrated by michel espagne et al.24 another focus of interest has been taken by projects that depart from within central asia, such as the project on religious lineages and their heritage by ashirbek muminov, in cooperation with the french ifeac (french institute for central asian studies) and japanese scholars from tokyo university, which resulted in a series of publications over a period of fifteen years.25 gender studies historians have also been leading the way, for example, with marianne kamp’s work based on the method of oral history.26 while such historical research necessarily cuts across the boundaries between contemporary nation-states that came into being only at the beginning of the twentieth century, disciplines working on contemporary central asia face the much greater challenge of having to take the soviet past into consideration while respecting the different paths the five independent republics have taken since the 1990s. exemplary here is professor baldauf, who has repeatedly provided insights into the concept of culture that the soviet union applied. whereas cities had played a central role in cultural production, education, and politics before the soviet period, in its search for a proletariat, the communist regime elevated the rural village (since the 1930s collectivized in kolkhozes) into a cultural identifier.27 what the communists were hoping to do at times turned into the opposite: the public burning of the 22 bert g. fragner, die “persophonie”: regionalität, identität, und sprachkontakt in der geschichte asiens (halle: das arabische buch, 1999); bert g. fragner, “hochkulturen und steppenreiche: der kulturraum zentralasien,” in sapper et al., machtmosaik zentralasien, 9–26. 23 yaacov ro’i, islam in the soviet union, 791. 24 michael espagne, svetlana gorshenina, frantz grenet, shahin mustafayev, and claude rapin, asie centrale: transferts culturels le long de la route de la soie (paris: vendémiaire, 2016). 25 central asian research in japan has been in a precarious situation similar to that in europe. according to hisao komatsu, even though since the 1960s individual researchers in japan have explored the history of central asia, its geographic designation and content has changed and remained little institutionalized until it integrated the larger research programmes in the frame of the department of islamic studies (ias) at the university of tokyo. hisao komatsu, central eurasian studies in japan: focused on islamic area studies (tokyo university of foreign studies, forthcoming). 26 marianne kamp, the new woman in uzbekistan: islam, modernity and unveiling under communism (seattle: university of washington, 2006). 27 ingeborg baldauf, “mittelasien und russland/sowjetunion: kulturelle begegnungen von 1860– 1990,” in fragner and kappeler, zentralasien: 13. bis 20. jahrhundert, 189. 104 knowledge production on central asia paranji (faranji, full veil) did not destroy it but rather elevated it to the symbol of uzbek identity, baldauf remarks.28 the tension between the historical, entangled past—transcultural by definition—and contemporary developments that differ among the countries and various linguistic and ethnic groups will not be solved by viewing the region as a periphery. instead, this tension can be the beginning of a productive dialogue among disciplines in the frame of central asian studies (or its variations, for example inner asian or eurasian studies) employing a transcultural angle and methodological approach. central asia in russian academia in tsarist russia, turkestan held a colonial position and research was embedded in oriental studies.29 interestingly, unlike for india and africa in european academic fields, no area studies developed from the russian–central asian relationship. the restructuring of the region between siberia and the hindu kush as a result of the bolshevik revolution appears to have been so profound that the region dropped out of academic interest for half a century. after the 1930s, soviet orientalists were not supposed to study central asia and instead concentrated on the countries outside the soviet border, with japan and the middle east being the most popular subjects.30 central asia became a laboratory for soviet evolutionary theories and a way to measure the success of socialism.31 since the central asian soviet republics (kyrgyzstan, tajikistan, turkmenistan, and uzbekistan) were part of the soviet world, they were not regarded as part of the vostok (“far orient”). however, soviet orientalists specialising in arabic were among the first to “rediscover” islam in the region during 28 baldauf, “mittelasien und russland/sowjetunion,” 196. 29 for a history of soviet oriental studies, consult the works of michael kemper, among others michael kemper and stephan conermann, eds., the heritage of soviet oriental studies (abingdon: routledge 2011); see also david schimmelpenninck van der oye, russian orientalism: asia in the russian mind from peter the great to the emigration (new haven: yale university press 2010); and alexander morrison, “‘applied orientalism’ in british india and tsarist turkestan,” comparative studies in society and history 51, no. 3 (june 2009): 619–647. 30 this was a break with the tsarist mandate that required orientalists to study the region and create an academic image of turkestan, a “technologie culturelle du pouvoir” (a cultural technology of power). see svetlana gorshenina, “la construction d’une image ‘savant’ du turkestan russe lors des premières expositions ‘coloniales’ dans l’empire russe: analyse d’une technologie culturelle du pouvoir,” cahiers d’asie centrale 17/18 (2009): 69–84. 31 one of the results of treating central asia as a laboratory for evolutionary approaches was the adoption of aggressive policies against nomadism and nomads and their way of life, see baldauf, “mittelasien und russland/sowjetunion,” 188; andreas kappeler, “russlands zentralasiatische kolonien bis 1917,” in fragner and kappeler, zentralasien: 13. bis 20. jahrhundert, 140. 105the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 perestroika. the influence of these scholars on the way islam came to be classified and how national history was rewritten is crucial.32 islam as a subject of investigation during the soviet period, however, was a matter to be studied outside the soviet union and a subject reserved for oriental studies. and even here, arabic language and culture were far more central than religious topics, yet both were thought of as belonging together.33 research focused on yemen, syria, palestine, egypt, morocco, and other countries maintaining brotherly relationships with the soviet union, as well as those with potentially revolutionary populations. student exchange programs were maintained with yemen, syria, and morocco, from which central asian students also profited. central asian studies thus did not exist as a separate subject as the region was part of a larger project, that is, the soviet union. consequently, the task of soviet ethnographers was to integrate the region into a marxist evolutionary theory. this theory accorded each group a specific position in an evolution scheme (pyatichlenka) extending from primitive society, via slavery, feudalism, and capitalism, to socialism and communism, which represented the pinnacle of evolution. among ethnographers, the concept of pyatichlenka became the obligatory analytical model for categorizing ethnographic material until yulian bromlei changed the paradigm of ethnicity in the 1970s, after which the whole of the soviet union was no more than a patchwork of ethnic, sub-ethnic, and super-ethnic groups.34 the national narrative that provided the foundation for shaping the region into national unities in 1920—ethnicity was to a large degree linked to linguistic markers—was nurtured along with soviet cultural imperialism. in universities, ethnography was part of history and archaeology. most ethnographers were therefore busy with investigating past traditions or modern adaptations, for instance life in kolkhozes.35 it is through ethnographers or, 32 sophie roche, central asian intellectuals on islam (berlin: klaus schwartz, 2014). 33 janet seitmetova, “‘biography,’ interview about dina wilkowsky,” in roche, central asian intellectuals on islam, 109–143. 34 in 1969, yulian vladimirovich bromlei published an article titled “ethnos and endogamy” in the journal sovjetskaya etnographiya, in which he displayed his ideas and further developed the ethnic concepts of sergei shirokogorov, an ethnographer of the early twentieth century. one of the main books on this subject is yulian v. bromlei, ocherki teorii etnosa [essays on the theory of ethnos] (moscow: izdatel’stvo “nauka,” 1983). 35 for a good introduction to soviet ethnography, consider tamara dragadze, “some changes in perspectives on ethnicity theory in the 1980s: a brief sketch,” cahiers du monde russe et soviétique 31, no. 2−3 (1990): 205−212; frédéric bertrand, l’anthropologie soviétique des années 20–30. configuration d’une rupture (pessac: presses universitaires de bordeaux, 2002); sergey abashin, die sartenproblematik in der russischen geschichtsschreibung des 19. und des ersten viertels des 20. jahrhunderts (berlin: klaus schwarz, 2007); mühlfried and sokolovskiy, exploring the edge of empire; roche and faizulloev, “the faithful assistant,” 85. 106 knowledge production on central asia more correctly, the institute of ethnography in moscow, that theories of culture were developed. such theories became possible through studies based on the disciplinary tradition of kraevedenie (krai: “region,” “administrative district”; vedenie: “study,” “knowledge of [something]”), which encouraged the study of localities in all their facets, and with “local” researchers accompanied by russian specialists.36 culture—not to be mixed with religion—was the realm of ethnographers working inside the soviet union. sergey a. arutyunov sees ethnography as having played “second fiddle to marxist historical science.”37 however, the ethnographer sergey abashin, who has extensive ethnographic experience in central asia, said that “authorities often distrusted them,”38 and that ethnographers maintained a certain autonomy in research. nevertheless, the monographs written on collective farming “were saturated with ideology,” abashin observes, in order to demonstrate political loyalty.39 what were not seen in those monographs were the heated debates, accusations, and the self-criticism among the ethnographers. muhiddin faizulloev, who studied in moscow and worked with russian ethnographers, evaluated the relationship between himself (as a tajik ethnographer) and russian ethnographers as follows: i asked them “why don’t you want me to study russian ethnography, the life of russian families? why don’t you want me to study the russians of ryazan or kostrama or orenburg. why?” they talked around this but did not provide an answer and ignored the question. i told them why do all people study us? you know, they used to call us a “laboratory,” they do their experiments with us, we are people who compared to them are “backward,” this is why they study us.40 central asia was a region where russian ethnographers could study previous “stages of humanity,” a “laboratory” as faizulloev explains. 36 emily johnson compares it to german “heimatkunde.” “contemporary russian lexicographers generally define the term as ‘the study of the natural environment, population, economy, history, or culture of some part of a country, such as an administrative of natural region, or a place of settlement.’” emily d. johnson, how st. petersburg learned to study itself: the russian idea of kraevedenie (university park: penn state university press, 2006), 3. 37 sergey aleksandrovich arutyunov, “interview with sergey aleksandrovich arutyunov,” in mühlfried and sokolovskiy, exploring the edge of empire, 121. 38 sergey abashin, “ethnographic views of socialist reforms in soviet central asia: collective farm (kolkhoz) monographs,” in mühlfried and sokolovskiy, exploring the edge of empire, 83–98. 39 collective farms were seen as a modernized form of rural peasantry, and were hence a popular subject among soviet ethnographers in the 1950s and 1960s. 40 talk with faizulloev, september 2014. sophie roche and muhiddin faizulloev, “the faithful assistant,” 28. 107the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 thus, ethnographers and archaeologists (both part of the history department) were academically responsible for researching the southern republics of the soviet empire. however, islam was not a central subject for these researchers because, officially, the soviet union had overcome religiosity by dealing only with the “remains” of a “backward past.” these scholars were responsible for documenting development and backwardness, ethnic, super-ethnic, and sub-ethnic groups, and characteristics to guide people in their integration into a soviet unity. the ethnographers were orientalizing, or better, othering, the southern republics, whereas central asian studies as a distinct subject did not exist. soviet ethnographers re-discovered islam in the 1980s and began to engage in a discussion that tied islam to ethnicity. sergey poliakov complained about the ignorance of studying islam inside the soviet union: it is also a pity that our publications present traditionalism and everything associated with it as nothing more than harmless holdovers from the past that do not seriously affect the development of our society. great pains are taken to avoid the study of the economic, social, and political structure of modern central asian society, even at the institute of oriental studies of the academy of sciences of the ussr, which remains silent.41 assuming that islam was the realm of orientalists, polyakov blames them for having missed “seriously studying and criticizing domestic traditionalism.”42 indeed, during a conference organized by the institute of oriental studies in 1986, only one out of the twenty papers was about central asia. by the time of perestroika, ordinary muslims in central asia had rediscovered islam as a source of intellectual engagement and local religious authorities had more students than ever before. at the same time, mosques were built, rebuilt, and re-opened, and literature was distributed by the religious elite. arabic gained sacred status as the cultural language of islam. since independence, social anthropologists and students in central asian studies from europe have conducted intensive research on islam and presented studies that capture the contradictions, practices, discourses, and plurality of religious life in the region.43 41 sergei p. polyakov, everyday islam: religion and tradition in rural central asia, trans. martha brill olcott (armonk: m. e. sharpe, 1992), 137. 42 polyakov, everyday islam, 134. 43 see annette krämer, geistliche autorität und islamische gesellschaft im wandel: studien über frauenälteste (otin und xalfa) im unabhängigen usbekistan (berlin: schwarz, 2002); 108 knowledge production on central asia studies on central asia after the fall of the berlin wall while the soviet union worked on the integration of central asia, the political west44 considered central asia to be a colony-like periphery and assumed that the population was naturally against soviet power.45 sovietology presupposed the existence of a forced political structure that worked against people’s interests and their sense of freedom. in this narrative, soviet politics were presented in a negative light, while experiences on the ground were lacking to redress the picture. it is in this context that islam was imagined to be the primary motor of opposition and thus the weak point of the soviet leviathan. dietrich reetz, who worked as diplomat of the gdr in pakistan in the 1980s, was told by his american counterparts that islam would do the job of destroying the system from within without the need for a war between the superpowers. it is well-known that the taliban were the result of such politics and that they profited from the considerable support of the us intelligence agencies. the taliban’s main enemy were the “unbeliever” communists until the soviet army was defeated, after which internal division led to a split between the taliban (their primary goal being the liberation of afghanistan and the establishment of an emirate of afghanistan), and al-qaeda with their agenda of world revolution.46 the west completely ignored the fact that islam had been an integral part of the soviet system, not only tolerated by the latter but institutionalized (in the sadum)47 since 1943 and ideologically recast to suit the political agenda of different periods.48 when the soviet union collapsed, the region opened up, on the one hand allowing western researchers to conduct fieldwork and visit the region, and on the other hand allowing researchers in the region to travel to the krisztina kehl-bodrogi, “religion is not so strong here”: muslim religious life in khorezm after socialism (münster: lit, 2008); maria elisabeth louw, everyday islam in post-soviet central asia (abingdon: routledge, 2008); manja stephan, “das bedürfnis nach ausgewogenheit: moralische erziehung, islam und muslimsein in tadschikistan zwischen säkularisierung und religiöser rückbesinnung,” (phd diss., university of würzburg, 2009). 44 “the west” is used in opposition to the eastern bloc during the cold war. 45 ingeborg baldauf, “kraevedenie” and uzbek national consciousness (indiana university: research institute for inner asian studies, 1992). 46 booklets of islamic underground groups at this time justify their struggle with the opposition to the soviet union. 47 translated as the “spiritual administration of the muslims of central asia and kazakhstan.” 48 in the 1920s, islam was considered to have revolutionary potential and hence thought to be compatible with socialism. later it was, like other religions, classified as an “opium of the people,” resulting in purges of religious personnel, after which islam was identified as a remnant of the past that would eventually disappear. in the 1980s, islam became part of ethnic identity and was thus impossible to eliminate as part of the various national identities. 109the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 eu and discover its research traditions. within the academic field, the end of the soviet union was seen a as victory of one system over the other. this is exemplified in the german universities of the former gdr. the “cleansing” of the universities was done quickly and based on blunt political assumptions discrediting many excellent researchers. the tragedy of berlin’s academic staff at the academy of sciences was the dismissal of many highly competent researchers on the grounds of political loyalties; these researchers were replaced by western-oriented scholars or downgraded in their status. the academy of science in east berlin was dissolved, and only a few of the researchers were integrated into the new institution, the zentrum moderner orient. this process was difficult for both sides. dietrich reetz asserts “daß man—mit ausnahmen—relativ wenig voneinander wußte, einander nicht sehr intensiv zur kenntnis nahm und jetzt sehr unterschiedliches mitbringt” (that we, with exceptions, knew very little of one another, had not taken much cognizance of each other’s work, and now we contribute very differently).49 reetz described the process that shaped asian studies in the early 1990s and wondered at how little west german colleagues took notice of the work done in the gdr. by the 1990s, two different research traditions had developed with different notions of asia and definitions of central asia. if the west was guided by anti-soviet ideologies in academic research, asian studies (asienwissenschaften) in the gdr followed soviet anti-imperialism.50 while in west german universities the study of asia was open to all students, in the gdr this was reserved to a small group of elites trained to serve in the political apparatus one day. consequently, the small number of students per teacher in the gdr was a dream for every western scholar and the philological education was of the highest standard. in the 1990s, the central asian studies seminar (zentralasien seminar) at the humboldt university in berlin was turned into a department within a larger institute, with a focus on african and asian studies.51 the head of the department, professor baldauf, has opened new fields of research including memory studies (erinnerungen an zentralasien) and language policies during the early soviet period. among the various achievements, lutz rzehak’s outstanding book on the transition from persian to tajik when ethnic groups, nationalities, and political entities were created in central asia (1920s) 49 dietrich reetz, “entwicklung und stand der asienwissenschaften in der ddr,” asien: deutsche zeitschrift für politik, wirtschaft und kultur 38 (january 1991): 76–87. 50 reetz, “entwicklung,” 76. 51 for a short history of the institut für asienund afrika-wissenschaften at the humboldt university in berlin, see https://www.iaaw.hu-berlin.de/de/info. 110 knowledge production on central asia is especially noteworthy.52 central asian studies have become part of area studies with a focus on a linguistic education supplemented by historical, ethnographic, and social subjects. in the early 2000s, the max planck institute for social anthropology together with the oriental institute and the zentrum für interdisziplinäre regionalstudien (zirs) at the university of halle hosted one of the largest groups of researchers working on central asia outside of russia and central asia. the lively discussions and the variety of projects made it an intellectual centre for contemporary research on central asia. the research scope covered subjects such as kinship and conflict studies, history, economy, religious revival, and politics. more than ten phd theses were defended between 2000 and 2010. unfortunately, this collaboration remained exceptional and did not develop further, as all three institutions changed focus. while the central asian focus has not completely vanished, halle has lost its leading position in the research of contemporary central asia in germany.53 some prospects since the end of the soviet union, research on and in central asia has developed in several directions driven by political interests, financial conditions of research institutes and universities, and individual research interests. while historical approaches have been integrated into various institutes that include slavic studies, eastern european studies, and history departments, studies on contemporary central asia remain short-lived, dependent on the duration of grants and the topics suggested by funding institutions. hence, the terra incognita of which sapper, weichsel, and huterer spoke is now a mosaic of unrelated research. within this mosaic, the commonly repeated tropes of security studies appear to be the easiest explanation for complex situations. what the field of central asian studies thus urgently needs are reliable planning and long-term research perspectives in order to move out of the peripheral position that more established disciplines have accorded to the region. transcultural methods go beyond monolingual research and political boundaries: their strength is to zoom in on micro-processes and zoom out on larger entanglements, to look at synchronic events and diachronic processes. 52 lutz rzehak, vom persischen zum tadschikischen: sprachliches handeln und sprachplanung in transoxanien zwischen tradition, moderne, und sowjetmacht (1900−1956) (wiesbaden: reichert, 2001). 53 under the leadership of roland hardenberg, social anthropology in tübingen had been emerging as a new centre for central asian studies, but there were no efforts to maintain this focus. today, specialists on central asia are spread among many universities, including frankfurt, heidelberg, freiburg, berlin, hamburg, and regensburg. 111the journal of transcultural studies 2018, issue 1–2 this demands in-depth knowledge of the subject and of several regions, a challenge that consumes time and resources. historically, central asia remains relevant to all area studies in asia but contemporary approaches are not the simple continuation of former imperial paradigms. rather, political ruptures, religious orientations, and economic relationships have required different approaches for central asia since the twentieth century. a transcultural approach would also include more participation by researchers in and across central asia. often researchers from two national universities in central asia know less about each other than they know about scholars in europe. thus, central asian studies are a construction site to which many disciplines contribute, and in this way the discipline has encouraged the integration of transcultural approaches from its very beginning. japanese studies | hans martin krämer | ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg japanese studies hans martin krämer, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg japan and transculturality practitioners of japanese studies have traditionally faced a choice between stressing either comparisons or connections. both approaches have a long history in the discipline. since the first european encounters with japan, the country has been seen as an object of comparison par excellence. indeed, one of the first european books on japan ever written, luis fróis’s 1585 contradictions and differences of custom between the peoples of europe and this province of japan,[1] focused more on differences than commonalities. the latter, however, have also played their part, for instance in comparative studies on feudalism such as those pioneered in the 1920s in english by asakawa kan’ichi[2] or in german by otto hintze.[3] despite this focus on comparison, the alternative approach, which seeks connections, has also loomed large in japanese studies. european scholarship has privileged research on the so-called christian century, i.e. the first period of contact between europe and japan from the 1550s onwards,[4] and the impact of the west has long been identified as the main cause of the meiji revolution of 1868 and the subsequent reforms.[5] the only real alternative to the choice between comparison and connection has been the study of japan as an autonomous isolated entity. indeed, this conventional approach has been dominant in many ways and continues to be relevant in this era of hyper-specialized research. this is certainly true of japanese scholarship on japan: the wave of nihonjinron studies, which were popular up to the 1980s and stressed the uniqueness of japan and the japanese, is a clear example, but even without such an outright political agenda, contemporary japanese scholars of japan tend to ignore non-japanese primary material and secondary scholarship. one could argue, however, that the identification of research topics in this third, autonomous mode of scholarship has also mostly been driven by implicit comparisons (e.g. the belief that the japanese group identity is interesting because it is obviously different from the role of the individual as the main locus of social change in the contemporary united states). i would argue that a seemingly distinct fourth approach, the inclusion of japan in systematic studies, is ultimately also driven by comparativist motives. one might think of the plethora of business management studies focusing on japan, produced both within and outside of japan, most notably in the united states during the economic boom of the 1980s.[6] while the systematic inclusion of the japanese example into these studies has reshaped the whole field of management studies, the reason for considering japan was to identify (cultural) differences, to explain japanese success vs. local (european or north american) failure. the same is true for early studies in cultural anthropology that set out to systematically include japan, but ultimately aimed at explaining japan’s “difference” vis-à-vis “the west.”[7] the following essay will sketch some of these trends in the study of japan since the second half of the twentieth century in more detail, but it will also argue that the time has come to go beyond comparison and connection. while both are important, they largely rest on the problematic assumption of distinct cultures. reifying japanese culture as unique—a staple of the popular perception of japan—has done much harm by setting the country apart from changes that affect the rest of the world. instead, we need to acknowledge the existence of global conjunctures that have historically prompted responses in different regions, relating them to each other in ways that go beyond direct connections. instead of stressing the distinctness of cultures, i would therefore like to highlight the commonality of responses to worldwide developments, especially those of the modern age, in japan and elsewhere. the respective reactions to and results of such global trends may of course be different, but they are reactions to the same problems and challenges. in a discipline in which most followers define themselves as students of “japanese culture,” it is particularly difficult, but also particularly important, to stress that this is first and foremost a category of identity that works through selfing and othering. “japanese culture” is thus of interest to us as a focal point of identity discourses, but should not be a category of analysis for ourselves. “transculturality” in this sense is sometimes acknowledged as an important point of reference in cultural anthropology, a sub-discipline of japanese studies that has often promoted the image of a unique japan.[8] yet this discussion seems to be largely limited to western studies of japan. in contrast, within japan, there has been great emphasis on the intercultural dimension in some disciplines, such as comparative literature, but little movement towards “transculturality” as it is understood in this themed section. this situation is exacerbated by a terminological polyphony, a result of the many ways a foreign term might be rendered into japanese. the phonetic loan toransukaruchuraru トランスカルチュラル, for instance, seems to have been hijacked by business studies, as visible in book titles such as global management in a multicultural age: transcultural management[9] or the new international people: challenges for the age of transcultural mediators[10]. as emphasized in the introductory essay, transcultural approaches were pioneered in practical fields, “mainly interested in background knowledge and techniques of communication.”[11] other ways to express something similar to “transcultural” are new coinages like tabunka-kan 多文化間 (lit. “between many cultures”), ibunka-kan 異文化間 (lit. “between different cultures”), kan-bunka 間文化 (“culture(s) of between”), and, possibly closest to the literal meaning of “trans-cultural,” ekkyō bunka 越境文化 (“border-transcending culture”). the first two are found frequently in the academic fields of education/pedagogy, literature, the caring professions, and psychiatry (“transcultural nursing” is a frequently employed term in this field). a journal focusing mostly on non-japanese literature, with the english subtitle “trans-cultural studies,” but the much blander japanese title sōgō bunka kenkyū 総合文化研究 (lit. “general culture studies”) has been published since 1998 at tokyo university of foreign studies. these examples are all rather close to the conventional term “intercultural”; and in fact, ibunka, the second term mentioned above, has been the standard japanese translation term for “intercultural” since the 1970s. there is also a clear practical bent to this term, as can be seen in journal titles such as ibunka komyunikēshon 異文化コミュニケーション (“intercultural communication”) or ibunka keiei kenkyū 異文化経営研究 (“intercultural business studies”). at least within japanese historical studies, there is some acknowledgment of the need to go beyond old paradigms. this has come to the surface as a debate between global history and world history—similar to that carried out in the anglophone sphere, but at odds with most definitions of these terms in the english debate. this is because the japanese equivalent of “global history” (gurōbaru hisutorī ゴルーバルヒストリー) refers to the kind of “world history” approach exemplified either by post-wallersteinian models with a strong focus on economic history[12] or to more recent “big history” approaches aiming at a history of the planet that includes its pre-human past. in contrast, the japanese term for “new world history” (atarashii sekai shi 新しい世界史) is closer to “global history” as used in anglophone countries, i.e. it looks at micro-level connections, border zones etc.[13] old and new approaches to the study of japan european and north american japanese studies started out with much less orientalist baggage than some of the other disciplines treated in this themed section. unlike india, china, or the islamic middle east, japan was not an important imaginary other in quests for european identities, nor was it an important object of inquiry in the age of armchair philology. a latecomer in asian studies, research on japan was almost exclusively conducted by long-term residents of japan.[14] the eminent japanologists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century were either diplomats (william george aston, ernest satow), missionaries (arthur lloyd, emil schiller, hans haas), or had originally come to japan to teach foreign languages (basil hall chamberlain, karl florenz). this means that their views of japan were dominated less by european agendas of fixing the orient as the other, and more by their dialogues with japanese colleagues and informants. in contrast, the academization of japanese studies in european and north american universities took hold only slowly, beginning with karl florenz’s chair in japanology at hamburg university in 1914 and serge elisséeff’s position in far eastern studies at harvard university in 1933. notably, both florenz and elisséeff had received a crucial part of their academic training not in europe, but in japan itself (namely at tokyo imperial university).[15] indeed, in many subfields the contribution of japanese scholars to the formation of the discipline is a notable feature of japanese studies. as early as the nineteenth century, japanese participants contributed to european orientalist conferences, delivering papers on linguistics, religion, and history. many of the early western-language standard publications in japanese history, literature, and religion were written by japanese academics, thus complicating standard orientalist assumptions about european researchers and asian objects of study.[16] the tendency to treat japan differently from other asian cultures and societies, possibly exacerbated by the role of japan as an enemy nation for most european and north american nations during world war ii, survived into the postwar period. this is clearly visible in the dominant macro-theory in western japanese studies after 1945, modernization theory. that is to say, in order to explain modern and contemporary japan, the assumption has been that japan was the only asian country to have modernized in a manner comparable to western europe and north america.[17] the advantage of this modernist bias in the field was that from an early point in time, isolated studies of japan were the exception (at least in the subfields of history and social science); instead, a rich comparative literature on japan developed from the 1960s onwards. the object of comparison, however, was almost exclusively europe or, even more prominently, north america; this meant that japan was cut off from asia. the significance of its historically close entanglement, especially with china and korea, was downplayed in the quest to understand modern japan. even studies on premodern japan discounted the east asian context, under the assumption that some kernel of japan’s later modernization could be detected, comparable to max weber’s protestant ethic in europe.[18] since the early 1970s, long after researchers had turned away from explicit modernization theory, the tendency to view japan as separate from china and korea proved to be a long-term legacy,[19] with consequences not only on curricula outside of japan, but also for the humanities and social sciences in japan. this situation has really only been rectified in the last ten years or so by a stronger focus on the east asian region, within which japan is embedded historically and culturally.[20] on the other hand, although modernization theory has been discredited since the 1980s, no unifying grand theory has come to replace it. instead, the dominant reaction seems to have been that at least outside of japan, single-country studies, explaining japan from within, have gained more credibility. the standard english-language textbooks for modern japanese history, for instance, do little to situate japan within east asia, much less the world.[21] at least two pronounced attempts have been made to go beyond modernization theory in the last twenty years—interestingly, both have come from outside of japanese studies proper. the first attempt aimed at overcoming the normative bias inherent in modernization theory, which, in its classical formulation, saw all societies converging in one model. instead, the proposition was that one could posit the existence of “multiple modernities.”[22] most readily associated with the name of shmuel n. eisenstadt, the idea of multiple modernities follows on the notion of the axial age, which in turn theorizes that different macro-civilizations developed around 500 bce as a result of a new tension between immanence and transcendence. eisenstadt took this framework, first developed by karl jaspers, but emphasized the different patterns of reaction to this new tension in different settings, such as confucianism, christianity, or buddhism. while modernity would develop in euro-america partly as a result of the specific form that axial age civilization had taken in europe, its further development was highly contingent on a number of factors. in other words, modernity as it actually developed in the various regions of the world was not necessarily identical to its original formulation in euro-america; hence the idea of multiple modernities. eisenstadt’s prime example of this was japan, which he saw as a fully modern society with a modernity different from that of “the west,” or even a civilization of its own.[23] there was a brief moment around 1990 when the term “multiple modernities” seemed to catch on, although not necessarily in the loaded sense in which it had been devised by eisenstadt, as witnessed by publications with titles such as “japan: a different modernity,”[24] or a new sense of the inner multiplicity of “ideas or definitions of ‘modernity.’”[25] yet eisenstadt’s work was marked by a tendency to reify japanese culture to an even greater degree than older works had done. in his view, the specific japanese variant of modernity was due to a historically unique society consisting of groups shaped by shintō ideas of belonging and allegiance to the emperor. the latter idea was particularly anathema to most critical students of japanese culture and society, and his work found little acceptance either in japan or the west.[26] another corrective to older views, although at the same time in many ways a new reincarnation of modernization theory, came from an entirely different direction, namely economic history, in the guise of the debate on the “great divergence.” beginning in the 1990s, and clearly influenced by the rise of china as an industrial superpower, a re-evaluation has set in of asia’s place in general, and china’s in particular, in the course of world history. this is partly a counter-reaction against the grand scheme of immanuel wallerstein’s world systems theory. although wallerstein’s theory had long been attractive to economic historians interested in larger contexts, the fact that he almost completely ignored asia’s role in the development of the global economy since the sixteenth century has increasingly come to be regarded as a major lacuna, especially when china could no longer be ignored as an economic force in the present. a side effect of the increased attention to the (economic) history of china has been a radical marginalization of japan, despite some creative contributions to the larger debate by historians of japan.[27] in their program of re-centering long-range world history, the classic authors of the so-called california school see china as the new point of reference, perhaps because of its eminent role as a purchaser of silver in the early modern era;[28] or because it alone is seen to have experienced advances in proto-industrial production, proto-capitalist commerce, and labor practices on a par with what happened in the most advanced areas of western europe;[29] or because only the chinese empire is comparable to europe in terms of geographical size.[30] although all of these accounts relegate japan to the footnotes, they have nonetheless found fairly wide acceptance within japan,[31] while scholars outside of japan have shown little interest in them. the marginalization of japan through the great divergence debate has yet to be noticed by western scholars of japan. the great divergence approach has provoked surprisingly little criticism in historiography, perhaps because economic historians have been too interested in the details of argumentation. one of the few mild critiques of the california school has been voiced by dipesh chakrabarty, who has pointed out that economy is seemingly naturalized as an analytical category in the works of pomeranz and others; the categories they employ (“land,” “labor”) seem transparent, but in reality they are not. “land” meant something entirely different in eighteenth-century australia, britain, or china, and was connected to entirely different legal concepts of rule and ownership.[32] in the final analysis, it is hard to deny that a teleology similar to that of the old modernization theory is still inherent in the works attempting to rehabilitate china’s role in the creation of the modern world economy: after all, china’s “success” is measured in terms of its progress on the path to industrialization, commercialization, and capitalism. the transcultural approach, applied in its many variants in the essays in this collection, may be a tool to overcome the modernization bias still inherent in most scholarship on japan, at least as it is practiced outside of japan. this is because it offers a way to relate japan to the rest of the world without presumptions about the role of “the west” for modern japanese society, whether as the inevitable yardstick or the source of japan’s modernity. this also opens up the possibility of an appropriate consideration of asia when talking about japan, a perspective that is also highly relevant for research on japan conducted within japan. there are numerous examples in the historical and contemporary society and culture of japan that lend themselves to the application of this approach. instead of choosing one of the more obvious examples, such as japanese buddhism, an entity that is difficult to imagine outside of its asian (and in modern times global) context, let me introduce a slightly more unusual case in the concluding section of this essay.[33] islam in japan as an object of transcultural research in the past, the presence of islam in japan received no attention whatsoever in japanese studies.[34] that some political activists and some intellectuals turned to islam in the first half of the twentieth century has been either an embarrassment to proponents of modernization theory, irrelevant to those who see europe as the prime object of comparison for japan, or at best an obscurity to those trying to understand “japanese culture” from within. even for those few who studied islam in japan in the first half of the twentieth century, its incompatibility with “japanese culture” was a given, leading them to view conversion to and serious engagement with islam as mere political expediency such as the need for the japanese state to send secret service agents to the middle east or to be able to publish propaganda in muslim parts of asia.[35] yet in the global movement of pan-asianism, of which japan was a crucial center, islam was an important rallying point, one which could not be ignored in japan. the pan-asianism of japanese activists became much more appealing to other asians once they were seen to take islam seriously. in the 1930s, there was a veritable “islam boom” in japan, in which a host of private and state actors founded societies for the study of islam. in 1938, no fewer than three journals vied for a readership interested in islam. at that time, three mosques had already been built in japan, and some universities began offering their first regular classes on islam. in 1942, the book “outline of islam” (kaikyō gairon 回教概論) became a best-seller. it had been written by ōkawa shūmei, the doyen of pan-asianist and ultranationalist circles in japan, who was so infamous by the end of the war that the victors put him on trial; he was the only civilian at the international military tribunal for the far east in 1946. ōkawa shūmei would also become the third japanese writer to publish a complete translation of the qur’ān in 1950 (a fourth was begun in 1941, but not finished due to the translator’s early death). the fact that no fewer than three translations were available by 1950, in a country which never hosted more than a handful of muslims of japanese origin, clearly shows that there was a genuine interest in islam, a religion that played no role for japan proper. however, while the story of islam in japan may be of minor importance to the domestic history of japan in the twentieth century, in the global history of pan-asianism it is not marginal at all. pan-asianism itself was a response to the global conjuncture of quests for alternatives to western material civilization, a quest that made europeans turn to asia, and led asians to revive elements in their historical traditions that had suddenly acquired a new attractiveness. questioning western materialism; seeking alternatives in asia; regarding europe as decadent and (especially since the outbreak of world war i) as a failed civilization; and denying europe’s legitimacy in ruling over other parts of the world, all these factors contributed to strengthening the anti-colonial movement in asia and converged into a strand of anti-colonialism that offered an alternative to the (dominant) socialist one. it was internationally represented by figures such as rabindranath tagore, who wielded considerable political influence in the first decades of the twentieth century.[36] yet neither accounts of pan-asianism in japan, nor broader narratives of political history—even those centering on some of the central actors of the story of islam in japan—have so far taken note of the role of islam in japan.[37] for anyone who accepts the essentialist assumption of “japanese culture,” islam is clearly not part of this entity and thus irrelevant for an understanding of japan. even though pan-asianism has received disproportionate attention in research on modern japanese history in recent years,[38] the focus in these studies has been exclusively on politics, discarding religion as irrelevant. however, by applying a transcultural approach which is open to the multiplicity of forces that have shaped modern japan and which also looks for japanese interactions with other societal actors from asia and the rest of the world, islam in japan may for the first time constitute a research object, given its relevance to the global conjuncture of a spiritualized pan-asianism. perhaps “islam in japan” is even a misnomer because the crucial aspect of this phenomenon was a transnational meeting of minds and common ideas about the potential role of islam in asia overall, and not so much in japan. “islam for the japanese” was a way out of a narrow understanding of japaneseness, and at the same time it offered a spiritual and political alternative to the west. the development was politically relevant, even though “islam in japan” never really gained ground. in this way, transculturality, rather than presenting a full-blown theory, can serve as a lens that offers unconventional views on seemingly familiar objects, opening up new avenues of inquiry. conclusion the introduction to this themed section defines the task of the transcultural approach for area studies disciplines such as japanese studies as calling “for an appraisal of the respective area’s role within a wider regional context.”[39] while this certainly has merit, this author hopes that the transcultural approach can do more for japanese studies. thinking in transcultural terms helps overcome the trinary opposition of autonomy, comparison, and contact, not just by situating japan within the east asian context—as important as that task is—but by confronting the concept of “japanese culture” with elements from outside that east asian cultural sphere, as the example of islam in japan served to show. ideally, the transcultural approach advances a forceful critique of conventional presumptions of japanese uniqueness (i.e. the autonomy model), goes beyond an outdated form of binary comparison that tends to reify a historically modern west with a putatively timeless asia, and does not limit the contact dimension to the west (as a teacher) and japan (as a student), but looks at complex multipolar constellations of contact between japan, other asian nations, and euro-american actors; it thus has the potential to force subfields that are strong in comparison, such as political science, to take connections more seriously. indeed, taking the transcultural approach requires the researcher to look at economic, political, discursive, and material flows in such a way as to necessarily put pressure on established disciplines that have traditionally relied on only one of the three conventional approaches described above, and make them combine these approaches or start thinking beyond them. [1] for a full english translation see robin d. gill, trans., topsy-turvy, 1585: a translation and explication of luis frois s. j.’s tratado (treatise) listing 611 ways europeans & japanese are contrary (key biscane: paraverse press, 2004), luis fróis, tratado das contradições e diferenças de costumes entre a europa e o japão, (macau: instituto português do oriente, 2001). [2] kan’ichi asakawa, the documents of iriki: illustrative of the development of the feudal institutions of japan (new haven: yale university press, 1929). [3] otto hintze, “wesen und verbreitung des feudalismus,” sitzungsberichte der preußischen akademie der wissenschaften 20 (1929): 321–347. [4] charles r. boxer set the tone of postwar research with his classic the christian century in japan, 1549–1650 (berkeley: university of california press, 1951). [5] a representative work of the early postwar period is george b. sansom, the western world and japan: a study in the interaction of european and asiatic cultures (new york: knopf, 1950). [6] ezra vogel, japan as number one: lessons for america (new york: harper & row, 1979). [7] see e.g. ruth benedict, the chrysanthemum and the sword: patterns of japanese culture (boston: houghton mifflin, 1946). [8] see david blake willis and stephen murphy-shigematsu, eds., transcultural japan: at the borderlands of race, gender, and identity (new york: routledge, 2008). most of its chapters were written by anthropologists. another prominent use of “transcultural” in a book title is in the more recent collection of essays by literary scholar irmela hijiya-kirschnereit, was vom japaner übrig blieb: transkultur—übersetzung—selbstbehauptung (munich: iudicium, 2013). [9] funakawa atsushi 船川淳志, tabunka jidai no gurōbaru keiei: toransukaruchuraru manejimento 多文化時代のグローバル経営—トランスカルチュラル・マネジメント [global management in a multicultural age: transcultural management] (tōkyō: piason edyukēshon, 2001). [10] mitarai shōji 御手洗昭治, shin kokusai-jin ron: toransu karuchuraru mediētā jidai e no chōsen 新国際人論—トランス・カルチュラル・メディエーター時代への挑戦 [the new international people: challenges for the age of transcultural mediators] (tōkyō: sōgō hōrei, 1994). [11] daniel g. könig and katja rakow, “the transcultural approach within a disciplinary framework: an introduction,” transcultural studies 2 (2016): 91. [12] the school at osaka university around saitō osamu, sugihara kaoru, and akita shigeru is representative of this trend. [13] see haneda masashi 羽田正, atarashī sekaishi e: chikyū shimin no tame no kōsō 新しい世界史へ—地球市民のための構想 [towards a new world history: a design for global citizens] (tōkyō: iwanami, 2011). [14] the only exception were the two early pioneers august pfizmaier and léon de rosny, who were based at vienna university and the école pratique des hautes études, respectively, but had other main fields of study besides japan. [15] for more details on the role of orientalism in the history of japanese studies, see hans martin krämer, “the role of religion in european and north american japanese studies,” in religion and orientalism in asian studies, ed. kiri paramore (london: bloomsbury, 2016), 119–128. on the role of elisséeff at harvard university, see rudolf v. a. janssens, power and academic culture: the founding and funding of japanese studies in the united states, usjp occasional paper 96–03 (cambridge: harvard university press, 1996), 19–37. [16] for the case of religion see hans martin krämer, “orientalism and the study of lived religions: the japanese contribution to european models of scholarship on japan around 1900” (unpublished manuscript, february 21, 2017), microsoft word file. [17] on the function of modernization theory within postwar historiography on japan generally, see sebastian conrad, “‘the colonial ties are liquidated’: modernization theory, post-war japan, and the global cold war,” past and present 216 (2012): 181–214. [18] an egregious example is robert n. bellah, tokugawa religion: the values of pre-industrial japan (boston: beacon press, 1957). [19] on implicit and explicit views of china in japanese studies, see kiri paramore, “religion, secularism, and the japanese shaping of east asian studies,” in religion and orientalism in asian studies, ed. kiri paramore (london: bloomsbury, 2016), 129–143. [20] as a prominent example, two path-breaking eight-volume sets of essays were published by japan’s premier academic press at almost the same time. kurasawa aiko 倉沢愛子 et al., eds., iwanami kōza: ajia-taiheiyō sensō 岩波講座　アジア・太平洋戦争 [iwanami course: the asian pacific war], 8 vols. (tōkyō: iwanami shoten, 2005–2006) was about world war ii, referred to as the “asian pacific war” and ōe shinobu 大江志乃夫 et al., eds., iwanami kōza: kindai nihon to shokuminchi 岩波講座　近代日本と植民地 [iwanami course: modern japan and the colonies], 8 vols. (tōkyō: iwanami shoten, 2005). more recently, the same publisher has put out an eleven-volume set of essays on modern and contemporary east asian history that treated japan as a regular part of asia, whereas older standard “histories of asia” would usually have dealt with continental asia, excluding japan as a matter of course: wada haruki 和田春樹 et al., eds., higashi ajia kingendai tsūshi 東アジア近現代通史 [a modern and contemporary history of east asia], 11 vols. (tōkyō: iwanami shoten, 2010–2011). also, since 2002 a government-sponsored panel of south korean and japanese historians have been developing a joint history textbook for school use, although no textbook acceptable to both governments has yet emerged. see kimijima kazuhiko 君島和彦, nikkan rekishi kyōkasho no kiseki: rekishi no kyōtsū ninshiki o motomete 日韓歴史教科書の軌跡—歴史の共通認識を求めて [the path of a japanese-korean history textbook: demanding a common historical consciousness] (kawagoe: suzusawa shoten, 2009). [21] this is certainly true for the two textbooks on modern japanese history that are probably used most often in the north american college classroom: andrew gordon, a modern history of japan: from tokugawa times to the present (new york: oxford university press, 2003); marius b. jansen, the making of modern japan (cambridge: harvard university press, 2000). [22] one of the few meta-treatments of this approach can be found in chapter 3 of wolfgang knöbl, die kontingenz der moderne: wege in europa, asien und amerika (frankfurt am main: campus, 2007). [23] shmuel n. eisenstadt, japanese civilization: a comparative view (chicago: university of chicago press, 1996). [24] irene hardach-pinke, ed., japan: eine andere moderne? (tübingen: claudia gehrke, 1990). [25] sheldon garon, “rethinking modernization and modernity in japanese history: a focus on state-society relations,” journal of asian studies 53, no. 2 (1994): 347. [26] knöbl, kontingenz der moderne, 83–92, 104–105. [27] see especially the works of saitō osamu and sugihara kaoru. [28] andre gunder frank, reorient: global economy in the asian age (berkeley: university of california press, 1998). [29] kenneth pomeranz, the great divergence: china, europe, and the making of the modern world ecconomy (princeton: princeton university press, 2000) and r. bin wong, china transformed: historical change and the limits of european experience (ithaca: cornell university press, 1997). for more on innovations in the commercialization of the early modern japanese economy, however, see saitō osamu, “an industrious revolution in an east asian market economy? tokugawa japan and the implications for the great divergence,” australian economic history review 50, no. 3 (2010): 240–261. [30] jean-laurent rosenthal and r. bin wong, before and beyond divergence: the politics of economic change in china and europe (cambridge: harvard university press, 2011). [31] important works of the california school are not only read by specialized scholars, but have been translated into japanese and thus made available to a broader readership. among these are frank, reorient, translated as andore gundā furanku アンドレ・グンダー・フランク, rioriento: ajia jidai no gurōbaru ekonomī リオリエント—アジア時代のグローバル・エコノミー (tōkyō: fujiwara shoten, 2000) and pomeranz, the great divergence, translated as k. pomerantsu ポメランツ, daibunki: chūgoku, yōroppa, soshite kindai sekai keizai no keisei 大分岐—中国、ヨーロッパ、そして近代世界経済の形成 (nagoya: nagoya daigaku shuppankai, 2015). [32] dipesh chakrabarty, “can political economy be postcolonial? a note,” in postcolonial economies, ed. jane pollard et al. (london: zed books, 2011), 23–35. [33] i have developed some lines of inquiry of the next section further in my essay “pan-asianism’s religious undercurrents: the reception of islam and translation of the qur’ān in twentieth-century japan,” in the journal of asian studies 73, no. 3 (2014): 619–640. [34] even within japan, it has only been of marginal interest to some sociologists since migrants from countries with muslim majorities began entering japan in modest numbers in the 1980s. see sakurai keiko 桜井啓子, nihon no musurimu shakai 日本のムスリム社会 [japan’s muslim society] (tōkyō: chikuma shobō, 2003). [35] see the work of selçuk esenbel, for example “japan’s global claim to asia and the world of islam: transnational nationalism and world power, 1900–1945,” american historical review 109, no. 4 (2004): 1140–1170. [36] see stephen n. hay, asian ideas of east and west: tagore and his critics in japan, china, and india (cambridge: harvard university press, 1970). [37] compare the scholarship on qur’ān translator ōkawa shūmei up to usuki akira 臼杵陽, ōkawa shūmei: isurāmu to tennō no hazama de 大川周明—イスラームと天皇のはざまで [ōkawa shūmei: between islam and the emperor] (tōkyō: seidosha, 2010). [38] see eri hotta, pan-asianism and japan’s war, 1931–1945 (new york: palgrave macmillan, 2007); cemil aydin, the politics of anti-westernism in asia: visions of world order in pan-islamic and pan-asian thought (new york: columbia university press, 2007); sven saaler and christopher w. a. szpilman, eds., pan-asianism: a documentary history, 2 vols (lanham: rowman & littlefield, 2011). [39] könig and rakow, “the transcultural approach within a disciplinary framework,” 96. “enjoying the four olds!” | mittler | transcultural studies “enjoying the four olds!” oral histories from a “cultural desert” barbara mittler, university of heidelberg china’s cultural revolution (wenhua da geming, 文化大革命 1966–1976) has been regarded as the period featuring the most dramatic repudiation of traditional chinese as well as foreign culture in the twentieth century. [1] one reason for this view is a movement that took part in its earliest days: when the cultural revolution was launched, red guards hong weibing 红卫兵—student groups who had followed mao’s call to stand up against the authorities—were encouraged to make revolution by “smashing the four olds” (po si jiu, 破四旧)—old thinking, old culture, old customs, and old habits (jiu sixiang, jiu wenhua, jiu fengsu, jiu xiguan 旧思想、旧文化、旧风俗、旧习惯). this political campaign was broad in scope and had a long reach, both materially and geographically, and included attacks on and the looting of artifacts from so-called “feudal,” “capitalist,” or “revisionist” culture (fengzixiu wenhua,封资修文化). these three epithets, were used quite polemically to describe traditional chinese as well as foreign cultural products from either the west or the soviet union, the destruction of material artifacts and historic sites, and ideological critiques of “old” chinese and also foreign traditions—all over china, in the cities as well as in the countryside. this paper builds on findings from oral history which suggest that “smashing the four olds” entailed more than the destruction and censored restriction of what was termed “feudal,” “capitalist” or “revisionist” fengzixiu culture. i will argue that to take “smashing the four olds”—which was put into practice during this rather short-lived but fateful campaign in the first months of the cultural revolution—as emblematic of the cultural experience during the entire cultural revolution decade, and to define the latter as a whole as a period of “great chaos,” of wholesale censorship and destruction and of total propaganda,[2] may not be enough—and may also be misleading. in this paper i shall try to undo this common reading on several levels: time and scope: only a very short period, the summer and fall of 1966, not the whole cultural revolution decade, was actually determined by “smashing” activities. even if we allow for certain repetitions in later years (such as during the anti-confucius campaign “to criticize lin biao 林彪 and confucius 孔子” pi lin pi kong 批林批孔of 1974–1975), the effects of which will be discussed later in this paper, as well as for considerable local diversity, these movement(s) were temporary and never long-lasting. indeed, it is very difficult to measure just how pervasive the first “smashing” movement (along with its subsequent repercussions) and its attendant censorship really was, even during its high tide in the summer of 1966: the figures we have are not certain or reliable, they are selective and locally and temporally restricted. re-readings: oral history provides a picture not only of smashing, but also of enjoying the “four olds”—of people assiduously reading and appreciating artworks that fell in the (transcultural) categories of “feudal,” “capitalist,” and “revisionist” fengzixiu both during the “smashing” campaign and during the later movement criticizing lin biao and confucius. what happened clandestinely behind closed doors, and in spite of the censors, throughout the cultural revolution decade—the reading of foreign and old materials—may prove to have been no less important than activities in the open when we come to measure their impact on cultural memory and cultural production. re-conceptions: the paper will conclude with an afterthought concerning the evidence that “smashing” did not have the lasting effects it is often said to have had: the fact that precisely the kind of “feudal, capitalist and revisionist” heritage which was officially criticized and “smashed” during the early years of the cultural revolution, and again prominently during the movement criticizing lin biao and confucius in the mid-1970s, was also the staple of and much celebrated in cultural revolution propaganda art—which constituted the “new culture” for which the “four olds” had to disappear—must be taken into account when evaluating the effects of the years under consideration and their repercussions in later chinese cultural developments. drawing on data from oral history, my paper finds evidence that people assiduously read, listened, and thus profited and learnt not only from those cultural objects propagated by the “new culture” that was officially prescribed and over(re)presented, day in and day out, but also from those censored cultural objects that were officially removed and destroyed. it argues that the cultural revolution experience was deeply transcultural in that it involved the encounter not only with objects and products from china’s own but heavily criticized past, but also with those of foreign origin. quite contrary to the widespread notion that the chinese cultural revolution was a period of political and cultural iconoclasm as well as of isolationism, and consequently a “cultural desert,” oral history provides extensive evidence for a vibrant and transculturally informed experience of cultural consumption. moreover, the way this campaign was perceived and read, and the fact that it thankfully did not last too long, had a distinctly transcultural dimension (not unlike many events and activities during this period): one might even argue that this had more to do with china’s international reputation than with its internal politics. in addition, the new culture created in response to the movement can likewise not be conceived but in transcultural terms, both in its aesthetics (since it combined elements from foreign as well as chinese traditions) and in its perception. by plugging into the cultural revolution as a lived experience, this paper makes use of the material collected through a series of over three dozen in-depth interviews conducted in beijing, shanghai and heidelberg in the early 2000s (most of them in spring of 2004) with representatives from many different classes and generations—from a young taxi driver to an elderly musician, from a middle-aged journalist to a housekeeper and a museum curator. while they wished to remain anonymous, they are characterized by their occupations, their family backgrounds, and their particular political experiences,[3] and are thus not cloaked in “blanket anonymity.”[4] the interviewees were randomly chosen from a group mostly involved currently in education, art, or the media. about half of them had experienced being sent down to the countryside or being made to work in the factories in the late sixties and early seventies. while half of them came from either working class, or rural, or from what would then be considered “capitalist/bourgeois” backgrounds, the other half came from intellectual families, some members of which had been severely criticized and declared “rightists” before and during the cultural revolution. all interviewees were asked the same set of questions so as to sharpen the focus of the interview results.[5] these were questions about their personal memories of cultural life during the cultural revolution, about listening to traditional chinese music—as well as foreign classical music—and about reading (stolen) comics, about criticizing confucius and watching or performing the officially sanctioned, so-called model works yangbanxi 样板戏, and about being sent to the countryside.[6] obviously, the more controversial a subject—and the cultural revolution is clearly one of the most controversial subjects in modern chinese history—the less an interviewee’s testimony can stand alone. moreover, “anecdotal” evidence from interviews may contain many mistakes, even when the oral evidence as such is extremely informative, not necessarily about the facts but about mentalities reflecting a particular historical era.[7] however large, a set of interviewees alone may be considered insignificant for forming a statistically relevant basis for critical analysis.[8] be that as it may, i have been convinced by the high degree of resonance and consonance (despite significant dissonances) to be found among different source materials i have studied in my overall endeavor to understand the cultural experience of the cultural revolution,[9] that taking into account findings from oral history will enable us to gain a better understanding of this period and, even more so, its major impact and repercussions. this is because evidently the cultural revolution still has a resonance (both in the positive and negative senses), even to this day: it is not forgotten, on the contrary, many people—even youngsters who were born afterwards—flock to cultural revolution restaurants, buy the more expensive collections of the model works and red sun cds with remakes of revolutionary songs from the cultural revolution, and visit cultural revolution flea markets. this cannot be fully explained if one follows the standard discourse on the cultural revolution as a period of cultural chaos and destruction. this essay is, on the one hand, informed by a much broader reading of cultural revolution culture[10] in which i juxtapose findings from interviews with analyses of the cultural products and media emanations from this period (and before and after). on the other hand the study deliberately focuses on oral history and includes much patch-working from the original interviews[11] in an attempt to trace and tease out the extremely multifaceted and complicated nature of the cultural revolution as a lived (cultural) experience. oral history gives visibility to the contradictions in the cultural revolution experience because it reveals “dissonances” between people’s different recollections of the past, and presents quite obviously “fragmented memories.”[12] this evidence helps us to reconstruct a history full of inexplicable fissures and disjunctures, and this is perhaps the only history adequate to relating the experience of the cultural revolution. many interviewees say one thing when prompted and the opposite just a few moments later, sometimes even in the same breath. what these interviews illustrate most clearly is that the cultural revolution defies categorization. a collection of cultural revolution jokes (文革笑料集 wenge xiaoliao ji)[13] published in 1988 makes this quite apparent: on its cover page it claims that the cultural revolution was a “tragic, comic, hateful, and pitiful moment in history—all at the same time” (一段可悲复可笑可恨复可怜的历史). the joke collection is advertised as an important document for those growing up after the cultural revolution, so that they may understand the period even while they will find some of it strange and hard to believe (70年代后长大出生的后人们, 你读到这段难以置信的历史, 也许会拍案惊奇吧). accordingly, and perhaps most importantly, this paper aims to illustrate that the cultural revolution cannot be adequately discussed in simple terms and categories (不要简单地说).[14] the cultural revolution was one thing and yet another—both at the same time, and accordingly, there are those who will say (and believe) one thing and yet another as well, and each one of them will have an important point to make. it is imperative to listen to all of these voices. these memories are indeed wavering, but they are nevertheless significant “visions of the collectively experienced past,” reconstructions by those who have lived through it. naturally, they cannot be taken as “an objective chronology of the past,”[15] but they are valuable indications of its importance in the present. the constant ruptures within and between individual memories show the immense complexity of this cultural experience (and its memory work). it is true that “once the post-mao leadership set to work—dismantling the maoist strategy, expunging its achievements from the public record, and forbidding anything but a negative verdict on every aspect of the entire cultural revolution decade—everyone, willingly or not, came under the spell of the new official line.”[16] this was obvious at the beginning of all my interviews: even today, it is not easy to talk about the experience of the cultural revolution outside prescribed mnemonic stereotypes. yet because it produced a cultural experience that allowed for individual agency and pluralistic reception, even as it served as an instrument for maintaining power and control, the experience of cultural revolution culture as a whole meant many different things in different places to different people, and even to one and the same person. this essay thus features the voices of different sets of people and generations to show how many unique individual perceptions there are of the cultural revolution, all significantly departing from those prescribed in the 1981 party resolution, which states that the great proletarian cultural revolution, launched by mao in 1966, carried out by the “gang of four,” and concluded with his death in 1976, was nothing but a “period of chaos and destruction.”[17] the idea that for ten years, the china of the cultural revolution was the realm of the omnipotent propagandist, a space of total propaganda, is not paradoxical to those who have chosen to believe in this periodization. but it does not tally with much of the lived cultural experience of the cultural revolution, although this clearly came in many variations. if these many different testimonies have one common element, it is their significant departure from the party line as decreed in the party resolution. they are often quite distinct from official history, although the official line still significantly determines collective memory structures and ways of speaking about them. whenever confronted with evidence that would suggest a different reading from the official line (but not only then), my interviewees tended to get involved in (even more) contradictory arguments. the phrase, “really, it was not like that,” uttered in so many of the interviews is thus a staple of this essay. even among the relatively small sample of people interviewed for this essay, most of whom came from urban areas (even if many of them spent long sojourns in the countryside), memories of cultural revolution propaganda varied substantially with age, class, and locality of the experience.[18] their conflicting memories illustrate the importance of delving deeper into the multiple cultural revolutions that took place in multiple spaces, geographically as well as sociologically, so as better to explain some of the repercussions of the cultural revolution in chinese reality today. the fissures and discrepancies within and between different memories are important in their own right.[19] they illustrate the many inconsistencies in the cultural revolution experience to which we may have not paid enough attention so far. this is why they are given such prominence: not in order to deny or gloss over the horrors of the cultural revolution, but in order to lend visibility to the multifaceted experience it yielded. we find that if this kind of material is taken seriously, the student of the cultural revolution ends up navigating between scylla and charybdis: s/he is neither able to entirely condemn the cultural revolution, nor to take a maoist stance exclusively emphasizing its idealistic intentions. it is the aim of this essay to neither accept nor deny any of these positions—each has its merit and its justification as well as its blind spots. by scrutinizing the versions given in my interviews of the lived (and remembered) experience of cultural revolution culture, this paper intends to complicate our view of this highly complex and important period in chinese history. it argues for a more comprehensive view of the cultural revolution that acknowledges both its horrors and its joys, both its dictatorial and its democratic natures. smashing the four olds: time and scope on the 9.600 square kilometer surface area of the chinese mainland there were many areas of culture and civilization still untouched but there was apparently no nook or cranny that the movement to “smash the four olds” would not look into.[20] it is commonly assumed that propaganda activities, political campaigns and mass movements were all-pervasive in the china of the cultural revolution. the prime task laid down in the central committee’s decision on the cultural revolution(guanyu kaizhan wuchan jieji wenhua da geming de jueding 关于开展无产阶级文化大革命的决定, short: shiliu tiao 十六条) of 8 august 1966, was to overthrow the exploitative bourgeoisie by “smashing the four olds: the old ideas, culture, customs and habits of the exploiting classes” and “to establish the four news” (po si jiu,li si xin shi wenge de zhongyao mubiao 破四旧、立四新是文革的重要目标). this call echoed the demand made in an editorial which had been published a few months earlier in the people’s daily renmin ribao (人民日报) on 1 june 1966 “hengsao yiqie niugui sheshen” (destroy all ox-ghosts and snake-demons 横扫一切牛鬼蛇神) which had already called for the complete destruction of the old ideas, culture, customs and habits of the exploiting classes (pochu jiqian nian lai yiqie boxue jieji suo zaocheng de duhai renmin de jiu sixiang, jiu wenhua,jiu fengsu, jiu xiguan 破除几千年来一切剥削阶级所造成的毒害人民的旧思想、旧文化、旧风俗、旧习惯).[21] but what exactly did “smashing the four olds” mean? few seem to have been clear, so in order to become effective it took the decision’s reaffirmation as well as a speech by vice chairman and minister of defence lin biao 林彪, approved in advance by the chairman, mao zedong 毛泽东, and addressed on 18 august 1966 to the rally on tian’anmen square in beijing, in which lin exhorted the red guards to “smash” (pochu 破除) the four olds. when the red guard movement took off immediately after this event, “smashing the four olds” became one of their raisons d’être.[22] starting on 19 august, first in beijing, “a large and unprecedented movement broke out,” as two observers remarked, which “spread like a mystical wildfire across the nation.” according to these two, within a short while, “the nation was embroiled in what lin biao had just called for: “turning heaven and earth completely on their heads, bringing turmoil everywhere, unleashing destruction like high winds and great waves, bringing great disturbances and agitation; in this way, the bourgeoisie will not be able to sleep, and the proletariat will also not be able to sleep.”[23] in the standard narrative, the activities of the red guards were twofold: they destroyed objects of “feudal,” “capitalist” and “revisionist” fengzixiu culture and substituted them with examples of “new” and “red” culture. the description of an early attack on a beijing roast duck restaurant by students from different prestigious beijing high schools illustrates their approach rather dramatically: on the spur of the moment, sparked by the shouting and encouragement of the throngs of red guards, the restaurant’s sign (which had the characters for classical confucian “virtue” de 德 in it) which had hung outside the store for over 70 years was torn down by the workers and smashed to bits. then, they replaced it with a long wooden sign painted with the characters for “peking roast duck store.” after this, the red guard group felt too roused to simply leave. instead, they entered every room in the restaurant … and took down all of the chinese landscape paintings from the walls and tore them to shreds. … the students who would live at the store went to the hsin-hua book store where they ordered 100 large photos of mao tse-tung. the workers quickly brought this first batch and when they were delivered they worked through the night putting them up on the walls in every location in the store, kitchen and the dormitories, together with the sayings of mao tse-tung. the red guards then led the workers of the store in instruction. first they made them realize that the … characters of their store’s original name … were cast in the sweat and hard work of the workers, … a product of the capitalist exploitation of our laborers. … destroying the sign shows our determination to completely crush anything still left over of the exploitative capitalistic system.[24] similar depictions can be found again and again, in historical writings as well as in memoirs: red guards ransacked stores and offices and castigated their staff.[25] on 23 august, the beijing red guards went to the city’s cultural affairs bureau and confiscated its collection of props and costumes from chinese opera. they took them to a nearby confucian temple where they burnt them. several newspapers, such as the people’s daily renmin ribao (22.8.1966) and the beijng daily beijing ribao 北京日报 (23.8.1966) congratulated the red guards for such actions in front-page articles, complimenting them for “sweeping away the dust of all the old ideas, culture, customs and habits of the exploiting classes.”[26] such explicit encouragement of vandalism from official organs impelled the red guards to continue their raids and destroy historical monuments and cultural relics. according to much-cited statistical evidence, during the months of august and september 1966, more than two thirds, i.e. 4933 of the 6843 classified historical sites in beijing were damaged or destroyed.[27] numerous valuable old books, paintings and other cultural relics were burnt to ashes. the imperial palace had to be closed and safeguarded by troops in order to avoid demolition—on zhou enlai’s 周恩来 order. this was one of the few reported cases in which his attempt to save some of “the old” was successful.[28] perhaps the most remarkable act of destruction centered on the confucius temple in qufu county, shandong province, in november 1966, when around 200 teachers and students from beijing normal university are said to have gone to “thoroughly demolish the confucius family shop” (dadao kongjia dian 打倒孔家店). during their four-week stay, they joined forces with the local population and like-minded students from the qufu teachers’s institute. together, they managed to destroy, according to one set of statistics, some 6,618 registered cultural artifacts, including 929 paintings, over 2,700 books, 1,000 stone steles and 2,000 graves.[29] however unreliable they may be, these are distressing figures. even if we do not take them at face value, it is clear that destruction of public property in these dimensions must have been not only far more organized, but—more importantly—more officially sanctioned than is generally acknowledged today. these numbers would become more meaningful, however, if they could be related to numbers from earlier acts of destruction during the great leap forward, for example, and—even more deadly to chinese material cultural heritage, as some sources maintain—during the modernist may fourth movement of the 1910s and 1920s which also called for a battle against “feudal” and “superstitious” chinese traditions.[30] then, as during the cultural revolution, the destruction would not have been possible without the complicity of the local leaders (indeed, there are local examples of documents announcing that the general measures for protecting cultural heritage that had been passed in 1962 were now null and void). in spite of obvious disagreements, it would have been impossible as well without the direct responsibility of central leaders, too—including zhou enlai.[31] yet already in the autumn of 1966, one also finds an awareness of the bad reputation that china might get if these happenings were made public. clearly, china’s international position here played an important role, one perhaps even more important than that of internal politics: visiting foreigners are reported to have seen relics intact and to have lauded the red guards for keeping them so.[32] however these news items came about, they are signs of the uneasiness that the movement evidently caused, not just among politicians. the movement thus had its transcultural dimension: considerations of china’s international reputation were one reason for the attempts to end the campaign, next to the factional fighting that had resulted right from the beginning. efforts to call off the movement may also have been due to the fact that “smashing the four olds” had entailed many human tragedies. these began in the summer of 1966 with the home searches and the confiscation or destruction of property falling into the three “heinous” categories (feudal, capitalist, revisionist) and belonging to families of allegedly “bad” class background. in little over a month, some 33,695 households in beijing are said to have been “ransacked” chao jia 抄家. again, these numbers, especially in their cynical exactness, are meaningless by themselves and only cited here in order to give some dimension to the drama. in shanghai, the figures for the number of households that were attacked are even higher, amounting to some 84,222, according to one statistic.[33] one victim was the painter liu haisu 刘海粟 (1896–1994) in nanjing, who reports having been visited some 24 times by red guards, and who had literally everything in his house taken away from him: on one of my receipts was written “one antique gold statue for 15 yuan, and one diamond ring for 35 yuan,” there were also 20 some pieces of valuable stoneware and porcelain pieces from the six dynasties, the tang dynasty and the sung dynasty. there were also 70 or 80 paintings and calligraphic works from the sung, yuan, ming, ching dynasties as well as some of my own works, none of which have ever been seen again.[34] although the movement was short-lived, reaching its apex in the summer and autumn of 1966 and clearly not enduring the whole decade of the cultural revolution, the resulting loss of public and private cultural capital was enormous. moreover, the human and material as well as cultural destruction caused by the movement was to prove fateful, for it had traumatic effects: chinese and foreign architecture was ransacked, chinese and foreign literature was burnt, chinese and foreign paintings were torn apart, antiquities shattered. people in possession of such goods were punished. intellectual were targeted as personifications of the four olds, they were mocked, harassed, imprisoned, tortured, or killed. the movement thus served as the reaffirmation of a political willingness to destroy particular elements of foreign and chinese culture and to restrict them through censorship:  public libraries also suffered considerably from the destructive activities of red guards in the autumn of 1966. yet the loss of books during that relatively brief flurry of activity was small compared with that caused by the state’s cutback in funding and almost total neglect of libraries after 1966. by the end of the cultural revolution, one third of china’s 1,100 libraries at or above the county level had been closed, and more than seven million library books had been lost, stolen, or destroyed in the provinces of liaoning, jilin, henan, jiangsu, and guizhou alone.[35] what however did this loss of books, first to red guards and then to unknown thieves, mean? how successful was the attempt to restrict cultural experiences and to determine an individual’s exposure to this culture? these questions will be probed in the next section. re-readings of  “smashing” in oral history there was nothing to do, so i would just read in the library: mao’s writings, for example, his unpublished papers and all that. there was nothing else to be read, really. they did not allow us to read any “feudal,” “capitalist,” or “revisionist” fengzixiu literature. and, of course, we did not dare borrow books that were fengzixiu, i did not dare to read them either. i already had been labeled a counterrevolutionary’s kid….. (businesswoman, b. 1940s) in the 1980s i read voraciously: i did not drink tea or smoke or chat, i just wanted to read. and i felt, i must do that. part of it was that working in the factory was really not what i wanted to do. whenever i was reading a good book, i would develop my own thoughts. but all of that was after the cultural revolution. during the cultural revolution that kind of behavior would have been impossible, it was a time of real waste (huangfei 荒废). we did not learn anything. maybe in some families with intellectual backgrounds, they could still rely on themselves to teach the children. but not us worker’s kids! (photographer, b. 1960) reading these statements, the argument that the entire cultural revolution was determined by an iconoclastic and xenophobic spirit of destruction which was most violently discharged during the “smashing” campaign, and that “smashing” itself should thus become an apt and emblematic symbol of the cultural revolution experience, appears to make a lot of sense. yet we need to deliberate on what the mixture of iconoclasm and xenophobia captured in these memories really meant, how far it went, and what impact it had on the experience of different cultural traditions and cultural production during the cultural revolution more generally. who was encountering what and why? and what was the role of the “smashing” campaign in this regard? how, for example, did books from the libraries get lost, and what did this mean in terms of the destruction of cultural traditions and the cultural experience during the cultural revolution as a whole? if one is to believe evidence from oral history, one tentative answer could be: many books were taken away, from private homes as well as from libraries, not to be destroyed but rather (and perhaps even primarily, after the initial revolutionary enthusiasm died down) to be read clandestinely. what is suggested by many of the testimonies we have in oral history is that a lot of more or less secret reading went on throughout the cultural revolution. many suggest that the “smash the four olds” movement may indeed have set the tone and created ideal opportunities for this behavior.[36] it opened the vistas for those young men and women who did not have extensive libraries at home to reach out into the unknown—and enjoy. one editor from a poor working-class family, who was in his mid-30s at the beginning of the cultural revolution and had become a party member early on, observed the following: from the 1960s on, there was an interesting phenomenon, the so-called jinshu 禁书 forbidden books. there would always be these lists, so, for example, romain rolland’s jean christophe would be forbidden. it was too “individualistic,” and we were against individualism, of course. the red guards, these “little devils,” would ransack the homes chao jia 抄家 and hit people for owning these books, but then they would take them home and read them. (editor, b. 1930s) many of those who were primary or secondary school students in the early years of the cultural revolution would agree with this, emphasizing how much during the cultural revolution they read: books given to them “by friends.” their comments illustrate that restrictions through censorship were felt, but not necessarily effectively so: during that time the “8 model works” bage yangbanxi 八个样板戏[37] were being performed, there was really nothing else. the rest was all considered “feudal, capitalist, and revisionist” fengzixiu. but we read all kinds of things that were fengzixiu anyway, balzac and romain rolland! at the time, i was looking after an ox, reading all the while, i thought this was quite fun. i also read guo moruo then, and i really enjoyed my life. (musician with working-class background, b. 1942) during the cultural revolution i read more books than ever before. i would get them from friends: all literary classics, translated from french and german; modern literature only started to come in after the cultural revolution. we also read chinese classics: the ming novels, but also the shiji (records of the historian 史记), or collections of ancient philosophical works. (journalist from a “capitalist” family, b. 1949) we all did our own thing, studying by ourselves. we read books it was not so easy to get and read, especially “feudal” and “capitalist” or “bourgeois” titles. they were not supposed to be read, but we read them anyway. the books were passed on, from one to the next: romain rolland’s jean christophe, for example—oh, the book was so interesting and so romantic! (artist from a family of intellectuals, b. 1954) a lot of my friends would read foreign novels. i did, too. balzac, for example, chekhov, zola. all of them had been translated before the cultural revolution. of course, you didn’t read these things outside in the open. they were exchanged underground. once, a very young worker informed on me, said that i had been reading this story of chiang kaishek. the party representative took me to one side and asked me what kinds of books i was reading. i told the guy that this story was just a story and asked him to reconsider: in the encyclopedic dictionary, the cihai (辞海), there are a lot of “feudal” things, really, but does that mean i must not look at the cihai anymore? he laughed—and let me go. (librarian who spent the cultural revolution in the people’s liberation army, b. mid-1950s) fig. 1: two pages from the red guard publication destroying the old world completely, featuring a list of “forbidden books” by writers such as romain rollande, emile zola, guy de maupassant, and lev tolstoy. red guard publication chedi polan jiu shijie (destroying the old world completely 彻底破烂旧世界) edited by shanxi gongnongbing yishu xuexiao (shanxi worker, peasant soldier art school “red guards”) no place, no publisher, 1966. 10–11. fig. 2: another two pages from the red guard publication destroying the old world completely, listing chinese classics that are forbidden to read. chedi polan jiu shijie, 13–14. there were different ways of getting at “forbidden” books. the “smashing” campaign was one option, but after the campaign ended, quite a few remember that stealing books from libraries was the preferred means. many remember veritable “reading orgies” with such stolen books: we stole so many books from the library and then we would exchange them, reading them in secret. we felt great when we did so, if also a bit scared: indeed, i became a very fast reader when i was small, because there was always this atmosphere of secrecy. but in fact, there never was a concrete black list, they just said that things which were fengzixiu (feudal, capitalist, revisionist) were not acceptable. but they could not list everything in detail, since there was so much to be criticized, so they just used these three standards of fengzixiu (writer from a well-off family of intellectuals, b. 1958). i did not take part in the revolution, really, i was not all that interested. i just read every book i could get. of course, there were not so many. and they did not let you into the libraries. but nobody would actually be there to guard them, so i would climb the wall and just grab any book and leave again very quickly. this is how i was able to read voraciously: russian stories, chinese stories, old and new, whatever! (intellectual from a family of translators in which the father had been declared a “rightist,” b. 1955) there seems to be one surprising consistency in these descriptions of reading experiences during the cultural revolution: almost everyone felt restrictions and the keen (and evil) eye of the censors. but this apparent consistency only superficially hides the many contradictions: if there was censorship, if reading was restricted, were there precise lists telling everyone what to read or not? some say no, but there were: red guard publications such as chedi polan jiu shijie (destroying the old world completely 彻底破烂旧世界) were available (and point very clearly to the “illegality” of every single title mentioned by the interviewees: balzac, zola and romain rolland, the late ming erotic novel jin ping mei 金瓶梅 the golden lotus, works by the confucian philosopher mencius and the neo-confucian three character classic 三字经 sanzijing).[38] in addition, official lists were sent internally to publishers and editors (may 2008). but who did these lists reach? clearly, as we have seen in some of the testimonials cited earlier, not everyone was aware of these lists or even their existence, although they knew of their more general substance, and this may have been as deliberate as it was inevitable: using a vague label such as “feudal, capitalist, and revisionist” to condemn “unhealthy” types of literature, not only allowed critical interpretation in all directions, but also the instigation of the greatest possible fear and thus effective self-censorship. the vaguer the label, the better it was able to cover a multitude of works which it would have been impossible to list singly. yet, some of the voices cited above suggest that even those who were in fact very aware of specific restrictions did not feel they had to go by these standards all the time. the editor cited above even remembers the situation as slightly paradoxical: it was really only on the surface biaomianshang 表面上 that particular books were not there. in fact, of course, they were there and they were actually shijishang 实际上 quite widespread. for example that late ming erotic novel jin ping mei (the golden lotus 金瓶梅), i read it during that time. we would simply go to the old cadres and get these types of books from them. then, in the 1970s, some of the standards were reset, and maybe 10 per cent of the books which were formerly forbidden could officially be read again. tolstoy, and chekhov, for instance, were acceptable again. it was strange, there are things that then and even today[39] we could not find in the book stores, but through booty from the ransacked homes, we were able to read these books then: mein kampf is one such example. one could say that in spite of heavy censorship and restrictions, all the chaos which the 1960s brought also meant that there was some space. at the same time, when restrictions were slightly loosened in the 1970s, this space was no longer there. then as before, there was always this feeling of “covert repression” (anzhong de kongzhi, 暗中的控制). (editor, b. 1930s) in this description, the cultural revolution becomes a time which, even by means of restriction, may have opened up hitherto unknown avenues of cultural experience. while few books were sold in the bookstores, many were nonetheless available: they would be passed from friend to friend, originating from one’s own home, or a friend’s, as loot from a red guard ransack, or stolen from the libraries. memories of whether there were lists of “forbidden books” and whether the libraries were open to everyone or closed, differ considerably. these contradictory recollections are not necessarily inaccurate, but suggest, however, an enormous range of local variation. nevertheless, almost everyone seems to agree on one point: even if the doors of the libraries were closed and books blacklisted, they were being read regardless. as far as i know, lists of forbidden books were not published officially and even in the middle of the cultural revolution they were anyhow publishing these translations of russian novels. the libraries would be closed, of course, with the explanation that “it has not been determined what is good or what bad among these books.” (hai mei jueding zhexie shu 还没决定这些书) (university professor from an intellectual family, the mother being a foreigner, b. mid-1950s) he: it feels like the pressure went away pretty quickly and we were able to read whatever we wanted. she: yes, it was not even a year or so in which i didn’t dare read what i wanted to. he: in fact, we read and discussed a lot of the things from the 1950s, for example qingchun zhi ge (song of youth, 青春之歌). we read so much, really, it’s not true that you couldn’t read anything during the cultural revolution. she: in fact the library was always open to us, even in the evening, we could go in and simply read whatever we wanted. so even if there was pressure, it did not destroy the culture. (housewife with husband from a “capitalist” background, b. 1950s) so books were available to many different people from very different backgrounds, and came from different sources, both clandestine and legal. and what was considered clandestine and what was considered legal also depended on where and how one was situated. while foreign books made up the bulk of the literature that has found its way into the collective memories presented here, with works by rolland, tolstoy and soviet authors being the most frequently mentioned—thus highlighting the transcultural experience that the cultural revolution remained, and turning notions of china’s isolation during this period completely on their heads—traditional chinese literature also seems to have played an important role: ming novels, the dream of the red chamber, as well as tang and song poetry, were available and read by almost everyone i interviewed during the cultural revolution. despite the fact that accounts of education during the cultural revolution often stated that school classes may have regularly substituted mao’s poetry for classical texts, classical poetry does not seem to have disappeared either: mao’s poems cannot be considered classical chinese, really. of course, we would read some of his old-style poems at school, but as for important tang and song poets, su shi and li bai and du fu, we would read them, too, and actually it seemed to be perfectly ok to read them. (intellectual from a family of intellectuals and musicians, b. 1958) indeed, one interviewee, not from an intellectual but from a working class family and now a musician (b. 1942), included a tang poem in his “revolutionary photo album” dating back to the second half of the cultural revolution. he was quite taken aback by my surprise at this: “of course. we would memorize these poems during the cultural revolution.” how much each person actually read in spite of censorship, and how their reading compared to the amount of reading of the same kinds of literary works before and after the cultural revolution may, as the interviews suggest, have differed greatly from one person to the next. many youngsters did not go to school for months on end, a factor which may (or may not) have promoted extensive reading. and while reading remained a primarily urban phenomenon, because all of these memories of libraries are urban memories, the reading habit was, as the interviews also suggest, carried on to the countryside as well. dai sijie’s story of balzac and the little seamstress[40] gives one fictionalized impression of a phenomenon mentioned frequently in oral history. rusticated youths and intellectuals were reading even in the countryside, and some of them also took to teaching what they read. so just how much an individual might or might not have read during the cultural revolution depended on his or her class background. workers’s children may have read less than those of intellectuals, as seen in the testimonies at the beginning of this section, simply because they did not have access to a private library, but more perhaps than before the cultural revolution because the ransacking of family homes and libraries would have granted even them access to precious and previously entirely unattainable loot. how much a person may or may not have read during the cultural revolution would also have depended on the place where they read (the countryside could only offer as many books as the rusticated youth were able to bring with them, hence there was probably little variety, whereas the situation in urban areas may have been dramatically different). one rusticated youth, originally from a family of intellectuals, remembers the importance the location had on reading conditions by comparing her urban and rural reading sessions as follows: at home, with all these girls’ and boys’ parents gone to labor camp, we would meet all the time. we would read things like (romain rolland’s) jean christophe and listen to music by beethoven. everybody would do that. really, jean christophe was one of the most popular novels all that time. and what we did was somehow like group education, the books just moved on from one person to the next and then became a topic of conversation, and we would develop these collective fantasies about writing great novels ourselves. music actually always accompanied these readings. of course, it was not allowed and i seem to remember that all of these books that we passed round had a kind of paper cover. i was 13 then, i knew and had read so little before and so for me, this whole period at the beginning of the cultural revolution was like a great awakening. a few years later, in the countryside, of course, there was rather little to read, even though i had brought some books of my own. but i would borrow books from others. i was really interested in detective stories, for example, which i discovered there, stories from the 1940s and 1950s. (university professor, b. mid-1950s) was this type of reading dangerous? many interviewees seem to suggest as much: people learned to read fast because they were afraid of being caught, they would wrap the cover pages of all their books in paper so they would not be immediately recognizable, and they would never take a suspect book outside the confines of their homes. the many stories of being called in after being caught reading suspicious books, also speak for themselves. again, who precisely dared to read in spite of the dangers it may have involved (and who did not) may have depended on class background and position: a person working as an editor may have felt particularly pressured to conform, and someone whose parents had once been labeled rightists or counterrevolutionaries may also have felt he or she had reason to do so. yet, the question of “to read or not to read” would have been handled in radically different ways by families even of similar class background and political standing: one proscribing, the other clandestinely allowing, a third even encouraging the reading of “forbidden books.” while one interviewee who frequently broke into libraries remembers, “my father (who had been labeled a rightist earlier) would not let me read these old things” (intellectual, b. 1955), another with a rather similar (if apparently politically unblemished) family background and from the same generation says the opposite: i would read everything in primary school and middle school. i read stendhal, and all these books at home.[41] there was no restriction on what i read, i could read everything at home. indeed, my father always made us learn things by heart, tang poems, for instance. (intellectual, b. 1958) not only were people secretly defiant in their reading practices, but cases of open, outright and witty resistance when caught with “dangerous” readings are also not the exception. this is what one particularly outspoken interviewee (from a family of intellectuals) remembers:  one day when they searched the family, they found some books and called me in. i said: “how can i criticize these books without reading them?” that killed the conversation dead. although i obviously was not thinking about criticizing these books, really, there was nothing they could say. i told them, “mao says that if you want to know how carrots taste, you have to taste them.” they knew that, too. (university professor, b. mid 1950s) such audacity may have been facilitated by the fact that a lot of reading of so-called “black literature” took place quite officially under the auspices of criticism movements to “eradicate” such writings. whether or not this literature could in fact be appreciated, then, while being criticized, is a point on which memories differ quite radically. one journalist (b. 1946) from a precarious family background of intellectuals and “capitalists” remembers that for her, even a hidden enjoyment of these works would have been unthinkable: during the cultural revolution, it was impossible to borrow or officially buy these foreign books and traditional books. this was only possible during the criticism movements, but then you would read them for the sake of criticism. if you were to use and read them because you enjoyed them … mmh… it would have been strange to actually enjoy them… on the other hand, the red guards were looting a lot of houses by then, and such black books would be taken and read. libraries, too, would be destroyed: when we stole books on those occasions, it did not really feel like stealing, and so we read a lot of black books just by accident, only to be astonished by the kinds of criticism raised later. this reader admits to enjoying black books before they were officially and openly attacked and criticized. she could not imagine, however, enjoying them while they were being criticized. yet her opinion is not shared by everyone. this is what a musicologist remembers, a slightly younger person with a father who was declared a “rightist” before the cultural revolution and whose family was consequently sent to the countryside for a long while during the cultural revolution and on into the late 1970s (b. 1950s): in the 1970s we read quite a bit of russian literature... while there was a lot of criticism directed against revisionist literature, they would publish all these russian novels as negative examples. we would read them and actually thought they were great: of course, people read their own ideas into that kind of material—just like during the campaign to criticize lin biao and confucius. all of these criticized novels were in fact an important influence on us. we were not supposed to like them but we did, anyway. it was just not the same as all that trite, predictable worker-peasant-soldier literature which we had been reading day in and day out! his view is echoed by a historian of the same generation (b. 1950s from a family of university teachers, who emphasizes once more that, in spite of official restrictions, and even when he was sent down to the sichuan countryside, a lot of reading was done, extensively and indiscriminately, both of traditional and of foreign lore, throughout the whole of the cultural revolution: there was very little to read. we all thought it quite monotonous. but when all this criticism came of the old novels, and since we had never read them, we would go off to the library to steal them and see for ourselves. the libraries kept all these “feudal, capitalist, and revisionist things” fengzixiu de dongxi 封资修的东西. on the one hand, we would attend these sessions to read mao’s works, and on the other, we would also read these other things. how the steel was tempered, for example, and then this book about chiang kaishek that you were not supposed to know about, that was everyone’s fare. (historian, b. 1950s) during both the “smashing” campaign in 1966 and the “criticize lin biao and confucius” campaign in 1974–1975, enjoyment of the condemned “four olds” was evidently not impossible. during the second campaign,[42] confucius and with him the “feudal age,” as it was called at the time, were to be criticized.[43] the campaign was aimed openly at lin biao, who was accused of having had couplets from the confucian analects hanging above his bed.[44] lin had been minister of defense and mao’s designated successor, but had fallen out with the chairman as a result of a coup he had allegedly planned against him and which ended in lin’s fatal flight to mongolia in 1971 by airplane.[45] the campaign to “criticize lin biao and confucius” which followed his death after a short hiatus had quite a few unintended effects, though: millions of people now were called upon to read, by official order, the confucian classics. this included factory workers and peasants. and they would think whatever they chose to think, regardless of what the critical propaganda said. one chinese journalist, born in 1946 with an intellectual-capitalist background, admitted how much he learned of the confucian traditions during this time: “the anti-confucian movement had a very strong influence on me. because nobody believed it, we took it for black humor!” a historian of china, ten years her junior (b. 1957) with intellectual parents who were long-standing members of the communist party, remembers: i participated in the movement. it was in fact quite interesting. we got to talk about history. mao wanted us all to study history and i actually became interested in history because of that. the discussions were very exciting, even more exciting than now, in a way, because everybody, really everybody had to participate! we criticized and studied the stuff at the same time. but even while we criticized, we realized that there was something valuable in it all as well. … indeed, i did not believe any of the criticisms. i really thought some of their logic was really quite unlogical (tamen de daoli meiyou daoli, 他们的道理没有道理). certainly there were quite a few who criticized the critical voices in the propaganda publications, even during the cultural revolution. one female writer, born in 1958, from a family of well-off party cadres, remembers: since 1949 the classics had not been taught very much. if we read old-style poems they were the ones by mao. as for the three character classic, the sanzijing, i read it when it was criticized, the same as with confucius, mencius, i read all of them when they were criticized. i thought the criticism was stupid, but i also did not like the books themselves. (female writer, 1958–) in spite of the fact that there was no real basis to build on, no prior knowledge of the confucian tradition, an interest in and understanding of ancient chinese literature and philosophy was kindled in some. one artist, born in 1954, and from a family of intellectuals, remembers: this movement was critical of confucius, true, but since we had not actually read any confucian stuff before that movement, it was through this movement that we learned how important confucius actually was… we were blind, then, of course, but somehow i did not think he was really all that bad. (artist, b. 1954) the most prominent example for the unintended educational effect that this movement had is a china historian (b. 1949), now director of one of the most important research academies in china. the son of peasant parents who were both illiterate, he relates that they would never have been able to send him to school had it not been for the anti-confucius campaign. as a member of one of the criticism groups, he received his training in the classics, and otherwise, he would never have studied chinese history and philology. the peasant boy thus became a renowned scholar by means of an anti-scholarly movement, and his is not an isolated case. one could argue that through the anti-confucius campaign, a much greater part of the chinese population came in contact with the confucian heritage and confucian values than would ever have been reached if regular teaching had been continued without any political bias during the cultural revolution years. while we may need more empirical evidence—as for instance from memory reports, which often focus on the early years of the cultural revolution rather than its ending and thus do not discuss the anti-confucius campaign in great detail—to examine the actual effects of this admittedly short-lived practice, the obvious popularity of confucian morals in the years after the cultural revolution—as is apparent for instance from soap operas such as kewang (yearning 渴望) from the 1990s[46] or the foundation of confucius institutes (kongzi xueyuan 孔子学院) since the 2000s, together with the renewed popular interest in the neo-confucian three character classic (sanzijing 三字经) in kindergartens and primary schools in the people’s republic of china[47]—points our attention in a particular direction: it may have less to do with a revival of a long-lost (at least “for ten years,” according to the 1981 party resolution)[48] tradition, than with a perpetuation of these values, through black material during the entire period of the cultural revolution. it is necessary to reconsider, therefore, what was lost and what was found in terms of a traditional cultural background for different social groups and different generations during and as a result of the cultural revolution. campaigns against the “four olds” were accompanied by alternative—if not necessarily subversive—readings of the objects under scrutiny. while the destructive violence of the “smashing” movements certainly did not produce a sophisticated understanding of the objects that were destroyed, some of the looting and denunciation may have led to an exposure to cultural artifacts hitherto barred for various reasons. some of the “smashing” activities could and would in fact have been a pretext for preserving cultural products, as denise ho has shown.[49] her findings are echoed in the story told by one museum curator (with a “capitalist” father who owned a small store) who remembered his early days at the shanghai museum, thus casting an ironic light on the statistics of ransacked homes in shanghai cited earlier: a person with a high position in the communist party would call the museum, saying that he had all these precious objects at home, and knew that he could not keep them. so he would ask us to go and ransack his home—in order to save these objects. and so we did: we would put on red guard attire, go to his home, and take all of his porcelain and other precious belongings. these are now all in the shanghai museum. and there was not just one person who did this. there were quite a few people, all of them with a certain position in society, who would call us in the same way. of course, there was a lot of real chao jia, without anyone calling and asking for it, but this kind of thing also took place regularly. so the “smashing of the four olds” meant that quite a lot of very valuable objects came to our museum. many of them were never returned to their owners and those that were would have been kept at the museum for the owners, free of charge. since the shanghai museum was never ransacked, it was able to keep many of these objects, preserve and save them. i must say, these experiences left a very strong impression on me. (museum curator, b. early 1950s) smashing, then, in these instances, is quite radically redefined. it comes to stand for “saving” and “enjoying” rather than “destroying” and “condemning.” these examples may have shown that when measuring the impact of “smashing” movements on cultural memory, the secret consumption of “forbidden fruit”—not even necessarily behind closed doors—throughout the cultural revolution decade, may have been equally important, because it was potentially equally important and culturally constitutive as that of the “smashing” activities in the open. conclusion: smashing reconceived establishing the four olds in the propaganda art of the cultural revolution the traumatic experience of having one’s home broken in to, of having precious objects destroyed and robbed, of being deprived of books and records, paintings and musical instruments, porcelain, clothes and much more, has been described in many a memoir or fictional account of and from the cultural revolution.[50] these narratives often omit, however, the flipside of these experiences: what happened to the objects of so-called “bourgeois,” or “capitalist,” “revisionist” and “feudal” heritage after they had been taken away by red guards? what happened to the books and scores, the films and drama plots—foreign as well as old and chinese—locked away from the public as potentially poisonous? the story reconstructed here from a set of interviews, conducted with different generations and social groups who lived through the cultural revolution, offers an alternative rendering of “smashing the four olds” and the later campaign against lin biao and confucius, one that emphasizes the transcultural experience of assiduous reading, listening, profiting and learning from the cultural objects that were taken away from some, to be enjoyed by others not just during this early period of the cultural revolution but throughout this entire decade of “cultural stagnation,” as it often is called. the kinds of contradictions hinted at here are typical of the cultural revolution experience in art and culture. this paper has argued that our understanding of the destructive and numbing forces during the cultural revolution may have blurred our ability to see another history which continues to shape artistic activities in china to this day. indeed, throughout the cultural revolution there may have been harsh restrictions on what was propagated as official culture, but the importance of the manifold and varied local and private cultures both in urban settings and in the countryside has not earned enough attention. they form an extremely important backdrop for the particular effects and repercussions which cultural revolution propaganda art was able to have.[51] contrary to common notions that the chinese cultural revolution was a period of political and cultural iconoclasm as well as of isolationism, and consequently a “cultural desert,” this paper intended to provide evidence for a vibrant and transculturally informed experience of cultural consumption. it was directed at china’s traditional as well as foreign cultural products, which, even if officially banned, were unofficially available, especially during the “smashing” campaign and similar, subsequent campaigns. at the same time, and perhaps paradoxically so, precisely the kind of “feudal, capitalist, and revisionist” heritage which was criticized and “smashed” in the early years of the cultural revolution and again, prominently, during the movement criticizing lin biao and confucius in the mid-1970s, is the staple of cultural revolution propaganda art and actually celebrated in it. studies of cultural revolution cultural production show very clearly how, paradoxically, what could be termed “feudal, capitalist, revisionist” elements abound in the model works yangbanxi 样板戏 and all other official art which was to be modeled on them.[52] the model works perpetuate the semantics of “bourgeois” and “revisionist” symphonic romantic music and ballet, as well as those in the “feudal” traditions of chinese theatre. through the model works, urban youth learned about traditional (should we say “feudal”) chinese opera and peasants about (“bourgeois/revisionist”) ballet. one youth from a family of intellectuals and another, the son of a small “capitalist” shop owner, recalled: i never used to watch beijing opera, i did not like it, but the revolutionary operas (among the model works) actually made you like the form—or get used to it… a lot more people actually were now confronted with and, at the end, knew something about beijing opera. (male artist, b. 1954) if you listen to the model works, even if you don’t like symphonic music, you nevertheless experience it. through the model works, you may see a ballet for the first time (or a virtuoso piano concerto for that matter). this had a kind of enlightenment effect qimeng xiaoguo 启蒙效果. (museum curator, b. 1950s) the cultural revolution can thus be regarded as a time when, through the propagation of the model works, which reached practically every household, more people than ever were exposed to both chinese traditional music and foreign music.[53] in accordance with mao’s most important utterances on the function and form of artistic production, manifested in his yan’an talks of 1942,[54] and binding to the present day, good art had to make use of the most accomplished forms, both foreign and chinese, and fill it with the most adequate contents. this means that the establishment of the “four news” amounted to a perpetuation of the styles and artistic practices condemned in the “four olds,” albeit filled now with the correct ideological content. if our reading of the significance of the cultural revolution is restricted solely to the tragically destructive elements of “smashing,” which were only one influential experience during this period, if this reading leaves out not only what was “simply there” in spite of censorship and propaganda, as described in this article, but also what in fact was “established” (i.e. the “four news,” the model works from the cultural revolution which the same campaign called for in the second part of its slogan of “smashing the four olds and establishing the four news”: po si jiu, li si xin 破四旧, 立四新), it fails to account for the recent craze for cultural revolution art and culture and the reasons why this has remained strong and unabated now for two decades.[55] cultural revolution propaganda art, as epitomized in the model works,served as a surrogate or proxy for the artistic styles smashed as “four olds.”[56] a memoir published in shanghai in 1998 has epitomized this direct substitution of the “four olds” by “four news” with essentially identical stylistic features and content. it tells the story of a young man who had once aspired to become a violinist. he was first sent to the countryside, and then called back to play in an orchestra specializing in performances of the model works. in his memoirs, he actually comes to the ironic conclusion that the model works are in fact nothing but examples of the literary and artistic phenomena he had learned to condemn during the smashing campaigns of the cultural revolution. while playing taking tiger mountain by strategy (zhi qu weihushan 智取威虎山), the narrator keeps remembering the violin concerto by mendelssohn—a “bourgeois” composer in the derogatory language of the time. “why,” the narrator asks himself, “why do i keep remembering this music, which sounds like the worst salon music of the bourgeoisie?” his answer is that the model works, however grand and heroic they sound, are very similar in style—if not much the same: and they are not as great as mendelssohn’s music, after all…[57] consequently, the model works perpetuate the styles once declared part of the “four olds”—both in terms of foreign styles and in terms of traditional chinese styles—and propagate them to those who had never been confronted with them. in much of what the interviewees said, it becomes clear that consumers of cultural revolution propaganda may even have derived pleasure from a text, even if they did not necessarily share or accept its ideological message. this ambiguity and openness in reception explains some of the after-effects of cultural revolution propaganda, which is not merely appreciated by those with nostalgic memories of performing it, but also by a younger generation who never even went through the cultural revolution.[58] a musician, born in 1942 into a working class family, remembers: my generation likes the model works, they are our youth. yes, there are people who dislike them, too, but we like them, really. in fact, when i was young, 18 or so, i really needed art, we all did. and our only sustenance then was the model works, which we actually thought were quite great. jiang qing used really good performers, writers, artists and musicians. of course, this was propaganda for mao’s ideas, but it was also simply good art. (musician, b. 1942) while “smashing the four olds” can be said to have fostered clandestine readings and the conservation of the very objects declared as proscribed, and thus, by consequence, the making of alternative cultures—often local and private—within the interstices of a regime of censorship, “establishing” perpetuated some of the most intricate stylistic features of this proscribed culture. all of this helps explain the continuing fascination and attraction of cultural revolution art and culture which perpetuates the very forms and styles that once were criticized and smashed (as well as enjoyed) at the beginning of the cultural revolution, during the campaign to “smash the four olds.” appendix 1: list of interviewees (ordered by age) occupation year of birth gender family background place and date of interview experience in factory/country-side 1. family of a cartoonist 1915 male well-educated shanghai, 14 march 2004 2. musicologist 1922 parents underground communists, pla members, later declared rightists shanghai, 15 march 2004 3. musician 1930s male intellectuals, musicians shanghai, 14 march 2004 4. editor 1930s male father a rich landowner, died early, family poor, working-class background; mother a nanny; he soon became a ccp member beijing, 19 march 2004 cadre school, c. 1968–1971 5. composer 1937 male father in the military, yan’an background, died before 1949; mother traditional background, bound feet beijing, 18 march 2004 propaganda troupe (文工团 wengongtuan), pla, 1949–1957; sent to country-side 1964–1978 6. art historian  1940s?  male parents from landowning class, well-educated wenren literati family shanghai, 12 march 2004 7. businesswoman (and husband) 1940s female (and male) father declared a “counterrevolutionary” shanghai, 14 march 2004 8. guqin player 1940s male father a musician beijing, 22 march 2004 four years in country-side in henan 9. ethnomusicologist 1940 male   beijing, 20 march 2004 shandong song and dance troupe (歌舞团 gewutuan) 10.musician 1942 male father a worker shanghai, 9 march 2004 11. journalist 1946 female parents from intellectual family, grandparents shanghai capitalists shanghai, 11 march 2004 12. china historian   1949 male parents illiterate peasants shanghai, 12 march 2004 13. housekeeper ca. 1950s female beijing, 17 march 2004 14. journalist 1949 male family: capitalists from guangdong shanghai, 12 march 2004 factory, 1968–1974 15. museum curator early 1950s male grandfather middle peasant, father “capitalist,” owned a small store shanghai, 13 march 2004   16. artist 1954 male parents intellectuals beijing, 22 march 2004 two months’ work in village near beijing, 1969  17. housewife (and husband) 1950s female (and male) he: capitalist background beijing, 20 march 2004 she: sent to dongbei until 1972; he: left alone in beijing 18. university professor mid-1950s female family: from the countryside, cadres at film academy, father in pla but maybe gmd background beijing, 17 march 2004 sent to country-side of heilongjiang, c. 1967 19. intellectual 1955 male family: capitalists, landowners, intellectuals; father declared  rightist, parents worked as translators for the foreign office beijing, 18 march 2004 entire family in shanxi, gaizao 20. playwright 1956 male parents intellectuals beijing, 17 march 2004 in the country-side as a teenager 21. language instructor (now living in europe) mid-1950s male heidelberg, 5 december 2000 22. china historian 1957 male parents intellectuals, party members shanghai, 10 march 2004 23. librarian mid-1950s male heidelberg, 6 january 2001 in the pla throughout the cr. 24. university professor mid-1950s female parents intellectuals, mother foreigner  heidelberg, 2 january 2001 in country-side 1969–1971 and again 1971–1973 25. intellectual 1958 family intellectuals and artists/musicians beijing, 20 march 2004 26. writer 1958 female parents well-off intellectuals and cadres before cr, father in a shipping business shanghai, 10 march 2004 27. musicologist 1950s male father declared a rightist beijing, 19 march 2004 28. artist 1959 female parents workers beijing, 22 march 2004 29. historian 1950s male parents both university teachers beijing, 21 march 2004 sichuan country-side 30. photographer ca. 1960 male parents long-time workers shanghai, 11 march 2004 factory worker 31. music student 1969 male parents musicians shanghai, 15 march 2004 32.–40. taxi drivers 1930s–1970s male diverse shanghai and beijing, 2004, 2010 appendix 2: interview questions (in english translation: interviews were conducted in chinese) general information date of birth family background personal experiences during the cultural revolution (1966–1976) how old at the beginning and end of the cultural revolution? countryside/military/factory? what did you do/learn at school? culture generally, art and life what do you associate with the cultural revolution in terms of cultural products? (yulu? posters? books? poetry? music?)  what was available to you in terms of cultural products during the cultural revolution? which films/books/pictures/pieces of music/poetry do you remember? why? was mascagni’s cavalleria rusticana, or he zhanhao and chen gang’s butterfly lovers’ violin concerto forbidden music? how did you know what was forbidden and what was not? did you have a feeling of reduced aesthetic possibilities and thematic restriction during the cultural revolution? did you know which books (not) to read, which songs (not) to sing, which records (not) to buy? how did changes in cultural policies affect your everyday life, and how were they made public? was it obvious to someone living through the cultural revolution that at one point in 1969, only five records could officially be sold? did you realize that you could see fewer films than before? did you ever participate in internal screenings of films, secret record listening sessions, secret book readings, etc.? where did you turn to read literature, see films, and listen to music? when did cultural production play a role? were there peak times throughout the ten-year period? pervasiveness of art how did the special battle-call rhetoric of the cultural revolution influence your lives? did you use maospeak? when and why? did you realize that cultural revolution literature is characterized by short sentences? were you taught stylistic features such as this at school? did you feel a difference between the underground and the official literature you read? in terms of style? subject matter? did you ever participate in poetry declamations? revolutionary/quotation dances or music-making, productions of model works etc.? was it fun? did one believe in what one did? were there any uncertainties as to whether you were performing the right and correct versions of the model works? how new did the model works and other cultural revolution cultural products appear to you? how familiar were you with their stories before the cultural revolution? was there a chinese version of chinese literature and china reconstructs? did you ever read those foreign-language journals? who did you learn to think of as the composer of “red is the east”: he luting or li youyuan? model works were the model works really the model that needed to be emulated in everything? which of the model works do you remember? why? how were the model works publicized? did you know about jiang qing’s role in their production? how were changes in the model works publicized? did you know about the political discussions that took place around them? are the model works good art? are they chinese art? models what appeal do the models from the model operas, books, and comics have for you? whom do you admire? when does the credibility of models stop when imposed from above? (for example, with zhang haidi, or before)? who are the heroes and models you remember from the cultural revolution? what did they mean to you? were they discussed or even questioned as “persons”? were there specific heroes for specific times? what martyrs were most prominent during the cultural revolution? why? was the idea of modeling oneself on the model heroes feasible? did you ever envisage yourself in terms of a revolutionary hero or martyr? which? did these heroes set “fashions” or “standards of beauty” for you to aspire to? which heroes do you remember best: those from literature, the model works, comics, paintings? how relevant were directives such as the three prominences or revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism to your real life-experiences during the cultural revolution? politics/campaigns how political was the cultural revolution? were you aware of factional fighting? how did this influence your lives, your artistic production? how tangible was the control that the cultural revolution group around jiang qing had over the media? how did you feel about the different campaigns throughout the cultural revolution (and before and after)? what is the greatest difference between these campaigns? and was there ever a lukewarm response to the campaigns? were different groups more or less enthusiastic? did the anti-confucius campaign actually reach the masses? how weary were people of campaigns by 1975; did they still believe in them? three character classic in the campaigns against confucius, did you hear of the attacks on the three character classic? did you read and understand the text, and its innuendos? why? what did you know about confucius and confucian morals? how much of the criticisms against confucius did people believe? what did these do to their attitudes toward confucianism in general? did people believe in the negative descriptions of confucius? what did they know or not know about him? did their knowledge increase because of the anti-confucius campaign? how much did they read? what? how? what did they think of it? is it true that people felt relieved when ritual practices such as those performed under lin biao were stopped? do you remember when they were stopped? what textbooks were used in school? was the three character classic among them? when was it used? periodization were different periods in the cultural revolution experienced in different ways? in terms of contents: what, precisely, changed during different periods of the cultural revolution? memory could you give one word to sum up your memories of the cultural revolution? did the cultural revolution feel like a “time of youth,” or a “holocaust”? how long did the cultural revolution as a “continuous” movement last in your mind? when did it begin? what were the great changes that one felt? to what extent must the cultural revolution be described in the terms prescribed by the state? or in terms of nostalgia? can you explain the nostalgia for the cultural revolution? is it a broad social phenomenon? does it apply to specific groups, or to everyone? do you understand cultural revolution nostalgia? what is its relationship to nostalgia for the “golden” 1920s and ’30s in great cities such as shanghai? did you ever visit a museum during the cultural revolution? were museums powerful (weapons of state propaganda) during the cultural revolution? does the cultural revolution itself need a museum? how does reconceived cultural revolution art (in the form of avant-garde paintings, revolutionary pop songs, films, etc.) appeal to you? what pieces of avant-garde art/music/literature/film/television that you know capture the atmosphere of the cultural revolution best of all? does the audience determine the way one talks about the cultural revolution and its culture? do you feel free to write your own and personal version of cultural revolution cultural memories? does the meaning of cultural revolution culture change when performed/seen/read today? in what ways has the cultural revolution facilitated particular changes after its end (particularly in the cultural field)? [1] this essay is dedicated to my long-time mentor and later colleague, rudolf wagner, in honor of his 70th birthday on november 3, 2011. it probably would not have come into being without him, for it was he who once prompted me to pursue the study of cultural revolution culture almost 20 years ago, an adventure which has culminated in a recently published book: barbara mittler a continuous revolution. making sense of cultural revolution culture (cambridge, mass.: harvard university press, harvard east asian monographs, 2012). rudolf wagner also taught me to always be open enough to radically rethink what i had once learned and believed about this crucial period in chinese history (and not only that). this, in short, is something which this essay attempts to grapple with in grateful acknowledgement of rudolf wagner’s most generous teachings. [2] barbara barnouin and yu changgen, ten years of turbulence. the chinese cultural revolution (london: kegan paul international, 1993), 93–152. [3] a complete list of the interviewees, their occupations, ages, and backgrounds is given in appendix 1. [4] donald a. ritchie, doing oral history. a practical guide, (2nd edition, oxford: oxford university press, 2003), 127. [5] ritchie, doing oral history, 128. [6] a complete list of interview questions is included in appendix 2. [7] ritchie, doing oral history, 120/121. [8] ritchie, doing oral history, 122, calls for the use of a variety of source types to test findings from oral history. [9] see mittler, a continuous revolution. [10] mittler, a continuous revolution. [11] throughout, i have attempted to provide the necessary “signature of responsibility,” illuminating the background of the interviewees and the argumentative structure of my arrangements (see ritchie, doing oral history, 128–129). [12] lee, ching kwan, and guobin yang, “introduction: memory, power, and culture.” in re-envisioning the chinese revolution: the politics and poetics of collective memories in reform china, edited by lee ching kwan and yang guobin (stanford: stanford university press, 2007), 1–20, 5. [13] cheng shi 橙实 et al. eds. wenge xiaoliao ji 文革笑料集 (collection of cultural revolution jokes) (chengdu: xinan caijing daxue, 1988). [14] this statement can be found on the cover of the wenge xiaoliaoji. [15] lee, ching kwan, and guobin yang, “introduction: memory, power, and culture,” 3. [16] pepper, suzanne, “education.” in cambridge history of china, vol 15. the people’s republic, part 2: revolutions within the chinese revolution, 1966–1982, edited by roderick macfarquhar and john k. fairbank (new york: cambridge university press, 1991), 540–593, 589. [17] “resolution on certain questions in the history of our party since the founding of the people’s republic of china,quot; edited by the ccp central committee. beijing review 1981.27: 20–26, 21; hereafter resolution 1981, 21; schönhals, michael, “review of the cultural revolution: a bibliography, 1966–1996.” china quarterly 59(1999): 744–745. [18] most importantly, it may be time to let the peasants and the workers speak for themselves. this is something this essay has not been able to do, but their voices—so often muted—can be heard in han dongping’s pioneering work (han, dongping, the unknown cultural revolution: life and change in a chinese village (new york: monthly review press, 2008) and in some of the essays collected in the chinese cultural revolution as history, edited by joseph w. esherick, paul g. pickowicz, and andrew g. walder (stanford: stanford university press, 2006) and in re-envisioning the chinese revolution. [19] sometimes, these discrepancies are due to factual mistakes. accuracy of the oral evidence has been checked through corroborating sources and accordingly, the reader will find a number of correctives to the words of the interviewees both in the main text and in the footnotes (ritchie doing oral history, 126, 132). [20] yen chia-chi and kao kao, the ten-year history of the chinese cultural revolution (taipei: institute of current china studies, 1988), 72. [21] the decision was adopted by the eleventh plenum of the eighth ccp central committee on 8 august 1966 and published in the people’s daily the next day. [22] macfarquhar and schoenhals, mao’s last revolution (cambridge: the belknap press of harvard university press, 2006), 113. [23] yen and kao, ten-year history, 55–56. [24] yen and kao, ten-year history, 57. for a more elaborate survey of different sources relating to different smashing activities, see denise y. ho “antiquity in revolution: cultural relics in twentieth-century shanghai,” (unpublished phd thesis, harvard 2009). [25] yen and kao, ten-year history, 60, mention the ransacking of a beijing silk store a few days later which involved the destruction of paintings “representing the ideals of feudalism,” but also contracts, records, painted screens and flower pots were smashed, torn and destroyed and the rubble piled up in a small room. according to them, the action also involved the red guards painting over the antique paintings on the walls and their putting up some 50 pictures of mao instead. [26] yen and kao, ten-year history, 62. [27] macfarquhar and schoenhals, mao’s last revolution, 118. for pictorial evidence of such acts of destruction see yang kelin, wenhua dageming bowuguan (museum of the cultural revolution) (hong kong: dongfang publ., 1995), 152–165. [28] cf. macfarquhar and schoenhals, mao’s last revolution, 118–119. [29] macfarquhar and schoenhals, mao’s last revolution, 119. cf. also daphon david ho, “to protect and preserve: resisting the destroy the four olds campaign, 1966–1967,” in the chinese cultural revolution as history, joseph w. esherick, paul g. pickowicz and andrew g. walder, eds. (stanford: stanford university press, 2006), 64–95. [30] for this point see denise ho, “antiquity in revolution,” chapter 4, her “revolutionizing antiquity: the shanghai cultural bureaucracy in the cultural revolution, 1966–1968,” china quarterly 2011.207: 687–705, and rana mitter, a bitter revolution: china’s struggle with the modern world (oxford: oxford university press, 2004). [31] see ho, “antiquity in revolution,” chapter 5. [32] macfarquhar and schoenhals, mao’s last revolution, 120–121, provide ample evidence from news media and official documents to support the points made in this and the preceding paragraph. [33] macfarquhar and schoenhals, mao’s last revolution, 117, see also yen and kao, ten-year history, 77. [34] the painter is cited in yen and kao, ten-year history, 81. [35] macfarquhar and schoenhals, mao’s last revolution, 121. [36] for literary evidence of this phenomenon, see a manuscript by jie li, “idols, commodities, artifacts, and ruins: the “four olds” through three writers,” especially p. 11, presentation held at the 61st annual conference by the association of asian studies, 26.–29.3.2009 in chicago. [37] for the falseness of this polemical term, see barbara mittler, “‘8 stage works for 800 million people’: the great proletarian cultural revolution in music—a view from revolutionary opera” opera quarterly 2010, vol. 26/2–3: 377–401. [38] shanxi gongnongbing yishu xuexiao “hongweibin” ed., chedi polan jiu shijie  (destroying the old world completely), (shanxi gongnongbing yishu xuexiao, 1966). see, for example: balzac (ibid. p. 13) zola (ibid. pp. 13–14) and romain rolland (ibid. p. 14), jin ping mei (ibid. p. 11), mencius (ibid. p. 10) and the sanzijing (ibid. p. 10) [39] contrary to what the interviewee states here, the book was available for sale at the time of the interview (personal observation, april 2004). [40] dai sijie,  balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise (paris: gallimard, 2000). [41] for a criticism of the red and the black from the later period of the cultural revolution see liu dajie, “du hong yu hei” (“reading the red and the black”), xuexi yu pipan (study and criticize), vol. 1, (1975), 61–69. [42] the basic assumption of compatibility between confucianism and communism was questioned in the early years of the cultural revolution (1966–1969) and again during the anti-confucius campaign of the early 1970s. red guard publications ranted that in a “socialist new china, there is absolutely no room for confucian concepts and capitalist and revisionist ideas which serve the exploiting classes. if these ideas are not uprooted, it will be impossible to consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat and build socialism and communism. in the great proletarian cultural revolution, one of our important tasks is to pull down the rigid corpse of confucius and thoroughly eradicate the utterly reactionary confucian concepts.” hongweibing ziliao 红卫兵资料 (red guard publications), washington: center for chinese research materials, 1980, suppl. 1, vol. vii: 3233; see also kam louie, critiques of confucius in contemporary china (new york: st. martin’s press, 1980). anyone who reveres confucius, as these red guard sources contended, was suspected (if not accused) of revering mao less. the anti-confucius campaign saw the return of many of the arguments prevalent in the early years of the cultural revolution (louie critiques, chapter 5). see further kam louie, inheriting tradition: interpretations of the classical philosophers in communist china, 1949–1966 (hong kong: oup, 1986). [43] the inauguration in september 1973 of the journal study and criticism, which aimed to be a pendant to the party theoretical magazine red flag, and the organization of a forum for anti-confucius criticism called for by jiang qing in the same month were important steps in speeding up the movement. it became a large-scale campaign in late january 1974 with the organization of mass rallies—not always fully approved by the central committee (barnouin and yu ten years of turbulence, 255). [44] after february 1974, the critiques also included lin biao. earlier articles had attacked him but had not singled him out as a confucianist. rather, he was criticized as one of a number of leaders (liu shaoqi being the most prominent among them) whose “wrong line” had been rooted in confucian tradition. only when the central committee was presented, on january 18, 1974, with a number of lin biao’s scrolls and notebooks (which then quite conveniently appeared some two years after his death)—most prominently the so-called keji fuli scroll that contained the line from the confucian analects 克己复礼, “curbing one’s desires and returning to the rites,” which allegedly had been composed in calligraphy by lin biao in 1969 and hung over his bed—was there enough consensus to include him in the anti-confucius campaign. these objects allowed for the establishment of a direct link between lin biao and confucius who, according to maoist logic, both represented retrogression and the desire to turn back the wheels of history (barnouin and yu ten years of turbulence, 255). [45] as discussed earlier, the campaign was fought out, complete with songs, rallies, and heavy use of the mass media (which even reprinted summaries of seminal books and articles that had earlier appeared in academic publications in very small print runs). to criticize confucius had become part of contemporary politics, even of daily life (louie critiques, 107n37). and it was part of this politics now to “negate everything” (否定一切 (fouding yiqie). not since the may fourth movement had criticism of confucius and confucianism been so harsh. moreover, may fourth had been different because it had never focused on confucius as a person, but only on his teachings. marxist theory, on the other hand, did not allow for a separation of work and author (louie critiques, 135). [46] see chao xi and yifu, eds., nuandong-jiuling kewang re (a warm winter: fever of yearning) (beijing: zhongguo guoji guangbo chubanshe, 1991). [47] see “old-time primers revive in modern classroom” (xinhua 1.1.2004) available through dachs heidelberg. [48] “resolution on certain questions in the history of our party since the founding of the people’s republic of china,” ccp central committee, ed. beijing review 27 (1981): 20–26. [49] denise y. ho, “antiquity in revolution,” chapter 5. [50] in the third part of her manuscript, “idols, commodities, artifacts, and ruins: the “four olds” through three writers,” jie li describes in great detail these very private experiences and their reflection in literature. [51] for these after-effects see e.g. wang, ban, the sublime figure of history: aesthetics and politics in twentieth-century china (stanford: stanford university press, 1997) and barmé, in the red : on contemporary chinese culture (new york: columbia university press, 1999), as well as mittler, “popular propaganda? art and culture in revolutionary china.” proceedings of the american philosophical society 2008. 152/4: 466–489. [52] see paul clark, the chinese cultural revolution. a history (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2008) and mittler, a continuous revolution which discusses several examples of the pivotal importance which “establishing the four news” had after the smashing campaign for the later development of chinese cultural production. [53] rulan chao pian, review of the performing arts in contemporary china, by colin p. mackerras, ethnomusicology 28 (1984): 574–576. [54] mao zedong’s talks at the yan’an conference on literature and art, a translation of the 1943 text with commentary, translated and edited by bonnie mcdougall (ann arbor: center for chinese studies, 1980). [55] see barmé, in the red: on contemporary chinese culture (new york: columbia university press, 1999), and barbara mittler, “popular propaganda? art and culture in revolutionary china.” proceedings of the american philosophical society 2008. 152/4: 466–489. [56] for a thorough discussion of “bourgeois” and “feudal” elements in the model works, see chen xiaomei, acting the right part: political theater and popular drama in contemporary china (honolulu: university of hawaii press, 2002), and barbara mittler, “cultural revolution model works and the politics of modernization in china,” 53–81. [57] “yinwei mende’ersong” (because of mendelssohn), in ed. zou jingzhi, zhiqing xiantanlu (records of what sent-down youth talked about) (shanghai: renmin chubanshe, 1998), 156–160, esp. 158. for an elaborate analysis of the stylistic similarities between the model works and so-called “bourgeois” music, not only through the use of “pentatonic romanticism,” see mittler, a continuous revolution, especially chapter 1. [58] this younger generation, now singing karaoke, rapping and rocking to the model works, figures prominently in a 2005 documentary on the model works: yuen yan-tingdir, yang ban xi (the eight model works) (rotterdam: scarabee films, 2005). learning from crisis? on the transcultural approach to curating documenta 14 barbara lutz, independent scholar with the title “learning from athens,” the fourteenth edition of documenta— the internationally renowned exhibition series for contemporary art in germany—opened in 2017.1 it took place in two separate locations for one hundred days each: in the greek metropolis of athens from april onward and in the city of kassel in central germany from june. as artistic director adam szymczyk proposed upon his election in 2013, documenta should manifest “in the form of two autonomous, simultaneous, and related exhibitions in two very different cities and countries” to express “the dissolution of barriers separating those who lack the simplest means from those who are usually all too willing to give them lessons but seldom a hand.”2 thus, both projects of documenta 14 aimed not only at “learning from their respective places and from each other,”3 but also at disengaging from its well-established position as a german hosting institution for artists and cultural creators from all over the world despite their different cultural, political, and socioeconomic contexts. by creating these aims, szymcyzk assigned documenta a new role—“as a guest, with all the limitations and possibilities such a status implies.”4 thus, the curatorial approach to documenta 14 comprised a structural shift and extension of its spatial and temporal dimension. it can be argued that the strategic repositioning of the institution as a guest that has to adapt itself to the conditions of a nation facing an ongoing crisis, coupled with the call to not only to learn from athens but also provide concrete assistance, may appear to be an affront to documenta, because it shakes the foundations 1 this text is an edited version of a lecture given at the workshop “de-essentializing difference—acknowledging transculturality. art (history) education and the public sphere in a globalized world” on the occasion of documenta 14, kunsthochschule kassel, june 9, 2017, organized by rntp—research network for transcultural practices in the arts and humanities. 2 adam szymczyk, “documenta 14: learning from athens,” in 60 jahre documenta. die lokale geschichte einer globalisierung, ed. hans eichel (berlin: b&s siebenhaar, 2015), 237–246, on 243. 3 szymczyk, “documenta 14: learning from athens,” 240. 4 szymczyk, “documenta 14: learning from athens,” 241. 90 learning from crisis? on the transcultural approach to curating documenta 14 90 of the venerable art institution, which has been in existence for more than sixty years. however, this approach is closely tied to its origins; documenta was founded after the second world war in 1955 through an initiative by a group surrounding the painter, designer, and teacher arnold bode in kassel. bode is not only responsible for setting the duration of documenta, which is based on his idea of the “museum of 100 days,”5 but also for the realization and periodic recurrence of the exhibition at its venue in kassel, which, in addition to the election of a new artistic director,6 has been an essential characteristic of each documenta to date. at the same time, the educational claim of szymczyk’s curatorial approach to documenta seems to be entirely incongruous with the ongoing precarious financial situation of athens and greece, the full extent of which first became apparent in 2010. still, “learning from athens” was “not meant to be the definite title of the exhibition,”7 and thus does not imply, for example, a thematic priority or a selecting criterion for the artworks on show. however, the term raises numerous questions: how is it possible to meet the expectations of the prestigious and well-attended international art institution8 in learning from a city or nation in crisis, where cultural institutions are affected by financial cutbacks and closures?9 what can be learned 5 bode used the term for the first time in the preface to the catalogue of documenta iii (1964, xix). with this, he not only wanted to rehabilitate the notion of the international exhibition, which he considered at the time unfocused and meaningless, but he also indirectly criticized the museum’s preserving function as a mummification of the past and instead appealed to the museum to act as a production site and a lively place of encounter. see klaus siebenhaar, “die ausstellung als medium. überlegungen zu einem zentrum kuratorischer theorie und praxis,” in 60 jahre documenta, 223–229, on 226–227. 6 although bode headed the first four editions, he helped shape the position of the artistic director at documenta when he stepped down from the board of directors of the documenta council and appointed harald szeemann as head of the fifth edition, designated as “general secretary.” from then on, the advisory board regulated the selection process for this position, which up to and including documenta 14 corresponds to the position of a curator solely responsible for one edition. the only exception was in 2019, when the supervisory board appointed ruangrupa—a collective of ten artists and creatives from jakarta, indonesia—as the artistic direction of documenta 15, which will open its doors in 2022. 7 szymczyk, “documenta 14: learning from athens,” 242. 8 since its beginnings, documenta’s prestige and international success is, for example, confirmed by its steadily increasing visitor numbers. see “about documenta,” documenta archive, accessed april 12, 2019, http://www.documenta-archiv.de/en/documenta/51/about-documenta. 9 according to greece’s minister of culture lydía koniórdou λυδία κονιόρδου in 2017, the ministry has had to face a forty percent budget cut since 2009, making it impossible to create new jobs for the increasing number of museums and archaeological sites, or even keep the sites running during their opening hours. see lydía koniórdou, “zwischen dem antiken und dem zeitgenössischen. (ein gespräch mit der kulturministerin griechenlands von heinz-norbert jocks),” kunstforum international 248–249 (august/september 2017): 112–119, on 118–119. 91the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 from athens, traditionally regarded as the birthplace of democracy10 and considered to be the cradle of western civilization? moreover, who is invited to participate in this exhibition and who is supposed to learn? furthermore—referring to the establishment itself—is it possible for documenta to change its status as an art institution in the northwest of europe and unlearn its cultural perspective and politics in order to learn from a city located in the southeast of europe? and finally, how should learning—understood as continuous act(ion) or even a mode of being— be arranged in the context of this major project, and are there any preconditions required for that process? on the one hand, these questions can hardly be answered comprehensively. referring to the educational scientists sönke ahrens and michael wimmer, it could be stated that learning, especially in the context of political education and learning democracy, is bound to the possibility of participating in social life, while this possibility is at the same time a precondition for learning and getting access to education. thus, learning and participating are not only mutually dependent but also coincide.11 according to this, the educational claim of “learning from athens” requires a detailed analysis of its theoretical foundations and its practical implications in relation to participation in documenta 14, and must address the question of who is allowed or encouraged to participate, as well as which modes or formats are provided for that exchange. on the other hand, a closer look at the curatorial concept of documenta 14 suggests that szymczyk does not simply disregard the history of the exhibition institution, but that he is particularly concerned with the primary “sense of cultural urgency,” as he defines the initial situation of documenta in 1955, which, in his opinion, “brought forth an experimental exhibition understood both as a harbinger of change and as a means to build a national and international community with the help of an aesthetic experience.”12 for szymczyk, the decisive factors of the significant development and achievement of documenta are determined by “the specific timing and choice of locale.”13 facing the current greek financial crisis, the increase in migration worldwide, and the refugee crisis at the borders of europe at the end 10 for more on the invention of democracy by the ancient greeks and how greek democracy differs from modern forms of democracy, see, for example, paul cartledge, democracy: a life (oxford: oxford university press, 2016). 11 sönke ahrens and michael wimmer, “das demokratieversprechen des partizipationsdiskurses,” in hegemonie und autorisierende verführung: zum verhältnis von politischem und pädagogischem, ed. alfred schäfer (paderborn: schöningh, 2014), 175–199, on 177–178. 12 szymczyk, “documenta 14: learning from athens,” 237. 13 szymczyk, “documenta 14: learning from athens,” 239. 92 learning from crisis? on the transcultural approach to curating documenta 14 of 2013—which continue to affect the world today—he sees the need to restore this sense of cultural urgency founded in the origin of documenta and thus aims to reclaim its social relevance for its fourteenth edition.14 however, szymczyk neither discusses the meaning of this initial cultural urgency of documenta in his curatorial concept nor does he describe its potential effects on the cultural ethics of documenta 14. meanwhile, the practical implementation of this theoretical concept can be examined from a visitor’s perspective. for example, documenta 14 was advertised with the slogan “transdocumenta,” which was printed on a t-shirt and sold as a souvenir together with documenta 14’s publications in the accompanying gift shops (fig. 1).15 what is actually meant by this self-image of documenta, that connects to the latin prefix “trans-” in its meaning of “across,” “beyond,” or “through,” and how does it relate to the cultural understanding of documenta 14 with its specific twofold structure of kassel and athens? 14 szymczyk, “documenta 14: learning from athens,” 237. 15 the souvenir was part of the product line of three black t-shirts with white letters on a red and blue background, commissioned by, and printed with slogans from, the artistic director. they were designed by niko mainaris, a graduate student in design at reutlingen university, germany. fig. 1: t-shirt with the slogan “transdocumenta,” souvenir shop of documenta 14, kassel, 2017. photo: barbara lutz 93the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 in this essay, i will investigate how the curatorial concept of documenta 14 takes on the cultural self-conception of documenta’s origins and how it challenges not only the history, structure, and status of the institution, but also how it resumes and transforms documenta’s initial understanding of a community between nations in times of crisis and traumatic historical ruptures in the face of today’s global cultural relations. in this respect, it can be useful to question the meaning of “trans-” with regard to the cultural ethics of documenta 14 and to analyze the curatorial concept and its realization in relation to a transcultural understanding. in order to do so, i refer to monica juneja’s art historical approach to transculturality, which is based “on an understanding of culture that is in a condition of being made and remade, [and] does not take historical units and boundaries as given, but rather constitutes them as a subject of investigation, as products of spatial and cultural displacements.”16 as such, this approach refers to different kinds of transcending binaries17 and not only takes into account postcolonial and decolonial debates, but goes beyond oppositions and “views cultural phenomena as multi-sited interactions” in a global context.18 in relation to this understanding, i will critically reflect on how documenta 14’s claim of “learning from athens” addresses a shift and repositioning of documenta in the global context of art, and how it correlates with democratic demands of participation and the legitimacy to produce knowledge and meaning in a globally interconnected and increasingly unpredictable world. the origins of documenta’s cultural self-conception the cultural self-conception at the origin of documenta is closely linked to its kassel-born founder, arnold bode, and his confrontation with the post-war situation in the city of kassel, which had been mostly destroyed in 1943 and was considered culturally desolate19 by the remaining population. 16 monica juneja and christian kravagna, “understanding transculturalism (a conversation),” in transcultural modernisms, ed. model house research group (berlin: sternberg, 2013), 22–33, on 28. 17 from a transcultural perspective, juneja points to binaries “in which culture is seen as flowing from high metropolitan centres to absorptive colonial peripheries,” as the approach is based on postcolonial and subaltern studies with their focus on the asymmetries of power from the margins. in order to dismantle “the colonizer-colony binary,” she locates “these processes in a global context that transcends this opposition and views cultural phenomena as multi-sited interactions.” juneja and kravagna, “understanding transculturalism,” 29. 18 juneja and kravagna, “understanding transculturalism,” 29. 19 see alfred nemeczek, documenta (hamburg: europäische verlagsanstalt, 2002), 16. 94 learning from crisis? on the transcultural approach to curating documenta 14 as an art-creating visionary and university lecturer,20 bode was not only committed to restoring the city to more decent and humane conditions, but also felt the urge to comment on and document21 the artistic practices between 1933 and 1945 in germany that had been denounced and prohibited during the nazi regime. seeing the bombed ruins of the classicist museum fridericianum, bode believed in the improvement of conditions through aesthetic interventions.22 furthermore, he saw the necessity of finding a way to reorient himself with new friends in kassel, in post-war germany, and in europe, emphasizing the importance of active engagement.23 thus, bode, in close collaboration with art historian werner haftmann, implemented an international exhibition of twentieth-century art with two aims. the first was to represent the development and european interconnectedness of modern art.24 the second was to present works of artists ostracized by the third reich, which in germany up to this point had never been exhibited together with abstract and expressionist works by artists from europe and the united states.25 as haftmann stated, according to his understanding of art at that time, all of europe was involved, in a kind of call-and-response, in creating forms of expression through which the contemporary world would be able to articulate itself artistically.26 in order to resume this mutual cultural exchange on the aesthetic level after the isolation of germany during the war, the curatorial ambition of the 20 in 1948, after the war, together with artists and colleagues, bode re-established the kassel art academy, which had been closed in 1932 by the nazi regime, and later founded the association for the abendländische kunst des xx. jahrhunderts e.v., through which he was able to realize his plans for a major international art exhibition, known today as the first documenta. 21 with this focus on documentation, the name documenta came into being. 22 see nemeczek, documenta, 32. 23 see nemeczek, documenta, 12. (original quote: “die notwendigkeit, sich wieder zurechtzufinden mit neuen freunden in kassel, in deutschland, in europa – sich ‘zurechtzufinden’, aber nicht einfach wieder einzurichten – das kam hinzu.”) 24 see werner haftmann, “einleitung,” in documenta. kunst des xx. jahrhunderts. internationale ausstellung im museum fridericianum in kassel [july 16 to september 18, 1955, exhibition catalogue], ed. museum fridericianum (munich: prestel, 1955), 15–25, on 18. (original quote: “als aufgabe stellte sich also: entwicklung und verflechtung der modernen kunst.”) 25 for the first time, the founders of modern art in germany, including, for example, paul klee, oskar schlemmer, and max beckmann, were put on display together with the established artists of european modernity, such as pablo picasso, henri matisse, wassily kandinsky, and henry moore. the only included artists living in america were josef albers, kurt roesch, and alexander calder. 26 see haftmann, “einleitung,” 18. (original quote: “ganz europa war daran tätig, in ruf und gegenruf die ausdrucksweisen zu schaffen, in denen der bildnerische ausdruck der zeitgenössischen weltvorstellung möglich werden konnte.”) 95the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 first documenta was to restore the international interplay by picking up the interrupted dialogue and bringing it back to its own turf.27 from today’s point of view, the first documenta followed an understanding of art that represented the perspective of european modernity at the beginning of the twentieth century, while the cultural dialogue with other countries remained largely limited to europe and the western art world at that time. regarding the participating artists of the first documenta, walter grasskamp, for example, speaks of a “selective eurocentrism”28 and critically points to a lack of true internationality in adopting “the notion of art’s universality”29 in the exhibition. at the core of documenta’s civilizing mission was, according to nuit banai, the formal language of abstraction that “became a symbol of individualism and artistic freedom, and a means to differentiate west from east in the early years of the cold war,” in which kassel became “the stage for the construction of the contemporary in relation to highly contested (art-)historical, socio-political, and ideological entanglements.”30 thus, in its desire to socially and culturally revitalize the city of kassel as well as to reconnect germany internationally, the beginning of documenta can be understood as a place of reflection on the artistic practice and its working conditions on one the hand, and as a place for engaging in a specific socio-political situation on the basis of art on the other. this is shown, for example, in the selection and representation of artists in the catalogue of the first documenta, where they were listed by location. over one third of the 148 participating artists were listed under germany, england, france, italy, the netherlands, switzerland, and north america. it is worth noting that for reasons of voluntary or involuntary migration, artists no longer identified with their national origin but with their various cultural affiliations related to their respective place of residence and work. according to grasskamp, when national origin is taken into 27 see haftmann, “einleitung,” 23. (original quote: “man soll sie [die ausstellung] sehen als einen breit angelegten versuch, wieder den internationalen kontakt in breiter form aufzunehmen und in ein lange unterbrochenes gespräch sozusagen im eigenen hause wieder einzutreten.”) 28 walter grasskamp, “becoming global: from eurocentrism to north atlantic feedback— documenta as an ‘international exhibition’ (1955–1972),” in documenta. curating the history of the present, ed. dorothee richter and nanne buurman, oncurating 33 (june 2017): 97–108, on 99. 29 grasskamp, “becoming global,” 101. 30 nuit banai, “border as form,” artforum [september 2017]: 302–305, on 303. 96 learning from crisis? on the transcultural approach to curating documenta 14 account, artists from around eighteen nations31 participated in the first documenta.32 thus, the artists were classified according to their official national origin in only some cases in the catalogue. this discrepency reflects that in cases of political emigration—e.g. from russia and germany—where the national affiliation of a number of artists had become uncertain, they were assigned either to their home or to their host countries depending on their (artistic) impact.33 however, although the transcultural biographies of the artists were not mentioned explicitly or indicated in the catalogue of the first documenta due to the labeling rules at that time,34 they were implicitly acknowledged and taken for granted because of their cultural significance to the arts. despite the eurocentric understanding of art in the early days of documenta, its specific reference to the present was characterized by the curatorial ambition to grasp artistic positions and tendencies transnationally and transculturally, rather than merely within or between individual nations or clearly defined cultures. in this sense, documenta was driven by the idea of a place and an aesthetic for the “future of ‘europe’ as moral arbiter and guardian of humanistic values” in kassel.35 while the first efforts to mend the foreign relationships of post-war germany focused on germany’s struggle to regain its rights as a sovereign 31 most of the artists that were attributed to germany and italy actually originated from these countries, while many of the artists who lived in paris at that time and were attributed to france, were born in belgium, spain, portugal, russia, hungary, denmark, bohemia, or greece. other native countries, such as austria, were not even mentioned. see grasskamp, “becoming global,” 97–98. 32 see grasskamp, “becoming global,” 99. 33 see documenta. kunst des xx. jahrhunderts, 27. this is demonstrated by the fact that the artists josef albers and kurt roesch, who were both born in germany and had emigrated to the united states in 1933 after the national socialists seized power, were attributed to north america, while american-born lyonel feininger was listed under germany. see walter grasskamp, “kunst, medien und globalisierung. ein rückblick auf die documenta 11,” in die kanäle der macht. herrschaft und freiheit im medienzeitalter, ed. konrad paul liessmann, (wien: paul zsolnay, 2003), 195–213, on 202. 34 according to grasskamp, the “official list of artists and nations […] was still regarded as possible, necessary, and helpful” in the context of the first documenta. the problematic classification of art and artists along national lines, which is still being practiced for example by national museums today, goes back to “the nineteenth century, when european art was explicitly meant and officially supported to profile and celebrate national cultures,” and “started to become difficult and outdated, when radical modernism arose from many widespread national centres and mingled in international metropoles like berlin, paris, or new york.” grasskamp, “becoming global,” 99. 35 banai, “border as form,” 303. 97the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 state,36 documenta can also be understood as a means to restore international contacts. from today’s perspective, it rather represents an attempt to develop a social transformation of the culturally desolate, local situation of kassel and within germany by means of an art exhibition. according to okwui enwezor, documenta can therefore be related to a huge number of large-scale, perennial exhibitions, which have gained importance as post-war activities. by comparing documenta in regards to its significance as biennial37 with the gwangju biennale in south korea and the johannesburg biennale in south africa, he questions the degree to which “the desire to establish such an exhibition forum have [sic] been informed by responses to events connected to traumatic historical ruptures.”38 while, in this respect, documenta can be considered as an “attempt to rebuild the basis of its destroyed civil society as well as the artistic and intellectual frameworks […] of the avantgarde,” all three exhibitions reflect in different ways “the political and social transitions of each of the countries.”39 even though the biennials in gwangju and johannesburg commenced forty years after documenta in 199540 and differ substantially in the political histories of their countries, all three exhibitions mark “an important part of the transition,” which is based on “the work of the imagination, as a fundamental part of society in transition towards democracy and development of new concepts of citizen.”41 as the end of apartheid, for example, gave an 36 with the termination of germany’s status as an occupied territory (the state of hesse belonged to the american occupation zone) in 1955 and the re-establishment of the foreign office in 1951, the federal republic of germany widely regained its sovereignty in foreign affairs. on that basis, the foreign office founded the first cultural institutes in 1955, which later became the goethe institute. 37 although documenta traditionally occurs every five years and significantly differs from the history of the oldest biennial established in 1895, the venice biennale, which is modeled on the nineteenth-century world exhibition, it ranks among the world’s more than two hundred existing biennials today. this is because the term biennial is no longer only considered a two-year cycle, as its etymology suggests, but represents “a type or model of large-scale, perennial, international manifestation that has become so common in the landscape of exhibition-making today”, as elena filipovic, marieke van hal, and solveig øvstebø state. see filipovic, van hal, and øvstebø, “biennialogy,” in the biennial reader: an anthology on large-scale perennial exhibitions of contemporary art, ed. filipovic, van hal, and øvstebø (ostfildern: hatje cantz, 2010), 12–27, on 14. for a directory of the currently listed biennials in the world, see for example the homepage of the biennial foundation: http://www.biennialfoundation.org/. 38 okwui enwezor, großausstellungen und die antinomien einer transnationalen globalen form [german/english] (munich: wilhelm fink, 2002), 47. 39 enwezor, großausstellungen und die antinomien einer transnationalen globalen form, 48. 40 while the gwangju biennale still takes place every two years, the second johannesburg biennale in 1997 was closed one month before it was due to occur and never continued. 41 enwezor, großausstellungen und die antinomien einer transnationalen globalen form, 48. 98 learning from crisis? on the transcultural approach to curating documenta 14 important impetus for the artistic power of imagination in south africa, each of the exhibitions that are responding to traumatic historical ruptures can be understood as a translation of this imagination into practice, in the sense of an ethical approach to change the social and cultural self-understanding of society for democratic reasons.42 moreover, by comparing the post-war activity of biennials, documenta is set in relation to the “south” in the global discourse of art and its institutions. according to anthony gardner and charles green, this term is “clearly not restricted to exhibitions, but part of a broader, significant invocation of the south as inspiration for resisting the north atlantic’s devouring of space, resources, alternative histories and epistemologies43 […] for antagonising the neo-colonial sweep,” and can thus be generally considered as “a model for change.”44 situating documenta 14 in space and time szymczyk’s idea of taking athens as a starting point for conceptionalizing documenta 14 indirectly involves enwezor’s proposed strategy of responding to a traumatic situation on the basis of artistic imagination and by the means of an art exhibition. in this respect, documenta 14 can be considered as an opportunity to reflect on and cope with the economic crisis of the greek state and the ruinous social and cultural situation in its capital. as ruins, in the literal sense, also played a central role in the conception and realization of the first documenta—for example, the reconstruction 42 while the first johannesburg biennale was meant to restore the dialogue between south africa and the international art scene after the years of isolation caused by the apartheid policy, the first gwangju biennale, titled “beyond the borders,” was intended to establish new orders and relationships between the arts and mankind, as well as to convey a kind of global citizenship that transcends divisions between ideologies, territories, religion, race, culture, humanity, and the arts. see “1st gwangju biennale, 1995,” universes in universe, accessed april 12, 2019, https://universes.art/en/gwangju-biennale/1995. 43 for more on the recovery and valorization of epistemological diversity into an empowering instrument against hegemonic globalization see, for example, boaventura de sousa santos (2014). in his book, he argues that western domination has profoundly marginalized knowledge and wisdom in the global south, and, therefore, global social justice is not possible without global cognitive justice. he points to a new kind of bottom-up cosmopolitanism that would promote a wide conversation of humankind, celebrating conviviality, solidarity, and life against the logic of market-ridden greed and individualism. see sousa santos, epistemologies of the south. justice against epistemicide (boulder: paradigm, 2014). 44 anthony gardner and charles green, “south as method. biennials past and present,” in making biennials in contemporary times: essays from the world biennial forum n° 2 são paulo, brazil, ed. galit eilat et al. (amsterdam: biennial foundation, 2015), 3–45, on 38. 99the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 of the museum fridericianum45—the ancient greek ruins, whose aesthetics have always inspired artists as well as travellers, in a certain way still reflect the relationship between ruinous pasts and the present-day situation of athens and greece, and can thus be considered a possible source of life and revitalization.46 however, at second glance, the situation of athens and greece is not only addressed in a narrow sense, but also more broadly in a more global perspective. as szymczyk points out, “athens, located forever between cultures, connecting three continents and holding multitudes, remains the nexus of challenges and transformations that the entire continent is now experiencing.”47 in this sense, the city not only reflects an important connection between several parts of a system that spans different cultural and geopolitical settings in europe, but according to szymczyk actually indicates “the stiffening embrace of neoliberalism.”48 while the ideas of neoliberalism go back to the nineteeth century and are primarily associated with economic liberalism at the end of the twentieth century,49 they have gained hegemonic power on a global scale today. moreover, szymczyk argues that these ideas are part of the crisis that reached greece in 2008, broadening its geopolitical and economic impact, and led up to “the present and its defining, as-yet-unresolved moments 45 the museum fridericianum was almost entirely destroyed in 1941 and 1943 during the second world war (apart from the enclosing walls and the zwehrenturm tower) and reconstructed for the purpose of documenta’s main venue in 1955, as it remains today. 46 the confrontation with past, present, and future ruins in connection with documenta 14 was, for example, part of the two-year research project “learning from documenta” that started in 2015. the independent project was situated in athens between anthropology, art, and media with the aim to critically observe and discuss aspects of documenta 14’s presence in athens in relation to artistic, economic, and socio-political developments in greece and internationally. see “about,” learning from documenta, accessed september 25, 2017, http://learningfromdocumenta.org/about/. 47 adam szymczyk, “14: iterability and otherness—learning and working from athens,” in the documenta 14 reader, ed. quinn latimer and adam szymczyk (munich: prestel, 2017): 17–42, on 29. 48 szymczyk, “14: iterability and otherness,” 25. in this context, szymczyk speaks about “the neoliberal war machine” that is supported by the “hegemonic order” and occurs as “the neocolonial, patriarchal, heteronormative order of power and discourse.” 49 the term neoliberalism refers to market-oriented economic concepts that have gained hegemonic power on an international scale since the end of fordism around the 1970s. in comparison to the traditional liberal definition of a self-regulating, free market in the nineteenth century, neoliberal concepts of the twentieth century are characterized by a deep mistrust in any kind of interference with the market and only tolerate a minimum of involvement by the state and other institutions in economic activities. see fernand kreff, eva-maria knoll, and andre gingrich, lexikon der globalisierung (bielefeld: transcript, 2011), 259 and 427. 100 learning from crisis? on the transcultural approach to curating documenta 14 in europe and around the mediterranean.”50 in his view, it is exactly this “complex entanglement of political and military powers” that keeps “the old and untenable concept of a world comprised of sovereign nation-states” alive and provides “an inescapable framework that must be addressed anew in order to understand our current circumstances.”51 taking into account this statement for situating documenta 14 temporally and spatially in athens, it is also interesting to note that szymczyk also ideologically points to “that part of europe, which seems to be a model example of often extremely violent contradictions, fears, and fragile hopes” which could as well take place in “any other precarious contemporary democracy.”52 thus, he not only points to greece’s confrontation with the consequences of the economic crisis, the destruction of social structures and the associated rise of right-wing populism in the western world, which in times of crisis often flourishes and calls democracy into question, but he also addresses the shared challenge for the entire continent of europe to handle the increasing migration at its borders. with this in mind, he argues that documenta 14 cannot just be considered as “a good starting point for reflection on the contemporary condition of actually existing neoliberalism,”53 but rather stresses the need to give “a real-time response to the changing situation of europe, which as a birthplace of both democracy and colonialism is a continent whose future must be urgently addressed.”54 with this conceptual approach to documenta 14, szymczyk seems to resume, transfer, and translate the particular cultural relevance founded in the origin of documenta, which helped to enable a social transition of the desolate country after the second world war through a new idea of democracy, according to the political and historical experiences of the people at that time. according to banai, szymczyk and his curatorial team have not only considered recent permutations of the institution’s foundational conditions and aspirations, but they also “responded to the changed landscape of today […] with timely questions about borders and their power 50 szymczyk, “14: iterability and otherness,” 26. by this, szymczyk especially addresses the arab spring, the war in syria, russia’s annexation of the crimea, followed by the war in eastern ukraine, and the advances of authoritarian rule in turkey. see szymczyk, “14: iterability and otherness,” 25–26. 51 szymczyk, “14: iterability and otherness,” 26. 52 szymczyk, “documenta 14: learning from athens,” 241. 53 szymczyk, “14: iterability and otherness,” 24. 54 quinn latimer and adam szymczyk, “editors’ letter,” south as a state of mind #6 [documenta 14 #1] (fall–winter 2015): 5–6, on 5. 101the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 to police people, knowledge and (art) history.”55 while this goes along with enwezor’s notion of the founding principles of documenta, in a certain way szymczyk also adopts the transnational and transcultural perspective of the first documenta. just like bode, he does not consider the local situation of the city or country as an issue limited to itself. he sees nationally and culturally interrelated processes and entangled (hi)stories of the european continent as a necessity and an opportunity to critically reflect upon its difficult times, to react to them, and to transform them by the means of art and in the format of an exhibition. moreover, he seems to be convinced that, “rather than being a mere reproduction of existing social relationships, art can produce and inhabit space, enable discourses […], and act to challenge the predictable, gloomy course of current political and social global events that keep us sleepless and suspended.”56 as the living and working conditions of artists are far more international and globally intertwined than in 1955, for a number of artists, their national identity is in question, as they affiliate with various cultures at the same time. according to the transcultural understanding that describes culture as being in a permanent process of becoming, the artists in documenta 14’s daybook57 are also neither assigned to a single nation nor characterized by linear biographies.58 situating documenta 14 in relation to the desolate conditions of a city and country at the border of europe can thus be considered as referring in a more comprehensive way to “the uncertain future of western-european democracy in a world gradually losing fixed points of reference,” which “makes athens possibly the most productive location from which to think and learn about the future to come,” as szymczyk points out. in this sense, 55 banai, “border as form,” 303. here, banai goes even further by relating the history of documenta to its present when she recognizes documenta 14’s geographical focus as an update of “the mega-exhibition’s historical status as a frontier and bellwether of western humanism for contemporary conditions of neoliberal global capitalism.” 56 szymczyk, “14: iterability and otherness,” 32. 57 the daybook is a kind of polyphonic anthology in which each living artist of documenta 14 is granted one day of the exhibition’s 163-day period and, respectively, two pages including a newly commissioned text in the form of a close reading of the artist’s practice (e.g., a criticism, a letter, a poem, or a parable) by different writers, such as critics, curators, poets, novelists, or historians, and images selected by each artist. see “publications—documenta 14,” documenta 14 daybook, accessed april 12, 2019, http://www.documenta14.de/en/publications/15730/ documenta-14–daybook. 58 in some cases, biographical data of the artists and their (trans)cultural affiliations are mentioned in the text of the two pages or can be read between the lines and in the selected images. 102 learning from crisis? on the transcultural approach to curating documenta 14 the additional claim “learning from athens” as a working title59 specifies both the transitional stage of europe’s current social, political, economic, and cultural upheavals, and the provisional stage for the emerging event of documenta 14 as a nationally and culturally shared process of working and learning, which can no longer be limited to a temporary and local exhibition of exactly one hundred days in one single place—which first and foremost addresses the well-established western and northern european position and status of the institution60—as the origin and tradition of documenta implies. decentralizing documenta’s institutional and ideological structures in fact, documenta 14’s focus on athens does not completely disregard the institution’s home in kassel. however, the specific relationship to the world that documenta 14 holds with its twofold structure is neither based on a one-sided reference of kassel to athens, nor on its exchange or any kind of comparison between germany and greece. thus, instead of importing the crisis to kassel and analysing it on an aesthetic level in germany alone, szymczyk decided from the beginning of his conceptual preparations for documenta 14 to move one part of its production from the centre of europe to its southeastern border. szymcyzk adopted a transcultural perspective by taking into account a postcolonial approach to current socio-political and cultural affairs in the global intertwinings of art on the structural level of documenta. this can firstly be seen in the way he takes the historical units and boundaries of the western art institution as a subject of investigation and as products of spatial and cultural displacements, on the one hand,61 while on the other 59 the two words were designed with a blue hand-lettered font and presented in brackets right underneath the block letters of the heading “learning from athens,” and appeared in every newsletter of documenta 14, beginning with its ninth release on november 15, 2016. see “newsletter archive,” documenta 14 newsletter, accessed april 12, 2019, http://www.documenta14.de/en/pressmaterials. 60 according to szymczyk, “[t]he world cannot be explained, commented on and narrated from kassel exclusively—a vantage point that is singularly located in northern and western europe—or from any one particular place at all.” szymczyk, “14: iterability and otherness,” 26–27. 61 in contrast to the modern western conception of culture during the colonial past that is founded on the notion that a people, nation, or race bear and represent merely one culture, contributions to early transcultural thought are not only based on the attempt to dissociate race from culture, but also on acknowledging the permeability of boundaries (e.g., between european, amerindian, and african cultures) and the hybrid forms of cultures and races—even as a means of undoing racist orders of domination, as kravagna points out in reference to the development of cultural studies in south america between the 1920s and 1940s. see christian kravagna, “transcultural beginnings: decolonisation, transculturalism, and the overcoming of race,” in transcultural modernisms, 34–47, on 36. 103the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 hand, he applies the divide and shift of a part of the exhibition as a curatorial method to deconstruct, rethink, and confront the institution with its western history and its implicit narratives of modernity. here, one of documenta’s main venues in kassel, the museum fridericianum, plays an important role, being one of the first public museums on the european continent,62 and is thus also a bearer of europe’s colonial history. secondly, szymczyk aims to free athens from the role of the subordinate. he does so by taking into account the fact that “athens stands metonymically for the ‘rest’ of the world that is lacking privileges.”63 with this approach, he not only implicitly refers to the binary notion of the west in contrast to the rest of the world, as it was taken up in postcolonial theory,64 but he rather goes beyond the binary thinking of western superiority in opposition to non-western inferiority, or any kind of hierarchical order, when he brings up a “distrust toward any essentializing and reductive concepts of identity, belonging, roots, and property in a world that is visibly out of joint” and claims to “think in solidarity”—with germany and greece acting both “as simultaneously real and metaphoric sites.”65 in this sense, szymczyk’s concerns can be related not only to a postand decolonial discourse, but also to a transcultural thinking in the arts which, for example, refers to the understanding of the dissolution of artistic limits, its pluralization, decentralization, and interconnectivity in terms of its production and reception. the perspective of a transcultural history of art would furthermore involve questioning the “canonical premises” and “the taxonomies and values that have been built into the discipline since its inception and have been taken as universal,”66 particularly according to stable and homogeneous units of national, stylistic, or epochal categories of western art historiography. in what ways szymczyk’s concerns for a practical realization of his ideas for both germany and greece can be linked to “transformatory processes that constitute art practices through cultural encounters and relationships,”67 as juneja’s conception of a transcultural history of art also implies, will be considered later on. 62 the museum fridericianum was built and completed in 1779, in the spirit of enlightenment and classicism. 63 szymczyk, “documenta 14: learning from athens,” 243. 64 see stuart hall, “the west and the rest: discourse and power,” in formations of modernity, ed. stuart hall and bram geiben (cambridge: polity press, 1992), 275–295. 65 latimer and szymczyk, “editors’ letter,” 5–6. 66 monica juneja, “global art history and the ‘burden of representation’,” in global studies. mapping contemporary art and culture, ed. hans belting, jacob birken, andrea buddensieg, and peter weibel (ostfildern: hatje cantz, 2011), 274–297, on 281. 67 juneja, “global art history and the ‘burden of representation’,” 281. 104 learning from crisis? on the transcultural approach to curating documenta 14 with regard to previous editions of documenta 14, it can be argued that the curatorial idea of a spatial extension and geographical decentralization is nothing new and has already been applied in various ways and dimensions by some of its direct predecessors: documenta 11 (2002), documenta 12 (2007), and documenta 13 (2012) have each developed specific formats taking place outside of germany and europe on different continents before or simultaneously, and partially with direct reference to the exhibition in kassel.68 with differing emphasis, whether explicitly or implicitly, the western centralization of the institution was questioned, destabilized, or at least suspended for the duration of the respective documenta. although documenta 14’s structure does not extend beyond the european continent, it falls in line with the global perspective of its predecessors by creating a counterhegemonic position with athens towards the established center of the west. furthermore, documenta 14 not only refers to, but rather connects with a specific location in southern europe where “the contradictions of the contemporary world, embodied by loaded directionals like east and west, north and south, meet and clash.”69 therefore, athens, or rather greece, can be recognized as a european hub of key importance that marks a point of intersection. it is at this point where people with different world perspectives and cultures are gathering and interacting with each other—notably at a time of rising levels of migration, which recalls the climate of documenta’s origin. thus, by relating documenta’s home to a specific location that is characterized by challenges and changes affecting the whole of europe in an increasingly interconnected and complex world, szymczyk does not want to reproduce colonial categories, but enables, encourages, and induces a fundamental repositioning of the institution on the structural, organizational, and discursive level. this is also shown, for instance, in the name and meaning of the documenta 14 magazine south as a state of mind,70 which is designed to represent a “counterhegemonic library for present battles.” it is “filled with essays, images, stories, speeches, diaries, and poems” and therefore considered 68 one year before the opening of documenta 11, five transdisciplinary, discursive platforms were presented on four continents, taking place in vienna, berlin, new delhi, st. lucia, and lagos. before the opening of documenta 12, transregional meetings for the documenta 12 magazines project were held in hong kong, new delhi, são paulo, cairo, johannesburg, and new york with participating editors, authors, and theorists of local magazines. documenta 13 organized a parallel exhibition in kabul and a study and exchange program in cairo and alexandria, as well as a retreat and research residency program in banff in alberta, canada. 69 latimer and szymczyk, “editors’ letter,” 6. 70 the magazine was founded by marina fokidis in athens in 2012. in 2015, it temporarily became the journal of documenta 14, publishing four special issues, with the last one published in the summer of 2017. 105the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 as a “guiding vision for […] the documenta 14 publication program as a whole,”71 as the editors claim with reference to the contribution of françoise vergès in the first volume. as such, documenta 14’s relation to the south describes a working concept beyond the postcolonial center–periphery model. in considering the south operating on a synchronic axis of the trans-local,72 this concept “extends beyond geographical location and beyond the contours of the ‘global south’ as a category of geo-economic development [and] tries to resist easy assimilation within hegemonic global currents.”73 according to marieke van hal, who asks for the meaning of south in the context of the ongoing “north-south dialectic of postcolonialism” in the making of biennials in contemporary times, “south as a state of mind” represents “a more abstract or creative concept” in contrast to “a geo-political focus that relates to a certain history tied to the struggle against colonization and the necessity of decolonization.”74 documenta 14’s successive start at two locations, with the earlier than usual opening of one part of the exhibition in athens outside the institution’s home in kassel and its temporal extension by a total of sixty days can thus be understood as a practical implication of acknowledging the institution’s western position from a postand decolonial point of view. it can further be seen as a creative attempt to equalize its cultural significance with other institutions in other parts of the world. according to this approach, the claim of learning from athens seems to be, first and foremost, an invitation to question western (i.e. white and male, as well as nationalist and colonialist) privileges. this is also apparent in marina fokidis’s critique of the “idea of the purity of so-called mythical ancient greece” that is not only represented through the assumption of greece as the cradle of western civilization, but is in fact “a construct” and a result of several cleansing processes of “western hegemonic culture” with 71 latimer and szymczyk, “editors’ letter,” 6. 72 for gardner and green, the south emphasizes not only “a rich history generated from long-standing unease with north atlantic hegemony” and thus operates on “the diachronic axis of reference back to rich if unstable histories of trying to conceive different models of trans-local exchange,” but it also requires a kind of “transnational response through which that hegemony might be displaced,” and thus operates as well on “a synchronic axis of the transnational—or better still, the trans-local, given the vicious arbitrariness of national frontiers.” gardner and green, “south as method. biennials past and present,” 29. 73 gardner and green, “south as method. biennials past and present,” 29. 74 marieke van hal, “[untitled preface],” in making biennials in contemporary times, 5. 106 learning from crisis? on the transcultural approach to curating documenta 14 the aim of creating a pure past.75 in line with this recognition, szymczyk wants to “see the world again in an unprejudiced way, unlearning and abandoning the predominant cultural conditioning that, silently or explicitly, presupposes the supremacy of the west, its institutions and culture.”76 accordingly, a space of possibility should be created to unlearn what is known, such as outdated concepts of belonging, rootedness, and identity, instead of giving lessons to people.77 in order to overcome the form of an “asymmetrical power relationship between the sovereign and the subalterns” criticized by postcolonial theory, szymczyk suggests that we “imagine a symmetrical situation of the encounter of equals” as is shown and implemented for him especially in the way artists are “‘learning to learn from below’,” as szymczyk points out with reference to gayatri chakravorty spivak, or “learning from others in order to live together,” with reference to souleymane bachir diagne.78 while the latter two theorists are part of the postcolonial discourse that suggests submitting any westernized self to the opposite and thereby defining a kind of prerequisite for the encounter of equals, spivak’s claim especially relates to the challenge of a critically minded education. it does not merely advocate an improvement or change of conditions, but rather suggests that we “learn to let the logic of what constitutes the ‘here-and-now’ emerge and render that aspect accessible,” as nikita dhawan and maría do mar castro varela point out in relation to postcolonial strategies of unlearning.79 in practical terms, documenta 14 aimed to create an awareness for the individual cultural (pre)conditions of both locations. 75 marina fokidis, “learning from athens—a working title and a working process for documenta 14 in athens and kassel,” in stages #6: the biennial condition, ed. joasia krysa (liverpool: liverpool biennial, 2017), 2–6, on 2. here, she also argues that the “classicists’ idea of the pure white of the greek statues and temples” is “a construct, since everything was painted in vivid colours: fuchsia, gold, cyan, red, terracotta. even the columns of the parthenon were painted with stripes […]. the assumption of whiteness […] was a kind of a cleansing process, eradicating paganism, multi-theism, multivalent expression, a successful effort to create a pure past, stripped not only of its shadows but also of its variety of aesthetics.” 76 szymczyk, “14: iterability and otherness,” 29–30. 77 see szymczyk, “14: iterability and otherness,” 32. 78 szymczyk, “14: iterability and otherness,” 33. as szymczyk clarifies here, artists like “writers, filmmakers, sculptors, painters, musicians, actors, and all those once excluded from the republic—can teach us that we must first learn to become strangers to ourselves, and thus undergo a decreation […] instead of sustaining overproduction. they can show us how to shake the foundations of our positive and passive understanding of the world, teach us how to abandon the cities and then inhabit the cities again (kassel and athens are cases in point), and how to care about the way in which we work and what we do with the fruits of our labors.” 79 nikita dhawan and maría do mar castro varela, “breaking the rules. education and post-colonialism,” in documenta 12 education ii: between critical practice and visitor services. results of a research project, ed. carmen mörsch (berlin: diaphanes, 2009), 317–329, on 327. 107the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 challenging documenta’s host role according to the idea of learning in relation to the encounter of equals, the structural repositioning of the institution also addresses an adjustment or a change of the cultural-political involvement, which, in the case of the internationally-operating institution of documenta, is related to european foreign (and integration) policy. concerning this policy, an involvement in cultural affairs basically refers to the framework of intercultural dialogue.80 according to the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco), this framework should facilitate an “[e]quitable exchange and dialogue among civilizations, cultures and peoples, based on mutual understanding and respect and the equal dignity of all cultures,” which in turn marks “the essential prerequisite for constructing social cohesion, reconciliation among peoples and peace among nations.”81 however, the concept of interculturalism as such was strongly criticized from the perspective of postcolonial studies in the 1990s because in most cases, dialogue did not occur on a level playing field, while the focus on cultural difference and hybridity tended to conceal social and political inequality, as carmen mörsch stated.82 furthermore, from the philosophical perspective of transculturality, an intercultural understanding is not sufficient to overcome classical cultural boundaries because it only advocates a mutual understanding of different cultures and refers to the concept of culture as part of a homogeneous and separate sphere, which can only collide with, defame, or combat other cultures, as wolfgang welsch points out.83 thus, in the framework of the intercultural dialogue, documenta’s historically established, cultural-political position of host, which for szymczyk “becomes ideologically difficult to maintain if the host never 80 according to art educator carmen mörsch, even at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the concept of intercultural dialogue is still a dominant approach in german-speaking areas in discussions of appropriate guiding principles for cultural institutions in a migration society. see carmen mörsch, “über zugang hinaus: nachträgliche einführende gedanken zur arbeitstagung ‘kunstvermittlung in der migrationsgesellschaft’,” in agency, ambivalence, analysis: approaching the museum with migration in mind, ed. ruth noack (milan: politecnico di milano, 2013), 51–62, on 51. 81 “intercultural dialogue,” unesco, accessed april 12, 2019, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/ culture/themes/dialogue/intercultural-dialogue/. 82 see mörsch, “über zugang hinaus,“ 51–52. 83 see wolfgang welsch, “transculturality—the puzzling form of cultures today,” in spaces of culture: city, nation, world, ed. mike featherstone and scott lash (london: thousand oaks, 1999), 194–213, on 196–197. 108 learning from crisis? on the transcultural approach to curating documenta 14 dares to assume the role of guest and leave home,”84 would keep its traditional, privileged western perspective and could only end up in the symbolic meaning of a bridge85 or a mere cooperation between greece and germany. while cooperation describes a number of actors who work together and split into intact entities after their joint activity, thus remaining separate from each other,86 a necessary prerequisite for rethinking and shifting the traditional western position of the institution is seen in abandoning its “exclusive role of host,”87 which has been assumed by documenta over the decades, and instead take on the role of guest. but how can an institution’s established role of host be subverted into the role of guest without being invited as such? the proposed guest status of documenta 14 challenges the stable position of the more than sixty-year-old art institution to welcome artists and artworks from around the world in kassel. moreover, it creates a paradoxical attitude especially towards the role of the artistic director, if one assumes that a “curatorial situation is always one of hospitality” because it “implies invitations—to artists, artworks, curators, audiences, and institutions; […] which have left their habitual surroundings and find themselves in the process of relocation in the sense of being a guest,” as beatrice von bismarck and benjamin meyer-krahmer say.88 according to the claim of decentralizing and repositioning the institution, the “nation-regulated right to hospitality,”89 which once created the position of the foreigner,90 would have to be relinquished. this relates to jacques derrida’s fundamental tension 84 szymczyk, “documenta 14: learning from athens,” 240. 85 instead of “a bridge in the form of projects that complete each other between the two locations, or end up as two isolated sequences of displays addressing the specifics of each of the two sites separately,” szymczyk wanted the exhibition to be built on a “structure of gaps, disconcerting repetitions and dislocations” that “would embrace discontinuity.” szymczyk, “documenta 14: learning from athens,” 244. 86 see mark terkessidis, kollaboration (berlin: suhrkamp, 2015), 14. 87 latimer and szymczyk, “editors’ letter,” 6. 88 beatrice von bismarck and benjamin meyer-krahmer, “introduction,” in hospitality. hosting relations in exhibitions: (cultures of the curatorial 3), ed. von bismark and meyer-krahmer (berlin: sternberg, 2016), 6–15, on 8. 89 von bismarck and meyer-krahmer, “introduction,” 11. 90 with reference to evi fountoulakis and boris previsic, “gesetz, politik und erzählung der gastlichkeit. einleitung,” in der gast als fremder. narrative alterität in der literatur, ed. fountoulakis and previsic (bielefeld: transcript, 2011), 7–27, on 9, the open concept of accommodating all those who travel—understood as an anthropological, fundamental right that persisted into the middle ages—was already redefined in ancient times by laws on hospitality in the sense of the law concerning foreigners. see von bismarck and meyer-krahmer, “introduction,” 9–10. 109the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 between the regulated and unregulated conditions of hospitality,91 in which the latter is based on an altruistic concept that abandons all claims to ownership and control of the guest but is thereby, at the same time, circumventing the possibility of hospitality. therefore, in whatever way the mutual relationship of host and guest is built, it has to deal with questions of superiority and with the negotiation of the conditions for its functioning. in connection with the worldwide increase in migration and the refugee crisis in europe, the status of the host as well as the status and conditions of the guest seem more than ever to be a key question for transnational and transcultural cohabitation and social interaction. taking a look at the political structure of the exhibition, according to beatrice von bismarck, the relation of hospitality generally raises questions about responsibility, dependencies, rules, codices, and the conditions of inclusion and exclusion, while also describing a situation in which people and things transfer from a familiar setting into the exposed setting of an exhibition and could thereby experience uncertainty and defenselessness. thus, hospitality constitutes a necessary antithesis to the foreignness, unfamiliarity, or strangeness towards all people and things that are arranged in the process of curating an exhibition.92 in this sense, hospitality also marks a kind of cultural-political position from which the institution of documenta should think and learn about its hierarchical and powerful role in the cultural sector and in the global intertwinings of art with other institutions. from the perspective of critical education, szymczyk’s abovementioned claim of “unlearning and abandoning the predominant cultural conditioning” points to “the necessity of unlearning, [as] a reflexive approach and […] a shift in the position of cultural institutions from representing civil society to an active role as agents and arenas in the political domain.”93 on the other hand, his reference to spivak’s “learning to learn from below” especially addresses those who are advocating change to be willing to change themselves.94 taking into account szymczyk’s claim to “think in solidarity” with germany and greece acting both “as simultaneously real and metaphoric 91 according to derrida, any attempt to be hospitable is inevitably associated with keeping guests under control, with the closing of boundaries, with nationalism, and even with the exclusion of particular groups or ethnicities. see jacques derrida and anne dufourmantelle, of hospitality: anne dufourmantelle invites jacques derrida to respond, trans. rachel bowlby (stanford: stanford university press, 2000), 151–155. 92 see beatrice von bismarck, “die politizität des gastspiels: zur politischen struktur der ausstellung,” in when exhibitions become politics, ed. verena krieger and elisabeth fritz, (cologne: böhlau, 2017), 139–153, on 142. 93 mörsch, “über zugang hinaus,” 51. 94 see dhawan and castro varela, “breaking the rules. education and post-colonialism,” 327. 110 learning from crisis? on the transcultural approach to curating documenta 14 sites,” documenta 14’s aim to reposition the institution stresses the necessity not only to acknowledge its emergence and historical development in the western context but also to question its own privileges. consequently, documenta 14’s claim of learning proposes an inherent process of “unlearning the given,” as documenta 14’s curator-at-large, bonaventure soh bejeng ndikung, stated in a joint project with elena agudio, which paralleled his work on documenta 14.95 in his view, “the dominant western and eurocentric educational structure intimately supports racist power structures and knowledge systems” and continues “along a universal qua western educational system that has found or forced its way into almost all four corners […] of the globe.” in line with this thinking, the project’s concept points to the challenge “of deconstructing the ideologies and connotations eminent to the constructs that frame our societies today.” while the project also refers to spivak’s notion of the fundamental process of unlearning privilege96—for example, in relation to race, class, nationality, and gender— both curators want to open up to “a certain kind of other knowledge” that does not imply receiving more information but “knowledge that we are not equipped to understand by reason of our social position.” in this sense, the process of unlearning privilege can be considered “the beginning of an ethical relation to the other.”97 similarly, from the perspective of critical education, this process means more “than being well-read and accumulating information; in fact, it involves confronting the often painful process of self-questioning,”98 and draws attention to the necessity of allowing oneself to experience a fundamental uncertainty in relation to self-image, in the sense of not reproducing but shifting power relations.99 95 the project was called “unlearning the given. exercises in demodernity and decoloniality of ideas and knowledge” and was conceived as “a performative, discoursive and corporeal curatorial framework” for the long night of ideas in berlin, which took place on april 14, 2016 at savvy contemporary. see bonaventure soh bejeng ndikung and elena agudio, “unlearning the given. exercises in demodernity and decoloniality of ideas and knowledge,” art at berlin (april 14, 2016), accessed april 12, 2019, https://www.artatberlin.com/savvy-contemporary-zurlangen-nacht-der-ideen-art-at-berlin/. 96 for the original quotation, see gayatri c. spivak, donna landry, and gerald maclean, the spivak reader: selected works of gayatri chakravorty spivak (london: routledge, 1996), 4. 97 see ndikung and agudio, “unlearning the given.” 98 dhawan and castro varela, “breaking the rules: education and post-colonialism,” 328. in this context, dhawan and castro varela relate to spivak’s term of “‘transnational literacy,’” which can only be achieved by questioning one’s own privileges. 99 mörsch, “über zugang hinaus,” 58–59. 111the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 sharing experiences by means of an art exhibition as noted above, in line with the postand decolonial demand for a critical self-reflection of one’s position and privilege, szymczyk aimed to free athens from the role of the subordinate, or rather refused to relegate the city or country to the role of a guest of documenta 14 in the first place. although he tries to change documenta’s established position of host, he nevertheless speaks of invitations. obviously, this does not mean a unilateral request from athens or from the inside of documenta. according to his idea of reconnecting documenta 14 to “the urgency of its beginnings,” this is conceived as a more open approach of a “journey” in order to get “a better understanding of the world and of ourselves.” however, this journey has no clear purpose and should not be misunderstood as an expedition. it is rather meant as an inner journey in the way of a “willful estrangement that is supposed to lead to new realizations for those who undertake it.”100 according to sepake angiama, head of education at documenta 14, from a geographical perspective, “learning from athens” implies a deliberate way of distancing oneself “from a location that is considered on the edge of europe but is almost a central connection between europe and other geographies, between europe and its shared histories with the middle east and africa.”101 in respect to the fact that learning is closely tied to “unlearning,” angiama stresses the need for “considering forms of knowledge that have been suppressed and excluded from the ‘canon’” and, even more fundamentally, of recognizing that also “education has been colonized.” thus, she first pleads for the decolonization of education in the form of an “acceptance and acknowledgement of wrongdoing.”102 while this requires a process that will question, change, and leave behind usual ways of knowledge production in order to gain new or different insights than the ones already established, the entire project of documenta 14 cannot simply be “divided into exhibition, public program, and education,” but must be defined as a whole organism that relies both on “collective action and individual capacity,” as documenta 14’s education program of 100 see szymczyk, “documenta 14: learning from athens,” 240. 101 sepake angiama and elke aus dem moore, “under the mango tree (a conversation),” contemporary and (c&) 7 (2017): 40–43, on 42. 102 while the “process of colonizing education was a violent and brutal obliteration of indigenous cultures, traditions, and language,” as angiama states, the “process of decolonization will bear the fruits of a painful process of recognition, repatriation, and reconciliation.” angiama and aus dem moore, “under the mango tree,” 42. 112 learning from crisis? on the transcultural approach to curating documenta 14 “aneducation”103 implies.104 the question that remains is, did this way of learning take place within the production and reception of documenta 14, and if so, how did it take place? or, returning to one of the fundamental arguments of this essay, namely that learning is bound to the possibility of participating in educational processes: who is actually invited and how could the process of (un)learning be realized in relation to participating in documenta 14? taking into account the reconsideration or reinvention of democracy in difficult times “when authoritarian thinking prevails over the participatory model,”105 szymczyk points to the role of the “‘audience’—which the art world and its institutions, including documenta, conventionally tends to think of less as participants in a common task and rather as voters.”106 with the aim of taking a different, much more collective approach from the bottom up, he therefore suggests that documenta 14 should overcome “normative economic, political and geographic divisions” by “attempting a shared experience mediated by culture and, more specifically,by the contemporary art exhibition.”107 according to this experience, the visitors to documenta were invited “to take a similar route as its makers,” with the hope that “the exhibition will thus become an agent of change and a transformative experience for its audience and participants in both cities.”108 from the curatorial point of view, it has therefore not been a matter of fulfilling “one predetermined scenario during the three years of making,”109 but rather a “thorough onsite research to forge connections including political ones and to find local allies willing to engage.”110 within this process, szymczyk wanted to develop “forms of collaboration” and to negotiate “terms of invitation.”111 in order to become 103 in connection with education, the prefix “an-” refers to undoing something and describes learning as a way of shifting positions or seeing something from another point of view. see angiama and aus dem moore, “under the mango tree,” 42. 104 see “about,” documenta 14 public education, accessed april 12, 2019, http://www. documenta14.de/en/public-education/. 105 szymczyk, “14: iterability and otherness,” 31. 106 szymczyk, “14: iterability and otherness,” 35. 107 szymczyk, “documenta 14: learning from athens,” 243. 108 szymczyk, “documenta 14: learning from athens,” 240. 109 szymczyk, “documenta 14: learning from athens,” 245. 110 szymczyk, “documenta 14: learning from athens,” 241. 111 szymczyk, “documenta 14: learning from athens,” 241. 113the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 a “participatory experience, and an exercise in presentist democracy,” documenta 14’s visitors should be empowered “as the true owners of documenta, each holding a share in a common undertaking, together with the makers and the organizers of documenta 14, alongside the artists and other participants”.112 hence, the possibility of inviting others should not be based “on the representative capacity of legitimate elected officials.”113 this relates to the context of museum studies in the cultural sector where participation is used to define the possibility of opening up and reconnecting the museum or the exhibition to society as the actual owner of public space. here, in the sense of “ownership,” visitors are encouraged to leave behind the role of passive consumers and to take on a more active role as coworkers in the process of mediating, designing, selecting, denoting, and representing works within the museum.114 thus, documenta 14’s call for participation does not mean to simply go and visit an exhibition or to accept an invitation to it. instead, visitors need to have “the possibility to question the rules of the game: the conditions under which education, the public realm and representation within institutions happen,” as nora sternfeld points out in connection to “participation in the post-representative museum.”115 in doing so, the existing logics of society can be shifted and participation opens up “the possibility of transformation.”116 but how could this “shared experience mediated by culture” be realized, and to what extent does it actually involve all the participants of documenta 14, such as curators, institutions, artists, artworks, visitors, and the citizens of athens and kassel? and finally, does the self-image of documenta 14 as “transdocumenta” reveal itself in relation to these practical implications? since collaboration is based on participation and only 112 szymczyk, “14: iterability and otherness,” 36. similarly, marina fokidis, curatorial advisor of documenta 14, points out that “[n]othing can be completed, assumed, learned without the participation of the visitors, whom we like to think of as part of our team in this endless process of learning.” fokidis, “learning from athens,” 4. 113 szymczyk, “14: iterability and otherness,” 36–37. 114 anja piontek, “einführung,” in museum und partizipation. theorie und praxis kooperativer ausstellungsprojekte und beteiligungsangebote, ed. anja piontek (bielefeld: transcript, 2017), 13–29, on 17. 115 in doing so, sternfeld relates to the political theory of jacques rancière, for whom “demanding to have a part is also a question of politics. extending an invitation does not result in participation: this is achieved through struggles that transgress and reshape the hitherto existing social logics.” nora sternfeld, “playing by the rules of the game. participation in the post-representative museum,” cumma papers 1: 1–7, on 7; see also jacques rancière, disagreement. politics and philosophy, trans. julie rose (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1999). 116 sternfeld, “playing by the rules of the game,” 4. 114 learning from crisis? on the transcultural approach to curating documenta 14 takes place when actors work together interactively and welcome being truly transformed through this process,117 a look at its particular forms could provide insight into how far the collaborations of documenta 14 go beyond intercultural cooperation and open up to various modes of a transcultural practice. for the realization of documenta 14, various collaborations were specifically developed for the exhibition, and also for parallel projects, public meetings, and events set up by a variety of actors in different locations. besides the position of the artistic director, about twenty curatorial co-workers were located in athens, in addition to about twelve curatorial co-workers in kassel, together with a large team responsible for organizing the exhibition at the many venues, for presenting art, mediating art, and running the public programs in both cities.118 after the three years of the curatorially proposed process of making, a large number of institutional and urban interventions could be found both in athens and in kassel. besides several main institutional partners and venues, documenta 14 spread across the city of athens in more than forty different public institutions, squares, cinemas, university locations, and libraries in approximately thirty different locations in kassel, including many conversions of existing buildings.119 a special form of collaboration was realized by one of documenta’s main venues. the museum fridericianum became the temporary home for the collection of the national museum of contemporary art in athens (emst) during the exhibition in kassel. as katerina koskina, director of the emst and curator of the exhibition at the museum fridericianum, pointed out in the wall text of the entrance hall, the exhibition marked the first extensive presentation of the collection of the emst and presented artworks by “pioneering greek artists, highlighting and revisiting their national and international journeys.”120 futhermore, this exchange not only allowed both institutions to learn more about their diverse missions and common goals, but also strengthened their links to showcase the social role of art and its capacity to denounce and transform the traumatized world. with the title “antidoron,” the exhibition referred to concepts of negotiation, such as sharing and offering or, more literally, “the returning of a gift.” thus, the prefix “anti-” points to “a distinct position and consequently a view, not necessarily opposed to, 117 see terkessidis, kollaboration, 14. 118 “team,” documenta 14 team, accessed april 12, 2019, http://www.documenta14.de/en/team. 119 “athens venues/ kassel venues,” documenta 14 venues, accessed april 12, 2019, http://www. documenta14.de/en/public-exhibition/. 120 as such, the exhibition also took up issues of border crossings, diasporas, and cultural exchange. 115the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 but departing from a different point in order to communicate, to argue, to bridge, to converge, and to accept each other’s stances,” and should embody “the mutual respect of both institions.”121 from a transcultural perspective, the curatorially initiated terms of invitation and forms of collaboration for this part of documenta 14’s exhibition could, on the one hand, be acknowledged as a shared cultural practice going beyond the simple logic of differences or oppositions between kassel and athens. on the other hand, this approach resembles the established invitation from documenta as a hosting institution, where the guest is generously invited on the basis of individual conditions and unintentionally returns the favor with a gift for the duration of documenta 14 in kassel. the act of giving that is implied in this approach by documenta 14 could easily turn into a patronizing attitude. this becomes even more clear in documenta 14’s support to open the four floors of the museum in athens, including those which had been open to the public since the museum’s reconstruction in 2014. although it might be also the first time for the museum fridericianum to host a collection from another museum in europe during documenta, the question remains whether this approach goes beyond an intercultural dialogue and whether it helps decolonize the western perspective of modernity, or if it is just reconstructing the canon of art in its definition of international, contemporary art for both museums on a joint basis and for the institution of documenta itself.122 another concept of collaboration was to involve artists who do not belong to the established art market. this can be said for most of the nearly two hundred artists who were invited to present their works in kassel and athens. these artists presented the same or different artworks to the exhibitions and could thus respond to one or both contexts, establishing contingent, possible, or new connections between different narratives. according to fokidis, by “receiving artists from all over the world,” documenta 14 was not only “sharing the organisation, the implementation, and later, the presentation of the work” in both cities, but “has triggered the ‘locals’ of each city to think actively about issues of identity and relationships between economy and power structure rather than in terms of nation.”123 from the perspective of athens, this became apparent in a specific manner. here, the reversal of the relationship between guest 121 see katerina koskina, fridericianum wall text, unpublished photography at documenta 14 (kassel, 2017) by barbara lutz. 122 in terms of an in-depth analysis of the exhibition, this question should also be asked in relation to the visual realization of the exhibition and the design of its display. 123 fokidis, “learning from athens,” 5. 116 learning from crisis? on the transcultural approach to curating documenta 14 and host remained quite ambivalent. the questions that emerged first concerned the possibility for such a hierarchically structured and financially powerful institution to come to athens with the aim to provide concrete assistance to “those who lack the simplest means”—to return to the initially mentioned claim of documenta 14—without running the risk of exoticizing or colonizing the city and its citizens, or exploiting their trauma for the institution’s own benefit. this concern, for example, became visible in two artworks—a poster and a work of graffiti—critical of documenta 14 that were on the walls at the premises of the athens school of fine arts. one criticized the kind of capitalistic gesture inherent in the financial support of documenta 14 while at the same time misstating the amount of the budget (fig. 2).124 the other excoriated the hierarchical structures of the documenta institution by portraying a decapitated depiction of the owl with a turned head adopted 124 each documenta is funded by the city of kassel and the state of hesse with 14 million euro, and by the german federal cultural foundation with 4.5 million euro. the remaining portion of the budget has to be generated by each documenta itself through the exhibition (e.g., tickets, catalogues, merchandising products, and sponsors), brings the total up to 37 million euro. in athens, documenta 14 was additionally supported by the federal foreign office of germany and the goethe institute. fig. 2:  graffiti  at  the  premises  of  the  athens  school  of  fine  arts  (asfa),  2017.  photo: barbara lutz. 117the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 as a symbol by documenta 14, due to its status as the traditional symbol of athena, the goddess of wisdom and learning, and mythological patron of the greek capital. this poster, with its rolling head, can be interpreted as harshly questioning the claim “learning from athens” (fig. 3). furthermore, the art scene of athens was split on the matter. while many local artists who were not included in documenta 14 complained that documenta 14 did not care for the reality in athens or its residents but was, first and foremost, perceived as an event for tourists, local gallerists and curators welcomed the international attention for the local art scene and presented alternative concepts or projects,125 thus also offering a platform for artists who were not invited to take part in documenta 14. 125 one of those projects was the 6th athens biennale (2017–2018), which was titled “waiting for the barbarians.” with reference to documenta 14, it critically reflected on questions like, “will there ever be any ‘learning from athens’? what do words such as ‘education,’ ‘freedom,’ ‘queer,’ ‘north,’ ‘south,’ ‘indigenous’ signify in contemporary cultural debates? are we witnessing the coming of the barbarians, or the taming of the barbarian?” however, since the barbarian was neither considered to be “the ominous other, the refugee, the migrant, the muslim, nor […] the ‘northern colonialist’,” here, the barbarian was supposed to be “closer than ever.” according to this, the 6th athens biennale did not consider itself a host, but “invite[d] the barbarians in.” “6th athens biennale 2017–2018,” athens biennale, accessed april 12, 2019, http://athensbiennale.org/barbarians/. fig. 3: poster at the premises of the athens school of fine arts (asfa), 2017. photo: barbara lutz. 118 learning from crisis? on the transcultural approach to curating documenta 14 the greek anthropologist elpida rikou ελπίδα ρίκου articulates another critique of documenta 14’s presence in athens.126 she problematizes the legacy of documenta in adopting “a discourse of the oppressed other, of the refugee, of the trans subject, or of the marginalized indigenous,” while “at the same time, documenta is a powerful institution that comes to a city in crisis.” taking into account this kind of relationship, she compares it to the situation when “activists acquire an important role in an important institution,” while their discourse changes the context and creates other effects. in this respect, she calls on every art production to consider “the relationship between grassroots projects and the institutions that adopt the same language.”127 while, from a transcultural perspective, the selection of artists, their site-specific work, and their multiand trans-local ways of presentation can be acknowledged as a step beyond the master program of the western art canon, from a postor decolonial point of view, the institution does not seem to have reflected on its own position of superiority—be it culturally or economically—and has proved to be sucessful mainly in connection with comparable institutions in the cultural and educational sector.128 in order to truly experience the exhibition venues and to learn from documenta 14, visitors were faced with its geographical extension, and thus with the financial and logistical challenges of visiting both cities. as it was almost impossible, or not the aim of documenta at all, to attend all venues during a stay in one of the cities,129 visitors were not only invited but expected to select a few locations or drop in randomly. in this way, individuals were encouraged to find their own route through the urban infrastructure, thereby getting the opportunity to deeply involve themselves in the matrix of the respective city and its people, or at least gaining a better understanding of (their capacity to involve) themselves. 126 together with anthropologist eleana yalouri ελεάνα γιαλούρη from the department of social anthropology of panteion university, rikou is one of the coordinators of the research project “learning from documenta,” that has been investigating documenta 14’s impact on athens since its curatorial team first arrived in the city in 2015. 127 risa puelo, “the messy politics of documenta’s arrival in athens,” hyperallergic (april 10, 2017), accessed april 12, 2019, https://hyperallergic.com/371252/the-messy-politics-ofdocumentas-arrival-in-athens/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the. 128 in athens, institutional partners were, for example, national museums, theaters and festivals, libraries, universities, foundations, or research centers. see latimer and szymczyk, the documenta 14 reader, 680. 129 as stated in documenta 14’s newsletter on september 19, 2017, during the one hundred days of documenta 14 in kassel 891,500 people visited the exhibition venues, the events, and works in public space, while the exhibition venues of documenta 14 in athens were visited over 339,000 times. see “newsletter archive,” documenta 14 newsletter, accessed april 12, 2019, http://www.documenta14.de/en/press-materials. 119the journal of transcultural studies 2019, issue 1 in this context, “aneducation” invited “the visiting public to engage with contemporary artistic practices and to leave traces in athens and kassel.” it provided a public program which focused on learning as a process that engages one’s body and senses in an active way.130 one of the activities that exhibition visitors in kassel and athens could attend, for example, was a walk in a group with one of the nearly two hundred members of the documenta 14 chorus, who took their point of departure from the encounter between different “voices” of different people, with the aim of learning from each other’s contexts in relation to art, artists, and the public. in this respect, the program did not refer to usual “dichotomies,” such as “knowing and not knowing, sense and nonsense, significance or insignificance.” instead, it was rather pointing to the “absence of grand narratives” and approaching “the project of working and learning together through a reorientation guided by shadows and echoes.”131 athough this process of art mediation could also be experienced as a disillusion for visitors hungry for factual, easily accessible knowledge, it was in line with the curators’ claim of “learning from” as a “working process that forms multiple questions rather than concrete answers,” as fokidis points out with the intention of “a creative and necessary confusion.”132 by adopting this approach, participating in documenta 14 could be an “unsettling experience,” as it is termed in postcolonial pedagogy in order to question what remains uncontested in educational and cultural machinery. this kind of experience should make us realize how we are inevitably intertwined in specific histories, social settings, and cultural conditions that let us (re)produce difference, because “[o]nly then does unlearning become a means to imagine non-dominant futures.”133 closing thoughts almost two years after documenta 14 finished, the question remains whether its various forms of collaboration turned out to be anti-authoritarian and thereby have actually effected transformation and ensured equality for the various positions, such as those of the participating institutions, artists, curators, visitors, and the many other actors in and beyond kassel and 130 as the education program for documenta 14, aneducation adopted methodologies and approaches that were based on the work and understanding of different artists, architectural practitioners, thinkers, or educators, such as annemarie and lucius burckhardt, lina bo bardi, oscar and zofia hansen, and ulises carrión, who lived and worked mainly in the twentieth century. 131 “about,” documenta 14 public education, accessed april 12, 2019, http://www.documenta14. de/en/public-education/. 132 fokidis, “learning from athens,” 4. 133 dhawan and castro varela, “breaking the rules. education and post-colonialism,” 329. 120 learning from crisis? on the transcultural approach to curating documenta 14 athens on a cultural level. another question is whether and in what way the high demands of the curatorial concept could generally meet the educational claim of the postcolonial approach to exhibiting and mediating art in a global context, and could also be of value for documenta 14’s successors. in order to overcome the shortcomings of intercultural dialogue in the light of current realities, the process of learning with instead of from others could have been the next reasonable step to reduce or even dismantle hierarchies and overcome binaries from a transcultural perspective. thus, in addressing principal aspects of postcolonial pedagogy in the global intertwinings of art today, many of documenta 14’s initiated collaborations seem to reveal an international exchange for the benefit of some powerful intitutions. in this way, documenta 14 only appears as a powerful catalyst for the image of the institution in the global context of art with reference to athens, or respectively to a european hub of key cultural importance. the violence curtain | timothy nunan | transcultural studies the violence curtain: occupied afghan turkestan and the making of a central asian borderscape timothy nunan, center for global history, freie universität berlin although less studied than afghanistan’s eastern and southern border with pakistan, afghanistan’s northern border, which has separated afghanistan from the russian empire, the soviet union, and, today, the central asian republics, has long been an arena of transcultural mobility and interaction. since the nineteenth century, western interventions have brought in afghan rulers like shah shuja, nadir shah, and hamid karzai across the durand line to the east, southeast, and south of today’s pakistan. other afghan rulers who came from the north, such as ‘abdurrāhman khan and babrak karmal, have been installed through russian imperial diplomacy and soviet military intervention. labor migration, refugee movement, and international terrorist activity in the afghanistan-pakistan borderlands are well known, but few scholars have explored turkmen pastoral migration across the russian-afghan border, the meaning of the soviet nationalities policy for northern afghanistan’s populations, or how soviet refugees transformed northern afghanistan as they fled from collectivization in tajikistan and uzbekistan in the 1930s.[1] the lands of northern afghanistan may lie beyond the remit of the traditional historiography of both afghanistan and russia, but they constitute a case study of how socialist regimes of sovereignty have shaped afghan history.[2] one reason for this, of course, is that the soviet-afghan border also became a cold war border—but one that both separated and connected the populations on either side. soviet travelers often emphasized that crossing the border was like entering another world, but in reality northern afghanistan had long been in contact with the soviet union. the government in moscow had been the first in the world to recognize afghan independence in 1919, and the red army had driven the so-called basmachi (anti-soviet rebels) into afghanistan during the 1920s. the ussr had mooted investing in oil and gas fields in northwestern afghanistan in the 1930s, but exchange between the two countries truly intensified after 1955 as moscow sought to court non-aligned afghanistan as a friendly buffer state against american client states in iran and pakistan with a large aid package. seeking to connect afghan goods and enterprises (such as they were) with soviet enterprises, soviet engineers built afghanistan’s largest cargo port in hairaton (across the amu river from termez) in the early 1970s, and in 1964, soviet engineers completed the salang tunnel at an altitude of over three thousand meters through the hindu kush, halving the travel time between kabul and the soviet union. and during the soviet occupation of afghanistan itself (1979–1989), engineers constructed the friendship bridge between termez and hairaton—opened as a means to funnel more military equipment to kabul, but later famous as the scene where the last soviet troops pulled out of afghanistan on february 15, 1989. throughout, soviet specialists, uzbek and tajik translators, and ordinary afghans were linked together in new patterns of exchange as the soviet union became afghanistan’s largest trading partner.[3] all of this makes the soviet-afghan border sound like an example of soviet development aid in action, which it was.[4] yet the most startling example of transcultural interaction between the soviet union and afghanistan during the cold war remains underexplored in the historiography. during the military occupation of afghanistan, sixty-two thousand soviet border guards normally stationed on soviet soil conducted a separate intervention into northern afghanistan. they did so first in order to save local populations from mujāhidīn attacks, but later to extend the soviet border regime into northern afghanistan for hundreds of kilometers down to the ring road built by the soviet union in the 1960s. this intervention, the present paper argues, generated novel regimes of sovereignty and new inequalities in the value of afghan and soviet lives in this border zone. even as the soviet border forces unleashed a campaign of wanton repression in much of northern afghanistan, soviet komsomol advisers sought to guide afghan children to an imagined future of soviet-afghan brotherhood.[5] yet as this mission to impose order faltered throughout the 1980s, soviet advisers changed the tools with which they sought to integrate the borderlands into a socialist project. as the soviet army and the border forces withdrew from afghanistan in the late 1980s, northern afghanistan became marked by a post-socialist, postcolonial condition signified by a fetishization of legality and the market. how does this investigation contribute to the theme of transcultural mobility? in recent years, scholars of soviet and eastern european history have studied cultural exchanges, foreign students, and economic aid in order to understand the many layers of soviet international engagement.[6] valuable as much of this scholarship has been, however, it mostly focuses on eastern european and soviet actors.[7] this is understandable as most of these interactions were with eastern european partners, but it also silences interactions with the central asians, not to mention the middle eastern, african, and asian populations outside the soviet bloc. the problem is compounded by the fact that the “global turn” or “transnational turn” seen in so many fields has been slow in coming to the study of iranian and afghan history, as well as to the historiography of the arab world.[8] much of the research literature, in short, reflects and reproduces existing area studies formations—something this article seeks to challenge through its focus on soviet-afghan encounters during the period of military occupation.[9] in terms of sources, this paper draws on the archives of the all-union leninist young communist league (abbreviated as komsomol) as well as memoirs and interviews of soviet border guards who served in northern afghanistan during the 1980s. clearly, as different as these two actors were, these sources privilege the russian perspective of this interaction. the safe exploration of the other side has not been possible for many years. the present study will try to make up for this lacuna as much as possible through a careful analysis of the ideological presuppositions as well as the rhetorical strategies underlying these russian sources. while the komsomol is best known as a soviet mass organization for youths, following the 1978 “april revolution” of the people’s democratic party of afghanistan (hizb-i dimukrātīk-i khalq-i afghānistān, here abbreviated as pdpa), afghan communists requested aid from komsomol to build their own counterpart. such mass organizations for youths were an essential part of any single-party communist regime. beyond enforcing the party’s monopoly on culture and social organizations among youth, they funneled youths into the ranks of the military, the intelligence services, and the party (especially in afghanistan). leadership in these youth organizations was often a crucial rung in the professional ladder and the network development of a rising communist party cadre: mikhail gorbachev, for example, served as a secretary for komsomol organizations in his hometown of stavropol in the late 1950s and early 1960s following his graduation from university. similarly, hu yaobang in china rose from head of the youth league in the 1950s to general secretary of the party in the 1980s. such youth organizations were developed on a global scale in communist regimes such as east germany, china, vietnam, south yemen, and angola, but also in “countries of socialist orientation” like syria. these organizations circulated and linked youths throughout the socialist bloc and its allies.[10] the afghan version, the democratic organization of the youth of afghanistan (sāzmān-i dimukrātīk-i jawānān-i afghānistan, here abbreviated as doya), was founded after the revolution with substantial assistance and funding from the ussr. from 1979 (before the soviet intervention) to 1988, approximately 180 komsomol advisers were deployed to provincial afghanistan to assist their afghan colleagues in making doya a functional youth organization that could supply the pdpa with new cadres. in contrast to several other aspects of the soviet occupation of afghanistan, the russian archives for these operations are freely available, allowing one to gain a picture of rural afghanistan during the occupation.[11] komsomol divided afghanistan into nine administrative zones (corresponding to eight compass points plus a center zone), with northern afghanistan, as discussed here, corresponding to the north, northwestern, and northeastern zones. in addition to these reports, this article draws on the memoirs of soviet border guards who served in the extension of the soviet union’s border regime into northern afghanistan in the 1980s. there is no general history of the soviet border forces (which guarded the longest border in the world), but they were a unit of the kgb since 1957, employing tens of thousands of military professionals until the collapse of the soviet union. they had their own academic institutions and training centers, and officers in the forces often spent their careers rotating between the ten border districts along the ussr’s western borders, the black and caspian seas, the borders with iran and afghanistan, china, mongolia, and north korea, as well as the pacific ocean and the bering strait. these forces were recognizable from the green epaulets on their uniforms—a detail that will become significant later. while the ordinary archives of the border forces remain closed to outside researchers, post-soviet history has created a context in which new and valuable sources have emerged. while the members of the border forces were eligible for state pensions upon retirement, those who had served in afghanistan, like members in many other soviet military missions abroad, were sworn to a regime of absolute secrecy. in contrast to members of the border forces serving elsewhere, they were never given official papers certifying their participation in the afghan conflict. hence, even as veterans’ associations grew after 1991, the border guards, as well as military “internationalists” from forty-six other small-scale conflicts, were not given access to the welfare benefits provided by the russian federation to “official” veterans. the passage of a “federal law on veterans” in the russian federation in 1994, which granted hitherto excluded veterans access to public resources, partly rectified this legal situation. yet given the lack of official documentation and access to kgb archives, many of the “veterans” of such conflicts started publishing memoirs describing their experiences abroad. this was part of an effort to prompt the veterans’ associations to lobby for access to the relevant documents and benefits. such memoirs have been recognized in recent scholarship as essential for writing the history of the cold war and soviet transnational engagements, an example being studies on the role of soviet military personnel in the israeli-egyptian war.[12] one must use these kinds of sources with caution. komsomol and doya had, by their own admission, only limited access to the afghan countryside, and while the komsomol advisers’ reports contain invaluable details, they are classic examples of soviet bureaucratic style and omission. any broader history of afghanistan during the 1980s would also have to include sources like the archives of the western ngos that operated in afghanistan during the 1980s, mujāhidīn publications, and not least the publications and memoirs of the afghan regime itself. while the border guards’ memoirs are far from self-critical, they provide valuable details about the administrative status of the border forces’ occupation of northern afghanistan. they also show the lens through which soviet border forces saw the afghan resistance; they characterized them as “bandits” (rather than an opposing army or even people in violation of the new, extended border regime). this mirrors trends in the afghan regime at the time, which referred to its opponents as ashrīr (evildoers). to be clear, this article does not endorse these terms, but instead sees them as evidence of the kinds of attitudes concerning inside and outside, order and disorder that officers in the border forces shared even while engaging in a radical transformation of the border regime itself. drawing on these admittedly one-sided sources, the present essay will map the hitherto unexplored making of the soviet-afghan border region. it hopes to contribute to the historiography of imperial borders in general and those of the soviet union in particular. it will bring this historiography into dialogue with recent anthropological literature on borderscapes and the “postcolony.”[13] borderscape here does not just refer to the soviet-afghan border as a concrete place, but also to the wider institutions involved in the maintenance and management of this border area, its meaning to the people living in and near it, and the regimes of sovereignty which it created within and beyond the border zone. with the term postcolony, i do not imply that afghanistan or its northern part was a soviet colony—it was never formally colonized and its government claimed the soviet occupation to be an act of collective defense. rather, this piece engages with other scholarship on afghanistan that examines how its ambiguous sovereign status has generated discourses and subjectivities similar to more straightforward cases of colonial and post-colonial sovereignty.[14] i am interested in the ways in which the specificities of the soviet-afghan case (occupied but not colonized, and with a long history of close ties) did or did not generate the subjectivities and preoccupations characteristic of other, better-studied “postcolonies.” the first section will explore how soviet border forces began their interventions in northern afghanistan. the second section explores the high point of the border guards’ intervention into the north, from 1982–1986, when they undertook active combat missions in the region. a third section explores the period from 1986–1989, as the border guards were reined in and soviet advisers turned to new forms of economic liberalization and “national reconciliation” to manage the north. in doing so, the study hopes to furnish not only a rich empirical account of the afghan-soviet border during the cold war, but also an account of the effects of these regimes of sovereignty on the populations of the region. moving to forward border defense when komsomol advisers arrived in northern afghanistan in the autumn of 1980, their mission seemed manageable. the northern provincial committees of doya were the biggest in the country, save for the capital, with the badakhshan, balkh, and herat cells numbering six thousand, five thousand, and four thousand members, respectively.[15] during their first year in the north, advisers could conduct their work in conditions of peace. only four percent of the youth in the northern zone belonged to doya, but one adviser remarked that the period from november 1980 to february 1981 saw “relatively sustainable people’s power and support for it in several districts, sub-districts, and villages.”[16] provincial and district committees built theaters, houses of soviet-afghan friendship, youth camps, and other institutions that lavished time, money, and care on young afghans.[17] many of these institutions were only semi-functional in the provinces, but central institutions in kabul underscored the vision held out to afghan youth. a central pioneers’ palace in the capital (opened in february 1981), itself modeled on komsomol-managed pioneers’ palaces in the soviet union, housed a theatre, a driving school, a library, a swimming pool, a cafeteria, and a gymnasium.[18] institutions like these promised to not only educate and socialize a new afghan ruling class, but also to fulfill certain soviet notions about the ideal childhood—secular, “cultured,” and sheltered from war. for soviet komsomol and party advisers, building socialism in northern afghanistan held particular importance for the construction of a stable afghan client state. given the layout of the highways that soviet and polish engineers had constructed decades earlier, it was only via provinces like badghis, jowzjan, sheberghan, and balkh, along afghanistan’s northern borders, that soviet military vehicles could deliver supplies to herat, kabul, or areas in the south. secondly, however, the north held resources that could be extracted to cover afghanistan’s mounting debts to moscow. already in the 1960s, it had become clear to soviet analysts that the afghan state was not capable of raising the funds needed to repay even the lowor zero-interest loans that the soviet union had extended to kabul, and exports such as dried fruit or karakul wool were inadequate even in barter arrangements. these pressures only increased following the soviet occupation, but afghanistan’s only resources of value were gas and oil reserves in the country’s northeast, so keeping control of these was vital if only to make the occupation less financially ruinous. one border guard summed it up: “the northern provinces had a population higher than two million, extractive industry, gas pipelines, a network of roads, bridges, and tunnels. they constituted the decisive part of the agricultural sector of the national economy of the country.”[19] more than just a crucial logistical corridor, the north could provide the foundation for the afghan working class and peasantry that the pdpa claimed to represent. yet the north also constituted a zone to be defended for soviet strategic interests. from here, afghan mujāhidīn were able to stage attacks on soviet territory. the southern border of the ussr along the tajik ssr’s gorno-badakhshan autonomous oblast’ (region) offered hundreds of miles of easy access to soviet territory. such fears, moreover, had a long history as well as being grounded in reality. the fear that the cia was attempting to establish a “new great ottoman empire” on the territory of the central asian ssrs had been one of the reasons for the soviet union to intervene in afghanistan in the first place in 1979.[20] starting in the “early 1980s” at the latest, the cia began investigating muslim restiveness in central asia and commissioned thousands of copies of the koran in uzbek translation for distribution among soviet muslims. later, in the spring of 1985, moreover, afghan mujāhidīn actually conducted successful raids into the soviet union itself with the encouragement of the cia.[21] as the soviet occupation faltered, top kgb analysts went as far as toying with the idea of partitioning afghanistan, with the more “valuable” territories north of the hindu kush to serve as a defensible buffer state.[22] soviet border forces internalized what it meant to protect the border from outside sources of disorder. they believed in the idea that the nation-state—its borders in particular—had to be guarded at all costs. many knew no other world than the border. pavel polianskii, who served “at the southernmost point of the union—kushka,” recalled his father’s service in the takhta-bazar battalion. as the foreword to polianskii’s account explained, “takhta bazar is a special biographical fixture (ob’ekt) for the poliankskii family, seen by them as a sign of fate.”[23] igor’ muchler’s family history went back even further. his father began his service in belarus in 1924, but was transferred to central asia, where igor’ and his brother (who also became a border guard) grew up.[24] “in my youth,” muchler recalled, “i took in everything connected with the border.” he mastered turkmen and tajik and “never thought of another destiny than that [of living at the border].” asked why he joined the guards, his response was direct: “for an idea (za ideiu).” in short, masculine figures like muchler had invested in the imaginary of the border and its defense. more broadly, these ideas about service, masculinity, and the border belonged to a set of ideas in which individuals’ “identity space” was taken to be contiguous with the “decision space” of the states they inhabited, and in which “the defense of identity space was built into the life cycle of male citizens.”[25] soviet border guards had long seen themselves as guardians of a firm line between two states. but as afghan resistance to the soviet-supported kabul regime intensified, the border forces began to conduct forays into northern afghan territory to protect vulnerable afghan confessional minorities, namely ismaili shi’a living in afghan badakhshan. in the spring of 1980, border forces invaded the area surrounding gulkhan, a village in afghan badakhshan. commanders met with village elders to explain: “the soviet unit had come to provide aid to locals; hence, should the inhabitants experience a shortage of some staple (salt, flour, kerosene), they should come to the border guards.”[26] yet the terror that mujāhidīn groups launched against pdpa activists and minority populations gave rise to rumors that the ussr was establishing a safe haven for afghan refugees. indeed, not long after this episode, the ussr apparently began admitting small numbers of afghan refugees. “in the middle of june [1980],” wrote one soviet border guard of an unnamed location, “around six hundred afghan women, children, and elders, saving themselves from bandits, were forced to escape into soviet territory.”[27] the border forces denied the existence of any official policy, but soon local pdpa secretaries “organized border trade between tajikistan and afghanistan.” as the komsomol adviser for the northeast zone reported, the operations helped increase the recruitment figures for badakhshan; in the course of one year, the organization doubled its membership.[28] as security conditions worsened, however, the afghan government petitioned the soviet union to extend its own border regime into afghanistan itself. gennadii zgerskii, the commander of the central asian border district, explained: mujāhidīn bands near moskovskii and khorog had launched massacres of afghan communities bordering the river amu. all of this was done deliberately with the goal of provoking the inhabitants of the border area (prigranich’ia) and, of course, the border units themselves. hence, a clear, direct threat to the inviolability of our [soviet] border had arisen. taking all of this as well as the numerous requests by the local populations of the border regions of afghanistan for defense from the depredations of the bandits into account, a decision was taken by the [soviet] government [in early 1981] to introduce irregular units from the central asian district . . . into several points to increase border security and protect the local population.[29] this decision prompted a dislocation of the soviet border regime from the physical space of the border itself. the memoirs of one iurii dagdanov, the commander of a repair company based in the tajik capital of dushanbe, provide a sense of how the new border regime worked in practice. one day, dagdanov’s company was flown from dushanbe to a regional base of the border forces in pyandzh, a town on the northern banks of the amu river. in his recollection, dagdanov explained how his assignments with the border forces had brought him closer and closer to the afghan border, making a deployment in afghanistan seem like his destiny. he steeled himself, he explained, trying to be brave like the native americans portrayed in the east german “red westerns” with which he had grown up.[30] dadganov did not dwell on the irony of admiring an indigenous resistance fighter against foreign colonialism while waiting to be deployed to afghanistan. as dagdanov recalled—think of the earlier description of the border forces—he and the other border forces officers stood near the landing pad wearing their green epaulets. yet dagdanov’s superiors surprised him by first collecting the green gear of the border forces members and handing out red soviet army epaulets for them to wear while in afghanistan. “don’t write anything,” they ordered. at the time, recalled dagdanov, “no one was supposed to know that soviet border guards were serving in ‘afghan.’” indeed, while moscow made no secret that the soviet army was operating inside afghanistan within the framework of collective self-defense and the 1978 soviet-afghan friendship treaty, neither of these allowed for the wholesale extension of the soviet border regime into the country. while no documents on the politburo’s thinking on this particular matter are forthcoming, public knowledge of the border forces’ presence in afghanistan would likely have only strengthened the rumors that the soviet union was even contemplating annexing afghanistan, or at least its northern borderlands. in any event the helicopter transported dagdanov and his colleagues to yangi qala, a village across the amu river in afghanistan; lights in tajik villages were still visible that evening. now, instead of protecting isolated afghan communities on the soviet-afghan border (and doing so in their capacity as members of the border forces), these officers were operating inside afghan territory in a clandestine capacity. dagdanov described his time in afghanistan as a period when “we killed without documentation and without insignia [i.e. without border forces epaulets].” none of this was a secret to the officers at the time, but dagdanov was not the only former border guard to mention the strict secrecy of the entire operation. “in letters and scribblings home,” wrote dmitrii mantsev, “under no circumstances were we to mention any military actions. all of our border guards were officially continuing to carry out their service on native soil (na rodnoi zemle).”[31] a policy of plausible deniability demanded the fiction of the border as a concrete, physical place, even as events were projecting the border regime (with all of its rules of engagement) into afghan territory. in spite of the intervention, komsomol advisers reported throughout 1981 that security conditions had worsened.[32] of the twenty-four districts in the entire northern zone, the pdpa controlled only seven. in balkh, pdpa officials could enter only ten of the province’s 455 villages “without escort from armored vehicles and military units.”[33] confronted with fifteen thousand rebels from “bandit committees,” it was difficult to build a communist party. for komsomol advisers who had arrived thinking, “we would be planting trees, watering parks, oases, and so on [. . .], the reality turned out to be totally different.”[34] in less than a year, mujāhidīn managed to kill over a hundred doya members. in deh kazi, “two paralyzed peasants who had received the land of a feudal lord were chopped to pieces”; in meymaneh, bandits had “brutally tortured and killed the three sisters of a female schoolteacher for the fact that she had continued to teach and was not wearing the paranja[35] in spite of multiple threats from the bandits.”[36] other bandit groups detonated bombs that destroyed the gas and oil lines and interrupted the electrical grid between afghanistan and the soviet union. attacks on the connector road between the ring highway and the port at hairaton led to backups of military supplies. what was to be done? “live work” soon, the border forces were expanding the violence of the first incursions deeper into northern afghan territory. at the end of 1981, recalled zgerskii, “the leadership of our country took the decision to introduce the border forces into the northern provinces of afghanistan.” he explained: “the [border] forces were assigned a belt of responsibility with an average depth of 100–120 kilometers, the so-called zelënka, up to the radial road (i.e. the ring road) that connects the centers of the northern provinces. orders were given to liquidate organized banditry in this belt as well as the bases for the storage of weapons, ammunition, and other materials that were located within and near this belt.”[37] one border guard explained the rationale: “from the very beginning of the afghan epic, the border forces were given the task of unilaterally creating a buffer zone, one that would firmly separate warring afghanistan from soviet soil. simply speaking, the purpose was that our compatriots living in the border territory wouldn’t have to confront direct military actions from the [mujāhidīn] bands.”[38] in order to maintain the border as a clean divide between order and disorder, between inside and out, the border forces had to extend the actual border regime over a hundred kilometers south. the extension of the frontier not only protected the soviet union from attacks; it also made explicit the ways in which the border’s logics of inside and outside applied to different kinds of afghans. while the border forces began military operations against “bandits” and villages opposed to the government, komsomol and its afghan counterpart doya protected youths as the harbingers of a healthy future afghan society. sometimes this took the form of enlisting them into paramilitary and social organizations to keep them safe and within the borders of afghanistan. as one border forces officer in the north explained, homeless children in afghan towns and cities became a “fearsome weapon in the hands of the enemies [. . .]. an afghan child would come up to a russian soldier and beg for bread. they’d feed him, of course, but after the child had walked away, an explosion would go off.”[39] doya kept afghan children occupied during the school year, but border guards noted that children were often targeted for recruitment by the mujāhidīn particularly during school vacations. “[they] had to feed themselves,” noted one, “and the enemy gladly offered the children ‘internships with food provided’ in the territory of pakistan, from which the students returned after the vacations as quite effectively trained fighters ready for terrorist activity.”[40] komsomol therefore set up student labor divisions to pay the students as a “peaceful alternative to the pakistani vacation voyages.” this resulted in an army of “more than a thousand fighters,” according to one border guard. while the source is not precise on how the student labor divisions yielded fighting forces, he most likely meant that such organized youth formed a ready recruitment base for the afghan army or khda, or that they could be directly armed themselves, as part of another institution, namely the social order brigades. the latter were small, armed squads of youth who guarded doya facilities from mujahidin attacks and who themselves were imitations of a domestic soviet institution that dated back at least to the years following world war ii.[41] many youths, in short, were integrated into the campaign to turn northern afghanistan into a stable buffer region managed by a soviet border regime in cooperation with pro-soviet local organizations. as a consequence, the border with the ussr ceased to exist in a meaningful sense for many of the children enrolled in doya’s programs. doya actively enrolled orphans as well as children of afghan party elites in transnational pioneer activities. written soviet sources on this are scarce, but photographs show the extent to which afghan youths were present at both the all-union pioneer camps in crimea and the smaller republic-level pioneer camps in ashgabat and dushanbe.[42] after 1984, moscow and kabul also ran a program of a longer duration whereby children of pdpa elites would come to the ussr for up to ten years for ideological and professional training.[43] western human rights groups claimed that soviet institutions had trained some of these children to assemble weapons disguised as toys and to conduct assassinations in a kind of inversion of the pakistani “vacation voyages.”[44] while the border forces in the buffer zone were protecting the imaginary of a “hard” border between the ussr and afghanistan, the komsomol and doya made it easy for afghans of a certain age and political background to cross the border. afghans twenty-five years or older, however, who were too old to qualify for doya protection, could be shot on sight by soviet “border” guards. zgerskii’s choice of words in calling the extended border zone the zelënka was telling—the word means “brilliant green” and refers to a topical antiseptic known for its green stain. “already by february 1982,” the commander wrote, “we began the first systematic cleansing (planomernaia ochistka) of bandit groups from the belt [under our] responsibility.” after a first operation in qala-i dal, a village in kunduz province, border forces moved on to the cities tashkurgan and andkhoy in adjacent provinces as their next targets. “whoever was there in ‘afghan,’” reflected one border guard, “knows what a ‘cleansing’ (zachistka) of villages means. block off the village from all sides and then [. . .] that’s why at first they got armed formations of afghans who were loyal to the government installed in kabul to do it.”[45] other border forces officers’ memoirs made clear the extent to which their regime went beyond the ordinary, bureaucratic routines of guarding the soviet border. many felt liberated. “no more scribbling (pisanina), no more unnecessary paperwork, no more pestering paperwork (nadoevsheisia kantseliarshchina),” reflected viktor shevelev.[46] “only live work (zhivaia rabota)!” phrases like these underscore the extent to which the border guards quickly saw their mission as divorced from protecting the concrete space of the border any more. rather than taking pride in defending the physical space of the soviet union—with all the bureaucracy it entailed—many border guards celebrated “killing without documentation.” “it’s fashionable today to criticize ‘the party machine’ and ‘the totalitarian regime,’” wrote dmitrii mantsev. “but i’d note that in many senses it was precisely thanks to this arrangement of party and political work that our forces succeeded in completing the tasks laid out before them.”[47] one common point of comparison in several accounts was the world war ii-era “road of life,” an ice road across lake ladoga that constituted the only access corridor to besieged leningrad.[48] the obvious difference, however, was that the road of life had been part of a war of defense and an operation conducted inside of soviet territory. official soviet propaganda held that afghanistan was the victim of an “undeclared war,” but the border forces were unambiguously in a foreign country, and northern afghanistan was hundreds of kilometers away from any possible front of the “undeclared war.” yet the komsomol advisers needed the border guards to do all the “live work” they could manage to be able to complete their mission. the quest to build socialism had to continue—at the very least, to man and expand the technical infrastructure that soviet specialists had spent decades building. as mentioned, the gas fields of northern afghanistan supplied kabul with one-third of all revenues.[49] soviet geologists continued to survey the area and discovered several new gas and oil fields.[50] however, threats abounded. in august 1981, the leader of a group of soviet geologists was handed over to anti-government “bandits” by his driver and executed after negotiations over a ransom payment broke down.[51] additionally, a summer 1983 report from the technical college in mazar-i sharif noted how the situation there was deteriorating. overall enrollment numbers were up, but students came primarily from mazar-i sharif itself; it was too dangerous for students from jowzjan, faryab, or samangan provinces (half the college’s former enrollment) to travel to classes.[52] militants threatened to kill those who continued to attend this school.[53] at the same time, many students who did continue harbored “anti-soviet attitudes.”[54] not only komsomol advisers at this technical college, but also those in more remote areas of northern afghanistan needed the security provided by the border forces. in his annual report on doya activities in baghlan, badakhshan, kunduz, and takhor provinces, nikolai poliakov, the komsomol secretary for the northeast zone from 1981–1982 described how the political group setam-i melli[55] was exporting valuable lazurite to pakistan to fund its own arms purchases.[56] poliakov’s report noted that aerial strikes on the lapis lazuli mine had minimized the separatist threat for the moment as “up to five thousand bandits were exterminated.”[57] seeking to detach northeastern afghanistan to form an independent republic, this group had taken over the lapis lazuli mines at sar-e-sang. compounding these problems, east german intelligence reported that china (also part of the “undeclared war” in afghanistan”) was supplying maoist groups in badakhshan with weapons and—ironically—chinese border guard uniforms to prepare for the announcement of an independent republic.[58] even as these intelligence officers inveighed against the illegitimacy of beijing supplying the technologies of border enforcement to afghan groups, they overlooked how the soviet union was itself taking control of afghanistan’s border spaces with the border forces’ campaign. over the longer term, however, it remained unclear whether the security provided by the border forces’ operations actually paid off. key districts in the north did not become paragons of socialist modernity but continued to be rather fragile constructions. in balkh province, the komsomol head adviser, bakhadyr kasymkhodzhaev, noted that many districts had “lost” large numbers of members when mujāhidīn captured those districts. doya membership in balkh had proportional representation of tajiks, but pashtuns and uzbeks were under-represented by a factor of two and three, respectively.[59] a cast of transnational soviet-afghan actors helped keep doya’s institutions functioning: in march 1984, a soviet uzbek woman married to an afghan opened an orphanage in mazar-i sharif that sent forty-five afghan children to soviet orphanages within five months of its opening.[60] however, the quest to cobble together soviet-afghan transnationalism was hard-won: the building in which the orphanage was located was a re-appropriated restaurant and club (publichnoe zavedeniie), and the mazar-i sharif pdpa gorkom failed to provide enough money for its operations. yet doya was losing money not just in balkh. normally, in both the soviet union as well as its satellite states, mass organizations were financed through a combination of subsidies from the party and membership dues. however, such a system obviously depended on both a strong central state, capable of collecting taxes, and territorial control, which allowed the regime to convince or coerce youths and their families to join these mass organizations. the afghan regime, however, was financed by moscow, and as reports made clear, its reach rarely extended beyond the provincial capitals. one financial statement written by an uzbek adviser to the jowzjan provincial committee of the doya shows how kabul and moscow had to subsidize such institutions.[61] the salaries for the provincial committee’s leadership alone amounted to four times the committee’s gross annual income from membership fees. yet the problem had less to do with a bloated administration than with a lack of members. if the doya provincial committee had enrolled as little as six percent of the population of jowzjan, it could have been self-financing.[62] in contrast, komsomol in the soviet union could report approximately 36 million members in the mid-1980s—approximately twelve percent of the population.[63] nevertheless, doya enrolled less than one percent of the province’s potential members and did not control enough territory to enroll more. nor were these problems unique to jowzjan. in baghlan, to the southeast, doya spent three times as much money as it brought in.[64] to recoup its expenses, the baghlan doya’s provincial committee needed to enroll 3.4 percent of the population, but it enrolled less than one percent of the province’s estimated population. without moscow’s dramatically increased spending on afghanistan and the efforts by soviet and afghan militaries to secure the cities and the nearby countryside, the doya branches were in a precarious position. the resources needed to maintain the soviet-afghan world forged in northern afghanistan were large and growing with increasing security threats. mikhail gorbachev, who had been named general secretary of the cpsu in 1985, sensed the crisis, calling afghanistan a “bleeding wound.” growing tired of the incompetence of afghan general secretary babrak karmal, gorbachev, other soviet elites, and afghans arranged for his ouster and he departed for moscow in november 1986. replacing him was najibullah ahmadzai, a gynecologist by training and the former head of the afghan kgb. in contrast to the secretive karmal, he was considered competent in addition to being an outstanding orator. from the start, he said all the right things. the north, he argued, was of vital importance to the afghan state. after his ascension, najibullah called balkh province “a good neighbor of the ussr” and the staging ground for the soviet friendship bridge. “the important issue for [balkh] and for the entire country,” najibullah stressed, “is that of gas and oil.”[65] he announced a policy of “national reconciliation” whereby opposition groups would be brought into the government, the regime would tone down its emphasis on marxism-leninism, and a new constitution would guarantee a more pluralistic political order. yet with the soviet army and the border forces still occupying much of the country—not to mention the ongoing jihad from mujāhidīn forces—the shape of afghanistan’s sovereignty remained unclear. forging a soviet postcolony as kabul declared a policy of national reconciliation, the border forces shifted their strategy. “there was nothing close to resembling a peaceful situation at that time,” recalled gennadii zgerskii, but the border forces “stopped planning attacks on bandits and acted only in response to active sorties.”[66] by 1986, the task of the border forces changed from the aggressive mandate to hunt down rebels begun in 1982 to a defensive stance. tens of thousands of border guards still occupied the north, but they “merely” protected the population and the gas infrastructure. intelligence officials and military advisers sought to train replacements for the border forces, but problems abounded. tajiks and non-pashtuns dominated among the twenty-six thousand men employed by the khad (the afghan kgb) and morale among army officers was low.[67] “the rebels,” noted one border guard, “didn’t view the armed forces of the dra as a mobile military force; in several instances, they saw it as an arsenal to top up their manpower and technology.”[68] when a pashtun officer stabbed a classmate at a military academy in east germany, the east german secret police pressed the afghan embassy to send the offending student home.[69] but the afghan attaché rebuffed them. “in afghanistan there are many peoples with partly different languages,” wrote the east german processing the case. “the biggest tribes there are the daris (sic) and the pashtos (sic). the attaché and [the guilty student] both belong to the pashto, but [the wounded student] is a dari. as a result of his belonging to the same tribe as dil agha, the attaché is anxious to support the student, even if agha obviously bears responsibility.”[70] a stasi spy surveilling a similar institute came to similar conclusions. “the present situation is nothing other than smoldering gunpowder,” he wrote. “now we have to unconditionally think over and decide what is going to happen with these people if the whole thing doesn’t work like we had thought.”[71] the fact that both the afghan embassy and the stasi officers were thinking more of tajiks and pashtuns—or “daris” and “pashtos,” the two groups’ languages—rather than socialists and counter-revolutionaries signaled a change of approach towards the afghan body politic. for much of the first half of the 1980s, the afghan communists and their soviet advisers had spoken of the power that unadulterated violence had to remake the nation. pdpa killers had been blunt in proclaiming that they “only needed a million afghans to build socialism” or, in an even more extreme statement, that they had “no use for the population of afghanistan—only the territory of afghanistan.”[72] in a world of imperialist encirclement, socialism’s only hope was to exploit the privileges of the sovereign nation-state to apply class justice to secure its hold. institutions like doya (or its counterparts in, for example, syria or south yemen) were to play an important role in this project, seeking to forge a homogenous socialist cadre out of the reality of postcolonial heterogeneity. with the rise of gorbachev, however, these ideas lost their hold. in early politburo discussions about afghanistan, gorbachev and his advisers were modest about their goals in the country. “we clearly set our goals,” noted foreign policy hand anatolii chernyaev about a november 13, 1986 politburo meeting. “accelerate the process whereby we have a friendly, neutral country and get out of there. we do not want socialism.”[73] nor was this just the sentiment of gorbachev and the idealists around him. “a leading role for the pdpa is never going to work,” explained chief of the general staff sergei akhromeyev in a may 21–22, 1987 meeting. “no matter what [the afghans] do,” explained akhromeyev, “within a year we’ll have a ‘bourgeois government’ on our bayonets.”[74] this was unavoidable—the real problem was breaking the news to the government in kabul, “since they proclaim themselves to be revolutionaries fighting against imperialism.”[75] very quickly, not just foreign policy hands but also military men were dismissing terms such as “imperialism” and “bourgeois government” which had been fundamental to communist parties claiming a “leading role” for themselves in the first place. however, this move away from grand narratives of socialist internationalism and the accompanying institutions had effects in afghanistan that were similar to those identified by scholars for “postcolonies” elsewhere. by “postcolony,” scholars like jean and john comaroff and achille mbembe refer not merely to the state of postcolonial sovereignty, but also to the condition in which postcolonial disorder and mayhem coexists with “self-imaginings and identities grounded in the jural [i.e. legal].”[76] as najibullah announced his plans for national reconciliation, komsomol and doya operatives in the provinces polled local youth on their understanding of the government’s new stance.[77] in some cases, moreover, the komsomol advisors who helped to organize these polls recorded afghan youths’ responses. iurii kovch, the komsomol adviser for baghlan province, summarized the top five demands that local youth made in response to the polls on national reconciliation: the party and state leaders of the dra should personally conduct negotiations with the leaders of the counter-revolution in pakistan; limit the drafting of youths into the army; have the soviet forces leave the dra as soon as possible (obespechit’ skoreishii vyvod sovetskikh voisk iz dra); free prisoners from the prisons; improve security for those carrying out agricultural work in the hills.[78] the role of the soviet army or the border guards in protecting socialism in afghanistan had no purchase among these locals. whether they used the term “counter-revolution” themselves or kovch inserted it into the text we do not know, but what is clear is that these youths had little time for the pdpa or an afghan state involving them in the way doya had been designed to do. the youths criticized the army and demanded that kabul halt the “harvesting” (otlov) of youth, reduce the period of service, and increase pay. at the same time, however, the surveyed youths were ambiguous about the new beginning promised by national reconciliation. if, they said, “rebels” did not seek reconciliation with kabul, then “government power should actively and ruthlessly exterminate [them].” in spite of hopes that national reconciliation might create a durable and legitimate political settlement, the respondents seemed to agree that an “equitable, just, ethically founded, pacific polity” could only be founded on the threat of indiscriminate violence against opponents.[79] as mentioned, najibullah had proposed a new constitution for afghanistan, a theme about which the doya workers in baghlan had also asked. the youths were forthcoming, but here, again, they seemed to suspect that najibullah’s promised “reconciliation” through a new constitution was but a tool to secure power by means of law. they were concerned about constitutionally-secured entitlements for those who had died for the revolution, asking: “does the constitution envision the same freedoms and rights for rebels, counter-revolutionaries, and the members of their families as it does for peaceful citizens of the republic?” if the earlier model of stateand nation-making had sought to eradicate difference, doya’s respondents thought in terms of a national community legally divided into victims and perpetrators: “those who died for the revolution” and “counter-revolutionaries,” in komsomol’s summary of the youths’ answers in baghlan province.[80] rather than assuming that a sense of civic afghan identity was winning out, the respondents seemed to imagine that back-door complicity—rather than the quest to erase it through reconciliation—was the driving force of afghan politics for times to come. these assumptions, but also the constitutions actually promulgated by kabul in 1987 and 1990, reflected, to borrow the terms suggested by the comaroffs, a “nervous, xenophobically tainted sense of heterogeneity and heterodoxy” rather than a shift towards the nation as a homogenous “imagined community.”[81] this tendency became clearer in other attitudes towards the new constitution. the two most common demands that kovch received from respondents spoke to the extent to which youth imagined themselves as members of a muslim afghan nation. the constitution, they insisted, had to have the bismillah (“in the name of god . . .” in arabic and the first word of the quran) printed on the title cover and it should note, “afghanistan is above all a muslim country.”[82] not only the universal civil law, but the imaginary of afghanistan as a homogenous muslim country, affirmed through the law, would provide citizens with tools to negotiate divides across otherwise unbridgeable chasms. this may sound like kovch’s respondents were indeed clamoring for an “imagined community,” but that would ignore the faith they placed in a new written constitution as a response to the criminal violence around them, in spite of the state’s manifest inability to protect the rights of its citizens.[83] more important than this move from print capitalism to law and constitutions per se, however, was the shift in the vision of the nation that the respondents sought in a new constitution. rather than affirming equality between all citizens, responses suggested, the new constitution would permanently divide the nation into different groups based on their nationality and their status vis-à-vis the order that the constitution claimed to be erasing. respondents, for example, demanded the “formation of a committee for the realization of national equality, the strengthening of its legislative rights, and [. . .] the delivery of direct aid to the most deprived national minorities.”[84] even though these afghan youths did not discard their sense of belonging to an afghan nation (i.e. defined in terms beyond that of a specific ethnicity), they clearly did not consider it to contradict notions of ethnic citizenship or their identification with groups such as tajiks, uzbeks, or hazara.[85] and as noted above, respondents questioned whether the constitution would provide “the same rights and freedoms,” not to mention “material aid” for “rebels, counterrevolutionaries, and members of their family” as it would for “peaceful citizens.” notable, too, was the respondents’ insistence that the law itself should codify and guarantee these tensions between unity and peculiarity. this marked a turn from the previous order—while the pdpa issued id cards that noted afghans’ ethnic nationality, it did not rewrite the 1976 constitution after its 1978 coup d’état so as to guarantee specific ethnic rights. the more afghanistan descended into chaos, however, the more the different ethnic groups demanded legal recognition of their difference—such as “turkic” or “mongol” in the case of the hazara.[87] indeed, more recently, many groups opposed the rollout of digital identification cards on the grounds that they embedded ethnicity only as electronic data and not on the face of the card itself.[88] like kovch’s youth respondents, rather than seeking to escape identity politics as such, some afghans view the legal and constitutional registration of identity as a resource they can mobilize to obtain scarce resources and jobs. accompanying this shift “from ideology to id-ology”—this turn from socialist borderscape to postcolony—was an embrace of the market.[89] this itself was evocative of other cases of postcolonies, which, according to the analysis of comaroff, comaroff, and mbembe, glorify the abstraction of “the private sector” as a panacea for societal ills in spite of the fact that much of the economy was based in criminal activity. “forget about socialism,” gorbachev had advised former afghan leader babrak karmal in a 1985 meeting before sacking him in favor of najibullah. “protect private commerce, because it will take you a long time to create a different kind of economy.”[90] following najibullah’s appointment, gorbachev advised him that “all of the impediments in afghan society need to be removed and the road opened to private enterprise, primarily small property owners and tradesmen.”[91] article 25 of the 1987 afghan constitution recognized the inviolability of domestic private capital (foreign capital was not protected), and najibullah went on to call the private sector one of the driving forces of national reconciliation.[92] soviet media now promoted commerce as an engine of peace. in 1988, for example, a team of soviet journalists published an interview with the model afghan businessman rasul barat, a pashtun from mazar-i sharif who had inherited soviet trading contacts from his father, an importer of soviet goods since 1943.[93] when not running his factories, barat imported and sold mercedes, toyotas, volgas, moskviches, and nivas to locals. however, barat’s life was also full of tragedy. “i lost my father and my brother in the fire of the civil war,” he said. “if one of my cars breaks down, i can buy another one, or a third one for that matter. but i won’t be able to ever find a new father or brother.” barat’s eyes welled up as his son wandered into the room. “there’s my hope,” he said. “he’ll have to continue our family business, our contacts of business and friendship with the ussr.”[94] the decision to open up direct commercial contacts between central asian oblast’s and the provinces of afghanistan had opened up new opportunities, explained barat: soon in tashkent a store and a restaurant will open under the same name, “balkh.” it will be a joint enterprise between my firm, barat, and the soviet side. the director will be soviet, but i’ll appoint the afghan who will be the deputy director. it’s with the credits that the ussr has started to make available to afghan entrepreneurs that i’ve begun to build three more factories in balkh: two will produce glass jars, while a third will prepare juices and refreshments. i’ve started to think about and negotiate the joint construction of big hotels in tashkent and mazar.[95] yet there is more to barat’s story than meets the eye. because ninety-five percent of afghanistan’s trade was with the soviet union, biznesmen like barat had more in common with the oligarchs about to proliferate across the post-soviet world than with modest traders like his father. one american reporter who visited mazar-i sharif in may 1988 noted that barat, “who recently signed a contract to build a chain of restaurants in the soviet city of tashkent, was the host at this week’s lunch for soviet officials.” afghan officials leaked that “barat has been able to accumulate considerable personal wealth as the result of his dealings with the soviet union. barat’s residence suggests that he has in fact prospered. his home is set in a large garden planted with grapes, plums, and mulberries. there are two swimming pools, several mercedes-benz cars, and a japanese four-wheel-drive vehicle. he also breeds horses [. . .] some of his horses cost more than the mercedes.”[96] as figures like barat enriched themselves in the zone of ambiguity between the disappearing afghan state and the soviet union, it was no wonder that some people saw murder as an appropriate means of “redistribution.” the administrative landscape was changing to adapt to the new order. in 1988, kabul detached the southern portions of balkh and jowzjan provinces and united them into a new province, sar-i pol, containing “essentially the geographically ‘expendable’ portions of balkh and jowzjan—the poor, mountainous southern regions that lack irrigation systems, are more difficult to control, and are inhabited in part by potentially troublesome hazara shi’ites.”[97] the gas and oil infrastructure of the north was confined to sheberghan and northern balkh and jowzjan provinces: export pipelines went west to keleft in the turkmen ssr and supply lines east to mazar-i sharif and kabul. the regime sponsored an uzbek militia, headed by `abd al-rashid dostum, to guard the road from hairaton to the salang pass.[98] the reorganization further testified to the new post-colonial technologies of sovereignty with which najibullah was willing to experiment: an embrace of legality, the market, and now, a devolution of central control to local militias. to quote steven solnick, new “emergent forms of spatialized order and disorder” were being tested whose “logic [was] not simply one of an ever-expanding homogenization and standardization.”[99] protecting a necklace of provinces that the government in kabul needed to survive mattered more than enforcing a territorial grid of national power. komsomol and doya sought to adapt to the situation. in the soviet union under gorbachev, local komsomol committees had been encouraged to form, in effect, private enterprises (called centers for the scientific-technical creativity of youth) that could obtain loans, engage in private commerce, and were subject to minimal taxation. these enterprises became vehicles for private fortunes, and many of the “oligarchs” of post-soviet russia were former komsomol leaders who had managed to take ownership of these enterprises.[100] in afghanistan, doya boasted a much less impressive infrastructure that could be privatized or stolen, but local provincial committees nonetheless turned to a more informal kind of privatization to sustain themselves. in balkh, the pc continued to organize visits to the families of those killed defending the revolution, where doya members provided the families with “material aid” and tilled their land at a discounted rate.[101] doya members also visited wounded veterans, secured medical supplies, and donated blood. notably, however, the komsomol adviser in balkh, viktor ovsiannikov, encouraged his afghan colleagues to found a “youth cooperative” to transform child labor into cash. the revolution had “redistributed” more than thirty jeribs[102] of land from wealthy landowners to doya, where, with the help of afghan agricultural specialists, teenagers tilled the fields to grow corn, alfalfa, onions, greens, and tomatoes, which the cooperative sold to generate profits of some two hundred thousand afghanis from october 1987 to may 1988.[103] the pc also rented out youth labor to local peasants, which generated 64,737 afghanis in profit for doya over the same time period. it is impossible to situate these numbers in the local context without more information, but as ovsiannikov’s report underscored, the point was that they represented avenues for the provincial committee to fund itself and restore its relations with doya’s kabul central committee. indeed, as the same report noted, the doya central committee in kabul had ceased funding pioneer camps in balkh because of an outstanding debt of 100,000 afghanis.[104] yet as najibullah encouraged economic liberalization, doya faced a new conundrum. doya’s limited efforts to become self-funding by renting out teenagers’ labor was unlikely to make the institution profitable in the long run, and the institution’s soviet-built properties in kabul were not worth much. most young peasants in the countryside were obviously too occupied with farming their own land for profit to become engaged as unpaid laborers for doya.[105] more than that, few of balkh’s industrial enterprises wanted to hire young workers, or would only do so on a temporary or at-will basis. factories, once vaunted as the crucible of an afghan proletariat, now constituted revolving doors of under-employment. “as long as this continues,” wrote ovsiannikov, “the question of the increase in the layer of workers [i.e. the number of workers] in the youth organization will remain open.” as the brutal demands of the marketplace told young afghan men that their labor was worthless and as doya’s subsidies ran out, the great experiment to mobilize afghan youth came to an end. aftermath this glut of unemployed young afghan men, however, was now najibullah’s problem. a new task confronted the soviet border forces in the north: covering the retreat of the fortieth army. following the signing of the geneva accords in 1988 (putatively guaranteeing pakistan’s non-interference in afghan affairs), the soviet army began its retreat from the country. rather than withdrawing ahead of them, however, the border guards secured the highways from herat to kushka and pul-i khumri to termez as the withdrawal proceeded in two phases: one in august 1988, the other in february 1989. as the border was closing again, however, pdpa members saw their last chance to cross a border that had formerly been permeable at least for young afghans. one border forces officer recalled “a not entirely ordinary operation” which he oversaw in september and october 1988.[106] “we had to evacuate an entire settlement of the families of activists who had supported the new regime. they moved them from the north of the country to near the soviet border. on a modest square, there gathered some six hundred people in lingering expectation: men, women, old people, children. what limitless belief these people had in us, the soviet people!”[107] the officer was vague as to whether the border forces provided the ex-pdpa members with asylum in the ussr. those few afghans with connections, wrote one afghan survivor, “came to russia in the hope of finding refuge, but unfortunately their hopes were not realized, and even former senior politicians were left to fend for themselves.”[108] logics of socialist internationalism, once capable of bringing young afghans all the way to crimea, no longer sufficed to bring pro-soviet afghans across a border that had become impermeable. by february 1989, the border regime that once extended over one hundred kilometers into afghanistan had retreated to its original location. as viktor pastukhov, a kgb officer in the asian border district, returned to the ussr via kuskha in the turkmen ssr, he felt a wave of relief as he strolled among the soviet turkmen in whose “kazans there stewed the soup and plov prepared by the denizens of the turkmen villages, hot tea, too. this war had ended.”[109] the occupation was over, but the logic of separation and violence that had once been contained within the soviet border belt resumed. as afghanistan descended into internecine warfare, sunni murder squads targeted ismaili shi’ia in badakhshan for extermination. as one group of border guards, led by vyacheslav aboimov, discovered in the spring of 1989, mujāhidīn groups had threatened to murder the entire ismaili-populated village of zangiryoh, afghanistan. “the ismailis understood,” reflected aboimov, “that their only chance of being saved was to turn to soviet border guards for aid.”[110] soon, aboimov and the local commander from the khorog district arrived in pyandzh in the tajik ssr. the mujāhidīn groups reached out to the border forces for negotiations, but it was a ruse to attack zangiryoh. “shells and mines flew onto our territory. the circle [of mujāhidīn] around the village grew tighter and tighter.”[111] aboimov’s crew fired shells across the river, providing cover to the border forces who mounted an amphibious assault into afghanistan. after three days of fighting, the “bandits” had been scattered. “i know that peace and quiet remained in that far-flung village of zangiryoh,” reflected aboimov. “none of us received any government awards for that operation, but the very fact of saving people friendly to us became a great moral satisfaction.”[112] even as the border regime rejected afghan refugees, the notion of the soviet border as constituting some kind of humanitarian regime for vulnerable afghan populations persisted. official soviet responsibility for afghanistan had ended, but the idea of a soviet protectorate remained.[113] when tajikistan declared independence on september 9, 1991, twelve thousand soviet border troops remained stationed there. dushanbe was unable to raise its own border guard as civil war consumed the country, and moscow was already overwhelmed by tens of thousands of former soviet border forces guards returning home from newly “independent” borders (the polish-ukrainian borders, or the azerbaijan-iran border, for example). hence, the renamed “group of russian border guards in tajikistan” stayed where they were to defend the moscow-backed government in dushanbe.[114] as refugees and anti-government groups in the tajik civil war used northern afghanistan as a safe haven, the border guards constituted the sole line of defense for dushanbe. the “russian” officers oversaw an unusual recruitment regime: tajik citizens could serve with the border guards and earn more as a private than the commander-in-chief of the tajik border guards earned.[115] by the 2000s, many of the twenty thousand “russian” border guards overseeing the border were ethnic tajiks.[116] the former soviet-afghan border disappeared only gradually. in 2005, when russian officers handed over formal control of the border to their tajik counterparts, officials in dushanbe trumpeted it as a confirmation of their claim to national sovereignty (davlatdori mali). yet it was european and american cash, border technology, and legal advice that made the new institution tenable. at the time of writing this article, the regional border guard training center in khorogh uses american money to train tajik and afghan border guards to protect a former soviet borderline. all the same, a russian military base remains in tajikistan—secured there until 2042—and when asked in 2015 whether moscow would ever contemplate resuming responsibility for the tajik-afghan border, the russian deputy minister of defense replied, “i don’t rule it out.”[117] conclusion what does the history of the soviet union’s engagement in northern afghanistan in the 1980s contribute to the history of trans-regional interaction and migration more broadly? firstly, the history outlined here demonstrates the profound effects of soviet models of state building and authoritarianism on the world outside of the soviet union. as records like the border guards’ memoirs show, not only soviet technical advisers but also tens of thousands of military advisers and personnel were deployed beyond the borders of the ussr to engage in military operations. in societies like south yemen, ethiopia, and afghanistan (third world countries where full-blown communist parties seized power), but also in soviet client states like egypt, syria, and iraq, soviet contingents, clearly modelled on the operations of us forces abroad, not only shaped foreign militaries but also engaged in direct military operations. future work on trans-regional encounters might assess the meanings of these other soviet encounters in the third world, or other instances of authoritarian internationalism (for example, the vietnamese occupation of cambodia from 1979–1991). it also might assess the meaning of the withdrawal of such authoritarian internationalism from these same theaters, which in afghanistan was not only often marked by a turn to ethnic warfare, kleptocracy, and religious fundamentalism—but also by an interest in universal languages of law or human rights that could, in turn, resolve such mayhem.[118] secondly, however, the history of the soviet “belt” developed in northern afghanistan during the 1980s suggests the importance of treating authoritarian internationalism not as a phenomenon sui generis, but as belonging to the same framework as its competitors and counterparts. while the soviet-afghan border had its own peculiarities, the 1980s in general were a period marked by new experimentation with border regimes around the world. in north america, as recent anthropological work has shown, the united states sought to reinforce its aquatic and legal border with haiti as haitian migrants sought to gain entry to the united states.[119] throughout the same decade, transnational humanitarian ngos challenged traditional norms of state sovereignty in cambodia and afghanistan in order to rescue lives and cultural treasures that they viewed as threatened by socialist authoritarian states.[120] in adopting these perspectives, the extension and eventual disappearance of the soviet union’s border belt in northern afghanistan appears less like an episode in cold war history and more like an episode in the global story of new regimes of sovereignty that emerged in the 1980s. [1] on migrations from soviet central asia to northern afghanistan, see botakoz kassymbekova, despite cultures: early soviet rule in tajikistan (pittsburgh: university of pittsburgh press, 2016); on more recent migrations, see jeanine dagyeli, “shifting grounds: trans-border migration and local identity in the secondary city of kulob” (lecture, crossroads asia workshop, transregional crossroads of social interaction, leibniz-zentrum moderner orient, berlin, 21. march 2014). [2] while this essay does not go into comparing afghanistan’s different borders with one another—a task unto itself—outstanding recent works on encounters across the far more famous durand line (afghanistan’s border with british india and, since 1947, pakistan) include shah mahmoud hanifi, connecting histories in afghanistan: market relations and state formation on a colonial frontier (stanford: stanford university press, 2011); and martin j. bayly, taming the imperial imagination: colonial knowledge, international relations, and the anglo-afghan encounter, 1808–1878 (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2016). [3] for more on these projects, see timothy nunan, humanitarian invasion: global development in cold war afghanistan (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2016), chapter 2. [4] for one comparison, see artemy kalinovsky, laboratory of socialist development: cold war politics, decolonization, and the struggle for welfare and equality in soviet tajikistan (ithaca, ny: cornell university press, forthcoming). [5] komsomol (all-union leninist communist league of youth) was the major all-union institution for preparing and indoctrinating soviet youth for membership in the communist party of the soviet union, see robert hornsby, “the post-stalin komsomol and the soviet fight for third world youth,” cold war history 16:1 (2016): 83–100. [6] austin jersild, “the soviet state as imperial scavenger: ‘catch up and surpass’ in the transnational soviet bloc, 1950–1960,” american historical review 116:1 (2011): 109–132; anne gorsuch, all this is your world: soviet tourism at home and abroad after stalin (oxford: oxford university press, 2011); the socialist sixties: crossing borders in the second world, ed. dianne p. koenker and anne gorsuch (bloomington: indiana university press, 2013); rachel applebaum, “the friendship project: socialist internationalism in the soviet union and czechoslovakia in the 1950s and 1960s,” slavic review 74:3 (fall 2015): 484–507. [7] david engerman, “the second world’s third world,” kritika: explorations in russian and eurasian history 12: 1 (winter 2011): 183–211. as of 2016, this trend is beginning to change. see, among others: ragna boden, die grenzen der weltmacht. sowjetische indonesienpolitik von stalin bis brežnev (stuttgart: franz steiner, 2006); austin jersild, the sino-soviet alliance: an international history (chapel hill, nc: university of north carolina press, 2014); jeremy friedman, shadow cold war: the sino-soviet competition for the third world (chapel hill, nc: university of north carolina press, 2015). [8] on the transnational turn, see, “ahr conversation: on transnational history,” american historical review 111:5 (december 2006): 1441–1464. this trend is beginning to change for central and south asia as well as the middle east. see, among others, afshin matn-asgari, “the impact of imperial russia and the soviet union on qajar and pahlavi iran: notes toward a revisionist historiography,” in iranian-russian encounters: empires and revolutions since 1800, ed. stephanie cronin (london: routledge, 2013); robert d. crews, afghan modern: the history of a global nation (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 2015); james pickett, “soviet civilization through a persian lens: iranian intellectuals, cultural diplomacy, and socialist modernity 1941–1955,” iranian studies 48:5 (2015): 805–826; moritz deutschmann, iran and russian imperialism: the ideal anarchists, 1800–1914 (abingdon: routledge, 2016). a february 2017 workshop at boston university focused on the history of arab ties with the russian empire and the soviet union, while an ongoing series of workshops in princeton and geneva focuses on ties between the middle east, eastern europe, and the russian empire & soviet union. [9] see the article by jeanine dağyeli, in this issue. [10] on such exchanges, see robert hornsby, “the enemy within? the komsomol and foreign youth inside the post-stalin soviet union, 1957–1985,” past and present 232:1 (2016): 237–278. [11] the archival fond (record group) in question is rgaspi f. m-3, op. 13, “dokumenty gruppy sovetnikov tsk vlksm pri demokraticheskoi organizatsii molodëzhi afganistana.” several former komsomol advisers authored a book documenting their activities in afghanistan, a copy of which is available at rgaspi: mushavery (moscow: izdatel’skii tsentr “nauka, tekhnika, obrazovaniie,” 2007). [12] fredrik logevall, review of lawrence freedman: a choice of enemies: america confronts the middle east (new york: public affairs, 2008), washington post, 3. july 2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/03/ar2008070302734.html; for one example of new scholarship, see isabella ginor and gideon remez, the soviet-israeli war, 1967–1973: the ussr’s military intervention in the egyptian-israeli conflict (london: hurst, 2017). [13] achille mbembe, on the postcolony (berkeley: university of california press, 2001); jean comaroff and john comaroff, “law and disorder in the postcolony: an introduction,” in law and disorder in the postcolony, ed. jean and john comaroff (chicago: university of chicago press, 2006): 1–56; borderscapes: hidden geographies and politics at territory’s edge, ed. prem kumar rajaram and carl grundy-warr (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 2007). [14] for recent studies looking at these dynamics, see shah mahmoud hanifi, connecting histories in afghanistan: market relations and state formation on a colonial frontier (stanford: stanford university press, 2011); alessandro monsutti, “anthropologizing afghanistan: colonial and postcolonial encounters,” annual review of anthropology 42 (october 2013): 269–285; martin bayly, taming the imperial imagination: colonial knowledge and anglo-afghan relations (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2016). [15] kosimsho iskanderov, molodëzhnoe dvizheniie v afganistane (1945–1990 gg.) (dushanbe, 1992), 103, 107. [16] iu. m. alekseev, “spravka o deiatel’nosti doma zony ‘sever’ za period s 20 noiabria 1980g. do 20 noiabria 1981g.,” rgaspi m-3, op. 13, d. 15, l. 27. [17] grigoriy semchenko, quoted in mushavery (moscow: nauka, tekhnika, obrazovaniie, 2005), 161. [18] n.i. zakharov, “kak eto nachalos’,” in mushavery, 14. [19] petr ivanchishin, “zona osoboi otvetstvennost’,” in po obe storony granitsy. in addition to these factors, the northeastern “limb” of afghanistan, badakhshan, constituted a land bridge and, therefore, transit point to china, home of the virus of maoism and chinese weapons. [20] aleksandr liakhovskii, tragediia i doblest’ afgana (moscow: gpi iskona, 1995), 109. [21] steve coll, ghost wars: the secret history of the cia, afghanistan, and bin laden, from the soviet invasion to september 10, 2001 (new york: penguin, 2004), kindle edition, locations 1738 and 2035. [22] nikolai leonov, likholet’e (moscow: mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1995), 206. [23] pavel polianskii, “povtoril by vse snachala [. . .]” in po obe storone granitsy, 227–228. [24] igor’ muchler, “proval inzhenera bashira,” in po obe storone granitsy, 277. [25] charles s. maier, “consigning the twentieth century to history,” american historical review 105:3 (2000), 816, 824. [26] zgerskii, 11. [27] iu.i. zavadskii, “ot kushki do pamira,” in po obe storony granitsy, vol. 2. the author has used an electronic copy of this volume which lacks page references. [28] n. poliakov, “spravka sovetnika tsk vlksm po zone severo-vostok za period s dekabria 1981g. po noiabr’ 1982g.,” rgaspi m-3, op. 13, d. 26, l. 88. [29] gennadii zgerskii, po obe storony granitsy (afganistan: 1979–1989), ed. v.i. gribanov (moscow: granitsa, 1999), 10. [30] iurii dagdanov, “na voine kak na voine,” in po obe storony granitsy (afganistan: 1979–1989), vol. 2, ed. v.i. gribanov (voronezh, 1999). [31] dmitrii mantsev, “chp afganskogo masshtaba,” in po obe storony granitsy (afganistan 1979–1989), vol. 2, ed. v.i. gribanov (voronezh, 1999). [32] alekseev, “spravka o deiatel’nost,” l. 27. [33] ibid. [34] ivan obratsov, “ia slovno okunulsia v 1361 god [. . .]” in po obe storony granitsy (afganistan 1979–1989), vol. 2, ed. v.i. gribanov (voronezh, 1999). [35] a paranja is a central asian robe for women, traditionally worn with a horsehair veil. obravtsov probably should have used the term burqa if referring to the garment that afghan women might have been expected to wear. [36] ibid., 29. [37] zgerskii, po obe storony granitsy (afganistan: 1979–1989), ed. v.i. gribanov (moscow: granitsa, 1999), 10. [38] dmitrii mantsev, “chp afganskogo masshtaba,” in po obe storony granitsy (afganistan 1979–1989), vol. 2, ed. v.i. gribanov (voronezh, 1999). [39] vladimir pankratov, “‘vatan’—oznachaet ‘rodina,’” in po obe storony granitsy (afganistan 1979–1989), vol. 2, ed. v.i. gribanov (voronezh, 1999). [40] ibid. [41] gleb tsipursky, “state-sponsored vigilante justice and komsomol patrols in the soviet heartland, 1953–58” (unpublished paper). [42] for examples of such photographs, see stanislav korytnikov, “afganskie deti v pionerskom lagere ‘druzhba’ v turkmenskoi ssr” (june 6, 1981) ria novosti online archive, image number 776030; v. akimov, “vsesoiuznyi pionerskii lager’ ‘artek’ imeni v.i. lenina (teper’ mezhdunarodyi detskii tsentr ‘artek’),” ria novosti online archive, image number 874968. [43] “soviet influence on afghan youth” (united states department of state special report no. 139, february 1986), jeri laber papers, box 6, folder 5 (children / general), human rights watch papers. [44] john barron, “trained as a terrorist—at age nine,” reader’s digest (august 1985), 72, jeri laber papers, box 6, folder 5, human rights watch collection, columbia university. [45] sergei bogdanov, “dvazhdy rozdennyi,” in po obe storony granitsy (afganistan: 1979–1989), ed. v.i. gribanov (moscow: granitsa, 1999), 199. [46] viktor shevelev, “pamirskii variant,” in ibid., n.p. [47] dmitrii mantsev, “chp afganskogo masshtaba,” in po obe storony granitsy (afganistan 1979–1989), vol. 2, ed. v.i. gribanov (voronezh, 1999), 48-58. [48] iurii spiridonov, “most druzhby,” in ibid., 159–162.; iurii miliukov, “razvedka—glaza i ushi komandira,” in ibid., 192–200. [49] robinson and dixon, aiding afghanistan, 75, 108; “soglashenie mezhdu pravitel’stvom soiuza sovetskikh sotsialisticheskikh respublik i pravitel’stvom demokraticheskoi respubliki afganistan ob ekonomicheskom i tekhnicheskom sotrudnichestve,” in ministerstvo innostrannykh del sssr, deistvuiushchie dogovory, soglasheniia i konventsii, vstupivshie v silu s 1 ianvaria po 31 dekabria 1985 goda, volume xli (moscow: mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1987), 134–136. [50] robinson and dixon, aiding afghanistan, 109. [51] ibid., 117; evgenii evgen’ev, “pistolety nam vydavali v aeroport” (interview with vladimir snegirev), rossiiskaia gazeta, 29. october 2009. [accessed on 19. august 2017]. http://www.rg.ru/2009/10/29/snegirev.html. [52] garf, f. 9606 (mininsterstvo vysshego i srednego obrazovaniia), op. 11, d. 282, “otchët o rabote kollektiva sovetskykh spetsialistov gorno-neftianogo tekhnikuma g. mazari sharif za 1982–1983 uchebnyi god,” l. 8. [53] ibid., l.8. [54] ibid., l.13. [55] setam-i melli (national oppression) was an afghan political party founded in 1968 as a splinter group from the pdpa. in contrast to many within the pdpa (who demanded some kind of federal solution to the national question), setam-i melli demanded an independent turkestan so as to halt the supposed domination of non-pashtun minorities in afghanistan. the group itself fractured into different wings sometime in the 1970s and is perhaps best known for being involved in the 1979 kidnapping and murder of u.s. ambassador adolph dubs, see vladimir basov, “natsional’nyĩ vopros i politicheskoĩ bor’be v dorevoliutsionnom afganistane,” in v.v. basov, natsional’noe i plemennoe v afganistane. k ponimaniiu nevoennykh istokov afganskogo krizisa, ed. v.v. kravtsov (moscow: nauchno-issledovatel’skiĩ tsentr fskn rossii, 2011), 64–67. [56] nikolai poliakov, “spravka sovetnika tsk vlksm po zone severo-vostok za period s dekabria 1981g. po noiabr’ 1982g.,” rgaspi m-3, op. 13, d. 26, l. 117–118. on poliakov’s identity, see mushavery, 150. [57] nikolai poliakov, “spravka sovetnika tsk vlksm po zone severo-vostok za period s dekabria 1981g. po noiabr’ 1982g.,” rgaspi m-3, op. 13, d. 26, l. 117–118. obviously, mujāhidīn committed brutal acts of violence against afghans too. nikolai kommisarov, the vlksm adviser in fayzabad from 1982–1983, wrote of an instance in february 1983 where nine afghan border guards were kidnapped and tortured to death in the town of khogon, near the soviet-afghan border. however—tellingly—the atrocities were only discovered by soviet border forces (whether the soviet guards were in afghan territory or not is unclear), see kommisarov, “v predgor’iakh pamira” (afganskie vpechatleniia), in mushavery, 106. [58] “über die entwicklung und rolle politisch unterschiedlich motivierter afghanischer rebellengruppen, die gegen die regierung der dra als konterrevolutionäre gruppen in erscheinung treten,” docs. 9–16, folder 27384, abt. x, bstu. [59] these calculations are based on komsomol’s own internal assessments of the ethnographic balance of the province, which was difficult to establish in any event. according to several reports from the early 1980s (delo 36 and 60), balkh province was 47% tajik, 32% uzbek, and 21% pashtun; by 1984, doya’s membership was 49% tajik, 21% uzbek, and 13% pashtun. the remaining 17% were made up of smaller ethnic groups. [60] “otchet o rabote komiteta doma provintsii balkh zony ‘sever’ za period s noiabria 1984 g. – oktiabr’ 1984g.,” rgaspi f. m-3, op. 13, d. 60, l. 11. [61] o. shamsuddinov, “otchët o rabote pk doma provintsii dzhuzdzhan s akraba 1362g. po mizon 1366g.,” rgaspi f. m-3, op. 1, d. 60, l. 36. [62] calculations based on shamsuddinov (ibid.) and population data from republic of afghanistan central statistical office, economic and social indicators march 1979–1984 (kabul: 1984), 4. [63] irinia lisnichenko, “byvshiĭ pervyĭ sekretar’ tsk vlksm viktor mironenko: ‘na proshchanie ukrainskaq delegatsiia s”ezda komsomola spela mne: ‘ oĭ ne gori ta ĭ zhentsi zhnut’ …’” fakty i kommentary (september 26, 2011). [accessed on 19. august 2017]. http://fakty.ua/140505-byvshij-pervyj-sekretar-ck-vlksm-viktor-mironenko-na-procshanie-ukrainskaya-delegaciya-sezda-komsomola-spela-mne-ot-pervogo-do-poslednego-kupleta-oj-na-gori-ta-j-zhenci-zhnut. [64] “itogovyi otchet sovetnika doma zony severo-vostok provinstii baglan oktiabria 1984 goda,” rgaspi f. m-3, op. 13, d. 64, l. 23. [65] kabul domestic service, may 29, 1986, in foreign broadcast information service, daily report south asia june 2, 1986, p. cl. [66] zgerskii, “kak eto bylo,” in po obe storone granitsy, 15. [67] bstu, abt. x, folder x–843, documents 000149-000152, “über das ministerium für staatssicherheit der dra.” [68] iu. a. neshumov, quoted in petr ivanchishin, “zona osoboi otvetstvennost,” in po obe storony granitsy (afganistan 1979–1989), vol. 2, ed. v.i. gribanov (voronezh, 1999). [69] bstu, abt. x, folder 301, documents 000007–000012, “abschlußmeldung ‘unerlaubte entfernung, körperverletzung’–s 1/3 (erstmeldung) vom 04.02.1988.” [70] ibid., document 000008. [71] bstu, abt. x, folder ha xxii–242/7, document 000088, “information zur lage afghanische amk,” january 21, 1989. [72] michael barry, “repression et guerre sovietiques,” les temps modernes july–august 1980 (no. 408–409), 171–232. [73] anatolii chernyaev, notes of politburo meeting (november 13, 1986), anatolii chernyaev papers (st. antonys college, oxford university) folder 2, 91. [74] anatoliī cherniaev, notes from may 21–22, 1987 politburo session, folder 2, anatoliī cherniaev papers, russian and eurasian studies centre library and archive, st antony’s college, oxford university. [75] ibid. [76] comaroff and comaroff, 26. [77] “itogovyi otchet sovetnika tsk vlksm pri pk doma provintsii baglan oktiabr’ 1986g. – sentiabr’ 1987g.,” l. 33, l. 48. [78] ibid., 1. 35–36. [79] comaroff and comaroff, “law and disorder in the postcolony: an introduction,” 22. [80] “itogovyi otchet sovetnika tsk vlksm pri pk doma provintsii baglan oktiabr’ 1986g. – sentiabr’ 1987g.,” l. 36. [81] comaroff and comaroff, “law and disorder in the postcolony: an introduction,” 32. [82] ibid., l. 33, l. 48. [83] comaroff and comaroff, 23. [84] “itogovyi otchet sovetnika tsk vlksm pri pk doma provintsii baglan oktiabr’ 1986g. – sentiabr’ 1987g.,” l. 36. [85] ibid. [87] melissa kerr chiovenda, “hazaras as a turkic people of afghanistan—historical imaginings,” conference paper, “transregional crossroads of social interaction: the shifting meaning of regional belonging in south and central asia” conference (berlin, germany; march 21, 2014). [88] sean carberry, “afghans confront sensitive issue of ethnicity,” npr (may 8, 2013). [accessed on 19. august 2017]. http://www.npr.org/2013/05/08/179079930/afghans-confront-senstive-issue-of-ethnicity. [89] jean comaroff, quoted in “africa in theory: a conversation between jean comaroff and achille mbembe,” in anthropological quarterly, 83:3 (summer 2010), 670. [90] anatolii cherniaev, “the afghanistan problem,” russian politics and law, 42:5 (september–october 2004), 32–33. [91] cold war international history project bulletin, issue 14/15, 175. [92] such declarations represented more a concession than real policy: as of 1987, the private sector still accounted for ninety percent of agricultural production, seventy percent of logistics business, and more than fifty percent of industrial and handicraft production. [93] aleksandr gorianov, “torgovliia—sestra mira,” novoe vremia 15 (1988): 14–15. [94] ibid., 15. [95] ibid. [96] rone tempest, “northern area seen as fallback position for afghan regime,” los angeles times, may 20, 1988. [accessed on 19. august 2017]. http://articles.latimes.com/print/1988-05-20/news/mn-3816_1_soviet-union. [97] joseph newman, jr., “the future of northern afghanistan,” asian survey 28:7 (july 1988), 731. [98] barnett rubin and helena malikyar, “the politics of center-periphery relations in afghanistan, in barnett rubin, afghanistan from the cold war through the war on terror (oxford: oxford university press, 2013), 117. [99] ferguson, “seeing like an oil company: space, security and global capital in neoliberal africa,” american anthropologist 107:3 (september 2005), 381. according to one of my interlocutors, cultural disputes played a role too. sheberghan was an oil town with a tiny indigenous intelligentsia; elites in sar-i pol felt marginalized by the fact that they were ruled from a town that lacked the standing of other northern cities like meymaneh or mazar-i sharif. author interview, berlin, germany, january 15, 2014. the person interviewed for this information requested to remain anonymous. [100] steven l. solnick, stealing the state: control and collapse in soviet institutions (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1998), 60–124. [101] “otchet sovetnika tsk vlksm pri pk doma balkh osviannikova v.i. za period oktiabr’ 1987 po mai 1988 goda,” rgaspi f. m-3, op. 13, d. 173, l. 10. [102] a jerib is a unit of land measurement in afghanistan and iran. thirty jeribs is approximately six hectares (60,000 square meters), or about the size of eight and a half football (soccer) fields. [103] ibid., l. 14–15. [104] ibid., l. 12. [105] ibid., 1, 15. [106] roman bezrukov, “ne ogrubeli ikh serdtsa,” in po obe storone granitsy, 261. [107] ibid., 261–262. [108] omar nessar, interview, in “moscow’s afghan war,” bbc news, 17. december 2004. [accessed on 19. august 2017]. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4090557.stm [109] viktor pastukhov, “kaisar,” in po obe storony granitsy (afganistan: 1979–1989), ed. v.i. gribanov (moscow: granitsa, 1999), 127. [110] vyacheslav aboimov, “kishlak zangirë,” in po obe storony granitsy (afganistan: 1979–1989), ed. v.i. gribanov (moscow: granitsa, 1999), 110. [111] ibid., 111. [112] ibid., 112. [113] maier, among empires, 81. aboimov’s comment hearkens back to the domestic russian political context in which memoirs of non-recognized “veterans” of the afghan conflict began to appear following the 1994 law. [114] michael orr, “the russian army and the war in tajikistan,” in tajikistan: the trials of independence, ed. mohammad-reza djalili, frederic grare, and shirin akiner (richmond: curzon press, 1998), 156. [115] v. strugovets, “the southern borders of the cis: who is protecting them and how,” krasnaia zvezda, august 4, 1994. not only that, but according to a may 1993 agreement on the legal status of the russian federation’s forces in tajikistan, individuals in the russian armed services in tajikistan retained the right to remain indefinitely in tajikistan following their military service, as well as “the right to obtain [tajikistani] citizenship equal with citizens of the republic of tajikistan, entitled to leave the country as they wish (svobodno po sobstvennomu zhelaniiu pokidat’ stranu).” the basis for this arrangement was that the combined service of men in russian and soviet border institutions fulfilled the period necessary for obtaining tajikistani citizenship. [116] stephen kotkin, “trashcanistan,” the new republic, april 15, 2002, 29; john heathershaw, “the global performance state: a reconsideration of the central asian ‘weak state,’” (working paper), 11. [117] denis dyomkin and raushan nurshanayeva, “russia is thinking about taking over tajikistan’s border with afghanistan,” business insider, 15. october 2015. [accessed on 19. august 2017]. http://www.businessinsider.com/r-russia-mulls-re-establishing-control-of-tajik-afghan-border-2015-10?ir=t. [118] fred halliday, “the other 1989s,” open democracy, 6. november 2009. [accessed on 19. august 2017]. https://www.opendemocracy.net/fred-halliday/other-1989s. [119] jeffrey s. kahn, “islands of sovereignty: haitian migration and the borders of empire” (phd diss., university of chicago, 2013). [120] didier fassin, humanitarian reason: a moral history of the present, trans. rachel gomme (berkeley: university of california press, 2011); peter redfield, life in crisis: the ethical journey of doctors without borders (durham, nc: duke university press, 2013); nunan, humanitarian invasion. the legal adaptation of british settlers in turkey | bayır and shah | transcultural studies the legal adaptation of british settlers in turkey derya bayır and prakash shah, queen mary, university of london the grape will get darker by looking at the others. turkish proverb introduction in all the talk and action concerning the curtailment of immigration in europe, it is easy to forget that europeans from the west of the continent remain relatively privileged in their ability to travel to and even settle in other parts of the world. migration from other parts of europe to the aegean and mediterranean area is hardly new and has often been undertaken for the purpose of business and trading, involving a delicate balancing of risk and opportunity. however, migration in that same direction has taken on new forms, now interpreted as westerners’ common search for the “good life” which, despite its internal variety, is generically termed “lifestyle migration” (benson and o’reilly 2009). we have been studying one group of european union nationals settling in turkey and their social and legal experiences, as well as the reaction of the “locals” to the presence of these immigrants.[1] we research this type of migration through the instance of british settlement in turkey, with the central concern of examining aspects of the settlers’ socio-legal adaptation. to that extent, our study connects with the emerging literature on the way migrants are adapting to their new legal environment and how states are adapting their legal systems to accommodate foreign immigrants and their descendants (e.g. grillo et al 2009). however, a key difference is that research on those questions has so far primarily been restricted to south-north migration, and has seldom addressed the socio-legal issues arising from migration of europeans to other parts of the world.[2] british settlers are becoming part of the “super-diverse” (vertovec 2007) ethnic map of turkey. it is also evident that they are immigrating to and settling in particular areas of turkey and specifically in the region of study, muğla, which has a sinuously generous aegean coastline. in that region, british citizens represent the largest single group of foreign national property owners (see figure 1). in fact, british people are now the largest group of foreign national property owners in turkey, although that rank is somewhat qualified by the fact that german nationals top the list for the number of foreign-owned properties (see figure 2).[3] the number of actual settlers in muğla is likely to be higher than the 15,502 british property owners which official figures revealed on 1 september 2011.[4] most of the british people we interviewed were retired and over the age of fifty, while a smaller proportion is living in turkey because of their relationship with turkish citizen partners, and a few live there because of work opportunities. there was a slight overlap among the various categories. those in the third and first groups—the retired and workers—have strong economic motivations for immigrating to turkey since, for different reasons, they find turkey a more affordable place to live. the predominance of retired immigrants among our british interviewees reflects the fact that turkey has become a favoured settlement destination for this group, whose move to turkey often involves purchase of real estate to reside in. the main research questions in this pilot project concerned: (a) the immigration status of british settlers in turkey; (b) their legal standing in the turkish legal system; (c) the extent to which there is a choice of law —turkish or british; (d) the mechanisms that exist for the recognition of legal arrangements in britain; (e) the britons’ preferences for resolution of legal problems or disputes within or outside official fora and the mechanisms utilised; (f) the fields in which legal knowledge, advice, or assistance were most required and the mechanisms used to satisfy this need; (g) the extent to which, and the ways in which, they utilise their “common sense” of law; (h) british settlers’ views of the turkish legal system and their comparison of it with the british legal system; and (i) the extent to which eu law is regarded as important. as these questions defy easy quantification, our methodology is in the main qualitative. it is mostly based on interviews with thirty-four british settlers in turkey as well as twenty-four local turkish people involved in some capacity in the tourism economy. these data are supplemented by interviews with two dutch settlers concerning their impression of the attitudes of british settlers, an interview with an official at the british consulate in istanbul, as well as statistical and legal data in the public record.[5] inevitably, there was some pre-fieldwork naïveté on our part as we began to realise, already from some initial interviews, which key issues were emerging. property acquisition, immigration and nationality status, work, and language issues figured prominently as areas of concern although, through the interviews, we also began to develop a sense of the britons’ overall interactions with the local turkish culture and law. obtaining the viewpoints of differently placed local turkish people (traders, officials, etc.) also helped us to obtain a more balanced and multifaceted picture. in this article, we alternately refer to the “brits” or the “i̇ngilizler” in turkey as “settlers” or “immigrants.” the latter term in particular reflects a discomfort symptomatic of the assumption that immigrants should be carefully managed lest the local culture is overrun by an alien set of standards, values, customs, and even laws. it has acquired negative connotations, not least because of the way the presence of immigrants and their descendants has come to be viewed in western europe where a crisis of multiculturalism is widely being diagnosed.[6] a study commissioned by the british foreign office and published by a think tank, the institute of public policy research (sriskandarajah and drew 2006), uses the term “expatriates” and “emigrants” but avoids the term “immigrants,” retaining the perspective of britain as the mother country. a more recent study published by the same think tank (finch et al 2010) emphasises the term “diaspora” as a way of underlining the common national origin of british people settled abroad, and to argue for a greater investment in british diaspora communities as assets who could be useful in promoting british interests abroad. meanwhile, the turkish research organisation usak (2008), which reports research on a mixed group of european nationals in turkey, refers to them as “settled foreigners” (yerleşik yabancılar), although it calls for a clearer definition of the term. we found a variety of experiences and desires among the british. one british female respondent, who works from time to time as a holiday rep, had this to say: i don’t like the term “expats” which is used by british people who keep themselves to their gang. they don’t have outside interests. the main reason they are here is that it is cheap. they get bored and do not occupy their time and chat about each other. while few had made a clean break with britain, many see their future in turkey, and tend to spend their time in turkey for almost the whole year. as one retired respondent noted: we live in turkey and we want to have citizenship. i get angry when people say “in england we would do this and that.” we have chosen to live in turkey and this is our home. however, as will be seen, the desire to be fully a part of turkey and to become a citizen may be realised in only a few cases. indeed, the situation of british settlers in turkey may not be captured by an either-or scenario but involves their navigating through the interstices of legal, cultural, and social boundaries in the process of carving out a space for themselves in an alien environment. often, however, they may fail to navigate effectively and end up consolidating such boundaries. at the same time, local turkish people also have to deal with the presence of, and the challenges brought by, these foreigners in their midst, and they too are compelled to rethink their ideas of belonging. while there remains an obvious asymmetry between the experience of turkish “guest workers” in the european union and eu settlers in turkey, our findings show that this cannot be reduced to a simple power equation that would explain such navigation successes or failures. while the turkish legal system may be the legitimate authority in the country at large, at the local level, an array of legal dynamics is at play defying simplification. several turkish respondents reacted negatively to our asking a question about “ethnic” belonging, which we tried to do for all informants. asking about ethnicity and religion is fairly common, if awkwardly conducted, in different kinds of british official statistics and social surveys. in turkey, however, this can easily be read as a sign of encouraging different treatment and separatism. some insisted that humanity (insaniyet/insanlık) is the important thing in one’s relations with others, not ethnicity. actually, the information relayed by the turkish respondents demonstrates just how “super-diverse” the local population is, even disregarding the presence of europeans. we came across people of various, overlapping heritages including sunnis, alevis, turks, kurds, turkmens, greeks (rum), and iranians. in the area of study, there also reside descendants of sudanese slaves who were brought to work as the trusted servants of aristocratic households during the ottoman period. meanwhile, british people who were asked to identify themselves ethnically were not as harassed by the question, presumably having become used to being asked this information in application forms and surveys. the information gained did not lead to a definite and falsifiable picture, given the small sample and the varying types of answers given to the questions, both in terms of brevity and complexity. to look for a pattern of “typicality” from this research would not be warranted, although we can provide what seem to us some impressions of the profile of british settlers locally. most said they were british or english, and additionally used “white” without being prompted to do so. however, we also found that some of our british respondents talked of their scottish, irish, italian, or jewish roots. several of our british respondents had chosen to remain in or migrate to turkey at least partly because of their having married a turkish citizen. among those we could interview, there was only one recently widowed turkish woman who had been married to a british man; other mixed couples were all british women who had partnered with a turkish man, more often being married rather than cohabiting. a high proportion of british couples, however, were already married or cohabiters in britain prior to coming to turkey. a small minority of the british people we interviewed had converted to islam either before or since coming to turkey. this could bring its own benefits, as one couple told us when explaining about being able to act in a manner not found so acceptable in britain: for us, very easy. for the expats it is not. because we are muslim. it is quite embarrassing in a way. having the label of english muslim has opened so many doors. we think the way they do in terms of religion. as soon as they know we are muslim we are their long lost brothers and sisters. so our interaction is more intimate. socially, we felt as outcasts in the uk [and] could not blend in and socialise. we would have great trouble sitting in pubs because we do not drink. one of our interests was to find out whether a new kind of “unofficial law” (chiba 1986) was building up among the british in the area of study. the process of legal reconstruction in britain and other areas of europe by various groups of immigrant origin in diaspora, albeit generally unrecognised officially, is now more prominently documented (menski 1993, menski 2001, shah 2005). the question arises whether westerners who settled in another part of the world, such as turkey, mirror the unofficial reconstruction of legal orders by migrants and their descendants as it takes place in europe. indeed, the phenomenon of unofficial law is not confined to minority diaspora communities but can be seen as a general feature occurring under the shadow of strong state systems built up in the modern period. while many states in africa and asia continue to officially acknowledge the existence of non-state legal orders (menski 2006), others, including turkey, have emulated the modern european system of strong states by officially “abolishing” non-state legal orders. interestingly, kayaoğlu (2010) shows that legal modernisation and uniformisation pursued in republican turkey is an outcome of a global dialectic instituted when powerful western states dismissed the sovereignty of the ottoman empire and other asian states. however, modernisation has meant that alternative or supplementary legal orders have not simply disappeared, but gone “underground” to an extent, as shown by yilmaz (2005) in the case of muslim law in turkey.[7] thus, the unofficial legal orders reconstructed by diaspora groups are a particular case of a more general phenomenon. furthermore, elements of ethnic alterity now find recognition at various official legal levels in the united kingdom, which indicates that minority socio-legal reality can, under some circumstances, be acknowledged by a developed modern western state too (menski 2008). another of the features that makes the type of migration and settlement under study interesting is that the migrants concerned are often engaging in some type of trans-national social and legal behaviour and, furthermore, navigating trans-jurisdictionally, a phenomenon that is gaining more general empirical and theoretical scholarly interest (benda-beckman et al 2005, cotterrell 2008). as glick schiller (2005, 32) has written, such trans-jurisdictional practices occur within a wider habitus of “transnational social fields”: whether or not trans-migrants have legal rights in more than one country through dual citizenship or nationality, they may claim social or cultural citizenship in more than one country, although the success of their claims is mediated by their legal status. they may also follow customs, norms and values that regulate marriage, interpersonal relations, inheritance, diet, dress, childrearing, modification of the body, etc. that differ from the prevailing legal or cultural norms in one or more of the states to which they are connected. and they may follow these alternative ways of being within a transnational social field that exists beyond the territorial borders and regulation of any one government. it has been shown elsewhere how navigation by non-western migrants organising family life trans-jurisdictionally is accompanied by multiple penalties imposed by western legal orders, indicating continued interest among states to retain some type of control (ballard 2009, shah 2010a, 2010b, holden 2011). for the british people who spoke to us, burning bridges with their country of citizenship is probably an exceptional situation given the fact that many maintain family and friendship links, have bank accounts, perform some life cycle (or legal) rituals, and keep some other interests in britain (and elsewhere). the confusions inherent in understanding just what is required in a foreign jurisdiction may reinforce the tendency among some british people currently living in turkey to make a considered choice to formalise legal relationships in a jurisdiction in which one feels more secure. a previously divorced british woman who is married to a local turkish man, and whose knowledge of turkish is good enough for her to be able to teach turkish to other brits, noted: we did not marry in turkey. i refused. i understand english law. if divorcing i do not understand turkish law enough and when doing something like that i have to understand it. in turkey we only did an imam nikahı [muslim marriage ritual with an imam]. the imam asked, “what are you giving?” my husband had not thought about it. imam then said twenty goats, three cows, five gold bracelets, etc. turkish law recognises that we are married. we did also register our english marriage at the turkish consulate in kensington. even in such a case, while formal compliance was made with english as well as turkish law, one can observe the tying in of the couple to a local turkish muslim religious and customary order, revealing a form of legal pluralism at a transnational level. the overwhelming majority of the immigrants retain their british citizenship, while a four-hour flight back means visits are possible, and any psychological breaking-off is even less likely. british settlers in turkey were once themselves tourists, and therefore can also be seen as a sedentarised part of this form of globalisation involving human mobility, a transnational social field in which some decide to settle while other actors move on. although many settling brits have invested much of their savings in real estate, one female british respondent who is married to a turkish citizen reveals a more cautious approach: i have never had money to buy and now i would not. anywhere overseas, if it’s not your home country, it’s better to rent. look at zimbabwe. you’re always taking a bigger risk than in your home country. you cannot understand fully what the lawyer or paperwork is trying to tell you. you’ve got to have hundreds of thousands of pounds to lose. while this response may be untypical, and at an extreme end of the spectrum, the features mentioned above demonstrate that, from a british legal perspective, one’s domicile remains in britain since there has been no firm psychological cutting-off from one’s jurisdiction of origin. while that may be the case, and may even have concrete consequences when legal matters need attending to in britain, it is known that domicile works in capricious ways depending on the result an official decision maker wants to achieve. in the turkish legal system, meanwhile, domicile is not an important signifier and other formal and informal factors come to the fore in conditioning the experiences of the immigrants. turkey and immigration from a formal turkish legal perspective, it is the bond of nationality that marks one out as a yabancı (foreigner) and not having formal turkish citizenship deprives one of all kinds of civic legal rights. as always, however, real life is more complicated, and citizenship at the level of socio-legal reality in turkey may depend on an unstable combination of one’s ethnicity, what language one speaks, the religion one professes, what part of turkey one comes from (if at all), and the range of affective relationships one can count on as social capital. qualifying informally as a yabancı may simply result from one not being a local, an unexceptional feat in muğla, which is also marked out as a destination for a significant level of internal migration. this is especially so given the attractions of the tourist economy, a sector which has risen to major proportions in some regions of turkey since the 1980s (baki 1990). one restaurateur, himself an internal migrant, said the following: i do not feel as if i am from here. i would say i am from the black sea. since 1989 or the 1990s tourists started to come to [this town]. at that time there were only three hotels. people started tourism by opening houses to tourists. by adding new premises to their houses or repairing their old places. those who came from other parts of turkey started to buy lands and opened places for tourists. there used to be two main types of work for locals—growing cotton and fishing. evidently, some of the many migrants from turkey who went to europe (or their descendants) are undergoing return migration.[8] several of our turkish respondents had also spent time in europe (some in britain) before settling in the muğla region, or had close family who had done so. because of their european sojourn, some also had current or former european spouses, and claimed to know well british or other european customs and languages. discourses of citizenship are inevitably soaked in what is now well recognised as the trap of “methodological nationalism” (wimmer and glick-schiller 2002). while the precise contents of the “discourse of nationalism” (özkirimli 2000) that makes up turkish citizenship is specific to turkey’s own history and experiences (bayır 2013), britain (e.g. modood 2005), or any other country, certainly has its own unstable make-up of socio-legal citizenship in this respect. however, in sharp contrast to the use of the migrant presence as a key formant of contemporary nationalism in many european countries, in turkey, there seems to be a near-total absence of its utilisation in nationalist discourses. as recent work by a team of turkish scholars demonstrates, however, turkey is hardly unexposed to immigration flows especially from central and western asia, africa, and eastern and western europe (i̇çduygu and kirişçi 2009). one explanation for the relative absence of a discourse of nationalism linked to immigration may be that much of this migration occurs below the legislative radar and, unlike western europe, has not been taken on in the national agenda of lawmaking. asked about whether there had been, or were going to be, any future plans to prepare for the immigration of british people into the area, a local lawyer said: administrative bodies in this area are not aware of the foreign community. they do not take them into account as a community. there’s no support from the state. the relatively low level of politicisation that such inaction may signal could also be explained by the fact that regulation of foreigners’ immigration status often occurs through the exercise of bureaucratic discretion, even in decisions purportedly applying fairly general rules. this is not to say that there is no encouragement for a lawmaking agenda that addresses the migrant presence, especially since turkey has been identified as a transit zone for “irregular” immigration flows to europe. and it is precisely by the european union that turkey stands accused of going slow in recognising its key position and in doing something to curb these migration flows.[9] however, encouraging reform of foreigners’ law, specifically because of prospective eu membership (iom 2008), may in fact reinforce its relative non-politicisation. this is because it then comes to be viewed as a technocratic affair, like so much of eu related lawmaking in turkey and within the european union. still, eu immigrants are not themselves the targets of such reforms and they may remain in a category of “privileged foreigners,” similar to what hutley (1998) identified for japanese in britain.[10] that said, some restrictive rules regulating the position of non-nationals are evident from what one local entrepreneur, whose family has been engaged in the tourism industry in muğla since its inception, stated: there is suspicion about foreigners buying land because a lot of israelis have bought land in the eastern part of turkey. the state foresaw a risk and took some measures. now they can’t buy more than five per cent in an area. if they want to buy a piece of land more than five dönüm, they have to get cabinet permission.[11] meanwhile, some immigration rules in turkey, at least in their enforcement, remain fairly flexible. while visas are required for british citizens to enter turkey, they can be purchased for a small price (currently £10) at the port of arrival. they are easily renewed by leaving and re-entering the country and many individuals might make a day-trip to rhodes or another greek island to do this. many residents will remain on these three-month visas even though they are technically not meant to be held by residents. this way of staying in turkey may be a common pattern among british people given that nudrali and o’reilly (2009) report a similar finding for british settlers further north along the coastline, in didim. this is one of the reasons that it is impossible to obtain anything approaching an accurate figure for the number of british residents in turkey. those foreign nationals intending to stay in turkey should be applying for a residence permit (ikamet) which allows access to different facilities including purchasing utilities (electricity, telephone, etc.) for one’s place of residence, opening a bank account, and getting on the road to eventual citizenship. the price for an ikamet has been rising in recent years and, for a five-year permit, a british citizen currently pays close to £2,000. german citizens, meanwhile, only have to pay in double digits for the same permit, which angers many british people. together with general price inflation, and the necessity of providing the same documents newly translated each time, with inconsistent criteria being applied in different locations, the charge for an ikamet can be linked to other irritations experienced by british settlers. one retired accountant who has lived with his british wife in turkey since 2006 and was himself on a current ikamet, said: my wife’s ikamet ran out, but we could not renew it. she’s on a tourist visa at the moment. had a residence permit for three years before that. we take it out for five years at a time. initially we wanted to apply for turkish citizenship but no more. we’ll probably move within the next two years. there is so much negativity surrounding the laws in this country and expat bashing. there is a continual “you foreigners are the scourge of all.” they want your money but you are an inconvenience being here. they keep changing goalposts all the time. now it is so much more expensive, including the price of residencies. the cost of living is no longer cheap here.[12] the turkish authorities cite reciprocity as the justification for charging british citizens a far higher amount and link it to what citizens of turkey have to pay for equivalent permits in the united kingdom. although, there is no matching permit in the united kingdom, it is true that the charges for various types of visas and residence permits for non-european economic area nationals have risen sharply in recent years, something largely unknown to british settlers in turkey since they are not exposed to it. it is not the case, however, that british settlers are completely unaware of the experiences of turkish citizens who travel to europe, even in those cases where they have no family relations among the turkish citizens. one retired british man who had chosen to buy a place of residence with his wife in a village said: we are ashamed to admit this but unless one is of european mainstream white stock you get dealt with badly from the uk authorities for visas. turks get caught up in this and even respectable people. resentment about the fact that european countries regulate immigration closely and asymmetrically is not far from the surface. a turkish respondent, who migrated internally to muğla with his brothers, one of whom claimed to know english, german and dutch quite well because of his european travels, said: british people complain about everything including queuing for a visa. but if you compare how they treat turkish people with how they are treated here they would think turkey is heaven. conditions here and there are different. if one wants a right to settle in england one would need £50,000. i have not been abroad because i do not like the visa rules imposed on turks and do not want to be insulted by foreign countries. meanwhile, an unexpected legal shift, which causes the kind of insecurity that the british accountant expressed above, took place during one of our research trips in turkey. on 14 july 2010, there was a sudden and previously unannounced change to the rules whereby a three-month visa would no longer be issued. instead, a six-month multiple-entry visa allowing a maximum of three months stay during that period had to be obtained. this caused a lot of uncertainty among foreigner communities in turkey and, exceptionally, provoked the british consular authorities to make representations to the turkish government because of the unexpected nature of the rule change. the change was then withdrawn but many expect that its reintroduction is imminent, and such actions do not increase the confidence of foreigner communities in lawmaking processes in turkey.[13] foreigners in turkish law foreigners law (yabancılar hukuku) is the field of official law under which the regulation of british and other foreigners’ residence in turkey occurs (ekşi 2006, çiçekli 2007). this can cover fields as widely varying as immigration status, the right to work or set up and manage businesses or corporate entities, the right to buy real property, access to public health care, and the recognition of personal status under the rules of private international law. inevitably, this mixes with commonplace assumptions on the part of both the foreigners and turkish citizens about the position of the former within turkish society. the british people who spoke to us did not demonstrate any awareness of the fact that special legal regimes (capitulations) existed during the ottoman era allowing the various european and american nationals to be judged in courts instituted by their countries of origin as part of their assertion of extra-territorial jurisdiction, now described by kayaoğlu (2010) as a form of “legal imperialism.” this system sat alongside a pluralistic legal scenario characterised by segmentation across various millet and “flexible” and “diverse” administrative orders in which various non-foreign communities could regulate their affairs and apply their own laws (bayır 2013).[14] the former system of capitulations, legal concessions granted to citizens of foreign states, which came to be increasingly resented by the ottomans, was formally abolished by the lausanne agreement (1923), during the same period in which the plural domestic legal order was abrogated by the legal system of the modern turkish republic. the local turkish people were invariably firm in their view that no special arrangements ought to be made within the turkish legal system to accommodate foreigners. some did know of the different regimes which had applied to foreigners and among ottoman subjects and they did not wish to see a return to that system. the same turkish restaurateur cited above, who is also an internal migrant to muğla, made the following observation: there is enough flexibility towards british people but at the state level some things should be changed in order to improve people’s living standards. i do not favour giving more rights to british people but want them to be equal to us. if there is no equality between us and them i’ll develop some feeling of revenge towards them. we already treat them nicely and if the state also treats them with special rights this will turn them into minorities. this cannot be accepted and is also against equality. in the ottoman empire there were special rights. i want everybody to have the same law and not different groups having different laws. i want them to be equal. the modern turkish legal discourse on equality, and the view of minority rights as a violation of that principle, is reflected in this restaurateur’s statement.[15] in fact, a segmented legal order[16] of the ottoman type is now associated with, and even blamed for, the collapse of the ottoman empire, and difference of legal treatment can quickly be associated with separatism in modern turkey. political parties advocating the introduction of personal status laws based on religion have been closed down by the constitutional court of turkey, as have parties advocating the recognition of kurds as an ethnic group entitled to cultural and linguistic rights.[17] however, while the principle of equality may have somewhat of a heuristic status, the view that some “positive discrimination” was practised in favour of the british was often expressed. the head teacher at a village school in an area where some british people had bought residential dwellings said: laws and courts are just (adil). sometimes they [the british/foreigners] are even treated specially. the legal system might not be just to us but it is definitely just to them because they have means and capacity to look for justice. if something happens to them here this might put turkey in difficulties abroad. so courts would treat them with great sensitivity. they also have the right to apply to the european court of human rights. if we want to join the eu then we have to follow their rules. this statement points to the perception that turkey has to accord some sort of privileged status to europeans despite the republican history of operating a uniform legal order without being subject to the humiliating capitulations of the previous era. a few individuals also expressed suspicion about the increasing number of british settlers in turkey as a plot of the british government or expressed more than idle curiosity about why we were researching british people in turkey, whether were we trying to create some kind of separatism, and why a british body was funding this kind of research. echoing this, the usak (2008) study notes that settled foreigners are often mistakenly seen as missionaries, spies, and agents provocateurs. more generally, some turkish participants were sceptical of the wisdom of allowing large-scale foreign ownership of property with the spectre of israeli-palestinian relations being held up as a potential future scenario. all the brits who spoke with us were firmly of the view that they were obviously subject to turkish law in so far as their residence in turkey was concerned. some expressed surprise about the possibility of reliance on british laws in some instances where private international law rules might apply, for example, the making of wills, in divorces, marriages, adoptions, etc., which led to complicated discussions and more confusion.[18] such confusion increases when settlers start to encounter legal problems and it is compounded even after they seek legal advice. as with several continental european countries (e.g. rohe 2007, 19, büchler 2011, 27–34), turkey’s private international law rules take nationality as their main basis with the presumption that the foreign law will be applied, while a dispute in the english courts would be dealt with according to domestic english rules. we heard from many british respondents that they have made or plan to make a turkish will especially because of a concern about the inheritance rules regarding real property. however, a local turkish lawyer told us: british people insist on making a turkish will although i tell them english wills are valid. an english will is valid also for the dispensation of property in turkey. but the same lawyer also pointed to her own experience of the courts to the effect that the principles were not generally being applied: i have not come across a case where i could claim the application of english law. in fact, the courts here are reluctant to use british law even when english law is the law which should be applicable in the case. even when english law has jurisdiction in my cases, i do not force the court to use english law because it takes longer. the court would ask the ministry of justice in turkey and the request then goes to the turkish foreign affairs ministry which asks their [the british] foreign ministry which then asks their justice ministry. the journey would then take the reverse direction once the answer about the applicable law is declared by the british authorities. this very long process also militates against the use of foreign law in any particular case and lawyers may well advise the abandonment of any such strategy. the use of expert evidence concerning the foreign law was unknown in such cases, the lawyer informed us.[19] further complications arise when a turkish court has to be assured about the presence of living relatives who could be potential beneficiaries in inheritance cases because of the stricter requirements protecting their rights in turkish law. these instances show that, while the principle that a foreign legal regime could be applied by a turkish court is acknowledged, the time and inefficiency involved militate against that route being taken.[20] even when turkish law is applied in inheritance cases, however, the problem of different inheritance regimes, and the consequent need for proof, may yet elongate a case.[21] settlement and adaptation in turkey as already noted, british people are settling in particular areas of turkey and at a significant level of concentration. we were told by several respondents who had seen the area of study change over the last few decades that, previously, the area was frequented by german and dutch tourists some of whom had decided to settle. german predominance within the european population of the area has since been replaced with british. as the restaurateur from the black sea recounted: in 1991 foreigners—first germans and dutch people—started to come. since 1995 british people started to come, and began to buy places here. the [xxx] family began to build around 20–25 villas here. at that time land and construction prices were low and [this town] grew fast until 2002. at that time british people were buying land or houses without a mortgage. they bought villas here for £30–35,000. now the value is £350–400,000. it was a good investment for them. a carpenter involved in building houses for british customers and who has lived in the area for some twenty years explained: in the 1990s there was no imar [municipal plan controlling development and construction within an area] and cadastro [registered land]. after the ozal government the cadastro came to this area. after this, the house and land prices went up, also because this area has a good natural environment. ten years ago there were germans in this area. after [the year] 2000 the number of english people has increased. germans also used to buy land but not as much as english people. there were no hotels and people used to rent out their houses.[22] others ventured comments to the effect that german and british people do not like each other so much. it is evident today that, among europeans, the area is indeed dominated by british settlers although one can still meet german and dutch people too. german and russian residents are now to be found predominantly further along the south western and southern coastlines of turkey. these trends toward residential concentration and moving away need to be explored further than we could. still, some offered their views of the different groups of europeans they encountered. one kurdish restaurateur observed: there were germans before and they were replaced by british people. they had a competition of who will get where. they were fighting over the land. they wish to be the only ones in certain areas. british and irish people entered the construction business. a retired village official noted: there were first germans in this area and they then moved to alanya. british people then came. british and german people do not like each other. for us we do not differentiate between them. if more people come to this area this will result in changes in the natural environment and if we can keep these changes in balance and if their arrival would not spoil the environment then i would be happy to receive more immigration into this area. fig. 1: number of foreign residents and real properties owned by foreigners in muğla, turkey on 1 september 2011. source: ministry of environment and urbanisation, turkey. fig. 2: number of foreign residents and real properties owned by foreigners in turkey as a whole on 1 september 2011. source: ministry of environment and urbanisation, turkey. one of the factors distinguishing the post-war settlement of non-westerners in a country like britain from that of british settlement in turkey is that kinship factors do not seem to play as significant a role in the latter case as they do in the former (see ballard 1994 for south asians in britain). at least in the area we studied, the migration is predominantly one of couples or individuals seeking a better life and, when it is linked to family relationship, it involves mixed british-turkish couples, the vast majority of which tend to be turkish men partnered with british women. in all likelihood other kin will not follow the primary migrants to the place of settlement and that significantly influences the type of unofficial legal reconstruction which can take place. that does not mean that members of the kin group will not inherit property, and the issue of wills and inheritance is already causing some concern among british settlers and, as noted, is likely to be a major legal issue in the years to come. however, our findings need not be extended to incorporate the experience of all british settlers in turkey. the account by nudrali and o’reilly (2009) of british settlement in nearby didim, while showing that much of the immigration is of a similar nature to that in muğla, also interestingly records the increasing number of british or mixed british-turkish children attending a local school (in detail nudralı 2007). this finding may indicate that, in some localities, british settlement in turkey is starting to resemble the precedent of spain. geographical concentration might still mean that british residents can be in a position to act in common and, eventually, they might be able to impose their own norms locally. the one major limitation on the official influence they can have is that only the exceptional individual qualifies for turkish citizenship so, in general, british immigrants would be less able to influence matters through voting strength or taking official jobs which require turkish citizenship. in recent years, there have been initiatives in turkey, as part of a undp effort at stimulating local participation in decision-making, to organise a “city council” (kent konseyi) made up of residents who could put to city authorities any views about problems or improvements that need to be made. in one muğla town, the kent konseyi was divided into several sections, one of which was the foreign residents group. however, by the time of our research, it became clear that the kent konseyi as a whole had become more of a forum for organising social events, while its foreign residents group was not functioning to full effect, with the feeling among the british settlers that the city authorities were not providing adequate facilities. there were also complaints by german participants about the use of english only in the meetings, which may be linked to the mutually allergic anglo-german relations mentioned. as one dutch woman resident said: we also have english friends and german people. german people are also different. we cannot invite both english and german to same party together. they had a war together. we are a little bit in between. there was a big meeting at the town council [for the foreign residents group] and the germans were complaining because the invitation was only in english. so we went to the belediye [municipality] and did the announcement in dutch and german. also the meeting was in english and the germans left half way. the older germans who are here cannot speak english much. we translate a little bit. the belediye do announcements in german and in english. on the whole, this experiment seems to have left those foreigners who wished to work with the city authorities feeling somewhat disillusioned about being able to influence local decision-making. from some of the interviews, it also appeared that locally influential people did not want to see the city council work as it would upset the local power structures. meanwhile, we often heard from british interviewees that other british people wanted to recreate a “little england” in turkey although none of those we interviewed would class themselves among that group. one british woman who is married to a turkish man whose family has long been in the area said: english is the most extreme yabancıness among all the german and dutch and few french and russians; i cannot distinguish types of people since they all appear the same to me; i don’t know enough of the languages. there are people who have taken issues up and had rows, but on the whole they accept what they find. the english come in with different attitude. they try to build mini suburbia. but then they find they can’t have that and then feel upset about that with incessant complaining. this is not surrey on sea. they were also convinced that although their fellow brits knew that they had come to settle in a different country, that had not always been a well-considered choice in terms of their being able to adjust to a turkish social and legal environment. some observed that there was a herd-like attitude of wanting to obtain “a place in the sun” somewhat impulsively, but not fully considering all the implications of it. another british woman who had lived in the area for more than eight years with her british partner noted: when we first came here to live we met some other foreigners who were also here because they wanted to be here. in the last few years people have come because of the villa in the sun and the swimming pool. the english are also xenophobic and want to live in little england. astonishing. thus both turkish and british interviewees observed that some british people frequently complained about local conditions and rules, and often groaned that some local ways of doing things “would not be allowed in england.” one british woman who is married to a turkish hotel owner from ankara noted: british people are not respecting turkish culture and are expecting things to be like britain, but they are not. they fall in love and when they come here they find out that it is not like britain. they know they cannot work. they know it’s a different culture. then they form packs of expat communities. they do not interact with turkish communities. in winter there is nothing to do for them and they get bored. their biggest problem when they move here is that they are bored. the majority of the british people who spoke to us said that they could not converse or read in turkish. some had made efforts to attend classes or to use language learning books, but only a few had advanced to any degree. one british woman who helps other brits by teaching turkish said: germans and dutch make a bigger effort to learn turkish. but large numbers of english simply do not learn turkish and this is a huge obstacle. you’re coming to country where you are deaf, dumb, and illiterate. it’s disgraceful. another british woman, married to a turkish café owner who caters mainly to english tourists and residents, explained some of the influences that reduced the incentive to learn turkish: here all summer one can get by without speaking turkish. foreigners generally came in the hot months. in the last few years they might stay in winter also. i would speak english all summer. now in winter in the post office they [the staff] will speak english even if i speak in turkish. english people will have english-speaking turkish friends so they do not learn. for turkish people language is not an issue to them mentally. they can communicate. the english are the ones with the barriers. the british retired accountant agreed with part of this assessment when asked to what extent he knew turkish: speaking is limited, reading and writing is even more limited. it’s not easy to learn because when you try to speak, people speak back to you in english. others who have to speak because their interlocutors do not speak english end up learning more. this is a tourist town so people are not forced to speak turkish. as our respondents note, a general inability to communicate in turkish means that british people’s interaction with turkish society is limited. they cannot access services without the help of turkish-speaking friends who are most often turkish themselves. this is a severe disadvantage in accessing legal help because, although interpreting services might be available, they are not generally of a high standard and are not provided through an official mechanism despite the level of foreign settlement in parts of western turkey. most contact with official authorities does not take the form of legal action, however, but involves raising matters of concern or complaining about offences such as burglaries, which are not infrequent. in these contexts, british people were not only severely disadvantaged in communicating their problems, but also often could not find out the applicable rules or procedures, again reinforcing their reliance on turkish-speaking friends. in fact, a lack of turkish language ability meant that the social circle of many british people was limited to those who could speak english. not knowing enough turkish also means that access to turkish citizenship is restricted. a language test is compulsory for citizenship and can be administered according to criteria decided by officials at the relevant local level which thus also vary widely—from being able to make basic conversation to reading a newspaper and being able to respond to questions about its contents. those few who are keen to acquire turkish citizenship complained about the lack of a standardised benchmark for this test and the discretionary and varied manner in which it is implemented. as one retired woman who lives in muğla with her british husband who would like to work in turkey noted: for citizenship, language would be an obstacle for my husband who is not so hot on turkish. we know one lady who has done all the formalities, and then at the panel in muğla she was told that she would not pass because her turkish was not good enough. there were five people on the panel. she was asked to read from different newspapers and asked questions on what she’d read. another person in another part of turkey was asked very basic personal details and innocuous questions and got citizenship. there is a certain amount of imbalance between different places. there should be standard questions and one should know them in advance. the kinds of disadvantages to which language inability gives rise are at least partly responsible for the often expressed view among british people that the turkish legal system is too complicated, bureaucratic, slow, and even unfair. general ignorance and inability to find out about turkish legal rules also leads to information being passed around the circle of british people who know each other either personally or through internet chat-rooms. this sort of “grapevine” transmission of information may not always be so reliable, although it remains one way of responding to the legal information gap, and an important indicator that there are concerns about many subjects of how best to negotiate the official legal system. more generally, these disadvantages are not simply restricted to language, but also extend to the larger questions of differences in legal cultures. it may be observed that what british people experience in turkey in terms of having to deal with an alien legal order seems to parallel what immigrant communities go through in western countries, although members of either community are rarely aware of this. turkish interviewees frequently made mention of their culture of misafirperverlik (fondness for visitors, hospitality) and cited instances of when they had helped out british people in negotiating life in turkey. but several also observed that, as customers, british people were extremely demanding and insisted on wanting things to be done their own way. this was somewhat balanced by those turkish people who declared that “we can learn things from the british” such as timekeeping and observance of technical standards, for example in building, in their care for animals, and concern for environmental protection. conversely, some british people admired turkey precisely because of the absence of too many rules and regulations which, unlike in britain, did not constrain the freedom of the individual. the european union often came out as responsible for having laid down too many rules on british life, and several british interviewees considered that turkey therefore ought not to join the european union and instead pursue its own independent course. some respondents did comment that there was not as much freedom of speech as one might find in britain, a charge which might not appear unjustified, given the prosecution of the british cartoonist, michael dickinson, for example, who drew caricatures of the turkish prime minister, recep tayıp erdoğan.[23] one might also consider that the fine levied against dickinson and its eventual waiver by an istanbul judge on the condition that he does not draw recep tayyip erdoğan’s caricature for five years, was on account of his british status, saving the turkish state some embarrassment. turkish citizens engaging in similar satirical commentary would probably have faced much harsher punishment. indeed, the targeting by prosecution of journalists, politicians, and activists for criticism of the government occurs on a regular basis in turkey. this may indicate that, in some instances at least, british or european people are treated with more flexibility and leniency by the legal system. the village school head teacher quoted above was not unique among the turkish respondents in thinking that, in practice, many accommodative gestures are made towards foreigners by turkish officialdom and by ordinary people. environment, property, and economy at a broader level, it is apparent that the aegean and mediterranean coasts of turkey have been transformed by the tourism economy in the last few decades. new developments of hotels, villas, restaurants, bars, and shops are now a common feature of the coastal urban settlements which were previously hamlets, the population of which were largely engaged in the farming and fishing economy. the changes brought by turkish and foreign tourism to bodrum, as portrayed in the legal anthropological work of june starr (1992: 82–87), now seem a more generalised phenomenon. tourism has had significant consequences for the environment and lifestyles of local people and, as noted, also attracted migrants from other areas of turkey and the diaspora to locate themselves within the new economic system. this echoes findings by kozak and tasci (2005: 265) that up to forty-five percent of tourism service providers in fethiye had been residing there for less than five years. our research also reveals that many of those who come from other parts of turkey to work within the tourism economy are seasonal migrants who move elsewhere during the winter months. the british people who have chosen to settle were also once mostly short-term sojourners as tourists, who then decided to live in turkey. evidently, their presence cannot be neatly distinguished from the continuing and expanding levels of tourism from britain and other source countries, which in turn contributes to further settlement. this ambiguous situation has many ramifications. for one, the opinions and stereotypes held by turkish people of europeans can often flit between the “tourists” and “settlers,” and some british people who have settled feel that they are still treated like tourists who do not understand the local environment and codes of conduct. many of the british respondents were vocally critical of the dress of some tourists, thus demonstrating their sharpened sensitivity to local expectations, and perhaps also showing their consciousness of the fact that stereotypes were already built up by turkish people about the “looseness” of european women. british interviewees would often make remarks to the effect that “one would not walk around half-naked in a british city, so why do so here?” experiencing what could be described as a form of discrimination, british interviewees also told us that they, like tourists, were charged higher rates in situations where there are no fixed prices. sometimes, as foreign residents who had come to know the local traders, they would be charged the middle of the three applicable prices. significantly, as they settle, the british and other foreigners contribute to the further development of the areas which came to prominence because of the tourism economy in the first place. for example, many will either purchase ready-made villas or have them built in accordance with their design preferences, further transforming areas which were previously fields or marshlands, and contributing to further urbanisation and the overall rise in real property values. these developments have led to a counter movement by a coalition of european and turkish people to safeguard against overdevelopment which they believe neglects the ecological balance, biodiversity, and beauty of this part of turkey. in a unique account, haimoff (2006) documents her longstanding familiarity with these changes in the areas we visited, and her concerns about environmental and wildlife protection have been taken on by a motley group of european and turkish people, including scientists and local and national politicians. purchases of real property are a potentially large minefield of legal problems. many will find the process straightforward and there are even some guidebooks in english (e.g. howell and locke 2007) which warn purchasers to beware of potential pitfalls, although they are not always so clear in providing precise details of the legal situation in turkey. to start with, there are many restrictions under turkish law on where one can buy property as a foreigner since certain areas, such as those close to military sites, are out of bounds. there are official restrictions on the total amount of property one can own and the total area of land that can be owned by foreigners in any particular area.[24] the liberalising reforms introduced in the late 1980s were contested several times before the constitutional court of turkey, and have led to much uncertainty about the validity of titles to property that foreigners have acquired since then.[25] although the actual process of purchase is much simpler than in britain, one hears many stories of things going wrong. no lawyer is required as an intermediary in the process of purchase and, if buyer and seller agree, then all that has to be done is for both to go to the local property register office and authorise the change of ownership. even where lawyers are consulted, we found that they do not always advise well and sometimes even act against the interests of the buyer since they might, at the same time, know and act in the interests of the seller. for foreigners, there is also the matter of waiting for clearance after a military check which can take months. patently, however, not all follow the procedures. some will trust local people who take them into their confidence and persuade them to part with their money. the “sellers” may either be genuine persons who simply want the money to start building, or they may be crooks who just want take the money and run, never intending to change the ownership of the property. even when builders have provided the purchase price, the buyer may not get the title to the property until much later and, in some cases, the “seller” uses his property title to raise further funds, perhaps by mortgaging the property to further their business. in all such instances, it is virtually impossible to obtain the title to the property through a court process and the british people we spoke to would not have been in a position to apply extra-legal pressure unless they know someone of influence locally. we often heard the question “would you buy a property from a waiter?” as a kind of cautionary lesson, which appears to form part of the local wisdom about what not to do when purchasing property. those who have partners among turkish citizens might also face legal problems with respect to real property, which often represents much of their life savings, in case the partnership breaks up and they realise that they do not have the title to the property. in such cases, again, court action might not produce a result which favours them, even if they had provided part of or the entire purchase price. we interviewed one british woman whose turkish partner was deceased and who is embroiled in a legal dispute with the deceased’s son over the property. court action seems more prohibitive the higher the amount claimed because foreigners are expected to provide for the court a security deposit for legal expenses and costs (cautio judicatum solvi) before making any legal claim.[26] the amount to be paid is at the court’s discretion in each case. we were told that british citizens are also required to pay this deposit, although this practice would seem to be against the 1932 bilateral agreement between turkey and the united kingdom whereby both countries reciprocally promised to treat the other country’s citizens as equal to their own.[27] in other cases, a buyer may not wish to wait for the military check because they may lose a property by the time the clearance comes through, or they may wish to acquire property in a locality otherwise available only to turkish citizens. in these cases they might choose a local turkish person they think is trustworthy enough and use his name to purchase the property with the expectation of a future transfer of title. we spoke to one turkish shop owner who had done precisely this for up to three british people even though he spoke little english. asked why he had gone through such trouble for people he hardly knew, he said that as a muslim it was his duty to help someone in need. he would rather act as an example—a muslim is a trustworthy person who keeps to his word. it appears that engaging a turkish citizen to purchase property is not an unusual practice, but despite what our trustworthy interviewee said, it might not always end up with goodwill on all sides, as an estate agent told us.[28] the negative experience of foreign property buyers has led to some concerted action among estate agents’ associations to lay down standards of good practice out of concern that the reputation of their profession was being affected. british people are also engaging in the economy not only as customers, but also as potential players who seek to profit from the increased attractiveness of the areas in which they live or invest in real property. although turkish people have welcomed the foreigner presence because of the benefits of rising incomes from the business generated, higher prices, and sales of land, economic participation by non-turks often provokes the ire of some turkish people, as the foreigners are then perceived as direct competitors for the trade brought by tourists. the costs and benefits of the european presence in the study region are therefore experienced differently by differently-placed turkish people. for example, those british people who purchase villas might not live in them but instead rent them out to other foreigners from their country of origin, creating a marketing advantage and charging higher rates for rental. although their income is earned out of property owned in turkey, they may not pay local taxes and can therefore retain a much larger share than those turkish people who own villas or hotels and who have to pay taxes as well as other charges at higher business rates, thus making them less competitive. it seems that this way of “playing the system” is difficult to police although its occurrence is well known. during our stay in turkey, we came across one report of a british citizen who had been deported for unlawful engagement in the real estate agency business in the study area after his actions had been communicated to the british consular authorities, while three other such persons were also to have action taken against them.[29] this event shows that economic competition which manifests itself in terms of low-level ethnic tensions can eventually result in firm official action being taken. while not of direct concern to our study, we found other tensions that criss-cross the type already mentioned. they too contain a mix of economic and ethnic factors which sometimes bubble up into outright conflict and result in the involvement of official legal actors such as the jandarma and the courts. one instance that was revealed to us involved a local kurdish businessman married to a british woman. the man runs a restaurant which became the target of a spontaneous demonstration and attack during a televised football match being watched mainly by foreign customers. the attack came when other locals who were nearby mistakenly suspected the audience to be cheering against the turkey team. this probably cannot be dismissed as an isolated case and we were told of other such incidents where kurdish people had experienced attacks or harassment. this may be part of the wider phenomenon of sharper, ethnically-based competition which has come about since the fairly large scale kurdish migration to the urban areas of western turkey (saraçoğlu 2010). there is some evidence that when such incidents erupt the official authorities tend to side against kurdish people. attacks against kurdish people in other cities have been prominently reported in the national media in recent years, showing continuous tensions.[30] state policy remains fairly tight with respect to allowing foreigners to work lawfully. while a foreigner may set up a business, he may not manage it. an exception to the no-working rule is afforded to holiday reps, which signifies the economic importance of holiday companies. several among our interviewees, even those who were already retired, said that they would like to be able to use their skills to contribute to the economy in a positive manner but were prohibited from doing so. the british people we spoke to often have longstanding professional experiences and artisanal skills to offer, which some consider wasted. even voluntary work is not easy to perform legitimately since it also requires official permission from the authorities[31] and charitable activities, such as raising money for school activities, while they do take place, are kept at a low profile because they do not comply with official rules. unofficial working does take place although we were reminded repeatedly that that is not allowed.[32] those who do work will do so away from the public eye and the report cited above of the british citizen being deported shows the potential consequences of not doing so. there are some official rules under which eu nationals and their non-eu citizen spouses[33] and spouses of turkish citizens[34] may be granted permission to work, but we heard from a local lawyer, who had tried to apply according to those rules, that applications were never successful. eventually he had given up trying.[35] the local police representative in charge of foreigners’ affairs confirmed this by reading to us decision letters which cite the labour market situation as the standard reason for refusal. the pattern appears to show that in this region, at any rate, the policy is not to allow foreigners to work. the problem of being unable to work lawfully causes particular strains for spouses of turkish citizens. the same lawyer mentioned above stated that his colleagues in istanbul had had some successes in making applications for work permits for foreigners, showing that the region of application may make a difference to the outcome, and there may well be some protectionism in favour of turkish citizens working in the tourism sector. concluding observations british people have been settling in turkey relatively recently. the organisation of the contemporary world is premised on regimes of law that operate as an aspect of sovereignty exercised by nation states, which occasionally come together to formulate some common rules, the european union being a case of “deep” legal harmonisation in this sense. often states unilaterally formulate the rules that regulate the legal status foreigners. none of this avoids the necessity of those foreigners having to negotiate their own way through the complex of rules, official and unofficial, that accompanies their sojourn in a country. many turkish respondents referred to british and other european people as misafirler (visitors), while some british respondents also referred to themselves in a similar way. this recalls the conceptualisation of turkish people as guestworkers (gastarbeiter) in different countries of western europe although, contrary to expectations, they remained in the host countries giving rise to all kinds of legal and other consequences which those societies were not prepared to face. although their situations are not entirely similar, the psychological treatment of immigrants as guests betrays the fact that the turkish state and society have not yet come to terms with the fact that these people are there to stay as long as there is no severe disturbance. as such, their presence is only now beginning to be taken notice of in academic circles although their local impact, including in the legal field, is already prevalent. this underlines the importance of conducting a locally-based study as we have tried to do. we have found some clues about how british people are responding to their new legal environment. british people appear to be developing a distinct legal presence in turkey in the regions they are settling within, influencing and changing local ways. in some ways, they remain excluded from accessing their full official legal rights and facilities because of their cultural and linguistic differences, and because they have come from a different legal environment. however, they have begun to navigate through turkey’s legal order, using some rules to their advantage, and also going around those rules which are not necessarily convenient for them. thus it may be possible to suggest that some kind of unofficial legal reconstruction of a british common law is taking place in the shadow of the turkish legal order. many legal issues remain unresolved, although they will become more important as time goes on and will require careful navigation on all sides. thus it will be important to track the process of further socio-legal adaptation of british people in turkey. it may also be worthwhile to study closely the trajectory of other similarly-situated european citizens. references al-qattan, najwa. 1999. “dhimmis in the muslim court: legal autonomy and religious discrimination.” international journal of middle east studies 31: 429–444. baki, al’ædin. 1990. “turkey: redeveloping tourism.” cornell hotel and restaurant administration quarterly 31: 60. ballard,roger, ed. 1994. desh pardesh. the south asian presence in britain. london: hurst & co. ballard, roger. 2009. “the dynamics of translocal and transjurisdictional networks: a diasporic perspective.” south asian diaspora 1: 141–166. barkey, karen. 2009. empire of difference: the ottomans in comparative perspective. cambridge: cambridge university press. bayır, derya. 2013. minorities and nationalism in turkish law. farnham: ashgate. benda-beckman, franz von, keebet von benda-beckman and anne griffiths, eds. 2005. mobile people, mobile law: expanding legal relations in a contracting world. aldershot: ashgate. benson, michaela and karen o’reilly, eds. 2009. lifestyle migration. expectations, aspirations and experiences. farnham: ashgate. berman, harold. 1983. law and revolution. the formation of the western legal tradition. cambridge: harvard university press. büchler, andrea. 2011.islamic law in europe? legal pluralism and its limits in european family laws. farnham: ashgate. chiba, masaji, ed. 1986. asian indigenous law in interaction with received law. london : kpi. chiba, masaji. 1989. legal pluralism. toward a general theory through japanese legal culture. tokyo: tokai university press. çiçekli, bülent. 2007. yabancılar hukuku (law of foreigners). ankara: seçkin. cotterrell, roger. 2008. “transnational communities and the concept of law.” ratio juris 21: 1–18. eade, john and yordanka valkanova, eds. 2009. accession and migration: changing policy, society, and culture in an enlarged europe. aldershot: ashgate. ekşi, nuray. 2006. yabancılar hukukuna ilişkin temel konular (fundamental issues regarding the law of foreigners). istanbul: beta yayınları. esplugues, carlos, carlos esplugues mota, jose luis iglesias, jose luis iglesias buhigues, guillermo palao and guillermo palao moreno, eds. 2011. application of foreign law. munich: european law publishers. fendoğlu, hasan tahsin. 2008 yabancı sermaye ve yabancıya mülk satışı (foreign investment and the sale of property to foreigners). ankara: seçkin. finch, tim, with holly andrew and maria latorre. 2010. global brit: making the most of the british diaspora. london: ippr. foblets, marie-claire, jean-françois gaudreault-desbiens and alison dundes renteln, eds. 2010. cultural diversity and the law: state responses from around the world. brussels: bruylant geeroms, sofie. 2004. foreign law in civil litigation: a comparative and functional analysis. oxford: oxford university press. glick-schiller, nina. 2005. “transborder citizenship: an outcome of legal pluralism within transnational social fields.” in benda-beckman, benda-beckman and griffiths, 27–49. grillo, ralph. 2005. “backlash against diversity? identity and cultural politics in european cities.” oxford: university of oxford. accessed 29 may 2012 (http://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/publications/working-papers/wp-05-14/) grillo, ralph, roger ballard, alessandro ferrari, andré hoekema, marcel maussen and prakash shah, eds. 2009. legal practice and cultural diversity. farnham: ashgate. haimoff, june. 2006. kaptan june and the dalyan turtles 3rd edition. istanbul: i̇nkilap kitabevi.. hasan, farhat. 2004. state and locality in mughal india: power relations in western india, 1572–1730. cambridge: cambridge university press. holden, livia, ed. 2011. cultural expertise and litigation: patterns, conflicts, narratives. london: routledge. home affairs committee, house of commons. 2011. implications for the justice and home affairs area of the accession of turkey to the european union. tenth report of session 2010–2012, hc 789, 1 august . howell, john and tim locke. 2007.  buying a property in turkey. london: new holland publishers. hutley, rebecca. 1998. “privileged minority? the social and legal position of japanese migrants in britain.” immigration and nationality law and practice 12: 3–7. i̇çduygu, ahmet and kemal kirişçi, eds. 2009. land of diverse migrations. challenges of emigration and immigrations in turkey. istanbul: bilgi university press. international organisation for migration (iom). 2008. comparison of european union acquis and turkish legislation on migration. accessed 03.09.2011. http://www.turkey.iom.int/documents/bosluk_analizi_ingilizce.pdf?entryid=10260. kayaoğlu, turan. 2010. legal imperialism. sovereignty and extraterritoriality in japan, the ottoman empire, and china. cambridge: cambridge university press. kozak, metin and asli d. a. tasci. 2005. “perceptions of foreign tourists by local service providers. the case of fethiye, turkey.” international journal of tourism research 7: 261–277. menski werner f.1993.“asians in britain and the question of adaptation to a new legal order: asian laws in britain?” in ethnicity, identity, migration. the south asian context, edited by milton israel and narendra wagle, 238–268. toronto: university of toronto. menski, werner f. 2001. “muslim law in britain.” journal of asian and african studies. 62: 127–163. menski, werner f. 2006. comparative law in a global context. the legal systems of asia and africa 2nd edition. cambridge: cambridge university press. menski, werner. 2008. “law, religion and culture in multicultural britain.” in religion and law in multicultural societies, edited by rubya mehdi, gordon r. woodman, erik reeberg sand and hanne petersen, 43–62. copenhagen: djøf publishing. modood, tariq. 2005. multicultural politics. racism, ethnicity and muslims in britain. edinburgh: edinburgh university press. nudralı, özlem. 2007. the experiences of british citizens in didim a coastal town in turkey: a case of lifestyle migration. msc thesis. graduate school of social sciences, middle east technical university. nudrali, ozlem and karen o’reilly. 2009. “taking the risk: the british in didim, turkey.” in benson and o’reilly, 137–152. özkirimli, umut. 2000. theories of nationalism: a critical introduction. basingstoke: macmillan. rohe, mathias. 2007. muslim minorities and the law in europe: chances and challenges.new delhi: global media publications. saraçoğlu, cenk. 2010. “the changing image of the kurds in turkish cities: middle-class perceptions of kurdish migrants in izmir.” patterns of prejudice 44: 239–260. shah, prakash. 2005. legal pluralism in conflict: coping with cultural diversity in law. london: glass house. shah, prakash. 2010a. “inconvenient marriages, or what happens when ethnic minorities marry trans-jurisdictionally according to their self-chosen norms.” utrecht law review 6. accessed 29.05.2012.http://www.utrechtlawreview.org/ . shah, prakash. 2010b. “trans-jurisdictional marriage and family reunification for refugees in the united kingdom.” i̇stanbul kültür üniversitesi hukuk fakültesi dergisi 9: 93–113. sriskandarajah, dhananjayan and catherine drew. 2006. brits abroad: mapping the scale and nature of british emigration. london: ippr. starr, june. 1992. law as metaphor: from islamic courts to the palace of justice. albany: state university of new york press. ulusararası stratejik araştırmalar kurumu (usak). 2008. yerleşik yabancıların türk toplumuna entegrasyonu (the integration of settled foreigners within turkish society). ankara: usak. vertovec, steven. 2007. “super-diversity and its implications.” ethnic and racial studies 30: 1024–1054. wimmer, andreas and nina glick-schiller. 2002. “methodological nationalism and beyond: nation-state building, migration and the social sciences.” global networks 4: 301–334. yilmaz, ihsan. 2005. muslim laws, politics and society in modern nation-states. aldershot: ashgate. [1] the funding for this research was provided by a “small grant” from the nuffield foundation in england and the research project benefited from assistance by the british institute in ankara and the british consulate in istanbul. we also wish to thank the many people of muğla, turkey, who answered our questions for this research. [2] it is telling that a recent unique compilation of contributions on cultural diversity and the law globally (foblets et al 2010), in the chapters that concern the “global south", addresses issues arising from the presence of indigenous diversity, and not that induced by recent migrations, whereas the chapters concerning western countries focus on migration-induced diversity. [3] this difference may be explained by the fact that, compared to german nationals, british nationals may be more likely to own property jointly. [4] these and other figures presented here for property ownership are correct as of 1 september 2011. [5] the main phases of fieldwork in turkey were between may 2010 and july-august 2010, with some pilot interviews in the united kingdom beforehand and follow-up work afterwards. [6] this crisis goes back some years earlier than the more recent speeches by german chancellor, angela merkel, postdam 16 october 2010, and the british prime minister, david cameron, munich, 5 february 2011. see grillo (2005). [7] among the ironic results of this driving underground of non-state law is that the european court of human rights (as well as other legal fora in europe) now has to decide on the legality of denying recognition to unofficial marriages otherwise delegitimised in national law. see şerife yiğit v. turkey (application no. 3976/05, judgment of 2 november 2010). going through a religious marriage ritual (imam nikahı) before the official marriage is registered amounts to an offence under article 230(5) of turkish penal code with a liability of two to six months imprisonment. further, the imam who carries out a nikah without first seeing the official marriage registration document is also liable to punishment for the same term of imprisonment under article 230(6) of the penal code. the yargıtay (court of appeal) has even upheld the conviction of a relative who found an imam to carry out a nikah. see yargıtay 4.crime section, e. 2009 / 13, k. 2009 / 2729, 18.02.2009. for british people, a pressing issue that is bound to arise eventually is whether non-married couples who cohabit will obtain the recognition of any legal rights e.g. through inheritance laws. [8] for the “return” from germany of skilled and well-educated individuals of a turkish background to turkey often for work reasons, see “kültürschock in istanbul,” http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,704114,00.html. accessed 14 september 2011. [9]  a recent report by the home affairs committee of the house of commons (2011), and the evidence cited therein, albeit couched in diplomatic terms, makes this apparent once again. [10] several chapters in eade and valkanova (2009) also reveal the positive image of british settlers in bulgaria. [11] a dönüm is an area equal to 1000 square metres. [12] while we could not study the question of price inflation and decisions to stay, leave, or adapt lifestyles accordingly, the issue came up repeatedly in our interviews with british people, and indicated that the initial advantages of a lower price economy might be being worn down gradually. [13] “new turkish visa regulations delayed by the interior ministry,” in hürriyet daily news/south weekly, 28 august 2010. recent british foreign and commonwealth office travel advice (updated 3 january 2012) stated: “turkish authorities recently revised their visa stamps. all visas now state that they are valid for multiple stays up to a maximum of 90 days in a 180 day period. however, the immigration authorities inform us that these rules are not being applied and that visas are valid as before, for multiple entries within 90 days of issue. be careful not to overstay 90 days from the date of issue, as some british nationals have been fined and banned from re-entering.”http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/travel-advice-by-country/europe/turkey [14] barkey (2009: 70) describes the ottoman state’s institutional and organisational structure as a “flexible” and “diverse,” one accommodating “multiple systems of rule, negotiated frontiers, laws, and courts, forms of revenue management, and religious diversity.” indeed, in earlier centuries such legal pluralism was not unusual in europe, either, where it is known that a semi-autonomous mercantile law existed since the medieval period (berman 1983: 333–356). in this respect, the european merchants’ expectations in their dealings within ottoman jurisdiction may not have been all that unusual. [15] it is common to hear from turkish people that minority rights (azınlık hakları) offer an inferior system than the guarantee of formal equality of citizens under the turkish constitution. minority rights are associated in formal turkish legal discourse with non-muslim minorities. a similar view is taken in the jurisprudence of turkey’s high courts, on which see bayır (2013). [16] the use of the term “segmented legal order” should not be taken to mean that there was no inter-jurisdictional “shopping” among the population of the ottoman empire. see e.g. al-qattan (1999) for non-muslims’ use of a muslim court in damascus. for a study on muslim courts in western india, where similar processes of inter-jurisdictional shopping are evident during the period of mughal ascendancy, see hasan (2004). [17] the case of refah partisi (welfare party) and others v turkey (application nos. 41340/98, 41342/98, 41343/98 and 41344/98, judgement of 13 february 2003) in the european court of human rights is well known. it followed the closure of the political party by turkey’s constitutional court on the ground that the party’s programme of establishing a legal order in which each group would be governed by a legal system in conformity with its members’ religious beliefs was in conflict with the constitutional principle of secularism (laiklik). the application to the european court in the case of fazilet partisi and anor v turkey [2006] ecthr 488 (application no. 1444/02, 27 april 2006), in which the party had been closed down by the constitutional court on the ground that it offended against the secular nature of the turkish constitution was formally struck out after the party withdrew the case, alleging bias of the european court in refah. for the closure of political parties advocating recognition of rights for kurds, see bayır (2013). [18] see particularly articles 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, and 20 of the international private law (milletlerarası özel hukuk ve usul hukuku hakkında kanun, law no. 5718, of 27.11.2007, rg: 2672812.12.2007). [19] as gerooms (2004) and esplugues et al (2011) show, the english legal system’s reliance on expert evidence as the sole means of ascertaining foreign law is distinct, and is not followed in the other euro-american jurisdictions. the turkish case requires more research, however. [20] as rohe (2007) and büchler (2011) point out, the courts of those european countries where the nationality principle is the point of departure for ascertaining the applicable law may, in practice, not apply that rule for reasons other than those evident here. in the turkish case, the lawyers we spoke to also cited as a further reason the fact that the judges in the local, lower level courts are not very willing to go down the route of clarifying foreign law and because the lawyers often find it difficult to explain the issues to the judges. [21] by enforcing the application of turkish law in real estate matters in this way the personal law of britons is undermined. turkish law requires the application of the principle of “reserved rights” (saklı haklar) based on the culture-specific logic of preserving certain shares for close relatives regardless of the deceased person’s wish. obliging british people to comply with the reserved rights principle paves the way for potentially very complicated legal disputes in the future, while arguably failing to respect the personal law of british people. [22] for a fascinating picture of changing legal regimes for landholdings in the region around bodrum since the ottoman empire up to the 1960s, see starr (1992, 45–68). [23] see “artist defiant despite fine for turkish pm ‘mockery’,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8558805.stm, last accessed 13 january 2012. [24] see article 35 of the deed law (tapu kanunu, law no. 2644, of 22.12.1934, rg: 2892-20.12.1934). [25] the consequent changes in the legal situation for foreigners buying property are detailed in turkish by fendoğlu (2008). [26] article 48 of the international private law (milletlerarası özel hukuk ve usul hukuku hakkında kanun, law no. 5718, of 27.11.2007, rg: 2672812.12.2007). [27] convention on subvention for civil procedure (mün’akit müzahereti adliye mukavelenamesi), passed by the turkish parliament with law no. 2045 on 28.06.1932, rg: 2142 -05.07. 1932, in force 13.07.1933. [28] the practice is also referred to by another estate agent in “reciprocity proves sticking point for real estate acquisition in turkey,” in sunday’s zaman, 8 august 2010. see http://www.todayszaman.com/news-218452-reciprocity-proves-sticking-point-for-real-estate-acquisition-in-turkey.html, last accessed 13 january 2012. [29] “turkey deports uk citizen for illegal activity,” hürriyet daily news, 7–8 august 2010. meanwhile, the account by nudrali and o’reilly (2009) shows that, despite the legal restrictions, in didim, the involvement of british people as estate agents or workers in such agencies is prevalent. [30] in fact, as bayır (2013) shows, economic factors have often been a key element of ethnic violence against minority groups in the history of the turkish republic. [31] see article 7(e) of the regulation on voluntary work in special provincial administration and municipalities (i̇l özel i̇daresi ve belediye hizmetlerine gönüllü katılım yönetmeliği, rg:25961009.10.2005). [32] articles 18, 19, and 21 of the law on foreigners’ work permit (yabancıların çalışma i̇zinleri hakkında kanunun, law no. 4817, of 27.02.2003, rg: 25040-06.03.2003). [33] article 8(e) of the law on foreigners’ work permit and article 50 of regulation of the law on foreigners’ work permit (yabancıların çalışma i̇zinleri hakkında kanunun yönetmeliği, rg: 25214-29.08.2003). also see regulation on employing foreign nationality personnel in foreign enterprises (doğrudan yabancı yatırımlarda yabancı uyruklu personel istihdamı hakkında yönetmelik, rg: 25214-29.08.2003). [34] article 8 (a) of the law on foreigners work permit and article 44 of the regulation of the law on foreigners’ work permit. [35] for official statistics on work permit issues since 2003, see http://www.csgb.gov.tr/csgbportal/showproperty/wlp%20repository/csgb/dosyalar/istatistikler/yizin. accessed 17 january 2012. territorialism, ambivalence, and representational spaces in gilgit-baltistan | antía mato bouzas | transcultural studies territorialisation, ambivalence, and representational spaces in gilgit-baltistan antía mato bouzas, leibniz-zentrum moderner orient, berlin introduction the dispute over the former territories of the princely state of jammu and kashmir—the so-called kashmir dispute—represents a complex case of spatial politics at the intersection of central-south asian regions. during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, boundary-making—the politicaland administrative organisation of territory—was particularly intense and dynamic in this area, impacting people’s identification with a larger social group as well as their subject status as members of the princely state. the first war between india and pakistan was fought over kashmir in 1947, dividing the princely state. however, far from incorporating the kashmir territories into modern nation states and opening the way to democratic participation, the conflict set the resulting territories—azad jammu and kashmir (ajk) and gilgit-baltistan in pakistan, and the state of jammu and kashmir in india—aside under distinct constitutional and administrative arrangements with the respective countries that currently claim them. for some, “kashmir” evokes notions of identity and territoriality located in the homonymous valley that is controlled by the republic of india, but it is problematic for others, such as people inhabiting the territory of the administrative entity known as gilgit-baltistan, on the pakistani side. to this day, gilgit-baltistan has an ill-defined semi-autonomous status in pakistan, with more negative than positive consequences for the local inhabitants. fig. 1: map of the disputed territories of kashmir including important settlements. source: design hermann kreutzmann 2015, reproduced with permission. the present article examines how processes of territorialisation (new meanings of territorial control) in gilgit-baltistan by the pakistani state, as well as the association of the region with the kashmir dispute, are being challenged by local groups through representations of its transregional linkages. the focus is on baltistan, a former sub-division of ladakh wazarat (one of the provinces of the princely state of jammu and kashmir) that became practically a landlocked territory after the drawing of the ceasefire line in 1949.[1] during the events that led to the division of the princely state, an indigenous movement arose at the northern periphery centred in the town of gilgit. as it spread south, it incorporated armed groups from baltistan in an effort to displace the maharaja’s and indian forces that were controlling it.[2] these armed groups finally came close to leh (the capital of ladakh) but despite support from the pakistani army, they were later forced to retreat back north to the area around kargil (today a border town in ladakh, on the indian side).[3] in this process of shifting territorial control, baltistan was cut off from the rest of ladakh, a territory with which it shared historic, economic, and cultural ties (primarily language and a similar ethnic identity), and more importantly, from the adjacent area of kargil, with which connections had been even stronger. later, in the aftermath of the 1971 india-pakistan war, india also seized several villages in the chorbat la region close to khaplu, the largest village in baltistan. the ceasefire line, renamed the line of control in 1972 (hereafter loc), formalised the separation of baltistan from both the territories of the princely state on the indian side, and from ajk on the pakistani side, to create a new territorial entity in pakistan known as the northern areas (renamed in 2009 as gilgit-baltistan). subsequently, baltistan was linked administratively to the “regional” centre located in gilgit in the north, an area with which it had next to no previous economic relations.[4] as part of the collective endeavour to explore emerging notions of belonging in the south-central asian borderlands in this issue of transcultural studies, this paper describes how processes of territorialisation have produced gilgit-baltistan as a distinct space that cannot be qualified as state space.[5] the link between gilgit-baltistan and the kashmir dispute further highlights inconsistencies that promoted a shift in the sense of belonging among the people of baltistan. i propose that this shift is due to the ill-defined political status of gilgit-baltistan in general, being neither fully part of pakistan nor separate from it, and this instability is further accentuated by the territory’s peripheral position at a border zone with a high risk of confrontation. in response, a transregional sense of belonging emerges that tries to overcome the resulting instability and isolation through attempts to reposition baltistan within a broader context in which it had hitherto been marginalised. this essay discusses how gilgit-baltistan has been conceptualised by the pakistani state as having an ambiguous relationship with the kashmir dispute, which in turn has justified interventions to prevent the development of representative politics in the region. this has resulted in shifting representations of the space[6] of gilgit-baltistan by the dominant pakistani civil-military bureaucracy on maps and in political discourses as a disputed territory, to which exceptional rules must be applied that limit people’s rights and sustain military-autocratic forms of control. in an indirect challenge to these state measures, a number of individual activists and other social groups (cultural associations, ngos) in the area have recently revived symbolic and cultural manifestations of a different belonging. in baltistan, these mostly emphasise cultural ties with tibet. taking the forms of language revival, the protection of buddhist sites, and the preservation of old folk and musical practices that have been fast disappearing, they offered new modes of self-identification. attaching alternative meanings (or imaginaries) connected to ideas of the past to their representational spaces,[7] these groups aim at countering the external control and uncertainty that defines their environment. while these manifestations do not take the form of openly political demands (such as calls for independence), they do reconfigure the sense of belonging in this disrupted borderland. they also demonstrate the potential to break up the existing order, as they expose its inconsistencies. in other words, instead of pakistan or kashmir, such border-related cultural manifestations promote the alternative of tibet as a transregional space—and in principle a non-controversial sense of belonging as a way to challenge the narrowing of political space. the arguments discussed here are based on field research i conducted between 2009 and 2014. my fieldwork was primarily carried out in baltistan and included a visit to gilgit. in the course of several trips to islamabad, i also conducted interviews, mostly with people from the baltistan area and some pakistani government officials. due to the sensitivity of the topic, unless names were explicitly mentioned with the consent of the interviewees, i opted for maintaining the anonymity of those i met. additional field research was carried out in the area of kargil and leh on the indian side. the field research was part of a project that focused on local understandings of the kashmir dispute and the manner in which the views of the local population relate to general explanations of the dispute by the government and in scholarship. the first section of this article discusses the conceptualisation of (spatial) expressions of territoriality in the south asian context. the second part addresses the case of gilgit-baltistan as part of the kashmir dispute by looking at how this area has been produced as an ambivalent space (as understood in terms of production of space by lefebvre) through its exceptional legal status. the last section focuses on the ways in which baltistan’s marginalisation within pakistan is being challenged by several social groups through appeals to the transregional character of this territory with the help of cultural symbols. the problem of spatial conceptualisation in the disputed south asian borderlands the issue of territoriality and the understanding of social space in south asia emerge, as elsewhere, in relation to the exercise of political power and control in different historical periods. scholarly works that have addressed the question in the asian context underscore the spatial dimension of different historical trajectories, which indicate alternative experiences of space.[8] they also point to the problems accompanying a conceptual terminology mainly based on western european experience and its application to non-western societies. the expansion of the nation-state model as a form of political organisation, mainly after decolonisation in the second half of the twentieth century, has accentuated the inconsistencies between the form/shape (the state) and the content (the spatial practice). with its emphasis on the struggle for freedom at the domestic level, and for equal treatment at the international level (under the principle of equal sovereignty of states), the modern nation-state paradigm became the only alternative for the organisation of political life in non-western societies. however, this also meant a new imposition on peoples with a long history of avoiding the state or struggling against similar forms of dominance. this can be seen in some of today’s disputed contexts such as kashmir[9] and in india’s northeast, two areas which show that aspects of this conceptualisation remain contested.[10] definitions of “region,” “regional identity,” “borderland,” and “border” often fail to grasp the particular relationship between people, territory, and mobility in the south asian context. the territorial politics of the nation-state and the abrupt establishment of international boundaries were superimposed on areas that were used to the less rigid territorial politics prevalent in the pre-colonial and colonial periods. as a consequence, this boundary-making was highly contested on the periphery, resulting in the creation of differentiated, ambiguous zones. although kashmir is often defined as a region, it refers more to a geographical area that roughly coincides with past political boundaries, rather than a modern administrative unit. going beyond cartographic representations, anssi paasi argues that regions are characterised by an element of cohesiveness that is discernible in shared administrative/historical aspects; the economic functions and formal qualities of the inhabitants are associated with their territories and physical space.[11] in other words, regions present distinct forms of territorial practices. as michael keating points out, their role and importance varies over time, depending on the level of institutionalisation; it can diminish for a period and later re-emerge, as in the case of euroregions as a consequence of processes of european integration.[12] what makes kashmir a region is not always clear, but territorial practice has brought together the different disputed territories, although actual cohesion among them has been marginal. moreover, the characteristics pointed out by paasi and keating in the understanding of regions imply a degree of equality between the different territories of a region (at least in the contemporary period), a need for mutual benefit, or a fair share in the resources. these elements are highly contested when it comes to issues of conquest and exploitation of resources, as is the case in kashmir’s disputed territories. paasi suggests that regions (as sub-state categories) “should be seen as complicated constellations of agency, social relations and power.”[13] this rather broad definition opens up possibilities for including non-western experiences, although scholarly debates about the need for alternative conceptualisations continue. james c. scott’s provocative work on the history of peoples living in the upland territories in southeast asia argues for a distinct geographical realm where penetration by the nation-state has been marginal. he maintains that this realm, which he names “zomia” following the work of willem van schendel,[14] constitutes a distinct region of knowledge based on certain ecological patterns and the resistance of its peoples to the expansion of the state. van schendel has included kashmir as a constitutive element of “zomia,” despite the fact that the territory has a significant history of state involvement.[15] boundaries and borders tend to be used as interchangeable terms in the discipline of geography, while boundaries in the scholarly works of the social sciences are often identified with “lines” and borders with a “distinct edge,” embodying social and spatial functions.[16] in this context, the borderland represents a territory affected by the existence of the boundary/ies and its/their associated specific social dynamics, which can boost interaction or separation. the emergence of borderlands as understood in this article is related to the territorial process of historical expansion by different polities (e.g., empires, kingdoms, and states) and the creation of middle grounds, peripheries, or buffer zones between them. however, as the case of kashmir, and more specifically of gilgit-baltistan, illustrates, the emergence of some such borderlands cannot be dissociated from the element of legal exceptionalism that defines everyday life in these territories. in south asia, borderlands are located notably in the northern belt that stretches from afghanistan to northeast india and the neighbouring states of bangladesh and myanmar. even today, south asian borderlands are largely regarded as the product of imperial policies, at times negotiated, at times imposed. above all, as van schendel has put it, they constitute fissures resulting from the convulsive shake of tectonic plates in 1947.[17] the creation of nation-states after decolonisation and the establishment of international boundaries—albeit frequently contested—have also had an impact on those who live in these territories, now crisscrossed by new lines and new political and administrative arrangements. the border groups affected have either ignored the new boundaries, subverted them, or looked for alternative forms of identification. the challenge of conceptualisation when examining cases such as kashmir seems to lie in properly addressing the cultural and human realm of territoriality and the need for different scales of analysis, quite apart from highlighting shared affinities across borders and nation-states. constructivist approaches in the field of international relations and political science focusing on conflicts in south asia have tended to put identity issues at the fore, whether based on shared cultural, religious, or ethnic features or referring to political mobilisation by groups with a specific idea of “nation,” “region,” or “regional identity.”[18] rather than exploring the production of these spaces, a number of studies have emphasised both the extraordinary and the negative character of bordering practices as being the result of a “cartographic anxiety”[19] defined by power relations between states. moreover, little thought has been given to what constitutes the “community” that still brings people together despite the politics involved in their division.[20] further research on societal formation and belonging—a more slippery category to analyse—and the impact of boundaries on processes of developing attachment may therefore be necessary. the kashmir conflict following the 1947–49 war exemplifies this case well. with the rise of kashmiri nationalism and the separatist struggle, explanations of the kashmir conflict (with particular reference to indian kashmir) generally took the approach of analysing the state (india) as a “natural” spatial container in relation to processes of territorial decentralisation. this occurred without significant consideration of other groups (non-kashmiris) constitutive of the former princely state, their consciousness, or their different historical legacies. the jammu and kashmir princely state was constructed historically as a borderland[21] and has remained as such after partition. rather than creating “national boundaries,” the loc has reinforced this specific character of being a distinct zone and—since it generally prevented movement—produced new territories with diverse symbolic meanings.[22] these policy interventions notwithstanding, people living on both sides of the loc have sought to overcome the separation and division in different ways—symbolically and materially—to meet their need to be part of a larger community. the state is likewise a key agent here, either by intervening in border territory affairs (e.g., at the political, military or infrastructural level) or by the lack of such interventions. actors position themselves within this scenario, ultimately contributing to the transformation of borderland territories. claims to representational spaces that have previously disappeared due to state boundary-making may emerge to satisfy the claims and expectations of certain groups or political agents to cope with situations where border people have little leeway for action.[23] with regard to kashmir, this seems to be the case for the balti and pahari groups across the loc. they claim common cultural ties with a larger community—expressed in the form of “tibetanness” in the case of the baltis and “kashmiriness” for the paharis. the resulting representational spaces serve to counter the relatively marginal or peripheral role of these groups in the conflict, but they are also intrinsically linked to the condition of these two groups as “borderlanders” of the larger postcolonial states of india and pakistan. the problem of spatial conceptualisation in south asian disputed borderlands can be better dealt with by combining different scales of analysis in empirical research and by focusing on processes of spatial transformation and appropriation. in this regard, the question is not whether it is necessary to change perspectives—from state-centred approaches to the experiences of border people, for example—but to unfold, as proposed by this article, the complexities of different spatial processes involved in boundary-making and spatial transformation and to show how they are intertwined. this could enrich the larger conceptual debate as well as provide a better insight into ongoing territorial processes. bordering processes and regional formation in gilgit-baltistan: the creation of new spatialities still trapped in the kashmir dispute but formally controlled by the pakistani state, the constitutional status of gilgit-baltistan remains uncertain, despite occasional rumours about its full integration with pakistan.[24] this legal ambivalence has consequences for the inhabitants of the territory, ranging from their inability to cast a vote in pakistani national elections to constraints on their basic legal and political rights. up until 2009, the area was loosely referred to as the northern areas. continuing the colonial form of administration, it was controlled by the pakistani ministry of kashmir affairs and the northern areas. previously, the reforms introduced in september 1974 by zulfiqar ali bhutto replaced the agency system and created five districts, removing the powers of the local rajas or rulers (known as jagirdari system) and abolishing the colonial frontier crimes regulation that had been in force until then. bhutto also introduced a form of regional representation, a legislative assembly that was further developed by successive reforms. these reforms also eliminated the state subject order, promulgated in 1927 by hari singh, the maharaja of kashmir, in response to increasing local demands for representation and for participation in the state bureaucracy. this subject status had its origins in the princely state of kashmir and led to the introduction of a form of citizenship based on territoriality to define those who were entitled to live and work within the princely state.[25] as a consequence, unlike the rest of the residents of the territories of the former princely state, those of gilgit-baltistan have ceased to have a legal connection to the kashmir dispute as their “citizenship” status has changed, despite the pakistani government maintaining otherwise. from the legal point of view, the application of the pakistani citizenship act of 1951 makes residents of gilgit-baltistan pakistani citizens to a certain extent. in fact, while the residents of ajk have identification cards specific to that territory, those in gilgit-baltistan carry pakistani national identity cards. the ambivalent constitutional framework and disputed status mean that, from a legal perspective, the situation of gilgit-baltistan can be described as liminal within the existing legal-political orders.[26] i was able to access internal documents from the pakistani administration that deal with the constitutional status of gilgit-baltistan; i assume the documents were prepared between september 2009 and april 2012. filed under the title “constitutional status of gilgit-baltistan,” they reflect the debates within the pakistani bureaucracy and the key actors in the region on the subject. an interview with a high-ranking bureaucrat of the gilgit-baltistan administration in islamabad helped me determine the actual legal and economic status of the region. he referred to the documents in the aforementioned file, which he discussed with me, by acknowledging that, in the end, “everything concerning the budget of gilgit-baltistan is decided here [in islamabad].”[27] the second page in this file, in point five, states that: the constitutional status of gilgit-baltistan northern areas was examined several times in the past by the ministries of law & justice, foreign affairs and the ministry of kashmir affairs and gilgit-baltistan, taking into consideration the following alternatives: (i) an independent political entity, (ii) merger with azad kashmir, (iii) complete (de jure) merger with pakistan, (iv) maintenance of status quo. the document however, rules out the first three options on the grounds that gilgit-baltistan already enjoys great autonomy under the 2009 empowerment and self-governance order,[28] that the merger with ajk is not recommended due to the absence of viable links between the two territories, and that it is “not advisable to extend the jurisdiction of the government of azad kashmir to the borders of china in view of the serious risks involved.” therefore, the maintenance of the existing status quo was suggested. it is noticeable, however, that despite the interest of the pakistani state to have gilgit-baltistan treated similarly to ajk in terms of being part of the kashmir dispute, pakistan does not favour the merger of ajk with gilgit-baltistan into one single administrative unit on geostrategic grounds. the document in the file “constitutional status of gilgit-baltistan” that i accessed is unclear whether this was due to the possible rejection of such a merger by the people of gilgit-baltistan[29] or the fact that the merger would cause china to share a border with ajk, which could be a concern for india. indeed, in the beginning of 2016, when news came out that the pakistani government was debating the change of gilgit-baltistan’s status, it was suggested that chinese pressure might be behind the initiative. concretely, china, which had already invested in the upgrade of the karakoram highway, might be unwilling to continue to finance projects in gilgit-baltistan because of its disputed condition. if the latter were the case, it would also affect china’s strong economic links with pakistan, as the karakoram highway acts as the main link between the two countries. gilgit-baltistan is part of a dispute, but not itself a disputed territory in the sense that its people opted for pakistan in 1947 and pakistan does not contest this fact. at the same time, its present legal status resembles that of a province, but it is not constitutionally a province of pakistan like the rest of the pakistani provinces. due to this ambiguous condition, the language describing the political status of gilgit-baltistan within the pakistani state is confusing and can be misleading. pakistani newspapers, such as the reputed english daily dawn, which were reporting on the possible integration of gilgit-baltistan into pakistan in january 2016, also referred to it as “disputed.” however, in the unofficial documents mentioned above, a page titled “opening remarks by secretary kana”[30] states: “the northern areas are not strictly disputed as the then maharajah of kashmir did not have strong administrative control over the northern areas, except for presence of few military contingents.” this means that the pakistani state distinguishes between parts of gilgit-baltistan whose local rajas formalised the accession to pakistan (such as hunza and nagar), and territories liberated by local guerrillas and paramilitary forces in 1947–49 such as the gilgit agency (the surrounding areas of today’s gilgit and bunji) and baltistan.[31] both territories, those that acceded as well as those that were liberated, were formally under the princely state but political control over them was loose as it was exercised mostly by the local rajas or, in gilgit, by the british political agents. in this respect, from pakistan’s point of view, gilgit-baltistan is disputed due to its former legal link with the princely state, but not contested in itself. as a consequence, pakistan assumes that sooner or later gilgit-baltistan will be an integral part of this state, and the only open issue is to decide the status of the other kashmiri territories in accordance with un resolutions, including ajk. however, if the un resolutions are considered and a referendum for the whole of kashmir is a real option, it would imply that pakistan does not contemplate the possibility of independence for kashmir, or at least not for gilgit-baltistan. apart from the disputed character of gilgit-baltistan, similar confusion prevails concerning its provincial status since the 2009 reform. the 2009 order created and filled a number of administrative posts in line with the federal structure of the provinces, reinforcing (at least formally) the link between the centre, the executive, and the region, as compared to the previously pre-eminent role of the ministry of kana. this has led some to conclude mistakenly: “it is expected that the new province of gilgit-baltistan will have more decision-making powers for matters that directly affect the local economy.”[32] however, despite being like a province in name, gilgit-baltistan is not a pakistani province in legal-constitutional terms. pakistani jurisdiction applies there in a limited manner but residents do not enjoy the legal safeguards available in the other pakistani provinces. this means that while a resident of punjab or balochistan can appeal to the supreme court of pakistan and cast her/his vote to the national assembly, a resident of gilgit-baltistan cannot. their “sovereign roof” is limited to the territorial extent of gilgit-baltistan. like other pakistanis, those in gilgit-baltistan face no restrictions on movement and work within pakistan, but there are a number of legal restrictions based on their place of residence. it is when they travel abroad that they carry pakistani passports and become clearly identified with pakistan. in other words, they become pakistanis when they are outside of pakistan’s territory, while they are “others” within the territory under state control. the legal-political status of gilgit-baltistan reflects the ambivalent way in which the pakistani state has dealt with this territory (as territorialisation) since partition by differentiating it from the other provinces under its control. its exceptional legal character responds, however, to a specific state strategy that relies on the premise of gilgit-baltistan’s condition of “waiting-to-be-part-of-pakistan” and the question of national identity. the latter has to do with how to incorporate a territory without a clear dominant linguistic or ethnic group that is furthermore populated by peoples with more links to central asian traditions than to the south asian mainland. [33] it is this “exceptional” status of gilgit-baltistan that, under conditions of globalization, allows for the transformation of this space and for local interventions to achieve it. in this sense, gilgit-baltistan’s importance for pakistan lies in its transregional character, as a crossroads of multiple influences between south and central asia. lacking any significant majority in socio-cultural terms, gilgit-baltistan, as may be the case of xinjiang, is a rapidly vanishing cultural space. gilgit-baltistan has no single “majority group,” although the majority of its population are followers of the twelver shia branch of islam. this shared religious identity, however, does not bring a majority of people together because language and local differences have a more important role in mobilizing common sentiments. for example, while some scholars have pointed out that in the city of gilgit, differences between shias and sunnis have created a sectarianised urban landscape,[34] in skardu, the capital of the baltistan division,[35] interreligious relations are generally more fluid.[36] the sociologists norbert elias and john scotson have pointed to the abuse of terms like “racial” or “ethnic”—to which “religious” could be added in the present case—in sociology and in society at large because they reflect “an ideological avoidance action.”[37] these authors employed the figuration of “the established and the outsiders” to study differences among working-class residents of a city district in england’s midlands and noted that: the socio-dynamics of the relationship of groups bonded to each other as established and outsiders are determined by the manner of their bonding, not by any characteristics possessed by the groups concerned independently of it.[38] this approach can also be illustrative to explain the dynamics of sectarian conflict in gilgit-baltistan, as has been pointed out by other scholars working in the region.[39] managing a state that emerged out of and survives by handling partition and dissent, the pakistani bureaucratic-military leadership is not inclined to address issues of difference.[40] furthermore, the case of gilgit-baltistan echoes that of balochistan with regard to its cultural and social plurality, but unlike the latter, gilgit-baltistan lacks a strong territorial identity, and memories of coming from or being related to other places are highlighted by the various groups living there, such as the shina, wakhi, and balti speakers. in other words, the local sense of identity is expressed by multiple references to belonging, which challenge the territorialised borders of the postcolonial nation state. hence, the exceptional legal status does not imply a situation of unchanging status quo, but is the condition for interventions which constitute “peripheralization” processes.[41] transformations in recent years show that pakistan no longer keeps a status quo in gilgit-baltistan, if it ever did. strong state interventions in infrastructure development—such as the widening of the karakoram highway, carried out by a chinese state-owned company, and the much awaited and controversial diamer-basha dam (situated on the shared border between gilgit-baltistan and khyber pakhtunkhwa, kpk)—will not improve the residents’ life conditions but are connected with the state’s larger economic interests and needs. this is also the case for the ambitious china-pakistan economic corridor,[42] which involves a series of projects suiting china’s geopolitical interests (gaining access to the gulf and connecting xinjiang economically with the south-west), and also benefitting pakistan economically. the same can be said of the diamer-basha dam. on august 2009, i held meetings in skardu with members of the marafie foundation, who were focusing on vocational training, and two local politicians to discuss their views on the possible impact of the diamer-basha dam for gilgit-baltistan. their answers showed concern for the large-scale relocation of people that such a project implied: both the resettlement of those from the affected areas and the arrival at the construction site of a significant labour force from other parts of pakistan. the dam’s location at the border between gilgit-baltistan and kpk also led to concerns among local politicians about gilgit-baltistan’s share in the royalties earned from the dam’s power generation in the future. in fact, ordinary people in the region are aware that water is a precious resource, and that the pakistani state is interested in it. views on the aforementioned infrastructural interventions are related to the potential economic benefits they can bring for the region. interviewees explained this by giving the example of the initial construction of the karakoram highway and its offshoot connecting gilgit with skardu in the eighties,[43] which is referred to by some in baltistan as “the revolution.” however, in other conversations, local men with more critical views said (under conditions of strict anonymity) that large infrastructure projects were not meant to benefit the locals, but to bring the territory under pakistan’s control through geostrategic and economic dependence. similarly, transformations are going on at the symbolic level. although gilgit-baltistan is constitutionally not part of the state, after 2010 the government of pakistan started to advertise gilgit-baltistan as the “jewel of pakistan” for tourism and for economic purposes.[44] this move has to be seen in the context of the widespread internal violence in pakistan after 2001 that contrasted with the fact that gilgit-baltistan remained one of the most stable regions—perhaps the only one that could project a positive image of the country abroad. with the exception of occasional episodes of sectarian violence in gilgit, the entire territory remains peaceful and offers numerous leisure opportunities to visitors. this includes the almost untouched natural beauty of the region, the adventure of climbing some of the highest peaks in the world, and the possibility of learning about the region’s human and cultural diversity along the karakoram range. there is no room in the official portrayal of gilgit-baltistan for the disputed character of the territory and the acknowledgment of its location in one of the world’s most militarised areas. bordering processes in gilgit-baltistan illustrate how the “exceptional character” of the territory is the result of the pakistani (post-colonial) state’s inability to incorporate it into the nation building process. this is due to pakistan’s claim on the indian-administered kashmir, its inability to deal with its social diversity and, more recently, its pressing economic needs. gilgit-baltistan’s “liminal” condition is not, however, static in time, but constantly shifting. this creates dislocation and confusion, in that it is at times treated as a pakistani province, at times not, and that its residents only become pakistanis once out of gilgit-baltistan. ongoing government interventions on both the material and symbolic levels underline gilgit-baltistan’s geostrategic importance and its transregional character. the ensuing peripheralisation processes result in the gradual disappearance of gilgit-baltistan as a space characterised by social diversity. it is becoming something else, a space of connectedness whose residents paradoxically do not have the power to decide to whom they want to be related. baltistan’s representation as a transregional space the division of baltistan lies in the southern part of gilgit-baltistan, bordering the loc with kargil (administered by india). it is connected to mainland pakistan by air (subject to weather conditions) and by roads, of which the main route links it to the karakoram highway. a secondary route through the kaghan valley operates in summer only. baltistan is a peripheral space, not merely in terms of location, but also in the manner in which it has been developed economically and administratively since its inception in relation to the pakistani state and its claims to kashmir.[45] there is a marked difference between the gilgit division in the north and the baltistan division. baltistan’s proximity to the loc has affected developments there because of security and strategic concerns and the need to secure the loyalty of the local population. the border character of baltistan has been utterly neglected by the pakistani state since 1947, despite the fact that local people have not objected to the loc becoming a border, as kashmiris and paharis did in ajk. no major population displacement has occurred in the border areas of baltistan and ladakh since 1947–1949.[46] instead, it has been the loc itself that has shifted positions in the aftermath of the india‒pakistan wars, at least until 1971. as a result of these territorial changes, some border villages passed from the control of one country to the other. in general, pakistan lost territory during the war, as a consequence of which some border villages of a few hundred inhabitants (sometimes fewer) became part of india. despite not being challenged, this border tract has produced its own victims. these are mostly divided families who were living in different places when the conflict erupted and who cannot reunite.[47] for example, the people from villages of karmang sub-district (now in baltistan) were part of the kargil tehsil (or sub-district, now in india), and many lived in the town of kargil. after the ceasefire line was established, karmang went to the pakistani side, while kargil remained on the indian side, and inhabitants could no longer return to their former villages. this border tract has been increasingly sealed off by military force, but the people of kargil still have memories from two decades ago of locals from villages on the pakistani side crossing at night to engage in petty smuggling activities with their counterparts in kargil.[48] as this is a border area, many in baltistan have ties across the loc, especially divided families. due to the sensitive political situation, they are generally cautious in discussing these ties. members of such divided families told me that if they were to articulate their views openly, they could be considered as “anti-national” (the english term as used here means anti-pakistani) and that this could harm relatives living across the border. such fears are also seen in the presence of and the coexistence with the military. the resulting socio-economic relations have impacted people’s consciousness. while expressing dissent on pakistan’s kashmir policy is not rare in gilgit, in baltistan this tends to be more of an exception because of these relations with the military. images of baltis being described as “lambs” (implying that they will never revolt), as passive people who can only work as “peasants” and “shopkeepers,” are not uncommon. the word “lamb” was used by an educated balti man working in the non-profit sector in islamabad, whom i interviewed,[49] but similar views have been expressed in meetings with middle-aged men in gilgit and also in baltistan (by those critical of the current situation) to explain the baltis’ attitude toward the current state of affairs. besides, there is an implicit assumption that baltis are happy because of the benefits they receive. as this balti interviewee told me: baltis will not do anything to open the loc. the people in khaplu [baltistan’s largest village in the eastern part] are very happy with the current situation because they receive rations, subsidised products, and kerosene from the army, and many also work for them. why they should stop this?[50] although such opinions are difficult to verify, they undoubtedly hint at a situation which is perceived in places such as skardu: that of a people that has long been dependent on the local war economy. the military did not confine itself to securing the disputed borders, but used the territory of baltistan as a launching pad for military operations, both in the siachen (on the eastern side) and the kargil border areas, as was evidenced in the conflict in 1999. ongoing conflicts reconfirmed the disputed status of the entire region. in this context, the military cultivated a specific relationship with the local inhabitants of border villages, partly out of necessity—they are familiar with the terrain, are more acclimatised, and constitute a labour force—and partly to gain their support. however, at least since 2010, there were several demonstrations by divided families demanding the opening of the loc. this shows that despite the militarised context, people highlight their plight. conflict has served to keep the dispute alive, but has perpetuated the separation of baltistan from the territories across the loc and particularly affected the divided families. besides the fact that no cross-loc initiatives have been established at the time of writing in 2017—while bus services and meeting points have operated between the kashmir valley and ajk since 2005—there is also the cost of travelling long distances from baltistan to ladakh via the wagah-attari border. the indian government, furthermore, has placed restrictions on baltis visiting ancestral homes across the loc. since they are fewer in number,[51] compared to the larger number of divided families in the kashmir valley and ajk, and their demands attract less political attention, divided families in baltistan have little clout. their cause, in my opinion, is subsumed under strategic issues arising from the proximity of the disputed siachen glacier (another front of india-pakistan rivalry) and lacks the importance that kashmir (the kashmir valley and its displaced population in ajk) has for political gains.[52] baltistan could be considered an almost landlocked territory, except for its communication links with the gilgit division. before 1947, its relations were oriented mostly toward ladakh and kashmir, and it only became administratively linked to gilgit later, with the capital in the city of gilgit. this has shaped a new spatiality (as a set of relations). in this relationship, the gilgit administration has played a dominant role in regional affairs and, generally, groups there have been more vocal in their political demands towards pakistan.[53] although gilgit and baltistan are administratively and economically connected, cultural and social exchange between them remains low. even the karakoram highway, which has had a definitive impact in connecting the area, has not produced a noticeable increase of exchange and interaction between the baltistan and gilgit divisions. various interventions, however, are at work to transform the relatively isolated character of baltistan. flight connections to gilgit have recently been established, although without great success. the expected widening and improvement of the road between skardu and gilgit by a chinese company will significantly reduce the 7–8 hour trip between the two towns, although it has been repeatedly delayed.[54] indeed, some people living in skardu, mainly businessmen and travel agents associated with the tourist industry, look with hope on these chinese interventions. “china does not do things for free, but at least it is better than others, such as the united states or pakistan. if they want to take things from us, i do not care. at least, we can do business with them.” these words came from a middle-aged hotel owner who had begun to receive chinese tourists and chinese skilled workers (such as engineers, contractors, and companies’ personnel in general) during the previous years (before july 2014). their arrival was a new development for him, as well as for others working in the tourist and business sectors, an opportunity after years of decline in the local tourist industry. many see the “new chinese presence” in baltistan as a sign that the economic situation will improve. apart from the construction of roads, chinese companies have shown an interest in the mining industry, which still relies predominantly on manual labour. at the time of my visit in july 2014, chinese engineers were conducting surveys for opportunities in the mining sector. a risky activity, the search for gemstones is often carried out under precarious conditions in mountainous locations.[55] although the marketing is now mostly routed through pakistani middlemen, local dealers i interviewed mentioned that the chinese market could provide more competition and better prices. the imaginary of china—as a projected future rather than a materialised reality—is perceived by various groups in skardu as a sign that baltistan is opening up, which will bring economic benefits and closer connections with the wider world. however, the overall consequences are yet unknown. along with the interests of opening the region as a connecting point between pakistan and china, forms of self-appropriation emerge that emphasise other senses of belonging. these senses of belonging go back to the multiple historical influences that have crisscrossed the area. they reconfigure the transregional character of baltistan toward the east and the south, with specific forms of identification. in short, the production of baltistan into a peripheral space—whether of kashmir or of pakistan—is being challenged by a number of people in baltistan. they mainly work in the cultural sphere as local intellectuals (historians, writers, and journalists), entrepreneurs, members of associations such as the baltistan cultural & development foundation (bcdf), and as members of their families, including divided families. forms of self-identification are emerging that hint at a shared past across different borders (not only between baltistan and ladakh, but also between baltistan and tibet). this phenomenon may be due to strategic considerations, such as changing economic and political conditions in pakistan, but it shows the possibility of local agency in territories that are under surveillance and highly militarised. parallel to the gradual recasting of gilgit-baltistan within the pakistani state as an area of resources and economic opportunities—because of its transborder character—an alternative representation of space emerges, namely its “tibetanness” rather than “kashmiriness.” this representation may be characterised as a response to the securitised (militarised) status of the territory due to the kashmir dispute, but it is also a reaction to baltistan’s marginalisation in the major economic processes mentioned above that cause the local space to disappear. fig. 2: shop sign in tibetan and urdu script fig. 3: latticework at beadar when i first conducted fieldwork in skardu in late august and september 2009, i came across several cultural activities whose primary aim was the revival of the tibetan cultural heritage. in interviews with local associations, such as the bcdf, i was informed about activities that included the preservation of buddhist sites, such as the buddha carved in a rock at satpara (near skardu), support for the use of tibetan script in shop signs (fig. 2), and the promotion of tibetan names for children.[56] bcdf has also supported beadar (baltistan enterprise development and arts revival programme), a project focused on training young people in traditional architectural forms, including the revival of ancient latticework (fig. 3)—itself a blend of kashmiri and tibetan influences in islamic architecture. moreover, i learned from local historians and teachers of an interest in introducing the balti language, written in both tibetan and perso-arabic scripts, in primary schools. when i repeatedly inquired about these activities in informal conversations, the answer was invariably: “you know, we were buddhist in the past.” although some cultural activists involved in the project were eager to dissociate the cultural initiative from any political manifestation, i learned years later that the interest in the past—not only the buddhist but also the pre-buddhist past, such as the bon belief system (fig. 4)[57]—was very much connected with the present search for identity and the limits on more overt political manifestations. apart from the marketing of baltistan as “little tibet” by ngos such as the agha khan rural support programme (the main ngo working in baltistan), other initiatives included the use of tibetan script in shop signs, the publication of several schoolbooks in the balti language, in both arab-persian and tibetan script, to be used in the primary schools (see fig. 5). the claim to the buddhist past is connected with a revival of the balti “local” language with its loc-crossing character. this revival is realised through still rare cultural exchanges between local male intellectuals, who have travelled to the indian side or met ladakhi scholars in international fora, sometimes auspicated by tibetan cultural associations and, as some of these authors have told me, through the exchange of published material. fig. 4: archaeological artefacts related to the pre-buddhist bon religion fig. 5: books in balti language in various scripts. booklets, textbooks, history books, and travelogues (in urdu) by local intellectuals the sociologist kenneth iain macdonald addressed the phenomenon of this “tibetan” revival earlier, pointing to the strategic cultural production in border areas.[58] he related this development to the wider context of the negative international image of pakistan—and the need for local people to separate themselves from the conflict-ridden situation in other parts of the country—but also to possible expectations across the border, where people with similar cultural affinities reside.[59] this may be true for strategic or economic issues. the revival of a tibetan heritage also denotes, however, a form of local agency by social groups to find firm ground in the present uncertainty, under conditions where it is not possible to make open political claims and where participation in such activities is only permitted within the parameters of the controlled political scenario.[60] those living in baltistan are caught “in-between” two spaces—kashmir and pakistan—neither of which fully represents them and both of which deprive them of better living conditions. by crossing the loc through a culturally specific representational space, these social groups challenge their most recent conflictive borders and return to a more distant, albeit not ideal, past, with which they can be more reconciled. tracing their sense of belonging to a tibetan milieu, they claim a larger cultural realm where they might feel more secure and react to historical processes of bordering that have made baltistan a distant and marginal territory, either within the state of jammu and kashmir or within pakistan. conclusions territorialisation processes by the pakistani state in gilgit-baltistan have emphasised the undefined legal status of this region. this representation of space would seem to imply a minimum of interference in the territory. in practice, however, the authoritarian side of the state, vested in the military, has intervened significantly in border territories, mostly in baltistan, and promoted an economy of dependence under the pretext of security. moreover, in recent years, the construction and planning of major infrastructure projects in gilgit-baltistan have further highlighted the larger geo-strategic importance of the area. these interventions are focused on the creation and growth of connections with pakistan and china. they promote new representations of space that are detached from the kashmir conflict and highlight the transregional character of the area in the sense of its connectivity. as a reaction to the undefined character of the region, as well as the ongoing large-scale interventions, local claims are emerging that articulate a different sense of belonging. these claims try to tackle the question of the displacement and disruption of familial and group ties, but also to disentangle the spatial narratives about the dispute and address the plurality of places and spaces contained within “kashmir.” from this perspective, it is also possible to observe how border inhabitants overcome these boundary constructs, either by widening their territorial and cultural scope or by recreating ties through material exchanges among intellectuals and divided families. the emergence of cultural transregional sub-identities in the gilgit-baltistan borderland, such as in baltistan, with its identification with a “balti culture” linked to tibet, is both a product of and a reaction to the establishment of the loc and the attendant border regime. it is also the result of pakistan’s refusal to recognise border groups in the constitutional structure of the state and the exercise of democratic politics. in this context, border groups redraw their boundaries under forms of identification that tend to pass as non-controversial for the state and, in that process, redefine the community. these transregional dynamics constitute forms of re-appropriation of a space that is otherwise threatened with losing its unique character. [1] although the war had officially ended on january 1, 1949, the conflict continued for about half a year in the ladakh wazarat (today’s baltistan and ladakh) after the un security council failed to extend the ceasefire. at the time, a number of platoons from different parts of hunza, baltistan, and chitral under the umbrella of the gilgit scouts were still fighting in some parts of present ladakh but they were pushed back to the north by indian troops. [2] the most relevant work is perhaps the account by major brown, the british commandant of the scouts: william brown, the gilgit rebellion (london: ibex, 1998). other works include f.m. khan, the story of gilgit, baltistan and chitral: a short history of two millenniums ad 7–1999 (islamabad: eejaz, 2002), 82–176; ahmad hasan dani, history of northern areas of pakistan (up to 2000 ad) (lahore: sang-e-meel, 2007), 321–398; martin sökefeld, “from colonialism to postcolonial colonialism: changing modes of domination in the northern areas of pakistan,” journal of asian studies 64 (2005): 939–973. [3] accounts of the presence of “pakistanis” (specified as people from gilgit, hunza, and baltistan) in 1947–49 are not limited to the predominantly muslim border areas of northern ladakh, but also include buddhist villages to the south (in the direction of leh), where, i was informed during my fieldwork in july 2012, repression of buddhists took place. for a view on zangskar, which is a predominantly buddhist area of kargil’s district, see: kim gutschow, “the politics of being buddhist in zangskar: partition and today,” india review 3–4 (2006): 473–478. [4] see andreas dittman, “the development of city and bazaar in baltistan,” ladakh studies 8 (1996): 13–15; pierpaolo faggi and mario ginestri, “la rete dei bazaar nell’alta valle dell’indo,” rivista geografica italiana 84, no. 3 (1977): 315–349. [5] “space” is understood here in the lefebvrian sense as socially produced. see henri lefebvre, the production of space, trans. donald nicholson-smith (oxford: blackwell, 1991). by state space i am referring to the logic of territorialisation of political authority implied in state making, which involves processes of differentiation at various levels (political, juridical, economic, and others), and the mobilization of state institutions in specific scales in order to organize social and economic relations and the formation of spatial imaginaries. following this, it is not possible to consider gilgit-baltistan as proper part of the pakistani state. for a detailed analysis of the dimensions of the state space see: neil brenner, bob jessop, martin jones and gordon mcleod, eds., state/space: a reader (malden: blackwell, 2003), 6–11. [6] here “representation of space” is understood through the work of henri lefebvre as a conceptualised space that is dominant in any society. “representations of space are certainly abstract, but they also play a part in social and political practice: established relations between objects and people in represented space are subordinate to a logic which will sooner or later break them up because of their lack of consistency.” lefebvre, the production of space, 38–41. the continued representation of gilgit-baltistan as part of kashmir, to which inhabitants of the region object, has had specific implications for pakistan’s control of this territory through legal and security measures. however, this association has become untenable owing to local and regional developments. as an alternative, pakistan has sought to represent gilgit-baltistan in a new way, mainly after 2001, as a multi-cultural region where development is crucial to improve people’s lives and serves to address pakistan’s negative international reputation in dealing with minorities. brochures to attract foreign tourists and support for programmes to develop indigenous traditions are part of the creation of this multi-ethnic imaginary. local expressions of belonging, however, point to a critique of this dominant representation. [7] “representational space,” as understood by lefebvre, refers to “space as directly lived through its associated images and symbols.” (see lefebvre, the production of space, 39). [8] see for example the discussion on siam by tongchai winichakul, siam mapped: a history of a geo-body of a nation (honolulu: university of hawaii press, 1994), 33–36. [9] hermann kreutzmann, “kashmir and the northern areas of pakistan: boundary-making along contested frontiers,” erdkunde 62, no. 3 (2008): 204–209. [10] perhaps the most remarkable work on this is willem van schendel, the bengal borderland: beyond state and nation in south asia (london: anthem press, 2005), 1–23. see also ravina aggarwal, beyond lines of control: performance and politics on the disputed borders of ladakh, india (durham: duke university press, 2004); chitralekha zutshi, “rethinking kashmir’s history from a borderlands perspective,” history compass 8, no. 7 (2012): 594–608; david ludden, “spatial inequality and national territory: remapping 1905 in bengal and assam,” modern asian studies 46, no. 3 (2012): 483–525. [11] anssi paasi, “the resurgence of the ‘region’ and ‘regional identity’: theoretical perspectives and empirical observations on regional dynamics in europe,” review of international studies 35 (2009), 131. [12] michael keating, “the invention of ‘regions’,” in state/space: a reader, ed. neil brenner et al. (berlin: blackwell publishing, 2003), 261–263. [13] anssi paasi, “the resurgence of the ‘region’,” 133. [14] james c. scott, the art of not being governed: an anarchist history of upland southeast asia (new haven: yale university press, 2009); willem van schendel, “geographies of knowing, geographies of ignorance: jumping scale in southeast asia,” environment and planning d: society and space 20, no. 6 (2002): 647–688. [15] van schendel, “geographies of knowing,” 653–656. [16] david newman, “boundaries, borders and barriers,” identities, borders, orders: rethinking international relations theory, ed. m. albert et al. (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 2001), 150–151. for a sociological conceptual approach see richard jenkins, “boundaries and borders,” in nationalism, ethnicity and boundaries: conceptualising and understanding identity through boundary approaches, ed. jenifer jackson and lina molokotos-liederman (london: routledge, 2015). [17] van schendel, the bengal borderland, 2. [18] amitav acharya and arabinda acharya, “kashmir in the international system,” in kashmir: new voices, new approaches, ed. waheguru pal singh sidhu et al. (london: lynne rienner, 2006), 157–170; vali nars, “national identities and the india-pakistan conflict,” in the india and pakistan conflict: an enduring rivalry, ed., t.v. paul (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2005), 178–201; navnita chadha behera, demystifying kashmir (washington: brookings institution press, 2006). [19] sankaran krishna, “cartographic anxiety: mapping the political body of india,” alternatives 19, no. 4 (fall: 1994): 507–521. [20] an interesting reflection on this is provided in zygmunt bauman and benedetto vecchi, eds., identity: conversations with benedetto vecchi (cambridge: polity press, 2004). also, on understandings of identity see: colombo, “decostruire l’identità individuazione e identificazione in un mondo globale,” dossier studi culturali e identità 19 (2007): 11–35. on the question of community as a social group, its cohesion, and boundness see: jenkins, “boundaries and borders,” 18–19; roger brubaker, ethnicity without ethnic groups (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 2004). [21] zutshi, “rethinking kashmir’s history,” 594–608. [22] i refer to the role of the loc as creating a separation between the divided parts (azad jammu and kashmir, gilgit-baltistan, and the state of jammu and kashmir) of the princely state; that is, the “disputed” character of the loc prevents normal interaction movement across this line. this does not exclude the fact that some groups, such as displaced people (mainly until 1990), smugglers, and militants, have moved back and forth, but they are the exception rather than the norm. [23] kenneth iain macdonald, “memories of tibet: transnationalism, transcultural and the cultural politics of identity production in northern pakistan,” indian review 5, no. 2 (2006): 190–219; antía mato bouzas, “mixed legacies in contested borderlands: skardu and the kashmir dispute,” geopolitics 17, no. 4 (2012): 867–886. [24] “pakistan mulls elevating status of gilgit-baltistan on chinese insistence,” dawn, january 8, 2016. [accessed on 28. march 2016]. http://www.dawn.com/news/1231394. [25] cabeiri debergh robinson, refugees, political subjectivity and the morality of violence: from hijarat to jihad in azad kashmir (phd diss, university of michigan, 2005), 151–155. [26] caitlee hong, “liminality and resistance in gilgit-baltistan,” legal working paper series on legal empowerment for sustainable development (montreal: cisdl, 2012): 8–10. [27] interview, islamabad, 2. may 2012. [28] the 2009 empowerment and self-governance order was approved by the executive branch of the federal government of pakistan and is meant for the self-rule of gilgit-baltistan. [29] this has been acknowledged in a report to which the author had access and which was elaborated on in november 2015 by a committee formed by local historians, journalists, and activists from gilgit-baltistan with the title “historical perspective of gilgit-baltistan.” the report was to be submitted to the pakistani authorities who were deciding on the future constitutional status of gilgit-baltistan. information about this report appeared in the online press: “committee submits report on history and aspirations of the people of gilgit-baltistan,” pamir times. [accessed on 20. april 2016]. http://pamirtimes.net/2015/12/05/committee-submits-report-on-history-and-aspirations-of-the-people-gilgit-baltistan/. [30] kana stands for the ministry of kashmir affairs and northern areas. following the change in the denomination of northern areas for gilgit-baltistan, the ministry’s new name is ministry of kashmir affairs and gilgit-baltistan. [31] this has also been the subject of an international controversy after a resolution of the european parliament on kashmir in 2007. see a. mato bouzas, “mixed legacies,” note 22. [32] jurgen van der tas, “foreword.” in “preservation of built environment and its impact on community development in gilgit-baltistan,” berlin geographical papers 42, ed. hermann kreutzmann (berlin: zelf, 2013), iii. [33] certainly, some south asian traditions are present in gilgit-baltistan—in terms of language and some religious traditions, for example—but i refer to the fact that the territory is perceived and portrayed (in the media) differently in pakistan. compared to the plains of the mainland, it is a mountainous area and this affects ecological, economic, and social patterns. gilgit-baltistan lacks major urban development and the social stratification of pakistani society (and south asian society in general under the caste system) does not apply there. it can be considered a relatively more egalitarian society as compared to the prevailing caste system of the indian subcontinent. moreover, most of the significant cultural, economic, and religious traditions have their origins in other “central asian” territories located in tajikistan, tibet, and xinjiang and with important connections in parts of present iran. it is not unusual for people from gilgit-baltistan to be considered “foreigners” by mainland pakistanis. [34] anna grieser and martin sökefeld, “intersections of sectarian dynamics and spatial mobility in gilgitbaltistan,” in mobilizing religion: networks and mobility, eds. s. conermann and e. smolarz (berlin: eb verlag), 83–110. [35] the use of “baltistan division” or “gilgit division” refers to the administrative separation of gilgit-baltistan above the district level. [36] mato bouzas, “mixed legacies,” 880. [37] norbert elias and john l. scotson, the collected works of norbert elias. vol 4. the established and the outsiders, ed. cas wouters (dublin: university college press, 2008): 16. [38] ibid. [39] see the interesting ethnographic work of mathias weinreich, pashtun migrants in the northern areas of pakistan (karachi: oxford university press, 2011). [40] this can also be seen in the policies designed by this dominant bureaucracy in many fields such as decentralization, recognition of regional diversity, education, etc. this has an impact on many levels of the society, where differences are underplayed for the sake of national unity and never addressed for what they represent. a case in point is the study by nelson on religious responses by parents sending their children for religious education to the question of religious and sectarian differences. see matthew j. nelson, “dealing with difference: religious education and the challenge of democracy in pakistan,” modern asian studies 43, no. 3 (2009): 615–616. [41] on the concept of peripheralization see: andrea fisher-tahir & matthias naumann, eds, peripheralization: the making of spatial dependencies and social injustice (wiesbaden: springer, 2013), 10–22. [42] zofeen t. ibrahim, “the china-pakistan economic corridor winds through gilgit-baltistan,” the third pole. 28. january 2016. [accessed on 18. april 2016]. https://www.thethirdpole.net/2016/01/28/the-china-pakistan-economic-corridor-winds-through-gilgit-baltistan/. [43] interview, skardu, 26. august 2009. [44] see http://www.visitgilgitbaltistan.gov.pk and http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2jmsxv_gilgit-baltistan-the-jewel-of-pakistan_travel. [accessed on 18. april 2016.] [45] antía mato bouzas, “securitization and development as modes of peripheralization in north-eastern pakistan,” in peripheralization: the making of spatial dependencies and social injustice, ed. andrea fisher-tahir and matthias naumann (berlin: springer, 2013), 77–98. [46] here, i refer mainly to skardu and khaplu towns, and the border villages located in the district of karmang on the pakistani side, as well as the kargil district in ladakh, and the muslim villages of the nubra valley on the indian side. the nubra villages captured by india during the 1971 war were identified as part of the chorbat la area by locals. as compared with the border context between ajk and the kashmir valley, where tens of thousands have crossed the loc over decades, mostly from the kashmir valley to ajk as displaced populations, movement across the baltistan-ladakh border has been negligible. [47] interviews with divided families were conducted in kargil town in may 2011 and july 2012. [48] this was explained to the author in some detail in june 2011, during a meeting with some elderly men in kargil. [49] interview, islamabad, 4. may 2012. [50] ibid. [51] mr. asghar ali karbalai, a politician from kargil working on the issue of divided families, maintains that there are around 3000 affected families on the ladakh side of the border. interview, kargil, 20. june 2012. [52] local officials and activists lobbying for opening the skardu-kargil road and for the establishment of border points for the separated families to meet have pointed out their limited capacity to influence the government. the strategic interests of the pakistani army and their presence in the siachen have been mentioned often in interviews and informal conversations as the explanation for this present status quo. [53] see aziz ali dad, “boundaries and identities: the case of gilgit-baltistan,” crossroads asia working papers 34, june 2016. [54] jamil nagri, “gilgit-skardu road faces delay despite pm’s orders,” dawn, 14. september 2015. [accessed on 28. april 2016]. http://www.dawn.com/news/1206857. [55] simón elías, “las gemas del abismo,” el país, 2. december 2012. http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2012/11/30/actualidad/1354287740_191229.html [accessed on 2. december 2012]. [56] interview at the baltistan cultural foundation (later renamed the baltistan cultural & development foundation), skardu, august 26, 2009. [57] bon was the religion of pre-buddhist tibet. i met a local intellectual who showed me parts of a book he was writing, and he explained the importance of this heritage in today’s baltistan. however, interest in the bon religion is also connected with economic issues. i have been told of private excavations to find archaeological artefacts to be sold to middlemen, normally pashtun traders who regularly visit the area. most of these artefacts are from the pre-buddhist period. this plundering of the local heritage is a lucrative business. [58] macdonald, “memories of tibet,” 213. [59] ibid., 192. [60] mato bouzas, “mixed legacies,” 867–886. the "charnel house of historic memories" | prosser | the journal of transcultural studies the “charnel house of historic memories”: salonica as site of transcultural memory in the published writings of cecil roth jay prosser, university of leeds 1. introduction following his visit to immediate post-holocaust salonica in 1946, cecil roth became almost certainly the first historian to engage with the significance of the holocaust in salonica, and the first english-language writer to focus on the ongoing destruction of jewish history in salonica even after the holocaust.[1] this essay explores roth’s published writings on salonica—his newspaper and journal articles, his books, scholarly essays, and encyclopaedia entries—to examine how roth made use of his visit, which he referred to as “the horrible experience of visiting this charnel house of historic memories.”[2] roth’s macabre figure for his visit is significant, since it suggests that what roth finds especially “horrible” as a historian in immediate post-holocaust salonica is not simply the destruction of its jewish population but the destruction of history itself. in support of this view, i will argue that roth’s writings have the effect of presenting the holocaust as not merely the erasure of people but the extinguishing and entombment of long historic memories. roth’s conception in relation to salonica of how the holocaust also killed historic memories needs to be understood as radically complicating our understanding of holocaust memory in a number of ways. first, it tackles the subject of holocaust memory at an extraordinarily early moment after the holocaust (from 1946), much earlier than the “belated emergence” of the concept most often dated to the 1960s.[3] second, i suggest that what roth means by “historic memories” destroyed during the holocaust is not so much what we normally mean by holocaust memory (that is, memories of the holocaust) but rather cultural memory before the holocaust, indeed going back to the classical age, which the holocaust destroyed.[4] third, roth’s engagement with post-holocaust salonica connects the holocaust perpetrated in greater germany during the second world war with other, distant persecutions and pogroms—both much earlier, from up to half a millennium before the second world war, and in locations far removed from germany. in comparing these other anti-semitic attacks with the holocaust, roth’s writings thus produce a conception of holocaust memory as transhistorical. this third addition to holocaust memory is the most important for my argument, since roth’s depiction of holocaust memory as effectively transhistorical leads on to it also being transcultural. i will show how, in the process of conceiving, and with the purpose of heightening, what is a very early notion of holocaust memory, roth repeatedly deploys and promotes transcultural, ottoman memories. he attends to memories of jews in the ottoman empire, and memories of shared or exchanged cultures between jews and non-jews within the ottoman empire. he also vastly expands this conception of ottoman transcultural memories, by including jews’ transportation of memories from outside of the ottoman empire—in particular from spain. roth dramatizes the holocaust’s destruction of salonica’s jews, and indeed their cultural memory, setting the holocaust against a contrasting backdrop of transcultural memories of a nurturing, ethnically diverse, and culturally dialogic ottoman empire. moreover, roth represents the very existence of ottoman jewry as itself a memory of a previous “catastrophe,” or shoah: namely, the expulsion of jews from the spanish empire in 1492 and the surrounding inquisition. roth’s work on salonica produces materials that are worthy of attention in and of themselves, particularly for their early moment. but his salonica publications gain significance by being understood and evaluated in larger—and several—research contexts. first, in the context of the history of salonican jewry, his writings engage with this community at the moment of its greatest catastrophe. they constitute an outsider, british jewish historian’s record—and, as we shall see, activist attempts to intervene in and stop—the community’s near disappearance, in its in-situ presence, when its future seemed unlikely. in this pivotal moment and in his degree of engagement, roth’s salonica work should be re-embedded as a chapter of salonican jewish history. second, roth’s salonica work is a contribution to not just salonican jewish history, but also salonican jewish historiography: that is, the long history of historical writings on salonican jewry. third, as such, roth’s writings on salonica serve to mark out roth’s position in jewish historiography as a whole. they reveal how, hereas elsewhere, roth worked at an angle to dominant prior and contemporaneous trends in jewish historiography, in his emphasis on the special role for jewish cultures of a form of historical memory that is reducible neither to zionist nor diasporic memory. considering the place of roth’s salonican writings in salonican jewish history, salonican jewish historiography, and jewish historiography broadly will allow me to show how early and prescient roth’s contributions were in these contexts as well. there is an additional, more interdisciplinary, congeries of research contexts—that of contemporary movements in cultural studies—in which roth’s writings also demand to be read. analysing roth’s publications on salonica will help me to test out and advance some recent developments in memory studies, transcultural studies, and jewish studies. as i trace in detail his idiosyncratic understanding of holocaust memory, i want to suggest roth as a figure who develops the intersection between these three fields, all of which might be understood to come under the aegis of cultural studies. in memory studies, astrid erll has built on her earlier conception of transcultural memory as “travelling memory,” the latter defined as “the incessant wandering of carriers, media, contents, forms, and practices of memory, their continual ‘travels’ and ongoing transformations through time and space, across social, linguistic and political borders.”[5] erll calls now for further, radical travels, in particular across memory’s deep history. arguing that we need to attend to the “long-term developments of transcultural memory beyond the span of three or four generations,” erll urges that we move memory studies away from its concentration in the twentieth century and its “predominantly presentist approach.”[6] in and beyond his representation of the holocaust, the dimension of memory in roth’s salonica engagement is simultaneously transcultural and massively transhistorical. roth’s lens travels swiftly from the city he encounters in 1946 in the post german-occupied nation of greece; to life under the ottoman empire from the time of the sephardi jews’ arrival at the end of the fifteenth century until the end of the ottoman empire; to memories of the spanish empire before the expulsion. ultimately, roth returns to the very first records of a jewish presence in salonica, namely in the classical age. in terms of transcultural studies, roth shows that transcultural presence and dynamics themselves become targets under the holocaust. if roth’s work discovers in jewish salonica cultural memories that have been shaped by and preserve its earlier stages of existence, in particular both the ottoman and the spanish periods, transcultural memory here can be understood as the manifest recalling of jewish communal life, and of its catastrophic ending or near ending, under other cultural groups or states. in roth’s salonica work, transcultural memory is thus memory that survives geographic migration and the termination of state structures; it is, moreover, multiply trans-imperial; and it remembers catastrophes, as well as co-existence, for jews living as subjects ruled under other cultural groups. it is this combinative form of transcultural memory, and its longue-durée value for jewish as well as coexisting communities, that roth’s work highlights as subject to near erasure in, and after, the holocaust. in relation to jewish studies, equivalents to the transcultural turn that have taken place more broadly in memory studies have transformed a conventionally exceptionalist conception of holocaust memory by bringing it into connective relation with colonial and postcolonial histories. this holocaust/postcolonial dovetailing is exemplified principally in michael rothberg’s “intercultural […] multidirectional” memories; and in bryan cheyette’s juxtaposition of “celebratory” and “victim-centred” diasporic memories.[7] roth’s salonica work draws together the holocaust and colonialism (colonialism much further back in history than in rothberg’s and cheyette’s twentieth-century-focused studies), jewish studies, and in particular ottoman empire history. roth’s work is of especial value to current work such as rothberg’s and cheyette’s on transcultural memory in and beyond jewish studies. even immediately after the holocaust, roth is not pulling towards some notion of jewish singularity. instead he pushes against nationalism and exceptionalism broadly in the effort to remember and sustain transcultural exchange. as i will provide enough information to show, this strikingly comparative approach to cultural history is characteristic of roth’s work as a whole. finally, in reading roth’s salonica publications i want to offer roth himself as a significant but underrated figure for contemporary jewish studies, memory studies, and transcultural studies particularly in their intersection, and also for the humanities broadly. roth was prolific in his output. the entry for him in the dictionary of national biography cites nearly eight hundred items, many of these significant books, including ground-breaking scholarly studies. these include history of the jews in england (1941), history of the jews in italy (1946), the history of the marranos (1932), and the jews in the renaissance (1959). several more popular, crossover works, are also included, such as the short history of the jewish people (1936) and the jewish contribution to civilization (1938), which were successful enough to be multiply reprinted, and/or reproduce similar material under different titles and for different audiences.[8] the venues for his essay publications likewise run the gamut of pitch and audience, from jewish-directed or jewish-inflected press, such as the jewish chronicle in the uk and commentary magazine in the us, to firmly academic journals, such as jewish quarterly review and jewish social studies. roth was also for most of his writing life considered the touchstone of popular writing about jewish history—“the embodiment of general jewish history writing,” as the obituary essay appearing in commentary on his death in 1970 noted.[9] this range of reach for his writings was a significant factor in the focus and tone of his successive salonica pieces, as we shall see. in addition to his authorship, roth was (in 1932) co-founder of the jewish museum in london and throughout his life a significant collector of judaica.[10] however, the key marker of his foundational role in jewish studies is that, from 1965 until his death in 1970, he was the editor-in-chief of the first edition (1971) of the encyclopaedia judaica.[11] oxford’s chabad society (roth was based at oxford university, which created its first post in post-biblical jewish studies for him, for most of his academic career)[12] is one of the few contemporary organizations, interestingly again more popular or community-oriented than academic, that rightly celebrates roth as “one of the greatest jewish historians in the twentieth century, recognized expert in jewish art and educator.”[13] appropriately for a scholar and collector with a vast purview (historical and geographical), in engaging with salonica, roth assembles a wide array of materials and layers histories diffuse in time and space. his broad skills and interests facilitate his conception of transcultural and transhistorical memory in salonica. in spite of his output, roth’s work receives very little attention in the academic fields to which his work best speaks today, namely jewish studies, transcultural studies, and memory studies.[14] his entry in the dictionary of national biography sheds light on this underestimation and underexposure of roth by academics even in his own day, particularly in his native britain. it suggests that roth was not recognized in his own time because of his prioritization of, and approach to, jewish studies. “the academic world in his youth [1920s–1930s; the time when roth came of age as a professional scholar] was hardly prepared to acknowledge the presence of a specifically jewish factor in european economic and political history.”[15] with a nice irony, the entry goes on to point out that roth is undervalued precisely because he advanced jewish studies so substantially, by understanding jewish history in the context of larger (the implication is transcultural, although this is not stated) history, thereby distinguishing jewish studies from the subjects to which it had until then been reduced, namely theology and semitic languages: “that his findings have not always survived the scrutiny of able younger scholars itself attests to his own success in helping to put jewish history on the academic map.”[16] the view that roth chose to focus on jewish commonality with other cultural groups over difference is held up by the most substantial “reassessment” of roth’s work on italian jewry, which is nevertheless “not a full-fledged defense or advocacy of roth.”[17] if roth’s success in putting jewish history on the map as transcultural led to his being overlooked by his successors in jewish historiography, this transcultural concept of jewish history is a key reason for returning to him now as we deepen our thinking about transcultural memory. frederic krome, who has done most to restore and trace the emergence of roth’s status as a historian (although focused on a us jewish studies context, and not on memory studies, transcultural studies, or jewish studies broadly as i target here), provides support for this idea that roth went against the grain of time.[18] krome writes that, even while roth was not anti-zionist—he was “between the diaspora and zion” as the title of one of krome’s essays would have it—“roth was a diaspora centered jewish scholar at a time when jewish historiography was ‘zionocentric.’”[19] furthermore, “roth believed that jewish history was the product of a creative interaction between jewish and non-jewish society.”[20] in other words, roth broke ground in jewish historiography by decentring israel as a nationalist or mythical/ancient cultural homeland, without yet subscribing to a diasporic nationalism; and also by depicting what we would now call transcultural exchange with non-jews as absolutely intrinsic to the production of jewish history and culture. it was along these lines—being between the diaspora and zion, and being between cultural exceptionalism and assimilation—that roth distinguished himself from those he acknowledged as seminal in jewish historiography.[21] he was out of his historiographic time, we can hypothesize, because he was ahead of it, and it is part of my task here to argue how he is valuable for our own time, precisely for the reasons his work was underrated then: namely, in its large purview of jewish history and jewish studies as transcultural in these senses. it is indicative of roth’s ongoing undervaluation, for example, that there is still no biography, only a personal memoir by his wife written after roth’s death.[22] and if, as krome also thinks, roth has fallen short of academic attention because of a failure to contextualize his work in jewish historical writings, with responses to him restricted to a pattern of being either “hypercritical, or characterized by excessive reverence,”[23] it is important that this essay, as much as any work on roth, is undertaken with a view to his critical contextualization in jewish historiography. academically undervalued in his own moment and still in our own, and for the same reasons of preparing the way for a form of jewish studies that is not exceptionalist and that is neither diasporanor zionist-nationalist, roth’s conception of jewish studies necessarily intersects with transcultural studies and memory studies, and in the intersection contributes to all three areas. it is especially this intersection of fields—a kind of contemporary interdisciplinarity or what cheyette has called after hannah arendt “thinking without a banister”[24]—that makes roth’s writings on salonica fresh and worth exploring. roth’s interest in salonica is drawn towards memory and memorialization as a subject over history, and while this makes him interesting to us today, it is surely another reason for his undervaluation as an academic historian in the past. indeed, as i will show, he presents salonica in the manner that other much later writers have described as a “site of memory.”[25] a mid-twentieth-century jewish historian’s connection to late twentieth-century theorists and novelists invested in sites of memory might seem a stretch. however, in seeking to reach as large an audience as possible, roth aimed principally to make his writing engaging, entertaining, and highly readable. as krome remarks, quoting roth on another way in which he sought to distinguish himself as a jewish historian (“i do not belong to the dryasdust [sic] school of jewish history, and i think that all historical work worthy of the name must be accessible to the public”), “it was precisely to that purpose, the dissemination of jewish history to a wide public, that roth dedicated his career.”[26] at the same time, roth’s “thinking without a banister” also means that at times we see him fall down the staircases of both time and place in his views of salonica’s jews. a critical contextualization of roth in jewish historiography requires an attention to the extent to which roth partakes in romanticizing, being nostalgic about, orientalizing, and even fictionalizing jewish salonica. such slips do seem both to occur as the cost of his efforts to produce a popular historical writing, and in turn to contribute to his academic historiographical devaluation to date. we should not be surprised, then, that roth’s engagement of salonica has much in common with not only contemporary “sites of memory” theory but also fiction. roth, too, is focused on the local site and interprets it as a memorial less of presence than of loss. he also connects events by theme and motif, rather than setting them in a chronological sequence. his approach to history attends to texts, images, objects, and locations as traces of cultural memory. most surprisingly for a historian perhaps, his writing is highly expressive of personal, affective, and imaginative involvement. like contemporary memory studies, most importantly roth examines memory culturally, for a people (the jews), but also transculturally, particularly in relation to and across empires (the ottoman, the spanish, the nazi). in this last way especially, in its transculturalization of salonica as site of memory, roth’s work can also transform the understanding of sites of memory, which emerged as a national and even more local concept.[27] it is worth returning to roth now, then, less as a historian, and more as a very early memory studies writer. further sections of this essay follow the widening and progressively transculturalizing course of what roth did with his experience in salonica. in parts two and three, i examine roth’s journal articles, written for an increasingly international anglophone audience, focusing on the effect of the holocaust on salonica, and their significance for the history and historiography of salonican jewry. in part four of my essay i examine roth’s publications on salonica, the ottoman empire, and the sephardim more broadly, to trace the ever more geographically and culturally expansive connections he makes outwards across memories: from very local, indeed personal, familial memory; to transcultural, trans-imperial—and ultimately an ideal of translated—memory. organizing roth’s work chronologically and close-reading his writings is important for a number of reasons. first, such attention helps to rectify the oversight of all of roth’s work on salonica to date. second, this approach helps to trace the progressively widening stages of roth’s interest in and approach to memory—widening both in terms of place and time, from a specific place to the trans-continental, and from very recent time to the very ancient, indeed, biblical period. in addition, the more extensively roth’s work on salonica travels in terms of time and space, the more affective, and thus, as i shall argue, the less historical and the more attuned with memory studies it becomes. in my conclusion, i draw together the implications of my analysis of roth’s multiple engagements of salonica for current understandings of culture, memory, and jewish history. his key contribution—which should encourage us to consider him as a precedent for our contemporary approaches, i resolve—is to conceive of these fields as transcultural. 2. “vandalism in salonika”: the jewish chronicle reports roth was not the first english-language writer to report from post-holocaust salonica. this role seems to have fallen to hal lehrman, a reporter for the associated press. lehrman’s essay in commentary, in may 1946—just a few months before roth’s first reports—merits comparison with roth’s work in particular for its discussion of the ongoing destruction of jewish salonica.[28] but unlike roth, lehrman is not concerned with the destruction of salonican jewish history and a long view of this history. rather, lehrman reports from the ground on the present situation he finds, including substantially beyond salonica, in larger greece. in addition, lehrman attends more to people, in particular to the returnees from the camps, their treatment, the disagreements among them, and to their possible futures; roth, it has to be said, is more concerned with places, artefacts, historical education, and memory. thus, while roth is not the first english-language reporter on post-holocaust salonica, i want to use this comparison with lehrman to underline my claim that roth was post-holocaust salonica’s first english-language historian. roth’s visit to salonica in july 1946 provided material for a number of publications. first were three newspaper reports appearing in the jewish chronicle at the end of the year of his visit.[29] in the first of these, which was headed “vandalism in salonika: ancient cemetery becomes ‘stone quarry,’” roth focuses exclusively on the jewish cemetery in salonica. his goal is not to report the expropriation or destruction of the cemetery by the nazis during the war. rather roth recounts, in seeking to stop, the ongoing and indeed “accelerated” destruction of the cemetery after the holocaust, by the non-jewish (greek) salonicans, in an act of transcultural violence. at the time of roth’s visit, the cemetery was being used as a “quarry,” its tombstones raided and recycled to make repairs to the city, including to the churches in salonica. roth witnessed both the removal of the tombstones from the cemetery and their use in the reconstruction of the post-war city. it is useful here to provide some context and background for the destruction of salonica’s jewish cemetery. as subsequent historians have documented, the extended process of the cemetery’s destruction, from the 1920s to the 1950s, was an expression of the hellenization of salonica: the policy of cultural homogenization by greek christianity that followed the ending of the ottoman empire in 1913 and the city’s subsequent recognition as greek.[30] even before the nazi occupation, then, events at the end of the ottoman empire had exacerbated monoculturalism in salonica. these included the great fire of 1917, the greek-turkish war, and the subsequent exchange of muslim and christian populations between turkey and greece as agreed at lausanne. particularly in their concatenation, these events left greek christians, not salonican jews, the majority cultural group in salonica, and the jewish minority increasingly threatened in an irredentist greece seeking to extend its territories in accordance with reclaiming and continuing classical greece. after the ottoman empire, the jewish community stood as a “reminder of ottoman times” that salonica wanted to forget; hellenizing greek governments largely sought the city’s “de-judaization.”[31] roth’s reports from the cemetery witness, and seek to obstruct, this continuing hellenization, in support instead of salonica’s transcultural memories. for roth, greek irredentism, symbolized in the extended destruction of the jewish cemetery, marked a fall from salonican jewry’s long and widely transcultural history, inextricable from the ottoman empire. even in his much earlier abbreviations of comprehensive jewish history, roth takes the space to write about the negative effects on its jewish population of the greek state’s acquisition of salonica. for example, in a short history of the jewish people, he notes that such nationalism raised concerns that “the jewish majority which had existed for many centuries” in the city “were in sight of final and definite decay.”[32] as the title of roth’s first jewish chronicle salonica report indicates, the long history of the cemetery made it especially important. the jewish cemetery was a special site of memory for the salonican jewish community, and for larger cultural and transcultural history, particularly because, as roth emphasizes, other evidence of these long histories had been destroyed: in consequence of the devastation of the past generation, beginning with the great fire of 1917 and culminating in the nazi persecution, the ancient records of the [salonican jewish] community have almost completely disappeared. the only thing that remains is the centuries-old cemetery, which has been employed continuously from the beginning of the 16th century, if not earlier. the tombstones here, therefore, constitute one of the most important surviving records of local jewish history, and indeed of salonikan history in general.[33] his article thus ends with an urgent plea that “the entire cemetery be scheduled as an historical monument.”[34] effectively at this point, roth asks for it to be officially recognized as a memorial site, a physical site of symbolic memory. roth understands the cemetery, moreover, as a transhistorical site of memory. it is not only a holocaust memorial to those “put there in our own generation by persons who are now living, or who have perished in the nazi gas-chambers.”[35] in “the tombstones of many rabbis, scholars, and physicians” buried there, it is also a physical commemoration of jewish lives dating back before the sixteenth century.[36] in his recognition of the cemetery as a site of transhistorical cultural memory, roth’s report from 1946 bears comparison with oral history accounts from present-day salonican jews, for whom “the cemetery physically embodies the long and continuing history of the sephardic jews of salonika.”[37] roth’s investment in the cemetery as a site of memory seems to exceed the historical record—certainly a newspaper report—and instead draws it close to subjectively inflected techniques valued by contemporary memory studies, such as these oral histories. even at this earliest engagement in the press, roth is not, in fact, reporting at all but campaigning—for an end to the vandalism but also for a memorial—and his medium, this particular weekly newspaper aimed at a british jewish audience, meant that his campaigning could have real consequences. as a regular contributor to the jewish chronicle who would go on to be, just a few years after he filed his salonica reports in the paper, the paper’s first historian, roth was well versed in the remit of this publication.[38] as his history rightly recognizes, making much of the paper’s tagline in its masthead as “the organ of british jewry,” the jewish chronicle is an institution that developed in tandem with british jewry. the paper’s key brief for not only keeping british jewry informed of, but also encouraging them to campaign against, anti-semitic pogroms throughout europe, from the nineteenth century on, would have been clear to roth; his salonica essays for the jewish chronicle are consonant with this activist, interventionist stance. as david cesarani notes in his history of the paper (which returns to and updates roth’s study), in reporting the holocaust the jewish chronicle managed to obtain accurate information very early on—including on the deportations of the salonican jewish community in 1943—that the rest of the british press ignored. the paper’s role, inextricably mediating and campaigning throughout its history, was, cesarani writes, “interpreting the world to the jews in britain and representing them to the majority society.”[39] cesarani’s summary underestimates the reach of at least some of the newspaper’s reports, for—even in this first piece for the british jewish audience of the jewish chronicle—roth presents the cemetery as a site of memory that is not just jewish but transcultural: the importance of the cemetery is not confined to its jewish associations, as it appears that fragments dating back to the classical period were originally adapted for use there. in a hurried inspection i noticed several large fragments of what appears to be a monumental latin inscription, as well as an ancient greek tombstone which had similarly been re-employed.[40] roth’s post-holocaust salonican publications begin, then, not with a report on the destruction of salonican jewry in the holocaust, but rather with the call to preserve and recognize a transhistorical site of memory, which, while centrally jewish, evidenced transcultural borrowings. what is clear also from roth’s earliest writing on salonica is the symbolic value of the cemetery—and thus the significance of its destruction going far beyond the local site—and the reporter’s own attachments and investments in his object going beyond any historical detachment. this co-presence of sites of symbolic memory and revealed affective attachment, the expression of an imaginative response so characteristic of later memory studies work, is amplified in roth’s subsequent jewish chronicle reports. after focusing on the plight of the cemetery in his first report, roth’s next two reports for the jewish chronicle—titled “greece, 1946 – impressions on a tour (1)” and “greece, 1946 – impressions on a tour (2)”—move beyond the cemetery, and, indeed, while still centred on salonica, move beyond the city and become increasingly international. roth begins his next report with a confession of his lifelong personal investment in salonica: all my life, i had wanted to visit the famous community of salonika – salonika, the great haven of the exiles from spain 450 years ago, which was for centuries almost a self-dependent jewish commonwealth, where jews constituted the great majority of the inhabitants of the city, where the spanish language and folk-ways and civilisation of the age of columbus were preserved until our own day, where there were synagogues bearing the names of every province of spain.[41] roth still does not explain here his reasons for his lifelong attachment to the city; we will have to retrace this from his later writings on salonica. instead he reveals that his visit to salonica was happenstance, made possible when he was commissioned by the british war office to lecture to the british troops still stationed in the middle east and found himself scheduled on a flight “from cairo to greece: and not merely greece, but precisely to salonika.”[42] yet especially affecting at the opening of his report, the material accumulated in the series of repeated conjunctive clauses, and the reiteration of the city’s name as though it itself it holds poetry for roth, sets up the salonica of roth’s personal longing as a transhistorical and transcultural jewish city. salonica is syntactically constructed as a time-capsule site of memory of sephardi jews translated from spain that mediates between near jewish autonomy and inter-relationality with its host state (“the almost-dependent jewish commonwealth”). that roth writes of managing to communicate with the acting rabbi of salonica using a mixture of spanish and hebrew—effectively ladino, the ancient tongue of sephardi jews—is another indicator of roth positioning himself in relation to the continuation of salonica as a transcultural and transhistorical transplantation of the sephardim from spain. deploying ladino embeds roth as a present-day participant, less outsider and more now-insider, in the very “language and folk-ways and civilisation of the age of columbus […] preserved until our own day” that he is writing about and that he admires. roth’s linguistic facility, as a british-born ashkenazi jew, in ladino—a hybrid medium sometimes outlawed in greece by authorities seeking cultural homogenization[43]—also paves the way for us to examine later in this essay his own inclination to the sephardim, which will hinge on transcultural and transhistorical memories. only after this view of the long and wide salonican memory do we get some details of the fate of jews in the holocaust, which here amount to some of the numbers involved and the roles of some key players. the effect of this order of long history before recent history is to present the holocaust as destructive of this prior memory. indeed, the second jewish chronicle report does not memorialize jews lost in the holocaust but, even more strongly than the first report, works as advocacy against the ongoing destruction of a much longer and larger history. roth’s main stated goal now is to call for the rebuilding of the jewish community of salonica following the return of salonica’s holocaust survivors. roth’s emphasis on historical and cultural education appears sharply focused and perceptive, especially given that historians in our own day are still processing the reasons for the lack of community cohesion among survivors.[44] the american joint distribution committee would also recognize, but later than roth in the 1950s, that the main problem in salonica, among other post-holocaust communities, was the lack of education. salonica’s historians today write of the “destruction of jewish references to the past, of which the biggest was the destruction of the old jewish cemetery” and suggest that the “process of the reconstruction of jewish memory has only recently begun.”[45] in the cemetery as it is being taken apart and seeking to stop this, roth seemed to grasp these symbolic connections well in advance. roth was a historian who, after all, committed his life’s work to writing in support of his belief that emotional investment in history was the most important aspect of being jewish, since knowledge of history shaped the present and would determine the future. as roth put it in one of three essays appearing in the late 1920s–early 1930s in the menorah journal, which together act as an early-career declaration of his valuation of the significance of jewish history, to the jew, history should be more important by far than to anyone else. it is for him not merely a record: it is at once an inspiration and an apologia. only from his history can he understand the facts of his present being. only from his history can he be brought to appreciate not only his former glory but also his former degradation, to realize its causes and to sympathize with its consequences. it is only from an appreciation of his past that he can be imbued with self-respect and hope for his future.[46] criticizing the historical views of his predecessors, in particular both the diaspora nationalism of russian historian simon dubnov and the seminal jewish historiography of german historian heinrich graetz, roth steers between the narratives of diasporic jewish history as triumphant survival or inevitable abjection, as he will later do in the cemetery in salonica. roth claimed, in fact, in rejection of graetz’s tragedy of jewish suffering in exile, to have “initiated […] the wider reaction against what has been termed the ‘lachrymose’ interpretation of jewish history,” pre-empting his contemporary salo baron, the us jewish historian who is typically credited with, and certainly claimed for himself, this turn against graetz’s tragic influence on the theme of jewish history.[47] the point is that, even in the salonica cemetery, roth implicitly continues to distinguish himself from other seminal historians by seeking to memorialize a history that, as with his oeuvre, included the vicissitudes of jewish cross-cultural life in the diaspora. similar to that for preserving the cemetery but now thinking on the larger scale of the continuity of the local salonican jewish community and its history, roth’s campaign for historical education is thus directed at stopping the destruction of jewish history itself. he writes that, “without it [historical education], we ourselves will be completing the devastation which the germans began—we shall become, in short, the deliberate accomplices of the nazis.” [48] in both cases, he sees in the holocaust the destruction of not just recent lives and history but also the long and expansive sephardic history that—we are starting to suspect in particular—is what made salonica so compelling to roth as a historian. roth presents this rebuilding of jewish history and presence in europe, in salonica, in quasi-zionist terms, and yet, importantly, outside of zion (israel/palestine). at the very moment (late 1940s) when zionism was about to produce a national homeland for jews in israel, at what might be considered the historical fulfilment of zionism as jewish nationalism, roth was writing and indeed working towards maintaining a diasporized, international jewry in salonica. when jewish historiography itself was, not surprisingly after the holocaust, taking on, as krome notes, a “‘zioncentric’ vision of jewish history” with which “roth was thus at odds,”[49] such a call was especially notable: we need young people who will approach the question in the same chalutzistic spirit which zionism has been able to arouse on behalf of palestine—people of the type of the “bachad” enthusiasts, willing to divert their attention momentarily to another and less glamorous, but surely no less important, type of work. for there is a holy land to be won back in the diaspora, as well as in eretz yisrael.[50] recognizing the importance of salonica for world jewry, roth does not so much borrow, as swipe wholesale, the institutions, language, and messianic vision of zionism. roth’s reference to bachad would have had particular resonance for the jewish chronicle’s british audience. an acronym from the hebrew meaning the “union of religious pioneers,” bachad was an organization that trained jews for religious zionist pioneering in palestine, whose training centres had been relocated to britain from germany after kristallnacht in 1938.[51] however, roth translates or imports zionism for salonica instead of for palestine, producing a kind of diasporized transcultural zionism outside of, but parallel to, palestine. as a british subject with a father of polish heritage born in russia, and a mother born in sheffield, roth himself was, of course, a diasporic, translated jew. and while roth died and was buried in jerusalem, he moved to israel mostly for professional rather than personal reasons, to edit the encyclopaedia judaica.[52] his move was not a religiously or nationally motivated “return” to israel. writing in the jewish chronicle, roth was addressing a similar kind of diasporic, british jew, at a point—1946, immediately after the second world war—when the survival of the jewish diaspora in europe was a very real concern for his jewish audience. at this point and in the context of jewish historiography, roth seems to draw close to dubnov, both in his underlining of the centrality of diaspora sites to jewish history and in his understanding of the vital importance of historical sources and knowledge for jewish continuity. however, dubnov was charged by later historians with “minimizing the interplay of jews and non-jews,” and “neglect[ing] the impact on jewish history of important developments in the non-jewish world.”[53] roth, in contrast, made this cultural interplay his key subject, arguing, in one pronounced instance in the jewish contribution to civilisation, that without jewish migration from the east to europe, europe would likely have remained pagan.[54] moreover, particularly in his first essay for the menorah journal, roth charged dubnov with focusing on german and polish jewry to the detriment of the sephardim, such as in salonica. “the story of the sephardim, for example, is studied with romantic devotion up to the generation following the expulsion from spain. from that period they are almost lost sight of.” [55] the sephardim “cannot be dismissed with a faint sneer at their decadence and a paragraph.”[56] indeed, again arguing for history as a shaper of the present, and now of sephardi history for the present and future of all jewry, roth writes, in clear repartee to dubnov: “a jewish history which fails to take fair account of this branch of the race, so prominent in the past and of such potential importance for the future, is self-confessedly a failure.”[57] roth’s salonican writings function in part, then, to correct previous elisions from jewish historiography such as dubnov’s. in these early post-holocaust salonican writings, we see roth’s intervention simultaneously in larger jewish historiographical debates, therefore, and in salonican jewish history and particularly the debates on zionism that had been strongest in the city in the first two decades of the twentieth century. in salonica, as in many other cities in greece and indeed beyond with a sizeable jewish population, zionism tracked, developing in good part in response to, anti-semitism.[58] persecution (before the germans, from the local greek population) fuelled salonican jewish support for palestine as a national homeland for all jews. exceptionally within salonica, however, there had been a local form of zionism that felt that, as a major jewish city, salonica was a true jewish homeland. roth’s rallying cry for a zionism in salonica, for winning back a holy land in diaspora, revives and takes sides in this debate. however, in 1948, in the midst of the devastation of community structures and near extermination of every salonican jew in the holocaust, such optimism seems to go against the tides of history, and even against feeling on the ground among those survivors he encountered—as we see in his next and final report for the jewish chronicle.[59] this last of roth’s jewish chronicle reports finally recounts the holocaust’s devastation of jewish salonica. yet again roth’s emphasis is not on the near extermination of people but on the destruction of the long historic memories of salonican jewry. this article offers more details about the ongoing fate of the cemetery. roth remarks on the “tombstones of the ancient jewish cemetery, going back to the sixteenth century” and needing to be preserved for that reason, being used for not only churches, but also pavements, parks, and latrines.[60] in an eyewitness record of a series of scenes, roth confronts the ruination of jewish salonica which can be seen in the now-devastated cemetery and in what we might identify as objects of memory: a synagogue chair with a hebrew inscription, looted from synagogue, now being sold by a pedlar; a small remnant from an ancient sefer torah (hebrew “bible”). roth views the destruction of these objects and places, textual as well as topographic sites of memory, as the deliberate and subconscious “desire to complete the hellenisation of this city which had owed so much in the past to jewish skill and enterprise.”[61] in other words, such acts seek to make the city nationalistically and ethnically greek (to hellenize it), thereby erasing its transcultural memories, including the presence and creativity of jews. the report moves from salonica to the parallel destruction that had taken place elsewhere in greece where jews again had maintained a presence. roth also chronicles some of the stories of those who survived, relays some of his conversations with survivors, describes the supportive role of the contemporary greek government toward its jewish citizens, and underlines the need particularly for the sephardim internationally to support the regeneration of greece’s jewish community. roth brings up palestine only as a foil in his argument for rebuilding greek and salonican jewry, diaspora jewry outside of zion. the report stages a fascinating confrontation between roth as an outsider british jew and one greek jewish leader’s vision of his own community’s future. roth disagrees withthe chairman of the central board of greek jewish communities, with whom he had a conversation, not in ladino but in a “polyglot interchange” of greek, french, spanish, english, and hebrew. the chair had represented palestine as the only solution to the post-holocaust devastation of greek jewry. “i am no zionist propagandist,” roth avows in response.[62] particularly given his first two salonica publications, which had established the long transhistorical and transcultural memory of jewish salonica, this third and final report for the jewish chronicle makes clear that roth was far from willing to follow the local advice he encountered to give up on salonican jewry. this turning away from the present facts of devastation of greek jewry he was faced with on the ground suggests that roth invested the survival and revival of this community with larger symbolic significance. indeed, as i shall show in the next section, roth wished to maintain salonican jewry in good part for reasons of its symbolic significance as a transcultural historical presence. 3. “[a]ll that salonican jewry had stood for”: the commentary essay roth’s most substantial writing on salonica, and his fullest account of what happened there during the holocaust, emerges four years after his visit. if his first publications, his reports for the jewish chronicle, were received primarily by a british (his native) audience, his fourth publication, “the last days of jewish salonica: what happened to a 450-year-old civilization,” his essay published in commentary in 1950, reached a mainly american audience. the american arena was increasingly receptive of roth’s work, in contrast with his native britain, especially in academic circles.[63] the specific publication context of the essay was again significant. commentary magazine was founded in 1945—the year before roth’s visit to salonica—by the american jewish committee. still at this point very much liberal and non-denominationalist, as nathan abrams writes in his history of commentary, it “covered matters of both universal interest and of specifically jewish concern, in a non-zionist intellectual, broad-based reform jewish contemporary tone.”[64] this outward-turned outlook was pertinent, since roth’s take on salonica continued to be neither zionist nor exclusively jewish, non-nationalist and indeed anti-nationalist, but in support of diasporic, transcultural and interfaith memories and their legacy in shaping the present. roth’s commentary essay declares its own significance as “the first detailed report in the english language” on the near annihilation of salonican jews in the holocaust.[65] in spite of lehrman’s report, published also in commentary, the claim seems largely justified, given that lehrman does not focus on salonica, or indeed give an account of the holocaust in greece. in addition, in the key english-language books on salonican jews, no published reports (including lehrman’s report) previous to roth’s essay are cited.[66] roth’s essay begins with the oversight from holocaust history of the fate of salonican jews: “the fate of the jews of salonica at the hands of the nazis is an episode of recent history that for some reason or other has been relatively overlooked. yet, even in recent history, there are few stories more terrible.”[67] roth does not directly address the reason for this oversight, but his emphasis here on salonica as “the greatest center of sephardic jewry” up until the war, with its extensive transhistorical and transcultural connections, may indirectly offer an answer.[68] this answer extends roth’s criticism of the minimization of post-1492 sephardi history generally, which he had already articulated in at least one of his historical methodology essays as discussed above.[69] namely, sephardic experiences of the holocaust were generally “relatively overlooked” because they were overshadowed by the ashkenazi-centred narrative of the holocaust, as this began to shape and dominate holocaust history.[70] this answer holds a question that in turn is a matter requiring more research. however, in brief, it might be supposed that ashkenazi holocaust history dominated sephardi holocaust history because the former is more local to the main killing centres of the holocaust (germany and poland). in addition, and perhaps as a consequence, the study of the ashkenazim has dominated jewish studies even more emphatically since the holocaust. devin naar, a contemporary historian particularly of sephardic history, including on salonica, remarks on the perpetuation of the oversight of sephardi holocaust experience even in our present day: “i think the first common assumption about the relationship between sephardic jews and the holocaust is that there isn’t any. the holocaust has generally been studied and remembered as a primarily ashkenazi phenomenon.”[71] returning to the subject of salonica four years after his visit and his reports in britain, roth continues to correct oversights. however, as a 5000-word essay rather than a short series of singleor double-column newspaper reports, with more extensive space to develop connections between holocaust memory and the long historical and transcultural memories of the sephardim, and in a more creative, reflective form, “last days of salonica” also represents the most significant of roth’s salonica publications. the commentary essay deploys parallels between past and present that support these connections in sephardi holocaust memory and makes novelistic use of the role of the image. this publication adds to the previous publications a clearer representation of salonica as site of memory, one that manifestly prefigures this concept in contemporary memory studies and substantially furthers its transcultural dimension. although roth’s article undoubtedly lays some of the groundwork, the fate of salonican jews in the holocaust has since been covered in much more detail in the historiography.[72] such work has been enriched by the longer research period, the extension of jewish studies and the emergence of holocaust studies, new methodologies such as oral and testimonial histories, and of course the development of memory and transcultural studies. nevertheless, before an analysis of roth’s commentary essay can be given, some basic facts need to be retold. so extreme was the experience, so barely accountable even on the scale of the shoah, post-roth historians of salonica find the statistics themselves speak volumes: “the almost total annihilation of salonica’s jews during the holocaust was an unprecedented catastrophe […]. of the roughly fifty thousand jews in salonica on the eve of world war ii, almost all perished […], mostly in auschwitz-birkenau. less than two thousand could be counted in 1945.”[73] and the deportations of the numbers happened with a horrible rapidity: “in a matter of weeks nearly one-fifth of the population of a large city had been deported.”[74] the destruction of salonican jewry also meant the devastation of greek jewry and that salonica would never recover its essential and central jewish status: before the war, the city had housed two-thirds of the country’s total jewish population and had been the centre of its intellectual and cultural life; after 1945, however, only one-fifth of the approximately 11,000 greek jews who had survived the war lived there and the spotlight shifted to the nation’s capital [athens].[75] a community that was a dominant majority at the beginning of the twentieth century would, a century later, constitute just “0.001 per cent of the total population of salonika.”[76] roth’s commentary essay also presents some bare statistics and facts concerning salonica’s shoah. unlike the jewish chronicle reports, which do not give an account of the holocaust in salonica, nor, indeed, as i have shown, do they even begin with the holocaust, roth’s essay tells a fuller story, with details of the round-ups, detention, ghettoization, and deportations of the jewish community. the first time these had been narrated in english in an article dedicated to salonica’s jews and so early on, the details are especially powerful. but roth’s essay is significant not for statistics or facts but for what he does with them, for treating the holocaust in a much larger memory context. above all, roth’s essay evokes the near obliteration of the “50,000,” formerly “over 80,000,”[77] by depicting jewish salonica as a site of memory of long cross-cultural exchange, a historical layering of coexistence—and its termination—within different imperial geographies. roth’s essay has received very little attention. this is both in accordance with the overshadowing of salonican jewish experience of the holocaust, with the emphasis on ashkenazi jewish experience rather than sephardi, and also indicates roth’s devaluation in jewish studies, even in material devoted to the sephardim. roth’s essay receives just one brief mention in the books on salonican jews, in the most recent, by naar: “roth recoiled at the sight of the torah scroll cut into pieces to serve as soles for shoes.”[78] (that roth remains unindexed in naar’s book—and not mentioned in mazower’s touchstone transcultural history of salonica[79]—symptomatizes the continuous elision of roth as significant source). there has been no analysis of roth’s commentary essay, and his jewish chronicle reports go entirely unmentioned. and so, as roth’s essay stakes a claim to a kind of firstness, this section of my essay marks the first attempt to attend to and analyse roth’s commentary essay. more particularly i want to show how its vast memory scope is underwritten by connections between holocaust, ottoman, and spanish memories; how this network of memories underlies roth’s attachment to salonica; and how these connections in turn support his attraction to sephardic culture. as suggested by its subtitle, “what happened to a 450-year-old civilisation,” roth’s commentary essay responds to the half-millennial historical significance of salonican jewry. the essay amplifies the ancient status of jews in salonica, in order to tell a more extensive story, both historically longer and geographically wider in scope. before giving an account of the holocaust, in his opening summary roth traces the history of salonican jewry, far back before the holocaust, under the ottoman empire, and before the ottoman empire, to the expulsion of the sephardim from spain in the fifteenth century, and indeed even back to the early christian and classical period. roth works hard to establish the pre-eminence, and indeed pre-existence, of salonican jewry, depicting salonica as a site of jewish memory sustained within a larger, cross-faith and cross-cultural context: “when paul of tarsus visited salonica, in the year 50 ce, he found there a strong jewish community,” and he even preached in the synagogue on sabbaths.[80] roth underlines the age and continuity of jewish life in salonica. even during paul’s time, “the community’s history may already have gone back some generations; afterwards, certainly, it was uninterrupted down to modern times”; “down to the beginning of the 20th century, the picture remained almost unchanged.”[81] the history is so intact and vital in roth’s essay that it embodies cultural memory as an ongoing practice of transcultural adjustment. he claims that, until almost the time of his writing, in 1950, no ships in salonica were allowed to unload on the sabbath; such was the recognition of, and respect for, the contribution of the jewish presence to salonica. interestingly, this was one of the several facts that roth got wrong, or at least here, out of date. in the hellenization of the city following the ending of the ottoman empire, during the interwar period well before the nazis, the salonican municipality forced out all jews working in the port. as part of this programme, greek state legislation made sunday—and not the jewish sabbath as it had been before the first world war—the official day of rest for business.[82] roth’s larger and wider narrative scope seems to cost some historical precision and accuracy. yet the error is revealing of both his general approach as a memory studies-orientated historian, and his specific goals for this rendition of jewish salonica for a popular audience expecting to impute culpability to the nazis in this extension of the story of the holocaust. namely, roth’s overemphasis on the longevity, integration, and incorporation of sephardic cultural memory will make his subsequent account of how the nazis nearly destroyed this sustained memory of the sephardim in salonica—the substance of his essay—much more dramatic, poignant, and affective. size also mattered to roth’s view of salonica as significant. he noted both the comparatively substantial size of the city and the large, but decreasing, number of its jews: “on the eve of world war ii, salonica, greece’s third largest city, had a jewish population of 240,000; compared to the past this represented a sharp decline for what was traditionally a jewish city. the ancient intellectual pre-eminence had waned somewhat.”[83] thus salonica’s importance is due not simply to size but also to its symbolic function. as with the cemetery, which now comes to seem a symbol within the symbol of salonica, roth understands ottoman-period salonica as the centre, and the defining and essential part of, sephardic jewry; but also, as what had definitively most remained of the sephardim, a site of memory removed and relocated from spain to the ottoman empire. ottoman jewish salonica comprised a representative cross-section of sephardim that remained unchanged. attached to the famous synagogues and academies, there were rabbis and scholars, and the jews “controlled trade and industry.”[84] but “the bulk of the community were, as their ancestors had been, peddlers, craftsmen, and manual laborers,” and jews also made up the city’s “artisans, the fishermen, the stevedores, and the harbour workers.”[85] roth suggests pre-second world war salonican jewry as a preservation of an ideal and harmonious community: “economically, the jewish community was well balanced. certainly, there was here no excessive proportion of professional men. […] there were now no great fortunes.”[86] this is another inaccurate description. in the most recent history of salonica, which works with multiple local archives’ historical sources, naar cites a census of 1934 that raises this estimation of the social status of the community, with the majority being made up of “middle-class professionals and small businessmen,” while “successful merchants” and “unskilled labourers” were in the minority.[87] roth’s depreciation and levelling out of wealth serve again to produce a single and simple story about the emergence of anti-semitism: namely, it underlines that there were absolutely no grounds for the anti-semitic paranoia fomented by the nazis about jewish financial control and political influence. countering nazi propaganda, roth paints a reverse picture, using what might be thought of as a rhetorical version of poetic licence (fictionalizing from fact in order to produce intended effect). indeed, if roth slips over a few historical and demographic details on salonica before the nazis arrived, his account of old-fashioned labouring jewish life takes the form of the picturesque, a word he draws on twice in the essay in this context—“old-established, picturesque, hard-working jewish masses”[88]—and that roth used elsewhere himself to classify his more popular historical writings.[89] at this point, in practising his methodological goal to render history “in a readable and intelligible form,” [90] roth moves away from historical authenticity to what we might call authenticity of the image or the imagination. in her essay “site of memory,” novelist toni morrison writes of using the same kind of device in her fiction, as she builds each of her novels around an image to produce a historical truth that is not factual but associated with feelings, which she calls “emotional memory.”[91] to describe her historically imaginative mode, her fiction as site of memory, morrison uses the word “picture”: “my reliance on the image—on the remains—in addition to recollection, to yield up a kind of a truth. by ‘image,’ of course, i don’t mean ‘symbol’; i simply mean ‘picture’ and the feelings that accompany the picture.”[92] the “picturesque” might be understood as a form of representation that puts the image centre-ground and that suggests, sentimentally or romantically but certainly evocatively, the persistence or continuity of the picture. for roth, in his imagination of sephardic salonica, until the war, “the picture remained almost unchanged.”[93] according to roth, it was this unchanging picture, this imaginable crystallization of transposed pluralistic sephardic identity, culture, and memory that the nazis attacked. at the start of the occupation in 1941, one of the first things the nazis did was to close down the messagero, as the only “judeo-spanish daily paper,” the democratic mouthpiece of the ladino-language—transplanted jewish spanish—community.[94] it is significant that roth’s discussion of the ladino daily itself appears in the magazine set up by american jews in the last year of the second world war: to all intents and purposes a marker of continued jewish engagement in a largely pluralistic and democratic context. in commentary, roth seems to be writing in a paper that, at this point, bears comparison with that salonican paper shut down by the nazis. there is an emotional resonance in his defence of press democracy. and yet there are also key differences in these press titles, which help to further our understanding of the context of, and audience for, roth’s developing representation of salonica. commentary quickly went beyond its american jewish committee-sponsored intentions of focusing centrally on jewish culture to become, from the mid-1940s, just a few years before roth’s essay, not only a mouthpiece but, as abrams argues, a prime mover in shaping the us’s anti-communist stance, increasingly addressed to a still-ecumenical, but now conservative, audience.[95] the messagero, on the other hand, even while written for and by the “literate elites”—as naar sums up the catchment of all of the local salonican papers that form a key research seam in his study of jewish salonica—remained an imprint rigorously focused on jewish concerns.[96] moreover, the messagero was necessarily restricted in its readership to the ladino-speaking community, in a way that commentary, written in english, was not restricted to a jewish-language audience. the messagero’s readers and writers in their turn represented a minority increasingly threatened with destruction in a rapidly unfurling anti-semitic national (greek), and then genocidal imperial (german), context. in commentary, then, roth’s nostalgia for what this minority in salonica represented—an island of refuge for persecuted jews fleeing one totalitarian empire (spain under the inquisition) for their descendants to end up in another totalitarian empire (german national socialist)—has additional resonance in, and certainly does not contradict, commentary’s increasingly anti-communist, anti-soviet, and dominant neoconservative stance. with more time and distance to reflect on the war in salonica also, roth strikes a much more melancholic tone in his commentary essay than in his jewish chronicle reports. the act of stringing together different catastrophes of anti-semitism under different empires, which makes the losses of the holocaust that much more symbolic and affective, renders it hard for roth to avoid succumbing to very theme for jewish history he sought to set his work against, that of lachrymosity. here, in commentary, he writes, all that salonican jewry had stood for – that strange island of 15th-century spain in a setting of 20th-century greece – is gone forever. with it has gone, unnoticed and unlamented, the cultural environment which made the city for so long a center of interest for philologists, historians, folklorists, and lovers of the picturesque. it is not only a community that has been annihilated, but also a way of life.[97] “[a]ll that salonican jewry had stood for,” in roth’s figurative or indexical conception, in other words all it had functioned as an image or symbolof, was not simply the long and continuous history of salonican jewry, or ottoman jewry, or even sephardic jewry. “salonica” also stood for the cultural practices (including language of interest to philologists), memories and life, and the state contexts, that allowed jews to thrive alongside other communities. “[t]hat strange island of 15th-century spain in a setting of 20th-century greece”: this site is a topographical, transhistorical, and indeed trans-imperial transportation of sephardic memory. near the beginning of his commentary essay, roth identifies the significance of salonica on the eve of the second world war through what it held for historians, collectors—memory studies scholars, we might say, especially of transcultural memory. early twentieth-century salonica enables visitors to become anthropologists, effectively time-travelling to pre-inquisition spain, or sepharad: moreover, the city was still a happy hunting ground for spanish philologists and scholars, anxious to trace, in the speech of the descendants of the exiles of 1492, the authentic accent and folklore of 15th-century castile; and the old folk still paraded along the quayside on a sabbath afternoon in medieval spanish costume.[98] roth draws repeatedly on such instances of the picturesque and the image: the fashions, the habits, the dishes, the languages, the costumes, and even the lullabies of toledo and seville [significant judeo-spanish cities] as they had existed in the age of ferdinand and isabella, were incongruously perpetuated, generation after generation. [99] the effect is to suggest that salonican jewish cultural practices comprised memories of early-modern spanish-inflected existence historically intact in the twentieth-century ottoman, and immediately post-ottoman, empire. the picturesque, then, serves to construct the sense of an unbroken transhistorical and transcultural world, and a feeling of terrible loss at the destruction of this world in the holocaust. roth notes at the end of the essay, with a mixture of tones at once mournful and hopeful, that even now during his visit, when the jews of salonica have all but disappeared as a presence in the city, a symbol of their transcultural practice survives. this cultural symbol takes the form of a sephardic sabbath food, and the ladino/spanish name for it, now a greek street food: “but a greek hawker in the street was selling eggs cooked in the traditional sephardic sabbatical fashion, huevos enjaminados [oven-roasted eggs], now become a local delicacy. jewish life had been all but exterminated, but this relic of the jewish cuisine curiously survived.”[100] so much was salonican jewry the transcultural site of memory of pre-inquisition spain that roth claims that columbus (who roth believed was “descended from spanish jews converted to christianity”)[101] would have been more at home in salonica than in palos, the port of spain from which he set sail for the americas. the site of holocaust memory roth visits in salonica just after the second world war, then, was underlain by the site of memory of pre-inquisition spain. the conception of salonican jewry as the memory of sephardi jewry rests on a sense of the ottoman empire as supporting minority cultural autonomy and cultural exchange within the structures of empire. roth conveys a pluralist model of the ottoman empire both in his commentary essay and in all his writings touching on the empire. roth thus holds up repeatedly in his work this picturesque image of salonica under the ottoman empire as an island of refuge and flourishing for sephardi jews expelled from the spanish empire. indeed, the tropes of jewish thriving in the ottoman port, of cross-cultural harmony (such as ships not being able to unload on saturdays) are so recurrent as to form salonica as one of roth’s idées fixes. he even manages to shoehorn this evocation of salonica under the ottoman empire into a short history of the jewish people: the jewish people must always recall the turkish empire with gratitude because, at one of the darkest hours of their history, when no alternative place of refuge was open and there seemed no chance of succour, it flung open its doors widely and generously for the reception of the fugitives, and kept them open.[102] space will not allow me here to test out fully the truth of roth’s assumption, but such idealism about the ottoman empire as extending an altruistic welcome towards its jewish subjects has since been challenged by historians of ottoman jewry.[103] for roth, ottoman transculturalism seems to have consisted of, first, a broad-brush ideal of folk complementarity between ethnic groups: “the turks were soldiers and peasants, uninterested in trade and inexpert in handicrafts. the jews were merchants and craftsmen, long excluded from the land and inexpert in war. hence the two peoples were in a sense complementary.”[104] second, roth celebrates the ottoman empire, here as elsewhere in his work, particularly for accepting—welcoming, roth says repeatedly—the jews expelled from inquisition spain. the detail in roth’s account has been much narrated and debated, sceptically interrogated and more simply celebrated, in the histories of sephardi jews. roth certainly adheres to the latter, and a not-uncustomary quasi-fairy-tale retelling of the sultan’s welcome of the jews: and when the jews were expelled from spain in 1492 the sultan tolerantly opened the gates of his empire to them. most of them settled naturally in the seaports; and above all in salonica, which from this time onwards was one of europe’s greatest jewish communities—for a time, indeed, the greatest.[105] the ottoman sultan’s rescue of the jews from the inquisition, massacres, and pogroms of christian european persecution from 1492 thus begins, in roth’s accounts, the greatness of salonica for european jewry, and begins it as a site of refuge. that the ottomans made salonica a site of refuge for jews is also a precedent, for salonica comes to harbour other parts of the jewish diaspora, first from spain and then beyond. roth depicts salonica as the memorialization of a disparate, diasporized jewry, the site of memory of successive and successful refuge-seeking of multicultural jews: “it was a microcosm of the jewish world. there were refugees from france, italy, germany, hungary, calabria, apulia, sicily, and every province and city of spain, each group maintaining its own synagogue and congregation.”[106] how roth squares this recognition of the significance of jewish migration from northern europe, including the ashkenazim, with continuing to see salonica as the image and symbol of pre-inquisition sephardic spain is not clear—at least outside of the explanation of rhetorical poetic license. naar’s history recognizes the city as much more plural in its jewish population, with the sephardim from spain being, well before the eve of the second world war, only one among many cultural groups of jews, including ashkenazim.[107] given his idealistic view of ottoman transculturalism, the end of the ottoman empire in roth’s narrative can only produce a negative impact on salonican jewry. roth therefore dates “anti-semitic agitation” from “the close of the period of turkish [ottoman] rule,” when, in 1912, the city passed over to greek governance and “the exchanges of population between greece and turkey brought about a rapid artificial expansion of the greek population (hitherto a minority), and a forced process of hellenization.”[108] the termination of the ottoman empire effects the editing and revision of both history and cultural demographics. as greek nationalism built on the myth of an ancient and continuous homogenous greek history, “hellenization” erases the actual transcultural past, including the definitive jewish contribution to salonica. it also sets a precedent in this elision of cultural difference for the nazis to fulfil in the holocaust. when the salonican jews were deported by the nazis, moreover, roth writes, “with the most profound regret,” that the general, greek population of salonica did not intervene and instead “many did not shun a profit from the jewish distress.”[109] while roth singles out and relates episodes in which salonican greeks did help jews, there is no doubt that his “regret” stems from his perception that the holocaust marked the death of the transcultural complementarity and coexistence in the city that began to fail with the end of the ottoman empire. roth’s idealization of the ottoman empire is striking and, i would suggest, worthy of further exploration, beyond the few other examples i will provide in the next section of my essay when i consider roth’s writings on the sephardim more broadly for what they reveal about salonica and transcultural memory. i will briefly say here that his own historical location must play some role in his views. roth came of age as a historian (graduating in 1922)[110] after the end of the ottoman empire. with the empire itself existing only in history and “the turks” no longer an enemy, we can make contextual sense of roth’s ottoman nostalgia.[111] moreover, throughout his early academic life, the danger for jews and other minorities came from western europe—as during the inquisition—and the east apparently offered refuge from persecution. it is notable that roth makes no mention of and nowhere pays any attention to the genocide of the armenians that took place at the end of the ottoman empire, a particularly conspicuous absence in light of his attention to the holocaust and his highly euphemistic mention of “the exchanges of population.” this omission is, however, consistent with roth’s idealization of “turkey’s” inherent transculturalism and his nostalgic view of the ottoman empire. in roth’s essay, then, the end of the ottoman empire seems to return salonica’s sephardim to conditions that compelled them to seek refuge in the empire in the first place: that is, an ideology of homogenous nationalization and the assumption of christianity, albeit now in 1912 greece, rather than in 1492 spain. this joining of historically disparate and geographically dispersed events, an approach to time and space that works in thematic overlay rather than chronological sequence or topographical proximity, is key to roth’s imaginatively driven, affective, transcultural memory studies approach. it draws roth’s work close to the realm of “zahkor,” or jewish memory, and away from historiography, as these two terms and traditions were distinguished by late twentieth-century jewish historian yosef yerushalmi. [112] according to yerushalmi, in zakhor, or jewish memory, the past is understood as the recurrence of archetypes, with the effect that historical specificities are lost to ongoing poetic themes. the repetition of catastrophes that brings together both dates and locations is a strong feature of this tradition of jewish memory, which resists historiography’s linear narrative of singular events. as yerushalmi writes, “memory here is no longer recollection, which still preserves a sense of distance, but reactualization.”[113] in an instance of this schema, in the preface to his 1937 book the spanish inquisition, roth states that history repeats itself in different locales: “the spanish inquisition was until yesterday an antiquarian diversion. the events of the past few years, and above all the past few months, have converted it into a dreadful warning.”[114] however, while yerushalmi sees the spanish inquisition as an attempted break with the tradition of jewish memory and the beginnings of a more linear jewish historiography, for roth the spanish inquisition is a very powerful recurrent trope—including, crucially, when he comes to write on post-holocaust salonica. roth’s temporal parallelism between the holocaust and the spanish inquisition appears at various points in the commentary essay, where its effect is to idealize the ottoman empire further. in telling the story of the final deportations of jews from salonica to the german death camps by train in 1943, roth joins this moment, in a chiasmic inversion, with the miraculous salvation from spain in 1492: four hundred and fifty-one years before, their ancestors had been the victims of one of the greatest tragedies in the history of medieval europe when they had been driven out of spain, hoping in vain for a miracle that would save them at the last moment. now an age had come when miracles were no longer even hoped for.[115] in another example of chiasmic inversion of times and regimes, when he relates the details of the beginning of the deportation, in the summer of 1942, roth again sets up the ottoman empire as the blessed but expired counterbalance of the nazi regime: orders were issued for all adult male jews […] to present themselves to be enrolled for forced labour at liberty square, where in 1908 the young turks had proclaimed the new regime for all the peoples of the ottoman empire – fraternity between jews, muslims, greeks and so on, under the ideal of ottomanism.[116] the location of the nazis’ anti-semitic round-ups is in roth’s writing revealed as an ironic site of memory for the transcultural ideals of lost “ottomanism.” precisely in this upholding of the ottoman empire as a transcultural ideal for all communities, roth’s valuing of the ottoman empire here distinguishes his work from the jewish memory identified by yerushalmi, since zakhor is distinctively and homogenously jewish “collective memory.”[117] the effect of this overlaying of times and places, what we might call roth’s transcultural jewish memory work, is irony, poignancy, and affect. it serves not only to relate a much longer and much larger history than what took place in salonica during the holocaust, but also to insert emotion into the telling of history. in this way, roth’s approach is close to morrison’s “emotional memory,”[118] and also shares common ground with morrison’s related term, “rememory.” “rememory” comprises memories that embody the emotional dimension of traumatic historical events. the prefix suggests the endless repetition and presence of memories. as morrison defines it, “rememory” captures those memories that do not “pass on,” but instead that are still there, in the places where they happened, and can be encountered and felt, even by those who did not experience them first hand.[119] more than morrison, however, roth collides places as well as times, building a network out of different sites of memory where the events seem to echo each other. the spanish inquisition appears to roth in his visit to salonica as rememory in the holocaust, a catastrophe that has not “passed on,” and the shoah (“catastrophe”) is in turn a horrible emotional memory of the inquisition. the ottoman empire’s welcome of sephardi jews is as much paired and contrasted with the events that follow it, the holocaust, as it is with those that preceded it, the iberian expulsion. roth’s transcultural memory work shows us the imagistic, narrative, thematic, and affective connection of historically and geographically dispersed events, collapsing chronological history and eliding discrete national, and even imperial, borders. in these connections based on image, narrative, theme, and affect, roth’s work on salonica becomes in itself novelistic, or at least more transcultural memory studies, rather than documentary or historical. on “the last days” of jewish salonica, roth’s approach in his commentary essay is to interweave events from the holocaust with other historical anti-semitic events in addition to those from the inquisition. again these present the ottoman empire as a space of acceptance and rescue, a symbolic inversion of transhistorical anti-semitism. in 1943, deportations took place from the hirsch quarter of salonica, which, continuous with the ottoman sultan’s welcome of the jews from spain in the fifteenth century, had, at the end of the nineteenth century, welcomed jews fleeing eastern europe. roth’s syntax underlines the parallels and the ironies—the historical palindromes—of the holocaust as a symbolic antithesis of these earlier, ottoman events: “some half-century before, the charitable baron de hirsch had paid for the construction near the railway station of a number of little houses, to give shelter to jewish refugees from the russian pogroms. this was to be the scene of the final tragedy.”[120] the space of the ottoman quarter, jewish and otherwise, is also transformed and inverted under the holocaust: from unpoliced and not strictly bordered, now to fenced in, with searchlights and machine guns, a “ghetto in a fuller sense,” similar to those the nazis had created in eastern europe, in warsaw, for instance.[121] roth’s unpublished papers concerning salonica[122] reveal that he had been briefed by the regional director for salonica of the american joint distribution committee, also a member of the central board of the jewish communities of greece, that salonica under the german occupation was a historical volte-face of ottoman salonica. under the ottoman empire, jews were organized into self-governing communities. there was no anti-semitism, a memorandum to roth in his papers claims; yet “the seeds of anti-semitism planted by the germans are now bearing fruit all over europe and even in greece.”[123] in his commentary essay, where his point is the contrast between the welcome of the jews by the ottoman empire, roth passes over any greek responsibility of the destruction of the cemetery, so loyal was he to his ideal of ottoman and even post-ottoman transculturalism. yet as roth well knew and as his unpublished papers in fact document, the seeds of anti-semitism were planted before the germans arrived, with the dismantling of the jewish cemetery in salonica begun by the greeks in the 1920s. in his jewish chronicle reports roth only implicitly addresses greek anti-semitism post-holocaust, evident in the continued destruction of the cemetery and the erasure of jewish memory from the city after the war. here, in commentary also, any detailed account of greek anti-semitism in the holocaust is left out, since it would complicate his neat symbolic contrast between culturally inclusive ottoman salonica and the segregationist nazi occupation. roth notes that salonica’s place in history, and particularly jewish history, was recognized even by the nazis. but the nazis were bad historians of jews in the near east, since they distorted history, nationalizing it, engaging in a form of assimilation of cultural difference. the nazis “looked at everything from the point of view of german history,” he writes, and they failed to understand the ottoman empire.[124] while this is surely another simplification and generalization, roth suggests that because they did not see or value transculturalism, the germans did not see the reality of the ottoman empire, which was, in roth’s optimistic conception, built on transculturalism. the nazis’ historical revisionism thus becomes equivalent to the greeks’ “hellenization,” and in contrast to “ottomanism.” roth singles out the nazis’ misunderstanding of the ottomans’ non-ghettoization of jews as a particular misrepresentation of salonican jewish history. they were making frenzied inquiries into the exact position of the ghetto that they assumed had once existed in salonica, and seemed disappointed when they discovered that in this quasi-jewish city, which had formed part of the tolerant turkish empire, there had never been (and indeed could not have been) anything of the sort. why this exaggerated antiquarian interest? the reason was very soon to become apparent.[125] a better historian of the ottoman empire than the germans he writes about, roth suggests that in contrast he understood the “tolerant” ottoman empire, in particular here, the porous, autonomous millet-system quarter organization of ottoman cities on which he knew at least in ideals the ottoman empire was based—hence the parenthetical “indeed could not have been.” it was these autonomous, culturally porous building blocks of the ottoman empire that the nazis transformed into culturally segregating and imprisoning ghettos: “there was no longer any question of these districts being autonomous units; they were obviously intended only as prisons or condemned cells, pending the execution of sentence.”[126] roth was drawn to any evidence he found of the ottoman empire as transcultural, indeed to the extent that he was willing to state that salonica was not jewish but “quasi-jewish.” based on his jewish chronicle reports from the ground of post-holocaust salonica, we have already evaluated roth’s contribution to the history of the salonican jewish community, above all as an attempt to intervene and save it at the moment of its greatest catastrophe, and we have situated roth in jewish historiography. but what might be said of roth’s contribution to salonican jewish historiography—that is to the body of writings specifically on salonican jewish history? while it could be shown that roth borrowed from local salonican historians, one of whom, michael molho, accompanied him on his visit to the cemetery and with whom he kept up a correspondence after his visit to salonica, roth’s emphasis on transcultural and transhistorical memory in historiography again seems pronounced and prescient.[127] until very recently—the last decade—contemporary historians have noted, salonican jewish history was “almost a taboo subject.”[128] from very early on, indeed from his first popular historical work in the 1930s, roth’s writings broke that taboo repeatedly. beginning in the nineteenth century, jewish historiography at large marginalized the study of the sephardim, and, as i have suggested, in spite of recent additions, continues to do so, with the expected detrimental effects on the study of salonican jewish history.[129] german-originating in the work of graetz and continuing as eurocentric as roth himself had suggested in his early essay on historiography discussing graetz and dubnov, the study of jewish history in western europe sought to “europeanise” the sephardim.[130] historians in the west depicted the sephardi exodus to the ottoman empire following expulsion from the iberian peninsula as the beginning of a tragedy and the ottoman empire as a “jewish dark age.”[131] for roth, the decline of the sephardim was threatened by the end of the ottoman empire, under nationalism in greece, and then under the nazi occupation, rather than the post-inquisition expulsion to the ottoman empire and the attendant deracination from spanish culture. beyond roth, western historiographical perspectives on the ottoman empire were thus strongly orientalist. in their turn, in accordance with history itself once the city became part of greece following the ottoman empire, “greek historians have engaged in a systematic effort to hellenize [salonica’s] history.”[132] on all sides, therefore, historical writings valued cultural homogenization. roth in contrast, critical of nationalism and the forgetting of cultural and historical heterogeneity, has much in common with contemporary historians’ calls for the future direction of writings on jewish salonica: “salonica’s jewish history demands a field of inquiry that is not circumscribed by the contours of local history but, more interestingly and ambitiously, is also open to the interactions between the local and the general.”[133] writing in the west and inheriting the germanic tradition of jewish historiography, roth in his representation of jewish salonica from 1946–1950 is nevertheless in this regard a precedent for historical writings today. roth, too, opposes what he condemns as his historiographical predecessors’ “impression that jewish history took place in a vacuum, because they are ignorant of the very atmosphere of the external world in which it was enacted.”[134] his valuing of non-exclusive or non-exceptional jewishness will powerfully shape his attraction to the sephardim generally, both in relation to salonica, and beyond, as i will show in the next section. 4. “[a]mple contributions”: roth on the sephardim roth’s later work on the sephardim produces sometimes uncanny parallels between the second world war and the inquisition. even if roth does not explicitly make the connection as he does in his preface to the spanish inquisition, his rendering of details, and sometimes also the dates of his research and publication, sets up the relationship between the separate catastrophes as repetitive, memorial. in a 1967 essay, roth analyses an elegy recording the anti-semitic attacks and massacre of the jews of toledo in 1391. using the term “catastrophe” here for the persecution leading up to the spanish inquisition—shoah, an alternative, jewish name for the holocaust, is hebrew for “catastrophe”—roth’s summary details: slaughter, including auto-da-fé (in order to pre-empt even more horrific anti-semitic attack) by other jews; conversion or concealment of judaism; and attacks on the symbols of judaism. the first victims included the eminent rabbi isaac and r. judah (who previously slew his wife and children) […]. other martyrs were r. israel the singer and a certain hazan named saul, who committed suicide, as did his brother solomon […]. the youth abraham ben ophrit was stoned and his body flung into the river […]. synagogues were desecrated […]. the pitiful state of the survivors, forced to dissemble their faith […]. [t]he desecration of the torah.[135] published and presumably also written in the wake of the 1961–1962 eichmann trial that was a key trigger in developing “holocaust consciousness,”[136] the essay cannot help but suggest ahistorically travelling relationship between holocaust and inquisition, the former a horrible quincentennial memory of the latter, the latter carried over, to be repeated traumatically in the former. and roth’s scholarship, too, appears prefigured, or continues a memorial tradition and a tradition of memorialization, here of a chain of tradition in jewish memory—of “zakhor”: his work on salonica, and on the sephardim, is in the canon of this fourteenth-century jewish elegy that he analyses. as might be guessed from his criticisms of his historiographical predecessors for their omission or minimization of the sephardim, roth’s interest in sephardi jewry was long-standing and profound, shaping his professional and intellectual choices as a collector and a scholar. material related to sephardim makes up a substantial proportion of his judaica collection and the sephardim are a recurrent subject of his writing. as roth himself reflected, in an essay devoted to the sephardim published also in commentary a few years after his salonica piece, “i have made rather more ample contributions to sephardi history than the average historical scribbler.”[137] in fact roth’s work on the sephardim, on ottoman jews, and on mizrahim too—jews from the middle east—amounts to a significant contribution to non-ashkenazi jewish studies at a time when, as roth himself wrote: “the history of the jews in turkey and the near east has as yet, [sic] been inadequately explored.”[138] as has been charted lately, there were in fact scholars before roth who pioneered the study and historiography of the sephardim.[139] however, most often they originated from and/or settled in the ottoman or post-ottoman empire and therefore wrote in languages other than english—hebrew, spanish/ladino, french, italian, and turkish especially. roth does not acknowledge these scholars, and we sense that, even though roth was highly proficient in the first four of these languages, he thinks of himself as making key contributions in english to the study of sephardim. while roth’s baton for work on “jews in turkey and the near east” has undoubtedly passed to later scholars, roth was, therefore, one of the first english-speaking authors to recognize the key role of jews in the ottoman empire, a field that is now considerably burgeoning.[140] he remains one of very few to see those jews as trans-imperial subjects connecting the ottoman and british empires.[141] in this part of my essay, i explore roth’s interest in the sephardim in other of his writings to reveal how, in his conception, the sephardim bore a unique connection to transcultural memory, a connection that is the key basis for roth’s attraction to salonica. if all his life roth wanted to visit salonica, as he confessed early on in the jewish chronicle, it is in good part because his investment in sephardic culture was profoundly religious and emotional as well as intellectual. roth adopted a sephardic identity for himself, against his parents’ ashkenazic practice, with which he was raised. two decades before the holocaust, including the catastrophe for salonican jews, roth had taken on the sephardic liturgy and other sephardic religious practices and had attended sephardic synagogues. in effect, roth translated, or transculturated, from the ashkenazi heritage on his mother’s and father’s side to sephardi. in so doing he was returning to an older, albeit mythological, family memory. as irene roth writes in her memoir of her husband’s intra-jewish transcultural translation: “cecil had been raised in a tradition closely akin to the east european jewish ritual,” his mother having been born in sheffield, his father’s records showing a forebear born in kalisz, poland.[142] this new adoption in fact remembered an imagined old genealogy. part of the family lore about the paternal line was that the roths were descended from joseph caro, the sixteenth-century sephardic author of shulchan arukh, or the code of jewish law. shulchan arukh turns out to be the book that salonican rabbis had used to argue against the destruction of the jewish cemetery in salonica, first in 1920s, at the moment of roth’s jewish–jewish, ashkenazi–sephardi “conversion.”[143] thoroughly versed in salonican history, roth cannot have been unaware of this familial connection to salonica and to the preservation of the jewish cemetery. irene roth certainly conveys her husband’s spiritual choices in the language of profound affective investment. in her memoir she remarks that it was while undertaking research in florence as an oxford undergraduate that roth “had come to love” sephardic liturgy and history, and further that his “involvement with the sephardic tradition and history of sephardic jewry” then “continued for the rest of his life” and was both “intellectual and emotional.”[144] if the sephardim held out what, drawing on his wife’s description, could be described as a kind of emotional memory for roth, it is not surprising that from then on roth attended sephardic synagogues as much as he could. he became a member of the central sephardic congregations in both london and new york—the lauderdale road spanish and portuguese synagogue in maida vale, and the shearith israel on central park west.[145] why was roth so drawn, personally as well as professionally and with so much emotion, to the sephardim? this is an important question for me here, since, as i have suggested, it is implicit, if unconscious, in roth’s early conception of holocaust memory, as transcultural memory, in salonica. although a vital and engaging writer, roth was, as his wife says, rarely emotional. he sought, as the title of her memoir on him states and, as i have indicated, he announced himself, to be—in opposition to the lachrymose framing for jewish history he inherited—a “historian without tears.” yet his writings on the sephardim, and especially on salonica as i hope to have shown, are shot through with affect and, particularly in their historical and geographical parallelisms, work to reproduce an affective response of shock, dread, and loss in the reader. there may be a suspicion that roth’s intra-jewish “conversion” was motivated by class-climbing, based on the putative status of the sephardim as of higher class than the ashkenazim.[146] but the later essay in commentary on the sephardim sets out precisely to dispute and instead reveal as myth the assumption of the sephardim as of greater social rank. in answer to the question that is its title, roth argues that sephardim were not “hidalgos,” meaning “one of the lower nobility; a gentleman by birth.”[147] roth’s essay reverses the assumption, revealing the ashkenazim to be of purer origin and more noble. since the sephardim descended from babylonian jewry and the ashkenazim from palestinian jewry, and even the hebrew of the ashkenazim has a direct connection back to the authentic hebrew of palestine, roth argues, “it is the ashkenazi judaism rather than the sephardi which preserves for good or ill the pure fountainhead of the palestinian tradition, with all that it implies.”[148] the sephardim were, roth goes on, in the face of christian or islamic persecution also more likely to choose conversion, at least ostensibly, over dying as a jew; while the ashkenazim were “more steadfast, to the point of death, than their southern coreligionists, who […] tended in large numbers to compromise their consciences rather than to ‘sanctify the name’ by accepting martyrdom.”[149] thus, in roth’s reasoning, the sephardim were less noble in both social class and religious practice. roth’s essay in commentary on the sephardim instead suggests that their proclivity to transculturation, and yet retention of the many-layered sites of transcultural memory, is a distinction of the sephardim and part of their appeal. what is emphatic is roth’s admiring view of the way in which, whenever and wherever they migrated—from babylonia, which was already a place of exile for these jews; to spain; from spain to the ottoman empire—the sephardim survived by transporting cultural memory with them. in turn, in their migrations, the sephardim influenced local cultures. roth describes diasporic translation as “delocalization” and “geographical expansion,” and the influence of sephardic cultural memories on the indigenous or autochthonous in the new locale as “annexation,” with the two processes linked: “this delocalization, and geographical expansion, of sephardi jewry was accompanied by the beginning of what may be termed a process of annexation.”[150] while roth sees a parallel in dissemination of ashkenazim—he writes that ashkenazim also “‘ashkenazized’ (if one may use the term)” where they migrated—he holds out for the greater success of sephardim in their influence especially, not surprisingly, in the ottoman empire, and again salonica: with their superior relative (if not absolute) numbers, and their superior culture, they exercised an overwhelming influence on the native jews, and on other immigrant elements, in many of the lands where they found refuge—especially in the balkans (in particular at salonica) and the turkish empire generally.[151] roth’s term “ashkenazized” is noteworthy, as are his scare quotes holding its literality at a distance. by using the term “ashkenazize,” roth is describing the transformation by eastern european jewish immigrants of “autochthonous elements” of the cultures to which they migrated throughout eastern europe. the process is also crucially one of transculturation: the inflection of immigrant culture on local culture. sephardi-zation (if this is the noun parallel for the idea that the ashkenazim “ashkenazized” other cultures) cannot be equivalent to ashkenazi-zation because, according to roth’s schema, the former (sephardim) from the start lack purity. for the same reason sephardi-zation is even less comparable to the hellenization which roth had already criticized when this was enforced in salonica in an attempt to erase the city’s transcultural past. salonica comes again to stand as the exemplar of transculturation, and the sephardim, in the plural outlook roth attributed to them, equivalent to his ideal of the ottomans. i would propose that roth’s identification of the importance of transcultural memory for the sephardim underlay his interest in and admiration for the marranos, about whom he also wrote extensively, including a seminal history.[152] these crypto-jews of spain and portugal were in effect former, or transculturated, sephardim. roth does not view the phenomenon of marranism as the loss or assimilation of jewish culture, as might be expected of a jewish historian. rather he is interested in how the marranos, even after usually forced conversion, kept jewish practice alive, moreover passing it on as cultural (effectively, within the disguise of christianity, transcultural) memory: “the phenomenon of marranism is more, however, than the commonplace occurrence of forcible conversion, followed frequently by the practice of judaism in secret. its essential element is that this clandestine religion is passed on from generation to generation.”[153] far from depicting this cultural translation as a tragedy, then, roth’s foreword to a history of the marranos casts marranism as “what may fairly be described as the most romantic episode in all history.”[154] what is particularly “romantic”—as emotional and imaginative as the meaning of its root word, roman, of course a “novel”—is transcultural memory: cultural translation but the ability to keep cultural memory alive, in a new faith/cultural or even geographical context. as roth notes, “the submerged life which blossomed out at intervals into such exotic flowers; the unique devotion which could transmit the ancestral ideals unsullied, from generation to generation, despite the inquisition and its horrors.”[155] for this transcultural picturesque romance, roth claims of his book in its original preface, “the interest in it will not be confined to the jew.”[156] it is therefore “an inseparable part of the stories of spain and portugal,” and, moreover, “touches on the life of every country of western europe.”[157] the romanticism is necessarily diminished in roth’s 1958 preface to a post-holocaust edition, where he is now able to draw characteristic transhistorical parallels: “pathetic parallels to marrano history were known in europe during the tragic period of nazi oppression.”[158] roth’s interest in the marranos provided another connection to ottoman salonica, for some of these secret jews, he writes elsewhere in his studies of the marranos, escaped further persecution with help from other jews—“especially in salonica.”[159] in the welcome extended in salonica to the marranos by the previous refugees among the salonican sephardim, there is a confirmation of salonica as a site of jewish memory, as well as of transcultural jewish exchange, that roth no doubt found appealing. although it shaped his professional interests, roth’s embrace of the sephardim can sometimes feel like a disavowal of his ashkenazic heritage and emotional when expressed as animus against elements of the ashkenazic tradition. as ivan davidson kalmar and derek j. penslar indicate, there was among significant jewish figures, including historians, a tradition of jewish “orientalism,” which could take several forms, including not only western oppositions to the east, but an idealization of the east involving “self-orientalising fantasies.”[160] while there is no mention of roth in thisor any other context of orientalism, jewish or otherwise, the fact that this romanticizing orientalism could travel between the professional and personal does raise questions about the extent to which roth was part of this tradition, as described by john m. efron: for many central european scholars, among them jews, orientalism was more than a system of domination. it could be genuinely celebratory and inspirational, as orientalism sometimes entailed a valorization of the muslim other. for jews, such an exercise was often tantamount to a search for roots, for authenticity, and for oriental role models. thus, rather than a straightforward means of asserting colonial, corporeal, and cultural authority, orientalism could be a profound expression of one’s own anxiety and insecurity.[161] certainly in relation to salonica in his journal publications, roth is very hard on any role the ashkenazim played in the near loss of salonican jewry—the sephardim who survived so much transculturation and diasporization and yet remembered and practised their heritage. in “last days of jewish salonica,” roth singles out as ashkenazi, and considers the significance of this heritage and his training, the former rabbi of salonica: one dr koretz, who became the rabbi and president of the jewish community of salonica at the start of the german occupation. roth is reluctant even to write about koretz: “it is necessary to devote a few lines to this unhappy figure.”[162] koretz was “not a salonican in origin,” by heritage, birth, or even accommodation, roth makes a point of saying, but “eastern european ashkenazi, trained in a german rabbinical seminary.”[163] again, destruction in roth’s vision seems to come from a failure of transcultural pluralism, namely koretz’s inability to maintain salonica’s pluralism in the face of german nationalism and koretz’s own assimilation of jewish difference: regarding germany with the fundamental deference that was once universal among eastern european jews; brought up in that country, and imbued with veneration for its intellectual achievement; speaking german, and thus able to enter into personal contact with the occupying authorities and had tended from the first to temporize.[164] with his belief that “by unquestioning compliance the nazis’ resentment […] might be mollified,” koretz was suspected by some surviving salonican jews of being “a german agent.”[165] given that roth did not pass judgement on the marranos, who did convert, at least ostensibly, damnation of koretz, who did not convert, at least ostensibly, is startling. noting that koretz did not survive his own eventual deportation to the camps—and that this was just as well—roth does not withhold his utter condemnation. survivors blamed him, and “it certainly seems that he displayed not only a deplorable weakness but also a degree of compliance that, in the circumstances, verged upon treachery.”[166] in the second report appearing in the jewish chronicle, roth declares that koretz “showed what can only be considered at the most charitable interpretation a deplorable and almost criminal subservience.”[167] treachery, one feels sure from roth’s writing on koretz in the context of salonica, begins with the failure to maintain pluralistic transculturalism, assimilation into a nationalist ideal, and a will to forget. when the nuremberg laws were implemented in salonica and jews were confined to specified districts and ordered to wear the yellow star, “rabbi koretz had obediently proclaimed to his flock, from the pulpit of the synagogue,” the new ordinance.[168] the jewish population was told, again by koretz and again in the synagogue, from where they were deported, that they would be going to the equivalent of salonica in poland, as if to find refuge, after that jewish community had already been annihilated. roth strongly suggests that koretz must have known of the prior annihilation: “with what was, at the most charitable interpretation, naivety, he informed them that they would find a new home there, among their own people; the great jewish community of cracow (could he have been unaware that cracow jewry had already been destroyed?).”[169] what happens to the salonican sephardim, roth thus bitterly suggests, becomes a repetition (or rememory) of what had already happened to the cracow ashkenazim, which should have been prevented by this ashkenazi rabbi who should have known better. in singling out koretz so harshly five years after the holocaust, roth again anticipates historians and even the judicial processing of this history. it was only in 1961–1962, at the eichmann trial, that koretz was publically condemned as a traitor for acceding to german commands. as the main entry on salonica at yad vashem notes, there is now extended debate about koretz and his role in the fate of salonican jews.[170] historians since roth generally recognize that he was never fully trusted within the salonican jewish community. while sometimes this perception was inextricable from his being ashkenazi, from poland, trained in vienna, and largely german-speaking, many condemnations of koretz, by historians and by survivors from the salonican jewish community, make nothing of his non-sephardi background—unlike roth, for whom it features as a crucial explanation, even cause, of koretz’s betrayal of the salonican jewish community. the recent debate includes efforts, based on new documents coming to light, to exonerate koretz and to see the distrust of him as a result of salonican communities’ (both jews and greeks) retrospective need for a scapegoat to explain the holocaust in salonica. the degree and rationale in roth’s condemnation of the rabbi—his undisguised anger and his emphasis on koretz’s ashkenazi and german affiliations—immediately place roth’s writing outside of these discussions and in excess of objective historical research. in spite of roth’s undisguised anger against koretz, i think that roth’s embrace of sephardi jewishness is neither a rejection of his father’s lineage in an oedipal act of symbolic patricide, nor is it a form of self-orientalization, even in his personal choices. rather, roth’s other writings on the sephardim offer detailed reasons for this attachment, which both confirm and add to what we learn from his work on salonica. tellingly and in contrast to other entries, for his 1971 encyclopaedia judaica roth wrote the sephardic-centred items himself, as if, with the sephardim, he was on home ground (even though he was non-native to sephardi culture); as if, as he said in commentary, knowledge of the sephardim was indeed the result of his own “ample contributions.” roth’s entries hold a cluster of clues for his sephardic attachment and, in so doing, clarify his conception of the sephardim. i have mentioned already that the sephardim practised a form of judaism roth traced to the exile in babylonian iraq, a cultural memory of the first diaspora. in addition, roth writes in the entry on the sephardim in the encyclopaedia, the sephardim were more open to others. they reflected the culturally dialogic jewish identity to which roth was drawn in his approach to history. compared with the ashkenazim, roth declares, the sephardim have a “more sympathetic attitude to outside culture,” and that “all sephardim follow the codification of joseph caro (maran ‘our master’) […]. a more liberal and permissive trend than that approved by the ashkenazi authorities.”[171] again, salonica, which is prominently discussed in the entry on sephardim as an important jewish community and the largest in the ottoman empire, plays a key role for roth in preserving the memory of sephardi jewry; again the mythical family forebear of caro makes a return in this memory. two further biographical points, about roth and caro respectively, add to this personal/professional interpretation of roth’s inclination for the sephardim. first, as irene roth states in her memoir, it was beginning his historical studies in italy and in italian studies—rather than in jewish studies: roth came to jewish history obliquely through other, non-jewish cultural histories—that encouraged roth to take on the sephardi tradition.[172] second, caro himself was of spanish origin and after the expulsion found refuge in the ottoman empire, including in salonica. roth’s own “sephardification” (becoming sephardi) thus seems an embrace less straightforwardly of the orient per se and more of repeated and intersecting personal and professional transcultural transformation and adaptation. in encyclopaedia judaica, the city of salonica itself is a symbolic site of memory for sephardim that yet makes jews comparable to other minorities in the ottoman empire: in the ottoman empire the sephardim still preserved their ancestral traditions, and their economic and political position was favourable. they had the same rights in the ottoman empire as other minorities. salonika continued to be the greatest center of sephardi jewry in the world.[173] with a note on the ottoman empire in the encyclopaedia’s index redirecting us to turkey—a marker of roth’s time of writing well after the end of the empire—roth again presents the ottomans as the counterforce to spain. after the expulsion from spain, most jews went to “turkey, the only major country that opened its doors to them.”[174] in the “salonika” entry, salonica especially is the refuge of those sephardim; and here in the ottoman empire they preserved the language and culture of sepharad, of jewish spain.[175] the “salonika” entry, which includes a mention of the desecration and expropriation of the cemetery, revisits some of roth’s salonica work from the 1940s and 1950s. the entries in this first encyclopaedia judaica, which make up some of the last writings roth wrote and which were published posthumously (the encyclopaedia was published in 1971; roth died in 1970), sustained and deepened his attachment to salonica as a site of jewish transcultural memory. the late writings of roth thus mark an intellectual and emotional memorial return to textual sites of memory, to his seminal salonican work and visit from decades before. 5. conclusion the significance of roth’s to-date unanalysed publications on salonica is deep and wide-ranging. this first engagement in english of holocaust memory in salonica both broke ground and yet, in memorializing jewish salonica and the sephardim, is undoubtedly elegiac. however, roth is also forwardas well as backward-looking: ahead of his time, as i have argued, in several ways, as much as his work responded to and sought to understand the losses of his times. indeed, in layering ottoman and holocaust (and indeed other imperial) memories, roth’s work on salonica is predictive of our own time’s interest in “travelling”—transhistorical and transcultural—memories. today, the story of salonican jews is much less of a forgotten story than in roth’s day. yet, as i have sought to demonstrate, what reading roth now adds even to the work subsequently written is the development of several fields in reading salonica: namely, holocaust memory, memory studies, transcultural studies, and jewish studies, and especially the nexus at which these fields intersect. undoubtedly, there are costs to roth’s timeand place-travelling, wide-angled view of salonican jewry, and to his approach to jewish history more generally. in his bid to render history readable, relevant and popular, as i have shown, he gets some facts and dates wrong. his temporal parallelisms risk the charges of anachronism and presentism. his historical accounts can read more like novels, replete with heroes and villains and picturesque imagery. also, roth does not pretend to objectivity. and yet, by tracing how holocaust memory echoes the inquisition and contrasts with the ottoman preservation of a transcultural jewish presence, roth’s work on salonica is especially important, i want to underline in conclusion, for extending, deepening and redefining holocaust memory. his contribution re-historicizes and relocates the emergence of holocaust memory beyond its conventionally posited times and places: that is, the concentration camps of greater germany after the holocaust; or israel and europe and the us in the 1960s. holocaust memory in roth extends geographically beyond more obvious, single locales, instead carried across from and conjoining empires. it is both temporally immediate after the war, in 1946; but it also encompasses holocaust memories from centuries before this twentieth-century holocaust. travelling rapidly between past and present and reading the past in the light of the present and vice versa, connecting ancient and modern cities and old and recent empires, roth’s salonica does not allow us to forget that the city’s history being told has the shadow of a very resonant historically and geographically extensive history of anti-semitic persecution behind it. importantly for memory studies, roth reveals how memory can form not only part of a methodological approach or subject but also an object, in its material form and in cultural history a target for destruction in addition to the jewish people themselves. what was very nearly destroyed in the holocaust was this long historical transcultural memory extending back to the sephardim, so that, for roth, “travelling memory,” connecting events by image, picture, and theme, travels across catastrophes, cultures, empires, and ages. in accordance with the goals of transcultural studies, but again covering much greater terrain and moreover understanding the multifarious dimensions of the transcultural, roth’s salonica writings bring together sites often not thought together—trans-imperial: ottoman empire, german empire, spanish empire; cultural: jewish in relation to greek experiences of the war; and of intra-jewish difference: ashkenazi versus sephardi. perhaps the greatest gain in reading roth’s salonica work is to be made for a jewish studies that embraces transculturalism. roth, so out of sync with his own, traditional, moment in this discipline, has much more in common in his idea of jewish studies with the idealistic, expansive encompassing of this subject in our own moment. that is, he is concerned with the specific history of jews in the context of larger national and world histories. his approach examines cultural exchange between jews and non-jews, and/or the contribution one cultural group made to another. and his analyses encompass all kinds of representation (from tombs to texts, from ancient elegies to street food) for what they reveal of this connected cultural history. in jewish studies, memory studies, transcultural studies, and the humanities broadly, roth should be returned to and re-examined as an innovative thinker and a lively storyteller. his works contribute to many subjects of interest to us in these areas now, and they should be reframed critically in terms of subsequent specialist research on topics on which roth was a pioneer, or near pioneer. in understanding how the past can resurface traumatically (or be subject to nationalist forgetting) in the present, thinking about the relations between, as well as difference within, cultural groups and recognizing their interdependence, in his interest in the big picture, pictures, and the picturesque, in his valuing of great storytelling to communicate affectively and therefore effectively with an audience, roth deserves the comparison i have already suggested, with novelist toni morrison. roth is a very literary writer as i hope to have shown, aware of the power of images, parallels, juxtapositions, and character portraits (and assassinations) for getting across his larger historical point. in all of these aspects, then, roth also merits comparison with the popular historian of our moment, of jewish and other histories: simon schama.[176] far from being outdated, roth is very much our contemporary. acknowledgements this research was supported by the arts and humanities research council, uk. i am grateful to gabriel koureas and colette wilson, from the management team of the ahrc research network “ottoman pasts, present cities: cosmopolitanism and transcultural memories,” to the anonymous research reviewers at my institution, and to the editors and external readers at the journal of transcultural studies,for their comments on earlier versions of this essay. [1] there are two standard english spellings of the city discussed in this essay: salonica and salonika . roth uses both interchangeably throughout his writings. for standardization purposes, i use the spelling salonica, except when the alternative appears in quotation. [2] cecil roth, “the last days of jewish salonica: what happened to a 450-year-old civilization,” commentary, july 1, 1950, accessed july 23, 2017, https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-last-days-of-jewish-salonicawhat-happened-to-a-450-year-old-civilization/. [3] michael rothberg, traumatic realism: the demands of holocaust representation (minneapolis: minnesota university press, 2000), 46. while the triggers for the emergence of holocaust memory are constantly being revised, becoming more transcultural or in rothberg’s terms more “multidirectional,” the date of the 1960s, largely as a result of the eichmann trial in 1961–1962, has not been. see also michael rothberg, “beyond eichmann: rethinking emergence of holocaust memory,” history and theory 46, no. 1 (2007): 74–81. [4] for the more common conception of holocaust memory, see “holocaust: memory,” encyclopaedia judaica, encyclopedia.com, accessed march 25, 2018, http://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/holocaust-memory. [5] astrid erll, “travelling memory,” parallax 17, no. 4 (2011): 11. [6] astrid erll, “homer: a relational mnemohistory,” memory studies 11, no. 3 (2018): 275–276. [7] michael rothberg, multidirectional memory: remembering the holocaust in the age of decolonization (stanford: stanford university press, 2009), 3; bryan cheyette, diasporas of the mind: jewish and postcolonial writing and the nightmare of history (new haven: yale university press, 2013), 1: introduction, loc. 221 of 6321, kindle. [8] “roth, cecil (1899–1970),” oxford dictionary of national biography, accessed february 28, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/37917. full references are provided for roth’s works whenever i discuss them in detail. [9] chaim raphael, “in search of cecil roth,” commentary (september, 1970), emphasis in original; accessed may 5, 2019, https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/in-search-of-cecil-roth/. [10] the jewish museum was founded by roth, alfred rubens, and wilfred samuel; “history of the museum,” jewish museum, london, accessed july 23, 2017. http://www.jewishmuseum.org.uk/history. [11] cecil roth, ed., encyclopaedia judaica (jerusalem: macmillan, 1971). [12] cecil roth, opportunities that pass: an historical miscellany, ed. israel feinstein and joseph roth (london: vallentine mitchell, 2005), inside rear cover copy. [13] “cecil roth,” oxford chabad society, accessed july 23, 2017. http://www.oxfordchabad.org/templates/articlecco_cdo/aid/457404/jewish/cecil-roth.htm. [14] for instance, searching for “cecil roth” in the keyword field in the journal history and memory since its founding in the 1980s yields one result, in which roth is mentioned in passing as the predecessor to the author’s father as the editor of the encyclopaedia judaica: see meir wigoder, “history begins at home,” history and memory 13, no. 1 (2001): 19–59, note 48. a search of all journals available in jstor under the subject of “jewish studies” using “cecil roth” in the title field yields two results, by frederick krome, both of which i discuss below. a search of historical abstracts using “cecil roth” as keywords produces only one result. [15] “roth, cecil,” oxford dictionary of national biography. [16] “roth, cecil,” oxford dictionary of national biography. [17] david b. ruderman, “cecil roth, historian of italian jewry: a reassessment,” in the jewish past revisited: reflections on modern jewish historians, ed. david n. myers and david b. ruderman (new haven: yale university press, 1998), 133. [18] frederic krome, “between the diaspora and zion: cecil roth and his american friends,” jewish history 20, no. 3–4 (2006): 283–974; frederic krome, “creating ‘jewish history for our own needs’: the evolution of cecil roth’s historical vision, 1925–1935,” modern judaism 21, no. 3 (2001): 216–237. [19] krome, “between the diaspora and zion,” 283–284. [20] krome, “between the diaspora and zion,” 286. [21] working with roth in the uk, elisa lawson makes a similar argument to krome, noting that roth sustained both his “responsibility for the decimated european-jewish communities […] and his passionate sympathy for the developing jewish cultural life in israel.” see elisa lawson, “cecil roth and the imagination of the jewish past, present and future in britain, 1925–1964” (phd diss., university of southampton, 2005), 133. [22] irene roth, cecil roth, historian without tears: a memoir (new york: sepher-hermon press, 1982). based at the university of leeds and working in part with roth’s archive held there, collaborative research began in 2019 to correct this undervaluation of roth and his legacy. see “the archive after cecil roth: jewish studies, cultural history, and the cecil roth collection,” accessed june 14, 2019, https://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/info/20045/leeds_humanities_research_institute/3216/the_archive_after_cecil_roth_jewish_studies_cultural_history_and_the_cecil_roth_collection; and “opening up pioneering jewish historian’s treasured collection,” accessed june 14, 2019, https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/4380/opening_up_pioneering_jewish_ historians_treasured_collection. [23] krome, “creating ‘jewish history for our own needs’,” 218. [24] cheyette, diasporas of the mind, chap. 8, loc. 256 of 6321, kindle. [25] i draw the following characterizations of memory work from two key conceptions of “site of memory”: pierre nora, “between memory and history: les lieux de mémoire,” representations, 26 (1989): 7–24; and toni morrison, “the site of memory,” in inventing the truth: the art and craft of memoir, ed. william zinsser (boston: houghton mifflin, 1998), 83–102. [26] krome, “creating ‘jewish history for our own needs’,” 216. [27] nora’s “site of memory” is national; morrison’s also, but with the implication of being even more local (nora, “between memory and history”; morrison, “the site of memory”). [28] hal lehrman, “greece: unused cakes of soap,” commentary (may 1, 1946), accessed may 5, 2019, https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/greece-unused-cakes-of-soap/. [29] cecil roth, “vandalism in salonika: ancient cemetery becomes ‘stone quarry,’” jewish chronicle (nov 22, 1946): 10; cecil roth, “greece, 1946 – impressions on a tour (1),” jewish chronicle (november 29, 1946): 11; cecil roth “greece 1946 – impressions on a tour (2),” jewish chronicle (december 6, 1946): 5. [30] mark mazower, salonica, city of ghosts: christians, muslims and jews 1430–1950 (london: harpercollins, 2005), 299, 458. for historians on the cemetery, see in particular michael molho, in memoriam: hommage aux victimes juives des nazis en grèce, vols 1–3, especially volume 3 (buenos aires: 1953); leon saltiel, “dehumanizing the dead,” yad vashem studies 42, no. 1 (2014): 11–46; devin e. naar, jewish salonica: between the ottoman empire and modern greece (stanford: stanford university press, 2016), 239–276; carla hesse and thomas w. laqueur, “bodies visible and invisible: the erasure of the jewish cemetery in the life of modern thessaloniki,” in the holocaust in greece, giorgos antoniou and a. dirk moses, ed. (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2018), 327–358. on hellenization, see katerina zacharia, hellenisms: culture, identity, and ethnicity from antiquity to modernity (surrey: ashgate, 2008). [31] mazower, salonica, city of ghosts, 428. [32] cecil roth, a short history of the jewish people (london: macmillan, 1936), 405. [33] roth, “vandalism in salonika,” 10. [34] roth, “vandalism in salonika,” 10. [35] roth, “vandalism in salonika,” 10. [36] roth, “vandalism in salonika,” 10. [37] bea lewkowicz, the jewish community of salonika: history, memory, identity (london: vallentine mitchell, 2006), 134. [38] cecil roth, the jewish chronicle, 1841–1941: a century of newspaper history (london: the jewish chronicle, 1949). [39] david cesarani, the jewish chronicle and anglo-jewry, 1941–1991 (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1994), ix. [40] roth, “vandalism in salonika,” 10. [41] roth, “greece, 1946 – impressions on a tour (1),” 11. [42] roth, “greece, 1946 – impressions on a tour (1),” 11. the lectures and roth’s visit to salonica are mentioned by roth’s wife in her memoir about him: irene roth, cecil roth, 157. roth himself also mentions the lectures at the end of “the last days of jewish salonica.” [43] for a discussion of how ladino (along with hebrew) had been outlawed in public signs in the 1920s, see katherine elizabeth fleming, greece: a jewish history (princeton: princeton university press, 2008), 85. the outlawing of ladino will recur under the nazis, as i discuss in the third part of this essay. [44] more general reasons are given in mazower, salonica, city of ghosts, 450–451. [45] lewkowicz, the jewish community of salonika, 208–209. [46] cecil roth, “jewish history for our own needs,” menorah journal 14, no. 5 (1928): 419. the later essays in this historical-manifesto series are: cecil roth, “european history and jewish history: do their epochs coincide?” menorah journal 16, no. 4 (1929): 293–306; and cecil roth, “paradoxes of jewish history,” menorah journal 14, (1930): 1–26, reprinted in roth, opportunities that pass, 196–209. [47] cecil roth, “preface,” personalities and events in jewish history (philadelphia: jewish publication society of america, 1953), vii. for a comparison between roth and baron that emphasizes their similarity as well as their conscious rivalry, see michael brenner, prophets of the past: interpreters of jewish history (princeton: princeton university press, 2010), 131–134. for explorations of jewish historiography that perform comparisons between its key practitioners, see david n. myers and david b. ruderman, eds., the jewish past revisited: reflections on modern jewish historians (new haven: yale university press, 1998), and moshe rosman, how jewish is jewish history? (oxford: littman library of jewish civilization, 2007). again, work on jewish historiography tends to minimize or even exclude roth’s contribution. the recent routledge companion to jewish history and jewish historiography, edited by dean phillip bell (abingdon: routledge, 2019), for example, mentions roth only as a founder of the jewish museum in london (609), and does not discuss his place in jewish historiography at all. [48] roth, “greece, 1946 – impressions on a tour (1),” 11. [49] krome, “between the diaspora and zion,” 284. [50] roth, “greece, 1946 – impressions on a tour (1),” 11. [51] for a summary of bachad, see rafael medoff and chaim i. waxman, the a to z of zionism (lanham: scarecrow press, 2009), 31. [52] irene roth, cecil roth, 200–201. about roth’s views on israeli nationalism, which were complex—distinct, for example, from those of his brother, leon, who believed in a bi-national jewish-arab state—there is certainly more to be said. [53] samuel kassow, “historiography: an overview,” yivo encyclopedia of jews in eastern europe, accessed may 11, 2019, http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/printarticle.aspx?id=30. [54] cecil roth, the jewish contribution to civilisation (oxford: east and west library, 1938). [55] roth, “jewish history for our own needs,” 424. [56] roth, “jewish history for our own needs,” 424. [57] roth, “jewish history for our own needs,” 425. [58] rena molho, salonica and istanbul: social, political, and cultural aspects of jewish life (istanbul: isis press, 2005). [59] for accounts of the post-holocaust debates about zionism versus reconstruction of greek and salonican jewry, see philip carabott and maria vassilikou, “‘new men vs old jews’: greek jewry in the wake of the shoah, 1945–1947,” and devin e. naar “‘you are your brother’s keeper’: rebuilding the jewish community of salonica from afar,” both in antoniou and moses, eds. the holocaust in greece. there is no discussion of roth in these debates or in this book. [60] roth, “greece 1946 – impressions on a tour (2),” 5. [61] roth, “greece 1946 – impressions on a tour (2),” 5. [62] roth, “greece 1946 – impressions on a tour (2),” 5. [63] roth’s growing appeal for american audiences is analysed in krome, “between the diaspora and zion,” 283–297. [64] nathan abrams, norman podhoretz and commentary magazine: the rise and fall of the neocons (new york: continuum, 2010), 3. [65] roth, “last days.” [66] for key english-language books on salonican jews see steven b. bowman, ed., isaac benmayor, trans., the holocaust in salonika: eyewitness accounts (new york: sephardic house, 2002); mazower, salonica, city of ghosts; lewkowicz, the jewish community of salonika; naar, jewish salonica. [67] roth, “last days.” [68] roth, “last days.” [69] roth, “jewish history for our own needs.” [70] the clue to the difference between the sephardim and the ashkenazim lies in their names. sephardim, based on the transliteration of the hebrew word for “spain,” sepharad, names the descendants of jews who left the iberian peninsula following the 1492 expulsion; it therefore comes to refer to mediterranean jews. ashkenazim is based on the transliterated hebrew for a country bordering armenia, ashkenaz; it thus came to refer to jews from larger germany (also including poland). roth traces the origins of the ashkenazim to palestinian jewry, and the sephardim to babylonian jewry. i return to this and the differences between these two jewish cultural groups in section four of this essay, when i discuss roth’s conception of the relative transcultural openness of the sephardim in comparison with the ashkenazim. [71] “telling untold stories: sephardic jews & the holocaust,” stroum center for jewish studies, university of washington, accessed march 1, 2018, https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/sephardic-studies/telling-untold-stories-sephardic-jews-and-the-holocaust/. the same point is made at the beginning of lewkowicz’s the jewish community of salonika (6). naar organized a conference at the university of washington in 2013 focusing on the sephardic experience of the holocaust to correct this omission. [72] bowman, the holocaust in salonika; mazower, salonica, city of ghosts; lewkowicz, the jewish community of salonika; devin naar, jewish salonica; molho, in memoriam: hommage aux victimes juives des nazis en grèce, vols 1–3. [73] naar, jewish salonica, 277. [74] mazower, salonica, city of ghosts, 443. [75] mazower, salonica, city of ghosts, 456. [76] lewkowicz, the jewish community of salonika, 59. [77] roth, “last days.” [78] naar, jewish salonica, 277. [79] mazower, salonica, city of ghosts. [80] roth, “last days.” [81] roth, “last days.” [82] fleming, greece, 84–85. [83] roth, “last days.” [84] roth, “last days.” [85] roth, “last days.” [86] roth, “last days.” [87] naar, jewish salonica, 42. [88] roth, “last days.” [89] roth, personalities and events in jewish history, v. [90] roth, “jewish history for our own needs,” 431. [91] morrison, “site of memory,” 198. [92] morrison, “site of memory,” 192. [93] roth, “last days.” [94] roth, “last days.” [95] abrams, norman podhoretz and commentary magazine. [96] naar, jewish salonica, 16. [97] roth, “last days.” [98] roth, “last days.” [99] roth, “last days.” [100] roth, “last days.” [101] cecil roth, “who was columbus?,” in cecil roth, personalities and events in jewish history (philadelphia: the jewish publication society of america, 1961), 211. see also cecil roth, a history of the marranos (new york: meridian books, 1959), 106. [102] roth, a short history of the jewish people, 277. compare also cecil roth, a bird’s-eye view of jewish history (cincinnati: union of american hebrew congregations, 1935), 252–256; roth, the jewish contribution to civilisation, 21; and from the additional chapters, written by roth, in lady katie magnus, outlines of jewish history: from the babylonian exile to the present day (new york: myers and co., 1931), 337–338. [103] for the most recent instance of scepticism about ottoman transcultural ideals toward ottoman jews, see julia phillips cohen, becoming ottomans: sephardi jews and imperial citizenship in the modern era (oxford: oxford university press, 2014), cohen argues that “the story of the special ottoman-jewish relationship is a myth” (4). [104] roth, “last days.” [105] roth, “last days.” [106] roth, “last days.” [107] naar, jewish salonica, 53. [108] roth, “last days.” [109] roth, “last days.” on greek anti-semitism before, during, and after the holocaust, see especially antoniou and moses, eds., the holocaust in greece, and fleming, greece: a jewish history. [110] “roth, cecil,” oxford dictionary of national biography. [111] “ottoman nostalgia” is a much more recent coinage, born in good part to describe the recent direction of turkish politics and cultural representation. see for instance david shariatmadari, “middle east turmoil is fuelling ottoman nostalgia,” the guardian, october 6, 2013, accessed may 18, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/06/middle-east-turmoil-nostalgia-ottomans. [112] yosef hayim yerushalmi, zakhor: jewish history and memory (seattle: university of washington press, 1996). [113] yerusahalmi, zakhor, 44. there is more work to be done on the several ways in which roth pre-empts yerushalmi’s schema for jewish memory. roth is not mentioned in zakhor, contrasting with the attention the book gives to baron, among other signal jewish historians. it is not insignificant, perhaps, that yerushalmi was a student of baron, roth’s rival, and inherited baron’s chair, renamed, in baron’s honour, the salo wittmayer baron professor of jewish history, culture and society at columbia university. [114] cecil roth, the spanish inquisition (london: robert hale, 1937), vii. [115] roth, “last days.” [116] roth, “last days.” the 1908 liberty square event is discussed in mazower, salonica, city of ghosts, 275. [117] yerushalmi, zakhor, passim. [118] morrison, “the site of memory,” 99. [119] toni morrison, beloved (new york: penguin, 1991), 44. [120] roth, “last days.” [121] roth, “last days.” [122] cecil roth, salonica papers, cecil roth collection, university of leeds library. i am currently completing research on roth’s unpublished salonica papers. [123] alfred h. cohen, memorandum on the need for combating manifestations of anti-semitism in greece, april 1, 1947. cecil roth collection, university of leeds library. [124] roth, “last days.” [125] roth, “last days.” [126] roth, “last days.” [127] naar mentions that roth’s work was read by at least another salonican jewish local historian—and that roth in turn read this historian’s work—in his chapter on salonican jewish historiography, “paving the way for better days,” jewish salonica, 189–238. [128] rena molho, salonica and istanbul, 9. [129] aron rodrigue, “salonica in jewish historiography,” jewish history 28 (2014): 439–447. [130] roth, “jewish history for our own needs.” [131] devin e. naar, “fashioning the ‘mother of israel’: the ottoman jewish historical narrative and the image of jewish salonica jewish history,” jewish history 28 (2014): 344. [132] anthony molho, “introduction,” jewish history 28 (2014): 252–253. [133] anthony molho, “introduction,” 258. [134] roth, “jewish history for our own needs,” 427. [135] cecil roth, “a hebrew elegy on the martyrs of toledo, 1391” in cecil roth, gleanings: essays in jewish history, letters and art (new york: hermon press, 1967), 93–94. [136] rothberg, traumatic realism, 46. [137] cecil roth, “were the sephardim hidalgos? history disputes their claim to aristocracy,” commentary, august 1, 1955, accessed march 3, 2018, https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/were-the-sephardim-hidalgoshistory-disputes-their-claim-to-aristocracy/. [138] cecil roth, “salusque lusitano (an essay in disentanglement),” jewish quarterly review 34, no. 1 (july 1943): 65–85, reprinted in roth, gleanings, 199. [139] see julia philips cohen and sarah abrevaya stein, “sephardic scholarly worlds: toward a novel geography of modern jewish history,” jewish quarterly review 100, no. 3 (summer 2010): 349–384. [140] a roll call of scholars writing in english on ottoman jewish history would certainly include norman stillman, stanford shaw, and avigdor levy. see norman a stillman, the jews of arab lands: a history and sourcebook (philadelphia: jewish publication society, 1979); norman a. stillman, ed., encyclopedia of jews in the islamic world, accessed march 17, 2019, https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/encyclopedia-of-jews-in-the-islamic-world; stanford j. shaw, the jews of the ottoman empire and the turkish republic (london: macmillan 1991); avigdor levy, ed., the jews of the ottoman empire (princeton: darwin press, 1994); avigdor levy, ed., jews, turks, and ottomans: a shared history (syracuse: syracuse university press, 2002). other notable contributions include bernard lewis, the jews of islam (princeton: princeton university press 1984) and, more recently, cohen, becoming ottomans. [141] roth, “salusque lusitano.” [142] irene roth, cecil roth, 16. [143] on the salonican rabbis’ deployment of the shulchan arukh, see naar, jewish salonica, 248. [144] irene roth, cecil roth, 16, 53. [145] irene roth, cecil roth, 54–55. [146] i am grateful to eva frojmovic for suggesting class as a reason for roth’s adoption of the sephardic tradition. [147] “hidalgo, n.” oed online, january 2018, oxford university press, accessed march 3, 2018, https://www.oed.com/view/entry/86707. [148] roth, “were the sephardim hidalgos?” [149] roth, “were the sephardim hidalgos?” [150] roth, “were the sephardim hidalgos?” [151] roth, “were the sephardim hidalgos?” [152] roth, a history of the marranos. [153] roth, a history of the marranos, 8. [154] roth, a history of the marranos, 6. [155] roth, a history of the marranos, 6. [156] roth, a history of the marranos, 6. [157] roth, a history of the marranos, 6. [158] roth, a history of the marranos, 6. see also cecil roth, “marranos and racial antisemitism: a study in parallels,” jewish social studies 2, no. 13 (1940): 239–248. [159] cecil roth, “immanuel aboab’s proselytization of the marranos,” jewish quarterly review 23 (july 1932): 121–162, reprinted in gleanings, 167. [160] ivan davidson kalmar and derek j. penslar, “orientalism and the jews: an introduction,” in orientalism and the jews, eds. kalmar and penslar (london: new england university press, 2005), xxxi. [161] john m. efron, “orientalism and the jewish historical gaze,” in orientalism and the jews, eds. kalmar and penslar, 80. [162] roth, “last days.” [163] roth, “last days.” [164] roth, “last days.” [165] roth, “last days.” [166] roth, “last days.” [167] roth, “greece, 1946 – impressions on a tour (1),” 11. [168] roth, “greece, 1946 – impressions on a tour (1),” 11. [169] roth, “greece, 1946 – impressions on a tour (1),” 11. [170] השואה אודות, yad vashem, “salonika,” accessed august 2, 2019, https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%205991.pdf. for the scholarly debate on koretz, see, in order of extent of discussion, minna rozen, “jews and greeks remember their past: the political career of tzevi koretz (1933–43),” jewish social studies, 12, no. 1 (2005): 111–166; fleming, greece, 118; lewkowicz, the jewish community of salonika, 139–140; rena molho, salonica and istanbul, 64–66; naar, jewish salonica, 131; daniel carpi, “a new approach to some episodes in the history of the jews in salonika during the holocaust – memory, myth, documentation,” in minna rozen, the last ottoman century and beyond: the jews in turkey and the balkans, 1808–1945, trans. karen gold (goldstein-goren diaspora research center: tel aviv, 2005), vol. 2, 266. [171] cecil roth, “sephardim” in encyclopaedia judaica, ed., roth, vol. 14, 1170. a comparable view is expressed in h. j. zimmels, ashkenazim and sephardim: their relations, differences and problems as reflected in the rabbinical responsa (london: oxford university press, 1958). [172] irene roth, cecil roth, 11–16. [173] roth, “sephardim,” 1172. [174] cecil roth, “spain,” in encyclopaedia judaica, ed. roth, vol. 15, 242. [175] cecil roth, “salonika,” in encyclopaedia judaica, ed. roth, vol. 14, 699. [176] see, for example, the first two volumes of schama’s still in-progress trilogy, the story of the jews: finding the words, 1000 bce–1492 ce (london: bodley head, 2013); belonging, 1492–1900 (london: bodley head, 2017). indeed, in the beginning of his trilogy, schama himself sets up roth as his predecessor, explaining how this work originated when he “agreed to complete a history of the jews left unfinished at the death of […]. cecil roth, whose entire life had been devoted to the subject” (finding the words, foreword, n.p.). islamic studies: a field of research under transcultural crossfire | daniel g. könig | transcultural studies islamic studies: a field of research under transcultural crossfire daniel g. könig, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg every effort to describe the characteristics and the scope of an academic field is challenging, given that most disciplines look back on a centuries-old history that allowed them to branch out and develop a large range of highly diverse subfields. this is also the case with the field of research defined here as “islamic studies.” this essay is part of a themed section that discusses the relevance of the transcultural paradigm for different academic fields of research. its aim is to reflect upon the consequences of applying the methodological requirements of the transcultural paradigm, as described in the introductory article, to the particular field of islamic studies. the introduction proffered four different, and partly contradictory definitions of the transcultural approach that were based on how the transcultural paradigm has been employed and defined in an increasingly productive research history of approximately seventy-five years. according to these definitions, transcultural phenomena can be equated with either i) anthropological universals transcending cultural boundaries; ii) shared historical phenomena transcending cultural boundaries; iii) spaces and agents mediating between and thus permeating different cultural spheres, or iv) a deconstructionist approach that regards all kinds of conceptual entities—particularly the notion of monolithic cultural systems—as mere intellectual constructs and strives to display the permeability, flexibility, and dynamism of cultural phenomena by insisting on the necessity of engaging with every object of investigation from multiple perspectives and by employing different scales of analysis. i wish to emphasize that the following effort to relate the very wide and divergent field of islamic studies to these four definitions of the transcultural paradigm cannot do justice to all issues that might seem relevant to the reader. it is thus impossible to proffer a research history that discusses the tenets and consequences of academic literature produced as part of what is generally known as the “cultural turn.” it is also impossible to comprehensively cover the entire field of islamic studies, given that the study of islam and related phenomena has been undertaken since the age of muḥammad by various, not exclusively academic actors, and in various fields of intellectual activity. many phenomena discussed in this essay are well known to specialists in the field of islamic studies. however, my research specialization in the pre-modern mediterranean may be responsible for judgements that will not necessarily be shared by scholars with a different specialization in the wider field of islamic studies, e.g. contemporary india or indonesia. thus, the article focusses on evaluating the relevance and utility of the transcultural paradigm as defined above and should be read as an experimental essay that explores how different intellectual heritages and currents of thought found within the wider orbit of the study of islam interact with the theoretical proposals brought forward by proponents of the transcultural paradigm.[1] this essay unfolds in six parts. part one argues that islamic studies—understood here as a form of intellectual and increasingly scholarly engagement that emerged in medieval and early modern europe—could be regarded as transcultural from the outset, because it initially provided an external view on a rival religious orbit. part two provides an overview of an academic field that can be regarded as transcultural because—at least in some institutional settings—it engages with the interaction of different religious, geographical, and linguistic spheres that are subsumed under the super-category of a universalist religious system called islam. part three shows that a historical master narrative, which highlights cultural diversity as well as processes of transculturation as an integral part of islamic history, has been widely accepted in the field of islamic studies, even before the transcultural paradigm was explicitly formulated. part four presents a number of subfields of research that investigate processes of cultural interaction and transculturation within and between muslim and non-muslim milieus. in addition, it shows that in the past half century, scholars dealing with islam in the widest sense have increasingly underscored the high degree of internal cultural diversity in predominantly muslim societies. in spite of this, part five argues, the field of islamic studies is caught in an area of conflict between two ideological poles, both of which tend to essentialize islam. one is represented by the orientalist legacy, whose essentializing tenets are also manifest in recent forms of islamophobia and right-wing populism. the other is represented by an inner-muslim quest to define the essence of islamic and associated cultural (counter-)identities, and manifests itself in various forms of occidentalist thought. essentialist representations and interpretations of islam are currently widely diffused and obviously clash with deconstructionist post-orientalist approaches to islam, including the transcultural paradigm. against this backdrop, part six concludes with a final evaluation of the risks and prospects of explicitly applying the transcultural approach in the field of islamic studies. at the beginning: transcultural engagement with “the other” from a historical perspective, scholarship on islam branched in two directions that are separated by religious demarcations. one is represented by the increasingly institutionalized inner-muslim engagement with the religious system of islam and the legal, political, economic, and social implications of its theological tenets. this branch comprises various disciplines, which developed over centuries following the preaching of muḥammad between 610 and 632 ce.[2] it is important to note that this variant of islamic studies is not confined to societies in which islamic normative frameworks are predominant. for example, muslims under christian rule in late medieval and early modern spain pursued the study of islam, often clandestinely;[3] in recent years, european countries with a minority muslim population such as germany have even established departments of islamic theology within various universities.[4] the second branch which stands at the centre of this article, is represented by forms of scholarly activity whose roots lie in twelfth-century christian europe.[5] this period was strongly marked by two important manifestations of latin-christian expansionism into mediterranean regions then under the rule of muslim elites: the so-called reconquista and the crusades.[6] the latin-christian desire to engage with islam in this period was nurtured by the desire to understand the tenets of the islamic faith with the aim of formulating christian counterarguments and of strengthening christian identity vis-à-vis its rival islam. this polemic engagement with islam led to the translation of a corpus of arabic texts including the earliest latin translation of the qurʾān. the latter was commissioned by peter the venerable (d. 1156), abbot of cluny.[7] not knowing arabic himself, he drew on the linguistic capacities of individuals engaged in translating and assimilating a large and influential corpus of scientific and philosophical literature in arabic, that reproduced and elaborated on ancient greek intellectual achievements. the iberian peninsula, sicily, and the crusader levant, i.e. regions that had only recently come under the control of latin-christian elites, constituted early centres of arabic-latin translation activity.[8] thus, from the beginning, the european-christian or “western” intellectual engagement with islam and its societal dimensions had what we could call a “transcultural” component. on the one hand, it was based on active othering and the dichotomy of the observer and the observed, pursuing the aim of describing a religious system from an external—not necessarily friendly—perspective. on the other hand, it involved the reception of a shared, originally greek heritage that had permeated and continued to permeate jewish, christian, and muslim milieus around the mediterranean. at the beginning of the fourteenth century, men of the roman catholic church formulated the earliest ideas to institutionalize the study of arabic in the christian societies of europe, e.g. proposals to institute chairs for the study of arabic in oxford, paris, salamanca, bologna, and rome. aside from studying and translating arabic texts, the holders of these chairs were to provide linguistic training to missionaries.[9] increasingly, this missionary zeal was not only directed at arabic-speaking muslims, but also at various groups of arabic-speaking christians in the eastern mediterranean, finding expression, for example, in the early modern production of polyglot bibles.[10] in the course of the late medieval and early modern period, the intensive engagement with the graeco-arabic scientific tradition as well as the missionary aim of acquiring the necessary linguistic skills to convert the muslim “infidel” engendered an increasing appreciation of the potential contributions the study of arabic could make to various fields of knowledge, such as calendar systems, history, or biblical studies.[11] this interest in arabic, nurtured in various early modern centres of intellectual activity, was soon extended to other languages used in predominantly muslim societies, i.e. ottoman turkish and persian. the increasing recognition of the importance of foreign language skills for the maintenance of diplomatic and economic relations with muslim societies became manifest in the establishment of the venetian scuola dei giovani di lingua (1551), or the french royal foundation of the école des jeunes de langue (1669).[12] such initiatives helped to consolidate academic institutions of learning, dedicated to the study of arabic, persian, ottoman, but also syriac texts, as well as to the engagement with what was often regarded as the dogmatic, historical, economic, political, legal, and social manifestations of islam. variants of classification: a research field of transcultural scope during the early modern period, the study of islam and of the arabic language increasingly branched out into various subfields. until the late twentieth century, these subfields were often gathered under the controversial epithet “oriental studies” (cf. german orientalistik, french orientalisme scientifique). since the publication of edward said’s seminal work orientalism in 1978,[13] the activities of “orientalists” are often associated with a particular “european” or “western” mind frame that, although interested in muslim societies as such, subjects scientific efforts to the dictates of an imperialist rationale intent on denigrating and mastering an “oriental other.”[14] as a consequence, it became necessary to distinguish between two different definitions of the term “orientalism,” i.e. its use as a hypernym for all academic fields engaging with so-called “middle eastern” and “far eastern” societies on the one hand, and said’s critical depiction of these academic fields on the other. to distinguish clearly between these two definitions, the epithets “oriental studies” or “orientalism” tend to be avoided as generic labels of research on these societies since the late twentieth century. in its non-saidian function as an umbrella term for all academic fields engaging with societies east of europe, it has been replaced by a large variety of designations. however, this large and sometimes confusing variety of denominations should not be regarded as a mere counterreaction that served to distance the wider field of oriental or islamic studies from the colonialist and imperialist variant of orientalism. rather, it arose from the necessity to accomodate an increasing range of specializations. describing, interrelating, and classifying the range of existing fields poses a challenge. at first sight, it may seem as if the institutionalized field of islamic studies focuses on a specific religion, a restricted number of ethnic groups, and a limited number of languages and could thus be defined as a multifaceted “area study” of certain regions that in one way or another have been influenced by islam. however, every researcher working in this field is aware that, over the centuries, islam has become a highly complex global phenomenon. the arabic-islamic expansion of the seventh and eighth centuries led to the subjection of various non-muslim groups to muslim rule; from this period onwards, these new groups formed an integral part of muslim societies. furthermore, due to the specific islamic practice of accepting the existence of (mainly monotheist) non-muslim religious groups within societies under islamic rule, islamic societies retained important non-muslim populations (not necessarily numerical minorities) since the era of expansion.[15] thus, research in the field of islamic studies also considers the social status, activities, and cultural production of these non-muslim groups. it is possible, for example, to encounter researchers in a department of islamic studies who work on the history and society of the copts of egypt.[16] moreover, due to the increasing numbers of non-muslims of different ethnic origin converting to islam, the originally “arab” muslim elites of early islam soon became ethnically diversified.[17] thus, research in the field of islamic studies does not only focus on “arabs,”[18] but deals with various ethnic groups in and around the mediterranean, in central asia and its soviet predecessor, india, indonesia, malaysia, the united states, europe, and sub-saharan africa. hence, it covers more or less the entire earth and a timeframe that ranges—depending on when islam was introduced to the region in question—from late antiquity to the present. in general, however, european and western research has focused (and still tends to focus) on the “traditional” regions of islam, i.e. the middle east and north africa, and has only recently begun to pay more attention to islamic phenomena that are of relevance to societies in europe, the americas, and south asia. because of its multifaceted nature, defining the scope and characterizing the field of islamic studies is decidedly difficult—also from a methodological point of view. the various subfields of islamic studies draw on methods from other fields of research such as history, philology, literary studies, political sciences, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, comparative religious studies, or theology. thus, the field of islamic studies does not really feature a particular methodology of its own.[19] in consequence, one finds scholars working in this field who question if islamic studies actually constitute a proper academic discipline, who explicitly associate themselves with a more basic disciplinary framework such as history, philology or linguistics, or who insist that their specialization constitutes an academic field of research in its own right. the following overview is thus tentative and aims at giving an overview over the large variety of specializations rather than at establishing interdependencies or even hierarchies among them.[20] the general field of islamic studies (cf. german islamwissenschaft(en); french islamologie) involves research on the theological, ideological, legal, political, economic, social, and cultural manifestations of islam as a religious system in historical and contemporary societies featuring inhabitants of muslim faith. arabic studies (cf. german arabistik) focuses on the philology and literature of the arabic language that—this should be noted—was never exclusively used by muslims, but was and still is the medium of expression of many christians and jews.[21] iranian studies (cf. german iranistik, french iranologie) and ottoman studies (cf. german osmanistik) feature a comparable philological and literary orientation with a focus on persian and turkic languages, but also include a social and historical dimension dedicated, among other things, to the pre-islamic and other cultural features of the persianate and turkic spheres.[22] finally, the branch of middle or near eastern studies, occasionally enlarged to the so-called mena-region (middle east and north africa), aims to understand the recent history of and contemporary political developments in predominantly muslim societies around the mediterranean. it is noteworthy, that the study of islam and muslim societies in other regions of the world such as india, indonesia, europe, or the united states has so far not received a disciplinary label in western scholarship. research on these phenomena is either executed within the larger field of islamic studies or in neighbouring fields such as south asian studies, sociology or political science. one should also note that important research on phenomena relevant to the field of islamic studies is carried out in other disciplines or by scholars moving between disciplinary boundaries. the history, social status, and cultural production of jews and christians under muslim rule, for example, are also studied in the fields of medieval history, byzantinology, or jewish and semitic studies, whose researchers are able to access source material written in languages traditionally not associated with muslims, such as hebrew, greek, syriac, and latin.[23] historians specialized in european history of the nineteenth century, political scientists, sociologists and cultural anthropologists, in turn, have made important contributions to understanding middle eastern politics, migratory phenomena, or forms of european islam that are essentially based on the analysis of source material in western languages.[24] these examples show that it is ultimately impossible to draw a line decmarcating the field of islamic studies from other fields of research on social phenomena involving muslims. the problem of clearly separating islamic studies from other disciplines also arises because representatives of islamic studies often tend to question the “islamic” character of the phenomena they investigate. for example, the subdiscipline of “islamic art history” features heated debates about the question what is actually “islamic” in the particular forms of artistic expression under scrutiny.[25] equally, one could question why the history of latin-christian polemics against muslims has become a subdiscipline of medieval european history and not of islamic studies.[26] the reason for this is primarily pragmatic: unlike in the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century, when european departments of orientalist studies could expect their students to have mastered latin during their humanistic secondary education, contemporary students of islamic studies in europe, including those with a migratory background, can no longer be expected to learn this language in addition to arabic, persian, and (ottoman) turkish. in view of the history, but also of the thematic diversity within the field of islamic studies, the question arises whether this field is not transdisciplinary and transcultural per se: employing the methodologies of various academic disciplines and dealing with the aforementioned large range of regions, societies, and languages, it clearly exceeds the boundaries both of a traditional discipline and of an area study. a master narrative: transcultural universalism in the rise of islam to answer the question whether the field of islamic studies can be regarded as transcultural per se, it is necessary to provide a short working definition of the transcultural approach that synthesizes the four, partly divergent definitions provided in the introduction and summarized at the beginning of this article. according to this synthetic working definition, the transcultural approach is defined methodologically and thematically. from a methodological point of view, it refuses to accept the existence of clear-cut, monolithic, and stable cultural entities defined in terms of race, ethnicity, origins, language, customs, traditions, religion, or territory. instead, it insists on the inner multiplicity, heterogeneity, dynamism, and flexibility of cultural phenomena. according to the transcultural approach, culture is thus always in the making, has no essence, but consists of interacting phenomena of multiple origin that appear differently if regarded from different angles. the methodological imperative to analyse cultural phenomena from various angles (multiperspectivity) builds on the conviction that these phenomena rarely remain stable over longer periods (processuality, dynamism) because they are formed by various actors (agency) who hold different, often contradictory views. in view of these methodological imperatives, the transcultural approach focuses on material and abstract phenomena that transcend cultural boundaries resulting from conceptions of ethnicity, language, customs, traditions, or religion. its aim is neither to (re)construct anthropological constants or universals, i.e. phenomena that are common to humankind in general (e.g. crime, intellectual activity, etc.), nor to (re)construct the systemic character of social systems in the widest sense. rather, the transcultural approach highlights and focuses on processes of exchange, interaction, interplay, reciprocity, appropriation, accommodation, transmission, and reception. these processes lead to the diffusion and interaction of specific cultural phenomena in smaller or larger areas inhabited by various groups and societies (cultural transfer, diffusion) to the effect that specific cultural features in multiple variations become a characteristic of greater parts of the world (e.g. christianization, islamization, globalization). in the long run, these processes can contribute to the emergence of “new” but continuously evolving cultural phenomena that are based on the creative mingling, mixture, and fusion of originally diverse cultural elements (transculturation). transcultural phenomena are thus generally produced by agents who connect hitherto separated spheres (entanglement) thus crossing and, in some cases, obliterating pre-existing boundaries (ethnic, linguistic, normative). such agents are known as (cultural) border-runners, brokers, or mediators. to evaluate whether islamic studies fulfills the methodological and thematic requirements of the transcultural approach as defined here, the following paragraphs will present a “traditional approach” as formulated in a manual, first published in 1988 and authored by ira m. lapidus, under the title a history of islamic societies.[27] part one of this manual begins with a description of the pre-islamic period (al-jāhiliyya) that is centred on the arabian peninsula of the sixth and early seventh century, but also provides an insight into the geopolitical constellation that characterizes the middle east of the same period. an arab-centred narrative of the foundation period of islam, still focusing on the arabian peninsula and its immediate surroundings, leads up to an analysis of the muslim expansion and its effects, i.e. the imperialization of arab rule and the inclusion of entire non-muslim societies into this new imperial framework. the related social processes are defined as “the formation of new communities” and the “mutual assimilation of peoples.”[28] the arabization of the persian and graeco-syriac literary heritage of the conquered middle eastern regions receives special attention.[29] in part two, the manual describes the fragmentation of the abbasid-led islamic empire and the formation of various, regionally-based islamic societies in an area stretching from south east asia to the iberian peninsula and sub-saharan africa. particular attention is given to the integration of mongol and turkic groups as well as to the interaction between muslims and european christians, the latter increasingly active in and beyond the mediterranean in areas that had previously been strongly influenced by islam. finally, part three discusses the effects of “modernity” in european colonial garb on muslim societies in the arab world, iran, the indian subcontinent, indonesia and malaysia, central asia, and sub-saharan africa. it emphasizes how various forms of islamic revival are an important aspect of the transformation of muslim societies in reaction to modernity. as opposed to the second revised edition, the 1988 version of the manual does not consider the growing importance of muslim minorities in western european and north american societies, but focuses on muslim minorities and their problems of maintaining a muslim religious identity in the soviet union, china, and various african societies. a manual of, all in all, 1002 pages, can neither do justice to every detail of islamic history nor focus on transcultural phenomena. however, in his effort to provide an overview of approximately 1600 years of history in an area covering three continents, lapidus clearly pays considerable attention to processes of exchange, interaction, interplay, reciprocity, appropriation, accommodation, transmission, reception, as well as to the emergence of new cultural phenomena that are based on the creative mingling, mixture, and fusion of originally diverse cultural elements. lapidus’ terminology reflects this: he highlights that the emergence of “islamic civilization” takes place in a wider middle eastern context. it involves the creative mingling of arab and non-arab, muslim and non-muslim elements within the framework of an “arab-muslim imperium” that produces a form of “cosmopolitan islam” and an “islamic culture.” the latter then provides the cultural foundation for the “worldwide diffusion of islamic societies” that then undergo individual, but nonetheless parallel processes of “transformation” when confronted with “modernity.” thus, lapidus’ master narrative of the history of islamic societies pays considerable attention to processes and phenomena that could be described as transcultural. although lapidus also dedicates considerable attention to the formation of specifically islamic normative, political, and social systems, his manual does not convey the image of a single, monolithic, and stagnant cultural entity, but of a plurality of evolving societies in asia, africa, and europe that are pervaded by a highly variegated and flexible cultural phenomenon called islam, which was and is open to many influences. this nuanced master narrative remains unquestioned in the more recent oxford history of islam, published in 1999, which features a collection of sixteen articles by eminent scholars in the field. although this book covers the same geographical and chronological perimetre as lapidus’ history of islamic societies, it is not written in chronological, but in thematic order. some of the articles focus on topics that are of high relevance to the transcultural approach, e.g. the “historical, religious, and cultural interaction” between islam and christendom, “transnationalization, islamization, and ethnicization” in the contact zone between central asia and china, the effects of european colonialism, and the “globalization of islam.” all in all, however, the master narrative characteristic of this volume does not essentially differ from the one proposed by lapidus.[30] we may conclude that a history of islamic societies cannot be written from an ethnic or nationalist perspective. in fact, any historical narrative describing the rise of a universal religion—be it christianity, islam, or buddhism—penetrating various evolving societies in a grand process of diffusion and reception that entails innumerable and complex phenomena of interaction, cannot build on a concept of homogeneous and monolithic cultures. in short, such a history seems to be transcultural per se. one must consider, of course, that the field of islamic studies has also produced research written from an ethnic, national, and even nationalist perspective. even philip hitti’s history of the arabs or albert hourani’s history of arab peoples do not focus on one ethnic group alone. although they increasingly focus on the arab sphere, i.e. the area stretching from morocco to iraq, as soon as they deal with late modern and contemporary phenomena, they describe the history of a cultural tradition built on a religious and cultural heritage in arabic.[31] histories with a seemingly national focus, such as johanna pink’s geschichte ägyptens, cannot but consider the many instances of transculturation of pharaonic, ptolemaic, roman, coptic, byzantine, persian, arab, berber, kurdish, turkic, and other elements that have characterized the history of societies centred on the nile valley between antiquity and the present.[32] again, histories of the ottoman or safavid empires cannot be written without considering a similar array of variegated cultural elements. however, more recent publications put stronger emphasis on the cultural heterogeneity and supra-regional entanglement of these polities.[33] although they deal with a large range of transcultural topics, neither the master narrative of the rise and diversification of islamic societies, nor the more restricted ethnic or national narratives narratives present themselves explicitly as exponents of the transcultural approach as defined in the synthetic working definition above. and it is certain that teaching curricula and general histories of islam and muslim societies accord much importance to a rather structuralist depiction of the religious phenomenon that is islam and the societies influenced by it—in many cases for didactic reasons. introductory courses to islamic law (sharīʿa), for example, are particularly prone to presenting islam as a coherent, self-contained system, in spite of the fact that the issuing of legal rulings by muslim juridical authorities has, throughout islamic history, never been centralized.[34] all this cannot obliterate, however, that the field of islamic studies can neither confine itself to a single region, ethnic group, or language and thus transcends bounded cultural spheres. the in-between: transcultural phenomena within and at the margins of islam that the field of islamic studies transcends the boundaries of traditionally defined cultural spheres also becomes evident if one takes a look at some of its subfields of research that clearly focus on transcultural phenomena without explicitly calling them so. one of the oldest transcultural subdisciplines within the field has its origins in the arabic-latin translation movement of the twelfth century. the transmission of ancient greek science via syriac, arabic, hebrew, and latin translations has elicited academic comments from the late fifteenth century onwards at the latest, and continues to be studied by several eminent scholars.[35] another important focus of islamic studies concerns the social status of non-muslims under muslim rule, a topic of discussion in muslim and non-muslim sources written in the wake of the arabic-islamic expansion in the seventh and eighth centuries in various languages such as arabic, greek, syriac, coptic, or latin. this subject has gained particular importance in literature with a clear islamophobic tendency that depicts islam exclusively as an expansionist and violent phenomenon threatening non-muslim lifeworlds.[36] it has also been dealt with in apologetic literature insisting on the peaceful character of the islamic expansion.[37] in response to both, various studies have made efforts to approach the issue in a balanced way.[38] conversely, the status of muslims in societies ruled by non-muslim elites has received much attention in recent years. this is also due to most contemporary western societies featuring substantial muslim minorities who face the challenge of retaining their muslim identity in an essentially secular environment that is strongly marked by christian traditions. however, this issue is by no means new. it already became relevant in the wake of latin-christian expansionism into territories formerly held by muslims from around the eleventh century onwards.[39] a last example concerns the reactions of muslim societies to european colonialism and imperialism in the nineteenth and twentieth century, a topic of study that constitutes an integral part of the master narrative of islamic history sketched out above. because research in the wider field of islamic studies has given and must give considerable attention to phenomena that are only loosely connected to issues of muslim faith, researchers in the second half of the twentieth century began to consider the epithet “islamic” as not being fully adequate to describe social constellations in historical and contemporary societies with a predominantly muslim population. in the three-volume work the venture of islam: conscience and history in a world civilization published in 1974, some of which had already been published in earlier studies in the late 1950s and 1960s, the us scholar marshall g.s. hodgson (1922–1968) called for the necessity of clearly distinguishing between islam as a religion and societies marked by this religion. i plead that it has been all too common, in modern scholarship, to use the terms “islam” and “islamic” too casually both for what we may call religion and for the overall society and culture associated historically with the religion. i grant that it is not possible nor, perhaps, even desirable to draw too sharp a line here, for (and not only in islam) to separate out religion from the rest of life is partly to falsify it. nevertheless, the society and culture called “islamic” in the second sense are not necessarily “islamic” in the first. not only have the groups of people involved in the two cases not always been co-extensive (the culture has not been simply a “muslim” culture, a culture of muslims)—much of what even muslims have done as a part of the “islamic” civilization can only be characterized as “un-islamic” in the first, the religious sense of the word. one can speak of “islamic literature,” of “islamic art,” of “islamic philosophy,” even of “islamic despotism,” but in such a sequence one is speaking less and less of something that expresses islam as a faith. (…) i have come to the conclusion that the problem can be solved only by introducing new terms. the term “islamdom” will be immediately intelligible by analogy with “christendom.” “islamdom,” then, is the society in which the muslims and their faith are recognized as prevalent and socially dominant, in one sense or another—a society in which, of course, non-muslims have always formed an integral, if subordinate, element, as have jews in christendom. it does not refer to an area as such, but to a complex of social relations, which, to be sure, is territorially more or less well-defined. it does not, then duplicate the essentially juridical and territorial term “dār al-islām”; yet, in contrast to “muslim lands,” it is clearly collective—frequently an important point. sometimes the phrase “the islamic world” is used much in this sense. i prefer not to use it for three reasons: (a) in compound phrases where “islamdom” can be a useful element, the three-word phrase can become clumsy; (b) the phrase itself uses the term “islamic” in too broad a sense; (c) it is time we realized there is only “one world” even in history. if there is to be an “islamic world,” this can be only in the future. on the other hand, if the analogy with “christendom” is held to, “islamdom” does not designate in itself a “civilization,” a specific culture, but only the society that carries that culture. there has been, however, a culture, centred on a lettered tradition, which has been historically distinctive of islamdom the society, and which has been naturally shared in by both muslims and non-muslims who participate at all fully in the society of islamdom. for this, i have used the adjective “islamicate.” i thus restrict the term “islam” to the religion of the muslims, not using that term for the far more general phenomena, the society of islamdom and its islamicate cultural traditions.[40] hodgson thus called for a new terminology that does justice not only to the ethnic, religious, linguistic, and cultural diversity of societies in which islamic norms hold sway, but also to the fact that predominantly muslim societies do not necessarily function according to a set frame of “islamic” norms defined in the religious sense by uncontested authorities. he thus demanded the recognition of one of the most important aspects of transcultural theory, i.e. the recognition of cultural diversity in any given society and, as a result, of complex processes of cultural interaction and transculturation within the society itself. in addition to highlighting the inner diversity of islamicate societies as advocated by hodgson, research of the past decades has increasingly focused on phenomena of cultural interaction and transculturation involving islamicate societies and their non-muslim environment. the following examples of studies, all of which focus on historical developments in the wider mediterranean, illustrate this tendency: as opposed to the european medievalist henri pirenne, who still regarded islam as “another religion […] and an entirely different culture” in the 1930s,[41] scholars such as angelika neuwirth and robert hoyland have made efforts to understand the emergence of islam as a phenomenon closely linked to other religious phenomena in late antiquity.[42] almut höfert’s recent study on “imperial monotheism” describes the medieval latin-christian and byzantine emperors and the caliph as three manifestations of an ancient institution cast into monotheistic forms, thus pointing to the shared political and ideological heritage of different medieval societies.[43] the debate about the nature of christian-jewish-muslim cohabitation on the medieval iberian peninsula, subsumed under the controversial keyword convivencia, provides an example for the critical evaluation of cultural interaction and transculturation on the medieval iberian peninsula as a whole.[44] natalie zemon davis’ study on leo the african, alias ḥasan b. muḥammad al-wazzān al-fāsī, stands for the heightened scholarly interest in personalities of the early modern period who transgressed normative and social barriers between christendom and islam.[45] jocelyne dakhlia’s study on the mediterranean lingua franca and its use up to the nineteenth century, in turn, focuses on a linguistic medium that facilitated communication between christians and muslims within and outside predominantly muslim societies.[46] such studies show that, especially in the last decades, scholars working in the wider field of islamic studies have not been content with the above-mentioned master narrative according to which the rise of islam was a process of diffusion and transculturation that transcended cultural boundaries. rather, they felt the need to focus on liminal transcultural spaces and agents situated within and at the margins of islam. orientalist legacies and occidentalist counterreactions: caught in transcultural crossfire the existence of these and comparable studies notwithstanding, many specialists see the primary task of islamic studies not necessarily in researching cultural border zones, third spaces, cultural brokers, and other phenomena either within islamic(ate) societies or linking islamic(ate) societies to non-muslim milieus and environments, but in understanding and describing these societies from within, without imposing any conceptual framework. in an essay on the methodological foundations of islamic studies written in 2000, marco schöller harshly criticized approaches that unreflectingly force their own categories of thought on what he defined as “islamic culture.” schöller pointed to a long history of european-christian and western, i.e. orientalist scholarship that largely saw in islam what it wanted to see, instead of trying to understand how the cultural worlds of islam presented themselves. to avoid such distortions, schöller pleaded for an approach guided not only by empathy for, but by the object of study itself, i.e. of letting the sources speak rather than silencing them by imposing one’s own view on them.[47] although schöller did not engage with the transcultural paradigm as such, his plea to liberate the field of islamic studies from its orientalist legacy prompts the question if the transcultural approach is really guided by the object of study or by the conceptually inspired desire to unearth more and more evidence for its pre-defined conceptual framework. if the latter were the case, i.e. if the transcultural approach first defined its tenets and then applied them to its object of study, it could be interpreted as falling in line with older academic approaches of western origin that claimed universality, but actually imposed their conceptual framework on their object of study. since the end of the nineteenth century and long before edward said published his influential definition and criticism of european and western orientalism,[48] strong currents in arab and muslim discourse criticized european and american scholarship on islam for seeking to impose its conceptual framework on muslim societies with the aim of deconstructing the latter’s ethnic, national, or religious identities.[49] in such forms of discourse, european and american scholars of islam constitute prime targets of criticism, e.g. in various analyses of western orientalism (al-istishrāq) or orientalists (al-mustashriqūn). the arabic internet site “collection of copied books” (jāmiʿ al-kutub al-muṣawwara) features a bibliography of 211 arabic works on orientalism, approximately covering the period between the 1960s and the beginning of the twenty-first century.[50] in this list, we find a few studies such as najīb al-ʿaqīqī’s three-volume oeuvre the orientalists (1964–65) that treat orientalist scholarship rather favourably. without neglecting the polemical, often islamophobic aspects of this orientalist heritage, the detailed manual concludes with praise for the contributions of western orientalism towards ensuring the preservation of islamic heritage(s).[51] other works focus on how western orientalists depict(ed) specific aspects of islam. although titles such as the impact of the german school of orientalism on qurʾānic studies: presentation and analysis,[52] the opinions of the orientalists on the understanding of revelation,[53] or opinions of the orientalists on the holy qurʾān between equitability and prejudice[54] seem rather neutral, their content shows that their authors deemed it necessary to engage with a tradition of scholarship that was and is regarded as at least partly problematic. in the treatise the production of the orientalists and its influence on modern islamic thought, the algerian author malik bennabi (mālik b. nabbī, 1905–1973) proffers a clear if unsatisfactory definition of “good” and “bad” orientalist scholarship by distinguishing between orientalists “praising islamic civilization” and orientalists “criticizing it, thus damaging its reputation.”[55] in most works featuring in the above-mentioned list—many of them of a recent date—european or western scholarship on islam is sweepingly regarded as consciously destructive, as aiming at deconstructing the essence of islam and of muslim identity. some titles speak for themselves, such as the influence of orientalism on the campaign against the prophet of good, god bless him and give him peace,[56] the three wings of deceit and its feathers: proselytism—orientalism—colonialism: study, analysis and strategy,[57] or roles of the orientalists in the corruption of the guideposts of the prophetic tradition.[58] one, and certainly not the least important reason for such negative evaluations of the production of european or western scholars is that the latter generally work(ed) on various facets of islam without endorsing, often even questioning the theological position that the latter constitutes divine revelation. muḥammad mohar ali, formerly professor for the history of islam at madina islamic university and imām muḥammad islamic university, riyad, claimed as late as 2004 that “the orientalists leave no stone unturned to assail the qurʾan. this attempt of theirs has been going on since the beginning of orientalism in the late middle ages.”[59] this criticism of orientalist scholarship is closely related to forms of discourse that regard not only western scholarship on islam, but many other facets of western influence, as menacing. this kind of discourse constitutes one of many counterreactions to the shocks of modernization brought about by the confrontation of largely traditionalist muslim societies with european colonialism and western imperialism in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth century; it too has to be regarded as a transcultural phenomenon.[60] whereas earlier authors such as rashīd riḍā (1865–1935) and sayyid quṭb (1906–1966) mainly criticized their contemporaries for imitating “western” forms of behaviour and of thus losing the core of their muslim identity,[61] fundamental texts such as jalāl al-e aḥmad’s occidentosis (gharbzadagi, 1963) or mehmet doǧan’s the treachery that is westernization (batılılaşma i̇haneti, 1975) emphasized the disruptive impact of western influences on islam, muslims in general, as well as the authors’ respective societies in particular.[62] against the backdrop of this perceived destructive western impact on muslim societies the egyptian philosopher ḥasan ḥanafī’s introduction to the science of occidentalism (1991) insists on the necessity of strengthening arab and muslim identity by formulating an “occidentalist” vision of western societies analogous to the orientalist vision of muslim societies. ḥanafi’s volume of 875 pages deals with a large variety of topics and many facets of european history and thought. its aim, however, is to propagate a new science called occidentalism that reacts against orientalism and eurocentrism. it promotes intellectual forms of dealing with the west that end a period of passive reception of western culture in non-western societies and launch a new of period of active innovation in the muslim and, specifically, in the arab sphere. this is to be achieved by analysing and explaining the composition of what ḥanafī calls “the european consciousness” as it grew over the centuries, by using the same methods of critical deconstruction that have been applied to islamic civilization by orientalist scholars. by doing this, ḥanafī seeks to expose the specifically european character of european civilization and thus to rebuke claims that europe and the west have created a universal civilization to be imitated by all humans. he furthermore intends to demonstrate the historicity of european civilization, i.e. to show that the rise of european power must be followed by its fall, as was the fate of every civilization or culture, and that it is subjected to periods of growth and decay.[63] ḥanafī’s call for an explicitly occidentalist approach to the west is partly based on the assumption that non-western scholars have become intellectually dependent on ideas and concepts formulated in the west. in a contribution to the debate on globalization entitled “what is globalization?” ḥasan ḥanafī goes as far as classifying debates and terminologies of western origin as a new, post-colonial means of achieving global hegemony vis-à-vis “nationally liberated” non-western societies. ḥanafī comments: after the phase of national liberation, the arab world in the southern part of the mediterranean became independent, and the west returned to its natural borders—at least with regards to its military activity. but its influence remained—this time economically and culturally. moreover, the west wanted to lead the planet into a new phase that would overcome the phase of national liberation. it thus developed new forms of hegemony by creating a terminology that was propagated outside its proper borders: “globalization,” “one world,” “the end of history,” “clash of civilizations,” “governance,” “electronic revolution,” “global village,” “universalism” are terms that are not as innocent as they seem. they are terms that show how—in the modern world—the centre dominates the periphery. they are terms that force the intellectuals of the world to run after them panting to explain and comment on them without noticing that the process of commenting and of writing footnotes is not equal to producing texts independently. it rather is a way to expel them from history, a sort of summons to the periphery to follow obediently and to leave innovation and creative activity to the centre.[64] thus, from ḥanafī’s perspective, any idea or concept emerging in a european or transatlantic academic framework must be regarded as an intellectual continuation of orientalism, colonialism, and imperialism. although ḥanafī has not commented on the issue of transculturality so far, it seems that his criticism of any approach of western origin would also apply to the transcultural approach, regardless of the fact that the term “transcultural” leads back to fernando ortiz’ critique of racism and cultural essentialism in a transatlantic context marked by colonial ideologies. ḥanafī can be regarded as an intellectual mouthpiece for certain currents of thought in arab and predominantly muslim societies that nurture considerable mistrust and suspicion of western intellectual efforts at understanding and describing phenomena in regions of the world beyond the west, islamicate societies in particular. the statement quoted above shows that this mistrust is regarded as justified in view of around two centuries of european and american military, political, and cultural dominance vis-à-vis predominantly muslim societies from morocco to afghanistan. the present state of islamic(ate) societies from north africa to central asia does nothing to alleviate this mistrust. various foreign, including western countries continue to interfere actively, and often violently, in the their affairs. in large and important parts of the islamic(ate) sphere such as syria, iraq, and afghanistan, the legacy and contemporary manifestations of this external impact interact with power struggles closely related to conflicting forms of collective identity. the latter define themselves against each other: in religious terms vis-à-vis other interpretations of islam and non-islamic religions, in cultural terms vis-à-vis globalized “western” influences, in ethnic terms vis-à-vis other groups perceived as different. according to the syrian poet and essayist adonis, otherwise a harsh critic of western interventionism,[65] the inability to deal constructively with alterity has to be regarded as an important obstacle to the termination of these conflicts. cited by the guardian, he states: in our tradition, unfortunately, everything is based on unity—the oneness of god, of politics, of the people. we can’t ever arrive at democracy with this mentality, because democracy is based on understanding the other as different. you can’t think you hold the truth, and that nobody else has it.[66] more often than not, these identitarian reactions against any form of alterity provide the ideological varnish to more complex constellations that are inextricably linked to geopolitical circumstances and a long history of power abuse in the respective societies themselves. however, this cannot conceal the fact that rhetorics of collective identity and collective othering play an important part in these conflicts. against this backdrop, it is questionable if the transcultural approach—a “western” approach that ultimately strives to dissect and deconstruct any notion of community, including islam itself—will be accepted by muslims who try to formulate different “solutions” to the problems ravaging their societies. a collection of friday sermons published in 2003 by the syrian preacher maḥmūd ʿakkām, long-time mufti of the district of aleppo and preacher in the great umayyad mosque of the same city,[67] can elucidate the occidentalist frame of mind described above: not only are three sermons dedicated to a discussion of the relationship between “us” and “the west,” based on a clear dichotomy between “our situation” and “their situation,” between “what they demand from us and what we demand from them,” as well as between “our history and their history”;[68] in a sermon entitled “conversation between an oriental and an occidental” maḥmūd ʿakkām also addresses the problem of instable cultural identities. in this sermon, a young syrian arab muslim is approached by a young man “from the west” who asks the former about his identity. the oriental replies that he is “a syrian” and “an arab.” the occidental does not accept these self-definitions and regards them as mere geographical and ethnic (ʿirqī) epithets. when the oriental hesitates to define himself as a muslim because he feels incapable of explaining what islam actually is, he is taken aside by another oriental, who “outclasses the first-mentioned young man in that he represents […] the son of the messenger of god, peace be upon him […].” this ideal muslim warns the first-mentioned young man, not to look for an identity outside islam. for they—including this young westerner—are truthful if they search for their own identity, and it is fitting that they do so, for they do not possess a history and do not possess principles (uṣūl), and they will seek refuge in your religion in the hour of hours. oh young oriental, oh son of my country, oh son of my arabhood: you are a muslim, and what would civilization in europe be like if it had lacked the seed em by islam on their territory? listen, oh son of syria, listen oh arab: it is fitting for the others to search for their identity, and they will not tarry to find this identity in islam at some point. so why do you tarry? those whom you imitate, oh son of syria, are those whose clothes you copy, are those from whom you import your weapons, are those from whom you import your car. if you can find a single person among them who displays a true identity in islam, then the summons has been fulfilled. what is going on with you that you are ashamed of stating your correct identity, of saying to them: truly, i am a muslim![69] such statements suggest that muslims trying to defend the integrity not only of islamic or arabic, but of any form of non-western cultural identity may very well regard deconstructivist forms of discourse as represented by the transcultural approach as a form of western intellectual aggression that, once again, aims at dismantling non-western concepts of identity to the advantage of european or western interests. seen from their perspective, the transcultural approach cannot be accepted as an instrument of methodological precision that aims at achieving a less essentialist and more objective analysis of socio-cultural phenomena—in spite of the fact that its proponents generally position themselves within an academic tradition of post-colonialism and anti-eurocentrism. rather, it will appear to be a continuation of western orientalism, a new effort at deconstructing the “essence” of a particular brand of non-western collective identity, even as part of a western intellectual “crusade,” if one has recourse to the aggressive terminology and imagery used in dabiq, the english-language propaganda magazine of the so-called islamic state.[70] in his analyses of the debate surrounding ḥanafī’s introduction to the science of occidentalism, thomas hildebrandt classified different occidentalist milieus. according to hildebrandt, many muslim intellectuals of the last century and a half have grappled with the challenge of defining the cultural identity of their own societies vis-à-vis a western world perceived as oppressively dominant.[71] formulated in a period of severe political, economic, and social crises, their respective analysis of the problem and their proposed solutions differ considerably. intellectuals with left-leaning or secular tendencies criticize eurocentrist interpretations and the structural dominance of western intellectual discourses over arab and muslim thought as well as western political and economic hegemony, and plead for the promotion of processes of what could be called “egalitarian internationalization.” thinkers who identify more strongly with islam, in turn, have a tendency to regard ideas of western origin as a menace to traditional values and religious dogmas, and plead for a complete refusal of foreign cultural influences as well as a revival of what they perceive as indigenous and authentic islamic thought.[72] it should be emphasized that many muslim intellectuals neither found nor find culturalized or religiously interpreted forms of occidentalism convincing or attractive. in a conference held 1995 in cairo and dedicated to ḥanafī’s introduction to the science of occidentalism, the latter’s colleague, the philosopher fatḥullāh khulayf, accused ḥanafī of joining hands with the prevalent fundamentalist discourse which draws clear boundaries between an islamic self and a western other and condemns any form of free and critical thought. in addition to pointing to the irony that the basic concept of othering used by ḥanafī in this work is actually taken from a european or western thinker—jean-paul sartre—fatḥullāh khulayf claims that, in ḥanafī’s treatise on occidentalism, the islamic groups in the arab world are excused for their current return to long flowing garments, beards, an islamic way of being, prophetical medicine as well as the camel and the tent. it is astonishing that a philosopher of many possibilities and profound thought such as ḥasan ḥanafī remains stuck with the imbroglio of this time as well as with the remains of ignorance among the ḥanbalītes who used to trouble the scholars of the umma as well as its philosophers, and who believe that receding into reflection is equal to [unlawful] innovation and [religious] error.[73] fatḥullāh khulayf’s criticism of ḥanafī’s hypotheses has been prefigured, repeated, and enlarged in various other publications by arabic-speaking intellectuals such as ṣādiq al-ʿaẓm.[74] many of these intellectuals question simplistic cultural dichotomies and discuss terminologies of cultural interaction not only in terms of power asymmetries and dominance, but also in terms of fruitful interaction and acculturation. a contribution from the late 1990s to a volume entitled globalized culture and the culture of globalization, may serve as an example. written in arabic by the syrian-french sociologist burhān ghalyūn, former professor at the university of paris-sorbonne iii and leading figure in the opposition to bashshār al-asad around 2012, this article recalls arab and muslim experiences of western colonialism, imperialism, and cultural hegemony. however, it also uses an arabic equivalent to the english term “transculturation,” and even asks if the effects of globalization do not force us to think beyond the conceptual categories of cultural interaction used hitherto. thinking about the relations between cultures (al-thaqāfāt) is not a new issue in global scientific and ideological discourse. anthropology and cultural sociology have both coined various and potent terms to understand the mechanisms that govern the clash (al-ṣirāʿ) or the mutual interaction (al-tafāʿul) of cultures. among these various terms are the term “mutual acculturation” (al-tathāquf), which has dominated the studies of scholars in the past, as well as the term “spoliation,” which preceded it and which is linked to the analysis of the profound negative influences exerted by the era of colonialism (al-ḥiqba al-istiʿmāriyya). following this period and adding to these two scientific terms, studies proliferated that speak of “cultural hegemony” (al-haymana al-thaqāfiyya) or “cultural imperialism” (al-imbaryāliyya al-thaqāfiyya) or, taking things one step further, of “cultural invasion” (al-ghazw al-thaqāfī). do the imprints that globalization will leave among the cultures of humankind fall into the frame provided by the terms that are currently circulating or that have preceded them? or is it necessary to develop new terms that are more adequate to describe the constellations (al-awḍāʿ) resulting from the coalescence of the world through media and communication (damaj al-ʿālam iʿlāmiyyan wa-ittiṣāliyyan), and that are more effective and applicable (akthar fāʿiliyyatan ijrāʾiyyatan) to achieve an understanding of the future relations between these cultures?[75] ghalyūn’s statement is part of a series of essays published since 1998 by dār al-fikr, a publishing house with branches in damascus and beirut, under the title dialogues for a new century (ḥiwārāt li-qarn jadīd). each of the forty-five volumes juxtaposes two essays on a given subject with the aim of documenting contemporary currents of thought, of encouraging dialogue between their respective proponents, and of promoting engagement with different opinions.[76] this highly interesting series thus testifies to the variety of intellectual milieus in the arab sphere, featuring very different opinions on important social, political, and cultural issues. in addition, one should consider that forms of occidentalist thought are also questioned outside the academic intellectual sphere, e.g. in films. in an egyptian comedy, produced 2005 under the title the night of the fall of baghdad (laylat suqūṭ baghdād), a school headmaster tries to entice his former pupil ṭāriq to construct a lethal weapon that might save egypt from the dreaded american invasion. the film certainly addresses concrete anxieties arising from the complex geopolitical constellation in the post-2003 middle east, defined in terms of “american oppression” (al-qahr al-amrīkī) on the film’s dust jacket. however, considering the film’s slapstick humour involving a marihuana-smoking ṭāriq falling in love with the headmaster’s daughter, one cannot really regard it as a serious attempt to disseminate occidentalist thought.[77] equally, sāmir jamāl al-dīn’s 2014 iraqi odyssey, an autobiographical documentary film produced in switzerland, reminds us of the many complex family stories that involve members of predominantly muslim societies seeking a life in a “western” society.[78] in spite of this colourful diversity, forms of either political, economic, intellectual, cultural, or religious occidentalism are a recurrent feature of discourse in predominantly muslim societies. accordingly, they have been detected and analysed in various social and regional contexts. since the nineteenth century, they have been formulated—in varying intensity—in fiction, the media, and in government propaganda, not only in arabic-speaking, but also in other predominantly muslim societies such as iran or indonesia.[79] in an intellectual climate in which, despite its diversity, occidentalist elements are rampant, western scholarship on islam, especially of a critical and deconstructivist nature, often elicits negative responses. according to gudrun krämer, such negative responses insert themselves into the wider discourse of what she terms “orientalist-bashing.”[80] voices engaging in the latter generally fail to take into account that proponents of (formerly) orientalist disciplines have taken great pains to reflect critically upon their orientalist heritage; in addition, these voices do not acknowledge that deconstructivist efforts to highlight the diversity of islamic phenomena are also necessary to counter the monolithic interpretations of islam that are proposed not only by islamic fundamentalists, but also by islamophobic groups.[81] the legacy of othering and essentializing islam that plays such an important role in the textual history of western societies[82] characterizes a large range of more recent islamophobic statements and literature published in western societies.[83] in the current geopolitical constellation, it has even been a defining factor in the formation of right-wing populist movements such as the germany-based pegida-movement, founded 2014, whose members regard themselves as “patriotic europeans” battling “against the islamization of the occident” (patriotische europäer gegen die islamisierung des abendlandes).[84] it is a characteristic feature of islamophobic voices that they regard arguments insisting on the permeability and inner diversity of the macro-category islam as but another form of escapist “multicultural” propaganda. in the islamophobic view, such efforts at differentiation—fully endorsed by the transcultural approach—serve to minimize the dangers of islamization by ignoring or even deliberately downplaying what they regard as islam’s violent and expansionist “true essence.”[85] in sum, efforts to present islam as a historically dynamic plethora of multifarious, even contradictory, phenomena—certainly a matter of concern to the transcultural approach—incurs the wrath of groups favouring monolithic definitions of “islam” and “the west.” consequently, the field of islamic studies is caught in the crossfire of two essentialist world views—formulated in terms of occidentalism and islamism on the one side, in terms of orientalism and islamophobia on the other. since adherents to these world views explicitly situate themselves on opposing sides of a perceived cultural and religious divide, islamic studies is caught in what one could playfully describe as “transcultural crossfire.” some conclusions: risks and prospects of applying the transcultural approach this essay set out to investigate how the wider field of islamic studies interacts with the transcultural paradigm. we have seen that the variant of islamic studies that emerged in medieval and early modern europe could be classified as “transcultural” from the outset, because it dealt with islam and predominantly muslim societies as the religious and cultural other. soon, the field of islamic studies acquired an additional transcultural dimension, in that it began to engage more intensively with the various different religious, geographical, and linguistic spheres that form part of the historical and contemporary orbit of islam. this is reflected in widely accepted master narratives of islamic history, a number of well-established, highly specialized subfields and the more recent emergence of conceptual theories and studies that highlight the inner diversity and wider entanglement of societies influenced by islam. scholarship in europe and the americas has produced many contributions that highlight the extremely rich cultural productivity of islamicate societies—ranging from the most traditional exegesis of the qurʾān[86] via hindu-muslim sufi shrines[87] to egyptian pop-music.[88] in spite of these efforts, no european or american scholar working in the wider field of what has been defined here as islamic studies can avoid being confronted with extreme forms of essentialization and dichotomization, both of which build on a long history of christian-muslim othering and religious polemics. this is meticulously documented—for the period from the beginnings of islam to the early twentieth century—in the multivolume series christian-muslim relations: a bibliographical history.[89] as heirs to the monotheistic belief in universal and absolute truth,[90] christians and muslims throughout history have actively contributed to the creation of strong boundaries between their respective ingroup and an outgroup very often perceived not only as “pagan” or “infidel,” but as menacing to one’s proper collective identity.[91] othering in its many variants—ranging from seemingly harmless statements to scholarly descriptions to crusading or jihād-propaganda—plays a role in every analysis of relations between non-muslims and muslims or between europe and the islamic(ate) sphere. this holds true even if such an analysis actively seeks to deconstruct the artificial dichotomy inherent in these religious and geo-cultural categories,[92] favours a supra-religious “mediterraneanist” approach,[93] or seeks to rehabilitate the open-mindedness of medieval islamic scholarship vis-à-vis non-muslim societies by challenging the long-cherished cliché that muslims showed no interest in non-muslim societies before the nineteenth century.[94] the variants of occidentalist discourse presented in this article show that over the centuries the categories used in such forms of othering have shifted. arabic-islamic texts of the pre-modern period defined a european other in geographic, ethnic, genealogical and, of course, religious terms, but never depicted europe as a clearly bounded cultural entity.[95] experiences with european and north american forms of secularism, colonialism, and imperialism since the late eighteenth century seem to have given rise to the conceptualization of a civilizational other called “the west” whose intellectual culture is marked by a particular, hegemonic approach to non-western religions, societies, and cultures that strives to dissect, deconstruct, and thus rule the latter. intellectual reactions to this perceived threat have in more than one case taken the form of essentializing constructions of cultural and religious identities defined, in one way or the other, by islam. in view of all this, scholars working in the wider field of islamic studies and propagating the transcultural approach as a deconstructionist tool will, in all probability, be accused of continuing an orientalist intellectual tradition that misunderstands or even consciously misrepresents islam. radical fundamentalist muslims will not accept such deconstructionist endeavours, because they tend to regard islam as a divinely revealed and thus ahistorical, unalterable guideline to individual and social perfection. intellectuals, in turn, including some western specialists of islamic studies and muslim thinkers open to complex forms of western thought, may raise the question, if an active propagation of the transcultural approach does not continue an orientalist tradition of imposing concepts of western origin on other parts of the world. at the same time, such efforts to disconstruct will also receive criticism from islamophobic groups who tend to regard islam as an equally ahistorical and unalterable form of systemically organized religious violence. in the wider field of islamic studies, scholars promoting the transcultural or any other deconstructivist analytical approach to islam thus seem to be caught between the hammer and the anvil: deciding not to apply such methods would leave the power of defining islam to forces promoting monolithic, ahistorical, and often very intolerant versions of islam; applying them, provokes accusations that these scholars are either trying to damage islam or, conversely, belittle its menacing potential. a large number of studies dealing with the orientalist legacy and their occidentalist repercussions discusses the difficult position of scholars in the wider field of islamic studies, and proposes more fruitful solutions to dealing with these issues.[96] such proposals could be strengthened by asserting that, from a methodological point of view, the transcultural approach insists on the necessity of acknowledging the large variety of different perspectives on a particular object of study. in concrete terms, this would mean that no academic analysis pertaining to the field of islamic studies can be regarded as truly transcultural, if it does not take into account the diversity of muslim and non-muslim opinions on the subject in question, including islamophobic and radical fundamentalist perspectives. in this way, the transcultural approach could support tendencies in post-orientalist islamic studies that strive to highlight the inner diversity and large variety of “western” and “muslim” opinions on any given subject, and to promote an understanding of the large range of the perspectives involved. in this way, the transcultural approach can contribute to strengthening the ethical foundations of scholarship in the social sciences and the humanities, which should display and explain the large variety of (entangled) perspectives on any given subject rather than passing judgement on them. in addition, it could lend support to the great number of muslims and non-muslims in and outside the academic sphere who reject processes of dichotomization, but whose voices are often not loud enough in geopolitical and social circumstances that are often dominated by oppressive and authoritarian political forces. the transcultural approach’s thematic focus on phenomena that transgress the constructed borders of any perceived entity will remain challenging to all those who adhere to normative notions of ethnic, religious, or cultural hierarchization or evaluate transgressions of these perceived boundaries in categories of “right” and “wrong.” however, in view of the geopolitical and global economic constellations characterizing our age, one could claim—especially from a eurocentric perspective—that this thematic focus is not only desirable, but necessary. muslims form an integral part of european history since the eighth century ce. important historical manifestations of islam have existed on the iberian peninsula, in southern france, the mezzogiorno, various mediterranean islands, and the balkans, always interacting with their non-muslim environment. non-muslim european societies, in turn, have massively influenced predominantly muslim societies in and beyond the mediterranean in the modern period. since the 1960s—in a french colonial context even earlier—large muslim populations have become an integral part of european and western societies, and—largely successfully—have found or are finding ways to become full-fledged members of these societies while retaining their muslim identity.[97] in recent years, increasingly multireligious western european societies have been taking and continue to take in large numbers of muslim refugees and migrants, first during the wars that led to the breakup of yugoslavia in the 1990s, then during the so-called refugee crisis of 2015–2016 that witnessed the massive influx of people from syria, iraq, afghanistan, libya, and other countries into european societies. thus, transcultural phenomena related to islam and europe have been, are, and will continue to be of high relevance to those societies populating the wider euromediterranean. the essayist and journalist muḥammad al-akhḍar commented in an article, published in september 2015 on the internet news-outlet bawābat al-sharq al-iliktrūniyya, that the so-called refugee crisis has elicited various fears of what exponents of the transcultural approach term “transculturation”: many europeans were afraid that the intake of large numbers of muslim refugees might lead to an islamization of europe, whereas many muslims dreaded that the refugees’ integration into european societies could result in their christianization.[98] by unearthing more and more, and not necessarily harmonious or harmonizing evidence for phenomena that have to be situated between different manifestations of islam and their non-muslim cultural environments, the transcultural approach can support existing tendencies to deconstruct the long-cherished dichotomies of “orient and occident,” of “islam and the west,” and of “believers and infidels” that play such an important part in these and similar fear-ridden visions of the future. such evidence could play a big role in creating an intellectual and societal atmosphere that encourages processes of mutual adaptation and assimilation that do not automatically destroy cultural, including religious identities of either host societies, immigrant groups, or any other social formations trying to find a place in this wider euromediterranean and ultimately global setting. such a critical, analytical, but also understanding transcultural perspective on the past and the present will certainly be able to show that the future holds many more possibilities than either “islamization” or—what the oxford dictionary of islam translates as—“westoxification.”[99] [1] the task of bringing these two themes together demanded great effort. i would like to thank andrea hacker, monica juneja, tayebe naderabadi, nadja-christina schneider, jan scholz, and rosanna sirignano—who have either read a draft-version of this paper or heard parts of it in a presentation entitled “transcultural crossfire: the study of islam between orientalism and occidentalism”—for their critical observations, all of which made me rethink various topics and my general approach. it goes without saying that i am solely responsible for any misconceptions and errors that remain. [2] these are known under the technical terms ʿilm al-kalām (equivalent to theology), furūʿ al-fiqh (equivalent to an exposition of islamic norms), uṣūl al-fiqh (equivalent to the argumentative foundations of islamic norms), ʿilm al-tafsīr (qurʾānic exegesis), ʿilm al-ḥadīṯ (exegesis of traditions concerning the prophet muḥammad). cf. n. calder, “uṣūl al-fiḳh,” in encyclopaedia of islam, 2nd ed., vol. 10 (leiden: brill, 2000), 931. [3] cf. luís f. bernabé pons, “los manuscritos aljamiados como textos islámicos,” in memoria de los moriscos: escritos y relatos de una diáspora cultural, ed. alfredo mateos paramio (madrid: sociedad estatal de conmemoraciones culturales, 2010), 27–44. [4] cf. the presentation of the german federal ministry for education and research under https://www.bmbf.de/de/islamische-theologie-367.html [accessed on 27. january 2017] as well as one among several evaluations of this initiative by arnfrid schenk, “mission erfüllt? vor fünf jahren wurde an deutschen unis das fach islamische theologie eingeführt: eine bilanz,” die zeit, february 11, 2016, http://www.zeit.de/2016/07/islamische-theologie-universitaet-fach-studium-bilanz/komplettansicht [accessed on 27. january 2017]. [5] on these origins see johann w. fück, die arabischen studien in europa bis in den anfang des 20. jahrhunderts (leipzig: otto harrassowitz, 1955), 1–29; norman daniel, islam and the west: the making of an image (edinburgh: edinburgh university press, 1960), 271–308; richard w. southern, western views of islam in the middle ages (harvard: harvard university press, 1962), 1–109; maxime rodinson, la fascination de l’islam (paris: éditions la découverte, 2003), 35–53. [6] on the phenomenon of latin-christian expansionism see the series the expansion of latin europe, 1000–1500, ed. james muldoon and felipe fernández-armesto, 12 vols. (farnham: ashgate, 2007–14). [7] petrus venerabilis, contra sectam saracenorum, in schriften zum islam, trans. and ed. reinhold glei, corpus islamo-christianum, series latina, 1 (altenberge: echter, 1985), prologus, chap. 17, 52–55; cf. james kritzeck, peter the venerable and islam (princeton: princeton university press, 1964); ulisse cecini, alcoranus latinus: eine sprachliche und kulturwissenschaftliche analyse der koranübersetzungen von robert von ketton und marcus von toledo (münster: lit, 2012), 81–84. [8] marie-thérèse d’alverny, “translations and translators,” in la transmission des textes philosophiques et scientifiques au moyen âge, ed. marie-thérèse d’alverny and charles burnett (aldershot: ashgate, 1994), 421–462; charles burnett, “translation from arabic to latin in the middle ages,” in übersetzung: ein internationales handbuch zur übersetzungsforschung, ed. harald kittel, vol. 2/2 (berlin: de gruyter, 2007), 1220–1231. the fact that these translations take place in recently conquered territories is emphasized by dag nikolaus hasse, “the social conditions of the arabic-(hebrew-)latin translation movements in medieval spain and in the renaissance,” in wissen über grenzen: arabisches wissen und lateinisches mittelalter, ed. andreas speer and lydia wegener (berlin: de gruyter, 2006), 71–72. [9] john tolan, “porter la bonne parole auprès de babel: les problèmes linguistiques chez les missionaires mendiants, xiiie–xive siècle,” in zwischen babel und pfingsten: sprachdifferenzen und gesprächsverständigung in der vormoderne, 8.–16. jahrhundert, ed. peter von moos (berlin: lit, 2008), 533–548. [10] georg graf, geschichte der christlichen arabischen literatur [gcal], 4 vols. (città del vaticano: biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1944/1947/1949/1953), vol. 1, 93–97. cf. bernard heyberger, les chrétiens du proche-orient au temps de la réforme catholique: syrie, liban, palestine, xviie–xviiie siècles (rome: école française de rome, 1994). [11] see the overviews in fück, die arabischen studien, 25–140; gerald j. toomer, eastern wisedome and learning: the study of arabic in seventheenth-century england (oxford: oxford university press, 1996), 14–52; felix klein-franke, die klassische antike in der tradition des islam (darmstadt: wbg, 1980), 17–52. [12] francesca lucchetta, “la scuola dei ‘giovani di lingua’ veneti nei secoli xvi e xvii,” quaderni di studi arabi 7 (1989): 19–40; marie de testa and antoine gautier, drogmans et diplomates européens auprès de la porte ottomane (istanbul: isis, 2003), 41–52. [13] edward said, orientalism (new york: pantheon books, 1978). [14] cf. alexander l. macfie, orientalism: a reader (edinburgh: edinburgh university press, 2000); bernd adam, saids orientalismus und die historiographie der moderne: der „ewige orient“ als konstrukt westlicher geschichtsschreibung (hamburg: diplomica-verlag, 2013); françois pouillon and jean-claude vatin, eds., after orientalism: critical perspectives on western agency and eastern re-appropriations (leiden: brill, 2015). [15] cf. fred donner, “the islamic conquests,” in a compansion to the history of the middle east, ed. youssef m. choueiri (malden: blackwell, 2005), 28–51. [16] this is the case, for example, for the recent study on copts in egypt, authored by sebastian elsässer, the coptic question in the mubarak era (oxford: oxford university press, 2014). [17] for the struggle of non-arabs to gain equal footing in the early islamic empire see susanne enderwitz, “al-shuʿūbiyya,” encyclopaedia of islam, 2nd ed., vol. 9 (leiden: brill, 1997), 513–516. [18] on the complex history of this ethnonym and the debates revolving around it, see robert hoyland, arabia and the arabs from the bronze age to the coming of islam (new york: routledge, 2001); jan retsö, the arabs in antiquity: their history from the assyrians to the umayyads (new york: routledge, 2003). [19] cf. marco schöller, methode und wahrheit in der islamwissenschaft: prolegomena (wiesbaden: harrasowitz, 2000), 1, 7. [20] for alternative and complementary descriptions see azim nanji, ed., mapping islamic studies: genealogy, continuity, and change (berlin: de gruyter, 1997); timothy mitchell, “the middle east in the past and future of social science,” in the politics of knowledge: area studies and the disciplines, ed. david l. szanton (berkeley: university of california press, 2004), 74–118; abbas poya and maurus reinkowski, eds., das unbehagen in der islamwissenschaft: ein klassisches fach im scheinwerferlicht der politik und der medien, (bielefeld: transcript, 2008); andreas kaplony, “die deutschsprachige arabistik und islamwissenschaft: aktuelle herausforderungen und mögliche reaktionen,” in geisteswissenschaft heute: die sicht der fächer, ed. dieter lamping (stuttgart: kröner, 2015), 270–281; richard c. martin, heather j. empey, mohammed arkoun, and andrew rippin, “islamic studies,” in the oxford encyclopedia of the islamic world: oxford islamic studies online, http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t236/e0395 [accessed 11. september 2015]. [21] cf. graf, geschichte, vols. 1–4; geoffrey khan, “judaeo-arabic,” in encyclopaedia of the arabic language, ed. kees versteegh, vol. 2 (leiden: brill, 2007), 526–536. [22] cf. handbuch der iranistik, ed. ludwig paul (wiesbaden: reichert, 2013). [23] cf. e.g. cyrille aillet, les mozarabes: christianisme, islamisation et arabisation en péninsule ibérique, ixe–xiie siècle (madrid: casa de velázquez, 2010), with its parallel use of arabic and latin sources. [24] werner schiffauer, die gottesmänner: türkische islamisten in deutschland; eine studie zur herstellung religiöser evidenz (frankfurt a. m.: suhrkamp, 2000). [25] cf. syrinx von hees, “kunst im nahen osten und der ‘islamische code’,” in bonner islamwissenschaftler stellen sich vor, ed. stephan conermann and marie-christine heinze (schenefeld: eb-verlag, 2006), 89–112; avinoam shalem, “what do we mean when we say ‘islamic art’? a plea for a critical rewriting of the history of the arts of islam,” journal of art historiography 6 (2012): 1–18. [26] all important studies on medieval european perceptions of islam are written by historians of medieval europe, cf. daniel, islam and the west; southern, western views; philippe sénac, l’occident face à l’islam: l’image de l’autre (paris: flammarion, 1983); john tolan, saracens: islam in the medieval european imagination (new york: columbia university press, 2002). [27] ira m. lapidus, a history of islamic societies (1988; repr., cambridge: cambridge university press, 1995). [28] lapidus, history, 52. [29] lapidus, history, 91–97. [30] oxford history of islam, ed. john l. esposito (oxford: oxford university press, 1999). [31] philip khuri hitti, history of the arabs (london: macmillan, 1937); albert hourani, a history of the arab peoples (london: faber & faber, 1991). [32] johanna pink, geschichte ägyptens: von der spätantike bis zur gegenwart (munich: beck, 2014). [33] halil inalcik, the ottoman empire: the classical age, 1300–1600 (london: phoenix, 1994), provides a “classical” imperial history. in transcultural terms, this “classical narrative” is certainly more nuanced in daniel goffmann, the ottoman empire and early modern europe (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2001); suraiya faroqhi, the ottoman empire and the world around it (london: tauris, 2007); natalie rothman, brokering empire: trans-imperial subjects between venice and istanbul (ithaca: cornell university press, 2012). on the safavid and moghul empires see willem m. floor and edmund herzig, eds., iran and the world in the safavid age (london: tauris, 2012); ali anooshahr, “mughals, mongols, and mongrels: the challenge of aristocracy and the rise of the mughal state in the tarikh-i rashidi,” journal of early modern history 18, no. 6 (2014): 559–577; anna kollatz, inspiration und tradition: strategien zur beherrschung von diversität am mogulhof und ihre darstellung in maǧālis-i ǧahāngı̄rı̄ (ca. 1608–11) von ʿabd al-sattār b. qāsim lāhōrı̄ (berlin: ebverlag, 2016). [34] cf. the classical study by joseph schacht, an introduction to islamic law (oxford: clarendon press, 1964), and recent criticism in léon buskens and baudouin dupret, “the invention of islamic law: a history of western studies on islamic normativity and their spread in the orient,” in pouillon and vatin, after orientalism, 31–47. [35] on the history of this subdiscipline see klein-franke, die klassische antike. for the individual translation movements, see javier teixidor, “d’antioche à bagdad: bibliothèques et traductions syriaques,” in des alexandries: du livre au texte, ed. luce giard and christian jacob (paris: éditions bnf, 2001), 249–262; dimitri gutas, greek thought, arabic culture: the graeco-arabic translation movement in baghdad and early ʿabbāsid society, 2nd–4th/8th–10th centuries (london: routledge, 1998); charles burnett, arabic into latin in the middle ages: the translators and their intellectual and social context (aldershot: ashgate, 2009); gad freudenthal, “arabic and latin cultures as resources for the hebrew translation movement: comparative considerations, both quantitative and qualitative,” in science in medieval jewish cultures, ed. gad freudenthal (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2011), 74–105. [36] cf. bat ye’or, the dhimmi: jews and christians under islam (rutherford: farleigh dickinson university press, 1985). [37] cf. nabīl lūqā bibāwī, intishār al-islām bi-ḥadd al-sayf bayna l-ḥaqīqa wa-l-iftirāʾ (cairo: dār al-bibāwī li-l-nashr, 2002). [38] xavier de planhol, minorités en islam: géographie politique et sociale (paris: flammarion, 1997); mark r. cohen, under crescent and cross: the jews in the middle ages (princeton: princeton university press, 2008); sidney h. griffith, the church in the shadow of the mosque: christians and muslims in the world of islam (princeton: princeton university press, 2010); milka levy-rubin, non-muslims in the early islamic empire: from surrender to coexistence (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2011). [39] brian m. catlos, muslims of medieval latin christendom, ca. 1050–1614 (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2014); tariq ramadan, western muslims and the future of islam (oxford: oxford university press, 2004); clifton e. marsh, the lost-found nation of islam in america (lanham: scarecrow press, 2000); dennis walker, islam and the search for african-american nationhood: elijah muhammad, louis farrakhan, and the nation of islam (atlanta: clarity press, 2005). [40] marshall g.s. hodgson, the venture of islam, vol. 1, the classical age of islam (chicago: chicago university press, 1977), 57–58. [41] henri pirenne, muhammad and charlemagne (london: george allen & unwin, 1939), 284. [42] angelika neuwirth, der koran als text der spätantike: ein europäischer zugang (frankfurt a. m.: verlag der weltreligionen, 2010); robert hoyland, “early islam as a late antique religion,” in the oxford handbook of late antiquity, ed. scott fitzgerald johnson (oxford: oxford university press, 2012), 1053–1077. [43] almut höfert, kaisertum und kalifat: der imperiale monotheismus im frühund hochmittelalter (frankfurt a. m.: campus, 2015). [44] maría rosa menocal, the ornament of the world: how muslims, jews, and christians created a culture of tolerance in medieval spain (new york: back bay books, 2002). the concept of convivencia has been harshly criticized, e.g. by maya soifer, “beyond convivencia: critical reflections on the historiography of interfaith relations in christian spain,” journal of medieval iberian studies 1, no. 1 (2009): 19–35; kenneth baxter wolf, “convivencia in medieval spain: a brief history of an idea,” religion compass 3, no. 1 (2009): 72–85; eduardo manzano moreno, “qurtuba: algunas reflexiones críticas sobre el califato de córdoba y el mito de convivencia,” awraq: estudios sobre el mundo árabe e islámico contemporáneo 7 (2013): 225–246. [45] al-fāsī, a north african muslim, spent several years as a christian convert under the tutelage of pope leo x before—in all probability—returning to north africa at the end of his life. natalie zemon davis, trickster travels: a sixteenth-century muslim between worlds (new york: hill and wang, 2006). [46] jocelyne dakhlia, lingua franca: histoire d’une langue métisse en méditerranée (arles: actes sud, 2008). [47] cf. schöller, methode und wahrheit, 7–38. [48] said, orientalism. [49] ekkehard rudolph, westliche islamwissenschaft im spiegel muslimischer kritik: grundzüge und aktuelle merkmale einer innerislamischen diskussion (berlin: klaus schwarz verlag, 1991), 4–119. [50] cf. http://kt-b.com/?p=5062 [accessed 15. february 2017]. [51] najīb al-ʿaqīqī, al-mustashriqūn, 2nd rev. ed., 3 vols. (cairo: dār al-maʿārif bi-miṣr, 1964–1965), 3:1122, 1163, 1166. [52] nāṣir bin muḥammad bin ʿuthmān al-manīʿ, “athār madrasat al-istishrāq al-almāniyya fī l-dirāsāt al-qurʿāniyya. ʿarḍ wa-taḥlīl,” ḥawliyya markaz al-buḥūth wa-l-dirāsāt al-islāmiyya 6 (2009): 297–458. [53] idrīs ḥāmid muḥammad, arāʾ al-mustashriqīn ḥawla mafhūm al-waḥī, https://islamhouse.com/ar/books/450166/ [accessed 24. january 2017]. [54] ʿabd allāh muḥammad al-juyūsī, “arāʾ al-mustashriqīn ḥawla l-qurʾān al-karīm bayna l-inṣāf wa-l-ijḥāf,” majallat jāmiʿat al-shāriqa li-l-ʿulūm al-sharʿiyya wa-l-qānūniyya 7, no. 1 (1431h/2010): 43–69. [55] mālik b. nabbī, intāj al-mustashriqīn wa-atharuhu fī l-fikr al-islāmī al-ḥadīth (beirut: dār al-irshād, 1967), 5. [56] ʿalī b. ibrāhīm al-namla, “athar al-istishrāq fī l-ḥamla ʿalā rasūl allāh,” majalla al-jāmiʿa al-islāmiyya 148 (1430h/2009): 167–203. [57] ʿabd al-raḥmān ḥasan ḥanbaka al-maydānī, ajniḥat al-makarr al-thalātha wa-khawāfihā: al-tabshīr – al-istishrāq – al-istiʿmār. dirāsa wa-taḥlīl wa-tawjīh wa-dirāsa minhajiyya shāmila li-l-ghazw al-fikrī, 8th enl. ed. (damascus: dār al-qalam, 2000). [58] qaḥṭān ḥamdī muḥammad, “adwār al-mustashriqīn fī tashwīh maʿālim al-sunna al-nabawiyya,” majallat al-dirāsāt al-tārīkhiyya wa-l-ḥaḍāriyya 3, no. 10 [2016?]: n.p. [59] muḥammad mohar ali, the qurʾân and the orientalists (ipswich: jamʿiyat ʾihyaaʾ minhaaj al-sunnah, 2004), 353. [60] cf. roxanne l. euben, enemy in the mirror: islamic fundamentalism and the limits of modern rationalism (princeton: princeton university press, 1999), 127; schöller, methode und wahrheit, 14n18; karen armstrong, the battle for god (new york: random house, 2001), 98, 112–134; karen armstrong, islam: a short history (new york: modern library, 2002), 141–188. [61] cf. rashīd riḍā, “renewal, renewing, and renewers,” (originally published 1931), trans. charles kurzman, in modernist islam 1840–1940, ed. charles kurzman (oxford: oxford university press, 2002), 77: “in our attempts to acquire the novel and borrow the modern we have only clung to the fringes and have never been able to reproduce it fully. what we have of the old and the modern is a shell of imitation, like the shell of an almond or a walnut that lies under the outer wooden layer, it is useless in itself and cannot preserve the core.”; sayyid quṭb, social justice in islam (originally published 1949), trans. william shepard (leiden: brill, 1996), 1. “people in this so-called ‘islamic world’ do not review their own spiritual capital or intellectual heritage before they think about importing principles and plans and borrowing systems and laws from across the deserts and beyond the seas!” [62] jalal al-i ahmad, occidentosis: a plague from the west, trans. r. campbell, comm. hamid algar (berkeley: mizan press, 1984). [63] ḥasan ḥanafī, muqaddima fī ʿilm al-istighrāb (cairo: al-dār al-fanniyya), 1991. [64] ḥasan ḥanafī, “al-ʿawlama bayna l-ḥaqīqa wa-l-wahm,” in ḥasan ḥanafī and ṣādiq ǧalāl al-ʿaẓm, mā al-ʿawlama? (damascus: dār al-fikr, 2002), 45–47, translation by daniel könig. [65] adonis, violence et islam: entretiens avec houria abdelouahed (paris: seuil, 2015), 125–132. [66] maya jaggi, “adonis: a life in writing,” the guardian, january 27, 2012, https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2012/jan/27/adonis-syrian-poet-life-in-writing [accessed 14. september 2016]. [67] see the author’s cv on http://www.akkam.org/?type=cv [accessed 23. august 2016]. [68] maḥmūd ʿakkām, fikr wa-manbar: qaḍāyā al-insān wa-mafhūmāt al-risāla fī khuṭbat al-jumʿa, ed. muḥammad adīb yasirjī (aleppo: fuṣṣilat, 2003), 93, 107, 119, 131. [69] maḥmūd ʿakkām, “muḥāwara bayna sharqī wa-gharbī,” in ʿakkām, fikr wa-manbar, 432–433, translation by daniel könig. [70] these magazines, under such titles as “the failed crusade” (no. 4 / dhū l-ḥijja 1435, i.e. october 2014) can be downloaded at http://www.clarionproject.org/news/islamic-state-isis-isil-propaganda-magazine-dabiq [accessed 29. august 2016]. [71] thomas hildebrandt, emanzipation oder isolation vom westlichen lehrer? die debatte um ḥasan ḥanafīs “einführung in die wissenschaft der okzidentalistik” (berlin: klaus schwarz verlag, 1998), 1. [72] ibid., 101. [73] fatḥullāh khulayf, “taʾammulāt fī ‘muqaddima fī ʿilm al-istighrāb’,” in hildebrandt, emanzipation oder isolation, 119. translation from the arabic by daniel könig [74] cf. yudian wahyudi, “arab responses to ḥasan ḥanafī’s ‘muqaddima fī ʿilm al-istighrāb’,” the muslim world 93 (2003): 233–248. preceding ḥanafī’s publication: sadik j. al-azm, “orientalism and orientalism in reverse,” khamsin 8 (1981): 5–26, repr. in macfie, orientalism, 217–238; postdating ḥanafī’s publication: sadik j. al-azm, “orientalism, occidentalism, and islamism,” comparative studies of south asia, africa, and the middle east 30, no. 1 (2010): 6–13. [75] burhān ghalyūn, “thaqāfat al-ʿawlama,” in thaqāfat al-ʿawlama wa-ʿawlamat al-thaqāfa, ed. burhān ghalyūn and samīr amīn, 2nd ed. (beirut: dār al-fikr, 2002), 44–45, translation by daniel könig. [76] see the homepage of the publisher listing all volumes, which cover a wide range of topics including laicism, the future of islam in the “east” and “the west,” sociology in the arab world, gender issues, modernity, the future of israel, or the critical situation of minorities in the arab world: http://www.fikr.net/article/سلسلة-حوارات-لقرن-جديد [accessed 27. january 2017]. [77] muḥammad amīn, laylat suqūt baghdād, written and directed by muḥammad amīn (cairo: rotana distribution, 2005). [78] samir, iraqi odyssey: eine weltumspannende familiensaga von samir, written and directed by samir (zurich: dschointventschr filmproduktion, 2014). [79] cf. ian buruma and avishai margalit, occidentalism: the west in the eyes of its enemies (new york: penguin press, 2004); akeel bilgrami, “occidentalism, the very idea: an essay on the enlightenment and enchantment,” economic and political weekly 41, no. 33 (2006): 3591–3603; rasheed el-enany, arab representations of the occident: east-west encounters in arabic fiction (london: routledge, 2006); meltem akisha, occidentalism in turkey: questions of modernity and national identity in turkish radio broadcasting (london: i.b. tauris, 2010); robbert woltering, occidentalisms in the arab world: ideology and images of the west in the egyptian media (london: i.b. tauris, 2011); fruma zachs, “‘under eastern eyes’: east on west in the arabic press of the nahḍa period,” studia islamica 106, no. 1 (2011): 124–143; typhaine leservot, “occidentalism: rewriting the west in marjane satrapi’s ‘persépolis’,” french forum 36, no. 1 (2011): 115–130; laetitia nanquette, orientalism versus occidentalism: literary and cultural imaging between france and iran since the islamic revolution (london: i.b. tauris, 2012); susanne enderwitz, “orientalismus—okzidentalismus,” in an der zeitenwende—europa, das mittelmeer und die arabische welt, ed. bernd thum (stuttgart: ifa, 2012), 72–80; judith schlehe, “concepts of asia, the west, and the self in contemporary indonesia: an anthropological account,” south east asia research 21, no. 3 (2013): 497–515; ehsan bakhshandeh, occidentalism in iran: representations of the west in the iranian media (london: i.b. tauris, 2015). [80] gudrun krämer, “unterscheiden und verstehen: über nutzen und missbrauch der islamwissenschaft,” in poya and reinkowski, das unbehagen in der islamwissenschaft, 266: “es wäre eine große erleichterung und ermutigung für alle diejenigen, die sich mit dem islam beschäftigen, wenn das innerhalb und außerhalb der islamischen welt betriebene orientalisten-bashing allmählich außer mode käme. anstatt anklagend mit dem finger auf die immer gleichen wissenschaftler zu zeigen (die meisten von ihnen tot oder hochbetagt), würde es sich lohnen, zur kenntnis zu nehmen, was sich derzeit auf dem weit gefassten gebiet der islamwissenschaft tut, und zwar nicht nur in englischer sprache.” [81] ibid., 267–268. [82] cf. daniel, islam and the west, 271–309, on “the survival of medieval concepts.” [83] ayhan kaya, “islamophobia,” in the oxford handbook of european islam, ed. jocelyne cesari (oxford: oxford university press, 2015), 745–769; todd h. green, the fear of islam: an introduction to islamophobia in the west (lanham: fortress press, 2015). [84] lars geiges, stine marg, and franz walter, pegida: die schmutzige seite der zivilgesellschaft? (bielefeld: transcript, 2015). [85] an image recently put into literary form by controversial bestselling author michel houellebecq, soumission (paris: flammarion, 2015). on fears of an islamic takeover in europe see also daniel könig, “wie eine religion staat und gesellschaft durchdringt,” in staat und religion in frankreich und deutschland, ed. felix heidenreich, jean-christophe merle, and wolfram vogel (berlin: lit, 2008), 12–62. [86] cf. fuad sezgin, qurʾānwissenschaften, ḥadīṯ, geschichte, fiqh, dogmatik, mystik, geschichte des arabischen schrifttums 1 (leiden: brill, 1967), 1–49. [87] j.j. roy burman, hindu-muslim syncretic shrines and communities (new delhi: mittal publications, 2002). [88] daniel j. gilman, cairo pop: youth music in contemporary egypt (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 2014). [89] david thomas, ed., christian-muslim relations: a bibliographical history, 7 vols. (leiden: brill, 2009–2015). [90] cf. jan assmann, die mosaische unterscheidung oder der preis des monotheismus (munich: hanser, 2010); yūsuf zīdān, al-lahūt al-ʿarabī wa-uṣūl al-ʿunf al-dīnī (beirut: dār al-shurūq, 2009). [91] see e.g. janina m. safran, defining boundaries in al-andalus: muslims, christians, and jews in islamic iberia (ithaca: cornell university press, 2013). [92] john tolan, gilles veinstein, and henry laurens, europe and the islamic world: a history (princeton: princeton university press, 2013), deals with various forms of active othering, but emphasizes on p. 4: “readers should therefore not be fooled by the title of the book. (…) it will deal not with the relations between two ‘civilizations’ but with the complex and diverse relations between many individuals and groups that belong to what we lump together, with all the ambiguity already noted, under the umbrella terms ‘europe’ and ‘the islamic world.’” [93] peregrine horden and nicholas purcell, the corrupting sea: a study of mediterranean history (oxford: blackwell, 2000) and david abulafia, the great sea: a human history of the mediterranean (london: lane, 2011) have strongly contributed to a recent upsurge in “mediterranean studies.” on the various facets of this perspective see rania abdellatif et al., eds., construire la méditerranée, penser les transferts culturels: approches historiographiques et perspectives de recherche (munich: oldenbourg, 2012); mihran dabag et al., eds., handbuch der mediterranistik: systematische mittelmeerforschung und disziplinäre zugänge (paderborn: schöningh, 2015). [94] a cliché forcefully propounded in bernard lewis, the muslim discovery of europe (1982; repr. new york: norton, 2000); criticized in nabil matar, europe through arab eyes, 1578–1727 (new york: columbia university press, 2008); nizar f. hermes, the [european] other in medieval arabic literature and culture (basingstoke: palgrave-macmillan, 2012); daniel g. könig, arabic-islamic views of the latin west: tracing the emergence of medieval europe (oxford: oxford university press, 2015). [95] könig, arabic-islamic views, 343–347. [96] see notes 14 and 20. [97] for an overview see the oxford handbook of european islam, ed. jocelyne cesari (oxford: oxford university press, 2015). [98] muḥammad al-akhḍar, “hal tataḥawwal ūrūbbā ilā l-islām … am yatanaṣṣir al-lājiʾūn?” bawābat al-sharq al-iliktrūniyya, september 9, 2015, http://www.al-sharq.com/news/details/368291 [accessed 23. august 2016]. [99] the oxford dictionary of islam, s.v. “westoxification,” www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e2501 [accessed 29. august 2016]. recasting the chinese novel | yeh | transcultural studies recasting the chinese novel: ernest major's shenbao publishing house (1872–1890) catherine vance yeh, boston university the modern novel announced its arrival in china after the aborted hundred days reform of 1898 with the claim of being the truly “new novel” (xin xiaoshuo 新小說).[1] recent scholarship (including my own) has highlighted the social and political factors that contributed to the novel becoming an engine in china's literary and social transformation.[2] the novel's potential to address the larger issues of state and society and to advance reform was crucial in elevating the standing of this genre, which also resonated with the writers' quest for the new and the modern.[3] these developments, however, were only made possible through a set of material and cultural conditions that have received far less attention and shall be addressed in this article.[4] the new material conditions included new-style publishing houses that used up-to-date printing technology and were intent on cultivating awareness of the novel's market potential, and a chinese-language newspaper and periodical press with a national (and even international) distribution network that carried information, advertisements, and opinions about such works to readers of chinese. the cultural conditions that facilitated an elevation of the novel genre encompassed an increasingly vocal group of new-style urban intellectuals who saw china as connected with the “world” and looked for solutions to what they believed to be china's crisis. this group sought new forms that could articulate and spread their ideas. they located these solutions in an idealized past and in the equally idealized notion of the “civilized” nations of the “west” and japan of their own time. furthermore, there was a growing public readership that was familiar with the new media of newspapers, looked for leisure reading, and was open to new global fashions and trends. in china, all of these conditions were present in the shanghai international settlement, the primary “contact zone” linking china with the world. many of the key cultural brokers congregated there from many countries, and its media established connections with the world on a daily basis. the nineteenth century saw many closely connected and transculturally shared shifts in state institutions, engineering, science, language, religion, ideology, and culture. the emergence of the novel as the lead genre in literature was one such. in europe this shift occurred earlier in the nineteenth century whereas, as an important but often overlooked early study from the prague structuralist school has argued, in many asian nations, including china, it occurred between the 1870s and the 1910s.[5] this broad generalization suggests a transcultural similarity in the process of the novel's rise; however, the dynamics and agents driving the process in different environments must be studied in their own right. this study will address a number of questions through critical debate with the existing scholarship: was the rise of the novel in china—as in europe—accompanied by an elevation of its artistic, cultural, and social standing? if so, what was the relationship between this rise and the market forces in book printing and book selling? was there a conceptual reframing for the novel that sustained this new standing, and who were the agents involved? what was the role of foreigners in the pre-1900 shanghai chinese-language publishing process, and what motivated these publishers? what were their criteria in selecting novels for publication and how were these adjusted to readers' reactions? what was it that gave sustenance to their publication ventures: subsidies or readers' interest articulated through market success? how did the novel fit into the growing perception among the elite during the late nineteenth century that china needed to draw on the experience of “civilized” nations and forgotten or sidelined indigenous resources in order to find a way out of the crisis? were the novels instrumental in the rise of the genre's status translations from these western nations and works closely modeled on such translations, or were they works drawing on indigenous resources? how did these chinese novels fit into what was seen as an increasingly shared transcultural “modernity”? the paucity of our knowledge regarding the publishing of commercial novels in shanghai during the late nineteenth century is due partly to the fact that ernest major (1841–1908)—the founder and manager of the shenbaoguan 申報館, the most important publishing house in this regard—was a british subject. within the framework of a nation-centered historiography, the chinese-language publishing activities of foreigners were subsumed in the prc under the rubric of “cultural imperialism,” which was denounced, but not adequately studied.[6] however, after chen dakang's groundbreaking work, which affirmed the contributions and impact of the shenbaoguan novel publishing enterprise, some younger scholars, such as wen juan 文娟, saw an opening into this “forbidden zone” and were able to publish substantial empirical work on the subject.[7] luckily, the sources relevant to the questions outlined above have not disappeared completely, and some are even accessible in digitized form. an important first step in this analysis is the identification of the number of chinese language novels published by the foreign owned and managed shenbaoguan publishing house between 1872 and 1890. according to the data assembled in the zhongguo wenyan xiaoshuo shumu 中國文言小説書目 (catalog of novels in classical chinese), this company, which was founded only in 1872, was the most prolific publisher of the loosely defined genre of the novel, not only for the late qing period, but also for the qing period as a whole.[8] the shenbaoguan did not enter an already bustling publishing market, but a publishing wasteland, the result of a long and very bloody civil war. most other publishers started operations only after the shenbaoguan's success made it attractive to enter this market. the subsequent development of shanghai into a large and dominant media center in china was the result both of the shenbaoguan's own innovative operations and of the fact that it had set itself up in the shielded environment of the shanghai international settlement. in its publishing strategies, the company did not use chinese models; instead it found its way as it went along, learning from both its successes and failures, and we have to assume that in many cases the london publishing world, of which major might have seen something as a young man, was the closest influence. another likely model was japan, which saw an explosive rise of the political novel as well as of translation projects of western novels on a large scale in the 1870s and 1880s. my own perusal of the novels published by the shenbaoguan[9] and the recent multi-volume chronology of chinese fiction publishing during the period from 1840 to 1911 confirms these claims.[10] between 1873 and 1892, the shenbaoguan published about eighty-five works of fiction in book form.[11] these included classical and vernacular writing, with fifty-seven original works and thirty-nine rare works, some of which were believed to be lost.[12] the company produced on average four to five such titles a year. during the decades of stagnation between 1840 and 1873, the annual average of new fiction titles (excluding reprints of unavailable older works) for the entire empire was less than two.[13] over fifty new works of fiction published by the shenbaoguan between 1873 and 1892 must be juxtaposed with the seventy-eight new works identified by chen dakang for the entire country between 1875 and 1895. about 70 percent of all new works of fiction in qing china during this period were published by the company, which held a similarly dominant position in its publication of out-of-print, rare, or lost works of fiction.[14] these numbers reveal that during the period between 1872 and 1889, when its founder and manager ernest major (1841–1908) returned to england and novel publishing in monograph and serialized form by the company gradually ended, the shenbaoguan was close to an absolute domination of this market. (the company re-initiated the serialization of novels in 1907). we are thus well advised to focus our attention on this company. the innovations introduced by the shenbaoguan were new to shanghai and to china altogether, but were already familiar in europe. whether major and his company, rather than inventing, acted as a cultural broker by selecting and establishing the types of publications that were viable in china is an important question to pose. such brokerage might have touched on a wide array of areas, including the selection of titles, the insertion of paratexts, editorial practices, relationships with authors, forms of cooperation with chinese staff, interaction between the book publishing and the newspaper, payment methods for shenbaoguan print products delivered from a long distance, and the use of lithography to reproduce ink paintings, calligraphed texts, and rubbings. most importantly, however, this brokerage might have influenced the recalibration of the cultural, aesthetic, and social standing of the novel. as major set up and managed this publishing house in the shanghai international settlement, and as the novel was becoming the world's leading genre at the same time, inserting the chinese development into this transculturally shared development will allow us to better understand the rise of the novel in china within a global context. in order to do this, we shall draw on relatively reliable sources and on the recent scholarship on how the shenbaoguan published and marketed novels, as well as its managerial innovations.[15] chen dakang and others have highlighted the shenbaoguan's pioneering introduction of translations of western novels, serializations, and the systematic use of lithography, metal fonts, and printing machines, all of which helped create suitable material conditions for the rise of the “new novel.”[16] rudolf wagner has argued that these innovations went a long way toward proving the social acceptability and commercial viability of traditional chinese culture in a modern urban environment and in establishing shanghai as a new media center.[17] the weak and not fully substantiated claims, especially in prc scholarship, that the shenbaoguan was simply driven by profit have precluded a more careful analysis of the potential conceptual, aesthetic, and social aspects of its novel publishing.[18] indeed, relevant sources for such an analysis are hard to come by. for instance, there is no known diary or archival record of the discussions that led to the selection of particular novels for publishing, nor do we have any contemporaneous theoretical treatises on the novel or on fiction that might offer a systematic presentation of the frames into which these selections have been inscribed. perusal of the novels actually published by this company suggests a certain consistency in the selection, and the descriptions of the works in the book announcements (gaobai 告白), in the shenbao 申報 newspaper and in the book catalogs (shenbaoguan shumu 申報館書目 [shenbaoguan book catalog], hereafter shumu; shenbaoguan shumu xuji 申報館書目續集 [sequel to the shenbaoguan book catalog], hereafter shumu xuji) published by the company, are consistent enough to signal the presence of an underlying conceptual framework. this study will attempt to extricate the shenbaoguan's cultural and commercial strategy from these indirect sources. the shenbaoguan publication of novels 1872 was a landmark year in the development of the chinese novel during the modern period. it saw the founding of the shenbao 申報 newspaper, which from the start published translated novels and excerpts.[19] in that year the same company also founded the literary journal yinghuan suoji 瀛寰瑣紀 (jade splinters from the entire universe), which serialized novels, and established the chinese-language publishing house shenbaoguan, which, besides publishing the newspaper and the journal, quickly began to publish books as well. from the outset, right up to the point when ernest major left for england, novels and, more generally, fiction, formed a sizeable part of the company's publication program. the shenbaoguan started publishing full-length novels in 1873, beginning with a translation of edward bulwer-lytton's (1803–1873) night and morning (originally 1841), as xinxi xiantan 昕夕閒談 (idle talk mornings and nights), which was serialized in the yinghuan suoji.[20] publishing a commercial periodical in chinese was unprecedented and the company seems to have been testing the waters for this new venture in the first issues. these issues contained a mix of international news and discussions on chinese and western science, as well as a poems and prose writings, such as travelogues and courtesan biographies, from chinese men of letters; however, there were no novels. publishing the full translation of an english novel was a “first” and therefore announced as a sensation. the selection of this novel, which had been a huge success in england, shows major's awareness of the novel's development in nineteenth-century europe; this knowledge may have predisposed him to include novels in the company's publication program. the serialization had the added benefit of helping to stabilize the readership, since issues had to be bought separately. given the efforts of the shenbaoguan in areas like the format chosen for the newspaper, the selection of bamboo pulp-based chinese paper, the daily insertion of the full jingbao 京報 (peking gazette) into the shenbao, or producing recognizably “chinese” print products, the decision to undertake a (costly) translation indicates that major, who was very much involved in running the journal, may have assumed that there were no chinese-language novels suitable for publication by his company. however, once he came across a copy of rulin waishi 儒林外史 (the scholars), with its lively satire of members of the chinese elite—a work that had long been unavailable—he seems to have changed his opinion. the shenbaoguan published rulin waishi in 1874,[21] and it sold out in ten days. this success taught major two things: first, there was a great market potential for the novel in the period after the taiping civil war, which had destroyed many private libraries and the stock of publishers' woodblocks; and second, there were chinese novels that met his selection criteria. the shenbaoguan put its efforts into locating and publishing such works, and indeed never published another translation of a foreign novel. major's growing familiarity with the chinese book market and reading traditions furthermore prompted him to use his newspaper for “crowd searches” of newly written novels as well as manuscripts and rare prints of earlier novels. however, the company did not simply make commercially safe reprints of well-known works like its early competitors, but was willing to publish barely-known rarities as well as new works, while maintaining that it would not publish works of questionable morals and values. what, then, were the company's selection criteria? in literary terms, three genres dominated the early works of fiction published by the shenbaoguan: reportage literature, entertainment reading matter, and novels. among the eleven categories listed in the shumu, the 1877 catalog of books printed by the shenbaoguan, three are related to works of fiction (including opera). these categories comprised twenty-two out of the fifty book titles listed in the catalog, with fourteen in the shuobu 說部 or “story,” seven in the novel, and one in the opera categories.[22] in other words, almost half of the works published in the first five years after the shenbaoguan's founding were works of fiction (this includes “brush notes” [biji 筆記] type fictional pieces in classical language, and novels written in the vernacular). the full bibliographical information for all of these publications can be found in appendix 1. the company published out-of-print works such as rulin waishi in editions that have since become the standard base text for modern editions: an edition of dong yue's 董說 (1620–1686) extremely rare xiyou bu 西遊補 (supplement to journey to the west), with its fantastic dream of sun wukong 孫悟空 trapped by the “green fish” in a tower with myriad mirrors, the first edition on record since its original publication in the seventeenth century;[23] chen chen's 陳忱 (1615–1670) shuihu houzhuan 水滸後傳 (sequel to water margin), focusing on the descendants and survivors of the liangshan heroes in their continued battles against social injustice and for the creation of an ideal kingdom somewhere far away from china;[24] li ruzhen's李汝珍 (~1763– ~1830), jinghua yuan 鏡花緣 (flowers in the mirror) (1880) with its great satire on the traditional treatment of women;[25] and yu wanchun's 俞萬春 (?–1849) science fantasy dangkou zhi 蕩寇志 (quell the bandits) (1883).[26] it also published original works that are today considered the hallmarks of late-qing fiction, such as fengyue meng 風月夢 (dreams of the wind and the moon), which was published under the pen name hanshang mengren 邗上蒙人.[27] among the novels in the “talented scholar and beautiful lady” genre, which was very popular during the eighteenth century, the shenbaoguan issued tianhua caizi's 天華才子 kuaixin bian 快心編 (the teaser, or literally, a book that makes your heart go pitter-patter) in 1875.[28] this eighteenth-century satirical work had long been out of print, and major sent an envoy to japan to track down a copy for re-publication in china. this was the first in a string of efforts made by his company and others to retrieve cultural treasures that were lost in china from further afield: japan, korea, vietnam, central asia, or the west. other works in this category included suiyuan xiashi's 隨緣下士 early qing lin lan xiang 林蘭香 (lin, lan, and xiang) (1877),[29] chen lang's 陳朗 eighteenth-century novel xue yue mei zhuan 陳朗梅傳 (the biographies of snow, moon, and plum) (1878),[30] and xiling yeqiao's 西泠野樵 mid-nineteenth century huifang lu 繪芳錄 (a record of rich fragrance) (1880).[31] the last was an original shenbaoguan publication that was completed in 1878, which the company declared to be on a par with the honglou meng 紅樓夢 (the dream of the red chamber; alternative title shitou ji 石頭記 [story of the stone])[32] and with the very popular nineteenth-century novel about male courtesans and actors, pinhua baojian, 品花寳鋻 (precious mirror for ranking flowers), without any of the weaknesses of either.[33] it also challenged the traditional narrative of the “talented scholar and beautiful lady” in that one of the key protagonists defies convention by marrying a courtesan and leaving court to live a quiet life after passing the imperial examinations. fig. 1: cover of hanshang mengren 邗上蒙人, fengyue meng 風月夢 (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1883). fig. 2: cover of xiangxue daoren 香雪道人, fanhun xiang chuanqi 返魂香傳奇 (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1877). one of the specialties developed by the shenbaoguan was the publication of the various sequels and imitations of honglou meng. these include gui chuzi's 歸鋤子 early nineteenth-century honglou meng bu 紅樓夢補 (supplement to the dream of the red chamber) (1876)[34] and chen shaohai's 陳少海 honglou fumeng 紅樓復夢 (return of the dream of the red chamber) (1884).[35] other fictional works published for the first time by the shenbaoguan include, besides fengyue meng, zhang nanzhuang's 張南莊 (1736–1796) raucous satire hedian 何典 (from what idiom?) (1878);[36] shen fu's 沈復 (1763–approx. 1808) fusheng liuji 浮生六記 (six records from a floating life) (1877),[37] and yu da's 俞達 (?–1884), qinglou meng 青樓夢 (the dream of the green chamber) (1879).[38] other novels were not published but rather distributed by the company. one example of this is han bangqing's 韓邦慶 (1856–1894), haishang hua liezhuan 海上花列傳 (biographies of shanghai flowers) (1892).[39] by 1884, after the establishment of lithography print facilities in the dianshizhai studio, the company was publishing books with lithography illustrations, among them huitu jing huayuan 繪圖鏡花緣 (flowers in the mirror, illustrated) (1884).[40] these titles were anything but a safe bet: in many cases it was difficult work to locate a copy and then to establish a solid text with the help of invited (and presumably paid) outside scholars. many late qing literati, who suggested or submitted works that were published by the shenbaoguan, expressed deep appreciation for major's efforts in making rare chinese treasures available in print.[41] both the actually published works and the perception of contemporaries suggest that, although economic viability was certainly an important factor in the shenbaoguan selection of books for publication, the path to this goal involved a much more complex set of cultural strategies.[42] fig. 3: cover of wenkang 文康, ernü yingxiong zhuan 兒女英雄傳 (a tale of heroes and lovers) (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1881). fig. 4: cover of li ruzhen 李汝珍, jinghua yuan 鏡花緣 (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1880). the shanghai book market: pricing and competition one of the major contributions made by the company to the professionalization of the shanghai book market was establishing a fixed price for books. these prices were declared in the shenbao announcements for new books, which were located on the first page and then taken up by the advertisement section in the end. traditional book marketing involved booksellers buying from publishers and then selling with their own mark-up.[43] this new practice was adopted by other shanghai publishers and became one of the hallmarks of modern book marketing. the practice effectively brought competition between different publishers onto the advertisement pages of the shenbao and into the open. shenbaoguan book prices were modest. when it first published rulin waishi in 1874, the price was five jiao 角, and the announced print run was 1000 copies. it sold out within ten days. seven months later, another 1500 copies were published, and the announced price was again five jiao a copy. for the next decade, prices for shenbaoguan fiction remained mostly between one-and-a-half and five jiao. exceptions were six jiao for the 1881 third revised printing of rulin waishi with a commentary and a key, eight jiao for ernü yingxiong zhuan 兒女英雄傳 (a tale of heroes and lovers) in 1881, and one yuan 元 for bisheng hua 筆生花 (the literate flower), also in 1881.[44] for the next decade prices moved in both directions, with the lowest being one jiao and the highest more than three yuan. the higher prices reflect the introduction of lithograph illustrations produced by the dianshizhai lithography studio. an example is two yuan and four jiao for the 1882 illustrated sanguo yanyi quantu 三國演義全圖 (three kingdoms, enhanced by images), which comprised 120 chapters and as many as 240 illustrations.[45] an indication of the relative cost of books published by the shenbaoguan can be ascertained by comparing them with the wages received by a journalist at the time. at the end of the nineteenth century, the monthly salary of a shenbao journalist was between ten and forty yuan. buying rulin waishi would cost an entry-level journalist 5 percent of his salary. the yuebao 粵報 in canton paid fifty yuan to an editor and ten to a journalist. the journalists of the xinbao 新報 in shanghai got twenty to thirty yuan.[46] the income of the average gentry/professional was not much higher. according to natascha vittinghoff's study, even foreigners such as john fryer (1839–1928), the former english missionary who became an educator and worked as an editor and translator in the jiangnan arsenal in shanghai, received a monthly salary of only fifty taels (liang 两, i.e., sixty yuan). a chinese teacher at fryer's anglo-chinese college had a monthly income of twelve and a half taels. a teacher would get about 100 taels a year and a worker ten, with the worker's food being taken care of by the employer. a district magistrate received forty-five taels a year, to which various incomes totaling about 1000 to 1800 taels would be added. the result would be about 150 taels (180 yuan) a month, about four times that of an editor. [47] this means that the prices of the shenbaoguan deluxe fiction publications (a topic i will return to later) were relatively moderate, but it also signals that the target market was the gentry and the urban professional classes, including its lower-income rungs. although the shenbaoguan's prices for works of fiction did reflect the costs of production, and the company sometimes justified its prices as being simply the “cost of the labor involved,” they also reflected the fierce competition among publishers, especially those located in shanghai who emulated the shenbaoguan model. chen dakang's study of the pricing of late-qing fiction reveals that this competition was a major reason for the shenbaoguan cutting the prices of some of its fiction publications.[48] yet its book prices also reflect the advantages of investments in new printing technology. these investments enabled the company to produce quality books at a substantially faster and cheaper rate and forced the competition to adopt new technologies in order to stay in the market. with the founding of the dianshizhai lithography studio, for which major hired the most experienced chinese lithography printer from the jesuit publishing house in xujiahui and managed to assemble a group of skilled graphic artists such as wu youru 吳友如(between 1841 and 1845–1894), the shenbaoguan opened up a new competitive front with illustrated novels marketed as high-end collector's items. the visible success of the shenbaoguan book-publishing venture lured others into the field. in 1872, shanghai had four publishing houses in total, the most famous of which was the venerable missionary press mohai shuguan 墨海書館 (the london missionary society press), which had been founded in 1843; none of them published fiction. by the early 1880s, chinese investors had spotted the gap in the market and opened the tongwen shuju 同文書局 in 1881, the hongwen shuju 鴻文書局 in 1882, and the feiyingguan 蜚英館, which became the the dianshizhai's main competitor, in 1887. while they competed with the shenbaoguan in large-scale publication projects, they seem to have shied away from the time-consuming, financially risky work of acquiring and editing rare or new works of fiction. some smaller publishers, however, entered the competitive world of novel publishing. these included zhenyi shuju 珍藝書局, wenrui lou 文瑞樓, wenxuan lou 文選樓, shiwanjuan lou 十萬卷樓, jiangzuo shulin 江左書林, zuiliu tang 醉六堂, liwen xuan 理文軒, and wenyi shuju 文宜書局, all located in shanghai,[49] and the juzhen tang 聚珍堂 and later, in the 1890s, also the wenguang lou 文光樓, located in beijing.[50] by the 1890s some of these, including the zhuyi tang 著易堂 and the shanghai shuju 上海書局, made it their business to reprint the earlier shenbaoguan roster of novels. although no other publisher had comparable skills in locating, soliciting, editing, printing, and marketing, there were occasions when the shenbaoguan found itself out-maneuvered. in beijing, for example, the juzhen tang, a bilingual manchu-chinese publisher, active since 1840, whose name already indicates that it was emulating the deluxe (juzhen ban 聚珍版) format of the movable letter prints from the wuying palace, switched to chinese-language works completely in 1876. these were mostly works of fiction, including original works such as ernü yingxiong zhuan, which it first published in 1878, the same year as the shenbaoguan.[51] as ellen widmer has demonstrated, the juzhen tang switch seems to have been influenced by the shenbaoguan's success. another example is the publication of xia jingqu's 夏敬渠 (1705–1787) yesou puyan 野叟曝言 (a rustic's idle talk)[52], which we will return to later in this article. in this case, another shanghai newspaper managed to get hold of it before the shenbaoguan, and its serialization in a paper helped to stimulate a marked rise in print runs once the book edition was out. like most other shanghai publishers, the publisher of this novel advertised new titles in the shenbao, and the shenbao ran an advertisement for yesou puyan despite the fact that it was being published by a competitor. fig. 5: commercial full-page advertisement in last pages of shenbao (december 21, 1881). it includes as the second item in column 3 from the right an advertisement for yesou puyan from another publisher. the shenbaoguan originally had plans to publish this book. through ever more advanced printing technology and marketing strategies, like price reduction at crucial moments, the shenbaoguan was able to maintain its leading role in novel publishing. the situation changed in the 1890s after major's departure and with the founding of shanghai's commercial press (shangwu yinshuguan 商務印書館) in 1897 and the shanghai shuju in 1892. both made novel publishing one of their foci. the explosive growth in publications pouring out of the shanghai international settlement in the wake of the shenbaoguan quickly established this small exclave as china's media capital, a position it was to retain until world war ii cut the lines connecting the chinese book market with shanghai. the shanghai international settlement: an exclave of qing publishing the new wave of novel publishing during the late qing had antecedents in the late ming, which was a watershed period in the craft of woodblock printing and set standards for high-quality books in editions, prints, and illustrations, as well as for middle-tier and popular editions at lower price points. the late ming marked a turning point where many writings, which continued to be distributed through manuscript copies even after the option of printing became available, found their way into woodblock printing.[53] the full-length vernacular novels are a case in point. printings of novels such as sanguo yanyi 三國演義 (three kingdoms)[54], shuihu zhuan 水滸傳 (water margin)[55], and xiyou ji (journey to the west)[56], together with collections of vernacular short stories, such as those by feng menglong 馮夢龍 (1574–1645) and ling mengchu 凌濛 初 (1580–1644), explored the new wider market of popular entertainment. some items became what would today be called bestsellers, stimulating more competition and commercialization in fiction writing and publishing.[57] in the qing, the situation changed greatly. although qing publishers far out-produced their ming predecessors in the sheer number of volumes printed, the quality of the prints declined. as robert hegel has shown, qing publishing of low-quality cheap printings of fiction for a “large number of consumers of limited means,” led to the renewed formation of “an elite of literati aficionados who, disdainful of print and the indiscriminate circulation of texts that it made possible, produced works in manuscript for distribution to a select circle of like-minded readers.”[58] thus, the qing period saw a revival of fiction circulating in manuscript form. examples include the rulin waishi (ca. 1750), honglou meng (1760s–1790s), yesou puyan (eighteenth century), and li lü yuan's 李綠園 (1707–1790) qilu deng 歧路燈 (lamp at the crossroads, ca. 1785)[59]. some relatively fine print editions of fiction continued to be produced throughout the qing, but many were simply reusing the blocks of earlier editions. in fact, the few exceptional high-quality fiction imprints that appeared in the qing during the late seventeenth century were produced by literati printers,[60] but these editions were vastly outnumbered by the imprints produced for the popular market. by the time the taiping war broke out, even these popular prints became scarce.[61] it was in this historical context that the shenbaoguan launched its novel-publishing enterprise. the qing dynasty was one of the most repressive periods in chinese history as regards laws on publishing novels.[62] an early (1652) edict banned the publication of “lewd gossip” (suoyu yinci 瑣語淫詞), and threatened “severe punishment for infractions” (weizhe congzhong zhijiu 違者從重治究). an explicit ban on publishing novels was issued in 1662 and made more specific in 1714: we have noticed in recent years that most [book] shops are selling lewd novels, lowly and outrageous folk tales. these do not represent the orthodox principles! they [are a force] not only in beguiling the common people, but even those who belong to the gentry, and the educated class cannot help [but also] be seduced. as all that is related to social custom is not to be trifled with, [the selling of such novels] should be forbidden immediately.[63] 近见坊间多卖小说淫词，荒唐俚鄙，殊非正理。不但诱惑愚民，即缙绅士子，未免游目而蛊心焉，所关于风俗者非细。应即通行严禁。 the yongzheng period continued with numerous publication bans, including one in 1725 (yongzheng 3) that directly banned the sale of lewd novels (jin shi mai yinci xiaoshuo 禁市賣淫詞小説), an edict reaffirmed in 1738 (qianlong 3). this ban seems to have pertained to all novels, since it is hard to clearly define which novels were considered “lewd.” in addition to punishments for those involved in printing and selling “lewd” novels, it threatened anyone found buying and reading a “lewd” novel with 100 strokes of the bamboo. the court's efforts to suppress the genre continued throughout the nineteenth century. after a particularly harsh 1834 edict that ordered all lewd novels be destroyed together with their printing blocks, these rulings came at ever shorter intervals: 1851, 1868, 1872, 1885, 1890, and 1900.[64] in 1901 one of the most severe laws of its kind was passed, just as the court prepared to promote its own “reform of governance” (xinzheng 新政) with an explicit emulation of western models.[65] the recurrence of the bans reveals that they were not terribly effective; however, they confirmed and reinforced the low status of the novel in society and prevented it from reaching the level of prestige granted to the novel in europe around the same time. furthermore, it put novel publishing in a precarious position. the novel could neither profit from extended and sophisticated public discussion nor truly find success on the market. against this background, the shanghai foreign settlements offered an exclave where the shenbaoguan and the novel could thrive. there were many other factors that benefited the shenbaoguan enterprise: the growth of the urban population in shanghai through wealthy and cultured refugees from the taiping civil war; the economic development of the city brought with it a class of salaried urbanites with some literacy and a need for entertainment; the expansion of the time available for reading through the introduction of kerosene, gas, and electricity in shanghai, coupled with the introduction of sunday as a day of rest for the foreign firms, which spread via their employees to other chinese inhabitants; and the wealth of many educated and book-hungry chinese who were retiring to the shanghai foreign settlements. by the time the taiping civil war ended in 1864, the lower yangtze area, from which most of them had come, had witnessed a systematic destruction of all things deemed “of the devil” by the taipings. these included temples, private libraries, academies, and other centers of learning. the effect was devastating: the lower yangtze region, jiangnan, was not an impoverished or culturally deprived area where few people had books or desired them; on the contrary, for centuries jiangnan enjoyed the highest concentration of educated men and women, and nearly half of the well-stocked private libraries of the country were located in this region.[66] the excited comments made by late nineteenth-century chinese shanghai tourists in their “bamboo twig ballads” (zhuzhi ci 竹枝詞, contemporary travelogues), as well as the steep rise in the number of shanghai publishing houses, publications, print runs and national market share all suggest that the shenbaoguan assessment of the potential of the chinese-language media market was accurate.[67] the shanghai media flourished in a transcultural “contact zone,” absorbing whatever seemed fitting and contributing in turn to the development of a new urban lifestyle and sensibility that was enhanced by the proud proclamation that the international settlement was on a par in urban comforts with the big new commercial cities in the west. given the wealth, attractiveness, and modernity of shanghai as the “west” in china, its media, lifestyle, and sensibility found their way first into the lower yangtze valley and from there into other reaches of the empire. this was assisted by the development of national media distribution networks that were again pioneered by the shenbaoguan. the material and psychological conditions were thus ripe after the 1870s for the printing of books and for the development of urban leisure and entertainment for a substantial segment of the population in shanghai and among the wider jiangnan gentry. benefiting from the cultural environment of the international settlement and protected by the legal privileges that came with the extra-territoriality of its owner, the shenbaoguan developed this cultural market by offering a large range of high-quality books for information, classical education, and entertainment. as we shall see, the books it published, whether handbooks for classical studies, model examination essays, military treatises, or lowly novels, all shared the same format and editorial care, a treatment that signals that they were inserted into a new modern canon that had its own dignity and flat hierarchies. resetting the cultural register of the novel central to the shenbaoguan strategy of novel publishing was the production of first-rate books both in the editorial care taken and in the physical and visual quality of the product created. in this respect it did not differentiate between genres: novels received the same amount of editorial attention and were produced at the same level of printing quality as books of genres that were more highly placed in the cultural register. this treatment of novels went very visibly against the prevailing fashion of publishing lowbrow matter in cheap prints. by using the same material and optical features as traditional high-register works, the shenbaoguan novel prints suggested that these were works that deserved to stand next to dynastic histories, scholarly works on the classics, or model essays for the imperial examinations. in its clear mirroring of the european acceptance of the genre into the highest registers of literature and educated reading, this treatment of the novel has all the hallmarks of transcultural interaction. this assessment is reinforced by the very strong role played by ernest major—a man who was famous at the time for his mastery of chinese and for the expansion of his chinese learning—in tracking and selecting titles for publication. in the preface to the shumu, cai erkang 蔡爾康 (1852–1920), one of major's most important early chinese collaborators,[68] described major as the guiding force behind the collection and wrote that the entries on the books in the catalog were based on major's oral communications.[69] indeed, all aspects of novel publishing by the shenbaoguan bear the hallmark of major's personal involvement. in a classic case of transcultural interaction and eventual localization of concepts, the shenbaoguan's recalibration of the cultural standing of the novel was realized through a carefully designed negotiation with the chinese cultural context. as we shall demonstrate, this included book design, editing, font selection, and formatting, as well as the paratexts within the book itself. the efforts of the shenbaoguan to reregister the cultural standing of the novel can be seen in the shumu. while we do not have an archival record of the strategy behind the shenbaoguan book publication program, the 1877 shumu (fig. 6) and its 1879 sequel allow us to extract the core elements of the program and to determine the place of the novel within it. fig. 6: cover of shumu 申報館書目 (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1877). major evidently set his sights high. cai erkang wrote in his “preface” that ernest major suggested the title “shumu tiyao” 書目提要 for what eventually became the shumu. the suggestion “shumu tiyao” was intended to bring to mind a famous set of entries in the eighteenth-century imperial compilation known as the siku quanshu 四庫全書 (complete library of the four treasuries); namely, the siku quanshu zongmu tiyao 四庫全書總目提要 (abstracts of the full list of the complete library of the four treasuries), by ji yun 紀昀 (1724–1805) and yongrong永瑢 (1744–1790), among others.[70] cai erkang wrote that he refused to use tiyao because ji yun's learning was infinitely higher than his own, and because he was concerned that, since the emperor had commissioned and overseen the compilation of the siku quanshu, using the title might be seen as an attempt by the shenbaoguan and its manager to claim a similar importance or, worse, as a form of lè se majesté. by focusing on authorship and content, the manner in which the shumu discussed the titles published by the shenbaoguan in fact closely resembles that of ji yun's siku quanshu zongmu tiyao.[71] in the announcement of the publication of the shumu, major, who wrote under his pen name zunwenge zhuren 尊文閣主人, made his purpose clear: from the time our company was founded, we have among other things been printing and selling books regularly on a daily basis. in these years, our publications have run to over fifty titles. we are honored that gentlemen from near and far often came [to our publishing house] to purchase these books for their perusal. however, [for those who come and buy books] book lists only provide the titles, and often they do not know what the book is about or who might be the author. as a consequence many hesitate to purchase the books. [that is why i have] now asked luxin xianshi [cai erkang] to compose a catalog of the books [published by our company] in which the key points of their contents are summarized clearly and in detail. besides being a book one can browse through, it can also be a form of leisure reading.[72] 本館自創設以來，兼印各種書籍發售日以爲常。歷年來共積至五十餘部。蒙遠近諸君子，時來取閱。而書目闕如見書名者，常以不知是書所言何事，所作何人，故購買或多袖手。今特撮其大要因縷馨仙史潤色而成書目一卷。其中開陳明晰於各書之精蘊無不闡發而表彰之。瀏覽之餘，亦可為消遣書之一种也。 the idea that a publishing house should provide the potential buyer with a detailed introduction to its books was understood by major not only as a marketing strategy but also as a way of connecting to a community of shenbaoguan readers. with ji yun's siku quanshu zongmu tiyao acting as the silent but pervasively present counterpoint to his catalog, major made his point about the place of the novel in the chinese social and cultural order of things. to begin with, although the shumu did use ji yun's terms to group the siku quanshu works—namely lei 類 (genre/class/category)—it also went on to set up entirely new categories. these emphasized the very things that had been sidelined as too insignificant or left out all together as too base for the complete library of the four treasuries as well as the siku quanshu zongmu tiyao. the most striking example of the latter was the full-length novel.[73] ji yun's comments on xiaoshuo 小説, the category under which these novels would have fallen, reiterated the orthodox line that was first articulated in the bibliographical treatise in the book of han (hanshu 漢書): they were “small talk” (xiaodao 小道), that did not deal with the important theme of ordering the state. this came, he said, in three types: “narration of miscellaneous events” (xushu zashi 敍述雜事); “records of strange stories” (jilu yiwen 記錄異聞); and “compilations of tidbits” (zhuikan suoyu 綴輯瑣語). left out of these three groups was much of what would today be considered the very core of chinese prose fiction, the chuanqi 傳奇 stories (associated with the tang period), the vernacular stories (associated with the late ming period), drama, and the full-length novels of the yuan, ming, and qing periods.[74] the shumu categories offered a provocative alternative to those defined by ji yun. by lavishing the same editorial care on all its books and printing them in the format of a series, the shenbaoguan ultimately established a new standard that placed novels on the same level as canonical works, scholarship, and source collections. fig. 7: part of the table of contents with categories of shumu 申報館書目 (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1877). the categories of the shumu (fig. 7) are as follows: reportages on historical events (gushi jishi lei 古事紀實類)—2 titles; reportages on recent events (jinshi jishi lei 近事紀實類)—5 titles; miscellaneous records of recent events (jinshi zazhi lei 近事雜誌類)—4 titles; model essays appreciation (preparing for the imperial examinations) (yilin zhenshang lei 藝林珍賞類)—5 titles; records of beautiful women past and present (gujin jili lei 古今紀麗類)—5 titles; model reports and letter writing (toubao chidu lei 投報尺牘類)—3 titles; new and extraordinary fiction (xinqi shuobu lei 新奇說部類)—14 titles; linked-chapter novels (zhanghui xiaoshuo lei 章回小說類)—7 titles; new works of opera (xinpai yuanben lei 新排院本類)—1 title; collections of diverse items (serials) (congcan huike lei 叢殘彙刻類)—4 titles, including three literary journals published by the shenbaoguan and one on science distributed by it, the gezhi huibian (格致彙編); fine prints of paintings (jingyin tuhua lei 精印圖畫類)—3 titles.[75] first, the catalog introduced “records of real events” (jishi 紀實), as a new literary category of non-fiction narrative. this is similar to the western notion of “reportage,” which owed its rise in prominence during the nineteenth century to the spread of the newspaper. in this category, for example, the shumu included war reportage written in a detailed and factual style about the defeat of taiping rebels in suzhou. another item comprised the treaties that england and japan had concluded with the qing, which were made available to the chinese public for the first time. the reportage category was subdivided into past and current affairs, gushi 古事 and jinshi 近事. the new element in this pair was the importance granted to the journalistic treatments of current affairs in a cultural context traditionally dominated by a reverence for the past. second, the shumu created a special literary category for writings by and about women, the jili lei 紀麗類. one of the works in this group, the 1877 gonggui lianming pu 宮閨聯名譜 (compilation of assorted works from the women's quarters), is a collection of poems written by more than a thousand women authors that includes short biographical sketches and critical notes.[76] other works offer records of courtesans and entertainment (“on the painted boats”) in various commercial centers around the jiangnan region, with titles such as qin huai huafang lu 秦淮畫舫錄 (record of the painted boats at the [confluence of the] qin and huai rivers [nanjing]); wumen huafang lu 吳門畫舫錄 (record of the painted boats at suzhou); and yangzhou huafang lu 揚州畫舫錄 (record of the painted boats at yangzhou).[77] although grouped into the jili category, these works, which the shenbaoguan had made great efforts to locate, are described in the shumu as a specific type of reportage that records local customs (fengtu renqing 風土人情) in such vivid colors that the reader would feel “personally present in the scene” (shen qin qi jing 身親其境).[78] third, the shumu created new categories for fictional literature. these followed each other in direct succession—indicating cohesion—and came towards the end, after the higher-ranking genres—indicating lower status. although these categories were new, they made use of familiar elements. the first category, xinqi shuobu, (“new and extraordinary vernacular works,”) offered biji, chuanqi, and zhiguai 志怪 (record of strange events) stories, which had been included as early as the eleventh century in the shuobu category and were associated with storytelling.[79] the second category, zhanghui xiaoshuo (“linked-chapter novels”), which seems to have been invented for the shumu and became a standard term in later literary scholarship,[80] offered full-length novels that were written as works to be read rather than told. the third, xinpai yuanben 新排院本 (“new drama manuscripts”), comprised printing ballads of the tanci type as well as dramatic works, which had previously circulated only as the closely guarded possessions of theater troupes. these three were followed by the literary journals. the 1879 sequel to this book catalog, the shumu xuji, retained the two main categories in abridged form, calling them simply shuobu and xiaoshuo.[81] these categories comprise the first attempt at dividing fictional works by length—a precursor of the modern division between short story, novelette, and novel. for these new categories, the shumu expanded on elements of the chinese literary tradition, that is to say the xiaoshuo, which have already been mentioned, and the shuobu, which was used for stories and fictional works. by adding the “new and extraordinary,” xinqi, to the shuobu, the novelty and interest of these texts was emphasized; and by adding the “linked-chapter,” zhanghui, to the xiaoshuo, the full-length novel was defined by a purely formal criterion as opposed to traditional groupings according to content, such as the “talented scholar and beautiful lady” (caizi jiaren 才子佳人) novels, or the “historical narratives” (yanyi 演義). the shumu refers to novels with chapter headings that use either the word zhang or hui, regardless of their content. all novels listed under this heading were full length. it should also be noted that at this stage the distinction between the vernacular writing of the novel versus the “classical” or wenyan 文言 style of most other writing was not yet considered a relevant marker, though elsewhere the shenbaoguan made great efforts to promote a style of newspaper writing that was easily accessible to people without examination degrees. the insertion of the novels into the shumu and its sequel reveals that novel publishing was not considered a sideline, but was a core part of the publishing profile of this company. this insertion of the novel into respectable and relevant reading took both daring and confidence that it would eventually overcome the convention of denouncing novels as irrelevant, frivolous, and morally questionable reading matter. it demonstrates that the shenbaoguan was aware of the market potential for this genre in reaching a broader readership, especially women and young people—a potential that the british print market had highlighted so dramatically since the end of the eighteenth century. moreover, the european market had also demonstrated the novel's potential as a means of bringing social and political issues to light. although the categories listed in the shumu are clearly chinese, their underlying concepts interact with european practices and experiences. in europe, this was the era of charles dickens, benjamin disraeli, and edward bulwer-lytton, of eugè ne sue, honoré de balzac, alexandre dumas pè re, and victor hugo, all of whom wrote novels on contemporary themes in a “realistic” style that emphasized not so much social “reality” as very specific depictions. many of these novels were serialized in newspapers, and had taken europe by storm while driving up newspaper circulation. one must ask, therefore, whether this type of “realistic” (jishi) writing on “contemporary” (jinshi) themes, which defined the opening categories in the shumu, was also part of the shenbaoguan criteria in selecting novels for publishing. it is clear that this did not exclude flights of fantasy as long as they were described in a “realistic” mode. after all, the shenbao had already published excerpts from jonathan swift's gulliver's travels[82] with great success, and the stern ji yun had been a very successful writer of tales of the fantastic.[83] the 1879 shumu xuji dropped the neologisms and returned to the simple shuobu and xiaoshuo categories to achieve a more elegant unified length for the names of the different categories, but the importance of fiction publishing remained unchanged. of the fifty-nine new titles listed, five were collections of stories and an additional five were novels. an important addition in this list is the inclusion of works from and about the classical canon of scholarship, which in turn helped to elevate the social standing of the entire collection. the shenbaoguan was not much interested in neat genre definitions, but instead pursued a literary practice that was focused on public interest, and acceptance of the works published. instead of imposing a rigid genre scheme on what was clearly the evolving practice of a very successful and flexible publisher, we will allow the literary practice of our historical protagonists to guide our own genre definitions. the shenbaoguan's effort to elevate the cultural standing of the novel can also be seen in the energy it exerted in the design, editing, and formatting of its printed products. chinese printed books signaled their standing in the cultural hierarchy through their appearance and the editorial care that went into their preparation and paratexts. the fundamental divide was between books printed by the qing court and those printed by commercial publishers. the former were printed in small runs that amounted to no more than a few dozen, even if the works in question included thousands of volumes. the latter were printed in a variety of formats from refined amateur editions in small runs to mass-produced pulp fiction. lying on the margins of both categories were mass-produced morality books that were distributed for free as a means of accumulating merit for the donors. technically speaking, the most advanced works were the imperial prints created with movable copper fonts. they allowed for a high level of precision and excellent readability, even of small characters, to create books that could be small enough to fit “into the arm sleeve.” the eighteenth-century imperial print shop in the wuying palace specialized in this type of deluxe publication, but aside from a few stray copies these were not made available on the market (fig. 8). fig. 8: example of a juzhen ban print from the wuying palace. from chunqiu bianyi (beijing: wuyingdian, between 1773 and 1783). from the outset, the shenbaoguan opted to vie with its newspaper, journals, and books for the highest register by printing with a metal font; it added economy and speed to this practice by using imported printing machines. at the same time, in order to stay close to the coveted traditional model, it printed on chinese bamboo pulp-based paper (not white imported swedish paper) and retained a chinese-style book size and binding. in this manner, it combined signifiers of the highest chinese cultural register with the allure of new western technology to create a type of book that had previously only been accessible to the highest ranks of the court, but could now be bought by anybody in the entire country for a modest amount. to alert the readers to the treasure in their hands, the imprints contained the formula “printed by the shanghai shenbaoguan modeled on the deluxe prints [from the wuying palace]” (shanghai shenbaoguan fang juzhen ban yin 上海申報館仿聚珍版印 [or fang juzhen ban 倣聚珍板])” (fig 9).[84] fig. 9: imprint of shenbaoguan publications: “printed by the shanghai shenbaoguan on the model of the [wuying palace] deluxe format.” from the front matter of rulin waishi (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1876). the impact of these new, high standards for book publishing set by the juzhen ban edition of major's press (fig. 10) was immediately felt. as the preface to the shumu proudly points out, a mere three years after the shenbaoguan pioneered this new style of commercial publishing, no less than four or five shanghai publishers began to imitate it. fig. 10: shenbaoguan print modeled on the wuying palace juzhen ban editions. this example shows the preface to lin lan xiang (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1877). fig. 11: the print quality was consistent through the decades. wenkang, ernü yingxiong zhuan (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1881), beginning of chapter five. the book covers showed the title in seal script, which was becoming an elegant literati fashion during the last decades of the nineteenth century. (fig. 12) they were often written and signed by literati who were known for their fine calligraphy. a good example of this is the cover of lin lan xiang. (fig. 12) it was written and signed by shen gongzhi 沈共（拱）之 (shen jinyuan 沈錦垣, 1845–1900), who also often signed as wenchaoguan zhu 問潮館主, a calligrapher who was famous at the time not only in shanghai and the jiangnan region but also among japanese aficionados, for whom he often calligraphed titles.[85] he had been asked to create the masthead for the shenbao newspaper in 1872 and would be asked to do the same for the dianshizhai huabao; he had already done the calligraphy for major's preface in the latter. fig. 12: cover page of the novel lin lan xiang in seal script by shen gongzhi 沈共(拱) 之 (shen jinyuan 沈錦垣) (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1877). suiyuan xiashi (隨緣下士), “lin lan xiang xu” 林蘭香序 (preface to lin lan xiang) (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1877). the shenbaoguan asked prominent men of letters to write prefaces, and also often involved them in the editing. for novels this involved establishing a good textual base from a variety of manuscripts and prints; adding comments alerting the reader to particularly sophisticated literary devices that were being used, as was done to accompany the translation of bulwer-lytton's novel; adding a list of the personae and their connections; or adding a “key” that would highlight the historical figures lampooned through a literary figure, a technique that was used for the revised 1881 edition of rulin waishi and followed english precedents, for example, benjamin disraeli's coningsby.[86] bestowing these material and paratext markers of high-register works on novels helped to elevate the cultural status of the novel many years before reformers, such as liang qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929), adopted this already reformed genre of the novel as one of their platforms for articulating their political agenda. announcing the arrival of the “modern novel” to establish the potential of the novel as a literary form compatible with the demands of modern times and to signal its rise in the cultural hierarchy, an example was needed; this was provided by the shenbaoguan in the form of a serialized translation of edward bulwer-lytton's night and morning in 1873. this translation came with newly-written paratexts—advertisements, a book catalog entry, a preface, and inserted commentary—that were designed to contextualize this new and unusual work and to offer the contours of a new theory on the novel.[88] this novel and the paratexts together thus mark an important juncture in the development of the chinese novel. for the chinese reader, it was the earliest example of a modern novel because it dealt with contemporary events in real places and had commoners as main protagonists.[89] it was also one of the first to be identified as a “translation of a foreign novel.” the shenbao newspaper had previously, between may and june 1872, published shorter pieces, namely “a voyage to lilliput” from jonathan swift's gulliver's travels, “rip van winkle,” a story by washington irving, and “the story of the greek slave” from frederick marryat's the pacha of many tales. none were identified as fiction or as translations of western works.[90] bulwer-lytton's novel was extraordinary because it dealt with a modern foreign country—england— and because it depicted contemporary english society through highly realistic writing. the announcement of the serialization of xinxi xiantan (fig. 13) is thus the first time that a novel was introduced in a chinese language newspaper. we will therefore analyze it in detail as a first source for the aesthetic and cultural program behind the larger shenbaoguan novel publishing project. this will also establish a firm base for an eventual judgment as to whether the shenbaoguan remained on track or switched gear and priorities once it turned away from translation to publish novels originally written in chinese. fig. 13: announcement of the publication of xinxi xiantan (bulwer-lytton's night and morning), shenbao, january 4, 1873, front page. the work was serialized/summarized in the literary journal yinghuan suoji between january 1873 and 1875, and was later published in enlarged book form in 1875. according to ian watt's definition, the fact that it is set in real places, deals with contemporary events, and has commoners as main protagonists makes night and morning an example of a “modern” novel.[91] the announcement reads: newly translated english novel we are setting out to translate an english novel entitled idle talk mornings and nights for publication in the [literary magazine] jade splinters from the entire universe. each issue will carry three or four chapters so that within about one year the entire novel will be completed. those who are interested, please have a look at it. the esteemed gentlemen will have to purchase [the magazine] each month so as to avoid missing the overall story of this novel while being able to appreciate its flair.[92] 新譯英國小説 今擬於瀛寰瑣紀中譯刊英國小説一種，其書名昕夕閒談。每出瑣紀約刊三四章，計一年則可畢矣。所冀者，各贈顧觀看之。士君子務必逐月購閱，庶不失此書之綱領，而可得此書之意味耳。 the title of the announcement states that the work is a “novel,” xiaoshuo, and that its origin is english; the term “the english novel” offered “foreign” as a new ingredient in the chinese notion of the “extraordinary” in a novel. the title also aimed to elicit the readers' curiosity. it described the type of novel and in this case its identity as a translation. this set a precedent for later announcements of translated novels by other publishers. it also announced a new and different kind of publication method—serialization, which came with a new way of reading a novel by monthly installment and with the reminder to buy the new issue each month. this last was not a trivial aside: periodical subscriptions were still an unknown concept in china.[93] this novelty, the announcement continues, might find favor with the chinese reader: according to westerners, their novels are to both delight and cultivate the spirit, as well as to warn and regulate social behavior. now [as you have a chance] to read it, [you] can find out whether what they say is right or not. however, until now no chinese has seen an english novel, or heard of it. thus, our publishing house does not shirk the work needed for the translation, and will also shoulder the task of engraving [printing] it. if we succeed in filling this lacuna [in the knowledge of the chinese readers], our publishing house will be very fortunate; but if [the reader] believes that it was not worth reading or even feels disappointed, that indeed would be our failing.[94] 據西人云伊之小説大足以怡悅性情，懲勸風俗。今閱之而可知其言之確否。然英國小説則為華人目所未見耳所謂聞者也。本館不惜繙譯之勞力，任剞劂之役，拾遺補缺, 匡我不逮則本館幸甚，如或以爲不足觀而竟至失望，則本館之咎也。 the announcement justified publication of the novel as an effort to allow chinese readers to judge for themselves whether the twofold purpose westerners associated with the genre, namely to delight and to set standards for social behavior, was achieved. it defined the role of the publisher as that of offering the reader something new, extraordinary, and rare—in this case the translation of something chinese readers had never seen before, a western novel. it introduced the notion of an active relationship between the publisher and the reader by calling on the latter not merely to look, but also to form an opinion, even if it turned out to be a negative one; in which case, the fault rested squarely on the publisher's lack of judgment. the announcement also addresses the standing of the novel genre in the west: while this is a novel from the hands of a gifted man of letters in the west, with each topic and stroke having its deeper meaning, this translation will aim only at easy language and clear structure, with the modest goal of offering it to be enjoyed by both refined and common people for reading without unnecessary exertion. we would be honored if you, gentlemen, would patronize us by examining [the novel] and therefore make this announcement.[95] 惟此小説係西國慧業文人手筆，命意運筆各有深心，此番所譯僅取其詞語顯明，片段清楚，以爲雅俗共嘗而已，以便閱之者不費心目而已。幸諸君子其垂鑒焉。謹啟 the author is introduced as an englishman and a man of outstanding literary qualities, though his name, which would have been meaningless to chinese readers, was not given. in the west, men of such caliber were willing to entrust their deepest personal thoughts to what was considered a lowly genre in china. this not only enhanced the standing of the novel but also made it acceptable for the educated reader in china. at the same time it emphasized that the translation was geared towards easy comprehension, so that people of different educational levels could enjoy reading it. the announcement aimed at establishing direct communication with the reader, telling him what he was offered, how to read it, and why it should be read, and at the same time asking him to read in a critical spirit. instead of adopting the stance of a purveyor of absolute truth, it established the reader as the ultimate arbiter of cultured taste, suggesting with lighthearted self-irony that he/she might find the novel trite, despite the high-register promises of the announcement. this echoes the general strategy used by the shenbao of encouraging readers to articulate their own opinions on the editorial pages of the paper and submit newsworthy items as well as short lyrical and prose pieces for publication. it also plays on a refreshingly foreign sense of humor regarding the validity of one's own judgment. the reference to “western” discussions about the double function of novels to both delight and regulate social behavior echoes a promise that was expressed in many prefaces of even the most raucous late-ming novels and was a reaction to a shared anxiety about the dangers of novel-reading in europe and china. this shared cultural understanding was further fleshed out in the next layer of literary criticism of the novel after the announcement, the “preface” to the first installment of the chinese translation of night and morning. here lishao jushi (jiang zirang?), who was the translator as well as commentator, offered a number of bold new arguments regarding the importance of the novel,[96] setting the tone for a more theoretical and conceptual treatment of the genre xiaoshuo by giving a historical sketch of its origin and development. the origins of xiaoshuo go far back in time. yu chu's 虞初 zhou shuo 周說 (zhou anecdotes), with its nine hundred sections, marks the beginning of “mixed anecdotes” (zashuo 雜說);[97] the tangdai congshu 唐代叢書 (collected books from the tang dynasty), are the source from which sprang the “sundry reports” (suoji 瑣記);[98] and as we come to the yuan and ming dynasties we eventually have the “stories with comment” (pinghua 平話).[99] 小説之起，由來久矣。《虞初》九百，雜説之權輿，《唐代叢書》，瑣記之濫觴，降及元、明，聿有平話。 the xiaoshuo is thus a genre that developed in gradual and linear ways over time since the western han, starting with small loose tidbits and ending in long narratives of high complexity. at all stages, this development happened below and alongside the writing culture of the educated elite. where they have no basis in fact, they are adorned with wondrous miraculous elements, and when they simply report trivia, they highlight them with all sorts of sentiments. the result is that people outdo each other in their craze for listening [to these stories] and rush for them as if they were in a competition. tracing their original purpose, they basically had no aim other than to please people's eyes and ears. they serve the purpose of preserving tidbits from earlier times, attaching them to the unofficial histories of lowly officials so as to allow those who have fled officialdom to still have an idea of what is going on in the world.[100] 無稽之語，演之以神奇；淺近之言，出之以情理。於是人競樂聞，趨之若鶩焉。推原其意，本以取快人之耳目而已，本以存昔日之遺聞瑣事， 以附於稗官野史，使避世者亦可考見世事而已。 the main objective of the xiaoshuo is to please the eyes and ears, offering leisure and entertainment for “people” (ren 人). although these are not further specified they definitely included more than the literati elite. novels provided information about the times for educated people who had withdrawn from an active role in the world. with their focus on being fun to hear and read, it is no surprise that xiaoshuo were wildly successful with such audiences. the writer recognizes this potential and develops his own view of what this genre could and should do. he agrees with the entertainment potential, but suggests that rather than simply offering fun to nondescript “people,” or those outside the official circuit looking for insider gossip, the novel is ideal leisure reading for people busy in the world. in my opinion the main purpose of the novel is to delight the spirit and give pleasure to the soul, so that those who busy themselves with worldly affairs may completely abandon their worries and concerns and for a while allow their minds to take refuge in a realm of peace and comfort.[101] 予則謂小説者，當以怡神悅魄爲主，使人之碌碌此世者，咸棄其焦思繁慮，而暫遷其心於恬適之境者也。 the novel here possesses intrinsic value as an aesthetic form with an emotional impact that gives pleasure to the mind and heart. it is associated with the legitimate leisure-time of readers who are otherwise busily engaged in the world, probably a reference to the lifestyle of shanghai merchants. there had been attempts in earlier chinese literary theory to legitimize the novel by stressing its aesthetic function, but they had never been as straightforward and as to the point as this “preface.”[102] immediately thereafter the “preface” revalidates the lowly “entertainment” value of fiction by claiming that this fictional packaging can facilitate the inspiration of an entirely new set of readers with values and attitudes otherwise communicated only to the literati elite through dry canonical texts: at the same time [the novel] can stimulate a chivalrous spirit in the reader when he hears about the vigor of righteous heroism, and can stimulate his empathy when he learns of sad events. it can make him loathe evil when he hears about evil and appreciate goodness when he hears about goodness. this is what the ancients meant with their subtle hint regarding [the ability of literature to] “rouse one's conscience [through examples of goodness] and control one's propensity to dissipation [through examples of evil].” finally, they are of great help in understanding the multitude of things [in the world] and in getting a clear idea of human relationships.[103] 又令人之聞義俠之風，則激其慷慨之氣，聞憂愁之事, 則動其悽宛之情; 聞惡則深惡，聞善則深善，斯則又古人啓發良心懲創逸志之微旨。且又爲明於庶物，察於人倫之大助也。 through its emotional appeal the novel can inspire heroic righteousness, empathy with suffering, but also the loathing of evils such as dissipation, and the appreciation of goodness. it may even enhance knowledge and deepen one's understanding of human relations. it therefore has the potential to do exactly what earlier writers had claimed for poetry, the highest form of literature, and it can do more. the reference to “the ancients” used here is from shao can's 邵璨 (fl. 1475) xiangnang ji 香囊記 (records from a perfumed satchel): poetry is there to guide one's nature and one's emotions. what they approve of is able to mobilize man's benevolence, what they reject is able to discipline man's propensity to dissipation.[104] 詩以道性情，善者可以感發人之善心，惡者可以懲創人之逸志。 by referencing the novel's potential to arouse righteous heroism and empathy, to broaden knowledge, and to sharpen judgment, the preface elevates the genre even above poetry. this potential of the novel is realized through its aesthetic and emotional effects. in the shenbao announcement for xinxi xiantan, quoted above, the particular potential of the novel was understood to have been realized in western novels, and a “western” authority was quoted for this. here in the “preface” the point is made on a more general theoretical level using a rhetorical strategy. thus, the dividing line is not strictly between western and chinese novels, but between novels that are pure dissipation and those that also help the reader improve. the “preface” declares that although the teachings contained in the classics, biographies of worthy men, histories, and works by the philosophers are exceedingly valuable, they are read by only a small group of highly educated men. on the “middling talents” (zhong cai 中材) their message is lost. when they [the “middling talents”] hear these [canonical writings], they doze off and don't want to listen, and this simply because their style is simple and straightforward without elaborate details, and their language is stern without the thrill of light banter. a novel, however, produces a spectacular sight by being decked out and ornamented, covering the full range of merry laughter and angry curse. this prompts people to look more closely and listen attentively to it without realizing what they are doing. as its rushing flood is truly absorbing and the reader eagerly keeps up without tiring, its impact on people is by necessity effortlessly achieved, and inevitably its meaning sinks in deeply. who is there to say that the novel is just “small talk”?[105] 而中材則聞之而輒思臥，或並不慾聞；無他，其文筆簡當，無繁縟之觀也；其詞義嚴重，無談謔之趣也。若夫小説，則妝點雕飾，遂成奇觀；嬉笑怒駡，無非至文；使人注目視之，傾耳 we have here a blunt admission of the legitimacy of producing books for “middling talents,” also of the importance of the values and attitudes of people with enough education to read and write but who neither aspire to nor claim the status of scholar-officials. this argument about the advantages of the novel over the classics for the middling talents seemed to have had an impact as it was taken up by the late nineteenth-century political reformers kang youwei 康有爲 (1858–1927) and liang qichao, the promoters of the “new novel.”[106] it would be misreading the argument if this statement were taken to mean that novels in general, or these new novels from the west, were simply subsidiaries to canonical teaching, sweetened for the consumption of people without scholarly interest. since the taiping war—and including the taipings—much effort was made to redefine the canon as something essentially compatible with and supportive of a western style of modernity.[107] night and morning meets the criteria spelled out in the “preface” and fits into this recast agenda. it re-crafts a traditional literary form for modern purposes in the same manner as the canonical works were reconfigured. based on this extraordinarily lofty assessment of the novel's potential, the “preface” offers a direct challenge to tradition: “who is there to say that the novel is just 'small talk' [with no bearing on the grand issues and no commitment to proper values and attitudes]?” there is, however, one hitch in all this: the novel does have great and positive potential, especially because it reaches the “middling talents,” but its emotional impact can also lead readers astray: a writer for this very reason should not regard the scenes he is writing as if they could just be what he personally wanted to say. the difference between the deviant and the correct should definitely not be muddied, nor the representation of good and evil confused.[108] 雖然，執筆者于此，則不可視爲筆墨燕煙雲，可以惟吾所欲言 four “flaws” (bi 蔽) lurk here, for which famous chinese examples are given: if one pens only sentimental words about wind, flowers, snow, and moon, and writes only stories about boys and girls tenderly attached to each other, this will unavoidably come close to leading [readers] toward licentiousness. this is the first [potential] flaw [of a novel].[109] 使徒作風花雪夜之詞，記兒女纏綿之事，則未免近於導淫，其蔽一也。 the remaining three include seductive and exciting descriptions of swashbuckling outlaws (as in the shuihu zhuan), which might entice readers to become robbers; descriptions of cunning and treachery in loving detail (as in jin ping mei 金瓶梅 [the golden lotus][110]), which might prompt readers to become traitors; or filling a book with battle scenes and military stratagems (as in sanguo yanyi), which might prompt readers toward “loving disturbances.” “as long as novels avoid these ‛four flaws',” the “preface” declares, “they should be widely disseminated.”[111] a chinese reader would have easily identified the types of novels referred to here. the novel is treated here as a global genre, and indeed—probably not unbeknownst to the author of the “preface”—similar criticisms had been made in english, french, and german essays since the beginning of the nineteenth century. the “preface” ends with a discussion of night and morning: as to the famous scholar from the west who produced this work, he made sure that the wealthy will not be able to snatch a good reputation, and that the good will not have to fish for fame. the true gentleman's behavior is as he really is, while the fake gentleman's true nature will eventually be unmasked. this is what is called “casting tripods to provide illustrations of [dangerous] beasts [as done by yu the great in antiquity],” and what is called “illuminating the water's depths by putting light on a rhinoceros horn.”[112] 今西國名士，撰成此書，務使富者不得沽名，善者不必釣譽，真君子神彩如生，僞君子神情畢露，此則所謂鑄鼎象物者也，此則所謂照渚然犀者也。 most importantly, we note a shift in the social status and identity of authorship of the novel. night and morning is not written by an anonymous writer who would rather not sign his own name to the work, or by an author who while signing his name to the work is known to have repeatedly failed the imperial examination. here we have a novel by a learned man from the west. two points are made: first, that westerners also write novels, and second, that the authors are respected men of letters, and in this case that the writer is even a “famous person in the west” (xiguo mingshi). from such a person a combination of learning and universally shared values may be reasonably expected, and the novel will provide a guided tour to the “customs and habits” of the people in what was the most successful and powerful nation at the time. the commentaries inserted into the translation highlighted modern features ranging from the postal system that also served as public transport to the ease and safety with which young women could travel. the underlying moral values that govern societies in the east and west are implicitly regarded by the author of the “preface” as being the same. accordingly, i have translated [this novel] section for section so as to make it into a xiaoshuo in chinese. entitled xinxi xiantan (idle talk mornings and nights), it will be serialized here [in this periodical]. it is certainly significant that this [novel] will broaden the information level of the chinese lands, and provide details about the habits and customs of europe. when you gentlemen are perusing this book, you should most certainly not equate it with a run-of-the-mill pinghua or a xiaoshuo of no benefit.[113] 因逐節翻譯之，成爲華字小説。書名昕夕閒談，陸續附刊。其所以廣中土者之見聞，所以記歐洲之風俗者，猶其淺焉者也? 諸君子之閱是書者，尚勿等諸尋常之平話、無益之小説也可。 in short, the author of a novel has a duty to impart the correct attitudes and values to the reader. moreover, the novel is the optimal medium through which to inform the reader about foreign societies and england above all. it thus becomes the modern counterpart of the bronze tripod cast by yu in antiquity in order to familiarize his people with the beneficial spirits and the dangerous monsters lurking “out there,” and with the rhinoceros horn that, once lit, has the magical ability to penetrate the dark flow of state, society, and individual through time in the search for strange and precious elements of lasting value.[114] little attention is paid to the artistic quality of bulwer-lytton's novel and the chinese works beyond a few statements about their emotional appeal and rich content, but the literary comments attached to the first chapters of the translation of night and morning show great respect for the literary technique and refinement of the author.[115] in a comment on the first chapter, for example, the critic highlighted with great appreciation the foreshadowing technique used to introduce the book's key protagonist long before he actually appears. it is a technique he associates with the jieziyuan huazhuan 芥子園畫傳 (painting manual from the mustard seed garden),[116] which teaches about painting a moon by surrounding an untouched circle of the silk or paper with clouds. the western novel, in other words, uses artistry as sophisticated as the most refined aspects of chinese culture. when the novel was published in book form in 1875,[117] the shenbao ran a second announcement. this introduced two new conceptual points: by referring to “the devotion of a gentleman of valor” (haoshi zhi fenghuai 豪士之風懷) and “the affections of a beautiful lady” (meiren zhi qingyi 美人之情意), it introduced the notion of characters as social and literary types and narrative features as tropes. in the context of the original english novel, this typology had an added significance. xinxi xiantan complete edition on sale: xinxi xiantan, which we have just published, is the translation of an english novel. it vividly describes the devotion of a gentleman of valor and narrates in detail the affections of a beautiful lady; it sketches the mountains and rivers, pavilions and terraces, and records the [details down to the] shapes of insects and fishes, grass and trees. without exception, every sort and type of [characters, scenes, and objects presented in the novel] is completely new, and all are so vivid and immediate that they seem to come alive. you honorable gentlemen near and far are likely to desire to be the first to read the book and to want to view it in its entirety. the book has now been bound, and will be issued in three volumes. to retrieve the cost of paper and labor, the price is four jiao. the book will be on sale on the seventh of this month without delay. if you wish to patronize us by reading the book, please purchase it from us directly or from our shenbao salesmen. if you reside in other cities, it is sold by our newspaper's salesmen. announced herewith by our company.[118] 昕夕閒談全帙出售 啟者：本舘館所排印之昕夕閒談一書，係從英國小說而譯出者也。其間描摹豪士之風懷，縷述美人之情意，寫山水亭臺之狀，記蟲魚草木之形，無不色色俱新，栩栩欲活；是以遠近諸君，爭願得以先覩為快，并欲窺其全豹。茲已裝訂成册。計每部三本收回紙價工洋四角。準於月之初七日出書。如家賜閱，祈向本舘或賣申報人購取。若在外埠，則仍專關賣報者出售也。此佈本舘告白 the terms “gentleman of valor” and “beautiful lady” clearly echo the chinese motif of the “talented scholar and beautiful lady,” but the emphasis here is on social types—that is, the particular not the universal. the novel is not about generic types, rather, it is about the “devotion” of a particular man and the “affections” of a lady. it is the interaction between the specific attitudes of these protagonists that generates the novel's plot. they are not merely the cogs and wheels of the plot machine. the second point is the value of the new and highly specific in the narrative (“all are so vivid and immediate that they seem to come alive”) as positive characteristics of this novel. the two points have already been noted in the shumu, and have some echo in chinese “brush notes,” narratives which, while not developing tropes and social types, do emphasize specificity and concreteness. the announcements and the preface for xinxi xiantan suggest that the considerations guiding this young publishing house under its foreign manager in its selection of works of fiction for publication were far more complex than simple profit concerns.[119] the aesthetics of the novel in this assessment are characterized by an emphasis on contemporary life, a concrete and realistic narrative, and a vivid and lively rendering of scenes and characters. while no attempt was made to draw a sharp line between traditional and modern, foreign and chinese novels, the aesthetic criteria clearly signaled a modern sensibility that was linked to the development of new media, such as the newspaper. the language used in the announcements for the chinese novels follows in exactly these tracks. in other words, the shenbaoguan did not change tack when it switched to the publication of rare older and unpublished new chinese novels. rather, it set out to discover an indigenous source that fit the sensibilities of the new and modern environment into which it was projecting its publications. the aesthetic criteria of the shenbaoguan's novel publishing having outlined the conceptual framework of the shenbaoguan book publications as well as some of the material, cultural, social, and marketing features that helped to reposition the novel within the literary and social hierarchy, we will now turn to the core issue of this study, the aesthetic thinking that guided the selection of novels for publication and the possible transcultural dimensions in which it was embedded. our main source for this will be the introductions of these titles given in the shenbao “announcements” of newly published books.[120] a close study of these announcements has convinced me that a reading strategy that reduces them to marketing tools is ahistorical and discards what is one of our only extant primary sources for early aesthetic reflections on the modern novel in chinese. entitled gaobai, “announcement,” or benguan gaobai 本館告白, “announcement from our company,” these communications, which were often signed by major, were printed on the first page of the shenbao preceding the editorial. (figs. 14 a–b) forming the basis for the paper's daily communication with its readers, they would often contain an apology for the delay of the paper's delivery on the previous day, a request that readers suggest titles worth publishing, a mention of major's search for a good copy of a specific title, or an announcement of the imminent publication of a book with a short introduction and critique of the work's literary style followed by the title, price, and exact date of publication. these shenbaoguan announcements were an innovation that made full use of the advantage of having books, journals, image reproductions, and the newspaper published by the same house. they were primarily an instrument of informing, as well as keeping alive and up-to-date, a community of relatively educated men and women who would hopefully consider this “their” publishing house and would be motivated to contribute.[121] none of the publishers in london, leipzig, paris, or edinburgh could rely on a similar combination of marketing tools.[122] fig. 14a: “xinshu chushou” 新書出售 (new books for sale) [signed] benguan gaobai 本館告白 (advertisement from our company). shenbao, may 1, 1877, 1. fig. 14b: “shumu fashou” 書目發售 (publication and sale of [the shenbaoguan] book catalog) [signed] zunwenge zhu shou bu 尊文閣主手佈 (announced by zunwenge zhu [ernest major] personally). shenbao, july 10, 1877. seen in the context of late qing book publishing and the novel's low status, which was further highlighted by the negative treatment of the genre in the court's edicts, these announcements are remarkable in themselves. focusing on the writing style and the aesthetics of the narrative rather than on the content of the novel, they reveal a light touch that appealed to a wider audience. they allow us to extract the literary values emphasized by the company as its criteria for modern literary merit, which would in turn form the basis for upgrading the cultural and social standing of this genre altogether. the shenbao announcements of newly printed novels were the first public discussion of most of these works. unlike the entries in the shenbaoguan book catalogs, they focused on literary merit rather than on content. from these shenbao announcements as well as the language used in requests to readers to suggest novels for publishing or to help locate rare copies, one can extract the company's views on the kind of novels it deemed worthy of publication. the shenbaoguan “announcements” were separated from the advertisements by their privileged place in the paper, and they did not follow the rhetorical formulae found, for example, in the medicine ads and occasionally even in book ads by other publishers on the shenbao's advertisement pages (fig. 5 and figs. 14a–b).[123] there is no intrinsic contradiction in reading these announcements as a form of advertisement for books printed by the company and reading them as a communication by the company about the literary merits and entertainment value of these books. even if one were to assume that from the company's perspective we are dealing with a marketing strategy, when seen in the context of the novel's low social status and the severe and repeated court injunctions against such publications, these announcements take on their own broader cultural and social meaning; all the more since they were published in what, by any standards, was the prime space in the paper. the use of this page for the announcement of novels claims an elevated space for them and makes them an organic part of the communication in a paper that banked on establishing its reliability and probity with readers. although obviously designed to promote the novels, the announcements were unique since they came in the form of literary discussions that often included critical assessments and comparisons with other works. in this study, we shall read them as the first public entry into these novels and as part of a staggered series of literary paratexts, with the entries in the shumu and its sequel shumu xuji forming the second, and the actual prefaces, “editorial principles” (fanli 凡例), and comments in the published novels forming the third layer.[124] as mentioned earlier, cai erkang emphasized major's role in the selection of the books—including novels—that were eventually published by the company. his contemporaries often remarked with admiration on major's passion for rediscovering chinese books for publication and with gratitude on his willingness to publish new works. the famous late qing writer and journalist wang tao 王韜 (1828–1897) wrote, for instance: 1875: the master of the cherish the news studio [e. major] has a commitment to find and compile books with 'records of the strange' [that is, fiction, cy].[125] 嵗乙亥，尊聞閣主人有搜輯志異書之志。 the book announcements in the shenbao seem to indicate that major based his decisions on a personal perusal of the manuscripts.[126] as we have seen, the shenbaoguan switched strategy in its novel publishing at an early date, moving to publish novels written in chinese and never returning to its earlier focus on translations. we can see a similar process unfold a few years later. assuming that there was no tradition of news painting in china, major opted initially for reprints of western news paintings (to which chinese captions were added) that he thought might be of interest in china. once he discovered the illustrated prints sold on the street during the early days of the franco-chinese war in 1884, he switched strategy, hired some of the people involved in making these prints, started the dianshizhai huabao, and discontinued using western illustrations altogether.[127] was this switch to chinese novels accompanied by a change in selection criteria, or did the shenbaoguan search out chinese works that fit the mold it had initially assumed could only be filled by western works? from the outset the company seems to have kept to a rather consistent general baseline regarding the kinds of novel it intended to publish, whether these were translations or original chinese works: they should not contradict basic social values and should be entertaining in their capacity to generate wonder. thus far, it confirmed the criteria for the quality of a novel developed by late ming and early qing commentators. the shenbaoguan would publish neither boring edifications in literary costume nor sexually explicit novels. incidentally, these were the same criteria that dominated the english discussion at the time.[128] but the company not only paid attention to ethical sensibilities and the interest of their readers to be entertained, it also followed a rather clear set of aesthetic criteria. in the very first announcement in the shenbao on november 13, 1874, through which the company sought manuscripts for publication, these criteria are already fully formulated. our company is currently hunting for new and extraordinary, captivating and unusual, out-of-the-way as well as subtle and elegant books with the intention to publish them in due sequence to form a collection. but our familiarity [with such works] is limited since we have only a few of them in our book collection. if there are family heirlooms and rare manuscripts in the [holdings] of esteemed book collectors and luckily you do not want to keep them locked away but are willing to share them across the land, send them wrapped to our company and we will directly reproduce them in printing. the original copy we will treat with the utmost care without doing any damage to it and once the work is done, we will send it back packaged and with the proper address, and we will add as a gift new [printed copies of your] book which you might use as gifts for your friends' perusal. we eagerly look forward to your esteemed checking your bookshelves and sending such [treasures] to our mailbox, this truly is our hope. announcement from our company.[129] 本館現在搜求新奇艷異幽僻瑰瑋之書，擬各陸續擺印彙作叢書。惟見聞有限藏弆不多。如有藏書之家珍庋秘本者，幸勿寶之帳中概允公之海內函達本館,卽當代為印行，其原本自必珍惜寶護，不使傷損。竣工後封識繳還，并可奉贈新書，以為分貽親友之用也。專望檢之鄴架，命彼郵筒。實為切盼本館告白。 this was a strategic move. on the same day, directly after this first announcement was made, there came a second. while the first searched for books, primarily works of fiction, of which no printed editions were known, the second announcement looked for books that had once been in print but were now unavailable. it contained a list of titles the company was searching for and offered to buy them for a good price. this innovation was the polar opposite of the prevailing practice where the author paid the publisher for having a book published. the first response came just eleven days later when three different manuscripts were offered, and on january 22, 1875, major answered and accepted mr. mu tao's 慕陶 offer to provide a sequel to pu songling's 蒲松齡 famous collection of stories, the liaozhai zhiyi 聊齋志異 (selection of strange tales from the liaozhai studio), for publication.[130] evidently the shenbaoguan was successful in mobilizing its readers to join the enterprise of making lost works publicly available. the company continually emphasized and praised the willingness of collectors to share their goods with the world.[131] of the adjective pairs “new and stunning, captivating and extraordinary, out-of-the-way as well as subtle and elegant” the first two were most relevant for novels.[132] combined with these were the notions of the “new” (xin 新) and the “lively” (huo 活). together these combinations formed the terms most frequently used in the shenbao announcements of newly published novels. we have already seen that the shumu gave the prefix “new,” xin, to the shuobu category to mark the particular character of the shenbaoguan novels: these works should be “new and extraordinary” (xinqi新奇); “captivating and unusual” (yanyi艷異); “out-of-the-way” (youpi 幽僻); and “subtle and elegant” (guiwei瑰瑋). the 1875 announcement for the book edition of the bulwer-lytton translation xinxi xiantan praised its ability to present “every sort and type of characters, scenes and objects in a completely fresh and new way, and evoke them in a vivid and immediate manner to the point of their seeming to be alive.” (sese juxin, xuxu yu huo 色色俱新，栩栩欲活).[133] in the 1877 announcement for nü caizi 女才子 (women of genius)[134], these two concepts were developed to include the reader. the announcement reads: women of genius is a work by yuanhu yanshui sanren 鴛湖煙水散人. it comes in twelve chapters, with each chapter focusing on the story of one person. these are feng xiaoqing 馮小青, yang biqiu 楊碧秋, zhang xiaolian 張小蓮, cui shu 崔淑, zhang wanxiang 張畹香, chen xiaru 陳霞如, lu yunqing 盧雲卿, hao xiang'e 郝湘俄, wang yan 王琰, xie cai 謝彩, zheng yuqi 鄭玉姬, and song wan 宋琬.[135] the different [chapters] focus on telling each woman's character, describing her looks, and recording the events in her life. their fragrance wafts in the air, and their image comes alive under the [writer's] brush. the biographies of these women select their most outstanding qualities and describe them. [thus] for the reader, it is as though [he is actually] entering into the fragrant kingdom [of the beauties], and visiting the range of jade mountains. even after the book is closed, its impressions will linger. there has never been a print edition of this work, which is why it was not passed on. after a special search our publishing house discovered [the manuscript] in a colleague's[136] house and now publishes it in the [deluxe] format modeled on the juzhen ban editions. in ten days we will be able to complete the printing. the work is carefully edited and neatly bound, further delighting the eyes.[137] 女才子一書為鴛湖煙水散人所著。共十二卷。每卷述一人之事。計馮小靑，楊碧秋，張小蓮，崔淑，張畹香，陳霞如，盧雲鄉，郝湘娥，王琰，謝彩，鄭玉姬，宋琬，計十有二人。皆敍其性情，述其容貌，記其事實。生香活色，湧現豪端。且諸人生平之撰著，擇其尤者，悉載於篇。閱之者，如入衆香國，如遊羣玉山。雖掩卷而餘芬未散也。特向無刊板，故不傳於世。本館特從友人處覓得，仿聚珍板排印之。十日之間便已竣事。且校對詳細，裝訂整齊，尤可悅目。 the vivid writing will engage the reader so that he feels he is experiencing in person the fascinating world of these women who would otherwise remain invisible in the “inner quarters.” the novel's capacity to “bring to life” denotes a literary quality that makes reading it a pleasure. committed to the cultured entertainment of its readers, the shenbaoguan spared no effort in locating this kind of treasure and publishing it in style. wit and liveliness were also celebrated in the 1880 announcement for hou xiyou ji 後西遊記 (sequel to journey to the west). it implicitly places the xiyou ji in the category of the “allegorical novel” (yuyan 寓言). this makes a reading-guide necessary, and it offers this sequel as a witty and entertaining key to the mysteries of the original: the xiyou ji essentially belongs to the [category of] allegory. the commentators have defined it as a work for self-cultivation and the enlightenment of one's mind. this indeed shows depth of understanding. however, although [these commentators] have understood the true warp [of this work], their explanations are insufficient for an understanding of the work's subtle purport regarding the former heaven, the previous invisible existence of all things. neither are they able to fathom the true interpretation of the visible state of existence. for these reasons, this hou xiyou ji has been written. it is written in a manner akin to jokes and curses; [the author] uses his humorous brush to act as a rod to arouse one from one's follies. this has always been a method to wake up the dumb and foolish. as the [existing] woodblock prints of this work are barely legible and full of mistakes, our company has reset them with movable type and printed them again. proofreading has been handled with great care, and fine workmanship marks the binding. the work will go on sale on the tenth day of this month.[138] 西游記一書，本屬寓言。說者謂其養性明心，頗有解悟。然而眞經雖獲，索解無從尋妙義於先天，究莫識眞詮於後起。此後西遊記一書，所由作也。記中所載類近嬉笑怒罵；以詼諧之筆為捧喝之經。亦未始非喚醒痴愚之一法也。是書坊本，漫漶兼多訛誤。本館倣用活字板，重為排印，校對詳愼，裝訂精工，定於本月初十日出書。 without great fanfare, this announcement offers key terms for the definition of allegory, the purpose of allegorical novels, and the function of literary commentaries for such works—namely, to decipher the “subtle purport” (miaoyi 妙義) and “true interpretation” (zhenquan 真詮), hidden in these allegories. in an ironic twist, it then offers a novel that omits this type of ponderous commentary in favor of the deft language and imagery of jokes and curses, which manages to shed a much clearer light on the work's “subtle purport,” quite apart from bringing it close in tone to the journey of the west itself. the announcement for one of these novels goes to extremes in praise of its qualities: “the extraordinary twists of the imagination and the subtle turns in the diction of this book are just about uncanny.” (shi shu shexiang zhi qi, cuoci zhi miao, ji bu keyi siyi 是書設想之奇，措詞之妙，幾不可以思議)[139] another example is the 1875 announcement for kuaixin bian 快心編 (the teaser, or literally, a book that makes your heart go pitter-patter). in addition to the title that is its own advertisement, it is praised as “delightfully new and extraordinary” (xinqi kexi 新奇可喜). the rumor that this work existed led the shenbaoguan to extraordinary effort and expense to locate a copy: our publishing house has recently succeeded in purchasing a complete [copy of] the teaser from japan. the work consists of sixteen volumes. it is a chinese work that found its way to japan. however, [in china] the novel's printing blocks were destroyed long ago, and there were no reprints [recently made] in japan. for this reason, we have made special efforts to bring [this work] back, have reduced it to a ten-volume format, and printed it with movable type. the thirty-two chapters of the novel are divided into three sections. the stories described in this book are all delightfully new and extraordinary; it almost makes one slap the table and cry out in admiration. it is a work, furthermore, without obscene language, and thus is suitable reading for everyone.[140] 本館近從東洋購得快心編，全帙計共十六冊。原自中國流傳而去，但其板早經毀失，卽東洋亦無翻刻，故特携回，用活字版排印縮成十本。按此書分上，中，下三集，共三十二回。所述之事，俱新奇可喜，幾令人拍案呌絕，而又無淫亂等詞，是以無論何人均可披閱。 the teaser is in fact quite a lurid adventure story, complete with killing, revenge, sworn brotherhood, chance meeting, kidnapping, and love at first sight. the anonymous author of the preface to the original work claims that this novel “could rid the reader of anger and bitterness and soothe all indignation [toward this unjust world]” (足以破忿悶而抒不平).[141] according to the “editorial principles” (fanli 凡例), printed before the text of the novel proper, it excelled in “realistic depictions” (bizhen 逼真) of the “ways of the world” (shiqing 世情), without falling into the conventional and sentimental “talented scholar and beauty” trope. while the novel “does discuss the world at large, it avoids the common practice of long and empty diatribes; it is a novel, in short, to evoke the ways of the world like a mirror, for the innocents to be vindicated and for the wicked to be ashamed.”[142] the shenbaoguan added its own new and extraordinary element to the story by tracking down a copy in japan and repatriating this delightful work that nevertheless did not fail to “vindicate the innocents” and “make the wicked ashamed.” obviously, these notions, which were so pervasive in the novel announcements, were not used for works such as the jingji zuangu 經藉纂故 (reference sources for classical studies), ruan yuan's 阮元 (1764–1849) supremely dry reference work collecting word glosses by earlier commentators, which was very useful for textual criticism (and was also published by the shenbaoguan).[143] after the taiping onslaught on “devilish” books, reference works like this probably did not need glowing words to be attractive to scholars and students preparing for their examinations or officials trying to revive scholarship.[144] but while the company was very much committed to publishing books of high learning, its unabashed emphasis on the entertainment quality of the works it sought for publication shows that it did not share the pretentious disdain for such works that was common, especially during the qing period. the shenbaoguan calculated that even buyers of the jingji zuangu would go for such works if they came with the proper status and cultural packaging. these criteria suggest a positive appreciation and welcoming of the fast-changing new urban lifestyle and its emerging values together with a rejection of the sedate, stable, and familiar attitudes and patterns of life depicted in most earlier works of fiction. in literary terms, this emphasis on the “extraordinary”, qi 奇, rejects the long, often tediously predictable romances between talented scholars and beauties that had dominated the scene since the eighteenth century.[145] the second aesthetic criterion for shenbaoguan novel publishing was jishi 紀實, what we have called above “realistic” in the sense either of a reference to actual events and circumstances, or a realistic mode of description that could also be used for invented and fantastic persons and occurrences.[146] this emphasis dominated much of the shenbaoguan publishing program right down to the biographies of courtesans, the travelogues, the news paintings with their riots, fires, monsters, and freak births in the dianshizhai huabao, the paintings selected for lithography reproduction, and the company's reprint of the gigantic imperial gujin tushu jicheng 古今圖書集成 (compilation of old and new illustrated books), with its many technical illustrations. ”records of real events” (jishi) focus on all things factual and experienced or investigated personally.[147] in the shenbaoguan context, this included the “realities” of war, social and political life, or travel and leisure. it is an emphasis that literary texts based on personal experiences shared with newspaper reporting. in that sense, recording the real and illustrating the specific both draw their interest from dealing with things that are stunning and extraordinary, that is, qi. this is illustrated, for example, in the announcement for the yingchuang yicao 螢窗異草 (curious jottings from the studio lit by fireflies): this is a book where the real is so extraordinary and fantastic, and the literary style is so graceful and elegant, that it is an outstanding literary work of the shuobu [category] that is on a par with the liaozhai [collection of stories by pu songling].”[148] 此書事實之奇幻，文筆之娟秀，與《聊齋》相仿佛, 說部中之佳構也。 the real can be so fantastic that it seems illusionary. furthermore, the ”real” is only of interest if it is fantastic. the emphasis on the “real” and the “realistic” is evident, for example, in the 1874 shenbao announcement for rulin waishi: this novel draws an exact copy of the ways of the world and people's emotions; [the images it captures] are vivid and in exact likeness; all [the characters and scenes] come alive from the tip of the brush. for example, the manners of the country-gentry; inside scenes at government offices; the ignorance of famous literati; the stupidity of scholars; the spleens of sons of dukes and rich officials; the slang of prostitutes and parasites; and the antics of roaming strong-men. [this novel] truly resembles the vivid images of the world's [monsters] cast [as a warning] upon the great tripods [made by yü the great][149] and will make one split one's sides and dissolve in laughter. best of all, it is also suitable for both the refined and the rustic reader while being fully appreciated by all of them.[150] 其書中描摹世態人情，無不窮形盡相，活現毫端。如鄉紳之習氣，衙署之情形，名士之陋，書生之獃，公子闊官之脾氣，娼伎帮閒之口吻，遊方把勢之身叚，眞屬鑄鼎象物，殊可噴飯解頤。尤妙在雅俗皆宜，有目共賞。 this announcement praises the novel as an “exact copy of the ways of the world and people's emotions; [the images it captures] are vivid and in exact likeness.” this emphasis on “realistic depictions” is not found in earlier chinese literary criticism. the announcement conceptualizes the characters as social types with a shared behavioral pattern. it moves away from the dominant view of the chinese novel, articulated by the founders of chinese novel theory, such as jin shengtan 金聖嘆 (1608–1661) and zhang zhupo 張竹坡 (1670–1698), which deemed the portrait of a singular character as the highest sign of artistic achievement.[151] the reference to such types is also found in other novel announcements after xinxi xiantan, indicating that this concept had become a tool of literary criticism and a way to evoke interest through the pleasure of recognizing a familiar social type.[152] accuracy in the depiction of such types was seen as a mark of quality. (this aesthetic appreciation will later resurface in the late-qing exposé novels that thrived on recognizable social types). a commitment to the “real” and historically verifiable can be seen in the shenbao announcement of the second edition of the rulin waishi in 1875: while rulin waishi belongs to the [”lowly”] novel genre, it has nonetheless opened a new path [in writing] with its supreme irony and the realism of its narrative. it will be appreciated by gentry and merchants throughout the land. our publishing house originally published this novel with movable letters in a print run of one thousand. it was sold out within ten days. those who came late regretted that they were not able to get a copy. we have therefore decided to issue another 1,500 copies[153] in a [new] critically revised edition. this will also include a postface by mr. jin from shangyuan 上元金君 (jin he 金和, 1819–1895), in which the [real] name of the author and the names of the characters [will reveal] that they are not merely products of the imagination but real persons who can be identified.[154] 儒林外史一書，雖係小說，而詼諧之妙，叙述之實，足別開蹊徑。 宜為海內仕商所賞鑑。本舘前用活字版排印千部，曾不浹句而便卽銷罄。在後購閱者俱以來遲，弗獲為憾。是以近又詳加讐校重印一千五百部，幷附以上元金君跋語，俾共知作者之姓名，而幷知書中所述之人，亦皆歷歷可考，非同憑空臆造也。 to emphasize the realistic character of the novel, a key was added—another first, modeled after a european fashion[155]—to identify the real-life counterparts of the novel's characters. as we shall see, this did not involve a degrading of the fantasy elements in the novel. with this double emphasis, novels without the “four flaws” discussed above could be included in a book series with works of recent high scholarship, literati “brush notes,” and up-to-date information and reportage. the emphasis on the real and realistic in the announcement is echoed in the 1876 preface by zhang wenhu 張文虎 (1808–1885), a scholar of great learning and renown, whose edition of rulin waishi, together with his comments, made him the leading authority on this text.[156] writing under the pen name tianmu shanqiao 天目山樵, he offered his critique: while the writing of rulin waishi stays within the parameters of shuihu zhuan and the jin ping mei, its boldness does not come close [to theirs]. when it comes to sketching the affairs of the world, however, it is so true to the situation and underlying patterns that, without having to point explicitly at a particular individual, the spirit conveyed by its images always fits what is seen in social intercourse. it can be used as a mirror for others as well as oneself.[157] 外史用筆是不離水滸傳、金瓶梅範圍，魄力則不及遠甚。然描寫世事實情實理，不必確指其人而遺貌取神皆酬接中所頻見。可以鏡人，可以自鏡。 the same emphasis on the contemporary and the real is found in the 1878 announcement for the duwu'an congchao 獨悟蓭叢抄 (duwu'an collection), which included the first publication of shen fu's 沈復 (shen sanbai 沈三白) seminal, lively, and “realistic” memoir fusheng liuji. the announcement claims that the artistic quality of the work is derived from the vividness of its scenes, which are “as though in front of one's eyes” (ru zai muqian 如在目前), as if “one was personally on the scene” (ru shenqin qi jing 如身親其境), and from its emotional effect, which is such as “to overwhelm the reader to the point of crying” (duzhe xiaohun wen zhi suanbi 讀者銷魂聞之酸鼻).[158] in major's signed 1884 announcement for the first publication of fengyue meng[159], ”the real” and the personal have become full quality markers for a work of fiction. as this was the first public announcement regarding an original novel published by the shenbao and reflects its publishing policy, it deserves to be quoted in full: hanshang mengren is the author of fengyue meng; hiding it in his cupboard, he did not show it to people randomly, for it is all based on what he himself had experienced and had personally seen. now that he has discovered our publishing house with its movable type and its policy of print to order, he has commissioned us to print [the work] and to bring it to the world's attention. having some leisure during a trip, i read it through, and it is indeed a work that can enlighten those who are besotted: it is not merely a portrayal of courtesans and their clients. the novel will go on sale on the twenty-seventh; it has thirty-two chapters, and will be in four volumes. it costs exactly three jiao, and will be sold through the normal channels.[160] 䢴上蒙人著有風月夢，庋藏行篋未肯輕以示人，盖皆其身所經歴，目所親覩者。現知本舘有活字版可以代人排印，因諄託刋刷問世。旅窓無事，偶一繙閱，誠足喚醒痴迷，不僅为紅粉靑衫寫照也。 the novel deals with yangzhou courtesans and their clients. unlike traditional idealizations of the grand courtesans of the past, this novel is set during the author's lifetime and in effect exposes many of the shadier business practices of courtesan establishments as well as describing some of the games courtesans and clients play on each other. as the novel had come to the press in manuscript form and the shenbaoguan was the first to print it, the company was relatively free to define it in its own terms and to emphasize its authentic character and realistic descriptions. it should be noted that none of the announcements quoted hitherto used abstract theoretical terms, but instead assumed that their chinese readership would appreciate true-to-life descriptions. fig. 15: hanshang mengren, preface to fengyue meng (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1884), 1. the authenticity and realism praised here are by implication different from the real life base claimed for widely-read earlier novels such as honglou meng. in its introduction, the author claimed that the novel was based on his own personal experience.[161] however, given the strong buddhist framing of the story, in which the novel unfolds as the autobiography of a stone, there is no realistic agenda at work. the author's claim thus indicates autobiographical rather than literary authenticity. the realism mentioned in the shenbaoguan announcements, on the other hand, draws on a european literary fashion of the time, which with its critical or ironic descriptions of urban environments and its social types was linked aesthetically to the rise of the press and thus to newspaper writing and reading. one reason the author of fengyue meng kept the manuscript hidden may have been its unusually critical stance on what had been until then the canonized idealization of the “talented scholar and beautiful lady” literary motif. none of the characters in this novel are depicted in an idealized manner. this emphasis on an exposé based on personal experience was new to discussions of the novel. within the aesthetic criterion exhibited by the shenbaoguan novel-publishing program, and as is evident in the first literary translations published in the shenbao newspaper, major had no problem juxtaposing the fantastic and grotesque with the “realistic.” indeed, a similar juxtaposition could be found in english eighteenth-century fiction such as gulliver's travels or the monk and in ming novels such as xiyou ji or rou putuan 肉蒲團 (the carnal prayer mat).[162] major's awareness that many chinese readers would accept fantastic narratives was first exhibited in 1872 in the shenbao's translation of “a voyage to lilliput” from jonathan swift's gulliver's travels as tanying xiaolu 談瀛小錄 (notes on countries overseas),[163] and of washington irving's “rip van winkle” as yi shui qishi nian 一睡七十年 (asleep for seventy years).[164] deliberately including the notion of the fantastic in the categories of literary appreciation, the shenbaoguan strongly supported novels, both old and new, that were written in this mode.[165] since the late ming and early qing, the novel had received increased critical attention, even from authors who were willing to use their real names. this marked the beginning of an improved status for the novel, and reflected the advent of a new urban readership and of commercial printing. hitherto, most critical attention had been devoted to novels with an emphasis on human emotions and interactions described in a realistic narrative mode, such as shuihu zhuan, jin ping mei, and later honglou meng. the shenbaoguan announcements considered pieces that “indulge in the wildest fantasy” (yixiang tiankai 異想天開), and that offered a “multitude of confusing strange images” (luli guangluan 陸離光亂), a welcome and original enrichment of the contemporary novel scene written in a realistic vein. evidence for this includes the announcements for dong yue's xiyou bu and zhang nanzhuang's hedian the announcement for supplement to “journey to the west” reads: our company has recently published supplement to “journey to the west,” a work that indulges in the wildest fantasies. not a word or sentence goes without the extreme [expression] of a multitude of confusing and strange images. compared to the earlier work [xiyou ji], which entrusted [its narrative] to empty illusions, this is even more fantastic. yet it follows the directions of the earlier novel at every juncture. after each sitting, one claps the table in delight. it is truly an extraordinary paradigm among novels.[166] 本舘近排印西游補一書。其書異想天開，無字無句不極陸離光怪之致；較之前書，託迹虛無，尤為想入非非。而處處仍跟定前書線索，每讀一過，令人拍案呌絕。誠小說之奇觀也。 the announcement for hedian reads: ”from what idiom does that come?” is an expression in everyday speech, and today there is a manuscript actually entitled from what idiom? this work is by mr. zhang nanzhuang from shanghai. it has never been printed. during the qianlong and jiaqing eras [1736–1821], he was one of the ”ten commoners” from [the district of] shangyi [in shanxi province].[167] the novel has ten chapters, which we have bound into two volumes. it speaks the language of ghosts and indeed has quite a bit of ghostly fun. there is a lot of shanghai dialect. it is an exceedingly funny and entertaining read.[168] 出於何典，是人口頭語也。而今竟有其書曰何典。係上海張南莊先生所著。向無刋本。先生於乾嘉時，為上邑十布衣中之一。是書凡十回，裝成兩册。說鬼話而頗有鬼極，其辭句則吳下諺語居多。閱之實堪噴飯。 the novel certainly lives up to this announcement with its grotesquely satirical characters and use of thick vernacular. the promise of no obscene language is undermined by the introduction of one of the protagonists as “miss refuse-to-enter-the-bedroom.” by upgrading narratives of the fantastic and grotesque, these announcements avoided the moral platitudes that were traditionally used to justify the writing and reading of a novel (even if they were easily discernable, as in the case of the xiyou bu). instead the novels are deemed great works in their own right. it is also clear from these announcements that the shenbaoguan aimed for an unadulterated celebration of literary fantasy as one of the potential marks of a work of excellence. appreciation of this, which might be more in tune with popular urban tastes than with the literati's over-intellectualization of the novel,[169] was not imposed as a unified perspective. scholars invited by the company to edit works of fiction and provide them with prefaces were free to maintain their own approach. one example is zhang huwen, who had been invited to edit rulin waishi. his preface stressed the significance and philosophical implications of sense illusion. fantasy was not a consideration in his appreciation of fiction.[170] fig. 16: cover for wu jingzi 吳敬梓, rulin waishi 儒林外史 (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1874). the shenbaoguan announcements and shumu entries operated in a transitional period that saw the beginning of a break with the inherited canon of accepted high-register genres, the introduction of new forms into this canon, and exposure to international literary fashions and genres. after his first efforts at publishing translations of western novels, major seems to have discovered that there were indeed chinese works that were both “realistic” and “extraordinary,” which suited his artistic and ethical agenda as well as a modern taste, and that some of them dealt with the present and even with commoners. in short, major discovered china's indigenous sources of literary modernity. women as implied readers the ethical standards that the company claimed for its print products, and which very much reflected what was becoming a global standard of “civilized” publications that abided by high ethical norms, are most distinctly visible in the works of fiction directed at women. according to the announcements, the publication of some novels specifically targeted women audiences. books such as the novel lin lan xiang[171] and the tanci bisheng hua, are good examples of this. as potential readers, women were often referred to in these announcements in general terms such as “lü chuang” 綠窗 ([readers in the] boudoir).[172] lin lan xiang, which was written after honglou meng around 1800 by an author signing as suiyuan xiashi, tells the story of a talented young man who was patronized by the ming court at a young age and, after enduring many travails and mishaps, finds himself married to five young women. obviously influenced by novels such as jin ping mei and honglou meng, the ballad focuses on the different characters of the five beauties and their relationship to the hero, who resembles jia baoyu from honglou meng. the title of the ballad comes from the names of three of the wives. the story ends with the husband's regret when he realizes his mistake in casting off one of his wives, the main female heroine of the story, after she sacrificed herself for him. she died shortly after he abandoned her and redemption comes through her son, who grows up to become an upright official after his mother's death and shortly after that of his father. the story of bisheng hua, by qiu xinru, a woman author signing as xinru nü shi 心如女史, was also set in the ming. it tells the story of a virtuous young woman who, in order to save her father from persecution by the court, agrees to serve as the emperor's consort. to preserve her virtue, however, she tries to commit suicide on the way to the capital by jumping into a river, only to be saved by a fox spirit. she travels to the capital dressed in a man's clothes and eventually takes first place in the imperial examination, thereby becoming a major figure at court, which eventually enables her to save her father without ever losing her virtue. in due course she is discovered and married off to her cousin, who was already her legitimate fiancé. the 1882 announcement of the publication of bisheng hua offers fascinating insights into the genres of reading that were considered appropriate for women in contrast to the reading that women actually preferred. the announcement, again signed by major, shows not only an easy familiarity with different kinds of chinese writing, but also a careful handling of words. it reflects major's interest in attracting women readers without alienating men. because bisheng hua was written by a woman, it seems to have been considered natural to state that women preferred works written by women. the prompt books for zaju drama are already no match for the daya 大雅 (great odes of the book of poetry), but with the tanci [ballads] we [really] hit bottom. however, in their spare time from embroidery work generations of women would time and again put exhortations for women (nü zhen 女箴) and lectures for the women's quarters (hexun 闔訓) on some high shelf, and what they most love is to take up a tanci and read it. the reason is that the grammar [of these tanci] is simple and straightforward, and therefore they are easy to read. true, books close to pornography, such as the wopao [zhuan] 倭袍 [傳] [a banned tanci about a woman killing her husband to make place for a lover],[173] are genuinely capable of hurting morals and damaging proper behavior, and should be banned. but if their purpose proceeds from correct motives and does not contravene the classics even though the emotions might be violent and the language extravagant as is the case with bisheng hua by lady [qiu] xinru from huaiyin—then this truly is something outstanding and of singular skill. this book totals thirty-two episodes in sixteen volumes. the events in it might be considered exceedingly shocking and amusing, optimistic and tearful, but they manage to stay clear of vulgarity and retain refined meaning throughout. we have heard that lady [qiu] xinru spent thirty years of mental labor to finish this book. distressed in her poverty (?) she did not [have the money to privately] print the book, and therefore made a copy for circulation. but it was rarely seen. our company made a special effort to buy the manuscript and print it with movable type for all to read.[174] 雜劇院本已無當於大雅，降至彈詞末矣。然婦女輩針黹餘閑，往往束女箴闔訓於高閣。而最好取彈詞閱之。蓋以其文理淺近，易以通曉也。惟語近穢褻如《倭袍》等書，實足傷風敗俗，理宜禁絕。若情雖[?]，而務出於正，語雖誕而弗背乎經，如淮陰心如女史所著之筆生花一書，洵為別開生面，獨運將心者矣。此書共計三十二囘，訂成十六本其中事實頗覺可驚可喜，可歌可無湂。而仍能擺脫凡庸，獨澀俊旨。據聞女史積三十年心力，撰成是書，因窘於[？]未付剞劂，氏即抄本流傳亦不多見。本館今特購取稿本，用活字排印問世。 what is at stake here is more than the questionable morality of some tanci. it is the status of the tanci as a literary genre as a whole, which the shumu xuji subsumed under the same shuobu category as the “linked-chapter novels.” although it is clearly acknowledged that no claim can be made for high literary refinement, the genre is one that is loved by women, largely written by women, and might even form a stepping-stone to higher things for both women writers and readers. in short, because the moral education books available for the inner quarters obviously did not meet the needs of their intended readers, tanci should not be simply abandoned, but efforts should be made to redeem them. the shenbaoguan had a strong commitment to women as authors, readers, and as the subject matter of news, editorials, and fiction.[175] it joined and materially supported one of the strong undercurrents in qing literati thinking regarding the education of women and the promotion of female writers, as exemplified by yuan mei 袁枚 (1716–1797).[176] and, quite in tune with british thinking about women and the novel at the time, it regarded the betterment of women and the furthering of their education as not being served by texts such as the wopao zhuan, even if they might be commercial hits. with bisheng hua the shenbaoguan, posing as a responsible leader on the chinese book market, offered an original work written by a woman, with a woman as the main protagonist, which provided the racy narrative typical of the genre without being marred by lewd language and outrageous plot elements. the announcements were not endorsing sentimental writing for women. the 1881 announcement for ernü yingxiong zhuan, after stating that the work was written by a recent author [without giving the name], comments that [the novel's] diction shows taste and elegance; its narration is full of sound and colors. above all, there is no trace of womanly airs or posturing excitement.[177] 其措辭也，宜風宜雅；其敍述也，有聲有色；尤妙無脂粉叫囂之氣。 the argument for publishing novels that would benefit women as well as find favor, while guiding them away from potentially harmful works, was made in the 1878 announcement for xue yue mei: presently an immense number of novels are being written; yet, their content is nothing but the trio of sentimental love, heroic manliness, and the magical arts of gods and immortals. in each of these books there is a superfluity of salacious language together with a failure to encourage chastity. if you are looking for [a work] to correct this, a work that has the beauty of a flower as its model and is gorgeous but still ends up balanced, there is nothing like xue yue mei.[178] 邇來小說書幾於汗牛充棟。然,要其大旨有三，曰：兒女風情；曰：英雄氣概；曰：神仙法術。但每書中總多淫褻之詞，而少勸懲之意。求其正而葩麗以則，絢爛而仍歸平淡，則莫如《雪月梅》一書。 the announcement begins by lampooning the fashion for trite novels. in contrast, xue yue mei is positioned not only to correct the questionable morals of these novels but also to surpass them in literary terms. the argument is once again based mainly on the beauty and splendor of its writing. the novel tells of the adventures of the three beautiful young ladies with martial skills whose names make up the title. in the end, each of them marries the heroic young man to whom they had been betrothed after being honored by the court for valor and virtue. the announcement seems to have been primarily addressed to discerning women who still enjoyed reading about love, valor, and magic. for them, xue yue mei offered a splendid narrative without any questionable language and morals. the 1880 announcement for li ruzhen's jinghua yuan demonstrates the degree to which the aesthetic and ethical standards guiding the public presentation of shenbaoguan publications had become the foundation for the introduction of particular works. it groups a set of chinese terms and ideas into a new ensemble to create a vocabulary of modern enlightened civility and refinement. the announcement emphasizes that “the way in which [this novel] talks about filial piety and loyalty is so powerful that it inspires one to burst out in song and [be moved to] tears.” (其中言孝言忠，可歌可泣。) but the work is also full of light and delightful entertainment. the author spent his remaining energy on poetry, songs, and rhymes for drinking games, which are all leaving the vulgar behind and entering the realm of refinement while showing ease and freshness. although one talks of [novels] as “small talk by minor officials,” this one is more than able to benefit one's mind and knowledge.[179] 以餘力作爲詩歌酒令，亦復出風入雅，雋逸清新。雖曰稗官小説，實足以益人神智。 the announcement also stresses that the novels published by this company are never merely entertaining “small talk,” but of benefit to the mind and acquisition of knowledge. it should be remembered that jinghua yuan is anything but a tale dripping with stale morality, it contains one of the most spirited and witty satires on the treatment of women in china ever written. the livelier and more diverse the work, the more easily moral benefit for the mind was accrued. both in its announcements and in the novels it actually published, the shenbaoguan defied the chinese men of letters' professed (and often pretended) disdain for such lowly reading matter, as well as the court edicts' official denunciation of such works as “lewd.” its efforts went a long way towards elevating the social and cultural standing of the novel as an art form that was compatible with the chinese notion of “a state of civilized governance” (wenli zhi bang 文理之邦) and a taste for the concrete and specific while providing bona fide chinese works that were both modern and entertaining. novel publishing as a collective endeavor: mobilizing the shenbao community in addressing the social standing of the novel, the shenbaoguan made it a priority to develop and involve what might be called the “shenbaoguan community.”[180] it tried to make its novels attractive through their intrinsic style and acceptable to both male and female readers through the social values they conveyed. it also tried, as has been shown, to create a collective identity by actively involving readers in selecting works. the daily communications on the first page were an important and innovative link between the publisher and the readers, who were also potential authors, proofreaders, editors, correspondents, critics, or middlemen helping to establish a contact. this practice was unique among publishing houses at the time. the loyalty of a community built up in this way was a huge asset, even more so in the case of the shenbaoguan as a foreign-owned and foreign-managed chinese-language publisher of a newspaper that was bound to (and did) excite some anxiety in official circles. while the shenbao did not use any specific collective term to identify “the community of shenbao readers,” it addressed them collectively as “friends” or “colleagues” (youren 友人) in the announcements; and there is strong evidence that it actively cultivated such a community—possibly after noting how positive the responses were. one example of an enthusiastic communication and response to shenbaoguan's newspaper and publication program was from a reader in the outlying military post qingjiangpu (today's city of huaian) in jiangsu. in his long letter, which was published in the shenbao on june 13, 1874, the reader first praised major's efforts to uphold the dignity of learning as well as the responsibility of the literati in times of low social moral standards. he then described how he had joined the army and was now stranded as a low-ranking officer in a forlorn place after failing twice at the imperial examinations, supporting no less than eight people. one day, a visitor from shanghai brought a copy of the shenbao and of the yinghuan suoji, in which the reader found the serialized translation of night and morning. his excitement about the criticism in the paper of bad morals in shanghai was such that his staff thought he had gone beserk. he exclaimed: “you have won my heart, sir!” (zhuren shi huo wo xin zai 主人寔獲我心哉) he then subscribed to both the newpaper and the journal, adding that he could not wait to see the next installments of the novel.[181] an example of shenbao’s conscious efforts to reach out is the support for a private advertisement that elicited proposals for the writing of a novel, certainly the first such ad in a chinese-language newspaper.[182] this 1877 advertisement from “a guest from far away who resides in shanghai” (yu hu yuanke 寓滬遠客) was entitled “illustrations looking for a text on sale” (you tu qiu shuo chushou 有圖求說出售).[183] the ad solicited a work of fiction to go with ten fine drawings which the owner had commissioned the shenbaoguan to publish. apparently the ten drawings told a story involving characters, places, and events, which the owner was at a loss to link together. to obtain a novel of about 50,000 words to accompany these drawings, he was willing to pay twenty yuan for the best submission and ten to the runner-up. the condition was that the work had to be submitted within two months of the publication of the advertisement. the shenbao’s “note following the request for submitting a novel” read: recently, the numbers of “local narratives [collected by] officials”[184] [i.e. novels] are so numerous as to make the oxen [bearing them] sweat and the rafters [of the house holding them] bend. however, though men of letters might have the same intentions and write in the same style, the works they produce while still able to open minds and entertain will each have their own particularities. but among all the novels [we have] read, whether they have illustrations at the beginning or not, there has never been a case where there were only illustrations and no words [to go with them]. the advertisement by yu hu yuanke soliciting the writing of a novel, which is published at the end of our paper today, seems to belong to the tradition of soliciting poetry or essays. [writing such a piece] is something any scholar and refined gentleman will regard as a highly entertaining way to while away the time after dinner before going to sleep; one sees emerging under one's wrist extraordinary emotions and vigorous images, encouraging colleagues to applaud by knocking the table in praise.[185] 近來裨官小説幾于汗牛充棟。然，文人同此心同此筆而所撰之書，各有相同；是足以開拓心胸為消閒之助。但所閱諸小説其卷首或有圖或無圖，從未有圖而無說者。玆見本報後寓滬遠客所登之請撰小説告白，似即徵文之。遺意文人雅士於酒後睡餘，大可藉此消遣功夫，行見奇情壯采奔赴腕下，而諸同人又得擊節欣賞矣。 with this light note the publishing house addressed its readers not just as readers but as potential ”men of letters,” who might enjoy the challenge of writing a novel of their own in their leisure hours. it defined novel writing as a refined activity, and implicitly elevated the genre to the same level as poetry and essay writing. for its time and potential audience, this was a bold and and even risky claim. while maintaining that the novel's primary aim was to widen the reader's horizon and entertain, the note also stressed the fun that was to be had by the writer, who would also win the admiration of his friends. writing novels is thus introduced as something that is worthy of brilliant men of letters in china, too; like poetry, the genre has high artistic potential and can be a medium for the expression of individuality. readers were not just encouraged to become authors, there were other more modest ways in which they could help establish a flourishing cultural scene. as previously mentioned, the shenbaoguan and especially major himself were constantly publishing announcements asking their readers to suggest or help locate specific titles for publication. at times the publication of a book appears as the climax of a complex drama that played out on the front page of the shenbao. it started with frequent appeals by major to suggest titles worth printing, followed by a note that a manuscript or a rare edition in good condition of a given title was being sought. it might read like this: very few people nowadays own a copy of lin lan xiang. our publishing house would very much like to publish this work and bring it to the attention of the world, but we do not have a good complete copy. please, if you have the book on your shelf, we would appreciate if you would send it to us in a speedy manner within a few days. after we have received it and printed the book, we will definitely offer you a reward and your original will be returned without delay. may this be made known.[186] 訪覓林蘭香告白 本館謹啟 林蘭香一書近日藏之者甚罕。本館欲排印，一時無完善之本。各處鄴架中如有是書，即望於數日間從速寄交本館。收取俟印成後，定當酬謝也。其原本亦即奉繳不悮。此佈。 sometimes after several months, a happy note followed to indicate that the search had been successful. in the case of lin lan xiang it took just one day before a note entitled “lin lan xiang already obtained” appeared: “yesterday, we placed an announcement seeking lin lan xiang; this morning, at 9:00 am, we already received a complete copy sent by the zuiliutang bookstore.”[187] eventually an announcement that the work was published and would be available from such and such a date appeared, sometimes with a summary of the tribulations the press had gone through to obtain and edit it: “last month we were able to get hold of a copy of lin lan xiang. however, some pages were missing in the copy. this is why the publication was delayed. on monday, the eleventh day of this month, printing will be complete and the book will go on sale.”[188] making use of these announcements, the shenbaoguan publicized the exact date that a work would go on sale; given the rarity of many of the works in question, this turned each publication into an event, and because of their privileged location in the paper, these announcements were read and further spread by the readers. through the active involvement of readers in suggesting titles and tracking copies, the shenbaoguan created a shared feeling of suspense and success and was not shy about heightening the drama.[189] not every project ended so well for the shenbaoguan, however. its efforts to locate the manuscript of yesou puyan suffered a humiliating setback. a first announcement pleading for help in the search of this work appeared in 1877.[190] in december 1879, major wrote a note on the state of the search, informing readers that the company had managed to get a copy of the manuscript from a friend, but that it was badly damaged and not fit for print; the press now called for help in locating a better copy, for which it was willing to pay a high price.[191] in march 1880, they announced that it had received some copies but none was complete. now a “friend” had notified them that a relatively complete copy could be found at “the home of mr. zhao yinggu [the proprietor of] the diao family's shop in taixing county,” and that another copy could be found in jiangying county. the note appealed to the public-minded spirit of the paper's readers to help the press locate these copies so that the book would no longer ”lie secretly buried day after day under someone's pillow.” the shenbaoguan even offered to send someone to copy the manuscript by hand.[192] one year and nine months later, an advertisement appeared in the shenbao announcing that the novel was about to be published. the ad was placed by qianqingtang 千頃堂 of suzhou and duweilou 讀未樓 of shanghai, who were the distributors of yesou puyan. it had been published by biling huizhenlou 毗陵匯珍樓 (biling, today changzhou, jiangsu).[193] the newly founded hubao滬報 newspaper, run by the former shenbao editor cai erkang, serialized yesou puyan for the next two and a half years, starting on june 10, 1882. this tactic, which the hubao had learned from shenbaoguan's serialization of xinxi xiantan, greatly increased its circulation.[194] in january1883, the shenbaoguan finally published its own version of yesou puyan. to enhance its status and improve its chances on the market place, the novel appeared with a preface by ximin shanqiao 西岷山樵, who claimed that his ancestor had actually been a good friend of the author, xia jingqu 夏敬渠. the shenbaoguan sharpened its competitive edge by charging only one silver dollar, while the biling huizhenlou wanted six silver dollars for their prints.[195] these shenbaoguan announcements promoted a public culture regarding novels. book collectors were asked to share their possessions in the spirit of assisting in the dissemination and appreciation of the shared cultural heritage contained in these books; readers were asked to help locate copies by mobilizing their own network of friends; and those who had helped were publicly thanked in the pages of the paper. the cultural standing of any given novel was also evoked through detailed information about its transmission history and its present rarity in the announcements. all its books, the company claimed, were based on manuscripts, rare editions, or were newly edited because available editions were too sloppy. if they were available and no new manuscripts or critical scholarship were forthcoming, the shenbaoguan would not publish; examples of this included xiyou ji and honglou meng. for honglou meng, the press chased—unsuccessfully—the novel's original edition, which it claimed was the best and most complete, and was different from what was circulating at the time.[196] the information given in the announcements lent bibliophile stature to these editions, which are much sought after on the antique book market to this day, with original copies often fetching prices substantially exceeding rmb 1000. as we know from the multitude of library catalogs available today, it is clear that the shenbaoguan was sometimes mistaken in thinking that a work had never been printed before or was not available anywhere in print at the time of publication. examples of this are bisheng hua and lin lan xiang. one can accept the claim, however, that at least in shanghai and jiangnan, to the best of the company's knowledge, these works were not available. the shenbaoguan could thus justly say that it tried to make a contribution toward preserving and enriching china's cultural heritage, much of which had been destroyed during the taiping war. conclusions this study has explored the material, social, market, and cultural conditions that prepared the novel genre for its development into one of the main platforms for reform issues of national importance after the failure of the court-sponsored reforms of 1898. it is no coincidence that liang qichao, the key figure in promoting the “new novel” or “new fiction” after his efforts at promoting these reforms had come to naught, included xinxi xiantan as a “must read” western book in his xixue shumu biao 西學書目表 (list of books on western learning);[197] that he published first a translation of a foreign (japanese) novel before writing his own; that he introduced his own novel through an announcement in his newspapers; and that he announced in his new journal, xin xiaoshuo 新小說 (the new novel), that he was “looking for new novels.” in this he was clearly influenced by the shenbaoguan's activities twenty-eight years earlier.[198] given the dominance of the shenbaoguan publishing house in shanghai in the late qing chinese-language world of novel-publishing, this study has focused on the company's role in establishing the material conditions for reform by making both older and new novels available in modestly priced high-quality metal font machine print as well as in equally high-quality lithograph editions. the company challenged the chinese elite's—pretended or real—social disdain for novels as lowbrow and the court's ban on them as morally lewd on two fronts: first, by claiming that novels had the potential to convey transculturally shared “civilizational” aspirations, relevant information about human behavior and social customs, and standards that were aligned with the classics; and second, by publishing rare older as well as unpublished new novels that upheld those standards while retaining their potential to entertain and therefore to be widely read. the company used the national distribution network it developed for its newspaper, the shenbao, to spread information about and appreciation for the books it published, and to encourage readers all over the country to buy these books. in the process it established a unified national book market that was anchored in the shanghai international settlement, but was able to serve the entire country. locating the centre of the national book market in shanghai protected it against court intervention, since the clauses in chinese treaties with foreign countries allowed the in-land sale of commercial goods from the international settlement. the shenbaoguan further enhanced the cultural standing of the novel by inserting it into a publishing program that was modeled on the deluxe prints from the imperial wuying palace workshop. at the same time it reconfigured the traditional canon by introducing to it works that included china's treaties with foreign countries, collections of model letters, innovative model texts for the imperial examinations, novels, and theater plays that had not been part of earlier canonical collections such as the four treasuries. it articulated claims for the inclusion of the novel into the canon through staggered forms of literary criticism and appreciation that were published in the shenbaoguan's book announcements, in the characterizations of these works in the shumu, and finally in the multiple paratexts that came with the publications of the novels themselves. these articulations offered aesthetic, ethical, and social categories and standards for the appreciation of good novels and added a theoretical layer to the cultural standing of the novel. in literary terms, the company came out in favor of writings in a “realist” and highly specific mode. for novels, the entertainment elements described as “stunning” or ”extraordinary” were emphasized. the pervasive use of these key terms from shenbao novel announcements in later advertisements by other publishers well into the republican period reveals the degree to which the shenbaoguan criteria found general acceptance. this ”realist” mode very prominently included satirical as well as allegorical writing. the same preference dominated the selection of images published in the company's dianshizhai huabao. the company's direction in all four realms—cultural standing of the novel, distribution network, print model, and aesthetic standards—was closely tied to its founder and manager ernest major. an english citizen, major's role is best described as that of a cultural broker who mediated between chinese and “western” cultural and social sensibilities in his publications while remaining firmly committed to the commercial viability of his print products. on the print side, his company used western-style metal fonts and printing machines, but emulated the imperial wuying palace deluxe editions. on the social side, it maintained that novels could convey attitudes and values that were appreciated in any civilized environment including the west. at the same time, the shenbaoguan highlighted the critical function of literary works by publishing chinese as well as western political and social satires and avoiding the publication of fictional works that eulogized practices (such as foot-binding) and attitudes (such as blind submission to superiors) that it deemed to be out-of-sync with modernity or with the spirit of the time. culturally, the aesthetic standards of writing with “realist” specificity and creating “stunning” and “entertaining” features were articulated as being transculturally shared. the selection of a foreign novel as the first novel the company published did not reflect a program of further publications, but the initial assumption that works fitting these standards were unavailable in china and that therefore recourse to translations was necessary to introduce these standards. once major discovered the satirical novel rulin waishi (and the dramatic market potential of this line of publication), the company switched track altogether to publish chinese novels. it maintained, however, its criteria of selection as long as major was in charge (and it completely stopped publishing novels soon after he left). the preference for indigenous sources of modernity (to use a different terminology) seemed to be consistent with major's other publishing projects. the company thrived because its readers responded to his commitment to a productive relationship between strands of chinese cultural traditions and the requirements of the coming modern world. in summation, the groundwork for the new role which the advocacy novel assumed after the turn of the twentieth century—a role for which liang qichao and others quite naturally claimed western and japanese models—was laid by the shenbaoguan. it is clear that this publishing house was guided by a consistent vision that was instrumental, among other contributions by this publisher, in helping to establish the cultural and social legitimacy of the novel in modern times, and in creating conditions for the eventual rise of the genre to become the dominant literary form of twentieth-century china. appendix i: fictional works published by the shenbaoguan, 1872–1890 the principle of selection for what might be considered a novel is based on the three categories established in the shumu discussed above: “new and extraordinary vernacular works”; “linked-chapter novels”; and “new works of opera”. the list includes translations published in the shenbao; it does not include shorter fictional works published in the shenbaoguan literary journals yinghuan suoji, huanying suoji, and siming suoji, except for the translation of xinxi xiantan, which was also published in a book edition. the timeline ranges from the founding of the shenbaoguan in 1872 to 1890, one year after major's departure. sources: shenbao announcements, supplemented by chen dakang, zhongguo jindai xiaoshuo shiliao: shenbao xiaoshuo shiliao nianbian 中國近代小説史料—申報小説史料年編[199] (entries identified with**). information provided in the table, if not marked **, is from the shenbao announcements, the shumu, or the shumu xuji. year of printing or shenbao announcement title author publication information print-type chapters price 1872 may 21 / tongzhi 同治 11, fourth month) tanying xiaolu 《談瀛小錄》 (notes on countries overseas) (ying 英) siweifute 斯威夫特 (the englishman jonathan swift) translation of “a voyage to lilliput” from gulliver’s travels. shenbao, serialized may 21, 24.       may 28 / fourth month yishui qishi nian 《一睡七十年》 (asleep for seventy years) [washington irving] translation of “rip van winkle.” shenbao, may 28.       may 31 / fourth month naisu guo qiwen 《乃蘇國奇聞》 (story of the greek slave) [frederick marryat] translation of the pacha of many tales. shenbao, serialized may 31, june 6, 7, 11, 14, 15.       1873 january 15 / tongzhi 11, twelfth month xinxi xiantan 《昕夕閒談》 (idle talk mornings and nights) [edmund bulwer-lytton] translation of night and morning. yinghuan suoji 瀛寰瑣記 jade splinters from the entire universe), serialized jan. 15–dec. 19, 1874.       1874 january 16 / tongzhi 12, eleventh month xinxi xiantan, shang juan 《昕夕閒談》上卷 (night and morning) pt. 1   monograph edition, first part. identified as an english novel (yingguo xiaoshuo 英國小説) on front page.     250 wen 文 nov. 5 / tongzhi 13, ninth month (xinyin) rulin waishi 新印《儒林外史》 (newly printed the scholars) [wu jingzi 吳敬梓 (1701–1754)] with a postface by mr. jin from shangyuan (shangyuan jinjun 上元金君). lead font (qianyin 鉛印); deluxe edition (xiuzhen ban 袖珍板) 56 chapters (hui 回) 5 jiao 角 december / eleventh month **xinxi xiantan 《昕夕閒談》 (night and morning) pt. 2   monograph edition, pt. 2. with a preface by lishao jushi 蠡勺居士.   2 fascicles (ce 冊)   1875 april 12 / guangxu 光緒 1, third month dunku lanyan 《遁窟讕言》 (loose words from a cave of retreat) wang ziquan 王紫詮 (王韜wang tao) included in shuobu 說部 category.   12 chapters (juan 卷)   may 20 / fourth month (chongyin) rulin waishi (重印)《儒林外史》 (reprint edition of the scholars) [wu jingzi 吳敬梓 (1701–1754)] with a postface by mr. jin from shangyuan.     5 jiao september 3 / eighth month xinxi xiantan (night and morning)   complete monograph edition. lead font boxed (dingce 訂冊), with three volumes (ben 本) in each box. 4 jiao december 10 / eleventh month kuaixin bian 《快心編》 (the teaser) [tianhua caizi 天花才子 (early qing)] original work found in japan. lead font 10 chapters each in vols 1 and 2, 12 in vol. 3. 5 jiao december 31 / guangxu 1, twelfth month xiyou bu 《西遊補》 (supplement to journey to the west) [dong yue 董說 (late ming)]   lead font 16 chapters 2 jiao 1876 feb. 10 / guangxu 2, first month yinxue xuan suibi 《印雪軒隨筆》 (brush notes from the snow-covered hut) yu jian huafeng weng 俞𧯑花封翁 (yu hongjian俞鴻漸) in shuobu category. old print edition no longer available; can be purchased at shenbao or at shanghai minbao 民報. lead font 4 fascicles 2 jiao june 10 / fifth month kechuang xianhua 《客窓閒話》 (gossip of a traveler) chen zizhuang 陳子莊 in shuobu category. listed in xin yin gezhong shuji chushou 新印各種書籍出售 (newly printed titles of different kinds on sale).   4 volumes 2 jiao and 5 fen 分 july 3 / fifth month yongxian zhai biji 《庸閑齋筆記》 (brush notes from the yongxian studio) chen zizhuang 陳子莊 in shuobu category.   4 fascicles 1 jiao and 5 fen august 5 / sixth month jianwen xubi 《見聞續筆》 (more [stories] about things seen and heard) qi yuxi 齊玉溪 in shuobu category. lead font 24 scrolls in 8 fascicles 4 jiao august 17 / sixth month yinchuang yicao 《螢窗異草》 (curious jottings from the studio lit by fireflies). also known as: liaozhai sheng gao 《聊齋剩稿》 (remaining manuscript from [strange tales from the] liaozhai studio) or xu liaozhai zhiyi 《續聊齋 志異》 (sequel to strange tales from the liaozhai studio) [changbai haoge zi 長白浩歌子 (yi qinglan 伊慶蘭)] in shuobu category. lead font 4 fascicles 2 jiao november 17 / tenth month honglou meng bu 《紅樓夢補 》 (supplement to the dream of the red chamber) guichuzi 歸鋤子   lead font 48 chapters in 10 fascicles 5 jiao december 5 / tenth month xinyu 《語新》 (new tales) qian xing 錢醒 (qusong 蘧松) in shuobu category. identified as a “manuscript from a deceased author” (yigao 遺稿).   2 fascicles 1 jiao and 2 fen december 14 / eleventh month xiantan huayu 《僊壇花雨》 (blossoms and rain from the immortal’s altar) luxin xianshi 縷馨僊史 first edition. published in yishu si zhong 《異書四種》 (four works on the strange), vol. 1. includes female ghost stories. lead font; deluxe edition (juzhen ban 聚珍版) total of 2 fascicles price for set: 2 jiao december 14 / eleventh month biluo zazhi 《碧落雜誌》 (miscellaneous records of the heavenly realm)   first edition. published in yishu si zhong, vol. 2. the shenbao announcement notes that the work “features tales of immortals and fairies” (ji xian xiang ji zhi zuo 乩仙降乩之作); written in the style of poetry on “encounters with the supernatural” (youxian shi 遊仙詩). lead font; deluxe edition (juzhen ban) total of 2 volumes price for set: 2 jiao december 14 xuechuang xinyu 《雪窓新語》 (new sayings from the snow-lit window) xia zhiting 夏芝庭 first edition. published in yishu si zhong, vol. 3. lead font; deluxe edition (juzhen ban) total of 2 volumes price for set: 2 jiao december 14 sanshi liu sheng fenduo tuyong 《三十六聲粉鐸圖詠》(picture and poem album of thirty six comedian plays) yi shoumei 宣瘦梅 first edition. published in yishu si zhong, vol. 4. the album is a collection of thirty-six fragments highlighting the popular clown role in scenes from kun opera. half of these plays originated from operas of the yuan or ming dynasties. the shenbaoguan edition does not contain the drawings, but only poems and narratives. lead font; deluxe edition (juzhen ban) total of 2 volumes price for set: 2 jiao december 28 / eleventh month ying tan 《影談》 (shadow talk) [guan shihao 管世灝] first edition announcement: “the imagination that informs this work and the cleverness of its language make it almost unfathomable.” (是書設想之奇，措詞之妙，幾不可以思議) lead font 2 fascicles 1 jiao and 5 fen 1877 jan.12 / guangxi 2, eleventh month liuhe neiwai suoyan 《六合内外瑣言》(tidbits from within and beyond the four quarters) [tu shen 屠紳]     12 scrolls 4 jiao march 7 / guangxu 3, first month jinghua shuiyue 《鏡花水月》(flower reflected in the mirror and the moon in the water)   in shuobu category. listed in shumu.   4 volumes 2 jiao april 11 / second month hou shuihu 《後水滸》 (sequel to water margin) [qinglianshi zhuren 青蓮室主人] shenbao found rare edition and printed it after careful editing. lead font 40 chapters in 10 fascicles 5 jiao may 7 / third month shuihu houzhuan 《水滸後傳》 (sequel to water margin) chen chen 陳忱 listed in “new books on sale.”     5 jiao may 16 / sixth month chongming manlu 《蟲鳴漫錄》 (records of chirping insects) maoyuan caihengzi 茂苑采蘅子 (qing) in shuobu category. listed in shumu.   2 fascicles 1 jiao and 5 fen may 22 / fourth month zhiyi xubian 《志異續編》 (sequel to strange tales [from the liaozhai studio]). also known as liaozhai xubian 《聊齋續編》 (sequel to [strange tales from] the liaozhai studio) song yongyue 宋永岳 (qing) book sent to shenbaoguan by baoyuelou zhuren 賓月樓主人. lead font 8 fascicles 3 jiao and 5 fen july 10 / fifth month yingchuang yicao erji 《螢窗異草 二集》 (curious jottings from the studio lit by fireflies, second collection) changbai haoge zi (yin qinglan) re-edited. manuscript offered by wulin ruogu xiansheng 武林若谷先生.   4 fascicles 2 jiao july 19 / sixth month lin lan xiang 《林蘭香 》 (lin, lan, and xiang) suiyuan xiashi 隨緣下士 (early qing) announcement tells how the shenbaoguan initially found a copy of the manuscript that was not complete enough for publication; soon another copy was obtained. lead font; deluxe edition (juzhen ban) 64 chapters in 8 volumes 4 jiao and 5 fen july 31 / sixth month fanhun xiang 《返魂香》 (life-returning incense) yi shoumei 宜瘦梅 from tianchang 天長 play in forty acts (chu 齣).   2 fascicles 2 jiao august 7 / sixth month yeyu qiudeng lu 《夜雨秋燈錄 》 (record of rainy nights under the autumn lamp) yi shoumei from tianchang in shuobu category. earlier, on may 2, major had published a letter to fufeng pingman shi 復風萍漫士, thanking him for sending his friend’s manuscript for publication.   8 volumes 4 jiao and 4 fen august 28 / seventh month yingchuang yicao sanji 《螢窗異草三集》 (curious jottings from the studio lit by fireflies, third collection)       4 fascicles 2 jiao october 5 / eighth month suiyuan suoji 《隨園瑣記》 (miscellaneous records of sui garden) yuan xiongfu 袁翔甫 (yuan zuzhi 袁祖志) first edition. published in xu yishu si zhong 《續異書四種》 (sequel to four works on the strange), vol. 1. lead font; deluxe edition (juzhen ban) 1 volume price for set: 2 jiao and 5 fen october 5 / eighth month jingxi ji 《驚喜集》 (a volume of pleasant surprises) cheng lanqi 程蘭畦 (cheng wan 程畹) in xiaoshuo category. first edition. published in xu yishu si zhong, vol. 2. lead font; deluxe edition (juzhen ban) 1 volume price for set: 2 jiao and 5 fen october 5 / eighth month xiangyin lou bintan 《香飲樓賓談》 (chatter of the guest from the xiangyin tower) lu chang­chun 陸長春 in shuobu category. first edition. published in xu yishu si zhong, vol. 3. lead font; deluxe edition (juzhen ban) 1 volume price for set: 2 jiao and 5 fen october 5 / eighth month gu lü 妬律 (rules regarding [female] jealousy) guangmo sanren 廣漠散人 first edition. two works in one volume (together with gui lü 《閨律 》 [rules regarding women]). published in xu yishu si zhong, vol. 4. lead font; deluxe edition (juzhen ban) 1 volume price for set: 2 jiao and 5 fen october 5 / eighth month gui lü 《閨律》 (rules regarding women) furong waishi 芙蓉外史 first edition. two works in one volume (together with gu lü). published in xu yishu si zhong, vol. 4. lead font; deluxe edition (juzhen ban) 1 volume price for set: 2 jiao and 5 fen october 20 / ninth month nü caizi 《女才子》 (women of genius) yuanhu yanshui sanren 鴛湖煙水散人   in the style of a deluxe edition (fang juzhen ban 仿聚珍版) 12 scrolls 2 jiao 1878 march 22 / guangxu 4, second month taiwan waiji 《臺灣外記》 (unofficial record of taiwan) jiang risheng 江日升 announcement describes the style of the work as “imitating the linked-chapter format” (fang zhanghui ti 仿章回體). lead font 30 scrolls 3 jiao and 5 fen april 15 / third month xue yue mei [zhuan] 陳朗月梅[傳]》 ([biographies of] snow, moon and plum) [chen lang 陳朗, (18th century)]   lead font 50 chapters in 8 volumes 3 jiao and 5 fen april 21 / third month fusheng liuji 《浮生六記》 (six sketches from a floating life) shen sanbai 沈三白 (shen fu 沈復) first edition. published in duwu’an congchao 《獨悟庵叢抄》 (duwu’an collection), vol. 1. lead font 1 volume price for collection: 2 jiao april 21 / third month jingting yishi 《鏡亭軼事》 (anecdotes [on things seen and heard] by jingting) cheng jingting 程鏡亭 first edition. published in duwu’an congchao, vol. 2. lead font 1 volume price for collection: 2 jiao april 21 / third month tianshan qingbian 《天山清辨》 (pure debates at tianshan) can tongzi 参同子 first edition. published in duwu’an congchao, vol. 3. lead font 1 volume price for collection: 2 jiao april 21 / third month wenjian zalu 《聞見雜錄》 (miscellaneous jottings on things seen and heard) dong lizi 東籬子 (chaisang 柴桑) first edition. published in duwu’an congchao, vol. 4. lead font 1 volume price for collection: 2 jiao may 3 / fourth month wenjian yici 《聞見異辭》 (strange tales as seen and heard)   manuscript found and sent to shenbaoguan by zhexi xingxinzi 浙西惺心子. major thanked him on march 9. lead font 2 volumes 1 jiao and 5 fen june 14 / fifth month shanzhong yixi hua 《山中一夕話》 (stories for an evening in the mountains)   in shuobu category. original too bulky, shenbaoguan made a small edition easy to travel with. described in the announcement as “playful jottings” (youxi bimo 遊戲筆墨).   4 fascicles 2 jiao and 5 fen august 12 / seventh month jiaochou ji 《澆愁集》 (anthology of drowning one’s sorrow) zou hanfei 鄒翰飛 (zou tao 鄒韜) first edition. lead font 4 volumes 2 jiao september 26 / ninth month er you 《耳郵》 (stories once heard) yang zhu weng 羊朱翁 (yu yue 俞樾) described in the announcement as “best of the novelist’s craft” (xiaoshuojia zhi shang sheng 小說家之上乘). lead font 2 fascicles 1 jiao and 5 fen november 5 / tenth month ting shi 《桯史》 (historical [stories] written at my bed table) yueyi z hai 岳亦齋 described in the announcement as “anecdotes from the song period” (songdai yiwen gushi 宋代遺聞故實).   4 volumes 2 jiao november 22 / tenth month xiliu zhitan 《昔柳摭談》 (anecdotes from the past) [feng qifeng 馮起鳳 (qing)] in shuobu category. printed by commission for famine relief.   2 volumes 2 jiao and 5 fen december 14 / eleventh month hedian 《何典》 (from what idiom?) zhang nanzhuang 張南莊   lead font 10 chapters 1 jiao and 5 fen 1879 january 9 / twelfth month baimen xinliu ji 《白門新柳記》 (new record of the willows [courtesans] at nanjing)   new print of a book out of circulation. lead font   1 jiao february 8 / guangxu 5, first month qinglou meng 《青樓夢》 (the dream of the green chamber) dongting mozhen shanren 洞 庭慕真山人 (yu da 俞達) first edition. lead font 64 chapters in 10 volumes 5 jiao may 3 / third month xiaoshi 《笑史》 (the history of jokes) jue laizi 覺來子 first edition.   2 volumes 1 jiao and 5 fen november 5 / tenth month xiaoxiao lu 《笑笑錄》 (peals of laughter) duyiwo tuishi 獨逸窩退士 original edition.   4 volumes 3 jiao november 19 / tenth month yin shi 《蟫史》 (the history of [the book-eating worm] yin) [leiluo shanfang zhuren 磊砢山房主人 (tu shen)] reprint edition.   20 scrolls in 6 volumes 3 jiao and 5 fen 1880 january 15 / twelfth month chayu tanhui 《茶餘談薈》 (tales of the sensational told after tea) jian nan shanren 見南山人 in shuobu category. the book was out of circulation.   2 scrolls 1 jiao and 2 fen february 15 guangxu 6, first month huifang lu 《繪芳錄》 (a record of rich fragrance) xileng yeqiao 西冷野樵 first edition. identified as a “linked-chapter novel.” (zhanghui xiaoshuo 章回小說). lead font 8 scrolls with 80 chapters in 16 volumes 8 jiao february 17 / first month (xinyin) yeyu qiudeng lu 新印《夜雨秋燈錄》 (newly printed record of rainy nights under the autumn lamp) xuan shoumei 宣瘦梅 “linked-chapter novel.”   16 fascicles 8 jiao march 9 / first month hua ying shoubu cuoyao 《華英說部撮要》 (the chinese-english speaker) luo bodan 羅伯聃 [robert thom (1807–1846)] chinese-english literary text excerpts in translation, produced by an officer from the british embassy. it was first designed for westerners to study northern chinese. the announcement states that it is for both the study of english by the chinese and the study of chinese by westerners. text based on the dream of the red chamber and family heirloom (chuanjiabao 傳家寶).   1 fascicle 4 jiao october 17 / ninth month yeyu qiudeng xulu 《夜雨秋燈 續錄》 (sequel to record of rainy nights under the autumn lamp) xuan shoumei 宣瘦梅 first edition. manuscript obtained in february.   8 volumes with 155 sections (pian 篇) 4 jiao and 5 fen december 9 / eleventh month hou xiyou ji 《後西遊記》 (sequel to journey to the west)   with “commentary” (pingdian 評點) by tianhua caizi 天花才子. careful new edition made because current prints had too many mistakes. movable type print (fangyong huozi ban 仿用活字版) 8 volumes 5 jiao december 18 / eleventh month yijian zhi 《夷堅志》 (record of the listener) [hong mai 洪邁 (1123–1202)]     complete version (zuben 足本) 2.5 yuan 元 december 29 / eleventh month jinghua yuan 《鏡花緣》 (flowers in the mirror) mr. li 李 from beiping 北平 [li ruzhen 李汝珍 (~1763–~1830)] announced as a “novel” (xiaoshuo 小說). reprint with movable type (huozi ban chongyin 活字版重印) 12 volumes 6 jiao 1881 march 16 / guangxu 7, second month (chongyin) rulin waishi (重印) 《儒林外史》 (reprint edition of the scholars) [wu jingzi 吳敬梓 (1701–1754)]   lead font 50 chapters in 10 volumes 6 jiao march 22 / second month ernü yingxiong zhuan 《兒女英雄傳》 (a tale of heroes and lovers) [wenkang 文康, active 1842–1851] first published in 1878 by juzhen tang 聚珍堂 in beijing. lead font 40 chapters in 16 volumes 8 jiao april 27 / third month xiao doupeng 《小豆棚》 ([tales told under] the small bean shed) zeng qiru 曾七如 according to the announcement the work is even better than doupeng xianhua 《豆棚閒話》 (idle chatter [told under] the small bean shed).   16 scrolls 3 jiao and 5 fen july 24 / sixth month xihu shiyi 《西湖拾遺》 (anecdotes from the west lake)   illustrated edition. photolithography on lianshizhi  連史紙 bamboo pulp-based paper 44 chapters in 12 volumes 6 jiao 1882 january 29 / twelfth month bisheng hua [tanci] 《筆生花》[彈詞] (the literate flower [a ballad]) xinru nüshi 心如女史 from huaiyin 淮陰 according to the announcement by major, an original edition based on a manuscript.   32 chapters in 16 volumes 1 yuan and 4 jiao december 13 / guangxu 8, eleventh month sanguo yanyi quantu 《三國演義全图》 (fully illustrated three kingdoms) also listed as quantu sanguo yanyi 《全图三國演義》 (three kingdoms, fully illustrated)   reprint of old edition with 140 original illustrations. price reduced to 1 yuan 5 jiao in may 1886 to compete with new tongwenguan edition. lithograph (shiyin 石印) 8 volumes in 2 separate casings (han 函) 2 yuan and 4 jiao 1883 january 24 / twelfth month yesou puyan 《野叟曝言》 (a rustic’s idle talk)   printed and distributed by the shenbao-owned shenchang 申昌 bookstore on commission. reduced size movable font edition; lead font 10 volumes 1 yuan february 17 / guangxu 9, first month (zengkan) honglou meng tuyong 增刊 《紅樓夢圖詠》 (illustrated album with poems on the [characters of] the dream of the red chamber, enlarged edition) [gai qi 改琦 (1774–1829)] original album very rare. lyrics with illustrations of honglou meng characters. lyrics by huaqingshan shannong 華青山山農, illustrations by huating gai qixiang [gai qi] jushi 華亭改七薌居士, with 120 illustrations of the individual beauties added by wang yunjie 王蕓階 from chengjiang 澄江. reduced size (suoyin 縮印) photolithography (zhaoxiang shiyinfa 照相石印法) 2 volumes 8 jiao june 27 / fifth month dangkou zhi 《蕩寇志》 (quell the bandits) yu zhonghua 俞仲華 (yu wanchun 俞萬春 [?–1849])   lead font 70 chapters in 18 fascicles 1 yuan september 11 / eighth month shuihu zhuan 《水滸傳》 (water margin)   newly corrected edition. in the shenbao announcement, signed shenbaoguan zhu 申報館主, of september 16, the work was identified as zheng xu shuihu zhuan 《 正續水滸傳》 (water margin, original work plus sequel). lead font 10 volumes 5 jiao september 25 / eighth month fengyue meng 《風月夢》 (dreams of the wind and the moon) hanshang mengren 邗上蒙人 announcement by shenbaoguan zhu 申報館主. lead font 32 chapters 3 jiao december 10 / eleventh month (chongyin) sanbao taijian xiyang ji tongsu yanyi (重印) 《三寶太監西洋記通俗演義》 (reprint edition of the record of the eunuch [zheng he’s] journey to the western seas)   announcement by shenbaoguan zhuren 申報館主人. lead font. 100 chapters in 10 volumes 6 jiao 1884 may 15 / guangxu 10, fourth month honglou fumeng 《紅樓復夢》 (return of the dream of the red chamber) [chen shaohai 陳少海 (late 18th century)] announcement by shenbaoguan zhuren 申報館主人. movable type 10 volumes 7 jiao august 4 / sixth month cizhong renyu 《此中人語》 (wonders told by an insider) cheng zhixiang 程趾祥 announced by shenbaoguan zhuren 申報館主人 as a “novel” (xiaoshuo).   6 chapters in 1 volume 8 fen 1885 august 16 / guangxu 11, seventh month (chongyin) qinglou meng (重印) 《 青樓夢》 (reprint edition of dream of the green chamber) muzhen shanren 慕真山人 first edition had sold out.   60 chapters in 10 volumes 5 jiao 1886 june 26 / guangxu 12, fifth month (xuyin) yesou pu yan (續印) 《野叟曝言》 (continued printing of a rustic’s idle talk)   dianshizhai small format edition.   10 volumes 1 yuan october 18 / ninth month (xinyin) sanyi bitan (新印) 《三異筆談》 (newly printed brush notes on the three strange [phenomena]) xu xiao’ou 許 小歐 (zhong­yuan 仲元) reprint of an obtained original edition.   2 volumes 1 jiao and 5 fen november 27 / eleventh month (chongyin) yingchuang yicao (重印) 《螢窗異草 初集》 (reprint edition of curious jottings from the studio lit by fireflies, first collection)   first edition contains three volumes. the first volume had sold out.   4 volumes 2 jiao december 16 / eleventh month zengxiang quantu dongzhou lieguo zhi 《增像全圖東周列國志》 (fully illustrated history of the kingdoms of eastern zhou) commentary (pingdian 評點) by cai yuanfang 蔡元放 no price given yet; readers are asked to come to the dianshizhai studio to have a look at the sample. lithograph     1887 august 24 / guangxu 13, seventh month songyin xulu 《淞隱續錄續錄》 (sequel to random jottings of hidden [tales] of shanghai) tiannan dunsou 天南遁叟 (wang tao 王韜) listed in shuobu category. illustrated in part by wu youru 吳友如. announcement by dianshizhai zhuren 點石齋主人 (major). lithograph 4 fascicles 1 yuan and 2 jiao september 10 / seventh month (chongyin) yeyu qiudeng lu (重印) 《夜雨秋燈錄》 (reprint edition of record of rainy nights under the autumn lamp) xuan shoumei 宣瘦梅   lead font 8 volumes 4 jiao and 5 fen september 24 / eighth month (chongyin) yingchuang yicao sanji (重印) 《螢窗異草三集》 (reprint edition of curious jottings from the studio lit by fireflies, third collection)   reprint. third collection had sold out. announcement by shenbaoguan zhuren 申報館主人.   4 volumes 2 jiao november 3 / ninth month (xinyin suoben) songyin manlu tushuo (新印縮本) 《淞隱漫錄圖説》 (newly printed, reduced size, illustrated random jottings of hidden [tales] of shanghai)   dianshizhai had commissioned wang tao to write songyin manlu tushuo based on his experiences. first serialized in the dianshizhai huabao, now printed in book form. illustrated by wu youru. announcement by dianshizhai zhuren 點石齋主人. lithograph 4 volumes 1 yuan november 22 / tenth month (chongyin) ernü yingxiong zhuan (重印) 《兒女英雄傳》 (reprint edition of a tale of heroes and lovers)     printed with newly cast lead fonts 12 volumes 8 jiao 1888 january 20 / guangxu 13, twelfth month (chongyin) yeyu qiudeng xulu (重印) 夜雨秋燈續錄 (reprint edition of sequel to record of rainy nights under the autumn lamp) xuan shoumei 宣瘦梅 newly re-edited edition. freshly cast lead fonts 8 fascicles 4 jiao and 5 fen may 10 / guangxu 14, third month (zengxiang) sanguo yanyi (增像) 《三國演義》 (three kingdoms, with added illustrations)   new edition with more than 140 new illustrations. new-style lead fonts; lithographs 12 fascicles enclosed by redwood panels (hongmu jiaban 紅木夾板) 3 yuan may 10 / third month (huitu) dongzhou lieguozhi (繪圖) 《東周列國志》 (history of the kingdoms of the eastern zhou, with illustrations)   announcement by dianshizhai zhuren 點石齋主人. lithograph with redwood panels 3 jiao june 8 / fourth month (shiyin huitu) jinghua yuan (石印繪圖) 《鏡花緣》 (flowers in the mirror, with lithographed illustrations)   dianshizhai edition. lithograph 6 fascicles 4 jiao september 12 / eighth month (xinyin) san jie lu biji (新印) 《三借廬筆記》 (newly printed jottings from the sanjie hut) zou hanfei 鄒翰飛 (zou tao 鄒韜) listed in shuobu category. announcement by shenbaoguan zhuren 申報主人.   6 volumes 3 jiao and 5 fen september 12 / eighth month (chongyin) sanguo zhi yanyi (重印) 《三國志演義》 (reprint edition of three kingdoms)   dianshizhai edition. lithograph 8 volumes in two separate casings 1 yuan and 8 jiao september 14 / eighth month (chongyin) qinglou meng (重印) 《青樓夢》 (reprint edition of the dream of the green chamber)   first edition sold out. announcement by shenbaoguan zhuren 申報館主人.     5 jiao october 1 / eighth month (chongyin) xiao doupeng (重印) 《小豆棚》 (reprint edition of [tales told under] the small bean shed)   announcement by shenbaoguan zhuren 申報館主人.   6 volumes 3 jiao and 5 fen 1889 january 11 / twelfth month (chongyin) fengyue meng (重印) 《風月夢》 (reprint edition of dreams of the wind and the moon) hanshang mengren 邗上蒙人 first edition out of print. new-style lead fonts   3 jiao january 22 / twelfth month (chongyin) shi li jindan (重印) 《十粒金丹》 (reprint edition of ten pills of the golden life-saver)   the announcement by shenbaoguan zhuren 申報館主人 identifies the work as a “linked-chapter novel.”   12 volumes 7 jiao september 9 / guangxu 15, eighth month (xinyin huitu) fengshen yanyi (新印繪圖)《封神演義》 (newly printed creation of the gods, with illustrations)   announcement by shenbaoguan zhuren 申報館主人. new-style lead fonts, with lithographs 16 volumes 8 jiao 1890 may 16 / guangxu 16 third month (chongyin) honglou meng (重印) 《紅樓夢補》 (reprint edition of sequel to “the dream of the red chamber”)   first edition sold out.   8 volumes 4 jiao september 5 / seventh month (chongyin) kuaixin bian (重印) 《快心編》 (reprint edition of the teaser) tianhua caizi 天花才子 announcement by shenbaoguan zhuren 申報館主人.   3 compilations (bian 編) in 10 volumes 5 jiao november 4 / ninth month (xinyin) xiao wu yi (新印) 《小五義》 (newly printed the five heroes, the next generation)   announcement by shenbaoguan zhuren 申報館主人.   10 volumes 5 jiao [1] this study took many years to reach completion. although it was first conceived as part of my recent book, catherine vance yeh, the chinese political novel: migration of a world genre (cambridge: harvard university press, 2015), it soon developed into a separate unit that was more suited to publication as a research article. my work has benefitted from the support and help of a number of scholars. i owe a large debt to the heidelberg public sphere research group, where the first buds for this study emerged many years ago and where, in 2005, i first gave a talk presenting a systematic outline. thank you also to professor wilt idema (harvard), who read the first draft of this study and offered many invaluable suggestions; to professor tarumoto teruo 樽本照雄 (osaka), who shared his digitized file of late qing novel publishing with me; to professor chen dakang 陳大康 (east china normal university, shanghai), who sent a breakdown of his statistical chart of late qing novel publishing that was cued to the period i was researching; to the two anonymous readers for transcultural studies whose comments and critical advice helped me to improve and tighten the paper’s focus; and to john stevenson, who helped me edit an earlier draft of this article. my deepest gratitude, however, goes to rudolf wagner. without his support this study would hardly have been possible. it is also indebted to his foundational studies—many of them still unpublished—on the shenbao, the shenbaoguan, and its manager ernest major, as it is to the helpful comments and suggestions he made on each draft. [2] milena dolez̆elová-velingerová, ed., the chinese novel at the turn of the century (toronto: university of toronto press, 1980); chen pingyuan 陳平原, ershi shiji zhongguo xiaoshuo shi 二十世纪中国小说史 [history of the twentieth-century chinese novel] (beijing: beijing daxue chubanshe, 1989), 27; yeh, the chinese political novel. [3] david wang, fin-de-siècle splendor: repressed modernities of late qing fiction, 1848–1911 (stanford: stanford university press, 1997), 1–52. [4] this is particularly true for the developments of the chinese and international book markets during the last decades of the nineteenth century. for a recent discussion on this issue, see cynthia brokaw and christopher a. reed, eds., from woodblocks to the internet: chinese publishing and print culture in transition, circa 1800 to 2008 (leiden: brill, 2010). [5] on this process, see the pioneering study oldřich král and zlata černá, eds., contributions to the study of the rise and development of modern literatures in asia, 3 vols. (prague: oriental institute in the publishing house of the czechoslovak academy of sciences, 1965–1970). [6] one example is the contrast between the long and detailed coverage of chinese publishers, versus the very short entries on the shenbaoguan in chinese standard histories of publishing under the categories “newspapers founded by…,” “publishing house founded by…,” and “foreigners (not including the missionaries).” see ye zaisheng 葉再生, ed., zhongguo jindai xiandai chuban tongshi 中國近代現代出版通史 [comprehensive history of modern chinese publishing] (beijing: huawen chubanshe, 2002). in his study of the publishing houses in the shanghai area, pan jianguo 潘建國 simply disregards the early shenbaoguan efforts to publish novels and begins his analysis in 1907, after the company was bought by a chinese consortium. see pan jianguo 潘建國, “qingmo shanghai diqu shuju yu wan qing xiaoshuo” 清末上海地區書局與晚清小説 [late qing shanghai publishing houses and the late qing novel], wenxue yichan 2 (2004): 96–110. this situation has improved for the newspaper and periodical—including illustrated periodical—publishing of this company in large part through the efforts of a research group at heidelberg university. see natascha vittinghoff (mrs. gentz), die anfänge des journalismus in china (wiesbaden: harrassowitz, 2002); andrea janku, nur leere reden: politischer diskurs und die shanghaier presse im china des späten 19. jahrhundert (wiesbaden: harassowitz, 2003); barbara mittler, a newspaper for china? power, identity, and change in shanghai’s news media, 1872–1912 (cambridge: harvard university asia center, 2004); rudolf wagner, ed., joining the global public: word, image, and city in the early chinese newspapers, 1870–1910 (albany: state university of new york press, 2007). [7] wen juan 文娟, “shenbaoguan yu zhongguo jindai xiaoshuo fazhan zhi guanxi yanjiu” 申报馆与中国近代小说发展之关系研究 [a study on the relationship between shenbaoguan and the development of chinese modern novel] (phd diss., huadong shifan daxue, 2006). she has published a number of substantial articles based on her phd, which will be referred to in my analysis. [8] for the qing period, of the 549 titles listed in this bibliography, seventy (12.8 percent) were published by the shenbaoguan, although it published novels for less than two decades; next came the commercial press, which became a serious presence on the book market only after 1900. see yuan xingpei 袁行霈 and hou zhongyi 侯忠義, eds., zhongguo wenyan xiaoshuo shumu 中國文言小説書目 [catalog of novels in classical chinese] (beijing: beijing daxue chubanshe, 1981), 345–434. [9] see appendix 1. [10] chen dakang 陳大康, zhongguo jindai xiaoshuo biannian shi 中國近代小説編年史 [a chronology of the modern chinese novel], 6 vols. (beijing: renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2014). the company published novels in its journals in serialized form, especially the dianshizhai huabao (1884–). for these, see rudolf wagner, “joining the global imaginaire: the shanghai illustrated newspaper dianshizhai huabao,” in wagner, joining the global public, 145–147. [11] this does not include reprints of titles published earlier by the shenbaoguan. [12] the calculation includes all fictional works published by the shenbaoguan between 1872 and 1890, but not reprints by the company. the principle of selection for what might be considered fiction is based on the three categories established in the shumu: “new and extraordinary vernacular works” (xinqi shuobu lei 新奇說部類), “linked-chapter novels” (zhanghui xiaoshuo lei 章回小說類), and “new works of opera” (xinpai yuanben lei 新排院本類). the list includes translations published in the shenbao; it does not include fictional works published in the shenbaoguan literary journals yinghuan suoji 瀛寰瑣紀 (jade splinters from the entire universe), huanyu suoji 寰宇瑣紀 (jade splinters from the whole world) and siming suoji 四溟瑣紀 (jade splinters from the four seas), except the translation xinxi xiantan 昕夕閒談 (idle talk mornings and nights), which was also published in a book edition. see chen dakang 陈大康, “dapo jiu pingheng de chushi huanjie—lun shenbaoguan zai jindai xiaoshuo shi shang de diwei” 打破舊平衡的初始環節—論申報館在近代小説史上的地位 [the first link in smashing the old equilibrium: on the position of the shenbaoguan in the history of the modern novel], wenxue yichan 2 (2009): 117–200, here 119, where 39 is given as the number of novels reprinted by the shenbaoguan. this is repeated in his latest monumental zhongguo jindai xiaoshuo biannian shi, 1:11. the problem with using chen’s statistics is that he does not include any reprints and includes only first-time publications of fiction, which means that the thirty-seven novels reprinted by shenbaoguan—which would likely have not survived without a great deal of effort and which did not circulate on the book market at the time—were not included; furthermore, any fictional works that do not comply with centenary standards of fiction, for example chuanqi 傳奇 (plays) and tanci 彈詞 (ballads), are not included. [13] according to chen’s calculation, twenty works of fiction were published in the eleven years from 1851–1861, twenty-one in the thirteen years from 1862–1874, thirty-four in the ten years from 1875–1884, and forty-four in the ten years from 1885–1894. his calculation only includes new works, and of these only the first printing. see chen, zhongguo jindai xiaoshuo biannian shi, 1: 93. [14] due to different criteria for inclusion the numbers are difficult to calculate with absolute certainty. if i had included shorter works of fiction published in the yinghuan suoji and its successors from 1872–1877, the shenbaoguan share would be even greater. [15] the conceptual, institutional, and managerial innovations brought about by the shenbaoguan have been studied in detail by rudolf wagner. the company was developing a network of learned intellectuals to serve as editors and commentators for the new books that were published; this strengthened the role of the image as a conveyor of information and developed a national distribution network for its print products. wagner, “joining the global imaginaire,” 108 and passim. [16] much of the research on this subject has been done by scholars at east china normal university in shanghai. chen, “dapo jiu pingheng de chushi huanjie,” 117–200; chen dakang 陳大康, “baokan wenxue yu shangye jiaohuan guize—yi yinghuan suoji de chubanshi wei fenxi gean” 報刊文學與商業交換規則—以《瀛寰瑣紀》的出版史為分析個案 [newspaper fiction and the rules of commercial exchange: a case study of the publishing history of the yinghuan suoji], xueshu yuekan 5 (2006): 124–127; liu yinghui 劉穎慧, “chatu yu wan qing xiaoshuo de chuanbo—yi wan qing shenbao xiaoshuo guanggao wei li” 插圖與晚清小説的傳播—以晚清《申報》小説廣告為例 [mapping the dissemination of late qing novels: taking the advertisements for novels in the late qing shenbao as an example], wenshi zongheng 11 (2006): 120–122; liu yinghui 劉穎慧, “wan qing xiaoshuo guanggao yanjiu” 晚清小説廣告研究 [a study on late qing advertisements for novels] (phd diss., huadong shifan daxue, 2011). for the shenbaoguan use of modern printing technology, see christopher a. reed, gutenberg in shanghai: chinese print capitalism, 1876–1937 (honolulu: university of hawai’i press, 2004), 80–81. [17] rudolf wagner, “commercializing chinese culture: ernest major in shanghai,” in “ernest major: the life and times of a cultural broker” (unpublished manuscript). [18] for an exception, see rudolf wagner, “women in shenbaoguan publications, 1872–1890,” in different worlds of discourse: transformations of gender and genre in late qing and early republican china, ed. nanxiu qian, grace fong, and richard smith (leiden: brill, 2008), 227–256. [19] patrick hanan, “the translated fiction in the early shenbao,” in chinese fiction of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: essays by patrick hanan (new york: columbia university press, 2004), 110–123. [20] [edward bulwer-lytton], xinxi xiantan 昕夕閒談 [idle talk mornings and nights], trans. lishao jushi 蠡勺居士 [jiang zirang蔣子讓?], serialized in yinghuan suoji 3 (february 1873–1875). jiang zirang was an editor at the shenbao. we owe the identification of the author and original of this anonymously published translation to the late patrick hanan. see patrick hanan, “the first novel translated into chinese,” in chinese fiction of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, 85–109. [21] wu jingzi 吳敬梓, rulin waishi 儒林外史 [the scholars] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1874) translated by yang hsien-yi and gladys yang as the scholars (beijing: foreign languages press, 1957). further revised chinese editions were published in 1876 and 1881. [22] shenbaoguan shumu 申報館書目 [shenbaoguan book catalog] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1875). in the 1879 list of sixty-three works published since 1877, we find ten works of fiction in the shuobu (5) and xiaoshuo (5) sections, and a sizeable number of works of reportage and poetry besides. shenbaoguan shumu xuji, 申報館書目續集 [sequel to the shenbaoguan book catalog] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1879). [23] dong yue, 董說, xiyou bu 西遊補 [supplement to journey to the west] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1876). translated by shuen-fu lin and larry j. schulz as the tower of myriad mirrors: a supplement to “journey to the west,” (berkeley: asian humanities press, 1978). [24] gusong yimin 古宋遺民 (yan dangshan, 鴈宕山), shuihu houzhuan, 水滸後傳 [sequel to water margin] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1883). there is no known translation in a western language. for a study, see ellen widmer, the margins of utopia: shui-hu hou-chuan and the literature of ming loyalism (cambridge: council on east asian studies, harvard university, 1987). [25] li ruzhen 李汝珍, jinghua yuan 鏡花緣 [flowers in the mirror] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1880). translated by lin tai-yi as flowers in the mirror (berkeley: university of california press, 1965). [26] the work was first published in 1853. yu wanchun 俞萬春, dangkou zhi 蕩寇志 [quell the bandits] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1993). for an analysis, see david wang, fin-de-siècle splendor, 124–139. [27] hanshang mengren 邗上蒙人, fengyue meng 風月夢 [dreams of the wind and the moon] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1883). translated by patrick hanan as courtesans and opium: romantic illusions of the fool of yangzhou (new york: columbia university press, 2009). the book has an 1848 preface, but no earlier print is known. for a study, see patrick hanan, “fengyue meng and the courtesan novel,” harvard journal of asiatic studies 58, no. 2 (december 1998): 345–372. [28] tianhua caizi 天華才子, kuaixin bian 快心編 [the teaser, or literally, a book that makes your heart go pitter-patter] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1975). this work has not been translated to a western language. [29] suiyuan xiashi 隨緣下士, lin lan xiang 林蘭香 [lin, lan, and xiang] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1877). no translations. [30] chen lang 陳朗, xue yue mei zhuan, 陳朗梅傳 [the biographies of snow, moon, and plum] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1877). [31] xiling yeqiao 西泠野樵, huifang lu 繪芳錄 [a record of rich fragrance] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1878). according to the preface, the author’s real name is zhu qiushi 竹秋氏. [32] cao xueqin 曹雪芹, honglou meng 紅樓夢 [dream of the red chamber; alternative title shitou ji, 石頭記 (story of the stone)] (beijing: renmin chubanshe, 1982), chapter 1, 1. translated by david hawkes and john minford as the story of the stone: a chinese novel in five volumes, penguin classics (harmondsworth: penguin books, 1973–1986). extracts from hawkes’ translation were published as the dream of the red chamber, penguin classics (new york: penguin, 1996). [33] “xinyin huifang lu chushou” 新印繪芳錄出售 [newly printed record of rich fragrance goes on sale], shenbao, february 15, 1880. chen sen 陳森, pinhua baojian 品花寳鋻 [precious mirror for ranking flowers] (n. p.: huanzhong liaohuan jushi, n. d.). [34] gui chuzi 歸鋤子, honglou meng bu 紅樓夢補 [supplement to the dream of the red chamber] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1876). the preface is dated 1819. [35] chen shaohai 陳少海, honglou fumeng 紅樓復夢 [return of the the dream of the red chamber] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1884). the preface is dated 1799. [36] zhang nanzhuang 張南莊, hedian 何典 [from what idiom?] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1878). [37] shen fu 沈復, fusheng liuji 浮生六記 [six records from a floating life],duwu’an congchao, 獨悟蓭叢抄 [duwu'an collection] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1878). translated by leonard pratt and chiang su-hui as six records from a floating life, penguin classics (harmondsworth: penguin books, 1983). [38] yu da 俞達, qinglou meng 青樓夢 [the dream of the green chamber] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1879). [39] han bangqing 韓邦慶, haishang hua liezhuan 海上花列傳 [biographies of shanghai flowers] (shanghai: shenbaoguan distributor, 1892). translated by eileen chang as the sing-song girls of shanghai (new york: columbia university press, 2005). [40] li ruzhen 李汝珍, huitu jinghua yuan 繪圖鏡花緣 [flowers in the mirror, illustrated] (shanghai: dianshizhai, 1884). [41] see among many such statements, shi youlin, 施有麟, xu 序 [preface] to meixiangguan chidu, 梅香館尺牘 [letters from the meixiang studio], by luo can 駱燦 (xinghe 星河) (shanghai: shenbaoguan 1884), 1. [42] chen dakang—whose work on the shenbaoguan “breakthrough” in late qing fiction publishing with its intense perusal of primary sources is a “breakthrough” in prc scholarship—has claimed that purely commercial interests drove the shenbaoguan and that its important cultural contributions were unintentional side-effects. he was perceptive enough, however, to note that something important was missing in this line of explanation. he expressed puzzlement about why the shenbao published advertisements from competing publishers, or why major encouraged other publishers to buy advanced printing equipment with the stated purpose of enabling them to shoulder the big burden of making china’s cultural heritage, so much of which had been lost during the taiping civil war, available again to a wider public. see chen, “dapo jiu pingheng de chushi huanjie,” 117–200. [43] on this practice, see cynthia j. brokaw, commerce in culture: the sibao book trade in the qing and republican periods (cambridge: harvard university asia center, 2007). [44] wu jingzi 吳敬梓, rulin waishi 儒林外史 [the scholars], 3rd rev. ed. (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1881). all subsequent citations refer to this edition; wen kang 文康, ernü yingxiong zhuan 兒女英雄傳 [a tale of heroes and lovers] (shanghai: shenbaoguan 1878); huaiyin xinru nüshi 淮陰心如女史 [qiu xinru, 邱心如], bisheng hua 筆生花 [the literate flower] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1881). [45] [luo guanzhong,] sanguo yanyi quantu 三國演義全圖 [three kingdoms, enhanced by images] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1882). translated by moss roberts as three kingdoms: a historic novel (berkeley: university of california press, 1991). [46] see lei jin 雷瑨, “shenbaoguan zhi guoqu zhuangkuang” 申報館之過去狀況 [the early situation in the shenbaoguan], in zuijin wushi nian—shenbaoguan wushi zhounian jinian 最近五十年—申報館五十周年紀念 [the last fifty years: commemorating shenbaoguan’s fiftieth anniversary], pt. iii (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1922), 26–28. [47] vittinghoff, die anfänge des journalismus in china, 145–149, 175. [48] chen dakang 陳大康, “lun wan qing xiaoshuo de shujia” 論晚清小説的書价 [on the prices of late qing novels], huadong shifan daxue xuebao 37, no. 4 (2005): 31–41. [49] chen, “dapo jiu pingheng de chushi huanjie,” 122. [50] this company first published the martial arts novel xiao wu yi 小五義 (the five heroes, the next generation) in 1890, and its sequel xu xiao wu yi 續小五義 (sequel to the five heroes, the next generation) in 1892. see chen, “lun wan qing xiaoshuo de shujia,” 32. [51] ellen widmer, “honglou meng ying and its publisher, juzhen tang of beijing,” late imperial china 23, no. 2 (december 2002): 33–52, here 40. [52] [xia jingqu 夏敬渠], yesou puyan 野叟曝言 [a rustic’s idle talk]. (shanghai: shanghai duweilou, 1881), advertisement first in shenbao, december 14, 1881, p. 5. [53] joseph mcdermott, “the ascendance of the imprint in china,” in printing and book culture in late imperial china, ed. cynthia brokaw and kai-wing chow (berkeley: university of california press, 2005), 85. [54] [luo guanzhong], sanguo yanyi 三國演義 [three kingdoms] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1882). translated by moss roberts as three kingdoms: a historic novel (berkeley: university of california press, 1991). [55] [shi nai’an], shuihu zhuan 水滸傳 [water margin] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1883). translated by john dent-young and alex dent-young as the marshes of mount liang: a new translation of the shuihu zhuan or water margin of shi naian and luo guanzhong, 5 vols. (hong kong: chinese university press, 1994-2002). [56] wu cheng’en 吳承恩, xiyou ji 西遊記 [journey to the west], ed. huang zhouxing 黃周星 (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 2009). translated by anthony yu as journey to the west, 4 vols. (chicago: university of chicago press, 1977–1983). [57] miao yonghe 繆詠禾, mingdai chuban shigao 明代出版史稿 [a draft history of ming dynasty publishing] (nanjing: jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2000), 213–225. [58] robert e. hegel, “niche marketing for late imperial fiction,” in brokaw and chow, printing and book culture in late imperial china, 253. [59] li lüyuan 李綠園, qilu deng 歧路燈 [lamp at the crossroads] (zhengzhou: zhongzhou shuhuashe, 1980). [60] hegel, “niche marketing for late imperial fiction,” 254. [61] i am relying on the publication list provided in han xiduo 韓錫鐸 and wang qingyuan, eds., xiaoshuo shufang lu 小説書房錄 [record of novels published by book publishers] (shenyang: chunfeng wenyi chubanshe, 1987), 80–85. i am aware that it contains many mistakes. [62] chen dakang 陳大康, zhongguo jindai xiaoshuo biannian 中國近代小説編年 [a chronology of modern chinese novels] (shanghai: huadong shifan daxue chubanshe, 2002), 1:3–4. [63] quoted in wang xiaochuan, yuan ming qing sandai jinhui xiaoshuo xiqu shiliao 元明清三代禁毀小説戲曲史料 [historical source materials on novels and plays banned and destroyed during the yuan, ming, and qing dynasties] (beijing: zuojia chubanshe, 1958), 24. [64] ibid., 64–83. on the question of bans on novels, see liu delong 劉德隆, “wan qing xiaoshuo fanrong de liangge zhongyao tiaojian” 晚清小说繁荣的两个重要条件 [two important conditions for the flourishing of the novel during the late qing], shinmatsu shōsetsu 清末小説 13 (1990): 31–40, here 33–34. for qing censorship on novels and books in general, see an pingqiu 安平秋 and zhang peiheng 張培恒, zhongguo jinshu daguan 中國禁書大觀 [a complete overview of chinese book censorship] (shanghai: shanghai wenhua chubanshe, 1990); also wang bin, 王彬, ed., qingdai jinshu zongshu 清代禁書总述 [an overview of book censorship in the qing dynasty] (beijing: zhongguo shudian, 1990). [65] see ge gongzhen 戈公振, “youguan chuban de gezhong falü 1901–1914” 有關出版的各種法律 1901–1914 [laws regarding publishing, 1901–1914], in zhongguo jindai chuban shiliao, chubian 中國近代出版史料初編 [materials on modern chinese publishing, first collection], ed. zhang jinglu 張靜盧 (shanghai: qunlian chubanshe, 1953), 312. [66] see ho ping-ti, the ladder of success in imperial china: aspects of social mobility (new york: columbia university press, 1962), 62–70. [67] many of the relevant documents have been collected in gu bingquan 顧炳權, shanghai yangchang zhuzhi ci 上海洋場竹枝詞 [bamboo twig ballads on the shanghai foreign settlements] (shanghai: shanghai shudian, 1996). see also the direct praise of the shenbaoguan in ge yuanxu’s 葛元煦 shanghai city guide/travelogue hu you zaji 滬游雜記 [miscellaneous jottings on a journey to shanghai] (1876; repr., in hu you zaji, punctuated by zheng zu’an 鄭祖安,shanghai: shanghai guji, 1989), 54. [68] on cai erkang, see natascha gentz (née vittinghoff), “ein leben am rande des ruhms: cai erkang (1852–1921),” in china in seinen biographischen dimensionen: gedenkschrift für helmut martin, ed. christina neder, heiner roetz, and ines-susanne schilling (wiesbaden: harrassowitz, 2001), 195–205. [69] lüxin xianshi 縷馨僊史 [cai erkang 蔡爾康], preface to shumu, 1a–b. [70] yongrong 永瑢 and ji yun 紀昀, siku quanshu zongmu tiyao 四庫全書總目提要 [abstracts of the full list of the complete library of the four treasuries] (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1965). [71] it should also be noted that the shenbaoguan eventually retrieved and published for the first time ji yun’s terse summaries in which he provided the gist of the individual titles in the siku quanshu. ji yun,紀昀, (qinding) siku quanshu jianming mulu (欽定) 四庫全書簡明目錄 [(imperially approved) abbreviated catalog entries for the complete library of the four treasuries], lithograph print (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1879). [72] zunwenge zhuren, 尊聞閣主人 [ernest major], “shumu fashou” 書目發售 [the book catalog has gone on sale], shenbao, july 20, 1877. [73] none of the full-length novels, such as the sanguo yanyi or water margin, are listed in the category xiaoshuojia lei, 小説家類 in yongrong and ji yun, siku quanshu zongmu tiyao, 1161–1162. [74] the category of drama does not exist in yongrong and ji, siku quanshu zongmu tiyao and it is likewise absent in the shumu. for ji yun it represents a literary genre not worthy of recording; and for the shenbaoguan the reason might be that by the late nineteenth century, written drama, i.e. chuanqi or zaju 雜劇, had become a literati genre for reading only, without any pretense of performance or a popular base. in later years, however, the shenbaoguan serialized new dramatic works with illustrations in the dianshizhai huabao. see wagner, “joining the global imaginaire,” 146–147. [75] shumu, 1–2. [76] dong xun, 董恂, gonggui lianming pu , 宮閨聯名譜 [compilation of assorted works from the women’s quarters] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1877). [77] qin huai huafang lu 秦淮畫舫錄 [record of the painted boats on the qin and huai rivers] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1874); li dou 李斗, yangzhou huafang lu 揚州畫舫錄 [record of the painted boats at yangzhou] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1875); wumen huafanglu 吳門畫舫錄 [record of the painted boats at wumen] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1876). [78] shumu, 10. [79] see judith zeitlin, “xiaoshuo,” in thenovel. vol. 1, history, geography, and culture, ed. franco moretti (princeton: princeton university press, 2006), 249–261. [80] the earliest occurrence of the term zhanghui xiaoshuo as given in the standard dictionaries, such as morohashi’s dai kan-wa jiten, and the hanyu dacidian, can be found in writings on literary history by lu xun 魯迅 and zheng zhenduo, 鄭振鐸 in the 1920s. see lu xun 魯迅, zhongguo xiaoshuo shilüe , 中國小說史略 [a short history of the chinese novel], (1932; repr., shanghai: shanghai shuju, 1990), 148. given cai erkang’s statement in the preface that the content of the shumu was based on oral introductions to the individual titles given to him by ernest major, the term zhanghui might have originated with major himself, who might have associated it with the installments of the serialized novels that had been appearing in western papers since the 1830s. [81] table of contents of shumu xuji. [82] jonathan swift, gulliver’s travels (1726; repr., new york: penguin books, 2012). [83] ji yun, 紀昀, yuewei caotang biji 閱微草堂筆記 [brush notes from the yuewei grass-covered shed] (beijing: huaxia chubanshe, 1995). translated by david e. pollard as real life in china at the height of the empire: revealed by the ghosts of ji xiaolan (hong kong: chinese university press, 2014). [84] for a study of the deluxe editions from the wuying palace, see xiao li 蕭力, “qingdai wuyingdian keshu chutan” 清代武英殿刻書初探 [a first study of the wuying palace prints], in lidai keshu gaikuang 歷代刻書概況 [an outline of book printing through the ages], ed. shanghai xinsijun lishi yanjiuhui yinshua yinchao fenhui 上海新四軍歷史研究會印刷印鈔分會 (beijing: yinshua gongye chubanshe, 1991), 376–393. major was not alone in emulating this wuying palace format, other publishers also made efforts in the same direction. however, it was the shenbaoguan’s success with this imprint that prompted other shanghai publishers to follow suit. [85] ginkōkaku sōka 吟香閣叢畵 (hankou: leshantang, 1885) is one example. this is a volume containing lithography reproductions of paintings in the collection of the meiji journalist and pioneer of on-site reporting kishida ginkō, 岸田吟香 (1833–1905), who set up this bookstore in hankou to emulate and compete with the dianshizhai in shanghai. [86]key to the characters in coningsby: comprising about sixty of the principal personages in the story (london: sherwood, gilbert and piper, 1844). [87] the term “modern novel” is not a historical term. it is taken here from wu xi’s 武禧 analysis of lishao jushi’s [jiang zirang?] preface to the translation of bulwer-lytton’s night and morning. wu xi 武禧, “wan qing xiaoshuo de shixian” 晚清小説的時限 [the timeliness of the late qing novel], shinmatsu shōsetsu kara 72 (january 2002): 25. [88] the first to point out the importance of these paratexts for the development of a new theoretical framework for the modern chinese novel was wu xi, see “wan qing xiaoshuo de shixian,” 25. against this, chen yedong 陳業東 has argued that an advertisement of 1895 by john fryer (1839–1928), an englishman who worked in the shanghai arsenal, in the wanguo gongbao 萬國公報, or review of the times, may, 1895, first issue, entitled “qiu zhu shixin xiaoshuo qi” 求著時新小説啓 [advertisement searching for submissions of novels on contemporary affairs], was the beginning of a modern theory of the novel in chinese. fryer called for submissions to a competition on writing novels with the aim of educating people about the evils of opium smoking, the eight-legged easy, and footbinding. see chen yedong 陳業東, “jindai xiaoshuo lilun qidian zhi wo jian” 近代小説理論起點之我見 [my idea about the starting point of modern theories of the novel], ming qing xiaoshuo yanjiu 1 (1994): 66–74. for a study on john fryer’s novel contest, see [patrick hanan], “the new novel before the new novel: john fryer’s fiction contest,” in writing and materiality in china, ed. judith zeitlin and lydia h. liu, 317–340. [89] ian p. watt, the rise of the novel: studies in defoe, richardson and fielding (berkeley: university of california press, 1957). [90] see hanan, “the translated fiction in the early shenbao,” 110–123. [91] see watt, the rise of the novel, chapter 1. [92] “xinyi yingguo xiaoshuo” 新譯英國小説 [newly translated english novel], shenbao, january 4, 1873. [93] since the 1830s novel serialization had formed an important means of acquainting readers in france, britain, and germany with the concept of subscriptions for newspapers and periodicals. for england, see graham law, serializing fiction in the victorian press (new york: palgrave, 2000). [94] “xinyi yingguo xiaoshuo”. [95] ibid. [96] see ye tingliang 葉廷亮, qingmo xiaoshuo lilun 晚清小説理論 [late qing theories of the novel] (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1996) 10–17. [97] the zhou shuo (zhou anecdotes), now lost, is a work from the time of han wudi 漢武帝 (ruled 141–187 b.c.e.). it is listed in the bibliographical treatise of the hanshu with no less than 943 pian 篇. the term zashuo refers to collections of anecdotes, which for the most part were not entered into the official histories. [98] the tangdai congshu 唐代叢書 [collected books from the tang dynasty; alternative title tangren shuohui 唐人說薈] is a compilation of chuanqi and biji narratives by tang authors, compiled by chen shixi 陳世熙 [chen liantang 陳蓮塘] (fl. 1791). the term suoji refers to short and often anecdotal pieces of fiction. [99] lishao jushi 蠡勺居士, xu 序 [preface] to yinghuan suoji 1 (1972): 1–2. a punctuated edition of this text with short glosses has been included in huang lin 黃霖and han tongwen 韓同文, eds., zhongguo lidai xiaoshuo lunzhu xuan, 中國歷代小説論著選 [selections from chinese writings on the novel through the ages], rev. ed. (nanchang: jiangxi renmin chubanshe, 2000), 628–630. pinghua, also written 評話, refers to oral narratives of historical events, interspersed with comments from the narrator. novels such as the sanguo yanyi and shuihu zhuan are said to go back to such pinghua versions. interestingly, the “preface” completely disregards the crucial role of transcultural interaction in this development, passing over the importance of indian buddhist narratives about the buddha’s earlier lives (jātaka) in the development of chinese fictional narratives as well as that of central asian performing arts in the development of chinese theatre. as a consequence, the “preface” avoids the option of claiming a similar high ground of cultural importance for the novel under consideration. [100] lishao jushi, xu to yinghuan suoji, 1. [101] ibid. [102] for critical comments to this effect, see huang and han, zhongguo lidai xiaoshuo lunzhu xuan, 630. [103] lishao jushi, xu to yinghuan suoji, 1. [104] shao can, 邵璨, xiangnang ji 香囊記 [records from a perfumed satchel], in xuxiu siku quanshu 續修四庫全書 [complete library of the four treasuries: continued and revised] (shanghai: shanghai guji chubanshe, 1995–1999) 1773:506. [105] lishao jushi, xu to yinghuan suoji, 2. [106] see yeh, the chinese political novel, 72–74. [107] see rudolf wagner, “the zhouli as the late qing path to the future,” in statecraft and classical learning: the rituals of zhou in east asian history, ed. benjamin a. elman and martin kern (leiden: brill, 2010), 359–387. [108] lishao jushi, xu to yinghuan suoji, 2. [109] ibid. [110] xiaoxiaosheng 笑笑生，jin ping mei cihua 金瓶梅詞話. [jin ping mei interspersed with songs] (beijing: huayu jiaoxue chubanshe, 1993) translated by david tod roy as the plum in the golden vase, 5 vols. (princeton: princeton university press, 1993-2013). [111] lishao jushi, xu to yinghuan suoji, 2. [112] ibid. [113] ibid. [114] both of these metaphors, the first from the zuozhuan and the second from the history of the jin, have become stock items in texts about the new functions of the novel during the late qing. for the first, see the announcement for the rulin waishi quoted below, for the second, see moxi 摩西 [huang ren 黃人], “fakanci” 發刊詞 [inaugural introduction to our periodical], xiaoshuo lin 1 (1907): 1–3. [115] while an appreciation of these qualities was widely shared in england at the time, his writing skills are hardly appreciated by contemporary literary historians, for whom bulwer-lytton survives primarily as the man who coined the clichéd opening phrase “it was a dark and stormy night” and whose name now lends itself to an annual award for the worst opening sentence of a novel. for the bulwer-lytton fiction contest, see http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/ [accessed on 08. july 2015]. the creator of this contest, prof. scott rice, has compiled several volumes of the most dreadful submissions. [116] wang gai, jieziyuan hua zhuan [painting manual from the mustard seed garden] (beijing: zhongguo shudian, 1999). [117]xinxi xiantan 昕夕閒談 [idle talk mornings and nights] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1875). [118] “xinxi xiantan quanzhi chushou” 昕夕閒談全帙出售 [idle talk mornings and nights complete edition on sale]. shenbao, september 3, 1875. [119] it might be noted that the “for profit only” argument does have its uses. while formally agreeing with the prc master narrative about the motives guiding foreign-owned media during the late qing, it also allows for study of the unintended side benefits. marx provided the argumentative model with a statement that has been much quoted in shanghai studies and according to which one had to admit that, all the evils of british colonialism notwithstanding, it greatly contributed to the development of productive forces in india. [120] until recently, these announcements have been read as simple advertisements, which signal marketing efforts in their language and emphasis but certainly do not qualify as bona fide sources for an aesthetic agenda. only pan jianguo 潘建國, “you shenbao suo kan san xiaoshuo zhengwen qishi: kan wan qing xiaoshuo guannian de yanjin” 由申報所刊三小説徵文啓事,看晚清小説觀念的演進 [viewing the evolution of the concept of the novel from three advertisement for novels published in the shenbao], ming qing xiaoshuo yanjiu 1 (2002): 43–51, has completed a qualitative analysis of some of them. otherwise, when dealt with at all, these sources are seen purely within the context of the development of advertisements for novels. see liu, “chatu yu wan qing xiaoshuo de chuanbo,” 120–122, and liu, “wan qing xiaoshuo guanggao yanjiu.” [121] this aspect has been addressed in wen juan 文娟, “shilun zaoqi shenbaoguan de xiaoshuo chuban shiye jiqi yingxiang” 試論早期申報館的小説出版事業及其影響 [a tentative assessment of the novel publishing activities of the early shenbaoguan and its influence], zhongwen zixue zhidao 3 (2007): 34. for details on the interaction with this “shenbaoguan community,” see the section “novel publishing as a collective endeavor: mobilizing the shenbaoguan community” further down in the present study. [122] advertising played an important role as a source of income for the shenbao, and from early on the shenbao printed ads from competing publishers (while rigorously refusing ads for opium). advertisements and announcements for book publication in the nineteenth-century british press were rather matter of fact and straightforward, as compared, for example, to advertisements for medicine. although there were journals specializing in literary and art listings, which gave a slightly more detailed account of the advertised book’s content, these were not typical. nineteenth-century overviews of the very young history of advertising in the british isles have a lot to say about frivolous advertising, but this mostly refers to medical products. see “cesar birotteau” (an article referred to at the top of the pages as “the advertisement system”), the edinburgh review; or, critical journal 77, no. 155 (february 1843): 2-43; and “scottish newspaper directory and guide to advertisers,” the quarterly review (1855): 185.if these articles refer to book advertisements at all, it is to authors who pen anonymous reviews of their own books. at the same time, there was a well-developed book-review culture in england, one with strong and rigorous intellectual standards. since the eighteenth century, critiques of books were published in book review journals such as the edinburgh review. thus, it would seem that the prevailing practice, at least in the nineteenth century, was that advertisement for new books and book reviews were regarded as two separate categories. for a general history of british advertising, see e. a. turner, the shocking history of advertising (harmondsworth: penguin, 1965), 27. for a study on advertising in the women’s press, see margaret beetham, a magazine of her own? domesticity and desire in the “woman’s magazine,” 1800–1914 (london: routledge, 1996), 142–154. [123] late ming and early qing advertisements for books, located in the back pages of other books by the same publisher, claiming it was a “capital edition” (jing ben 京本), was “carefully edited” (jingxin xiaozheng 精心校正), or “based on the personal copy” (shouyue ben 手閱本) of some famous person, relate more closely to the advertisements in the end of the shenbao than to the announcements in the beginning. the space where this form of book advertisement appeared was known, among many other terms, as “paiji” 牌記. see miao, mingdai chuban shigao, 293; and fu xianglong 傅湘龍, “wan ming, wan qing shangye yunzuo yu xiaoshuo kanyin xingtai zhi bianqian—yi wan ming jianyang shufang he wan qing shanghai shuju wei zhongxin” 晚明， 晚清商業運作與小説刊印形態之變遷—以晚明建陽書坊和晚清 上海書局為中心 [late ming and late qing commercial operations and the transformations in the situation of fiction printing—with a focus on the late ming jianyang bookstore and late qing shanghai bookstore], zhongguo wenxue yanjiu 4 (2009): 89. apart from this, these ads did not appear in a newspaper’s daily communication with its readers where the credibility of the paper itself enhanced that of the announcement. this was not the case even for the ads in the end of the shenbao, which, as everybody knew, were paid for. [124] the authorship of the announcements is not easy to determine as many are signed simply “announcement from our company.” from the outset, however, many announcements, including announcements for novels, were signed by ernest major under his pen name shenbaoguan zhuren. examples are huifang lu 繪芳錄 (record of make-up and perfume) (february 15, 1880); bisheng hua 筆生花 (the literate flower) (january 29, 1882); shuihu zhuan 水滸傳 (water margin) (september 11, 1883); zhengxu shuihu zhuan 正續水滸傳 (water margin, original work plus sequel) (september 12, 1883); fengyue meng 風月夢 (dreams of the wind and the moon) (september 25, 1883); sanbao taijian xiyang ji 三寶太監西洋記 (the record of the eunuch [zheng he’s] journey to the western seas) (december 11, 1883); and honglou fumeng 紅樓復夢 (return of the dream of the red chamber) (may 14, 1884). [125] wang tao, “dunku lanyan xu” 遁窟讕言序 [preface to dunku lanyan], in zhongguo lidai xiaoshuo xuba ji 中國歷代小説序跋集 [collection of preand postfaces throughout the ages], ed. ding xigen 丁錫根 (beijing: renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1996), 2:623. [126] an example of one such signed announcement is shenbaoguan zhuren 申報館主人, “xinyin fengyue meng chushou” 新印風月夢出售 [newly printed dreams of the wind and the moon on sale], shenbao, september 25, 1883. while there is good evidence for major’s hands-on involvement, this can only be truly established by research that maps his role in the way the shenbaoguan’s products were selected, produced, distributed, and circulated. we shall therefore refer in this study to the shenbaoguan’s novel publishing enterprise as being under the leadership of major in general, but will refer to his personal role in promoting the novel only when using materials containing his personal signatures zunwenge zhuren or shenbaoguan zhuren. [127] see wagner, “joining the global imaginaire,” 114, 132–134. [128] see for example, “early criticism of the victorian novel from james oliphant to david cecil,” chapter 1 in the victorian novel: a guide to criticism, ed. francis o’gorman (chichester: john wiley & sons, 2008). [129] “announcement,” shenbao, november 13, 1874. [130] zunwenge zhuren 尊聞閣主人, “da xileng tixiaguan zhu shu,” 答西冷梯霞館主書 [answering the letter from the master of the tixiaguan in xileng], shenbao, january 22, 1875. [131] the importance of these announcements for mobilizing the readership has been noted by wen, “shilun zaoqi shenbaoguan,” 34. [132] the notion that the extraordinary or qi represents the highest achievement of novel creation began with yuan hongdao 袁宏道 (1568–1610), li zhi 李贄 (1527–1602), and jin shengtan 金聖嘆 (1608–1661) in the ming period; even though traditional novels often stated in their prefaces the claim to educate the reader as to what not to do, the notion that the novel could be a tool for moral education was first clearly articulated by commentators in the ming period; see chen hong 陳洪, zhongguo xiaoshuo lilun shi 中國小説理論史 [a history of theories of the chinese novel] (hefei: anhui wenyi chubanshe, 1992), 55–56; and huang and han, zhongguo lidai xiaoshuo lunzhu xuan, 628–630. [133] shenbao, september 3, 1875. [134] yanhu yanshui sanren 鴛湖煙水散人 (xu zhen, 徐震), nü caizi (shu), 女才子 （書） [women of genius] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1877). [135] many works have been attributed to this author. nü caizi consists of biographies of outstanding literati women from the ming dynasty. qing editions appeared under the new title guixiu yingcai zhuan 閨秀英才傳 [biographies of outstanding women talents]. [136] “colleague” or “friend,” (you 友), is the term used in shenbao announcements to refer to people who were in some way loosely associated with the publishing house without being employed there. appeals would, for example, be directed to “friends” to recommend someone in another town as a correspondent for the paper. [137] “fashou nü caizi gaobai” 發售女才子告白 [advertisement for women of genius going on sale], shenbao, october 22, 1877. [138] “hou xiyou ji chushou” 後西遊記出售 [sequel to “journey to the west” goes on sale], shenbao, december 14, 1880. for a modern edition with tianhua caizi’s comments, see hou xiyou ji 後西游記 [sequel to journey to the west] (shenyang: chunfeng wenyi chubanshe, 1985). [139] an example is “ying tan chushou” 影談出售 [shadow talk goes on sale], shenbao, december 28, 1876. [140] “xinyin kuaixin bian chushou” 新印快心編出售 [newly printed the teaser goes on sale], shenbao, december 11, 1875. the 1875 shenbaoguan book edition is tianhua caizi 天花才子, kuaixin bian chuji 快心編初集 [the teaser, part one]. the copy in my hand, according to the title page, is a shenbaoguan reprint, no date of publication. [141] “yuan xu” 原序 [original preface] to kuaixin bian chuji 快心編初集 [the teaser, part one] by tianhua caizi 天花才子, ed. zhu meishu 朱眉叔, commentary by siqiao jushi 四橋居士 (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1875). [142] tianhua caizi 天花才子, “fanli”, 凡例 [editorial principles], in kuai xin bian chuji. [143] ruan yuan 阮元, jingji zuangu 經藉纂故 [reference sources for classical studies] (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1884). th publication was the result of a two-year long search. [144] the high number of submissions for shenbaoguan volumes with innovative model essays to help in the preparations for the imperial examinations, wenyuan jinghua , 文苑菁華 (lush flowers from the garden of literature) (1873) and jingyi xinyu 經藝新畬 (newly retrieved examination essays on the classics) (1875), shows the degree of acceptance the company enjoyed even in this culturally sensitive field and among men heading for official careers. [145] as qiu jiangning 邱江寧 pointed out, this was the prevailing genre in novel publishing during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but it had dwindled by the late qing. see qiu jiangning 邱江寧, qingchu caizi jiaren xiaoshuo xushu moshi yanjiu 清初才子佳人小説敍述模式研究 [a study on the narrative structure of the talented young man and beautiful lady novel of the early qing period] (shanghai: shanghai sanlian chubanshe, 2005), 6. [146] for a detailed discussion of realism and modern chinese literature, see marston anderson, the limits of realism: chinese fiction in the revolutionary period (berkeley: university of california press, 1990). [147] in using the terms “new,” “lively,” “real,” and “realistic,” we shall follow their historical usage in the shumu, the paratexts, and the announcements rather than in modern literary scholarship. [148] “xinshu chushou” 新書出售 [new book on sale], shenbao, august 17, 1876. [149] for this metaphor, see note 144. [150] “benguan xinyin rulin waishi” 本館新印儒林外史 [new print of the rulin waishi by our company], shenbao, november 10, 1874. [151] see huang and han, zhongguo lidai xiaoshuo lunzhu xuan, 433, 560; see also milena doleželová-velingerova, “seventeenth-century chinese theory of narrative: a reconstruction of its system and concepts,” in poetics east and west, ed. milena doleželová-velingerova (toronto: toronto semiotic circle, victoria college in the university of toronto, 1989): 137–157. [152] this coincides with a literary fashion in europe. since the 1830s, such types had been described in the french “physiologies,” which used the almost sociological depictions by all the later literary giants (balzac, hugo, dumas, sue, etc.). the fashion was also strong in england as may be seen from many of the famous characters in the works of charles dickens, as well as caricatures from punch; or, the london charivari. for background information on this see rudolf wagner, inside a service trade: studies in contemporary chinese prose (cambridge: harvard university asia center, 1992), 363–367. [153] this number was cut out in the subsequent advertisements for this edition. [154] “rulin waishi chushou” 儒林外史出售 [rulin waishi goes on sale], shenbao, may 20, 1875. for a study of different editions of this novel, see li hanqiu 李漢秋, “rulin waishi” yanjiu ziliao 儒林外史研究資料 [research materials on rulin waishi] (shanghai: shanghai guji chubanshe, 1984), 99–159. [155] see, for example, key to the characters in coningsby. [156] for a short study of zhang huwen’s role in forming the modern editions of rulin waishi, see zhou junwen 周君文, “wan qing rulin waishi de wenren pingdian qunti” 晚清儒林外史的文人評點群體 [the group of literati annotators of the late qing rulin waishi], shanghai shifan daxue xuebao 32, no. 3 (2003): 43–44. [157] wu, rulin waishi, 1. [158] “duwu’an congchao chushou” 獨悟蓭 叢抄出售 [the duwu’an congchao goes on sale], shenbao, june 3, 1878. [159] hanshang, fengyue meng. patrick hanan offers a study and translation of this novel, see n27 above. [160] shenbaoguan zhuren, “xinyin fengyue meng chushou.” [161] cao xueqin 曹雪芹, honglou meng 紅樓夢 [dream of the red chamber] (beijing: renmin chubanshe, 1982), chapter 1, 1. [162] matthew g. lewis, the monk (waterford: saunders, 1796); li yu 李漁, rou putuan 肉蒲團 [the carnal prayer mat], ed. qingyin xiansheng, 情隱先生 (taibei: taiwan daying baike gufen youxian gongsi, 1994). translated by patrick hanan as the carnal prayer mat (new york: ballantine books, 1990). [163] “tanying xiaolu” http://erf.sbb.spk-berlin.de/han/shenbao2/shunpao.egreenapple.com/detail?record=294&channelid=31792&randno=29812&resultid=351 談瀛小錄 [notes on countries overseas], shenbao, serialized may 21, 24, 1872. [164] “yi shui qishi nian” http://erf.sbb.spk-berlin.de/han/shenbao2/shunpao.egreenapple.com/detail?record=444&channelid=31792&randno=28027&resultid=351 一睡七十年 [asleep for seventy years], shenbao, may 28, 1872. [165] the dianshizhai huabao also offered a rich fare of the fantastic and grotesque. see nanny kim, “new wine in old bottles? making and reading an illustrated magazine in late nineteenth-century shanghai,” in wagner, joining the global public, 175–200. [166] “xinyin xiyou bu chushou” 新印西遊補出售 [newly printed supplement to “journey to the west” goes on sale], shenbao, january 3, 1876. [167] nothing further is known about them. [168] “xinyin hedian chushou” 新印何典出售 [newly printed from what idiom? goes on sale], shenbao, december 14, 1878. [169] tianmu shanqiao 天目山樵 [zhang wenhu 張文虎], xu 序 [preface] to rulin waishi, by wu jingzi (shanghai: shenbaoguan 1881). [170] ibid. [171] “lin lan xiang yihuo” 林蘭香已獲 [lin lan xiang has been obtained], shenbao, june 22, 1877. [172] see “xinyin hou shuihu chushou” 新印後水滸出售 [newly printed sequel to the “water margin” goes on sale], shenbao, april 16, 1877. [173] a print of this work from the daoguang period under the alternative title guobao lu 果報錄 (a record of retribution) may be found in the harvard yenching library, call number 5727 6480. [174] shenbaoguan zhuren, “xinyin bisheng hua tanci chushou,” shenbao, january 27, 1882. the translation largely follows wagner, “women in shenbaoguan publications,” 248. [175] for detailed discussion of this issue, see wagner, “women in shenbaoguan publications.” see also barbara mittler’s study of the development of women as readers of shenbao advertisements in a newspaper for china, 245–311. [176] see ellen widmer, the beauty and the book: women and fiction in nineteenth-century china (cambridge: harvard asia center, 2006), 168–170. [177] this was confirmed in the announcement for lin lan xiang, which states that it would not introduce the content of the work, since this had been given in the shumu. “ernü yingxiong zhuan chushou” 兒女英雄傳出售 [ernü yingxiong zhuan on sale], shenbao, march 23, 1881. [178] “xinshu chushou”, 新書出售 [new book on sale], shenbao, april 15, 1878. [179] “jinghua yuan chushou” 鏡花緣出售 [flowers in the mirror goes on sale], shenbao, december 29, 1880. [180] rudolf wagner has done a qualitative and quantitative analysis of this shenbaoguan community as well as its geographic distribution. see rudolf wagner, “ernest major’s shenbaoguan and the formation of late qing print culture.” unpublished manuscript. [181] “yingyou lai shu” 營友來書 [letter from a friend in the military], shenbao, june 13, 1874. [182] pan, “you shenbao suo kan san xiaoshuo zhengwen qishi,” 44–45. [183] yu hu yuanke 寓滬遠客, “you tu qiu shuo chushou” 有圖求說出售 [illustrations looking for a text on sale], shenbao, november 21, 1877. [184] beiguan xiaoshuo 稗官小説, verbatim. “small talk by local officials” is a semi-ironic reference to the first mention of the term xiaoshuo and the author and collector of this type of narrative in the history of the han dynasty. see ban gu 班固, “yiwen zhi” 藝文志 [bibliographical treatise], in hanshu 漢書 (book of han) (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1970), 1745. [185] “shu qing zhuan xiaoshuo hou”, 書請撰小説後 [note following the request for submitting a novel], shenbao, november 21, 1877. [186]  “fangmi lin lan xiang gaobai”, 訪覓林蘭香告白 [announcement of looking for lin lan xiang (copy)], shenbao, june 21, 1877. [187] “lin lan xiang yihuo.” [188] “lin lan xiang yin qi chushou” 林蘭香印齊出售 [lin lan xiang goes on sale after printing has been completed], shenbao, july 19, 1877. [189] rudolf wagner has described the strategy of building suspense to turn the shenbaoguan publication of the rulin waishi into a public event. see rudolf wagner, “shenbaoguan zaoqi de shuji chuban” 申報館早期的書籍出版 [early print culture of the shenbaoguan], in wan ming yu wan qing: lishi zhuancheng yu wenhua chuangxin 晚明與晚清：歷史傳承與文化創新 [late ming and late qing: heritage and innovation], ed. chen pingyuan 陳平原, wang dewei 王德威, and shang wei 商偉 (wuhan: hubei jiaoyu chubanshe, 2001), 174–177. [190] zunwenge zhuren, “sou yesou puyan ji, yuanben honglou meng er shu qi. zunwenge zhuren shou zou” 蒐野叟曝言記原本紅樓夢二書啟 [advertising search for the yesou puyan and the original manuscript of the dream of the red chamber. a personal memorandum from the master of the cherish the news studio], shenbao, july 18, 1877. three months later another advertisement appeared appealing for support in locating the manuscript: “qi ji yesou puyan gaoben shu” 乞寄野叟曝言稿本書 [a plea to send us the manuscript of yesou puyan], shenbao, october 29, 1877. [191] “sou fang yesou puyan” 蒐訪野叟曝言 [in search of yesou puyan], shenbao, december 21, 1879. the same advertisement was repeated on january 19, 1880. [192] “sou fang yesou puyan.” [193] “xinyin yesou puyan chushou”, 新印野叟曝言出售 [newly printed yesou puyan goes on sale], shenbao, december 16, 1881; see chen, “dapo jiu pingheng de chushi huanjie,” 120. [194] see chen, “dapo jiu pingheng de chushi huanjie,” 120–121. [195] “ji shou yesou puyan xiaoyin” 寄售野叟曝言小引 [small preface for the sale and mailing of yesou puyan], shenbao, january 24, 1883. the advertisement of the publication of yesou puyan by biling huizhenlou, however, was published in the shenbao, december 21, 1881. [196] zunwenge zhuren, “sou yesou puyan ji.” [197] liang qichao 梁啟超, xixue shumu biao 西學書目表 [list of books on western learning], in zhixue congshu 質學叢書 (wuchang: zhixuehui, 1897), vol. 9, ch. 2, 3b. [198] wen, “shilun zaoqi shenbaoguan,” 36. [199] chen dakang 陳大康, “zhongguo jindai xiaoshuo shiliao: shenbao xiaoshuo shiliao nianbian” 中國近代小説史料—申報小説史料年編 [historical reference materials on the modern chinese novel—chronology of historical materials on the novel from the shenbao], wenxue yichan wangluo ban 文學遺產網絡版， http://wxyc.literature.org.cn/journals_article.aspx?id=424, accessed july 26, 2015. dividing up the [chinese] melon | rudolf wagner | transcultural studies "dividing up the [chinese] melon, guafen 瓜分": the fate of a transcultural metaphor in the formation of national myth rudolf g. wagner, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg introduction the mainland china master narrative of modern chinese history, established by fan wenlan’s zhongguo jindai shi 中國近代史 (modern history of china) in 1947[1] and recycled to this day in schoolbooks, museums, tv shows, textbooks, and scholarly writings has it that during the late qing the powers (great britain, russia, france, japan, germany, united states) had the intention to cut up china “like a watermelon” as they had just done with africa, and that this was prevented by chinese resistance motivated by an awakening patriotism and nationalism.[2] this master narrative claims that the intention of the powers, especially the united states, to cut up china is alive to this day, although the strategies might have changed. given the increased prowess of the people’s republic of china, backdoor techniques such as spreading ideas of democracy and rule of law or promoting “multi-coloured revolutions” have replaced outright military means. the presumable slices follow a north/south or a coastal areas/inland division, unless they focus on particular areas such as tibet, xinjiang, or the south china sea. “cutting up [a country like] a melon,” guafen 瓜分, was widely used between the 1890s and the 1920s. however, while the image of the watermelon remained potentially visible in the chinese term gua 瓜, which is used in this meaning to this day, guafen had joined the cemetery of dead metaphors from which much of our conceptual language is derived. the metaphorical character of the expression was not highlighted through explicit markers such as [“x is like. . .”]. before 1900, guafen was regularly used in lieu of an abstract concept, but political cartoons, paintings, plays, poems, and political essays after this date show that the concrete image of cutting up a melon could be revived, allowing for the pictorial representation of the agency in the cutting, the instrument used, the dividing lines, and the beneficiaries. this study is part of a larger project in transcultural conceptual history. conceptual historians have generally assumed that concepts are words, some, such as reinhart koselleck, one of the principal promoters of conceptual history as a scholarly field, going as far as to claim that conceptual history can only trace developments within a single language because the “uniqueness of any given language” makes concepts untranslatable.[3] both points, the notion that concepts only appear in single words and that they are untranslatable, are ill supported. first, concepts are articulated on a broad range of platforms beyond words. these range from metaphor to institution, from installation to composition, to, finally, silent action. second, the transcultural migration of concepts on all these platforms, which goes back to the beginnings of human language, has intensified since the nineteenth century to the point that all modern vernaculars have come to share a large set of them as a kind of invisible esperanto with local and individual shades of meaning and application. an earlier part of this project, the introduction of which also sketched the controversies summarized here and provided some of the key references, investigated the translingual and transcultural migration of the conceptual metaphor of a nation “asleep” and “awakened.”[4] the present study goes a step further. it will probe the ways in which a local chinese metaphor that translated a legal concept in international law became part of the latter’s larger systemic context; deal with the methodological issue of the relationship between abstract and metaphorical concepts; explore the intentions and reach of the historical actors who were promoting this metaphorical concept as accurately capturing china’s impending fate; sketch the efforts of turning the guafen narrative into a dominant discourse for advocacy purposes by reviving the metaphorical meaning in visual, literary, and stage representations so as to win broader audiences for the political agenda that saw china in danger of being cut up, and discuss the argumentative adjustments made by the promoters of this lively vision of the danger facing china when history failed to live up to their premonitions. last but not least, the study will venture beyond a decontextualized history of the meaning of a concept to explore how it is to be explained that in 1912 the country was able, at its moment of greatest weakness, to move from empire to republic with its largest ever territory intact. in a critical departure from the master narrative that bestows all the patriotic praise to the reformers and revolutionaries who warned about the danger of a partition of china, this study will assess the relationship between the guafen narrative and the historical reality of the “victor’s dilemma” as well as the qing court’s use of it. origins: guafen as a translation of the concept of the “partition” of poland guafen 瓜分, “watermelon-cutting,” has been used since chinese antiquity as an unmarked metaphorical concept for dividing up. these uses were rare. in the entire eighteenth century collection of chinese transmitted texts, the siku quanshu, only about 130 occurrences of guafen will be found, and this includes a large overlap through allusions to the same two or three stories. none of the uses marks guafen as a metaphor by inserting a “this is like.” to avoid the awkwardness of creating a verb “watermelon-cutting,” however, i will use “cutting up like a melon.” during the warring states period (475–221 bce), it occurs as a term for the neighbours’ dividing up the territory of a state among each other. the state disappears with the “slices” being inserted into the neighbours’ own territory.[5] the description might be graphic, but it carries no value judgment. a watermelon is a cultivated plant like a state and it does not have an intrinsic claim to stay intact. it even seems predestined to be divided up as it shows potential lines for division on its rind. in other cases, guafen is used, again without opprobrium, to describe a ruler’s assigning land to meritorious ministers or to their children, or for dividing a charitable association’s annual collection of contributions among people suffering from a natural disaster.[6] however, it also appears in reports about robbers dividing up their booty.[7] at the other end of the spectrum, it was used to describe the dissolution of the territory into competing states, a process perceived as distressful. even in such references, however, guafen is an abstract process, and very rarely an individual is charged with the responsibility for it. there is, as far as i can see, not a single reference in pre-1800 chinese sources to an outside power dividing up china like a melon. historically, however, the territory covered by china today was for most of its history not under a unified rule, and there are cases during the six dynasties and between the tang and yuan dynasties when outside powers such as the tuoba, liao, or xixia controlled parts of what previously had been under unified rule in separate state formations. a historical sketch of the guafen of china from someone in the state of jin in the fourth century ce who signs as a “sojourner” survives: “but once it came (from the hallowed three dynasties, r.w.) to the six states (of the eastern zhou) down to our time, the overall stability of people’s pursuits went awry, and efforts at cutting up (the country like) a melon were on the rise (with the effect) that the farmer could not peacefully go about his ploughing, and the official could not live by his salary.”[8] as a sign of the general decay of the polity, internal controversy led to the country’s being cut up. grammatically, guafen translates as “the cutting up of a watermelon” with the object gua/melon first and the verb fen/divide, thereafter, but it is most often used as a composite verb that is preceded or followed by an object. this transforms the noun melon into an adverb, resulting in “melonwise cutting up” of a territory or “melonwise dividing up” of a sum of money, and it opens the way for the nominalization of the verb fen, divide, to get to “the melonwise cutting up of” an object. until modern times, guafen was one of the many more or less “dead” metaphors that have entered all common languages as abstract terms with their metaphorical origin mostly forgotten. in our case, this is evident from guafen being paired with synonymous metaphors to highlight a common conceptual core. examples are guafen luanqie 瓜分臠切 (cutting up like a melon and carving up like meat),[9] guafen douli 瓜分豆離 (cutting up like a melon and separating like soybeans), or guafen fulie 瓜分幅裂 (cutting up like a melon and ripping apart like a piece of cloth).[10] these synonymous metaphors share the same grammatical structure and their pairing of two utterly different processes that overlap in one key feature shows the effort to arrive at a truly abstract concept without leaving the realm of metaphorical concreteness and without creating an artificial new term. however, as we shall see, the metaphorical value of guafen was still visible enough to be rediscovered in modern times.[11] although there are references in the chinese sources to states being divided up by neighbours or through internal struggle, no discussion has come down to us indicating how the legitimacy of such a partition was treated in inter-state relations. such a discussion would not have to be based on some form of formalized international law agreed upon by the states involved. as w.a.p. martin, the chinese translator of wheaton’s international law, argued already in the 1860s, interstate relations during the spring and autumn period (771–476 b.c.e) were governed by a shared understanding of certain rules referred to in the zuozhuan 左傳 [mr. zuo’s transmission (warring states)] as “good usages,” haoli 好禮,[12] such as the immunity of diplomatic envoys or the binding power of contracts. these rules were enforced through a collective ostracism or punishment of the offender.[13] however, as martin observed, “no formal text-book containing the rules which for so many centuries controlled this complicated intercourse has come down to our times.”[14] partition was not covered separately as an item by martin, possibly because it occurred too rarely. the twelve states of the spring and autumn period went back to zhou dynasty fiefs. this common background for all but the state of qin established a shared understanding that their existence as states was guaranteed. while we do not have records of successful or failed partitions for this early period, there are several cases where small and weak states (such as lu) successfully defended themselves against neighbours’ attempts to grab territory from them by invoking their originally having been established within these borders by the zhou dynasty. they were signalling in this way that this land-grabbing was against the agreed-upon good usages. while quite a few of these customs of international relations remained active during the succeeding warring states period, the common understanding of the right of the different states to exist was considerably weakened and territorial integrity was mostly secured by alliances. beginning the modern career of guafen: the partition of poland in the chinese discussion guafen started a new life in modern times both in terms of the sheer quantity of its uses and the depth of the discussion about it. the database of policy-related texts from 1820–1930 that was created by jin guantao and liu qingfeng[15] has nearly 3000 occurrences between the 1840s and 1920s. a look at the database for the shenbao newspaper, which covers the years 1872–1949 and is not included in the jin guantao/liu qingfeng database, shows 1200 occurrences before 1930. the vast majority of suchoccurrences in the first database, which is privileging writings by reformers, refers to state territories, while in shenbao reportages and the peking gazette reprinted daily in the shenbao it often refers to robbers dividing their booty and is only very rarely used for the national territory on the paper’s editorial page. guafen owes this ascendancy to its being used as a legal category to translate the western concept of “partition” or “aufteilung.”[16] this happened first in sections dealing with poland in the early chinese-language descriptions of world geography. in this form it is a translation term that uses the binomial metaphor “melon division” available in chinese to render a foreign concept. as there were many words in chinese available for “dividing up,” it became dominant in this function in a gradual process. it had an advantage over other binomial expressions by being widely known, and over single-character expressions by being usable both as a noun and a verb. since this binomial was not newly coined, guafen is not listed in any of the standard handbooks of modern chinese terms of foreign origin, even though it is a translation term. while it basically follows the same logic as other translations such as geming 革命 for “revolution”[17] or yundong 運動 for “movement”[18]—namely specifying an older content through a new meaning and inserting the newly created term into an increasingly internationally shared conceptual system—guafen is unusual due to its metaphorical character. while originally its use was due to a lack of a suitable noun in chinese,[19] its metaphorical character ended up fostering lively and emotional reactions among the broad public. “partition” as a legal term has its origin in european private inheritance and estate law. it was first applied in international law when state territory and the private property of the ruler were not yet separated. as a consequence, treaties of partition were made between sovereigns, most famously the treaties of the hague (1698) and utrecht (1700).[20] the signatories took apart the spanish monarchy, assigning substantial parts of its original territories first to the prince of bavaria and after his death to the grandson of louis xiv.[21] by the late eighteenth century, however, sovereignty and territorial integrity had become associated with the nation-state and the ability of rulers to dispose of their lands as private property was disputed. the tripartite division of poland between the romanovs, the hohenzollerns, and the habsburgs late in the eighteenth century, which had led to the disappearance of the polish state (until it was eventually reconstituted in 1919) was an important battleground in this controversy. the partition had also led to an extensive european debate with luminaries such as jean-jacques rousseau, voltaire, and gabriel bonnot de mably participating on different sides. it eventually occupied many sessions of the vienna congress after the defeat of napoleon who had restored the country for a short while. eventually, it was widely condemned by diplomats from countries not involved, by political commentators, as well as by a new crop of people who were specializing in the development of a system of international law. the polish partition was already denounced at the time in political paintings. these also reached wider audiences through copper print reproductions, which were quickly banned in several european countries (figure 1).[22] fig. 1: “the troelfth cake/le gâteau des rois,” bilingual copper print by noël le mire after a painting by jean-michel moreau le jeune, published by robert sayer, london, fleet street, 1773. source: bibliothèque nationale, paris. moreau le jeune describes the country with the metaphor of a cake. the goddess floating above with her double trumpet is pheme (fama), who trumpets the scandal of this partition to the world. the polish king (second from left) desperately tries to hold on to his crown and the small segment of the original poland that was left to him, but his lack of agency in the process is evident as none of the rulers of austria, prussia, and russia is taking notice of him. the first two look at pheme, concerned with their renown, but the russian ruler determinedly looks away. in the caption, moreau le jeune verbally already linked the map with the metaphor of the “gâteau de rois,” a delicacy only fit for kings, but his painting does not yet depict the map as a cake. the map/cake association, however, quickly became part of an international visual language that illustrated the concept of partition. with its polemical edge associating the territorial greed of poland’s neighbours with a craving for delicacies, it went beyond the intrinsically neutral “partition” by articulating legal objections by visual means. the scandal of the polish partition quickly made it into works on history, geography, and law and their chinese translations or summaries. protestant missionaries had, from their earliest days in chinese-speaking environments, started to introduce “world history” with books and articles in chinese.[23] this was part of the “useful knowledge” which they set out to spread, along with christianity, throughout china.[24] a first outline of the process of the polish partition in chinese appears in robert morrison’s sketch of world history (before 1834). morrison blames empress catherine ii of russia for sending her favourite to take possession of poland and arresting the old ruler while also inciting the greeks to rebel against the ottoman empire so as to push back islam. she then joined with austria and prussia to divide up its [poland’s] territory.[25] 使其據臣波蘭國，拘其舊主，且激希腊人叛土耳其以抑回教. 遂與東國、陂路斯兩國分其土> a few years later, the pomeranian evangelical missionary karl gützlaff (1803–1851) devoted an entire separate section to the by then non-existent “state of poland.” writing in a very emotional language, he stressed that the partition was the result not of the rapacious greed of the neighbours but of the endless internal squabbles that ended up in a dysfunctional polish polity. as he himself had grown up in nearby pomerania, he might have had some first-hand knowledge. gützlaff wrote that after the polish state had first been set up, the people chose a ruler, but the nobility abused its powers, oppressed the lower classes and made them into slaves [. . .] so that the people resented their rule. when the nobility came to their diet to choose a new ruler, they got into such a struggle that in the end no decision was made. when the neighbouring states took advantage of this situation and occupied the country, the people were not able to stop them. in this way, russia, austria, and prussia had their will and during the qianlong period became the overlords over this state with each snatching parts of the country’s provinces. patriots raised troops for a life-and-death struggle (a reference to the 1792 war with russia and the 1794 uprising led by tadeusz kościuszko, who had returned to poland after taking part in the american war of independence, r.w.), but were not able to overcome the enemy. they had to submit to foreign rulers and even the name of this people disappeared.[26] 民擇王也。惟五爵弄權，磨難下民，以爲奴也 [. . .] 故此其民不悅其上憲也。五爵合會擇王之際，太爭論，心意終不定矣。鄰國乘勢， 占國，而百姓擋不住之也。如此鄂羅斯、奧帝哩亞、破魯西等國立志，乾隆年間霸其國, 各人搶諸省數分焉。忠民發兵效死戰，而不勝國敵矣。必須歸他王, 連其民之名也亡矣。 gützlaff clearly sides with the polish struggle for what was still a very new notion at the time, national sovereignty. the principal cause for poland’s disappearance in his narrative, however, lies within the country: it is the reckless attitude of the polish nobility towards the common people, the internecine feuding, and the resulting unwillingness or inability of the people to fend off the foreign powers. the neighbouring powers, he writes, were simply “taking advantage of the situation,” chengshi 乘勢, within poland, but are not described as intrinsically aggressive. after napoleon had restored poland, however, the poles were not able to hold on to it, so that by 1814, the vienna congress returned the country to the control of the neighbours with some stipulations such as that emperor alexander i was to grant the poles representation and freedom of the press. gützlaff continues: when later (in the november 1830 uprising, r.w.) the (poles) rebelled and confronted them (russia) in battle with a courage full of righteous spirit, they showed bravery and high spirit and attacked the russian despot. unfortunately, they were routed and the russian administrator took advantage of the situation to oppress them, intimidating them with the threat of death. the people’s distress under this tyrannical government could not have been worse than at this time. this has continued, and there was nothing that could be done, even being ready to die did not remove this [tyranny]![27] 後反叛對壘交鋒，懷義氣之勇心，胆壯氣豪，征鄂羅斯霸皇帝。不幸披摩奔走，且鄂羅斯總督加乘勢迫脅， 威逼致死。民之憔悴於虐政，未有甚於此時者也。既世守也， 非身之所能為也，效死勿去矣！(punctuation in original) although the two books mentioned came out in southeast asia, they did reach their intended audience as the information they provided showed up in publications by chinese authors of world geographies on the mainland since the 1840s.[28] morrison and gützlaff both used narrative rather than conceptual language for poland’s partition, with the first simply using fen 分 “divide” and not guafen, and the second speaking of the neighbours’ “grabbing parts,” qiang fen 搶 分, of the territory. their use of language signals that “partition” had not yet jelled—at least for them—into a fixed term for an infraction of international law, although both of them condemned the partition. no connection was made between poland’s fate and that of china. by the time gützlaff’s first-mentioned book was printed in singapore, hugh murray’s encyclopaedia of geography (1834) had been published in great britain and the united states, a work that was to play a major role in china. murray took a stand in this controversy by referring to “the partition of poland, justly regarded as one of the most iniquitous measures which have disgraced modern times,” and continuing to treat poland as a territorial nation although legally it had ceased to be in that league.[29] for him, “partition” already had moved from a neutral term to a breach of international law, which guaranteed the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nation-state. “the ‘partitions of poland’ (1772, 1793, 1795) that terminated in the removal of the ancient kingdom from the world’s maps changed terminological history,” writes brendan o’leary in one of the few historical surveys of the concept of partition.[30] indeed, although this was not the only partition, its radicalism was such that the legal concept of “partition” became inextricably associated with the fate of poland in the international discussion. as we shall see, this was even more so in china. much like gützlaff, murray did not see the primary cause of the partition of poland in the greed and power of its neighbors, but in the internal conditions of the country, in “the incurable defects in the constitution of the [polish] state.” the decline of poland may be dated from the beginning of the last century, and may be ascribed partly to the improvement and augmented influence of russia and prussia, but in a far greater degree to the incurable defects in the constitution of the state. the nobles, about 500,000 in number, formed the nation; the rest of the inhabitants being slaves, incapable of acquiring any property in land, without any privileges, and sold, like cattle, with the estates to which they belonged. these nobles were becoming ever more independent with their own armies and fortresses, and each one of them was able to bring the diet to a standstill with a veto. “how much soever we may detest the means by which it [the partition] was effected, no one can regret the abolition of a system of government which combined all the mischiefs of anarchy without its stimulus to enterprise; which made every landlord a petty despot, and every cultivator a slave,” murray writes.[31] the vienna congress confirmed the polish partition against strong objections among some participants,[32] but under the condition of russia’s introducing some liberal measures. after the 1830 uprising against russia, however, emperor alexander removed these measures and incorporated the russian section fully into his empire. in 1839 lin zexu 林則徐 (1785–1850), the new imperial commissioner in canton who was eager to expand his knowledge about the westerners he had to deal with, had leang a-teh, who had studied murray (and english) with the missionary elijah bridgman, make a partial translation/summary of the 1837 american edition of murray’s work.[33] the polish context was not lost in translation. lin zexu devotes an entire section to poland in his records of the four continents with murray as his primary source. after poland had gained in strength following the merger with lithuania, he writes, the “nobility, several tens of thousands strong, ganged up together, grabbed independent power and did as they pleased with the king [. . .] who was unable to control the situation.”[34] russia, austria and prussia seemingly offered help, but ended up each “grabbing” 奪去 a large slice of the country. while lin zexu strongly emphasized the internal causes for the partition, he does not include the polish resistance of 1793 or 1830 into his narrative. the outright condemnation of the partition in murray as well as gützlaff is not reflected in lin’s description. he rather—and somewhat surprisingly—agrees with murray in stressing the positive aspects of the abolishment of the old system: the laws (promulgated by the occupiers) initially had been severe and stern, but recently they have been relaxed with the people generally rejoicing in this so that the different parts of the country were more submissive than before.[35] 法舊嚴峻，近改寬大，人咸欣悅，而各部落亦較前馴帖 lin describes the partition, but still does not use a general concept. xu jiyu’s 徐繼畬 1848 world geography, yinghuan zhilüe 瀛寰志略 (sketch of the globe), which is a truly authored study rather than an assembly of translations from western sources like lin zexu’s and wei yuan’s geographical overviews,[36] became the most widely read world geography for the next decades in china as well as japan.[37] it pioneered the use of guafen 瓜分 rather than just fen in its treatment of the polish partition.[38] xu treats poland as a part of russia in his world geography, but indicates the continuing existence of the polish nation by giving it a separate paragraph. he first stresses the internal conditions for the polish demise: “later poland declined and sank into chaos [whereupon] russia, austria, and prussia partitioned its state territory [among each other] with russia getting two-thirds.”[39] he follows murray’s narrative to the eventual abolishment of the polish state: in 1832, after officials from the former polish kingdom had raised local troops to fight the russian army but had been defeated and had fled, their land was eventually absorbed into russia and connected with white russia which [russia] had obtained previously.[40] 道光十二年波蘭遺臣據地起兵，與峩軍戰，潰敗而逃，其地卒歸於峩，合前所得百峩地 while all of the works discussed hitherto situate china in the world and mark their own relevancy with the importance of world geographical and historical knowledge by pointing to china’s closer connection with the world through trade and military conflict, none of them indicate that poland might become a matrix for the discussion of china’s fate. the world geographies and world histories published in china before 1850, however, did introduce some new notions. they showed time and again that the history of a nation was not a stand-alone affair but was closely connected to its international relations. once world geography and world history had become available in chinese, the fates of other nations became a storehouse of political experience and potential points of reference for chinese writers. in earlier chinese historical works, other states had been treated as tribes at the border or tributaries, but little effort was made to describe their political institutions, history, or relations with states other than china. another new argument was that the internal politics of a country, such as the calibre of its leader, the structure of its governance, and the attitude of elites as well as that of the people towards a common goal, would have a major impact on its standing among nations. poland presented an extreme case where internal divisions, the egotism of the nobility, and their treatment of the polish commoners like slaves or cattle led to the partition of the country and its disappearance from the political map. guafen as a legal concept in international law concepts in whatever form are not stand-alone units. they are part of systemic universes in which their context and their counter-text or antonyms are located. the chinese translation terms for “partition” inherited this context and counter-text. within the horizon of knowledge about world knowledge as appropriated and adapted by chinese authors in the middle of the century, the fate of poland became linked to and contrasted with that of other nations as much as the term “partition” had its synonyms and antonyms. while none of the early translations for “partition” such as to “swallow” (tun 吞), to “divide” (fen 分), or to “cut off” (ge 割), consolidated to become a concept or a legal category, the antonyms were already forming. referring to an existing state territory, the terminology of international law contrasted “partition” as a transitive noun describing an action with “maintaining (or securing) territorial integrity,” a notion that often came paired with “independence.” this was rendered in chinese as baoquan 保全. the antonym of partition as a historical process was “joining together,” which was rendered as hecheng 合成 in chinese. while poland was the concrete exemplar of being “partitioned,” the united states became the exemplar of its opposite, the different english, french, spanish, and american indian territories being “joined together” into the united states. the north american struggle and its heroes had been introduced in chinese already in 1838 in elijah bridgman’s history of the united states, the main reference for the early chinese world geographers and writers about the history of north america.[41] the contrast with poland was implicit but once perceived, it turned out to contain all the details: a strong leader committed to the public good, an engagement of the citizens for the cause of the (new) nation, and a willingness to take great risks for life and property to achieve independence from what then was the mightiest power in the world.[42] we will see that this potential to treat the fate of the united states as the antonym and counter-text to poland was explored by chinese writers later in the century. rebecca karl has made a strong and well-documented argument about the importance of references to other countries as a warning or model for china had for late qing reformers after 1895.[43] remaining bound to the master narrative of china’s defeat in the war with japan as the decisive break in the history of chinese political thought, however, the previous decades of intense chinese discussions of china in a world context remain outside her purview. in terms of the study of a conceptual history that follows translingual and transcultural connections, we see that identifying a concept with a word is short-changing the range of possible conceptual articulation, which can include metaphor, simile, image, installation, institution, musical composition, action, and more. so far, we explored the process through which the revival of a rarely used local metaphor replaced narrative renderings to translate a foreign concept, the connection of this concept to a particular historical event and the debates it provoked, and the development of legal and historical context and antonyms in the form of different terms and historical developments. we have yet to map the systemic legal context that came with “partition.” it was provided by the translation of works on international law into chinese. murray’s critical assessment of poland’s partition and of its toleration by foreign nations was widely shared by authors specializing in international law at the time such as henry wheaton (1785–1848), robert phillimore (1810–1885), and johann caspar bluntschli (1808–1881), all of whose works were introduced to china through translations. wheaton’s elements of international law (chinese translation 1864) focuses not on the internal polish conditions for the partition,[44] but on the “anomalous” legal provisions of the congress of vienna. it cemented, he argued, the partition, guafen, of poland among the three powers while granting representation, a currency, and an army to the poles. while russia first abided by this provision, it eventually abolished all three elements after the polish “revolution and the reconquest of poland by russia” (the november uprising of 1830–1831, r.w.) and fully absorbed a large part of poland into russia in 1832 against the (ineffectual) protests of france and great britain.[45] given the very official character of this chinese translation, which had been done by the translation office of the newly established translation bureau, tongwenguan, under the court’s new office in charge of international affairs, the zongli yamen, this translation of “partition” into guafen was instrumental in stabilizing guafen as the standard translation, which brought with it all the context of the original. martin’s 1880 chinese translation of johann kaspar bluntschli’s 1878 work on international law also only refers to the external interventions as these are most relevant in international law. it again uses the guafen term. to exemplify the principle that “the expansion of the territory by one state does not justify that another state demands an expansion in its turn based on the principle of balance of power in international law,”[46] bluntschli writes according to the chinese version: “for the last century, states have time and again indulged in their craving for conquest in the name of maintaining the balance of power. because russia cut off a piece of poland, austria demanded some turkish territory. the deliberations among prussia, austria and russia to initiate the partition (guafen 瓜分) of poland also used ‘balance of power’ to embellish the wrongdoing (involved) in this (act).”[47] robert phillimore’s commentaries upon international law (translated 1894) follows the same usage.[48] “partition” is not simply a historical activity carried out against a state, but it is part of a system of legal categories in international law. this system comes with its own hierarchies of norms, acceptable and unacceptable forms of action with cases to exemplify them, argumentation by legal specialists about the applicability of a given norm, sanctions, and discussions about the problem of enforcing the norms. this entire load was on the shoulders of guafen since the 1860s. guafen in universal histories by the time these commentaries on international law came out in chinese translation, the first universal histories had taken up the topic, most importantly the text that served as the main reference in japan as well as china, okamoto kansuke’s 岡本監輔 (1839–1904) world history. a geographer, okamoto had been active in introducing western knowledge in japan and in safeguarding japanese claims to the kurile islands by organizing farmers to settle there. written in chinese with the use of the new conceptual vocabulary developed in japan out of translations of western terms, his world history was published nearly simultaneously in japan in 1879 and by the shenbaoguan in shanghai in 1880.[49] several reprints by different publishers before the end of the century signal its importance. it detailed polish history in a separate section on seven pages with cross references in the section on russia. okamoto is a historian, and had more faith in popular resistance that international law. he does not tell the story of the internal conditions of poland inviting foreign interference, is little interested in the plots of the foreign powers, and in discussions of international law. instead, he offers a third narrative: that of a heroic polish resistance against the dismemberment of the country. to provide some background, he highlights the great victory carried by the poles in the battle against the ottoman turks outside of vienna in 1683 and the great power and renown poland had enjoyed in the aftermath. but later, the nobility rebelled against the king, chaos ensued, and the state was weakened—a possible reference to a constitution that allowed “every gentleman” to block any vote of the seym (parliament). eventually, russia interfered in the selection of a new polish king and occupied parts of the country. repeated rebellions “to secure polish independence” (bao qi duli 保其獨立) in the 1760s and 1790s were crushed.[50] “kościuszko, a man of superior intelligence and courage who had gone to america and had gained merits for helping in the war of independence,”[51] is held up for special praise for his role in the 1794 uprising, a judgment which prepared the way for his becoming one of liang qichao’s patriotic heroes some twenty years after okamoto’s book had come out. however, the uprisings ended in the partitions of poland. “poland once a country priding itself of a population of twenty million people and 240 000 square miles had now come to its complete demise.”[52] the “demise” in the end does not use any equivalent of the “partition” concept, but takes up kościuszko’s desperate “poland is lost” (bolan wang 波蘭亡) with the contrast built into kościuszko’s own experience of the united states gaining independence. abiding by the vienna congress agreement of 1814, emperor alexander i established a polish representation together with liberal reforms of the press. making use of the leeway this provided, another uprising followed when russia made efforts to prevent the 1830 french uprising from spreading to poland. the ensuing battles ended with “the second demise” (zai wang 再亡)of poland with thousands killed and many more deported to siberia. the new emperor nikolaus abolished the reforms of his more liberal predecessor and made poland an integral part of russia. a slight relaxation under his successor alexander ii ended in the 1863 uprising, which was crushed again with rigid censorship imposed and even “the use of the polish language banned so as to dispel their patriotic feelings.”[53] although “originally the different states had agreed during the debate at the congress of vienna to each make sure to guarantee the [polish] constitution, at this moment (in 1835) their governments stood idly by and let the russian emperor do as he did and there was none who dared to point out that this was unacceptable.”[54] okamoto ends his treatment of the different nations with a final evaluation. for poland, this evaluation has all the ingredients to turn the fate of this country into a model case. he writes: assessment: poland is a big state since the middle ages, the seym and the ruler united to time and again thwart the partition of the land by russia, prussia, and austria. they [these three states] considered it to be theirs, but none of the different european nations—even those related to the polish king by marriage—denounced this crime. but does the basic idea of international law not say that it is valid for the entire world? when the people of this country time and again raised the flag of righteous rebellion and when as they were already close to success they were suddenly close to defeat, the neighboring lords looked on with their hands in their sleeves and did not dare to rush to the [poles’] aid—what else was this but fear of the russians’ strength and disdain for the poles’ weakness?! alas! being a pole is something to be pitied. but once such [patriotic] feelings are there, the outcome is predictable. as long as the russian court exerts violent repression and does not let them have their freedom, i am afraid the russians’ worry is not (the intervention of) great britain or france, but poland.[55] 論曰：波蘭為近古大國，會君統屢絕俄普奧三國，瓜分其地。以爲己有，而歐洲諸國，連姻波王者，無問其罪。 蓋公法大義未曰於天下也。其國人履擧義旗，垂成輒敗，鄰邦公伯， 袖手旁觀，不敢赴較，豈非畏俄之強，而侮波之弱乎！嗚呼！為波民者亦可慜矣！然已有是心，則亦必有是事。若使俄庭強暴壓制，不肯許其自由，則吾恐俄人之患， 不在英、法而在波蘭也. the internal conditions of poland mentioned by other authors as facilitating the partition, such as the dysfunctional seym, the treatment of the people by the nobility, the religious divide between catholics and protestants, and “more than half of the people wanting to become russian citizens” go unmentioned, and the “chaos” (luan 亂) within poland is attributed to foreign meddling. the hero of okamoto’s story is the polish people with its undaunted patriotism and struggle against the partition of the country and for regaining independence. the explicit reference to the weakness of international law and the ongoing trouble russia would have with polish resistance indirectly takes up wheaton’s argument that in the end infractions do not pay off. at the same time, very much in tune with the “people’s rights” movement in japan at the time, okamoto added the people as stakeholders in upholding international law, a role traditionally only attributed to state governments. the guafen threat becomes real: russia’s eastern advance poland was the prime but not the only historical example for the discussion of partition.[56] by the late 1870s partition was again very much on the international agenda. the 1880 berlin conference, in which the powers agreed on the partition of africa (which was not seen as a continent with state borders and therefore was not treated as the partition of an existing state territory), is one example, but for china, the most important development was now in the present, namely the “eastern question” after the crimean war. the information on this very contemporary development had become available in china already in 1880 through young allen’s translation of the rev. malcolm maccoll’s densely documented three years of the eastern question (1878), which operated with the legal guafen term and its baoquan (securing territorial integrity) opposite. emperor nicolaus i, who earlier had sealed the polish partition, had defined the ottoman empire as the “sick man” of the bosporus in 1853. russia, maccoll wrote, claimed it wished to protect the christians living under ottoman rule, but the british government under disraeli doubted russia’s motives. it assumed that russia was out for territorial gain, consequently intervened in the crimean war to prevent the partition of the ottoman empire and to secure its independence. britain eventually signed a treaty providing such a guarantee. this policy came under attack by the late 1870s when reports about atrocities by ottoman government troops in bulgaria reached england and critics such as gladstone were demanding a policy that would force the ottoman ruler to abandon the policy of violent suppression and grant a degree of self-rule to the different peoples under his administration. the british government guarantee had been officially announced to the sublime porte in june 1876. it had reaffirmed the british commitment to the paris treaty to secure the ottoman empire against foreign intervention, but declined intervention into internal affairs and was willing exert pressure on others not to intervene. gladstone argued that britain’s “previous commitment was to secure the ottoman territory, but if the ottoman empire was like a sick man, britain’s making sure it was not to be murdered by others did not mean it would secure it against suicide or sudden death.”[57] he added that british support against the sublime porte would be welcomed by slavs of the greek christian faith, but still maintained: “it would be appropriate for england at this moment in time to be of one mind and to join forces with the powers to preserve the territorial integrity of the turkish state and to avert its partition (guafen) by the powers which would bring about great chaos.”[58] maccoll demanded to go further, namely to abolish british commitment to the territorial integrity and independence of turkey and intervene with a strong hand against the sublime porte’s abuse of its people. he also suggested that russia’s failure to secure a warm water port in the mediterranean had prompted it to search for it in the far east. the vast resources devoted to the development of the transsiberian railway were part of this strategy. this railway greatly enhanced russian military mobility and threatened british india as well as the states of the far east. this translation brought to china not just current information about an important political debate in europe which could have major implications for china, about british policies towards a possible partition of the country, and about the controversies around this issue. it also documented how such matters could be controversially discussed in the west with the government, the opposition, the press, and individual authors all weighing in with public speeches, pamphlets, articles, and books. to sum up, by the late 1880s, three narratives for the polish partitions were available in china, focusing respectively on the internal fissures, the neighbors’ greed, and the continued resistance. by 1890, the potential partition of china itself became a topic of discussion and concern in china and chinese as well as foreign attitudes towards such a development were being explored. they all ended up being presented with the stabilized term guafen for “partition,” dealt with the role of internal and external factors, and addressed the dialectics between norms of international law and popular attitudes. the maccoll translation came in the middle of a chinese russia scare and brought to china’s doors what had been the fate of a distant nation. the use of guafen to render “partition” transformed the term from a rarely and randomly used metaphorical expression for dividing up into a part of a system of concepts in international law. within this system, guafen primarily interacts with the legal concepts of non-intervention, sovereignty, and balance of power on the one hand, and conquest, colony, protectorate, and popular resistance on the other. this system is the subject of an intense and continued public debate among two professional groups, namely, as indicated above, law specialists and historians. however, it gained its historical impact through its use by state governments to justify their actions and by a wider public to challenge such actions with the law specialists often joining in this public debate. as the system of international law gradually consolidated to become normative, it increasingly became generative of historical agency because all sides had recourse to it. the importance of the non-professional players such as state governments and peoples is due to the absence of an enforcing agency for international law. its norms become effective through the willingness especially of state governments to enforce abeyance by others and through “peoples” in the affected nation states clamoring for adherence to it. bluntschli is very clear about this in his handbook on the “public law of civilized nations,” which combines the normative principles with a commentary about governments claiming to act in accordance with them, infractions, international reactions to such infractions, and the eventual outcome of such infractions. it is useful to remember that parts of the population might view the partition of a state’s territory as a legitimate goal to secure its existence, and as advantageous for economic development. the former aspect gained new legitimacy during the twentieth century when partition was supported, for example, by the muslim league in india or the bosnian serbs as a way to secure what they saw as their dignified existence or their existence altogether. huang zunxian 黃遵憲, who had been part of the chinese embassy in japan, argued for the second aspect in his widely read chronicle of japan, which he wrote in 1887, but which was published only in 1895. inserting commentaries as “mr. foreign historian,” waishi shi 外史氏, he probed the possible advantages of a fragmented or partitioned china. europe, he said, had greatly benefitted from the fragmentation of the roman empire into different states that were interacting, competing, and fighting with each other. he then continued with a bold claim that the same would be true for china. i therefore think that as to being partitioned and split apart, with arms and turmoil everywhere, nothing compares to the “seven heroes” (states) of the warring states period [in china], but this was the time of the greatest blossoming of ethics and model conduct [. . .], of [disquisitions] on penal laws and terms, [. . .] of [developing] vertical and horizontal alliances, [. . .] [theories about] dao and de, [. . .] heterodox teachings, [. . .] agricultural [techniques], [. . .] craftsmanship, [. . .] medicine, [. . .] commerce, [. . .] water management, [. . .] military science, [. . .] rhetoric, [. . .] and lyrics, [in short] human talent was at such a peak that the [men quoted as examples for each of these fields] became the founding fathers of all later professional specialties. altogether making sure to maintain the achievements of the predecessors, the different states [during the warring states period] made efforts to surge ahead, and as maintaining the achievements of the predecessors meant making sure to be protected, they made efforts to strengthen themselves—that is the cause for the prosperity of several of these states [existing side by side]!”[59] 外史氏曰: 余聞之西人歐洲之興也,正以諸國鼎峙,各不相讓.藝術以相摩而善, 武備以相競而强,物產以有無相通,得以盡地利而奪人巧. 自法國十字軍起合縱連橫鄰交日盛而國日强, 比之羅馬一統時,其進歩不可以道里計云其意.蓋謂交鄰之有大益也.余因思中國瓜分豆剖,干戈雲擾, 莫甚於戰國七雄,而其時德行若孟荀,刑名若申韓， 縱橫若蘇張，道德若莊列，異端若楊墨，農若李悝，工若公輸，醫若扁鵲，商若計研、范蠡，治水若鄭白韓國，兵法若司馬、孫、吳，辯說若衍龍，文詞若屈宋，人材之盛，均爲後來專家之祖。一統貴守成,列國務進取, 守成貴自保,進取務自强，此列國之所由盛乎！ the period of the warring states, highlighted in chinese historiography as a period of deplorable disunity, was, huang argues, the most creative and innovative period in chinese history—and this in every respect ranging from philosophy to agriculture, from rhetoric to poetry and military strategy. at about the same time when huang’s book came out, a surprising comment along the same lines was carried by the british press. it was attributed to the recently deceased chinese ambassador in london, zeng jize 曾紀澤 (1839–1890) by halliday macartney, a chinese official who as the son-in-law of the dominant chinese politician li hongzhang and secretary to the chinese legation in london commands some credibility. macartney was quoted as claiming that ambassador zeng had said that china would eventually “be split into three countries, each more strong in arms and commerce than the [entire] country at present.”[60] three years prior, zeng had argued in a widely circulated and controversially discussed english-language article that china’s military modernization efforts had been a success, and that it now would even reclaim its prerogatives in its former tributaries korea and burma.[61] his sojourn in europe might have convinced zeng that smaller, more manageable countries operating in a competitive environment would each be more powerful than the larger entity of which they had been a part. neither huang zunxian’s musings nor ambassador zeng’s prediction, however, ever became a mainstream line of argument in china. while the danger of a partition of china was as yet rarely mentioned in chinese writings, and if so, then out of public view, it had been thematized already for many years in western-language newspapers as well as in pamphlets published in the west and/or china. in october 1855, a j. d. hutchinson had given a lecture in shanghai on the occasion of the outbreak of the crimean war. it focused on russia expanding its territory through annexation and partition. russia preceded its expansion by sowing internal dissent with poland being the prime example. hutchinson even claimed that the taiping rebellion in china had been instigated by russia for the same purpose.[62] the speaker was highly critical of britain’s reluctance to intervene and prevent a russian partition of china. in 1860, in the wake of the second opium or arrow war, the north china herald (shanghai) reprinted an article from the saturday review in london, which addressed the victor’s quandary faced by the british after winning a war with a chinese government already weakened by a costly civil war with the taiping heavenly kingdom. the article nicely challenges the simplistic assumption that in an asymmetry of power, such as that prevailing between china and great britain at the time, the dominant side can do as it pleases. in this complicated quarrel there is the singular peculiarity that a decisive victory would be almost as mischievous as a sound defeat. the highly artificial organization of the chinese government might perhaps be hopelessly deranged by a violent shock offered to its power and credit. it is impossible to manage that great and singular portion of the human race except by the machinery which they have provided for themselves. a conquest or treaty which involved the fall of the imperial government would perhaps leave no authority standing with which it would be possible to deal. it is provoking that the bees so obstinately refuse access to their honey; but the state of affairs will not be improved by upsetting their hive. some useful suggestion will be found in a little pamphlet attributed to an officer and diplomatist who has had peculiar opportunities of understanding the chinese question. and there will be little difference of opinion as to the importance of his reference to the probable object of the french expedition. “the partition of china,” says the writer, “can conduce to no good interests of great britain; and it is to be regretted that circumstances should have made us the masters of the ceremonies to victors [such as the french, r.w.] prone to conceive and agree upon grandiose ideas for the treatment of sick princes and disturbed people.”[63] the argument presented in this anonymous pamphlet is so close to one repeated by garnet wolseley (1833–1913) in later writings[64]—after he had become chief of staff of the british army—that it is safe to assume the “officer and diplomatist who has had peculiar opportunities of understanding the chinese question” refers to him. wolseley had been an officer in the arrow war and played a role in the treaty negotiations. britain, he argued, was forced to sustain the chinese government which it had just defeated to prevent this huge country from descending into chaos and the competing powers upsetting the precarious balance among them by grabbing parts. a basic constellation emerges in wolseley’s article in which russia and france are charged with being interested in territorial acquisitions regardless of the fate of the qing government, and great britain opting to sustain the qing government and china’s territorial integrity. in an 1865 review of events, the north china herald claimed that the country was under a double foreign threat. according to the “inevitability of a law of nature that where two civilizations are placed side by side on the same soil, the higher grade must prevail to the extinction of the lower,” and there might be a chance that the chinese “educated and thinking classes” will be roused to action under the foreign influence. “a flame may some day burst forth where it is least expected, from embers first kindled by foreigners.” the second threat lay in foreign relations. “china, like the sick man of turkey, is too rich to be allowed to perish intestate. if indeed the empire is now in its last convulsive throbs [. . .] there are at least four states who not only are willing but who also in such an emergency be compelled to share the effects of the deceased.” to prevent this dismemberment, the chinese government had better “keep on good terms with the european powers.” there is little indication, however, of such efforts and “if the chinese government not only alienates friendly foreign powers, but converts them into enemies, the work of partition will soon commence, and russia, france, england and america will swoop around the carcase of the defunct empire.”[65] a december 1866 editorial in the north china herald ended its description of the “gradual degeneration” of manchu rule in china as follows: “at present, probably, its [china’s, r.w.] greatest safety lies in the fact that neither of the four nations most interested in its trade would allow the others to gain an advantage it did not share; and, to avoid a general partition, all will refrain from encroaching.”[66] a few weeks later and in view of russian encroachments on chinese territory in the north, the paper came back with an explicit recommendation: “until therefore we agree in the partition of china which has been predicted as inevitable—russia taking the north, england the middle, and france the south—,it is the interest of the two latter powers to combine in supporting the chinese against the aggressive policy of the former.”[67] by this time, the zongli yamen had been established as china’s foreign office in peking. a translation office had been established in connection with it, and its duties were, apart from educating translators, to provide renderings of relevant works such as wheaton’s international law and of relevant newspaper articles. there was thus a channel for such articles to reach the upper levels of the chinese bureaucracy. although no record is known that indexes the newspaper translations made at the time by the translation office, the chinese discussion of the later years suggests familiarity with the lines of argument developed here. once there were actual prospects of a partition of china, the chinese discussion unanimously decried it as a national tragedy. technically speaking, “partition” is a neutral term. huang zunxian’s use of the term to describe the innovations flourishing during the warring states period shows that the same was (and remains to this day) true for the chinese translation. once such terms, however, become attached to a particular application and environment, this neutrality disappears. in the present case the use of the term “partition” to express poland’s fate in the language of international law and world history already predetermined a negative valuation. in an age of rising nationalisms, focused on principles such as sovereignty and territorial integrity, “partition” implies going against the foundations of international law.[68] conceptual history has to take into account whether a seemingly neutral concept has become tied to a specific historical development, which in turn determines its validation and legitimizes actions based on this fixed validation. in 1876, the north china herald translated an extensive plan laid out by a wang ping to recover the region of ili in china’s northwest that had been occupied by russian troops in 1871 when they quelled a muslim rebellion there. this plan already contained the rhetorical features that were to dominate later chinese discussions. it seems to have survived only in this translation. some people [. . .] go so far as to advocate the partition of the territory [with russia taking one part]; but such suggestions must be characterized as those of mere temporizers, who seek peace of fear of the difficulty before them. such language evidently emanates from those unmindful of the labour, toil, and anxiety it cost our sacred ancestors, their majesties, to bequeath this territory to us. instead of talking of relinquishing or giving up our inheritance, were it but one inch in area instead of being as large as china proper, it [the ili region, r.w.] should be purged of every rebel [a reference to the muslim rebels, r.w.].[69] wang goes on to consider the chinese territory as a single body where a disease that afflicts one part will end up affecting even the head, namely the court in peking. two years later, in 1878, china’s ambassador to japan, he ruzhang 何如璋 (1838–1891), noted in a memorial to li hongzhang that the loss of the ryukyu islands to japan would only precipitate the loss of the next tributary state, korea, and position japan in a situation to then go for taiwan, in short “struggling for it today might entail a calamity that was still tolerable, but abandoning it would entail an even graver calamity.”[70] he ruzhang had taken huang zunxian along to japan as an advisor. in 1880, in the middle of a crisis that was pitting two factions against each other in korea, china supported the conservative wing and japan the reform faction, while russia was edging to intervene. using written chinese characters as their medium of communication, he and huang engaged in a discussion about korea’s fate with the korean envoy to japan, kim goeng-jip 金宏集 (1842–1896).[71] afraid that much of their far-reaching proposals concerning issues—about which their korean counterpart professed perfect ignorance—would otherwise remain barely understood, huang summarized the chinese ambassador’s suggestions to their korean counterpart in a strategic memorial boldly entitled “a strategy for korea.” this stunning memorial became the first chinese strategic assessment of world politics to enter the east asian public and multilingual discussion. integrating arguments about korea’s economy, foreign trade, geographical position, and foreign relations with historical observations about the strategy of other countries in a similar situation, it offered a knowledgeable sketch of russia’s far eastern ambitions together with sophisticated proposals about political ways to counter them. it came with much current information that was articulated in the new vocabulary of international relations now available in chinese and japanese through translations of treatises on international law and extensive outlines of world history, and it had direct implications for china. first published in the chinese original in a japanese-language newspaper in tokyo, it was later translated into english in the japan weekly mail in the yokohama international settlement, a translation that was eventually reprinted in the north china herald in shanghai.[72] submitted by kim to the throne in korea, it was accepted but not without a long string of massive protests over the coming years from korean scholars who were demanding that their country should keep to isolationism and the state doctrine of zhu xi’s neo-confucianism instead of opening up, engaging with others, and modernizing. the protesters went so far as to demand the decapitation of kim, but kim had his way and many of them were forced into exile.[73] warding off the russian advance in east asia was at the center of these discussions. russia’s push east after the frustration of its southern forays towards turkey had become a standard narrative at the time. huang saw the main difference between russian ambitions and those of other powers in russia’s appropriating territory while the other powers, especially the us and great britain, were mostly interested in trade access, at least in east asia.[74] the concerns about russia’s ambitions that were shared by china and japan prompted the formation of the “raise asia association” (xingya hui 興亞會), in tōkyō in 1880 that was to build closer connections between japan, china, and korea. as huang’s text foreshadows many of the later discussions about china, it deserves close attention. he predicted that the korean refusal to open its ports for trade and its court for international relations would lead to the country’s altogether being “swallowed up” by russia[75] in the same way that burma or india had been by england, the philippines by spain, and indonesia by holland. should the other powers not tolerate such a disturbance of the “balance of powers,” (junshi 均勢) (254), korea would be partitioned among them—huang uses gefen 割分, “split up and divide” instead of guafen here—, and share the fate that poland had suffered and turkey had just barely avoided (255). “nothing could be worse than to idly look on as the russian army pushes forward and to idly listen as others go about partitioning and dissolving [states]” (257).[76] true, he wrote, the international law of the west does not condone cutting off or annihilating the states of others, but if there is a state without treaties, it has no one to communicate with if something happens. this is the reason why the western states want to have treaty relations with korea [because] by protecting korea [against russia] they are protecting themselves. (254) 泰西公法無得剪滅人國，然苟非條約之國，有事不得與聞，此泰西諸國所以欲與朝鮮結盟也保朝鮮，及所以自保 once it controlled all of asia, russia, the argument went, would again turn its attentions to europe (254). in this extremely critical situation, korea had to make up its mind and pursue a policy that would not only secure its survival but also foster its prosperity. it should uphold its long-standing status as a dependency of china, yet modernize itself; forget the irritations and form an alliance with japan; and, most importantly, develop close relations with the united states. the latter was the one mighty power “not interested in territorial acquisition” (bu tan ren tudi 不貪人土地), and, because it had gained freedom and independence from european repression, it was “friendly towards asia and kept its distance from europe.”[77] korea should conclude a trade agreement with the united states, which could then serve as a template for agreements with other nations; it should send students to china, japan, and the west; it should modernize, and it should form alliances that would secure its existence. according to the deft translation of the japan weekly mail, the [korean, r.w.] king should decide once for all, and entrust the arrangement of details to his ministers. no discussion of the main question should be permitted. government officials must divest themselves of ancient prejudices and open their eyes to what is going on in the world, while the people at large should rouse themselves on behalf of their country. corea’s integrity or dismemberment now depends upon the course of her government. the fate of asia is in the balance. (258) 決計在國主, 輔謀在樞府，講求時務， 無立異同在廷臣，力破積習，開導淺識，在士大夫，多發興起，同心合力在國民， 得其道則強，失其道則亡，一轉移間， 而朝鮮宗社繫焉，亞細亞之大局繫焉. in this impressive document, we see huang zunxian—barely over thirty at the time and not speaking or reading a foreign language—thoroughly familiar with the conceptual apparatus and the factual information needed to develop a strategy for a state within the international context of the day. to give an example, he randomly referred to belgium’s foreign relations to show how a small state can survive even when surrounded by big powers. if one replaces “korea” in his text with “china,” it becomes evident how pertinent the analysis and strategy was for huang’s own country, and indeed, the text constantly and critically refers to the experiences of china in negotiating treaties with foreign powers and to the differences in dealing with catholic and protestant missionaries. a commentary added by huang zunxian himself to a poem he wrote in 1899 signals that, at least orally, china’s critical juncture was already being discussed around 1880 in the terms used for korea in “a strategy for korea.” when i was in japan [between 1877 and 1880, r. w.], i said to ambassador zi’e [he ruzhang]: “china will inevitably change and follow the western methods. i do not know whether this change will be like japan’s self-strengthening, like egypt’s being subjected, like india’s coming under [foreign] administration, or like poland being partitioned, but the essential thing is that change will inevitably come.”[78] 在日本時與子峨星使言: 中國必變, 從西法. 其變法也,或如日本之自强, 或如埃及之被逼, 或如印度之受轄, 或如波蘭之瓜分,則吾不敢知. 要之必變. huang added that this assessment from the late 1870s was like the “letter (hidden) in a well” that accurately predicted a future development, a reference to a song-dynasty text that had just been found. in the ili proposal referred to above, a narrative emerges that, rather than focusing on the foreigners’—in this case russia’s—territorial ambitions, adopted a strongly nationalist tone by accusing certain chinese officials of selling out instead of safeguarding “every inch” of the country. ambassador he ruzhang’s letter to li hongzhang about the threatening loss of the ryukyu islands to japan and its consequences does not name chinese officials willing to cede the islands to japan. eventually, the islands were indeed ceded. given li hongzhang’s dominant position at the peking court (and his primary concern about russia at this time),[79] the letter might indirectly point at li hongzhang himself, who many years later would be blamed by reformers to have shown exactly such an attitude in the negotiations of the treaty of shimonoseki after china’s defeat in the war with japan. read as a coded text written with the encouragement of ambassador he ruzhang about needed reforms in china, huang zunxian’s lucid proposals for korea can be summarized as follows: to avoid becoming a colony or being partitioned and secure its territorial integrity and path to prosperity, china should clamp down on conservative isolationists and open up for trade and diplomatic exchange. such a reform should be set in motion top-down by an enlightened ruler of the type japan had in the meiji emperor. huang’s proposals go much further than anything proposed at the time by the yangwu (western learning) advocates at the top of the chinese bureaucracy and bluntly put the blame for the dangerous weakness of korea/china at the feet of officials stuck in the “engrained habits” (ji xi 積習) of neo-confucianism and at the lack of “innovative energy” (xingqi 興起) among the gentry.[80] it does not even offer the soothing explanation that these modern reforms would only realize the shared ideal of good governance inherited from the three dynasties when sages had ruled the realm. at this time, however, people like huang zunxian or wang tao 王韜 (1828–1897), a newspaper editor and writer with whom he was in correspondence, did not yet see the chinese polity in as critical a state as that of korea. it seemed that westernization was bound to come, but whether this would be a boon or a bane for the chinese state was yet to be seen. there had been discussions since the 1860s among some chinese writers about the need for reforms along western lines, if one does not read xu jiyu’s enthusiastic treatment of the united states in his 1848 world geography as an indirect commentary on what was needed for china. the first explicit arguments in this direction were made in the 1860s, but remained unpublished (wang tao) or only circulated in manuscript (feng guifen 馮桂芬, 1809–1874 ), because the leaders of the “western learning” current blocked their publication. the shenbao newspaper from shanghai, which was under british management and not under the control of the chinese court or high officials, ventilated this option since 1872 in a carefully crafted line of argument. it stressed the compatibility of the western as well as the meiji reforms with the ideals of governance inherited from chinese antiquity. by the 1880s, this line of argument had become widely shared among the early reformers.[81] these essays and newspaper editorials were critical of the current state of affairs and noted china’s failure to respond to a major shift in the political environment. they foresaw utopian prospects should china follow these foreign (and past) models, but still refrained from publicly warning of the dangers for china inherent in its present path that could lead to a fate similar to that of poland. the partition of china in the western press chinese authors began to intensely discuss the partition as a distinct threat to china in 1895 after the conditions of the shimonoseki treaty had become known and the prospect of a partition of the country started to be widely discussed in the western press.[82] while the sino-japanese war was still going on in july 1894, sir thomas wade, widely respected for his china expertise as former british ambassador to china, weighed in. china, he said, already “lost tonquin, cochin china and annam to france, burmah to us, half of kuldja to russia, and in 1877–78 it allowed japan to alienate the islands of liu-chu [ryukyu] without an effort beyond remonstrance.”[83] he anticipated that a japanese victory in the war with china would be quickly followed by “the intervention of russia on the north [. . .] and of france on the south.” these two, “if left to themselves [. . .] might be minded to partition china,” but other nations such as germany and even the united states would not idly stand by, interested as they were in maintaining the balance of power.[84] the constellation from 1860 is still intact: russia and france are both charged with aiming at territorial acquisitions, england opposes a partition and is interested in trade, but in the end, wade saw all other powers forced to intervene to maintain balance. specific proposals for a partition were forthcoming from russia. a widely distributed september 24, 1894, reuter dispatch from st. petersburg quoted the russian novosti news agency as suggesting that “european intervention should not be restricted to re-establishing the status quo [. . .]. russia, great britain and france [should] come to an understanding with a view to a partition of china by a joint occupation. such an occupation would be comparable to the conquest of america or the division of africa, and would prove of immense service to the cause of civilization, in which china—always a useless nation—has never done any good.”[85] the international press also took note that between 1894 and 1898 the influential german journalist eugen wolf wrote articles for the berliner tageblatt that were strongly pushing for a german share in the spoils of china. wolf suggested that the russian sphere should be extending to the yellow river, the german from the yellow river to the yangtse river, the english indefinitely south of the yangtse, and the french northward from yunnan up to the borders of the english sphere. “the partition was suggested as a commercial rather than a political division.”[86] partition was a constant international topic during the 1880s and 1890. the 1884/5 berlin conference on the partition of africa was just a beginning, the partition of turkey was the next hot topic, only to be replaced by the partition of china, and even this was accompanied by discussions about the partitions of bengal, siam, samoa, and indochina. the framing of the policies that were actually pursued varied widely, ranging from partition resulting from the disintegration of a dysfunctional state (turkey) to the partition of a continent with few state-like structures (africa). the very controversial discussion about a partition of china took on a dramatic urgency after china’s defeat in the war with japan and the accompanying riots against foreigners. a september 1895 editorial in the north china herald showed both the international perception of china at the time and the quandary of finding a solution. it agreed that what the deeply offended nations [. . .] demand is guarantees and good government, and guarantees and good government are just what china has not, and does not know how to get. there are many intelligent persons deeply interested in the coming settlement who [. . .] perceiving that desperate diseases demand desperate remedies, are ready with a final measure of a heroic type. china must be divided. after considering, however, the cost administering and policing vast swaths of china, the inevitable frictions between the powers involved in the partition, and the question whether the chinese, “who have less patriotism than could be desired, but have never been subjected to the test of national extinction,” “will put up with it,” the editorial ended with a resounding “word of advice to powers about to partition china: don’t.”[87] the editorial saw the origins of this discussion not in the greed of the powers for power and profit but in the failure of chinese governance and the constant irritation this was causing in her relations with foreign powers. the climate changed when word got out of a secret treaty concluded between china and russia that gave russia vast and exclusive rights in china’s northeast against a credit to pay the reparations demanded by japan—the li hongzhang/lobanov treaty of june 1896—and when in 1898 china granted a lease to germany for the part of the shandong peninsula that germany had occupied in 1897. even countries such as great britain, who had strongly favoured maintaining the territorial integrity and enabling the chinese government to manage its governance of china, began to doubt whether they had any counterparts in the chinese government sharing this commitment, and whether they should not rather grab a share before it was too late. in the heated international climate of nationalist aspirations that came with substantial local mass appeal, the discussion about the future of china regularly filled newspaper columns even in local papers such as the manchester courier and lancashire general advertiser in great britain or the butte miner weekly in montana in the united states.[88] a look at such local papers in great britain and the united states shows how the timeline during which they carried a regular column entitled “partition of china” or a similar formula (figure 2).[89] fig. 2: “partition” and “china” in titles of articles in the local us and british press exclusive of the london times, the new york times, and similar papers, but including the san francisco chronicle. 1892–1905. the frontlines of this international discussion were clear: there was strong and explicit support for partition among journalists and official circles in russia, germany, and france. however, it never became government policy, and the powers were warily watching each other’s steps. when, in 1903, russia started setting up tax collecting offices in the part of manchuria along the new railway which it controlled, this made headlines in the foreign as well as the young chinese reform press. in britain, government opinion started off relatively united against partition and in favour of preserving the territorial integrity of china. however, once it seemed that the chinese government was making deals with russia and then germany, the british government considered making its own bid for territory. this was widely and publicly opposed by the british press and by the british community in the chinese treaty ports. in the united states, the government and the press as well as the american community in the treaty ports remained steadfastly opposed to partition, and the government, as we shall see, intervened very publicly to forestall any such plan in 1899 and again in 1900. china joins the guafen discussion: struggling for discursive hegemony the process of introducing this international discussion to monolingual readers of chinese was started by westerners publishing chinese-language papers committed to the betterment of china. introducing this topic into the public chinese discussion implied a challenge to the government on two fronts: in terms of content, it disagreed with the court’s assessment of the situation and questioned the court’s capability to handle such a crisis with its dated policies. in terms of form, it asserted the public’s right to join in the debate about the nation’s fate rather than seeing it as the exclusive privilege of the court and officialdom. it other words, pushing the partition threat into the public debate involved starting a struggle for discursive hegemony with the court. in january 1895, the wanguo gongbao 萬國公報 (english title: a review of the times), a newspaper managed by young allen from the american southern methodist episcopal mission and close to people who gained prominence within the reform drive such as kang youwei 康有爲 (1858–1927) and liang qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929), published a translation of wade’s 1894 “conversation.”[90] the chinese writers taking up the issue of a looming partition of china were very consciously joining an international discussion that had gone on already “for decades” (liang qichao),[91] was “time again written about in western papers and discussed by westerners” (wang kangnian 汪康年 1860–1911),[92] and might even have been started by otto von bismarck before he left office in 1890 (shenbao).[93] they perceived a dangerous asymmetry not just in terms of information about the state of the country and the attitude of the powers, but also an asymmetry between china and the west of informed argument about foreign attitudes and possible strategies for china to avoid a partition as well as of patriotic commitment to their respective nations. in 1896, wang kangnian, who had just founded the reform paper shiwu bao 時務報 (current affairs), put it bluntly in an article about a self-strengthening strategy for china: now as to the partition of china, the western papers time and again write about it, and the westerners constantly talk about it. even the dumbest of men will recognize how dangerous this is, but still the court has no policy, neither at court nor in the provinces are there firm proposals, none of the old flaws have been discarded, no reform schemes have been promulgated, in short, if [officials] are not content with doing nothing, they act without a policy.[94] 瓜分中國之說，西報履載之、西人履言之。雖至愚之人， 亦知其殆，然而朝廷無定策，中外無定議， 舊弊未一除，新猷未一布， 則非安於不為，即以爲無策也 to start to remedy this situation and transform a translated concept from international law describing the threat to the country (i.e. the danger of being partitioned) into a powerful political tool that would force the court out of its perceived inertia, the critics of the court’s policies made efforts to mobilize the young and presumably more open-minded generation of the educated elite. the first letter to the emperor drafted by kang youwei after the 1895 treaty of shimonoseki had become known and signed by ten thousand examination candidates assembled in the capital was a first effort at translating words describing the situation of the country into powerful public pressure for action. kang and his students and associates such as liang qichao seem to have developed a good understanding of the power public opinion had in japan and the west. they proceeded to build an institutional infrastructure in shanghai and thus beyond the court’s control that would allow them to challenge the discursive hegemony of the court. the role of the institutional frame, such as the control of media, educational institutions, or levers of government, in securing a concept’s standing is a little-studied issue in conceptual history. because no national civil organizations existed in china as of yet, kang youwei relied on the networking inadvertently done by the imperial examination system to connect with possible signatories of his letters to the emperor. the next step, however, was to start newspapers and periodicals to inform and educate this target group of young educated men. the third step was to set up new “study societies.” these were modelled on the association for the promotion of study, (qiangxue hui 強學會), which kang had set up in 1895. some of these new societies were opening regional branches such as the association to protect the nation, (baoguo hui 保國會), while others were bundling the energies of people from the same province who happened to reside in peking such as the association to protect sichuan province (baochuan hui 保川會). the total number of such new associations/pressure groups was computed by some as being as high as seventy-eight.[95] their purpose was to consolidate the regional and national networks; assure that the pressure they exerted became sustainable and focused; establish reform facts on the ground, and increase the channels through which this pressure could be exerted, especially by the publication of newspapers. as will be discussed below, they were building on an already developed “elite activism.” these newspapers and their editors are all well known. a selective list of their titles and editors will show the range of these regional and national efforts.[96] wanguo gongbao 萬國公報 (english title: review of the times), founded 1895.8, editor: kang youwei 康有爲. qiangxue bao 強學報 (encouragement to study), 1896, editor: kang youwei. shiwu bao 時務報 (english title: the chinese progress), 1896, editor wang kangnian. subao 蘇報 (suzhou journal), founded 1896, editor hu zhang 胡璋. qingyi bao 清議報 (english title: the china discussion), founded 1898, editor liang qichao. zhixin bao 知新報 (english title: the reformer of china), founded 1897.2, editor liang qichao. xiangxue xinbao 湘學新报 (hunan learning news), founded 1897.4, editor tang caichang. lingxue bao 嶺學報 (southern learning news), founded 1898, manager li guolian 黎國廉, editor zhu qi 朱淇. guowen bao 國聞報 (national news), founded 1897.10, editor yan fu. shixue bao 實學報 (applied learning), founded 1897.10, editor zhang binglin. jicheng bao 集成報 (reader’s digest), founded 1897 (consists of reprints from other papers). the editors of these papers spent much of their energy on locating, translating, and publishing foreign reports. this expanded the practice of papers such as the shenbao, which for decades had been publishing international news of relevance for china. for this, the shenbao had been drawing on reuters as well as foreign-language papers and journals, but had only rarely published full translations of policy essays. the new papers could not afford news agency subscriptions and published full translations from foreign papers and journals. they were coping with an information asymmetry between china and the west that did not simply relate to knowledge about the world, but about china itself, including its history, geography, geology, language, and demography.[97] in the reading of the reformers as well as foreign observers, this was no accident, but the result of a refusal by the educated elite to realize the importance of new knowledge and make efforts to acquire it. the international discussion about china’s partition was first introduced in detail in these reform journals. to give an example, twenty-nine of the thirty-five references in the shiwu bao of 1896 where guafen referred to china, occurred in translations from western papers. nevertheless, to turn guafen into a powerful and even dominant narrative that would be shared beyond the fairly narrow circle of young educated people, who were reading these new and often short-lived reform papers and magazines, would be a long and tortuous process. a look at the raw data will illustrate this. the database compiled by jin guantao and liu qingfeng includes the reform papers, the large collections of policy essays, and books dealing with contemporary chinese policy questions, but does not include commercial papers such as the shenbao. a search for the period from january 1895 to the end of december 1899 yields over one thousand passages where guafen refers to china.[98] all but forty-five of them stem from the reform newspapers and periodicals. the rest were in books advocating reform and only a very small number occurred in memorials by officials. if we look at the same period in the shenbao, we find a continuous and often neutral use of guafen for dividing money and fifty-five occurrences of guafen to describe the political fate of china. there is no occurrence in 1895, one in 1896, fifteen in 1897, twenty-eight in 1898, and six in 1899. these numbers are actually deceptive, because first, the shenbao is a daily while most of the reform papers came out as weeklies or every two days, and second, because the shenbao used the guafen term in news items that were based on foreign sources while practically all of the reform papers had the form of original or translated editorial articles. of the fifteen items in the shenbao in 1897, six occurred in editorial articles. of the twenty-eight in 1898—after the german occupation of shandong—twenty-five appeared in editorial articles, but only two of the six occurrences in 1899 were in editorial articles, and these referred to foreigners discussing it and to liang qichao daring to hold the empress dowager cixi responsible should partition occur. in short, the reform papers were not able to establish a discursive hegemony about the threat of china’s partition in official communications and newspapers beyond the few months between late 1897 and early 1898 when the focus of attention was on the german occupation of parts of shandong province. this is no accident as there was no agreement that indeed the partition of china was a real threat. guafen with its trimmed sense as the illegitimate partition of something that is entitled to stay together and the policy agenda it supported remained a polemical narrative associated with the reform papers at least until 1900. how then did the reform papers frame the guafen discourse? it is one thing to establish a term in the public discourse, but it is another to establish it with a tight narrative that calls for action, justifies it and gives it power by having it widely accepted while delegitimizing all those who fail to see the point and refuse to take action. as we have seen, there were three narratives for the partition of poland. these were known in china, and they provided the templates for discussing the potential partition of china. kang youwei 康有爲 was a subscriber of the foreign-managed wanguo gongbao who did not read any foreign language but had become a leading spokesman for young elite members who felt humiliated by china’s loss to japan and frustrated with what they saw as the helpless response of the court. at the beginning of his third letter to the emperor, which he wrote in may 1895, he took up the foreign discussion about the threat of a partition, guafen, of china as outlined by wade. not willing to depend solely on the court’s response, he set up his own wanguo gongbao 萬國公報 in august of the same year. this newspaper had the main purpose of translating up-to-date reuters releases and articles from western papers about international politics into chinese. it also gave him a public platform to articulate his views on the matter. his letter to the emperor dated may 30, 1895, started out like this: i humbly [observe] that recently the dispute in korea with the japanese invaders led to a cessation of territory [taiwan and the liaodong peninsula, the latter returned to china later in this year following pressure from the western powers, r. w.] and to paying reparations. nothing comparable has occurred in the over two hundred years of the sacred qing dynasty and it has angered and pained officials and the people in the country. true, shame for the state might be a minor affair, but if the foreigners’ greed is spurred on by it, a partition [of the country by them] would be a major disaster. cutting off a piece of territory might be a minor affair, but if the frontier inhabitants have no security, the dissolution [of the entire country] would be a major disaster.[99] 竊近者朝鮮之釁日人内犯致割地賠餉，此聖清二百餘年未有之大辱，天下臣民所發憤、痛心者也。 然辱國之事小， 外國皆啓覬覦，則瓜分之患大. 割地之事小，邊民皆不自保， 則瓦解之患大. kang youwei indicates that a perceived internal weakness of the chinese state, which became painfully visible when it signed off on a deal that would not only put an end to the tributary relationship with korea, but also mean ceding a major piece of chinese territory and paying reparations, will surely stir the powers’ appetite for a partition of the country. tang caichang 唐才常 (1867–1900), a man with a traditional education who had been turned into a political activist by china’s loss in the war with japan, was possibly inspired by kang’s letter to the emperor when in early june 1895 he wrote in a private letter to his father about the qing ceding control over taiwan to japan: “i am afraid that the harbingers of a partition of the empire altogether are already foreshadowed by taiwan” (竊恐天下瓜分之兆，已先見於臺灣矣).[100] as far as can be documented, cai’s statement about taiwan was still an outlier in the chinese language discussion, quite apart from being contained within a private letter that was made public only in 1980. however, there were other signs of the guafen narrative strengthening: in the same year, 1895, officials who thought moderate reforms were necessary such as zhang zhidong 張之洞 (1837–1909) occasionally took up the issue including the guafen vocabulary in internal memoranda. neither kang, nor tang, nor these officials, however, elaborated on the causes or recommended a course of action. while these timid steps were taken, a diverse group formed in the far south which followed a more radical assessment of the qing court’s ineptitude and the system on which it was based. it consisted of hong kong residents with full or partial chinese parentage such as tse tsan tai, the author of the 1899 poster “the situation in the far east” that is discussed below (figure 18). most of them were english native speakers but had no or very limited chinese literacy, others were overseas chinese and cantonese with overseas experience. the group tried to instigate, also in 1895, an upheaval that was to make guangdong province independent of china. the idea was that once guangdong gained independence, the province would pioneer the needed reforms for the country as a whole, a step that would also secure support from the powers and prevent the partition of the country as a whole. the group never considered its efforts to split off guangdong from the qing as falling under the heading of guafen. once the new reform journals were set up, the reformers moved from memorials to the emperor to published articles intending to develop the guafen narrative into a specific agenda for action. a january 1876 article in kang youwei’s paper qiangxue bao is a good early example. true, it said, there are states with limited territories, small populations or meager resources that have gone under, but none of these criteria fit china. however, there is india, africa, and turkey, each of them with vast territories, rich resources, and large populations, but they either became a colony (india), were partitioned (africa), or lost wars (turkey), while little denmark survived by managing its trade well and mobilizing its talents. as long as china did not manage its basic problem—namely, its dysfunctional examination system that critics claimed was stultifying students with irrelevant rote learning and left them incapable of dealing with real-world problems—so as to fully develop its rich talent pool, all reforms were doomed.[101] the fate of the state, it argued, did not depend on the attitude of foreign powers but on the quality of internal governance. a few months later, liang qichao developed this line of argument further in “narrative of poland’s demise.”[102] he ended this article with his own assessment, where he blasted the russian “whale” for using strategies ranging from military conquest to religious alliances and marriage to gobble up states for its own territorial expansion; he also decried well-intentioned scholars as the ultimate dumbbells for hoping to counter brute force with international law, and blamed the powers for looking on as poland was partitioned. he concluded that it was suicidal to rely on international law and the intervention of others without, above all, going for self-strengthening: in short, neither in territory nor in population russia’s neighbors such as sweden and denmark were superior to poland, but both of them maintained their independence to this day. that means that the poles brought about their own demise, it was not brought about by russia. 今夫麟俄之國若瑞典若丹麥, 其地其民未有以逾於波蘭，而至今巋然尚存。然波蘭者其亦自亡，非俄之亡之也. this conclusion rebuts the beginning of the article, which had summarized the common opinion that russia was the cause of poland’s demise. while the article itself is just a summary of the history of poland as offered by the translations mentioned above, without adding new information, it is relevant for liang’s view about who was to blame. true, he argued, russian repression had been brutal, but the “internal politics” of poland, once a “heroic country that had secured europe” (gu ouzhou zhi xiongguo 固歐洲之雄國), were not taken care of, ruler and people had become used to laziness, the officials were greedy and lazy in their duties, popular disturbances rose all over, which they could not handle themselves, and the public as well as the private sectors became more indigent by the day. 君民上下習於疲軟，在官諸臣貪惰夫職，民亂毛起，不能自救，公私困窮 日甚一日. that is when russia intervened, stationing a powerful ambassador in warsaw who liberally handed out money with the result that both the nobility and the people became enamored with the russians “to the point that more than half of the population wanted to become russian citizens.”[103] eventually, there were many upheavals by the people against russia, but all were crushed. in the end, poland disappeared from the map. liang sees a chain of events that began with the neglect of the internal governance of the state, negligence and laziness shared by ruler and people, official corruption, all of which ended in revolts and impoverishment that could not be overcome with local means. all of this alluded to china’s internal situation at the time. the external situation also had its parallels. russia had used poland’s internal weakness to intervene as a force of order and prosperity only to eventually appropriate large parts, while at present, russia was the threatening foreign power and was currently engaged in secret negotiations with the peking court. the court, the elite, and the people of poland were all to blame for the partition of their country, and the same would be true for china now. liang’s assessment of the state of china agreed with that of the powers as well as most western papers. the partition of china had become a topic of discussion at all because of its abysmal state of governance that threatened the fragile international balance of power. poland was to remain a regular reference for china during the coming years.[104] the agenda coming with the guafen narrative, however, was one of urgent reform, not passive acceptance of the inevitable. accordingly, it came with a polemic against those in the government who did nothing to avert this danger and against the foreign governments and foreign media who were accused of preparing public opinion in their countries for an eventual partition of china. they did so by describing china’s governance as incompetent and its people as hopelessly primitive. fundamentally, however, liang claimed, the yellow and the white race were equal in quality. if only the talents of the chinese were released and mobilized, they would very quickly be on top of the world. a triple agenda thus informs the guafen narrative: a critique of the weak chinese court, a critique of foreign propaganda that was preparing for a partition of china, and mobilization of members of the elite for reform. a good example combining all three is liang qichao’s programmatic 1897 article “on china’s future strength.” the article starts with a polemic against the techniques presumably used by westerners to prepare public opinion for their goal of subduing other peoples and their states. the westerners’ ridiculing of china is really going too far. when they want to wipe out a state belonging to others, they inevitably bring this up in their parliament and publicize it in the newspapers, talking every day about the abysmal quality of its governance, the chaos in its social order, and the officials’ wanton abuse of power.[105] 西人侮我甚矣。西人之將滅人國也，則必上之於議院， 下之於報章，日日言其國政之敗壞、綱紀之紊亂、官吏之苛黷. when “going for the annihilation of a race” (qi jiang mie renzhong ye 其將滅人種也) the westerners denounce its “ferociousness” (guanghan 獷悍), the “abomination of its culture” (jiaohua zhi feizhui 教化之廢墜), and the “absurd restrictions of its customs” (fengsu zhi milan 風俗之縻爛). so that the gentry and people in their own as well as their neighbouring countries hear about this. then the kind ones among them [a probable reference to missionaries such as timothy richard, westerns in chinese employ such as the inspector general of the chinese maritime customs, robert hart, and publishers such as the manager of the shenbao, ernest major, r.w.] are concerned and think of ways of reforming the polity in order to deliver it from these flaws, while the vicious ones come up with tricks, thinking of benefitting from these flaws for their own purposes. consequently and because the masses [in these western states r.w.] demand it time and again, they tear down this state and enslave its race while self-confidently looking on as if they had been guided by humaneness and justice.[106] 使其本國之民士，若鄰國之民士，聞其言也。仁者愀然, 思革其政以拯其難, 鷙者狡焉，思乘其敞以逞其志。夫然後一衆人之所欲，一舉再舉而墟其國、奴其種而嫺然猶以仁義之師自居. this happened to india, just happened to turkey, and was now happening to china. because the western international law was only valid among civilized states, this western narrative denies that states such as turkey and china qualified for its protection. because they were not different from wild tribes, any action against them was justified. descriptions of taiwanese in japanese papers are an example and the fact that europeans were assigning envoys to china who had previously served in africa showed the same attitude.[107] in short, “the recklessness with which we are marginalized, humbled, treated as savages, slaves, or animals, and are considered lazy has reached an extreme” (414) (qing wo, jian wo, yeman wo, nuli wo, lishou wo, shiju wo, qi canku zhiyu ruci qi ji ye 輕我、賎我、野蠻我、奴隸我、禽獸我、尸居我， 其慘酷至於如此其極也). however, so liang, the westerners are wrong, and liang repeats the same racial prejudice towards others that he accused westerners of in their denigration of his countrymen: the chinese, liang claims, have a much greater potential than the indians. after all, even over hundred years after the british had set up schools for them “only the most accomplished talents are a match for the people coming from england,”[108] while the turkish muslims are altogether “cruel and barbarous, saying one will be reborn in heaven for killing others.” “only between the yellow and the white races is the difference [with regard to the brain] not great, whatever the white man can do, the yellow man can do as well.”[109] although it is true that china’s internal governance is abysmal, the schools and academies stubbornly keep to their dry wells, there is empty babble and formality while old habits have not been reformed, there are up-and coming talents who have yet to enter adulthood with their exceptional qualities, great ambition, and heroic plans. aya! if one says that heaven will not let china go under, then [the fact is that] the prospect of a partitioning of china is just five years away and the situation of internal strife is desperate. even if we avoid saying the country will go under, can we say things are good? but if one says that heaven will let china go under, why then did it give her so many talents, only to have them treated like slaves and cattle?[110] 雖鄉曲學研，枯守眢井，侈言尊攘，舊習未改，而後起之秀，年在肉冠一下者，類多資稟絕特，志氣宏遠， 才略沈雄。嗟乎。謂天不亡中國也，則瓜分之約，期以五年，内訌之形，必不可終日，雖諱言亡，寧有幸也。謂天之亡中國也，則何必生此無數人才? liang then moves on to the third element, mobilizing those who might be open for the message of reform. “i appeal to the heroes concerned with china to loudly call out to the world: there is no reason for china to go under, no, it is sure to find a way to strength.”[111] by 1897 the hopes of liang, kang, and their associates were pinned on the guangxu emperor’s willingness to support reform but liang was already beginning to target different set of addressees. they are not members of the court and the bureaucratic elite willing to support reforms. the natural candidates to be the “heroes” of the new age are the “up-and-coming talents who have yet to enter adulthood with their exceptional qualities, great ambition, and heroic plans.” these young men have not yet been stultified by the examination system and are malleable for the new message. in the next turn in the debate when the efforts to convince the court had failed, these youngsters of “young china” will join young england, jungdeutschland, giovine italia, młoda polska, and others in breaking with old traditions and bring about reform, hopefully led in china by the man who will then call himself “youth of young china” (shaonian zhongguo zhi zhaonian 少年中國之少年)—liang qichao himself. liang lists three reasons why china eventually will be strong: first, like the japanese who he says belong to the same race as the chinese, show, there is no lack in talent; second, a new law of history is on china’s side. while “currently, on an overall average, in the west, the gentlemen are the majority and the savages the minority, while in china the gentlemen are the minority and the savages the majority,”[112] the west is heading for an economic collapse following rising wages and prices. china, on the other hand, can rely on long work hours and low wages to increase its power to the point that no one can bully her. third, it is true that the europeans have taken over much of the world, but their population is too small and, as their many gentlemen are used to supervise but not to engage in hard work, they have to turn to the east for labor forces. once the exploitation has run its course, the yellow race “will rise and revive” (nai qi er su zhi 乃起而蘇之也) (419). for a young man of four and twenty, these certainly were big claims and they were all pitched on a presumed law of history that “distress has reached the extreme, times will change” and move in the opposite direction (qiong ji ze bian 窮極則變), a law first articulated in the book of changes that was often invoked at the time when reforms were proposed.[113] this law justified the cost of radical change with the promise of future bliss. liang was aware that his grandiloquent claims were far from generally accepted and at the end of the article, he inserted a critique of his argument to refute it before it has even been made. someone questioned this: this [claim that] ‘the prospect of a partitioning of china is just five years away, and the situation of internal strife is desperate’ is nothing but self-aggrandizing bragging. the sun goes down over the yanzi mountain, there is not a day without death [meaning that things are getting worse and worse], and you little guy are well aware that these idle words about strength and prosperity are of no avail. really, you are just too dumb and out of your senses if you are not intentionally making up these big words to have fun and fool everyone else.[114] 汲汲顧影日薄崦嵫死喪無日皇(=遑)言盛強，五尺之童知其無救，甚矣吾子至愚而病狂也不則故為大言以自憙以欺天下. liang answers “[according to the book of changes], without getting to the extreme of bo 剝 (stripping away) there is no quick fu 復 (recovery).” [115] george washington’s bloody eight-year war “was bad for many years […] for both south and north, but in the end did it hurt america’s strength?”[116] in the same manner, china’s eventual strengthening would demand many sacrifices. as liang’s hope at this time was to also move the emperor and high officials to support reforms, there is no explicit polemic here against the court, although by this time he was aware of the role china’s secret treaty with russia had played, because this had been covered in detail in the foreign language press. also in 1897, tang caichang published an article that included a full retranslation into chinese of the sino-russian treaty from a western source. he quoted liang’s opinion that the russian credit was not based on any russian love for china, and also offered a knowledgeable, if one-sided summary of the “[western] discussion about the partition, guafen, [of china].”[117] the efforts following the westphalian treaty to achieve a modicum of international order, tang wrote, had yielded good results until the early nineteenth century, but now, suspicion and backdoor dealings had become the norm among the powers. the earliest example for this had been the partition of poland, and currently continued with the partition of africa. without attacking the court directly, tang also argued that china had brought this fate upon herself with the sino-russian treaty. when things are rotten, worms appear, empty holes attract wind, good and bad luck are unpredictable, it is what people bring about themselves. if indeed this [sino-russian treaty] is a fact [which the russians kept denying, r.w.], china does not qualify as a state and the people living there are just dumbbells.[118] 物腐生蠹 穴空來風，禍福無門，惟人自召。斯約如確，中國不國，生靈索然. tang takes up liang’s argument that westerners had now reached the point of appointing ambassadors to china who had just been involved in the partition of africa, “the idea being that this state [of china] could only be managed in the way africa had been.”[119] following up on liang’s rhetoric about the west’s treatment of china, he writes: these westerners shame us, slight us, treat us as stupid and boorish, and consider us lazy without end—but how come there is no sudden awakening (added in the ms: but we still consider partition an empty threat?!)[120] 彼西人之辱我、賤我、頑擴我、尸居我者，無乎不至矣，、奈之何不遽然寤，(而猶以瓜分為讆言也)?! tang, like liang, had closely followed the translations and summaries from the foreign papers and he was aware that there were strong forces in the west favoring the territorial integrity of china even if the qing court did not seem to care. the desire of these reformers to mobilize patriotic fervor, however, made sure that advocacy rather than fact-based analysis was driving their characterization of the west. the translations of foreign articles on partition, which had appeared in the reform press managed by liang himself, already presented quite a different picture. especially the english-language press strongly objected to a partition of china. these objections were less based on a commitment to preserve chinese sovereignty than on a commitment to preserve the balance of power as well as secure a stable environment for trade. japan had already been forced to give back the liaodong peninsula shortly after china had ceded it in the shimonoseki treaty in 1895. a stronghold especially of russia on chinese soil would substantially upset the equilibrium. as the partition of china was discussed internationally and guafen had become the standard translation of the process, this term was now occasionally used even by papers outside the reformers’ media circle, such as the shenbao. in september 1898, at the height of the hundred days reform, the shenbao printed an editorial that was bluntly and critically entitled “partitioning china is not the ultimate aim of the different western states.”[121] after china’s ambassador to london, zeng jize, had published “china. the sleep and the awakening” in january 1887 in the asiatic quarterly, this article claimed, the western “discussion about a partition of china had stopped because people saw that china was not lacking in real men.”[122] after the country’s defeat in the war with japan, however, this discussion had resumed. the western states, the article claimed, were not interested in partitioning china but in maintaining balance of power and securing commercial access. this answers the rhetorical question that the article posed: “why is it that, given china’s weakness and depression, none of the states that set out to dismember it succeeded?”[123] with the impending completion of the trans-siberian railway, which would allow russia to quickly ferry troops to the far east, russia’s hold on manchuria, however, was bound to increase. this explains the 1897 rush of germany, england, and france to put small sections of coastal china under their control. if [the other powers] did not use the remaining time to occupy a piece of chinese territory, they would not only be unable to compete with russia but would not even be safe themselves. 苟非乘間多佔中國土地，非特不能與俄角逐, 并無以爲自全之計. the powers’ refusal to grant any one power the upper hand in china was “not necessarily bad for china,”[124] but the real challenge would come once the russian railway had been completed. “this will be the moment of partition!”[125] looking at the russian repression of the poles and the strict rule the british had established in india, one might expect the worst after such a partition. however, poland and india “probably brought about this disaster themselves by being weak in power and short in wisdom.”[126] china, the shenbao editorial assured, was different. “with its spiritual inheritance, vast territory and rich resources, it has great potential” [中國以神明之胄， 地廣、物博，大可有爲], but it can only avoid “becoming meat for others on the butcher’s block” [爲人砧上之肉] if it “gets itself to bounce back” [使中國而克自振拔]. this would have to rely on the “commitment of people of good will and valor” [仁人志士之用心] over many years to strengthen the nation. written a week before the coup that ended this first round of the chinese reform effort in 1898, the article shows that the basic thrust of the reform discourse had—for the moment—moved into the mainstream. it did not take up, however, liang qichao’s critique of the imperial examination system’s waste of chinese talent or his call to the unpolluted youth to take a stand. the shenbao article agreed that there was a looming crisis, that china had as yet shown itself incapable of doing anything about it, and that it therefore lacked agency in determining the fate of its territory. the widespread discussion of a partition of china reflected a perception of the country weakness that was shared by foreigners, the qing court, as well as the court’s chinese critics. they considered this internal weakness to be the result of internal causes such as widespread illiteracy and ignorance about the world, venality, a dysfunctional examination system, the resistance against reforms, and the split between the “tartar” (manchu) rulers and the han chinese majority. this internal weakness was seen as so pervasive that many believed the powers had a responsibility to prevent china’s collapse, and thus utter chaos and waves of refugees. one of the scenarios proposed to secure the viability of this polity was to give the powers a strong role in the development of “zones of influence” in the country for which they would be in charge. demetrius boulger’s 1897 article about china as “the sick man of the far east” was instrumental in providing a rationale for this scenario. he wrote: the general view of china now, it would be scarcely going too far to say, is not merely that she is a quantité negligeable, but that she will have to obey the dictates of others and thus surrender the power to work out her own destiny. unless the chinese awake to the gravity of their situation there will be no resisting the accuracy of that conclusion.[127] this was instantly picked up by western papers, chinese reformers, as well as foreigners writing in chinese and ethnic chinese writing in english. its association with the ottoman empire (the “weak man of the bosporus”) was seen as an accurate metaphorical conceptualization of the state of china’s affairs, and it was combined with other metaphorical concepts such as china being “asleep,” being a “sleeping giant,” or a “sleeping lion.”[128] once kang youwei had come into personal contact with the guangxu emperor in 1898, he tried to establish the guafen narrative and the agenda it implied—both of which he and his friends had already tried to spread among the public—within the language of the political center. he did so by writing for the guangxu emperor in 1898 an extensive narrative of the partition of poland entitled bolan fenmie ji 波蘭分滅記 (record of poland’s partition and demise).[129] this manuscript is kang’s companion piece to two essays from his hand on successful reforms, which he submitted at the same time, the “investigation on the japanese political reforms,” and the “record of peter of russia’s political reforms.”[130] with constant explicit references to china, his essay on poland described russia’s greed and cunning strategy in achieving poland’s partition by seemingly “sweet” words. above all, however, the text focused on the conservative and utterly ignorant polish nobility who were blocking all the efforts by the open-minded king and the reform-prone lower levels of the aristocracy. they would rather see the country perish than lose their privileges and power. a ruler had to be bold and daring to counter such forces, otherwise he will end up like the polish king who had tried to accommodate all sides.[131] kang was not shy to spell out the lessons: a new office should be established to manage fundamental reform and it should be staffed by “young people of valour” rather than the old conservatives. such reforms would be the only certain way to prevent a partition of the country, because they would strengthen it in the manner in which the reforms by peter the great and the meiji emperor had secured the unity and rise of their countries. china was in a critical moment. the polish lesson is directly applied to china: if one wants to do reforms for purposes of self-strengthening, it is best to go about it as early as possible; if one wants to protect one’s country so as to secure its independence, it is best not to rely on others [e.g. foreign countries as the poles had done]. that liaodong peninsula, which belongs to our homeland, now de facto under russian power, is due to its being lost because of the [trans-siberian] railway, and this year we have handed over [the cities of] lüshun and dalian, at every step there are obstacles—we are not much different from poland! nowadays, our nobility and high officials do not agree to open a systems office to [manage] reforms. in principle there is still some hope if we do it now, but if it is deferred by just a few years, the russian railway in the northwest will be completed and they will steadily push southward and if we then want to draw a constitution, i am afraid that they will pressure us to keep to the old laws and will not tolerate [reforms as they had done in poland]. are we their poland and are not those conservatives who block reforms helping the russians by partitioning ourselves?[132] 欲變法自強者，宜早為計；欲保國自立者，宜勿依人。我遼東之歸地，實籍俄力，而以鐵路輸之，今歲則以旅、大與之。動輒沮撓，我之不為波蘭者幾希！今我貴族大臣，未肯開制度局以變法也. 夫及今為之, 猶或可望。稍遲數年， 東北俄路既成，長驅南下，于是而我乃欲草定憲法，恐有勤令守舊法而不許者矣 然則吾其為波蘭乎？而凡守舊阻撓變法者，非助俄自分治乎？ kang was not shy to spell out the lessons: a new office should be established to manage fundamental reform and it should be staffed by “young people of valour” rather than the old conservatives. kang’s basic assessment of the relevance of the polish example is contained after another summary of the similarities between the strategies used by the powers in the partitions of poland and those used by them for china at present in the phrase “we ourselves truly are poland!” (wo zhenshi bolan 我真是波蘭).[133] the two companion pieces on the reforms of peter the great and the meiji emperor established the antonym for kang youwei’s use of the term “partition,” namely the defense of a state’s cohesiveness and the enhancement of its strength through modernization by a monarch from an established dynasty. banking on the victor’s dilemma: china is too big to be allowed to fail as stated above, the view of an asymmetry of power which assumes that the stronger party—in this case the powers—has all the freedom and the weaker—in this case the “sick man of asia”—all the burden is rarely supported by reality. britain was caught in the victor’s dilemma. during the sino-japanese war in 1895, when it was becoming clear that the qing fleet would suffer defeat, wolseley—the previously mentioned probable author of the 1860 pamphlet “the partition of china”—had summarized long-standing british concerns about a collapse of the chinese government in a widely referenced article. he recalled the negotiations in 1860 after the second opium war, in which he himself had been involved: in fact, our commercial relations with china bound us up with the maintenance of the imperial authority, because it alone would and could protect the native producers. this was so much the case that, next to the defeat of our invading army, the greatest misfortune which, commercially speaking, could overtake us, would be a great victory. we wished to mend, not to end, the imperial government. these considerations were never absent from the minds of those who directed our war of 1860. but it is not often in the history of war that we find the aggrieved side impelled in its own interests to strike, so to say, with a gloved hand, lest the blow delivered should kill outright.[134] wolseley defined british interests as primarily commercial. it was therefore strongly in favour of a chinese authority able to secure an orderly environment for trade. the qing was on the verge of collapse under the onslaught first of the taiping and nian rebels within the country, and now of the british and french. in this situation, the british prime minister viscount palmerston had decided to prop up the dynasty and offered indirect military support against the taiping christian rebels; in return he only demanded exceedingly modest reparations. britain was utterly disinterested in assuming the burden and the cost of securing a safe environment for its china trade. india after the 1857 sepoy uprising was quite enough. this shows a victorious power in the quandary about trying to prevent the collapse of its opponent, by supporting the integrity of the territory under its control and its capacity to maintain social order. the collapse of chinese social order and an ensuing fragmentation would not only hurt regular trade, it would upset the balance of power and set in motion waves of refugees with unforeseeable and definitely unpleasant consequences. two weeks after the coup that ended the hundred days reform in 1898, the shenbao published another editorial to assess the new situation. the article does not deny that china was in critical danger but replaces the safety previously promised by reforms and new personnel with an appeal to mobilize people’s “hearts,” because if people’s hearts are firmly set, then everyone will love their country with the same heart that loves their family, wife and children, and this is how the country is kept safe.[135] 人心固則人人以愛身家愛妻子之心愛其國，而國以常存矣 in his 1898 encouragement to study, (qianxue pian 強學篇), zhang zhidong 張之洞 (1837–1909) chose a similar line of argument: “our dynasty and state are firmly anchored,” he writes, “they have been made grand by heaven, there is no question that they will be supported.”[136] after depicting the catastrophic results “if indeed things came about as [predicted] in the absurd talk about the westerners partitioning [china]” (假使果如西人瓜分之妄説), he concludes—just like the shenbao did in october 1898—with: in this situation it is the first duty to show deference to the court and to protect the altars of the nation by mobilizing loyalty and love, and striving for the wealth and power (of the country).[137] 今日時局，惟以激發忠愛、講求富強，尊朝廷、衛社稷為第一義 this argument comes in the opening chapter, which is appropriately entitled “being of one mind” (tongxin 同心). zhang zhidong, the reformers, and the shenbao had one important argument in common. they all assumed that the ultimate agency in china’s march to wealth and power lay not in structural reform but in “the hearts and minds of the chinese” (xin 心). from the appeals we have seen, this xin was in need of a fundamental remake although there was disagreement about the ideal features of such a reformed xin and the best candidates to develop them. while the notion that much “energy of the mind” (xinli 心力) was needed to solve an urgent personal or national matter had been quite common, this argument received a substantial boost and twist through an unexpected north american argumentative resource that had been made available in chinese directly after the sino-japanese war, henry wood’s ideal suggestion through mental photography.[138] at the time, wood was a key figure in the new thought movement in the united states, in which the christian science communities originate. the “mental photography” in the title suggests that one should set up a mental image of how one would like to be, and then emulate this. the 1896 translation by john fryer[139] recommended it as a way to overcome chinese problems such as opium addiction, but as liu jihui 劉紀蕙 has shown in a number of fine studies, its notion of xinli 心力—the power of the heart/mind to change reality—became an important feature in the arsenal of public reform argumentation.[140] it suited the agenda of those who were frustrated by the apparent lack of patriotic commitment among the chinese and by the country’s lack of the wealth and power that would command respect in the world. china, they thought, was in a crisis that needed an urgent solution and it could only come from a revitalized “power of the heart/mind.” they recast the option explained in wood’s book to get help from a teacher in setting up such a model for oneself. the chinese reformer or the state managed by him would cast the ideal features that the people were to live up to in order to become true citizens with the appropriate patriotic commitment that was strong enough to safeguard the country. in the september 1898 article referred to above, however, the shenbao, had already indicated a different option. saying that the efforts by the western powers to maintain the balance of power was “not necessarily bad for china,” it had suggested that china’s territorial integrity might indeed be protected by some of the western powers trying to prevent russia from dominating china. in the discussion about the danger of china’s partition, foreigners such as wade and wolseley, reformers such as kang youwei and liang qichao, and commercial newspapers such as the shenbao all presented their case. no explicit strategic assessment of this kind, however, is known from the qing court for this period. the practical steps taken by the qing court, however, to keep the different powers on board with grants of long-term leases indicate that the court actually—if implicitly—had a strategy to rely on these western conflicts of interests rather than a rise in the hard-to-manage patriotism of their countrymen.[141] this indeed was also the assumption of some of the western diplomats at the time. in may 1899, the british legation secretary in peking, henry bax-ironside, wrote to the british foreign minister, the marquess of salisbury: “china apparently prefers to consider the mutual jealousies of the various powers as the best safeguard.”[142] an imagined exchange between two chinese officials that was featured in the american satirical journal puck in august 1900 also drives home this point (figure 3). fig. 3: “their only chance,” puck, august 1900, 48. the assumption that the contradictions between the foreign powers and their interest to maintain a balance was the best guarantee for china’s territorial integrity had been ventilated since the 1860s. as quoted above, the north china herald wrote in 1866, “[china‘s] greatest safety lies in the fact that neither of the four nations most interested in its trade would allow the others to gain an advantage it did not share; and, to avoid a general partition, all will refrain from encroaching.”[143] the nervous concern of the western powers that a collapse of china would lead to a war among them had now, it seems, become part of a silent chinese government calculus. it assumed that china was too big to be allowed to fail and that therefore the powers would be willing to step in and prevent this by providing credits and preventing any one power from becoming dominant and colonizing parts or all of china. as we shall see, there was merit in this assumption. the quandaries of the guafen narrative when the end of the hundred days reform was followed by the coup of the empress dowager cixi on september 21, 1898, the reformers had to abandon, for the time being, the hope for a top-down reform supported by the—now sequestered—guangxu emperor and a range of high officials. these reforms, kang youwei had argued, were the best and only way to enhance china’s agency and to prevent a partition. in the narrative presented by kang youwei to the emperor with the report about the partition and demise of poland, the foreign powers and the local conservatives objectively interacted in promoting partition by blocking reforms. after the coup, the hopes for reforms coming from the court were dashed with the main responsibility for china’s threatening demise now lodged with the conservatives among china’s “nobility and high officials.” the reform papers set up in japan and macao now translated articles from the foreign press which showed that the powers had set great hopes that reforms would stabilize china. since the coup, danger of partition had increased because the opinion gained ground that china had to be saved from its own incompetent government through a partition after which each of the powers would secure stability and a good environment for trade in their respective domains.[144] one of the proposals published directly before the coup had suggested to defer the partition by ten years under the condition that the government would implement the very reforms which the coup was about to crush two weeks later.[145] from the outset, the reformers had followed a two-pronged strategy: first, to mobilize the public—the most promising segments being increasingly urbanized, educated, young men—to exert pressure on officialdom, and second, to seek alliances with and protection from high officials open to reforms, foreigners in chinese employ, protestant missionaries, and foreign politicians. with the coup, much of the second option (the missionaries and foreigners remained sympathetic) seemed lost for now, which had important consequences for their advocacy strategy in terms of argument, addressees, and the media used. guafen, they now argued, was a result of chinese officialdom selling out rather than of western greed. in may 1899, well after the end of the hundred days reform, liang qichao, who was familiar with wolseley’s article, recast his partition narrative with another programmatic article, “warnings about partition” (guafen weiyan 瓜分危言).[146] for a short time, liang had been an insider in the court’s closed information system. after his ouster and forced exile to japan, he now made use of his inside information to fully move the guafen narrative from focusing the blame on evil intentions of foreign powers to the shady machinations of the qing court. “warnings about partition” was to become a key retroactive building block for later historical narratives of the period between 1895 and 1898. when this essay appeared in the qingyi bao 清議報 [english title: the china critic], the paper liang now published from his japanese exile, the international controversy about china’s partition, the powers juggling for position, and the press coverage of both had reached a high point. liang’s summary introduction begins: for several decades now, the westerners have been discussing the partitioning of china. and it is now ten years that informed chinese know about this partitioning and have been concerned about it. these one of two informed men, however, rush around the country sweating and panting, shouting madly in their dedication to a path [out of this crisis], but those stupid snorers in their sleep [the government bureaucrats, r. w.] arrogantly block their ears and do not pay attention. and if they do, they drop the matter with a laugh and do not mind in the least bit while these foreigners are on full alert, scheming incessantly without neglecting the smallest detail. [according to these government bureaucrats], even if parts [of china’s sphere of control such as ryukyu islands, taiwan, burma, vietnam and korea, r. w.] should be cut off, this [loss] still would be nothing more than that of property beyond the national borders. for a big and civilized nation, this would not even suffice to hurt the very tips of its hair. whereupon these snoring sleepers become ever more pompous, and, full of themselves and pompously, ask where proof of such intentions or actions of the westerners [towards a partitioning of china proper] could be found?! such [claims, they say] are nothing but panicky words of exaggeration by people who, with provocative words, are sowing political trouble. woe! these one or two knowledgeable people were wearing out their tongues and cheeks, and exhausting their blood and tears, and still were not able to awaken even the smallest portion of the dreaming crowd! as time wore on, they themselves felt that their words were worn-out clichés and commonplaces and they did not want to place them any further between their checks and teeth. but then, not long ago, there were the kiaotschou, lü shun/dalian bay, weihaiwei, guangzhou bay affairs [of germany, russia, great britain, and france, all successfully demanding leases in 1897–1898]. within a single year, these strategic points were all lost and the manifold domestic privileges concerning railways and mines were all given to foreign hands. not long ago, this trifle of a state that is italy came up with a request for the sanmen bay and these pipsqueaks like austria, belgium, and denmark all thought of taking their cut greedily one after the other in a rush and tumult that has not ended to this very day (557). 西人之議瓜分中國也，數十年於玆矣。中國有識者，知瓜分而自憂之也，十年於茲矣。顧此一二之識者，且汗且喘走天下，疾呼長號，以徇於路，而彼嗤嗤鼾睡者，褎然充耳，而無所聞矣，而一笑置之，不小介意，而彼西人者亦復深沈審慎，處心積慮，不輕於一發。雖有刲割，亦不過境外之屬土，於堂堂大國， 曾不足以損其毫末。於是此鼾睡者亦復囂然，自安自大，謂西人曷嘗有此心。有此事，不過莠言亂政之徒，為危詞以以聳聽耳。嗚呼痛哉！此一二有識者唇舌俱敝，血淚俱盡，曾不足以醒群夢於萬一，久之久之，亦漸覺其言為老生常談，司空見慣，不欲復以置於齒頰間矣。乃曾幾何時，而有膠州之事，有旅順、大連灣、威海衛、廣州灣之事，一年之內要害盡失，而鐵路、礦務、內治種種之權利，盡歸他國之手。曾幾何時，而意大利區區之國，且有三門灣之請，奧大利、比利時、丹麥彈丸黑子，皆思染指，眈眈逐逐，岌岌泯泯，以至於日，驚魂未定。 the officials claim that the threat of partition does not exist because it could have happened for a long time, but did not come about. the people are asleep, oblivious to the crisis of the country, and even the few reformers who are trying to wake them up—a reference to liang himself and his teacher kang youwei—tire of their own ineffective words. the actual text after this introduction then takes up the “big mystery” why the westerners have not gone about executing guafen on any larger scale: the westerners have been talking about partition for decades, but until today we have not seen them actually going about it. […] although i am not wondering whether this be so, once their power was applied to china, it would have been like opening a boil with a bow weighing a thousand jun—there is nothing they could not get if they only wanted it. that they invariably procrastinated and let china remain in this decay for decades is without question one of the great mysteries of the world (558). 瓜分之事，西人言之既數十年，而至今未見實行 [。。。] 雖然吾無怪其然，夫以泰西各國之力，加於中國，如以千鈞之弩潰癰。苟其欲之，則何求而不得, 而必蹉跎蹉跎，令中因保此殘喘越數十載，不可謂非世界上之一大疑案也。 liang had no illusions about the patriotic fervour of either china’s people or the readiness of her elites to rush to the defense of the nation, but he also maintained that the powers really wanted to partition china. “that this partition has not come about is neither due to a lack of a desire for it by the europeans, nor the strength of the chinese to resist it.”[147] while he castigates the “conservatives” (shoujiuzhe 守舊者) for going straight back to sleep after concluding that there was no intention by the westerners to partition china and that this was just a story invented by radicals to sow dissent and create chaos, liang acknowledges that they had a point by spending the entire essay on salvaging his guafen narrative. this narrative was essential to anchor his call for a drastic change along the lines of the american war of independence or the french revolution that would both save the nation and show the way to a future marked by wealth and power.[148] liang’s new guafen narrative focuses on one main point. “china brought the partition upon herself” (582) (zhongguo zi qu guafen zhi you 中國自取瓜分之由). while in the earlier article the foreigners held the main agency in the partition, the central cause now lies within china. in fact, his argument follows a general rule for which he quotes the authority of the confucian thinker mengzi: “a state has to attack itself, only then will others attack it.” (guo bi zi fa, ranhou ren fa zhi 國必自伐，然後人伐之). the examples: “the demise of india was brought about by the rajas, not the british. the demise of poland was brought about by the [polish] nobility, not russia, prussia and austria.”[149] to prove the point for china, liang qichao uses what now might be called a “wikileaks” technique, namely making inside information from the top layer of the court public. here, we hear for the first the ever since endlessly repeated story that the chinese navy had not lost the war because the different segments were under provincial command and the officials in charge were not willing to risk their fleet by joining with the others, but because funds needed for the navy had been siphoned off to pay for empress dowager cixi’s summer palace. once the war was lost, reparations had to be paid to japan for not keeping the liaodong peninsula. the russian ambassador, the leaks showed, had worked with germany to prevent japan from getting a foothold on the continent and he gained empress dowager cixi’s ear by suggesting that the only two surviving autocracies, russia and china, should work together because “if people’s rights become stronger, those of the ruler decline” (minquan xing ze junquan ti 民權興則君權替), and that any “political reform would be a boon to the han chinese and a misfortune for the manchu” (581) (bianfazhe, hanren zhi fu, manren zhi huo ye 變法者，漢人之福，滿人之禍也). the secret treaty concluded by li hongzhang on empress dowager cixi’s orders in st. petersburg had provided a credit for china to pay japan, and in turn guaranteed russia exclusive rights in manchuria including the liaodong peninsula. this secret treaty, which liang quotes in great detail, set off the 1897–1898 scramble of the other countries down to such “midgets as italy” to secure beachheads for themselves so as to be able to maintain a balance of power. the guangxu emperor, liang writes, had been adamantly opposed to this treaty, but he had been sidelined by the empress dowager who together with li hongzhang, sun yuwen 孫毓汶, and xu yongyi 徐用儀 must share the “blame” for bringing about china’s partition (580–581). the third and last piece in this self-inflicted disaster was cixi’s coup in 1898, because it meant the end of the reforms that would have strengthened china to the point of her being able to resist partition. while this is a substantial narrative with many strengths, it had yet to explain what actually happened with the threatened partition. to salvage the narrative, liang introduced a difference between a manifest and an invisible partition. since the former did not come about, he claimed that the invisible partition was already going on and that it was much worse because people were not aware of it and would not rebel (576). “the partition without visible form is even more tragic than the manifest partition” (575) (wuxing zhi guafen geng can yu youxing zhi guafen 無形之瓜分更慘於有形之瓜分). the chinese discussion about the partition of the country was to gain much of its appeal from the concreteness of a revived “dividing up the melon” image. in its historical and vernacular use, dividing up the melon had always meant that the parts were becoming the full property of the new owner. however, the chinese treaties with russia, germany, england, and france, already involved time-limited leases rather than the cessation of territory, and the rights that were being negotiated now for railway development or mining were not establishing any permanent political control either. liang seems to have been aware that his narrative was losing stringency and power with this differentiation between two kinds of partition. so while he claimed that these indirect forms of control were “a new form of annihilating a nation” (575) (wang guo zhi xin fa 亡國之新法), he also maintained that directly after the coup in september 1898 the western powers resumed hatching plans for an actual “peaceful partition.” he was referring to a detailed report—relayed from the japanese journal hansei zasshi 反省雜誌 (hansard’s review)—in english papers about an international “peace conference for the partition of china,” which he called guafen zhongguo heping hui 瓜分中 國和平會, that was to negotiate the details of the partition, which was to entail the different powers taking sovereign control and an agreement to ban any arms manufacturing by chinese (565).[150] the story was a canard, but the fact that liang went for it highlights his desire to keep the threat of an actual partition alive. the reaction to his accusing—by name—empress dowager cixi and li hongzhang as the ultimate culprits of china’s partition evoked a strong reaction. a shenbao editorial in december 1899 showed the impact which this and similar articles by liang had in china even while he was in exile in japan.[151] it simply claimed that liang was spreading fake news. “the rebel liang qichao has now been selling this qingyi bao (china discussion) for a year,” it started, “some ignorant people put up the capital for it and those who buy and read it are treated to things without a base in fact.” (逆犯梁啓超所爲之清議報行銷巿上已歴一年， 無識之徒間有出資，購閱者案其逆蹟所在約有數端) the qingyi bao’s attacks on the court, high officials, and government policies were to instigate rebellion, and liang was only “afraid that chaos in china might not come quickly enough. [. . .] his constantly inveighing against the flaws of the nation so as to encourage the powers to use their troops is only concerned that the partition of china might not come quickly enough.” (惟恐中國禍亂不速 [. . .] 日搆宗邦之失以勸列强用兵，惟恐中國瓜分不驟) in other words, the shenbao editorial now accused liang of hoping for a partition of china to prove his point of the court’s responsibility for it. the article went into its own wikileaks mode by divulging that the “rebels” kang youwei and liang qichao had actually planned to call on foreign soldiers to surround the summer palace where empress dowager cixi was staying (and preparing for a coup of her own). worse, they had planned not only to get rid of cixi, but also of the emperor himself whom they claimed to protect.[152] the shenbao article shows that liang’s description of the motives imputed to him by officials for warning of an inexistent threat of partition was to the point. they indeed accused him of radical talk to instigate rebellion and chaos, which would bring about exactly what it claimed to try to forestall. liang’s agenda had two sides: to convince readers of the guafen threat, and to “civilize” the coming generation of chinese into true “citizens” by instilling into their minds all that was “new” (xin 新), a key term made fashionable by liang’s writings. it rejected the “old” chinese knowledge and institutions while setting up the “reforms,” the “new,” of the civilized west for emulation.[153] civilized “reformed citizens” (xinmin 新民), he assumed, would devote themselves quite naturally to the cause of the nation. the introduction of civilized knowledge had already been on the agenda of the “study societies” as well as the newspapers and journals published by reformers before 1898. scholarship, however, has exaggerated the actual impact of the reformers because they were cast as the heroes of the time in the prc master narrative about the demise of the qing dynasty. the introduction of new knowledge actually occurred on a much broader basis than that managed by the reformers. the main channels were commercially distributed encyclopaedic collections,[154] encyclopaedic dictionaries such as the xin erya (new erya 新爾雅),[155] and new schoolbooks, but also long theoretical diatribes in political novels and plays. the implied—and shared—assumption was that this new knowledge would quite naturally engage people in reform and rouse national feelings. the young, educated, male, and mostly urban audiences, which had already made their appearance as china’s ultimate hope in liang’s 1897 article discussed above, were far from ready for the role they were supposed to assume. they needed, liang argued, a fundamental remolding. for the time being, the harsh measures of the court against reformers associated with kang youwei and liang qichao after 1898 had led to a disappearance of many of the “study societies” as well as the publications they had supported, as they were banned or disbanded before they were banned. the reformers tried to fill the void with new, strongly political associations set up abroad and with publications that came out beyond the reach of the qing court (in shanghai, japan, macao, hong kong, and the west), but could circulate in china. as had already happened before 1898, these efforts, however, were again part of a wider development of what mary rankin has called local “elite activism.” [156] the reformers did not control this activism, it did not end when they were persecuted, it had better commercial and professional grounding, and it addressed itself largely to the same audience. after 1898 and especially since 1900, new social institutions began to emerge such as chambers of commerce, professional associations of teachers or journalists, or alumni associations of schools and universities in china as well as of students who had gone abroad. all of them established national and sometimes international networks. newly established commercial publishers-cum-bookstores used lithography printing for cheap, diverse, and voluminous collections of new knowledge in a wide range of formats. these secured access through the market rather than politically suspect associations. such associations and publication venues were crucial for the consolidation of a public sphere in china. on the media side, commercial newspapers and mass circulation journals started to replace the low circulation and most often subsidized advocacy periodicals of the previous phase since 1899; they were increasingly supplemented by book publications. most commercial publishers as well as the publishers of advocacy papers and books were concentrated in the shanghai international settlement. for decades the publishing house shenbaoguan, which produced the shenbao as well as journals and books, had shown that publications from the shanghai international settlement could reach the entire qing territory.[157] with the media explosion of these years, the shanghai international settlement not only maintained, but greatly strengthened its position as the true chinese media capital. the effectiveness of the shield of extraterritoriality may be gauged from the fact that liang qichao was extensively published in shanghai while he was still on the peking court’s most wanted list after 1898. the divide between the reformers and the wider “elite activism” is evident from the fact that the media explosion especially after 1900 in shanghai did not come with a concomitant spread of the guafen narrative and its agenda. it did not make it into the mainstream of the commercial papers and journals, but remained concentrated in a substantial, but still marginal section of the media directly associated with the reformers. examples to be discussed further down include the eshi jingwen 俄事驚聞 (alerts about the russian issue), the tuhua ribao 圖畫日報 (illustrated daily news) and the shenzhou ribao 神州日報 (divine realm of china daily), as well as some political novels, new stage plays, and poems. the western imagery of the partition of china and its chinese reception as documented above, the partition of china was widely discussed in the western press since 1894, and many papers—including regional and local papers—established regular columns with this heading. in the united states, papers with a regional or national standing such as the new york times and the boston globe would publish something like forty, often full-page articles under this heading in 1899 alone. smaller, local papers, such as the butte weekly miner (figure 4) from montana or the owyhee avalanche (figure 5) from ruby city, idaho, would also have two or three full-page, often illustrated articles which referred to a “partition of china” in their titles.[158] readers were familiar with this language from reports about the ottoman empire. the range of this discussion can be gauged from a report in the boston globe in april 1901—that is after the debacle of the boxer uprising and the foreign intervention in china of 1900. under the title “holy cross beat brown” it reported a debating competition between holy cross college and brown university on the theme “resolved that the partition of china, if it could be satisfactorily agreed upon by the powers, would be conducive to the best interest of the world at large.” holy cross won by arguing against.[159] this, as we shall see, is not surprising. fig. 4: “the partition of china,” the butte weekly miner, march 30, 1899, 10. the concept of a “partition of china” had found its own visual representation in the foreign press long before this happened in the chinese media. this visual representation operated through maps and cartoons, which used visual metaphors to illustrate the abstract notion of “partition.” one of the earliest and certainly most influential of these illustrations of a partition with their double content of information and evaluation is jean michel moreau le jeune’s often copied 1773 allegory of the partition of poland shown earlier (figure 1). it showed a map on which poland’s neighbours marked their claims, but already took the next step by using the metaphor of a cake for the country in the caption. from here it was only a small step to depicting a country as a delicacy ready to be shared. we see an international visual language emerging. in the same way in which concepts moved from one environment to another by being translated into local expressions, illustrations of metaphorical images are translated into local counterparts. “partition” took on a chinese guise as guafen, and we shall see how a country depicted as a “delicacy for kings” will be “translated” into local delicacies. in this sense, the chinese “watermelon” is a “translation” of le jeune’s already bilingual and by implication bi-visual “troelfth cake/gâteau des rois.” the exchanges in the visual representations of concepts are as asymmetrical as those of words and concepts. reflecting china’s standing in the global public sphere around 1900, neither the expression “watermelon-cutting” nor the image of a melon for a country entered the international verbal or visual vernacular. fig. 5: “the partition of china,” the owyhee avalanche (ruby city, id), june 23, 1899, 6. visual representations of the partition narrative show a wide variety. they range from a map marking the different powers’ “spheres of influence” on a map of china (figure 6) to symbolic representations of the different powers that are recognizable by the attire of their representatives, as they stand on or grab a part of china’s map (figure 4 and 5) to fully allegorical representations of the countries as animals. taking their cue from this type of illustration, chinese reform papers such as liang qichao’s zhixin bao (english title: the reformer of china) started inserting similar maps into their pages by 1898 (figure 7). fig. 6: “china in transition. the sphere of influence phase,” the graphic, april 15, 1899, 473. fig. 7: zhongguo fenge tu 中國分割圖 [map of the (planned) partition of china], inserted in an article about a (spurious) french conference to organize the partition. “faguo zhaohui guafen zhongguo shi” 法國照會瓜分中國事 [on france convening a conference on the partition of china], zhixin bao 45 (february, 1898), 19. the moreau le jeune tradition of associating territory with a delicacy was already well-established, when james gillray published his famous 1802 print of the english-french competition in controlling the globe that shows pitt and napoleon each cutting off a big slice from the “plumb pudding” (figure 8). fig. 8: james gillray, the plumb-pudding in danger; or state epicures taking un petit souper, 1802. gillray’s image shows pitt and napoleon gorging themselves on the globe in the form of the quintessentially british christmas dish, the plum pudding. to highlight the military implications of this feast, gillray added a “b” at the end of “plum” (lead was being used in bullets). pitt goes for the seas, while napoleon takes the european continent with one tooth of his fork delicately inserted into hannover, which at the time was british. given the strongly local character of many such delicacies, it was crucial to find a good “translation” into a local counterpart to make sure the metaphor was understood. the marumaru chinbun, a japanese satirical journal that emulated the punch and was associated with the freedom and people’s rights movement, came up very early, in 1884, with the image of a foreigner talking in his sleep (figure 9). fig. 9: “ketōjin no negoto” 毛唐人の寐言 [a foreigner talks in his sleep].” marumaru chinbun, 1884. this image shows a family dinner where guests, each marked as a nation with an initial, share a pig; japan is conspicuously absent. the guests around the table behave in a very civilized manner—meaning that they have a good time and do not go at each other with their knives. there is no explicit reference to china but the depiction of china through the image of a pig is often documented in later japanese and chinese cartoons.[160] these depictions refuse to accept china’s emerging official self-identification as a dragon, for example on flags identifying the nation where a ship is registered. besides “translating” a word, metaphor, or image into a form recognizable by addressees in a different linguistic and cultural environment, the selection of a particular counterpart might also be dictated by the viewpoint of the person making the selection or that of other figures in the image. to avoid misunderstanding, the link might be made explicitly through an inscription on the image, in the caption, by explaining the counterpart of a metaphor, or by inserting the foreign source for a word into the bracket. this dinner scenario reoccurs in many european and american depictions of the late 1890s. a highly critical 1897 british cartoon-plus-poem depicts the scramble for chinese territory by westerners as cannibalism that is ironically justified in the poem as spreading civilization and christianity. russia and germany are already at it, the french cock is getting ready, and the british lion and the colt-bearing american are rushing in from their ships in the background probably to prevent further dismemberment (figure 10). [161] fig. 10: the partition of china. british satirical poem by sir wilfrid lawson, december 29, 1897. cartoon by f. carruthers gould. from w. lawson, f. carruthers-gould, cartoons in rhyme and line (london: t. fisher unwin, 1905), 91-92. another example showing partition as a culinary feast is from the puck, a very popular new york satirical journal founded by two germans. an 1898 cartoon shows the powers partitioning the ottoman empire, which is depicted through the pun turkey/turkey (figure 11). this cartoon is of particular interest for the chinese case. the powers are sat around the table and instead of having dinner, they are busy struggling with each other. the russian emperor makes a pious face as he claimed at the time that was defending the christians in the ottoman empire. the representative of turkey, who is sitting in the far right corner above, smirks with delight because their mutual contradictions prevent the powers from actually dividing the turkey/turkey that lies unharmed in the middle. there is an implication that the ottoman empire shared the qing court’s assumption that the conflict among the powers was its best protection. fig. 11: “a thanksgiving toast” puck: gentlemen, your health! i am glad to see from your beaming faces that you share the high aspirations of our friend, the czar, for universal peace. here’s to you all!” by udo kepler, puck, november 30, 1898. source: library of congres prints and photographs division. washington, d.c. 20540 usa. another image from the same year shows the powers partitioning china that here has the form of a cake. uncle sam (united states) who already has the largest sword of them all does not join the feast. however, he is clearly envious as he sits at a side table with a small pie in front of him, namely cuba which he just took from spain, and a bottle of wine inscribed “philippines,” where it was just intervening against spain and would set up a protectorate. john bull (britain) is telling the other powers not to begrudge the us this little cuba and the few philippine islands as they were just about to gorge themselves on the huge china cake (figure 12). fig. 12: “no chance to criticize.” john bull to the powers: “what are you mad at? we can’t grudge him a light lunch while we are feasting,” by louis dalrymple, puck, may 25, 1898. source: library of congress prints and photographs division. washington, d.c. 20540 usa. fig. 13: “an der chinesischen table d’hôte” [at the chinese dinner table], by f. g., humoristische blätter, vienna, march 12, 1899. inscription: brother jonathan (= us): “stop it! i also want to join the feast; do you think the philippines will satisfy me?” austria (speaking to herself): “what a fine appetite this fellow has! again i cannot join because the local chinese sit heavily in my stomach.” with the same scenario, but the food adjusted to austrian tastes, a local cartoon journal offered the scenario with a sacher cake in 1899 (figure 13). china is represented by a huge cake in the shape of a fat official with a queue who is solidly asleep as he is being cut apart. like in the previous cartoon, china is the passive object of this feast, not a guest at the table. the cake is cut by britain as the strongest power, but civilized behaviour among the guests again prevails in another allegory of international law as civilized gluttony. a 1901 french postcard presents the same family scenario with the photographs of the different heads of state inserted with the territories of their desire already marked (figure 14). fig. 14: le gâteau chinois [the chinese pastry], french postcard, probably 1901. source: institute of chinese studies, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg. the image of a dinner party, which might include some stares and threatening gestures, but essentially remains very civilized has a broader meaning. on a very pragmatic level, it illustrates the powers’ effort to avoid a major war among each other. this is done by creating a consensual legal framework in the context of international law through conferences such as the berlin conferences in 1878 and 1883 that will allow for the establishment of colonies or zones of influence while putting restraints on the powers engaged in this exercise. all these images, whether map, pig, or cake, have one element in common, namely the complete absence of agency on the side of china. china is the passive object of desire but not a part of the wheeling and dealing around the table. the chinese government’s absence of agency in determining the fate of china, which critics of the qing court had already addressed verbally, follows the iconographic tradition of the depiction of the polish king in moreau le jeune’s 1773 painting. it is explicitly thematised in a french cartoon from 1899 which shows a helpless qing official throwing up his arms in despair while the powers assembled around their china pie do not even notice him. the prominent role of the german kaiser indicates that the main target of this cartoon was germany’s occupation of shandong. he is stared down by the british queen who has her hands on another part of china, while russia and france seem very close and share the same interest, and japan sits frustrated at the side (figure 15). it is noticeable that these images very much coincide with the way critics such as liang qichao perceived the qing court and china’s situation. neither the creators of these cartoons nor the court’s chinese critics considered the option that the qing court might have—perhaps unwittingly—been right in trusting that the balance of interests among the powers would secure china’s sovereignty. fig. 15: “en chine. le gateau des rois et. . . des empereurs,” by h. meyer, le petit journal, supplement, january 16, 1898. the understanding of “partition” in these cartoons is clearly drawing on the polish example with the implication that the powers will all appropriate and consume their share of the chinese body/cake/pie/pudding. at this moment in time, the differences between the powers were not as evident as they would be after the boxer upheaval and the foreign intervention in 1900; the partition still focuses predominantly on foreign enclaves along china’s coastline and inland borders, although the pie represents all of china. the imagery used in these cartoons already shows a flawed grasp of reality. taking the last cartoon (figure 15) as an example, the german kaiser is shown defying the wishes of queen victoria when insisting on appropriating parts of the shandong peninsula. the russian emperor next to him is contemplating taking territories in the north, his knife ready but not yet applied. the french marianne is sidling up to him, indicating the pursuit of similar interests. the japanese, who just won the war with china, is angry that he is not among the beneficiaries. he does not yet wield his big sword, but it lies unsheathed within reach and he might take it up at any time. this rich narrative also brings out the weakness in the extreme definiteness of such depictions. in historical reality, for example, the germans were forced to accommodate the british stance by only “leasing” the territory, which meant leaving china’s territory legally intact, and by directly opening the port of tsingtao to all—thus foregoing exclusive rights for themselves. the intentions of the germans, russians, french, and japanese might have been full appropriation, but these intentions ran into british and american opposition and could only be realized in the form of zones of influence. we see in these images the same dependency on earlier uses shown by concepts that are articulated through words. appropriating parts of a territory was depicted through taking a slice of a cake for one’s own consumption, but once there is no appropriation, but only a time-limited lease, the familiar image offers a misinterpretation. the emotional response of an unsuspecting viewer, however, might still be the one that might be justified for a truthful representation. the cartoons imply a concrete, timely, and intense narrative about the state of affairs at the time, detailing perceptions of the attitudes of the powers involved, the rules and interests governing their behaviour, the particulars of their relationships, and the position of china in the process. in terms of conceptual history, they are thus fully articulate—though not verbalized or only minimally verbalized—parts of the discussion on the concept of partition. they may be translated from pictorial to verbalized language once the context and allusions that were familiar to contemporary readers have been understood. with their compressed visual form, they joined in the general political communication of the time, offering the same bandwidth of interpretation as verbal communication or political action while allowing the spectator to use his own words and feelings to translate the complex situation shown in the image. the basic constellation inherent to visual and metaphorical conceptualizations of powers surrounding a country they would like to “eat,” exploit, or appropriate has a longer history than the polish partition and came with a great variety of images. as an analytical tool, the metaphor of a cake, turkey, pig, or pie had strength because it showcased the desirability of the object to be consumed and allowed for the depiction of the social interaction between the powers. one of its analytical weaknesses lay in showing a country as inert food which implied that it was a thing that, once taken and consumed, could not regenerate itself. the regenerative option had been expressed through still earlier forms of visual metaphorical or allegorical representations such as the national economy of a country as a live cow that is being milked by foreign powers. examples can be found already in the late sixteenth century for the low countries and for england in the 1780s during the american war of independence, with the dutch, spanish, french as well as the americans (as indians) busily appropriating parts of the british economy. [162] without the chinese side playing any proactive role, a very controversial discussion about the dilemma presented by china’s partition continued in the west in 1899. this was especially the case among the british. the london government had been moving away from its policy of maintaining the territorial integrity of china. in great britain itself, however, but especially among the british community in the chinese treaty ports, many were insisting on securing the territorial integrity of china and stabilizing its government as the best way to maintain a secure and stable environment for their trade. eventually, the british chambers of commerce in the chinese treaty ports asked one prominent critic of the government policy, lord charles beresford, an admiral and well-known public figure, to investigate on-site the situation of china and the attitude of the anglo-saxon foreign community. his report came out in 1899. entitled the break-up of china rather than “the partition of china,” it saw the problem in china’s collapsing due to its own inept governance and the powers feeling forced to take on the administrations of segments of the country to maintain international stability and balance of power (figure 16). fig. 16: lord beresford, the break-up of china, cover, 1899. the anglo-american community in china, lord beresford concluded, was unanimous in rejecting a shift in policy and demanded the continuation of britain’s earlier plan to preserve china’s territorial integrity, which actually had continued to be the official line. in order to secure a stable and predictable business environment in the face of a tottering dynasty, however, his interviewees suggested the extension of the duties of the chinese maritime customs office under robert hart, a british subject who was a qing official, to all commercial tax collection within the country, the establishment of a police force under british officers who would become fully committed officials of the qing court, as well as other measures to stabilize the economic and social situation.[163] lord beresdorf’s report was quickly translated into chinese by young allen. it was published in 1902 with a title that accurately described its main thrust even though it is the opposite of the original: on preserving china’s territorial integrity (bao huaquan shu 保華全書) (figure 17).[164] fig. 17: bao huaquan shu [preserving china’s territorial integrity], chinese translation of lord charles beresford, the break-up of china (shanghai: guangxue hui, 1902). a widely circulated june 1899 cartoon by tse tsan tai 謝纘泰 (1872–1937), an australian of chinese origin living in hong kong who wrote in english and had been involved in the failed 1895 uprising in canton, began linking the western imagery of china’s partition with the guafen metaphor. under the bilingual title shiju quantu 時局全圖/the situation in the far east, his cartoon showed a sophisticated and generally accurate understanding of the differences and agreements between the powers in matters of partitioning china as well as of the allegorical imagery used in western papers (figure 18). inscriptions on the animals facilitated the decoding of the image. these showed russia (with a size corresponding to the perceived threat) and france reaching for actual colonial control of their areas, great britain as the most powerful nation supporting the “territorial integrity of china,” germany snatching a small piece with great britain directly counteracting this, and japan deciding to side with great britain under these circumstances because its own aspirations in liaoning had been thwarted by russia. all of these animals are already on chinese soil, indicating that they already have some sphere of influence in the country. after establishing a protectorate in the philippines, the united sates are shown as a power with a stake in east asia. the american eagle has its eyes on china, but its political strategy is summarized by the inscription on it, “blood is thicker than water,” meaning that it will side with its blood relative great britain. the figures who should be most concerned with the attitudes and actions of these beasts are chinese officials, but they are either asleep, go after girls (both in center) or after money (bottom left), if they are not training the military with antiquated methods such as stone-lifting (top left corner) instead of the handling of modern weapons. they all are oblivious to what is going on in their own country. fig. 18: shiju tu, 1899 or 1900, probably japan. this bilingual cartoon used the shorthand of an illustration with some text to explain a hugely complex situation. it follows liang’s line of argument that the main issue is the absence of any willingness among chinese officialdom to perceive and tackle the crisis while every western power had already developed an attitude and a strategy.[165] aware of introducing a new medium to chinese audiences capable of reading chinese and english, it adds a short characterization of this visual medium on the margins of the image: “being a (visual) metaphor without verbalization, (a cartoon) makes things clear at one glance.” tse tsan tai took this medium from western papers and the wide distribution as well as frequent imitation of this particular image seems to have established the cartoon as a new chinese form of mass communication. this cartoon still repeats, however, the foreign imagery of zones of influence and possible further developments. even though the accompanying poem on the reverse side uses the guafen metaphor in an explicit form, the cartoon itself does not yet manage to visualize the guafen as this was not part of a familiar international visual vocabulary. this poem ends with a call to “wake up now and not wait until the land is carved up like a melon” (yi jin xing, mo dai tu fenlie si gua 宜今醒, 莫待土分裂似瓜). the formula is important because it is the first to revive the metaphorical meaning of guafen by speaking of carving up the land “like” a melon. shortly after this print had come out, on september 6, 1899, the american secretary of state john hay intervened—without any activity or request from the chinese side—to end the new partition quarrel. by focusing strictly on equal commercial access for all nations to all parts of china under a unified chinese customs regulation and by banking on the basic unwillingness of any of the foreign powers to take on the burden of a colonial administration of large swaths of chinese territory, he managed to get the explicit consent of all the powers to respect the “open door” rule. signing on implied the powers’ commitment to the territorial integrity of china, although russia made several provisos. the agreement meant that no foreign power would have an exclusive zone in china beyond railway development and mining leases agreed to by the chinese government, although the united states had never even accepted the notion of the “sphere of influence,” which the british had agreed to in treaties with russia and germany earlier in 1899.[166] a cartoon in the us periodical puck illustrates this intervention by the united states (figure 19). fig. 19: “putting his foot down,” by j. s. pughe, puck, august 22, 1899, 3. after the allied intervention against the boxers in 1900 and the court’s ensuing flight from peking, the question of the viability of the chinese polity came to the forefront again. would china “break-up” or “die?” the passive agency exerted even by the gigantic size of a chinese state that is not only “asleep,” but positively dead, is vividly captured in a 1900 cartoon from the same journal (figure 20). fig. 20: “the real trouble will come with the ‘wake,’” puck, august 15, 1900. source: library of congress prints and photographs division. washington, d.c. 20540 usa. published as the defeat of the boxers by the allies was just days away, the cartoon anticipates the gigantic chinese dragon dead. the powers are all present in china with military forces and seem prepared to each bite or cut off a part of the corpse. their military strength, however, is inferior to that of the british lion, the only one with a gun, which has taken on the role of preventing even a partition of this corpse while the american eagle watches from a distance. fig. 21: “dissection du monstre chinois. le cosaque à john bull: regarde mais n’y touche pas” [dissection of the chinese monster. “the cossack to john bull: you may look on, but don’t touch it]. french postcard, posted in 1902. other cartoons from this time used similar imagery but give it a different reading (figure 21).[167] the powers are all busy cutting off parts of the chinese monster. the main conflict is again between russia, which has thrown itself across most of the body, and britain that just wants a tail end, but has the biggest sword. true to reality, no one has yet actually cut off a piece from this corpse, but the threat of a military confrontation between russia and britain over china is palpable. in fact, the postcard got it wrong, no partition occurred. as the qing court ceded to external and internal pressures by starting a “reform of governance” (xin zheng 新政) in both its foreign relations and internal politics in 1901, the situation of the country quickly stabilized. the western papers quickly abandoned their talk about an unavoidable partition of china as well as the use of metaphors and images of a sleeping or dead china. the writers and cartoonists had used the concept of “partition” and the images of the territorial delicacies to be shared or fought over as tools to explain the concrete conditions of the moment, but switched to others once the situation had changed.[168] with the beginning of the qing court’s “reform of governance,” (xinzheng 新政) in 1901, the main focus quickly became the threat of an “awakening” china with its huge, laborious, and cheap labor force that might translate into military might (figure 22).[169] about to divide the fruits on the table—the boxer indemnity payments—among each other rather than partition china, the powers are suddenly concerned not about the balance of power but about the damocles sword of a suddenly “awakening” gigantic china. by 1906, a widely reproduced french cartoon went all the way showing how “the chinese giant rouses himself and shakes the other nations off the counterpane of the world.” fig. 22: “a disturbing possibility in the east,” puck, september 1, 1901. source: library of congress prints and photographs division. washington, d.c. 20540 usa. the instrumental understanding of the verbal and visual metaphors was facilitated by the clear difference between the abstract concepts such as “partition” and their concrete application such as a cake being shared by different people. although “partition” had been most widely used for actual separation such as in the case of poland, it was an abstract concept that was capable of accommodating different degrees of separation. there also was no agenda in the west to keep the partition focus alive because partition had always been controversial, and even seen as a potential burden rather than a boon, especially in the anglo-american press. guafen etymology: maintaining the metaphor, adjusting the reading the anchor for the changed western perception of china was the peking court’s capacity to govern effectively. this was increasingly the case after 1901. for the reformers with their new instruments of mass communication, however, the storyline of the court selling out and the people being asleep was too good to give up because it sustained their own moral standing and their political authority. as we have seen, a range of applications could be used to illustrate the abstract western concept of “partition.” these included a partition of the country into spheres of influence with some segments even under foreign taxation and governance. “cutting up a melon,” however, intrinsically does not have this flexibility, as it would be awkward to explain a metaphor in terms that do not fit the image. as a result the use of the term guafen continued in the chinese advocacy press during the first decade of the twentieth century, but ended up being awkwardly manipulated to account for actual developments familiar to the readers. among these developments were primarily efforts of the qing court—as well as later republican-period authorities—to develop china’s infrastructure and mining with the help of foreign investors—often with a solid cut reserved for the officials or warlords in charge of handing out the privilege. with the move to reach wider audiences came the search for new media to carry the guafen narrative and its agenda. these included the political cartoon, the theater stage, and the novel, but most importantly the discovery of guafen as a lively metaphorical expression that would relate the danger for the country in terms of an everyday experience. we have already seen the first move in this direction in the text accompanying tse tsan tai’s poster “the situation in the far east” that explicitly marked guafen as a metaphorical expression even though the poster image did not make use of the watermelon image. with the russian advance into the chinese northeast in the early 1900s, the guafen theme moved again centre stage in the political agitation against russia and the chinese government’s inactivity. the expression made it into the titles of popular political novels such as guafen canhuo yuyan ji 瓜分慘禍預言記(a prophecy on the sad fate of being carved up) (1903),[170] and was used in historical fiction such as bolan shuaiwang ji 波蘭衰亡記 (record of the demise of poland] (1903), which in turn was the basis for a 1904 peking opera by the actor wang xiaonong 王笑儂 that came with the untranslatable title gua zhong lan yin 瓜種蘭因 (literally: melon race orchid/poland cause]. in this opera, turkey has replaced russia as the foreign power, but the cause for poland’s demise is internal division to the point that a pole feels free to sell his knowledge about a weak spot in the polish defense to turkey. in a rediscovery and revival of the metaphorical value of guafen, the polish prime minister on stage has a real watermelon brought as a refreshment when he is sitting down to read the peace proposal approved by the polish king. the proposal agreed to pay reparations, to have turkish troops stationed in the capital, and to leave one province under turkish control as a guarantee. a look at the melon slices on the table gives him the fresh insight: “just open your eyes and it is evident that this means cutting up our little poland (like a) watermelon. [. . .] the demise of my country is before my eyes.”[171] placing the melon slices on the table here amounts to offering the “etymology” of the guafen metaphor. it resuscitated the melon from the proverbial graveyard of dead metaphors and brought out its evocative powers in the process. this resuscitation of the guafen metaphor was not restricted to a hugely popular new opera, but was soon taken up by the new visual media, most importantly the newly emerging and highly productive genre of the chinese political cartoon. a few examples will have to suffice (figures 23–26).[172] fig. 23: “selling melon.” from tuhua ribao 圖畫日報 1, 1909, 8. the salesman, who wears something like an official’s uniform, offers small pieces of melon for tasting, a reference to the small territories leased to foreign powers by the qing court. they are depicted here as an enticement for the customers to buy full slices. as evident from the accompanying text, the primary initiative in this scene is on the side of the salesman, who is metaphorically “selling out” the fatherland. after all other powers received rights to develop railway lines, japan forcefully demands the right to develop the an feng railway line against the others’ protests. the metaphor of cutting off a big piece of the melon has lost its explanatory function because the only graphic link between the railway line and the image is that of the knife’s cut. the popular rights illustrated ran an entire series of cartoons with the watermelon as china in 1912, entitled “guaxi,” 瓜戯 （melon theater).[173] fig. 24: “anfeng luxian zhi weixiang” 安丰路綫之危象 [image of the danger of the an feng line], (by ma xingchi 馬星馳).[japanese speaking:] “i want to get my own hands moving.” shenzhou huabao 神州畫報, 1907. fig. 25: “guaxi 11” 瓜戯 [melon theater 11], minquan huabao 民權畫報 [popular rights illustrated], 1912. foreign investors look on smiling as caterpillars—representing railway lines—nibble away at the chinese melon.[174] in another cartoon (figure 26), foreigners with top hats and chinese with soft hats are joining forces to cut up the chinese melon.[175] another cartoon (figure 27) deals with the situation of the early months of the young republic when the central government had little control over the country. military men, who had recruited armies and had contributed to the demise of the qing dynasty, refused to submit to the new central authority and began engaging in their own foreign relations to exchange the funds needed for their troops for privileges in railway and mining. fig. 26: “guaxi” 瓜戯 [melon theater]. minquan huabao 民權畫報 [popular rights illustrated], 1912. fig. 27: “guaxi 2” 瓜戯 [melon plays] (2). minquan huabao, 1912. in this cartoon li yuanhong 黎 元 洪, the vice president, and yuan shikai 袁世凱, who was assuming the presidency, play ball with the chinese melon in 1912. the image was taken from kick-ball, and since no watermelon fits that purpose, it must be considered a visual mixed metaphor. in another hapless variant of the guafen theme, the outlying territories such as manchuria and mongolia are displayed as separate melons that are already taken over by foreign powers (figure 28). china’s thirteen provinces are treated as one melon, but the military men controlling the segments are fighting each other for slices. the national review, where this was published, was an early chinese propaganda organ in english with a foreign editor that had been set up by and supported yuan shikai. fig. 28: “the slicing of the melon,” national review, shanghai, november 4, 1911. these examples show how in different chinese narratives a common guafen iconography emerges, which was shared by the political essay, poetry, drama, and the cartoon (and, as shall be demonstrated below, by paintings). guafen began as a dead metaphor that was used as a translation for a foreign term, underwent an etymological exploration that revived the image of the melon, and eventually became a highly articulate chinese concept epitomizing a threat to the nation. all this widely shared use notwithstanding, the guafen storyline did not get enough traction in the public sphere during these early years to become a significant tool of discursive power. its reality fit was too weak to attract wide support in the public sphere so that it remained—for the time being—a metaphorical concept with a particular application that was used only by a small, if vocal and growing segment associated with the reformers. in the meantime, the chinese state authorities of the republican period continued to grant concessions to foreign investors (the authorities being often warlords who would use the money for arms purchases). the most revolutionary of them all, sun yat-sen, however, wrote an entire book about the merits of an approach to actively involve foreigners, their capital, and their technology in the development of china’s infrastructure. his the international development of china (1922), a book written in english for foreign eyes, was explicit, first, in acknowledging the chinese need for western capital and know-how; second, in recognizing as legitimate the interest of foreign investors to make money; third, in reserving the right of the chinese government to set priorities for this development; and fourth, in advocating to involve the different western powers in this project to prevent dependency on any single power.[176] the book assumed, in short, that by making sure—as china had done since the first treaties with the west—to always involve several powers and never give exclusive rights to one, china’s territorial integrity would be protected by the contradiction between these powers so that no chinese military defense was needed while its development needs were secured. a chinese translation of sun’s book only appeared in 2011 in the people’s republic when foreign investments with special privileges for foreign capital were already well in place.[177] read in this modern context, sun’s work looks like a blueprint eventually followed by the communist party of china during its “reform and opening” period. the self-assigned communist heirs of the late qing reformers, however, continued to trade in the guafen story. in 1932, the ningdu branch of the ccp came out with a pamphlet entitled “resolution about imperialism’s attacking the soviet union and partitioning china like a melon and broadening the great revolutionary struggle [against these efforts);”[178] in 1933, the central committee of the ccp published a critique of its guomindang opponents entitled “open letter to the people of the entire country about the role of the [guomindang’s] five [anti-communist] encirclement campaigns in cutting up china like a melon in the service of imperialism”;[179] a year later, the political department of the red peasant and worker army published a pamphlet “down with imperialism cutting china up like a melon.”[180] these titles are just indicators that the guafen story in both variants was kept alive as a part of communist propaganda against the guomindang as well as against japan. after the ccp came to power in 1949, the guafen narrative was elevated to become the defining feature of imperialist policies towards a china that was trying to preserve its sovereignty and territorial integrity. the story did not gain in factual credibility for either the late qing or any later period until now. while it is true that at times parts, and sometimes large parts, of china were controlled by foreign powers such as japan, this was never accepted by the other powers in the long term. the principal guarantor of chinese territorial integrity since the late qing was the united states, which shouldered the main burden of ending japan’s control over large parts of china during world war ii and prevented the soviet union from an attack on the chinese nuclear weapon test site in xinjiang in 1969, which would possibly have been followed by a prague-style invasion. since the implosion of the soviet union, the united states has become the main target of chinese accusations that it works on weakening and partitioning the country. these accusations have gained some traction as a credible and “authentic” narrative for the late qing. this was not due to historical evidence mustered in support of a sophisticated propaganda, but because of a willingness of many westerners—including china scholars of the vietnam war generation—to accept this story as a genuine chinese grievance about imperialist policies in the past. it should be added that this willingness did not prevent them from being critical of present-day ccp policies and aware of the overarching propaganda purpose of this narrative. the guafen story will be found uncritically repeated in the syllabi of many courses in western universities on chinese history, as well as in works providing overviews of china’s relations with the west. it vicariously takes off public pressure from balance-of-power politicians who are convinced that china is too big to be allowed to fail. like its predecessors in the late qing court and the republican governments, the ccp is aware of this dynamics and makes full use of it. while continuing its propaganda to accuse the west with the guafen story, it continues to calmly rely on western support for its territorial integrity as well as western and japanese capital and technology for its development.[181] in recent years, as the chinese visual universe of the post-cultural revolution era has gained traction on the international art market, an older meaning of the guafen metaphor was revived by the painter zeng fanzhi 曾梵志, namely the dividing of spoils among, for example, the members of a robber band. this meaning of guafen had never before been used to deal with the fate of china. offering a vivid and critical image of china today through an “etymological” reading of the familiar metaphor, it shows that metaphors do not only provide a restricted and concretized form of a concept, but can open surprising new aspects of it. it also shows that the borders between verbal articulations and the iconography of political cartoons and paintings are fluid. in an ironical turn familiar from many post-cultural revolution paintings that play on an alienated chinese propaganda iconography such as mao posters, zeng uses da vinci’s última cena (last supper, 1494) as his backdrop (figure 29). in zeng’s painting (figure 30), jesus and his disciples have been replaced by a band of chinese communist young pioneers around one central figure. they are sitting in a stately and large hall with chinese writing scrolls on the walls. according to a surviving sketch zeng had originally planned to use the great hall of the people in beijing as the backdrop, but then toned down this idea as he reworked the painting.[182] the young pioneers all look largely alike because their real faces are hidden behind uniform masks, a feature zeng also used in other paintings. instead of the bread, melon pieces with their brightly red flesh have been divided among them. perhaps from the melon juice, their hands are red and some of this red colour has been spilled on their necks, shirts, and even faces, where the masks mostly hide these traces. judas is the only one not wearing the red scarf of the young pioneers, but a golden tie. zeng’s paintings always evince a strong social and political context, which might have spurred his interest in german expressionist painting of the 1920s as well as francis bacon’s paintings.[183] most of zeng’s paintings have been bought by western collectors and collections.[184] in 2013, his the last supper of 2001 realized the highest price ever paid for a chinese painting, 106 million hong kong dollars (about 14 million us dollars). fig. 29: leonardo da vinci, última cena [last supper], fresco santa maria delle grazie, milan , 1494. fig. 30: zeng fanzhi 曾梵志, zuihou de wancan 最後的晚餐 [the last supper], oil on canvas, 220 x 400 cm, 2001. © 2017 zeng fanzhi. in this painting, the chinese melon has been divided among a band of young pioneers, a select group of students chosen for their “good” political attitudes. unlike the previous images featured in this essay, no foreigner is depicted. these young pioneers are not the ones who brought about the revolution, no older person is among them, they are the children of this older generation, a plausible allegory for the “princeling party” (taizi dang 太子黨), as the children of the first generation of leaders have been dubbed in china. it is they, who are now dominating china’s economic and political life. their young pioneer uniforms signal the generational shift, and their masks mark their unified character as members of this group, who are abiding by a behaviour that is not reflective of their personalities, but of their social standing. in the process of the economic reforms since the 1980s, the socialist collective property in china was largely privatized with the members of the princeling party being the largest beneficiaries, each getting a good share of the melon. this was done not through a cut-throat struggle, but through an agreement reached by the top leadership of the older generation. consequently, there is no fight for the slices, but a civilized behaviour much reminiscent of the manners of the powers sharing the various forms of chinese cake in the images shown earlier from before 1900. most of the slices have not yet been eaten and are still intact, perhaps an indication that the share in the nation’s wealth that these princelings received was in property and capital, not simply access to goods for consumption. it might be that the red colour on their hands and faces is to evoke blood as suggested by a fierce critic,[185] but this is doubtful because, as opposed to the revolution, this “last supper” was, generally speaking, not a bloody affair. in this innovative application of the familiar metaphor that again draws on its etymology it is not foreigners grabbing chinese territory—as the official history has it—, or chinese bureaucrats selling out the country—as liang qichao claimed—, or internal trouble inviting foreign intervention; instead it is china’s wealth—not its territory—that is being partitioned, in this instance among the inheritors of the revolution. the meaning of the painting’s title has changed. originally referring to the last supper shared by jesus with his disciples before his crucifixion, it is now the last stage in the life of the china-melon as a cohesive (internally red) body. the figure in the place of jesus in the middle, mask notwithstanding, has a pensive air, perhaps having second thoughts about the potential outcome. the judas allusion remains a riddle but possibly it refers to the few bona fide “capitalists” who have been invited to join the communist party as representing “the most advanced productive forces.”[186] the painting and its market price did not pass unnoticed. it was accused of not being “pure art,” and its high price was not simply a commercial transaction. both were in fact highly political. the fierce critic referred to above claimed that the painting’s market success was driven by the united states’ effort to undermine china by the same cultural means it had used to promote the dissolution of the soviet union. he identified the painting as dealing with cutting up china like a melon and mentioned the hands as being blood-red, but these accusations remained rather general and were not accompanied by a specific decoding. perhaps the author was afraid that a translation of the painting into straight political language might evoke an all too positive echo. this is not the last melon painting by zeng fanzhi. a 2004 work in a different style of diffuse strokes, luanbi 亂筆, shows a melon that has been cut (figure 31). there is no further context, but the image directly evokes a mouth shouting to heaven. the melon is in a helpless position, lying on its “back.” like the reference to da vinci’s última cena, the image directly evokes another iconic painting, the woodblock roar! china by li hua 李樺, which has been endlessly reproduced as the image of china’s resistance against government and foreign oppression during the 1930s (figure 32). fig. 31: zeng fanzhi 曾梵志, xigua 西瓜 [watermelon], oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm, 2004. © 2017 zeng fanzhi. fig. 32: li hua 李樺, nuhouba! zhongguo! 怒吼吧！中國 [roar! china], 1935. source: zhongguo xin xing ban hua wushi nian xuan ji [fifty years of new-style chinese woodcuts, a selection] (shanghai: shanghai renmin meishu chubanshe, 1981), no. 34. such an interpretation would mean that china as a collective is crying out in helpless protest. as opposed to the last supper, no particular object is fixed in this powerful painting of the melon, inviting the spectator to fill it with his or her own experience. conclusions this study set out to explore, in a critical departure from existing practices and methodologies, the dynamics of transcultural interaction in the formation of concepts; the role of platforms other than words in articulating concepts; the impact of the systemic environment of concepts and that of the actual usage of concepts on their valuation, the agenda associated with them, and their antonyms; the reach of their application in public discourse and the efforts to expand it to gain hegemony; the benefits and costs of their metaphorical visualization; their place in a contest about an accurate reflection of historical reality, and their continued use in propaganda after historical reality had falsified their definitory claim. for each of these questions, different methodological steps had to be taken. these ranged from the study of translated concepts in a given cultural environment to statistics of their use in different media with their distinct audiences; from a study of the application of these verbal and visual translations to particular cases to mapping their standing in specialized conceptual hierarchies, and from tracing the history of the use and role of etymology in tying down a meaning to analysing the coding of political cartoons and paintings. the case study was the chinese concept of guafen, melonwise cutting. the results show that every part of the development, standardization, application, and contextualization of this translation concept for “partition” was transcultural in character, including the idea itself to frame a discussion about china in a world context. this highlighted the futility of a nation-state bound conceptual history once postulated by koselleck and followed up by many case studies of concepts in a single-language environment. guafen is an older expression that ended up winning against various single-character or binomial verbs in the chinese vernacular and being stabilized as a transitive noun and verb to translate “partition.” the agency in forming this translation term lies not with some imperial power imposing it, but with chinese writers and foreigners literate in chinese. the term became stabilized as the translation for “partition” through the authority of its use in martin’s 1862 chinese translation of wheaton’s international law. intrinsically a neutral term, “partition” and with it guafen developed negative connotations from the association with the partition of poland in contrast to the “coming together” of the united states as an independent country or the strengthening of a nation’s cohesion and power through reforms led by a scion of the ruling house. partition and with it guafen was discussed in international law against the backdrop of an increasingly shared notion that sovereignty belonged to the nation state and not to the ruler, and that sovereignty included a claim to territorial integrity. this systemic context of “partition”—including its standing in the hierarchy of legal principles—, the cases to which it applied, and the validation these applications received in the discussion of legal professionals and historians were transferred to guafen. the history of the use of this concept in and for china went through several stages and substantial changes. since the 1860s, there had been an international discussion—in which the chinese did not participate but which was recorded in the chinese english-language press—whether the governance offered by the qing court could avoid a break-up of the country that in turn might be followed by a partition with various outside powers taking over the administration of parts of the territory. in these discussions, which were public in character, the partition of china was seen not as a goal but as a threat to international stability and the balance of powers. the basic consensus among the powers was that china’s governance should be strengthened and that the territorial integrity of china proper should be maintained. whenever one of the powers strayed from this consensus, the others, led by the dominant power, first great britain which already by 1900 was replaced by the united states, would unite to oppose it. this remained the persistent pattern throughout the twentieth century. the chinese discussion about a danger of partition began out of public chinese view during the 1870s. it reacted to russia’s intervention in ili to put down a muslim rebellion, but also, more importantly, to western reports, books, and diplomatic communications made accessible in chinese that warned about a russian push to the far east after its efforts to gain a foothold in the mediterranean warm water ports had failed. this discussion gained momentum and began to be carried by public media after china’s defeat in the war with japan. a group of young men-of-letters around kang youwei and liang qichao adopted the narrative of a threatened guafen of china that came with the proviso that only a fundamental reform of chinese governance would be able to forestall it. using petitions to the court and public media such as newly-founded periodicals, they tried to recruit young male literate urbanites for this agenda and set up associations of a regional and national nature to enhance the political pressure these young men would be able to exert. the trust of the reformers in the willingness of any sizeable part of the chinese population to become engaged in the patriotic goal of preserving the nation was low. accordingly, they did not favour a constitution and a parliament but set their hopes on a top-down reform. they tried to gain protection and support from high officials with the ultimate aim to have the guangxu emperor lead the reforms by emulating, under their guidance, not george washington, but peter the great or the meiji emperor. the guafen narrative and agenda did not, however, manage to get adopted outside the reform papers even though the reformers tried to enhance its standing by showing that it closely agreed with much of international opinion. when for a short while in 1898 the guangxu emperor seemed to support them, they tried to insert the guafen narrative and agenda into official discourse. with the failure of the hundred days reform in september 1898 and their ensuing exile, this effort came to naught. in an effort to maintain their political standing, the reformers changed the guafen narrative to blame the government’s selling out, rather that the greed of foreigners, for a partition, while trying to expand the social base of their agenda by establishing new print venues for their advocacy as well as their extensive writing. at this stage, however, they found themselves sidelined within the rapid development of the shanghai commercial periodical and book market. the effort to reach wider popular audiences received a certain boost from an etymological rediscovery of the largely forgotten metaphorical meaning of guafen that prompted the use of the watermelon as a symbol for china in visual representations. the foreshortening of the concept “partition” through its translation into guafen and the fixation on the polish case weakened the analytical openness of the original term. on the other hand, it strengthened the potential use of the chinese translation for critique and advocacy of action. of the three late qing narratives for poland’s partition—imperialism, dysfunctional polity, and popular resistance—, the reformers around liang qichao began with the first. they switched to the second after the end of the hundred days reforms in late 1898, a reading that was eventually adopted by the early chinese communist movement. the power of the guafen concept and agenda via “partition” suffered from this shift. while “selling out the country” in the abstract would still qualify as a cause for “partition,” because even a country divided into zones of influence could be loosely defined as partitioned, selling slices of watermelon did not fit the process because these are consumed or taken home by the buyers. this, however, did not fit the reality of term leases of territory or privileges to build railway lines and exploit mines in china. the problem shows up in efforts to define the “invisible partition” as even more dangerous than its manifest form, and in the awkward detours of the early chinese political cartoons to accommodate the image of the melon slicing to the historical realities of foreign infrastructure investments. the melon and its slices in the visual representation of china’s guafen “translate” the depiction of china as a cake or other delicacy to be shared in western political cartoons. in the narrative of the chinese reformers, china was not safeguarded by the conflicts between the powers. accordingly, the image of a largely harmonious “family feast” in pre-1900 western cartoons with their implied reference to international law dominating the guests’ behaviour finds no echo in the chinese images of the first two decades of the twentieth century. while the western cartoonists, however, switched gear in their depiction of china once the actual danger of a break-up or partition was over, their chinese counterparts stuck to the dysfunctional image, a sign both of overriding advocacy concerns and lacking maturity. it is therefore proposed that concepts in the form of words, metaphors, and images cross cultural and language borders through “translation.” the result is the formation of a transcultural and translingual vernacular for words, metaphors, and images that is largely invisible on the surface but retains strong links over time among the connected items. the acceptance of guafen as a real threat for china remained largely restricted to a set of reformers and revolutionaries whose agenda it served. it remained a marginal advocacy term in internal chinese politics that was furthermore disproved by history and failed to gain discursive hegemony until the heirs of the reformers and revolutionaries gained political power and with it control over public articulation in the people’s republic of china. the first and third variant of the poland narrative became a mainstream frame for prc foreign propaganda once the ccp had established its discursive control. while this discursive control is extensive by any standard, extending down to schoolbooks, historical scholarship, and the press, it remains open to, at least, allegorical challenge. examples are zeng fanzhi’s melon paintings. his the last supper uses an aspect of the “etymology” of guafen—namely sharing the spoils—that had not been in the political applications of this term as a satire on the political leadership. his “watermelon” inverts the pervasive lack of agency on part of the melon (or that of the other delicacies) that can be seen in the early depictions, by turning the melon slice into a collective shout of “china’s” protest. guafen is not simply a “concept” in the rarefied realm of thought. it claimed to reflect a historical reality and derived an agenda from this claim. it challenged other assessments and agendas, most prominently that of the qing court. the powers’ attitude to china has been accurately described by viscount wolseley as dictated by the “victor’s dilemma” of having to prevent china from breaking up even when it had lost in a military conflict and steadfastly refused to accede to western demands to open the country for trade. far from pursuing the partition of china, regardless of their different interests, a strong combination of foreign powers with the united states being most prominent already since the late 1890s was in fact the sole guarantee for the territorial integrity of china proper.[187] the chinese government had little agency in influencing the powers, but was implicitly conscious of their dilemma and contributed to keep them all on board through its use of the most favoured nation clause. even in the eyes of the reformers, there was no popular acceptance of the guafen narrative at the time and no broad resistance to the prospect of partition. while the qing court did not go public with its views, the reformers were keenly aware of the court’s trump card: the powers could partition china if they wanted, but as they did not do it, they must be opposed to it because it would have upset the balance among them. this was quite independent of the behavior of the court toward them. they could be relied upon to rescue the chinese government and its finances without any price having to be paid by china. the powers’ motives were not love for china, but maintaining balance of power, gaining unimpeded market access, and preventing the collapse of an entity too big to be allowed to fail. this is most evident in 1900 when the qing court, which had supported the anti-foreign riots of the boxers, was in full flight after the allied invasion. if ever there was a moment when a partition of china looked inevitable, this was it, because there was no government of any standing with which to negotiate and foreign troops were already in control of peking. the powers, however, pressed for reforms, kept the dynasty in place, and pushed back against russia and france who were seen as eying to secure colony-type territories. it has to be remembered that the qing dynasty ended with its largest territorial expansion intact at the moment of its most manifest weakness. the same constellation remained in place during world war ii and even during the cold war when the us firmly rejected a 1969 soviet request to consent to their launching a nuclear attack on chinese test sites in xinjiang that might have been followed by a prague style invasion, a threat taken very seriously by the chinese leadership. as a result, none of the foreign powers was able to hold on to long-term exclusive control because the others would join together to prevent this. whatever might be the particular cause and reason for a given crisis or failure, the dominant powers will find it in their interest to bail china out, and the chinese government, aware of this dilemma, has made generous use of the leeway accorded it through this constellation. the asymmetry of power and agency in the relationship between china and the powers turned out to be china’s greatest asset. in the graphic depictions discussed above, china is the passive object of desire, while in verbalized statements, china’s level of agency at the time is described in terms such as “asleep,” “dead,” “corrupt to the core,” “incompetent,” “weak,” “passive,” and “negligible.” the “passive agency” of china’s threatened collapse turns out to be a nimble instrument that was efficiently used by the qing court and later governments. the power’s intention to “guafen” china became a frequently used accusation in prc international relations. its use steeply increased after the end of the vietnam war and the demise of the soviet union when only the united states remained as a dominant power. while the partition narrative was never internationally accepted as a real ongoing threat, it has entered the historical narrative of late qing-foreign relations as a historical debt of imperialism. this narrative derived its strength not because it could explain the historical process or from the authority of the chinese propaganda organs but from the willingness of the post-vietnam-war united states and much of its intellectual establishment to honor the narrative of a victimized china as authentic regardless of its weak historical foundation. [1] fan wenlan 范文澜, zhongguo jindai shi 中國近代史 (beijing: renmin chubanshe, 1951), 358. for present-day references, see for example, guo chunmei 郭春梅, “qingmo weihu guojia yitong de sichao,” 清末维护國家一统的思潮 [the current of preserving the territorial integrity of the nation during the late qing], zhongguo lishi bowuguan guankan 2 (2002): 39–51, esp. 41. it should be mentioned that better informed opinions, especially with regard to england, are also heard, although in marginal outlets. see, wang yinchun 王银春, “shijiu shiji mo yingguo dui hua zhengce de lishi kaocha” 19 世紀末英國對華政策的歷史考察 [a historical investigation of britain’s china policy during the late nineteenth century], ningxia daxue xuebao (zhexue shehuikexue ban) 21 (1999): 67–70. [2] the “resistance” story has occasionally gone to the point of claiming that the boxers prevented the cutting up of china like a melon in 1900. mou anshi 牟安世, yihetuan dikang lieqiang guafen shi 義和團抵抗列强瓜分史 [history of the boxers resisting the powers’ partitioning of china] (beijing: jingji guanli chubanshe, 1997). [3] reinhart koselleck, “drei bürgerliche welten. zur vergleichenden semantik der bürgerlichen gesellschaft in deutschland, england und frankreich,“ in r. koselleck, begriffsgeschichten (frankfurt: suhrkamp, 2006), 413. [4] rudolf g. wagner, “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening.’ a study in conceptualizing asymmetry and coping with it,” transcultural studies 1 (2011): 4–140. [5] “the states will avail themselves of qin’s wrath and take advantage of zhao’s weakness and melon-cut [zhao],” zhanguo ce 戰國策 [warring states strategies], zhao 趙, section 3. jia yi 賈誼 (200–169 b.c.e.) writes in his xinshu 新書 [reform writings], ch. 1, about “melon-cutting the country to make kings of meritorious officials.” in none of the existing cases, this is explained as being a metaphorical expression. [6] yu sen 俞森 (19th cent.), huangzheng congshu 荒政叢書 [collection of works on disaster relief] (n. p., 1843), juan 10b. [7] memorial by zongshi yingyuan 宗室英元 in jingbao 京報 [peking gazette], reprinted in shenbao august 6, 1873. “songgun shouchuang” 訟棍受創 [getting wounded for instigating a lawsuit], shenbao september 19, 1873. [8] “爰及六國至扵末代, 全固之業傾, 瓜分之務起, 農夫不得安其耕, 爵士不得食其禄,” qiao juren sensi jingyi 僑居人桑梓敬議，quoted in tongdian 通典 [pervasive record], juan 68. [9] yuan shansong 袁山松, hou han shu 後漢書 [record of the later han (lost)], quoted in yiwen leiju 藝文類聚 [classified collections of the arts and writing], juan 12, section diwang 帝王 [rulers], 2. [10] zhang shao 張紹 (tang dynasty), “chongyouguan” 沖佑觀 [chongyou temple], quan tang shi 全唐詩 [complete poems from the tang dynasty], # 887: “the four seas and the nine continents are cut up like a melon, torn apart like a piece of cloth.” 四海九州，瓜分幅裂。 [11] actually all such “dead” metaphors retain some form of life that might be rekindled through an explicit exploration of the meaning and historical context. in the case of chinese writing, the metaphorical meaning might be directly visible as in the case of the watermelon in guafen, it might be the metaphorical explanation of a word hidden in the components of a chinese character as assumed by the widely used second century ce shuowen jiezi 說文解字 [explaining words by analyzing the characters], and it might be deeply hidden under a phonetic loan. for the wide-ranging discussion of live and dead metaphors in european languages, see cornelia müller, metaphors dead and alive, sleeping and waking. a dynamic view (chicago: university of chicago press, 2008), 2–8. [12] zuozhuan, duke xi of lu, 9th year. [13] w. a. p. martin, “traces of international law in ancient china,” the international review xiv.1 (january 1883): 63–77. this paper goes back to his talk at the congress of orientalists in berlin in 1881. the first articulation of this idea, however, is in his english-language preface to his 1864 chinese translation of henry wheaton’s elements of international law, see rune svarverud, “the formation of a lexicon of international law, 1847–1903,” in mapping meanings. the field of new learning in late qing china, edited by m. lackner, n. vittinghoff (leiden: brill, 2004), 526. [14] martin, “traces of international law,” 66. [15] zhongguo jindai sixiang yu wenxue shi 1830–1930 zhuanye shujuku, 中國近代思想與文學史1830–1930 專業數據庫 [specialized database of modern chinese history of thought and literature, 1830–1930], http://dsmctl.nccu.edu.tw/d_host_e.html. this database is not open access, but the organizers respond to requests. [16] no abstract chinese noun seems to have been available as an alternative at the time. it was only since the early twentieth century that the ending hua 化 began to be used for transitive english nouns ending in -tion, which would have produced a calque. by this time, however, the partition-guafen link had long stabilized. [17] see chen jianhua 陳建華, “geming”de xiandaixing. zhongguo geminghua yukao lun” 革命”的現代性. 中國革命化預考論 [the modernity of “revolution”. preliminary essays on the revolutionization of china] (shanghai: shanghai guji chubanshe, 2000). [18] see rudolf g. wagner, “the canonization of may fourth,” in the appropriation of cultural capital. china’s may fourth project, edited by milena doleželová-velingerová (cambridge: harvard asia center, 2001), 69–94. [19] max black defined this function as catachresis, “the use of a word in some new sense in order to remedy a gap in the vocabulary,” although he did not deal with translation. max black, models and metaphors. studies in language and philosophy (ithaca: cornell university press, 2nd edition, 1965), 33. [20] brendan o’leary, whose own agenda is tied to another state that was partitioned, ireland, writes: “pre-modern dynasties [. . .] treated lands as real estate, and their peoples as herds of human capital; thus, in feudal and patrimonial regimes, ‘partition’ had no political meaning outside of estate law; and land divisions were not the subject of debates over their national public legitimacy.” brendan o’leary, “analysing partition: definition, classification and explanation,” political geography 26 (2007): 888. he refers for his definition to the authority of another writer focused on the irish question, n. mansergh, “the prelude to partition: concepts and aims in india and ireland,” in nationalism and independence: selected irish papers, edited by d. mansergh (cork: cork university press, 1997), 32–33. [21] henry wheaton, history of law of nations in europe and america from the earliest times to the treaty of washington 1842 (new york: gould, banks & co., 1845), 85–87. [22] “the troelfth cake,” wikipedia entry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/the_troelfth_cake [accessed on 10. january 2017]. the information given here is based on an entry for this print in the warsaw national museum. [23] several studies have sketched their contribution as well as the role of these works for the chinese world geographies that came out since the 1840s. still the best overall study is chang hsi-t’ung (張錫彤), “the earliest phase of the introduction of western political science into china,” yenching journal of social studies v.1 (1950): 1–30. for a recent bibliography, see jessie g. lutz, “china’s view of the west. a comparison of the historical geographies of wei yuan and xu jiyu,” social sciences and missions 25 (2012): 35–38. neither of these studies mentions the partition of poland. [24] in 1834, the early protestant missionaries set up the society for the diffusion of useful knowledge in china. it was modeled on the american and british societies of this type, which aimed at introducing useful knowledge among the local lower classes through inexpensive publications. [25] malixun 馬禮遜 [robert morrison], waiguo shilüe 外國史略 [a sketch of the history of foreign countries], in xiaofanghuzhai yudi congchao zaibubian 小方壺齋輿地叢鈔再補編 [second sequel of geographical excerpts from the small square gourd studio], edited by wang xiqi 王錫祺 (shanghai: zhuyi tang, 1900), 42. morrison’s text is not mentioned in a. wylie, memorials of protestant missionaries to the chinese (shanghai: american presbyterian mission press, 1867), it is not in the morrison archive at soas in london, and i have not found information on an earlier print. as it mentions events in the 1840s, but robert morrison had died in 1834, zou zhenhuan argued that this 1900 print must be based on an edition supplemented by morrison’s sons. see zou zhenhuan 鄒振環, “<waiguo shilüe> ji qi zuozhe wenti xintan” 《外國史略》及其作者問題新探 [a new investigation of a sketch of the history of foreign countries and its author], zhongshan daxue xuebao (shehuikexue ban) 48.5 (2008), 100–108. it is impossible to prove that these comments on poland were part of morrison’s original draft, but they most likely were as these events occurred well before his death. [26] (karl gützlaff), gujin wanguo gangjian 古今萬國綱鑑 [outline of all states past and present] (singapore: jianhua shuyuan, 1838), chapter 19, 87b–88a. the text is accessible at the spanish digital library http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?pid=d-3986826, [accessed on 25. january 2017]. the identification of the author is based on wylie, memorials, 60. as opposed to most other segments, this sketch of polish history had not been previously published in the journal gützlaff edited, the dongxiyang kao meiyue tongji zhuan 東西洋考每月統計傳 [monthly summary of events east and west (original english title: the chinese miscellany)]. [27] (karl gützlaff), gujin wanguo gangjian, ch. 19, 87b–88a. in an 1850 publication on world history, guetzlaff came back to the same arguments about the internal causes. (karl gützlaff), wanguo shi zhuan 萬國史傳 [history of all states] (n.p., 1850), chap. 29, 36b; chap. 34, 41 a–b. in another section of this later work, he is dealing with the role of the catholic/protestant divide in the partition, chapter 39, 46b. in still another, he praises czar alexander as a model ruler, whose “harsh suppression of poland and subduing the rebelliousness of this people” turned out to be a possible godsend because the polish people “appreciated him” but sadly he did not continue on a way to progress, chapter 41, 50b. gützlaff disagreed with morrison’s harsh condemnation of catherine, saying she was superbly intelligent, loved the russian people although she was a foreigner, and that she reformed customs, chapter 39, 46b. the text is accessible as http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/resolve/display/bsb11024447.html, [accessed on 12. january 2017]. the identification of gützlaff as the author is based on wylie, memorials, 62. [28] although the early chinese mainland authors of world geographies such as xu jiyu, wei yuan or liang tingnan hardly ever mention their sources, the dongxiyang kao meiyue tongji zhuan from which most of the gützlaff’s gujin wanguo gangjian had been taken, is among their principal points of reference. see huang shijian 黃時鑑, “<dong xi yang kao meiyue tongji zhuan> yingyinben daoyan” <東西洋考每月統計傳〉影印本導言 [introduction to the reprint of monthly summary of events east and west], in ai han zhe 愛漢者 (karl gützlaff), dongxiyang kao meiyue tongji zhuan 東西洋考每月統計傳 (reprint) (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1997), 25–27. [29] hugh murray, ed., the encyclopaedia of geography: comprising a complete description of the earth, exhibiting its relation to the heavenly bodies, its physical structure, the natural history of each country, and the industry, commerce, political institutions, and civil and social state of all nations (philadelphia: carey, lea and blanchard, 1837), vol. 2, 131. lin zexu had been shown this work by an american missionary, who had asked for another copy of this american edition to be given to lin zexu. [30] o’leary, “analysing partition,” 888. [31] murray, encyclopaedia of geography, ii. 131. [32] talleyrand was blunt in vienna, arguing in december 1814 that the partition of poland showed that “the nations of europe are united to each other by no other moral ties than those which unite them to the islanders of the pacific.” quoted in henry wheaton, history of the law of nations in europe and america; from the earliest times to the treaty of washington, 1842 (new york: gould, banks & co., 1845), 429. [33] suzanne w. barnett, “protestant expansion and chinese views of the west,” modern asian studies 6.2 (1972): 141. [34] “國中土豪聚黨數十萬, 擅權自恣，國王 [. . .] 不能制,” entry bolan 波蘭 in lin zexu 林則徐, sizhou zhi 四洲志 [records of the four continents] (1839/1840), in lin zexu quanji 林則徐全集 [collected works by lin zexu] (fuzhou: haixia wenyi, 2002), vol. 10, 82. the work survives in part in wang xiqi, xiaofanghuzhai yudi congchao zaibubian, set 12. many of the details are not to in murray and might have been taken from the extensive entry “poland” in rees’ cyclopaedia (1819), a work, which also had been introduced by a foreigner to lin. for lin zexu’s reading of this work, see milena doleželová-velingerová and rudolf g. wagner, “introduction,” in chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge (1870–1930): changing ways of thought, edited by milena doleželová-velingerová and rudolf g. wagner (heidelberg: springer, 2014), 3. [35] entry bolan 波蘭 in lin zexu 林則徐, sizhou zhi 四洲志, 82. [36] wei yuan 魏源, haiguo tuzhi 海國圖志 [illustrated record of the countries by the oceans] (yangzhou: guweitang, 1844, expanded editions in 1847 and 1852). wei only shortly refers to the polish partition and does not take up lin’s extensive treatment. the same is true for another important geographical work of the time, majishi’s 瑪吉士 (marques’) dili beikao 地理備考 [geographical reference] (1847), which refers to poland’s glorious past in saving vienna from the ottoman army and the later chaos which prompted catherine to “swallow up,” tun 吞, a part of it. majishi, xinshi dili beikao quanshu 新釋地理備考全書 [newly annotated complete geographical reference] (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1991), juan 4, 325. [37] for background, see chang hsi-tung, “the earliest phase of the introduction of political science into china,” yenching journal of social studies v.1 (1950), 22–29. fred w. drake, “a mid-nineteenth-century discovery of the non-chinese world,” modern asian studies, 6.2 (1972): 205–224. [38] wei yuan also used guafen for the partition of latin america among england, france and holland. haiguo tuzhi, juan 59. [39] “迨后波蘭衰亂， 峩羅斯與奧地利亞、普魯士瓜分其國，峩得三分之二,” xu jiyu 徐繼畬, yinghuan zhilüe 瀛寰志略 (private print, 1848) (n.p.: shanyu lou, 1873), chap. 4, 16a. [40] ibid. [41] gao liwen 高理文 (elijah bridgman), meilige heshengguo zhilüe 美理哥合省國志略 [outline of the history of the united states of america] (singapore: jianxia shuyuan, 1838). there are many later prints of this work with changed titles. an annotated version in abbreviated characters is in jindaishi ziliao 92 (1997): 1–70. gützlaff added to bridgman’s image of the united states with various articles as well as the relevant chapter in his geographical-historical works. for details, see my forthcoming study “george washington in china.” [42] xu jiyu’s paean on george washington’s achievements had been noted by a missionary at the time. he had it carved in stone together with a translation and sent it to washington d.c. where the washington monument was just being built. together with many similar tributes, xu’s is now part of the inside wall lining the staircase to the top of this monument. a second potential model of a leader for a late qing chinese future was czar peter of russia. according to the works hitherto presented, his main strength was in top-down modernization and bringing the centrifugal forces in the country to heel. [43] rebecca karl, staging the world. chinese nationalism at the turn of the twentieth century (durham: duke university press, 2002). [44] wheaton had done so extensively in the first section of the third part of his history of the law of nations, which first came out in french in 1841. there he details the three successive stages of poland’s partition, describing it as a flagrant breach of the principle of non-intervention into the internal affairs of other states that had been forming during the eighteenth century (269–281). while calling the partition “the most flagrant violation of natural justice and international law which has occurred since europe first emerged from barbarism,” he also took pains to show that the external interventions hinged on an internal weakness. they were “facilitated by the obstinate adherence of the poles to the radical defects of their national constitution, by their blind intolerance and factious dissentions” (269). the three powers justified the partition with this internal anarchy, as this would end up making poland the prey of one of its neighbors, which in turn would upset the necessary balance of powers among all of them. in the name of securing the balance of powers, the three neighboring powers all took a share, perverting in the process a legitimate goal of international law, namely avoiding the emergence of a single dominant power. aware of the absence of an institution able to enforce adherence to international law, wheaton deplored that the other states, especially england and france, stood by without using their powers to secure adherence to the norms. henry wheaton, history of the law of nations in europe and america from the earliest times to the treaty of washington, 1842 (new york: gould, banks & co., 1845). there is no early chinese translation of this text into chinese, and i have not seen any chinese reference to this passage. [45] henry wheaton, elements of international law, 6th edition arranged by william beach lawrence (boston: little, brown & co., 1855), 57–58. w.a.p. martin’s chinese translation was based on this edition. the relevant passage is (huidun 惠頓 [wheaton]), wanguo gongfa 萬國公法 [international law], translated by ding weiliang 丁偉良 [w. a. p. martin] (1862), reprint in xuxiu siku quanshu (shanghai: shanghai guji chubanshe, 1995–1999), vol. 1299, 478–479. [46] “遇此國加增土地，彼國不得托公法有均勢之義，遂求加增,” (bulunshi 步倫氏 j. c. bluntschli), gongfa huitong 公法會通 [handbook of international law], translated by ding weiliang 丁偉良 [w.a.p. martin] (shanghai: tongwenguan, 1880), # 97, juan 1, 34a. this is a translation of johann caspar bluntschli, das moderne völkerrecht der civilisirten staaten als rechtsbuch dargestellt (nördlingen: beck’sche buchhandlung, 1868) that is based on the french translation of this work, le droit international codifié, translated by charles lardy (paris: guillaumin, 1870). [47] “百餘年來， 各國每籍均勢之名， 而肆其兼併之欲. 俄國既割波蘭之地，奧國因求片土於土耳其。布奧俄尋創瓜分波蘭之議，即執均勢以飾其非,” ibid. the translation given here is based on the chinese rather than the french version as this was in the hands of chinese readers. in the third edition of his work in 1878, bluntschli adds in #474 under the general heading of “collapse of the internal order of the state. intervention” a comment that the “demise of poland is a shocking example of tearing up and killing a state.” [48] phillimore closely follows wheaton’s argument (including the guafen term), see robert phillimore commentaries upon international law, third edition (london: butterworths, 1879), #lxxiii, vol. 1, 94–97. chinese translation geguo jiaoshe gongfa lun 各國交涉公法論 [treatise on international law of foreign relations], translated orally by fulanya 傅蘭雅 [john fryer], written form by yu shijue 俞世爵 (1894), in xixue fuqiang congshu 西學富強叢書 [collection of works of western learning about making (a state) rich and powerful], compiled by zhang yinhuan 張蔭桓 (shanghai: hongwen shuju, 1896), #lxxiii, juan 2, 3b. [49] huang zunxian, who already had accumulated data for years to write a similar work, was as he said in “close contact” with okamoto, who sent a draft asking for suggestions and criticisms to him and ambassador he ruzhang. while both were excited to have such a work, huang was critical of the lack of tables summarizing the basic information and he of the random selection from western histories and the use of unreliable sources for china’s history, while considering his treatment of europe and the united states pioneering. see huang zunxian 黃遵憲, “ping <wanguo shiji xu>,” 評《萬國史記序》 [critical note on the preface of <history of all nations>], in huang zunxian quanji, 黃遵憲全集 [huang zunxian collected works], edited by chen zheng 陳錚 (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 2005), 1, 246–247. [50] okamoto kansuke 岡本監輔, wanguo shiji 萬國史記 [history of all nations] (1879) (shanghai: shenbaoguan, 1880), quoted from the later reprint (n.p.: huaguo tang, 1900), juan 16, 20b. [51] “哥修士孤智勇過人，嘗赴美國， 助其獨立有功,” ibid. 21a. [52] “波蘭嘗稱人口二千萬，廣袤二十四萬里，至此全亡,” ibid. 21b. [53] “使波人不得用其本國語，以消其愛國心,” ibid., 24a. [54] “初維也納大會， 議時， 各國相約， 各保憲法， 至是各國政府觀依俄帝所為，無敢論其非者也,” ibid., 13a. this narrative was developed in much greater detail in walter k. kelly, history of russia from the earliest period to the present time, 2 vols. (london: henry g. bohn, 1855), translated as eshi ji yi 俄史輯譯 [records of russian history translated] (preface 1886), translated by xu jingluo 徐景羅 (n. p.: yizhi shuhui, 1888), reprinted in xixue fuqiang congshu, sections 40–43, 47, and 67–68. it should be kept in mind that peter the great remained a model ruler for reformers such as liang qichao and kang youwei, again mostly based on kelly. in the chinese translation, however, his strong censure of peter had been taken out or toned down, see don price, russia and the roots of the chinese revolution, 1896–1911 (cambridge: harvard university press, 1974), 35–36. [55] okamoto, wanguo shiji, juan 16, 24a–b. [56] by the 1880s, guafen was occasionally used in chinese writing to refer to the split-up of italy and or turkey for all of which the foreign-language references had used “partition.” for the “partition of italy into dozens of states” (意大利瓜分數十國), see ma jianzhong 馬建中，”balifu youren shu” 巴黎復友人書 [answer from paris to a letter from a friend], in shikezhai jiyan 適可寨記言 [notes from the shike studio]，(1878) (taibei: wenhai, 1968), juan 2. the reference to the partition of the ottoman empire is in young allen’s translation of malcolm maccoll’s three years of the eastern question (1878) as ouzhou dongfang jiaoshe ji 歐洲東方交涉記 (shanghai: shanghai zhizaoju, 1880), juan 5. an article in the shenbao in 1877 refers to rumors about the russian-ottoman war in an english-language hong kong paper concerning the split between the two turkish aspirants to the throne and their plan to partition the country among them. “it recently occurred that the new and the old ruler of turkey, one being greedy, and other dictatorial, made up their mind to partition their country among them” 今值土之新舊兩君一貪一暴，遂決志欲瓜分其國, “shu benbao tu e zhan hao hou” 書本報土俄戰耗後 [a follow-up note on our report about the disaster of a russo-turkish war], shenbao, april 25, 1877, 1. [57] “二十年以前本國任保土之責，以其若疾病者然保其不為人謀害，未保其自殉或身 故也,” in maigaoer 麥高爾 [malcolm maccoll], ouzhou dongfang jiaoshe ji 歐洲東方交涉記 [record of europe’s far eastern relations], translated by lin yuezhi 林樂知 [young j. allen] and qu anglai 瞿昂來 (shanghai: shanghai zhizaoju, 1880), juan 5, 2a 下. the english version is malcolm maccoll, three years of the eastern question (london: chatto and windus, 1878), 119. [58] “吾英宜及此時與各國同心協力，保全土國, 毋使各國瓜分, 致生大亂” quoted from maigaoer, ouzhou dongfang, juan 5, 3a 下, maccoll, three years, 129. [59] huang zunxian, riben guozhi 日本國志 [chronicle of japan] (1895), in huang zunxian quanji 黃遵憲全集 [huang zunxian collected works], edited by chen zheng 陳錚 (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 2005), vol. 2, juan 4, 931–32. for sinologists, i have retained in the chinese text the examples quoted for each of these achievements. [60] quoted in the rubric politics and society, the leeds mercury (leeds, england), may 1, 1890; issue 16245. [61] tseng (=zeng jize), “china: the sleep, and the awakening,” asiatic quarterly review 3.1 (1887): 1–12. for background, see rudolf g. wagner, “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening’, 58–70. [62] j. d. hutchinson, “lecture on the war,” north china herald, october 13, 1855, 1. [63] “lord elgin and sir michael seymour,” saturday review february 25, 1860, reprinted in north china herald, may 5, 1860, 3. [64] see the text referenced in footnote 134. [65] “retrospect of events which occurred in the north of china during 1865,” north china herald, january 6, 1866, 3. [66] “retrospect of events in china during 1866,” north china herald, december 19, 1866, 206. [67] editorial, north china herald, january 12, 1867, 6. [68] it will be noted that under different circumstances, such as at the end of wwii, in multinational bodies such as the who or european union, but also in the handling of states that are perceived as failed states, or in cases of blatant human rights violations, there is growing consensus that these two elements are not sacrosanct. [69] wang ping, “proposed programme of campaign against turkestan,” north china herald, march 30, 1876, 298. [70] “今日爭之患猶紓，今日棄之患更深也,” this secret memorial, dated ninth of the fifth month, guangxu 4 (1878), is included in the correspondence of li hongzhang, who rejected the proposal to resist japan’s ambitions with military means because his main concern was with the russian pressure from the north and he wanted to avoid conflicts on two fronts. “he zie laihan” 何子峩來函 [letter from he zie (=he ruzhang)], in li hongzhang quanji 李鴻章全集 [collected works by li hongzhang], vol. 31, 307–308 (hefei: anhui jiaoyu chubanshe, 2007). [71] better known under the name of kim hong-jip 金弘集 which he used when he was prime minister pushing the gabo reforms in 1895–96. in 1880, he confessed to still being largely uninformed about the world. [72] huang zunxian, “chaoxian celüe” 朝鮮策略, tōkyō nichinichi shimbun, april 6, 7, 8, 1881. translation as kwo-in ken, “a chinese statesman on corea,” japan weekly mail, vol. 5 (1881), reprinted in north china herald, may 6, 1881, 444–445 and may 27, 1881, 513–514. the english translation greatly abbreviates the korean objections brought forth by kim. amazingly, the chinese text was not reprinted by either the chinese-language hong kong papers or the shenbao in shanghai. to facilitate access, the quotations refer to the chinese edition in huang zunxian quanji, vol. 1, 251–258. [73] for the background of the writing of the “strategy for korea” and the korean reception, see yang tianshi 楊天石, “huang zunxian de <chaoxian celüe> jiqi fengbo,” 黄遵憲的《朝鲜策略》及其風波 [huang zunxian’s strategy of korea and the controversies surrounding it], jindaishi yanjiu 3 (1994): 177–192. [74] the section on nineteenth century russia in okamoto’s world history with its wide circulation and frequent reprints in china and japan since 1879 is entirely devoted to describing these steps to expand russia-controlled land towards the east. okamoto, wanguo shiji, juan 16, 6b. it should be kept in mind that, according to malcolm maccoll’s three years of the eastern question (1878), “it is the settled belief of a large segment of englishmen that russia is pursuing her conquests in central asia for the purpose of pushing her frontier to some convenient point from which she may be able to invade india,” 237–238, a conflict referred to at the time as the “great game.” huang, in contrast, sees the main thrust of the russian advance in the far east with korea as the weak link. the concern with russia’s eastward push must also have prompted the 1888 translation of kelly’s 1855, history of russia. [75] huang refers to the russian czar having “the ambition to swallow up everything in the eight directions,” 吞八荒之心. “chaoxian celüe,” 251. [76] “坐視俄師之長驅，坐聼他人之瓜分瓦解，而害可勝言哉.” [77] “常親於亞細亞，常疏於歐羅巴,” “chaoxian celüe,” 252. [78] huang zunxian, renjinglu shicao, yigai zashi 人境廬詩草，己亥雜詩 [draft poems from the mirror of humanity hut, mixed poems from 1899] no. 47, in huang zunxian quanji, vol. 1, 158. [79] see li hongzhang’s 1880 letter to he ruzhang quoted in yang tianshi, “huang zunxian,” 181. [80] seen against this background, it is not surprising that publication of huang’s magnum opus on the meiji reforms, which spelled out the needed reforms in greater detail in 1887, was blocked by li hongzhang until china’s defeat in the war with japan in 1895. see douglas reynolds with carol t. reynolds, east meets east. chinese discover the modern world in japan, 1854–1898 (ann arbor: association of asian studies, 2014), 128. [81] for this entire background, see rudolf g. wagner, “the free flow of communication between high and low: the shenbao as platform for yangwu discussions on political reform 1872–1895,” t’oung pao, in press. [82] a reference in 1892 to japan’s annexing the ryukyu islands did not signal awareness of a wider threat. xiang zaoxin 項藻馨, “de ao yi hezong e fa lianheng lun” 德奥意合縱俄法連橫論 [on the vertical alliance between germany, austria, and italy and the horizontal alliance between russia and france], gezhi shuyuan keyi 格致書院課藝 (shanghai: gezhi shuyuan, 1892). [83] “the chino-japanese conflict and after. a conversation with sir thomas wade,” the contemporary review, july 1, 1894, 616. [84] “the chino-japanese conflict,” 621–22. this conversation was widely quoted in the british press especially as wade repeated the core arguments in a talk in november. see, for example, “the future of china,” the graphic, november 17, 1894, 562, and “sir thomas wade on china and japan,” the times, november 5, 1894, 11. [85] reuter telegram from september 27, 1894, quoted from birmingham daily post, september 28, 1894. [86] summarized in “for the partition of china,” new york tribune, january 11, 1897. [87] “the coming partition of china,” north china herald, september 13, 1895. [88] papers such as the times in london with their own correspondents in china would keep to more general columns such as “the powers and china,” “china and japan,” or “the far east.” the graph was constructed by using two databases, america’s historical newspapers (chester: readex, 2004), and british library newspapers i–iv in newsvault (united states: cengage learning, n.d.). [89] as the trove of german-language newspapers from the period that has been digitized lacks a full-text search option, and the number of french and russian papers of the time that are accessible in digitized format is even smaller, i have not included their coverage in this table. [90] wei toma 威妥瑪 (thomas wade) “ying qian shi hua wei tuoma dachen da dongfang shiju wen” 英前使華威妥瑪大臣畣東方時局問 [interview with thomas wade, formerly british ambassador to china, on the situation in the far east], translated by lin yuezhi 林樂知 (young allen), wanguo gongbao 73 (1895): 4b–11a. this translation was included among the standard references in the 1897 edition of policy essays that included a long section of yangwu (foreign learning) essays. see wei toma 威妥瑪 [thomas wade], “da dongfang shiju wen” 畣東方時局問 [interview about the situation in the far east], huangchao jingshiwen sanbian 皇朝經世文三編 [comprehensive collection of statecraft essays from our august dynasty, third set], compiled by chen zhongyi 陳忠倚, 80 juan (shanghai: baowen shuju, 1898), juan 5, xueshu 學術 5, guanglun 廣論, 27a–30a. [91] liang qichao, “guafen weiyan” 瓜分危言 [warnings about partition], qingyi bao, may 15, 1899. [92] wang kangnian 汪康年, “zhongguo ziqiang ce, shang” 中國自強策，上 [policies for china’s self-strengthening], pt. 1, shiwubao 4 (1896): 203. [93] “it is said that the former german chancellor bismarck [who left office in 1890] was the first to suggest the partition of china” 瓜分中國之說, 相傳創自德故相俾思麥克,” “lun guafen zhongguo fei taixi geguo zhi benxin” 論瓜分中國非泰西各國之本心 [partitioning china is not the ultimate aim of the different western states], shenbao, september 16, 1898. no historical record of bismarck’s suggestion is known, and it might refer to bismarck’s role in the 1884/5 berlin conference on partitioning africa. [94] zhang kangnian, “zhongguo ziqiang ce, shang,” 203. [95] li wenhai 李文海, “wuxu weixin yundong shiqi de xuehui zuzhi” 戊戌維新運動的學會組織 [study associations organized during the period of the wuxu (1898) reform movement], wuxu weixin yundong lunwenji 戊戌維新運動論文集 [collection of essays on the wuxu reform movement], edited by hu shengwu 胡繩武 (changsha: hunan renmin chubanshe, 1983), 48–78. [96] historical records and lists drawn up by modern scholars of these “study societies” as well as the papers started by reformers between 1896 and 1898 will be found in tang zhijun 湯志鈞, wuxu shiqi de xuehui he baokan 戊戌時期的學會和報刊 [study societies and newspapers of the wuxu period] (taibei: taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1993), 285–308. because not more than the name remains of many of these societies and because no copies of some of the papers have survived, no hard numbers can be established. [97] this asymmetry of information was often seen as shocking and shameful. such impressions were articulated in the prefaces to works such as luo zhenyu’s 羅振宇 preface to naka michiyo’s history of china (1896) or chen shoupeng’s 陳壽彭 preface to his translation of the british admirality’s china sea directory in 1900. for the former, see rudolf g. wagner, “importing a ‘new history’ for the new nation: china 1899,” in historization—historisierung, edited by glen most, aporemata, kritische studien zur philologiegeschichte, vol. 5 (göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht, 2001), 275–292, for the latter chen shoupeng, “zixu” 自序 [preface], xinyi zhongguo jianghai jianyao tuzhi 新譯中國江海險要圖誌 [illustrated record of danger points in china’s rivers and coastline], translated by chen shoupeng (shanghai: jingshiwen she, 1900). [98] zhongguo jindai sixiang yu wenxue shi 1820–1930 zhuanye shujuku 1830–1930, 中國近代思想與文學史1830–1930 專業數據庫 [specialized database on modern chinese history of thought and literature], http://dsmctl.nccu.edu.tw/d_host_e.html. [99] kang youwei, “jin shang huangdi disan shu” 今上皇帝第三書 [third letter to the present emperor], may 30, 1895, in nanhai xiansheng si shangshu ji 南海先生四上書記 [collection of the four letters by kang youwei to the court], in xizheng congshu 西政叢書 [collection of works on western policies] (shanghai: shenji shuzhuang, 1897), juan 3, 1. [100] “竊恐天下瓜分之兆，已先見於臺灣矣,” tang caichang 唐才常, “shang fu shu,” 上父書 [letter to my father] #16, in tang caichang ji唐才常集 [collected works by tang caichang] (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1980), 223. [101] “bianfa dang zhi benyuan shuo” 變法當知本源說 [reforms need to understand the ultimate cause (of the crisis)], qiangxue bao, january 2, 1896. [102] liang qichao 梁啟超, “bolan miewang ji,” 波蘭滅亡記 [a narrative of poland’s demise], shiwu bao, august 3, 1896, 2b–4a. [103] “甚至百姓欲為俄民者過半,” ibid., 3a. [104] for a first sketch of the treatment of poland in late qing chinese writings, see irene eber, “poland and polish authors in modern chinese literature and translation,” monumenta serica, vol. 31 (1974–1975): 407–445. [105] liang qichao, “lun zhongguo zhi jiang qiang” 論中國之將強, shiwu bao 31 (1897): 413. [106] ibid. [107] others would elaborate after 1900 that this foreign propaganda also included appropriating the histories of other peoples so as to deprive them of their pride and justify their subjugation. tang xiaobing’s commentary on his translation of a history of the philippine revolution is one such example, see rebecca karl, staging the world, 105–109. [108] “其人才成就，能與旅印之英人齊驅,” liang qichao, “lun zhongguo zhi jiang qiang,” 414. [109] “惟黃之與白，殆不甚遠，故白人所能為之事，黃人無不能者,” ibid., 415. [110] ibid., 414. [111] “吾請與國之豪桀，大聲呼於天下曰：中國無可亡之理，而有必強之道,” ibid., 415. [112] “今天下大較，西國 則君子多而野人少,中國則君子少而野人多,” ibid., 416. [113] it was even quoted in the edict opening the “reform of governance” period in early 1901. “chi neiwai chengong tiaochen bianfa” 飭内外臣工條陳變法 [ordering officials from the court and the provinces to submit reform proposals], in guangxu zhengyao 光緒政要 [precis of guangxu period policies], edited by shen tongsheng 沈桐生 (shanghai: chongyi tang, 1909), juan 26, 28a. [114] liang qichao, “lun zhongguo zhi jiang qiang,” 420. [115] “不極剝者不速復,” ibid. [116] “華盛頓八嵗血戰， 南北美頻年交惡，於美之強，寧有害焉,” ibid. [117] tang caichang, section “guafen zhi yi” 瓜分之議 [the discussion about guafen] in his “geguo caiji shiqing lunzheng” 各國猜忌實情論證 [exposition of the true situation of the suspicions prevailing among the different (western) nations], xiangxue bao 21 and 22 (1897). the article is unsigned; the identification of the author is based on the edition of his works after his death. this edition is based on the manuscripts and there is some deviation from the xiangxue bao print, which are pointed out in the text in tang caichang ji, 119–127. the quotations refer to this edition. [118] ibid., 121. [119] “其意謂之國也，非以非洲之道治之，弗治也,” ibid., 122. [120] ibid., 122. [121] “lun guafen zhongguo fei taixi geguo zhi benxin” 論瓜分中國非泰西各國之本心, shenbao, september 16, 1898, 1 [122] “中國未嘗無人。瓜分之議由此稍息,” ibid. [123] “以疲弱不振的中國，無論何國起意分割，何求而不得,” ibid. [124] “非必有所惡於中國也,” ibid. [125] “剖分之期其在是乎,” ibid. [126] “彼二國者細於勢力、短於智慧，致蹈此禍猶可言也,” ibid. [127] demetrius boulger, “the sick man of the far east,” the new century review ii.10 (1897): 258. [128] on this metaphor, see r. wagner, “china “asleep” and “awakening.” [129] the manuscript was thought to have been destroyed after kang youwei ended up on the most wanted list following the hundred days reform in late september 1898, but a manuscript copy survives in the beijing palace museum and the text was finally published in 2007. kang youwei, bolan fenmie ji 波蘭分滅記 [record of poland’s partition and demise], in kang youwei quanji 康有爲全集 [kang youwei collected works], edited by jiang yihua and zhang ronghua (beijing: zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 2007), vol. 4, 393–424. [130] kang youwei, riben bianzheng kao 日本辯證考 [investigation on the japanese political reforms] and e bide bianzheng ji 俄彼得變政記 [record of peter of russia’s political reforms]. all three essays have been included in kang youwei quanji, but have also been published in a single volume, see kang youwei, riben bianzheng kao 日本變政考, edited by jiang yihua 姜義華 and zhang ronghua 張榮華 (beijing: renmin daxue chubanshe, 2011). [131] for a summary of the content, see kong xiangxi 孔祥吉, “cong <bolan fenmie ji> kan kang youwei wuxu bianfa shiqi de zhengzhi zhuzhang” 從《波蘭分滅記》看康有為戊戌變法時期 的政治主張 [kang youwei’s political propositions during the hundred days reform period seen from his <record of poland’s partition and demise>], renwen zazhi3 5 (1982): 80–84. [132] kang youwei, bolan fenmie ji, 397, 412. [133] ibid., 412. [134] viscount wolseley, “china and japan,” the cosmopolitan, february, 1895, 420. [135] “lun zhongguo yi yi gujie renxin wei yaotu” 論中國宜以固結人心爲要圖 [china has to make uniting people’s hearts a priority], shenbao, october 8, 1898. [136] “我朝邦深固，天之所岉，必有與立矣,” zhang zhidong 張之洞, quanxue pian 勸學篇 [encouragement to study] (wuchang: lianghu shudian, 1898), neipian, chapter tongxin 同心. [137] ibid. [138] henry wood, ideal suggestion through mental photography (boston: lee and shepard, 1893). [139] [henry wood], zhixin mianbing fa 治心免病法 [a method to get rid of disease by regulating one’s mind], translated by jonathan fryer (shanghai: gezhi shushi, 1896). [140] liu jihui, xin de tuopu. 1895 shijian hou de lilun chonggou 心的拓樸. 1895 事件後的理論重搆 [the way to the heart’s simplicity. reconstructing theory after the 1895 events] (taibei: xingren wenhua shiyanshi, 2011). [141] a widely quoted report based on a december 1897 dalziel’s telegrams dispatch from shanghai refers to a “recent conference” in the zongli yamen, which took the place of a chinese foreign office, on the concessions to the powers. it indicates that the zongli yamen shared the concerns about a partition of china but opted for a strategy of limited concessions to all the powers to maintain the stalemate among them. the dispatch seems to have been based on an unquoted inside source. prince gong, who headed the zongli yamen, was reported to have proposed to “extend immediate recognition to the claims” of germany in shandong. this “course was necessary to save the rest of the country from dismemberment.” he went into great detail about the parts that would be taken by the different countries. the dispatch is quoted in “the partition of china,” aberdeen weekly journal, december 18, 1897, 2. [142] bax-ironside to marquess of salisbury, fo 17/1384, may 20, 1899, 5. [143] “retrospect of events in china during 1866,” north china herald, december 29, 1866, 206. [144] one of these translations was based on an article on january 12, 1899 in the hong kong telegraph. it quoted the new york xiluobao 喜羅報 (new york herald?) article saying “since the opening of foreign trade, the foreigners had hoped for a reform in china,” but “now [after the coup] they still have kept to the old ways” and people were as miserable as before. “there is no other way to save [the chinese] than by foreign [powers each] taking control over a part of the country,” even though they had little interest in this. “yigeng guafen” 議梗瓜分, [on an outline for partition], zhixin bao 45, gx 24, second month, first day (february 21, 1899), 16. [145] “the possible recovery of china,” north china herald, september 5, 1898. [146] aishi ke 哀時客 [a guest grieved about the time] (=liang qichao), “guafen weiyan” 瓜分危言 [warnings about partition], qingyi bao 15 (may 1899): 1–4; 16 (june 1899): 1–5; 17 (july 1899): 1–5; 23 (1899): 1–7. here quoted from the reproduction in liang qichao, yinbingshi wenji leibian, shang, shiju 飲冰室文集類編 上，時局 [classified writings from the ice-drinker’s studio, a, contemporary situation] (tōkyō, shimokōbe hangorō, 1904). [147] “此瓜分之事未見實行，非歐人無瓜分之心，亦非中國人有抗拒瓜分之力,” ibid., 559. [148] writing that chinese reformers were recasting their country in a “newly articulated world space of shared colonial experience that was everywhere, and thus [. . .] defined the modern itself,” rebecca karl has suggested that liang and his entourage were recasting china since the early 1900s in what later would be called a third world environment with a shared experience of colonialism and rebellion, see staging the world, 106. while indeed references to colonization as the most radical form of “undoing a state” 亡國 and to rebellions such as the philippine and boer wars abound, the historical record does not seem to support the argument. we shall see further down that in a broad array of contemporary chinese sources that range from essays to plays to political novels and cartoons, the focus in the discussion is on the internal causes for the loss of sovereignty and efforts to secure or regain it. examples given in these sources for the loss of sovereignty include bona fide “western” states such as poland, ireland, and spain as well as “third world” countries such as india and egypt, while those for gaining or securing it included the united states and japan as well as the efforts in this direction in the philippines and transvaal. the early twentieth century chinese political novels include translations of such works from the japanese (by liang qichao, among others), which sometimes depict actual meetings of exiled reformers from these oppressed countries (under the liberty bell in philadelphia!) where they share their stories and assure each other of their sympathy. see, catherine v. yeh, the chinese political novel. migration of a world genre (cambridge: harvard university asia center, 2015), 315. [149] “亡印度者印度之酋長也，非英人也。亡波蘭者波蘭之貴族，非俄、普、奧也,” “guafen weiyan,” 579. [150] this conference had been proposed by a shōsō akimoto, about whom nothing more seems to be known. it is outlined in the english-language article “the peaceful partition of china,” in the japanese periodical hansei zasshi xiii.3, march 1898, 105–108. akimoto suggested that sharing in the peaceful partition of china to spread civilization through asia would save the european powers from drifting to war with each other. a similar conference was proposed on september 1, 1899, by the north china herald. it was to set a trajectory and a timeline for chinese reforms within ten years. failure to implement them would result in the powers partitioning china. it was meant to put “a fresh heart into the reformers in china.” “the possible recovery in china,” north china herald, september 5, 1899, 430. [151] it also shows the willingness even of independent papers to adjust to the rhetoric of the court. [152] “zonglun qingyi bao wu shang zhi zui” 綜論清議報誣 上之罪 [a summary assessment of the qingyi bao’s crime of maligning the court], shenbao, december 28, 1899. [153] while an adjective in the modern vernacular, the xin 新 [new] was mostly used as a transitive verb well into the twentieth century with the meaning “to renew, to reform.” scholarship has largely overlooked this as in the frequent rendering of the element xin zhongguo 新中國 in the title of liang’s novel xin zhongguo weilaiji as the future of new china instead of future record of china’s reform. [154] for these, see doleželová-velingerová and wagner, chinese encyclopaedias of new global knowledge (1870–1930). [155] xin erya 新爾雅 [the new erya], edited by wang rongbao 王榮寳 and ye lan 葉瀾 (shanghai: guoxue she, 1903). [156] mary rankin, elite activism and political transformation in china: zhejiang province 1865–1911 (stanford: stanford university press, 1986). [157] some periodicals that had been started abroad, such as liang qichao’s zhixin bao 知新報 [english title: the reformer of china] in macao and qingyi bao [english title: the china critic] in yokohama, eventually transferred to shanghai. [158] some of these local articles are so knowledgeable that they seem syndicated, although i found no indication in this direction. [159] “holy cross beat brown,” boston daily globe, april 19, 1901, 7. [160] an example is a bilingual japanese postcard printed september 13, 1914 by the ukiyo-e artist tanaka shōzō 田中良三 (1874–1946) entitled the illustration of the great european war no. 16: ahumoros (sic) atlas of the world, kokkei jikyaku sekai chizu 歐洲大戰亂畫報（其十六）: 滑稽時局世界地圖. all the states are depicted as animals here with china as a pig dressed in traditional chinese costume. unaware of the big turmoil behind its back and the looming russian bear to the north, it obsessively stares east at its own coastline and japan through a magnifying glass inscribed “barometer.” both sides of the postcard can be found at https://www.nisan.tw/postcard_sp20.htm [accessed on 14. september 2017], and a high quality image at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3e/world_around_1900.jpg/1280px-world_around_1900.jpg [accessed on 14. september 2017]. by this time, the image of china as a pig was already in use among chinese cartoonists. in 1909, the minhu ribao 民呼日報 (english title: people’s wail) in shanghai published a cartoon where the foreign powers share a pig inscribed “territory of china,” (zhongguo lingtu 中國領土). the parts they have taken or leased are already on their plates and a chinese official is serving the drinks inscribed “mines” and “railways.” “wairen luange zhi xianxiang” 外人臠割之現象 (the phenomenon of the foreigners carving up [china]), minhu ribao 1909, reprinted in qingdai baokan tuhua jicheng 清代報刊圖畫集成, vol. 6, 26 (beijing: xinhua she, 2001). [161] the inscription under the image is an allusion to bret harte’s 1871 very popular poem by this title. for this background, see gary scharnhorst, “‘ways that are dark’: appropriations of bret harte’s ‘plain language from truthful james,’” nineteenth century literature 51.3 (1996): 377–399. [162] for details, see wagner, “china ‘asleep’ and ‘awakening’,” note 38 and note 66. [163] a similar position was taken by gilbert reid, who had established the international institute of china in 1897 to defend chinese interests. see his “the powers and the partition of china,” north american review 522 (may 1900): 634–641. viscount wolseley had already in 1895 recommended that china should hire experienced british officers to lead its army. [164] lord charles beresford, the break-up of china (new york and london: harper & brothers, 1899). chinese translation: bao huaquan shu 保華全書, translated by young allen (shanghai: guangxue hui, 1902). the chinese title presents a quandary, for which the translator did not offer a solution. it normally would be truncated bao hua quanshu [complete book about protecting china], but given the focus on china’s territorial integrity and the prevalence of the binomial baoquan 保全 for “preserving territorial integrity,” the truncation proposed here seems more plausible. i am grateful to the university of otago, new zealand, for allowing me to copy this rare chinese work from their collection. [165] for a detailed analysis of this poster and its spread, see wagner, “china ‘asleep’,” 11–32. [166] see bruce a. elleman, international competition in china 1899–1991: the rise, fall, and restoration of the open door policy (abington: routledge, 2015), ch. 1. the us successfully maintained this stance also after the allied intervention against the boxers in 1900. [167] a reproduction of this postcard is put on display in the residence of li hongzhang in hefei. http://instagrac.com/tag/theformerresideceoflihongzhang, [accessed on 15. august 2017]. [168] japanese publications continued to discuss the partition of china (using the japanese term for “partition,” bunkatsu 分割) early in the republican period to refer to the division of the country among different warlords. see sakamaki teiichirō 酒巻貞一郎, shina bunkatsu ron 支那分割論 [on the partition of china], tōkyō: keiseisha, 1913, and the section shina bunkatsu ron 支那分割論 in matsumoto hikojiro 松本彦次郎 and hirose tesshi 広瀬哲士 seiyoshi ron: saishin kenkyu 西洋史論: 最新研究 [east asian history: newest study], tōkyō: keiseisha, 1913. both volumes are accessible through the national diet library website. [169] reproduced in wagner, “china ‘αsleep’,” fig. 30. [170] this claimed to be a translation by a man referring to himself as yuanxuan zhengyi 軒轅正裔 of a work by a widely travelled chinese who was able to foretell the future. the work, the text claimed, survived only in a japanese translation, from which this had been retranslated. quite a few chinese political novels used the claim of being translations to enhance their standing. for an analysis of this novel, see yeh, political novel, 156. [171] “睜眼來看，分明是， 瓜分小波瀾 [. . .] 亡國禍，就在眼前,” wang xiaonong 汪笑儂，gua zhong lan yin 瓜種蘭因, act 12, anhui suhua bao 13 (1904), 30. see also karl, staging the world, 215. a somewhat expanded and recast version of the analysis of this opera with a translation of the surviving part in staging the world will be found in rebecca karl, “staging the world in late–qing china: globe, nation, and race in a 1904 beijing opera,” identities 6.4 (2010): 551–606. [172] on ma xingchi’s background, see wagner, “china ‘asleep’,” 102. [173] see minquan huabao 民權畫報, reprint qingdai baokan jicheng 清代報刊集成，vol. 12 (beijing: xinhua shudian, 2001), 635, 660, 668, 684, 693, 700, 708, 716, 725, 732. [174] in another cartoon from the same series, vines ensnaring the melon are used to symbolize the railway lines, see wagner, “china ‘asleep’,” figure 25. [175] according to the new ritual rules promulgated in the first year of the republic of china, men had to cut off their queue and wear hats, but from photographs of the time it is clear that the citizens took to soft rather than top hats, the latter being associated with upper-class englishmen and diplomatic occasions. [176] sun yat-sen, the international development of china (new york: g. p. putnam’s sons, 1922). [177] sun zhongshan, shiye jihua 事業計劃 [plan for industrial development] (beijing: waiyu jiaoxue yu yanjiu chubanshe, 2011). [178] zhongguo gongchandang, ningdu linshi xian weiyuanhui, guanyu fandui diguozhuyi jinzheng sulian, guafen zhongguo yu kuangda geming zhangzheng de queyi 關於反對帝國主義進攻蘇聯瓜分中國與擴大革命戰爭的決議 (ningdu, 1932). [179] zhongguo gongchandang zhongyangweiyuanhui, wei diguozhuyi guafen zhongguo yu guomindang de wuci weijiao gao quanguo minzhong shu 為帝國主義瓜分中國與國民黨的五次圍剿告全國民眾書 (n. p., 1933). [180] zhongguo gongnong hongjun zongzhengzhibu, fandui tiguozhuyi guafen zhongguo 反對帝國主義瓜分中國 (n. p., 1934). [181] the prc discussion of the causes why china was not partitioned was closely connected with the state of chinese-american relations. the narrative of the us “open door” intervention to save china from partition was presented in the influential history of china in 1960 by fu lecheng, a historian with a harvard phd teaching in taiwan. fu lecheng 傅樂成, zhongguo tongshi 中國通史 [history of china] (taibei: da zhongguo tushu gongsi, 1960), vol. 2, 692. since the accusations were voiced that the us were actually planning a new guafen of a now fattened china, articles published in the prc (including those from taiwan authors) began taking strong issue with fu lecheng’s narrative. see gao yawei 高亚伟, “dui qing mo woguo suoyi neng bimian bei guafen wenti tichu yige xin lunshi—zhong xi lishi hudong de gege an yanjiu” 对清末我国所以能避免被瓜分问题提出一个新论释—中西历史互动的一个个案研究 [a new explanation why china was able to avoid partition at the end of the qing – a study of various issues in chinese-western historical interaction], guangdong shehuikexue 6 (1994), 78–84. the discussion was taken up by a series of articles discussing the treatment of this period in schoolbooks since about 2011. the references will be found in shu cong 娄丛, “zai lun xifang lieqiang wei sheme meiyou guafen zhongguo“ 再论西方列强为什么沒有瓜分中国 [again about the reasons why the western powers did not partition china], zhongxue lishi jiaoxue cankao 4 (2015), 17. for the threat of a renewed us-managed partition, see, for example, dai xu 戴旭, “zhongguo mianlin di sanci bei guafen” 中国面临 第三次被瓜分 [china faces a third partition], kele 4 (2010), 5–6. [182] sotheby’s in hong kong, which managed the painting’s sale in 2013, attached a well-informed comment to it. it stresses the political symbolism of the melon and quotes zeng as identifying the figure of judas and claiming that this golden tie identified him as someone who had gone to the capitalist side. this interpretation glosses over the symbolical meaning of the melon pieces on the table and the direct association of the red colour with blood. the 2001 sketch of with the great hall of the people backdrop in illustration 20 on the website below. this text from the sotheby auction catalogue will be found at http://www.sothebys.com/zh/auctions/ecatalogue/2013/40th-anniversary-evening-sale-hk0488/lot.48.html, [accessed on 20. august 2017]. [183] see the article accompanying the sotheby auction referred to in the previous note. [184] further knowledgeable background information on this painter has been provided in zhang mengwei 張夢薇, “rujin ‘zui gui’ de zeng fanzhi,” 如今「最貴」 曾梵志 [zeng fanzhi now ‘most expensive’], wenhui bao (hong kong), november 14, 2013, http://paper.wenweipo.com [accessed on 23. july 2017]. [185] he qing 河清, “yifu ‘guafen zhongguo’ youhua bei gaojia paimai” 一幅“瓜分中国”油画被高价拍卖 [an oil painting about ‘cutting up china like a melon’ was sold for a high price], written october 5, 2013, http://www.szhgh.com/article/news/chujian/201310/33686.html, [accessed on 23. july 2017]. [186] allusions to the last supper are staple food among contemporary chinese painters. they range from zhang hong’s 張宏 1989 painting with jesus and all the disciples as mao zedong symbolizing maoism as a closed shop where the chairman only talks to himself and the figure representing judas being the only one with the little red book of mao quotations (https://botanwang.com, [accessed on 20. august 2017] and a set of small mao sculptures crowding around a mao in the center trying to get him to support their respective causes by whispering into his ear (http://attachment.gzdsw.com/forum/201201/08/001000gl5n5mk55tnn3j5j.jpg, [accessed on 24. august 2017]), to sometimes just silly images of kids having a dinner after passing the university entrance examinations. an array of such chinese and other references to the da vinci painting will be found at http://bbs.gzdsw.cn/thread-621993-1-1.html, [accessed on 20. august 2017]. [187] a similar argument was made by ja lan chong. he argued, “the key to china’s resilience against complete fragmentation between the end of the nineteenth century and the first two decades of the twentieth lay in the nature of external competition over and intervention into the polity. that the foreign governments most active in and around china generally saw it as an area of secondary import, and not worth a major armed conflict, gave the various outside powers a stake in seeking settlements among themselves. this brought simultaneous external financial, economic, and even military backing for central governments as well as various regional administrations, a dynamic that kept the chinese polity whole even as it deepened fractures across the country.” “breaking up is hard to do: foreign intervention and the limiting of fragmentation in the late qing and early republic, 1893–1922,” twentieth century china 35, no.1 (2009): 76. mbandeira_3.2018_galley.indd 40 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia: non-western influences on constitutional thinking in late imperial china, 1893–1911 egas moniz bandeira, ruprecht-karls-universität heidelberg and tohoku university1 to follow the way of the western nations means to go the way to certain ruin. but also to remain in the position in which the russians in russia, the persians in persia, the turks in turkey, and the chinese in china are is also impossible.2 leo tolstoy (1828–1910) constitutionalism is much in the air among oriental peoples, as is shown by the examples of turkey and persia not less than of china.3 introduction constitutionalism, in china, is more often than not described as a “good shipped from abroad” (bolaipin 舶來品).4 but does this model suffice to explain all aspects of the emergence of modern chinese constitutional thought? 1 the author would like to thank professor nikolay samoylov for his generous help with russian material, and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. 2 “итти по пути западныхъ народовъ значитъ итти на вѣрный путь погибели. но и оставаться въ томъ положеніи, въ которомъ находятся русскіе въ россіи, персы въ персіи, турки въ турціи и китайцы въ китаѣ, тоже невозможно,” in leo tolstoy, 1. pis’mo k” kitaĭt͡ su (okti͡ abr’ 1906 g.). 2. kitaĭskai͡ a mudrost’. mysli kitaĭskikh” mysliteleĭ 1. письмо къ китайцу (октябрь 1906 г.). 2. китайская мудрость. мысли китайскихъ мыслителей [1. letter to a chinese gentleman (october 1906). 2. chinese wisdom. thoughts of chinese thinkers] (moscow: posrednika, 1907), 11. the english translation follows leo tolstoy, “letter to a chinese gentleman,” in the russian revolution (christchurch: the free age press, 1907), 85. 3 “reaction at peking,” the north-china herald, no. 2142, august 29, 1908, 509–510. 4 e.g., qi sheng 齐盛, “jindai zhongguo xianfa de fazhan guiji” 近代中国宪法的发展轨迹 [the development track of constitutions in modern china], henan keji daxue xuebao (shehui kexue ban) 河南科技大学学报 (社会科学版) 29, no. 5 (2011): 93; zhai guoqiang 翟国强, “zhongguo yujing xia de ‘xianfa shishi’: yi xiang gainianshi de kaocha” 中国语境下的 41transcultural studies 2017.2 certainly, late qing constitutional thought was related to increased contacts with the west and japan. there is strong evidence that chinese intellectuals and officials industriously studied western and japanese constitutional models, and there is a considerable body of research on chinese receptions of these models.5 many—but not all—qing intellectuals declared that china had never previously had a constitution, that the origins of the concept lay in ancient greece and rome or in medieval england, and that the concept had to be “imported” to china.6 but do these accounts tell the full story? if one looks at the global history of constitutionalism, one finds that china’s transformation in the beginning of the twentieth century was not unique; it was part of a global phenomenon that was well noted at the time, but which has been scarcely studied in the secondary literature.7 the chinese constitutional transformation occurred “宪法实施”:一项概念史的考察 “constitutional implementation” in the chinese language: an examination in conceptual history), zhongguo faxue 中国法学 2 (2016): 109; ma xiaohong 马小红, “shilun ‘chuantong’ zhongguo xianzheng fazhan zhong de shiluo” 试论 ‘传统’ 中国宪政发展 中的失落 a tentative discussion of the disappointments in the development of “traditional” chinese constitutional government, faxuejia 法学家 4 (2008): 1. 5 see sōda saburō 曽田三郎, rikken kokka chûgoku e no shidô—meiji kensei to kindai chûgoku 立憲国家中国への始動―明治憲政と近代中国 the start of china as a constitutional state—meiji constitutional government and modern china) (kyoto: shibunkaku shuppan, 2009); yong lei, auf der suche nach dem modernen staat: die einflüsse der allgemeinen staatslehre johann caspar bluntschlis auf das staatsdenken liang qichaos (frankfurt am main: lang, 2010); alison a. kaufman, “one nation among many: foreign models in the constitutional thought of liang qichao” (phd diss, university of california, 2007). 6 see zhou kui 周逵, trans. and ed., xianfa jingli 憲法精理 essential principles of constitutions (shanghai: guangzhi shuju, 1902), xu 序, 1b; and the study primer zaoshi bianyishe 造時編譯 社, xianfa: kaoshi wenguan xin liqi 憲法: 考試文官新利器 constitution: a new and effective tool for examinations and civil servants (n.p.: 1911), xu 序, 2a. 7 meribeth cameron briefly mentions the phenomenon but does not delve into its details, see meribeth e. cameron, the reform movement in china: 1898-1912 (new york: octagon books, 1963), 101. there has been more research on global revolutionary movements taking place at the same time. for some chinese perspectives on russia, see gotelind müller, “china and the russian revolution of 1905,” in the russian revolution of 1905 in transcultural perspective: identities, peripheries, and the flow of ideas, ed. felicitas fischer von weikersthal et al. (bloomington: slavica, 2013), 279–289; and gotelind müller, “chinesische perspektiven auf den russisch-japanischen krieg,” in der russisch-japanische krieg 1904/05: anbruch einer neuen zeit?, ed. maik h. sprotte, wolfgang seifert, and heinz-dietrich löwe (wiesbaden: harrassowitz, 2007), 203–239. see also don c. price, russia and the roots of the chinese revolution, 1896–1911 (cambridge, ma.: harvard university press, 1974). some attention is devoted to liang qichao’s views of russia, although the russian aspect of liang’s worldview only plays a minor role in the vast sea of liang studies. for a ground-breaking study of this topic, see kaufman, “one nation among many,” 175–225. 42 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia in the context of a world-wide “constitutional fever.”8 four major eurasian empires that had thitherto lacked constitutional charters promulgated such documents at more or less the same time: russia in may 1906, persia in december 1906, the ottoman empire in july 1908, and china in august 1908. was this wave of political reforms coincidental? did these experiences interrelate, and if so, how? this paper tries to answer one aspect of this complex question by analysing how the qing government and chinese intellectuals viewed, and reacted to, the constitutional reforms taking place in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia. did these events, which took place at the same time as china’s “constitutional preparation,” have an impact on china? this paper will show that, during the whole period of “constitutional preparation,” the qing government, as well as intellectuals and the chinese media, looked not only to japan or western europe. they also remained well aware of the other large eurasian polities that were concomitantly transitioning to constitutionalism, i.e., russia, the ottoman empire, and persia. the experiences made by these countries did not fail to have a manifold impact on influence chinese perceptions of how to cope with china’s own transition. on the one hand, the worldwide trend towards codification fostered the feeling that a constitutional document was necessary for the purposes of internal and external legitimacy, and for building nationalism from above. on the other hand, the fact that the hastily introduced constitutions in these countries did not necessarily solve their underlying problems was also noticed. describing them as mere “sham constitutions” was one possible option, but they also reinforced chinese notions that the population at large was not yet ready to partake in political reforms and that thorough “preparation” was first necessary. eurasian preludes to the wave of constitutional movements at the beginning of the twentieth century “constitution” and “constitutionalism” are highly polysemic terms.9 in a broad sense, “constitution” means the set of norms that define the organisation of a polity; it is the plan that determines the form and content of state action.10 8 the term was used in 1908 by the japanese newspaper kokumin shinbun 國民新聞 to refer to egypt. “ejiputo no kenpônetsu” 埃及の憲法熱 [constitutional fever in egypt], kokumin shinbun 國民新聞, saturday, august 22, 1908, 3. 9 on the various meanings of “constitution” on a state level, see hermann heller, staatslehre, 6th ed. (tübingen: mohr siebeck, 1983), 281–315. 10 on this meaning of “constitution,” see ibid., 273. 43transcultural studies 2017.2 in this sense, every polity has a constitution, including imperial china prior to the late-qing quest for thorough political reforms. and rather than merely being a despotic “absolute cæsarism” as it was often (but not always) portrayed in both east and west, this pre-modern constitution was actually extremely complex, providing for a very intricate organisation of the chinese polity.11 as the plan for a state’s actions, constitutional law is usually accorded a higher level of validity than other forms of law, making all simple law theoretically subordinate to it. since the eighteenth century, such constitutional norms have been increasingly written down in formalised documents. furthermore, as constitutional texts mostly settled competing claims for power from various sectors of society, the notion came to imply certain material institutions: a “constitutional state” (verfassungsstaat) is a state that provides for some kind of separation of powers, popular representation, and fundamental rights.12 the far-reaching material connotations that the term “constitution” often acquired have led at times to the word itself being eschewed: across the world, many constitutions were not called “constitutions,” as such, but rather “constitutional charters,” “fundamental laws,” or the like. although there are earlier documents having constitutional value,13 the concept received a tremendous developmental impulse when the 11 refuting the notion of “absolute cæsarism,” see jan jakob maria de groot, het kongsiwezen van borneo: eene verhandeling over den grondlag en den aard der chineesche politieke vereenigingen in de koloniën, met eene chineesche geschiedenis van de kongsi lanfong (the hague: martinus nijhoff, 1885), 82. 12 on this narrower meaning, see heller, staatslehre, 305–315. 13 sets of written norms that touched upon constitutional matters have always existed across cultures, even if they do not fully match modern definitions of “constitution.” for imperial china, chinese and foreigners alike have, in different contexts and with varying argumentative intentions, attributed constitutional functions to a large number of documents, ranging from the spring and autumn annals (chunqiu 春秋) to the kangxi and yongzheng emperors’ sacred edict with amplified instructions (shengyu guangxun 聖諭廣訓). for a reference to the spring and autumn annals, see for instance gugong bowuyuan mingqing dang’anbu 故宮博 物院明清檔案部, ed., qingmo choubei lixian dang’an shiliao 清末籌備立憲檔案史料 archival material on constitutional preparation in the late qing, 2 vols. (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 1979), 108. for a reference to the sacred edict with amplified instructions, see “kenpô” 憲法 [constitution], asahi shinbun 朝日新, october 23, 1898, 3. the modern east asian term for constitution, “憲法” (xianfa/kenpô/hŏnbŏp), itself refers to a seventh-century japanese document called the seventeen-article constitution (jûshichijô kenpô 十七條憲法), which, however, only very vaguely resembles modern-day political constitutions. on the seventeen-article constitution, see ienaga saburô 家永三郎 et al., eds., shôtoku taishi shû 聖徳太子集 works of prince shôtoku (tokyo: iwanami shoten, 1975), 12–22 (text), 475–483 (commentary). 44 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia united states and france promulgated their respective constitutions. gradually, constitutions, with all their varied and multi-faceted uses, became one of the defining elements of nineteenth-century politics.14 their use did not stay confined to the states of western europe and north america, but spread globally. in nineteenth-century latin america alone, over one hundred constitutions were enacted,15 oceania’s first constitution was adopted in hawai’i in 1840, and africa’s first constitution was adopted in liberia in 1847. while constitutions occupy the perceived top spot of a legal system, they are much more than just legal instruments. constitutions are eminently political documents, and constitutionalism is by no means confined to the aforementioned meaning of “limiting the government.” in fact, constitutions often were adopted as reactionary documents designed to counter revolutionary tendencies. as prutsch and grotke have demonstrated, based on the example of various charters of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, constitutions were handy legitimising documents that came to serve a host of functions, including the legitimation of state power, nationalism, imperialism, and militarism, as well as, conversely, defence against imperialism.16 newly established states often enacted constitutions as the first symbols of their newly gained sovereignty, while for long-established polities, constitutions marked political ruptures or the result of political struggles. as benjamin akzin writes, “to have a formal constitution well-nigh became a universal fashion, a symbol of modernism.”17 akzin sees the process as basically having finished by the first world war, when, except for the united kingdom, only “countries still in their pre-modern stage, 14 in 1900, the japanese law professor ariga nagao (1860–1921), who was also very influential in china, published an article wherein he identified the following main features of the nineteenth century: 1. reactionarism; 2. constitutionalism; 3. nationalism; 4. expansionism. ariga nagao 有賀長雄, “dai jûkyû seiki gaikô tsûkan” 第十九世紀外交通觀 cent ans de la diplomatie européenne: one hundred years of european diplomacy, in gaikô jihô 外交時報 3, no. 24 (meiji 33 [1900]). chinese version in ariga nagao 有賀長雄, “shilun huilu: di shijiu shiji waijiao yilan” 時論彙錄: 第十九世紀外交一覽, in qing yi bao 清議報 (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 2006), 2527–2533; 2587–2590; 2649–2653. 15 roberto gargarella, “towards a typology of latin american constitutionalism, 1810–60,” latin american research review 39, no. 2 (june 2004), 141. 16 see kelly l. grotke and markus j. prutsch, eds., constitutionalism, legitimacy, and power: nineteenth-century experiences (oxford: oxford university press, 2014). 17 benjamin akzin, “the place of the constitution in the modern state,” israel law review 2, no. 1 (january 1967), 1. 45transcultural studies 2017.2 in respect both of their political and of their general social set-up, and without pretensions to modernity” did not have written constitutions.18 however, just a few years before the first world war, many eurasian states still had no constitution. it was only in the 1900s that four of the largest and most populous empires of eurasia—russia, the ottoman empire, persia, and china—really felt the necessity of adopting such a “symbol of modernism.” in each of these countries, the constitutional movements of these years had been preceded by years or even decades of debates. in russia, constitutional ideas became en vogue very soon after the french revolution caused a massive upheaval in wider european politics, in spite of russia’s having a very different historical and social background.19 tsar alexander i (1777–1825) initially favoured constitutionalism, and in his secondary capacity as king of poland, he granted a constitution to that state in 1815.20 at the opening of the polish sejm on march 15, 1818, alexander announced that he would grant a constitution to the russian empire as well, as soon as it could “reach the appropriate maturity” for it.21 the tsar thus followed a common strain 18 ibid. 19 see geoffrey a. hosking, the russian constitutional experiment, (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1973), 1–3. 20 in personal union to his capacity as tsar of russia, alexander i had become king of poland in 1815, when the congress of vienna reorganised the political landscape of europe after the napoleonic wars. on how the tsar was “captivated” by debates about a constitution and hence promoted legal reforms, see tatiana borisova, “russian national legal tradition: svod versus ulozhenie in nineteenth-century russia,” review of central and east european law 33 (2008): 302. borisova further asserts (p. 330) that alexander i forced the french king louis xviii to accept the “charter of liberties” in 1814 and sponsored the first constitutional charters of baden as well as of württemberg. this description might be slightly exaggerated. the tsar did indeed recognise the french charte constitutionelle of 1814 and the constitutions promulgated in southern germany, but this was probably more to promote political stability than any reformist impulse. see ulrike eich, russland und europa: studien zur russischen deutschlandpolitik in der zeit des wiener kongresses (cologne: böhlau, 1986), 419. for a collection of primary sources on the emerging constitutions of the various smaller german states, see michael hundt, ed., quellen zur kleinstaatlichen verfassungspolitik auf dem wiener kongress: die mindermächtigen deutschen staaten und die entstehung des deutschen bundes, 1813–1815 (hamburg: krämer, 1996). for a wider view of russian policies towards europe before and after the congress of vienna, see also franziska schedewie, die bühne europas: russische diplomatie und deutschlandpolitik in weimar, 1798–1819 (heidelberg: universitätsverlag, 2015). 21 “izvi͡ estīi͡ a vnutrennīi͡ a извѣстія внутреннія,” si͡ evernai͡ a pochta ili novai͡ a sanktpeterburgskai͡ a gazeta сѣверная почта или новая санктпетербургская газета, saturday, march 30, 1818 (julian calendar), 1. 46 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia of thought of the time, namely that constitutions had to develop organically from the political conditions and traditions of each country.22 however, not long after, he distanced himself from such ideas due to internal and external unrest, which he believed to be the result of too much liberalisation. immediately after alexander’s death, the decembrist revolt of 1825 against the new tsar, nicholas i, aimed at a thorough reform of the russian empire, and involved the promulgation of a monarchical or even republican constitution.23 the revolt was suppressed, but in reaction to the calls for a constitution, tsar nicholas i promulgated two large codifications of russian law in the 1830s: the “complete collection of the laws of the russian empire” and the “digest of the laws of the russian empire.” labelling the idea of a constitution as “foreign,” the authorities promoted the establishment of a complete “legality,” embodied in these codifications as the original and traditional russian path of development.24 this remained the legal basis of the russian polity until the first years of the twentieth century. as part of a discourse on modernisation, debates on constitutionalism also emerged in the ottoman empire and then, via the ottoman empire, in persia. beginning from sultan selim iii (r. 1789–1808), successive rulers of the ottoman empire had tried to introduce reforms aimed at introducing legal-rational norms and centralising the empire.25 sohrabi depicts these reforms in a fashion that could also be used to describe the chinese constitutional movement: “through selective borrowing from more successful rivals, the reformers aimed to strengthen the state internally and improve its world standing.”26 22 on the topos of “maturity” in russia, see borisova, “russian national legal tradition,” 330, and cynthia h. whittaker, the origins of modern russian education: an intellectual biography of count sergei uvarov, 1786–1855 (dekalb: northern illinois university press, 1984), 36–56. 23 on the northern and southern constitutions, see anatole g. mazour, the first russian revolution 1825: the decembrist movement: its origins, development and significance (stanford: stanford university press, 1963), 86–116. 24 borisova, “russian national legal tradition,” 321. 25 on the history of the ottoman empire “from reform to revolution,” see nader sohrabi, revolution and constitutionalism in the ottoman empire and iran (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2011), 34–71. 26 ibid., 34. 47transcultural studies 2017.2 on december 23, 1876, the ottoman empire promulgated a basic law and thus “joined the ranks of constitutional governments.”27 the new constitution came at a time of massive internal problems and tense relations with the other european powers. the empire had defaulted on its debts a year earlier, separatist uprisings were rocking the balkans, and there was an imminent threat of foreign intervention. however, the new constitution was more than just an insincere document intended to avert foreign threats. the fruit of a substantial movement agitating in favour of the constitution, it could also be seen as a culmination of the efforts towards internal reform over the course of several decades.28 in europe, the reaction to the 1876 ottoman constitution was hostile; it was mainly seen as a fraud or as parody of a constitution.29 in russia, the ottoman constitution was met with particularly harsh disapproval. tsar alexander ii himself was quoted as saying that the establishment of a constitutional parliamentary system for the whole of the turkish empire was an illusion that could never work in that country.30 with the adoption of a constitution in the ottoman empire, russia would become the last non-constitutional european power, a fact which might arouse further pro-constitutionalist agitation there. such a situation was unacceptable to the russian government and in itself could have constituted a casus belli, which explains russian official resistance to it.31 and indeed, the dangers to russia were evidenced when placards appeared in moscow demanding an equivalent of the ottoman constitution for russia, leading to several arrests.32 27 ibid., 42. 28 see robert devereux, the first ottoman constitutional period: a study of the midhat constitution and parliament (baltimore: johns hopkins press, 1963), 251. 29 on european reactions to the turkish constitution, see ibid., 87–91. however, although there were certainly a multitude of negative reactions to the ottoman constitution, the author of this paper suspects that european public opinion towards it was not as unanimously hostile as painted by devereux, for a cursory reading of primary sources of 1876 reveals some dissenting opinions and heated debates. see “die zukunft der osmanen,” neue freie presse. morgenblatt, no. 4438, january 3, 1877, 1–2. a thorough re-examination of foreign reactions to the 1876 ottoman constitution would be a desideratum for future research. 30 “619. l’ambasciatore a pietroburgo, nigra, al ministro degli esteri, melegari,” in i documenti diplomatici italiani, seconda serie: 1870/1896, volume vii (25 marzo / 31 dicembre 1876) (rome: libreria dello stato, 1984), 755–757. 31 karl blind, “the prorogued turkish parliament,” the north american review, 175, no. 548 (july 1902): 48–49. 32 “telegramme der ‘neuen freien presse.’ krakau, 2. januar,” neue freie presse. morgenblatt, no. 4438, january 3, 1877, 6. 48 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia the constitution also lacked the sympathy of the young sultan, abdülhamid ii (1842–1918, r. 1876–1909), and of the majority of those who held positions of power within the government. in the wake of a disastrous war against russia, the sultan prorogued the parliament indefinitely in february 1878, in effect revoking the constitution and returning to the ancien régime. fleeting as this first constitutional period was, it served as a point of reference for further constitutionalist thought in the ottoman empire, as well as for the young turk revolution of 1908.33 compared to the ottoman empire, persia had a much lower level of institutional development. still, the half-century before the constitutional revolution of 1906 saw vigorous debate on constitutionalism: sohrabi counts about seventy relevant books and pamphlets published prior to the revolution.34 just as their ottoman equivalents did, persian thinkers associated constitutionalism with a strong, legal-rational state. and in a context characterised by much less religious diversity than in the ottoman empire, they pursued the same strategy of legitimising constitutionalism by islamising it.35 this brand of constitutionalism argued that a constitution meant a “conditional government” that operated within religious laws.36 however, although the persian constitutionalists were initially quite successful in co-opting the country’s islamic clergy, the clergy’s support eventually waned when the actual constitution took shape in the mid-1900s.37 chinese perceptions of russian and turkish constitutionalism before the russo–japanese war when chinese intellectuals began seriously debating political reforms and the adoption of a constitution in their country, these conflicts in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia were still ongoing. although modern notions relating to constitutions and parliamentarism had been known in china much earlier due to contacts with the 33 on the years 1876–1878 in turkey, see devereux, the first ottoman constitutional period, in particular 21–33 and 251–256. 34 sohrabi, revolution and constitutionalism, 299. 35 ibid. 36 ibid., 316. 37 the clergy was neither united nor uniform, however, but showed a complex variety of stances towards constitutionalism; ibid., 313–322. 49transcultural studies 2017.2 west,38 it was in the 1880s and 1890s that calls for thorough political reforms began to be raised.39 these early reformers not only referred to the models of western europe, the usa, and japan (which had passed its own constitution in 1889), but were also aware of the global context in which constitutionalism was developing, and of the situations of russia and the ottoman empire, the two standard examples of “autocracy.” one of these early reformers was zheng guanying 鄭觀應 (1842–1922), a cantonese entrepreneur who had not passed any imperial examination.40 as an employee of a british trading company, he came across western conceptions of constitution and parliamentarism at an early age. in his book easy words (yiyan 易言),41 published in 1871, he painted the international scene of the time as a variation of the ancient chinese warring states period (475–221 bce). zheng identified russia, britain, the usa, prussia, france, austria, and japan as the modern equivalents of the ancient seven warring states. within these, zheng equated russia with the ancient qin, due to their territorial vastness and strong spirits.42 but for russia, the other six powers were constitutional states—and one of the main functions of constitutionalism in late qing china was strengthening china’s national competitiveness. thus, his assessment of russia’s strength notwithstanding, zheng devoted a section of his book to the bicameral parliamentary system found in the “western countries,” which, he argued, ensured concord between government and people, and the quality of political measures.43 38 on the first uses of the concept in china, see wang dezhi 王德志, xianfa gainian zai zhongguo de qiyuan 宪法概念在中国的起源 the origins of the concept of constitution in china (jinan: shandong renmin chubanshe, 2005). 39 on early political reformism in china, see lloyd e. eastman, “political reformism in china before the sino–japanese war,” journal of asian studies 27, no. 4 (august 1968): 695–710. 40 on zheng guanying, see johannes kehnen, cheng kuan-ying: unternehmer und reformer der späten ch’ing-zeit (wiesbaden: otto harrassowitz, 1975); guo wu, zheng guanying: merchant reformer of late qing china and his influence on economics, politics, and society (amherst: cambria press, 2010); ichiko chûzô 市古宙三, “tei kan’ei no ‘ekigen’ ni tsuite 鄭觀應の"易言"について about zheng guanying’s “yiyan”, in wada hakushi koki kinen tôyôshi ronsô 和田博士古稀記念東洋史論叢 (tokyo: kôdansha, 1961), 107–115. 41 the title is variously translated as “words on change,” “on change,” “easy words,” or “easy remarks.” the translation with “easy” or even “careless” is more appropriate, for zheng himself explains the title by citing various loci classici for the saying “talking is easier than doing.” see zheng guanying 鄭觀應, zheng guanying ji: shang ce 鄭觀應集: 上册 works of zheng guanying, vol. 1, ed. xia dongyuan 夏东元 (shanghai: renmin chubanshe, 1988), 63–64. 42 ibid., 66–67. 43 ibid., 103. 50 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia zheng went into further details in his later book, words of warning in prosperous times (shengshi weiyan 盛世危言), the first edition of which was published in 1894.44 he expanded his categorisation of european countries according to their political importance. russia still belonged to the first tier, together with britain, france, germany, and austria-hungary; the ottoman empire belonged to the second tier, on a level with spain and the netherlands.45 not unlike china, both the ottoman empire and persia were victims of foreign aggression, in particular from russia. zheng wrote much about the ottoman empire, which he deemed to be in particularly bad shape, plagued by problems very similar to those of china. both countries, zheng argued, suffered from widespread corruption and drug addiction, namely coffee in the ottoman and opium in the chinese case.46 the year 1895 changed zheng’s stance towards russia somewhat. in that year, china first ceded the liaodong peninsula to japan, but promptly reobtained it due to an intervention by russia, germany, and france. in the revised edition of the words of warning in prosperous times, zheng recounted that the tsar of russia had suggested to a chinese envoy that china pursue reforms in order to resist foreign pressure.47 zheng took this admonition as a sign of how bad china’s situation really was. although he did not believe that the russian stance was entirely altruistic, he endorsed the tsar’s suggestion. china might otherwise end up like the ottoman empire in the first constitutional era of 1876–1878. according to zheng’s description, russia had asked five european countries (the united kingdom, germany, france, austria, and italy) to push the ottoman empire to pursue political reforms. but the ottoman empire “did not listen.” the ottoman reaction “infuriated” the foreign powers, and russia declared war on the ottoman empire.48 44 the book was a revised and enlarged edition of the former yiyan, and much of the thoughts expressed in it must be dated to the 1880s. after the first edition was published in 1894, a second version, substantially enlarged by zheng himself, was published in 1895. later, a third, revised edition was published in 1900. various other unofficial editions were published at the time. on the complicated editorial history of the book see ibid., 1–5, and kehnen, cheng kuan-ying, 8–12. 45 zheng guanying, zheng guanying ji, 822 (only contained in the 1895 edition). 46 ibid., 363 (on corruption); 403–404 (on addictions). in the 1895 edition, zheng still considered china’s political problems to be less severe than turkey’s; by 1900, he had changed his verdict, declaring that the country was in a worse situation than turkey. 47 ibid., 796–797. 48 zheng refers to the “andrássy note” issued by the foreign minister of austria-hungary, count gyula andrássy (1823–1890), on december 30, 1875, and backed by russia, england, germany, france, and italy. see devereux, the first ottoman constitutional period, 26–27; 88–91. 51transcultural studies 2017.2 although the tsar’s suggestion had certainly not called for the establishment of a constitution, this was, for zheng, a key part of “self-strengthening.” the reason for the ineffectiveness of china’s administration lay in it not practising a system of constitutional monarchy. except for russia and the ottoman empire, zheng argued, there were no civilised countries in the world without a constitutional system. constitutions were ineluctable even for the few countries that still had autocratic systems of government. russia itself had long ago considered a constitution, but had just not adopted it yet.49 this view of china being, together with russia and the ottoman empire, the only remnant of autocracy was not peculiar to zheng. neither was it a view exclusive to china: it conformed to both european and east asian textbooks of political science of the time, which, when explaining the different types of polities, liked to use russia and china as examples for absolute monarchies.50 such mentions of russia and the ottoman empire, often containing further information or commentary, appeared in many books and articles explaining constitutionalism to chinese readers at the turn of the century. in 1898, the growth in reformist sentiment led to a first attempt at political reforms, which were aborted after little more than 100 days. although none of the edicts issued by the guangxu emperor mentioned the word “constitution,” the term was in fact already being used by some of the advisors who were proposing reforms to the emperor.51 one of their most important figures, kang youwei 康有爲 (1858–1927), suggested 49 zheng guanying, zheng guanying ji, 338–339. 50 see for example carl gareis and paul hinschius, eds., allgemeines staatsrecht/allgemeine darstellung der verhältnisse von staat und kirche (freiburg: mohr, 1887), 39. gareis classifies russia, the ottoman empire, persia, japan, and china as “autarchies” (absolute monarchies). based on gareis in japan: ichiki kitokurô 一木喜德郎, kokuhôgaku 國法學 (n.p., n.d. [ca. 1899]), 39–40. ichiki only takes russia and china as examples, given that japan had established a constitution in the meantime. it is to be noted, however, that these were schematic categorisations in textbooks of political science and public law. in other contexts, however, there were also much more nuanced descriptions of china’s political system. see egas moniz bandeira, “political reforms in a global context: some foreign perspectives on constitutional thought in late imperial china,” contemporary chinese political economy and strategic relations: an international journal 3, no. 1 (april/may 2017), 139–185. 51 the 1898 reforms are still a highly contentious topic in historiography, including the question of the role of the notion of constitutionalism. see for example wong young-tsu, “kang youwei and the reform movement of 1898,” journal of asian studies 51, no. 3 (august 1992), and, from a japanese perspective, urs matthias zachmann, china and japan in the late meiji period: china policy and the japanese discourse on national identity, 1895–1904 (abingdon: routledge, 2009), 89–127, each with further references. 52 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia two models for china: the reforms effected in russia by peter the great (1672–1725) and the japanese meiji reforms, which had culminated in the constitution of 1889. after the crackdown on the 1898 reforms, both kang youwei and his student liang qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929) fled the country. liang, a prolific writer, later came to play a crucial role in the formation of the modern chinese concept of constitution. liang was deeply interested in russian affairs, although his perception of russia changed over the years.52 in various writings, he himself made use of the classification of russia, the ottoman empire, and china as typical examples of autocracies. in his early introduction to the constitutions of the world, he stressed that japan was the only asian state to have a constitution, while all european states had one, except for russia and the ottoman empire. and even the ottoman empire had once adopted a constitution, though it was quickly repealed.53 later, in his 1902 essay on the evolutionary history of the autocratic politics of china (zhongguo zhuanzhi zhengzhi jinhua shi lun 中國專制政治進化史論), liang combined this view with his understanding of evolutionary theory, meaning a movement of progress towards a certain goal.54 to this effect, liang expressly cited ichiki kitokurô’s 一木喜德郎 (1867–1944) categorisation of “monocracies” versus “pleonocracies,” itself a distinction borrowed from the german legal scholar carl gareis (1844–1923), who had taken both china and russia as examples of “autarchies.”55 as liang explained in another essay of the same year, such an autocratic mode of government did not have a single advantage, not even for the ruler. in the foremost 52 müller, “china and the russian revolution of 1905,” 287. on liang’s views of russia, see also kaufman, “one nation among many,” 175–180, 192–225. 53 liang qichao 梁啟超, “geguo xianfa yitong lun” 各國憲法異同論, in qing yi bao 清議報, 741; reprinted in book form as chuyang xuesheng; bianji suo 出洋學生編輯所 [liang qichao 梁啟超], geguo xianfa lüe 各國憲法畧 (shanghai: shangwu yinshuguan, guangxu 28 [1902]), 1. see also zhongguo zhi xinmin 中國之新民 [liang qichao 梁啟超], “lun zhuanzhi zhengti you bai hai yu junzhu er wu yi li” 論專制政體有百害於君主而無一利 on autocratic governments having a hundred disadvantages and not a single advantage, sein min choong bou (xinmin congbao) 新民叢報, no. 21 (1902): 31. 54 zhongguo zhi xinmin 中國之新民 [liang qichao 梁啟超], “zhongguo zhuanzhi zhengzhi jinhua shi lun” 政治: 中國專制政治進化史論 a history of the evolution of autocratic politics in china), in sein min choong bou (xinmin congbao) 新民叢報, no. 8 (1902): 19. 55 ibid., 22. for ichiki’s original, see ichiki kitokurô, kokuhôgaku, 39–40; for the german source, see gareis and hinschius, allgemeines staatsrecht, 39. for a brief discussion of the various chinese positions on constitutionalism and evolutionary theory, see james reeve pusey, china and charles darwin (cambridge, ma: council on east asian studies, harvard university, 1983), 337–338. 53transcultural studies 2017.2 autocratic country, russia, the tsar could not sleep easily due to the constant threat of assassination.56 it was only later that liang changed his mind to defend an “enlightened autocracy” (kaiming zhuanzhi 開明專制). the magazine edited by liang in tokyo, the sein min choong bou 新民叢報, like other chinese-language papers of the time, carried many articles taken from other media, domestic as well as foreign. one of them, published in 1903, was an article from the american review of reviews by nahum isaac stone (1873–1966) about the political conditions of russia, translated under the title “can russia be a constitutional country?”57 in the article, stone, a native of odessa, expresses the view that the constitutional movement had grown so strong that it had become impossible for the russian government to suppress it; the days of autocratic government were numbered. the translator added a comment that the chinese people also longed for freedom, and that the russian situation served as a warning. at that time, a certain zhou kui 周逵 from hunan was even more vociferous in his evaluation of the ottoman empire and russia. zhou was a chinese student at waseda university in tokyo and associate of wang rongbao 汪榮寶 (1878–1933), who would later become one of the men entrusted with drafting the qing constitution.58 in 1902–03, he published two books in shanghai, one entitled essential principles of constitutions (xianfa jingli 憲法精理) and the other one, account of the constitutions of the world (wanguo xianfa zhi 萬國憲法志). although often overlooked by later generations, zhou’s books were rather influential in shaping chinese constitutional discourse at the turn of the century. 56 zhongguo zhi xinmin, “zhongguo zhuanzhi zhengzhi jinhua shi lun,” 31. 57 nahum isaac stone [yenu ai situn 耶努埃斯頓], “eguo sui ke wei lixianguo hu: meiguo pinglun zhi pinglun” 俄國遂可爲立憲國乎: 美國評論之評論 can russia be a constitutional country? american review of reviews), in sein min choong bou (xinmin congbao) 新民叢報 30 (1903): 78–80; original in: nahum isaac stone, “political conditions in russia,” american review of reviews 27, no. 4 (april 1903): 441–444. it may be noted that although the chinese version only names the american review of reviews (meiguo pinglun zhi pinglun 美國評論之評論) as a source text, the rendering of the author’s name (n. i. stone) in chinese (yenu-ai-situn 耶努埃斯頓) raises the question of whether the article was not rather indirectly translated through a still unidentified japanese medium, a hypothesis supported by the fact that the magazine was printed in yokohama. a japanese version would probably have transcribed the initials n. i. as *enu ai *エヌ・アイ, resulting in the chinese rendering yenu ai 耶努埃. this chinese transcription would seem slightly odd if converted directly from english. 58 on the “association on studies of the state” guoxueshe 國學社 founded in 1903, see zhao linfeng 趙林鳳, wang rongbao: zhongguo jindai xianfa di yi ren 汪榮寶: 中國近代憲 法第一人 (taipei: xinrui wenchuang, 2014), 86–87. 54 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia the essential principles, a translation of japanese sources, showed a keen awareness that theories of constitutionalism were not united in europe.59 the book carried a large and extensive list of all countries in the world that had constitutions, along with their dates of promulgation, including not only the famous ones, but also those of countries such as haiti, uruguay, and liechtenstein, besides mentioning special cases such as canada and hawai’i.60 as usual, japan is mentioned as the asian example of a constitutional state, while russia and the ottoman empire are used as counter-examples. but zhou went further: while zheng guanying 鄭觀應 had still described russia and the ottoman empire as civilised exceptions to constitutionalism, zhou dismissed both as uncivilised. thus, the essential principles expressly linked constitutionalism to “civilisation,” the blurb on the back cover adamantly stating that “except for barbarian autocratic countries,” there was not a single country on earth that was not constitutional.61 a very clear assessment of the situations of the ottoman empire and russia was given in the preface to his second book, the account of the constitutions of the world: if i look around at all the countries in the world, the countries which use autocracy to exert their uncivilised barbarian ancien régime are so scarce they can be counted on the fingers of one hand, like turkey and russia. they are rare like stars in the morning sky. what could one still say about turkey? or take russia: although at the surface it seems to be looking proudly at the world, i heard the comments of specialists in surveying countries, and its internal situation is precarious like a pile of eggs. it is, again, clear that it will not be able to conserve its autocratic form of government.62 thus, for zhou, autocracy in china, russia, and the ottoman empire alike was untenable, and was doomed to extinction: if the peoples of china, russia and turkey do not perish, it is ineluctable that they, too, will be governed by constitutions.63 59 zhou kui, xianfa jingli, shang 上, 2a. 60 ibid., shang 上, 2b–4b. 61 ibid. 62 zhou kui 周逵, wanguo xianfa zhi 萬國憲法志 account of the constitutions of the world (shanghai: guangzhi shuju, 1902), 1a. all translations are mine, if not otherwise stated. 63 zhou kui, xianfa jingli, zixu 自序, 1b. 55transcultural studies 2017.2 1904–1906: russia introduces a constitution; china considers constitutionalism the russo–japanese war, which began in february 1904, is often described as the turning point that propelled constitutionalism to the top of the political agenda. it is portrayed as having pushed the public in favour of a constitution and made the chinese government accept it as a goal, for japan’s victory was attributed to its constitutionalism.64 however, the outcome of the war was less of a surprise than is often depicted, at least among those who had read zhou kui. it rather seemed like a confirmation of what chinese intellectuals had been saying for quite a few years: that autocracy was inferior to constitutionalism, and autocratic countries would have to adopt constitutionalism sooner or later. although russia suffered defeats against japan in several early battles, at the beginning of the conflict, there was some apprehension about the possibility of japan losing the war, thus tarnishing the very idea of constitutional government. thus, in march–april, the zhongwai ribao 中外日報 published an article, later republished in the eastern miscellany (dongfang zazhi 東方雜誌) of april 10, 1904 (guangxu 30/02/25), on russia’s influence on china. the article stated that both japan and russia were threats to china, but russia was much more so, and if russia managed to win the war, it would be a blow to the chinese reform movement. the chinese government would think that the reason for china’s weakness lay not in china’s lack of constitutional government, but in the imperfection of china’s own authority. according to the article, the chinese people would thus fall into even more awe before the whites, thinking that they were superior by nature. just about everything would fall into a state of hopelessness.65 these fears were not realised. by the beginning of 1905, the situation of russia was so bleak that it chose to negotiate for peace. in the wake of the very unpopular war with japan, several internal problems within russia exploded in severe unrest, which came to be known as the russian revolution of 1905. russia signed a peace treaty with japan on september 5, 1905, having been able to negotiate surprisingly positive conditions. 64 see, among many, pan wei-tung, the chinese constitution: a study of forty years of constitution-making in china (westport, ct: hyperion press, 1983), 4; cameron, the reform movement in china, 101. 65 “lun zhongguo suo shou eguo zhi yingxiang: lu eryue zhongwai ribao” 論中國所受俄國之 影響: 錄二月中外日報 on the russian influence received by china: reprinted from the february zhongwai ribao) dongfang zazhi 東方雜志 1, no. 2 (guangxu 30/02/25 [april 10, 1904]): 37. 56 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia the war had been won by japan, a country much smaller in area, population, and number of soldiers. in accordance with the writings of constitutionalists like zhou kui and others, its victory was explained by the fact that russia was an absolute monarchy while japan had already evolved to a constitutional monarchy. chinese writings brimmed with assertions like: this was not a war between japan and russia, but a war between the two systems of constitutionalism and autocracy.66 but chinese published opinion did not merely dwell on the news that russia had lost the war, but also took the internal developments of that country into account, namely the unrest that was occurring there: when the literati hear this, they too say: this is not a war between japan and russia, but a war between the two arts of governance, constitutionalism, and autocracy. since army and navy clashed, japan has not lost once, and russia has not won once. until now, not only the russian people are standing up in droves and fighting for constitutionalism, but also the literati in our country have realised this matter’s urgency. thus, more and more people contend for the idea of constitutionalism, with far-reaching plans and timely announcements. beginning with the diplomats stationed abroad, to the officials in the border regions, up to, currently, some from within the circles of high officials and princes at the court: they, too, are gradually adopting this standpoint.67 and indeed, tsar nicholas ii was still under heavy pressure due to social and political unrest. in october 1905, he agreed to concessions by issuing the so-called october manifesto. the manifesto provided for some basic civil liberties, as well as for the creation of an advisory and legislative body elected by universal male suffrage, the state duma. after a few months, on may 6, 1906 (julian calendar, april 23), the tsar promulgated a formal constitutional charter, the fundamental laws of the russian empire. 66 see for example “lixian jiwen (dongfang zazhi linshi zengkan xianzheng chugang)” 立憲紀聞 (東方雜志臨時增刊憲政初綱) records of constitutionalism: special edition of the eastern miscellany: a first outline of constitutional government, in xinhai geming 辛亥革命 4, ed. zhongguo shixuehui 中國史學會 (shanghai: shanghai renmin chubanshe, n.d.), 12. among many others, see “lun lixian wei wanshi genben” 論立憲爲萬事根本 on constitutionalism being the basis for everything, in dongfang zazhi 東方雜志 2, no. 10 (guangxu 31/10/25 [november 21, 1905]): 171. 67 [yan fu 嚴復], “lun guojia yu wei lixian yiqian you keyi xing biyi xing zhi yaozheng” 論國家於未立憲以前有可以行必宜行之要政 on the state having optional and mandatory fundamental policies to carry out before adopting constitutionalism, in dongfang zazhi 東方雜志 2, no. 12 (guangxu 31/12/25 [january 19, 1906]): 203. 57transcultural studies 2017.2 this drive for constitutionalism itself was also well perceived within the chinese print media. the eastern miscellany reported: the russian people have united across the whole country and handed in petitions to the sovereign, and they have striked in droves. […] now, tsar nicholas ii has acceded to the demands of his people to convene a parliament and hold elections for members of parliament. from now on, the russian people, who have lived under autocratic rule, have all obtained the right to enjoy constitutionalism. however, our country’s people are still keeping silent, waiting for the government to establish a constitution.68 but the idea of constitutionalism was also gaining prominence in government circles. on november 18, 1905, the court gave instructions to prepare an outline of constitutional government (lixian dagang 立憲大綱).69 and in december, two groups of high-ranking officials departed for a tour of japan, europe, and the united states with the aim of studying foreign political systems, an undertaking modelled on the japanese iwakura mission of 1871.70 one of the groups, led by duanfang 端方 (1861–1911) and dai hongci 戴鴻慈 (1853–1910), visited russia, although neither the ottoman empire nor persia were objects of study. the study group placed an emphasis on japan, the united kingdom, germany, the united states, and france, staying in these places for a comparatively long period. secondary literature on the study tour has also 68 juemin 覺民, “lun lixian yu jiaoyu zhi guanxi” 論立憲與教育之關繫 on the relationship between constitutionalism and education), in dongfang zazhi 東方雜志 2, no. 12 (guangxu 31/12/25 [1906]), 244–245. 69 zhu shouming 朱壽朋 and zhang yuming 張毓明, eds., donghua xulu 東華續錄 (shanghai: shanghai guji chubanshe, 2002), chapter guangxu 197, 6. 70 the commission had been sent by imperial edict on july 16, 1905, but the departure had been delayed by a bomb attack at the commission. for the edict, see ibid., 1. for an english translation, see norbert meienberger, the emergence of constitutional government in china (1905–1908): the concept sanctioned by the empress dowager tzʻu-hsi (bern: lang, 1980), 24. see also the supplementary edict of july 27, 1905, wang guangyue 王光越, su wenying 苏文英, and li baowen 李保文, eds., daqing lichao shilu: daqing dezong jing huangdi shilu 大清歷朝實錄大清德宗景皇帝實錄 (beijing: beijing shutongwen shuzihua jishu youxian gongsi, 2010), chapter 546, 22. for more information on the study trip as such see e-tu z. sun, “the chinese constitutional missions of 1905–1906,” the journal of modern history 24, no. 3 (september 1952), 251-268; meienberger, the emergence of constitutional government in china (1905–1908), and amy e. gadsden, building the rule of law in early twentieth century china (1905–1926) (phd diss., university of pennsylvania, 2005), 16–46. 58 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia focused on these places.71 yet one should not neglect the instructiveness of the stay in russia for the group, as it was the only country toured that had not previously had an established constitutional government, but was just in the process of establishing one. commissioner duanfang himself stressed that china should pay extraordinary attention to russia at that moment, as it was organising constitutional politics.72 indeed, although the russian october manifesto did initially succeed in quelling popular unrest, the successes were only temporary. after a few months, strikes and violence reoccurred, and the russian government returned to martial law, suppressing the newly granted civil rights and executing large numbers of people. in march and april 1906, parliamentary elections were won by moderate socialists and liberals who demanded more reforms, and the session of this first parliament ran from may 10, 1906 to july 22, 1906 (gregorian calendar). against the backdrop of these political developments in russia, the chinese minister to st. petersburg, hu weide, had sent a letter asking the group to come earlier. the group as a whole could not rearrange its schedule, although some assistants were sent to russia to do preparatory work.73 the group arrived in st. petersburg on may 19, 1906 from budapest and stayed eight days in russia, before departing to the hague. in principle, the commissioners shared the sentiments of the public, i.e., that russia’s autocracy had caused the country’s weakness and that it would also follow the path of constitutionalism. as duanfang wrote in his report: in the wideness of its territory and the largeness of its population, russia is among the top nations of the world. but alas, if you talk about a strong army, then the military competitiveness 71 for a brief account of the visit within the context of sino–russian relations, see nikolaĭ a. samoĭlov николай а. самойлов, rossii͡ a i kitaĭ v xvii—nachale xx veka: tendent͡ sii, formy i stadii sot͡ siokulʹturnogo vzaimodeĭstvii͡ a россия и китай в хvii—начале хх века: тенденции, формы и стадии социокультурного взаимодействия (st. petersburg: izdatelnyĭ dom sankt-peterburgskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 2014), 112. for another, somewhat biased account, see gao fang 高放, qingmo lixian shi 清末立宪史 (beijing: huawen chubanshe, 2012), 104. 72 duanfang 端方, duan zhongmin gong zougao 端忠敏公奏稿, 3 vols. (taipei: wenhai chubanshe, 1967), 679. 73 ibid., 677–678; cai erkang 蔡爾康, dai hongci 戴鴻慈 and zaize 載澤, li hongzhang lipin oumei ji; chushi jiu guo riji; kaocha zhengzhi riji 李鸿章历聘欧美记; 出使九国日记; 考察政治日记, eds. zhang xuanhao 张玄浩 et al. (changsha: yuelu shushe, 1985), 488. 59transcultural studies 2017.2 was not sufficient to stand against one newly emerged japan. […] this has no other reason but that autocratic regimes cause a double danger for their rulers and countries. among all strong countries of east and west, only russia has been an autocratic regime, but this has only been like that in the past. for in russia now, due to the lost war, its military and people are deducing the causes of the defeat and jointly searching for the path to revitalisation. as time is pressing, they are planning to convert to a constitutional regime, and among all countries, there will be no longer any remnant of autocratic regimes.74 however, this was not the only impression duanfang, dai hongci, and their entourage got during their stay in russia. the unrest that russia was suffering also made an impression on them. on may 24, the group had an audience with sergei witte (1849–1915), the russian statesman who had been the mastermind behind the october manifesto and the russian constitution that had just been promulgated a few weeks earlier. after the adoption of the constitution, and before the chinese commission’s visit, witte had been ousted from his post as prime minister, to be replaced by the conservative ivan goremykin (1839–1917). duanfang records his encounter with witte as follows: according to [former prime minister witte], although this country has been preparing for constitutionalism for over a hundred years, the people are still not fully equipped with knowledge, and it is very hard to change this at once. probably, with the present declaration, the current government cannot but succumb to public opinion, but it will definitely not be able to satisfy its wishes. he [witte] is deeply worried that unrest would be difficult to disperse. this is the real state of russia’s current preparation for constitutionalism.75 although witte left detailed records about his dealings with li hongzhang 李鴻章 (1823–1901), his memoirs and personal notes do not contain any record of his encounter with the constitutional commissioners.76 74 duanfang, duan zhongmin gong zougao, 694–695. 75 ibid., 679. 76 see sergei witte сергей юлевич витте, iz arkhiva s. i͡u. vitte: vospominanii͡ a. tom 1: rasskazy v stenograficheskoĭ zapisi, kniga 1 из архива с.ю. витте: воспоминания. tом 1: рассказы в стенографической записи, книга 1 [from the archive of s. y. witte: memoirs. vol. 1: stories in stenographic record, book 1] (st. petersburg: dmitriĭ bulanin, 2003); serge witte сергей юлевич витте, iz arkhiva s. i͡u. vitte: vospominanii͡ a. 60 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia it cannot be fully ascertained to what extent duanfang’s (and his colleague dai hongci’s) accounts of the encounter accurately reflected what was debated at the meeting. within russia’s ruling circles, witte had been one of the main driving forces behind political reform, but having been recently forced to resign, he was not satisfied with recent developments in his country. conversely, duanfang’s words about the “preparation for constitutionalism” closely match tropes that were current in china by that time, but at the same time also corresponded to russian and western notions that a country’s constitution had to emerge organically from that country’s traditions. duanfang’s and dai’s sojourn did influence their thoughts about the introduction of constitutionalism in china. gao fang claims that the constitutional commissioners learned from russia that one should increase the oppressive capability of the armed forces while using constitutionalism as a tool for deceiving the people.77 this interpretation is drawn from duanfang’s remarks that, in spite of russia’s defeats and troubles, and the fact that it was still militarily exhausted, it was putting great efforts into the recovery of its military forces. china should not underestimate this in its own considerations, duanfang concluded.78 gao’s conclusion is not impossible, but is rather boldly extrapolated from duanfang’s words. the version of constitutionalism that the court was envisioning primarily aimed at using the modern technique of a written constitution to make china “strong and prosperous.”79 it was clear that one of china’s overarching goals was strengthening the military, particularly considering china’s weakness on the international scene. it was quite natural that duanfang would also pay attention to military matters, and note what china had to learn from russia in this field. tom 1: rasskazy v stenograficheskoĭ zapisi, kniga 2 из архива с.ю. витте: воспоминания. tом 1: рассказы в стенографической записи, книга 2 [from the archive of s. y. witte: memoirs. vol. 1: stories in stenographic record, book 2] (st. petersburg: dmitriĭ bulanin, 2003); sergei witte сергей юлевич витте, iz arkhiva s. i͡u. vitte: vospominanii͡ a. tom 2: rukopisnye zametki из архива с.ю. витте: воспоминания tом 2: рукописные заметки [from the archive of s. y. witte: memoirs. vol. 2: handwritten notes] (st. petersburg: dmitriĭ bulanin, 2003). records of witte’s encounter with the constitutional commissioners have not yet been found in the russian archives (personal communication with professor nikolay samoylov, january 30, 2016). 77 gao fang, qingmo lixian shi, 508. 78 duanfang, duan zhongmin gong zougao, 680. 79 see meienberger, the emergence of constitutional government in china, 88–89. 61transcultural studies 2017.2 however, duanfang described in a neutral tone—and not inaccurately— how internal and external troubles had led the russian government to adopt a constitution, and how the stabilisation of the government’s power had led to its not meeting the requirements of the people and the parliament. but even if the october manifesto and the 1906 constitution were a coup de théâtre to deceive the people, duanfang does not paint this policy as being successful. his account of the strikes, and of the tensions between the government and the parliament, as well as of witte’s pessimism, is written in an objective tone. due to the rather unsatisfactory state of things he described, it is probable that he had doubts about the utility of russia’s approach to constitutionalism.80 in another memorandum summing up his thoughts on constitutionalism, already cited above, duanfang stresses that russia was the only country that was still introducing constitutionalism and had not yet left autocracy; he describes how autocracy not only caused the russian tsar’s personal danger, but also the country’s weakness, vociferously endorsing a transition from personal rule to rule by law.81 thus, the lesson that duanfang and dai hongci learned from their stay in russia was probably a different one. it is to be found not in duanfang’s, but in dai’s travel diary. in his account of the meeting with witte, dai said that the russian delegation had told the chinese delegation to be very cautious. china should first set the laws of the country, then the ruling classes and the people should respect them, and only then could china think of constitutionalism. witte estimated that a period of fifty years would be necessary for the task, which could not be abbreviated: if the government pressed forward without a foundation, it could stumble; if, however, it did not meet the demands of the people, there could be violence.82 even though dai hongci was of the opinion that china could not postpone the matter for fifty years, he agreed that a constitutional system could not easily be introduced in china, even less so than in russia. in spite of a highly educated elite, dai remarked, the russian masses were illiterate and even poorer than in china. yet russia shared a border with the european powers, its politics had much in common with them, and its “qualification for constitutionalism” was higher 80 duanfang, duan zhongmin gong zougao, 679. 81 ibid., 694–696. 82 cai erkang 蔡爾康, dai hongci 戴鴻慈, and zaize 載澤, li hongzhang lipin oumei ji; chushi jiu guo riji; kaocha zhengzhi riji, 485. 62 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia than china’s.83 dai concluded that, in order to ensure the adoption of a constitution in china, “preparation” was needed, and one pressing matter would be to improve education in general and legal training in particular, sending batches of students abroad.84 as dai stressed, “if you establish a constitution with empty words, wherein the citizens do not have general knowledge nor legal thinking, then there is no one to deliberate on the laws nor to observe them. the evils of such an approach are about the same as not having a constitution at all.”85 the exploits of the study commission resulted in the qing government’s announcement, on september 1, 1906, that it would henceforth “prepare for constitutionalism.” after “several years” of preparation, a date for the implementation of a constitution would be decided.86 sectors of the public were already accusing the government of playing for time and not being willing to introduce real constitutionalism.87 however, it was not only chinese government circles which perceived russia’s problems arising from its having too rapidly promulgated a constitution. foreign observers were often rather sceptical about the prospects of china’s constitutional enterprise, not unlike japanese constitutionalists, who had once been advised to proceed cautiously when adopting their constitution.88 itô hirobumi 伊藤博文 (1841–1909), the main figure behind the meiji constitution, in principle supported constitutional reforms in china, but held that this was a matter of generations rather than of years. 83 ibid., 487. 84 ibid., 485–486. 85 ibid. 86 gugong bowuyuan mingqing dang’anbu 故宮博物院明清檔案部, qingmo choubei lixian dang’an shiliao, 43–44; a translation of the edict is to be found at united states department of state, ed., papers relating to the foreign relations of the united states with the annual message of the president transmitted to congress december 3, 1906, 2 vols. (washington, dc: government printing office, 1909); part one, 349–350. 87 see the 1907 pamphlet zhang bingling 章炳麟, “tiantao: minbao linshi zengkan” 天討: 民報臨時增刋 heavenly demands: minpao special edition, in xinhai geming 辛亥革命, vol. 2, ed. zhongguo shixuehui 中國史學會 (shanghai: shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1957): “it is [constitutionalism] only by name, not by substance” (368); “thus, preparing for constitutionalism is just a substitute word for preparing to discriminate against the han” (372–373). it should be noted that outside of china, this view coexisted with much more benign views of the chinese government, as well as with all kinds of intermediate positions. see moniz bandeira, “political reforms in a global context.” 88 on herbert spencer and japan, see for example zachmann, china and japan in the late meiji period, 107–108, with further references. 63transcultural studies 2017.2 throughout the last years of his life, he was very pessimistic about the constitutional reforms being carried out in china, unsuccessfully trying to become an advisor to the chinese government and accurately predicting the fall of the qing “within three years” from 1909.89 law professor nakamura shingo 中村進午 (1870–1939) pointed at the end of 1906 to the failures of constitutionalism in hawai’i, transvaal, russia, and persia, warning the chinese against overenthusiasm about the adoption of a constitution being the key to national success.90 this scepticism was not just confined to foreign observers. the difficulties of the new constitutional mode of government were even perceived in the otherwise reform-oriented, pro-constitutionalist press of china. in march 1906 (guangxu 32/3), the eastern miscellany outlined the nature of russia’s difficulties. russia was not introducing constitutionalism carefully and therefore could not hope to experience its benefits. instead, the paper argued, “constitutionalism needed preparation first,” anticipating the government’s stance: the russian popular revolt has been going on for several years running. but what is the origin of this narrative? where does it actually emanate from? we think that there is probably one big cause for it. what is this cause? it is to be felt in the mark left by the outcome of the sino–japanese war. […] this [the revolt] is definitely due to an external stimulus and does not come from the accumulation of the people’s force. it certainly evokes the empty word of constitutional government, but does not grasp the spirit of constitutional government. its goals are purely objective and not subjective. to hope for constitutionalism from such a standpoint, isn’t this a large mistake already in its fundaments?91 89 see moniz bandeira, “political reforms in a global context,” 163–173, with further references. 90 nakamura shingo 中村進午, “shinkoku rikken no zento wo ayabumu” 清國立憲の前途 を危ぶむ uncertainty about the prospects of constitutionalism in china, gaikô jihô 外交時報 9, no. 12 (meiji 39 [1906]), 255–256. 91 shunxiu 舜修 [pseudonym], “lun lixian dang you yubei” 論立憲當有預備 the adoption of constitutionalism must be prepared, in: dongfang zazhi 東方雜誌 3, no. 3 (guangxu 32/3/25 [april 18, 1906]), 45. 64 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia 1906–11: russo-sino-japanese-german arguments against constitutionalism by 1906, in spite of some scepticism in certain sectors in relation to government’s earnestness, the proportion of published opinion that was categorically opposed to any action taken by the central government was still much lower in china than in russia, where the number of death sentences rose sharply from between 10 and 26 in 1905, to between 144 and 236 in 1906, and to around 1000 in 1908.92 in china, published opinion did not initially dismiss every move by the central government as a façade for further oppression, and as has been seen, not only the government, but even published voices of the pro-reform press took the ineffectiveness of the october manifesto and of the 1906 constitution as a warning against making reforms too abruptly. but on the other side of the political spectrum, the persistent unrest in russia and the violent reaction to it by the russian government also served as a catalyst for increasing mistrust of the chinese government. if the russian imperial government had granted a constitution without changing its dictatorial form of rule, was not the same to be expected in china? as an example, the tokyo-based revolutionary minpao magazine 民報, in the editions for july and august 1908, published two articles translating excerpts from maurice baring’s (1874–1945) book a year in russia, originally published in new york in 1907.93 in fact, the minpao articles, signed by a translator with the pseudonym “blood and tears” (xuelei 血淚), were less faithful translations than (in parts very loose) adaptations. containing many interpolations, the minpao articles conveyed views that differed fundamentally from the original text. baring’s book is a first-hand account of the political events in russia between august 1905 and august 1906, describing the struggles between the various political factions for russia’s political course and analysing them within their historical context. baring noted that the revolutionary 92 see nikolaĭ stepanovich” tagant͡ sev” николай степановичъ таганцевъ, smertnai͡ a kazn’: sbornik” stateĭ смертная казнь: сборникъ статей the death penalty: collection of articles (st. petersburg: gosudarstvennai͡ a tipografīi͡ a, 1913), 89–92 (chapter “data on the application of the death penalty in russia”). 93 maurice baring, a year in russia (new york: e. p. dutton and company, 1907); maurice baring, “lü e zaji” 旅俄雜記 miscellaneous notes on travelling in russia, minpao magazine 民報 22 (meiji 41/7 [july 1908]); maurice baring, “lü e zaji (xü ershier hao) 譯叢旅俄雜記（續二十二號） miscellaneous notes on travelling in russia, continued from no. 22), minpao magazine 民報, 23 (meiji 41/8 [august 1908]). 65transcultural studies 2017.2 movement had by no means collapsed, in spite of the government’s apparent success in pushing it back.94 in the conclusion to the book (not translated into chinese), baring described two sides of the conflict. the defenders of autocracy, he wrote, argued that russia was an oriental country and that western institutions were not suitable for it, stating: these people [the defenders of autocracy] say that all talk of a constitution is beside the mark. they argue thus : “we must have a constitution, just as we have an army and a navy, because the idea soothes the revolution-haunted breasts of foreign financiers, but we shall never have a real constitution because we don’t want one. reforms? oh yes, as many as you please, on paper, signed and countersigned, but they will remain a dead letter, because they are not adapted to the character and the spirit of the nation. […] russia is like china, you can draw up a constitution for russia ; but when it is carried out, you will find that the only practical difference between the old state of affairs and the new is that the writing-table of the minister of foreign affairs is to be oblong instead of round.”95 baring himself tended to disagree with this position, although he was not very emotionally invested in this judgement. a few years previous, he would have agreed, and he still thought that this group might be correct, but contact with the other group of russians had made him change his opinion. he now felt that the comparison with china was wrong because china was a highly literate nation. in russia, however, the autocratic regime was not “the natural expression of national characteristics but a fortuitous disease” that had sprung from comparatively recent changes in russian history.96 the proponents of this second opinion were favoured by baring, who sums up their response to the defenders of autocracy in the closing paragraph of his book: but those who […] without following any party are liberal in thought and deed say to their opponents: “if it is true that what you represent is really russia, we have no further wish to remain russian, and the day you are proved to be in the right, we will emigrate and settle in turkey, in persia, or in china.”97 94 baring, a year in russia, 99–100. 95 ibid., 304. 96 ibid., 305–306. 97 ibid., 307. 66 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia the minpao does not directly translate these reflections. instead, the translator interpolates his own—very resolute—opinion into baring’s text, writing that the russian government had “guilefully established fake constitutionalism in order to appease the ignorant people.”98 as the translator exclaims in another passage attributed to baring: “alas! how can a so-called constitutional country be so barbaric?”99 the explicit equation of the worrisome russian situation with that in china was made in the front pages of the magazine. one of the two introductory images to the august edition was a shocking photo showing atrocities committed by russian soldiers.100 but the chinese did not passively observe the situation in russia. zhang qingtong 張慶桐 (1872–?) was a chinese student in russia, who, in 1904–05, together with a russian colleague, arseniy nikolaevich vosnesenskiy (1881–1937), translated liang qichao’s study of li hongzhang 98 baring, “lü e zaji,” 62, see also 61, 68. 99 ibid., 61. 100 “lixianguo pushi tu” 立憲國暴屍圖 images of corpses laid out in a constitutional state, minpao magazine 民報 23 (meiji 41/8 [august 1908]). fig. 1: illustration from minpao magazine (august 1908): “this is the woeful scene of slain corpses laid out to the public after russia established a constitution. you who are hoping for a constitutional government, why do you not take this as a warning?” 67transcultural studies 2017.2 into russian (under the title li hongzhang or the political history of china in the last forty years).101 as li hongzhang had died in 1901, the book did not expressly focus on constitutionalism, although it did mention it as an objective to be attained by modern states, something that japan had managed to do but china had not.102 in the preface to the translation, zhang stressed how the two countries were intimately related, and how what happened in the one could have an impact on the other. china, he explained to the russian audience, needed to rise, for only then would there be a stable peace and only then would the great spirit of the hague conference be realised if everyone had equal forces.103 but the book was not only an introduction to china for russian audiences. it was also meant as an indirect exhortation for the russians to effect similar reforms as the chinese. zhang distributed the book very widely within russian society, sending copies to a large number of important figures, including the famed russian writer leo tolstoy (1828–1910).104 zhang’s letter to tolstoy, dated december 1, 1905, has survived. herein, he made clear the political intentions of his translation: by translating the work of liang qichao, we intend, on the one hand, to show the ethical structure of the chinese to the russian people, but also to influence the russian government in the sense that it forsake the political principles which are harming us in the same way as the russians. […] in the system of government of russia and, still until recently, of china, government and people constituted two 101 arsenïĭ nikolaevich” voznesenskïĭ арсеній николаевичъ вознесенскій and chzhanchintun” чжанчинтунъ [zhang qingtong 張慶桐], likhunchzhan” ili politicheskai͡ a istorīi͡ a kitai͡ a za posli͡ ednīi͡ a 40 li͡ et лихунчжанъ или политическая исторія китая за послѣднія 40 лѣтъ li hongzhang or the political history of china in the last forty years) (st. petersburg: v. berezovskïĭ, 1905). on zhang qingtong, see yan guodong 阎国栋, “goutong zhong e wenhua de xianqu: zhang qingtong shengping shiji buju” 沟通中俄文化 的先驱：张庆桐生平事迹补苴 a pioneer of communication between chinese and russian cultures: setting right the achievements of zhang qingtong’s life, eluosi wenyi 俄罗斯文艺, 2 (2009), and zhang zhongxing 张中行, “zhang qingtong” 张庆桐, dushu 读书, june 30, 1989, 109–116. 102 the original is to be found in liang qichao 梁啟超, liang qichao quanji 梁启超全集 complete works of liang qichao, eds. yang gang 杨钢, and wang xiangyi 王相宜 (beijing: beijing chubanshe, 1999), 510–554. 103 voznesenskïj and zhang qingtong, “likhunchzhan” ili politicheskai͡ a istorīi͡ a,” xiii. 104 see yan guodong, “goutong zhong e wenhua de xianqu,” 113–114. 68 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia separated factors, und without doubt, it was unjustified to judge the entire people on single deeds of its government. […] for the actions of the government, the whole country was made co-responsible, even if it knew nothing of the measures.105 but tolstoy disagreed with zhang in his reply, showing opposition to such modernisation.106 although zhang noticed tolstoy’s earnestness and deep feelings for china, his answer did not change zhang’s reform-mindedness. zhang returned to china at the end of 1905, where he took an official position at the public works administration of the beiyang provinces before joining the chinese delegation at the hague conference of 1907.107 later, he frequently discussed matters with wang rongbao, one of the men who was entrusted with drafting the definitive qing constitution.108 tolstoy reiterated his stance the following year (1906), when he wrote a letter to a chinese man staunchly opposed to china’s constitutional reforms, the penang-born and british-educated ku hung-ming 辜鴻銘 (1857–1928). in his open letter,109 tolstoy argued that if man submitted himself to a human organisation of power like a constitution rather than to the natural or divine order, he would always be a slave. to tolstoy, constitutions, as well as a modern military and modern industries, were signs of human depravity. the moral decay of autocracies had been resolved in the west by popular representatives charged with limiting 105 paul birukoff, ed., tolstoi und der orient: briefe und sonstige zeugnisse über tolstois beziehungen zu den vertretern orientalischer religionen (zürich: rotapfel, 1925), 125–127. 106 leo tolstoy, polnoe sobranie sochineniĭ/76 serii͡ a 3: pis’ma полное собрание сочинений/76: серия 3, письма complete collected works, vol. 76, series 3: letters, ed. vladimir grigor’evich chertkov владимир григорьевич чертков (moscow: gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo chudozhestvennai͡ a literatura, 1956), 62–64. 107 yan guodong, “goutong zhong,” 110. his participation in the hague conference, however, was rather minor. on the chinese delegation and zhang’s standing see tang qihua 唐啓華, “qingmo minchu zhongguo dui ‘haiya baohehui’ zhi canyu” 清末民初中國對 “海牙保和會”之參與 (1899–1917) china’s participation in the “hague peace conferences” in the late qing and early republic (1899–1917), guoli zhengzhi daxue lishi xuebao, no. 23 (2005), 60. 108 he is mentioned sixteen times in wang’s diary from 1909–1912. although wang mentions meeting zhang for discussions or even “long discussions,” he remains silent about the content. see wang rongbao 汪榮寳 et al., wang rongbao riji 汪榮寳日記 wang rongbao’s diaries, zhongguo jindai renwu riji congshu 中国近代人物日记丛书 (beijing: zhonghua shuju, 2013), 494. 109 leo tolstoy, polnoe sobranie sochineniĭ/36 serii͡ a 1: proizvedenii͡ a полное собрание сочинений/36: серия 1: произведения complete collected works, vol. 36, series 1: literary production, ed. vladimir grigor’evich chertkov владимир григорьевич чертков (moscow: gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo chudozhestvennai͡ a literatura, 1936). 69transcultural studies 2017.2 the government, but this system had just meant the expansion of violence from one autocrat to a group of people acting in similar fashion. china, russia, persia, and turkey should solve the evils of despotism by other means than those employed in the west. they should free themselves from human authority and submit themselves to divine authority. tolstoy’s anarchist stance was thus also a comment on the chinese constitutional movement. and while this might have been a minority position, it was heard throughout eurasia. his letter was not only published in the original russian,110 but also translated into several european languages and into chinese.111 tolstoy’s letter was published at least twice in chinese, namely in 1907–08 in the anarchist magazine tianyi 天義, and in 1911 in the eastern miscellany, the pro-reform general magazine of shanghai.112 interestingly, the eastern miscellany translated only the first five of the letter’s nine sections, and also omitted all negative references to constitutions and constitutionalism. thus, it translated tolstoy’s assertion that the western peoples had introduced representative institutions, but omitted the following sentence about this being merely an expansion of violence. and in this version, what the “reckless” reform tries to implement instead of the autocratic system is not a “constitutional,” but a “republican” system. these changes and the further omissions might have been unintentional, but they effectively deprived the translation of its contribution to chinese constitutional debate. 1906–1911: efforts to devise a constitution and technical discussions the announcement that the country would “prepare for constitutionalism,” on september 1, 1906, was followed by reforms of the central and 110 leo tolstoy, pis’mo k” kitaĭt͡ su. 111 see, among other translations, leo tolstoy “lettre a un chinois,” le courrier européen 47, november 30, 1906, 721–723; leo tolstoy, eugen heinrich schmitt, and albert skarvan, brief an einen chinesen, darlegung der gefahren repräsentativer verfassungen: mit einem anhang von sprüchen chinesischer und buddhistischer weisheit (hannover: adolf sponholtz, 1911). 112 leo tolstoy, “eguo dawenhao tuoersitai bojue yu zhongguo moujun shu” 俄國大文 豪託爾斯泰伯爵與中國某君書 letter of russian literary master tolstoy to a certain chinese gentleman, dongfang zazhi 東方雜志 8, no. 1 (xuantong 02/02/25 [march 25, 1911]); leo tolstoy, “e duersituo zhi zhinaren shu jieyi” 俄杜爾斯托致支那人書節譯 abbreviated translation of a letter written by the russian tolstoy to a chinese man, in: kobayashi jitsuya 小林實彌, ed., chûgoku shoki shakaishugi bunkenshû 2 中国初期社会主義文献集 2 (tokyo: daian, 1966), 395–399 and leo tolstoy, “zhi zhongguoren shu” 致中國人書 (letter to a chinese man), in: kobayashi jitsuya 小林實彌, ed., chûgoku shoki shakaishugi bunkenshû 2 中国初期社会主義文献集 2 (tokyo: daian, 1966), 583–588. 70 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia provincial governments, compromises which left many unsatisfied. in terms of constitution-making stricto sensu, the central government established two fundamental institutions in 1907: the constitutional office (xianzheng bianchaguan 憲政編查館, compilation office for a constitutional government),113 mainly charged with drawing up legal regulations, and the political consultative council (zizhengyuan 資政院),114 which was intended to be the precursor of a parliament under a constitutional system. on july 22, 1908, the chinese government ordered these two institutions to jointly and quickly come up with an outline of a monarchical constitution based on the best regulations found in various other states. they should also draft an electoral law, a law for a parliament, and a list of things to be provided for in the years before its convention. this edict was complied with very quickly, and the documents were produced in little over a month, by august 27, 1908. the plan approved on that day foresaw the promulgation of a constitution and the convening of a parliament in nine years, i.e., in 1916. the drafting of the final text of the constitution was commissioned to five men at the end of 1910 and beginning of 1911.115 the timing of the publication of the qing regime’s first official constitutional documents in 1908 is interesting in light of events ongoing elsewhere. a month previously, on july 24, 1908, the ottoman sultan, abdul hamid, was forced to reinstate the 1876 constitution of the ottoman empire as a result of the young turk revolution. in china, in spite of the officially acknowledged need for “constitutional preparation,” this again was seen as an urge to introduce a constitution of china’s own. the shanghai newspaper shenbao 申報, a widely read general newspaper that was affiliated with neither the reformist nor revolutionary camps, was afraid that the ottoman empire, now a constitutional polity, would be treated 113 gugong bowuyuan mingqing dang’anbu 故宮博物院明清檔案部, qingmo choubei lixian dang’an shiliao, 45–46. 114 zhu shouming 朱壽朋, zhang yuming 張毓明, eds., donghua xulu, chapter guangxu 209, 5; gugong bowuyuan mingqing dang’anbu, qingmo choubei lixian dang’an shiliao, 606; “the capital: the proposed cabinet,” the north-china herald, 2091, september 6, 1907, 606. 115 for the first edict nominating the two main drafters, see gugong bowuyuan mingqing dang’anbu 故宮博物院明清檔案部, qingmo choubei lixian dang’an shiliao, 79; daqing xuantong zhengji shilu 大清宣統政紀實錄, 2 vols. (taipei: huawen shuju gufen youxian gongsi, 1968), 755. for second edict nominating a further three drafters see ibid., 865. 71transcultural studies 2017.2 as an equal by the other powers.116 before that, the powers had derided both china and turkey for being the “sick men” of global politics, but turkey had now unexpectedly catapulted itself onto the “constitutional stage.” although the ottoman empire was not china’s enemy, it was now its turn to deride china. the shenbao feared that the ottoman empire, which could now freely sign international treaties, was now, as a constitutional country, in a position to force treaties upon china. just as france had made herself protector of missionaries in china, the ottoman empire could make use of ethnic and religious affinities to the uyghurs to intervene in regions like xinjiang and others. if the ottoman empire made use of international law in this way, china would not be able to withstand it. of the three countries that had not adopted constitutionalism by the turn of the twentieth century (russia, the ottoman empire, and china), only china was left. even if the ottoman empire was smaller than russia, it was larger than japan, and would not stay weak. china should adopt a policy to cope with this. after china had adopted the outline of a constitution, the shenbao published another article on september 24, 1908, this time commemorating the fact that china had now caught up with the ottoman empire.117 in that year, an article in the paper noted, five countries had turned to a constitutional system: china, turkey, persia, egypt, and morocco. the shenbao remarked that all of them lay outside of europe, had populations that were not of the white race, and had been in existential crises. but who could know whether, after some decades, the world would not be widely different? what could be fathomed was that these countries would be far better off than before the transition to constitutionalism, and that of these, china was the one with the best prospects, especially in military matters (the article went on to compare the militaries of the five new constitutional countries in some detail). if even morocco could look to japan’s example of military victory, how much more could china manage? the article ended full of pathos: vast are the waters of the mediterranean! unlimited are the skies of arabia! beholding them, our people truly wants to open up a boundless stretch of land! 116 “lun tuerqi lixian yu zhongguo zhi guanxi” 論土耳其立憲與中國之關繫 on the relationship between turkish constitutionalism and china), shenbao 申報, august 2, 1908. 117 “jinnian zhi wu lixianguo 今年之五立憲國 this year’s five constitutional states, shenbao 申報, september 24, 1908. 72 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia it was within this international context that a definitive constitution for the qing empire began to be drafted. but besides the official outline of a constitution, our knowledge of the concrete constitutional texts that were being drafted at the end of the qing dynasty is rather limited, due to the fragmentary nature of the sources and their varying levels of preservation. the extant texts point to a very close resemblance between the developing chinese constitution and the japanese constitution of 1889. yet a closer examination of the sources reveals that, although legal scholars, and especially those drafting the chinese constitution, chose to adopt many, but not all, japanese norms, they did not do so blindly, and were well aware of the ongoing constitutional efforts elsewhere. not least, they were aware of the russian constitution, promulgated in 1906, and of the turkish constitution, reinstated on july 24, 1908. texts of foreign constitutional charters were translated into chinese in large numbers in the early years of the twentieth century, and some of them were distributed within the constitutional office. thus, the russian constitution was published in quite a few different forms and media: a) the essentials of government in various countries (lieguo zhengyao 列國政要),118 the 132-volume result of duanfang’s and dai hongci’s constitutional mission abroad, contained three volumes (7–9) about the russian constitution. these were, however, not a translation of the constitutional charter as such, but of the legal provisions concerning the state council, the duma, and the elections. b) in the special volume on constitutional government published by the eastern miscellany in 1906;119 c) in the tokyo-based magazine of law and politics (fazheng zazhi 法政雜誌) of june 1906;120 118 duanfang 端方 and dai hongci 戴鴻慈, lieguo zhengyao: yibaisanshier juan 列國政要: 一百三十二卷 (n.p.: guangxu 33 [1907]). 119 “junzhu lixianguo xianfa zhaiyao (riben, ying, e, pulushi, yidali): eguo xianfa” 君主立憲國憲法摘要 (日本、英、俄、普鲁士、義大利): 俄國憲法 excerpts from constitutions of monarchic constitutional states—japan, united kingdom, russia, prussia, italy: the russian constitution, in dongfang zazhi 東方雜誌 3, no. 3 (1906). 120 zhu jingqi 朱景圻, “luxiya (eluosi) xianfa zhengwen (1906 nian 5 yue 8 ri fabu)” 露西亞 （俄羅斯） 憲法正文 (一千九百六年五月八日發布) complete text of the russian constitution, promulgated on may 8, 1906, in: fazheng zazhi 法政雜誌 6 (august 14, 1906). 73transcultural studies 2017.2 d) in the first edition of the journal miscellaneous knowledge about constitutional government (xianzheng zashi 憲政雜識), of december 1906;121 e) in the compendium constitutions of seventeen countries (shiqi guo xianfa 十七國憲法), published in book form in 1906;122 f) in the bulletin of the society for preparation of constitutionalism (yubei lixian gonghui bao 預備立憲公會報); this was not a literal translation, but a prose reproduction, followed by a short commentary saying that, in spite of its shortcomings, it was a remarkable feat for a country that had been an autocracy for millennia. this was in accordance with the overarching trend of the world.123 there are fewer translations of the turkish and persian constitutions, but each of them was translated at least once: a) an abridged translation of the persian constitution was published in 1907 in the eastern miscellany and then republished in the official gazette of sichuan (sichuan guanbao 四川官報), with the comment that the progress made by the country was much faster than expected.124 b) the turkish constitution was published as an annex to the eastern miscellany in june–july 1909.125 c) one translation of the turkish constitution was circulated within the chinese government. 121 bao gongyi 包公毅, “geguo xianfa zhengwen 各國憲法正文（俄國） full texts of the constitutions of the various countries (russia), xianzheng zashi 憲政雜識 1, no. 1 (december 16, 1906). 122 qi yuhe 齊雨和 and gu xiangjiu 古翔九, eds., shiqi guo xianfa zhengwen huibian 十七國憲法 正文匯編 (n.p.: jingshen shuzhuang, guangxu 32 [1906]). 123 he yu 何棫, “eguo xianfa ji xuanjufa zhi dayi” 俄國憲法及選舉法之大意 rough meaning of the russian constitution and electoral law, in: yubei lixian gonghui bao 預備立憲公會報 20 (guangxu 34/11/13 [december 06, 1908]). 124 “jingwai xinwen: bosi xianfa 京外新聞: 波斯憲法 beijing foreign news: the persian constitution, in: sichuan guanbao 四川官報 25 (1907). 125 “fulu: tuerqi chongban xianfa tiaowen 附錄: 土耳其重頒憲法條文 appendix: text of the reinstated turkish constitution, in: dongfang zazhi 東方雜志 6, no. 5 (xuantong 1/4/25 [june 12, 1909]); “fulu: tuerqi chongban xianfa tiaowen (xu di wu qi) 附錄: 土耳其重頒憲法 條文（續第五期） appendix: text of the reinstated turkish constitution, continued from no. 5), in: dongfang zazhi 東方雜志 6 (1909). 74 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia besides the outline of a constitution by imperial decree (qinding xianfa dagang 欽定憲法大綱), hastily drafted and officially presented in august 1908, there are three surviving drafts of a constitution. as to the official constitution in the process of being drafted, some of its content can be inferred from wang rongbao’s diary, but due to the scarcity of other surviving sources from the time, the academic understanding of it is rather fragmentary.126 one of the complete drafts is a document stored at the first historical archives in beijing, which, however, was probably not an official internal draft by the compilers, but a private draft that happened to be circulated at the constitutional office.127 the two other drafts were both published as books in japan in 1909: one was compiled by the chinese student zhang bolie 張伯烈 (1872–1934),128 and one was written by the mysterious japanese scholar kitaoni saburô 北鬼三郎 (?–1912).129 kitaoni’s book comes in two differing versions: a preliminary version had been written before the 1908 outline and given to a chinese acquaintance of kitaoni’s. in 1909, an updated version was printed by a commercial editor and widely distributed in japan. from the surviving materials concerning the drafting of a new constitution, it is clear that, although the japanese model was preferred, there was a keen consciousness of the constitutions of the world as well as the debates surrounding them. perhaps the point of utmost importance to the qing government was the part about the sovereign’s position. in this part, the constitution of russia, with its strong tsar, was of special interest. for example, an internal memorandum penned by prince pujun 溥儁 (1885–1942), housed in the archives of the constitutional compilation office,130 criticises the corresponding parts of the 1908 outline of a 126 cui xuesen 崔学森, “qingting zhixian yu mingzhi riben” 清廷制宪与明治日本 the qing court’s constitution-making and meiji japan, (phd diss., lishixue xi 历史学系, peking university). 127 see shang xiaoming 尚小明, “‘liang zhong qingmo xianfa cao’an gaoben’ zhiyi’” 两种清末宪法草案稿本”质疑, (disputing “two constitutional drafts in the late qing”), lishi yanjiu, no. 2 (2007). 128 zhang bolie 張伯烈, jiading zhongguo xianfa cao’an 假定中國憲法草案 hypothetical draft for a chinese constitution (tokyo: dokusô bessho, 1909). 129 kitaoni saburô 北鬼三郎, daishin kenpô an 大清憲法案 draft constitution for china (tokyo: keisei shoin, meiji 42 [1909]). 130 jinjiang xianzheng bianchaguan niding xianfa dagang youguan junshang daquan zhe canchou taguo xianfa fenbie qingzhong jiandan nichen fuqi jiancai 謹將憲政編查館擬訂憲法 大綱有關君上大權者參酌他國憲法分別輕重簡單擬陳伏乞鑒裁, file no. 09/01–01/003/009, first historical archives of china, beijing. 75transcultural studies 2017.2 constitution on the basis of the japanese and the russian constitutions. thus, article 3 of the outline stipulated that “laws shall be made and promulgated by the sovereign, and he has the power to determine what may be assigned to others for deliberation.”131 an annotation (in fine print) to the norm specified that “laws which have been passed by the parliament shall not become operative until approved and promulgated by the sovereign.” in this case, the memorandum took issue with the outline’s use of the expression “by the sovereign” (qinding 欽定), criticising its inappropriateness, the conceptual confusion expressed in the norm, and the technical slovenliness of the draft. the memorandum cites article 5 of the japanese constitution and article 7 of the russian constitution, which both determined that the sovereign and the parliament jointly exerted legislative power (xing lifaquan 行立法權). it goes on to cite articles 6 of the japanese and 9 of the russian constitution, which both decreed that the emperor approved (caike 裁可) the laws in a second, separate step. the memorandum heavily criticised the imprecise chinese document by citing the japanese and russian texts as models of good law-making. interestingly, this document did not adopt the common perception that russia’s constitution was a fake, but, without looking at the constitutional and legal reality, contrasted the texts of both the japanese and russian charters with the chinese in technical terms: the meaning of legislation in both japan and russia pays attention to the content and not the name; they treat laws as an essential tool for life and property of the people. […] when the present article writes “by the sovereign,” it pays attention to the name and not to the content. now, the reason why both the japanese and the russian constitution clearly regulate the power to approve laws in a special norm is exactly to express that the effects of executive power cannot arise without approval [by the sovereign]. the meaning is the same as the annotation to the present article, but there are some of its effects which cannot be attained by an annotation. why is that? all countries, when drafting legal codes, will necessarily make sure that the words of the norms are certain and clear. thus, exegesis and practice both shall be analysed according the original text, lest there be misunderstandings. […] if the respective legal code does not exhaust the meaning of a 131 for the english translation of the outline, see united states department of state, ed., papers relating to the foreign relations of the united states with the annual message of the president transmitted to congress december 8, 1908 (washington, dc: government printing office, 1912), 194–196. 76 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia norm in the article, then some regulate this in the second and third section of the article, and some add a “proviso” formula or the like. all these have the same effectiveness as the article itself. but one has never seen annotations added beneath the article!132 that the drafting process was much more than a mere passive (albeit selective) copying of the japanese model, but was indeed embedded in a wider—global—context of constitution-making, can also be seen in the example of the complete draft written by kitaoni saburô. although it was written in japan by a japanese subject, it is particularly interesting because its chinese version, translated by li jingming 李景銘 (1877–?), was circulated among the constitution-making authorities in beijing and read by wang rongbao, one of the main drafters of the final constitution. there is some debate, however, as to how wang rongbao evaluated the draft.133 the draft, whose genesis is still shrouded in mystery, is also valuable because it comes with an extensive article-to-article commentary by the author himself, showing the considerations that led to the final text. although kitaoni’s draft was criticised at the time for being too close to the meiji constitution,134 it actually makes an earnest effort not to blindly copy the japanese model, but follows the line of thought of “picking the best regulations from the various countries.” the commentary of every paragraph discusses the legal situation in various countries, and gives parallel norms in other constitutions. these were consistently ordered according to the greatest similarity of the respective national spirit to china’s, which, according to kitaoni, was: japan–united kingdom– russia–prussia/germany–others.135 thus, although japan is kitaoni’s most popular point of reference, he refers extensively to constitutions of a large number of countries, including such examples as belgium and luxembourg. just about half of the proposed articles (thirty-seven of seventy-six articles) refer expressly to parallel norms in the russian constitution of 1906.136 kitaoni does not take the persian and ottoman constitutions into account; however, it would not have been 132 junshang daquan 君上大權, file no. 09/01–01/003/009, first historical archives of china, beijing. 133 see shang xiaoming, “‘liang zhong qingmo xianfa cao’an gaoben’ zhiyi,” 166–167. 134 “shinkan shôkai: daishin kenpô an” 新刊紹介: 大淸憲去案 introduction to new publications: draft of a constitution for the qing empire, kokka gakkai zasshi 國家學會雜誌 23, no. 9 (meiji 42 [1909]). 135 see kitaoni’s own explanation in kitaoni saburô, daishin kenpô an, 2. 136 articles 1–6, 8–15, 19–21, 24, 26, 28–30, 33–37, 39, 41–42, 50–51, 65–66, 68–69 and 74. 77transcultural studies 2017.2 possible to mention the latter, given that the first version of his draft was written before the ottoman constitution was reinstated. the part which refers most heavily to the russian constitution is—again—section 1, concerned with the emperor’s position. the articles about the future parliament, on the other hand, did not take the russian constitution into account nearly as often. thus, article 3 of the draft, which was particularly contentious, declared that the emperor was “sacred and inviolable.” this provision, which had its origins in earlier western european texts, was not only identical to the meiji article 3, but also to the russian article 3. the sparse secondary literature on this draft (as well as on the other concrete constitution-making efforts of the late qing era) has compared it mainly to the meiji, but also to the prussian constitutions. but it has overlooked that it was, at least from a textual point of view, also quite similar to the russian constitution, of which the drafter was well aware. this was not a mere coincidence, but an expression of the global political processes in which it was embedded. conclusion coming from the constitutions of the usa and western europe, or even from japan, one could see china as a late-comer to the modern concept of constitutionalism. but this view only captures a cut-out from a larger picture. china was not alone: some of the largest empires of the time, in terms of both area and population, were undergoing similar, albeit non-identical processes. from the outset, chinese intellectuals and government officials debating constitutionalism were interested in what was happening in constitutional terms in these countries supposedly so similar to their own, although probably less out of an intrinsic interest than out of their own internal interests and needs.137 the qing empire had a long common border with russia, direct diplomatic relations, and a long history of close cultural, economic, and political contacts. moreover, russia had imperial ambitions in the far east, of which the chinese were wary. thus, it is not surprising that, among these states that were establishing constitutions at the same time as the qing, russia was by far the most cited and discussed in china. the ottoman empire and persia were not overlooked either, and their experiences were also noted and debated, although to a lesser extent. 137 müller, “china and the russian revolution of 1905,” 282. 78 china and the political upheavals in russia, the ottoman empire, and persia early chinese discussions about constitutionalism often equated it with progress and expressly categorised china, russia, and the ottoman empire as the countries that had not yet made this “evolutionary step.” seen in this light, the russo–japanese war of 1904–05 was not so much a surprise to chinese constitutionalists, but rather a confirmation of what they had been saying. sometimes, but not always, debates went as far as equating constitutionalism with civilisation itself, as can be seen in zhou kui’s work or in the shenbao’s assumption that a constitutional ottoman empire would finally be allowed to join the community of international law. the shenbao’s analysis was an exaggeration: constitutionalism was not necessarily a “standard of civilisation,” as demonstrated, for example, by the recognition of a non-constitutional russia as a great power on par with contemporary constitutional states. but constitutions were indeed becoming the central documents of modern national states. and every polity that moved towards the adoption of a constitution increased the moral pressure on china to follow suit. when they decided to implement constitutionalism from 1905–06, the qing government, as well as those involved in the drafting process, took a close interest in russian and, to a lesser extent, ottoman and persian constitutionalism. just as the defeat in the war had confirmed the need for a constitution, the intense difficulties encountered by russia in spite of its speedy adoption of a constitution indicated to the government that the country had to be “prepared” for constitutionalism before it could be introduced. such arguments were even seen outside of the government. but on the other side, news of the russian government’s reactionary backlash were used as a warning against the intentions of the chinese government. even though china’s relations were certainly closest by far with japan, and their efforts towards a constitution bore a certain resemblance to japanese models, the chinese did not think of their constitutional movement as taking place in an environment in which they were alone in copying already finished models. in a global context where they were late, but by no means the latest, in introducing a modern constitution, chinese intellectuals and officials were keenly aware that they were part of a wave of political changes that was affecting the whole eurasian landmass.